by Stuart Evers
Nate flexed his good fist. Would like to do Tommy. Didn’t matter if he did it or no. Didn’t matter, in the grand scheme. Without Tommy, he wouldn’t be there still; Nate was sure of that. Would have done something. Got out. Not feeling the need to stay with his family. Without Tom, everything different. Anneka still there.
He finished his joint and went back to the farmhouse; Harris labouring behind. His parents were at the table, eating toast, the two of them in low conversation about something. His mother smiled at him, his father too.
‘All right out there?’ his father said.
‘Nice morning,’ he said. ‘Like the last of summer.’
‘I can take more summer,’ he said.
‘You coming over to the Carters’ for lunch?’ his mother said. ‘Thomas has brought his little girl up.’
‘I should have known she was here,’ Nate said. ‘I saw this big star in the sky and there were shepherds and these funny-looking blokes in flowing robes.’
‘Very funny,’ she said. ‘Are you coming over?’
‘No, I’m washing my hair,’ he said, running his hand over his buzzcut.
He could have said about Anneka. He could easily go down that road, but his father was already a pot with the lid on, the steam escaping from the sides. Ready for it. Ready to shut it down. Learned this, his look that said, in quiet, sad tones, do not push me. Do not make me lose the grip I currently have.
‘I’ll try to come over after my nap.’
His father nodded, the pan cooling.
‘What did you do to your hand?’ his mother said.
‘Trapped it in the shed door last night,’ he said.
‘You’re the clumsiest lad I’ve ever met,’ his father said.
*
He spent the late morning and early afternoon masturbating and sleeping. He showered at three, got dressed and looked at the house through the binoculars. He could see his mother and Daphne in the kitchen, the baby on his mother’s knee, the two of them talking and drinking white wine. He watched them for a while, watched as Thomas and his wife came into the kitchen, arm in arm, and plucked the girl from his mother.
Four years older and Thomas out in the world, like Anneka; Nate stuck here. You say it’s a choice, but it’s not a choice. You say you love the fields, the sweat of work, but you do not love the work, you just know it’s easy. You say you’re glad you’re not a brainbox like the Carters and your sister, but you’re not glad. You wake in the dark and you know your day and you know how it will end and begin again.
He masturbated again. Images coming, all of them. Images of Daisy, a short woman, a year or so older than him, stout and forthright. The first time she’d wanked him off it felt like she was doing something agricultural. He imagined he’d probably marry her. Daisy didn’t.
‘You need to relax,’ she’d said. ‘You’re all . . . tensed up. Like you’re ready for your whole life right this second so you can get it over with.’
He wondered if it was because he’d taken so long to cum when they eventually fucked that she’d stopped and offered to finish him off with her mouth. He’d declined and kept at it, no image or sensation making any material difference. He never had that problem when alone. Nor when in the caravan.
He heard his parents come back a little after four. He put on his Walkman. His father came into the room, tapped him on the leg.
‘You’ll go deaf as a post listening to that thing.’
‘What’s that?’ he said.
‘It’s no joke. Most of the men from the factory were deaf by sixty. You’ll be the same, you carry on.’
‘It wasn’t that loud.’
‘You should have come over. Thomas was asking after you.’
‘Maybe I’ll go see him later,’ he said. ‘Catch up with him myself.’
His father smiled.
‘I think he’d appreciate it,’ he said.
*
Nate rode the 50cc to the Wolf. Blew off some cobwebs, drove a loop around the pub, then parked up. Bobby behind the bar, old as hills and fields, still gleam in his eye and a sharp word if there was any disrespect. Smoke fumed the dark wood and dark bar. Nate was the youngest in the pub by some distance, always the way, unless Giggsy was around. Worked the Chivers’ farm a half-mile back, good sort, handy in a fight. After one of the dances at the Young Farmers’, Nate had got in a scrap and Giggsy had got his back. Handy to know, blokes like that.
Nate ordered a pint, sat at one of the small tables, lit an Embassy. The beer was good. Pete and he came here, just a couple of pints together some nights, Nate riding pillion, quiet drinks, and quiet cigarettes and then to the caravan. The best nights those. This after the year of college, the swell of the people there, the number of them. Hated the number, hated the vastness. Better just with Pete. Things always better with Pete.
