James reached out, and when Tenshi recoiled, he dropped the cake on the path.
A neighbour’s dog barked and a bird dived out of a sycamore.
‘Is it because you’re lonely?’ James regretted asking but his anger outran his tongue.
With his head down, Tenshi stood under the lamp from the past. His shadow looked like a comma.
James picked up the cake and put it back in Tenshi’s hands. The ice packs left a watermark on the concrete.
‘I’m sorry, Tenshi. I was rude.’
‘You were cruel.’
‘Yes, I was nasty because I’m cross. You’re cruel too, showing up with the cake just like last year.’
‘The world is cruel.’
James bit his lip again and touched Tenshi’s shoulder.
‘You nasty piece of shit. You think you can get away with murder.’ Tenshi kicked the gravel at James like two boys playing tricks on each other.
‘Ha! I’m pleased I managed to bring a smile to your grumpy face.’
Tenshi couldn’t stop beaming.
‘Don’t move. Let’s have a walk.’ James headed back to the house. ‘I’m just going to get a jacket and change my shoes.’
*
They walked and walked, without any plan or direction, without exchanging a single word or eye contact. They passed rows of dull suburban family homes and endless parked cars, until they reached the concrete banks of the river reflecting a champagne-coloured sky, one of those rare midsummer moments in the fickle northern weather. It was savoured by the few Darlingtonians who’d found time for a stroll in South Park after dinner.
‘Have they got rid of the fountain?’ Tenshi frowned. ‘This is scandalous. This park is Grade-II listed.’
‘It’s there.’ James pointed at the kidney-shaped pond. ‘The council switch it off after eight.’
‘I’ve always wanted to live by the water.’ Tenshi took a deep breath.
‘You have a lovely lake in Crystal Palace Park.’
‘You mean those cheesy dinosaur statues in the murky pond?’
‘I loved seeing the Tyrannosaurus rex next to the roses. We had such a hilarious afternoon paddling in our little boat among the London dinosaurs. Was that last summer?’
‘No, the summer before last.’
‘Oh, yes, when you first moved to London.’
In the distance, a boy ran like a bullet round the outside of the merry-go-round, while a girl held on to the handlebar, laughing, shrieking and screaming as if her head had spun off her neck.
‘How’s life in London?’
Tenshi found a broken branch and threw it into the pond with the beautiful arm movements of a professional softball player.
‘London is London.’ Tenshi crouched down to the ripples. ‘The world looks more homely when we see it from less than three feet above the ground. Do you remember watching Ozu’s Tokyo Story together at uni? I really miss sitting on a tatami.’
James squatted down to share Tenshi’s point of view.
‘How’s life with Michael?’
‘Good. He wants to find another house with a bigger garden in Darlington. He is restlessness personified.’
An early evening breeze tiptoed over the water’s surface and disappeared through the small gap between them.
‘Tess and Madame Carrière look happy in front of the house.’
James smiled. ‘I had nothing to do with their well-being. Michael is the one with green fingers.’
‘Well, Michael is Michael.’
‘He sure is.’ James sat on the ground, trying to get rid of the pins and needles in his left leg.
‘I’m sorry to show up at your front door. I really didn’t mean to be cruel. I was on autopilot.’
James started humming and singing the familiar melody of ‘Que sera, sera’. He gave a big sunny smile to Tenshi, who wanted to grasp the moment with something stronger than words, but held back.
‘I met a young Jewish man on the train up. He was reading the Bible in Hebrew and told me something strange, something God said to Moses when he saw the burning bush.’
‘What did the Almighty say?’
‘Que sera, sera.’
‘No way!’
‘Yes way! He said, “I will be what I will be.”’
‘When did you fall for Christ?’
‘My fellow passenger was quite hot.’
‘Hot like muscle-hot?’ James puffed up his chest and showed off his big biceps.
Tenshi laughed ironically, ‘Actually, more like brainy-hot, not something you’d understand.’
The pond was calming the agitation in their minds without them noticing. There was a muscular loosening in the atmosphere as the residual heat of the sun rose from the ground, mixing with the cooling evening air, as if they were on a Mediterranean holiday, having a stroll after a candlelit dinner by the sea. Tenshi looked sleepy but his mobile phone rang with a terrible siren-like noise.
