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Chapter 14
Upstairs at number twenty, in the kitchen, the old man is looking for his hat, he’s talking over his shoulder to his wife, he’s saying I’m sure I left it on the side have you seen it, he can’t hear her reply so he raises his voice, calling through to wherever she is, the bedroom, the bathroom.
She says I’ve got it right here, and he turns and she’s holding his hat out to him.
She says there’s no need to shout, and they catch each other’s eyes, the day she first said those words to him flashing clear again in both their minds.
The day he’d come back to her, a husband to his wife, the rain had fallen from the sky like it was God’s own washday. His kitbag was sodden and heavy, his uniform chafing wetly against his skin. The water streamed off his hair, sending thick dribbles of grease down the back of his neck, and his cigarette hung smokelessly from his lips. All the way home he’d been thinking about comfort and warmth, a pot of tea by the fire, a hot bath, a night’s sleep in sheets and blankets, but when he’d turned the last corner into this street he could only stand and look.
He’d looked at the houses, their front-room curtains all drawn and their doors all closed. He’d looked at the gardens, their small hedges all neatly trimmed, their rows of vegetables and herbs all protected from the birds by pegged lines of string. He’d seen a furl of faded bunting tangled in the top branches of the tree opposite his house, a car parked outside number seven, the railings all cut down to stumps. But there’d been no people in the street. There’d not been a crowd of cheering children waiting to meet him, waving Union Jacks and jostling round him while he handed out sweets and stockings and gum. That was not the way it was. People had not been leaning out of windows to welcome him home. There was not even a brass band marching down the middle of the street with a fat man playing a rousing tuba.
There was quiet, closed doors, a grey sky, pouring rain.
He’d stood there, on that day, and he’d called his new wife’s name. Dropped his kitbag to the floor, filled his lungs with the cold damp air, and called out her name. He’d wanted to meet her in the street, not knock on the door like a delivery boy, he’d wanted to see her running excitedly towards him. There were faces appearing at windows, but he couldn’t see her face and so he flung her name into the rain. Doors had opened, and people had hovered in their hallways, looking at him, but the door of number twenty had stayed closed and so he cupped his hands around his mouth and called and called her name, not caring what people thought, relishing the syllables of it, sending them echoing down the street.
And it had only been when he’d stopped for a long breath that she’d put her shopping bags down and said there’s no need to shout I’m right behind you and he’d turned, and they’d held each other, and it was the closest fiercest embrace they have ever had, knocking the breath out of both of them and leaving them unsteady on their feet.
They still say it to each other now, sometimes, making each other laugh, there’s no need to shout I’m right behind you they’ll say, sneaking around the other’s back, slipping a pair of arms around a waist, I’m right behind you they’ll say.
They sink back into the bed, the couple in the attic flat of number twenty-one, their breathing ragged and content, each already cleaning themself with a handful of tissues. The man looks down at his shoulder, inspecting a neat lovebite, freshly planted, beginning to sting a little, so red that it looks as though a glistening bead of blood could pop through the skin at any moment.
He touches it gently, he says I’m sorry about last night I was out of order, saying it quickly and turning away but saying it all the same. He gets out of bed, still holding a clump of tissues, and she looks up at him and says how sorry? He pulls a face at her, wrinkling his nose. A cup of tea sorry? he says, and she tips her head to one side, gazing up at him and pressing a long white finger to her cheek. Outside, down in the street, a dog barks, a door slams, the tricycle clatters along the cracked paving slabs. A cup of tea and two pieces of toast sorry? he says, and she smiles and claps her hands and says oh yes please how nice of you to offer. He smiles sarcastically at her, dropping the tissues in the bin, pulling on a pair of jeans and leaving the room.
She picks the remote control off the floor and flicks on the TV, sitting up in bed and watching someone stirring scrambled eggs and saying now back to you Anthea.
In the darkened front room of number nineteen, Anthea looks out into the sleepy eyes of a short hairless man with a very round belly. He sits forward on the sofa, hands curled around his stomach as though around a warm cup of tea, and he looks at the television and he mutters a song under his breath. He hears his two sons, the twins, they are in the kitchen and they are bothering their mother. Oh and they have so much energy he thinks to himself, and now it is the end of the summer and they have no idea what to be doing with it. It’s been a long summer he thinks, it will be good when they are back at school, it will do them good, it will tire them out a little maybe he thinks.
