Pagan and her parents Page 6

  ‘The taste was Candida’s,’ I reply; ‘she always knew what she wanted.’ I remember the first house that we ever shared, in Maid’s Causeway, with the poster that you hung in the kitchen, ‘Life’s a bitch and so’s my mother’, and the effort it took to convince my mother that shared lodgings did not mean shared sentiments. She had been unhappy enough with my moving out of college and here I was, living not only in sin but in spite. ‘One day, she’ll be a mother herself,’ she said, ‘then she’ll understand.’ Pagan clicks her heels like castanets. Life’s a bitch and so’s your mother … ‘She always had good taste. It was innate.’

  Your mother eyes the portrait of you and Pagan above the chiffonier. ‘Would you say that photograph was in good taste?’

  ‘I think it’s beautiful. It was one of the last Candida ever took. She already found it hard, even with a tripod and an automatic shutter release. Added to which, Pagan found it impossible to keep still. She still does.’ Her heels click a fandango in reply.

  ‘With neither of them wearing anything but their birthday suits?’

  ‘What birthday suit?’ Pagan looks up. ‘It wasn’t my birthday.’ And I have to suppress my explanation of a woman so prudish that she has to clothe people even when they are naked, like a Mother Superior handing out bath-time smocks.

  Your father seems embarrassed, as if nudity is something for other men’s daughters. He asks instead about the awards.

  ‘Now they are bad taste, at least according to Candida. I never know whether it’s more ostentatious to dismiss them or to put them on display.’

  ‘There are far too many awards.’ Your mother asserts her own agenda. ‘They should give them to people who really deserve them, who devote their lives to charities, to the community, without any thought of reward. For thirty years I’ve worked for the St John Ambulance.’

  ‘You deserve a medal, Mother.’

  ‘I’ve got a medal; but I don’t expect to see it on television. I’ve no wish to be personal, of course; but all you do is ask questions, half of them are written by someone else.’

  You should try it, I want to say, as an American actor becomes obstreperous or a British actor obscene, as this week’s pop sensation refuses to stray from his press release or last week’s turns up stoned, or as the man with the biggest marrow in England and the man with the biggest leek in Wales pick a fight across a crowded couch. You try maintaining your integrity when you are only as big as your last celebrity and even the B-list guest-list has been over-exposed. You try sustaining your ratings through two shows a week thirty weeks a year, while critics carp about seeing the same old faces, of which the samest and oldest is yours. You try keeping your cool as the producer urges you in your earpiece ‘to crucify the bastard’ and you repeat it in front of five million viewers because you are so keyed up that the words go straight from ear to mouth without stopping off at the brain.

  ‘Actually,’ is all I say, ‘I do write my own questions and, if you read half the pundits, you’d know that they’re pretentious and fawning.’

  ‘We don’t read gossip in papers,’ your father says.

  ‘We don’t watch gossip on television,’ your mother says, handing me her cup as though it were a bottle marked ‘Drink me’. ‘We’re very sparing about our viewing … David Attenborough, Joan Bakewell.’

  ‘Mother likes the Antiques Roadshow.’

  ‘I’m afraid we don’t watch you.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘But my cleaning woman keeps me in touch.’

  The tick of the clock replaces conversation, in a tone that sounds as if each second is ticking off the next. We sit at a loss. I am amazed to see your mother actually twiddling her thumbs. Pagan reaches for another cake.

  ‘My, what an appetite,’ your mother says; ‘don’t you think you’ve had enough?’

  ‘No, or I wouldn’t take one.’

  ‘Don’t be rude, darling.’

  ‘She won’t eat her supper.’

  ‘Oh, we won’t be eating until much later,’ I explain, to my instant regret. ‘It’s Consuela’s night off, so I’m in the hot seat.’

  ‘We’re having chicken cooked in spit.’

  ‘On a spit, on a spit, darling.’ I laugh. ‘She enjoys the theatricality. It’s a major disappointment that Pancake Tuesday isn’t once a week.’ I laugh again, alone.

  ‘Children shouldn’t eat after six o’clock. It’s bad for the digestion.’

