by Jonathan Lee
Her sister.
‘I’d think it was some kind of elaborate ruse’ – yes, ‘ruse’ is one of those words she fits into every conversation – ‘to get the two of us in the same room, but the police are here and everything. Did you take the dog out yet?’
Joy hovers her palm over the sensor flush, smooths her skirt. She swallows, thinks, opens the cubicle door.
Annie is the first to speak. ‘My God,’ she says. She repeats those same two words several times, as if they contain a secret that would unlock itself if only she could get the pronunciation right. Leaning back into the phone she whispers, ‘I’ll call you later.’
The two sisters assess one another. Annie has lost weight. Some of her thirty-eight years are etched in fine lines around the eyes but otherwise she looks taut, slim, nicely dressed in figure-hugging jeans.
‘You look great,’ Joy tells her.
Annie says ‘You look…’ and her sentence falls to the fiercely mopped floor.
‘This is…’
‘Yes, a surprise, think how I feel.’
‘How come you’re –’
‘More to the point, you. Dennis said you’d had an accident, the police have been round –’
‘Oh no.’
‘Why do you say oh no?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know why you said oh no?’
‘I don’t know, Annie, I just…consequences are sinking in, that’s all.’
‘Finally,’ she says, dropping her phone into her bag.
‘What does that mean?’ Joy says. ‘Finally?’
The lost boy is there in every conversation, a residue of blame at the bottom of each word.
In the silence Annie walks over to the full-length mirror and applies some lip gloss. A PR trick, perhaps, for gathering up her thoughts. Her movements show a slow caution, limbs going through their motions in a kind of disinterested drift, and only towards the end of her routine – jerking the bag zip, shaking out her hair – does her manner fall back into the youthful snatchy self Joy remembers. Even when you grow up, she’s noticed, muscles recall the way you once were. It’s the same with voices: even now Annie’s accent has the slightly chafing texture of two continents rubbed up within it, North America not quite ready to relent. And she is here. Her sister. Here.
‘Anyway, I’d better be getting back,’ Annie says. ‘A little girl and a dachshund to look after. Jamie’s home today but trying to work.’
‘Dachshund?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have a dachshund?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘You probably have another dog too, do you?’
‘Is that a burn on your hand?’
‘It’s fine.’
‘And grazes?’
‘They’re fine, Annie.’
‘I live in Finchley with a little girl, one sausage dog and a management consultant called Jamie. Why the inquisition?’
‘Finchley?’
‘We moved.’
‘Not Hampstead?’
‘Correct, Joy. Finchley is not in Hampstead. All that hunting for child-snatchers clearly improved your sense of geography.’
Joy dissects this comment in her mind and finds what she needs in it. ‘You moved out of Hampstead,’ she says.
‘Jesus wept we moved from Hampstead to Finchley, is that so hard to understand?’
Her brain feels so crowded it hurts, too many thoughts competing for space.
‘It was Dad’s house,’ she says.
‘Joy, I bought out your share when Daddy died, you know that very well. You’re really something, aren’t you? I’d forgotten that my little sister really is –’
‘I wasn’t saying.’
‘Is it so strange, after what’s happened, that we might want to change our surroundings in some small way? Does that offend you, have I offended you in some way?’
‘Sorry. No. It’s just.’
‘Just?’
‘I was passing by a while back,’ Joy says. ‘The Hampstead house. Saw a motorbike in the garden.’
‘We sold the house to one of Jamie’s biking buddies. Probably his. Passing by?’
‘Walking. On the Heath.’
‘So you still do that.’
‘Less than before.’
‘Yes, well. Less is more these days, I’m told.’
Joy has a sudden lurching pain behind her ear, the room in momentary blackout.
‘What was that?’
‘Nothing,’ Joy says, blinking.
‘Your head jerked.’
