Tin Man

by Sarah Winman

  One rainy afternoon, when my father had gone next door to fix a pipe, I emptied the bags onto the floor and saw my mother in every jumper and blouse and skirt I held up. I used to watch her dress and she let me. Sometimes, she asked my opinion about colors or what suited her more, this blouse or that blouse? And she’d follow my advice and tell me how right I was.

  I took off my clothes and put on a skirt first, then a blouse, a cardigan, and slowly I became her in miniature. She’d taken her good shoes, so I slipped on a pair of mid-height heels many sizes too big, of course, and placed a handbag on my arm. I stood in front of the mirror, and saw the infinite possibilities of play. I strutted, I pouted, the satin lining of the skirt clinging to my skin, electrifying the fine hairs on my legs.

  What the fuck d’you think you’re doing? said my father.

  I hadn’t heard him come in. He repeated the question.

  Playing, I said.

  Get that stuff off and go to your room.

  I began to undress, burning with shame and humiliation.

  And the skirt, said my father.

  The skirt slid to the floor, exposing my nakedness. My father looked away in disgust.

  I want to keep this, I said, holding up the handbag.

  No.

  Just to put my pencils in.

  If you ever take it out of this fucking house—

  I waited for the conclusion of this threat but it never came. My father disappeared downstairs and out of the front door, leaving me naked, bewildered, orphaned before time. I was too young, too confused to understand fully what happened in that room. That my father had said so little had been the wound, though. For him there was nothing to discuss because discussion would have made the moment real, just as my mother’s departure had been so real. Instead, I was swept under the carpet to join her.

  I see how decisions are made, in moments like that, that change the trajectory of one’s life. Well, he won’t like football, will he? He won’t like sport, he won’t like getting dirty. He won’t like doing boy things.

  So when my father went off to his football matches, I went to Mrs. Deakin’s to read, or to make cakes with her for the church fayre. But I wanted to shout, I like football too! and I want to be with you. I want to be around men and their laughter and their ways! But in four years, I was never invited. And I retreated further into the background until I could barely be seen against the wallpaper and curtains, until I eventually disappeared, erased by the notion of what a boy with a handbag should be like.

  I never did use the bag for pencils because it was too precious. I put valuable things inside, instead. Marbles. French coins. A list of all the books I’d ever read. A pearl-handled penknife. And when I emptied out the bag, one day, caught on the penknife was a piece of thread, a different color to the lining. I pulled at the thread and it became loose, and I just kept pulling until a sliver of lining came away. And behind the lining was a small black-and-white photograph showing a woman walking toward the camera. She was quite pretty and wore sunglasses and she was smiling, her arm outstretched toward the person who was taking the picture, my mother, I presumed. I didn’t know this woman but the picture was taken at Trafalgar Square because I recognized the lions and the gallery in the background.

  As I grew older, I came to understand this woman was my mother’s freedom. We love who we love, don’t we? I hope she loved her.

  * * *

  • • •

  IT’S A RARE overcast day and I walk over to Mausole, to the St. Paul asylum where van Gogh spent a year before he died. The air along this stretch of road is filled with the scent of honeysuckle that has crept over a neighboring wall. I think it’s honeysuckle. It’s sweet and fragrant, but I’m not good with plants—that was Annie’s thing. I veer off through olive groves where the sun has yet to take the color out of the wildflowers. In two weeks, though, the grass will be scorched and lifeless.

  The pines along the avenue drip with earlier rain. Daylight is flat and shy, and the air fecund, not stifling. Clouds are low and blanketing, and there is peace. In the chapel, my nose pricks with the fumes of decay and I quickly leave those moribund stones to their plangent tale. Outside, the world is vital. I take comfort in the ochre-colored building opposite, where the doves cry aloft.

  Ahead of me two coaches pull up and scores of tourists disembark. I feel angry because I’m not ready for people. For over a week, I’ve kept to myself at the mas. Have eaten breakfast and dinner in the shadow of overhanging trees and have occupied the lone sunlounger at the far end of the pool. I’m just not ready.

