by Sarah Butler
I buy coffee and find a table right in the centre of the courtyard, then regret sitting somewhere so exposed. I keep glancing up. But he doesn’t come. No one comes.
* * *
When I’m unhappy, I hide underneath my duvet. It’s a habit from childhood. Your head is the tent pole, and then the duvet makes the walls. It’s like a wigwam, only better. I like it best when there’s enough light outside to shine through; I like how you can see the pattern of the goose-down underneath the cotton, how it never looks quite the same as the time before. I would like to do that now: sit underneath a duvet, the walls plunging down from the top of my head.
I move as though I am walking in the dark, try to shut off my brain and listen to my body. Right a bit, left a bit, onto a thin path that dips down into green. When I find it – at least I think this is it – I stop and look around. A couple move along a wider path, parallel to the one I’m on, but they take no notice of me. I peer between the leaves. A piece of yellow cloth, a scrap of blue plastic. It is the right place.
Except it’s ruined. I duck into the space and look, not up at colours hanging from the branches, but down at the whole random mess scattered across the floor. Lengths of coloured cotton hang, snapped and useless, from the branches. I lower myself to my knees. I pick up a piece of foil folded into a smoothed-out square; a length of green string; the inside of a biro – blue ink like blood in a capillary; a hairgrip, the bright pink paint worn silver at the corners; a pale-blue bottle top; a scrap of paper marked with faded ink; a first-class stamp, its corners crumpled gold. I sift through them, as if touching them will make things right again.
I picture Daniel’s face, the thin scar reaching across his cheek, his eyes like a lost child’s. He wouldn’t have done this. Someone must have found it and thought it would be funny to wreck the place. That’s why I need to leave this city: because it’s the kind of place where someone would destroy something so obviously crafted, so obviously cared about, just for the hell of it. It could happen anywhere, I tell myself. And it’s stupid anyway, to make something so fragile, so vulnerable, so pointless. You’re inviting it, really.
At the far end of the space there’s an empty bottle of whisky. It isn’t a label I recognise. I think that perhaps I can smell it – the whisky – soaked into someone’s skin. I imagine him hunched beneath the leaves, drinking.
I smoke two cigarettes, and put the stubs back into the packet. Then I select the hairgrip, reach up and tie it onto a piece of blue cotton. When I let go it sways, as though imagining a breath of wind. I pick up the biro – its nib clogged with dried ink – and tie it up next to the hairgrip. I work slowly, randomly. I find there is some comfort in concentrating on how to connect string and object back together.
There are lots of tiny squares of paper, marked with faded lines. They are the only things in the space that have any relationship to each other. I try to join them together and decide that someone has ripped up a picture of a woman. I make out an eye, maybe an ear, and then I get the idea in my head that it’s my mother. It reminds me of the picture I found in the attic. Stupid, really, to get bothered by that. I make a pile of the scraps at the edge of the space, and carry on tying up everything else. I feel like I’ve been pushed off balance.
It’s not right. I stretch myself out on the floor and look up. There was an order to it before, there must have been. I stare at the shapes. There’s a lot of blue and brown, an occasional flash of gold and bright pink. What? I ask, breathing out the word so it has just enough shape to be heard.
I lie there and wait, but nothing happens, and so I sit up and pull the bag towards me. I lift out the gifts – his gifts – one by one, and tie them to the branches too. I leave the flowers to the end: the tiny silver one and the dead pink one; the one made from newspaper, which I rescued – stained and misshapen – from the bin, despite myself. I turn it between my fingers and read the fragmented words: ther, amil, ead, fi, cret, morn. I make a hole for each, and plant them side by side in the ground.
I’m done. Finished. It’s time to leave. I will go to a cafe and order another coffee. I will drink it, smoke a cigarette, and make myself think. In fact, I will buy a notebook on my way to the cafe, and a pen – one of those gel ink ones that make writing seem like less work – and I will open the notebook at the first page, sitting in the cafe with my coffee. At the top of the page I will write ‘To do’; no, I will write ‘What next?’ or maybe ‘What now?’ and underneath I will write— I have no idea what I will write, but when I’m there, with the book and the pen and the coffee, something will come.
