by Andrew Cowan
TWENTY-NINE
There ought to have been rain, darkness, cold; it should have been winter. Instead there was sunshine, the scents and noises of summer. Our windows stayed open to the sounds of our neighbours, their kitchens and gardens, the traffic beyond. The light softly faded, returned. One hot day succeeded another. The mail kept arriving. The clock at Ruth’s bedside kept pace with the seconds, the minutes and hours, but time had no use for you now, and meant nothing to me. When to wash, dress or eat; the simplest act would defeat me. I wandered into rooms only to forget why I’d gone there. I stumbled drunk into bed in the early hours of the morning, and woke in a sweat soon after, woke repeatedly all night, and then again as Ruth dressed. I would listen to her tread on the boards and the slide and clunk of the drawers, her coat-hangers jangling, and stare into the pillows and bedclothes, the sunlight on her jewellery, and feel only the blanketing weight of my loss, another day to come in your absence. Heavy-limbed and hung-over, I closed my eyes, curled into myself, and sank again into numbness, forgetting.
But of course I could not forget. My thoughts, my memory, were independent of me. I saw your sandals, your ankles, the fall of the cliff on your legs. I saw your blue toes and fingers. I remembered the sunburn on your shoulders, and the cold hard press of your bedframe, the tube in your mouth and the gaps in your teeth, the sensors and wires and banks of machines, but often also my mother, propped up on her pillows, smiling feebly across the distance between us, extending her arm. There was my father’s grip on my shoulder, and the single sharp crease of her frown, the dry white skin on her lips. Repeatedly I saw a cream-coloured ambulance – the driver removing his cap, raking a hand though his hair – and then a nurse striding before me, splay-footed, her shoes as clumpy and black as a man’s. I saw these things, and I found myself shaking. My neck and legs began prickling with sweat; sudden pains clenched my stomach, my chest. The light was too bright, and sometimes I thought I would vomit. Often I cried. Eventually the numbness returned.
There ought to have been silence, the hush of snow falling, everything frozen, but still the cars continued to pass in our street, the footsteps and voices. I heard the lawnmowers and telephones, scudding footballs and children – always the children – and felt not just your absence from our house, the life we had made, but also from those noises outside, your part in all that. Most afternoons, too, I spent long hours in bed. Half naked, exhausted, I lay beneath my tangle of sheets and listened to Ruth’s movements downstairs – the constant shufflings and knocks, doors opening and closing, her feet in the hallway – and felt as if eavesdropping on some other life, remote and unconnected with mine. Descending the stairs, I would find her scrubbing the stains from the carpets, the sofas and chairs. In every room except yours she took down the curtains, washed them by hand, and repositioned the furniture. She dragged out the cooker and scoured the dirt from the skirting behind it. But however much I wished she would stop, leave these things as they were, still I said nothing. I never complained, just as Ruth never once mentioned my smoking, or the amount I was drinking, the hours I spent idle. I heard her crying, as she must have heard me, and knew I could not go near her. In the evenings we prepared our meals separately, not talking, our eyes rarely meeting. Often we ate in different rooms.
Ruth returned to work at the end of the summer, and the house then was too empty, too quiet. I could not sit indoors, but I could not leave either. Daily I walked to the off-licence, two streets over from ours, and I always left the door open, then hurried straight back. I sat with my beers in the garden, gazing down at our vegetables, the tiny plot we called our allotment. I had bought all we needed in April – the seeds and tubers and bulbs – and I’d lifted the turf, dug over the soil, erected the bean-poles, but the arrangement was yours, the random clusters and clumps, nothing in rows. You’d planted a plastic windmill to scare off the birds, and when the first weeds had appeared you’d insisted these were our carrots, and so for a while I’d left them. But already in May your interest was waning, and when finally I’d plucked out the shoots you had played unconcerned on the lawn. A week or so later I’d found you digging a hole in the soil, unearthing our seeds, looking for insects. It was your garden, you’d told me; you could dig where you wanted. And I hadn’t argued; I’d lost interest too. But even despite our neglect the vegetables had grown, and as the weeks passed now in your absence I sat in the creaking shade of the apple tree – pestered by midges, smoking and drinking – and I watched them. The grass returned, the crops bolted, and slowly the weeds began to take over, but I touched nothing. Your bucket and spade remained where you’d left them. Your windmill fitfully stirred.
