Cupid's Dart (11 page)

It would be a difficult visit to my mother. She would still be fuming because I had missed my usual day without letting her know, but I was aware, as I bought the cake and fetched the Saab from its garage, that there was an extra element now. I longed to tell her about Ange. Why? For all sorts of reasons. Believe it or not, I felt more proud of the relationship than ashamed of it. At least I was living, and I knew that my mother felt that I was too dull to have any kind of life worth relating. Also, conversation at the Home was painfully difficult. This would at least be something to talk about. Besides, I would be delighted to be able to shock her. You may think that cruel at her age, but you haven't sat there week after week for nine years and watched her being so smug in her condemnations, so complacent in her disapproval. The main reason, however, was more honourable: I just did not want there to be such a yawning gap between us. If I had such a large and growing secret, it would make our relationship even more sterile, my visits even more pointless. I realised that in the nine days since I had last visited her, Ange had begun to become really important to me.

The Home smelt of fish and stale cabbage. It always smelt of stale cabbage, regardless of what they had had for lunch. The only difference that their lunch made to the atmosphere was that, if they had fish, the whole place smelt of fish
and
stale cabbage.

My theory of relativity is much simpler than Einstein's. Time goes at varying speeds. Time is a malign omniscient God who can see what I am doing and moves accordingly. 'He's with his mother. Slow down.'

'Hello, Mother.'

Peck on the cheek. No warmth. Same every time.

'So, you've come eventually.'

I didn't rise to this. I put the carrier bag down. In it was the cake. Walnut.

'I've brought you a cake, Mother. Walnut.'

'I hope there aren't bits in it. My teeth can't cope with bits.'

'How are you?'

'Why do you ask? You aren't interested. If you were, you'd have come on Wednesday.'

'Mother, I wasn't well, I didn't want to give you food poisoning, you aren't as strong as you used to be, it might kill you.'

'Why should you think that would upset me? What sort of a life do I lead?'

I chose to ignore that. I repeated my question. 'How are you?'

'Oh, mustn't grumble.'

'Good.'

'My balance isn't what it was.'

What could I say to that? All I could dredge up was, 'Oh dear. I'm sorry.'

She lowered her voice. 'I need a nurse in the room when I go to the commode.'

I was shocked. This meant that her balance really was bad. She would never be seen on the lavatory by another human being unless it was absolutely necessary.

'I've fallen twice.'

It was coming, the beginning of her terminal decline.

I decided to change the subject, this one upset me, but I let a minute or so go first. I didn't want to use up my questions too quickly. They had to last for two hours.

'What did you have for lunch?' I asked at last.

'Fish. We always have fish on a Friday, though of course you wouldn't know that, as you usually come on a Wednesday.'

'Mother, are you going to spend the whole of this Friday complaining because I didn't come on Wednesday, because if you are I might as well not have come at all.'

'Well, don't if you don't want to. I don't want to be a burden.'

I wanted to scream, but I controlled myself. I used up a few seconds, and then I asked my next inspired question.

'What sort of fish?'

'I don't know.'

My heart sank again. Was her memory beginning to go?

'You couldn't tell. It was so tasteless.'

A wave of relief swept over me so powerfully that I broke out into a light sweat. Her remark had been a criticism and not a lapse.

I so wanted to be with Ange. My mother's room was stifling. Ange was the fresh air outside. Ange was the world beyond the windows. Now that I had fallen . . .

I was going to say 'in love'. No. No, I couldn't be in love with Ange. That would be stupid. I enjoyed her company. I would be sad if I couldn't see her again. That was all.

'Come back, Alan.'

'What?'

'You were miles away.'

'Sorry, Mother.'

'You only come for two hours. It's not very nice if you spend part of it miles away. I'm eighty-seven. I get no conversation all month. Margaret's well meaning but she has no conversation. Unfortunately that doesn't stop her talking all the time. I look forward to our chats.'

Dear God!

'Where were you?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'When you were miles away. Where were you?'

'Nowhere, mother.'

'Has something happened?'

'No, Mother, nothing's happened.'

'Is something wrong?'

'No, Mother, nothing's wrong.'

Oh, the gaping chasm between us. I decided that next Wednesday
I would tell her about Ange.

Next Wednesday was the day when I was taking Ange to eat Jane's hot curry, but I made sure that before I met her at the station I gave my mother her full two hours. I couldn't have faced any more of her rebukes.

