Swallowing the Sun

by David Park

  Even though Martin is sitting pressed against her, his voice sounds as if it’s coming from somewhere far away. And it sounds strange so that she struggles to recognise it. What is the point of speaking of the future when everything is permanently consigned to the past and locked up in some heavy trunk that can’t be opened? All she has now of her daughter are the photographs, the ones she clings to more and more as in their finger-printed surfaces she tries to feel some moment of true memory, to get her child whole and real even for a second. To pull her complete from the rushing slew of her own half-formed and unfocused images. And all the precious photographs which have started to bruise and smear with the moist press of her fingers, wouldn’t she trade them all, every last one, for the most fleeting touch of her daughter’s hair? She thinks of all the wasted opportunities and she stiffens with anger at herself and at Rachel for what they have denied themselves.

  ‘So, Alison, what would you say to young people out there, possibly thinking of experimenting with drugs?’

  He’d say let them take it, let them take it all, only give him back his daughter. Let them all die but not his child. ‘We wouldn’t want any other family to go through this pain,’ Alison says, but he doesn’t care about anyone else’s pain and he’d see them feel all of his if he could have her sitting beside them now. Squashed up between them like she did as a child, when they would sit on this same settee and watch television. He’s too warm and he tries to blink away some of the heat of the lights. The rhythms of Alison’s voice falter a little and he moves his arm against her, wanting to tell her that the script is almost over, that all they have to do is the final appeal for information ‘to stop this tragedy happening again’, ‘to take these people off the streets before some other son or daughter is snatched from their family’.

  ‘Snatched from their family’: it makes it sound as if Rachel was kidnapped, that some ransom note of cut-up newspaper letters will be pushed through their letterbox. She feels the unexpected flurry of her anger. For all the stars and the books, for all the cups and prizes, she was a stupid, foolish, selfish girl who didn’t think of her mother or anyone else when she did what she did. ‘The selfish little bitch,’ she wants to say to the camera, tell it about all the times she climbed those stairs to her room and took nothing away, not even the briefest touch of her hair. Tell about every day she stands in that canteen with the noise breaking over her and the smell of cooking and grease that coats the very strands of her hair. Then the surge seeps away and she longs for that ransom note and knows to pay it she’ll stand there every day for the rest of her life, that she’ll take nothing ever for herself, but pay with every minute of her life and, if it’s what it takes, not even try to wash the smells away with sweet-smelling scent.

  ‘So we’d just appeal to anyone out there who knows anything about the people who pushed these drugs to come forward and help the police with their enquiries. Any little bit of information might make all the difference,’ the interviewer says finally. Suddenly he notices the camera is focused on his hands. He’s seen it before. The camera wants him to speak with his hands, to replace his stumbling inadequacy in words with the silent, eloquent revelation of gesture. It wants a glimpse into his nervous, secret pain, a poetic symbol of what he feels, like a rose on a Valentine card. He slowly clenches his hands into fists, then watches as the camera’s gaze returns to his face.

  *

  Nothing happens. No calls, no leads. The phone calls and visits from the police fade to nothing. It’s time for him to go back to work and at first the prospect seems like a relief, a potential escape from the claustrophobia of the house but soon he understands that it will bring no relief. All the things that before were solid and familiar take on a new amorphous shape, moored to nothing and drifting on the rise and fall of whatever flows through him. The other staff tiptoe round him, their every communication couched in unfamiliar extremes of politeness. He looks at the sixteen polished axes and sees nothing but wood and stone and now he knows that he’s the one who is on display, pinned open in a glass case, and in the whispers and suddenly aborted conversations which greet his arrival, he feels the intrusive gaze of the world. It frightens him when he thinks about what they might see.

  Some of the very things he drew comfort from conspire now to taunt him. So when he arrives for work each morning the first thing he sees is the stone sculpture called Mother and Child, with its cold grey faces layered and linked. Nothing can ever separate them, or split the grain of the stone. And he will do anything to avoid Level Four. There’s only another week and the exhibition will be taken down.

