Then all at once: the clout of cold air through the shattered glass, the men churning at the jaws of the ambulance, the snapped figure in the white nightdress.
I fell to my knees. ‘Terry,’ I said. ‘Someone please help me.’ The passage folded on to its side. I skidded down the floor. The blue light boomeranged above my head, coming closer, getting brighter, turning black.
11: November
(i) Now that wasn’t so bad,
was it? — TERRY
Big deal. Do you want to know how my sister died? Suck on this.
Whoosh. Terence at the square table in the corner of the front room, his homework fanned out on the green baize. In the chair by the three-bar fire, my father, tall, heavy, his thin, red, damp, smalltown hair ironed flat across his crown. Rosie is late. The smoke from his wet pipe formed a dusty shelf at table-height, and when I turned in my chair to look down on him through the tobacco trance — to see how mad he was getting, tell him something quickly about the other side — I felt as if I were on an elevated plane, like a god, or a scientist observing the behaviour of controlled animals. This is going to be bad, I thought; but of course another part of me (that perverse, reciprocating part) was thinking: this is going to be good. Where is the headache? Down there somewhere.
We heard the front door being tugged shut. I turned again as she came into the room — she came into the room, dropping things on chairs, saying hello to her father and to me, without fear. He showed no vexation at her lateness. He made no response. He sat before the fire, smoking his pipe — it must have been delicious, that sense of rightful anger deferred, letting the power trickle in through his mouth to feed the busy static. Rosie limped smiling to my table, where she sat and doodled until it was time to eat. She felt well. She was seven.
My father, as always, prepared the supper — cheap, basic, complexion-ravaging foods, invariably fried — while my sister, as usual, laid the table (she was required to wash up, too, ever since my mother went), while I, as usual, did nothing. Did nothing, except listen to that old eerie tinkle, that scraping false clarity of sound, those noises that recede just as they seem to climb, and climb again, and then recede, and then begin to climb.
He eats with fastidious relish. Silence is commanded by the sure way he loads his fork, loads it with a representative of every foodstuff on his plate — sausage stub, bean cluster, white flap of egg, tomato seeds — and lets his head drop to devour it, loading his fork once more as he chews. He starts to speak, without looking up. He does not look up. Neither do I.
You were late again, Rosie.
Had to go to Mandy’s. I said I’d be late.
Don’t interrupt me, please. Never interrupt me again. You were late again, Rosie. You know how angry that makes me feel …
Dad, I told you.
And I told you not to interrupt me. Did I tell you not to interrupt me?
Yes, Dad.
Then don’t interrupt me, please. Now let’s start again. You are late. This makes me angry. I would not be angry if you were not late. But you are late. This makes me angry.
(I can barely hear him now. The room is so loud and he won’t look up, won’t stir or bend in any way … I wait for Rosie’s tears, although she never cries.)
You know what happens when I am angry. And I am angry because you are late. I am angry. You know what happens. But you are late.
He stands and turns. He is quite still, his back to us. He stands before the cooker, as if its dials might help control what is happening to him. He begins again —
You know all this and yet you are —
And I look up to see that Rosie is on her feet. Her face is burning — with what? With outrage, with defiant, goaded outrage, as she moves down the table towards him and starts to say,
‘Stop it, stop it, why don’t you leave me alone — ’
Whoosh. He has swivelled and crack she is up in the air with a fluttery wriggle and down on the floor in an instant, used up in an instant, snapped, dead.
He turned again. He replaced the frying-pan on the ring. With deliberate movements he washed his hands. The air made my heart itch. I sensed I had fouled my trousers. He dried his hands and reached for his coat, hooked on the scullery door. He came towards me. I hope he can’t smell it, I thought — he’ll kill me if he finds out.
‘I’m going now,’ he said. ‘I won’t be back. Don’t worry. I’ll tell them. There’s nothing you can do.’ He gestured at the body. He hesitated. ‘It was her or you. I don’t know why. There’s nothing you can do.’
I changed my pants in the cold bedroom and buried them in the kitchen dustbin. I didn’t look at her. Then I went upstairs to hide. There was nothing I could do.
Now that wasn’t so bad, was it? Actually — between ourselves — the episode hasn’t retained much reality of a very pressing kind. Oh, it happened all right; I was there; it was real. But nowadays the memory seeks me out like a bore tapping on my shoulder, a vivid reel from an otherwise unremarkable film, an encumbrance, second-hand stuff. Goodbye, Rosie. You turned out all right in the end. Who needs you now? I don’t.
As for Ursula, well, that’s clearing itself up too. There was no autopsy or anything, thank God … The judge lowers his spectacles: ‘Now, Mr Service, “gentleman of the road”, as you are described here. Quantities of plebeian semen were found …’ No, with her long history of disturbance, previous suicide bids and so on, everything was formal and brisk. She got cremated with no sweat. Neither of her parents could get down for it, so Greg and I went as her guardians. It was sad. We both cried. We didn’t guard her very well, did we?
