Gwinny nodded once, hard.
“What’s her name, Gwinny?”
“Karen Milton.”
“Tell Karen that from now on my name is not George Goodchild but Mouse Goodchild. She won’t hear a squeak from the kitchen tonight for I will go to bed with a small malt whisky instead of my usual cocoa and toasted cheese. But she must first endure the uproar of a flushing toilet if that sound also pierces your walls. Does it? And YOU must remember to call me George.”
“We’re used to the flushing so it doesn’t bother us, Mr … George.”
“Then Karen may now rest in peace. Good night, sleep tight Gwinny.”
Gwinny retired. Mr Goodchild changed into slippers and pyjamas, took towel and toilet bag to bathroom, brushed teeth, washed, shat and smiled approvingly into the lavatory pan before flushing it. Sleek fat droppings showed that his inside still harmonized with the universe.
Next morning he arose, shaved, washed, dressed, breakfasted and waited until he heard the girls leave for work. Then he switched on the end of the Pastoral symphony, read the last six lines of his interrupted letter and completed it.
My fortnight in Foxdene was a worthwhile but unsuccessful experiment. It has proved me too selfishly set in my ways to live without a room where I can work and eat according to my own timetable, a timetable which others cannot be expected to tolerate.
This is my second day of boarding-house life and I am settling in nicely. My closest connections so far have been with Mrs Dewhurst our saturnine house-keeper, Mr Jha an excitable Asiatic shopkeeper, and two young secretaries in the room next door. Karen Milton is sexy and sure of herself and thinks I’m a boring old creep. No wonder! Gwinny Thomson is a sort teachers recognize at a glance: less attractive than her friend because less confident and needing someone she feels is stronger to hide behind. I’m afraid Karen bullies her sometimes. Gwinny ought to “shack up” (as the Americans say) with an experienced man who thoroughly appreciates her, then she might blossom. But I’m far too old for that little job.
So have no fear, son o’ mine. When I kick the bucket all I have will be yours, apart from £2500 for the UCF who will probably spend half of it renovating a Victorian drinking fountain on Ilkley Moor and waste the rest attaching a bronze plaque inscribed to my memory. I should put a clause in my will forbidding such wicked waste but there are uglier ways to be remembered.
The Fellowship is forwarding my mail here. A big stack arrived by first post this morning so my editorial work with the newsletter has not been interrupted. The only upsetting thing here is the pattern of the carpet. It looks fierce enough to bite off any foot standing on it. Give my love to Myra and the kids. I will visit Foxdene for a couple of days when she feels fit enough for a short dose of me. Ask her to suggest a weekend when I can babysit while you take her out for “a night on the town”. Take care of yourself, son.
Mr Goodchild lifted his fountain pen from a small glass tray of stamps and paperclips, pulled the letter from the drum and wrote Love from Dad neatly at the foot of it. A week later he typed this.
Dear, Dear Harry,
I have solved the problem of the carpet by turning it upside down. Through the weave of the brown backing the jagged pattern looks faded, antique and restful. When Mrs Dewhurst called for the rent yesterday she stared at the carpet, then at me. I smiled sweetly back. She must think I’m daft.
I would have liked a reply to my last letter because I’ve been feeling a bit lonely and dreaming a lot about your mother. She comes to me quite unlike her usual self and accuses me of all sorts of improbable crimes — dismantling the British rail system was the worst. A family man suddenly deprived of family must feel low until new friendships fill the gap and last night I had a surprising social triumph.
Gwinny Thomson, probably acting under orders from Karen, had come to me the night before and said she and her friend were going to have a party — not a rowdy do, but there might be music and chat till after midnight if I had no objection. I said I had no objection to anything which happened at their party as long as I was invited. She was horrified but tried to hide it by saying “of course” I was invited. But I let the girls down gently by joining the party late after it had plenty of time to warm up. But it hadn’t warmed up. The guests were all office workers in their twenties and early thirties, female colleagues of the girls and male colleagues of their boyfriends. They stood huddled in groups of three or four, talking in low voices and obviously waiting for the earliest possible moment to leave without seeming rude, while Karen served them drinks and tried without success to get them chatting and mingling. The source of embarrassment was Gwinny and her boyfriend, Tom. Gwinny was on the verge of tears. Tom kept turning his back and talking to other women whenever she came near.
Enter Mr Goodchild looking exactly like his name — small, stout, cheery and too innocent to notice anything wrong. This act of mine is not a phony one. Humanity would have become extinct centuries ago if what holds folk together were not stronger than what pulls us apart. My act worked. Folk clustered round me. The UCF also came in handy. Karen’s boyfriend is an architect and thanks to the Fellowship urban conservation is a source of more profitable commissions than it was ten years ago. Karen’s bloke asked such detailed questions about our projects that I took him back to my room to show him photographs. Karen was not pleased about that and came too, so I sweetened her by offering both of them a tot of The Macallan. Then everyone but Gwinny and Tom came here too so I set up the epidiascope and gave my introductory lecture on the renovation of Britain’s industrial heritage. You’ve never attended my lectures, Harry, so don’t know that this one, though devised for schoolchildren, draws bigger laughs from adults. I got a round of applause which brought the Dewhursts up from their basement. Them too I sweetened with nips of The Macallan. Lastly Tom and Gwinny entered hand in hand, him grinning as smugly as an office boy who had just seduced a company director’s daughter, her as bashful as a bride on her honeymoon. They had obviously been reconciled by a bout of what the Scotch call “hockmagandy” and the nasty lad liked flaunting the fact more than poor Gwinny did. I sent everyone away by saying it was my bedtime.
I understand your silence, Harry. Perhaps my stay at Foxdene would have ended more kindly — or not ended at all — if I had discussed my domestic problem with you instead of Myra. We might have found a solution she would have accepted — like me buying a modern Portakabin with all mod cons, one you could have set up behind the big hedge hiding the kitchen garden from the lawn. Myra need never have seen me during the day and I could have shared the regular evening meals and Sunday lunch, and helped the kids with their homework. You and I could have enjoyed an occasional game of chess like in the old days and my music would have irritated nobody. But you and I never discuss things. It’s my fault. When you were little I always told you everything I knew in such detail that you recoiled into reticence like your mother and, unlike your mother, never told me to shut up. No wonder you won’t answer letters. But I will burble on to you since I have nobody else.
I enclose bulldozer, roadroller and pickup truck for Nigel’s Dinky Toy collection, and a set of Flower Fairy books for Tracy.
Love from
Dad.
Exactly a week later Mr Goodchild started typing his last letter in that boarding house.
Dear Harry,
When I came here a fortnight back I told the housekeeper that nobody over fifty can foretell how they’ll be living a few months hence. I was wrong. A few days, a few hours hence would be more accurate. I’ll explain this.