The Everlasting Sunday

by Robert Lukins

  He made a commitment: he would expose nothing of himself to this house.

  The fists came down and the noise was fabulous. Chords bent into shapes that had never existed. No right note would come from Radford and his chest shook with the volume and anarchy. It felt too, too good. Better than knifing pillows or putting an elbow through a bathroom wall. Better than spearing a fencepost through any number of parked cars’ windows. He went on, vaulting across the keyboard.

  Looking back he saw, among the considerable apathy, a few gentle smiles. In patches, pleasure. In a space between fist-falls was a whoop of encouragement: it was West, commanding. Brass sucked two fingers and whistled while Rich jammed out his wings and crowed the proud rooster. Teddy remained silent but wafted his pipe like some weary conductor.

  Radford brought down his hands in a concluding gesture and the final disassembly of notes rang out. They failed to be consumed by a roar of delinquent approval but neither did they echo alone. Having pushed away the stool he came back through the room and was neglected and blessed in equal measure. At his table he was dragged into a huddle. Teddy, warlord or no, left clapping sympathetically, and the riddle remained of what any of it meant.

  ‘Tradition,’ West announced and upended the dregs of beer into Radford’s hair.

  *

  They conquered the staircase as secretively as five teenagers might.

  After the turn on the piano the room had resumed a regular hum and Radford had settled on listening to the near voices. For their part the others never mentioned his recital. The failures with Frances sustained conversation. The first night in the coop still lay ahead for Rich and this wasn’t permitted to be forgotten, fowl impersonation coming without restraint, Lewis taking particular delight and swelling with luxury at each instance.

  As diversion it was Rich who first mentioned cigarettes. Pockets were pulled out empty and a melancholy fell over them.

  The taste of beer was fading from Radford’s tongue and he was lamenting this when he found it composing the surprise: ‘I’ve got some.’ The others had stirred as a family of dogs around dropped ham. ‘I’ve a pouch,’ Radford went on. ‘Anyone have papers?’

  Lewis showed a fistful of rolling sheets and so it was that they were running, running not at all secretively upstairs. They went to Radford’s room, where he summoned the pouch from a roll of clothes, and as they didn’t ask he didn’t describe its theft from his uncle. They contrived to stay hidden from the house lest they be swamped with demand. They moved as a phalanx, Radford at its rear, and it was just as he brushed his hand on the stairs’ top banister that he collided against a sudden wall. It was a boy, though the size of a grievous man, standing over him. The rogue monument stuck out a redeeming hand, its face bearing an uncertain smile of menace or worry.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Radford said.

  This seemed to bring some pain to the hulk, who said, ‘That was a terrible song,’ with a voice adult and controlled. It took a rise of the boy’s great eyebrow for the insincerity to register with Radford.

  ‘Oh, right. Yes, I had hoped so.’

  ‘I’m Foster.’

  The others came rambling back down the unlit hall and Radford was pushed aside. Brass took the titanic boy by the collar and Lewis grabbed for an arm. They got him back two steps, then came more censure and shoving and they were around this Foster in a half-wheel. They ordered retreat and he said nothing.

  Radford objected, though without force. They had misunderstood Foster’s intentions, yet he welcomed their bravery in his defence.

  West arrived and got himself inside the confusion. ‘Leave it,’ he said, rocking onto his toes.

  Foster looked limply to him, darkening.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Radford tried.

  ‘Is it?’ Brass turned ugly and to Foster. ‘Are you nothing?’

  Foster, without any kind of movement, accepted this, making no gesture of defiance. He could have smashed Brass to mince; instead he shrugged and went. West called out after him, ‘We’re having a smoke.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Brass protested. ‘Not on your life.’

  Foster didn’t slow and as he rounded the corner his face held no malice. Radford said nothing and when the sound of boots had trailed off Rich shook a fist at the stairwell.

  ‘Right,’ Brass said as he checked his fringe. ‘Now you’ve gone tough.’

