Hemispheres

by Stephen Baker

  How did it happen? Paul and I are almost the same age. You must have – when you and Kate were trying for me.

  He takes a deep breath.

  I’m not proud of it. It just happened the once. It was getting on top of me, trying for a kid. Took the spontaneity out of things. Out of sex. I had to perform to order when Kate’s cycle was right. And at other times she’d lost interest. Deb used to work the odd shift in the bar, just to tide her over. She wasn’t bad-looking in them days. Average coupon but a decent body. And one time she stayed late to clear up. It was pouring with rain outside and I offered her a lift home. Don’t know how it happened, maybe I was just looking for kicks. Pulled the car off the road by the Synthonia ground and then her knickers were round her ankles, skirt round her ears. Quick and ugly and the rain hammering on the roof, and that was all it took.

  I stare at the fireplace for a moment, at the warm glow of Chinese lanterns.

  Didn’t realize you’d been shitting in your own kennel. Right under Kate’s nose.

  You wanted the truth, he says. All of it.

  Aye.

  I never felt like I was unfaithful, not really. It was just a physical thing, like a cow needs milking now and again. I was never unfaithful to Kate in my head.

  He pauses and sighs.

  But you’re right, it was a mistake. Regret it, now.

  Still couldn’t stop yourself though.

  You know me Dan. Too late to change. Relationships always turn stale on me, sooner or later. You ever learn about the Magdeburg hemispheres, when you were at school?

  Nah. It was the eighties. They didn’t believe in formal learning.

  It was an early physics experiment – air pressure and vacuums. They locked together two brass hemispheres and pumped the air away from inside. More or less creates a vacuum. Even when they hitched a horse to each side they couldn’t pull the damn things apart. See, that’s what it feels like to me. Two people glued so tight together, they use up all the oxygen. I can’t breathe. I have to pull things apart and let the air back in.

  So why now? Do you want me to tell Paul?

  He ponders before answering. Bob Dylan chimes away in the background, forgotten.

  Up to you, he says. Tell him if you want. Just wanted you to know about him, really. It was in the back of me mind, all when you were both growing up. That there was somebody missing. Just go and see him. Make contact. Why are you laughing?

  I shake my head.

  I was just remembering Fraser’s wife, all them years ago. She thought Paul was your son and not me. And it was the truth all along.

  It’s easy to be unfaithful, he says. The easiest thing in the world. You just have to jump on when it comes past, like. I’m proud of you Dan. You haven’t done that. You’ve carried on working at it with Kelly, even when I told you to jump ship. You’ve stayed centred, son.

  I don’t feel centred, I say. I feel like you said. Like there’s no air.

  Snow falls quietly down in orange flurries, corroding on contact with the wet car bonnets and the tarmac. A few miles away Whooper swans are settling on the dark mudflats. Winter is coming.

  I don’t want to go home, don’t want to cook another meal for Kelly and Martin while they rip the piss out of me. So I stop into the Unicorn on the off chance. It’s Friday evening, the last before Christmas, and Matt and the gang are there drinking steadily in the packed side room and smoke is blooming above their heads.

  Danny boy, shouts Matt, clearly the worse for wear. Fancy meeting you in a place like this. It’s Black Eye Friday son. Happy holidays. He launches into song, school’s – out – for – ever, before collapsing into raucous laughter.

  Last day on site, explains Clare as I squeeze into a seat, her pale face intent. No more work till after New Year’s. Mind you, no more pay till after New Year’s either.

  Don’t you get holiday pay? I ask.

  They smirk.

  That’s shit, I say. Mind you, I’m self-employed. Same deal, really. So is the site finished now?

  Nah, says Clare, pushing her hair back under a woolly hat. Still some bits and pieces to do. Matt’s coming back with a couple of others in January, to polish it off, but the three of us are going. Big Roman site near Hull.

  Hull, scowls Matt. Rather you than me. Pint Danny? They’ve called last orders.

  He weaves off towards the bar.

