The Flask

by Nicky Singer

  “Shall we go out?” I say to Gran. “Before breakfast?”

  There is no before breakfast in Gran’s life. Nothing can be achieved before breakfast.

  “Yes,” says Gran. “Let’s.”

  We put on jackets, but we could almost have gone out in T-shirts, short sleeves anyway. We walk down the close and take great gulps of air.

  “It smells of…” I begin.

  “… of summer,” Gran finishes.

  “What is that smell?”

  “I don’t know,” says Gran, sniffing again. “I’d like to say it’s flowers. But it isn’t. It’s just… a kind of warmth.”

  “A promise,” I say.

  “A promise?”

  “That summer will come. That after the winter, summer will come.”

  In my pocket, the flask that was so cold is warm to the touch.

  “I’m not sure you can smell a promise,” says Gran.

  But I think you can.

  We pass the garage where Bruno Teisler built the ice mermaid. Not a single crystal of snow remains. Which is strange too, because isn’t it the compacted snow that usually remains? The giant snowballs, the thick trunks of snowmen? They sit solid for days no matter how green the grass around them. The lack of any trace of the mermaid makes me feel slightly (but only slightly) better about knocking her head off.

  We’re not aiming for the park, we haven’t discussed where we’re going, but Gran and I arrive at the park.

  Some blossom trees are out, not the heavy pink cherry kind, but the lighter paler sort.

  “Apple,” says Gran. “It’s apple.”

  And I look through the blossom up into the sky, which is a very pale blue with high, wispy clouds.

  But it’s not sky or the blossom that’s so extraordinary, it’s the tiny shoots of green on almost every tree and bush and plant in the park. They look to me suddenly like tiny green flames, as if the whole park will soon combust in a great conflagration of green.

  “Look at the flower buds,” says Gran.

  And I hadn’t noticed those.

  Tight buds on the rose bushes, their delicate pinks masked with a kind of papery, brown exterior petal.

  “And this is choisya, I think,” says Gran, bending down to examine a dark green bush dense with tiny white buds. “It will smell amazing in a few weeks.”

  The whole park is pulsing with the promise of new life.

  Then we see the butterfly.

  “It’s a Red Admiral,” I say, “isn’t it?”

  Gran nods and I concentrate on its bright colours and its delicate, delicate, beating wings.

  “How could it survive?” I ask Gran. “How could it survive the snow?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe it didn’t. Maybe it came out of its chrysalis just this morning.”

  I don’t know if this is true, but I want it to be true. I want this beautiful creature to have been born today, liberated today, come into the world today. This day of my brothers’ operation.

  Beating wing.

  Beating heart.

  I watch it flutter from bush to bush, looking for some place of welcome, an open flower, then flutter on, searching wider, trying harder. And then just lift into the sky where I watch it, outlined against the sky.

  Then I have the strangest sense that I too am fluttering, growing, promising. That I’m totally myself, Jessica Walton, but that I’m also a leaf unfurling, a rosebud waiting to bloom, a cloud scudding across the sky, a butterfly on the wing. That I belong to myself, but also to the whole world, that I’m part of it, every cell of mine indivisible from every other cell in the universe. It only lasts a moment this feeling, but it pierces me with happiness and with hope.

  “Gran?” I say.

  “Yes, Jess?”

  “Can we go to Aunt Edie’s house?”

  “Why?” asks Gran.

  “I want to play the piano.”

  She takes me to Aunt Edie’s in the afternoon.

  “Might as well,” she says. The sun is still shining, but Gran’s mood has darkened. She’s thinking, but not saying, that this is about the most dangerous time for the twins, Phase 4, when the team of surgeons will divide their single liver.

  “We can’t discount the possibility of haemorrhage.” That’s what the doctors say. That’s what they fear. In her dark afternoon, Gran is afraid.

  I am not afraid.

  The flask is green.

