Blue Monday

Chapter Twelve

Josef liked this way of working. The clients were away and would only visit maybe every two weeks. He could live in the flat most of the time. He could eat there, if he wanted. In the past he had worked mainly as part of a team, and that was mainly good too, all the people with their specialities – the plasterer, the carpenter, the electrician – a version of a family that argued and fought and tried to get along with each other. But this was almost a holiday. He could work when he liked, even in the middle of the night, when it was dark outside and as quiet as it ever got. And in the day, sometimes, for example on a day like this, when it was about two in the afternoon and his eyes got heavy, he would put his tools down and lie back. He closed his eyes and thought at first about the problem of the hole and how far it needed widening to clear out the damaged wood and cracked plaster and then, for no reason at all, he started to think of his wife, Vera, and of the boys. He hadn’t seen them since the summer. He wondered what they were doing now, and then they faded as if they had walked into a mist, but slowly, so there wasn’t a clear moment when he couldn’t see them – and then he was asleep, dreaming dreams he wouldn’t remember when he woke, because he never remembered his dreams.

At first he thought the voice was part of his dream. It was the voice of a man, and before he could make out the meaning of the words he could feel their sadness, a raw sadness that sounded strange coming from a man. This was followed by a silence and another voice spoke and this one he knew. It was the voice of the woman downstairs, the doctor. Josef raised his hand and felt the roughness of the chipboard on his fingers. He saw the glow of the hole in the ceiling above him and slowly, dully, realized where he was: on the floor in her room. As he heard the two voices – the man’s quavering, the woman’s clear and calm – he felt a growing sense of alarm. He was listening to a confession, something that nobody else was meant to hear. He looked up at the ladder. If he tried to climb it, he would be heard. Better just to lie where he was and hope it would be over soon.

‘My wife was angry with me,’ the man said. ‘It was as if she was jealous. She wanted me to tell her what I’d told you.’

‘And did you?’ said Frieda.

‘Kind of,’ said the man. ‘I told her a version of it. But then, as I was telling her, it made me feel that I hadn’t really told you properly.’

‘What didn’t you say?’

There was a long pause. Josef could hear the beat of his heart. He smelt the alcohol on his own breath. How could they not hear him or smell him?

‘Can I really say anything here?’ said the man. ‘I’m asking because I realized when I was talking to Carrie that there’s always some kind of limit on what I can say. I mean, I can only say the sort of things to her that husbands are supposed to say to their wives, and when I’m out with a friend, I can only say the sort of things that friends are meant to say to each other.’

‘This is the place where you’re allowed to say anything. There are no limits.’

‘You’ll just think this is stupid …’

‘I don’t care whether it’s stupid or not.’

‘And you won’t tell anyone what I say?’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘You promise?’

‘Alan, I’m professionally bound to respect your privacy. Unless you’re confessing to a serious crime. Or planning one.’

‘I’m confessing to bad feelings.’

‘Then tell me what they are.’

Josef thought that what he really ought to do was to put his fingers in his ears. He wasn’t meant to hear this. He was meant not to hear it. But he didn’t. He couldn’t stop himself. He wanted to know. What did it matter, really?

‘I’ve been thinking,’ said the man. ‘I was talking about wanting a child. Wanting a son. So why aren’t I just going to have fertility treatment and taking Viagra? It’s a medical problem, not something to do with my head.’

‘So why aren’t you?’

‘I had this feeling about my son, about this little boy, this boy who looks like me. It was like a hunger. But these attacks I’ve been having, where I’ve been almost collapsing, fainting, making a complete idiot of myself. They’re not about that hunger. They’re about something else as well.’

‘What are they about?’

‘Guilt.’

Another silence.

‘What kind of guilt?’ said Frieda.

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said the man. ‘And I saw it like this. I want this boy. I want him kicking a ball with me. And I’m here wanting him to be with me. But he’s not there wanting me to be with him. Does that make sense?’

‘Not entirely,’ said Frieda. ‘Not yet.’

