Crustaceans (7 page)

The party had begun in bright sunshine, and as the sky darkened, the pubs emptying and more people arriving, it had spilled out to the garden, on to the flat roof of the kitchen extension and down the front steps to the street. I was by then very drunk, and should have left earlier, but continued to wander from one room to the next, picking up cans where I found them, drinking whatever there was and speaking to no one, until finally, late on in the crush of the kitchen, I found myself standing with Rachel, Ruth's housemate. She smiled when she saw me, a sympathetic crease of her eyes, a tilt of her head, and I guessed they'd been talking. She smelled darkly of perfume, and the mustiness that often also clung to Ruth's clothes. We had to shout into each other's ear. Rachel's hair was thick and long and tickled my face as we talked. I felt the soft pressure of her breast on my arm. She said she didn't like parties, hadn't wanted there to be one. And I told her, Me neither, I don't know why I came, I can't stand anyone here. I slumped back on the wall, bumped into it, and Rachel said something inaudible, her gaze drifting away. I leaned closer, felt myself tipping, falling against her. Rachel gripped me under the arms. What's that? I asked her. Not even Ruth? she said. And frowning, I said, No, Ruth's gone now. I rested my head on her shoulder. She was shorter than Ruth, and much plumper, and I wrapped my arms around her, held on to her softness. The noise of the party receded, everything distant, and I was comfortable then, softly breathing. I closed my eyes, and felt the dark slowly turning, Rachel's legs against mine, her belly, and when at last she eased me away I tried clumsily to kiss her. Perhaps you ought to go home now, she said; and touching her hip, I said, Come with me. Her gaze was steady, appraising. I started to grin, and she smiled. She took hold of my hand and led me out from the kitchen, along the dark hallway. She drew me upstairs. Some girls were descending, and stood aside as we passed. Through the banisters as we climbed I saw into her bedroom, the Indian drapes on her walls, a red lampshade, her mattress. But we wouldn't go in there, already I knew that we wouldn't. She knocked on Ruth's door and let go of my hand. She guided me in. Ruth was sitting alone on the end of her bed. Her face showed no surprise. She tapped some ash into a beercan and swilled it around. She looked down at her feet. Little boy lost, Rachel said, and quietly left us.

TWELVE

The air was damp and still and I could hear a grave being filled, the slice of the shovels. Browned conker cases lay on the ground, last year's brittle leaves. A squirrel skittered through the undergrowth. It leapt on to a headstone, and from there to the trunk of a tree, spiralling upwards. The sky through the branches was vaporous and grey, and from somewhere far off came the sound of a plane, its engine booming, subsiding. I heard the rush of the ring road; I heard Bridget calling my name. She was nearer now than before. I saw the flash of her yellow cagoule, her black shiny hair. In a moment she'd find me. I stood before the grave of Emanuel Cooper and waited. He had died in 1905, aged seventy-eight, whilst Florence May – devoted wife of the above – hadn't fallen asleep until 1918. Reunited, it said.

Paul! Bridget smiled, climbing towards me; I thought I'd lost you. She patted her chest; she was breathless. I'm not lost, I told her. Eleven years old, I passed through the cemetery daily on my way to and from school. I came also at weekends, school holidays, and I remembered the inscriptions – the names and dates of the dead – as effortlessly as I recalled capital cities, chemical formulae, my times tables. I thought I knew every corner. The next stone was crusted with lichens; dark tendrils of ivy crept over it – Cornelius Tuck, whose end was peace, and Elizabeth Tuck, not dead but sleepeth. An angel, green with moss, its features dissolving, rose from a tangle of bushes nearby. Bridget removed the cap from her camera and went closer, adjusting the focus, the aperture. She wore hiking boots, thick socks. She bent her knees and leaned forward. I looked at the spread of her buttocks, and remembered how my father would touch her, standing close by her side in the kitchen. Laughing, she'd push him away with her shoulder. They seemed to be happy together. Where to now? she asked then, cringing as the plane passed above us, its roar like a furnace. I pointed the way.

We had come to visit the bust of Horace John Thirkle, amusement caterer to this city, who had died in 1915. I'd said I knew where to find him. Bridget was Irish, a student at my father's college, his girlfriend, and she was taking pictures of the modern-day Thirkles. Twice a year they erected a fair on the Racecourse at the back of our house. They wintered in caravans on the outskirts of town. Bridget had been there to see them. She had followed their trucks around the county that summer, and some of her photos were going to be shown in a gallery. My own face, pasty-white and determined, appeared at the edge of one frame. A carousel spun in the background, a blur of colour and horses and children. It looked like I was running away, though in fact she had told me to stand there, walk quickly on when she said so.

