by Paul Burman
“And when you go to London, what then? I’ll have ‘A’ levels to study for and you’ll be wrapped up with university.” Across the road, the ground-floor windows of a sandstone Georgian house reveal an illuminated room in warm colours and suggest the cosy life we could enjoy if only… if only she’d see things the way I see them. “I could leave school, get a part-time job and finish my ‘A’ levels in London, you know. At night school. I’d argue it out with Brian and Mum. We could share a flat. It’d be easier on a wage. We’re ready for that, Kate. Surely if I got a job…”
She puts a finger to my lips, holds my head and kisses me with an olive. The headlights of the passing traffic throw shadows of the bus shelter along the pavement in front of us, to and fro, to and fro.
“What we have is bigger than that, Tom. Much bigger. Trust it. I love you. Trust that. I’ll always love you. I’m gonna go through life loving you, you bastard.”
Like all lovers we resort to clichés because these worn-in phrases bind the edges of our over-lapped worlds together, prevent fraying, clamp the whole caboodle together.
“You mean that?” I say. “Really?”
“I do.”
“Till death us do part, eh?”
“Forever and ever,” she says.
“Amen,” I laugh.
“So be it.”
“I can’t imagine life without you anymore, Kate. It’d be too empty – too dark. Like dying.”
“Don’t,” she says. “Please don’t. There’s no need.”
We wait in silence until the bus pulls in.
“Well, if it ain’t love’s young dream,” the bus conductor calls to us. “Come on you two, all aboard the Dream Bus.” He’s wearing his cap at an absurd angle, and when I step onto the platform he grins wolfishly at Kate. “Aren’t you joining us tonight then, darling?”
She smiles and shakes her head, he pings the button three times, and the bus lurches forward.
“Phone me tomorrow,” she calls. “Promise you will. Please.”
“Give me your number then, darling,” he shouts back. Then he nudges me in the arm with his elbow, and the bastard’s still grinning. He’s got BO and his breath reeks of sulphur or something. “So where’d you think you’re going, sunshine?”
*
Two pings and a ribbon of clicks.
Elspeth is dying. But it can’t be. It must be someone else, like Dad or Brian or Mum or… someone else.
Two pings and a ribbon of clicks.
FIVE
The front windows of a bluestone Georgian cottage reveal a room in warm colours with Elin reaching up to return a book to its shelf. I’m looking in. She turns and waves and moves to open the front door for me.
Several months after landing in Australia, we find ourselves in Dungarvan, a small fishing town thirty kilometres from Beach Haven, where I’m the new Education and Projects Manager at the city’s Shipwreck and Whaling Museum. It’s a town with Norfolk pines lining wide, grass-verged streets, and there’s a yellow hazard sign, depicting a glorious whale, sticking out of the water as the river enters the bay. There’s usually several squid, crayfish and abalone boats moored alongside the wharf and, further down, a clique of sleek yachts. To one side of the river mouth is Rabbit Island and on Rabbit Island the lighthouse: two white flashes every ten seconds – off and on, on and off. But beyond this there’s no limit to the sea, the Southern Ocean, all the way to the Antarctic. And the world feels bigger than it has in years.
It’s all still new to us when Annette phones. I’ve just got in from work and the phone rings as I’m walking past.
“Hello, Thomas. Thomas? Dad’s had a heart attack,” she says.
“What?” I say. “Brian? When?”
“Last night. About ten o’clock. Mum called from the hospital. I’ve just brought her home. We’re both beat, but I thought I should phone.”
“Hold on. Slow down, Annette.” I take a breath. “A heart attack? Brian?”
“Yes. Dad.”
“He’s gonna be okay though?”
“It was a close call. The doctors are running tests.” She pauses. “I phoned Andrew. He’s coming down from Scotland.”
“That’s good of him.”
Another pause. “It’d be nice if you came too. I think you should come.”
