Paradise

by A. L. Kennedy

If he touched me again, I would disappear. “We don’t need to.”

  “Or we could have a coffee.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “There are places to have coffee. In the bookshop, it’s quiet.”

  So he sees it in me, then—that I finally need the quiet as much as he does.

  “No, it’s all right.”

  “But I might like to.” His face turned to a shop window, voice colourless.

  “Then we will.”

  “Not if you don’t want to.”

  “I do want to. Please take me for coffee with you.”

  Which means that we have to sit upstairs in the dry light of the bookshop and annoy ourselves with oily coffee, lean on the counter and stare at the strangers below, idling and fumbling about the shelves, the whole scene absurdly peaceful and contained. Some faces draw me for the second look—because in so many years I’ve met them somewhere, because they’ve come into my pubs, because, after so many years of this place before I left, I must have seen everyone possible, because it is so small here, small as my heart, because in the end I didn’t get away, it dragged me back. And always in doorways, in the scatter of crowds, at the brink, there’s the chance of Robert, the glimpses of imitations and mistakes, the waste of my waiting for him.

  Directly below us are the children’s books, my father studying them with a purpose I’d like to ignore. He’s arranging a credible start for his next sentence. But I already know what he wants to tell me: I’ve guessed.

  “Well . . . we’ll be buying a lot more of those now.”

  “What, books?” I don’t want to help him.

  “Children’s books.”

  “Why? Are they good?”

  “No . . .” He loses himself for a moment, gives in to his contentment, the great news I haven’t brought him. “At least, I don’t know any more what they’re like. But I will.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of Simon.”

  “Because of Simon.” It’s not that I don’t wish them well—my father, my mother and Simon and even Simon’s fruitful, far worse half—there’s just so very little good luck to be had these days and whatever there is, I need all for myself.

  My father rubs my forearm, smoothes across my back. “They had a boy.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “They had a boy, Hannah. Seven pounds something and healthy and . . . no name yet. They had a boy. I mean . . . I’m a grandfather.” Saying this as if he’s discovered a new nationality, a magnificent, undreamed-of country.

  “He won’t let me visit them, will he? Or she won’t.” They’ve had a boy—so he will look like Simon—the way Simon did when we were both unscathed.

  “In the end, I’m su—”

  “But at the moment, I’m not allowed—I can’t see the baby.” Not that I could truthfully stand to. “I won’t be able to see my nephew.” It would ruin me.

  “Not right now. But event—”

  “It’s okay, I’d have done the same.”

  “But in—”

  “I’d have done the same.”

  God, my personal God—you can have whatever kind you want, but this is mine—sometimes He tilts up His hat and sips crimson smoke from His tight, non-tobacco cigar—which is an affectation, He doesn’t like cigars, only wishes to underline for you the miracle of His breath—and He feels in the pockets of His old, linen suit for something He has misplaced and then He pauses, gives a milk and azure sigh, and considers all Creation, directing—just for a moment—one mountainous thought towards you, before He wanders on, still searching in His pockets, and you are left with a proof of His interest heading your way: His appalling love.

  You will recognise it when it comes because, of course, you know His style.

  And so do I.

  Which means that, as I leave the bookshop, I can identify the first rush of His gift. It begins as a fresh heat, close at the back of my throat, and there’s a shiver of Him in the stronger colours, a palpable interference across the fabric of the street, as His intention forms, grows manifest.

  I keep myself busy while it solidifies, walking beside my father as he talks and running through my personal arithmetic.

  Hannah Luckraft =

  (Due to the enforced absence of alcohol.) No more drinking.

  (Due to the enforced absence of Robert.) No more fucking.

  And vice versa.

  Therefore.

  No drinking, no fucking, no loving, no Robert, no joy.

  Therefore.

  No everything.

  Plus.

  (Due to the enforced absence of everything.) No children. No child.

  Therefore.

  Hannah Luckraft =

  Nothing.

