by Sarah Butler
Except now, time is slipping from me. Today I spent all day collecting colours, and then walked back via the house. When I turned onto your street I saw the sign. For Sale. If I had waited there all day, I would have seen someone come, in a van I suppose, with that long white piece of wood and the sign to fix at its top. Seeing it did for my heart; I had to use the spray, though there’s barely anything left of it – cold relief on my tongue. I tried to picture the people who put the sign up; it helped me breathe. A man in his twenties – ginger hair, a little greasy. He wore a black sweatshirt, with a hood. His trainers were scuffed, the plastic starting to wear around the soles. The van had a dent in one side and the left-hand wing mirror was missing.
I sat on the bench by the school at the end of your road, and folded a piece of newspaper into a flower. I walked up the steps to your front door and left it on the wall.
It can take a long time to sell a house. I’ve looked through enough newspapers, walked past enough Evening Standard boards, to have some sense of the world. House prices crashing. Walls and roofs suddenly not so stuffed full of money as people had thought. But I feel like the earth has shifted underneath my feet. I feel hurried.
* * *
I work hard, as hard and as quickly as I can. I am almost out of cotton and string. My fingers feel clumsy. Difficult. I spray beneath my tongue, once, twice – but then there is no spray left, and it is still difficult. I can’t die here when it’s nearly ready, when it’s nearly possible.
I concentrate on the colours; list them in my head: ice blue, gold, magenta pink, navy blue, charcoal grey. Breathe. Pale, almost translucent orange, ice blue, warm orange-red, dark purple, magnolia, green, charcoal grey, chestnut brown. Breathe. Gold, silver, lilac, charcoal grey. Breathe.
It is getting easier. My heart feels lighter. Olive green, silver, chestnut brown – twice over, maroon. Breathe. I raise my eyes to the canopy of leaves and the dancing colours. I can see what it will look like when you come here. It will be beautiful. Pearly white, ice blue, green, magnolia, charcoal grey, chestnut brown.
I would like to be able to make you a cup of tea. I would like to pour hot water into a white mug, stir in milk and sugar, squeeze the tea bag against the side with a metal teaspoon. I would like to watch you, sitting with your knees pulled towards your chest, your hands around your cup, the steam rising. I have, instead, the tail end of a bottle of whisky. I’ve half buried it, and covered the rest with leaves. There’s nothing to drink it from. It’s not as good as a mug of tea, but at least I have something to offer you.
* * *
This morning I walk to Kenwood House, arrive just as they are unlocking the toilets. I pump liquid soap into my palm, run the tap until it steams hot, and wash my face. The soap smells like sherbet. I splash water onto my hair, and pull my fingers through the knots. It’s only a week since Hunter cut it, and it looks fine, I tell myself. When I rub my hands over my cheeks the stubble scratches at my palms. I don’t have a razor. Rugged, I tell myself. Confident, I tell myself.
A man comes in. We don’t make eye contact, but I register his sideways look at me in the mirror as he washes his hands. I wait until he leaves, and then I drop the empty heart spray into the black plastic bin, and I walk towards you.
Today, I have something for you.
I find the head of a white rose lying by the side of the road. I cup it in my palm all the way to your house.
This time, when I walk up the steps, I know I will ring the bell.
* * *
I might never have found out your mother had died. An out-of-date newspaper, the funeral long since gone. I remember the words slicing me to shreds. I sat in the concrete alcove on the south side of Blackfriars Bridge, with the ripped-out obituary on my lap. The sky was beautiful: hibiscus pink, slashed with dark clouds. The trains carried strangers across the water, and the power station pumped out smoke. I’ve been back since. There’s a red plastic lifebuoy nailed to each alcove with a sign that reads ‘To save a life’.
The only thing that kept me from climbing onto the wall, shifting my weight forward, and letting myself go, was your name, listed with your sisters’ underneath hers. I am sorry she gave you such a cold, blue name. I would have chosen something warmer, something laced with sunshine. The pink centre of your name drowns in blue and grey. It is a name that makes me think of winter, of someone standing on their own, high up on a hill with no trees to shelter them from the wind and the snow. Even so, it saved me, knowing for the first time who you were.
