My Father decides, very unusually, to walk to work

Predictably, the weather has finally broken, just in time for Wimbledon, which starts today. As My Father leaves his hotel, the sun is shining, but in a watery uncommitted way, and the soul-sapping heat and humidity of the last few weeks have seeped out of the atmosphere. It’s a cool and breezy June morning, with the smell of rain in the air, and something almost autumnal about it. No empty cabs in view, My Father decides, very unusually, to walk to work. (My Father is not a fan of unnecessary physical exertion.)

How does he feel, as he turns into High Holborn, and takes his place in the ebbing tide of late-arriving office-workers? Much better than he did last night. The prospect of returning to work, he finds to his surprise, is a lot less depressing than he has expected. It’s true, of course, that his exceptional capabilities will never find their fullest expression in the publicity department of a nationalised industry. But, after the vicious and unrelenting hurly burly of three weeks on the campaign trail, the immediate prospect of spending a little quiet time behind his impressively large desk, in his cosily carpeted corner office on the sixth floor of British Steel House, is by no means unappealing. He needs, he tells himself, a short period of recuperation, before setting out again, refreshed, in pursuit of those glittering prizes. My Father’s French is schoolboyish, but from somewhere, the phrase Reculer pour mieux sauter pops into his mind.

As for the events of the weekend just past, this morning My Father is feeling cautiously positive. All the doubt, despair, and self-recrimination of last night have melted away. Well, not quite all. He is still keenly aware, of course, that freeing himself from My Mother, and finding new geographically distanced ways of meeting his paternal responsibilities, are massively intractable challenges. He still feels a bit cross with the Woman He Loves, too, for her reckless attempt to accelerate the disintegration of his marriage – though now his anger towards her has an indulgent, even tender, flavour to it. Imagine her loving him so much that she felt driven to do such a thing! And his calculating mind sees a tactical advantage in her misdemeanour.

Perhaps it will allow him to be more open with her about the reality of the current situation, and the necessity for her to regard the destruction of his family as a work-in-progress? Of course, she mustn’t know that My Mother has simply refused to believe that she has been replaced in My Father’s affections by her recent unexpected visitor. But it might be possible, he speculates, to come up with some kind of true-ish version of events, in which, for example, My Mother knows that he has left her for the Woman He Loves, but not that they will be living as man and wife in a tall narrow North London house. Or, if not that, some other story that will soften the sharp edges of reality, and make his life a bit easier.

My Father does not feel care-free, exactly. But this morning, walking to work under a London sky alive with scudding clouds, he is invigorated by a sense that today, at last, his real life is about to begin.

*

Sitting at his impressively large desk, twenty minutes or so into his first day back at work, My Father is in rather less buoyant spirits. He has drunk a mug of coffee brought to him by Linda (too milky, like each of roughly 5000 coffees she has made him over the years). He has riffled through his overflowing in-tray: literally nothing of interest, or requiring immediate action. He has cast an eye over his phone messages, and ringed in red a few that will need a response from him, once he has eased back into the swing of things. And he has tried, unsuccessfully, to get Aitken on the phone – which has reminded him sharply that, deprived of close proximity to power, he is a figure of greatly diminished news-value. Suddenly, the restorative benefits of his escape from the lunatic pressures and slavering dog-eat-doggery of high politics seem less enticing.

“You’re wanted upstairs at 10.30,” says Linda, who has appeared at his side, without noticeably entering the room, in a disconcerting way she has. (My Father sometimes wonders if her highest professional goal is to keep her boss off-balance.)

“Upstairs?” he repeats. “On a Monday?”

The Chairman of the Corporation has his office – or, more accurately, suite of offices – on the floor above. It’s unusual for it to be occupied in the early part of the week, or indeed towards the weekend.

Linda smiles, but says nothing. She’s been tactfully silent about the election, too, since he arrived this morning, behaving towards him exactly as if he hasn’t been away.

“Any idea what it’s about?”

“Corby,” says Linda. “At least, that’s what Penelope thought.” (Penelope is the Chairman’s all-knowing PA.)

“Ah, Corby,” he says, without enthusiasm.

He has, of course, been following the situation at the Corby steelworks over the last couple of weeks, as it has evolved from a small-scale work-to-rule in support of the union’s pay-claim to something very close to an all-out shutdown. Now it looks as if he will have to roll up his sleeves and join the fray. My Father sighs heavily. He is only 20 minutes’ walk from Downing Street, but it feels a million miles away.

