Tin Man

by Sarah Winman

  I’ve got peaches and water for the journey, I said.

  Thank you, he said. You think of everything.

  Because I love you, I said.

  He didn’t look at me. The change was happening too quickly.

  Is there a taxi coming? My voice was weak, breaking.

  Madame Cournier’s taking us.

  I went to the open window, the scent of tuberose strong. I lit a cigarette and looked at the sky. An airplane cast out a vivid orange wake that ripped across the violet wash. And I remember thinking, how cruel it was that our plans were out there somewhere. Another version of our future, out there somewhere, in perpetual orbit.

  The bottle of pastis? he said.

  I smiled at him. You take it, I said.

  We lay in our bunks as the sleeper rattled north and retraced the journey of ten days before. The cabin was dark, an occasional light from the corridor bled under the door. The room was hot and airless, smelled of sweat. In the darkness, he dropped his hand down to me and waited. I couldn’t help myself, I reached up and held it. Noticed my fingertips were numb. We’ll be OK, I remember thinking. Whatever we are, we’ll be OK.

  We didn’t see each other for a while back in Oxford. We both suffered, I know we did, but differently. And sometimes, when the day loomed gray, I’d sit at my desk and remember the heat of that summer. I’d remember the smells of tuberose that were carried by the wind, and the smell of octopus cooking on stinking griddles. I’d remember the sound of our laughter and the sound of a doughnut seller, and I’d remember the red canvas shoes I lost in the sea, and the taste of pastis and the taste of his skin, and a sky so blue it would defy anything else to be blue again. And I’d remember my love for a man that almost made everything possible.

  A weekend toward the end of September, the bell above the door rang and there he was in the shop. Same old feeling in my guts.

  I’ll go if you want me to, he said.

  I smiled, I was so fucking happy to see him.

  You’ve only just got here, you twat, I said. Now give us a hand with this, and he took the other end of the trestle table and moved it over to the wall. Pub? I said.

  He grinned. And before I could say anything else he put his arms around me. And everything he couldn’t say in our room in France was said in that moment. I know, I said. I know. I’d already accepted I wasn’t the key to unlock him. She’d come later.

  It took a while to acknowledge the repercussions of that time. How the numbness in my fingertips traveled to my heart and I never even knew it.

  I had crushes, I had lovers, I had orgasms. My trilogy of desire, I liked to call it, but I’d no great love after him, not really. Love and sex became separated by a wide river and one the ferryman refused to cross. The psychiatrist liked that analogy. I watched him write it down. Chuckle, chuckle, his pen across the page.

  So that was it, I say to Chris, when I get to the end of the story. Nine days and they never let me go.

  And you never got back together afterward? he says.

  No. We had our time. Friends only.

  He looks thoughtful. He looks sad.

  D’you need to sleep? I say.

  Maybe.

  I’m going to go then. I stand up.

  Can I keep this tonight? he says, holding up the photo.

  I’m surprised by what he asks. If you want, I say.

  I’ll give it back tomorrow. I will see you tomorrow, won’t I?

  I put on my shoes. Yes, I say, but tomorrow’s a letter-writing day.

  I get to the door and he calls my name. I turn.

  He says, I wouldn’t have packed. I would’ve let the train go.

  I nod.

  * * *

  • • •

  THE NEXT DAY, a burst of winter sun has made everybody bold. Chris has persuaded me to take him outside in a wheelchair and I’ve piled onto him as many regulation blankets as possible and forced a thick woolen hat onto his head. Don’t be long, the young nurse Chloe says to me quietly. I won’t, I mouth to her.

  We sit by the fountain as sunlight dances white across the ripples and he closes his eyes as he faces the brittle warmth and dictates the final words of his letter. It is a beautiful letter, and his parents will receive it the following day and their world will be shattered. He’s quiet because he knows this.

  We could be anywhere, he says.

  We could, I say.

  Italy. Rome. What’s the fountain there?

  The Trevi? I say.

  Have you seen it?

  Yes, I have.

