by Amy Arnold
At three o’clock she drives up the hill.
‘Only me,’ she says.
She pushes the front door open.
‘I’ve got the baby, so.’
Now Saturday’s come. Abbott made me peppermint tea to take back upstairs. He likes me to rest, although I don’t know how long I’ve been resting. At first I counted. I counted the hours up to two hundred and fifty-three and I went part way to two hundred and fifty-four. After that I stopped. I let time go round and round the way it does when you’ve got a nice watch. It felt better. It felt better saying it’s ten past two, it’s quarter to four. I’d never really noticed the clock at the top of the stairs before. I can see it without leaving my bed, all I have to do is crane my neck and there it is, with its hands pointing somewhere between one and twelve.
Abbott’s pleased I’m taking an interest in the time.
‘You’ll be asking for a nice watch soon,’ he said.
He knows what he’s doing with words, because there’s a big difference between time and the time. I don’t know how many hours I’ve been resting now. I stopped at two hundred and fifty-three and went seventeen minutes into the two-hundred-and-fifty-fourth hour. How would I know how many hours it’s been when the hands on the clock go round and only ever point to numbers between one and twelve?
It feels like a lot of hours since I put Keats rain pelteth, into Google. It came up. ‘Fancy’, that’s the title of the poem. ‘Fancy’, by John Keats. I found rain pelteth quickly. It was on the fourth line, but the poem wasn’t really anything to do with rain. Papa was right about plucking lines from poems. It didn’t make sense to say rain pelteth, the way I was saying it when the rain was coming down that afternoon. It didn’t make any sense to say it like that. I was playing with feathers, not birds.
I was supposed to be resting but I went into Abbott’s study and typed it in anyway. I had a lot of time. I was supposed to be resting, so I had enough time to learn the whole poem. The whole bird, that’s what I was thinking as I learnt it. Soon I’ll have the whole bird.
I learnt it. I learnt it line by line, feather by feather, I suppose. I added the feathers one by one until I had the bird. I’d been looking out of the window in Abbott’s study, I didn’t want feathers, I wanted the whole bird, and once I had it, as soon as I’d got the last line down, I’d shut the cage door.
I decided not to ask Google anything again.
I’d been looking out of the window in Abbott’s study. I suppose I was waiting for Jay, or U, but they hadn’t come out since it rained. They hadn’t come out since. I was waiting. That’s why I learnt the poem. I’d never wanted a bird before. I’d always been happy with feathers.
I didn’t go back for the swift. I heard it sink. I heard it go down, and there wasn’t time. There wasn’t time to go diving under. Lynn said Charlie was upset. She was waiting outside and she had the baby and I didn’t think he’d be crying, but when I got to our hill she was there with the baby against her chest and the baby was crying, and she was rocking him.
‘Liam, Lee-am, Lea-am.’ That’s what she was saying.
Maybe I could have swum out for it. Maybe I should have. It would’ve been there on the bottom of the lake because I’d only just thrown it.
And look at the clock. The hands have been going round and soon they’ll show six thirty and Abbott will call up the stairs because dinner will be ready. I’ll come downstairs when he calls. He’ll say something like, ‘Tuck in. This should do you some good,’ and I’ll tuck in and so will Charlie, and Nelson’s head will be resting on Charlie’s knee and Abbott will say, ‘He’s been good for Charlie, that dog.’ And she’ll smile and I’ll smile and Abbott will say, ‘It’s good to see you looking a bit brighter. You know, you haven’t been the same since.’
I’m trying to trick myself into swimming forever.
I got the idea from the clock. The way it goes round and round and never shows more than twelve, because what would the time be now if it had gone beyond twelve and kept on going? Where would it go, I mean, where would it end, a clock like that? Because nobody wants to know the real time. Nobody wants to hear about their three hundred thousandth and first hour. No, they want to count to twelve then count again. That’s what they want. That’s what we want. Nobody wants a clock that scares them. They don’t want to be scared, but they’re looking for time. They keep looking for it everywhere.
