Father of the Man (8 page)

He looked down at the crossword, already felt he was about to blush. Furthermore, none of the first few clues seemed remotely solvable. Suddenly, not only did he want to pee: he wanted to shit.

Again, though, he put this down to nerves.

One of the young women, the one by the window, took out an emery board; started to file her scarlet-painted nails. Usually this would have pissed him off, the continual rasping sound, the differences in speed, the pauses, new beginnings—above all, maybe, the idea that this was something which people ought to do in private; if he’d been trying to write an essay the scrapings would have speedily grown strident, he’d have visualized powdery nail settling imperceptibly like flurries of fine dust, and if it chanced that he’d just eaten, his tightened stomach muscles would unfailingly have produced indigestion. Travelling on British Rail had taught him as nothing else had ever done the extent of his neuroses. Previously, he had never dreamed how fidgety the fare-paying public could become; never stopped to consider the potential foot-swinging, finger-tapping, head-scratching, throat-clearing—the list could probably be extended to cover, in an average-sized hand, at least one side of an A4 sheet out of his own writing-pad; and at spot number one on that list, without argument—yes, this would undoubtedly have taken first prize—the nose-picking. The nose-picking. He realized that in most cases this was merely a nervous mannerism, but the number of apparently respectable, professional, middle-class men—for some reason it was nearly always the men—who just couldn’t leave their noses alone and who would as often as not, following their stealthy or thoroughly unconcealed excavations, revolve the ball of their thumb against the tip of their index finger was, to use the Prime Minister’s front-page vocabulary, ‘astounding’, ‘astonishing’, ‘appalling’. Roger sometimes felt as if he were travelling on a sea of snot; in need of fresh air; in need of his bath; in need of a psychiatrist.

But tonight neither the nail-scraper nor her companion, who every few minutes was playing with her hair, pushing it back and prodding it and smoothing it, had any power to disturb him. Or perhaps the two of them simply cancelled one another out—irritations were more bearable when they came at you in pairs, or even droves; on occasion you had no option but to smile, life was so ridiculous. Yet at times, too, its absurdity could arouse not wan amusement but deepest self-contempt: the person sitting next to you could search for bogies unremittingly, or cough, or sniff, or swing their hair, hiccup, whatever—then your eye might slip from the crossword, as had happened only last week, to where the stop press informed you of a seven-year-old boy who’d been left paralyzed and almost blind as the result of an operation blunder. Dear God.

He slowly put away his biro; leant back and closed his eyes; half-listened to a conversation about the women’s respective offices and about a new boss who was proving unreasonably petty on the subject of personal phone calls and the timekeeping of his staff. “Suppose he feels he’s got to thrown his weight around. The plonker.” The woman giving herself a manicure kept moving her legs and knocking against his shins or shoes.

Ten minutes later a man of roughly his father’s age took the seat beside him, raised the lid of his black attaché case and withdrew a double foolscap page of squared paper, the inside spread covered with figures and columns and coloured underlinings. He was quite possibly an accountant; even looked like Roger’s stereotypical idea of one: a thin-lipped, sharp-angled kind of face, short hair carefully parted and combed flat, with every plastered strand attesting to the individual passage of the comb. He wore pince-nez. Roger had hoped for someone who looked less correct.

The train began to move.

Incredibly, despite everything, he must have dozed. When he opened his eyes the women had miniature bottles of gin in front of them and tonic water and plastic beakers containing lumps of ice. The emery board lay on the table. He blinked bemusedly, then lifted his arm until the cuff edged back. They had been travelling for almost half an hour.

The conductor came into their carriage before the train reached Wellingborough: first stop on this evening journey. He too was a man of about his father’s age, similarly blue-eyed, though not as strikingly so, but somewhat taller and heftier. There was a strawberry mark covering the whole of one cheek—faint, however, and by no means seriously disfiguring. Roger held out his plastic folder.

Waited.

“Thank you, sir.” The man’s eyes flickered away from the card; after a moment came back to it. Roger’s reaction was unexpected. He felt a measure of relief.

“Yes…I know.” Even his voice sounded calm. Now that the encounter was actually underway his heart-rate slowed. “My ticket expired on Saturday.”

The official looked at him an instant while he assessed the situation. “Then it’s no good to you, is it?” His tone wasn’t indignant or threatening. It was merely businesslike.