  The sky explodes with rain and a deep growl reverberates across the dark low clouds. I watch from under a pine tree as people scream and scramble for shelter. And then just like that, the clouds break and the sun appears and the air is seething, and leaves steam, and plastic macs are peeled off and cameras come out again. This is not how I planned the day. And instead of going back to the mas, I take off across the fields, and I climb away and climb high into the garrigue and rosemary. I look down, like a Roman ghost, on the ruins at Glanum. The footfall of the past whispers across the millennia. In the distance, I can see Saint-Rémy and the oscillation of Avignon. I can see the Alps. I venture further into the landscape. If it was a man I would call it rugged and thoughtful and scruffy. If it was a man I think it would be Ellis.

  * * *

  • • •

  IT’S YOUR WEDDING DAY, Ell. You’ve stayed the night at the shop because it would be bad luck to see Annie’s dress. You’re standing at the window in my bedroom overlooking the churchyard. You turn and face me as I come up the stairs and I’m surprised to see you’re not dressed yet. You’ve showered, and dried yourself badly. Your hair is wet and your back glistens and the top of your boxer shorts are damp. You say, D’you remember . . . ?

  And you talk about the time you came here after Dora died, after your father forced you to punch the good out of your life. How you climbed the stairs to this room with bruised knuckles and swollen eyes, how I held the wrap of ice against your hand and told you that life would get better. And, I realize, the story’s not about Dora, or your father, or grief. But about us.

  D’you remember? you say at the end.

  Yes.

  Come on, Ell, I say. And you turn away from the window and come toward me. I hand you your watch. Your hands are shaking. I hold up your white shirt, still warm from the iron, and you slip your arms into the sleeves. You attempt the buttons, but your fingers are clumsy and thick.

  I don’t know what’s wrong with me, you say.

  Nerves, I say, and I button your shirt up myself. I hand you your trousers and you slip them on. You say, I think my boxers are wet. I say nothing. I’ve noticed your socks are inside out but I say nothing. I run the narrow tie around your collar and knot it. I fold your collar down, make small adjustments. Your breath smells of toothpaste. I gently pick off the scrap of toilet paper stuck to your chin. Not bleeding, I say. I thread plain silver cuff links through your cuffs and you tuck your shirt into your trousers, zip up.

  Shoes? I say.

  Scuffed brogues. You sit on the bed and put them on. The only thing I asked you to do.

  You stand up. I hold your suit jacket and you put it on.

  Hair, I say, and you run your hands through it, and it’s almost dry.

  Right, I say.

  And I take a step back. The suit is of a decade before. Lightweight navy wool, two buttons, narrow lapels and narrow trouser legs that stop at the top of the shoe. White shirt. Thin maroon tie with two navy stripes. I brush your shoulders with my hand.

  Will I do? you say.

  Very handsome, I say, matter-of-fact.

  My words avoid the lump in my throat.

  You’ve got the ring? you say.

  I take it out of my pocket. Check, I say.

  Mabel shouting, Car’s here!

>   I offer you my hand.

  You look at me. You say, Thank—

  It’s OK, I say. Come on, let’s go.

  * * *

  • • •

  NIGHTS ARE MY RECOVERY. The walk across the gardens as the mas sleeps. The ritual of undressing under a black night, the sensation of water as I jump in, as I rise and break surface. The power in my arms and legs drawing me along. One, two, three, breathe. I flip, I turn. My thoughts numbed by the monotony, my rage tamed by the rigor. And in the iridescent blue, I slowly meet myself again.

  I sit long after dinner in the spray of candlelight, blessed by the smoke of mosquito coils, and I drink the local rosé as if it is water. I listen to other people’s conversations because my understanding of French has improved. And an elderly couple, who have been there all week, pass by my table and say, Bonsoir, monsieur. And I raise my glass, and say Bonsoir back to them.

