by Peter Benson
‘Why?’ Lisa wiped her eyes and looked up. Her skin was the colour of a netted window.
‘Because I’m going to do something else.’
‘That’s no reason.’ Her voice came from the bottom of her throat, like low pipe music drifting over the roofs of a row of freezing houses.
‘I’m going to open a sandwich bar.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good luck.’
‘And you,’ he said slowly, ‘I want you to come and work for me.’
‘I’ve got a job.’
‘Stacking shelves? Selling nail-clippers to poodle fanciers? Lisa…’
‘Frank?’
He sat back and stiffened. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m talking about.’ He coughed. ‘Forgive me?’
She didn’t reply.
‘Lisa? Please?’
‘Okay.’
Frank relaxed again and said, ‘What about you? How do you feel?’
She shook her head and mumbled, ‘Empty.’
‘I’m sorry…’
She looked at him again and now a faint smile got on to her mouth. It creased her lips up, and her teeth showed. ‘Remember when you promised not to say sorry?’
‘I’m…’
‘Watch it!’
Frank laughed. ‘I’m watching,’ he said, and he bent forward and kissed the top of her head.
‘What did you do that for?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Yes you do,’ she said.
‘You’ve got me again,’ he said.
‘Have I?’
He nodded.
‘I thought so,’ she said.
‘I know,’ he said.
20
The afternoon dimmed quickly, and night drifted on to Brighton. It gathered around the streetlamps, the Christmas lights and the decorated shops, and it fingered collars. Ice cracked in the gutters, and old men slithered down their garden paths. Frozen girls ran from shops to bus stops, waving their hands and whistling. Snow began to fall. It came in slow clots, dropping through the twilight like down. The moon was thieved and the dark wore weeds.
Bob watched it from his sitting-room window, a glass of peppermint tea in one hand and a towel in the other. His body sang from the inside out, his skin whistled and gleamed, and his hair stood up in anticipation. Behind him, the sauna hummed its way to working temperature. When it was ready, he closed the curtains, undressed and opened the cabin door. The heat rushed him; he stepped into it, closed the door and sat down. He ladled some water on to the hot rocks; they hissed and steamed as he spread a towel on the lowest bench, laid down and closed his eyes.
The dark was complete, and the sauna’s thermometer nudged ninety. Bob’s pores opened, his blood raced, and he began to run with sweat. He spread his fingers and curled his toes, and felt a slow tingling in his right side. This gathered at a spot above his waist and fidgeted with muscle tissue. He rubbed it, creased his forehead, forgot it and thought about the next move.
In 1982, he had visited Skopelos, a Greek island famous for its prunes. He had stayed in a farmhouse on the side of a hill, with a view of orchards, the roofs of a whitewashed town and the sea. The sea had been bluer than blue, an ache he could not stop staring at. He sat on the terrace without a hat, and he let the sun bleach his hair. The light shimmered, the sound of bleating goats hung in a wind that wheezed, and an old lady on a bicycle sold him a jug of milk every day. At the time, he had dreamed himself into an idea of staying, but then the holiday ended. Now he dreamed the idea back. It lit the backs of his eyes, and sweetened his breath. He could smell the Aegean and taste the prunes, warm from their drying trays. The twinge nipped again but he let it. He smelt a smouldering wood fire burning on the shore, its light refecting on to the side of a beached fishing boat. The sound of singing from a bar, and mopeds going up the street. The place had creased with heat. He turned on the bench and scratched his legs.
As the day died, Mrs Platt put on a hat and coat, and wrapped a scarf around her neck. She took Joey from his jam jar, brushed his feathers, wrapped him carefully in the silver foil and carried him outside. She laid him on the pyre of kindling, charcoal and newspaper, and knelt down. She stroked the foil, rummaged in her pocket and took out a box of matches.
