The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore

by Paul Burman

  Life’s for living, I remind myself, but what does that justify?

  Anything and everything? Perhaps there’s no one answer.

  After starting off late, I arrive early. Too early to knock on the door, too awkward to park outside and wait, I drive down the street and leave the car close to the main road, then dawdle towards the house. My feet are silent on the pavement, and I miss the happy clatter they once kicked up along this very street.

  The first thing I notice is that the old factory has a vinyl banner hanging along the wall, over where the KETCHELL SHOES sign once was. The banner reads: DISCOUNT FURNITURE WAREHOUSE SALE NOW ON. The second thing I notice is that the trees, which are leafless, haven’t been pollarded in several years; they’re full-crowned, which would be sure to make Kate happy. The third thing I notice are the corbel stones above each porch: a sheaf of corn, a fish swimming, a bird flying, a torch…

  “She’s made a cake for you,” Kate said. “It’ll be alright.”

  Relax, relax, relax. But I’m still not sure what I’m going to say.

  Their front door has an elaborate holly wreath mounted above the letterbox. I haven’t seen real holly like this in years. I knock at the door and wait.

  And wait.

  There’s no answer, no sound within.

  I knock again and the knock echoes back at me from an empty and hollow house. It’s a minute to eleven. Perhaps they’ve decided not to see me. Perhaps they moved years ago and I’ve got something wrong in all of this. Then I hear footsteps on the stairs and a shadow approaches the glass of the front door.

  “Tom Passmore,” I say to her dad, holding my hand out. “Thanks for letting me call.”

  “Come in,” he says, and directs me down the hall.

  “Thanks. Thank you.”

  I recognise the smell of the house after all these years, and there’s something hopeful in this: the yeasty smell of home brew, the gas fire, a scented laundry powder or fabric conditioner. But how is it these things can still be the same?

  “You best give me your coat and sit yourself down,” her dad says. He points to a chair close to the heater.

  I give him my coat, but remain standing.

  Like the hallway, the living room is festooned with Christmas decorations: ribbons of red and yellow crêpe paper plaited together, twists of tinsel, paper bells and coloured lights. There’ll be a Christmas tree in the front room.

  Her mum comes through from the kitchen and says: “Hello, Tom.”

  “Hello, Mrs Hainley. It’s good to see you again.”

  “So you live in Australia now?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you have a family?”

  “That’s right. Elin, my wife, teaches at the local primary school. We have a son, Daniel, and two girls, Tamsin and Elspeth.”

  “Ah,” she says and smiles. “And they came with you, did they?”

  “No, it was a last minute thing. Everything happened in a rush.”

  “I see.”

  “You’re looking well. You’re both looking well.”

  “You’d probably like a hot drink. It’s bitter outside. I’ll put the kettle on. Will you have tea or coffee, Tom?” She places a hand on my arm as she says this, and I remember how she made me realise years ago that not all mothers are the same.

  “Whatever you’re having,” I say. “Don’t make anything on my account.”

  “It’s time for our elevenses.”

  Mr Hainley returns from hanging my coat somewhere and I wait until he’s seated.

  “How are you both?”

  “We can’t complain,” he says.

  “Wouldn’t be much point,” she adds, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “Good health’s a blessing, don’t you think? To be healthy and happy. We’re very lucky. And you, Tom? How are you? Apart from being worried about your mother, of course.”

  “Good, but jetlagged. My body clock’s all over the place. I keep expecting to look out the window and see a bright summer’s day. But apart from that, I’m good.”

  “And the flight? How was your flight? It must take a few hours to fly from one side of the world to the other.”

  “Twenty-three. But it wasn’t too bad. I slept a lot – I think.”

  The kettle whistle blows and Kate’s dad says, “That was quick.”

  “I boiled it earlier,” she tells him. “How do you like your coffee, dear?”

  “White; one sugar please.”

  Mr Hainley leans forward. “It’s been a long while. A very long while.”

