by Jon McGregor
He follows the contours of each scar under the water, pressing lightly, pressing as hard as he can bear, trying to soften and ease the skin, trying to massage the flesh back into shape. He watches the colour changing as the heat of the water soaks through, flushing and fading under the pressure of his printless fingers, the blood struggling to follow his touch.
He lifts his hands up into the air, the inky water dripping off them into the sink, and his hands are clean but they are not healed. They are still ruined and useless. He pats them against a towel, careful not to rub the roughness against his skin, waves them through the air until they are dry, reaches up to put the bottle of iodine back into the cabinet. As he closes the cabinet door, a mirror swings into sight and flings him an unwanted glimpse of his face, the sagging mask of it, the familiar wrinkles and twists which mark the face that is not his face. And he looks away, and he opens the bathroom door, and his daughter stands there looking at him.
She says daddy does it hurt?
He says yes my love, it does hurt but it is okay, and he smiles, a small hard crack of a smile, and his voice is thick with it. He touches her on the head, carefully, and he says some food now okay? and she says yay and clatters down the stairs ahead of him.
In the bathroom sink the water sits undrained, cooling, ripples echoing and fading across the surface. A trickle of water weaves its way down the hanging towel, falling away from broken blue handprints, falling softly to the floor.
Chapter 15
It was at my grandmother’s funeral.
She’d been ill for a long time, and so when she died I wasn’t much upset and I wasn’t worried about going up for the service.
I took the time off work, I bought a black dress and I booked the train up to Aberdeen.
And on the way up I wasn’t thinking about my grandmother, about sadness or loss or any of those things, I was wondering about what would happen, who might be there, what my first funeral would be like.
I was interested to meet all these people my mother had kept us clear of, to perhaps find out more about the whole Scottish side of the family.
I thought I might find out why my mother had chosen to move so far away and stay there.
It was a long long journey, and I spent most of the time staring out of the window, watching the scenery change as we got further north, buildings and roads giving way to empty swathes of heather and sheep.
The rain began to close in the other side of Edinburgh, the wind lifting the water from the sea and flinging it against the side of the train, the landscape shrouded in a grey veil.
By the time we pulled into Aberdeen it was constant, and I was wishing I’d brought an umbrella.
I met my dad at the station, he touched his hands to my shoulders and said hello, and he drove me to the house of one of the many Scottish relatives I’d never met.
My mother wasn’t there, and nobody seemed to want to mention the fact, she’d said she felt unable to face the journey and that seemed to be all there was to it.
I didn’t even hear anyone asking my father how she was.
It was a small house, and it was soon crammed full of loudvoiced relatives, squeezing into the front room the same way the men were squeezed into their dark suits.
I was disappointed that none of them were wearing kilts.
I perched on the arm of a sofa, sipping the sugary tea someone had poured for me and watching the conversation ebb and flow.
They seemed almost foreign, all bright blue eyes and flushed red cheeks, skin beaten smooth by bitter winds and I couldn’t imagine being related to them.
Someone said and what about you hen, what is it you do, and I had to tell them briefly about the office and the work I did there.
There was a pause, and then a silver-haired man piped up with something about football and the room was loud and full again.
In Scotland the men of the family put the body in the ground.
I hadn’t known this, I wasn’t expecting it, and it touched a place inside me to see it.
Eight of them are chosen, the brothers and cousins and sons, the friends accepted as honorary family, the relations by marriage.
My father was included, and I don’t think he was expecting it either.
I saw him wiping his hands on his trousers and loosening his tie.
They are chosen, and given a number corresponding to a position around the coffin, and given this number on a piece of card which they turn over in their pockets throughout the service, checking it occasionally, putting it back, wiping a pair of fingers across a nervous forehead.
They get called by the undertaker, one at a time, and they move away from their women to the graveside.
I spoke to him about it in the evening, the boy, and he said it was like being called to your place in the way of things.
I knew then that I was going to go to bed with him, when he rolled his soft voice around that phrase, in the way of things.
I watched them that day, the eight of them standing around the grave, legs slightly apart, heads slightly bowed, freshly shined shoes pressing into freshly dug earth.
The coffin was hoisted into position by the bearers and held there for a moment.
Suspended over the open grave.
Poised in the outside world.
And then the men lowered it, slowly, each of them gripping their tasselled rope and letting it pass through their hands until the coffin came to rest.
There was a soft muzzle of rain falling, there was a breathless silence in the air, and it was in that moment that I started thinking about it all over again.
About that last day of summer, three years before, the last day in that house.
The child, at the end of the day, and that moment of shocking inevitability.
The ropes were dropped into the grave, and the men returned to their places, and I tried to catch my father’s eye but he wouldn’t look at me.
It’s called taking the cord he said, the boy, when I asked him about it later.
It’s a real honour he said, a duty, and but it’s a shock as well though.
He said it’s a shock because a coffin with a body loaded inside, it’s a heavy thing you know?
Because even with the eight of you stood around that hole in the ground it’s a real effort to control the descent like it’s not just a symbolic thing he said, and I listened and he had a lovely voice.