Horace Thirkle lay close to the top of the rise. I led Bridget past obelisks, shrouded urns, decapitated cherubs, and a plain four-square building in a railed enclosure, the mausoleum of Jeremiah Winter, surgeon and benefactor. The gravestones around us, weathered and tilting, were laid to no obvious grid. Brambles grew wildly, creepers and thistles, and there were beercans too, plastic carrier bags. I saw a pair of soiled underpants, and kicked over a fungus. Bridget wound on a new film as we walked. I hadn't thought she would want to take so many pictures. I was hoping for one more of myself, though I hadn't yet told her. Cautiously I asked, How many's left? and she answered, Thirty-six now, her voice gentle, distracted. She pronounced the thirty as
turty.
I nodded and said, That's him over there, and she gave a sharp sigh. Would you look at that, she said.

The bust was mounted on a plinth of black stone, four pillars around it, a roof like a temple. Twice life-size and bearded, its eyes were dark hollows, gazing out on the streets of the old town, the cathedral spire and the college. I'd seen it too often before. Down to our left was the crematorium chimney. In a few weeks, when the last leaves had fallen, the white regimented rows of the war graves would show through the trees. Half an hour earlier Bridget had paused there, and lingered too at the Garden of Remembrance, then again where the children were buried. She'd watched the paper windmills fitfully stirring, rain-bleached and dirty, and I'd thought she was going to cry, but still she had taken some photos. It was then that I'd left her. And as she peered now through her lens at the bust of Horace John Thirkle I turned and wandered away, clambered up to the old boundary wall. I found the stones of Dear Little Joe, not dead but gone before, and Precious Jemima, only sleeping. There was a woman called Ede Ede, and a man named William Hamlet Denmark. The path was narrow and cobbled and led on to an archway, a black iron gate. On the other side the graves were more recent, and orderly, the grass precincts bisected by roads, dotted with flowers. The gate creaked on its hinges as I went through.

I sat on the rim of a litter bin and zipped up my jacket. I tucked my chin under the collar. Once I had watched from this spot as a coffin was lowered. I was eight or nine then. The people had bowed their heads and leaned into each other. The priest's black cassock had flapped in a breeze. He'd tossed a handful of soil into the grave; and later, as the mourners began to disperse, a woman had stepped forward, holding her hat, and dropped some flowers after it. When the last car had departed – out through the far gates and on to the ring-road – I'd gone down to look. The soil was the colour of sand. The box was a long way below, the flowers obscuring the nameplate, and standing there at the edge I'd thought I was going to fall, tip forward. I'd thought I might jump. My hands were tingling. A green council truck was approaching – rolls of turf on the back, clattering shovels – and for no reason I knew I'd rubbed my eyes and pretended to cry. It wasn't convincing. The workmen, puzzled at first, had finally told me to scat.

I wasn't much good at crying. It wasn't something I did. If my father hit me now – a sudden sharp blow, his hand to the back of my head – I would remain stubbornly upright, and silent. I wouldn't be hurt; or wouldn't allow it to show. At school I was frequently taunted or picked on, and often drawn into fights, always certain of losing, and hardly caring. My motherlessness, it seemed, was a provocation – as was my silence, my stubbornness. I wasn't interested in games, and said very little in class. I got on with my schoolwork: I saw no other reason for being there. You're a solemn wee fella, Bridget once told me, lifting my chin with her finger. Show us your smile, she said. But of course I wouldn't – I refused – though in time, the more often she repeated it, the harder it became to stop myself grinning. Oh no, she'd say then; put it away. Get back in your shell, Paul.

