by Bella Pollen
‘Maggie,’ he grabbed my arms. ‘Look, tell them you’re sick, tell them you’re ill, tell them you’ve lost interest, lost a limb, tell them you can’t write, can’t film, can’t function, tell them anything you like but just please, please, please, Maggie, I beg you, tell them you can’t go.’
‘Oh my God…’
‘I mean it, tell them you’re not going.’
‘And then what?’ I was still staring goofily at him.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘then we will … well … we’ll … uh … well obviously, you’ve got to come home with me. I mean … it’s the village fête this weekend.’
I shook my head. ‘Oh, Rory, why did you have to come now?’
‘To stop you from going, of course. Cambodia’s a horrible place, hot, wet – the food will be, well probably delicious,’ he conceded, ‘but you’ll get hideously fat … wrinkled.’
I laughed, but my laughter nearly turned to tears. Rory pulled me closer.
‘Stay. I’m asking you to stay.’
‘All this time. You didn’t even call—’
‘Begging you to stay.’
The buzzer sounded. I looked to the door.
‘It’s too late, Rory.’
‘Maggie, come on, of course it’s not too late.’
‘Everyone’s waiting. I’ve got a job to do … responsibilities.’
‘Fuck ’em.’
‘You of all people.’ I said, shocked.
The buzzer sounded again. ‘That’s my cab.’ I pressed the intercom.
‘And fuck your cab,’ Rory said cheerfully.
‘Tel Aviv cars,’ scratched the voice.
Rory grabbed my hand. ‘Look, I know I may not be even close to what you had in mind—’
‘Rory don’t.’
‘And that probably scares you. I know it scares the hell out of me.’
But what I was scared of was how easy this could be. I felt completely split in two, but it seemed far safer taking my cues from my old self.
‘It’s too late, Rory.’
‘Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said something like, I will wait for you for ever … as long as you’re not too long?’
But it just felt like a chastisement.
‘You can’t just turn up after three months and expect me to drop everything,’ I said angrily.
‘Maggie, I know I screwed up, I really did – more than you know, but … oh fuck it … look, the fact is … I need you.’
I heard everything I should in his voice but it didn’t reach me. Instead I felt overwhelmed by panic, cornered, like I was in a big black box and gradually all the oxygen was being sucked out of it. How convenient it had been to blame Jay – but our relationship had danced as much to my tune as his. Now Rory has laid himself bare, what exactly was I prepared to give up for somebody I loved? Not enough it seemed. I snatched up my backpack. ‘Well don’t need me. I don’t want anyone to need me.’
‘Oh yes?’ he said wildly. ‘Well what about Magic Johnson 2. What’s the poor little bastard going to do? Cook for himself?’
I looked round. My poor little fish was doing laps in its bowl on the table, its existence entirely forgotten. I picked it up and dumped it in Rory’s arms. ‘Present,’ I said, then I turned and ran.
* * *
He caught up with me as I got into the cab. He was still holding the fish bowl. The water had slopped down the front of his pants.
‘Damn it, Maggie, you’re running again. It’s a bad habit, you said so yourself.’
‘Please,’ I begged the driver. ‘Just go.’
‘Promise me, Maggie, when you get there, you’ll stop for a minute, just one minute, and think about whether I’m right.’
I shook my head helplessly. Forget the daydream, look at the two of us, our lives were mutually exclusive. Whatever future there might be would only ever play itself painfully out within the narrow lines we’ve both drawn around ourselves.
‘Actually, let me revise that. One minute might be pushing it, so look, take two.’ He got a better hold on the glass surface. ‘I mean, who are we fooling here, take as much time as you like. Maggie, please…’
The cab jolted forwards with the surge of traffic and moved slowly off. I looked out the back window. Rory’s mouth was opening and closing, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Instead, I carefully focused on Magic Johnson 2, swimming around his bowl, getting smaller and smaller and smaller as the cab gathered speed. Thankfully we turned the corner, and the tears began to leak down my face. Outside in the street, the cherry trees shed blossom like confetti over the city.
daniel
‘Two thousand for the weekend but for that you get to sleep in Churchill’s bed.’ Benj leans back in his chair and props his feet up on the desk. His tea, a boiled egg and a slice of toast, sits in front of him.
