Of Things Gone Astray

by Janina Matthewson

  And then one day she had.

  At the point of the 47th version of the fertility test argument, they’d been trying for one year, seven months and twenty-two days. They hadn’t finished the fight because Flight Attendant Maeve had been running late for work, and she knew it was waiting for her at home. And she knew eventually she’d have to lose it.

  Chewing her lip, she approached the terrifying tree-girl.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Hello Cassie. It is Cassie, right? Your name? Someone said your name was Cassie.’

  ‘Hi,’ Cassie said, and immediately stopped talking.

  ‘Urgh,’ Maeve said. ‘The weather is so grim.’

  There was a pause while Cassie digested this.

  ‘Yes,’ she said eventually. ‘This is what I hear.’

  Maeve cleared her throat. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I just thought, today I just thought, you’ve been here for ages. And none of us has actually spoken to you. So I thought suddenly “I should speak to her”. So. OK. How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Cassie. ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘Good, good. It’s so lovely in here now. With the grass, and everything. What … I mean, how did it … I mean, how did you get here?’

  Cassie blinked. ‘The tube,’ she said.

  ‘Right. And, why?’

  ‘Because of Floss.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Maeve. ‘Who is Floss? Tell me about her.’

  She took off her shoes suddenly, and sat in the grass beside Cassie. Cassie stared and swallowed and eventually started talking.

  Floss had sat beside Cassie in a lecture on the French Revolution in the second week of term, it transpired. Floss had asked to borrow a pen, but Cassie was using a laptop and didn’t have any with her. Floss had asked to borrow her computer instead.

  ‘How will I take notes?’ Cassie asked.

  ‘You don’t need to. Haven’t you noticed? This guy just reads his slides. Word for word. Then he puts the slides online. To be honest, I’m pretty sure I’m only going to bother coming to this class for another week or so.’

  ‘Really?’ Cassie was astonished. ‘Can you do that?’

  ‘Yeah, why not?’ Floss looked at her closely. ‘Although, if you’re still planning to come along, I might show up from time to time.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re cute.’

  Floss dragged Cassie’s laptop over to her. She logged Cassie out of everything and checked her own emails. She showed Cassie pictures of her family, who were mostly in Louisiana, except for a few who were scattered around: a sister in San Francisco, a cousin in Brazil.

  Whenever she showed her something new she looked away, waiting for Cassie’s reaction before glancing at her to check it was genuine and brushing it away, looking relieved.

  Neither of them had gone back to that class.

  Flight Attendant Maeve sat with Cassie for about an hour before realising she’d lost the feeling in one leg and had grass stains on her skirt. She said goodbye, and limped away.

  When she walked in the front door later that day she called out, ‘Fine, whatever, we can do whatever, fine, OK. Fine.’ Her husband, Lawyer Josef, said, ‘OK.’ And they had sex that was almost as fun as the sex they’d had back in the days before they were using it for procreative purposes. Flight Attendant Maeve very nearly orgasmed, and a little spark was lit, which would render her capitulation redundant.

  Delia.

  ONCE SHE WAS HOME IT took Delia a few moments to find her map and address book and only two and a half hours to write out directions of the detail she needed. Her phone rang several times, but she ignored it.

  Travelling always took longer than it should these days because of how often she had to refer to her notes, and the address wasn’t close, so it was almost another two hours before she got there.

  The front door was yellow.

  Delia raised a hand and knocked.

  Marcus.

  HE WAS ALONE. HE HAD been alone all day. He had been alone all the previous day. She was away. The boy, that Jasper, had taken her away. Jasper was worried, he thought she was stressed and needed a break.

  She had called several times and she sounded more stressed by being away, but it was too late now. He was making her worry. He hated making her worry.

  He knew the feeling. He had worried about her so easily, so quickly. He had worried about The Woman. He felt she was not to be trusted. He was right.

  She told them about the play five months before the baby was due to arrive. I won’t work, she had said, I won’t think about working, but she had lied.

  She sat in their lounge once again and told them of the part she’d accepted. It was perfect, she’d told them, she was perfect for it. It was rare for an actress’s pregnancy to coincide with the need for a pregnant actress, she assured them, it was practically a miracle. She was honour bound to accept, she said, and her reward was this part, this wonderful part, this character of all characters.

  It was a new play, she said, by an exciting and daring writer. Dealing, she said, with important issues. Issues, she said, that must be addressed.

  She would play a middle-class housewife whose husband is murdered while she is pregnant with their second child. Left alone, heartbroken and desperate, she would plummet into a dark hole of prostitution and drug dependency. Her heroin-fuelled suicide would be the most challenging and affecting scene she’d ever performed.

  It was necessary, she said, for a role like this to really immerse yourself in the character, to live almost as them. She laughed coyly, coldly, as she assured them that didn’t mean she would actually take any of the plethora of drugs the character did. The immersion would be solely mental, she told them, but it would be complete.

  He had wanted to forbid her. He had wanted to remind her of her promise. He had wanted to prevent her from ever leaving the house.

  He and Albert had fought.

