by Priya Sharma
The earrings were there, in the folds of one of Umbra’s cheap sweatshirts. Glamorous and opulent, they were a ridiculous thing for a woman in her position to steal. Mai Yuen flew at her, screaming and pulling at fistfuls of Umbra’s hair. Chun Hin had to pull her off.
“I didn’t take them, I swear.” Umbra addressed Chun Hin directly.
“You have to be gone in the morning.” He still held Mai Yuen in his arms, his arms across her chest like iron bars. “It’s out of my hands.”
“Please.”
“I can’t.” It almost sounded like an apology.
So, Thomas lay on his bed, having had a whole evening to reflect. Umbra’s shadow slid under the door and squatted over him like a brooding succubus.
“I’m not a thief,” her shadow said. “Your mother must’ve put them there.”
“No, I did.”
“I don’t understand.” Her shadow put its hand to her chest as though he’d just shot her through the heart.
He was sullen when he should’ve been ashamed.
“Thomas, why? Why would you do it? You’re like a son to me.”
“I’m not your son. You’re a servant.” How he envied her boy those Sundays. “And you already have a son. I saw him. You didn’t tell me.”
“My son…”
“You never told me. You’re a liar and a whore.” A recently acquired word that he thought he understood.
“What would you know, little man?” Little man. It was the first time he’d ever heard her say those words with anything other than tenderness.
“I saw you with my father.”
“When?”
“On Saturday. Did he make you?”
“No. It’s a fair trade. He’s helped me to keep my son in this country. He’s been true to his word.”
“So, you’ve been fucking him all these years?”
“Better to be one man’s whore than many’s.”
He should’ve told her that he was sorry. He should’ve turned off the lights. Her shadow wasn’t soft and deep. It was sharp and cruel.
“You think you’re gown up now? Are you grown up enough to know the truth about me? Where I come from, the world has fallen down.” The Philippines, a beautiful and anarchic archipelago. “I lived with my mother in a village. One day a truck full of men arrived.
“‘We’ve come to liberate you’, the leader said.
“We didn’t know that we weren’t free.
“‘We are the New People’s Army.’ The leader sat down in my mother’s chair and slapped his knees with his bloated hands. The others leant against the wall.
“‘Go to bed, Umbra,’ my mother said, even though it was morning. She held me close, putting her mouth beside my ear.
“‘Yes,’ the leader said, ‘to bed.’
“‘Go out through the window and hide,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t come back until they’ve gone.’
“Then she took my face in her hands and looked into my eyes the way she did when she told me not to play in the undergrowth because of snakes.
“The truck stayed all day. When I went back my mother was sat in her chair. I’d never seen her so still. I cast my shadow around the room as a troupe of monkeys, trying to make her laugh. When she eventually did get up to turn down the lamps the back of her skirt was ringed with stains.”
If it was possible for a shadow to cry, then it was.
“We moved to the city. I was raped in a stairwell when I was fifteen. He cut my face to prove what he’d do if I didn’t lie still.
“I didn’t want to be like my mother, forever blank and empty. I decided that if he was going to take something from me then I’d have something from him in return. As he zipped up his fly I covered his shadow. I could feel it tear, ripping under the weight of mine. He staggered and then carried on walking.
“That made me understand how it is to violate another person. I felt powerful and controlling. I knew I’d changed him forever, just as he’d changed me. His life would be a dry and joyless thing.
“My country makes monsters of men and women. Now I have to go back there and take my son with me. He’s too soft for that kind of life. I don’t want him to die in a gutter, someone stood over his body. I don’t want him to carry a gun. It’s your fault. Yours and your family’s.”
Thomas could feel her shadow touching his. He wanted to push it off but couldn’t.
“You’re fierce, little man. I’ll relieve you of those difficult feelings. I’m going to take your shadow and you’ll never feel whole again. When you’re older you’ll wonder why you’re different and I want you to remember that I did this to you.”
Thomas didn’t expect it to hurt.
