Home Fires (12 page)

He switches off the ignition and un-clicks his seatbelt, stepping out of the car into the drizzly morning air. He breathes in deeply, stretching his legs and arms and groaning as he does so. It is a habit he has. Caroline used to poke fun at him for stretching every morning but he is convinced it kept his limbs supple. When they first met, Caroline had been charmed by what she called his ‘old man ways’. But now, at
62
, his physical age has caught up with him.

He walks into the service station, the automatic doors parting with a whirr as he approaches. Inside, there is a cacophonous noise of screaming children and the pinging of cashier tills, all somehow intensified by the unforgiving strip lighting that tinged everyone’s face with green-grey shadows. He makes straight for the gents’ toilets, which are being cleaned by a delicately boned Chinese man who is pushing around a trolley and a mop with a desultory expression on his face. Andrew never knows what to do in this sort of situation: should he acknowledge the cleaner with a smile and a nod of the head or would the man think it patronising? In the end, he can’t decide and so settles for a curious half-grimace that makes the cleaner frown and leaves Andrew feeling uncomfortable. He has always been socially awkward. His mother, by contrast, had excelled at small-talk. Andrew is shy, gauche and finds it difficult to chatter away meaninglessly to put someone at ease. He is not sure why this is. Partly because of his height and his smoothly handsome appearance, people expect him to be charming and silken-tongued, to possess a certain sort of presence or arrogance, but Andrew has neither.

In many ways, Max had been unlike either of his parents. He seemed to have been born with an innate, quiet confidence that his way of doing things was the right way. At school, he had been popular without ever appearing to try. And yet he had still been able to see things from another person’s point of view. Not many young men had that quality.

But he had his faults too, Andrew thinks as he puts his hands in one of those ergonomic hand dryers that never work as well as a towel. He is not as blinded to his son’s weaknesses of character as Caroline is.

He thinks it is probably this that has been the source of much of the recent tension. There was that awful drinks party the night before the funeral, where Caroline had stood, stiff with disapproval, as Adam delivered his speech. Andrew shudders now to think of it: the sour way she had twisted her lips and crossed her arms in front of her chest; her utter refusal to accept any offer of comfort; her total ignorance of the fact that anyone looking at her could see quite clearly what was going on. She truly believed she had masked her real emotions, but afterwards Adam had come up to Andrew and apologised, saying he hoped he hadn’t offended her. Andrew hadn’t passed the sentiments on to Caroline because he knew she would pretend not to know what he was talking about. And, underneath, it would only make her feel worse. She prided herself on having such a good relationship with all of Max’s friends, almost as though she were one of them.

She had been so convinced she knew every detail of Max’s life but of course she hadn’t. He was a young man and he did all the things that spirited young men do. Caroline tried to be too close to him, too much his equal, and Andrew knew that Max found it cloying.

That summer after his A-Levels, when Max had spent so much time at the house with his friends, he had spoken about it to his father. It was a hazy evening of dappled sunlight, the air tangy with the scent of freshly mown grass and the two of them had decided to walk to the pub after supper. There were two local pubs that they liked – one of them was up a steep hill in the centre of Malvern; the other was downhill towards Barnard’s Green, a place that was effectively little more than an optimistically named roundabout, ringed with estate agents, off-licences and a fish and chip shop. Feeling lazy, they opted for the latter and strolled down to The George and Dragon. Andrew had bought the first round – a pint of ale for him; a pint of Guinness for Max – and when he laid them down carefully on the dark oak table in the corner that was their regular spot, Max had fiddled for several minutes with a soggy beer-mat and Andrew had known there was something on his mind.

‘Anything bothering you?’ he enquired, taking a long swig from his pint glass.

‘Um, not really.’ Max eased into his chair, rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand as he always did when he was trying to work out a problem.

Andrew left it for a few minutes, hoping that a companionable silence would tease out whatever it was he wanted to say. Andrew was good at silence. He had a placid, relaxing air of stillness about him and was quite capable of sitting for hours on the edge of a mountainside simply taking things in, contentedly alone with his thoughts. A friend had once told him he would make a good fisherman, but for some reason he had never taken up the hobby. Occasionally, at work, an employee would mistake his detached manner for aloofness or absent-mindedness but really it was neither of these things; it was simply that most of the time, he did not see the point in talking unless he had something important to say.

