How It All Began (13 page)

O
n Saturdays, Gerry did maintenance work. He tinkered with the car, washed and polished it. He replaced washers on taps, and sometimes interfered with domestic appliances, to Rose’s annoyance, because he thought they were making a funny noise. When he ran out of this kind of job, he retired to his shed at the end of the garden, and could be heard sawing and planing; for the last year or so he had been making a table. Charlotte sometimes felt that Gerry had taken the wrong road in life; he was not an engineer or a carpenter but a local council official. He presided over an office; his daily routine was paperwork and meetings. Saturdays seemed to be some kind of gesture, a statement about his further capabilities. It was not that he felt himself to be by nature an artisan—not that at all, Gerry was extremely conscious of status. More that he needed to demonstrate manual efficiency, the ability to get things fixed. Perhaps in local government nothing ever did get satisfactorily fixed.

Charlotte had always been aware of Gerry’s Saturdays, but now that she was living with him and Rose she saw them in close-up: Gerry’s special Saturday garb—the old trousers that didn’t matter, the sweater with the oil stain; his tool bag with each implement filed in its proper place; his pursed expression as he dismantled a hairdryer that wouldn’t work.

“You don’t mend hairdryers,” said Rose. “You get another one.
Fifteen quid or thereabouts. But never mind.” She was in the kitchen, out of earshot, dressed to go out, and Charlotte knew where she was going.

Gerry was a man of routine. Of course. Most people have rituals—Charlotte was aware of having accumulated a fistful, in old age—but his were more remorseless than most. He let the cat out at precisely seven-thirty in the morning; he laid his briefcase and the car keys on the hall table before going up to bed; he had a cooked breakfast on alternate days; he marked promising television programs in the
Radio Times
over his first cup of coffee on Saturday morning. He was disturbed by any disruption from the norm. Charlotte knew her presence in his house to be a disruption, and appreciated that he was making the best of things. He went out of his way to find some common ground for a conversation; and was forever opening doors for her and offering chairs. The hairdryer was hers; she had produced it with quiet satisfaction, knowing that Gerry would pounce.

“Keep him happy for hours,” said Rose, inspecting herself in the kitchen mirror.

She went through to the sitting-room, where Gerry was happy with the hairdryer. Charlotte, washing up some lunch things (she was allowed now to do a few small domestic tasks), could hear their exchange.

“I’m off out,” said Rose.

He grunted, evidently absorbed. As an afterthought: “Going to the supermarket?”

“No. I’m doing good Samaritan stuff. Mum’s reading pupil. You know—I told you.”

Another grunt. The hairdryer required his full attention.

Rose paused in the hall. “Bye Mum.” The front door slammed.

Charlotte dried her hands and went to offer Gerry a cup of coffee. She could do very short distances now without the crutches—a triumph.

Gerry declined the coffee. He was looking put out. “I’m afraid this thing has defeated me. I think the heating element has packed up, in which case there’s nothing one can do.”

“Don’t worry. Many thanks for trying.”

“I was sure I could do it. I don’t like to be defeated.”

“And by a mere hairdryer,” said Charlotte. “Pesky thing. Let me get rid of it for you.” His afternoon was blemished, she saw; this challenge should have lasted for far longer. She thought of her Tom, who never so much as changed a lightbulb. Their houses had disintegrated around them, smirking as pipes leaked and gutters sagged.

She sat down, stowing the hairdryer away in her bag. “Please note, Gerry, no crutches. I can do ten yards now. Fifteen with a following wind. No time at all, and you’ll be shot of me. You and Rose have been saints. Are being.”

“Our pleasure.” Stiffly. Gerry doesn’t do emotion. And he is embarrassed.

Charlotte rattled on, to cover the moment. “Being derailed like this is a slap in the face. And having to impose myself on you adds insult to injury.” Dear, dear—cliché upon cliché. “Anyway, not for much longer. I get more agile by the day.”

Then he surprised her. “If something like that happened to me I would be far less resilient. I know it. Go to pieces, I dare say.”

It struck her that nothing much ever had happened to Gerry. Nothing adverse. An impacted wisdom tooth, she remembered. A trivial car accident, provoking a dispute with the insurance company.

“Probably not, Gerry. We all tend to . . .” No, no—not rise to the occasion, or take it on the chin. “. . . well, we accept, in a rather odd way. There being no alternative.”

