Another Life

by Jodie Chapman

  For the past twenty-five years, I’ve had a lighter in my pocket, and this is the day I’ve needed it most.

  Smoker’s lungs, Anna had said that day at Dungeness when she’d passed me coughing on the stairs. Serves you right.

  Wait, Anna.

  I pull the wedge of cards from my tatty leather wallet and flick through until I find the book of matches. Pale grey with a red embossed stuffed cat on the cover. I tap the book against my leg and shake my head.

  ‘Sorry, Dad,’ I say aloud. ‘Know when to quit.’

  I stand in front of the pile of boxes, a crude effigy to my mother, and take out a match.

  Do it, says Sal from somewhere inside and I remember when it was a rock in my hand, the day I smashed the window. Do it, Nick. Do it now.

  It’s a jolt out of the dark when I realise what life is. The mysterious, hidden, sheer beauty of it all. It blindsides me on a Thursday morning when I see an old man crossing the road, or teenagers kissing at a bus stop, or a pair of identical twins. It’s the past and future in one. There’s a moment of knowledge that passes as quickly as it comes, that I cannot grasp hold of, and for a brief spell, life is intoxicating.

  She is not here, in this slaughterhouse, in this heap of dead things, just as she is not in the bottom of a bottle or alone in a graveyard. The answers aren’t in the past, even the past of my own creation. I know that now.

  I save the record and the jewellery box, and the ring inside my pocket.

  Strike.

  Flame.

  Throw.

  Boom.

  Date: 15/8/2017

  From: ANNA

  To: NICK

  Subject:

  Remember those sunflowers outside your house, the ones you said were planted for your mum? The first time I saw them that July, they stopped me dead. Three glorious faces, golden, as tall as me, stretching up towards the sun. You told me your aunt Stella replants them every spring from the seeds of last year’s flower. Life grows from death.

  You walked straight by, key in hand, ready to lead upstairs. You saw those flowers so often that you didn’t notice them any more. Isn’t that funny? That when we are faced with life and beauty every day, we no longer pay any attention. No, funny’s not the word. Tragic.

  I drove by there this week and the patch of earth was bare. No sunflowers. And I thought, his aunt Stella didn’t plant them this year. Maybe Nick’s dad said not to bother. Or perhaps Nick’s dad doesn’t live there any more. And I felt sad that I had no idea, that I no longer had a hold of the basic knowledge of your life.

  This is a random email. Sorry. But I thought of you and how you no longer saw those flowers, and that maybe sometimes we need things to switch off for a while so that our eyes can open again.

  The winter has its place.

  As promised, Stella is outside the house. The boxes have been taken.

  ‘How are you, love?’ she says as I approach. ‘Holding up okay?’

  I squeeze her arm. ‘Tea?’

  ‘Why not?’ she says as I unlock the door, but makes no move to take off her jacket. We walk through to the kitchen and she gives a sideways look at the rooms. ‘Where is everything?’

  ‘Gone,’ I say. ‘All gone.’ And I look at her and smile.

  As I make our tea, I tell her about the field, of the boxes and bags of things, of how I stood in front of the fire and watched it burn and left only when it had softened to ribbons of smoke. She sits quietly and listens, and her eyes fill with tears.

  ‘Oh, Nick,’ she says, holding her bag tight and still wearing her jacket.

  I stir two sugars into her tea and set the cup down in front of her. She reaches across and adds another sugar.

  ‘I found some letters,’ she says, her voice breaking on the final word. ‘In a box of your dad’s things he kept under the bed. They were tucked into one of your mum’s books.’ She opens her bag and pulls out two crumpled envelopes and lays them on the table.

  One says ‘Nick’ and the other, ‘Sal’. I don’t recognise the writing, and then I do and I’m a boy again. It’s on the sick note in my pocket to give to the teacher, the self-addressed envelope coming back through the door.

  Time seems to stretch as I stare at the letters, and there is a rush of blood to my head like when you get too quickly out of the bath. I reach out and slide the one with my name towards me.

