Us (22 page)

‘You are here on holiday?' said the Dutchman, unable to ignore the stares.

‘Just two days, unfortunately!' I said, neutrally enough I thought. ‘Come on, everyone. We've still got to check out.'

And now Albie pushed his chair noisily away, stood and planted both hands firmly on their table. ‘The bathroom's over there,' he said, in a clearer voice than I was used to hearing.

The American adjusted his shoulders. ‘And why would we need the bathroom, son?'

‘To wash all that blood off your hands,' said Albie, and then several things happened at once, not all of them entirely clear to me. I recall that the American stood, placing one hand behind Albie's neck, pressing his face towards the open palm of his other hand, saying, ‘Where? Show me the blood, son! Where?' I saw Connie hanging off the American's arm, calling him an arsehole, attempting to pull his hand away, a coffee cup spilling, the Dutchman gesturing at me angrily – why couldn't you mind your own business? – the waiter crossing quickly, amused and then alarmed, the big Russian laughing at it all until Cat stood too, took a glass of orange juice and poured it onto a brochure, then another, then another, until it began to pool on the glossy pages and then cascade into the Russian's lap and he too stood, revealing his great size just like in a slapstick comedy, at which Cat started to laugh herself, a theatrical cackling, quite maddening, which caused the Russian to start calling her a stupid bitch, a stupid mad bitch, all of which made her laugh even more.

At least that is what I recall. It was not quite a brawl, no punches were thrown, it was more a tangle of reaches and grabs, jeers and sneers, ugly in the extreme and pointless too, I felt. As to my own behaviour, I had intended to play the role of peacemaker, disentangling arms and appealing for calm. That was my intention, to calm the situation, and at some point I wrapped my arms around Albie, holding him back but incidentally allowing the American to shove his shoulder – not hard, just a demeaning little jab. I held on to Albie tight, pulling him away, doing my best to separate the parties and proceed with the day that I had planned for my family. As I say, it was all a blur. What was undeniable, though, because everyone remembered it afterwards, was that at some point I had dragged Albie away and used the words:

‘I'd like to apologise for my son.'

Albie did not come to the Van Gogh Museum. Connie nearly didn't make it either, so sullen and angry was she that morning, riding her bike with head-down fury, barely bothering with hand signals.

We stood in front of
Sunflowers
, one of several versions Van Gogh painted, and I was reminded of the print I'd had on my wall. ‘Do you remember? In the Balham flat? I bought it to impress you.' But she was not in the mood for nostalgia, and all my other observations about the thickness of the paint on the canvas and the rich palette of colours made not a mark on the impenetrable shell of my wife's contempt. She was even too angry to buy postcards. So much for the soothing power of great art.

Sure enough, the explosion came as we stepped outside.

‘You know what you should have done? When that guy went for Albie? You should have punched him in the nose, not held Albie's arms so he could hit him.'

‘He didn't hit him, it was a little shove.'

‘Makes no difference.'

‘Albie started it! He was being obnoxious, he was showing off.'

‘Makes no difference, Douglas.'

‘You think that would have helped? That guy would have knocked me flat! Would that have helped the situation, me getting beaten up in front of everyone? Is that what you'd have preferred?'

‘Yes! Yes, that man would have broken your nose and split your lip and I'd have wanted to
kiss
you, Douglas, because you'd have stood up to someone for the sake of your son! Instead, you simper away: “We're having a lovely time here, just two days unfortunately”.'

‘It was a fatuous argument in the first place! Good God, what are you, nine years old? So they make guns! You don't think we need guns? The police, the army? You don't think someone has to manufacture them? It's the politics of primary school to shout abuse at people going about their lawful business, even if you disapprove …'

‘Douglas, you have an incredible capacity for missing the point. Will you listen to me, just for once? The debate does not matter. It's not about the issues. Albie might have been naïve or ridiculous or pompous or all of those things, but you
apologised
. You said you were embarrassed by him. You took the side of a bunch of arms-dealers! Bloody bastard arms-dealers against your son –
our
son – and that was wrong, it was the wrong thing to do, because in a fight you side with the people you love. That's just how it is.'

