Push Hands

by Michael Graeme

Phil had heard the phrase so many times: sticking together for the children. But was it fear of the pain you might inflict on your children that held you back from the brink, or was it fear of the pain you might inflict on yourself - the pain of being separated from your children? He looked at Marty - this grinning, good-looking lad, and wondered if he would miss him. Marty would be leaving them anyway in another four or five years time - Elspeth too shortly after, getting married to some young pup of a lad that Phil was unlikely ever to approve of.

  It was too late to go into this now, but it was a significant seed and he was left wondering how it would grow inside of him. Later on, he heard Sally making preparations to go to bed, though it was only nine thirty, and Phil decided he'd turn in as well. He felt her resentment like shards of glass, flaying the skin off him when he padded quietly into the bedroom, but there would be no talking it through tonight. He stripped gently, so as not to disturb her, and slid under the duvet. Was it possible to lie so close to someone, when things were so obviously wrong? Was it not like lying on a bed of pistachio shells? How could one even begin to sleep?

  It was possible, but only by sinking inside of himself. Phil took a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling himself slipping back in time to the dining room of the Red Lion hotel, and to the company of Penny Barnes. Then a voice came out of the darkness:

  "Did you put the recycling out?"

  Phil sighed. No, the recycling bins, filled with their painstakingly sorted crap lay in the bomb-site of his garage and he was beggared if he was going to venture into there now.

  "I'll do it in the morning," he said.

  "You won't be up in time."

  Phil would have replied, except he already knew the gist of this conversation.

  "It doesn't matter, there's not much anyway, it'll do next time."

  "But everyone else in the street's put theirs out."

  "I've never missed the bin-men yet."

  "But what if they're early?"

  "They've never been early."

  "I do everything else - the least you can do is put the recycling out!"

  No, there was no need for this. Phil fished his shorts up off the floor and pulled them back on. There was a full moon as he stepped outside in his carpet slippers. It was rather cold, but he couldn't be bothered dressing, and for a while he just stood there in the back garden with his goose-bumped flesh, staring up at the moon and wondering if this was the only life he'd get. He hoped not - this one was probably three-quarters behind him now, and he'd still not worked out how to enjoy.

  "So what do you reckon, mate?" he asked of the stone Buddha.

  The Buddha smiled serenely back at him in the liquid moonlight, and Phil wondered how Penny was feeling.

  After dragging the bins out to the bottom of the drive, he shuffled back inside, shivering now, to find Sally sitting at the breakfast bar in her dressing gown. It looked like they were going to talk now, so he flicked the kettle on and dragged a couple of mugs from the cupboard, nearly dropping one when Sally asked:

  "Who's Penny Barnes?"

  He felt suddenly at a disadvantage in his underwear and slippers, while Sally was sitting there all wrapped up. He was also confused. One minute he'd been grumbling about the stupid recycling, and the next he was facing his wife and she was firing the name of a woman at him, which meant only one thing of course. Or did it? Did it mean Sally had hired Blakedon? Had Blakedon spilled everything? Had he lied to Sally, making up stories about Phil and Penny? All of this ran through his head but none of it added up.

  "There's a woman called Penny Barnes at the Tai Chi class. Why?"

  "Who is she, Phil?"

  "I just told you,… she's a woman I know at the,… "

  "And was she there this weekend?"

  "Yes."

  "Just the two of you was it?"

  "Well,.. Doctor Lin was the only other person I knew, the others were all strangers - except for this weird little guy called Bert Blakedon."

  "No one else went - just you and her?"

  "And the Doc, yes,… and about thirty other people, mostly strangers, like I said. What's this about Sally?"

  She had a bill in her hand - from the Red Lion. Phil could tell how serious this was because she must have been through his jacket pockets - a thing she'd never done before. "It says here you booked a double room."

  Phil had kept quiet about the hotel for the simple reason that it was rather expensive and he knew Sally would have had a fit. "I'm sorry," he said.

  "So you admit it?"

  "Admit what? No!… if you read on you'll notice that I paid a supplement because I was on my own, staying in a double room. All right - Penny and Doc Lin were in the same hotel, but you're not suggesting I had both of them in my bed, are you?"

