‘Give me my fucking iPod you pair of cunts.’
The boys laugh and throw it to each other like a cricket ball, the earpieces and cord trailing like a cartoonish jet-stream, and then one of the boys fumbles the iPod and it bounces on to the seat next to the old lady. He feels his body tense, as though suddenly understanding that he might now have to be drawn into this conflict, but the old lady simply looks at the iPod, and then at the teenagers, and then back at the iPod. She picks it up, wraps the cord around it as though balling wool, and then offers the iPod to the girl.
‘Might I suggest that you take better care of your personal property.’
For a moment the girl looks at her, as though genuinely shocked that this apparition has the power of speech. As the train slows and pulls into Westbourne Park station the two boys begin to kick the carriage doors, but the girl does not take her eyes from the old lady. The doors eventually open with a well-rehearsed clatter and the two boys leap out on to the platform.
‘You coming, or what?’
The girl begins to move off, but she has not finished with the old lady.
‘You better keep your fucking hands off people’s stuff, all right?’
The girl turns now, and as the doors begin to close she quickly jumps and joins her friends on the platform. Through the window she gives the lady two fingers and mouths ‘fuck off’. The train speeds off again, but this part of the Hammersmith and City line is overground and so there are no longer any tunnels to plunge into. He glances at the old lady, who seems totally unruffled by the encounter, and he wonders how this woman is able to maintain such poise with these hooligans who are probably the same age as, or even younger than, her grandchildren. Does she understand and maybe pity them, or does she simply feel contempt? Though only a generation removed from the brutes, he finds their ill manners mystifying. As a child, Brenda would never have allowed him to get away with such behaviour. After his father was readmitted to the hospital, and it was just the two of them alone, she drilled him in the importance of always saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, and if his tie wasn’t straight, and his socks pulled up all the way, and his shoes properly polished, he wasn’t allowed to leave the house. ‘There’s people out there, Keith, who think they’re better than you, but never mind what they say, they’re not. However, I’m not having you giving them some reason to think they are. Keep your chin up, love, your clothes nice and tidy, and your language decent, and you’ll be a credit to yourself and your mum and dad. Now get yourself off to school and mind you come back with As on that report card or don’t you bother coming back at all.’ Brenda knew that good manners were important, and he had tried to pass these values on to Laurie who, as a small boy, was so timid that at times he wondered if he had not overdone it with the manners thing. In fact, once boys started to bully him, he was sure that he should be encouraging his son to be more assertive, but Annabelle disagreed, and insisted that Laurie was right to walk, or even run, away when boys pelted him with stones and called him a ‘halfie’. He and Annabelle had words, and he tried to explain to his wife that his own understanding of how to survive an English childhood had involved knowing that there was a time when it simply didn’t make sense to run, and that you sometimes had to stand up and fight. While he could not persuade his wife that Laurie should be encouraged to occasionally scrap it out, it was, ironically enough, his father-in-law who ended up agreeing with him, for the man’s military background meant that the idea of his grandson backing down from a scuffle filled him with something akin to shame.
The subject of Laurie and bullying came up on the only occasion that Annabelle’s father actually met his grandson. It was an uncomfortable encounter, but Annabelle had been both courageous and unambiguous about where her loyalties lay. If her parents disapproved of her choice of a partner, then her relationship with them would have to change radically. She was still at college when she first found herself trapped awkwardly between her boyfriend and her parents, and although she had no desire to be disrespectful towards them, her parents’ intransigence eventually forced a choice upon her. Some years later, but before the uncomfortable encounter between her new family and her father, Annabelle made the mistake of attempting to keep something about her relationship with her parents a secret from Keith. Annabelle was in the middle trimester of her pregnancy, and her mother had met up with her for their regular lunch at Harvey Nichols, followed by a walk in Hyde Park. After six years of post-college non-communication, when he and Annabelle had lived first in Bristol and then in Birmingham, actual face-to-face relations had been re-established with her mother once they moved to London and Annabelle started working for the theatrical agency. After three years of monthly lunches, during which time Annabelle’s mother was always careful to ask after her son-in-law, but without ever expressing any interest in spending any time with him, Annabelle waited until they were strolling by a stand of beeches near the Serpentine before announcing her pregnancy. Her mother’s anxious smile collapsed, and the well-disguised wrinkles began now to spider around her eyes. Annabelle helped her mother to a seat on a bench and watched as the older woman began to cry. Then she sat next to her mother, and for a few moments she looked helplessly at the space between her feet before slowly placing an arm around her mother’s heaving shoulders. The occasional walker ambled by, and a small group of children on the grass continued to play with their kites, but the mother and daughter were largely oblivious to any activity. They sat together for nearly an hour before the older woman finally reached into her handbag for a handkerchief and carefully wiped her nose then dabbed at her eyes. Annabelle tightened her arm and pulled her mother an inch or so towards her.
The following month they met at Harvey Nichols as usual, and over lunch her mother shared with her the village gossip, energising each trivial tale with the drama and intrigue of an international incident. Annabelle smiled knowingly and nodded at the right moments, although it was almost ten years since she had last seen the family cottage in Wiltshire, or set eyes upon her father, and her pre-college, pre-Keith, life had long begun to fade into the general mélange of hazy childhood memories which included attempting, and failing, to learn how to ride a bike, and falling into the stream at the end of the garden. Once her mother had paid the bill and retrieved her credit card, Annabelle gathered up her belongings and made ready to leave the restaurant, but her mother did not immediately get up from the table so Annabelle sat back down. After a few moments of inelegant silence, her mother asked if she would mind sharing a taxi with her to the train station as she really didn’t feel up to a walk in the park today. Having ascertained that her mother was not suffering from light-headedness or about to faint, she offered her an arm and the two of them flagged down a black cab whose driver seemed to know all the backstreets and soon dropped them at Paddington. Once they passed into the loud and cavernous station concourse, her mother reached into her bag and produced a train ticket. ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she said and then she held on to her daughter’s arm and began to sob. Annabelle led her mother to a coffee bar, and left her at the only free table, which was uncomfortably close to the door, while she ordered two herbal teas from the counter. When she returned to the draughty table her mother had calmed down somewhat, and she appeared to be eager to talk. ‘It’s your father,’ she began. ‘He needs to see you and find a way for you two to make up. He won’t admit anything, but you know he’s always been a stubborn so-and-so.’ Her mother picked up the tea and blew on it, then immediately placed it back on the saucer. ‘Darling, I really don’t know what else to do about it. I suppose I’m begging you.’