Tom barely noticed any of his own little mannerisms, only really feeling negative effects when he tried to stop them. The finger-tapping was the one which he tried to control the most, probably because his hands were constantly in his line of sight or maybe because his hands were the part of his body that he assumed he had most control over. Whenever Tom would tap the tip of his left thumb against the tip of a finger on his left hand, he would be compelled to tap his thumb against all the fingers of that hand. And then he would be compelled to do the same with his right hand. In an effort to control it he would frequently try to prevent his right hand from following his left.
The prevention led to a strange, almost thirst-like sensation. It also brought on a deeply superstitious reaction, as if the impending action was a weight over his head and somehow, inexplicably, a part of his mind believed something utterly terrible was going to happen if he didn’t carry it out. Not just to himself but to the whole world, something incredible, as if time was going to halt or the world was going to shift on its axis, plunging everyone from the planet into a dark abyss. Or death. If he didn’t tap the tips of the fingers of his hand he was sure that death would visit him. He was aware of how unreasonable it was but eventually the pressure would prove too much and his will would fold and he would tap the tips of the other fingers.
Gradually, as Tom visited the stream more he began to question why he was tiptoeing around the town. Just because he didn’t talk to people didn’t mean that he wasn’t here and just because he didn’t touch off things didn’t mean that it wasn’t happening, this journey, this ordeal. He pushed himself to clear a section of the overgrowth next to the stream with a chunky fallen branch. For a time he felt as if he was waking from a deep sleep. As if he was opening his eyes for the first time in an age. It wouldn’t last but for now he could sit with his legs over the embankment and listen to the stream as if he was part of it.
And he felt he could breathe.
And dream.
‘Catch anything?’
Tom had been visiting the stream for over a week when he was asked this. He arched his head behind and found himself looking at the woman from the window. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and she had light make-up on, her lips soft-looking and her cheeks pink.
Tom wondered if she remembered him.
‘You wouldn’t catch much in that water. There’s a plastics factory down the way. Here, push over,’ she said and sat so their shoulders met even though there was plenty of room beside.
‘What are you doing down here on your own?’ she asked. ‘A young man like yourself should be around his friends.’
‘I don’t know,’ Tom shrugged. ‘I just come here.’
‘It’s nice to have a bit of time to yourself. And here’s me ruining it on you,’ she laughed, paused, stared at Tom. ‘You can smile you know. I’m not going to bite your head off or anything.’
Tom forced a smile and rubbed his wrist nervously.
‘Mary,’ she said and held her hand out.
Tom took her hand. It felt fragile and cold.
‘Tom Stacey,’ he said.
She smiled.
‘I used to go down to the quarry when I was about your age,’ she laughed and shook her head. ‘I know what you’re thinking. This old woman could never be my age. But I was. Once. And I’m not that old, really. To you I probably am. But I’m not.’ She plucked a long stem of grass from the embankment and pulled it straight. ‘You been down to the quarry?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘You should go.’ She ran her fingers along the piece of grass.
Tom had this sudden image of her at the window and instantly felt uncomfortable with it. He brought his shoulders forward and folded his arms.
‘You’ve no friends around here?’
Tom nodded, looked away quickly, to the water, to the random bubbles and the wavering movement of plants in the murky depths.
‘It’s funny, don’t you think, the main reason your friends are your friends is because you were brought up together. I mean, if you can make friends with the people who live beside you then you should be able to make friends with anyone, no matter where you go. Yeah?’
He nodded.
‘Don’t see many of the girls I used to pal with any more,’ she says. ‘Don’t see any of them really. Things change I guess.’
She carefully tore the blade of grass in two, vertically. She plaited them together absently.
‘How long are you staying in town?’ she asked.
‘Not sure.’
‘You might be here a while?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Well that’s a good thing, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘It’ll give you plenty of time to make friends. Sure it’ll give us plenty of time to get to know each other in any case.’
She placed her hand on his thigh and looked at him for an amount of time that made Tom feel uncomfortable. Eventually she stood and left Tom and the stream behind her.
Chapter 19
It is evening.
Angela rings Tom and invites him up to her house.
He accepts, believing it to be in relation to the watch. When he arrives she is alone in the house. The radio crackles in the kitchen, low and stripped of the bass. An open bottle of wine sits on the kitchen table, half empty, a glass beside. Angela’s face is made-up. Her perfume is a mellow hint of berries which sharpens when she crosses her smooth legs or fixes her short black skirt. Her top is low-cut and her bracelets and bangles clack when she reaches for her glass.
She is beautiful.
She pulls her chair close to Tom when he sits and she pats him on the knee whenever he speaks.
‘Forget about the watch,’ she says when he asks.
Don’t worry about the kids or the time or him, Karl? Karl who?
‘Do you know where I haven’t been in ages,’ she pings the rim of her empty wineglass with her fingernail. ‘The cinema. Let’s go to the cinema.’
‘What, right now?’ Tom asks.
‘Come on,’ she grabs his arm and pulls him up. ‘Why not?’