  Must be cold, digging in this weather, I say. Been snowing on and off for a while.

  It’s not too bad when you’re working, says Julie, sucking on a thin cigarette.

  There is a group of girls, an office party, squealing happily at the table behind her. They wear Santa hats, tinsel twisted into their hair.

  And the snow never seems to stick around here, she says. Hits the ground, turns brown, and melts.

  Teesside microclimate, I say.

  It’s when you stop working, she goes on. Filling in sheets or doing a drawing. Then it really starts to bite. Clare never gets cold, do you Clare?

  What?

  She comes to with a start.

  Sorry, miles away.

  She has a pinched pale face, like a street urchin, and deep grey eyes which remind me unaccountably of Yan. She’s squashed against me on the bench and I can feel the warmth of her against my side. Matt returns with a tray full of drinks, contents slopping lightly down the sides. He passes them out. My phone rings. I look at the display and recognize my home number. Reject the call.

  Putting off going home? says Clare, lightly.

  Something like that. So where are you going for Christmas?

  Well, spending it on my own in the flat didn’t seem too attractive, so I decided to foist myself on the parents. Going up there on the train tomorrow, in fact.

  Whereabouts? Scottish borders, I’d say, from the accent. Jedburgh? She smiles.

  Not far away. Selkirk.

  Nice part of the world.

  Aye. It’s a bit of a depressing experience though. There’s my brothers and sisters, all grown up with proper jobs and mortgages, all married, starting to have kids. And there’s Clare, thirty-three, unmarried, hasn’t even got a steady boyfriend, you know. Persists in doing archaeology, like a student. But doesn’t she know there are no prospects? Living in these awful rented flats, like a gypsy. When’s she going to settle down?

  Sounds like fun.

  It’s not too bad, really. Mum always puts on a good spread.

  She lifts her pint up and knocks back a good third of it.

  So what are you doing for Christmas Dan?

  I’m momentarily stumped. Kelly and me haven’t talked about it.

  Do you know what? I haven’t got a clue, I say, bursting into embarrassed laughter. Supping beers with my terminally ill father, maybe. At least he’s got some decs up.

  People are beginning to drift away from the pub now. The bar shutters have come down and the staff are winkling the stragglers away from their tables.

  Chucking-out time, says Andy. You getting the bus back Matt?

  I’m starving, says Clare, anyone up for chips? There’s one just up the High Street.

  I realize I haven’t eaten since breakfast, beer rapidly rising to my head. I feel flushed.

  I’m in, I say.

  Hugs, kisses, Happy Christmases, and the other three head to the bus stop.

  Looks like it’s just you and me kid, says Clare.

  The chips are mealy and pungent. We stroll back along the High Street, browsing on them, towards where I left the car, trying to avoid slicks of black ice across the pavement.

  Need a lift? I ask her.

  Nah, I’m just round the corner. You know the flats over behind the church there.

  I’m about to answer but my heel slips on a patch of ice and I’m suddenly sitting on the pavement. I’ve banged my coccyx and for a moment I can’t speak, but sit there gaping like a fish. Clare bursts into ringing laughter, and then I’m laughing too. She holds out both hands and pulls me to my feet. Small, warm hands. We carry o
n until we arrive at the car.

  You know, she says, if you still want to put off going home, I’ve got a bottle of sloe gin back at the flat. It’s good stuff. Antifreeze for the soul. Some friends of mine make it every year.

  Sounds right up my street.

  We walk along Norton Green and into the churchyard. Completely dark, trees looming either side of the drive.

  It’s a good short cut through to the flats, she says. But you get all sorts in here at night. One time there was this couple over there, lying on a sleeping bag. The moon was out and all you could see was his white arse going up and down.

  I like the way you say arse, I grin. Sounds sharp and Scottish. Say it again.

  She looks at me inquisitively.

  Arse, she says.

  We’ve passed through the lych gate, and now we’re walking alongside the church itself, past a war memorial with stone steps.

