Dad would never use the word ‘die’ – at least, not about himself. He would always say, If something happens to me. Once, when I was fifteen, I heard him call my name. Here a minute. I found him downstairs, standing in the short passage that led to his study.
‘What is it?’ I said.
Dad stood at right angles to me, head lowered. ‘I wanted to give you this.’ He handed me a bracelet.
The two bands of age-blackened silver were carved with exotic designs in which I thought I detected either serpents or dragons. They were connected at one end by a hinge. At the other end were three tiny cylinders, which slotted into alignment when I brought the bands together. Attached to a miniature chain was a bolt, no thicker than a needle. Slide the bolt through the cylinders, and the bracelet would be securely fastened and couldn’t fall off.
‘It belonged to your mother,’ Dad said. ‘It was one of her favourite things.’
I threaded the slender bolt through the cylinders, wanting to summon her, but I didn’t know what her arms looked like. I had no sense of the colour of her skin, or the texture, or the pattern her veins made underneath. The bracelet closed round a ghost wrist.
‘Is it silver?’ I asked.
‘Indian silver.’
‘Maybe you should keep it for me, in a safe place.’
‘I want you to have it now,’ Dad said, ‘in case something happens to me.’
The words seemed to bruise my heart. ‘Nothing’s going to happen to you.’
‘Well,’ he said, his eyes lifting to the landing window.
‘I don’t want anything to happen,’ I said.
Dad was still looking up into the stairwell. He would be thinking of my mother, Wendy, and how she had been taken from him.
The coolness of the hall. The dimness. Always a gloom in that part of the house, even in the summer.
Sitting on the au pair’s bed, I stare at the black window. I try and make a list of things he loved. Boats. The sea. The poems of Dylan Thomas. Women with straight dark hair. Turkish delight. Cricket. Laurie Lee. Smoked haddock (he always called it ‘yellow fish’). Smooth stones. Custard. Tongue.
The others are downstairs, in the kitchen. I can hear their voices through the floor.
In case something happens to me.
Well, now it has.
Laying Dad’s pyjama jacket on the mattress, I lean over, press my face into the cotton. I stay like that for a long time, breathing him in, his last moments, his loveliness – everything he ever was.
Gravity Will Do the Rest
I met Fred, my future father-in-law, in December 1988. I had called from Frank and Miriam’s house at four o’clock, telling Fred I was on the point of leaving, and that the drive would take about two hours. I arrived as six o’clock was striking. Fred answered the door. ‘You’re very punctual,’ he said with a smile. My girlfriend, Kate, came downstairs a few moments later to find us standing in the hall, still chuckling. I told her that her father had just accused me of punctuality.
From the outset, and despite my odd get-up, which involved a bowler hat and a pair of Dr Martens, I felt that Fred accepted me. We lived in very different worlds – he was a professor of mechanical engineering at Liverpool University, and had also served as acting vice chancellor – but he was always eager to know what I was doing. And he was never intrusive or judgmental. He gave me the space to be myself. Sometimes, as I talked, I would feel his gaze resting lightly on me, benevolent, amused. Even early on, he seemed to love me unconditionally, like one of his own.
In 1998, Fred was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The following year, it metastasized into his bones. Returning from Italy with our baby daughter, and wanting to be close to Fred, Kate and I moved into a small cottage five miles from her parents’ house. Fred’s cancer didn’t hurry, but by the summer of 2001 he was spending more and more time in Clatterbridge, an oncological unit on the Wirral.
On the first Sunday in September, Kate and I went to visit him. Lying in the boot of the car were the sweet peas Kate had picked that morning; I had watched her walk back to the cottage, her face lowered, the papery mauve-and-scarlet petals fluttering in her hand. As we drove west, towards the hospital, the trees that lined the road swayed in the wind, and white clouds jostled in the autumn sunlight, but the beauty of the weather seemed remote, gripped as I was by a dipping sense of apprehension, a tide of dread. Though Fred had fought hard, there was no hiding from the fact that death was near. We had learned the cruel truth about bone cancer. No one recovers. You cannot even hope.