In the kitchen his wife slaps the hand of the older twin as it reaches up to where she is pressing out pink coconut sweets. No no no! she snaps, and it is her voice which makes him shrink away more than the passing pain of her hand. She turns and throws her frustration at the backs of her retreating sons, keep out of my way now she says, her voice loud and quick, don’t you come back in here until I’m ready for you and they disappear squealing into the front room and immediately she feels bad for her sharp words. She rubs her hand where it made contact with her son, as if trying to ease any pain he might have. She makes one of the sweets bigger than the rest, and kisses the sugar-pink taste of it before putting them in the fridge to set.
As soon as the boys bundle into the front room their father starts shaking his head and saying no no not in here, not now, your daddy is watching something okay and they press down on his legs, whining boredom and trying to spark life into him, one on either side like a pair of woodpecking bookends, going daddy daddy we’re bored there’s nothing to do there’s nothing to do.
He sighs heavily, a rumbling gust coming from somewhere far down in the roundness of his stomach, and he says boys I said not now, please, go outside and find something to do. It is a big world he says, you can never be bored in this big world he says and he looks each of them in the eye. They stand away from him and sidle out of the door.
Cricket! he calls after them as they disappear, why don’t you play cricket? and he settles back in the settee as Jamie welcomes the next guest back to the studio.
His daughter is still balancing on one foot at the other end of the street, and she sees her brothers leaping out of their front door, the older one wielding a cricket bat, the younger one swinging his arms like a dual-action spin bowler. She turns away, keeping her flamingo concentration, and she looks at the ground and she thinks about wings.
In the bathroom of number sixteen, the man with the young daughter looks at his hands, he holds them over the sink and looks at them.
They are better than they were.
The skin does not peel so much, and the colour is gradually returning. But still they are in a bad way. The scarring is hard and shiny and new-looking, swirling across his palms like smoke trapped under glass, damaged skin layered across damaged skin. He turns them over, his ruined hands, holding each side of them under the light as though admiring carved wooden artefacts. But he is not admiring. He looks for the small unharmed areas of skin, on the backs of his hands, towards the wrists, he holds them closer to his eyes, looks at the lines and the pores and the few hairs springing out. He examines the
buckles and twists of the damaged skin across his palms, the deep split running diagonally across the left palm. He peers at each of his fingertips in turn, at the marbled smoothness of them, each round tip polished and anonymous.
He stands in his bathroom with the door locked, holding his hands over the sink, looking at his hands. The hot tap is running, the water careering into the basin, steam is billowing up around his face, and he is not crying.
There is a knock at the door, a quiet knocking low on the panelled wood, and his daughter’s voice saying daddy I’m hungry now daddy can I have something? Soon okay please the man says, his voice heavy and slow, please ten minutes and I will get food okay? He waits, and he hears that she has not gone away. Please lovey he says, ten minutes okay? and he hears small steps taking her back to her room, and he closes his eyes for a moment but he does not cry. He turns off the tap and watches the water swirl and still, watches the steam skidding across the surface. He hears boys playing in the street, he hears a mother call a child’s name. He takes a bottle from the open cabinet above the sink and drips iodine into the water, the drops falling like bombs beneath the surface, the inky stings spreading and staining the water, and then he lowers his cupped hands, holding his breath, pushing them beneath the surface, like the sinking of two upturned boats. And the sharp hurt of it makes him clench his teeth, curl his toes, it makes the breath from his nose hiss like the stutters from a steam-engine pressure valve but he keeps his hands there. He keeps his hands there until the clawing pain settles to a throb and he can breathe again and unclench his teeth again and he can begin to stroke the skin of his left hand with the fingers of his right, the skin of his right hand with the fingers of his left.
Outside, the sound of a tennis ball bouncing in the road, a cricket bat banging against the tarmac, boys shouting, music passing in a car with a heartbeat thump.
He follows the contours of each scar under the water, pressing lightly, pressing as hard as he can bear, trying to soften and ease the skin, trying to massage the flesh back into shape. He watches the colour changing as the heat of the water soaks through, flushing and fading under the pressure of his printless fingers, the blood struggling to follow his touch.
He lifts his hands up into the air, the inky water dripping off them into the sink, and his hands are clean but they are not healed. They are still ruined and useless. He pats them against a towel, careful not to rub the roughness against his skin, waves them through the air until they are dry, reaches up to put the bottle of iodine back into the cabinet. As he closes the cabinet door, a mirror swings into sight and flings him an unwanted glimpse of his face, the sagging mask of it, the familiar wrinkles and twists which mark the face that is not his face. And he looks away, and he opens the bathroom door, and his daughter stands there looking at him.
She says daddy does it hurt?
He says yes my love, it does hurt but it is okay, and he smiles, a small hard crack of a smile, and his voice is thick with it. He touches her on the head, carefully, and he says some food now okay? and she says yay and clatters down the stairs ahead of him.