Ten things that happen when you sort out your father’s house
1) You realise how much stuff a person who didn’t like shopping can accumulate.
2) You have to deal with a lot of dust.
3) You have to try really hard not to think about where dust comes from.
4) You get exhausted just sitting in one place, barely moving.
5) You get emotionally attached to kitchen cupboards you never even liked.
6) You keep forgetting he’s dead.
7) You realise how heavy clothes can be.
8) You forget to eat.
9) You get irrationally excited by the idea that seeds grow into plants.
10) You try to comfort yourself by standing with your body pressed against a wall – it works better than you think it would.
On the way home from the restaurant, I kept my eyes shut for the Tube journey, then walked with my head down back to the house, my mother’s shoes rubbing at my heels. I hadn’t left any lights on. I stood on the pavement and looked up at it: just a dark house on a dark street, with a For Sale sign nailed to a post. There was nowhere else to go, and so I walked heavy steps up to the front door and let myself in. It still smelt of paint. When I took off my mother’s shoes the tiles were cold underneath my feet.
I had ruined her dress. I walked up to Dad’s room and imagined her standing there, reflected back in the wardrobe mirror, clipping earrings to her ears, reaching to secure her necklace. The stain is in three parts. A large blot, shaped a bit like a leaf, and two smaller drops on either side. I wrestled the zip down, and let the dress fall around my feet. I remembered Kal, running his hands across my skin, telling me I was beautiful.
* * *
This morning I lie in a single bed in the room that used to be my room, in the house that used to be my father’s. I feel as though I’ve been filled up with helium – I might float away any minute. A cry would do me good, that’s what Tilly would say, but I can’t even seem to manage that.
I lie and stare at the ceiling. Shaun is coming today. He will pull the kitchen to pieces. I drag myself into the bathroom. The sun seeps through the frosted window glass and turns the tiny blue tiles into shimmering lines. I pull the blind to turn them dull again.
Mama’s dress lies on the floor in Dad’s room. It’s creased, and the stains look bigger and darker than they did yesterday. I must have looked like an idiot last night, all dolled up. I pick up the dress and shove it into a plastic bag.
When I open the front door, I see it. Another flower, bigger than the first, it’s made out of newspaper – creased sentences, their meanings disappearing into the folds. It makes my heart lift. Ridiculous. I abandon the dress in the hallway and carry the flower through to the kitchen. It might have been there last night, but I didn’t look – I’d given up on the whole thing. I boil the kettle; it growls and clicks itself off, but I don’t make coffee. Instead, I sit at the kitchen table and stare at the flower, I don’t know how long for. When I’ve done with sitting I stand up and walk over to my seedlings. They get stronger and taller each day. The paper flower is light enough to place on top without damaging them. I lift the flimsy plastic tray, balance it against my waist with one hand and open the door to the garden with the other.
I kneel by the strip of ground underneath the kitchen window, place the tray at my side, and pull at the weeds and plants already in the bed. The soil clumps between my fingers and presses into the creases of my skin. When I’m done �
� the soil clear, a pile of rejected green on the path – I count the seedlings, even though I know how many there are, and then make twenty-three indentations in the ground with my forefinger. I release them from the tray – stark white roots, breakable stems – and transfer them to their new home. There’s a moment, as I lower the first one into its hole, when I want to stop, want to return the seedling to the tray and take the whole thing back inside with me. It’s too late for that. I carry on until there is an almost straight row of frail green plants. The newspaper flower I leave until the end, push the folded stem into a hole right in the middle of the line of seedlings. It falls to one side and I press at the earth around its base until it stands up straight. I sit back on my heels to look at them, and the tears come from nowhere.
* * *
I am walking up the stairs when the doorbell rings. It stops me, frozen, halfway between up and down.
It will be Shaun, a short, stocky man with an easy smile. He’ll be holding a bag full of tools. He is going to gut the kitchen, break it up, rip it out.
