Swallowing the Sun

by David Park

  The women think it will make her feel better if they share their own memories of suffering. So as she slices open the bags of frozen chips, Annie comes and helps her, standing close, almost touching her shoulder and her voice is soft and confidential, the voice she uses to pass on important gossip.

  ‘We nearly lost Janine once. It was the worst time of my life. She got knocked down in Templemore Avenue. She just ran out in the road without lookin’ and a car clipped her. He swerved at the last moment and that probably saved her life. But she was in a coma and we didn’t know whether she was going to make it or not. Touch and go for a while. Worst time in my life.’

  There are glittery spangles of ice on the bags. She feels the coldness of it against her skin, thinks of the first time Rachel was old enough to experience snow. She was wearing a red coat and red wellies and a red hat. All trussed up like a parcel. Snug as a bug. Kicking up flurries with her feet. Not quite sure about it. Afterwards she cried because her hands were cold so she had to warm her own at the fire, press Rachel’s together as if she was teaching her how to pray, then hold them inside the oven of hers.

  ‘She still has a scar on the back of her head. You can’t see it with her hair but it’s about two inches long. The doctor said we were lucky she didn’t end up with brain damage. It was the worst time of my life, sitting at the bedside waiting for some sign that she was going to pull through.’

  They shuffle the chips across the baking trays straight from the bags, then use their hands to space the layer evenly. She doesn’t want to hear any more stories about other people’s suffering. It can’t be shared – they can’t share hers, she can’t share theirs. If it could, she would give them all the tiniest little sliver of it so that what was left could be borne. But there’s no way to do it. As she bends down to slide the trays into the oven, a sudden flare of heat masks her face and she blinks her eyes and wonders why Martin never touches her any more. She doesn’t want to do anything – it wouldn’t seem right but maybe if he would just touch her or take her hand … Why don’t the women tell her different stories? Good stories like the miracles in the Bible where Lazarus rises from the dead as if he’s only been sleeping, or about the woman going to Christ’s tomb and finding the stone rolled away.

  So when she starts to pour the soup powder into the canister and Jo is telling her about her first stillborn, she wants only to hear of a child brought back to life with a gentle breath; of death falling away at the touch of a kiss on tiny lips. Let their whispers speak of miracles and reversals, of time wound back to when everything was all right. Let just one of them tell her about such things and she will believe it possible with all her heart.

  ‘There’s not a single day I don’t think of her. All these years later,’ Jo says. ‘Sometimes I wonder what she would have looked like?’

  The coldness of ice freezing over her make-up, her lips blue-washed, her eyes closed, the little vein on her lid like the scribble of blue ink, livid under the strip lighting. Her best clothes smothered under the sheet. Not a child, not a woman. It was her last chance to touch her hair. Reaching out her shaking hand, pulling it back, frightened of what she would feel.

  ‘What flavour is this soup?’ she asks Jo. Suddenly it seems important to know.

  ‘It’s supposed to be vegetable but they all look the same. Probably taste the same as well. Don’t suppose there’s many vegetables get anywhere near it. Put more water in – I think it looks too thick.’

  Why does Martin never touch her any more? Sometimes she thinks he’s started to blame her and maybe he’s right. Someone must be to blame. Things like this don’t just happen. The more she thinks about it, the more she thinks that she didn’t know her child at all and that’s a failing. Not to know your own child or what goes on in her head. And all the time she thought she was such a good mother, it was an illusion and maybe she deserves all of Martin’s blame. Sometimes in the bed they’re like tight knots on a rope, stretched taut to its edges, entangled only with whatever it is that fills their heads in the moments before sleep.

  ‘How long have we got?’ she asks.

  ‘Another twenty minutes before the bell. Though if that new teacher lets her class out early again, they’ll be here sooner. How are we doing?’

  ‘It’s heating up. Are there enough of those cups?’

  ‘No, I mean you.’

  ‘Fine,’ she says. It’s the word she mostly uses now, gives it with a quick imitation of a smile. ‘Fine, thanks.’

  ‘Maybe not in this world, but some day we’ll understand why such things happen. You’ve got lots of people here to talk to, people who care about you.’

  ‘Twenty minutes? Better get a move on.’

  Twenty minutes and the doors of the canteen will be thrown open. Twenty minutes and the whole place will be flooded with children and every one of their faces raw with life and none of them Rachel.

  *

  He stands at the door of her bedroom and looks in. Just like he’s done a thousand times before. Everything is just as she left it. There are still books open on her desk. The only person who comes in now is Alison, to clean the thin sift of dust that seems to drift insistently into the unfamiliar silences and spaces of the room. He doesn’t want to, but it has to be done and so after a final moment’s hesitation he steps inside and closes the door. He feels like a thief come in the night, an intruder, because everything is redolent with her presence and every step he takes, every movement that disturbs the settled stillness, seems to be an intrusion into her privacy. But he tells himself again that it has to be done and that now there is only him and no one else who can do what needs to be done. So he starts by looking carefully at everything, and then checks the book-rack, his hand tracing the spines of the books, before he moves to the desk-top and lets his gaze take in the open books and the essay she was working on.