Switching the phone to the other ear, I stretch its cord until I’m looking out of the window into the back garden, where Elspeth and a new friend are playing. Though our cottage sits on a large block, there’s not a single tree or shrub on it – not yet – just fence-to-fence couch grass. We’d hoped to give the kids trees to climb, fruit to pick, jungles to roam, but there’s bugger-all in the way of dark corners here, no untamed shadows. The previous owners must’ve hated the untidiness of plants, but even this gives us the chance to start over and create a wilderness of our own. And before long, we’ll plant, plant, plant: coastal wattle, tea tree, grevillea, banksia, a lemon tree and even a couple of almonds; hollyhocks, honeysuckle, nasturtiums and clusters of pæonies. With a pond and a sandpit too, the kids’ll always remember their childhood as paradise, and their dad will always be there for them.
“Sorry, Annette; what did you say?”
“I said it’d be nice if you could get here too. Thomas? Can you hear me? It’s a bad line.”
“I can’t just fly from Australia, Annette. You know that. We haven’t got that sort of money. I’ve not been in this job long enough to ask for a holiday. And we’re up to our necks in loans.”
There’s a delay at the other end. “He was in a bad way, Thomas. Mum thought she’d lost him at one point. She’s pretty shaken up.”
Daniel’s watching a programme about earthquakes and volcanoes, Elin’s now in the kitchen, but I don’t know where Tamsin is.
“I’ll phone her. Tell her I’ll phone at ten tonight, your time.”
“That’s hardly the same.”
“And I hardly live round the corner.”
“That’s your choice.”
I take a deep breath. “Yes. It is.”
“Sometimes I wonder…’ she begins, but lets the sentence trail into silence.
“We don’t have a couple of thousand dollars spare, Annette, and I’m not gonna make the kids do without necessities so I can hand-deliver a few grapes to Brian.”
Annette’s voice adopts the exaggerated pronunciation of someone trying to shout and whisper at the same time, and I guess Mum knows nothing about this call.
“You’re a heartless bastard at times.”
“And you need to know the world’s a bit bigger than your fifteen minute car trip from Northampton to Nenford.”
“I’m sorry I phoned,” she spits.
“I’m not, Annette. I appreciate you letting me know, but it doesn’t alter anything. I’ll phone Mum at ten your time.”
“Sorry to bother you,” she says, and hangs up before I can say goodbye.
Still holding the phone, I follow Elspeth and her friend’s motions as they squat in the shade of the fence and tear a sheet of paper into narrow strips.
Later that evening, I’m standing on the beach as the high tide turns. There’s a piece of driftwood – a forked branch, one arm broken off – which I pick up to toss into the water, wondering where it might wash up next, and a few minutes later four pelicans fly along the shoreline. Lumbering and graceful at the same time, they fly in a line, one behind the other behind the other behind the other. “Look,” I want to say, but Elin’s at home putting Elspeth to bed.
*
Two pings and a ribbon of clicks. An ECG and pulse oximeter and an IV drip pump and an oxygen mask, and she has more leads and tubes plugged into her than any parent could cope with.
I’m in my office, costing a new display, when Elin phones.
“Elspeth’s ill,” she says. “I’m at Beach Haven hospital. You’d best come. Can you come straightaway?”
“What’s happened? Course I’ll come. What’s the matter?”
“They’re not s
ure. I think she may have been bitten by something – a spider or a snake or something. But I didn’t see anything. We were in the garden – I was hanging out washing and she was playing – and then she started screaming. Her breathing went funny. I thought she’d just got herself into a paddy, at first. The way she does. You know.”
“Yes.”
“Can you come straightaway?”
Running from the car to Casualty, the automatic doors limp open to reveal the hustle-bustle I’ve dreaded finding: Elin’s jacket and handbag bundled on a chair, Elin leaning over a trolley, a posse of doctors and nurses consulting over monitors, passing clipboards, surrounding my daughter, who’s more unconscious than anything else. And I walk out again.
“You alright? Don’t let her see you like this,” Elin says. “You’ll panic her.”
“That’s why I came out. What’s the drip for?”
