It Had to Be You by David Nobbs Page A

swore violently to the empty room, and worked away on the stain, with moderate success.
    Max. He was supposed to be ringing Max.
    He felt as though he had been asleep for several hours, but it was only twenty to twelve. He dialled his son’s mobile number very carefully, feeling dismayingly drunk.
    ‘Hi, Dad. How are you?’
    He’d never get used to phones that showed you who was ringing. He didn’t like them. It cut into the preliminaries, the careful approach to difficult subjects. He was thrown by Max’s cheeriness. How could he destroy that carefree youthful happiness? He felt about a hundred and five.
    ‘I’m fine, Max. Bit drunk …’ get that in before Max did, ‘… but fine.’
    ‘Great to hear from you, Dad.’
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I’ve got some terribly bad news, Max. It’s your mum. She’s …’
    He couldn’t say the word.
    ‘What? Not…?’
    Max couldn’t say the word either.
    ‘She was in a very bad car crash, Max. I’m afraid … I’m afraid she was killed.’
    ‘No!’
    James shuddered. He had fantasised about something that could cause his son such grief. In that moment he realised just how much he loved Max.
    ‘I’m afraid so, Max. Max, at least it was instant. She didn’t suffer.’
    But Max was clearly too shocked, too bereft, to even care about that at that moment, and as he heard the sorrow of his distant son, James felt real sorrow too. He told Max a few more details. By now the driver of the Porsche was a homicidal villain. They needed a villain, father and son, separated by thousands of miles.
    James told Max about his conversation with Chuck, but he could tell that his long-lost sister hardly registered in the ghastly slipstream of his mother’s death. Max was in deep shock. He told Max who he’d rung (omitting Helen) and Max wasn’t interested. He asked Max if there was anyone he’d like him to ring, and he was too numb to care.
    ‘So when’s the funeral?’ he asked eventually.
    ‘I don’t know. Rather dependent on when you can come.’
    ‘I’ll phone Mr Jellico tonight, and then I’ll check the airlines. Oh, Dad, I can’t believe this. Not Mum.’
    ‘I know. If anyone was indestructible, it was her.’
    ‘Dad?’ Suddenly Max sounded young, younger than his twenty-two years. Suddenly he sounded like a boy who needed his father. ‘I’ve got some leave owing. I could stay a bit after the funeral. Like a week maybe.’
    A week. A whole week with Max. James felt dismayed. He felt dismayed that there would be a whole week in which it would be very hard, even downright dangerous, to see Helen. He felt dismayed that his behaviour, his desire, his love had led him into becoming a man who was dismayed at the thought of his son’s staying for a week.
    ‘A week. That would be wonderful, Max. That would be simply great.’
    James was beginning to realise that things were not going to be as easy as he had thought. If only life was a fantasy.

 
     
    The alarm woke James at half past seven, as usual. He woke slowly, and from a long way off. His head was heavy. His sleep had been deep but troubled.
    He turned to face Deborah, reached out with his right hand to stroke the ample curve of her admired and envied buttocks, very very gently, so gently that he wouldn’t wake her if she was fast asleep, but would stimulate her to a faint moan of yawned pleasure if she was sleeping lightly, and, if she was already awake, would reassure her that he was still fond of her, even though he was no longer interested in the glories that had once banished all thoughts of early-morning tea from the first minutes of the day.
    There were no curves. There were no buttocks. His arm felt only space, and suddenly all the events of the day before came flooding back. His head was heavy because he had drunk too much, and because he had taken a temazepam tablet when sleep wouldn’t come, when the empty bed that he had dreamt about had been more than he could bear.
    Philip had said