He Wants

by Alison Moore

  ‘Sure,’ said Sydney.

  ‘My uncle went out there,’ said Lawrence. ‘There are opportunities there. They’re advertising for men. You can make a good living.’

  ‘I want to go everywhere,’ said Sydney. ‘I want to see the Wonders of the World.’

  ‘You’re too late,’ said Lawrence. ‘Most of them have gone.’ He moved towards the kitchen. ‘Cup of tea?’ he said. But Sydney, who had only just got there, was already keen to leave.

  ‘Are you coming for a ride in the Saab?’ he said to Lewis, who did not need asking twice. Leaving the new puppy with his father, Lewis followed Sydney outside.

  They drove through the village with the windows down, the mother dog panting on the back seat. It was a glorious car, with a beautiful, rounded shape, and Lewis longed to sit behind the wheel himself. ‘It’s so cool,’ he said, ‘that your dad lets you drive his Saab.’

  ‘He doesn’t let me,’ said Sydney, accelerating hard. ‘He never lets the key out of his sight.’

  ‘Then how come you’re driving it now?’ asked Lewis.

  ‘I know where he keeps the spare key,’ said Sydney.

  They drove around the countryside for a while, ‘like two old men,’ said Lewis, ‘like an old married couple out for a Sunday drive,’ except that Sydney drove so fast, and on a particularly narrow lane nearly knocked a man off his bike.

  Sydney drove them to Nether, pulling up outside his house. ‘They’re out,’ he said as he parked. Letting the dog out of the car, he squatted down in front of her, took hold of her collar and opened up the brandy barrel. He put the spare car key inside and snapped the barrel shut.

  They went into the house and up to Sydney’s bedroom where they sat on the edge of Sydney’s bed. Lewis had with him a book of his father’s that he was carrying around and he showed it to Sydney. He was thinking about the part in it where Rupert proposes jiu-jitsu (‘I’ll show you what I can, if you like’) and the two men end up wrestling, but Sydney was not greatly interested in DH Lawrence. Instead, Sydney showed Lewis the paperbacks he had stolen from a bookshop in town. Lewis read the epigraph in The City and the Pillar – ‘But his wife looked back from behind him and she became a pillar of salt’ – and Sydney said, ‘You can read it when I’m done with it.’

  Sydney suggested breaking into the drinks cabinet and mixing up a couple of cocktails, but then they heard the ice cream van coming by and wondered if they’d prefer lollies. In the end they got neither. Sydney’s parents came home unexpectedly while the boys were still sitting on the bed, while Lewis was still looking through the books, and Sydney’s mother came upstairs, to Sydney’s bedroom door, with home-made biscuits.

  When Lewis said, ‘Perhaps I should be going,’ Sydney, lounging on the bed, said, ‘Don’t go yet.’ They talked some more and Sydney read Lewis a short story he had recently written, and then, though Lewis lingered, Sydney moved towards the door.

  On the doorstep, Sydney’s father asked what Lewis was planning to do with himself now. Lewis mentioned a trip to Manchester that his father and he were going to take, and then, at the end of the summer, he would be going away to university.

  ‘Good,’ said Sydney’s father.

  Sydney had wanted to do his national service in the air force; he had wanted to fly aeroplanes, to go abroad, but by the time he came of age, national service had come to an end. His parents wanted him to join up anyway. ‘They’ll make a man of you,’ his father had said, his gaze sliding from Sydney to Lewis, whose hair had already begun to grow over his ears.

  Lewis, who had been banking on a lift, walked home. When he got there, he looked for the puppy but could not find him anywhere. He said to his father, ‘Where’s the puppy?’

  His father, looking up from his reading, said, ‘Old Yeller? I let him into the garden.’

  They went out there, but there was no puppy in the garden. They walked up and down the road and looked over the gate into the field but the puppy was nowhere to be seen. Lewis kept expecting the puppy to return, to be in the garden the next time he looked, but the garden remained empty. He would have to come back when he wanted his breakfast, thought Lewis, but the puppy never materialised. On a few occasions during that week, the doorbell rang, and Lewis, going to the window, hoped that it would turn out to be a neighbour holding the wriggling puppy, but each time it was Sydney. Lewis had stomach cramps all week and wasn’t well enough to go out with Sydney or even to stand on the doorstep and speak to him. He went to bed. Then Lewis and his father went to Manchester and by the time they returned, Sydney had gone and his parents seemed unable or unwilling to say exactly where to, or to supply his new address. Lewis never had been loaned The City and the Pillar. He went to the bookshop in town but could not bring himself to ask for it.

