What a Carve Up

Newspaper-columnist Hilary gets thousands for telling it like it is; Henry's turning hospitals into carparks; Roddy's selling art in return for sex; down on... »

Newspaper-columnist Hilary gets thousands for telling it like it is; Henry's turning hospitals into carparks; Roddy's selling art in return for sex; down on the farm Dorothy's squeezing every last pound from her livestock; Thomas is making a killing on the stock exchange; and Mark is selling arms to dictators. In fact the Winshaw family are getting richer and crueller by the day. But once Jonathan Coe's eccentric narrator Michael Owen uncovers their trail of greed, corruption and immoral doings throughout the '80s the time seems ripe for their comeuppance … 'A riveting social satire on the chattering and all powerful upper classes' Time Out Yuri was my one and only hero at this time. My parents would save every photograph from the magazines and newspapers, and I fixed them to the wall of my bedroom with drawing-pins. That wall has been re-papered now, but for many years after the pictures came down you could still see the pin marks, dotted into a random and fantastic pattern like so many stars. I knew that he had visited London recently: I had watched the scenes on television as he drove through streets lined with welcoming crowds. I had heard of his appearance at the Earl's Court exhibition, and the knowledge that he had shaken hands with hundreds of lucky children turned me hot with envy. Yet it had never occurred to me to ask my parents to take me there. A trip to London for my family would have been as bold and far-fetched a proposition as a trip to the moon itself. For my ninth birthday, however, my father proposed, if not a trip to the moon, then at least a tentative shot into the stratosphere in the form of a day's outing to Weston-super-Mare. I was promised a visit to the newly opened model railway and aquarium, and, if the weather was fine, a swim in the open-air pool. It was mid September: September 17th 1960 to be precise. My grandparents were invited on this trip as well - by which I mean my mother's parents, because we had nothing to do with my father's; had not even heard from them, in fact, for as long as I could remember, although I knew they were still alive. Perhaps my father himself secretly kept in contact; but I doubt it. It was never easy to know what he was feeling, and I couldn't say, even now, whether or not he missed them very much. He got on passably well with Grandma and Grandpa, in any case, and over the years had built up a quiet defensive wall against Grandpa's genial but consistent teasing. I think it was my mother who invited them along with us that day, probably without consulting him. All the same, there was no hint of a quarrel. My parents never quarrelled. He simply muttered something to the effect that he hoped they would sit in the back. But it was the women who sat in the back, of course, with me sandwiched in between. Grandpa sat in the passenger seat with a road atlas open on his knees and that distant, facetious smile which clearly announced that my father was in for a hard time. They had already been arguing about which car they should take. My grandparents' Volkswagen was old and unreliable but Grandpa never missed an opportunity to pour scorn on the British models which my father, who worked for a local engineering firm, had a small hand in designing and bought out of loyalty both to his employers and to his country. 'Fingers crossed,' said Grandpa, as my father reached for the ignition key. And when the car started first time: 'Wonders will never cease.' I had been given a travelling chess set for my birthday, so Grandma and I played a few games to while away the journey. Neither of us understood the rules at all, but we didn't like to admit this to each other and managed to get by with an improvisation that was something like a cross between draughts and table football. My mother, withdrawn and reflective as ever, merely stared out of the window: or perhaps she was listening to the conversation from the front of the car. 'What's the matter?' Grandpa was saying. 'Are you trying to conserve petrol or something?' My father took no notice of this. 'You can do fifty miles along here, you know,' he went on. 'It's a fifty-mile limit.' 'We don't want to get there too early. We're in no hurry.' 'Mind you, I suppose this old crock soon starts to rattle if you try going above forty-five. We want to get there in one piece, after all. Hang on, though, I think that bicycle behind us wants to overtake.' 'Look, Michael, cows!' said my mother, by way of diversion. 'Where?' 'In the field.' 'The boy's seen cows before,' said Grandpa. 'Leave him be. Can anybody hear a rattle?' Nobody could hear a rattle. 'I'm sure I can hear a rattle. Sounds like one of the fittings or something, coming loose.' He turned to my father. 'Which bit of this car was it that you designed? The ashtrays, wasn't it?' 'The steering column.' 