Push Hands

by Michael Graeme

  "She's lovely."

  By the time they reached Phil's car, the mist was much thicker, and there was a cold rain. He was fairly dry in his hooded jacket, but Penny was wearing only a thin fleece over her Lycra shorts and top. She was getting soaked. He'd offer her a ride back, he thought, except she'd only refuse - I mean did he think she was going to dissolve or something, and what was the point of going for a walk if you were going to accept a lift the first chance you got?

  "Could I beg a lift," she asked. "I'm getting a bit wet. Would you mind?"

  "Erm,.. of course not, Penny."

  Inside, the windows misted at once and Phil realised he'd never been in a car alone with another woman before - not since marrying Sally anyway. Before then it would have been the girls he'd come up here with of a dark night, snogging and groping,.. and losing his virginity that time. They could see nothing of the outside world and the feeling was one of isolation, of cosiness, a feeling that no one knew where they were, that they were together,… and they might do anything and no one would know.

  The car was untidy - bits of packaging on the back seat from one of Elspeth's new toys, and a half eaten Kit-Kat squished into the upholstery where Marty had apparently been sitting on it. Phil sighed. What had happened to him? He'd always been so fussy about his car, always cleaning it. Now he couldn't be bothered, as if the weight of his life bearing down on him was getting too much. And when he had a few precious minutes to himself the last thing he wanted to do was waste them mucking the car out. Still, what must Penny be thinking? A slobby car for a slobby man? He could be tidy, he could be smart,… he longed for tidiness and smartness, a smart, tidy life,… maybe just him and Penny Barnes?

  He drove a little too quickly along the single track road. He was in a hurry to deliver her now, struggling against all sort of stupid ideas, but they arrived by the pretty little village green in one piece and Penny thanked him. She was sweet, he thought. No. Not sweet. She was a powerful, impressive woman, with a stunning bottom and when he allowed himself to think about it, she made him ache with base desire. On the one hand it was reassuring that he was still capable of such an intense feeling, but also deeply troubling, because there was nothing he could do about it, beyond fixing it with a cold shower.

  "You're welcome Penny," he said. "See you at Tai Chi perhaps?"

  "Perhaps. See you, Phil."

  I doubt it, he thought, then he drove away shaking, telling himself it would be all right, that he just had to see Sally and the kids, remind himself of who he was. But is that who he was? Or was he the man quaking with suppressed lust? The man that Penny Barnes had reminded him still dwelled somewhere inside?

  Chapter 11

  "Fucking Hell, no!"

  "Dad!"

  Sally chided her father, though she was barely able to conceal her own mirth at the footage Marty had shot using the digital camera she and Phil had bought him for his birthday.

  Phil came in from work, rather weary, to find them all in the lounge, gathered round the T.V. set, where the star attraction appeared to be him, struggling through the first five movements of the Chen Style 11 Form. He had to admit he looked like a complete loon, but then he'd not intended his practice for an audience. Marty had obviously been in the bushes, and Phil, so self absorbed and serious, hadn't noticed him. More footage was to come, this time of him apparently in a semi-trance, moving his arms about like a windmill in slow motion, Silk Reeling.

  They'd not seen him come in, and he stood quietly at the back of the room, observing them, his ego being levered up and given a severe slapping by their amusement until it was good and angry. Then came a surreptitious shot of the top of Phil's head where he was developing a considerable bald spot - which was another thing that kept being brought up. He wasn't bothered about the fucking bald spot - he was middle aged for pity's sake, what did they expect? It was like, I don't know, he thought: they wanted him to be vain about it and seemed intent on needling him until he conformed to their wishes.

  Trevor had a full head of hair, though he was in his seventies now and he seemed very proud of it to the extent that he used inappropriately large quantities of Grey-Away on it. It had a darkness and a lustre that made him look ridiculous, though Phil would never have pointed that out to him, no matter how provoked - because it simply wasn't polite. Honour and dignity, he thought - these were his new buzzwords.