  Albert had laughed at her pretensions of total immersion. He had claimed it was a lie actors told themselves because they wanted to believe in the craft of their job. He had claimed they used it to convince themselves they did a harder and more important thing than the designers and operators, and producers and stage crews.

  In the end, he had had to let Albert guide him. Albert knew the theatre. They had no legal standing to forbid The Woman anything.

  But he had been worried. He had always been worried.

  Jake.

  THE GIRL AT THE FRONT door looked harried and stressed. She held a sheaf of paper in her hand that had a list on it. The last entry was Jake’s house number.

  ‘Are you Jake?’ she asked, staring at him as if his answer held the key to her own existence and the very fabric of the universe.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jake.

  ‘And Anthony is your father?’

  ‘What?’ Jake blinked. The girl had asked a question, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

  ‘Shit. Sorry, don’t swear. Bugger. I mean, oh dear.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Delia. I’m a friend of your dad’s.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘OK, OK. It’s fine. We need to talk.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jake. He wasn’t sure who the girl, Delia, was, but she seemed worried. ‘Do you want to come in?’

  ‘Right. Sure. OK.’

  Jake led her into the house.

  ‘We have tea, I think,’ he said and walked into the kitchen.

  ‘Great. Great. Tea is great. OK, but Jake, I need to ask you, when was the last time you saw your father?’

  ‘Um,’ said Jake.

  ‘OK. So you haven’t seen him in a while?’

  ‘I don’t really know.’

  ‘Oh, Christ. This is –’ the girl ran her hands over her face, ‘– fine. It’s fine. Let’s sit down.’

  Jake pulled himself onto the worktop and sat there. His mum had always hated him to do that. The girl, Delia, looked around for a moment then pulled herself onto the worktop opposite him. Jake grinned
at her. She smiled back, but she didn’t look happy.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I have to tell you something. I’m a bit worried about you and about your dad.’

  ‘My—’

  ‘Your dad, yes Jake, you have a dad. I really need you to stay with me on this, please. OK? Your dad and I are friends, we’ve been friends for a while and when we first met, all he talked about was you. All the time; stories from when you were little, and what you were up to in school, all sorts of things. Then, well, something happened with us, and it was probably my fault, and I think it made him unhappy. Actually, that’s not true, it definitely didn’t make him unhappy, but it changed something. He stopped talking about you, you see. He completely stopped altogether, and I didn’t even notice it at first because I’m kind of just totally selfish, I suppose. When I did notice, of course, I asked about you. And the first few times I did, he almost talked about you normally, almost, but I kept forgetting to ask. Because of the selfish thing, you understand. It’s not that I don’t find you interesting, I just find myself more so. Anyway, as more time passed, when I did remember to ask, he got more and more vague. Your dad, I mean – you still with me on that? And so I got a bit worried and I honestly meant to ask more. But it got to the point that when I did he just didn’t respond at all, like he couldn’t even hear me. So I was scared and I came here and it was really hard for me to find it, but I did.’

  Jake blinked slowly, trying to absorb what Delia was saying. His dad. About his dad. He couldn’t concentrate on it. He couldn’t remember. Delia was leaning forward and staring at him. He could tell she expected him to say something, but he was empty of words.

  ‘Jake,’ she said, suddenly a lot quieter. ‘Do you have any photos? Any family photos?’

  ‘Yeah. There are some in the living room.’

  Jake slid off the worktop and led Delia through to the living room. He pulled a photo album from the bookshelf and handed it to her. She opened it at random and pulled out a photo. It was Jake on one of his birthdays. His mother was cutting the cake. She’d made him a cake shaped like a raptor and she was cutting off one of its feet.

  ‘Jake,’ said Delia. ‘Look at him. Look at your dad.’

  Jake looked at the man in the photo, standing behind Jake, a hand on his shoulder, looking at the woman as she severed the dinosaur’s foot.

  ‘Think about your father.’

  And Jake did. He thought about his dad. He remembered him. He hadn’t seen him in months. Or had he? He suddenly felt like he’d been seeing his dad all the time, that they’d eaten breakfast together, or, if not together, at least simultaneously, the day before.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he asked Delia.

  ‘I’m not sure. I think you’re losing each other.’

  ‘Oh. Where is my dad at the moment?’

  ‘Probably looking for me. We need to figure out what to do, Jake.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We need to figure out how to stop you losing each other.’

  Jake looked at Delia, trying to hold on to what she was saying. It was hard and he was tired.

  ‘I’ve lost things before,’ he said. ‘People lose things all the time. I’ve met lots of people who have lost things. It doesn’t matter. You still just have to go on with your life.’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s very philosophical of you, Jake, but sometimes you really have to do something to stop yourself losing things you don’t want to lose. Like those key rings that were around for a while that beeped when you clapped so you didn’t lose your keys.’

  ‘But sometimes there’s nothing you can do. You said you didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘No, but we can figure it out.’

  ‘How do you know we can?’

  ‘Because we have to.’

  Jake stared at the girl, Delia. She seemed very nice, but he was having trouble keeping track of what she was talking about. One moment he knew they were talking about his dad, and he knew why, the next she was just a stranger in his house, holding a half drunk cup of tea and a photo album. She looked like she could cry at any moment. Jake didn’t want her to cry.

