Slip of a Fish

by Amy Arnold

  ‘Ab,’ Lynn said.

  She spells it with two ns and a y, and Abbott was like a boy. He was taking care, taking air, a little breath, until Joan said, ‘Where are you off first then?’

  And I didn’t know where I was off but there he was, crouching down and tenderly, and Joan probably said where she was off, and the girls were in the garden. He opened his mouth. He put the soft flesh of it around one of her nipples. He drank. He must’ve been drinking because milk was pooling under his bottom lip. Running down his chin. A ghyll, a rivulet, a beck, a rill. And he wasn’t crying and neither was Lynn, but people cry when you least expect it and he went on drinking until he was full and it took a long time, we were walking down the hill, he must’ve been hungry, yes, and Lynn. I don’t know what she did.

  ‘Well, I’ve got to pop to the pharmacy,’ Joan said. ‘If you’re only along for the walk. For the company. All those pills they give me. I rattle all the way back. Every time.’

  And I don’t know how it is when you’re Joan’s age, but I’m all right getting home and it can’t be comfortable wearing your trousers like that.

  I’m all right getting home. I’ve always been all right. And Abbott’s loosened the rains.

  I’ll go back up the hill. I’ll walk home. Joan walks slowly, but you get used to it. She rattles all the way back. That’s what she said and there’s nothing wrong with the way she walks. Why not walk slowly when the reins are loose because going home isn’t the same.

  And where am I off first. I could be off. I could do whatever I did, whatever we did. That summer. Under loose rains.

  I’m going into the charity shop, and if Joan comes back, if she puts her hand on my shoulder again and says whatever it is she says about the eye and the heart, if she says it under her breath, that’s what I’ll say. I’ll say, ‘I’m going to have a quick browse in here. In the charity shop.’ I’ve never been in and now I’m in and there are always people in the charity shop, I’ve seen them on my way to the baths. There are always people in here and in the baths, but there’s never anyone in the lake, unless it’s a Tuesday, and Abbott said his mum used to get him clothes from here and they were proud of him, the first day he went to work wearing a suit.

  ‘We’ve got Lego, if you want Lego.’

  They talk to you in here, Abbott was right. That’s why they work here, because they like talking.

  And now he’s talking to me, the man behind the counter.

  ‘Lego goes quickly,’ he says.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ he says. Surprised. But I’ve never known much about adjectives. I only had to choose one and I couldn’t.

  ‘Surprised, how quickly things go.’

  Books too, four shelves of them. Abbott didn’t say anything about books. He said the charity shop was full of people’s hand-me-downs. Hand-me-downs. I wanted to say it again and again, but I knew Abbott wouldn’t like it. I said it in my head. In my hand-me-down head. There are shelves of books, lots of books, and she calls him Ab.

  It isn’t his name.

  Lots of books.

  Abbott doesn’t have hairy fingers. That’s what she’ll think when he touches her. And when he’s full, after he’s had his fill.

  Books. Four shelves of books.

  His parents were proud of his suit.

  Lots of books. Pages and pages, ad infinitum.

  ‘Not really a book man myself,’ he says.

  Abbott was right. They talk to you.

  ‘Everything on that shelf’s a pound. Anything you like.’

  And I’m thinking of Abbott and I’m wondering whether I saw his jaw relax after all.

  But that isn’t the point now, no. All these books. Pages, ages. Papa wouldn’t approve of playing with plucked feathers. No. The poem itself is the aphorism, and of course it is. Papa was right.

  ‘Much of a book person, are you?’

  And Charlie would like this book. One Girl, One Dog. That’s her. Them, I mean. Charlie and Nelson. A girl and a dog. The One must be for emphasis. Writers do that.

  If you can spot the subtleties, Papa said, and Abbott isn’t the only one who leaves sentences hanging like reins, like rains.

  One Girl, One Dog.

  More adventures with Emily and her beloved dog, Scout.

  Yes, Charlie will like this, Charlie can have this.

  I slid One Girl, One Dog under my jumper. That’s what I did.

