The Blackbird Singularity

by Matt Wilven

  I stand in the back garden drinking my morning coffee with a pack of sultanas in the pocket of my dressing gown. A week ago I bought a separate supply especially for the blackbirds so that Lyd wouldn’t notice our normal pack depleting. I keep them hidden at the back of the tea towel drawer. I don’t know why.

  “Blackie,” I say, following with a quick, fluctuating whistle.

  He flies out of our evergreen and down onto the lawn. I throw out a single sultana at a time and smile continuously as he chases after them. He’s become very used to my presence. The sliding of the screen door doesn’t scare him away and he happily lets me stand and watch him. The others only play or eat on the grass if I sit down and remain very still.

  Lyd has told me in advance that she’ll be stressing out and that it will probably be better if we stay out of each other’s way until people start arriving at 7pm so, when I hear her car in the driveway, I quickly come in from the garden, stash my sultanas at the back of the tea towel drawer, run upstairs and go to my office.

  The novelty and excitement of my new ideas have passed but my need to keep writing the story is still great. I imagine it similar to how an archaeologist must feel when his tool first strikes an ancient set of bones. Exhilaration comes first, having found something rare, but that is short lived. The real work still needs to be done.

  The trick is to let the hidden object do the talking: sense its lines, move unflinchingly along its curves, allow something deeper to take over, work selflessly and relentlessly until you gradually reveal something alien and unimagined. That’s the stage I’m entering: climbing down into my writer’s pit and scraping and brushing the bones of my story every day.

  I write and edit in my office all day whilst she prepares for her family’s arrival. I make sure I’m done by 5:30pm to give myself plenty of time to lift my head out of the writing pit and get cleaned up. I wear my smartest jeans, a checked cotton shirt and brown suede ankle boots.

  Lyd’s parents, Fee and Dom, arrive first with their overnight bags and a display of civility and goodwill that cleverly disguises their concerns about the fact that their whole family has been invited over on the same night. They are both dressed in simple and inscrutable smart-casual clothing chosen logically and with candour for exactly this sort of occasion.

  We sit them down in the living room and serve Prosecco in champagne flutes, which they receive delightedly. After spending a couple of minutes welcoming them and asking about their journey, Lyd excuses herself and goes back to the kitchen. I ask them what they’re currently reading and we arrive at the next ringing of the doorbell without any awkward pauses.

  It’s Jayne at the door, Lyd’s big sister, Fee and Dom’s middle child. She’s brought a bottle of red wine and a worried curiosity that she’s masking in amusement.

  I take her coat.

  She’s wearing an electric-blue pencil skirt, an eighties’ blouse with an eye-straining black-and-white pattern, yellow tights and shiny red brogues. “Clashing” is her style, and it oddly opposes her facilitating nature.

  In a social context, Jayne almost always focuses on putting the most nervous and uncomfortable person in a group at ease. When we first met, I thought she really liked me. Now I’m a little bit ashamed of how long it took her to move on from looking after me.

  After getting Jayne a glass of Prosecco, I help Lyd in the kitchen whilst those three catch up in the front room. Her stress levels are peaking and her creased brow-line means she’s feeling emotionally vulnerable so I stay quiet, only asking for new jobs when she’s pausing for breath.

  She asks me to watch the hobs whilst she pops upstairs to change and reappears less than five minutes later in a sleeveless red dress with a high neck, dark tights and a pair of black ballerina flats. She looks great and I tell her this but she’s already worrying about the food again.

  The doorbell rings.

  It’s Lyd’s brother, Peter, the eldest. He’s brought a date who hasn’t been invited. This is typical of Peter. Lyd envisioned an intimate meal where she could carefully tell her immediate family that she’s expecting a baby. Now it’s going to be an evening about meeting Peter’s new girlfriend.

  “Come in. They’re all through here.”

  Peter’s inflated sense of self-worth makes me despair and I find it impossible to understand how nobody else can see that he clearly has a drug problem; cocaine and benzodiazepines, I think. I also hate the way he parades women around in front of his family as though his vulgar prowess says nothing about his emotional problems or his inability to commit to a relationship.

