You used to collect these, he says. When you were a kid.
That was thirty year ago, I shrug.
But I take them anyway, from his outstretched palm.
We wander through the dunes, between the beach and golf course, snowclouds beetling above us. A couple of rock pipits, tails beating for lornly. I sit down on the flank of a dune where a fence of wire and staves is almost submerged beneath drifts of pale sand and marram grass bristles under the arctic hand of the wind.
What do you want Yan?
He looks taken aback. Squats down next to me, and spins a cigarette, while I inhale the warm aromas of stale tobacco and sweat drifting from his jacket. He sparks it up, wind buffeting the flame of his lighter.
I’ve been meaning to talk to you, he says.
Phone, e-mail, carrier pigeon, I drone ironically, raising my palms in supplication.
Chance is better, he says, eyes flashing mischievously. Anyways, I’ve been in Pattaya.
You’ve been in Pattaya most of the last twenty years.
And the rest. Kathmandu, Lombok, Sydney, Benares. But Pattaya’s got it all. The beach, the beers, the boom boom. A bar takes a lot of running Dan. And the women are incredible, apart from the ones with dicks.
I hear there’s no way of telling, some of them.
I can tell, he says, with a wink. And the opium is something else. Jesus Christ. Like raw cane sugar dripping over your brain. Have you ever?
He catches my glance.
No, he says. You wouldn’t have.
He pulls hard on the little roll-up. Dust-devils of smoke scurry away on the wind.
What are you doing back here, then?
I’ve still got the house in Hartlepool. Tenants need a kick up the backside, every now and then.
He hesitates, licks his lips. Runs a hand over the stubble on his head.
Look. He pauses. I wanted to see more of you. You’ve not made it easy for me Dan. You’ve kept me away, acted like you didn’t need the old fella. Can’t keep it up for ever man. You must be knocking on forty.
Thirty-eight. And you haven’t been here most of the time. Pattaya and the rest.
Chicken and egg, he says. Squashes his dog end into the sand. What else was there to do, after Kate sacked me off?
I’m suddenly angry. I stand up.
You’d have gone anyway, I say. And I don’t know what you’ve come back for.
I start to walk away, and he doesn’t follow. When I look back he’s still squatting there gazing out to sea, wind tugging at the loose skin of his face. And then snow buntings are whirling up from the ground, over the round dunes choked with gorse, along the runnels and hollow ways of the foreshore. I follow them, watch them feed among the thin stands of marram, Arctic sparrows in buff and white. And when I draw near the closest birds flick up and over the heads of the rest, and the whole flock flurries away like a rolling snow squall, tumbling over the next dune, coming to rest. Small contact calls, keeping the flock together. And then they’re gone, lost among the tufts and scribbles of snow streaming across the sand and brawling through the dunes.
The house is enclosed, turned in upon itself like a seed case. Curtains drawn, blinds at the windows, no lights. Perhaps she’s still asleep. I creep in, feeling like a burglar in my own house, wincing as the latch clicks. In the kitchen I stand at the fridge and pour a glass of cold milk. Neck it, feeling the cool liquid rise against my stubble. And then I take a step back and knock against one of the stools at the breakfast bar. It tumbles over, clatters across the tiled floor, comes to a stop. And everything is still. Kelly standing in the doorway, the cat rubbing at her calves.
I called you, she says, last night.
She’s barefoot, long dirty blonde hair rumpled from sleep, curves hidden under the towelling dressing gown.
I know. Saw the missed calls. It’s noisy in the pub, I don’t hear it go off.
You know what alcohol does to sperm quality.
Yeah, and coffee, and sweeteners. And air.
She smiles, blue eyes bleary, that little curl, almost a sneer, tugging at her upper lip.
Anyways, I say. I wasn’t on the beer.
She’s rubbing at the side of her face insistently, letting me know I’ve still got milk smears in my stubble. I choose to ignore her for a moment.
She bends and rights the stool, perches on it.
