By midday, he hadn’t achieved anything remotely productive. He
couldn’t concentrate on his work, so he decided to walk to the café at the end
of the street to buy a sandwich. He wasn’t really hungry, but he hoped the fresh
air might clear his head. He got up from his desk, mumbled something to his
supervisor, and took the lift down to the ground floor.
When the lift reached reception and the doors opened, he saw Kerri
waiting for him. Her eyes were lowered to the heavy-looking shoulder bag at
her feet. Her teeth chewed her bottom lip. For a moment, all he could do was
stand and gape, drinking her in. Then the doors began to close, and he had to
put out a hand to stop them.
“Kerri?” He cleared his throat. “Oh my God. What are you doing here?”
Her head jerked up. She stood straighter and wiped her eyes on the cuff
of her denim jacket.
“Take me for a drink,” she said.
LEE TOOK HER to The Lion, a small corner pub close to his house, and the nearest
thing he had to a local. By the time they got there, all evidence of tears had
vanished from her eyes. They ordered drinks—a bottle of Spanish lager for
him; a vodka and coke for her—and took them out to a table in the beer garden.
“So,” she said, placing her bag on the concrete floor at her feet, “how’s
the job?”
Lee looked at her. She was four years older than she had been the last
time they’d seen each other, and she’d lost some weight around her face. Her
cheeks seemed thinner and the shadows deeper beneath her eyes.
“Okay, I guess.” They had the garden to themselves.
“You don’t sound very enthused.”
“Well, it’s hardly my dream job.”
“What is it you do?”
Lee sipped the froth from the top of his bottle. It tasted vaguely coppery.
“I write code.”
“For computer games?”
“No, but I wish I did. At least that would be interesting.”
“What, then?”
“We provide ERP systems designed for small and medium-sized
organisations.”
“ERP?”
“Enterprise Resource Planning. It’s basically an accounts package with
bolt-on HR and payroll modules.”
“Sounds riveting.”
“Trust me, it’s not.” They lapsed into an awkward silence. The ‘garden’
was little more than a repurposed and high-walled yard. Kerri fiddled with the
button on the cuff of her denim jacket. Eventually, and without looking up, she
asked,
“Do you ever go back?”
18
“What, back home?” Lee shook his head. His fingers worried the label
on his beer bottle. “My parents are getting a divorce.” It was the first time he’d
said it out loud.
“Oh shit, I’m sorry.”
“I guess these things happen. At least, they happen to other people all
the time. I just never expected…” He trailed off. In his mind’s eye, he saw a
stone tumbling through the hot and empty air above the sun-bleached quarry.
In the past eight years, neither of them had mentioned Glyn but the boy’s
presence had always been there, in the silences between their words.
“There’s nothing back there for me, either.” Kerri shrugged matter-of-
factly. “Not since Dad sold the farm.”
“Where is he now?”
“Living in a teepee in West Wales.”
“Really?’
“Yeah.” She made a face. “I couldn’t believe it either. I was all like, ‘you
fucking what?’ But then he sent me half the money from the sale of the house,
which was pretty cool of him, and it got me out of a tonne of shit with my
landlord.”
“So, what brings you to Bristol?”
Kerri went quiet. After a couple of minutes, she said, “I just broke up
with someone. We were living together but things turned weird. I had a job in
a sandwich shop near the station and after we broke up, she started hanging
out in front of the place, looking through the windows. Sometimes she’d be
there for my whole shift, standing in the rain with her face pressed up to the
glass.”
“So, you left?”
With the toe of her boot, Kerri nudged the bag at her feet. “I had to. I
thought she was going to go all Single White Female on me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I thought-”
“You want to stay with me?”
“For a few days, if that’s okay? I’ve got nowhere else, really, and you’re
my oldest friend.”
Lee drained his glass, sucking down the last of the suds.
“Sure, why not? With the day I’ve had, I could probably use the
company.” He looked at the pale curve of her throat. “But I’ve only got the one
bed…”
“I’ll be fine on the floor.”
“Okay.” He looked at the time on his mobile phone. “I’ve got to be back
at work in half an hour. Take my key and make yourself at home. I’ll be back
just after six.”
“Thank you.” From the pocket of her jacket she pulled a couple of hand
rolled cigarettes. They were a little bent and crumpled, so she smoothed them
out on the table’s sun-warmed wood. “Here you go.” She passed one across to
him.
