‘It’s jasmine,’ said Tabitha, beaming at him for the first time. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’
3
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 1961, 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 save 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, Ted? The ashtrays, wasn’t it?’
‘The steering column,’ said my father.
‘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 familiar 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 all 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 to her 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 sand 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 water: 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 flat 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 now 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.