  The worst thing is that they all devour his charm hook, line and sinker. Even Lyd, a perfect critic of all things patriarchal, has a blind spot where he’s concerned. I once made a blasé crack about the fact that he always wears Prada suits because he’s a narcissistic egomaniac and Lyd got depressed for a week because she didn’t know how to forgive me.

  “Vincey Vince Vincent and the Vince Watergate Band,” he says, with his arms open – this is his jovial way of greeting me and simultaneously saying that I’m a pathetic creative egotist.

  (Watergate is my surname which, unlike most terrible surnames, escaped ridicule and attention until it captured the imaginations of the freaks and geeks at university.)

  “Hello, Peter,” I reply, not taking the bait and certainly not moving into his giant arm span to be crushed by an overzealous and impersonal hug.

  “This is Pascale.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  I extend a hand

  “And you,” she says, taking the hand for a second, very sweetly.

  She’s a nervous creature but the pinch of the thumb says sensual and self-possessed too. She is petite, has a slight French accent, a dark bob haircut and is wearing a simple black dress. As usual, Peter has ensnared a beautiful and intelligent young woman.

  I close the front door (Peter uses these two seconds to grope Pascale, as though my eyes lack peripheral vision) and then they follow me through the hall to the living room.

  “Guess who?” I say into the living room doorway.

  They cheer for Peter’s visage when it appears before them.

  “Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” says Peter, motioning with his hands for his admiring fans to now sit down.

  They all laugh, relishing his irony.

  Pascale creeps out from behind him with a coy smile, clutching a bottle of gin.

  “And here is my exquisite aperitif,” he says. “The young French lady holding it is called Pascale.”

  Even though he has introduced her like a misogynistic gameshow host, there is another bout of laughter.

  “Pay no attention to him,” says Jayne, rising to introduce herself to Pascale whilst Fee and Dom look her up and down with vacant smiles.

  “I’ll go set another space,” I say. “Drinks, anyone?”

  “A G&T would go down a treat,” says Peter, snagging the gin from Pascale and passing it to me.

  “Oh, yes,” agrees Fee.

  “Mmm,” confirms Dom.

  Jayne and Pascale, great friends in seconds, spare a moment to nod.

  “Five Gee and Tees,” I say, walking to the kitchen to prepare them.

  “Peter?” asks Lyd.

  “And Pascale.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “I’m just making them all a gin and tonic then I’ll set another place at the table. You want one?”

  “Yes. But I can’t, can I?”

  “Sorry, honey. I forgot.”

  “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  “It’s going to be fine.”

  Lyd’s face freezes in a distorted grimace. It can go one of two ways from here: angry meltdown or resilience. She rubs her forehead with the back of a hand that holds a large kitchen knife.

  “There’s not going to be enough food,” she says.

  Resilience.

  “We’ll make
it stretch,” I reply.

  “Squiddy-pants,” says Peter, entering the kitchen.

  “Isn’t it bad luck to see the chef before the dinner?” I ask, cutting lemons for the drinks, buying Lyd a couple of valuable seconds.

  “Nonsense.”

  He approaches her.

  She relaxes, becomes his loving little sister and embraces him, still holding the knife.

  “Hey, bro.”

  “I hope you don’t mind, I brought a guest.”

  “I don’t, but a little bit of warning wouldn’t have gone amiss. I’m cooking for six here.”

  “I literally couldn’t. She just got back from France two hours ago. I didn’t think she’d make it. Besides, she eats like a mouse. I promise.”

  “She better. Now, shoo. I’m busy.”

  Peter does as he’s told with a cheeky grin and a wink.

  I serve the gin and tonics and take out a small tray of smoked salmon with cream cheese on tiny pieces of rye bread. They are all happy and chatting so I put a collection of Bach’s cello suites on quietly in the background for them.

