by Terry Morgan
CHAPTER 95
Jim slipped away unnoticed from his exhibition. He knew it had been a success not only because of Hugh McAllister's skill but also because of Senator Stafford's involvement, his introductory speech, for getting the US Ambassador along and for persuading several government Ministers to attend.
Back at his Windsor hotel, Jim went straight to the bar and ordered himself a draft Guinness. Then he sat in the corner to think. He was sure that his hotel location would become known within hours and he had no stomach to face a hungry mob of media people trying to extract from him things that he had no wish to say. In fact, there was no more left that he wanted to do or say. His ambition and determination seemed to have disappeared over night. His reputation as a businessman had been long and hard to establish, but so quick and easy to lose. Today it was as if he had rediscovered something he thought he had lost forever. Certainly, the feeling of failure and incompetence had gone to be replaced, thanks to what Senator Colin Stafford had said, by respect and admiration.
Jim felt relaxed, but he had no wish to bask in any sort of glory.
So what should he do now?
Sometimes he felt he had been driven to solitude as a result of his own perception of the public’s opinion of him. But at other times, in his deeper, perhaps clearer and more honest moments, he felt that he had gravitated towards it, naturally, because he was, in so many ways, more comfortable that way. He wondered if he should have taken the route earlier, deliberately and at the peak of his career and perhaps taken with him the one person whom he missed and for whom things had come too late. But Margaret had gone. He knew that. He had watched her walk away, more confident, more at ease with herself than he could possibly have imagined. It had saddened him at the time. But now?
Well - Margaret had changed. But then, so had he. He had once lived on a mix of confidence, bluntness, enthusiasm, determination and energy and would steamroller things through in spite of rather than because of others. Perhaps Margaret had been right with what she had said. She had certainly been right with her warnings of going into politics.
Then there was his disinterest in the acquisition of possessions. Margaret was not like that. His definition of value was, it seemed, not the same as everyone else’s. He had no real need or interest in the thick pile carpet on the floor, the cushions on the chairs, the elaborate drapes and sashes at the windows. He had no interest in popular television and the programs, which seemed to generate such devoted and passionate following amongst others. He respected technology and used a mobile phone and computer because it made things quicker and more efficient but had no desire to acquire gadgets to provide music, videos or simple directions from A to B.
"Just be content with what you've got, James." From his corner table, he said it aloud to the busy bar and someone looked at him. But it was his mother speaking to him. "Yes, mother. I am, but it doesn't make me easy to get on with."
Indeed, Jim was perfectly able to understand Margaret's frustration with him because she did not share his ways. She had borne them, stoically - for as long as was necessary.
“Get a haircut, Jim. When you were stood in the wind on the bridge I could 'ardly see yer face fer lookin'."
That's what she had said in her Bristol accent after they had walked a few yards across Brunel's Suspension Bridge in Clifton on the day they'd met.
Jim took a deep breath and downed the final dregs of the Guinness. Then he went up to his room, packed his small bag, making sure that the one painting he had kept back, the one of Noy and Oy, was better protected this time. Then he sat down to write a note to Tom who, with Jonathan and Jan, was still at the exhibition.
It took him a while but, that done, he picked up his things, went downstairs, checked out, left the note for Tom and ordered a taxi.
"Yes sir?" The taxi driver said, "Where do you want to go?"
"Holiday Inn, Heathrow airport," replied Jim.
"Going away, sir?
"Yes."
Jim looked out of the taxi window, still deep in thought. It was a short drive but at the hotel he checked in and went to his room. It was just eight o'clock. Then he sat cross-legged on the bed and unwrapped his painting of Noy and Oy.
He remembered Noy so well. He could also still see Oy in his mind. Perhaps Margaret and he should have had children. Life would, undoubtedly, have taken a completely different route. He remembered one hot, sunny morning in the local market with Oy and Noy. They had taken the motorcycle to buy fish and walked around, trying to stay in the shade of the plastic sheeting spread across the wooden tables where traders swished at flies. The sun was very bright and Oy had wanted a pair of sunglasses because she had seen another little girl with a pair – just child’s, inexpensive, multi-coloured plastic ones. They found a stall selling plastic toys and Oy had made up her mind very clearly which pair of glasses she wanted.
