Always the Sun

by Neil Cross

  Then Sam put the car into gear and pulled into the traffic.

  When he arrived at work, it seemed unfamiliar. The people inside seemed artificial and badly lit. Their words seemed flat and expressed without true emotion. It was as if they were actors who had been waiting until he arrived before commencing their roles. He spent the day as if being watched by hidden cameras. He spoke to the Skinhead, and to Kenny and Byron and Christina Box and Ted Bone and the others. They all patiently and quite madly expected tenderness of ministration, gentle wisdom, and for Sam to know what he was doing, and why. He pitied them their misapprehensions. He wished there was somebody to watch over him, too. But there had only ever been Justine.

  Later that evening, Mel phoned for the first time since the Cat and Fiddle. It was clear she had little desire to discuss Sam’s problems, or even Jamie’s.

  She barked, ‘Have you been calling me?’

  He was taken aback by her sharpness.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Somebody’s been calling me. When I pick up the phone, no one’s there.’

  ‘Have you dialled 1471?’

  ‘Of course I’ve dialled 1471. The caller has withheld their number.’

  ‘Have you spoken to BT?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘There’s no point. It’s probably nothing. It’s probably a frigging call centre or something.’

  He agreed, although he suspected it was not.

  ‘They use automatic dialling machines,’ said Mel. ‘Sometimes they get stuck. It’s just that, it doesn’t feel like a call centre. Do you know what I mean?’

  He did.

  He said, ‘At the very least, you’d expect a call centre to answer when you pick up the phone.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s the thing. Sometimes they get stuck on automatic redial. They just keep calling and calling, even though nobody’s on the end of the line. But it’s only the computer doing it.’

  He held his breath and silently counted to ten.

  ‘But you don’t think this is a call centre,’ he said.

  ‘No. When I pick up the receiver, I can—well, it sounds to me like I can hear stuff in the background.’

  ‘What sort of stuff?’

  ‘I don’t know. Background noises. Unspecific stuff. You know—stuff that makes it sound like a proper phone call.’

  ‘But nobody speaks.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And there’s no heavy breathing, or anything like that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s probably nothing.’

  ‘I know that. I was just calling to make sure it wasn’t you.’

  ‘Why would it be me?’

  There was no answering such a question. It was clear to him that Mel had phoned not to check if he was calling, but to let him know she was frightened. But she would never admit that.

  He said, ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘OK. Good. But if it happens again, give me a call.’

  He thought.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘why don’t you just turn off the landline? Unplug it from the socket. Tell whoever you want to they can contact you on your mobile. That way, whoever it is—if it is somebody—they’ll get bored and go away. All right? How’s that?’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ she said. ‘Spoken like a true—’

  She stopped.

  ‘True what?’

  ‘Father.’

  She was right. Since the first day of fatherhood he’d been aware that outside, the storm raged and the wind blew, that predators gnashed their slavering, bloody jaws and circled their place of safety on spindly shanks, on broad, loping paws.

  He said, ‘Look, it’s a good idea. They’ll just get bored. It’s the best way to deal with it.’

  ‘But if they get bored,’ she said, ‘what’ll they do next?’

  ‘Mel,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. Trust me.’

  She told him that she did. And in a way, he supposed that was true, too, because that evening she arrived at his doorstep with a suitcase. Janet had dropped her off in the Fiat. Oh, no.

  He looked at her, clasping the suitcase like an evacuee. He smiled, for all that the sight of her made him sad. The suitcase and her rain-wet hair and the short silence between them seemed to necessitate some formal acknowledgement of her presence.

  He said, ‘Come in,’ and stepped aside to allow her to enter.

  She told him, ‘I’ve double-locked everything. The neighbours are keeping an eye on the place. They’ve all got your number. They’ll call if anything happens. Jan’s got a set of keys. She said she’d go and check the mail every lunchtime, on her way back from work.’

  As she unpacked her toiletries in the bathroom, he spread the duvet on the guest bed. And later, when it was dark and Jamie sulked upstairs, he glanced over at her, curled on the sofa watching TV, and was glad she was there.

  Shortly after 11 p.m., the phone rang. They glanced in its direction and waited, without speaking, until the answer machine engaged. Nobody left a message. Sam didn’t wait for the phone to ring again. He strode into the hallway and tugged the lead from the socket with enough violence to break it. Then he went and sat down. Mel didn’t look at him or acknowledge what he’d done.

  He asked her to turn up the TV.

  Later, he followed her up to bed. On the landing, he turned and looked down. The hallway was dark, lit only by the ambient glow of streetlights. It was as if black floodwater licked halfway up the stairs. He stared into the darkness until he could almost see the lapping wavelets, almost hear them slapping at the banisters.

  Gently, he knocked on Mel’s bedroom door. She was already in bed. She was propped on one elbow, reading Cosmopolitan.

  He said, ‘Good night.’

  She whispered, ‘Good night,’ in return and went back to her magazine.

  Then he looked in on Jamie. He was a shape under the duvet, which he’d pulled fully over his head. It was how he liked to sleep. Somewhere there would be a small aperture through which he breathed. The room smelt ripe, slightly foetid: overused and underventilated.