  Back in the kitchen I set a seventh place at our four-seater kitchen table.

  “Do you still want to tell them?” I ask.

  “I think so,” says Lyd. “Let’s see how it goes. Maybe a stranger will make it more normal.”

  “That’s true.” I walk over and kiss her. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “We’re almost ready here.”

  “I’ll just pop up and get my office chair for Pascale, then I’ll call them through.”

  “Go on then, quick.”

  I run up and grab the chair and, as I rush out onto the landing, I almost knock into Charlie playing in the hall. I turn my hips to the side, raise the chair a little and say:

  “Oopsy-daisy.”

  When I get to the top of the stairs I stop dead and all the hairs on my arms and neck rise. I don’t dare look back. I take a deep breath, walk downstairs and stand in the living room doorway.

  My head is still upstairs on the landing. I didn’t actually see Charlie, I reason. His face was not part of the experience. It was just the notion of his presence, an awareness of his body filling space. Not a hallucination, something else.

  When I become aware of myself again everybody is looking at me vacantly holding an office chair in the doorway.

  “Dinnertime,” I say.

  Dom gives Fee a look of concern, seemingly referring to something they’ve spoken about earlier. Jayne glances at me and then focuses on taking Pascale’s attention away from me. Peter stares at me like a car crash, brimming with morbid pleasure. Realising I’m now redundant, I turn from them, distracted, and head to the kitchen to put the chair in place.

  The silence I created behind me soon fills up with chatter again. I sit down. Lyd says something but I don’t hear it.

  Did I actually see anything? The top of his head?

  “Vince.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Can you grab these soups?”

  I nod and stand up as the group comes through.

  “You guys take the chairs. Me and Vince will sit on the stools,” calls Lyd.

  They arrange themselves around the table and I begin playing waiter.

  “What’s this?” asks Fee.

  “Oh, erm. Soup,” I say.

  Peter laughs out loud.

  “French onion,” calls Lyd, looking at me with confused derision.

  It was just a silly moment, I tell myself. People imagine things all the time. They just don’t speak about them.

  The table is cramped with seven of us. Pascale apologises for her presence. Fee says she is being silly and Dom says it’s cosy, rubbing her shoulder in a way that makes Pascale uncomfortable and Jayne explode with laughter.

  The conversation starts with the usual pleasantries about the food but soon takes a detour into the current state of left-wing politics. I slowly become engaged again (I catch Lyd looking at me approvingly). Everyone is pleased that Pascale has a humanitarian agenda and briefly feels sorry for her when Peter takes pains to expose the naïvety of her position on global poverty.

  After this, Lyd serves goat’s cheese and roasted pine nuts on rocket and we all isolate Peter from the conversation for a while. Jayne and Pascale continue to hit it off, laughing whilst me and Lyd speak to her parents about whether or not they are making the most of their retirement.

  Once everybody has finished the starter Lyd puts her hand on my leg. She’s getting nervous (I presume she intends to make a toast before the main meal). I rub the top of her hand and give her a sympathetic smile. She refills her glass of wine; something tells me it’s not the first time but I make no attempt to confront her about it even though I know I should.

  I help clear the plates and set up the table for the main dish. I manage to get Lyd to myself in a spot by the cooker.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask, putting my hand on her hip.

  “It is what it is,” she says.

  “Are you going to say something before we eat?”

  She nods.

  I kiss her quickly and take two trays of chunky cod fillets that have been cooking in white wine, garlic, cream and capers over to the table. Everybody makes appreciative sounds as they see the size and amount of cod and smell the aroma drifting around them.

  I put the potatoes and green vegetables in the centre of the table whilst Lyd serves out the fish. Then I top up everybody’s wine, put another bottle of white and red on the table and sit down. Lyd remains standing and puts her hand on my shoulder. Peter shoves a large mouthful of cod into his mouth.

  “Before we begin,” says Lyd, raising her glass. “We have an announcement to make…” She chokes up, almost crying, and looks down at me. “Vince? Could you?”

