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S. KADSION SHORT STORIES
PLEASING CAROL
Chris Sample set off for church at quarter past six as usual. It was February and chilly so he wore his dark overcoat, as he always did when it was cold. Beneath was his blue serge suit, which he always wore to church. He’d eaten a tea of tinned salmon and salad, which his mother always prepared on Sundays. He gave out hymn books on the door to the small congregation, as ever; and he sat on the back row on the left, where he’d sat every Sunday for years. But this week, something was different: the girl who sat beside him had never been there before. "Hello," she said, as she sat down. "Hi." She was very slim, her hair was light brown, short and shone from brushing. He noticed she was flat-chested. But she was pretty and nicely self-contained, chirpy and confident. She sang very sweetly too.When they left, Sample was on his way to the pub. "I’m Carol, by the way," she said and held out her hand. "Chris." Her skin was beautifully soft and in spite of the weather she was warm. "Are you walking home ?" "Er, yeah." "I’m heading to Cop Lane." "Oh. Well, I’ll walk with you. If that’s okay." "That’s nice of you." He was taken aback by the generosity of her compliment. She turned to him with a friendly smile. Nice teeth . And her eyes were blue and wide. There flashed into his mind the picture of those soft, warm hands stroking his hard cock. She lived in one of those small, three-bedroomed semis built between the wars, all almost identical and facing one another across a narrow road. This was the territory that depressed him. He preferred even the terraced streets of the town. These were the prissy dwellings of the dull-witted, nine-to-five Tory voters that made his blood run cold. "This is mine," she said. "Very nice." She laughed. "Not very nice, really is it ? "It’s okay." "Yes, I suppose it’s okay. It’s a place to live. If you can call it living. I can’t invite you in." "That’s okay." "My dad’s very strict." "I see." "He used to be a policeman." "Did he ? What does he do now ?" "He has half shares in a pub. With my uncle. He lives there. My dad helps him run it and takes a cut of the profits." "I see." "My mum’d let you in." He looked at her. She was leaning against the gatepost. She reached down and scratched her calf , still looking into his eyes. He resisted shifting his gaze to her leg. "We can sneak round the side if we’re quiet." "Can we ?" "They won’t see us. They’ll be in the back room watching telly. They’ve just got colour. My dad thinks it’s a miracle." "Well, science is pretty amazing." "Come on !" She went on tiptoe down the path and unlatched the gate between the house and garage. He came through and she closed it after him. She put her finger to her lips and went delicately along the flagstones that led round the back of the prefabricated concrete building. It was quite dark. "Bit nippy, isn’t it ?"`she said. She leant back against the garage wall and smiled at him. How sweet she was ! He put his hand on her waist. "You don’t mind, do you," she said, "not being able to go inside ?" Her lips were very warm and soft, like her hands and she kissed very gently, very responsively. After half an hour she said: "I’d better go in. They’ll be wondering where I’ve got to." "Do you want to go for a drink ?" "I’m not allowed." "What ?" "My mother’s a Methodist. She doesn’t approve of drinking." "But your dad runs a pub !" "I know. She’s disgusted. You should hear her go on." "You’re old enough to make up your own mind." "Oh, I do. But they don’t know that. I try to keep them happy. That way they stay off my back." She led him to the front gate, pecked him on the lips. "See you next Sunday." When Sample got to the pub, his mates were about to leave. "Where’ve you been ?" "Just got held up a bit." Sunday became their regular thing. They sang hymns, prayed then snogged behind her garage. But the evenings were getting lighter. It wasn’t possible to sneak round the back. Carol took him into the house. "This is Chris, I met him in church." Carol’s dad was a caricature of an ex-copper. He was huge. His hands hung at sides as if his fingers were filled with uranium. His chest could have housed the Liverpool Phil. He had a black goatee streaked with grey and his head was cocked back slightly as if he was ready for a fight. "About time you got a haircut, isn’t it lad ?" he said. "I had a trim last week." "Trim ? Short back and sides is what it needs." "Would you like a coffee ?" said Carol. "Tea, please. Black. No sugar." "And what do you do with yourself, young man ?" asked her dad. "I’m a clerk for the Transport and General Workers’ Union." "My God, mother, our Carol’s brought home a communist !" "He’s a Christian, dad. How can he be a communist ?" "There’s no lengths they won’t go to infiltrate. Tell me straight lad, are you a member of the Communist Party ?" Sample had never been a member of anything, except the cubs, and they expelled him for insubordination. "As a matter of fact," he said as Carol handed him his mug, "I used to be but they kicked me out." "What for ?" "I was too left wing." Carol’s dad stared at him for a moment. "Put that mug down and leave my house." "Walter, you can’t kick the boy out !" said Carol’s mum. "Why can’t I ? It’s my house." Sample put the mug down on the table. "Goodbye Mrs Nobbs." Carol followed him out and to the gate. "Don’t worry, my mother will talk him round." "It’s okay." "He doesn’t mean anything by it, he’s just insecure." "That’s what they said about Hitler." "I can get out on Wednesday." "You make it sound like prison. Does he give you remission for good behaviour ?" "I’m only seventeen. He thinks I’m still his little girl." "Wednesday ? We could go to the flicks if you like." "I do." That week, Sample found the address of the Communist Party and wrote for details. When the package arrived, he applied for membership of the Young Communist League. At work he asked one of the old hands where he could find out about communism. "Read Marx, lad. Horse’s mouth." He went to the library and got a copy of The Communist Manifesto. It didn’t make much sense on the first reading but he went through it several times and it began to come into focus. One evening he was watching the news and Harold Wilson said: "We can’t take lectures from people who don’t do a hand’s turn.." and something fell into place in his head. He met Carol more often. Whenever she could get out they’d find somewhere quiet. All through the summer they snogged behind trees, round the back of shops, in empty bus shelters and through her thin dresses and skirts and blouses he got to know the distant territory of her lovely body. He took her home to meet his mother who gave them tinned salmon and salad for Sunday tea. Mrs Sample thought her a grand lass, especially as her mother was a non-conformist. "Why don’t we go back to my house ? My mother’ll be in bed at half past nine." "No." "Why not ?" "I don’t know. I don’t like to." The autumn came round again and winter closed in. They were behind her garage after church. She took his hand and pressed it to her crotch, so he worked up her skirt and slipped into her knickers. When his finger went in she let out a little cry. "You okay ?" "Yes. Go on." Her excitement rose in little gasps and squeals until she clung to him and went taut. As he walked home, the picture of her sweet cunt was in his head. He was very pleased and proud. In bed he read a few pages of The Acquisitive Society. The words swam in his head but little by little they were coming to create a pattern. The old bloke at work was feeding titles to him, lending him paperbacks from his collection. He was starting to like two things above all: Carol’s body and reading. In church they sat together on the back row. It was a plain, Congregationalist chapel, whose straightforwardness he liked. There was no pomp or elaborate ritual and the vicar was a literary man who made reference to Shakespeare, Hazlitt, Chaucer, Goldsmith, Eliot, Lamb, Crabbe and a Frenchman called Sartre. Each week, Sample made a note of the names and went to the library to find their books. There were three second-hand dealers in the town. Every Saturday he went to browse and began to build his own modest collection. When he read Existentialism is a Humanism, he wondered why a vicar should admire Sartre. God, who had been a presence in his life since he mother gave him an illustrated bible for Christmas when he was six, evaporated like an early mist on an April day. But he kept going to church. He liked it. It was a little hour of asylum. He enjoyed the singing even though some of the hymns were foot-dragging dirges. He knew all the people and the vicar was feeding him new literary names week by week. In any case, it was pleasant to sit and listen to a sermon about a god in which he didn’t believe. A lot of it became ludicrously hilarious. And, of course, there was Carol. One Sunday, behind the garage, she lifted her skirt and stepped out of her knickers. He began the usual, delightful stimulation of her gorgeous cunt. Previously, she’d run her hand over his hard cock through his bulging trousers. Now, she unfastened them, pulled them down and caressed his erection and his balls. He was amazed that in spite of the near freezing weather, her hand was beautifully warm. She wrapped her fingers round and moved rhythmically back and forward till he spurted against the garage. "Here," she said, handing him a tissue. When he was all fastened up again and she had her skirt pulled down and her knickers in her bag, they kissed. "For next week," she said, "why don’t you buy some condoms ?" He thought of getting some from the barbers, but he didn’t want a haircut and the thought of walking in, picking up a