Father of the Man by Stephen Benatar

traffic was always busy, had he caused any kind of accident. He had turned, correctly, into Huntingdon Street.
    But here his automatic pilot developed some malfunction: at his subsequent crossing point, a motorist had to brake.
    “Jesus Christ! What the fuck—?”
    “I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.” Ephraim stood alongside the driver’s window. He managed a conciliatory smile.
    “Suppose I’d gone into a skid—what then? Suppose the car behind me couldn’t stop?”
    Ephraim drew in a bit, allowing those other cars, which fortunately hadn’t been any nearer, to move out round him. For some reason he closed his umbrella, as if wet hair and face might emphasize his penitence. “Yes. I’m sorry.” He couldn’t think what else to say.
    “You tired of living, then?” The fellow seemed relentless.
    “Possibly.”
    It all happened at a great speed. Suddenly the man was out of his car, with one large hand grasping the collar of Ephraim’s raincoat. “Right, so it’s a joke, is it?” He was probably en route to a building site. He wore torn jeans and scuffed boots and his grey jumper could now be seen to be cement-smeared.
    It was also inevitable he should be about three inches taller than Ephraim. Let alone some twenty years younger.
    Ephraim thought: All right, let him take a swing, I don’t care. He had a fleeting image of that cup he’d won all those many years ago—saw it sitting on the mantelpiece in one of their former houses. In London it had got relegated to a cupboard. Here, he believed, it was still in one of the packing boxes.
    “No, it isn’t a joke. And I’ve said I’m sorry. And, anyhow, I don’t see why cars should always be given preference over pedestrians.”
    As a general maxim this might have been perfectly valid but he realized that in the present context it didn’t quite fit.
    “Because they’re fucking well bigger than you are.”
    The same as I am, mate .
    “Is that a proper reason?” asked Ephraim.
    The man stood staring at him. Both hands were now gripping his collar and their faces very close. There was a brief hiatus, comical as well as threatening. Ephraim noticed the uneven trimming of the man’s moustache.
    Then, with a shove, he was released.
    “No, you’re not worth bothering about. Prick. Go and kill yourself somewhere else. And this time make a decent job of it.”
    “I wouldn’t mind,” Ephraim told him—or told the departing end of his car. “I wouldn’t mind, you bastard. I honestly wouldn’t.”
    In fact, at times, it sounded quite appealing.

9
    “Fairy tales can come true,
    It can happen to you,
    When you’re young at heart…”
    Henry Maynard, who was one of the part-time staff at the umbrella shop in Bloomsbury, had, surprisingly, a rather pleasant singing voice.
    “For as rich as you are
    It’s much better by far
    To be young at heart…”
    He was apt, however, to show it off a good deal when he was down in the basement of the shop. The basement was where the new umbrellas were made and the old ones got repaired—ditto the walking sticks; where the stock was stored and the parcels prepared for post; where elastic bands were sewed on—and rosettes—as well, of course, as covers; where the staff, at their appointed times, could make themselves a hot drink and sit with their newspaper and sandwiches, or possibly their pot noodles.
    “You can go to extremes
    With impossible schemes,
    You can laugh when your dreams
    Fall apart at the seams…”
    The public was never allowed in the basement other than in highly exceptional circumstances—and this depended somewhat on the mood of the manager. Journalists, an art student, representatives of the National Theatre researching a production, photographers, even a small party of schoolchildren working on a project, all these had been permitted down to it within the past twelve months, and Norman, who was close to retirement, and Joe, his West Indian assistant, had patiently explained and illustrated