The Enemy of the Good (46 page)

At seven thirty the next morning, he was led down to reception where he changed into his own clothes, retrieved his property and filled in a
questionnaire
on his treatment in prison. Having affirmed that he had no
complaints
, he received his meagre discharge grant and was taken to the main gate, where he shook hands with the escorting officer, who suddenly seemed no more intimidating than a hotel porter. He stepped outside and, ignoring both the fluttering in his stomach and the cluster of waiting photographers, made straight for Mike. After a welcoming kiss, to the accompaniment of
clicking
shutters, Mike drove him the few miles to Beckley, where he insisted on walking over to the church before lunch. With Mike and his mother on either arm, they took the path through the woods, the variegated colours a joyful corrective to the ubiquitous prison grey. On arrival, Mike waited in the yard and his mother in the nave while he went down into the crypt alone.
Adjusting
his eyes to the gloom, he drew up a prie-dieu beside the grille and sat to commune with his father.

‘Well, it’s over! To be honest, there were a few rough patches in prison, when I started to wonder if it had been worth losing fifteen months of my life to spare you two or three. But, now that I’m out, I realise it was worth every minute. I did what we both knew was right. And besides, what’s fifteen months? A nanosecond in the face of eternity! So you see, Pa, I haven’t lost anything. Not even time.’

He knelt in prayer, until the memory of his companions brought him up short. Promising his father to return soon, he made his way up to the nave.

‘Sorry I’ve kept you.’

‘Not me, darling,’ his mother said. ‘But I worry about Mrs Shepherd. She’s pulling out all the stops.’

‘Then we’d better go back via the cottages,’ Clement said. ‘It’ll be quickest. Even if we pop in on Karen.’

‘Must we?’ Mike asked. ‘Today of all days.’

‘No, of course not… not if you don’t want to.’

‘In any case she won’t be there,’ his mother said. ‘She spends most of her time in Headington. She’s besotted with Darren.’

‘The busk… the boyfriend?’ Clement asked.

‘That’s right. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got engaged. The other day she told me, apropos of I don’t know what, that “That which is solitary is barren.” I thought it was code for “I’m pregnant,” but, apparently, it’s in the Wicca creed.’

They walked home, with no diversions or encounters. ‘I can’t believe how quiet it is after prison,’ Clement said. ‘One thing you never get used to is the noise… incessant, insufferable noise!’

‘Then why not stay here for a while, darling?’ his mother asked, making the appeal he dreaded. ‘You’ll find London equally noisy. And, besides, Mike will be out all day at school. Don’t you agree, Mike?’ she asked eagerly. ‘Clement should recuperate here where it’s peaceful and we can all look after him.’

‘Whatever he wants. It’s up to him.’

‘No, it’s not,’ Clement said, giving him a dark look. Although the last thing he wanted was to offend his mother, after fifteen months away, he was
determined
to sleep in his own bed. Moreover he had the perfect excuse. ‘Don’t forget this,’ he said, lifting his left trouser leg to reveal the electronic tag. ‘I have to be home every night at seven.’

‘Oh, darling!’ his mother said. ‘How barbaric! Does it chafe your skin?’

‘Not at all, I promise. They only put it on me this morning and, already, I hardly notice it.’

It’s inhumane… inhuman.’

‘It’s only for ninety days. And then I’ll be as free as air.’

‘They’ll be fitting you with a microchip next!’

Clement gazed uneasily at Mike, wondering what it was in his mother’s past that made her find a tag so repugnant. To his relief, she let the matter drop, and they returned indoors for a celebratory lunch, which he would have relished even if it hadn’t been his first decent meal in fifteen months. Mrs Shepherd had excelled herself; nevertheless, as she pressed him to extra slices of pâté and duck and spoonfuls of apple charlotte, he was forced to ask for a doggy bag to avoid either upsetting his stomach or wounding her pride.

Two hours later, armed with enough soups, casseroles, pies and cakes to feed an entire Bullingdon wing, he said goodbye to his mother and drove up to London with Mike. The sluggish traffic gave him time to consider his
position
. It wasn’t just the tag on his ankle that kept him tied to prison. The better part of his imagination was locked up with Dwayne and Parker and Dusty and Stick.

‘A penny for them,’ Mike said.

‘I’m sorry. It’s all so bewildering. To be a name again instead of a number. To be able to look ahead without worrying who might be creeping up behind. And the air’s so pure.’