  Not lurid, electric green as it was when it stood in front of the green buttons of my Wi-Fi router, but the bold, gorgeous green of nature. It came in, a flame at a time, with the tiny shoots of new life on the trees in the park. It pushed itself through the misty white and gold, like young blades of grass. All through the day the green has come, promising pulsing spring. Now there is nothing left of white and gold, the flask is just one whole globe of green.

  We don’t go through the little side gate; we park in Gran’s drive and walk around the road way to Aunt Edie’s front door.

  “I’ve got the piano men coming next week,” Gran says. “This will be the last time you can play the piano in Edie’s house.”

  And previously that would have chilled me, but it doesn’t today because today is full of hope and glory.

  I go straight to Aunt Edie’s sitting room and I hope Gran won’t follow me and she doesn’t. Perhaps she knows I need to be alone now.

  I set the shining green world of the flask on top of the piano.

  “Now,” I say. “It’s now, isn’t it?”

  I can hear the notes, of course I can, they began to come when we walked in the park. They pushed into my mind along with the blades of grass.

  I lay my hand on the hair from the lion’s mane, and around it a chord builds, quite easily, fluently, as though it could never be or have been any chord but the one that finds itself under my fingers. It makes me think of Aunt Edie and how music flowed out of her hands. Alongside the lion are other notes from ‘For Rob’, but they don’t make you want to cry, they are not a lament. It’s the same music, but not the same music at all, it’s a mirror reflection, stronger, more powerful. I realise then where this song is heading, what the mirror is: all the minor chords of ‘For Rob’, they have parallels in the major keys. If I can stretch my hands and my mind then I will find this jubilant thing, this thing that has been just out of my reach for so long.

  “It’s what you showed me in the park?” I say to the flask. “Yes?”

  This possibility, this song which says that God’s creation cannot fail. Everything counts: the tiniest trill of the sweetest bird to the loudest most crashing crescendo wave. They all have their part to play in the whole beautiful pattern and rhythm of life. Only I still can’t hear it all, there’s something missing.

  “What is it? Tell me! You must know this song. You sang it first.”

  The flask glows and glows.

  But the ending will not come. It makes me feel like I’m on the edge of a cliff suspended – I could fall, I could fly, fall, fly…

  The door opens.

  Someone comes in.

  It’s not Gran.

  It’s no one I know. In fact, it’s three people I don’t know.

  Three people in Aunt Edie’s house, I haven’t heard coming because I’ve been all wrapped up in the music.

  I fall. Or at least my hands do – off the piano.

  There’s a man in a sharp suit with a fat tie and scrubbed-clean face who looks startled, and a young couple, at least I think they’re a couple, because of the way they’re standing, so close they’re almost joined, barely a kiss apart.

  “That was nice,” says the woman, nodding at the piano. “Really nice.”

  Nice. This song of creation.

  Nice.

  But she means it kindly, I see that. She’s got warm brown eyes.

  The fat tie man taps at his clipboard. “I wasn’t expecting anyone,” he says, “to be in.”

  Then I see what the woman is carrying. A sheet of paper with a picture of
Aunt Edie’s house on it, and below the picture, details of all Aunt Edie’s rooms, the precise measurements, a layout of the ground floor, a layout of the first floor. And a price.

  Aunt Edie’s house is for sale and here is the estate agent and a couple who might come into this house and repaint the walls (well, actually they need repainting), and fill the rooms with their own furniture, and perhaps have a baby here. A baby of their own.

  “You’re her granddaughter,” says Fat Tie. “Is that right? Mrs Walton’s granddaughter?”

  I say nothing.

  “Nice room,” says the man, beginning to explore, to look out of Aunt Edie’s bay window. “Spacious.”

  The woman hasn’t moved though. “Don’t let us disturb you,” she says again. “You just go right on playing.”

  But, of course, I can’t.

  The husband comes up behind his wife and slides his hand around her waist. “Your piano would fit here,” he says. “Wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she says.