  "Bollocks," said Trevor, as the footage once more showed Phil doing the Qigong Shibashi closing form, which had his arms and legs bobbing up and down like a tin soldier marching on the spot. Marty had quite a portfolio, and the lad certainly seemed to have got the hang of his camera. Then: "Oh, hello Phil. Just admiring your martial arts. Must say it's a bit more Marcel Marceau than Jackie Chan."

  "Effective though," said Phil. "It seems I've only to assume the position and everyone falls over laughing." He would not let them see that he was angry. Was that cowardice? Was it pride? Was it Ego? Damn it,… no he would not let them see his anger.

  "Brought your hedge clippers back," said Trevor with a cheeriness that Phil was sure was designed to irritate him. "Also got a scheme you should look at. New kind of fund. Two fifty a month for five years, guaranteed to pay at least ten percent,… I'll talk you through it shall I?"

  Phil had been pacifying customers all day - customers who weren't going to get their parts delivered on time, unable to tell them it was because his machines were knackered and no one would give him the money to get them repaired or replaced. He wanted a bath and a drink and an hour's private Silk Reeling - not an hour's financial doublespeak.

  "Erm,… "

  "I think it's a good idea Phil," said Sally. "We don't save enough."

  She was right. They didn't save enough, and what they managed to put away seemed to go just as quickly whenever one of the cars wore out and had to be replaced. But Phil never understood Trevor's schemes and couldn't bear to be lectured through them like one of Trevor’s former customers from the bank. And what he couldn't understand, he was reluctant to trust.

  "Some other time, Trevor. It's been a tough day."

  "You really should make your money work for you, you know? And this mortgage business,… "

  Sally gave her father an urgent poke. She'd talked to Trevor about the mortgage? She'd promised Phil she wouldn't. He closed his eyes. He was definitely angry now. Okay, so their endowment wasn't going to pay off, but it was wide-boys like Trevor who'd sold them the thing in the first place and he was damned if he was going to let them sell him another dud to get them out of it.

  "The mortgage is fine. We've sorted it."

  "But Dad says,… ."

  Dad says they could save a few pence by doing it some other way that's infinitely more complicated and involves the dubious brokership of some spotty faced financial shyster that he happens to drink with at the golf club. And Sally had promised not to discuss it! It was private!

  "Sorry,… you'll have to excuse me. I've had a terrible headache all day. I need to lie down for a bit."

  "But I'm putting the tea out."

  "I'll get something later."

  "I'll throw yours away then shall I?"

  "No need," said Trevor, "I'll have Phil's if he's not hungry. Save me making something. You don't mind do you Phil?"

  Mind? Of course I bloody mind! "Be my guest, Trevor. Sorry I'm not much company this evening."

  "Not at all. Not at all. You have a lie down, old boy."

  Phil lay on the bed, curtains closed, feeling the bed shake beneath him. It was his heartbeat, rocking it, making it squeak. The pressure was in his temples too, pulsating and thumping - the sweat pouring from his brow, his shirt soaked, his ear filled with a thousand chirping crickets.

  He tried to calm himself with the fantasy of being alone on an island, living in a little summer house, a cosy bunk to sleep in, and a simple gas stove for cooking, a little plot of land to work. Then Penny had come to him one night, desperate for shelter, David having kicked her out, and she was wet th
rough, banging on his door. What else could he do? He let her in, gave her dry clothes, a hot drink,… told her she could stay as long as she wanted, which of course meant for ever.

  David was a devil of a man of course, a man who did not appreciate Penny, and Phil disliked him as much as he told himself he disliked Trevor. He turned a blind eye to David's good side, the side Penny had married and raised kids with. As for Trevor, just as Phil was getting round to hating him completely, he was reminded of the time when Linda had left him, run off to France five years ago, where she was now living with a 30 year old waiter called Anton. Trevor had been shattered, his life in ruins, forty years of marriage dismissed in one moment of inexplicable madness.

  My God Trevor!

  Ungrateful bloody woman,… . who does she think she is? She's sixty for Christ's sake! Phil had been fond of Linda - he still was - and he couldn't help admiring her as well. At some point Trevor had decided Linda was an old woman and should start behaving and dressing like one - to the extent that he’d sold her sporty little MX5 and bought her something more sensible, also began jokingly referring to her as her "mutton dressed as lamb" if she dared to wear anything other than a twin-set and pearls. It was obvious he’d had it coming.