You need to get yourselves some friends Dan. Some interests that aren’t just for creeps and loners.
But I am a creep and a loner.
I close the fridge door crisply, and lean back against it. She puckers her mouth, sighs. I shrug, grab my work jacket down from the coat hook, start to thread myself into it.
Where are you going?
Got an installation booked.
It’s Saturday.
Can’t afford to turn work down.
I head for the door.
I’m ovulating.
Stop in my tracks, turn round and look at her.
The mucus, she says. It’s just right. Wipe your mouth.
I wipe it.
Is there any point? I say. Thought we were going down the IVF route now. Perhaps I should be saving myself for that plastic cup.
She smiles, just for an instant. Just a tug at the corners of her mouth. Stops herself.
*
Stay there, she says, afterwards. Until you’re flaccid.
I look down at her face and she smiles that little smile again and stops herself again. And I stay put. Like two dogs joined together, I think, despite myself.
Saw Yan today, I tell her. On the North Gare.
She looks up at me, that slight cast in her left eye. Struggles to focus.
Back in the country, is he? she says. What did he want?
Not sure. Wants to play happy families.
Bit late for that.
Mind, I had the feeling there was something he wasn’t telling me.
Maybe he’s lost his bar, got money troubles. Probably wants to tap you for a loan but couldn’t spit it out.
That’s not his style.
Hmmm, she says, unconvinced.
A bitter cold February morning, birdsong gusting like a shower of ice crystals from the mature trees in the High Street. Blackbird, chaffinch, wren, wind and sleet against the pane. I’m sitting in the office, a shabby underlit room on the first floor above the bookies and fast food joints. Lilac walls, a bad hangover from the eighties. Boot up the computer, the hard drive whining, lights blinking complicitly. But there’s no mail, so I watch a blackbird in the horse chestnut outside the window, the song moving through his body like passing rain, pouring from his open throat.
It’s wired in. He hasn’t learned it.
I rest my head against the desk and the cold morning drifts through my bloodstream like a virus, those strings of gulls yelping over on their way inland, in search of turned fields dark and teeming with invertebrates.
Coffee. The jug has been steeping for a few minutes now. I pour a cup and let the black lava settle through my bones with a glow of fugitive pleasure. In a small business there’s a slim margin between ticking over and stone dead. Before Christmas I was ticking over and now I’m dying on my arse. Had the usual January calls. Problems with machines bought in the sales, a few broadband set-ups. Then nothing. I look at the phone, small, squat and plastic, mocking me with its silence. And then it jolts unexpectedly into life with a sick metallic sound.
I snatch up the receiver. Always answer within four rings.
Heron Networks.
Is that what you’re called now?
A faintly amused voice. It’s a couple of weeks since I ran into him on the Gare.
That’s what I’ve always been called. No reason why you should know. Imagine the heron of truth spearing the slimy fish of spyware and computer pandemonium. Anyway, what do you want? I’ve got a business to run.
Thought we could meet up, have a chat. Any cripplers about?
Dunno. There was a pectoral on Tidal Creek last wee
k. Scopes were out in force for that. Think it’s gone now but.
I’m going to cast an eye over Saltholme and Dormans. There’s a burger van along the road there, does the best bacon buttie on Teesside. I could meet you there in an hour.
He sounds strangely insistent. I pause for a moment, then decide. I’ll go along, just this once, and tell him he’s wasting his time. He may as well go back to Pattaya. The beach, the beer, and the boom boom, as he so eloquently put it.
Okay, but I can’t stay long. Snowed under with work here.
He’s right about the bacon buttie. It’s perfect. The bacon salty, fat perfectly crisped, and butter oozing into the ketchup. I bite in hungri ly, realizing that it’s the first time I’ve eaten this morning. Yan is blowing on his coffee, the steam hiding his face.
It’s lung cancer, he says. Always knew the ciggies would catch up with me, so I’m not complaining. They kept me off the booze. When I started thinking about whisky I’d skin up a fag. One evil to chase out another.
