A Certain Age (10 page)

[
A big sigh; he sits up and arranges himself against pillows etc.; coughs, lights up fag
] We had a day out yesterday, David and me. It was what you might call an unmitigated disaster. The thing was, Mrs Watson give me a hard time again when I picked David up Tuesday night; she said I ought to spend more quality time with him, see, away from the music. She said it would be an improvement, in fact, if we spent any time together at all. It might help us to “move on”. Everyone’s an expert on me and David, see; everyone’s our unofficial counsellor; that’s what happens when you’re bereaved. [
Smokes
] It’s not an uninteresting process, I’ll say that. Suddenly, instead of being a viable
human being with a job and a family, see, who can be trusted to get on with his own life, you’re just this sort of big emotional blobby thing that people feel they can all take a poke at with a sharp stick. It’s like you got a sign on you: “Come on, give us a poke; if you draw blood, you get a prize.” Like that woman visiting the old lady in the hospice, when Kaff was dying, complete stranger, she took me aside and said, [
loud whisper
] “You and David will have to be brave for each other now.” And you got to take it, that’s the funny thing. When there’s death going on, you got to say, all grateful, with tears in your eyes, “Do you know, Mrs Doodah, that’s so wise you ought to write it down,” when what you really want to do is punch her in the face, or at least point out that her son is wearing a T-shirt with “Megadeth” printed on it, which is far from tactful in a hospice. She said the same to David, as well, this woman. I heard her. [
Whisper
] “You’ll have to brave for each other, you and your dad.” Brave for each other? Of course we’re brave for each other, silly cow. We know that much, thank you, we’re not stupid.

Took me a little while to come up with a scheme for a day out, though, coz I didn’t want David to smell a rat, like. I mean, if I said, all casual, “Son, how about a bit of a knockabout down the park?” he’d of thought, now, that’s a bit odd, Dad bloody hates football and so do I. And there was lots of things I couldn’t suggest coz they’d of reminded him of his mum. Then I remembered how he’d always fancied a go on that London Eye, you know, and I thought, well, I
COULD
handle that, it’s only half an hour, I don’t have to spend the whole time on it picturing, you know, a fatal catastrophe. There’s no need to dwell on the way it might break off its spindle, like, and then with this terrible roaring, trumpeting noise like a dying
elephant, roll along the river-bed of the Thames and crash into Waterloo Bridge all buckled like a wrecked bicycle wheel. And meanwhile all the people in the glass bubbles getting thrown about like grains of sand in an egg-timer and suffocating and dying under water and ending up as the first item on the
Six O’Clock News.

The thing about David is that he looks ever so much like his mum, have I said that? Light-blue eyes, all alive and watchful. And when he laughs – oh blimey, when he laughs he’s the spitting image. And he’s dead quick like she was. “You’re not going to worry about this, Dad?” he said as we stepped into the gondola thing. [
Brave laugh
] “Course not,” I said. “Course not. Come on, David, this’ll be lovely.” Then the door closed on the little group we were destined to share our lovely watery grave with, and we started to rise up in the air, swinging a bit, and I shut my eyes and thought about how, if I sorted out the room with the records in it, we could set up that old ping-pong table Kaff’s mum give us; and then I thought how strange it was that David don’t play computer games like other kids and is it my fault, I bet it’s my fault for not encouraging him or asking other kids round to play, but when does encouragement become interference, and when does interference become bullying, and would I be a better dad if I sat him down and said, “
TALK
to me about your mum, David,” but on the other hand what kid wants a ping-pong table these days, you must be crackers, John, and when I opened my eyes we’d only travelled about a foot into the air and I thought, mm, this is going to be a test, then.

Obviously I was disappointed. I’d had this romantic idea, see, that when we was way up in the blue sky and the fluffy clouds, like, perhaps me and David would finally just speak to each other about Kaff and everything. I’d
forgotten it might be overcast and raining – which it was – and that there’d be other damp and steaming people in our capsule, in any case, some of them foreigners, jabbering away and misidentifying London landmarks through the murk, and that in any case I’d be mostly listening for the fatal snap of a cable, and trying to work out whether the drop would kill us first (before we drowned). And it never occurred to me, either, that David might be frightened. But he was, you know. I’m pretty sure he was. He went all white and sweaty and he wouldn’t look at me. I didn’t know what to do – it was so unlike him, he’s been so strong.

