Authors: David Nobbs
‘Thank you. And my very best to …’ Oh, God. What was it? Ah! Cake. That was the clue. And ending in an e. Got it. ‘… Madeleine.’
‘Madeleine?’
Oh, shit. That was Proust.
He could feel the eyes of Dwight Schenkman the Third, those piercing yet strangely unseeing eyes, boring into his back as he strode towards the car park.
The man in the white linen suit cancelled his room.
‘We not charge. You not use,’ said the Hungarian receptionist.
‘Thank you.’
‘I hoping you finding your wife very all right, Mr Rivers.’
‘Thank you.’
As he walked slowly, sadly, exhaustedly to his car through a wall of heat, the man who had called himself Mr Rivers realised that he had indeed been hoping that this lunch would be the first stage in the long process of finding a wife, and that Deborah as his wife would indeed be very all right, although the whole thing was so very all wrong.
What on earth had happened to her? He found it almost intolerable that he had no idea.
‘That was a twenty-three-stroke rally. I wonder when there was last a twenty-three-stroke rally at Wimbledon on the twenty-third of June,’ said the commentator.
‘Do you really? How sad is that?’ called out James.
‘Interestingly enough—’
James pressed the button. He smiled internally at the thought that he would never know whether the commentator’s remark would have been interesting enough. He was already far away, on Radio 2, listening to
Steve Wright in the Afternoon
.
His phone rang almost immediately. Sadly, Steve Wright spent only twelve seconds in James’s afternoon.
It was Marcia, his PA. At the sound of her posh Benenden voice his heart sank. Dwight wanted him to sack her tomorrow. He wasn’t sure if he had the power to sack her any more. Didn’t he have to give her a warning, maybe several warnings? He didn’t want to sack her, but he didn’t want not to have the power to sack her if he wanted to. It was odd being a boss these days.
‘Hello. It’s me.’ So bright and warm and innocent and naive. She hadn’t been to Benenden. She’d been to an obscure private school, now defunct, where they taught you to talk as if you
had
been to Benenden. James sometimes thought that it was the only thing they had taught her.
‘Hello, Marcia.’
‘How did it go? Do I still have you as my boss?’
Marcia, that really is a little bit forward.
‘Sorry. Am I being a bit cheeky?’
‘No. Not at all. It went well. You still have me as your boss.’ Not for long, though. Poor girl. ‘No, we just have to make savings. Fifteen per cent across the board.’
‘Heavens.’
‘Quite.’
‘And we have to produce a report stating why we shouldn’t move all our production to Taiwan.’
‘Oops.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Are you coming back in?’
‘No. The traffic’s terrible. I’m crawling at forty in the fast lane.’
‘Oh, poor you.’
‘Always nice to hear your cheerful voice, Marcia, but was there any particular reason for ringing?’
‘Yes. There was.’
Silence.
A Vauxhall Corsa pulled into the space between James and the car in front. He hooted angrily. It happened all the time if you tried to keep your distance. Keep two chevrons’ distance? Impossible. Had anybody in the government ever driven on a motorway? No, they had chauffeurs and slept, dreaming of their expenses.
It was yet another irritation on an irritating day.
‘Are you still there, Marcia?’
‘Yes. Sorry, it’s gone. Oh, lorks, maybe I’m going to have to be a bit more on the ball if you’re having to make these savings.’
It’s too late, darling.
‘Oh, yes. It’s come back. The police rang.’
‘The police?’
‘Yes. Sorry. I should have written it down, ’cause I usually do, but I thought it was so important and unusual that I couldn’t possibly forget it.’
‘Quite. What did they want?’
‘He didn’t say. He sounded nice, though. Quite young, I think.’
‘Yes, I don’t care what age he was, Marcia, but didn’t he say anything?’
‘He asked for your home number and your address. I didn’t think it would sound good to be too inquisitive. I think they’ll be in touch with you this evening.’
‘Thank you.’
‘James?’
‘Yes?’
‘I hope it’s nothing serious.’
‘Thank you. Probably some scrape my bloody daughter’s got into.’
‘I guess. James?’
‘Yes, Marcia?’
‘I’ll be in all evening. Will you ring and let me know? ’Cause I’ll worry.’