Jim had paid the small, crippled vendor and given the glasses to Oy. She had put them on, staring around in delighted amazement at how dark everything now looked. It had pleased him to see how happiness came for the cost of just a small value note. He had put the change in his pocket without checking and then looked at Noy. Noy was ignoring her daughter. He watched her go back to the vendor. She spoke to him and gave him some money, just a few coins. He had asked her why.
"Man very poor. He blind and he give you wrong money. You not see. You not check. You must check. You blind also I think." In a very short time, Noy had helped him to see many other things he might otherwise have missed.
Jim suddenly felt very drowsy. He quickly rewrapped the painting, slid it into his bag, fell back with his head on the pillow and closed his eyes.
"Are you keeping well, Jimmy? You've lost weight but you look fit and tanned. Plenty of exercise, I hope."
It was Margaret in the Bristol hotel where he had planned the lunch that never happened. Jim's eyes flickered behind the closed lids.
He could see Margaret as he held out his hands to her in the hotel. "Margaret, my love."
She had put forward just one hand - a delicate white one, lined with veins, bony and, when he held it with his own hot hand, dry and cold to the touch. He had led her towards his table clumsily holding her hand, seeing the thin, grey hair and smelling a delicate and flowery perfume. At the table where he had just spilt some coffee when getting up to greet her, she had crossed her legs and placed her handbag carefully on the next chair. He knew she had seen the coffee he had spilled, but she had said nothing, just looked out the window.
"Margaret. I don't know what to say," were his first real words.
"Then why did you suggest a meeting?" she had said and looked at him for the first time.
"I needed to see you."
"Why?"
"Because...."
He had been unable to say it. Instead, he was the one who now looked out of the window towards Brunel's famous suspension bridge with eyes that were hot and sore.
"You look terribly old, Jim. And why the long beard? It looks dreadful."
"I know," he had said, "I need a haircut."
"Then why don't you have one?" It was a good question and he had no answer.
"It doesn't seem important."
"So what is important these days, Jim?"
He had felt strangely unsure and desperately sought the safety of self-confidence and composure. "It was important I saw you. I want to try to understand why things went so wrong. Don't you understand?"
"No - not anymore."
He had looked out of the window again and then back at Margaret. "Would you like to have lunch?" he asked as if they had been sitting there for an hour instead of less than five minutes.
"I don't want to keep you."
"That's a little unfair, Margaret."
"I'm sorry, Jim, but after all this time it's a bit difficult to know what the heck you want."
"But it was not me who decided that we should break up."
Jim now realized, in this half dream he was having, how chil
dish that must have sounded - like a teenager, a tiff after a weeklong affair. But those were the words that had come to him.
"But it was you and your damned career and politics that made us grow apart, Jim. That, and your blindness towards me. Dragging me here there and everywhere. Trailing after you like a little dog. How you can fail to realize that after having so many years to ponder about it I cannot, for the life of me, understand."
"But Margaret...."
"And now you come back expecting me to drop everything and come to talk to you. No warning. No letters. Nothing. Just turn up. For lunch?"
She had almost shouted the word ‘lunch’.
"Letters? I had no idea where you were."
"Don’t be so foolish. You just disappeared - went off, without even a note left on the mantelpiece."
"And we are divorced, Margaret?"
"Of course. For the same reason. You disappeared. Without trace."
Even in his half sleep, Jim took a deep, trembling breath.
"But you know why I disappeared, surely?" It had been a question and a statement.
"No. No. Frankly I don't. Most men stay and fight, Jim."
That was what had annoyed him.
Jim's eyes opened, just briefly. Just momentarily he saw the ceiling and the darkness outside the hotel window.
