Tim Parks - Goodness

The girl is half sitting, half lying in her lap. At five and a half she has begun to chant the first ma-ma-ma’s and da-da-da’s that most babies start at six months. Shirley is very excited about this, though there is no sign of the sounds being referred to anything or anyone in particular. The little girl smiles continuously this evening from inside the frame of her gloriously thick chestnut hair which Shirley keeps brilliantly washed and brushed. Her only real asset, it picks up faint hints and depths from the discrete wall lighting which proved such a wise and fashionable choice. When tickled under her tubby chin, she giggles. She hasn’t been ill for upwards of a fortnight now, and since a dietician suggested we substitute cow’s milk with goat’s, she has definitely been less irritated and irritable.

These are the blessings Shirley counts with a religious mathematics she might have learnt from my mother, i.e. add this hundredth to that thousandth, multiply by whatever crumb or fragment is available and then lift to the power of a small sop and somehow you can cancel out negative figures with untold noughts after them.

‘No reason at all,’ Shirley goes on, kissing the child’s fat cheeks as I scribble out the names. ‘We should have started doing this ages ago. I mean, if we can’t go out, obviously we’ll have to have people come here. And if we don’t invite them they’re not going to come, are they?’

I don’t remark that they used to invite themselves. Instead I say: ‘I haven’t exactly been preventing you from inviting them, have I?’

‘No, but you’re such a monster of purpose, always working or reading medical journals or planning trips to consultants. It’s as if you were always putting off living to some distant date when you’ll have sorted everything out.’ She lays a hand on the inside of my leg and looks into my eyes. ‘I’m glad you’re beginning to let be at last. If you don’t insist on its being a tragedy then it isn’t.’

The touch has a definite promise of sex.

She giggles. ‘Perhaps it’s to do with the op. Less hormones about or something. You’re mellowing out.’

I haven’t seen her so silly and girlish in years, though the silver strands are daily thickening in her once copper hair.

‘We’ll invite everybody,’ she says. ‘Even if we haven’t seen them in years and years. We can clear the lounge and dining room for dancing and set out a big buffet in the kitchen and breakfast room. How much money can we afford to spend?’

‘Anything. Doesn’t matter. No object.’

‘Great, now, let’s see. .’

But what is George Crawley really thinking inside the dark lumpy 900ccs or so which is his brain, which is me? Obviously I am feeling terribly tender toward my suddenly excited, though definitely ageing wife. I am thinking how smart I’ve been to renew our relationship before the great event, to have her feel I’m on her side at last. And I’m genuinely heartened by the thought that after all we’ve been through this renewal can still occur and be so warm and genuine. I’m thinking that in a way I’m doing this for her sake even more than mine. But at the same time I am wondering if perhaps she isn’t right, could she be? if perhaps we mightn’t be happy like this, if I shouldn’t have let be ages ago, if I oughtn’t to give the whole thing up and just enjoy the incongruous adventure of hosting a party. Suddenly surprising myself with all these heterogeneous thoughts, I shake my head to chase them all away. They rise and flutter like birds surprised by gunshot, leaving nothing behind. I wonder, where is my identity in all this chaos of feeling and reflection? Who am I? All I can sense is a feverish darkness gathered around an even darker purpose. I have given myself to the decision now. It won’t be reconsidered.

‘And for booze? Couple of hundred quid cover it do you think? Er, Earth to George, come in please. The booze. How much?’

Oh.’ In a daze, I say, ‘The more the merrier.’

Another thought wings across the dark night sky of my spirit: the more booze, the faster the place’ll go up in smoke.

Three weeks on; D-Day minus five days. I am now absolutely determined that the day after, Sunday the tenth, I shall feel only regret for my beautiful home, its three reception rooms, four bedrooms, delightful conservatory and garden (in the meantime I have checked that the insurance is more or less adequate; could have been better but one can’t alter it now). I shan’t fear detection, for of course I have planned the thing so well, and from the forensic point of view my tracks will be perfectly covered. Clearing the dining room to dance is going to mean cramming four highly inflammable armchairs into my little study, which, as fortune would have it, is directly below Hilary’s room with only plaster and timber between. Ten minutes, max fifteen. All things work together for good. .

For it will be an act of goodness, the first time I will have channelled everything that I know is abrasive and unpleasant in my character into a gesture of love greater and more healthy than anything my mother or Shirley with their interminable self-sacrifice could manage. I will have the courage of my convictions.

The most elementary secret to a successfully disguised arson is that the fire must have only one focal point. So far so good.

My mother is the first to arrive, bringing Frederick who she has been looking after for the day. She has construed her invitation, though this has never been asked, as a request for help and babysitting, and thus arrives early to give Shirley a hand with the food and with Hilary. Although she no doubt disapproves of the regiment of glinting bottles marshalled end to end of the sideboard, she is clearly glad that we are celebrating our tenth anniversary; no doubt she sees it as a kind of triumph over evil, a sign that our marriage is healthy again, and she mucks in, jollily washing saucepans.

Frederick, sensing excitement in the air, becomes a Japanese robot and struts about, hissing destructive laser sounds. He paces mechanically round and round Hilary who lies on her foam rubber mattress in the huge lounge now cleared for dancing. She wriggles wildly from side to side following the direction of his laser fire as best she can, her oddly flat face smiling blindly, unaware he is shooting her.

When she goes to bed, the foam mattress will go in the study room to make way for the dancing. I have already made sure that a huge pile of mags and newspapers are stacked on one of the armchairs.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I’ve been shitting a lot this afternoon, as was to be expected I’m afraid. Unpleasant, hot, acidic shits that leave your anus burning. I’ve got some good cream for it though. In the bathroom I run my fingers regretfully over silk-finish, coffee-coloured Italian tiles. Opening the window I look out at a broad stretch of garden to the side of the house. A blackbird is hopping in the grass. There are roses. The air is sweet, soft. Toward the Heath, and this is always a symbol of joy for me, swallows are diving and wheeling in the warm twilight. Eating their prey alive of course. Though as a child I believed they just whirled about for fun.

Which reminds me, I must open the window in the study, make sure there’s some oxygen about. Some weeks ago, complaining of Hilary’s racket while I was debugging a program, I got Shirley to buy some strips of foam insulant to put round the door. No one will smell anything until it’s roaring.

Coming down the stairs, I let my feet feel the fibrous sponginess of expensive pile carpet. My hand lingers on the polished wooden banister. Illuminating the red and gold wallpaper up the hallway are two light fittings with elaborate Venetian glass which Shirley bought from a shop in Belgravia. It annoys me that Mother never expresses any real admiration for this house, anything beyond, ‘what big rooms, what a huge garden, it must be a nightmare keeping it tidy’, etc. etc. If she were to show any desire to come and live here, instead of endlessly singing the praises of her Cricklewood shoebox, I would be glad to have her. I’m not in the business of bearing grudges.