‘It was nothing. When did you move from Hampstead? Have you been getting my letters? I mean, I know you got the first letter, I mean the one after, after. Wimbledon. Maybe a letter wasn’t the right way but I thought you deserved the truth of what happened that day and…I’m just sorry I didn’t tell you straight away face to face when the police, at the time…really, God, ashamed, sick, every day sick, but I didn’t think when you got the letter you’d just cut me off and not that it isn’t fine if that’s what but –’
‘Dennis knows all of it too, does he?’
Silence.
‘Listen, Joy, I’m glad you’re obviously fine. I am, J, I am. Clearly it was just a prang or whatever but you must be shaken up and your hand looks sore so I’m glad you’re fine but really I must be heading off.’
‘Your little girl, what’s her name?’
‘Grace.’
‘Grace. What a beautiful name.’
‘Thought Dad would have liked it. You got Joy. I got Liberty chucked in the middle of mine, which I still think is fucking ridiculous, but there you go. I should be going.’
‘Please, sis, Joy says – too desperate, too needy, even to her own ears – ‘please, Annie, stay a while. I’ve got to give a two-minute speech and then we can chat, not chat but talk, a coffee only how about that, I’d be really grateful to talk?’
‘Look, J, the thing is I…’ There’s that cautious grace again: the hand floating slowly to her face, the fingers halfheartedly massaging her temple. ‘I didn’t mean for it to become like this. But, also, I’m just not sure I have the energy, you know?’
‘If you could wait a few minutes,’ Joy says. ‘That’s all. I’ve got to run up to the second floor. There’s a platform and I’ll be undressing’ – did she say undressing? – ‘the little crowd gathering out there by the lifts.’
Annie’s brow folds and unfolds. Joy has a faint sense of closing in on her goal, and her only hesitation is the prickle of suspicion she feels at any prospect of pleasure. ‘Please say yes,’ she eventually adds, feeling the air tremble on her lips.
‘A few minutes. That’s all. If it’s longer than that I’ll have to head off. There’s two officers in reception waiting to speak with you; that’ll take time too.’
‘Two officers?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘Waiting to see me?’
‘Correct. Let’s not get into another Hampstead-Finchley-Hampstead-Finchley farce, OK?’
Samir
IT HAS been decided what I will wear for the marathon. Who I will be.
Please guess.
No.
Please guess once more?
No.
David Cameron!
No no. Not him. Mrs Hasan’s cat. She assists at a refuge for cats missing owners. They have a suitable tabby-cat costume left over from last year. It is the refuge I am running for you see. She said she would be very honoured if I could wear it. She offered to dry-clean it in advance.
She also said…
Well she also thought I should not worry too much. About setting the lizard free.
Yes. She said that too. Yes.
And I discovered it is what Peter was wearing in the t
owel room that Friday. Not cat fancy dress but lizard fancy dress.
Yes! It is why he had the weird green Lycra on. Lawyers can be strange.
That Friday afternoon when I returned from releasing the lizard Jack was in a far from brilliant mood. He had arrived early for his four thirty to eight shift and found the desk unmanned. I entered the gym and began to explain that I had been extremely delayed in the towel room but he interrupted me. Sam mate listen up he said. Sometimes you’re dumb as a box of rocks. He told me manning the desk has priority over the towels. He was unusually pink and creased in the face. Perhaps it was the effort of contemplating a box of rocks and its purpose. I asked him if some additional bad event had occurred to affect his mood and eventually he explained. A fee-earner had been awkward with him perhaps twenty minutes before. Came into the gym stepping on a sit-up mat with non-protocol shoes and said his suit was very expensive and he did not want to leave it in the changing room. He was doing something for the Make Law Fun Day. He wished to leave his suit in the back office where it was safe. And you see it turns out the fee-earner is Peter. Jack told Peter clothing in the back office is unfortunately not allowed. But Peter said Do you not know who I am? and Jack took the suit but was left feeling small. Which I suppose is why he took it out on me a little bit. Because I was there. Same reason Father says he got annoyed with me that day in Sylhet. Because I was there. Why did you get in the river? he said. Why did you get in the Kushiara if you cannot bloody swim?
