Swallowing the Sun

by David Park

  He gets out of the car, and walks towards the doors. He walks quickly, both hands plunged into the pockets of his coat, locking himself into his own space. Someone coming out holds the door for him but he doesn’t say thanks or look at him and then he’s in the foyer and striding past the reception desk where a young woman smiles at him and says, ‘Good evening,’ before she takes a second look and asks him if she can help him. He shakes his head and keeps on walking.

  ‘Excuse me sir, are you a member?’ she calls but he keeps on walking. ‘Excuse me sir, you can’t go in unless you’re a member.’ Her voice is a shout now as he vaults the turnstile and he knows without looking that she’s lifting a phone. He’s in the changing rooms, amidst the smell of talc and shampoo, heads turning to look at him and then he’s walking through the weights area, striding quickly past people on rowing and cycling machines, past people pounding on running machines. Sweat-beaded faces turn to look at him for a few seconds of curiosity before returning to their strain. Some faces are turned away from him and he has to move closer to satisfy himself that they’re not the one, stepping over weights and bits of exercise machinery. Then he’s in the corridor again and into the swimming area. The sudden heat flannels against his face and now there’s two attendants on the other side of the pool pointing at him but they’re too late because he’s seen him.

  He’s one of four men in the Jacuzzi, their heads lolling backwards to rest on the rim, their arms stretched round its circumference. There is the glint of a gold identity bracelet and at his neck hangs a golden chain. They’re too bound up with their own laughter, the pleasure of their bodies to see him until he’s standing over them.

  ‘Well, look what the cat dragged in,’ Jaunty says. ‘Didn’t think you had the money for this sort of place, Marty. Most people take their clothes off when they go for a swim.’ The other three men smile at the joke as they stare up at him.

  ‘I have something belonging to you,’ he says.

  ‘And what’s that, Marty?’

  ‘This,’ he says, taking the plastic bag of drugs out of his pocket and sprinkling the contents into the water with a shake of his hand as if he’s sowing seed. ‘For fuck’s sake, Marty, are you off your head?’ Jaunty asks. ‘Yes that’s right, I am. Off my head.’

  ‘You need to take care, Marty,’ he says, the narrowest of smiles slinking across his face.

  ‘You’ll be telling me next that I’m a dead man walking.’

  ‘Maybe not so far from the truth,’ Jaunty says, massaging his throat with his hand.

  The two attendants are starting to make their way round the pool. There is the sound of a phone ringing.

  ‘This is the truth, Jaunty,’ he says, taking the gun out of his pocket. As he points it, he worries that his hand will shake but it’s perfectly still even when the screaming starts and people are clambering out of the pool, bumping into each other, shoving past those deemed too slow, everyone running with their heads craned to look. The two attendants are frozen to the spot, their arms suddenly touching, their heads looking back towards the changing rooms, not wanting to draw attention by sudden movement. It is the power of fear. He tells himself that it’s the sweetest thing. It’s what his father felt that night when he opened his door to a stranger. In the jacuzzi the only movement is the flurry and bubble of the water.

  ‘Jesus, Marty, you can’t be serious,’ Jaunty says, his two hands pulled from below the water and laid flat on its surface.

  He doesn’t answer but looking at the other three men moves his head slightly and at the signal they slip sideways, pressing their backs against the tiles, trying to move away without causing any more disturbance in the water.

  ‘Jesus, Marty, let’s talk about this. Everybody knows you’re angry about what happened to your daughter and you’ve every right. Everybody feels bad about it, swear to God. But let’s talk about it.’

  ‘I’ve nothin’ to say. I was never any good at talkin’,’ he answers.

  ‘We go back a long way, Marty – we were soldiers together. We fought in the war,’ Jaunty says, holding his hands palm upwards in a begging gesture.

  ‘We were never soldiers,’ he answers, releasing the safety catch. ‘We were just kids with our heads full of crap. And if we believed anything, it was that we were protecting our people. Now all you and the rest do, is live off the back of them, pump this shit into it.’ The water goes still and flat.

  ‘Okay, Marty, you shoot me but you can’t stop there because I’m just small fry so you’re gonna need to shoot an awful lot of people.’Jaunty’s voice is high-pitched, starting to break; he wipes his eyes with the back of his hands, looks round for help that isn’t coming.

  He lowers the gun for a second, then raises it again. His head is spinning, the heat mixed with the smell of chlorine is making him feel sick. He straightens his arm but the gun feels suddenly heavy in his hand. Take your stand. Show him, Martin. Make his eyes water. Make him step back. He drops the gun to his side and turns away and in his ears he hears a voice calling him ‘a bastard’, ‘a useless little cunt’. But then it’s Jaunty shouting, and his voice is suddenly buoyant, inflated with relief.

  ‘Respect, Marty, you need to learn some fuckin’ respect!’

  ‘Respect’ the word rattles and buzzes round his brain and he can’t still it. He stops. Jaunty is standing in the middle of the water, his hands arched on his hips, his head held high. He walks slowly back and in each step he sees a vision of him toppling back in the water, his head banging on the tiles and a spume of red foaming to the surface. He raises the gun again and Jaunty suddenly cowers down in the water.

