19. Guillemot
(Uria aalge)
Whitby is a shitmagnet of a town, attracts more than its fair share of human flotsam. Maybe it’s the geography of the place, stuck out on that far eastern bulge of Yorkshire behind miles of empty moorland. They used to exile people here, before they invented Australia.
In summer it’s packed with trippers, cramming the narrow streets on the East Cliff, swarming up the steps to the abbey on the headland. But at dusk they stream away to the car parks and the courtyards and alleys are bare and empty. It’s quiet in winter too, wooden staithes looming above the harbour, gulls reverberating in the empty town.
I walk past the rampart of Victorian hotels on the West Cliff, shabby whitewashed hulks with pensioner deals and tea dances. At the top of the slope I look down over the harbour, the Esk crawling between shale cliffs and slipping through the embrace of sandstone piers to the troubled North Sea. Then I pick my way down the steps and through the tunnel to the fish quay.
Where do you look for someone like Paul? In summer he’d be chugging cans on the beach, sprawled out in the warm sand. But this is raw winter. Luminous blue sky, a low insipid sun casting long and sullen shadows, and a buffeting northeaster bringing a deep swell racing against the coast.
I start with a trawl of pubs and arcades, the indoor spaces of the town. The amusements on the west side of the harbour are almost dead, fruities chirruping and pulsing in the warm darkness. No Paul. I move on over the swing bridge where gulls perch on the rotted stumps of old staithes, grown sleek and fat on the leavings of tourists. In the pubs of the East Cliff there are few drinkers, a couple of low-season tourists and a few hardened regulars, faces battered by drink and weather. In the Duke of York the girl behind the bar looks bored as she restocks the fridge.
Could be any number of people, she says, yawning. Skinny bloke with home-made tats and a baseball cap. Doesn’t narrow it down any. You get all sorts in here, specially on a night when it gets rammed. I’ll keep an eye out anyway. What’s his name?
Paul. Paul O’Rourke.
She looks directly at me for the first time, eyes rimmed heavily with black. Long windows behind her, snow and sleet scribbling over the harbour.
I’ll give you my card, I say. Call me if he comes in.
Fumble in my wallet and hand her a work card. She takes it and grunts.
You need a photo, she says, suddenly. If you’re going to ask around the pubs. It’d be better than your description.
Haven’t got one.
He’s your brother and you don’t have a photo?
Nothing on the East Cliff. I head over the swing bridge again and down towards the station. Check tourist information and wander through the elegant Victorian station building, two sets of cold, dank public toilets. Then I walk away from the harbour, up the main shopping street with its scant cluster of chainstores. More people here, pensioners doing the weekday shop, gangs of sullen kids leaning against shop fronts, mothers with gaggles of toddlers in outsize buggies. I need something to eat, and stop at a cashpoint. As the machine whirs a voice speaks from the pavement next to me.
Spare some change for a cup of tea pal?
I look down and recognize Paul. Cross-legged on the pavement with a soiled yellow blanket spread over his knees and pulled up to chest height. Still wearing the duckbill hat I last saw him in, face unshaven with raw cheeks and bloodhound eyes.
Paul, it’s me, Danny, I say.
Muttering from behind me. I take my cash and vacate the cashpoint, squatting down on the other side of Paul. He looks at me in confusion, trying to work out how I’ve moved from one side of his vision to the other. No recognition in his face.
Do us a ciggie charver, he says. Go on.
I don’t smoke, I say, not any more. I’ve got something to tell you. Something important.
Have you got a fat penny then? Go on son, cross my palm with cash. It’s good karma.
Grope in my pocket and find the battered tube of sweets. He’s shivering beneath the blanket.
Look, I say, them green chews you used to like. Found some in a pub.
He looks at the packet quizzically, a blackbird eyeing up a worm.
Nah mate, I don’t use ’em. Cheers anyway. Spare some change for a cup of tea pal?
He’s addressing an elderly man in a dark overcoat, using the cashpoint and steadfastly ignoring him. He smells bad, a sweet smell of decay. A bunch of kids on the opposite side of the street, staring malevolently at the two of us. I stare back.