“Adrenaline, I think; I’m not sure. They’re very good. They keep telling me what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, but I can’t take it in. They’re talking about flying her to the Royal Children’s in Melbourne if she doesn’t improve soon.”
She fights tears off with a gulp, leaving only a glaze to her eyes.
“There’s a plane on standby. One of us will have to go with her; one of us will have to stay with Daniel and Tamsin.”
“Of course,” I say. “Yes.”
“They’re giving her half-an-hour on the drip, to see how she responds. They injected her with something.”
And it becomes a day of waiting and watching.
When they wheel her into Intensive Care and the prospect of Melbourne recedes, Elin and I both close our eyes and sigh. We stand every time she’s restless, comment on every flicker of her darkened eyelids, and are too exhausted to be anything but tearful when her breathing comes easier and unconsciousness melts back into sleep. With every half-hour she doesn’t deteriorate, we sit further back from the edge of our chairs, and every time the equipment that’s plugged into her pings or clicks, we look from her to the monitor to the nurse’s station, before relaxing and gazing out the window for a moment.
Clouds move in and it rains, and Elin comments on the washing left in the basket by the washing line. The rain abates and the clouds give way to blue sky and sunshine, but it leaves me with a sourness that makes me want sweet coffee. Only hurricanes will do on such a day.
When Elin returns from making a phone call, I take fifteen minutes to grab a hot drink and some fresh air, but make the coffee sickly sweet and nag myself that the windowless cafeteria is too far away. Anything can happen. Too much can happen. It’s too easy to lose the people that matter. In the space of these few hours, I’ve made all manner of promises to myself and the universe about what I’ll do if only Elspeth can remain safe and healthy. Healthy and happy. Elspeth, Tamsin and Dan. I’d sacrifice anything rather than have to cope with losing one of them; which, by some peculiar obversion, gives me a new understanding of my dad.
And why he hanged himself.
She comes round in the middle of the afternoon, puzzled by the leads that tangle her movements and the bandage that holds her drip in place. She opens her eyes, then licks her lips and smiles.
“I’m thirsty,” she croaks, “can I have a drink please?” and begins lifting herself in the cot.
“Sip this, lovely,” says Elin, holding a glass with a straw for her. “Take it slowly.”
“Hello, beautiful,” I say. “What have you been doing to yourself?”
She pauses in her drinking and blinks her big, moon eyes at me; she manages a half-smile above the straw.
“You know, you’ve got so many leads and tubes plugged into you that when I first saw you I thought you were a bowl of spaghetti. I nearly gobbled you up!”
“Hello, Daddy,” she rasps and takes another sip. Her eyes try to giggle, but the voice and the breathing don’t carry it over. Part of her is still lost.
By evening, when I bring Daniel and Tamsin to see their sister, and a nightdress and toothbrush for Elin, Elspeth’s gone. In her bed is an old man.
“Where’s Elspeth?” I snap at a nurse. “Where’s my daughter?”
“You’re hurting my hand,” Tamsin tells me.
“She’s fine,” the nurse says. “She’s been taken up to Children’s. It’s on the fifth floor.”
And that’s where we find her. She’s almost whole again. The voice is still a whisper, but her movements have their sparkle back. The hollowness is mainly memory, receding into a darkness of its own.
Later, we’re sitting in front of a silent television – Daniel, Tamsin and I – a muddle of toys and dirty breakfast dishes littered about the family room, still hungry after our drive-through dinner, and wondering whether Elin and Elspeth will be home tomorrow.
“As long as she doesn’t get ill overnight,” I say. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. We’ll look on the bright side, eh?”
“Could I catch it?” asks Tamsin.
“Course you couldn’t,” Daniel says, almost causing the last quarrel for the day, except the phone rings.
“Bet that’s Mum,” Tamsin squeals and runs to answer it. There’s a pause and then she says: “He’s here. I’ll get him.” Then to me: “It’s Uncle Andrew.”
“I’m phoning from Nenford,” he says. “It’s Dad.”
“Another heart attack?”
“Yes. A big one. He died an hour ago.”
There should be something less predictable to say. “I’m sorry, Andrew. I really am. Are you okay?”