I drove towards the Home very slowly. I always drove slowly, but when I went to visit my mother I drove even more slowly, as if I hoped that there was a chance that the place might burn down before I reached it. On this occasion, however, I drove even more slowly than usual. I was screwing myself up to tell my mother about Ange. I fantasised about how the conversation might go.

'Mother! I've something to tell you. I have a girlfriend.'

'Oh, Alan, darling! At last! How terribly thrilling! Do tell me all about her.'

'Well, her name's Ange.'

'Oh how lovely and informal.'

'Ange Bedwell.'

'My word, that sounds promising. Where's she from?'

'Gallows Corner.'

'Oh how nice. I don't know the area myself, but it sounds most dramatic and historic. How old is she?'

'She's twenty-four, mother.'

'Oh! Well, good old you. And what does she do?'

'She works as a temp in a skip-hire firm in Romford.'

'Alan! How refreshingly exotic. You must bring her to visit me.'

I could wish, as my students say, when I ask them if they are making good progress with their essays.

As I parked in the Home's spacious car park, I was shocked at the realisation that I had passed through three roundabouts without noticing them.

The visit began in its usual way. Peck on cheek. 'I've brought you a cake, mother. Chocolate cream.'

'M'mm.'

This was her ungracious way of saying 'Thank you'. The subtext was, 'Why haven't you brought me one I don't like? You know how I enjoy grumbling.' Her other favourite was lemon drizzle. When I played safe and took chocolate cream and lemon drizzle alternately, she had complained that I wasn't giving her enough variety.

'How are you?'

'Oh, mustn't grumble'

'Good.'

Silence. Use up as much time as I dared before the next nugget of inspired enquiry.

'What did you have for lunch?'

'Meat.'

'What sort of meat?'

'I don't know. It had no taste at all. There wasn't apple sauce so it probably wasn't pork. There wasn't mint sauce so I suppose it can't have been lamb. Beef, I suppose.'

'Was there mustard?'

Things were going well. We might be able to use up two or three minutes on lunch.

'They never give anything spicy. I think they think it might make people need a sit.'

The pudding used up a minute or two, and then my mother said, 'Alan, I don't like the view from this room. It's the same every day. It's getting on my nerves.'

Well, I'm sorry, but I don't think they'll rotate the countryside to suit you, Mother. But I didn't say this. I didn't say anything. I was summoning up my courage to tell her about Ange. This took quite a long time, and in the end she was forced to speak.

'So, what's my boy been up to?'

The perfect cue.

'Oh, nothing much.'

I couldn't tell her today. It would take too much energy and moral courage. There wouldn't be any left for our visit to Lawrence and Jane. I'd tell her next week.

I felt the most enormous relief at this decision. It wasn't weakness. It was only sensible.

'Alan,' said my mother in an appalled tone. 'I think I need to have a sit. Fetch the nurse, will you?'

'You don't need the nurse, Mother. I'm here.'

She looked at me in horror.

'I mean a proper sit,' she said. 'I can't have you seeing me do that.'

I thought of saying that I wouldn't exactly watch, but sense prevailed.

'I'm your son, Mother.'

'Exactly. I don't know the nurse, so it doesn't matter.'

I fetched the nurse . . . and waited in the corridor. I felt ashamed of getting a little frisson of excitement out of wasting eleven whole minutes in this way.

When the nurse came out, I had a word with her.

'How is she, nurse? I'm her son.'

'She's got all her marbles.'

'Oh, I know. Don't tell me.'

A wry look between us.

'But how is she . . . in herself?'

'Getting older. Aren't we all? Nothing . . . nothing specific. She's fallen a couple of times. She's lost her confidence.'

'Is she . . . difficult?'

'Not really. She's one of the best.'

That shocked me. Was it just me that brought the worst out in her?

I went back in. There was a smell of cheap air freshener, beneath which I could detect a faint aroma of . . . exhausted internal organs.

'You've been talking to the nurse,' said my mother. 'Asking how I am behind my back.'

Too right she still had her marbles.

'Well, I did have a word. I care, mother. You're my mother. You're eighty seven.'

'There's no need to remind me. I like to forget that. I don't like being the subject of a medical confab, Alan.'

'Sorry, Mother.'

Conversation limped along until the girl with the short tongue came in with the tea, a cup for my mother and one for me, and two plates for the chocolate cream, and two forks with which to eat the chocolate cream.

Now the cake ritual began. I put the cake on the table and cut two slices. I placed the slices on the plates. Then I went to a drawer and fetched two delicate little cake forks. My mother wouldn't eat with the forks provided by the home. They weren't cake forks. She had standards. Besides, she didn't know where they'd been.

