The Blind Light

by Stuart Evers

  That face. Those faces.

  ‘Annie?’ Carter said. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Last I looked, yes,’ she said. ‘How are you, Uncle Jim?’

  ‘I’m . . . well, I’m . . .’ Lost for fucking words and right to be so. Lost for words and looking around the room for some kind of help, some kind of assistance, and instead his mute son, standing up, scraping back the chair, composing himself, a hand on the kitchen table.

  ‘You look well,’ Neka said. ‘I’m so sorry to hear about Daphne. She was such a wonderful woman.’

  ‘You remember—’

  ‘Tommy, yes,’ she said. ‘Hello, Tommy. It’s been a long time.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A long time.’

  ‘I hear you’ve been in America,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Looks like you’ve brought back some souvenirs.’ She laughed and they all laughed and Kim put her arms around her husband, in defence, not propriety. Clever enough to know this was dangerous; smart enough to know that whatever this was, this was not good.

  7

  ‘Oh, Gwen,’ Carter said. ‘Lovely to see you. I was going to stop by next week.’

  He fussed and kissed her, bent down to meet her in the chair. Carter, a foot shorter or so it seemed. Hair all but gone, white banks between a sea of pate, flapping earlobes, a nose gone alarming red. How had he survived so long? Not just luck in the genes: money too.

  Gwen watched Thomas shake Nate’s hand, the tightness of the shake, the firmness of it.

  ‘Nate, how good to see you,’ Thomas said. ‘Kim, this is Nate who’s been keeping the house shipshape for us. And this is his sister, Anneka. It’s been a long time since . . . well, it’s been a long time since we were all in one room.’

  ‘Yes,’ Annie said. ‘Must be thirty-eight years, give or take a few months. Probably before you were even born, Kim.’

  Laughter all round. All round laughter.

  ‘Well, I think this deserves a celebration,’ Thomas said. ‘Let’s open some bubbles. It must be six o’clock somewhere, right, Dad?’

  ‘It’s very early,’ Kim said. ‘It’s only just eleven o’clock.’

  ‘Lighten up,’ he said. ‘This is how we do things in England, did I not explain? Drinks to celebrate, drinks to commiserate, drinks while you decide which is which.’

  ‘I’m just thinking of—’

  ‘It’s just today,’ he said. ‘To celebrate. I wish Tash were here, she’d be so thrilled.’

  ‘Where is Tash?’ Anneka asked.

  ‘Sweden these days,’ Carter said.

  Thomas took a bottle from the fridge.

  ‘Get the glasses, Dad,’ he said.

  ‘He’s man of the house, now,’ Carter said, laughing. ‘I know my place.’

  Shuffled, only word to describe it, he shuffled over to the cabinet and took from it the flutes they used for second best. Must have known she would realize. You forget. All the time, things drip, spin, alter. Not today, though, seemingly.

  The familiar corking pop and a slight issue from the bottle, clumsily opened. Pour of the glasses and the shake of the hands, and the noises made, deferring the moment, perhaps postponing it. Her daughter’s calm, her smiles and the clink of the glasses. Overplaying the hand.

  ‘How are the kids, Tommy?’ Annie said.

  ‘Well Luca’s six and Joy is ten, they’re joining us next week. They’re so excited to come to England. I think they think they’ll be going to Hogwarts.’

  ‘I meant your other kids,’ Annie said. ‘Must be in their thirties now?’

  Careful now, Annie. Put away the claws.

  ‘I’m afraid we don’t see them all too often,’ he said. ‘They’re so busy these days. Josie’s a lawyer in London and Jamie works in venture capital. He was in the US for a time, but now he’s in Canada. Do you—’

  ‘I have a son called Femi, he’s just off to university.’

  ‘What a lovely name,’ Kim said.

  ‘It’s Nigerian,’ she said. ‘Like his father.’

  ‘Oh, have you been to Lagos?’ Kim said. ‘We were there for a few months, weren’t we Tom?’

  ‘No,’ Anneka said. ‘We’ve not managed to go yet. But soon, I think. Soon, I’m sure we will.’

