Sottopassaggio (2 page)

In the terror of this collision he forgets to steer and as his truck piles into the curved wall of the tunnel it starts to tip and slide and scrape and he thinks he knows from other accidents he has witnessed that he will die right here right now. He feels terror then a strange silent peace as he gives up and slides into grey.

Behind that, a little white Fiat with a rain-spotted windscreen starts to skid. Inside it are two young men who, as chance would have it, are, at this very instant full of more love and hope for the future than either of them have ever experienced in their entire lives.

Cesaria Evora is incongruously singing her heart out through the car speakers, and the two men hold their breath and stare wide eyed as their car slews hopelessly towards the rear of the juggernaut, now on its side.

A split second before the moment of impact, the driver – Steve – removes his foot from the brake enabling him to steer to the left. His half of the car will be stopped dead by the huge piercing bumper of the truck while the passenger side of the car will rip and sheer and twist and fold, catapulting to safety two freak survivors of the year's worst traffic accident; his most loved possession, a saxophone and his passenger, Mark.

I don't know how I ended up in Brighton; I'm in a permanent state of surprise about it. Of course I know the events that took place, I remember the accident – or rather I remember the last time Steve looked into my eyes – before the grinding screeching wiped it all out. I remember it so vividly and with such a terrible aching pain that I feel as though my heart will stop every time I run the image through my mind.

As for the accident itself, I'm no longer sure what I remember or have dreamt, what I have been told or read in the newspaper clippings Owen, my brother, collected.

The headline I remember is,
French M-Way Pile-Up. 27 dead, Hundreds Injured
, but only one death mattered to me, and only one of the injuries. I know that could sound callous, but my heart just doesn't have space for anyone else's pain.

I know how I got from there to here as well, how I got from that unrecognisably deformed Fiat near Fréjus, to this sofa in Brighton. I know the mechanisms of humanity that dialled numbers, rushed people to the scene, cut me from the wreckage and drove us all, sirens screaming, to hospitals around the area.

Intellectually at least, I understand the unravelling of obligation, shared history and love that made Owen, my brother, leave his wife behind in Australia and fly half way around the world to sit holding my hand before scooping me up and bringing me here.

But it all seems so unexpected, so far from how things were
supposed
to be, that I am at a total loss to see how things will pan out, to see how things
can
ever pan out again.

I had a life and a job and a new boyfriend. I was supposed to hear him play saxophone, supposed to spend a dirty weekend of sex and laughter before sitting at work on a Monday morning pretty much like any other, and trying not to fall asleep at my computer screen. That's all that was supposed to happen.

So I am surprised, and my surprise is confounded by just how familiar Brighton feels, just how like Eastbourne where I grew up, it is; by how normal it feels to be sitting in this bay window, in this seaside town and to be hearing the sash windows rattling behind me as a distant seagull screams. How
obvious
it seems, to be sitting here looking at Owen opposite reading
The Guardian
.

It's all such a surprise, and so unsurprising, that I sit in numbed, stunned disbelief as I try to work out whether I am having trouble believing that I am here, or trouble believing that I was ever
there
. Did those twenty years since Owen and I last sat on opposite sofas in a seaside town really happen at all?

I open my mouth to ask him but think better of it. He's worried enough about me as it is, and, logically at least, I know the answer.

As if he has captured my thoughts Owen looks up at me and frowns.

I wonder what he is going to say to me, wonder what he will ask, how I will reply, what reassuring answer I will find to his concerned questioning.

But Owen just smiles at me. “You want a cup of tea?” he says.

I exhale. “Yes,” I reply.

The reply came a little too quickly. I sounded breathless and I realise that I am also frowning, so I force a smile.

Owen raises an eyebrow at me, shakes his head and sighs. I think he's decided that I'm taking the piss but he says nothing.

He stands and turns towards the kitchen.

I sit and stare at the spring light falling through the bay windows forming hard geometrical squares on the varnished floorboards. Particles of dust jump and float in the light, pushed by invisible currents of air.

