by Sarah Butler
I think of the gifts on the wall outside the house and my heart batters at my ribcage. He is blocking my exit. He is talking – something about colours and letters – his eyes darting from me to the bits of plastic and metal and paper hanging from the trees, then back to me again. It will be my own fault if I am raped and murdered, left with my blood seeping into the ground. Cee would think as much – though she might not say it out loud – and she’d be right for once.
‘It was you who left them,’ I say. ‘Why did you leave them?’ He looks at me blankly. ‘And the funeral, why were you at my dad’s funeral? And what is all this?’ I gesture to the things hanging around us. The man’s face tenses, and then sags, as though I’ve taken something from him. I don’t want to hurt him, this quietly spoken man with his half-dead rose and his too-old hands, but I don’t understand, and I want, suddenly, to go home.
‘There’s whisky,’ he says. ‘I wanted to make you tea, but there’s no electricity.’ He laughs nervously.
I weigh up my chances. I am smaller than him, but younger and fitter. He doesn’t look steady on his feet.
‘I’m sorry, I have to—’ I move quickly, aiming to his left. I feel the soft brush of his jacket against my forearm and brace myself. But he doesn’t move. He lets me go.
Outside, it’s bright, and I feel that same disorientation you get leaving the cinema in the middle of the day – a looping, confused moment when you step outside into cool, bright air, and see that the world has gone on, regardless.
I stand, and wait, though I’m not sure what for. He stays in the clearing. I can see him through the leaves. He looks as old as Dad, but I suspect he’s slightly younger. A friend, maybe, a colleague down on his luck.
My mobile rings. Shaun (builder). He’ll be outside the house now, with his bag of tools and his assistant. He’ll have been ringing the doorbell as I’ve been standing in a den made by a madman. He’ll be irritated, but not too much, not yet. I watch the screen flash. It stops ringing, and then gives a bleep, like an afterthought.
I can hear him. I can see him shouldering his way out from between the branches. I wait until he is standing in front of me, brushing at the leaves and bits of mud on his jacket and trousers. We stand on the narrow path and look at each other.
‘I’m sorry—’ he starts to say, and then falters.
‘That was Shaun.’ I hold up my phone. ‘The builder. They’re going to rip out my dad’s kitchen today, put a new one in. They’re at the house.’
He nods. ‘Maybe you should—’
‘I dropped all his wine glasses on the floor. All of them. And then I put on a pair of his shoes and walked across them again and again.’ I have no idea why I’m telling him this. He doesn’t say anything. He must think I’m crazy.
To our right, just beyond the trees, a girl dressed in pink runs in swooping circles, her arms out to each side, like she might fly if she tried hard enough. I think about how the kitchen cabinets will end up in pieces, swept up and thrown away like all that glass.
‘Can I buy you a coffee? Or a cup of tea?’ I say. ‘We could go to Kenwood House.’
I think for a minute that he might be about to cry, or to step forward and hug me. But he just shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and nods his head and says, ‘Yes, I’d like that, thank you.’
Ten reasons I loved your mother
1) She made me laugh.
2) She had a way of knowing what I was thinking.
3) She had the most beautiful hair.
4) She didn’t care that I’d screwed up my degree, that I wasn’t quite sure where I was going.
5) She had this energy about her.
6) She reminded me of those porcelain flasks in the British Museum – terrifyingly precious.
7) She said my name like it was something special.
8) When she paid me attention, the rest of the world blurred out; it was just me and her.
9) She thought I was braver than I am.
10) I think she wanted to be with me, I really do.
This time, I follow you. You walk faster than I find comfortable, your shoulders tense under your T-shirt, your flip-flops slapping the ground. You didn’t understand. When you left, I had an image of myself – crystal clear – standing on Albert Bridge in the middle of the night, the whole thing lit up like a fairground ride, and me, waiting to fall. But here we are instead, walking.