I’m gaping at him, brain turning somersaults.
How’s Kelly anyway? he says, matter-of-fact. Weren’t you two trying for a bairn?
Yeah, well. Nothing happened there.
Wouldn’t want a son of mine firing blanks.
There’s a long pause.
It was a joke, he says. You know about jokes, right?
The cancer?
No. The firing blanks bit.
You don’t look ill, I say, and it’s almost true because he’s still imposing, lean but well-muscled, firm grey eyes not wavering beneath the close-cropped hair. But the skin betrays him, looking a little tight and yellowed. Nicotine-stained, almost. We’re standing against the roadside fence, saltmarshes crawling away on both sides, green and grey and wet. Flakes of snow still pirouette from the sky.
What’s the prognosis?
Doctors are dysfunctional bastards who don’t know how to communicate. And they’re particularly shit at telling you you’re dying. They’re embarrassed somehow, can’t wait to show you the door.
But he did tell you.
He give me a leaflet, he says. Can you believe that? I’m on the way to the knackers yard and they give me a leaflet. Options and Treatments.
Are you going to enlighten me?
The bacon buttie is finished now. I throw away the paper napkin and watch it bowl away down the road, carried by the wind. Birds on Saltholme Pool are going about their business quietly. Coot, dunlin, tufted duck, feeding across the silver water, rooting in the shallows.
Well, he says. I’m calling him Jim. Sounds friendlier than squamous cell carcinoma and we’ll be living together for a while so we may as well be on first-name terms. Jim’s a big lad. And he’s going to get bigger. A right fat bastard, in fact. But at the moment he’s not causing me any grief. Later on he might ring up his mates and get them squatting in other bits of me. Liver, bladder, brain, you name it. But for now they’re going to give him some slimming pills – chemo, you know. They can’t tell me how long – how much time. You know.
He grins.
I’ve always been lucky. Reckon me and Jimbo might spin it out for years.
I turn away for a moment.
When I came out here, I was going to tell you to forget it. Go back to Pattaya.
Can’t. I’ve sold up over there. Nowhere to go back to. This is where – where I came from.
Yeah.
It’s like the abos, he says. In Australia. Them dreamtime gadgies – you know, the ancestors and that. They came out of the ground and then they danced all over the continent naming things. Rocks, trees, mountains, birds. Naming things. But when it was finished, when their life was done, they had to find the same hole they came out of.
They went back in.
Aye, that’s it. Look, there’s plenty of life left in me. I’m going to push my luck as far as it goes. They’re going to start pumping me full of drugs in a week or so. See if they can lick Jim into shape.
A fire engine roars past, lights blazing, from the station at Seal Sands.
Over-reacting again, says Yan. Anybody lights a fag on the Billingham site and they’re out. They’ll probably drown the poor bugger.
He pulls out a tobacco pouch and begins to twirl a skinny fag between finger and thumb.
Can’t believe you, I splutter. Should be quitting them things.
He smiles, thin and tight.
Yeah, he says. They gave me a leaflet about that as well.
I have to laugh.
Have you told Kate?
No, you’re the first. Apart from – I’m not sure what to do about Kate. Haven’t seen her since she went out to Perth. How is she these days?
She’s still got the bar, and Terry seems a decent enough bloke, I blurt out, catching a warning look in his eyes which brings me up short. He looks away across the marshes, sleet bristling into his face, inhales deeply from the cigarette. The tip glows brilliantly, then subsides into grey ash.
Nowt was the same, he says, when I came back. We had great sex, mind. Awesome sex. And afterwards we lay in bed and watched the light grow outside and I stroked the hair away from her forehead, over and over. And you lie there and think about the times to come. But when you look back you realize that was the time.
He pauses, rubs his stubble.
There’s some time left, he says, for you and me at least. But I feel like we’ve become strangers, over the years.
You didn’t move to Thailand because of me. There’s no stopping you when you get the bit between your teeth.