  What’s it like?

  Underwhelming, I say.

  He looks at me.

  A bit fussy, I say.

  You’re doing it to me again, he says.

  I’m not. Seriously. It’s just an opinion. It’s not like here, I say.

  Idiot, he says.

  I grin.

  D’you think throwing money into any fountain is lucky? he says.

  I do, actually. I’m a fountain expert, I say, and I give him a coin from my pocket.

  I wheel him close to the edge of the water. He blinks as spray catches his face. Minuscule rainbows darting like midges. The coin sinks. His mouth moves, a silent incantation of hope.

  Take me out of here, he says.

  Out of the chair? I say.

  No. The gates, he says. Out of here.

  I look at my watch. I look at him. I wheel him toward the entrance and stop at the border.

  Do we dare? I say teasingly. Do we dare? A little nudge across the threshold.

  We dare! he says, and I wheel him out into a city on the move.

  Over there, he says, and I stop at a bench near the gates. I sit down next to him, sunshine on our faces. We could be anywhere, he says again. His pale arm fights free of the blankets and reaches for my hand. He closes his eyes. Rome, he says.

  * * *

  • • •

  IT’S THREE in the morning and I’m awake. I feel like I’m coming down with something. My mind whirrs and my pulse is all over the place. Sometimes my heart fails to beat, and I lie in an airless limbo. I’m scared. I don’t want to go through all this, I don’t want my body to fail. I only acknowledge this when I’m alone. I pick up the phone. Maybe I could call them but I don’t know what to say. Maybe Annie would answer and that would be easier.

  Annie, it’s me, I’d say (in a slightly pathetic whisper).

  Mikey? she’d say.

  I’m sorry it’s late, I’d say (being respectful, polite).

  Where are you?

  London, I’d say.

  Are you OK? she’d say.

  Yeah, really good, I’d say (lying).

  We miss you, she’d say.

  I replace the phone quietly and stare at the ceiling. I try the conversation again.

  Annie, it’s me, I’d say.

  You sound awful, she’d say. Are you OK?

  No. I start crying.

  * * *

  • • •

  A STINKING COLD has kept me away from the hospital the last four days. Sneezing. Runny nose, irritated eyes. It disappears after four days, and I declare myself well. I’ve never been so grateful for a mere cold.

  I decide not to go to the ward till later that afternoon and go instead to the West End to see a film that everyone has been talking about. I sit in the front row of an almost empty cinema where seventy-two frames of color flicker across my face every second, and where a young man stands on a desk in the final moments and cries out in love, O Captain, my Captain!

  And there I am, thirteen again, at Long Bridges bathing place, reciting a poem I thought I’d long forgotten. Word after word of Whitman’s poem tumbles out, as sunlight plays on the surface of the Thames.

  It’s a poem about grief, I say to Dora.

 
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

  Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;

  For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;

  For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning . . .

  Dora bends down and kisses me on the head. She walks to the water’s edge and I race after her. Pretend to save me from drowning, I say and I jump in the river and swim to the middle of the pond, arms and legs kicking and flailing. She swims toward me, whispers to me to lean back, to let go. Everything’s going to be all right, Michael, she says, as she pulls me across those warm, still waters. And all the way, I quote,

  O Captain! my Captain!

  I race back to the hospital because I want to tell Chris about the film. And I’ve played it in my head, so many times, what I’m going to say to him when I get back to the ward. I’m going to stand in the doorway and recite the poem from start to finish. It will be like theater. The doorway the stage, he the audience, and the nurses may stop to listen. I know already how it will be. Something good in a difficult day. When I arrive at Chris’s room, my knees fail. The bed has been stripped, and the room is empty. Chloe sees me. She rushes over. It’s OK, Michael, she says. It’s OK. His parents came. They’ve taken him home.

  * * *

  • • •

  I’M IN G’S ROOM watching the late news. The BBC reporting from Germany. The Berlin Wall is down and the gates are open. Cars are honking, friends and families are reunited and champagne is drunk. Chloe comes in and brings me a tea. She puts her arm around me and says, nodding to the TV, No one thought this was possible ten years ago. And now look. Life changes in ways we can never imagine. Walls come down and people are free. You wait, she says.