Where did the time go? That’s what people say.
That’s what they say when they find themselves old. They find themselves old, people with nice watches, and they don’t know where it came from, because they hadn’t seen all their time, how could they see where the hours went when their watches go round and round?
It feels like only yesterday.
That’s what Abbott’s dad said, when time was running away from him. He was sitting at our kitchen table, said he was too old for the stool, too unsteady, said it felt like only yesterday watching Abbott ride his bike for the first time.
‘Wobbling along the road to the Rec,’ he said. ‘Little red bike with orange flashes.’
He said, ‘Do you still ride, son?’
‘From time to time,’ Abbott said.
He checked his Second Core after he said that. He went on checking it until his dad left.
I’d never seen Abbott on a bike. I couldn’t imagine him with a helmet. I mean, with his hair, his smoothed-down hair, and a helmet on top of it. And glasses too.
Later he told me not to tell.
‘Don’t tell,’ he said. ‘About the bike.’
I’m trying to trick myself into swimming forever.
I got the idea from the clock going round and round. It was almost seven o’clock. It was almost time for Abbott to call me down to dinner. It’ll be another thirteen hours until he calls me down for peppermint tea. That’s what I was thinking. Eight o’clock, that’s when he’ll call. Thirteen hours from now. Thirteen. No, not thirteen hours. One hour. Think of it as one hour. The remainder after dividing thirteen by twelve. And that’s when I got the idea. Because that’s what you do. That’s what you have to do, you have to go on dividing by twelve. You have to think in remainders.
I mean, take a lifetime. Take seventy-five years, take eighty years, take the exact moment at which you’ve lived for any number of years and there’ll be no remainder, there’ll be nothing left, and it only takes a few days before people stop counting hours, because who counts after seventy-two hours? Who knows the number of hours in five days without stopping to work it out?
Days and months too. Round and round they go, and nobody gets scared when it’s a Tuesday, because there are always more Tuesdays until there aren’t more Tuesdays, but nobody wants their hours. Nobody wants to listen to their hours ticking by.
I was thinking about the clock, I was thinking about the trick of twelve and that’s when I thought of it, tricking myself into swimming forever.
Swim in fours, I thought. And why not four? Four, eight, twelve lengths, remainder zero. Forty, eighty, one hundred lengths. Remainder zero. Why not swim like that? I could swim on and on and I’d only ever have to swim up to four lengths and then I’d start again and all the time I’d be thinking I’m only just setting out. I’m only just starting out, I can go on and on. I can swim forever. And at least it’s something to think about, swimming in fours. Because there isn’t much worth thinking about when Charlie isn’t here. Her costume’s too small these days, that’s what she said, and where did the time go? I mean it feels like only yesterday, Charlie putting on her costume and swimming in Tilstoke Baths with me.
I came here on my own. Abbott said it might do me some good. Light exercise. I wanted to swim so I’d never get tired, so I could swim on and on, even if I couldn’t swim away, not in Tilstoke Baths, it’s impossible to swim away when you’re swimming in fours.
I am getting tired. I’ve been swimming round and round and I’m only at two but it isn’t the first time. It’s disorientating I
mean, swimming in fours, because three’s never enough. And that’s the difference between swimming and hours. I mean, you want to know how far you’ve come. How far you’ve travelled. One hundred lengths, even twenty, are further than zero. Remainder zero.
I never get tired, I’ve never been tired, swimming in the lake, the one off the Toll Estate. I’ve swum far out, way out beyond the rock, and I didn’t think once about getting tired, I didn’t get tired, didn’t feel a thing. I kept going, kept swimming out until I was under the sky. I told Charlie.
If you go far enough out it’s calm.
You have to keep going until you’re under the sky.
