by Matt Wilven
Me and Lyd smile. We know the look she means.
“Oh yes,” agrees Peter. “Butter wouldn’t melt anywhere near him. He could turn shit to gold, that one.”
We all laugh.
“He was an extremely crafty young boy,” says Dom. “A trickster. Not many children can make me laugh but he always managed it.”
This is the first time we’ve reminisced about Charlie as a family. Since the conversation has been broached there’s no going back. We carry on drinking and start telling stories about him, forgetting about dessert until it gets late. We apologise to Pascale half a dozen times but then carry on. We speak for so long and with such good cheer that everything seems alright again.
When Peter decides to call it a night, and Jayne follows suit, it’s agreed by everyone that a lovely night has been had. We set up a double mattress in the living room for Dom and Fee and say goodnight with smiles on our faces.
It’s only afterward, lying in bed, that the evening begins to seem gloomy. The new baby barely made an impact. Nobody even mentioned the pregnancy at the end of the night.
Lyd is out like a light, exhausted from all the cooking and worrying, but I find it impossible to sleep. Since I’ve cut out my lithium I’m struggling to get six hours a night. This evening it’s worse still. I have indigestion, cold sweats and I’m inadvertently drunk. Black waves of dizziness crash against my skull, the world spins out of control, icy oceans rise into the sky.
I roll around for hours until my legs are aching.
When the tides of drunken chaos finally settle the blackbirds are singing outside. I hear Blackie up on our drainpipe, and maybe six or seven other blackbirds that are further away. The dark tales of winter are gone from his song. It’s more matter of fact now.
It’s all going to be starting soon, his tone says.
My ears release their focus and I listen to the entire dawn chorus for a while. Is it a giant conversation, parts of it whistled across from Asia? A grouping of territorial sound barriers? A musical collaboration? Calls of romantic longing? Utter randomness? Ancient black secrets?
Lyd wakes me up with a nudge.
“Come on, Vince. Time to get up. They’re both up and showered.”
My eyes feel like they have knitting needles in them. I can’t have slept for more than a couple of hours.
“How much did you drink last night?” she asks, seeing the struggle on my face.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
She sighs.
“Okay. They’ve already had cereal and want to get out. I’ll take them for a walk on the Heath. They want to buy us lunch before they go. You’ve got two hours.”
“They’ll be glad to get you on your own.”
“Two hours.”
“Thank you.”
I sense her eyes rolling but sleep still has its hooks in me. I slip out of the bedroom and back into the blackness.
“Vince? Are you not even up? You’ve had nearly three hours.”
“Huh?”
“It’s almost twelve. Come on. You’re not exactly doing much to save your image here.”
“I’m up,” I say, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed and sitting up with my eyes still closed. “Sorry.”
I stumble to the bathroom and have a quick shower, mulling over Lyd’s “save your image” comment.
When I get downstairs, Fee and Dom smile but their eyes are wondering how I look as bad as I do given that we all went to bed at the same time. Seeing how alert and vitalised they are makes me want to crawl into a cave and disappear for a month.
“Morning,” I say.
“Only just,” says Lyd.
“You didn’t sleep well?” asks Dom.
“I’ll live.”
“Glad to hear it,” says Fee.
We walk up Archway Road for lunch at a local café that does expensive Italian breads, niche fillings, strong coffees and fresh juices. Fee and Dom both ask for the daily special: baked eggs on spinach with Parmesan and tomato toast. Fee wants an apple, pear and cherry juice and Dom a blueberry, strawberry and apple juice. Lyd orders tomato, mozzarella and pesto in piadina with an orange, mango and banana smoothie. I get a Parma ham ciabatta and a double espresso.
The conversation is stilted. Fee and Dom drink their juice in sharp, bitter sips. It’s obvious they’ve been talking about me all morning.
I’m sighing a lot. Lyd keeps looking at me. I can’t think of anything to say. One thing is clear; nobody wants to talk about the baby.
As my sandwich arrives I anxiously reach up to take the plate from the waiter and see that my hand is trembling quite badly. I recall my arm as casually as possible (not very) and he puts the plate down with a quizzical smile.
