The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore

by Paul Burman

  Euston is crowded and I almost walk past her.

  “You’re late,” she says.

  “The train was slow,” I say. Why should I apologise? I’ve travelled seventy miles for this death.

  “You didn’t recognise me.”

  She’s ghost-like; pale, thin, gaunt.

  “Aren’t you well, Kate?”

  “We have to talk,” she says. “Over here.”

  We sit outside the station on a concrete bench spattered with pigeon droppings. A few yards away, a slip road leads to a taxi drop-off point and a constant stream of black London cabs drives past us – cab after cab after cab. Across the road, a building site is partitioned off from traffic and pedestrians with plywood panels, scaffolding, tarpaulins and planking; beyond it the hammer of pneumatic drills and generators all but drowns the noise of cranes and concrete mixers. It’s the dullest of days, as it has to be – a day of concrete, glass and petrol fumes; polystyrene beakers and plastic bottles discarded in dead flowerbeds. Too difficult to distinguish between sagging clouds and rising smog. And Kate tells me how everything between us is finished because she has no choice but to finish it.

  “I can’t live the way we have been, these last few months. It’s tearing me apart, like living two lives: one for you and one for me, neither of them honest. And struggling to remain true to something that doesn’t exist anymore. Not for me, not now. It can’t. I’m different – no longer the person you knew. We have to move on – both of us, on our own – begin to live again.”

  “It does exist,” I tell her. “I am alive. I felt alive. Alright? We…” She’s vanishing in front of my eyes. She’s made herself ill, almost incorporeal, and she’s vanishing. There’s nothing to clutch to. Her eyes are red-rimmed.

  “It has to be this way. There’s no choice.”

  “Why?”

  “You mustn’t make this difficult, Tom. It’s hard enough as it is. I’ll just walk away if you do.”

  “No. Why?”

  “And you must see it the way I see it, for both our sakes, Tom. I can’t live this way anymore. It’s making me ill. It’s self-destructive. Look how sick I’ve been. I’ve lost weight, I keep running temperatures.”

  “But why?”

  “We’ll remain friends if you make this easy on us. We’ll remain friends. We’ll keep in touch. That’s what I’d like. That’s how I hope you’ll want it to be.”

  There’s nothing left. I shake my head.

  “Everything has its time, Tom. I thought we’d last forever, but I was wrong. We were both wrong. We’ve had our time. It’s time to move on.”

  “But –”

  “There’s no going back. We can’t turn this clock back. It’s over.”

  “No.”

  She stands up, looks down at her feet as if they might know where to go next, and then sits down again. “I feel – I realise I’m too young – we’re too young –”

  “Too young? Too young for what?”

  “Too young to decide to only be with one person. We’ve got the rest of our lives in front of us. I want to experience life, not make all my decisions when I’m only eighteen. It’s too soon.”

  “Well, you’re nineteen next week. I’ve got a present for you.”

  “It’s too soon.”

  “We can experience life together. We said we would. We’ll make decisions together – live life together. I love you. You’re the one I want to do all that stuff with. What does age matter?”

  “I can’t explain it any better. It’s the way I feel now. It’s the person I’ve become. I’ve changed. I’m not the person you loved anymore.”

  “Of course you are. That’s for me to know.”

  “We haven’t seen each other in –”

  “I still feel the same way about you.”

  She looks down at the ground. “Well, that’s it, isn’t it? I no longer feel the same about you. I’m sorry.”

  Then she stands and I stand, and she takes a step away from me.

  “Don’t make it difficult, Tom. I haven’t slept all night. I’ll walk away.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say, only half-hearing. How have I made her afraid of me? I’ll do anything for her. Anything. Even this.

  “Let me go, Tom.”

  I’ve no idea what I’ve done. It’ll take an age or two, and experience, which’ll shift me further and further from her, before I’ll begin to understand how I let this happen and what I might’ve done to prevent it.

  “You’ll be okay,” she tells me. “You’ll see.”

