Gnaw
My poor heart and all its tangents: I put my fingers through the narrow gap of my window and tapped that way to be heard by something, or someone, or nothing as chance or the rules beyond me allowed. In the next section of Lennoxlove’s diary a year had elapsed. James was twenty-two and it was spring. He talked of how it had been a long time since his last entry, without giving reasons why. He never said what had come of what he had seen, what decision he had made, if justice was served, what form justice took back then.
James Lennoxlove was alive in his fragments and chose to use the next particular span of writing (a single page) to talk about the oncoming of the future and his tailored suit ordered from Edinburgh, and, at last, in strangely oblique language, the person he was in love with. ‘Person’, that was how he put it. My eyes widened. I switched on the reading light, prepared, with a thread of excitement, to read a little further on, but tentatively, and for some reason my eyesight blurred; outside the world was closed down to a few frames of light, and I could smell woodsmoke from some chimney, which is a disaster for the kind of mood I was in, and I rolled my eyes and got up, went downstairs and sat in the living room on the sofa with Badr and watched whatever it was he was watching, until normal life blunted me the right amount. Badr made popcorn, and laughed loudly, and turned his head to comment on this or that, or to ask me to pass the bowl. Maybe I wouldn’t know Badr in a few years; maybe Badr would move in with someone, or move out to his own space, and in a few years we would be nothing to each other but casual former flatmates, figments on whatever social media site would be popular then, seeing each other once in five years at a meetup in some pub. Maybe is a word to soften; it was going to happen. And Badr would have a whole other life, and eventually or sooner than hoped would die, and be buried, and I would die and be buried. I gnawed on my popcorn.
Be Well
Just as I was in this pit of myself Tom passed by the living room on his way out, grabbed the top edge of the doorway, hung there, ‘I am going out tonight,’ he said, ‘to the – gym, yes. The gym. Anyway. Take care,’ he dropped down again.
‘All right, man, be well,’ Badr said.
There was a sheen already on Tom’s face, a flicker of alarm that transformed itself into a smile, and from this to a wink at me. I looked at the TV, too flooded by the stupendous or stress-drenched possibilities present in that wink, in my interpretation of the wink, and also by the idea of Tom in all his health coming to dust one day, and no more gym for him, or any autumn nights, to address my flatmate in any kind of an acceptable way beyond a mutter. And by that time Tom was out the house, and the hallway was shuddering at the violent close of the front door.
I wanted to get up off the sofa and run after Tom, jog out to him and accompany him down the street towards the gym in the crisp, cool air, asking, as if it were that easy, what was wrong, if anything was, whether a momentary pain or a great unbearable one, or a desire, a momentary one or a great unbearable desire, that I might, just maybe, be able bodily to fulfil.
It would be nice not to have to think such large ungainly things while watching a historic rerun of Whose Line is it Anyway?, but if I had thought with frantic morbidity since childhood about the passing of all people, their various destinies and pains, mostly inaccessible and forbidden to me to aid, awkward as I am, frightened as I am, closed off and cowardly and dealing too poorly with my own shit as I was, particularly then, then the thoughts had become habitual, nothing to be done, not so much a train of thought as a permanent line. It cannot be helped. People die, people go, nothing is permanent, and I make eternal return to this idea, for fuck’s sake, Daniel, people try to say what they mean in small ways and large and sometimes are misunderstood, or cannot bring themselves to complete a thought, or are at cross-purposes, everything is euphemism to hide various taboos, so what? It’s not so difficult. We are permitted our troubles and privacy as much as our desires. Some things are unutterable, and that allows them a certain fullness of being. Or else they are too trivial to mention. If Tom is troubled, it’s the kind of trouble he can fix with a workout, or if not then he will try another method. No terrible pain everywhere in everyone, maybe just a little pain they want to keep to themselves and for themselves, see, these people on the TV have quite enough energy to make jokes despite what burdens they may have, what madness they might similarly be wracked by. Be well. Badr had a shit day at work, and here he is, quietly eating popcorn and making sure you’re doing all right, in his own way. So all will be well.
