Blast Radius

by Rebecca McKinney

  15 October, 1947,

  Dearest George,

  Do you remember making love under the cherry trees in Central Park? I can’t go there anymore. The city hurts me now, the places we went together can only remind me now that you are gone.

  ‘Jesus,’ I mutter, and stop reading. I’m alone but my face feels hot with the embarrassment of having peeked too far inside. Examining a person’s objects are one thing, but reading their words – or in this case, those written to them by a heartbroken lover – is something else entirely. Quickly I fold the letter back into its envelope, tie the bundle back together and set this to one side.

  So. Old Man Finlayson screwed some poor girl under the cherry trees in Central Park and left her pining. The image I had of a soulless old toff with a rod of iron up his arse crumbles a little bit.

  As I work, I wonder who she was and whether the old teapot might contain letters from a woman in Rio and the piano bench a bundle from a girl in Hong Kong. I met an American Marine once who kept two wives on the go in different cities. We used to ask him what would happen if he got killed and they both turned up at his funeral. He would laugh and hold his hands wide. I’ll be dead, he would say, so who the fuck cares?

  ‘Coffee’s ready,’ Molly says from the doorway behind me, in a voice that is louder than it needs to be. This bugs the hell out of me, but I turn around and mind my manners.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Let’s sit in the kitchen. This room feels like a crypt.’

  ‘I found this, Molly.’ I hand her the little bundle of letters, which she examines as we return along the corridor. In the kitchen she drops the letters carelessly onto a pile of paper at the far end of the long table, sits quietly and pours frothy coffee from a cafetiere, then splashes in milk from a little silver jug.

  ‘Have a croissant,’ she says distantly, pushing a plate toward me. Face like sour milk.

  I help myself and we sit there for a couple of minutes. She sips her coffee, pretends to read a newspaper, doesn’t eat. I create little explosions of flaky crumbs with each bite into the warm croissant and wonder if it would be exceptionally greedy to reach for a second. There are three on the plate.

  ‘The letters appear to be from a woman.’ This is my retribution for her invasion of my privacy the other day.

  ‘Oh, they would be.’ She sighs. ‘One of many.’

  ‘In New York?’

  ‘He lived there for a little while, after the war.’

  ‘So . . . are you going to read them?’

  A shrug. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What was he doing in New York?’

  ‘Spending his parents’ money, by all accounts. Celebrating his survival in style.’ She puts down her mug and looks at me, and I guess she’s decided she’s had enough questions. ‘Have you done that? Celebrated your survival?’

  ‘Not so you’d notice.’

  ‘I think you should. Crack open the champagne and get drunk for a year. It might make you appreciate the fact.’

  I feel my eyebrows lift. ‘What fact?’

  ‘That you’re still alive.’

  ‘I don’t drink.’

  This clearly surprises her. It surprises most people. ‘Not at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I sit back in my seat and narrow my eyes at her, enjoying the way her lipstick smears onto her cheeks when I let my vision go out of focus. Her features melt and shift and she looks someone painted by Picasso. I’ve opened the door too wide, I know that; she’s got a foot wedged inside and I’m not sure I’ll be able to shut it out again.

  Instead of answering, I tear off a piece of croissant, then lean across the table and raise the buttery pastry to her mouth. She hesitates just for a moment, then opens and lets me place it on her tongue like a communion wafer.

  ‘My turn,’ I say, my face very close to hers as she chews. When she swallows, I break off another piece and feed it to her the same way. ‘So . . . why are you distracting me with breakfast when I should be working?’

  ‘You looked hungry,’ she almost whispers.

  I run my finger along the fine ridge of her lower jaw, and she doesn’t flinch away. ‘And why are you asking me so many questions? I’m just the removal man.’

  ‘Maybe I’m just nosy. Maybe I’m like this with everyone.’

  ‘You offer to sleep with every workman who comes to the house?’

  Now she raises her hand to my cheek and worms her fingers into my beard. ‘No, just you. Because I know you.’

  ‘You don’t know me, Molly.’