  Then Trevor had found a soul-mate in Emmeline Parker, a clean and tidy woman who'd picked his ego up out of the mud, polished it, as was her way, and put it back on the mantle-piece. The secret of Emmeline was that that she was a chameleon like character, with the intuition to guess when it was twin-set and pearls that Trevor wanted - and when it was the red satin Basque with open crotch panties and fishnets - which days he required her to be a sophisticated dame, or a filthy harlot. And why would Emmeline want to subject herself to such indignities? Well, the fact that Trevor lived in a five-bedroom house set in an acre of landscaped gardens, and drove a Jaguar might have had something to do with it.

  But returning to Trevor, it was hard to completely dislike someone, when you'd seen them thrown up on the rocks, even if they spent every waking moment of their lives trying manipulate those who remained close to them into doing stuff their way. Indeed, Phil almost resented Trevor for not letting him dislike him unconditionally.

  Chapter 12

  Middleton was a big town. Phil had lived there all his life, gone to school there, got married there. He was thinking about his school days now as he pushed the trolley round Freshways supermarket. This was his job every Thursday night, ticking off items one by one from the list Sally had prepared for him. There'd been two hundred kids in his year, he recalled, yet he rarely saw any of them now. It was the statistics of it, you see? About a hundred thousand people lived in and around Middleton Borough, so unless you deliberately kept in touch with your old mates, it was unlikely that you'd be falling over them on every street corner.

  Phil was thinking about this when he dumped the first item from his trolley onto the checkout conveyor, wondering what perverse trick it was that bent the laws of probability and had you drawn to certain people, while keeping you from others. The checkout girl hadn't recognised him yet and he'd only just recognised her. She'd let her hair down so it fell to her shoulders and partly disguised her features. The uniform, too had confused him.

  "Hello Penny."

  "Phil? Is that you?"

  "Afraid so - I promise I'm not stalking you."

  She was surprised to see him, he thought, appalled possibly, and the way her neck was turning red, he wondered if she might be allergic to him as well.

  "Have you worked here long?"

  "My first day."

  First day? And I end up going to your checkout? Who is this woman?

  "How's it been?"

  "Okay."

  But she seemed uncomfortable, so Phil cut the chat. He hated it anyway, boring, banal chat like that. "How are you? Oh fine?" When what he wanted to say was: "I'm drowning Penny. Help me."

  "Do your kids like this cereal?" she asked. "Mine hate it."

  "Mine will hate it too this time next week."

  Stop it Penny! I need you to be proud and mysterious. Don’t talk to me about breakfast cereal, and I don't want to be reminded we've both got kids, that we're middle aged. I want to be young again, starting out again, with you.

  "What time do you finish your shift?" he asked.

  Her eyes flickered in alarm. What? Did she think he was going to ask her out? He was only making stupid conversation.

  "I finish in a couple of hours. David's picking me up."

  She had! She had thought it!

  "Sorry,… I wasn't coming onto you or anything. Heavens! You’ve got me blushing now."

  She flashed him a smile, then laughed. Such a brief thing, but it told him they were okay again. He didn't want her thinking he was a sleaze. He checked her fingers. No rings. Why did she do that? Didn't David mind? Or did she slip them back on before he saw her? She'd told him she wasn't looking for an affair, so why do it? Was it that she enjoying men coming onto her? But that seemed so cheap, and undignified. It didn't seem like the Penny he imagined he knew, or was that just the Penny he wanted her to be, this woman who did not exist, this woman who was not Caroline?

  He saw her swiping his items through. Toilet rolls - bleep. Toothpaste - bleep. Ladies sanitary things "cringe" - bleep. A bagged set of cheap grey underpants, special offer £5.99 - double-cringe - bleep. It was a good job there were no condoms on there, he thought, or that would have been really embarrassing. It was fortunate he'd very little use for them these days.