A breeze blew through the falling snow and disturbed the branches of the trees and bushes. It gathered itself above Mrs Platt’s head, and spread its hands. It began to stroke her hair and whisper in her ear. It told her that Joey wanted to find a home in her. She smiled at the symmetry of this, and at the beauty of the night. She tipped her head and let snow fill her eyes, then she bent forward, struck a match and lit a corner of newspaper. The flame spread and the kindling began to spit and crackle. She stood up and took a step backwards.
As the flames began to grow, she sat on a bench and watched the sparks fly into the air and drift over the garden. They clouded and separated and hissed when snowflakes touched them, and some burst against the walls of the house, showering the back step with ash. Mrs Platt watched with wide eyes and rigid limbs, and as the fire began to lick around the tinfoil, she knotted her fingers and began to whistle a slow and mournful tune. This was a lament Mr Platt had taught her, the song of a sailor’s wife whose husband had not returned from the sea. He had been wrecked on a shore she had never heard of, broken on rocks with names she could not pronounce, drowned in a sea she could not find in any map. No trace was ever found of him, his crew-mates or his ship; the storm had sucked them to oblivion, and oblivion would not let them go. She sung on a cliff-top in front of a fire of her husband’s possessions; a pair of boots, a good shirt, a box of shells and a pack of cards. As the flames took hold, she sang that she wished to go to her husband, that he had been the flames in her life.
‘Come to me.’
‘I will.’
‘Come now and don’t delay.’
‘I will not.’
‘I have waited too long.’
‘Wait no longer.’
As the kindling died down and the charcoal began to glow, Joey’s corpse slipped into the centre of the fire and, for a few minutes, its smoke caused Mrs Platt to cough and hold a hand to her nose. Then it cleared, the foil began to glow and the body started to crumble. Its claws dissolved into its legs, and the feathers folded over the legs. Its head shrank into its neck and the internal organs fried. Its dried heart popped, all the mites that covered its skin snapped dead, and the beak glowed white. Mrs Platt took out a handkerchief and blew her nose, and then she bowed her head and closed her eyes.
‘Haven’t you got a home to go to?’
‘No,’ said Evans. ‘My mum threw me out.’
‘Get away.’ The woman behind the counter flicked her dishcloth at him and poured another cup of tea. ‘You’ll end up looking like a cup of tea,’ she said.
He slapped fifty pence in front of her and said, ‘Lot less trouble than what I’m doing now.’
‘Yeah? So you’re actually doing something? You’re not just sitting here with a paper, staring out the window and picking your nose every now and again.’
‘Yes and no.’
‘And what does that mean?’
‘What I say. Yes and no.’
‘What are you? A spy?’
‘Maybe.’
‘I didn’t think we had them any more. We’re meant to be friends with Russia.’
‘Old habits die hard,’ said Evans.
‘Pull the other one,’ said the woman, and she went to change the coffee filters.
Evans had trailed Davis from the bus station to a terraced house on the other side of town. He had hopped across roads and dived into shops, he had jumped buses and hailed taxis, and now he was back at the bus station. All his suspicions were confirmed, but he had no idea what the suspicions meant. He knew they were real and he knew he was right, but he was confused, his patience was wearing thin, and he was thinking about leaving the café, walking across the pull-ins and pr
etending to bump into Davis by accident. It was a good idea, it had a plain neatness he liked, but then something happened to change his mind. A driver came from the staff office, waved goodnight to his mates, crossed the road and headed towards town. Davis tensed at his appearance, waited a minute, pulled up his coat collar and followed. Evans turned his head away as he walked past the café window, then downed his tea and stood up. ‘Got to go!’ he called to the woman behind the counter, but she didn’t hear.
The bus-driver whistled as he walked, rubbing his hands against the cold and nodding to people he passed. He stopped to look in a jeweller’s window. He thought about his wife, and he thought about buying her a watch for Christmas. Another driver crossed the street ahead of him and called, ‘All right for some!’
‘It’s all right for you!’ shouted the first driver, and the other one laughed.
‘See you later?’
‘No. I’m off home.’
‘I bet you are!’
‘Yeah!’ he called, and he waved, left the shop window and walked on. He picked up the tune he had been whistling, curling the melody into twists it had not been made for, his hands in his pockets and his head up. His baby face was rosy and full, and his ears tingled. The snow was beautiful. Nothing worried him.