  ‘I feel like I do. I fancied you at school. Did you know that?’

  I let my hand slide down to hers and run my thumb over her ring. ‘What about him?’

  One shoulder rises and her hair falls over it. ‘I’m not marriage material.’

  I laugh softly, and curl a lock of her hair around my finger. ‘Don’t you think you should at least try? For the sake of honour, if nothing else.’

  ‘I’ve been trying for six years, and honour has nothing to do with it. That’s the Royal Marine talking.’

  ‘I cannae help it, that’s who I am.’

  ‘Were. You’re a free man now.’

  I stare at her and move my fingers around to the back of her head, pull her close. Our lips meet, and gently I explore the soft moistness of her mouth, tasting coffee and pastry and toothpaste and a little of last night’s wine. This could put me off if I let myself think about it, so I close my eyes and let her take over. She does, fiercely, opening her mouth and cupping both of my cheeks with her hands so I can’t pull back even if I wanted to.

  ‘I haven’t shown you upstairs yet,’ she murmurs into my ear, and then clasps my hand and stands. Like a blind man I allow her to lead me up one short flight, around a landing and up again, then to lower me onto a bed with a fluffy, cream downy. She gives me no more time to assess the lie of the land. Her scent billows up around me as I lie back and her hands press me down into the bed, start peeling off my clothes.

  I close my eyes, lie there passively and let her run her lips down my chest and toward my groin. She plays around for a few minutes, flickering her tongue here and there, moving her hand around between my legs until I’m just about bursting. Then she slides her leg over me and arches her back as she guides me into her. She doesn’t leave much for me to do but lie back and think of . . .

  Fucksake, man, she might as well be riding a sack of spuds. Get your mitts on her titties at the very least.

  Bugger won’t even leave me alone now. It’s no good closing my eyes, so I stare at Molly’s face and watch it contort with effort and pleasure. Short-lived pleasure. I can’t help it. He’s there, hanging over me like Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, except there is just a formless, bloody pulp where his legs should be. I feel myself go soft inside her and slide out.

  ‘Sorry,’ I manage to say. Possibly the emptiest word in the English language.

  She slithers off of me, leaving her own dampness on my legs, then props herself on one elbow, gazing at my face and running her fingers around my nipples. I can see all the questions in her eyes, but to her credit, she doesn’t give them voice.

  ‘What do you like?’ she whispers.

  I look up at the dirty ceiling, dust-choked cobwebs hanging from the cornices and lamp fixture, and my chest feels like an over-inflated tyre. What man in his right mind could lie here and fail to come up with an answer to that question? All I can do is shake my head and pull in a deep breath to try to calm the tide of nausea. It doesn’t work.

  I clamp my hand over my mouth and bolt out of bed bare-arsed naked. Thankfully I make it to the toilet next door before the coffee and croissants come spewing out into a porcelain pan stained brown by years of the old guy’s concentrated, alcoholic piss. Three waves pass over me, until I am dripping sweat and retching up yellow bile, and when it stops I sit on the lino and thump my head back against the wall. Tears burn my cheeks like hot acid.

&
nbsp; This is your fucking fault.

  I’m working on the daisies. Worm food, remember? You haven’t learned to check your equipment’s in working order before going into action by now, that’s your own bloody fault.

  ‘I need to get out of here,’ I say, only realising afterwards that I’ve said it aloud.

  Ha! Ha hahaha. Your kit’s in a heap at the bottom of her bed. You and Mr Floppy will have to walk back in there. Hold your head high, boy!

  ‘Sean?’ A gentle knock on the door.

  I scramble to my feet and pull a damp towel around my waist. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Are you alright?’

  ‘Just coming.’ I splash some water on my face and rinse my mouth, glance tentatively into the mirror. I’ve humiliated myself enough without emerging with puke stuck in my facial hair.

  The picture there isn’t pretty. Hair too long, too greasy. Sandy brown with a shitload of grey ones in there. The beard is even worse; give me a year or two, I’m going to look like Kenny Rogers. The grey happened more or less overnight. One morning I was a young man, and by sunset I was old. Thirty-three, the age most men are just about growing up, and I’m bitter and deaf and impotent. A twisted old bastard with chunks in his beard.

