Fifty-Minute Hour (25 page)

He hobbled to the bar, casting anxious looks behind him, to make sure Mary wasn't kidnapped, raped, abducted, the minute that his back was turned. He'd been trying to keep a check on every male aged seventeen to seventy who came into the pub, or dared to pass their table, especially all the handsome hunky ones. He didn't trust the barman, a brashly jovial type with a roving eye (and an eye more darkly blatant than his own wishy-washy hazel ones), who might inveigle himself dangerously close to Mary, or even proposition her, by simply using the expedient of wiping down their table or collecting up the empties. How mean the fellow seemed as he measured her Dubonnet – two grudging paltry inches, when she deserved at least a firkinful, a hundredweight of cherries, a whole lemon grove in sunny Taormina.

He wheeled round again, quite suddenly, to catch out any rivals. Mary was alone still, but some brazen blue-jeaned upstart was just swaggering slowly up to her, enquiring if the seat were free. He tossed a fiver on the counter, streaked back to the alcove so fast he spilled his beer. He rarely drank Black Label – rarely drank at all, in fact – but last night's TV commercial had showed a macho man with a hearth-rug chest and shoulders like the Admiralty Arch crumpling up a car with one bare hand, after imbibing just half a bottle of Carling.
He
was on his fourth bottle – already felt much stronger, even dared ask Mary why she'd missed the last two classes.

‘But you missed three yourself,' she parried, smiling quite disarmingly. ‘Before that. I was looking out for you, even saved you a seat.'

He gulped down froth and ecstasy together. He must find that seat, rip it from the row, heave it home and preserve it as a monument, inscribe it in gold letters: ‘SAVED FOR BRYAN BY MARY', with the date in Roman numerals. ‘I was … er … abroad again,' he said, gesturing so nervously his fingers caught the foliage of the watching potted palm. It was plastic, like the chandeliers, he noted with a twinge of disappointment. ‘Busy month, November.' He tried to put jet-lag in his voice; appointments, meetings, conferences, product-launches, working-lunches, frantic daily phone calls to check the progress of his shares. ‘D'you know, I sometimes barely find the time to clean my teeth?' He cleaned them four times daily, twice at home and twice at work, a full five minutes by the clock, and following a formula which included every surface, angle, crevice, plane and cutting-edge.

‘Gosh! It must be awful.' Mary shook her head. ‘
I
was busy too, in fact, but nothing on that scale. Just … domestic matters. I seem to have so much to do – just recently, I mean. The chores keep piling up the way they never did before, and I haven't got the energy, not now, not since …'

He wondered why she'd broken off so suddenly, why she was blushing, looking down, fiddling with her handbag. Cancer, obviously. She must still be having treatment, but be too distressed to spell it out by name. That would explain her lack of zest, her feeling of fatigue. He laid his hand down on the table between their two stained beer-mats, as if to say: ‘It's there if you require it – a helping hand, a steady hand. I care. I understand.' He longed to touch her own hand, to demonstrate that care, but dared not risk repulse, or, worse still, laughter.

‘I know you've not been well, Mary. You told me so the first time that we met. I must admit I have been rather anxious. In fact, when I didn't see you at the last two classes, I actually thought you'd …' He took a long draught of Black Label to help him get the word out. It still hurt extremely badly, had cost him two weeks' sleep. ‘Died,' he said, half-choking on the lager.

‘
Died
?'

‘Well, the treatment isn't always that successful. I mean, my aunt was in and out for six whole months, but still they couldn't save her.'

‘What treatment? What d'you mean?'

‘The … er …' He couldn't spell it out himself, tried a more circuitous route. ‘You said you were going to a place right near our class.'

‘Oh, I see – oh,
that
.' Mary seemed confused again, embarrassed, then suddenly broke into a giggle, took a slow bite of her cherry, relishing the mouthful almost blatantly, as if she, too, had been watching those commercials, copying the models who sold lipsticks or ice cream. Bryan kept glancing up at her, relieved, yet somehow jealous. She must be better, surely, if she could laugh like that, flirt with shameless cherries. A month ago, she'd been so very different, tense and almost tragic. And those burn marks on her hands were fully healed – he'd noticed that the instant he first saw her, noticed she looked sparkling, very nearly smug.

