Cold Fire

by Craig Saunders

  I know this chair better than I know my wife.

  I want to wake her up. I’ve suddenly got the urge to talk to her, to hear her voice. It’s selfish, but there’s so much to say. I want to share the watching. But then I wouldn’t be watching, I’d be talking, and it wouldn’t be the same.

  I want to do something nice for her.

  Time was, I’d just buy her something. Flowers, jewellery, lingerie…

  I’m such a fuckwit, though. I never bought her a book. Not once.

  She reads most nights, most days. She reads about five books a week, whether she buys them from eBay or Amazon or borrows them from the library.

  And I never bought her a book. I never even thought of it until right then. New house. Two decades married. It takes me straight and sober, watching her sleep, to think of this. Suddenly I don’t feel so sweet anymore, I just feel like a cunt.

  I’ve got to make it up to her, but then I feel even worse, because the thing is, she reads absolutely anything. How am I going to get her a book she actually likes?

  This is suddenly the most important thing in the world.

  What does she really like?

  The books are packed away. They’re in taped-up boxes in the garage.

  They’re going in the living room, eventually, right in the alcoves. That’s where a lot, but not all, of the books will go. The alcoves could probably be used for something else, like a standing lamp or something, but I like the shelves. People don’t always have books, but shelves are always useful. I’m glad of the shelves. I’d just have to pay someone to come in and put shelves up if they weren’t there, because Helen’s got a ton of books.

  There are shelves in the kitchen. She’ll put the cookery books in there. Then, probably, pots and vases and nutcrackers and other things that women put in the kitchen.

  There are shelves in the dining room, too, and in two of the bedrooms, but not the third, called a bedroom/study in the estate agent’s blurb, but really you’d have to be a dwarf or a baby to fit in there. It seems weird to me, size aside. Who’d want books in the dining room, but not in the study?

  I can’t get her a book at this time of night, anyway, even if I could drive. No way I’m getting her a book. Not tonight.

  She’s snoring and I’m thinking. I get my stick planted, heave, and I’m up. I teeter at first, but I make it onto my feet. I don’t know if I can do this, but then I realise Helen’s probably thought the same thing a hundred, a thousand times, during our marriage, and she did it. She keeps on doing it.

  So can I.

  The living room’s carpeted, the dining room has wooden flooring. It’s not easy to be quiet on a wooden floor with a stick, but the stick’s got this hard rubber nipple on the end rather than just wood on wood. It’s a little quieter. Plus, cripple or not, I’m good at being quiet. Five years of creeping in, mashed, not wanting to wake Helen and deal with the shit.

  I can do it fucked up on drugs. I can do it lame.

  It’s harder sneaking than just walking. I was tired to start with and on the way back from the garage I’m going to be in trouble, but if I stop, I won’t start again.

  If she finds me half way through the garage with a box of books on me, passed out, she’ll look at me with the old eyes. Maybe. Maybe not. But I want her to look at me with the new eyes. Proud eyes.

  So I work out the logistics of getting the box back while I make my way to the garage. I could kind of slide along the wall, using it as support. I try to think back. Can I use the wall all the way to the living room? No. There’s a break one side of the dining room, leading out to the conservatory. On the other side, there’s a big opening through to the kitchen.

  No go.

  Now I’m in the garage and so far none of my scenarios work, but there’s a blanket covering an old dresser that we didn’t know where to put and didn’t want to get rid of.

  The blanket could work. I can’t see any other way.

  I’m tired, but I’m enjoying myself. I’m starting to think about what I can do, not what I can’t. I can do more than I think.

  Getting the box down isn’t easy. It’s too heavy to lift down. I just can’t do it.

  But I can get to the door between the garage and the house. Shut the door, go back to the box. Push it off the top of the stack. There’s a bang, but I’m not worried. The door’s shut and the door’s a tight fit, so the bang will be muffled. I go back and open the door. Go back to the box, which is sitting on its side at the edge of the blanket. I try to plan my journey before I get down.

