0568188_DCD32_david_nicholls_one_day

connection as they sing about the emergency on planet earth. It’s the extended mix, massively extended, and time and space take on an elastic quality as Dexter scats along for what seems like many, many hours until his vision blurs and judders one last time, the remnants of last night’s drugs in his veins, and there’s a blare of horn as he realises that he is driving at 112 miles an hour in the exact centre of two lanes.

He stops scatting and tries to steer the car back into the middle lane, but finds that he has forgotten how to steer, his arms locked at the elbows as he tries to physically wrench the wheel from some invisible grasp. Suddenly Dexter’s speed has dropped to fifty-eight miles an hour, his feet on the brake and the accelerator simultaneously, and there’s another blast of horn from a lorry the size of a house that has appeared behind him. He can see the contorted face of the driver in the rearview mirror, a big bearded man in black mirror shades screaming at him, his face three black holes, like a skull. Dexter wrenches the wheel once more without even checking what is in the slow lane and he is suddenly sure that he is going to die, right here and now, in a ball of searing flame while listening to an extended Jamiroquai remix. But the slow lane is empty, thank God, and he breathes sharply through his mouth, once, twice, three times, like a boxer. He jabs the music off and drives in silence at a steady sixty-eight until he reaches his exit.

Exhausted, he finds a lay-by on the Oxford Road, reclines his seat and closes his eyes in the hope of sleep, but can only see the three black holes of the lorry driver

screaming at him. Outside the sun is too bright, the traffic too noisy, and besides there’s something shabby and unwholesome about this anxious young man wriggling in a stationary car at eleven forty-five on a summer’s morning, so he sits up straight, swears and drives on until he finds a roadside pub that he knows from his teenage years. The White Swan is a chain affair offering all-day breakfasts and impossibly cheap steak and chips. He pulls in, picks up the gift-wrapped parcel from the passenger seat and enters the large, familiar room that smells of furniture polish and last night’s cigarettes.

Dexter leans matily on the bar and orders a half of lager and a double vodka tonic. He remembers the barman from the early Eighties when he used to drink here with mates. ‘I used to come here years ago,’ says Dexter, chattily. ‘Is that right?’ replies the gaunt, unhappy man. If the barman recognises him he doesn’t say, and Dexter takes a glass in each hand, walks to a table and drinks in silence with the gift-wrapped package in front of him, a little parcel of gaiety in the grim room. He looks around and thinks about how far he’s come in the last ten years, and all that he’s achieved – a well-known TV presenter, and not yet twenty-nine years old.

Sometimes he thinks the medicinal powers of alcohol border on the miraculous because within ten minutes he is trotting nimbly out to the car and listening to music again, The Beloved chirruping away, making good time so that within ten minutes he is turning into the gravel drive of his parents’ house, a large secluded 1920s construction, its front criss-crossed with fake timber framing to make it

look less modern, boxy and sturdy than it really is. A comfortable, happy family home in the Chilterns, Dexter regards it with dread.

His father is already standing in the doorway, as if he’s been there for years. He is wearing too many clothes for July; a shirttail is hanging down beneath his sweater, a mug of tea is in his hand. Once a giant to Dexter, he now looks stooped and tired, his long face pale, drawn and lined from the six months in which his wife’s condition has deteriorated. He raises his mug in greeting and for a moment Dexter sees himself through his father’s eyes, and winces with shame at his shiny shirt, the jaunty way he drives this sporty little car, the raffish noise it makes as it swoops to a halt on the gravel, the chill-out music on the stereo.

Chilled-out. Idiot. Loved up. Buffoon.

Sorted, you tawdry little clown.

He jabs off the CD player, unclips the removable facia from the dashboard, then stares at it in his hand. Calm down, this is the Chilterns, not Stockwell. Your father is not going to steal your stereo. Just calm down. In the doorway, his father raises his mug once again, and Dexter sighs, picks up the present from the passenger seat, summons up all his powers of concentration, and steps out of the car.

‘What a ridiculous machine,’ tuts his father.

‘Well you don’t have to drive it, do you?’ Dexter takes comfort from the ease of the old routine, his father stern and square, the son irresponsible and cocky.

‘Don’t think I’d fit in it anyway. Toys for boys. We were expecting you some time ago.’

‘How are you, old man?’ says Dexter, feeling a sudden swell of affection for his dear old dad, and instinctively he loops his arms around his father’s back, rubs it and then, excruciatingly, kisses his father’s cheek.