*
Thomas stands outside Dragonfly Mansions. A girl passes him, dressed in jeans and a Tiger Beer t-shirt. She pushes a toddler that isn’t hers in a buggy. The child twists around to smile at her, his mother-servant. Thomas thinks of Umbra and for the first time he realises that he never knew her son’s name.
Nothing warms him. Nothing fills him. It’s because of Umbra. She’s all the emotions that he remembers but no longer has, except in an abstract form; pity, lust and love. He’s a remnant of himself, a shade of what he might have been.
Sometimes he thinks it’s all so improbable, that he imagines it, but as he holds out his arms, the late afternoon sun on his back, he casts no shadow.
Small Town Stories
I grew up in a small town during an era reigned by bank managers and mayors, when we all knew one another and one another’s business. Few of us remain. Most of my alumni have fled to bigger houses in better places, having fulfilled their potential. Now Sandbach has been invaded by commuters due to its proximity to the M6.
I walk to the top of Park Lane. The name makes it sound grand, which it once seemed. The largest house belonged to Philip Ross, the mayor. He was a rum one. Accountant, embezzler and philanderer, who went with prostitutes in carparks. Mrs Ross was a prize; a primary school teacher with grace and lovely shoes. When I look through the window of the house where they used to live I can see her legs suspended in slow rotation, as they always are. She was still warm when they cut her down, skirt soiled, and her patent heels placed together carefully by the door.
Your Fiat is on the verge, between the oaks. Each time I think, Don’t look, don’t look, so I focus on where the tyres churned grass. It’s easier in winter when the whole scene is shrouded in snow.
Where are you, Peter?
The noise is harder to block out. The trees aren’t whispering in the autumn breeze. They’re screaming.
*
The Stapletons loved a party, as did Mum. She was the posh girl that married in but was liked because she lived it large.
Dad’s brothers, Simon and Duncan, were there. Phil, the eldest was in prison for assault. There were various aunts, uncles and cousins. The men were in the lounge, gathered around the telly, roaring and shouting in exasperation. It was the European Cup Final, 1981, Liverpool versus Real Madrid.
We womenfolk had gravitated towards the back room where Mum and I had spent all morning laying out the spread; cans in buckets of iced water, bowls of prawn cocktail crisps, cubed cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks and ham sandwiches.
Mum, in her sophistication, drank cocktails made with Pernod. Her head was close to Aunty Lilian’s, whispering and both of them rocked with laughter. Aunt Lil was the matriarch, even though she was Nana Stapleton’s younger sister, by virtue of her bearing, bullishness and a husband that robbed post offices. He’d had a heart attack at sixty. Lilian scared the shit out of me. She wasn’t fond of kids.
I was in charge of music. At ten, Mum trusted me with her records. I slipped the vinyl from its sleeve, holding the black disc between my fingertips and placing it with care on the turntable. I don’t like the purity of digital sound. I like the faint crackle of the needle in the groove.
I played The Beatles, The Carpenters, Simon and Garfunkel, and Abba. Sometimes we’d dance, sometimes
we’d all sit and sing.
“Lil,” Mum giggled, “read Cheryl’s palm.”
“She’s only a kid,” Nana Stapleton tutted.
Aunty Lily wouldn’t be told what to do. She put down her stout.
“Come on, girl.”
Mum beckoned me with a tilt of her head when I hesitated. Lilian unfurled my hand and studied it, giving me the chance to study her. Her mouth, lined by sun and smoking, puckered in concentration. She wore a series of gold chains around her neck and sovereign rings on her fingers, legacies of the dead men in her life.
Her forefinger stopped and hovered. Then she held my hand in both of hers. I’d never known her capable of such tenderness.
“I’m sorry, Cheryl,” she said, “it’s there in the lines. Your soul will crack.”
*
I’m going to hell when I die and it’ll be Sandbach Motorway Services. What was once a beacon of convenience for modern travellers is now a carbuncle. I’ll be trapped in its soulless corridors, watching everyone else in transit to places I’ll never see. My paper hat won’t be able to keep the grease out of my hair, even in the afterlife.