When we entered the ward, Fred was sitting beside the bed. His ankles were swollen, almost purple. He appeared to be asleep. Kate kissed him on the cheek, then took his hand. He didn’t open his eyes, but his fingers tightened around hers. She lifted the sweet peas until they were close enough for him to smell. Eyes still closed, he nodded. ‘You’re doing wonderfully well with your garden, my darling.’ He didn’t have the strength to function on our level for more than a few minutes at a time, but he was still the father he had always been, full of encouragement and admiration, full of love.
Later, he asked if I could take him to the lavatory.
‘With your help, Rupert,’ he said, ‘I can do it.’
It seemed a privilege to be chosen for something so very personal. At the same time, I came close to tears.
In the toilet cubicle, I saw what a toll the disease had taken on him. That he should be reduced to this. Quite literally, reduced.
His knees were wider than his thighs.
Three days later, the staff at Clatterbridge agreed to discharge him, though they warned us he would need round-the-clock care. His wife, Jean, had a special bed set up in the dining-room.
The week that followed was filled with false alarms. On two or three occasions in as many days I was summoned from work, only to discover Fred wasn’t about to die after all. I began to think that he would choose his moment, that he had his own private timetable for departure, though his suffering was becoming more and more unbearable, even to watch.
On the Friday, while I was visiting, he announced that he had decided to walk to his chair in the living-room. He was fed up, he said, with being stuck in bed.
‘It’s not a good idea, Fred,’ I told him.
‘I can do it,’ he insisted, and began to try and hoist his right leg over the rail at the side.
‘It could be dangerous. You might break something.’
‘Not if you help me, Rupert. Just give me your arm. Gravity will do the rest.’
He was still such a man of science, even now, when he was so ill that he had all but lost the ability to speak. Once again, my eyes misted over.
Eventually, Jean and I managed to talk him out of it, and he sank back on to his pillows, exhausted.
The next day, Kate asked me to shave him. Though nervous, I agreed. I fetched his razor, some shaving-foam, and a bowl of hot water, then arranged a towel over his chest. I had never shaved anybody before, and worried I might cut him. The cleft in his chin was tricky, as was the groove beneath his nose. Tentative at first, I slowly grew in confidence. At times, I had the curious feeling that he had withdrawn far below the surface of his skin. He was like a man who stands at a window on the top floor of a house and watches someone working in the garden.
On Sunday morning, as I sat with him, holding his hand, he suddenly spoke.
‘No hair on face,’ he said in a hoarse voice.
I assumed he was referring to the fact that he was now clean-shaven, and was pleased he had noticed.
Pain had altered his appearance. His complexion was waxy, and his lips were thinner, almost feminine. His nose had sharpened. The creases defining his nostrils were deeper than before, so deep they looked black, and their curves seemed more pronounced, as if, in his illness, he had become fastidious, or even disgusted. It had been torture – I had heard him use the word when the district nurses moved him in the bed – but he had endured it without complaint, without self-pity. I sometim
es felt the agony was purging him – suffering as a purifying force. He had arrived at a point beyond it – a place most people never reach. Our voices must have sounded so faint to him, our concerns so insignificant.
On Monday I had nearly an hour with him. I sat beside the bed, his hand in mine. Eyes closed, he seemed on the edge of unconsciousness, yet I was confident that he could hear me. I put my mouth close to his ear. I had always loved him as a father, I told him, and I had always believed that he had loved me as a son. I had learned so much from him; if I could be half the man he was, I would be satisfied. I was proud to have known him. I would remember him for ever.
Once in a while, as I was talking, I would hear a soft sound in his throat or chest, and there were moments when he appeared to wince. It was as though he found this outpouring of emotion difficult to listen to, as though the mixture was too rich for him now that he was nearly gone, and I recalled what my godmother Ilaine had told me in 1984, and wondered whether I might be distracting him from his main purpose. Perhaps my words were weighing him down when all he wanted was to float away into the clear blue air.
