Slip of a Fish

by Amy Arnold

  Kate Quin. Kate Quin of Naturally Yoga.

  I usually click on Testimonials, then News, and usually there isn’t any but most people probably don’t check all that often and look, here, the details of the summer solstice celebration are up and somebody’s chosen big letters, letters bigger than the other letters.

  Open to All.

  It’s open to all, the summer solstice celebration on Cotters Hill. It’s open to anyone who wants to embrace the light and We’ll stay and celebrate until the sun sets just after half past nine. Can you think of a more glorious way to celebrate the light?

  That’s what it says and there isn’t space to think of more glorious ways because beneath the question there are photos. Photos of last year’s celebration and I know Cotters Hill so well, like the back of my hand, and there it is, up there on the screen in front of me on Midsummer’s Day, and there they all are, all of them from Naturally Yoga, all the people who couldn’t think of a more glorious way to celebrate the light. There they are, on the longest day of last year, on the very top of Cotters Hill and off to the side is the Crag and there aren’t many crags around here, no, but there it is, the Crag, on the photo on the screen in front of me in Abbott’s study and there they are, everyone from Naturally Yoga, celebrating the light and there she is, Kate, from Naturally Yoga, there she is, looking past the camera, and perhaps she didn’t know the camera was there. She’s looking beyond it, out towards the Crag, and I can’t look out towards the Crag. Not without thinking of the time the wind took my words away.

  And can you think of a more glorious way?

  It isn’t a bad question, because the world’s a big place and there must be more glorious ways to celebrate midsummer than to sit on Cotters Hill, but I can’t think of them, because I’m thinking of the way the light falls on the hill, when it’s the last light. If I stop to think about the way the last light falls on the limestone, the way it falls on the limestone and the grass so their colours become parts of the same colour, when I think about that, and the way the colours become rich, because that’s the way they become when they come together in the late evening light. When I think about that, it’s difficult to think of a more glorious thing.

  Maybe Abbott would think it was a good idea to give yoga a try again, because he was the one who was always asking me why I’d stopped and he was the one who wanted me to start in the first place. He was the one. I’d told him it wasn’t for me.

  ‘But something must be for you,’ he said.

  ‘You go,’ Abbott said, when I told him about the celebration on Cotters Hill. ‘Charlie and I will find something to do. You go and enjoy yourself.’

  I told Charlie I was going. We were at the baths when I told her. We’d swum up and down, let go and floated, and we were getting changed. I was rubbing her back with the towel. I said I was going up to Cotters Hill to celebrate the summer solstice, because it’s open to all.

  ‘If it’s open to all you can take me,’ she said.

  ‘But there weren’t any children in the photos,’ I said.

  ‘All means all. Every one. Every single one,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  On the way home she ran ahead and when I held my hand out for her to take it she shook her head.

  It’s the longest day of the year.

  I’m going to Cotters Hill. I’m ready to go. I was looking for the car keys a moment ago. I went upstairs to Abbott’s study.

  ‘Look out of the window,’ Charlie said. ‘The people from number five.’

  I’d seen U out there earlier, but she’s gone now. Now it’s Jay. Jay and two other girls, or women I suppose. They’re dressed up, all dressed up and Jay’s drinking from a can and he’s keeping a spare one in the back pocket of his jeans, and the girls are talking, leaning in and talking to each other and here comes another man. Skinny, but not as skinny as Jay.

  He takes the can out of his pocket, Jay, and throws it to the other man, who is somewhere between a boy and a man, and he throws it to him and the other man catches it and looks at it and says, ‘What the fuck is this?’ And Jay says he can chuck it back if he doesn’t want it but he does want it, because he opens the can and starts to drink from it and Jay walks over to one of the women, the one who’s lying back on the sofa now, who’s all dressed up in a little black dress, an LBD, that’s what they call them, LBDs, I read it in a magazine once, and he walks over to her and he stands over her and she says, ‘Go on with you, Jay.’