  The thing is, for me, getting out of bed, getting out of a chair, that’s not so hard.

  Getting up from the floor is really fucking hard.

  I can probably pull myself up using a chair, when I have to. I plan on that being my chair, because I don’t want to do it twice.

  I foresee no problems. So I lower myself as far as I can, then just give it up and flop the last foot or so onto my arse.

  I scoot the box into the centre of the blanket then I grab the edge of the blanket and place my left foot on the floor and push. It’s harder than it looks. The floor in the garage is concrete, rough and dusty. There’s no slide.

  My foot slides on the wooden floor in the dinning room, but I take off my sock, and it’s better. The blanket is easier to pull on the smooth surface than it was over the concrete in the garage.

  I go slower through the living room. She’s right there. Her arm is thrown above her head, now. I want to wake her up, all of a sudden, just to touch her.

  But not yet. That’s just the same as taking out credit. I don’t do that anymore.

  I figure she won’t mind if I stack from the floor up.

  I look at the books as I’m stacking them. I’ve never really paid that much attention to what she reads before. There’s a huge variety. Some old, mouldy books, with penguins on the side by authors I’ve never heard of before. The spines are cracked.

  There are some new books in there, too, right along with the old. Dates in the 90’s. A Lee Child novel – I’ve seen his books on the shelves in the supermarket. Some science fiction – I can tell by the rundown on the back, but mostly I just know by the covers. Like I said, I don’t read much, but I know if it’s got a robot or a spaceship on the front cover, it’s science fiction. There are a few by Robert Silverberg, one by Poul Anderson. I’ve only heard of Arthur C. Clarke.

  I don’t really like science fiction, though. Maybe because I spent most of the last five years staring at the tip of my nose I didn’t have time to look at the stars.

  Either way, it’s hard enough for me keeping my feet on the ground.

  Walking the line.

  A book catches my eye, because it’s a book of short stories. There’s a big stain on the front. Wine, maybe.

  It’s by Roald Dahl. I know he wrote children’s stories. I figure I can probably manage a children’s story. This one’s got a big pair of lips on the front. It seems cute.

  I put it to one side and stack the books.

  I look up. Helen’s still there, sleeping, so I lean back against the wall and start reading.

  I finish the first story. I’m freaked out about landladies. It isn’t a story for kids.

  I look up again and Helen’s crying, quietly. I don’t know how long she’s been crying. I haven’t looked up from the book for a while. It was hard to concentrate, and the words swam away sometimes, so I didn’t want to look away, in case I gave up.

  I always seem to make Helen cry these days.

  I’m not a smart man, but I know that’s good, somewhere deep down, because I never used to see her cry. I imagine she did it in private before.

  ‘Welcome home,’ I say, and we’re in. We’re home.

  *

  11.

  We sleep late the following day. We’re in no rush. I can feel the day ticking out when I wake up and see it’s just gone ten, but it’s not the clock that’s ticking. The clock’s digital, so if I can’t hear it, it doesn’t count. I push
the clock round so I can’t see the readout. If I can’t see it, it doesn’t count.

  Helen rolls over and holds me.

  We get up around eleven with smiles on our faces.

  ‘You want tea?’ she asks when I finally make it downstairs. I hate the stairs, but I won’t let her help me anymore. Although I know stairs are good for me, in the way bran is good for me, I still hate stairs. Just about as much as I hate bran, though stairs, in general, don’t make me feel like I’m shitting out a fir tree.

  ‘Let’s push the boat out,’ I say.

  She makes the tea.

  ‘Crumpets?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Simple choice. Bran. Crumpets.’

  ‘Put like that…’

  She makes crumpets. We eat in comfortable silence.

  The kitchen’s so different from our old one. It’s got this huge double range. It’s way too much cooker for us. I don’t even know how to turn it on. I’m kind of looking around between bites.

  ‘What do you think?’

  She sees me looking. ‘The kitchen?’

  ‘The kitchen. The house.’

  ‘I like it.’

  ‘Like it?’

  ‘I don’t love it. I don’t know it, yet. It’s still early in our relationship. I like it.’

