Homecoming

by Susie Steiner

  Ruby is the first thing he thinks of as he looks around the room – the emptiness of the place without her clothes thrown on the chair or her grapefruit shower gel coming out with the steam from the bathroom. He’s no right to complain of course – it was his decision. And just because he feels it, just because she’s the first person he thinks of in the morning and just because she appears sometimes in his dreams and just because he looks up to her window in the street, doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right decision.

  He sits up and bends over the side of the bed to where his jeans are two rumpled leg holes, like casts. He feels in the pocket for his mobile phone and looks at the screen. Nothing. The phone has become inert since they broke up, when before it was always haranguing him. Silly to check it – an old habit.

  He lies back down in the bed, unable to generate the required energy to shower, have breakfast and go to work. He’d been like this throughout January – in at ten, away by four, his efforts lacklustre. It was as if a careless co-pilot had taken control of the plane, ever since Christmas.

  He’d offered to stay after the fire, but Joe had said no, you get home, son, home to your business. And Max had chimed in: ‘We’ll manage. We always do.’ And he’d felt he was being ushered out, to the train station. When he’d looked back from the end of the path, Joe was standing in the doorway, holding his bandaged hand in his other, and a gust of rude wind blew at his hair so it stood up in a lick on his head. He’d never seen his father look so vulnerable. Max had stood next to him, towering over him. Taking them for everything they have, Bartholomew had thought as he ducked into his hire car, except there was nothing to take. He had driven away from the acrid barn smoke that’d made his snot go black and the worn warmth of the farmhouse and the crow’s cawing that were so visceral to him. And it was like an awful claustrophobia lifted. All the things he couldn’t bear, they were receding, and he seemed to exhale as the train sped down the country, fast and warm and civilised. He’d got back to his own life.

  He swings his legs round forty-five degrees so his feet plant on the floor, but he stops there, staring down at them. Back to his own life. He couldn’t help his parents, not from so far away, and if they were giving it all to Max, well, let him deal with it then. His heart had hardened and he’d felt pleasure in it.

  Back on Theobald Road, he’d walked straight past Ruby’s door to his own. He wasn’t going to deal with any of that pressure either – the scarf guilt, the failure to return her texts, the spectre of her questioning face asking what the matter was. It’s not like he owed her anything, not like they were beholden to one another. He stays there, his elbows on his knees, staring at his cold feet. Yes, life was a lot simpler now.

  ‘Afternoon,’ Leonard says, tapping his watch. ‘Nice lie-in?’

  ‘Sod off, Leonard,’ says Bartholomew. He bends down to chain his bicycle to a pipe at the side of the building.

  ‘I’m just finishing off the pruning and then I thought I’d start re-potting some of those hellebores,’ says Leonard, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder.

  Christ, thinks Bartholomew, it’s like he’s been on assertiveness training.

  ‘They’re a bit pot-bound some of them,’ Leonard is saying. His body is quick with new energy. ‘And then I’ll top-dress the rest, I think. Gorgeous day, isn’t it?’ He claps his hands together, rubbing them rapidly and squinting into the sun.

  Bartholomew says nothing. Ever since he returned from Yorkshire, all these weeks when he’s expressed no real interest in the work, there’s been a creeping sea change: Leonard keeps coming up with ideas. Taking the initiative. He’s working longer hours, hasn’t taken a day off since Christmas. Driving him nuts. Why can’t they both just kick back? Make a brew and sell some fishing gnomes and head home to watch telly?

  ‘Also, I’m going through the tool shed,’ Leonard is saying. ‘I’m going to chuck some of the really rusted spades if it’s alright by you. Most of the secateurs will come up with sharpening. Nearly spring, Bartholomew. We have to be ready.’

  ‘You knock yourself out, Leonard,’ says Bartholomew.

  ‘I’m making tea,’ says Leonard. ‘D’you want one?’

  Inside, he peels off his cycling gear while Leonard fills the kettle. The faucet squeaks in the roof as Bartholomew walks over to the counter and begins flicking through a laminated catalogue from one of the wholesalers. He’s already tired. Already sick of the day.

