by Stuart Evers
‘We should do that again,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes we should.’
The quality of the call changed; the slight echo of the bathroom, the sound of her turning off the taps. A bathroom bigger than their bathroom no doubt; a bath bigger than their bath.
‘I used to look forward to you going away,’ he said. ‘Years ago, I mean. Nothing too exciting. A pizza, some beer. Footie on the Saturday. Something on the video. Sounds sad, doesn’t it?’
‘Don’t you look forward to it now?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t look forward to it. I miss you, you see. He misses you too, I can tell.’
‘Oh, don’t say that,’ she said.
He saw her sitting on the lip of the bath, cool plastic on her warm behind.
‘I used to look forward to it too,’ she said. ‘Staying in a hotel. Fried breakfast every morning. All of that. I still do a bit.’
Dean heard something on the baby monitor. Something brushing something else, something moving. He put his palm over the handset, the white noise of the quiet house.
‘Everything okay?’ she asked.
‘Everything’s fine, love,’ he said. ‘I thought I heard the doorbell, that’s all.’
Dean woke as the killer shot a man through the kneecap; his screams childlike and loud, exactly like Jack’s. He looked over to the baby monitor, but the bulbs were dark and he only heard the dead air. The killer shot the man through the other kneecap. Dean wanted to know how much research they’d done, whether they’d watched someone put a bullet in a man’s leg for real, or whether this was guesswork and imagination. As he turned his head he was briefly looking neither at the screen nor at the baby monitor. At that moment he clearly heard a male voice say: ‘Interesting.’
The lights remained out on the monitor; he heard the boy’s breath. He had definitely heard a man’s voice, an older voice, one that sounded familiar. Even had the killer on the video been the kind to make a remark after a kill, it could not have been his voice. Dean pursed his lips. He picked up the baby monitor again. He put it down and had a sip of beer. He waited in the near silence, eyes on the monitor. After a few minutes Dean rewound the film at 64x speed, back through what he had missed. He saw five frames: a grenade, a knife, two guns, a pair of breasts, a man with his head in his hands. He pressed play and the speed was out for a moment, the voices not quite synching. He heard the same voice clearly say: ‘I have no interest.’
Dean pressed pause and in his haste hit the button twice; the picture stuttering, starting, finally resting. A gun to the head of an air stewardess. He looked at the baby monitor, its unlit bulbs. He heard a voice say: ‘I have no interest in talking about my childhood.’ And after that an elderly male laugh. He heard the boy’s breath, the dead air, the white noise of the quiet house.
He did nothing. There was nothing to do. He pressed play on the film. He drank the rest of his beer and was reminded of the chill opening of a church door. Following his father into the nave, the hot light blasting the stained glass, the birds, crucifixes and men. Watching his father walk, crane-necked, to the altar, then cross the aisle to where two small candles burned. His father dropped coins into a metal box and took a candle. He held a flame to the taper, watched it catch, and fixed it beside the others. In Jamaica, his father was dying, was dead, was on his way to hospital, was eating his dinner before the heart attack. Dean had never seen his father enter a church before; Dean had never seen him light a candle. As they left, Dean asked his father why.
‘Sometimes you just know something and you just don’t know how,’ he said.
Dean supposed it was all to do with frequencies. A radio interfering with the signal; a pirate station did the same when, as a kid, he used to listen to BRMB late at night. The man’s voice was interference, nothing more. He looked at the plastic speaker, the snub aerial, the red, green and orange LEDs. He heard Jack move and an elderly man’s cough. The voice said: ‘People talk about their childhood and it’s so mundane. I don’t remember much about it, if I’m honest. I can’t even tell you what my father’s voice sounded like. And that’s the truth.’
The background hiss suggested the voice had been pre-recorded and was now being broadcast. He heard the boy’s breath again. The broadcast had stopped. He picked up the monitor and put it back to his ear.
‘I’m not even sure I would recognize my mother and father. They were such dull people. Such short and dull people. So very short and so very dull.’
