Body of Water
Our lake is surrounded by mountains, their peaks shrouded in cloud most days. Swimming out from the shore, buttery light reveals pockets of craters and caves folded into the dough of the earth. On other too-bright days, glare bakes and solidifies their forms, rendering them sharp as slashes, angular rips in the sky. It had been one of these harsh days when I stepped into the lake, the air crisp and unyielding, the night impossibly still with stars flickering for themselves only. The water was indifferent too, but it filled that heart-deep hole in my chest anyway. I held in my mind the hollowed-out basin of the lake, its gouge in the earth’s crust, and knew the contours of it to be the same as mine. The water rising now above my shoulders, I became attuned to the mysterious electrical fields and impulses of the fish and lithe things around me. A vast glacier carved the scar of this lake millennia ago; these lifeforms existed here because of it, not in spite of it. A vacuum must be filled.
#
They say Anna drowned in the lake, but I know my sister better, and drowning and dissolving are two different things. I told Mama that once and she gave me a sad half smile, like I was the one who was crazy. The way I saw it, Anna was a girl-shaped bottle of tears by the end, saved up from all the years of not spilling a drop. All outrageous perfection, just so Anna on the outside, with all this big, messy stuff sloshing around inside her. I was supposed to be the big sister. She shouldn’t have carried that.
When she was little, and because she asked again and again, I told her the two things I remembered about Papa, over and over.
One: he launches me skyward with both arms above his head: “say ciao to the moon for me little Stella star!” The upward rush distils me from myself so that in the split second of weightlessness at the parabola’s peak, I taste the sublime – a mix of pure exhilaration and divine fear. On the way down, I catch up with myself and fall back into my body, just in time to be caught in his arms.
Two: his singing voice, which was nothing like his speaking voice, and meant only for me. If his speaking voice were the trunk of an oak, his tenor was the tender March leaves, new-born to the sun.
Star, you little star,
The night is coming,
The flame is trembling…
I couldn’t hold the Spring of his voice in mind beyond that song and God, how that frustrated me. I wanted to conjure him saying normal dad stuff: “and how was your day, mini bella?”, or silly, wonderful things: “you’re the best girl in the world.” I may have been his only, but I was still his favourite, Anna, so there. For the times I was in her shadow or just plain forgotten, I kept secret hold of that fantasy like a rancid little acorn in my pocket.
Not long after Anna disappeared on that impossible night, I went swimming. Obviously Mama wasn’t happy about that, but the lake was still my tonic and always would be. Since when had I cared what Mama thought, anyway? Floating there with my ears half-submerged, Anna swirled around my head, liquid stardust bathing my ear canals and strange waves passing between us.
…The cow in the barn
The cow and the calf
The sheep and the lamb
The hen with the chick…
Anna sang to me. I felt her. She held me in the lake-sized palm of her hand, weighing my silent apology and grief.
…And they’re all asleep
In their mother’s heart. *
I thought about Mama and my fists clenched. I wondered if we could weigh her too, show her on the scales how much her oblivion had cost me. Anna unfurled my hand and found, finally, my shameful little acorn. She prised it gently from my fingers and cast it down to the lakebed. Sandwiched it in sediment, to melt into pastry layers of flaky stone. She replaced it with a smooth pebble, which I knew to be Mama’s heart. The mountains glowed with the setting sun. In the right kind of light, Stella, rock will yield. It just depends on how you look at it.
#
There were glass bottles lined up along my ribs, a miniature pharmacy of tinctures and poisons. I topped up the vials and my heart took care of the rest, pouring me a draught of pleasure here or sparing me an overdose of jealousy there. After Marco died, an earthquake shook those carefully curated little shelves, spilling the elixirs and unstopping the poisons. My heart tried to put things back in their place, but she had lost her rhythm and made lazy work of it, salted rage and envy tainting even the sweetest tinctures. Neither of us could control the bitter drip of grief which came to settle as a crust on my heart. I was three months pregnant with Anna. Stella was four years old.
A new baby will explode you wide open and put your heart back, reshaped and wonky. The soft dome of her tiny head smelled like warm bread, melted butter and a drop of honey. The fathoms of her sea-green eyes swallowed the ache that gnawed in my chest. You might think I’m overblowing it because I am her mother and she, then, my minutes-old baby. Even still, I knew something in her was a cure for melancholy. You stepped into her sphere, and it was as if sadness itself never existed. Gone, in a heartbeat. When you were with Anna, that’s just how it was.
It didn’t take long for others to catch on. Like Maria. We looked up to Maria in our small town, despite her strangeness, and maybe because of it. She had uncanny premonitions, she sensed spirits, she told long jokes with savage punchlines and old stories that could chill you to the bone. Maria was old by the time Anna was born, made older and harder by the loss of her own husband a few years back. Yet as soon as held Anna that first time – well. The cloak of her grief grew suddenly stifling the moment she breathed her in. She whisked her round the room in quick giddy dance steps. Her eyes sparkled as she said: “this girl is a balm, isn’t she? But oh, isn’t it a shame we won’t see her grow past sixteen.” Her words were lightning that struck me mute and motionless. Everything in me plummeted downward and drained out into the ground through my toes. She reminded me of a cat, dropping this awful thing at my feet like a dead bird, remaining immune to the horror of it herself. I felt my mouth open in readiness to scream, my arms reaching out to snatch the baby from her. But no ill feeling survived Anna’s gravity. Once in her orbit, the spell of rage was forgotten completely. I had only the vaguest feeling of something being off kilter. No matter, I thought, gathering up Maria and Anna in my arms and whirling around the room with them in mindless abandon.
In fact – I had forgotten all of that until just now. It must seem terrible and strange to you, that I could have forgotten Maria’s horrible foretelling. Yet each day, for those sixteen years, was perfect oblivion.
Naturally, I worried about others taking advantage of Anna’s gift and what that might cost her. She would seek out others in distress though, drink up their sorrow and shine like a small moon in the reflected glow of their rediscovered joy. I never shared my fears with her, no matter how much I wanted to. Every time I approached her to talk them through, those fears gave way to idiotic contentment. What was there to worry about after all? She was a miracle! And I would go back whistling to whatever I was doing.
