Cinnamon Twigs (35 page)

             
‘I had to.’

             
‘Why?’

             
‘Because there was nothing left for me. People didn’t care how hard I worked. They didn’t care about my achievements.’ I exhaled the silvery smoke and watched as it ascended like a wispy cirrus cloud.

             
‘So you’re more concerned with how people will remember you.’

             
‘Yes. No. I don’t know. There’s nothing I can do.’

             
‘And your wife?’

             
‘What about my wife?’

             
‘How will she remember you?’

             
‘I hope she’ll remember me as I was.’

             
‘When?’

             
‘Before I changed. Before I was concerned about how other people felt.’ Tears surfaced in my eyes.

             
‘You cared more about your job than her.’

             
‘I don’t know. Love is temporary.’

             
‘So is work.’

             
‘Life is short. Art lives on.’ I took another drag of my cigarette. ‘It lasts longer than life anyway.’

             
‘But you don’t think you’ll be remembered for your art?’

             
‘No, I don’t. The world is too superficial.’

             
‘Then it all seems pointless.’ Soraya brushed a strand of hair away from her forehead.

             
‘Yeah, it is. It’s futile.’

             
‘Maybe you should have concentrated more on your marriage.’

             
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘You’ve only just met me.’

             
‘I’m sorry. It must be the wine.’

             
‘No, I’m sorry. I’ve just had enough of people judging me.’

             
‘I don’t think it matters how people judge you. What matters is how you judge yourself.’

             
‘And you, how do you judge yourself?’

             
‘There’s very little to judge.’ She winked.

             
‘You’re young, smart and pretty. You have everything in front of you, a whole life left to live. Surely you’ll move away from the island one day?’

             
‘The island is all I’ve ever known. I don’t know if I could leave.’

             
‘We have to move on in life.’

             
Soraya took another sip of her wine and moved her face closer to mine. Our noses touched.

             
‘I’m not sure why. But you remind me of one of those heroes my father used to tell me about.’ She touched my cheek with a delicate finger.

             
‘What heroes?’

             
‘When I was a little girl, he used to read me bedtime stories about heroes. Stories of great battles and encounters with monsters. You remind me of a Greek king he told me about, who sat and wept on a lonely shore.’

             
She brushed her lips against mine. I moved my face away from hers and staggered over to a mirror hanging on the wall. I took it all in: the sallow skin, my sunken eyes and dimpled cheeks. I could have been inspecting Dorian Gray’s portrait, after it had endured the sins of time. I was still handsome in my own way, but my looks were definitely diminishing.

             
The first rays of morning sunshine burst through the shutters.

             
‘I think it’s time to go to bed,’ I whispered.

             
‘I think so too…’

             
I took hold of an oil lamp from the kitchen and crept upstairs.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Adulthood Games

Branches whipped my skin and the wind ran its probing fingers through my hair. As I jogged through the verdant fores
t, my nostrils open to the odorous scents of budding flowers, memories of the games I’d played as a child meandered through my mind. The thriving undergrowth grew grey, and the carpet of twigs and stones under my feet became a cobbled path. I went back to my childhood days, riding my bike Elvis through my old neighborhood. All I had to do was imagine and the bike could become any vehicle I wanted. My street could morph into different locations.

             
The tall trees were now a row of houses, casting perfect shadows on a sunshine day. Neighbors mowed their lawns and the scent of freshly cut grass sifted through the air. Cats slinked across the road, towards the thorny bushes and the railway track. I peddled hard. Elvis was a spaceship, flying me through time and space, to another world. Alien crafts fired laser beams at me, the imaginary missiles hurtling through vacuous space as I did a wheelie.

             
My mother stood by our front door with a furrowed brow, evidently wondering why I’d been riding up and down the street like a lunatic.

             
‘Your dinner’s ready,’ she said.

             
I jumped off my bike and skipped through the door.

             
Bangers and mash. My favorite! I ate my food in silence until my mother sat opposite me at the dinner table, a mug of steaming hot coffee in her hands.

             
‘Nice?’ She inhaled the steam and took a tentative sip from her mug.

             
‘Lovely as always, mum.’

             
‘You want some chips?’

             
‘Nah. Mash is enough, thanks.’

             
‘When I was a girl, we used to go to the chippy and ask for scrumpies.’

             
‘What are scrumpies?’ I raised an eyebrow.

             
‘They’re those little, hard chips you get at the bottom of the bag. Yeah, that’s what we used to call them. Scrumpies.’

             
‘How weird!’

             
‘I used to ask for them all the time. The shop owner knew me and your aunties were starving, so he gave them to us whenever we walked in there.’

             
‘Really?’ I chomped my sausages.

