Sing Like You Know the Words (52 page)

-Some people say there are
worlds where other yous are living those lives right now: who
knows? In any case, you always lived half in your imagination,
David. It’s one reason why I could never give up on you
entirely.

-But look at poor Matthew: he’s
been paralysed all his life by the thought that everything he
chooses to do means six less choices he has left. He wanted to save
all his choices. It’s absurd, looking at life as if it was a magic
lamp with a set number of wishes inside. I’ve told him so many
times that in the end, if you go that way, you do nothing at all.
At least I always knew that you have to spend yourself on
something. No good being a miser of life. But then your life fails,
and what do you do then?

-How should I know? You carry
on, I suppose. You know what Hawkins will do to that poor man,
don’t you?

-Yes. Another of my crimes. I
thought it would be worth it if I could make it those last few
steps up the ladder. I could do good things that would outweigh the
bad. But then I found out that the ladder ends closer to the ground
than I’d planned. No good trying to call off Hawkins, he’s got a
personal involvement.

-That’s right. But you never
thought the story would have a happy ending did you? You know what
they say about political careers ending in failure. They all
do.

-I didn’t expect that the end
for me would come so soon.

-Don’t worry about it. All lives
of whatever kind end in failure when you think about it. Your heart
stops, or a disease kills you, or you are run down by a car. That’s
why people are so suspicious of happy endings. They’re unrealistic.
In any case you’re not finished yet, unlike me. There are lots of
things you can do.

-I don’t see how.

Albert laughed at him, but not
in an unfriendly way.

-You don’t get any special
wisdom, not being alive any more, he said. But I have noticed that
endurance becomes the most important quality for most of us
eventually.

-I don’t see how I can carry on.
I’ve done bad things, wrong things, and it turns out that they were
all for nothing.

-You underestimate yourself
David. Give it a month. You’ll have made up a new story of
yourself. And what good would it do you if you couldn’t? There
isn’t a way to make everything come out right for everyone.

-No?

-It isn’t that kind of
world.

-David reflected that Albert
wasn’t looking any older. Compared to me, he thought, I’m aging
fast. It was good to see him, even so.

-I missed you, you know.

-We had our best times, here, I
suppose. The most purposeful, even though I spent so much time
talking about nothing.

-I suppose so, Matthew misses
you as well.

-How is he?

-I’ll tell you. He said to me
the other day that he’d decided, early on in life, that the world
wasn’t going to change much in his lifetime and that he had better
get used to it. And here we are, he told me; we’ve been through
three or four wars, and we’re still fighting others. The Berlin
wall came down and as soon as they were free to do so Europeans
started slaughtering each other again. There’s still a world war
going on in the African continent and no-one seems to know why. And
we’ve started fighting over religion as well as resources.
Meanwhile, as a species, humans are sacrificing their planet to
assert the sacred right of every one of them to have their own
television, car and refrigerator. He said he wished he’d been right
about nothing much happening.

-It doesn’t sound like he’s
changed much. But at least now you have a labour government

-Very funny. He went on to say
that clearly he had lived in momentous times, but that, looking
back, it felt like everything had happened somewhere else, as if it
had never really involved him at all.

-He always did prefer to live
inside himself

-But not me. I’ve always tried
to be involved. I wanted to be at the heart of everything. And yet
I knew just what he meant. All my own plans and struggles, don’t
seem to make any difference to all of it; to everything that is
going on

-You wanted to make a
difference

-Or maybe I just wanted everyone
to look at me, or to make up for the bad I know that´s in me. I
suppose I’ll never know now whether my intentions were really
good.

-Do you suppose that anyone ever
knows that for sure about themselves?

David was quiet for a moment,
collecting his thoughts.

-Back to Matthew though. His
case is curious. Would you believe that he is happy? He doesn’t
even know it himself. I suppose he stopped thinking about happiness
a long time ago. But it’s true.

