It’s nerve-wracking. I’m expecting the throng to part any second and reveal Adelina at the back of the room. I’m no good with contrasts. To see her sitting in one of these pink-cushioned chairs is as improbable as me standing at a balcony watching a storm sweep towards that hill-top hotel in Las Terrazas. It’s all about belonging to your own space. I’m Jim Drever, Stillman. I’m known for certain patterns of behaviour. And indulged, most likely, for the same reasons. I’ve spent my whole life soaking up the lessons of the master, my father. He sits here beside me and how could it be otherwise? He makes sense only here, nowhere else. It took a few months after I got back from Cuba to remember that I am exactly the same.
Problem is that improbability always leaves the door open to the possible. Adelina’s nowhere to be seen as we file out to Bryan Adams, Everything I do, I Do It For You. But that doesn’t mean she’s gone. My wife grips my arm tightly, still beaming and dabbing. Botox couldn’t make my smile less believable and I’m paranoid about how my kilt is loosening with every step. Behind us the Boy helps the old man and we all slow to a crawl so they don’t get left behind. Amber and Peter’s steps have synchronised, they could be about to lay a wreath on a war memorial. The weather too is more in keeping with solemnity, the hard-flurrying snow, the grim half-light filled with grinning ghosts. Here come my mother and John Tannehill.
They look nervous, unsure whether they should have come. But this is a family occasion, they belong here too. John’s a big, physical guy, I could see him working the barrels. Have to keep the writing quiet though, wouldn’t want a confrontation with Malky in some warehouse corner; yer not one of those . . . poets, are you? No way his attraction to my mother could be kept hidden. There’d be knowing looks, nudges of arms. He’s a man of stillness is John, a man I could like. What does it matter if he’s my father or not? I know almost as little about the old man, even after all this time. One big dysfunctional family, that’s us.
‘I need to talk to you,’ whispers Jack as we pass. He’s on factory setting, intense. His lingering glance at my wife drifts breastwards, hungry it could be called. Her arm stiffens in mine.
‘Later, Jack.’
But later means ten minutes later when he spots a gap in the line of guests shuffling along to congratulate us. After the obligatory kiss on my wife’s cheek, both cheeks, he puts a hand on my arm.
‘Did you get the letter from the boss this morning? You’re the only one I haven’t spoken to.’
‘That what you were phoning about?’
‘Did you get it?’
‘Might have. Other things on my mind, strangely enough.’
‘What’s happened?’ my wife asks.
‘They’re shutting us down.’
‘What?’
Even I’m interested. ‘The fuck you talking about?’
‘They’re shutting the distillery down. And they’re saying I assaulted Ronnie on the picket line.’
‘You? It was me,’ says my wife. ‘And I’d do it again!’
‘I’m sorry about this. Today of all days. They really are cold-hearted bastards.’
‘It’s a bluff,’ I say. ‘They’re upping the ante so they can back down.’
‘What, and that’s better is it, short-time and layoffs? Who do you think’ll be the first to go?’
‘Well I – ’
‘Everyone who went on strike! Doesn’t affect you, though.’
‘Not my fault. I was on leave.’
‘Yes. Yes you were.’
‘I saw the Audis coming in the other night. I knew something was up.’
Jack eyes me closely. ‘Course you did. You always know when something’s up, Jim.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You work with Stan?’
‘And?’
‘Just saying. Just saying.’ He turns to my wife. ‘I’ll take the rap for Ronnie, Kate, don’t worry. I didn’t know it’d come to this.’
‘No way. I’ll tell them. Bloody right I will!’ She gives him a long hug. I might as well not be here.
‘What’s the plan then?’ She says it softly, affectionate.
‘We occupy.’
‘The distillery?’
‘Monday morning. Run the place ourselves. Build a media campaign. We know it’s profitable, we’ve got the documents from central office that prove it. And we’ve got access to the order book.’
‘You’re serious?’ I ask.
‘Yeah. I’m serious,’ says Jack. ‘You should try it one day. Just try it for one fuckin day.’
