Fifty-Minute Hour (4 page)

He'd imagined his neuroses bursting like the abscess, clearing in a week or so; all the pus and suppuration draining safely out. But instead they'd swelled and festered, sprouted secondaries, infected his whole system. And still no cure in sight. Four years was only ‘minimal', according to John-Paul. Some patients kept on coming after a dozen years or more – and three or four times weekly – still struggling with resistance or repression. His own fears had bred new (deeper) fears, as expounded by John-Paul. His panics on the underground, for instance, weren't simply the result of the recent King's Cross fire, but went right back to the womb, reflected his pre-natal fears, his sense of claustrophobia as he'd laboured through the birth-canal, panting to push out. And the labels he'd been saddled with since childhood – ‘lazy', ‘clumsy', ‘selfish' and ‘bone idle'– were now augmented by more serious ones – ‘obsessional', ‘compulsive', ‘alienated', ‘anal' and ‘aggressive'.

He shook his head violently, as if to dislodge those shaming tags, started toiling up the staircase, counting steps to calm himself Eighteen, nineteen, twenty … The steps were made of stone, decayed and chipped like teeth. Twenty-three, twenty-four. Drops of dirty water were oozing down the tiles; the clammy black iron balustrade wet with condensation, slippery from his sweat. Thirty, thirty-one. He stopped a moment to puzzle out a damp patch on the wall. It looked like a small island, with the tide seeping in and out of it; a forgotten lonely island. Perhaps he'd send his Mother there, string her up tomorrow, mark her ‘Airmail, Urgent'.

‘Keep left,' the notice said. Safer to obey it. People might be spying, even here. There were always rules, rules for stairs and staircases, even rules for dreams. He paused to listen. Silence. He'd begin to hear the screams soon – screams of bloody victims, struggling from the wreckage, fleeing from the bombs. He must keep counting, climbing. Thirty-seven, thirty-eight. There were squiggles on the walls, daubed in chalk and paint. Hieroglyphics? Arabic? Non-existent fathers?

‘DANGER! HIGH VOLTAGE,' shrieked another larger notice, which covered a square cupboard recessed into the wall. There were cupboards in his mind like that, doors he dared not open, things which might explode. The silence sounded darker now, more threatening altogether. He dropped a penny, just to hear it fall. It seemed to fall for ever, echoing and whimpering, never touching base. ‘
Waste
!' his Mother peeved. ‘If you save the pennies, the pounds will …'

Forty-eight, forty-nine. He stopped, alarmed, as he realised what the numbers meant. If there were ninety-seven steps in all, then he was exactly halfway up now, one foot on the upper step, one foot on the lower, which meant no chance of a decision if he needed to go down. He could see the black backs of the stair-treads coiling up and round, precisely the same number winding down and down. Two armies in his mind.

He was late already, one whole minute late. It was eleven minutes past, and he should be stretching out on the clammy leather couch with its mean thin-bellied pillow, its freshly laundered head-slip. The laundry must cost pounds. John-Paul saw his patients from seven-ten in the morning till ten o'clock at night; exactly fifty minutes allotted to each one – what was called ‘the fifty-minute hour'. Strange how that profession always cut time short. If every hour he'd ever lived had been docked to fifty minutes, he'd be only twenty-six now – almost a young man. He couldn't remember ever being young. He'd been old and shrivelled in the womb; spent ages wrestling out of it, as if he hadn't got the strength; kept his Mother waiting even then. His limbs were aching now, but he must move, up or down. It was wicked to waste anything, especially John-Paul's time; book sessions and then break them, especially that first session, which other patients craved. John-Paul was better value at seven in the morning – no one else's terrors clogging up his mind, no one else's Mother bursting through her string.

He moved an arm in preference to a leg, pretending to be waving, pointing out a vista. ‘You can see the whole of Surrey on a clear day. That's the spire of All Saints church glinting in the sun, and if you look down to the left …' Sweat was sliding down his stomach, prickling on his scalp. ‘Bryan,' he said. ‘Bryan Pain,' tried to hold himself together with his name. He was in danger of disintegrating, could feel the process starting, brain-cells shrinking, blood-cells drying out. ‘John-Paul,' he called. ‘Please help me!'; knew he wouldn't hear. He'd had a nightmare once, where he'd been abandoned at the bottom of an endless plunging mine-shaft, with John-Paul at the top. ‘Pull me out!' he'd shouted, but his voice was trapped as well, couldn't scale the tunnel of his throat.

