20
Edward was eighteen, and didn’t need her any more, but if he came to London and found her, and wanted her to go back home, she wouldn’t know what to do.
George had always called him Ted and, for as long as Edward could tolerate hearing the sound, his father would sing-song his little Ted-Ted-Teddy-Bear-baby-name as if he really was such an animal to George’s sentimental heart, being thrown so high that his curly head went to within an inch of the ceiling. He once touched the plaster too hard but didn’t cry and then, thank God, George caught him as he came down. Sometimes, to make the thrill greater, George would catch him almost at ground level, which needed terrific strength if Edward weren’t to break his ankles. From an early age Edward had become used to his father taking such risks with him, so that for years he was unable to take any of his own.
George, strong and always able to catch his son on the descent, was a father any child could trust and love for as long as he acquiesced in being hurled to the sky or ceiling. And sensing how much it pleased the father – and what child doesn’t enjoy making daddy happy, especially when he spends little time with him? – he took to it stoically until he became as addicted to the experience as George.
She was pleased to hear them enjoying their evening hour together, when neither noticed her presence in the house while she cooked, made Edward’s supper, filled his bath, and heard the laughter of delight and terror as he played the jumping-jack aviator in the custody of George who hardly stopped his Ted-Ted-Ted-Teddy-Bear larking about. With infinite energy and love, after his long day at work, he had only to feel Edward’s warm hand in his to be born again.
The word ‘Ted’ would not shape itself on her lips, and she called him Edward. The difference between the words was so great that Edward had two names. He felt himself to be two people. A totally other sound out of their vital mouths led him to assume that he was one person to his mother, and somebody else to his father, causing him to adopt a certain stance to the first and, of necessity, another attitude to the second.
So Edward was two children, until he grew up, when he became both at the same time, which meant neither, and then he could no longer live with his parents because he was unable to tolerate not knowing who he was.
After the high-chair age, when he sat with them at table, he was Ted whenever George had anything to say to him, and Edward to his mother when something crossed her mind worth mentioning.
She once overheard him on the kitchen floor while engrossed with his teddy bears: ‘You’re Ted, bad boy,’ he said to one, and: ‘You’re Edward, good boy.’
After he’d been put to bed that night she said to George: ‘Why do you call Edward “Ted”?’
‘Because that’s his name, isn’t it?’ he said from behind the newspaper.
‘“Edward” is what’s written on his birth certificate. Or was, when I last looked.’
‘What’s wrong with “Ted”, then?’ The newspaper was still between his face and hers.
‘It isn’t his name, that’s all.’
He looked at her, and pondered on her meaning. ‘It is to me, because that’s what I call him. To me he’s “Ted”, and always will be.’
‘And to me he’s “Edward”,’ she said patiently, ‘because that’s his name.’
He lifted the newspaper. ‘Have it your way.’
‘It’s bad for him to have two names,’ she said.
He laughed. ‘When I was a kid I was called everything under the sun!’
‘That was in your family. I like to think that Edward’s upbringing is going to be different.’
The paper shimmered, and he turned the page. ‘And we should thank God for that,’ he said. ‘Let’s have some coffee. But I still don’t see anything wrong with calling him Ted. And if he does have two names it won’t do him any harm. He’s lucky. Two is always better than one!’
She plugged in the kettle, and put two spoons of powdered coffee in the mugs. ‘I don’t suppose he’ll find it funny when he grows up.’
‘It won’t worry him, unless you make a big issue out of the matter.’
Everything was a ‘big issue’, and impossible to talk about calmly. But George was right in that it didn’t matter whether Edward had one name or twenty as long as they stayed together and he never forgot what any of them were; and she had no intention of leaving George until Edward was old enough to fend for himself, and able to do without either name if he didn’t like them, though it often seemed that by such time she would be too dead in the head to care, and Edward wouldn’t think it mattered how many names he had.
But she hadn’t been too dead to care, and here she was in her own room, and Edward had stayed as two people, though it was still hard to say whether any damage might come of his having been Ted to his father, or if it would manifest itself because he had been Edward to her. Either way didn’t signify, since it was too late, and everyone sometime or other had either to sink or swim, and nine times out of ten they had enough resilience to do the latter.
George occasionally thought of him as the Edward seen by Pam, and so looked on an altogether alien person. Not liking his conclusion in the least, he would quickly change the picture back to the Ted he wanted him to be for ever.
When Pam now and again saw him as Ted, perhaps irritated by something George had said about him, thus disturbing the love she felt for her son, she would begin a conversation with Edward to draw him into seeming the kind of youth she knew him to be, and during the process would pointedly call him Edward.
Edward was perceptive enough to see that such an encounter was forced and trivial, and thought she was trying to nag or annoy him on purpose, which she was, and so was George, but feeling that Edward had caught her out only led her to realize that she had made her point, and so was satisfied, even though she felt ashamed at having indulged in such an exercise which, but for George, would not have been necessary.
The only advantage to her was that she became more acute at divining when George was about to embark on the same course. He was always more successful because, being able to act in a bluff and easy manner, he caused Edward throughout most of his childhood to feel far more his father’s son than his mother’s.
Realizing how he was placed between them, Edward soon learned that they were dependent on him for getting at each other. He might indeed have been two people, each one living up to his separate name, one of them open and the other shut, one happy and the other sly, one vicious and the other loving, sometimes mixed up together, which made it impossible for either of them to talk to him, in which case George said he was her son absolutely, while she averred he was his son completely.
The difference of names only established the fact that, she and George being so unlike, it stood to reason their child would reflect for each of them the unfavourable view of the other when he was intractable, and the flattering version of themselves when he was everything a contented child should be.
By the time he was seventeen Edward didn’t care about either of them, and only wanted to leave home and be where they wouldn’t bother him. Pam sensed this desire in him long before George, who was too busy to be aware of much, though even he realized the state of the family when, on telling Edward to turn the volume of his hi-fi down, he came in from the living-room and said: ‘I’ve had enough of this place. I’m fed up with both of you.’
He was taller than either. Physically he had the best of them both, but he trembled at what he had said. He was pale. ‘I want to leave home.’
‘I don’t know,’ George said, who was even more afraid of what he now knew was in the offing. ‘Just because I asked you to turn that record player down.’