When I first began to feel my son slipping away from me – I think perhaps he was nine or ten when I first felt the wriggling of his fingers in my manic grip – I found myself indulging in a particular fantasy. I'm aware that it sounds perverse, but what I hoped for at that time was some accident, some near disaster, so that I could be as heroic as the occasion demanded, and show the strength of my devotion.

In the Everglades of Florida, Albie is bitten by a snake that finds its way into his shoe, and I suck the venom from his filthy heel. Hiking in Snowdonia a sudden storm descends, Albie slips and breaks his ankle and I carry him through fog and rain to safety. A freak wave sweeps Albie off the Cobb at Lyme Regis and, without hesitation, without even thinking about taking my car keys and phone and placing them somewhere safe, I leap into the pounding surf, dive and dive again beneath the grey waters until I find him and carry him to the shore. It transpires that Albie needs a kidney. My kidney is a perfect match – be my guest, please. Take two! If ever he were in danger, I had no doubt about my instinctive courage and loyalty.

Yet put me in a little breakfast room in an Amsterdam hotel …

I would apologise, that's what I'd do. I would take him somewhere quiet and explain, that I was tired, that I had not slept all night, and perhaps he had not noticed but there were certain tensions between his mother and me and that consequently I was a little on edge, but that I loved him hugely and couldn't we now move on, both literally and figuratively? The train to Munich was in two hours. We'd be in Italy in two days' time.

But when I returned to the hotel, I found Connie leaning on the reception desk, the heels of her hands pressed to teary eyes. Without looking up, she slid the letter towards me, written in Albie's scrawling hand on the back page of my itinerary.

Mum, Dad,

Well, that was fun!

I appreciate the effort and all the money but I don't think the Grand Tour is working out. I feel like I'm being got at all the time, which isn't much of a holiday for me, surprise surprise, so I'm heading off and leaving you to get at each other instead. At least now you'll be able to stick to your schedule, Dad!

I don't know where I'm going. I might stay with Cat or I might not. I've taken my passport from your room and also a little money – don't worry, Dad, I'll pay you back, and for the mini-bar too. Put it on the bill.

Please don't try to email, text or phone. I'll be back in touch when the time is right. Until then I just need some time to clear my head and think certain things through.

Mum, don't worry. And Dad, I'm sorry if I disappoint you.

See you whenever,

Albie

–

Surely you have to succeed, if you give everything you have.

Penelope Fitzgerald,
The Bookshop

We had taken a sleeper train once before, to Inverness then on to a cycling holiday in Skye, the autumn of our second year.

The trip had been a birthday surprise; meet me at such and such a time, bring your passport and a swimming costume, the kind of larky spree that was new to me. If Connie was disappointed to discover that she would need neither passport nor swimming costume then she didn't show it, and we laughed a lot, I recall, in the tiny couchette of the train from Euston. In the films of my childhood, sleeper trains were shorthand for a kind of suave sauciness. In reality, like saunas and Jacuzzis, sleeping compartments are not nearly the sensual playground we're led to believe and this is another way in which fiction lies to us. The real experience can easily be simulated by paying two hundred pounds to make love in a locked wardrobe on the back of a fast-moving flatbed truck. Nevertheless, we persevered despite a great deal of giggling and cramp, and somewhere between Preston and Carlisle there was a mishap with birth control.

This was something about which we'd always been quite fastidious, and while neither of us panicked, we both were forced to contemplate the theoretical notion of parenthood, of how that might feel, what it might look like. We thought about it as we cycled across a squally Skye, we thought about it while lying whisky-breath'd in soft, strange beds in various B&Bs, we thought about it while peering at Ordnance Survey maps in search of shelter from the latest downpour. We even joked about it, that if it was a girl we would call her Carlisle, if it was a boy, Preston, and we found the idea … unhorrific. ‘Pregnancy scare' is the traditional phrase and yet we weren't scared in the least, and this, too, felt like another milestone.