  And he puts one leg either side of her and there isn’t much room, but Jay’s skinny and he puts his right knee in, squeezes it between the back of the sofa and the girl’s waist, and he puts his other leg over her and he’s over her and she’s under him and you can see she’s fat. You can see that from here.

  ‘I said go on with you, Jay,’ she says.

  And he comes down onto her and he hasn’t got a top on and you can see how skinny he is. She says it again, she says go on, but her hands are on his bum and she’s got his bum and she’s holding onto his bum saying go on and he lowers himself down and puts his hands on her breasts, he puts one hand on each breast and he holds onto them and he looks over at the other man and he says, ‘Ryan. Ryan.’ But Ryan’s on his phone and the other girl’s on the arm of the sofa and she’s holding one of her shoes and she’s doing something with it, something with the heel of the shoe, and Jay’s pressing down, and the girl in the little black dress is under him and he’s got his hands on her breasts and he shouts again, ‘Ryan, over here, you fucking cunt.’ And Ryan looks up from his phone and the girl’s got Jay’s bum and she says, ‘You’re the cunt’ and she’s holding his bum and he’s come down onto her and she’s a lot fatter than U, and Jay’s skinny, but he’s got hold of her breasts and he’s come right down onto her and he says, ‘I’ll have these’, and he keeps hold of her breasts and he moves them in circles, and she says, ‘You’ve had one too many, Jay’ and she laughs. She laughs and she’s got hold of his bum and the other girl’s put her shoe back on and she’s got her phone out and Ryan passes her his can and she takes it and drinks from it and the girl under Jay is laughing and he’s got her. He’s got his hands on her breasts and you can see the muscles in his arms from here, and Abbott shouts from downstairs.

  ‘I thought you were on your way.’

  And Jay moves the girl’s breasts up and down and he pushes his whole body down on her and her black dress has come up around her thighs. Ridden up, that’s what it’s done. And ridden is one of those words. He’s riding, that’s what he’s doing with his knees pressing in at her waist. He’s riding her, and he wipes the sweat away from his face using his shoulder, he does it twice and he doesn’t look at her but he doesn’t take his hands from her breasts and she’s got her hands on his bum and the swifts are above them, high above them, and Abbott shouts up from downstairs.

  ‘Ash!’

  And he’ll be looking at his Second Core and everyone from Naturally Yoga will be on Cotters Hill now and they’ll be there and they’ll be doing breath work and thinking about the light.

  Her dress has ridden up around her thighs and Jay’s come right down onto her.

  Ryan turns around and says, ‘For fuck’s sake, Jay’ and Jay laughs and the girl under him laughs and the other girl doesn’t look up from her phone. And Jay is pressing down hard and the girl has stopped laughing and he presses down on her, harder, and I can see his muscles and she isn’t laughing now and she says, ‘Jay. Stop it, Jay.’

  And he goes on pressing down, you can see that from here, you can see him pressing down and there’s something in her voice and she’s let go of his bum and she’s pushing up at his chest but he goes on pressing down.

  It’s the longest day of the year. In Finland they celebrate by lighting bonfires. They light them on the shores of the lakes. There’s a sign on Cotters Hill that says No camping, No fires, No littering. Kate said no one would know, if we lit a fire, no one would know.

  ‘We shouldn’t,’ I said. ‘Stop it
,’ I said.

  ‘Stop it, Jay,’ the girl says.

  ‘Come on, mate,’ Ryan says, and puts his hands on Jay’s shoulders and pulls at him. ‘Come on, leave off of her,’ he says.

  Jay says, ‘Look at her, mate. Take one look at her, she likes it.’ And he presses down onto her, he presses down hard and the other girl’s on her phone. She’s tapping on her phone.

  ‘Ash,’ says Abbott.

  He pushes the door of his study open.

  ‘Won’t they have started? The yoga?’ he says, and smooths his hair down.

  ‘But look,’ I say, and point to the window and Abbott walks to the window and looks out. He looks over at number five and he turns around and walks back across the room and says, ‘Shall I drive you?’

