Being Light 2011

by Helen Smith

  ‘Have you noticed, as soon as you get a £2 coin – which is something that is still unusual enough to be regarded as lucky – that you have to part with it again, usually in the very next transaction, usually at the local shop?’ Sheila searches her own purse for the coins, in case the loss of the £2 coin at the next transaction should exert a profound change on Alison’s mood, but in reverse. At an appropriate point during the rest of journey Sheila will endeavour to find out if it counts it as good luck if you pass someone a £2 coin from the front passenger seat of a car or whether this is a rule that only holds true on retail premises.

  All three use the facilities before they set off again. In motorway service stations a disproportionately high number of women who use the toilets evidently fear the transfer of venereal disease through contact with the seats. They hover unsteadily with bent knees and they wet all over the seat. Either that, or they deliberately spray their piss like he-cats because they have been arguing with their family during the car journey and they need to re-exert their authority. Whatever the cause, the droplets of urine are almost invisible on the white toilet seats and catch the unwary, wetting their thighs and branding them with a gutter smell for the rest of their journey.

  Alison and Sheila, crowded together into the disabled toilet, stand shoulder to shoulder because of the lack of space. They are staring at Phoebe sitting on a white plastic potty.

  ‘I think I ought to have her potty-trained by now. My mother said I was out of nappies at fourteen months old.’ Alison is running the tap at the low sink, bending to run her fingers under the water to make a splashing sound by way of encouragement. Phoebe stares blankly back.

  ‘My mother said I could speak perfectly formed sentences at six months.’ Sheila hands a dry nappy to Alison from the bag. ‘If everyone tried to match their children’s’ milestones to their mothers’ proud boasts we’d be in a sorry way.’ Alison dries her hands on her trousers before fixing Phoebe up.

  ‘You never had children, did you, Sheila?’

  ‘No. I had Roy.’

  ‘What will you do, Sheila, if we don’t find Roy?’

  ‘I always liked the fact that you never asked me that.’

  ‘I don’t usually ask questions unless I already know the answer.’

  ‘I don’t love him any less just because the search becomes more difficult. I am less likely to give up now than at any time in the three months I’ve been looking for him. With each obstacle, it just reminds me how much I love him and it shows me the lengths I’ll go to so that I will find him.’

  ‘I know what you mean because taking care of Phoebe has completely changed my life. It’s made everything really quite difficult. When I got rid of my husband I swore that I would spend the rest of my life being wild and free. Now I hardly go out. Even getting to work is hard because I have to find someone to look after the baby. I used to think that the kind of person I am is made up of the things that I do. I don’t do any of the same things any more but obviously I’m still the same person. I became really introspective – I think it was a kind of depression - while I tried to work out what kind of person I am, if I’m not defined any more by the kind of night clubs that I go to. And through it all, I loved Phoebe more and more, because I realise what I’m prepared to give up for her – even my own sense of identity, however misplaced it was.’

  ‘When you fall in love – and women do fall in love with their children - it is not with someone who gives you everything. It is with someone who lets you give them everything.’

  Jane and Harvey are now about seven minutes’ travelling time behind Sheila and Alison. Jane needs to take a rest from driving and from the trouser discomfort. She pulls into the service station, parking two rows away from Alison. Jane buys some wine gums while Harvey explores the self-help section of the book store, then she and Harvey play for twenty-five minutes on the pinball machines in the amusement arcade. They don’t have a lot to say to each other, since they saw Jeremy fall from Big Ben.

  Mrs Latimer pulls into the service station to make a stop to check up on the dogs and refresh their water bowls. Sucking on an extra strong mint as she watches the Dalmatians bound about in a wooded area near the petrol pumps and squat to pee on the grass, Mrs Latimer is unaware that she is observed by hundreds of eyes peering from behind the scrubby bushes from among the long grasses. The hundreds of eyes belong to the whiskery faces of some of the mink, from the original six thousand released by activists, that have made it to the south east from the south west of England. From time to time, between fighting each other, the mink run onto the motorway, a minor hazard to the drivers who squash them beneath their wheels without realising they have run over a living thing.

  When Sheila and Alison have their first sight of the sea from the road they call each other’s attention to it and drive very fast to the nearest car park, from where they run all the way to the beach to stretch their legs.

