Maggie Gee - The White Family

‘It’s Dirk,’ she said.

‘What about him? George said there would still be a job for him. If he plays his cards right with the Asian chappy —’ They looked at each other. Alfred was pragmatic.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, it’s not that. Something worse. Something so dreadful … I can’t tell you. I can’t, Alfred.’

‘You’ll have to tell me.’

She sat a long time. He leant back on the pillow. Slowly, he swung his legs back up on the bed. She covered him, tenderly. Was he getting thinner? His shins felt sharp beneath the cotton. They both waited. Then she began.

‘Are we in this together?’ she asked him, very quietly. ‘The family’s what matters, isn’t it, Alfred?’

‘What do you mean? Of course it is.’

‘Yes, but it matters more than anything? Anything at all?’

‘Yes, yes.’ He didn’t understand. ‘Get on with it.’

‘Dirk … the child.’ He had always been the child. ‘He didn’t come in on Saturday night.’

‘What? I can’t hear you —’

She could hardly get it out; she was sobbing with terror. ‘ He came in Sunday morning, at half eleven. ’

‘Well that’s happened before. He got drunk again.’

‘He was covered with blood. He was covered with blood. ’ It was a whispered scream, a terrible sound, and she clutched at her own hair, as she said it, her thin white hair, she would tear it out –

‘Fighting?’

‘Alfred. His jacket was soaked. His jacket was soaked with blood. And his shirt.’

She saw understanding, then disbelief, then helpless horror cross his face. His jaw worked, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat, tearing, grinding.

‘You think — it was him. You think — he did it.’ He was shaking his head, as he spoke, refusing, shaking his head against the dark. ‘Of course it wasn’t. You stupid woman.’

‘Alfred, Alfred —’ She had nothing to say. He looked at her. They looked at each other. When he spoke again, his voice was stronger. ‘Did you tell the lad to go to the police? So they could clear him … explain himself.’

‘He’s my son, Alfred. He’s our son .’

‘ May, this was days and days ago.’

‘He never said a word, Alfred. Just stripped off his clothes and went to bed. I was frightened, Alfred. I was afraid.’

(He would never understand how she was afraid.)

‘But what did you do? What did you say?’

‘He’d put them in a plastic bag. I soaked them all in salty water. It’s the only way you get blood out —’

‘You’ve a duty,’ he said. ‘You’ve a public duty.’

‘I’m his mother,’ she said, and she looked him in the eye. ‘I gave birth to him. I’ll never do it.’

Just then, the curtains were tentatively drawn, and the smiling black face of a nurse looked in. ‘I’ve got to do your blood pressure and temperature, Alfred,’ she said. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs White. How are you today?’

‘A bit upset.’ May tried to smile. Would she guess something? But of course, tears were normal in their situation.

‘Would you like to have another talk to Doctor?’

‘Not just now. Thank you, dear.’

Once the blood pressure was done, the nurse automatically drew back the curtains, so they could no longer talk in private.

They didn’t talk at all, in fact. They sat there, shaken, their glances sometimes meeting, mostly not, miles apart. Pamela, next door, had gone to sleep, head propped on a book, like a painted wax-work.

Or else she was dead. They were all dying, here.

Was it so terrible, then? One more dead person?

How could Alfred be so sure that it mattered?

‘He was black,’ May whispered, after a long while. ‘Did you see? The man that died … He was black.’

‘Doesn’t make any difference.’

‘He was black, Alfred. You could never stand them.’ She knew what she was saying. She didn’t care. It was family that mattered. ‘You agreed, remember. Family comes first.’ He looked at her remotely. ‘Blood’s thicker than water,’ May insisted.

But he said nothing, no longer listening.

‘He did it, didn’t he. My fault,’ he moaned. ‘I am the Park Keeper. I am the Park Keeper. My fault, May. I left my post.’

They sat there quietly as it grew darker, as the shadows lengthened down the ward, as the lights flickered on and pinned them to their places, smaller than before, pale, stunned.

That night was the longest of Alfred’s life. He could not sleep: he had refused the tablets. He had to think. He had to plan. He remembered the night when he was demobbed, the night he came home to his mother’s house and sat up on the sofa all night long, unable to believe he had gone off duty, unable to believe the long fight was over.

Now he was on active service again.

It wasn’t hard getting off the ward. The agency nurse was talking on the phone, as she always did, nineteen to the dozen, but who could she be talking to, before six a.m.? Probably another continent, he thought. And the National Health would be paying for it. He slipped past her like a ghost, invisible, his old army greatcoat covering his pyjamas.

He was clear in his mind; completely clear. He knew he couldn’t risk putting all his clothes on, standing there fussing and mucking about. Even that lazy cow would have noticed. But he had to wear something to inspire respect, so he’d knotted his tie, his old army tie which he’d found in the pocket of his army greatcoat, in the neck of his pyjama jacket.

It was nothing to him, being up at this hour. All his life, he had been up at this hour. Staying in bed was a penance, to him. But the greatcoat felt heavy, after light pyjamas, and his feet felt enormous, blockish, in boots. It wasn’t a bad feeling, though. It felt — more real. Tied him to the ground, like a real living person, not floating about like a bloomin’ water-lily.

He stared at his feet. He watched them go.

I need you, boys. Go for it .

He remembered the Arabs, in Palestine. At pilgrimage time, the time of the hajj. You would see them coming in the distance, and the first thing you’d notice was the size of their feet, great huge feet like kangaroos, because they used to bind ’em up with blankets. They didn’t have boots, or else they didn’t believe in them … Weird beliefs. They weren’t really human. They’d walk thousands of miles to worship God. You had to hand it to them, looking back, though it struck him as comic, at the time, these little figures with enormous plates-of-meat, plodding like donkeys across the desert. Never giving up, though some must have snuffed it, with the shooting and dirt and exhaustion and flies, and sometimes he’d heard their feet went septic. It didn’t matter. They were — pure spirit. Spirit kept you going when the body failed.

For the past three weeks, the most exercise he’d got was the walk down the ward from his bed to the lav, but he’d walked all his life, and you didn’t lose that. It would stand him in good stead, now he needed it.

Going downstairs he felt almost young, trotting neatly, swiftly, down, as usual, for he prided himself on never walking on stairs. There was no one about. It was a ghost hospital.

Turning into the immense modern foyer built at huge expense not so long ago, he found only a cardboard, hand-lettered notice: Reception Closed After Nine p.m.

So that was a bonus. He had made it to the door. Automatically, sweetly, it opened for him, and Alfred tramped out into the freezing air, but fresh, so fresh after the air inside, the air he loved, the air of London, with the faint green edge that spoke of the Park, not far away, his place, his home …