And see this he said, see it takes a long time for the coffin to get to the bottom, and you suddenly realise how much of a weight of earth is going to press down upon it, upon this person you’re laying down you know?
He said, and then it really hits you, they’re in a box, they’re being buried and they’ll stay gone, like snug in this press of thick wet earth, and I nodded and found myself saying aye and he laughed and said you going native already?
He said when I put my granda in the ground, it felt like I left a part of me there, and brought a part of it away with me.
He said like the smell of the earth, like the burn of the rope against my hands, like the minister’s voice saying the things.
I said do you want to go for a walk?
I met him after the service, at the wake, in the lounge bar of a local hotel.
He was working there, serving out the food, and later on I got talking to him.
I was sat at a table on my own and he came over to empty an ashtray, and he said you alright there then?
I’d already noticed him, he had blond hair and big shoulders and a very still way of moving around the room.
I’d already smiled at him.
He sat down and said are you a relly then, I said granddaughter and he said oh, sorry, and I said no it’s okay.
I said aren’t you supposed to be working and he said ah they’ll be alright and he looked me in the eye while I lit his cigarette.
We talked about each other without really listening, I told him about my journey up, he told me about what he did when he wasn’t working there.
Quietly, when no one was looking, we left together.
He took me walking through his city.
We walked up past the railway station and the football ground, up past empty factories and rows of houses built from grey stone, up to where we could look at the city lights coming on and sit and talk.
I wanted him.
It was as simple as that, it was shocking and embarrassing and exciting.
I wonder if I could tell my mother that, if that would be an explanation for her, to say, mum, he was there, I wanted him, that’s all it was.
I’m not sure if that would be enough for her, if she’d understand.
We sat on a wet bench and we didn’t hold hands, and I wanted to feel the rough of his face on my skin.
There was nothing very emotional about it, we weren’t bonding at a deep level; I was looking at his shirt and imagining the buttons scattered to the floor like fallen pennies.
He said shouldn’t you be getting back and I said I’m sure I’ll think of an excuse.
And we went to his house, and we went to his bed, and we spent a long time doing the things.
He teased me about my accent, and I stood on his chest and hit him with a pillow.
He tried to twist my hair into bunches, and I undid the buttons of his shirt.
He kissed my ankles, and my calves, and he lifted up my dress and kissed my thighs and I took down his trousers.
And then suddenly a seriousness came over what we were doing, and I thought about laying my little-known grandmother in the ground, and I thought about that last day of summer, and almost at once we were making love.
Really, urgently, absolutely making love.
I’d never before felt such a deep need to move that way, slowly, carefully, inexorably.
It made me feel primitive, rooted, connected to the dirt of the earth and the light of the stars, a spun thread pulled across the span of generations.
I was swollen and pregnant with desire, and the need swept through me in waves, my hands clutching like a newborn baby, clutching the sheets, his skin, the air, whitening my knuckles, straining to pull us into closer and tighter and deeper embrace, and when we were finished the bedsheet was torn and the mattress had slipped to the floor.
And when I left, before midnight, I didn’t leave my phone number and I didn’t ask for his.
I don’t think my mother would understand that either, if I told her, if she was ever to ask.
I went back to the relatives’ house, and when they asked me where I’d been I said I’d gone for a walk and got lost, and they looked at me sweetly and fed me sympathy and scones.
And the next day I made the long journey home, and I had a secret dazzle of a thing I could smile quietly about at work.
Only then it was a secret that was growing, and there was a becoming place inside me that I hadn’t been prepared for.
Perhaps my mother would say well if you play around like that you’ve got no one to blame, if she knew, perhaps she’d say oh my God did I teach you nothing?
Perhaps she’d say you should go and find him, he’s got a right to know, and he should be helping to support you, financially.
I wonder if I’d be able to convince her that I didn’t want to, that it had been a wonderful one-off and I wanted to leave it like that, unended, a suspended moment.
Maybe I won’t tell her any of it, if she asks.
Chapter 16
She can hear creaks and sighs coming from upstairs, murmured voices, slow footsteps. The flush of the toilet. She looks up at the ceiling, the woman in the kitchen of number nineteen, the mother of the boys playing cricket with milk crates outside, and she wipes her hands clean of roti flour. Darling she says, calling through to her husband, darling, nana and papa are waking up, and she puts the kettle on and begins to lay out another breakfast for her husband’s mother and father, bowls of yoghurt sweetened with honey, slices of fruit, juices and tea. Darling please! she says, a little more urgently, and she hears the television going off and she sees her husband appearing in the hallway. Good morning mother he says, looking up as his mother slowly descends, are you well, did you sleep okay? Good morning son she says, her voice heavy with the strain of moving down the stairs, and as she reaches him she pauses for breath, leaning forward to allow him to kiss her on each cheek, yes I slept okay, thankyou, yes I am well she says.
