But I must use great care to choose the right door when leaving any of these rooms in the past. I must summarise a short story by H.G. Wells to explain why. I read it when a child and it starts with a child, an unhappy little boy, an orphan lost in a dull London street. Here he finds a strange door admitting him to a sunlit garden where a lovely lady accompanied by tame leopards treats him wonderfully well, making him perfectly happy and at home. She then shows him an album with bright pictures of people who seem to be his parents with a baby which, as it grows older, becomes more like himself as he is now. She turns the pages until at last, fascinated, he sees the picture of himself in the street outside the magic door. She is reluctant to show him the next page but he insists, and when the page turns he is back outside in the street. That garden and woman become his most precious memory. He grows up into a man both rich and powerful, twice glimpsing the door again, but always in a wall he is passing on the way to a meeting that will advance his career or, if he does not arrive on time, completely damage it. Whenever he seeks the door after the meetings it cannot be found. He becomes a famous politician at the end of the 19th century when even these used the London Underground, and dies by stepping off a platform in front of a train for no known reason. The story suggests he thought he was stepping through the illusory door, and may have found his lovely garden and spiritual mother on the other side of death. Superstitious rot.
I always hated that end of a fascinating story. I did not want the garden to be an illusion. But when taking leave of a friend in the past nowadays — Jane Welsh Carlyle, William Blake, Charles II or Shakespeare — I usually find a door that is neither part of the room itself or the one by which I re-enter this office. It attracts me strangely though I know it leads to nothing, and when I go through I will go completely out like a candle flame.
MISOGYNIST
CHILDHOOD MAY CONTAIN everyone’s happiest times, though it is hard to live without looking forward to better. That must be why many poor souls believe in heaven. When nearly all British homes were heated by coal fires, I would sprawl on the hearthrug at my mother’s feet, warm and safe, playing with treasures from the Button Box while she knitted and read politely romantic stories in The People’s Friend. The Box was made of solid wood, about a foot square and nine inches high, with a hinged lid. It held buttons of all sizes and colours, beads from broken necklaces, earrings and brooches of what seemed rich jewels but were really coloured glass. There were also dominoes that must have come from grandparents or uncles who died before my birth, since nobody in our house played that game. Some were wooden and black apart from spots of many colours. The rest were pale bone or ivory with black spots, though smaller and more numerous — they went up to double nines instead of double sixes. I arranged the dominoes like the walls of a castle with a city round it where I was king. To mark my royalty Mum pinned to my jersey three medals from the Box, medals with vivid ribbons given to my father for no special action but being in the British army from 1914 to 1918. I then put the brightest jewels in my castle’s inmost rooms, and arranged the buttons in the streets outside, pretending they were admiring subjects and regiments of soldiers. Brass buttons were the officers, big coat buttons commanded enemy troops who, after battles, became prisoners in my dungeons or slaves in my factories. Amber and mother-of-pearl beads were princesses to be rescued, though after rescue I could not imagine what to do with them. These power games made me perfectly happy.
Late in the afternoon Mum would sigh, go to the kitchen and prepare the evening meal because Dad would soon arrive. I thought him a red-faced interruption with too loud a voice.
“Well!” he would say, entering and rubbing his hands. “How did things go today?”
Sometimes Mum mentioned a bit of gossip she had heard from a neighbour but usually she sighed and shrugged. Dad, looking down on my hearthrug, would say something like, “Well, General, what battles have you won today?”
I never answered. Over the evening meal Dad told us what he thought an amusing event from his work that day. He was a bookie when that profession was mostly illegal in Britain. Years later he and I became friends and I learned he had only told Mum the least interesting, most innocuous events that befell him. She disliked how he earned his money, though never complained of it. Dad was perhaps always slightly drunk when he came home, which added to Mum’s displeasure but made life easier for him. When in bed at night I heard sounds from the living room that were mostly television noises, but sometimes his mumbling voice produced sharp exclamatory notes from Mum. I once heard her yell, “I will not see a doctor!”, and another time, “I will not let you put me away!”
That was before I went to school, learned to please my teachers, make friends and play competitive games. Happy times became shorter but maybe more intense. Having no nostalgia for the old hearthrug game I found my mother’s company more and more embarrassing. Education made me a man like many others. I was in the last generation of smart exam-passers who, though children of common labourers, tradesmen, or shopkeepers like Margaret Thatcher, went to university without getting into debt. In the 1970s such graduates were sure of good jobs, so (if by nothing else) I pleased my mother by getting one in local government. Her death soon after was no surprise. She had obviously been sick for years.
On leaving the crematorium I saw Dad did not share the general relief most folk at once feel after a funeral. We went to a pub and had a drink together. This cheered him so little that I blurted, “Why did you love her, Dad?” — a coarse question prompted by recalling no sign that Mum had ever loved him. He understood me and said, “Your mother was once a lovely wee girl, and witty, with a very funny sharp tongue. Of course marriage changed her like it changes us all. When you were born she had what they call post-natal depression, but hers never went away. Her life might have been better if a doctor had seen her. Diabetes isn’t usually fatal nowadays, but doctors terrified her — she was afraid they would put her in hospital. She might have been happier if I had loved her less. Many women prefer the sort of men who don’t like them much. My own Dad was that sort. I hated him. Face the fact son: women cannot help being miserable most of the time. Decent husbands don’t complain. I’m no masochist, but I would rather be a hen-pecked wimp than a hen-pecking bully or a wife beater and — ” (he showed signs of cheering up) “ — my life has not been one long disappointment. I enjoy my job.”
Dad’s dismal home life may be why I postponed marriage till six weeks ago. Before that I was a serial monogamist with partners who tired of me after a year or two. When we started living together they soon complained that I no longer bought them meals in expensive restaurants, though all were wage-earners who never offered to buy such a meal for me. They were surprisingly proprietorial, making me buy new clothes because they said the ones I wore were unfashionable, but really (I think) because my older clothes reminded them of earlier partners. I submitted to this, but found it annoying because men do not need to be fashionable. They often became silent and dour because I had said or done something that I could not apologise for because I did not know what it was. If I begged to be told, they usually replied “There’s no point in talking to you,” and shrugged their shoulders, like Mum had done. Freud says all men are attracted by women like their mothers. My partners seemed nothing like my mum before they started living with me. They mostly left because they wanted children, for which I have no time. Their departure was generally welcome because they had turned into nags. I resolved never to marry until sure of better company, and meanwhile found satisfaction in a hobby that made me careful with my earnings, though the women called it meanness.