             
‘Yeah, so be thankful that you have a caring mother. Your grandmother hardly ever cooked for us.’

             
‘I’m very thankful.’ I grinned.

             
‘Is anybody out?’ She took another sip of her coffee.

             
‘Nope.’

             
‘Where to is Elliott?’

             
‘Gone down his granddad’s house.’

             
‘Where’s Lisa?’

             
‘She doesn’t wanna come out today.’

             
‘Oh. Why’s that?’

             
‘I think she had another argument with her dad…’

             
My mother stood up, looked into my eyes for a moment, and faded away like the tendrils of steam issuing from her coffee mug.

             
I knelt beside a stream and fixed my eyes on the distorted reflection trapped under the shallow water. My heart pounded against my chest in fierce protest. Beads of sweat ran down my forehead. I dipped my hand in the clear liquid and ran my fingers against the tiny rocks at the bottom, shattering the reflection and savoring the coolness on my skin. I was remembering what had been. What had passed. I tried to bring those minor memories to the forest. The memories that make little impact on our lives, but still make us smile when we reflect on them. Tiny fragments that come together and make us who we are.

             
‘Right, when the light goes on, you look up as if you can see heaven,’ I told Elliott.

             
I held a video camera in my one hand and a torch in the other.

             
In that newly surfaced memory, we were filming the last scene of my latest horror movie. Heaven’s portal was about to open above Elliott’s head during the happy conclusion I’d waited ages to film. No more scares. No more demons.

             
‘Action!’ I raised the torch above Elliott’s head.

             
He looked up. I cast the light on his face, sharpening his features. It looked good on camera, in grainy black and white mode. His eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped in feigned amazement.

             
That’s actually good
, I thought.

             
‘Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!’ Elliott sang Handel’s famous chorus.

             
‘Um, Elliott, what are you doing?’

             
Elliott continued to sing in a high-pitched voice, sounding like a little girl who’d just stubbed her toe and simultaneously discovered Christmas was cancelled.

             
‘Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelu -’

             
‘You’ve just ruined the most important scene in the film!’ I roared.

             
Elliott laughed uncontrollably and fell to the floor. I switched the torch off and grimaced as he rolled around, his body jerking as if he were about to spontaneously combust with the hilarity.

             
‘Hallelujah!’

             
I couldn’t help smiling.

             
‘Right, let’s try it again,’ I said when Elliott could breathe again.

             
‘C’mon, it was funny!’

             
‘Yeah, but I’m sure the public won’t find it funny when it’s shown in cinemas.’

             
‘Oh, c’mon, Daniel! It’s not going to be shown in cinemas.’

             
‘It will,’ I insisted. ‘Just you wait.’

             
‘Who would go to watch a film made by two eleven year olds with a home video camera?’

             
‘Shut up. Now, let’s try again.’

             
I stood on a small stage, a script in my hands, the evil voice of the villainous cad James Moriarty emanating from my mouth and into a microphone. Dim lights filtered through misty darkness.
Sherlock Holmes and the Geese of Christmas Past!
I had written a Christmas Special with a couple of
Act One
mates. The audience chuckled, groaned at some of the deliberately awful puns. Cringed at some of my lewd lines and the play’s seditious content. But I felt so much pride as I listened out for reactions to the passages I’d scripted. I’d learned from my mistakes, that bad review of my episode from the last series of the parody. My additions to the Special were a tad excessive. An awful lot of crude humor and visual gags to satisfy the live audience. But I’d learned what made people react. That harmony between writer and spectator. Nothing felt better. As I looked back at that evening, the giggles and titters coming from the seated silhouettes, I realized that writing was my real passion. Always had been. I could be stripped of an acting career, too old to play the characters I wanted to, stripped of directing and producing duties, but as long as I had fingers to type, or a hand to write, that’s what I’d feel most comfortable doing.

             
My recollections were interrupted by a strange gurgling sound. A creature, resembling a duck, with golden brown feathers, foraged in the water. It raised its head and gawped at me, opening its long beak and making another inappropriate noise.

             
‘What the hell are you?’

             
The creature ambled towards me, climbing out of the water and through the foliage. It pecked me on the arm.

             
‘You cheeky…’

             
It flapped its wings, spraying me with stream water.

             
I stood up and stamped my feet in a pathetic attempt to scare it away.

             
‘Bugger off!’ I growled.

             
The resolute bird stood its ground. It looked up at me and made yet another gurgling sound. I guessed by its carelessness that it was still an infant.

             
‘I give up.’ I walked away.

             
The creature followed, but it experienced difficulty with walking. It stood on its feet like a penguin and repeatedly fell over in its pursuit.