Family Album (24 page)

“Just because your brother was pissed?” says Susan. “Most boys get pissed from time to time.”

“Not just that. It was the whole package, I reckon. We were too much for a delicately nurtured lad from Freiburg. A case of cultural revulsion.”

 

 

 

 

“H
! Where are you?”

“I’m at home,” says Gina. “Paul, it’s nearly midnight. You
never
ring at a civilized hour.”

“Because you don’t answer then, do you? And you’re too busy in pursuit of news to call back. Or you’re on the other side of the world. OK—I’ll go.”

“Don’t,” says Gina. “As it happens, I’m not in bed yet. And Philip’s away. Where are
you
?”

“Where do you think I am? At Allersmead. As per usual. As so often. Where a guy of my age should not be—in the parental home.”

“Listen, Paul . . .”

“In fact, I’m applying for a job at Wisley. Seeing that I’ve got all this horticultural experience. D’you think they’ll take me? I’ve written ever such a persuasive letter. And sent my credentials.”

“Ah,” says Gina. “What credentials exactly?”

“My CV demonstrates flexibility, if nothing else. Barhand, hospital porter, school groundsman, motorbike courier, fruit picker, car-park attendant. Wide experience of living circumstances: several squats, various sofas and put-U-ups, share of a flat with—um—five others, agricultural workers’ hostels, shared room at rehab center. One-night stands in police cells.”

“I’d scrub that last item,” says Gina. “If I were you.”

“I’m going for honesty, aren’t I? And those were pure oppression anyway. Instances of underoccupied coppers picking on someone enjoying a pleasant night out. Overreaction.”

“Suit yourself,” says Gina. “If relentless honesty is your concept of a CV.”

“I’m offering the whole man. Adaptable, wide-ranging, and not un-flawed. The shrinks at the rehab place were most interested in flaws. Know thyself. We mulled over my flaws in many a productive session. I bet they could find a flaw or two for you, if they really worked you over.”

“Dozens,” says Gina. “Philip will be glad to list them.”

“Nice guy, I thought. Is he a fixture?”

“Do you mind?”

“Sorry, sorry. Only asking. Concerned for my sister’s welfare. Let’s get back to me—a far more precarious subject. Where were we? Oh—the CV. Dog walker. Bumper car operator—have I mentioned that one?”

“No,” says Gina. “I don’t know about that.”

“Probably best not to. Let’s just say my advice is never get mixed up with fairground folk. A pretty unsavory lot even by my standards, and I’ve learned not to be fussy. That’s how I lost a front tooth. There was a girl I used to chat to and her boyfriend had an issue with that. Taught me to be more wary where women are concerned.”

“Always advisable when they’re someone else’s,” says Gina.

“We’ll leave her off the CV. In fact all women are off the CV, including live-in ones. Or will that make me look . . .”

“Gay?” suggests Gina.

“That wouldn’t be a problem. I’m thinking more . . . undesirable. Unappealing. Reject material. Maybe we’ll have women as a footnote. The usual emotional attachments—that sort of thing.”

“You do realize this is becoming a rather odd sort of CV.”

“Maverick, let’s call it. Individual. We’re trying to reflect my personality. You could call that quite individual, couldn’t you?”

“I’m afraid so,” says Gina.

“Is this criticism? Oh well, I’m inured to that. From schooldays onwards. ‘Paul has once again failed to realize his potential.’ You, of course, were always off the scale, achievement-wise.”

“It was a crap school,” says Gina.

“Quite. But Dad’s divvies were never going to run to private education for six.”

“We should have hanged ourselves in the scary cupboard,” says Gina. “‘ . . . we are too menny.’ ”

“Come again?”

“Literary reference.”

“You know perfectly well I can barely read. No need to show off. Now, back to the CV. We’ve done work experience, pretty well, though there’s plenty of bits and pieces I’ve left off. We’ve touched on the itinerary, as it were—the geographical progress—though that could do with some filling out. We’ve agreed that the emotional life is on a back burner.”

“Tell me,” says Gina, “exactly what is this CV for? Not Wisley, I think.”

“Ah, good point. Shall we call it more a kind of stocktaking? An assessment exercise. We’re always doing that at the Garden Centre. What have we got, and what do we need more of? Incidentally, I’m a plant wizard these days. I can rattle off miscanthus and
Verbena bonariensis
and whatever. Maybe I’ve missed my vocation. Why didn’t they send me to horticultural college? I am charmingly helpful to little old ladies in search of a nice climber for the trellis.”

“Paul,” says Gina, “what
is
all this about?”

“I’ve told you. Self-scrutiny. Candid evaluation of the record so far.” (Pause.) “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Remind me how old I am?”

Gina does not reply.

“No, don’t, on second thought. It’s something I try to forget.”

“Enough of this,” says Gina.

“Enough of what?”

“Self-flagellation.”

“I’ve heard that term before. Maybe it’s one the shrinks used. I tended to shut my ears to the long words. The questions too, insofar as that was possible. Very persistent, shrinks. ‘Would you like to talk to me about your childhood, Paul?’ No, thanks. But then you have to, to keep them quiet. I told them about the cellar game, once.”

Gina laughs.

“Very interested, they were. ‘And what was your role, Paul?’ ‘James Bond. Chief pirate.’ Shrink nods understandingly.”

“What else did you tell them?”