  Another time, she says, conspiratorially, grabbing my forearm with her hand, I was walking up here and there was a figure standing right there, on the steps, all dressed in white. Like a ghost. A young man, tall, with blond hair. As I walked past he said something. The time of test is at hand. Something like that. Asked him who he was and he said I am the Christ. He was agitated, you know. Fidgeting. I just hurried on. That’s care in the community for you. The time of test is at hand. Later on I realized it was Easter.

  We walk through the cemetery to the rear of the church, the dark hulks of churchyard yews and the pale headstones. Her arm is still through mine. At the churchyard wall there’s a gate through to the street on the other side. We slow and stop and then she’s in front of me, still holding on to my forearm, and I fall towards her white face and kiss her. Gentle at first, tentative, but then our tongues are sliding together, turning over and over, my hands holding her waist and her arms around my neck.

  That was nice, she says quietly, when it ends, her dark eyes peering into mine.

  You know I’m married, I say.

  I’m not a bunny boiler Dan, she says. I’m going away tomorrow. You just look like you need some company. And I happen to fancy you, quite a lot. It’s simple, really. Easy.

  Cut to the chase, I say. Don’t beat around the bush.

  She laughs and we kiss again. Then we walk through towards the flats. I retrieve the phone from my pocket and turn it off.

  Do you want a lift to the station tomorrow? I ask, knocking back half a glass of the magenta liquid. It’s stronger than I imagined, thick and heady with a melancholy aftertaste of autumn.

  Aye, if you’re offering. Got to be away early, mind.

  No bother. I’m heading over that way anyway. Going to visit somebody.

  What, your other girlfriend? she murmurs, snuggling against me on the sofa.

  Half-brother. Only just found out tonight. And he doesn’t know it yet.

  Bloody hell, she says. You do lead an eventful life. And I thought you were just a boring computer geek. Refill?

  She glugs more into the glass without waiting for an answer. My cheeks already burning with the alcohol.

  Heating’s crap in here, so you’ll need a few glasses.

  I tell her about Paul as we drink. The flat small and cold, the furniture shabby. Dirty yellow foam rubber spills out of the sofa. Sirens echoing across Stockton.

  I’m going to bed, she says, yawning. Coming?

  I follow her into the bedroom. A sleeping bag rumpled across the bare mattress and a smell of damp.

  Not exactly the Hilton, I’m afraid, she says, sitting down on the edge of the bed and stripping off her jumper and bra over her head in one swift movement. Her long wayward hair bounces darkly down over her smooth shoulders and full breasts, her white belly and hips. I stand in front of her, alcohol pounding in my head.

  It’s easy Danny, she says, taking my hands. You just have to let yourself fall.

  I lower myself on top of her and she rolls backwards into the bed, pulling me after her, quick and nimble fingers flipping open buttons and pushing down trousers until I slide into her, her fingers running up my spine, her breath of bitter autumn berries in my face. The easiest thing in the world.

  Next morning I pull up outside the hostel. This is him. The way he thinks, the way he experiences life. The simplicity of last night. Perfect and inevitable. Why should I feel guilty?

  Me and Clare were reserved this morning, polite small talk in the car, a kiss on the cheek as she got onto the train. Self-loathing like stale cigarette smoke clinging to my clothes. I look at myself in the driver’s mirror. Slight bags beneath the eyes but otherwise the same lived-in face. Tell myself that nothing’s changed.

  The warden, Duncan, is busy with paperwork behind the reception desk. I finger the packet of sweets in my pocket.

  Hi, I say.

  He looks up abruptly.

  I’m here to see Paul. Paul O’Rourke. I was here a couple of months ago?

  Duncan looks uncomfortable.

  Perhaps you’d better step into my office. We can talk more private in there.

  A chill passes over me and my heart pounds. It’s too late. I sit down in the proffered chair and Duncan wedges himself behind the desk. A tiny office, piles of paperwork and correspondence on the desk. Shelves with box files cover nearly all the wall space.

  Paperwork, he says. Bane of the public services these days. Supposed to be a Labour government.