Davis trailed fifty yards behind, stopping every now and again to bend down and pretend to look at something on the pavement. His head was clear and his mind was focused. This was the practice run. He had decided on the following night for the real thing, the night before Christmas Eve, when children were losing sleep and animals lay brooding in their beds. He was going to carry a knife, handcuffs, a handkerchief and a bottle of chloroform. He would park his car on the corner opposite the Lamb and Flag.
The clarity of his thoughts had stopped amazing him; now he revelled in the sweetness of the air and a warm sensation that grew from the top of his head and spread out and down. He felt as though he was walking in a shower of light, that he was a beacon. The driver stopped to cross the road; Davis stopped to read a cinema poster. It’s a Wonderful Life was showing at The Studio.
It’s a Wonderful Life was Evans’s favourite film. He stopped to read the poster and note the details in his pocket-book; then he stood on the edge of the pavement and watched Davis walk in the driver’s footsteps, across the road and down the other side. The way the two men moved reminded him of dancing. One moved freely, innocently, unaware; the other glided and slunk, free in his own way, but trapped. Tension was wired between them, and it drew them together with a black grace. The falling snow strained the tension and gave it an edge a clear night would miss; Evans looked both ways and crossed the road slowly, his head down and his breathing calm.
Five minutes later, Davis stopped and watched the driver go into a pub. Then he walked to a parked car, opened the door, climbed in, waited for a minute and drove away. Evans ducked into a doorway and noted the time. Then he turned around and walked back the way he had come, back to his own car.
WPC Hobbs stood in the hall and Mrs Austin went from room to room of her son’s house. She looked at photographs, ornaments, pictures and books. She spread her fingers and dragged them down walls, and she caressed cushions. When she stood in the kitchen, she leant against the sink and stared out of the window. A rotary clothes-line, a sock lying in the snow, a bare tree. An empty net that used to contain peanuts for the birds blew in the wind like a light tropical fruit, and a piece of wool streamed from a rose bush. She recalled sitting in a deckchair in this garden, and she had talked to her daughter-in-law about children. She remembered Cyril coming home late from the office, and she’d overheard a row. She remembered offering to do the washing up and being told to put her feet up in front of the television, and she remembered the programme she had watched. She picked up a saucepan scrubber, crushed it in her fist and bent her head. As she stood, Hobbs appeared behind her, hesitated, then put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Okay there?’
Mrs Austin sniffed and nodded, but couldn’t say anything. Her voice was trapped. She tried to recall the exact sound of her children’s voices, but they were trapped too, shouting behind sheets of plate-glass. She could see their lips move, she could see their arms wave, and she could remember the sorts of things they used to say, but then her memories stopped. They stood on a deserted plain and stared at desolation. Broken stones, cracked trees, clouds of rubbish and dust.
‘Mrs Austin?’
Trapped.
‘Hello?’
It’s snowing in a warm place, it’s snowing in hell.
‘We’ve got to go.’ Hobbs coughed. ‘If you want to see your daughter’s house. It’s getting late and…’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘We’ll see Diana’s house tomorrow.’ Mrs Austin swung around, and now she was clear in her head. The police-woman tried to smile, but she failed. The police were failing. They thought that Cyril, Diana and Sandie had died in bizarre circumstances, that it wasn’t all a terrible mistake. Mrs Austin knew what had happened, her heart told her so. It spoke to her softly, and it persuaded. Life wasn’t meant to be like this, but it was, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Mrs Platt unwrapped the foil and tipped Joey’s cremated remains into a bowl. She sat down and looked at them. She put her ear to them. She touched them. They were warm and grey. They smelt of spices and snow. She put her fingers to her lips, and licked them. ‘I love you,’ she said.
She lit a candle. Her shadow spread across the far wall and on to the ceiling. Her silhouetted head hung over her, and her thoughts held themselves in devotion.