I sit, and listen.
Birds singing – one close by, the other further away, its call fainter than the first. I remember hearing a radio programme about how birds in the Amazon have learnt to imitate the sound of chainsaws; how I’d laughed, and then recounted it to Kal and realised how sad it was.
Leaves – there’s barely a wind, but still they shuffle against each other like people in a crowd.
The scuff of footsteps against fine gravel.
The thump of a football.
Another bird, an insistent chirp, broken by impatient silences. I listen for an answer, but there’s none.
Time to go. Time to leave. But I stay. I look at my watch: 7 p.m. Cee will be making cheese toasties, slicing a chocolate cake into neat triangles. The boys will be sprawled across the sofas in front of the TV. Tilly will be reading the Rough Guide to Pregnancy, or trying to decide about Toby. Daniel – I have no idea where he is or what he’ll be doing. I imagine him as a tiny dot on a map of London. There are too many doorways and bridges and corners to know. It is too big for one person.
I don’t mean to think about Kal. He’ll be with whoever she is. A film and a takeaway, that’s what we always did on Sunday nights; hardly original, but I loved it. I miss it: sitting on the deep leather sofa he bought when he passed his exams, which was too big, really, for the room; takeaway cartons on the kitchen counters; the light from the television flickering across our skin.
I get my cigarettes and my phone out of my bag. There are no missed calls. I call Tilly.
‘Hi, Alice.’
‘Hi.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘Isn’t it a lovely evening?’ I lie on my side and balance the phone against my ear.
‘Thanks for yesterday, Alice.’
‘She’ll get used to it. You know what she’s like.’
‘Are you really going away again?’
‘I told you.’ The whisky smell has gone, or I’ve got used to it. Instead I breathe in the metallic tinge of the earth and the fresh summer scent of the leaves.
Dad insisted we all went on holiday together, every year, even when Tilly was at university. We would follow him through ancient archaeological sites – the temple of Knossos, the Acropolis, the Alhambra, variously humouring and berating him. I close my eyes and press my palm into the ground. What I would give now for five minutes of one of those holidays, new sandals burning my feet, the euphoria of walking along pavements laced with unknown smells and incomprehensible words, with Dad walking next to me.
‘Do you remember those summer holidays?’ I say.
‘Where are you? I can hear birds. Are you in the garden?’
‘Do you remember that time we all got food poisoning? Where were we then?’
‘It was Bruges, wasn’t it? We had moules and frites and spent the whole night playing tag team to the toilet.’
‘I saw Kal,’ I say.
She doesn’t say anything. I can hear the TV on low in the background.
‘You were always good about him,’ I say. ‘I appreciate that.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘I think what you’re doing’s really brave, Tilly.’
‘Cee thinks I’m being stupid.’
‘Ignore her.’
‘I’m terrified.’
‘Of course you are.’ I roll onto my back and look at the pieces of rubbish above me. ‘Tilly, I keep thinking abou
t that guy. Daniel – the one I told you about.’
She coughs.
‘It’s like he’s trying to tell me something, but I can’t understand it,’ I say.
‘How did you say you met him?’
I think about the gifts on the wall by the front door. ‘I just bumped into him,’ I say. ‘I recognised him.’
‘Really?’
‘From the funeral. But there’s something else, like I used to know him but I’ve forgotten how.’ I pick up the silver flower and twist it between my fingers. ‘Anyway, I’ve lost him. I don’t know where he is. I just keep thinking maybe it’s important, whatever it was that he was trying to say to me. I keep thinking it might be about Mama.’
‘Alice, do you think—’
‘What?’
Tilly says nothing. I picture her, lying on her sofa – an overstuffed thing, patterned with ugly yellow flowers.
‘Do I think what?’ I say again.
‘Dad always reckoned some things were better off left unsaid, didn’t he?’
