A Cleansing of Souls (16 page)

“How do you mean?” replied Tom.

Karen smiled. Those teeth cannot have been real, so white and perfect were they.

“Don’t play with me, Tom,” she said, coyly, putting a manicured hand upon his thigh and leaning over. “Does she steal the covers, or do you?”

Tom didn’t know what to say. He could have listened to her voice all night. But as he looked up from the hand upon his knee, looked at that face that was now so close to his own, he saw that she could have been fifty years old. Nothing wrong with that of course – but when you're nineteen and as mixed-up as Tom, well, it can be pretty scary. Through the smoke and the gloom and the hazy vision of the drinker, she had been stunning. Her voice remained alluring and her tight top, well, it might as well not have been there at all.

As the evening progressed, there were periods where the music stopped and each guest waited for another to restart it. The room grew darker and limbs grew less and less loyal to their source. Half empty cans winged themselves on to table ledges and windowsills, perching there like colourful tin birds, only to be nudged into premature, unseemly flight by some unseen, mischievous force. Crisps and peanuts were crushed into the carpet until you couldn’t walk anywhere without feeling a crunching sensation beneath your feet.

The party was all very amiable, if a little disjointed. Occasionally, two or three women would break off into a group to talk about one of the others, who was perhaps in the bathroom or elsewhere – and they would smile wanly as their victim returned, each wondering if they would be next.

Fuelled by alcohol and gossip, the party continued until long after midnight. For some, the time went too fast, for others, too slow. For Sandy, it was definitely the latter. Each time she looked across the dark room at Tom, there he was, next to Karen, so close to her. But she didn’t notice that each time she looked away, he sought her out with pleading, longing eyes of redemption.

There is a moment when you recognise your love to be a love alone. And you know deep inside that moment will never leave you.

At last, the revellers faded away. One by one, as shadows, they slipped into the night.

Sandy had to call a taxi for Karen. She was, by the end of the party, barely able to stand even with assistance - too much water of life. Tom held her upright and guided her to the door. The following morning, she wouldn’t remember his name. Within twenty-four hours, she would have forgotten they had even met - just one more night out, one more extension of youth. Carefree. Beautiful. Lonely.

Sandy turned the lights on in the hall and the lounge. She had not been so cruel as to do it whilst Karen was still there. She looked disconsolately at the mess before her. The light seemed so bright. She felt a little sick. Her mother would have said that it was all just a part of life’s learning.

Tom went to the kitchen and started to put all the empty cans in the sagging black bin bag. Sandy watched him in silence for a moment and before he could notice her, she had wandered to her bedroom, fallen out of her clothes and slipped between the cool sheets. The soft pillow soothed her dazed head immediately. And she just slept. She didn’t dream. Just slept.

Tom had not drunk excessively during the party. The first three cans had made him feel full. He was never a lager drinker anyway and Sandy hadn’t any whisky. A solitary fourth can of warm lager had steered him through the final three hours of the night. Karen had bored him senseless with her painted smile, her inane remarks and the way she kept touching him. It was like spending the evening with some irritating mechanical doll.

But Karen had at least given him a chance to reflect. In her make up and her facile ways, he had seen in human form a part of himself. Shallow. Laughable. He saw his frailty in her eyes and his deception in her smile. And he saw how he had let himself down. With each word from those traffic light lips and each touch from those traffic light fingers, he had taken one more painful step closer to the man he truly was. He had seen himself naked. And standing now over a bin bag full of crisp packets, broken cans and empty bottles, he attempted once again to clothe himself in the raiment of dignity, gentleness and wonder. He felt shame and confusion. He felt guilt and he felt terror. In essence, he felt like Tom again.

The night fell about Big Town, a warm, tight night. The darkness would not let the sun break through. It held out, dim and stagnant. Beneath the blanket of night, people slept and thought and paced and laughed and cried. They loved and they fought and they ran and they hid. They lived and died in the night for the night is the shoulder upon which the tears of the day are bound to fall.

Let me fly above your town, just float above it and I will come into your homes and your houses, into your streets and your dreams and your lives. I will drift in and out. I will see you as you truly are. I will see it all in a single night – for I am nothing without you.

The following morning, Tom made Sandy a cup of tea. He took it into her bedroom and placed it on her bedside cabinet. He looked at her for a moment and felt his heart within him. He then left her to wake with her radio and her tea whilst he tidied the lounge. And then he tidied the kitchen. In the course of a rambling, confused evening, clarity had sought him out and possessed him once more. It all seemed so obvious now. Where once there was bitterness and cynicism, now there was humility. Where once shadows, now light. Where once Michael, now Sandy.