  ‘I haven’t read them,’ says Stella, a little breathless. ‘But I’ve been wondering about the contents, and I think I should tell you what I know. In case it’s that. Maybe you should know anyway.’ She looks down at her hands. ‘Maybe it would help.’

  ‘What?’ I go to open the envelope.

  ‘No,’ she says, and her hand shoots across the table to stop me. ‘No, not now. That’s for you and only you. And so is Sal’s.’

  ‘What do you know?’ I just want her gone.

  She covers her face with her hands for a moment and breathes deeply. ‘When you were little, before Sal was born, your dad and mum would have these rows, blazing rows, that didn’t end well. I was there once.’ She shakes her head. ‘Your dad moved out for a while. He couldn’t cope with not being the centre of your mum’s life any more. My brother always was a selfish man. You know that. And becoming a mother must change a woman. It has to. Giving up your body, giving up your days … They expect women to do it all and stay exactly the same.’

  I stare at my name on the front of the letter.

  ‘So he lived with a friend for several months, like bachelors, drinking and God knows what else. Your mum – they were living in a flat then, you know, in town – got friendly with someone in the building, some bloke who’d recently moved in. Divorced. He was nice enough, would offer to get things from the shop for your mum or fix a leaking tap. Your mum and him, well, I guess they fell in love.’

  I look at her, my mouth open.

  Stella sees my expression and rushes on. ‘I don’t mean Romeo and Juliet, Greek tragedy, run off into the sunset. I mean, your mum was lonely, stuck in that flat with a baby. She knew it would never amount to anything and she’d never properly leave your dad. But we all need some love and attention. That’s just human. Then one day, your dad came back unannounced and found them together watching the telly. He went crazy. Started trashing the place. Punching the walls. The fella couldn’t take it, he moved out the following week.’

  ‘What about Mum?’ I whisper.

  She swallows hard. ‘Your dad moved back in, and a couple of weeks later, your mum found she was pregnant with Sal.’

  ‘You don’t mean …’ I shake my head. ‘No.’

  She looks out the window. ‘All the while your dad was moved out, he and your mum were still, well, intimate together. She couldn’t bring herself to say no to him, if there was a chance he’d come back.’

  My insides are churning and I feel like I’m going to be sick. ‘Did they ever find out for sure?’ I say. ‘Take a test?’

  ‘I asked your mum once, but she wouldn’t discuss it. I always wondered, though, if that’s why she gave him an Italian name. To remove any doubt.’ She sips her tea. ‘Who knows why we do the things we do?’

  Scenes from childhood run through my mind and I can feel the anger between Sal and Dad in the hairs standing up on my arm. The blame. I remember Sal crying in his sleep after it happened, sobbing for someone who never came, and then Dad appears on a French sun lounger, cradling Mum’s body and screaming.

  I put my head in my hands.

  She leans forward. ‘I’m telling you this because I’m worried what might be in those letters. I think you can handle it, though. Sal, I’m not sure. He was always the more delicate, deep down.’ She pushes Sal’s letter towards me. ‘We expect our parents to always be what we need them to be. We forget they are human too.’

  I pick up the other letter. ‘Sal should have known all this,’ I say. ‘It could have changed something.’

  ‘Perhaps. Or not. We do what we think is best.’

  ‘What about me
?’ I say, looking at her. ‘What do I do?’

  Stella stands, puts her bag over her arm and walks round the table. ‘I have carried this in my heart for almost forty years,’ she says, kissing my head. ‘It’s time to open up.’

  My Nick

  Happy third birthday!

  I have decided to write you a letter every year from now. Another year older, another year wiser, for both you and me. I cannot believe you are three already. It seems like yesterday I held you in my arms while your dad wheeled us up to the hospital ward. Every bump of that wheelchair was agony, but I didn’t care because your tiny hand gripped my finger.

  The past year has been a whirlwind. You adore your brother and this makes me so happy to see. I hope you will grow up to be the best of friends. My little Nick, promise you’ll always look out for him. I can tell already that you’re going to be the strong one. Capable. You give the softest kisses and instead of his name, you call him ‘Va-va’, which I think is you saying ‘brother’. I love that you have your own word for him.