  And I go to the window and the two girls are sitting on the sofa and one of the girls is on her phone and the girl in the black dress is sitting next to her, and Jay and Ryan are standing and Ryan’s holding out a lighter for Jay and you can see from here, you can see from here his tattoo says No Regrets.

  ‘Will it help if I drive you, Ash?’

  He’s standing at the door to his study holding the car keys.

  ‘Let me drive you. Cotters Hill, right?’ he says.

  And it isn’t far, but he likes to drive and he’s ready to drive. He’s standing there holding the car keys. And we go downstairs, and we go out onto our hill and Abbott says the car’s down here, that’s where he’s parked it, so we go on down and we pass them, Jay and Ryan and the girls, the one with the black dress too, we walk right past, and they don’t look. No need to look, to see.

  ‘Cotters Hill. Right, right,’ Abbott says. ‘I’ll get the air con on. You’ll cool down in a minute, you wait.’ That’s what he says, and I want to say, I think about saying, can you remember when we took Charlie up Cotters Hill just after she was born? But he’s there with the air con, trying to get it just right, and I’m looking back, looking back towards number five.

  ‘You’ll be just right in a moment,’ he says.

  We walked up Cotters Hill. She was ten days old.

  The midwife had said to take things slowly. Start with stairs, that’s what she’d said, but I wanted to go to the top. I took it slowly. I held onto Abbott’s hand as I walked and Charlie was strapped to my chest, sleeping. I looked down at her whilst I walked. I kept looking down, and every time I looked down and saw her there on my chest I couldn’t believe she’d arrived.

  ‘Charlie,’ I said. I said it again.

  I kept saying Charlie. I kept looking down at her whilst I walked, and I kept saying, I kept on saying, Charlie. Summer was over and the swifts had long gone, but Charlie, baby Charlie was strapped to my chest.

  The midwife had said to start with stairs, so we didn’t go up the steep way. It hurt to walk. It hurt so much, but I wasn’t thinking about that, all I was thinking was Charlie, Charlee, Charlea. That was all I could think. We walked up Cotters Hill. There was pain between my legs, but I wanted to walk up. There was pain where the doctor had stitched. She asked me to slip my feet into stirrups whilst she stitched. That’s what the doctor said. Slip your feet in here.

  I didn’t mind that much. I didn’t mind being stitched up with my feet in stirrups. I was lying in the bed with Charlie on my chest and I could feel her little body moving up and down on mine, and I liked the feel of it, I liked it so much I didn’t mind about the stitching.

  Later it hurt. It hurt walking up Cotters Hill too, but I wanted to get to the top with Charlie. Abbott held my hand all the way. He asked me if I needed to go down, he said the midwife had suggested I start with stairs, and I said I wanted to go up. I wanted things to start well. That’s what I was thinking. I want this thing with Charlie to start well.

  We stood on the top of Cotters Hill. The wind was blowing up there and Charlie was strapped to my chest. We stood and we looked out over Tilstoke, and across to the Toll Estate. We stood for a long time. I was thinking about Charlie. I was thinking about the wind too. I was thinking how the wind made me restless. I wanted it for my collection, restless. I hadn’t added anything to my collection for a long time.

  ‘Restless, restless, restless.’ I said it into the wind. It sounded a bit like the wind.

  ‘Ash,’ Abbott said. ‘Not now.’

  He pointed to our hill, to our house.

  ‘There. There we are,’ he said.

  He stopped talking for a while after that. I could feel the throbbing between my legs but I didn’t mind that much.

  ‘A new beginning,’ Abbott said, and kissed Charlie on the head.

  Whenever there’s an ending, look for the beginning. It was something Papa said the day I cut off my hair. The day I stood outside his shed with my long hair in the grass and his scissors in my hand. I was wearing the blue dress. He bent down, and when he stood up he had some of my hair. He held it up. He draped it across both of his hands.

  ‘You’ll always find a beginning with an end.’ That’s what he said.