  ‘Respect?’ he says, looking at the new flush of fear in his eyes. ‘Respect?’ Then he steps on to the rim and sprays his piss into the water. They squirm and shudder away from its gush, their eyes blinking and hands pawing at the water.

  ‘That much respect,’ he says, then walking round to where Jaunty huddles, he kneels down and without speaking lets the barrel of the gun rest across his cheek. Then he walks quickly away, and back out through the foyer but no one comes near him or attempts to stop him as he walks through the building and out to the car.

  He’s down on the carriageway when the police car passes him, its lights blazing, its screaming siren torturing the stillness of the night. He drives quickly, mindless of other cars and his wake is littered with the angry blare of their horns but nothing registers with him beyond one thing. Everything else is falling away, borne away in the tightening noose of neon that constricts his thinking and hurts his eyes. He can hardly focus on the road – the lights straddling the road, the heat and speed of the car, the unrelenting pounding inside his head, all bleed into each other, and rub raw-edged. If he doesn’t stop he’ll lose control and crash the car, so as he cuts back along side roads, he stops in the entrance to a field and crouching down on one knee is sick, his stomach heaving even in its emptiness.

  *

  There’s so little time, so much to do – he must work quickly if he’s to get it done. He lifts the books from the book-rack followed by the ones which sit between the dressing table and the wardrobe, places them in one of the boxes piled up on the landing, making sure they’re in the exact order she had them and remembering which title follows which. Next he empties the wardrobe, forcing himself not to linger or dwell on what he touches, driving himself on by a constant reminder of the need for urgency. All the clothes are folded over on themselves, kept on their hangers and placed in the boxes. At the very back he finds her school uniform, hanging complete on one hanger – blazer, blouse, skirt. There are pens in the inside pocket of the blazer, a hymn book and a homework diary. Then he folds it and places it in a box with all the rest.

  At the bottom of the wardrobe he finds a blue swimming float, hockey equipment and a small case he doesn’t recognise. Kneeling on the floor he opens it to find a dozen pairs of shoes, lifts out the ones he remembers as the first pair she ever had, lets them rest a second in the palm of his hand. He wond
ers at their smallness then places them back with all the others and closes the lid again. Standing on a chair, he lifts down a tennis racquet, two box files full of school stuff, rolled-up posters and empty shoe boxes from the top of the wardrobe. He groups it all together in one half of a box.

  He hesitates a little at the dresser – it seems the most personal – but tells himself that it has to be done, that he’s doing it for her. He uses a plastic bag for what’s on top of it, carefully storing the combs – one has a long hair, almost too light to be seen, trapped in the teeth that trails in the air as he lifts it – the cosmetics, the jewellery, the little ornaments. Then he opens the drawers and transfers the contents to the boxes. He carries the full boxes down the stairs and out to the transit van he’s driven from the museum, piles them on top of each other to leave as much space for all that has to be brought. There’s so much to do, so little time – he has to hurry. Then it’s her desk, the place where so often he stopped to watch her work, and delicately and with reverence even in his haste he gathers and stores the pink pebble, the fossil fish, the ball of plasticine, the personal stereo, the tiny elephant, the spangled wooden box that contains a tangle of rings and earrings, the picture in a shell frame. There is a hand-held black lacquered mirror and he lifts it with the glass face down so that he doesn’t see himself. He clears the rest of the desktop including the essay she was working on and finds a safe place for everything, pausing only to remind himself where everything belongs, rehearsing the sequence and order.

  He doesn’t rest because there is much work to do and he knows that on his own it’s not going to be easy but he’s doing it for her and that tells him he can make it, that he can see it done. The wardrobe isn’t heavy and he’s able to slide it on its back down the stairs, then walk it corner by corner to the van and pull it into the back before securing it with one of the straps. He does the dresser the same way but first removes the drawers to make it lighter and easier to manoeuvre. It bangs against his shins and is more awkward to get down the stairs, but eventually he has it stored beside the wardrobe and ties it with a length of rope to prevent it sliding about. When he goes back into the almost empty room he sees the hidden spot where he couldn’t get the wallpaper to join, remembers the struggle of the job and how pleased she was when everything was finished, how important it was to her that everything matched.

  He takes the posters off the wall and rolls them inside each other, slips an elastic band round them, then turns to the bed, unscrewing the white quilted headboard that just above the pillows bears the faint tarnish of her hair. Folding the quilt and sheets he takes them down and places them inside the wardrobe. He finds the mattress difficult as it buckles and slips in his grip and it’s too big to fold or tuck under his arm so he struggles with it and stumbles before it’s finally in the back of the van. When everything from the room’s stored, he takes one last look to make sure he has it all. The emptiness of the room presses against his senses and as he stands in the doorway, he leans against the frame for support. But it has to be done – he understands that now and knows that it is the right thing, as right as anything can be. He’s just about to go when he sees the snow-shaker on the window ledge, partly hidden by the curtain. As he lifts it, the glass feels cold against his skin as if somehow the snow inside it is real. And then when he tries to stop the fall by turning it upside down it only makes it worse. He hides it from his sight by dropping it into his pocket and as he goes round the house turning off all the lights, in each room he imagines the silent swirl that he’s powerless to stop.

