Crustaceans

by Andrew Cowan

  Funereal things, I’d never much liked them, and I’d never bought any for Ruth, but these were different, or I was. They were in most of the first pictures I took, the ones I pinned in my studio, showed to our friends and posted to relatives. Their scent and your sudden presence were equally surprising, elusive. They filled three vases – one next to your cot – and when at last they started to wilt, the petals falling around you, I took a photo to a florist’s and came home with another bouquet. It cost more than we could afford, and the selection wasn’t quite right, but for almost a year I would continue to refill your vase – though cheaper flowers each time – until your first birthday, when Polly repeated her gesture, the same arrangement exactly. Her message, too, was the same. Ruth shook her head and dropped the card in the bin. She wanted to throw the bouquet away. You can’t, I protested. Congratulations for coping so well without me? she replied; because that’s what it means, Paul. Sorry you never see me, and sorry I take no interest in Euan, but well done, and here’s another bunch of useless bloody flowers … And I nodded. I said she needn’t go on, but still I insisted on keeping the flowers, though this time when they withered I didn’t replace them.

  Yet however much Ruth resented your grandmother, it seemed she would always resent your grandfather more. I hadn’t met Jim before you were born, though we’d spoken several times on the phone, our conversations far longer than any Ruth would allow him. He worked then for a lingerie company, and travelled most days of the week, a suitcase of samples in the back of his car, a spare suit in a zipper screening one window. A few weeks after your birth he turned up on our doorstep. Small and portly, he brought with him a smell of aftershave, deodorant. His belly domed out over his belt-buckle. His grip when we shook hands was as firm as my father’s, and in his stance, his jowly face and deep-clefted chin, the flat bridge of his nose, I thought he looked like a fighter, pugnacious. But he was clearly still nervous of Ruth, her distance, and when she told him you were sleeping he said not to worry, we mustn’t disturb you, there were bound to be other days. He said he often passed near us. Oh, just go up, Ruth told him, and walked through to the kitchen. She switched on the kettle. He’ll be waking soon anyway, she said; and glancing to me, Jim slipped off his jacket, stepped out of his shoes. They were polished and wrinkled, the same size as Ruth’s, and as he climbed the stairs in his socks I saw that his heels were threadbare. At the door to your room he straightened his tie; he hitched up his trousers. It was half an hour before he carried you down. You were sucking on the crook of his finger, gazing up to his face, and when he passed you into Ruth’s arms he said, Thank you, then took a step backwards. He’s lovely, he said, and fumbled around in his pockets, unfolded a handkerchief. He shook his head at himself and blew his nose loudly. I looked to the floor. Ruth murmured it was time for your feed and eased herself past him. She disappeared to our bedroom.

  From my own father, just after New Year, we’d received a bottle of whisky, a single malt in a gold cylindrical box, a year younger than we were. I’d never much liked whisky either, or spirits of any kind, but I’d found a taste for it then. The burn in my throat resembled the parching of smoke, and of course I was no longer a smoker. When that bottle was empty I’d bought a replacement – a supermarket own-brand – and it was this that I opened for Jim as he stood weeping that day in our kitchen. We drank to his grandson, to you, and always then when he called I made sure there was whisky, a glass or two before he departed. And Jim’s visits were frequent, as regular as your grandmother’s letters. He said he’d be passing our way; he didn’t like to impose … Sometimes he came at the weekend, and though Ruth never refused him – Euan’ll be here, she told him – she hardly spoke whilst he was with us. Often she arranged to go out. It’s not me he’s coming to see, she argued; I don’t see why I have to sit here and watch him. She said she found him embarrassing, the way he fussed over you, the voices he made; and I remember his laugh, the comic-book cackle, each time he lifted you into his arms. He liked to bury his face in your tummy. He pulled off his tie and rolled back his sleeves and got down on the floor with you. It seemed he couldn’t hold you enough. His face would be pink when he left, his hair out of order. Your first smile was for Jim, and I thought he deserved it.