  A woman was tugging her pushchair, trying to get it up the step, into the shop. The man behind the counter jumped up to help her. She pulled and he lifted. I was looking at the book, I was reading the blurb. Emily and Scout. Her beloved Scout.

  The man told her they had Lego. That she’d be surprised. Surprised how quickly it goes.

  ‘Right,’ she said, and whilst they were talking, and pushing and pulling, I slid the book under my jumper. Charlie can have this, I said to myself. She can have it. I was standing in the shop with the book under my jumper. I wanted to get out but the woman’s buggy was blocking the door and I knew I had to ask. I knew I had to say something if I wanted her to move.

  ‌

  It’s difficult to sleep.

  One Girl, One Dog seems to have saved the day. Charlie sat next to me on the sofa and we read our books. She curled up. We read our books. That’s how it was, that’s how we were, reading, word by word, by word by whorl. The back of her head and mine look the same. Anticlockwise, that’s the way we were. The way we were. Reading our books. Charlie had her legs tucked under her, holding the words in her hands. One Girl, One Dog. I slipped it under my jumper when he wasn’t looking. They never look, people who talk. And it’s difficult to sleep.

  Charlie read her book. I read mine. We were sitting together. That’s how we were. That’s the way we were. And Charlie, Charlee, Charlea, smells nothing like Joan, and I almost got used to her on the way down our hill. The smoke, the slow walk. I almost stopped her from taking her hand off my shoulder. I’d got used to feeling cold, but I guess some things work out for the best, because Joan went off where she was off first, and after I checked the man in the shop was busy I slipped the book up my jumper. He didn’t see. He’d come out from behind the counter for the pushchair. For a conversation. For some push and pull. You don’t have to like words to like talking.

  We read our books. I had Haiku. I held Haiku in my hands and I watched Charlie’s face as the words went in and there isn’t anything wrong with hand-me-downs. They read the same, like words, like whorls. The same. Anticlockwise, and you can only tell because my hair’s short, it’s always been short and Papa said my mama would’ve approved. And thinking of her, thinking. It’s difficult to sleep.

  I’ve read it three times now. Haiku. Haiku, translated by Kirsten Smith. I read it last night, with Charlie next to me, I breathed them out one by one. Whole haiku. Mists, mountains, mornings in the out breath. It was the third time I’d read it. I told myself that good things come in threes, although it was difficult to sleep after that. I couldn’t sleep. And here we are again, curled up next to each other, reading. Abbott says One Girl, One Dog smells the way his clothes used to smell. Charlie put her nose right next to it but couldn’t smell a thing.

  ‘You will,’ he said.

  And here we are. Three times I’ve read it. Three times I asked her to come to the lake and it was calm out there under the cerulean sky, I had to go right out, I had to keep on swimming until it was calm and sometimes things turn out OK in the end, and it’s all to do with words, although I wouldn’t say that to Abbott, no, but here we are, side by side, curled up. Again, reading, again, and you’d think it’d be quiet but it isn’t quiet now because Abbott’s on the phone.

  If he’s talking. If she’s talking. If they go on talking, Lynn and him, and if all these things stay the way they are, which isn’t the way they should be. If you can explain away a mountain in seventeen syllables.

  Charlie looks up.

  ‘Are you actually reading, Ash?’

  Charlie can’t read w
hen it’s noisy either, that’s what she says.

  ‘All this noise,’ we say, we almost always say, and we put our hands over our ears. Four ears, four hands. All our ears and hands, and all this noise and Charlie goes back to her words, her pages and if Abbott’s talking. Yes.

  But here, now, Charlie curled up on the sofa with her girl and her dog, her hand in her hair. My hand in Kate’s hair. The greys were coming through, but what did it matter? We liked it both ways.

  Noisy, noisy, noisy. And what can they say after seventeen syllables? Abbott. Lynn. All their words, all this time. Whole haiku in the out breath.