pack of three and paying with all eyes on him, and maybe little kids there, and maybe even a little kid with his mum, and maybe some little kid he knew and whose mother knew him ! He pondered. Then he remembered Phil Carter who was reputed to have done it with Diane Slinger, the ugliest, dirtiest, most vulgar girl in the fifth form. He’d said you could get them from the Surgical Stores by the station. He went after work on Thursday. The woman behind the counter was about forty. Short, fat, dark-haired and pillow-busted she ogled him through her glasses as if he were a specimen. "Hello luv !" "Hello," he said. "What can I get for you, luv ?" "Would you have a pack of three ?" His politeness sounded absurd and he blushed. "Gossamer or Fetherlite ?" Before he could think he blurted: "What’s the difference ?" "None as a can tell, dear. They all feel the same to me, but it’s you who’ll be wearin’ em." "I’ll have the Fetherlite," he said definitively. "You’re probably right, luv. Probably give you more sensation." She handed them over and he paid with a ten bob note and had to wait about three weeks for her to find the change. "There you go, sweetheart. Enjoy yourself." He went out into the street and to the bus-stop with the little packet tucked in the palm of his hand shoved in his trouser pocket. Into his mind came the picture of Carol, her face in pleasure, her little squeaky sounds of ecstasy and he felt very proud and inordinately excited in expectation of Sunday. As they stood up for the first hymn ( The Day Thou Gavest Lord Is Ended) she whispered: "Did you get some ?" He nodded. "How many ?" "Three." "That won’t last us long." "They come in packs of three." "They must come in bigger packs than that ! People are doing it all the time. They’d have to go to the chemists five times a week." "Hardly anybody does it fifteen times a week !" "Just you wait !" He looked at her and she smiled as she opened her mouth to sing: "Thy praise shall sanctify…. Behind the garage he pulled the rubber on and awkwardly positioned himself to slip in. It was lovely but over too soon. They tried various strategies till finally Carol turned to the wall, put her palms against it and bent double. He slid into her with ease he couldn’t have imagined and rocked backwards and forwards as her hips swayed like the tide coming in at Blackpool on a calm day in June. "Oh, that was it," she said afterwards, " that was just right." The previous Saturday afternoon, Sample had found a copy of Britain For The British by Robert Blatchford. The title made him suspect something reactionary but scanning a page or two he was taken by the writing and ideas. He read it in two sittings and all the half-formed ideas floating in his mind came together. "I’m a socialist," he said to himself. The winter of behind-the-garage sex was coming to an end and they were going to have to find new venues. "We can go to my house," said Sample. "My mum’s always in bed by ten." "No. I don’t want to." "It’ll be warm." "That doesn’t bother me." "We can’t go on having sex outside for ever." "Can’t we ?" He looked at her. She smiled in her charming, innocent way. They had sex in the woods, in the bandstand on the park, in the beer garden behind The Brown Cow after closing time. Sample was puzzled by Carol’s reluctance to go indoors but he was more worried about how he was going to tell her he’d become an atheist. One Sunday, on the way to the woods he said: "You know, I don’t believe in god any more." "Nor do I," she said. He turned to her in surprise. "So why do you go to church ?" "Why do you ?" "Habit. And I enjoy it. It’s a social occasion. I know everyone. I like to say hello. I don’t know. I like just to sit there and let it wash over me." "Me too." "But why did you start coming ?" "Oh, you never know who you might meet on the back row." He went quiet for a few minutes. Had she known he would be there ? But how ? Had she come to church just to meet him ? He was amazed. "I’ve been doing some reading lately," he said. "That’s good." "I read this great book called Britain For The British." "You should lend it my dad." "No, it’s about socialism. It’s great. I’m a socialist." He thought she might react negatively but she said: "That’s nice." "Do you know what socialism is ?" he said. "No idea. Except my dad doesn’t like it." Little by little their social life become more open and regular. They went to the pictures, to the pub, they got well in with the young crowd in The Brown Cow and invites to parties became frequent. Sample didn’t like parties: people just stood around, got drunk, showed off, got aggressive, tried to get off with someone. But there was usually an opportunity for intimacy. Once, they went to a do at the house of lad whose dad ran a building firm. It was a huge, seven-bedroomed place with a swimming pool. People were making use of the space and comfort. "Come on," he said. "No." "Why not ?" "Let’s go outside." "Outside ? We can be warm and comfortable." "I like it outside. There’s bags of room." So they went out under the clear sky full of cold stars and a nearly full moon and found a space behind the double garage. "This is nice," she said. He shivered. "Come on. Let me warm you up." The more Sample listened to Harold Wilson, the more he doubted the leader’s socialism. "We want a society where people can get on," the Prime Minister said, drawing on his pipe. Where people can get on ? Didn’t he just mean where people could make money ? He wasn’t sure what was wrong with that, but it troubled him. He ran it through his mind all the time: on the bus, in the office, in the pub having a pint with his mates, behind the garage with Carol. He liked the idea of getting on himself. Wouldn’t he like to have money and be important ? But in his little thought experiment where he imagined himself well-off and examined his feelings, they disappointed him. He was turning in on himself. There was no thought for what was beyond him. In a flurry of happy brain activity he saw that it was getting on together that was really exciting. It was making a better society which made him feel good. "Would you like to be rich ?" he said to Carol. "Yes." "I wouldn’t." "Why not ?" "Because of what you have to do to get rich." "You could win the pools. That would be easy." "Yeah, but just as bad." "But you could do what you liked. We could have a garage of our own." "It’s the way we trick ourselves," he said. "We think life would be wonderful if we had money, but it’s not money we want, it’s a wonderful life." "Can’t we have money and a wonderful life ?" "I don’t think so, because one person’s wealth is another person’s poverty and you can’t have a wonderful life against other people." They were behind the garage when they heard a noise. Sample yanked up his pants and Carol smoothed down her skirt. When her dad appeared they were fully clothed. "Get inside, Carol," he said. "No." "Carol ! I’m telling you ! Get indoors." "No, dad." "You go home," he said to Sample. "Okay." "I’ll come with you," said Carol. "You won’t, my girl." "I’m not your girl, dad." "Aren’t you ?" "Not in the way you mean. I’m grown up." Mr Nobbs snorted. "You’re seventeen." "But I can think for myself." "Think for yourself when you’ve left my house." She looked at him. "Come on, Chris." Mr Nobbs lowered over them as they edged past him. Carol walked briskly. "Where the hell are we going ?" "Can I sleep at your mum’s ?" "What ?" "On the sofa." "For a night. What then ?" "We’ll have to get our own place." "What ?" She stopped. "We earn enough. Just about. We’ll get a little flat. Maybe we can even find one with its own garage." "But I earn hardly anything !" "There we are. We’ll never be rich. But maybe we can have a wonderful life." He laughed "You’re mad !" "Am I ? Is there room behind your mum’s garage ?" She strode away. He hurried to catch up with her. "Anyway, you’ve always avoided coming to my mother’s." "No, I’ve avoided making love to you at your mother’s." She hurried on. Mrs Sample was watching the telly. "Mum, Carol’s dad’s kicked her out." She took her glasses off and looked at the pair of them. "Hello, Carol luv. Why’s he done that ?" "He doesn’t like me. He wants us to split up," said Sample. "So what do you want to do ?" "Can Carol stay here tonight ? She can have my bed. I’ll sleep down here." "There’s a mattress under my bed. Put it in the spare room. I’ll get you some sheets. But Carol’s got to tell her parents where she is." "Okay." Carol stayed at Sample’s mum’s for seven months. The lad whose dad had a building firm went round in a little Bedford van and picked up her stuff for her. Sample’s mum grew very fond of her and they hit it off like kids at a birthday party. Carol was diplomatic and polite. She made herself useful about the house but never imposed. She was like a daughter to the widow whose own daughter was grown, married and gone. Nor did Mrs Sample need to worry about shenanigans under her roof: when she was in bed, the couple sneaked out of the back door and squeezed between the garage and the shed. They found a tiny flat over a bank. Mrs Sample was sorry to see them go. She went round and cleaned everywhere, scrubbing the tiles of the little kitchen on her hands and knees. There was a living-room, a box of a bedroom, a bathroom with a shower but no bath, and the diminutive kitchen where they bumped into one another as they cooked. And also a fire escape leading down to a secluded little yard, which was the next best thing to a garage. Carol’s father didn’t visit but her mother came round secretly with a casserole or an apple crumble and was glad to see her daughter happy, even in a tiny flat over a bank, even working as a poorly paid clerk in a travel agency, even living over the brush with a young man of dubious convictions.
