The Flask (16 page)

Running isn’t exactly an option, what with the thick wet of the snow and the surprisingly hard and uneven pavement below, but I’m still moving fast. As fast as I can. At the bottom of the cul-de-sac I pass the ice mermaid. Her proud, beautiful head and carved ice eyes watch me pass. She is intact, so the snow babies will be too.

I’m glad of my jeans and my shirt and thick fleece hoodie, but my feet are already in pain and so are my hands. The wind is managing to find the gap around my throat and send icy blasts down the front of my chest, but I just stumble on, not caring. At least the speed is helping, the stumble-running is warming my core, that space around my heart.

I pass the electricity junction box at the edge of the park. It’s still humming, though you can hardly hear it for the shouts and yells and laughter coming from the park. The park is full of brightly coloured people shrieking as they toboggan down slopes on sledges and tin trays and flattened cardboard boxes. There are mothers and fathers and tiny children all muffled up and dogs barking. One little grey dog has a series of tiny snowballs attached to all four paws which he’s trying, in vain, to bite off. I think I recognise some people from school at the top of the hill by the conker tree, though everyone is twice their normal size in ski jackets and snow boots. Closer to me, in the play park, a child is eating snow from a swing and being reprimanded.

It’s all so very ordinary.

Most people are busy with what they are doing, but some turn as I pass and one child even points, maybe because I’m stumble-running still, maybe because I don’t look dressed for the snow.

I’m soon at the bowling green. I can no longer feel my feet. I think they have joined some other body. Or maybe they’ve become part of the frozen earth; they certainly don’t seem to be mine any more. My head takes no responsibility for them. Or for my hands.

The gate of the bowling green is wide open.
No Dogs. No Ball Games
.

It doesn’t say anything about the Pavement Crack Game.

There are four dogs in the area and a huge snowball fight in progress, right at the centre of which is beach-ball-grinning Paddy. Sam is with him, and Alice. And also Em. Em is back.

Do I care?

No. I don’t care about Em or Alice. I don’t even care about Zoe who now I see is crouching, face to the ground, gathering snow. Whether Zoe’s smiling, whether she’s read the letter – it all seems totally unimportant. The only thing that matters now is the babies. Protecting them.

You can’t see the bench from the gate, so I know nothing until I turn in and pass the shivering palm tree.

There they are, snow Richie, snow Clem, just as I left them.

No, not just as I left them, they are slightly more slumped, slightly closer together, their little heads have gone crystalline.

I will sit with them all day if I have to.

All night. All day again. As long as it takes.

“Jess, is that you? Jess. Jess!” Em is coming over. “Yay – Jess!”

“Hey, what’s with the footwear, Jess?” Paddy is coming too.

“Bombs away,” shouts Zoe. Now she’s looking up, standing up, and she is smiling, widely, broadly. Grinning like a lunatic. She lobs a snowball at Paddy, which catches him right on the side of his head.

“Oi!” he yells. He’s less than an arm’s length away from me, and to retaliate, I think he’s just going to bend down and scoop snow from beneath his feet. But he doesn’t. He’s in a rush so he just leans forwards and grabs Clem’s already neatly balled head.

“No!” I scream.

But he’s already done it. He’s taken Clem’s head and he’s lobbing it at Zoe. It flies through the air, but his aim is wide and he misses her.

Zoe does her tribal victory dance. She’s stamping and yelling and whistling and GRINNING.

“No! No! NO!” I cry.

“What’s up with you?” says Paddy.

I could hit him, push him, kill him, put the whole force of my body between him and what remains of the babies. But I do nothing. I just stand there completely unable to move, staring at headless Clem and also the join. The join – the babies are still joined. Maybe that’s enough, could that be enough? It’s my game, my Pavement Crack Game, it wouldn’t be changing the rules to say, it’s the join that matters, if the join survives, then…

“Bombs away,” shouts Zoe again. And it’s coming at me this time, a huge white ball of snow flying through the air alongside Zoe’s ecstatic GRIN. I observe myself stepping aside; I do it instinctively, so as not to be hit.

So the biggest snowball in the world makes a perfect parabola over the bowling green and lands smack between the babies, right on the join.