“Another coffee?” asks Linda, sympathetically, preparing to dematerialise.

*

“Ah, My Father! Not quite the triumphant homecoming you imagined, I’m afraid?”

The Chairman is wearing tweeds, a sure sign he does not intend to stay in the office for long – an impression reinforced by the fact that he is also swishing a golf club to and fro, experimentally.

“No, Chairman, not at all what I had in mind,” says My Father, ruefully.

My Father doesn’t know how the Chairman voted on Thursday. He looks every inch a patrician High Tory, but he has chosen to head a nationalised industry, rather than run a merchant bank, which may say something about his politics. In any case, he is well disposed towards My Father, and his manner now is brisk, but broadly sympathetic.

“And now, to make matters worse, I’m going to lob Corby at you!” He mimes tossing a hot potato in My Father’s direction.

“I was hoping it might have been resolved by now.”

“Sadly not,” says the Chairman. “And we’re taking tons of flak. Have you seen the Mirror?”

My Father is surprised by this. When has the Chairman ever read the papers? Or shown the slightest interest in the management of what is really quite a routine story?

Of course, My Father has seen the Mirror.

“They’ve laid it on a bit thick,” he says, “but I think Martin has handled it pretty well, in my absence.”

“Well, I’m putting it firmly in your hands, now that you’re back,” says the Chairman. “We need some more favourable headlines. Perhaps you should toddle up there, and get a sense of the mood, on the ground?”

“Go to Corby?” says My Father, unable to hide his astonishment. Apart from anything else, he has not the faintest idea where Corby is.

“Up to you, of course,” says the Chairman, who seems already to have lost whatever interest he had in the subject, and is swinging his sand wedge again. “I know you’ll do what needs to be done. I’ve every confidence in you.”

My Father takes this to mean his audience is at end, and makes to leave.

“Thank you, Chairman,” he says.

But before he has crossed half the vast acreage of carpet between him and the door, the Chairman remembers something.

“Oh, My Father, almost forgot! Rather a tricky subject I need to raise with you…. ”

My Father knows immediately that this – whatever it turns out to be – is the real reason for the meeting.

“Whispers from the DTI. Very much off the record. But my sources there are telling me this lot are going to push – hard – for denationalisation. ASAP!”

“Well, that comes as no great surprise,” says My Father, who is well aware that the new Tory government abhors public ownership, and looks upon nationalised industries such as British Steel roughly as a hungry fox regards an unguarded chicken coop.

“No,” says the Chairman, “but I’m afraid this may. The strong rumour is that the new Minister sees your position as untenable. And I have that from a source very close to the Minister.”

“My position?”

“Yes, I’m afraid they don’t much fancy having such a formidable opponent right under their noses. You can see their point, I suppose.”

This is kindly put by the Chairman, but what he’s telling My Father is that their new political masters will not permit a key supporter of the deposed regime to remain in a position where he can attempt to interfere with their plans.

“But no immediate panic,” the Chairman goes on. “It’ll take a while for the dust to settle after the election. So you can give yourself a little time, to look around, and find something suited to your talents – which, as you know, I greatly admire and value.”

So, although the Chairman will be sorry to lose him, there is nothing he can do about it. My Father will, very shortly, be needing a new job.

“Thank you, Chairman,” says My Father again, wondering whether ‘a little time to look around’ means months or weeks.

*

Back at his desk, My Father is thinking about lunch. He finds this reassuring. If he were really devastated by what the Chairman has just told him, he wouldn’t be contemplating which of his favourite restaurants to visit on his first day back at work, and which journalist to invite, would he? And no, he genuinely isn’t upset, though he is a little more surprised than he should be. Of course, in a general sense, he has realised that his position as a high profile Labour operative will count against him under a Tory government; but it really hasn’t occurred to him that bundling him in front of a firing-squad will be among their most pressing priorities, on taking power. Quite flattering, in a way. The Gay Hussar perhaps? No, stupid idea! Much too political, so soon after the election. (He doesn’t want to find himself at the next table to that sanctimonious prick Wedgwood Benn, and have to listen to him sounding off about how Labour would have won if only they had been a touch more Trotskyite.) Maybe Bertorelli’s, then?

The phone on his desk chirrups, in a way that means it is Linda, rather than an outside call on his direct line.

“You have a visitor in Reception,” she says.

“Who is it?” says My Father, who isn’t expecting anyone.

“I think you should go down,” says Linda, with what My Father recognises as disapproval.