  He’s going to tell me that Paul is dead. I prepare myself.

  Sorry to have to tell you this, he says. We’d have got in touch with you, but you didn’t leave any contact details. Paul’s not here. He checked out.

  You don’t have to beat around the bush, I say. You mean he’s dead.

  He stares at me.

  God, I’m really sorry. No – of course, you must have thought – he really has checked out. As in left. A couple of weeks ago. The real worry is that he left all his medication here. Anti-retrovirals, everything. Could be in some danger without it.

  He rubs the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb.

  Anybody know where he is? Did he say where he was going?

  Talking about Whitby, according to a couple of the regulars. No guarantee of course, but I’ve alerted the social services and police down there just in case he turns up.

  He liked Whitby when he was a kid. Used to go down there with his mam. A week in the summer. But why leave the medication?

  Perhaps he wasn’t expecting to be gone long. Although I wonder whether he was thinking of –

  His voice trails off and I finish his sentence.

  Going there to die.

  17. Curlew

  (Numenius arquata)

  It was getting dark when we pulled into Darlington. We stumbled into the echoing station, pigeons flapping high up against the glass roof with fathoms of night mounting above. Walked past the idling engine of the locomotive, the death-defying thrum of the diesel.

  It was already a dream. The caravan park, the wedding, the scrapyard. Bright splinters of memory – stars dipping into the sea, circles of eyeliner in the dark, a shot glass of crème de menthe.

  And out into the taxi rank, sloping downward towards the railway bridge. I made straight for a taxi and got in the back.

  Haverton Hill mate, I said. The Cape of Good Hope.

  He started the meter running, luminous red figures beginning to cycle. Paul was still outside, finishing a cigarette. I craned my neck backwards and saw him crush it beneath a boot, then he was jumping into the seat beside me.

  Wagons roll, he shouted, extracting a beer can from his jacket pocket, popping it, slurping greedily.

  The driver looked unimpressed. Reversed slowly out of the space, drove down the ramp and out onto the main road. He took Darlington Back Lane, through Norton and across the Billingham Beck valley on the new flyover. Tanks and towers and columns bristling above Billingham itself, above the squat tower of the Saxon church and the houses clustered like battlements along the ridge. We ran up Central Avenue and on out of tow
n, the vast expanse of the Billingham site burning to the right, fields of shimmering light leaping into the black sky. And beyond the site was Haverton Hill and the Cape of Good Hope on the corner.

  Paul began to stump off down the road, jacket pulled tight around his shoulders. He turned.

  Don’t do nothing I wouldn’t do, he called.

  Something clicked inside.

  You never did it, did you? She prickteased you all night but you never got nowhere.

  She likes a bit of rough, he said. She likes to rub Charlie’s nose in it. Like she did with your old man.

  All your stories are made up, aren’t they?

  Son, he said. I done stuff you never even imagined.

  Then he marched off and left me standing there looking after him. I pushed open the front door and went in. Stairs in front of me, up to the flat. Swing doors to the bar on my right. Quiet in there, a few low voices droning like flies. The stairs shimmered drunkenly, somebody whispering at the top. I flipped the lightswitch and the bare bulb flared into life. Nobody there. The electricity buzzed.

  I climbed the stairs, hand on the smooth wood of the banister, reached the top and went into the flat. The living room was empty and dark. That buzzing on the cusp of awareness.

  Kate was at the kitchen table, bent over some paperwork. She got up and hugged me until I broke away, embarrassed.

  What happened to your hair?

  Oh, I said. Low maintenance.

  Trajan loomed up at me, blunt face questing, paws on my shoulders. I pushed him down and he began scrabbling at the lino with his claws. The blinds at the windows weren’t drawn and the blackness outside was pressing on the glass. I could feel it mounting. The pub was at the bottom of the sea.

  Where have you been? she asked.

  Nowhere really. What are you up to?

  I’m filling in the form, she said. For the insurance.

  Oh. Expected you to be bugging in front of the telly.