Desire Line, page 20
He joined me at the table, not eating. ‘Go on. Apple-and-sloe!’ he encouraged. I detested marmalade, he knew and few things connect or repel us the way food does. Planted into an Oxford Thick-Cut-taking household, I decided it was a practical joke being played by grown-ups. Frank Cooper’s? Brown jelly with gristle! Time after time and meaning no harm, Fleur or Geoffrey offering, Marmalade, Yori?
It’s gross!
Then a simple no, thank-you will suffice.
But that was an age ago. I said, ‘Sara just turned up— did she? She wanted to get Eurwen home to Oxford and away from Tomiko. Away from Rhyl.’
‘What? We-ll.’ Don’t bother me it implied. ‘What you’re doing back there’s a mystery. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You want to get out. You want to—’ he shrugged. ‘It’s done for.’ His mug of coffee was for staring at as well, too much effort to drink. And he wasn’t putting it on. I could tell by those eyes he kept rubbing he’d had no sleep as I’d been busy not crushing ants in Drift Park.
‘But Sara can’t have liked the idea.’ Josh drew back the corners of his mouth baring his good teeth. It didn’t stop me. ‘Eurwen ran off instead of facing her. Must’ve been something behind that— maybe a poor Japanese?’ The word just hung. He gave no sign of receiving it. In a couple more seconds it was plain he wasn’t going to rise and I didn’t try another shot because self-disgust had come on. I’d never picked a fight with Josh. Now, the day after bringing news of Sara’s death, here I was. Wealth and family and occupation and place of origin should’ve been left alone. Or started on and finished, as it had been at Pryorsfield that day Fleur and Geoffrey responded to my father’s bow from across the world with their own unused, creaky versions. Too deep from Fleur, about right from Geoffrey (who always was stiff as the oak Pryor carved on his own staircase), both translated as ‘respect’.
Probably my new notion was juvenile. Too late.
‘You don’t know what you’re on about,’ he said, quite quietly so I missed what was grinding away underneath. ‘A Japanese? Sara wasn’t like that.’
‘OK.’
‘Yes, OK!’
‘Do you want to tell me about her, then?’
‘No I fucking don’t! Christ— what a fucking stupid thing to say! I’m meant to describe the best bits of her, am I? You’ll have had that from His Lordship anyway. Yeah? By the bellyful. All those years stuck in his bloody castle, him making out like I was the serf that nabbed the princess and then couldn’t wait to bring her down. Fine, you keep thinking that. Fine by me. Or d’you want the well-she-was-no-saint herself version? You and me we sit here and share all the— the— what she put me though and I get to feel better? Well you can just fuck that.’ His blotched face was now almost unrecognisable as my grandfather’s. ‘Because from the first time I saw her I— I—’ but it wouldn’t come out, the word and he shook his head in frustration. ‘And till the day she died I’d have licked the dogshit off her shoes.’
My breakfast rose up in my throat. ‘Yes.’ Safer than nothing.
‘Yeah, so fuck that,’ he repeated.
Yeah, kuso that, Josh.
The plan had been to stay the weekend and my big concern how to fill two whole days. Despite kuso that, I could’ve stayed. Once I took an Early Delft dish into an Oxford garden and reduced to powder with a stone— but it was the exception. I’ve had long practice at holding my anger in and any small job the cobalt blue house needed— we usually shared one while I’m here— would’ve seen us through. That picket gate visible from the stool I’m on, was ours, and the stain would take a recoat. Since I was a child Josh and I’d done things together, dragged a lizard home, tried to fix a door. My arrival yesterday flashed into my head, the blue paint fragments in the rainwater runnel along the front wall. The render’s friable as Stilton cheese— there’ll be patches to the north side worth checking on. At the same time, rapid retreat was tempting. This decision I’ll want to go back and do differently but I record it as a just a change of mind. No thought. I said I needed to be off. Josh nodded. I said, a not-planned visit after all, blah-blah, and he grunted. Wiped the table. I said, work, etc, Forward Rhyl under threat, and you can imagine what it’s like with the clear-up. Later in the year maybe? More my normal time—
Not to be taking off in a huff, I walked Josh’s strip of grass with him. Hardly a garden, I stumbled on the rocks in the ‘lawn’ and pried loose hangnails of varnish on our gate and commented on his apple tree, very ancient and gnarled, silver with lichen and fresh into blossom. Should’ve pruned the bugger at the back end, too late now. We looked up in unison. I thought the open hand shape reaching for the sky was much better for the neglect. ‘You can do them after the fruit’s set.’