‘The Tanner family curse.’
‘It’s just—’
‘If Toby leaves you I’ll gouge his eyes out. I swear.’
‘I didn’t mean—’ She pauses. ‘Thanks.’
We talk about her twelve-week scan and then I hang up and turn off my phone. I lie and watch the sky darken and the world turn black and white. My hip aches where it presses into the ground. Something inside me is shouting, telling me to get up, to buy myself some dinner, to get myself home. The voice is muted, like it’s a long way away, and anyway, I tell it, I’ve not got a home to go to. It’s dangerous, the voice continues – I can tell it’s shouting because of the strain behind the words – you’re being stupid, it tells me. But I feel safe here. I know I shouldn’t, but I feel safe here.
Ten reasons not to jump
1) Someone would have to clean it up.
2) I have a daughter.
3) You might find out, and I wouldn’t be there to explain it all.
4) Sometimes you have to trust—
5) I don’t want to turn out like my father.
6) I thought he was a coward.
7) I saw what it did to my mother.
8) I’m not one to give up.
9) I love you.
10) And maybe—
Albert Bridge looks like something out of a Victorian pleasure garden: strings of fairy lights; the columns like tiered wedding cakes; a row of golden ironwork flowers spanning the river. I walk along Chelsea Embankment towards it. There’s no rush. The river moves stealthily, like an animal slipping through the city, reflecting the bridge and all the other lights back to themselves. If I turned and went the other way, I could walk all the way to the coast. I wonder where the line is between river and sea – or if there’s a section where it’s both, or neither.
The pavement’s narrow. I stop on the north side, in the darkness between two lamp posts, and rest my palms on the cold iron ledge. The river’s high. I imagine the water: it will be cold, with a tug like an insistent child. It will push the life out of me. It will insist my heart breaks, once and for all. I look upriver, at the angular tower blocks of the World’s End estate, a smattering of windows still glowing yellow; at the dark hulk of Lots Road Power Station; and the river, moving through it all.
I imagine your mother standing next to me and find I can do so without the usual flurry of panic and anger. Look, Julianne, isn’t this beautiful? You’re avoiding the issue, Daniel. But I found her. After all these years I found our daughter. And did what? And let her be.
There’s a breeze, cool as breath on my cheeks. It doesn’t smell like the city here, and the sky feels taller and lighter than it does when you’re surrounded by brick and stone. I can still taste the cake you bought me, underneath the whisky.
I don’t jump. I’ve never been one for grand gestures, but you’ve worked that out already. And it seems my heart’s not quite ready to do it for me, not yet at least.
Instead I walk, through the rest of the night and into the dawn, through silent streets and empty squares. This city is more beautiful than ever in the early hours of the morning, when you can hear the sound of your own feet on the pavements; when you can feel the whole world waiting for another day. And dawn – there is something magical in its repetition: always the same, always different. Today the sun enters, stage left, into a clear expanse of sky. Everything it touches, it softens, and the city – our city – reappears, dreamlike, a morning mist turning the concrete baby blue.
I walk north: through the strutting brick terraces of Sloane Street; past the stuccoed embassies on Belgrave Square; over an eerily quiet Hyde Park Corner, and on down glitzy New Bond Street to Marylebone Road. I reach Regent’s Park as a man in a high-vis jacket is unlocking the gates. He nods at me but says nothing. To be the first person in Regent’s Park on a Monday morning – there is joy in that. I walk all the way across, watching the sky turn pink then fade to blue, scratched with high white clouds. I take the path past the Zoo and walk close to the fence, beneath the trees. Two parrots with bright red feathers sit facing each other. One of them turns and watches me as I walk past.
I am going back to the Heath. I am not sure why. I am not sure I want to. I haven’t felt a pull like this for a long time. Perhaps there’s a mouthful of whisky left – I could drink that, and then I could lie down and sleep.
* * *
Except when I duck my head into the space I see you, lying on the ground. I throw myself forward onto my knees but find I can’t touch you. Your face is pale as marble, your hair spread around you. There’s no blood. There are no unnatural angles.
