by John Hunt
“Want a lift?”
“Are you going to Hillbrow?”
“What a coincidence.”
With the play out of the way Phen had hoped his existence would weave together a little more evenly. His gran was now knitting obsessively “against the clock”. All the while she complained that the object of her work continued to get smaller and smaller. She’d finished his father’s jersey and that had led to an awkward fitting. Firstly he wasn’t a fan of the colour. “Teal,” he said, “is a confused green, looking for an identity. The offspring of over-optimistic parents.” Once his head had been pushed through the V-neck and his arms helped through the sleeves, he sat there like a liquid. The jersey was so large his upper body seemed to flow off the bed. “Perfect,” he’d observed, “for those nights I wish to disguise myself as a river.” Mairead was now working on a pair of slippers. “Call them booties if you like. Feet don’t shrink and they’ll be practical in winter.”
Although there was little Phen could do to alter events that swerved and crashed around him, he’d expected more from an angel. Discussions about spirals, ankles and elbows were fine, but he was in the mood for miracles. “Talk,” his grandmother never tired of telling him, “wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.” He felt that Heb was under-delivering, playing it too casual. A seed of resentment was beginning to grow. Perhaps he hadn’t been direct enough.
He rehearsed his lines, using Pal as his prop, for some reason checked his hair was neatly combed and then went in search of the kaftaned messenger of God. He found him next to the willow tree, trying to fly in slow motion.
“White crane spreads its wings.” He then stepped back and pushed at nothing. “Repulse the monkey.” He bent over awkwardly: “Snake creeps down.” Finally, he tried to stand on one leg: “Golden cockerel on right leg.” He wobbled dangerously, waiting for Phen to comment.
“I’m guessing you haven’t been introduced to t’ai chi before? Clever, those ancient Chinese. A defensive martial art that’s also full of health benefits.” He brought his other foot down onto the ground. “Let me ‘Pat the wild horse’s mane’, then we can sit down.”
Phen parked himself on the bench while Heb took one step forward very slowly and raised his hand to shoulder height. After a long pause he began to smooth the air left and right. Finally he turned to face Phen, sat on the ground like a venerable sage and crossed his legs in the lotus position. “You have questions to ask.”
Heb’s knees pointed more up than out. Before Phen could even reply, they had to be untangled. The sage tried to use both hands to undo his feet and rolled onto his side as they stayed stuck.
“You alright?”
“Fine.”
Having unknotted himself, Heb straightened his legs and blew symbolically on his knees to cool them.
“Continue.”
As his rehearsed lines dispersed, Phen decided to slow himself down. He thought if he talked like Mr Swindon walked, he’d be fine. It also helped that he was higher than Heb. He looked down on his face as it tried to radiate serenity. Phen had a rare sense of authority and control.
“I want to make it clear that I saw everything. Everything. I didn’t tell you before in case you thought I was spying. I was in the willow,” he pointed to it, “when the light suddenly burst through. Then I went out over there,” he pointed again, “and saw the cocoon of fire and” – he paused for a long time – “your wings. I wasn’t even ten yards away.”
“Interesting,” said Heb, straightening his back.
“What?”
“You never stutter when you’re with me any more. Even spying wasn’t s-s-s-spying.”
Phen knew not to be distracted. He waited for him to deny everything but Heb didn’t. He did mention that he slept in a massive white T-shirt he’d found at the Student Nurses’ Jumble Sale. He called it his Victorian nightgown. When he lifted his arms the sail between his body and his wrists made him think he could fly. Or at least launch himself and glide all the way down Nugget Hill. He also disclosed that his bed was a threadbare sleeping bag. Phen watched him as he pretended to roll it out. Evidently there were two parallel branches, like the slats of the bench, which allowed him to dream in relative comfort. Heb also said he liked to read in bed and the powerful torch he used might even punch holes through the tattered bottom of his bag.
That’s what he said.