“I don’t smoke.”
19
“It’s a joint.”
Lee picked it up between thumb and index finger. “You mean cannabis.”
Kerri gave a snort of laughter.
“Yes, of course. What’s the matter? Haven’t you ever…?”
“As a matter of fact, no.”
“Really?” Despite the raised eyebrows, he thought he detected
something more than surprise in her expression: admiration, perhaps. “Okay,
well there’s nothing to it. Just watch me. I’ll show you what to do.”
BACK AT WORK, the rest of the afternoon passed in a pleasant, if unproductive,
haze. When he got home, he found Kerri asleep on his bed. He kicked off his
shoes and lay behind her. Her hair smelled of smoke and pine-scented
shampoo, and he could feel the warmth of her skin through her clothes. Gently,
he draped an arm over her.
For a moment, she snuggled into his embrace, squirming like a
contented cat. Then she stopped and went rigid.
“What’s going on?”
“Huh?”
She shrugged him off and scrambled away, sitting with her back pressed
against the wall.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
He blinked at her.
“I don’t know, I thought-”
“Jesus Christ!” She smacked her palms on the covers. “Just because I
need your help, that doesn’t mean I’m going to sleep with you.”
“I didn’t think-”
“I mean you of all people-”
“What?”
“I don’t-” She rubbed the back of her neck. “I mean, not with boys. Not
ever.”
“What about the quarry?”
Her expression hardened.
“That was the one and only time. An experiment. I thought maybe if I
tried it with a boy…” Her voice wavered. “It was stupid, but I didn’t know
what else to do. And then you… You threw that rock.”
Lee felt a pit op
en in his stomach.
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t touch me.” She pulled the duvet up to cover herself. “Not like
that, not ever, okay?”
20
3.
LEE WALKED HOME from work through the golden haze of a warm September’s
eve. He’d stayed late to talk to Green Sphinx’s contractors in California. They
were eight hours behind the UK, but he didn’t mind. He’d struck up something
of a relationship with a programmer called Francesca, who lived in Pasadena
and drove a dinged-up Volkswagen Beetle. They had been working on the
same project for the past six weeks, and a few playful comments in their work-
related emails to each other had somehow led to some serious flirting on social
media. She was a year older than him and liked the same sort of comics he did.
She’d just posted a photo of her ankle tattoo to her online profile. Talking to
her tonight, even though it had officially been a business call, had been a lot of
fun. He couldn’t get enough of the way she spoke, and she loved his
pronunciation of everyday words. Just saying ‘hello’ was enough to reduce her
to fits of giggles.
“And good day to you, your lordship,” she’d reply, putting on her idea
of a posh British accent—in reality, an impersonation of Katherine Hepburn’s
upper-class manner in The Philadelphia Story, which was her favourite movie.
Thinking about her now, Lee smiled. The breeze held the intoxicating
scents of hot roads and cool summer evenings. Lawnmowers buzzed behind
garden fences, and groups of Friday drinkers milled outside The Lion, listening
to the music that came from the open sash windows.
When he reached his front step, he fished out his key and shouldered
open the big front door. Kerri was in the communal kitchen, and the aroma of
bubbling vegetable curry assailed his nostrils.
“Hey.” She had an apron tied around her waist, over a pair of cut-off
denim shorts and a black waistcoat. Her feet were bare, and she’d scrunched
her hair up in a knot and fixed it in place with a couple of old wooden
chopsticks. For the last three months, she’d been living in the basement, which
she’d converted into a sort of art studio. She spent most of her time down there,
painting these angry black and orange canvasses with titles such as ‘Betrayal’
and ‘Alone in The Void’.
Lee dumped his laptop on the table, walked to the fridge and took out a
beer.
“There’s a message for you,” Kerri said, stirring her pan. She nodded
towards the old wooden kitchen table, and its permanent slick of takeaway
menus, free newspapers and old phone books. She’d left a handwritten note
beneath a used coffee mug. “Somebody called Ally rang. It’s about your
father.”
LEE’S FATHER LIVED in Glastonbury, in a red brick terraced house in the shadow
of the Tor. It was an hour’s drive from Bristol. Coming across the flat wetlands
and farm country of the Somerset Levels, the conical hill dominated the skyline.
A ruined church tower stood like an ageless monolith on its summit.
21
When Lee knocked at the door of his father’s house, Ally opened it.
