by Tobias Hill
Sybil has been here since spring, when a girlfriend married away and left a room to her. Even now, in these September nights, she can feel how cold the place will be when the weather turns, the way the wind comes prying in where the old house has worn away. Come night she’ll curl into her blankets and try not to lose sleep over it. She’s seen worse and shouldn’t count on better.
When Tony is tripping – as he means to tonight – he talks about their generation and the great things they’re doing. The wealth they’ll share and share alike, the end they’ll bring to war, the men they’ll put on the moon. And Sybil says nothing, but she has none of it. What are they doing, except living? What has changed and what is changing? Nothing to do with them. The moon is for dreamers; it lies beyond her reach. Sybil doesn’t aim for it.
She trudges upstairs. By her bedding are the books she owns. Most are tatty paperbacks she’s scrounged; two mean more to her. The first is her Confirmation Bible, the second a Shakespeare. There are two book-plates in the Shakespeare. The first is addressed to Uncle Neville: On His Appointment as Principal of Glasgow Elementary School, with Felicitations from His Affectionate Predecessor, Miss Hilda Shearer, Glasgow, Westmoreland Parish, Jamaica, 3rd February, 1935. The second is a pale imitation of the older, braver blessing. To Sybil, from Dad, Happy Birthday 1962, is all it dares say.
Tony says, ‘This is the Age. This is the Age of the Man in the Moon. We’re going to put him there, just like we said we would. We’re the ones who do as we say, we’re the generation who aim for the moon and reach it. We’re going to change the world and nothing can stop us. Billie, we have to make a flag for ourselves. We make it blue, and the face of the Man in the Moon, silver, placid, smiling down on us . . . won’t that be beautiful? Can we make it, Billie?’
‘I’m here,’ Sybil says, and Tony reaches for her hand.
‘Good,’ he says. ‘You are good, looking after me. Watching your hapless flock by night.’
‘I said I would, didn’t I?’
‘You did, and you always keep your word. You’re a friend to your friends, Sybil, and God help your enemies. You’re the lion who lies down with lambs. I should make more of that, a girl as fierce and true as you. Really I should take advantage. Promise me something.’
‘What?’
‘Let me in your knickers tonight.’
‘In your dreams,’ Sybil says, and beyond her Charles harrumphs and turns a lamplit page, and Trudi ratchets up the television’s brassy theme: no spirit of the age will ever wholly overcome their English priggishness.
‘Oh well. At least let’s do the flag. We can fly it over the railway. We can make the moon from milk tops.’
Sybil squeezes his hand. ‘Hush,’ she says. ‘Tony, you need to chill out now.’
Tony moves in slo-mo, like a frogman or a spaceman. ‘I know, but I choose not to. I choose to boldly go where no man has gone before. I choose to trip and do the other things, not because they are easy, but just because I want to. Many years ago, the great British explorer George Mallory, who got high on Everest, was asked why he wanted to do such a thing. He said, Because it is there. Well, now greater highs are here, and we’re going to do them, and the moon is there, and splendid flag potential. And therefore, as we set sail we ask for God’s blessing on the greatest trip on which man has ever embarked. Who am I?’
‘JFK,’ Charles says, from the depths of the jade armchair. ‘You’re misquoting, and he’s history. You might show him more respect.’
Trudi says, ‘Too right. You shouldn’t take the piss out of the dead.’
‘Piss? Trudi, you do me wrong. Truly, Trudi, you misgrok me. My worship of JFK is unsullied by the taint of urine. The man was wise and beautiful. Also a good Irishman. Don’t you agree, Charlie?’
‘Top drawer,’ Charles says, and Tony beams and rushes on.
‘JFK and Jesus Christ, there’s nothing to choose between them. Both handsome devils with the best lines. Both good with women, both gorgeous pin-up martyrs.’
‘Wash your mouth out,’ Trudi whispers, but Tony doesn’t hear or care.
‘Verily, I believe in the pearly wisdom of Jesus Fucking Kennedy,’ he says, and his eyes drift shut. His free hand fibrillates, as if he is dreaming of pianos.
