Birthday (6 page)

Cancer seemed to be everywhere. His sister Margaret had died of it thirty years ago, and might still be alive if the doctor hadn't told her it was only backache. ‘It's nothing,' he said. ‘Pull yourself together, and take these tablets.' When she could stand the months of pain no longer he sent her for an X-ray. She didn't have a chance. You aren't grown-up if you think doctors know anything.

Jenny's husband lived donkey's years after having the guts crushed out of him by a slab of iron, and couldn't even die when it was the only thing he wanted, while other people fight every inch of the way, and it gets them just the same. Maybe Jane had been right to thumb her nose at the cancer. What he would have done in her place he didn't know, nor in Avril's now that she had got it, though he wanted her to beat it more than anything in the world. If it did get him he would take Jane's way out and say fuck you to God, let the disease do as it liked, the sooner the better, it would be quicker that way, because even though the doctors knew you were going to die they still had you tortured with chemotherapy.

Thank God Avril wasn't like Jane. He would stand by her whatever happened, because she didn't seem too bad at the moment and might well come through in the end. She looked more or less the same as anybody else on the street, making it hard to believe that she had such a thing, though doctors don't lie, with X-ray machines to prove what they see. She had it right enough, and it was no use thinking otherwise.

Basford Crossing went bump-bump under his wheels, but he didn't need to be reminded about the nightmare that had them by the throat. Everybody had their troubles, and we all have to die, tramps as well as emperors, but we want to put it off as long as we can. Even if we're old we don't want to say goodbye to all that we've sweated for.

Women live longer than men, so it was puzzling why Avril had got cancer and not him, though if he had any say in the matter he would gladly take it on himself. Cancer was eating her, and worry was eating him. She didn't worry, and he hadn't got cancer, which was strange if you weighed it up. Worry wasn't fatal but cancer nearly always was, though worry could lead to cancer if it went on for long and got too deep inside.

It was like roulette: as you crossed a busy road a double-decker missed you by inches, but while you were laughing at the fact that you were still alive cancer had dug its claws into your tripes when you were halfway over, and you hadn't noticed. Some illness or other was always lurking to get at you.

He wondered whether Avril pined after Fulham where she'd lived till she was eighteen, but she told him, and he had to believe her (because she was the sort who knew her own mind and would always speak the truth), that she was happy anywhere providing she loved the person she was with.

She had managed a factory canteen for over ten years, then got laid off when the place closed. Maybe that hadn't helped, but she knew the healthiest things to eat, planned all the meals for taste and goodness, so you couldn't say eating the wrong food had caused the cancer, otherwise why hadn't he got it as well? When you were young there either weren't mysteries or you were too busy living to let them matter, but as you got older they wouldn't be kept in place, and plagued your life.

A daughter from Avril's first marriage lived in London, and her son worked as a heating engineer at a brewery in Nottingham. The only other relation was her cousin Paul, the indispensable chief fitter at a factory, who kept all sorts of ailing machines going, a skilled job that paid good money. He'd been married to a woman called Adelaide, who had three kids from a previous marriage. After they'd had one of their own she went to work in the office of a place making bedspreads, and that was where the trouble started.

Paul was tall and thin, and as strong as an ox. He wore a little sandy coloured beard, and Arthur often wanted to reach out and pull the crumbs away, but didn't, as much for the crumbs' sake as Paul's, not wanting to deprive the refugee bread of its hiding place, or see Paul eat it when he handed it back to him.

Though Adelaide had married Paul for love, or so you had to suppose, she would never stop telling him that he was too rough in his ways ever to make her happy. Paul worshipped her, would do anything she asked, except remove his beard, or cotton on to the extent of looking more presentable. Maybe he had a screw loose, though he was clever with his hands and must have had a brain because of the job he did. Adelaide was a beautiful and personable woman, who told Paul time and time again that he just wasn't good enough for her; for which, Arthur thought, I would either have smacked her in the chops or sent her packing, probably both.

