Signs of Life

by Anna Raverat

  The first attempts at writing this story sank partly because I had mistaken my project in the first place. I was wrong when I thought my project was to answer the questions by telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, because the very notion of the whole truth is a myth, and I was wrong again when I switched to trying to tell the truth as objectively as possible, because the idea of objectivity is another myth. The whole truth, the objective truth: such attractive ideas. I couldn’t get inside using these routes. Someone else may have been able to, but not me.

  The second visit to the coast, when we stayed the weekend in Carl’s mother’s house, we went out for a drink on Saturday night to get away from Our Kid. The streets were full of people, some in couples like us but mainly in single-sex groups of four or five, and although there was a sharp wind coming in from the sea, I remember seeing a lot of bare legs and bare arms. We drank something in one bar and moved on to the next. I drank red wine, served in very large glasses, and noticed that nobody else was drinking this although lots of other women were drinking white wine out of the same very large glasses. Like most of the other men, Carl drank pints. I smoked more than usual, which means I chain-smoked. I was bored. I wonder if he felt bored too. We had been together constantly for three days at this point and although, later, I was often bored when I was with him, unless we were eating or drinking or having sex, this was the first time I was aware of it.

  I recall thinking that the cigarettes I was smoking, not my usual brand, were the only visible point of contact between me and the people here. I displayed the packet like a badge or VIP pass. It lay on the table and every time I reached out to flick open the lid or picked it up to pull out another cigarette, I noticed that the same blue and white packet could be seen in dozens of other hands, poking out of shirt and jeans pockets, in handbags, imagined it on tables in pubs and bars across this large and unfamiliar town, to which I would never gain, nor want, really, membership, and so on me, this packet was a form of fake ID.

  And each time, without fail, Carl would light my cigarette with a lighter he kept in his front jeans pocket. He was smoking too, though not as much as me, so he kept digging into his pocket for the lighter and then replacing it. He could have put the lighter on the table, or I could have bought my own, because this one, a small transparent yellow plastic lighter, was nearly out of fluid and was increasingly difficult to ignite, but our arrangement, the arrangement that surfaced, was that he held on to the lighter and each time I took a cigarette, he lit it for me. If we were outside or sitting close to an open door in a breeze, I would cup my hand around the end of the cigarette and he would place his hand around mine with our fingers overlapping, his thumb resting on mine, so that as I pulled air hard through the cigarette to get it alight, our hands were together in a kind of loose prayer position, protecting a feeble flame.

  After two or three bars we drove out to the sea. Probably the intention was to have sex on the beach, but I don’t remember now if we did that or not because when we walked back up from the beach something was happening that took over the rest of that night and most of my memories of it. The car park where we left the van from work had been deserted when we arrived, and unlit. Now it was full of noise and light. There were cars all around the edge facing into the centre with engines running and headlights on full beam. Doors were open and people were either sitting inside or leaning on their cars, some were sitting on roofs. I don’t know how many cars were there but I guess it was between thirty and forty. The night was cold now, so as well as the exhaust fumes smoking up, there were frosty swirls of air lit up by the headlights like dry ice on a stage.

  The show that everyone had gathered to see was what seemed to be a race between two cars driving in fast, tight laps round the space in the middle of the car park. I saw that the contest was not so much a race as a fight and underneath the festival-like mood, the bright lights and the excitement of the crowd, I picked up a bass note of bloodlust. Something gladiatorial was taking place.

  The look on Carl’s face told me that the situation was not good. We were standing on the edge of whatever it was, and nobody, yet, had noticed us, but our white van – work’s white van – was trapped at the back of the car park with no way out except by reversing into the middle of the ring interrupting proceedings and then requiring about six other cars to move to allow us access to the only exit. The white van stood higher than the other vehicles and was the only one actually parked, with its engine off, and facing away from the centre; a tall, pale geek ostracized by a ring of short school bullies. It seemed better not to associate with the weakling.