‘The treatment worked then, Mary?'

‘Yes, it did – extremely well, in fact – better than I dared to hope.' She was giggling still, quite girlish. ‘I'm completely cured, you could say. My … doctor's very pleased with me.'

‘
Wonderful
!' Bryan offered thanks to any God who'd managed to survive the quantum revolution, or co-exist with Chaos. ‘Let's have another drink.'

‘No, really, Bryan, I …'

‘This calls for a celebration. And anyway, we ought to drink to Skerwin, since he's recovered, too.'

‘
Who
?'

‘Our tutor.' He didn't say ‘my Father'. He'd get to that eventually; maybe over dinner in what people called an ‘intimate' little bistro, with softly nickering candles, sweet seductive music. The pub was getting noisy – a muffled roar of overlapping voices rising all around them, the slap and clink of glasses, even a tactless jukebox churning out a song called ‘When You Left'. Dare he risk a meal? Even if they gobbled it, or ordered just one course, it would still mean missing five or six more trains. His Mother left his dinner out on Fridays – cold Reproach on Toast, or a shop-bought Cornish pasty, all air and cold potato. Could he force a pasty down after fillet steak with Mary – or afford fillet steak at all? (John-Paul had warned him of his annual rise in fees, only a month or so away now.) Perhaps Mary liked Chinese, and he could toy with a few bean sprouts and still leave room for his Mother's guilt-and-penance salad or how-could-you-leave-me sandwich.

‘Has Mr Skerwin been unwell, then?' Mary looked concerned, pushed her empty glass away, still refusing to accept another drink.

‘No. He had an accident – fell down a step which wasn't there. He told the class two weeks ago, limped up to the lectern all swathed in bandages and with his right hand in a sling.'

‘How brave of him to come at all. Most tutors would have cancelled.'

Bryan said nothing. It wasn't done to boast, but of course his Father was exceptionally courageous. Clumsy, too, alas, but then geniuses were often absent-minded. He'd been half-horrified, half-worshipping, as he'd watched the doughty figure struggling to his desk, still loaded down with shopping, textbooks, outerwear, despite his
hors de combat
arm and all too obvious bruises. It had ruined his weekend – that and Mary's absence. He'd hoped to get some help on Monday, at the session, but John-Paul had made things worse, in fact; insisted it was Oedipal – again – an unconscious but quite clear desire to lame and cripple his hated Father-rival.

‘But it wasn't me who did it,' he'd complained. ‘He went crashing down a step.'

‘Which wasn't there,' John-Paul said, lighting up. (Eight kingsize in thirty-seven minutes.)

‘No, but he thought it was there.'

‘Just as you thought
he
was there – your father at the class.'

‘He
was
there.'

‘Bryan, you appear to have a need today not to understand.'

‘Blast!' he said out loud.

‘What's the matter?'

Not John-Paul, but Mary, sounding worried. He'd lose her if he wasn't careful, allowed John-Paul to bedevil him again. He marched his doctor to the door, shooed him from the pub. He had quite enough rivals there already – not just the gold-framed monarchs who were all squinting at her breasts, Edward VII leering almost pruriently, but the two men sitting opposite who'd actually inched forward to get a better view. He moved his chair to form a screen, glared at any other male in view, then tried to force his mind back, resume their conversation. ‘Such a shame you couldn't make last Friday. It was really fascinating – we did antiparticles.'

‘Anti-what?'

‘Particles. For every particle, there's apparently an antiparticle, so Skerwin said there could in fact be whole antiworlds and antipeoples. He warned us not to shake hands with our antiself, told us we'd both vanish in a huge great flash of light.' He tried to laugh, to prove it was a joke, though he hadn't felt like laughing that particular Friday night; had kept fretting about antitrains as he rushed to catch the thirty-two, or imagined slaying antiMothers as his all too solid present Mother regaled him with the story of her almost-heart-attack. (She had heart attacks each Friday, when she wasn't being burgled, raped or mugged.)

