by James Rice
II
11/12
It’s official: Christmas is coming. Mum’s decorations arrived this morning. We have two new artificial Christmas trees. Mum buys new trees every year. She says she can tell when a tree’s spent eleven months in the loft.
Mum’s down in the dining room, singing ‘Suspicious Minds’. She got the call from the Hamptons yesterday: she and my father are invited to the New Year’s bash. Mum’s been singing Elvis non-stop all morning. Every so often she comes up to show me a new bauble or strip of tinsel or the various twinkle-settings of her White-Gold Icicle fairy lights. My father hasn’t been home since Tuesday.
I feel better today but Mum won’t let me out of bed. She says she wants me strong for work. She doesn’t want to let Ken Hampton down. I doubt Ken Hampton would care if I wasn’t strong for work (I’ve never even seen him set foot in the butcher’s) but it’s not bad spending a few days in bed. I haven’t had to get dressed or eat at the dinner table. I haven’t had to wade out through the snow to school. All I do is lie here, watching film after film from my Retro Hollywood video collection. This morning I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I snuck a box of Waitrose Maple Triple Nut Muesli up to my room and crunched my way through two hours of 1940s-New-York-related bliss. That final scene gets me every time: Holly and Fred and the little wet cat in the rain. Audrey Hepburn clutching the collar of George Peppard’s coat. I think you’re prettier than Audrey Hepburn.
Mum’s spent the last few days looking for my window-key. She wants to air my room before the sick-smell contaminates the rest of the house. She says a house should smell like nothing but fresh air. It was fresh air made me sick in the first place. On Monday, after you spoke to me, I spent hours out in the cold. I was out in the Pitt all alone and I needed some time to think.
I thought about going to Nan’s old house, on Kirk Lane, but sometimes my father goes there with his secretaries and in the end I decided against it. I walked to the church instead. I sat on the wall outside. I wrote in my journal. I watched the snow transform the Pitt around me, cars and walls and bins and cans and bottles becoming shapes, carpeted in white.
At one point a gang of kids emerged from the houses up the road, their upturned faces amber in the street lights. They set about building a snowman – some rolling the snow while others ran home to collect the facial fruits. They constructed it out on the corner, a mountain of a thing with two cooking apples for eyes. It was only when they’d finished that I realised the snow was covering me, gathering in my hair and the fur of my parka. I was becoming a snowman myself. I stood and shook off and one of the kids pointed and screamed and turned and ran and the others followed, disappearing into the everwhitening Pitt.
I waded back to Skipdale. The snow was up to my knees. It twirled around me like leaves in a breeze. The cars on the dual carriageway were rolling along the same speed I was wading. I don’t know what time it was when I arrived home. As I stepped into the hallway I heard mumbling voices, clinking cutlery, slow jazz. I heard the correctly pronounced ‘ha-ha’s in Ursula Hampton’s laughter. I heard the door slip shut behind me. I heard the slow jazz end and the talking cease and then silence, real silence.
I swallowed and stepped into view. There they were: Ursula, Ken, my father, all perched in the candlelight with wide eyes and smiles and plates of blackened salmon. Mum had her back to me. She kept her head down. I was glad in a way because even if she’d turned I don’t think I’d have been able to look her in the eye. The slow jazz started up again – a trumpet wailing.
Ken Hampton said my name. He said it as if it were a question, raising his eyebrows, closing the gap between them and his thick black hair. He was wearing a pink shirt, the three undone buttons causing it to clash with the fuzzy layer of orange on his chest. He said he didn’t know I was joining them this evening and my father immediately said that I wasn’t, that he thought I was at a friend’s, why wasn’t I at a friend’s? My father’s voice was loudening. This was a bad sign. He kept glancing at Mum, chewing the inside of his cheek.
‘Beautiful night,’ Ursula said. I nodded. I was still shivering from the wade back. The bottoms of my trousers were caked in snow. The smell of salmon churned my stomach. It dawned on me that my current symptoms – nausea, shivering, tight-locked jaw – were the same ones I get as a result of seeing one of Them. It further dawned on me that I had in fact seen one of Them, only a few hours earlier, creeping down the back of Goose’s fleece and that I hadn’t yet experienced any of the usual effects. I waited a few seconds, breathing deeply, staring at the floor, unsure whether to continue upstairs to my room.
Somebody spoke. At first the words didn’t register and I glanced from face to face, waiting for whoever it was to repeat what they’d said. We’d entered into a conversation now and I knew I’d have to wait there, under the Hamptons’ gaze. Wait until they deemed it fit to let me go, until they gave me the opportunity to run up to my pretty-much-impenetrable bedroom, to close my door and position my brown and green striped draught-excluder snake and crawl into my bed, safe and warm and alone.