  A stone-cold lie, a mother knows. Something in the quick smile afterwards. I did not play on the silos. I have not smoked a cigarette.

  ‘How about you, Nate?’ Kim said. ‘Do you have any children?’

  ‘One,’ he said. ‘Her name’s Molly. She’s the same age as Femi.’

  ‘Oh how lovely,’ Kim said. ‘It’s a shame, I don’t have any siblings so there’s no cousins for Luca and Joy.’

  ‘Well, there’s Tash’s two,’ Carter said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But they’re so much older. It’s not the same, is it?’

  A beat there, a beat and no one looking at each other.

  ‘So, you’re moving back,’ Annie said. ‘For good?’

  ‘Yes,’ Thomas said. ‘Time to finally take the family seat.’

  ‘It’s so peaceful here,’ Kim said. ‘I’ve lived in New York all my life, but I always dreamed of settling down somewhere peaceful, somewhere . . . beautiful. And is there anything more beautiful than this? It feels like we’re alone in the world, alone save for the cows and the birds and so on.’

  Gwen watched her daughter drain her drink. Watched her set the glass down on table. She’d decided to go. Gwen could see it. Carter looked out of the window. Kim looked at her husband. Thomas made his excuses, headed for the bathroom. A sound like the detuning of a guitar string, a sound from Nate. He was looking at Carter. Carter looked like he could feel it, fending it off like a tramp at the roadside.

  They said nothing, waiting for Thomas to return, the long silence, followed by the rush of water along the hall. Sorry, my love. For the best this, my love.

  She saw her daughter, young Annie, young Annie-moo walk towards the hallway, saying she knew where the bathroom was, thank you all the same.

  8

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ Thomas said as they passed in the hallway. He had Neka by the arm, loosely, but enough to arrest her.

  ‘Just thought I’d stop by,’ she said. ‘Catch up on old times.’

  ‘If you’re here to—’

  ‘Relax,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to bring all that up.’

  And he did not believe it, but then seemed to believe it, then weighed it again and could not decide, the scales whirring, like a compass near a magnet. She walked past him into the toilet. It stank, even below the bleach and the air freshener.

  9

  When nervous, Nate could talk farm for hours, boring himself and anyone else who would listen. People think they want to know about how a farm works, the battles with supermarkets, the privations of the modern dairy farmer, but they don’t. They want to hear about the birth of calves, about the funny things the cows do, but nothing so detailed. It must be great to work with your hands – this the kind of thing people said – it must be great to do something that matters. Weasel words, these, weasel justifications; the easiest way to stop the conversation.

  He was boring Kim, he knew that, and she looked relieved as she spied an out, her telling him of a farm she’d visited on a school trip to upstate New York. Talk of horses and such. Well extricated. They talked now of horses, the one she planned to buy and ride once they were settled.

  Neka came back and stood beside him, between him and their mother. She put a hand on the shoulder of their mother, and looked at Carter. Carter seemed to condense further, as though sinking deep into the ground beneath.

  ‘Uncle Jim,’ she said. ‘Tommy, Kim. We thought it best that we let you know that, collectively, we’ve reached a decision.’

  ‘On what?’ Thomas said. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was a very tough decision, but we’ve made it together, and we are all in agreement.’

  Neka looked at th
eir mother, and she looked to Nate. Nate’s heart gone all to the carnival show, juggling, acrobatic.

  ‘We’ve been approached by a property developer. They would like to buy the farm and the land. It’s a very attractive offer, and after long consideration, we’ve decided to accept.’

  That face. Those faces. Carter looking away, then looking directly at Gwen.

  ‘I’m sorry, you’ve lost me,’ said Thomas. ‘You can’t sell the farm. It’s isn’t yours to sell.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to tell him, Uncle Jim?’ Anneka said.

  Carter said nothing. Not a word.

  ‘What your father wants to say is that we do own it, actually,’ Anneka said. ‘We have the deeds here. It’s all above board.’

  That face. Those faces.

  ‘Dad?’ Thomas said.

  Carter shook his head, his body shaking before and after.

  ‘It’s your fault,’ Carter said. ‘Don’t come Dad with me, it’s your fault in the first bloody place.’

