I’ve never trusted him, says Vernon, standing in the window and looking out at his car, From the moment I set eyes on him, what did I say to you, Rita?
He turns to face the room. Lewis is leaning against the edge of the table, arms folded, staring into the flames of the gas fire. Anna’s mother is sitting in her chair, her eyes fixed on Lewis.
Yes, Cabbage, thank you for that. But as Mr Caine—Mr Lewis—has just been telling us, it does no good to drag up the past. In fact, it only does harm.
Lewis nods. He’s about to say something more when she cuts him short.
You’ll forgive me for speaking plain, Mr Lewis, but we won’t be able to offer you accommodation tonight. I’m sure you understand me.
I’d like to see Anna before I go, he says.
Anna’s mother gets up from her chair and moves to the side-board. There are several bottles of spirits on a tray, and two bottles of raki, one wrapped in tissue paper and the other freshly opened. She pours herself a careful measure before she replies.
What’s the first thing I notice, Cabbage, about a man?
Not quite knowing where this is leading, Vernon takes a guess.
Um. His eyes?
She passes Vernon a glass full to the brim, and holds out a smaller measure to Lewis. Just as he’s about to take it from her, she catches his wrist.
His hands, Cabbage, I always notice a man’s hands. And I noticed yours when you arrived, Mr Lewis. Yours are very strong, aren’t they, and such long fingers. Artistic.
As she speaks, Lewis stares at her own fingers on his wrist, the skin tanned dark as leather.
But those knuckles, she says, Smashed up when you got here, and now look—smashed again. Not even time to heal properly.
She lets go of him and offers him the glass of raki.
I’d say, Mr Lewis, that you’ve got a lot of things to sort out in your own life before you even think of sharing it with someone. Especially if that someone is my girl.
I’ve said I’m sorry to have troubled you, Lewis says, I’ve tried to explain. But I need to see her. I have to say something.
That’s all very well, says Anna’s mother, But I don’t think she needs to hear it. Have I made myself plain?
Lewis tips his head back and swallows his raki. He places the glass on the table.
Thank you for the drink, he says, walking to the door.
interference: n. 1 the act of interfering. 2 electrical or acoustic activity that can disrupt communication. 3 the overlapping effect which occurs when two or more waves pass through the same space.
London
The snow when it comes is rare: like stage-snow, or a Hollywood idea of snow, it falls thick and steady in fat, twirling flakes. Soon, it coats the rooftops and the gum-spotted pavements, and the trees and the hedges; it covers the cars on the street and obliterates the signs and cones and the double yellow lines that girdle the city. The sound in Anna’s garden is of nothing. No distant trains, no traffic; even the birds have been silenced by this strange event. She clears a patch of wet snow off the bird-table and pours out a mound of seed. At the far end of the garden, beyond the brambles, the silver sky is darkening like a bruise. She calls Brendan out to see.
And? he says, when she points up in the air.
It’s sort of that colour, but lighter, obviously, she says, See? Between the houses over there. It could be that colour.
Inside, the far wall of the kitchen is a patchwork of hues; each large painted square has a note, written in pencil, at the bottom.
Bone white, reads Brendan, Drab—certainly is—Clunch, he says, Always a favourite.
Anna stands back to look at the swatches, her eyes flicking to the window and back, as if to make a comparison.
I’ll never get it, she says, It’s ungettable.
Brendan prises the lid off a match-pot and sniffs it.
Let’s start again, he says, You said it was blue, right?
I said it was liquid. I said it was the colour of water.
Brendan dips the corner of a sponge into the match-pot and starts another square on the wall, roughing out an outline and filling in. He stands back.
Eau-de-nil, he says, How’s that?
Anna considers, delves into her toolbox, and brings out a tube of glitter. She shakes it, opens the lid, and tips it into her hand.
More like this, she says, casting a cloud of sparkling dust over the surface of the patch. Most of it goes on the floor. After a minute, Brendan goes up close and blows on it. He retreats, rubbing his eye.
Anna, we have to go and see this light together, he says, Before you do something that leaves me permanently blind. Shall we? Shall we go?
In case you hadn’t noticed, B, it’s snowing, she says, And this is London. Hardly the best time to brave the gridlock.
He moves to the sink and washes his eye under the tap.
Exactly. This is London, he says, squinting up at her, Nothing settles for very long here—not pigeons, not people, and definitely not snow. Or hadn’t you noticed?
After much heated squabbling about the quickest, best, most direct route out of London, Anna and Brendan fall into numb silence once they reach the motorway, as if they’d left their voices hanging in the chill air of the Blackwall Tunnel. They keep the radio on for traffic warnings, but as Anna branches off towards Norwich, Brendan slots a disc into the stereo. A sound of angels fills the space.
What’s this? she asks, taking a sidelong look at the case in Brendan’s lap. He lifts it up to the windscreen, reading from the sulphurous light cast by sodium on snow.
Spem in Alium, he says, Sounds like a biology textbook.
Sounds like heaven, she says, peering out through the flakes spiralling in and away from her windscreen, It’s perfect.
It was your Christmas present, he says.
Anna blinks, letting the voices surround her.
