The Elected Member Page 11

  All the villas looked exactly alike, red-brick structures. aproned by patios and well laid-out gardens. A few groups were scattered on the lawns, family groups they seemed. with children and thermos-flasks. with their pyjama-clad member in the middle. Rabbi Zweck’s heart turned at the sight of them, at the picture of complete family surrender. There they were, not only accepting their heartache. but making a life of it too. He hoped Norman was in bed, where he ought to be, confined until he was better, and getting out of bed only when he was ready to go straight home. They reached a glass portal and Rabbi Zweck recognised the entrance. Part of the lower wall-facing had crumbled on one side, and he remembered how Norman’s hand had grasped at it as he stumbled out of the black car. ‘This is the one,’ he turned to Bella. The crumbling wall was the only familiarity with the place that he would ever allow himself, and even that he would reject as soon as Norman’s stay was over.

  Bella followed him up the steps. Through the glass of the tea corridor, a table-tennis table had been set up, and Rabbi Zweck recognised the two players. First it was Nor-man’s back that he knew, darting from side to side with an agility and an abandon that Rabbi Zweck found unnerving. But even more disturbing was the recognition of his son’s partner, the man, who the night before, had sat bolt upright in the bed opposite and stared at him. ‘We’ve got to get him out of here,’ Rabbi Zweck whispered to Bella. ‘Meshuggana, the lot of them, and my son, he enjoys it. A yomtov he makes from it. Come.’

  He swung the doors open and strode inside, determined to put an end to all this happiness. Minister saw him first. He caught Norman’s return ball in his hand, ‘Look who’s arrived,’ he yelled across the table. ‘Your accountant.’

  Norman dropped his bat and slowly turned to face them. He stared at them for a while, standing there sheepishly at the door, his father, stooping with shame and pity, and Bella, her arm on his shoulder, protecting him. He felt like a child at a school prize-giving, when his parents arrived and he was thoroughly ashamed of them. But the feeling was immediately followed by one of compassion, and he stretched out his arms to welcome them, to put them at their ease, to make them feel at home. ‘Come in,’ he said gently, as if he had proprietory rights on the place. ‘Meet my friends.’

  ‘Friends already.’ Rabbi Zweck shivered.

  ‘Yes, my friends,’ Norman said, spelling it out, glad that he was able to resume hostilities. ‘They’re my friends.’ he said again. ‘We’ve all got something in common.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Bella said, because it might as well be out and done with.

  ‘Families,’ Minister said. He had crossed over to the other end of the table and he was looking at Bella with crude fascination. ‘You ‘is mother, then?’ he said.

  Bella ignored him and handed the parcel out to Norman. ‘This is for you,’ she said.

  Norman hesitated before taking it, fearing what it might contain. ‘you’ve gone and bought up a whole bloody chocolate shop,’ he said, furious. He snatched the parcel from her. ‘Didn’t I tell you to bring the money? Don’t you trust me to buy the stuff myself? What am I? A baby?’ He was shouting by now, and Rabbi Zweck tried to calm him. Most of all he wanted to get out of that corridor and be with his son in private. He took Norman’s arm. ‘Can we go somewhere, a room, perhaps, private, to talk, away from these people?’ He could not hide the note of contempt in his voice.

  Norman shook his arm free. ‘These people,’ he echoed, ‘these people are my friends and anything I’ve got to say, they can hear.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said Minister. ‘Don’t trust him, do you? Like I said. Families. That’s what we got in common. Listen,’ he pushed Norman aside. ‘E’s ‘im, like I’m me, and all these other blokes are them. My Mum used to bring me parcels,’ he told Rabbi Zweck confidentially. ‘She knew we ‘ad the shops, but no, she’s got to go and buy it for me. Like I was a baby. Then my Dad died, and I won’t let ‘er come no more. Poor Dad,’ he said almost to himself. ‘but at least it was ‘is death. That’s more’n you can say for mine. When I die, it won’t be my death, any more’n it’s been my life. It’ll be something that ‘appened to my Mum. Shove ‘em off,’ he said to Norman, ‘tell them where they can stick their rotten parcel.’