They freeze.

Somehow Dexter has developed a kiss reflex. He has made the ‘mmmmoi’ noise in his father’s tufted ear. Some unconscious part of him thinks that he is back under the railway arches with Gibbsy and Tara and Spex. He can feel the saliva, wet on his lip and he can see the consternation on his father’s face as he looks down at his son, an Old Testament look. Sons kissing fathers – a law of nature has been broken. Not yet through the front door and already the illusion of sobriety has shattered. His father sniffs – either with distaste or because he is sniffing his son’s breath, and Dexter is not sure which is worse.

‘Your mother is in the garden. She’s been waiting for you all morning.’

‘How is she?’ he asks. Perhaps he’ll say ‘much better’. ‘Go and see. I’ll put the kettle on.’

The hallway is dark and cool after the sun’s glare. His older sister Cassie is entering from the back garden, a tray in her hands, her face aglow with competence, commonsense and piety. At thirty-four she has settled into the role of stern hospital matron, and the part suits her.

Half smile, half scowl, she touches her cheek against his. ‘The prodigal returns!’

Dexter’s mind is not so addled that he can’t recognise a dig, but he ignores the remark and glances at the tray. A bowl of grey brown cereal dissolved in milk, the spoon by its side, unused. ‘How is she?’ he asks. Perhaps she’ll say ‘much improved’.

‘Go and find out,’ says Cassie, and he squeezes past and wonders: Why will no-one tell me how she is?

From the doorway he watches her. She is sitting in an old-fashioned wing-backed chair that has been carried out to face the view across the fields and woods, Oxford a grey hazy smudge in the distance. From this angle, her face is obscured by a large sunhat and sunglasses – the light hurts her eyes these days – but he can tell by the slender arms and the way her hand lolls on the padded arm of the chair that she has changed a great deal in the three weeks since he last came to see her. He has a sudden urge to cry. He wants to curl up like a child and feel her put her arms around him, and he also wants to run from here as fast as he can, but neither are possible, so instead he trots down the steps, an artificially buoyant jog, a chat-show host.

‘Hellooo there!’

She smiles as if smiling itself has become an effort. He stoops beneath the brim of her hat to kiss her, the skin of her cheek disconcertingly cool, taut and shiny. A headscarf is tied beneath her hat to disguise her hair loss, but he tries not to scrutinise her face too closely as he quickly reaches for a rusting metal garden chair. Noisily,

he pulls it close and arranges it outwards so that they are both facing the view, but he can feel her eyes on him.

‘You’re sweating,’ she says.

‘Well it’s a hot day.’ She looks unconvinced. Not good enough. Concentrate. Remember who you’re talking to.

‘You’re soaked through’ ‘It’s this shirt. Artificial fibre.’

She reaches across and touches his shirt with the back of her hand. Her nose wrinkles with distaste. ‘Where from?’

‘Prada.’

‘Expensive.’

‘Only the best,’ then keen to change the subject he retrieves the parcel from the rockery wall. ‘Present for you.

’

‘How lovely.’

‘Not from me, from Emma.’

‘I can tell, from the wrapping.’ Carefully she undoes the ribbon. ‘Yours come in taped-up bin bags . . .’

‘That’s not true . . .’ he smiles, keeping things lighthearted.

‘ . . . when they come at all.’

He’s finding it harder to maintain this smile, but thankfully her eyes are on the parcel as she carefully folds the paper back, revealing a pile of paperback books: Edith Wharton, some Raymond Chandler, F. Scott Fitzgerald. ‘How kind of her. Will you thank her for me? Lovely Emma Morley.’ She looks at the cover of the Fitzgerald. ‘The Beautiful and Damned. It’s me and you.’

‘But which is which?’ he says without thinking, but

thankfully she doesn’t seem to have heard. Instead she’s reading the back of the postcard, a black and white agitprop collage from ’82; ‘Thatcher Out!’ She laughs. ‘Such a kind girl. So funny.’ She takes the novel and measures its thickness between finger and thumb. ‘A little optimistic maybe. You might want to push her towards short stories in future.’

Dexter smiles and sniffs obediently but he hates this type of thing, gallows humour. It’s meant to show pluck, to lift the spirits, but he finds it boring and stupid. He would prefer the unsayable to be left unsaid. ‘How is Emma anyway?’

‘Very good, I think. She’s a fully qualified teacher now. Job interview today.’