I had a piece of cake too. One time when I had eaten a big lunch and couldn't face cake, she had been suspicious. 'Why aren't you having any?' she had asked. 'What's wrong with it?', and I'd had to eat a piece so that she would eat a piece. She never offered a piece to the girl or to anybody else. I felt humiliated by her meanness.

We had a second slice of cake. Then I plunged the two forks provided by the home into my piece of cake, so that the girl, who had learning difficulties as well as a short tongue, wouldn't feel hurt. My mother glared. 'You'll get tetanus,' she said. It was always tetanus these days. It had been mastoids or polio when I was young. When I was eight I had poked my ear and my mother had said 'You'll get mastoids,' and I had said, 'But it itches, Mummy,' and she had said, 'Well, don't poke it then, and you're a big boy now. It's time to stop calling me "Mummy". It's time to start calling me "Mother".' I had never told anyone what a devastating shock that was to me.

I washed and dried my mother's two cake forks and put them back in the drawer. She made no comment, but she tuttutted silently with her eyes. Once she had asked me why I did it, and I had said that I didn't want to hurt the girl's feelings by showing that we hadn't thought her forks clean enough.

'Sympathy for all the world except your mother,' she had said.

At last the two hours were over, and I could decently leave. As I stood up and said, 'Time to be off. I'm tiring you,' I had a thought that astounded me.

It was eleven years since I had even mentioned 'Germanic Thought From Kant to Wittgenstein' to her. This was partly out of pique because she had once said, 'And how's your little book coming on?', but mainly because of the sheer impossibility of any meaningful dialogue on the subject. Now I knew that being unable to talk about Ange hurt me even more than having to ignore 'Germanic Thought from Kant to Wittgenstein'. The implication of that was barely credible to me. I was astounded and even rather frightened to realise that Ange was more important to me than my masterpiece, my life's work, my raison d'être, but it's a fact, I knew at that moment that she was.

I also realised that I had been fooling myself, that I couldn't tell my mother about Ange, not next week, not the week after, not ever. It might kill her.

Now there was a thought. There
was
a thought.

You're shocked? So was I.

'Here's another.'

Yes, Ange was regaling Lawrence and Jane with pre-curry parrot jokes. I was less worried this time. My thoughts were that if the evening went well, that would be a bonus, and if it went badly, agonising though it would be, it would mean that there would be no more such evenings, and Ange and I would be able to develop our relationship in peace. I had a great sense of serenity that evening, and that, as I am sure you will realise by now, was rare for me. I had felt it from the moment I had seen her walking out of Oxford Station, a beaming smile on her lovely face. I had felt it necessary to hide just how deeply pleased I was to see her, and I'd had a feeling that she was also hiding how excited she was to be with me again, but maybe I was fooling myself.

I'd also had to hide that I was relieved, hide that the days and nights since I had last seen her had been an agony, hide that it had taken every scrap of willpower I possessed to refrain from phoning her to see how she was, to find out what she'd been doing, to check that she was coming.

So now I was off my guard, happy, exhilarated, ready to take my beloved's side in any arguments that might develop.

'There's this bloke, right? . . . has this very naughty parrot, and he's going out, so he says to the parrot, "Any tricks from you today and you've had it, right?" And he goes out, and he comes home, and there's thirty hundredweight of coal dumped in the lounge.'

'Sorry, what?' asked Lawrence. 'I didn't catch it. What was dumped?'

'Coal.'

'Oh . . . coal.'

'Coal, in the lounge, on the pale carpet. So he rings the coalman up, and he says, "What's all this then? Why is there coal all over my carpet?", and the coalman says, "You ordered it this morning, told me to put it there", and he rings off. The bloke's puzzled, and then he sees the parrot looking mischievous, and he says, "You did it, didn't you? You ordered it." So he grabs the parrot, and nails it to the wall. "Right, you little green sod," he says, "you can stay there for a week." On the other wall there's this crucifix, Jesus on the cross, and the parrot, he says to Jesus, "How long have you been there?" "Two thousand years," says Jesus. "Two thousand years? Blimey," says the parrot. "How much coal did
you
order?" '

Ange giggled charmingly at her own story. I made sure that I laughed uproariously. The faces of Lawrence and Jane didn't crack.

'Did you read Bentwood's piece about jokes and their value as a displacement activity?' said Jane. 'Very interesting.'

'Yes, I did,' said Lawrence. 'I must confess that I thought he was using a sprat to catch a mackerel.'