Splitting them asunder.

I don’t know why or how I move after that. There is no part of my body I can feel, my bones are solid ice, yet I’m moving.

I brought it on myself, didn’t I? The death of Clem, of Zoe and me, of everything I’ve ever wanted. If I was looking for a message – what could be clearer? Headless Clem. Smashed-up join. If I believe in pictures and symbols and things without words, what more is there to say?

“Jess?” Someone is behind me. It isn’t Em or Alice or Paddy. They’re all still screeching in the park. “Jess. Jess!” It’s Zoe. Screeching Zoe.

Her voice just one of many because no one’s laughing any more. All the mothers and all the fathers and all the children are screeching, they’re screaming, wailing, crying, their noise like fingers down a blackboard in my ears, because there can never be any happiness.

Not now.

Not ever.

“Jess!”

“Leave me alone.”

But she doesn’t.

Haven’t we played this scene before? Jessica Walton fleeing the park pursued by her friend Zoe? And it doesn’t end well, it ends with Jess screaming:
I’ll never tell you anything ever again
. Only this time Zoe’s still coming.

“It’s over. It’s all over. Can you see that? I’ve lost, you’ve lost, the babies have lost—”

“Lost what?”

“Everything.”

The snow mermaid is still outside Bruno Teisler’s garage. It remains proud, beautiful and intact. I punch that mermaid’s head off.

“Jess?” It’s difficult to hear Zoe’s voice above the screeching, but I do hear it. It’s full of horror. And fear. “What’s got into you?”

“Go away, Zoe. Forget it. Forget everything I wrote in that letter. It’s over. Finished.”

Zoe does not go away. “What letter?” she says.

“The one I wrote last night, posted through your front door last night.”

“So what if I came out my back door this morning?”

“Did you come out your back door?”

“Why are we even having this conversation? Jess…”

“Just Go Away!”

But she’s still right by me when I arrive at my own back door. I expect to see the towering figure of Gran, but there is no Gran. Gran must be wandering the park, the streets. Gran must be saying to every passing stranger:
Have you seen my granddaughter? She’s lost. Lost. You must have seen her, she went out without shoes, without boots. Have you seen her? Have you seen her lying in the snow?

I go into the house and Zoe follows.

“Jess, please, tell me, just tell me.”

Zoe is back in my house.

“Whatever it is,” Zoe says, “we can work it out.”

We.

We
can work it out.

“Look, OK, I know I haven’t exactly been, well, oh, Jess… you know what? You scare me. You’re so wrapped up in yourself right now. I can’t get access to you any more. I don’t know who you are any more, Jess. Are you hearing me, Jess?”

I’m hearing her and the other noises, the screeching ones, they’re getting a little quieter. She’s come. She didn’t get the letter and she’s come. Anyway.

I stop running.

She puts out her hand, touches me on the shoulder.

“Jeez,” she says, “you are so cold.”

She slips off her wellies and her jacket and pushes me through to the kitchen.

“How can anyone be that cold?”

I stand there and suddenly, like Roger the Wreck, I just rattle. My teeth rattle, my bones rattle, my mind rattles and shivers go up and down my body in continuous waves.

“You’ve got to get warm,” Zoe says, and she tries to hold my hands in hers, but even the faint difference in temperature (Zoe’s hands are not warm, but they’re warmer than mine) makes me cry out with pain.

“Get those clothes off,” says Zoe. “Get those stupid socks off.”

But I can’t bend and my fingers won’t work.

She makes me lie down, right there on the kitchen floor, and she pulls at all the wet clothes and still I shiver.

“Rug,” she says. “You need a rug. Where’s a rug? No, bed. You’d be better off in bed. Or a bath. Yes, that’s it. You should go in the bath.”

I don’t resist, I just let her push me up the stairs and I sit on the bathroom stool while she runs the water. I notice I still have my underwear on, but that seems wet through too.

“Take it off,” she says, nodding at my vest and pants, and when I just continue to sit there, she comes to help me.

And then I’m naked.

Which is OK.

With Zoe.

“Get in.”

I try my toe in the water and shriek with pain.

“What is it?”

“Too hot.”