  Your grandfather’s hobby was woodwork and he made almost every present he gave you. The first was a small boat, ten holes in the deck, a numbered peg in each hole. The pegs were painted as sailors, planed smooth and varnished. I tried to slot one into your hand as you sat in his lap, but you dropped it; you gripped my finger instead. Oh well, Ruth said, and picked it up from the floor. She returned the peg to the boat and quietly went from the room. A month or so later he made you a highchair, which Ruth didn’t think would be safe, and then a rocking horse, which she thought you’d fall off. But still he kept trying, though of course Ruth complained he was trying too hard. Once I asked him to make us a bird-table – which he brought the next time, the joints as intricate as any toy that he made – and once, as we sat drinking, talking about tools, his workshop, he showed me his hands. They were like Ruth’s, like a woman’s, slim-fingered, unblemished. I have to be careful, he said; mustn’t chip the nails, not in this business. He gestured out to his car. It’s silk, a lot of that stuff. His second marriage had failed and it was his girlfriend, he said, who looked after his hands. He called her his girlfriend. Her name was Liz, and she had three grown-up children, one still at home. She sometimes filed his nails, rubbed cream on his hands, saw to his splinters. He didn’t think they’d get married. If the clock works, he shrugged, why mend it? He said these things in confidence, when Ruth was out of the room.

  But slowly Ruth thawed, or seemed to. She resigned herself to him, his place in your life, and though she wouldn’t invite him to stay overnight, she accepted his lengthening visits, his presence at mealtimes. She came home early from work to meet him. She curled up on our sofa, a whisky glass in her hand, and listened to his stories, asked questions, and drew from him far more about Liz than I could ever tell her. Then one day, as she bent down to lift you, her top buttons undone, Jim glanced at her and said, How big are you now, Ruth? Your bra size? And frowning, she tutted. I’m not telling you, she said. Jim showed us his car-keys, and said he’d be back, and reappeared five minutes later with a box of white knickers and bras. They were seconds, he said, and wouldn’t be missed; he also had some in black. Ruth rummaged through them, glanced at the labels. There’s a lot of synthetics, she said, and Jim nodded; he waited. They give me a rash, she told him. Her father was sitting on the far side of the room, his hands on his knees. He splayed out his fingers, gazed down at them. He pursed his lips and looked up. And? he said then. They’re no good to me, she replied, and closed the flaps on the box, pushed it aside, discarded this gift as she had so many others. I see, said her father.

  He said nothing more, and departed soon after, and as his car pulled away Ruth turned towards me and said, Don’t bother, Paul; I don’t want to hear it. But I wouldn’t be silent; for half an hour then we argued, in the hallway, the kitchen, upstairs as I prepared you for bed. So he left your mum, I shouted; who fucking wouldn’t? He left me! Ruth yelled; he walked out on me. He didn’t, I told her; he’s still around, Ruth; he always has been. He’s a millstone, she said; he’s pathetic. He’s not, I said quietly. He’s the only real grandparent Euan’s got. And he loves you, I said. Ruth pouted. She sat down on your mattress. You were busying around us, moving your toys from one place to another, and she held out her arms, murmured your name. She tried to lift you on to her lap, but you tugged at her hair, didn’t want to be held, and sighing, she let you climb down. She glared for a moment at me. Alright, then! she shouted, and grabbed for a pillow, threw it into the wall. Alright then, she said, and started to cry.

  It was two months before we saw your grandfather again, and he said he couldn’t stop long, but brought in from his car another selection of knickers and bras. He set the box down at Ruth’s feet. One hundred per cent cotton, he
said. Or perhaps you’d like silk? There’s silk if you want it. Ruth shook her head. No, she said; these’ll be fine. Then, Thank you, she said, and looked out to the street, his car parked next to ours. The boot was still open, his suit in the window. Jim said there wouldn’t be any more. His company was folding and he’d have to find a new job. He wouldn’t be able to visit so often. Ruth nodded. Euan’ll miss you, she said. Then turning to face him, she said, But maybe we could visit you, Dad? Which we did, three or four times a year, and when at last we decided to get married – to make our finances simpler, Ruth told him – Jim and Liz were our witnesses, the only guests we invited.