  I already knew something was wrong, could already tell. We were curled up on the sofa, books in our hands, and I could see Charlie had almost reached the end of One Girl, One Dog. I could see there were only two or three leaves of paper left. I was looking at the leaves and thinking, when this is over, because I could tell it was almost over, and I hadn’t seen any other books she would have liked in the charity shop. There weren’t any. But there she was, reading the last pages, closing in on the end. Something was wrong. I could already tell, could already see she wasn’t that comfortable. She was turning those last pages, turning them backwards and forwards as if something was missing. As if she was looking for something.

  She uncurled her legs. Sat up straight.

  ‘Why didn’t you get me the end?’ she said. ‘This isn’t the end. This isn’t how it’s supposed to end,’ she said.

  ‘Ash?’

  She showed me the book. One Girl, One Dog. She put it at an angle so I could see clearly. She was pointing at the last page, the last word. I could see it was the end, the real end, the right end, but I saw her finger shaking. She couldn’t keep it still.

  ‘Why didn’t you get me the end?’

  ‘The end. Ash?’

  I tried to listen. She was talking to me and I tried to listen, I was leaning towards her, leaning in like people do, to listen, to understand, to listen. And I’d seen the last word, she’d shown me the last word and I was trying, I was, but I didn’t understand. And she was saying:

  ‘Ash? Ash?’

  There was a lot of noise.

  There was a lot of talking, they were all talking, all at once. I was trying to understand and I couldn’t understand, and I was holding Haiku, I was leaning in and Charlie said, Charlie kept saying, and I counted her syllables, I counted to seven, could have been eight, if she’d broken it down, and whether she had I didn’t know, I was counting them out, counting out loud and Charlie shouted. She shouted.

  The book was by my face, she held the words, waving them, waving them and all her noise, all the letters, all their noise.

  ‘The end?’ she said. ‘Where’s the end?’

  The words were in my eyes and I was trying to understand. I couldn’t understand, I was trying, but the noise.

  ‘The noise, the noise, the noise, the noise.’

  I said it, I said it. Noise with an i with a y, like Lynn, but I couldn’t keep on because is and ys weren’t enough and Charlie was shouting and Abbott was talking and maybe he’d stopped and we were walking down and after Joan took her hand from my shoulder Lynn’s milk had pooled under his lip and he’d been so hungry, I’d been so cold, and there had never been so much chatter. So much din.

  ‘Charlie!’

  Abbott was standing in the door frame. He wasn’t talking. Not talking, smoothing the hair on both sides. Once, twice. Smooth them three times. I wanted him to. I thought he might, good things come in threes and I thought he might, might cry. You can never tell. He didn’t, stopped at two, but Charlie didn’t, didn’t stop, went on, stepped up on the sofa, up on its arm, waved the words above her head and threw One Girl, One Dog.

  I saw it fly. I saw the earth bring it down, I saw the pages flapping, loose reins, everything loose, everything.

  ‘Lost.’ That’s what she said.

  And the words, the words, hold on, couldn’t hold on, didn’t hold on, so I had to get down, go down, kneel down, I had to put my hands out, catch the words, falling words, slipping through my fingers, now, slipping now, like haiku water.

  Abbott came towards us. I thought perhaps he would help. All the words. The words, and Charlie on the sofa with her arms out. He shook his head.

  ‘I’ll fix it,’ I said.

  She said I couldn’t fix anything. Yes, that’s what she said, and I always remember the words people say.

  So it’s difficult to sleep now. You’ll understand.

  It won’t be long before Lynn makes it into our bed, brings her y and her ns and lies them down indefinitely, yes, in our bed, and you can see why Asle stayed where he was, calmer on the waves, under the waves, than lying. On her back and waiting. Signe. U too, waiting until the weather broke and it did. Signe, always in the present tense and the blackberries are already good for eating. I saw them on the way back up our hill. I was all right getting home, all right, although the smell of autumn was in the air.

  It’s difficult to sleep. The nights are drawing in and Papa said, ‘Spit and get used to it, spit over here and get used to it.’

  Things were changing. Things are changing. The geese will come, the ones from Utsjoki and when they come they don’t come quietly. It’s difficult to sleep. The blackberries, the geese, the words on our carpet soaking in. Soaking in, probably, and it wouldn’t hurt to clean them. Now Charlie’s sleeping, now Abbott’s sleeping.