He inclined his head, which meant he didn’t agree. “I have always found the unexpected extremely hard to take.”

“I know,” said Charlotte, surprising herself now.

He looked at her, and she saw a vulnerability that did not often show. Gerry had features that were a touch severe, a habitual slight frown. The eyes, now, spoke of something else.

He shook his head. “One is reminded. When . . .” He waved a hand in her direction—indicating, she took it, her ravaged hip.

“Yes,” she said. “You’ve been lucky. Rose too, thanks be.”

She wondered if he was perhaps someone who feared death, for
whom the idea of death lurked always at the edge of the mind. She did not; she was afraid of the run up to death, not the thing itself.

She thought: I hardly know Gerry, after all this time. Only the surface of him—the Saturdays, the likes and dislikes.

“Lucky . . .” he said. Considering the word, it would seem. “It doesn’t feel so much lucky as—normal. Straightforward. It’s the other things that are . . . I don’t know . . .”

“Violations?” Charlotte suggested. The mugger. The broken hip.

He nodded. “And, as you say, I’ve been spared. We have. So I doubt any capacity to cope if . . .” A dry laugh.

“You could surprise yourself,” she told him. “People do.”

“I hope you’re right.”

She sensed that the chink he had opened was about to close. “You can feel challenged as much as violated. Though at my age one is less keen on challenges. When young I rather enjoyed them. Tom positively sought them, of course.”

“Yes, I remember. I used to feel he stuck his neck out. And envied him for being able to do so.”

“Oh. Did you?” Well, well. Goodness me.

“I don’t mean to be rude.”

“I know you don’t.”

“The time he chose to move to that school.”

She nodded. Gerry was referring to an inner city school at which Tom had taken over, considering that with drive and skill he could rescue it from its “sink school” performance. He had succeeded.

“I admired Tom,” said Gerry. “He wouldn’t have known that.”

“No, I don’t think he did.” If only you had shown it. Told him, even. Tom thought you—well, a pretty buttoned-up sort of person. But you wouldn’t have known that.

“I used to feel that perhaps Tom didn’t think much of me.” The dry laugh again.

“Oh . . . Oh, no. You shouldn’t think that.”

“We could do with a few chaps like Tom where I work. Unfortunately local government doesn’t much attract them.”

It just gets people like me. The unspoken coda hung between them, and Charlotte winced.

Gerry stood up. “Well, I must go out to the car. Oil change needed. Nothing I can do for you?”

She shook her head. He went. She heard him crunch down the gravel of the garden path, out to where the car waited, groomed and maintained to perfection. She felt grateful to the hairdryer, for having enabled this glimpse of a Gerry she had not known.

Rose removed her coat, took the green jacket off the hanger and shrugged it on. She adjusted the shoulders, did up the buttons. “You’re sure she’s about my size?”

“A little smaller,” said Anton. “Not much. Perhaps a little more short, too.”

“What about the color? Does she like green?”

“I think.”

Rose put the garment back. “Actually I don’t care for it—it feels a bit stiff, the material.” She wandered along the rail, took down a thick soft gray knitted jacket. “Ah. This is a possibility.” She put it on. “Nice. My mum would wear this. In fact so would I.”

“Gray is not always for old lady?”

“Not necessarily. We might look for a bright scarf to go with it, if we settle on this. What do you think?”

Anton spread his hands. They had already ransacked the shop, the assistants observing Rose with respect. They knew a fastidious shopper when they saw one.

“If you like I am sure it is good. And I like. On you it is very nice.”

Rose showed him the price ticket. “Is that OK? It’s not cheap—but it’s good value.”

“That is fine.”

The deal was done, the jacket wrapped in tissue and put in a large shiny bag with the designer’s logo. Anton patted it: “I will send her this too. She will like for her shopping.”

Outside, Rose paused. “We need a scarf, but there isn’t anywhere around here, really. A Marks & Spencer would do nicely, but none handy.”

“But there is Starbucks,” said Anton. “I could buy you coffee. For thank you. Please?”

They settled in Starbucks, with a small cappuccino for Rose, a Chocolate Cream Frappuccino for Anton. “I am like small boy with this,” he said. “I must try.”

“You could go for broke and have an apple and cinnamon muffin as well.”

“Broke?”