*
When she wakes the light is grey around the half-loose dustsheet curtain. Tony coughs awake beside her. He is skinny as a boy. His hair sticks up in squaw feathers. He croaks an oath at the day and burrows back into her.
‘Leave off,’ Sybil chides.
‘You’re warm, though. Any chance of tea?’
She doesn’t bother with an answer. She gets up and washes at the handbasin, props her mirror on the chair, takes her work clothes from the hanger. Tony rolls a cigarette and picks through her books as he smokes, pausing only to read the Bible, dour as a prophet.
‘They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword; they went about in the skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated – of whom the world was not worthy – wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.’
‘Don’t mock,’ Sybil says, though God knows she does herself.
‘And all these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised. As if I would. Do you think it’s talking about us, mind? Destitute, stoned and too good for the world? Don’t tell me that’s coincidence.’
But Sybil won’t rise to the bait, and Tony rifles on, muttering at the paperbacks. ‘Incontinent fucks,’ he says. ‘They write such shit, these people, and they just can’t keep it to themselves.’
Tony aspires to be an author, come the day when his saleable looks are gone. You can’t fly the skies forever. You can see too many new horizons; so Tony says, and he’d know.
Trudi’s wireless wah-wahs through the wall. ‘At least they’re doing something. At least they’re writing,’ Sybil says, and Tony lets the book fall.
‘Firm artistic sphincters. The world would be a better place for them. I’m doing something.’
She doesn’t ask. He’ll have a ready answer. She imagines him as a boy, limber with excuses, as she stands to clip her bra. Behind her she can hear him stubbing out his cigarette, and she feels him watching.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he says, and Sybil meets his mirrored eyes. Her own are imperious.
‘You best be saying so, this morning.’
‘Marry me.’
‘In your dreams,’ she says again, like a mantra.
‘I’ll share them with you, my dreams.’
‘You share them with too many girls.’
‘You’re different. Marry me.’
She turns. This is new. Tony lies naked on the mattress, the blankets tangled with his ankles. His body is ludicrous, but his eyes are grave. She says, ‘You don’t know me.’
‘It’s been a summer.’
‘On and off.’
‘I’m on it now. I’m serious. You’re my charm, you don’t take any of my bullshit.’
‘I did last night.’
‘Come on,’ Tony says, ‘that was the real deal.’
‘No,’ Sybil says, ‘I’m saying no. I’m not waiting around for you.’
‘And where would you be off to?’
‘Somewhere,’ she says. ‘Anywhere.’
Tony relaxes. ‘Ah, come on,’ he smiles. ‘Billie, Billie, fly me to the moon, why don’t you? You belong here, love, you’ve nowhere else. Born and bred, you are, not like some. Not like me. You need old smoke in your veins, you’ll never stray far from London. Besides, there’s me to think of. You’d always come back,’ Tony says, ‘for me’. And he opens his arms on the sheets, palms up, like a martyr or a conjurer. Nothing in this hand, nothing in this hand.
The rain has softened overnight. Trudi and Sybil walk, as they do most days. It’s not like they’re made of money, and it’s not like they don’t have umbrellas.
‘Hold this a sec,’ Trudi says, and Sybil takes her brolly, the gaudy hemi
spheres (Toronto Sheraton and Tel Aviv Carlton) bumping bellies overhead as Trudi deploys cigarettes.
‘Give us one then,’ says Sybil, and Trudi lights them both and puts Sybil’s in her mouth, smirking at the filmstar gesture; but when they start again she winces.
‘This effing rain.’
‘What is it now?’
‘My heels. Honest, I think I’m bleeding.’
‘Stop moaning, silly cow. Come on, here, chop chop,’ Sybil says, and Trudi obeys, leaning on her friend and walking like a wounded trooper on towards Mornington Crescent.
‘Tony was a state last night,’ Trudi says. ‘It’s getting on Charlie’s wick, you know. We don’t want the neighbours complaining, that’s what he says.’