Thankfully, everybody else’s food is served within moments, distracting them from my weird arm flinch, but Dom manages to flick a surly glance my way before smiling and nodding gratefully for his baked eggs.
“So my writing’s going really well at the moment,” I say.
Dom coughs and splutters. He’s choking on his first bite of Parmesan and tomato toast. To be fair, it does look very dry but it feels like he’s choking on my ambitions.
The cough turns into a fit, which slowly settles and then has a second wave. Fee pats his back and glares at me with scathing disinterest. She does this for so long that I look over my shoulder and see that there is absolutely nothing offensively boring behind me. Finally, Dom catches his breath.
“But you’re not really ready to talk about it yet, are you, honey?” says Lyd.
“No, I guess not.”
The coffee is not working. Tiredness is draining all the accuracy from my perceptions. Everything is grey and dull. My eyes are lilting.
“Lydia tells us that you had an interview last month. Writing campaign copy for Freedom From Torture, was it?”
Fee inhales violently up through her nose. This throws me off. Did she ask or did he? I answer into my sandwich.
“Hmm, yes. It was quite a tortuous interview, actually.”
Nobody laughs.
“I didn’t get it.”
“He does apply for things when he sees something he likes,” says Lyd.
I flash a quick frown at her.
“There’s just so little in the world I seem to like.”
I say this looking directly at Fee. Her throat does a small, repulsed lift. Dom watches her in anticipation. Lyd squeezes my thigh. I’m about to take a bite of my sandwich but a deep tremor in my right hand and arm means I barely get the thing anywhere near my mouth. I pretend I’m looking at the bread, admiring it close up, and then put it down on my plate with a bit too much of a clatter.
“A household needs two fixed incomes these days though, doesn’t it?” says Fee. “Not everybody has the luxury of choosing a job they like.”
“But some jobs barely cover the cost of childcare, do they?” I reply.
“Some of your three-month royalty cheques barely seem to cover one week’s shopping,” says Fee.
“It’s tough for your generation. We’re not denying that,” says Dom, pulling my angry glare off his wife.
“And we appreciate everything you’ve done for us,” I say, through gritted teeth.
We eat in silence.
My ciabatta is tough and floury. The taste of Parma ham is hardly noticeable. I’ve finished my coffee and my mouth is getting dry. They all have big glasses full of fresh juice, colours so bright they’re searing my eyes. I cough a floury cough.
“Maybe something else will come up,” I say.
This is my first mild appeasement and Lyd rewards me for it with a quick touch of the shoulder.
“Let’s hope so,” says Fee.
Her tiny snipe makes me want to slam my arm down on the table, swipe all the stuff off it and rage-tip every object in the restaurant over. I’m clenching my teeth and trying to smile. I recall that this isn’t the first time I’ve felt like this in the last few weeks and tell myself to calm down because I’m suddenly warnin
g myself, Irrational violence is a symptom of mania.
I try to bring it down a notch. I breathe slowly, chew through my tough floury bread, and ease into a calmer self. I say and do nothing and gradually revert to the prior tired mess.
After this wave of anger the meal doesn’t get any better, worse or any more interesting. Lyd manages to grab the conversation and take its focus off me.
“Wasn’t Pascale lovely?”
“Her English was perfect.”
“Oh, yes, great girl.”
Luckily, my weird hands seem to be flying beneath the radar but there’s a definite sense of my oddness getting through. I’m still getting glances from Fee. It’s taking a great effort for me to remain within the parameters of normal social decorum. I can barely chew and swallow properly, let alone sit up straight.
“And so pretty too.”
“I just hope we get to meet this one again.”
Why is nobody talking about the baby? I want to scream all of a sudden, my rage popping back out for an encore. I clench my teeth and breathe slowly through my nose, closing my eyes. They carry on singing Pascale’s praises.
It’s obvious why the baby is not up for discussion. There’s something very concise getting in the way of making it an appropriate subject: me. I am the priority problem. The baby is the next problem.