  The past has been my shadow all my life. I’ve sought my connection to it without fully realising that it’s always been attached and trailing along wherever I’ve gone. It shapes the way we walk through life.

  Why do I realise that now?

  Before I can stop myself, I say: “Twenty years or so since I was here last.”

  He nods and sits back.

  “Seems like yesterday though,” I add. “Of course, I met Kate a few times in London, when she was at university.”

  “Ah.”

  There’s the clink of a spoon against a porcelain cup, the rattle of a tin. Close to, the gas fire hisses, and I avoid fully remembering lying in front of it with Kate by counting the Christmas cards on the string above their mantelpiece. Eighteen. Surely one’s from her?

  “Here you go, Tom,” her mum says. “Help yourself to a biscuit.”

  “Be a devil and take two,” her dad says.

  There’s a silence that beats two moments too long and sucks me unaccountably forward until I’m spilling all my questions at once: “How is Kate? Is she okay? I thought I might drop her a line for old times’ sake. Where does she live these days? What does she do? Perhaps you could give me her address?” And I’m probably the most surprised of the three of us.

  Her dad sighs and her mum puts her cup down.

  “Why?” he says.

  “Is she well? How’s she doing?”

  They pause and look at one another and I fear the worst: she died shortly after I last saw her and I’ve spent years mourning the wrong kind of loss; or she misinterpreted my reason for abandoning her when we’d begun getting close to one another again and has spent her life despising me.

  The gas fire hisses. The clock ticks.

  “She’s fine,” her mum says. “She’d want us to give you her regards if she knew you were here.”

  “Really?” I say. “Thanks. That’s nice.” But it’s not enough. Not now I’ve come this far. Regards aren’t big enough to span twenty years and link two people who once touched one another and danced to the same song. The last few days have left me needing more. If I create a silence vacuous enough then maybe they’ll fill it.

  The clock on the sideboard ticks, the gas fire hisses.

  Mr Hainley leans forward in his chair. “What were you hoping for, Tom?”

  “How is she? Is she well? Is she happy? Does she ever…” I look at the clock, I look at the gas fire. “I mean, does she have a family of her own and what does she do and where does she live? I always imagined she’d end up living abroad somewhere – on the continent.”

  Her mum turns her mug. “No, she doesn’t live abroad.”

  “Not London? She didn’t stay in London? I’d have thought she’d have had enough of London?”

  “No, not London. She could never stomach the pace. And so expensive.”

  “So, what’s she doing with herself these days?”

  The coffee cup goes down again and it’s her mum’s turn to lean forward. “Don’t you think the past is sometimes best left alone, love? Let sleeping dogs lie, eh, for both your sakes.”

  “I just want to know she’s okay.”

  “She is.”

  “Will you be speaking with her anytime soon? On the phone perhaps?”

  “Why?”

  “Will you let her know I was here? Please.” I take a breath. Among the crêpe paper decorations and the balloons, there are garlands of red-berried holly above the door
s and a sprig of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling. “And tell her I asked to see her, if she wants to, just to catch up for old time’s sake. I’m not in Britain for long.”

  For auld lang syne.

  Her father opens his mouth, but then shuts it again. Her mother says: “How old are your children, Tom? Did you say it’s three children you’ve got? And your wife, is she Australian?”

  I lift my cup to drain my coffee, but it’s all gone. And I want to see what time my watch says, but I resist.

  The moment the doors to the ward close behind me, the heat stifles my breath. It’s an airless place this hospital, and I’m annoyed no one’s considered it might actually be killing its patients.

  “You don’t look well,” my mother says.

  “Thanks,” I say. “You’re looking fine.”

  “You can’t bury me yet,” she replies, a tad too loud.

  The woman in the next bed glares from her one unbandaged eye, as if I’d wished my mother dead… which I might have done at times, but not today.

  “I can see that.” And I raise my voice too. “As I said, you’re looking a lot better. It’s good to see.”