  I hold the towel around myself and open the door. Molly is standing in the corridor with a quilt around her, shivering. For the first time I realise how cold it is; apart from the range in the kitchen, the house is unheated and smells damp. Through the cloudy bathroom window, I see snow falling on the daffodils.

  ‘Are you alright?’

  I don’t answer, and she follows me back to the bedroom.

  I sit down on the bed and pull on my boxers. It’s a moment before I can meet her eyes. ‘It’s not your fault. I’m just . . .’

  I break off. There are very few that adequately describe what I am.

  Molly sits beside me and rubs my back. Just the feel of her skin begins to stir my guts again, and I have to move away. ‘Molly, I . . . can’t. I cannae do this, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Can’t you tell me why? I thought you liked me. You were the one who started it this morning.’

  I pull the sleeves of my shirt the right way out and stick my arms into them, stare at the floor while buttoning it. ‘I know I did. It was a mistake. I’m an arse.’

  ‘No you’re not, Sean.’

  I grab my jeans and stand up to put them on, then sit down again and pull on my socks. ‘The snow’s getting worse. I’d better get the van back up the road or I’ll be stuck here.’

  ‘And would that really be such a bad thing?’ This girl really doesn’t want to give up. She squeezes my hand and holds it. ‘Maybe all you need is someone to show you that life goes on. It has to.’

  ‘I don’t need you to show me that.’

  It’s the truth. Of course life goes on. I watch it going on in all its sad and pointless little varieties, all around me every day. It’s like sitting on a platform watching every train roll by except the one you need. And you can sit there forever, because the train you need – the one that will take you back in time – will never come.

  ‘Maybe you’d better find someone else to do the house.’

  Her eyes open wide. ‘Oh no, come on. We made a deal.’

  ‘But the deal didn’t include this.’ I double tie my boots and stand up again. ‘I’ll see you later, right?’

  ‘But you’re saying you won’t!’

  I hold my hands wide, let them drop again without saying anything, and leave her sitting on the edge of the bed.

  There are a couple of inches of snow on the ground by the time I get home, and my fingers are clenched so tight to the steering wheel it’s painful to pull them off. Janet is in the bathroom in an old t-shirt, trackies and gloves, massaging ammonia-smelling dye into her hair. She pokes her reddish, lathered head out as I march past, brows drawn together.

  ‘What’s up, kid?’

  ‘Feeling sick. Going to bed.’ I can’t look at her, walk straight past, close my bedroom door. I strip down to my pants and curl into bed, pulling the quilt up over my ear and drawing my knees up toward my chest. At this moment, it’s hard to imagine any reason to ever get up again. Sleep doesn’t come quickly at the best of times, and after a while, Janet comes in and sits on the edge of my bed, hair in a towel.

  ‘Will you live?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘Want to talk?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Will I bring you a bucket?’

  ‘No.’

  She strokes my hair, then bends down and kisses my cheek. ‘Sleep then, wee man. I’ll be here when you get up.’

  I want to tell her to go away and leave me to it, but the best I can manage is a grunt into the pillow. I close my eyes, pretend to be on the verge of sleep. The mattress straightens as she stands up, and I lie still until she pulls the door shut behind her.

  VII

  Janet salvages me from a gore-splattered dream with a gentle hand on my cheek. Waking up sometimes feels like fighting my way to the surface from deep underwater. I gulp air and push my face out of the pillow.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  I groan, flop onto my back and press my palms into my eyes. My chest is still pumping and it takes a moment for the panic to subside.

  ‘What were you dreaming about?’

  I try to focus but my eyes are sticky with sleep. ‘I was . . . attacking somebody with an axe. Except I wasn’t me, I was a bear.’

  ‘A bear with an axe?’

  ‘Mmm. In a tent.’

  ‘Sean, that’s . . .’

  ‘Don’t analyse, Janet.’

  ‘I brought you some breakfast. Do you think you can eat?’