Since giving up alcohol, his appetite has become ferocious and the resulting half stone he’s put on makes him look and feel well, at least he’s assuming that this unusual feeling of energy is what people like to call ‘well’. Above all he enjoys the programme and attends religiously. There is no semi-AA for Benj.
‘No, no, my dear madam,’ he says with exaggerated chivalry, ‘It’s extremely unlikely that Churchill, or indeed any surviving members of his family, will also be in it. But perhaps for an extra hundred or two I can tempt you with a glimpse of Queen Mary’s bloody nightdress?’
Alison appears silently at his elbow and places a cup of tea beside the boiled egg. She notices the toast and without thinking, slices it into neat soldiers.
Rory walks out of his office clutching a leather holdall.
‘Rory, stay here this weekend. We can, uh, uh, well … we’ll take in a couple of reclamation centres … go see a cemetery perhaps. Have our legs amputated, you know,’ Benj says weakly. ‘Have some fun for a change.’
Rory laughs. ‘It’s the fête. I promised I’d go.’
Benj takes his feet off the desk in excitement. ‘Oooh, will they have whack the rat?’
‘Why, do you want to come?’ Rory asks hopefully.
Benj notices his toast. A great smile spreads across his face. ‘Actually,’ he looks meaningfully at Alison. ‘Perhaps I’ll stay.’
Alison blushes and fiddles with her hair.
* * *
In Skimpton, Rory passes signs for the village fête. On a whim he parks the car near the train station, heads down the slope, and crosses the railway track towards Bevan. When Alistair was a boy, the train would stop at the bridge to allow Grandpa to jump off with his suitcase. Rory scrambles up the bank to the park. A week of sun has finally brought out the full glory of spring. The countryside has metamorphosed from grey to green and it’s the best that England can ever look. Primroses and crocuses blanket the ground, the chestnuts are nearly out, the park is full of lambs. By the river the bulrushes are swelling, the weeping willows thickening, herons are nesting. The giant sycamore holds out its massive boughs over a tangled bed of wild garlic plants, their damp pungent smell so comforting. Rory absent-mindedly pulls on the frayed length of rope attached to a branch some thirty foot up the tree, as boys, our means of transport from one side of the brook to the other. The wind feels warm against his face. A day like this he thinks, one perfect day can keep you going for the rest of your life – and there will always be one more perfect day. Rory sucks the air into his lungs, holds it there for a long time before expelling it and he remembers then what he has always known and so often denied – that Bevan is spectacularly beautiful, a magical place that will always be a part of him. He remembers what I used to tell him; that no matter how hard you try, there will always be something of the father in every son.
The house feels empty. Rory shuts the front door behind him and walks down the hall. Dust spins in the air as light, flooding through the dining room windows, refracts off the glass chandelier. Rory hears noises and opens the door to the drawing room. A stocky fellow in a suit is standing by the wall. He mutters something and a second
man, grasping the end of a tape measure, rises off his knees and advances on Rory hesitantly.
‘Afternoon,’ he says, thrusting out his hand. ‘John Fielding of Knight, Frank and Rutley.’ He misinterprets Rory’s look of astonishment for lack of brand recognition.
‘Property Agents,’ he explains, handing over his business card.
maggie
If your job is to poke around in others people’s affairs, you have to understand that you’re living a life of borrowed experiences. In your head you might store thousands of frames, fragments of other people’s existence, but the memories these give you are transient. They’re facsimiles, carbon copies of the real thing. And because there’s no long-lasting emotion behind them, they too, like the ink on fax paper, end up fading with time. And after a while, it makes you wonder, it really does, what tangible moments your own life is actually made up of.
* * *
‘OK, Maggie,’ Wolf said patiently. ‘One more time. Take it from the top.’