‘That’s very sweet of you.’
‘Well, you know I …’
‘What? What, Marcia?’
‘No. Nothing. Sorry.’
She rang off. Oh, how how how could he sack her tomorrow? Or even give her a warning. How could he bear to witness the hurt that she would have no ability to conceal?
It was his barely admitted wish that he had been born as his brother Charles that had led James to choose to live in a three-storey Georgian end-of-terrace house in one of the more fashionable parts of Islington rather than in the five-bedroom two-garage four-bathroom suburban home with conservatory, summer house, tree house and large lawn hidden from the envious by leylandii that might have seemed more suitable for the Managing Director of the London office. The only real drawback was the absence of those two garages. Even with his residents’ pass he often had to park quite a way from the house, and on this day of irritations it was no surprise that this should be so.
As he dragged himself through the poisoned early-evening heat past the reticent charms of the nicely proportioned brick-built houses in the modestly elegant, understated street he longed for a drink, but even more than that, he craved the peace of his home. Every visitor commented on how restful and quietly artistic the house was, and he was always generous in admitting how much of this achievement was down to Deborah, his style guru.
His legs were leaden. The heavy traffic, the tense meeting, the fear of sacking the lovely, useless Marcia, and the news that he was going to get a call from the police all contributed to a debilitating unease.
He couldn’t find his front-door key, so he rang the bell, but there was no reply. That was odd. He had expected Deborah to be in.
Thank goodness the house
was
on the end of the terrace. He took the narrow path on the eastern side of the house, picked up the back-door key from under the third stone behind the statue of Diana (Greek goddess, not princess), and entered the house through the garden door.
Perhaps it was just as well that Deborah wasn’t home. She would have raised her eyebrows at the sight of him going to the gin bottle before he even took his tie off.
He poured himself a gin and Noilly Prat with ice and a slice, sniffed it eagerly, and took the first of many sips.
He sat in a green eighteenth-century armchair – no three-piece suites for Deborah – and stretched his body and his legs into full relaxing mode. He gazed with pleasure, as he did almost every day, at the carefully chosen semi-abstract landscapes by little-known modern artists that decorated the most serene living room of this man who hardly knew what the word ‘serenity’ meant.
At last, he gave a deep sigh, stood up carefully – his back was not something to be relied upon, especially after a long drive – and strode with sudden resolution towards the telephone. As he passed the piano, he ran his hand along the smooth walnut lid. It was a most beautiful piano. Neither he nor Deborah played. They had bought it for his brother Charles to play when he visited. James may have wished that he was Charles, but there was no envy in him. He was very proud of his brother.
He picked up the telephone, paused for a moment, summoning up his strength, then dialled his daughter’s number. Well, he wasn’t sure if it was her number. He’d been given it by someone at a number which had previously been said to be her number. Deborah had tried it a few times, at moments when she’d felt brave, he standing beside her and touching her to give her the strength he hadn’t quite got. There had never been a reply. He felt brave now, his resolve stiffened by the task and the challenge set him by Dwight Schenkman the Third, and even more by the gin and Noilly Prat. But his chest was contracting, and his heart was beating as if it was a swallow trapped in a bedroom.
He almost rang off. He should ring off. It wasn’t right to do this when Deborah wasn’t here. It would be a great moment, a historic moment, and she should be part of it.
Just as he was about to ring off, there was a voice. A man’s voice.
‘Yep?’
The shock was immense. He had to sit down.
‘Oh, hello. Um …’ He felt foolish. ‘Does … um … have I got the right number for …’ He could barely say it. ‘… Charlotte Hollinghurst?’
Even as he spoke it the name seemed all wrong, so middle class, so … serene, satisfied.
‘Who is this?’
‘I’m her father. Charlotte Hollinghurst’s father. She … um …’ It was difficult to say the words. They made the fact of it so real. ‘… She … um … she disappeared from home a … um … long ago. Does … um …’ Oh, Lord. What answer did he want? ‘Is she … does she … live there?’
‘Yeah, she sure does.’
Hope, fear but mainly astonishment surged through James. He had slowly become certain that he would never find her, that all alleys were blind, all clues imagined.
