Free Goodness by Tim Parks Page B

naïveté of the Hummels, the sullen rhododendrons outside the window, and, blending it all together, an all-pervading sense, which was also a smell, of brown. Somehow the place stank of brown. There I stood. Until the obvious occurred. There is nothing you can’t pay your way out of. And even though it was going to be expensive, I moved to the phone.
    That evening I finished work as early as I could and drove to Gorst Road for about seven to check that all was well and we were getting our money’s worth. The nurse was tall and pleasantly bulky, her hair done up in a bun on a long thick neck, one of those women who carry weight well, moving about with a crisp rustle of uniform and tights faintly chafingtogether between strong legs. In her early thirties, I guessed, efficient, assured, getting through. ‘Will do, Mr Crawley,’ she said in response to some request or other, and I told her to call me George.
    Upstairs I found Mother asleep in her green nylon sheets (Shirley would wince just at the thought) and the passageway beyond now smelling almost sweetly. I looked in on Grandfather to find him sitting up with the Express. Every piece of clothing, towel, dressing-gown, string vest, was neatly, femininely folded. Even the old man’s still black, rather fierce hair was combed flat, his cheeks shaved. He looked surprisingly virile, as if he might spring up into action at any moment. I smiled. ‘Had to get a nurse in,’ I said. ‘Bit expensivo, but there you go.’ He looked at me quizzically. ‘Good day at the office?’
    I thought of the nurse talcing his loose old balls and bum. I thought, if only one could afford the service on a regular basis, family life could be made quite pleasant. In our own case, as long as it wasn’t for more than two or three nights, it would be worth every penny. And on the way downstairs, noting how the threadbare patches were bigger now, the bannister rail looser, it occurred to me that I might have sex with this nurse. Why not? I could tell Shirley I had to stay the night with Mother and I could perhaps get a leg over in mine and Peggy’s old room. That should exorcise a few ghosts.
    Her name was Rosemary. I went out and bought stuff for her to prepare herself some dinner (thanks to Shirley I am actually quite an astute shopper) and we ate together over fantasy Formica in the kitchen and talked. It was really most pleasant, Rosemary’s company, a quite unexpected treat. I felt so easy, so relaxed, I amazed myself. Especially since I had been wondering recently whether I didn’t need tranquillisers. She explained, when I marvelled at all the little extras she’d done, that nursing wasn’t her vocation at all, she had wanted to be a pianist. She had trained and trained and very nearly made it, but not quite. Then not having quite got married either, she had decided she must have a safe source of income.She had taken up nursing, but signed on with an agency, rather than staying with the NHS, ‘to be flexible’, she said. Now she quite liked the job in a curious sort of way. My grandfather, for example, had been terribly sweet, had told her all kinds of interesting stories.
    I didn’t object. I listened, and listening, supping whatever cans I’d found in the local subcontinent emporium, I remember being delighted by the straightforwardness of all this, another life unfolding so sensibly, so poignantly; and as so often when I meet a new woman, regardless of looks, I realised that this was the woman I should have married: cheerful, practical, generous, talented, not overly bitter about her disappointments, getting on. She had large white sensible teeth, long pale fleshy hands that seemed to have a quick active almost animal life of their own. There was something nervously vibrant about them as they lay still on the tablecloth, like starfish almost, damp, soft, alive. No nail varnish. No frills. This is what I should have gone for.
    After eating, she asked permission, lit up a