  And it’s bad enough carrying this in my head, without knowing that my brother has just provided one more reminder of my utter inadequacy and that my hands shake when the phone rings and that I cry at the end of quiz shows—because somebody, somewhere has won—and that I don’t earn any money and I am living with my mum and dad.

  At which point, I make a left turn with my father into a grubby street where half a block is thick with scaffolding and debris and damp plaster reek and cement blooms on the pavement in bucket rings and patches and there’s a temporary fence of plywood panels, nailed to posts. And this is not a lucky place and I can actually taste God now, I can feel Him lean His thumb down on my neck, so whatever is coming, will come soon, but I press on, as if I am normal and all is well. I plod myself through the grey mud and bits of litter and over the panel that someone has torn from the fence to lie here, across my way.

  I should know better, but I don’t.

  So I get to feel the odd, slowed sink of my foot as the nail slides clear through the rubber sole of my baseball boot and—in a way that is almost interesting—climbs, as my foot descends on it, to spike in through my skin.

  And I could do something about this—fall so that my weight lifts, stamp on to my other foot, relieve the damaging pressure in any number of effective, if embarrassing, ways—but I don’t. I keep very quiet and finish my step, force it absolutely flat, and then, rather more slowly than usual, I raise my foot back up again, drag it off the cling of metal until it’s free.

  This is when the pain arrives. A huge and outraged stab of hurt.

  I say nothing to my father and fight to preserve my normal gait.

  But I do still have options: even if it seemed a little peculiar, I could announce my injury, draw attention to it retrospectively: two, three, five paces after the event.

  But, by this point, probably not—not when the panel has gone and also the street and we have turned another corner and it’s busy here—a good many people to possibly barge me, or tread on my wound—and my discomfort is becoming quite extreme and my sock feels wet, actually sliding and clinging in a sickening way, and possibly behind me there’s a dot, a patch, of blood leaking out into every footprint as I go, which my father may notice.

  And that nail won’t have been clean. In fact, it must have been filthy—a hotbed of infections, driven up into my instep, right to the tip of the classic, deep, thin type of wound that brings on tetanus in seconds.

  By this evening I could be dead.

  And here, after so many minutes have gone by, there isn’t a chance that I can tell my father.

  And here, after so many minutes, is the dark, stiff delight of learning— yet again—that wanting to die and thinking it’s suddenly probable I will, are two absolutely different affairs.

  And here, after so many, is another sign: my rusty indication of God’s intimate concern and—reamed up through my sole—the kind of pun that’s unforgivable.

  “Hannah? What’s the matter?”

  “Hm?”

  “You’re smiling. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Mm-hmm. Could we get the bus home?”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, I think so. Yes, now.”

 
; In my parents’ house, I strip off my shoes, throw both my socks away, then sneak out into their garden in bare feet; eccentricity is something that I’ve led them to expect. The damp grass aches beneath me, tender, cool. It opens the wound again, gets the blood to flow. So then I come back in, able to limp, and say I’ve just stepped on something sharp.

  My mother drives me to the hospital, impatient about dinner, and waits while a large nurse cleans up my wound and dresses it, thumps an inoculation into my unrelaxed thigh—my other thigh—so that, when I emerge, I am limping on both sides. A further reminder that no one can ever be confident when they say they have had enough.

  As we drove away, my mother couldn’t understand why I was laughing.

  We repeated ourselves after that—my adolescence all over again—they took care of me, made me strong with feeding, kept me clean with polite observation and then had to let me go.

  “You’ll need help to tidy your flat.” My mother being sensible, imagining the wreck of bottles and temptation, the disarray.

  But I couldn’t let her see it. “It’s all right.”

  “You’ll call me.”

  “I’ll call you when I get in and then when I’ve finished.”

  “Or before that.”

