On the day, of course, the gilded barge had been forsaken by the Queen for a more prosaic Thames cruiser, Gloriana having been deemed too small for all the hangers-on—the protection officers and ladies-in-waiting and lackeys—that were necessary when a queen took to the river. Bertie had intended to join the flocks of people on the banks of the Thames—to be part of something bigger than herself, something that she would remember in the future in the same way that you knew where you had been at midnight on the Millennium. (Drunk, in Soho House, something she regretted now. Obviously.) It had rained, however, relentlessly, for the whole day, and Bertie had watched the admirable perseverance of monarchy on the television, the medium through which she had also experienced Diana’s funeral, the Twin Towers falling and the last Royal Wedding. One day, she thought, she would actually be somewhere when something happened and it wouldn’t be rendered second-hand through a lens. Even if it was a dreadful spectacle—a bomb, a tsunami, a war—she would at least know the grandeur of horror.
Grandpa Ted’s brother Jimmy, dead before Bertie could meet him, had been one of the first to go into Belsen and then after the war he left for Madison Avenue and joined one of the original ad agencies as a copywriter. To have lived a life of such polarities made her envious. Nowadays you just did a degree in Media Studies.
And Grandpa Ted himself, of course, mind and body crumbling a little more every day, like a magnificent, neglected ruin, had once been a bomber pilot, flying into the jaws of death every night. “ ‘The jaws of death’—is that a terrible cliché?” she asked him on their farewell tour, an elegiac revisiting of his old haunts, over ten years ago now. (“Why doesn’t he just die?” Viola wailed. “How long does it take to say goodbye?”) It had given Bertie an insight into her grandfather’s life, into history itself, which although gratifying had also left her existential nerves jangled and confused. “Promise me you’ll make the most of your life,” he had said to Bertie. Had she? Hardly.
She muted the inane BBC commentary and said, “How are you, Grandpa Ted?” She imagined him lying in bed in that horrible nursing home, living this unwelcome remnant of his life. Bertie wished she could rescue him, swoop in and carry him off, but he was too ill and frail now. Her grandfather had lived at Fanning Court for nearly twenty years, then he fell and broke a leg which led to pneumonia which should have led to an easeful death (“The old people’s friend,” Viola said wistfully), but he pulled through it. (“He’s immortal,” Viola said.) He was a lesser person than before, near enough helpless, and he was discharged into the dubious arms of the nursing home, which was where, Bertie supposed, he would die. “Every time I see him I think it might be the last time,” Viola said hopefully.
He deserved a better place to leave this life than Poplar Hill. “And where is this mythical poplar and this mythical hill?” Viola was always ranting, as if the problems with the place were a matter of semantics.
Viola was furious at how much the nursing home cost. The sheltered flat was sold but all the money was being “swallowed up” by the nursing-home fees.
“But you have plenty of money,” Bertie said.
“That’s not the point. He should care enough about me to leave me something.” (“That’s not the POINT. He should CARE enough about me to leave me SOMETHING.”) “A legacy. There’ll be nothing left by the time he dies.”
“Well, nothing left of him, at any rate,” Bertie said. “And you don’t really mean to be so horrible,” she added.
“Yes, I do,” Viola said.
Are you watching the flotilla on television, Grandpa Ted? The Jubilee?” (Oh God, her intonation sounded like her mother’s.) “Sunny sends his love,” she reported and her grandfather seemed to chuckle (or perhaps he was choking) because he had always understood Sunny better than any of them. Grandpa Ted may have been pulsing slowly towards the end of his life but he was still palpably himself, something her mother seemed incapable of understanding. Sunny hadn’t actually sent his love but he would have done if he’d known she was talking to their grandfather. Sunny loved his grandfather. His grandfather loved Sunny. It was the most complicated arrangement.
“I’m going to Singapore tomorrow.” Her mother’s rather shrill tones suddenly replaced her grandfather’s silence and Bertie recoiled from the phone.
“Singapore?”
“A literary festival.”
Viola used to sound embarrassingly pleased with herself when she talked about the more glamorous end of publishing. “A meeting in London with a film producer,” “lunch at The Ivy with my publishers,” “the main stage at Cheltenham.” Now she just sounded oddly defeated.
“I’ll be in London tonight,” she said. “I could take you to dinner. At Dinner.”
“Sorry, I’m busy.” It was the truth but Bertie would have said it anyway. Her mother sounded disappointed, which was interesting as for over thirty years it had been the other way round.
“Are you going to see Sunny?” she asked her.
“Sunny?”
“Your only son.”
“Singapore isn’t Bali, it’s a completely different country,” Viola said, although she sounded unsure. Geography never had been her strong point.
“It’s a hop and a skip away though. You’ll be well over halfway there when you get to Singapore. It’s not as if you have anything else to do. And you should,” Bertie added, “and quickly because you may not know this but the universe has already started collapsing. There are signs everywhere. I have to go.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No, I don’t but I am. Say goodbye to Grandpa Ted for me.”
The Queen had reached Tower Bridge. Bertie turned the television off, alert for signs of the universe collapsing.