Drift Stumble Fall

by M. Jonathan Lee

  On the wall opposite are four stars of varying sizes that I hand-drew and then painted. One of the stars reaches from the skirting board to the ceiling and beyond. Two points bend around to the wall where I am lying and one points across the ceiling to the glass-beaded light that hangs down. I think I painted that one four times before Lisa was happy with the overall size, shape and perspective. She’d drag herself away from the television every couple of hours and pop her head around the door to offer advice. The stars are painted in a rough, shiny golden paint that glistens in the lamplight. Hannah says the paint looks like ‘rich man’s sand’. ‘Rich man’ couldn’t be further from the truth.

  The rest of the room is decorated in white. On the wall opposite the window are original gold-framed sketches that Lisa found on eBay. They are by some up-and-coming artist that ‘everyone on Facebook is raving about’. As soon as she said those words to me I knew she had already ordered them. To be fair, they are not too bad, though I’ve always thought that the charcoal princess which features in each looks slightly cross- eyed. She also, unnervingly, has the look of Kevin Bacon. I’m not sure how much Lisa paid for them.

  There is a matching Disney-esque wooden wardrobe and bedside table on the wall next to where we lie. Boxes of toys are scattered around the room. There is something comforting about being in Hannah’s room. I think it is the fact that it feels, no is, so innocent that for a moment I can ignore the real world going on outside.

  “This girl,” says Hannah, “is my favourite.”

  I move Hannah’s hand with mine so I can get a clear view of the doll. I nod.

  “She’s called Martha,” she continues.

  “Oh,” I say, thinking, Isn’t she the doll with previous for assault?

  “She’s the nicest of the girls.”

  “Oh, why’s that?” I say.

  “She knows what she wants,” says Hannah, tearing a handful of blond plastic hair from Martha’s head with a little pink brush.

  I take the doll and plastic brush from her and show her how to brush from the bottom first to avoid her turning all her dolls into white supremacists. She seems unimpressed and takes the doll back.

  “So, back to Martha,” I say. “Yes, Daddy?”

  “What do you mean she knows what she wants?”

  “Well,” she says, stretching the word out, “Martha has had issues. Y’know.” I’m surprised that for the purposes of this conversation Hannah now appears to have adopted an American accent.

  “Has she?”

  “Yeah. She sure has.”

  “Oh. What kind?”

  “She doesn’t want to talk about it.” “Right.”

  “Let’s just say it’s her childhood.”

  Another thirty or so strands are ripped from Martha’s head.

  It’s no wonder she’s aggressive.

  “Tough upbringing, eh?” I say, playing along. “Like I said, she doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  I adjust my position so I can get a better look at Hannah. She continues to brush Martha’s hair. She looks deadly serious.

  “Okay,” I say, “perhaps she’ll tell me when she’s ready.”

  Hannah looks around the room, her head quickly darting from side to side. Her hair whips my face slightly and I catch the scent of strawberry shampoo. It smells nice, almost edible. She turns back to me and puts her tiny index finger to her lips. Her brow is furrowed. I notice that she is covering Martha’s ears.

  “Three letters,” she whispers, nodding toward the doll.

  I widen my eyes in mock anticipation. “Dee. You. Eye.”

  “No…” I whisper back, trying to sound shocked.

  “Yes,” she says. “Last year. On the freeway. A cop pulled her.”

  “Oh my,” I say. I’m desperately trying to stifle a laugh, which would ruin everything. The story, the atmosphere, the fact that I now have a Texan eight year old.

  As it happens, we are interrupted by my phone buzzing in my pocket. I pull it out and see Lisa’s face smiling at me. The picture is from a friend’s wedding.

  “Hi,” I whisper.

  “It’s nearly nine,” she says.

  “Okay.”

  I push the screen and Lisa’s face disappears. I shuffle down the duvet and soon I am kneeling on the floor at the end of the bed.

  “Time for prayer, Daddy?” says Hannah. “Of course,” I smile.