  Carl explained what was going on. They’ve got two stolen cars, he said, and they are going to trash them. Trash them? Race them, smash them up and set fire to them. It happens here sometimes, he said, I just never thought it would happen tonight. We’ll just have to wait it out, I’m sorry. He took off his sweater and passed it to me. It’s not your fault! I told him, and gave it back but he insisted – he was good at these small acts of gallantry – and I was grateful because we had been outside for over an hour now and it was cold. I took out a cigarette and Carl did his best to light it for me, but the little yellow lighter spluttered and died. Carl approached a couple standing close to us, who were also huddled together against the cold, and the man lit our cigarettes and his girlfriend smiled at us. With Carl’s sweater on and his arms around me, standing at the edge of this thing, smoking like one of the crowd, and with this friendliness from the couple next to us, I relaxed a little and even began to enjoy myself.

  Helicopters arrive. Police. They hover over the car park and take it in turns to lower over the crowd pressing us down and out. Some people yell angrily at the helicopters, others scuttle to their cars. We are like a disturbed anthill. Carl takes me by the arm and keeps me close to him and he steers us towards the white van. He has taken control, and I am glad of it, glad of him. A puny strain of music can be heard amid the running engines. There is a queue to get out of the car park, or not a queue, just cars crowding towards the exit and it seems whoever can cram forward fastest gets out first. Carl uses the full height and size of the van and crushes on until we are out. Will they follow? I ask, meaning the helicopters. No, he says. Why aren’t there any police in cars? I ask. Because they’d get fucking lynched. Not if they sent enough, I say. There aren’t enough, he tells me.

  The next day we drove past that car park and, at my request, Carl slowed down because I could see, and was fascinated by, the twisted corpse of one of the cars sacrificed the night before. A blown out front window left a gaping hole like an eye socket and the door had melted over a frame distorted into a jawbone and so the wreckage had the appearance of an enormous blackened sheep skull.

  Thirteen

  I’m in love with the garden down the street and I think it is love, or at the very least a massive crush, because just looking at it makes me want to buy new clothes, eat better, get fit. It’s just a little walled garden, but it fills me with desire to reach out; there’s something about it I want to claim, or join with, in some way. Everything in it is flourishing. It’s wild and well tended – I love this combination.

  I’ve been out on the terrace to look at the garden at least once every day since I first saw it. I’m too much of a scaredy-cat to sit on the low wall at the edge so I just stand. And it’s a pain dragging my desk back and forth in order to open the doors so I found a new position for the desk, and have left it there. When it gets hotter I’ll want to have the terrace doors open more anyway.

  Fourteen

  I made three mistakes. The first mistake was to kiss Carl in the bar, because that broke the sanctity of what I had with Johnny. The second mistake was to accept the perfume he gave me, because that led to the affair. And the third mistake was to take in his cat, because as long as Molly was living with me, the affair could not be ended cleanly.

  Long before I told Johnny about Carl, Carl’s girlfriend Katie guessed about me and when she confro
nted him, he didn’t deny it. That same evening Carl set up a bed on the floor in their sitting room. He told me later that their relationship had already dwindled to platonic and that’s why Katie accepted his passion for me even though she didn’t like it. Neither Katie nor Carl could afford the rent on their own so they agreed that until Katie found somewhere she wanted to move to, they would stay there like that; Katie in the bedroom, Carl on the sitting room floor.

  By the time Katie found another place to live, Johnny had left me to go and stay in the yellow room at Robbie’s house and I was living alone. Carl found a room somewhere, but there was a dog in the house so he couldn’t take Molly. When Carl told me he would have to move, I thought he was going to ask if he could come and live with me, and when he asked instead if I could take Molly for a while I was so relieved that I immediately said yes.

