Andrea X – All You Need is Love

She knows something’s up as soon as I walk in. I’m a little late for a start, which is a first. Normally I’m here before she is - eager to get started.
‘What’s up?’ she says.
I don’t know how to tell her. ‘I think we shouldn’t see each other any more’ I say. I know it sounds like I’m ending an affair. That’s how it feels to me.
‘You’re dumping me?’
She sits there, apparently aghast, and I notice her gather the collar of her tunic together, covering her cleavage.
‘Well thanks a bundle’ she says.
It really hadn’t occurred to me she’d take it this badly. I’d assumed that, yes, she liked me well enough these days in a professional kind of a way but that it wouldn’t mean too much to her. There’s an awkward silence.
‘Why?’ she says at last.
I want to say ‘Because I love you’ but I don’t think it’ll help. I don’t even know if it’s true. Looking back on the women I’ve “loved” I can’t help thinking a lot of it was just lust and loneliness. Greater minds have made the same mistake.
‘I can’t deal with this all just being about sex’ I say finally. ‘You just thinking all I need is a damn good screw...’
I know that’s not what she means but I want to be dramatic. I feel like starting a fight. She frowns at me quizzically through narrowed eyelids.
‘Can’t you see what it’s like for me?’ I say, trying to get something articulate and insightful assembled. ‘I don’t want to stop coming here. It’s just...’
‘Then don’t’ she says simply.
‘Ok, I wont’ I say, hugely relieved. I hadn’t really wanted to stop. I hadn’t really thought it out properly. I needed to make her understand something though. This had just been a rather melodramatic way to do it. ‘I’m sorry’ I say and sit back in my chair.
We sit for a while and let the atmosphere thin a little.
‘It’s not just about sex’ she says eventually.
‘It is a lot about sex’ I say, and she smiles guiltily.
‘I thought it was an important issue for you.’
‘It was...and is, I suppose. It’s just, with you...’
‘What about me?’
‘I can’t be cool and... detached about it talking to you.’
‘Because you want to sleep with me.’
‘More than that.’
She nods and thinks for a while. ‘What would you prefer we talk about?’ she says eventually, coolly.
‘Oh look...’ I say, laying my cards on the table as it were. ‘I would love to talk about sex with you. I would like nothing better, except of course actually having sex with you, but that’s just the point. You can’t, or won’t, so it’s just so...’
‘Frustrating?’
‘To say the least. And look. I’ve been an old man, quite recently. I’ve had the most chronic sexual frustration all my life, and then it was over and I was free. I could relax, give up on it.’
‘But now...’
‘Now it’s all come back again. Worse.’
‘Not worse. You’ve got me to talk to about it. You can’t have me – not like that – but you can learn. Look, you’re not just an old man – you’re a young man, or you’re a baby, or you haven’t even been conceived yet – don’t you get it?’
‘I do, really, but I was thinking – what about the fact that I never had a proper job in my life? What about the fact that I hardly had a close friend all my life? What about the fact that I hardly spoke to my father the last ten years of his life? Don’t we need to think about some of that?’
Now I’m beginning to choke up but I get myself under control. She contemplates me a while.
‘We can talk about those things, absolutely’ she says softly, ‘but tell me this – when you look back on your life, which do you regret most – the fact that you never had a decent job or the fact that you never had a proper girlfriend?’
She stares at me seriously for a while. A voice in my head insists that the lack of a girlfriend was trivial, irrelevant, whereas the unemployment was like mortal sin. It’s my dad’s voice. That’s why I couldn’t face him all that time.
‘It’s not just about sex anyway’ she says eventually. ‘I’m not saying all you need is a damn good fuck. What I’m saying is you need the love of a good woman. Which, if you remember is exactly what you said you wanted at the start.’
‘I was being flippant.’
‘No you weren’t.’

