Black Bread White Beer

by Niven Govinden

  ‘You smell funny, the pair of you.’

  Doorstep interrogation; without satisfactory answers no man shall pass.

  ‘I took our boy on a little investigation, love. We found more holes in the garden.’

  ‘He’d better not have got you drinking. It’s the brewery smell you’ve brought back with you. Or should that be, the distillery smell.’

  ‘I could say the same for you.’

  Her laugh is incredulous; acidic in its commentary.

  ‘Nice try, Samuel, but my breath comes from the Herald as you well know. From the old WI speciality: tea laced with Sloe Gin. But you, mister, I know what you’re like when you start fiddling inside that shed. Start confusing the homebrew with the workbench. I’m going to need a hand with dinner in the next couple of hours and you’re already half cut.’

  In rare alcohol-induced instances they still unknowingly strive to make him feel the outsider. It is the three of them who cluster around the backdoor frame, yet she only addresses Sam, harking back to an earlier conjugal role, when young visitors needed to be admonished for being bad influences.

  This is perhaps the third such time when Liz has dealt with him in this way – the earlier occasions being pre-marriage, when rudeness could be written-off as a parental sizing-up – but he feels it just as acutely.

  He and Claud have never argued this way, before an audience. Their rows are staged in cars and across mobiles. She has been bred differently, to flare up as and when things happen, but he trained himself to save it; absorb her anger, irritation like a shock absorber until they could go at it hammer and tongs somewhere private. He loves her too much to see her unravel in public. That’s his upbringing. They have no idea how much he protects their daughter from following her parental steps. No bloody idea.

  ‘You disappeared for a while at the Herald, didn’t you? I thought you’d gone home at one point.’

  ‘That sugary tea gave me a headache. I’m not used to it.’

  ‘I looked everywhere.’

  ‘Went to walk it off. I’m sorry.’

  Liz finds little in his answers that is satisfactory. Eyes him as suspiciously as she did the first time he was brought home. Veils of courtesy in progressively lighter deniers. Aware that she’s nodding affirmatively even though she still thinks him same as other men: capable of straightforward lying.

  ‘Oh, that’s fine. I’m actually preoccupied with something else now, namely why my daughter is dressed like one of the Three Degrees? The last time she wore Long was at your honeymoon breakfast, and that was like pulling teeth.’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘What’s been going on in that house of yours this week?’

  Throughout this exchange, Sam stands by her side and clears his throat in a series of nervous tics. In a reversal of their campaigning personas, domestically at least, Liz is the one to be relied upon to lead the charge. Bouddicea in tan corduroy. Daughter welfare, forward! While Sam’s power lies in debate – stubborn logic descending into flummoxed, snappy nastiness – he lacks the empathy needed to cluster round the Aga. The discomfort shows in his face, not happy to have raised voices within the home; within Claud’s earshot.

  ‘You’re all my little honeybees,’ he had said once, on detecting Amal’s resistance at one of the earliest dinners, when a Sussex sleepover and a Sunday morning church visit were mandatory if he was to succeed in winning them over. ‘There’s nothing I like more than when we’re all buzzing together.’

  Liz crosses her arms tightly, impatient for his answer. Her posture harks back to a quarter century prior: Mum at the school gate readying herself to sort out another playground dispute.

  ‘I-I-I . . .’

  ‘Out with it, Amal. I know there’s something she’s not telling me.’

  From the corner of his eye he can see Sam blinking some kind of warning. Embattled husbands must stand together; a show of allegiance he hadn’t anticipated.

  ‘She’s been feeling low for the past couple of days. The doctor said to expect it. Crash after a high, and everything. I’ve been coming home to tears most night this week.’

  ‘Ah! The dreaded hormones! That explains it.’

  ‘Don’t sound so pleased about it, Samuel. Pregnancy’s hard enough to cope with as it is, without having your emotions boomeranging all over the place.’

  ‘The dressing-up’s probably helping her, Liz. Making her feel better about herself.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right, of course Amal. It just made me stop in my tracks for a moment when I saw her. Just not the sort of think I’d imagine her doing.’

