Not just another Summer - 27. It takes two to tango

After a busy and largely productive day, followed by a scratch meal where I was using up all the bits and pieces in the fridge, I was relaxing on my sofa, listening to the radio and pretending to read, when Vince stuck his head around the door. Ostensibly he was just letting me know he was home and that he had eaten at the office. But he seemed keen to talk, so I asked him in. And though it was Monday, we had a glass of wine.

“Yesterday was fun, though I’m still surprised that you were up for it.”

Vince looked a little embarrassed. I thought perhaps it was the nudity, but it seemed not. “That’s Peter’s fault. He has firm ideas and told me that I needed to follow through, otherwise Freddie would think I was ashamed that I’d done it in the first place.”

“Blimey! Quite some discussion then.”

He looked a bit shamefaced. “Yeah, we rather got into it.”

“You two, arguing?”

He gave a half smile. “I like to think of it as discussing, we both have strong opinions.”

“When do you find time?”

“When we’re upstairs.”

I grinned. “Ah, so when you disappear you’re not just having rampant nookie!”

“As if! Pas devant les enfants. It was something Moira was keen on. We’d end up arguing once Freddie was asleep in bed, and I learned to argue very quietly.

“So I’m to imagine you and Peter having furious ‘discussions’ but very quietly.”

“Yeah. Things are pretty lively.”

“But OK?”

“I think so. We’re still finding our feet, learning what works. Thing is with Peter…”

“Yes? You can tell me to bugger off.”

“No, it’s OK. After all, if I can’t talk to you, who can I talk to? He’s always had firm opinions about things and lots of idea, and he’s never been frightened of telling me. Too often folk are. I’ve been on dates…”

“You? On dates?”

“Yeah, things organised for me.”

“By Venetia.”

“And others. The women were nice enough but never seemed to be able to be my equal. Moira was.”

“Not frightened of you. Though I don’t think you’re frightening.”

“’Forbidding’ is what I’ve been told. Well, Peter doesn’t find me that, and so, well, we argue.”

“As long as the make-up sex is good.”

Vince went an unaccustomed shade of red. “Yeah. I’m learning all sorts of things I never dreamed of.”

“Good things?”

“Hell, yes.”

“So I don’t need to be worrying about giving you sex tips then.”

“Bloody hell, Gray! I think not! We manage quite well for ourselves, thank you. I think it’s all good.”

“You’re sure? The two of you are tight? It’s not just sex.”

“No, I’m not sure. I’m trying to work out how this will work. We both are. Whether we could manage living together full time.”

“Or each need a bit of space?”

“Yeah. And then there’s Freddie, whether Peter is up to living with him as well. For the first couple of years we were in a bubble, all on our own.”

“Now real life has intruded.”

“Yeah. Peter always knew about Freddie, but he’s never lived with anyone, never mind a kid, whilst I’m a bit out of practice. It’s all a bit new for both of us.”

“I can see that. But it looks good from the outside.”

“Like a bloody swan, calm on the surface and working like fuck underneath!”

We both grinned.

“The trip out was Peter’s idea too.”

“The yacht race?”

“Well, not that, but he said I needed to do more with Freddie, make a bit of a fuss of the lad.”

“It has rather been you worrying about Peter and me so far, hasn’t it? And now all this Arvid stuff.”

Vince sighed. “Yeah, Peter was great, and I think his experience with the people who use the Centre is proving to be useful.”

“When it comes to dealing with an angry Kjell.”

“Mmm. He calmed him down wonderfully. We’ll see what happens on Wednesday. That reminds me, let me know if you want Hortensia to do anything special before your interview.”

“Not really. I imagine we’ll just do a couple of photos in the garden.”

Vince looked amused. “You wish. Wait till they get hold of you.”

“Don’t!”

“On the subject of photos, I found this…”

He handed me a photograph. It had probably been enlarged from a snap; it wasn’t professionally done. But there was teenage me, probably around 16, grinning at the camera as I stood with my bike, the landscape behind me familiar but I couldn’t quite place exactly where it was.

“Where did you get this?”

“It was amongst Dad’s things that I rescued, along with a pile of other photos. Thing is, Peter suggested that we ought to have a few photos up in the house, of me, you, Freddie, Moira, Dad, Mum, everyone.”

“And don’t forget Aunt Marjorie.”

Vince blinked. “Of course! I think Dad had some photographs of her.”

“Did he ever hear from her?”

“Not that I knew of. Last I heard was that she died, about twenty years ago, I think. He never said much, and I haven’t found any address for any family amongst his papers.”

“That seems a shame. But it would be nice to have some photos of her up alongside everyone else.”

“Evidently, it’s what normal people do.”

My exclamation was more amusement than annoyance, “When were we ever normal? We never had photos up.”

“Mum used to have a few in the bedroom.”

“That was Dad’s concession to her. There were never any elsewhere.”

“Well that’s changing, and I was digging stuff out.”

“So are you putting this one up?”

“Don’t you want it?”

I shrugged. “Perhaps get a copy made or something. Unless you have the original?”

Vince shook his head. “No idea who took it. Do you?”

“Not at all. Don’t remember it. I have to assume it was one of my mates. We sometimes did rides together. I’m not even sure where it is.”

He grinned. “You disappoint me, Gray. I was convinced that you’d have chapter and verse.”

“Sorry to reveal my feet of clay. Anyway, where are you going to put the photographs?”

Vince gave an exaggerated sigh. “Well, I think they’d look a bit dinky in the hall. “

“Depends how many you’ve got.”

“Not that many. We were never a photographing family, and I’m not using any of those of Dad and his swanky mates.”

“So…”

“In the lobby. Start a wall of them, a project to accumulate more.”