They think it’s selfish and irresponsible for me to want anything besides an income and some stability but my mind is fast and clear for the first time in years. I have to keep writing my new novel. I have to prove that I don’t need lithium. I can’t be a father who gave up on himself.
THREE
When the air loses its chill and the courtship rituals of the mating season begin, life of almost every kind begins to thrive. Tiny curled up leaves bud on tree branches. Tulips, daffodils and bluebells rise bravely. Early birds scurry in the undergrowth looking for the next special twig that looks like home. On any given day a million flying insects might suddenly burst into the skies as though a secret voice, connected to the dreams of every one of their kind, has called, ‘Wake up! Your wings are ready! It’s time to fly! It’s time to fly!’
I’m listening to Bessie Smith whilst I eat my breakfast in the kitchen. The sliding door is open, letting in cool, fresh air. An ineffective sun is shining in a mostly blue sky. Blackie’s on the lawn courting a slender brown female with a slightly speckled breast. He’s dancing around her, running with his head bowed and beak open, singing a strange low song. This morning ritual has been going on for days.
After putting my empty bowl in the sink and grabbing my sultanas, I stand on the lawn in my dressing gown and slippers. The two birds fly into the evergreen when I step onto the patio but when I give my usual whistle, Blackie pops out, lands on the lawn and chirps at me.
– chink-chink, chook-chook, chink-chink, chook-chook –
(I’ve taken to loosely interpreting him and imagine this frequent and distinctive chirp he sends my way means both Hello and Goodbye.)
I warm him up by throwing single sultanas for him to chase after (he occasionally lets out a little chirp of protest if he feels the distance was too far between the two).
After a few minutes the real training begins. I leave a sultana on the edge of the patio and stand back. He jumps up and gobbles it down. I move forward and put another one down but closer to the house. He flutters back to the middle of the lawn.
– pook-pook-pook, che-che-chook –
(You’re too close.)
I move back a little.
He jumps onto the patio, eyes up the situation, slowly edges forward and then runs and grabs the next sultana. Once he has it he rushes back to the edge of the patio.
I leave one even closer to my feet this time. He flies onto the lawn again.
– pook-pook-pook, che-che-chook, pook-pook-pook –
(Way too close.)
I move back a tiny bit. The sultana is about half a metre away from me. He climbs onto the patio, goes left, looks at it, goes right, looks at it. He takes a hop. He’s really close. He lunges in for the sultana, runs away quickly, but stays on the patio looking at me, wondering what kind of game I’m playing.
I take a step back, into the house, and leave a sultana outside on the patio, another on the small white ledge beside the sliding door and one inside on the kitchen lino. He slowly hops diagonally left, diagonally right, diagonally left again. He twists his head to analyse the situation and decides he can risk the first one. He jumps over to it.
I can’t see him because he’s too close to the house. I wait, stretching onto my tiptoes, watching the ledge. I wonder if he’s hopped away. I’m about to go and check when he jumps up onto it. I smile. He looks sideways at me, down at the sultana, back at me and then eats it. He sees the sultana on the lino but hops back onto the patio.
– pook-pook, chickachicka-choo-choo, choo-chook –
(I don’t trust you enough yet.)
I repeat this previous step but the first sultana I leave out is the one on the ledge. I put three more on the lino inside the kitchen. He eats the first sultana but stops on the threshold, stares inside for a while and goes back onto the patio. I put another sultana on the ledge and stand back. The same thing happens.
The third time, after eating the first sultana and staring at the others for twenty or thirty seconds, he finally hops into the house and takes a sultana off the lino. He then immediately flutters back out onto the lawn (because I accidentally release a loud breath of delight).
Over the course of an hour I repeat this exercise again and again but, up on the edge of the breakfast counter, I place a big pile of sultanas in his direct line of sight. When he gets comfortable coming inside I only leave one sultana between the sliding doors and the breakfast counter and sit down on the stool furthest from the big pile of sultanas. He comes in for the single sultana four times, staying inside and eyeing up the big pile for longer and longer until, on the fifth time, he finally flies up onto the counter and buries his beak in the heap.