‘It’s obvious. They don’t ask to be born. We want them. I guess it’s an instinct. But what’s the difference between that and an addiction? You take heroin to stop you wanting heroin. You’ve got an itch for a child and you get a child to stop that itch.’

‘So you think having a child is a selfish act?’

‘Of course it is,’ said the man. ‘It’s not as if you consult the child.’

‘Are you saying you feel guilty because your desire to have a child is selfish?’

‘Yes.’ Long pause. ‘And also …’ He stopped. Josef agreed with Frieda – there was something else going on here. ‘Also, it’s this urgent kind of wanting. Maybe it’s what women feel.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

His voice was a mutter. Josef had to strain to hear him.

‘I’ve heard of women who don’t feel complete until they’ve had a child. It’s like that but even more. I feel – I’ve always felt – as if there’s something missing from me, kind of like a hole in me.’

‘A hole in you? Go on.’

‘And if I had a child it would plug that hole. Does that sound creepy?’

‘No. But I’d like to explore this urgency and hunger more. What would your wife say if you told her that?’

‘She’d wonder what kind of man she’d married. I wonder what kind of man she married.’

‘Maybe a part of a marriage is keeping some things to ourselves.’

‘I had a dream about my son.’

‘You make it sound like he exists.’

‘He did in the dream. He was standing there, like me that age. Red-haired, little school uniform. But he was far away, on the other side of something huge, like the Grand Canyon. Except it was completely dark and incredibly deep. I was standing on the edge looking across at him. I wanted to go to him but I knew that if I stepped forward I’d fall into the darkness. It’s not exactly a happy dream.’

Now Josef thought of his own little sons and he really did feel ashamed. He pushed the joints of his fingers into his mouth and chewed them. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe as a punishment or to take his mind off what he was hearing. He didn’t exactly stop listening to the words but he stopped translating them. He tried to let them become music that just flowed past him. Finally, he could hear that the session was coming to a close. The voices changed in pitch and became more distant. He heard the door open. This was his chance. As quietly as he could, he got up and started to climb up the ladder, gently, to avoid any creaking. Suddenly he heard banging.

‘Is that you?’ said a voice. There was no question about it: it was her voice. ‘Are you in there?’

For a desperate moment, Josef thought of staying silent and maybe she would go away.

‘I know you’re there. Don’t pretend. Get through that hole and come round here now.’

‘I heard nothing,’ said Josef. ‘It’s no problem.’

‘Now.’

‘How long were you there?’ said Frieda, white with anger, when they were face to face.

‘I was asleep,’ said Josef. ‘I was working there, fixing the hole. And I slept.’

‘In my room.’

‘Behind the wall.’

‘Are you completely insane?’ said Frieda. ‘This is private. It’s as private as it’s possible to be. What would he think if he found out?’

‘I will not tell him.’

‘Tell him? Of course you won’t tell him. You don’t know who he is. But what did you think you were doing?’

‘I was asleep and then the voices woke me.’

‘I’m so sorry that we disturbed you.’

‘I try not to listen. I am sorry. I will not do it again. You will tell me the times to work and I will block the hole.’

Frieda took a deep breath. ‘I cannot believe I’ve held a therapy session with a builder in the same room. But all right, that’s fine. Or fairly fine. Just fix the bloody hole.’

‘It will only be a day. Or two days. Or a little bit more. The paint is slow to dry now it is cold.’

‘Do it as quickly as you can.’

‘But there is one thing I don’t understand,’ said Josef.

‘What’s that?’

‘If a man wants to have a child, then you do something about that. You don’t just talk about it. You go out into the world and you try to solve the problem. You see a doctor and you do whatever it is so you have a son.’

‘I thought you were asleep,’ said Frieda, with a look almost of horror.

‘I was sleeping. The noise woke me. I heard some talk. He is a man who needs a son. He made me think of my own sons.’

Frieda’s expression of anger slowly collapsed into a smile. She couldn’t help herself. ‘You want me to discuss my patient with you?’ she said.