We sit for a while after that – regrouping.
‘How was it with your parents in the end?’ she asks conversationally.
‘I don’t know if I do want to talk about it actually, to be honest.’
‘You did tell me your dad was made redundant.’
‘Yes, when they privatised the parks and gardens department – put it up for “compulsory competitive tendering”.’
‘How did he react to that?’
‘Hard to tell with him. None of the landscapers that took over would employ him – said he was too old.’
‘What did he do?’
‘The last job he had was on the checkouts at the local superstore.’
‘That must have been humiliating for him.’
I shrug. If it was he really didn’t show it. Not to me anyway.
‘I went to the shop a couple of times – I watched him. He always had this diffident, courteous, slightly subservient way about him. I watched him methodically packing people’s bags, so precise and efficient and it was like watching him handle his plants, taking care not to crush the roots, bruise the leaves – because you know, usually if you let the staff pack your bags it all goes in any old how. I watched him – he took such pride over it. He didn’t say much, just, you know, polite, time of day stuff. It was pathetic.’
‘Pathetic? How?’
‘That they’d reduced him to that and he just put up with it. He could have been head gardener at some big country estate, he had that much knowledge and experience and he was so diligent and conscientious and they just took advantage because he wouldn’t put himself forward.’ Now I am near tears. I look up at her.
‘You don’t think perhaps he was content to be that way?’
‘I think he accepted it. Well, he accepted the menial work. The most angry I saw him was when they made him prune the Elaeagnus when it was in full flower simply because it fitted in with their maintenance schedule. I don’t think he ever accepted people’s attitudes but he never did anything about it. He always looked bruised – like a dog. You know he really reminded me of one of those sorry looking dogs that always look like they might get kicked any moment.’
‘That’s a sad image.’
‘Hmm...’ I say, noncommittally. It really is, but I can’t show it.
‘What was your mum doing all this time?’
‘God, she worked until she dropped, almost literally. They died within a couple of years of each other.’
‘How do you think she felt about your dad?’
‘At the end they were quite close I think. He had some sort of a breakdown, a seizure or something. Then he had to stay at home, and mum and Justine and I took turns keeping an eye on him. I remember the day we suddenly realised... It was very odd.’
‘Go on...’
‘All his life he’d been into these alpine plants – these ridiculous tiny plants that are so ill suited to growing in the UK you couldn’t even go away for forty-eight hours in case they keeled over and he was out there every day, with his tweezers and his badger hair paintbrush in this special alpine house he’s got, and he’s got his magnifying glass and a torch strapped to his head and he’s peering at these plants that look like little green blobs in their pots, and he’s teasing out dead leaves which might rot and brushing away aphids and it’s unbelievable. He got prizes for his Dionysias.’
‘Which are?’
‘These tiny crevice plants – come from somewhere in the Middle East – little green mounds, in gravel, in a pot, and if they get too damp at the wrong time, or slightly the wrong watering that’s it. Game over.’
‘Do they have flowers?’
‘Oh yes, if you get it right, they absolutely cover themselves in little pink or yellow flowers. You can’t see the leaves, if you get it right.’
‘And he did?’
‘Absolutely. Drove my mum nuts. It meant they couldn’t go away on holiday at all. She was doing quite well financially and she wanted to travel, but no, we had to stay home in case one of his prize Dionysias got a chill or something.’
‘Couldn’t she go on her own? Or couldn’t you take over, do the watering or whatever?’
‘Yes, that’s exactly what she did, and no, he didn’t trust me, or anyone for that matter. Miserable old git.’
‘Seems like a funny name for such a feeble plant’ she muses. ‘Dionysus – god of robust over indulgence.’
I smile. That’s my girl. ‘I did mention it once or twice.’
‘Not amused?’
‘I think they might have been named after a Turkish botanist or some such.’
‘It’s still funny.’
‘Not to him.’
‘Anyway, you were saying...’
‘Yes. It was weird.’
I very rarely miss my dad. I look about the room and wait for a feeling about him to materialise – sadness, loss, anger? But no. I seem to have frightened it off again, but I know it’s there – a little lost yearning at the edge of my consciousness.
‘Well, after he couldn’t get about so easily he gave away his collection and went in for easier stuff, rare bulbs and things, but I don’t think his heart was in it. It was always hard to tell with him. And then one day... he’d been retired for a few months I think. I hadn’t been round there for a while...
Anyway one day he came home and he said to mum “I’ve bought you a little toy windmill.”’
I have to stop for a moment there, look about the room, think what to say next. Such a stupid thing…
‘It was just some cheap ornament from the garden centre – painted white, with little wooden peg people on the balcony. The sails were supposed to go around in the wind I think. We all just sort of looked at it and then at each other and tried to say something helpful. He took it down the garden and set it among his precious alpine plants on the rockery. He never would have let anything like that in his garden normally. He wouldn’t let mum have so much as a bird table...’
I look away toward the door. I remember he looked so happy that day. Poor old sod.
After a while I realise I haven’t said anything for a while and Andrea is waiting for me to go on. I find myself leaning forward, my hands covering my nose and mouth. I make myself lean back and keep my hands in my lap and try to look normal.
‘Gabriel?’
‘Hm?’
‘What happened next?’
‘Er, well... we all just stood around, watching him trying to get the bloody thing to stand upright in the mud. I remember mum going out to help him, which was not like her at all. Eventually she had to come in and leave him to it. He was still fiddling with it at midnight and she just came in and sat down and wept. I’d never seen her cry...’
I look out of the window. I feel sort of dull – stupid – can’t get my thoughts in order. Andrea is watching me, waiting. The sky is clearing. Perhaps I’ll go up and sit outside later on.