‘Now there’s a profession.’ She turns her head to look at him. ‘Weren’t you going to be a teacher once? What happened there?’

He recognises the dig. ‘Didn’t suit me.’

‘No’ is all she says. There is a silence and he feels the day slip from his control once more. Dexter had been led to believe, by TV, by films, that the only up-side of sickness was that it brought people closer, that there would be an opening-up, an effortless understanding between them. But they have always been close, always been open, and their habitual understanding has instead been replaced by bitterness, resentment, a rage on both their parts at what is happening. Meetings that should be fond and comforting descend into bickering and recrimination. Eight hours ago he was telling complete strangers his most intimate secrets, and now he can’t talk to his mother.

Something isn’t right.

‘So. I saw largin’it last week,’ she says. ‘Did you?’

She is silent, so he’s forced to add, ‘What did you think?’

‘I think you’re very good. Very natural. You look very nice on the screen. As I’ve said before, I don’t care for the programme very much.’

‘Well it’s not really meant for people like you, is it?’ She bridles at the phrase, and turns her head

imperiously. ‘What do you mean, people like me?’ Flustered, he continues, ‘I mean, it’s just a silly, late-

night programme, that’s all. It’s post-pub—’

‘You mean I wasn’t drunk enough to enjoy it?’ ‘No—’

‘I’m not a prude either, I don’t mind vulgarity, I just don’t understand why it’s suddenly necessary to humiliate people all the time—’

‘No-one’s humiliated, not really, it’s fun—’

‘You have competitions to find Britain’s ugliest girlfriend. You don’t think that’s humiliating?’

‘Not really, no—’

‘Asking men to send in photos of their ugly girlfriends . . .’

‘It’s fun, the whole point is the guys love them even though they’re . . . not conventionally attractive, that’s the whole point, it’s fun!’

‘You keep saying it’s fun, are you trying to convince me, or yourself?’

‘Let’s just not talk about it, shall we?’

‘And do you think they find it fun, the girlfriends, the “mingers”—’

‘Mum, I just introduce the bands, that’s all. I just ask pop stars about their exciting new video, that’s my job. It’s a means to an end.’

‘But to what end, Dexter? We always raised you to believe that you can do anything you wanted. I just didn’t think you’d want to do this.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I don’t know; something good.’ Abruptly she places her left hand on her chest, and sits back in her chair.

After a moment, he speaks. ‘It is good. In its own terms.’ She sniffs. ‘It’s a silly programme, just entertainment, and of course I don’t like all of it, but it’s an experience, it’ll lead to other things. And actually I think I’m good at it, for what it’s worth. Plus I’m enjoying myself.’

She waits a moment, then says, ‘Well you must do it then, I suppose. You must do what you enjoy. And I know you’ll do other things in time, it’s just . . .’ and she takes his hand, without finishing the thought. Then she laughs, breathlessly, ‘I still don’t see why it’s necessary for you to pretend to be a cockney.’

‘It’s my man of the people voice,’ he says, and she smiles, a very slight smile, but one which he latches onto.

‘We shouldn’t argue,’ she says.

‘We’re not arguing, we’re discussing,’ he says, though he knows that they are arguing.

Her hand goes to her head. ‘I’m taking this morphine. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m saying.’

‘You haven’t said anything. I’m a little tired myself.’ The

sun is bouncing off the paving slabs and he can actually feel the skin on his face and forearms burning, sizzling, like a vampire. He feels another wave of perspiration and nausea coming on. Stay calm, he tells himself. It’s just chemical.

‘Late night?’ ‘Quite late.’

‘Larging it, were you?’

‘A little.’ He rubs his temples to indicate soreness, says, without thinking, ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any of that morphine going spare, have you?’

She doesn’t even bother to look at him. Time passes. Recently he has noticed idiocy creeping up on him. His resolve to keep his head on straight, his feet on the ground, is failing and he has observed, quite objectively, that he is becoming more thoughtless, selfish, making more and more stupid remarks. He has tried to do something about this but it almost feels out of his control now, like pattern baldness. Why not just give in and be an idiot? Stop caring. Time passes and he notices that grass and weeds have started to push their way through the surface of the tennis court. The place is falling apart already.

Eventually she speaks.

‘I’m telling you now, your father’s cooking lunch. Tinned stew. Be warned. At least Cassie should be back in time for dinner. You are staying the night, I suppose?’

He could stay the night, he thinks. Here is an opportunity to make amends. ‘Actually, no,’ he says.

She half turns her head.