  “Or before, if it takes a long time.” Stealing her hope away with me into the taxi for which she has given me money, along with the other money that she gave me the night before, because if I am going to fall from grace, if I am going to buy wicked things, then it should at least disgust me: the notes should blister my fingers, as I misuse them.

  My father watches from the bedroom window, waves once when I begin to leave him.

  And then I’m back to myself alone. Which is never fantastic, but does, at least, provide a touch more room than I’ve been used to lately.

  The flat, as I open it, is bad. Red bills in the hallway and a weird smell and then, when I nudge back the doors, not a trace of me. There are no empties, no unhappy clothing, no stains, no awfulness in the kitchen: the bed is repulsive, because it stinks of grief, but has no other problems—it’s impeccably made with a coverlet that I don’t recognise. Someone has been in here and tidied up.

  Robert. He’s the only one who has a key. Robert. He came back.

  And I run round again—living room, kitchen, bathroom, hall—and, yes, there isn’t even any dust—when I’ve always had dust—there’s only this terrible, fake lemon/pine-tree atmosphere and cleanness everywhere.

  Which was a lovely thing to do for me. He must have guessed I would be very tired. A sweet apology.

  My mother gave me two carrier bags—one full of cleaning materials that I won’t need today and one heavy with new food: Tupperware boxes of stew and ready-made stuff and potatoes, milk, bread. But the fridge, when I check inside, is surgically clean and already outfitted nicely with margarine, eggs and cheese and a note. Robert would have known the safest place for it would be inside the fridge—where I’d be bound to have a little search about, for more or less innocent reasons. I notice he hasn’t put booze in here. He must have heard.

  Dear Hannah,

  Don’t tell anybody I did this. I’ll deny it if you do. Mother said you were coming home and you deserved better than the way you were bound to have left it. Sorry for copying your key. I thought in the end I would need it. To come and find you at the end.

  Don’t make me.

  They’ll have told you we have a son now. I’m very happy. Let me stay that way.

  He won’t have let the practice secretary type it—I’m a private shame. He’ll have done it himself. That’s why it’s so short.

  Simon, the fucker. My brother, the fuck.

  So, my fresh and sober life unrolls about me, revealing a nice, clean, lunar emptiness. My new reality. Its sole purpose is to make me feel like shit, just when my only support has been amputated, cauterised. Other people manage this, undiluted existence: they are happy and, even when they wake with it howling at them, drooling on their chest, they do not care, they like it, they can’t wait for each morning to claw back in again.

  But other people aren’t like me—they are born anaesthetised. Simon’s son will be the same. His father will watch him fit into himself, grow his particular personality, and when that first arrives, fresh and tender and warm from the hands of God, it will come as an intoxication. It will be the best drunk of his life—at least twelve months of staggering and pointing, delight that’s as wide and as high as your roof and then asphyxiating rage. He’ll revel in the flux of his own substances, his fluids. He’ll batter and scream, even will in his teeth so that he can bite, he’ll grab at his mother’s breasts and then guffaw like a gouty colonel, he’ll sway and stumble through any household on illogical missions that put himself at risk.

  He’ll be the perfect drinker: thrice blessed, thrice protected: drunk, out of his mind and a child. I’ve seen it before with Simon. I could smell the angels with him, taking care. And when it was over, when he’d taken in his dose, he was a perfectly normal, balanced child. He’s never really needed any more.

  Me, I’m made differently, I have to drag my little angels down by force, which is why I’m adding to my inventory of joys by sending myself to the dentist. One particular dentist. I know where he works.

  I shouldn’t just turn up there: I’m aware of that—it will be wrong and awkward and I shouldn’t, I should not. But I will, because wrong and awkward is better than dead from the ankles up—and because my current horizon is a full, flat revolution of lead-coloured dust: 360 degrees of fuck-all, relieved by the heart-warming prospects of begging for a job, buying day-old bread and being unable to masturbate because my skin is still expecting someone else.