  She folded his receipt and gave it to him. "There's a free petrol voucher too. Are you collecting the School vouchers?"

  "Erm,… yes,.. I think. Did you buy yourself that Buddha?"

  She gave him an impish smile and nodded.

  "Good for you."

  "Do you ever go to Lara's Orchard?" she asked.

  Was that an invitation, he wondered? "No,.. haven't found the time yet,… you?"

  "No. I will though."

  "Really?"

  "I think so. I miss the Tai Chi. I think I’ll make more of an effort in future. Well,… see you, then."

  He half nodded, half smiled,… an awkward gesture, embarrassed, flustered, then he headed out to the car. It was a pity. He'd been coming to Freshways for years, knew his way around the aisles, but he'd have to go somewhere else now. He couldn't risk bumping into Penny again - couldn't even risk the possibility of seeing her from a distance.

  Next morning he was up at six, brushing his teeth with the toothpaste Penny Barnes had touched only yesterday. Oh grow up Phil! Then he was off, searching for Tulketh lane and the secret orchard of Lara Walters. It was a fine, sunny September morning, dewy and autumny. The lane ran up out of town, towards the moors, and boasted many fine old houses, all with large plots of land. The ones nearer the town had been bought up by property developers, some of them demolished, and a dozen houses now stood on plots that had once been home to just one. A beautifully decrepit Victorian villa called Elsinore was now an uninspiring estate called Badger's Green, and a double fronted art deco villa had become a monstrous block of flats with car-parking. Phil knew this was the modern way, but still there was something wrong about it, something undignified. A house on its own in a decent plot had room to breathe - but these modern builds all squashed together like this,.. it reminded him of people pressed up too close in an elevator or a rush-hour train, all cringing and in uncomfortable proximity to one another.

  Lara's place was on the outskirts, set back nicely, a fine Edwardian house, closed in by mature oak and beech, whose leaves were just beginning to turn. He prayed it would be a long time before this house suffered the same fate, but Lara was getting on in years. How long before the for sale board was going up here as well? Another five years? Maybe ten?

  The orchard was accessible from a track that ran parallel to Tulketh lane and it was here he left the car, then dialled in the combination on the gate and stepped through into paradise. The orchard was huge, like one of those timeless, walled gardens that
posh old houses had tucked away. There was a Summer house to one side where Lara, good as her word had left tea-bags and cups, and a little gas-stove. The Summer house was a beauty, he thought, it's wood rotting gracefully, but it had been given a coat of green paint recently and it looked quite cheerful - a couple of wicker chairs out on the deck, bird feeders and a wind chime suspended from the trees. Opportunist shrubs had taken root and were beginning to encroach, but it all looked perfect to him with the early morning sun slanting down through the misty morning. Almost at once, he dropped into the opening position and began to move.

  He'd been half dreading, half hoping Penny would be there - he had given her the combination, and there was that fumbled enquiry yesterday that he'd been wondering about, but he was alone, and he found he was relieved.

  An hour later, he was logging on to his PC at work as usual, only this morning he felt blessed. He'd a long way to go with the Tai Chi, and maybe he was too old anyway to get much out of it beyond relaxation, but he enjoyed it and it was nothing to do with Qi; it was more simply that it had given a little piece of him back to himself, so that he could remember who he was outside of his marriage, away from Sally, away from Trevor, and away from the children.

  Chapter 13

  It was a feeling that lasted all day, right up to the fiasco of the keys when Sally finally let him in and he suddenly felt tired again, the dull, cloying heaviness of the house settling into his bones. But that evening, the house was unusually quiet and Phil sensed at once something was wrong. The heaviness came from Sally. It was in the way she moved, in the way she breathed, the deadness of their marriage having rendered her all but comatose - but the silence? The hollowness?

  "Where are the kids?" he asked.

  "They're round at Dads. I've sent them to sleep there?"

  "Oh? Bit unusual, midweek? Is he taking them to school in the morning?"

  "Yes."

  Her dead, dull voice had a bit of an edge to it, like old sandpaper, which added to Phil's growing sense of unease. "Is something wrong, Sally?"