"Fight whom, Margaret? The newspapers? The journalists? The TV? My fellow Members of Parliament? You? Who should I have stayed to fight? Which of the hundred and one should I have started with? Should I have tried to win you round again in front of the millions of households and pubs up and down the land who had been taught by their mentors, the tabloid press, to analyze and pick over our marriage for us. Complete strangers? Checking, prying, talking with neighbours and friends in the pub. Delving into our past, telling lies and dredging up nonsense. Is that what you would have wanted? I honestly thought that you had had enough of that.
"Did you want to see the gutter press and their faceless, wealthy backers making more money out of invented stories, special so-called investigations and lies about our domestic life in the, so-called, public interest? How we had been having problems for years? Inventing stories about affairs with miscellaneous secretaries, wives of politicians, more night club girls? About our arguments and my rough treatment of you? Did you want that Margaret? Because I can tell you with absolute certainty that I did not. But that is exactly what I think might have happened next if I hadn't gone away. But then to cap it all, Margaret I had the dubious pleasure of watching you on television making an appearance on prime-time television, for the first time I could ever remember without me appearing alongside you. I thought you harboured a particular distaste for that channel. But there you were. Suddenly, you were not short of words. I was called deceitful. I was apparently dishonest. You were apparently shocked by the so-called revelations in the papers. You believed them and you wanted nothing more to do with me. Do you remember that, Margaret? Do you remember saying those things to the TV cameras outside our house by the lilac tree? Do you recall saying you wanted to be left alone to come to terms with things in peace? Away from the press and the prying eyes? And do you remember, having apparently recovered from your terrible experience, giving an interview for a Sunday newspaper? ‘Recovering' was the eye catching headline, Margaret. I read it. I read it lying on my bed in a hotel room in Malaysia whilst someone sat downstairs in the lobby trying to scare me into never going back to England.
"Did you not realise what was going on, Margaret? They were trying to stop me by destroying everything I had achieved - our longstanding marriage, my career, my reputation, my integrity. They wanted to shut me up, Margaret. And why? Because I was the only one brave enough to stand up and say that there was something wrong, something flawed, something corrupt with the system.
“Were you recovering? Had you been trying to forget me by then? Have you succeeded, Margaret? Because I can tell you now that I have never forgotten. But reading that article made me do something I really had never done in my life before, Margaret. I drank too much. For a few days I drank so much bloody Tiger beer that I was sick of it. But it seemed to temporarily deaden the terrible feeling that I had lost all my self-respect and also the most important thing in my life. You, Margaret.
“I believed I had failed, you see. Failed you and failed myself. I was carrying a stigma of incompetence and failure, one that I really didn't think was warranted. And then.....and then, Margaret... I have to tell you because I have always been an honest man......and then I did something that I had never, ever done before. I committed adultery. Can you believe that? I hope so because that is the one true piece of scandal they missed. Do you believe me or do you still believe what the tabloids said?"
After all that, Margaret had merely raised an eyebrow.
She had even looked away. But Jim had not yet finished.
"But do you know what happened Margaret? I found something, something I didn't even know was missing. I suppose I opted out so to speak. I found a completely new way of living and I learned so much more about life and about myself."
Margaret had then sighed, noisily as if bored.
“But I lost it, Margaret. Her name was Noy. Her beautiful daughter was Oy but they were both killed in a bus crash a few weeks after I met them. But I coped. I cope now. I may not shave or cut my hair but I cope. But I cannot forget you. Despite everything, and despite the passage of time. I never could and I never will. Yet you told me once, towards the end, to my face, that you were ashamed of me. Do you remember that Margaret? For me, it just compounded that deep sense of shame and incompetence I felt. It was another mark of disgrace, of shame, of dishonour, like a stain on my character.
“And what about the nonsense of that affair at the nightclub. Did you really believe that absolute trash? How could I live with the knowledge that you had lost so much trust and faith in me to that, most sordid, extent? Why Margaret? Why?"
Jim knew at that point that he had nearly cried.
"But I cannot think badly of you. I never will."