I knew a man once who could walk along a length of rope suspended in the air. It made me sick to watch him – the tiniest breeze, the smallest distraction, could topple him, force him to remember he was human. I walk, one step, then another, then another. I imagine a thin red line stretching out from you to me, forwards and backwards, to your house – his house – and to all the years we’ve lost.
When we reach the gravel path up to the white bulk of Kenwood House, you pull cigarettes from your bag and pause to offer me one. I try hard to stop my hands from shaking.
‘So my guess is you used to work with Dad,’ you say.
The smoke feels good in my mouth; I blow it out in rings. You notice. ‘A misspent youth,’ I say, and you laugh. ‘No, I don’t think they’d have ever let me be a doctor,’ I say.
‘A patient, then?’
I daren’t look at you. I stare across the grass towards the lake and the tiny columned folly on the opposite side. Come on, man.
Your phone cheeps in your pocket. You wait for it to stop, then pull it out and press some buttons. ‘He’ll be pissed off,’ you say. ‘Come on.’ You start walking again and I follow.
‘I used to run away a lot,’ you say. I can hardly hear you. ‘I got all the way to Finchley Road when I was six.’ I imagine you, a tiny, red-haired girl with a defiant look on your face. The thought of it terrifies me, and at the same time makes me proud. ‘Dad was furious,’ you say. ‘I’ve never seen him so mad.’
I want to offer something in return, but my own tales of running away don’t reflect so well.
‘It turned into a kind of family joke. You know, the kind that isn’t funny – little Alice, always running away, no sense of danger.’ You turn and look at me then, and I drop my gaze to the amber pebbles at our feet.
We walk up to the house and through a gap in a tall boxy hedge. The pale gravel stretches out to each side in front of the cafe. The tables are slatted wood, with herbs in terracotta pots at the centre of each. Kenwood House. It’s a long time since I’ve been here.
You go in to buy tea and cake. You won’t let me pay. I have to stop myself from kicking up a fuss – insisting – because I’m not even sure I have enough money, and the thought of emptying my pockets and counting out coppers and five-pence pieces is too much. You ask me to find a table, and when I say ‘of course’, you look relieved.
I make my way to the courtyard and choose a table at the far end, where two tall brick walls meet. I sit with my back to the corner, hemmed in, but with a view of the whole place. The table has a tiny rosemary bush in a soil-stained plant pot. I pick a leaf and crush its scent into my fingertips. It smells of Sunday roasts and summertime. I see the couple on the next table look at me and then at each other. Further away, a child cranes his neck towards me – blue eyes and blond hair. I looked like that once.
I came here with your mother. The first time, she wore a summer dress with some kind of abstract pattern: summer blues – azure, topaz, cobalt. It sat just off her shoulders, so you could see the clusters of tiny freckles on her back. She wore the same necklace she always wore – a teardrop of a diamond on a gold chain. She played with it as she spoke. It was her mother’s, she told me once; she didn’t even take it off to sleep.
I try to remember where we had sat, that afternoon with the blue dress, but every time I light on a table I know it’s not the one. Our conversation? It was a very long time ago. I pick another rosemary leaf and hold it to my nose. Half of me wishes it was her inside, ordering Earl Grey and carrot cake, because then I could do things differently; I could find enough of the right
kind of words; I could be your father.
You step into the courtyard and lift your head to scan the tables, holding the tray as though it might leap out of your hands. I stop myself from standing up, from looking too relieved, too excited. I just lift my hand and you make your way over.
‘I got English Breakfast,’ you say. ‘I hope that’s OK. And banana and walnut cake.’
Forgive me.
‘My dad always drank Earl Grey when we came here,’ you continue. ‘I’ve never liked it much.’
She must have come here with him, too. I won’t think about it.
‘I brought some sugar. I didn’t know if you wanted any.’ You push a sprawl of sugar packets across the table towards me. One of them drops through the space in between two slats of wood. You twist your body under the table to rescue it and when you emerge I reach my hand across the table towards you. We both look at it. An old man’s hand. A tramp’s hand. Not the kind of hand you would want your father to have.