And then again his son’s breath: in out, in out. You could count those breaths for comfort. And then a cough, whether on the recording or from Jack it was not clear. On the baby monitor, the red light flickered, and down in the bottom right of the speaker he heard a recorded laugh, low and embarrassed. A short laugh without humour.
‘There is a saying,’ the recording said, ‘that the children of lovers are orphans. It suggests something mythic, something epic about the nature of romantic love. It casts romance as murderer; as assassin. They were not epic, my parents. They were dull. Short and dull. They loved each other, my parents. There is no denying that. But it was without heroism. Together they wanted to be good parents. More than anything that’s what they wanted. Cruel, isn’t it, desire?’
Dean turned off the baby monitor. He left it there, adrift, powered-down on the sofa, and went upstairs. He opened the door to Jack’s room and sat on the armchair. He looked at his son. The boy’s breathing was soft and regular. Dean moved the chair so he could look out of the window, out over the yards and gardens, and at the boy sleeping. He texted Rachel – I love you, goodnight – and listened to his son breathe. In out, in out.
Twelve minutes past seven and the boy had his hands on the bars of the cot, prisoner crying in foggy morning light. Dean picked up the boy, held him to his chest and the boy made clicks and dada noises with his mouth. The nappy was full; sweet and rotten, like old apples. More clicks and more dada. He looked down at the boy. At Jack. The boy would not hold his gaze; he went rigid as Dean wiped him down. He wriggled and tried to turn over.
His scream was siren-loud and sharp. The second and third the same. Three of them, short burst, long shriek, short burst.
‘Jackie,’ he said. ‘Come on, quiet now.’
The boy still would not look at him. Short burst, long shriek, short burst. Dean smiled and gurned and made noises. One long shriek now. Still the boy would not look at him. I’m not even sure I would recognize my mother and father.
Dressed after a long and bitter fight over socks and a jumper, Jack sat in his high chair. The television was tuned to a children’s channel. They tried not to have it on, but they couldn’t argue with the fact it soothed him. Dean heated porridge in the microwave, warmed milk on the stove.
‘Everything okay?’ Rachel said. He had the phone crooked in his neck as he sliced a banana.
Her hotel room would already be untidy, messy without him around.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘He’s eaten his breakfast?’
‘I’m just heating it up now.’
‘Check it’s not too hot. Be sure to stir it up well.’
‘I know,’ he said.
‘Are you sure everything’s all right?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t sleep well either,’ he said.
‘Oh, love. To be expected, though, don’t you think?’
‘I’m sure you’re right.’
‘Put him down for his nap at nine.’
‘I know.’
‘What time are you heading over to Andy’s?’
‘Just after he’s had his nap.’
‘Don’t let poor Lena look after all the kids while you watch the football.’
‘I won’t,’ he said.
‘I need to go,’ she said. ‘I love you so, so much.’
Long, long shriek.
‘I love you too,’ he said.
Jack took the milk and ate the porridge and didn�
��t once look at his father, his eyes only for the television. He was sick after eating, his clothes covered in it. Dean looked at his watch. Under two hours before nap time.
‘Your mummy will be home tomorrow,’ Dean said after two hours of screams, soft play, watching the boy crawl. Jack was chewing on his rubber giraffe, its hoof, its neck. Dean pulled down the blind and put the boy in his sleep suit. ‘She’ll be back and it’ll all be good. Sleep time, now, yes?’
The boy went down without complaint. Dean watched Jack breathe as he ran through what he needed to do before the boy woke again. Rachel had made a list of what needed doing and most of it was focused within this two-hour period. Lunch and dinner preparation, unloading the washing machine and reloading it. He looked at Jack and at the baby monitor. Its plastic speaker, the snub aerial.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ he said and closed the door behind him. He turned on the monitor when he got to the foot of the stairs. He put the monitor on the kitchen counter and began the washing up. He unloaded the washing machine, hung out the clothes on the airer. He put in a new load and set it to 40 degrees, added a detergent tablet and turned the dial.
