Perfect

by Rachel Joyce

  A huge roar of laughter hit them as they stepped into their box. The stage was brilliantly illuminated, like a well of yellow. He couldn’t make out what the people on stage were saying or what exactly the crowd was laughing about because at first he wasn’t listening, he was only watching. He thought the audience was laughing because of him, because they were late, but taking his velvet seat he realized the crowd was pointing at the man on stage and gripping their stomachs, they were so amused.

  The man was juggling plates. He ran between them, spinning china on wires that looked like stalks, and as the plates whipped round they caught the light. Every time a plate faltered to a halt, about to fall and crash, he seemed to remember at the last moment and rush back to it. His mother watched with her fingers to her eyes, as if hiding. Behind, a scene had been painted of a terrace by a lake. The artist had even caught how the moon shone over the water in a single silver path towards the horizon. At the end of his act the juggler gave a bow, like a great flop from his waist. He blew kisses to the audience and Byron was sure one landed right on his mother.

  When the curtain rose again, the moon-filled lake had vanished. In its place was a painted beach with palm trees. There were women with real grass skirts and flowers in their hair. A man sang about the sun and the women danced around him, bearing pineapples and jugs of wine but never stopping to eat. Then the curtain bounced down on them and once again the scene was whisked away.

  There were several more acts, each with a new painted backdrop. There was another magician who kept making mistakes, a violinist in a glittering suit, the troupe of dancers dressed this time in sequins and feathers. He had never seen anything like it, not even at the circus. Their mother clapped after each one and then sat, very quietly, as if she were afraid that with too big a breath the whole thing might disappear. When a man in a tuxedo played an organ, and a small chorus of ladies in white dresses danced behind him, his mother’s face shone with tears. It was only when the last magician came on, wearing a red fez and a suit that was too big, that she began to laugh. Once she had started, she couldn’t stop. ‘Oh this is funny,’ she screamed. She had to grip her stomach she was laughing so hard. It was late afternoon by the time they left the pier and the seaside. Lucy was so tired Diana carried her through the turnstile and back to the car.

  Byron watched the sea growing fainter behind, until it was no more than a silver trim on the horizon. His sister was asleep within moments. This time his mother did not sing, she drove quietly; only once did she lift her eyes to catch his in the rear-view mirror. ‘That was a happy day,’ she smiled.

  Yes, he said, it was. She was so good at surprises.

  As it turned out, there was a further surprise waiting for them when they arrived home, their skin sun-tingled and sticky. But this was not, for once, a surprise of Diana’s making or if it was, it was inadvertent. They arrived to find Beverley and Jeanie waiting at the back of the house on the sun chairs. Jeanie was stretched out asleep, but as soon as Beverley caught sight of them entering the kitchen she sprang up and began pointing at her watch. His mother unlocked the French windows and pinned them flat against the outside wall, asking if everything was all right, but Beverley was furious. She said their mother had let her down. She had forgotten the visit.

  ‘I didn’t realize the visits were a daily thing.’ Diana explained they had only been to the seaside to see a concert, but this made things worse. Beverley’s mouth dropped open. It seemed she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  ‘There was a very good organist,’ said Byron. He offered to fetch the programme to show Beverley the pictures but she gave a terse shake of her head, with her mouth pursed so tight she looked as though she had a row of pins in there.

  ‘Beverley, you mustn’t be upset,’ said Diana.

  ‘I would’ve liked to go to the seaside. I would’ve liked to see a concert. We’re starving here. It’s been a bad day for me. My arthritis is rotten. And I love hearing the organ. It’s my favourite.’

  Diana rushed to fetch one of Beverley’s yellow drinks and began slicing a loaf for sandwiches but Beverley was rooting through her handbag. She kept tugging things out, her purse, her small diary, her handkerchief, and then shoving them back as if she could not find what she was looking for. ‘I told you it would be like this,’ she said. She looked on the verge of tears. ‘I said you’d get bored.’ Jeanie crept up from the sun lounger and slipped through the French windows.