  On his first Sunday afternoon back he watches children dropping coins into the water and even that makes him angry. Why should they have luck? Why should they have what he’s never had because a coin splashes into water? He watches the single fathers with their children borrowed like a weekend video, and remembers all the times he thought this was the worst thing that could happen and now he hates them because they don’t know how good the little they have really is. And he thinks about what he would give if he could only stand in their shoes. Sometimes he feels so angry that he wants to hurt someone and more and more he believes that hurting those who did this thing will take away some of his pain. He’s started to let the reel run in his head, little snuff movies where always he’s the executioner, the one with his finger on the trigger. But he knows it would be better if there was a face at which to fire the bullet and it’s started to eat him up that no one’s found that face.

  On the way home from work he calls at the police station but the officer at the counter doesn’t recognise him or his name. When he tells him that he’s the father of Rachel Waring he stares at him blankly and then tells him to have a seat. There is a woman with her son, a boy of ten or eleven.

  ‘Don’t you try and act the big man,’ she says to the boy.

  ‘Who’s acting the big man?’

  ‘You just listen to what they say and don’t give them any buck lip.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything, anyway, so I don’t know why I’m here.’

  ‘Listen, Gerard, you’re friggin’ lucky they’re just givin’ you a warning, so don’t make it any worse. I know you, you’d argue black was white but if you don’t get your act together, you’ll end up in Hydebank.’

  ‘What do you know? I’m too friggin’ young for Hydebank and it couldn’t be any worse than livin’ at home.’

  The woman looks over at him and rolls her eyes. For a second it looks as if she is going to speak to him but he turns his eyes away, wants no invitation into her world. To one side, two lads sprawl on the plastic seats. They both wear identical blue Nike hooded tops and baseball hats. He watches one of them take a black marker and write on the back of a chair while the other leans back and tilts his seat on its back legs. The one with the marker can see him watching while he’s drawing under the writing but he doesn’t care. Up at the counter the officer is hunched over something he’s reading. The woman tries to brush her son’s hair with the palm of her hand but he shrugs it off and squirms further away from her. The boy with the marker sits back for a second to inspect his work, then adds some embellishment, smiling at his own joke.

  ‘Don’t do that, son,’ he says, says it before he knows he’s going to say it. The two lads angle their heads to look at him. The woman and her son stare at him. Only the officer at the counter appears not to have heard him speak. The two boys look at each other before the one with the marker asks, ‘Do what?’

  ‘Don’t draw on that seat.’ His voice is calm and quiet.

  ‘Are you a policeman then?’ the other boy says, lowering the legs of his chair to the floor.

  ‘No,’ he answers, part of him telling himself that he shouldn’t have spoken, but another part glad.

  ‘So what’s it got to do with you then?’ the boy with the marker asks.

  Suddenly he feels himself swept along on the rip tide of his anger. ‘Because I paid for that chair and all the other chairs in this
room and if you don’t stop writing on my chair I’m goin’ to stick that fuckin’ pen down your throat.’

  ‘Here,’ his friend shouts to the desk, ‘did you hear him threaten us? Is he a fuckin’ psycho or something?’

  The officer looks up from his reading, gazes round the room and straightens himself.

  ‘Watch your language, son, or you can wait for your mate out on the street.’

  ‘He threatened us – are you not goin’ to do anything about it? How can you get threatened by a psycho inside a fuckin’ cop station?’

  ‘I told you to watch your language. Now the pair of you piss off and wait outside.’

  The boys stand up with the sullen practised defiance of the oppressed and one kicks a chair on his way to the door. He turns and looks back at him. ‘Fuckin’ psycho man!’ he calls before they bang the door on the way out. ‘You can’t talk to them anymore,’ the woman says and he knows she feels vindicated in her judgement, that what her son does is not her fault because there’s nothing you can say that will make any difference. He doesn’t answer but feels his heart beating faster. He sees the officer at the counter looking at him. He drops his eyes under the unbroken gaze, hears him say, ‘When we need extra help with security we’ll let you know.’

  It’s another half an hour before someone comes to speak to him. It’s Roberts, one of the detectives who has been working on the case.

  ‘Hello, Martin,’ he says, shaking his hand. ‘What can we do for you?’