I am frozen on my stool but ecstatic. My spine is tense. I daren’t even move my head. His attempt to eat from the counter causes about ten or fifteen sultanas to fall to the floor. Even though he has made this commotion, the sound of their dropping onto the lino unsettles him.
– pook-pook, twit-ta-twer-choo-choo, twit-ta-tewah-tewah –
(I don’t like this anymore. That’s enough for today.)
He jumps off the counter and flies out the door, across the garden and back into the evergreen. I can’t stop smiling for about fifteen minutes. The spike in my happiness makes me decide that today is the day that I’m going to pack up Charlie’s room. Our baby is only the size of a grain of rice but I’ve been off the lithium for a month and suddenly feel capable of facing it. I want to do it before the feeling goes. I’m more and more aware that it has to become the baby’s room as soon as possible. It’s time for things to change.
The local shop doesn’t have any cardboard boxes. I have no luck at the supermarket either. I don’t believe the woman who tells me (she’s very distracted, asking every colleague who passes if they’ve seen Shaniqua, and she’s unwilling to leave her post) but there’s nothing I can do about it. She has a special way of standing guard against my need to progress into the store and ask somebody else, a silent threat. I have to concede to the fact that free things no longer exist and spend an unbearable amount of money in a shop that is tagged on to the front of a storage facility. The boxes are good quality and they all match so this offsets some of the resentment of paying.
Back home, I mentally prepare for the task at hand, warning myself that sentiment and nostalgia are the enemies of efficient packing. I try to enter Charlie’s room with my emotions on mute. The first thing that has to go, before I start filling boxes, is the low-hanging moon. This dead pendulum has the ability to ruin the momentum of the entire day. It is too unique and holds too many special memories.
When Charlie’s garbled toddler noises began turning into unde
rstandable words and phrases it quickly became apparent that he had been waiting to tell me that he wanted to play Fire Engines on the Moon. I never got to the bottom of why he was so inexplicably obsessed with the idea of this game but I was always quietly proud of how much imagination it displayed. He requested the game so often that I ended up making him a moon. I took two square cushions from the couch, lots of scrunched up newspaper, and wrapped it all in lots of string and sticky tape. Then I gave it a surface covering of white printer paper and hung it from a hook in the ceiling. It swung about a foot from the floor so it was easy for Charlie to play with but just slightly too high for him to climb on. Being so low, it also gave him the opportunity to imagine that it was part of the sky that emanated from his planetary carpet.
Slowly but surely I decorated it, at Charlie’s request, with craters, roads for the fire engines and some of his other random inspirations (a lollipop lady, a shipwreck, Big Ben). He loved his moon.
When he didn’t want to play Fire Engines on the Moon it also served as an excellent wrecking ball. Decimating piles of his books and toys gave him lots of pleasure and I would frequently hear him laughing on his own at the naughtiness of it all.
Whenever I carefully chastised him about this destructive game he would protest his innocence by saying, Moon Around the World. This was his way of suggesting that an interesting and fun science experiment (that I initiated by showing him how orbits work) had gone a little bit wrong. He always managed to distance himself from trouble in this way, not because he believed in the validity of deceit but because he knew that I would find his lies amusing.
I unhook the moon and hold it in my hands, staring at it for a while. I think about keeping it, packing it in a box, but remember my initial ruling – no sentiment and no nostalgia. I bring a pair of scissors up from downstairs and begin to cut into it.
It’s been so long since I made it that the colour of the two cushions inside it is more vibrant than the ones downstairs. I pat them down, fluff them up and put them back in the living room. I put the rest of the scraps in a bin bag.
It was a good decision. After this I feel capable of dealing with anything the room can possibly throw at me. The entrance to the attic is in Charlie’s room so I clear as I go, climbing up and down the ladder all afternoon; a box of clothes, a box of bedding, two boxes of toys, one box of books with all his pictures and paintings on top, a box of cuddly toys (horrible ferret teddy included), two trips for the dismantled toy chest, one for the toy whiteboard.