They talked about it, though Nate did not want to talk about it. They talked of shame.
‘You’re ashamed of this?’ Pete said, his hairless chest and ripped abs, the cock Nate had recently sucked. Like velvet the head. That what he thought the first time. Something plush about the skin.
‘Don’t give a fuck,’ Nate said.
‘You don’t worry people’ll find out?’
He had a round face, the only part of the body he didn’t seem able to primp or pump into athleticism. It remained slightly doughy, his brow ridged and too low, a sag of skin just below his jaw. It was the closest he’d seen him to ever looking nervous.
‘Who’s going to find out?’ Nate said. ‘It’s just us. It doesn’t mean nothing.’
Pete kissed him then and they went at it in the slow way. No shame. Not then. But Nate knowing something was coming, an ending coming. That there would be a time they came back to the caravan and his hand would be pushed away. A time when he was told this was wrong. A time when Pete told him not to come back.
A couple walked in, older types, man ruddy-faced in a burgundy Gabicci jumper; the woman in a shimmering blouse, the shoulders puffed up. They sat on the table next to him, talked in low voices about their plans for the week. Squash and pop mobility. So calm, he thought. The two of them, so calm nothing could unbalance them. Just the fucking ease of it all. Everything in place, shipshape. What that would feel like. To have the edges smoothed, ironed flat. There was an advert on the television for a brand of electric iron, a landscape of hills and tors made of denim, the iron moving through it, the denim flattened, perfectly wrinkle-free. That’s what he wanted. The neatness of it. The perfect press, without ruck or hillock.
‘Hi Natey,’ Thomas said. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’
Thomas Carter was lighting a cigarette, holding a pint of best, standing in front of him.
‘What you doing here?’ Nate said.
‘Always come here when I’m back in town,’ he said. ‘The beer’s so well-kept, isn’t it?’
He took a long swill from his pint and wiped the froth from his top lip, sat on the small stool opposite.
‘I was just going,’ Nate said.
‘Oh, I think we both know that’s a lie,’ Thomas said, ‘You’ve only just got here. I saw you on your bike not twenty minutes ago. Let me buy you another.’
‘There’s no need. I’m heading off.’
‘I insist, young Nate. I insist, dear boy.’
No point in arguing, never any point. Be calm. Don’t let him get to you.
‘I’ll have a half,’ he said.
‘You’ll have a pint and like it,’ Thomas said, slant smile and cold in his eyes.
He watched him at the bar, the wide stance of his legs, the cream colour of his trousers, the tassels on his loafers, the highlights in his bouffant hair. He walks in and authority with him strides; Thomas the kind of man who knew no one on entering a bar, but would leave with phone numbers, well-wishes and everyone remembering his name.
‘There you are, Natey,’ Thomas said setting down the drink. ‘A nice pint, just for you.’
‘What do you want?’ Nate said.
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‘I just wanted to catch up with my old pal, Natey. Find out how he’s doing these days.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Yes, working the fields. Mucking out the cows. Such honest work, I’m almost envious.’
‘It suits me,’ he said.
‘No girl as yet, I hear. Heard you pulled some pig at the Young Farmers’ dance though.’
Nate looked across the table at Tom, tried to use the face that Pete used, the cocksure face that said he could never be hurt, especially by someone like this.
‘Still,’ Thomas said, ‘you’re probably over it now you’ve got your bum chum in the caravan. Pete, isn’t it? With the muscles. I bet his arms make you go all girly, don’t they?’
Nate set down the pint pot, worried he might crush it with his left fist. That face. That fucking face. He could glass him. He looked into that face. How it would feel on the end of his boot. And yet good that someone knew. Not his mother and father, but someone at least. Pete and him existing outside of the caravan. Nate smiled at Thomas, clearly not the reaction he had expected. Don’t think you know me, Thomas Carter, you fucking prick.