  ‘The quinces have flowered on the bottom trellis,’ Leonard is saying, over the growing rumble of the kettle. ‘Have you seen them? “Phyllis Moore”. Just glorious. The colour of lobster.’

  Bartholomew keeps staring at the laminated catalogue.

  Leonard presses on. ‘What are we doing with that long trough to the left of the hydrangeas? Last summer you talked about having a section of tall meadow plants – you know, your Baltic parsleys and your angelicas, valerians.’

  ‘Didn’t know you were listening.’

  ‘Only I’ll need to start them off in the greenhouse.’

  ‘D’you know what? Fuck it,’ says Bartholomew. ‘I’m going to order a ton of these,’ and he’s tapping the page in the catalogue, the page showing plastic toadstools and butterflies on metal poles. ‘This shit sells.’

  ‘But the plants for that trough –’

  ‘Nope,’ says Bartholomew, and he’s hard, hard on the inside. ‘We’re going to clear that trough and fill it with plastic shit that makes money.’ It’s like he’s drunk on carelessness.

  ‘Have you seen the paper anywhere?’ Leonard asks.

  ‘Here you go,’ says Bartholomew, handing it rolled.

  Leonard takes it and his tea in the other hand and says, ‘Well . . . I . . .’ and half his body is pointing down the corridor.

  ‘Off you go,’ says Bartholomew. ‘Far be it for me to interrupt the call of nature.’

  Leonard laughs.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Bartholomew asks.

  ‘No, it’s just, you sounded just like me, then.’

  ‘My life is complete,’ says Bartholomew.

  They are outside in the impossible warmth. February sometimes threw out days like this, full of false promise, and then March would come in bitter as anything. Both have taken off their fleeces as they work in the shimmering sun, which slants across the land. Bartholomew sees a whole trough full of ‘Harmony’ dwarf irises, electric-blue like peacock feathers against green stems, and for a moment he admires Leonard’s work, which has gone on without him all these weeks.

  ‘So, we’re going more down the accessories line,’ says Leonard and he tips a hellebore into his gloved hand. The white roots of the plant have formed a dense mesh, still holding the shape of the pot. Bartholomew sees how gently Leonard teases them out.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do yet,’ he says. ‘I might sell up.’ He throws it out like a hand grenade. ‘Haven’t decided.’

  ‘Sell up? When?’

  ‘Dunno, summer maybe.’

  ‘What will I do?’

  ‘You’ll live. Get a job at Maguire’s.’

  ‘I gave up a job at Maguire’s to work for you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, like I say, I haven’t decided.’

  ‘This is my livelihood.’

  ‘Oh back off, Leonard.’

  ‘When d’you think you’ll know? Only, I have to renew my lease on my flat but if I’m not going to have a job . . .’

  ‘I’m not your mother, Leonard.’

  ‘No, you’re my employer.’

  ‘Oh god, look, forget I mentioned it. I’m sick of being responsible for everything, alright? This place, you, Ruby – we all just have to do what’s best for ourselves, individually, that’s all. You live your life, I’ll live mine.’

  He knows he isn’t telling the truth.

  Leonard is frowning but he goes back to his work. Bartholomew takes his phone out and looks at the screen. Nothing. A crazy habit, but he sets no store by it, the way he still searches for her, though it’s be
en six weeks now. He still slows on the street outside her door, looks up at her windows, can feel his heart quicken whenever her light is on. It’s the habit of it and it will lessen with time, especially now that she’s moved on.

  About a week ago, he’d walked down Theobald Road and her door was open. He had slowed and heard footsteps tramping down the steps from her flat and all of a sudden there she was, on the street in front of him. She was carrying a box to an open car boot. Dave Garside came out after her, carrying another, then went back up the stairs.

  ‘Hello,’ Bartholomew had said, standing next to his bicycle. His whole body was pulsating with the strangeness of seeing her. He wished he wasn’t wearing his helmet. She was thin – gaunt really – and so pretty with it. Her eyes looked bigger in her elfin face.

  She looked at him, but said nothing.

