Who Are You? (5 page)

‘Where were you? Why didn’t you come when I called you? Mummy, you’re naughty.’

‘You’re right, Benjamin Miller, and do you know what Mummy will do to make it up to you?’ Ben shakes his head. ‘No. What?’

‘I shall read you two stories. How’s that, little man?’ Ben’s smile returns and Juliet holds out the fluffy white bath sheet and gathers up her five-year-old son and gives him an enormous cuddle.

CHAPTER

3

Alex gets up from his seat and positions himself by the doors and waits for the train to glide to a stop by the platform. The doors shhh open and a load of commuters spew out, stampeding left towards the stairway. Heels drum against the rubber treads of the wide staircase and a bored ticket collector barely bothers to examine tickets, barely bothers to look at anyone’s face. But Alex notices things. He notices all the sounds, and even the way people move, the way they hold their briefcases, their newspapers, the phones clamped to their ears. Alex walks past the BP garage with its neon-flashing coloured lights, the buckets full of ghastly carnations, all festived-up with red roses edged with glued-on gold glitter and sparkly twigs. Minute bunches of mistletoe for £5.99 a throw, and paltry little holly wreaths. Alex doesn’t hate Christmas, he just hates the vulgarity of it. No one does Christmas as badly as the British. There wasn’t much to miss about Germany, but Christmas there was really special. He liked the way nothing happened before the actual start of Advent. The eve of Advent reminded everyone what it was really all about – a Christian festival. Not that Alex is madly religious, although it was something he had had to think about probably more than most, at times, it was more the fact that the whole event was based on the proper length of the festival, and nothing appeared in the shops until then. How refreshing it was not to have every retail outlet filling its shelves with Christmas tat from the end of September. And then the never-ending canned Christmas music. No, in Germany Advent was when it all happened: the decorations, the lights, the trees, the stuff in the shops. It made it so much more of an event, a celebration, and he loved the way they didn’t do coloured lights, only golden, and the way villages were transformed into magical forests with the advantage of having real snow, and the delicious stalls of fast food like you’ve never experienced. Instead here are thirsty-looking poinsettias, unnatural-coloured chrysanthemums displayed unappetizingly on a dirty forecourt alongside piles of yellow plastic sacks of smokeless coal. He catches the smell of petrol mingling with the cocktail of exhaust fumes, oil and dust, and the cooking spices seeping out from the pores of the new balti restaurant.

He walks up Sheen Lane, past the slick hairdresser’s with enormous white hydrangea heads sprouting out of a regimented row of test-tube shaped vases; past the newsagent’s with Santa and his sledge flashing red and green, on-off, on-off; and then the estate agent’s with the increasingly silly prices tacked on to photographs of almost identical properties, and silver-mirrored stars dangling down the window front on different lengths of blue ribbon. He reaches the junction with the Upper Richmond Road, waits for the lights to change so that he can cross, and then turns left past Pizza Express which has, unsurprisingly, adopted the strange fashion for strings of cold, blue lights, and then he drops in at the Indian corner shop to get a Kinder egg for Ben, and then turns right into Richmond Park Avenue.

Truthfully, Alex loathes this kind of suburban living, which is neither one thing nor the other. Either go the whole hog and have an apartment right in central London, as he did in the old days, or live in the country. But this pseudo
sub
-urban environment depresses him, because it lacks integrity; it can never be the one thing it aspires to be, a fresh open space where one can breathe in untainted air, watch the trees change through the seasons, be aware of nature. No, this isn’t anything close. Bird tables, net bags of nuts and bloody cats everywhere murdering everything feathered they can get their paws on. A postage stamp of a garden which can be cut with an electric mower and an extension lead. And can one ever really get used to living with the six-foot-high fences all around one’s garden, where it’s impossible not to overhear every conversation, where every marital tiff can be heard through thin walls or open windows? How would an anthropologist analyse this kind of living? Tribal, in that all these people are culturally similar, ambitious, they have a collective identity; and yet despite being connected in so many fundamentally important ways, they seek privacy and separation from each other. Minor conflicts break out over whose shrubs have overgrown whose boundary, and who should have the damned prunings. Arguments over barbecues lit without warning the people next door who had just hung out their washing; the man hoovering up the leaves with a bloody noisy gadget during your evening drinks party in the garden. OK, so Richmond Park is a five-minute walk up the road to Sheen Gate. And there are worse places to live. But walking, jogging, riding a bicycle, pushing a buggy up there is like joining the bloody crowds in Oxford Street. There is just no way to get away from everyone … or anyone. And if you do manage to find some private little corner where you can lie down and look up at the sky, listen to the delicate song of the planes thundering overhead, chances are that you’ll be falling over a pair of fellating gays or a couple of tree-shaggers. And the sky. God, Alex misses the sky. Probably that is the one thing that more significantly illustrated the presence – or lack of – civilization. The big skies of the world. The night skies which are impossible to describe to those who haven’t seen them. No point trying to take a photograph; what use is a tiny frame when you are capturing a space the size of several galaxies?