I drift, thinking of the same squares of light on another floor in another time; a carpeted floor dusted with Lego and Meccano from the big wooden box. I can almost feel the tension in the house, the alertness that I, that we all grew up with, our hidden antennae constantly scanning the horizon for the next breach of the peace.

I pull Owen's dusty bike from the cellar and pump the tyres. The bike, which is filthy, but apparently new – the tyres still have those little rubber mould-marks on them – sits next to an equally unused ab-machine and a sprung chest expander. I grin at the idea of Owen buying this stuff.

It's another grey day. I had forgotten just how terrifyingly grey England can be, even in springtime. Out of sheer habit, not from here but from Nice, I head down to the seafront and west.

The sky and sea are a uniform grey and the seafront is quiet. A very workaday atmosphere has descended upon the town. Men in suits stride purposely, replacing the casual strollers of the weekend. I reach the pier and move onto the cycle path.

I pass the
Grand Hotel
where Margaret Thatcher was nearly bombed out of existence, and remember
actually being disappointed that she had escaped unscathed.

Opposite the Odeon, a man is painting the railings, slowly covering the faded blue with fresh paint. I smell the paint and remember when they repainted the railings of Eastbourne, remember the fuss that my parents made when they changed the colour, and I realise that these towns, Eastbourne, Brighton and Nice for that matter, are profoundly similar.

Of course working-class Eastbourne is clearly not Brighton, and gay-trendy-Brighton is clearly not poodles-and-gold Cote d'Azur, but these south-facing coastal towns, with their big facades and their pebble beaches; well there's a symmetry that cannot be denied.

I wonder just how much the destiny of a life is influenced by the desire for one's lost childhood; even Owen, I realise, lives on the seafront of south facing Melbourne, cycles along his very own east-west cycle path, halfway around the world to recreate the experience of his earliest memories.

When I get back home, Owen has returned. He's listening to classical music and leafing through a mass of paperwork spread across the dining table. He looks up as I enter and frowns.

“Hiya,” he says. “We need to talk.”

I make tea and sit opposite him. “This music's lovely,” I say. “It seems really familiar.”

Owen stares into the middle distance, still thinking about the documents before him, or searching for the name of the composer, or lost in some other reverie, I'm not sure which.

“Corelli,” he says eventually. “Dad had it,” he adds. “This very recording in fact.”

I nod. “So what do we need to talk about?” I ask.

Owen stares into the distance again, apparently lost in the music, which is swelling to a sumptuous climax.

As the music wanes he snaps back into the room and looks at me.

“I spoke to the estate agent,” he says. “About this house.”

I nod.

“The guy is coming around to do a new valuation of the house but basically everyone agrees that it's not the best time to sell right now. They all say that house prices are still rocketing and that the best place for my equity is right here.” He taps the table to show where
here
is.

I nod again and sip my tea.

“I don't want to rent it again though. It was so much hassle last time.” He looks around the room before adding, “So I guess, what I need to know is if you're going to stay here. Or are you going back?”

I open my mouth to speak, but then close it again.

“Maybe you haven't decided yet?” Owen prompts.

“Yeah …” I say.

Owen nods. “I have to get back to Melbourne,” he says.

I nod.

“I'm missing Beverley and we have that trip planned for the beginning of May,” he says.

“Trip?” I question.

Owen nods. “We've rented a camper van. We're driving along the south coast. I thought I mentioned
it.”

I shrug. “I don't think so, but yeah, that sounds great.”

I picture our father's camper van parked outside the house. Forever gleaming. Forever outside the house, always ready for the imminent, but never actually realised trip across Europe.

“So?” Owen nods at me, his eyebrows raised.

I frown at him.

“Will you be OK?” He leans across the table and stares into my eyes.

I glance away to avoid the intensity of his gaze. Since the accident expressions of love or sympathy just make me cry, and I'm exhausted with crying.

“If you need me to stay longer,” he says.