  As Liz computes this her face softens; a mother relenting on a hapless son. Making the most of what has been given to her through marriage.

  ‘Like you said, pregnancy makes you do the strangest things. I’m just finding this out for myself.’

  ‘Better fasten your seat belt, mate. You have no idea what’s lying ahead. If she’s anything like my good lady wife here, you’re in for some fun and games.’

  He offers tea; a peacekeeper, trying to dampen down hostility across all sides. Two cups each, with lots of sugar, thaws the chill in some areas and sobers up others. Now there is peace in the house, persuading them to go letter-boxing with a stack of remaining loose leaflets in order to keep up the momentum of interest from the Herald. That there are five further boxes in the utility room waiting for similarly eager readers is not his problem. They can be dropped at the libraries and the shops in and around Lewes early next week.

  His father-in-law is a fervent believer in an Englishman’s home being his castle; happy to employ all these clichés about nationality. This is half the reasoning behind the leaflets in the first place; to defend his precious beautiful castle until his last breath – either in his sleep or when a burglar slips a window catch and twists one of Liz’s steak knives into his chest cavity.

  The old village traditions still stand. So long as someone is home or in the immediate area all the doors stay unlocked until ten thirty. Tense teenagers aside, the most that has been taken from the house in thirty years of them living there is a golfing umbrella from the porch, and half a bag of sugar when the WI meeting next door ran short.

  Similarly, he knows that the cars will also be unlocked; both the Range Rover and more importantly the boot of Liz’s hatchback, the alarm off, waiting for his hands to push the catch and release the washing machine clogging up its insides. If he can plumb the washing machine without them catching on (how, with his clumsy coordination and cluelessness with domestic appliances?), he feels he can win some vital point against Sam, delineating an area of skill where only he reigns supreme. Fathers-to-be need to know this stuff. They cannot raise children who think that they are useless on all practical fronts.

  The child they might one day have, will have, must never feel at a loss, unprepared to handle the notion of strength, when only brute strength is needed. Whether boy or girl, he has to ensure that they are raised to be both physically fit and intelligent. From a young age, the first age that it is safe to do so, they will be given cardiovascular training and set loose on the small weights. By the time they start high school they will have the brains of geniuses and the bodies of athletes. They will love their parents and not be afraid of anything.

  In the grip of tense, outstretched arms, the washing machine feels lighter than he imagines, its move achievable, until its full weight becomes apparent once it is free from the depths of the boot, with only its merest edge resting along the rear bumper. Brown hands on white goods. The irony does not escape him. He feels he should take a picture and stick it on the shelf in the living room along with the others. Marriage equals modern-day slavery.

  Moving it as far as he has, five yards in a series of jagged, grunt-powered pulls, not overtly worrying about the effects of a bumpy trajectory upon the machine’s delicate drum mechanism, has used up all his reserves. Until he recalls the trolley sitting in the shed and goes to pick the padlock. He remembers too reading so
mewhere how at concerts singer pep up their energy by snacking on strips of cooked chicken during costume changes. He would do the same if Claud could be called down. But she is having another catnap before tea, the garden-digging and cake-making wearying her to a similar degree.

  He has not yet spoken to her about the time capsules. He does not want to embarrass her. Better to monitor her response as he tramps outside her window, an attention-seeking teenager tortured with unrequited love, as he stamps the mud from his shoes, heels clicking against flagstones in a loud, aggressive quick-march. A shadow floats behind the Victorian glass but it could just as easily be curtains.

  He is unsure of her presence until the washing machine slips first from the trolley ’s rusted bumper and consequently from his grasp, dropping onto the drive with a thick, polystyrene-insulated slap. There is no drama attached to the noise, but the echoing ring of the drum rattling inside its tin cage is enough to bring her to the window proper. Her face is sleepy – everything to remember about this day will be based around her readily falling into unconsciousness as if nothing about his presence in the real world, his support, is worth staying awake for – her eyes understanding the spontaneity of his latest tangent.

