A Certain Age (17 page)

I think this was when I learned to be the supportive sort I am today. Because, I know I shouldn’t say it, but I was marvellous. Forget Rocky Four. I was Rocky One to Seven inclusive. I drove Sara to the hospital virtually every day for the full year it took for Jimmy to die.

I remember when the surgeon explained to me, one day while Sara was in with Jimmy, that your brain inside
your skull is a soft thing inside a hard thing – like a jelly, he said, inside a biscuit tin. Now, imagine hurling that tin against a wall, he said. “Ugh,” I said. “Exactly. But that’s what it’s like for the brain in a high-impact crash like Jimmy’s.” He said I probably shouldn’t mention this to Sara, but I told her on the way home, because I knew it would help her; or at least it would impress on her that hanging around Jimmy’s bed every day, waiting for him to wake up and say, [
a bit dazed, comically
] “Ow, my head! Where am I?” was as pathetic as it was absurd. So I learned my role in our marriage at that time, but I also learned something else: that there’s a limit to what one person can do for another. Sara needed to do some of it for herself, you see; protect herself from the hurt. And she couldn’t. Not even for the sake of other people. As time went on, and Sara didn’t snap out of it, I said to her, do you know what you remind me of, Sara? You’re like a house with the roof off, letting all the wind and the rain get in. Can’t you at least do something temporary with a tarpaulin?

Jimmy’s accident ruined my life. But I never complained about feeling swindled. I never said, “Is this fair, Sarah? You’re not the person I married! Where did the sex go?” I’m too supportive for that, you see. I’m a very, very supportive person. But I had to do
SOMETHING,
so I started calling her Sara instead of Sarah, as a mark of what I’d lost. She hates it.
“PLEASE
call me Sarah!” But I say she can be Sarah again if – well, if she ever is Sarah again. I didn’t change, though; that’s the point. I made a decision about that. If I don’t change, then our unhappiness can’t be my fault. I am still the same loving person. Whatever she wants to do with her life, I’ll support her a hundred and ten per cent. [
Astonished
] She got that job
at the university, by the way. She texted me, so I called to congratulate her. I said to her, “Well, they could obviously see merit there that I couldn’t, Sara” – because it was garish and awful, actually – “So well done, you. And by the way, have you tried that new shampoo yet?”

I’ll never forgive Jimmy, obviously. I mean, who really bore the brunt of that sixty-mile-an-hour skid? Me. The jelly inside the biscuit tin was my happy marriage, shattered to fragments. Nothing can ever quite make up for the way she made me feel when Jimmy died. She made me feel … irrelevant. To such a supportive person, it was a smack in the face. I remember when he finally died and she came to me with her arms outstretched and said, [
a real plea; a potential turning point
] “I feel so
LONELY
, Andy.” And I said, “Och, so do I, Sara. So do I.”

Scene Four: a few days later; he’s feeling quite well and ready to go home; he sorts some papers

It’s been nice doing a bit of work while I wait to go home. Maria sent me the plans for the new arena. No trouble beating McPherson’s to that contract, I’m glad to say. Losers; they’ll be out of business before the year’s end. Of course, they gave me my start twenty years ago, but it was Old Man McPherson himself who told me there’s no room for sentiment in roofing. Boil it down, he says, and success goes to whoever’s got the biggest balls and the longest ladder. And let’s just say I’ve got a very long ladder. I said to the surgeon, “Will I be able to climb on roofs after this, Dr Singh?” And he said, [
cautious
] “Could you climb on roofs before?” And I said, “Yes, why?” And he said, oh, there were so many jokers who asked after
operations if they’d be able to play the violin, he was just sick of it.

I texted Sara earlier; told her to expect me home at around midday. She needs me home, I can tell that. Now she’s got the contract for the university, she’ll be racked with worry – will I be good enough? Will I fail? Will they see through me? – and it will be down to me to say, “Well, yes, Sara. You’re not being silly. This is high risk. You could very well crash and burn. But the point is, I will always be here for you, whatever happens. Those lemon curtains you did for Holyrood were truly horrible but I didn’t say a word. Not a word. I’m behind you a hundred and ten per cent, and I always will be.” Thank goodness I’ve got some of my strength back: maintaining Sara’s self-esteem requires empathy, sympathy, imagination and good sense – but above all, it requires stamina.