‘I’ll stir it, shall I?’ You lift the hot teapot lid and stab at the swollen bag with a spoon. The steam swirls towards you. ‘We had a fight,’ you say. ‘Me and my dad.’
I withdraw my hand and rest it on my lap; it feels like it belongs to someone else.
‘Not so much a fight, as an— I don’t know. We didn’t leave it well.’ You pour the tea. I picture a hillside in India – a rich verdant slope, a woman stooping to pick the leaves.
‘Sorry.’ You shake your head. ‘Have some cake.’ You lift one of the plates off the tray and push it towards me. I tear the top off a packet of sugar and empty it into my tea. You are watching me. I tip in another, and then add so much milk the whole thing nearly brims over.
‘He died,’ you say. ‘But then, you know that.’
I stir my tea in slow, gentle circles; it leaks over the edges and pools in the saucer.
‘Was it my father that you knew?’ you say. ‘Or my mother?’
I lift the cup to my lips. Even with so much milk, it is too hot to drink.
‘There was a woman at the funeral who knew my mother. I can’t remember her name.’ You frown. ‘In fact, I’m sure she said—’
‘Your mother,’ I say, too quickly; without thinking. ‘I knew your mother.’ Marina. Did she tell you? You are looking at me. Do you know, already? You are waiting for me to speak.
‘It was a long time ago,’ I say.
‘Before she met my dad?’
I break off a piece of cake. I can hear myself chewing. Crumbs stick in between my teeth and I run my tongue around my mouth to dislodge them.
‘I barely remember her,’ you say. ‘I was four when she died.’
A car crash. I have imagined it too many times.
You look past me. You haven’t touched your cake.
‘I was very sorry to hear it,’ I say. I am trying my best to keep my voice steady.
‘Were you at her funeral?’
I swallow. Shake my head. ‘I was – I was out of the country at the time.’ Don’t start lying, Daniel; that’s never got you anywhere.
‘I hear it was an accident,’ I say, not to hurt you, just to know a little more.
‘She was supposed to be picking me up,’ you say. ‘I was too young to really understand what was going on, but I know she was going in the wrong direction. The woman at the funeral – I can’t remember her name now – she reckoned Mama would have just got an idea in her head and gone after it.’
I lift my teacup, carefully, and take a tiny sip.
‘I’ve always thought that if it wasn’t for me she wouldn’t have been driving at all. They would have thought that, wouldn’t they?’
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘You can’t think like that.’
‘And then sometimes I wonder if she was leaving us,’ you say. ‘I thought there might have been a bag in the boot, with a change of clothes and a toothbrush.’ You give a little laugh. ‘Maybe there was.’
Maybe you’re right. Maybe she’d had enough. I remember walking with her through Bloomsbury once. A crowd of pigeons took off around us and she stood and stared at them. If I could be anything at all, I’d be a bird, she said. I told her she’d be a kingfisher; she said she’d be happy being a sparrow.
I try not to let myself think that perhaps she had changed her mind and was on her way to find me.
‘I’m sorry. God knows why I’m telling you all this. Tell me about yourself.’ You lean towards me, attentive.
I touch my cheek. I should have found a razor and shaved. It’s OK, I tell myself. This is going OK. ‘It’s a long story,’ I say.
You smile, and I almost say it, right then: I am your father. Four words to unbalance the world. I picture the man I used to know walking across a rope stretched high between two trees, the sheer concentration on his face – the danger of it.
‘You’re lucky,’ I say. You frown, and I blunder on. ‘To know your father, to have had a good father.’ What am I saying? Why this? ‘I didn’t really know my old man.’
‘He died?’
‘No. Well, yes, but a lot later on. It just turned out he wasn’t who I thought he was.’ I am walking on quicksand. ‘It’s complicated,’ I say. ‘I won’t bore you.’
‘It doesn’t bore me.’