  And then Fat Tie says, “Of course, the conservatory is a huge asset to the house,” and he takes them through the Sun Room and out into the garden.

  I want to start the song again, but I can’t. There is only one way back into the house and it’s through this room. Even if Fat Tie takes the couple right to the end of the witch’s hat garden where the compost heap is, and even if they stop off on the way back to inspect the gate through to Gran’s garden or observe how her eucalyptus tree leans over the joint fence, they will not be gone very long. They will be back, disturbing my song again.

  I pick the flask up off the piano, hold it in my hands. It’s green and quiet.

  “But you don’t mind, do you?”

  No reply.

  “You could have sung and you didn’t. Yes?”

  No reply.

  “So when? If not now? When?”

  No reply.

  I put the flask back on the piano. I will have to wait again. Listen. Be patient.

  “A song always chooses its own time. Yes?”

  I can hear voices from the garden. I haven’t thought of the people coming to buy Aunt Edie’s house before. I’ve blocked them out, not wanting anyone to tread in the sacred places that were Edie’s. Edie’s and mine.

  But if someone has to buy this house, I hope suddenly that it will be this young couple with their near-kiss join and their hopes and their piano. Or her piano anyway.

  Soon enough they’re back.

  Fat Tie is all for pushing them quickly through the room, but the woman hovers, comes close to the piano, looks at me, looks at the flask.

  “That’s a very beautiful object,” she says. “I like the way,” she pauses, “it seems to capture the light.”

  “Capture the light?” I repeat.

  Can she see it? Can this total stranger see it?

  “Yes,” she says. “It’s very unusual, isn’t it?” She smiles. “Like your playing,” she adds. “Did you make up that piece yourself?”

  “Sort of,” I say.

  She nods. “If we buy this house,” she says, “I will always remember you. You – and your music.”

  Then I’m pierced again with a hope and a happiness, which lasts right up until the evening.

  When Si rings.

  Although we have been waiting for the call all day, we still both jump when the phone rings. Gran nods at me to pick up, as if some part of her cannot bear to know what we have waited so long to know.

  “Jess?” Si is bleary with exhaustion. “They’re back on the ward, Jess.”

  They’re back on the ward.

  They are.

  They.

  “They’re back on the ward,” I shout at Gran. “Both of them are back on the ward! Told you. Told you, told you, told you!”

  Gran lifts her hand to her chest, crosses herself.

  Si is silent. Si is not joining in the jubilation.

  “What?” I say.

  “Richie’s good. Richie’s doing really well.” He pauses.

  “And Clem?”

  “The next twenty-four hours,” says Si, “they’re going to be critical for Clem.”

  “But he’s going to be fine,” I say. In my pocket is the flask. It’s still a brilliant, gorgeous green. I’ve checked every five minutes since we returned from Gran’s. I check again. “He’s going to be fine.”

  “I wish I had your confidence,” says Si quietly. “Now, can I talk to Gran?”

  I hand over the phone and Gran listens and listens and says nothing. After what seems like a lifetime she finally speaks. “Tomorrow then,” she says. “We’ll come early. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

  “What?” I say to Gran. “What?”

  “Clem,” she says.

  “I know Clem,” I exclaim. “But what?”

  “The operation went really well, better than they expected. No hitches at all.”

  “So?”

  “So they can’t explain it. Why Clem isn’t doing better than he is.”

  I can’t explain it either. The snow babies exist. The flask is green, both seed fishes are swimming. Both of them.

  I ring Zoe. “Can you come round?”

  “It’s late,” she says. “Really late.”

  “I know.”

  Zoe comes around.

  “This is a bit late,” says Gran.

  “It’s important,” Zoe and I say together, not a breath between our words.

  “It may be…” begins Gran. “But people have to sleep.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll be sleeping tonight,” I say. “Will you?”

  Gran lets Zoe in.

  We go to my room. I put the flask on the bureau.

  “What do you see?” I ask.