‘I never hated my parents,’ the recording said. ‘Hate is too emotive a word. Pity is the word I would use. Pity, yes. I pitied them.’
Interference. Nothing more. Something to do with frequencies.
‘I pitied my parents,’ the recording said. ‘Pitied them even before I knew what the word meant. I know I said I remember nothing of them, but just saying that has made me recall something. They would take me to Sunday school. I had forgotten this, but it is true: Sunday school. And I was sitting reading a magazine. In the magazine was a cartoon of a boy saying to another boy, “Your drawing’s good,” but he was thinking, “But not as good as mine.” And next to this was another cartoon with the same scene but the boy saying, “Aren’t our paintings good?” and thinking, “Together our paintings are really great,” and underneath it said: WHO WOULD GOD BE HAPPIEST WITH? I didn’t know the answer. I could not understand what God would want me to do. Because the first panel, the one I knew was the supposed “wrong” answer, was truthfully what I would have done. It was like God had looked into my soul and found me wanting. He had found me wanting, and found me pitying my own parents: “Your lives are good, but they’re not as good as mine.”’
Dean slid down, down onto the lino of the kitchen floor. He sat there, knees up, his hands on his thighs, listening to the voice.
The first time they had taken the boy out they’d dressed him in layer upon layer of wool and cotton. Rachel wore her best maternity clothes and tried not to worry about bleeding. They took him to a nearby town and pushed him around a large church, around gravestones. Inside the stained glass radiated light. The candles were electric, two men and a woman were praying. It wasn’t like the place in which his father had lit a taper. On the way out, Dean put a pound in the donation tray. As they walked past the graves and back to the car, he wished he’d given more.
‘I would have loved to have been a tearaway, a rebel, a fighter, a truant,’ the recording said. ‘But their faces, their demeanours prevented it. They looked at me as though I held the secret to the universe. As I amassed language, I used it as a weapon against them. It was the only way to shame them. Bad behaviour and tantrums were met with cloying faces, with the same looks of blessing. One cannot rebel against people or structures that are satisfied only by one’s existence. The only rebellion would be one’s own death, and even then, even in infancy, I was very much taken with the possibilities of life. A schoolmate died. I remember that now. I do not recall her name. She drowned in a lake. Ten years old. She was young for her age, boyish. I once saw hers and she once saw mine. I told my parents about her death and realized my error. I felt the already narrow room close in, their attention and vigilance subtle yet wholly obvious. I felt the ache of their love for me and it was exhausting and brutal.’
Rachel went through eleven hours of labour in the hospital and, as she pushed, Dean could not believe how anyone could survive the violence; but then the child came and screamed and it didn’t matter. In his arms; the tears and the tears. The we’re-going-to-have-such-fun-you-and-mes. The fingernails.
‘I cannot remember a single thing my father said to me,’ the recording said: ‘his voice is permanently muted. My mother’s the same. I’m always amazed that the dull-witted and ugly fall in love, aren’t you? There are no photographs of them in my possession. I have none of their belongings. I sold the house without returning and was given a sum for its contents. Heartless is such a harsh word to use, don’t you think? The point is to be honest in this life. I rate honesty as the highest of all the human virtues. Honesty will set us free. The honesty to be the person you truly are. I left home as soon as I could and I never looked back. I made my indifference quite plain, yet still they loved me, loved me right until the end. And that is all there is to say about my parents. I will say no more on them. There are far more interesting things to talk about. Far more interesting things.’
Dean got up and began chopping a carrot, then an onion. The onion was strong, the house silent. He put the ingredients for the chicken stew in a pan and turned up the heat. He then got a hammer and smashed the baby monitor into small shards of plastic and speaker. He gathered up the bits and put them in the rubbish bin, then took out the rubbish.
When he heard Jack screaming he ran up the stairs, just as a father should; just like that, exactly as he should. He opened Jack’s bedroom door and the boy had his hands on the bars of the cot.
‘Hello, Jackie. Are you awake now, boy?’
Jack looked at his father, eyes straight ahead.
‘Dull,’ the boy said. Clearly, distinctly.