Paul only ever stopped working to sleep. He would come home in the evening from the factory, stuff a sandwich into his lantern jawed face (without washing his hands, Arthur supposed) then put in a few hours at a building site fixing machinery till midnight, all to coin extra money so that Adelaide could buy more pots of make-up and have something to spend at the hairdressers'. Arthur once called at the site to have a chat, and Paul was so tired he didn't notice him walking out with a bag of nuts and bolts, which he took back a few nights later, minus a dozen to fix some bookshelves.

Disaster to Paul's marriage happened when one of Arthur's workmates' wives, who had a job at the same place as Adelaide, told her husband she was being fucked stupid by one of the chief embroiderer's. Arthur's mate informed Arthur, who passed the information on to Avril who, Paul being her cousin, had to tell him about Adelaide's fling, thinking it only right that he should know, and that it was better to be honest because he could then sort out his marriage and go on living amicably with Adelaide, for the children's sake at least. Arthur had always said, even before learning about the affair, that sooner or later Adelaide would start doing it on her cousin. ‘And so would I,' he went on, ‘because he won't tidy himself up. A man's got to look good now and again in front of his wife, like I do for you.'

Avril laughed, but rewarded him with a kiss. ‘I know. You were always a smart dresser.'

Arthur couldn't understand why Paul's fingernails were rarely as clean as they should be, even when he wore a suit on Sundays. Personal cleanliness didn't cost anything, needed only ten minutes with soap, comb, nailbrush and flannel at the sink every evening. Even when Paul was dressed up as if he was going to Buckingham Palace to get a medal he looked grubby. He sniffed every few seconds as if an invisible turd swung back and forth under his nose. No wonder he'd never had another woman except Adelaide. No other woman would take him on, and Arthur couldn't understand why Adelaide had, unless she knew she'd be able to shit on him and get away with it more than with any other bloke. She wouldn't even have him in the same room, never mind in the same bed, after their first kid was born.

Paul was so turned over backwards when he learned about the affair that he could hardly speak to Adelaide. His face was the picture of dangerous humiliation. Arthur hoped he would never have to go through such trouble, had advised Avril not to tell him, but the matter was finally sorted out in their kitchen. Paul leaned against the sink, eyes more and more bloodshot as he tried to hold in his anger, cigarette ash spilling into his beard. Arthur, who had just made some tea, could see it coming, and it did.

Paul let rip, but kept his hands firmly together, calling her a treacherous slimy whore not fit to live with anybody. She was a bag of the first water who thought only about herself. She cared nothing for the kids and even less for him, who had been working like a slave to keep the ship afloat for the last five years. He said the same thing in different ways, over and over, on and on for a good ten minutes, till Adelaide went white because she hadn't heard so much talk from him, and certainly not of that sort, all the time they'd been together. She had been standing up during his silence, as if ready for a quick getaway should he try to smash her one, but now that he was talking, and wouldn't become violent, she felt able to sit down. She had to, though Arthur admired her coolness at asking Paul for a fag, which he gave her, and which got them talking with no more bad language or threat of murder. She promised to give up her boyfriend, though Arthur told Avril after they had gone out arm in arm that he didn't think she would.

He regretted his part as the bringer of bad tidings, because Paul, learning who they had come from, disliked him from then on. ‘He should have seen it as a favour,' Arthur said, ‘because what man wants to be kept in the dark when his wife's knocking on with somebody else? Still, I suppose it's the worst thing, to be a messenger who brings bad news, even if it's good news. They used to kill messengers in the olden days. I can just picture it. You see this bloke on a horse galloping over the horizon. He's got a spear waving from his side, and a couple of arrows in his back. He's in rags, he's covered in mud and shit, his arse is red raw from riding through deserts and swamps and mountains. After he hands his message to the king, who's sitting on a chair outside a big coloured tent, he can hardly stand up. The king knocks off a goblet of wine, then reads the message, which is probably about fuck-all. The messenger looks at him like a dog waiting for a pat on the head, but the king gives a nod to his favourite poncy thug, who's drinking a bottle of four star perfume, and when he finishes it, and after a good belch, he pushes a sword into the messenger's guts, and finishes the poor fucker off for all his trouble. Well, I wish I hadn't opened my trap now. I'll know better next time.'