  TWENTY-THREE

  My own father was always your other grandpa, the one who sent money but never came to our house, who lived far away and was poorly. He’s got a bad chest, I told you; he’s not very well, and it seemed he required no more explanation than that. On the phone I would hear his labouring breath and the sharp pluck of air as he drew on his cigarettes. Should you still be smoking those? I’d ask him, but of course he wouldn’t reply; he wouldn’t discuss it. Instead he might ask after Ruth, or change the subject to you. How’s the boy doing? he’d say, for it was always the boy, and each time I would have to remind him. He’s called Euan, Dad. Yes, Euan, how’s he doing? He’s fine, I would tell him, and then describe as much as there was, all I could think of, never quite sure if he was listening, if it was worth going on. Once he confused your birthday with mine, and once he forgot it entirely, but the money was constant, several times every year, and usually cash. We opened a bank account in your name, and sent photos to thank him, later your drawings. We travelled to see him each year in the spring. Yet still he remained as vague about you as you were about him.

  Our visits were short – a couple of days at the most – and it was rare even then that he showed much interest in you. He might notice you’d grown, and he always said you were lively. But it was only ever Ruth that he wanted to talk to, who held his attention – and of course you couldn’t help interrupting, being yourself, until finally I would have to take you outside, sensing Ruth’s discomfort, my father’s impatience. In the sprawl of his courtyard we would find things to climb on, and places to hide. We’d watch the martins come and go from their nests in the coach-house, and listen for mice, and look for frogs by the river. You would sit behind the wheel of his forklift and pretend you were driving. I’d let you clamber all over his sculptures. But though you often pestered to be allowed inside his studio, the doors would always be padlocked, and it wasn’t until our last visit – my father drowsing by the fire, too ill then to object – that I took his keys from the kitchen and said I would show you.

  Ruth wandered down with us, hugging herself in the cold. The doors were heavy and loud, as tall as the barn, and wary of waking him, I dragged them just open. I slipped inside and switched on the lights. Everything remained much as it had been, the gas cylinders chained up in pairs, coils of rubber tubing slung from the walls, heaps of scrap-metal piled in the corners. A few bits of sculpture lay around on the concrete, half finished, abandoned, and the benches were cluttered with tools, off-cuts and tins, goggles and earphones. I found a welding mask and tightened the headband. I showed you how the visor flipped up and down. You put it on and tried to walk about in the dark. Be careful, Ruth warned you, and gripped the back of your jumper. You were giggling, pulling away, and for a while I watched you, then sat in my father’s old chair, his army-surplus fold-out. On the floor at my side was his bowl, the one he had used as an ashtray, and as I gazed around at his ladders and gantries, the chain-blocks and shelving racks, I remembered how he would smoke as he worked, angling towards his constructions as if hoping to surprise them, a cigarette couched in the palm of his hand, pinched between his forefinger and thumb. Contemplative, he would stand very still, one hand supporting his elbow, the cigarette an inch from his lips. When he was grinding or cutting he would clamp the butt in the side of his mouth. Welding, he’d let it burn out in his bowl. And when at last a piece was completed he would barrel his chest on each inhalation, broadening his shoulders, and smoke each one back to the filter, savouring the last tarry breaths, and slowly exhaling. He’d seem happy enough then to have me around, sitting in his chair, or standing with my back to the vast sliding doors. More often than not he found my presence a nuisance; at least until I was older, until finally I could make myself useful.

  He was never ill in my childhood, and it was his smoking, he used to insist, that killed off the germs that gave others their flu, their sniffles. And of course I often had sniffles. At sixteen I would wear a woollen hat in the house to annoy him, sometimes also a scarf. Slouched in front of the television I would lift the neck of my jumper to cover my mouth. I tugged at my sleeves to lengthen them and bunched the cuffs in my fists. I made a point of coughing each time he lit up. And whatever the weather, however warm it became, I rarely left the house without a coat of some kind. I dressed myself from charity shops, the kind of clothes my grandfather would wear – baggy trousers and brown-checked shirts, heavy sweaters and suits, gabardine rain-macs. Susan helped me to choose them; she thought I looked interesting. My father said I looked like one of his students, and it wasn’t a compliment, for he was always scornful about the people he taught, even those he used as assistants. He’d find fault with whatever they did; and often they wouldn’t return.

