by Stella Duffy
(Came home? I like that.) I will make you Toledo partridge with dark chocolate sauce.
I eat the chocolate, she grates it into my hand, hard and bitter, it wakens the edges of my tongue. She needs one glass of dry white wine for the dish. We keep back a glass each for ourselves and pour the rest at the base of the tree. Moisture enough for a London winter.
According to the old man in the high street shop, this bird laid fifteen eggs in one day. She was one of his finest, will do well for Catalan-style partridge, ten garlic gloves fat and pink, two dozen onions, not one of them larger than the O of your open mouthed love.
She peels each onion carefully, stripping back the finest layer of dry brown skin and exposing white flesh membrane beneath. She starts with a pearl-handled knife handed down from mother to daughter, then discards it in favour of the new one I bought last week at the Co-op, two small paring knives for the price of just one. By the fifth tiny onion her dark eyes are streaming. I stand at her left and catch tears for the stock.
Jewish partridge, we call this one, though probably the Arabs gave us the nuts, certainly the Romans brought the garum, and the clay pot belonged to my mother and her grandmother before. The meat is sweet and strong, I think perhaps you are too. They say partridges mate for life. You are a gardener and I am a cook, this should work well.
Dish follows dish, tiny bones picked and licked and sucked and cleaned. We eat small and delicate morsels across a whole day. The postman comes and goes, local bin men collect carefully piled recycling bottles and paper, black liner bags stuffed with onion skins and greasy paper napkins. I am so full. Full of her and of the day and all these months of waiting for her to come.
You do the dishes. I want to watch your Queen’s Speech. My mother asked me to check it out.
Tidied house, street lights on, it’s time now. We go outside. I walk barefoot on to a frosted ground, it must be truly cold for the suburb-heated grass to turn winter-crisp. I show her the shed, switch on the external lights. She is suitably impressed and turns to smile at my neighbour peering from behind tired nets. My neighbour has the gall to wave. The King of Spain’s daughter pokes out her tongue. Maybe we won’t be sharing next door’s Boxing Day sherry after all.
Your tree is beautiful. As it should be. You are beautiful. As you should be. I am beautiful. But you knew that.
We consider dessert. A fresh golden pear, rice pudding with lightly grated nutmeg. But we are full, she and I, not greedy. Sitting in the crystal palace of my shed, me and the King of Spain’s daughter at my side, we talk of her journey and the heavy water of my knowing and if she thinks she will like brussels sprouts. I use my father’s sister’s recipe, cook them with chunks of salty bacon and stir in double cream at the very last minute. It’s really not bad. Above us, reaching up to the glass ceiling and the pale orange sky of this old city, hang a silver nutmeg, a golden pear, and the wishbone of a partridge in a pear tree. The little tree is good to lean against, solid. You tell me your studies: Athena was worshipped as the mother of all pear trees. Perdix, one of Athena’s sacred kings, became the partridge when he died – but in Badrinath, in the Himalayas, he himself was the Lord of the Pear Trees.
This tree is male-female, it carries us all.
Everyone always talks about the partridge, don’t they? As if that were the point being made, the lone partridge, waiting hungrily for his life-long mate. No-one really thinks about the tree, how the precious fruit would grow, where the bird would land if the tree wasn’t there. But I do, I planted it.
You planted it. It called me to you.
And now it holds us up.
Siren Songs
RYAN MOVED INTO the basement apartment with a heavy suitcase and a heavier heart. And the clasp on his suitcase was broken. And the clasp on his heart was broken, shattered, wide open, looted, empty. When Ryan moved into the basement apartment he was running away from a broken heart. Slow, loping run, limping run, with no home, job or car. Never a great idea for your beloved girlfriend to have an affair with your boss. The new apartment was cold, dark, dingy and not a little damp. It suited his mood, suited his budget, suited him. The bedroom had a small bed. Double certainly, but small double, semi-double. As if the bed itself knew what a mess Ryan and Theresa had made of things and kept its edges tight to remind him of where he had once been, the expansive stretch of past love. And where he was now.