  ‘Blot first,’ Abbott always says. ‘It breaks up the fibres if you scrub.’

  But he’s never said anything about scraping. Scrape them up then sort them out. Everything can be put back, you can get used to change. You have to. Spit. Grey hair. Papa’s, Kate’s, I didn’t mind, my fingers in at her roots. Caressing. She gave that word to me. She wanted it in my collection.

  ‘Put it in?’ she said. ‘Will you?’

  I didn’t. I didn’t tell.

  I’ll scrape. I’ll sort the words out. I’ll put them back where they belong, as long as they belong. And they must. One Girl, One Dog. They must belong. Belong, be long, be short. There must be a whole, a hole, the size of whatever, or this, or any word that belongs everywhere and somewhere and has crept in, crept up, like autumn, or dog. I’ll sort them out, all these dogs. So many of them, falling through the fibres in front of me. Too late to blot, I’ll have to scrape, although. Too many dogs and not many girls, and Emilys, so many Emilys. See here, three Emilys in this small patch, and two of them fallen next to dog which might be a coincidence but isn’t, no, and if you take the words as only words, if you take carpet words, not book words, if they don’t belong, don’t have to belong, you can make sense, you can begin to make sense, piece together, and the problem with understanding or not understanding is hardly ever, or never, with the words themselves.

  Emilys and dogs, and dogs, and fewer girls than there should be. But less talking, fewer girls, Ash, or you’ll be up all night putting them back, you’ll drive yourself mad making them all belong, be long, be short and trying them here and there like one of those jigsaws with a thousand pieces where you have to believe the picture on the box to believe the pieces all belong, but you know they do, but you know they did, and now. And now, you’re holding a piece, another piece, a peace of sky, blue, cerulean, looks no different to all the others and you look at the piece and say to yourself, it can’t be that difficult, can it? You say, it can.

  And these are the same words, you realise, simple words, small words, you realise. Words are worse than jigsaw pieces when you’re trying to fit them, you realise, they’re a lot worse, so you have to keep fitting until they’re as right as you know, which may or may not fit the picture inside the cover because there was only one picture, there wasn’t a copy, and nobody thought, and it’s simply not possible to see the hole, the whole thing, all the words, spun out, spinning out in every tense, all tense, and I knew. I knew. So you have to believe, have belief, you have to go blind, be blind, harder, a lot harder, than doing a jigsaw. But if you keep on,
keep going, word by word, if you go anticlockwise, word by whorl, this, that, nowhere, stick, if you keep on with every word until, at last, at last, you’re left with two words, two words there on the carpet, and you don’t need me to tell you. No, you don’t need me to spell them out.

  The end. I’ll say. The end.

  And of course, yes, I can fix anything.

  ‌

  It’s difficult to sleep. It’s the log, my log. I went to my log and now I can’t sleep.

  I went to the copse to move it away from the wall. I wanted a different view. I mean, I’d been thinking about Kate walking to the window. It wasn’t something she’d done before, I was sure, almost sure. I didn’t like the idea of her staring. Staring without smiling, without waving either, so I decided to go back and move the log. To get a new perspective, to know what was going on with her, once and for all.

  Once and for all, settle this thing, I said to myself as I walked through the copse. I went on walking towards the wall, towards the log. I was gaining momentum, yes, and when I got to the log I didn’t stop, just walked around it and crouched down, all in one fluid movement. I crouched between the wall and the log, ready to push, and that’s what I did. I pushed on the log as hard as I could. I pushed and used the wall to help me. I put my feet against it and pushed, but the log wouldn’t budge. It wouldn’t shift. I pushed again. I tried to do it quietly. I didn’t want the men with dogs coming over. I was doing my best to keep quiet, but the log was stuck and I had to push hard, so hard I couldn’t help grunting.

  I stood up and looked across the car park towards the studio. Kate was standing at the window, staring, looking like she’d seen the whole affair. I mean the way I strode up, the heaving and pushing and. There she was anyway, with her mouth hung open, laughing. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen it hanging open like that.