by Guy Burt
‘He can’t stand up,’ I say, pragmatically. ‘His leg’s hurt.’
At that, Anna gets herself under control. ‘Oh. Yeah,’ she says, and all at once the moment of childishness is gone from her. She tilts her head slightly on one side as she thinks. ‘Well,’ she says. ‘He could do it lying down, couldn’t he? If we had – I don’t know. A bucket or something.’
‘We don’t have a bucket,’ Jamie says.
‘I know. That’s why I said or something. Something like a bucket.’
‘There’s the bottle of water he knocked over,’ I say.
Anna says, ‘Yeah, that might do it.’
‘Will it be big enough?’ Jamie says.
‘Depends how badly he needs to pee,’ Anna says, grinning. ‘How much water did you give him, Alex?’
‘Not much, I think,’ I say.
‘Well, then. Yeah, it’ll be all right.’ She stares at us. ‘Well, go on, then.’
Jamie and I look at each other. I say, ‘We’ll need to get him on his side, probably.’ Jamie nods.
‘So?’
‘Well …’ I say. ‘We need three of us for that.’
There’s a silence. Then Anna says, soberly, ‘OK. We’ll all go.’
‘I’m not getting his thing out,’ Jamie says.
‘I was just kidding. He can do that himself,’ Anna says.
‘All right, then. All of us.’
Anna nods; after a moment so do I.
In the chapel, it is as if the bright, buzzing morning doesn’t exist. In the shadows at the end the hermit is awake, and coughing; we can hear him as we go down the length of the building. When we get there, Anna kneels down beside him.
‘We’re going to turn you on your side,’ she says. ‘It might hurt a bit. There’s a bottle you can – there’s a bottle you can use.’
The hermit nods. There is a strange expression on his face, too, and it takes me a moment to recognize it. He is ashamed. I feel suddenly sorry for him.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say, without thinking.
Anna seems to have noticed it as well. ‘I shan’t look,’ she says seriously.
The man looks round at the three of us, and then his expression changes: he laughs, just a little. ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘You’re right. It’s no good my being shy. Well. Let’s get it over with.’
His voice sounds almost normal this morning; I compare it to the harsh growl that came from him in the night, and can hardly recognize them as the same thing. But his face is still glistening, and when we come to turn him, I can feel the heat coming off him as if from the oven in the kitchen. We take hold of his shoulders and arm, and Anna takes his wounded leg, and we turn him as carefully as we can onto his good side. His face tightens and contorts quickly, but he doesn’t cry out. He steadies himself on one elbow, and with his free arm he fumbles at the zip on his trousers. Anna passes the bottle to Jamie, who takes it from her with some apprehension. I am holding the hermit’s shoulders, keeping him steady.
Jamie holds the bottle for the hermit, simultaneously trying to keep it in place near the man’s groin and appear as if he’s looking somewhere else entirely. He looks very uncomfortable indeed, and, in my safe position behind the hermit’s shoulders, I’m glad someone else is doing the difficult part. Anna is right, though, to everyone’s relief; the hermit gets his zip undone and his thing out with no help. Jamie, resolutely ignoring everything around him, shifts the bottle closer until the man can get his thing to the neck of it. Then there’s a pause, and finally the sound of the bottle filling surprisingly rapidly. The hermit must have needed to pee pretty badly after all, I realize.
I steal a glance at the hermit’s thing while pretending, like Jamie, to be absorbed with the chapel doors. I tell myself that, since I’m behind the hermit’s head, he can’t see me and so I won’t embarrass him. What I see is surprisingly large and strangely muscular-looking. It is nothing like my thing or Jamie’s. I blink quickly and look away, fascinated now by the stone of the pillar against which we’ve made the hermit’s pillow. At the opening of the hermit’s trousers, there have been a few twists of dark hair showing in the candlelight.
When the hermit has finished, and zipped his trousers again, Anna takes the bottle from Jamie and sets it aside while we turn the hermit onto his back again. His face, flushed with the pain of the movement, nevertheless has an undertone of relief. His eyes are closed for a short time, but then he opens them. He’s actually seeing us, this time, not looking through us as he’s sometimes done.
