by Tom Fletcher
‘Have you seen this?’ I point at the TV.
She slowly and deliberately sways over to the TV and turns it off. ‘I don’t care.’
‘What are you doing?’ I stand up. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Watch me instead,’ she says. And she starts to take her clothes off. She strips. She sheds her clothes slowly and gracefully. And I let the lust build within me. Until it hides the news-anger beneath it. I watch her unblinkingly. I have never seen anything like it. It is sexual, but there is also this sense of wonder. Seeing what is covered up. Underneath. I am witnessing something mystical. Almost mythical. She accentuates one panel of flesh with her movements, and then another. Shoulder-blade. Navel. Thigh. Hip.
We make love. Here, in the bedroom of my childhood. We make love in black and white. I turn the light off and the fake stars shine out. Better and brighter than the real ones out above. And then Jennifer is no longer with me. I mean that in my imagination, she has left the room. Smiling.
I wake up. I must have been sleeping. I am still fully dressed, and the light is off. But the TV is on. The room is filled by that ghostly TV blue, and it jumps around the edges of my film figurines. They cast strange shadows. They dance around and snap back and forth on the wall.
I stand up, agitated, open the curtains and look out of the window. The light from my TV spills into the outside world. It illuminates the road in front of the house. Jack’s car looks so much like Dad’s. They are both old Metros. Jack’s is blue and Dad’s is white, but apart from that – the rust, the moss, the mud, the bird-shit. The cars sit on the road, nose to nose, like old friends having a catch-up. Talking about UFOs and ghosts and whatever other crap it is that they believe in. I mean, there is so much here in this world to occupy your mind already. Too much to do as it is. They are similar in that way I guess. Delusional. Fantasists.
A music video starts up on the screen. It is made up of still images – photographs, rapidly switching, replacing each other. The light jumps and jerks and the shadows on my wall start leaping up and down, higher and higher. The music increases tempo and the images on screen alternate more rapidly. The shadows start to jump faster and faster, all around me, until they seem too joyful, almost. Too happy. Gleeful. And I can’t take it any more and have to turn the TV off.
I know that Jennifer and Jack are an item. I know that. And he’s a good friend and I want him to be with somebody. And I don’t want to ruin that. I guess I just want that too. Somebody. Having somebody. And I want it to be her. Typically, I want it to be her.
She must get scared of it too. As regularly as looking at a photograph. As regularly as looking in the mirror. Every time you think about the future, it’s there. Or every time I think about Dad, now. Every time I think about Dad.
In the morning, I’m sitting at the kitchen table when Jack and Jennifer come downstairs. Jack is talking excitedly about the old mines at Whitehaven.
‘I read about it in The Unseen World,’ he says. ‘The manager of the mine was dismissed, and a new manager appointed, and the old manager took the new manager down the mine somewhere that he knew was unsafe, and they were both killed in an explosion. It was intentional, see. It was a drastic revenge. And it was said that you could hear their last angry conversation down there, long after they had died.’
The two of them sit down.
‘It sounds interesting, Jack,’ Jennifer says. ‘But we’re not going to have time. It would mean heading north-west, as opposed to south-east, which is the way home.’
‘I know, I know,’ he says. ‘We can’t go today. Maybe we could go up there one weekend though? It would give me some more time to read about it. There’s another story, you know, recounted by Baring-Gould, about a miner who half-cut a rope that was lowering some colleagues whom he didn’t like. The rope snapped, and they died, and forever after he was prone to shaking fits that would cause his eyes to wander around the room and see their ghosts.’
‘Jack,’ Jennifer says, firmly. ‘I’m not sure this is appropriate breakfast-time conversation.’
‘Oh,’ Jack says, looking up at me. ‘Oh right. Sorry.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘Look. I’m going to stay up here for a few days. I know you need to get back though.’
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘We do, really. Might drive through the Lakes this time. Give Whitehaven a miss.’
‘I’ll worry about you getting lost again.’
‘You don’t need to worry about me,’ he says.
I wouldn’t if I could help it. Except it’s nothing as little as getting lost that I worry about. I worry about all of you. Your flesh bubbling up into hard lumps. Meaty eruptions deep within your bodies. The programming of your cells being altered by some carcinogenic agent, or some other malevolent force. And getting carried away. Multiplying feverishly. Accumulating and becoming misshapen. I think about the shadows on my bedroom wall last night and shudder.
I do worry about you. I worry about all of you. All the time.
All the time.
‘OK then,’ I say. ‘I won’t worry.’
‘Good,’ he says.
‘Where are your parents?’ Jennifer says.
‘Oh,’ I say. I look at the clock. It’s a long lie-in, for them. ‘They’re still in bed.’
‘Oh right,’ she says. Then looks a little awkward.
As soon as Jack leaves the room to go and look at the map, I touch Jennifer’s hand. It jerks slightly, as if surprised. And then stays still, maintaining the contact.
‘Jennifer,’ I say. ‘Is it all right if we – if I talk to you?’
‘Yeah.’ She frowns briefly. ‘Of course. Everything OK?’
