The Laying on of Hands: Stories by Alan Bennett Page B

died promptly, painlessly and without a struggle. Looking back, Midgley could see that even in these imagined deaths he had failed his father. It was not like him to die like that. Nor did he.
    The timing was good, Midgley acknowledged that. Only his father would have managed to stage his farewell in the middle of a ‘Meet The Parents’ week. It was not a function Midgley enjoyed. Each year he was dismayed how young the parents had grown, the youth of fathers in particular. Most sported at least one tattoo, with ears and noses now routinely studded. Midgley saw where so many of his pupils got it from. One father wore a swastika necklace, of the sort Midgley had wondered if he felt justified in confiscating from a boy. And a mother he had talked to had had green hair. ‘Not just green,’ muttered Miss Tunstall, ‘bright green. And then you wonder the girls get pregnant.’
    That was the real point of these get-togethers. The teachers were appalled by the parents but found their shortcomings reassuring. With parents like these, they reasoned, who could blame the schools? The parents, recalling their own teachers as figures of dignity and authority, found the staff sloppy. Awe never entered into it, apparently. ‘Too human by half’ was their verdict. So both Nature and Nurture came away, if not satisfied, at any rate absolved. ‘Do you wonder?’ said the teachers, looking at the parents. ‘They get it at school,’ said the parents.
    ‘Coretta’s bin havin’ these massive monthlies. Believe me, Mr Midgley, I en never seen menstruatin’ like it.’ Mrs Azakwale was explaining her daughter’s poor showing in Use of English. ‘She bin wadin’ about in blood to her ankles, Mr Midgley. I en never out of the launderette.’ Behind Mrs Azakwale, Mr Horsfall listened openly and with unconcealed scepticism, shaking his head slowly as Midgley caught his eye. Behind Mr Horsfall, Mr Patel beamed with embarrassment as the large black woman said these terrible things so loudly. And beyond Mr Patel, Midgley saw the chairs were empty.
    Mrs Azakwale took Coretta’s bloodstained trackrecord over to the queue marked Computer Sciences, leaving Midgley faced with Mr Horsfall and Martin.
    Mr Horsfall did not dye his hair nor wear an earring. His hair was now fashionably short but only because he had never got round to wearing it fashionably long. Nor had his son Martin ever ventured under the drier; his ears, too, were intact. Mr Horsfall was a detective sergeant.
    ‘I teach Martin English, Mr Horsfall,’ said Midgley, wishing he had not written ‘Hopeless’ on Martin’s report, a document now gripped by Mr Horsfall in his terrible policeman’s hand.
    ‘Martin? Is that what you call him?’
    ‘But that’s his name.’ Midgley had a moment of wild anxiety that it wasn’t, that the father would accuse him of not even knowing the name of his son.
    ‘His name’s Horsfall. Martin is what we call him, his mother and me. For your purposes I should have thought his name was Horsfall. Are you married?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Horsfall was not impressed. He had spent long vigils in public toilets as a young constable. Many of the patrons had turned out to be married and some of them teachers. Marriage involved no medical examination, no questionnaire to speak of. Marriage for these people was just the bush they hid behind.
    ‘What does my son call you?’
    ‘He calls me Mr Midgley.’
    ‘Doesn’t he call you sir?’
    ‘On occasion.’
    ‘Schools …’ Horsfall sniffed.
    His son ought to have been small, nervous and bright, Midgley the understanding schoolteacher taking his part against his big, overbearing parent. He would have put books into his hands, watched him flower so that in time to come the boy would look back and think ‘Had it not been for him …’ Such myths sustained Midgley when he woke in the small hours of the morning and drowsed during the middle period of the afternoon. But they were myths. Martin was large and