As It Happened, page 34
‘“With everything” what?’
‘Some thought.’ He waved his hand.
‘Sounded like an order in a restaurant.’
‘I was wondering,’ he gestured round, ‘where we go from here.’
‘We needn’t go anywhere,’ she said. ‘Unless there’s something today you want to do.’
‘I’d like to spend it with you.’
‘I have people coming this afternoon. Other than that I’m okay.’
‘How about this evening?’
‘Sure.’
All the time he was testing the ground, unsure of her intentions; unsure, even, who she was, blind to his own appeal. If he hung in long enough, he reminded himself, it wasn’t unlikely he might find out, and then, distracted, ‘as long as she will have me,’ speaking aloud.
She was glancing across again: he was, he reflected, concerned himself, something stirring at a moment when there was no immediate need of it. Here they were, on her roof, in the early sunlight, birds and insects overhead, flowers, a morning breeze: ‘We’re going on,’ she said, reaching across to take his hand.
‘Why?’
‘We have no alternative, Matt.’
Her strength – at least, his awareness of it – flowed down her arm and into his hand.
‘I believe your family haven’t done you much good. What’s the analyst you say your brother has found?’
‘Someone,’ he said, ‘a colleague recommended.’
‘Whom you’re inclined to go along with?’
‘Wouldn’t that be your advice?’ They had discussed his continuing therapy several times, both at the point they had themselves discontinued it and at regular intervals since.
‘I’m not really in a position to judge,’ she said. ‘It depends who it is. I’d say if you felt you needed it you should go ahead. On the other hand,’ she continued, ‘what is “need”? I’m beginning to suspect the word myself.’
He was, increasingly, coming across elements in her he didn’t understand: elements he perceived but didn’t recognise. To a large extent she was a woman in the process of being created – by him; alternately, she had, to this degree, been created by three previous husbands, and probably by several other unnamed men. It was as if her own perception of herself had started at zero, a tabula rasa, an idealised opacity, the purpose of each relationship to raise herself up, man by man, step by step, to an ascendancy, a self-realisation, about which she would have no doubts: an assessment of herself placed vividly in a far from hypothetical world: the route of all her relationships pointed in the same direction.
Where he was in this progress he had no idea: finality in her discovery of herself had no doubt arrived some time before he had appeared. Perhaps this was the key to the relationship, less a continuing process of self-awareness than a celebration – of her having arrived at her goal, he the created or resurrected one.
Yet it was as if that part of his own life which had, evidently, gone on without him would continue its passage without her, he, engaged by her, moving in one direction while, in reality, this unknown element was moving in another – the consequence of which would be announced, as on the previous occasion, in a catastrophic manner.
Looking across at her, his hand more firmly clenched in hers, he suspected much of his appeal was realised in his helplessness, a curiously unfounded and unfounding nature, something, conceivably, not unlike her own.
‘I don’t think, on reflection, it’s analysis you need,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘I came to that conclusion once we’d started. Process and habit, for instance, are already in place. It’s how you administrate rather than how you change them that’s relevant at our age. Of that,’ she continued, ‘I’m convinced.’ Her other hand came over, enclosing his. ‘What you want,’ she concluded, ‘is us.’
Her directness made him laugh: it reminded him of his sister: behind every sophisticate was something of the reverse, having to struggle not unduly to get out.
Delighted to have amused him, she watched him with a smile, humour, he reflected, not her strongest suit. ‘Fun, after all,’ she said, ‘is what we’re after. That,’ she went on, ‘and keeping up with our chums.’
So they sat across the table from one another, the flowers around them, the birds above them, sweeping low, in squeaking flocks, in the morning light, their hands held, each secure in the knowledge, he presumed, of what the other wasn’t rather than what the other was.
The house was in Ladbroke Road, at the back of Notting Hill Gate, tall, stuccoed, cream-painted, one of a terrace. A single bell beside the yellow door indicated that, unlike the houses adjoining, the place wasn’t divided into flats.
A considerable time elapsed before, having rung the bell a second time, the door was finally opened. An elderly woman, small, stooped, with unruly hair, her face deeply faceted with vertical lines, from within which a pair of indifferent, exhausted eyes gazed out, enquired, ‘Yes?’ closing the door to little more than an aperture.
He gave her his name.
Stepping behind the door, she opened it wider.
A hallway stretched down to a flight of stairs up which a large dog was slowly climbing, its massive rear haunches, overhung by a drooping tail, swinging ponderously, painfully, even, from side to side.
Having closed the door the woman indicated a door to his left. ‘He’s in there if he’s come down,’ she said. ‘If he hasn’t you’ll have to wait. He’s in a pretty foul temper, I can tell you.’
She disappeared at the rear of the hall, a door closing: moments later came the fluctuating sound of popular music: an announcer’s voice, terminated abruptly, was followed once again by music, presumably from another station.