  I stand at the edge of the pool and close my eyes. Not a breeze. Just my breath. And it’s loud because my mouth is open and I’m breathing from the depth of my stomach, and tonight my stomach churns and I don’t know why. I slip into the water and begin to swim. My pace is fierce as it always is but soon my breathing becomes ragged, a sudden explosion of in-breaths, and then I’m gasping. I have to stop swimming, I’m treading water, I’m going nowhere and I’m crying. Abandoned by the rage that fueled me, I’m consumed by an overwhelming sadness that’s left me unanchored in the middle of the pool. And there I cry for everyone. For Chris, for G, for my mother and father and Mabel, and for the nameless faces that fall away each year. And I struggle between my tears, and can do little else but make for the side.

  I rest till I’m calm and my breathing has settled. I lift myself out and sit by the edge of the pool with a towel around my shoulders. And I wonder what the sound of a heart breaking might be. And I think it might be quiet, unperceptively so, and not dramatic at all. Like the sound of an exhausted swallow falling gently to earth.

  * * *

  • • •

  THE THIRD WEEK of June is my time to leave the mas. New holidaymakers are moving into my room and I have to go. When I pay, the manager, Monsieur Crillon, says to me in English: Come back soon.

  I walk along the stone track where rows of lavender and oleander challenge a hundred shades of green. At the end of the road, at the crossroads, I stop and wonder what I’m doing. I’m not ready to leave. I don’t want to leave. Instead of waving down the bus, I turn back to where I’ve come from.

  This is soon, says Monsieur Crillon, smiling. I’m looking for a job, I say in French.

  The manager tells me there are no more jobs for men, and the only vacancy he has is for a chambermaid, that’s all. A position made free that morning. Not for a man, he says, cleaning rooms. He shakes his head. Not for a man, he says.

  I say, I can do that. I’ve done that, give me a week’s trial.

  He stares at me. He thinks it over. He shrugs. He gives me a week’s trial.

  I change the sheets and launder the sheets and clean the toilets and wipe down the showers and sweep the flagstones. And each job, to me, is proof that I still can care. And the little touches I leave in my wake, the small jars of lavender or vetiver or rosemary, or the carefully arranged toiletries on the slate ledge that make guests smile when they return to their room, well, these are the things that secure me the job, and more importantly, precious time.

  At the back of the mas are four white stone sheds on the outskirts of farmland, homes for staff who don’t have a place to live in town. They’re in lieu of a portion of our wages, which I don’t mind at all. The fifth shed, painted blue, is the shower room and toilet.

  My shed is called Mistral and sits at the edge of a field of sunflowers. Everything I need is in this small room: a bed, a table, a mirror and a lamp. And I learn soon enough that I share the space with an inquisitive lizard, and a feral tomcat that keeps vermin at bay. I still look out for a cough that’s more than clearing my throat, or a sore in my mouth that wasn’t there the day before, and I still monitor my eyes for recurring blurs, but nothing so far. My eyes are fine, just irritated by the chlorine, and the ulcer in my mouth is from drinking too much peach juice and disappears as soon as I regain my taste for water.

  Because of this, I’ve grown calm. I rise early with the sun, open the shutters and rest my arms on the ledge and let my eyes gaze out onto that shimmering sea of yellow. I sit outside with a small Calor gas stove with a coffeepot boiling on top, and as the morning lightens, I watch the sunflowers lift up their heads and learn to decipher their whisper.

  * * *

  • • •

  A MONTH HAS PASSED. At night, exhausted after long hours of physical work, I cocoon myself in darkness and heat, barricade myself against mosquitoes that are heartless and ravenous. When I come back from the shower room, I lie naked and damp on the thin white sheet, and listen to the sound of a guitar playing upon the night. The cat nestles around my arm. I like this cat, he’s good company and I name him Eric. Sometimes, when holidaymakers sleep, I creep back through the gardens and climb the gate to the pool, and swim backward and forward, proving my wellness. But gently so.

  And, some days, I’ve noticed, I don’t check my skin in the mirror, don’t check the sheets for the damp outline of my body. Trust that my sweat is merely a response to the ragged heat. My limbs have become brown, and my skin has softened, and my beard grown. I drink in the early morning light and feel content as I begin to launder and iron crisp white sheets.