  ‘Do you want to see my collection?’ he asked.

  ‘You have a collection?’ Delia said. ‘What do you collect?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  Jake slipped the photo he was holding into his pocket and walked to the door. He headed to his bedroom, Delia following.

  The floor was covered with piles of things. The flotsam and jetsam that were gone from others, spread right to the edges of Jake’s small room, so that when he slept, he was surrounded and protected by the loss of others.

  ‘What is all this, Jake?’ said Delia.

  ‘They are lost things.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They are things people have lost.’

  ‘What people?’

  ‘Loads of people.’

  ‘Where did you get them all?’

  ‘Oh, around. There’s a shop round the corner that I bought some from. Sometimes people sell stuff to the shop that someone else just lost. Some things I found myself. Then, I found out that my school has a Lost and Found, and then it turned out that loads of places have a Lost and Found. Cinemas and swimming pools and, just loads of places.’

  ‘Why have you collected them? You don’t know whose they are so you can’t even return them.’

  ‘I don’t want to return them. They’re lost. Lost things are lost. But I know whose they are. I can tell.’

  ‘You can tell?’

  ‘I can see them. When I hold things I can see who lost them. I don’t know how.’

  The girl, Delia, looked like she was about to say something else, when her phone started to ring. Jake tried not to listen to her talk, but she kept looking at him while she did, so it was hard.

  ‘Hello? No, I’m fine. I’m not lost, I wrote directions. It’s not stupid. I just have to. And I should be able to sometimes go places without you knowing where I’m going. What if I wanted to surprise you? No, that’s not what I’m doing today. Well, actually you might be a little surprised. Um, well, I’m at your house. No, inside. Jake let me in. Jake.’

  Jake wondered why Delia was talking to herself. No, her phone had rung; she was talking on the phone. To who, though? She was starting to look like she was going to cry again.

  ‘Yes. I’ll wait here for you. I’ll make dinner. No, not like that, for the three of us. I need to talk to you both. You and Jake. Just come. OK. See you soon. You too.’

  She hung up the phone and looked at Jake. ‘Let’s make dinner.’

  Delia and Jake chatted intermittently as they cooked. Delia felt awkward somehow, as if them talking without having been formally introduced was somehow against the laws of social nicety. Jake was still trying to work out who this person was who seemed so interested in what he was doing.

  ‘Do you miss your mum?’ Delia blurted out, for want of something better to say. ‘Sorry,’ she said immediately. ‘That was rude.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jake. ‘No one’s asked that.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I mean, well, I’m sorry.’

  ‘She was really good at cooking. She wrote some recipe books once, but she didn’t like other people being able to cook like her so I don’t know why she did. Unless maybe the recipes in the books weren’t really the same ones she actually made herself. Once, after someone had been taking photos of the food, I tried to eat some chocolate cake, and it didn’t taste good like it usually did. It didn’t really taste like food at all.’

  Delia laughed. ‘That’s a shame.’

  ‘It’s OK. Chocolate cake’s not my favourite anyway.’

  ‘What’s your favourite?’

  ‘I like banana cake, mainly.’

  When Anthony turned up, Delia tried again to explain the situation, this time to them both.

  ‘You’re saying I’ve a son I don’t remember?’ Anthony said. ‘That’s just a bit ridiculous, Delia, that’s not a thing that could have
happened.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Jake. ‘It doesn’t matter whether he’s here. It doesn’t matter; I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ said Delia. ‘You’re both here, why can’t you just take my word for it and talk to each other like normal humans?’

  The evening did not go well. Delia grew more and more frustrated with Anthony’s refusal to consider the situation possible. Jake was confused and exhausted.

  Nothing had changed.

  Robert.

  ROBERT AND BONNY WERE DOING numbers when they heard the scream. They were adding apples together and subtracting bananas and they were enjoying themselves until Mara started shrieking outside the door.

  ‘You keep going, Bon,’ said Robert. ‘I’ll just see what’s going on.’

  ‘I know what’s going on,’ said Bonny, looking up at Robert as he reached the door. ‘Mum saw what you did.’

  ‘Ah.’ Robert girded his loins as he stepped into the hallway.

  The moment Robert had realised he was in love with Mara she had been yelling at him. He’d been late to pick her up for a show and they’d not been allowed in. He had taken her to dinner instead, and they’d talked normally; at least, he had thought it was normal. They’d had dessert and then got the tube to Mara’s flat. As soon as they were inside, she’d turned to him, her hair suddenly wild with wrath.

  ‘I don’t know why you thought you could come home with me.’

  ‘What?’ Robert said, genuinely baffled, having all but forgotten how the evening started.

  ‘I was really looking forward to that play and it’s sold out and I told you not to be late. And then you insist on dinner, and I have to sit there for two hours not making a scene when all I wanted to do was punch you in your stupid face. Why on earth would you just follow me home? You’re not getting sex tonight, which means that I’m not getting sex tonight, which also makes me just the angriest.’