In a low voice Roger explained why he thought the man’s statement inaccurate. On the whole, because of the number of times he’d rehearsed what he wanted to say, his argument cohered. This defied the fact that the two blondes were openly attentive. Their heads swivelled impartially. Roger’s nextdoor neighbour kept his eyes lowered. Other passengers within earshot also showed undisguised interest or evidence of tact.

“I see,” said the conductor, finally. “What happened, then, this morning?”

“The fellow didn’t notice.” Roger had never been to public school but had the mildly uneasy sensation he was being a sneak—just as this morning, in fact, he’d had a similarly uneasy sensation, albeit one swiftly suppressed, that although he wasn’t behaving dishonestly in not holding a valid ticket he was perhaps behaving
dishonourably
in not drawing the man’s attention to it. He hoped he wouldn’t get him into trouble.

“Then you were very lucky. But tonight, I’m afraid, I’ll have to charge you the full single fare.” He flipped open a pad which had an elastic band holding the used portion.

“I haven’t any money.”

“In that case a cheque will do.”

“I haven’t got a chequebook.” He added: “I haven’t any credit cards, either.”

The conductor gave a sigh. “Very well. I’ll tell you what we’ll do.” The blondes looked at him expectantly. “Tonight I’ll make you out a free ticket for Nottingham. I’ll have to take that defunct card off you but I can’t do any fairer than that, now, can I?”

“Which means I’ll have to get on the train tomorrow without a card?” He didn’t know why he had turned it into a question.

“No, I warn you. That would be foolish, sir. Extremely foolish.”

“What else can I do?”

“And in fact,” continued the conductor, “I’d strongly advise against it. If I see you on this train tomorrow night travelling without a ticket you won’t find me nearly so lenient.” He finished writing out the free one, tore it off and handed it to Roger. He stood there waiting for the card. There was a moment’s silence.

Sheepishly, Roger took it from its folder and passed it over.

“But the thing is…” He tried to retrieve some little dignity. The conductor began to look impatient.

“Yes?”

“I don’t want to be difficult or anything. But…Well, I reckon you will see me on this train tomorrow night; there’s no other way I can get home.”

“In that case, sir, the police will be seeing you as well. Not a very pleasant experience, not one I’d really recommend. Also, it would involve a fair amount of delay. I don’t imagine that would win you a lot of popularity among your fellow commuters.” With which he turned away—quite sharply. “All tickets, please. Everybody have their tickets ready, please.”

The train was slowing down for its approach to Wellingborough. Roger’s neighbour started putting his things back in his case. “Why don’t you contact Melanie Phillips at the
Guardian
?” he said. “If there’s an arrest in the offing it’s possible they’d want to send a reporter along. Might make good copy for them.”

“Yes. Thanks. I will.” The words were surprised out of him, due solely to politeness. He didn’t suppose for one second that he’d follow such advice.

But with so many people at this moment getting up from their seats, reaching for their overcoats and hurriedly shrugging their way into them, gathering together books and papers and Walkmans, it was difficult to tell what had been the overall reaction—and therefore doubly morale-boosting to have received this sign of solidarity from the perhaps not-so-stereotypical accountant, if that’s indeed what he was. Roger said a grateful goodnight and wondered if there might be any chance of sitting next to him tomorrow.

Authorization from Derby? Worryingly, the conductor had paid scant attention to any such possibility, and now, when Roger returned to the station manager’s office, he not only found it closed, with no voucher for him pinned to either of its doors—which, anyway, he would hardly have expected—
or
left at the ticket office…although prior to the conductor’s words he had felt confident he would collect it there; almost as dismayingly, he was told that in the morning the manager certainly wouldn’t have arrived until Roger’s train was well on its way to London.

Indirectly, as he was leaving the sitting room and heading for his bath, his mother made a speech acknowledging his problems. (Sadly his father appeared not to know about the situation and was still feeling depressed; it didn’t seem a good moment to tell him. Damn. He’d normally have been supportive. The timing was all wrong. How could he have thought, even fleetingly, that the whole thing could be
meant
?) She said, “Darling, remember a mother always loves you, no matter how foolishly—or quixotically—you behave. I hope you’ll have a good day tomorrow. I hope you’ll like your sandwiches.” This last bit made him think she’d probably gone out of her way—things being as they were—to get him something special.