How about we get on the grapevine again? he says. Maybes I could still add a couple to my life list.
He grins ironically and I laugh along with him.
I’ll tell Kate, I say. Another fire engine bullets past towards Port Clarence, blue lights blazing under the darkening sky.
5. Wilson’s Phalarope
(Phalaropus tricolor)
Good morning Vietnam, said Gary Hagan at the top of the stairs as he pushed me against the wall, a bulky hand either side of my head. The sound of a fire engine outside on Port Clarence Road, Doppler effect as it sped past.
I said nothing, watched his pudgy features swim in towards my face until his nose was almost touching mine. His jaws were working, chewing gum on his breath.
Vietnam, he breathed, the sharp smell of Juicy Fruit making me blink. Thailand. It’s crazy shit over there son. Sodom and fucking Gomorrah. One day I’m going to take me a trip. Franco’s been over. Got the snatch hair off a fourteen-year-old virgin, carries it around in his wallet. What do you think about that?
I shrugged, and Hagan sneered.
You’re still a virgin, aren’t you?
Kate was in the bathroom, one of her interminable soaks. And someone was climbing the stairs. I could hear the footsteps, boots reverberating in the stairwell.
Lasses don’t want to go with people like you, said Hagan.
The large gold hoop in his left ear glinted. I imagined grasping it between my teeth and ripping it out through his flesh. The footsteps reached the top of the stairs and a figure passed through Gary Hagan, emerging again on the other side. At least I thought it was a figure, a shape created from interference in the air, like a snowstorm on the TV, popping and fizzing like an Alka Seltzer. It melted into the opposite wall and disappeared. Hagan didn’t seem to notice.
Me, I’ve got nothing against you son, he said. It’s just that you’re so – he paused to search for the right word – so hittable. His face was so close it was blurred. I moved forward and kissed him full on the lips. He sprang back, rubbing his mouth.
You dirty little –
He raised his hand and I flinched away from the blow but he stopped and laughed.
Next time son, he said, and I ducked away down the empty stairs.
Later at Razia’s house my eyes began to blur and swim, headache jolting into migraine. I slumped down wearily over the table, rested my head against a chemistry textbook.
You’re not in the mood fo
r this, she said.
I sat up and looked at her, deep brown eyes and sharp features, perky smile framed by the hijab.
Everyone’s full of shit, I said.
She laughed at me.
Like what.
I dunno. Get your exams and go to university and be a suit. Jack it in and go on the pancrack. Raid the till and blow it on lighter fluid. Your mam needs you Dan, she’s finding it hard to cope. Why don’t you go and find out what happened to your dad? There’s a million things.
A million?
Aye. A million. And you can only choose the one.
Raz leaned back on her chair, eyes twinkling, inwardly laughing.
It’s more than a million, she said. And that’s the beauty of it Danny boy. Any moment in time, there’s a zillion different maybes, all hanging out there. Sometimes you never even see them brother. It’s mad as biscuits.
Are you sure it’s just a zillion like? Not a zillion and one, or nine hundred and ninety-nine trillion nine hundred and ninety-nine?
Actually, she said, very seriously, leaning back so far on her chair I thought she might tip over. It’s a zillion and twelve. But I was rounding down for the simple-minded.
I wanted to kiss her. Instead I looked out of the window across the back garden. Over the saltmarsh a gull was levitating on the wind, perched at the apex of a blustery crystal-clear morning, half a mile above Port Clarence. I thought about the equations you need to fly – the hieroglyphic tangle of fluid dynamics, turbulence, chaos theory and the rest. The gull swayed, tilted, blew over with a raucous cry.
Well they can fuck off, I said. All zillion and twelve of them.
Shh, don’t swear, Dad’s upstairs. Puckered up her brown face into that expression, half laughing and half admonishing. Mr Shahid clattered down the stairs, on the way out for his shift on the minicabs.
Hemispheres Page 5