‘Sure, ready,’ I adjusted the expression on my face, tried to concentrate. ‘In this painful period of er … uh … American history. Goddamnit,’ I broke off again. I was making a real mess of it. From the moment we’d begun the MIA assignment I’d been subject to this helpless daydreaming.
‘Try it again.’
I cleared my throat. ‘At last some of the long-sought men Missing In Action will have their remains flown back to their loved ones who perhaps will find, er, closure … look, do I have to use the world closure,’ I said crossly, ‘I hate the word closure.’
‘Not like you’re looking for it yourself or anything,’ Wolf said dryly.
I glowered at him. Took a huge breath, faced his camera, began again. ‘At last some of the men long gong, glone, GONE … aaargh’
‘Let’s go get you some lunch,’ Wolf was employing his most condescending voice.
There wasn’t much to be had in the way of lunch in Phnom Penh. We’d been eating in the same small restaurant on the far side of town for days, but Wolf, impatient to get at his rice and boiled Pepsi, pulled me into a rat run through the town’s back alleys. I followed sulkily in his wake, scuffing my boots on the cracked mud. As we reached the end of the alley he stopped abruptly and I bumped into his back.
‘Ow.’ I said belligerently.
‘Look.’
‘What?’
‘Over there. Look.’
‘Where?’
‘He must have followed you.’
My breath caught in my throat. I scanned the busy street, but I could not find the face I was looking for in that bustling sea of people.
‘There,’ Wolf said, and I saw what he was looking at.
On the road facing us was a tattered billboard. Underneath the word ‘Restaurant’, written in both English and Cambodian, was a picture of a fish. A black fish, one of those big ugly Chinese ones with bulbous eyes not unlike—
‘Magic Johnson 2,’ Wolf said. ‘Ahhh, sweet. He must have swum all the way just to see you.’
‘Wolf. You son of a bitch.’
Wolf retied the elastic on his ponytail. ‘I’m sorry to say this, Maggie, but you’re a real piece of work yourself.’
‘Me?’
‘Yeah, you. Fine, go ahead, die a wizened bitter old hag, see if I care.’
‘Wait a minute,’ I said defensively. ‘Whose side are you on?’
‘I’m on your side – at least I used to be, but you’re stubborn and stupid so now I’m on my side – because anyone that’s dumb enough to care about you including and especially me is liable to get an ulcer.’
I stared at the stupid black fish.
‘You will go anywhere, attack anything, fight for any cause you think is important but someone actually needing you is more than you can handle.’
‘Shut up, Wolf.’
‘That’s your problem, you’re scared to death.’
‘That is such bullshit,’ I howled. ‘I am not.’
‘Yeah, you are. You’re scared of all the things you want the most.’
‘I’m not listening to this.’ I stomped off.
I blinked back the tears for the second time that week. I guess when you get lost, it doesn’t happen in one go. What happens is you take a series of wrong turnings so small it takes you a while to cotton on to the fact your life is not on the right track any more – well who’s going to sit you down and tell you it’s too late?
‘Who would have thought, Maggie,’ Wolf shouted after me. ‘You are a goddamn sissy after all.’
daniel
Rory heads cross country towards the cricket pitch. In the distance he can hear the caterwaul of a Wall’s ice-cream van. He knots his jumper round his waist and vaults the stile. How just like Pa, he shakes his head. How just like Pa to say nothing.
The fête is teeming with people. The air smells of sawdust. All the familiar stalls are up – coconut shies, bottle stands, guess the weight of the pig. Overturned crates are laden with jars of marmalade and chutneys. Rosie from the village shop is judging the gardens-in-a-tin competition and Bindey’s nephew is laying out oversized turnips and marrows for inspection.
At whack the rat a gargantuan man Rory recognizes from the Skimpton darts team brings the heavy mallet down on the rat onto which, this year, somebody has actually bothered to sew a tail. The blow sends the rat scurrying up the pole. His supporters cheer then groan as it stops inches from the bell.
