by Alison Moore
Gloria was fetching more ice – returning to the table with the ice cubes already melting in her hand, water dripping between her fingers – and the bottle of whatever they were drinking. She encouraged Futh to finish the drink in front of him and then refreshed his glass. Sitting down again, she looked at him, cupped his face in her hands, and said, ‘I can see your daddy in you.’ From time to time, while they drank, she patted his knee or stroked his hair. When someone rang the doorbell, Futh jumped. Gloria stood and went to the front door.
Futh could not hear any voices. There was a porch with an internal door which Gloria had perhaps shut before opening the outer door. But he heard heavy footsteps going up the stairs. Gloria came back into the kitchen. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she said to Futh. ‘It’s past your bedtime.’ Leaving the kitchen again she said, without turning round, ‘Let yourself out,’ and she switched off the light as she went.
Futh felt a bit sick, like he did on ferries when the crazy carpet was seesawing under his feet. He stood up, holding on to the table, and then sat down again.
Some time later, he was still sitting there in the dark when he heard someone coming down the stairs, down the hallway, towards the kitchen. He expected to see Gloria coming through the doorway and was thrown when instead – smelling the pub before the light snapped on – he saw his father.
His father went to the fridge and took out a bottle of wine, and then opened the cupboard next to it and got out two glasses. Futh pressed his sunburnt back against the wall. His father, without noticing him, left the kitchen again.
Futh listened to his father’s footsteps going up the stairs. He did not move when he heard the creaking of the floorboards overhead, and then the bedsprings, nor when he heard again the floorboards and then footsteps on the stairs and in the hallway.
The kitchen light snapped on again and there was his father going to a drawer by the sink and taking out a bottle opener. And then his father swung round to face Futh at the table, and for a long moment they just looked at one another. His father broke the silence. ‘Go home,’ he said. Futh waited, and his father came a little closer and said, ‘Now.’
Futh stood up, slid along the bench and got himself to the back door. As he stepped off Gloria’s back doorstep, the kitchen light went out and he negotiated the plant pots and the bins in the dark. Climbing over the low fence into his own garden, coming down on the other side, he was sick into the empty flowerbed and onto the pitch-black grass.
His father has always made fun of him for not being able to hold his drink, as if he were not just the same. He ridiculed Futh for not knowing how to drive in his thirties, for still hitchhiking in his forties. When Futh finally took driving lessons and passed his test, his father criticised him for being the kind of driver who did not know the first thing about cars, for running out of petrol and for paying other men even to change a bulb in a headlight. And he mocked him for spending all day long trying to make paper smell like apples. ‘What’s the point of that?’ his father said. ‘You know you can buy actual apples?’ Futh told him about the millions of tiny perfume bottles whose scent would still be there in twenty years. His father said, ‘Real fucking apples. You can eat them.’
Futh’s first memory is of playing under the kitchen table while his mother stewed apples for his dinner. She had the radio on and was humming along while she peeled and cored and chopped the apples and put the pieces in a simmering pan, and the kitchen was full of music and sunlight and the smell of unadulterated apple.
He recalls asking Angela, after they were married, if she could make an apple crumble. Finding her in the kitchen the next day cooking apples, he stood at her shoulder while she worked and he told her about this memory of his mother, how the smell of the apples took him back, and he saw her jaw tighten. The apple crumble came out well, but she did not make it again.
Futh, with sore feet and no need to hurry, arrives at his hotel in the late afternoon. He goes straight up to his room where his suitcase is waiting for him. After showering and taking a nap he goes out again, into the balmy evening, to look around the town before dinner.
Passing a pub with tables on the pavement, he stops and gets himself an unexpectedly huge glass of beer and watches the people walking by. The women his forty-something father brought back to the hotel were young, in their twenties perhaps. But Futh is not looking at the younger women, he is looking at those in their mid-thirties, the age his mother was when she left.