We sit in silence. You eat your cake. The couple at the next table leave, and a woman with long black hair in a thick plait takes their place. There is nothing stopping you from looking up, taking your bag from the chair next to you, and saying, ‘I really must go,’ because what else is there for you to do? I feel the tilt of the earth, and have to hold onto the edge of the table with each hand to stop myself—
‘My dad said my mother was difficult.’ You push the cake crumbs around your plate with your fork.
‘She was beautiful,’ I say, and swallow hard. ‘And spontaneous, impetuous, I suppose. She liked the unexpected.’
‘How did you know her?’
‘We met—’ I can’t order my thoughts. ‘We both liked art galleries.’ You’re frowning. ‘I met her in a gallery.’
You nod, slowly, like you’re not sure.
‘She was the kind of person who’d set off to do one thing and end up doing another.’ I smile at you. ‘And maybe she was a bit frustrated.’
You tilt your head up slightly.
‘I don’t mean to sound—’ My cheeks are hot.
‘It’s fine.’
‘I just mean it can’t have been easy for her,’ I say. ‘She was a bit of a free spirit, and I guess having kids means you’re restricted. Not that she didn’t love them – you.’
You rub at your jaw. I want to reach across the table and take your hand.
‘Did you ever see her wearing a turquoise dress?’ you ask. ‘Long sleeves.’
I shake my head.
You pick up one of the sugar packets and fold it in half one way and then the other. Sugar crystals fall onto the table through a tear in the paper. ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad,’ you say, and I laugh, and then you laugh, and it feels like there is a little more air to breathe, somehow.
‘Do you know, I went out with a man for three years and I never met his parents, his brothers, anyone; they didn’t even know I existed. I was so angry for so long, but I don’t think I was thinking about it the right way.’ You keep folding and refolding the sugar packet. ‘It should have made us freer, that’s what he said, but it was claustrophobic. I’d sit in the flat and listen to the phone ring, and I couldn’t answer it in case it was them, and that made me want to scream.’
I don’t know what to say. I can see a bank of clouds, ash-coloured, pregnant with rain, just behind you. To your left the woman with the plaited hair sneaks glances at us. To your right there’s a young couple sharing a glass of Coke. They’ve noticed too – a down-and-out with a beautiful woman. They lean towards each other and speculate, quietly.
‘That must have been difficult,’ I say eventually.
But I’ve lost you. You shake your head. ‘I’m sorry,’ you say. ‘
I’m just trying to sort some stuff out.’ I see for a moment how you might have been as a child. Deer-like, questioning, afraid yet curious. Fleeting. That is the word I would use: fleeting. ‘I’m not sure standing the builder up was the right thing to do, either,’ you say, and give that half-laugh again. ‘I should go back and call him. It’s been— It’s been nice to meet you.’ You smile, as though at a joke, then stand and hold out your hand.
If I touch you I will have to let go, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to. I stare at your hand, and I’m struck by how fragile it looks. If I wait too long, there will be nothing to even let go of.
‘I need to explain something,’ I say.
You hesitate, then sit back down with your bag on your lap, and look at me expectantly. ‘I would like to know,’ you say, after a pause. ‘About the—’ You incline your head towards the Heath.
I rub my lips together. At the other end of the courtyard a dog strains at its lead, barking at nothing.
‘The— What I was trying to say—’ I look at you. You are biting your fingernail. What good will it do, any of it? There is enough hurt in your life already, I can see that. ‘I have a friend called Anton,’ I say. You’re listening, but you have the same arch look your mother used to wear when she was suspicious, or bored, or angry. ‘He’s from Poland. I helped him write a letter to his daughter.’ Just saying the word shoots heat across my cheeks. You don’t speak. I can see a shadow of a frown on your forehead. ‘He thinks his wife has another man, you see?’ I’m ruining this. I am saying it all wrong. ‘She won’t let him talk to his daughter, and now she won’t even answer the phone when he calls.’
‘Why doesn’t he go back and find them?’ you ask.
‘It’s complicated.’
You look at your watch – you have to go back, you have to call the builder. The words are there, in my head; I can hear them.
‘I don’t know why you left all that stuff on the wall,’ you say. ‘At Dad’s house.’