“This is good, isn’t it, David?” I say, all nonchalant. “See that thing over there that those people just said was the Cenotaph? That’s Cleopatra’s Needle, point of fact.” He nods but doesn’t say anything, and keeps looking in the other direction. “Look, there’s Thames Street, where Mrs Watson lives,” I say. “Mm,” he says, with his eyes closed. He just won’t look at me; it’s horrible. So I try another tack, try talking about home instead, to take his mind off it. “David,” I say, “I found some old records in the living-room, do you think they could have been your mum’s, it’s just she never mentioned them.” And he looks up at me, almost fierce, and says, [
he’s still upset by what David said
] “Look, stop it, Dad.” Just like that. “Stop it, Dad.” Well, I’m hurt. I say, “What? Stop what?” And he says, “Stop worrying! Look, if people don’t tell you things, it’s only because they love you!” And I think, “Whoa!” I think, “Oh my God, David.” And I look out at the big rainy sky above the big rainy town and I think, well, that’s that for me and David, then. We’ve had it.

[
Cello
]

[
Dead
] I wish he’d stop. I do really.

Scene Four: the cello is playing something mournful throughout the scene; as the scene progresses, we realise this is a good thing, but at first it is ambiguous. John is having another look at the records; he’s hurt

[
He flips
] So these
ARE
Kaff’s records, then. I asked her sister and she told me. [
Flip
] Apparently, she loved them, but she used to hide them from me, you know, the usual thing: protect John by lying to him; protect John by excluding him; don’t tell him anything and then say it was love and concern what stopped you. I mean, if she was here, I’d have a right go at her. You know what she thought? Well, I reckon she thought if I heard these records, I’d get upset remembering my horrible old dad, and how he was so “cruel” to me when I wanted a cello. So she shared them with David instead, and the upshot is – and this is dead funny, this is – the upshot is he now plays “Air on a Bloody G String” all day and all night, so it didn’t work, Kaff, did it? It didn’t work in any case! That’s what you call irony, that is. Oh what a mess. Blimey, I’d of been able to cope with a bit of Paul Tortelier once in a while, Kaff. I’m just a bit of a worrier; I’m not a bloody psycho.

It wasn’t easy, but I went and asked Mrs Watson what the hell was going on, like. I was sick of it. There’s this boy in the house, see, this lovely boy, and I’ve been loyally defending him against everyone, saying he’s doing brilliantly, coping brilliantly, handling it, but it turns out, I’m not being funny, I’ve only been doing that because I’m stupid. So I say, all right, Mrs Watson, you tell me. Here’s the theories so far. I produce this list. [
Rustle of paper
] They may entertain you in their diversity, if nothing else, I say. [
Ahem
] All right, David plays all the time because [
reads]:

One. He’s a nutter, like his dad – no, listen, I’m not being funny.

Two. He’s communing in some morbid way with his dead mum.

Three. [
He likes this one
] He’s successfully taking his mind off his dead mum by concentrating on practical matters such as bow technique.

Four. [
He hates this one
] He’s being brave for his dad’s sake.

And five – oh yeah, I threw this one in, for good measure – he just happens to really like the cello.

[
Paper folded up
] Well, she’s dead angry, as it happens. She doesn’t like my list at all. She implies it’s none of the above, like, and things get a bit heated. “Do you actually listen to him playing?” she keeps saying. “Listen?” I say. [
Scoffing
] “Of course I listen. Not much option in a house that size. I’m just glad he didn’t choose the alpine horn, mate, that’s the only thing that could of made it worse.” “He wants you to hear him, John,
THAT’S WHY HE PLAYS
,” she says. And I say, [
exasperated
] “Look, I hear him all the time!” “No you don’t!” she says. “All right, John, what do you
FEEL
when you hear him playing?” “Oh, don’t you start!” I say, and I walk out.

[
Cello
]

And I come back here. I mean, what does she mean,
LISTEN
? I’m always listening to him. I wish he’d talk to me, that’s all, instead of sawing away at that big hollow box from dawn till dusk. They ask every time down at Grief HQ, “Have you talked to David yet? Have you cried yet? If you cry, John, perhaps you can both move forward.” And I say, [
he knows he’s been wrong about this now, though
] “For the last time, David’s all right, he don’t need to talk to me, if he did, he would.”

[
Cello
]

I’m worn out with it. It wears you out, loving people and losing them, and trying to judge what’s best for the survivors. I mean, I’m just a bloke, how am I supposed to know how to comfort a kid who’s lost his mum? He didn’t sleep, you know, all the time she was in that hospice. He didn’t eat. He clung to her at the end; poor Kaff, it must of been heart-breaking to see him like that, [
it’s getting to him
] like his whole little life was being snuffed out.