He had stopped then, exhausted, out of breath, flushed and sweating with eyes and a throat that hurt. And he had then apologised.
"Sorry, I'm so very sorry but.......".
He knew Margaret had begun to stare at him with eyes that never blinked. He had watched through his own unfocussed eyes as she twisted the cuff of her blouse and curled and uncurled the seam. But he had not been looking at her face. It was as if the only route through to her understanding was her hands and her fingers. And he also knew he was no longer in full control of himself. Once he'd started, the words had just flowed. At times he thought he had hissed them, noisily. Bottled and pickled for too long they had poured like a lava flow of sadness and love. And, already, he regretted it.
At last he looked at her face to find she was looking directly at him. Her face was lined and pale, perhaps a little make-up, the eyebrows thin, the eyes still that transparent blue. But it was her hair that affected him. It was so much greyer now.
"You look older, too, Margaret," he had told her with eyes that were red and wet.
Margaret had sighed again, then looked away as though mildly embarrassed. But she turned back. "But other than your face you haven't changed much as far as I can see. Still on your bandwagon."
"Bandwagon!"
Jim, his eyes firmly shut, lying on the bed in his room at the Holiday Inn shouted the word.
It was one of her old, familiar expressions and one he had not remembered. Bandwagon. He remembered it now. It was totally meaningless without a better explanation - but so full of suggestive innuendo.
"Bandwagon, Margaret?" he had exclaimed. "Is a man not allowed to express his feelings, his emotions?"
"What is the point, Jim? Don't you see things have gone on far too long now?"
"Yes, but can we not discuss things so that we understand one another at long last?"
"Discuss, Jim. Is that what you were doing just now?" She paused. "I understa
nd you perfectly well, Jim. You have not changed one bit."
A long silence had then descended before: "Do you really want lunch, Jim? Before they shut the restaurant?"
He remembered looking at her, half hoping she might be smiling, but he was disappointed. Instead, she was looking at him as if to speed up their meeting.
"No," he had said, "my appetite has gone. I would much prefer to walk. Perhaps we could just walk across the bridge. Will you come with me?"
"Yes, alright, but I mustn't be long."
Jim struggled to remember the next few minutes. His memory started again when Margaret said: "And you Jim, do you receive your state pension out there, wherever you are?"
"No," he had admitted. "My needs are fairly rudimentary."
"Yes, I seem to remember that. But you always set such high standards for others."
"And I set them for myself. I was successful at what I did, Margaret. Appearances are unimportant. Setting high standards does not require money."
"It's a pity you failed to notice me, though, isn't it? Your standards let you down a bit there."
"Notice you, Margaret? You were always there. I know I kept myself busy but you were my life."
His memory stopped again there. He hazily remembered strolling slowly across the bridge. The wind that was blowing up the Avon Gorge was blowing his hair and he knew it probably looked untidy. And then Margaret turned and started to walk back. "I need to go now."
They had walked slowly back towards the hotel. To Jim it was a long, long walk. He still had so much he wanted to say, so many questions to ask, so many things to tell her and so much of his life that he still wanted to share. But there was too much and so he said nothing until they had almost arrived back at the hotel.
"Margaret. Please tell me something."
She had looked up at him but kept walking.
"The night club incident. You know I was in the flat all that night, don't you? You knew I was there after midnight. You called me, didn't you? It was you wasn't it?"
"Yes," she said.
"Why?"
"Sorry. They were out to fix you up good and proper, but you just could not see it, could you?"
"You knew about it?"
"A reporter told me."
"How could you let them do it and not tell me or warn me or do something?"
"Me, Jim? Tell you something? Advise you? At that time? With you at the height of one of your 'I know best' moods no-one could tell you anything. Least of all me."
Jim had stopped walking but Margaret hadn't. He had caught her up, then grabbed her arm and she had turned."Why, Margaret? You could have tried. Why?"
