by Sarah Butler
‘My scar,’ I say. ‘It was from the car door. I don’t remember anything.’
He is listening.
‘I thought I’d found someone,’ I say. ‘That’s why I lost control. They tried to make out I was negligent, I hadn’t got enough sleep, I’d been drinking the night before, I hadn’t had my eyes tested in five years, anything they could think of, but it was because I thought I’d found someone.’
We watch a young boy, maybe eight years old, hold a camera in both hands as though it might explode, and point it towards two women, their arms interlocked, their eyes smiling.
‘Who?’ Anton asks.
I can feel my heart strain against my chest. There aren’t any benches here. I lower myself onto the steps, by a group of students – French, I think – who flirt and play with their phones and squeal at their own jokes. One of them – a boy of maybe seventeen – catches my eye and looks quickly away. I see him lean in towards the girl next to him and whisper to her. She glances at me and blushes. The day is heating up and I can feel a prickle of sweat across my back. My mouth tastes bitter, despite the toothpaste.
Anton sits next to me. ‘I think you are very sad man,’ he says.
I shift on the stone step. ‘Sometimes.’
He nods. ‘My mother,’ he says, ‘she sad like you. It is difficult.’
‘You’re angry with her?’ I ask.
Anton shakes his head. ‘Not angry,’ he says. ‘No, not angry. She dies, maybe ten years now.’
‘I can write a letter for you,’ I say. ‘If you’d like me to. To Sylwia.’
I don’t look at him, and he doesn’t speak. I can see his right leg dance a frantic rhythm against the step.
‘It would have to be in English,’ I say. ‘But you said she can speak English?’
After a time, his foot stops its jig. ‘You are kind man, Daniel,’ he says. ‘I like for you to write letter.’
I nod.
‘Not here, though, not here,’ he says.
We walk towards the Angel, because it’s his patch, and because I know a place there. It’s set back on a wide breadth of pavement. They don’t welcome you with open arms, but they wouldn’t turn you away. There was a time I tried to look for you there – on the computer. A woman who smelt of my mother’s perfume helped me. It said there were 432,000 results, but I couldn’t find one about you.
Anton walks too fast for me.
‘You must slow down,’ I tell him, holding a hand to my chest, feeling my heart swell against my ribs.
He frowns. ‘You are ill?’
‘Just walk slower with me.’
He eases his pace. I prefer to walk this way anyway, to look up and down as well as along.
* * *
I took a man and his son in my cab once. I picked them up from an unlit house in Tooting at four o’clock in the morning. The boy couldn’t have been more than five. The man carried him cradled in his arms, a sports bag lodged over his left shoulder. He spoke to the boy in fast whispered sentences, in a language I couldn’t understand. Heathrow, please, he said to me. I sneaked glances at them in my mirror, caught their faces periodically lit by street lights: the boy’s eyes drooping, the man’s hand stroking his son’s hair. I doubt they were running away, but I wanted them to be. It was a quiet night. I pushed down the accelerator and the car swallowed up the miles to the bright glare of the airport. By the time we arrived the boy was asleep; the man’s face was tense with worry, a muscle tic just above his jaw. He gave me a big tip and a terse nod, heaved the bag out of the boot, picked up the sleeping child and vanished between the glass doors of the departures hall. I imagined an anxious wait at check-in, a determined stare straight ahead at passport control, a moment of relief as the plane lifted its nose into the sky.
* * *
‘Would you go home, if you could?’ I ask Anton, as we dodge the tourists clamouring around the British Museum. He’s distracted by the smell of fried onions from a hot dog stall. It’s not until we turn the corner, following the long line of the black fence, that he speaks.
‘It is difficult,’ he says.
‘Of course.’
‘I have no money for plane. And then if I go, maybe I cannot come back. And I say yesterday, maybe it is better to no have father than have me. There is drink in my face, no? I have no money for her.’
I picture my father, sitting at his desk, adding up the debts, the bottle of pills in his briefcase on the floor.
‘But surely—’ I realise I don’t know what to say to him.