All my rough edges and sharp angles were saved for Stella alone. She shouldn’t have carried that, andI will never know how she found it in herself to forgive me. I am in awe of it every day, the beauty and wonder of her forgiveness. Of her.
#
True enough, all said, I did love my enchantment when I was young, although I wasn’t one for bottling up tears and carrying them around. As to where tears should go, I didn’t have the slightest guess, for I had none. That dammed-up feeling people had around me, like there was no more misery in the world – it was that way for me, too. Not that I knew how misery felt. Not then. I was no bottle or any other shape that sadness could pour itself into; there was just no place made for it in my human child body.
As I grew, so too did a niggling sense of unbalance. The absence of sadness started as subconscious doubt and steadily became more tangible, a definite and deep disquiet. After womanhood started to leave its marks on the contours and content of my body, I felt it as physically as I did the outward changes to my form. Behind my ribs, I felt that vacancy where sorrow should sit as a concavity, in cruel contrast to the convexity of my developing breasts. I felt it especially next to others, where I was an artist’s crude pencil sketch and them – all of them – his masterpieces, shadowed in one light and gleaming with all the hues of the universe in another.
If we measure things in mountain time, nothing much has changed, but all is seismically shifted for me. People arrive now from all over the world. They dip a toe in from the shore or dive in headfirst. Holding each of them in turn, I can feel the shape and heft of their misery, I can hold it up to the light and examine it, every trivial and terrible facet of it. I can know them like I never did as a girl. Their big, messy feelings strike chords with me and stick to that place behind my ribs in ways their happiness never had. I can’t evaporate their sorrow away like I used to, and I wouldn’t do it now for all the world. I only bathe and hold them, the unsaid floating between us. They leave me pieces of an impossible puzzle, of how to live on the thread between the bitter and the sweet. Fragments of what it is to be human.
If they listen closely, they might hear me singing something to them from long ago, when they were young and held safe. I learned it all from Stella.
END
________________________
*Stella, Stellina Italian lullaby, unknown location and date.
The Bright Coin Shining
The outline of the wardrobe, the bookcase and the chest of drawers, and there, hanging from the back of the bedroom door, his full-length dressing gown of heavy-weight wool which had lasted him years and lasted his father many years before that. He took some comfort from this early morning alignment as this was how every day now began for Stephen; the routine of opening eyes and trying to locate his position. The slow materialisation of the concrete from the abstract was a reassurance, and a dull reminder of how things stood.
In winter, all these dim shapes were difficult to discern in the low light, but in summer, it was a different matter as his curtains failed to block out the presence of a new day dawning. But winter or summer, he always woke too early and these were long days which stretched beyond his imagination. And always, he was ambivalent about the prospect of waking in any other location, or not waking at all. Except now on Fridays when he could remind himself about the promise of events which shone like a bright coin through the drab depths of his day-to-day experience.
Friday was the day when the bundle of noise which was Harry and Sam would tumble into his world. His grandsons: James’s two three-year olds. James who had been a long-time distant but who now brought the lads around every Friday. A thawing, a rapprochement with no reason given except,
“These lads need to see their granddad.”
Stephen was unlikely to complain. Nor did he respond to his son’s newly-found concern.
“You gave us a fright, Dad.”
Ah, yes. The sudden pain in the chest episode, his undignified slump on to the grass verge and all the melodrama of an ambulance. The subsequent spell in hospital had indeed tugged at the family ties and prompted James’s filial care and his gentle suggestion of an experiment.
He’d leaned forward earnestly in the visitors’ chair and handed over his get-well provender: the bunch of grapes and the four shiny apples still in their supermarket cellophane. Now he was laying out his penitence, and his assurance that things were about to change.
“This is what I think we should do, Dad. Or at least, you might like to think about it. Take some of the pressure off yourself. Let me do the worrying.”
It was indeed something to think about. The nurses and the doctors would come and go exercising routine or delivering test results as they became available. They all called him Stephen, just young lasses as well, some of them. He didn’t mind that, not so much. He remembered how he’d always been told to respect his elders. It had always been Mr and Mrs Lawson next door and Mr and Mrs Campbell on the other side. Even the Khans when they moved in were granted the title of Mr and Mrs. Now, he was Stephen, but that wasn’t so bad if it meant that someone was attending to him. Because the days were long and the nights even longer. When all the visitors had dissipated and the lights were eventually dimmed, he would be left with the fruit that he would give away and the food for thought which James had left.
It was something to think about because he rarely slept, not amongst the restless bed movements, the involuntary shouting and the loud whisper instructions delivered to the recalcitrant patient in the end bed. If Betty came during the night, padding down the ward with that look of feigned exasperation, he would tell her, he would lay it out as it had been laid out to him.
“Trust me Dad, it will make life a lot easier.”
But the proposition would lie unresolved before him until the harsh lights were faded up and the bustle heralded another day beginning.
At home, Friday was now the one day when climbing out of bed, washing and getting dressed did not present a great challenge. His weary bones ached and his muscles complained, but Stephen knew that two balls of energy were barnstorming his way and they would soon be demanding a trip to feed the ducks, and for that he would need to look his best.
He would peer into his bathroom mirror and comb his defiant strands of grey hair. He would trim his bushy beard because he knew the boys would complain,
“You’re a beardy, bristly, bear,”
They would shout on a continuous loop and his son would remonstrate with them,
“Boys, boys, have some respect for your old Granddad.”
And Stephen would laugh and say, “Not so much of the old!”
But when he narrowed his eyes into the bathroom mirror, he couldn’t avoid seeing the creases in his face which were spreading like the wizening skin of a rotting apple. He knew that when he tried to smile, his face looked as though it was about to collapse. The years that pass like dreams forgotten; there was nothing he could do about that.
His eyes, more often than not, were watery, but they retained some splinters of icy blue. They were the features which had first attracted Betty and he used to play on that when they danced together.
“Look at me while I tell you that I’m dancing with the most beautiful girl in the room.”
And she would blush and continue to look away.
Dressing also demanded careful attention. He would draw his bedroom curtains slightly apart and take a check on the weather, knowing that as the seasons changed the weather could be capricious, swinging from one extreme to another like a fickle friend. His most faithful friend was his old woolly cardi which he would wear to ward off any chill winds when he took refuge on his favourite park bench. Who does have the energy to keep up with two rampaging three-year-olds?