  After we’d stood for a while, we walked down. It hurt, walking down Cotters Hill, but all I could think about was Charlie and how she’d begun. I looked down at her. I kept looking down at her. I kept saying ‘Charlie’, I couldn’t stop saying it.

  I thought about the ending. I thought about the ending of Abbott’s new beginning. Because why would he say new beginning when all beginnings are new. I thought about the ending, all possible endings, even though looking for the ending from a beginning wasn’t what Papa had said.

  A week later I walked up Cotters Hill again. Abbott had gone back to work. He’d started kissing both of us on the head before he left. Charlie first, then me.

  He called us his girls and he kissed us.

  That day, I strapped Charlie to my chest myself. The sun was out but it was cold, so I put Charlie’s hat on. I put my hat on too. We went up Cotters Hill, the pair of us, wearing our hats.

  I walked up the steep way. I’d almost forgotten about the pain between my legs. I walked with Charlie strapped to my chest. She had her eyes open, they were open all the way up and around the Crag. That was the way I walked, around the Crag. The steep way. And when we stood at the top we looked out across Tilstoke, and the wind was blowing.

  I looked out and the trees were tired and the grass was tired and it felt like the end of something, because everything was tired, the way it’s always tired when summer’s long done and the wind blows. I looked out across Tilstoke.

  I looked and I said, ‘A new beginning.’

  I don’t know why I said it, but I did. It just came out. It was almost as if I’d planned to walk up there and say it. But I hadn’t. I wouldn’t have done that. I was so tired because Charlie was small. I was too tired to have done anything like that.

  I always go up the steep way these days. I’m going that way now, even though I’m late. I’m going up Cotters Hill via Crag. By way of the Crag and it’s hot, but I always go this way, and it’s the best way to walk when the grasses are up, and it’s been so hot but the grasses are still up.

  No one from Naturally Yoga will go this way. Everyone goes up the other way, the way the families walk. It’s the way the old people walk. They walk around the hill and up. They carry their poles and you can hear them clicking on the rock, you can hear them clicking away, but nobody cares about the clicking. Nobody minds the click, click, click. They like to go up and they can’t go via the Crag, so they have to go up the other way. That was the way we went up when Charlie was a baby; when the midwife said I should start with stairs, but it’s better going this way, although I lost my words around here that summer. It’s difficult not to think of my words, the way they disappeared, but I like going this way, especially when the grasses are up. Especially when there’s so much light.

  They won’t have come up this way, but why does it matter which way they go up when all they’re thinking about is the top, the top, the top. But it isn’t about the top, I said as much to Kate.

  But they’ll be there alrea
dy. At the top. Celebrating the light. Doing breath work. That’s what they do before they start and I know I’m late because I was looking out the window. That’s why I’m late.

  And can you think of a more glorious way?

  It’s too late for thinking about that now. About whether there would be a more glorious way to celebrate, because the longest day of the year has come. It’s not worth thinking about the hours that have gone, because it’s only the longest day once a year and there’s no point in thinking about anything apart from the thing that’s happening right now.

  The here and now. That’s what Abbott calls it.

  And why is it called the longest day, when all days are the same length and only the hours of daylight are different? That’s what they say though. That’s what I say too. I say, it’s the longest day, and everyone knows what I mean. I can imagine Abbott. I can imagine him saying Ash, not now. He always says. Ash, not now. You’ll drive yourself mad. But if it is the longest day. If it is. And what Abbott really means is stop, not not now, but who says stop? Nobody really says stop.

  But if it’s the longest day. If it is, think of Utsjoki up there inside the Arctic Circle. Think of the endless daylight. Think about what happens if seventy-one days of daylight are only one day. And what about the polar night? Twenty-eight days when the sun doesn’t rise. Twenty-eight days that never begin. Lost days, I suppose you could say. Ninety-eight of them, because that’s what they mean. That’s what we mean when we say the longest day. The rising and setting of the sun. That’s what we’re talking about. Two hundred and sixty-seven days in a year, that’s all they get in Utsjoki, only two hundred and sixty-seven days.