‘Gosh!' said Mary. ‘Antiselves. I wish I hadn't missed it, but last Friday was my youngest son's eighth birthday. He's away at school in Sussex, but they let us go and see him – well, just from two to four. James took the afternoon off, which is a rare event itself. I was terribly excited, but it turned out rather badly, I'm afraid. He didn't have a party or any proper celebration, just the cake I'd brought him, and we were on our way back home again by shortly after three. He seemed – you know – on
edge
, as if he didn't want us there. It's that headmaster's fault, I'm sure. He seems to hate all parents, probably tells the boys we're …'

Bryan stared down at the carpet, loathed it when she used that ‘we', talked about her sons, or worse still, James. He could just imagine James – a combination of John-Paul in the brain department, and last night's Carling commercial hulk, as far as looks and prowess were concerned.
He
was Mary's husband – not James, but Bryan Payne-Hampton – her youngest son, as well; the one she dandled on her lap, so his head was resting right against those breasts. She was wearing several layers today, so her curves were rather blurred, alas, despite the tempting cleavage. If he took her to a really stifling restaurant, she'd be forced to take her jacket off, and perhaps that woolly white thing, and he might even glimpse her brassiere through the flimsy floral blouse. But would he ever find a restaurant cheap enough and hot enough, yet also intimate, romantic, and with really speedy service, and close to Fenchurch Street, so he could dash there for his train – oh, and also totally empty so that nobody would see them?

‘Well, I
offered
him a party as soon as he broke up, said we'd make it up to him, invite all his local Walton friends and maybe hire a conjuror and …'

‘I'm hot,' said Bryan. ‘Aren't you?'

‘No, I'm rather chilly, actually. Though compared with Jonathan's dormitory, this place is like a greenhouse. It's arctic, that whole school. No wonder they get colds and things. Jon looked really peaky when …'

‘Yes, there
is
a draught, isn't there, with all these people barging in and out? Look, why don't we make a move, find ourselves a cosy little …?'

‘In fact, I think he must have been sickening for a virus. It's the only way I can account for how he was. D'you realise, Bryan, he didn't
want
a party, said he was far too old for conjurors, and party-games were just for weeds and wets. I cried, you know, I really did, once we'd left him at the gates. I know it may sound stupid, but he is my baby – too old, at eight, for games.'

Bryan heard a voice screaming in his head: ‘
I'm
your baby, I'm your baby – and not too old for games.' If Jonathan were sickening, he should be dispatched straight up to Scotland, the northernmost remotest part, with no trains, or even roads; left alone in quarantine until the bracing air had cured him – or better, killed him off. He hated to be cruel, but if the boy upset his mother so, absorbed all her attention, then wiser to remove him altogether. ‘It's my birthday,' he said casually. ‘Next Friday, actually, and I wouldn't mind a conjuror myself.'

She laughed. ‘Oh, Bryan!'

‘No, I'm serious. I've never had a party in my life.'

‘What, not even as a child?'

‘No, my Mother was too busy. She had to earn our living, hadn't time for parties.' The beer had made him reckless. He was plunging wildly on, telling her the story of his deprived and desperate childhood. ‘I never knew my Father. He walked out on my Mother before she'd even had me.' It sounded rather flat, the sort of standard sob-stuff on any social worker's course. He added some embellishments, Carlingesque hyperbole. ‘She kept dragging me to see him, used to lie down on the pavement right outside his house and refuse to move all day. He lived in this huge mansion with two new wives and …'

Two
?'

‘Oh, more than two, quite often. And a whole horde of other children. Of course he didn't want to acknowledge us, refused to let us in. We'd often stay out there all night, huddled in the rain or snow, shunned by other people …' Bryan glanced at Mary's shocked and stricken face. Had he gone too far? Her voice was harrowed, faltering, not that far from tears.

‘B … But he doesn't seem that type at all. He looks so sensitive and gentle, and you said yourself how he only lived for science and …'

Bryan shut his eyes, saw Skerwin in his mind again, not the Skerwin of the harem, but the Skerwin of the class, whom he'd been admiring just an hour ago – a kindly and unworldly soul, who did, indeed, live for books and learning. Could John-Paul actually be right and he was blackening a blameless man through unconscious fear and jealousy? ‘He reformed,' he muttered tersely, compressing half a century's struggle into one dramatic gesture. ‘Divorced his wives and betrothed himself to science.'