How You See Me

by S. E. Craythorne

  So we both sit and glower at the fire and I chase you through my dream again and again to the sound of mounting fiddles. I’m sure it’s changed my memory of the dream – nothing like a soundtrack to colour the imagination.

  It’s enough to make me miss the TV.

  But, just in case, show your face, my darling.

  Daniel

  8th March

  The Studio

  Dear Mab –

  It’s an odd time. We are all waiting for the exhibition to happen and the days have lost their definition. Nothing exists other than this countdown to noise and people and paintings. The phone keeps ringing with questions I can’t answer and problems I don’t understand. This doesn’t seem to concern the callers; they’re just grateful that someone picks up the phone, that they have someone to talk to. One woman actually cried as she told me about her dog dying the week before. I felt like Aubrey, dishing out comfort and advice. London must be a very lonely place.

  Dad is back to his normal self after the infection. I am still surprised by how comfortable I am with him. All that worry the doctors gave me about synapses healing and reconnecting, and he is as docile as a well-loved pet. More docile, if compared to Tatty. It feels like a forgiveness of a sort, to be wiped out of his brain like that. A simple series of strokes and I find a new father. I even find myself wishing he could talk.

  So far, I’ve more or less ignored the speech therapist’s advice about picture charts or the possibility of electronic gizmos to help him communicate. Well, if I’m truthful, I completely ignored it. I let her come along with the district nurse and play her playschool games with him. If she ever asked, I gave my dutiful face and told them we’d been practising. She must be so disappointed by his progress.

  I haven’t been treating Dad badly as such. I’ve just been scared about what might come out of his mouth if he were able to shape words, or point at the right pictures on a card. I guess I’m still a little scared about what might be lurking behind the silence. I imagine it would be something like using a Ouija, placing his hand over the picture board. That same half-terror that he might actually spell out sense.

  He gave me a look this morning as I was washing him in the bath. It was tender, Mab, can you imagine that? And it’s not just that – there have been a series of such moments since he’s recovered from the last illness. When I’ve woken him up from a night’s sleep, he’s seemed pleased to see me. Even smiled. And yesterday, when I sat rolling him cigarettes, he came over and took hold of my arm. We stayed like that together for a long time.

  Love to Freya and to you,

  Daniel

  8th March

  The Studio

  Dear Freya –

  I wonder if spring is as nice where you are? I went for a walk with Tatty today. Everything is green and waking up after sleeping through the long cold winter. The field which had been carved into great waves of earth is flat and sprouting. There were even a few little flowers. Tatty watered them.

  Still no letter from you. I do miss the sight of one. And didn’t you promise me some photographs? It would be nice to see what shape your smiling face has grown into. And then I’ll be able to recognise you when you arrive.

  Did you get your invitation to the exhibition? It seems your mum is going to give us a bit of a show too. The actors have been booked, she tells me. I suppose it will give the guests something to do the night before the exhibition. Most people are coming for the weekend. You don’t need to worry about places filling up; you’ll stay here with us. I’ll even let you have my room. Tatty can’t wait to meet you.

  With love,

  Uncle Dan

  13th March

  The Studio

  Dear Mab –

  I have seen the details of your mask demonstration. I have invited Alice, and am hopeful she will be able to get the time off work. You’ll get to meet her at last. Be kind to her, Mab.

  I’ve been letting myself worry about the Alice situation recently. I don’t know why, but I feel as if there is something wrong. She is so wonderful; I don’t want to lose her. But there is more distance between us than the literal one. I worry that there might be someone else. Last time I was in the bookshop where she works, last time I was in Manchester, there was a guy behind the counter. I didn’t recognise him. He must have been new. Alice wasn’t there – I think I told you, it took me a while to track her down – but for some reason I could see how they’d be together. He wasn’t flashy or anything, he wasn’t even particularly good-looking, but there was an easiness about him. They must laugh together, the way I saw him laughing with a customer as he piled up her books next to the till. He looked like the kind of man who touches women as he talks, casually drawing them into an intimacy with a hand on the arm. He hummed as he shelved paperbacks, and that, along with his haircut, made me wonder if he was in a band. He even came over to ask me if I needed any help. I was glad I was taller than him. I was glad there was an angry red rash of spots across the top of his cheeks. But I found myself smiling at him, just because he was smiling at me.

