The Man Without

by Ray Robinson

  People sat on doorsteps smoking and drinking tea. Everyone smiled and bid them good morning in that light-hearted, Cornish twang.

  Antony wondered if they knew about Hattie and his mum.

  — Did you see the spoils as you came in?

  — Sorry?

  — The Little Alps, she said. Huge heaps of chalk. What’s the word?

  He had seen them, lit in the streetlights—they reminded him of the Hushings.

  — My father, she said. Made a ton of cash from the clay pits.

  — Ah. I wondered.

  — What?

  — The cottage and that.

  — Conical, she said. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked most my life. Guess.

  He looked at her sideways, their footsteps clomping in time as they neared the bottom of the hill. He shrugged and she went,

  — Hairdresser.

  — No way.

  — Yes way. Used to have my own salon in Lostwithiel.

  — Don’t tell me, you called it Choice Cuts? Hair Port?

  — Try again.

  — Loose Ends? Er, Sophisticut?

  — Worse: Fringe Benefits. Or as your mum called it: Minge Benefits.

  Their laughter echoed along the narrow, cobbled street.

  He wanted to hold her.

  — So what about you, she asked, how’s your new job going?

  — I went to the mosque this week.

  — And?

  — Aslaam alequm.

  She frowned at him.

  With its peeling, pastel-hued weatherboard houses and higgledy-piggledy streets, the village resembled some sun-faded, woebegone postcard. The ice cream parlours and chip shops, the rows of men fishing on the curling harbour walls, the endless soundtrack of seagulls arguing and winches grinding—it certainly had its charm. But here was a place, Antony thought, you’d want to escape.

  Hattie came to an abrupt stop outside Shilley Alley and the Fountain Inn.

  She seemed to be on pause.

  — Did they know? Antony heard himself say.

  She stared blankly across the road, body tilted forwards slightly.

  — The people here, did they know about you and Mum?

  It snapped her from the reverie.

  — I know of six couples, she said. Lesbian couples, here in Meva.

  There was laughter at the edge of her voice.

  — But the place is tiny, he said.

  Hattie frowned suddenly, pointing across the road.

  — We discussed buying that shop.

  She swallowed, eyes widening.

  — Your mum and me, we were always dreaming of… you know.

  She chewed her mouth slowly, raising her eyebrows.

  — Wishing that we’d met before Lou. Before the drink.

  More than anything, he wished it too, but the mention of Lou’s name seemed to deplete all of his remaining energy.

  — You all right, son?

  — No. I’m flagging.

  She took his arm.

  — As your mum would say: Howay.

  * * *

  He woke to ghosts fighting in the room, a mass of swirling colour. She was there, stood at the foot of the bed, her back to him. He sat up, reached out for her.

  — Wait. Please.

  Slowly, she began to twist. He saw the outline of her profile.

  — Mother.

  He clasped his hands over his mouth as she disappeared.

  The stark realisation that she had died in the next room.

  He ran into the corridor, calling Hattie’s name.

  * * *

  Hattie’s look was a question he didn’t know the answer to.

  — ‘For everything I’ve done in life, you’ve more than made up for it’.

  — But she meant you?

  — Yes, she said.

  — What about me?

  Hattie looked at her hands and nodded, displacing the tear on the tip of her nose. It fell onto the back of her hand and she rubbed it in.

  — She said tell the lad I always loved him.

  — You’re lying.

  Her eyes were full of woe.

  — She was a terrible mother, he said quietly.

  — You assume every woman is a natural mother, then?

  He wished he’d kept his gob shut.

  — Mine, she said. Hadn’t a maternal bone in her body.

  Hattie wiped the corners of her mouth with her serviette and pushed her plate away. She’d hardly touched the lasagne.

  — So, he said. Did you not want children yourself?

  As she shook her head, his eyes strayed to the photo on the fridge.

  — Course I did.

  — Didn’t you…?

  — What? Do what your mum did?

  Hattie placed a hand on his.

  — She only lied to protect you, she said.

  — But I grew up hating him. I don’t want to hate him. I just don’t understand how he could do what he did, what either of them did. Why’d she let Lou treat me like that?

  Hattie sighed heavily. He said,

  — Why’d she want me to scatter her ashes up on Cloud Hill?

  — She used to go up there as a girl. She said it was this special place.

  He nodded and said flatly, — Yeah. It is.

  Her anger flared again. He was finding it impossible to read her moods.

  — So you’re a care worker. You work with the disabled, the ill. You care for these strangers, wipe their arses, feed and bathe them, yeah?

  — So?

  — Alcoholism’s a disease.

  — Fuck that.

  — Where’s your compassion for Rita?

  He took a deep breath.

  — Growing up in that town, with lesbian parents, it wasn’t like it is here. They fucking hated us.

  Hattie turned away, running her fingers through her hair.