"Because I was sick of it all. Sick to death of business and politics and your ways and... and everything. I was sick of you ignoring me. I wanted a life, Jim. I didn't want to follow you through all that nonsense. Visits to your few ghastly friends like George and his overbearing wife Catherine. Sick to death. But you just did not notice did you?"
"You could have tried telling me, Margaret."
"Telling you, Jim? Impossible! I tried. I loved you once."
And then she had suddenly burst into tears. He held her hand now and almost put his arm around her shoulders, but it was a busy pavement. He had not noticed until then but other people were using it. So he did nothing, except hold her cold hand. And the outburst only lasted seconds anyway before she sniffed, took a deep breath and removed her hand. "I'm OK. Don't fuss. You must go now, Jim."
"Go, Margaret. Where?"
"Back where you have come from, wherever that is."
"But, I have so many things to say."
"Jim," she had said, calmly. The tears had already gone. "Go now. Try to live your life without me. I am sorry. So should you be sorry. But we cannot live by being sorry. Go now and live your life the way you have chosen. I need to live mine. Try to find some peace of mind."
She looked up at him with a slight look of pity."Are you keeping well, Jimmy? You've lost weight but you look fit and tanned. Plenty of exercise, I hope."
"Yes."
"Good. So, look after yourself. Take care. But have a haircut. When you were stood in the wind on the bridge I could hardly see your face for looking."
On the hotel bed, Jim opened his weary eyes.
He had watched her go. He had watched her walk away, without turning and without hesitating. Her skirt, her pretty, billowing blouse, her grey hair, her gently swinging handbag, her short dark shadow. She had walked as she always did but perhaps more stiffly. He saw her move her free hand to her face. It stayed a moment. She seemed to shake her head just a little, almost imperceptibly and then the arm swung down to her side. She seemed to shrug but she had been too far away for him to be certain.
He had watched until she reached the corner in case she turned around to return. He hoped, at least, she would cross, perhaps continue in a straight line so that he could continue just to watch, but she turned quickly. Perhaps she glanced back, he was not sure. But then she was gone. Out of his life.
Jim had stood, without moving, his eyes glistening and wet. He had felt weak and his arms ached as if he had been carrying heavy bags all afternoon. His heart was pounding and seemed to be struggling. Other people, strangers, walked past but he barely saw them. Then, still looking at the corner to his left he stepped off the kerb and started across the road.
It was the screech of tyres from a skidding car that frightened him out of his thoughts. The small, red car stopped just a yard from him and two yards into the road. He turned to look at the windscreen and its driver but the young woman driver was quicker. She stretched her blonde head from the open side window and waved an arm. "Watch it, old man. Yer wanna get killed or somethin'. Stupid bugger." She had glared at him, angry and impatient and then driven off as Jim stood sadly in the middle of the road, his mouth slightly open, his hair in his eyes. He had felt old and vulnerable.
He remembered, too, the slope of freshly mown grass that separated one road from the higher, busier road on the side that led to the Bridge. This was where he had then slumped down to recover. A sudden dizziness had overcome him, so he lay backwards looking up into the bright afternoon sky. He wiped his sticky forehead and then loosened the tie that he had worn to impress and stared upwards. The dizziness was intense. His eyes felt sore, his head throbbed and he covered his eyes with his arm and waited.
Slowly, inch by inch, he withdrew the arm and looked backwards and upwards where the sun was shining through the bare branches of a horse chestnut tree. Around him on the grass lay a cluster of spiky green conkers that had split ready to release the shiny brown nuts inside. The big tree might eventually die, but there continuity was ensured. New life from death.
Jim sat up, on the edge of the bed, his eyes open still remembering that day. He hadn't told anyone what happened, but who was there to tell. Tom, perhaps, but he'd only known Tom a few weeks. He thought about his rock up on the hillside behind the house. Did it matter if he was alone? Not at all. Was it not better that way? It was certainly less stressful. Alone, unencumbered, there was more time to think and contemplate. He supposed he had become a sort of hermit - a solitary monk who lived frugally and spent his time contemplating on life. The horse chestnut tree had reminded him he was like a leaf in autumn, hanging on. But the time would, eventually, come for him to fall off the tree, his function fulfilled. Life, his own included, was just a function of matter. But there were still a few functions left for this old and yellowing leaf to perform.
