Grasslands

by Andrew McEwan

  Stan's eyes nearly popped out of his head. ‘Hey, I never thought of that,’ he whispered, those same eyes rolling. ‘The ceiling could use a coat of paint,’ he added.

  Lucy bounced enthusiastically. ‘Yes, yes, I could paint this wonderful mural - you know the kind of thing!’ She punched Vern in the arm and he dropped his glasses.

  ‘Angels,’ said Stan.

  ‘Sailors,’ said Lucy.

  ‘Broken,’ said Vern; ‘my glasses are broken.’

  ‘Rich girls,’ said Lucy.

  ‘Back-yard fences.’

  ‘Tents. ‘

  ‘I don't have another pair,’ said Vern.

  ‘We could plan a murder...’

  ‘Or start a religion.’

  They giggled insanely. Vern pedalled the pedal-bin and popped his fractured lenses, wondering if that's how Stan's wife's eyes had sounded. He trembled, hooked the wire frames round his ears, stared through hoops and said, ‘Now listen to this...’

  Lucy punched him in the arm again, harder.

  He didn't get the rest out; only, ‘Let me tell you...’

  ‘About God,’ said Stan.

  ‘Out here,’ said Lucy, ‘we is stoned, immaculate.’

  ‘The movie will begin in five moments,’ Stan continued.

  And so it went.

 

  ‘For a crap,’ said Vern, leaving. But the door was jammed, the window nailed shut.

  ‘You'd probably forget anyway,’ consoled Stan. ‘I shouldn't worry too much.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About whatever it is,’ he answered, scratching.

  Almeric's door fell on him when he tried to open it. The screws were missing. The wood was scorched at its base, the rug also. He glared about him suspiciously and decided, although it maddened him, to remain at home.

  Perhaps the phone would ring. Perhaps Ed would call. Perhaps his skull would clear and he wouldn't need aspirin.

  Or perhaps not.

  Lucy finds a pencil and begins to draw on the ceiling. Vernon tries to get the door open. Stanley watches telly and reads his Viz comic, laughing at Rude Kid and Buster Gonad...

  12 - Ws

  The day is Sunday. The sun shines brightly down on the sleepy world as it rouses, full of hope and promise. Lucy crawls out of bed on her hands and knees, white skin ablaze, mauve lips smudged at the corners, sea-green frillies scattered like kelp across sheets of red sand and yellow ocean, Vern's quilt and mattress between which he no longer sleeps. The girl tip-toes, places her dainty feet, steps lightly, a naked mermaid whose fishy tail she has abandoned to the sea.

  From a glass shelf in the bathroom she lifts a can of shaving cream and daubs the exposed flesh of hairy knees and ankles...

 

  ‘That'll teach you to peek,’ she said, standing astride Vern's somnolent head, his nose topped with a wet spray of foam.

  Stan rolled over and his genitals flopped out. Lucy suppressed a chuckle, and shook the can.

  They found her taking a bath, the meter earlier jimmied, and burst in toting washing-up bottles full of cold, watered-down soup.

  ‘You dare!’

  ‘Fire one,’ said Vern.

  ‘Aaaaaahh...’

  ‘Fire two,’ said Stan, who had secretly added tomato-ketchup to his chicken-broth.

  ‘Aaaaa-aaaaaa-aaahhhh!’ said Lucy. She hurled a bar of green soap and hit Stan in the eye.

  ‘Aaaahhh!’ he wailed.

  Vern laughed.

  Lucy reached over the side of the bath and yanked the rug out from under his feet.

  ‘Aaaaaa-aahh...’ said Vern, tumbling down.

  I get too close and fall in the bath. The water boils around me and carries me away.

  As the sun rises, the shadows melt, and the field of arches comes alive. At such an hour can worlds be viewed through the many gates and windows, worlds too numerous to count, worlds whose very existence draws me on, nearer, their multiplicity at once frightening and compelling. Through stone arches I pass, and through stone arches I find myself here, on a quest for a man with strong lungs...

  ‘I'll double you,’ Vern said.

  ‘Okay, what've you got?’ Stan replied round a mouthful of toothpaste.

  ‘Two aces.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Stanley Nex.

  ‘I thought we were going out,’ said Lucy, dressed in her blue anorak.

  ‘I can't get the door open,’ Vern reminded her.

  She stuffed her hands in her pockets. ‘I opened it,’ she said. ‘Let's go.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I opened it,’ she said again. ‘See?’