The bench would be his sanctuary while the twins ran like energy-charged pups suddenly let off their leash. Just watching them would be exhausting; getting his breath back would be a blessing.
The boys would soon return anyway, because they knew that he was the keeper of goodies. His pockets were a depository for fizzy sherbet lemons and jelly babies and, there was also his favourite trick of producing a shining gold coin from behind their ears.
“Well, look what I’ve found. Both of you, treasure, hidden away.”
Each of the boys would admire the bright coin shining in their open palm.
“Don’t drop any litter when you take off that foil.”
James offered only a gentle remonstration.
“Chocolate, Dad!”
“It never did you any harm and, as I remember, you were never averse.”
No, he was never one to miss out anything he thought to be rightfully his. An ungenerous thought, but not a new one.
Duck feeding though, the ducks needed feeding and that’s when his bag of crusts would be produced. Let further mayhem take place! And the boys would take frightened delight in the oncoming wave of quacking, feathered, greedy monsters. How they would laugh at the squabbling birds and how he would watch the lads as they tried to ensure that they dispensed their bounty fairly, throwing some bread towards the smaller birds on the fringes of the melee.
“Not you!”
They would shout at the greediest of the birds and then they would hurl a crust towards the periphery of the throng, aiming at the ducks who were deemed to be missing out. Seeing this sense of fairness, at first-hand, in boys so young, could only cement his love. Something else for him to think about.
Getting back home was a laborious affair; the slight uphill gradient grew steeper each week. He tried to disguise his laboured plod but soon he would need to bring his stick. Somewhere, he knew, the pain in his chest lay in wait and would probably make a return when it was least welcome. There was nothing he could do about that. Only the return to the house could bring any relief. A return that would see Harry and Sam plonked in front of his TV. which James had commandeered to stack up recordings of cartoons and kids’ programmes. Even if they had seen these episodes before, it mattered little to the boys who could endure endless repetition.
James too, didn’t mind treading old tracks, asking about how the cleaning arrangement he’d made was working out.
“Is she doing a good job?”
“Is who doing a good job?”
“Magda, your cleaner. Is she doing a good job?”
“Marta?”
“Magda. How’s she doing? And have you had time to think about that other thing we talked about?”
“Your experiment?”
“Don’t make it sound so forbidding. I’m just trying to help you out, that’s all.”
Eventually, the boys would get bundled back into the car. They would get a kiss from the beardy, bristly bear and in an instant, they would be gone and he could return to another evening of gloom in the empty house.
Silence. He would seek company in his radio and companionship in boiling the kettle for some tea. He would settle into his armchair and relate all of the details of his trip to the park to Betty who, as always, retained her half-smile but remained non-committal.
“I wish I could bottle some of their energy.” He told her. “They leave me wiped out, they do, barely enough strength left to fall into my chair.”
He smiled to himself at the memory of the frenzied duck-feeding, the wild rampage across the park and then listening to James as he settled down with his particular bone to gnaw. He listened to him and took heed.
“He says he could sort it all out for me: pension, tax, savings and all my bills. Leaving him in charge, I wouldn’t need to worry about a thing. Nothing permanent, we could try it out as an experiment. What do you think about all that, love?”
Silence in the room, the habitual silence of the house.
“Because I’m thinking,” he continued, “I’m thinking you’d have to be doolally for that, wouldn’t you? Handing over control like that…I’ve always looked after my own affairs.”
He excelled in pottering now, bumbling about as though his physical meanderings guided his thoughts until he got the resolve to continue. “But I’m thinking I’ll do it, there’s no harm in experimenting, is there? I’ll sign that piece of paper he’s always on about.”
He noticed that Betty was looking a little bit dusty around the inside corners of her frame, so he took out a handkerchief and gave her a good wipe and then a quick kiss and put her back on her stand.
“There you are love… Because he says, if I don’t sign, he might not be able to bring the lads round so often.”
Following My Nose
My nose led me to this backstreet bistro, and my nose is never wrong.
Le Patron barely glances at me, says I’m lucky to get in without booking, and sits me in a gloomy corner near the door to the kitchen, presumably where my ancient appearance won’t put off his regulars. I am here to disturb them, and him, but he does not know that. It is clean, though the mismatched wooden chairs and tables could signify a junk sale. I may be a grey old woman to him – but I know good cooking when I smell it. And the aroma from his kitchen! Mushrooms sautéed in unsalted butter with fresh oregano and thyme, deglazed with a splash of the driest white wine, yet bearing a faint note of misery. Intriguing, and, as I said, my nose is never wrong.
‘I’ll have the mushroom risotto, please M’sieur, and a half-bottle of your house white.’
He smells of cunning and over-boiled cabbage. His pink tongue flops from fleshy lips when he licks the lead of his stubby pencil to scratch my order onto his notepad.
‘Oui M’sieur,’ squeaks a young voice from the kitchen when he barks the order. This voice brings to mind moments from my youth. It’s weighted with sorrow, and I hear yearning. But I must taste the quality of her cooking first.
A mouse of a girl scuttles from the kitchen and places a bowl on my table, keeping her head down. ‘M’dame,’ she mutters, ‘Bon appetit.’
I smile, say, ‘merci,’ but she scurries away before I finish speaking. Citrus lingers sharp and fresh in the space where she stood. It is to her that my nose has led me, I am sure. My nose is never wrong.
Only one trained in the Old Ways could have crafted so subtle yet exquisite a dish. Creamy rice simmered in light stock, gently seasoned by an understanding hand; each silken mouthful bursting with flavour. The mushrooms, both cep and the rarer girolle, are earthy and tender, freshly picked from a forest floor by someone who knows where to find them, rinsed under salt tears of bitter disappointment. I taste repressed anger in the grating of black pepper, longing in the paper-thin shavings of nutty parmesan. I smell betrayal in the pungent garlic. I taste deception in the cold, dry table wine.
Sated, I sit back and wait for my task to reveal itself. Ignored by the customers who eat with gusto, the girl darts between tables with risotto bowls, flinching when the purple-nosed Patron shouts and always keeping a table’s-width distant from him. I close my eyes to better contemplate the smoky fragments of visions which form in my mind, then blink them away when I know enough.