He stood up, went to the window to look out but it was dark with only a floodlit car park to inspire. "Come on Jim, buck up. Hang on to your twig for just a while longer."
He turned away.
"Yes, mother, I remember what you used to say. 'You're a long time dead.' You should know, mother, but I don't want to last too long. I can't see anyone helping this grumpy old farang to get up in the morning, to wash him, dress him, push him around in a wheelchair, help him to sit, see, hear, eat his rice a
nd deal with his double incontinence. And if I can't see how can I paint? No, I don't want to last too long, mother. Better to go quietly, function fulfilled. Quality of life not longevity.
"Surely that is the only civilised choice. There are far too many of us anyway. But it needs saying, out loud - someone needs to spell it out, no beating about the bush, just say it as it is in black and white. That, surely, is the job of politicians and of religious leaders. But they are weak, mother. They are too scared. But I'd say it.
"You went when you were still at the top, mother. Job done, mission accomplished. I remember you as I know you would want me to remember you. You'd hate what happens here now, mother You can almost live forever as long as you don't mind being incarcerated with other incapacitated old folks playing catch the beach ball every morning after your Weetabix and if you don't mind living with dozens of complete strangers. And many of these strangers are empty shells, sick, immobile, unthinking, contributing nothing, just sitting putting off the final day, delaying the inevitable, and all because the technology allows and the law insists."
Jim lay back on the bed once more and stared at the ceiling. Then his eyes closed, the drowsiness overcame him and he half dreamed of what had happened next as he lay on that grassy mound beneath the tree surrounded by roads and busy traffic in Bristol.
The dizziness had gone and he was starting to feel better so he had sat up and tucked his hair behind his ears. It was then he heard the voice.
"You, all righ', mate?"
He had turned round to see an elderly man wearing glasses and a cloth cap propped on a wooden stick. On a long lead hooked over the stick was a small black and white dog that was sniffing amongst the conkers in the grass a yard or so away. It then cocked its leg over a tuft of dock leaves that the municipal mowers had failed to remove from around the tree trunk. "Yes. Thank you," Jim had replied.
"Nice day."
"Yes. Indeed."
"You all righ'? Saw you lying ther'. Thought you might be dead or somethin' for a minute. Fair worried me for a sec."
"Thank you. I'm fine."
"Nice walking 'round yer. Specially this time o' yer. You from 'round yer?"
"No. But I know Bristol a little."
"Changed a lot, 't ave. Not like 't were. But round yer it don't seem to change." The small dog now moved to sniff Jim's shiny new shoes."Bin on yer 'olidays?"
"Excuse me?"
"Bin on yer 'olidays? Only you look like you seen a bit o' sun like."
"No. But I suppose you might call my visit here a holiday of sorts."
"Wer you cum from?"
"I live in Thailand."
"By golly. Long way from 'ome you might say."
"Yes, I suppose so."
"Lived ther long 'ave 'ee?"
"A few years."
"By golly. Sor’ of settled ther 'ave 'ee?"
"Yes. I like it."
"Peaceful ther now is it?"
"Yes."
"Wife ther too is she?"
"No. I regret that I am divorced. A divorcee I think is what I'm called."
"Oh, dear me. My wife passed away twenty years ago. I'm ninety three now." The dog pulled on the lead and the old man coughed, heartily."Well, I'll be getting along. Got to get back fer me tea."
Jim had nodded. "Yes. Thank you. Good bye."
The old man had slowly walked away, held upright by his stick and pulled along by his dog. But, after a few yards, he turned around.
"I knew Malaya, Singapore and Thailand, once upon a time," he called back. "That bridge in Kanchanaburi. The River Kwai. Prisoner o' war. Bloody Japs." Then he, too, had walked away and out of Jim's life.