  ‘I helped.’ Rich looked about for endorsement. ‘I was there.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ Radford said again. West responded with a signal of futility.

  ‘I thought we were civilised folk having a smoke,’ Brass said and started them walking again.

  West put his hand to Radford’s shoulder as the others regained enthusiasm, beginning into a run, and Radford allowed himself to be taken by the shirt sleeve. He had abandoned the unknown Foster for the temptation of these unknown others. Darkness again, behind and ahead. He would get what he deserved.

  ‘Matches, anyone?’ came a voice, singing from above.

  They came to rest beneath a square of night that went on forever. They had scaled stairs at the far end of the building and pushed out a fragile door to a stone-brick space with nothing above. It had boasted a roof and ceiling a hundred years previously, West explained, both long since gone. It was such a small room, and a needlessly inconvenient one, that through all the Manor’s years of repair and renovation it had never graduated to the top of any list. The boys sat on its floor with their backs to the granite, their feet pointing in and touching at the centre.

  ‘Was a belfry,’ West said, pointing to the open cathedral arches of each wall. ‘Bell would have hung right here. God knows why.’ He mimed the pulling of a rope and began to lick the open edge of his cigarette.

  A paper came to Radford via Rich, who was accused of ruthless capitalism after suggesting he could be paid back later. The truth of the cold’s severity descended, and there was talk of whether the Ruskies had it right, of the redistribution of common property and where this left the very concept of First Division football. The shag separated itself between them.

  They sat unprotected amid the snow but as none of the others showed worry then neither did Radford. He would feign trust at this, that something would come to dull the sting just as earlier the beer had arrived and taken them to a softer world. Others spoke without hesitation as they assembled their smokes. The air, brittle and still, became overwhelmed by tobacco. It was glorious and of the old earth, smelling of fertile ground disturbed by animals.

  During one of several concurrent arguments between Rich and all the others, something was described as having taken place two years earlier. The question of how long Radford would be staying had never fully crossed his mind, but to speak of years was mad and impossible.

  ‘Two years ago?’ he interrupted.

  The others smiled, all to different degrees and with various intents, and Radford sensed more pity and understanding than he could stomach. Talk turned to the wheat field Rich had set fire to the previous summer. He claimed no knowledge and offered no excuse for his loss of eyebrow. He was stockpiling cigarettes in his lap, rolling and rolling without ignition. The rest, with Radford, shared two matches and together smoked their share. They drew deeply, religiously.

  ‘What’s the point then?’ Radford said, without being sure of what he was asking.

  Brass tossed the book of matches. ‘Who promised you a point?’

  Lewis clapped for attention and pulled a folded blanket out from under him.

  ‘Brilliant,’ Rich said, granting all forgiveness.

  Radford was certain he would never know these boys beyond surface – not their sources, or where they might be headed, and nothing could change this. Lewis cast out the blanket as a bait net and it rippled across their feet. A final offering went around and soon all was silent. Their cigs went ember-tipped and shivering chests held their ble
ssed air. Radford tilted his head back against the stone. The burn was immediate through his hair but he wanted to investigate the sky, to see if it offered any greater wisdom.

  His thoughts were shrinking in the cold. He should not be there. There was no reason for it. How on earth would it work? All heaven was dark.

  Fragments of snow were falling on their blanket, catching in the low light and shining as the absent stars they stood in place of. It descended on their ruined belfry, a room pointless well before it was useless. Radford tried to think of his dog and where it was right then, how it would be finding satisfaction, but he had already lost the clear memory of it. It had not even been a day and the animal had become a canine stencil.

  He pulled hard on his cigarette. The pilfering of the pouch had been a hasty, unplanned action, having presented itself in his uncle’s kitchen the night before. Now it meant everything. He looked at these boys and wondered what each of them was keeping underneath. None had asked how he had come to be sent to the Manor. He drew back as he tilted again to the sky and released his plume towards that forever. Forever could handle it. Perhaps the others had no inner lives to speak of. Perhaps the others were shells too.