  * * *

  • • •

  I WAS GIVEN two days off and decided to take the bus to Arles to catch the Rencontres de la Photographie before September brought it to an end. I got out at the Place Lamartine and to my right was the River Rhône, to my left the site where van Gogh’s Yellow House would once have stood—now a nondescript car park and roundabout struggling under the weight of holiday traffic.

  I walked through the gateway to the old Roman Town where bars and cafés were preparing for the long hours of feasting ahead. Through the winding back streets, caged birds sang on windowsills under the shade of flowers. I saw a sign for my hotel and tiredness quickened my stride.

  I lay on the bed with the shutters open wide. The sounds I heard from the street were comforting—an occasional whine of a moped, the faint corner chat of locals, squeal of swallows. I took out a cold beer from the minibar and held it against my forehead before I opened it.

  I woke to twilight and hunger and a ragged thirst. I closed the windows and lit a mosquito coil. I turned the overhead fan on and it purred quietly. I took out a small bottle of Evian from the fridge and poured it over my chest. The movement of air against my skin felt invigorating and cleared my head of the dull haze of afternoon sleep.

  I followed the chatter of voices down the road until the incessant hum got louder and the streets busier, and I entered the Place du Forum, and found the world congregating there. Restaurant tables and bars were packed. I found it disorientating, and suddenly wished I had a cigarette, a French one, of course. I went back to the small tabac and bought a packet of Gitanes. I stood and smoked. The nicotine made me high and my throat burned, and yet I was grateful for such a stylish prop.

  From my vantage point, I could see the café terrace that van Gogh had painted one night. I could see beyond the yellow sprawl of its vulgar commercialism, the vivid proof that the man had once walked across these stones and sat amidst this setting, seeking inspiration or simply company. I followed his footsteps across the square to a small bar with a mute TV and a bull’s head hanging from the wall. I sat down at a table by myself. I felt self-conscious and profoundly alone but for that there was no easy cure. I ordered a pichet of rosé and a plate of bull stew. I smoked, I wrote. No cure, but it helped.

  The following day, I woke early. Outside, terracotta roofs were already baking under the bluest sky and the heat funneled through a
lleyways when I least expected it to. I constantly sought relief in the cool heart of churches and hidden courtyards where I discovered the work of photographers I’d never heard of. (I made a note of Raymond Depardon.)

  By lunchtime, I was becoming agitated by the crowds and couldn’t face the battle for a restaurant table, and I bought a bottle of water and a sandwich, and headed out across the main road, to the Roman necropolis of Alyscamps.

  There were no queues at the ticket office, and waiting at the entrance were four pilgrims with packs on their backs and shells around their necks. Santiago de Compostela, I learned, was 1,560 kilometers away. Their journey would start one footstep past the gates. It was too momentous not to watch them as they went on their way.

  I ate my sandwich in the shade of pine trees, and by the time I got to the church of Saint-Honorat, the rabid sun had chewed hard on my neck. Inside, there was nobody about. Pigeons had taken over the highest ledges and their call echoed in the gloom. Suddenly, a pigeon took flight and startled me. Another launched out, then another, a domino effect of pigeon flight, the sound reverberating against the stone, the swish of feathered shadows, an occasional bird darting out into sunlight. And then silence. The air settled. From outside, the sound of a train rumbling in the distance, the sirocco dance of wind in the trees, the song of the cicadas and a story of transformation.

  I suddenly needed to write. I reached down into my rucksack but my notebook wasn’t there. I panicked when I couldn’t find it. It has become my best friend. My imaginarium. My staff. And I cried. Writing has become my discipline, my comfort. Oh, clever doctor. I see what you were up to, all those months ago.

  I didn’t stay in Arles that afternoon, I couldn’t. I was so affected by the sudden loss and, there, maybe, is a clue to my fragility. I hurried to the station and took the first bus back to Saint-Rémy. The journey felt tedious and overly long and the heat inside felt unbearable. I reached into my rucksack for water and found my notebook there, hidden at the bottom by a fold of fabric. What can I say? I don’t think this was about a book.