‘Jesus! That gave me a real fright.’ James was stroking his pecs. ‘Why can’t you have a normal ringtone?’
‘Sorry, I have to take this.’ Tenshi answered the call and walked swiftly uphill.
Looking at Tenshi in the distance, pacing his way round a majestic horse chestnut tree and totally absorbed in the conversation, James realised the last time he’d seen him was exactly a year ago when he appeared at the front door with a birthday cake. It had been raining that night, the first anniversary of their daughter’s death. He let Tenshi into the house and gave him supper. After a few glasses of wine, James lost control of his breath, cried, coughed and choked in Tenshi’s arms. When he woke up at four in the morning with a terrible hangover and dragged himself to the kitchen sink for water, he found Tenshi curled up like a kitten on the sofa. A cloud passed and the moon lit up the room and the furniture they had accumulated together through thick and thin – the two IKEA Poäng armchairs they’d bought at university, the sixties teak kitchen table extendable for dinner parties, the poster of Mark Rothko’s Black on Maroon picked up on their first visit to the Tate, the lava lamp their daughter had insisted on getting for her birthday …
Then, one day, out of the blue, Michael had appeared. He sat opposite James across the table at a work do, smiled at him as if they had known each other since the beginning of time.
When James had asked what furniture Tenshi would like to take to London, the answer was ‘none’.
Now, seeing Tenshi leaning against the tree, completely engrossed in a conversation he was not party to, James couldn’t distinguish jealousy from relief. He untied the ribbon on the box and found a matcha chiffon cake in a perfect O, the hollow centre filled with summer raspberries, strawberries, red and blackcurrants. On the emerald brim, there was a piece of dark chocolate half the size of a credit card, with To J & M written on top in white chocolate, and next to the initials, a cartoon portrayal of a house with a slanted roof, a window and a door.
‘Sorry, Tenshi, I didn’t know …’ James’s voice was breaking.
‘Oh, that’s fine.’ Tenshi stood there, frozen. The mobile phone was trembling in his hand. ‘I got the job.’
‘What?’ James propped himself up on the ground. ‘What job?’
‘I can’t believe it.’ Tenshi’s mouth was as wide as the O-shaped cake. ‘The lemon lady just rang from the private school. She said it was the unanimous decision of the panel. They said I was impressive and imaginative, and they liked my question about the cemetery. What the hell! I’m going to be a teacher.’
‘Congratulations!’ James jumped up and embraced Tenshi. He could hear Tenshi’s heart going pitter-patter, and his own, too. ‘Of course, you are impressive and imaginative!’ James wiped his eyes before releasing Tenshi back to the cooling air.
‘Let’s cut the cake to celebrate.’ James managed to use the flimsy plastic knife and handed Tenshi a nice piece with plenty of berries on it.
They sat down by the pond again. Tenshi realised how hungry he had been, now that the sweet sponge, li
ght as clouds, reached his stomach.
‘Who’s this lemon lady?’
‘Miss Armstrong, the Latin teacher in the school. She was wearing a bright blouse with Sicilian lemon-prints.’
‘I see. What are you going to teach?’
‘Digital media and visual culture.’
‘What the hell is that?’
‘Anythingdigitallyvisual, like films, videos, photography.’
‘But you haven’t got a teaching qualification.’
‘You don’t need that to teach in a private school.’
‘Wow, what a world we live in.’
Tenshi finished his piece and helped himself to another.
‘So are you quitting advertising?’ James asked, picking some blackcurrants out from his slice of cake and putting them on Tenshi’s. He knew how much Tenshi liked them.
‘I’ll do freelance work one day a week. I think the school likes the connection with industry.’
‘I can’t believe you’re going to be a teacher in a posh school. It’s exciting. A watershed moment.’ He put his arms around Tenshi. ‘I’m so proud of you.’
‘Sit tight. I might not pass the probation.’
A pigeon bobbed down from a higher branch to a lower one, mounting himself on a female and trying his luck. The cooing and fluttering lasted three seconds.
Tenshi knew James knew he was wary of them, even though the action was six feet above in the foliage, somewhere beyond reach.