  ‘What’s Dave doing here?’ he’d said.

  ‘He’s helping me move.’

  ‘Move? Why are you moving?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ She placed the box in the car boot.

  He was bewildered by the finality of it – that he had set something so irreversible in train.

  ‘I didn’t mean . . .’ he started.

  ‘What, Bartholomew? Didn’t mean to shit on me from a great height?’

  ‘There’s no need for that. We can still be civil,’ he’d said.

  ‘I don’t feel civil.’

  ‘Where are you moving to?’

  ‘Dave’s got me a place.’

  ‘Are you two . . . ?’

  ‘None of your business. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a lot of boxes to bring down.’

  And he’d heard her say ‘twat’ as she stomped up the stairs.

  He watches Leonard walk away to the warehouse. Fast pigeon steps, the panic written all over his back. Bartholomew knows he’ll not hear the end of it now.

  *

  Evening time and the dark surrounds Max, right down to his feet, and he is grateful for it. His heart is thudding and the sweat is drying off his face, cold and relieving. That had been a close call – the closest yet. He’s thankful to be out of there, that hot bar, too many folk asking too many questions and her. He’s relieved to be walking home across the moor on this uncommon mild night, back to Primrose. He’s not done right by her. It’s been two weeks since the baby was lost and he should have looked after her better but he forgives himself because he was under the weight of that sad thing and he’d lost control. But tonight, that was different. That was a narrow escape.

  He’d been about to leave the Fox when Sheryl had nodded towards the hallway behind the bar where the stairs led up to her and Tony’s living quarters and the crisps were stacked in boxes. He had gingerly followed her there, and she – she had pushed herself against him, licking his ear and his nostrils had filled with her over-sweet perfume. Sickly musk. She seemed excited by it – with the pub full and Tony pulling pints a few feet away. Max had looked nervously to the side, checking if anyone could see.

  ‘Careful,’ he’d said and he could hear how weak it sounded. ‘I should get back. Sheryl, watch it. I really have to head, Prim’s expecting me.’

  ‘Wonder what people’d say,’ Sheryl had breathed, rubbing up against him next to the crisps. ‘Everyone round here – if they found out.’

  ‘Aye, well, let’s not chance it, eh,’ he’d said, trying to edge out from under her.

  ‘I wonder if anyone suspects,’ Sheryl had whispered and she was clearly getting off on it. Nothing short of scary.

  He’d escaped out through the bar and past the tables but not before Fat Mo Dorkin had met his eye, raising her pint and saying, ‘Alright, Max? What were you doing back there with Sheryl, then?’

  Never missed a trick, Mo.

  ‘Just helping with a barrel,’ he’d said and pulled the door open, grateful to the fresh air for hitting his face.

  *

  Primrose has her legs curled under her. She is wearing her pink chenille dressing gown – thick and warm, if only it wouldn’t give off those occasional electric shocks – and her fluffy slippers with the heart motif. She’s on the sofa. The room is dark and the television is on, though she’s not really taking in the programme, some game show or other. She has a limp hand on her lower belly, out of habit maybe, or perhaps because it’s starting to ache a bit, the last day or two. She’s hardly shifted from this position since it happened, hasn’t changed her clothes. The only person she’s told is Claire, to explain why she’s not coming to work.

  ‘Course you’re not,’ Claire had said. ‘Don’t give it a second thought. D’ye want a visit? Can I bring you owt?’

  ‘No, you’re alright.’

  There’s a little hardened bit in her lower belly and she doesn’t feel right but the hardened bit might just be the sadness which is all over the room and all over the house. When she looks in the mirror, she sees she’s very pale but it’s as if she’s looking at a stranger, or someone she doesn’t care much about. So she goes back to the sofa and the flickering blue lights of the telly.

  She hears Max’s key in the door but doesn’t move or respond to the sound. He’s not been around much since it happened and when the bed heaves downwards when he gets into it in the early hours, she can smell the beer reeking off him and it makes her feel vaguely sick. But she doesn’t really care about him, either, if truth be told.