“Nothing much. None of their business.” (Pause.) “Anyway, you can’t tell people, can you? It doesn’t exactly translate into words. It’s in the mind, and there it stays. Done with. Or not, as the case may be.”

“The general view is—not. Hence your shrinks.”

“Huh . . .” (Pause.) “Shall I tell you something?”

“Feel free,” says Gina.

“She once told me I was her favorite. She shouldn’t have done that, should she? True or not. That wasn’t good mother stuff. Good mothers don’t have favorites, or at least they don’t say so.
Was
it true?”

“Yes,” says Gina.

(Pause.) “Did everyone know?”

“Yes.”

(Pause.) “Did you mind?”

“Me? Not especially. I thought it a rather perverse choice, I remember.”

“Thanks very much.”

“Listen, are you OK?” says Gina.

“Of course I’m OK. When have I not been OK?”

“Well . . .” murmurs Gina.

(Pause.) “Let’s not go there, shall we?” (Pause.) “I’m fine, except for a backache from heaving compost bags. It’s we manual workers who really keep the world on the move, never mind strutting around in front of a television camera.”

“Be that as it may,” says Gina, “we both have to work tomorrow, and it’s past midnight.”

“Is that a hint? OK—I’ll let you go. Bye, then.”

Paul is lying on the bed. He puts his phone down and stares at the ceiling, a ceiling he has known all his life. Those cracks—like a river with tributaries. The discoloration—Allersmead does not go in for new decor. After each absence—months, a year or so—he returns to contemplation of this ceiling, and he is both resigned and maddened. Such is his relationship with the ceiling. It is his personal ceiling—a comfort and a mockery.

It mocks him now. That pattern of cracks in the plaster resolves itself into a face in profile, and the face becomes that of a girl he knew once, and he is sitting beside her on the low wall of the esplanade, and he is happy. Actually, he cannot, now, at Allersmead, staring up at the ceiling and back to that moment, see her very well, except for the line of that profile, but oddly he can hear her, and he can hear seagulls, and the swish-wash of the sea on the pebbles. And he knows about the happiness; it occurs to him that he did not know then that he was happy, that only now can he identify the flavor of that moment.

She laughs at him for being a barman. Not derisive laughter—amused laughter. That is
such
a fun thing to be. She is younger than he is and she works in a florist’s shop along the road from the hotel, which is not much of a fun thing, she says, in fact it’s a dead end but she’s just marking time while she looks around. She may go to the States—she has some cousins there. She lives with her parents in one of those big houses on the edge of the town, but she can’t wait to get away somewhere and in the meantime she is ready and willing to meet up with Paul when they both have time off. They have kissed on the beach and behind the hedge in front of her parents’ house, and here on the seafront they hold hands and Paul is happy, happy. There have been other girls—of course there have—but she is of a different order. She is berry brown and dark-eyed and she has this rich laugh that thrills him each time he hears it.

They have sex on the bed in Paul’s cramped room on the attic floor of the hotel, after he has talked his roommate, the other barman—a student doing vacation work—into staying away. She is less amused by this slightly fetid setting (niffy sheets, discarded clothes)—a girl used to bandbox suburban hygiene—but she is responsive, innovative, indeed, and afterwards they have dinner at the Turkish restaurant, which costs Paul most of his weekly pay packet. She asks Paul what his plans are in terms of a
real
job, eventually, and Paul has to do some ducking and weaving; he does not mention the string of other temporary occupations, nor does he mention the spell at the rehab center. Indeed, he avoids much mention of anything, and aims at giving the impression of one who is enviably footloose and uncommitted, at least for so long as he wishes to be thus.

He is not invited into her house, which is reminiscent of Allersmead—same expansive presence amid neighbors similarly kitted out with trees and grass and the sweep of graveled driveway. He knows where she comes from, because he comes from there himself, and presumably she senses that, which is why she is amused by this masquerade as a barman. He is really a solid citizen, even if he is leaving it a tad late to solidify.

Why is he not invited in, presented to her parents? Perhaps because she knows that her parents would not be so entertained by the idea of a barman as boyfriend to their daughter, albeit an amateur barman, albeit that she herself has never bestowed on him boyfriend status. This is a seasonal romance, so far as she is concerned, and it is played out on the beach, on the cliffs beyond the town, in cafés and pubs and—when Paul can persuade her—up in that attic bedroom at the hotel.

That is her view of the situation. The trouble is that Paul’s is veering off in a different direction. In the past, girls had come and gone and no regrets, but this time he cannot bear the idea of letting her go. She matters. He is besotted. All right, he is in love, he has finally joined the human race. He has not told her of his condition, because he senses that she might run for cover. He tries to keep up the pretense of airy involvement, of a summer spree, of casual alliance.

And then one day she is abstracted, irritable, and the next day she fails to turn up at the appointed time. She does not return his phone calls. Her mother answers the phone and says that she will pass on the message; her tone is cool.

A week, and they have not met. Ten days. Two weeks. He has walked past the florist’s shop a dozen times, seen her within; twice he has steeled himself and gone in—she has frowned and told him she can’t talk now, she’ll be in touch.

At Allersmead, all these years later, the girl tumbles in Paul’s head along with other stuff, so much stuff. Mostly, it is shadows that tumble, her shadowy figure, and above all the shadows of feelings, of what he felt when she . . .