It was some time in September, one evening at dusk, the rain soft and persistent, when Ruth came down from the house with my anorak. I looked at her blankly. My hair was matted, water streaking my face. Why don’t you come in now? she said, and I nodded, then returned my gaze to our garden. She laid the coat by my side on the bench. She tucked her hands under her arms, and I glanced at her. Please, Paul, she said; can’t you come in now? We have to talk, she said; don’t you think we should talk, Paul? But I didn’t reply. Say something, she said, and I stared at your spade, almost lost in the leaves. About what? I murmured. Us, she said; everything, whatever. And I shrugged. I pulled the ring from a beercan. There isn’t an us, I said finally; is there? Not any more. There’s nothing, I said, and she shook her head, looked away from me. She took a breath. A few moments later she turned and walked back up the lawn. I flapped the anorak open and sheltered beneath it, drew it over my head – how we would at the seaside, the rain pittering on to the plastic – and I pinched out some tobacco, laid it onto a paper, spreading and tamping, untangling the knots.
When later I came up to the house I saw her sitting in the dark of the dining room, the white of her blouse and her face. She seemed to be eating, her head propped on one hand. Perhaps she was reading. The side door was still open. In the kitchen I kicked off my shoes and left them to dry by the radiator. I wiped my neck with a tea-towel, my hair and my face. I switched on the kettle. My jeans were heavy with damp, my sweater and socks, and I took them off too. I let them lie where they fell. I relit my cigarette, and shivering, I stood by the sink and stared out of the window. My gaze met the wall of the neighbouring house. The bricks had deep striations running diagonally and the mortar was grainy. On the slats of the fence in between us I saw a faint blue tracing of chalk, the drawing you’d made of our house, and my eyes withdrew to the plant on our window-ledge, the leaves browned at the tips, the pot green with mould. A plastic marker was stuck in the soil, and I stared at the symbols, the half-shaded sun, the temperature gauge. I dipped the end of my cigarette in the washing-up bowl and exhaled a long breath of smoke. I let go of the stub and watched it float in the water, the paper darkening, unfurling, the strands of tobacco slowly dispersing. The kettle came to the boil and clicked off. The fridge began humming. I placed my hands on the drainer and looked down at my veins, the fat whorls of my knuckles, the nicotine stains, and then like a cough, like a hiccup, I found I was sobbing. I felt the slow involution as I folded in on myself. I sank to the floor and curled into a corner. I heard the noise I was making, and the drag of Ruth’s chair, her footsteps. She paused in the doorway and switched on the light. Don’t Paul, she said, and came forward, hunkered beside me. She placed a hand on my shoulder, her grip listless, a shake. She said something – something she ought to – and touched my hair, cupped her hands round my face. She tried to lift me. She said I wasn’t to do this. Her eyes were wide and she too was starting to cry. I opened my arms and she held me; she clasped my head to her shoulder. She was warm and smelled of her office, dimly of perfume. Her lips when we kissed were flaked with dry skin. My breath tasted of ash. I fumbled to unfasten her blouse and she helped me. I pushed up her bra and closed my mouth on her breast. My left arm was beneath her, the floor cold and hard. And kneeling, I dragged down her tights, her pants. She held on to my hips, her nails digg
ing in, her eyes tightly closed, and we fucked rawly, a knot of clothes on the linoleum. Our heads were pressed to the cooker. It was the last time. Afterwards we parted, slunk away from each other. Ruth went upstairs to the shower; later she returned to the dining room. I sat and started at the television, the volume turned down, and that night, as we lay in bed without touching, not talking, I heard again and again my sobs in the kitchen, the rasp in Ruth’s breath, and the only word she had spoken, a hot whispered Euan.
