Man at the Helm Read Online Free PDF

Roderick was not on intimate terms with the Labrador, he was just being an awkward bastard. Our mother stubbed out her cigarette. It was only half smoked and it snapped at the filter and the white part carried on smoking thickly. I knew she was ready to continue so I announced the next act, ‘My Husband Has Gone’, but before we could begin it Mr Lomax said
he
had to go.
    As he struggled into his anorak he said he knew of a man, an ex-plumber, who needed work due to losing his Confederation of Registered Gas Installers certificate and might be more suitable for what she had in mind, and that he’d drop his card through the letter box. And then he strode away to his van on the verge.
    ‘Strange chap,’ said our mother, and I had to agree.
    ‘Retarded,’ said my sister, who loved saying that word.
    ‘Crab,’ said Jack, who’d called him that before and rarely changed his mind.
    There’s not going to be a better moment to explain the play(s). At the time of her separation from our father, our mother had experienced only one success in her whole life. Just one, and it had been the writing of a play entitled
The Planet
when she was sixteen years old. She’d thought it up and written it by herself and then entered it into a competition. She’d won first prize and the play had been put on at a theatre in one of the universities and acted out for a whole week by drama students (that was the prize).
    Our mother hadn’t enjoyed writing the play that much and, in spite of the exciting title, the subject had been mundane and gloomy (her words) but, by coincidence, mundane and gloomy plays were all the rage then and the judges had been overwhelmed by her maturity and insight. And though a gloomy mood pervaded the play, she enjoyed all the attention of people saying she was a genius at writing plays and brilliant at dialogue and structure etc.
    Therefore, as time marched on and her life was just a long grey smear with no relief – only staring at flames, giving birth and drinking whisky – she would often try to re-create that time of recognition and acknowledgement. After our father left, play-writing became a daily thing. And it was mostly just the long, ongoing play of her life with snippets expanded, exaggerated, explained or remedied. The Play. Occasionally she might write a classical version or a poem, but it was essentially the same story. Hers.
    Sometimes writing the play warded off misery and she’d bounce around with staging ideas and on those days we hated the play because it was those days she’d beg us to enact it when we’d rather be watching Dick Emery. Other times, she didn’t have the energy to write (usually because she’d not started early enough and was too drunk) and on these days we longed for the play.
    Our mother was the main character and was always played by me because I could really play her and had her exact voice and mannerisms. Our mother always took the role of our father or the significant man because she was taller than us and this proved important. This meant she and I often fought or tussled and shouted at each other (in role). My sister, who was less dramatic than our mother or me, always played the other characters such as teachers, neighbours and so forth. My little brother Jack had only occasional, tiny (albeit important) parts such as an ambulance man or a judge and, once, a pharmacist.
    Although I had mixed feelings about performing the play, I had to admit it was well written. Clever, sometimes funny and always worldly – as good as anything you saw on telly or on stage except perhaps for Terence Rattigan, who didn’t do as much explaining and yet revealed so much. Our mother did rather spell things out and her characters occasionally broke the fourth wall, which I considered cheating. The play didn’t bother me as much as it bothered my sister. Except that what bothered her bothered the rest of us in the end.

4
     
    In the post-mortem following Mr Lomax’s visit my sister