  He can’t see what he needs to find so he starts to look in the drawers of the desk. It’s there in the second one, underneath an old scrapbook, a school magazine and writing paper – a thin red-backed address book that he’s seen once before when she was writing Christmas cards at the kitchen table. He knows it’s foolish but he’s started to feel frightened by the thought that somewhere in this room might be the key to a world she lived in and of which they had no knowledge, so he handles the book nervously as suddenly it might open doors that are best kept shut. But he remembers his visit to the police, the postcard on the desk and his anger stirs again as he flicks the pages, trying to match his memory of first names with faces and identities. He copies names and addresses and then searches the school magazine until he finds the class photographs and is able to put faces to the names. Some of them are familiar, others he struggles to remember from the funeral but it’s a start and the feeling of doing something carries him and he tells himself that there was no other world than the one they saw every day and that what took her from them was the outreached hand of scum who have to be made to pay.

  The first address is only a few minutes’ drive away and as a fine spray of rain begins to fall, he sits in the car and looks at the house. There’s more money than they have and there is an expensive car in the driveway. He sits for a few moments then walks to the door. The bell chimes loudly in a climbing fanfare of notes, then through the dimpled and coloured panes of glass he sees the shadowy approach of a woman. He shakes away some of the rain from his face as she starts to open the door. At first she doesn’t recognise him, her face passive.

  ‘I’m Martin Waring, Rachel’s father. Could I speak to Joni, please?’

  ‘Come in, please,’ she says, her face suddenly animated and her hands springing into welcoming gestures. She leads him through the hall with its wooden floor and prints on the walls to a room that extends into a conservatory and a view of the garden beyond. ‘Please sit down, Mr Waring,’ she says directing him to a chair which places his back to the throw of light that invades the room despite the rain.

  ‘I’d like to speak to Joni.’


  ‘Yes, of course. I’ll just get her for you,’ she says before pausing and turning again towards him. ‘I’d just like to say how sorry we all are about Rachel.’ She goes to say something else but the words falter and are replaced by a shake of her head.

  He hears her footsteps on the wooden floor in the hall and her voice calling to her daughter. There is no reply. His eyes travel round the room, taking in nothing but the overall effect of money and what he knows is considered good taste. It makes him wonder if Rachel was ever ashamed of her home. He couldn’t blame her if she was, because in comparison to this it suddenly seems tawdry and threadbare and he can’t remember many times when she had girls from school round. Not in the last couple of years at least.

  ‘Joni will be down in a few moments,’ she says. ‘Could I get you a cup of tea or a drink of something?’ she asks. When he declines she sits down in a chair that feels very far from his. ‘They’re always hidden away in their rooms,’ she says, then looks at her hands. ‘How is everyone coping? It must be the most terrible time for your family.’ He doesn’t answer, merely nods his head. ‘Joni’s taken it very badly. She has a few problems of her own and this has been a real setback for her.’

  He looks at her but she doesn’t meet his gaze and then she’s apologising for how long it’s taking for Joni to appear. She asks him again if he’d like a drink and then excuses herself and he hears her feet hurrying on the stairs, the opening and closing of doors and muffled voices. When she returns, she uses the palm of her hand to smooth her hair and stands behind the chair on which she has been sitting.

  ‘Mr Waring, Joni’s not feeling well at the moment. Could I get her to ring you later on? If you could tell me what you’d like to speak to her about?’

  ‘I want to speak to Joni,’ he says. ‘It won’t take long.’ He anchors himself in the chair, stretches out his hands and tightens his grip on the arms.

  She doesn’t know what to say at first, whether to argue with him or apologise again but he doesn’t help her by speaking and his only movement is the slight splay and drum of his fingers.

  ‘I know you’re very upset and you’ve every right to be, but Joni hasn’t been well. As soon as she is, you can talk to her.’

  ‘I’m not upset. But I’m not going until I’ve spoken to her. I only need ten minutes of your daughter’s time.’

  She hesitates, kneads the back of the chair with her hands, then leaves the room. As he waits and looks more carefully round the room he tells himself that for all their money and their style, every day he stands closer to more beautiful things than these. Real things, preserved in time and not to be owned through the cheapness of money. And now it’s two sets of feet coming down the stairs, the one the lightest echo of the other and when they enter the room she is completely hidden behind her mother.

  ‘Hello Joni,’ he says. ‘I’m Rachel’s father and I need to ask you about a couple of things. It’ll only take a few minutes.’

  Suddenly she steps from behind her mother’s body and he sees her for the first time. Almost as tall as her mother, the same blonde hair, but there’s nothing else there. Her face is hollow, and even through her clothes he can see that her body is stick-like, fleshless. Only her eyes are big. He’s not sure anymore. Not sure what he’s doing there or is going to say.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, ‘Very sorry about Rachel.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Rachel was a nice girl.’

  ‘Yes, she was. Can we talk about what happened?’