She took a spoon and began to eat Joey’s ashes. She became her bird’s grave, and as she did, she believed that her own body was entombing itself. She swallowed without thinking about the act. She dwelt on the meaning. The earth gives and when she takes, she keeps. I defy you by robbing you of this corpse. I offer this bird a home you could never provide. I become the thief you are. Mrs Platt smiled. She felt very well.
Two floors above her, Frank sat in his flat with a bottle of Volvic on his knee, and he watched the television. The chairman of the Conservative Family Campaign was arguing with a Labour councillor. A studio audience sat quietly and respectfully as he said, ‘Putting girls into council flats and providing taxpayer-funded childcare is a policy from hell.’ His sentiments were echoed by film of the Party’s October conference, and the Social Security Secretary’s speech. ‘I’ve got a little list… (of) young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing list.’ (Thunderous applause.) The Labour councillor laughed, and then she pointed at the Conservative and said, ‘Policy from hell? You should know all about them.’
‘I do,’ said the Conservative, ‘and they’re all yours.’
‘Eighty per cent increase in water bills since privatisation, VAT on domestic fuel, a collapsing NHS—’
‘The NHS is not collapsing.’
‘Last year,’ said the Labour councillor, ‘and I’m quoting your figures here, there was a fifteen and a half per cent increase in the number of administrative and clerical staff employed by the NHS; at the same time there was a four point eight per cent drop in the numbers of midwives and nurses employed by the Service.’
‘You can’t have it both ways,’ said the Conservative, and his little chin shone.
‘The people want health care! They don’t give a monkey’s about the way it comes, whether it’s one way, the other, or both.’ Her voice rose solidly, and people in the studio audience murmured their agreement. Frank sipped some water, and then he switched channels.
A woman wearing sunglasses was walking down a street. It was night. She turned to the camera and said, ‘This…’ and she spread her arms, ‘is where the action is. From the Moon Walk and Jackson Square to Bourbon Street. Buskers, winos, whores and artists; bankers, wankers and priests. The French Quarter is the Big Easy’s melting pot, where everyone comes together for a good time.’ The woman stopped walking and leant forward. ‘Or sometimes
not such a good time. In a dangerous country this is one of the most dangerous cities. Keep one hand on your wallet and the other on your heart.’
‘Sure,’ said Frank, and he stood up and snapped the television off. He went to the window and stared down at the street. Life was the most confusing thing. He never wished it away, but sometimes he wished some peace from it.
Mrs Platt lit all the candles she owned, and arranged them around her bedroom. She undressed, washed her face and hands, and climbed into bed. She was naked, but she was not cold.
She did not close her curtains. The snow had obscured the features of her garden; a stack of flower-pots, a rose-covered trellis arch, a birdbath. These things looked like ghosts.
Mrs Platt felt Joey’s ashes in her stomach. They sat in it like lead. She listened to them. They gurgled and popped. She laid her hands on her stomach, and closed her eyes.
She saw Mr Platt. He was wearing shorts, an open-necked shirt and sandals. He walked towards her with open arms, and he said, ‘How long have I waited?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Platt. ‘Tell me.’
‘All my life.’
‘It’s been an age.’
‘Not an age,’ he said, ‘but a long time.’
A draught blew from a crack in the window frame, and half a dozen candles guttered and went out.
‘What have you been doing?’ said Mrs Platt.
‘Waiting.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And?’
‘I ate Joey. I’m bringing him with me.’
‘He’s welcome.’
Mrs Platt smiled and then, as another candle blew out, she allowed her body to stop. She felt her blood slow and she felt herself drift, she felt no pain and all her sorrow died with her. She believed in what she was doing, she believed she was leaving the bad and going to the good. She would deny that she had faith, but she glowed with it. It seeped from her pores and wet the sheets, it glowed in her closed eyes and sang in her ears. She died because she wanted to, but it was not suicide, it was not a cry in the dark. It was a song to her. Its verses were slow and stately, but the chorus was up-beat. She began to hum it. It hummed to her, and the candles hummed themselves out in the bedroom on the ground floor of her house.