Ivy Lodge was attached to the school, on its eastern flank, and had its private garden with a neat square of lawn, tall privet hedges, a flowering cherry and borders tended by the groundsman. Beyond the hedges, further east and south, the broad, long school lawns dotted with crooked little apple trees ran towards the sports fields and the meadows where Merrick Smallhart was fond of walking his terrier. The governors hadn’t wanted to let him have it. They felt it anachronistic in 1980. It could be used for teaching. Money could be raised. It could be converted. But they had needed to advertise twice. The application wasn’t strong. Smallhart pressed his case and they gave in. He had a six-bedroomed house rent free. There were no neighbours of course, so his wife was isolated. But the church was a mere two miles away. She could get to know people there. Smallhart felt at home. The Head of his own public school had lived on the grounds. This may be a Voluntary Aided county maintained school, but he needed the reassurance of a few private sector perks. As far as he could, he ran the place on public school lines. Yes, he believed in free schooling for all. Yes, he was sympathetic to the comprehensive idea. But he wasn’t going to let go of the side and swim for his life in the deep-end of the public sector pool. Not with so many of the lower orders sharing the water. So he established himself as the chief of his little fiefdom. He played the governors off against the staff, the staff against the governors, the school against the county, the parents against the trustees and the trustees against the parents, till he was able to make all the decisions himself. As for the unions, which he insisted on calling the associations, to distance them from the working-class, he listened attentively to the reps and sent them away with: “Thank you very much for bringing that to my attention. I shall give it due consideration.” And did nothing. Things rolled along swimmingly. At ten-thirty, when the boys were bent over their book or causing mayhem for some poor devil of a low-grade teacher, Smallhart could be seen leaving the grounds by the back gate, his little brown and white terrier on its lead trotting charmingly beside him. When the bell rang for lunch, before the pupils had packed away their books, he was locking his study door and heading for Ivy House where Ona had a three-course meal waiting. On a Friday afternoon, a member of staff would come looking for him only to notice his car and caravan had gone from their parking spot. Every September the staff returned to find their timetables still not ready. Smallhart was in charge and did things in his own way and time. But Stanalee Grammar couldn’t buck the trends. It might have retained its name and its Latin motto, but it was a comp. It had held out till the late seventies, but in the final wave of egalitarian elevation of the secondaries, the choice had been stark: go private or comprehensive. The Head and governors had explored every means of independent viability, but finally it was clear. The money couldn’t be raised to buy out the county. They bit their lips and accepted the encroachment of despised social democracy. When local management of schools arrived, however, the finances took a nose-dive. Smallhart played poker. He robbed Peter to pay Paul. He hid money in an array of accounts. He spent the same money twice. It was no good. The school was quickly half a million in debt and the county closed in. Matters had to be set to rights. For two years, as things had got worse and
worse and he had concealed his creative accounting from everyone, Smallhart had
appeased his staff: “Don’t you worry about the budget. You carry on with your
teaching. Leave the rest to me.” Aye, Stander would think, done right by you,
mate. He was disaffected. Seventeen years in the school and denied promotion
within or without it, he had experienced the slyness of Smallhart and didn’t
trust him in the least. They came from different worlds. They might have come
from different planets. Stander had been born in the mean streets of the little,
northern working-class town to a Methodist mother from the proletarian
aristocracy of hard-working, self-educated, self-improving trade unionists, who
had made a bad marriage to an orphan brought up by dipsomaniac grandparents
whose fantasies of himself as a go-getting entrepreneur led him from one
disastrous business venture to another. Blenching from his father’s waywardness,
the lad had found refuge in the solid principles of trade union collectivism.
Bright and musically gifted he had fought through to a degree and had landed at
Stanalee as a stop-gap, broke and needing to earn. Seventeen years later he
seethed with frustration and bitterness at the way Smallhart had thwarted him.
But he was right. Smallhart came from a culture of deference and expected due obsequiousness. Stander came from a culture of vertical invasion and despised deference of all kinds. People, Smallhart believed, were made by and for institutions. Institutions, Stander believed, were made by and for people. Between these two views there could be no peace. But Smallhart had power and he used it. When the doddery Head of Music dropped dead
of a stroke and Stander, twelve years in the school, applied for the job,
Smallhart, exulting in his ability to put the upstart in his place, refused him
an interview. So when Smallhart announced there were to be redundancies, when he sat before the staff and told them they must live in the real world, Stander, the NUT rep, went straight to the phone and alerted Regional Office. Smallhart knew their was a statutory process of consultation but he had grown so used to having his own way, he had managed to duck and weave so successfully , and apart from one perilous run-in with a group of discontented governors, incensed at not being consulted over crucial decisions, had always got away with it so easily, he imagined he would simply brush the trade unions aside and sweep majestically on to make redundant those teachers he most wanted to be rid of, including Stander. At ten-thirty, he could still be seen
heading for the meadows with his cute little pet. An hour before the first
consultation, Stander met the union delegation in The Hand And Dagger.