It takes them thirty minutes to make what would usually be a fifteen-minute walk. She totters on her high heels, stops to remove a small stone which has invaded her footwear at one point, insists on checking out the properties for sale in the window of an estate agent’s along the way. She complains about the tightness of her bra and the distance of the walk. As they near the cinema she links arms with him for support. Her skin is soft and warm.
In the cinema Tom insists on sitting beside the aisle. Since the only aisle seats available are near the front they sit close to the screen, their heads angled upward. The place smells of mild disinfectant and body odour. Angela continuously nudges him during the trailers and adds a little comment on each one, mostly predicting how good or bad she thinks the related film will be.
Tom refuses to share the giant popcorn which she has awkwardly balanced on her legs. He prefers to keep his hands on his lap. Popcorn rains from the massive cardboard bucket every time she dunks her hand in, and the noise which accompanies each slurp from her large cola container reminds him of the times the plughole becomes blocked in his kitchen sink.
The film is bad, not bad enough to be entertaining in an accidently comic way, but bad enough to irritate. About midway into the film he feels the weight of her left leg against his leg and pretty soon her body weight shifts toward him. Tom wonders if it is the comfort of a familiar environment which causes her to do this. He considers how many times she has come to this place with Karl. In the darkness of the cinema she may believe that it is Karl and not Tom who sits beside her now.
And maybe that’s what she wants.
Maybe that’s why she has chosen to go to the cinema. In here nothing has changed for her. In here she is watching a film with her husband.
Tom squeezes his knees gently and tries to forget about the warmth of her at his side. He thinks about the receptionist
in the Manhattan, about how worried she looked as he was dragged from the hotel. It twists in his stomach, this thought, and he squeezes his knees tightly with his fingers until the pain distracts him.
When the film is over they stroll to a fast-food restaurant at the end of the cinema car park and buy burgers and fries. This is the hour of the drunken eaters. They slump over small circular tables, slowly rolling food in their mouths, staring off into the distance with vacant, cow-like expressions. There is a jumble of staff behind the counter, beautiful young men and women, purring foreign lilts and exotic faces, lumpy green caps and pea-green uniforms. They repeat their questions to the swaying customers.
What drink would you like with that? Large or small? Eat here or takeaway?
Angela holds her burger with two hands. She has been holding it for a good two minutes now without taking a bite. A large slice of tomato edges outward with every movement of her arms.
‘Do you think I’m good-looking?’ she asks him.
‘I’d say you’re an eight,’ Tom says as he picks fries from a cardboard container.
‘Eight out of ten?’ she sounds surprised. ‘That good?’
‘No, your body shape is an eight.’
‘My body?’
‘Yes, your body is shaped like an eight.’
‘That doesn’t sound very good. Is that good?’
‘That depends on what your preference is.’
‘What do you think Tom? Do you think that having a body like an eight is good?’
‘Yes,’ Tom shoves a handful of fries into his mouth to hide his embarrassment.
‘What about my face?’ She smiles.
‘It’s very symmetrical.’
‘Thanks,’ she laughs. ‘And yours is very oval.’
‘Symmetrical is good.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I read about this research carried out where a group of people were shown a bunch of different photographs of other people. In these photographs the faces were altered so that the symmetry was reduced.’
‘How?’
‘Computer graphics. They widened the mouths on some or made the eyes smaller. It made the faces more asymmetrical.’
‘Asymmetrical?’
‘More unbalanced.’
‘Like this,’ she places her hands on her cheeks and contorts her face.
‘Kind of,’ Tom smiles. ‘They discovered that people have a tendency to assign negative traits to people with asymmetrical faces.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like they expected that the people with asymmetrical faces would be less agreeable and less conscientious than people with symmetrical faces.’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘It is,’ Tom rolls one of his fries in salt.
Angela crosses her legs and stares out the window in silence for a time. Tom watches her, like he did when she would sing in the choir.
‘You have lines under your eyes,’ he eventually breaks the silence.
‘Thank you very much,’ she frowns.
‘No, it’s a good thing,’ Tom says ‘Faces like yours need to have a flaw.’
‘What do you mean by faces like mine?’ she asks.
‘Faces that are almost perfect,’ Tom says and takes a bite of his burger.
Angela is quiet on the walk home, more interested in dreaming than talking. She stares up to the sky at times. Tom looks upward, takes in a depth of colour diluted by street-lamps and wishes he could see what she is seeing.
She links him at one point and keeps that link when they reach the house. He follows her inside without being asked and they unlink in the kitchen but sit on chairs on the same side of the table. She looks at him for a time and Tom becomes uneasy. He fidgets with the sleeve of his jumper.
‘Have you heard from Karl?’ he asks. ‘He hasn’t been in work.’
‘Nothing of any note,’ she opens the clip which holds her hair in place and throws it onto the table. ‘He can disappear for all I care.’
She stands and pulls at the middle of three drawers to the left of the sink, removes a hairbrush and runs it through her hair in short, almost violent strokes.