“OK, thanks,” he says, putting the phone down. It can only be the Woman He Loves! He has assumed their reunion will take place later today, after work; but how like her to turn up here now, unexpectedly! He’s a little scared by this; but mainly, what he feels as he hurries down the stairs – for once, My Father does not wait for the lift – is the purest exhilaration. At last, he and the Woman He Loves are going to be together without the shadowy figure of My Mother looming perpetually, wraith-like, between them.

It isn’t the Woman He Loves.

For a moment – seeing her from behind, as he approaches the seating area in Reception – he thinks it is. The hair is roughly the right colour and cut. But, as he comes alongside her, he experiences the perplexity of seeing something that directly contradicts what his brain has told him to expect. Sitting there, staring ahead of her unseeingly, is the Other Woman. She looks haggard, as if she hasn’t slept – or attended to her toilette – in days. She is not crying, but in her face there is plenty of evidence that she has wept many tears, recently. When she sees him, she smiles bravely, while also seeming to flinch, like an ill-used dog expecting a beating. My Father is appalled to see her here. At his place of business! To do him justice, though, the strongest feeling that surges through him is shame, for having reduced her to this pathetic state – closely followed by compassion for her evident misery.

Luckily, apart from a couple of uniformed commissionaires behind the desk, there is no one else in Reception. My Father sits down next to the Other Woman, turning his body sideways to shield her from the view of anyone leaving or entering the building. And he is about to tell her how sorry he is for the way he has treated her, when she says, “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. I can’t believe I did that. But I was so desperate, I felt I had to do something!”

Can’t believe she did what? It occurs to My Father that this is the second time in two days that he has had absolutely no idea what a woman is talking about. What the fuck is it that she can’t believe she did? And why is she apologising to him?

“I know it was wrong of me to go there,” the Other Woman is saying, the words starting to flow with the relief she feels at confessing. “But I just wanted to see her for myself. And for her to know that I exist. And to make her understand that I’m not just some ‘bit on the side’. And that I love you just as much as she does, or even more!”

As she speaks, realisation dawns on My Father – surprisingly slowly, for a man of such outstanding intellect. It wasn’t the Woman He Loves who visited My Mother on Wednesday, it was the Other Woman! Of course it was! Of course the Woman He Loves would never have done such a reckless and stupid thing! How could he possibly have persuaded himself that she might?

The Other Woman has grabbed his hand in both of hers, in a supplicatory manner. Her nails are catastrophically bitten, almost to the point of non-existence. And now the floodgates open. “Can you ever forgive me?” she is saying, through her tears. “I can’t bear to lose you, and to think of you hating me.”

My Father puts his free hand on top of hers. “Come on,” he says, gently, pacifyingly, getting to his feet, “I’ll buy you a coffee.”

And, still trying to shield her from view behind his body, he shepherds her out of the building and across the road to Renato’s, where he is relieved to find there is no one he recognises.

*

My Father and the Other Woman drink coffee together, for one last time. She cries, and he tries, with limited success, to console her. She says more, a great deal more, about how much she loves him, and what he has meant to her, and how she has always dreamed that one day, despite all the obstacles in their path, they would be together. And, listening to her, My Father understands, for the first time, that for this woman – so peripheral to his life, so much the cherry rather than the cake – he has been the moon and stars, her first thought on waking in the morning, her last at night. How has he failed to comprehend this? How has he been able, for all these years, to behave towards this suffering human creature as if she were little more than a device for the relief of his boredom and ennui? My Father hates himself. And, as he tells her so, and that he will never forgive himself for how he has treated her – particularly the letter – she once again takes his hand, and squeezes it sympathetically. She can’t bear to see the Man She Loves looking so sad.

*

A little later – after the Other Woman has left, still weeping, but less torrentially, to catch a bus back to work – My Father sits drinking yet another coffee, and wondering what to do next. Lunch with a journalist seems less appealing than it did earlier. And then there’s Corby. Does he really have to go up there? (Or is it down there?) Surely not; a couple of phone calls to key parties will be more than enough to give him the background he needs to go to work on massaging the coverage over the next few days.

And now, of course, his thoughts turn to the Woman He Loves; not guilty, after all, of sabotaging his marriage – which is probably for the best, on balance. He likes, and is excited by, her unpredictability, but he suspects that making a life with someone capable of random acts of extreme emotional violence might become wearing over time. On the other hand, the moral high ground no longer belongs to him. She has nothing to apologise for. And neither has she succumbed to an overwhelming desire to be with him. At this moment, the Woman He Loves is elsewhere; free, distinct, autonomous; living a life in which he plays no part.

