Slip of a Fish

by Amy Arnold

  Omne trium perfectum.

  He might’ve looked up, he might’ve said, he used to say, now where’s that from? You’ve always got your nose stuck in a book. He might’ve smiled, he used to. He used to say, it couldn’t be a bad thing absorbing everything you read and I would’ve. Said it again. Would’ve said, omne trium perfectum, and he might’ve tousled my hair, although he once said, suggested, I grow it out and would I ever? Would you ever like to look a bit more? And Kate said the same.

  ‘Will you ever grow it?’

  ‘I’d lose my strength,’ I said. I’d be like Samson, but.

  It was too late to go downstairs, to tell him, about good things, and I guess he knows. I guess he already knows.

  I knew it was Kate, the breathing. It wasn’t Abbott.

  I watched his chest rise and fall and I counted. His sleeping breaths, his leaping breaths. I listened. I could hear he had a different way of keeping himself alive. She was deeper. She was sleeping, somewhere close. I was sure his chest was rising and falling. Asynchronous, and, I thought perhaps, so.

  I got out of bed. I walked down to the landing. The way I walked, Abbott wouldn’t wake. I could already see Charlie’s door was on-the-jar. I had to check it wasn’t her. The breathing. I had to be responsible. I crawled in on my hands and knees, and I must’ve been quiet because Nelson was on the end of the bed and when I whispered he understood. He put his big head down. Went back to wherever dogs go. I had to check, to be sure. I had to press my ear to her chest, keep my head light and let it rise and fall. I had to check. I had to slip under her covers, put my arm around her, and she’d always slept lightly.

  Charlie, Char-lea, Charlee.

  She didn’t cry that much when she was small. I can’t remember her crying at all. I never thought she’d cry. I didn’t think. I wanted to swim, to know whether the sky would swallow me up. If I let it. But it was calm out there. I wasn’t expecting it to be calm, to be aroused. I wasn’t thinking, just hoping. The cerulean sky. And Asle could’ve come back, if he’d wanted. He didn’t have to go. Signe should’ve known there was no point. And when she felt for her breasts, at last. A relief, I thought. A relief.

  ‌

  They’ve laid orange cones along the inside lane of the dual carriageway.

  Cones for miles, a line of cars, and dandelion seeds, escaping.

  We’re on our way to doing something about this, and Abbott likes to drive. It can’t go on, he said. It mustn’t. Enough is enough, because nobody can go on. Like this, the way we’re going on. It has to stop. The way we’re going on, yes. So. He’s taking me to see someone. Dr Barns. He’s putting an end to all this. Nonsense.

  They’re cutting the grass verges. I didn’t say.

  I didn’t mention, because he’s driving, that the dandelion seeds are falling like snow. Although.

  I said instead:

  ‘I don’t like doctors.’ Said: ‘They read the wrong kind of books.’ And Abbott said, ‘Nonsense.’ Although Papa knew. Said doctors were men in chairs, and you can’t trust men in chairs. I didn’t say. Thought Abbott would say ‘nonsense’ again, and shake his head. Instead, I said:

  ‘Is this about the chicken goujons?’

  ‘Not just the goujons,’ he said, ‘not just the bloody goujons.’ And he wanted to know what had got into me. He wanted to know why the cat had given me back my tongue. All of a sudden.

  ‘We are,’ he said. ‘Once and for all. Sorting this out.’

  And now the traffic’s backed up and we’re crawling. The cones have been laid out and his Second Core is going round. It’s so good it’ll never stop, it said so on the box, Abbott read it out, he read the whole thing. It’ll never slow either, he said. and I can tell he wishes it would, wishes once and for all. And we’re crawling, and dandelion seeds are blowing across the dual carriageway, falling, yes, like snow.

  I say:

  ‘The dandelion seeds are falling like snow.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Oh yes.’

  Which can’t mean nonsense, and sounds a bit like surprise.

  And then he says, ‘You’d better talk. When we get there.’

  And yes, of course, Dr Barns will expect words, but snow and seeds are nothing like each other, and yet.