‘Wow.’
‘Yep. Wow.’
‘Um … who am I speaking to?’
‘Chuck.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I’m Chuck.’
‘Ah.’
‘Sorry.’
‘No, no. Not at all. Um … is Charlotte there, by any chance … Chuck?’
‘Absolutely.’
An electric current ran through James, as if he had been struck by lightning. She was there, alive and at the end of a phone line. He could barely bring himself to speak.
‘Um … could I speak to her, please?’
‘Absolutely.’
As easy as that.
James heard the phone being put down and heard Chuck call out, ‘Babe, it’s your old man.’ Then there was silence.
He was desperately trying to control his breathing. He was deeply shaken. Chuck and Babe? Babe and Chuck. What had happened in the last five years? How had Charlotte met Chuck? How had she become Babe? Oh, Charlotte, my … no.
He heard nothing for a couple of minutes and wondered if he’d been cut off. How hard it would be to ring back. Then Chuck’s voice came again, and he was catapulted into sorrow that it wasn’t Charlotte speaking and relief that somebody was and, strangely, almost into a feeling that Chuck was his friend.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi, Chuck.’
‘She says she has nothing to say to you. Sorry.’
How naive to have even dreamt that it would be easy.
‘Not your fault, Chuck. Chuck, is she all right? Is everything all right?’
‘Yeah, man. Cool. Everything’s cool.’
‘Good. Good. That’s good. Chuck, will you try again? Could you tell her for me that she may have nothing to say to me but I have something to say to her? Could you tell her that I agree with her that it’s a wicked world and that the values of our civilisation are fucking crap and will destroy our planet unless we do something about it pretty quickly?’
‘Wow. Cool, man.’
‘Thank you. I’m … um … I’m quoting her actually. Um … so would you say to her that
because
it’s such a wicked world it’s all the more important for people who love each other as much as her mother and I love her to stick together and support each other. We just want to see her, Chuck.’
Saying ‘we’ made him feel slightly better about making the call on his own.
‘Yeah. Right. Cool. Got that. Will do.’
It was five years since he’d heard his daughter’s voice. She had rung, once, about two years ago, to say she was all right, but it was Deborah who had answered. Charlotte had left them a phone number, but had said that she would disappear for ever if they rang except in emergencies. They had phoned when a favourite godmother died, but by that time Charlotte had moved on. He wondered how much of what she had experienced in those five years would be reflected in her voice. But, when the voice came, it was Chuck’s again.
‘Hi there. Sorry. No dice,’ he said.
James found himself nodding his head in acknowledgement that this was what he had expected, as if Chuck was in the room with him. He almost felt that Chuck
was
in the room with him.
‘Well, thank you for trying.’
‘No probs. Um …’
‘Yes?’
‘She didn’t sound angry. She didn’t say anything negative about you.’
‘Are you saying that that’s … surprising … unusual?’
‘Well, it is a bit, yeah. Sorry.’
‘No, no. Thank you. I …’ What? Nothing. This was all too difficult. ‘Well, thank you, Chuck. That’s something, I suppose.’
‘I think it might be.’
Chuck’s reply surprised James, but his own next remark surprised him even more. He found himself saying, ‘Chuck? Look after my baby.’
‘I do try, Mr Hollinghurst.’
‘Do you know something, Chuck? I actually believe you.’
As he’d talked to Chuck, James had almost felt relieved that he was talking about Charlotte rather than to her. But as soon as he had rung off he felt devastated that he had been so close to his daughter but still had not spoken to her.
He looked at his glass indecisively, then went to the gin bottle and added quite a slurp of gin, but no more Noilly Prat.
Why hadn’t he asked more? Why hadn’t he probed?
Because he sensed that of all the courses he could take, probing would annoy her the most. He would have to wait till she was ready.
If she was ever ready.
‘Oh, Debs, where are you?’ He realised that he had actually said the words out loud. He needed her there. He needed to tell her what was emerging as the most important, the most amazing point of all. Charlotte was alive and at least to a certain extent well and things were good enough to be described as cool and she was at the end of a telephone line and he knew the number and she was with a man and for no reason whatsoever and against all probability he trusted this man.