  He ate too many ice lollies that summer. He kept hearing the ice cream van coming, and going outside to meet it. He got frozen insides and his father said, ‘No wonder you got stomach cramps.’

  Lewis went south to university without knowing what Sydney would end up doing, but every time a plane went overhead, Lewis stopped and looked up, thinking of Sydney.

  At Christmas, Lewis came home and cycled straight over to Sydney’s house wearing tinsel as a scarf, but Sydney’s father stood in the doorway and said that Sydney was not there.

  Occasionally, in the years that followed, Lewis would hear rumours that Sydney was coming back, but either the rumours were wrong or Lewis kept missing him. The next time Lewis saw him, Sydney was sitting on a car bonnet with his shirt off and Lewis was on his way to get married.

  ‘Why are you sitting at my kitchen table?’ asks Lewis.

  ‘I had a pain,’ says Sydney, ‘in my heart. I had to sit down.’

  ‘But what are you doing in my house?’

  ‘I didn’t know it was your house.’

  Yes, thinks Lewis, who was still living on Small Street when he knew Sydney. And the dog – even if it had come back after all this time, after four or five dog lifetimes – would not have come to this house, it would have gone to Small Street and found itself standing in a car park.

  Lewis says to Sydney, ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘Your back door was unlocked,’ says Sydney, and Lewis, looking, can see that the bolt is not across. He must have forgotten to bolt it after going to the bin. It must have been unlocked all night. Sydney must have let himself in while Lewis was having his lunch at the pub. Perhaps while he was rejecting the sausages, eyeing the Goldschläger man, choosing a pickled egg, Sydney was here.

  Lewis says to Sydney now, ‘Have you ever had Goldschläger?’

  ‘I’ve tried it,’ says Sydney. ‘You’ve got to try these things, haven’t you?’

  Lewis nods, but he says, even as he is nodding, ‘I never have.’

  He is missing his spectacles, clarity of vision. He stands and wanders over to the units, opening a drawer and rummaging through unused gadgets, looking for his spare pair. He finds the case but there are no spectacles inside.

  ‘Pop the kettle on while you’re up,’ says Sydney.

  Lewis puts it on, takes a couple of teacups from the cupboard and gets out the cake tin. Inside, he discovers a walnut cake that he has not yet cut into but which is starting to go stale. ‘Shall we have some cake?’ he asks.

  ‘Go for it,’ says Sydney.

  Lewis delivers the cups of tea to the table, and then two small plates of cake. He has put little forks on the plates but Sydney eats with his fingers, not waiting to swallow one bite before taking another, making sounds of pleasure all the while. Lewis finds himself doing the same, grunting happily with each mouthful of cake, each sip of tea.

  Sydney, finishing his slice, licks his fingers and tastes his tea. Pulling a face, he gets up and goes over the counter, opens up the sugar caddy and dips in his spoon.

  As Sydney comes back to the table, he touches the back of Lewis�
��s neck. ‘Have you had that looked at?’ he asks. Lewis brings his hand up to the soft, brown lump newly exposed at the nape, between his hairline and his collar. He cannot tell if the lump is getting bigger.

  ‘I’m having it cut out,’ says Lewis. ‘I’ve got an appointment at the surgery this afternoon.’

  ‘I’d offer to give you a lift,’ says Sydney, ‘but I was planning on waiting for Ruth.’

  Lewis feels a jolt, much like when Ruth says ‘Jesus’ or ‘Christ’ under her breath.

  ‘Ruth?’ he says. ‘My Ruth?’

  Sydney takes a loose cigarette out of his pocket. He does not ask Lewis whether he may smoke in the house, in the kitchen; he does not ask for an ashtray. He puts the cigarette between his lips. Just as Lewis is realising that something is not quite right, Sydney holds the cigarette out for him to see. ‘It’s an electronic one,’ says Sydney. He looks at it in a way that makes Lewis think of a spoonful of cold soup. Sydney puts the electronic cigarette in his mouth again and draws, making the end light up. He sighs and puts it away. ‘She’s not expecting me.’

