Human Pages

by John Elliott

  The brandy bottle stood where he had left it, next to a tumbler and a full jar of aspirins on the kitchen table. He pressed down the foot lever on the rubbish bin under the sink and tossed in the remnant of gum, secure in its bit of paper, then, taking off his coat and laying it carelessly over a chair, he emptied the contents of his other pockets out beside the brandy. It was time to pee.

  His flow of urine started at once. As he watched it stream away from him and hit the back of the toilet bowl, he felt an animal sense of easement, a bodily rightness. No doubt defecation would come later, but whether his brain would still register shame or relief he was not sure. He shook off the last remaining drips, did up his zip, washed his hands and returned to the kitchen.

  The brandy was 104 brand, a long-standing Mirandan favourite. He picked up the bottle, broke the seal and poured it out until the glass was quarter filled. One hundred and four reasons, he thought. For what seemed like an age, he fiddled with the top of the aspirin jar, trying to get the requisite alignment and exert the right pressure to unscrew the cap. Once open, he let twenty to thirty tablets spill out. He got up again and filled a separate tumbler with water. Moonbeams. ‘Polka Dots and Moonbeams’, that was the title which had slipped his memory. Something about an evening encounter in a garden. He took a sip of brandy and then a larger gulp. The sensation in his mouth and throat was good. The pills lying in the palm of his hand looked so small and inconsequential. He swallowed five; one after the other and drank some of the water. He took five more. At some stage, he would go upstairs and lie down. His letter to Veri was propped on the bedside table. Everything would be tidied away.

  When he raised his second tumbler of brandy to his lips, Mado’s youthful form, as he remembered her, sat opposite him. She cupped her chin in her two hands and said earnestly, ‘You can always ask for forgiveness.’ There was no reply now, just as there had been no reply then. Hastily, he swallowed the alcohol and took another five pills. He glanced at the unimportant scraps of paper, the bits and pieces lying on the table, stuff which he had carried on his last day, stuff that would become part of the evidence, the things found at the scene when his body was finally discovered.

  Everything was very quiet. There was no sound from outside. He moved his right foot about, pressing it down until he succeeded in getting a floorboard to creak. ‘Pour passer le temps il faut passer le temps.’ Another of Mado’s sayings. He felt the urge to eat something. There was food in the fridge, but it would be pointless. He took two more pills instead and washed them down with water. When would he begin to feel something, become drowsy or start to be overcome with what was happening to his metabolism? He couldn’t say. Even in this, one had to continue. He could get a pen and a fresh sheet of paper—that would pass the time, the way he had done on so many previous occasions throughout his life. The mere act struck him as too ridiculous. More brandy was the answer. More brandy and more aspirins.

  The telephone rang in the hallway. He had forgotten to disconnect it. He swallowed two more pills. By the time he had topped up his brandy glass and taken the next batch, the ringing would have stopped. ‘Last autumn the ghost of him running the office.’ ‘Hardly going out from Eltville but then I thought you were like me.’ ‘A prisoner all wrapped up and the only seats left.’ Fuck. He was still on the number 11 tram. Its bell was ringing incessantly, but for some reason the driver refused to stop. Manolo came out of Paca’s and took his hand. ‘I’m going,’ he said softly. ‘You’ll be safe, you and Veri and your mother. Tian will look after you. You’ll see. Don’t forget. I’ll come back.’

  The bell was still ringing. Was it real or something inside his head? Without thinking, he got to his feet. His legs moved okay. Like an itch, he thought, answering it is just like scratching an itch. One way or another, what could it matter? He picked up the receiver and put it to his ear.

  ‘It’s Monse.’ There was the sound of piano music in the background and another voice calling.

  ‘Monse,’ he said. How calm his voice sounded. His breathing came light and regular.

  ‘I’ve got something for you, something that will really interest you. Have you eaten yet?’

  Laughter bubbled uncontrollably in his stomach. Like an intoxicant it glided through him, contorting his larynx and forcing his eyelids shut with hot, pricking tears. I am hysterical, he thought. This silence cannot go on. I will burst. ‘No,’ he managed to get out before his laughter escaped and erupted.

