But, as it happened, Arthur came with us anyway.
“How are you, then? It’s not too much, all this? Tell us if you want to go back.”
“Thank you, Arthur. If I have one of you here at my either side, this is good. The air is good.”
“That’s grand, that’s really grand. You’re doing well.” Arthur patted his back and smiled. I wanted to do that. “You still a bit down?”
“I don’t . . .”
“In your spirits.”
“Oh, I have been worse. At several times and in several places. If I could find something to do, it would probably pass.”
“I know that one. Still, now that you’re getting better, who knows, eh? Look on the bright side, you could be a baker.”
“Is this a Scottish saying—that I could be a baker?”
“No, but it should be. I mean, who ever sticks their head round a cake shop door and says ‘My compliments to the chef ’? Hm? Nobody. You can begin to think that people are ungrateful.”
“Ah. I must say I had the experience a long time ago of writing plays and it was much the same. The author only hears if the play is bad. Or if the actors are bad because then, of course, the play must be at fault. I know there are human beings in the world who could reduce their own names to nonsense quite simply by saying them. But, no, this is the author’s responsibility.” I could tell he was just making conversation, he wasn’t really interested. “If I could, I would have performed myself.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I think my face is rather too much mine to be anyone else’s. And my public life lay in other areas.”
“Oh. Well, I suppose. That’s a shame.”
“No. I was only a little disappointed and in the end I found my place.” I felt him brush my arm, find my hand and squeeze it. “There are so many things a person can become, I am more and more surprised that anyone is able to know what they want. And still we do know, we only have to find it.” I squeezed back and felt him withdraw softly.
“Funny you should talk about plays . . .”
“Sorry, Arthur?”
He was making conversation. I could hear him making it— clatter, clatter, clatter.
“Plays. There was a guy just now on television who wrote plays.”
Clatter, clatter, clatter.
“Except it wasn’t about that. He was dying.”
I didn’t want to hear about dying. Not then. Not good for Savinien.
“Yes, he was dying. Cancer. Weeks to live and he . . . he sat there and, I don’t know . . . well, I do know, he told the truth. I’d forgotten you could do that, out loud, on the telly. It was just him and the truth. Dying. Felt like he was giving you something. You know? I had to come out and have a cup of tea, think about it.”
“Who was he?”
“Well, I missed the beginning and then I heard you and . . . I don’t know. He seemed good. Good.”
Savinien tugged at our arms. “This man, he was a writer?”
“Yes.”
“And he told the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Then he was a good man. This is what writers are for.”
We jolted along in silence a while. Arm in arm is never as smooth as they make it look in the films. Then Arthur had an idea.
“Okay. Lighten it up. I will now escort you to the only thing I like that has anything to do with bakers. It’s on the way.”
Ten minutes later we moved down across a dark car park, taking it slowly until Savinien grew very slightly nervous and I stopped.
“Arthur, where are we going?”
“We’re here.”
He pointed up at the high, shining building ahead of us while the wind carried a low mechanical rhythm through the steam of our breaths.
“This is the flour mill where they shake the flour.”
We looked at the flour mill. In the long, bright windows we could, sure enough, see tall grey shapes, shaking gently. We watched the shake.
“Arthur?”
“Yes?”
“If this isn’t an odd question, why are we staring at a flour mill?”
“Because I wanted to show . . .”
“Savinien.”
“Yes, well, I wanted to show Savinien the best part of my work.”
Savinien looked at the shake and shuddered slightly when Arthur took his shoulders and began shouting in white clouds that drifted between us and the light of the mill.
“You see, I never knew this was here and then I noticed it when I was going to work. It was early in the morning and winter so everything was still dark, like this, and the mill was shaking and shining away. And I hate my job, Savinien. There is nothing about the bakery that I like and one day I will leave there before I go insane and I will do what I want to do. I will change.”
“I am sorry to hear this, Arthur.”
Arthur patted the shoulders he was still gripping like a steering wheel. “Don’t be sorry. It’s not that bad any more. Because I found this mill. I walked down and I looked at it and I thought of all the flour inside. I imagined all the fruit and plain and treacle and potato scones, the soda bread and pancakes that much flour could make. I imagined all the meals I would have a hand in—my hands. I imagined the tiny particles of skin that would leave even scrubbed-clean hands when I kneaded the dough and that hundreds, maybe thousands of people would be eating small amounts of me for years to come. I felt depressed.”
“I can see that, Arthur.”
“Good. Because then I looked at the shake. There. The shake. And something began to be all right.”
“Why was that, Arthur?”
“Because in my head I could picture all the men and women inside the mill, working in time to the shake. I could see them shimmying out here after their shifts were over like a big samba line. Do you see?”
