The Casualties

by Nick Holdstock

  Yet the chest was still in his lounge. First he had been too busy; then he had been worried that Malea would see him with it and grow suspicious; after that he had decided to wait till nearer their departure. As he stood in the almost empty lounge with his bags packed and nothing else to clean, he realised that he could not take it. Each photo and letter was a synecdoche of life in Comely Bank. The only reason he wanted them was as a shield. Did he really want to leave? Wasn’t he just making the same stupid mistake as all those people who thought they’d “find themselves” by going to India or Nepal? The implication was their current, unhappy self was a costume that concealed a happier, more mentally healthy self that could be coaxed from hiding only by tropical sun, the scent of incense, the sight of orange robes. So what if he learnt Filipino? That didn’t make him a different person.

  But there was still a chance, albeit a small one, that he could lose his habits. By not taking the chest, he was giving up almost all tangible reminders except the clothes he was taking.

  Whilst this might seem praiseworthy, a mark of his good intentions, it was self-deception. Every picture and letter in the chest had been scanned onto his laptop. Sam sat on the sofa and opened the chest. He felt he deserved an extended look at what he was giving up. He was immediately rewarded with pictures he had forgotten. There was the dinner party for cats:

  There was a photo labelled Charlie, 1952. He was gagging for it.

  The leather-bound book was still near the surface. Sam opened it and let his eyes descend the neatly ruled columns. On its own, the book would have been strange; that it was the twenty-ninth such volume indicated that the man was going through more than a phase. The last page was a list of roses he had bought for the garden (three of which are now extinct).

  Date

  Item

  Price

  August 8

  François Juranville (Weeping)

  £12.45

  August 8

  The Fairy

  £10.30

  August 8

  Paul’s Lemon Pillar

  £14.50

  August 8

  Paul’s Himalayan Musk

  £12.50

  August 8

  Sophie’s Perpetual

  £11.50

  August 8

  The Ingenious Mr. Fairchild

  £10.70

  August 8

  Little White Pet

  £13.80

  After this came blank pages, expectant columns, things unaccounted for.

  The idea did not burst like a revelation; it illuminated his mind like the growth of a flame from a wick. First a quavering idea that seemed about to vanish; then an expansion into a notion that could be verbalised. He got off the sofa and went to the bin. He took out a ball of paper, unscrewed it, and held it against the list of roses. He compared the F of Flatulent with that of François, the S of Sophie’s with that of Suicidal.

  The next morning, that last morning, Sam was outside the library when it opened. It had been six years since he had been inside—like most people in Comely Bank, he preferred to own his books—but it was little changed. Grey metal shelves, fluorescent lights, some plants in agony. He saw a sign that said Internet Station!

  Sam sat down at a computer and opened a newspaper database. The headline for August 1, 2009 was MONSTER SAVAGES OUR KIDS. He skipped forward to August 8.

  DEATH DROP OF TERROR was the headline for that day. The story was about a woman who had fallen from a nineteen-storey building and survived with only broken arms and legs. It was interesting, because he knew the woman—she lived next to Mrs. Maclean—but it was not what he was looking for. He wanted to read about fires.

  None were reported for August 8.

  Nor for August 9 or 10.

  There was a fire on August 11, but only in a school.

  Each day’s paper had forty-eight pages. Although he was able to skip the last fifteen pages of each (they were advertisements or about sports) he soon found it hard to concentrate. By the time he got to August 16, he had to bite his lip to focus. In just over twenty-four hours he would be gone (they would be gone) from this place forever; there were surely better ways to spend his last day than staring at a screen. But Sam was, as I have said, a most curious man.

  The story was on page eleven of the August 19 paper. It was a short article, only a single column, next to an item about Mr. Carson, who used to run the hardware store. It was only because this caught Sam’s eye—Mr. Carson had been forced to close his shop after beating a shoplifter with a plunger—that he read about the “blaze that devastated the mansion on Arboretum Avenue.” The mansion had been the home of the Macgregor family: a stockbroker, his wife, and their two children, Emily and Michael, age nine and eleven. They and their mother died in the fire, which began in the night. Their father, Alasdair Macgregor, was missing. The police were appealing to friends and relatives to try to contact him. There was a photo of Alasdair on a small boat. He was wearing a white cap and smiling, never imagining, even in nightmares, that his wife and two children might go to sleep and breathe in smoke and meekly suffocate.

  “Fuck,” said Sam, and looked around for somebody to tell. There was no one, and so he printed the page, then left the library. As he walked he imagined a hard-working father who came from poor beginnings, a man who counted everything he spent, even when he no longer had to. This did not explain why he had to document their purchases so obsessively, but Sam had ideas. It was the stress of his job, some sexual dysfunction, or both. He had started writing things down as a way to reduce his anxiety, and it had worked, but far too well, because it became a compulsion.