Is there a problem lads? I say.
Eh?
Just wondered what you were staring at.
It’s a free fucking country isn’t it? shoots back a lad in a snow-white tracksuit. We can look at who we like. What’s it got to do with you anyway baldy?
The others laugh, and I feel the anger shooting up into my face, blood roaring. But then they move away, posturing and muttering to themselves.
I’ll burn your fucking faces off, yells Paul, suddenly.
Passers-by turn to stare, give him an even wider berth than before. The lads turn round and flick middle fingers, but keep moving away.
Just like the old days Danny, he says. Thought we might get us a barney there, eh?
I look at him curiously.
Do you know who I am?
Aye, you’re Danny Thomas. Used to run together when we were bairns. You’ve lost a bit of hair recently son.
When I was at the cashpoint. You didn’t recognize me at all. Unless you were winding me up.
Paul thumps the side of his head with the heel of his hand, like he’s shaking ketchup loose from a bottle.
Couple short of a six-pack, he says. One minute I know what I’m doing, the next I haven’t got a scooby. One side of my brain doesn’t know what the other side’s doing.
I buy a packet of cigarettes from the newsagent’s and we sit in a nearby caff, order a pot of tea and two full English. Paul attracts some sidelong glances and the stench rises from him in the heat. When the food arrives he wolfs it down and then eyes my toast hungrily. A sudden shiver of sleet lashes the window.
Aye, go on then, I say.
He crams the toast into his mouth, chewing noisily.
Me dad went loony, he says, through his mouthful of food. In the end. That’s where I’m going Dan.
I’m wondering how to break the news to him, but he continues.
One time, must have been seventeen, eighteen, I was on the bus to Stockton, back seat of the bottom deck. Gadgie got on in Thornaby, forties, fifties, one of them purple heart attack faces with the blue lips. Decent shell suit and trainers, like, but no socks. Shambles down the bus and plonks himself next to this young lass. Starts muttering to himself, rummaging in this plastic bag, and then he pulls out a joint of meat. Fucking great thing like a leg of lamb, wrapped in brown paper. Raw – you could see the blood soaking through. Starts gnawing at it through the paper, smacking his fucking lips, and there’s grease and blood smeared all round his mouth. Lass next to him was nearly bubbling, her mates behind cackling like crows.
He leans forward over the table, quick green eyes latching on to mine.
You know them clockwork toys. Wind it up, time after time. Keeps moving, eh? Going through the motions.
I nod.
One time, he says. You wind it up and the spring snaps. Not a loud noise, just a little pop. After that it’s fucked for good.
He pauses and looks out at the damp street.
That gadgie on the bus, he says. The spring had snapped.
I take a sip of tea. Paul lights a cigarette, shoots smoke through his nostrils like a dragon.
When he got off the bus, he turned round and stared at me. Slack jaw, nobody fucking home. Fat and blood on his chops. Hadn’t rec ognized him up till then. But it was our dad. Anth O’Rourke. Didn’t know me from Adam, just went weaving off into Stockton market.
Paul, I say. That doesn’t have to happen to you. I need to tell you something. He looks sharply at me
and his eyes are glazed.
Mate, I’ve got to keep moving, he says. Cross my palm with cash, will you? It’s good karma.
I pull a fiver from my pocket and press it into his reddened hand, watching the bluestained knuckles close over it. He jumps up suddenly from the table, out of the door before I can react, spinning between clumps of shoppers. I rise to follow, but a pointed glance from behind the counter reminds me I haven’t paid for our breakfasts. Try to juggle change from my wallet as quickly as I can, but awkward fingers spill an explosion of coins onto the floor and I crawl under tables and chairs to retrieve them, cheeks burning. I hurry down the street and catch up with him down by the harbour where he’s leaning against the railing by the payphone.
You remember that game we used to play, he says. When we were bairns.
What game?
With the phone book.
Aye, I say. I remember.
