If it is your life

Our Times

There was this upper-middle-class guy who was a genuine goody. Charles was his name. He may have been called after the English monarch. I did not know him personally and might have thought highly of him if I had. We shall never know. He was a boring individual in adult company but children suffered him and allowed him to join their games. On the whole his life was boring insofar as anyone’s life is boring. But I was serious when I said I regarded him highly.

This will have the mark of authenticity about it.

Charles had a full-time upper-middle-class type of job. At the same time he was a complete individual, a whole human being, figuratively. So too was Sian, his wife. Sian is an unusual name for a woman which was of additional interest to myself, as is the Gaelic tradition.

Charles and Sian shared an interest in the arts and were at ease in their own community. This appealed to me. She was of the middling-middle-class; a girl who, prior to the first pregnancy, held a responsible position in a local law firm. She would pick up her career where she had left off. Once her youngest child reached nursery-school age, she hoped. Sian was counting the months.

Theirs were decent children, neither stuck-up nor namby-pamby. They did not feel ill at ease if adults were in the same room yet had their own little circle of friends. They made no attempt to dominate mixed-age companies. Charles was proud of that. He disliked children being pushed to the fore in adult society. He thought it demeaning.

Sian thought the same but in her it occasioned pangs of guilt. In a curious way she was proud of that guilt. Yet the guilt itself was a secret and she disliked secrets. One night she blurted it out to Charles. His only reply was a smile. Sian liked his smile. It was beautiful. Oddly it was their daughter who inherited the smile. Sian wished it were the boy. Their smile reminded her of her own father and she had never much cared for him, nor his memory.

Twice a year the family holidayed together. These were not unadventurous forays and were thoroughly enjoyed. So much so that Charles and Sian intended selling up and moving abroad to a similar destination if only they could wangle early retirement. Times had become tough but they did stand a chance. I am not sure if ever they did wangle it. We only heard about them from neighbours. Each time I saw these particular neighbours it was not only a reminder but a rejoinder. I was aware of Charles’s existence but was fortunate to have an independent circle of friends I could describe as ‘mine’ rather than ‘ours’.