Click to hear it as read on BBC Radio 4 by David Mildon
I would see my mother in tears almost every night. And it became her. She was never so fully herself as when run down. It was of course distressing for me, but as she sat bent over an occasional table, her forehead in her hands, weeping, I could sense, even then, that this was the natural posture of her soul. She ached for disappointment, the one emotion whose charms had been fully revealed to her, and she knew how to run with it.
My father was a cinema commissionaire. The sort of doorman or glorified attendant who is rare today, found occasionally at cabaret theatres or outside grand hotels, but has disappeared from cinemas altogether. Uniformed in a mauve military overcoat with gold aiguillette, white gloves, and peaked cap, he looked like some end-of-pier dictator. He had a paunch which inflated the coat to capacity, and my mother often had to re-sew the tin buttons that gave up the strain. The brocading was frayed; the gloves foxed at the fingertips. But she patched and darned and kept the whole show on the road despite her hatred of what it represented, namely the twenty-one pounds seven shillings.
Sometimes he bought my mother petty luxuries. A soap she liked, or a macaroon from a particular bakery. He did it out of spite. To remind her, and I suspect me, that happiness was his department, necessity hers. She would open the package then fly into a rage at his spending the money, and them with only twenty-one pounds seven shillings a week. She would point a finger across to me, which I would pretend to ignore, and ask how he was supposed to be raised on such a sum. Father got to call her an ungrateful sow. She would take her seat to begin the wailing, then only later, when composed, would she in an icy and fastidious tone call him something mesmerizing like an incubus.
We had perhaps ten books in the house, pride of place given to a two-volume dictionary bound in faux leather, which my mother studied in the afternoons to enlarge her vocabulary of insults. Father had no inkling of an incubus. The TV was on by then anyway.
He was a difficult man, but it is the difficult ones who seemingly, endlessly recharge our capacities for love. I did love him. He had been the jug-eared favoured child of his family, repeatedly assured of his talents and promise. That promise had made him bitter and frivolous in his adult abasement. With his sobbing wife, his near-silent son, his simple wage, his enduring dreams... He was the type to be a great gambler, losing mighty stakes with equanimity, merry even as the chips were raked from his reach. He could have been philosophical, if only he had not been weighed down by us, the bills, and the slight of his weekly envelope. As it was, his flourishes of generosity were simply acts of antagonism. Handing over that gift to my mother, like poisoning the well he himself would have to drink.
Mother too was a dreamer, but of a different sort. The sort that dreams not because the world is a fantasy, but because dreams glimpse a reality. They are a kind of catalogue we peruse on our way to the uplands, if only one had more about oneself than my father. Dreams of a better house. Better clothes. And yes, better soap. These are temporal dreams, dreams of a future, and have little to do with dropping a ton at roulette. And because she believed my father would never bring us close to Shangri-La, she was safe in disappointment. These failed attainments, those twenty-one pounds seven shillings, kept her well bedded in her sacred rancour.
I’m telling you all this for a reason. I am quite old to be unmarried. By now you might think I had no interest. It isn’t that. I have a job which has kept me immersed over the decades, and which has been very rewarding in both senses. There have of course been women along the way. Some eminently suitable, and a few far better than I might deserve.
Jill, little Jill. A teacher from Glasgow, come down South to give us the benefit of her reassuring good sense … and beauty. A real beauty, in fact. Idiosyncratic, blemishless, lush with a draping of black cherry curls. She had everything sewn up in life. I got the feeling I could only ever be a hazard to this. That feeling grew into a rush of anxiety that made me take her to some too-swanky restaurants. She had a real knack for making these places seem needless. There was no fun in the lengths I was going to, especially as it was all so unnecessary. She was already sold on me. My attempts to be a worthy supplement to her firm grasp on the world could only ruin things. I had mistaken her for my mother. Or perhaps more accurately, I had mistaken myself for my father. Our future died over those ten-course meals.