  I think about this.

  ‘Author, then. Not like. Love.’

  ‘That’s a hard one.’

  ‘I’ve got all day.’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  I finish my tea.

  ‘You want to go for a walk?’

  ‘Are you up for it?’

  ‘Maybe just down the road. Break in the neighbourhood.’

  ‘Then I’m game. Let me shower.’

  ‘OK. I’m going to play with the cooker.’ I’m already dressed. I’m not doing the shower. Some guys are coming later in the week to fit the idiot chair. It’s Sunday. Nobody fits idiot chairs on Sundays.

  I spend a few minutes playing with the cooker. I fuck up the timer and leave it alone.

  Helen’s a luxury showerer. I’m in and out, ten minutes, max. I figure with Helen, she’s going to make the most of it. It’s not just a shower. You walk in, get lost among all the marble. It has jets that come out of the walls. It looks impressive. It’s not a shower. It’s a waterfall. Helen will enjoy it. Maybe it’ll take more than an hour, plus she’s going to ache from the move, too.

  I do man things. I wash the dishes. I do things like that now. We’ve got a dishwasher that came fitted into the kitchen, but I want to use my hand. Use my leg. That kills some time. I want to read some more, only if I sit down I might not want to get up. I want to go for a walk, and in order to go for a walk I need to not be stuck in my sway-back old chair with my nose in a book.

  There are plenty of man things I haven’t done for a long time. I want to know where the bins are. They’ll be wheelie bins. An estate, like this? Definitely wheelie bins.

  I look in the bin between the fridge and the pantry. Just a plastic milk carton. A pint. The kind people only buy if they’re skint, on holiday, old, single, or moving. There’s a small collection of tea bags, pretty much together in the bottom of the bin, because I put them on the side of the sink when I make tea, then dump them when the tea bag tower gets too high. There’s a cork in there, with the foil and a wire contraption to hold the cork in.

  I tie the bag up and head for the back of the house. I unlock the back door and the smell hits me straight away.

  It’s completely and utterly new to me. Forty-two years old, and there’s a new smell. It knocks me back. I rock on my heels and use my stick to steady myself.

  It’s the sea. I didn’t notice it on moving day, but then maybe the wind had been blowing away.

  I never smelled the sea before, but I know what it is. Some primal memory, maybe even primordial, but it’s unmistakeable, even for me. It’s never bothered me before, but it calls to me on that same level. Suddenly, I’ve got to see it.

  I stand there for a while, just taking in long breaths through my nose.

  I remember the rubbish, clutched carefully in my special hand. I’m proud of that hand. It’s been holding the rubbish all by itself and I hadn’t even needed to think about it.

  I walk around the outside of the house, clockwise.

  The garden is all lawn. I suppose the house is new, so a plain garden is probably standard, like the magnolia on the walls inside. It’s OK though. I like magnolia. I like grass. They’re both simple and undemanding.

  I look up at the back of the house. I can imagine sitting out here, on a deckchair, looking up at the house. Some effort has been made to make the house look older than it really is. The double glazing has cross hatched fake lead running over the glass. At least, I guess it’s fake lead. The frames are wood. Probably have to be replaced every ten years or something, but they look nice.

  The brick is good, the tiles are a light pinkish or maybe reddish shade. The conservatory is wooden. It was probably built by the same contractors that put the windows in. The conservatory glass isn’t leaded though. I turn and look over the fence. I can make out the roofs of the houses on the estate to the back. I half expect to hear children wailing and the sound of sirens. My only image of estates is what I’ve seen on police shows on the television. It doesn’t seem like that kind of estate, though. I can’t hear any noise from over the back. It’s peaceful. Maybe it’s noisy when all the kids are on holidays. I have no idea when schools shut anymore. It’s quiet over there, at least, and that’s good.

  I do a full circle. A house on the right of us, a house on the left.