  “Not much, I’m afraid,” she says.

  “But does it look the same, the same as it did before?”

  “Brighter possibly. With a tinge of something.”

  “Tinge of what?”

  “Colour?”

  “Green,” I say. “It’s green.” I tell her about my day, about the park and the green and the song and how everything has to be OK, only it isn’t.

  “He’s critical,” I tell Zoe.

  “Have they said that?”

  “Yes. Good as.”

  Zoe picks up the flask.

  “Pity it can’t talk,” she says. “Then it could tell us what to do.” As she turns the flask about in her hands, her fingers seem to tremble, or else she’s just clumsy, and the flask falls, it falls out of her grip.

  “No!” I cry.

  But of course, the flask doesn’t fall far, it’s only an inch or so to the desk, so it simply skids a little, knocks into one of the wooden pillars that stand either side of the arch that houses ScatCat and the friendship bracelets.

  The pillar wobbles.

  “Oh – I’m so sorry,” Zoe says, grasping the perfectly strong flask and righting it again.

  “Did you see that?” I ask.

  “Of course I did, it was me who dropped it,” she says.

  “No,” I say. “The pillar.”

  “What?”

  I stretch out my hand, and touch it. It moves again.

  “Loose bit of wood?” says Zoe.

  But I know it isn’t and actually she knows it isn’t either. At least it is a loose bit of wood, but it wobbles not as if it’s broken, but sturdily, as if there’s a purpose to its wobbling. My heart gives a little thump, just as it did when I discovered the too-short drawer which hid the flask. I put my hand up to the curved wooden surface of the column and I pull. I expect it to give way immediately, but it doesn’t.

  “Let me try,” Zoe says. She jigs with her fingers, pushes her nails, which are longer than mine and painted a vivid red, into the gap between the pillar and the surrounding surfaces. And there’s the answer: it’s not just the pillar that’s loose, but the apparently solid piece of mounting behind.

  “You do it,” she says suddenly.

  Is she afraid? Beautiful, bold Zoe?


  My smaller, quieter hands get to work. I readjust my grip and pull. This time, pillar and mounting come straight out, revealing themselves as the front end of a small, perfectly crafted compartment about one inch wide and eight inches deep. The sort of place you might hide a document or a letter. Thrum, thrum, thrum goes my heart. And from the look on Zoe’s face, so does hers.

  But the slim wooden box is empty. I turn it upside down and tap it on the bottom, just to make sure. There’s nothing in it at all, not even an old button or a pin.

  “Oh,” says Zoe, somewhere between disappointed and relieved.

  I’m already turning my attention to the second pillar. Of the bureau’s two ‘matching’ drawers only one actually concealed a secret space, so it I shouldn’t expect the second pillar to move…

  But it does.

  It wobbles just like its twin.

  Its twin.

  A little pair of pillars. Joined.

  “Oh, oh,” says Zoe again.

  I pull out the second pillar. It conceals an identical one inch by eight inch secret space. Only this box isn’t empty.

  “What is it?” says Zoe.

  “Don’t know.”

  Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.

  It contains an envelope.

  I shake it out on to the desk and it lands upside down, so I have to turn it over to read the writing.

  For Rob, it says.

  Am I surprised? No, I am not surprised. Nothing surprises me any more. Especially when it’s part of a pattern. You think things end, but they don’t, they begin all over again. Like summer follows winter or night follows day.

  “Don’t open it,” says Zoe.

  “I have to.” The loopy black writing is Aunt Edie’s. “It’s from my aunt.”

  “From her, but not to you,” remarks Zoe.

  “It’s not stuck down.” And it isn’t. It’s one of those old-fashioned envelopes you have to lick. “If Aunt Edie didn’t want anyone looking in this envelope she could have licked it up. But she didn’t.”

  “Even so,” says Zoe.

  “Look,” I say. “It was you who said ‘pity you can’t talk’. Well, maybe the flask just did.”