‘Can you? I might, yeah.’
Upstairs I packed my belongings, pretty sure Josh wanted me gone. If I couldn’t bring the ferry booking forward – I put myself on standby – a bed in Dublin would be preferable. I get things wrong about people and this was. But loose objects out of Sara’s case and all her papers get pressed into my pack with the unworn clothes. The beautiful red tote bag gets left on the bed. Then when I’m ready for off, he has to come out with me, ghastly in the face, not unfriendly, almost as if he’s seeing me for the first time since crashing my room. He made a bit of a thing about the smallness of the hire car, with surveys of it from different angles. ‘They’re good, these, though. Don’t often see you behind the wheel.’
‘No other way this time.’
He nodded up at the thickening cloud cover already turning the cobalt blue house navy. ‘Watch how you go.’
‘I’m meant to say they’ll adjourn the inquest. That’s from the coroner’s clerk so reliable. You’ll know about how it gets done, better than me. Expect to be called when it starts properly. That’s the last message I got anyway.’ He nodded. ‘Her name’s J. Preece— it’s all in the report I’ve left you or you can speak to her if you like. Beforehand. I wish I could—’ I was repeating myself, just prolonging the ordeal. Still I got back out of the car and we stood staring along the route we’d walked. Then a woman, I swear it was the same one as yesterday, same shopping bag, appeared in the distance and she hurried things along. He capped my shoulder using his palm, I said OK, yes, right then— and he’d stepped inside. We haven’t been together since.
It’s easy to travel hopefully when containing a free omelette, which I’ll be offered later. As I explained at the start of Sara’s story, the order of events isn’t mine.
Driving across Ireland able to actually look at things now Josh wasn’t threatening at journey’s end, I registered the downslide. Decay may be softer here than Rhyl’s but the road hadn’t been repaired since a year ago and plenty more indications of This Slump lay scattered along it. A centuries-old wayside cottage had finally stove in, a housing estate begun and abandoned now had scrubby trees running through, stitching it to a nearby copse. The little hedged pasture on the N59 into Galway town I always look out for was dotted with even more fused tractors and heaps of ironmongery.
The rain came, of course – then a downpour turned the world outside the windscreen to murk. But nothing slowed the heavy traffic out of Athlone town. On-coming vehicles made a bathescape of my car. It (one of the electric Artell 400s picked up at Dún Laoghaire) began to stutter. Listening to Morten Zeuthen’s cello doing a lively Suite No 1 in G major, a Fleur favourite, I managed to miss my cue. Before I can remedy this I’m across the first fixed section of the Portumna bridge over a pocked-zinc Shannon river and being hurried onto the swing-to section by thuggish traffic. The voice of the Artell is female and wheedling. It overrides the cello to suggest I go back.
‘No!’ Searching for left turns, I try the second one and immediately have to swerve to miss a cart being pulled by a donkey and a pony yoked together. At the reins a pretty girl is maybe going to smile before rain smears her away. The driving ponies are all the thing now. I hold on to her image until the map comes on, command mode again. I outwit it shouting, ‘New!’ Pause. ‘N7 to Dublin’, and get pointed in the direction of Toomyvara. The kilometres should’ve slipped by now but the Artell’s an urban device, constantly threatening to buck at reverse cambers and needs supervision. Just as well. I learned to drive in Oxford but never used it much in Bristol nor Rhyl so the succession of ribbon settlements keep me sharp. Ireland, an UWE lecturer told us in all seriousness, is the one country inEurope that lacks a vernacular architecture. I’m just starting to pull this to pieces with him six years too late when a sign saying Borris-in-Ossory, comes up—
It’s the name on the eye, the half-pattern in sound and letters, does it for me.