He says, ‘Thank you. That feels a lot better. You can imagine, yes?’
Jamie laughs a little, politely. Anna nods.
‘Are you feeling better?’ I say.
‘A little, I think,’ the hermit says. ‘But – the fever’s still here. I can feel that.’
‘What should we do about it?’ Anna says.
‘I don’t think there’s much you can do,’ the hermit says. ‘We just – have to wait. It should pass.’ He gives a half-laugh, and the sound turns into a coughing which lasts a minute or more. At the end of it he lies back, exhausted.
‘Here,’ Anna says. She’s got the fresh water in the Coke bottle, and she holds it while the hermit drinks a little. When he’s finished, he turns his head and closes his eyes.
‘Like little angels,’ he says faintly, and I can hear that his voice has that strange quality which I’ve come to recognize. It means he’s not really with us any more. ‘Angels in the chapel to bear me up.’ And then he says something else, but the words are wrong again.
The stored words come back to me now, and now I know them. Angyalok repítenek a fellegekbe. Angels carrying me into the sky.
‘Come on,’ Anna says abruptly. ‘Let’s let him be for a while.’ She picks up the bottle the hermit has filled and starts off down the chapel. Jamie and I straighten. The hermit mumbles something I don’t quite catch.
‘Come on,’ she calls again. I’m slightly surprised that she wants to leave so suddenly; I had thought we might take the time to change the hermit’s dressing again. But we follow her out into the sunshine anyway.
Anna empties the bottle in the bushes, and darts back into the chapel to put it away. Then she joins us at the end of the building.
‘We can keep that one for him to pee in,’ she says. ‘Just as long as we don’t get them muddled up.’
‘Yuk, no,’ I say, pulling a face.
She glances at us. ‘It wasn’t too bad, though, was it?’
Jamie shrugs reluctantly. ‘I s’pose not,’ he says.
The bees are still sweeping the area industriously. The little shadow here, under the clock tower, has narrowed a few inches while we’ve been inside; soon it will pass over into afternoon, and the dandelion clock, above us in the wall, will start to catch the sun. Anna and Jamie and I settle ourselves comfortably on the pine needles.
I say, ‘Did you see the hermit’s thing?’
There’s a pause. Jamie says, ‘Did you?’
‘Mm,’ I say.
‘Me too,’ he says.
‘Did you?’ I ask Anna.
‘Well, yes.’
Jamie glances at her. ‘You said you wouldn’t look,’ he says, sounding slightly shocked.
‘Well, it was difficult not to,’ she says, not meeting his eye.
I say, ‘Wasn’t it really big?’ I feel vaguely, secretly worried about this.
Anna says, ‘It wasn’t so big.’
‘Oh. I thought it was,’ I say.
I look at Jamie for support in this. After a moment, he nods very slightly, and says, ‘Yeah, me too.’
‘Well, I didn’t think it was all that big,’ she says, offhand.
‘What would you know? You’re a girl.’
‘That doesn’t mean I haven’t seen – things,’ she says.
I am astonished by this. Apart from my own and Jamie’s, this is the first man’s thing I have seen. That Anna’s experience here should be greater than mine is something I haven’t anticipa
ted at all. Something like the same sequence of thoughts must be going through Jamie’s head too, because he looks as taken aback as I feel. Anna stares at us both.
‘What?’ she says. ‘Haven’t you seen – you know. Your dad’s?’
‘No,’ I say. My parents have their own bathroom. The thought of my father ever being naked, and ever having a thing like the hermit’s, strikes me at once as being quite unbelievable. Again, I look at Jamie.
‘Well, no,’ he says. ‘Maybe once or twice. But not – you know – not that.’
‘Oh,’ Anna says. She sounds as frankly surprised as we have been. ‘Well, I didn’t think it was all that big.’
‘So you’ve seen your dad?’ Jamie says.
‘He’s not my real dad.’