  Sally was quiet for a moment and Phil was tempted to think he'd got away with it when she slid a piece of pink note-paper towards him. "I found this in that Tai Chi DVD of yours."

  At first he couldn't make it out. There was a heart shape in the centre of the paper and written in spirals around it was a repeated mantra, a name, written over and over: Penny Barnes, Penny Barnes, Penny Barnes,… until the paper was filled with it.

  "I was tidying up when I found it."

  Phil was too puzzled by it to see the dangerous look in Sally's eyes. "This was inside my Tai Chi DVD?"

  "Are you denying you put it there?"

  The word "deny" seemed a bit strong. It was a mystery for sure, and obviously he hadn't put it there, but to have to denied it implied that he was required in some way or other to defend himself. "I didn't put it there, no."

  "You wrote it though."

  "That's hardly my handwriting, Sal - too, flowery, surely? No I didn't write it - this, this is childish,… it's the sort of thing a teenager does when they have a crush on someone."

  Could that have been it? Could Marty have had a crush on someone called, coincidentally, Penny Barnes and hid this in Phil's Tai Chi DVD case? No, that sounded preposterous. Then he thought back to the peculiar conversation he'd had with Marty - was this the boy's idea of somehow twisting a new Gamestation out of them? It seemed a bit extreme, and Marty didn't know Penny's name - it existed only in Phil's encrypted diary. Had Marty cracked the password? But how could he? And the diary was on an MP3 player that never left Phil's possession.

  He began to feel guilty - except he'd nothing to feel guilty about, and yet there was this bit of note-paper with Penny's name all over it. He sat down. How was this possible? Sally was about to speak again but he cut her off. "Look, if you think I'm having an affair then fine, there's nothing I can do about that. As for the truth, if you're interested, there's nothing going on between me and Penny Barnes. For pity's sake Sal, I've barely time to brush my teeth these days - when would I have the time to entertain a,… a mistress?"

  "Then how else do you explain it?"

  Emmeline Parker! It hit him like a thunderbolt. It was the only rational explanation, but that meant Trevor had put her up to it. Which meant Trevor had hired Blakedon! He'd hired him to find evidence of an affair, and in the absence of it, he'd decided to make something up. It was preposterous of course - impossible! Trevor wouldn't do a thing like that surely? He wouldn't deliberately hurt his own daughter and grandchildren?

  "Did your Dad ask if he could borrow my Tai Chi DVD while I was away by any chance?"

  Sally looked confused for a moment. So Trevor had asked! Actually Sally, I'm quite interested in it and I wouldn't mind having a look,… while Phil's away,… do you think you could dig that DVD out for me?… . Sally would have opened it to check the DVD was inside, and found the note that Emmeline had already secreted there.

  "But what does this mean Sal?" He was asking this of himself, and the answer seemed no less preposterous for having asked the question out loud - that Trevor wanted Sally to think her husband was having an affair - and Penny was a plausible target. He looked at Sally and read the simmering anger there. It didn't look hopeful, but what was wors
e, he suspected he no longer had the energy to argue his innocence. He groaned. "Oh,… this is bad."

  Penny had said it herself. It's as if their families had wanted them to be having an affair.

  "Do you want me to be having an affair, Sal?"

  Sally looked at him contemptuously. He'd never seen her look at him quite like that before and he knew they'd entered upon unfamiliar territory now - dark and dangerous. Trevor, the cocky bastard, had fired a broadside and sunk Phil's leaky old tub in one.

  "I don't know what I want from you any more," she said, coldly. "I thought you'd have the decency to admit it, but if you won't even do that, there's nothing else to say."

  "I'll leave tonight then." It was not a question. He was not asking her if she wanted him to leave - he had already decided that he would do it - and was in the fortunate position of at least having somewhere to go. What surprised him though was how simple and how painless a thing it was. He had often wondered about the possibility of this moment, but shrunk back from it in horror. "I'll just get dressed, eh? I'll try not to wake the kids. I'll come back tomorrow for some more stuff, while they're at school."