‘It sounds like it might have been a brain tumour of some sort’ she says after a while.
‘That’s what they said.’
‘What happened in the end?’
‘Some sort of stroke I believe. It was quick at least. I wasn’t there.’
‘And you never really talked to each other?’
‘No...’ I look around, feeling a bit lost. ‘Men didn’t though, did they, not his generation.’
‘What would you have liked to have said?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t think of anything. I’ve thought about it so much but there’s nothing I can think of.’ I sit quietly for a time, thinking about him. She watches me. It’s getting dark outside. I can hear the others going through for dinner.
‘Andrea.’
‘Yes Gabriel?’
‘You know, it seems to me that so much of what parents say about their children is about pride. It’s all about being proud of what their children have achieved, what they’ve done with their lives. But what if they’re not proud of them? What if their children got everything wrong? What if they didn’t do anything to be proud of? What then? Is it ok for the parents to not have anything much to do with their children?’
She looks at me for a moment. ‘I don’t think so’ she says. ‘They’d still love their children.’
‘So they say, but if they have nothing to say, don’t particularly want to do anything with them – or they just do their duty – then what does this “love” actually mean? It might as well not exist surely. It makes no difference.’
‘I think love always makes a difference’ she says finally. ‘Come on, it’s dinner time...’
I stand to go but wait to let her go first. I think we’ve got maybe a couple more sessions together. I can’t tell if she is looking away deliberately as she passes.

I went up on deck and looked at the view, then up into the bows and looked at the waves parting and at the dolphins that were not dolphins but something else, something more primitive, surfing. How do they move like that, with no apparent effort? I went down to the bar but didn’t fancy anything to eat. I saw the others by the window but I didn’t go over. I went to the library and then the games room but there was nothing I wanted to do so I went back to my cabin and had a lie down.

When I awoke it was dark and all I could hear was the water outside. I guessed everyone must be asleep. I lay there naked and couldn’t even summon up a decent erection.
‘Love’ I thought.
I didn’t even know what the word meant. ‘Dependence’ I thought. Dependence and desperation. Lust and loneliness, and dreams that bear no relation to actual people whatsoever. I had been infatuated almost all my life, obsessed, possessive, jealous, depressed, and then lonely. Once you take all that away what’s left?
People I hung out with back in the 90s used to go on about love. I don’t know what they thought they were talking about. The Second Summer of Love they called it but the people I knew who went on about it the most were among the most self-serving, self-indulgent, self-obsessed people I ever met. It suited them to use the word because it specified no particular action or effort on their part, save a kiss and a cuddle – it was a handy password excusing all transgressions. Once you’d told someone loved them you didn’t have to try so hard. That was how it looked to me anyway.
And my parents... What did they think it meant? Did they even mention it? I don’t think so, but then parents didn’t back then. Hippy parents said it all the time. Their children were like tiny dinosaurs on the rampage, trashing everything they encountered – generosity, tenderness, treats – snatched or dismissed with scorn or spite. And yet their parents said they ‘loved’ them. So that was alright.
And yet what would I not have done to have someone I loved tell me they loved me too?
I can’t begin to imagine.