  ‘What is?’ Thomas said. ‘What on earth is going on here?’

  ‘You always know best, don’t you?’ Carter said. ‘You never listened to me, never once listened to me. I told you what would happen. I said it would have repercussions.’

  ‘Will someone please tell me what is going on?’ Thomas said.

  ‘You father gave the farm to Drum,’ Gwen said. ‘He needed money and in return for us mortgaging the farm, he gave Drum the deeds.’

  ‘He said he’d sell it back to you,’ Carter said to Thomas. ‘He promised. He said he’d only ever sell to you.’

  ‘There’s no evidence of that,’ Anneka said. ‘Just a deed with Drum’s name on it, and now with Mother’s name there. He never left any instructions.’

  ‘But he promised,’ Carter said. ‘He always kept his word.’

  ‘You sold the farm, Dad?’ Tom said.

  Those faces. That face. Better than Nate could have hoped. Better than he could have ever expected.

  ‘I had no option!’ Carter said. ‘We had nothing left. It was that or the house. Trust me, you said. You can’t lose, you said. You ruined us!’

  ‘You gave the farm to Drum? What were you thinking?’

  ‘There was no more thinking. We had debts, I had to do something.’

  ‘So you took my inheritance? You sat here and you listened to our plans and you let us believe that it would be okay? You let us think there was no problem.’

  ‘There was no problem. He promised he’d sell it back to us at some point. How did I know you were going to move back here to set up some organic farm or something? And he promised. He gave me his word!’

  That boom voice from youth, the shrunken mess of man. Like Rumpelstiltskin, hopping, incensed at being caught out. Anneka laughed. That laugh.

  ‘Treacherous times indeed,’ Anneka said. ‘You can’t even rely on the dead.’

  ‘You stay out of this,’ Carter said. ‘The hell you made of his life and now you’re even fouling up his death. What he wanted. What he promised.’

  ‘He always said he wanted me to be safe and happy,’ Anneka said. ‘This is making me and my family safe and happy, so I think it’s consonant with his wishes.’

  Thomas didn’t seem to know where to aim artillery, whether towards his father or to a smiling Anneka. Nate hadn’t known what to expect, but Anneka seemed to have seen it all, how the scene would play out. Down into the bunker, the only place left now. From the light of summer to the dark of winter, from the upstairs to the downstairs.

  ‘You’re still holding this against me?’ Thomas said. ‘Nearly forty years later and you’re holding something I didn’t even do against me? You’re delusional, you know that? You’re insane. You come here, you upset my family, you come here and you disrespect your own father’s memory and his good name and you stand there, smirking. Don’t you fucking smirk at me, you cunt.’

  The word settled, all eyes on Kim, all knowing the effect of that word on Americans. Unshocked by high-school shootings, but riven by a single cunt.

  ‘We thought it would be a good idea to tell you in person,’ Anneka said. ‘But clearly this was a mistake. You’ll see the notices about planning permission soon enough. I didn’t think you could get over a hundred houses on the farm, but the developers seem more than confident.’

  How much enjoyment, how much in her face, like the bug eyes when allowed to lick cake mixture from a bowl, like when she swam in the sea.

  ‘We’ll fight it,’ Carter said. ‘I still know people, you know. Tom knows people. There’s no way you’ll get the permission. Not while I’ve—’

  ‘It’s a formality,’ Anneka said. ‘We’re in the middle of a housing crisis, do you not read the papers? They’re crying out for land like ours. Desperate for it.’

  He watched as Kim sat down, head bowed slightly, the rub and skirmish of the thoughts. Her husband called another woman a cunt. A dream, or something, dashed. She looked young there, young and a long way from NYU and asphalt and ironwork.

  ‘Well, we’ll see about that,’ Carter said, but saw his son sit down next to his wife, put his hands on hers, her not looking at him, but down at her lap.

  ‘How much?’ Thomas said to the table.

  ‘What’s that?’ Anneka said, ‘I didn’t catch that.’

  ‘How much?’ he said. ‘To buy it outright. The farm I mean.’

  Anneka joined him at the table, pulled up a chair. Light from the windows, refracted from copper pans, on the sheen of the tabletop.