He was gently rocking Savinien’s body, side to side, letting his feet take up a little slide, leaning in and back, in and back. DA-da-da-da, DA-da-da-da, DA-da-da-da, DA-da-da-da. I watched while Arthur lifted his arms away and let them wing out at his sides and shake. He swivelled on his heels and smiled from behind a billow of frozen laughter.
“Do you see? Now that would be a job. That would be a job. DA-da-da-da, DA-da-da-da. You’d have to be crazy, even to try. It’d be DA-da-da-da, DA-da-da-da, every bloody day.”
Savinien had subsided into stillness but he was watching, very definitely watching.
“Makes me laugh. Even when I’m up to my neck in fucking scones, it makes me laugh, have a little shake down in the flour, get it under my feet and let it slip.”
Arthur was covering a fair area of the car park now, getting fancy, negotiating pot holes in reverse, and Savinien followed, very straight and slow. Finally he raised his hands as if he were holding them out to a fire, or perhaps surrendering.
“Arthur, you will have to stop now because I cannot do this.”
“You would get the hang of it. If you tried it.”
“No.”
“Yeah, come on. Sure you can.”
“No.”
And Savinien made a perfect lunge for Arthur. Precise and terribly fast he had reached and held him in a beat. Arthur stumbled, fell back, taking both of them down in a clumsy roll.
“Whao—”
“I apologise.”
“What are you—”
“I am very deeply grateful for what you have done here and I apologise for stopping you now, but I had to. I could not watch for any longer. I’m sure you understand.”
“Let me up.”
“Of course.”
They clambered up against each other and stood. I thought Arthur looked angry, but when he faced Savinien, I could see his body suddenly relax. Moving together, they touched arms briefly, embraced with stiff little pats on the back and then broke apart, already walking back towards me. Savinien coughed and nodded in my direction, his face in darkness.
&n
bsp; Something of practical use had been engineered. Arthur had made a contact I could not exactly understand. He had done something I could not, and in a very small way, I hated him for it.
We went home then.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Liz told me something nice.
“I’m moving out.”
“Hm?”
Savinien was out in the garden, standing, and I’d been watching him through the kitchen window. Liz surprised me simply by being there. Then again, she always did.
“I’m moving out.”
“Is it something we said?”
“No. I’m going to live with Sandy.”
“Ah . . . that’s nice. Isn’t he . . .”
“The divorce came through last week.”
“Oh.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re so upset I’m going. I’ll miss you, too.”
“No, no. I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep very well last night. I, uh, it won’t be the same without you.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“No, really. You’ll have to come back and visit.”
“I will. I’ll bring Sandy.”
“It would be good to meet him. Listen, we’ll have to all go out and have dinner or something to . . .”
“Celebrate?”
“Yes, we should celebrate you and Sandy. What do you think?”
“All right.”
And what did I think? I thought there would be a room free now. I thought that even when Pete came back for good there would be a room free and that I knew who could have it. I thought that the time would pass and the household would settle down and maybe, who could tell, we all might get used to each other in ways I might find enjoyable. I thought of ways that would be all for me.
I went out and crossed the grass to Savinien. Simple things like this were becoming oddly uneasy. When I walked near him I became too aware of my feet which became in turn too heavy. I was suddenly anxious in case I stumbled or even fell.
“This is truly the spring here, Jennifer. I know finally this will stay. The garden knows also.”
“I think you could be right, but don’t . . . I mean you can be happy even if it’s raining.” His moods lately had been chained directly to the climate. I didn’t want him opening himself to another disappointment.
“Come and see over here. This morning I found something.”
So that I would follow him more exactly, he took my hand. He had a hot, dry grip, a healthy pressure.
“There.”
One of last year’s flowers had seeded itself back to first principles and was now producing miniature petals, thick luminous blue with an orange heart.
“I don’t know what they are.”
He still hadn’t let go of my hand although he was no longer leading me. I adjusted my fingers slightly but neither of us let go.
“What they are is fine. They are alive.” I felt his fingers move. “Jennifer, I must tell you something of importance.”
“Hhum, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Well, do, then.”
“You have a very horrible garden. I am going to dig at it and make it better. I no longer wish to look at it like this.”
“That’s good.”
“I have to occupy myself. I can no longer make words grow.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“I cannot wait. I have come to a decision that I will be changed. I will make something new at which I am good. I am a writer who cannot write. This will be acceptable to me. I will not write. I am a fighter who will no longer fight. I have no heart for it. I cannot make a reputation here, I have no need to buy my place and no one will buy me. I am beyond this now. I will be with flowers and make them grow.”
“I am glad. I really am. I know I may not sound it convincingly, but I am happy for you.”
“Show me.”
“I am, I’m smiling. You see, I’m glad.”
“No. Show me so that I know.”
“If I can think of how to show you then I will.”
“You are very good at thinking. Why is this difficult?”