8

Tuesday. Ephraim awoke from a dream in which he had been surfing in Southern California, hang-gliding in the Lake District and planning excitedly around an outdoor table with Jean and the children; he couldn’t remember for what they’d been planning but it was clearly something they’d all been feeling pretty good about…he awoke from this dimly recollected aura of sunshine, affection and peace, to the abrupt and plummeting awareness that nobody loved him and that life wasn’t worth the living. Also, it was raining.

As usual he brought Jean her tea and cereal in bed; she didn’t have to open up the shop till ten and he was supposed to be in the office by half-past-nine. (“I thought I was classed as self-employed,” he’d grumbled once, upon a somewhat late arrival. “Well, I’ve discovered something: I’m an easygoing boss.” But all being self-employed meant at Columbia was that you weren’t given any salary and that your National Insurance contributions didn’t get paid for you. He’d thought of photocopying the definition of self-employed from the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, getting it blown up and tacked to the wall above his desk, in place of all the gilt-framed certificates and photographs of handshaking or boozy backslapping at the annual sales convention ‘held in exotic locations around the world’ that some of his more established colleagues, the sporters of tiepins, ‘enamel and silver and gold pins which become studded with diamonds and other gemstones as a recognition of your achievements’, considered the main essential of office décor. But in the end he just couldn’t be bothered.) Yet today again, instead of her customary cheerful greeting as he set down the tray and poured out her initial cup of tea, she only thanked him stiffly and they spoke no more than was necessary to observe minimal courtesies and maintain a feeble pretence that they were still communicating.

Around nine o’clock, in the very few minutes he had this morning between walking the dog and leaving for work, and as he was too roughly towelling her dry—poor Polly standing quite as patiently as ever—the telephone rang. He heard a faint feminine voice telling him, and it took several seconds to adjust to its accent, that there was a call for Mrs Mild from her son in Calcutta and would she please be prepared to accept the charges?

Inwardly Ephraim cursed. He had no desire whatever to speak to Oscar at the moment and only wished that the call had come through two minutes later, even though Jean probably wouldn’t have heard it ring—indeed, partly because of that. But he didn’t go to the foot of the stairs and shout: by the time she arrived he could imagine those charges racing towards a positive frenzy of ticks and whirs and revolutions. This was the fourth time Oscar had rung—“Just wanted to say a big hello to my folks and tell them how my heart is pining!”—but such endearing messages would have meant more to Ephraim if they hadn’t always come collect and at the most expensive time of day. Added to which—no, thoroughly superseding which—he felt resentful that it was
Mrs
Mild who unmistakably had been the person asked for.

“Yes, yes, we’ll pay for it. This is his father. Please put him through.”

“Hello, Pop. How’s my pop?” Oscar’s voice sounded amazingly loud and clear, especially after the soft incomprehensibility of the operator. He might have been speaking from somewhere just a mile away. Ephraim would have preferred it if he had.

“Worried about the cost of our next phone bill, my son.” But he struggled to keep his tone light—and truly believed he had managed it. He felt relief. It would now get easier. “How are things in our late lamented empire?”

“Actually, not too good. That’s why I’m phoning. Is Mum there?”

“What’s the matter, Oz? Mum’s in bed.” Despite the abbreviation, his answer had been sharper. Well, you could ascribe that—and with some legitimacy—to concern about the boy’s wellbeing. He also realized he might have given the impression that Jean was unwell; if so, let it stand.

“I’ve had my wallet stolen,” said Oscar.

“Oh, Christ.” Oscar was frequently having things stolen—or in any case mislaying them—because he was too forgetful, too trusting, too careless. Recent claims on their insurance had included a newish bicycle, which they’d had to pretend had been padlocked when taken, and an equally valuable camera. This wasn’t to count such sundries as a suede jacket, three Walkmans, a sweater, a pair of swimming trunks and even two long-playing records still in the carrier bag from HMV, for all of which Ephraim had refused to seek reparation, but each of them gone missing within the past couple of years. (On the other hand, Oscar was continually finding things, as well: five- and ten-pound notes, coins, a pair of good sunglasses; most importantly, a Rolex wristwatch, unclaimed after the statutory month it had needed to be left at the police station, but then, barely another month later—almost incredibly—lost again.) “Was all your money in it?” asked Ephraim.