Tim Parks - Goodness

‘Right.’

Then she says: ‘Anyway, what future do you have, George Crawley?’

‘Oh come on.’

‘You see.’

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t.’

‘And didn’t George kill the dragon to save the damsel, not vice versa.’

‘What on earth is that supposed to mean?’

‘I’ve seen your scrapbook,’ she says, ‘okay? And it’s inhuman what you’re thinking.’

I turn away. ‘Only too human to go by what’s written in those articles.’

I persuade her, after the ten consultants, at least to go and look at a home. Check it out. We drive up to the Penelope Hardwick State-assisted Charity School for the Severely Handicapped in Enfield. In the car she says chattily: ‘I honestly can’t understand what’s eating you so much. I’m doing everything with her now. You have all the time in the world to do whatever you want. Leave earlier in the morning if you like, come home later. Work weekends. The world’s your oyster, George. Go get it.’

I realise she is telling the truth. I mean about not understanding. She can’t understand. This is the crux, she can’t understand me. Otherwise she wouldn’t say these things.

‘And if you want some fun at least get yourself snipped so we can make love. I could do with some action too, you know. Then we could go out occasionally if you want. Your Mum is willing to babysit. So’s Charles, though I’m not sure I could trust him.’

‘I don’t want to see my mother any more than is necessary.’

She says not to be such a big baby. What does it matter if she knows we screwed around?

She doesn’t understand.

‘You’re hung up,’ she tells me then.

‘Perhaps I am. But at least one should be able to count on one’s wife to respect one’s hang-ups.’

And when Enfield’s one-way system at last allows us to find it, the home really is pretty awful. One storey, yellow brick, the windows blue metal-framed, black lino floors, walls green to waist height, white above, firedoors at regular intervals down an interminable corridor reeking of disinfectant; in short, the spaces, shape and general utilitarian meanness of any institution, rendered poignant in this case by worse than usual childish scribblings pinned on the walls, by a background smell beneath the disinfectant of shit, by the cluttering paraphernalia of the handicapped: wheelchairs, walking frames, lifting devices in the bathroom. And then, inhabiting this ersatz fluorescent-lit environment, the fifty hopeless, slavering, contorted, clamouring, spastic, clumsily-dressed, unkempt basket cases. I know, I know, but what else do you want me to call them? Do we have to be pious? Except that sometimes the eyes are so intelligent, the gaze so piercingly clear as they register your panic. One little Asian boy in particular. A tiny, horribly deformed monkey with huge gorgon eyes. Amused. He laughs when he sees me in my suit and tie.

But Hilary is not one of those. Her eyes don’t see.

The white-coated staff are kind, bored, complacent, addressing the children with the same slightly sharp, patronising voice one might use for untrained pets or for the senile. Irritation, one senses, is kept at bay only by professional resignation. How else could it be? Much flustering to get a certain overweight Thomas to renounce a pen he is in danger of jabbing in his eye. ‘Come on, Tommy, you’ve been such a good boy this morning.’ Judging by his bulk, he’s at least eleven, ugly and belligerent.

Shirley smiles readily. She doesn’t seem to have the same difficulty simply looking that I have. Her manner reminds me of our pre-natal courses; she’s fresh, gregarious. Immediately she plunges into earnest conversation with one of the younger ‘teachers’ on the kinds of handicaps, the types of treatment. How many hours of this and that do they do, staff/children ratio, frequency of parental visits. ‘This child has Horner’s syndrome.’ As if we were connoisseurs. ‘Yes, it’s so exciting to see the progress they make, the way they come out.’ What were they like before? A spastic boy, wrists unnaturally twisted, is incessantly fingering pouted lips, his face blank in front of a morning TV programme showing how tennis balls are made. The TV is high up on the wall, out of harm’s way. In the corner a boy with only flippers protruding from his shoulders is trying to turn the pages of a comic book.

Of course these people must be looked after.

We are invited to stay to watch the children eat their lunch. I quickly invent a business appointment.

Silence in the car. I don’t even bother persuading. Shirley is kind enough not to say told you so. What she does do though is whistle as we inch down Ponder’s End High Street. She doesn’t often whistle. I recognise: ‘New every morning is the love’. She has recently joined the choir at St Barnabas. Apparently she sits at one end of the stalls with Hilary in her special chair on the chancel steps to the right. It is one of her illusions that Hilary appreciates music.

Finally she says: ‘What heroes.’

I say: ‘Yes, I was wondering why my mother never thought of it.’

The first faith-healer I try operates from a semi-basement flat off the Fulham Road. She is not a big name. I go to this woman because the MD, Johnson, and his wife have been enthusing about her for months. Margaret, the wife, in her early fifties, is intelligent, upper-class, well-educated; a sceptical type I would have thought. For more than fifteen years she has suffered intermittently from severe back pains which sometimes make it impossible for her even to stand up. After innumerable medical examinations, tests, X-rays, scans, drugs, massage, acupuncture and even an exploratory operation, she was finally persuaded by a friend to try Miss Whittaker. In just three ‘sessions’ she was healed. She hasn’t had the pain for months. So what did Miss Whittaker actually do? Nothing more than lay her hands on Margaret Johnson in a darkened room.

Normally of course I would take this kind of story with the very large pinch of salt it probably deserves. Menopausal women are famous for their psychosomatic problems. I’ve always given faith-healing about the same credibility rating as flying saucers and abominable snowmen. Things we’d like to believe in, good newspaper fodder. But at a price of £12.50 a session it is surely worth a whirl.

At the back of all my calculation there is always that faint, that constantly suppressed but in the end indomitable craving for a miracle, that residual part of me which is still a little boy kneeling in a cold church clutching at a thread of faith. Surely this is normal. The fact is I have made a sort of promise that I will become religious, Christian even, if a miracle occurs. ‘Master, we would see a sign from thee,’ I remember the verse from Sunday school. Who was it? The Pharisees? And what could be fairer? People have been doing these deals for centuries. If He wants my soul (if I have a soul), let Him show me a sign.

So I casually mention to Neil, the MD, who any day now will be inviting me to be a director (I have seen an exchange of memo’s between himself and one of the non-executive partners), that my mother also has a back problem. (I have never told anyone at work that I have a handicapped child. Somehow I know it would be unwise.)

Having thus wangled address and phone number, I then have to persuade the fabled Miss Whittaker to give me an appointment on Saturday afternoon. Soft-spoken, the woman has the irritating habit of leaving long pauses on the telephone. She doesn’t usually ‘receive’ on Saturday. She goes to see her mother in Richmond. I offer to pay double and to drive her on to Richmond afterwards if that would help. Politely, she says she is not interested in money. Then I remember that what I must say with this kind of person is, ‘please’. ‘Please, Miss Whittaker, please, I’m desperate , and I really can’t come any other day.’ The appointment is arranged.