Collected Stories (86 page)

But he did reckon that the desire of the public to see bankers as thuggish, voracious philistines was simply the wish to separate the banking system from the rest of society, as people would prefer not to think of abattoirs while they were eating. Nonetheless, like many people, Mike had also worried whether the present catastrophe was punishment for years of extravagance and self-indulgence; that
that
was the debt which had to be paid back in suffering. Yet how could his family be considered despicable or guilty of this, when all they’d asked for was continuous material improvement?

Mike wandered across to the dishwasher, dropped in the lump of detergent, shut the door, tapped the start button and the world went black. The clock on the cooker stopped, its bright digits stuck on four round zeros; the microwave halted in mid-turn. All sound was suddenly suspended, apart from a dog barking in a nearby garden.

Out of that moment’s nothing the little boy’s voice called, ‘Dad, Dad, Dad – do something!’

Mike fumbled in a drawer for a torch, crossed the house and was eventually able to follow the beam down the rackety wooden steps into the basement. But in his stockinged feet on the slippery stair, he slipped and lost his footing. For a second he believed he was crashing onto his back and would break his neck. How easy it was to fall, and how tempting it was – suddenly would be best – to die!

Grabbing the rail, he steadied himself, took some breaths – smelling gas and rotting cardboard – and padded down to the concrete floor where he stood surrounded by paint cans, broken children’s toys, a decade’s worth of discarded purchases and bags of credit card receipts.

There in the semi-darkness, gripping and ungripping his fists, he wondered whether he might go mad with fury. He knew he would be shut out now from the company of those he knew and liked, becoming a sort of ‘disappeared’. He fantasised about informing the national newspapers of the idiocy and corruption in his office, betraying those narrow-minded fools as he had been betrayed. Failing lack of universal interest in that, he’d buy petrol, break in, burn the place down and see how the bastards liked it. But how long would he hate them for, and what effect would such extended hating have on him? Would he die of cancer? Like others he had actually believed he was an exception and would be spared!

Finding at last the little lever which made everything work again, he pulled it. There was a surge and their awful world started up once more with its humming and vibrating.

On his return to the light he couldn’t believe Tom had resumed murdering dark-skinned people in some sort of Third World landscape.

‘Turn it off right now!’ he shouted. ‘That’s enough!’

‘Bugger off.’

‘Tom please, I beg you. Go and do your homework. The world’s a filthy rough place run by jackals and murderers. You need to be prepared, if such a thing is possible!’

‘Leave me alone! Don’t ever talk to me again!’

Mike grabbed the boy and pulled him up out of the chair by his blue school shirt. ‘Do what I say sometimes!’

‘Fuck off, evil old man, just die! I’ve been wanting to do this all day!’

‘I never spoke to my father like that.’

‘Mum says you did.’

Tom was taller, stronger and fitter than Mike; for fun he sometimes put his father in a headlock and pulled him round the room.

‘Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off!’ Mike yelled at the boy. He ripped the controller from Tom’s hand and threw it down. Tom lurched from his chair and made as to head-butt his father; Mike pushed him back in the chest and Tom stumbled and fell onto his backside. Mike swore again and then switched off the TV.

‘What’s going on? Is this good parenting?’ His wife, who appeared to dress in diamonds and gold when at lunch with her friends, came in wearing tracksuit bottoms, an old T-shirt and thick glasses, with white slippers she’d taken from a hotel. ‘Are you all right? What’s he done now?’ she said to Tom.

‘I think he’s broken my arm,’ said Tom, rubbing his elbow.

‘Your father’s mad,’ said Imogen.

‘He refused to turn off the game,’ said Mike. ‘He shows me neither love nor respect.’

‘How could he?’ she said. ‘It’s too late! You’ve spoiled and neglected him, you ridiculous, foolish man. And now you expect him to obey you!’

‘He tore my button right off,’ said Tom.

‘And who will sew it back on?’ said Imogen, staring at Mike.