He moved his foot a fraction, put it back again. An inch could mean decision, and decisions locked you in. Endless steps above him, endless steps below; steps coiling to infinity, infinity of fear. He rummaged in his wallet, clawed out his identity – credit cards and bank cards, BRB security pass, season ticket, library card. He must exist, surely, if those documents endorsed him; all of them official, some of them with photographs, signatures, addresses. Or were they all unreal themselves, only shadows of identity, like his shadow on the wall?

He touched his shadow, watched it wince and shudder; still kept his feet exactly where they were. ‘Bryan,' he said. ‘Bryan Real.' The fear was closing in now, squeezing round his throat. Only fear was real. He could hear his Mother's voice: ‘Worked my plundits to the bone; cold teat Monday, boiled tid Tuesday, turned sheets side to muddle, eked out grisk with crimplings. Thirty hours in labour, and then you got tangled in the cord. Always were ungrateful, even as a midget. Don't walk across the midwife, please keep off the cheese, don't touch don't think don't breathe don't don't …'

‘I didn't, Mother,
didn't
. I wasn't even there.'

‘Don't you lie to
me
, lad. You've been telling lies for years. A Mother always knows. Lies come from the Devil, Bryan, and we know the Devil, don't we? He's the one who tortures little boys, throws them down the mine-shaft and leaves them there for ever.'

‘John-Paul!' he cried. ‘I'm coming. I've packed her up in cardboard and stapled all the joins. I'll move house, leave the district, set up home abroad, so even if they send her back, I won't be there to see.'

He crammed all his cards and passes back, began to run – three steps at a time now – stumbling, tripping, grazing hands and knees. ‘Please wait for me. I'm coming, I'm only seven minutes late. Don't cancel my appointment. Don't rub me out. I'm
here
.'

John-Paul couldn't hear him. He was running down, not up; down down into the tube again, season ticket ready; running all the way to Fenchurch Street, all the way to Upminster, back Ivy Close, voice roaring with the train.

‘I'm coming, Mother, coming. And I'll never leave again.'

‘Pass the butter, can you, dear? Thanks. I like the tie.'

‘Half-price in Simpson's sale. Do you think it's a bit bright?'

‘Well, just a fraction, maybe. You could keep it for weekends.'

‘I don't wear ties at weekends, Mary.' James picked up his fork, peered at it suspiciously, as if it were stolen, or not clean. ‘Another letter from Jonathan? What's wrong with him, for heaven's sake? We only heard on Thursday.'

‘He's homesick, I suppose.'

‘It's time he settled down. The others never made that fuss. And why can't he write to me as well? I'm his father, aren't I?'

Mary didn't answer, drank her coffee scalding, totted up the pain. Not quite a three, but a fraction more than two. Two and a quarter, she jotted on her Pain Score. She glanced across at James, who was examining his bacon, jabbing at the glazed yolk of his egg. His face looked red and angry, as if she had boiled it in a saucepan; his hair was grey, and sparse. She had fried the egg in sunflower oil, hoped it wasn't greasy. Three years ago, they'd been pushing polyunsaturates as healthy. New evidence had proved they gave you cancer, recommended olive oil instead. She kept on buying sunflower.

James took one small mouthful, wiped cancer off his lips. ‘I'm late, you know – again. We're always late without the boys to wake us. Can't we get up earlier?'

‘I'll reset the alarm.'

‘It's broken.'

‘I'll buy another one.'

‘You said the same last week, Mary.'

‘I'm sorry. I was busy, dear.'

‘
Busy
?'

She apologised again. Only men were busy. His father had been ill, that's all,
and
the aunt who lived with him, and she'd had to visit every day, do their chores and housework, as well as just her own, cook them tempting meals. She could still have bought the alarm clock – on the way, or later.

James pushed back his chair, took a last fierce swill of coffee, then clasped hands with his briefcase.

‘Don't you want your toast, James?'

‘I haven't time for toast.'

‘I'll fetch your coat. The black one or the grey?'