The lunch was on them, but true to his strict principles of the common good
before private advantage, he had a modest tuna sandwich and coffee. Lawrence
Rise, the Regional Officer, ordered lasagne, salad, garlic bread, raspberries
and ice-cream and a cafetiere. Tall, with a heavily pock-marked skin and round,
gold-rimmed glasses he was constantly pushing up his nose, he was brisk and
focused. Rise shook his head as he scanned the
documents. Smallhart and his little delegation were
last to arrive. Around the table were the union people, being kept waiting. When
he entered, Smallhart was careful not to make eye contact. His secretary sat
beside him, a middle-aged woman, thin and hesitant, dressed in a smart suit for
the occasion and carrying a bundle of papers under her right arm. The two dark
suited men from the county were to his right and a clergyman and teacher
governor to his left. The secretary began, as if from a script: Presently, the county suits returned. Trevor
Grubb, the Advisor and the more senior of the two, smiled complaisantly as at
the wedding of a long-lost relative. They sat down. There followed what is usually known as a frank exchange of views but Rise had the better of the argument and the county men could only nod and smile and make tentative little objections. They left to convey the news to Smallhart. Coffee and biscuits appeared as out of nowhere, on trays carrying delicate little flower-patterned china cups and saucers normally reserved for the visits of Bishops or MPs or officials from the Dfe. Forty-five minutes later, an abashed
Smallhart returned. His dutiful delegation sat down and silence slowly followed. Jenny Fine smiled at Smallhart who was bent over his papers. He made an effort to reciprocate but his face contorted into a sad and ugly grimace. He wanted to insult Rise as he had insulted Stander. He wanted to say something demeaning, humiliating. He wanted to hide behind his status and put him in his place. He was being told what to do in his own school by a trade unionist ! He was Headmaster after all ! He’d been educated at Westminster and Balliol ! He looked across the table at the man who was chewing on his custard cream as he talked to his colleague and he saw how confident he was, how secure, how he had won a fine little victory and he hated him. At that moment his hatred was pure because he felt thoroughly humiliated. Grubb had told him: he couldn’t select whom he liked for redundancy or Rise would have him sacked. Smallhart resented to his very marrow that he had ever entered the public sector. He wished he had stayed in the private-school arena he knew. He despised these people, he despised them thoroughly. They were his inferiors. In the event, seven members of staff took severance or voluntary redundancy. Stander was closely involved in the negotiations. From Rise he learned the county had offered Smallhart a package but he refused to go. The scandal of a sacking was a step too far, so he hung on. For five more years. As he put it to the staff, to see this process through. The loss of staff, the increase in class sizes, the make-do-and-mend of herding boys of widely varying abilities into cramped classrooms with poor resources made life hard . More and more Smallhart remained apart. At ten-thirty he could still be seen setting off towards the meadows with his faithful dog. If rain threatened, he’d be wearing the waxed jacket, tweed cap and superior green wellingtons which made him look one of the country set. When staff knocked on his door the red engaged light would appear. The office staff would convey that he was working at home. He began to absent himself from parents’ evenings. He sent his apologies to staff meetings. He was rarely seen around the school. A pupil was heard to comment, leaving an assembly: “Who was that man on the stage ?” Heads of department would recount with a groan to their colleagues in the staff-room that money for new equipment had gone begging because Smallhart had failed to do the paperwork on time. And when he finally retired and gave his farewell address to the assembled school, boasting that in his career he had produced twenty-nine timetables; when his rotary mower leaving gift was presented at his valedictory dinner which twenty-two members of staff and their spouses failed to attend; when his card circulated for signing and Stander didn’t bother; when his job had to be advertised twice and one of the candidates turned down first time was subsequently appointed even though he had told the appointment panel on the first occasion he thought the school stuck in the past and felt the job probably beyond my capacities because of years of mismanagement ; it was discovered he’d had one of the electrical sockets in Ivy House connected to the school’s supply and no-one, not even the county auditors, ever got to the bottom of just what had happened to the money.
Gordon Snipe had always
believed illness was something to be ashamed of. Not that he’d ever consciously
thought the idea through: it was an unacknowledged assumption. So when his wife
was diagnosed with cancer he was confused by his own reaction. No husband could have been more attentive or concerned. Yet he couldn’t help feeling let down. The notion came to him that Janet was from inferior stock. He had chosen carefully. He would never have considered a wife from the lower orders. She was resolutely upper middle class. Perhaps he should have married into the aristocracy. At Oxford he had known the daughter of a baronet whose striking good looks had made her sought after. But she had gone into the theatre which seemed disreputable and perilous. Weren’t actors notoriously promiscuous ? Janet’s father was a banker who at seventy-six still played golf three times a week. Her mother was forever busy with church matters. Her three brothers were in robust health. How could cancer grow in his wife ? She didn’t smoke, she ate well, her drinking was no more than two glasses of white wine a week. How could God allow it ? He realised he had always believed his faith would protect him. Yes, God’s ways were beyond human comprehension. He could even send cancer into the guts of a devout and obedient woman as part of his plan. Or was it the work of the Devil ? Yes, sometimes the Devil could get the upper hand. He turned to his theology : didn’t Julian of Norwich write of a sickness sent by God? Might it not be a sign of election rather than shame that his wife was ill ? Didn’t Thomas a Kempis write of the value of adversity ? Perhaps this was a test of his faith. Then something amazing happened. He received an application for the vacant post in P.E. from a young man in remission from leukaemia ! Surely it was a sign ! Before the interview-letters were posted, he decided he would appoint him. There were four interviewees. Three of them seemed poor to Snipe at first sight. They were young men who bristled with energy. Their faces had that clean, tight, gleaming look characteristic of athletes. They filled their dark jackets and trousers like risen dough fits a tin. Their short necks were fastened tight in their crisp collars. They exuded military obedience. But when Snipe looked at Christopher John, he experienced a sense of revelation. He was short, dark and hirsute. His hair was close cropped and his brown eyes had a fierce intensity. He was from the north-east, his Geordie accent almost incomprehensible to the Home Counties Snipe. Yet surely he was God’s emissary ! And his name, bearer of Christ ! Before his wife’s illness,
Snipe would have refused to interview a candidate who had been seriously ill. Now, however, Christopher’s
illness seemed to pick him out positively. God was sending a message: show
compassion to the sick candidate and your wife too may be spared ! What had once
seemed a deficit now appeared an advantage. But between Christopher’s
appointment and the start of term, he suffered a relapse. Snipe rang him
frequently. He spoke to his parents. He prayed for him daily. And he held the