“Lee?” She was a former art student in her early twenties, all black
Lycra, silver bangles and paisley skirts.
“You said it was urgent.”
“Yes.” She stood aside to let him in. The front room was a mess. As far
as Lee knew, they had been in this house for six weeks, yet there were still
unpacked boxes stacked against the wall and piles of unsorted books waiting
to be shelved. A mobile hung in the corner, twisting gently. It had been made
from copper wire, coloured beads and long white feathers. Bare wires above
the fireplace showed where the TV would go, when they got around to fixing
it up.
“Where is he?”
“Ifan’s in his study.” Ali fiddled with her necklace. “He really wants to
see you.”
“Really?” Lee couldn’t disguise his resentment. Six weeks had passed
since his mother broke the news of the divorce, and his father hadn’t been in
touch once. The least the old man could have done was pick up the phone to
tell his own side of the story, and to check how his son was doing.
“He’s in the back bedroom.” Ally wouldn’t meet his eye. “You go on up,
and I’ll put the kettle on.”
She fled for the kitchen. Lee stood at the bottom of the stairs for a
moment. His stomach felt hollow and sour. The coffee he’d drunk on the way
here lay inside him like a lukewarm slick.
Suppose the old man had been avoiding him, ducking his disapproval.
Why send for him now?
With a huff, Lee gripped the bannister and climbed the creaking
staircase. The carpet had been pulled up, revealing the original wooden boards,
which were flecked with paint. When he reached the landing, he knocked on
the backroom door, and then pushed it open without waiting for a response.
His father sat in an armchair by the window. The view looked out onto
the neighbouring gardens. In the sunlight, the hedges and trees seemed almost
unbearably green.
“You made it, then?” The old man’s voice was gruff. He wore a pair of
shabby chinos, a button-down check shirt, and a green corduroy jacket. “How’s
your mother?”
The only other seat in the room was an office chair by the desk in the
corner. Lee pulled it out and eased himself onto it. The casters felt skittish on
the bare floorboards.
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” The coffee seemed to be trying to
squeeze its way out between his ribs.
“We’re not exactly on speaking terms right now.”
“And whose fault is that?”
Ifan turned his face to the window. Beyond the garden’s rear border,
sheep cropped the hillside.
“You have a right to be angry.”
22
“Do I?” Lee tapped his toes against the floor. In the car, he’d rehearsed
what he was going to say. He’d made a list of grievances, starting with the
divorce and working back through his upbringing, numbering all the times his
father had been physically or emotionally absent, too caught up in work and
research to participate in his own son’s childhood, or tend to the wellbeing of
his marriage.
“Of course.” Ifan didn’t turn. “I’m sure you’re disappointed at the way
things have worked out.”
“Disappointed?” Lee stood. The chair rolled away behind him and
bumped against the wall. “You don’t even know the half of it.” He wanted to
walk out, get back in his car and go home.
His father sighed.
“Sit down, boy. Before you say anything else, there’s something you
should know. Something I want to tell you.”
Lee’s hands were shaking. He squeezed them into fists.
“And what’s that, that you feel sorry?”
Ifan shook his head. His chin dropped to his chest. The light from the
window picked out the grey in his hair, the dandruff on his shoulders.
Downstairs, his girlfriend rattled cups and saucers as she boiled the kettle.
“I’m dying,” the old man cr
oaked. “I have cancer.”
LATER, LEE FOUND he was unable to remember leaving the house. The next thing
he recalled, he was sitting in the car, in a layby off the A39, somewhere on the
Mendip hills between Wells and Bristol. The sun had set, and the sky had
turned the colour of a day-old bruise. Ahead, through the windshield, he could
see the lights of a plane on approach to Bristol Airport. To the West, above the
distant hills of Wales, the clouds smouldered like barbeque coals.
His fingers hurt from gripping the steering wheel, so he pried them
loose and opened the door. Outside, an evening breeze flapped his shirt,
bringing with it the rural aromas of dried cow shit, warm earth and fresh hay.
His arms and legs felt wobbly with shock. From across the fields, he could hear
the low grumble of a tractor.
Walking carefully around to the passenger side, he opened the door and
looked in the glove box. Kerri had left a couple of joints and a box of matches
in a drawstring bag. He retrieved one and, leaning against the car, lit up,
cupping his hand around the match to stop it going out. The smoke bit into his
chest, but he managed not to cough. He felt his head go light and exhaled
Gareth L Powell Page 3