‘The black – and my umbrella.'

She kissed him, twice, kept waving as he drove away – fainter, fainter, fainter – returned to her own toast. Only half a finger left. The problem with their marriage was they ate at different rates. James regarded food as something dangerous, which must be checked and probed and scrutinised before he actually transferred it to his mouth. She tried to arrange it nicely on his plate – the fried bread at an angle, the halved and grilled tomatoes lined up two by two. But he'd poke at things, disrupt them, shift his egg around, yank up a bacon rasher with his fork, as if he suspected it was harbouring something unpleasant underneath. When, at last, he got around to eating, he proceeded with great caution, cutting off small pieces, raising them very slowly to his mouth, then lowering his fork again, as if he'd changed his mind, the mouthful still untouched. It made her very nervous. She would hold her breath as his fork moved slowly upwards, find herself perspiring as it returned to base, still loaded. James rarely finished any dish. There simply wasn't time. Sometimes he would shut his eyes in the middle of a meal, fall completely silent, one hand on his fork still, face creased up in suffering.

At the beginning of their marriage, she had blamed it on herself, enrolled for cookery classes, continued for six years, progressing from Beginners' Basic to Hostess Entertaining. But even when she presented James with
Symphonie de la Met aux Perles de la Gaspienne
, with a lobster
coulis
and an exotic mix of vegetables, he had still shied at the okra, resisted the mangetout, removed the grapefruit garnish as if it were a bomb, and asked her why she'd mixed up sweet and savoury. Her own unease at meals increased, so she began to eat too much too fast. She didn't really want the food, hardly even tasted it. It was just a way to fill the silence, calm her agitation. She reached for James's toast, crammed it in and down, devoured his cold congealing egg, then went out to the kitchen, shared the uncooked bacon rinds with Horatio, the dog.

‘Good boy,' she murmured vaguely, stroking his broad head, wished he could reply. It was deathly silent in the house, as if it expired once James had gone.

She checked her watch, a gift from James, who liked her to be punctual and kept his own watch fast. Still only half past seven, which meant a good twelve hours at least before James was back again. Horatio had returned to sleep (and wheezing), his fat French-mustard-coloured flanks bulging over his basket, a trail of slobber necklacing his chest. He'd started life as simple Ben – James's mother's dog – had moved in with them a year ago, following her death. Her eldest son had re-christened him in honour of his latest hero, Nelson (and some fellow in his Latin book she'd never actually heard of, but who was courageous and dynamic like Lord Nelson). The new name didn't suit him. Horatio alias Ben was an idler, an asthmatic, and a thief. All the same, he did provide some company, another presence in the house, and if he didn't talk, he listened – which was more than could be said for the four other males she lived with.

Nice to have a daughter, someone really close to her, who might share long cosy chats, and who wouldn't go to boarding school, wouldn't be as busy as James and the three boys. Even Jonathan was busy, at seven and three-quarters, busy with computer games, or chess or maths or cricket. She tried to count her blessings (as she counted sheep at night), work out her own routines, volunteer for rotas, take on more good works. Every day was really much the same (well, all except for Fridays, which were in a class quite on their own) – empty and too long – but she did her best to make them short and different, gave them special names: Ironing Day, Church-Cleaning Day, Old Folks Afternoon.

Mondays were the worst. She'd known it was a Monday the second she woke up. That sense of almost dread at starting a whole week again – seven days stretching to infinity. God had made the world in seven days, which only went to prove how long a week was. It was important to keep busy, though, everybody said – her mother said; the Bible said; James's mother used to say, before her tragic death. She often washed the sheets by hand, since it took far longer than using the machine, or cleaned the stairs with just a tiny hand-brush, instead of the over-eager attachment on the Hoover. Both also gave her backache, which could be added to the Pain Score, and so meant a double bonus. The Pain Score was important in itself, consumed a lot of time: working out the numbers, comparing steady aches with sudden pangs, crushed fingers with burnt tongues.

She cleared the table slowly, one thing at a time, tried to force a smile. She always had the feeling that someone might be watching her – God's eye in the ceiling, or in the television set, checking on her cheerfulness, her face. ‘I believe in one God,' she whispered to herself. ‘The Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth …'