Come Not When I Am Dead

by R. A. England

  “You know the vet, the good looking one?” Jo is looking at me over her book and I feel sick “Yes”

  “you went to school with him didn’t you?”

  come on, come on, come on, out with it I think, “primary school”

  “do you know his wife?” and I feel a bit easier

  “not really, I don’t think she’s very nice though” the buzzard has seen something and is swooping, scything down to the ground, he jumps the last bit, and I see him up and down, hopping, then he hups up on to a fence post, eyes peeled “well, I was in the pub last night and I saw her”

  “yes?… go on”

  “she was with this bloke, one of those twatty looking posh blokes with a pink check shirt on and too much of a hairstyle” and I knew exactly what she meant, I even saw him propped up against the bar, holding his beer in his hand at a funny angle “so?”

  “Well, she looked pretty cosy, and I’ve never seen her even smile before, but she was all over this bloke” the buzzard has it, he has a mouse or a shrew, he has caught his breakfast “I’m sure it was all legitimate, she doesn’t look the sort to slag it up really does she? Did anyone else see them?”

  “Nah, they were in a dark corner by the door” and I wonder, I think there probably is something in it, it is exciting, and I wonder whether I’ll tell Charlie. There is potential power and potential pain in that story, but I will not manipulate him, I will always be open with him. I spread my hands before him and show him what is there for him to make of it what he will. I feel sick about it too though.

  After we breakfasted I went to my studio to try and paint. But it is too hot today. I am a shuffling, fidgeting bugger that can’t settle and I push back my chair and I hear it move through the dust on the floor I note how warped the floorboards are, I see it all without looking. I push back my messy pile of papers and they settle in to place. I stand up and stretch up and see some butterfly wings in a cobweb near the window, a window scratchy with years old dirt, the paint has come off the frame and there’s a damp smell in here, a sort of pale brown smell. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t quite know what I’m doing really. I’m painting, but I don’t have passion today, yesterday. I want to kick down walls and make things crash and bash. I’m spikey and squiggly and going round and round in eccentric wheels of copper wire. I want to lie about on the ground and smoke cigars. I want to dance furiously. I want to suck my thumb and curl up at the base of a big tree. I want yellow honey to flow and get rid of the rubbish. I want to rest my head on Coningsby’s soft and warm fur. I want to be loved and held and cherished by everybody. I want to be adored by everybody and no words spoken. But birds still sing. I say “oh bugger” to myself and go outside in this filthy and disgusting heat with my head down and my body slipping through the stiflingness.

  I am sitting on my bedroom floor now having a cigar and in the sitting room I hear Joseph and his newest boyfriend chattering and I know the boyfriend is stroking Coningsby because I hear Joseph say “Aunty Gussie absolutely adores her, I hate to think what she’ll be like when she dies.” But I can’t think about it, best not to think about it as marbles scurry across the floor and as the fly lands in the river and finds no fish. As I go under and you go over. But nothing could replace her, nothing could replace my silken-eyed wonder with her silken-soft footsteps. I tiptoe across the room now and rest in the feathers on my bed and rest my chin on my hand and I am silent.

  And now, as they talk, as they gabble, my time stops and I rewind and my space is quieter than theirs. It is the only thing worth understanding and what you say, whoever you are, means nothing as I sit in silence by your side. In my very beautiful silence, to be treasured and kept as a treasure. And I have a box of treasures, a box of felted cat fur and cast off cat claw sheaths, of sunsets and passing owls or a pheasants cry far off and getting further and further.

  Later on, whilst Jo is tidying the sitting room and I’m standing there watching her so I’m sort of partaking in it too and looking as if I’m doing something, Jo asks me what Joseph does for a living. “This and that” I say and pretend to look under a chair

  “but what is this and that? And will you stop just walking from spot to spot, I know you’re just busy doing nothing”

  “Well, he sort of looks after Japanese businessmen” I say and look away from her, to hide my smile “looks after them? What does that mean? That sounds a bit dodgy.”

  And I throw over my shoulder “It’s not though” and I race out of the sitting room, in to the kitchen so she doesn’t hear me laugh and hope she gets distracted with cobwebs and dusty surfaces.

  Chapter 7

  “Hello?” It is a woman’s voice, his wife’s. She has a ‘phone’ voice

  “Is that Linda Snell?” I feel like saying, but instead I clear my throat and say

  “Oh, hi, ummm, Farquhar Stevens here, is, umm, is the vet there?” I don’t know why I always do this voice.

  “Can I ask what the problem is?”

  “Oh yah, it’s umm, my donkey”

  “and what’s the problem with your donkey?”

  “Umm, just doesn’t look right, I know when he looks right and he just looks wrong, very wrong, really need the vet out now” and I think that sounds pretty good and I can hear that she’s impressed with me, she thinks I’m the ‘right type’. She is gracious to me and if I’d ‘oo ah’ed’ like a farmer she would have been curt. She should be ashamed of herself, and Farquhar sounds such a twat.

  “You’re one of us” people will say to me, or “she’s not one of us” they’ll say about Jo and it disgusts me, it is excrement hurling from their mouths. “Just hold the line and I’ll go and find him” I can hear the false smile in her voice.

  “Oh great, thanks, the children will be so pleased” . Pleased? Pleased? I could have chosen a better word than that but off she went, I heard her calling him “Charles!” Charles! His name’s fragging Charlie. I heard little children playing on wooden floors and some toys being bashed about, the sounds of his house. I don’t want to hear his domesticity. And in my head I see wide dark oak floorboards and dark coloured rugs, diamond leaded windows and large oil paintings of animals on the walls. I’ve no idea if it’s really like that, but it is now. I sing a little tune to myself ‘to you, my heart cries out perfidia…’and look at the book on the shelf by the phone and then I hear a sigh that flutters through my bones, unsteadying me. “Hello, what’s the problem with your donkey then?” His words seeped out and lust seeped right through me, stealthily but surely. I like hearing his voice on the phone, it is a deep child’s, it sounds like I want to wrap my arms around it, pick it up and hold it tight, press close to my cheek. “Can you be a little more specific?”

  “you’re my donkey problem” I still say as Farquhar

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s me you spanner” and there is silence at the other end while he collects himself, I shouldn’t have said that. “Has your mobile broken or something? Check it. Just quickly though, I can’t do 6pm tonight, make it 7pm, OK?”

  “OK, I’ll be out after I’ve had something to eat, I shall see you at 7pm then, thank you Mr Stevens. Goodbye.”

  Ooooh, it’s so exciting, it’s all so exciting and I sit down and laugh with the devilment of it all. I’m a rascal.

  ‘Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, I’M BAD’ I text him.

  “Did I ever tell you” I say to Charlie at about 7.40pm “that my grandpa built this fishing hut?”

  “no, you didn’t, but that’s very nice”

  “the others want to replace it with a new one. They talked to me about it once, but I must have looked so sad, they thought I was going to cry, so they’ve never mentioned it again” and I smile, one hand burrowing in my pocket looking for a lighter, the other holding a cigar. “What are the others like?”

  “nothing really, just boring. I mean look how beautiful it is here and they just never come” my arms are open now, I know that I have very expressive hands and a very
expressive face, it makes me laugh if someone ever videos me, I look like a cartoon character but luckily people find it endearing because I couldn’t do anything about it anyway. I think I look like a prat though.

  We are sitting on a very basic old wooden bench, a plank on two stump logs. The river is black and the dead grass is white, there’s the far off cries of ewes calling their lambs to them and Bill hooting to me, ever nearer, I am aware of everything. We’re surrounded by dark shadows of trees and a faded pink in the sky. “I’m glad they don’t come” and my head turns around on my neck like a radar “I don’t want them to come, but it’s odd isn’t it? They all have access to here, but I never see them. Have you ever seen anywhere as perfect? Have you? In all your travels, have you ever seen anywhere as utterly perfect as here?” I am smiling at the glory of this world, I’m so excited by it all “no I haven’t” but he is looking at me and not out at the view

  “you’re looking at me, look at the view! So, have you?” I laugh and try to get him to appreciate what I see, but he’s appreciating his view of me “I’m not talking to you anymore.” I laugh and my face contorts without control, I laugh with my face down, towards my lap because I’m embarrassed but happy. My heart swirls and claps itself together because he was looking at me with appreciation, because he was being romantic and loving and admiring. “You’re very lovely” I say “thank you for your love.” I feel blue birds could fly to me in a little troupe and flutter around me, prinking my hair and clothes as they trill a little tune. I feel I am good, a really good person. The midges are biting at my head and neck now and a deer leaps out from the undergrowth on the other bank, it makes us jump and be even quieter. And I drift into magical silence.

  We were having a bit of a sit down and a cup of drinking chocolate from his flask before we changed rods to fish for sea trout. We waded in together just below the hut. Tired, I was glad of a sit down and to go into a daze. Sometimes he doesn’t take to fishing so very easily, he forgets everything and he is clumsy in the water “think about where you’re walking” I say “you should always be having a little conversation with your feet whilst you’re wading, you do have to be very aware of your feet Charlie, that’s the difference between success and disaster, it’s so important.” I feel like shaking him by the shoulders to make it settle in his head. It bores me to be a bore, but I have to spell everything out for him sometimes “look, now you’re standing on solid, unshifting bedrock and there’s no slime beneath your feet to unsettle you, see?” And I shuffle my feet as an illustration “Charlie, concentrate! And sometimes, like back there, you’re wading through shifting shingle with those slimy slippery boulders, they can be utterly treacherous, the mud is all oozy and grabs your legs, did you feel it? You have to just be aware of your feet all the time.” I don’t think he’s getting it. It is getting dark now and we should be quiet. “Do be careful Charlie, I’ve fallen in loads of times and it’s horrible as well as dangerous.” I am softer now.

  “I know you have” he says “I’ve seen you a few times”

  “Don’t be such a bloody prat, it’s not funny, don’t make a joke of it. Listen to me! And always put the belt on your waders” and I take it from his shoulder strap and put it around his waist, tightening it up and adjusting it “Yes ma’am”

  “It’s important, it will stop the water from getting straight to your feet if you topple over” and I lean a little more forward, reach my hand up, high, high, high and stroke down his left cheek I am taking pollen from a flower. And all my insides gushing and waving frantically into disintegration. The sky is black fudge and heavy and sweet all around us and a sea trout lifts it’s body high in the air and flat backs splash in the water “you’re showing off” I say “and your exuberance could be the end of you, that joy could suddenly turn to dread, to hopelessness and to flesh on my plate.” I watch Charlie in what light there is, I watch him in my grandpa’s waders, trying to impress me, he wades towards me, trying to walk with dignity. He has his rod in his left hand and reaches out for my hand with his right and we walk side by side, I feel the adult but look the child “I am looking forward to this” and he is, he wants to learn how to fish, he wants to feel the same passion for it that I do, I would love him to, but somehow think he won’t. The river is pinching our legs through the waders now, we feel the pressure in the faster flowing water try to carry us off, kidnapping us for some boisterous and possibly lethal adventure, I tell Charlie that sometimes, especially when fishing in a flood, debris can take you from behind, and bang, before you know anything about it, you’re off your feet. I tell him how if you go over in waders they fill up with water and then you’re buggered, or sometimes the air can stay in the legs and feet of the waders and turn you upside down. These are things I was taught when I was little and I’m passing them on to him, but whereas with me, they screwed their way deep down in my brain, they are bouncing off Charlie’s head like light off a bald patch. “Charlie” I love saying his name “do you know a chap with a hair-do and a pink checked shirt who drinks at ‘The Stag’?” I hadn’t thought I would say this but I hear the words coming from me, like the sweets I accidently eat when I feel them falling into my mouth from my own hand. “Can’t think, why? Who’s that?” and he doesn’t look up from his knot and I wondered whether I should say ‘oh nothing’ or tell him. But I tell him everything, even when, especially when it concerns him “your wife was with him the other night, when you were at my house.”

  “Oh, wonder who that was?” but he doesn’t seem worried, he doesn’t falter in his knot, he seems only just politely interested “I didn’t know she was going out, how tall was this bloke?” he really doesn’t seem bothered, I think this is a good thing. If he was interested or animated I’d know he was lying to me about their relationship.

  These conversations are like those ships in the night, sometimes words pass without obstruction and sometimes they bash and bang and become starkly aware of each other and I feel an argument that could have been, disintegrate before it’s even formed.

  I told him that Jo saw them, I didn’t say ‘cosying up’ but I said that they were close to each other and looked as if they were having fun “funny if she was having an affair too” and I smile a tentative smile as I look up at him “stupid then to do it in a pub if she is” he says, and turns to look at me with what I know is a fond smile, he leans a little forward, I can see him toppling, toppling and froosh! He’s in the water, splashes high and wide, white and silver and bubbled, shooting up, covering his face, obscuring his face, I can see you. I see the dark bulk of his body disappear backwards, disappearing and he’s under. Crash, and what a splash that makes, water everywhere, in my face, up so high. It’s funny, the expression on his face, the look in his eyes, his whites too white. The open of his mouth, stuck in time, the waving of his arms, flap, flap, frantically flap against the river, ripping paper, fireworks. The torso gone now and the legs remaining, it’s very funny and I feel myself laughing, I love to laugh. He has no control, boosh and over again and I see it all so slowly. Count the splashes and, after all that I thought. I wonder if his legs have got air in them? I am not here. I am not there. And I bring myself back. I wonder if I wasn’t here would he drown? and I’m laughing so that it hurts, my eyes are tight and my mouth is dribbling and I can’t move for laughing and then I hear him gulping, shouting, drowning and I realise I am moving. I am aware of everything, every splash, ever drop of water, all the colours in the river, every changing expression on his face. I part the water, pushing my chest through, making a path, I am aware of the heaviness of it, it is suddenly very heavy, and the stones are those slippery, slimy boulders I told Charlie about, but I get to him, slower than I would like and he’s splashing me with his flailing, surely he can’t really be drowning? I am annoyed all of a sudden. I don’t like water in my face. I spit it out and scrunch up my eyes in disgust. “Hold on to me you spanner, grab my hand. Not that hard” and I pull it away, I don’t want him to drag me in. I am pulling and la
ughing, grabbing and laughing, thinking how very wet he’s going to be and laughing. I’ve got him. He’s safe, his waders full of water, his legs weak, he’s a cheap aluminium stool toppling at the slightest touch and I can’t stand straight for laughter “you poor old sausage, I don’t want to say I told you so, but you are a prat Charlie.”

  “That was a bit bloody dangerous, and you weren’t much help, laughing like a bloody mad woman” and in an instant he is a weasel, trapped and dangerous, thin faced and furious. I am standing over him with a stick, wondering what to do, my joy being ruined by distaste of him. “But I did help though didn’t I? Didn’t I? If it wasn’t for me you might have died there!” I want his reassurance and gratitude now and I heave him out of the water, help him lie, heavy and cumbersome on the river bank on my newly strimmed grass and kiss his soft butter lips whilst taking his waders off him, “you are a very wet creature” and I’m still laughing “but so exciting. Hey, aren’t you? Very exciting indeed” and I thought that he’d have to come back to my house tonight and dry his clothes and I’d have more of his time.

  Later on that evening we are in the fire corner of my large and low ceilinged sitting room in shadowed warmth. The firelight darts off the glass fronted picture frames and just to see the light is to know the heat. My cheeks are warm and I’m so quietly, perfectly happy, it is all smooth. I’m with Charlie, and I’m thinking of grandma, always with the fire too roaring and a glass of sherry in her hand, glowing amber in the firelight. Charlie’s clothes are in the tumble drier in the outhouse but I can’t go out and see if they’re dry because Frank’s car is there and he’s walking around to see if he can find me, no doubt for a glass of something and a chat. I feel guilty hiding from him, but it would do no good if he saw us together, I know it’s for the best, although, there’s a sneaky little bit of me that wants to shout out look Frank. Look what I’ve got in here, my adorable lover, did you know he’s my boyfriend? “What would you do if your wife was having an affair?” I know her name, of course I do, but I can’t bring myself to say it. We are eating left over cous cous, grapes and cold sausages with sweet chilli sauce off side plates. We have chocolate brownies too, it’s a bit like camping, only cleaner and you can wash your hands properly “it’s hardly likely is it? She doesn’t like sex”