  In face of Minister’s attack on his own kin, Norman immediately sided with them, in the same way as he had defended Minister when his father had butted him. ‘Let’s go in the ward,’ he said. He too, wanted a little privacy. If for no other reason than to face one enemy without having to shift his ground.

  They followed him into the ward. Bella still held the parcel. Rabbi Zweck trailed behind. What Minister had said had wounded him deeply, too profoundly for him even to begin to analyse why. One thing was certain, cure or no cure, he had to get Norman out of this place. He had to find Norman’s source. That was imperative, then he had to get Norman home and look after him there. Suddenly he wanted to go home right away, and back to Norman’s bedroom, and start the search in earnest. But he knew that once confronted with those drawers, he would recoil.

  Bella had already reached Norman’s bed, and he watched his son as he climbed between the sheets. Bella put the parcel on the bed table, and drew up a chair for her father. So they sat on either side of the bed, not daring to look at each other. A few patients paced the ward, up and down between the beds, at a regular largo pace, like sad nomes. One of them, the chess player, a board under his arm, made as if to come towards Norman’s bed.

  ‘Go away,’ Norman shouted. The man swerved automatically to the centre and resumed his regular beat. Norman did not want any interference. It was true that they sat there, the three of them, without any communication, but even that was private, their non-words and non-looks, inviolate.

  Rabbi Zweck shifted in his chair. He looked up and willed his son to look at him. ‘Hullo, Norman,’ he said. He had rehearsed it all the way from the bus-stop and it had to come out. It was as if he was prepared to discount their unfortunate initial encounter, and this moment, as far as he was concerned, marked the beginning of his visit.

  ‘Hullo, Pop. How are you?’

  ‘He asks me,’ Rabbi Zweck smiled. ‘You’re in the bed, you’re in the hospital, and you ask me, how am I. Bella bought you a little parcel, Norman,’ he said gently. ‘Open it a little. Bella wrapped it so nice. Here,’ he stretched over and picked up the package. ‘Open it, I should also like to see inside it. A surprise, perhaps.’

  ‘Pop, I’m not a baby, and I’m not moved by surprises. I know what’s inside. It’s chocolate, I suppose, and shaving stuff. But I could have bought it all myself, here, in our shop.’

  Rabbi Zweck shuddered at his son’s possessiveness.

  ‘I asked you for the money.’ Norman was saying.

  ‘Open it, open it.’ Rabbi Zweck insisted, as he himself began to untie the wrapping. The were first visible, and Rabbi Zweck pulled out the decorated box. ‘Such chocolates you got in your shop?’ He threw his son’s sense of property back at him with contempt. He pulled out a packet of sweets. ‘Such sweets you can buy? Such shaving lotion? My, my, such soap? Now tell me,’ he leaned over the bed, ‘such good things you can buy in your shop?’

  Norman watched the articles as they fell one by one on his bed. He reckoned the value of each of them, and totted up their total. By his reckoning. it would have accounted for four days white supply. He felt sick at the waste of it all. ‘Chocolate,’ he almost vomited, ‘whoever can eat so much chocolate. And since when did I use this cissy stuff on my face?’

  ‘You asked for chocolate,’ Bella said firmly. ‘You begged for chocolate. On the phone this morning you pleaded for it like a baby.’

  ‘Like a baby,’ Norman repeated. ‘That’s how you want me, isn’t it?’ he said bitterly. He fingered the items on the bed, and considered with vowing panic what further excuse he could use to get money out of them. Bella’s handbag was lying at the foot of the bed. He did not dismiss its possibilities. But he had qualms about it. He had stolen before, often, and u
sually from the till in the shop. But that was different. You opened the till at least three dozen times during the day. Taking from it could almost be accidental. But a handbag was something different. It involved planning, finger dexterity, in which Norman had had little practice. Nevertheless, it was a possibility. and perhaps the only one open to him.