A Seed
That evening Órla came in and sat herself down in the living room, and Badr went off and made her tea ‘and a biscuit, if there are any!’, and Tom was not home.
‘Have you noticed Tom’s been . . .’ she began. Hurriedly, offhand.
‘What? Is something wrong? Are you . . .’ I said. Órla flapped a hand at me,
‘Oh it’s nothing like that, what you’re thinking, disaster-man.’
‘No, seriously. Órla. You look rattled.’
Órla turned in her seat. We sat close together. I thought of two people on a dinghy in the sea, and the sofa squeaked in just such a way.
‘He’s – oh this is going to sound fucking stupid. He’s been – his speech is different. Have you noticed?’
‘I think he forgot the word gym earlier, if that counts.’
‘Hmm,’ said Órla.
‘What do you think’s up?’
Badr came in the room, put mugs down, little plates and forks and pieces of kitchen roll.
Órla looked down, ‘Nothing, probably,’ she said. I prodded the side of the sofa, felt its squeaky hollow give, and someone laughed on the TV, and an angel passed over the room.
Come to the House
At Mark’s mother’s place, the last weekend of October, there was a Hallowe’en party I had gone to since I was an adolescent, though I had known Mark since we were both little. This year I invited Órla and Tom. And Badr, but Badr didn’t care for fancy schmancy dress-up parties, he said. The MacAshfall house was on a slight hill in the north of the town. Three storeys tall, modernist, with lots of glass and flat concrete slabs at angles, a garden – great square concrete-sided pond, huge rectangular foliage beds – that merged into the home via the giant glossy Swiss cheese plants set against the glossy wooden panels and spartan concrete of the interior, and at night through gentle reflections of those inside appeared as if they were outside in the garden, which was, so late, long gone to seed.
Mark’s uncle welcomed us in, taking Órla’s coat first, with gleaming eyes. He always looked, to me, like Mark’s future self, large in the face, bald, shiny, settled in comforts, but good hearted, except for the times he was not; he had a blunt streak, not cruel but thoughtless sometimes. Mark and his uncle. Who was, as no one was saying, now Mark’s stepfather. Who was, as Mark had confessed to me once while stoned, probably his dad. Not that he gave a shit, except it all had to be a great secret. Mark was alluring in that way and in that way only, in his witty charming spoiled rich family intrigues, and that he had known me since we were both four, and had managed not to give up on me despite my issues. In my worst moments, I thought this was down to too much ego on Mark’s part in concealing other people’s varieties of faults unless they happened to pertain to or interrupt the smooth and daily happiness of Mark himself. It was so easy to be friends with him, it made me feel almost young to be with him, with so many years held up by the two of us like it was no weight at all. And Mark had, still, all this cool stuff in his attic and I was always perfectly willing to be his pet, so long as we both knew it and drew attention to it. As we did. Everyone in the MacAshfall household found me lightly, artificially hilarious. You’re like a little cat, Daniel, come and go as you want, take anything from the fridge. Daniel, if you fail your exams I’ll tip you down the stairs, so don’t. You’re my lucky charm, so if you pass I will too, and if you fail that’s me done. What does this mean, here, chapter twelve, the company’s let me go, the latest girl
friend’s dumped me – and so on, and Hallowe’en, and the MacAshfalls’ wistfully beautiful party.
Blithe Spirit
Mark’s tall, angular and terrifying mother – always Mrs MacAshfall, ‘call me Maggie’ as she might – had set up the turntable, with Mark choosing the records. She had a considerable collection from many past MacAshfalls and her own curation. This night, all songs selected were from the twenties and thirties – the ambience was right, the crackle of haunting, between-wars voices turning in the air of the study as guests got into this year’s theme in ivory and sooty satin.
Órla had chosen the top hat and tails route – with some considerable help from Quick Zip Alterations, who were, she said, amused at her need for considerable darting, and the trousers having to be from a separate set entirely, made for her hips. She gave a sharp, quick turn on her bright black heels to show off, after which Tom swept her to the dancefloor – the parquet space between the turntable on the sideboard and the grey blocky fainting couch, space in which no one else but the two of them danced an improvisational twirling dance.