“Fair enough.”

When Vince left, I started searching. I don’t have many, well any, physical photos, but I had managed to keep a few neatly organised in the cloud. There was one that I was looking for. It was taken at the dinner when the Thorncliffe Prize was being announced. The publisher and a sponsor had a table, the dinner as I remember had been excruciating, the food pretty mediocre and conversation awkward. Thankfully I had been allowed to take someone, and Bas had come with me. I had spent most of the meal dreading the results, so when it was announced that my book had won, my face was a picture. The photo wasn’t one of the official ones, I tend to look like a rabbit in headlights in those. Instead, it was taken at the table and I am looking gobsmacked and completely shocked, whilst Bas is going wild.

I found it and decided I could live with having it on the wall, and it represented one of my major moments. That sent me scrolling through the others I had saved. No, I didn’t want holidays, or Bas and I larking about on Aldeburgh beach, and there weren’t many of Norbert, thank goodness.

That’s when I found a few that I had forgotten about, ones that pointed up a narrative that I had conveniently managed to wipe from my brain. I was a bit shocked. Had these happened? There was me, aged about 21 and just down from Uni, sitting in the garden at The Grange with Vince and nine-year-old Freddie. Freddie was desperately trying to escape his father whilst I was laughing and being no help whatsoever. I suddenly remembered that I had gone down to Dad’s for the necessary few days. He’d had some sort of lunch engagement. Thankfully, I’d not been invited. But Vince and family had come round, and we’d sat in the garden, doing things that normal families did. Moira had taken the photo, laughing away too.

There was another one from when I was about 24 or 25. They were celebrating Dad’s substantial donation towards the theatre restoration; there was an event and I had gone, mainly because it was one of the few arts-related things that Dad had been involved in. It was the only time I remember him publicly acknowledging his son, Graham Philpott, the poet. I’d managed to wipe that from my memory, too. But here we were, him and I looking if not relaxed then at least almost like a normal father and son.

The final one was a complete stunner. It had happened, but I’d not followed up on the event and was now embarrassed that I’d been so shitty. It was the Hay Festival, the year before The Journey came out. I had been invited to a panel discussion, which meant I got to meet various poetic heroes. It had been unnerving but fun and given me confidence; I’d been invited because I was a promising young poet. And Vince had come. He’d had a case nearby and took extra time off work. Remember, this was only a year after Moira had died. He’d come to see me, we’d chatted, had a meal, I think. Then I’d gone back to my life, and we’d hardly been in touch.

As Bas would say when I was moaning about one of my shittier lovers, “It takes two to tango”.

I put the four photos on a flash drive and went to find Vince. He was sitting watching TV with Freddie.

“Everything OK?”

“I was looking through my photos.”

Vince smiled. “Thinking about our rogues gallery.”

“Dad’s found some wicked ones.” Freddie grinned, delightedly.

“I’m glad. Well, I’ve found four. You might have them, Vince, but I thought I’d make sure. They are about the only ones I’d want up on a wall.”

Vince chuckled. “I did find a few official ones of you, amongst Dad’s papers. I’ll say this, you don’t take a very good photo.”

“No. So that’s why I like these.”

Vince fetched his laptop and the three of us looked at them.

Freddie exclaimed, “That’s awesome! When is it?”

Vince smiled. “Thorncliffe Prize?”

“I’d spent the dinner agonising.”

“Whether you’d win?”

“Dreading winning and going up on stage and saying something, but dreading not doing well. It meant a lot to the publishers, and they’d been lovely.”

“Well, that is quite something. The other three?” He reached out to click onto the next photo, but I hesitated.

“Ones I’d forgotten. I’m sorry, Vince. My friend Bas has always been telling me, when I moan about my lovers, that it takes two to tango. Well in this case, the same is true of families.”

Vince looked puzzled. “So, what are the pictures?”

“Normal family things. Philpotts doing ordinary family stuff. You, me, and Freddie, aged nine, in the garden here. Me and Dad at some do for the theatre restoration where he actually talked about ‘my son, Graham Philpott the poet’. And you and me at Hay-on-Wye, the year after Moira died. “

Vince gave sigh, then nodded. “Alternative history. What might have been.”

Freddie had been looking at the pictures. “Are these the only ones of you with Dad and Grandad?”

I nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

Vince frowned. “We were never very good at the family stuff. Dad wasn’t that interested, and whilst Gray was at Uni, Mum was ill and that. Then without her, there was no-one. And, well. We tried. But something else always came along.”

“Usually Dad stirring about something.”

“I remember coming back from that book festival. The court case had gone badly, and there you were hobnobbing and telling everyone about your new book. Dad had a go at me about doing more for the firm, and somehow you were the perfect son.”

“For the moment. Though he never came to any events.”

“Just basked in the reflected glory.”

“Sorry, Vince. I should have made more effort.”

He looked at me and smiled. “Well, I could say the same. As Bas said, ‘It takes two to tango.’”

---

Bas

Just been discovering how selective my memory is. Mortifying! Vince was digging out family snaps. We don’t have many. Dad didn’t do ‘snaps’. There was one of me aged 16, looking good on camera for once. I dug out that one of us at the Thorncliffe Prize, priceless! Then I found a bit of alternative history, moments when I had normal interactions with Dad and with Vince. All conveniently forgotten in my anger at Dad.

Not sure things could ever have been different, but it is mortifying. Vince was great, and I think we both regret.

Just so’s you know that it isn’t only us that were dysfunctional, Vince can’t find anything in Dad’s surviving papers about Aunt Marjorie. She buggered off at 18, was in America supposedly. No pictures, no address, no nothing…

Feeling a bit down, but there’s Browning’s ‘grey beginning’. We’ve started anew.

G