Free Shuttlecock by Graham Swift Page B

breakdown. I have said already that the first time I have known Quinn to be pleasant to me was last Monday when he mentioned my promotion. That was something of an exaggeration, I admit – though that’s not to say that pleasantness from Quinn isn’t a rarity. However, there was one brief occasion when Quinn was not only pleasant but positively sympathetic – and that was over the business of Dad.
    It’s true, I never meant to ask for compassionate leave. I meant to soldier on and not even mention at the office that my Dad, a vigorous, active man in his fifties, had become a silent wreck. I meant to bear it nobly. I thought of how Dad himself had soldiered on, after Mum’sdeath.… But then – how do I begin to describe the shock of Dad’s breakdown? The misery of that evening when Marian and I rushed to the hospital and were shown this stranger lying drugged in a bed. No more scorn for my ‘police work’; no more cold-shouldering of Marian. An empty stare. That night I lay awake (Marian went fast to sleep – she dropped off, just like that, with her father-in-law lying in hospital). I got up and smoked a packet of cigarettes. I thought to myself: now it is your turn to be strong. But all the time the question kept repeating itself, like a little wave inside my skull: Why? Why?
    And then in the Tube the next morning – you see the effect the Tube has – I gave in. My fellow passengers would have had their satisfaction that day – they’d have seen a man with his defences down. The first thing I did when I got into work was to go and see Quinn. And he was all understanding. ‘My dear chap – I’m so sorry. Yes, have the rest of the week off – take as much time as you like.’ He made me sit down. He sat opposite me in his leather chair. And I couldn’t help thinking that Dad had been found, the day before in his office, in his leather chair, which was bigger even than Quinn’s. There was a moment – just as I began to explain things – when Quinn’s eyes seemed to sharpen and brighten a little, like a doctor’s, who while he is listening to you describe your symptoms, suddenly becomes interested in your appearance, in the
way
you are talking. But his manner, like a good doctor’s too, was considerate and patient. I actually felt grateful for his concern (what sympathy could I get from Marian, who had never had any for Dad?). And, to tell you the truth, all that ‘dear chapping’ and ‘dear fellowing’, which in its old-fashioned way, might have been just glib lip-service, that comforted me more than anything. It made me think of the suave,chummy talk I used to hear outside the club-house when Dad and his friends came in from their golf for their drinks.…
    But what happened after this? I took the rest of that week off. After my return to work, Quinn inquired every so often, in a perfectly friendly manner, after Dad. The ice was breaking; I seemed to have found favour. But then – after several weeks – his attitude began suddenly to harden. It was not just that he returned to his old self again; he became more severe, more tyrannical than ever before. The subject of Dad got dropped altogether; it became a sort of taboo. It was during this time that I began positively to feel that there was an evil streak in Quinn and it was directed specifically at me. Was all this a delusion brought about by my own unsettled state of mind? Or was it a consequence I ought to have foreseen? Had I made a mistake in letting Quinn peep so far into my private life? Wasn’t this just the sort of thing a man like him would seize upon? Had I been taken in by all those words of consolation and that plump, dimpled face – like the face of some complacent abbot?
    I only knew that something odd was going on, and when that first jumbled dossier arrived on my desk, my immediate instinct was one of caution. All right, call it cowardice if you like. What if Quinn were baiting me? What if he were trying to tempt me into some