That’s always been her problem, you see: poor self-esteem. I realised it when Jimmy died. It was like a revelation. Yes, Sara seems today like such a successful person, but inside she’s secretly cripplingly insecure. I mean, just to take a recent example, when I called her about getting this new job, I asked immediately, “Have you got it in writing?” And she said, [
worried
] “No, why?” Now, any other person would say, “I don’t need it in writing, Andy. I know I’ve got the job.” But not Sara. Sara is
WEAK.
[
Mocking her anxiety
] “No, why? What do you mean, Andy? What have I done wrong, Andy? Andy, why did you ask me whether I’ve got it in writing?” So I said, “Well, it would be nice to go out and celebrate, that’s all. But I’d hate for us to do that, Sara, if there’s any chance that you’ve made a mistake. I’m just saying, wait for the letter before you get too excited. It’s a good job you’ve got me looking out for you. Any other man would be frankly dismayed
by your inability to deal with tiny doubts like that.” So then she went all quiet. “Why won’t you let me come and see you in the hospital, Andy?” she said, at last. “We’ve been through all this, Sara. You’d have been upset, that’s why. And I also didn’t want you here because – well, let’s face it, what could you have done that would be of any use? You may be shortlisted for Scottish Soft Furnishings Designer of the Year, or whatever it is” – which she is, astonishingly – “but as a person, Sara, [
a laugh
] you can’t even look after your own hair.”

We have the same argument over babies, of course. [
Fresh
] “Let’s have a baby,” she says. And it’s always said in that exact tone of voice – as if this is the first time she’s ever thought of it. “Let’s have a baby, Andy; I think it could make us happy.” And I have to say, very patiently, look, Sara, look at it from my point of view. Look how you went to pieces when little Jimmy died. How could I let that happen again? How can I trust you not to get all emotionally
ROOFLESS?
She knows I’m right. She also knows that, without me – exposed to the elements, as it were – she wouldn’t last a night. So in the end, she agrees with me. [
Sadly
] “Och, well, there’s no shortage of bairns in the world, Andy.” And I say, “You’re right, Sara. Good girl.”

Geena came in to say goodbye. I shall miss her, she’s been like a tonic. And it’s so helpful sometimes to see oneself through other people’s eyes. Because it’s true what Geena thinks of me. I do spend my whole life looking out for Sara; I’m an unusually dedicated man. My wife once suffered a terrible setback of bereavement, but I never stopped loving her despite her total abandonment of me. And what’s my reward? Well, all I know is, I don’t think she’ll abandon me again.

“Hiya, Rocky,” Geena said. “How’s it hanging?” And she gave me an affectionate clap on the back to show she’d become quite attached to me, but was too much of a cynical confirmed singleton to show it.

“Now, remember,” she said. “No climbing on roofs for another month.” I asked her to remind me what I’d had again, and she said it was called an adhesion. And it’s no wonder I can’t remember it, when it’s such a benign-sounding name. I mean, it’s just another word for sticking – and sticking is a good thing, I think. There’s nothing nasty about sticking. “Can I call it gastroenteritis?” I said. And she said, “Mr McKee, you can call it foot-and-mouth if you want, it’ll still be your guts getting into a twist.” Then she gave me a big smile and said, “It’s been nice knowing you, Andy. I’ve never met a man so truly selfless.” [
Coy
] “Och,” I said. “I can’t help it. Sara’s just got a hold over me, you see? Between you and me, I’m like putty in her hands.”

Scene One: Sue is at home, she’s got a music radio station on. She is very tired, a bit drunk

You’d think if Laurence is so keen on football he’d have phoned for news of the Mendelssohn transfer! Perhaps he didn’t hear about it. But they had a Chelsea spokesperson on the news at lunchtime, apparently, so you’d think everyone must have been talking about it. Even Yolanda. Yes, I can imagine the beautiful Yolanda getting all worked up about transfer news, pausing in the arrangement of some gigantic white lilies in a perfect vase and saying, [
odd foreign accent; she doesn’t know much about Yolanda
] “Orenz, darlink [
“Orenz” is the way the Bedouin say Lawrence in “Lawrence of Arabia”],
Orenz, don’t you write dat
celebrity fan ting about Chelsea for football magazine; zis leetle boy ees signed for fifteen million bazoomas; why you not call and consult nice editor, Sue I tink she called is, does my bum look big in dis, Orenz?”

