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208 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2021
“She’s clearly frightened of engaging. That’s a sad thing. A sad and defensive thing. Here’s a better way to put it, she was in an a priori reality …. And that reality was not going to yield to another reality”
“Well, I just tune in, really. It’s interesting what people get up to under the guise of having a conversation. I’ve heard that marriage counsellors tell couples not to say “always” or “never” when arraigning their spouses. “You always put me down!” “You never listen!” That’s inflammatory. You should say, “You sometimes put me down.” I’m not sure what that is. I remember a woman who used frequently to use both of those adverbs about herself and then add a question tag, too. Things like, “Well I never buy low-fat, do I?” or “I’ve always hated Jonathan Ross, haven’t I?”. So there was this need to constantly assert things about herself, a certain proud vehemence, then this anxious little question: a retreat. I notice things like that.”
Those spectral associates my father raised didn’t persecute him. They were a supporting cast: a wise counsel or a happy coterie, rushing to fill in coveted positions in his court. Leave it to my poor mother to have those awful tormenting busybodies as her imaginary fellows.
I remember one afternoon in Tesco, when we were doing his big shop. He was, as usual, making a point of ‘testing the produce’, that is, pulling lone grapes from bunches he wasn’t going to buy, and eating them, and then taking a large loose tomato and munching on that as we cruised the aisles. This was a habit of his which made Michelle and me, and me especially, very anxious, which naturally only encouraged him.
‘I’m testing the produce!’ he’d say, proudly. And then he’d try and cajole the pair of us into walking around munching stolen tomatoes too. This was something that neither of us could ever be persuaded to do. Our father had an inhibiting effect, really, for all of his large energy, and these swift needlings and exhortations only ever sent me further inwards.
In the world as surveyed by him, there were no shortage of ‘dickheads!’ And then of course there were his ‘businessmen’ – I’ve mentioned them. A type he called ‘females’ had a predatory intent – these included his ‘well-fed specimens’, of whom he was apt to remark, when he spotted one, that he wouldn’t want to meet that on a dark night, and his ‘healthy looking specimens!’ – this indicating a striking cleavage. Sotto voce, in shops or on the street, he would draw my or Michelle’s attention to ‘healthy-looking specimens’. Also abroad were ‘posers!’(like me) and, more exceptionally, and never seen in the wild ’intelligent people’. He used to bring news, sometimes, from the latter constituency. The news was generated by himself, but it was an important recourse nonetheless. ‘Intelligent people’ were a respected tribe, like his ‘businessmen’.
I think she liked finding life a little bit crap. It encouraged her, in a way. “Boring’ films, ‘crap’ exhibitions, ‘mad’ people, these she could happily talk about. This was a world she could be part of. And events that had gone wrong: they were a boon, too. One year, she’d been to a lecture where a microphone had failed to work. That cheered her up no end. ‘Talk about It’ll be Alright on the Night,’ she said. ‘Everyone was shouting, “Speak up.” And this poor man was going bright red!’
It hit a sweet spot, an experience like that.
Here, for example, were four tatty black handbags.
‘Now they are all slightly different, you see,’ my mother ventured.
‘They’re bust, Mum. This one’s got a broken zip. This one’s lining’s torn. And you don’t need four of anything.’
‘Well, as your Nana Barnes used to say, they don’t eat anything, do they?’
‘They eat space. And they eat time when you’re trying to get ready. You’ve got this nice one.’
‘Well, that one’s for best.’
Later, he described my mother as ‘unyielding’. I’d pushed him for a reaction, half-frightened that he’d say he couldn’t see the problem. But no, he’d seen it all right.
‘I haven’t come across anyone quite like that before,’ he said.
He was washing up while I dried the dishes and put them away.
‘I’ve met people who are insistent, dogmatic, aggressive, but she wasn’t like that. It just quickly became obvious that she wasn’t going to engage with anything that was actually being said. She had a stance, she was sticking to that, and that precluded reacting to what was actually happening. Or experiencing what was actually happening … There was an absolute refusal to do that. It was disorientating. I see what you mean about that. When she appeared to react, these weren’t reactions at all, were they? But her performing what she thinks she is. Or what she has decided she is. So the performance was desperately committed but gratingly false.’