She worked for a charity three days a week. Inevitably it was poorly paid, but she was the family conscience and Mike knew it was important to appear generous. Unlike some of his friends, he didn’t want a woman who worked as hard as him, a woman who was never at home.

Billy, who Mike wished wouldn’t grow up, but wanted to suspend at this age for ever, reiterated, ‘Stop arguing and tell me whether we’re definitely going to get my guitar on Saturday!’

‘I know I did say we would,’ said Mike. ‘But I’ll have to think about it.’

‘You were in a band. What were they called?’

‘The Strange Trousers.’

‘What a stupid name for a band,’ called Tom, who was now texting furiously.

Mike said, ‘So is the name of your group, Sixty-Nine, when you don’t even know what that is.’

‘I do. And you haven’t had a sixty-nine for years, old man, and never will again.’

‘Wait until you get married.’

Imogen said, ‘You promised Billy a guitar, an amp and a microphone, so now you have to deliver.’

‘Just call me the Delivery Man,’ said Mike. ‘That’s my name. But even you might have noticed there’s a financial crash taking place.’

‘Ha! Any excuse to let people down.’

‘Indeed – that’s all I’ve ever done. But what about you?’ he said to her. ‘What do you want to get next?’

‘Thank you for asking. I’ve been telling you for weeks I need a new computer,’ she said.

‘I’ll get you the latest desktop Apple,’ he said. ‘With a printer, and maybe the newest iPod. Everyone should have what they want whenever they want it. Why don’t I make a list so I don’t forget anyone?’

She poured herself another drink. ‘At last – some sense! Things are moving forward here!’

Having begun to feel ‘unfulfilled’, she was planning to train as a therapist; it would take at least three years, and he had agreed not only to pay her fees but to support her while she studied. ‘Once I’m earning,’ she argued, ‘this whole family will be much better off.’ Everything he spent on her was an investment. This would have to be rethought. And to think, before this collapse, he had been hoping to earn enough in the next few years to keep them secure for life.

As he got up she said, ‘You washed the other dishes but you forgot to take these plates out.’ Mike collected all the plates and took them to the sink. She continued, ‘You know, with your habits you should have married someone less house-proud, someone with lower standards all round.’

She wouldn’t see he liked scrupulousness and order more as he got older. They employed their Bulgarian cleaner three times a week; the woman was pregnant but sweated furiously as she scrubbed and carried, afraid of losing her job to someone else.

Mike and his wife considered themselves to be equals and there was no way Imogen would now wash the kitchen floor, clean their four toilets or vacuum the house. Since capitalism was cracking under the weight of its contradictions as the Marxists had predicted – neither the communists or Islamists being responsible for its collapse – the family would have to find a smaller place, sharing the household duties like everyone else. If there was no comfort, what then were the consolations of capitalism? If there was no moral accretion, nor any next life, why would anyone support it?

‘Come on,’ Imogen said to Tom. ‘We’ll do your French homework in your room.’

‘I’ll read to Billy,’ Mike said. ‘Are you ready, little boy?’

Once Billy had cleaned his teeth and got into his pyjamas, they would lie on the big bed and chat, with the boy’s head in Mike’s chest; or they’d mock-fight, sing or read until the kid, and usually Mike, fell asleep. It was the part of the day Mike enjoyed most.

Imogen stroked Mike’s head before picking up Tom’s rucksack and French text book. Mike said, ‘Darling, a shitty thing happened at work.’

‘Is that unusual?’

‘We should talk later.’

‘Is it attention you’re after?’ she said.

She and Tom were going up the stairs, Tom giggling at a funny incident at school.

‘Please, Imogen,’ Mike called.

‘Later, if I’m still awake,’ she said. ‘Or tomorrow.’

‘Tonight, I think.’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Anyway, when I’m less worn out by everything.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘When you’re ready let me know.’

When Eric slammed the front door it was cold outside and raining hard. With winter already coming, he was reluctant to go out. But he’d said he’d meet Jake at seven and he couldn’t let him down. Not that he had far to go; it took Eric five minutes to get to his local place.