'Look, Michael, sheep!' We parked at the sea front. The wisps of cloud streaking the sky made me think of candy floss, setting in motion a train of thought which led inevitably to a booth by the pier, where my grandparents bought me a huge pink ball of the glutinous ambrosia, and a stick of rock which I put by for later. Normally my father would have said something about the adverse effects - dental and psychological - of granting me such favours, but because it was my birthday he let it pass. I sat on a low wall overlooking the sea and gobbled the candy floss down, savouring the delicious tension between its unthinkable sweetness and the slightly prickly texture, until I got about three quarters of the way through and started to feel sick. It was quiet on the sea front. Cocooned in my own happiness, I wasn't paying much attention to the passers-by, but I have a hazy impression of respectful couples walking arm in arm, and of a few older people striding past more purposefully, dressed for church. 'I hope it wasn't a mistake,' whispered my mother, 'coming on a Sunday. It would be awful if nothing was open.' Grandpa treated my father to one of his more eloquent winks: in a moment it combined malicious sympathy with the amused recognition of a similar situation. 'Looks like she's dropped you in it again,' he said. 'Well, birthday boy,' said my mother, wiping my lips with a tissue. 'Where do you want to start?' We went to the aquarium first. It was probably a very good aquarium, but I have only the palest recollection: strange to think that my family schemed so hard to provide these entertainments, and yet it's their own unplanned words, their own thoughtless gestures and inflections, which have clung to my memory like flies caught on flypaper. I do know, anyway, that the sky was already starting to cloud over as we came out, and that a vigorous sea breeze made it difficult for my mother to enjoy the picnic which we shared on the Beach Lawns, our deck-chairs clustered in a semi-circle: I can still see her bounding off in pursuit of stray paper bags, struggling to distribute the sandwiches amid the wilful flap of their greaseproof wrapping. There were plenty left over, and she ended up offering them to the man who came to ask for money for our deck-chairs. (In common with the rest of their generation, my parents had the gift of getting into conversation with strangers without apparent difficulty. It was a gift I assumed I would one day grow into - once the shynesses of childhood and adolescence were behind me, perhaps - but it never happened, and I realize now that the easy sociability which they seemed to enjoy wherever they went had more to do with the times than with any special maturity of temperament.) 'Good bit of ham, this,' said the man, after taking an experimental bite. 'Mind you, I like a bit of mustard on it myself.' 'So do we,' said Grandpa. 'But his nibs won't have it.' 'She spoils him,' said Grandma, smiling in my direction. 'Spoils him something rotten.' I pretended not to hear, and stared so hard at the last piece of my mother's chocolate cake that she handed it to me without a word, putting a warning finger on my mouth in a mock display of conspiracy. It was my third piece. She never used ordinary cake-making chocolate: only real Dairy Milk. It was getting to the point where I didn't feel I could wait much longer for the promised swim, but she told me I would have to let my food settle first. Hoping to walk off my impatience, my father took me out to the sea, which was at low tide, with a grey expanse of muddy snad stretched almost to the horizon and a few dogged toddlers trotting out like fledgling explorers, a shrimping net in one hand and a reluctant parent in the other. We wandered pointlessly for about half an hour, and then at last we were allowed to go to the swimming pool. It wasn't very crowded. There were a few people lying or sitting on deck-chairs and sun-loungers next to the waters: the minority who had chosen to swim were doing so very vigorously, with much splashing and shouting. There was a confusion of different musics. Watery orchestral pieces leaked out over a tannoy system, but they were in competition with a number of transistor radios, playing everything from Cliff Richard to Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen. The water shimmered and sparkled irresistibly. I couldn't understand why people preferred to lie on their backs listening to the radio when faced with the prospect of such liquid happiness. My father and I emerged from the changing cubicles together: I thought he looked easily the strongest and most handsome man at the poolside that afternoon, but to my memory's eye our thin white bodies seem equally childlike and vulnerable. I ran ahead of him and stood at the water's edge, relishing a tiny but priceless moment of expectancy. After that I jumped; and after that, screamed. The pool was not heated. Why had we thought that it would be? A bolt of ice shot through me and at once I was numb with shock, but my first response - not only to the physical sensation but to the higher agony of pleasure anticipated and then denied - was to burst into tears. How long this continued I don't know. My father must have lifted me from the water; my mother must have run down from the spectators' gallery where she had been sitting with Grandma and Grandpa. Her arms were around me, everybody's eyes were upon me, and still I was inconsolable. They told me afterwards that it felt as though I would never stop crying. But somehow they got me changed, dressed and shepherded into an outside world which was by now dark with the threat of heavy rain. 