  As he turned the corner and the bridge came in sight, Sam considered the idea that Alasdair had been writing everything down so he would have a record for insurance purposes, and this led him to wonder if Alasdair had been heavily in debt, from which it was almost no mental distance to imagine that the fire had been deliberately set by Alasdair himself. His wife and children were supposed to have been away. Perhaps their car had broken down, or their flight had been cancelled, or whoever they were due to stay with—perhaps her mother—had cancelled at the last minute. Alasdair had not gone into the house. He had set the fire from outside, then left, feeling regret, but also hope that this might give his family a chance. And then, the next day, when he turned on the news, he learnt that he had murdered them.

  Of course it did not have to be so dramatic. Perhaps Alasdair had stormed out after a fight with his wife. After putting the kids to bed, she had lit a candle, drunk a glass of wine, smoked a cigarette. After she finished the bottle, she drifted to sleep. Whether the fire started from a dropped cigarette or a melted candle—somehow the details didn’t matter—the crucial thing was that it was more than an accident. Alasdair had blamed himself, whether rightly or not, causing him to lose his mind and memory, to wander the streets for eight years, to live like a ghost that didn’t know why it was haunting. He could easily carry on like this, growing more eccentric, aging fast, until on a winter morning in five or ten years, he would be found under the bridge or in the bushes, his blue lips drawn back from his teeth, his body stiffened and cold.

  But that wouldn’t happen now. Sam was going to help him. Obviously, he wanted to—in a way, they had been friends—but even if Alasdair had been a complete stranger, Sam liked to think he would have felt the same obligation. In the past, he had been too passive, eager to learn about people’s private lives but not get involved. There must have been similar situations in the previous ten years when he had been in possession of information that if used correctly might have saved a friendship, a marriage, perhaps even a life.

  He reached the bridge quickly, and not just because he was walking fast. His movements were urgent, his expression purposive; people got out his way. He went down the stone steps, onto the bank, and without any trouble walked the narrow path.

  He was surprised when Alasdair stepped out of the dark. He was wearing a small pair of red canvas shorts and a ye
llow jumper whose sleeves had been cut off. His head jerked forwards in what might have been a nod of recognition. He seemed neither surprised nor pleased to see Sam. It was then that Sam remembered they had parted on bad terms.

  “I’m sorry about making you leave,” he said. “I was going through a lot of stuff, and I took it out on you. I apologise.”

  Alasdair coughed. “Yes, you were. You don’t look well.”

  “Oh, I’m fine. I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said, and couldn’t help smiling. It was slightly annoying that Alasdair didn’t respond, unless putting his hand under his armpit could be considered an answer. But Sam wasn’t going to be sidetracked.

  “I’m glad I found you. There’s something I want to ask you.”

  Alasdair put his other hand under his armpit, but he did at least seem to be listening. Sam got out the leather-bound notebook, then the list of his faults.

  “That’s mine,” said Alasdair, pointing at the list. “Did you read it? You should.”

  “I did. I also looked at the notebook. I couldn’t help noticing how similar the handwriting is.”

  Alasdair shrugged. “Of course it is. We’re both men. I think he’s also left-handed.”

  “What other similarities are there?”

  Alasdair looked at the list, then the book, then back at the list.

  “The Ts. And maybe the Fs. His Ps are also like mine.” He handed back the book and piece of paper. “Is there anything else? I have to find some wood.”

  “Yes. I want you to look at this picture.” Sam gave him the printout. Alasdair glanced at it, then said, “He looks like me.”

  “It is you. This is going to be a shock, and I’m sorry, I don’t know how else to say it. You were married and had kids and lived in a big house near the park. Then there was a fire. I’m sorry. It’s all written here.”

  While Alasdair read, Sam looked at the river, then up at the windows of a tenement that overlooked the water. On the ground floor he saw an empty blue vase; the first-floor window was blank. A hand-drawn Scottish flag had been stuck to the glass on the second floor. Underneath a black cat stared till it realised it had been seen. Leisurely, it turned its back.

  “So, that’s my name,” said Alasdair. “I wondered about that.” He did not seem shocked.

  “Alasdair, do you agree that this is you? That it’s your handwriting?”

  “You could say this. But also not. I think if you look carefully you’ll, uh, see that I look different.”

  “Now you do. But not then. That was you.”

  “No, he was the one with a wife and children. He owned a boat and house and all those things. That was who he was.”

  “But that was you!”

  “But I don’t remember it. It didn’t happen to me.”

  This was stupid, utter madness, an amputee pretending he’d been born that way.

  “Why does it matter if you don’t remember? Does the world only exist in your mind? If I smash you on the back of the head and you black out and later can’t remember, does that mean I didn’t hit you?”

  “Violent,” muttered Alasdair, and took a step back.

  “Isn’t the fact that you can’t remember proof that something did happen?”

  “Have you been to the moon?”

  “What? No.”

  “Maybe you just can’t remember.”

  “Don’t be stupid. It’s not the same. I know I haven’t been to the moon, but you don’t know what happened to you. I can prove I haven’t been. You can’t prove this didn’t happen.”

  “You could have used a computer.”

  “This isn’t fake. It’s real. Look, I understand, this is a lot, it’s too much. It’s awful. But isn’t it better to know? So you can move on.”

