Maggie Gee - The White Family

‘But you’re distressed. Your family’s distressed.’

‘Dad’s aiming to go back to work. You heard him —’

‘Your mother didn’t sound too sure.’

Darren stopped on the stairs under an unshaded bulb and leaned against the wall, suddenly. He looked terrible; at least twenty years older. ‘Are you all right, baby?’ Susie asked. There was sweat on his forehead, and on his upper lip. ‘Cancer. It can’t be. Can it?’ he muttered.

Shirley began to cry, quietly.

They were still standing frozen in the stairwell when Dirk came running down from above them.

‘My God, what have you done to your face?’ Shirley asked. He had great red bruises down his left cheek, and a small dark cut underneath his eye.

‘Football match. Christ, it doesn’t fucking matter.’

‘Are you all right? Come to the café with us.’ She was still his older sister. She always would be.

‘Nah. Come down the pub with me.’ Dirk gestured loosely at all of them. His eyes were not quite moving together.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Susie, sounding suddenly American, ‘we have to go to a dinner party. And then, you see, we don’t really drink.’

It was the first Shirley had heard of Darren not drinking. Dirk swayed towards her. Her back was to the wall. His blond stubble, she saw, had a thinning patch, and his face (so much coarser than when he was a boy) was red with grief and something else, for as he bent close, she could smell the beer. It was like walking into a brewery. ‘Darling Shirl,’ he said, and sprayed her with spittle. ‘Come for a jar, go on, why not? Come for a drink with your little brother.’

‘I think you’ve had a few already,’ she said. ‘Maybe we should go to Casualty. Your poor face. It looks awful.’

‘Bollocks,’ he said, but without malice, then ‘Come on, Shirley, come on, Darren, when was the last time we were all together?’

There was a silence. They were never together. The White family found it hard to be together. The silence extended wretchedly.

‘Too good for me, aren’t you,’ he flung at them all, ‘Too bloody good for me, so you think. I lose my job and Dad is dying and my fucking family just don’t want to know. That stupid fucking woman’ (gesturing back towards the ward, presumably in May’s direction) ‘has the fucking cheek to tell me to go home and sober up. My dad’s the only one I care about. My dad’s the only one who cared about me. He wasn’t too proud to drink with me —’

‘I’m not too proud to drink with you.’ Shirley tried to reach her arm out and touch him, but he wrenched away so strongly that he stumbled off the step. ‘But I just have to stay and see Mum’s all right. And then Elroy —’ she realized her mistake. Mentioning Elroy wouldn’t help matters. ‘And then I’m being picked up and taken home.’ (But what was that he’d said about losing his job? Surely George and Ruby would never sack him?)

‘Fucking Elroy ,’ he yelled, half-mad by now, in a frenzy of grief and booze and pain, his face a mess, battered red and shiny. ‘Fucking nigger ,’ he yelled. ‘And you. You … nigger-lover … Dirty slag … Can’t believe you’re my sister … Dad made a stand about things like that. People like Dad —’ (and now he was sobbing) — ‘men like Dad —’ (exploding with grief, snot bursting out of his nostrils in bubbles, reddened blue eyes streaming with tears) –

But he couldn’t finish. He turned and ran. The light caught the studs on the back of his jacket, and they heard him blundering through the swing-doors, then clumsy feet pounding off into the darkness.

It isn’t true Of course it isn’t Can’t be true No, no.

Anyone could see Dad was fit as a fiddle

He isn’t old, is he? Not old old Not bleeding old enough to die —

Dirk ran down the road in the stupid moonlight, the stupid moon was laughing at him, its great round stupid gob, smiling. The cruel thoughts came with the beats of his feet, with each panting breath, he couldn’t escape them.

I lost my job

I’m losing my dad

I lose everything I ever had

Dad was the only thing I cared about

And Mum, a bit, when she isn’t gabbing. When she isn’t going on at me.

That’s why she got all weepy on Thursday.

She wasn’t making sense, so I didn’t get it. Didn’t bother to explain, the stupid cow. Nobody thought that I was worth telling. They think I’m a nothing. A moron. A punk.

Everybody hates me

They always did

They always thought I was stupid and ugly

They can’t even bear to have a drink with me.

So fucking what. I don’t fucking need them.

I’ll fucking show them. I will. They’ll see.

He went to the pub, where his mates would be, but they weren’t, the pub was full of strangers, full of women , in the first place, which looked all wrong, all over their boyfriends on Saturday night, giggling and shrieking and nuzzling and slurping. He watched them, gagging. Dirk hated women. They hated him, and he hated them. And foreigners. There were a lot of foreigners. Not actual blacks, of course, no, actual blacks didn’t dare show their mugs in here, but Spanish or French or whatever they were, fucking Europeans, fucking dagos, shooting their mouths off in foreign languages, hooting and tooting loud as lords –

And soon they’d be ruling over these isles. There wouldn’t be a government, it wouldn’t be Britain, they’d just be some piddling little county of Europe, Englandshire , or Englandstein , or whatever disgusting bit of lingo they chose, and everyone would lord it over us … They’ll come to Londonburg for their hols!

Londonburg ! He laughed aloud. It was a fucking good joke against the Krauts, but there was no one here to share it, and they looked at him funny, when he laughed on his own.

‘Another pint, mate,’ he called down the counter. The barman was deaf, he didn’t hear what Dirk was saying, standing there chatting to someone else. ‘Oi! Dosser! I’m dying of thirst!’

Everything’s going. Everything’s gone. There’s nothing left for me round here. Nothing left of what I had. Even Dad won’t be in the Park any more. No one will know us. We won’t exist.

Darren’s jetting off as though he doesn’t give a sod.

Darren doesn’t give a fuck about us.

When Dad is — dead, actually dead , Darren won’t show his face again (he wouldn’t bother, just for Mum. He’ll send me one of his printed Christmas cards, with some smart joke about America, and that’s all I’ll hear from him till next Christmas. Not that I care. Couldn’t care less —)

‘Dosser! Whasser matter, have you gone deaf? Can I get some service round here, or what?’

‘I think it’s you that’s gone blind, mate,’ said the barman. ‘Dosser’s not working here any more. My name is Paolo. What’ll you have?’

Cool as anything. Snotty little git. Dosser was my mate, we could have a laugh.

‘ Pow-lo ,’ said Dirk with elaborate irony. ‘ Pow-lo . Now that’s a funny name.’

‘What’s your name then?’ the barman asked.

There was a pause before he said, sulkily, ‘Dirk.’ He had never been happy about his name. Some of his mates called him Dick, or Dicky. He wasn’t going to tell this wanker that.

‘Well some people might say that’s a funny name. Not me, mind. I’m not a comedian. I never laugh at people’s names.’

So what was he on about, laughing at mine? Dirk stared at him amazed. He was fucking cheeky. He would have to get the lads to give him a kicking. (But he found it hard to concentrate. The words weren’t coming out as clear as he wanted.) ‘You’re foreign, aren’t you? Pow-lo .’ He belched. ‘We used to have an English barman in here.’