Remedy is None Read Free Page B

gradually in his relationship with his father, and was like a hard skin formed on his affection. How had it happened? He seemed hardly to have thought about his father as himself for as long as he could remember. The selfishness of it was shattering. He had known the last time he was home that his father had been X-rayed, but he had somehow assumed that it had been all right. His father had been very off-hand about what he called ‘just a check-up’, probably because he didn’t want to disturb Charlie’s studies. To Charlie’s father, ‘the studying’ was sacrosanct, a mysterious activity involving some miraculous act of concentration. And Charlie had let himself be convinced that there was nothing to worry about. The truth was that in the last few days his own problems had left no room for his father’s in his mind. But that was no excuse. For a long time now, he had been concerned almost exclusively with himself, living his separate life in Glasgow. It was so easy to become isolated. He had anestablished routine and it was a pleasant one. His only real worries had been examinations. And they were the kind you could defer until they gathered in one week and were over the next. The rest of the time he enjoyed just being a student. Certainly, he could have gone home more often. He thought again of how long it was since he had been home. Over a month, and it was only a short train journey away. But he had discussed it with his father and Elizabeth, and they had all decided that with important class examinations coming up it would be a good idea for him to stay in Glasgow and work at the week-ends. Mary had agreed reluctantly. She had come up to Glasgow for the day once or twice since then. It might have been better if she hadn’t, he reflected ruefully.
    He should have gone down more often, he told himself. He should have gone down much more often. How was it possible to have been so thoughtless and indifferent about his own father? Their relationship had been so tacit and casual, confined to meetings at the tea-table or the occasional brief exchange when Charlie came in late at night. The whole relationship had become a cliche for Charlie, as incidental as the talk between these people with whom he happened to be sharing a compartment.
    ‘They’re making some drastic changes here,’ the one with the cigar said to the man beside him, indicating a street in the town they were going through.
    ‘Yes. It’s high time, too.’
    ‘Those buildings must have stood for seventy years, anyway.’
    ‘More like eighty.’
    ‘Yes. They’re very old.’
    They nodded knowledgeably, the motion of the train prolonging the action until it looked like the perpetual acquiescence of dotage. Their jollity had lapsed before the seductive torpor of a long journey, and they sat recharging their batteries. The one with the cigar held it burnt out between his fingers, his trousers stained haphazardly with ash. The youngest one was making a show of looking out the window,conducting an optical conversation with the young woman. The old woman sat blinking in her corner like a cat, having a dignified disagreement with her eyelids, which kept insisting on sleep, although she jerked herself awake repeatedly.
    Charlie sat staring out the window at himself. He wasn’t exactly enamoured of what he saw. A selfish taker, whose habitual gesture towards his father was an extended hand, palm up. It wasn’t as if things had been so easy for his father. Apart altogether from the money, it must have been hard going. Especially over the past six years. Was it six? Perhaps it was more. Charlie had trained himself not to think about it. That part of his memory was fenced off from everyday contact. It had left its effect on all of them when it happened, and each had had to make his own peace with it. They seldom talked about it. But he found himself wondering how big a toll it had taken of his father, while Charlie had been too busy to pay it any