  There aren’t many cars on the roads at this time of night and he makes good time, so it only takes him twenty minutes and he’s there in front of the gates. He’s got little threads of different colour on the heavy bunch of keys for everything he needs to open, so he finds the right one quickly and it’s turning in the padlock and he’s able to open the double gates, drive through and close them again in a matter of minutes. He drives round the rear of the building and parks at the back doors beside the lift and loading bay. Another key, a lengthy punched security code and he’s inside, lighting his way with his torch. Already he’s aware that it’s not silent in the way he imagined it would be in the middle of the night, that the empty building hums and stirs with little sparks and currents of sound that emanate from pipes and distant corridors. Sometimes the whole building seems to shiver and stretch itself in the bed of its broken sleep before settling again. He stands and listens as the sounds filter their way towards him in hollow criss-crossed echoes and for a moment he feels afraid but he uses the light from his torch to illuminate the familiar fabric of the walls and floor, then turns back to what he has to do.

  He unloads the lightest boxes first, piling them gently on top of each other in the open service lift, then brings the furniture out piece by piece and packs everything into the lift, using all the available space, so there’s barely room for him to squeeze in and press the button to close the door and travel to Level Four. When the doors open there is a green, seeping half-light from the night lights and exit signs and he starts the process of unloading, carrying everything to the middle of the gallery which is about to be cleared of the students’ work. Some of it has been taken already and there are bare spaces on the walls where paintings have been removed.

  In the middle of the gallery there is a clear, raised wooden area and it’s here he begins his work. This time he starts with the furniture and it’s the bed he puts together first, screwing the headboard back in place, then adding the clothes and quilt, straightening and smoothing everything. He’s placed the torch on the floor and once as he moves about the bed he kicks it, sending a Catherine wheel of light spinning round the gallery and an echo that skims onwards like a stone through water before sinking into silence in some distant corner of the building. He freezes, listening to its journey, then returns with determination to what he has to do, pacing out the spot where the wardrobe has to go, only filling it with its contents when he’s absolutely sure that he’s got it in the correct position. He puts the same objects back on top and in the bottom, but keeping back the case of shoes. Her desk takes a long time, as he gets a little confused about the order of the objects which sit on it, can’t remember at first whether the alabaster elephant should be in the box or not. Finally he decides that it should and when he opens the lid a sweet scent puffs up and it makes him feel that everything so far has been right, that everything he has done already is staking its claim.

  When he’s finished the desk he moves the torch over it, checking that everything’s where it should be, sometimes stopping to straighten or alter the spacing. The light catches the ball of plasticine and he pauses, wondering why she had it, shines the torch more closely on it, and for the first time sees the whorled print of her thumb. It’s there, the press of her thumb and more than anything else it makes him stumble, threatens to halt him in his tracks. He feels it all welling up inside again, a carbon copy of everything that has already been felt and he knows if he allows it admittance, that he’ll be overwhelmed, borne away on the flood, so he struggles as he’s never struggled before, shaking his head and walking fierce, stubborn circles of himself. He goes over to the windows which look out on the roof garden and presses his cheek against the glass, holds his hands above his head, their palms also pushed against the glass, and feels the damp coldness freeze his skin. In his head he counts sixteen beautiful stone axes, smoothes them polished and perfect in his memory, traces with his eye the great waterwheels and steam engines, imagines the turn of the wheels and the shuddering throb of the pistons. It’s not enough; he presses his palms more tightly against the glass, recites the words, ‘Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening.’ Over and over. ‘Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening.’ Over and over and sometimes he mixes in whatever words come into his head, words that make no sense to him but which slowly dissipate what’s rising inside him and then he drops coins into the water, one after the ot
her until he can see their shimmer below the surface. But his only wish is that he will have the strength to finish what he has started.

  Slowly he lets his hands squeak down the glass and feels his breathing returning to normal. He squats on the floor for a few final moments and then returns to his work, completing what’s left methodically and meticulously, never flinching again from what his hand touches. On the wall behind, he pins her posters and the postcard of Mount Fuji, the pictures of Etna and Everest. His eye catches the sequence of white ceramic masks which are still on the wall and not wanting them there, roughly pulls each free from its fittings and stuffs them out of sight in a corner.

  Finally it’s almost finished – there’s only one last thing he wants to do, something he hadn’t planned but which now seems right, so kneeling down beside the case he unpacks the pairs of shoes, matches them, and at the edge of the wooden area, in front of her completed room, places them side by side in their chronological sequence. None is polished or shiny, all bear the scuffs and scores of use. In some, the ends of the laces are frayed, or eyelets are buckled out of shape, in others the heels worn down on one side. On one the toe is a lattice of scratches and he realises it’s one of the pair she had when she got her first bike – the bike that was slightly too big for her – and this is the foot she used as a brake. There’s a pair of red summer sandals which look light as air and a heavy black formal pair she got for starting secondary school. He sets them all in line and then he’s finished.