THIRTY
A few streets in from the sea there is silence. I hear my own breath and the crump of my feet on the snow. Meltwater trickles into the drains; heavy drips fall from the trees, the lampposts and railings. A motorbike shifts gears in the distance, but the roads around here are deserted. The grey metal shutters are down on the shops. Even the mini-mart, just facing the bus depot, is shortly to close. A uniformed woman comes out as I enter, unhooks the day’s papers and brings them inside, props the rack by the counter and shivers. She says I’ve just made it, and clicks the snub on the door, flips over the sign in the window. There’s a flattened box for a doormat, slushy prints up the aisles. A younger woman is counting the cigarettes, tapping down the packs with a biro. She writes on a clipboard and gives me a smile. The lighting is garish, and the warmth makes me blush. When I speak – my voice thick and nasal – it sounds as though I am shouting. I buy another half-bottle of whisky, a pouch of tobacco, some more Rizlas and tissues, but I cannot look to her face. The clock behind her shows 5:55. There are sandwiches on display in a cabinet, chilled pasties and pies, and though it occurs to me now that I’m hungry, and ought to buy food, I want only to return to the cold, the darkness outside. I slip the whisky into my pocket. The other woman is waiting. She unfastens the latch on the door and holds it wide open. Night, love, she says as I go.
The tiny depot is parked up with buses, all of them empty. A drinks machine gleams from the staffroom. The ticket office is shut, the windows pasted with posters, special-offer excursions, and as I look for our timetable I remember the last time we came here. It was June, the first night of our holiday, and we’d left Ruth behind in the caravan, unpacking our bags and our shopping, laying fresh sheets on the beds. In a restaurant called the Asteria we had eaten roast chicken and chips, and then gone to the children’s show in the Hippodrome, and passed half an hour on the pier. Afterwards, waiting for our bus home, you had sat on the bench by the staffroom, clutching your programme. An old man was sitting there with you, dressed in a black suit and tie, a thick woollen coat. His whole body was shaking, his face livid, unshaven, and it seemed he could not breathe except through his cigarette. With each inhalation his shaking increased. I murmured your name and shook my head because you were staring. Then he coughed, or tried to, his face tense with the effort, his tremors stilled for that moment. Finally he hawked some phlegm at the pavement and smeared his mouth on his sleeve. He pointed to some graffiti behind him. I sat here yesterday, he told me; watched them doing that. Two lads and a girl. Disgusting things they write. Filth. And if you say anything to them, you only get more of the same. I suppose so, I said. He brought the cigarette to his lips, drew deeply, and then looked at you sternly. Are you a good boy? he demanded, but you didn’t reply. You came and stood by me, wrapped your arms round my legs. Yes, I said; yes, he is a good boy, and I ruffled your hair. What age will he be now? the man said, but you pulled on my arm, dragged me away before I could answer. Don’t tell him, Daddy, you whispered.
Our bus now is approaching. It’s a yellow-liveried seventeen-seater called the Flying Banana, and it stops over the road, its engine still thrumming. As I step from the kerb I hold out my hand to guide you; I glance left and right. The driver – hook-nosed, his moustache curling into his sideburns – is one we know well. He has a routine. We have seen it before. He takes my money, but fumbles as he returns my small change. And a fivepenny piece, he says, then appears to drop it. No, no, hold on, there’s one sprouted legs, either that or wings, legs or wings, one or the other. He winks, but I have no inclination to smile; I take my coins and sit three rows behind him. The seats on this side are singles. You always insisted we should sit separately, and I wasn’t allowed to look back; we had to pretend we were strangers. There are no other passengers. The driver whistles as he drives, and lets out a low growl each time he accelerates. You once told me you liked him; he was your favourite.