Journey XI – Revelations

In the morning she comes in with coffee and croissants and jam and cheese, and sits with me in bed. We eat, we make small talk, we don't look at each other. This is not like us.
‘Gabriel’ she says when all the food is gone. ‘I can’t come with you yet. No, let me finish, please.’ She pauses, fiddling with the tie of her kimono. ‘I’m not sure you’re wrong, about this place. I don’t know.’
‘I just don’t get why you want to stay here’ I say. ‘It’s not like you really fit in. It’s just.... I don’t get it. What’s keeping you here? Really, I mean it Sophie.’
‘Don’t shout at me.’
‘I’m not... Ok. Sorry.’ I stand naked and impotent at the bottom of the bed. I can’t bear being here and I can’t leave her here alone. She looks away. Why doesn’t she get it? She understands everything else so well.
‘I have to stay a bit longer’ she says, almost silently. I half form the word ‘why’ but she shushes me. ‘I have to get through this. You don’t understand, I know.’
‘Explain it to me then.’
‘I will.’
‘But when?’
‘Now, if you’ll give me the chance.’

She looks out of the window and pulls the duvet up to cover her breasts. I sit down near her and reach out but she draws back. ‘Let me think for a while will you?’ she says quietly.
We sit for what seems like half an hour and then I go and make more coffee.
When I hand her the cup she cradles it close, as if she needs all the warmth she can get. She looks hunched, like an old lady in constant pain.
‘When we got off the boat...’ she begins, ‘When we first got off the boat we didn't know where we were supposed to be. We couldn’t find our guide. It was getting dark. I ended up wandering around this dead town on my own. Hmm...’ She stops and sips her coffee. ‘No, what you need to understand is... My parents, they weren’t abusive or anything... well, I suppose they were, technically, but they never... anyway, my point is, by the time I died, I didn’t believe in their religion, not really. But when I arrived here, alone, I just thought it was where they said I’d end up. I thought I was in Hell. The boat was like being in Limbo and this was like Hell. And I was expecting it, no, more than that, I deserved it.’
‘Hang on. What had you ever done to deserve going to Hell? That makes no sense Sophie.’
‘You don’t know me’ she says simply, and I have to admit she’s right, I don’t, hardly at all.
She says ‘None of this makes sense, don’t you see? None of it – the boat, the landscape, the people. Why shouldn’t it be called Hell?’
‘Ok, call it Hell. But what did you do to deserve it?’
‘Nothing. I don’t think I did anything to deserve it.’
‘Well then.’
‘No. You don’t understand. It doesn’t matter what I think or what you think. It’s not a matter of personal opinion. You go to Hell for breaking the rules. God’s rules. I broke the rules, ok Gabriel? I broke God’s rules and now I’m in Hell.’
‘But you don’t believe in all that stuff. You told me.’
‘I don’t think it’s literally true, no. And yet here we are – getting hacked to pieces for fun apparently, according to you.’
We take a little time to sip our coffee. I stand in the window and look across at the houses opposite. Are they in there, the demons? Are they listening to all this I wonder? I bet they are, and having a good old laugh at us too.
‘Gabriel’ she says softly and pats the bed beside her. I go and sit down. She strokes my arm. I try to look implacable.
‘You want to know what I did?’ I nod. ‘It’ll seem silly to you.’
She lies back hugging her pillow and breathes out.
‘I had my tubes tied’ she says. ‘Sterilisation.’
‘What? That’s it? You’re consigned Hell because...’
‘Because I didn’t want any more children.’
It takes a while for me to be sure I haven’t missed something. It seems ridiculous. I can’t believe that’s it.
‘You don’t understand how serious that is’ she continues, ‘in my family. It means I wanted sex – just for pleasure. I don’t think, unless you knew them, that you could understand how completely and utterly and absolutely despicable that would be to my mum and dad. Totally obscene. As bad as an abortion. As bad as if I’d taken one of my own babies and slaughtered it in the kitchen along with the Sunday chicken.’