‘But you’ve seen it?’
‘Mm.’
‘When?’
Anna shrugs. ‘In the bathroom.’
‘Oh.’
‘So the hermit’s wasn’t really very big?’ I say, trying to sort all this out.
‘I don’t know,’ Anna says. ‘I didn’t think so.’ She hesitates, then grins; a little flare of mischief is in her eye. She says, ‘At least it wasn’t – you know.’
‘What?’ Jamie says.
‘You know. At least it wasn’t – like that.’
‘Like what?’
Anna shakes her head, still grinning. ‘Don’t be thick. You’re boys, you should know this stuff. You know – how it goes.’
Jamie and I look at each other. Neither of us knows what Anna’s talking about.
‘What do you mean?’ Jamie says.
Anna leans slightly closer and drops her voice. ‘You know. When it goes hard.’
Jamie’s eyes go wide, and then he blushes deeply. ‘How do you know about that?’ he says.
‘I know lots of things,’ Anna says.
I think fast and realize that Anna is right – that sometimes it is hard; mainly at night. It’s just one of the things it does sometimes, and which I’ve never bothered to think about until now.
‘Why does it go hard, then?’ I ask.
Jamie looks flustered, and drops his eyes, staring at the ground between his knees. He waits for Anna to say something, but she doesn’t. When I look at her, she’s looking away, at the hills at the end of the valley.
At last Jamie says, ‘Well, why does it, then?’
Anna says, ‘It’s for screwing.’
‘Oh, that,’ Jamie says hastily.
I say, ‘How do you know all this?’
‘One of the girls at school told me,’ Anna says.
‘Oh.’ I think for a moment. ‘Screwing’s rude.’
‘Well, of course,’ Anna says, in a matter-of-fact way.
‘We ought to change his dressing,’ Jamie says. I am surprised and a little disappointed; I want to hear more. But Anna stands up.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘You’re right.’
She leads the way in out of the sun. As I walk behind her I realize I am surprised there is anything anyone knows more about than Jamie; with his books and comics, he is usually the one who tells me new and wonderful things. But in some things, it seems that Anna is ahead of us both.
We have a table in a corner of the club. Anna has fetched two beers in tall glasses, while around us the young people talk noisily. At the far end of the room, the musicians on stage have finished setting up; a couple of them are taking sips from plastic bottles of mineral water – or at least, something that looks like mineral water – and conversing quietly. Anna clinks her beer glass against mine.
‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers,’ I say. ‘What made you pick this place, then?’
‘I told you, it looked good. Oh, wait – they’re starting.’
The band have finished tuning and talking and, as I turn my head, launch neatly into an opening I recognize: it’s C Jam Blues, a piece I’ve heard Jamie play many times. There’s scattered applause from the crowd, and then the room quietens down slightly, paying due attention to the music.
‘Is it all going to be trad stuff?’ I ask. I find myself hoping it will be; Jamie was always keener on trad than contemporary.
Anna shrugs. ‘I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.’
The band have made it through the theme the obligatory couple of times, and the improvisation starts with the saxophonist. I turn my chair a little so I have a clearer view of the musicians. Beside me, Anna is tapping time with one finger on the table.
I say, ‘They’re not bad.’
She looks at me out of the corner of her eye, and then says, ‘You miss him a lot, don’t you?’
It takes me by surprise. I say, ‘Yes. You?’
‘Of course,’ she says. ‘Of course.’
‘He would have liked this kind of thing. Well, he would have been up there.’
‘He was really into all that, wasn’t he?’
I nod. ‘Yes.’
She says, ‘I kind of wish I’d been around to see that.’
‘You would have been impressed,’ I say. ‘I was. He was – really good.’
It feels strange, talking about Jamie like this: painful, but also as if something inside is being slowly, slowly eased. We have kept him out of our conversation all the time we’ve been together, but it’s been difficult; the sense of him has always been there. At least now, in this dimly lit room, we have said something aloud.
Anna says, ‘Yeah. I thought he would be.’