  Phoebe sits on a towel in a sundress and sun hat with Factor 20 sun cream on her face, her forearms and her hands. She bangs a pink spade against a green bucket. ‘This,’ she says. She sips Evian water occasionally from a beaker fitted with a spout, dribbling it down her cardigan from where it slowly evaporates and joins the clouds forming over the sea, drifting back towards France where rain filtered by the mountains will be collected, treated and bottled before being sold back to Alison and other mothers. ‘If I could find a way of labelling the water you spill maybe I could claim a discount next time it comes my way,’ says Alison to Phoebe, sliding a finger into the baby’s nappy where the elastic meets her thigh to feel whether it needs changing.

  Sheila takes the grid of Roy’s face from her shopping bag and she and Alison smooth the paper out on the sand and weigh it down with stones. Sheila draws a square in the sand with a stick, four times the size of the square on the paper, using a tape measure she has brought with her from her sewing kit to make sure the sides are even. Then she draws in the lines to make a grid, using her eye to guide her.

  Sheila and Alison work for half an hour to build up the picture of Roy. They take stones big enough to fit into the palms of their two hands cupped together and they arrange them in the picture; white; purple; speckled hen brown. They find coloured glass, dull and smoothed by the ocean, lying undisturbed on the beach like chunks of precious stones mined and discarded in a land where the people do not value them. They collect feathers, shells, pieces of rubber tyres.

  Sheila breathes life into the picture, willing it to make a difference and bring him back to her. ‘Let him go,’ she thinks. ‘Let me have him back.’ Eventually, the Roy icon is finished, staring trustingly up from the beach, large enough to be seen from the sky. Sheila looks up, squinting because of the sun, then looks back quickly, bright pink dots jumping in her eyes across Roy’s picture.

  ‘Will it work?’ asks Alison. They are at the edge of a path between the sand dunes, leading from the beach back to the car park. She has removed Phoebe’s pink leather sandals and is holding them upside down so the sand can run out of them.

  Taron, Joey Latimer and Hugo Fragrance get into Hugo’s silver BMW. They are going on a driving holiday to recuperate following the long nights spent on suicide watch on London’s bridges. Hugo is driving so the holiday part falls more to Taron and Joey. They have planned a route which will take in a tour of Britain’s heritage sites, which they hope will be deserted, given the strength of the pound. Hugo puts the key in the ignition. Before he starts the engine, he turns and reaches into the inside breast pocket of the jacket he has thrown on to the back seat next to Taron. With a magician’s flourish, he produces a water-marked, wax-sealed, signed certificate. ‘This is to confirm,’ reads Taron ‘that Mr H Fragrance has purchased two hundred and fifty-five trees to be planted on his family estate in Brittany.’

  ‘It’s a reforestation deal which will net me lots of money from the EU. It will also cancel any amount of carbon dioxide the three of us care to generate over the next ten days.’ Hugo turns
the key in the ignition. ‘Let’s have some fun.’

  Some hours later, the holiday mood has evaporated. ‘Are we lost?’

  ‘Let’s ask someone.’

  ‘We haven’t passed another living soul for twenty miles. Not even so much as a cat. We’ll be lucky to see anyone, never mind asking them whether they think we’re lost.’

  ‘A cat? Why would we see a cat in a field? This is the countryside. You’re supposed to look out for cows. I’ve seen plenty of cows.’

  ‘Here’s a sign. Let’s turn in here and ask. What does it say?’

  ‘“Paradise.” That’s cute. Turn in here, Hugo. There’ll be someone here who can help us.’

  Mrs Fitzgerald bends to pick up the second post from the mat by the front door in her office in Brixton. She has been feeling recently as if a great burden has been lifted, almost as if she can finally anticipate some good thing coming her way. She has seen madness on the buses and in the cafes of London and she knows that she is not mad. She has even been able to identify a way to prevent herself going that way, which is to avoid publicity.