We walk without talking. I send silent reassurances to my heart: it’s OK now, it’s OK, nearly there, nearly there.
I find a tiny sock in Myddleton Square, pink, with a thin ribbon threaded around the top. I stop and pick it up, put it into my pocket. Anton doesn’t notice, or if he does he says nothing. As we walk, I trace its outline with my fingers. There’s a little bow at the front, held on by a single stitch. I can feel the raised seam at the toe end, and a patch of mud, perhaps, or something else, dried on. I imagine a girl in a pushchair, fidgeting her feet against a plastic rain cover. The woman pushing the buggy has bags underneath her eyes. She’s rushing to get to the doctor’s surgery. Last time they were late for their appointment and had to wait for hours. It’s raining and chilly, but she can feel herself sweating beneath her clothes. When the sock falls, the child lets out a wail, because the air is cold and the rain cover feels wrong against her bare toes. The mother doesn’t see the sock fall. She is tired out by her child’s crying. She pushes her hair back from her face and keeps on walking.
We stop in front of the library. It is a large, curved building, the stretch of wall underneath the windows packed tight with tiny blue tiles. Anton looks longingly at the pub across the road.
‘We have no paper,’ he says.
‘I’ll ask.’
Anton shakes his head. ‘I no want bad paper, no bad paper.’
I step towards the entrance. The glass doors slide open. Anton stays on the pavement.
‘We don’t have to—’ I turn back to him. The doors start to close but sense my presence and hiccup open again.
‘Yes, yes. I want—’ Anton squares his shoulders. ‘What is this place?’
‘A library,’ I say. ‘You choose somewhere to sit.’ I wave towards the tables positioned in between metal shelves of books, then walk towards a sign that reads ‘Information’. The man behind the counter has a patchy red beard and a stubby nose. He raises his eyes to me and I can see his thoughts mapped out on his face. I don’t look bad, don’t think that, but clothes wear out quickly when you’re in them all the time, and London’s a dirty place – your skin holds onto it. If it was raining, it would be easier – people are more forgiving when the weather’s against you and you’re drenched to the skin. I smile at the man, not enough to show the broken tooth on the bottom row, but enough to show willing.
‘I want to ask for your help,’ I say.
He eyes me suspiciously, but I plough on. ‘I need to write a letter.’
He takes a step backwards, tiny but visible.
‘Could you give me two pieces of paper?’ I ask. ‘And lend me a pen?’
‘I’m not – I mean, we don’t—’
‘I would very much appreciate it.’ I put on the poshest accent I can find; it’s rusty – those kinds of vowels don’t do you any favours in my world.
He frowns. The phone to his right burrs softly and flashes red. He pushes his thumbs and forefingers together. His colleague answers the phone. I wait.
‘Well, there’s—’ He takes two pieces of paper from the printer behind the desk and holds them out to me. ‘And I suppose—’ He takes a biro off a computer keyboard. It has no lid. There are bite marks around its base.
I do my best not to look like I’m snatching them. ‘Thank you.’
He looks bemused. I offer another smile.
‘And an envelope,’ he says. ‘You’ll be needing an envelope.’ He stops himself. ‘Unless you have one?�
�� I shake my head. He turns and bends to open a drawer. His navy-blue jumper lifts to reveal the crumpled edges of his shirt, the bulge of flesh at his sides.
‘You’re very kind,’ I say, taking the envelope. He makes a slight movement with his head – a jerk to the side.
Anton lets out a whoop when I approach with paper, pen and envelope. Heads snap up, and I press a finger to my lips. He has chosen a table near the window, hemmed in by shelves. Newspapers are strewn across it. I stack them into a pile for later, and lay the blank white paper in front of him.
‘This one for practice,’ I say, separating the sheets. ‘This one for best.’ It has been a long time since I wrote anything.