post open for him. His confidence was rewarded: Christopher pulled through. He was well enough to start at the beginning of the next school year. Snipe took the first assembly. There were three new teachers. “We have a special new member of staff starting today. Mr John has had a serious illness. But he has recovered. He is in remission, which means there is no sign of the illness in him any more. We held the job here open for him for a year. That’s how much we value him. I’m sure he will be a great asset to the school and that you will soon appreciate his outstanding qualities. We are all praying that his illness will not reappear.” All the same, Janet deteriorated. They operated and removed most of her bowel. She came home weak and incapable which made Snipe ever more careful of her. He did all the cooking. He employed a cleaner. When his children were back from university they were fastidious. And the rest, the care, the good food improved her. After a few months, she was able to walk to the corner shop. They went to Scotland for a fortnight. She was stable. But she was an invalid and Snipe’s sex life was over. He accepted the inevitable with Christian resignation. Yet he felt the unfairness of it. After all, he was still healthy. He wasn’t yet fifty. Most men of his age could look forward to years of sexual activity. But it didn’t matter. Janet was his wife, the mother of his children, his life-long companion. They had been joined in the sight of God for better or worse. But this was worse than he could have imagined. It wasn’t supposed to happen to people like him. He began to notice the young women teachers. The sway of a pair of hips, the heaviness of breasts in a tight blouse, the thick health of auburn hair falling onto white shoulders. One day, in town, he found himself in Addison’s Court, an alley known to be frequented by prostitutes. He had no idea why he’d taken that route. He told himself it was a short cut. He walked slowly carrying the bags of shopping from Marks and Spencer. Janet had sent him on the errand. He was attracted and appalled by the atmosphere of the scruffy little passageway: all backs, the unseen, uncared-for underbelly of commercial glitz. There were strange little recesses, odd nooks. In a doorway a brazen young woman in a red skirt and white stilettos was smoking. He looked away. Nevertheless, he went back. Once, when it was dusk he slipped between the narrow walls. The cobbles were greasy and a curious, unfamiliar odour of staleness, brick and traffic made him uneasy. In a dark corner of a garage without doors a couple were having sex. She was panting and squealing. He hurried on, disgusted. That was his last short cut. Janet needed more chemotherapy which made her violently ill. It was mortifying to see his wife so reduced. She vomited for hours and the indignity of her skinny body hanging out of the bed to be sick into a bowl, her head collapsing onto her pillow as she groaned with pain almost made him question his faith. In assemblies he would refer to
Christopher’s illness: Janet seemed to be slipping
away. The doctors told him they held out very little hope. Occasionally, there
might be spontaneous remission, but it was rare. Snipe began to think it was
God’s will. In a matter of months she might be gone. Then he would be free. It
was no sin to take a second wife. The thought of it cheered him a little up in
the midst of his bitterness, anguish and melancholy. Then one day he had a visit
from a County Hall official. There were new accounting regulations and she was
to explain them. He dreaded it, but when she arrived he was delighted to find a
pretty woman in her early forties, neat and quick, very courteous with bright
eyes and a quick smile. The atmosphere in the house was terrible. They were waiting for death. Janet never mentioned it nor did she complain. She endured all the suffering and the animal humiliation without ever losing control. But sometimes the pain was so bad her face was contorted, all the restraint gone, the gentle traits of the middle-class woman who took the Christian injunction to love your neighbour as yourself seriously, twisted out of recognition as the raw fact of encroaching, agonising death took over. Then Snipe couldn’t sleep. He paced the house. He read St Augustine but found no comfort. He turned to the Bible. What good was it ? He dropped the black book onto his chair, got down on his knees and prayed but his prayers turned into sobs and once in desperation he said: “Damn you, God ! Damn you for letting my wife suffer like this !” It took him a long time to get over his blasphemy. He couldn’t come to terms with the emptiness of his feeling: it was completely new. The universe had always seemed to be organised for his success and contentment. Now it delivered nothing but upset. He had to accept that somehow it all fitted God’s plan. Christopher was doing well.
Every time Snipe ran into him he stopped to speak. He invited him into his study
and ordered coffee. Then came the complaint. The pupils had got hold of that
prevalent idea let loose into the education system by a punitive inspection
regime, that teachers had little power, and they were running with it. Parents
backed them up. Christopher gave a boy detention for failing to bring his kit
three lessons in a row. The mother wrote to complain: her boy couldn’t stay
after school. He lived two and a half miles away. If he wasn’t on the school bus
he’d have a long wait. She wouldn’t agree to him doing the detention unless
Christopher was willing to give him a lift home. And anyway, why couldn’t he do
it at lunchtime? Christopher put the boy in lunchtime detention. He failed to
arrive. When he was challenged he became truculent. With any other teacher, Snipe would have issued a formal warning. He met the mother and apologised: teaching was a stressful job these days; sometimes a teacher could forget himself; the member of staff concerned was young and inexperienced; he would be warned. When he spoke to Christopher, however, he was as complaisant' as possible. He knew the illness was to blame. It was a moment’s lapse. He was doing a good job. The incident would be forgotten. In fact, Christopher was in the
habit of swearing at pupils. He was short-tempered and still had some playground
bravura about him. Knowing that Snipe was on his side made him more reckless.
When a pupil called his first name in a mocking tone behind his back, he turned
quickly, spotted the boy, ran after him as he fled and took him into an empty
classroom. He closed the door. There was another complaint but Christopher denied everything. The lad had made it up. Snipe wrote to the parents explaining their son had been caught after insulting a member of staff; he was trying to compensate for his guilt. Mr John was an excellent teacher who maintained the highest standards of behaviour. The pupil could produce no witnesses. The matter was closed. It was just at this time that Janet’s health began suddenly to improve. Her appetite returned bit by bit and as she ate more she grew stronger. The disturbed sleep that kept her shifting and fidgeting faded away and she was able to go to bed at ten and get up at eight, refreshed and able to face the morning. Each day she went for a walk, a little further every time. She took up reading once more and went through the whole of Jane Austen in a fortnight. The doctors were amazed. But Snipe knew the answer. He felt very pleased with himself for having read the signs correctly. God had spoken to him and he had known how to respond. The woman from the County made more visits. Snipe still had no sex life. Janet’s recovery didn’t go that far. He had allowed himself to think this woman might one day be the second Mrs Snipe. Was she married ? She wore no ring. But sitting alone in his draughty living-room while Janet lay dying upstairs he had allowed his fantasies to bring him comfort: such a pretty, sweet little woman ! Imagine her busying herself around the house. Imagine that charming face and that chirping little voice across the table every day. Imagine her in bed, that energetic body yielding. Now he looked at her and realised it couldn’t be. It almost made him regret Janet’s recovery. The cancer was in remission. Janet still tired easily. She needed to be carefully looked after. But she could live a normal life, almost. Snipe sometimes still wondered how it all fitted God’s scheme of things. But he knew it was useless to speculate: God’s will was inscrutable and feeble human understanding mustn’t presume to understand. What he did understand, though, was that it was no coincidence that Christopher had come into his life. Suppose he had turned him down ? Suppose he hadn’t forgiven his small mistake of swearing at a pupil ? Janet might now be dead. He might now be married to the gorgeous little woman from accounts. But his wife was saved. That was what God had wanted. After just four terms, Christopher handed in his notice. He had been offered a job in a private school in Cumbria. His father was an old friend of the Head. Snipe had felt sure he would stay. He looked at Janet who was reading A Pair Of Blue Eyes and felt a twinge of concern: with Christopher gone, what would he do if she had a relapse ? She looked up and smiled. The agony had vanished. It was the face of an intelligent, kind, upper-middle-class, Christian woman. His wife. God’s will.