  He left off the light in his own bedroom. There was no need of it. There were few objects to negotiate and anyway there was a streetlight right outside, which cast the room in a gaudy liquid illumination. It was never really dark in there. One day, he would have to buy a heavier pair of curtains. But tonight he was pleased by the light, the honey-coloured glow that protected him from the dark, cold waters below.

  11

  Over breakfast, he could tell that Mel wanted to say something. She waited until Jamie had left for school and Sam had pulled on his own coat and was hunting out the long, tatty scarf, then his house keys. She leant in the doorway with a cigarette in one hand and said, ‘Of course, we could ask Frank for help.’

  Sam paused in the act of winding the scarf round his neck. They looked at each other uncomfortably. It was as if a protocol had been transgressed. Something that had gone unspoken, like an ancient and filthy family secret, had casually been alluded to. He let his hands fall to his side.

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘I’m not saying there is. What I’m saying is, if there was a need, then—well. We could call Frank.’

  ‘And Frank would know how to sort it out, would he?’

  She shrugged one shoulder.

  ‘I don’t know. But he’d know someone who could.’

  ‘Mel,’ he said. ‘This isn’t Kosovo. We can’t just call in a peace-keeping force.’

  ‘I’m not talking about a peace-keeping force,’ she said. ‘I’m talking about the fucking Hell’s Angels or something.’

  ‘Frank’s not a Hell’s Angel.’

  ‘But he knows them.’

  Sam shook his head.

  ‘Mel,’ he said. ‘
I can’t believe you’re even saying this.’

  ‘I’m not saying anything,’ she said. ‘All I’m saying is, if push comes to shove, Frank could help us out. That’s all. God. Sorry for breathing.’

  He wrapped the scarf round his throat and jingled the keys in his palm. He glimpsed himself in the hallway mirror, all bundled up against a winter whose worst was past.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘I’ve sorted it.’

  The cigarette paused on the way to her lips.

  ‘That’s news to me. What did you do?’

  He mumbled a response and turned to go. Mel made him repeat it.

  He said, ‘I paid him.’

  ‘Paid who?’

  ‘Hooper.’

  ‘You gave Dave Hooper money?’

  ‘Not Dave.’

  She dropped the cigarette. She screamed and batted at the fireflies that danced on her legs and feet. She bent to pick up the cigarette and looked at him.

  ‘You did what?’

  He heard their mother in her voice. He could hurt her by telling her that.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘there was no alternative, all right? I wanted the little fucker to leave Jamie alone, and nobody was helping me do it. Do you think I’m over the moon about giving protection money to a fucking fourteen year old?’ The strength left his voice, and he finished the sentence with a broken quack. ‘I had no choice.’

  Mel didn’t move.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t believe it either. Jesus. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Be—’

  He cut her off.

  ‘Be a man about it? What does that even mean, Mel?’

  ‘That’s not what I was going to say.’

  ‘Isn’t it? It bloody sounded like it from where I’m standing.’

  ‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘I was going to say “be careful”.’

  ‘Be careful about what? I told you—I already gave him the money.’

  She massaged her brow. She looked haggard and apprehensive.

  ‘Then who was phoning last night?’

  ‘I don’t know. Dave Hooper, probably. But he’s just trying to scare us. I’m not worried about him. He’ll get bored and move on, if we don’t rise to it. This is it. This is the end of it.’

  Mel laughed.

  ‘What?’ said Sam.

  ‘What happens when Liam’s spent the money?’

  They faced each other down the length of the hallway. Him in his winter clothes; she in her white dressing-gown and fluffy-bunny slippers and her frizzy, curly hair and her long nose and the purple scar on her shin.

  ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ Sam said, and he left to go to work.

  12

  Sam had that Saturday off.

  Jamie still didn’t want to know him. He wouldn’t even eat the food Sam prepared, preferring the martyrdom of a diet consisting wholly of toast, marmalade and peanut butter. So, because it was a fine morning, Sam took Mel to the café that served the Merrydown arcade, the shops local to Balaarat Street.

  Luxuriously unbathed and unshaved, he went first into the newsagents and stocked up on newspapers and cigarettes. He and Mel took a table in the café’s small, walled garden, thick with ivy on three walls, in which there bumbled a few early bees. The sunshine was a silky weight on their shoulders as they read the papers and smoked and drank coffee. When breakfast arrived, full English for Mel, scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for Sam, they swapped newspapers across the table.

  They were home by lunchtime. Sam looked around the empty house—he supposed that Jamie had gone to Stuart’s—and suggested they go into town to do some shopping. Mel was excited and ran upstairs to shower and put on her makeup.

  They spent most of the afternoon window-shopping. Mel bought some clothes while Sam tried to linger inconspicuously in the corner by the changing rooms. She agreed only reluctantly to go with him to the Virgin Megastore. Here, because Saturday night maintained some residual significance, he bought a couple of DVDs for them to watch with a takeaway and some bottles of wine.