  — And growing up with an alcoholic, he said. I’m sorry, but there’s this anxiety you have to bear, to carry around with you. Like I was tied up in her strings. So don’t tell me I’m fucking wrong for hating her for that. You didn’t know what she was like.

  Her knuckles blanched as she pulled her hair tight.

  — You loosened her strings, he said. You changed her.

  — Lou broke her heart so bad, your mother tried to kill herself.

  Antony thinking: not for the first time.

  — You didn’t know that, did you? She was sectioned.

  — You’re aware, he said, that euthanasia’s illegal?

  — Oh grow up. Why, you thinking of calling the Police?

  The way Hattie laughed through her nose. Freely. Noisily.

  — I think, he said. Think I might be a transvestite.

  * * *

  Antony pushed his chair back and walked to the other side of the kitchen.

  — She knew what you were getting up to, Hattie said. She thought it was just a phase. She just wanted you to be happy, but you were always so distant.

  — Me distant?

  — Rita never felt like she knew who you were.

  — This is hilarious.

  — She felt like she was never given the chance to know you.

  — I’ve heard it all now.

  — It was too late. We were both robbed of that. Do you remember when you came home in a dress and told your mum you wanted to be a girl?

  She laughed gently.

  — Your Aunt Val, she’d been dressing you up again. Rita thought she was losing it, that she wanted you to replace her little girl. The epileptic.

  — Lily?

  — You were a crazy fucking kid.

  — Bullshit. Mum never knew me. She never let me near her.

  — From what Rita told me, it was the other way around. You hated your own company. She said you were like that from a very young age.

  Unavoidably, he knew this, and resented the fact that she knew it too.

  — Lou was a bitch.

  — And you were a nightmare kid from the day
you were born. You were cold. You never let her near you.

  — That’s not…

  — It is and you know it. You’ve never been happy. Ever.

  He felt like he was being dismantled…

  — Does she have a name?

  And that he’d never be put back together again.

  — No.

  — You should give her an identity.

  The anger made him want to vomit.

  — You’ll probably find this hard to believe, she said, but I kind of know what you’re going through.

  — I seriously doubt that.

  — At times I feel like a man trapped inside a woman’s body.

  She looked herself up and down.

  — I’m in drab. Dressed as a boy. I’m a tranny, too.

  — You’re a fucking loon.

  — Sometimes, yes.

  Hattie walked towards him, stopping at the fridge, and as they both stared at the photograph he finally knew what Hattie and his mother’s love was about. It was about being friendly lovers and never having to feel alone. It was about forgetting the past and moving forward, towards brighter moments, towards a love that adjusts, transforms. Away from never absence.

  Without the man.

  She removed the photograph from the fridge, stared at it for a moment, and then tore it in two.

  He held out his hand.

  — Don’t.

  She dropped it in the bin.

  — You’ve got to make sure you guard the right ones. Memories, Antony. Sometimes you remember the wrong things.

  She opened the back door and walked into the garden, cupping a hand to her face.

  * * *

  He thought about all the times he’d ever seen the woman and he realised she existed somewhere between states. Between sleeping and waking. Between waking and trance. Between life and last breath. Between what he knew to be real and not to be real.

  Hattie was sleeping on the settee, her mouth a perfect O. He cleared his throat, coughed. No response; Hattie was fast.

  He crept along the corridor to their bedroom.

  On one side of the bed: the human shape of a pair of jeans, a shirt.

  His mother’s clothes, spread out as if she’d been lying on the bed and had simply vanished into thin air. The goldy, heart-shaped locket on her chest. The dent of her head on the pillow. Brown spots of blood.

  He lifted the pillow to his face. The formless scent of her.

  * * *

  The next morning, Hattie was clearing away the breakfast dishes when she said,

  — So how was it at Cloud Hill? Her ashes? Part of me wishes I could’ve been there, but I guessed it was something you had to do alone.

  He opened his mouth, paused.

  — Just give me a minute.

  He left the room and went outside to his car. When he came back in he handed her the white plastic box. She looked confused.

  — Part of her deserves to be down here, he said. I thought you should have half.

  He touched her arm and said, — You’re the best thing that ever happened to her, you know.

  — I’m sorry.

  She shook her head and left the room.

  The sound of waves coming though the open window.

  * * *

  They followed the steep Pentewan Coastal Path, up past the Coastguard Cottages and along the vertiginous cliff’s edge. Panting heavily, they stopped occasionally to look out across the flat grey waters of St Austell Bay. Hattie maintained an unyielding silence, holding the box of cremains tightly to her chest.

  She seemed to be avoiding his eyes.

  Within an hour they reached the steps leading down Polstreath Beach. Antony was surprised by the turquoise mass of sea lushing against the slabs of cinnamon-coloured rock. The horseshoe cove, caught in a watercolour filter of soft coastal light.

  He followed her down the hundred-or-so steps to find the beach completely deserted, and eerily free of footprints.

  She took his hand as they walked towards the water’s edge. The heavy sky sundered and Hattie threw him a conspiratorial smile, as if she sensed something prescient in the shock of sharp sunlight.