In the band, the flow of the improvisation shifts to the bass player, and the mood of the music alters to accommodate the change. As I listen, a glimmer of memory starts to trouble me. Something in the street outside the bar. After a second, I have it: the girl down the street, red streaks in her hair, glancing our way and then turning the corner. There has been something about her that has felt – familiar. I can’t be sure what. She has been a little too far away for me to see her face clearly, but still, there is – something.
It’s puzzling. I wonder where I might have seen her – in another street perhaps, on our way here, or some other night out in the piazzas. Whatever. It’s just a coincidence, but—
I can’t place her. There was a time when I could have just taken a moment or two to drift sideways out of the room, and catch wherever it was that I saw her first; but that was a long time ago now. In any case – I glance around – she’s not in the bar. I’ll probably never know for sure.
Anna turns to me and says, ‘What sort of thing did Jamie play, then?’ She hesitates, and then says, ‘Alex? What is it?’
I shake my head. ‘Nothing. I just thought I saw someone, that’s all.’
‘Yeah? Who?’
‘Just – someone I’d seen before. But I don’t know where. Probably on the street.’
‘Yeah, well.’
‘What sort of thing did Jamie play?’ I repeat.
‘Yeah. You could tell me about it.’
‘OK. If you like.’ I wonder where to start.
So stupid. So stupid not to see it right then, to put the pieces together. Afterwards – when things have passed – it looks so simple that I can’t believe I didn’t understand at the time; but that is how it has always been for me. Perhaps it is how it will always be, too; and perhaps, of course, there is actually no time left for it to continue being that way, and I will open my eyes in a moment to find that it is all ‘has’, all past.
Something is wrong in the club, but with the music and the conversation we’re having I tell myself that the unease comes from remembering Jamie, and bringing out into the open for the first time things which Anna and I have left silent until this point. But it’s not that; not really that at all. On the street outside I have seen a girl I have seen before, but I sweep the thought aside without giving it time to work its way through my brain properly, trigger the right associations.
It’s easily done. Anna’s eyes are bright and wide in the low light, the pupils large and dark. She’s smiling as she talks, and all I can see is her face, and all I can he
ar is the music and her voice drifting in and out of it. She’s like a drug; I can’t take my eyes off her and I can’t get enough of her. We talk about Jamie, about his music, about the time in England; we laugh again at what happened here in Florence; we make up for a lot of lost time. Anna’s face is alive and bright in the dim room, as if caught with afternoon light through coloured glass. When she lifts her beer, the glass casts amber across her mouth and the side of her jaw, gold, like the gold of a halo.
The band work through the familiar numbers, and gradually they drift into the background. I find I am used to their style now, can anticipate what they will do enough that they don’t grab too much of my attention. The room seems to fade out slightly, to become just that tiny bit more distant, except for a pool of reality around the table where we’re sitting. Anna is real; I am real. The young people moving through the bar are like tangible ghosts. She’s beautiful. I watch her, and we talk, and I let myself ignore things I shouldn’t.
Jamie stays with the hermit while Anna and I go into town. We need food – for us; the hermit doesn’t seem able to eat yet – and water, and other supplies. We’re down to the last of our hoarded pocket money, and none of us is sure how we’ll buy things when it runs out.
Anna kicks her feet through the hot dust of the empty river and says, ‘I wish he’d get better.’
‘Are you worried?’
‘No,’ she says quickly. ‘I just wish he’d get better, that’s all.’
Something she said before comes back to me. I say, ‘Why isn’t he your real dad?’
‘What?’ Anna says; then she understands. ‘Oh. My parents are divorced.’
I nod. One or two children at school have parents who are divorced, so the concept is vaguely familiar. ‘Why?’ I say.
‘I don’t know.’ She kicks a stone along the dry riverbed, and runs after it, kicking it again. I hurry to catch up. She says, ‘Mummy says sometimes people fall in love and then fall out of love again later. She says it wasn’t really anyone’s fault.’
‘Do you think that?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘I think it was his fault.’