We are in the fiction section. C – the same navy blue as my old school uniform; D – a pale orange, like powdered sherbet; E – dark charcoal grey; F – white with a faint pearly sheen. My mother had a string of pearls, one of my father’s many gifts. Guilt, I suspect, but she would say love. We lined them all up on the dining-room table – rings and bracelets, necklaces and brooches. Choose two, I said, just two. I had to keep my voice hard because she was crying and I’ve never been any good with tears. She picked the pearls, and a gold locket in the shape of a heart. His picture sat opposite hers, cut not quite the exact shape of the space. I made myself hold my tongue.
Anton dictates for me. I had expected to ask him questions, to help him decide what to write, but the words fall ready-made into sentences. This letter has existed in his head for a long time.
My Sylwia— ‘With a “w”, with a “w”, Daniel. You English—’
I write you from London, England. Here is very big with many people. I miss you. Every day I wake and think of you. I see your face. I think every day, how beautiful you are. I sleep in house that is very big.
He looks at me with guarded eyes. I nod encouragingly.
It has garden with two line of flowers, and tree that has apples. You like it here. You like to dig in garden with little spade and make flowers grow.
I think, sometimes, you forget me. It is OK, Sylwia, if you forget. People’s faces hard to keep inside head when not there. I don’t forget you. I want— ‘No, no, I wish’ – you to remember me.
I write, and I think about you. I have never seen your face. When things are difficult, I worry that when I do find you I won’t recognise you. I worry that it was you on the street that time, and I’ve screwed up the one chance I had. Usually, though, I know that I won’t be able to miss you.
* * *
You can’t miss someone you’ve never met. But I miss you.
* * *
It is difficult to explain. Maybe when you older, I tell you. But soon, I come home. We take trip to mountains. Your legs longer now, you are faster than me. You can tell me all the things from after I go.
A man with blond dreadlocks squeezes past our table. I can see him looking at us, and pretending not to. He selects a book with orange flames on the front cover, and hurries away.
My daughter. I want to show you London. I want to watch your eyes light up at the green of Hammersmith Bridge, the green you see when you get so close to the paint you can smell it. I want to show you my places, the spaces I put things into. A fading yellow daffodil held between the slats of a gutter. A silver coat hanger on the outstretched hand of a tree. A cinnabar-red button tucked into the space between time-eaten bricks.
Rubbish, you will say.
Not rubbish. Look.
I want to tell you about the word cinnabar: how it is a mineral and also a moth. It’s such a bright, plastic red you’d think man had made it, but it starts beneath the earth, and exists in the sky.
I have many question for you, Sylwia. I want to know every second from when I go. I hope there is no hate for me going. It is to help, I come here to help. Sometimes things work out a different way, it takes time to get back where I need to get.
I love your mother, Sylwia. Sometimes grown-ups fight, but I love her, and you.
I make you promise, Sylwia, I come home. It take time, but I come home and when I come home I lift you up and you see over heads of all the people, high so you see over houses and talk to birds. If you angry, I can wait.
My friend Daniel write this letter for me. He is kind man.
I love you Sylwia.
Tato
My handwriting has never been good. I watch it crawl like a tired insect across the paper, leaving a blue trail in its wake. When I write my own name it looks unfamiliar. I glance up and see the man at the counter, watching us. I wonder if he likes working here, whether all these words feel like a burden or an opportunity.
‘I’ll write it out again, neat,’ I say. Anton and I both look at the ragged edges of my letters.
He nods. ‘And then I draw for her.’
The neat version is not so different from the first one, but Anton doesn’t comment. He takes the paper and the pen from me and starts to draw a border around the writing. I watch him, his eyebrows knotted together, delicate interwoven leaves and flowers emerging from the end of the pen. Even at my age, people can still take you by surprise.
I turn to the newspapers, because there is always a chance, and the day I give up might be the day I find what I’m looking for.
* * *
Here’s the strange thing: I nearly didn’t see it. I mean, I saw it, and then I moved on, because when you’ve looked for something for as long as I’ve been looking, the idea of it is so strong, so clear in your mind, you struggle to recognise a variation of it in the real world.
I have been looking for your name all these years, ever since I found out what it was. Not just in newspapers, but on the radio, book spines, computers, even gravestones.