The eye can reflect feelings in a way that no tongue could tell. When Sandy shuffled, bewildered, into the lounge and saw Tom looking at her, she felt a warmth and a power that was overwhelming. So this is it. This is what it feels like. He moved towards her and hugged her close. He whispered into her ear, through her long dark hair, words that you and I need not know, should not know. And though she barely heard them herself, she felt their intensity.

Their feet moved in time with one another as if dancing to a slow waltz only they could hear, holding each other up. They stepped back and around until they found themselves in the bedroom. They stood a pace from one another and looked deep into eyes, into souls. Sandy reached forward and slipped off his shirt, running her long fingers down his thin, pale chest. She allowed her teddy bear dressing gown to fall from her shoulders and stood there quite still, naked before him. She was in control now. She took his trembling hands in her own and laid him down upon the bed. She closed her eyes. He closed his too.

And they wrapped themselves about and within one another in a wonderful physical embrace to which there was no end.

Little Norman could have saved the world. There was something about him that nobody could fathom. He drew you in, left you feeling intoxicated. He would look at you with those wide brown eyes of his and he would move you inside, touch your heart, your soul, your very being. He would pad around the house in his bare feet, peering into corners and books and magazines. And he would gaze through his bedroom window, standing on his bed on tiptoes, filled with rapture by all that passed before him, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. Everyone knew that Little Norman was special. That was the funny thing.

He could have saved the world.

George’s trips to Big Town had almost broken him. Each day, he took the train to find his son. He had no proof that he was there. It was just something he felt. He had lost weight and at times found breathing laborious, unnatural. When he spoke to his wife on the phone, for she was still with her sister, he sounded strange to her, old and weary. And she would put the phone down after a terrible goodbye, only to fall once more into the arms of her sister, distraught and shattered.

Tom, mate. What have you done?

At times, George thought his courage would fail him, that he would one day travel to Big Town never to return, just travel there and curl up beside the road. He had not thought of God since that first time he prayed. There were greater things to occupy his mind now.

The deprived and the despairing of Big Town through whom George walked in awe sat about fires in the night and stared into the flames that they themselves had created. Amidst the crackling light, they saw life and survival, movement and spontaneity, the orange and yellow and red and blue flames wavering, dancing their way through dark heat. Smoke swirled away into the blackness of the night, unheeded.

George saw hundreds of battered shapes. He saw battered shoes and feet poking out beneath battered cardboard sheets, shoes that had been bought so long ago. Those feet had maybe skipped down the aisle in those new shoes to be married to a sweetheart in white, had danced on that wedding night until exhaustion overtook them, twirling around and around ecstatic and burning. And now those feet can but stumble from one dirt alcove to another.

Some people had dirty sleeping bags into which they would slide without even a sound. They would just lie there, shivering beneath the hot moon. People swarmed by but saw them not. And they didn't even see right there before them the flames of flames that illuminate the tragic and the forlorn.

All this happens.

All this goes on.

This is your town.

This is my town.

Big Town.

Christine sat on the edge of Laura’s bed, watching her daughter sleep. It was so quiet in the bedroom, the only sound being the f
aint breath of the little girl beneath the soft and colourful quilt. Christine moved down to the floor and knelt beside her daughter’s head, stroking the hair gently, rhythmically, keeping it from dangling across her face, away from her sore eyes.

All around the room there were dolls on shelves and cuddly toys slumped against one another, sweet, simple and innocent; there were posters on the wall of babies in funny situations, of animals all dressed up, and of the latest pop sensation – four boys in vests. It was a child’s room. And on the low table beside Laura’s bed, there was a grinning frog; its grin so wide and so happy that you almost had to laugh yourself. Held firmly between its shiny green hands there was a sign bearing the advice – ‘SMILE: GOD LOVES YOU!’

Laura had always believed in the grinning frog. He had always cheered her up and given her hope. Sometimes, she would talk to him and she would feel better. Other times, all she needed to do was to look at him and things would not seem so bad after all. She knew with a certainty derived from innocence and faith that God did indeed love her. But if ever there was a time that she felt he didn’t, she knew the grinning frog would be there for her.

So Laura’s bedroom was bright and warm and cosy. It was the bedroom of a little girl. A child’s own room is the sanctuary to which they are able to retreat when they have been chastised and demeaned by the adult world. It is their most secret of gardens, a place of dreams.