‘But it’s not against the rules. You were married. I don’t understand.’
‘I can’t explain. It’s not about The Bible. It’s about... It’s about my mum and dad. It’s like there’s all these babies out there – little innocent souls waiting to be born. And I’m rejecting them – flushing them away like excrement. Oh, I knew they were wrong – rationally, logically, I knew that. I don’t really know how I knew but I did. When I was younger... When I was a girl... I don’t know... I mean, I knew what sex was. Kids do I suppose, at some level. They experiment. They play with themselves. And as I got older I couldn’t see why it was so bad. But that’s not how I was brought up. I can’t explain it. It’s like they’re all in my head, this trinity - the father going “Sophie, you’ll be damned to hell, you even think about it!” and then there’s the child, little me, furious at the unfairness of it all. And then there’s this ghost – my spirit, my reason, me as a grown-up, pleading with them – going “Its ok Sophie. It doesn’t matter.” But she just can’t hear my voice over the screaming.’
She looks around the room. Her eyes glisten and I want to hold her in my arms again, like before.
‘It’s exhausting’ she adds after a while, ‘fighting all the time. I don’t think you can really know what it’s like to grow up in a house where there is absolutely no compromise, where there are absolutely no other points of view. It didn’t matter what I read later on – Freud, Greer, Masters and Johnson... There were just all those years and me just thinking “What the hell’s wrong with me?” Apparently Florence Nightingale had the same problem – couldn’t stop playing with herself. How about that? It didn’t make me feel any better though. I knew all this stuff but I just felt so guilty all the time. I thought I must be a sex maniac. You must think I’m a sex maniac.’
I shake my head but have to admit it has crossed my mind.
‘I had so many punishments... Oh nothing weird. I got beaten a few times, locked in my room, made to do extra chores, that sort of thing, but the thing was their disapproval. That was the worst. They were everything to me, my mum and dad. I loved them, I really did, but I couldn’t work out why I couldn’t stop doing it. I hated disappointing them. You have no idea what it’s like – your whole family, all your brothers and sisters, lined up on their knees praying for you because you’ve been caught with wet knickers again. You’ll have noticed my little... er...’
‘Squirt?’
‘Ha, yes. My little squirt. It’s hard to hide. Mum told me “Sophie, it’s God’s way of making it so you can’t hide your sins.” Didn’t work of course. I just did it sitting on the loo.’
She slumps back, wondering at her own story. She doesn’t seem angry, just bewildered.
‘So then I met Doug and I just thought – Great! Now we can do it whenever we want. I hadn’t thought about getting pregnant and having a load more kids to look after, but anyway Doug wasn't that keen on having sex with me. He told me I should “exhibit more self control” and it wasn’t “decent”. He just liked to get it over with without me getting too ‘excited’ so I went back to my old ways. Just a couple of times a week, down the allotment, in the shed, but I thought, well what the hell? I’ve done it now. There’s no going back.’
She shrugs and looks away, shivers a little and rubs her exposed upper arms. It’s getting chilly. I offer her a cardigan and she takes it and puts it on.
‘Of course’ she says, ‘now I understand I was just a fairly normal woman with a crappy sex life, but at the time it was like they were all watching me, with that look on their faces. I can’t describe it...’
‘Contempt, disappointment, embarrassment.’
‘Exactly’ she says, pleasantly surprised. She smiles for the first time since the story started. ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about don’t you. Hah! How about that? So, anyway... Then I had the op. I was nearly fifty. I made an appointment and went and had it done. They didn’t know, my family. I didn’t tell them. But there was a complication... So here I am – divine retribution.’

