The Laying on of Hands - Alan Bennett [50]
‘I didn’t know you drove, Dad,’ he said as they were going into town. ‘When did you learn?’
‘Just before I died.’
His mother, as a girl, met them outside the Town Hall.
‘What a spanking van, Frank,’ she said. ‘Move up, Denis, let me sit next to your dad.’
The three of them sat in a row until he saw her hand was on his father’s leg, when suddenly he was in a field alone with his mother.
‘What a grand field,’ she said. ‘It’s spotless.’
He was a little boy and she was in a white frock, and some terrible threat had just been lifted. Then he looked behind him and saw something much worse. On the edge of the field, ready to engulf them, was an enormous slag heap, glinting black and shiny in the sun. His mother hadn’t seen it and chattered on how lovely this field was and slipping nearer came this terrible hill. Someone ran down the slope, waving his arms, a figure big and filthy, a miner, a coalman. He slid down beside them.
‘Oh,’ she said placidly, ‘here’s your father,’ and he sat down beside her, coal and muck all over her white frock.
Then they were walking through Leeds Market. It was Sunday and the stalls were empty and shuttered. It was also a church and they walked up through the market to the choir screen. It was in the form of a board announcing Arrivals and Departures, slips of board clicking over with names on them, only instead of Arrivals and Departures it was headed Births and Deaths. Midgley wandered off while his parents sat looking at the board. Then his mam got up and kissed his dad, and went backwards through the screen just before the gates were drawn across. Midgley tried to run down the church and couldn’t. He was shouting ‘Mam. Mam.’ Eventually he got to the gates and started shaking them, but she had gone. He turned to look at his father who shook his head slowly and turned away. Midgley went on rattling the gates then someone was shaking the van. It was Nurse Lightfoot waking him up. ‘You can call me Valery,’ she chanted as she ran off to her big breakfast.
Later that morning Midgley went in to see his father to find a smartish middle-aged woman sat by the bed. She was holding his father’s hand.
‘Is it Denis?’ she said without getting up.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Alice Dugdale. Did he tell you about me?’
‘No.’
‘He wouldn’t, being him. He’s an old bugger. Aren’t you?’
She shook the inert hand. She was in her fifties, Midgley decided, very confident and done up to the nines. His mother would have called her common. She looked like the wife of a prosperous licensee.
‘He told me about you,’ she said. ‘He never stopped telling me about you. It’s a sad sight.’
The nurse had said his father was a bit better this morning.
‘His condition’s stabilised,’ said Midgley.
‘Yes, she said that to me, the little slut. What does she know?’ She looked at him. ‘You’re a bit scruffy.’ She stood up and smoothed down her skirt. ‘I’ve come from Southport.’ She took the carnations from the vase and put them in the waste-bin. ‘A depressing flower, carnations,’ she said. ‘I prefer freesias. I’m a widow,’ she said. ‘A rich widow. Shall we have a meander round? No sense in stopping here.’ She kissed his father on the forehead. ‘His lordship’s not got much to contribute. Bye bye chick.’
She swept through the waiting room with Midgley in her wake. Aunty Kitty open-mouthed got up and went out to watch them going down the corridor.
‘That’ll be your Aunty Kitty, I take it.’ She said it loudly enough for her to hear.
‘It is, yes,’ said Denis, glancing back and smiling weakly. ‘Do you know her?’
‘No, thank God. Though she probably knows me.’
They found a machine and had some coffee. She took a silver flask from her bag.
‘Do you want some of this in it?’
‘No thanks,’ said Midgley.
‘I’d better,’ she said. ‘I’ve driven from Southport. I wanted to marry your dad only he said no. I had too much money. My husband left me very nicely placed. He was a leading light in the soft furnishing trade. Frank would have felt beholden, you see. That was your dad all over. Still you know what he was like.’
Midgley