  As if reading his thoughts, Bella stretched over and picked up her bag and opened it. Norman leaned over in an attempt to see inside. There was hardly any point in taking a risk if there were nothing in the bag worth taking. As she pulled out a handkerchief, Norman saw a large open bank envelope. It was the half day’s takings in the shop, and because they had come to visit him, Bella had had no time to go to deposit the money. He reckoned past experience, that a half a day’s takings in the shop, especially on early closing day, would amount to something like fifteen pounds. A fortnight’s supply. He had to have the money, and they deserved to lose it, bringing his chocolates and shaving lotion as if he were an invalid. He worked up a sizeable hatred for them, to make the theft easier. But there was still the practical problem of getting it into his hands. Bella might want to go to the lavatory, he thought, but then, it was natural that she should take her bag with her. So if it were to be done at all, it had to be done right there, under her nose, and just before they decided to leave. which would give her no time to miss it. He watched her put her handkerchief back, not disturbing the envelope which it covered, and once again, placed the bag at the foot of the bed.

  Thanks for the chocolate, Bella,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I was angry. You’re good to me, Bella.’

  Rabbi Zweck smiled at this display of sibling affection, that occasional bonus of parenthood, and innocent of Norman’s reasoning that it was safer, if less ethical, to rob a friend rather than an enemy.

  ‘How’s the shop?’ he went on. ‘Managing without me?’

  ‘You were such a help,’ Bella joked.

  For a while, they bantered together, with the occasional contribution from Rabbi Zweck. Small talk, positively small. to postpone the real matter of their visit, or perhaps to avoid it altogether. As they talked, Norman wiggled his toes, then his feet, and afterwards, his calves, allowing a decent interval to elapse between each movement, and claiming itchiness from the institution pyjamas that he wore, while all the while, Bella’s bag inched its way spasmodically up his legs, till it was within grasping distance of his hands. At each completed stage of the journey, he dwelt at length on what he had learned of the hospital and the stories of the few patients he already knew, and when the bag arrived, he joyously recounted his feeling of well-being.

  Bella had all the while watched the bag move, hypnotised by its slow unsteady passage. She made no effort to retrieve it, half knowing where and why it was going. As it balanced on Norman’s knee, she totted up the morning’s takings and wondered how she could replace them without letting her father know. She was fascinated to discover how Norman would finally achieve his purpose, and she half turned her chair away from him to make the theft easier. She smiled to herself. Norman was showing signs of the old normality which over the years she had learned to accommodate. He’ll start sniffing in a moment or two, she thought, and he’ll ask me for a handkerchief, and hardly was the thought out, than Norman prepared for his role with a fit of coughing. The sniffing followed as the cough subsided and Rabbi Zweck muttered. ‘Also a cold you have.’ ‘Also to what?’ Norman’s firm conviction of his own state of sanity never left him.

  ‘Nothing, nothing,’ Rabbi Zweck said quickly.

  ‘Also to what?’ Norman insisted.

  ‘I also have a cold,’ Rabbi Zweck alibied. ‘Also to me,’ he explained feebly.

  Norman let it pass. With the thought of a fortnight’s supply within his reach, he could afford to step down. He sniffed again. ‘Have you got a handkerchief, Bella?’

  ‘Here,’ Rabbi Zweck said. ‘Have mine.’ He drew his white handkerchief from his inside pocket.

  ‘You have a old, Poppa,’ Bella said quickly. And she winked at him, in token of her understanding. Rabbi Zweck was grateful for what he took to be her participation in his deception, and he stuffed his handkerchief away. ‘There’s one in my bag,’ Bella said.

  Norman opened it, and as he did so, Bella crossed to the other side of the bed, and with her back to Norman, masking her father, she neatly folded his handkerchief and replaced it in his pocket. She looked round to check that Norman’s task was accomplished. One hand was under his pillow, while with the other, he blew his nose. It was all clear and she returned to her chair. She left the bag where it was, and did not intend to remove it until they were ready to leave. She would give her brother that much peace.

  The garden visitors were now dribbling into the ward. Restless with the open spaces, no doubt infected by their members’ needs for confinement, they had happily acquiesced and escorted them to the security of their beds. One patient belonged in the bed next to Norman, and his family followed him there, watched him into bed and tucked him in with exaggerated solicitude. Then they sat around him, making sure that he was not looking at them, so that they could cast surreptitious glances at the ward clock and wonder that the time could pass so slowly. They checked with their watches, as if asylum time had its own discipline, its hours regulated by its watchers’ fantasies, spinning weeks in a minute, or grinding out a year with one single shudder of the second hand. They wished there were a limit on visiting hours, like in any sane hospital. But here, departure was left to the relatives’ discretion, what-ever that word had come to mean in such a place.