At the age of twelve, he wanted to go to New York as soon as he was old enough. In his twenties, when he could have travelled anywhere he wanted, he visited many cities and countries but he did not go to New York. He told himself that it was because he did not like flying – he generally went on coach tours – but he flew to Tokyo and Montréal. He did not go to New York until he met Angela, who wanted to go there herself.
On the aeroplane, during take-off, he began to imagine vividly there being a fire in the cabin or a terrorist amongst the passengers and being unable to escape. He felt the onset of the anxiety he always feels when flying, and he tried a relaxation technique which he had taught himself from a tape. He looked down at his feet, concentrating on them, breathing slowly and deeply, releasing all the tension in his toes, and in his arches, moving up to his ankles, still breathing slowly and deeply, relaxing his calves and then his knees, breathing slowly and deeply, his thighs . . . It was dark outside the aeroplane, and some of the passengers were switching off their overhead lights. He concentrated on his abdomen, and on his breathing, beginning to feel heavy, becoming drowsy, and, in the darkening cabin, falling asleep.
He dreamt that he had received a letter from his mother. She had written down her new name and address so that he would be able to find her, but however hard he looked at it he could not read her handwriting.
He opened his eyes with a desperate sense of something vital slipping away from him. Angela, sitting beside him watching a film, told him the new local time. Futh sat rewinding his watch, looking at the hands spinning backwards through the hours until even the date changed.
They went on a tour, on an open-top bus, although the top deck was full so they sat downstairs, people-watching through the windows. Stopped at traffic lights, Futh found himself staring at a woman who was looking in a shop window, whose face he could see reflected in the glass, a striking woman with greying blond hair. Quite slowly, as if she were an animal which might be startled, which might dart away, he got off the bus, approaching and touching her on the arm so that she turned around to look at him. He could not see her eyes through her sunglasses, or any port-wine stain beneath the high neckline of her dress, and she had not spoken before a man interrupted them, asking Futh what he wanted. When Futh failed to reply, the man took the woman’s elbow and steered her away down the street. Futh watched them walking away, and after a while they paused again outside another shop and the man glanced back at Futh and the woman did too, and she took off her sunglasses, but she was too far away now for Futh to see her face clearly. But he had a feeling it was her.
He turned to look at Angela, to gesture through the window of the bus. He wanted to suggest, depending on the look on her face, that they abandon the tour and do the same thing, take a walk down the street, looking at the shop fronts. But Angela was not there. He watched the open-top bus picking up speed on the far side of the junction and disappearing into the distance with Angela on board.
‘I really think it might have been her,’ he said later, back at the hotel, walking down to dinner with Angela. ‘I just had a feeling.’
‘You said the same thing about the woman in Central Park,’ she said. ‘And you had a feeling about the woman in the deli.’
Futh and Angela walked into the hotel dining room, Futh with one hand in his pocket, his fingers wrapped tightly around the little silver lighthouse. He always took the lighthouse with him when he travelled, as if it were his Saint Christopher.
He took it to Germany when he went with his father. It wa
s in his coat pocket when, having given up on the walking, they visited Futh’s Great-Uncle Ernst. Futh had heard his granddad talking about his brother, asking Futh’s father to return to Ernst the silver lighthouse which had been their mother’s. Futh arrived at Ernst’s house with the lighthouse in his kagoul pocket, a secret inner pocket – his father had one in which he kept the passports and Deutschmarks, not trusting the hotel staff.
They did not actually know if Ernst was still alive. If he was, he would be well into his eighties. Nor did they know if he would have remained in his parents’ house, or even if the house was still standing. They did not make contact before going. Their hotel was close enough for a day trip and they went on spec, not really expecting to find Ernst but going anyway, to see what was or was not there.
Arriving at lunchtime, they found the house standing and clearly lived in, well maintained. The road was busy, the only parking space some way from the house. Futh’s father knocked lightly on the front door and then stood back. They waited for what seemed like a long time, noticing the twitching of a net curtain in an upstairs window. They were on the point of turning away and leaving again when the door was finally opened.