  “Yeah.” She has no idea.

  “Do you want to go for a coffee and a bite to eat? You don’t look too good either, you know. We’ve made ourselves sick. I’m going to meet some people I share Halls with. You can join us.”

  “Food? A drink? No, I don’t think so. Not with other people. I think I need to go. I need to go. Be somewhere else.”

  “Yes. Okay. But you won’t do anything silly? I’ll still worry about you, you know.”

  She’s thinking about my father. That I’ll hang myself from the nearest tree, nail myself to the nearest cross.

  I grunt.

  “I mean it,” she says. “Tell me you won’t.”

  “Do me a favour.”

  “Promise me that one thing, Tom. Please.”

  Who does she think I am?

  We share the same compartment back to Northampton, my Angel of Death and I. His stony smile grips and wrenches my guts as he perches on the edge of the seat opposite, round-shouldered, hunched forwards – the habitual posture of every gargoyle. His eyes are fathomless holes that try penetrating my thoughts; his legs are tightly crossed, the bollocks-less bastard, and his hands are clasped across his knees one moment and are then held up to his jutting jaw in a parody of prayer. I don’t need to see him to know he’s there, nor to know how sodding pleased he is with his work. We travel in silence.

  Staring at the handle of the carriage door and the blur of tracks – a moment’s work to exit – I wait for him to say: “Told you so.” But Old Lofty’s smarter than that. What’s death without foreplay?

  He renews our relationship that day and becomes my closest companion for an age or two. Indeed, there’s cold erotic comfort when, in Kate’s absence, he wraps his fingers around my throat and presses gently, and when, his tail around my leg, he lies with me at night.

  Without Kate, I can’t avoid betraying myself.

  It’s the middle of winter – winter solstice, that is – when I next see her; almost three months since Euston Station and a year since that New Year’s Eve party. The bleakest part of the season is yet to inflict itself. I’ve travelled to this party in Abetsby on the flimsiest of invitations and with the notion that someone here might’ve kept in touch with Kate; and they’ll tell me how she talks about me all the time. Can’t stop talking about me.

  Clinging to her promise that we’ll remain friends, I wrote at the beginning of October, the beginning of November, the beginning of December, but Old Lofty, jealous bastard that he is, steals every letter she’s mailed in return. I posted my Christmas cards early in the hope she might choose this occasion to reply and knock on my door again, but nothing’s sacred anymore.

  It’s the shortest day of the year (surrounded by the longest nights) and I’ve been at the party for an hour, pickling my sorrows instead of drowning them. We meet in the hallway and she’s holding the hand of a foreign-looking guy with a short, black beard.

  “Hello, Tom.” Her hair is up – formal – and she’s wearing an evening dress.

  “My God! Kate! Shit. It’s you. Sorry. Hello, Kate. It is you, isn’t it?”

  This is it, the absolute proof. Can’t she see our worlds are destined to overlap against every improbability? One syzygy after another.

  There’s too much I want to say and need to say.

  “You’re smoking again,” she observes.

  “Life’s for living,” I remind her and take a deep drag, then laugh. She’ll appreci
ate the wit.

  When she introduces the Spaniard and gives him the name – “Tom, this is my boyfriend, Jesus. He’s on an exchange programme from Spain. Jesus, this is Thomas, an old friend of mine” – I laugh again and know I’m done for.

  “You here for the millennium?” I ask.

  Kate glares, but Jesus offers his hand.

  “I study the Biochemistry in Kate’s university. London. This is very good place we meet.” His accent is warm, lyrical, enriched by a Mediterranean sun; Moorish delight.

  “How nice,” I say, taking his hand, turning it. “Be careful, Kate, this bloke’s an impostor. No stigmata. Never been nailed to a cross in his life. Not the hands of a carpenter, nor a fisherman. Definitely not the real thing.”

  “Go easy on the booze, Thomas,” she says, directing Jesus into a room swimming with dancers.

  “Can we talk, Kate? Please.”

  “You’re pissed.”