Sneezing, my nose informs me it’s time. My nose is never wrong. The Patron reaches for my empty plate and I ask to speak to the chef.
‘Tell me; I’ll pass on a message.’ His eyes slide away from mine.
‘Héloïse le Grand wishes to converse with your chef.’
‘Madame! Please forgive me, I didn’t recognise you – the honour – my little establishment-‘
He clicks his fingers at the girl, who scuttles across, wringing her red hands.
I thank her, tell her it is the most delicious mushroom risotto I have ever tasted. For a second she lifts her downcast eyes and in them I see in quick succession: recognition, a flash of pleasure, then fear, as she glances towards the Patron.
‘Your palate is excellent, my dear. Who taught you to cook?’
‘Grandmère,’ she says, which is no surprise. I observe the Patron narrow his eyes.
‘You are lucky, M’sieur, to have the services of such a promising young chef,’ I say, and he nods, jowls wobbling.
‘What do you recommend I eat for dessert?’
‘Fresh strawberries…’ she stammers, before looking at him, unsure.
‘Perfect,’ I say, before he suggests a more expensive choice. ‘Why don’t I come into your kitchen and teach you the recipe for my favourite glaze? A culinary treat for all your customers to enjoy, M’sieur, and please provide everyone with a glass of your best dessert wine, on my account. In fact, invite your friends!’
‘A thousand thanks, Madame, it’s not every day I have a renowned chef in my humble café,’ he says, greed oiling his eyes. The more people he wishes to impress, the better for my purpose.
Charlotte, for that is my protégées name, now smells of sea breeze and hopefulness. I set her zesting rind from limes; and require her to taste the sauce as she adds sugar. The correct balance of sharp lime, pepper and sugar is a delicate one, and will mask my own addition, slipped into the pan when no one observes.
The effects of this philtre are strong and quick-acting. Charlotte soon recites her tale, ages-old and yet painfully familiar. She explains how her jealous Uncle – the Patron – tricked her into handing over the bistro deeds following her Grandmother’s death. When they were returned to her, they were altered in his favour, and who would believe the word of a mere girl against that of her esteemed Uncle?
‘If I assist, you will be forever Bound into the Old Ways,’ I warn.
‘Grandmère was Bounden, like you. I will never betray my kind.’
Charlotte is truthful and pure as spring water. I did not need to test her.
‘It’s wearing, being Bounden,’ I warn. ‘Sometimes I yearn for respite, but always my nose leads me on, as it did to you.’
Charlotte smiles. ‘The glaze is prepared – to delay would spoil the dish.’
‘Fetch the deeds,’ I instruct her. ‘We will serve them with dessert.’
‘Fresh strawberries glazed with warm lime and pepper syrup,’ announces Charlotte, presenting the dish. Already she stands straighter and her brown eyes dance with mischief. I serve the Patron myself. His glassy eyes and red nose show he has not stinted on my wine.
There is hardly space to move, so many people have arrived to see the spectacle of the famous chef in the village bistro. Of course, everyone exclaims over the succulence of the strawberries and the piquancy of the glaze.
The Patron stands to make a speech, as is his right in his own premises. I interrupt with a smile. It is against tradition, but he dares not intervene. I may be old and a woman, but I am renowned. Even so, my power wanes and I have no time to lose.
I praise Charlotte’s cooking, her most discerning palate and her skill in modernising her Grandmère’s ancient recipes. A buzz rises, like distant bees, at my talk of the Old Days.
‘I confess I added an extra ingredient to this confection,’ I say. ‘Feuille de la Verité. Every single lie each one of you has recently told is represented by a swelling of the lining of your mouth. Some of you may already feel protuberances.’ One or two fingers discreetly probe their owner’s mouths, I note.
‘Now – please examine the signatures on the deeds to this bistro – here. Charlotte’s name has clearly been scratched out and replaced by that of her Uncle, the current Patron.’
A gasp. Confusion, finger pointing both at the Patron and at each other, as folk peer, horrified, into each others’ mouths. Even my own tongue catches on two small swellings at the side of my mouth – all of us have the need to sometimes lie for politeness’ sake.
‘Leave now if you disagree. Those remaining will bear witness to the transfer of ownership back to Charlotte, as intended by her Grandmère. As sponsor, I, or my representative, will visit here frequently. We will further Charlotte’s training in the culinary arts, and of course, ensure your full and continued support of her management here.’
The Patron points at me. ‘Witchcraft and sorcery!’ he dribbles through the stinking encumbrances in his mouth, his lies in fleshy form. One of the lumps shrivels a little with this piece of truth telling, but no one other than me notices.
‘Leave now,’ someone says, ‘and never return.’
The former Patron walks unsteadily to the door, turns, opens his mouth to argue, changes his mind and closes it, then leaves.
The Old Ways are powerful, and my nose is never wrong.
He Must Come Down!
At one minute to five on Monday afternoon, a pigeon shits on my head.
I know it’s a pigeon because it’s been standing on my head for the last few minutes. I watch the pigeon fly off – appreciably lighter, given the sizeable quantity of what’s been left behind – as the first of five solemn bongs ring out from the church tower.
In the park, someone points up at me and laughs. They alert their companions to my predicament. I concentrate instead on the pleasant warmth atop my head (it’s a cold day) and wait for them to move on to more enlightened topics of conversation. It’s been decades since anyone took an interest in me. Not since …
“It’s dripping off his hat!”
They have drawn closer. Schoolchildren, in dishevelled uniform. Swigging from brightly coloured cans. Sadly, I can confirm their observation. It – the pigeon excrement – is, indeed, dripping down in front of my eyes. A hefty dollop lands on my foot. The children scream in delight.
“Who is he, anyway?”
They study me for a moment.
“Just some old white dude.”
I take umbrage at this remark. I am not white and never have been! Admittedly, the years have been unkind to me, as far as my colour is concerned. Nowadays, I’d describe myself a murky green.
I was once a resplendent bronze. My first memory? A small group of people gathered below me. I shone, even in the light drizzle (although at the time I hadn’t come to understand what rain was). Someone standing to my right was speaking. Upon finishing, I was startled to see the people in the group rhythmically whacking their hands together. I’ve since come to know this as “clapping”. After a while, one by one, the members in the group slowly walked away. But not all.