Where Ryan was now was as bad as it had ever been. There had been other break-ups of course, Ryan was a grown man, he’d broken hearts, mended his own, broken again. But this one was different. He had loved Theresa, really-properly-always. Love with plans, love with photo albums full of future possibilities, love made concrete by announced desire. Loved her still. And she had loved him too. But not enough. Just not enough. Not enough to wait while he worked too late, not enough to stay quiet when he shouted, open when he closed, faithful when he played first. Ryan had played first, but Theresa played better. Ryan lost. His fling was a one night forget-me-quick, hers was his boss and a fast twist of lust into relationship-maybe into thank you goodbye. Goodbye Ryan, hello new life.
Ryan did not blame Theresa, he blamed himself and his past experiences and his present ex-boss and the too-grand future he had planned for her in the lovely big apartment with the lovely big rent. The plans and hoping and maybes and mistakes first tempted and then overtook them both. Ryan believed in the future and Theresa was swamped by it. Either one could have been left out in the cold, in this case it was Ryan. Cold in damp sheets and small apartment and no natural sunlight and tear stained – yes, they were, he checked again, surprising himself – tear stained pillows. Salt water outlines on a faded lemon yellow that desperately needed the wash-and-fold his new street corner announced so proudly. And they’d get it too, these depression-comfortable sheets – once Ryan could make it back up the basement steps into the world. From where he lay now a decade didn’t seem too long to hide. He lost some weight, bought some takeaway food, felt sorry for himself and listened to late-night talk shows. He followed the pattern. Waited it out. Morning becomes misery, becomes night and then another day, almost a week, and eventually, even the saddest man needs a bath.
Ryan stumbled his bleary, too much sleep, too little rest, too little Theresa, way through the narrow apartment. Touched grimy walls, glared at barred windows, crossed small rooms with inefficient lighting. But then he came to the bathroom. The Bathroom. A reason to take the place at his lowest, when the bathroom looked like a nice spot for razor blades and self pity. Ryan checked out just two apartments before he moved in to this one. The other was lighter and brighter but only had a shower, a power shower in a body-sized cubicle. Good size, it would take even his boy hulk bulk, but Ryan needed more. Needed to stretch into his pain, luxuriate in his sadness. And while heartbreak was pounding in his chest, Ryan’s prime solace was the picture of himself in a bath of red, Theresa’s constant tears washing his drained body. It was a tacky image to be sure, a nasty one, bitter and resentful and ‘you’ll be sorry when I’m gone’. Entirely childish, utterly juvenile, ludicrously self-pitying.
It worked for Ryan. He paid the deposit.
The glorious used-to-be-a-bedroom bathroom, highest window in the apartment, brightest room in the gloom. Bath with fat claw feet, hot and cold taps of shiniest chrome, towered over by an incongruously inappropriate gold shower attachment, smooth new enamel to hold his cold back and broad feet. A long, wide coffin of a bath, big enough for his big man’s frame, deep enough to drown the grief. Maybe. Picture rail and intricate cornices and swirling whirl of centre ceiling rose, peeling and pock marked but still lovely, fading grand. Set high into the flaking plaster of the wall, was a grille. An old-fashioned cast iron grille; painted gold, picked out, perfect. The ex-owner had started to renovate the whole place, got as far as the bathroom plaster, the golden grille, and stopped. Dead. Heart attack while painting the ceiling. One corner remained saved from his endeavours, nicotine stained from the bath-smoking incumbents of years
gone by. Ryan liked it, the possibility of staining. Considered taking up smoking. And then decided death-by-cancer would take too long. And he couldn’t count on Theresa to rush back to him in a flurry of Florence Nightingale pity. (Though pity would do. Love had been great, but right now, ordinary old pity would do just fine.)