  ‘I was wondering …’ He glances at the woman and her son watching them both and hesitates. ‘I was wondering if I could have a word with Joan?’

  ‘Have you got some information for us? Something you want to tell us?’ Roberts asks, but makes no effort to take him anywhere.

  ‘Can we talk somewhere?’ he has to ask before Roberts leads him to an office. It’s a small room with one desk and a computer that’s stained with fingerprints and badged with yellow notes. There is the remains of a takeaway in a tinfoil dish on his desk and a can of Coke. The whole room smells of Chinese food.

  ‘Sorry about the mess,’ he says, clearing away the remnants of the meal. ‘Not good for the ulcer but beats canteen food. So how are you goin’ then?’

  He doesn’t know how to answer this so merely nods his head. ‘Is Joan here? She told us to call her Joan.’

  ‘No, Joan’s not here. In fact we got a postcard from her today.’ He holds it up as if to confirm what he’s just said. ‘It’s from Tenerife – says it’s really hot.’

  ‘She’s in Tenerife? So who’s in charge of the case?’

  ‘Well, she’s still in charge.’

  ‘So is she followin’ some lead in Tenerife or what exactly is she doin’ there?’

  ‘She’s on holiday, Martin. Everybody’s entitled to a holiday, even the police.’

  He looks at Roberts, looks at the computer. One of the yellow notes says ‘Phone home’, another, ‘Collect the tickets.’ There is a sticker for the Belfast Giants on the side of the monitor.

  ‘Are there any new developments?’ he asks. ‘Are we any closer to finding who killed Rachel?’

  ‘I know it’s hard, Martin, but no one killed Rachel. No one made her take that tab. There was nothing wrong with the tab – other people took them. It was one of those freak, tragic things that happen.’

  ‘Are you saying it was an accident?’ He can’t believe what he’s hearing. ‘Are you telling me that Rachel’s death was an accident, that no one’s to blame?’

  ‘Oh there’s people to blame all right and we’re doing our best to find the people who supplied the drugs. But it’s not easy and I’d be deceiving you if I let you think that any day now we’re going to see someone in the dock for this.’ The phone rings and he excuses himself before engaging in a long conversation about a missing car. While he waits, he looks round the room, looking for what he’s seen on television, a picture of Rachel on a board, surrounded by names and clues, photographs of suspects, allocation of responsibilities, but there are none of these things. After the phone call Roberts apologises and when he starts talking he says it’s off the record and it’s as if he’s trying to help him understand.

  ‘Here’s what we know, know without having to ask anyone or be Sherlock Holmes. All drugs go through the paramilitaries: some do all the importing and dealing, others take a percentage cut from those they allow to operate. Either way they control the market. Freelancers, or anyone who gets greedy, or thinks they can exercise their own franchise, tend to get a head job as they sit in their four-wheel drives. Now the Troubles are over, everybody has to make a living from legit crime – drugs, protection, counterfeit goods, moving fuel over the border and all the rest. It’s what they think of as the peace dividend. You know how it works.’

  ‘Rachel,’ he says, his impatience undisguised.

  ‘The drugs that killed Rachel were supplied through Loyalist paramilitaries, operating out of the estate closest to those hotels and clubs in that part of the east of the city. You and I both know where that is. Who dealt the drugs on that particular night is more difficult. Sometimes, but not ordinarily, their own players do it, sometimes it’s younger runners, and sometimes it’s nobodies earning the price of a fix. A name and a face is entirely possible for us to find eventually. Getting someone to stand up in a witness box, well, that’s a lot more difficult. Being a tout is a dangerous profession in this part of the world.’

  ‘So no one’s going to be called to account for my daughter’s death? Is that what you’re telling me?’

  ‘I’m not saying that won’t happen but I’m trying to be honest with you. I know how you must feel. If it was my daughter, I wouldn’t feel any different.’

  He can’t listen any more to what Roberts has to say. He stands up and mumbles something that makes little sense even to himself, hears Roberts encouraging him to stay in touch. But already he knows he won’t come back here and as he leaves the station he wants Roberts to phone home and hear his beloved daughter has been diagnosed with cancer, that she’s slit her wrists in the bath. Let these things happen and then he’ll know how it feels. Let him really know how it feels and then they can talk, maybe find some comfort in what they share. But not until then, not until he knows what this feels like. Not ever.