I can hear clapping now. The children are urging on their leader to perform some sort of task. As he leans in, I think for one glorious moment he might even be about to clean the pigeon ordure off my shoes. Instead, I hear rattling and then a prolonged hissing sound. The assembled throng run off shrieking with laughter when a siren starts up behind me. With a sinking heart, I realise what’s happened. But I can’t see what they’ve written.
I find out just after quarter past eight the next morning.
“Racist. Prick,” says an old lady. “Although they’ve spelt ‘racist’ with two ‘s’s, the ‘e’ looks dyslexic, they’ve missed out the ‘c’ in ‘prick’ and the ‘p’ is upside down, so it’s a bit tricky to read.”
“Bloody Millenniums,” grumbles her companion, equally old and equally female.
“Racist. Prick,” says the first old lady. “Yes, that must be it. Racist. Prick.”
“It’s outrageous!” splutters her companion. “He’s not racist!”
“Of course he isn’t!”
“You can’t go around flinging those sorts of terms about. Spraying them is even worse. If anything, they’re the ones being racist.”
“Pricks.”
“I quite agree, Sandra. Pricks. If you’ll excuse me.”
“Who was he, anyway?”
They peer up at me, squinting in the early morning sunlight.
“Just some war hero.”
I watch the two ladies wander off. Their conversation has confused me. Who am I?
One figure remained, even though the rain grew heavier. He was different from the other people. It was the way he took his time. The way he appeared to study me. His sad eyes seemed to soften when they took in my face. Did he know who I was?
Two men are staring at me. One is plump, the other willowy. Both are white-haired and bespectacled, but they exude a jovial energy that gives them the appearance of overgrown schoolboys. The taller, stooped one is holding some sort of furry stick in front of them.
“So what can you tell us about him, Anthony?”
I’m confused by the ‘us’. There only appears to be the two of them. Who else are they talking to?
“He was born in the town in 1863 to an Army General and his wife and swiftly sent away to boarding school. You’re not going to like this, Douglas, but in 1875 he attends Harrow.”
“An Old Harrovian, indeed! No wonder he’s a controversial figure!”
The men chortle at length. It gives me time to let the information sink in. By observing young children and their parents at the pond, over the years, I’ve gained a rudimentary level of mathematics due to the painstaking counting of ducks. I calculate that I was born 160 years ago! And I attended something called Harrow. Some sort of acutely distressing event?
“Try not to hold that against him, Douglas! Not much is known of his schooling but he passes out from The Royal Military College with flying colours and is soon serving with distinction in Imperial campaigns. We know he rises to the rank of Lieutenant-General in the Fifth Anglo-Ashanti War.”
“But Anthony, he leaves the British Army very suddenly during that conflict. Do we know why?”
“We do not, Douglas. It appears he may have been court martialled. We can only speculate as to the reason.”
“Do we know his character? His opinions? Was he, if you’ll pardon my language, a racist prick?”
“We simply don’t know. His few letters home to his parents contain nothing more than grumbles about the heat. He was never married and left no children. Sadly, he died of malaria before he could return home permanently from West Africa in 1901.”
I’m almost giddy with my new awareness. But the more I understand, the more a hint of sadness begins to trickle through me. Dead at 38. No wife or children. I rather hoped I’d lived longer, achieved more. But they aren’t really talking about me at all, are they? I didn’t do any of those things or visit those far-off places. All I know and all I remember is this park. I’ve merely stood here, looking at the pond and the trees. Observing the families and the friendships, when all along I had none of my own.
“He’s just some forgotten, minor dignitary, Anthony; erected in an attempt to lend a failing town some respectability.”
“Thank you, Douglas. We’ll be back next week with our Top Ten Historical Facial Deformities!”
Forgotten? For as long as he returned, every few months (as my understanding of time developed), I never felt forgotten. His tender, but sad, gaze. When no was looking, he would reach out and lay a hand on my calf. A gesture I found puzzling, at first, and then yearned for, when he was gone. He began to age. Not green, like me, but fading, almost imperceptibly.
It’s dark now. The chatty men have gone. But I’m not alone for long. From out of the gloom appear several large, hulking figures.
“This the geezer?”
“Yeah, look. They’ve sprayed all over his plinth, the little woke buggers.”
“What does ‘resist brik’ mean? Them the ones been trying to stop the new houses too?”
“No, you melt! It says Racist Prick. They’re the same as the anti-Churchill lot. Trying to dismantle our history for their woke agenda. Pull down anything they can get their wokey fingers on.”
“Who was he then?”
There’s a pause. The air is thick with cigarette smoke and body odour.
“Just another straight, white guy. A dying breed! I tell you, if you’re a heterosexual, white British Army hero of the … past, they want you gone. Ripped from the history books. Thrown in the river with all them … other ones. We won’t be replaced!”
There’s a brief round of applause. Someone belches and something tinny bounces off my shoulder. I’m not convinced these chaps are fellow British Army heroes.
“Don’t worry, mate!” shouts the largest of the men, “No one’s pulling you off tonight, not with us around!”
Dawn breaks and the large men stir at my feet. It’s been an unpleasant night. My plinth smells of stale beer, cigarettes and urine. One of the men appears, laden with pastries and hot drinks. He places a newspaper at my feet. As they set about replenishing themselves, I catch a glimpse of the front page. Under a headline I can’t read, the page is dominated by a photograph of a figure set against a gloomy sky. The figure stands proudly upright, staring defiantly into the distance. The figure is dressed in a military coat and hat and is holding a stick. The figure is green with a couple of white splodges. I’m looking at myself. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen my face. I’m delighted to confirm something I’ve always suspected; I have a moustache!
“Town Hero or Racist Prick?” reads one of the men. There’s a brief scuffle over the sports section.
By midday, a febrile atmosphere has descended upon the park. Crowds have gathered; placards are waved, there’s chanting and the banging of drums. I see more small groups of people speaking into furry sticks. The police look on. The large men have formed a ring around me, snarling at those facing them.