‘It isn’t Charlie’s place,’ Sybil says, but Trudi pouts.
‘More his than ours, he was there first. Anyway, Tony does go on. All that rubbish last night.’
‘What rubbish?’
Trudi gropes at her, her voice a mocking Dublin whinge. ‘Billie, get your knickers off, Billie, put the kettle on.’
Sybil roars with laughter. ‘Is that supposed to be Tony? Lord, you better start running, girl, you need to keep your day job.’
Trudi lets her go. Her face has pinched. ‘It’s not right, though, Billie,’ she says. ‘He shouldn’t talk to you like that. Are you and him going steady, then?’
Sybil takes a last breath of fag, crushes it out underfoot. ‘No,’ she says, and then, ‘Tony’s alright.’
Fffft! goes Trudi, as she hobbles. ‘Swanning off round the world or high as a kite. When he’s not flying he’s on something. He’s hopeless and he wasn’t always. I’m not being rude, but you’re not doing him any favours. He needs someone sorting him out, that’s what Tony needs.’
Sybil’s smile has faded, too. Her face – so lovely when she laughs (she has her mother’s face, high-brown, queenly, darker and finer than her father’s) – those features have composed themselves into a sculpted mask, the muscles setting hard; and Trudi sees the change and quails.
‘I’m not having a go, Billie, really I’m not. I’m just saying.’
‘Yeah? Well now you’ve said it,’ Sybil says, and that shuts Trudi up good and proper. Being friends with Sybil means knowing when you’re beaten. Besides, Trudi’s feet are killing her, and who else is she going to lean on?
They limp on, conversationless. The crowd is hard going, a bog of damp backsides and brollies, and it’s only as they near the shop that Sybil sees someone waiting. Now and then he glances in, as if Don hasn’t opened up: but Don is never late, Donald Fisher loves the early bird, he marks its footsteps well and forever sings its praises.
‘Him again,’ Trudi mutters, and the loiterer turns. His face clears as he sees them. He says nothing, but takes off his cap and steps back for them to enter. It’s only then, as he follows, that Sybil remembers him as the man who sheltered from the rain.
‘Late!’ Don barks, tapping his wrist. ‘Punctuality!’
‘Sorry, Mr Fisher,’ ?Trudi says, and with game girlishness, ‘Patience is a virtue, sir.’
‘I don’t want your bleeding virtue. You look a shambles,’ Don rumbles, and then, noticing the early-doors customer, lowers his voice and nods sidelong. ‘Go on. Work your women’s magic.’
In the drab back room they share a lipstick by the mirror.
‘Who is he, then?’ Sybil asks, and Trudi makes a face.
‘Some dirty old man. He was in and out last week.’
‘He was here yesterday, too.’
‘He never buys nothing,’ Trudi says. ‘Never even asks, just looks. I know that’s what Don wants Dollies for, but still. They give me the creeps, voyeurs.’
Sybil regards herself. ‘He’s not that old,’ she says, ‘I don’t know about the dirty.’
Trudi is easing off her shoes, wedging in cotton wool. She looks up wickedly.
‘Marry or shag or throw off a cliff???’ she asks, but Sybil shrugs. There’s nothing about the man that makes the game worth playing. Already she finds it hard to picture him. He’s nothing, no trouble, not flash. Dressed for some discreet business, though Sybil can’t place what that business might be.
‘Maybe he’s an undertaker,’ she murmurs, but Trudi is packing away, smacking her lips, all done.
‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a shit. He’s all yours if you want him,’ she says, and blows a farewell kiss.
Sybil trails after her. The man is where they left him. Phyllis and Tess are at their desks, Trudi is settling, and they’re all doing their best to look right through him. Nor does the man look at them, though he meets Sybil’s eye. She smiles, meaning little by it – it’s what she always does – but the man smiles back, and then he ducks his head and comes and sits.
He clears his throat. The girls are listening. Sybil sees that he knows it. ‘I’d like to book a holiday,’ he says, eventually.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘you’re in the right place.’ She leans forward and adds, ‘It’s alright, it’s not like the dentist,’ but the man just blinks, as if he doesn’t get it or thinks the joke’s on him.