  ‘Joni told the police everything she knows,’ her mother says, resting her hand lightly on the raised ridge of her daughter’s shoulder.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she says to her mother, then walks past him like a shadow towards the conservatory. He follows her and the fall of her hair looks brittle and thin. The rain has stopped and outside the garden looks green and quickened into life. Joni sits down on one of the cane chairs and pulls her knees up in front of her. The brightening light washes against her face but seems only to draw out what little colour there is, so only the blue of her eyes is sparked with life. Her mother stands watching but makes no attempt to join them.

  ‘You were one of Rachel’s friends?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, not special friends, but friends.’

  ‘And you were with her that night, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I was with her,’ she says, threading a strand of her hair through her fingers, which look like the thin blades of scissors.

  ‘I need you to tell me the truth now, Joni, and I’ll accept the truth whatever it is, but I just need it to be true. You understand?’

  She pulls her legs up more tightly and lowers her head towards them so only the blue of her eyes is visible. In the growing flush of light it’s difficult to see where the paleness of her skin meets the seam of her hair. He looks at the twigs of her wrists and the tight little knobs of her ankles. The folds of her trousers flap loosely around her legs.

  ‘Had Rachel ever taken drugs before?’ he asks, the words shivering in his throat in fear of the answer.

  ‘No, Rachel hadn’t ever done it before.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure. It was her first time.’

  ‘And you took a tab too, didn’t you?’ he asks, trying to keep his voice gentle.

  She looks over his shoulder into the garden, lifting her face up over her knees. He notices the ragged edges of her fingernails, the way she’s coloured the hollows of her sunken cheeks, which look now like the lifeless dregs in the bottom of a teacup.

  ‘Yes, I took one. The police know I did.’

  ‘Who gave you the tabs? Who gave Rachel hers?’

  ‘We just had them.’

  ‘But they must have come from somewhere.’ He leans towards her. ‘Tell me where they came from, Joni.’

  ‘One of the girls had them, I don’t remember who it was.’

  ‘I need to know Joni,’ he says, lowering his voice. Part of him wants to stretch out his hand and grab the stick of her wrist, twist it into the truth. Instead he says, ‘It’s important. Rachel didn’t deserve what happened to her. You can help fix this thing, help put it right.’

  She hesitates for a long time, pulls a strand of her hair through the slow splice of her fingers. ‘If I say a name, you won’t say you got it from me?’ He agrees but she makes him swear. Even then she doesn’t say the name but sits blinking at the sharp spears of light piercing the glass, before shielding her eyes with the slow salute of a hand.

  ‘Andrea had them. I don’t know where she got them.’

  He already knows the second name. There are a few more questions he wants to ask but he can sense her mother deciding whether his time is up or not. There’s not much time left.

  ‘Why did she take it?’ he asks.

  ‘Because we all did, because we thought it would be all right, I think. I don’t know why,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry, really sorry.’

  She’s crying now. A little smear of light on her cheeks. The tears mean nothing to him. He knows there are things he could say but he has nothing to say to help her and instead stands to go. Her mother comes to comfort her, telling him that it would be best for him to leave and there is a new, insistent strength in her voice. He leaves them without speaking and when he glances back sees her almost hidden in the folds of her mother’s arms.

  *

  Already the first pupils are rushing through the doors to get to the head of the queue, ignoring as always the admonitions of the supervisors to slow down. She’s on serving and as the metal lids clatter off the containers, she feels herself tense. The smell of food flurries up round her and for a second she feels as if she’s going to be sick but she steels herself against it and stares at the boy who’s leaning across the counter to get a better view of the contents of the trays.

  ‘A burger and a half chip,’ he says, starting to eat the chips with his fingers as soon as she passes the polystyrene dish to him. The chips are too hot and he blows on them as
he puts them in his mouth, then sucks air noisily.

  ‘Stop pushing or you won’t get served,’ Annie says to the squirming, flopping line.

  ‘He’s bunking in! Tell him to get to the back!’

  ‘Take your turn or no one’ll get served.’

  ‘A hot dog and a chip butty.’

  They hold on to the shoulders of the person in front, lending and borrowing money, shouting to friends, or abuse at enemies behind them in the queue. In the space of a minute the queue takes up one whole side of the canteen and the rising noise has started to fill the hall. She’s too hot, the coagulated steam and smells from the food snaking up through her fingers and body before garlanding her face. Her skin feels damp, brushed with the moist and bloated plaque of heat.

  ‘I didn’t ask for a burger,’ the girl says. There is exasperation in her voice. ‘I asked for a slice of pizza and a baked potato.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she answers, looking for the tongs, as already the next voice shouts its order.

  ‘Stop pushing and it’s good manners to say “please”,’ Annie insists.

  ‘What flavour is the soup? What’s the meal of the day?’ a boy asks.

  She stares at him, the thinness of his voice lost in the flaring blaze of noise as each voice gets subsumed into what feels like a forest fire spreading through every inch of the room. He asks again but it’s as if his voice is coming from somewhere beyond her hearing.