Tim Parks - Goodness

‘Then you read, Uncle, I want you to read.’

He says this because he thinks I’ll refuse. He’s a sharp little lad with whom I feel a certain affinity. But as it happens I’m quite glad to be out of the fray for a while.

I take him upstairs, make him clean his teeth and sort through the kiddies’ books people have occasionally given us, not realising Hilary will never be able to understand them. What would he like? Tom Thumb? He says the giant scares him. Eating the children. But it’s only stalling. Nothing would scare Frederick. I tell him it’s only pretend, there are no giants, nobody eats children. But I agree to dig out the Ugly Duckling instead. Where unfortunately, I reflect as I read, it is the welcome transformation that doesn’t convince.

I kiss my nephew goodnight. Having got the door closed, I take the opportunity to change my soiled trousers and, before going downstairs again, size myself up in our wardrobe mirror. Five-ten. Blond. Pale-skinned, straight-nosed, clear eyes. Perhaps a little serious-looking, but certainly nothing loony about me. In the end, if I have to insist before a court of law on any one thing, it will be my complete normality, my modernity. Show me, I’ll say to the jury, just one, just one part of my overall vision which is out of line with the dominant social philosophy in England today. I bet you can’t. I just bet. But watching myself in the mirror I can see the tension about teeth and jaws. I have big jaw muscles.

Hearing noises at the top of the stairs I walk down the long landing to the other bathroom where Mother is struggling to change a particularly dirty nappy before putting Hilary to bed. I take over, for the girl’s heavy and helpless and needs washing. I work quickly and efficiently and, though I say it myself, gently. Hilary always rouses a quite terrible gentleness in me. I wipe carefully inside the folds of skin around the pale warm split bun of her crotch. And talc generously.

At a certain point, my mother touches my shoulder and smiles at me with a bright winsome look. ‘I think you’re magnificent with the girl.’ For some reason she says it in a whisper. Then in her normal voice. ‘I’ll put her to bed now. You go down and talk to your guests. It’s your party.’

This is a little annoying because I had meant to give Hilary a very heavy dose of Calpol to make sure she won’t wake and attract attention during the evening. As Mother walks off with the girl along the landing, she is already humming mournful hymn tunes which she presumably imagines are soporific. And indeed they are.

Downstairs I pin a little notice to the first column of the bannister. ‘Use downstairs loo: don’t want to wake kids.’ I hesitate, then decide to accept one last call to the bathroom.

Finally towards ten, everybody arrives more or less at once. Squash partners from my Hammersmith club, a few blokes from karate classes, couples we met on the maternity course and perhaps went out with once, or used to meet for a drink sometimes, at least until Hilary was born. Mark and Sylvia, our old neighbours from Finchley. People from work. People from school where Shirley taught — her ex amongst them? Stout Ian Perkins has a lecherous look to him, trailing a petite wife with pink rabbitty little mouth and pursed lips. And now there’s a faint aroma of dope in the air? Who? Can I allow that? If the police should come before I start the fire? Calm down please. It would be madness to make a fuss. Probably I’m just imagining it.

Mrs Harcourt arrives, bringing a sprightly older man with middle European accent who seems determined to make a fool of himself telling jokes and drinking heavily. He is tall, but lean, over-dressed in a dinner jacket that doesn’t quite fit. Obviously out for a good time. Mrs Harcourt introduces him, with no comment, as her dear friend Jack. She is looking younger and happier than the last time I saw her, in an elaborate taffeta dress with sparkling butterfly brooch and pearl necklace. I’m surprised to notice she hasn’t brought her camera. Our tenth anniversary will pass unrecorded.

Gregory turns up with a girl I’ve never seen before, a thin-lipped, depressed looking lass with a sudden false smile of greeting that heaves up the downturned corners of the mouth. Tight jeans and ample curves up top tell all though. She moves with a soft predatory pad in expensive running shoes.

‘Divorced, old man,’ he explains. It’s at least two years since I saw him. The girl is leaning over the table for food and he is watching her arse. So am I for that matter. He chuckles: ‘Just got too much. And boring into the bargain. You know, marriage, always the same. We both wanted out.’

As I open the door for someone else, Charles and Peggy can be heard arguing quite violently as they approach down our lovely, tree-waving street. They are calling each other names. Sometimes I wonder if Shirley and I aren’t the only couple in the world guarding the romantic fort of first marriage.

‘Hi, what you up to? How come we never get to see each other?’ Greeting guests in the porch I’m putting on an extraordinary show of bonhomie: I sound positively American. Meanwhile Shirley is marshalling drinks and food in the breakfast room. In the lounge somebody’s put on ‘Street-Fighting Man’ of all things. I check my watch. Ten fifteen.

‘Congratulations,’ I tell a very pregnant Susan Wyndham; she is leaning on the arm of the bearded man whose photo I used to see in her bedroom. ‘What do you want, boy or a girl?’

‘Just as long as it’s healthy,’ he says solemnly.

The evening gathers momentum. Much as planned. People finally begin to mingle, to get drunk. And to dance. The volume of the music is creeping up, and with the noise comes bustle, confusion. I’ve spotted several cigarette butts on carpet and parquet and a glass of red wine has gone over the bottom of the heavy green velvet curtains in the lounge. Pretty expensive enjoyment frankly. What I can’t understand, though, is how Shirley, who has committed so much time and energy in recent years to cleaning everything up far more often than is necessary (’because Hilary spends most of her life on the carpet’), is now being so blasé about it all. ‘Oh that doesn’t matter, I’m sure the stain’ll come out. We’re not that finicky. I mean, you can’t live in a museum, can you?’ She lifts her hand to cover her laughter, embraces someone, whirls off in a dance.

Still, the louder and rowdier the party, the better it suits my purpose. And I break open a couple of fresh packs of Rothmans and spill the cigarettes into a cut-glass bowl on the sideboard. The lounge is already a smog. When they’re always telling you on the news that everybody’s giving up.

Where’s Mother? I expected she’d have gone by now. Got one of the ‘church folk’ to drive her home. But she hasn’t said goodbye. I don’t want her around when it all happens. There are two rather handsome people kissing deeply at the bottom of the stairs. Which reminds me. I walk briskly to the back of the hall and slip into the cubby under the stairs, crouching down under the slanting ceiling. Amongst dusty boxes, there’s a heavy half-full drum of varnish from when they did the floors. I shift it over to the wall on the study side (barely a yard from the armchair) and prise the lid open a little with the car keys in my pocket to release some fumes. Ideally, I would like the stairwell to go up before people realise what’s going on. Though that seems a little ambitious.

Then up to check the children one last time. Fortunately the guest room is at the opposite side of the house from Hilary’s. For obvious reasons. The important thing is that everybody be where they should be when it begins.

I ease open the door. Frederick has his arms flung out above his head in red pyjamas. His face is so smooth in sleep, despite the thumping rhythm from downstairs, so smooth, so calm. But then he doesn’t have dreams like I have, like last night’s for example. I watch him. Although they don’t actually move you can sense, beneath the calm features, an intense, fluttering, delicate life. Not for the first time I reflect that I too might have had a lovely child like this.