I leave them to it, glad-hand my way to the black granite bar and pour three drams into one. Peter’s at my shoulder before the first sip. Thanks Jim, I really mean that. Then gone.
The evening will come and go in the same way, a swell of reddening faces, compliments and an odd mingle of BO and vanilla. I take a breath and plunge under, surfacing for the procession across the bridge in the snowstorm to the main reception venue. It’s like that scene from The Seventh Seal, I wait for the guests to break into that strange dance on the horizon line. Back under the choppy waters I go, rising to strained laughs as I plod through my after-dinner speech. Funny how I can stand outside myself like this. One moment I’m at the back of the reception room, eavesdropping on the flirting bar staff as I watch myself at the top table, the next I’m floating above the tables, peering down, listening to my well-rehearsed lines. Back under the waves I go. I swim with strong, smooth strokes.
There’s no drama.
Another disappointment. We’ve had the big build-up, the farce with the run-through and all the contingency plans, even a daft groom with cold feet. The story’s supposed to peak in an unforgettable dramatic episode, yes, yes? But the wedding’s slipping away without incident. Even the aspiring bourgeois among the guests, of whom there are a few, may reluctantly declare it a triumph. The cherry on the baker’s best bun is, incredibly, Peter’s ice-sculpture. It’s wheeled in for the first dance, a six feet swan beating its wings. The whole room’s applauding, not out of sniggering disdain but at the sheer unexpected elegance. Amber’s in tears as they waltz round the sculpture, mirror-ball flickers catching the ice.
No Mad Bazza? JC asks as the band set up. He sounds almost hopeful. Nope. All’s quiet. Too many Hollywood movies and airport thrillers, that’s the problem, too many telegraphed three-act dramatic arcs. There’s nothing here but the usual corner cliques, drunken casualties being carted to the toilet, and glittery-eyed cola kids. This is my life, our lives, unfurling as they always have. That’s why Jack doesn’t need to worry. He’s going from colleague to colleague whispering in their ears about occupations, blockades, and Malky’s pissed, shouting burn the fucking office down, each word punctuated with a jab at Jack’s chest and Jack calming him with arms on both shoulders. Channel the anger, be angry but be focussed.
‘I love you, Daddy,’
‘I love you too.’
So speed the reels and batter the drams, let the faces flush and let us all dance, the snow blow to a furious peak and no matter if we’re marooned, stuck here, because it can’t be otherwise. Jack’s never got it, the essence of this place, never realised that because it exists by itself it will always exist, almost out of time. Change can only happen within the parameters of that truth. And that’s why there will be no closure, no mothballing. To exist is to endure. Melancholy, yes, but that’s the price of determinism’s comfort. It’s why there’s no laughter when everyone notices my father alone on the dance-floor between songs, arms holding an invisible partner and tears on his face. It’s because we all know what it means.
‘Don’t we?’
‘You’re pissed!’
‘Course I am. It’s my daughter’s wedding! So are you.’
‘Fuckin hope so,’ says JC.
We’re standing outside in one of the smoking shelters. To our left vague shapes move behind the bright fogged windows of the reception room. Wedding hits leach our way, Abba and Queen. The Monkees. Cheer up sleepy Jean .
. . I take a drag on my roll-up and lean on the railing, looking across the pristine car-park, the cars disappearing under snow.
‘You know what I mean though?’
‘I never managed to figure it out.’
‘You went away, you came back. Tells a story, JC.’
‘And I might have to do the same again?’
‘How’s that?’
‘Ruth’s needing a change. We always said we’d do a few years up here, a few years down south. We’re going to move to Sheffield. No reason we can’t run the label from someplace else.’
There it is. That odd mix of scorn mixed with envy I always feel when someone moves away. ‘Traitor.’
‘Yokel.’
‘Turn-coat.’
‘Yi darn shit kicker, don’t be tripping over those dungarees your whole life!’
‘You’ll be back.’
‘I hope you’re still here when I do.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘The distillery. It’s looking pretty serious. You need to sit down and talk to Jack.’
‘Don’t get me started about Jack.’
‘Fuck’s sake, Jim. Don’t be so complacent.’