“Not my Town Hero!” screams a young man in a strange hat. He makes sure the people round him are pointing their rectangles at him and repeats his shrill cry. This begins a chant which builds through the various groups but is soon drowned out by the large men who chant a mixture of “Not a Racist Prick!” and “Who are ya?” They appear to have more experience in this endeavour and bigger lungs with which to get their confusing messages across. The young man in the strange hat gets his hands on a megaphone and pushes his friends out of the way.
“He was an Imperialist! He used his privilege to enslave and promote a racist ideology! He must come down!”
“If it weren’t for him,” yells one of the large men, “you’d be speaking …” He confers with the others. “You’d be speaking Ashanti!” The large men cheer.
“What’s wrong with speaking more than one language? Don’t be so binary!”
A new chant begins. “Stale and pale! Stale and pale!” but it’s once again countered by an opposing chant; “Proudly white! Proudly white!”
I don’t understand the obsession with my colouring. I don’t understand this obsession with me. I want things to go back to the way they were. I want to see picnics, bicycles and dogs chasing colourful circles.
“Cancelled in the morning, you’re getting cancelled in the morning!”
“Proudly straight! Proudly straight!”
What on earth has my posture got to do with any of this? I try and focus instead on counting the ducks on the pond, but the young man in the strange hat is in the process of throwing a cardboard effigy of me into the water, scaring them all away. I feel something tighten around my neck … a huge cheer … a fight breaks out amongst the large men …
There were banners and chanting before, in this park. On two occasions in particular, although the atmosphere was one of celebration, not anger. He was still a young man at the first, joining in heartily with three cheers for the King and something rude about a Kaiser. He stroked my calf, as before, and told me that there would be no more war! He must have been wrong. But the second such event was even more celebratory than the first. He was an old man by now, grey-haired and slower in his movements. It was the only time I ever heard him speak. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to me, amongst the singing and the dancing. “I’m sorry you could never return. I’m sorry we could never be together.” And with that, he was gone.
It’s warmer in my new place. The view, however, is decidedly less interesting; a blank, white wall. People walk past and occasionally stop to read a sign on my left. They look up at me with a look of understanding, as though they know who I am.
YOU PAY YOUR TAXES AND YOU TAKE YOUR CHANCES
The police officer standing in the doorway insisted on congratulating me for winning the lottery. I tried to block his view but he peered round me. “I hope I’ve caught everyone at home. We don’t have much time. You’re supposed to be at the airport in less than an hour.”
I was tempted to lie, to tell him I was the only one in the building but I knew it wouldn’t gain me anything.
He was tense, up on his toes, leaning forward, excited, just waiting for an excuse to shove me out of the way and check every room for himself.
“Yes, we’re all here. Which of us have you come for?”
“All of you.” He drew a paper from his pocket and waved it in front of my eyes. “This is the official notification that the Hall family of 27, Garden Parade, consisting of the parents, Catherine, 29, Robert, 31, and their two children, Olivia, 3, and Cary, 5, are to be picked up as they have been selected to take part in the evaluation and time trial for the latest emergency evacuation procedures.”
“We can’t refuse, can we?”
“No, Mrs. Hall, and I can’t think of a single reason you would want to. Why would anyone turn down such an opportunity?”
Why indeed? We were, on the surface of it, so incredibly lucky. There were only eight hundred places on what was being marketed as a free holiday. Of course, nothing is ever really free and everyone in the country had contributed to it through their taxes, including us. We had been among the minority who from the beginning refused to swallow the hype.
Constellation One, we were supposed to believe, was an enormous spaceship being constructed half on earth, half in space, most of which comprised huge living units bolted together. “Yeah, right, with string and glue,” Robert said when he first heard about it.
It was born of the fears preached by our politicians and scientists. “What if a meteorite smashes into us? What if a war gets out of hand and crushes us? What if a sickness comes and decimates us? What if the climate turns on us and we are drowned by a toxic tide?” Then they answered their own questions. “We will take the initiative, be pre-emptive, be ready before the inevitable happens. We will construct a fleet of generation ships which will take many of us away when the disaster overtakes us. That way we will make sure our species does not die out. These vessels will be a small hope but a real one, a series of flickering candles in the vast darkness of space. This is something we can all work towards, something we can all contribute to. All of us, together as one nation, will be doing something constructive, collective, creative.”
It heralded the end of all privacy and freedom. They said everyone had to be watched, evaluated, tested. There would only be eight hundred places on each ship and they would be reserved for the fittest in mind and body. Details of those eligible would be kept in a continuously updated file and one day (no one knew when it might be but every news source assured us it would come) they would be entered into a lottery to select the chosen survivors who would leave the stricken Earth.
It made no sense. It was nothing more than an over-elaborate plan designed to catch the imagination of the majority. The media was full of pictures and stories of brave engineers and brilliant scientists. No dissenting voices were permitted. Schoolchildren were encouraged to enter competitions to design the interior of the living units, to write essays on what life would be like aboard and make up boxes containing “the essence of Earth”. They were fed the untruth of equal chances while their parents argued about which celebrities it would be best to take along to entertain the lucky few.
For a while we raised questions in our conversations with our friends but they would not hear us and then, unable to change our minds, they shunned our company. Robert and I went on the protest marches. People had little enough to live on already. These extra taxes were a step too far. But we were shouted down. The marches were banned. The organisers, accused of promoting civil unrest and working against the national interest, were arrested. We never saw them again.
Both at my work and on social media I endured a barrage of brutal words, a deluge of defamatory comments. How could I be so selfish? What was wrong with me? Did I not understand the statistics? Why was I concerned with privacy and “a little inconvenience or two”. Didn’t I realise all our lives were at stake?
When the questions turned into threats against our children we decided enough was enough. We would keep our thoughts to ourselves, though we did discover a handful of websites where other people with similar ideas to our own made their views known. Even there we were not safe from criticism and our words were decried as misinformation and lies.
Three years passed. Constellation One was nearing completion. Or so we were told. But by then a few more dissenting voices were beginning to break through. Before being discredited, one enterprising investigative journalist had managed to get an article published in which she accused the owners of certain large corporations of syphoning off some of the money intended for the “great venture” and diverting it into their own pockets. There were a couple of minor scandals: hundreds of protective space suits were declared faulty and members of the government were shown up for avoiding their fair share of the “Escape Fund Tax”. For a few days there was a blame game. A head or two rolled.