  ‘I don’t have digestion. So there!’ She sticks out a caky tongue at her.

  ‘Now stop it, Pagan. She’s nervous … showing off.’

  ‘Like mother like daughter,’ your father says.

  ‘If I were your mother, you wouldn’t behave like this.’

  ‘Well you’re not.’

  ‘I’m your granny. It’s the next best thing.’

  ‘No, it’s not; Leo is. Grannies are wolves in disguise.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No, it’s the other way round, darling; wolves are grannies. Little Red Riding Hood,’ I inform them. ‘Her favourite story.’ … You taught her well.

  We sit in silence, until your father asks: ‘Do you enjoy school, young lady?’

  ‘It’s alright.’

  ‘Do you play games?’

  ‘No, we work. I was in a play at Christmas.’

  ‘A nativity play?’ Your mother finds a redeeming feature.

  ‘It was about a garden. I was a bee with a yellow bottom.’

  ‘It’s a multi-faith school,’ I explain.

  ‘It’s a Christian country.’

  ‘It serves several embassies.’

  ‘Do you know the Lord’s Prayer, dear?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your mummy knew the Lord’s Prayer when she was much younger than you. She said it on her knees every night.’

  ‘Why her knees?’

  ‘So God would listen.’

  ‘My mummy didn’t believe in God. She used to cry. I expect it was because her knees hurt. Why were you so horrid to her?’

  ‘What? Have you told her that?’

  ‘I’ve told her nothing. I just tried to support Candida.’

  ‘She was such a gentle, accommodating little girl. Everybody loved her. But then she changed. Do you remember, Father?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She felt you never understood her; you never even tried.’ Is this true? Am I misrepresenting you? ‘She told me how you constantly expected gratitude for taking her in like a waif in a melodrama. You told her that she’d never given you a moment’s pleasure, as if she were a package holiday ruined by rain. She went to see you when she was pregnant with Pagan. You know what you said.’

  ‘It’s not true! She was a born liar.’

  ‘That’s when you gave up on her. That’s when your husband truly said “like mother like daughter”. Get rid of it, you told her. It!’ I point to Pagan.

  ‘Lies, lies, lies,’ your mother says triumphantly. ‘I would never have said it; I abhor abortion.’

  ‘Not abortion, adoption. That’s what you told her. Although in her experience it was almost the same.’

  ‘How can you spout such filth in front of a child?’

  ‘Because I know what Candida felt. I know how much she detested the thought of adoption. If she’d given up Pagan, it would have been for the dead.’

  Pagan herself approaches me, her feet curling inward, pained by so much vehemence in her name.

  ‘We tried to build bridges –’

  ‘I went to the hospital when the child was born –’

  ‘But she shunned us. We only learnt about the illness from her brother.’

  ‘She had her reasons.’

  ‘You can’t conceive how it feels to be barred from your own granddaughter. I thought of hiding across the road like a private detective.’

  ‘We’ve never so much as seen a picture of her.’

  ‘There was a photo-spread in Marie Claire.’ I bite my tongue.

  ‘She’s not a model; sh
e’s our own flesh and blood.’ I gasp; does she have any idea what she is saying?

  ‘Easy now, Mother,’ your father moves beside her, patting her hand clumsily, like a reluctant actor in a village hall. ‘We came here in good faith. You have no right to upset her. If only for the child’s sake.’ I fail to see the connection but appreciate the need for calm.

  ‘I can show you some pictures of me and Mummy.’ Pagan seems to connect their loss with her own, as she proposes to fetch the book that we are writing … for our own eyes only, don’t worry. It is one of Deborah’s aids for bereaved children. I haven’t mentioned it before because I know what you think of her theories. But, by putting together our reminiscences, we put back together our lives.

  ‘You’re honoured,’ I tell them as she leaves the room. ‘She hasn’t shown it to anyone; she says it’s just for us.’

  ‘We’re not anyone; we’re family,’ your mother replies.