Pushing open the door she’d indicated he entered what was evidently the front room of the house. Its ceiling was cavernous and cracked: a piece of moulding in one corner was missing. A desk was arranged with its back to the tall, curtained, bay window, its surface, apart from an uncovered manual typewriter, strewn with books, magazines and papers. Recesses on either side of a marble fireplace, caryatids supporting the mantelpiece, were occupied by shelves, their irregular spaces, horizontally and vertically, crammed with books. Similarly, the wall opposite, above a large cabinet, several drawers and the cupboard of which were open, as if subjected to a recent search, was also occupied with shelves, the books, as if long abandoned, stacked in disorderly rows. At the back of the room, facing the desk and adjacent to the door, a low bookcase, glass fronted, was overhung by numerous ill-assorted paintings in a variety of singularly inappropriate frames. No common denominator, at first glance, was discernible, other than they were naturalistic – figures and landscapes, still lifes and interiors – no skill of any sort evident in their representation or design.
The centre of the room was dominated by a buttoned leather couch on which were strewn a number of rugs, several of them frayed. An armchair, also leather-covered, was arranged diagonally to the fireplace which the couch itself was directly facing. The low suspension of the chair suggested that the springs were broken, the seat resting on the floor. Piles of books in the hearth further suggested that the fireplace itself was rarely if ever used. A second chair, half-upholstered, with wooden arms, stood at the back of the room, adjacent to the rear wall. Cardboard boxes, containing variedly coloured files, were strewn around it as if recently discarded. A smell of tobacco, faded cloth and decaying paper, underlain by damp, dominated the room, the tall, heavily curtained windows, tassels at the base of the curtains sweeping the floor, looked out, across a small, railed forecourt, to the street. From below, the sound of bottles being broken indicated there was a basement.
Not sure which area of the room to occupy, he crossed to the window. More substantial stuccoed houses, with front gardens, were visible through a barrier of trees opposite. Glancing at the desk, beside which he was standing, his attention was drawn to a sheet of paper rolled into the typewriter, the projecting half already typed on. Stooping to read it, his eyes screwed up without his glasses, he deciphered, ‘Eternity is not a problem, temporality is all the rage. Neither the contents nor the layout of your bill shows, in my view, the slightest improvement and, as I have observed on several previous occasions, they do not in any way warrant a response …’
Aware of the creaking of woodwork outside the door, he was examining the paintings at the back of the room when a small, dishevelled man came in.
Older than himself, unshaven, a cardigan arranged around a curiously misshapen body, his uneven shoulders dipping to one side, his expression was one of consternation, fierce, choleric, the cheeks inflamed, the nose also, the eyes, small, dilated, dark, intense. White hair was flung backwards and upwards from a prominent brow: tight, wirely sprung curls rose in successive tiers. His look of surprise at seeing Maddox turned suddenly to one of disappointment. ‘Who are you?’ Saliva spurted from the corner of his mouth, his lips gleaming. An expression, one of enquiry, revealed several irregularly projecting teeth.
‘Maddox,’ he said, putting out his hand, and added, lamely, when this appeared to increase the man’s displeasure, ‘Matthew.’
Ignoring his hand, the man turned back to the door, losing, as he did so, a downtrodden slipper and, returning to the hall, called, ‘Somebody’s arrived.’
A muffled voice, presumably that of the woman who had shown him in, came from the rear of the hall, the sound of music increasing.
‘The dog had to fetch me,’ he called.
‘You make your own arrangements,’ the voice came out, quaveringly yet clear, its subsequent remark drowned by the ringing of a telephone, evidently in the hall, the man announcing, ‘I’m taking no calls. You answer it. It’s always you they’re after.’ Returning to the room, he closed the door, retrieved his slipper, scuffing his foot inside it several times before securing it and, tapping the pockets of his cardigan, crossed to the desk. Examining its surface for several seconds, moving books and magazines and papers aside, he finally announced, ‘I’ve lost my glasses. Not that it matters. I won’t need them,’ turning to Maddox to conclude, ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I had an appointment,’ Maddox said. ‘Arranged by a colleague of my brother’s.’
‘Your brother.’
‘Paul Maddox,’ Maddox said.
‘Your father, I imagine, must be dead.’
‘Yes.’
‘Your mother, too.’
He nodded.
‘Distressed by their dying?’ Saliva spurted from his mouth.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Unnatural, otherwise.’
‘Yes.’
‘How many brothers have you?’
‘One.’
‘Sisters?’
‘One.’
‘Older?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fucked her?’
‘No.’
For further confirmation, after a moment, he shook his head.
‘Brother?’
‘No.’
‘Younger?’
‘He’s younger.’
Maddox was standing in front of the desk as he might, fifty-odd years before, have stood before the headmaster at Quinians: not dissimilar feelings passed through his head, not least those associated with subordination, misdemeanour, subterfuge, and dread.
His inquisitor, meanwhile, had picked up several loose sheets of paper from the desk, holding each one, closely, to his eyes before, releasing them, they drifted back to the desk or onto the floor. Finally, sitting in the chair behind the desk, the woodwork of which creaked as it took his weight, his glance turned to the sheet of paper rolled into the typewriter. Examining the print, his head lowered to its surface, the eyes screwed up, he enquired, ‘You don’t mind if I sit?’ waving his hand to add, ‘You sit where you like. Or stand. My wife, if you ask her, might bring us a cup of tea. Or coffee. Shout down the hall and ask her. Which do you prefer?’