  ‘Ruth doesn’t live here,’ says Lewis. ‘She hasn’t lived here for years.’ For a fleeting moment, Sydney looks sufficiently confused that Lewis almost reaches out to cover Sydney’s trembling hand with his own.

  ‘She comes here, though,’ says Sydney.

  ‘She won’t come today,’ says Lewis. He touches the back of his neck again, his growth, and looks at his bare wrist. ‘What time is it?’ he asks. When Sydney tells him, Lewis says, ‘Time’s marching on.’ He will have to go soon. ‘How do you know my Ruth?’ he asks.

  ‘We’ve never met,’ says Sydney. ‘We’ve been communicating.’

  ‘She gave you this address?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well then, why did you come here?’

  ‘You’ve got my book,’ says Sydney. He is looking at the work surface, at a Bliss Tempest book that Ruth must have left out on the side.

  ‘What?’ says Lewis, following his gaze. ‘No, that’s my book.’

  When Lewis turns back, he sees Sydney slumped, as if he has fainted, or, he thinks, it is his heart. Sydney’s head is hanging down near the corner of the table. Lewis reaches out and is just about to touch him when he sees that Sydney is only bending down, fetching something out of his rucksack. Taking out a tall carton with a colourful Oriental design on a gold background, Sydney says, ‘I brought some sake for Ruth.’

  ‘I’ve never had sake,’ says Lewis.

  ‘What you really want,’ says Sydney, ‘is to have it in Tokyo, in a bar, with snacks – pickles and fish.’ Putting the carton down on the kitchen table, he mentions the pickled herring eaten with beer in Germany and Scandinavia, and Thailand’s painfully hot and moreish bar snacks, and Lewis thinks enviously of all those flights.

  ‘I’ve never flown,’ he says.

  ‘It’s safer than driving,’ says Sydney. ‘It’s safer than crossing the road.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of flying,’ says Lewis. ‘It’s just something I’ve never done.’ He has no idea why. He has been inside his nearest airport; he has been in the departure hall, where the first thing you see is a sign for the prayer room, and a picture of a little man down on his knees. He has seen the destinations on the information screens, the queues of people in front of the desks where passports are checked, boarding cards are issued and luggage is weighed. He just hasn’t ever been the one going anywhere.

  ‘You’re most likely to be injured at home,’ says Sydney. ‘You’re most likely to be harmed or killed by someone you know. You’re safest of all in the air.’

  ‘I believe you,’ says Lewis, ‘although at some point you would have to come down.’

  Lewis reaches into the pocket of his coat and takes out a small paper bag. Opening it up, he holds it out to Sydney, who looks inside and extracts a jelly baby. The dog comes to the table, and Lewis gives her a sweetie too. ‘You’re getting fat,’ says Sydney, and Lewis can’t tell if Sydney is talking to him or to the dog.

  When Lewis saw the ‘screaming jelly baby’ experiment executed in the chemistry laboratory, he had been teaching for more than forty years and was approaching retirement, but as he watched the demonstration – his colleague, in a white coat and safety goggles, melting potassium chlorate in a boiling tube over a Bunsen burner, dropping in a jelly baby that burst into flames and began to howl – he wondered for the first time whether he ought to have chosen something other than RE, something more dramatic. In truth, though, Lewis could not have handled a career as a high school chemistry teacher. He found the potential for accidents unnerving – the regular shattering of glass slides and test tubes, the explosions caused by adolescents not reading instructions, the constant smell of gas.

  ‘Did you join the RAF?’ asks Lewis.

  Sydney looks puzzled. ‘No,’ he says.

  ‘You wanted to be a writer too.’

  ‘I did,’ says Sydney.

  Lewis glances at Sydney’s watch, which he cannot read. ‘I’ll have to go in a minute,’ he says. ‘It’s a bit of a walk to the surgery.’

  ‘I’ll take you,’ says Sydney. ‘I’ve got the car outside.’

  Lewis, whose knee hurts when he walks, is quick to accept Sydney’s offer.

  Sydney stands, putting on his coat and shouldering his rucksack. Lewis is still wearing his coat and shoes from before. As he follows Sydney and his dog out of the kitchen, Lewis feels strangely as if he has only been visiting, as if he does not really belong here at all.