‘Alice?’ I can barely say the word out loud. You don’t move. ‘Alice.’ Louder now. Nothing. I lean down, propping myself clear of your body with my arms, and lower my cheek towards your mouth. There. A breath; I’m sure of it. I sit back on my heels and steady myself. Alice. My daughter. I watch you sleep, and as I do, the idea that’s been crystallising in my head since I met you reveals itself. You are lost, and if I tell you, you’ll be more lost than ever. There are other kinds of truths. There are other ways of telling them.
When you open your eyes, you don’t seem surprised to see me. You lift your head and then let it fall back onto the ground.
‘You came back too,’ you say.
‘What are you doing here?’ My voice falters.
You prop yourself up on your elbow and groan. ‘Do you sleep out like this?’
I shrug.
‘I feel about a hundred.’
You are here. You might have died. You came back. ‘You have the house, don’t you? Did something happen with the house?’ I say.
‘I can’t stand it there any more.’ You tug your T-shirt down over the waistband of your jeans, and rub at your neck. ‘I had the oddest dream,’ you say, and then you look away, and I think that maybe you dreamt about me.
‘It’s dangerous, Alice, sleeping out,’ I say.
You lower your eyes and turn your head to one side. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You mustn’t do this again,’ I say. ‘Ever. You’re shivering.’ I pull off the brown cord jacket and hold it towards you. You hesitate. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Just wear it for a minute, warm yourself up.’
You drape it over your shoulders but don’t put your arms into the sleeves. I look down at my shirt. It isn’t clean, and there’s a button missing. A wave of exhaustion laps at the back of my mind.
‘Where did you go?’ you ask. There are bits of soil and twigs in your hair.
‘I walked.’
You raise your eyebrows, waiting for more. I pick up a leaf from the ground and pull it into ragged pieces.
‘Where did you sleep?’ you ask.
‘I didn’t.’
‘You look tired.’
‘I’ll live.’
‘I tried to—’ You gesture towards the canopy of leaves and it’s only now that I see what you’ve done. I feel the thrill of it. The colours are all out of order
, like a language I’ve never seen before. ‘I came to bring back your things,’ you say. I pick them out – the orange cardboard, the pearls, the hat, hanging above us. ‘I was trying to—’ You shrug and smile and I want to wrap my arms around you. I feel a stab of pain in my chest. Not now.
‘I don’t think I got them in the right order,’ you say.
‘It’s beautiful. Thank you.’
I see the pile of ripped paper just to your right, and my heart lurches again. I shouldn’t have done it. But maybe, somehow, it brought you back to me. I gather up the pieces, and shove them into my trouser pocket. You watch me, but you don’t ask. There are things that don’t need to be said. You have enough to deal with – Malcolm, and the man at the funeral.
Your stomach growls, and as if in answer, mine does the same.
‘I’m starving,’ you say. ‘Why don’t I buy us breakfast?’ You hand me back my jacket.
‘No.’
You look up. I’ve frightened you.
‘Do you like blackberries?’ I say.
You nod.
‘Come on.’ As I scramble out of the space, I feel something give beneath my foot. It’s the newspaper flower. You have planted it, along with the silver one – and even the tiny, dead, pink one – in the ground, like a child might.
* * *
‘I haven’t done this in years,’ you say. Your fingers are stained purple like mine, and there’s a streak of dark juice on your cheek. ‘They’re kind of tart.’
‘They’ll be better in a few weeks.’
You nod, and I imagine us coming back here, doing this again.
‘I know an apple tree too,’ I say.
You lift your eyebrows and then smile. But when we get there the apples are small and out of reach. I watch you, your arm stretched as high as it will go. You catch my eye and grin.
‘Do you think you could hold me?’ you say. ‘On your shoulders?’ and then you shake your head. ‘Sorry, I don’t know what I’m thinking.’
‘No, I can do that.’ I crouch down, facing away from you.