  The fall grew heavier and the sky no less empty or infinite. The walls, even with their four vacant windows, gave the impression that one was at the bottom of a drained well. All was fallen in and trivial. Those shrivelled thoughts again.

  ‘Bloody freezing,’ someone said.

  Everyone agreed.

  Winter took no rest, proud with its beginnings.

  Surveying the rooftops, where the old land met that of the humans, it found these young ones sitting huddled and unprotected. They made endless noise, becoming quiet only to tend to their smoking sticks. They made that birdcall they named laughter.

  These creatures’ mission seemed a selfish one. They were a destructive breed, so intent on bringing things to an end. So be it. Left alone, perhaps they would complete the dirty work themselves.

  Winter would leave its judgement for now, for the clock of the moon ticked on and it had much to do.

  Of course he would suicide.

  The Manor was too much like something of a Boy’s Own story. All too Tom Brown and the neat perils of boarding school. Perhaps Foster would play the thick-necked bully and there would be a dastardly teacher to make unstuck. All too cute.

  It was some hours after midnight and Radford had returned alone to the belfry. The cold was now unbearable and the view plain black. He removed his shirt. Through the window space he could see nothing of this country, nothing of the iced fields and their shivering cattle.

  In this place, this childish story, it would be the most childish act. He had grown accustomed to the thought of the word, suicide, aware it held power for some. It was a thing committed. Like fraud, like adultery. He took pride that he wouldn’t resort to adult euphemism: there would be no ending it all, no topping of one’s self. There was a perfectly serviceable word for it and it was one with all the right sounds. That hiss of a final exhalation.

  He could escape from the house and walk into the lunar world and its death, but could he trust that it would take care of him, that some instinct would not take hold and find him shelter? It was the kind of betrayal he would recognise. He could find the kitchen and lay his head in the oven, but would that be, again, all too cute? They might not even be connected to the gas; he would need to check.

  How dull that his story would end so soon and here. That flopping himself over the edge of some abyss would be the closest he came to theatre. That he could find no antagonist greater than himself.

  Dreary, really.

  His limbs and chest had pushed through burning into numbness, and that double-crossing agent, intuition, had sunk one of his hands into his trouser pocket and wrapped its finger about something. An unspent match. Visions of the Manor’s caricature boys came to him and the feel of Teddy’s warm, callused hands.

  A primitive grunt came from the doorway. He turned.

  ‘Heard you leave your room,’ West said. He took the discarded shirt from the ground and pushed it into Radford’s hands, coming to his side. ‘Just came to be sure.’ He connected their gazes. ‘Do you mind?’

  This silly boy, whom he knew so little of.

  The cold became all at once too much and it hurt so greatly. Tears came in great convulsions and he leant into West as if he were the only thing able to keep his body from dissolving a star-shape through the stone floor.

  West, for his part, simply stood.

  Radford wept and all the salt water that proved him real fell across his face on its way to West’s coat sleeve. When the time came West brought them back indoors and they parted in the hall as Radford came to his room. He closed the door quietly on West’s still half-smiling face. He replaced his shirt and fixed its buttons.

  TWO

  The morning of New Year’s Eve had been passing uneventfully until its cancellation. Radford had been attempting to split firewood with Rich when word came that the calendar was to be usurped. Teddy believed that it would be not at all right to celebrate the renewal of anything while the undignified weather persisted. The following morning was thus, for the second time in as many, the beginning of the year’s final day. Subtly kinder falls had arrived through the night and so over breakfast Teddy decreed that as long as the weather held, so too would the date.

  Radford was learning the ineffectiveness of pondering the internal argument of the house – what it governed and how it ruled. It was the new eve and that was that.