  Vern saw. ‘How?’ he asked. ‘It was jammed solid.’ His pride was hurt.

  ‘There was this wad of paper wedged under it,’ explained Lucy. ‘I just set it alight.’

  ‘Is that what I could smell burning?’ Stan wanted to know. He threw his hand in, rinsed and smiled at himself in the mirror.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Lucy. ‘Come on.’

 

  Her purple high-heels left on the grass verge Lucy paddled in the shallow water, feeding the ducks.

  The park shimmered with new growth and fallen blossom. People sat on benches and ate picnics. Dogs and children ran loose and tirelessly.

  Vern said, ‘Did you see that?’

  ‘See what?’ Stan replied. ‘I had my eyes shut and didn't see anything.’

  ‘In the sky,’ Vern pointed. ‘Look.’

  Stan shaded his eyes and peered upwards. ‘There's nothing to see,’ he complained.

  ‘There's blue,’ said Vern; ‘so much blue.’

  ‘Blue it may be,’ Stan answered. ‘But it's still nothing.’

  ‘How can something be nothing?’

  ‘Simple.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Sky is air.’ Stan closed his eyes again. ‘And air is invisible, which means you can't see it. Therefore there's nothing to see.’

  ‘But there isn't nothing there,’ persisted Vern. ‘And you can see blue.’

  ‘Blue's just a colour.’

  ‘The colour of air?’

  ‘Yes - no! Wait a minute.’ He sat up.

  ‘Air's invisible,’ said Vern. ‘You said so yourself. So how can it be blue?’

  ‘You're deliberately confusing me,’ said Stan. ‘Air's invisible; end of discussion.’

  ‘Not blue?’

  ‘Sky's blue.’

  ‘I thought sky was air?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And it's blue...’

  ‘No, space is blue.’

  ‘Space?’

  ‘Correct. Now let me sleep, Vern.’ He lay back down.

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ Vern went on, having some fun for once. ‘Sky is air and air is invisible and space is blue, right? In which case I shouldn't be able to see sky or air, just space. In which case I wouldn't know sky or air were there at all, just space.’

  Stan grunted. ‘Something like that,’ he said.

  ‘In which case,’ Vern said, ‘I'd think I was breathing space, which is impossible, because space is a vacuum.’

  ‘What you breathe,’ said Stan, ‘is wind.’

  ‘Ah, wind. I get it, I can feel wind, so I know it's there and that I'm breathing it and not vacuum.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In which case,’ said Vern, ‘I'd have to be quick.’

  ‘Quick?’

  ‘To breathe the wind,’ Vern told him. ‘Especially during a storm when it'd be moving fast.’

  ‘Who wants ice-cream?’ Lucy asked, splashing. ‘I know I want one of those funny pink things.’

  ‘Funny Feet,’ said Vern.

  ‘Yeah,’ said splashing Lucy, ‘don't they.’

  ‘Don't who?’

  ‘The ducks.’

  ‘Oh.’ Vern got up and searched his pockets for money.

  ‘I hate ice-cream,’ said Stan. ‘Make mine a ninety-nine.’<
br />
  ‘There!’ shouted Vern. ‘I saw it again.’

  ‘What is it?’ said Lucy.

  ‘Sky,’ Stan told her. ‘Blue sky. Nothing to get excited about; you've seen it before.’

  ‘I have not,’ she said flatly. ‘Not like that.’

  Curiosity got the better of Stan. He looked.

  ‘Got you,’ said Vern. ‘Ha!’

  But Stan didn't hear him, kept staring upwards.

  Vern pursed his lips and followed Stanley's gaze. A vapour trail pushed an aeroplane through the air.

  ‘The moon,’ said Stan. ‘I can see the moon.’

  ‘That's not the moon,’ Vern said; ‘that's a flap that says pull here, or open other end, or something.’

  ‘A ring-pull,’ said Lucy; ‘like on a can of pop.’

  ‘I hate pop,’ said Vern.

  Lucy walked away carrying her shoes. She'd stuffed her sea-green stockings in the pocket of her blue anorak, wishing she could take that off. The water had cooled her toes, but the rest of her body roasted.

  ‘Have you got any money?’ Vern inquired, catching her up.

  ‘Some,’ she said. ‘Not much though.’

  ‘But enough?’

  ‘Enough for what?’