I’m forty-two and I’ve been doing this job since I was nineteen.
It’s Jake’s last day. He’s leaving for university soon. He talks about his parents with contempt for making him get a summer job, even though he’s driving the brand-new Renault Clio they bought him. Ingrate. He shuts up when he remembers that it’s not a summer job for me.
I’ve pretended that I’ve put my shitty old Fiesta in the garage for repairs. He jumped at the chance to offer me a lift. Now his glances make me self-conscious. He’s doused himself in aftershave. He tries to talk to me properly, but it’s a bit late in the day for us to be building a rapport.
“Thanks for going out of your way.”
“No worries, it’s not far.”
Only a mile, from Sandbach to Elworth village.
“Once I’ve got a degree in Engineering and Mandarin, I’m going to work in China. Get some experience of the world.”
“Life’s not about what you gain. It’s about what you lose.”
I sound bitter. I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. You don’t seduce someone with cynicism so I start again, coaxing him with questions about his exciting future.
“You’ve got nice eyes,” he blurts out
“Let’s have a drink to say goodbye.” I move him away from banal flattery. “Let’s go to your place.”
“My Mum’s in…” he blushes for both of us. I’m old enough to have given birth to him. I might feel seventeen inside, but that doesn’t make it right.
“My place then.”
We’ve both been waiting for this, so rather my place than never. I have a reputation, even though it’s better than it used to be. Indiscriminate in my loneliness, I once had sex with a lad that looked like you, against the dumpster outside the kitchens. Everyone knew. The manager called me into his office and pawed me with his sweaty hands. I was glad when the dirty old bastard left.
I’m not Jake’s first choice. He tried it on with Magda, one of the young Polish girls, but she’s smarter than that.
“It’s just here.”
Jake pulls in. My flat’s above a newsagent’s.
“That used to be a bakery,” I explain as if he cares. The shop’s gone through many incarnations but I remember the pink-cheeked women and the flour-dusted loaves. I could tell him the smell of baking bread wakes me at five AM, but I don’t. He follows me upstairs.
“Fucking hell.”
My books are in orderly stacks; Greek classics, Russian, French, post-modern, gothic. People think I didn’t go to university because I didn’t get the grades. I got all As.
“Beer?”
“Yeah.”
I get a couple of cans from the fridge. When I come back he’s kneeling on the floor, flicking through the records.
“Don’t touch those.”
Some are Mum’s and some are mine; the soundtrack of my youth. We drink the beer. Thank God for social lubrication. It helps us along.
I despair of teenagers. There’s no joy of discovery, no mutual exploration. Jake’s obviously seen a lot of internet porn and knows it all.
He doesn’t ask about my inner thighs. In my early twenties I went through a phase of cutting that’s left me with a web of silvery scars. The stigmata of survivor guilt.
I submit to his odder requests just to keep him here and wait for the flashes of recognition that brings you back to me. The shape of a bicep. A nipple. The texture and smell of a young man’s skin. Brief seconds, but they’ll have to do.
*
I lie awake afterwards. I’m glad Jake doesn’t linger. Under scrutiny, the flat’s a dump with peeling paintwork and mould. I can afford better but it’s a hair shirt I like wearing.
I get off the floor and climb into bed. It’s two-thirty in the morning. The sound of trucks thundering past keeps me awake.
We were built on transport. Edwin Richard Foden invented the steam powered wagon in 1898. In the 1930s his partners at Foden’s weren’t impressed by the heavy chassis of his diesel-powered truck so Foden and his son left and took the idea one mile up the road from Sandbach to Elworth village to start a new company, ERF.
The entrance to each firm was decorated with flowerbeds. There were brass bands and civic pride. Mum’s friend worked at Foden’s. She said she met Peter Sutcliffe, who’d come to collect a truck. The Yorkshire Ripper, renowned killer of women, had immaculate manners, apparently.
Both sites are gone, given over to housing and a supermarket, but the phantom wheels thunder along. My flat quivers in the wake of juggernauts that no longer roll. Even industry dies.