We sit silently for a time, watching the darkness close in once more outside.
‘I still don’t get why you have to stay here’ I say.
‘I don’t really either’ she admits, smiling feebly. ‘It’s just a thing I have to do.’
‘Like a penance.’
‘More like an I told you so. I honestly don’t know Gabriel. There’s just something I have to do here. There was something the guide said on the boat... I was so depressed and confused and scared back then. I couldn’t think straight. I thought – what will I do if I go back? What can a ten year old girl do to change the rest of her life? Wherever I go, whatever happens, I’ll be like this. I was ready to jump over the side, I can tell you. Then she told me – she said “I can’t promise anything but things that happen to you here can change everything.” You carry them with you – like an alternate version. There’s a freedom here. Do you see? It’s about fighting your demons. Maybe that’s it – that’s what you’ve been seeing – people’s demons. Maybe it’s time we all stood up to them. Then when I get to thirteen next time I’ll be ready. I’ll know they’re talking out of their arses and I’ll be able to tell them so.’ She grins mischievously. ‘Or more likely I’ll just smile sweetly and say “Yes Daddy. Whatever you say Daddy” like a good little girl, because I’ll know better. Honestly, when there’s so much torture and death in the world, you’d think the religious would have something better to bang on about besides sex. It’s idiotic. I’m quite sure God would agree with me if He existed. Jesus definitely would.’
I sit down in the wicker chair in the window. It’s totally dark now. I look at my hands. She can see I’m not satisfied with her explanation.
‘And I’ve had your love here too’ she says softly. ‘I’ll carry that with me, and I’ll look for you when I get back. And when you find me you’ll know I was right won’t you. Hm?’
My tears are coming again. I can’t stand this.
‘I just need to do my time ok?’
‘But how much time?’
‘I don’t know. But I do know I can’t just leave because you want me to. Do you see that? It has to be when I’m ready. And you can’t stay, just to look after me. I have to do this on my own now. Do you understand?’
‘I suppose so. No not really...’

She comes over, puts her arms around me again and rests her head on my shoulder.
‘I’ll be ok. I promise’ she whispers.
‘But, how can you?’
‘Please Gabriel.’
I try again to say something. ‘Ssh’ she says gently, her finger to my lips. ‘I know you’re afraid for me, and I will be extra careful. I promise. I won’t be alone...’
I sit back, utterly miserable.
‘I didn’t mean like that’ she says, unconvincingly I think. She pulls me against her and I allow her to half hug me. ‘I’ll make sure I always have friends around, and not go out alone at night. I didn’t used to before anyway. I think... Well, whatever. I’ll be ok, and I will leave. I will come after you. We will meet again, in life, I promise’ and she kisses me hard on the mouth and I turn and hold her tight. We both know it won’t be as easy as that but she finds a piece of paper and writes - Palace Pier, Brighton, June 21st, 2000, three in the afternoon, by the doughnut stand. She folds the paper up and puts it in my bag, grabs my face in both hands and kisses me hard again. ‘Now you have to go’ she says. ‘Talk to James and the others. Go!’ she says, smacking my arse as I roll off the bed.
It took a while. I had to find my clothes and things and I found other excuses not to leave, and we cuddled and kissed a few more times. I told her to be careful so many times it got ridiculous, but eventually I went through the door and down the stairs and out down the street.

The hostel was exactly as I’d left it and James and Liam and some of the others were there. I told them I was leaving town, so if they wanted to come...