‘Dull,’ he said again. Dean could see a new tooth.
Dean picked up his son and put him to his chest. Tears were in his eyes. He held his beautiful son and wished Rachel was there to share in the moment.
THESE ARE THE DAYS
He warmed the teapot and through the kitchen window watched her spit on the backyard flags. Dark out, the light from inside illuminating her. She had her back to him, her hands on her knees. He saw horizontal lines of filth and silt and sand lashed up her calves. Thin lines, pale skin. He saw her breath, pit-horse clouds from mouth and nose as her back heaved. She spat again, her saliva a silver coin on the stone. He watched her turn towards the house. Framed between parted yellow curtains, she saw him in the window. Dark out, light inside. She jumped, jolted like the ground was wired live. She clasped her hands to her chest and mutely laughed. He watched her shake her head as she approached the house.
She opened the door and shut it on the dark. He was still by the window, still holding the warmed pot. She brought in the smells of outside: of sea and sand and wind and spray; of cooled sweat and unbrushed teeth. He watched her take off her running shoes. Pink and yellow and green. Mud-raked, difficult to unlace, small when placed on the backdoor mat.
‘Good run?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I took your advice. From the jetty to Peacehaven, then back.’
She was tall. Taller than him, over six foot, surely. He gave her a bottle of mineral water from the fridge. She took it as though there was always mineral water in the fridge. She drank – one, two, three – neck bobbing; a thin channel of water running from the corner of her mouth. He watched her shake out her ponytail, strands of dark hair coiled like coastlines on her forehead. Holding herself against one of the chairs, she stretched out her right leg. The sheer fabric of her shorts reached down to her knees. The shorts were skin-tight, good for support, he supposed; coloured flashes down their sides. The athletes on the television wore them. They provided minimal wind resistance. A pocket at the base of the back for keys or a wallet perhaps. Tight muscles of her calves, tight muscles of her thighs. From the jetty to Peacehaven, then back.
‘Everything okay?’ he asked.
‘Just need to stretch, Grandpa, that’s all. Be fine in a minut
e.’
He spooned out tea leaves. Three teaspoons: one per person, one for the pot. He filled it with boiling water and set it on the table. Somewhere there was a tea cosy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen it, let alone used it.
He watched Anna unzip her running jacket. Black with yellow and green trim, reflective surfaces, good for safety. The T-shirt underneath was yoked with sweat, the fabric thin and engineered; designed to ‘wick moisture away from the body’ – salesman’s words that sounded impressive when he’d bought it for her last birthday.
She hung the jacket on the back of a chair and looked across the kitchen to the stove. The frying pan was already on the unlit hob, beside it a butter dish, a carton of eggs, fatty bacon in greaseproof paper.
‘Don’t wait for me,’ she said, nodding to the food. ‘You eat your breakfast.’
‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘We’ll eat together, you and me. You take your time. Have a bath, a shower, whatever you want. There are towels in the airing cupboard, nice and warm. We’ll have breakfast when you’re ready. There’s no rush.’
Her socks were tiny. He watched her quick-disappearing footprints on the laminate. Bobby socks, at the hop. Earphones trailed from a device strapped to her upper right arm. On her wrist, a rubber-coated watch continued to time her run. From the jetty to Peacehaven, then back.
‘I didn’t know if you’d be awake,’ she said. ‘I know you said, but . . .’
‘Us old bastards get up with the larks,’ he said. ‘I blame the sea.’
She laughed at ‘bastard’.
‘I do,’ he said, ‘it’s like an alarm clock for the retired and useless. The whole street’s up before sunrise. Probably the whole town. In the summer at four, five in the morning the coastal path’s full. If you see any of us approach, run away, that’s my advice. Run away from us old bastards and keep on running!’
Anna giggled, put her hands on her hips; stretched to the left then to the right. Her joints cracked as she rolled her shoulders. He watched her kick out her legs. The muscles in her arms were defined and tight. Mens Sauna and so on. She walked past him, the half footprints on the laminate following her.
