Perhaps Nick’s father had dropped a hint along these lines: ‘He hasn’t come to terms with the passing of his mother. He could do with a treat… something to take him out of himself.’ Or maybe it was simple generosity of spirit. Either way the tubby executive at British Telecom – last seen sipping sherry at the funeral – had offered Nick a treat closed to the general public for donkeys’ years: a view from the top of the BT Tower. The executive was called Reginald Smyth.
‘One hundred and eighty-nine metres high,’ he said, reverently, on the thirty-fourth floor. ‘Sways twenty centimetres in a high wind.’
Reginald was a plump and ponderous man with active eyes, and a commiserating manner. He’d lost all his hair save for white curls above each ear. Standing with joined hands, he ushered in fact after fact as if they might soothe the bruised and broken. ‘As you can see, there are no walls, just windows and, of course, the floor rotates, obtaining a full circuit in twenty-two minutes…’
Nick missed the details about tonnage, nylon tyres and speed. He was already gazing at the sprawling majesty of London. Sitting down, he picked out St John’s Wood, hazy under the threat of snow and, with an alarming shudder, the floor began to move.
From this suburban pinnacle Nick looked upon recent events as if he were detached from their happening and significance. It was calming; it was a treat. He listened and watched while the world seemed to go round. Reginald, being a man with a sense of moment, kept a respectful distance.
‘We had a long-drawn-out argument,’ Charles had admitted, clinking more ice into more scotch. After the visit to Doctor Okoye, Elizabeth wanted to tell Nick about Riley and his place in her life.
‘I didn’t know about the heart condition,’ said Charles, handing Nick a glass. ‘Your mother only said that maybe it was time to retire, that the cut and thrust was all getting a bit much for her valves.’
Husband and wife toyed with selling up and fixing the tap in Saint Martin’s Haven. Led by Elizabeth, they talked of all the things they agreed about, until Charles realised she was trying to seduce him. Snapping a thumb and finger, he said, ‘No.’ He was against any disclosure of the past, not because he was ashamed, but because he was frightened: for Nick.
‘There was no need for you to know’ – he hunched his shoulders and squinted – ‘You’d be shocked. You’d been protected. And what did it matter? She’d moved on, wonderfully.’
That notion of protection irritated Nick. It was demeaning. It was a kind of pity that insinuated measurement: it cut love down to size – for Nick, not knowing all, had therefore not loved all. He’d loved only partially His father failed to realise that Nick’s heart was greater than his needs or expectations; that the woman of his dreams was Sonia, the prostitute in Crime and Punishment. But he hadn’t said that out loud.
The revolving deck groaned suddenly on its rails, sending a stab of fear through Nick. He threw his eyes to work, spying the Inns of Court, and further on, the Isle of Dogs, where towers were being raised from the mist at Canary Wharf. Nick’s attention shuddered to the east, to things known but out of sight, to Hornchurch Marshes and the Four Lodges. He thought of the cold wind, the small shaved head, the lingering torchlight; and he heard again the unnerving pity in that voice.
Nick’s parents had never fully resolved the disagreement, though Charles won the first round on points. While Elizabeth urged Nick to find a practice in Primrose Hill, Charles pushed for paid indolence in Australia. (He wanted his son out of the way while Elizabeth went after Riley. If it came to nothing, then Nick would be left unscathed. Should an arrest become imminent, then, perhaps, the matter could be re-examined.)
The word ‘unscathed’ also irritated Nick, because it was the twin of ‘protection’.
The second round began when Elizabeth turned to letter writing, those lures of affection and melancholy while Charles (guessing the stratagem) countered with more temptations of distance and wonder. This last had been a subtle ploy for Charles was drawing on what bound father and son together: the dream of escapades and foreign peril.
‘In the end, she was several moves ahead,’ said Charles affectionately spilling whisky as he poured from the decanter. He was weary, his sleeves rolled up and a tartan tie askew A shirt-tail hung out like a waiter’s cloth. ‘I knew nothing of the key or Father Anselm’s role as her unwitting understudy’ He paused as if ashamed by the complaint in his own voice, the hint of resentment. ‘For your sake, I’d hoped that this business would pass you by; as still it might.’
‘For your sake,’ repeated Nick quietly As still it might?’
‘Let’s get back to normal,’ said Charles, with a sudden note of beseeching. ‘Let’s… let’s go to Skomer.’
Nick laughed, not so much at what Charles had said, as his appearance: the red face, the clothing in disarray and the precariously sinking glass. Charles took the laughter for assent and joined in heartily.
London kept turning and Nick kept watching, high above all that had happened, glad that it was over, perhaps grateful – if he were honest – that he had a protective father. When the twenty-two minutes had elapsed the floor stopped, and Nick was facing St John’s Wood.
‘The lift moves at six metres per second,’ said Mr Smyth, more relaxed, hands in his suit pockets. Nick guessed that he was the sort of executive who liked to don the hard hat and chat with the lads about the tricks of cable installation.
As the narrow compartment plunged down to ground level, Nick ignored some more statistics, marvelling rather at his father’s determination, his refusal to compromise with his wife, the captain of matters practical. This time Charles had taken the lead and called the shots, forcing his mother’s hand. It was the sort of bull-headed drive the bank had wanted and never got.
‘Who’s Mrs Dixon?’ Nick had ventured, before going to bed. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’ Charles had rolled down his sleeves, pulled his tie up and dabbed at the spillage with his shirt-tail. Nick watched him carefully… and he just couldn’t be sure: was this the truth or another species of protection?
The lift doors opened and Nick showered thanks on Mr Smyth. It was, he replied, the least he could do, adding, as if he hadn’t been heard the first time:
‘I must say your mother was a quite re mark able woman.’