My mother. She sold Gorst Road to the first buyer and then instead of getting a smaller place for herself and keeping the remaining cash for Grandfather’s expenses, she went and put the whole lot in Barclays for him with a standing order to pay the home (’it’s his money, love,’), renting herself the most miserable terraced house in derelict black Irish Cricklewood. Apparently through friends! It was a show of independence that took me by surprise, since I’d imagined she’d leave the whole property side of things to me. As it was she didn’t even ask my advice. We have scarcely seen each other since Shirley’s ‘conversion’.
Shirley said: ‘Why didn’t she stay in Park Royal. She’s been there all her life. She’ll be lost in a new neighbourhood at her age.’ But although she knew no one in Cricklewood on arrival, Mother very quickly gathered the regular army of walking wounded about her. Indeed her ‘ministry’ is obviously flourishing now Grandfather is at last out of the way. People don’t have to pass his scornful cerberian gaze to reach the prayerfulness of her bedroom. So perhaps all things do work together for good for those that love God: my beating him up promoted her ministry, saved souls even.
She stands over my hospital bed the morning after my vasectomy, plastic shopping bag under her arm. We are embarrassed, but she tries to jolly her way over this.
‘How are you, love? Everything all right?’
Actually I’ve got quite a lot of pain. It was a more serious business than I expected.
She has brought grapes. Her face, though shiny and lumpy, radiates unshakeable kindness. We chat. She has been up to see Shirley. In my absence obviously. Over sixty now, she travels free on the buses. It’s quite a boon. She feels free to travel in a way she didn’t just a year ago. And isn’t Hilary coming on, certainly sitting up a lot straighter.
I say: ‘You don’t notice when you’re with her all the time.’
I ask her if she knew about Peggy. And immediately regret it. But I don’t want to be the only one who’s let her down.
‘She told me.’
Peggy would of course. Without thinking probably.
For a moment we are both silent in this tiny private bedroom I have paid through the nose for. The fittings don’t look much better than National Health frankly.
Why did I bother trying to hurt her? Surely some resolution, some accommodation can be reached at some point.
She must be thinking the same thing, because she suddenly says, lower lip trembling like a child’s: ‘Can’t we put all that nasty business behind us, George? Can’t we?’
The direct appeal catches me by surprise.
She says: ‘It was unfortunate Shirley confessed to me of all people, and in front of you, but I could hardly refuse to hear her, poor girl, could I, the state she was in.’
How clever my mother is. She has brought me to tears. We are embracing.
‘At least we can be good friends,’ she murmurs, with a catch in her voice.
Then she sits down and tells me how awkward Grandfather’s being, refusing to obey any of the rules in the home and even biting one of the nurses. It’s his ninetieth birthday next week. The inmates will be having a little party. Perhaps I’d like to come. And then the Lord has been so good to her because her next door neighbour but one commutes regularly to Kilburn where the home is and so frequently gives her a lift back in the evening. Also there is a delightful girl from the church who may be going to rent her spare bedroom, which would be so nice.
There is always that faint persuasion in her voice, she can never let go, pleading with her son to believe that the Lord has indeed been involved in the daily itinerary of her neighbour, the housing needs of the Methodist girl; pleading with me to accept my martyrdom and join her on the way to heaven.
Shortly after she goes, Marilyn phones. ‘Can’t wait to have you without your sou’wester on,’ she says.
But I know I won’t be going to see Marilyn again. My strategy is complete at last. I was always a monogamist at heart.
For the second week of my fortnight’s break we’ve lined up a cottage in Suffolk, for holiday and, hopefully, celebratory hanky panky, if not actually lovemaking. Our first real holiday, as it happens, since Hilary’s conception nearly six years (centuries?) before. But when I come out of hospital, feeling pretty damn cool and relaxed actually, after four whole days on my back, the child has fallen ill again.
She has an acute kidney infection (perhaps like the George of Three Men in a Boat, the only thing she’ll never have is housemaid’s knee). And of course she always suffers severe side effects from whatever drug we give her. Shirley meets me sleepless and speechless at our rather fine old wistaria-framed door as I return in a cab. The doctor wanted to put the girl in hospital, but Shirley has refused. I know there is no point in commenting on this, just as there is no point in remarking on the fact that we could easily afford to have a nurse in to do a few nights. Shirley must look after the girl herself. Because I think in a curious way she is embarrassed for Hilary with strangers. She doesn’t want to sense other people’s objective eyes coldly weighing up the truth of the situation. On her own she can nurse her illusions — or perhaps that is ungenerous, perhaps what I should say is, the choices she has made. She doesn’t want to hear them challenged by some kind, efficient girl. For my own part, of course, there is nothing more frustrating than having so much money at last after years of work and not being allowed to buy a little pleasure with it.
Hilary is in severe pain. Naturally, through the long nights and days that follow my return there will be no question of trying out my vasectomy. Though one evening Shirley does cling tight to me a moment in bed. She murmurs: ‘You know what I can’t believe about you, George.’ ‘What?’ ‘That deep down, after all your huffing and puffing and playing tough, you’re really a good man.’
I make no comment.
‘I’m glad you made up with your mother. I’ll have her over tomorrow to help if she’s free.’
Obviously everything gets chatted about behind my back. Fair enough I suppose. I never really imagined otherwise.
‘I don’t even really mind about this woman you’ve got at work. I understand the pressure you must have been under.’
‘What?’
A desperate half hour then trying to persuade her that all that’s over, that I only saw her once or twice, that I never really cared for her, etc., etc. And how did she find out, anyway? How, how, how? Shirley insists she doesn’t care. After all, she’s been unfaithful in her time. I insist that she should, she must care, it was a terrible thing for me to do, I want her to care, and I’m sorry, truly I am; that was the whole reasoning behind the vasectomy after all, to get back to her and to family life after this second derailment. Which would never have happened had it not been for Hilary.
In the end, after maybe an hour’s persuasion I actually manage to get her involved in something resembling foreplay, kissing, fondling, albeit somewhat listlessly, when Hilary’s harsh cries interrupt us from the next room.
I offer to go since I’m on holiday. Anyway, there’s guilt to assuage. I pad down the landing.
The baby’s room has a red nightlight. It’s full of cuddly toys which Hilary has at last learnt to hold to herself and presumably draw some comfort from. The little girl is twisting and turning in her cot, buckled up with stomach pains. I pick her up. Not without some effort given the size she is now. She recognises me at once and whimpers. I push my cheek against hers on the side where the head lolls. Her skin, poor girl, is dry and burning. She relaxes a little, then doubles up with pain again. Her eyes screw tight. Since it’s impossible to sit her on one’s knee — she just collapses — I put her into a little tipped-back bucketseat kind of thing that we had cut for her from a huge cube of rigid foam rubber. This more or less immobilises her while keeping her sufficiently upright to take a few spoonfuls of medicine.