But then the announcement was made and the people invited to hold their breath. It was so exciting, such a distraction from everyday life. Eight hundred “winners” would be given the opportunity to be guinea pigs in a mock evacuation exercise. They would be roused from their beds and taken to a secret destination. From there they would be sent up to Constellation One. Once aboard they would stay for two weeks, long enough to prove everything was ready and the plan was workable.
If all went well they would return to Earth after having had a great adventure.
If all went well…
Another officer joined the first. She thrust a handful of bright yellow plastic bags at me. “You don’t have time to pack. Throw a change of clothes for each family member into these. You can’t take anything else.” She wrinkled her nose. “Well, maybe a book or a toy for each of your children but no phones, tablets, things like that. We don’t want any leaks. This has to be as realistic as possible. Let’s face it. If this were not a drill, people would be afraid and might riot.”
I tried to leave the two of them on the doorstep but they followed me inside. I roused Robert and we woke the children. Olivia was sleepy and curled up in her father’s arms. I gathered what was closest to hand and crammed as much as I could into the carrier bags.
“Don’t forget Mr. Softie.”
Robert was right. I grabbed the large, stuffed elephant from the hall stand. We would not leave our emergency kit behind.
Outside was a police car and an unmarked people carrier. I wanted to scream. I did not believe in Constellation One any more at that moment than I ever had. So where were we headed? What was going to happen to us?
“We haven’t got our passports.”
“You won’t need them.” The police officer in the front passenger seat didn’t even turn to look at me.
I tried to lock my arm around Cary but he wriggled free and stared out into the darkness.
I was surprised when we did arrive at the airport. I had half expected to be taken to some deserted place out in the countryside.
“This way.” Not through customs but to a bus. There were perhaps twenty other people aboard, a mixture of adults and children, I thought, but it was hard to tell since the lighting was so poor.
We set off around the terminal building and onto one of the runways. The plane was small, a sleek private jet with the door already open.
We were escorted up the steps. The interior was luxurious, with reclining seats, small tables, and a thick carpet underfoot.
“Welcome, lucky winners. Make yourselves comfortable. We will be in the air rather a long time. You are scheduled to be aboard Constellation One in three days. By then you will have crossed the Atlantic and joined the other winners from the USA and Canada.”
The cabin crew bring us drinks, a choice of spirits or wine for us, hot chocolate for the children.
Once we are comfortable two people get to their feet and begin taking photographs. Another has a film camera and a fourth a microphone. “How does it feel to be a winner? Are you excited about going into space? What do you think life will be like aboard Constellation One?”
I shrink away from them. I do not want to help them tell their happy tale, be part of their propaganda.
Among our fellow “winners” I recognise the face of another woman, the voice of one of the men. These are some of the people I met online, some of the ones I walked alongside on the marches. We are all dissenters. Every one of us.
I do not believe in Constellation One.
In our house the police will be crawling through the rooms, looking for the computers we have hidden. It will not take them long and their experts will find our passwords simple. Our contact list will soon be in their hands and other dissidents will be making their own journeys to Constellation One.
I take Mr. Softie and seat him on my lap. The seam gives way without a fight and my fingers tangle among the stuffing. It has been disturbed before.
I look up and Robert, his arm tight around Olivia, gives me a tiny nod.
The trigger is in my hand. When I press it the explosives inside the computers will destroy them and the searchers, while the second bomb…
I will not be taken to Concentration Camp One.
BALL BOY
Each ball boy had their patch at City’s stadium and mine was behind the bye line at the home end. The floodlights were beaming down on the sodden pitch and our supporters were roaring the team on, undaunted by the rain lashing down on the terrace. I watched Colin Macey – Rovers’ centre forward – pick up the ball about twenty yards from goal and let fly. His shot went wide and hit me like a cannonball on the forehead, knocking me flat on my back.
As I lay stunned in the mud, I heard the referee blow the whistle for half time. Out of nowhere, Terry appeared and dropped onto his haunches beside me, his straggly hair falling to his shoulders.
“That was a sore one you took there, son. I see that sod Macey hasn’t bothered to apologise. Let’s get you up and over to the dressing room. Our trainer will bring you round with his magic sponge.”
He helped me to my feet and escorted me across the pitch to the applause of the fans. It was unreal. The mercurial Terry Burton, the man with the magic feet, who I’d idolised for years taking care of me! I’d lost count of the number of times I’d seen his athletic figure cut in from the right wing onto his favoured left foot, bamboozling defenders, and rifling in goals for City.
He guided me down the tunnel and into the crowded dressing room which smelled strongly of liniment, and took me over to an older guy wearing a flat cap.
“This one needs a little TLC.”
“Come here, lad.”
The trainer took the sponge out of his bucket and applied it to my forehead. The ice cold water quickly brought me round and I gazed in awe at my football heroes sitting around the room.
“You’d better get back out there, otherwise the gaffer will get annoyed,” said Terry.
I tried to thank him but couldn’t get the words out before running off.
This happened over forty years ago but the memory comes back every time I cross the doorstep of Terry’s house.
He is sitting in his favourite armchair when I enter the sitting room.
“Who’s he?” he barks.
“There’s no need to raise your voice. It’s your carer, Ray,” Anne replies. The dark circles under her eyes are getting worse.
“He can’t be a carer with those hands.” His face flushes.
“Don’t’ worry, Dad, he’s nice,” she says gently.
She’s wearing the same green top she had on a few days ago.
I give him a few moments before speaking.
“How are you today, Terry?”
He looks at me blankly initially but then his face brightens.
“Do you know I used to be a footballer?”
“Yes, I saw you play many times.”
“I was good. Other players used to try and kick me but I was usually too quick for them.” He laughs. ”Sometimes when they caught me, I dished out a left hook and got an early bath for my troubles.”
“I’m going upstairs to lie down,” says Anne. My twice weekly visits give her a brief respite from looking after her father.
“Let’s get you washed,” I say.
Terry’s unsteady on his feet so I help him up, take his arm, and guide him to the wet room. I assist him undressing and steer him under the shower where he grasps the wall grip and, after turning on the water, I soap up the sponge and start cleaning his back. He seems to get thinner each time I see him.