  My boy. My heart hurts when I think of how much I love you, and how I want to tell it to you every day. I hope you grow up feeling loved and happy, and I hope you become a man who gives it back. I will do my best to show you how.

  I am writing this in the park, as you kick a football and your brother sleeps in his pram. He is starting to stir and now you are hungry, so I will finish up here until next year.

  My sweetest boy.

  Your mama. X

  My little Salvatore,

  Happy first birthday!

  I get to start at the very beginning with you. Poor Nick won’t have a letter for his first two years because I didn’t have the idea until now, but never mind. I hope to give you both a stack of envelopes when you become men. The days are going so quickly that these letters can be a sort of diary for us both.

  You are my daredevil. You are cheeky and mischievous and always happy. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you without a smile – even when you cry, all I do is pull a face and you are laughing through your tears. You love to touch things you shouldn’t – the lamp, the plant, anything you can pull over. You turn and give me a smile when I say no, like it’s all the more fun when it’s forbidden. I fear what this says about Sal the man!

  Oh my Sal. You test me like no other. When you climb on to the back of the sofa, or scramble up the rocks in the garden, I want to rescue you quickly before you hurt yourself, but I know I have to let you fall. That’s the only way you will learn to get back up again. Don’t ever let it beat you.

  I think, in a way, you love the feel of the fall.

  Embrace life like this. Surrender yourself to the feeling. You can’t see these words I am writing in black ink without the white paper beneath it. And so you can never know true happiness without also knowing the pain. You have to have both, my sweet. Find a way to marry the two.

  My sunshine boy.

  Your mama. X

  I start at The Phoenix. It’s a Sunday and quiet. I sit at the bar and order a whisky, and the first taste is cold and then hot and prickly as it swills across my tongue. It hits hard in the pit of my stomach. I want the burn.

  The next sip I hold in my mouth. The tingle feels like dancing and I have a sudden urge to laugh, loud and uncontrollably. But instead I drain the glass and feel it bloom in the back of my chest.

  Drinking alone is pathetic. I consider phoning Daz, but when I finally make out the clock on my phone, I realise he’ll be sleeping after his night shift. Besides, he is still cut up about Gemma, and for once, I want the attention.

  From there, I stumble round the corner to the place with the sawdust and craft beer. I think I see someone I know on the way – they give a sort of wave and then look me up and down as they pass me – but it’s hard to tell. I make it through the door and at the bar I order straight-up scotch and a margherita pizza. The girl behind the counter gives me a suspicious look, but goes ahead and takes my money.

  I buy a bottle of whisky from the off-licence on the way home and tuck it under my arm. I wonder what happens if you drink the whole thing.

  In the kitchen, I pour enough dried food into the cat bowl so it overflows, and she pushes against my leg and purrs with love. I unscrew the cap on the bottle and watch the whisky spew into the glass. My mind is still sober enough not to want the neighbours seeing me drink from the bottle.

  When I step out on to the patio for a vape, the smell of jasmine hits me like a punch in the heart.

  On my phone, I bring up her number.

  I wish I were better for you, I type. I am tired of the pain.

  The freshly planted pots still stand on the patio table, along with a half-used bag of compost. I pull out a chair and fall into it.

  There is a long purr and the cat wanders through the door to join me. She walks in that long, languid way that cats do. I stroke her for a while, making her happy, and then she settles down on a large flagstone that’s been soaking up heat. She rolls back and forth, side to side, stretching her limbs and throwing glances to check I am watching. So I have you, I think. You won’t leave. And then I notice for the first time in the sunlight, bold and bright and real, that her black fur is dark brown.

  I bring the glass to my mouth and look at the liquid swirling against the side. I look through it, at the base of the glass, at the backwards writing, and I look through that too. I think of life as a maze and how we are trying to find our way through, to a world that’s apparently waiting if we go down the right path, but you don’t know it’s right until you take a wrong turn and then have to feel your way out. You try the next and the next and the next. But what if you know you’ll never get out.