  ‘Ice-cream. ‘

  She winked and pouted. ‘Not if I buy cigarettes.’

  ‘You plan to?’

  ‘Maybe. Or maybe I'll give up.’

  ‘Cigarettes or ice-cream?’ said Vern, counting his change and finding it small.

  Lucy stubbed her toe. ‘Ouch!’ she said. ‘Hold these.’

  Vern took her shoes and waited while she rubbed her foot. The sun went behind a cloud. Strange, he thought, and looked up. ‘A balloon!’

  ‘Can't afford it,’ said Lucy.

  ‘Uh?’ Vern dropped one high-heel. The balloon melted away. He stooped to retrieve the shoe and dropped his money.

  ‘It's ice-cream or cigarettes,’ Lucy proclaimed. ‘Let's try and keep this simple.’

  ‘I don't smoke,’ argued Vern.

  ‘But you hate ice-cream.’

  ‘That was Stan.’

  ‘He said he wanted a ninety-nine.’

  ‘He was joking.’

  ‘And you said you wanted a balloon.’

  ‘No, I saw a balloon.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the sky.’

  ‘What colour was it?’

  ‘Blue.’

  ‘A blue balloon in a blue sky?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Rubbish! It'd be camouflaged.’

  ‘I saw its shadow. It passed right over us.’

  ‘When? ‘

  ‘When you handed me your shoes.’

  ‘I didn't see it.’

  ‘You weren't looking.’

  Lucy walked away again, this time with her hands jutting from her brow like the peak of a cap.

  Vern caught up once more, having recovered his money. She was leaning on the shop counter.

  ‘You bought cigarettes,’ he said, disappointed.

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted, ‘I did.’

  Outside Lucy stared upwards at the sky. ‘I don't see it.’

  ‘It's gone,’ Vern said. ‘You're too late.’

  ‘Was it a big balloon?’

  ‘Massive. ‘

  ‘Then it couldn't have gone far,’ she reasoned.

  ‘It was moving fast.’

  ‘For a balloon?’

  ‘For anything.’

  ‘For an aeroplane?’

  ‘Not that fast,’ said Vern. ‘Just fast enough.’

  ‘To escape me,’ Lucy finished. ‘Things always escape me; I can never keep up.’

  ‘Then give up smoking,’ Vern suggested. ‘Go jogging instead, and perhaps you'll be quicker next time.’

  ‘Luckier, you mean.’ She inhaled dramatically.

  ‘Why luckier?’ Vern sat on a metal chair and polished his lensless wire spectacles.

  Lucy sat in another. ‘Tell me a joke,’ she said. ‘I feel sort of depressed all of a sudden.’

  ‘It's the poisons in your lungs, they're killing you.’

  ‘Wubbish!’ she retorted. ‘Wigarettes waren't woisonus.’

  Vern sat up straight. ‘Wes whey ware,’ he affirmed. ‘Whey's weadly.’

  ‘Wrove wit, Wern.’

  He paused, wondering. Then said, ‘Why?’

  ‘Cheat,’ said Lucy. ‘People always cheat when they play with me.’

  ‘So cheat back.’

  ‘I tried,’ she told him.

  ‘What happened?’ He squinted at the sun and thought perhaps he'd been seeing things in the sky that weren't there and should apologize.

  ‘I got pregnant,’ Lucy stated.

  Vern was silent. He slouched, examining the brass frames. The park crowded his consciousness with shapes and smells, kids and dogs and balls and Frisbees, car exhausts and tables. The moon was real though, he was sure.

  13 - DESCRIBING FACES

  Amongst all the worlds I chose this one. I passed through its stone arch and walked on air, danced in alien climes. Almeric's hydrogen bomb intrigued me, but I think it will not solve my people's dilemma. My mind has changed, changes still; my mind revolves round the core of my brain and comes not to rest. The tides of my substance ebb and flow. While in my world the city rolls closer. It thunders...

  ‘Goodnight Vern,’ drawled Lucy. ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Did you set the alarm, Vern?’

  ‘I don't have an alarm.’

  ‘Then how do you know when to get up?’

  ‘Hugget wakes me.’

  ‘Your mouse?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The door burst open and in charged Stan. ‘You left me,’ he gasped. ‘I woke up in the park and it was dark and nobody was there!’ He seemed upset.

  ‘We ate your ice-cream, too,’ said Vern.