Futh was expecting his great-uncle to look like his granddad. Futh had been eight when his granddad died and only remembered him as an ill man, faded and shrunken. But the man who stood in front of them was unexpectedly large and solid.
‘Ernst?’ asked his father, and the man nodded. His father spoke German – a greeting, an introduction – and Ernst, although frowning, stepped away from the door, inviting them inside.
Ernst took their coats, their matching kagouls, and showed them to the living room which was up a flight of stairs. He shooed the cats off the chairs and went to fetch coffee, and a glass of milk for Futh. He was gone for quite a while, and the cats crept out from underneath the furniture, climbing back onto the chairs, settling themselves in the guests’ laps.
Ernst returned, giving Futh his milk and pouring out the coffee and speaking with Futh’s father in German. Futh could not follow the conversation, did not understand much of what was said until afterwards, on the journey home. When Ernst turned to Futh to tell him in German, ‘You look like my brother did at your age,’ Futh looked blank. Ernst said to Futh’s father, ‘Doesn’t he speak German?’ Futh’s father said no, he did not. ‘He should learn German,’ said Ernst.
‘It was your brother,’ said Futh’s father, ‘who said we should come and see you.’
‘Did he give you anything for me?’ asked Ernst.
Futh’s father took a swallow of coffee and said, ‘No.’
Ernst shook his head. ‘I doubt you know,’ he said, ‘the circumstances of his leaving home?’
Futh was looking around the room, taking an interest in the few small photographs displayed on the sideboard, which included one of himself. So, he thought, his granddad had written home, had at least sent pictures, and he was heartened by this because he supposed, therefore, that his mother might too. Looking, though, at the picture of himself, he felt that something was wrong, perhaps his hair. Then he realised his mistake – this was an old photograph, next to which there was a similar portrait of a little boy who was Ernst, and Futh understood that the boy in the first photograph was not himself but his young granddad.
‘There was a girl,’ said Ernst. ‘There was always a girl, he ran from one to another. Well he got this girl into trouble. You know what I mean. He left because he thought he was going to get a beating from her brothers.’
The reason for his leaving was, apparently, no great surprise to his family. The surprise was his theft of his mother’s few valuables. These, in fact, were returned by post soon afterwards, with the exception of a perfume bottle in a silver case.
‘He must have given it,’ said Ernst, ‘to your mother.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Futh’s father. ‘But it was in my father’s possession, intact, in his eighties. It was given to my wife.’
‘It shouldn’t have been,’ said Ernst. ‘That was my mother’s, and mine to inherit. It has value. It ought to be returned.’
An insect crawled over the tabletop towards Ernst who, leaning forward, crushed it carefully with the back of his teaspoon, wiping the spoon on his trouser leg before using it to stir his sugared coffee.
‘My wife and I are separated,’ said Futh’s father. ‘I don’t even have an address for her.’ After a moment he added, ‘The bottle got broken anyhow.’
Ernst sat back in his chair and looked at Futh, watched him drinking his full-fat, room-temperature milk. Futh, looking back at Ernst, was feeling a bit sick. Ernst, turning again to Futh’s father, said, ‘If it can’t be returned, my brother should pay me for it.’
‘I’m afraid your brother died,’ said Futh’s father, ‘a few years ago.’
Ernst took a long look at Futh’s father and then at Futh, perhaps considering whether someone else should be made to pay. He shook his head then and drank his coffee but every time Futh glanced up it seemed that Ernst was looking at him.
After a while, his father put down his empty coffee cup and said, ‘Well, we should get going,’ and he stood so that the cat fell from his lap. Futh, trying to do the same thing but doing it awkwardly, got scratched.
Ernst led the way down the stairs to the front door, on the back of which his visitors’ kagouls were hanging on a hook. He took them down, handing the big one to Futh’s father and the smaller one to Futh, who tried to take it, and Ernst, looking hard at him before letting go, said, ‘You are just like my brother.’