Abercrombie was convinced Bechara was having sex with his wife. He wasn’t interested in having sex with her himself, but she was his wife, after all. He had long since substituted the beer bottle for the vagina and thought a day when he didn’t get legless a waste. Maddy had put behind her the humiliation of trying to stimulate his reluctant cock. If it did rise, like the stock market, it fell in no time. Night after night he drank himself into a stupor and collapsed on the sofa or into the bed. When she met Bechara, she couldn’t wait to get her legs round him. He hardly drank. His cock stayed hard for an hour at a time. He was halfway good-looking. She was having all the sex with him she could. “What are you doing this afternoon?” asked Abercrombie. “Oh, just walking the dog, getting some food ready. Why?” He put down his wine glass and looked at her over his specs. She wasn’t going to tell him, was she? She wasn’t going to say: ‘I’m going round to Bechara’s and he’s going to lick my clitoris for twenty minutes.’ He wanted to throw his glass at her. The bitch! She was his wife, after all. “I was thinking we could do something together.” “Together? Like what? Me watching you get pissed?” “We could go for a walk.” “To the Black Horse? “By the river. We haven’t walked down the river for ages.” “You haven’t walked down the river for ten years, George. You’d probably fall in. I walk by the river every day.” “I’m not drunk yet.” “It’s ten past eleven.” “Well then?” “Well then what?” “We’ve got plenty of time for a walk.” “Okay. Okay, George. We’ll go for a walk. Are you ready?” “Not now.” “What’s wrong with now?” “I’m not ready.” “What do you have to do, finish the bottle?” “I was thinking we could walk this afternoon.” “So we wait till one minute past twelve?” “About two. Have a bite to eat. Go out about two.” “Fine, George. What d’you want to eat?” Maddy busied herself in the kitchen. Her Dalmatian lay in his basket by the door. “George is coming with us today, Legs. That’ll be fun. He’ll be rat-arsed, of course, and he’ll have a bottle in his pocket. We’ll probably have to fish him out of the river, or leave him there? What d’you think?” When she finished she went through to the lounge with a plate of food. The wine bottle was empty. George was snoring on the sofa. “For fuck’s sake!” She left the plate on the coffee table and went with Legs to Bechara’s. Ten minutes later she was naked in his armchair with her thighs open as he licked her clitoris. “Do you want me to leave?” she said. “No, it’s okay.” “How will you explain me away?” “I’ll say you’re a married woman whose husband is an alcoholic and we give one another comfort.” “Is that what you call it!” Bechara was tidying the small living-room. There were books piled here and there and newspapers strewn. “My dad’s very tidy. Broad-minded but tidy.” “He must be used to you.” “Aye, but best not make him feel uncomfortable. He doesn’t visit much.” “Perhaps I should go.” “No, stay. He’ll be glad to meet you. He likes meeting people.” Bechara had been briefly married to a childhood sweetheart. They conducted an on and off relationship from the age of sixteen and, suddenly, when she hit twenty, she decided she was on and wanted marriage and children. Six months after the ceremony, she changed her mind as rapidly and decisively, walking out to live with a self-made bricklayer who had just built himself a six-bedroomed house. Dismayed and disoriented, Bechara found refuge in science. At least the universe was predictable, to an extent. He’d drifted out of school at sixteen and had a string of unsatisfactory jobs but always hankered after doing a degree. He studied night and day and was accepted on a Physics course in Manchester. Now he was teaching A Level in a local college and feeling things were drifting again: changes crashed in like meteorites, initiatives fired off like rockets on 5th November: so many mirrors in which politicians and bureaucrats could preen. Meanwhile the students complained, this is too hard!, and demanded good grades. When he tangentially mentioned Relativity and told them nothing can travel faster than light, one student protested, I don’t agree with that! He and Maddy met through the Labour Party. They both joined in 1979. They both had the feeling the achievements of the 1945 lot, and even of the sixties lot, were about to be overturned. They saw a very nasty, greedy form of capitalism waiting in the wings and they wanted to bring down the curtain before its entrance. Instead, they ended up in bed together. Bechara’s dad was about to arrive and he was a sick man. He’d been a sick man for years and Bechara had expected him to die any time. But he clung on. His legs were done for and he shuffled along on sticks. His lungs were in tatters. But he still fancied himself. He’d once had a reputation with women. Only death would convince him it was finished. He arrived in a taxi. Bechara and Maddy helped him into the house. “Thank you! Thank you! Agh!” he gave a little gasp of pain as he sat down. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Maddy. Good that this long streak of piss I call my son has found himself a real woman at last.” “Can I get you a drink?” “Yes, my dear. That’s very kind of you. Tea. Milk, no sugar. That’ll be wonderful.” They talked about his ailments. He still had his deep, rolling voice full of backstreet chutzpah. Bechara listened with a mixture of pity, contempt and amusement to this old man he’d never really known who’d grown in poverty in the rough part of town, brought up by neglectful, hard-drinking parents and so was an opportunist through and through, grabbing what life had denied him. And what he loved to grab most of all was women. He couldn’t help but show off in front of them. Once handsome, he was now shrunken and weak. His silver hair was combed forward and when he smiled he showed the gaps where his fine, white teeth had been, gaps as dark as the grave. His hand trembled a little as he lifted his cup but his blue eyes flashed desire each time he looked at Maddy. “My legs, you see. My legs are the worst. Yes, I was so quick on my pins. I was a good sportsman. But the pain. It brings it home to you, what physical creatures we are.” There were things Bechara had to buy if he was going to cook. “I’ll nip into town. You two will be all right for an hour won’t you?” He was glad to get away. He strode towards town, following the river. When the tide was low it gave off an unpleasant, rotting smell. On the other side of the road he noticed someone dodging behind a tree. He knew at once it was Abercrombie. Should he cross? Should he greet him with an easy smile and ask him what he was up to? Maybe that wasn’t wise given he’d just been inside his wife. He walked on. As he turned to cross the road, he saw Abercrombie ducking behind a nearer tree. Surely he wasn’t going to follow him? And supposing he went to his house? He’d find Maddy and his dad. What would he make of that? When Bechara returned, Abercrombie was still there. He was leaning against the thick trunk of a horse chestnut smoking; as soon as Bechara turned the corner, he hid himself. Into Bechara’s mind drifted the previous Tuesday when they’d been at a Branch meeting . The General Election was approaching. There was no doubt they’d hold the constituency, this was Labour territory; Kier Hardie had stood in the early years of the twentieth century; the sitting member was on the left; she criticised the armaments industry on which thousands of local jobs depended; but it was solid. The question, then, was where to devote their energies. They all knew Michael Foot couldn’t win but they hoped for a miracle. In those brief few weeks of flux when a parliament has been dissolved and another not yet elected, there is something akin to real possibility. In theory, anything could happen. If the right people stay at home. If the swing is unpredictable in key constituencies. They clung to the fantasy that something might save them from a drubbing because if they’d admitted what was ahead, they wouldn’t have had the stomach to keep working. They decided to leaflet their ward once and get the vote out on the day. The rest of the time they’d work in the neighbouring Tory held constituency. After the meeting, they went, as usual, to the pub. Abercrombie began pouring beer down his throat. “Let’s go,” whispered Maddy. “Hang on!” “Come on! I want to suck your cock.” “People will suspect!” “Fuck ‘em!” They were a dozen. They sat around two little, circular tables talking politics. “Massive public spending!” said Abercrombie. “Nationalise the commanding heights,” said a union man, pot-bellied and bearded whose consumption was matching Abercrombie’s, pint for pint. “It’s the fucking Tory press. How many papers are against us?” said another as he counted them on his fingers. “Not to mention all the local rags and the tv. We’ll never win till we get democratic media.” “But we’ll win here,” said Bechara. “Why? People are made by their conditions. It’s as precise as calculus.” Abercrombie went to the bar. “Come on,” whispered Maddy. Bechara left first, claiming work to prepare. Maddy gave him ten minutes. She arrived at his house with the dog, took her lover straight upstairs and threw off her clothes.