‘It’s ninety-nine per cent diesel!

‘Trust me, it’s a tonic after Bullingdon. I’m sorry. Take no notice. I’ll be fine as soon as I’m home.’

Having braced himself for a seismic surge of emotion on reaching the house, he was distressed when, far from the soaring chords of the
Ode To Joy
, he didn’t even hear the theme tune to
The Archers
. His impassivity made him fear for his future both as a man and an artist. It didn’t help that his
homecoming
was so low-key. For all his insistence that there should be no fuss and veto of an early-release party, he hadn’t expected Mike to take him so literally that he had failed to buy a single flower. Curbing his disappointment, he made a desultory stab at opening his mail while Mike prepared dinner. His spirits rose when they sat down to eat, the candlelight supplying the romance that the lima bean casserole lacked. The mood was marred only by his fit of sneezing, which Mike attributed to stray hairs left by Carla’s cat.

‘She wasn’t allowed in the bedroom, I promise.’

‘Is that a hint?’

‘How about an offer?’

‘In which case it’s the best I’ve had in fifteen months.’

He was suddenly overcome by exhaustion, leading Mike, who was
convinced
that it was a ploy, to suggest that they abandon the pudding and head upstairs. The instant he slipped into bed, he was hit by all the emotion to which he had thought himself dead. The fresh sheets, warm duvet and soft pillow moved him deeply, even before he slid into arms which assured him that nothing was different while allowing him to acknowledge what had changed. Savouring Mike’s kiss, at once protective and arousing, he felt his body regain its integrity. He switched off the light, swearing that he had not grown shy but, rather, that after fifteen months of nothing but seeing and hearing (he refrained from adding smelling) he wanted to trust to taste and touch. He explored Mike’s flesh with his fingers, tongue and penis. He giggled and sighed and groaned before breaking down in sobs, which Mike comforted with his caresses. Then he lay back, while Mike rekindled his passion so
effortlessly
that he blushed. Moments of tenderness gave way to moments of
delirium
, after which they stretched out, limbs intertwined and trunks united in a newly germinated tree of life.

The next morning, after Mike left for work, Clement stayed in bed,
balancing
the urge to visit the studio against others to stroll through the park and simply loll around the house, before realising that what he wanted was not to choose so much as to enjoy the luxury of choice. Struck by a craving for anchovies and pineapple that would have been perverse even in pregnancy, he went down to the kitchen. He had just filled his plate when, by a coincidence at once sublime and disconcerting, his mother rang to tell him that Shoana had given birth.

‘He’s perfect. A boy. Five pounds seven ounces. No, I mean seven pounds five ounces! Shoana’s fine. Even the labour was straightforward. Zvi was there.’

‘I’m very happy, Ma. For Shoana. For you. Even for Zvi.’

‘He wasn’t due until next week. I’d planned to come down to help out.’

‘You can come now… whenever. There’s always a room for you here.’

‘Really? I don’t want to intrude. Especially not now.’

‘You know you could never intrude.’

‘Thank you, darling. Then I’ll come this afternoon. Meanwhile will you go to the hospital?’

‘Do you think they’ll want to see me?’

‘I’m sure of it.’

It wasn’t until he put down the phone that he realised he had forgotten to ask which hospital it was but, on ringing back, he found that she was already engaged. After a forty-minute wait, which for once was bearable, he learnt that Shoana was just across the park, in the Wellington. Two hours later, furnished with the finest bunch of lilies that St John’s Wood had to offer, he made his way into the foyer and up to the obstetrics ward. He stopped outside Shoana’s room and gazed through the open door to where she lay, cradling her baby, with Zvi in a chair by her side, their whole beings focused on the child. Anxious not to disturb them, he was about to slip away when Shoana looked up. ‘Clem!’ she called in a voice midway between pleasure and shock. He blenched to see her instinctually pull the baby closer but was reassured when, after exchanging greetings and comparing notes on their respective deliveries, she asked if he wanted to hold him.

He gathered him up with a sense of trepidation that was quickly replaced by awe. He gazed at the fluttering eyelids and the tiny hands with nails as small as a doll’s, choosing to concentrate on the peripherals rather than trying to fathom the mystery of the whole. He wondered if he should remark on some family resemblance, but for now he looked like nothing other than his sleepy, solemn self. So, instead, he asked whether they had picked a name for him.