-I’m glad to hear it. How did
this come about?

-I think that he forgot about
himself. When we talk now, he’s more interested in the things he
can see with his own eyes, and touch, and feel, and what people
around him have to say. He doesn’t seem to worry so much about what
it all implies for him.

-Not so unusual I’m afraid.
Intellectual curiosity recedes with hairline, and the next meal you
eat becomes more interesting than the next book you read.

-I don’t think it’s that. Well a
little, maybe. His mother would put it more simply: she’d say he
found ways to make himself useful.

Albert nodded.

-For myself, I should have liked
to see what comes next. Everything must collapse. I still believe
that. It should have started when the Wall came down. Capitalism
and communism were like two dinosaur fossils supporting one
another’s weight. You’d have thought that when one went over the
other would topple straight away, but it seems locked in position
still. It’s only a question of time. And something new will emerge
from the ruins. You can’t stop it David, you can only make things a
little better or a little worse in the tiny space where you happen
to live. How is your life these days?

-I’ll be alright I expect. I am
feeling better for this conversation, though I don’t know why. You
never did say anything that was particularly comforting. Our drinks
are done, and I suppose you have to be going. Drop by any time
though; it will be nice to see you.

-Here are some words of comfort;
remember I told you before. Great men looking back always imagine
that their success was inevitable, only because they can’t see the
thousands who were exactly like them but failed.

Albert rose from the favoured
chair and turned away from David. Then he stopped and turned
back.

-It doesn´t really matter I
suppose, but you can tell me now David. You remember the car?

-What car?

-You know the one I mean. The
one Tim was driving that night. The old lady, the one you said I
must have imagined. The one we hit. You saw her too, didn´t
you?

David said nothing. He looked
away; closed book in one hand, whisky glass in the other.

-It´s alright, you don´t have to
answer. I´ll show myself out.

***

This is how Matthew’s happiness
started.

For Jane and Matthew, the
holiday did not begin well, though the weather was good. A long
weekend in a holiday village had seemed like a good way for them
all to get to know each other. Places like this were springing up
all over the country. Getting there would be easy, you could drive,
and then you had your own chalet, which meant privacy. If Jason
became difficult, they would be able to manage without the added
embarrassment of indignant staff or concerned onlookers.

On the drive, the boy seemed
happy enough at first, but Matthew knew from the little time he’d
spent with Jason that this could change very quickly. He felt a
little guilty at knowing next to nothing about Jason’s condition.
He could have read up on it easily enough, but that would have been
like acknowledging some kind of obligation; taking on
responsibility. Jason really was not his problem. In any case the
boy’s mood was volatile, that much was clear.

The rare incidence of sunshine
on a public holiday had enticed legions of drivers out on to the
English country roads for the weekend. Matthew occupied himself
with mental arithmetic, revising their estimated time of arrival as
the clock ticked by and they made little progress. He should have
allowed more time. Why do they do it to themselves, he wondered;
all these people in cars? They know it will be hell. Matthew had
always made a point of not leaving the house on bank holidays for
that reason, yet today here he was, along with all the rest.

There were not many days when
Jane could get away from her job. She was not in a position to
argue about leave, given all the days she had to take off
unexpectedly when there was a problem with Jason.

Poor Jane; she looked exhausted.
He knew that for her, it was enough to get away for a few days,
anywhere. She’d been looking forward so much to this rather
pathetic break. How she kept as cheerful as she did, he couldn’t
imagine. Sometimes from the corner of his eye, he caught that sad,
hopeful expression on her face that he remembered from their first
meeting. He’d seen her looking at Jason sometimes in that same
way.