  ‘I was followed up the stairs.’ Stan didn't know which way to turn. ‘There's this strange man-thing lurking outside.’ He tripped over the bed and Lucy screamed.

  ‘The strange man-thing!’ Vern yelled. ‘It's got Lucy!’

  An almond, half-eaten, mouse-gnawed, fell on his head. Hugget, thought Vernon Planes, my mouse has turned into a bat, it's the full moon and we're all going to be eaten by vampires - or vampire bats. Or strange man-things.

  He was hungry. He ate the nut and was soon asleep.

  He woke up.

  He hadn't been dreaming; in one corner of the room a greenish shape coalesced out of street-light and curtain. Vern peered at its newly fashioned contours and discerned a face in profile, an eye, nose, mouth and chin. The room was utterly quiet. He felt his pulse in his neck, imagined it ticking, his life descending as each breath he took vanished into the past. He wondered if a person only had so many breaths, a fixed number, and that was it, death at zero, the end. He wondered what that number was, and whether it was always the same for everybody. In which case he should slow his breathing down, take it easy, not run around getting excited or anything strenuous like that, it would only cause him to use up his breaths too fast and he'd be a gonna. It all made perfect sense when you thought how much quicker a small animal breathed, say a mouse or a cat, and compared that to how much shorter they lived than say an elephant or a person. The number must be standard, he intuited, fixed by God.

  He was asleep again.

  He woke up.

  Vern and Stan walked to work. In Stan's usual parking space was a brand-new Ford.

  ‘Junk,’ said Stan.

  ‘Junk,’ agreed Vern.

  When it came time to clock-in, Stanley couldn't find his card, so he punched the machine with his fist instead.

  ‘You shouldn't have done that,’ said Rita the pay clerk.

  Stan was unrepentant.

  ‘What's your name?’ Rita asked. ‘I'll have to take your name.’

  ‘You know my name,’ Stan grumbled.

 
She glared at him. ‘Name?’

  ‘Stanley Nex,’ he said. ‘My card's gone.’

  ‘No it isn't,’ said Rita. ‘I've got it here.’

  ‘You've been sacked,’ Vern guessed. ‘Someone must've told them you murdered your wife.’

  Rita peered at Vern and Stan peered at Rita, who laughed.

  Stan leaned on her polished window ledge. ‘You're next,’ he said ominously, and Rita shut up.

  ‘What's gone wrong with the world?’ said Vern. He stood up to his knees in rubber washers.

  ‘Find what you were looking for?’ asked the stockroom assistant whose boss was out leaving him in charge.

  ‘Not yet,’ replied Vern.

  ‘Perhaps I can help. What's the number?’

  ‘Three. ‘

  ‘Just three?’

  ‘It's a standard half-inch,’ Vern said.

  The stockroom assistant frowned, scratched his head. ‘There's thousands right in front of you,’ he said, disgusted.

  ‘Yes,’ Vern answered, ‘but I don't want black.’

  ‘They don't make them any other colour.’

  ‘No yellow ones?’

  ‘No, only black.’

  Vern turned and left. ‘I hate black,’ he said. All round him machine parts stared like skulls in a necropolis, empty fixtures and sockets.

  Joyce leaned over and smiled. ‘How's it going?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Vern; ‘when I find my pliers.’

  ‘What happened to your partner?’

  ‘He got the boot.’

  ‘Really? That's too bad. What did he do?’ She slipped past the wreckage of her washing-machine and stepped out into the May sunshine. Vern didn't answer. He snapped two hoses together. Impressed in the rubber of one was an eye, unblinking. He searched and found a nose disguised as a plastic clip, fixed that in place. When he had reassembled the pump unit and installed the electric motor a mouth appeared. The face was chinless, however, it kept the peace.

  ‘Want a coffee, Vern?’

  ‘Eh, no thanks.’

  The number three on his door was new. So were the scratches, claw marks incised in the wood. Lucy was standing on a chair painting the ceiling.

  ‘What is it?’ inquired Vern.

  ‘A face,’ said Lucy.

  ‘An angel's or a sailor's?’

  ‘Neither,’ she said. ‘Don't you recognize it?’

  ‘Can't say I do.’

  ‘It's yours!’ she shrilled, blue anorak speckled with paint, cigarette unlit. ‘It's Vernon Planes.’

  He bent his neck. ‘I took like that?’ The face was awful, its lips were too thin and its eyes too large.

  ‘Some of the time,’ Lucy told him.