It’s funny what money can do, in your blind spots, at the edges. Its velocity can impact at the weirdest of angles, throwing a harsh light upon a subject, as it did with Jill and me. Our relationship looked far too awkward once I’d brought money into play. It’s a havoc that the serious romantic must forestall.
So. Internet dating …
A lot of the sites were clearly designed for the under-thirties. The garish typography, the endless questionnaires. Why do young people love so much to be interrogated? Only an idiot could have answered most of the questions. And what’s so important about my favourite food anyway? I’m not going to force-feed anyone.
They claimed to accept the full age range from eighteen to ninety-nine, but the middle-aged wretches who’d uploaded looked like strays into those predominantly youthful galleries. It’s a bad idea to look like a deliberate mistake on a webpage. I didn’t venture into the nonagenarians, but Christ knows what was happening in their corner of the internet. Favourite food: Complan, presumably.
A couple of companies specialized in the over-forties. Mostly it was like reading an inventory of left luggage: White. Reliable. Well-travelled. The photos were more palatable than on the younger sites. Less biologic, and rather more passport office, but at the same time it gave you the uneasy feeling of staring into the nineteen-fifties. All tailored jackets and thoroughly combed hair. A pictorial quiz on the last woman to be hanged.
Eventually I found what I was looking for. Platinum Partners specialised in connecting people from a common income bracket. Despite the pricelessly bad name, you did not have to be super-rich to apply. There were several revenue ranges to choose from, ensuring that you and your potential date shared an (admittedly comfortable) financial situation. No-one would be embarrassed. No-one would be contemptuous. Money’s light would fall on us harmoniously and without shadow. An even illumination for a potential liaison.
Jacqui Stanton. I called her Pru. She had her own business growing flowers in huge plastic tunnels by the North Circular. Maybe fifteen or so of those giant see-through stockings. Pruning Pru. She never once mentioned money. On our first date I thought I’d throw us in at the deep end. We went to La Coquille Brillante, a showboating eatery, or so the newspaper said, that tested your nerve by not even posting the prices. The gold leaf on the menu was hint enough of the pillaging to come. Shame crept over me. It was obscene. A dinner to herald the fall of an empire. I reminded myself that this was an experiment. A trial, by expense, of our suitability. Yes, dear reader, I did force feed her, in my way. And yes, we were even served my favourite animal. The poor little thing, surrounded by coulis, un-domed before me as if to some ravenously deranged potentate. At the end of the meal they brought coffee and macaroons. They were small and brightly coloured, and not, as my mother had loved, the large ones with a rice paper base. French. Not English. If only she had known …
As I paid, I made sure Pru caught a glimpse of the bill. She didn’t flinch. I took it as a sign. We had passed the test.
Five months in we’d become pretty close. We considered moving in together. Then … we just didn’t. Simple as that. It just never happened. From then on the relationship fed off its own lethargy until that ran dry. We went our separate ways, almost embarrassed to have found ourselves both, well, without motive. Pru and I were business people, and the uniform light of our success had rendered us rather two-dimensional characters even to ourselves.
Money. It finds a way.
To the surprise of my mother the cinema company offered my father a job abroad. They were opening a chain of theatres in Italy and wanted him to go over in an improved executive capacity. They reasoned that his long service had endowed him with some knowledge of the commissionaire business, and wanted him to pass the techniques on to their new recruits. He would be an instructor at a sort of induction school they had set up, teaching the Italians how to commissionaire in the hallowed English manner. Opening doors. Keeping lines. He didn’t ask my mother, he just told her that he was going. That mightily impressed me.
From then on they argued long distance. He would telephone on a crackly line once a month to inquire if she’d drawn the housekeeping. I spoke to him for the few seconds my mother would allow …
Are you well boy?
I’m well. Are you well?
I’m well son.
…before she whipped the receiver from me and slammed it down, decrying the expense of an international call.
He was supposed to be there for just seven months, touring the cinemas and checking customer service. Then something even more unexpected happened. The Englishman whom the company had posted as the assistant regional director over there had a breakdown. Something to do with Chianti they said; and my father was promoted to his position. Within the year his pay had increased dramatically.