  ‘Please stop the car,’ I say.

  Abbott looks straight ahead. He looks through the dandelion seeds, looks straight ahead, through the end of summer. The cars are backed up and we’re not going anywhere, not quickly, although we can’t stop. There’s nowhere. To get off. They say. There’s no way of getting off. You can’t simply, all that easily, get off.

  ‘Please,’ I say. ‘It’s the thing about doctors. The thing about the books they read.’

  ‘Come here,’ Papa said. ‘Come here and read me my last rites.’

  I came over and read to him. All the right ones. Keats too. I read him Keats, but. Grey hair, black hair, black skin, grey, everything dies. Anyway.

  Anyway. Perpetual motion is a myth.

  ‘Please,’ I say.

  Dandelion seeds. Light like snow, like now, like no.

  ‘Please,’ I say.

  ‘We need to do this,’ he says. He looks ahead, keeps his hands on the wheel, crawls, perpetually, indefinitely, forwards. And I’d better talk. Dr Barns will want words, that’s what he’ll want, so I’ll give him haiku. Yes, haiku.

  Barn’s burnt down, I’ll say. And it’ll be a joke.

  Barn’s burnt down

  Now

  I can see the moon

  ‘Please,’ I say.

  And Abbott holds the wheel. He looks straight ahead, whilst we crawl.

  ‘We could do something. Together?’ I say. I look at him.

  I say:

  ‘What about going to the ash tree?’

  I say:

  ‘Remember when we almost carved our initials? Remember that winter, the fog?’

  Orange cones for miles now. A gap in the clouds makes way for the sun. Dandelion seeds, lit up, moving across the dual carriageway, and falling.

  ‘Please. Abbott.’

  ‘It’s been a long time since.’

  I say:

  ‘If you turn off. If you take the next left.’

  I say:

  ‘Trees. You know, trees.’

  I’m getting ready to say: Their trunks get wider as they age. They have to get wide to support the tree as it grows and Charlie and I, the last time we tried, well, we couldn’t get our arms around that ash, the old ash, ours, yours and mine, the one where we almost carved our initials. And what I’m trying to say is, we couldn’t make them meet. Charlie and I couldn’t get our fingertips to touch even though we stretched as far as we could, but if we tried, if you and I tried, I mean, to reach around her, we probably could.

  I say it. And I wait. And I think of waiting. Of all the times I’ve waited.

  ‘I could take you there,’ I say.

  And we’re crawling. We’re alongside the tractor with the yellow arm that reaches into the grasses. We’re alongside the tractor and the man driving it, who isn’t really a man, but a boy, although he’s the size of a man, is as strong as a man, but isn’t a man, until, and we can hear the tractor’s engine, we can hear it turning over and we can hear the machine that cuts the grasses and at the end of the things we can hear. The grasses spitting, splitting.

  The hogweed goes down, is slayed and September snow is escaping behind the light.

  ‘Please,’ I say. ‘Turn left,’ I say.

  And he looks straight ahead and keeps his hands on the wheel and he sucks in air and looks straight ahead and we leave the man in the tractor with the long yellow arm behind and Abbott breathes out, adjusts his glasses, and pushes down on the indicator.

  ‘There you go. There,’ he says.

  And I didn’t think he’d cry, but. Now. Tears on his cheeks and coming down and it isn’t the right time for indulging in words, in headwaters, headstreams, head starts and there might not be a way now to cut it off at its source, or
say it’s wrong or isn’t wrong to name whatever falls from us.

  And look behind. Look, at hogweed bodies, throats slit, slayed, laid, lying, indefinitely, yes, and at last I know, and we could, but we don’t, we should’ve but we didn’t. About turn. So behind is in front and in front is already. Look, in front. Orange cones and hogweed like sentries standing, the way they do before they’re called up, and we haven’t turned left, but soon, yes, if we keep moving, soon, the barn will burn and whatever falls, I said I’d catch whatever falls. I push my sleeve, into his cheek. So. It soaks up tears, gets heavier, gets darker and sticks to the inside of my wrist where underneath the skin small blue tracks travel, flow, run, like streams, like ghylls, around my body.