Of course, I’ve decided not to blame myself at all. That chat I gave her, after the absurd scene in my bedroom, couldn’t have been more indulgent and conciliatory. I merely pointed out, gently but firmly, that there was no sense in which I could assume responsibility for her, that you cannot ‘take people on’ any longer while still trying to function successfully in your own life, that she was on her own now, the same as me, the same as Greg, the same as everybody else. I never said I wouldn’t stick by her. I never said I wouldn’t give her help if she needed it.
Gregory, however, has decided to blame himself. Patently, and rather hurtfully also, his rift with her that night was more decisive than mine ever could have been. The first few days were rough — the three of us sharing that ambulance, Gregory staying on for forty-eight hours’ sedation, the curiously unresponsive messages from Rivers Hall, Greg back up in his room, a creature of the middle-air with his pallor and his tears and his odd lightness of presence. I sort of hate to see him now. His grief is an unmanly and demeaning thing. He looks so pathetically at-a-loss, staring out of windows all day long, as if the rooftops might suddenly realign and make themselves new for him again.
He has been out of hospital for — let’s see — about two-and-a-half weeks now. On the first Monday after his discharge he went back to the gallery. When I returned from the office, at about six-thirty, I found him sitting at my desk, staring dully at the sky. He hadn’t switched on the lights; the sallow sodium from the streets played upwards on his unhealthy face.
‘Hello, kid,’ I said. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’ve packed in my job,’ he said.
‘Christ. Do you want a drink?’
‘Yes. Yes, please. I packed it in.’
‘Why? Jesus, what’ll you do?’
‘I just told them. I told them they could keep it.’
‘What did they say? Will they give it back?’
‘I couldn’t bear it any more. I couldn’t bear them, it.’
‘What did they say?’
‘They said they understood. It wasn’t a very good job, anyway.’
‘What will you do?’
He held the glass of whisky with both hands, cupped on his chest, lowering his mouth to sip. He said,
‘Don’t know yet. There are lots of things I can do. I’ll do them in the new year. I’ll talk to Papa. When we’ve been home for Christmas.
You are coming home for Christmas, aren’t you?’
‘There’s nowhere else to go.’
‘Terry, how did you feel … Do you mind me asking this? How did you feel when your sister …?’
‘Sad and frightened,’ I said.
‘Me too,’ he said.
‘But more frightened, in a way. Frightened about me, what would happen to me.’
‘Mm, that’s how I feel. I’m glad you felt that too.’
‘And now, in a way, I’ve lost two sisters,’ I said, rather daringly.
‘Yes, you have in a way.’ He looked up. ‘Things must have been very hard for you, Terry,’ he said.
‘Not that hard.’
One night towards the end of the month — I had just completed the course at the City College and we’d had a little celebration — I came lurching and burping down Queensway, enjoying the cold air on my numbed cheeks. Hanging a left on Moscow, I followed a wayward instinct to cut across the car park behind The Intrepid Fox. Ten yards into the darkness I saw the lumpy mass of rubbish bags under the light of the rear door. I walked over. I knew he’d be there and he was, a bundle of misery and filth, a compact compost-heap, surrounded by spent cider bottles and patches of reddish vomit. I came nearer. I thought I had nothing more ambitious in mind than one of our pseudo-Socratic little dialogues, but there was something different about me that night.
‘Well hi,’ I said. ‘Hi, it’s me, the little shit.’
A car passed down the street, throwing a stripe of light across the fucked-up hippie’s face. He was awake and his eyes were open. He had been watching me. ‘The big shit,’ he said.
‘Things still rosy? Life still treating you right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Some guys get all the breaks … Hey, you’ve done something to your place, haven’t you? Looks different. Had it done up or something? Been shelling out the cash again?’
‘You’re not funny.’
‘Neither are you. You’re not anything. I wouldn’t swap you for a dog-turd.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Fuck me? Fuck me? You’d better watch what you say, tramp.’ I knelt, and added in a whisper, ‘I could do what I liked to you, you dumb hippie. Who would protect you? Who would care what happened to you? No one would notice or mind.’
‘Go and shit yourself, shit.’
I straightened up. A curled hand protruded from the bulk of his overcoat. I stood on it with my left boot, quite hard, and asked: ‘What did you say?’
‘I said go and shit yourself, you shit.’
I kicked him clumsily on the side of the head. I’d tried to keep my left foot on his hand — for extra tension — and half lost my balance in the process. This made me much angrier. With a two-step approach, like someone chipping a rugger ball, I caught him a good one right under the jaw. There was a gummy crunch as his mouth clamped shut, then the thud of the second impact as his head hit the concrete. He rolled over with a gurgle. The vented overcoat had ridden up and a part of his bare back was exposed; the thin chain of his spine tapered into his waistband. Should I kick that too, with my heavy boot, that fragile tube containing so many vital odds and ends? It would be nice. He rolled over again. No. Why bother? He’s taken care of. I flicked a tenner from my wallet and pressed it into his stomped-on hand. A fair deal, probably. Fair for him and fair for me. As I lurched and burped away, I heard the muffled scurry of approaching feet. For a moment I felt the squeeze of fear — but when I turned I saw it was only a couple of his wrecked hippie mates, running up to help their friend and to share his money.
£1,750? They’re kidding.