Mark said, ‘Well.’
Mrs MacAshfall said, ‘Look how beautiful they both are!’ And then, to me, ‘You’ve chosen well.’
I said, ‘Thank you for having us, here’s some wine. Is the punch ready?’ and to myself, and a little to Mark, in white coat tails, ‘I’ve been ready for the punch all month long.’
It was known as Blithe Spirit and always served in crystal Marie-Antoinette glasses: frothy, liquid, white, with an impossibly delicate perfume, a silken kick, and acting upon the whole tussle with great adept fingers was something that seemed derived from the bodily, something sleazy and worrying, but quickly buried under a sudden jolt of lime. Of course it was Mark’s uncle’s favourite drink to make, but was undeniably the pleasure of the year as well. Mark and Mark’s uncle and I stood in a line by the punchbowl watching Órla and Tom dance, and took short sharp gulps of the drink, making such conversation as needed to be made. Other guests danced. Mark and I whispered, Mark’s uncle drifted away. Órla came in for a drink, dragging Tom with her. He looked dazed, and hearty. Mark handed them both a punch with a knowing look, which was the look Mark strove to project whenever he was playing host in a house that did not belong to him, and wouldn’t until both his mother and his uncle died.
‘Maybe I could replicate the house for you,’ I said.
‘Maybe you could replicate my uncle and we could push the fake body off a bridge? Or the real one. The fake would be much preferable. We could prop him up in the corner, rewire him as a lampshade.’
‘What about your mum?’
‘Spanner in the works. I love her too much to fake her death.’
Decadent Loss
Later Órla, tired of dancing, came to the sofa and flopped down beside us. Tom had vanished.
‘You’ve known each other for a long time,’ she said.
‘Oh an absolute age now,’ said Mark.
Something was unsaid. Órla’s eyes were vivid and glassy.
We moved on to talk of Mark’s life, and of his last girlfriend, and of Órla’s last boyfriend, and, at Mrs MacAshfall’s insistence, the dooking for apples began while some terribly sad singer crooned across the years about meeting once again in Berkeley Square. Several of Mark’s mother and uncle’s friends got sloppy drunk, white-haired and young alike, and danced, and the room was loud. I felt myself begin to disappear. Smokers traipsed outside, Tom among them, just drunk enough to start begging for spares. Tom like a ghost all night, flitting about, never stopping to talk, not even to Órla, after that first dance. I had a glimpse of him from the hall, a strange sight of this appallingly handsome man in antique formal wear, standing talking earnestly with a slight, clever-looking hedge-fund type from London disguised as Fred Astaire about – something muffled – while the man lit his cigarette with the end of his own, and I jolted just a little at the way they almost touched. Cupped hands, breath steaming – Tom’s brilliant dark blond head in the spilled light pulling back, and his laughter. Stamping feet from the cold. The way a smoker blows upwards, hissing through his teeth, while he does a shuffle from the chill. With a sigh, I went to the kitchen and praised Mrs MacAshfall on her canapés, which were cheap pre-bought and heated sausage rolls – my favourite, and provided especially for me alongside the finer snacks she had for everybody else.
Thematic Continuity
It was later.
I perched on the great central wooden stairs, watching the drift of people around the features of the house I knew so well. By candlelight it was all different, by Hallowe’en graces it was too, the veil thinning, but not at its thinnest yet, too many people milling, too much braying and the smallest, most soothing small talk going about in the air as if they needed cushioning, as if they knew what was coming, soon. I had been drinking steadily but my mouth was always dry. I had vanished, I had let the night strip away the others and time in the way parties could, a little mournful before it had already ended. Órla caught sight of me and handed me something dark bronze in a glass, and sat on my step, arranging herself carefully, the staircase wide enough that there was a lot of space between us. Through the stairs, the floor below. It was dim, with slants of light.
‘Shh,’ she said, and so I was quiet.
Then she said, ‘How old are you?’