And I wanted to ask Abbott. I wanted to ask him about the photo of Kevojärvi, about the two people wading. The ones who weren’t that far from the camera. I wanted to ask if he thought they were men or women. Boys, perhaps?
They were holding hands, the two who were wading, and it was difficult to tell.
I wanted Abbott to say that it was difficult to tell who they were.
I walked home from the baths. It felt good to be walking after all that resting. I walked up our hill. The house martins were still there.
Kate said she would come for them and I waited. The mornings came on with dew and a slow sun. Then spiders’ webs. Before long they left. I never knew when they’d leave.
I walked up our hill. I opened the front door. Abbott called to me from the kitchen.
‘Good swim?’ he said. I went on through. I went on past the photo of him as ping-pong king.
‘It’ll build up your strength, swimming again,’ he said.
‘Hello, Ash,’ she said.
‘Lynn was just passing. She thought she’d drop in,’ he said.
‘It was nice of Lynn to drop in,’ he said. He shut his book, clamped the sheet under his arms, then turned out the light.
It’s nice when people drop in.
I don’t know why I haven’t come here before.
I rolled the log until it dead-thumped against the wall. I rolled it over so I could climb up onto it and here we go. I mean, here I am, standing on the log with a perfect view across the car park and through the windows of the yoga studio.
She’ll come. She has to come if she’s teaching a class. She has to. It won’t be like the time I heard the woman with the flower band in her hair say she wasn’t coming. And it must be almost eight. I checked the clock before I left, so it must be nearly eight and she always starts teaching at eight. Beginners class at eight. Begin at eight, don’t be late.
There she is now. I knew she’d come if she was teaching a class. There she is, wearing a green top. She wears greens. She says she only wears things that blend with the earth, but what does that mean?
‘What does that mean?’
‘Not now,’ she said.
She pulled me towards her and kissed the top of my head.
But what is not now, if it isn’t stop? Nobody, not even Kate, says stop. And she says anything. She says everything.
There she is, in her shamrock-green top. I’ve got a good view from here, it’s a vantage point, that’s what it is, and I’ve brought hot chocolate in a flask.
‘I get cold after swimming.’ That’s what I said when Abbott saw me making it.
‘Let me pick you up from the baths then,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why you like walking up our hill. It’s rough.’
I’ll make enough for two next time. It’s a big enough flask. I’ll make enough for two, in case I have to share, because that’s how it started, this thing with Kate. It started with sharing. Abbott had put some granola in a pot for me to take to class. He’d bought it from the new health food shop on the high street.
‘It’s the sort of shop you yogis go to,’ he said.
I took the granola. I took it, and I left the pot on top of my jacket at the side of the studio. I was going to wait before eating it. I mean, I’d planned to take the granola outside. I’d planned to sit on the wall and eat it after class. This wall. The wall I pushed the log up against.
That’s what I’d planned to do, but I was hungry. She’d had us working hard. That’s what she said:
‘I’ve been working you all hard tonight.’
So I took a small handful, and I was planning to take the rest out to the wall, this wall. I was eating the granola. I was picking out some toasted seeds when she walked up behind me and put her chin on my shoulder. That’s what she did. She put her chin on my shoulder and reached around me. She put her hand in my pot. She took some granola and ate it.
‘Mmm, delicious,’ she said.
Those were the first words she said to me.
I don’t know why I haven’t come here before. I could have come here any time. I’ve always known she’d be here. I’ve always known there was a copse on the other side of the wall. This side of the wall. I remember looking out at it. I remember looking out from the studio, across the car park, towards the copse.
‘Focus on your spines. Deep focus,’ she said.
We were sitting on our mats. Sitting in half lotus. I was looking out of the window towards the copse. The sky was blue. Almost ultramarine. And under the blue sky was the copse, the trees. The following week, rain and wind. Weeks after too.
‘Connect now. Deep in your core.’
I looked out across the car park. That’s what I did every week.