  ‘Lynn.’

  I say:

  ‘Lynn would’ve brought a tissue.’

  He pushes back against my sleeve and I push my arm back against him and one of us, either Abbott, or I, one of us has to be the first to move away.

  We went to the ash tree.

  Abbott held my hand as we walked, and when the footpath opened out into the meadow he put his arm around my waist. We walked through the long grasses towards the tree. I thought about Dr Barns. I thought about Charlie. I thought about the time we’d come here in winter. How the sky was dark, was down, the way it comes down in winter sometimes. I thought about how the grass had mostly disappeared to mud. How it would again. Before long.

  He held a branch.

  There were black buds rising from the ends. ‘Black buds,’ he said. I thought about how scared he looked then. How scared he looked now.

  ‘But there’s nothing to be scared of in September,’ I said.

  And yes, the sky was benign, bland almost.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said.

  He took one of the branches in his hand and held onto it for a while. Then he let go.

  I said:

  ‘Look out for geese, it isn’t too early.’

  And we looked, but there weren’t any.

  I said:

  ‘Look out for swallows, it isn’t too late.’

  It wasn’t too late.

  The swallows were there, looping, writing overhead. September, I thought. Their last writes, that’s what I thought but I didn’t say, but thought about saying. I thought. The way I’d been talking on, the way I’d been, chatty, almost. I thought I might be able to say, might be able to explain. Rights, rites, writes, but where would I start and how could I be sure what Papa had meant because homophones turn on you. And what if a rose is a rose is a rose?

  They didn’t meet.

  Our fingertips, I mean.

  I said:

  ‘You stand on this side.’

  I said:

  ‘Stretch. As far as you can.’

  And I watched him stretch. I watched the way he pressed his chest against the trunk. To steady himself.

  The clouds opened for a moment. Then shut.

  They didn’t meet, our fingertips, not quite.

  So I picked up a small branch that must’ve snapped off in the wind. I waved it at him.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘let’s try again.’

  And I watched him steady himself. Once more, I thought. Watch him once more, and then I stretched too, until I felt him on the other end of the branch. And I thought how high I’d been. That summer. How high we’d been, Abbott and I, which wasn’t that high really. I thought. We hadn’t ever been that high.

  I said:

  ‘We’ll get a longer branch next time.’

  I said:

  ‘We can find a longer one each time we come.’

  I didn’t think he’d cry, but. The tears came back into his eyes and I thought how he must’ve been keeping them there, just behind the place where people can see and I thought it might be possible to keep tears in that place for a long time. Long enough to forget they were there. I wanted to think about that place and I didn’t want to think another thought about streams or becks, although I could feel them running under the skin at my wrist and back towards my heart. I didn’t want to think about runnels, or ghylls or rills or rhyme or rime even. I didn’t want to think any more about words and the way they flip and turn and trick, so I said something. I had nothing to say but I said something anyway.

  And when we went to bed he touched me.

  He didn’t come back for me this morning. I kissed him where his hair meets his forehead as he left for work. I waited. I thought he’d come back. I thought he’d be thinking about the ash tree, the way he touched me afterwards. You’d think he’d be thinking. You’d think he’d come back.

  Last night when he touched me I held my breath. I held onto it, held it tightly, like it mattered.

  ‘Ujjayi, oceanic breath,’ Kate said.

  She was sitting in padmasana.

  ‘Listen carefully, Ash. It should sound like waves. Tell me if it does.’

  I sat down next to her, pulled my knees up to my chin and listened to her oceanic breath. I listened to the rain on the window, to cars taking the crest of our hill. I listened to the swifts, to the crows, to openings and shuttings, to a ball kicked against a wall, a garage door perhaps. I listened to voices, children’s, women’s, to words surfacing here and there, finding their way up through the oceanic breath. I listened. I listened to her, I held my knees to my chin and listened. In and out, in and out, rain too, voices, birds, cars. I was listening, I was asking myself, what does this sound like? All of this together.