‘I don’t know what you think you know—’
‘I know everything, Natey,’ Thomas said. ‘There isn’t anything I don’t know. Try this one, for example. I know where your sister is. Have done for years. I’ve got an address, even a phone number. I went to see her once. Just hung around in the car outside. Wanted to be sure it was her. And it was. Would recognize her arse anywhere. Shame she’s cuckoo.’
Fist clench and the burn of the fist and remember to breathe. Smile and breathe. Pete’s face. His face.
‘I’m not rising to this, Tommy,’ Nate said. ‘You can try. Give it your best shot. But I won’t.’
‘Oh, but you are, Natey,’ he said. ‘Go on. Do it. Give me that hiding you’ve been so wanting to dish out. I hear you’re pretty handy with your fists. Go on, Natey, do it.’
Drink the drink. Pick up the cigarettes. Do not clench the fist that will not quite clench. Do not launch yourself. Do not beat him until he’s begging for mercy.
‘Go on,’ Thomas said. ‘Do it. You know you want to. It doesn’t matter either way, really. You’ll be off my land sooner or later. And I’m going to take such joy in that moment. Seeing you all packed up and leaving. I’m going to have the best day ever then. The likes of your family finally off my birthright. What a day that will be. The scum washed away!’
Smile now.
‘Go on, Nate. Give me a slap. You know you want to. Go on, make this easy on me.’
Finish drink.
‘Fancy another?’ Nate said, smiling. ‘My round.’
Thomas shook his head. He stood and picked up his cigarettes, leaned in to Nate’s face.
‘One day I might pay your sister a proper visit. Finish what I started.’
He patted Nate on the top of the head.
‘Mind how you go, pilgrim.’
Thomas turned and walked out of the pub. Playing an angle. Do not leave. Finish your pint. Smoke an Embassy and do not follow him through the door. Do not follow him. Listen to the man in the Gabicci jumper talk of a bistro that’s just opened in town. Think of Pete. Think of parents. Do not go out into the darkening night. Order another drink. Another one after that. Think of Pete. Of Pete. Not of kicking off the head of Thomas Carter. Not to think of him. Not to think of Anneka.
*
Nate dragged his way through the hall, past the open door to the sitting room. His mother and father were watching the television, holding hands, like they were in a seance. He wanted to say hello, but didn’t want to say where he’d been, who he’d been with, how late he was back. He looked at the television screen. It looked like they were watching a horror movie.
There was a woman in a greenlit cell, giving birth, the grunts that of a birthing cow. The baby presented to her, in bloodied rags. The look on the woman’s face, the scream she let out, one that shocked Nate and his mother and father. He sneaked up to his room. He put on his headphones. He thought of Pete and he thought of Anneka and he thought of Thomas Carter, dead at his hand. Over the music, all he could hear was a scream. A long, long, terrified scream.
No Other Place
1991
July – October
July
In the window, a cross. In the morning bathroom, in the empty house, a cross in a window. With pissy fingers, she held the test, shook it, washed her hands under tepid water. Persistent, the cross: it did not trick the light. She could see how women took to religion, the divinity of that moment: a cross come from nothing; a cross slowly emerging, a cross for all our sins.
She’d seen the sign of the cross twice before; both hoped for, anticipated; this one a shock. She wouldn’t have thought even to check had she not found a rogue test while hunting out antacids. For two days straight, she’d suffered morning vomitus, but Robin was away, and she’d been out two nights in a row, so hadn’t really considered the possibility. But then she was also late, just by a couple of days. Couldn’t harm to check. What harm. A cross or a line. Like a minus sign the line: taken away, taken from.
After the first sign of the cross, they’d walked Sefton Park and looked out for families like the one they would become. Dads who windmilled their children, played hide and seek, opened picnics, played football; mothers who tended scraped knees, read books, played hide and seek, played football. They wondered what it would be like to raise a child with a Scouse accent, how strange that would be. They called the foetus Sefton, after the park. Hard fought, Sefton. The routine had been gruelling: sex as chore, the tired, tight groan as Robin came, the rolling off and her keeping it in as much as she could, self-harvesting.