  They got home during the Saturday dead-time. It was still too early to prepare anything to eat, and there was nothing on TV. Pleasantly tired, they slumped in the armchairs and read sections of the newspapers that had been omitted that morning. Sam tried to engross himself in the Travel and Personal Finance sections of the Saturday Guardian.

  At 6.30, Mel opened a bottle of wine and brought them both a glass.

  Sam thanked her and took a sip.

  He said, ‘I had a nice day today. I enjoyed it.’

  Mel lit a cigarette and sat back with it in one hand, the wine glass in the other.

  ‘God,’ she said. She looked at the ceiling and blew smoke at it. ‘I need to get a life.’

  So did Sam. He folded the Personal Finance section and laid it on the floor.

  The sun was going down. Somewhere, somehow, Saturday night was beginning. It hardly seemed possible.

  At a few minutes past eight o’clock, they heard Jamie’s key turning in the lock. By now they were on to the second bottle and were watching a gameshow whose rules were too arcane for Sam to grasp, and too sadistic for him to believe.

  They shared a conspiratorial glance.

  Mel called out to him, ‘Come in, we’re going to watch a video in a minute.’

  ‘DVD,’ said Sam.

  There was a non-sound: Jamie pausing in the hallway.

  ‘I heard that!’ said Mel.

  Muffled by the door, Jamie was sullen.

  ‘Heard what? I didn’t even say anything.’

  ‘I heard your lips move.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘I did. I read your lips.’

  ‘What did I say, then?’

  ‘You told me to fuck off,’ said Mel. ‘You cheeky little monkey.’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘Jamie Greene. Don’t make it worse by lying to your auntie.’

  On the other side of the door there was another, longer suspension of movement. It seemed to Sam that Jamie was fighting a smile. He looked at Mel and saw that she thought so, too. But Jamie didn’t come in. He went to the kitchen to make himself some toast, then straight upstairs. Sam didn’t mind. He knew by the quality of Jamie’s silence that things were going to get better.

  Half an hour later, the telephone rang.

  They ignored it.

  An hour later, it rang again.

  There was giggling on the answer machine.

  Just before midnight, Sam heard something. Male voices, raised in song.

  He saw that Mel’s eyes had been drawn to the window. Her brow was knit. She caught his eye and they laughed too loudly at each other’s uneasiness. Sam slapped his thighs and stood. He went to make sure the front door was properly locked and secured.

  He ignored Mel’s gaze and increased the volume on the television.

  But they heard it again anyway, in the pauses between adverts. It was so faint it sometimes faded to the edge of imagination. A wind-borne football chant.

  Sam couldn’t sit down. For lack of anything else to do, he walked to the far corner of the room, by the window. He crossed his arms and watched TV without seeing it.

  ‘It’s probably nothing,’ said Mel. ‘How would he even know where you live?’

  ‘Christ, all your friends know where I live. And they all drink in the same fucking pub as him.’

  She looked at him for a long time, without speaking. Then she laughed without any humour and said, ‘We’re like a couple of kids, scaring each other round a campfire. Relax. It’s nothing.’

  Sam said, ‘Nothing my arse. It sounds like the invasion of Poland.’

  She laughed, properly this time. They stopped to listen. They heard nothing.
/>   They made faces at each other and began to relax.

  Then they heard the sudden, shrieking wail of a car alarm. It was eerie and ominous, like a night ghoul’s lamentation.

  The stupid grin fell from Sam’s mouth.

  He said, ‘Go upstairs and check on Jamie.’

  ‘Sam—’ said Mel.

  ‘I’m not joking, Mel. Go on.’

  She made a performance of rolling her eyes at his foolishness. But she went upstairs quickly enough.

  Sam turned off the TV. Then he turned off all the downstairs lights—in the living room, the hallway, the kitchen—and stood in the darkness, waiting. His breath seemed very loud.

  On the street, somebody called his name.

  It seemed so absurd, he wondered if he’d imagined it. There was a long, dark stillness.

  Then he heard it again.

  Sam!

  A fizzing, weakening thrill raced from his stomach to his limbs. He crept up the stairs. Halfway up, hysteria mushroomed inside him. He stopped and waited until it passed. He took a series of long, slow breaths.

  On the street there was movement, an obscure series of scuffles and rattles. Giggling.

  Entering Jamie’s room, Sam looked calm and brisk.

  Mel was on the edge of the narrow bed. Jamie was sitting up, the duvet pooled at his waist. He looked confused, as if uncertain he was awake.

  Sam knelt at his bedside.

  ‘Jamie,’ he said, ‘don’t be worried, but get up and get dressed, right now. Quiet as you can.’

  In the gold-tinged darkness, Jamie’s skin was flawless. He jumped from the bed and pulled on the jeans and T-shirt that lay on the floor. Putting on his trainers, his fingers slipped and fumbled at the laces. Sam bent down to tie them, as he’d not done since Jamie was eight years old.

  He told Jamie to sit down, to keep still and quiet. He sat alongside Mel.

  To Sam, she said, ‘How many of them are there?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t looked yet.’

  ‘What are they doing?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can hear them whispering, I think.’

  ‘What are they saying?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, Mel. They’re whispering.’

  ‘Shall we call the police?’