Corduroy Mansions

62. Eddie Shows His True Colours

Marcia came round to the wine shop shortly after two on Monday afternoon. It was a good time to call, as the midday rush, when people took advantage of their lunch-break to do a bit of shopping, was over. If Marcia was in the area - as she often was - she would call and share a cup of tea and an apple with William in the back office. In the days of Paul - before his sudden defection to Oddbins - he would be left in charge while William chatted to Marcia. Now, of course, it was Jenny who took over, even though it was her first day in the shop and everything was very new to her.

‘She’s doing remarkably well,’ said William, gesturing in the direction of the till, where his new assistant was attending to a smiling customer. ‘Her first day, but it’s very much a case of being to the manner born. A natural.’

Marcia looked through the open door of the office and took a thoughtful bite of her apple. She had been prepared to dislike Jenny on the grounds - and they were perfectly adequate ones, she thought - that she was a younger woman and she was now working in close proximity to William. But the welcome she had received from Jenny when she had come into the shop had been a warm one and clearly quite genuine, and that had taken the edge off her hostility. Then there was the matter of her own rather stronger position. For Marcia had that morning moved at least some of her possessions into Corduroy Mansions and was officially living in William’s flat. From such heights of advantage, the threat posed by other women, even young and attractive women like Jenny, was perhaps not so acute. She could afford to be generous.

Looking back on it, she marvelled at the smoothness with which the whole move had been accomplished. William had shown little resistance, a passivity that she attributed to his utter weariness of Eddie’s perverse refusal to move out. When, on Sunday morning, she had telephoned William and been told that Eddie had not come home the previous night, she had decided to take decisive action.

‘Right. We go ahead.’

William had hesitated. ‘I’m not sure that—’

But Marcia had pressed on. ‘I’ll come round,’ she said. ‘I’ll finish what we started yesterday. I’ll clear his room and dump his clothes in the hall.’

William had been privately appalled. He had never imagined that it would come to this, that he would effectively throw his own son out of the flat, but what were the alternatives? Every attempt at discussion, every offer of help with the purchase of a flat, every hint or offer of pastures green - elsewhere - had been ignored. Had Eddie been more considerate, had he made the slightest effort to recognise that his father also lived in the flat, it might have been different. But he had not, and William had reached the reluctant conclusion that Eddie wanted him out. And once he had come to that realisation, then the only thing to do was to assert himself by acting first. Had we been cavemen, he thought, it would have been a battle with old animal jawbones or whatever it was that cavemen used to settle family disputes. And the outcome, in those days, would have been clear: he would have been lying on the floor of the cave while his son took over as the dominant male.

Eddie had returned late on Sunday afternoon.

At first there had been an ominous silence. Sitting in the living room, a newspaper on his lap, William had glanced nervously at Marcia. ‘He’s back,’ he whispered.

Marcia raised a finger to her lips. ‘Wait.’

The silence ended. ‘What’s my stuff doing in the hall?’

Marcia indicated that there should be no reply.

‘I said: what’s my stuff doing in the hall? Are you deaf, Dad?’

A few moments later, Eddie burst into the living room. The presence of Marcia took him by surprise and he stood quite still for a moment while he took in the scene. In the corner of the room, Freddie de la Hay, who had been dozing on his rug, raised his head to sniff at the air.

‘Your dad and I have decided to live together,’ Marcia said calmly. ‘So you’ll have to move out, I’m afraid.’

Eddie stared at her in blunt incomprehension. ‘I live here,’ he said. ‘This is my place.’

‘No, it isn’t, Eddie,’ said Marcia, throwing William a discouraging glance. She would handle this. ‘You see, it’s normal for kids to move out . . . eventually. Your dad has tried and tried to help you to move on but you’ve never done anything about it. Now he’s decided that enough is enough.’ She paused. ‘And if you look on the top of the pile of clothes in the hall there’s a piece of paper with an address. That’s a landlady who’s agreed to give you a room for two weeks while you find somewhere yourself. Your dad has paid for that.’

Eddie, who had been glaring at Marcia, now turned to his father. ‘Dad . . . ?’

‘I really did try, Eddie,’ said William. ‘Remember the flat I found for you - the one that I offered the deposit for? And the housing association place . . . And . . .’ He had tried; it was true. He had tried on numerous occasions, taking Eddie to letting agents, dictating advertisements for him - advertisements that attracted offers his son had no intention of replying to - in short, doing everything that a parent could possibly do to help his son get started by himself. And it had all been to no avail, which had made him wonder whether this was his sentence in life: to be saddled indefinitely with a dependent, layabout son. Did he really have to accept that? Was that a concomitant of parenthood, an inescapable moral burden of the act of reproduction?

He looked at Eddie hopelessly, but Eddie had turned to Marcia and was pointing a finger at her. ‘—,’ he said. ‘—,—,—!’

‘It’s no good using that language, Eddie,’ said William.

Marcia smiled. ‘I’ve heard all that before, Eddie.’

‘—,’ screamed Eddie. ‘—!’

It was at this point that Freddie de la Hay, disturbed by the human conflict he was witnessing, rose from his rug and lifted his snout in the air. ‘—,’ he howled. ‘—!’

‘Look,’ said William reproachfully, ‘you’ve upset Freddie de la Hay.’

Eddie turned and stared at the dog. Then, walking swiftly across the room, he kicked him.