  I keep imagining them together. Her smiling back at him, just because he’s smiling at her. She wouldn’t mean anything by it, she doesn’t know how men can be, but she’d like the touches on her arm and the loose friendliness of him. So different from me. She’ll tell him about the customers and how they make her cry. Maybe he’ll catch her weeping by the bookshelves and just lean in. ‘Hey, are you OK?’ Then there would be a hug. So natural, that hug. Just a ‘Come here, you,’ and my girlfriend is in his arms.

  She must be lonely without me. Maybe there will be drinks after work. Talk and laughter in our favourite bar. She’ll lead him there, keen to show off her find. Keen to impress him. They’ll have to bend their heads together to be heard over the music. He’ll tell her about his band; maybe invite her to their next gig; share some third-hand anecdotes as if they’re his own. He’ll pull out all his best lines – she really is that beautiful. And they’ll be close, so close. She will have had a couple of drinks and if they found our table then the light would be soft. A kind light for the spotty boy drinking with my girlfriend.

  Would she tell him about me? Would she even remember me when she’s sitting there with the boy from the bookshop?

  Daniel

  24th March

  The Studio

  Dear Aubrey –

  I should have known that despite my best efforts you’d manage to get yourself invited. Yes, you can stay here, you cheapskate. Mab – and possibly Freya – will be here too. You might have to bunk up with Dad, but we’ll find you a bed.

  Sadly, I think I’ll actually be pleased to see you. I’ve been driving myself mad recently. Girl problems. I won’t bore you with the details, but I thought that my girlfriend would make it down for the exhibition and it turns out she won’t. So, I’m stuck with you as my date. And you’re stuck with me. You can’t even evict me this time, old boy.

  Maybe the show, and all it entails, will be exactly the distraction I need. I’m certainly busy enough. The London types have been on the phone all week, asking me to find reservations for them at one of our finest hotels. The more exacting they sound, the worse the establishment I recommend. They don’t seem to mind, though. They are all just crazy about Dad and everything about him. They all want to come to the house and meet him privately. They want to discuss his work and see the pond and generally eye up the fixtures and fittings of our life.

  I’ve put them off as best I can. I don’t know what you expect from Dad, but don’t expect much. The great artist Michael Laird is at present seated in front of the TV, the lights from some game show reflected on his glasses so vividly it seems to be playing out of his head. The TV is on mute, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed. He’s naked from the waist down, apart from the catheter snaking from his penis to the bag strapped to his ankle. He did something to the tube this morning and urine leaked all over his trousers. I found him struggling to get himself changed, like a guilty child. I
cleaned him up in the bathroom and then sat him on a towel to dry. It didn’t seem worthwhile getting him out of the rest of his clothes.

  I don’t know how we’re going to get through next week. I hate to say it, but I think I’m going to need your help, Aubrey.

  See you soon,

  Daniel

  26th March

  The Studio

  Dear Alice –

  No word from you about the exhibition. Are you offended because you didn’t get an embossed invitation on thick cream card? The agency sent those out, but they’ve given me a few for ‘family and friends’. I enclose it for you. I need you to come here and be with me.

  I’m on my single bed with the duvet thrown over my head, trying to remember the comfort of your sweet smell mingled with my own. Instead, I just breathe my own stink. I realise how petulant and teenage this is, sulking under the duvet. Add a torch and I regress another five years. I should be downstairs. There is the washing-up to do and the catheter bag to empty. Dad tore his hand open somehow yesterday and I have to change his dressing.

