Solstice

by David Hewson

  One big silence, so big you could pour the universe into it if you felt like it.

  'If that's what you want,' Annie said eventually, staring at the tablecloth.

  'What I want?'

  He put his hand on hers, looked into her young eyes. 'Of course it's not what I want, kid. It's a case of what's best. You've got a life ahead of you. What the hell do I know about preparing you for that?'

  'As much as my mom did.'

  'No!'

  She didn't back down, just glowered back at him over the half-eaten food. 'What happened to your mom was awful, Annie. I don't just mean the end. Everything. She got the roughest deal of all, and I doubt anyone could have coped with it better. For most people — me included — it would have been a whole lot worse.'

  She blinked and there was a tear or two there. 'Do you mean that?'

  'Of course I do. I'm not in the habit of lying, in case you hadn't noticed. It gets me into trouble all the time.'

  Annie brushed something away from her face with her arm, half-grinned at him crookedly. 'She said that about you. On the first day, I remember. She liked you, Michael.'

  'You don't need to sound so amazed.'

  'That's okay.'

  'For what it's worth, I liked her too. She was something special. To go through all that and keep such strength, such closeness to you. That was quite an achievement.'

  A question hovered in her head, and Lieberman remembered the way Mo would pry this from her, so gently.

  'You want to ask something, Annie?'

  'What would have happened?' she asked hesitantly. 'If she was still alive? Would you and her… you know?'

  'For a while. Then I would've got scared and run away. And left you both feeling miserable and full of hate. There. I told you I made a bad liar.'

  Her eyes looked liquid again. 'Why?'

  'Because that's what's inside me. It's big and black and empty, and whenever something comes close that could fill it, I get scared. She scared me that way.'

  'Oh.' She toyed with some food on her plate, not eating it, just wondering whether she could pluck up the courage. 'And I scare you too? That's why you want me to go?'

  'Annie…'

  The voice was a touch too loud, he knew that, heads were beginning to turn, and he didn't give a damn. 'You want the truth? The truth is there's some crazy voice inside me saying we ought to stay together. Try to make this work. Like some kind of family.'

  'That feels bad?'

  'No! I like it. It makes me feel grown-up. It makes me want to face up to things. And that's the problem. It clouds my judgement too. Is this the right thing to do? I don't know. All the selfish stuff crops up, muddies the waters. And sometimes I get to thinking…'

  You had to say it, he told himself. Being a family is about sharing these feelings.

  'I start to think we could heal each other in some way. And we both need healing. We don't talk about that. It's like a taboo subject. But that's the truth.'

  'I know.' Annie had never mourned, never cried, really. They'd just gone into this silence together, found this escape route, which, he kidded himself, was about practicalities like money and dealing with the immigration people. It wasn't. They were just running from the memories.

  'And these are just dreams, Annie. Just dreams. Things in your head.'

  'What's wrong with things in your head?'

  'They don't come true.'

  'Never?'

  It could have been Mo talking, Mo puncturing his vain little certainties. He laughed, felt foolish, closed his eyes, and let this small moment of epiphany settle down, like a film of sparkling dust, upon his consciousness.

  Somehow, out of nowhere, he'd thought of Phaeton that day, sitting in the little Spanish cafe, his head full of stuff that wouldn't go away. If he'd been Charley, maybe he'd have thought this did come from somewhere else. This was Gaia, saying things had gone a little far the other way, with Semtex Charley and the Death Ray from the Sky. That maybe there was still the chance to set a little balance into the equation.

  Dreams did come true, but not on their own, not like something out of a fairy tale. They needed sweat and pain and people committed to them. Sometimes there was a terrible cost along the way. And just knowing that punctured the uniform, measured world he'd come to take for granted these past forty-three years. All the linearity and logic that ran through it, all the staid, accepted common sense that said the dead stayed dead, these things were an illusion, a flimsy fabric over some inner reality that evaded you, skipped away from your sight, like a shy deer fleeing the hunter, like the ghost of an image, half-seen at the corner of your eye.

  This rigid set of beliefs inside him was all part of one vast lie. Or maybe a smaller part of one greater truth. Either way, in the end, this was a dumb, rigid straitjacket of literalness that strangled you, told you just to wait in the corner, sighing in the dark, until the last day. Until there was no breath left inside you.

  '"More things in heaven and earth, Horatio…" ' he muttered.

  Annie blinked. 'Excuse me?'

  'Shakespeare. God, you need an education. I'll take you to the theatre sometime. You'll like it.'