Startled, I said, ‘Tinder age, or real age?’
‘Tinder? Old school. You’ve never been on Tinder in your life.’
‘I have, you know. Once. It was intimidating.’
‘I’ll bet,’ she said, lying.
‘I’m thirty-six,’ I said, ‘same age as Mark.’
‘No way! You don’t look it,’ she said, ‘no grey at all, and you don’t have the kind of – the kind of look people have. Old and tired like. You look young.’
‘Wow,’ I said.
‘I’m twenty-eight. Sorry.’
‘My anxiety makes me look younger I think. Don’t apologise for not having existed as long as me.’ I looked down at my drink. I was holding it strangely, at an angle. The darkness on the stairs made my hand seem alien. I wondered if I might ever see Tom again. You will, I told myself, what a thing to think. Morbid. He’s probably in the kitchen, Mark’s probably clapping him on the back. Contacts everywhere. Or telling him – no, I wouldn’t believe Mark was telling Tom.
‘Can you tell me something else, about yourself?’ asked Órla.
I got myself more comfortably situated. I looked up at the ceiling.
‘I’ve been coming to this house for thirty years and I always love it. There’s always something new to find. Mr MacAshfall was a collector of antique books. When he died Mrs MacAshfall sold most of them off, but there are boxes in the attic that have treasure in them. Gilt-edged books, singular editions, personal memoirs, hand written, letterplates of extinct birds.’
‘I suppose that tells me something about you,’ said Órla. ‘I could tell you more personal things,’ I said, ‘but I’m not nearly drunk enough.’
‘Let’s sort that,’ she said, and pulled herself up, bringing back from the kitchen a whole bottle of bourbon, and sloshed out two glasses full.
‘Loose lips sink ships,’ I said.
‘They don’t tonight. Early nineteen-thirties, everything still to be lost.’ She said.
And sipped, and waited.
Open Books
‘How long have you and Tom been together?’ I asked.
‘It was about a month when he moved into yours, so . . . nearly two months?’
‘Going all right?’
‘Nosy! And also, I’d imagine you might notice if it is.’
‘What do you mean?’
Órla nudged me. ‘You know . . . I’m there a lot. You can probably read the room.’
‘All right, I can. And . . .’
‘And?’
‘I’ve asked already if you love him. Rudely early, I know. It’s just, the other day I felt you were going to tell me something. About him and
you.’
‘I feel like you have an interest that goes beyond the polite,’ she said. ‘Forget it. No. Don’t forget it. I brought it up then, stupid, just something I felt. A passing – thing. Just why are you asking now?’
I looked over at the bottle, clumsily grabbed it from her hand, my fingers sliding over hers. Warning alarms in my head. I wanted to talk about Tom. I wanted to talk about James Lennoxlove. I knocked back a quarter glass. Only half of the bottle remaining. Was it full, before? She probably despised the intrusion. Loved and despised it. People like to be seen, but I was dancing on a line between reaching out and overreaching.
‘I’m so rude,’ I said, ‘so invasive with you, I’m very sorry,’
I wanted to call out to Órla. I wanted to ask if she didn’t love Tom, could I have him? And also did she have an idea if Tom might like me, even a little faint hint of liking, be honest, desire, like a trail of smoke rising like a miracle into some still sky, something to guide me hopeful onwards. It was too dark now, it was too glimmering. Where was Tom? I longed to see him, his muscular figure, dashing in a suit, sharp collared, come leaning up on the bannister, and say to me, ‘Let’s go’. Anywhere, the garden, the hedges, press up against me, smoky, and heavily, while I, my head spinning, pushed back.
‘I like your outfit by the way,’ I said.
‘Ah, I don’t love him,’ said Órla, with a small flourish of her glass-holding hand, ‘I don’t think I do, anyway. He’s been very good to me though, except lately I wonder what he’s thinking. He’s speaking strangely. He’s a tiny bit – distracted. By his own business I imagine.’
‘You sound like a Victorian woman of few means.’
‘Oh my God, what did I say? Why’d I say? You know I mean something better than that.’
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