When you lay upon her in this room, your body so absurdly large upon hers, did you drag the colourful quilt across you in a moment of shame? Did you whisper any words into her small ears or did you just go ahead and do it? Afterwards, did you dress in front of her or did you scuttle out half naked, dripping, burning? And did she scream or just lie there silent, waiting for the grinning frog to save her?

Christine picked her daughter up in her arms and held her to her heart. She just had to hold her. She kissed her forehead and she smoothed her hair. And Laura, eyes closed though still awake, shivered. She just shivered.

One Sunday every month, Sandy visited her parents for dinner. This particular Sunday, the day after the party, she asked Tom if he would like to come with her. He assented without hesitation.

Sandy’s parents lived on the north side of town, about three miles from the flat. Being a Sunday, buses were scarce, so they made the short journey by underground. And for once, the Beautiful Guitar, Tom’s very essence and innocence, stayed behind. It stood there in the corner of the room, in the middle of his heart.

The entrance to the underground station was dull and grimy. It was more like the entrance to a mine. There were bottles and empt
y cans amidst strewn pages from newspapers and pornographic magazines. And where a fruit and vegetable stall had stood the day before, just outside the entrance, there now lay a rotting collection of soiled and unwanted products. Tom took a kick at a sad cabbage on their way in and it just fell apart on impact.

The escalator was not working, so Tom and Sandy had to walk down the steep spiral steps. It wasn’t too difficult for Tom, but Sandy had some problems in her dainty shoes. By the time he had reached the bottom, she was only half way down. As he waited for her, he looked about him at the posters and the placards on the walls, walls that had been stripped back to reveal damaged plaster, blackened brick and shadows of shadows. And then he felt a sudden urge to look up towards the steps, to see Sandy from a distance, to see her as a stranger - to see her how others saw her. But by the time he turned around, she was with him once more.

As they walked together through the myriad of complex curved corridors to the platform, they became aware of a tune bouncing and skipping off the walls. The tune became clearer and louder the further they walked, a joyful, happy tune.

The source of the music was a man on the ground. He was old and grey, as if he were a direct product of the broken wall behind him and just eased his way through the crumbling plaster. He sat there, legs crossed, playing a battered mandolin. His fingers raced along the fret board as if they were madly bridging gaps, thereby holding the whole instrument together. You knew the mandolin would surely fall apart were the man to stop playing even for a moment.

Beside the mandolin man, there was a small dog. It was predominately white though it had a sizeable black inkblot of a mark on its back. The red collar around the neck was fastened to a silver chain that was in turn wrapped around the left wrist of the mandolin man. Each time the man changed chords or ran his fingers up and down the mandolin, the small dog would be jerked into the air. It would just sit there waiting for the next chord change and then it would jump at the slightest twitch of the chain, landing ready to anticipate the next chord.

The man was motionless as Tom and Sandy passed, motionless except for those manic fingers which seemed to possess a spirit all of their own, dancing and writhing so nimble and so strong. Tom and Sandy heard the sound of the train approaching and rushed around the corner to the platform. And they didn’t see the creased cardboard sign propped up against the wall beside the mandolin man upon which was written in blue chalk – ‘PLEASE HELP ME FEED MY DOG’. From an A7 to a D to a G, the small dog hurled himself into the air in joyous glee, dancing to that one, sweet, sweet tune of resignation that plays on forever.

The train screeched and crawled, wounded and bitter, into the station. There was only one other passenger in the carriage that Tom and Sandy entered. He was a young man with a rucksack that clung to his back like a dishevelled, sullen child. He leaned forward, gazing at an unfurled map, the stifled music seeping from his personal stereo in squeals of pain.

Conversation on the train was impossible; such was the incredible lurching and jolting of the carriage and the deafening clattering of the wheels upon the track. There were times when Tom felt the whole train would just topple over into one smouldering heap of iron. The windows shuddered and the door at the end of the carriage slammed against its frame over and over again.

The journey lasted ten minutes. At the top of the escalator, on the way out, Tom and Sandy were greeted by a blinding flash of sunlight that filled the exit to the station like some huge torch shining down upon them, picking them out as they rose from the deep bowels of this earth.

Outside, the street was deserted. All the shops were fronted by iron grilles, padlocks on and alarms set. A slight breeze picked up dust and dirt and other debris, nudging it into the corners. There was a smell in the air, a Sunday morning smell of stagnation, which lingered above everything.

“So where is it, then?” asked Tom.

“Just down here. Up near the end,” replied Sandy.

They continued walking down the street and all Tom could see were shops. There were no houses or flats, just all these petrified shops.