‘I’m sorry if it’s too much,’ I told him.
I was saying the kinds of things I had never been able to say to my father. Denied that one last chance to be with him, to speak to him, I had been left standing with my mouth open, dumbstruck, paralysed, even laughable, like somebody who tries to flag a bus down only to see it hurtle past.
‘I can’t help it, Fred,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
As the feelings flooded out of me, I felt something coming back, not from him necessarily, but from somewhere, and it was stronger than anything I would ever be capable of, and it made me feel wonderful.
Parasites, Hangers-on and Layabouts
On the day of the reading of Dad’s will, I drive downtown with Robin and Ralph. The sun keeps slipping behind big, torn rags of cloud; when we step out of the car, a brisk wind tugs at our clothes.
A shiny plaque – Levine & Levine – identifies the lawyer’s premises. Once inside, we’re ushered into a wood-panelled office by a secretary in a white blouse and a pencil skirt. We sit in a row on green leather seats. The room smells of carpet cleaner, and also, discreetly, of Parma violets.
Wearing a dark blue pinstripe suit and a pair of glasses that resemble Henry Kissinger’s, Mr Levine begins by telling us how sorry he was to hear about our father. This is the language of death – automatic, unchanging, a little dog-eared – and we nod and smile, partly in recognition, and partly to let the lawyer know that he doesn’t need to tread too carefully. We will not, for instance, be reaching for that adroitly positioned box of tissues on his desk.
Mr Levine tells us that he has been Dad’s lawyer for many years. Our father was, he says, ‘a valuable client’. He tilts his head, and the light that filters through the net curtains behind us whitens the lenses of his glasses, making him seem momentarily nonplussed. His hair, which is naturally wiry, appears to have been forced into a side parting against its will. Looking down, he places his hands on either side of the document that lies in front of him, his fingers curled. The will is reasonably straightforward, he goes on. Our father has appointed us – myself, Robin and Ralph – as sole executors. His estate is to be split five ways, though such monies as our half-sister and half-brother, Rose Julia and Ryan Halliday, stand to inherit are to be put into a trust until they attain the age of eighteen. It will be our responsibility, Levine says, both to set up and to administer the trust. He glances up, anticipating questions.
‘Ralph works in a bank,’ I tell him.
‘Most convenient,’ Levine says.
He explains the concept of probate – once again, Ralph’s employer will come in useful – then reaches for several sheets of writing paper that have been stapled together.
‘There is also,’ he says, ‘a letter.’
The three of us exchange a glance.
I recognize my father’s handwriting. The tops of his capital Rs are both rounded and elongated, like croquet hoops or shepherds’ crooks, while the tails of his fs, ps and ys all lean backwards, as though a gale is blowing across the page. White spaces gape between each word.
‘The letter is dated 30 October 1979,’ Mr Levine says, ‘and reads as follows: These are my wishes regarding certain of my effects and possessions in the event of my death. I desire that Rupert, Robin and Ralph together shall deal with my property with no others present, no parasites, no hangers-on or layabouts –’
The lawyer pauses, eyebrows raised, then surveys us over his thick black spectacle frames. As before, we nod and smile. He returns to the letter.
‘I trust the three of you at all times to respect my wishes as regards Rosie and Halliday, who are to have their fair and equal share in fair proportion. I have done my best to bring you all up, give you a good home and education, try to see that you have learned to wash, eat properly –’
Mr Levine breaks off again and lays the letter on his desk. His right hand hovers over his unruly hair. ‘I think perhaps it might be more appropriate,’ he says, ‘if you were to read this letter privately …’
Outside the lawyer’s office, we loiter on the pavement, uncertain what to do next.
‘Poor old Levine,’ Robin says. ‘He wasn’t expecting that bit about the washing.’