  ‘You want to negotiate?’ Anneka said. ‘What on earth makes you think I’d negotiate with you?’

  How different would it have been had she stayed? How Nate’s life might have been altered, a few choice words from her. Another voice, a different voice in his ear, one not his father’s. He could have left the farm a long time before, might not have fucked it all up with Carlie. It could have been all he needed. It could have been the difference. Not standing here, mute, like a personal guard next to his soft muttering mother, who, he realized, had just pissed herself.

  10

  In Doom Town the lights are off and the wind is cold and there are dead dogs in the street. In Doom Town there is the distant sound of trains and of air-raid sirens, and there is Drummond in the distance, sitting cross-legged, in his shirtsleeves despite the chill. She walks carefully to him, does not run, does not trust her heels on the battered roadway. It is the first time she’s been there and Gwen walks to him and he is crying and she puts her arms around him, feels the muscles under his shirt.

  ‘Promise me,’ he says.

  ‘I promise,’ she says, but does not know what she is promising. He kisses her then, a kiss she remembers, better than any kiss, better than any stolen or taken as right. She stands and holds out her hand, pulls him up and leads him to a small cottage. It is warm inside, there is a bed made up, a double, with downy sheets. She takes off his clothes. She kisses his chest, she puts her mouth on his penis. It grows inside her mouth. Soon he is inside her. Inside her, the firing damp, so much of it. They lie on the bed as semen slips down her leg, so much of it, so much liquid.

  He says, promise me.

  She says, I promise.

  11

  ‘Is she okay?’ Carter said.

  ‘Yes,’ Nate said. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘She looks awful grey.’

  ‘That’s how she looks now.’

  Neka looked across at Tommy, at his wife. Like poker, like three-card brag. She felt kinetic, able to move things, move people, fire bolts from her fingers. Come on. Lay it on. Show me your cards, Tommy boy. Show me their whites.

  ‘Make me an offer,’ she said. ‘You have one opportunity. You have five minutes. Make me an offer, and if it’s good enough, we promise to accept.’

  ‘I’ll have to—’

  ‘You have the time it takes for us to change my mother’s trousers to decide.’

  Thomas laughed. ‘You’re loving this, aren’t you? It’s like a
gameshow to you, isn’t it? We have plans, you know, and you’re sitting there laughing while your mother pisses herself.’

  ‘He’s always been a charmer,’ Neka said to Kim, standing up. ‘Some things never change.’

  She followed Nate as he wheeled their mother into the dining room, the grand room bare, only the floor finished, everything else removed. Nate bent down and removed the trousers. From a bag he took wet wipes and cleaned her up as best he could, then dried her with a small towel. Wiped her up, threw the wipes in a lilac scented bag. She tried not to look at it and failed. Future and past.

  ‘Is she okay?’ Neka said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It happens from time to time.’

  ‘Is she sleeping?’ she said.

  ‘Something like that. Sometimes she just zones out. Nothing to worry about though, is there, Mam?’

  He plucked her from the seat, leaned her against his chest.

  ‘Mop the seat for me, Anneka?’ he said. ‘There’s a cloth in the bag.’

  She wiped up with the cloth, the black vinyl seat quick drying.

  ‘You don’t have to be so harsh,’ he said. ‘It’s too much.’

  ‘It’s done now,’ she said. ‘As planned. As you expected.’

  ‘We’re going to accept, aren’t we?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I really don’t know.’

  Nate turned his mother around.

  ‘Now, put on the trousers. Not the jogging bottoms but the proper trousers.’

  Neka found them in the bag, and inched the slacks up the just-dry legs, over thighs and hips.

  ‘All set, Mam,’ he said. ‘All set.’

  He placed her back in the chair, kissed her on the sleeping cheek.

  ‘Ready?’ she said.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘About all of this?’

  ‘Think of Molly,’ she said. ‘Think of her. You can do this. I trust you, Nate.’

  ‘Molly’s not mine,’ he said. ‘Not really. Not really my daughter, biologically at least.’

  ‘She’s your screensaver on your phone,’ she said. ‘She’s yours all right.’