  ‘You’re in a merry mood. I’m glad.’ She laughed to herself. ‘Please come round and have some supper. We haven’t seen you for ages. Albert keeps saying we must phone Sonny. It’s important we expats keep in touch and, of course, when I came across this. Well, anyway, I’ll tell you all about it tonight. I don’t want to spoil the surprise. In about half an hour then?’

  ‘I’ve,’ he was about to say, ‘I’ve got other plans,’ but the truth was he realised he no longer did. This particular situation was no longer sustainable. Its moment had passed. It had been broken. He knew now he would put the pills back in their jar and screw down the lid until the next time. ‘I’ll be there,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the invitation.’

  *

  The kid had been with him again since the beginning of the evening. He had stood over in the corner by the window, protecting something in his cupped hands.

  Emmet Briggs had imagined that it was trickles or beads of sweat. Later, when the kid had limped nearer the bed, first teetering perilously on his shorter leg then dragging the longer one behind, they had become a pool of water, so clear, so tempting, that he had wanted to stir and break its surface with his breath.

  The sounds of the ocean accompanied the kid’s halting movements. Emmet gently felt himself lost in the boom of its waves, the seductive tug and then drift of its undertow, the beguiling sigh and emphatic hiss as it captured and surrendered its farthest shore.

  During these strangely euphoric interludes of submersion and flotation, Emmet sensed he knew exactly who the kid was, even though his features kept changing; now dark and flattened, now aquiline and girlish with two small, pointed breasts rising and vanishing into the smooth black contours of his chest. The kid had moved his own lips to help shape the name Emmet’s lips had finally uttered. The name he could not remember. The name, by now, he was only dimly aware of trying to remember.

  Throughout the time they had been together, Emmet had wrestled to stay awake, afraid that the kid would sense his need for sleep and depart. He had been glad, therefore, for the sporadic bursts of laughter coming through the partition wall, the sudden banging of adjoining doors, the sobs of drunks in the hallway, followed by the creak and stumble of uncertain footsteps on the stairs. From outside the building, he had welcomed the approaching drone of airplanes and the faint bass rumble and jolting shudder of goods trains as they clacked and rattled over the points down towards the junction. They had all aided his necessary vigil in spite of his realisation that his eyes must have closed sometimes when the kid’s presence had waxed then waned.

  In those moments, a foreboding of the kid’s unavoidable absence began to agitate Emmet’s limbs. While he attempted to beg the kid to stay, he found to his horror he had lost his power of speech. His facility to make words, at the very worst time, had deserted him. Mercifully, the kid proved to be stalwart and patience itself. His attendance persisted. His store of water, his treasure, remained uplifted in his outstretched hands.

  Emmet wanted badly to show him Ogun’s staff, to take him to the forge where the blacksmiths’ hammers beat out and tempered the molten rods, but the kid only smiled and shook his head. With the tips of his fingers he parted the water to reveal a cluster of palm nuts. Mischievously he jumbled them up then rearranged them so that Emmet could read their meaning one by one. Kernel and shell, they spelled out—O L O K U N.

  In vain Emmet tried to scoop them up, but, with his first blundering struggle, the kid finally disappeared to be replaced by a fitful dream. The sounds of the sea subsided i
nto his own shallow breathing. Vague outlines, white and yellow lozenges of light and misplaced encounters stole over him, engulfed him and transported him to another day, another evening and another awakening.

  Radio voices and the hiss and splatter of Hallie frying something encouraged him to get up and pull on a pair of slacks. She was standing at the stove in the kitchen with her back to him, wearing the red kimono he had bought all those years ago when he had gone with Jimmy Massoura to the east coast.

  Business seen to, and with Jimmy safely relaxed in the company of a couple of teenage trades, he had left their hotel to track down the obligatory shit. On the way back, his attention had been caught by a black and grey kimono, visible to the rear of a Japanese five-mat living display in a store window. On an impulse, he had gone inside and asked the price. The assistant had explained that it was not a real article for sale but a specially created mock-up. She had then shown him what else she had in stock and he had picked out a red one.