You ring up somebody at random. Someone on the other side of the world.
Yeah. If anyone picked up we used to piss ourselves laughing and slam the receiver down.
Let’s do it now, he says.
He backs into a phone box and lifts the receiver. Dials a long and random number.
I don’t even know what country it is, he says. Could be like Outer Mongolia or somewhere.
You’ll probably just get number unobtainable, like.
He listens intently, brow furrowing and lips moving silently. Then he motions urgently at me.
Away, give us some cash.
I shovel change into the slot and Paul’s face lights up.
It’s ringing.
We wait a full minute with his ear pressed to the receiver.
There’s no-one there Paul.
There is. He’ll be along in a minute. Away man, I need more cash.
I feed the machine again and Paul waits while his credit ticks away towards zero.
Give it up mate. No-one’s going to answer.
He’ll be along in a minute Danny. I just need a bit more cash.
I’m out of change.
Please Dan. Just another fifty pee.
You’ve spent it all.
It’s fucking gone dead now.
Paul looks around wildly, then he tries to yank the receiver off its metal tether. It stays fast and he slams it down instead and pins me against the side of the kiosk with shocking strength, his hot sweet breath across my face.
He was just coming, he shouts, eyes bloodshot.
Who?
I don’t know.
He lets go of my jacket and storms off and I stand there in the kiosk shaking while sleet rattles against the safety glass.
I wander aimless for a bit, find myself on the West Pier. Waves whump the seawall with a deep percussion, sending splurges of freezing foam across the promenade. I walk along the pier towards the sandstone lighthouse, turn my collar up to the shellbursts and the icy water lashing across. And halfway down I stop and lean on the railings and crane my neck down the coast towards Sandsend and the tall shelving headland of Kettleness. Ranges of wrinkled water rush towards the coast and dissolve into ferocious turbulence before walloping the pier.
I feel sick.
Right down below me there’s a guillemot in the water, wallowing like a small penguin and too waterlogged to fly. It paddles gamely to keep away from the stone wall of the pier, but the waves are brawling in at an angle and slapping it down, cutting off any escape. Sleek head and pointed bill held just above water, dark as a little scroll of ink. A serif of life.
A fresh breaker roars in and the sea splinters into chaos and the bird dives to avoid being dashed against the pier. I scan the surface in the wake of the wave and there’s nothing for a long minute. I give the bird up for drowned, but then it creeps back to the surface like an apology, a moth mired in puddleskin.
And with each new bellow of turbulence, each howling tumult of whitewater, the guillemot dives again and I wait while the webbed feet are kicking back up towards that lungbursting silver skin of air and life. Spinning out your last breath in struggle until the sea strangles you.
If I was in that water I wouldn’t keep kicking.
And now I don’t want to watch any more. I turn away and walk by the lighthouse, where the warm golden sandstone has been knit by the weather into an intricate landscape of whirlpools and sinkholes and runnels. But the outer arm of the pier is closed by the weather, a barrier across the walkway, and I’m forced to return towards the town. Despite myself I stop and crane my neck over the side of the pier and now there’s no guillemot, just the exultant pandemonium of the sea.
Back in my hotel room I sit down heavily on the bed. Stayed here with Kelly, the best part of three years ago. Not the same room, but the same smell of ancient woodsmoke infused into the bones of the building, the same eventful firelight exploring the darkened surfaces of panelled wood.
Do you like this place? I said.
She lounged across the bed, dumping her shopping bag on the floor.
It’s very you Danny.
Flashed me that wan smile of hers, the one that wasn’t really smiling. I sat down on the bed next to her.
You mean like old and venerable but ultimately pretty fucking fantastic?
Now she smiled genuinely, her broad face illuminated. I stood up and lit the gas fire. Flames twirled up through the basket of imitation coal, sending a sinuous play of orange light over the panelling.
Well, she said. I’d have preferred something a bit more plush. You know, like one of them boutique hotels, maybe an infinity pool.
An infinity pool in Whitby, I snorted. It’s called the North Sea.