That night I dream that I’m about to walk into the sitting-room. For some reason, though, I hesitate, and look to my left. In the gloom at the far end of the hall, I can see the front door with its upright letter box. My father’s sheepskin coat hangs on a hook nearby. The stairs rise towards the landing, their banisters varnished, treacle-black.
I face the sitting-room again, and this time I reach for the door handle. I feel its cool brass beneath my fingers as I press down.
When I step into the room, my father is sitting where he always sits, in his red chair. But there is something different about him, something I wasn’t expecting.
‘Dad?’
His corner of the room seems dark, the shadows deeper and more smoky than they ought to be, and I almost have to peer at him to make him out. I notice that all his clothes are wet.
‘You’re soaking, Dad.’
He glances down. He doesn’t appear particularly distressed, or even surprised. He’s simply taking it all in.
‘You should change,’ I tell him, ‘or you’ll catch your death.’ This is one of his phrases, and I use it deliberately, hoping to get through to him. But he doesn’t move. He merely says, ‘Yes.’ His voice is remote, disengaged.
‘I’ll fetch you some dry clothes.’ But instead of climbing the stairs to the airing cupboard, I turn towards the French window that leads out to the garden.
The feeling I have on waking resembles regret, though it is weightier somehow, and murkier, more ominous. Dread seems to be involved, as if the dream isn’t just a vision of my father, whom I have lost, or a reminder of my shortcomings as a son, but a warning, a premonition. It’s as if the dream is showing me what lies ahead, as if there’s something I can do.
But there’s nothing I can do.
For the last seven years of his life, from the day Sonya left him to the day he died, my father lived alone. Sometimes he had au pair girls to cook, shop and clean for him, but since there were no children in the house, the agencies were becoming less obliging, more suspicious; it’s not an au pair’s job to keep an old man company. Dad was on his own for long periods, and occasional entries in his notebooks suggest he felt anxious and bereft, but it wasn’t in his character to ask for assistance. There were not, in any case, many people he could have called upon. He had never believed in friendship. I don’t understand why you need all these friends, he said to me once when I was about fifteen. For him, the family was all that mattered. But his first wife was dead, his second wife was gone, and his five children were scattered far and wide. The responsibility I feel in the dream is disturbingly familiar – it’s how I felt during the years that followed my mother’s death – yet it’s a r
esponsibility I fail to live up to. I don’t help my father out of his wet clothes. I don’t fetch a towel or try and make him comfortable. No, I turn away, towards the garden … Perhaps the dream is depicting the depression into which he is supposed to have plunged after Wendy died, or it might be showing me that he is dead, with water standing in for earth. Then again, in its portrayal of a certain resignation on his part, perhaps it is suggesting, as Ilaine did, that he is better off now, that he suffers less. Obviously, I would like to think so. But the truth remains. I didn’t care for him. Nobody cared for him. Not at the end.
I drive north out of Eastbourne with Robin beside me. We’re on our way to Gatwick Airport to collect Sonya and the children. Within twenty-four hours of hearing that Dad had died, Sonya told us that she wanted to attend the funeral, and that Rosie and Halliday were coming with her. After all, he was their father too, and it would be wrong, she thought, to exclude them from such an important moment in their lives.
As I enter the roundabout at Boship Farm, Robin brings up the subject of the films. While going through Dad’s Super 8 home movies, we came across some footage of Sonya. In the first sequence she was walking down the stairs with nothing on, three white triangles shimmering behind the dark staves of the banisters. It must have been summer. The light in the stairwell had a kind of glitter about it, a gritty quality, as if the celluloid had been sprinkled with coal dust. A flash of black, a wobble, and Sonya was posing in the bedroom, still naked, the psychedelic curtains behind her. Then she was in the bath, the water shifting more slowly than in real life, and seeming denser, the colour rusty now, like the brown flakes that appear on a mirror once the silver has begun to decompose. The images were awkward, hard to believe in, almost supernatural. We only watched for a few seconds, then we switched off the projector and slid the reels of film back into their containers.
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