  Things like this come when I’m looking through the bottom of a glass. The words make perfect sense.

  Perhaps that’s why she gave him an Italian name. To remove any doubt.

  My Nick, promise you’ll always look out for him.

  He brought the box out because of me.

  I have always been responsible.

  And then someone is shouting.

  They are screaming in my ear.

  Something presses cold against my cheek and I turn my head so the other feels it too. A long groan, deep and ravenous, the sound of the monster under the bed. It takes a moment to realise it’s me. This must be what happens when you drink yourself into oblivion, a separation of your body from its senses, or at least a near-total drubbing of the connections in between. How wonderful it is not to feel anything.

  My body is lifting up and, for a blissful moment, I think I am going to heaven. I try to open my eyes and everything is white. This is it, I say to myself. So it was true after all.

  Something hard hits my elbow and chin, more moaning, more yelling in my ear. There is a strange echo, as if I am encased in something. I half open my eyes but all I see is white.

  I hear the rushing of water and remember how I once read about the waters of life extending out of heaven, and it is so real that I feel the spray on my skin. And then the water is harder and colder, and it soaks through my clothes. Instinct kicks in and I thrash my arms and legs and whatever surrounds me is slippery to the touch. It feels comforting against the side of my face.

  The voice is still shouting. It has a familiar sound. Wake up, it says, and someone slaps my cheek.

  As my sight clears, I realise I am sprawled in the bath with the showerhead pointed straight at my face. The water feels cold. A sobering baptism.

  Standing over me is a woman with black hair and an upset face. She has tears in her eyes. Anna. It is Anna. I’ve never seen her like this before, or at least not over me. I reach out to see if my fingers will pass through her.

  She bats my hand away. ‘Wake up!’

  ‘I’m awake,’ I say, my cheek still stinging from the slap. Feeling is returning to my brain, the synapses limbering up from their slumber. I cover my face with my hands. ‘Can you shut the water off?’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ she says and turns the tap.

&nbs
p; I wipe the water from my face and lean my head back against the bath, as if I am using it in its proper context, not fully clothed and empty. I look up at Anna, who stands over me, one hand on her hip as she chews a finger on the other. There is something in her expression that I cannot place.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she says, gesturing at the state of me.

  ‘Hello to you, too.’

  ‘No,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘Don’t try to be funny. Look at you.’

  I sigh. ‘I know.’

  ‘There’s a half-drunk bottle of whisky on your dining table. Was your plan to drown yourself?’

  I try to piece together the day. ‘Where did you find me?’

  ‘Here, like this.’ She lets her arms fall loose over the edge of the bath and crosses her eyes. I start to laugh, but then she says, ‘I thought you were dead, Nick. Dead. Christ.’ She covers her eyes as if to erase the memory.

  I glance at the empty bathroom shelves. ‘It’s not been the best month,’ I say.

  Anna takes her hands away. ‘Yeah, I heard.’

  We have just enough mutual friends to make this likely, and I nod as if I am okay with the knowledge that she knew and never got in touch. ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘You didn’t answer the door so I ran round the back. Did you know there’s a hole in the back of your fence? It stole a piece of my skin.’ She pulls up her top to reveal a thick bloodied scratch on the side of her waist.

  I instinctively reach out to touch the wound, and have an urge to kiss better the layers of pink flesh. ‘I was meant to fix that years ago.’

  Anna presses my fingers against her skin. When she pulls away, her T-shirt falls and I see a red stain on the white cotton where the blood has seeped through.

  ‘How did you know?’ I say. ‘From my message. How did you know to come?’

  She looks down at her hands. ‘Sal, remember?’

  I feel in my pocket for the ring from the jewellery box. The smoothness of the metal slips over my finger as I pull it out and turn it over in my hand. ‘I didn’t mean for this to happen,’ I say, looking at the ring. ‘I was coming to find you, to give you this. It was my mother’s. But …’