  I really should get up. I managed to get myself dressed, but thoughts of you, of how far away you are from me, drove me back under the covers with my writing paper. I even have my shoes and socks on. Maggie would complain about the state of the sheets.

  Come to me and I’ll find us a proper room. Most of the London visitors are staying at the Crown Hotel. A new family have taken it over and spruced it up. The models used to talk about the Crown and the old man who lived in it. His wife had died suddenly long before I was born. It was said that he chased everyone out of the place as soon as he got the news. There were rumours of plates of food half-eaten and board games half-played. A life suspended behind net curtains and dust sheets, with the old man circulating like Miss Havisham at her wedding feast.

  I could get us a suite and we could hide away together, rediscover each other, under their sheets. I’ll even bring a torch. We could play like children. It would be so innocent and beautiful just to be with you. If you’d only send me a reply and tell me you are coming.

  I ask so little of you, Alice, just your fidelity and your affection. I feel as if I’m losing both. Why are you abandoning me when I need you most? I can’t understand what I could have done to deserve it. I would never do anything to hurt you or risk our relationship. It’s what keeps me sane here. And now I’m losing everything, including that sanity.

  I’m desperate, darling. I’m not afraid to say it. Remember that nonsense Aubrey fed you about the river of your thoughts? Well, my river is polluted and full of bloated corpses. I’ve tried to weigh them down, but they bob to the surface and accuse me with their gaping wounds. You were the one clear stream.

  Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m just letting the mess of my rotten life infect you. Or perhaps I smother you? An image comes into my mind. I am walking by a reservoir in the Peak District on a rare day off from Aubrey. Along the line of the water’s edge grow trees, or what used to be trees. They are white as bone; their branches claw the dim sky, leafless and bare. The drowned trees, drinking their own demise, a white iris to the eye of the dark lake. Do I drown you? Is this very letter a splash of ink too much?

  Tell me what to do, Alice. Tell me how to fix this. Maybe it is time to lay down my pen and run to you again? I could do that, you know. I would do that for you, no matter the consequences. I will always come, Alice. No matter where you are, I will come to you and it will be as it was before.

  Yours, always yours,

  Your Daniel

  28th March

  The Studio

  Dear Alice –

  I can’t believe you’re not here. You’re really not going to come, are you? Despite everything I said in my letters, you are going to leave me to go through this alone.

  I don’t know what I could have said or done differently. I don’t understand this silence. And I don’t know what to do in the face of it. I tried so hard to fit myself into the shape of someone you could truly love. I did everything I could do. I’m sorry I had to leave you, but I thought you understood. This weekend is actually an opportunity for us to grab a little happiness and you have ignored it. You have ignored me. I said I’d chase you, but I don’t see why I should. Am I the only one who cares?

  I think I’m angry with you, Alice. It’s an uncomfortable sensation. I don’t want to get used to it. I like loving you.

  Daniel

  29th March

  The Studio

  Dear Alice –

  Mab, Freya, and Aubrey arrived yesterday.

  Aubrey once told me about a homeless woman he used to look out for in Hong Kong – don’t ask what he was doing there, but isn’t it like him? This woman used to wear all the clothes she owned at all times. She would creep along the harbour paths, surrounded by sweating tourists and sleek businessmen, spherical in her woollen wadding. The only sign of the scrap of flesh that was herself a tiny grinning grubby face, topped with a collection of hats. I thought of that story as I greeted my sister at the door. The only difference was a tumble of hair instead of the hats.

  Freya emerged from behind her mother like a vision. Oh, Alice, I am old. Where I remembered a scruffy little girl there was, in her place, a sleek young woman with a head of glossy hair she habitually and confidently tossed over her shoulder as a colt throws its head. She really does glow. She is a beauty.

  ‘Uncle Dan!’ The tiniest trace of an accent. Freya opened her long brown arms to me and tried for an embrace. I’m so big it would have taken three of her to circle me. Her scent was light and warm as her laugh. She really did seem delighted to see me.