  She’s got more colour to her face, her hair isn’t as limp; there’s an edge of mischief to her voice. She’s better and I’m worse. The jetlag is dragging me down. And the sense too that I’m trailing something alongside me; something I can’t identify and something I can’t shake. I’m tired, but far beyond sleep.

  “I feel better,” she says.

  “Good.”

  “Heaven knows why. The way they’re treating me, you’d think they’re trying to finish me off so they can give the bed to another customer.”

  I imagine a nurse being rough with a needle or an auxiliary dropping her into a wheelchair. “What happened?”

  “Today’s lunch. I wouldn’t feed it to a dog. In fact it probably was dog. Maybe they’ve got one of those foreign cooks.

  I wince. “So, you didn’t eat lunch?”

  “I had lunch. I sent the first tray back though. Disgusting. Even during the war we did better than that. Why they give these people jobs in the first place, I’ll never understand. It might be okay in their country, but…”

  There are ways of not listening to this. I try closing my eyes. The world tilts a little.

  “You tired?”

  “A little.”

  “You don’t have to come and sit here, you know.”

  “I know.”

  She motions for me to close the curtain that separates her from her one-eyed neighbour. “Makes me feel like I’m on public display,” she pretends to whisper. And then, when I’m seated again, she says: “I appreciate you coming, Thomas. Really. It must have taken some organising. And so close to Christmas too.”

  “That’s alright.”

  A woman coughs. A telephone rings.

  “Things haven’t always been easy between us, have they?”

  The question stops me. For a moment I hold my breath, then shrug and try smiling, but end up looking at the bump in her bedding where her feet are. It’s one thing wanting all your life to have your mother be honest and to clear the air, yet quite another to face it.

  “But we were very close once, you and I, Thomas, when you were little,” she adds. “We used to have a great time together. You were such a funny little boy.”

  I nod.

  “Do you remember?”

  I shake my head. “No, I don’t think I do.”

  “I didn’t think you did. That’s a pity. Sometimes we forget the wrong things.” She closes her eyes, then opens them a few seconds later. “It’s a pity we want to remember the bad things in life rather than the good. That’s human nature, I suppose. We all do it, even when we try not to.” She pauses, as if expecting me to agree or disagree, but I say nothing. “Parents sometimes make their biggest mistakes trying to do what’s right for their children.”

  “Perhaps. I’ve always found it’s important to listen and be open. Listening and wanting to understand – nothing’s worth a damn without that.”

  “But we did have good times together, Thomas. You mustn’t forget that.”

  I want to be generous here. “I remember when you baked cakes; you’d sometimes get me to help. It was always a treat to lick the bowl.”

  “Did I? I thought that was Andrew.”

  “It was probably all three of us.”

  “Probably. Do you remember the picnics we used to go on, down by the river? Or how you always wanted me to play with those toy animals and soldiers you collected? We built a big farm once under the dining table. You insisted on having dinosaurs among the cows and sheep. It made me laugh. Do you remember?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Like I said, you only remember –”

  “That was stuff before Dad died. What about after?”

  For once she doesn’t purse her lips, but she stares at me and through me. Even though tiredness is weighing me down, I hold her gaze in a way I wouldn’t have been able to once. The heaviness in my head makes it easier.

  “I was sorry you emigrated to Australia,” she eventually says. “It would’ve been nice to see my grandchildren grow up.”

  “We never saw one another much when we lived only a hundred miles away.”

  “It was always possible though. We could have done. Being on the other side of the world though –”

  “We could’ve done,” I point out, “but we never did.”

  She leans awkwardly to one side and tugs at her pillow, and I move to help her but she waves me off. “I can manage,” she says. Then, once she’s settled again: “I felt like I lost you when you emigrated.”

  I want to say: you already had, years before. Instead I say: “You could always fly out and visit us. It’s not that far. Not really. We’d collect you from the airport.”