  Carl asked me if I was a dog person or a cat person. Neither, I replied, which are you? Both, he said. And then he told me about Scooby, the dog he and his brother had when they were growing up. They loved him dearly from when he was a tiny puppy, but Scooby was a greedy dog and used to eat scraps of food he found on his walks. One day, Scooby found some chicken on the pavement and wolfed it down before Carl could stop him. A bone got stuck in Scooby’s throat and he started choking. A small crowd gathered and people were telling Carl what to do, and Carl, who was only twelve and couldn’t reach the bone, started getting upset. A man stepped forward, burly, lifted Scooby up and with both arms around his chest, and Scooby’s little legs sticking straight out in front like table legs, this man performed the Heimlich manoeuvre and the chicken bone flew out of Scooby’s mouth in an arc of spittle. The crowd cheered as the bone hit the pavement and Carl thanked the man and carried his confused dog home. Unfortunately it turned out the man had broken two of Scooby’s ribs, and although the vet said the ribs would mend, the dog went into a decline and died.

  On the last morning at Carl’s mother’s house, I was so ready to leave. I packed up my things, which didn’t take long, went outside and smoked what I hoped would be the last of the cheap cigarettes. I went back inside the house to extract Carl. Our Kid was in his pyjamas, which made me want to get out of there even faster. Just before we left, I went to the bathroom and when I came out, Carl took his wallet out of his back pocket, took out several banknotes, folded them and passed them to Our Kid, who thanked him shyly.

  I couldn’t help thinking that Our Kid’s shyness was partly due to me witnessing this transaction, and I wished that Carl had given Our Kid the money while I was in the bathroom. I felt sure that alongside Carl’s real interest in Our Kid was his awareness of himself being interested in his brother; that alongside his real concern there was awareness of himself being generous, and that he also had a desire that he perhaps wasn’t so aware of, which was to demonstrate this generosity in front of other people, in this case, me.

  Our director called us both into his office and asked whether we were having an affair. He said it straight, like this: Are you two having an affair? I felt myself turn red in the face. Carl looked straight back at the director, held his gaze, and said, Nope. Now there was a stand-off between the two men: the director knew very well there was something going on between us and Carl knew that he was answering the question correctly because the affair was over by then. We were, I said, but it’s finished. It felt awkward saying this to the director in front of Carl because although the affair was over, Carl had been coming to my house at night, knocking on my front door, shouting through the letterbox, leaving messages on my answerphone, and making a horrible atmosphere at work. As I said the word ‘finished’, Carl pulled himself up taller, as if meeting a challenge. It’s none of your fucking business anyway, said Carl, under his breath.

  Excuse me? said the director, but he’d heard.

  I said it’s not really any of your business, is it? What we do in our own time?

  Correct. But it is my business what you do in work time. The director went on to give examples of misconduct which were so mild compared to some of the things we’d done on company time, with company money, in company cars, that I suddenly felt more relieved than embarrassed. We had got away with it, or at least I had.

  The reason Carl didn’t ask if he could live with me was because he had already asked me for keys to my flat and I had ignored the request. I had been in the office all day, he elsewhere. He was sitting on my doorstep when I returned home. He’d been there quite a while; it was a warm evening and he had a paper so he didn’t mind, he said. I opened up the double doors to the back garden, put my keys on the table, took off my sandals and went into the bathroom to wash my hot grimy feet. Wouldn’t it be nice if he had already prepared dinner for us, he called; yes, I called back, though I noticed he wasn’t doing anything about dinner now. When I went into the kitchen he was sitting with my key ring round his finger, jangling the keys on the table. I opened the fridge to see what was in it. Maybe I could get keys for here? I’d like that, he said. Would you like some vodka? I replied, as if I hadn’t heard him. Not yet then, eh? he said. I remember glancing across at him as I poured out the vodka; he was staring at my keys, passing them through his fingers like prayer beads. But one day she will, he said.

  Later that night, when we had nearly finished the vodka, we were lying on a blanket outside, sharing a cigarette. It was dark, or as dark as it ever gets in the city, and because it was hot, everyone’s windows and doors were open; household clattering and conversation mingled with the sound of passing cars, occasional sirens, and the distant rumbling of trains and aeroplanes. Next door, somebody was cooking something that smelt good. There was a rare sense of contentment between us, partly achieved by alcohol, but anyway, I was happy to be with him, nestled in the tiny garden, with the evening noises bustling in the air around us.