I reached out to take his free hand, but he lifted it away. To touch even his wrist I would have had to close the distance between us without his help. And I could not.
“It’s difficult, that’s all.”
“I understand.”
Why do people always say that precisely when they don’t?
“I understand. You’re very kind to me. And I am most grateful.”
“I’m not being kind.”
“Yes. You are being terribly kind and I appreciate this. You have already done more than I could expect.”
Something in his face damped and died. He retreated into courtesy, his stance slipping into formality until I was watching the man he must once have been, carefully fielding a rejection in the predetermined style. He bowed to show me the soft crown of his head, his naked neck, and I knew he would kiss my hand, felt him kiss my hand, held steady under the long, angry touch of his breath.
His eyes, lifting, let out a blink of something live then hooded themselves again.
“I believe that Arthur is watching us from the kitchen window. It would be unfortunate should he misunderstand our situation.”
I found it absurdly hard to turn and move away. So I wrote him a letter. Not a logical thing to do—he would have been unable to read it—but then again, I was unable to send it. Our positions equalised.
I find that I can’t remember how it read now, although it occupied me for almost a week. Before I went to sleep, tried to sleep, I would make letters in my head and then on paper and then I would destroy them. I never got one right.
Today my situation is quite different, but some things haven’t changed. This last week I have either slept with one rather small dream fixed in my head, repeating and repeating, or I have not slept at all. And if I wrote Savinien a letter now, set words out for me to see, I think I would recognise most of what I had to say then.
Except I want to speak to him now. I want to write to him today. Still, that’s my affair. Think of what follows as the letter I would have written then and it will serve you and the story perfectly well.
Indulge me for a page.
I don’t have to say who I’m writing this to—we already know. We are we, Écuyer de Cyrano. We are we. I am more than myself now when I never asked to be because I am still you and I. I can remember how to be that.
The bare words are I love you.
I miss you.
I love you and I miss you. Those two verbs are so close together, I can’t feel them apart. But if I must feel at all, why this?
You are the person who makes me mind the empty spaces I have and the empty rooms. You are the only human being with that much power over my life. Do you think this is something I like? I do not want to be completed, I do not want to be opened up, or let free, or to live in any way more richly than I do now. I do not, I do not, I do not and then I do. Your fault. Do you know I miss you all the time? All of it.
I would like to see peace in the world. I would like to be happy. I would like to touch your mouth. I would like the universe to turn and to work in precisely the way that it must and I would like not to lie down again without you.
Something about myself lately makes me cry quite randomly, as if I were very old, or very young, or very stupid, and the days are going on now—I’m afraid that I’ll have to stay this way, or that if I can change, I will simply stop living at all. I would much rather be optimistic on this point.
“Try a piece for your Uncle Arthur.”
Arthur had made a sponge cake, which was unusual, he didn’t like to bake at home.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not really—”
“I don’t care if you’re not really, I’m not baking fucking sponges for the good of my health. This is an attempt to inject a little domestic comfort into the household.”
“Why?”
“Why? You are joking. Liz is on the verge of disappearing completely, whats
hisname—”
“Savinien.”
“Is either bulldozing the garden or asleep—”
“And I’m being a depressing cow?”
“And working too hard again. You’ll be ill. Have a piece of sponge cake. It’s real cream.”
“And real jam?”
“Yes, my mum made it.”
“I’m honoured.”
“You don’t deserve it. Have you fallen out? Don’t ask me ‘who with?’—you know perfectly well.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, could you ask each other, please? If I have to spend another week lodging in Castle Dracula, I may begin to enjoy going out to work.”
“All right.”
“Promise?”
“Yes. I promise. Whatever . . .”
“And how’s the sponge?”
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t concentrating, it’s probably very nice.”
“You complete bitch.”
“It’s great. I was joking. It’s a wonderful sponge cake, really. Twelve on a scale of one to ten.”
“Too late. I’m climbing into the washing machine now, I may be gone some time.”
“Could you take a few blouses in there with you?”
“You’ll be sorry.”
He was right, though. I had to do something. Apart from anything else, I knew that loneliness was affecting Savinien’s health. He was looking far more tired than just gardening could make him.
At the front of the house we were blessed with a raw area of sandy ground where Liz’s attachments sometimes parked their cars. Not being drivers, none of us had found any use for it. Savinien had spent the last two full days digging it over into something like soil, harvesting a great deal of waste paper and glass and a low mound of broken brick and concrete slabbing. We were going to get another garden from the bare ground up.
I sat on the front steps and watched him spading a pattern into the levelled earth. The sharp mineral scent of turned soil was everywhere. Now and then he would draw himself up and step away to judge the symmetry of his progress. Each time, he would carefully offer me his back, pause, sniff and return to his work.
So I Am Glad Page 19