Well, OK so that didn’t happen. But I think I actually rubbed my hands with glee. Yo, Chelsea. I’ve never felt happier about fifteen million good British quid being paid for a left-footed nineteen-year-old Bavarian. All day, whenever the phone rang, I was sure, [
excited
] “This will be him!” and I’d jump up and shut the office door, but it was never Laurence, and of course I can’t ring him to ask him why! The agony! It was always the top floor with another last-minute half-page ad, or Jeff saying he’d found out that both
Total Football
and
Four Four Two
had Beckham covers for February, when we’d cleverly gone for Michael Owen, so well done, Sue, the Best Editor in the World. He’s so supportive, is Jeff. Keeps saying how tough it is for a woman in a man’s world – referring to me, you see, because he’s a man in a man’s world, which is relatively easy. Laurence only ever rings on Tuesdays, it’s the day Yolanda sees her therapist. Speech therapist possibly. “Laurence,” they say. “Orenz.” “Laurence.” “Orenz.”

I spun it out for as long as I could, too. I even hung behind in the office when Jeff had led the subs – the Five-a-Side, he calls them – round to the Rising Sun. First I corrected a few pages and then I just sat and looked at the phone, focusing all my telepathic energy on Laurence, picturing the house in Highgate – which I have never seen inside, of course, but once happened to pass six or seven times while driving round the area – then sort of praying, “Laurence. Phone Sue, phone Sue.”

I mean, I did have stuff to tell him. It seems Mendelssohn is not only someone named after a major
classical composer, but a Truly Good Left Foot, an increasingly rare commodity in British football which could mark a great change in Chelsea’s fortunes. The premiership has to import left feet from all over the world, you know. Left feet from as far away as China have been mentioned. Jeff’s doing a feature for the March issue about how we just can’t grow them at home. I say it’s his reward for snogging me in the taxi after the Christmas party, but he knows I’m joking. It wasn’t that good a snog! Anyway, we’re going to call it “Same toes, different order”. Come to think of it, Mendelssohn’s toes are worth three million quid each. I wonder if he’s realised that yet. Or whether it will come to him when he’s paring his toenails tonight in front of
Bavaria Today.
Or when he’s listening to his Deutsche Grammophon recording of
Fingal’s Cave,
as I’m sure he regularly does.

But in the end it got to nine o’clock and Jeff had rung me from the pub to say my pint was getting warm, boss lady, and I finally gave up. But it was a good laugh at the pub. Stuart, our non-league expert who comes in four days a month and writes stuff about Woking as if anyone cared, he had a good one. He said, “What does the giant say to Jack when he climbs the beanstalk?” and I thought, oh no, obscene joke alert, keep smiling. “All right, Stuart,” I said. “He says, ‘Fee, fie, foe, fum.’” Right, says Stuart, leave out the fum and write it down. Fee, fie, foe. That’s it, he says. Now write the same words twice, in any order that comes into your head. All right, I said, a bit grimly, grabbing somebody’s fag packet and a pen wet from a puddle of John Smith’s. What have you got, says Stuart, as the others started giggling and talking behind their hands. Oh God. I finished my pint and put down the glass with a clunk. I’d got “Fee, fie, foe; foe, fie, fee; fie, fee, foe.”
And he said, “Chris Eubank’s telephone number,” and we all fell about laughing. Jeff offered to drive me home after the next round – he’s a very sweet boy, Jeff – but I got the bus instead. The woman next to me was reading one of Laurence’s books, the one that won the Whitbread Prize. A classic of magical realism. A writer of trembling sensitivity. She stopped occasionally to underline things. She was trembling a bit herself. I wanted to nudge her and say, “He is such a great guy actually,” but luckily my mobile rang and I thought, “This is it!”, but it was just Jeff checking I’d remembered the finance meeting in the morning, and saying he’d be thinking of me, which was sweet.

[
Makes coffee
] It’s funny to think how aggrieved I was when Pickering foisted Laurence on me in the first place. All the mags and sports sections were scrambling for unlikely literary football supporters at the time; there was a lot of pressure on; we were getting desperate; blimey, when I remember how close we got to approaching Beryl Bainbridge. And then Pickering says, “Get Laurence Swann.” He’d met him at some posh charity dinner and found out he was a Chelsea man, which was more than enough for Mr P the Publisher with his blue and white scarf. “You’ll hate him, Sue,” he said, “but I think you’ll find the readers will love him.” Which turned out to be one of those predictions that turned out a bit like the left foot thing – same words, different order. I ended up mad about him, while the readers truly loathe him. [
Amused
] And Jeff can’t stand him. He reads Laurence’s copy with his jaws clenched and tears in his eyes. “He’s got Celtic and Rangers mixed up, Sue! He doesn’t even understand the offside rule! The man’s a complete berk.” And I have to say, until I met him finally at the Football Media Dinner
last summer, I not only thought so too, but mentioned Laurence Swann’s intolerable berkness to Pickering at every chance I got.