  Once back in Greenlea, he had driven straight over to Hallie’s, the kimono resplendent in its box beside him. Twice he had honked the horn of the two-tone Oldsmobile he owned at that time, waiting for her to come down the steps.

  Now, looking back, he could say, strangely and perversely, it had been one of the happiest moments in his life. Strange, because when he had climbed out of the car, she, without saying anything or even embracing him, had clambered behind the wheel then had reached over and opened the lid, only to purse her lips, shake her head and adamantly refuse to accept his gift. Perverse, because he had been obliged to take it, and himself, away. Sourly he had stored it in the back of a cupboard in his apartment where it languished on top of a suitcase, waiting, like him, for the day it could be redeemed.

  One year later, when he had been released from prison and was looking after Minty Wallace’s protection interests in the new West Bay tourist development, she had finally relented and had paid him a loving visit. In return, he had found the kimono and spread it out for her on the bed.

  Seeing her wearing it now made him feel more than okay. True, it had seen better days. Its cuffs were worn and frayed. Time had leeched the colour’s original vibrancy, but then nothing remained the same, not it, not himself, not Hallie. Trailing his fingers across the thinness of its material, he traced the outlines of her shoulder blades and lowered his forehead against her neck. Time, he thought, I’ll always have time for this. He decided not to say anything about the kid. After all, what good would that do?

  Hallie turned and embraced him. ‘Did you get some sleep? I still don’t like them, you know, these new associates of yours. I don’t trust them. I never will.’

  ‘Everything’s all right. I’m more than on top of it. They just need me to be there. Use my name. Business as usual.’ He pulled her close to him, soaking up the warmth of her body, waiting until the warmth of his permeated her to her very core. ‘Stick to the here and now. That’s what we need.’

  ‘Take a gun with you,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to say it, but I’d be happier if you did.’

  ‘No. I won’t need one. It won’t be that kind of shenanigans. Anyway, Jacky Millom’s bringing some. It’s been arranged.’ ‘Keep on hammering,’ a voice whispered in his skull. Hammering, as if he could do anything else, for Ogun was his guardian and his guide. He was Ogun’s child.

  ‘It’ll be a long night. Don’t forget I’m going to do another shift.’

  He nodded. ‘Remember, I’ll see you at the restaurant tomorrow before two. Let’s eat.’

  Hallie dished up. They sat down together and ate. As he chewed his steak and looked into her eyes, Emmet felt the hammer momentarily loosen in his grasp, and fleetingly he saw himself standing on the bank of a flaccid, scarcely flowing river. Suddenly, he did not know what came next. He only knew that his brow was bathed in unaccustomed sweat and ahead he had work that must be done.

  *

  Three glasses, a three-quarter full bottle of Algama wine, a clear bottle with a residue of brandy in it and a broad-necked jar of raisins, macerated in grape spirit, adorned the table.

  They had eaten frugally, enshrined in the joke of parsimony that Monse always liked to play on Sonny. Bread and garlic soup had been followed by a fried egg each: all of it redolent of Mirandan nights long ago, meals that they had consumed without thinking, surrounded by family, friends, fellow students, work colleagues, each one of them, then as now, adept at mopping up the runny yolks with dabs of bread.

  ‘You’re not drinking, Sonny.’ Albert’s hand, holding the wine bottle, hovered over his glass.

  ‘No thanks. I don’t feel like it tonight. Please don’t let me stop you.’

  ‘No chance of that.’ Albert laughed and filled up Monse’s glass and then his own. ‘Is it too sweet? Help yourself to brandy if you prefer.’

  Sonny shook his head and raised his open palm. Monse leant across and gave his arm a squeeze. ‘Are you well? You look quite pale. Are you taking enough care of yourself?’

  Sonny smiled. ‘I’m quite well. A little touch of cold. It’s nothing. I just can’t seem to shake it off. I took some pills before I came out. That’s the only reason.’