She tries again. ‘Did you have somewhere in mind, sir?’
The man nods. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I hoped you might advise me. I’m Sydney.’
‘There you are, then. Go there,’ Sybil says brightly, and regrets it as she does. Trudi chortles at her post and the man’s head drops. He fiddles with his cap. You can’t but feel sorry for him.
‘I don’t know about that.’
‘Forget it. I’m Sybil,’ Sybil says, and is relieved when he stops with his fiddling. She gets out some papers. ‘How about I give you some choices, you tell me what you like. Alright, ready? Mountains or sea? City or surf? Beach or Botticelli?’
The questions are Don’s and loathsome, but on she goes with them. The man answers a couple but he’s hardly listening. He’s staring at her, as if searching her for something. He looks like he might be hard of hearing, or as if the words she reads don’t matter to him at all, because what he hears her say is something else entirely.
‘I’ve always wanted to fly,’ he puts in, and she has to laugh, but it’s alright, he smiles. ‘That must sound strange to you.’
‘No,’ she lies, but of course it does. He is strange, the way some people are. He’s one of those who aren’t quite at home in the world.
‘I know,’ he says, ‘I’ve got it. The trip of a lifetime.’
‘That’s what you’d like?’
‘That’s it. What would you recommend?’
She recommends the cruises. She lays out the bumph for the five-star liners, the garish floating palaces of the Atlantic and Pacific, the excursions by seaplane. She tries the deluxe packages, the gaudy extravagances, the grand hotels of the New World and the Old. She lays them all out on the desk and talks them up, while he sits in silence.
‘If you were me,’ he says, ‘if you were in my shoes, what would you choose?’
She smiles properly. ‘But I’m not, am I?’
‘But if you were.’
‘Well, if you’re really asking me, Jamaica.’
He asks her why, and so she tells him. As best she can she describes the blue mountains and green hills which she has never seen. The congregated peoples, the hay-warm smell of cane and the trees where you can help yourself. The towns with names like sweets or cocktails or happy-ever-afters. The fresh warmth of the mornings and the name of the town where her mother was born. She tells him too much, but there is a freedom even in the telling: once she’s started she can’t find it in herself to stop. She smiles again when she does.
‘I don’t know what’s up with me. Talking your ear off!’ she says. ‘Anyway, that’s just me. That’s my dream trip, not yours. You need to think about yourself.’
He stands and puts on his coat. ‘I will,’ he says.
‘Are you leaving, then?’
‘I’ll come back. Thank you. Goodbye,’ he says, and just like that he’s gone.
You don’t know Sybil. Don’t think you know the daughter just because you met the mother. There are likenesses of look and gesture, but those things are innocent. An infant might have those things without knowing what it has or does. Sybil never learned how to be her mother’s daughter.
Bernadette aspired to dignity. At best Sybil musters pride. She takes pride in knowing how to fight. She fights for herself, most of the time, and if there’s time to spare, then fuck it, she’ll fight for anyone who can’t stand up for themselves. Even Sydney: Sybil would rather fight for him than pity him.
If she had known her mother then she would grieve for her, but she didn’t and cannot. She can only imagine grief. What she feels is less realised. It is loss that drives her, and – on the many mornings when loss is insufficient – anger.
On better days, as today, she doesn’t go straight home. She buys groceries and walks up through Camden Town, through the no-ballgames courts and the wealth-of-Empire terraces, to the flat on St Mark’s Square, where her uncle used to tell her stories of swift-catchers and safe harbours, and where her father now lives on, alone in his brother’s place.
Someone needs to clean for Clarence. Someone needs to see he eats, someone needs to talk to him and let air into those hollow rooms, and if Jem does more than most men, still, it does Sybil good.
She presses the bell and waits. The rain has run itself out. The sun is on St Mark’s ragstone, though shadow quarters the churchyard. The door opens behind her.
‘You’re late,’ Dad says. ‘It been raining?’