‘It’s Mum.’

Andrew waited.

‘She’s driving me mad,’ said Max, looking his father straight in the eye. ‘Can you have a word with her, Dad?’

‘In what way is she driving you mad?’

‘She’s always . . .
around
. I just want to hang out with my mates before we all go off, you know, to uni or me to the army and Mum is just always there. She says I can bring people home, that she won’t bother us and she’ll “leave us to our own devices –” ’ he made a quotation mark sign with his hands, ‘but then she sits down with us and tries to be part of what we’re saying or doing and . . .’ He dropped his voice. ‘It’s embarrassing, Dad. She keeps asking us for cigarettes. She doesn’t even smoke!’

‘Well, she used to.’

‘Yeah, exactly, she
used
to. She used to be young. She used to be my age. She isn’t any more. My mates take the piss out of her as soon as she walks out the door.’

‘That’s not very fair of them,’ said Andrew. ‘Given how kind she is to them and how tolerant she is of having them around. Goodness knows, she’s far more tolerant than me about that sort of thing.’

Max hung his head, a trace of shame colouring his features.

‘It’s a very hard time for her, Max. You’re about to leave home and she’s going to miss you terribly, as well as being worried about you going into the army.’

‘It’s only training.’

‘Yes, but then you’ll be sent away goodness knows where. You’re her child, her little boy. Of course she’s going to want to see as much of you as possible while she still can. You can understand that, surely?’

Max nodded.

‘She would be awfully hurt if she knew we were having this conversation, let alone if I tried to talk to her about it.’ Andrew paused. ‘But I can see that you and your friends might want your own space, so I suggest you start spending time somewhere else, away from the house.’

He tapped gently on the edge of the table, his fingers making a soft thudding sound against the wood. ‘Can’t you go to Adam’s house or, well, I don’t know, go for a walk or something?’

Max snorted at the prospect of something so mundane and then, after a few minutes, said: ‘You’re right. Don’t say anything to Mum. We can go somewhere else.’

‘I know . . .’ Andrew started and then pondered the wisdom of what he was about to say. He did not want to be disloyal to his wife but, at the same time, he wanted Max to feel that he understood. ‘I know that Caroline can be quite . . .’ he searched for the right word, ‘intense, but it’s only because she loves you so very deeply. You can see that, can’t you?’

‘It just feels like a bit of a pressure sometimes,’ Max said, after a while. ‘Being an only child.’

‘Mmmm, I can see that,’ replied Andrew, thinking sadly of how hard they had tried for more children when Max was young. ‘Of course, I’m one myself. I know what it’s like.’

He glanced at Max sitting across the table from him, fiddling intently with a beer-mat and not quite meeting his father’s gaze. Andrew leaned forward so that he was in his eyeline. ‘It’s tough, feeling you’re the receptacle for all your parents’ hopes and fears, it is. I’m sorry about that, truly. But, look, Max, it won’t be too long until you’re leaving for Bulford and you won’t have to worry about it any more. Now,’ he said, draining his beer. ‘Your round, I believe?’

Max laughed and sloped off to the bar and Andrew felt quietly pleased that his son had confided in him. And he had taken his advice too – from then on, Max and his friends spent far less time at the house. If Caroline had noticed, she had not said anything – deliberately, Andrew suspected, so that she would not lose face. She had always needed to be close to Max. Of course, all mothers cherish their children but he thinks it went deeper than that. It was almost as if she needed Max to love her to the exclusion of anyone else.

There had been all that business at Christmas – Max’s last, as it turned out – when Elsa had come to stay. They had been gathered around the tree in the drawing room, Max sprawled out on a large floor cushion, Andrew and Elsa sitting in armchairs on opposite sides of the hearth and Caroline handing out the brightly wrapped parcels.