  We always end our chats in this way. We are in no way a religious family but this seems like a nice, wholesome way to conclude our time together.

  She smiles back, awaiting my next words.

  “Tonight, God,” I begin, “we’d like to pray for Martha and for her problematic upbringing. We hope that she’ll be able to find a glimmer of happiness in her difficult life. And I also pray for…”

  I pause. It’s the signal that Hannah has been waiting for.

  “…more time with you,” we both whisper to each other in unison.

  I edge around the bed on my knees and we give each other a kiss. Then I’m back on my feet. I switch off the bedside lamp and Hannah pushes her head into the pillow and closes her eyes. She is still smiling.

  “’Night,” I whisper as I pull the door shut.

  I think I hear Martha join the other dolls on the floor.

  CHAPTER_SIX

  “He’s always standing there, looking,” Bill Marsden said to his wife.

  “Who?” Rosie asked, looking up from her letter. She was sitting at the dining room table.

  “What’s his name? Y’know, number twenty-three.”

  Rosie thought for a moment. Number twenty-three was the young couple across the street. “Richard?” she said.

  “The one with the two young kiddies,” Bill called back.

  Rosie wasn’t sure that he had heard her, so she repeated again, “Richard?”

  “I said ‘he’s always standing there, looking.’”

  Rosie pushed her chair back and got up from the table.

  “Well, you must be too, dear,” Rosie muttered, answering her husband’s neutral statements.

  She made her way slowly from the adjoining dining room into the lounge and towards the window where her husband was standing. He had his arms folded. It reminded her of when they first met. The first time she felt his strong arms through his coarse green military uniform. Although he was now eighty- seven, to her he still felt every bit as strong.

  She placed her hand on his cardigan.

  “What did you say?” Bill said.

  “Richard,” she said for the third time, “and Lisa.”

  “Oh,” said Bill. Rosie noticed the words register with Bill, but knew that in a second he would forget them again. “Anyway, he’s always standing there.” Bill pointed.

  “Don’t do that,” Rosie said, pulling his arm down. “He’ll see.” “Well, he shouldn’t be looking,” Bill replied.

  “You wouldn’t know that he was if you weren’t, dear.” “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if he’s always staring out of the window and you see him, that means you must be too.”

  Bill made a noise that was indecipherable to Rosie.

  Rosie could see the silhouette of the man in the upstairs window across the road. He just seemed to be standing and staring directly at them. They were separated by a million tiny orange flakes of snow that fell between them. She watched for a moment and then the man seemed to wave. She lifted her hand to wave back. It was Bill’s turn to pull her hand back down.

  “Don’t do that,” he snapped.

  “Why not?” she said. “I’m just being neighbourly.” “Well, don’t. Or the next we know he’ll be over here.”

  The man pulled the curtains across and was gone. The top floor of the house across the street was dark.

  Rosie turned and began the journey back to the table. Her feet throbbed in her slippers.

  “Cup of tea, Bill?” she said over her shoulder. “Sorry?”

  “Cup of tea?” she repeated, pronouncing each word a little
more loudly and a little more clearly.

  Bill turned. “Ah, yes,” he said, “that would be lovely.”

  Rosie turned and smiled.

  Bill winked. “I’m lucky to have you, girl,” he said.

  Rosie nodded. She felt exactly the same.

  CHAPTER_SEVEN

  The pendulum swings.

  It’s just after half past nine when I finally finish cooking and deliver the tray to Lisa. She shuffles up from her lying position on the sofa and puts both of her hands out. She is looking at me eagerly, wondering what is waiting for her. I watch her eyes as I lower the tray, trying to gauge her reaction. It’s somewhere in the middle. Not quite disappointment. Nowhere near elation.

  She takes the tray from me and rests it on the sofa in the space between her and Cliff. Momentarily, he opens one eye as he sucks in the smell of the food. His reaction is similar to Lisa’s and he’s asleep again in seconds. Lisa gets herself into position and lifts the tray onto her knees. The tray has a kind of beanbag thing attached to the bottom of it which moulds into the shape of Lisa’s inner thighs. Her outer thighs spill out on either side.