I sigh. “No, I'm fine,” I nod. “You've done so much already, I'm sorry to have …”

“No, this has been good.” Owen lifts a pile of papers from the table. “I had to deal with all this,” he says.

I nod.

“So?” Owen asks.

I realise that this is the third time he has asked the question. I look at him blankly and perform the mental equivalent of pulling straws.

“Here,” I say. My voice has an unintended aggressive quality.

Owen smiles at me, encouraging me to continue.

“I can't really think about anything else right now,” I say. “I need the space I guess.”

Owen wrinkles his brow in concern and sighs.

The music is swelling again and I can feel pressure building behind my eyes, so I force a smile and stand.

As Owen shuffles paper behind me, I stand in the window and watch the sea and think about the dozy dreamlike quality within my mind.

I once dreamt I was falling from a skyscraper and when I awoke, I was convinced that I knew something new; that I knew how it feels to fall from a skyscraper, and though it was only a dream, though it never happened, I can still remember the sickening, free-fall sensation today.

Right now, I feel as though I have dreamt my own death; I feel like I know how it feels to have died.

I feel detached from the outcomes I always worried about, detached from the endless goals I was building towards, a relationship, a good job, a home of my own … They're all gone, all irrelevant. Equally all of the options seem to fit just fine. Here or Nice, what's to choose?

I lie down on the sofa and close my eyes and listen to the rise and fall of the music and the rustle of paper behind me. The feeling of dozing while someone works nearby is reassuring and wonderful. It will be hard when Owen leaves.

As I doze I forget where I am, and then as I linger on the edge of dreams I become confused about which sofa this is and I think I am back home in my flat in Nice, and then that I am on the sofa of our childhood home. As sleep overtakes me I think that Owen, behind me, is my father.

When I open my eyes everything looks more, almost too much. Too much
like itself
.

The information from my senses seems fresh and different; everything looks a little sharper, like when I took acid.

The colours are brighter, the sounds more distinct, and the floating dust strikes me as a little more beautiful than usual, perhaps a little less usual than usual. I yawn, stretch, then sit and scratch my head.

Owen looks up from his paperwork. “Nice sleep?” he asks.

I cough. “Yep,” I say standing and heading for the door. “It was good.”

A grey Saturday morning, Owen and I alight at Victoria and trundle through the London underground with his suitcase.

We are talking about which museums I should visit after his departure and are completely unprepared when suddenly, mid-phrase, the moment is upon us; Owen must take the right hand path, I must take the left hand one. This suddenly is where the lives split. It's obvious and natural but we're not ready.

Owen looks at me shiny-eyed. “Um, I have to go this way,” he says.

It's a strange moment, and the simple division of the tunnel belies the profundity of the moment.

We were born from the same womb, shared a house, toys, and even at times a bedroom. From that simple accident our lives will forever be intertwined. We will be together, then apart, then together again, as chance and need dictate, and right now, right here, one path leads to the Piccadilly line, Heathrow airport, then Singapore and Melbourne, and the other to the Northern line, to something called, “Life in Brighton.”

It's arbitrary that I have decided to go back to Brighton, to live in Owen's house rather than return to Nice. It would seem more logical if Owen went back to his old house in Brighton, but bizarrely that life fits me too. I'm perfectly at home lying on his sofa in his lounge listening to his records.

In fact, it strikes me that any of these lives, in
Nice, Brighton or Australia would suit either of us, and I have the strangest notion that in some way our lives are not only entwined, but almost interchangeable. We are in some profound way the same thing; we are at some level a single set of desires.

We are the lives our parents accustomed us to; we are their preferences for seaside towns, their love of France, their unrealised dreams of cross continental camping trips. We are the dreams they built for themselves and also, maybe more so, we are the dreams they didn't managed to realise, the ones they saved for us, passed on through their angst as the only route to true happiness, to true self realisation. We are that vision of a shiny camper van waiting to go somewhere else, somewhere better, somewhere happier.