  The house to the left, the east, looks well cared for from what I can see of it. There are plenty of plants in the garden. There are some flowers, some small trees, some bushes, shrubs. I don’t know the names for anything. I’ve never been interested in plants, so I never bothered to remember the names. If I’d ever even overheard them. People didn’t often talk about those kind of plants in my old life.

  I like my lawn. Easy to maintain and the kind of grass I can live with these days.

  To the right, the west, is more lawn, like mine, but there’s a great big ugly metal outbuilding in the garden. It takes up maybe a quarter of the garden. There’s some kind of grinding noise coming from it. Somebody’s workshop.

  I hope that doesn’t get annoying. That’s the only noise I can hear. There’s a hint of distant traffic, but it’s so faint it could just be the wind. It’s really peaceful. Even with the grinding coming from the metal shed, it’s still peaceful. It was never like this in London. Even in the middle of the night, nearer morning than night, there was always sound.

  I don’t know if I like the quiet or not, but I do know I like the look of the gardener’s garden more than the grinder’s. I’m more drawn to that side.

  But I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. I haven’t been here long enough to make conclusions.

  Our fence is high, which I like, but maybe not high enough. It’s about five feet, which is tall enough to be private, if you’re sitting down, but public, if someone’s standing close enough to the fence and they’re not a dwarf.

  I’m not a gardener, but the more I nose at the nice garden, the more I think it’d be nice to get some plants. I wouldn’t do it myself. Helen’d probably love to do something with the garden. I can imagine her getting into it.

  Maybe we’d plant a tree. Trees are pretty easy, I imagine, as far as plants go. Probably easier than grass because you have to cut grass every week. I don’t know how often you cut trees, if at all, but I know it’s not every week.

  I get back to the job at hand and mooch around the sideway until I find the bins lined up against the side of the house in a little enclosure that’s probably there to stop them blowing over. There are three bins. Black, blue, brown. I’ve no idea what that’s about. A bin’s a bin. I pick the blue. I like blue. Blue, like I imagine the sea will be.

  I feel good. I think I’ve been gone about te
n minutes. Helen will find me, if she wants. It’s not like I’ve gone walk-about.

  I wander down the sideway, to a gate. I pull the catch, push it open.

  There’s a guy standing the other side of the fence. He’s looking at his drive. I look, but I can’t figure out what it is he’s looking at. I think about just walking past, nodding, maybe, if he looks up.

  He looks up. I nod. He’s got amazing eyes. Blue. But not like the bin. Pale like he’s spent his life staring at the sun and the sun’s bleached the colour out of them. He’s tanned. It’s got to be a year round tan, ingrained, because it’s spring and the sun’s still shy.

  He’s old, too. Not really old, but at a guess I’d put him at 60. A fit 70, at a push.

  ‘Morning,’ he says.

  ‘Morning,’ I reply. I’m comfortable so far. He seems fairly normal.

  ‘You look just about done in. Stroke, was it? Must’ve been tough, at your age.’

  I want to take umbrage. It’s a strange way to start a conversation. I’m stuck, though, because people just don’t ask me about it. He’s so direct, I can’t help but be disarmed.

  The fact is, he surprises the hell out of me, so I just answer.

  ‘Leg, arm, eye,’ I say. ‘I had a heart attack, too.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  That seems to sum it up pretty well. What do you say to that? I can’t fault him.

  ‘I can’t see the colour yellow, either,’ I add. I don’t know why that should be relevant, but I tell him anyway.

  ‘I had a friend had a stroke. She smelled bleach. Smelled bleach all the time. You seem to have it pretty bad. How long’s it been?’

  I think about it, and I’m surprised by the answer.

  ‘Four months, roughly.’

  He comes over and reaches his hand over the fence for me to shake, which I do.

  ‘Sam,’ I say. ‘O’Donnell.’

  ‘Irish?’

  ‘Great-Grandfather. So, not really.’

  ‘Frank,’ he says.

  His hand is gnarled, but it’s strong. He surprises me again. He holds out his right hand, like you do, without thinking. I take it and shake as best as I can. He pumps it up and down, twice, no nonsense. Firm, but not hard.