  ‘It sounds like waves,’ I said.

  She smiled a little, not too much. Not enough to stop the ocean’s swell.

  I held onto my breath last night. It’s the thing I’ve always done, so I don’t know why I’m going over it now, the way I breathed in, kept hold of whatever it was in that air. He didn’t come back for me this morning. I thought he would, and of course, his Second Core has been making its way around. It isn’t going anywhere it hasn’t been before, but now, it’s one o’clock and they’ve gone, the house martins. The sky’s fallow once and for all.

  House martins that never leave are unheard of. I told them both that, Kate and Abbott. It was one of the things I told them both.

  They always come back though, right? they said, although not at the same time.

  It wasn’t the point. Twelve million birds, far too many to disappear.

  I keep coming back to it, last night. Last night when he touched me. I keep coming back to the way I held my breath.

  ‘So many places, so many people, I can hardly remember them all. But I’ve never been with a girl,’ Kate said. ‘Not like this,’ she said, and stretched her leg out under the table so it touched mine. ‘You’re so quiet you’re like a boy. A boy, but tender.’

  Like a steak, I thought, and I wanted to laugh. I couldn’t laugh, could never laugh, because she was always looking. Thinking about it now, she was almost always inside me.

  We went to her bed after that. The sheets smelt before we fucked. That’s what she called it, fucking. It wasn’t the right word. The sheets, they always smelt of bergamot, of something sweet I couldn’t name. She touched me in so many places, I can remember them all. We fucked three times, although I wasn’t counting, not until later.

  I waited and he didn’t come. I’d left my kiss where his hair meets his forehead. I held my breath and waited. At one o’clock I looked up into a fallow sky, although what was the point in looking up? What was the point in hanging out of the window like that and looking for birds that had already flown?

  She told me to get back inside, stop leaning out, and at first I didn’t think, just thought, there she is, Kate, telling me what to do again, telling me to come on in from the window. She was always telling me to do something. I used to say she was just like Charlie. You both talk on, the pair of you, both talk on and on, and by and large, there was a lot of talk that summer. Talk was almost all we had. But here she was, telling me to come on in, and yes, I came on in. I slid back in, I’d been hanging right out. I slid in and turned around expecting to see he
r standing in our bedroom, or at least I wasn’t expecting not to see her and when she spoke again I looked around. And nothing.

  He touched me.

  Last night.

  And I held my breath until he asked me to look which didn’t take long it never does and when I did. Oh.

  I looked at him.

  Then Kate. Her too. Her jaw loose by my ear, so free, I had to pull back, jerk back. I wasn’t expecting, although I wasn’t surprised.

  ‘What now?’ Abbott said, although why he didn’t look, I don’t know.

  ‘Look up.’

  And over us larger than life. The weight of her, although I’d known. Known it’d happen before long, the way you know what’ll happen before long.

  The way you know. No.

  Know. And do nothing to stop it.

  I turned back. I looked in his eyes but they’d gone. I mean, he’d turned his head, but. She was there, her too, and I remembered how she smelt and I remembered it all, the way she’d always been, no, and I looked. Looked when he asked me to look and I touched him where he wanted when I couldn’t find his eyes. I thought.

  I thought I should. I thought.

  ‘What is it with you?’ he said.

  I laid my head on his chest.

  ‘Are you crying? What is it with you, Ash?’

  ‘What is it with you?’ she said.

  My head was on her breast. I wanted to hold on, I mean, I didn’t want to let go, I mean, I’d never wanted to let go. I probably shouldn’t have.

  ‘You like me, don’t you?’ she said. She turned on her side. One arm around me. One leg.

  I almost fell asleep with my head on his chest. He didn’t move, tried not to and the effort of him being. Still. The roll of his eyes through his chest. The roll down towards the crown of my head where my boy hair goes on sprouting, and then. Towards my breasts, and only to ask. Were they rising and falling slowly enough? And I felt him hoping, asking, is she sleeping, sleeping, sleeping?