ballet and he agreed it was a good idea.
‘I miss you,’ she shouted.
‘Me too,’ Blair yelled back.
‘I love you.’
‘Me too,’ he yelled again. He supposed Ruth, who would be able to hear every word, would guess but he’d tried. Polite visitor.
Blair promised to call again and Ann said she hoped everything would turn out all right. She said again that she loved him but Blair didn’t respond this time. He finished the call before Ruth came back into the room.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘Everything all right?’
‘Seems to be. It was a bad line.’
‘So I gathered. Shall I fix lunch?’
‘Thought we might eat out.’
Ruth smiled, immediately pleased at the invitation. ‘Fine.’
‘Anywhere particular you like?’
‘You choose,’ she said hopefully.
‘Dominiques used to be good.’
She smiled again, glad he’d remembered. Dominiques had been important to them, the place where they’d celebrated special occasions like birthdays and wedding anniversaries and news of his promotions and postings. It would be nice to have another special occasion to celebrate there. ‘Dominiques would be lovely.’
Blair was early for his appointment with the counsellors, at Erickson’s office ahead of the other official. Both men were similar and Blair wondered if it were the job. They dressed uncaringly, pants unpressed and creases concertinaed in the bends of their arms, ties straying from their collars. Kemp was taller and wore spectacles, but both were overweight, stomachs bulging over their belts. Erickson offered coffee which Blair didn’t want but which he took anyway.
‘Thanks for seeing me like this,’ said Blair. ‘I thought it was best.’
‘Makes our schedules easier,’ said Kemp.
‘So you’re busy?’ said Blair, to the school counsellor.
Erickson smiled, an attempt at reassurance. ‘Believe me, Mr Blair, what you’re going through right now isn’t unusual, for American parents today.’
Blair recognised the effort but found the man faintly patronising. Would kids feel the same way? He said, ‘It’s unusual for me. I want to get it sorted out.’
‘That’s what we all want,’ said Erickson.
‘So how do we do it?’
‘I wish I knew,’ admitted the school official. ‘I’ve got seventy kids I’m trying to help and I’d guess that many again I don’t know about yet.’
‘And I’ve stopped bothering to count the number I’m responsible for,’ said Kemp.
Fuck their problems, thought Blair; all he cared about was his own. ‘You’re the experts,’ he said, holding his irritation, if I can’t get answers then I’m looking for advice.’
‘You live abroad?’ said Erickson.
‘Moscow.’ said Blair.
‘Have you had a chance to talk to Paul?’
Blair nodded, ‘I tried, last night.’
‘ Tried? ’ picked up Kemp.
‘I couldn’t get through to him,’ said Blair. ‘Maybe I did, towards the end, but I’m not sure. But he wouldn’t talk to me… say anything. I asked him why he did it and he just sat there, like a dummy!’
‘That’s usually the way,’ said Kemp.
Blair decided the man was definitely annoying him. ‘So you’re the experts,’ he repeated. ‘So you tell me. Why do they do it?’
‘I wish I knew that, too,’ said Kemp. ‘There’s never one single reason. Or a way of assembling all the factors into any understandable answer. There’s peer pressure, being shamed into it by someone they admire, a bigger guy. There’s experimentation, the way most kids have: should have. There’s boredom. There’s the availability of the stuff, all sorts of stuff: it’s easier to buy dope on a street corner than it is to buy bread. Supermarkets close: dealers are always there.’
‘So why aren’t they cleared off the damned streets!’
‘They are,’ said Erickson. ‘And the moment – literally the moment – they go there’s two more to take their places.’
Blair felt the frustration building up inside him. ‘Let’s talk specifics,’ he tried again. ‘Let’s talk about Paul and let’s talk about me and let’s try to find something we can do. I’ll take your word about it being a modern American problem and I’ll take your word about all the reasons it can happen but I want to find a way – will find a way – to stop Paul fucking himself up.’ Blair hadn’t intended to swear but didn’t really give a damn whether they were offended or not. There wasn’t any reason why they should be.
‘How did you talk to him, last night?’ asked Erickson.
‘ How? ’
‘Calmly, trying to understand? Or did you lose your temper?’
Blair conceded it was justified, after his outburst. ‘Calmly, as far as I was concerned,’ he said, i don’t think I shouted and I don’t think I lost my temper. But I let him know how I felt. I let him know I thought what he had done was stupid and weak and that I thought he’d let everyone down and that I wasn’t accepting the fact that my wife and I are divorced to be any excuse. That there wasn’t an excuse…’ Blair paused. Then he said, ‘And I am trying to understand. I keep asking questions but no one seems able to provide any answers.’
Blair saw the two men exchange looks and realised they considered he’d handled it wrongly. Erickson said, ‘You were aggressive?’
‘No,’ refused Blair. ‘I was direct and straight, like I felt a father should be.’ Except, perhaps, that a father should be at home and not a polite visitor.
‘A factor I didn’t mention was that sometimes drug-taking is a rebellion against authority,’ said Kemp, in his lecturing voice.
‘Rebellions against authority get crushed: that’s what law and order means,’ said Blair, impatient at the meaningless cliche. ‘Growing up, becoming an adult…’ He stopped, unsure which way his argument was leading him. ‘… OK,’ he resumed. ‘Making the mistakes that growing up means, that’s all right. That happens… it happens. That I can understand. Accept even. If he got drunk I’d understand it
…’
‘Why?’ demanded Erickson, slightly ahead of the other counsellor.
Blair blinked at the concerted demand. ‘Kids get drunk: it happens,’ he said, badly.
‘Do you know what the worst drug in existence is, Mr Blair?’ said Kemp, who appeared to regard himself as the spokesman. ‘Alcohol is the worst drug. It kills more people and causes more lost work days and more lost school days and more accidents than marijuana and cocaine and heroin and pills put together.’
‘Whose side are you on?’ said Blair, letting the exasperation show.
‘Paul’s side,’ said Kemp. ‘I’m not on your side and I’m not on your wife’s side and I’m not on anybody else’s side. Just Paul’s.’
‘At last!’ said Blair. ‘At last someone’s said something positive.’
‘We always try to be positive, Mr Blair,’ said Erickson. ‘I’ve sat through a hundred meetings like the one I’m having with you now and let me tell you that your reaction is the reaction of practically everyone. You think we’re inconclusive and you think we’re weak and you get impatient but try not to show it, because you love your kid and think you might in some way affect how we’ll try to help him, if you loudmouth us. We’re not interested in making our own points, Mr Blair: in expressing our opinions and our attitudes because our opinions and attitudes are middle-aged and already formed and at the end of every frustrating day we go home to a home where there’s a six-pack in the fridge and if it’s been a bad, particularly frustrating day we might even blow the whole six pack and get drunk and when we’re drunk we might believe that things aren’t really as bad as they are. Which is what taking drugs is all about, Mr Blair. Not wanting to know how things are – not dramatic, major, world-shattering things –
