Ray’s willpower broke over me three times in twenty-four hours, in waves that overtook each other to spill relentlessly forward. At Box Hill he had taken the initiative, turning my stumble over his leg into the first step on a new path. Then he chose me to spend the night with him, he who could have had anyone. He who could have had anyone. And now when I woke up in Cardinals Paddock on Bank Holiday Monday, horribly sore but in my own way also horribly proud, proud even of the being sore, he had made more plans. He never told me his plans, but then he never told anyone his plans. His plans weren’t secret, they were only private.
He’d made coffee and showered; now it was my turn. If I wanted to, I could imagine him looking at me while I slept, the same way I’d watched over him the night before. Except that when I tried to think of that, I could only imagine him shaking his head all over again, the way he had at Box Hill. Wondering if he should take a long walk and hope I’d do the decent thing, let myself out and make myself scarce.
Ray had tidied away the belt and the hanky, the beer cans and the cup of tea I never got to drink. He waited until I’d drunk my coffee and taken my shower, and then he said he’d give me a ride home.
I really wasn’t looking forward to confronting Dad. Mum being in hospital, his mind wasn’t really on me or he would never have lost his temper on my birthday morning, or if he did he would just have shouted at me and left it at that. Not that he was much of a shouter. I think we were both shocked that he had raised his hand to me, but I wasn’t going to pretend it hadn’t happened.
Mum and Dad were a textbook perfect couple, except that people are always a little shocked by that sort of closeness in real life. They always saw eye to eye — that’s what we said, which was partly a joke because they were exactly the same height. They weren’t lovey-dovey, exactly, though they still held hands a lot, breaking off if people were watching. If the person watching was Joyce or me, they’d give each other a last squeeze, but still they’d stop holding hands. They weren’t broadcasting the success of their marriage, they just lived inside it.
There’s a village with a quaint custom — there’s a prize of a side of bacon given every year to a married couple who haven’t had a single quarrel. It’s called the Dunmow flitch. Mum and Dad could have won that bacon year after year. They’d have got sick of bacon. They had every possible qualification. Well, apart from not living in Great Dunmow.
They worked together, Dad being the pharmacist and Mum running the shop side of things. Before they had kids they lived over the shop, and then they moved, but only down the street, five doors away from the chemist’s.
I don’t think Joyce and I ever thought Mum and Dad got married to have us. They got married to have each other. When I say ‘Joyce and I’, I don’t include Donna because it’s not the sort of conversation I can imagine having with her, that’s all. I’m sure that Donna and Joyce and I were planned — we weren’t accidental. But the marriage was the master plan. It took us a while to realise that other people’s parents weren’t like ours. Their anniversary was a big day for them, and they didn’t share it. On that day every year we would stay overnight with neighbours, even if Mum and Dad weren’t going away. So it made sense that Mum being in hospital was going to turn Dad inside out.
I thought if I got home late enough he’d be at the hospital, and when he got back I’d say I was just leaving to visit her, and then it would be evening by the time we had no alternative but to deal with each other. I tried to delay the moment that Ray and I set off on the bike from Hampton, but Ray wouldn’t take no for an answer. As I was beginning to understand, not taking no for an answer was pretty much his life’s work.
Dad was just leaving. He was actually opening the door on his way out as I came up the path with the key in my hand. Dad looked blank for a moment, but he had the good grace to invite Ray in. Then the impulse to be hospitable stalled just inside the door. In this awful week for him, Dad’s social graces fell short of the front room, so that we just stood there awkwardly in the little hall.
I suppose most dads would flinch if a six-and-a-half-foot biker came striding up their path, but that side of things didn’t seem to register with mine. Both my sisters had gone out with plenty of bikers, Donna had married one the year before and Joyce would tie the knot with the one she chose over Ted in 1976. Bikers are in our blood.
Those were different times. Motorcycles were still poor man’s transport. They weren’t a big statement. Insurance hadn’t gone silly yet. Young men rode bikes till they married. Sometimes the bike lasted until there was a pram. Sometimes the bike and pram stared each other down for a few months, though the pram always won in the end.
Plus Ray was an older man, but he wasn’t an older older man. He was what you would make up if you wanted an imaginary older brother for your only son. As best as I can work it out, he was in his late twenties.
In my parents’ hallway Ray did the talking. He said: ‘Mr Smith, I’ve asked Colin to stay with me in Hampton for a few days. I think he needs a bit of room. Maybe you both do.’ Which stunned me. I didn’t remember saying anything to Ray about what was happening at home. Who knows? Maybe I talk in my sleep, only there isn’t usually somebody there to listen.
Dad took it in his stride. It helped that Ray was well-spoken, without being snobby-posh. Back then every voice on the radio sounded a bit toffy, a bit far-back, even if they were people from all over who’d taken lessons to sound the same as each other. Most people still preferred the cultured voices on the radio to the sounds they made themselves.
Dad was even relieved not to have to deal with me. In his mind, he was already at the hospital, he was already with Mum. And because of what Ray had said, we could both go to the hospital together, and not need to thrash things out. The pressure was off, suddenly. Ray said he’d pick me up at six — me and my toilet bag.
So Dad’s mind wasn’t fully on me, which was a little bit painful, but if I’m honest the same went double the other way round. My mind wasn’t on Dad. Ray stood by the Norton as we pulled away in Dad’s car, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He didn’t wave, he didn’t smile. He didn’t do anything to make me worry he’d not turn up at the time he’d said.
If I’d been paying more attention to my little Dad, I might have noticed how Mum’s illness was affecting him. I was too amazed by the changes in my own life to see that something fairly drastic was happening to him.
Pharmacist or no pharmacist, Dad was inhibited about illness in women and women’s conditions, and the fact that Mum had just gone through what his generation called the change of life made him even more tight-lipped. I only learned what was the matter with Mum from Joyce, who had female grapevine privileges. The matter with Mum was cervical polyps, which were very likely to be benign — it was a hundred to one they meant her no harm — but they were taking no chances and running plenty of tests. Joyce wasn’t worried, she told me Mum wasn’t worried, so I didn’t worry, but either Dad was getting something to worry about from someone else or he was getting the whole thing out of proportion.