Phen, however, knew the games words could play. He was learning they were never spoken in isolation. The actions surrounding them were equally important. Context was everything. Why had Heb suddenly stood up as he started to talk? Why had he put his hat back on and pulled it so low? What was the sudden attraction of the distant mine dumps? Besides the words and the context, it was also the way he spoke. If Phen’s tone had been challenging, Heb’s on the other hand offered no defences. His words floated out his mouth almost in a whisper before disappearing entirely. It was as if he was speaking from memory. The sentences came from long ago. Frail and delicate, they vanished when exposed to the air.
Phen wanted to push home this advantage. Although the afternoon seemed in no hurry to reach evening he felt their conversation needed a speedy conclusion. He stood up and, in a pose borrowed from Mrs Smit, placed his hands on his hips. A little power to the suddenly self-righteous is a dangerous mixture. As Heb sat down on the bench, Phen felt the right to advance, up close. He tilted his head under the brim and stared straight into Heb’s eyes. He was pierced and pulled upright in one moment. The blue had turned to steel. These were exactly the same eyes as Paul’s on his way to Damascus.
“Tell me,” he said, battling to finish his sentence, “tell me you’re not an angel.”
Heb used his index finger to push up his fedora. Then he made it travel in a semicircle across his forehead to ensure it was level. “The mind,” he said, “is powerful beyond, and yet always in need of, understanding and belief. It’s all we have to feel the full width of the universe.” He was talking to the mine dumps, this time with more volume and clear diction. “Do you believe I am an angel?”
Phen didn’t even have to think. “Of course!”
“Then you have your answer.”
He had it. Confirmation from the source. The original epiphany had been validated. In return he apologised for watching him unawares and promised never to do it again. Heb, nonplussed, noted it probably wasn’t a good idea to secretly watch people as they went to bed. The elation lingered, although not as long as Phen had anticipated. He wondered how long the burning bush stayed ablaze and when Paul’s legs of marble returned to flesh and bone. It didn’t matter that the world resumed a veneer of normality, the truth was out. As Heb went back to the grass and experimented with different yoga positions, Phen felt a deep calmness slowly move through his body. While he worked his way through an endless cycle of breakfast, lunch and dinner, whole universes hovered and orbited around him. That’s what he’d seen in the changing blue of those eyes. That was the spiral Heb had tried to explain.
“May I ask you a last question?”
Heb gave a tranquil sign of consent by fluttering his left hand like the wing of a small bird.
Over time Phen had begun to speculate whether Heb existed only for him. He’d stared at the crack in his bedroom ceiling and watched the balls of his clown spin and levitate and wondered if he had created Heb out of some desperate need. “Your mind’s overactive,” his grandmother had said, “like Aunt Aida’s thyroid.” He realised he’d never touched Heb before. What if he was the only one who could see him? He certainly could smell him. But what if that slightly rancid odour was for his nose alone? Maybe he was just made of light, projected like a movie only his eyes could see. Perhaps the back of Phen’s mind was the screen.
“Do angels shake hands?”
“It’s a request not often asked.”
“Can I shake your hand?”
“You want to be formally introduced?”
“Yes.”
Heb stood up, walked around the bench
, then rang an invisible doorbell. It took Phen a few seconds to understand he was meant to open an invisible door.
“Greetings.”
“Hi.”
“I’m Heb … Heb Thirteen Two.”
“Phen … Stephen … Stephen Baxter.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
They shook hands. Flesh met flesh. The palm was warm and rough. The firm grip contrasted with the ancient fingers and knuckles.
“Gnarled.” Heb read his mind. “Manual labour.”
Phen wasn’t sure how long he should hang on for. He enjoyed the heat being transferred to him, although this also made him slightly embarrassed. By the time their hands slipped apart, his whole body felt as if it had slowly been set on fire. He was confused. His palm was hotter than it had ever been before; he was also blushing. The crimson in his cheeks moved up and scorched his temples. He’d turned himself into something awkward and clumsy and wasn’t certain what had been confirmed or achieved.