It was the hour before the speeches and the ambulance that took Miss Stephens away. The hour before I glimpsed blood in her hair before people knocked me out of the way before I saw how even lying there she could draw people towards her. I had nearly finished my shift and Jack had nearly started his. He decided to do some exercise to relieve the tension Peter had put in him. Exercise is brilliant for this. He peeled off his joggers wearing shorts underneath of course and he scratched his stubble. He said to me not really looking Sam Man if you want to start your run now you can there’s no legal bumtouchers here. And I said But then the desk will be unmanned. And he said Jesus Christ Samir the point is we are both here. Then he began stretching and stepped onto the treadmill.
With another scratch of stubble he started running. I wiped down the treadmill next to him with the blue spray. I did some neck exercises while counting the number of balls of varying weights on the triangular medicine ball stand behind the treadmills (seven minus two). Next I went through my hamstring stretches my quadriceps warmer and my heel-to-buttock leans.
Running next to Jack created strange sensations. I have never done it before or since but there I was right next to him trying to look straight ahead at myself but seeing him in the mirror too. Looking at people in mirrors is always very strange I think.
Because it is them but not them. That is the brilliant trick of the mirror!
They make me think of working in the toilets of the Raj. Mirrors do. English stomachs in curry houses. Spice in the diet. You had to clean every two hours. Father’s boss the overall manager was very strict about it. He wanted corporate customers. The table was set with wine glasses. But despite the need to clean every two hours the big rule was if the customer comes in to do his business stop what you are doing and do not meet his eye. At most in the mirror. Never look direct. Father said the customer is a man of delicate tastes who does not wish to connect with the cleaner. Be see-through. Be silent. Because if you are really there you make the man of delicate tastes think he is a man of belches and splats. No one wants to be a man of belches and splats. But I made a mistake…I spoke to the customer…Just a piece of advice when I saw he had forgotten to wash his hands…Which is a breach of the rules. So I was asked to leave. Father covered my shifts until they found my replacement. And it is like he is in the Raj bathroom all the time now. He used to have his confident teacher posture. Shoulders back. Meeting your eye. But now even when he is trying to make small talk with Mrs Hasan or is in his favourite chair he has a different posture. Hunched and small. There but not there. See-through. Nose close to the television. When I pull my chair alongside his chair the tiny static tickles.
And that Friday it is Jack in the mirror. Him on one treadmill. Me on the next. The handles of mine are still damp with blue spray. The motion of him sends air my way. Very smooth movement. A natural athlete.
The motion of air like the first time I ran for fun back in Bangladesh. In Sylhet everything that is running is running to get somewhere whether it is the rickshaws baby taxis or children rushing to Friday prayer. There is street football street cricket and so on but no one is going to put on special shoes and jog through traffic and horns past stray goats and cows you see. But then there was this one occasion when I was fourteen before I came to England. This one occasion after my mother died when I received the most brilliant treat. I got to go and visit my best friend who had moved to Dhaka. We were walking along holding hands which back home is nothing strange and he tells me about this brilliant club. This running club in Dhaka for the ones no good at other sport. And the next day we wear very bad old plimsolls and go to the club. A nice lady draws us a route. We take the route. We run side by side like this time I am telling you about. This Friday in the gym with Jack. Running. Picking up pace. Getting into the flow so we look as effortless as Mrs Hasan’s cat chasing leaves. Nothing to beat the feeling. A brilliant feeling when you switch off on the road or on the treadmill. Switch off in the manner Miss Stephens switched off that last run she did. You go inside your lungs. Running up Begam Rokeya Sarani. Left before those Commission buildings. Route I did with my best friend that day. Running past the crescent lake. Up onto the Mirpur road. Running uphill. Past the row of little homes. Endless modern windows on the right and on the left people living in careful mounds of mud. Down past the graveyard and the next marker as your lungs warm up is the Kalatan. You probably have not been but it is the Kalatan. You hug the bank of the brilliant lake its colourful water inviting you to swim and past the whatever it is called hospital I want to say kidney hospital you see? All along the lake. And I must tell you. I must tell you even with your lungs on fire it is magic there.