On our return journey to London, we squeezed into a bunk the size of a large cot and Connie revealed that she was not pregnant after all.

‘Well, that's good news,' I said. Then, ‘Is it?'

She exhaled, then turned and lay with her hand across her forehead. ‘I don't know. I think it is. It always was in the past. I actually feel a little disappointed, to be honest.'

‘Me too,' I said, and we lay in silence for a while in our shared berth, taking in the implications of this.

‘That doesn't mean we should start trying, full on. Not yet.'

‘No, but if it happens …'

‘Exactly. If it happens – are you okay?'

‘Just cramp.' In truth I could no longer feel my legs, but didn't want to move away just yet.

‘For what it's worth …' she said.

‘Go on.'

‘For what it's worth, I think we'd be quite good at it. Being parents, I mean.'

‘Yes, so do I,' I said. ‘So do I.'

And I returned to my own bunk, sure in the knowledge that she was at least half right.

We didn't speak much on the sleeper train to Munich. We lay very still, stacked on shelves, in off-white cubicles of moulded plastic, wipe-clean, with ample sockets for recharging appliances. It was all very smooth and functional, but the hum of the air-conditioning and the blackness outside the window contributed to the impression that we were new inmates in some intergalactic prison cell.

We could have flown to Italy, of course, but I wanted us – the three of us – to at least touch on Germany and Austria, and wouldn't it be more fun, more romantic, to be a red dot sliding across that great land-locked central mass? Playing cards and drinking wine in our reasonably priced pre-booked couchette while Albie strummed his guitar and read Camus next door, then waking refreshed in Munich, a city new to all of us. There were Raphaels and Dürers at the Alte Pinakothek, Monets and Cézannes at the Neue, there was a famous Bruegel, a Turner – Connie loved Turner. We would go to the beer gardens with Albie, sit in the August sun and feel light-headed with lager and meat. Munich was going to be wonderful.

But now Albie was gone, lost in Europe with a lunatic accordionist, and we two stumbled on in a daze of concern on her part, and guilt on mine. While Connie lay on the top bunk pretending to read, I stared out of the window.

‘He'll probably have a much better time without us,' I said, not for the first time. Not for the first time, there was no reply. ‘Perhaps I should call him anyway.'

‘What for?'

‘I've told you. To apologise, chat. To check he's all right.'

‘Let's just … let's just leave it be, Douglas. Yes?' She switched off her light and the train moved on. Somewhere out there lay Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Wuppertal and Cologne, the German industrial heartland, the mighty Rhine, but all I could see were the lights on the Autobahn.

My mother died shortly after our return from Skye, the first time a grave had opened up in my road of life. Another landmark, I suppose.

It seemed that she suffered a stroke while sitting quietly at her desk during a biology class, and it took her ever-obedient pupils some time to respond and raise the alarm. My father rushed to the hospital only to discover that a further stroke had killed her while she lay on a trolley awaiting diagnosis. I arrived two hours later and watched as he responded with quite startling rage; at the bloody pupils who had remained stupidly in their seats, at the bloody teachers and hospital staff, at whoever was meant to be in charge of this whole life and death business. My mother's death was ‘bloody stupid', he said – she had been two bloody years away from retirement! Grief manifested itself as fury then indignation, as if there had been an administrative error, as if someone somewhere had fouled up and got the order of things wrong and he would have to pay the price by continuing to live on, alone. Men, alone; it just wasn't right.

I also grieved, and to a degree that surprised me, because it would be a distortion to claim that my mother and I were particularly close or affectionate. There had been moments, of course. She had always been a great nature-lover, and she'd soften in the country, become hearty and good-humoured, identifying the trees and birds with little trace of her classroom manner, offering me her arm, telling stories. Back at home, though, she was a reserved and rather conservative woman. Observing other mothers at the school gates, I wondered why she wasn't warmer, brighter, a corrective to my father's sternness. But then perhaps that was their secret. Perhaps they were a perfect match, like a pair of drumsticks.