Bechara arrived with the shopping to find Maddy cross-legged on the rug in front of the fire and his dad holding forth about the old days. “We didn’t have the opportunities, you see. Seventeen I signed up. It was that or conscription and I wasn’t going to be cannon fodder. I got into the RAF because I was bright, but they never made use of me. I wanted to learn languages. They taught me to type.” “Oh,” she looked up at Bechara with eyes as sad and pleading as her dog’s. Bechara prepared simple food: baked potatoes and salad and the three of them ate with plates on their knees. The old man lived alone and cooked for himself, but it was such a task he’d often make do with a ham sandwich or a few slices of toast. Bechara’s mother had divorced him when she found him in bed with the sixteen year-old from next door. He’d never remarried and had slipped into lazy, bachelor habits. To sit with his son and eat a meal made for him, to have the company, to be in a warm house, to be able to reminisce, made him feel almost as if life might spark up in him again. “So what’s going to happen in the election?” he asked. “We’ll win the constituency. Things don’t look good nationally,” said Maddy. “A thrashing,” said Bechara. “I don’t understand it,” said his father. “What do people want?” “They don’t know what they want, that’s the problem,” said Bechara. “Surely they can see where their interests lie?” “It’s no easier than seeing that mass and energy are the same thing.” “You know, I remember when they built the council houses in Flett St. We were amazed. They had bathrooms! People were open-mouthed. Bathrooms. Now they’re sellin’em off.” “Well, I have a mortgage. You own your own house. Everybody’s out for a bit of property.” “Yeah, but not against other people,” said Maddy. “No-one think it’s against anyone,” said Bechara. “That’s the trick of the propaganda. Just look after yourself. The propaganda denies that we’re social. Bevan should have nationalised the housing stock.” “I’m going to die in a country where the rich are richer than ever and the poor getting poorer. I never thought I’d see it. Shame for old Footy. He’s a good man.” Bechara liked Foot too. He was a good man, as men go. But was his father? Hadn’t he got into bed with any woman he could lay hands on? Hadn’t he made a woman twenty years younger pregnant and left her to bring up the child? Hadn’t he run his little businesses, shops, cafes, in the hope of making his fortune? As for Maddy, hadn’t she modelled when she was a teenager. Demure stuff, but all the same, making money from her pretty face and her slim waist. And himself? Didn’t he wish he was a professor of Physics with a nice big house and enough money in the bank not to worry? “Ah,” sighed the old man, “this country needs a bloody revolution!” When the dark settled, after they’d finished their food and their cups of tea and the conversation was waning, Bechara called for a taxi. He didn’t run a car, as a way of economising, and cycling and walking kept him fit. They helped the old man into the back seat, told him he was welcome any time. Indoors, Maddy took off her clothes and lay on the rug. “Oh, it’s so good to be here, to be naked, to be warm, to be with you.” He looked down at her long white body. She rocked her bent knee enticingly. “Make love to me, Becha. Come inside me.” She clung to him and kissed him frantically and her hips rocked like cams. It was unnerving the way she threw herself at him. She was like a Labrador puppy that leaps up and licks your face and won’t stop. Nice in its way, but in the end you want to push the little thing away. Wasn’t she just on the run from Abercrombie? He pictured him ducking behind the trees. Maybe he was there now, waiting to see her leave. Perhaps he was propping up a tree, pissed, dragging on a fag watching for evidence that she was getting into his bed every time she could. “Oh Becha! Yes, Becha! Darling!”
A week or so later he was leafleting with Abercrombie. They hurried up and down the terraced streets. When their hands were empty, they headed back to the committee rooms. “I could do with a drink,” said Abercrombie. “When we’ve finished I’ll buy you a pint.” “You’re not a drinker yourself.” “Not really.” “What are you?” “Sorry?” “I mean, what are you. Really. You’re a bit of a mystery to me.” “Am I?” “Yes, you’re a bit of an enigma. I mean, what makes you tick?” “I’m a physicist. That’s my passion.” “Your passion!” “What’s wrong with that?” “I don’t see how anyone could get passionate about bloody Physics. But that’s my artistic bent I suppose.” “Maybe. How’s the work coming along?” “The work is fucked.” “Really? Why’s that?” “Because I’m never sober long enough to do any bloody research. The university’s cut off the funding.” “That’s a shame.” “Is it?” “It is for you, I guess.” “Frankly, I don’t give a toss. Who wants to read a thesis on Louis fucking Zukofsky anyway?” “So what are you going to do?” “Drink. My lovely wife will teach and bring home the bacon and I’ll go to the pub and get pissed. There’s a marriage for you.” “Well, if it works.” “If it works!” Abercrombie laughed raucously. “What about you?” he said. “Me?” “Yes, what do you do with your sexuality?” Bechara turned to him. Behind his glasses his narrow, dark eyes were hard. “At the moment, nothing.” “At the moment? You mean, you’re in sort of semi-retirement from sex.” “I wouldn’t say that.” “What would you say?” “I’d say I’m just unattached at the moment.” “Unattached! Oh, come on! You can do better than that. When did you last have a good shag?” Bechara looked at him again. “About an hour and a half ago.” “Christ! Who was the lucky girl?” “A gentleman doesn’t betray a lady’s secrets.” “What kind of bourgeois fucking crap is that! Spill the beans. A good fuck is she? Someone I know?” “As a matter of fact, yes.” “Why the big secret? Who is it? Does she suck your cock for you?” They were outside the terraced house that served as committee rooms. “Yes, she does. She does it very nicely, actually.” “Well, actually, does she take it up the arse?” Bechara went indoors. When the job was over and they’d been to the pub and Abercrombie had staggered home and collapsed on the sofa, Maddy was in Bechara’s bed, the duvet pulled up to her chin. “I wish I was as slim as you,” she said. “You are.” “I’m not!” As he came over to the bed she reached out and felt the muscles in his thighs. “Those muscles! So hard!” “They’re not hard. They’re just ordinary thigh muscles.” “No, they’re hard. Like your cock.” Bechara was glad she liked his thighs and his cock but he wondered how long this rhapsodising could last. At midnight she was getting dressed to leave. “George knows.” “No, he doesn’t.” “He does, Maddy. He spoke to me tonight.” “What? He said he knew.” “Not directly.” “What did he say?” “He asked me what I do with my sexuality.” “He was pissed.” “No. While we were leafleting.” “Well, what does it matter?” “He’s your husband.” “He’s not married to me, Becha. He’s married to booze and his mother.” “But he still thinks of you as his wife.” “Let him think. I’m tired of him. He’s a baby.” “It’s getting to him.” “What is?” “That you’re having sex with me.” “George can’t have sex with anyone. He can’t get a hard-on, Becha. It’s pathetic.” “Maybe we should cool off for a bit.” “What?” She stopped and fixed him. “Till his suspicions die down.” “I don’t give a fuck about his suspicions!” “Just a short time.” “Do you think I want to stay married to him, Becha? That miserable little soak!” “Okay. Okay. But let’s just be careful for a while.” At six in the morning Bechara got a call from the hospital. By the time he’d cycled there, the screens were round his father’s bed. A young doctor, slim, calm, with a very intelligent face assumed a demeanour of dignity as she approached him. “I’m so sorry,” she said. It was an expert professional apology. For the next few days he scurried round arranging the funeral, getting documents to the solicitor, clearing his father’s house. He avoided Maddy. When the funeral was over he got a sicknote, packed a bag and took the train to Munich. He wanted to the visit Einstein’s childhood house. From there he wrote to Maddy. Dear Maddy, Hope all’s well with you and that George isn’t too much of a pain in the arse. I’m okay here. It’s good to be away. I don’t think I can come back. My dad’s death has changed things. I don’t know why, but I don’t belong in the old place any more. When the house is sold I’ll have a small inheritance, probably more money in one go than I’ll ever see again. I’m going to make the best of it, sell up and find myself a university job somewhere in Europe. Physics is international. We can talk it over when I’m back, but my mind’s made up. I can’t stay. love, Becha.