It might be Kal. It won’t be Kal.
Maybe it’s someone else who’s seen the sign. I won’t let them in. I’ll say I’m sorry but they’ll need to call the agency, the number’s right there on the sign.
And then, although I know it’s stupid, I think it might be my father, his black briefcase in one hand, his long beige coat buttoned up, despite the warmth of the day. I can hear his voice, soft enough to make you pay attention, telling me he’s lost his keys. A damned nuisance, I must be getting old, he’ll say, and I’ll laugh to show I know he’s not old at all, he’ll last for ever. I walk towards the door. I can see the shadow of a person behind the glass, shorter than him, thinner than him. He never forgot his keys.
I’m about to open the door when the bell rings again. Such a hard, brash sound, it makes me jump. I think of the doorbell Cee bought for Dad, the bell push sitting on the bedside table next to that pink sponge on a stick. Tears sting at the bridge of my nose. He was a stubborn bastard – same as the rest of us.
The man standing on the doorstep is shorter than my father was, and on the unhealthy side of thin. His hair is damp and roughly cut; he needs a shave. His eyes are pale grey, the skin around them thick and creased. I have seen him somewhere before.
‘I—’ He speaks quietly. His voice makes me think of moths’ wings – a crumble of dust.
I put one hand on the edge of the door frame, and keep the other on the latch, but I don’t close the door. I catch the rank, almost sweet smell of unwashed clothes and skin. I’ve smelt it before: on the Tube, at bus stops, in the corners of libraries, any place you can stop a minute without being moved on.
‘I’ve got— I wanted—’ The man holds out his hand. In his palm is the head of a rose. It’s almost dead, its cream petals defeated, their edges browned like burnt paper. He clears his throat, but doesn’t speak. I tell myself I’ll give him to the count of ten. Dad used to say that: I’ll give you to the count of ten, Alice. If you are not down here in one, two, three, four . . .
‘I found this,’ he says. His teeth are yellowed, and one at the bottom front is broken. ‘I was thinking how someone picked it from a field full of roses and pulled off the thorns.’ He coughs and flicks a glance at me; there is a hint of blue in his eyes. Of course. I remember now.
‘You were at the funeral,’ I say.
A flutter of fear moves across his face, like he’s been caught stealing. He turns his head and I see a thin white scar drawing a line back from the corner of his right eye.
‘Weren’t you?’ I say.
‘Then someone else cut squares of plastic and put six roses in the centre of each piece, tied up the ends and taped one of those packets of flower food to them,’ he continues.
He was there, I’m sure of it. At the church, and then at the house, although maybe I’ve made that up. Maybe he’s one of those funeral junkies, who pick names from the newspaper and go along to soak up all that emotion and free booze. All I need to do is close the door. Except I don’t really want to.
I look at the flower in his hand, and an image of Kal flashes into my mind – turning up at my office with a fancy bouquet of red roses. I cut the head off one and pressed it between the pages of a book, like a schoolgirl; I still have it somewhere, or at least I never threw it away.
‘You knew my dad?’
He drops his gaze. He’s wearing a scruffy cord jacket and even scruffier cord trousers. He has a string round his neck, but whatever’s hanging on it is tucked under his shirt. Cee would have slammed the door as soon as she’d opened it. Tilly would have smiled, maybe given him a fiver, closed the door too. But there’s something about him that feels familiar, and if I close the door it will just be me and the house, waiting.
‘I’d like to show you something,’ the man says. ‘I’d need you to come with me, if you’d do that?’
I look past the man, down towards the street. Shaun will be here any minute. He’ll have a white van and a bag full of tools. He is going to gut my father’s kitchen.
‘Just to the Heath,’ the man says. ‘Just to a place on the Heath.’ He puts the flower back in his jacket pocket.
