I scout around him, assessing the extent of the damage. My guilt only rises with each patch of exposed scalp I run my finger over. ‘Sorry about your hair,’ I say again, missing the rogue lock that always seems to make its way into his eyes.
Arthur only shrugs. ‘It’s only hair. It will grow back.’ He turns to face me and looks up through the rain to smile at me. ‘Plus, I actually don’t think I hate it.’
Slicing gently at the out-of-place strands, I brush them from his nape as they fall. ‘I was thinking about what you said, to Bruce.’ I speak quietly, confident whilst he has his back to me. He doesn’t say anything, or even move an inch, so I continue, ‘I think there is something you could do for your sister. And for Jimmy too.’
His voice is almost a whisper when it finally sounds, most of it taken by a sudden gust of wind before it reaches me. ‘You think?’
The sound of the scissor blades sliding together fills the silence that settles between us for a while until he speaks again. ‘All I have ever achieved is through nepotism. I haveno skills. I just know people who know my dad and that’s the only way I’ve ever done anything. And even then, I’ve hardly ever done a good job.’
‘And that’s exactly what you could do for them,’ I reply, meticulously trimming every hair on his head that pokes out even slightly. ‘Use your contacts for good. Use your contacts for the people who don’t have any of their own.’
‘And what? Make a film about Jimmy? Write a script about my sister? Turn them into film stars?’ His words seem filled with frustration, as though he can’t help finding his own situation pathetic.
‘Why not?’ My words finally make him turn to meet my gaze. ‘It might make people listen. Or even if it didn’t, you’d be telling the stories of people who can’t tell their own. You’re in a unique position, why not use it to help the people who can no longer help themselves?’
‘I’m not sure.’ His eyes flick down to watch the raindrops splash into the puddles that have formed across the garden. Each tiny one sends a pulse across the whole puddle, filling it one minuscule drop at a time until it covers over the path and any passers-by will have no choice but to step through it and dampen their shoes.
‘Just an idea …’ I trail off, acting nonchalant even though I can already see the film playing through my head as though it’s already sat there, pre-made, awaiting its theatrical release.
The idea hit me as soon as Bruce began talking. He has such a way of painting pictures that it didn’t take a lot of imagining. A pair of mods on their scooters, wreaking havoc on their hometown, only to be forcibly parted totake different paths. One has it all; the other lost it all. It has coming-of-age Eighties movie written all over it.
It’s the first time in too long that inspiration has actually struck. I have become so used to being this version of me that the version I wished to be for so long, and got so close to being, has been buried but never forgotten. Don’t get me wrong, home is home. Being surrounded by people who care about me, who celebrate each tiny achievement like it’s the Oscars, looking out of the window and seeing beautiful country for miles upon miles, its peaceful, safe. But I can’t help but feel like my heart is torn, wondering what if I’d stuck it out, what if I had managed to save Tommy, where could we both have been by now? I walked away from that life; I came back to what was safe. But safe wasn’t supposed to be forever. Safe was never meant to make me feel so lonely. Safe was never meant to remind me what I have lost each and every day. I’m tired of safe.
‘Erm, Beatrice?’ Arthur snaps me out of my rumination and in getting so lost inside my own head, my concentration on my scissors has wavered and I find myself taking a chunk out of the collar of his shirt.
‘Oh God, I’m so sorry.’ I brush at the fabric as if some friction would bind the fibres back together but alas, it only tugs the gash wider.
‘It’s fine.’ Arthur grasps me by the wrist and holds me back from making it even worse. ‘I’m just glad it wasn’t my jugular.’ I can’t tell if it’s rain or sweat that he wipes from his brow but he tugs my wrist with his other hand, drawing me in to sit down so close beside him that our thighs touch under the bench.
‘Thank you,’ he begins in a low voice, ‘for today.’
‘You’re thanking me?’ I stare at him in disbelief. This is the same man who turned his nose up at a bottle of water on his first day here and now a little over a week later he’s acting almost human. Plus, I’m sure that if he could actually get a good look at his hair, or lack of, he wouldn’t be thanking anyone.
‘I hadn’t realised how much I didn’t know about my own life,’ he says, sighing. ‘It’s a horrible feeling, that everyone knows more about you than you do.’
‘That’s Lincolnshire.’ I turn my slick hands over one another and pick at my cuticles. ‘You know Bill?’
‘The one who’s a bit too touchy and who seems to always be stood at his garden gate waiting for people to go past for him to moan to them about how badly the council has resurfaced the road?’
‘You’re learning quickly.’ I chuckle. ‘Yeah, that’s him. Well, he knew my school exam results before I even did. I was sixteen and he’d seen my teacher down at the Boston market. Anyway, they got talking and he somehow found out what I’d got. I reckon he told her that he was my grandad and round here that’s not hard to believe. When I came into the pub that night for my shift washing glasses, the whole lot of them knew I’d flunked French. He’s always been a busybody.’
‘You flunked French?’ Arthur raises an eyebrow.
‘On purpose of course.’ I cast him a coy sidelong glance. ‘I did it for all of my English ancestors. We won at Waterloo; I shouldn’t be getting marked on how well I can tell someone what colour my school uniform is in French.’
‘Oh yes, I see, you failed out of principle of nineteenth-century patriotism. I’m surprised you didn’t bring your cannons into the exam hall just for added effect.’
‘Who said I didn’t?’ Arthur’s smile is the widest I’ve seen it. ‘I failed food tech too.’
‘Let me guess, all in the name of feminism?’ His dimples sit so deeply that I feel the urge to lift my finger and slide it down the canyons of his cheeks.
‘Nah, I’m just a terrible cook.’ He shakes his head, his grin still pulled so tightly across his face, which I can finally see in its entirety. He has a scar on the left of his forehead that pierces into his hairline and I can’t stop myself from brushing my finger across it. The smooth skin slides under my fingertip as I trace it the whole way. Arthur replaces my hand with his and touches at the mark, as if he too is discovering it for the first time.
‘I forgot I had that.’ He smiles softly, my touch not scaring him away. ‘My sister and I were playing hide-and-seek. I must have only been about five or six, and she was a teenager, hardly a fair competition. She probably just agreed to play so she could hide from me for a while and read her book in peace, and it worked. I just remember walking in circles for a good hour before the corner of the table forced me to forfeit.’ He shakes his head with the mental image. ‘I reckon with a little bit more time I’d have won.’
The memory changes his whole mien. His eyes are bright, glassy, but not in a melancholy kind of way. In the way that he’s entirely absorbed in that moment, he is five years old again and he’s happy to be there.
‘You were close with your sister.’ My chest feels heavy as I watch that childlike look cross his face as he lives in his memories for a little longer.