  Carl broke the peace: Love me the way I love you, he said. OK, I said, but I didn’t mean, OK – I’ll love you, I meant, OK – I understand what you want. I must have known I was misleading him unless, with the vodka inside me, I thought I could love him, but I doubt it. It’s more likely I just wanted to keep the evening on track. When I look back on that moment now it makes me sad, the vulnerability of his request, my unspoken refusal. I always knew I would end the affair.

  Don’t ask me so soon

  When I’m going to leave you.

  It’s only mid-June, a few more weeks

  of peonies yet.

  Deborah Garrison

  I asked Carl why he didn’t have a dog, since he had obviously loved Scooby so much. He said he couldn’t have another because he still felt guilty when he remembered the look in Scooby’s eyes.

  I stood there and watched while that fucking cunt crushed him, said Carl.

  But you were only twelve, you thought that man was trying to help – he was trying to help, I reasoned.

  So what? I let him down, said Carl. I said that he hadn’t really let his dog down because he hadn’t meant to. It makes no difference, said Carl.

  On a balmy summer’s day, Carl and I walked down a tree-lined avenue. We were on our way back to the office after a meeting. I wanted to get straight on the bus but Carl wanted to walk across the park and catch the bus a few stops further on, Come on, he said, it’s a beautiful day. So we walked across the park, but the matter wasn’t settled: he wanted to linger. At some point he must have unbuttoned his shirt, because I clearly recall my irritation as he dawdled, sunlight on his bare chest, shirt billowing in the breeze, face turned up to the dappled light coming through the trees, drinking it all in. He wanted me to bask with him. Come to Switzerland with me next time, he said with his eyes closed to the sun. I saw then what the special bread meant to Carl. The bread was an emblem of the kind of life he wanted, a life like his friend’s in Switzerland, and he wanted that life with me. We held hands, but not peacefully: I dropped his hand: he took mine again: I shifted my briefcase into that hand: he took my briefcase and carried it, took my hand again: I freed myself to tuck my hair behind my
ear: again he took hold. It was like a fight – Carl trying to pull me into that moment and me trying to wriggle out of it and run away.

  I dream that Carl is banging on my door, demanding entry. He wants a guided tour. I tell him he has to wait five years and then renew his application. When I wake up, the dream is foggy but close enough for me to stay inside it and change the end so that I am telling him something else – something kinder, I think, though exactly what escapes me – and then morning invades, the new ending slides off and I am left with the original dream, with the ending that bothered me.

  Carl was always pushing to get in. That he pushed, made the affair happen in the first place, but then he couldn’t stop. If he had held back, I could have come forward. Maybe he thought he could make me love him through the sheer force of his feelings for me. I felt guilty that I didn’t return Carl’s love. The least I could do was to look after his cat for a while.

  Occasionally, I decide to leave things out of the story. I notice that the things I want to omit are usually my own base actions and low words. I would include them, I think, if I believed their inclusion was imperative to getting to the truth.

  I changed one detail: the green shirt that Carl gave me long before the first kiss and that Johnny cut to shreds with a knife once he knew about the affair was not a green shirt but a grey jacket. I changed it because a shirt is more personal, and I wanted to bring out the intimacy of Carl’s gift. Also, a shirt has been on someone’s back, next to skin, and so the act of knifing a shirt seems more violent than cutting up a jacket and I wanted to show the strength of Johnny’s anger when he found out about Carl.

  Things that may sound invented aren’t. There really is a place called the Forest of Maibie, and I really did wander around it wondering what to do. Carl really did climb that tower in the ruined castle with me at the top, gazing out of the window. Johnny’s best friend really was called Don Juan. He really did milk clouds. And I really did buy an expensive pair of satin shoes that looked like glass slippers.