Graham Swift - Out of This World

Brian Patterson, at his Fleet Street desk, was the first to get hold of me, less than an hour after the story ‘broke’. Even got through somehow on that red-hot Hyfield number. Behind the confidential, I’m-talking-to-you-as-a-friend voice, I could hear journalistic excitement mixed with journalistic frustration (on a Monday of all days — and this was a Sunday paper).

‘You were there when it happened — is that right?’

‘Yes. Yes.’

‘God, I’m sorry. What can I say?’

‘It’s okay.’

‘You weren’t hurt?’

‘No.’

‘Sophie?’

‘Shock. Just shock. They’ve taken her to hospital. Shock.’

‘Look, Harry — I — Do you want to cover this one?’

All through that day, that evening, the next day and the next: phone calls, questions, propositions. ‘Mr Beech, can you describe for us …?’; ‘Mr Beech, what are your feelings at this moment?’; ‘Mr Beech, as a distinguished news photographer, who has …’; ‘You were actually just about to leave for Belfast, is that true?’; ‘What were the last words that …?’; ‘We understand that your daughter …’; ‘Harry? Is that you, Harry? We’re putting together this two-minute piece. Your father’s life. We wondered if you had any material. You know, family photos …’; ‘Only a few words — a son’s tribute …’; ‘So you and he were not always …’; ‘What we want, Harry, is some personal stuff. You know, the real man, the inside story …’

No comment. No comment. No. And no again. There was always the same tone of almost indignant surprise, of veiled reproach. But you were there, weren’t you? A big story, and you’re right in the middle of it. You’re Harry Beech, aren’t you? The true pro. Stop at nothing. Just because –

That first swarm of photographers outside the gates at Hyfield, when Joe and I returned in the police car from the hospital, took me totally unawares. I who had stood — how many times, in the early days? — waiting for cars, lunging forward as they swung by. The flash-bulbs, like pistol shots. The faces. Hey, Harry — how come you’re there on the inside looking out. Looking at us.

No, I don’t want to cover it. You’re asking the wrong man. The man you should be talking to — if you can get him between discreet calls from Whitehall — is Frank Irving. Acting Chairman. He’ll give you all you want to know. Full story. Slip in, while you’re at it, a few direct questions about BMC, about arms trade ethics. No? Too underhand, too ‘unpatriotic’, under the circumstances? Unlike asking a son to –

One of Frank’s first acts as duly appointed Chairman: to commission a bronze bust, larger than life-size, to be placed on a plinth in the main foyer of the office. A bust, or rather head only, to avoid the problem of artificially representing an artificial arm.

A hero’s death. A martyr’s death.

(And that extra, poignant touch. The chauffeur. A cameo part. Sacrifice within sacrifice.)

No, I’m not covering it.

Because I’d already covered it. Already been the true, un-flinching, the ultimate pro.

Darling Doctor K, we mustn’t go on meeting like this. Here in your darkened room, on your couch, with my mind all un-dressed. People might talk. People might tell.

It was supposed to be a little, brief, therapeutic fling, wasn’t it? A few intimate and secret sessions with you, then back to normality again, all the better for it. Back to being the loving wife and mother I used to dream once upon a time that I was.

But it’s getting to be serious, you and me. It’s getting to be a regular thing.

I kiss him goodbye in the morning. He says: You’re seeing Doctor Klein today? I say, Yes, and he kisses me again, as if it’s my work-out at the gym day or my special treat for being a good girl day. Then I take the kids to school, then I come on over the river and tell you things I’ve never told him. Tell you, a little, dry, elegant, elfin man, who I don’t know a thing about and I only met three months ago, what I’d never tell him. Though I’ve known him for sixteen years, and once we used to fuck like mad things all round that place we went to for weekends on Poros. We used to eat these big red chunks of water-melon — karpouzia — naked, so the juice ran all down. Then he wasn’t eating the water-melon, he was eating me.

See what I mean? I could be trying to come on to you, couldn’t I? Telling you things like that.

It could be some deal, I guess. An arrangement, a conscience-salver. (He pays!) Because really he’s screwing his secretary, down there on Sixth, every other evening. But I know he’s not. Because that’s not Joe. And even if he were, I’d know, I’d smell it on him. So why doesn’t he smell it on me? Smell Nick the plumber. And Dean the insurance agent. And Jerry the just-divorced husband of Karen Sherman. Because he isn’t like that. He doesn’t have that sort of sensitive nose. Or eye. Or memory. A toy gun is just a toy gun.

And, besides, they were just cheap, quick, mindless screws, to make me forget I was anybody, to make me think I was nobody.

Not like you and me.

There’s always hypnosis. Isn’t that a technique they use? We haven’t tried that. Oh yes, I’d gladly let you send me sweetly to sleep. Happily let you probe and pry just as you wished while I lay back in a state of unresisting, unremembering unconsciousness. What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me? What do you think I’ll do? Leap up, start beating on the door and shout, Rape! Rape!

But it’s okay. It’s I who trust you! You’re cool, you’re professional, your credentials are good. I’ve got to be perfectly frank and co-operative with you and hold nothing back, and if I don’t drop my psychic panties like a sensible girl, how can you help me? You’re neutral, you’re scientifically detached, I’m safe in your hands. And it doesn’t matter what I say, does it, it won’t bring a blush to those lightly tanned cheeks, or alternatively give you unprofessional ideas?

You’ve got it, Doctor K. Older men. Got it in one. I guess it was obvious from the start. I guess you know all the signs, all the symptoms. I’ve got this thing about older men. Little old wise men who know it all. And little kids, little twins, who’ll have to be told it all. In between it’s just foraging, isn’t it? Just make and mend and sauve qui peut and a little rough stuff thrown in. Isn’t that so?

And you’re a small man, of course! That figures. I mean, you’re not a big, Big man. No disrespect. You don’t tower , you don’t threaten . A strong wind would blow you over, wouldn’t it? But it wouldn’t actually ruffle you either. You know, I thought at first: O-oh, he’s a small guy. They’re always the worst. Watch it, Sophie, this could be your classic shrink — a crackpot in disguise. But your smallness is like a kind of distillation. It’s as though you were boiled down at some time, or slowly over the years, so there’s nothing spare or unnecessary or untidy about you. ‘Small,’ you said. ‘It’s my name. “Klein” means “small”. Small by name and small by nature. Just a small man in a big world, Sophie.’ Holding up those little hands, as if you’d never use a weapon. It was the first thing you ever said about yourself .

About the only damn thing, fuck you.

Ha! — I should tell you my fantasies, right? Oh please, let me. I’d like to pick you up — you’re so neat and light — and put you in the bath-tub. Really. Just like I do with Tim and Paul. I still do. Though it’s getting near the knuckle. Sponge them down. Run the soap round their little dormant cocks. Oh, pardon me, I didn’t mean to imply — (Mother you ? You?) I don’t think of you without your clothes on. Do you think of me without my clothes on? I don’t think of your cock. But I bet it’s cute and toothsome.