Gradually the calls home stopped. Instead, packages would arrive from him by post. Parcels of sweetmeats and little bottles of strange liqueurs. Lace antimacassars, and fine linen napkins. I collected the Italian stamps while my mother sighed as she unwrapped the gifts, which always came without a note. Something had changed. She no longer got angry. A cheerless acceptance seemed to take hold of her. And it did not become her.
Father didn’t come home until the following December. Even then it was just for a couple of weeks. He looked so well. Slimmer, brighter. He could speak a few words of Italian. Not much, but even his simple phrases asking for coffee dazzled me more than my mother’s most recondite barbs. He drank the liqueurs that had been shelved unopened. He recounted the details of his rise in the company, and the pleasures of Roman life. Mother yawned and went to bed. To replace whittling my father she had developed a silent line in headaches.
But this phoney war couldn’t last, I was sure. I was dreading Christmas, the traditional time for my parents to throw down all gauntlets. I sat tense throughout the turkey lunch. A bigger turkey; much too big for the three of us; pregnant with the scene that was about to erupt. But nothing happened.
I played apprehensively with my new toys. Father had gone outside to smoke while mother cleared the table. She stood for a moment, plates in hand, watching him through the window. I thought, that’s it, he’s getting it the moment he comes in. But nothing happened.
Coming in, he switched on the TV, then began vigorously stoking our log fire. He took an armchair. I had butterflies.
Mother came in. She sat down the other side of the fire and pretended to watch TV. The news was on. It was something about Rangoon. After a few minutes my father got up and left the room. He came back with a small wrapped box and wordlessly handed it to my mother. She held it in one hand, as if weighing it. Then she undid the bow. She carefully prised the paper folds apart and unwrapped the gift. She opened the box, and took out a wallet.
She sighed.
I waited. There was a cyclone in Rangoon.
Then, my father spoke:
‘It’s real Italian leather. Finest quality. Calfskin.’
She didn’t react. She turned the wallet over in her hands.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
He leaned back in the armchair.
‘Thank you,’ she said again. ‘But you needn’t pretend it’s real leather. I know it’s not. But it’s very nice anyway.’
I tried to concentrate on my toys. It was hard, but I tried.
‘It is real leather. Luxury leather. Luxury leather from Italy.’
‘I can see it’s not. But don’t worry. Thank you.’
‘It is real leather.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
They both fell silent. I wondered if I could relax.
Then, my father leaned towards her.
‘I can prove it’s real leather,’ he said. ‘Give it to me.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Give it to me.’
With complete indifference she handed him the wallet.
‘If this wasn’t real leather … if it was plastic … if I put it on this fire, it would melt. But because it’s real leather it will burn like leather. Shall we see how it burns?’
‘It’s a nice wallet. It doesn’t matter that it’s not real leather.’
‘Let’s put it on the fire then. Let’s see.’
He extended his arm, and dropped the wallet onto the blazing coals.
For a while nothing happened. Then, it caught flame. I tried, I really tried not to look. Smoke began to rise, and a smell of burning hair seeped through the room.
‘You see. Leather.’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘It would appear it was leather.’
I felt sick.
For some minutes they remained turned to the fire, their impassive faces illuminated by the flames of the burning wallet. They watched in silence as it crinkled into something black and unnamable. As the flames receded my mother, her eyes still fixed on the embers, spoke.
‘I would,’ she said sotto voce, ‘I would, I believe, very much like to get a divorce.’
I looked to both of them. Father, I thought, gave an infinitesimal grin.
‘There was fifty quid,’ he said, ‘inside that wallet.’
(c) Joshan Esfandiari Martin, 2015
Joshan was born in Brighton, East Sussex. He is a writer and film director.
David Mildon is an actor and playwright and was a founding member of Liars' League. His stories “Worms’ Feast” and “Red” were performed here and appeared in Arachne Press anthologies London Lies and Weird Lies. His play The Flood was produced at the Hope Theatre Islington in 2014. His short play Second Skin was performed at Theatre 503 last month.
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