Not long after the set-to in Avril's kitchen Adelaide dropped in on her moped at half past eight. It was pissing down, Arthur recalled, and she didn't say much, only stopped long enough for a cup of tea. As soon as she'd gone he turned to Avril: ‘You know what all that was about?'

‘I don't. What's your idea?'

‘Well, she didn't come to see us because she loves us, but so's she could have an alibi. She was spread out like a cushion on the chief embroiderer's table longer than she should have been.'

‘You think so?'

‘I know so. Now she can tell Paul she was with us instead of having it off in the office.'

‘I expect you're right. You usually are, you dirty-minded devil.'

‘He was fucking her arse off, you can bet. She's a right one, she is. She'd skin your prick like a banana.'

The embroiderer had a wife and two kids, so both families were broken up when they began living together. Adelaide left the kids with Paul, hoping, Arthur supposed, that they wouldn't grow up to be fitters in a factory. ‘It was probably the best thing she ever did for them,' Avril said.

‘Maybe, but I'd have tracked her down and dumped her three on the doorstep.'

From then on Paul worked his backbone to a string of conkers, double shifting as much as he could, to make sure the children wanted for nothing. In the end, seeing how he'd worked for them year after year, they respected him more than if he had been mother and father together.

‘The best part of it was,' Arthur told Brian, ‘that one of the kids was so smart at school he passed enough O-Levels and A-Levels (and probably every other level as well) to get through all the hurdles and qualify as a solicitor. He's got his own firm now, and you couldn't do better than that if you think of where he started. It must have been Adelaide's brains and Paul's example of hard work that got him there.' Paul encouraged and rewarded his talented son every stage of the way, at the same time getting what help he could from the system. He wasn't dim at all, only put on by a wife who thought she was too good for him. It must be a sign of the times that with brains you can get wherever you like, but the joke is that the solicitor son is now invited to all Adelaide's dinner parties, after Avril told her about his success when she saw her getting out of a big flash Volvo in Slab Square. Though Adelaide shows him off to her friends, she'll never include Paul in her list of guests. When I asked him what he thought about it, after we started talking to each other again, he said: ‘Why should I mind? It's got nothing to do with me. I don't want to know my ex-wife's friends. If I did go there, and met the one she ran off with, I'd murder him on the spot. I'm happy that my solicitor-son comes to see me now and again. We get on very well together.'

Arthur considered Paul to be one of the best, even though you rarely knew what was in his mind. No reason why you should, it was always best to keep your trap shut, only let people know what you wanted them to know, which was how he thought it should be for himself and everyone, if there was to be any peace in the world.

All the same, it would be hard to believe Paul didn't think any further than what he said or what he did, because everybody had something going through their heads. With most people you don't care one way or the other what it might be, since it can't be very interesting, and has nothing to do with you if it is, and if everybody told you what was in their minds you wouldn't be able to make up your own idea of what it was, which was half the fun of being alive.

Paul obviously thought more than most people, you'd be daft not to realize it, because he'd worked harder and done so much good in his life. If a wicked remark came into Paul's mind he would think long and good before letting it go, by which time he'd decide it wasn't worth saying, and would hold it in. But he was bound to have such thoughts, there being times when you can see the mechanism working. I couldn't have done half the good he's done, though certain it is that the more you talk the more you circle back to the start line, so it's best to say no more than you've got to, and keep any thoughts to yourself.

As for Basford Crossing, you can stuff the place, because the only thing that matters is that Avril's got cancer.

FOUR

When Brian parked his car some time ago he noticed that one of the streets he had grown up in had been wiped off the face of the earth. Served him right. That was the way it was. What else did you expect? When God said let there be light he painted it in, and then he painted it out. The same with the surface of cities. They needed clearing off and doing up every few decades.