It must have been Ken who’d spoken because he repeated his question. He asked how I was finding things at the butcher’s. In my head I told him I hated it. I told him I didn’t even need his money, that it was just building up in a video-case in my room. I told him, ‘Shove your job up your ass.’ The whole time I was in my head telling him these things there was slow jazz and smiling faces. Ursula sipped her champagne. My legs were trembling. I wasn’t saying anything. I was just standing there not saying anything. Mum raised her hand to her forehead.
Then Ursula asked me how school was. I nodded an ‘OK’ and tried to smile but I couldn’t tell if they even noticed my smile because they were all already smiling, even my father, who never smiles.
‘He’s doing very well at English, aren’t you, Greg?’ my father said.
Ursula Hampton repeated the word ‘English’ and asked if I wanted to be an English teacher when I grew up and I nodded again, like it was appropriate to just stand there and nod at everything they said, which, by the look on Ursula’s face, it wasn’t. Ken also nodded for a few seconds, his brow creasing into three distinct lines like the claw of some wild animal, whilst he thought of something else to say. He asked what I thought of the new couch. Ursula shot him a frown. She turned back to me and smiled.
‘Lovely, isn’t it?’
I wanted to say that I loved the couch. I wanted to say it was the most beautiful piece of furniture I’d ever seen, that it was even more white and pure and beautiful than the snow outside. I wanted to tell them about its Italian origins and how it complements the curtains and prove to Mum that all this time I have been listening, I’ve just never known how to reply. But I didn’t. I just stood there wondering how long it would take them to notice my trembling legs. Wondering how I could leave without making things worse.
That’s when I vomited. It started as a cough – it was only after three or four coughs that I could taste the thin, hot bile, a similar taste to mum’s chipotle squash purée. From then on memories are vague. I remember sinking to the floor but that’s when I must have blacked out because next thing Mum was kneeling over me, her nails scratching my neck in search of a pulse, probing my mouth to scoop out sick, pinching my skin as she struggled to lift me. I heard my father telling the Hamptons to sit, finish their meal. I heard him remark on the blackened salmon.
The voices faded. Mum carried me up to the bathroom. At the time I was certain it was you carrying me. Each time I opened my eyes I saw that image of you, out in the snowy street with Scraps by your side. I don’t remember much of Mum undressing me, just the cold sting of bathroom tiles, the rumble of the bathtub filling with water, my head rocking as she peeled off my sick-covered trousers. I didn’t regain full consciousness till I was in the bath and even then it came more as a slow realisation that I wasn’t dreaming.
Mum was kneeling beside me, holding my head above the surface of the water. Her dress wa
s wet, clinging to her arms and stomach. She wasn’t smiling. I didn’t know what to say so I just lay there, staring back at her. The water felt like a blanket. Sweat or steam gathered into a droplet at the end of my nose. I was very aware of being naked.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
Mum shushed me. She slicked my fringe out of my eyes.
She told me it’d all be OK.
12/12
I didn’t let Ken Hampton down. I got up extra early and waded to work. It was easier wading in the road because the snow wasn’t as deep but every so often a car would approach and I’d have to clamber back up onto the pavement. I don’t think I stepped on any sets of three grids but it was impossible to be sure. I was eighteen minutes late. As I arrived your father cheered and called me a ‘Snow Hero’.
I spent most of the morning making coffee. Phil’s got a night job driving up to the woods in his brother’s van to collect Christmas trees. He said that, what with the new baby, he’s saving for the best Christmas ever. I made fresh coffee every half-hour, using twice the normal amount of granules, like my sister does when she wants to maintain her dancer’s energy. I didn’t want Phil to lose concentration and cut off one of his fingers.
The coffee-drinking played havoc with Phil’s waterworks. He was rushing back every ten minutes to empty his bladder. The pipes had frozen and the toilet wouldn’t flush, so all day the aroma of coffee and urine lingered in the back of the shop. Every time the Vultures came out for a bucket they’d frown their wrinkle-faces and Phil’d just laugh and say, ‘Merry fucking Christmas.’
Eventually home time came. I’m meant to finish at 17:00 but I never get out till at least 17:15 because I have to wait in the safety and solitude of my kitchen until the Vultures (who also finish at 17:00) have vacated the premises. The Vultures take their time vacating the premises. Since Ken Hampton insisted every employee wear a black Hampton’s Butcher’s cap the Vultures have ended their Saturdays gathered in the cloakroom, trying to fix their hat-hair. They do this with a mixture of combing and spraying and applying metal clips. They like to talk about their night ahead: which bars they will go to, which songs they will dance to, which boys they will kiss. I stand in the kitchen and pretend to be mopping the long-since-clean 5ft2 tile floor. Once I tried running the tap to drown out the Vultures’ giggling but one of them appeared at the kitchen doorway and reached in and turned the tap off and said, ‘Do you mind? We’re trying to talk here,’ so now I just stand there and wait for them to leave.