'Bentwood's sprats have more truth in them than other men's mackerels,' she responded, with a coy intellectual satisfaction which made me think that she must fancy Bentwood.

'Jane's purpose in introducing Bentwood into the conversation, Ange, is to exclude you politely but utterly. It's La Recolte at Chittingbourne St Mary all over again,' I said.

'Alan!' said Lawrence.

'Bentwood, I should explain,' I continued, 'is a large and loquacious Welshman, brilliant but unreliable. A sort of Tons Thomas of philosophy.'

'Tons Thomas?' said Lawrence.

'We mentioned him last time,' I said. 'Surely you haven't forgotten the Mercurial Man Mountain from Merthyr?'

'Are you making fun out of me?' said Ange.

I was astounded. I had thought I was making fun of Lawrence and Jane.

'No! No!'

'You think it's so funny, don't you? International darts. Tons Thomas. Such a huge joke. Well, Tons is a good bloke, he's a nice guy and I like him.'

'I know you do. You've slept with him.'

Even before I'd finished saying it I realised that this was a very grave tactical error. The trouble was that I wasn't being tactical; my jealousy came from another source, swift and unbidden, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

'Yeah,' said Ange furiously, 'and I'm going to sleep with him again, right, because he's young and he's normal and he wants me for a bit more than my mind.'

I still wasn't very worried. I was embarrassed by the row, yes, and I was embarrassed by her remarks about my wanting her only for her mind, yes, even at that moment I was concerned about my sexual image in front of my Head of Department and his wife.

'Ange!' I said. 'I wasn't making fun of
you
. I wasn't.'

She stood up, glared at me, turned and strode from the room.

'Ange!'

I went to pursue her, but Lawrence hurried into my path and stopped me.

'No, Alan,' he said.

'Let me go,' I shouted.

I tried to push past him. He pushed me in return. I was stunned. I was furious.

'Let me go,' I yelled again, and then I shouted, absurdly, 'It's a free country.'

He continued to push me. I raised my right arm to try to hit him. He grabbed my arm and pushed it backwards. I tried to knee him in the groin but missed, and while I was off balance he gave me a great shove and I fell backwards into a chair. I kicked out and caught his leg with my foot. He gave an outraged 'ow' and I tried to scramble to my feet while he was hopping around in pain, but he recovered in time to shove me back into the chair. I didn't stand a chance. He was younger than me, and fitter, he had a personal trainer and cycled at weekends, and he had Jane hopping around at his side, waiting to put the high-heeled boot in if necessary. I couldn't believe what had happened, and I was panting so much that I was incapable of speech. I really wasn't fit. If I survived the night, I must start to take some exercise.

Two minutes earlier there had been a civilised scene in this sitting room. Two academics and their ladies had been having a drink before sitting down to a famous curry. Now my lady had stormed out, I was fighting to get my breath, and my Head of Department had rolled up his trousers to examine his leg. How fragile is the order and calm with which we try to live our lives.

As soon as he had established that his leg was still there, Lawrence came and stood over me, watching me trying to recover my breath.

'I'm really sorry about that,' he said. 'Really sorry.'

'So am I,' I said icily.

'I know. Out of order. Absolutely no blame attached to you for your reaction, Alan. In fact I may say that I found your fighting spirit impressive in one your age. Not sure young Mallard would have had it in him.'

That was so Lawrence, so . . . is the word 'snide'? To claim to be supporting me and to slip in a reference to young Mallard, who was being warmed up to be my nemesis.

'I had to do that, Alan. Trust me. I did it for your own good.'

I stood up, breathed deeply, began to be capable of speech. I gave Lawrence a dignified glare and blessed the fact that I am two and a half inches taller than him.

'There are two remarks that I have never been able to stand,' I said. 'One is "Trust me" and the other is "I did it for your own good". It takes some kind of genius to use them both in the same sentence.'

'Now look, Alan,' he said. 'Whether you are going to see her again or not, it's best not to go after her now. Believe me. I know about women.' He became conscious of Jane's look boring into him, and he added, 'From the old days.'

I didn't deign to reply. It was too late to go after her now, anyway. She would have disappeared into the Oxford night.

'Listen, Alan,' said Jane, who had watched the fracas with icy serenity. 'Don't think we like having to tell you this, but we feel we must. She isn't for you. Has it occurred to you, and this is going to make you angry with me, I know, but has it occurred to you that she might be a gold digger?'

'She's digging in the wrong gulch if she is. I'm an academic, not a footballer.'