“There’s nothing like the magic sponge to get me going,” he chortles. “This reminds me of being in the showers at City, all the lads starkers, singing away if we’d won.” He starts humming the club’s anthem.
Afterwards, I dry him, help him dress and tidy his short white hair with a comb, and help him back to his chair.
“Am I having breakfast now?”
“No, Anne gave it to you earlier.”
“I don’t remember that. What’s for lunch?”
“Baked potato with cheese and beans.”
“OK. I’ll give it a try.” He says pulling a long face.
He has this dish every Tuesday and enjoys it.
I switch on the television and Terry watches it while I prepare his medication. After taking it, he turns the sound down with the remote and looks at me with a twinkle in his eye, signalling we’re off down memory lane. I’ve heard most of his football tales before but I never tire of listening to them. He reminisces happily for over an hour before his voice suddenly drops to a whisper.
“I never made much money.”
“Why was that?”
“Gambling. Loved going to the dogs and casinos but Lady Luck wasn’t kind to me.”
“That maybe so but you gave a lot of pleasure to thousands of people.”
He smiles and pats his tummy.
“I’m feeling hungry now.”
I go into the kitchen to prepare his meal. When he’s tucking into it, Anne comes downstairs and enters the room yawning.
”It’s nearly time for Ray to go, Dad.”
“That’s a pity. Hope to see you again.” He gives me the thumbs up.
I’ve never asked him if he remembers rescuing a distressed ball boy as I’ve been taught that asking people with his condition questions can agitate them or cause anxiety. Anyway, why should he recall such a trivial incident from his illustrious career?
An unfamiliar face opens the door to me.
“Hi, you must be Ray. Anne told me you’d be calling round about this time.” She’s a stout lady with short grey hair. “I’m a neighbour. Anne’s got a GP appointment and she asked me to be here until you came.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say, stepping inside. “Has he had breakfast?”
“He hardly touched his cereal but downed his tea.”
Grace leaves and I go in to see him. He looks up and frowns.
“What? Another flaming stranger?”
“I’m Ray, the carer. Shall we watch a bit of telly together before your shower?”
He nods.
I switch on the set and select channel 12 which is showing ‘The Big Match Revisited.’ The featured game happens to be one between City and Rovers from the late seventies.
Terry studies the screen for a minute and then his eyes light up and he leans forward.
“That’s me,” he yells.
His younger self is standing over the ball with a wall of players standing ten yards away from him. He steps forward, shoots and hits the crossbar with a thunderous shot.
“That should have gone in. But listen to that crowd. They used to chant my name.”
The camera zooms in on the spectators on the packed terrace swaying behind the goal. I remember standing there before I became a ball boy, terrified I would get crushed by the adults.
We are both spellbound by the action which follows. It was a close game and the score was two each going in the last minute, and then up popped Colin Macey to head the winner.
Terry groans.
“That so and so had a habit of scoring against us. He used to climb on our defenders shoulders to head the ball and the referees let him get away with it.”
He goes quiet and slumps into his chair.
“Turn that off,” he says in a quiet voice. I do as he asks.
His eyes start to dart around the room.
“When is Anne coming back? I’ve not seen her for ages.”
He starts sobbing and I walk over and put an arm round his shoulder.
“She’ll be back soon,” I assure him.
“I hope so. She’s ever so nice,” he says clutching my arm.
“Dad’s got a visitor this morning,” Anne tells me on my arrival. “I’ll leave you to them. I’m going upstairs for my kip.” She looks as white as a sheet.
“Enjoy your lie down.”
I get a bit of a shock when I enter the sitting room and see Colin Macey sitting beside Terry. I’d assumed they hated each other’s guts. Colin has hardly changed over the years. He still looks trim, his face is lean, and his dyed brown hair is long.
“Looks like you’ve got another visitor,” Colin says.
“Don’t know him from Adam. Have you got the right house mate?” Terry glares at me.
“I’m Ray Thompson from the agency.”
He shrugs his shoulders
“Nobody tells me anything. This is Colin. He was my best pal off the pitch when I was a footballer.”
“Pleased to meet you.” I never thought I’d hear myself say that.
Colin holds out his hand and I shake it.
“Terry’s been trying to tell me City beat us regularly when we were playing them. Fat chance of that!”
“Nothing wrong with my memory,” says Terry. “I’ve also been reminding him about taking me out boozing during the week. The gaffer wasn’t happy when I turned up for training smelling like a brewery and I got fined a few times.”
“You never needed much encouragement and I usually ended up paying as you were skint.” Colin chuckles and turns to me. “By the way, Terry has promised me a slap-up lunch.”
“If you count a corned beef sandwich and a fig roll as a treat, you won’t be disappointed,” I tell him with a chuckle.
“Terry always was a cheapskate.”
They both start to laugh their socks off and I make an exit to the kitchen.
I’m still trying to get over the fact that Terry is no longer with us. It was a heart attack that got him in the end. I’m glad City did him proud by opening a book of remembrance at the stadium, placing a film on their website with clips of his goals, and arranging a round of applause at a home game. And the memorial service was lovely and Colin was one of the speakers.
I’m intrigued why Anne has asked me to pop round to her house. When I arrive, she greets me with a hug. She has got some colour back in her cheeks since I last saw her and is wearing a nice floral dress.
She invites me into the sitting room and it feels strange to see Terry’s armchair lying empty.
We sit down and, after exchanging a few pleasantries, she gets to the point.
“I didn’t know you’d met Dad when you were a lad.”
“It’s true we had a fleeting encounter. That’s all.” I don’t know where this is going
“I was going through his football memorabilia and found some newspaper clippings relating to matches he played in, including this one.”
She hands over a yellowing page containing a photo of Terry escorting a youngster across City’s pitch. The caption reads:
‘Terry Burton looks after fourteen year old ball boy Raymond Thompson after being knocked down by a wayward shot by Colin Macey.”
“That’s you, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” I can feel tears in my eyes.
“The press liked to paint him as a bit of a bad boy who liked to drink and gamble, and he probably cut it out because it showed him in a different light. Did you ever mention the incident to him?”
“No. It was enough for me to repay him the kindness which he showed me back then.”
“He couldn’t have asked for a better carer. I’ll make us some coffee and you can tell me the full story.”