  There was silence between them, a silence that spread over the adjoining bed where Rabbi Zweck sat with Bella, avoiding Norman’s eye. The mother of the boy caught Rabbi Zweck as he glanced at her. ‘It’s a lovely day today,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ Rabbi Zweck said politely, ‘is a lovely day.’ He too, was glad of the diversion.

  ‘I’ve not seen you here before,’ she said. ‘Is this your first time?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bella joined the conversation. ‘I’ve not been here before.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nice here,’ the woman said. ‘I look forward to coming. It’s quite an outing for us. I’ve made quite a few friends here over the years. Met some lovely people. I shall miss it all when he comes out.’ Rabbi Zweck shuddered.

  ‘They come and they go,’ the woman went on, ‘but we seem to go on for ever.’ She giggled, half embarrassed.

  Rabbi Zweck shifted his chair to avoid her bonhomie.

  ‘How long… ?’ Rabbi Zweck started.

  ‘What is it now, George?’ she said, ‘it’ll be six or seven years come September. No, it’s six, George,’ she rambled on, without George’s contradiction. ‘I know it’s six: she turned to Rabbi Zweck, ‘because it’s six years ago that I started running my stall for the children’s bazaar. You know, every Christmas we have a bazaar in aid of the orphanage,’ she confided. ‘I started the stall, because Billy gave me the idea. Didn’t you, Billy love?’ she turned to the sad heap between the sheets, a man full of thirty years, and surely by now entitled to William. Billy nodded obediently. He even managed a smile, although its target was not his mother. ‘The first thing he made, and he’d only been here a few weeks,’ the mother went on, ‘was a lovely waste-paper basket. It was beautiful, and Billy gave it me for the bazaar. And every week when I came, he’d made something else, so I’ve collected them for a stall of my own every Christmas. Billy’s Bazaar, I call it,’ she said, ‘and I sell out every time. George. reach me my bag.’

  George passed over a large hold-all, and his wife, with great care drew out a plastic lampshade. ‘Now, isn’t that pretty,’ she said, ‘I could sell it a hundred times over. Look how he’s finished it off,’ she thumbed the edges for Bella’s perusal, thinking more appreciation would come from that quarter. ‘Like a woman’s work,’ she said proudly. ‘Of course, they get all facilities here,’ she chatted on, ‘and the best instructors. Nothing but the best in materials and so on.’


  Bella turned her back slightly. She was thoroughly bored by the woman, and faintly irritated by an uncomfortable feeling that both she and her father were being used. Rabbi Zweck had long ceased to listen to the woman’s chatter. The information that Billy had been there for six years had switched him off entirely. For a moment he had panicked that Norman had Billy’s complaint, but he tried to shrug it off. Not to wonder the poor boy was meshugga, he thought, with a mother like that. Yet it nagged him to know what was wrong with the boy, what possible malady had kept him there for six long years. He didn’t want to know exactly what it was; he had no morbid curiosity about the boy’s condition. He just wanted to make sure it wasn’t for drugs. ‘So long is not for the pills,’ he prayed silently. He had to get the woman on one side and ask her. But that would be an act of intimacy, and although he knew she would willingly respond to it, he didn’t want to belittle himself by asking her. He would approach the father, man to man. It was better, that way. Leave Bella to talk to the woman. He got up and moved towards Billy’s bed. He would get to George through Billy, the waste-paper basket maker, whose life was measured out in his wretched mother’s bazaars.

  ‘You feel better today?’ he said. He wanted to call him by his name, but ‘Billy’ made him feel foolish.

  Billy seemed astonished by the question. ‘This is your first visit?’ he asked.

  Rabbi Zweck nodded. He felt like a new boy who didn’t know the ropes.

  ‘After six years,’ Billy said, ‘people forget you were ever ill. They don’t ask you any more if you’re getting better. After such a long time, this place isn’t a hospital. It’s your home.’

  Rabbi Zweck was torn by the man’s tone of resignation. He wanted to say something kind to him, to bolster him a little, to give him a little dignity, to un-Billy him. He wanted to praise his lampshade, but instinctively he knew that Billy was indifferent to his handiwork, and probably there was nothing in the whole universe that could make Billy care.