'It's a disgrace,' Grandma was saying. She had given one of the pool attendants a piece of her mind, not something to be wished upon anybody. 'There ought to be a notice. Or a chart, telling you what the temperature is. We ought to write a letter.' 'Poor little lamb,' said my mother. I was still snivelling a little bit. 'Ted, why don't you run back to the car and fetch the umbrellas? Otherwise we're all going to catch our deaths. We'll wait for you here.' 'Here' was a bus shelter near the sea front. The four of us sat there listening to the rain hammering on the glass roof. Grandpa muttered 'Dear heart alive', and this - a sure sign that the day was taking a nose dive into disaster - was the cue for me to resume my wailing with twice the energy. When my father returned, carrying two umbrellas and a tightly folded plastic headscarf, my mother looked at him with silent panic; but he had clearly been giving the situation some thought and his resourceful suggestion was, 'Perhaps there's something on at the cinema.' The nearest and biggest was the Odeon, which was showing a film called The Naked Edge with Gary Cooper and Deborah Kerr. My parents took one look and hurried on, although I lingered yearningly, catching the exotic scent of forbidden pleasures in the title, and intrigued by a card which the cinema manager had placed in a prominent position beneath the poster: NO ONE, BUT NO ONE, WILL BE ADMITTED TO THE THEATRE DURING THE LAST THIRTEEN MINUTES OF THIS FILM. FLASHING RED LIGHT WILL WARN YOU. Grandma took me roughly by the hand and dragged me away. 'What about this one?' said my father. We stood in front of a smaller and less imposing building which announced itself as 'Weston's Only Independent Cinema.' My mother and Grandma bent down to peer closely at the lobby cards. Grandma's lips formed into a doubtful pucker and a gentle frown creased my mother's brow. 'Do you think it looks suitable?' 'Sid James and Kenneth Connor. Should be funny.' Grandpa said this but his real attention, I noticed, was on a picture of a beautiful blonde actress called Shirley Eaton, who was the third star of the film. 'Certificate U,' my mother pointed out. Then I shouted, 'Mum! Mum!' Her eyes followed my pointing finger. I had found a notice which announced that the supporting film told the story of the Russian space programme, and was called With Gagarin to the Stars. Furthermore, the notice boasted, it was 'in COLOUR', although I for one didn't need this extra inducement. I launched into a routing of wide-eyed supplication, sensing even as I began that it wasn't really necessary, because my parents had already made up their minds. We joined the queue to buy tickets. When the woman at the ticket desk took a dubious look at me from her lofty enclosure, my hand gripping anxiously on to my father's, she said, 'Are you sure he's old enough?', and suddenly I experienced the same plummeting misery, the same emotional nausea that I had felt the second I jumped into the unheated swimming-pool. But Grandpa wasn't having any of this. 'Just sell us the tickets, woman,' he said, 'and mind your own business.' Someone in the queue behind us giggled. Then we were filing into the dark, musky auditorium and I was sinking deeper and deeper into my seat in a heaven of contentment, Grandma to the left of me, my father to the right. Six years later, Yuri would be dead, his MiG-15 diving inexplicably out of low cloud and crashing to the ground during an approach to landing. I was old enough by then to have imbibed some of the prevailing distrust of all things Russian, to take notice of the dark mutterings about the KGB and the displeasure my hero may have incurred in his own country for having so charmed the cheering Westerners. Perhaps Yuri really had condemned himself the day he shook hands with all those children at Earl's Court; and yet it had been them that I wished dead at the time. Whatever the explanation, I can no longer recapture or even imagine the state of innocence in which I must have sat through that afternoon's artless, stentorian celebration of his achievement. I wish that I could. I wish that he had remained an object of unthinking adoration, instead of becoming another of adulthood's ubiquitous, insoluble mysteries: a story without a proper ending, I was soon about to find out about those. « zwiń opis