I was in the office, the next morning, dozily glancing through my newspaper — the more powerful you are here, it seems, the less there is to do. Momentarily my eyes had strayed from the crossword to the classified ads, where I noticed the following entry:
ART GALLERY ASST. reqd. Polite, well-spoken, male (21–25 yrs) private gallery Mayfair. No qualifs. nec. Contact Odette or Jason Styles 629–3095. Sal. £1,750.
No wonder he went out of his mind. Why didn’t they pay him in buttons? I swivelled in my chair for a few minutes. Of course, I thought: of course. I dialled the number. I spoke to a harsh-voiced woman. I made an appointment for lunchtime the following day. ‘Yes: Veale,’ I said. ‘Stanley Veale.’ I would wear my new black corduroy suit, that yellow shirt of mine, and a tie. I would clean my fingernails and brush my hair flat. I would be on time.
‘Good morning.’
‘Mr Veale, is it? Good morning.’
‘Yes. How do you do?’
‘Shall we go through into the office?’ asked a large, menopausal hillock of a woman — ‘My husband’s in there.’
I trailed her through the gallery, her thighs swishing and her shoes clicking on the cork floor. The place had something of the quality of a film set, over-bright and exemplary, as if staged for our historic progress across its floors.
‘Here we are,’ she said, as we entered the deeper shadows of the office. ‘This is … Stanley Veale. This is my husband Jason Styles.’
‘How do you do?’ I said to the horribly fit little unit of a man who stood alertly by a grey filing-cabinet.
‘Please sit down, Stanley,’ he said.
As I lyingly reconstructed my curriculum vitae — read Fine Arts at Kent, completed some external studies at the Courtauld — I sensed a growing restlessness from my interviewers: they were politely willing to hear me out, it appeared, but anxious that this formal interlude should come to an end. And I sensed too, as I lied on, the peculiar feel of the place — the murky damp of the sofa on which I sat, the bloodlessness of the air, the close breath of the room.
‘I see,’ said Mr Styles, glancing at his wife. ‘Let me ask you … what is your, your ambition. How would the gallery here fit in with it?’
‘Well, my ambition is to make some kind of contribution, however small, to the art world in general. I’ve visited this gallery before, of course, just as a casual viewer. And I find I’ve come back many times. I like the work you show here — it’s good work, and I would like to be a part of the whole thing.’
Perfect, identikit stuff, I thought; but again they seemed disappointed, apologetic, almost embarrassed.
‘Mm. You see,’ said Styles, ‘there isn’t really a great deal to do here from your point of view. The gallery more or less runs itself. We just sit and hope, really. The trouble with our previous assistants has always been’ — and he laughed a little — ‘that they’ve had too much ambition, too many interests. We really want someone with no interests at all, really.’
Really?
‘It’s a quiet job,’ said Mrs Styles. ‘It would suit a quiet young man.’
‘Ah, I see,’ I said quietly. ‘Was that — is that why the job is open now?’
‘Ah no,’ said Mr Styles. They both relaxed. ‘The last one was rather different. We were both very fond of him, but he was an extremely unhappy and unstable boy. Talented in some ways, but a bit — you know. Not suited to the …’
‘And then he had this personal tragedy …’
‘All a bit too much for him …’
‘We had to let him go, I’m afraid.’
‘I see,’ I said. Christ: he got aimed from here? ‘How sad.’
‘Well, the salary’s not much, as you know,’ pursued Mr Styles. ‘To be frank, we wouldn’t have replaced the previous young man if we could have helped it, things being as tight as they are. But then if one of us is ill, and then one of us has to go out to the post …’ Their eyes had been in conference. ‘We might as well say that the job is yours if you want it. You needn’t think of it as particularly long-term. Why don’t you think about it and give us a ring?’
Why don’t I think about it and give you a ring? Why don’t I think about that and give you a ring?
Poor Gregory. That sad bastard. Things are certainly changing fast for him now. Faster than yet he knows.
There has been more news from Rivers Hall. I’ve b
een talking to Greg’s mother at pricey length on the telephone. Greg’s mother is not worried about Ursula any more. ‘How can you worry about the dead?’ she asked me. Ursula is dead and gone; I agreed: that’s true — and so, in a way, is my past with her, with them, with him. Greg’s mother says there are other things to worry about now. Other things. She knew Greg was going under; she knew, even before Ursula went. That’s why she doesn’t want him to hear about these new things yet. She has told me. I am not to tell him. I am just supposed to get him up there, and she’ll tell him. I will tell you:
Greg’s father has gone broke. Broke scares her; broke scares him. Broke broke his heart. His heart attacked him again. And they think it’s going to win this time.
(ii) We’re going home early
for Christmas — GREGORY
That’s it. That’s it. All the bits that were me have been reshuffled yet again. Where are they? I’ll never find them now.
I’ve packed in my job. I just packed it in, is all. Odette and Jason were sitting in their office — I sauntered through and said, with classic insouciance, that I was no longer prepared, thank you, to squander my days on …
No. They aimed me. They aimed me. They called me into their office and said I was no longer ‘up’ to the job. (Up to that? Up to that?) They gave me £80 in cash. They said they were sorry. They probably were sorry.