Jason didn’t have any concept of
time or distance, Matthew supposed. Once he decided that it was
time they should have arrived, or became bored, the trouble would
start. They should have set off at first light, before the roads
became filled up, when the boy might have slept. Now Jason was
counting the number of red cars against the number of blue cars. He
would shout out the numbers in a loud, happy voice it made you
wince to hear. He kept losing count and having to start again. His
voice was a high pitched, sing-song: the consonants were difficult
to make out. Most of the cars that were red or blue attracted a
comment as well as a number. Some of the comments were quite funny,
in a childish way, when Matthew could understand them.

-Whanther Top, Jason announced
suddenly.

-Does he say he wants to stop?
Jane nodded. Matthew replied, we are stopped Jason, we haven’t
moved in five minutes

Jason repeated his request.

-We can’t stop here, it’s not
allowed. This is a motorway. You can only stop if there is a real
emergency.

Matthew felt foolish speaking so
slowly and exaggerating the sounds.

-Feel thick

-He gets travel sickness
sometimes.

-But we’re not travelling Jane,
we haven’t moved two miles in the last half hour. You can walk
quicker than that.

-Feel thick, Jason repeated.

This announcement was followed
by the sounds that Matthew was dreading, as Jason began retching
long and noisily. When he’d finished, he began to cry.

-It’s alright Jason, it’s not
your fault, don’t be upset, Jane was saying.

He’s not upset because he thinks
he’s done anything wrong, Matthew thought. Probably he’s just
uncomfortable and his throat hurts. Jane caught his expression.

-I blame myself, she said. We
should have put him in the front seat, next to you, like he wanted.
He doesn’t get sick in the front seat.

She found some wipes, unfastened
her safety belt and clambered into the back of the car. Even in
these circumstances, Matthew found time to appreciate how well she
fit into her tight jeans.

-It’s not too bad, I expect, he
told Jane. Leather seats you know, not so easy to stain.

New, top of the range, leather
seats.

They were late arriving,
naturally, and in the office the bored staff wanted to make
something of it. Matthew managed to keep his temper, barely.

-Look, if we arrived early
demanding the keys, I could see your problem, but what difference
does it make if we’re late? Just means you’ve had more time to get
the place ready.

Apparently it wasn’t that
simple. Don’t raise your voice, he reminded himself, you’ll make
Jason nervous, and then he could start to be frightened, and then
he could start to decide he wants to go home.

When they finally had the keys,
and found their chalet, in the dark, Matthew realized that he was
holding his breath on the threshold. What would Jason think of the
place?

Jason loved the television set.
It was bigger than the one at home and really thin. When he found
there was another TV in his own special bedroom, he was beyond
happy. Jane made something for them to eat: something simple for
them and burgers for Jason. The boy could certainly eat, and
throwing up had done nothing to spoil his appetite.

Later on, when they were sure
that he was asleep, Matthew and Jane made fierce, hushed love in
the main bedroom, listening all the while for noises from the other
bedroom that might suggest Jason was moving about.

Matthew loved to watch Jane in
the mornings. She was so focussed on what she was doing,
unconscious of her appearance, while he was only sleepy. Jason
demanded and ate a huge cooked breakfast, while Matthew drank some
coffee and watched Jane some more. As soon as he’d finished eating,
Jason wanted to go to the water play park, which they had told him
so much about.

Matthew told him he would have
to wait; he’d just finished his breakfast. Did he want to be sick
again? Jason began to cry, Jane intervened to calm Jason down. The
two of them went for a walk around the site while Matthew stayed
behind, claiming that he needed to finish some work he’d brought
with him. He lay on the bed for an hour, thinking about Amy and
wondering what he had done with his life and where it would
lead.

In the afternoon they all went
to the water park. Jason said that he loved it so much that one day
he was going to come back and live there.

In bed that night, they found
some time to speak, but they needed few words. What he found
strange about Jane: in the daytime she was so positive and
confident; managing Jason so cleverly, always ready to tear into
anything or anyone that might threaten him. In the night she made
love with passionate absorption, wordless and concentrated. But
when they were lying together, naked, afterwards, she held on to
him, timid and vulnerable as a small bird.