*
St Mark’s Primary School seemed gigantic. I remember my first day, when Mum took me into Mrs Ross’ classroom.
“Go and play, sweetheart.”
“Where’s Peter?” I looked up at her.
“He’ll be along soon. How about you make some new friends?”
I couldn’t recall a time when you weren’t in my life. Mum said she put you down in my playpen and I grabbed you and held you close. I wished weekends away, waiting for your dad to drop you off on a Monday morning.
I didn’t need new friends. I had you.
Women gravitated towards Mum. She no longer had fine clothes but with her provenance as Elsa Burnham, she still outranked most of them. Laughter rang out. She was quick to gossip and as bubbly as fizz.
“Hello, Cheryl, I’m Mrs Ross.” She wore a full skirted dress. I reached out and touched the patterned fabric.
She knelt down to pull up my baggy, greying knee socks. I’ll never forget that. Maybe she was thinking, How standards slip, when you marry down, but all I recall is unconscious kindness.
The adult buzz lessened. I looked around to see why. I ran to you but your mother kept you tethered by her side by a firm grip.
“Dr Stephens, welcome,” Mrs Ross stood up.
Your mum wore you like a shield. You were angular, like her, with the same fine brown hair.
“I’m sorry, I can’t stay.” She shook Mrs Ross’ hand. “Work.”
Dr Stephens was a rarity in our community in the 1970s, a professional who worked full time after she had a child. She didn’t encourage you in your attempts to make a mother of her.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on Peter.” Mum held out her hand and you went to her, eager for her to tickle you under the chin as she always did.
“Mrs Stapleton,” your mum drew herself up, ignoring the looks that passed between the other mothers, “please take Peter home with you. I’ll collect him at six.”
There it was. Mum was just her child minder. Susan Stephens may have been a GP but Mum was both Burnham and Stapleton, and nobody would talk down to her, not in our town.
Mum said something under her breath and the women around her erupted in laughter, just as your mother reached the door.
*
It’s my day off. Elworth u
sed to be pretty, with two primary schools, St Mark’s church, a butcher’s, baker’s, a post office, and a hairdresser’s. Most of the shops have gone and there’s a remand centre for naughty boys. The park has plain, spiked railings. The original, graceful wrought iron gates have been removed and are probably on some councillor’s house. Greedy sods, pushing brown envelopes about under tables.
The dead hedgehog is always outside St Mark’s Primary School. It looks peculiar in the autumn sun, with its frosted, glittering spines and black eyes. How I cried for that tiny life when I was six, snuffed out during an unexpected cold snap. My heart ached for it when I first saw it again at seventeen, encumbered by the dead as I’d become.
As I walk to Sandbach, I pass your old house. It eclipsed the posh houses on Park Lane. It still has its tennis court that we never played on. I was never invited. Your mother saw to that. There’s the same old bridge over the ornamental pond, like the one on willow pattern china plates that my mother collected. They all featured a pagoda and a bridge over a lake. A pair of doves in flight. It represented the legend of the lowly servant who fell in love with the Mandarin’s daughter. Love transformed them into doves, so they could escape and be together. Mum liked the romance of that.
*
I treat myself to some ground coffee from the deli. Wilson’s is an institution that’s survived many national financial crises. It’s on Sandbach cobbles, a square with ankle turning terrain. The Saxon crosses at one end are a muddle of Christian iconography and Saxon motifs—the crucifixion and monsters with gaping jaws. Mercia’s conversion wasn’t bloodless. Christ cries, no matter what the weather. Tears run down his worn, ancient face.
I do my weekly shop at the supermarket, filling my basket with the value range. Marianne’s in the freezer aisle. We nod at one another, our respect mutual. We are fabled. It’s laughable really. We should be best friends.
There’s a newborn in Marianne’s trolley, lying on a bag of frozen chips. It’s purple, with a gelid texture that makes me queasy. Shrunken genitals mark it as male. His eyes are screwed up and his mouth is open in a primal scream. Fortunately it’s silent, or least to me.
