Angels in the Architecture (15 page)

Maitland beamed.

‘Oh no, truly I don’t need Maitland’s help for that.’ Pete grinned. ‘I have been committed to non-commitment my whole life. Or so my wife would have anyone believe, although I am appreciative of finding such a stalwart in Maitland. Thank you, old chap,’ lifting his own beer to the mock salutes.

‘Pleasure!’ Maitland rejoined.

‘Oh knock it off, Maitland,’ Sally scolded, over the increasing noise of the pub.

‘I do rather luxuriate in the idea of getting sozzled after going
to Church, don’t you, Pete? Something quite degenerate about it, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Except you haven’t been
at Church – you’ve been at Rose and Loraine’s,’ Sally interrupted.

‘Even better. Post-
Bible class pickling!’

‘That was
Bible class!’ Pete was enjoying, keeping the mock impiety going. ‘Goddamn!’

They all laughed
.

The newly created trio wound its relaxed way through a fond evening, regaling each other with its odd recipe of cynical but respectful anecdote, tales of life and children and careers. When it was obvious it must come to a close
, it was jointly anointed by its participants in typical understatement as a ‘rather good night’, by which stage all three were firm friends. They also, all three, could barely stand.

Arriving home after closing
time, Pete found his way with some difficulty along the path to the front door of his house, momentarily wondering why Alicia had not left a light on for him. He was loosely cognisant of trying four or five different keys in the front door and then, having secured entry, gave up on trying to relock the door from the inside.

That his wife was awake and pretending otherwise was entirely apparent to him when he half
stumbled into bed, but of little account to his furried consciousness then or later.

Alicia herself lay in a maelstrom of animosity, resentment and despair, jumbled with a general perplexity that all of these
reactions were grinding their way round her head at all. Her release from the weight of all this angst, which seemed to sit somewhere behind her eyes, seemed via rage, and while she knew clearly the incompatibility of her anger with any kind of mature and settled life, she was completely without strength or faculty to do other than allow it its course. She had no coherent reason for the trajectory her bitterness took, which was clearly towards her husband and to a lesser extent her children, except logic offered guilt as a convenient understanding, and pragmatism gave her a basketful of both real and relatively made-up excuses with regard to her husband at least.

On the other hand, she knew none of that was rational either, albeit that bits of it suited her, at least as a means by which to avoid closer examination. She supported her family
, and she and Pete shared responsibility for most aspects of household decision-making, especially as it concerned Tim’s care.

What she ultimately could not abide was her inability to make everything in her life right and satisfactory
, at least as much as she would like, which was a level she knew was unreasonable. She couldn’t escape her want to make Tim normal, physics palatable – or a
career
in physics palatable, and Pete an attractive proposition again – Pete whose casual, indolent approach to daily life she could choose if she wished to brush aside in favour of once more being in love, or at least content, if she had a mind to..

No,
she had realised she did not feel guilty. She felt incapable, impotent. She had relied in large part in her adult life on success founded on intellectual endowment – mental
grunt.
While she was not naive or foolish enough to think managing her marriage did not require something more than this, whatever talents she was without were not only not present, her ability to even
want
them, let alone develop them, was bizarrely concealed from her. And so from this position of weakness she fought, as though such flailing might eventually bring her into contact with some more advantageous or salutary temperament. And each night when this turmoil had whirled and rotated itself into more convolutions and revolutions than could be numbered or made sense of, it would finally dissipate briefly into sleep, to manifest on waking into a reluctance to emerge into the day or to engage with any part of it. Habit alone would pull her into routine and goad her to another daily round, through an obstacle course of emotions competing for ground in her over-engaged consciousness.

For
now, Pete’s late arrival and drunken noise, along with the reek of stale beer, gave her emotions a target and she eventually fumed and enraged herself to a sleep, but not before an infuriation of tears spilled silently to her pillow.

             
Friday, 3 April 1981

I’ve
noticed Tim’s generally more engaged with his surroundings lately, although I’m not sure what has brought about this change. It’s undoubtedly a factor that Jillie spends so much time with him, and that she’s always talking to him. It would seem entirely ‘normal’ if instead she went about as if he wasn’t really there, or if she felt irritated by him, but she’s completely devoted.

             
Tim’s been quite ‘disturbed’ today though. There are times when he’s quite scratchy, and perturbed by something – his surroundings, us, I don’t know
.
It’s puzzling. It’s not behaviour that seems attributable, necessarily, to tiredness or to being a bit under the weather. It’s as though some pressure is being applied to him – like a parent is insisting on a new standard of conduct in a child and the child is pushing, resisting. And then after a few days, the child surrenders and then all is peaceful again. There are times Tim does this with us, like when we had him change from sitting at his little child’s table and chairs to eat, to sitting at the dining table with Alicia and Jillie and me. He absolutely was not going to play ball, and it took about four days to get him to make the switch. We were almost ready to give in and leave him at the little red table; it was such a battle. But then all of a sudden he just got up to the big table as if that’s what he’d always done. But the rebelliousness associated with the table-changing episode was only evident just prior to mealtimes. This other kind of response – as though to some kind of pressure – is a general thing that’s there all the time, usually for a few days. I imagine there are some ‘connections’ being made in his brain that act like a flickering light to his consciousness, eventually a new bulb goes in – a light goes on – and he settles again.