  She sifts through the mail. There is nothing very interesting, except for a white embossed envelope addressed in a typeface she doesn’t recognise. Mrs Fitzgerald walks into her office and picks up her spectacles where they sit on her desk. She holds them so that the chain falls out of the way and brings them up towards her nose so that she can peer through them to examine the mystery envelope. It gives Lambeth Town Hall as the return address and for some reason Mrs Fitzgerald is disappointed. She sits at her desk and puts her spectacles on properly so that she can turn over the envelope and open it. It is perhaps fortunate that she is sitting down as she reads the contents.

  ‘Dear Mrs Fitzgerald,’ the letter begins, innocuously enough.

  ‘On behalf of the Brixton Regeneration Committee, I would like to congratulate you …’

  Chapter Forty-Two ~ Vroom, Slam

  Roy takes up the balance bar and looks along the length of the wire.

  Sylvia leans against the wall of the house in a patch of sunshine near the trellis, her left foot half out of one slipper, her naked right foot moving up and down her left calf, kneading the strong muscle under the brown skin, gripping and squeezing until deep lines appear like frowns in the knuckle joints of her pink-painted toes. She taps her fingernails gently against the cup of coffee in her hand, feeling the rush of pleasure she always feels when she’s watching a fellow performer try something dangerous for the first time.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Sylvia asked Roy this morning.

  ‘Yes. I feel light.’

  Vroom, slam, slam, vroom, slam. Like guests arriving late for a fabulous party, cars arrive one after the other in Paradise. Their drivers and passengers run up towards the house, stop at the arresting spectacle of Roy standing on the platform, then creep forward as slowly and quietly as if he has already broken his neck and they fear that any sudden movement will jar the bones in his body and paralyse him for life.

  Among the semicircle of spectators anticipating Roy’s first step from the platform on to the high wire, a small elephant with a shimmer of gingery hair on its head, grey skin slack and wrinkling at the joints like an over-enthusiastic dieter, is testing the air thoughtfully with its trunk.

  Jane Memory is there, with Jeremy’s locket. Harvey has the camera rolling. They are both thinking about Jeremy. Jane is crying, her face slippery with tears. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand, the turquoise ring on her littlest finger catching inside her nostril and making a red mark. Harvey takes her hand, to comfort her. The silver rings on his fingers squeeze against hers and make a mild grating sound. Making a connection between the slime on her knuckles and Jane’s running nose, Harvey releases her hand again quickly, wiping his own hand on the seat of his trousers.

  Mrs Latimer and the Dalmatians stand with the rest of the impromptu audience. Mrs Latimer is watching Sylvia.

  Alison is there, fingers curled round a phone number written on a scrap of paper. The paper is wrapped around a pot of cherry lip gloss in her pocket. Phoebe’s hand is in her other hand.

  Sheila is standing next to them, very quiet, taking in the sight of Sylvia watching Roy. She removes the colander from her head with dignity.

  Taron, Hugo and Joey have arrived. Walking softly towards his mother, watching her watching Sylvia, Joey sees that she looks as if all the colour has gone from her, even from her clothes.

  A police car is coming along the track towards Sylvia’s farm but no-one has noticed it yet.

  Roy sees Sheila’s strained face among the spectators. He wobbles, then recovers. He replaces the balance bar, carefully. He understands something that has eluded him for months. He knows now that he is alive.

  Alison’s hand involuntarily makes a fist in her pocket, twisting open the lid of the lip gloss with her thumb and smearing the numbers written on the paper around it. She barely hears the question Sheila asks as she watches Roy prepare to step down from the high wire.

  ‘How could you?’

  0O0O0O0

  Thank you for reading Being Light

  Why not try Alison Wonderland by the same author:

  Only occasionally does a piece of fiction leap out and demand immediate cult status. Alison Wonderland is one…Smith is at the very least a minor phenomenon.

  The Times

  Made me sigh and throw it to the floor in a fit of envious pique.

  Julie Burchill, Guardian

  A fantastical Thelma and Louise meets Agatha Christie adventure story. The dialogue is smart and the deadpan humour is perfectly judged.

  The List

  Smith's strength comes to the fore when she's drifting, observing the incidentals of life… this clean, seemingly effortless voice gives Alison Wonderland an impressive edge.

  Amazon.co.uk

  This is a story that can be devoured whole or nibbled in small bites, but is guaranteed to brighten your day. Morning Star

  Helen’s wry and witty insights about human nature are acutely on target.

  Dorset Echo