  I stand up and put my arm around her.

  “It’s been a tough couple of years, as you all know, and it wasn’t planned, but now it’s happened we’re going ahead. It feels like the right thing to do… Lyd’s pregnant.”

  “How beautiful,” says Pascale, clasping her hands together adorably before noticing the quiet anxiety in the room all around her.

  The toast disintegrates. Nobody raises their glass.

  “Good for you, honey,” says Dom, suddenly kicking into gear and having a semi-symbolic sip of his drink. “It’s time to move on.”

  As Lyd raises an unimpressed bottom lip to her father’s response, Jayne, cringing humorously at him, stands up and walks round to give her a hug.

  “I love you so much, Squid,” she says to Lyd. “Let me know a good day for lunch next week.”

  Lyd nods and they kiss each other on both cheeks. Jayne continues her response by moving towards me.

  “Check you out, Mr Fertile!” She prods my side, smiles widely, and expands her arms for a quick hug that connects at the collar bone (at which point she whispers), “I hope it all seems manageable, darling.”

  “Thanks,” I say, touched but mildly offended.

  Fee is still in quiet contemplation. Pascale is looking at Peter with a question mark on her forehead and Peter is shaking his head subtly to say, Not now. Dom is wringing his hands with a nervous smile waiting for his wife to say something.

  “Of course, it’s great news,” says Fee, finally realising that things are now resting on her response. “Congratulations.”

  She doesn’t get up. She descends straight back into deep thought. Lyd’s face droops into disappointment and then fights back, deciding to find it all amusing. She looks at me and raises her eyebrows. I mirror her expression, kiss her and we both sit down.

  “Congrats, sis,” says Peter, in an untouched tone.

  “Thanks, bro,” says Lyd, impersonating him in a robotic monotone (to which he raises his glass and swallows half of his wine in one gulp).

  Maybe I’m being paranoid but the message I’m receiving is, Poor Lydia. She’s well and truly stuck with him now.

  There’s much more introspection throughout the rest of
the meal. Pascale’s eyes are flitting around from face to face nervously. Peter is scowling with amusement, as though life is a series of sadistic jokes and the punchline, today, is that his little sister has been impregnated by me… again. Dom and Fee are busy mentally reforming the essence of their united front. Jayne continually fails to engage anyone with whatever comes to her mind. I start thinking about Charlie playing upstairs on the landing. Lyd is becoming so visibly upset that, one by one, all any of us are thinking is, Please don’t cry.

  Eventually, the cello suites in the other room finish and, even though we’ve barely been able to hear them, the silence they leave behind is cavernous. Somebody has to speak and this is exactly the kind of time when I’m no good at talking. We wait, most of us taking a moment to glance at Lyd. I can hear myself chewing and so begin moving my jaw more delicately. The sound of cutlery on plates is excruciating.

  “Remember, whenever it got tense, Charlie would just burst out laughing like a maniac?” says Lyd, laughing sadly.

  Jayne almost chokes on her food with relief and joy. Everybody else looks more anxious.

  “I remember that,” says Jayne. “He was a right little psycho.”

  Fee and Dom both look at me cautiously, obviously equating Charlie’s maniacal streak with me. I ignore them and smile at Lyd.

  “He got that from his aunty,” I say.

  “Hey!” protests Jayne.

  “No,” I grant her. “Not really. He always laughed like a villain, didn’t he? No matter what he was laughing at.”

  “Charlie was their son,” Peter whispers to Pascale.

  Pascale frowns with sadness and pity.

  “He was so weird,” says Lyd. “Half the time we had no idea what he was laughing about.”

  Again, Fee and Dom glance my way. It annoys me the second time because they both loved Charlie deeply. Underneath their silent insinuation that he was a bizarre boy because of me there rests the faintest allegation about the unpredictability of his cancer and death.

  “What do you miss about him?” I ask in their direction.

  “Oh, the whole lot,” says Fee. “That cheeky look in his eyes. He could get round anybody with that look.”