“It’s just an ever-changing shell.”
“What is?”
“Your body. It’s just an outer wrapping. Teeth and hair and skin and bone aren’t the important bits.”
Phen returned home with a palpable sense of satisfaction and a tangible angel. Yet while endless galaxies spun for those who could see, and seraphs glowed like lanterns in trees for those who believed, the old reality continued to squat over his life once he opened the door at number four Duchess Court. Everyone tried to live a life as if constructed from his Meccano set. They battled endlessly to get everything to sit flush. The more their days were bent out of shape, the more they tried to correct them with a fantasy of braces and buttresses. They attempted to create some edifice, some structure that would allow them to cantilever over the truth. Although now there wasn’t sufficient material to work with. Seemingly strong struts collapsed, metal plates buckled and pieces went missing. There weren’t enough corner brackets to hold sections that went in opposite directions. The interconnecting bolts were too short for diverging lives.
Try as they may, no one could reassemble what was happening in the square box that was his father’s bedroom. It was here that Phen hoped his self-confessed angel would produce the miracle. He’d asked for Heb’s help as he was leaving. Deep in meditation, he thought he saw a nod. Now Phen was annoyed he hadn’t been specific enough. He’d presumed celestial beings knew these things in advance. Yet, as he lay on his bed, he was having doubts. Was this a lack of faith? The very evil that Mr Lansdown and Reverend Clayburn had warned him against? To play it safe he thought he’d better cut another deal. Over prayers he made a pact – with whom he didn’t know exactly, but he looked like Christ of Arabia – that he would accept stuttering for all his life if his father recovered. He even added that if that wasn’t enough, he could be struck dumb in return for his father’s good health. Shamelessly he imagined himself arriving at school to the collective sympathy of the class as he was forced to communicate in sign language. Margaret Wallace would squeeze his hand affectionately and be aghast to see his eyes had changed to a steely blue. They’d give him a new nickname: Saint Phen.
He stayed on his knees for a long time. The more he prayed, the more Margaret Wallace wandered around clad in the tight costume she’d worn in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. By the time he stood up, his mother was standing at the door. She thought it was time she found out how school was going. He opened his geography book and let her look. She loved his drawing of a volcano and was particularly impressed by his magma chamber. Sedimentary was spelled incorrectly but, besides that, it was a beautiful Mount Vesuvius. He pointed to his underlined heading, which very clearly said Krakatoa. Phen knew that although his mother’s body was sitting next to him at the dining-room table, most of her wasn’t actually there.
Phen wanted to stay spiritual but found himself getting angry with her instead. It was his only choice. He was too scared of his grandmother and his father was always asleep or drugged. As she paged through his projects he grew furious with the way she mollycoddled Drs Klevansky and Baldwin. He hated the way they arrived with their white coats, self-importantly flinging them on the backs of chairs, as if they owned the place. His mother immediately made them tea, like a servant, and they often didn’t drink it. She tiptoed around them even when fatty Baldwin consoled her too often and for too long. A handshake wasn’t meant to last forever and there was no need for an extra squeeze after it was done. His belly always rotated to point towards her. It was obscene.
Most of all, Phen was incensed that they continued to speak about his father as if he didn’t exist or even have a name. The more they worked with the body that lay shrinking in the bed, the colder and more distant the doctors became. They never chuckled at his one-liners, or talked about any of the books he was listening to. The patient’s heart was still under enormous strain. Valves were not responding as they should. Arteries were a problem and pulmonary veins were a concern. The left ventricle was not performing and septum tissue was an issue. Never a word about Dennis, father of Phen, husband of Lily.
Edward and Mairead were also too respectful during the doctors’ visits. “Medical VIPs,” was all Ed would say as he happily played butler and doorman. In diffidence to their high rank, his gran would occasionally serve a few slabs of shortbread with their tea. “Scotland,” she reassured them, “still has a fine knack for producing many of the world’s most famous physicians.”