I pulled in next to a tiny grey church with a pencil tower— can’t count it as vernacular, unfortunately, Anglo-Victorian— and tried to see about. Wet. Wet didn’t come close. Rain was falling, yes, but also water was oozing out of the earth as well, every drain a spout. And floating on top, is Borris, a compact little town with bad-design streetlights spoiling an eighteenth century roofline. Between parked cars and vans only a single figure moved— in the opposite direction. The place could’ve been abandoned. I stayed put to start on the tea Josh had provided me with and thinking of him, I scalded my tongue and spat out all the pent-up obscenities— at a burnt tongue, at poor performance (mine) and Josh not satisfying my curiosity. Josh and Yori the man could, at long last, have sent the boy clutching a driftwood lizard to bed. But Josh had given a big fat zero. Kuso! it’s not like it’s Charity Weiksner got her claws in you, this is me,come in person, your grandson, because Eurwen would refuse, so I didn’t bother even asking—
—nowhere convenient to put a cup down, of course. When I accidently touched the RedLips icon, thicker and more succulent-looking than in older model cars, not an improvement, the Artell purrs, ‘Place. Borris-in-Ossory.’
Ads first. For Casino Pigale which you can’t escape. Hello Beautiful Linda. Then Rudd’s Bait and Tackle Merchants were the locals and a Teach Your Baby to Swim School. ‘Ten babies needed for class to commence.’ Finally, ‘this small township lies in County Laois.’ I lean back in my seat and close my eyes, ignoring the show ‘—with a castle’ for a small place Borris has a stack of history ‘but— blah-blah-blah —by Oliver Cromwell. Only a shattered shell remains. In 1798 the Kavanagh family built – blah-blah – but was destroyed by fire. To the south-east beside the Dublin road—’ at least I was on the Dublin road ‘—once stood the chapel. The walls were taken down over a century ago as a result of which so it’s claimed terrible misfortunes came about. Even having a job at the mill on this site caused bad luck. It certainly brought the owners mis—’
‘Stop!’
Josh had said nothing to do and I’d taken it for advice. After Sara, he meant, there’d been nothing left. Him, notorious and a laughing stock with love of birthplace and pride in work both ripped out. Eurwen he could hardly bear to look at. (Me as well I guess). But careful not to show it and we left anyway. He tried a new home here in Ireland— that subsided. And for what looked like the next solitary decade, he’d co-habited with Sara, her images, her voice, her stuff. Sitting across from him night after night in that other Windsor chair, I’ll bet Sara made Megan, Eurwen and me unreal by comparison. Over the homely woodsmoke, did he catch her scent? Whatever perfume she wore, he’ll know it instantly, look around. Every creak in old timbers would be her step. So far I hadn’t asked to see the bones— and there and then I decided not to. I’ve no religion, despite Tomiko and Fleur trying their separate prospectuses on me. Tomiko’s beliefs were automatic as sneezing. Who’d go for it unless forced? And Fleur— those Sunday morning services were temporary relief for an ache even lecer couldn’t fix. Her church is a mix of gold leaf over gesso, difficult language, flowers, ultramarine pigment, tiled geometry and vague promises. Don’t forget the choral singing, made by Bach for a world that didn’t even use the steam pump. Still—
—I’d have a go at rebuilding that chapel, Borris-in-Ossory if I was you. See if your luck changed. There’s always something to do. For a start I described the Artell’s minor faults to the rental franchise back at Dún Laoghaire and – here’s that free omelette I mentioned – was offered enough credit by a motherly woman called Tammie to pay for my meal on the late ferry.
After that, I hunched up in a window seat again. My fellow passengers are mainly Traveller families or one huge family. They’re on their way to a wedding and discuss it at volume, incessantly, using a word I don’t recognise that sounds like bar. ‘The dress is bar dear, from Manchester it’s been got. The hotel’s bar dear too and they made them pay for everythingfirst. It’s bar cruel to do that ‘cos of who we are’. Though it’s been much calmer than the voyage out so far, the ship gives a sudden single leap. Something in the depths is trying to shake us off— I regret the free eggs. My seatmate’s a stringy man past my age though not by that much and ruddy and incredibly wrinkly. I’ve chosen him deliberately for his shifty, can’t-see-you manner because I can attract attention from both sexes, a side-effect of young-Archie-Kao looks. Traveller Man turns out to be a poor bet, in charge of at least four children near us but dozing after the boat’s major lurch. The children become devils, rioting up and down our aisle, constantly coming close to check on him before they screech away again.