  “Too far. It felt like I lost you all over again.”

  “Then it would’ve been nice if you’d said something.”

  “Would you have changed your mind?”

  “No, I doubt it, but it would’ve made a difference. It might’ve helped.”

  “It was too late by then. Way too late.”

  “It’s never too late,” I say.

  She huffs. “That’s a lie. It’s been too late for too long.”

  I shake my head. I don’t want any bite of her bitterness. She’s welcome to it.

  “Things have always been different with Annette and Andrew,” she continues.

  “Very likely,” I say.

  “Always. When they were born I realised what an odd little fellow you were. Quite the odd one out.” She stops and seems to be thinking of something else. “But we can’t change the past, can we?”

  “No.” I shake my head again, but my eyes are too heavy in this heat, and I hear the ocean slapping across the beach, or the traction of tyres on a wet road.

  “You’re not much company,” I hear her say.

  Little has changed about the evening news on TV when I find myself sitting down in front of it. It’s the usual stuff about unemployment, environmental disasters, car accidents, crime and terrorist threats. When the phone rings, I automatically look at my watch, and the hands are still sticking. Nine-twenty. It’d have to be about eight o’clock and, although I haven’t eaten yet and can’t remember the last time I ate – not properly, like a meal rather than fast food shit – I’m not hungry. I think I’ve forgotten the taste of food. There’s a glass of whisky in my hand, but I don’t recall pouring it or sipping from it. I move towards the phone, expecting it to be Elin, but then it stops.

  A couple of minutes later, it begins ringing again and this time I pick it up.

  “Hello,” I say, “Tom speaking.”

  There’s nothing at the other end. The line isn’t dead, but whoever’s there isn’t saying anything.

  And because it might be one of my mother’s cronies ringing, I add: “Margaret Taylor’s phone.”

  Still no response.

  I wait, and liste
n hard. Maybe Elspeth’s phoned and has muted the microphone by mistake.

  “Hello,” I say. “Elspeth?”

  All I hear is the crackle and rustle of a distorted line. It’s the flurry of dry leaves or the rolling of distant surf. Then the receiver’s returned, ending the call, and the house is emptier because of it.

  Perhaps it was Kate. Perhaps her parents phoned her, let her know I’d visited, and what I’d said. Maybe she’d decided to call, and then lost her nerve.

  If it’s Elin she’ll phone again, but no one does.

  ELEVEN

  Someone’s let off smoke bombs, the little buggers, and there’s a gargoyle standing over me. His eyes are empty pits, his beak cranes forward, his teeth are shards of flint, his breath stinks.

  Sleep. Let me sleep. Let me drift with the flow of a rising tide.

  *

  School’s behind me and I shift to London to study History at uni. I move into Stoneyfields Halls of Residence and Old Lofty tags along as my roommate. He takes up fuck-all space and his presence is as reassuring as a dirty old habit.

  In part, I’m in London to paddle after the memory of Kate. I know I am. I’m carried here on the notion that somehow, among seven million bobbing people, I’ll drift into her at least once. When that happens, she’ll haul me in and give me the kiss of life again, and I’ll be able to give Lofty the flick. She’ll save me from the worst of myself. She’ll realise then, for all time, how such love conquers all things – amor vincit omnia. The vague hope that this might happen becomes my buoy, enabling me to bob up and down too, scanning the horizon, drifting further and further out.

  “This place seems alright,” Mum says outside Stoneyfields – a maze of pathways and small lawns between brown brick buildings, each house containing twelve rooms in glorious breezeblock grey.

  “It’s fine,” I reply. Two cases and a couple of boxes sit in the middle of my room, along with the keys to this new beginning.

  Andrew and Annette are back in the car and Brian’s standing at the open driver’s door, his hand on the steering wheel.

  “You don’t mind if we head home then? Leave you to get on with it?”

  I shake my head. “There’s nothing else you can do. I’ll unpack, have a look around, get to know a few people.”