  I’ve read the pamphlets, I’ve been given the stern-but-fair talks by professional people, and I agree with what they’ve said: I crave mood alteration: this is my trouble, I will accept: my natural mood is of the has-to-be-altered type.

  And I have nothing left to alter it.

  With no other solutions available: wrong and awkward, here I come.

  Out into the filthy car which, miraculously, starts first time and straight across country to the street with the whitewashed wall and the black door and the black-framed window where Henry the war-crime dentist is still threatening with his brush, which I find optimistic—if Henry is at home . . .

  “I have a . . . I was just driving past and I have a . . . mystery pain. Is that okay? Are you taking new patients?” I have been naked in this hallway, on this cheap, wood laminate floor. “I don’t know . . . it’s at the back, a molar . . . I was driving. And it’s a distraction. Not safe.” The air has Robert’s heat. “That’s . . . I can—yes, I can fill these in and . . . in thirty minutes? Great.”

  I’m awake. It’s been a long time since I was so awake.

  I take the forms into the waiting room and pick through them, a mild sweat putting dents into the paper at my fingertips. I give myself a false name and a true age and an incorrect address and an allergy to shellfish— I’ve always wanted one of them.

  Robert and I did things in here, too. I didn’t expect to remember them so clearly—one moment springing into focus like a slap—over on that bench, when he slowed and sucked my nipple, licked off his spunk.

  “Thanks.” I give the receptionist back her little harvest of fake facts. “So . . . check-up today and then other stuff later?”

  She nods at me, as if this is required of her by demons, and then halts her head in the lowered position, apparently studying the appointment book with supernatural force.

  “Ahm . . . this’ll be with Gardener?”

  “Adams.” Glowering over the columns of dates. “Martin Adams. We haven’t changed the plates on the door yet. They let us down.”

  “What?”

  “The plate people. They let us down.”

  “They’ll do that. Yes.” Each of the words like chalk under my tongue.

  Of course, I can’t just walk out, because that would look odd. And so I consen
t to be tilted back in the chair, our chair, and Martin Adams (who smells of corn flakes) rummages in my mouth as if it’s a cutlery drawer and tells me that I need four fillings and one extraction. He isn’t surprised that I have been suffering mystery pains and I suppose that I haven’t lied to him, I generally have toothache—I would assume most people do—my point is that I didn’t come here about teeth. They don’t concern me. If they did, I would have had them seen to the first time I came here. I would have kept my clothes on. Or maybe not.

  So where the fuck is he?

  “Are you okay? Is the pain bad?”

  “No . . . Yes.” The nurse, or assistant, or dental hostess, or whatever, is looming above me in her pink hygienic smock, concerned. Martin Adams has nipped away for another form of some kind, plainly overjoyed that I’m going to be so expensive.

  “You sure.” She’s apparently twelve years old, but I suppose it’s more likely she’s in her late teens. “He could give you a prescription for antibiotics—he’s mean with them, though. You’ll have to ask.” She seems kind.

  And if she is kind, “Yes. I mean, I’m fine,” I might as well risk it, since I’m here. Why bother being a sad, old bitch, if nobody can tell. “Look, actually . . . the dentist that used to be here.” My lips feel overstretched.

  “Yes.” She smiles the kind of smile reserved for hopeless animals and sad monsters like me.

  “Did you work with him?”

  “Bobby G?” The dashing nickname is ironic, some kind of private joke. “Everybody knew him. He still owes them money in the Duke of Buccleugh.”

  I am both offended on his behalf and glad that she didn’t like him, that he couldn’t have liked her. “Do you know where he’s gone?” My hands are wet against the chair.

  She’s puzzled, wonders what he’s done, if he owes me money. “Where he’s gone?”

  “Yes . . . Yes.” That isn’t enough, isn’t impressing her. “It’s all right, I don’t want anything from him.” My tone making this obviously untrue. “I mean I do.” And she is worried now, frowning, standing further away. “It’s nothing bad. If I know where he’s gone . . . I won’t . . .”