‘Do you want to sleep over tonight?’
‘Thanks, I’m taking the ten o’clock train back to London.’
‘You sure?’
‘One hundred per cent.’
‘Okay, I’ll walk you to the station.’
Tenshi picked up the ribbon and carefully tied a butterfly bow around the cake box. A quarter past nine. Although the sun had set, a faint trace of its orange blaze was still visible on the horizon.
Out of the trees, in the fading evening light, a small murmuration of starlings soared up over the middle of the pond and flew in geometric formations like waves, plumes of smoke, yacht sails or the undulating curve of our heartbeat on an electrocardiogram. It wasn’t clear why and how their wings moved in perfect synchrony, as in an evening chorus line. Tenshi started filming the movement on his phone.
‘It’s beautiful,’ James said, holding his breath as if he was walking on a tightrope.
‘It’s like an augury.’
‘Can you tell the message? Is it auspicious?’
Tenshi zoomed in and out, following the unpredictable directions with his fingers, while the time-marker on the screen increased second by second. Against the summer sky, hundreds of black arrows converged into a full stop and dispersed in a fluid, elongated shape that looked like a question mark.
WABBIT
MATT WESOLOWSKI
I’m fuckin mortal. Head’s still ringing with music; the dirty bass of the clubs and the good old songs – sloshing round me belly with the lager. Oh Delilah. Staggering through the doors of Cosy Joe’s out into the street, reeling. I can still feel the lads’ arms round us; stink of sweat and aftershave.
Spit and songs in me ears, all out of tune out of key but who gives a fuck cos it’s fucking beautiful. Me throat is wrecked. All the old tunes. Oldies but goodies.
Just like us.
Easter fuckin Sunday morning.
There’s a couple of lasses laughing in the cold; tab smoke spiralling up into the sky. Lovely. I bum one and stick it behind me ear; it’ll probs get all wet with me sweat. Doesn’t matter now, like. Not even got a lighter.
I’m off down through the Bigg Market, get a kebab from the van; chips and garlic sauce; loadsa chilli, mate. Loadsa chilli sauce, my mate, he says. Laughing, little beard; some Arabic tattoo on his neck. Pickled cabbage and everything, me mouth’s watering. Just need to sit somewhere; eat me kebab; bottle of lager in me inside jacket pocket to wash it down.
Throat’s red raw from all the singing and me mouth hurts from laughing.
Taxi and home.
I walk downhill, past the queue of young’uns outside Perdu; every one of em spice-boys and slappers. Pure Geordie shore types. Dead budgies and nee socks; curly tops and short back and sides. I would have been kicked to fuck looking like that when I was their age. They’ve all got muscles and tatts now, these lads; all the lasses with their fake tits and Botox. I see one lad passing his mate a baggie of coke – he has a snort off his finger. Things are still the same, really, in the bones of it all.
Up all night on the speed and the cider, we were. Right bunch of charvas.
Long time ago now, all that. I take a swig of me bottle to wash the memory away.
Lights all up ahead, the crossing where there’s a million fuckin taxis and people all over the road. A load of students are sat on the steps of Cathedral Square, dressed up in flares and fake afros; metal peace signs round their necks. Used to gan student-bashing back in the day round Byker. Remember when they put those poor fuckers in the high-rises in Cruddas Park? Tarquin and Fiona getting taxed off twelve-year-old radgies. Jesus man, what were they thinking? I almost felt sorry for them.
Almost.
Old Queen Vic sat in her folds of stone, watches us pass by, glaring over at the green lights of Subway. Stink of fake bread coming out of there like a fuckin gas attack. They’ve got to have doormen outside there now; Greggs too. Mental.
It’s noisy as fuck down here man; traffic roaring, lasses shrieking and there’s some fuckin southern rugby song coming from the students. Fuck that. I’m away over the road; waiting for the green man like a good lad, me kebab still warm. Some cunt’s blowing vape in me face, strawberry fuckin billabong flavour or whatever. Fuckin gleaky twat.