But you bought me that bird-table, she says.
Brendan settles back against the head-rest and stares through the windscreen.
It was your Christmas present to me, he says.
They lapse into another long silence. At one time, Anna would have joked about her great taste, or how thoughtful she was, but now she feels the reminder like a sting: she’d hadn’t bought anyone anything for Christmas; she hadn’t even sent any cards. When she thinks of the past two months, she sees it like a hole burnt in paper, the flames licking around the newsprint, shrivelling it to black ash. Her mother and Vernon wanted her to stay and have Christmas with them; Brendan wanted her to go with him to Devon to see his family; but Anna wanted to be in her own bed, under the duvet. On Christmas morning, after a night of vivid dreaming, she set to work. First she took down all the pictures and photographs from the walls, then she mixed some colours. The paint from an old tin of white emulsion she used as a base, adding small drops of acrylic to the mix. This, at least, was something she could do to take her mind off the noise. It had lived inside her head ever since that night on the beach: not at all like the blimps and squeaks and poundings of the tinnitus she’d grown used to. Her doctor could only say that the ear was a mysterious organ, asked her to walk a straight line, then prescribed some tablets in lieu of an appointment with a specialist. She wasn’t able to drink alcohol with the pills, so she threw them away. Anna had decided it was the noise of the sea: in the darkness, at night, she would see the colour of the sound, was actually able to walk through it. Inside, was an unearthly light. It was this she wanted as she mixed paint, furious that she couldn’t find the exact shade. When Brendan returned from Devon, she’d told him about it.
It’ll be that post-traumatic China syndrome, he said, with his unerring capacity for muddying the water, You’ve lost some vital inner ching and the sound light business is a sign. I watched a programme on it once. All we need to do is some inversion therapy, help you get your Shakiras back.
Despite his diagnosis, Anna was glad for them to set about the search together; the idea was to paint the whole flat in the
colour of her vision. He brought her match-pots and swatches and blocks of crystal quartz, happy for her to be out from under the duvet. And now he was going with her to the edge of the country, to find a piece of light. If she valued his friendship at all, she had a poor way of showing it. At the very least, she could have bought him a Christmas present.
I’m so sorry, Brendan, she says now, I’ve been rotten.
That’s right, you have, he says, And not just to me. Are we expected, he asks, At your mum’s?
I thought we’d do a detour first, she says, There’s something I want to check out.
Great. Keep me informed, won’t you?
Brendan leans forward and wipes the condensation off the windscreen with his sleeve.
Anna, look! he cries, Do we, or don’t we?
He points at a lonely figure on the edge of the carriageway, holding up a card. The snow has covered it almost completely, the words obliterated into smudges of black. Anna makes to move into the inside lane, just as a lorry flashes its indicator and pulls into the hard shoulder.
Looks like he’s got his lift, says Brendan, Just as well; it’s one thing being charitable, but I’ve seen The Hitcher. Twice.
Cardiff
It’s a chill, grey evening, the kind that always reminds Lewis of those drab Sundays before the school week begins. In a sheltered corner of the cemetery, Manny is sitting on a bench, his body bent over; he looks like he’s praying, but he’s rolling a cigarette. When he finishes making one, he puts it behind his ear and starts another, blowing on his fingers to keep them moving. Lewis takes a final look at the headstone. He brought some flowers because he thought it was what people do; now he thinks they look ridiculous. Wayne never showed any interest in flowers; he should’ve put twenty Bensons on the plot. He can’t imagine what else Wayne would want; the body in there belongs to a child, and Lewis feels too far from childhood, now, to comprehend what it was like. He ambles back to Manny, shoulders hunched against the stiffening wind.
He was just a kid, he says, sitting down.
You all were, says Manny.
He puts out the tip of his tongue and licks along the edge of the paper, twists the roll-up between his fingers, and hands it to Lewis.
I can’t picture what he would look like now, says Lewis, What he’d be doing. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have wanted flowers.
He nods in the direction of the grave, where he laid the bunch on its side. There was no vase to put it in. The cellophane wrapper sighs in and out in the wind. Manny turns an eye in his direction, holds up the lighter, and waits for Lewis to angle his head to it.
Take my Carl, he says,
I’d rather not, says Lewis, which makes both men smile.
Alright then, take Sonia, says Manny, after a beat, Now she’s all grown up and la-di-dah and got herself a whatyamacallit—
Career, fills in Lewis.
Four by friggin four, says Manny, And yet, when I thinks of her, I don’t ever see that. I don’t see a grown-up woman. I only ever sees her as a kid, banging about in the kitchen on her roller skates.
She always was a fast one, says Lewis.
Manny thinks he’s deliberately missing the point.
What I mean is, when you love someone from small, you think of them that way. They stay little. Especially if you don’t see them—or they don’t want to see you.
She’ll come round, Lewis says, not believing it for a minute. He didn’t actually meet Sonia, but he’s heard enough about her now to understand that she wasn’t the forgiving type. She had taken a dim view of the business, Manny said, was all set to get the police involved, until Carl persuaded her otherwise. When Manny took Lewis’s side, she severed all contact with her father.