  ‘I’m not bored, Beverley.’

  ‘You think you can invite me for tea and then have a better idea and drive off and forget all about me.’ Whatever she wanted to say next, she couldn’t manage, she was crying so much.

  Diana handed her a handkerchief. Then she took her hand. Then she held her tight. ‘Please don’t cry, Beverley. You’re my friend. Of course you are. But I can’t be here for you all the time. I’ve got the children—’

  At this Beverley pulled back with her arm lifted as if she were about to lash out, when she was interrupted by a howl of laughter from the kitchen. Jeanie flew through the opened French windows on Lucy’s space hopper. Hitting the threshold, she bounced too hard and was hurled over the top of the rubber handles, landing with a smack on the paving stones. She lay very still, her legs splayed, her hands pressed flat either side of her head. She did not move.

  Screaming, Beverley ran to her side. ‘There, there,’ she shrieked. ‘There, there.’ It didn’t sound comforting. She shook her daughter roughly as if she were asleep. She pulled at her arms. ‘Can you walk? Have the stitches opened?’

  ‘She doesn’t even have stitches,’ said his mother but she looked terrified. ‘And why was she on a space hopper if her leg’s so bad?’

  It was the wrong thing to say, even though it was the truth. Beverley hoisted the child into her arms and began staggering through the French windows into the kitchen. Diana fled after her with her handbag but Beverley tripped and stumbled forward as if she had forgotten how to stop.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ called his mother. ‘I didn’t mean it.’

  But ‘It’s too late, it’s too late,’ shouted Beverley.

  ‘Let me give you a lift home. Let me help.’ Diana was using her fluttery Seymour voice. For half a moment Byron was afraid his father was standing right behind.

  Beverley stopped suddenly and turned. Her face was puce. Jeanie lay in her arms, frail as cloth, though Beverley’s fingers were locked and outstretched again as if it were too painful to use them as hands. There was no blood on Jeanie’s knee; Byron looked carefully. However, Jeanie was pale and her eyes were only half open; he saw this too. ‘Do you think I’m here for your charity?’ spat Beverley. ‘I’m as good as you, Diana. My mother was a vicar’s wife, remember. Not a cheap showgirl. We’ll get the bus.’

  It was his mother’s turn to falter. She could barely speak. She got out a few words about the car and the bus stop, but no more.

  To his astonishment, Beverley laughed. ‘What? And watch you veer all over the place? You’re so nervous of that car you’re not safe. You shouldn’t even have a licence.’

  She walked off towards the drive, still carrying Jeanie. His mother watched from the threshold and placed her head in her hands. ‘This is not good,’ she said quietly. She went into the kitchen.

  Byron heard her washing the dishes and shaking the sand from the beach towels. He remained at the door and he watched Beverley’s profile, growing smaller and fainter as she made her way towards the road until there was nothing but the garden and then the moor and then the enamel summer sky.

  Like Beverley, James was very interested in the concert. Disappointed perhaps with the conclusion of Operation Perfect, he transferred all his energy to the surprise visit to the pier. He quizzed Byron about the different acts; what they wore, how long they lasted, what exactly they did. He asked him to describe the painted backdrops, the orchestra, the curtains that fell between each scene. It was the story about the organist and the white-dressed dancers that en
tranced him. ‘Did your mother really cry?’ he murmured.

  There was no news from Digby Road for four days. During that time Diana said little. She grew busy in the garden, deadheading roses and cutting back the sweet peas. Without Beverley, time seemed to yawn open again. Lucy and Byron played close to their mother and sat beneath the fruit trees to eat. He showed his sister how to make perfume with crushed flower petals. When his father visited, Diana wore her slim skirt and blow-dried her hair. He talked about his imminent trip to Scotland and she made a list of things he required. They ate birthday cake for Lucy and he left early Sunday morning.