Once they’d gone I stepped out front for my wages. Your father and Phil were sitting on the counter. Your father asked if the cleaning was all done and I nodded. He said he had one more job for me.
He took me out the back to the car park. There was only one car – ploughed bonnet-deep in the snow. Your father said he’d had a little trouble getting into his usual parking space this morning. He grinned and handed me a shovel.
The snow had hardened to ice in the darkness. I hacked away, piling shovelful after shovelful by the bins in the alley. It was getting on for 17:30 and I knew I was no longer being paid but still I shovelled, all around the car and behind the four wheels. I even cleared a path to the street so your father could reverse out easily. My feet numbed and my hands stung and the ice lost all texture. I could hear your father and Phil, laughing inside.
It was just as I was finishing, hacking the snow out from under the exhaust, that I smashed a tail light. I don’t know what happened, my arm just suddenly jerked. The force of it ached my hand (the palm’s still sensitive from that cigarette burn). The bulb was bare and broken and there was red glass scattered over the ice. I considered running home, abandoning the snow and the shovel and the envelope with my wages that lay on the counter inside. I even dropped the shovel. Then I picked it up again. I buried the shards and went back inside.
The lights were off. Phil had gone. Your father was waiting in the darkness.
‘All done?’ he said.
I nodded.
He took the shovel and rested it in the corner with the brushes. He padlocked the back door and led me out into the shop. I stepped into the square and hugged my coat around myself.
He handed me my wages.
‘See you next week.’
14/12
It’s hard returning to school after an absence. It’s only when I reappear that people realise I’ve been gone. People notice me. People talk.
There was more pressing news this morning, though. Cullman was off. According to the whispers of the Vultures in form, he’s been suspended. Ian and Goose were also absent so I wasn’t able to obtain any further details via their note-tennis.
At break I went to the library. As soon as I entered I knew something was different. It was the smell. There’s normally that book smell of ink and dusty paper (which is what Miss Eleanor smells like too, I’ve noticed, when passing her in the corridor) but today the air was sweet and thick, like Mum’s chipotle squash purée. Miss Eleanor was nowhere to be seen.
There was mumbling from the bookshelves at the back. I knew it’d more than likely be other pupils up to no good.
I’d half retreated to the door when I heard your laugh.
You were in the Fiction aisle. When I knelt I could see you, through a gap in the shelves, cross-legged in the corner by Poetry. It’s days since I’ve caught your bus, days without even a sight of you and now this – you – here in my library. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if you saw me. Would you recognise me again? Would you speak to me? Your head was back as if in mid-yawn. Smoke rose from your mouth, a great curling mist of it, growing and gathering at the duct-taped fire alarm. Angela’s head rested on your shoulder, glaring at the cigarette between your fingers.
‘Holy shit,’ she said.
You took another drag. The two of you began to giggle but I couldn’t work out why.
Then came Ian’s voice.
‘My turn, ladies.’
I crawled along the aisle. Ian was over by the audiobooks, leaning back on his elbows, tie round his head, Rambo-style. Goose was beside him, grinning, waiting for his turn with the cigarette.
‘Just a second, babe.’
Angela slid down into your lap for another drag. The tip flared in your sunglasses.
I huddled against the bookcase. I shut my eyes. I pictured Goose as I’d seen him last, laid out on the canal, ducks surrounding him on the ice. I felt the static of his fleece on my fingers. Now here he was, here in my library. Not a scratch on him. Grinning away without even a chipped tooth.
Here you all were, you and Goose and Ian and Angela, here in my library.
This is what happens when I don’t see you. This is what always happens to pure perfect things, given time. Circumstances change. People change. The world moves on and I am left behind. I wanted to rewind to when it was just me and you, standing in the street. Me, you and Scraps, in the snow.
I tuned in and out of the conversation. You remained silent but Angela spoke of several things: the quality of the cigarette you were smoking, an upcoming party at Goose’s, the Christmas Dance Fantastical. Angela ranted about Cullman. Apparently he’s been suspended for having indecent images on his computer. Angela says the images were of Lucy Marlowe. She says Lucy sent pictures of her post-op breasts to Cullman in an effort to secure herself a place in the Fantastical. She said Lucy was a little bitch for trying to muscle in on her dance show. Now there are rumours the Fantastical’s been suspended, that they may be reorganising it after Christmas. Whoever heard of a Christmas Dance Fantastical after Christmas?
Angela snorted. I turned back to the missing-book gap. She was kneeling on all fours in the aisle, her face twisted in a state of extreme silent laughter. She looked like Nan’s cat Mr Saunders used to, coughing up a fur-ball.
Ian said, ‘What?’ He started laughing too. ‘What?’
‘It’s just Cullman,’ she panted between giggles, ‘the old paedo. I can’t believe he finally got caught!’