‘Well, kind of. I – I wanted to ask you about your mum, if that’s OK. I mean, like – what it was like and everything. Before she – before she died, and afterwards.’
‘That’s fine with me. I don’t think it was the same as what you’re going through though, especially because – well, your dad’s, you know. He’s not—’
‘He’s still alive.’
‘Hey!’ she says. ‘Not still. He is alive. End of story.’
‘I suppose.’
‘I got used to the idea of her dying a long time before she did. It felt like she’d been ill for a long time. Well, she had. Sometimes she would forget who I was. It was hard. Like, really hard. Sometimes she just wasn’t my mother. Was somebody else. Something else.’
‘You don’t have to talk about it, you know,’ I say. ‘I know I asked, but I know it must be difficult. And it’s good of you to come up at all.’
‘It’s good to get away. It’s beautiful round here. And it’s good to see where you’re from. I think it’s important to know where people are from.’
‘I’ve never thought about it.’
‘The truth is I was kind of relieved.’ She looks me directly in the eyes. ‘I know that sounds awful. But her life was just a big trap. A maze that she didn’t really have the energy to find her way out of. Like a big elaborate cage. Life should be lived as, I don’t know, as freely as possible, with as few restrictions and commitments as possible. And she had so many. I had so many.’ She looks down at her empty mug. ‘Don’t judge me, hey? I know I sound bad. But I was upset. You know.’
‘I know.’ I put my arm out to hug her. And then stop. Awkward. But then she hugs me. ‘There’s something I want to talk to you about,’ I say. ‘I feel like I can talk to you about it, because you must be scared too.’
‘What?’ she says. ‘What do you mean, scared?’
‘You must be scared. Cancer. It was cancer, wasn’t it? You must be scared.’
‘Yeah, it was cancer. But I’m not scared. I mean, it was fucking awful. But you’ve got to die of something. Dying is dying is dying. There must be worse ways to go.’
I look at her for a moment. And then I try to kiss her. Just lean in and try to kiss her on the mouth. My lips make contact with hers before she pulls back. She could have pulled back sooner. But she didn’
t. I realise that my eyes are closed and open them. She is so close to me, still. Her eyes are huge and green like clouds in space. Nebulae. It is as if she half wants to kiss me back. We stay like that for a moment. Five seconds. I’m counting them out in my head. Ten seconds. She blinks. Neither of us is breathing.
The spare bedroom door opens upstairs. Jack’s footsteps on the landing.
‘Jack and I have an understanding,’ Jennifer says. ‘But there’s a time and a place. And you have a lot on your mind at the moment.’
‘Well,’ I say. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. I’m sorry.’
I can hear Jack coming downstairs. I move backwards in my seat.
‘You are gorgeous, though,’ she says. Quietly.
Jack arrives in the hallway and comes back to the kitchen. He dumps his backpack in the doorway. He smiles at us.
So they have an understanding.
I don’t know what she means.
JACK
We were glad to leave Francis’ house. Being there felt uncomfortable, like we were intruding on something very private, however hard they tried to make us feel welcome.
We were approaching a valley called Wasdale. It was somewhere in the western Lake District, a little south of where Joan and Eric lived. As I drove slowly up the narrow fell road that would take us there, Jennifer turned down the radio.
‘We should stop in this valley,’ she said. ‘It would be good to get some fresh air.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I could take some photos and make some notes, maybe.’
‘For the farmhouse thing?’
‘Yeah. I thought we could go back to Garsdale, but it might be nice to find another way.’
‘I don’t know it up here at all. I like it though. You could probably buy quite cheap. Get some land too.’
We crested the low fell and were granted a view reminiscent of a scene from The Hobbit or one of the Narnia books. A patchwork blanket of green fields was draped across a valley floor, the middle of which cradled a still, clean-looking lake, and the fields were strange spaces inside irregular arrangements of drystone walls. There were small dense copses of deciduous trees that were turning yellow and brown, waterfalls leaping from the steep grey mountains that rose up on all sides, bright streams and rivers that wound, shimmering, through the landscape towards the Irish Sea which shone in the distance. White farmhouses were scattered around and stood out from the green backdrop, and as I looked more closely I saw other houses that were less obviously coloured. The mountainsides were dotted with sheep that I could hear bleating through the open window, the sky was high and blue. There was something magical about this place. It immediately seemed to be a simple, honest, natural, beautiful place where people could just be people.
‘In cities,’ I said, ‘or just more modern places, people are so much more superficial.’ The car rattled over a cattle grid. ‘I mean, they seem so image-conscious. You can’t move for people trying to be individuals. But somewhere like this it feels like things could be different. Here, you could strip all of that away. Like taking your clothes off and just being you.’
‘Nothing wrong with clothes, Jack. I mean, nothing wrong with no clothes, but remember. I make them.’
‘No, nothing wrong with clothes. But what matters is that you’d continue to make them up here, where nobody would know. And if they did know, they wouldn’t think you’re any cooler or more individual for it.’
We pulled over in a small lay-by beneath a vividly coloured hedgerow that towered up and hung over the car. The greenery smelled fresh and clean. We sat for a while, just breathing.