“Oh, sorry . . .” She explained, adding, “The thing is, I forget there are expressions you don’t know, because actually your English is good.”

“But that is fine,” he said. “That way I learn. On the building site I say now to the site manager, ‘I go for broke and move all these bricks.’ But I think the apple and cinnamon muffin is . . . too much.”

“A bridge too far,” said Rose. “There’s another one for you.”

“Ah. So I say to the site manager, ‘You tell me to do all this today is a bridge too far.’ Good. On the site I most learn bad language. I can say bad words now in four–five language. My mother would be—not pleased at all.” He smiled. “She does not like the building site, but I tell her it is just for a short time, until I am a big man in accountancy firm.” He went on, more soberly: “Until I read well.”

“Which you soon will. Mum says you’re making terrific progress.”

“Then it is her good teaching.”

“It must be very odd to have to—go back to school, at your age.” She added, embarrassed, “Our age.”

“It is not difficult. Perhaps there is always something in our head that is ready to learn. And I remember when I was boy, how you are—hungry—to learn things.”

“When my son was five he knew the names of all the dinosaurs,” said Rose. “You know—prehistoric creatures.
Tyrannosaurus rex
and stegosaurus . . . Strings of names.”

“What is
his
name?”

“James. And my daughter is Lucy.”

“I have no child,” he said. “My wife did not want.” Then, seeing her expression: “You should not feel sorry. It is a long time ago now. I am—accepting.”

There was a small silence. “And now,” Anton said cheerfully, “I have house full of child—children. My nephew and his friends. Last night I am very father and I tell them—we clean this place up. There is much . . . much not want to.”

“Grumbling,” said Rose. “I can imagine.”

“Live like student is fine if you are age of student. But I am not. So I get brush and bucket and soap and thing and I am like manager on the site.”

“What happened?”

“They grumble. Then they do it. And I have to buy beer for everyone. Very expensive cleaning—for me.”

They both laughed.

“You have to set up a rota,” said Rose. “Turn and turn about. That’s what we did, when I was in a student flat at my university.”

“But girls are different. They like to be clean. Young men are . . . horrible.”

“Oh, I know. I remember James. And now he’s a banker in a sharp suit and expensive shirts.”

“He is banker? He is one of the people who make the credit crisis?”

“No,” said Rose. “He’s only a baby banker. More like the office boy, though he’d have you think otherwise.”

“And you? You work for a history man, your mother say. History man—is that right?”

“It’s historian. But I like history man.”

“He is old man, she say. Important old man.”

“He’d like important. Though he was, I suppose.” She told him about Henry. “Right now, he’s trying to get into television—to make programs. He hasn’t a hope, I imagine.”

“I like to watch programs like that. Where you learn something. But my nephew and his friends—not. So we have argument and I do not win.”

“Sounds like family life,” said Rose. “At least when your children leave home you get hold of the remote control. What does your nephew do? Before coming here, I mean?”

“He work in a bar. Is not bad job but pay very little and he want to get married. So he come here for a year to have money for wedding and to start home. He is a nice boy—and the others—but I would like place by myself. Soon I look for a room somewhere.”

“The building site . . .” Rose began, diffidently “It must be well, tough, doing work like that when you aren’t used to it.”

“Oh, often I am please with myself. Look! I have lift this, and move that, like I am a real worker! I have work hands now”—he opened them on the table and she saw calloused blisters—“but I hope is not for too long. I would like nice clean office again.”

“It won’t be,” she said. Suddenly anxious for him, and determined.

“All the time I try new reading. Look.” He pulled a book out of his rucksack.
Walking London
, she saw. He opened it at random: “‘Enter the . . . dome, yes? . . . to your right, and use the foot tunnel to cross the . . . river . . . to Green . . . Greenwik.’ ”

“Grenidge,” said Rose. “Place-names are impossible. But it’s nice there, and you go under the river through this tunnel, like it says. So have you been doing these walks?”

“A little bit. On Sunday. And I like to try to read the book, and look at the pictures.”

“Gerry and I used to walk in London. My husband. Way back.” Not for ages now, she thought. Never, now. Why not? “There’s a fantastic walk along the river.” She flipped over the pages of the book. “Yes, look—here it is. Kew and Richmond.” He leaned forward, following her finger on the map. “Or there’s the City churches, that’s interesting.”