By the time his mother reached the end of Phen’s geography book, she was absent-mindedly impressed.
“Wonderful,” she said.
“I hate the doctors.”
“We’ve run out of money, we can’t pay them; they don’t have to come here.”
“Krakatoa,” was all he could reply, “not Vesuvius.”
16
Gesticulate
/jes-tik’y-lät/ verb
The one advantage to number four playing host to so many guests was that it also contributed to twisting time out of shape. The days were incredibly long, the weeks fairly quick and the months flashed past like greased lightning. When Phen woke to the last day of term he could hardly believe it. He checked his homework diary and there it was. The final square of the semester had detonated a mushroom-shaped cloud he’d drawn with his ballpoint pen. Vernon MacArthur had said the communists also had the atomic bomb, so if we made it to the holiday break we should all remember it might be our last. Kobus Visser made the mistake of challenging this point of view. He said South Africa had a huge army, navy and air force too. We had to because there were so many blacks. MacArthur did not like his intellectual prowess being challenged, especially by Visser, who came near the bottom of the class and now had one leg that was much skinnier than the other. “That’s what the Japs said,” he sneered. Visser had no idea why the people who made Toyotas were suddenly being brought into the picture. He looked blank.
“Hiroshima!”
“Hiroshima yourself!” he said, and lifted a middle finger.
Although presents were normally reserved for the end of the year, Hettie Hattingh brought Mrs Smit a bunch of flowers. Her curtsy was interrupted halfway down when Margaret Wallace produced a brooch beautifully wrapped in a velvet jewellery box. It was clear the second present was more to Mrs Smit’s liking. By first break the strelitzias still hadn’t been put in water. All through maths, Afrikaans and religious studies, the spiky orange petals pointed accusingly at the teacher. By the time Mrs Smit explained that Joseph was more loved than all the other children and that’s why he’d received the coat of many colours, Hettie was beside herself. It had never occurred to her that she might not be the chosen one.
At second break she took matters into her own hands. When the class reconvened, all the glass jam jars they had collected for the avocado-pip experiment were now filled with individual strelitzias. The stems stood tall in their see-through shoes as the light shone through the two inches of water like defiant bursts of sunshine. That the teacher’s pet
could perform an act of such wild rebellion left her fellow students happily dazed. Even Mrs Smit wasn’t sure what to do. When Hettie received a wink from the Leb she got such a fright she dropped her pencil case. Crayons rolled everywhere, sending colourful ripples across the polished floor. In a display of last-day camaraderie, Mr Karim apologised in advance and dropped his too. He spent ages crawling on all fours while his teacher fiddled with the new shiny butterfly on her lapel and tried to regain her composure.
English was the last lesson of the day. She had been tempted to cancel “Oh my word” but a collective groan from the class persuaded her to proceed. They promised to behave and in return anyone who used the word correctly would receive double points. “Wait, wait, wait,” she warned them. This meant it would have to be a particularly difficult word. She opened her dictionary at random and slowly ran her finger down the page. As the tension mounted, Vernon MacArthur leaned forward and allowed his elbow to lift from his desk. He was ready to shoot his arm up like a rocket blasting off from Cape Kennedy. He was always first and he always got it right unless Mrs Smit chose not to see him. The bar graph next to the map of South Africa’s national parks showed how far ahead he was. One more right answer and his skyscraper had nowhere else to go. The last day of term was the perfect time to cross the white-stringed finish line held taut on either side by thumbtacks.
Mrs Smit smirked as she made her decision. She closed the thick book slowly in conspiratorial glee while keeping her finger in place as a bookmark. She moved back onto her raised platform; it appeared the word might need a little extra height. Like athletes in their starting blocks, everyone strained for the beginning of a sound.
“It starts with a P.”