  His answer seemed to reassure both of them, for Monse began to chat happily about the various people she and Albert had met on their recent trip back to Miranda. The strange thing was he felt so remarkably well considering the circumstances. Let this day finish, he thought, and tomorrow we’ll see. Accordingly, he looked on indulgently, while their animation markedly increased as they both extolled the unsurpassed joys and many virtues of their homeland.

  Albert Roig, Monserrat Selle: their names had followed one another in the ritual taking of the class register from their very first morning together at secondary school. Even now, forty years on, they still maintained and nurtured links with those who had shared their schooldays group, an exchange of holiday postcards here, a telephone call there when a grandchild was born or a death occurred.

  Their flat was littered with related mementoes. Every surface sported framed photographs of individuals, families alone or united with other families, group reunions, gifts from hither and yon, souvenirs and knick-knacks, which, on the slightest touch or most cursory glance, triggered off a spate of memories of such and such, anecdotes about so and so. Desks, occasional tables, chairs, sofas and, no doubt, cupboards and drawers as well, brimmed and sighed under a shifting cargo of correspondence containing fascinating accounts of chance meetings, unforeseen confessions, complaints, desertions, illnesses, changes of address, gossip, work plans, anticipations of high days and holidays, celebrations that went wrong. Others that succeeded, vagaries of the weather, too hot, too cold, too much the same, aftermaths and consequences, reasons for silence, failure to keep in touch, depressions, grounds for jealousy, men going off the rails, estrangements, sulks, happy tidings, women’s problems, scribbles and scrawls from children eager to mark the paper and bestow the xxxxs of kisses to their, until the next time, far-off auntie and uncle, Monse and Albert.

  Religiously, they returned to stay with their old schoolmates at least twice a year. Monse, who taught at the Greenlea Conservatoire, enjoyed generous holidays, and Albert, who owned a small printing firm, organised things to fit in. This continuous, engrossing involvement with their place of birth and the lives of their contemporaries, into which they had poured so much energy and love, stood in stark contrast to Sonny’s diffidence on all matters Mirandan: to their knowledge, he had not set foot there nigh on thirty years.

  Monse had studied harmony and composition with Nicolas Ferens in Orias. During that time, she had also attended Sebastian Marva’s lectures on the origins and development of Mirandan song forms. In turn, he had been guest of honour when she had participated as an oboist in the music college’s performance of his suite, Western Pilgrimages. On that particular night, he had been accompanied by Rosario, his wife, and Sonny and Veri, his stepchildren.

  Years later in Greenlea, while searching for the telephone number
of the Azimuth Company, she had come across a single entry under Ayza. Vaguely recalling something about the name, and overcome with her natural curiosity about all possible things Mirandan, she had dialled several times before, in the end, Sonny answered. To her surprise, after she had talked about Orias, Ferens and Marva, he had remembered the occasion and the evening in question. She had taken a lively interest in him ever since.

  ‘To the city of green hills!’ Albert raised his wine glass in a toast. ‘I should say to the two cities, Algama and Greenlea!’

  ‘Oh green, how I love you green. Green wind. Green branches,’ recited Monse.

  ‘To the land of nothing for us,’ rejoined Sonny ironically, picking up his own empty glass.

  ‘Come to me healer and heal my griefs,’ Monse crooned, looking into Sonny’s eyes mockingly. She was getting slightly tipsy.

  ‘Isn’t that usually sung by a man to a woman?’

  ‘Those griefs of yours are over,’ Albert said. ‘Everyone is free to return. Everyone has returned.’

  Sonny did not reply. Albert coughed and poured more wine. Monse emptied some of the raisins onto a saucer. For an instant, the angel of death hovered above them and they fell silent in its presence.

  ‘Silence, for it is night-time. Silence, the darkness,’ Albert sang. He had a pleasant tenor voice and would have continued with the remaining couplets if Monse had not signalled to him to desist.

  ‘I was thinking about my father today,’ Sonny said.

  ‘Sebastian? Tian?’