Friday,
10 April 1981

The big news of the day – all over the tele and radio:
Bobby Sands won the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election today.

Events
at The Maze are difficult to interpret. Are the hunger strikers really noble but oppressed men, left with no choice after hundreds of years trapped in the worst of Britain’s shame? With decisions imposed on them by free men of a certain consciousness, who have not the willingness or ability to understand an Irishman’s view of the world.

And then in my little world
...

I’m not sure how to
support Tim when he’s having these unsettled periods. If it was Jillie, I’d just be creating some sense for her that I’m here when she needs me, but I don’t know how to communicate that to Tim, except that I
think
it. And of course I say the same kinds of things to him that I would to Jillie, but it’s hard to know what goes in. Maybe
it all does the job well enough. It’s not like there’s any kind of acknowledgement though. Sometimes a look.

I took him
to Brayford Pool again today while Jillie was at school. But the weather was crap and I decided against a stroll along the lake. I was sure he was thinking about the swans – I hope he wasn’t disappointed. We went to the Cathedral instead. He made a beeline for Little Hugh’s Shrine. He sat there looking along the horizontal line of the outer edge of the tomb. With one ear to the small black ‘box’, he looked rather comical. He seemed poised to knock on the ‘lid’. He didn’t of course.

We didn’t
see Rose.

The other big news
, of course, is still the deconstruction of the attempt on Reagan’s life the other day. Apparently the bullet that hit him wasn’t a direct hit but had ricocheted off someone else – shades of JFK. The would-be assassin apparently had no beef against Reagan at all but was simply trying to impress Jodie Foster, having been virtually stalking the poor woman for months – only in America.

Saturday
, 11 April 1981

Riots
in Brixton. Watching it happening on the nine o’clock news right now. Scenes of petrol bombs being thrown. Is this Northern Ireland or London? Bloody hell. Would love to be reporting on the ground though. Kate Adie doing her usual great job – god love her!

Tuesday
, 14 April 1981

Tim seems to have chilled out again after a few stroppy days. Jillie didn’t seem to even notice his behaviour
.

When he gets over these periods
, he’s quite glowing and bright.

Two slightly worn-looking gentlemen, one older, left the
Magna Carta
and strolled, carefully, down Steep Street.

Down’s certainly easier than up.

What happened to your powers now?

Very funny.

The little boy’s getting it, isn’t he?

Yes. How exciting.

Do they know they’re racing each other? Mind out for that loose stone there.

Thank you. Hmm, racing? I don’t think that’s quite what they’re doing, but I suppose it’s not entirely an unreasonable way to put it either. The older one needs more help, it’s true. There is an onus here on the Bishop, to help him and to keep his own promises. We’ll see.

Monday, 20 April 1981

Lissy’s unhappy. Well
, that’s probably an understatement. She’s looking for something she can’t quite find. She’s always good if she’s got at least a couple of smart, imaginative postgrads, but she said they’ve been a boring lot this year, which I take to mean that they’re ‘tow-the-line’ conservative types – born-again atheists all and not a one with an ounce of curiosity about the world. She’ll have to try and convince a few naive undergrads to take on a Masters next year.

She lost it a bit
with Jillie on Saturday, although Jillie coped well I thought. And then today I found a folded up piece of notepaper that came out of the dryer – must have gone through the washing machine and everything in one of Jillie’s pockets. It was still readable. She must have gone off to her room and written it:

Do
what Mummy says straight away.

Don’t blame her.

Don’t want anything.

Don’t get into an argument.

Ask her if she wants anything every now and then.

Think everything is a great idea.

I laughed my head off!

Tim painted an amazing picture today. It was the first time the therapist had set him up with paints and brushes and an easel. She said most three- and four-year-olds would probably use just one colour, do a quick squiggle in the middle of the page and that would be it. Tim took nearly half an hour, used several colours and covered the whole page. Each brush stroke was accompanied by great concentration. You could really see the cogs turning in his head. I think I’ll get it framed – it’s really very attractive actually. We will have to do a lot more of this. I get the sense he has some great opportunity for expression through this, and maybe even communication. I’ve never seen him do that with anything before. Well, except for when he’s focusing on those lines along the doors and the furniture, but even then that isn’t for so long.

He’s very proud of his picture. It’s taped on the refrigerator for now
, and he keeps coming by and staring at it, and putting his hand up to it. He watched Lissy very closely when she got home and was looking at it, as though he was interested in her reaction. Or maybe he was worried what she’d do with it. Anyway, there’s some window opening here and it’s fascinating..

7

The failure of human beings to independently investigate truth

is foremost among those ills that ravage society. Without impartial investigation, civilisation cannot progress beyond the prejudices that contribute to the disintegration of the social order.

Paul Lample

A large
white Swan had taken to accompanying the Bishop on his walks about Stowe. The sight baffled most, but Hugh found a solace with the large silent bird. The stately-looking French Bishop of Lincoln trod softly on the grass at his country home, his big hands folded together behind his back. He wore a heavy black cassock with a purple skullcap atop his head, a large pectoral cross about his neck and hooked into a button at the front of his cassock. A simple stole of exquisite green and purple embroidery was about his shoulders, a gold cross sewn in one end and a gold rose at the other, the latter a symbol of his English bishopric.