  ‘Grandpa! Is this wonderful Tatty Dog I’ve heard so much about?’ She left me with the pressure of her kiss on my cheek and some smear of coloured lip grease I didn’t have the heart to scrub from my skin.

  Aubrey just looked like Aubrey.

  You will be able to tell by this letter that I have decided to forgive you. You have been understanding about my absence; I must learn to be understanding about yours. So, instead of you actually being here, I will help you imagine you are by my side. I’m going to try to detail everything that happens.

  We’re all together now in the living room. Mab’s taken my chair by the fire with Freya arranged prettily on the rug at her feet, playing with Tatty, and Aubrey is in Dad’s evening chair, so I’m perched on the edge of Dad’s bed. Dad’s still sitting in front of the TV, even though it’s been turned off; he keeps turning round and trying to join in the conversation, but the wings of his armchair are hindering him. Mab and Aubrey are doing a pretty good job of ignoring Dad’s existence and mine, which seems a bit rich considering Dad’s the reason they’re here and if it weren’t for me there wouldn’t even be an exhibition. In fact they seem kind of cosy, together in front of the fire. It’s as if they’re plotting something.

  I was going to write about what a consolation Freya has been, and then she turned to Mab and started chattering away in French. Then, would you believe it, Aubrey joined in. I am the picture of ignorance.

  It feels a little like it used to when Mab came for the summer holidays. I’m forced into seeing the studio through a stranger’s eyes. Aren’t guests always strangers when they first arrive? The place looks grubby and ill-used; Maggie tried to work her magic but claimed there were too many feet under hers and gave up. Personally, I feel invaded. It’s not where I want to be, but it’s my place.

  Night-time arrangements have been just as awkward. For some reason, Mab and Freya had to have my room and Aubrey is in the tiny first-floor bedroom on a blow-up mattress. I set up the remaining old cot in the studio for myself and got the blow-heaters running to keep it warm. The sounds are all different here. Next door’s trees with all their bluster are on the wrong side. The floor creaks as if someone is constantly creeping across the boards towards me. I slept badly and told everyone I slept well. In fact, I dreamt I was at sea – easy reading for that one, Mr Freud – on a storm-tossed boat chasing up and down giga
ntic waves. At one o’clock in the morning I had to run downstairs to empty my bowels in an ugly rush and sat there for a good ten minutes wondering if I could make it back up to my bed. Don’t they say worse things happen at sea?

  I might try to smuggle Tatty up the stairs with me tonight. Her neat round weight can be a great comfort. That’s if I can pull her away from the warmth of the fire and Dad. I’m worried no one seems to have really considered Dad’s role in the exhibition. I’m surprised to find myself feeling protective of him. As Mab, Freya and Aubrey talk, I watch Dad. Back in the bad times when I finally got to Corsica, and actually for all those years in Manchester, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to forgive him. And I knew he would never forgive me. But sitting here now, where we are both ignored in our own house, I find myself in affinity with him.

  When he found me with Sarah it was as if I had never really seen his face before. You know how the faces of those you love are so familiar they drift into a kind of soup of features? Dad was just Dad. Indescribable as anything else. That night he introduced himself piece by piece. Fist by fist and boot by boot, he killed my father as he tried to kill me. He would hate that I am here.

  While he beat me I thought of my mother. The woman I cannot remember. I thought that finally I understood what she felt as she dove into that river of traffic and off the footbridge where her son waited for her with the homeless man. I imagined the sensation of finally meeting the wheels of the cars which darted, quick fish, below us. The wheels turned like waves, crushing and pounding the asphalt until it cracked and burst and men from the council had to come and erect plastic barriers and draw chalk lines around the potholes as if they were murder victims. Those wheels burst my mother open. They surrendered her to the detritus of the road, to take her place alongside the crisp packets and fag ends and pieces of broken hubcap along its wasted shoreline. Her indigestible parts.