Voyage XIV – Kids today

Today is quite stormy out and the ship is rolling somewhat. I’m told it’s not possible to be seasick here (or any other sort of sick) but Liz is making a fuss anyway and Harry is taking the opportunity to show what a big man he is by comforting her and taking the piss out of her more-or-less equally.
‘Anyway, how old were you?’ he says turning unexpectedly to me. Apparently it’s been a subject for debate in my absence. I shrug, trying to smile enigmatically. I’m not telling them, not after what Lucy said. I’ll let them guess.
‘What do you reckon Ray?’
Ray shrugs. Solly pretends not to have heard. He looks at his cards and takes a sip of his drink. Harry squints at me.
‘Eighteen’ he says at last and I’m disappointed that it’s so obvious. I don’t confirm his guess but he takes it that he’s guessed correctly anyway.
‘What was it then? Some sort of accident?’ Again I see Liz flinch and look away. I shake my head. ‘Suicide?’ he says loudly. I look away but I can feel him looking at me. ‘Got no fucking time for them. Fucking loser’s way out. Have to learn to fucking face up to life like the rest of us. You’re not going to tell us then? How you did it?’
‘It was exposure’ I say quietly. ‘I died of exposure.’
‘You what? Exposure? How’d you manage that?’
I don’t answer. He goes back to his cards, still muttering about suicides. I decide to say something anyway. What’s the worst that can happen?
‘I do think people should be free to decide if they don’t want to live any more’ I say, as inoffensively as I can.
For some reason there is very little reaction. I’m slightly disappointed.
‘What about their mums and dads?’ he says quietly, looking from his hand to the cards on the table and back again over and over again.
‘Well, if they’ve tried their hardest... if there doesn’t seem to be...’
‘You think it’s alright to top yourself’ he says, still not looking up.
I look around at the others. Brenda is the only one looking at me. I can’t tell what she’s thinking.
‘I’m not saying it’s alright’ I say. ‘I’m just saying maybe, sometimes it’s understandable.’
I notice Liz is crying again. Solly’s expression tells me I should have known to expect this.
‘What, even if it breaks his poor mother’s heart? It’s understandable is it?’
‘If he’s that unhappy... and there’s no way...’
‘How can you be so insensitive?’ he says putting his cards down and looking down at his wife. ‘You alright love? Can I get you anything?’
Liz shakes her head and we play quietly for a while.
‘Kids’ says Harry cheerfully, flicking a card neatly onto the pile ‘Who’d have them? Not like it was in our day is it love?’ Liz, still facing away from us, shakes her head.
‘I can’t keep up with it’ says Ray.
‘You were a teddy boy weren’t you saying Ray?’ asks Brenda.
‘I was. Well, you knew what was what in those days. Not like now.’
‘Punks and Rude Boys. What’s that when it’s at home?’ says Solly.
‘New Romantics...’ adds Ray.
‘Bunch of poofs’ adds Harry, predictably.
‘And that music they listen to – fucking racket some of it. You see them on Top of the Pops, can’t even sing most of them.’
‘Can’t even play their instruments. I reckon, put them up against Buddy Holly...’
‘Roy Orbison.’
‘He could play...’
‘The Shadows. Not that nancy-boy Cliff Richards though.’
‘Ooh I used to like Cliff’ says Liz and she starts to sing ‘We’re all going on a... Summer holiday’.
‘Cut it out I’m trying to concentrate here’ says Harry, shrugging her off. ‘You seem to have got over your sea-sickness remarkably quickly.’
I watch her wonder if it would be too obvious if she tries to look sick again. She decides against it. She wasn’t getting much sympathy anyway.
‘What I don’t get, right, is that Boy George’ says Solly. ‘I thought it was a girl at first. I didn’t half feel like a plonker.’
I can see none of them feel comfortable with this image and they all look at their cards.
‘What about Adam Ant?’ says Ray, ‘What’s that supposed to be?’
‘Let’s ask Gabriel’ says Solly. I knew this was coming. ‘Hey, Gabriel. What do you make of all this new romantic stuff?’
I see Harry lining himself up to enjoy himself at my expense. I can’t think of a way out. I try to look like I’m thinking about it.
‘Do you like Adam Ant Gabriel?’ says Harry, asking as suggestively as he can.
‘Some of it. I quite liked their second album.’
‘What’s your favourite song?’ says Solly.
I avoid their gazes. I know they’re not even slightly interested in Adam and the Ants. I know this is a wind-up. I cast my mind back. All the titles sound stupid anyway – Ant Music, Ant Invasion, Prince Charming. I liked Killer in the Home best.
‘I don’t know’ I say casually. ‘I wasn’t that into them to be honest.’
‘So who did you like?’ says Solly. ‘Seriously, I’m interested.’
I don’t trust him but I give them a list anyway ‘Talking Heads, The Specials, Ian Dury, The Cure, Bowie of course...’
‘I liked David Bowie’ says Brenda. ‘What was that one – Major Tom to ground control?’
‘Space Oddity’ I say, knowledgeably. I didn’t like that one so much but I humour her, trying to keep on her good side.
We sit and play a bit more. I actually have a good hand. I feel a win coming on perhaps.
‘It’s not like the old days is it though’ says Ray. ‘You can’t dance to it can you, or sing along?’ and he starts into Only the Lonely with lots of exaggerated yodelling. People turn and look. He pretends not to notice, rearranging his cards. Then Solly leans in and starts singing too. It’s very embarrassing.