The first time he managed to get out of bed, away from the takeaway cartons, the television, the radio, the box-set DVD’s and a wailing Lou Reed on a self-solace sound track (Ryan was in mourning, he hadn’t stopped being a boy) he ran himself a bath, poured a beer and poured his protesting body into the welcoming water. Ryan was still picturing stones in his pockets and blades on his wrists, heavy stones, long vertical cuts, slow expiration. He had loved her. So very much. But he’d known nothing and the truth had all been proved to him in the end. Love’s not enough, he wasn’t enough, siren songs only last as long as the mermaid keeps her hair. Theresa had her hair cut a week before she dumped him. He thought it was for her new job. Seven days later he knew it was for her new man. James was a good boss, but he did have this thing about small women in sharp suits with short haircuts. Theresa had been wearing suits for a couple of months, lost a little weight, tightened up her act, her arse. Ryan noticed the clothes, the body, he read the signs, he just didn’t know they weren’t for him. The hieroglyphs of Theresa, road maps to a new desire.
There he was, in the bath with blades on his mind, but the water was hot and his skin was beginning to crinkle and in the comfort of the beautiful room, the only beautiful room, he thought – for the first time that week, for the first time since – that he just might make it through. Through this night anyway. And of course, truthfully, he wasn’t going to cut his wrists. Not really, not even slightly-scratch in actress-poetess-girlie style. He was just picturing escape from heartbreak and the possibility of Theresa running her hands through his hair in the hospital, in the coffin. Just the possibility of her hands in his hair. Ryan likes his hair. Theresa loved it. Maybe he should cut it off and send it to her. She could make a rope of his hair and climb back to him. If she wanted to. She didn’t want to. Theresa on his mind, in his hair. Theresa on his hands, time on his hands, nothing to do but think of her.
And then the singing started. Soft singing, girl-voice singing, slight held-under, under the breath, under the weather, under the water, coming from somewhere that was not this room but close. Coming through the steamy air, the curled damp hair, and into his waterlogged ears. Coming into him. At first Ryan thought it was from next door. Another dank basement on either side of his, one more out back across the thin courtyard too. But it was three in the morning. And the left hand basement was a copy shop and the right hand one a chiropodist. No reason for middle night singing in either of them. Across the courtyard then. Past the rubbish bins, over the stacked empty boxes, around the safety-conscious bars and through the dirty glass. But although the window was high and bright it was also closed. Shut tight against the nameless terrors that inhabited his broken breakin sleep without Theresa. And this voice was floating in, not muffled through walls or glass, but echoing almost, amplified. And gorgeous. So very gorgeous. Just notes initially and then the mutation into song, recognisable song. Peggy Lee’s ‘Black Coffee’. Slow drip accompaniment from the now-cold hot tap. Gravelly Nico ‘Chelsea Girls’, Ryan soft-soaping his straining arms. Water turning cold and dead skin scummy to Minnie Ripperton ‘Loving You’. And finally, letting the plug out and the water drain away from his folds and crevices while a voice-cracking last line Judy Garland saluted ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. Torch song temptress singing out the lyrics of Ryan’s broken heart.
Ryan dried his wrinkled skin and touched the steam-dripping walls of the bathroom. Reached up to the golden grille. The grille which ran the height of all four apartments this old house had become. The grille that was letting in the voice. The voice that woke him up.
Ryan went to bed. Slept soundly. Arose with his alarm clock. (Midday, no point in pushing too far too soon.) Ate breakfast. (Dry cereal. Sour milk.) Tidied the apartment. (Shifted boxes and bags, some of them actually into the rubbish bin.) And, with a cup of coffee in hand, made a place for himself on the low wall opposite his building. He waited three hours. Buses passed him and trucks passed him, policemen talking into radios at their shoulders passed him. Schoolchildren passed him shouting and screaming at each other, entirely oblivious to Ryan’s presence, his twenty years on their thirteen making him both invisible and blind. Deaf too. An old man passed him. Stopped, turned, wanted to chat. The weather – warm for this time of year, the streets – dirty, noisy, not like they used to be, young women – always the same. Ryan did not want to converse, did not want to be distracted from his purpose. So he nodded and smiled. Agreed to the warmth, shrugged off the noise, and couldn’t help but engage with the women. The conversation took fifteen minutes, at most. In that time Ryan looked at the man maybe twice. But the man didn’t think him rude. He thought him normal. The man was old after all. Didn’t get many full-face chats any more. Nannies passed with squalling babies in buggies. Dog-walkers passed, pulled on by the lure of another thin city tree, the perfect lamppost. And one cat, strolling in the sunshine, glanced up at the sitting man and walked off smirking. Tail high in the air, intimate knowledge of Ryan’s futile quest plain and simple. And laughable. Ryan knew it was laughable. But still, at least he was laughing.