  ‘I don’t see that there’s any need to be so hostile,’ your father says, ‘even if you do resent us.’ I am taken aback. ‘No doubt you people think it clever to mock genuine feelings. The family means nothing to you. I’ve seen you on television with your smiles and your eyebrows.’ I thought that they never watched. ‘Our friends say it’s an act, but we know better. Not content with turning our daughter against us, you’re now trying to do the same with our granddaughter.’

  ‘Now wait a minute, if there were any turning, it was the other way round. I went to a grammar school, remember; I didn’t have the advantage of public school alienation. I loved my parents; I still do. When I met Candida, I’d have described myself as a happy person. You could hear it when I sang. But she changed that. According to her, the only people who had happy childhoods were amnesiacs.’

  ‘Typical.’

  ‘She filled me with discontent as though it were philosophical speculation. You might say that I was easily influenced; I’d say I was insecure. But, for years, I believed that happiness meant superficiality and was as shameful as wearing white socks.’

  ‘And with that attitude you propose to bring up a child?’

  ‘It was her attitude, not mine. It must have come from somewhere.’

  ‘How I wish we’d never told her she was adopted. We didn’t have to; she need never have known. But you …’ your mother turns on your father; ‘for some reason you couldn’t wait.’

  ‘It was the book. You read the book.’

  ‘Until then she was like everyone else’s daughter: a carefree, ordinary little girl. But she was ours. Then it all changed. At five years old she became difficult. She made everything as secretive as her origins. I had to stop reading her fairy tales when I heard her telling a friend that I wasn’t her real mummy; I’d stolen her like a witch. She became a nuisance at school; her teachers complained. She was bullying other children, and worse. And all because of what it said in a book. Don’t talk to me about books. And, as she grew up, it got harder. We were never good enough. After all, if parents could choose their children, why shouldn’t children choose their parents? You’d have thought she were the Grand Duchess Anastasia! Normal girls dream of marrying princes; she dreamt of regaining her throne.’

  I begin to feel sorry for her with the sentimentality which you insist is a direct result of my sexuality, when Pagan returns, clasping the album in one hand and Susan in the other. As I effect introductions, your father questions her with all the expertise of thirty years of hiring matrons. Your mother seems more concerned with domestic arrangements; and I am convinced that she suspects us of conducting an affair. My mind – or rather hers – is full of lurid images: the consumptive wife coughing her last in white satin, while the would-be widower brutally seduces the downstairs maid. Has she no idea of our relationship? At least she can entertain no illusions about Pagan … as if illegitimacy were not punishment enough, you had to hit her with an unknown father.

  ‘What sort of man would take on another man’s child?’ she asks of me disparagingly.

  ‘A man like your husband,’ you reply.

  ‘There’s no comparison,’ she says.

  ‘There’s no comparison,’ you rush to reassure me. And, as I look at the trim little man with his broken-veined cheeks, handlebar moustache, honorary old-school tie and regimental blazer, his shoulders shaking from the strain of maintaining his military bearing, I trust that you are right. And yet, as he deflects my glance, I detect a fellow-furtiveness and feel sure that he takes secret Scandinavian lessons or keeps a cache of pornography underneath the seed-trays in his potting shed.

  Pagan thrusts the album on your mother’s knee and slowly turns the pages. ‘We’re writing this book for us… Leo and me. That’s my writing, look. I started doing each letter in a different colour. It took too long. It’s the story of Mummy’s life and we’re going to have it printed in case of thieves.’ … I mention desktop publishing. ‘Leo does most of the writing; but sometimes I help. And I do most of the remembering. Except from before I was born.’ She has lost her earlier reticence. ‘This is the beginning, when Mummy was a little girl.’ Your mother gasps.

  ‘You’ve cut us out,’ she shrieks at me. ‘These were taken at Giant’s Causeway; I remember the row over that skirt. But you’ve put her in the middle of strangers. You’ve cut us out of Candida’s childhood, just as you want to cut us out of hers.’

  ‘These are my pictures,’ Pagan insists and clasps the album protectively.

  ‘Tell him, Father. You took them. Your camera was never out of your hand. It was your skill she inherited.’