  I know what she’s trying to say: Hope.

  G died on 1 December 1989. I haven’t cried. But sometimes I feel as if my veins are leaking, as if my body is overwhelmed, as if I’m drowning from the inside.

  * * *

  • • •

  I’VE TAKEN TO THE SOFA. I’m not sure of the date, I don’t care. I feel so heavy, I can barely move. I eat vegetable broth, and lots of it. I’m aware, some days, how this flat must smell.

  Every time I stand up, I rearrange the cushions on this sofa so it’s ready for me to lie back down again. Small gestures are important. I lie facing the balcony, and in the evenings, I lose myself in the transfer of light. Sometimes I open the sliding doors and hear Christmas approach. I hear the chatter of who’s going where and who’s buying what. I listen to the drunken songs from office party revelers and sometimes I make it outside and watch illicit snogging in the shadows. I wonder if this stolen act is the start of something or the end of something.

  * * *

  • • •

  THE DIGITAL CLOCK flicks over. At 18:03, there’s a knock at my door. I look through the peephole. I see a woman’s face—a kind face, sort of familiar, but not a friend. I open the door and she says, Michael? (I’m surprised she knows my name.) She says, I’m Lee. Maybe you don’t remember me? Four doors down that way, she says, pointing.

  She says, I haven’t seen you out the last few days and I thought you could do with a few things. I tried you yesterday, but . . .

  And she hands me a large bag of shopping.

  There’s wine, too, she says. So careful when you put it down.

  I stare at her. I say, Thank you, and begin to unravel.

  I feel her hand on my shoulder.

  She says, You know, if you need anything over Christmas, we’re staying put and—

  I cut her off before her kindness overtakes me. I thank her again, and wish her a happy time.

  I empty the bag on the kitchen counter. Potatoes, wine, a ham and a pork pie and salad, a feast. Chocolate, too. A card. On the front, an image of Victorian London under snow. Inside, With Our Very Best Wishes, Lee and Alan.

  I put the card on the table and it makes a difference to the room, to my mood especially. It’s Christmassy. I light a candle and open the sliding doors. Traffic and chill air. Lee and Alan. Who knew?

  * * *

  • • •

  CHRISTMAS 1976. The sudden fall of light along Cowley Road. The smell of chestnuts Mabel roasts in the kitchen and sells in the shop. The smell of oranges punctured by cloves. The holly sprigs and mistletoe that Ellis and I used to gather out at Nuneham Courtenay.

  I say to Ellis, Last tree and we’re done.

  Where to? he says.

  Divinity Road, I say. Up by Hill Top. Here’s the invoice, and I hand him the sheet.

  He looks at it. Anne Cleaver, he says.

  See you afterward—

  —Course, he says.

  Eat here?

  Great, he smiles. He leaves the shop, tree on his shoulder, fur hat on his head, and I watch him cross the road. I sit down in Mabel’s armchair. The clock ticks over, and customers come in and make additions to their orders. But mostly, I read. Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, A Christmas Memory. I go out the back to make a cup of tea. I look at the clock and wonder where he’s got to.

  In seven years, France has changed in our storytelling. It is now a holiday of single beds and single lads, sunbathing and French beauties. We keep secrets from one another now, secrets about sexual adventures, who’s done what. They’re secret because we don’t know what to do about the thing we were. So we stay away from it and don’t touch it, in case it stings. Avoidance is the dock leaf.

  He’s taking forever. I’m hungry. Mabel’s not back from her friend’s, and I feel like company. The cold inches across the stone floor and finds my toes. I stand up. I jump about. I go over to the record player and search out my favorite record. The introduction plays and my heart shimmies. The Impressions. “People Get Ready.” I open the shop door and let my feet take me across the floor.