The music swells as he opens the door, ready for the second set. I roll myself another smoke.
Complacency, does that also explain this sudden surge of affection I feel towards JC, this night, the snow that’ll never stop? Fuck it, I’m still breathing and that’s the name of the game.
My mother and John Tannehill, they’ll be sitting at their table realising what they’ve been missing all these years. I’ll have a word with Old Abe the caretaker when the last guests have gone, slip him a twenty so they can stay behind and take the empty floor, holding close, dancing through the years to that first moment in Milne’s Bar, my mother reading again his first poem, those weeks in Alexandria. I can’t hate them, not on a night like this.
* * *
I’ve always disliked Sundays. The day of rest never seemed like much of a rest to me. As a kid my father had me up even earlier than on school days. We had prayers before going to chapel. Then into the best clothes and shoes and off to Mass, the never-ending mundanity of Mass. Why did it all have to be so stern? If spirituality is such a chore then why bother? The churches were as dull as the priests, as if they’d been designed by a local authority planning officer.
I felt cheated when I first saw pictures of cathedrals like Chartres and Salisbury, almost outraged by those high-flying buttresses, baroque pulpits and soaring chancels. If I had to suffer the Word then I wanted the setting in all its crazed glory; doors that were called portals, heavy incense and echoes, the broken reliquaries and deep shadows of pressing time. I needed something to hold my attention as I sat there bursting for a piss and trying to catch the eye of the girls in their own Sunday fineries with their own boredoms and hormones.
Yes, Sundays are long-ruined, I’ve been conditioned by guilt to get up at the crack of a sparrow’s fart. Even today, despite not getting back from the wedding until after two. My wife’s asleep beside me, almost too quiet, arms coffin-crossed on her chest. I stare at her until I’m convinced she’s still breathing. There’s a fusty, eggy smell in the air. I might still be a bit pissed. Is my father awake yet? I hope he’s lucky, that the memory of last night’s sad, solitary dance isn’t one that plays on endless loop. Soon enough he’ll be struggling out of bed and down onto his bony knees to say the prayers that haven’t been answered for all these years.
The house is freezing. I get quickly changed. I start in the living room and wander round the house from room to room, downstairs to upstairs in the usual way. What would they say if they could see me, my wife and father, the Boy? The way I carefully lift and place my slippered feet, avoiding the floorboard creaks long memorised. I’m just pacing, I’d say, but it wouldn’t be enough, because it’s peculiar, maybe even deviant, to wander around the house in the half-light of dawn. Bugger it all, I have no explanation other than the silence. I like the silence. And the steam. I like the way the steam from my coffee disappears into the gloom.
I stand listening outside each of their bedrooms. It’s not that I’m making sure everything’s all right because I know they’ll be fine, regardless of me. They don’t need me and I know that. I don’t think they ever have. Maybe I’m listening in the hope that they’ve finally disappeared and I don’t have to suffer these permanent reminders of my superfluousness.
My phone’s blinking on the kitchen table, insistent. That’s the word for these times. All these TV channels, the 24 hour news cycle, super-fast techno-change, it’s like being constantly tapped on the shoulder. Once upon a time a phone rang once and if you missed it so what. Now it still rings but even if you don’t answer it still blinks at you, lookatmelookatmelookatme. I don’t, I switch it off and go into the living room to clean out the fire.
Here, here is my Sunday rest. Sitting feeling the heat grow, watching the swelling daylight leach round the edges of the heavy curtains. I may even fall asleep, and who cares if I’ve decided to sit in my father’s hydraulic chair. No, nothing to be done, we can’t avoid what we must become. Of course he’s my father, why else would I sit here, using the remote control to tip me back into a reclining position and yes, yes, I see why he likes it, the perfect angle to comfortably rest my head and watch the flames leap and settle and lull me to sleep.
Although only briefly asleep I still dream. It’s unnerving how quickly they rush in, just waiting for the slightest close of the eyes. Other times they leave me alone for months. I let the images go; my mother, John Tannehill and something about a boat, a sinking boat. The fire’s already faltering and no logs in the basket. That means facing the wood pile and the butcher’s cold, the Cuban-like azure skies already giving up the pretence and reverting to grey, the snow skulking in from the north as if embarrassed about yet another appearance. I feel the first flakes at the same time as I hear vague music coming from the front of the house.