  It was a few days after I had been to see my aunt Rene that he first asked me to help him. I hadn’t yet mentioned my visit, and didn’t know how I could, for he was constantly busy it seemed, absorbed in his work, and rarely coming out from his studio. But that afternoon he climbed the stairs to my bedroom and knocked on my door. He said he could use me; it wouldn’t take twenty minutes. And I nodded. I was sitting by my radiator, hunched over a book, and with a show of reluctance I got to my feet; I picked up my scarf. Okay, I shrugged, and as I followed him down, my hands thrust into my pockets, I began to rehearse in my mind what I thought I should say to him. He glanced over his shoulder as we came through the doors. He shook his head at my hat. You won’t be needing the tea-cosy, he said, and pointed to a pile of clothes on his chair, the ones he kept for his students. When you’re ready, he said, and lit a fresh cigarette. He had wheeled a lifting gantry over his sculpture, and positioned a ladder. His welding gear was prepared, and as I got myself dressed – taking my time – he slowly prowled round his studio, touching things, moving things, restlessly smoking.

  His work at that time was enormous, as large as it would ever become. Where once the constructions had appeared self-supporting, the welds just sufficient to prevent them from collapsing, now each separate element – too heavy to be lifted by hand – seemed to float on the last, rising almost as high as the fluorescent strips beneath the rafters. There was as much empty space as there was metal, and the next piece to be welded that day was a ball socket, a few hundredweight of rust-coated steel. A short length of chain was looped through it, the end-links secured to a hook, and from the hook a much longer chain rose through a pulley attached to the gantry. The ball was already suspended ten feet from the ground, and he needed me to hold it steady as he made the first weld, my arms stretched over my head, my face averted from the glare and the sparks. He had made a platform of pallets for me to stand on, and I wore a pair of thick gauntlets – the texture like suede, still moist inside – and some boots with steel toecaps, a hard hat and overalls, my own clothes underneath. How are you doing? he called. And though the pallets were shaky, and my shoulders were aching, I said I was fine.

  But my cold that day was genuine, and it was awkward, sweaty work, a confederacy of effort. Afterwards, feverish, I tugged off my scarf and let it fall to the concrete. I sat down, and slowly unbuttoned the overalls, and as my father descended his ladder, breathing heavily, his cheeks and neck flushed, I cleared my throat and cautiously said, I went across to Aunt Rene’s last week, Dad. He moved his ladder out of the way, and came to stand by my side, gazing back at his sculpture. For some
time he said nothing. Finally he patted my back. It’s coming together, he said then; I think it’s a good one, Paul. He took out his cigarettes and placed one in his mouth, his lips tight and smiling, then held the pack towards me. I stared at the cigarettes, the clean white ends of the filters. I lifted my chin. His gaze was steady, unflinching, and it seemed clear to me then that he’d already spoken to Rene; obvious too that he wasn’t going to discuss it. I don’t smoke, I said stiffly, and stepped from the overalls. But you can kill yourself if you want to, I said. I laced up my trainers, and pulled on my wool hat. You’re off then, he said. I’m going to Susan’s, I told him, and as I began to walk away he tossed my scarf after me. Well don’t forget your muffler, he said, and gave his sculpture a firm pat, the noise reverberating like an oil drum.

  That same sculpture was still in the yard, the texture of the rust and the welds smoothed away, all the surfaces even. He had painted it yellow – the first time he’d used colour – and though he said he’d had offers, he claimed he couldn’t allow it to go. It marked a change; it was important to him. But the base now was encircled by weeds, the paint beginning to flake, and it was the one you most liked to play on. I got up from his chair and went across to the doorway. You came to stand with me, and as I looked out at the sculpture I remembered once taking your photo as you attempted to climb it. I’d asked Ruth to hold you, then noticed my father gazing down from the kitchen. And you, Dad, I’d called, but he’d continued to stare, then shaken his head and retreated indoors. He hadn’t approved, and so I’d taken several more, and sent him the duplicates. He kept them in a drawer in the living room, and of all the photos and drawings he’d received the only one on display was a picture of Ruth, her hand on his shoulder. Are we ready? she said to me now, and nodding, I touched her arm and led her across to his bowl. What do you think? I said; I was thinking I might keep it. She pursed her lips and said nothing. In the caravan? I said; or my studio. Don’t you think you should wait, Paul? she replied. No, I said; not really. I scattered the ashes and butts in a corner, and looked around for a rag, something to clean it. You’ve no need of an ashtray anyway, she said. Neither has he, I told her, and wiped it with the leg of some overalls. I took his keys from my pocket and turned off the lights. And this isn’t an ashtray, I said; not any more.