Graham Swift - Shuttlecock

No. Please.

And it’s an odd thing that I’ve brought the children in at this point. Because all this assault-course sex with Marian, all this feverish searching for erotic illumination — it only began with the kids being born. Or, rather, not with them being born exactly — because do you know what I felt when each of them came into the world? I felt: life is very simple and complete. And there was a time even when the boys were small, when Marian and I used to make love, quite spontaneously, in the open air — in fields, amid ferns, in secluded parts of beaches — when we went out at weekends. Martin nestling close by, asleep in the carry-cot. No, it wasn’t with their being born but with their growing up — with the idea that they will one day be men like me. The older they get, the more persistent, the more desperate I become with Marian. When will their growing, I wonder, outstrip my libido? Or will I have found, before then, what it is I’m seeking?

One day when I go to see Dad I will say to him: Is it wrong, the way I treat Marian? You and Mum were always the fine, confident couple. If you were such a hero, did you always have good, healthy relations with your wife? Even bed-time ones? Tell me, Dad. Enlighten me.

It is now several days since I returned the television to the shop. They all resent me for it — can see that — but apart from one barbed remark from Marian when they came back from their afternoon at Richmond (‘I suppose you think that was clever. Happy now?’), there have been no demonstrations. They’re shrewd enough, I imagine, not to give me the opportunity to crow — ‘No idle threats from me, you see,’ or something of the kind. By Monday the whole matter seemed to have died down, though the week began sullenly enough and Martin, in particular, kept giving me little hard, vengeful frowns.

But today (Friday) — though it really began yesterday — something has happened. Something I can’t help taking very seriously.

The weather has kept up all the week. It seems we are in for a remarkable summer. I have come home, sticky from the Tube and enervated from work, but with enough vigour to muster, on my arrival, a mocking heartiness. ‘Well, who’s for a game of cricket on the common?’ Now the television has gone it seems only proper to take the initiative over healthier, alternative activities. But, as is to be expected, my proposal meets with wilful non-enthusiasm. ‘Suit yourselves then.’ In order to endorse my position, I have often thought of going out alone, not to play cricket, of course, but for solitary strolls across the common. I might even have a self-righteous pint or two at the pub. But in fact, as you know now, I have been more occupied by something else which both the absence of the television and, indirectly, the warm weather have made more feasible. Every evening this week, before and after supper, I have been taking the copy of Shuttlecock from the shelf in the living-room, setting up a deck-chair in the garden and in stubborn indifference to my family, following Dad across occupied France.

Until yesterday, that is, when I came home to find that the copy of the book was gone.

Now I did not act in haste. I checked in my memory that I had actually returned it to the shelf the previous night; I looked elsewhere in the living-room; I made sure it had not been put with the other copy in the bedroom; I asked Marian if she knew its whereabouts; I paused to size the situation. Only then did I jump to conclusions. Martin, Martin. A reprisal.

‘Martin,’ (with feigned casualness), ‘have you seen my book?’

‘What book?’

‘You know. Grandpa’s book.’

‘Haven’t seen it.’

‘Martin, tell me what you have done with it.’

‘Nothing. I haven’t done anything.’

His face had an expression of grim tenacity, which was confession enough.

‘Martin, don’t play tricks with me. Tell me where it is.’

‘How should I know.’

‘Where?!!’

And then anger got the better of me. If my subsequent course of action seems excessive, remember that it was the signed copy (‘your loving Father’) that was missing. Had it been the other copy — you must believe me — I would not have felt half my rage.

With my left hand I seized Martin’s right arm and twisted it behind his back in a sort of imperfect half-nelson. I raised my right hand into a position to strike him across the face.

‘Now! Are you going to tell me?’

We were standing in the living-room. As the shouting began, Marian appeared in the doorway, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Peter, who had been in the garden and who may or may not have been in on the theft of the book, had come to the french windows and was watching apprehensively to see how his brother would shape up. Given my superior strength and the way the sympathies of the family stood, everything favoured Martin being the hero of the moment.

‘I’m going to count to three.’

It struck me momentarily that this confrontation, in all its crudity, was really little different from the sort of set-tos that are commonplace in school playgrounds. This being the case, Martin probably had the advantage in immediate experience; for, despite their unadventurousness at home, I often noticed (it used to puzzle me) that both he and Peter returned from school with cuts and bruises that suggested scraps on the asphalt.

‘One — ’

I jerked his left arm and lifted my right hand a little further. Martin gasped and turned his head to one side. His little face became grimmer still.

Marian stepped forward. ‘If you hurt him, I’ll — ’

‘You’ll what?’

She put a hand out to stop mine. I raised mine still further. I wondered briefly whether to strike Martin or Marian. Martin’s eyes were screwed up, waiting for the blow. I have to admit that everything was blurred and strange. I had a vision of how families fall apart, of how terrible crimes get committed in ordinary circumstances

‘All right,’ I said, dropping Martin’s arm. ‘I don’t have to hit you.’

Instantly, Martin opened his eyes and turned in innocent appeal to Marian. ‘I don’t know anything about it, Mum.’ So well acted.

‘We’ll see about that,’ I said. I pushed past the two of them into the hall and bounded up the stairs to the boys’ bedroom. I looked under Martin’s bed and under Peter’s bed. Opened their clothes drawers. I checked their own bookshelves, taking in the titles: Pioneers of Space; The Martian Menace: Miracles of the Laser . On the wall was an absurd picture of Telly Savalas sucking a lollipop; a faded chart showing details of all the Apollo moonflights. I pulled open the doors to the cupboard in which were stored the accumulated toys of half a decade, and out spilled a tangled mass of gadgetry — ray-guns, limbless action-men, scale models of rockets and lunar modules, a broken pocket-calculator, ribbons of shiny cassette-tape: a cybernetical junkyard. Nothing simple and down-to-earth — like a cricket bat. And no copy of Dad’s book.

I was beginning to consider that I might be wrong in my suspicions, but it was too late to call off the performance.

I went down to the living-room.

‘Well,’ I said reflectively, like an inquisitor considering that direct violence may not be the best ploy. ‘There are other ways of getting it out of you.’

I looked quickly at Marian.

‘Are you hungry, Martin?’

I should explain that every weekday the boys have a large tea at about four-thirty, after they come in from school. Until recently this used to be their last main meal of the day and Marian and I used to have a separate supper at about seven. In recent months, however, with the boys staying up later and later (because of that damned television) and demanding ‘pre-bedtime snacks’, we have shifted towards their eating regularly with us. They are growing boys with massive appetites. The upshot is that they now have both a large tea when they come in and a large supper a couple of hours later.