After they’ve finished (and got a small round of applause from a group near the bar) Ray says ‘Well, at least we knew how to have a good time, didn’t we Sol’ and I assume that’s today’s lesson over but I assume wrong.
‘Fucking kids today’ says Harry ‘Don’t know nothing. That fucking David Bowie’s queer too.’
‘He’s not’ says Brenda, aghast ‘Is he?’
I nod. ‘Bisexual’ I say, and I know I’m asking for trouble.

‘What’s that mean?’ says Harry.
‘You know, AC-DC’ explains Liz out the side of her mouth, nudging him with her elbow. He doesn’t react, just carries on rearranging his cards. There’s still time to get out. I just need an excuse.
‘Talking of kids’ he says, laying his cards down and glancing at me, ‘our youngest... Sodding waste of time. Let us down twice he did – I won’t tell you what with. I don’t want to embarrass Liz here...’

‘Stop it Harry’ she says quietly, stroking his arm pathetically.

‘I said if you want to do that sort of thing you can do it in someone else’s house, not under my roof. I told him didn’t I...’
‘Yes dear. You did’ she affirms, head bowed, tears beginning to fall, still stroking his arm. No one speaks. We sit and wait to see what comes next.
‘My eldest’s the same’ says Brenda. ‘He used to be such a lovely little boy. I don’t know where he gets it from.’
‘Gets it from the telly I expect’ says Ray, throwing his cards in, picking up his glass. ‘Not like in our day.’
‘Kids at school...’ says Brenda.
‘Fucking disgrace’ says Harry.
‘That’s the trouble with young people’ says Ray. ‘Think they know the lot just because they’ve been to college. I tell them – when you’ve been around as long as I have, then you can tell me how to run things and not before. Bloody out all night then they expect me to put up with them in the morning. It’s my house I tell them. If you don’t like it...’
‘But we used to get up to some tricks Ray, didn’t we’ says Solly, winking at me inexplicably. ‘We had some laughs.’
‘Not like now, all the blokes in makeup and green hair.’
‘We’d have decked them if they’d turned up looking like that.’
(This is weird actually. I’m fairly sure Ray and Solly never knew each other in life. I suppose it was all much the same wherever you went back then – teddy boys, mods and rockers. I might ask them about it another time.)
‘What I don’t get is why they want to fucking look like that. It’s ridiculous. Who’s going to fancy them looking like that, well, except other you-know-whats.’
‘Jamie had a nice girlfriend’ says Liz. ‘You remember Karen don’t you?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it. Go and do your mascara. You look like shit.’
We sit in silence for quite a while. It occurs to me that one of the reasons I’m not moving is because I want to know what’s going to happen, which surprises me.
Liz comes back and sits down. ‘All I was saying Harry, is that Jamie hadn’t changed that much...’ Harry glares across the table – not specifically at me, just generally. Liz strokes his shoulder ever so gently. ‘He’s still your son.’
Harry stands up explosively. Cards and drinks go everywhere. He holds his hand up as if to slap her but doesn’t for some reason.
‘I said I don’t want to talk about him’ he shouts down at her. ‘You got him admitted, you can deal with it. Right?’
‘But I can’t, not now, can I?’ she says, cowering defiantly.
‘Fucking waste of space’ he says and stomps off. Liz gives him thirty seconds and goes after him. I make my excuses and head out too. I note Lucy and the others are at a table not far away and have been listening. I give them a shrug and carry on to my cabin.
Once there I realise I feel incredibly angry. Why do people let him get away with it? I don’t understand it. And I wonder what happened to Jamie. What was he admitted for? Drugs? Mental illness? Attempted suicide? Being bisexual perhaps? I wouldn’t be surprised. Jamie has my sympathies. He’s better off without his father anyway, wherever he is.
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