‘I thought that it wasn’t good just with words. He needs to change his life. Get a son. If he can.’

‘When you were overhearing, did you hear the bit where I said it was completely secret? That nobody would know what he told me?’

‘But what is the point of just talking, if he doesn’t do anything?’

‘You mean like lying asleep instead of repairing the hole you fell through?’

‘I will fix it. It’s almost done.’

‘I don’t know why I’m talking to you about this,’ said Frieda. ‘But I’ll say it anyway. I can’t sort out Alan’s life, get him a son with red hair. The world’s a messy, unpredictable place. Maybe, just maybe, if I talk to him, as you put it, I can help him to deal with it a little bit better. It’s not much, I know.’

Josef rubbed his eyes. He still didn’t look properly awake. ‘Can I buy you a glass of vodka to say sorry?’ he said.

Frieda looked at her watch. ‘It’s three in the afternoon,’ she said. ‘You can make me a cup of tea to say sorry.’

When Alan left Frieda it was already getting dark. The wind had rain in its tail, and shook dead leaves off the trees in small gusts. The sky was a sullen grey. There were puddles glinting blackly on the pavement. He didn’t know where he was walking. He blundered along the side roads, past unlit houses. He couldn’t go back home, not yet. Not to Carrie’s watching eyes, her solicitous anxiety. He had felt a bit better while he was in the warm, light room. The swarming, lurching sensation inside him had calmed down and he’d just been aware of how tired he was, how heavy with exhaustion. He almost could have slept, sitting on the small grey sofa opposite her and saying things he could never say to Carrie because Carrie loved him and he didn’t want that to end. He could imagine the expression on his wife’s face, her wince of distress, quickly suppressed. But this woman’s expression didn’t change. There was nothing he could say that would hurt or disgust her. She was like a painting, the way she could be so silent and still. He wasn’t used to that. Most women nodded and murmured, encouraging you along but at the same time stopping you going too far, keeping you on the right track. Well, his mother had been like that at least, and Lizzie and Ruth at work. And Carrie, of course.

Now that he’d left, though, he didn’t feel so good. The troubling feelings were closing in on him again, or rising up in him. He didn’t know where they came from. He wished he could go back to the room, at least until they subsided again – but he didn’t think she’d like that at all. He remembered what she had said about fifty minutes exactly. She was stern, he thought, and he wondered what Carrie would make of her. She’d think Frieda was a tough nut. A tough nut to crack.

There was a small, enclosed green on his left, with three winos at one end of it drinking cider out of cans. Alan stumbled inside and sat on the other bench. The drizzle was gathering strength now: he could feel drops of rain on his head and hear them pattering into the damp leaves that lay in heaps on the ground. He closed his eyes. No, he thought. Carrie couldn’t understand him. Frieda couldn’t, not really. He was alone. That was what was cruellest. Alone and incomplete. At last, he stood up again.

It was as if it was meant to happen. Call it what you want: fate, destiny, something in the stars. The little boy with red hair and freckles was all on his own. His mother was late again. What did she expect to happen? Now he was looking around him. He was looking at the open gate and at the road beyond. Come on. Come on, my little one. Come through the gate. That’s it. That’s the way. Gently now. Don’t look back. Come to me. Come to me. Now you’re mine.

His mother had a bright blue raincoat and red hair; she was easy to spot. But today she wasn’t at the gates with the other mothers, and most of the children had already left. He didn’t want Mrs Clay to make him wait in the classroom, not again. It wasn’t allowed but he knew the way home and, anyway, he’d meet her before he got there, running along with her hair coming loose because she was late. He sidled towards the gate. Mrs Clay was looking at him, but then she had to blow her nose; she covered her whole wrinkly face with a big white handkerchief, so he slipped out. Nobody saw him go. There was a pound coin lying in the road in a shallow puddle and, glancing round to make sure it wasn’t some kind of joke, he picked it up and rubbed it with the corner of his shirt. If his mother didn’t meet him before then, he would buy sweets at the corner shop or a packet of crisps. He looked up the road but still couldn’t see her.