‘Zaimen,’ Zvi said.

‘Zaimen,’ Clement experimented. ‘That’s great. Simple… strong.’

‘Wise,’ Zvi added.

‘Of course.’

Eager not to outstay his welcome, he returned home to wait for his mother, whose hunger to see her new grandson left her barely a moment to draw breath before asking him to accompany her to the hospital. They arrived to find Carla strolling up and down with the mewling baby, while Shoana and Zvi looked on, their evident longing to be alone surrendered to a wish that everyone should share in their happiness. As Carla gazed dotingly on the bundle in her arms, Clement wondered if she were nursing her own maternal ambitions or if the journey East had taught her the wisdom of acceptance. Recalling his earlier glimpse of Shoana, Zvi and Zaimen, he found himself picturing another trio of Carla, himself and the baby she had asked him to father. Mike had been right to dissuade him, although his arguments had been too clinical. He would be true to Mark, not by living his life, but by living his own to the full.

He watched as, with Shoana’s blessing, Carla handed Zaimen to his mother. Seeing her hold the grandchild for whom she had yearned so long, he prayed that nothing would threaten her relationship with Shoana. He
wondered
whether he too might play a role in his nephew’s upbringing, or whether the religious imperative would preclude it. While excited by the prospect of helping, in however small a way, to shape the boy’s future, he knew that what counted weren’t his feelings, or even Shoana’s and Zvi’s, but Zaimen’s. Indeed, were he to be given three wishes to pronounce over his cot, they would all amount to the same: that he should have a wealth of opportunities from which to choose; the wisdom to make the right choice; and the courage to stand by it.

Two days later, he received further proof of Shoana’s and Zvi’s change of heart when they invited him to Zaimen’s
B’rit
. Moreover, the invitation extended to Mike who, mindful of how much it had cost them, accepted, despite his horror of what he saw as ‘symbolic castration’.

The following week, they drove up to Hendon for the ceremony. Having relied on his parents’ descriptions of the engagement party and wedding, Clement was fascinated to see the Lubavitch world for himself. His mother was more circumspect, extracting a promise of good behaviour as if he were twelve years old on a visit to Aunt Helena. Urging her to relax, he left her in the hall and walked with Mike into the sitting room, where, if any of the two dozen guests harboured reservations about the notorious parricide and unashamed sodomites in their midst, they kept them to themselves, switching languages in order to welcome them.

‘I feel as if I’m at a Buckingham Palace garden party,’ Mike whispered, after replying to the third successive question about the best route from Regent’s Park to Hendon.

‘They’re making the effort,’ Clement replied, ‘which is all we can ask.’

They were interrupted, first by Zvi’s announcement that the
mohel
had been held up, and then by an elderly man with sad eyes, who came over to introduce himself. ‘My name is Reuben Levine. It was at my house that Zvi and Shoana met. They’ve asked me to be one of Zaimen’s godfathers.’

‘Congratulations,’ Clement said quietly.

‘We have another connection. My daughter.’

‘Really? What’s her name?’

‘You don’t know her. This is very hard for me. But if you have a moment to spare, she’d like to meet you.’

Intrigued by the mystery and eager to escape an oppressively masculine atmosphere reminiscent of Bullingdon, Clement suggested that they take advantage of the delay to seek her out. He followed Reuben to the dining room where, spying his mother and Carla among the women, he wondered whether they also felt out of place or were united by an act of baby worship. Reuben waited at the door, finally catching the eye of a young girl, who fetched his daughter, a tall, beaky woman in an ill-fitting wig.

‘This is Sorah.’

‘Clement Granville,’ he said, holding out his hand, which Reuben gently deflected.

‘I know,’ she replied. He was taken aback, until he recalled how
conspicuous
he and Mike must look with their light suits, smooth chins and bare heads. ‘I’m Shlomo’s wife,’ she said, causing her father to sigh.

‘Oh my goodness!’

‘I’m very pleased to meet you.’

‘You are?’

‘May we talk in the garden?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Clement replied, before realising that she had addressed the question to her father, who gave a brief nod, as though aching to shrug off the connection. Clement followed Sorah through the kitchen into the garden, which was as well kept and impersonal as a bowling green. She paced up and down the patio, finding it so difficult to speak that he wondered whether to prompt her.