  *

  It’s great to have a mate and Rob’s the best mate he could ever have. He’s not what he imagines an uncle should be like – he’s more a mate, a real laugh and he’s always saying that they have to make up for lost time. He’s already been out with him three times – once to the pictures, once to his house and once, a drive in his van to Bangor. He thinks Angela’s all right too – maybe a little strange, but he likes the tattoos she showed him. Rob says she’s dead on and Rob seems to know a lot of things.

  The thing he likes best of all about Rob is that he doesn’t seem to notice his weight problem. He’s never mentioned it, never stares at him like some people do as if they’re weighing him with their eyes. He never stops talking, but you never need to worry about anything he says because he never says anything that’s serious or that needs you to think about an answer. The other thing Rob never mentions is Rachel. Maybe it’s because he never really knew her; maybe that’s the reason he never says her name or refers to what happened.

  One night he takes him to see a band parade. Afterwards as it breaks up they sit in the van and eat chips.

  ‘I almost went to Australia once,’ Rob says.

  ‘Australia?’

  ‘Yeah, the other side of the world. It was your dad stopped me at the last minute. Talked me out of it like.’

  ‘He didn’t want you to go?’

  ‘No, he thought it was better we stuck together. Maybe he was a bit scared of being left on his own. I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you wish you’d gone?’ he asks.

  ‘Sometimes I think about it, wonder what it would be like. But then if I’d gone to Australia I’d never have met Angela and Corrina.’ He crumples the chip papers i
nto a tight ball, takes a slug of Coke and then burps out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Sometimes things work out for the best.’

  ‘What would you have done in Australia?’ he asks.

  ‘Don’t know. Anyway. I didn’t have a passport or visa or something and you probably need them to get in.’ He scrunches the ball of paper more tightly until it’s the size of a tennis ball. ‘Maybe some day we could go for a holiday. Do you fancy it, kid?’

  ‘That would be so cool, Rob. Do you think we could really go?’

  Rob doesn’t answer as he watches a knot of bandsmen filter across the front of the van. Some have taken their tunic jackets off and their white shirts flap in the wind like flags. A green bottle is passed like a baton from hand to hand. One of them comes to the side of the van and knocks on the glass. He’s still wearing his plumed beret and as he rests his flute on the sill of the opened window and crouches down beside it, there is a smile on his face.

  ‘All right, Postman Pat?’ he says. ‘Any letters in your bag?’

  ‘Not tonight, Earl,’ Rob answers. ‘I’m with my nephew,’ he says, indicating him with a jerk of his head. Earl smiles at him but it’s the sort of smile he recognises and it makes him squirm a little into his seat.

  ‘Postman Pat and his black and white cat,’ he says before walking away from the van.

  Rob says nothing for a while then takes another slug from the can, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand then drops the ball of paper out onto the pavement. ‘Earl,’ he says, pretending to laugh, ‘the light’s on but no one’s in. Know what I mean?’ On the way home Rob doesn’t say much but as they reach his street he starts to sing:

  Postman Pat, Postman Pat

  Postman Pat ran over his cat

  All the guts were flying

  All the kids were crying

  Postman Pat, Postman Pat

  Postman Pat and his black and white cat.

  *

  All the women are kind to her. There’s lots of hugs and hand-holding and in their morning break they gather round her like children and everyone wants to sit beside her. But their words sift through her consciousness like some fine wind that rustles and stirs only a momentary memory of her old life before everything settles and hardens once more into the concrete shape that feels fixed for ever. She doesn’t speak much, tries to get through her first day by concentrating on the work and that alone takes all her energy. It’s as if she’s forgotten it all, has to pause to remember which cupboards hold which utensils, sometimes has to ask where things are. And through everything runs the feeling that she’s separated from her previous self by some gauze or mesh that filters out the things that made her who she was. She tells herself that it’s the drugs, tells herself that she’s going to stop taking them. Stop them soon so she’s able to find something of her old self again. Stop them soon.