The farce that was the Rubens family would have been funny if not for the debilitating and diminishing effect it had on their only son, Howard, or Rube as I knew him. It could have been written by Philip Roth or Joseph Heller, or maybe even Neil Simon: some Jewish writer who could appreciate the intricate dark comedy of a stereotype of Jewish family life. The neurotic, manipulative mother, the resigned and beaten father and the son in between who would be wounded by every mood swing of his mothers, every condemning, accusative word.
The father, old rotund Monty, feigned deafness especially to the rasping voice of Phyllis, the shrew he married. The fact that he could hear everything everyone else said to him with perfect clarity was never mentioned or questioned. It seemed to be accepted that it was only she that he would not hear.
That Rube was a disappointment to both of them was probably true, but he was an especial disappointment to Phyliss, and she made no bones about reminding him of this. She only had to come into the room to have Rube shaking and gulping with anxiety.
One time he came to visit me, and she rang him on the house phone (I guess she made Rube give her the number). She bawled and screeched and was obviously drunk or otherwise medicated, telling him he better get home, or she was going to burn the house down. Yet, it was he that paid frequent visits to the local mental institutions.
Once, when he was in Goodmayes, I wrote to his psychiatrist saying that if he truly wanted to get a handle on Rube’s mental state, they should look at Rube’s domestic situation and especially, his mother who was the real looney-tune in the family. I never even received the courtesy of a reply.
Rube had taken a few dozen pain-killers and was only saved by the promptness of the ambulance. A sperm had mated with an egg twenty-eight or so years ago and Rube had been the product. And now that product had opted to put an end to itself and failed. Even in suicide Rube was the loser. A child born to fail but with his parent's expectations attached like weights.
Rube was funny and clever and
fancied himself a rock singer. Small, sallow and physically unprepossessing he
relied on ‘lonely hearts’ for his women, and there were some strange one’s, let
me tell you. Mad Ginny on her wee red moped with her bright yellow helmet. She
looked like acne on wheels. Some would say you’d have to be a bit whacky to ‘go
out’ with such as Rube and you’d have a point.
I was sat in a pub one day – not an uncommon occurrence – when I see plastered in the centre-pages of The Sun my old mate Rube being interviewed about his lonely hearts experiences.
“Some of them look like the back-end of a bus” says Howard Rubens, 29 of Gants Hill “but it’s better than nothing at all”.
Gants Hill. If it were entered into a competition for most boring, soulless locale in the world I, for one, would place money on it. Unless, that is, that for all this time, there has been a seething underbelly of raging lust going on, a cauldron of wife-swapping, bi-sexual, late-night coke parties. Roman passions sizzling amid the endless streets and terraces of semi-detached greyness.
But I somehow doubt it.
The day was arranged when we’d take Rube out of the looney bin and to sunny Southend for a meal and a breath of sea air. Rube, Monty, Phyliss and his two friends me and Ray. Ray was a prematurely bald ex-soldier and owner of a Gibson SG. This last possession was the only remotely sexy thing about Ray in any respect. A big lump of a Northumbrian, Ray was an amiable chap who still worked on a soldier’s rota; a strict timetable of chores which he was loth to ever betray. A shine ever-present on his sturdy brogues and the launderette always on a Thursday evening, that was Ray.
So, a merry party we were trundling to the coast in Monty’s car, auld, mad Phyliss chirping away in the front and Rube trying desperately not to listen in the back with his friends.
“Sing a song, Dave” he looks to me with pleading, anxious eyes.
“Whit song?” says I in improper Glaswegian.
“What’s whit mean?” pipes in Phyliss, the question aimed nominally at her husband who plays the deaf card to perfection.
“Spancill Hill, Dave. Sing Spancill Hill for me”.
Rube and I had often busked for
a few shillings down the London tube, and this was one of the songs we
performed. An old, very beautiful Irish exile’s lament.
‘And I woke in California, many miles from Spancil Hill’.
So here we were, three Jews, a Scotsman and an Englishman and I was going to sing this plaintive Irish air.
“Last night as I lay dreaming of pleasant days gone by,
My mind being bent on ram-b-ling to Ireland’s isle did fly”
“Get ‘im to stop, Monty. I can’t stand it” wails Sarah wife of Abraham, her shrill tones competing with my singing voice. I take up the challenge…
“AND I SHORTLY CAME TO ANCHOR AT THE CROSS AT SPANCIL HILL”.
One verse is all I manage, and poor Rube is shaking and swallowing with the stress of the thing.
If we could just leave this witch in Southend and drive off! Maybe even bury her in the sand and let the tide take care of her.
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