  In spite of the ringing that courses through his body with the shock of the sudden drop, like an inner spring that refuses to settle, he shrugs off his cack-handed effort and waves up to her. She does not respond, simply content to observe, something in the slight incline of her head indicating an appraisal of some kind, as if he is a mating bull being paraded in the ring at market. To buy or not to buy?

  ‘It’s my turn to surprise them,’ he calls, his voice cracking with fake cheerfulness, ‘think they’ll be pleased?’

  ‘You shouldn’t waste your time,’ she mouths. ‘Nothing you do will make any difference.’

  He squints through the late-afternoon sunlight to see her better, understanding that the furrow across his eyebrows give him a studious look, masking his sense of panic, his inner spring powering back to high-jump. Bungee jump. He has to be able to make a difference. If not, he has no business being there.

  She continues to stand at the window, expressionless as the glass; a blank.

  ‘Hold on. I’m coming up.’

  He will not allow this to happen. He will not give up. It has taken longer than he thought, a night and most of the day, but a state of shock has finally emerged within her. All the sleep she’s had has given her the energy to play dead.

  As he runs up the stairs he fears he will be unable to cover the lifelessness that lies behind her eyes, knowing that Liz will immediately detect the sinking of her girl; sniff the lost baby in seconds. The trouble he can handle; what he cannot face is the possibility of having to articulate their grief on his own.

  Of all the rooms in the house it is perhaps Claud’s bedroom where he feels the most uncomfortable. Liz tried to move them into one of the larger guest rooms after they were married as a gentle suggestion that childish things should be left in childhood. But Claud stubbornly sticks to the back room that overlooks the garden, barely large enough to hold the double bed, wardrobe and dresser. What it holds in its favour is the evening light that streams though the triple window panels. He understands how a bad day at sixth form can be made better by letting the sunlight smooth out the worst of a teenager’s angst.

  Each time he steps over the threshold he sees Claud in her younger incarnation, wilful and argumentative. Messy. Even now, he sees the tangled bedclothes, and how her shoes have been thrown over the bed at the back wall, probably the same spot where she dumped them as a girl. Tidy Claud, who likes everything in Richmond to be in its place, drops her coat to the floor; lets the contents of her bag spill onto the bed. Sleeps on top of her make-up bag without it being a problem. Even her posture is different, hunched and defensive. Her body language is asking for a fight.

  Also, the same bed where younger, more energetic boyfriends have made their mark. He has none of their daring. In their place he is moved to paralysis, pretending to fall asleep.

  Ignoring his unease he puts his arms around her, the strength in the crook of his elbow and in his hands killing her wriggling, squirming movements, as she jerks her body like a fish fighting for its last breath. He will absorb her fight. Squeeze the life back into her. Make her aware of the world and that they have a place in it.

  ‘You shouldn’t get so close to me. I’m defective.’

  The more she tries to fight him the tighter he holds her. Bone to bone. Hoping the friction will act as a kind of muffler, absorbing the words she shouldn’t be saying.

  ‘You’ll catch it too. No woman will want you.’

  If there was a pillow to hand, closer than at the other end of the room, he would place it over her mouth to stop her speaking. His hand alone is no good. Each time he tries to cover her she spits on his palm. Hot, flaming spit drawn from the hatred that sits in her gut. The pillow would be a better silencer, allowing her to concentrate on her breathing and to melt into the physical wall of shoulder and chest.

  He wants her to understand that is what support should feel like, crushing, and all encompassing. Instead, he has to contend with her effort to impress upon him the key component of her deterioration; a husk with a voice. Her eyes continuously scrambling in explanation, vehemently, indignantly, as if she is in the dock protesting her innocence against trumped-up charges.

  Her eyes frighten him more than her speech, unsettling him as they dart around, dark, free of restraint and roving like a mad woman. Her frame feels brittle within his hands.

