“No, no. Forgive me.”
Sorry, sorry, sorry—how British we were. I thought he was fetching a handkerchief from his pocket, but then I saw it was a small glassine bag filled with white powder.
Of course I was an adult. I knew exactly what it was, but it was giving me an unsafe feeling to watch him tap it up and down. “What’s that?”
“Painkiller.” He spilled a small pile onto the table top, slightly yellow and rather crystalline.
I don’t know him at all, I thought, not really the tiniest bit.
“That was rather risky wasn’t it?” I said.
“Compared to what?” He produced his wallet and found a Barclaycard with which to chop the powder fine. I thought, he means compared to stealing notebooks.
“Jesus, Eric. Stop it.”
But he had no intention of stopping anything. “You know, Catherine,” he said, and he was once again the dreaming Buddha but busy with his chop, chop, chop. “You know when himself wanted a little toot, he would never talk to a dealer.” He smiled directly at me. “No one would ever think of Matthew as a nervous chap, but he was very antsy about drug dealers.”
“You were our drug pimp?”
“Let’s say, every time you had a recreational experience, someone else took care of the low-life aspects.”
He set aside a very small amount of powder, what is called a “bump” by those who know. I thought, I’ll say “no” of course. He took a ten-pound note from his wallet, rolled it up, and hoovered.
“What about me?”
“Very well then, just a little.”
The former speaker of the House was still chipping so I lowered a blind. Then I applied the ten-pound note and felt the cocaine whoosh itself around my nasal cavities and then that lovely medicinal drip down the back of the throat.
“So,” he said, and he was at it with his Barclaycard again. “Here is how I propose we deal with the edifice.”
“OK,” I said when he had finished whatever it was he said.
“OK?”
“Thank you Eric. I’ve been a cow. I’m sorry. Can I have a little more, please Eric?”
He smiled at me, but I must have appeared absolutely wretched with my sunken blackened eyes.
“Do you know why I wanted to meet you in the greasy spoon?”
“The greasy spoon particularly?”
“I had driven the Mini there to give you. Not the easiest thing to do in the circumstances, given it had to be registered first. Did you know when applying to register a rebuilt Mini one must declare whether one’s fucking chassis or monocoque body has been replaced or modified in any way? That took my own mind off things. Anyway I had it parked in front of the greasy spoon. I told you, but you refused to see it.”
“You should have said.”
He helped himself to a big fat line and edged another line towards me. “You saw it.”
“I would have recognized it.”
“He wanted you to have it. Himself.”
It could not possibly be true, but I wanted to believe it just as all stupid people want to believe in what they want.
It was weeks and weeks before I understood Eric had gone up to Beccles and basically stolen our car, but for now I took another line and instructed him to put the remainder well away from me.
“Where is it now, the Mini?”
“I’ll bring it round for you.”
“That’s awfully sweet, but I could not bear to see it.”
“Later.”
“Yes, later.”
“Everything passes,” he said. “You will not feel like this forever.”
But I would. I had no doubt.
He was at my cupboards then and I knew he was searching for aluminium foil in order to leave a “little toot” for me. I snatched my handbag and put it on the floor. He returned to his chair and placed his gift before me. He held my gaze and his eyes were rather moist.
“Catherine, I have to go to an awful meeting with Sir Necktwist, if you know who I mean. We are going to compare our admittance numbers with the bloody Tate. Do you know the Ministry of Arts has to subsidize the Swinburne twenty-three quid for every punter through the door? The Tate need only five, I hate them.”
He gave a funny little smile, all contorted and wrung out and I remembered what he had suffered when his wife ran away. I kissed him on his rough broad cheek.
“I’m OK,” I said. “I’m sorry I forgot you loved him too.”
He rather crumpled then, poor Eric, not for long. When he left, I immediately went to the bedroom and began to read.
Henry
CARL WAS SUMPER’S GOLDEN shadow, following him up and down the stairs. Sometimes they were both sequestered above the gorge and I would hear, or imagine, amidst the roar of water, fine sharp hammer blows as they pegged away, also small explosions, like stuttering fireworks, gunshot or dry pine catching in the fire. Their door might spring open, slamming rudely against the wall, and next would appear that wheaten-haired child, laughing, hippity hoppity. I confess it hurt my heart. Soon I would observe him from a window, leaping across the fallen stooks, like a lucky hare recovered from the trap, speeding strangely across the harvest stubble, on his way to places I could not pronounce. He was surely an immensely clever little fidget, returning with his oily secrets wrapped in handkerchiefs or rags.
In my German hours I could bear to think of little else but what progress they were making with their secret instruments. Would they not hurry? Could I not push them faster? I was half maddened by the puzzle of their sounds. Was that gunpowder? Was that success? Was that failure? The manufacture involved all my emotions to an exhausting degree.
If I enquired with any subtlety, Sumper would pretend to misunderstand, or he would use his mobile eyebrows to affect a comical astonishment. Worst of all, he made me fear that he was not following my instructions.
Why, he would ask, would an educated Englishman want a cheap and gaudy circus trick?
“Herr Sumper,” I replied—every time I took the bait—“you have accepted the commission and my money too. You know time is of the essence.” And so on.
“But a duck you do not need.” Et cetera.
Then: “I have come all the way to Germany.”
“Who wants to copy Vaucanson? Vaucanson was a fraud. The duck’s digestion did not work. Its anus was not connected to its bowel. Do you understand, Herr Brandling? You love your child and now you are spending money to deceive him.”
Late one morning I was called to drink coffee, a most unusual treat so therefore not a situation in which I expected to be mocked.
“Do tell us, Mr. Brandling, do all English fathers deceive their sons?”
The offensive fellow winked at Carl who twisted his fingers around each other, squirming in his seat to contain his amusement and thus, poor servile boy, betrayed me. As for his mother, she clearly judged me the agent of my own distress. Forgive them all.
I am normally placid—indeed, it is said to be my flaw—yet I am a strong man too. I have a great capacity to suffer. I can eat dirt and carry rocks upon my back, but I could not let Percy suffer through their indolence. What