  I hear the clink of dishes and open my eyes to find a tray with cornflakes, toast and tea on the bed beside me. The blinds are drawn but I can hear the windows rattling with a ferocious wind.

  ‘What time is it?’ My limbs feel like anchor lines.

  ‘Seven.’

  I sit up slowly, becoming aware of the hollow ache of hunger in my belly. ‘AM or PM?’

  She smiles. ‘AM. Monday morning.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  I’ve been in bed for almost twenty hours and have no recollection of having woken up once, even for a pee.

  ‘How did you let me sleep so long?’

  ‘You said you were ill, I figured was just as well to let you sleep it off. Anyway, no wonder. You hardly sleep most nights. How are you now?’

  I lift the tray carefully into my lap and consider the question as I chew on a spoonful of cereal. The food feels like it will stay down, so I shrug. ‘Okay.’

  Janet watches me eat. She knows I’m avoiding her gaze.

  ‘So . . . what happened yesterday?’

  ‘Nothing. Honestly, I just . . . I don’t know. Tummy bug or something.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘You didn’t have an accident or anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sean . . .’

  ‘Nothing happened. It’s just me, Janet, alright? Just whatever this crap is that happens in my head. Just leave it, for fucksake.’

  She huffs. ‘It’s snowed about six inches. You won’t be surprised to know the street hasn’t been cleared. Maybe you shouldn’t be in the van.’

  ‘I might ask for a day off. You going in?’

  ‘Have to.’ She works in the council’s housing department, sorting out emergency accommodation for homeless wasters like me. Apparently we’re both destined to spend our lives surrounded by Saddos.

  ‘I’ll walk to the bus.’ She glances at her watch, then places her hand on my arm. ‘I’d better go. Don’t try to do too much today.’

  ‘Aye . . . okay. Thanks for breakfast.’

  She raises her eyebrows – a maternal, disbelieving kind of a look – gives me a smile with half of her mouth, and leaves me to wolf my breakfast.

  I scrape the bowl of cornflakes clean, polish off the toast and tea, then haul mysel
f out of bed and shuffle down to the kitchen, pop another piece of Hovis brown into the toaster and stand gazing out the window at a world of grey and white. Fat flakes are swirling in the wind, blowing in thick clouds from the trees and making drifts against the parked cars.

  After my toast and a second cup of tea, I ring Harry’s mobile and ask for a day off in lieu for all of the extra hours I’ve been putting in at the farm. I can’t bring myself to confess that I’ve walked out on the job.

  ‘Of course,’ he says in a voice so kind it withers me. ‘I wouldn’t want you on the road today anyway.’

  Most likely he’ll turf me out on my ear when he finds out what went on yesterday, but I bite my lip and tell him I’ll see him tomorrow. Then I hang up and check for voicemails.

  One from Molly. I hold my breath as I listen.

  Sean . . . if you get this, would you ring me? A pause. Please? I know what you think of me, and I guess I can’t change that. I just want to know if you’re coming back to finish the house.

  I hang up and stare out the window at a dirty watercolour of grey, brown and white.

  And what do you think of her, anyway, Nic?

  ‘She’s a lonely, unhappy woman. She’s no more interested in me than she’d be in any man who came through her door.’

  No, it’s just you. She’s turned on by the idea of saving a wounded soldier with her love.

  ‘It’s not love, it’s sex, and that never saved anyone.’

  Of course it has. Don’t cast up, just because you couldn’t manage.

  ‘Fuck off, Mitch. Just leave me the fuck alone. Let me forget about you.’

  That’s not going to happen.

  These quiet times are the worst: still, lonely hours when my mind has nothing else to occupy it. Mitch chatters incessantly when he’s bored, just like he always did. Strange, rambling conversations that bounce from one topic to the next according to some rationale that makes sense to him and no-one else. He was a reader, like me, except instead of pulp crime novels, he read literature and philosophy and history. Sometimes on patrol he would quote from Shakespeare or Dante. More often, he would sing: everything from Welsh hymns to Radiohead, but his particular favourite was Hank Williams.