  “S’nice,” Lisa says through a mouthful of lasagne and asparagus. She doesn’t look up at me.

  “Good,” I say.

  I return to the kitchen and pull out a chair from the table. Lisa insisted that we bought white leather chairs. I tried to point out at the time that this was unlikely to be a good idea. Unfortunately, the look that Lisa gave me was enough for me to silence my remonstrations. The sales assistant in the shop also gave me a look. I think it was pity.

  The chair that I pull out is typical of the other five. Scruffy chocolatey fingerprints are smeared over the seat and, worse still, the stitching. These are impossible to remove; believe me, I’ve spent enough evenings trying to return the stitching to white. Also impossible to remove are the numerous scratch marks that tear into the leather surface in every direction. I don’t blame Cliff for this; Lisa promised she would always keep the kitchen door closed. As you’d expect from a dog, Cliff is only trying to get to the crumbs that the kids drop at teatime.

  I sit down and remember the third reason that the chairs were a mistake. They are freezing in winter. The coldness permeates my pyjama top and I instinctively lean forwards from the chair back. I spend my mealtime perched on the edge of the chair, feeding lasagne into my mouth with my right hand and scrolling through my phone with my left.

  “What are you doing?” Lisa asks when her programme is interrupted by the adverts.

  I am on my hands and knees in the corner of the lounge, near the bookcase. Cliff is alongside me, following my actions with his head. His breath smells of cheese. I look around to face her, as does Cliff. I notice that man and dog are in the exact same position.

  “I’m looking for something, love,” I say. She tuts. “Well, I can see that,” she says.

  I turn back to face the bookcase and lie on my side. My eyes scan the bottom two shelves. Although I can’t hear a sound from Lisa, I am sure that my actions are silently irritating her. There’s just something in the air. And it’s not the smell of cookies from the scented candle that flickers and sways on the mantelpiece.

  “Well, what are you looking for?” she snaps. I was right about the atmosphere of irritation.

  I hear the television advertising a forthcoming programme, which, from experience, is usually what happens prior to the current programme restarting.

  “The atlas,” I say, directing my speech toward the books. “What?” she says.

  “The atlas,” I say, purposely quietly. I’ve already spotted it at the end of the shelf.

  “Can you speak up?” Her voice is getting more impatient; it directly correlates with her programme restarting and her need to have any interaction with me out of the way before it comes back on.

  I turn my head. “The atlas,” I say again. “Y’know, map.” “Yes, I know what a bloody atlas is, thank you, Richard.”

  I go back to pretending to read the spine of each book I slowly trace with my finger.

  “Well, it’s there, Richard,” she suddenly shrieks. “Where?”

  “There, at the end.”

  I move my fingers along the tops of the books. Moving ever further away from the atlas.

  “No,” she says, “at the other end. Are you blind?”

  I hear the short burst of music that signifies her programme has restarted. I begin to slowly move my fingers the other way. The emphasis is on slowly.

  “Right at the end, Richard. Blue spine. Blue spine. Gold writing.”

  My fingers skip toward the atlas, and I pull it out from the shelf. I lie on my back and rest the book on the floor next to me.

  “You can’t stay there.”

  “Sorry?”

  “You can’t stay there.”

  “Why? I’m just having a rest.”

  “You look, well, untidy. You’ll have to move.”

  “Okay.”

  As far as I can tell, Lisa is far happier now. She lies out to my left, filling two-thirds of the three-seater sofa. Cliff has the final third next to her feet, which are tucked beneath him. I sit in what she calls ‘my chair’, which is between the door and the bookshelf. Lisa and I are separated by a glass-topped coffee table. On the shelf beneath it are pile after pile after pile of weekly magazines. Most appear to be open on the problem pages. The one nearest to me is closed and in a large red font carries the headline ‘MURDERED BY MY BROTHER’. It puzzles me how the victim could have come to write the article. A man on the television is telling a woman that he doesn’t love her anymore. She doesn’t seem too upset, but that might say more about her acting than her actual emotional state. I recognise them both as characters in a show that Lisa watches almost nightly. I lift the atlas from the floor and rest it across my knees.