  It was the afternoon when Beverley telephoned. The conversation was brief, Diana barely spoke, but she came away white as milk. She sat in a kitchen chair, her face in her hands, and for a long time she could not explain.

  ‘There has been an appalling turn of events,’ Byron wrote to James that evening. ‘The little girl, Jeanie, CANNOT WALK. Please reply immediately. Situation VERY SERIOUS. OPERATION PERFECT IS NOT OVER. This is an EMERGENCY.’

  10

  Moor

  IN A PHONE box, Jim explains to Eileen that he got her number from the girls in the kitchen. Could he see her after work? It’s an emergency. He promises not to take much of her time but he needs to tell her something important. The line is bad. At first she doesn’t appear to know who he is or what he’s talking about. She says if he’s trying to sell kitchen improvements, or household insurance, he can bug right off. ‘Eileen, it’s me,’ he stammers.

  ‘Jim?’ She breaks into a laugh, as if she has just seen something happy. He asks again if she will meet him.

  She says she can be there as soon as he wants. She needs to see him too, she says.

  For the rest of the afternoon, Jim is terrified. He keeps forgetting to smile at customers. He omits to hand them leaflets. Maybe he should phone Eileen back? Maybe he should say he has remembered he has a previous engagement? He doesn’t even know what exactly he is going to tell her. This is an emergency in so far as by the time she arrives he will no longer be able to do it. How can he voice everything that is in his mind? It is filled with pictures, memories, things that happen in the flicker of time before there are words. In all the years at Besley Hill, and despite the encouragement of nurses, social workers and doctors, he was never able to explain. His past is like the sounds that drift from the hills, that are made of air. How can he ever speak it?

  In the last group session at Besley Hill, the social worker promised the patients this was a beginning, not an ending. Some of the staff were out of jobs too, she laughed, and from the way she kept laughing it was clear she was one of them. This was a strange, new time for everyone. She said she wanted them all to think of what they would like to be. Someone said Cheryl Cole, several patients cried, another said an astronaut and then they laughed. Afterwards the social worker told Jim that Mr Meade had agreed to take him on trial. She explained what that meant and that he could manage, she was sure of that. He wanted to tell her that the thing he wished he could be was a friend but she was already on her mobile phone, sorting out his paperwork.

  It is Eileen’s idea that they head for the moor. Sensing his anxiety, she suggests they should get some space. She’s always found it easier to talk in the dark. She drives at a steady forty miles an hour and he sits with his hands tight in his lap in the passenger seat. The seat belt cuts into his neck. He can hardly breathe.

  They travel in the opposite direction from town, past the new drive-in food chains and the construction site where there will soon be a retail park. The floodlit billboards promise 1,430 free parking spaces, twenty eateries, major high street brands and three levels of hassle-free shopping. Eileen says there won’t be any moor left soon, but Jim makes no reply. He remembers standing at the barriers of a demolition site once. He watched the bulldozers, the cranes, the diggers; a whole army to punch down a few bricks and walls. He couldn’t believe how quick they were to fall.

  Once they reach the cattle grid, the land takes over and darkness spills either side of the car. House lights pepper the flanks of the hills and ahead of them there is nothing but night. When Eileen parks and asks if he would prefer to sit and talk, he says he’d like to get out. It’s just over a week since he was last on the moor. He has missed it in the way he imagines other people miss family.

  ‘We can do whatever you want,’ says Eileen.

  Apart from the buffeting wind, the lack of sound up here is breath-taking. For a while neither of them speaks. They just push slowly against the wind. It charges at their bodies and whistles through the long grasses with the rage of the sea. There are many stars sprinkled like embers over the sky but he can’t find the moon. On the western ridge of the hills, the horizon is rimmed with orange light. It is street lamps, but you might think it was a fire, somewhere very far away. It is sometimes bewildering; to look at a thing and know it could mean something else, if only you changed your perspective. The truth is inaccurate, he remembers suddenly. And then he shakes his head in order not to think that any more.