[
The cello swells
]

I’m doing my best, Kaff. I been trying so hard not to push him. And all this time – I’m so stupid. [
Overwhelmed, starts to weep
] All this time he’s been telling me how he feels, hasn’t he? In the music. He’s been telling me how he feels and I wasn’t even listening!

[
He opens the door and calls, in distress
] David!

[
The cello stops
]

[
Softly
] Oh, David, David, I’m so sorry.

Scene One: afternoon TV in background

Dad keeps asking, “So who was it? Who was it, Judykins? Have you got a secret admirer?” So thank you, God, as Basil Fawlty used to say. Thank you
SO
much. I had just got back from my daily excursion to Mac Fisheries. I mean, I’m well aware it’s a Tesco Metro; I do know that. It’s just Daddy likes the old names – or perhaps he thinks I like the old names – anyway, it’s nobody’s business if we prefer to talk about James Walker’s and Lilly and Skinner’s. “Popping in to Timothy White’s for some more of your fly-away hair shampoo?” Daddy says. “You’ve got a boyfriend in there you’re not telling me about.” It’s nice to remember Timothy White’s. I don’t care what anyone else thinks. We don’t lead our lives for other people.

So, I’d just got back from Mac Fisheries, you see, and I’d put the bags on the breakfast bar ready to make the usual Wednesday lunch – frozen beefburgers, mash, baked beans; we eat very sensibly, Daddy and I – when the telephone rang. I hate the phone, myself. We only keep it on because when I last inquired about disconnection – when I got that last nasty phone call from Roger – the GPO said they would be “obliged” to take away our smart Trimphone and couldn’t guarantee we’d get the same model again if we ever wanted to reconnect. “You won’t get one of these again, sweetheart, these went out with the ark,” the man joked, so I told him as far as I was concerned he could go out with the ark himself, and we’d keep the phone. Daddy wanted to keep it, I remember – not that he has anyone to call. We did his eightieth last month, and it was just us two. But he declared he’d pay the bill himself, and has done ever since. It comes in his name; I don’t even see it. It’s amazing the stubbornness of the old.

And now it was ringing. Trilling. You might say warbling. We both looked at it, and looked at each other, but in the end I answered. “Hello, this is St Margaret’s 2622.” “Judith!” said the person at the other end. I knew I shouldn’t have said yes. But I was so relieved it wasn’t him that I didn’t think. “Jude, it’s me!” this familiar voice said. “It’s Beverley! Remember? From Richmond High!”

I sat down. “It’s me! Bev!” she said again. Daddy was signalling at me, and I didn’t know what to do, so I put my head down and let my hair swing forward like a curtain right around me and the receiver – the way I used to let it fall round my rough book at school. It’s quite comforting to be able to do that. Daddy says they based the character in
The Addams Family
on me – the one
that’s all hair and shuffles along like a walking haystack. Glad that I couldn’t see Daddy, I said quietly, “I’m afraid I can’t talk at the moment. Can I take your number?” “Oh,” she said. “Sorry, is this a bad time? Call me. I’m at the paper till about 1.30 on – got a pen? I’m on 0-2-0-7, blah, blah, blah; blah, blah, blah.” I don’t know what she said, I didn’t write it down, I just made uh-huh noises to make it sound as if I was. “Then my mobile is 0-7-7, blah, blah, and my home is 0-2-0-8, blah.” She seemed very proud of all these numbers. “Are you on e-mail?” she said. “No.” “Well, just in case, the address is Beverley, dot, Brayfield, dot, blah, dot, uk, dot, blah – at blah-blah.”

The beefburgers weren’t quite right. The same box; but they didn’t taste the same. They think you’ll put up with that kind of thing, but I shall speak to Mr Thomas tomorrow. He might give me a voucher for Carnation milk or something. Bev sounded like she might ring again if I didn’t call her back, so when Daddy was having his afternoon nap with
Godspell
playing on the music centre (my choice; he prefers Radio Four), I quietly laid down the cryptic crossword we’d started, and unplugged the phone from the wall. I’d just worked out “Harassed nurse left with a sense of grievance” – something E, something E something T something something something – was “Resentful”. An anagram of “Nurse” and “Left”. Daddy and I enjoy our cryptics. Oddly enough, we can’t do the quick, easy, five-minute sort at all.