After the fight on the beach, Lewis hadn’t given her another thought; he’d found what he was looking for, and had repaid Carl in a way that both men understood. For Lewis, the episode was finished; not so for Manny. He’d asked Lewis to come back to Cardiff and see him, stay for a couple of days.
I’ve got a son I don’t want and a daughter who don’t want me. I reckon that just about makes you family, he’d said.
It was Manny who’d had the van cleaned up; it was Manny’s idea to visit Wayne’s grave; it was Manny who, for Lewis, was just about family.
He leans closer now to Lewis, trying to get out of the bitter wind, and reaches in his pocket. He takes out Wayne’s silver chain and passes it over. After a few long minutes, Lewis finds his voice.
How much did this cost you? he says, eyeing the inscription.
It was in the van, in the footwell, says Manny, jerking his head aside so the wind catches him face on, Under a pile of rubbish.
Still covering for him, says Lewis, feeling the silver grow warm in his fist, What is it you do, Man? Do you sell on? Take orders? What? I thought you weren’t into drugs. Bloody scagheads, that’s what you called them.
And that’s what they are. You won’t believe me, says Manny, But what I does is stays out of Carl’s business. And if Carl had still got your bloody chain, he wouldn’t still have it, if you get my drift. Apparently, he was a bit distracted, what with trying to stay alive and all.
Lewis holds the chain up against the light.
I was raging, he says.
Manny turns on him, his eyes fierce.
It’s got to stop, he says, You can’t go on raging, but you do, because you’re stuck back then. It’ll kill you, see—if it don’t kill someone else first. And I’d rather you didn’t murder our Carl, if you don’t mind. You’ve caused me enough agg for one lifetime.
Lewis lets out a laugh,
Manny, let me tell you. I feel a million times better for decking your Carl. He’s had it coming twenty years. Now it’s finished.
Finished enough to make peace with your mam? asks Manny.
Aye, says Lewis, but he looks away.
I could fix it for you if you want . . . be a sort of—Manny searches his head for the phrase—Intermediate, he says, satisfied he’s found it.
Can’t fix it, says Lewis, with a pained grin, It’s not fixable.
We’ll find a way, says Manny, There’ll be some way. Just tell me you’re willing.
Aye, says Lewis again.
Without thinking, he puts the chain to his mouth and licks it. It tastes faintly of salt, of a salt-scent, blowing off the sea.
THIRTY-SEVEN
At Winterton, Anna turns past the Fisherman’s Return and along the back lane. The snow glitters blue under the moonlight, and lies so thick, she can’t tell what’s road and what might be pavement. Without warning, the car veers silently to one side and noses into a hedge, dislodging a thick drift onto the windscreen.
We’ve arrived, then, says Brendan, pulling on his gloves.
They walk up to where the road forks, Anna instinctively taking the left-hand side. The sky is clear and sharp; before them, the house stands alone in the darkness, the To Let sign coated with a layer of snow.
This it, then? The detour? Says Brendan.
I saw this place before, says Anna, standing back and admiring it. She voices the idea that’s been developing ever since they set off.
You know what you said, Brendan, about people not settling in London?
Hmm-hmm, he says, nodding as if he knows what’s coming.
You might be right.
She leans over the wall and wipes at the board with her glove, peering at the numbers on the bottom.
It’s no good, I can’t make it out, she says, Let’s ask at the pub.
Brendan looks about him, up and down the lane, his eyes following the track to the dunes. In the wide space beyond, a thousand stars hang in the sky.
Shall we ask about rooms as well? he says, trudging behind her, ’Cos I can’t see us getting to your mum’s house tonight.
Vernon is on his knees in the kitchen, reaching into the back of the cupboard. He doesn’t notice Rita until he catches sight of her slippered feet on the flags.
Ah, Rita, there you are
, he says, burying his head again in the darkness, You gave me a start.
Cabbage, what on earth are you doing in there?
Babychams, he says, muffled, Just a tic.
They were here, Cabbage, she says, tapping a finger on the work surface, They’re always here, on a tray. What have you done with them?
Trying to get his attention, she puts a hand on his shoulder and gives it a squeeze.
Found them! he cries, lifting a glass out of the cupboard and holding it up for her to take. Without looking, she puts it on the counter, offering her hand for the second glass. Vernon grips her fingers with his own.
As I’m already down here, he says, And as you’re here . . . as we’re both here . . .
In this kitchen, says Rita, trying to move him on.
. . . I’d like to say something.
Make it quick, Cabbage, I’m very thirsty.
My dear, lovely Rita, he says, his upturned face a deep shade of pink, Will you marry me?
She turns her head away, and for such a long time, he’s beginning to think she’s smothering a laugh.
I was going to, erm . . . the ring is . . . it’s in the glass. I was going to . . .
When Rita turns back, her mouth is set in a tight line.
You were going to put it in a glass of champagne, she says, Just like in the film.
Just like in the film, Rita.
She peers over the counter to check, then gives him a broad, teary smile. In the hall, the answering machine cuts in. They both ignore it.
Did she say ‘yes’ in the film, Vernon? asks Rita.
I believe so, he says.
She puts out her other hand and helps him up, his knees cracking as he rises off the floor.
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