  Yes. This seemed reasonable. Practical. He was still looking at the note, still puzzled by it.

  Sally. Poor Sally. She was icy calm, but Phil surmised it was just the shock - she wasn't really that cold.

  "Are you going to her?" she asked.

  "Eh? Oh,.. I'll stay at Rick's for a bit. Really Sal, I'm sure Penny will be as surprised by the news of our affair as I am."

  She sneered back: "You mean surprised you were found out."

  Phil looked at her. Would she be okay? Had she everything she needed? "Call me at Rick's if there's anything you want, okay?" He went into the bedroom to pull his clothes on, then packed a hasty bag with his work suit and a few shirts. Marty was right, he thought, as he sank later on, into the cold quiet of his car. A few hours ago there was no way he'd be forking out three hundred quid on a new Gamestation! But now,… well,… now the lad could have anything he wanted, if it would make up for even a fraction of what he would be feeling when he woke up in the morning to find his father gone. Or maybe the lad wouldn't care. Phil tried not to think too much about that.

  Chapter 28

  Rick nudged Phil back into consciousness at seven with a cup of tea and an expression that managed to convey both sympathy and an air of "I told you so."

  "Don't"

  "What?"

  "Look at me like that! I can't believe this is happening to me!"

  "Have you still got that note?"

  "I left it at home."

  "Pity - it would have had Nosy Parker's fingerprints all over it - how would Sally have explained that?"

  "Fingerprints? Oh, come on Rick - you watch too much television."

  "I've not got a television, remember?"

  Phil managed to take some comfort from Rick's gentle banter. That's how they'd been as boys - Rick winding him up and Phil too blind, too egotistical to take it any other way but personal, and eventually snapping at him - but he was older now and Rick's banter was like a welcome home. Phil's ego had all but dissolved into the overwhelming sea of his life.

  "The worst part, Rick,… the worst fucking part,… is that I used to feel sorry for him."

  "Who?"

  "Trevor. I used to think well, okay, he's a bit annoying and he interferes all the time, but his wife left him and he's a human being for Christ's sakes with,… feelings. And then he pulls a stunt like this,… like lobbing a hand grenade into the middle of our lives and blowing twenty years apart with no more feeling than foreclosing on a,… . on a,.. fucking loan!"

  "Steady,… you've already exceeded your quota for the "F" word today. We'll sort it out."

  "I doubt it."

  Rick shrugged and glanced at the pocket watch, then gave it a thoughtful wind. "Depends if you want to or not."

  "Of course I want to,… but,… am I okay here for a bit?"

  "You know better than to ask. Bring Penny round if you want but you've got to promise to keep the noise down - I've got my reputation to think of."

  "That's not even funny."

  "Sorry. Anyway, you'd better get out of bed, you bum, or you'll be late for work."

  Meanwhile Trevor was taking the news of his unqualified success with less far less enthusiasm than he thought he might have done - true he was just coming up to the vinegar stroke, Emmeline having faked orgasm a few moments earlier, when the call came and it was Sally, asking if he'd come round right away to help her get the kids ready for school.

  "Slow down girl. What's happened? You confronted him with it? But was that wise? And he's done what?"

  Emmeline sat up and adjusted her night-dress. Something about the conversation made her feel uncomfortable - not the fact that she'd been a willing accomplice in torpedoing a marriage, but that some of the survivors might now be swimming her way. Couldn't the stupid girl manage on her own? What good was it, Trevor scurrying round after her all the time?

  Trevor hung up after making urgent promises to be there in no time at all. And now he sat, gawking at the carpet, while Emmeline went to make coffee. It had seemed almost nothing - a trivial thing,… like a practical joke. He'd advised Sally not to confront Phil, when she'd broken news of her discovery to him on Saturday morning. He'd told her that it was probably nothing. He'd imagined the hard time Phil would get from Sal: the silent treatment, the sulks,… and it amused him to think of Phil's confusion, not knowing what the devil he'd done. But he'd definitely told her not to confront him! Why couldn't people just do as they were told? If they'd only do as he told them, everything would be all right.