  He shook his head, searched for some money to pay the waitress, who was hovering a few feet away wearing that 'Are you leaving soon, sir?' look. 'They want me to go and work for them in Washington. Some kind of job, a big job. A house stuck out in the Virginia woods somewhere. A school for you. Jeez, I'd need an au pair or something.'

  'A what?'

  'Someone to look after you. When I'm not there.'

  She made a little smile. 'That could work.'

  'Yeah? You don't know me. If she was ugly I'd get offended. If she was beautiful I'd make a pass. Either way we wind up in agony.'

  She gave him a look that bordered on condescension, and he knew he deserved it. 'Michael, I don't mind being looked after by someone else. I sort of expect it. I am growing up.'

  'And there's a thought.'

  'Maybe you should try it too,' she said, blushing at her boldness.

  'God, your mother has a legacy. You don't have a choice. I'm an adult. I do. That's what the word "adult" means.'

  The waitress came back with change and an expression that almost held open the door. 'Yeah,' he said gruffly, 'we're going.'

  Annie smiled at her. 'He's nice, really. Just a bit grouchy at times.'

  'You're telling me, honey,' the woman muttered, and started to clear the table, looking in disbelief at the miserly tip.

  Outside, the night was getting chilly, fog was creeping in from the bay. The air stood damp and salty, not moving anywhere in a hurry. Annie linked her arm through his, just listening, wondering.

  'And what's more,' he yelled at nothing in particular, down the length of the street, down the switchback hill, with its cable-car track and the solitary drunks and lovers of the morning stumbling along the sidewalk, 'I like this place. It's my home.'

  They walked back toward the apartment, and she didn't listen after a while, just let him ramble on about the city and his life, and how this was so, so difficult. Then, when they got there, Annie said, 'What's it like? Virginia?'

  'Green. Full of trees. Mile upon mile. You can't walk anywhere without stepping in raccoon shit.'

  'Michael!'

  'Sorry. I apologize.'

  She stopped on the doorstep, looked up to the third-floor window of the tiny rented apartment. 'Does it rain there, Michael?'

  'Incessantly. They don't have roads, they have canals. Third-generation locals get born with webbed feet. It's horrendous.'

  Annie smiled at him. 'I've never lived anywhere that rained a lot. Have you?'

  'Not that much. Hell, no.' Rain, Lieberman thought. Now, there was a thing. Feeling the dampness seep through your scalp, watching it make the grass green, make the world alive.

  'Interesting,' she said.

  He peered at her, and felt a little drunk, even though there wasn't so much as a beer inside his system. 'Annie. Do you th
ink all that stuff's true? About me growing up?'

  She mulled it over. 'It's up to you.'

  He made a little smile. 'Yeah. Your mom would've said something similar.'

  'I guess it can't be that bad, then.'

  'No.' A thought. It lit up his face with an enthusiasm that made her want to laugh. 'Hey. They got this new plane for the President. A new Air Force One.'

  'So?'

  'He said, if we were ready, we could fly back with them to Washington. Right now. Today.'

  Annie's eyes grew wide. 'Wow. In Air Force One?'

  'Yeah. Well…?'

  'You're the grown-up.'

  'No, but I'm working on it.' He put his key in the door, felt it turn, and was satisfied. He did have a choice. Of a kind. 'Here's the deal,' he said, stepping into the narrow, gloomy hall, thinking this place wasn't so great after all, he wouldn't even miss it. 'You pack. I'll make the phone call.'

  'Yeah!' She raced for the stairs.

  Too fast for him already. He knew that, just watching her take the steps two at a time. She'd be going to college when he was pushing his mid-fifties. He might not live to see her kids. Life was so cruel, so complex and unforgiving. Sometimes it just made you want to curl up and lie on the ground, wondering at the dead weight of the generations that surrounded you, going back, going forward. All of them expecting something, all of them asking: What about us?

  He hesitated in the grey, empty ground-floor hall, and wondered at the pictures, the memories, running through his mind. Helen Wagner and the Pandora's box of files she'd passed over the table. The big, complex, friendly figure of Tim Clarke, vast hand extended, ready to jerk you out into the great wide world the moment you touched it. And, bigger than all of them, the sky on fire, casting its fierce, burning light on Mo's face, still with death, in the shadowy interior of an ancient, run-down barn. This was an image carved deep inside his head, omnipresent, always waiting for some kind of an answer.

  'Michael?'

  He couldn't miss the thrill, the anticipation inside Annie's distant voice as it echoed around the bare, soulless interior of the apartment block.

  'Coming,' he said, then took a deep breath and began to climb the stairs.

  THE END

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