“Here we are,” said Sandy, smiling, stopping
in front of a small general store. “I’ll just go around the side and ring the bell,” she added.

While Tom waited for Sandy, he looked at the slogans that had been daubed upon the iron grille that was pulled down over the front of the shop and locked tight to the ground. Moments later, Sandy reappeared and beckoned him to come around to the side door.

Sandy’s father stood there in the doorway and smiled broadly. He was a tiny man in terms of both height and physique. His dark eyes were kind, gentle and full of charming energy; vivacity and humour embodied his entire persona. He kissed his daughter on both cheeks and shook Tom’s had firmly.

“Dad, this is my friend, Tom. I told you on the phone.”

“Yes, yes,” said her father. “That’s right, you did. Tom, Tom, Tom.”

He grinned a wide, satisfying grin and led Tom and Sandy through the door and up the narrow stairs to the flat above.

The flat, as Tom quickly discovered following a brief but enthusiastic tour, contained just three rooms. There was a bathroom, a kitchen, and a lounge that doubled as a bedroom.

Tom was introduced to Sandy’s mother who was knitting in a low armchair in the corner of the room as they entered. She was a large woman and she rose unsteadily to greet them, shaking Tom’s hand gently and looking deep into his eyes. She sat back down and put her knitting away carefully into a carrier bag beside her chair.

Sandy sat on the floor near her mother’s chair and the two of them spoke in a language Tom did not understand. But though he was unable to comprehend any of the words, he still marvelled at the fluency and proficiency of Sandy’s speech, how it flowed, how it sounded. He was soon enticed away though into a conversation with Sandy’s father whose diction was completely at odds with his swift, frenetic movements. He spoke slowly, almost painfully so, thinking long before each word. Tom found himself staring at the deep eyes and the crevices in that bony face. There was so much there. If his face were a novel, it would surely be a classic of the literary fiction genre.

“You work with my Sandjreka, Tom?”

“No. Out of town.”

“Ah. You have known Sandjreka long?”

“We went to the same school.”

“Ah.”

There was a lengthy pause as Tom trawled his mind for something meaningful to say, something entirely sensible. But he could think of nothing. Nothing came. The silence between the two of them seemed to last forever.

“Tom - come and look at this.”

Tom got up gratefully from his chair and went over to join Sandy at the bookcase that leaned precariously against the wall. She held in her hands a long, framed photograph, a wide-angled shot of all the children at Palmer’s Secondary School, taken when she and Tom were in their fourth year there. Tom gazed at it, transfixed. All those children were now a million miles away, in another world, another time. All that was left from those days now were mixed up names, faded memories and an incredible, deep feeling of longing for something that he knew was never there in the first place.

As he scoured the faces, names sprang back into his memory. Those children were all so young, so perilously young. There was Darren Elliot, the boy who limped grotesquely and was always excused from rugby. And there was Graham Parkinson, the boy who would eat a hamburger in a single bite. He was great! He would creep up behind an unsuspecting group of girls and jump out in front of them, cramming the burger and bun into his open mouth before running away like a madman. And in the back row, partially obscured, at the furthest end, was Paul Regis. They had called Paul ‘Thumper’ at school because he was just like a rabbit – timid, nervous, and wide-eyed. Tom had never spoken to him though he had probably laughed at him, ridiculed him with the others. But all that stopped the day Paul had been run over outside the school gates, on his way home after another day of being teased by everyone. Run over by a car – a rabbit to the very end. He was gone. Tom momentarily recalled the bewildering feeling of shock when it was announced in assembly the following day that Paul had been killed. That had been his first dealings with death. And it had been just a few weeks before Little Norman was due to arrive on this earth.

Sandy and Tom stood looking at the photograph, reflecting silently on the faces before them and wondering where those faces were now. Were they in work? Were they mothers and fathers themselves? Were they in prison? Were they lost, lonely, confused, satisfied, broken, content? Each child has a story, the story of its life. And I want to read them all.

There are some things too huge to comprehend, too massive to come to terms with. The passing of lost years, if you think too deeply about them, can surely break you.

And then Tom saw his own face staring back at him from the photograph - the face of a boy with the troubles of a generation in his heart; a face of grief and bitterness. And that was before Paul Regis, before Little Norman. Perhaps he had always had those feelings. Perhaps he would never lose them, but just go through events to justify them. Perhaps they had just found a new means of expression.

Music and words are beautiful.

Tom and Sandy stood there looking at the children, each seeing different things. Sandy’s father crept up behind them and, reaching up, tapped each of them simultaneously on the shoulder. He was so very small.