Yes, I’ve always known there was a copse. Ever since I started yoga, I’ve known there was a copse.
And why not come here? Abbott wants me to find things to do. Well here I am, doing something, standing on my log. It’s a vantage point here on the log and I can see right over the car park and into the studio. I can see her in her shamrock top. All I had to do was move the log. I only had to roll the log until it dead-thumped against the wall.
There were men here earlier. I thought I heard voices. And there she is, in her shamrock top. Because the beginners begin at eight.
Probably men walking dogs, that noise, those voices, but men walking dogs don’t talk that much, and who would be talking in a small copse like this? What would they talk about? There’s no reason to walk a dog in here, unless it’s a cut through.
It’s probably a cut through, so there’s no need to worry, and I always liked her in green. I liked her in green before she put her hand into my pot of granola, it’s just that I hadn’t thought much about liking her until then and there isn’t much point in thinking about whether you like what people wear or not, because people pass through. Most people pass on through.
I’ll stay a while, if those men are men with dogs. They’re probably using the cut through, so I could stay a while. I could stay until the end of the class. And I don’t know why I haven’t come here before, so I may as well stay. I may as well drink the hot chocolate, now I’ve made it, and it’s probably fine to stay, if those men are using the cut through.
And look, Kate’s walking towards the window. She’s coming right over to the window. She’s standing by the window and the only thing between us is the car park, which is hardly an insurmountable thing. A small patch of tarmac is hardly a thing at all. And perhaps she’s seen me. She’d definitely be able to see me from where she’s standing, but only if she was looking. I mean, people really only see the things they expect to see.
She’s right by the window.
Her picture windows. That’s what she called them. People know what they’re doing with words, but Papa was right when he said possession is an illusion, and now she’s right there by her window, doing the tree pose.
She taught me the tree. Vrksasana. She liked Sanskrit. She said it both ways.
‘Ash. It’s Ash, isn’t it?’ she said to me after class. ‘With a name like that, we have to help you to get this one right.’
She nodded. It meant, go on. It meant, show me. Show me your tree.
‘Tadasana first,’ she said.
So I got into the mountain pose. That’s how you start, with the mountain. I felt like a mountain,
there in her studio. I felt the straight line of energy through the centre of my body.
‘Good,’ she said.
‘Now, find your focus.’
But what did that mean, because once you start looking for focus you’ll never find it.
Not now, Ash, I thought. Stop. I opened my eyes and looked out towards the copse.
‘After focus, you’ll find balance,’ she said. ‘It’ll come.’
She stepped away and eyed me up. I kept my head straight, and I kept looking out towards the copse, and I could see the copse and I could see the way the wind was blowing at the trees and I was looking at it all through the glass, and the sky was grey and it was dark enough for rain, but it wasn’t raining, not whilst I was doing the tree pose, although it was dark enough. It was definitely dark enough.
She looked at me.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes.’
She stepped in.
‘Find the pressure. Here,’ she said. ‘Like this,’ she said.
There was nobody else in the studio. I found the pressure of my foot against my thigh. At least, I thought I found it.
And perhaps I should go. I can hear those men again and they might not have dogs. They might not be the same men I heard when I was moving the log, because I haven’t got a nice watch and I can’t be sure of the time, or how long I’ve been here, although it’s getting dark and it’s got to be after eight, and it’s probably nearer to nine. And if I go, it doesn’t mean I can’t come back.
I can come back. Now I’ve got a log, I can come back. And if I go now I won’t have to think about those men. I won’t have to think about whether there’s a cut through, or what it meant when she said she only wears colours that blend with the earth.
I came back to my log. To be honest, I couldn’t wait. I thought she might’ve seen me last time because why else would she walk to the window? I thought about it hard and I couldn’t remember her walking to the window before. No, she hadn’t ever walked to the window. If she’d walked to the window I would have remembered, because I was always looking out of the window at the sky, at the copse beneath the sky.