He hurried into the bright, warm and almost-empty café, hung up his coat and sat down. The waiters knew him and brought him the wine he liked without his having to ask. Eric went there most days, to read the paper, make phone calls and work on his computer.

He drank half a glass of wine straight off, to calm himself down after arguing with his wife a few minutes earlier. She and their nine-year-old son had been at the kitchen table doing the boy’s homework, but, having had a glass of wine, Eric had felt inspired to expatiate on the current political situation. His wife told him to shut up, and he hadn’t wanted to; he had something pressing to say. His wife asserted he always had something important to say at the wrong time. Didn’t he want his son to succeed or would the boy be a cretin like his father? The spat accelerated. ‘You don’t listen to me!’ ‘You don’t speak at the right time, when we want to hear you!’ ‘You’re never receptive!’ ‘You’re a fool!’

Eric shuddered and giggled, as he thought of the two of them freely insulting one another, and the boy looking on.

He missed them and, in truth, wasn’t excited about seeing Jake, whom he didn’t know well. They had met through a mutual acquaintance three years before at the Jazz Café in Camden, and found they both liked Miles Davis’s ‘electric’ period, as well as Norwegian jazz of the last decade. They always discussed this with some pleasure, along with Liverpool football club, their enthusiasm for jukeboxes, stand-up comedians, and their families, and went home relatively contented. Jake had been generous; he worked in IT and although he travelled a lot, he still found time to ‘burn’ obscure CDs for Eric and post them to him. Eric worked in film publicity and did what he could to obtain DVDs of the latest movies for Jake and his family.

As both their wives were interested in psychology, they had planned, last Christmas, to go to Jake’s flat for lunch to meet his wife and girls, but it fell through.

Now Eric glimpsed Jake scurrying towards the café. They shook hands and Jake sat down.

‘How are you, sir? It’s been too long,’ Jake said. ‘Was the last time at the beginning of the year? It was probably February. I remember I had the prawns. I need a beer badly. Will you join me or are you all right with that?’

‘Yes, I’m on white wine now,’ said Eric. ‘I consider it part of my new diet, which I’ve been enduring for three months.’

‘Congratulations!’

‘I haven’t lost one ounce. I was always a thin kid. I took myself for granted.’ He patted his stomach. ‘I’m complacent.’

Jake said, ‘It’s not going well?’

‘Last night the wife and I had an orgy involving a packet of chocolate biscuits, so I’ve had a terrible day, the guilt like a dagger. But I have started exercising. I run, or amble, rather, by the canal, listening to that great music you send me. And you? What’s your news?’

Jake had put on the glasses which hung around his neck from a string, and was looking eagerly at the menu. Eric guessed that Jake was a little older than him, about forty-five probably. Jake had seemed stolid, large, but now looked somewhat scrawny, with the collar of his shirt too big for his neck. Had he shrunk in some way? Resembling an ageing professor, he had always been more earnest than Eric, with a more literal character. You’d have to be such a type to adore so much the icy longing and melancholy of Norwegian jazz.

‘You have lost weight,’ said Eric. ‘Much more than me. I envy you.’

‘I’m glad. That’s good news at last.’

‘What about you? What have you been listening to? Anything new?’

‘I haven’t had any concentration recently,’ said Jake. ‘It’s been crazy, tragic. I promise I’ll get some new stuff to you next month.’

‘I’d love that. I get so bored, don’t you?’

‘Do you want the menu?’

‘I already know what I want,’ said Eric.

‘Okay. Can we order? I’m starving.’

Eric called the waiter over; they ordered a beer for Jake and food for both of them.

‘Eric, why did you ask me if I get bored?’

‘Perhaps because the last time we met you mentioned that things were not good between you and your wife, though they sounded normal to me. She refused to come across and you’d decided to become celibate for a while. A harsh deprivation, but not the most unusual suffering.’