  ‘Observed perhaps, not inherited.’ My distinction sounds cruel. I explain that they are experiments: a technique of your own devising: an imaginary autobiography from your exhibition, The Camera Never Lies.

  ‘It’s all lies. Everything in this book, in this house, in your life is a lie.’

  ‘I’m sorry; it was thoughtless. I should have realised you wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Isn’t it Mummy?’ Pagan’s brow furrows.

  ‘No, not at all. We were with her. Your grandpa, me, your Uncle William. We were on holiday in Northern Ireland. These people are from magazines … She’s replaced us with people from magazines!’

  ‘That’s the point. It’s not deception but dreams. A touch of the Côte d’Azur in County Antrim.’

  ‘What sort of life can it be when she cuts out her own parents?’

  ‘She wanted to be her own parent just as she wanted to be Pagan’s … I think that may be why she never named the father, so that there would be no one to gainsay her. She chose to reinvent herself with her camera; it gave her authenticity. She longed for flesh and blood but felt that yours was fake and anaemic; so she went the other way and recreated herself in prints.’ I trust that I am not setting up another false image.

  ‘And you plan to publish this?’

  ‘Privately.’ I try to reassure them without disappointing Pagan.‘A handful of copies. For a few friends. Pagan’s mother has died. We have to find a way to accept it. Have you never heard of grief?’

  ‘You’re filling our granddaughter’s head with lies.’

  Pagan starts to cry. ‘It’s not lies; it’s my mummy’s stories. I tell Leo and he writes them down.’ She slams the album shut. ‘I’m not going to show you any more.’

  Susan takes Pagan’s hand. ‘Perhaps I should take her upstairs; she’s a little fractious.’

  ‘Yes,’ your father concurs. ‘It would make things easier. We have some serious business to discuss.’ I wonder if he means to ask for money. ‘I think it would be best. Little pitchers have big ears.’

  ‘I’m not a picture,’ Pagan protests; ‘I’m a person.’

  Susan tells her about old-fashioned words; and I agree to your father’s request. I promise – and warn – that I will only spare a few minutes. As I watch Pagan being led out, I am seized by a sense of betrayal.

  Your mother turns to me, pressing her curls into her cheeks as though to keep her face in place. ‘The last thing
we want is to make an enemy of you.’ I am confused by the change of tack. ‘Father and I are truly grateful for all that you’ve done. It can’t have been easy with Candida so ill for so long. You might have thought she’d have come to her parents; but no, we only even heard by chance … well, that’s water under the bridge. She preferred to call on a stranger.’

  ‘I was her closest friend.’

  ‘But you weren’t family. We’ve imposed on your good nature long enough.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that; I can think of pleasanter ways of spending an afternoon, but …’

  ‘I mean over the last six years.’

  I don’t … I don’t want to understand.

  ‘You’ve done very well for yourself,’ your father chips in, as though they are working to formula, the good and bad policemen … which of them has the more dangerous smile? ‘We never thought much of you when we came to Cambridge; always tagging along with Candida and the Standish boy. Half the time you seemed afraid to open your mouth.’ … Not for the words that might have come out but the vowels. ‘And yet you’ve turned the shyness into an asset. You put your guests at their ease; you make them feel at home.’

  ‘You make the viewer feel at home.’

  ‘The viewer is at home.’

  ‘You make him feel as if you’re at home with him. I admire that; it can’t come easily. It must take a lot of research, a lot of rehearsal.’

  ‘It’s under control.’

  ‘And your documentaries: we read that you prefer them to your show.’

  ‘Egotism, I’m afraid; they’re my baby.’

  ‘Last year’s Musical Christmas was a classic.’

  ‘We filmed in seventeen countries.’ I refuse to lower my guard.

  ‘So that’s how they spend our licence fee. Only joking, old man. How long did it take to make?’

  ‘Nine months on and off.’

  ‘It can’t leave much time for anything else.’

  ‘I can stagger my schedules. If I go abroad, I’ll take Pagan.’

  ‘What about school?’

  ‘In the holidays. I want her to have an informed view of the world. I didn’t leave England until I was seventeen.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to have held you back.’