How long has Adelina been there?
She’s standing with her arms folded in front of a blue Renault Megane. The music is drifting from the driver’s opened door. I think it might be one of JC’s albums. She watches me walk along the path, the expression on her face both empty and overflowing. I know if I ignore her she’ll wait all day, all week, wait with the patience of the dead for me to appear again.
‘Jim, I – ’
‘Why am I not surprised?’
I hesitate for a moment then walk down to the gate. I feel absurd in my wife’s pink dressing gown, my green Hunter wellies over my pyjamas. Hardly the costume for a confrontation.
‘Jim.’ She holds a hand up. ‘You don’t need to worry. I’m leaving.’
She says it so abruptly I have no reply. ‘Keep it down,’ is all I can manage, looking up to the bedroom window but nothing stirring behind the curtains as nothing has stirred for years.
‘You didn’t give me a chance before, to talk to you.’
I can’t argue with that. I can’t decide if she’s looking at me with pity or defeat.
‘But I have to, I can’t – ’
‘Adelina, this is my – ’
‘I know it’s your home.’
‘We can’t be together, you must know that?’ It’s bizarre, listening to myself say it.
‘I’ve known that for a long time. Since the letter you sent.’
‘Why are you here then? Did you just want to hear me say it? Is it as simple as that?’
‘Nothing’s as simple as that. Tell me, how do you think the pieces of a life fit together?’
‘What?’
‘The pieces of a life. Your life. How do they fit together?’
‘I don’t have time for this.’
‘You don’t have time for anything but yourself.’
‘You told me not to make any promises!’
‘I’m not asking you to make a promise, I just want you to listen.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘No
you’re not. Maybe one day you will. I didn’t want to be disappointed but I am used to that, I’ve spent a long time being disappointed.’ She walks over to the car and opens the back door.
The little boy who holds her hand is wrapped up in a one-piece ski suit and a woolly hat. He scuffs his feet in the snow and looks from me to Adelina. She’s managed to find Floriano after all. As soon as the thought occurs to me I realise the boy’s too young to be Floriano. Floriano should be about ten by now. And I suddenly understand. I know what she’s going to tell me, much as I know that I’m going to ask her to repeat what I’ve already grasped.
‘This is your son. Alejandro.’
The hollowness in my stomach is sudden. My wavering voice lets me down as well. ‘What?’
‘Your son. I want you to have the opportunity. Ask yourself, do you want him to read your story after you’re gone?’
‘My son?’
‘I asked you how the pieces of a life fit together. How do you want them to fit together?’
I take a half-step forward. JC’s Martini Red is playing on the car stereo. Solo acoustic, his high plaintive voice. The snow makes that squeaky crunch that sets my teeth on edge. Alejandro’s staring at me. What colour hair does he have? It’s the first question that pops into my mind but I don’t ask. I think my first full memory was around his age. I’m sitting in front of a 3-bar electric fire watching TV. It’s Doctor Who and I’m eating a chocolate bar, a Mars Bar, although these details may have been made up later. All of it could’ve been made up later. Five years old. It could be me standing there. I don’t want this to be his first memory. Association is everything and it’s so cold out here, cold and strange. Or is it me? Is it simply me I don’t want him to remember? The presence of this little boy is incredible, literally incredible, not Camp Gary saying something like I literally died laughing. Alejandro, he’s called. He was always a possibility, I suppose, from the moment I first saw Adelina, an unlikely one but a possibility nonetheless. Can a possibility be literally incredible if it comes to pass? I need some advice. I glimpse movement behind the living room window from the corner of my eye. My father most likely. That life I don’t understand ticking on and on. Behind me. Behind glass. And me looking in. From the cold. A little boy called Alejandro and the muffle of snow. He’s got snot dripping from the end of his nose and I have a tissue in my pocket. I could wipe it off, a direction to step in if I want to.
The Stillman Page 23