I find his name, not yours – his black name with its whisper of silver and gold. The newspaper is The Times, which is hardly surprising. I am onto the next page when the name connects, like a punch to the windpipe. My heart scrambles inside my chest and I have to close my eyes and breathe. When I open them, Anton is still drawing, an intricate version of a rose; the man behind the counter is typing away at his computer. A woman walks past the window, her phone held to her ear. The newspaper lies on the table in front of me. I turn the page.
It is his name, not yours, but when I manage to focus on the smaller print beneath, I see that you are there, ice blue at the end of a line.
The date is tomorrow, a crest of the hill, shimmering green Thursday.
I think about how sad you must be, and it makes my heart ache. I close my fingers around the tiny child’s sock in my pocket.
They might have printed the wrong date, the wrong time.
I mustn’t panic.
I rip around the text in tiny, quiet movements, so the man behind the counter won’t hear. Anton looks up, but I don’t meet his eye. I fold the paper and place it in my inside pocket, along with the sock, the ball of cotton and the spray for my heart. I know what it says, but I can’t bear the thought of losing it.
* * *
I wore a jacket with a stain on the lapel to my father’s funeral. I didn’t want to go at all, but my mother rapped on the door of my room until I opened it, and stood there until I got dressed. It was a bright day, like this one, the air warm, the sky a flat summer blue. I hadn’t washed my hair for days. My scalp itched. My eyes hurt.
There were ten people at the funeral. I didn’t know six of them. One man had Florida-orange skin and wore a sharp grey suit. I imagined him in a room with blinds pulled across the windows and a green table patterned with upturned cards, smiling as he watched my father lose money he didn’t own. The vicar mumbled his words, stumbled over my father’s name. Afterwards, outside the church, the sharp-suited man shook my hand and said he was sorry to hear the news, my father had been a friend, a good man. His voice was low, rich and confident. His nails looked manicured. I didn’t say anything.
‘Daniel, you are ill?’ Anton’s voice sounds distant, like I’m underwater, or carrying a cold in my ears.
‘I need—’ I stop, start
again. ‘There’s a—’ I shake my head. ‘I have to—’
He narrows his eyes.
‘Look, the envelope, and then we need to write the address.’ I pull the envelope from beneath the letter and shove it towards him. ‘And a stamp, you’ll need a stamp.’ I see fear flash across his face. ‘There’s a post office on Rosebery Avenue, near the market, just up the hill. You have some money?’ I shouldn’t have started this. I have things to do.
A breath, a breath, a breath. Without Anton I would never have known. I don’t want you to think I am a man without honour. I fold the letter in half and half again. He has made it beautiful, despite my handwriting.
Anton pulls a creased piece of paper from his pocket. I can’t make sense of it, but I recognise the shape of an address, and copy the letters one at a time onto the envelope. We stand up. The man behind the counter watches us. I make myself approach him.
‘Thank you,’ I say, though I need to be outside, walking towards you; I need to be there, waiting. ‘Thank you. My friend wanted to write to his daughter, in Poland. Thank you for helping.’ I put the pen on the counter.
Anton nods, pats the envelope and smiles. We are almost out of the door. We almost don’t hear him.
‘Do you have money for a stamp?’ the man says.
I look back. There’s a self-satisfied quality to his smile. It happens, sometimes, when people feel they’re doing something good. I never begrudge it, though there are those who do. I watch Anton. He shakes his head.
‘Hang on.’ The man dives his hand into one trouser pocket, then the other. He holds out a pound coin. ‘That should be enough for a letter,’ he says. His voice rises, like he’s asking for something.
Anton takes the money. His nails are long, like a woman’s. He nods, shortly, and looks at the floor. Theman behind the counter pauses, and then shrugs us away, turns to serve a young woman with a pile of textbooks.
* * *
The post office queue is long and slow. We shuffle forwards with the rest of them. People take surreptitious steps away from us. At first I don’t care, because the thought of you is almost close enough to touch, and I can’t think past the race of my heart. But then I worry. I am used to the smell of myself. I am used to the way the ends of my clothes fray into thin lines. I try to still the panic.