You sigh when you hear the horns and get back onto the very big roads and run and run back through to where you began. In this little world inside my lungs I am seeing the trees and the university and the Jagannath Hall Pukur but I look up and I see Jack running there with me. And it is very very strange he is there but like the lizard he looks in a way pretend. Like a cut-out. Smooth and flat in the brilliant light of the glass. There but not there. Raintrees eucalyptus and akashmoni all around him. Lake shining even though I know it is just the mirror in the gym making things shine. And the T-shirt is tight against his arms his biceps triceps just catching the light here and there and he really is such a brilliantly nice man. And suddenly I do not really know where I am. I am running in the gym on the treadmill next to Jack and it is Friday afternoon before Miss Stephens gets hurt before the legs that Jack loves get broken but I do not really know you know. And I try to stop thinking about my mother and the cut on her foot just a very little cut and the infection that got in when she waded into the river back in Sylhet to help me because I yes I cannot like a rock I cannot swim and I focus straight ahead feeling off balance and when I look up again he is gone. Vanished. I mean the trees of course are gone and I know now I am back in the gym but Jack is gone too. And I cannot quite believe Jack is no longer there. And that is when it happens. The realisation comes too late. I feel this irresistible force. Like a very bad hand dragging me back. My footing all wrong. And I try to correct with the longer stride. But once you lose your natural rhythm you are finished. I was finished. I was flying backwards. This non-existent hand dragged me back very very fast. Very fast it dragged me until my feet were in the air. Nothing solid under me. Just air. And it was long enough I could reach four or five before I hit. Counting as I am pulled back through the air with this strange light feeling. Almost into the ergos b
ut back straight back into the medicine-ball stand. Crunch. I am twisted in a heap across the floor and just as my brain is catching up there comes down from the brilliant space between me and the ceiling these balls. A green ball first. Falling. Coming from the medicine-ball stand I have knocked. Lands on my chest. Winds me. Then a smaller one. In my private parts. Twists everything up inside so I feel I need the bathroom. And I shield my face while the metal medicine-ball stand itself topples and luckily it lands to my side and the other balls roll away. They roll away. And lying there I feel this warm blood trickle down my neck. Things start to hurt very badly but they take a moment have you noticed? Does that make sense? And without thinking as pain surges in I see what is it what is the name for it the little glass fire box on the wall above me just within reach and I think without thinking yes I am here I am panicked I might even die and I stick my fingers right through the glass and only then do I understand what will happen next. I see among everything in the wrong place in the room that the breaking of the glass will start the alarm. I see that the alarm will start the sprinklers revolving. I see that this is how it is set up in here the great logic of the system and that water will shower down on the treadmill and ergos and climber and chest press. For a few seconds I understood all of this brilliantly and then it came. The watery wrecking of the place. The most brilliant kind of alarm scream. Two sprinklers on the ceiling. Then three. Then all of them. All revolving. The quick sizzle of the blood-pressure monitor screens and items of that nature. And I was afraid. I was afraid but I realised I was not going to die today. This would take some explaining but for a moment I was lying there in pain with the water messing up the whole world and I was not dead. My testicles like mushy dahl my stomach sick wrist now feeling stranger and this blood on my neck that would normally make me faint. And among this mess I see Jack. I see Jack coming out of the office and standing T-shirt wet holding something. Laughing. Not even trying to shield himself from the pretend rain but just laughing and staring straight at me looking only at me. And right there in the rain he points to the long dark shape hanging from his hand which I now see is Peter’s suit. The one he wanted us to monitor while he wore his costume. And it is absolutely soaked and ruined. Very very bad. And I start to smile still lying down. Does that make sense? A very big smile. And for those moments lying there, the moments before we stopped the sprinklers and went to see Miss Stephens do her speech, for those soggy moments, the room in disarray, for those moments Jack standing there laughing, the equipment in bad condition but me laughing too, for those moments I did not feel so alone.