Absolute Truths by Susan Howatch

to be a doctor, but before long he was asked to leave medical school, not because he was incapable of doing the work but because he was incapable of avoiding fornication and hard drinking. Natur ally I was concerned. I was also, as Lyle well knew, furious, shocked, resentful, embarrassed and bitter. She somehow managed to stop me becoming wholly estranged from Michael, and she somehow persuaded him to promise to reform. Jon suggested that I might make more time to talk to Michael, since such a move would make it unnecessary for him to behave badly in order to gain my attention, but I disliked the idea of being bullied by bad behaviour into reorganising my busy timetable, and I thought it was up to Michael to pull himself together without being pam pered by cosy little chats.
    ‘ My father never pampered me,’ I said to Jon, ‘and if I’d ever behaved as Michael’s behaving he’d have disowned me.’
    ‘But I thought you realised long ago that your father had actually made some unfortunate mistakes as a parent! Do you really want to treat Michael as your father treated you?’
    I was silenced. Eventually, working on the theory that Michael was a muddled, unhappy young man who needed every possible support as he struggled to find his balance in adult life, I told him he was forgiven and promised to do all I could to get him into another medical school, but Michael merely said he now wanted to be a pop-singer in London.
    Unfortunately by this time National Service had been abolished so I could not rely on the army to knock some sense into his addled head. I tried to control my fury but failed. There was a scene which ended when Michael announced: ‘Right. That’s it. I’m off,’ and headed for London with the small legacy which he had been left by my old friend Alan Romaine, the doctor who had ensured my physical recovery after the war. Lyle extracted a promise from Michael that he would keep in touch with her, so we were able ro tell everyone truthfully that he had gone to London to find a job and we were looking forward to hearing how he was getting on.
    ‘ I’m sure it’ll all come right,’ said Lyle · to me in private. ‘What he’s really interested in is the stage, and he’s so handsome that he’s bound to become a matinée idol.’
    I was too sunk in gloom to reply, but Lyle’s prediction turned out to be closer to the mark than I had expected. Michael became involved with a suburban repertory company and quickly decided that his talent was for neither singing nor acting but for directing and producing plays. He stayed a year with the company but then announced that the theatre was passé and that television was ‘where it was at’ (a curious American phrase currently popular among the young). To my astonishment he succeeded in getting a job at the BBC.
    ‘ You see?’ said Lyle. ‘I told you it would all work out in the end.’
    I found it so pleasant to be able to tell all my friends that my younger son now had a respectable employer that I decided the time had come to offer Michael the olive branch of peace, and writing him a letter I offered to take him out ro lunch at the Athenaeum when I was next in London. A week later I received a card in reply. It said: ‘Athenaeum = Utter Dragsville. Take me to that bar in the House of Lords, food not necessary, I drink lunch.’
    I did not like this card at all but Lyle said Michael was only trying to shock me and there was no reason why he and I should be unable to down a couple of sherries in the House of Lords bar while we tried to make up our minds whether we could face lunching together in the dining-room- We met. Michael, who had dearly been drinking, ordered a double dry martini. I let him drink one but drew the line when he demanded another. He called me an old square and walked out. After that, relations remained cool between us for some time.
    ‘ He can’t last long at the BBC,’ I said to Lyle. ‘He’ll get sacked for drink and wind up in