  “He’s not the real thing,” I mutter to her back. “Coke’s the real thing. And it’s Tom, not Thomas!”

  Where’s the Kate I’ve known? Where am I? We’ve both vanished.

  Grabbing a bottle, the first couple of swigs inspire a noble idea: I’ll apologise and tell her I’m leaving the party so as not to embarrass her or spoil her fun. She can dance to her heart’s delight with the Spaniard. She’ll appreciate my generosity and find it impossible not to love me again.

  When I look for her though, someone tells me she and the Spaniard have already left. Didn’t even take their coats off.

  “Should have thrown him to the fucking lions,” I mumble, making my way to the bar in the kitchen. “Crucify the bastard.”

  So it’s me who stays at the party, determined to drink myself stupid – more stupid – until a half-familiar figure sidles up with an alternative proposition. He offers me a magic tab of acid in exchange for the contents of my wallet.

  “Magic?” I say.

  “You bet,” he promises, plucking a white rabbit from a tiny plastic bag. “This is a ticket onto the Magic Bus.”

  “Which is heading the fuck where tonight?”

  “Wherever you want. The land of your dreams.”

  “It’ll have to be a fucking long way from this hole.”

  I open my mouth and drop the ticket in.

  “All aboard the Dream Bus,” he calls, and I sail away.

  Standing by a window, I press my head against the glass, but it doesn’t take long for the bus to be hijacked and, if I care to focus, I know who I’ll find at the wheel.

  His timing stinks.

  “Not tonight, Lofty, you evil fuck,” I say, but it’s probably a drawl or a shout. “I wanna find Kate.”

  “You alright?” someone asks. “I think you’ve had enough. I’d lay off the booze if I were you.”

  “No more,” I say. “Enough.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Rather walk. Don’t wanna be on this bus.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  And they leave me to walk round the house, from room to room to room, hoping she might return and that I might find her.

  In one room, in the centre of a lonely expanse of beige wall, hangs a large Bruegel print of a peasant walking, and it seems we’ve something in common, especially when he starts walking on the spot. “I know you, don’t I?” I say, peering at his sharp, angular features.

  He turns his head to smile and I close my eyes, but when I open them blood starts running down the wall from where the picture hook is nailed, and I escape into the kitchen.

  I duck my head under the tap and drink; pooling water on the floor.

  “Easy,” someone says.

  “Easy,” I agree.

  But from behind every cabinet edge and every socket and every tile, a line of blood begins seeping – weeping from viscera, a viscous crimson swelling to a trickle. If the glass on the bus wasn’t so thick, there’d be screams, and I guess it’s time to leave.

  With enough loose change in my pocket to snatch a bus ride almost to Northampton, I stumble the last few miles home on foot, shouting at the traffic from the middle of the road. The world is shit and life is shit. There’s nothing spectacular about the shooting star dying across the sky, nor the frost patterns spawning across the front of my trench coat; it’s a mistake to acknowledge the poetry in life. Stupid.

  By the time I clamber into bed, I reckon the trip’s over; it’s gotta be. What a waste. But the moment I close my eyes several gargoyle faces move in and start pressing down. Snapping my eyes open, I sit up and rub my face. The sound of Andrew breathing a few feet away is a comfort and I wish he was louder.

  After a couple of minutes, I try again, but the demons return immediately, waiting to collect. But I’m fucked if I’ll deliver.

  “Shit.”

  I’m stuffed, but there’s no way I’m closing my eyes with hell building across the backblocks of my mind.

  I try to make out Andrew’s sleeping figure in the dark room, and refuse to think about blood spilling from walls, and how this must always be happening but can only be seen at moments of heightened awareness. This is when a gargoyle face drifts in from a corner of the darkness, and then another and another and another. I try opening my eyes wider, but it makes no difference.

  “Fuck off,” I say, and Andrew stirs in his sleep. “Shut up and fuck the hell off.”