Chat with Tess? In this noise it would end Aw-w, tell us tomorrow. G’ni-ight! I start on Glenn Hughes’ multiple messages. 1. An expected funding rejection of some modest reconstruction around the paddling pool on ‘technical grounds’ – I don’t bother getting to the end. 2. Beardie Bloke!!! – a face has formed in black mould on Glenn’s lounge wall. Like who, do I think? Michelangelo, the Imam of Leicester’s Grand Mosque or the late Brad Pitt? 61% of his contacts have already voted for the Imam but don’t let that influence— 3. Property in Butterton Road given way this a.m. and he’s streaming views of the wreckage. The final image is of the interior pre-collapse including a close up of a listed floor. Edwardian pine never meant to be seen under a drawing room carpet, has been exposed and the boards painted in every shade, then over-decorated with various motifs. Zooming in reveals zebra stripes abutting polka dots up against a fake shagreen section. No two alike. A worn area from the door to the marble fireplace is well captured, showing how it has aged nicely. Zoom out and it reassembles into a Navajo rug, a turn of the century oddity someone had the vision to preserve— till now. I love it and couldn’t feel more furious at the loss had it been mine.
Then I try to find one thing in London, Tokyo, Oxford, Kochi, Bristol of interest. Fail. In Singapore Kailash has finally shut up. I wish I was decent enough to tell her, Be Happy! Instead fall back on Tureck’s version of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Prelude and Fugue 2 in C minor, a three and a half minute sound ladder that ought to help anyone claw their way out of a hole. JSB’s not up to a contest with the shrieking horrors, who seem to’ve multiplied and I give in and let a Mexican company pitch Chromyle™ to me, a new coating full of potential and your practice’s next project could be first tryout in your arena! Seductive stuff. They let me wrap a building in it, pop it neatly onto the site, tip it south to catch the sun and I want to be home. And for some reason I’m drawn back to the lost painted floor. Though can’t be, it’s familiar – blue next to fawn, then yellow dots on grey, never step on black and white zebra stripes! I fall back on Yeah, but any child would play that game if they’d lived there, run across it everyday counting colours in a lost Rhyl— screams are good for blunting memory and I lose the thread. These children are smart. Now they go quiet, hanging round in case money or food is coming out of my pack. A book gets rid.
I open Sara’s diary at random.
Josh broke off as I heard someone approaching from across the bar at my back. That it was someone he recognised was obvious from his expression followed by a quick checking glance in my direction. It was the woman. Confidently she ignored him and smiled, staring me in the eye. She has a round attractive face with just a suggestion of laughter lines. Her Love Miami T-shirt emphasises large, high breasts while faded jeans are contouring very muscular thighs. Taller than I am and wider in a strapping, fit way, she might bounce if dropped—
Chapter 19
Just out of the station in the early hours what I took to be a dog turned into a rusty feral streak as it crossed the lighted patch and dived through a gap. With the wind coming from the south all the gardens beyond Vale Road were giving off green scents and I was lapping up Rhyl’s improved mood— you could feel the subsoil shrink and the bloom of salt flaking from timber so tomorrow maybe workers tracing The Wave into our innards, hacking back, would find sound brickwork. Somewhere. Out there. Two years ago, when I’d come back, one of the first things I started to do was take walks through the old streets at night trying to pick out what I did remember from the completely strange, till my brain put the map together. The whole town was held in my head, a long curved waterfront and the blunt built triangle, exactly as in my Westport dream. Snuffling like a fox myself, suddenly charged up, I couldn’t help making a detour into empty untouched Brighton Road then Bath Street with its clean-cut architecture in tall terraces. And at the far end there it was, the sea—
—and ‘She drowned’, I’d wanted to say to Josh and get agreement. It’ll be just a case of finding the right spot, toppling over and giving up. Result? Loss of self, whatever that felt like. But I hadn’t dared. (I should be calling Eurwen now, having a real conversation not a made-up one.) Nothing isn’t acceptable, grandfather. I’m here intending to walk the length of sea-meets-land, for instance, while I reshoot the whole film of you and her. She was hard-going and a drunk, jealous when sober but— but, I tell him, you don’t look out at the moving acres of that and only bother about the rubbish the tide leaves. You loved her. You killed her— or I did. You’re sorry? Me too and – and this is a bit macabre – I’m also worrying about the thing with the molecules that made up Julius Caesar’s last breath. Maybe you know it? A lesson in numbers, well probability really, and Geoffrey’s favourite tale. I bet Sara’d been taught once how, inhale and you’ve a molecule of the ex-dictator’s dying gasp in your lungs. Right now. Statistically. Those are the odds and better than Casino Pigalle ever offers. And it’ll work for anything, air, water, anything,* which means the normal sized waves breaking down there against the concrete each have a taste of my dead ancestor.