Rory wanders on. A bouncy castle seems to be this year’s capitulation to the new century. Scores of grubby toddlers fall over each other in a sticky mess of mucus, tears and ice cream. By the middle of the pitch, the smell of sawdust has been overpowered by a stall frying onions and sausages. Rory sees Nanny holding court on the bingo stand then spots the sign behind her. Donkey rides 50p. Two bored donkeys graze mournfully on dandelions while next door to them a line of hysterically excited children and parents queue in front of a second sign. Buffalo Rides £2.
Audrey stands behind a long table trying to serve four people at once. The table is piled high with bits and pieces from the house. China, books, pictures, even the Buddha from the hall table is on it. As Rory walks over Alistair pops up from the boxes underneath the table, the moose head in his hands. He dumps it unceremoniously in front of a waiting customer.
‘How much for the moose?’ Rory elbows his way in.
‘I’m bid six pounds by this kind lady.’
‘I’ll give you four.’
‘Do you mind?’ the woman says, a little annoyed.
‘Ten pounds, not a penny less,’ Alistair demands.
‘Three,’ says Rory.
‘Ten,’ the woman bids indignantly.
‘Right, if that’s the way you feel – two pounds fifty,’ Rory grins at his father, ‘and that’s my final offer.’
‘Have it for nothing,’ Alistair says. ‘After all, it belongs to you already.’
The woman finally understands what she’s up against. She moves away, smiling faintly.
‘On condition you take it away,’ Alistair heaves the creature into Rory’s arms.
Rory rests it on the table. He’s about to open his mouth but Alistair is way ahead of him.
‘Not now, Rory.’
‘I’ve just come from Bevan.’
Alistair nods. ‘Try to understand,’ he says. ‘I will miss my trees, I will miss the view over the park probably every day for the rest of my life, but I will survive. We, your mother and I will survive.’
‘But, Pa—’
‘We’ve had to come to terms with the death of our child,’ Alistair says. ‘What the hell does a house matter after that?’
Rory nods dumbly.
‘So take the damn moose and go and find your grandfather.’ Alistair puts his hand on Rory’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze, ‘You’re actually a little in our way right now.’
* * *
Towards the end of the cricket pitch the stalls begin to peter out. Behind the tea tent on a patch of grass dotted with empty b
eer cans, two spotty teenagers are snogging for England. Rory rests the moose on the ground and skims the crowd for Grandpa. He sees the military jacket first, set neatly down on a hay bale outside a stall, then Grandpa marches out, shotgun in hand. He’s transferred the medals to his shirt and they flash in the sun when he moves. Rory smiles.
Grandpa looks through the viewfinder of the gun. He makes an impatient gesture as if the sights are not up to scratch then puts the rifle to his shoulder and fires. There’s a sound of shattered china.
‘Ha!’ Grandpa exclaims. ‘Loader,’ he bellows. An arm, holding a second rifle, hastily appears from inside the tarpaulin.
As Grandpa merrily continues to obliterate the remainder of Bevan’s legacy, Rory closes his eyes. The sun is warm against his forehead. He feels like he could chart his entire life through every fête past and for the first time ever, he feels like this is not a bad thing.
‘Loader, where have you got to?’ shouts Grandpa. ‘Come out here at once and take a turn.’ Rory opens his eyes and blinks into the sunlight.
maggie
Grandpa put his arms round me, levelling the rifle in my hands. ‘Steady,’ he warned, ‘Line it up. Steady, steady.’
I closed one eye, squeezed against the trigger. The gun smashed painfully against my shoulder. On the bale, one of the Chinese figurines exploded.
‘Oh, good girl!’ Grandpa took the rifle from me and reloaded.
I saw Rory then, standing by the entrance of the tent, or rather leaning against the guy ropes, arms crossed. He’d seen me too, I could tell, and was watching us, a look on his face I couldn’t read. I held my ground. I had come 6,000 miles, I had crossed another continent to be there, so I reckoned the next 40 yards were up to him.
He pushed himself off the ropes and ambled over. People between us sped up and blurred, then he was in front of me.
‘So,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘Just landed?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good journey?’