'Believe us, Alan, she'd probably sleep with anybody.'

'No. Only darts players. This is the age of specialisation.'

'All right,' she said, 'but the fact is that she's practically a whore.'

'That's very insulting,' I said.

'Well you were pretty insulting to me.'

'Yes, but only because you're a bitch.'

If I had been a footballer, and not an academic, I would have felt that I had scored a goal. The development of the conversation had led to a position in which I had an open goal, couldn't miss, and as I put the ball into the net I felt a real sense of exhilaration. I had wanted to say that to Jane ever since I had known her.

She stood up, slowly, carefully, with control.

'I shall overlook that,' she said, opening her mouth less than she usually did when she spoke. 'I shall forget it. I will not let fifteen years of friendship be destroyed because of one moment of madness.'

She strode from the room with dignity. I had to admit that to myself. I certainly wasn't going to admit it to Lawrence.

Lawrence poured me some more of the Macon-Lugny, a generous measure, and, even though I knew that he was doing it so that he could pour himself a generous measure without looking greedy, I was grateful. I did actually believe that he had been trying to save me, and, even though I didn't want to be saved and didn't believe that I needed to be saved, I knew that there was at least a bit of integrity and affection behind it. And it was hard, ultimately, not to sympathise with him in his marriage to Jane, in his knowledge that his department didn't respect him, in his awareness that the Inspector Didcot Mysteries hadn't made the TV screen because they were what Ange – oh, Ange! – would have cheerfully called 'crap', and boring crap at that.

'Bit strong, Alan,' he said.

'Yes. Sorry. I'd better be off.'

'Stay. There's heaps of curry. Make your peace with Jane.'

I tried to refuse. I thought maybe I would go to the station and see if I could find Ange before she went home. But I knew that Lawrence was right, it would be a tremendous risk, if the argument flared up again it might become fatal. And I didn't fancy a lonely evening in my rooms. And Lawrence was my Head of Department and it might be diplomatic. Oh, and Jane's curries were wonderful.

'All right,' I said. 'Thank you. I'll stay.'

'Good. You really care about that girl, don't you?'

'Yes, Lawrence, I really do.'

'I can sympathise. I don't think I . . . I don't believe that I . . . this sounds stuffy . . . "approve", because I can't see a happy ending in it, but . . . if you want to . . . er . . . whatever you do, I regard it as irrelevant to your work in the department.'

'Thank you.'

'Provided you don't bring it into disgrace, of course.'

'Of course.'

'It was no use going after her, Alan, pleading, showing your weakness. There would have been no benefit in that route. You would just have humiliated yourself needlessly. I know,

I . . . I once . . . but that's another story.'

He leant forward, and I came out in goose-pimples. I knew that he was about to make a revelation which he would regret in cooler moments.

'I fucked a cabin stewardess on the
Oriana
when Jane was laid up with seasickness in Biscay. She was lovely, Alan. Lovely. Ange reminds me of her.'

'Thank you.'

I wasn't quite sure why I said 'Thank you.' Perhaps because I could think of nothing else to say, and my usual 'sorry' would have been inappropriate – but the revelation did explain why Lawrence had been so ready to suggest that we came for Jane's curry. He liked having Ange around. Probably he fantasised about her. I hated that thought. Cabin stewardesses and upper-class women. I wondered how often he had been unfaithful.

'So I do understand,' he continued.

'Thank you.'

'An affair is one thing, Alan. A fling is one thing. I'm all in favour, though I'd never admit that to Jane – it might even be good for you – but a commitment, Alan, a commitment. I don't think that would be a very good idea. Not, as I say, that it would have any bearing on our professional relationship. Incidentally, Alan, I told you that about the
Oriana
in strict confidence.'

'Of course.'

'I trust you never to repeat it.'

'Of course.'

'I trust you also never to use it against me, if . . . well, if you should ever have any temptation to use anything against me.'

'Why should I ever have that?'

'Who knows? Who ever knows what will happen? When I accepted the office of Head of the Department, I was aware that sometimes I might have to make difficult decisions.'

'Are you trying to tell me something?'

'Alan! We're philosophers. We're masters of the hypothetical. I don't say you will ever have any reason, but I'll tell you why I trust you. You're a gentleman. There aren't many of us left.'

I wondered if he would have thought me a gentleman if he had known that, earlier that very day, the thought of killing my mother had first occurred to me. Not that I had taken it seriously. It had just been a passing thought. I was quite surprised to find it popping up again.