  She steered him towards a large rock of shimmering white granite. It looked completely out of place amid the surrounding stone.

  Hattie leaned into the rock, slowly running a finger along a diametric fault line that ran through its centre, like a lightning flash. She closed her eyes, communing with private thoughts.

  * * *

  The fickle sea played its kaleidoscopic hues. Along the horizon: the white isosceles of yachts and sailing boats.

  She tipped the box, gently tap-tapping its sides.

  They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, hand-in-hand, mutely watching the white grit and flakes float on the water’s surface for a moment, before shifting, sinking. His mother, disappearing.

  Their unspoken sentiments parenthesised between the liquid sighing of the waves: Carry her away.

  * * *

  Spring quickly made its way to summer that year, and whenever he heard the static noise and felt the urge to explore the vessels in his neck, he thought about the pebbles on Polstreath Beach and felt at ease. But still he felt halted by her sporadic nightly visits, as if she revoked something in him, like his life was permanently postponed, causing a note that was neither sibilant nor silent, neither good nor bad, merely suspended. Sometimes, the harshness of waking fully was too much and he’d open his mouth to cry out for her, thinking he’d travelled back in time and he was at home with his mother moving through the room.

  He walked into the bathroom and scrutinised his reflection. Lately, he’d begun to see the soft features of his mother’s face in his. Instead of Jack’s.

  * * *

  At Darululoom Islamia he was met with benign curiosity; at the Jamia Mosque he was met with panic and bewilderment; the surly Asian youths of Longsight and Rusholme sneered at his presence in their homes; but on the whole the selfless nature of his project elicited the amount of warmth and encouragement it deserved—especially, he found, among the mothers and sisters of the disabled.

  * * *

  Kenneth looked around his bedroom, taking a step back.

  — Kenneth?

  Something flickered across his face: fear, uncertainty, fear again.

  His breathing became rapid, shallow.

  Antony moved towards the door, to give him some space.

  — Come on, what’s my name?

  Wanting Kenneth to click his fingers. Wanting him to say your name is…

  He said it again, softly, — What’s my name, Kenneth?

  Kenneth looked at his feet, shrugged.

  * * *

  Antony sat in his car outside the unit, listening to the windscreen wipers and the hollow thrum of rain on the roof. He opened the glove compartment and pulled out a slip of paper: Antony Cunting Dobson, written in Kenneth’s spidery hand. He looked back towards the unit and could see the dark shape of Kenneth at his bedroom window. Antony flashed his headlights; Kenneth pulled the curtains closed. He drove away at speed, but soon had to pull over, his sobs filling the silences between the intermittent whirr of the windscreen wipers.

  * * *

  He left work early that Friday, collected his things from the flat and began that snaking journey between the steep, broken spine of the Pennines, back to his childhood home.

  13.

  He passed the spot where Eddie’s house used to be—the house he still dreamt about. But it wasn’t there any more. It had been replaced by two ugly, orange-bricked semis. His nerves jangled.

  He climbed out of the car into the town’s signature odour: an uncanny fusion of vanilla and banana coming from the ice cream factory where his mother and Lou used to work.

  He remembered the years he did the milk round, the dark early mornings, fingers numb in fingerless gloves, stealing pints off painted doorsteps to drink on the way home.

  Alone on that familiar street, looking up at the sign swinging in the swee
t-scented wind.

  K

  E

  E

  P

  E

  R

  S

  A

  R

  M

  S

  * * *

  So there he was, in a room above a pub in the town he’d spent most of his life running away from. The room was small and dingy but they’d made a bit of an effort: kitsch draperies; a hospitality tray with a tiny kettle and some tea bags and tubs of UHT milk; a Jack Vettriano print hanging above the bed. There was an unrestricted view of the Market Cross and the cobbled High Street, and in the distance he could just make out the outline of Cloud Hill, fluffy white caterpillars of cloud crawling over the summit. It was as if the meaning of the world lay hidden there, as if he could read the mountain and secure some understanding from it.

  His mobile vibrated. He sat down and rolled a rollie.

  He would watch TV and smoke, until the window became a darkened square.

  * * *

  Walking down the dirt track, he found his eyes moving up to where the stars were making their debut.

  It was still there. The dark hexagonal shape of the dovecote, the weathervane rusted towards SW. As he got to the small wooden steps, he could just make out the graffiti, door hanging off its hinges, empty plastic cider bottles, torn Rizlas packets.

  And he expected to see him: Eddie, sat in the wicker chair.

  He lifted his hand and rubbed the rough edge of the louvre slats, trying to remember the taut creak of wings, the doves aloft, making him blink frantically. How he asked to hold the birds in his hands, feeling their hearts beat like a really bad metaphor.

  But there were no fortissimos of oo-rooing today. Just the husk of a dead bird.

  He kicked the cans and cigarette packets out of the door, straightened the wicker chair, and sat down.