movement. He wandered the Embankment and stared at the sullen Thames filled with commerce. It seemed that this stretch of river bank was dotted with old men and old women bundled in unravelling sweaters and shapeless coats, some drunk, some crazy.
Joe began to drink. He sought out pubs seldom frequented by tourists. This was resented. But nevertheless he sat stubbornly in the midst of strangers who talked past him at the bar, who even occasionally made jokes about him while he drank his whiskeys and got falling-down drunk. At afternoon-closing the proprietors turned him out and he took to the streets again. He walked mile after mile, often losing himself entirely in the city. He tramped past the British Museum and its imposing portico with barely a glance. Inside, his son was reading documents. He ignored the blandishments of Madame Tussaud’s, of the Victoria and Albert, of the National Gallery.
He felt he was on the verge of losing control as he had back home. When he was jostled and elbowed and pushed outside Harrods he had sworn viciously and even taken a kick at a man who had stepped on his foot. Yet his behaviour didn’t particularly worry him. He decided that he didn’t give a damn.
In the first week of his visit Joe spent two evenings at his son’s. He climbed three flights of stairs past strange sounds and Asiatic smells to a bed-sitter you couldn’t swing a cat in. His daughter-in-law cooked them pork pies in a tiny range and they drank whiskey that Joe brought with him. Mark and Joe sat at the table on the only chairs, and Joan, his daughter-in-law, sat on the couch with her plate on her knee. Conversation never ran the way it should have. Mark kept asking questions that Joe didn’t consider any of his goddamn business and tried to avoid answering.
“So that thing with the kid is finished now, all cleared up?”
Joe splashed some whiskey in his glass. “Yes,” he said. “It’s finished and I prefer to leave it that way.”
“Why did they decide to drop the charges?”
Joan coughed and gave Mark a warning look. It was funny, she seemed able to read him better than his own son could.
“They settled out of court for a thousand bucks. They said they felt sorry for me, my wife having just died. They talked about the poor kid walking around with wire-cutters in his back pocket, living on soup and milkshakes.”
Mark’s eyes had that squinty, harried look they got when he was worried. He had had that look even as a child. He hated trouble. “I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t imagine you doing that.”
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do,” said Joe.
He
That particular kid, Wesjik, had been giving him trouble all year. Not that he was especially bad. He was representative of a type becoming more and more common. He did the usual insolent, stupid things: farting noises out of the side of his mouth while Joe read a poem, backchat, bothering people, arriving late for class, destruction of books and school property.
That day Joe had had to tell him at the beginning of class (as he had every day for the past four months) to sit at his desk and get his text out. The boy had given him a witheringly contemptuous smile and, slouching to his place, said: “You got it. Sure thing.”
Joe had ignored him. “Open your books to page 130, Grade Twelve,” he said, “and we’ll begin the class with Tennyson’s ‘The Splendor Falls’.” After the books had all thumped open and the banging and foot-shuffling had subsided, Joe gave a little hitch to his voice and read, “The splendor falls -”
And there he was interrupted by a voice from the back of the room, brazen and sullen, “on shit-house walls.” There was laughter. Most of it nervous. Some encouraging.
Joe looked up from his book. He knew who had said that. “Mr. Wesjik,” he said, “get your carcass out of this room.”
“I didn’t say nothing,” the kid shot back, his face set in a mockery of innocence. “How could you know who said anything? You were reading.” A courtroom lawyer.
Joe closed the book and carefully put it down. “You come along with me, Wesjik,” he said. There were titters when the kid, grinning, followed him out of the room. A trip to the office. It didn’t mean anything any more.
And that was where Joe had intended to take him when they set out. But there was something about the way the kid slouched along, lazily and indifferently swivelling his hips, that grated. Joe changed his mind on the way. He led Wesjik into the vestibule where the student union soft-drink machine was kept, and pulled the doors closed behind him.
“What’s this?” said Wesjik. “How come I’m not going to the office?”
“You like talking to Mr. Cooper, don’t you?” asked Joe, adopting an artificially pleasant tone. Cooper was a smooth-cheeked character with a master’s degree in educational administration. Joe thought he was a dink, although he never mouthed off about Cooper in the staff-room the way some others did.
“Sure,” said Wesjik sarcastically, “he’s one honey of a guy. He
“Is that right?” said Joe.
“Hey,” the kid said, “give me the Dutch-uncle treatment and let’s get out of here. There’s a draft. I’m getting cold.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Wesjik,” said Joe. “What is it? Is it your hands that are cold?”
“Yeah,” said the kid, smiling, “my hands are terribly cold. I think I got chilblains maybe.”
“Put them in your pockets.”
“What?”
“Put your goddamn hands in your pockets if they’re cold,” said Joe calmly. To himself he said, I don’t give a shit any more. About anything. Let it ride.
“You swore,” said Wesjik surprised. “You swore at me.”
“Put your goddamn hands in your pockets, Wesjik,” said Joe. Get them in there, Wesjik, he thought. I’m an old man. Get them in there.
He could see he was beginning to scare the kid. He didn’t mind. Maybe the kid thought he was crazy. Wesjik put his hands slowly into his pockets, licked his lips and tried to freeze his smart-ass smile on his lips.
“How old are you, Wesjik?” he asked.
“What?”
“How
“Eighteen.”
“Is that right? Eighteen? Is that your correct age, eighteen?”
“Yes.”
Joe could barely hear his answer. “I didn’t hear that, Wesjik. How old?”
Wesjik cleared his throat. “Eighteen,” he said a little more loudly.
“My brother was dead at your age,” said Joe. “He died in Italy during the Second World War. Ever hear of the Second World War, Wesjik? Any knowledge of that little incident?”
“Yes.” A whisper.
“Do you want to know something, Wesjik?” said Joe, his voice rising dangerously. “I’m so tired. I’m so goddamn tired. I wish I had had that fucking chance,” he said. “I wish I could have died when I was eighteen.” He looked around the vestibule, surprised by what he had said, as if searching for the source of that idea. But it was true. His saying it had made it true. “That’s what I wish now, looking back. You know why?”
“Let me out of here,” the kid said, whining. “You’ve got no business keeping me here, swearing at me!”
“Because I didn’t know life was shit,” said Joe, ignoring him. “I didn’t know it was taking shit, year after year. I didn’t know life was putting up with punks who crap on everything they can’t understand, who piss on everything they can’t eat or fuck – just to ruin it for someone else. To make it unusable.”
“I’m sorry,” said Wesjik. But Joe knew he wasn’t. He was just afraid. Most of these kids thought they were the same thing. You were never sorry unless you were scared. Only when it paid.
“I want you to say this after me,” said Joe. “So listen carefully, Wesjik. Here goes:
