Philip Hensher - The Friendly Ones

‘It takes some organization, I expect,’ Leo said.

His father stood up; jounced his fists in his pocket; went to the window and looked out, pretending to be very interested by something in the garden. Finally he made a casual-sounding comment.

‘I was thinking the other day,’ Hilary said, ‘what would it be like to have your family – all your family, the grown-up bits as well – all of them around all the time?’

3.

‘It must be terribly hard for your father,’ Leo’s mother used to say, ‘to spend the whole day telling people exactly what to do. And then come home and find out that he can’t do the same to us. We don’t follow doctors’ orders, do we, darling?’

Whenever Hilary said something of great import, something he had been contemplating for days and weeks, he brought it out casually, sometimes walking towards the door or turning away while he spoke. Leo supposed that it was the habit of an old GP, getting the right answer to an important question about vices or symptoms by asking it in passing. In just such a way, he had chattily said, ‘Oh, another thing – I don’t suppose you’re drinking much more than a bottle of vodka a day?’ or ‘Still taking it out on you, is he, your husband?’ just as the patient was getting up to leave his consulting room. His children had got wise to it, of course, and the words ‘Oh, by the way …’ or ‘I don’t know whether it’s of any importance, but …’ had long put them on guard. Only Hugh could imitate it convincingly, the way Hilary’s voice querulously rose in light, casual enquiry, like the happy, imperfect memory of an old song.

But this was not an enquiry: this was Hilary observing that he didn’t know what it would be like to have your family, the grown-up bits as well, around you all the time. He was not – could not be – casually suggesting that all his children uproot themselves and come and live in his house. It could only be a general observation, yet Hilary had brought it out exactly as he brought out the one significant statement of the hour, with a careful lack of weight, his voice rising a jocular octave. What would it be like to have your family, your grown-up family, living around you all the time? Leo said, ‘Ye-esss,’ and then, ‘Well …’ and then a delaying ‘Erm’ that threatened to turn into a hum. He was examining the statement from all sides. Finally he had to respond. His father had fallen silent, waiting, head slightly cocked, for the answer.

‘It would be nice,’ he said. ‘But it’s not very practical nowadays. I suppose people elsewhere marry and move in and work alongside each other. We probably wouldn’t get on, anyway.’

‘I always thought it was odd that you threw in the towel so early.’

‘Threw in the towel?’

‘With Catherine.’

‘Oh,’ Leo said. ‘We’re much better off now.’

But his father shook his head irritably, and Leo understood that he was thinking about their separation and divorce from his own point of view.

The marriage had been failing for ever – sometimes Leo felt that what had separated them permanently, put an end to whatever joy there had been, had been the long, painful and ugly preparations for their immense wedding. For eight months before the wedding, there had been something to talk about in absorbing and horrible detail, every aspect of it. They had gone on fucking – that was the thing, the way they’d fucked ceaselessly, three times a day, four, the feeling that here he’d met his match. But before the wedding you couldn’t help seeing that the fuck came at the end of a big argument. Disagreement about a choice between napkins – surprising personal remark – serious row – apology – fuck. Catherine had been swept up in the intricacies; Leo had gone along with the process and the reconciliatory fuck; and then, three days into the honeymoon, sitting on a beach in the Seychelles, facing the theatrical sunset, she had turned to him and he, unwillingly, to her. They had seen that they really had nothing more to say each other. He had got a good deal from the Seychelles Tourist Board for flights and accommodation and a couple of excursions.

So the marriage had failed from the start. Before long, Leo had turned up in Sheffield on his own, and told his parents he and Catherine were going to separate, and then divorce. ‘A trial separation?’ his mother had cried, half rising from her chair, but his father had shaken his head irritably. For Hilary, the crisis had come at that moment when, in fact, Leo and Catherine’s marriage – their divorce, rather, it was so much more permanent, dynamic and long-running – had gone beyond the new lacerations of contempt and insult and into a curious cosy zone where the whole thing was the topic of despairing, rueful, shared jokes, mock generosity about awarding custody of the household’s colossal Lego collection, the occasional absurd, almost ironic fuck, with Leo not bothering to take his socks off, and the important question of who would have the more successful divorce party when it was all done. Catherine had not come to break the news. It was for Leo alone to see the collapse of his mother’s face, his father turning to him with what looked very much like irritation. He had quite enjoyed it, actually.

‘People stay married all the time,’ Hilary said.

‘Don’t they just,’ Leo said. ‘Do you mind if I turn the lights on?’

‘Do as you please,’ Hilary said. He watched him closely as he moved about the room, turning on the two standard lamps, the other table lamps; there was a central light, a brass construction, but no one ever lit it: it cast too brilliant a light over everything. ‘No one else planning a divorce, I don’t suppose.’

‘Not that …’ Leo began, but Hilary didn’t expect or need a response.

‘I rather thought – I don’t know, but I rather thought’ – his voice went up in that querulous, amused, treble way again – ‘it might be my turn.’

‘Your turn?’

‘My turn to get a divorce,’ Hilary said.

‘That would be interesting,’ Leo said.

‘After all,’ Hilary said, ‘it’s now or never, you might say.’

‘No time like the present,’ Leo said. ‘You might even find it an interesting way to fill the time, you and Mummy.’

‘Oh, I haven’t told your mother yet,’ Hilary said. ‘I’m just going to present her with it when it’s all …’

‘What?’

‘When it’s all …’

‘When it’s all …’

There were questions that, in the past, Leo’s father had raised with him in exactly this way, at exactly this time of day, when there was nobody else in the house. When Leo’s life had run away from Oxford, the conversation about his future had begun here – they had, surely, been in the same chairs. Hilary was sitting and, in his light-serious voice, talking about getting a divorce in the same incontrovertible way. Hilary gazed, half smiling, patiently, into the middle distance, waiting for Leo’s slow understanding to catch up.

‘Are you serious? You’re not saying …’

‘Am I serious?’ Hilary said. ‘About getting a divorce?’

‘A divorce from Mummy?’ Leo said.

‘A divorce from Mummy,’ Hilary said. He sat back; he might have been enjoying himself. ‘Why wouldn’t I be serious?’

Leo stared.

‘I should have done it years ago,’ Hilary said. ‘Actually, I was going to do it five years ago. Perfect time. You’d all left home. Then you waltz in with your news. That was that. Couldn’t possibly have two divorces in the family at the same time, would look absurd. So there you are. It has to be now, really.’

‘You’re not serious,’ Leo said.

‘I wish you’d stop asking me if I’m serious.’

‘But Mummy –’

‘Oh, Mummy,’ Hilary said, in a full, satisfied voice: it was the voice of parody, but also of warmly amused affection for something almost beyond recall. ‘Well, I’ll tell Mummy myself. You can leave that to me.’