  It is a large book with a thick, woven hardback cover, across which embossed gold lettering simply reads ‘Atlas of the World’. I have no idea when it was printed and where it came from. I open the cover and skip past the first twenty or thirty pages which show endless pictures of the solar system, immediately contradicting the gold lettering.

  As I flick through, Lisa sighs. I’m not sure whether it’s directed at the television or the noise the paper turning over is making. I ignore her. I’m used to it.

  I find the page I am looking for and open the book widely, creating a tiny crease along the spine to stop the pages flipping back over. The United States of America.

  I spend the next hour staring at the double-page spread in front of me. I follow the borders of each state and in my head whisper their names. I find myself transfixed by the Midwestern states. Their names seem to ring with magic. Ohio. Illinois. Wisconsin. Nebraska. Indiana.

  I get up from my chair and pull out one of the little wooden drawers in the cabinet near where Cliff lies. I find a yellow Post-it pad and a pen and return to my chair. Lisa sighs once. This is unusual, as I expected a sigh for each time I passed and obscured her view of the television.

  On the note, I neatly write the names of all the states, and for a reason unknown to me, I double-underline Nebraska. I think it’s because it sounds the nicest. I also write the words ‘notebook’ and ‘nice pen’.

  “What are you doing?” Lisa asks.

  I hadn’t realised that we had just moved into what I call ‘no man’s land’. This is the time, usually on the hour, between one programme finishing and another starting. It’s usually the time Lisa gets up for a wee or to replenish her snacks. She does neither.

  “Oh, just writing,” I say.

  “Yes, Richard,” she says with an I’m-so-tired-of-you-stating- the-obvious tone. “But what are you writing?”

  “Just some places,” I say.

  “Okay. Which places?” I hate the way she says ‘okay’, all stretched out like I’m an infant. Or stupid. “Just some American states.”

  “Okay, Richard. Which ones?”

  I wonder if this counts as a conversation. My friend
Jim, at work, says he and his wife never talk. His marriage must be at rock bottom.

  “Er, Florida. New Mexico. California.”

  “Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere. And why?” “Why, what?”

  “Why are you writing them down?”

  I need to answer quickly. “Just for research.”

  “Into what?”

  I can hear the music of the next programme starting. It’s not a programme she usually watches so it hasn’t distracted her. It’s Friday, chat show night; she needs to turn to BBC One.

  “Sorry?” I say.

  “Into what?! What are you researching?”

  I turn to the television and then immediately back to her.

  “Have you started watching this?” I say, nodding toward the television. “I didn’t think you could stand her.” I’m referring to a blond actress, about Lisa’s age, on the television. She’s very pretty. Lisa is distracted.

  “Oh God. I’m not watching this,” she says, reaching for the remote on the coffee table.

  “Didn’t think you’d watch this,” I say, mock-chuckling.

  She laughs and rolls her eyes at me. I see some of the joy in her eyes that takes me back to when we met. A certain shine, part mischievous, part loving.

  The channel is changed. She’s found her chat show.

  “Aw, I’ve missed the start now,” she says, “missed him

  telling us who’s on the show this week.” “It’ll show the green room –”

  “Shh,” she whispers, “he’s talking.”

  The host begins to introduce the first guest.

  I get back to the state of Nebraska.

  saturday 15th

  CHAPTER_EIGHT

  Should the pendulum be swinging that fast?

  I am woken by a small finger being posted into my ear. I keep my eyes closed and begin slight snoring sounds. I’m appealing to Oscar’s better nature, suggesting to him that perhaps Daddy is tired and needs a little more sleep. He pushes his finger deeper into my ear.