*

Back in his office, having closed the door for privacy, My Father calls the Woman He Loves. He has no pride; he needs to be with her. The phone in the tall narrow North London house rings, and rings, unanswered. My Father is unsurprised by this; he knew it was unlikely she would be at home at this time of day, so soon before her exhibition.

He grabs his hold-all from under the desk, and hurries out of his office.

“Off to Corby,” he informs Linda, without breaking stride, as he passes her desk.

“Corby?” she says. “Really?”

“No need to book me a ticket. I’ll deal with that at the station.”

“When will you be back in?” she asks.

But My Father doesn’t hear, or doesn’t seem to.

*

In the cab on the way up Eversholt Street, the driver is keen to engage My Father in conversation.

“What about Brazil, then? Fantastic, eh?”

Brazil? What is the wretched man talking about? My Father assumes he must be referring to that country’s many attractions for visitors; its natural beauties, exotic wildlife, colourful carnivals, and so on. But then it strikes him that he has read something recently about the unexpectedly strong performance of various South American economies. Might that possibly be the topic under discussion? It seems unlikely, though it can’t be entirely ruled out. In any case, My Father feels the safest course is simply to agree.

“Yes, really fantastic.”

“And that last goal! Sublime, or what?”

Football; of course! Why does everyone always want to talk to My Father about a subject he finds so entirely devoid of interest? Particularly today, when all his thoughts and feelings are fully engaged in matters of the very highest consequence.

“One of the sublimest I’ve ever seen,” he replies, as warmly as he can, before abruptly bringing to a close this passage of conversation, by saying:

“Just wonder if we might turn right up here, by the school? Could save a couple of minutes, and I’m in a hurry.”

*

A couple of minutes sooner than might otherwise have been the case, the cab is pulling up outside the Famous Novelist’s house in Kentish Town.

As he rings the doorbell, My Father is gripped by a combination of intense emotions that he has never previously imagined could co-exist within him. Excitement, tinged with terror, jostles for space with resounding certitude; soaring exaltation mingles, and almost merges, with something vertiginous; he feels a little as if he is falling from a great height without yet knowing for certain whether he can fly.

The Famous Novelist opens the door, and peers at him over the top of her spectacles. Notoriously spiky, she is regarding him benignly.

“Aha, the soon-to-be-disencumbered married lover!”

Preoccupied though he is, My Father is gratified to learn that the Woman He Loves has been confiding in a Booker Prize winner, spoken of by some good judges as a potential Nobel Laureate.

“Go on up,” says the Famous Novelist. “You know where she is. And I’m pretty sure she won’t mind being disturbed by you!”

*

My Father climbs the stairs to the studio at a measured, deliberate pace. At the top of this staircase, behind the white-painted door now coming into view, a new life awaits him. It’s one that promises to be everything he has desired, for as long as he has consciously thought about such things. A life in which nothing he wants or needs will be withheld from him. A life of loving and being loved by a woman who believes in him. He wants this life more than he has ever wanted anything. But, in these final few seconds before it begins, he almost fears it, too.

Loud music, a discordant yowling to My Father’s ears, is coming from the studio, so – conscious that the Woman He Loves is probably unaware of his presence – he taps on the door, then pushes it open. For a fraction of a second, he sees her, lost in concentration on her work, before she registers the intrusion. Her face is upturned, pressed close to the canvas she is working on (she is adorably short-sighted), making minute adjustments, with the tip of her tongue curling up to within millimetres of her nose.

Perhaps the fear My Father feels is that, in this moment, he will see her differently. In the novels he has published, men yearn for women only until they possess them; male desire is doomed to die at the instant of its gratification. But no, here she is – entirely available to him, as he is now to her (well, almost) – and she remains what she has always been; the Woman He Loves.

With a visible effort, she detaches her attention from the painting, and transfers it to My Father, who is still lingering, liminally, on the threshold. He notices that her paint-beflecked artist’s smock is, in fact, an old shirt of his. Her gaze, when it finally locks onto him, is penetrating.

“So,” says the Woman My Father Loves.

“So,” replies My Father.

“So,” she says again. “Are we real now?”

They aren’t yet, not entirely. But they will be. And over the rest of their lives together, the love they share will be the best of both of them, the most successful enterprise either will undertake, and my father’s only ennoblement.

**********

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