‘I don’t want to think about him,’ she says.
She returns the hairbrush to the drawer, moves to a high cupboard and removes a bottle of red wine. She uncorks the bottle using a sleek, black corkscrew, fills two glasses with wine and sits beside Tom.
Tom crosses his legs and turns his body away from her slightly.
He begins to imagine this room on a school morning, the energy in the place. He pictures Angela bumping around the kitchen, the kids tormenting each other, the noise and the movement. It becomes a pressure in his temples, this image. And he feels a tightness across his shoulders and a lurching in his stomach. He sips the wine and his mouth feels syrupy, to the point that when he speaks his tongue sticks to his pallet.
Angela looks tired now. Her eyelids are low and her limbs are loose. She moves to lean against him but he stands and walks over to the window. The street is lit up nicely, beautifully uniform, lined with rowan trees of equal height and width. The pathways are clean and the gardens are all enclosed with the same type of wall, solidly chunky, painted white, flat on the top. The garden is grey cobblestones in a circular design, small bobble-shaped shrubs along the blood-red borders at the side. This is a nice part of town.
Tom remembers he would cycle down this way with the lads before his grandmother passed away and pick berries from the rowan trees. Karl was part of the group. He would call the locals posh and he liked to flick the berries at their parked cars. But there were times when he’d shield his eyes from the sun with a hand and scan the area as a ship’s captain would when approaching land. ‘Imagine living here,’ he would say. And he would get onto his bike then and remain quiet as they returned to their side of the town.
Tom senses Angela behind him. He turns around slowly and she places a hand on his hip. Her head is tilted to the side and she stares at his face.
Beauty can be intoxicating, he thinks.
She brings her face closer to his and Tom stoops slightly.
She shuts her eyes.
Her beautiful face fills his sight.
Her hair brushes his forehead gently.
Tom closes his eyes.
This sudden image of a woman fills the blackness.
She is holding her hands up to her mouth. She is concerned.
‘Sorry,’ he pulls his head back suddenly.
Her eyebrows dip in confusion. She takes a step backwards.
‘I can’t,’ Tom says.
Her cheeks colour. She blinks once and then slaps him on the cheek.
The pain is a sharp sting followed by a dull ache.
Tom places his palm on his cheek.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
‘Get out of here,’ she moves to the table and to the wine.
‘It’s just with Karl and all,’ Tom tries to explain.
‘Get out,’ she repeats and with shaking hands she fills her wine glass.
Chapter 20
Tom got to talking to a local lad in Rossboyne.
His name was Colm Daly. His father delivered the gas cylinders to most of the pubs in the county. If their father’s hernia was acting up Colm and his brother J.P. would lend a hand. Colm asked Tom for a cigarette when delivering to Ryan’s bar. By the time the cigarette was gone Tom had been invited up to his house.
Colm was the more handsome of the two brothers, his hair a shady red, cut short, his face hard angles which gave him a rough, masculine appearance beyond his years. He played bass guitar in a punk band called Modified Starch, named after one of the ingredients of Bird’s Custard Powder. He said they were going to be called Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil but there was a problem fitting the name on the posters. He loved to smoke hash. There were small black-framed holes in most of his tops from pieces of hot hash burning through the material. The floor was littered with flecks of tobacco and ripped and emptied cigarettes. Multicoloured
lighters were strewn on the bed and floor and any other flat surface in close proximity, all semi-transparent and all nearing the end of the gas levels.
Colm could function relatively well when smoking hash. He mostly made sense when he spoke and it never seemed to dull his intelligence. Looking back Tom realised that Colm was an extremely intelligent individual. But intelligence isn’t always enough. What people need is motivation. And his motivation was getting high.
J.P. was the younger of the pair, terrible acne on his neck and forehead and the type of face that was wide and flat, almost rubbery in appearance. He had long ginger hair, shaped and gelled so it framed his face like a marmalade-coloured helmet. He would spend a lot of time lying on his bed strumming his guitar, all the while moaning about how crap his town was.
Tom began to spend a lot of time up in their house. Their mother seemed to like him. She was a lady with skin withered from smoking, who wore an illusory frumpiness due to her fondness for baggy jumpers and ill-fitting blouses. She would highlight Tom’s quiet behaviour to J.P. as an example of how he should be behaving. Sometimes Tom would catch her smiling at him with what seemed to be mild curiosity.
Their father reminded Tom of a character from an Eagle or Warlord annual, one of those comic strips which involved soldiers returning from the trenches in the Great War, wide-eyed, hair dishevelled and dark shadows at their cheeks. He shuffled about the place nodding and grunting when asked a question, afraid to make eye-contact. Tom would later see this expression on other people throughout his life, usually when they had become crippled by the responsibility of parenthood. It was as if they were forever awaiting some form of doom to descend on them and their family, as if they were not living in the present but were living ten, fifteen, even twenty years away in some cases, in a time when their children are old enough to fend for themselves and they could finally relax.
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