No. He doesn’t suppose he will ever be truly content here, in number 83 Richmond Park Avenue, even if it is a prime piece of south-west London real estate. But it was what Juliet wanted, so it’s what they’ve got. And she can bloody well knuckle down and be grateful for all his sacrifices and realize that he’s trying his best to give her the life she wants.

Alex looks up at Ben’s window and sees that there is light bleeding through the blind. He puts his key in the lock and pushes the front door open. The hallway is long and narrow, but wide enough to have a semi-circular table upon which his pile of today’s post is placed. He picks up the pile, quickly flicks through it, and then replaces it on the table unopened. He undoes his tie, hangs it over the bottom balustrade, and opens the top button of his shirt, the evening ritual which is the beginning of the transformation into free-thinking human being, rather than pre-programmed automaton. The next part of the ritual is to slip off his suit jacket and place it over the banister. Then he opens the dining-room door, puts on the light and crosses the room to the drinks tray and pours himself a couple of fingers of whisky from the decanter. Then light off, out of the dining room, ice decanted from the hole in the fridge, the reassuring chinking noise as he swirls the amber liquid, the brief moment of delicious anticipation, and then the merest sniff before he takes his first sip. Swirling it around his tongue, letting it wash over his teeth, feeling the tingle, the silkiness, he swallows and then lets out a long sigh of relief. He’s home, at last. He leans against the island unit which is almost large enough for a game of ping-pong and lets his eyes wander the room, acclimatizing to this other side of his life. It won’t take many seconds for Alex to spot something out of place, anything new or missing. He knows he is tidier, much better organized than Juliet, but she won’t have it. It’s not exactly an argument between them, but just one of those typical little interactions that he supposes all married couples have. All appears in order. The dishwasher is humming away quietly, the surfaces have all been wiped clean, smoothed with a dry cloth to get them smudge free. The stainless steel of the sink and draining board are glistening, but he wrinkles his nose at the screwed-up dishcloth sitting in the middle half sink, still with tell-tale marks of tomato sauce sloppage. His stomach jolts. It’s just sauce, nothing more. He turns on the hot tap and lets it run for a few seconds and then rinses the dishcloth, squeezing and twisting. He turns off the tap, wipes the excess splashes of water from the shiny steel and folds the well- wrung-out dishcloth neatly in half over the tap so that it can dry out properly, instead of festering and stinking, Juliet-style. The red stains are not entirely removed. The whisky helps. He will give himself a couple more moments of isolation from his family, so that he can let his mind settle. Another sip, another attempt to wipe the bloody dishcloth out of his head, then he places his half-drunk glass of whisky in the fridge, picks up his jacket and tie and heads upstairs, knowing that he will be in time to kiss Ben goodnight.

Alex pokes his head around Ben’s door. The bedside light is still on but Juliet is not in the room. He can hear the sound of the shower running upstairs. They are going out tonight. He hasn’t forgotten. But there is no rush. They aren’t due there for another forty-five minutes or so.

‘Daddy.’ Ben says happily but sleepily.

‘Hello, big man. You been good today?’ Alex walks over to the bed and sits down on the edge. Ben nods and rubs at his eye with a knuckle of his left hand. It’s such a touching, vulnerable gesture that Alex finds it almost too painful to watch. Once there was a well inside of him which was full of feelings, but it ran dry long ago. Although lately he seems to find a lump of emotion pulsating in his throat, he suspects it is nothing more than a mirage. He strokes Ben’s thick blond curls, and thinks he should have a haircut soon. Or else people will begin to think he looks like a girl. Something else he and Juliet will argue over. He leans forward and kisses Ben’s forehead, then straightens the duvet, even though Juliet will have done so moments before. ‘Only two sleeps ’til Father Christmas comes, so you’d better be a good boy.’

‘I
am
a good boy. Daddy …?’

‘Yes Ben?’

‘Mummy says she’s going to make fucking sure that that little shit Rupert Hunt gets to know the truth about Father Christmas. What did she mean?’

‘I can’t imagine. And you know you mustn’t say those words. You’re not allowed until you’re grown up. And naughty Mummy shouldn’t have said them in front of you. Anyway, when did she say that?’