The second sign of the cross, they’d walked the park opposite where they now lived. They did the same thing, watched the parents, the children, thinking how strange that Lloyd – named for the park that was not hers – would have the same accent as Neka. It was important, Rob said, for them to be positive. To not let what happened with Sefton affect the joy of Lloyd. They made it out of the first trimester, the jelly on her stomach, the helicopter whumps of the heartbeat, began to argue over names. They eventually agreed on Benjamin for a boy and Sharmaine for a girl.
For Sharmaine there was a funeral. Just Rob and Neka in attendance, didn’t tell anyone they were having it, worried people might find it macabre. The tiny coffin, the smallest thing she’d ever seen, the concise eulogy, Neka looking at her own body, her own mark of Cain.
A third now. The charm, yes. She took the test to the living room, stood by the telephone, above it a Post-it note with the number of the residential activity centre Robin had taken his kids’ group to. Robin abseiling in a downpour, kayaking in the bitter cold, waiting for orienteers to return, oblivious, not knowing it all starting again.
If she called him, he’d wonder if the child was his, but not say that out loud. He’d say, did you miss a pill? She’d say no. He’d say something about fate, things happening for a reason, that nature, like magic, will always find a way. He would be panicked, excited, terrified and exhilarated. And he would be different from that moment on.
If she called him, it would start again. There would be arguments; there would be intrusion. He would scour ingredients lists for verboten items; give up alcohol and caffeine in solidarity. He would read new books on pregnancy, gather new medical research on mothers who had suffered miscarriages and stillbirths.
No. Give him this time. Give him this week of clear sleep. When he returned, she’d stage the test again. Leave him fretting in the bedroom as she pissed the stick and presented it crossed in blue. Third time’s the charm. Hand me the rosaries. I shall work them for us; worry them smooth.
She walked to the Bell Corner, a black cab, its light lit, coming up Hoe Street. She hailed it and inside it smelled of valeting, menthol cough sweets, perspiration, veiled tobacco. Could have taken the bus, could have rode the rails. But something reminding her of Lissa. Waiting for Liss
a, in a Liverpool bar, first week of moving there, still shaky, still unreal the world around her, looking up from her book and seeing a black cab pull up outside, Lissa getting out, alone, wearing sunglasses and a burgundy minidress, handing over money to the driver. The impossible glamour of that, the sheer indulgence of that, the excess of it. Some days, Lissa had said, you just can’t take the bus.
Neka had been back to Dagenham once before; a trip for Robin’s benefit. They’d taken the Underground, walked out from Dagenham East into a guided tour of Neka’s early life. She told stories and Rob listened with solemn concentration, surprised then nonplussed by her candour. She told stories of shopkeepers, bus journeys, some light local history. Easy, this kind of past. No pangs, no nostalgia: the gates of her school; the library where her mother had worked; the playground where Neka had swung for hours; the swimming pool where she’d once been a fish; the door to the house in which she had lived. It was her and not her. Robin was welcome to it.
She got out of the taxi, the streets dirty, people scurrying quick on busy pavements; her standing there, a branch in the brook, a rock in the stream. Where now to go. What now to see. See herself walking with her mother, her brother in a pushchair eating an apple, her mother saying, be good Annie and you can have a gingerbread man from the pie shop. Her reading at bedtime. Enid Blyton. The Secret Seven. Something about a stolen horse. Smell of her when she’d been to the pub, sweet and fragrant her late-night kisses; Dad’s just beery.
Neka walked down to the estate, the brick sprawl of it, the endless repeating houses. She did not remember walking these streets, though she’d walked them every day until she was ten. So little to show for it, a third of her life. Alone, she had expected deeper resonances, access to a further circle of memory; but it was the same thin fare, the same lacklustre memoirs.
The door to her old house was painted red. She was unsure what colour it had been when she lived there. In the window she saw herself waiting for her father’s return from work, the throwing open of the door and him picking her up, all dirt and sweat and overalls, oil smudges on his cheek. The smile on his face as he stripped down, bounded up the stairs to the bath, her mother following with a cup of tea. Anneka wanted one day to be old enough to carry the tea, to present it to him as he got into the bath. How she’d wished to be older. So much older, to carry his tea.