She moves through the kitchen, awkwardly, bulkily, she says good morning child and the mother in the kitchen says good morning would you like some breakfast mother? She pours water from the kettle into the teapot, and they both sit, hands folded on their laps, waiting. The stairs creak and they hear the pained exhaling of a man who does not find walking easy. They hear the son greeting the father and the father greeting the son, and the two men join them and sit at the table. They each murmur a small prayer of thanks, and there is a moment’s silence as the first mouthfuls of breakfast are taken. The front door opens and closes, and they all look round but there is no one there. The son calls out the names of the twins, and there is no answer but they hear footsteps and a door closing upstairs. He looks at his wife and she puts her spoon down and goes to see if things are okay, she hears a voice, her daughter’s voice, singing very quietly, talking from behind her bedroom door.
She waits outside the room for a moment, wondering if she should ask is everything okay, and then she turns and goes back to her breakfast.
Inside her bedroom, the girl is singing, waving a ribbon around her head in a wide slow circle and balancing on one foot. She is looking at herself in the mirror, pulling faces, tugging her mouth open as wide as it will go, grinning, frowning, tipping her head to one side and cupping a hand around her ear.
Outside, at number twenty-five, a man with a long beard is levering the lid from a tin of pale blue paint, he is plucking the loose bristles from a thin paintbrush, wiping the dust from his downstairs windowframe with a damp cloth, laying the first sticky press of paint across the bare grain of the wood.
The man in the kitchen of number sixteen hears her voice again, saying darling can’t you reach me can’t you, and the plate in his scarred hand shakes and spills toast crumbs to the floor. He has no way of making silence, so he concentrates instead on the sound of his daughter dancing lightly up the stairs. She is singing a song she has heard on the radio, he listens but he does not recognise it. He puts the plate in the sink, he tidies the other things, the lids on the jam and the honey, the margarine in the fridge, the knives and the cups in the sink. He could not, he tried but he could not reach her.
His daughter comes dancing back down again and says daddy can you get my clothes for me, of course he says and he lets her lead the way up the stairs to her room. His steps are heavy and slow, and when she gets to the top she turns around and looks down at him, giggling, saying come on daddy come on.
Her hair, it is the same.
Her hair is long, and dark, and it shines. She is an excitable girl, she talks a lot and she is always busy with something, a song in her head or skipping in the street, but when he sits her down and pulls a brush through her hair she is still. It is the only time, she is still and quiet and learning patience. Or perhaps she understands, even at her age, what happens to her father when he kneels behind a chair and runs a brush through long dark hair until it shines. She is young, she is too young to remember, but sometimes he thinks she understands. She does not often ask questions.
He reaches the top of the stairs and makes a growl like a gorilla, swinging his arms and stamping his feet and chasing her along the landing. She shrieks and runs into her room, and by the time he arrives she has hidden herself in the wardrobe, laughter bursting out of her like air from a punctured tyre. He says where are you? in a big scary gorilla voice, he says I’m coming to get you, he stamplestomps around the room.
He waits a moment, and then he says oh dear she must be somewhere else, in his own voice, he opens and closes the bedroom door.
He waits a moment more, and as the wardrobe door swings
open he swoops his arms down around his daughter and hoists her awkwardly into the air, smothering her shrieks against his chest and they both laugh and shout and enjoy the press and tangle of each other until he slumps back onto the bed and says enough now.
Every day it is the same, this hide and seek when it is time to dress her, and every day it exhausts him. He would like to be a better father, to play wrestle games and run in the street and be the gallivanting shoulder-carrying super papa man, but it is too much for him. He is tired so quickly.
He sits and gets his breath back and his daughter watches, she says daddy are you okay and he smiles and nods. Now, what would you like to wear today he says, and they move through the motions of getting her ready for the day, the lifting of arms, the wriggling of cotton vests over reluctant heads, the rolling of socks and the put your feet in here now. The two of them, moving around the small room, circling, from wardrobe to bedside and back again, clothes lifted and held up to the light, clothes dropped to the floor and scooped into a heap. The two of them, a father and a daughter. A man without a wife dressing a four-year-old child.
He crouches at her feet, pushing her shoes on, fastening the velcro straps with a nudge of each wrist. When she learns to tie shoelaces it will not be from him. He says lovey you be good today yes? Every day he says this, and nearly every day she is. She looks him in the eyes and nods, carefully. She is a very solemn child sometimes he thinks, it is strange, and as she leaves the room and walks down the stairs he thinks but I am often a very solemn father. He thinks about what food he will prepare for lunch, how long it will take, he thinks he should begin soon. But first he kneels at the side of his daughter’s bed and lets his face press into her bedding, holding his aching hands out into the air.
He looks as though he is praying, but he is not. He holds out his hands, but they are held out to no one.
The young girl from number nineteen, the sister of the twins, she is back in the street outside, holding her balance on one leg. A voice behind her says excuse me now lovely and she looks up to see the old couple from number twenty standing in front of her. She hops out of the way, still with her arms stuck out, and they walk slowly past. As she watches, the old man turns around, lifting his hat from his head like a magician, and winks. She giggles, and the couple continue their procession.