‘I heard her talking to Cordelia’s mummy. She said she wanted to take the little shit on one side and ruin his Christmas by telling him the truth about Father Christmas.’

‘The truth about him? What could that be, I wonder. Perhaps he doesn’t like Brussels sprouts, like you!’

‘No, Daddy, it’s because Santa’s been already. Remember? He didn’t leave me presents because I wasn’t good enough.’

Alex strokes Ben’s forehead one more time. ‘I promise you, young man, that Father Christmas will be coming to see you. All that stuff before, well that was just pretend, for the magazine pictures. You’ve been a very good boy, promise.’

‘I hope so, Daddy. I love Father Christmas and I want him to come. Otherwise it won’t
be
Christmas.’

‘Well, yes, it would, actually Ben. Because we’d still have Jesus, and we mustn’t forget that Father Christmas comes with presents because it’s really Jesus’s birthday.’

‘But Jesus is dead. Miss Wood says that he can see us all the time and he hears what we say, but I’ve never seen him, and even when we say prayers at school he never says anything back.’

‘Just because you can’t see him doesn’t mean he’s not there. He just might be very good at hiding himself.’

‘At least I’ve seen Father Christmas, so I’d be more sad if anything happened to him than anything. We saw him at ’fridges. I was a bit scared but he was nice. There was this elf, in a green dress and a green face. But no reindeers. Mummy said she expected they’d been parked on the roof of the NCP in Bond Street. And he gave me present …’

‘Yes, Ben, I think I remember. Which reminds me … I’ve got you a present. Alex reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the Kinder egg and puts it on Ben’s bedside table. ‘I was going to give this to you tomorrow at breakfast time so we could do the toy together, but you have to promise that you won’t touch it ’til tomorrow. You can look forward to it, can’t you, like Christmas?’

‘Thanks, Daddy.’

Alex reaches out and gives Ben a big, warm hug and kisses his head. ‘Night, son.’

Juliet has finished in the bathroom and is now getting herself dressed in the bedroom. He doesn’t give her chance to speak before he launches into her. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re on, saying that stuff about Rupert Hunt and bloody Father Christmas in front of Ben? Don’t you think you’ve fucked him up enough already with that bloody magazine fiasco?’

‘Oh, hello darling, how are you? And what sort of a day have you had?’

‘Yeah. Hello, darling, how are you? And what were you doing saying that stuff in front of Ben?’

‘I didn’t know he was listening. I thought he was watching television with Cordelia. He didn’t tell me he’d heard. He was obviously saving it up for you.’

‘I’m not surprised; hearing his mother using that foul language in front of him. What the fuck were you thinking about?’ Juliet laughs.

‘Listen to you. I’ll tell you when I’ve got dressed. And I suggest you get showered, cos we’re due out in thirty. And when you hear what the little darling did, you’ll be tripping me up so that you can get to him first. Can you zip me up?’ She lifts up her thick blonde hair and Alex pulls on the metal zip sealing the pink flesh inside black silk. ‘Thanks. Do you think I need to talk to Ben?’

‘No. I think he’s settled.’

Juliet nods, then sits down at her dressing table and starts putting on her make-up, so Alex strips off his shirt and trousers, throws them on the bed, watches Juliet’s frown from the mirror, and takes himself to the bathroom. It’s still steamy and warm, and smells of Juliet’s various feminine potions. The mirror is covered in condensation so he wipes his hand across it to reveal a small curl of reflected face. It looks tired and unhealthy. More greyish than pink. He needs to shave first so he takes the hand towel and wipes the mirror clear. He’s an old-fashioned sort of shaver: block of lime soap from Trumper’s, sable brush and cold steel blade. He contorts his face and goes through the ritual, flicking the foam and discarded whiskers into the basin of water. It’s boring and repetitive, but it gives him time to think. It’s calming – the mixture of concentration and practised, expert ritual. He grew a beard once. For a while it felt liberating not having to do the same old routine every morning and night, but then it felt hot, itchy and sweaty, and never really clean. He’d kept it for his homecoming. Juliet had been horrified, although she’d tried to hide it. He’d just wanted to see her reaction, to test whether her joy at having him home would overcome the revulsion to his beard. She’d always hated beards. Said she was allergic. That first night back they’d made love with the kind of passion that’s fuelled by four months’ separation, but she’d woken him in the morning with a mug of tea and her face pushed to his. ‘Look … Look what that bloody beard’s done to me.’ She had a terrible rash. ‘Look, Alex, I can’t go out looking like this. You’ll have to get rid of it.’