But I’m over and past Tup-Tup on the other side; another queue of spice-boys. But now there’s the castle and the cathedral. The clock on there, red and gold. Been there for yonks, still looks new. Just gone one a.m. I’m fuckin knackered. I remember when me and the lads were up till all hours at Haddy’s. Cans and tabs and a couple hours’ kip before we got up with the dogs to go hunting. Class days, them. Just mates and dogs. Couldn’t do it now, like. Them days is long ago.
Look forward, not back. Look to the things you can control.
Gonna feel like shit tomorrow. Cannit control that.
Best get this kebab ate.
The road goes on towards the bridges. Hate that walking bridge; the grey cage covered in seagull shit and the iron stink of piss. Feels like you’re gonna get stabbed any second. Can’t be arsed to walk all the way round to the Tyne either; huge and green with its lamps like summit out of the olden days. The path ahead leads downward; steep; past Empress where all the Toon players used to drink back when we were class; down to the Quayside. Quayside used to be rough as fuck. Just full of wankers and tourists now wanting selfies of themselves on the Millennium Bridge. Sometimes some doylem jumps into the Tyne and nearly dies. Daft cunt.
Me belly’s gonna burst I’m that hungry, so instead I go round the side of the cathedral where all the prozzies used to knock about. There’s a path made of old gravestones and scabby grass. Dark and quiet down here too. Got to watch it in case there’s any smackheads or spice-zombies. Tell ya what, I’d probably even turn down a prozzie right now. Just wanna get me kebab eaten in peace.
It’s well better here, away from the road. Everything’s a bit faint now. Bit more peaceful. Old here. You could be back in time right now with all the solicitors and law buildings rising up around you. Georgian roofs. Nowt got touched up here during the war so it’s all still here. Even the fuckin Nazis were scared of the Geordies, man. People say the north’s grim but have you seen the state of London?
I’m down the path and round the back into the square, in the shadow of the cathedral. Empty. Quiet. Stained-glass windows all black, like the TV’s been turned off. I sit myself down on a bench; old and knackered, looks like it would collapse under me weight but it doesn’t. Me head’s not spinning and I can’t wait, can�
�t wait for the taste in me mouth, the meat and the chips; the chillies bursting at the back of me tongue, fuckin lush. Me mouth’s full of potato and garlic. Can hear it mashing between me teeth. I feel grease running down me chin but who gives a fuck. A swig of me beer.
I’m done. I get up; me knees already stiff and there’s a noise up ahead, a clink sound, like something’s fallen on the pavement. I look round cos if it’s me keys I’m fucked. One of the clouds shifts and the moon shines out. Cheers for that but it’s nowt. It’s warm but I get a little shiver down me spine. It’s proper silent, round the back of the church; a couple of scabby trees and some spiky railings. A couple of council bins; great black metal things like sleeping monsters.
I walk across the square, face the back ends of offices. There’s a piddly little pavement and locked doors. Square buildings all round, great big windows with ledges like droopy black eyes; roofs and ridges and balconies nee fucker’s ever going to use.
What the fuck is that?
It’s lying on one of those old, flat graves, glinting in the moonlight.
No. No fuckin way. It can’t be.
My belly’s tight as fuck, fit to burst, I can feel the lager sloshing in with the chewed-up meat and chips. I don’t even feel that pissed anymore, but I’ve got a pure cottonmouth on me. This is fuckin mad. It’s dream or something. Has to be. Maybe I fell asleep on that bench like a fuckin smackhead?
Look forward. Make sure what you can see is really real. Not an echo of the past.
There it is. It can’t be. Sat on the gravestone. I pick it up. It slots into me hand like a memory. That’s what it is, an old memory. I slip the blade out with me thumb, an old movement, feel the click as the blade locks, feel it all the way through me bones. It’s been years. Muscle memory.
Click.
Where the fuck did I lose it? How did I lose it?
Easter Sunday.
All them years ago.
I look up and I swear I’m nearly sick. Right up ahead of us is one of the doorways; beautiful it is; all curved stone on top of stairs and pillars. One of them round windows at the top. Mad cos no one comes here, even in the day. No one’s here to see them curling stone flowers. But there’s something else, isn’t there? There’s something that hangs over that doorway; something that clings to the arch with long, red claws. Something that glares down with blazing pale eyes. Two ears rise like fuckin devil’s horns over its head.
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