  He had to concede it had already been more agreeable than the last, which had seen an unpleasant fight in the afternoon, between Lewis and one called Harris. Harris was small, one of the slightest in the house, so it had surprised everyone when he shoved Lewis hard from behind and started mouthing off. He spat that Lewis was a lanky dolt, pathetic, and that had been enough for Lewis to make a proper mess of his face. Any irreversible damage was only held off by a gang-tackle to the floor. One sat on Lewis’s chest while another used knees to pin his arms to the boards. Harris was dragged away to the kitchen, blood hastening down his chin, and Rich took custody of Lewis. Radford followed them upstairs, holding Lewis’s flat cap, which had spun under a table in the melee. They stopped at the midpoint of the hall, all regaining some composure. As it was pushed joylessly into the wall, Lewis’s unprotected head made a rewarding thunk.

  ‘Give up, will you?’ Rich asked without menace.

  The pair let their breath return and Lewis submitted to being straightened. Rich pulled at the neck of his jumper, righting it and evening its sleeves. He backtracked to Lewis’s hair and proceeded to groom him down to his shoes. It was a delicate display and Radford watched on, anxious of how untroubled they were by his presence. The alliance between these two would seem brotherly if not for their willingness to succumb to it. A red trickle began from Lewis’s nose.

  Radford held out the cap and in a neat motion Rich took it and placed it on Lewis. ‘You’ll get sent down,’ Rich said. ‘And then we’re shafted.’

  ‘He called me pathetic.’

  ‘You are.’

  Lewis looked over Rich’s shoulder. ‘What’s your take?’

  ‘I have no opinion,’ Radford said. ‘And I’m not being polite. I don’t know what on earth is happening.’

  Blood ran freely into the deep crest of Lewis’s smile.

  After breakfast Brass took Radford to the kitchen to start into the dishes.

  ‘Who are we?’ asked the woman greeting their entrance. She held out a broad knife, having paused from halving vegetables, and seemed a ghost.

  ‘Radford, this is Lilly.’

  ‘Miss Grange,’ she said warmly, tabling the tool and giving Radford her hand.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Miss Grange.’

  ‘Ooh, manners. Did you hear that?’

  Brass started
wiping with a tired-looking rag and grunted.

  ‘Do you remember your first words to me? Do you?’

  He gave a whimper.

  ‘Piss off,’ she said in a mouse’s high pitch. ‘Little charmer.’

  ‘I had reason for it. And besides, since then,’ Brass turned smart, ‘Lilly and I have formed a bond. A close one. Lilly, would we call it inseparable?’

  ‘Insufferable, maybe. But you,’ she said, pointing between Radford’s eyes, ‘you, I love.’ She pulled a cigarette from the pocket of her apron. ‘Manners. You English make a lot of noise of being mannered, but it is only noise.’ With this last line her accent dipped rashly somewhere near French.

  Brass removed his jacket. ‘Lilly, you’re from Kent.’

  The knife was spun on its point and left to fall back to the board.

  ‘Ah, oui.’ She flung herself against the counter and clutched both hands to her chest. ‘But my ’eart will be-long always to my beloved city of Pair-ee. Oh, tell moi you believe.’

  Brass shrugged into his suds. Radford wanted to give this woman all she wanted. To bring colour to her transparency.

  ‘Of course,’ Radford said. ‘Oui.’

  ‘A good’n,’ she announced with a decidedly un-Continental burr. ‘Let us drop this Miss Grange. Lillian. You will call me Lillian.’

  ‘You won’t recognise the honour,’ Brass said as he spat into the water. ‘There’s a strictly enforced system at play.’

  The woman bent forward with her smoke between her teeth, igniting it in the flame of the cooker’s ring.

  ‘Starts with Miss Grange,’ Brass said. ‘Then, if fortune smiles, you call her Lillian – though a feller doesn’t usually get there in a week, so count your blessings – then if you’re a tidy egg you call her Lilly, but only when you and her are proper little peas in a pod.’