  Alasdair slowly exhaled, his mouth almost closed. It was like the hiss of a tyre relieved to be punctured.

  “So, uh, you think I should remember something so I can forget it? Why would I do that? I don’t want this to have happened to me.”

  “But it did! You were a banker, and there was a fire, and I don’t know how it started or how you survived, but it definitely made you into this crazy person who lives under a bridge.”

  Alasdair turned away. As he walked back to the bridge, Sam shouted, “Did you start that fire? Did you kill them?”

  Alasdair did not slow, or pause. He entered the dark.

  Sam sat down to wait for Alasdair to come back. The cat in the window offered its face. A cloud blocked the sun.

  He wanted Alasdair to thank him. To say he’d be missed. But the reason he sat there for twenty minutes was that he didn’t understand. If someone showed him a letter or e-mail written by his parents in which they explained themselves, he’d be overwhelmed. It was helpful to learn about people in general, to know about mothers who felt trapped by having a child, or people who hated consumerism. But these were hypotheses, not answers. They said nothing about his parents as individuals. Why else did he search through books, if not in the hope of finding a letter or postcard from them? His parents had lived on the street for twenty years and must have known hundreds of people. They could easily have written to someone who put the note in a book and then forgot about it. He wasn’t crazy to think so. It was possible.

  It started to rain. Sam didn’t mind. It wouldn’t last that long. There was also a chance, admittedly small, that Alasdair would offer him shelter.

  Three ducks swam slowly by. The cat feigned disinterest. Above Sam, above the rain, the clouds began to shake. It sounded like a plane was tearing a hole in the sky.

  The rain continued. Sam got hungry. He walked towards the bridge. By the time he reached it he could see that Alasdair was gone.

  * * *

  ON THE WAY home he was so distracted that he didn’t even notice Abby standing outside her shop. She was holding a small black pipe and talking into her phone.

  “The smallest. Miniscule. Hold on, wait,” she called.

  He stopped and looked at her in a way she didn’t like.

  “What’s your problem?” She stuck the pipe in her mouth and raised her eyebrows.

  “Nothing. I mean, sorry. How are you?”

  “Average. Bit tired of urine stains. So when are you off?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Excellent. You like flying?”

  “Not much. The longest I’ve done is two hours.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s easy. Get drunk and watch the stupid films and don’t even try to sleep.”

  “All right.”

  “Very good. Hey, I got an e-mail from Caitlin. She sent it to me, but it’s really for the volunteers. I think it’s her idea of a postcard. Anyway, I printed a copy if you want to see.”

  “Great,” he said redundantly, because she was already going inside. She came back with a folded piece of paper she handed to him.

  “Enjoy! And send me a real postcard. From Bang! Kok!”

  “I’m not going there.”

  “Pity! Bye!”

  She waved and went back inside. He put the paper in his pocket. By the time he got home he had forgotten it.

  He lay down on the sofa and closed his eyes. He was hungry, and it was almost lunchtime, but he didn’t want to go out again. There was really nothing left to do, so he took off his clothes and got into bed. He decided to look through some of his books, starting with his favourites. When he found a passage he liked, he folded either the top or bottom corner of the page it was on, and sometimes, if the passage seemed particularly impressive, he drew a line in the margin next to the sentences. This was supposed to make these passages easy to find when he needed to remind himself of their brilliance. When this would occur he had no way of knowing, but each time he folded a page it was with the certainty of a wine collector placing a bottle in their cellar.

  It was thus with great anticipation that he opened a thick book he had not read since 2002. He turned to the first page and read its opening paragraph.

  A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened
before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.

  The old words were comforting. He didn’t remember what they meant; it was their familiarity that counted. He flicked forwards to the first folded page.

  Wars have a way of overriding the days just before them. In the looking back, there is such noise and gravity. But we are conditioned to forget.

  A high-pitched wail cut through the words, a rising, urgent sound. Sam pictured burning houses, people hit by cars. The siren came closer, peaked, then stopped. He pictured its light strobing.

  He read the passage again, thought it a well-written sentence but nothing more. He couldn’t see what his younger self had found so impressive. It made him feel that part of his past did not belong to him, had not happened to him, the person he was now. Whilst this idea made complete sense to Alasdair, it terrified Sam. If he was not one person with one set of memories, then there was no “he.” Whatever “he” thought, however “he” felt, was merely one of a succession of selves that did not form a palimpsest, but instead kept peeling away. From this, it followed that “he” would not really be alive for seventy-six years (the average life expectancy in Scotland at that time). “He” had only five years left, perhaps a decade of life—however long it took for “his” past to seem like someone else’s.

  That Sam found nothing liberating in this idea should be no surprise. He was protective of his misery.

  He was trying to decide whether to pick a different book, one he’d read more recently, when there was a knock on the door. He thought it was probably Alasdair; he hoped, without conviction, that it was Malea. As he reached for the door, he decided to let Alasdair stay in the flat after he’d gone.