We used to go to the Heath with Dad; traipse up Parliament Hill after church, sandwiches packed into a rucksack. Tilly made them. She went through an experimental phase: brie and apple with ginger chutney; ham and tinned pineapple, which seeped sweet juice into the bread. In winter, Dad would take a thermos of coffee; in summer he would fill the same thermos with ice and pour lemon squash into the spaces. It always tasted wrong: stained with caffeine. He would sit on one of the benches facing the sprawl of London, his eyes stretching beyond the horizon. Sometimes it seemed like he was so far away he wouldn’t notice if we all disappeared. I would run to him, scramble up beside him and chatter away, raising my voice, asking him questions, forcing him back to earth, to us, to me.
‘I thought they grew roses without thorns, these days,’ I say.
I see the hope flare in his eyes. ‘You’ll come?’ he says.
I picture it – the view from Parliament Hill, the smell of grass and the wind on my skin. I’ve been spending too much time in this house. ‘I don’t know you,’ I say. ‘And there’s a man coming – Shaun. To do the kitchen.’
He scuffs his foot against the top step, and then coughs, like a smoker. I imagine him in a doorway, tucked into a grubby sleeping bag. He’s well spoken, though, for a tramp. He looks at me as though he has something so important to say he can’t think how to start.
‘Did you know my father?’ I say.
He flinches.
‘Is that why you’re here?’
He tips his head to one side as if to say, maybe, it might be. I imagine Shaun ripping out the kitchen cabinets and the thought of it makes me feel sick. I glance down the street again, but it’s empty.
‘I think maybe they do grow them without thorns,’ he says. And then he smiles and his whole face changes, and I can imagine him as a young man – blue-eyed and hopeful.
‘We used to go to the Heath on Sundays,’ I say.
The man nods, and waits.
I look at the turquoise silk spilling from the plastic bag in the hallway. I should never have worn it. I pull off my socks, push my feet into my new flip-flops, and take the keys from the hook on the wall.
‘I need to be back in half an hour,’ I say.
‘It isn’t far,’ he says. ‘It’s important.’ The colour is high in his cheeks and he rubs at his jawbone, the same way I do when I’m out of my depth. ‘Daniel,’ he says, and holds out his hand. He has the same thin fingers as me. Tilly and Cee have Dad’s hands – thicker, stubbier. This man’s hand has dirt embedded into the knuckles and too-long yellow nails. Shaking it makes me think of crocodile skin.
He walks faster and with more determination than I’d expected. I follow a pace behind, past the cottages, along East Heath Road, across and onto the Heath. A man passes us, and I half want grab hold of him and
say, look, look what I’m doing, can’t you stop me?
Daniel doesn’t speak as we walk, and I’m grateful for it. We follow the dip of the hill towards the ponds, then up again. It’s not until we are on a thin path, trees leaning damp branches across our heads, the ground scattered with discarded leaves, that I make myself stop.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what I— I really have to get back, I’m sorry.’
‘It’s just another minute.’ His voice is soft as bonfire smoke. His grip will be surprisingly strong, I think – I imagine myself describing it to an unimpressed police officer, a polystyrene cup of weak tea on the table in front of us, and me saying, it’s just there was something about him, something familiar. I thought I could trust him. No, I can’t explain why.
‘Another minute? And then go, of course, you must go.’ He doesn’t touch me.
I keep walking.
He stops. There are trees to the left, long grass to the right, and a view of London truncated by the shallow arc of a hill. A woman pushing a three-wheeled buggy walks past. He waits. When she’s gone he looks at me, and then at the trees.
‘It’s just here.’
I follow him. Along the suggestion of a path, across a thin straggle of a stream, between two rhododendron bushes. The faint wail of a siren calls out from beyond the horizon, and closer, the trill of a bird. He dips left. I stop still and watch him move between the trees. He turns, and his eyes are frightened, like a child lost in a crowd.
‘Here,’ he says, and makes a gesture with his hand like he’s welcoming me to his home. I catch a glimpse of silver foil and pink plastic through the leaves, and step forward.
You could call it a clearing, a space amongst the rhododendrons you’d never really notice. The ground looks as if it’s been swept clear of twigs and leaves, and he has tied rubbish to the branches. It makes me think of a church. Blues, greens, browns, purples, flashes of silver and gold in an arch above us.