She was calling me now. I got to my feet and stood where she'd see me. One Friday, a few weeks before, I had come this way with a boy called Peter Kelsey, who'd tagged along as I was walking from school. Unsure what he wanted, or why he was being so friendly, I'd shown him the war memorial, I'd shown him where my mother was buried. And he'd seemed interested. Afterwards we had gathered some conkers, filled up our satchels, and when at last I'd got home, the kitchen steamy with cooking, my father had frowned and pointed across to the clock. Late today, Paul, he'd said. I was with someone, I told him. I couldn't say
friend.
I kept that word to myself, clung to it all evening as I threaded my conkers. But the following Monday, in the noise of the playground, I found myself yanked down by my hair. Peter Kelsey walked me round in slow circles. Bent double, one arm raised to cover my face, I twisted my neck and saw a swirl of blazers and ties, the jostling bodies and grins of my classmates. Eventually a teacher had stopped it. Peter Kelsey was breathing hard. I didn't pretend to cry then, but forced out a laugh, dry and defiant. I hurled myself on to him. That was the first time I was placed on detention. I was with a friend, I told my father that evening.

All done, Bridget smiled; they can rest in peace now. Her camera poked out through her cagoule. It was starting to drizzle. She pulled up her hood and slipped a hand under my arm. Lead on, she said, and I took her down the long gravelled track that skirted the new graves, the stones dark and glossy, Cellophane wrap on the flowers, handwritten cards. Where the cemetery backed on to my school I knew of a skip, mounded with soil and branches, discarded bouquets and ribbons. It was enclosed by high hedges. I supposed it would make a good photo. Is the film finished now? I asked her. Almost, she replied, and I said nothing more. We met a single-lane road, and a sign pointing to the burial chapel, where Bridget turned left, her hand leaving my arm. Isn't it this way? she asked me. I want to show you something, I murmured, and gestured towards a border of shrubs and small trees. There were dedication plaques on the benches. My mother was lying a few yards beyond them.

The grave was tended by my grandparents, and ignored by my father. A plain white block gave her married name and her dates, and like most of the stones in that area it said she had passed away. She was not sleepeth, she was not gone before, and her end was not peace. She wasn't the devoted wife of the above. Ah, Paul, said Bridget, and motioned a sign of the cross. She tucked her hands under her arms. So this is your mum, she said, and I nodded. The noise of the traffic was louder here, the rain coming harder. I rounded my shoulders. I want a picture, I said. A picture? With the camera, I said. Bridget gave a small smile; she gazed at me softly. I'm not sure, Paul, she said; really I'm not. You took all those others, I said. And sighing, reluctant, Bridget flipped the cap from her lens. I did, she admitted; plenty of those. I crouched by the side of the stone. I reached one arm behind it. You swear you won't breathe a word to your dad? she said, and I promised I wouldn't. Then I showed her my smile, my teeth. I held the expression until she was ready, until I heard the doubled click of the shutter. It was the last shot on the film.

THIRTEEN

The Union flags on the promenade are ragged, furiously snapping. Gulls coast above them, stark against the grey sky. The snow dwindles, comes in brief flurries, and even today, in this splitting cold, the seafront cafés and giftshops are open. A few teenagers play the machines in the arcades; the noise along the main stretch is constant. Outside Majestic Amusements there's a mechanical man, his Perspex body full of small toys. He swivels his eyes as I near him. His mouth jolts open, squeaks on its hinges. His name, I remember, is Charlie.
Roll up! Roll up!
his voice crackles.
Roll up for the greatest gifts in town!
I hunch my shoulders, stand a few feet away. My image floats on the window behind him.
Hey! Can you play guitar? My name is Charlie, what's yours?
Euan! you shouted. I'm Euan!

Euan. I drop a pound coin in the slot. A plastic flower-head clunks into the tray, and I take it, though you've had one before; I can sense your disappointment. The flower is fixed to a coil of thin tubing, a black bulb on its end. It squirts water. The picture on the packet shows a clown, his face not unlike Charlie's, and as I turn to leave Charlie calls after me,
Stop! Stop! Don't go away! I'll give you another present today!
But there'll be other days; always at the seaside there are other days. I slip between the parked cars, their windscreens hooded with snow, and hurry over the road. On the beach side it's quieter, seems darker. A jogger lengthens his stride to avoid me. I hear the rasp of his breath and the soft slap of his trainers. There are bird-claws in the snow, his footprints, and I walk in the direction he's come from, past the empty themed spaces, shuttered kiosks and stalls. Overlooking the bowling green there's a red-brick pavilion and a long terrace of benches. In my pocket I have a new lighter, a half-bottle of whisky. I feel for my tobacco, close my fist around it. The benches are too damp to sit on. I shelter in a corner and roll up a cigarette. I break the seal on my bottle and drink to your birthday, and it's then that I see you; another just like you.