  I shut my eyes and the faces disappear… for a second or two. Snap them open to an empty room, and it stays that way a few seconds… until darkness takes shape again and again and again: demons laughing in silence, sneaking closer.

  Shut.

  Open.

  Shut.

  Open.

  Shutting and opening for ten blinking minutes, until I’m too beat to care about sleeping with demons or not, and scared senseless about not waking again.

  Old Lofty comes courting that night. He wants to make amends. I half-wake to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, whispering love words, still wearing the bus driver’s cap and the minister’s black vest and white collar, smelling of damp stone and mildew.

  “I’m here,” he says. “Let me in.”

  “Piss off,” I shout, lashing out with a clenched fist. My hand crumples as it connects with the cold stone of his face, but I pummel at his beak of a nose until I’m sure I’ve done damage. When I stop, I cry out, because it’s not Old Lofty at all, but Kate.

  “Kate!”

  “It’s alright,” she says. “It wasn’t me. He stole you from me. I’m back now though.”

  “Forever?”

  “Forever and ever. I’ll never lose you again. We have to be together. You promised you’d never give up on me, no matter what. You promised.”

  “Amen.”

  We tumble into making love, and it doesn’t matter that Andrew’s sleeping a few feet away, nor that Mum and Brian are in the next room. It doesn’t even matter when our lovemaking loses its gentleness and becomes brutal, ferocious, and more to do with martyrdom and possession than love – until I recognise the incongruity of this.

  “Kate?” I say, squinting through the dark at my empty pillow, and discover it hasn’t been her at all. She’s long gone. And the incubus is slinking off too. Bastard!

  In the late morning, when I stir, I’m raw from fucking with granite. There’s blood on the wall and my knuckles are split open; there’s blood on the sheets and my prick stings when I try sitting up. I pull the sheets to my chin, and they smell of damp stone and mildew.

  If I could dig my way out of here I would, and so I shut my eyes to dream of sleep.

  TEN

  I haven’t allowed enough time to get to Abetsby. I know it. Stupid! Drum the steering wheel, ride the clutch. Crappy little hire car – no, the car’s fine. Northampton’s a snarl though; a snarl of Christmas shoppers, delivery lorries and office workers dragging themselves between mid-morning piss-up parties, and the one-way maze is a trap – a fucking labyrinth of traffic lights, designated lanes, roundabouts…

  At t
he roundabout by the hospital, I’m forced to stay in the wrong lane by a taxi and the queue of cars behind. I’ll be late if I miss this turn and have to crawl through the town centre all over again, so I indicate right, but the traffic bunches tighter, bumper-to-bumper, and the drivers stare straight ahead, pretending they can’t see me. All I can do is inch forward into straddling two lanes and hold this position until the driver of a van hits his horn, waves his arms at me as if I’m the lowest form of life and lets me pull over. The car behind flashes its headlights.

  Smiling through gritted teeth, I mouth my gratitude back at him, windscreen-to-windscreen: “Fuck you very much!”

  Passing the hospital entrance, there’s no guilt at not stopping. I’ll call on my way back this afternoon.

  After a twenty-minute journey across a million tons of concrete and bitumen, through a landscape that’s no longer recognisable, I reach Abetsby, but that’s almost the end of my story. Turning from a junction, an oncoming coach almost collects me side-on. Spam jam. The driver swerves, hits the horn and sticks a finger up. He slides open his window and shouts, “Learn to drive, moron!”

  Shit, why am I doing this? Is it only to know that Kate’s alright? Is it really out of concern for her, or is it all for me? Is there any part I can claim I’m doing for Elin? And what if I’m mixing something up that’ll never settle again? Am I dreaming that Kate needs to be saved, simply because I want her to save me yet again? And if so, from what? Mundane middle-age? Ennui? The loss of youth? The absence of something more poetic and lyrical? The acceptance that all love is finite, without even dust and ashes left behind?

  Has love aged gracelessly into obsession? Can we honestly say there’s ever a distinction between the two? Is this what Kate recognised in me and escaped from all those years ago?