  ‘Cold?’ says Eileen.

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Do you need my arm?’

  ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘Foot OK?’

  ‘Yes, Eileen.’

  ‘Are you sure you should be doing this?’

  He takes short steps in order to be safe. He is so churned up he can barely swallow. He has to do small blowings of air, like the nurses showed him. He has to empty his mind and visualize the numbers 2 and 1. Briefly he wishes for the seeping away that came from the anaesthetist’s needle before the treatment, though it is years since they stopped doing that at Besley Hill.

  It seems Jim is not the only one with odd breathing. Eileen’s too is coarse and fast, as if she is dragging it from her lungs. When at last she asks what the emergency phone call was about, he can only shake his head.

  A night bird flies on the wind and it is so fast, so dark, it looks tossed, as if the moor is playing with it, as if the bird is not flying at all.

  ‘If you don’t want to talk, that’s all right, Jim. I’ll talk. Try stopping me. I could do with some of your silence.’ She laughs and then she says, ‘Why didn’t you answer my calls? I rang the supermarket. I left messages. Didn’t you get them?’

  Again he shakes his head. She looks agitated. ‘Did I do this to you?’ She stops. She points at his foot. She does not flinch.

  He tries to say accident but he can’t get near the word.

  ‘Shit,’ she says.

  ‘Please don’t be upset.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me? You could sue if you want. People sue all over the place. Children sue their own fucking parents. Not that I have much to give unless you would like my car and a buggered TV?’

  He is not sure if she is being serious. He is trying to hold on to the things he wants to tell her. The more she says, the more difficult it is to remember.

  ‘You could at least have reported me to the police. Why didn’t you do any of that stuff?’

  She watches him, waiting for the answer, and all the time she watches, he opens and shuts his mouth and makes small relaxing noises that are so wired with tension, they actually hurt.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me right now,’ says Eileen. ‘We can talk about something else.’

  The wind blows so hard the trees swing their branches like skirts. He tells her their names. Eileen pulls her collar to her ears and sometimes he has to shout. ‘This is an ash. The bark is silver. The buds are black. You can always tell an ash because the tips point upwards. Sometimes the old seedheads hang and they are like threads.’ He pulls down a branch, he shows her the pointing buds, the seedheads. He barely stammers at all.

  When he glances at Eileen her smile is wide, but above the corners of her mouth spread two blushes like strawberries. She laughs as if he has handed her a present. ‘Well I never knew that about trees.’ After that, she says nothing. She simply steals glances at him that seem to make her redder and redder. I
t is only when they are back at the car, she says, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, Jim. How come they kept you so long at Besley Hill?’

  He begins trembling so hard he could almost fall. It is the question he most wants to answer. It carries everything he wants her to know. He sees himself as a young man, shouting at the constable, hitting at walls. He sees himself in clothes that were not his. The view from barred windows. The view of the moor. The sky.

  ‘I made a mistake.’

  ‘We all make mistakes.’

  He keeps going. ‘There were two of us. Many years ago. There was me and a friend. Something happened. Something terrible. It was my fault. It was all my fault.’ He can manage no more.

  Once it is clear he has finished and there is nothing else he can say, she hoists her bosom beneath her arms and gives a long sigh. ‘I’m sorry. About you and your friend. Do you see him now?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did he visit you at Besley Hill?’

  ‘No.’

  It is so hard to say these things, these fragments of truth, he has to stop. He can’t tell any more what is sky and what is land. He remembers how he longed for letters, how he waited and waited, certain one would come. Occasionally patients got a Christmas card, maybe something for a birthday; for Jim there was nothing. Noticing his distress, Eileen reaches for his sleeve. She laughs and it is a gentle one, as if she is trying to show him the way to join her. ‘Take it easy. You’ll be back in hospital if we’re not careful. And that’ll be my fault as well.’