“We’d been expecting it, not that it makes it any easier. Will you come for the funeral?”
“Elspeth’s in hospital. She was rushed in this morning. The doctors thought they’d have to fly her to Melbourne. I can’t, Andrew. I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” he says, but he doesn’t ask about her.
The following day it’s raining again, but that no longer matters. What matters is that we’re a family once more. I want to carry Elspeth from the car to the house, but she thinks that’s soft. Once inside, she’s quick to tease her brother and to exert the rights of a convalescent over her sister, demanding all the space on the couch and every last grape in the bowl.
Standing in the kitchen, with an ear to all this, Elin shrugs and smiles.
“Back to normal, thank goodness,” she says.
“I’ve got bad news about Brian, my love,” I begin.
Two weeks later, I walk to the river, then along to the beach. The sky’s grey, but it’ll be summer before long. Elin stays home because Daniel’s got gastro, but I need to taste the sea in the November air, and to find my bearings again after the spring gales and the king tides.
From the car park above the dunes, the beach looks different and I can’t fathom it at first; not until I follow the path down and find that a metre of sand’s been washed away. Rocks appear to have grown where none stood before, and the angle of the beach is different. Turning and looking back, the dunes have been scooped into, eaten out to a point higher than I am tall. The timber posts and handrail to a disused pathway have been revealed, along with old bottles and long-buried driftwood.
Yet even as I watch the sea ebb and am then drawn by the crumbling and collapsing of a dune’s overhang, the wind dries the sand and lifts it and carries it back to the base of the dunes. When the tide turns the sea will deposit even more sand, and the beach will rise again, the dunes will grow back, burying whatever’s in their way.
The elements play in curious harmony. Always. Moon after moon after moon. There’ll always be a balance in the whole.
*
Despite the turning of seasons, the passing of years, there are times when I drift awake in the depths of a night and can’t remember where or when I am. What I’ll hear is the drone of motorway traffic – of tyres on a wet road – and then I’ll picture the endless rush of cars and trucks cutting through the night, carving up the orange-tinted darkness, hurtling from one exit point to another, and I’ll be back in Britain, in
the house where Daniel, Tamsin and Elspeth began their lives, with the motorway only four-hundred stinking yards from the back fence. And I’ll sit up in a cold sweat.
The first time this happens, Elin, woken by my panic, lays a hand on my leg and murmurs: “Not traffic. It’s the sea.”
There’s no night traffic in Dungarvan, she reminds me, no continuous rush. The rolling and crashing of waves kneading the beach just a few hundred metres away creates this bizarre imitation, and the front verandah of our house is like a giant shell – an ear – pulsing with the life of the sea during the cloudlessness of night; swallowing it, reverberating with it.
“Hush,” she says. “Cuddle up,” she says.
And she’s right about the surf, although it’s hard to tell the difference even when I listen for it across the years. And I’ll learn to listen for it. Whenever I wake in the middle of the night after a bad dream, I’ll tune in to the sound of the waves – the rhythms of low tides, high tides, king tides – and drift towards sleep again in the cave of a giant shell.
Comforted like a baby at a nipple, I’ll match my breathing to the rhythm of the surf and sleep.
And dream.
And sometimes I dream of Kate.
I’m one of a dozen mourners shuffling through a churchyard in England. Though the place is familiar, I can’t recall where it’s supposed to be. Maybe it’s based on several memories – places I’ve visited in the past or seen on TV – or maybe it’s the generic churchyard of my dreams, where I attempt to bury all my ghosts.
The sun is bright, but low and muted, like the filtered brilliance that occurs sometimes in the eye of a fierce storm, and the churchyard is surrounded by a wall of tall, dense yew trees. The church is a sandstone building, with long, narrow, stained-glass windows, a square belfry and a slate roof; twelfth or thirteenth-century. That the sandstone is the warm, dark orange found in the thatched-cottage villages of my childhood tells me I mightn’t be too far from Nenford; in another county perhaps, but bordering Northamptonshire at least.