‘Whichever is convenient,’ Maddox said.
‘Neither,’ the man said, ‘but it doesn’t prevent you from asking. I would ask for tea. Which means she will bring me coffee. Which is the one that I prefer.’ Looking up, finally, to glance at him directly, he added, ‘Get the picture?’
Maddox returned to the hall, walked down to the door at the rear, from behind which the music still emerged, knocked on it and, receiving no response, pushed it open.
A small, sparsely furnished room overlooked an overgrown garden at the rear: two worn, upholstered chairs were set diagonally facing a tall, sash window. The room was empty, the radio standing on a cabinet behind the door. A carpet, its design faded, and holed in several places, covered much of the otherwise stained wood floor.
Returning to the room at the front he reported, ‘No one there,’ hesitating to close the door in case he was to be despatched on a further errand, and added, when there was no response from the figure behind the desk, its head stooped once more to the typewriter, ‘Should I look elsewhere?’
‘To find her?’ the figure enquired. ‘Or simply to piss off?’
‘To find her.’
‘No bother.’ The figure straightened. ‘She’ll probably make it. But not until you’re leaving. Do you smoke?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘Mind if I do?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘Would you say you’re an equable fellow?’
‘On the whole,’ he said, pausing before he offered his response, ‘I am.’
A packet of cigarettes had been produced from the cardigan: a box of matches was raised from the litter of books and papers on the desk. A match was struck and, having been held to the cigarette, was dropped, still burning, on the floor. Leaning back, the figure remarked, ‘You look pretty healthy to me.’
‘I feel quite well,’ he said.
‘Any reason why you shouldn’t?’
‘None.’
‘Why don’t you sit down?’ He gestured with the cigarette. ‘After you’ve closed the door. There’s a hell of a draught. Mild, at this time of the year, but inconvenient, at my age.’
Having crossed to the door and closed it the man called, as if Maddox had removed himself a considerable distance, ‘Sit on the couch. That’s where most of you sit,’ Maddox removing several books and a rug from the end furthest away from the desk, turning to the silhouetted figure behind it.
‘Your brother Paul’s colleague suggested you’d attempted to jump under a train. Not an experience you’d have every day, but not to that extent unusual. Were you prosecuted for the inconvenience?’
‘No,’ he said, the thought, previously, never having occurred to him.
The springs creaking beneath him, he endeavoured to change his position.
‘What do you think to the pictures?’
The man was leaning on the desk, his elbows on either side of the typewriter as if whatever was written there were still his principal concern. His head he cupped in his hands, the cigarette, held in one of them, smoking by his ear.
‘Not good,’. Maddox said, assuming that anything less than candour would earn his questioner’s disfavour.
‘Why in front of a train?’
‘I wasn’t aware I was going to do it until I did. Which is the curious thing about it,’ he said.
‘Quite common.’
‘Really?’
‘Premeditation is rarely involved. At,’ he went on, ‘the critical moment.’
‘I see.’
‘Sectioned?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long?’
‘Fifty-six days. I was in for about eight weeks. Two months,’ he amended.
‘Apart from trains, what other methods attracted your attention?’
‘Not any. I hadn’t,’ he continued, ‘given it any thought.’
‘If you had, what other methods would you recommend?’
‘Pills?’ Maddox suggested, thinking of Viklund.
‘Hard to get hold of. In a hurry. Forethought there, if anything.’
‘What would you recommend?’ Maddox said, returning, he reflected, the ball to his court.
‘It’s a question of opportunity,’ the man responded. ‘Personally, I’d choose pills because I’m a doctor. You, on the other hand, would have to save up. Your anti-depressants, for instance. Little less than a hundred, your size and weight, to make sure. Paracetamol, I’d say, likewise. You might, then again, strike lucky and get away with less. You never know. That’s the magic of the thing. As I see it, the problem is, other than having a medical, or a veterinary qualification, you have an infinite number of choices. Lorries, cliffs, bridges. Rivers. Even the humble kitchen knife has proved invaluable on numerous occasions. Also, of course, the bathroom razor. It’s the way the world is. Doctors are especially vulnerable. Sitting day after day listening to people with boils on their balls and thinking who’d do this for a living? As for women.’ Returning the cigarette to his mouth he blew out a cloud of smoke.
Maddox, for his part, gazing into the light, had moved into an abstracted state, wondering, even, if he’d got the right address, or, if he had, he’d registered with the appropriate occupant inside.
‘Married?’
‘Divorced.’ He spoke as if in a dream.
‘Children?’
‘Three.’
‘What?’
‘Sons.’
‘Look after you?’
‘They’re all concerned.’
‘Would you say you’re delusional?’
‘No.’
‘How are you fixed for money?’
‘I have a pension.’
‘Enough?’
‘Yes.’
‘House okay?’
‘Yes.’
‘Any worries?’
‘Not immediate.’
The head, having been withdrawn from the hands, was now a confused shape against the light: a skein of smoke drifted across the window.