She reclined onto her side, curving in a contented feline way. Flames caressed the rim of her nostrils. It was getting dark outside.
You can laugh, she said. Anyway, I wouldn’t have expected you to take me anywhere like that. This is more your style. Hundreds of years of woodsmoke and kippers. They’ve made a good job of restoring it, but it’s not quite finished, is it? Still a bit poky in places. The panelling stripped but not varnished. The paintwork blistering on the bathroom ceiling. And worst of all, this bed creaks like a bastard.
Ah, I said. You can wonder whether it’s me creaking or the bed.
She laughed silently, the corners of her mouth drawing up.
I need a child, she said. I want to be a mother.
I looked startled.
She grinned. That put the cat among the pigeons.
Put a finger to my lips before I could speak.
You know we’ve talked about it in the past. But it’s always been a theory, something we were going to do one day. She paused. Well now I want to make it a reality.
I looked at her as she sprawled across the bed like an earth mother.
Okay, I said.
There was a brief silence while flames roared in the grate.
Is that all you have to say?
Yes. It’s simple. I’m ready too – I think.
She reached a hand round to the nape of my neck and began to pull me down towards her.
We can start now, she said.
The bed gave an admonitory squeak, but I continued moving down towards the veins of fire lashing across her body.
It was a good weekend, that one. As good as it got. The bed carried on squeaking and we carried on regardless, quaking with laughter when we heard voices and footsteps in the corridor outside. We were happy, then. Even talked about buying a boat down here. Nowt fancy, just enough for a bit of day fishing offshore. Never got round to it mind.
I lie back on the bed, feeling sick from self-loathing, and there’s no creaking, just a soft sigh from the mattress.
Next morning the sea has calmed to a brisk surf and I find Paul again at the far end of the West Pier. On the footbridge across to the outer arm I pause and look down at the sea crawling between my feet. Crests clash in the narrow space and spew foam up towards me, troughs suck the water away from weed-draggled stone almost down to the seabed. I steady myself and co
ntinue onto the wooden walkway towards the figure at the far end, hunched over the railings. He stands out from the early-morning fishermen wrapped up in all-weather gear, flinging out their near-invisible lines into turbulent water. As I approach he raises a can to his lips and drinks deeply.
I edge past the metal struts and ladders of the harbour beacon, breathing in the faint tang of rust and urine. He swivels towards me and grins, drinks from the can again, turns back and leans against the railing facing out to sea where the water is shredded by a raw wind. I lean on the railings next to him, feeling the slight warmth of his shoulder through my jacket. He offers me the can and I shake my head. He drains it, crushes it like a moth in his fist, sends it spiralling down into the water. I think of the guillemot. Paul lights one of the fags I bought for him yesterday, shielding the lighter flame from the bruising wind. His hands are like lumps of meat.
I decide to blurt it out, no preamble.
Yan’s your dad, I say. You’re my brother. Half-brother.
He brings the cigarette up between the fingers of a flat hand, sucks lazily, and lets the smoke sprawl out of his mouth before it’s torn away by the wind. A long pause, while herring gulls echo across the harbour and the sea continues a destructive conversation with itself. I feel obliged to carry on, to fill the vacuum.
He told me the other night. Slept with her, just the once. When she used to work in the pub.
A fishing boat wallowing towards the harbour mouth, tilting one way and then the other in the heavy swell. I can hear the engine working above the sound of the sea. Gulls whirl behind it, glittering in the early sun.
No, says Paul. Turns towards me and shakes his head. No.
The cigarette spins down into the sea, still smoking until the moment it hits the cold water and dies. Paul turns away again and hunches over the railings. I wait a moment, then I touch his upper arm.
She went with anyone Danny, he says. Anyone. Used to hear her through the wall when I was a bairn. On that logic, I’d have a hundred dads.
The boat approaches the harbour, steadying itself to pass crisply midway between the two outer piers. Figures inside the wheelhouse, dark jerseys and pale faces. Voices raised in laughter, cigarette smoke.
Hemispheres Page 24