At six in the evening, as the sun was starting to go down behind the building opposite, with a red-orange glint battering his eyes, a woman rounded the corner. She was young. Very young he thought. Too young to be living alone, surely? Scrabbling for keys in the bottom of her bag she walked right past him, turned abruptly, looked left and then right, crossed the road and walked up the steps to the door that let into the thin shared hallway and then the dark staircase to all three of the apartments above his. On her back she carried a backpack. In her backpack she carried a sleeping baby. The girl didn’t look like she sang lullabies. Not often. And he’d heard no crying baby through the grille. He watched the lights go on in the front room of the top floor apartment, her blinds fall down the window, crossed her off his list. Shame. Too young, too mothering. Nice legs though.
He waited until midnight. It was time for dinner, supper, hot chocolate, bed. No-one else came. The young mother turned off her lights. The other apartments stayed empty and dark. He was cold, late spring day turned into crisp still-winter night. The woman in the top apartment needed to be careful of her window boxes. This hint of frost wouldn’t do her geraniums any good. He could tell her that, when he found her, if he found her, if she sang the songs. He crossed the road and let himself into the hallway. Looked at the nondescript names on their post-boxes. Wondered which and who and went downstairs to the darker dark.
Ryan turned on every light in the apartment and ran a long bath, made a fat sandwich of almost-stale bread and definitely stale cheese (cleaning was one thing, proper shopping was definitely a distant second on the getting-better list) and lowered his chilled body into deep water, sandwich hand careful to stay dry. And just when he’d finished the first mouthful a door upstairs opened and closed. Then footsteps, more muffled. Another door. A third. He waited. Swallowed silently, chewed without noise, saliva working slowly on the wheat-dairy paste, teeth soft on his tongue. And then, again the water was cold, the food done, his arms just lifting water-heavy body from the bath, he heard it again. Singing through the grille, slow voice through the steam. Billie Holiday tonight. A roaring Aretha Franklin. And surprise finale theme tune to the Brady Bunch. Sweet voice nudged harsh voice twisted slow and smooth into comedy turn. He leapt even further then. Wet hand reaching to the grille, stronger determination to find her. Bed and alarm set for six am. Maybe she worked late, left early. He would too. Theresa was there, in his bed, in his head. But she wasn’t hurting just now. Or not so much anyway. He must remember to buy some bread.
For a full week Ryan follows the same pattern. Gets up early, runs to the closest shop, buys three sand
wiches, takes up his post opposite the house. The young mother comes and goes. Smiles at him at first and then gives up when he doesn’t smile back, when his gaze is too concentrated past her, on the steps, on the windows, up and down the street. The old man passes every morning and every afternoon. Each time a new weather platitude, a new women truism. Ryan thinks he should be writing these down. The old man is clearly an expert in the ways of women, in the pain of women, the agony of women-and-men. Ryan changes his daily shifts by two hours each time. In twelve days he will have covered all the hours, twice. There are two other occupants of the house. One of them is the singer. He will find her. Theresa is fading. Still there, still scarring, but fading anyway. There is something else to think about, something else to listen to. It does help. Just as they always say so. Just as the old man says so. She left him a message yesterday morning, Theresa. And he only played it back five times. It was just a message, some boxes he’d left behind, when he planned to pick them up. She had nothing more to say to him. Even Ryan, even now, knew it didn’t need playing more than five times.
And in the night, when he hasn’t yet found the other two, caught the other two, followed their path from the door to hallway to specificity of individual window, while all he still knows for sure is the young, young mother, at night Ryan listens to the songs. Every night a new repertoire. Deborah Harry, Liza Minnelli, Patti Smith, Sophie Tucker, Nina Simone. A parade of lovelies echoing down the grille and into his steamy bathroom, through the mist to his eyes and ears, nose and mouth, breathing them in with the taste of his own wet skin, soap suds body, music soothing the savage beast in his broken breast. Ryan is really very clean. His mother would be proud. (She never much liked Theresa.)