When he got home, Maddy was sitting on his sofa. “How did you get in?” She held up a key. “You okay?” She flew at him with an anger even more overwhelming than her passion. He was destroying her. What was she to do? Did he expect her to go back to Abercrombie? Did he really think he could live without her? Legs got up from the floor and came to stand by her. Was she just someone who came and went? A passing thing? It was outrageous! She stormed out with the dog. He couldn’t face work so he disappeared. In London he stayed in a cheap hotel near Euston. From there he went to Maidstone to visit an old university friend. Then he jumped on a ferry and wound up in Paris where he slipped into the role of flaneur, stayed in cheap room in the Quartier Latin and ate on the streets. He came back to England two days before the election, didn’t take part, but stayed up to watch the results. At three in the morning there was a knock on the door. He let her in and she handed over the key. “What a disaster!” “It was inevitable.” “What’s going to happen?” “Who can say? There’s an evil mood in the air. It’ll live itself out.” “Is that it? It’ll live itself out. Isn’t there anything we can do?” “Nothing we do will change much. We’re a minority. People have chosen to foul their own nest. We’re like Galileo: we may be right but the world is against us.” “But everyone accepts Galileo now.” “Most people have never heard of him.” She sat on the sofa. There was a brief shot of Michael Foot looking tired and defeated on the screen, quickly replaced by the triumphal celebration of the remarkable victory. “ I’m scared, Becha.” “Fear is their weapon. The war of each against all. Don’t expect the rest of your life to be lived in pleasant social conditions. Where’s George?” “Unconscious on the sofa. He predicted a hung parliament.” “I predict a hangover.” “I’m kicking him out. Tomorrow. Enough is enough.” The next day, Bechara put his house on the market. He went off again, visiting friends here and there and, once both houses were sold, he rented flats and moved from town to town picking up stupid work: sitting on the tills in supermarkets, driving little delivery vans, serving behind bars. All the time he was hoping something was going to change. Finally, he found a job teaching physics and maths in a school in South London. There was big sixth-form so he thought it wouldn’t be too difficult. But the pupils didn’t want to learn. The daily battle defeated him. Kids of perfectly average intelligence would wilfully resist understanding the difference between parallel and series. He gave up and simply went through the motions. The years went by and things got worse and worse and more and more he wracked his brains to think of a way out, a means of taking cover till the social madness had receded. Then one day an angry parent demanded to see the Head and once in her office, drew a Sabatier and stabbed her in the heart. His son had been suspended for extortion. Bechara handed in his notice. He moved back to the north and bought a tiny house in a collapsing town in East Lancashire. When he introduced himself to his neighbours, the husband said: “Not a bad street this. No pakis.” Bechara took out a subscription to Searchlight.
Sir Stephen Gibley already had
control of three Academies. There’d been some fuss, of course, over his
fundamentalist views. An Oxford professor of biology had written to The
Guardian, which Gibley viewed as a communistic journal. But for a mere six
million, most of which he hadn’t even yet handed over, he’d appointed the
governors and the staff and set the curriculum in all three. In his less
restrained moments, he imagined his reach extending over the entire school
system. In the foyer of Queens, his first acquisition, was a commemorative stone
on which was carved in gold letters: Established to the greater glory of God and
opened by Tony Blair. He was on the verge of endowing his fourth but the parents
were resisting. He’d met the Prime Minister who’d said: “Don’t worry. We know
how to bully people into accepting these things.” But the campaign hadn’t
evaporated. Behind it were two women, one who worked in a Welfare Rights office,
the other in a supermarket. The kind of people Gibley would sack and send on
their way without a qualm. He was beginning to get frustrated.
Students were arriving by car, bus and train, lugging heavy suitcases, wheeling trunks on battered, tilting, squeaking trolleys ; there were rucksacks, holdalls, shoulder bags, carrier bags, Gladstones, clydes. The campus swarmed. Concerned parents followed their offspring across the square and into halls: brick-built, three-storey blocks, mostly, where ten students shared a floor. Mrs Treanor was following her son who was six inches taller and whose stride was long and swift. She’d expected him to go to Oxbridge, or at least Durham . Being married to a minor diplomat, her children were educated in private schools at the expense of the taxpayer, an arrangement she thought excellent. That the children of the working-class were educated at university by the same means, she thought of as Bolshevism. Still, here they were, in Lancaster. It was a university, apparently. As she entered her son’s college, she crossed paths with a startlingly good-looking girl. At once it struck her that her son might soon be in bed with such a young woman. Or even that very one! This was 1972 after all. The sexual revolution had happened. He was no longer in the exclusive atmosphere of a public school. And this was the north! He might mix with all kinds of riff-raff. The riff-raff in question was Ann Leakey and John Treanor did end up in bed with her. They were both studying French and Russian. Ann was the outstanding beauty of her year. Slim and dark with wide blue eyes she looked lovely in the downbeat clothes she usually wore. She was also stunningly intelligent and whipped through Proust as if it were the Daily Mail, while her fellow students struggled, looking up every tenth word. Boys were after her, as they’d been for years. Most of them bored her. She was looking for something different, though she didn’t know what. She just had a sense, like someone who has grown bored of a repetitive diet, that something unusual was necessary. John had noticed her on the first day. When she’d appeared in the lecture theatre for the talk on Charles Peguy, his heart quickened. He got to know girls on her floor. He was in their kitchen with a bottle of Sauternes when she came in. She was unobtrusive but unmissable. She went to her cupboard and took out her mug. “I was hoping my father would get posted to Paris,” he said loudly. “I’d love to live in Paris. Madrid is fine, of course, but I adore Paris.” Ann quietly made a cup of coffee. One of the girls asked her what she was up to and she said she was translating. “Oh, I love translating!” said John. “I was always the best in my class. But I agree with Voltaire about translations, don’t you?” Ann disappeared. As she went down the corridor, she could hear John’s loud, annoying voice. He was tall and strong and intelligent looking. But his loud, intrusive arrogance put her off. A few days later she was buying a TLS when someone hissed. She turned round. It was him. He stood over her with a big smile, as if he were posing for a camera. “What are you buying?” She looked at the paper. “TLS.” “That’s very intellectual.” “That’s an exaggeration.” He laughed loudly and nervously. “Are you going to the disco tonight?” he asked. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ll finish L’existentialisme est un humanisme.” He laughed loudly again. “I think I prefer a disco to Sartre!” “Do you? I’m still trying to decide.” “Are you walking back?” “When I’ve paid for this. I’m not shoplifting.” “No!” he guffawed. “I’ll wait outside.” Ann joined the queue. She wished one of her friends would appear. She’d met two or three girls she got on with brilliantly. Like her, they were from unpretentious families. If only one of them would arrive now and they could walk back together. “By the way,” said John as she came out of the shop, “you wouldn’t have a clothes brush I could borrow would you?” “A clothes brush?” she put her change in her purse wondering if she should lie. “Yes, my jacket got amazingly dusty in the bar last night. Things got a bit hectic and my jacket fell off the chair and everyone walked over it. It’s a real mess!” She glanced up at him. He was one of those fine specimens the English public schools turn out: tall, clean, smooth and lacking in character like a newly-built house. Without knowing it, she dropped her guard a little. She found herself thinking he was a buffoon, but harmless, and her natural generosity took hold. She was like a boy who ventures out onto a frozen pond , and has no idea how it might feel to be in the chill water, beneath the ice. “As a matter of fact, I have. But it’ll cost you.” “Oh, don’t worry about that,” he said loudly, “I’m loaded.” She made him wait outside while she searched. He tried to peep through the door left ajar. She remained inside and held the brush out to him. The electric light caught her eyes and made them shine bright blue. He stared at her. “Here. I hope it does the trick.”
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