Caroline loved Christmas. There were many things about his wife that would always remain unexplained, unknowable, but he knew beyond doubt that she adored the festive period. She threw herself into the preparations, decking out the house in tinsel and holly boughs, making batches of mince pies and chocolate truffles, sending out the cards with meticulous precision (that year, she had even used an Excel spreadsheet to print the addresses). She liked the family being together and delighted in her role as hostess, accepting compliments with a beaming smile.

She put pressure on herself, each year, to come up with the perfectly judged Christmas present for Max. Most of the time, she got it right. Sometimes, Andrew could see, Max would disguise his own disappointment so convincingly that Caroline never knew. But this particular year, he could tell that Caroline was especially pleased with the camera that they had bought him. She had spent hours researching the best model online, after Max had let slip one evening at supper that he would quite like to get into photography more seriously.

Andrew had left her to it. He had an inkling it might have made more sense to give Max the money and tell him to spend it on the camera he most wanted, but Caroline thought that giving cash was unimaginative and – this was her word – ‘common’.

Traditionally, on Christmas Day, Caroline would give their present last, as if all of Max’s other gifts were simply a build-up to the real event. So, when she handed over Elsa’s neatly packaged box, at first nothing had seemed amiss. Caroline, her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed, had complimented Elsa on the wrapping paper.

‘It’s beautiful, Elsa,’ she said, turning the gift over in her hands, admiring the curlicues of silver ribbon. ‘Where do you find the time?’

Andrew braced himself, his ears finely attuned to detecting the subtle fragrance of implied criticism in any conversation between his wife and mother. He glanced across at Elsa, who looked unperturbed, sitting upright on the sofa, her hand clasping a small glass of sherry. Caroline, a purple paper crown perched on her hair, was smiling broadly. Perhaps he had imagined it.

Max took the present from his mother and brought the box up to his ear, shaking it lightly. There was a rattling noise. ‘A-ha. Granny. Is it a CD?’ he asked, and everyone laughed. Elsa shook her head. ‘A pair of socks?’ he asked waggishly. ‘Lavender-scented bath salts?’

‘I’m afraid not, Maximilian,’ she said, drily, ‘I’ve let you down again.’ She took a sip of her sherry, leaving a crimson imprint of lipstick on the rim of the glass. Caroline’s smile grew tired. She hated Elsa calling him Maximilian. They had christened him plain old Max, she often reminded Andrew, with no longer version available to fall back on.

‘It’s like she’s trying to prove she knows him better than us,’ Caroline said.

‘Oh don’t be ridiculous, darling, I don’t think that’s it at all. It’s because she’s so fond of him, that’s all.’

Caroline pinched her lips together. He’d left it at that.

That Christmas, Caroline had let the Maximilian comment pass, looking on as he unwrapped the parcel, kneeling on the carpet, her neck arched forwards to see better what was inside.

‘Well,’ said Max, keeping up a cheerful commentary as he began to open the package. ‘This
is
intriguing.’ The silver ribbon fell to one side; the paper crinkled and ripped and gradually, the contents emerged.

Andrew was the first to spot what had happened. He recognised the picture of the camera on the side of the box and then he focused on the name: Nikon
3580
. It was exactly the same model that Caroline had bought. Andrew got up from his chair, sensing impending disaster but at the same time not being entirely sure what he could do to prevent it.

‘Oh my God, Granny, how did you know?’ Max was thrilled, his face positively beaming with joy. ‘This is exactly what I wanted.’ He leaped up from the floor and went to kiss Elsa effusively on the cheek.

Elsa put down her sherry glass to pat his arm. ‘No need to fuss,’ she said but Andrew could see she was pleased. ‘I’m so glad I got the right one.’ She cleared her throat and brought her hand delicately up to her mouth, the fourth finger circled by the dazzling emerald of the engagement ring she had worn every year since before Andrew was born. For a moment, Andrew was hypnotised by the stone’s lucent sparkle, throwing out tiny refractions of light. Then he remembered Caroline. He went over to her and rested a hand lightly on her shoulder. She let it lie there, but did not respond to the touch. ‘Well,’ Andrew said, trying to preserve the jovial atmosphere that had existed until a few seconds before. ‘Isn’t that a coincidence?’