A bottle lists as we turn, rolls under the seats at the back. We pass a long line of hotels – Windy Shore, Tudor Gables, Ocean Dawn, Gable End – and then a Shell service station, a yellow scallop on red, after which the town is behind us. The bus illuminates the dark twists in the road, the swirl of snow falling. I clear my nose and take out a cough sweet. I press my face to the window and gaze out on the snow-covered fields, the trees haggard and stunted, like inverted brooms, shaped by the wind from the sea. The engine noise changes, deepens and coarsens, and then we are rising and I remember the day of your cremation, the long slow climb to the chapel and the hum of our car, its smell of warm leather. In the smoked-glass screen behind the driver I glimpsed Ruth’s reflection, her blankness. Our hands were clasped on the seat – clasped so long they’d become numb – and though your coffin was small, I wished then it could be smaller, take its place in the space between us. The road was narrow and steep and as we ascended I felt my back pressing into the seat; I felt the weight of my breathing, sweat prickling my chest. I thought I was going to be sick. There were high mud banks on each side of us, Victorian lampposts, tall conifers. I lowered my window and sank back in the breeze. I closed my eyes and inhaled. The car levelled and stopped, and for some time I could not get out. It was Polly who opened my door. I remember she offered her hand, and I gazed at her black dress, her black hat and veil. We had said that there shouldn’t be black, but your funeral was hers; she had organised everything. She was good at such things, and we hadn’t had the strength to resist her. But I shook my head then; I refused to get up. Ruth ducked out before me. She touched my knee and murmured my name. She waited. Others were waiting behind her, and finally I nodded. I let her take both my hands. She helped me to stand. She ought to be here with me now. Our stop is arriving, and I don’t think I can move. Perhaps the driver will continue, take me on to the next town. But he slows, and calls out; he leans over and looks round; and as I pull myself up I realise how drunk I’ve become. Slowly I make my way down the aisle, holding on to the poles, the chair-backs, and as the doors flip open the driver says, Thanking you; happy Christmas, mind how you go. I step out into darkness, empty fields and tumbling sky, and I watch the bus leaving. A couple of cars rush by me, and then there is nothing. Snow peppers my coat. Our caravan site is over the road.
THIRTY-ONE
It was lunchtime, your third day in the hospital, and as we sat in our grey bucket seats, one on each side of your bed, I held on to your fingers and blankly gazed at your monitors – the flickering numbers and waveforms – and then looked to the alphabet frieze on your wall, the posters and drawings, and the red-ribboned rosette that was pinned up beside them. Euan, it said; for bravery. I clenched my jaw and looked down. Nothing moved but the steady rise and fall of your chest. The ventilator behind me hissed and sucked as it breathed for you, and shaking my head, I wished that all of this could be over – the tubes and wires and machines – for your story now was make-believe, Euan. You were not brave, and you would not be waking. One consultant already had tested you, and soon enough another would confirm what she’d found, that however hard you were prodded or pinched, and whatever was shone or squirted into your eyes, or placed down your throat, you could not be hurt, for you had no life left in you, no reflex or response. Your brainstem was dead. And when Ruth again began weeping, and scraped back her chair, I went across to the rosette and carefully unpinned it. I guided her out through the grey double doors, down the wide stairwells and corridors, and we returned once more to the Parents’ Room, no longer quite parents. The heat in there was stifling, and smelled of
us, the days and hours we’d spent waiting. I laid your rosette on our bed and opened a window. The sea glimmered blue in the distance, and I stared down at the gardens, the deep shade of the hedges, and quietly then I suggested we should go for a walk, perhaps find somewhere to eat. Ruth nodded, not looking at me, and picked up her purse.
We didn’t go far, a couple of streets, and I remember the traffic as we came from the hospital, the buffeting noise and the sunshine. Ruth’s skirt flapped up in the breeze and some builders stopped working to watch her. She folded her arms on her chest and walked with head bowed, her face obscured by her hair, and it wasn’t until we came to a crossing – the Hurricane a short distance beyond it – that I saw she was still crying. Clumsily then I tried to embrace her, but she didn’t want to be held, stiffly waited until I let go. She turned and hurried over the road, went into the pub before me. The lounge had not altered, and there were no other people. I looked around at the red leather benches and stools, the paintings of planes on the walls, and gently I asked if she was sure about this, if she wouldn’t rather keep walking. I touched her shoulder. Please, Paul, she sighed; could you just let me be for a minute? She blew her nose and sat down; she placed her purse on the table. I took it through to the pool room. There was a vending machine in the corner, and I bought a packet of cigarettes.