Futh followed his father out onto the street, turning back to wave, to see whether he was still being watched. It seemed a very long way to the car, and the lighthouse, feeling huge now inside the little secret pocket of his kagoul, banged against his chest as he walked.
Futh finishes his second enormous beer and orders another. By the time that is gone, he is feeling pretty drunk. He stands up carefully and steps away from the table and into the street. He walks towards his hotel, trying to hum a tune which was a favourite of his mother’s, but he can’t get it. He concentrates on keeping his feet in the middle of the pavement, but every now and again his right shoulder scrapes against the wall, or the kerb falls away beneath his left foot.
Entering the hotel, he concentrates on walking in a straight line to the bar and then stands there swaying very slightly. There is a smell of damp dishcloths and dry-roasted peanuts which is making him feel ill. He sits down on a stool, thinking that he should have dinner.
He thinks of Angela sitting down to her dinner in their house, the house to which he will not be returning. When he gets back to England he will be moving straight into a flat. All those self-assembly boxes will be there, with all his things inside waiting to be unpacked. Angela will eat in what will now be her home and he will eat in his, and he wonders if they will still retain the habits of their marriage, sitting down to eat at the same time, having their main course at the table and their pudding on the sofa, watching the same television programmes while they eat. He imagines messaging her from his bedroom window – flash-flash-flash – before they each get into their separate beds and go to sleep.
There is a half-drunk beer in front of him. He does not remember buying it or speaking to anyone. He does not appear to have ordered food. He does not even have a menu. No one else is eating and the bar looks like it is closing. He stands up and goes to his room and it occurs to him that he forgot to pay for the beers he had in town.
He goes first to room six, before remembering where he is. Letting himself into his room, he thinks how much he would like a bedtime snack. He used to ask Angela, if he came home hungry after drinking, to make him a sandwich or something, and she used to say, ‘I’m not your mother.’
He puts on his pyjamas and climbs into bed, wishing that there were someone who would bring him a little supper.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Charms
Ester has been lying awake for half an hour, watching B
ernard sleeping beside her, watching him breathe. He is lying on his back with his face turned slightly away from her, but she sees his eyes open; she hears his breathing change as he wakes. Rolling onto his side, he reaches for his watch on the bedside table, looks at the time and sits up. Ester looks at his broad, naked back. She can feel the warmth of his body, the warmth in the sheets on his side of the bed; she can smell yesterday’s camphor.
Bernard stands, walks over to the window and draws back the curtains, looking out at the fine morning. Only as he turns away from the window does he look back at the bed, at his wife who is lying there looking at him. He rubs his bleary face with both his hands and grunts by way of acknowledgement, and then he goes into the en suite bathroom and shuts the door. Ester stays where she is for a while, listening to the bathwater running and then hearing the sloshing and splashing as Bernard gets into the tub and begins his ablution.
She gets up and goes to her dressing table, sitting down and brushing her hair. Then, putting down the mother-of-pearl hairbrush and picking up her foundation, she begins to make up her face. She keeps her cosmetics in a drawer with her jewellery, most of which she never wears. Somewhere in amongst the tangle of chains there is a charm bracelet with half a dozen silver charms on it: a lucky horseshoe, a slingback shoe, an ‘E’, a ‘21’, a snowflake, a love-heart.
On the day Ester and Bernard married, Ida endeavoured to find Ester alone, cornering her in the register office toilets. ‘You are losing your sparkles,’ she said, reaching out and savagely refixing Ester’s diamante hair pins, the wire scraping along her scalp like rocks against the hull of a boat as it ran aground. Ida then lifted Ester’s wrist, looking disparagingly at the bracelet she wore there, the charm bracelet which had been Ida’s first Christmas present to Ester. The little collection of silver charms had been gifted on subsequent occasions, the fat love-heart the most recent present, given on her engagement to Conrad.