  He has sat down next to her in the dark. The blue lights of the telly illuminate his features, bright then dark. He pats her knee. She looks down at his hand on her leg. Then she shifts her body so her legs are curled to the other side.

  ‘What’ye watching?’ he says.

  ‘Dunno, reruns of Celebrity Squares I think. Another night at the Fox?’

  She says it without accusation – she doesn’t care enough to accuse him. But it doesn’t come out that way.

  ‘Only a quick one after work. How’re you feeling?’

  ‘Fine,’ she says.

  She hears his mobile phone bleep in his pocket. He stretches his legs so he can reach into his jeans and looks at the screen, then gets up hastily and goes out of the room.

  After a minute or two, she hears him shout from the kitchen. ‘Jesus Prim, you could’ve cleaned the place up a bit.’ He’s agitated. She can hear it in his voice. True, the kitchen was a mess. She’d had no energy to wash the plates or clear the crumbs, the apple cores, the bits of toast. They mingled with her tools on the table, from earlier when she’d taken apart a lamp.

  She can hear him clattering about in there, can hear he’s cross from the way he’s throwing crockery into the sink. But through the fog of her lethargy and the dull ache in her belly, she couldn’t give a —

  ‘Could ye not have washed up at least?’ he says, behind her in the doorway.

  She continues to watch the television.

  He walks out again.

  *

  Joe steps outside and smells the air suddenly full of spring. It is so warm, the atmosphere appearing to carry currents from some tropical zone. The smell is of drying grass and plant sap rising.

  He stands in the yard out back and takes a deep breath, his chest opening, and he feels some of the tension of winter begin to evaporate. His limbs, for the first time, do not feel cold or damp – he can move them freely. The barn is there, still a charred silhouette, but neat and swept up in its destitution at least.

  ‘Fine day,’ he says to Max, who is fixing a nut on one of the tractor attachments. Joe sees his reddened face and eyes, small and deep-set. He’s smelt the drink on him, this last week, but doesn’t like to mention it. Thinks it must be the pressure of the baby coming – all men feel it – and then the farm coming to him, and Joe thinks perhaps they should hold off on that last thing. Give it another year, until Max is more ready. But he doesn’t say anything about this either, not yet.

  ‘Let’s move the stores over to some fresh grazing – they’ve stripped that field bare on the east side,’ Joe says. They are fattening lambs on the in-bye, re
ady to sell at auction the following month: the males, the females not good enough for breeding and the draft ewes that have lost their teeth with age and so can’t pull at the rougher upland turf.

  ‘Right you are,’ says Max, and he calls to the dogs.

  ‘I’ll get my stick,’ says Joe.

  They walk together across the in-bye – thirty acres that have emerged muddy green since the snows went. Joe looks forward to when they’ll drive the ewes down off the ridge for lambing, end of the month or early next. He loves that job – the sense of anticipation of what the ewes might produce (because you never know, not until the lambs actually come), the fell dancing its different browns and the trees in leaf and if you’ve decent dogs and the job’s done right, it’s a skill to be proud of. His father would’ve been pleased to see him do it, with his son alongside him and the next generation on the way.

  ‘Have you finished the fences like I asked ye?’ Joe says to Max, who is tramping silently, the dogs running alongside him.

  ‘Not altogether,’ Max says. He doesn’t meet Joe’s eye.

  What is wrong with the boy?

  *

  The sheep fill the lane like a white woollen river.

  Max and Joe walk with them and with the dogs and they call out during their slow march. They keep the sheep moving and stop them from straying or nipping at the grass on the verge with strong mouths. Cars idle behind them and the sun flashes off their windscreens and when Joe finally nods them past, the drivers wave and Max can see how proud his father is to be seen doing this work.

  Max’s mind is fogged with sleep and worry. He’s got to knock things on the head with Sheryl, but she’s only becoming more insistent. Last night – that text – with Primrose in the room. That’d unsettled him. Like Sheryl had barged into his house.

  You’re a dirty boy

  He frowns.

  ‘Primrose must be getting a bump,’ shouts Joe, over the wool. ‘When are we going to see her?’