  10

  He wants a second chance

  LAWRENCE WRITES HIS letters with a dip pen that once belonged to his Uncle Ted. He still has the original ink bottle, with a little purple ink left inside it. The ink, when it dries on the page, is the same shade as the interior walls of the nursing home. Lawrence thinks he could write all over the walls with this pen and no one would even know. He could say the things he would rather not say to anyone’s face. Your dog, he would write, is too small. And: I’m not all that fond of the processed meat. And: You don’t always come when I call. He could write these messages in big capital letters, like shouting that no one would hear. He would write to the craft lady: I’ve always liked the way you smell. It would be like using invisible ink.

  He once sent a girl a Valentine’s Day card. He put it boldly through her letterbox with his name inside, written in lemon juice. She never mentioned it. On some occasion after that, Lawrence did something he shouldn’t have done (he does not remember now what it was; perhaps he had taken someone’s sweets) and it occurred to him that he could make his confession in that same way, in writing, with his home-made invisible ink. That way, he reckoned, if he died in the night, he would get into heaven but without the grown-ups ever needing to know what he had done. (Perhaps it was that time he took some jam without asking, getting into the pantry and sticking his fingers right into the jar.) His mother, though, lit a match and held it close to the surface of his white sheet of paper, revealing his secret writing with the flame, and sent him to his father to be punished as his father saw fit. (What crime had he committed? He might have cut off his sister’s dolls’ hair. It would be something like this, something small and quick but irreversible.)

  His handwriting is good; he is careful with the pen. He dots his ‘i’s and crosses his ‘t’s and the loops beneath his ‘g’s and ‘j’s and ‘y’s are small and neat. At school, he was naturally inclined to write with his left hand but that was soon forced out of him and instead he learnt to manage with his right. A poem he transcribed using his best calligraphy won him a certificate, presented in assembly, after which his Uncle Ted gave him the pen. He sat Lawrence down at his kitchen table and asked him to demonstrate his fine penmanship. He winced to see how Lawrence pressed the nib of this lovely pen against the paper, bearing down on it so hard that it splayed, and splayed to such an extent that the inked line split
. The solid white line of bare paper left down the middle was like the line on the road that means you must not cross it. ‘Don’t press so hard,’ said his Uncle Ted. ‘You’ll damage the nib.’ The forcefulness of Lawrence’s full stops made him gasp as if he himself had been stabbed with the nib. Lawrence wondered whether his Uncle Ted regretted, even then, saying that he could take the pen. Perhaps he would have liked to say, ‘I’m afraid I’ve changed my mind. This pen is very valuable to me and I do not think you are exhibiting sufficient care. I do not want to give it to you after all. I do not want to put it into your hands.’ But he did not say that. He did query the granting of the certificate, as if it were like a qualification, a licence, paperwork for a skill that Lawrence did not yet seem to have mastered. He still gave Lawrence the precious pen though, and Lawrence tried to press more lightly on the paper, striving to write well with his Uncle Ted’s pen in his right hand, always hoping for another certificate. Even when his Uncle Ted went away, he did not ask for his pen back; he did not speak to Lawrence at all.

  Even now, in his nineties, in the twenty-first century, when no one would care or especially notice if Lawrence wrote with his left hand, he still uses his right. No one would bother if he pressed down too hard, but if anything he does not press hard enough – the marks he makes are light, and shaky, his hand unable to hold the pen quite as steady as he would like. He uses a proper writing pad, containing forty sheets of nice, watermarked paper, and a guiding sheet that he puts underneath, the thick black lines keeping him straight.

  He sends his opinions to the local newspaper, in letters alerting people to the dangers facing society, threats to the community, vandalism and graffiti in the streets, the damage to the bus shelter and the amendment of street signs. SMELL STREET. His most recent letters were intended to discourage people from visiting the medium who was coming – according to the nurses, according to the notices on the telegraph poles and the gossip at the church – to the function room of the nearby pub, to commune with the dead. Lawrence signs his letters ‘Mr L. Sullivan’. Lewis wishes he would not. ‘What if people think it’s me?’ he asks. ‘What if people think I’m the one complaining and saying these things?’