Sweet Sorrow(100)

‘Do I? Because you never actually talk about it.’

‘What’s there to talk about? What do you think I’m going to tell you?’

‘You’ve got pills by your bed! You think I can’t read the labels?’

He looked dazed for a moment. ‘That is under control, that’s not for you to worry about!’

‘But I do worry! That’s all I do! How could I not – Christ, I fucking hate it here!’

‘Charlie!’ He recoiled – I saw it – as if from a blow, and I kept going. ‘And I fucking hate living with you! Every day, it’s like, “Is he going to shout at me? Is he going to have another go?”’

Another blow. ‘That’s not true.’

‘I come home and think it’s five in the afternoon, is he going to be pissed? Has he been crying? Has he left the house today? You’re miserable, Dad, and you’re miserable to be with.’

‘Charlie, I do know, I am aware.’

‘And I know there are reasons, but you don’t talk about them, you don’t talk about anything!’

‘Why are we even on this now? It’s you who’s been stealing money! Why?’

‘Because we haven’t got any!’

Finally the music ended. Shaking, confused, Dad felt behind him for the sofa and let himself stumble backwards and fold over as if punched in the gut, and for an awful moment I had a terrible, spiteful sense of power. This is me, I thought, I’ve done this, and I don’t care.

There was no sound except the soft click of the needle.

‘Why didn’t you stay together?’

‘It wasn’t my choice.’

‘But you could have waited. Kept a lid on things, for a year or two, even a couple of months. Other parents do it, for the sake of the kids or whatever, just ’til we were older.’

‘I told you, it wasn’t my choice!’

‘But you drove her away! If you could have just … held it together!’

Time passed. Click, click. ‘Do I embarrass you?’ he said.

‘No.’

‘Are you ashamed of me?’

Click, click, click. ‘I don’t know. Are you ashamed of me?’

‘Of course not. You’re my son, I love you.’

‘But are you proud of me, Dad? Actively, genuinely proud?’

He didn’t speak. Instead he looked to the floor, frowning, then spoke quite clearly.

‘No. Not right now. No.’





Fête


I left the house, red-eyed and shaking, not even closing the door behind me. As far as I knew, my bicycle was still in the back of Mr Howard’s car, its front wheel buckled, another forfeit for my crime, and so I walked Forster, Kipling, Woolf, Gaskell and Mary Shelley. I walked round the town centre, where the late-night drinkers still staggered towards the Golden Calf or Taj Mahal, or slumped on the steps of the market cross. I knew that I could not return home that night, but where to go? Harper’s? Helen’s? They’d all want to know the story and I didn’t have the words yet, so instead I found myself walking through the silent residential streets, heading out to the ring road, crossing the motorway bridge, alongside the wheat-field, right at the bus shelter and up the wooded lane.

I arrived at the gatehouse a little after three. It had been vacated in a hurry, the sofa-bed still unfolded but stripped of bedding, and I imagined Fran, embarrassed and angry, sitting in the passenger seat, sheets bundled up against her chest, while Bernard drove her home, pyjamas on beneath his hunting jacket. In the glare of the overhead bulb I noticed that the nightlights had been removed too, leaving a series of charred black dots around the edge of the room like holes punched in the wooden floor. Something else to be paid for.

Naively, I’d hoped that Polly would respond to our adventure like the Nurse, shifting her bosom and chuckling indulgently at the plan, pleased and proud to have played a part in the union of young lovers. But on the phone she had been straightforwardly furious, a voice I’d not heard from her before. How dare we abuse her hospitality in this way? We were trespassers, no, burglars! She’d expected more of me – it seemed that everyone expected more of me, and I wondered what I’d done to raise their expectations.

Four thirty in the morning now. I lay carefully on the sofa-bed, face down to protect the wounds. With no bedding, there was only the filthy rug for warmth, and I pulled this up to my chin, pinched my eyes shut and surrendered to exhaustion and Romeo-like self-pity; ah me, such bliss and misery, both found in this same bed!

And such dread the next day. I would need to see Fran. What would be worse, the pain of seeing her or the agony of delay? In the night, stiffness had set in, some deep muscular strain from my passage over the handlebars, and I groaned as I stored the sofa-bed away. I’d not brushed my teeth in twenty-four hours, still wore my mum’s lover’s awful tracksuit, required a speech for Fran but had none prepared. I drank the rusty water from the kitchen tap and swilled it in my mouth, rubbed my teeth and gums with my finger and set out.

Summer had returned, the air heavy and still like something to swim through, and the village, when I reached it, had turned into a small metropolis, cars lining the lane to the church where the village fête was underway, bunting overhead, a calliope playing, squeals from the bouncy castle. There was even a jolly vicar shaking hands, and no one would have been the least surprised if Spitfires had flown overhead. It was an English idyll, smelling of petrol mowers and freshly cut grass, and as I hurried on to Fran’s house, I was more aware than ever of the heavy grey velour of my borrowed tracksuit, a sweaty, shifty convict on the run, ducking to peer through the privet of Fran’s front hedge. The bedroom window was open, the bedroom that I’d not yet seen and probably never would. Perhaps she was lying on the bed, thinking about me.