On the other side of the road was a small, whitewashed village shop. There we could get a paper and something to eat on the journey so that we didn’t have to go to one of the grim, grey service stations that crouched next to the motorway like giant, broken-down machines. We got out of the car and crossed the road.
My eyes had to readjust as I pushed the old door open, because after the bright sunlight outside it seemed dim in here, dingy. The small room was lined on all four walls with shelves piled high with tins, jars and packets. In the corner opposite was a tiny counter behind which a large, grey-haired woman sat. There was also an island in the middle of the room, as equally laden as the walls. The shop sold a wide variety of things, considering that it was so small.
‘Alreet,’ said the old lady. ‘Owz it gaan?’
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Hello. It’s – it’s going good, thank you.’
She didn’t say anything else; just smiled and nodded, as if in time to some music that only she could hear. I picked up a copy of the Independent from the floor, and saw that there was actually a refrigerated cabinet buried between the racks of bags of sweets and a stack of toilet roll. The cabinet contained bottles of milk, bottles of juice, bottles of water and locally made sandwiches. I took one of the sandwiches – egg, bacon and sausage – and also a big packet of crisps, which I deposited on the counter alongside the newspaper.
‘Have you got any ice-creams?’ Jennifer said to the old woman.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Az wun’t sellin’ ’em.’
‘Well,’ Jennifer said, putting another sandwich and a big bottle of water on the counter next to my purchases. ‘Who needs ice-cream, really?’
‘Just those please, then,’ I said to the shopkeeper.
‘T’ll be five-twenty then, ta,’ she said. ‘Just passin’ through, are tha?’ Her hair was curly and short, and she wore a floral dress that seemed muted in that yellowish gloom. Her big arms wobbled as she passed me the change from my ten-pound note.
‘Yeah,’ Jennifer said. ‘Been visiting a friend and thought we’d take the scenic route back home.’
‘Ah, weel!’ she said, laughing goodnaturedly. ‘Tha’ll not be disappointed then!’
‘No,’ Jennifer said. ‘No, it’s lovely here. Wasdale, is it? What’s the lake called?’
‘Wastwater, the lake is. Aye. Wastwater.’ She scratched her slightly hairy chin and nodded even more vigorously. ‘Bottomless, ’tis.’
‘I’m sorry?’ I said.
‘Bottomless.’ She laughed again, and I found myself laughing too. ‘Fancy that!’ she chortled. ‘Not having a bottom! Poor bugger.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Ha ha. I suppose it would be quite awkward not having a bottom.’
‘Nivver looks the same twice,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry? I mean – I’m sorry?’
‘The lake.’ Her demeanour suddenly became serious. ‘The, y’know, the top of it, the surface, nivver has the same look aboot it. ’S allus diffrint. Ivry single time.’
‘Oh right,’ I said. ‘I might go and have a look at it after this.’
‘Tha like it round here then, aye?’ she asked.
‘I think it’s wonderful.’
‘There’s a yam gaan up yan o’ them fells.’ She nodded her head towards the window that I’d not noticed up until now. It was covered in curling scraps of paper that had been tacked to the inside, which was probably why it was so dark in there. Jennifer and I looked at each other.
‘Pardon?’ I asked.
‘It’s grand to meet a man wi’ manners!’ she exclaimed, and began to laugh again. ‘Fellers round here divvent offer two wuds to rub togither.’
‘Right,’ I said, nodding, smiling.
‘What Ah meant,’ she said, speaking a little more slowly, ‘is that theer’s a house up theer. Fer sale. Y’know. Little notice in yon winder if tha’s interested. God knows it’s bin empty long enough, tha can tekk the notice. Bin theer yeers.’
Jennifer had gone to the window already.
‘Well,’ I said, walking backwards as I spoke. ‘Thank you! We could drop by and have a look. We should probably be getting off now, actually. Thanks very much though.’ I stopped by the door.
‘Which notice is it?’ Jennifer asked.
‘Near the top. Left-hand side. No, futher down. Futher down. Next one in. That’s t’yan.’ She grinned broadly at Jennifer’s back.
‘Yep,’ Jennifer said, looking at it. ‘It’s for a house.’
‘That’s t’yan,’ the woman said again.
‘Well, thanks again,’ I said. ‘Bye-bye.’
‘Alreet,’ she said. ‘See tha soon.’
As we left she was nodding and smiling again, her bulky frame wedged in that back corner like she’d never moved from there, and like she never would.
The house was called Fell House. Jennifer put the advert on the dashboard. I liked the name of it, and I liked the way that the woman called the mountains fells because it sounded old and mystical. I looked again at the shoddy, torn-off yellowing bit of paper.
Four-bedroomed farmhouse for sale!
Structurally sound but needs a lick of paint!
Address is:
Fell House, Fell Road, Wasdale
Cumbria
Call 07842 220348 for details
The text had originally been written in pencil, and gone over in ballpoint pen (presumably by the woman in the shop) once it had started to fade. I looked over at Jennifer and saw that her eyes were closed, but she was not asleep, just thinking. I started the car up again and set off. The sun was bright; the windscreen looked filthy.