  There is no chance of her melding into him and taking shelter against the wall. Compassion will not reach her. Nor will stronger measures work. A sound shaking will not be felt. Three hours ago he could have communicated with her, made some reference to the time capsules at least. Show he understood. Now he is not so sure. She is too deep in a spiral for him to pull her out.

  He goes back to the washing machine when he sees how useless it is, the heat of the struggle stinging the tops of his ears. Everywhere else he is as cold as ice, frozen with failure. She cannot be pacified unless she is left alone to torture herself. This is what she wants.

  Maybe the only magic he can find comes from insensitivity. Spite.

  ‘Your parents will be back in forty minutes. That’s how long you’ve got to pull yourself together. Don’t embarrass me.’

  He batters the cold water pipe in a tidal stream of bitterness. A series of hard, fast thwacks that bring out the tendons in his forearm. Clanks of metal on metal echo dangerously under the counter tops. He is uncertain whether he is bashing his head in or Claud’s. All he knows is the simple relief he feels for imagining serious cranial damage to someone; cracking a skull like a boiled egg and allowing the steam to escape.

  ‘Hello, matey. I seem to be knocking on air here. Think the local cider has turned me invisible, or something.’

  The man at the kitchen door is not one he recognizes at first. Same age as him; same kind of clothes. It takes a moment for the accent to register: France via several years in South London. A newer stranger in village than him and still he feels foolish, aware of how his spanner-anger must have seemed to an onlooker.

  ‘Looks like you’re engaging in some serious manual labour there, buddy. I’m the same with DIY myself. Half an hour with a T-bolt and I have the same rages.’

  The acceptance of his anger as solid fact is anything but British, and brings his spanner-arm to a halt. One after the other they give wordless shrugs of solidarity, but in his gut he wishes the Frenchman to be like the rest of them. As with the café staff, he is not ready for people to be nice to him; does not wish to let down his guard.

  He wonders whether this is the beginning of the shift, where Claud gets stronger whilst he becomes weaker, unable to interact with anybody.

  ‘You must be the famous printer. My in-laws have been singing your praises all afternoon. I’m Amal, by the way.’

  He offers his hand as both introduction
and apology.

  ‘Phil. Good to meet you finally. I’ve heard great things.’

  His hand and wrist are being gripped in a double handshake, firm, sincere, with friendliness he wasn’t expecting, causing him to back away towards the safety of the washing machine. He sees the blush rising from his neck glow against the clinical, unforgiving white.

  ‘I saw your handiwork earlier. The flyers? Good job.’

  ‘Thanks. Took a couple of attempts but we got there in the end.’

  Phil leans casually against the back counter, hip resting on the drawer handle, with a familiarity that suggests that he is no stranger to this kitchen. He has visions of Sam holding court from the coffee percolator. Not kitchen-table activism, but important creative summits, with the poor wretched flyers going through five to ten drafts before reaching the final printing stage.

  ‘We’re almost there, lad. Just a couple of small changes and we’re there. Small changes, that’s all. So we get it absolutely right. But while we’re at it, we might take a look at those other blues you were talking about for the borders. This one doesn’t look right at all . . .’

  ‘I’ve just come to drop the bill. I can leave it with you if that’s ok.’

  ‘Sure,’ he says, adopting the casualness because they are buddies now. He can see Phil becoming an ally in this part of the world: drinking partners in the village pub, talking over the Sunday broadsheets to convince themselves that they still have city dust in their bones.

  ‘We had a road-block at the Herald this afternoon. You should have seen it, Phil. They gobbled them up. Snatching them out of our hands like nobody’s business.’

  They both laugh at the truth of that; Amal’s, nervous and agreeable, Phil’s long and slow, as laid-back as his posture.

  ‘I’m sure that made Sam very happy. Keep the illegal folks in Calais and let my French brothers deal with them.’

  ‘Sounds like you know him very well already.’

  ‘Oh! Where’s my manners, I should be saying congratulations, shouldn’t I, matey? He offers his hand again, a sign that he has assimilated everything that is cricket and above board. ‘You won’t have time to tinker about with washing machines when your tiny feet arrive.’