  I sing, I close my eyes. I look up. In the doorway, Sister Teresa is laughing. Ho, ho, ho, I say. I offer her my hand, and surprisingly, she accepts. We slow waltz at arm’s length, and between us is the faint smell of soap and incense. I’ve known her for many years and let my thirteen-year-old self serenade her with his confusion and chafing hormones. We separate and she returns to the doorway. I finger-click my way to the back curtain and when I turn round, I miss a beat. Ellis is standing there with a young woman by his side, her red-blond hair vivid against the shoulders of her navy duffel coat. There is a familiarity to them already, no space between their bodies, and I know they’ve already kissed. She’s smiling at me and she has eyes that question, and I know I’ll have trouble with those eyes, one day. I don’t want the music to end. I want to keep singing and dancing because I need time to know what to say because I know she’s the One, and I just need time.

  * * *

  • • •

  I WAKE WITH A JOLT. As if the car I’m in has crossed a cattle-grid. It’s a New Decade, I know it is. The nineties. How incredible. I roll over and stay put for days.

  * * *

  • • •

  THE CLOCKS HAVE gone forward and mornings are light. I go into Soho to do something enjoyable because I feel so fucking normal, it hurts. I’m out of the worst of it, I know I am. All I needed was time.

  I sit outside Bar Italia huddled under a blue sky. I begin to read a newspaper but I can’t be bothered. I see faces I know and we smile and nod. I order a macchiato. I send it back because it’s not quite how I like it, but they know me and know how I am, I’ve been a regular for years. Inside, Sinatra sings “Fly Me to the Moon”: Annie’s song. It was legendary how badly she used to sing it.

  Every time Annie sings an angel loses its wings. That’s what I used to say.

  Be nice, Mikey, she’d say, stroking my face. Be nice.

  I walk down Charing Cross Road and notice black blotches of chewing gum on the pavements. Why do people do that? Why don’t they
care? I feel the effects of the coffee in my chest and back, a growing tightness.

  I climb the steps to the National Gallery and feel dizzy. I sit by the bookshop and think of G. He’s distant. I feel nothing. He’s gone. I walk through the rooms, annoyed by the presence of others.

  I stand in front of a painting of fifteen sunflowers, and I think of too many things and I start to hurt and the pain is intense. What did you see, Dora? Tell me what you saw.

  I turn sharply. The man next to me is saying, Can you move?

  I ignore him. I feel him pushing me. I turn. What? I say.

  A photo? Wait, I say.

  Pushing me, pushing me, pushing me.

  Don’t fucking push me! someone screams. I have a right to be here! Got it? I have a fucking right to be here. A fucking right.

  And I’m frozen because the words are mine, and I don’t know what to do because everyone’s looking at me, and now the security man’s coming toward me and I need to make people not feel frightened of me, because I’m not a frightening person. And I raise my hands and say, I’m going. It’s OK, I’m going. And I back out and people are staring at me, and I’m apologizing. I feel dizzy but I mustn’t collapse, I have to make it to the door. I’m sorry, I keep muttering. Out into the cold now. Keep walking, I’m so sorry, keep walking.

  June 1990, France

  I’m here, Dora, I’ve come south. Stone cottages, fields of lavender and olive groves. Van Gogh’s dark cypresses spear the sky. I’m here for you, Dora Judd. Do you remember when I was twelve and, one day, you said to me, Call me Dora. Do you remember? And I said, Dora? Such a pretty name, Mrs. Judd. And you laughed and said, You’re like an old man sometimes, Michael. And I said, Do you think you were named after Dora Maar? And Ellis said, Who’s Dora Maar? And you said, Picasso’s muse. And Ellis said, What’s a muse? And you said, A rare force, personified as a woman, who inspires creative artists. Just like that, you said it. As if you’d memorized it. I remember it word for word. No pause. No thought. Personified as a woman. That’s what you said. Why I remember all this now, I don’t know. Why am I scribbling to you, my dear dead long-gone friend, I do not know. Maybe, at least, to say you are my muse, Dora. I’m here because of you. Because of the night you won a painting in a raffle.