  But this! No, he wasn't ready for this yet - he'd only gone as far as making tentative plans, imagining their slow drift apart, imagining who among his younger acquaintances might have been interested in taking on his daughter: her marriage is a bit rocky - rumour is her useless husband's been playing away, you know?

  It was cold in the orchard, and there was barely enough light to see, but Phil was right in assuming he'd be alone, and the moves afforded him some further consolation. It seemed your whole life could fall apart, but so long as you could keep the form flowing it would still reward you with that odd feeling of something other - something unseen and indefinable supporting this bleeding bag of bones that was his life. It was important no one else was there, not Lara, and especially not Penny because he needed sympathy and he would not have resisted the urge to pour it all out, and that would have been the most dangerous thing - because no one could know that he and Sally had split up. Especially not Penny.

  Penny had acted strangely those few days over the weekend - one minute girlishly flirty and the next dangerously rebellious. It worried him how she'd take it if she knew his wife had kicked him out. Worst case: it might have put her up to walking out of her own marriage out of sympathy for him, and he couldn't let that happen - she'd been close to doing something silly over that photograph - blowing her marriage apart on purpose - like cutting off her nose to spite her face. It was enough one life was in ruins over this, and not two. And as he moved he began to sum up what his own marriage had meant to him by the measure of its potential loss.

  It was clearer now. It was becoming the hardest thing in the world, just to be human, to love and be loved and be married, and bring children into the world, to see them grow,… and let them go. There were so many children in the world; they whined a lot and wanted stuff, and sometimes the adults became confused over just who was in charge, but Phil's marriage was an important thing and he had achieved something by it. In half an hour he'd be sitting down in the dull factory where he'd spent the last thirty years of his life - that was okay - he was philosophical about that but he would still have hated to think of himself in years to come looking back and seeing it as the only measure of his life. It was easy to take your marriage for granted, easy to blind yourself to the fact that for all its wrinkles, it was still the most important thing a man could achieve:
to see it through, to see his children grown and flown, and either to die in the arms of his wife, or to see her through to the end. What type of car you drove or how many bathrooms your house possessed were really neither here nor there.

  It was an important day, then: the day he'd managed to screw it all up. He stopped mid-form now as the realisation hit him. Then he rang Scrotum on his mobile and said that he was sick and needed to take some time. Without even waiting for Scrotum's reply, he ended the call, and slipped straight back into the form. He repeated it slowly, recommencing smoothly straight after the closing moves, time after time, just him alone, in the orchard. He had slowed right down, taken the form deep into the soul of him, hanging the changes onto the rhythm of his breath, and his breaths were long and slow and deep. The oxygen filled his blood and surged around his body and his brain. Then the increased levels of serotonin began to subtly alter his consciousness. It was like becoming drunk on it - a peculiar feeling where one could see the patterns underlying the cosmos in the trivial and the everyday. The trees had turned golden, and the air was damp, Phil's breath mingling with mist of morning, and he willed the mist, like the feel of the moves, to dissolve him.

  Lara eased herself from bed around nine and crossed to the window in order to draw the curtains. Now the leaves had started to thin, it was possible to see a little way into the Orchard and she could tell there was someone there. She knew it was Phil by the way he moved - the energy animated him in a distinctive way, sometimes slow, sometimes fast and she often had problems following him in class - he was difficult to read, difficult to predict.

  He was already late for work, and she wondered about going down to make sure he'd not simply forgotten - he sometimes had the far away eyes of a scatterbrain sometimes. She decided to leave it though, for now. But he was still there when she looked again around lunch time and she knew there was something wrong. A cup of tea was probably in order.

  She found him moving, trance like - his form had lost its angularity, and had instead a soft fluidity that she found beautiful to watch. He had also lost his spiky outbursts, his tendency to stick a jerky release in at every opportunity. He was keeping all the energy to himself, turning it inside and releasing only sufficient to maintain his movements. He was a picture of perpetual motion. She did not like to disturb him, but it was beyond her how anyone could keep this up for three hours and not be hurting themselves. "Phillip?"