She puts her hand in the water, stirs it about. “It’s not that hot. It’s fine.” But she puts some more cold in anyway. “Maybe your body…” She doesn’t finish the sentence.

And then I get in. Then I lie in the warmish water and let my body thaw.

Tears well out of my eyes.

“Don’t cry,” says Zoe. “Why are you crying?”

And I don’t know if it’s the warmth of the water or the warmth of we, or whether it’s just my body giving up, giving in.

“I don’t know,” I say.

She sloshes some water over my belly. “It’s not about Easter, is it?” she says. “Or Paddy. It’s not about any of that stupid stuff, is it?”

I look right into her mirror eyes.

“Did you like going to the film with him?”

“With who?”

“Paddy.”

“When did I go to a film with Paddy?”

“Yesterday. When you couldn’t come with me – to the Buddhist Centre.”

“Who said I went with Paddy? I went with my cousin – Savvy. I went with the family.”

The water is lap lap lapping around my body. Or slap slap slapping. Stupid, stupid, stupid Jess. Jumping to Conclusions – that’s what Si calls it. Sensible people, says Si, do not jump to conclusions.

“Though I don’t see why I shouldn’t go with Paddy. Not if I want to.”

“No. You’re right,” I say. “You’re right, Zoe. I mean a person can love two people at the same time, right? Like just because I love Clem, doesn’t mean I’ve nothing left over for Richie, does it?”

“Huh?” Zoe stares at me. “I’m not sure where love comes into this. Not with me and Paddy, anyway. I mean, he’s a laugh, he’s fun to have around but… well, if I wanted to go to see a film, I’d probably rather go with you.”

“With me?”

“Yes, with you, stupid.”

Water slaps about me.

“And just for the record,” continues Zoe, “I didn’t tell Paddy about the babies being joined either. Alice did that.”

The water slaps some more. “Alice?” Stupid Jess repeats.

“Yes, Alice. You told Em and Em told Alice.”

How to Be Your Own Worst Enemy. Zoe is right, I’ve been so wrapped up inside my own head I’ve forgotten that other people exist, that they have lives and thoughts all of their own. I’ve blamed Zoe and hated her and all along it was just me. Jumping to conclusions. Making stuff up. They’ve always said that about me. I just make stuff up.

I think I’m sobbing now. “I’m so sorry, Zoe.”

“Well, don’t be. And stop that crying too. You have to stop, Jess. And you have to tell me what this is really all about. Please.”

She hands me some toilet tissue on which to blow my nose. And after I’ve done that, I tell her.

I tell Zoe everything.

It pours out of me like I’m some waterfall that just fell over a beautiful rock. I’m rushing and rushing to tell Zoe about the colour of the skin where the babies join and how I felt when I saw it that first ever time, and about the operation being brought forward and the light in the flask guttering and about the snow babies and the pavement crack monsters, and how that, if the snow babies ceased to exist before the op, then both boys would die.

Will die.

Temporarily, I keep back the bit about how I also chucked our friendship over my shoulder like salt, for good luck.

Zoe doesn’t laugh once, not once.

“Then that’s all right then,” she says.

“What?”

“If it’s about still existing – did you say
still exist
or
not melt
or
not be destroyed
?”

And I look at her hard, to see if she’s just humouring me. But no, there’s something intense and piercing in her eyes, as if she really wants to be in the same mad space as me, because she knows how important it is to me.

“I don’t understand,” I say. “What are you getting at?”

“Just tell me,” Zoe orders. She fumbles in her pocket and brings out her phone. “
Exist
or
not melt
?”

“I said they had to exist,” I say.

“Well, they do,” says Zoe. She flicks her phone to camera. “Look.”

I lean out of the bath. The heat is making the screen hazy. “Look,” Zoe repeats, flicking through some pictures. There’s a winter wonderland panorama of the whole park, a picture of a pink scarf tied around a bollard, a shot of Paddy sledging with Sam on a tray, a close-up of a giant snowball (“Alice and I made that,” she says), and then, finally, there are the snow babies on their bench, their little heads nestling against each other.

“I don’t believe it,” I say.

“Believe it,” says Zoe. “They exist. I captured them.” She pauses. “And do you want to know why I took the picture? Because when I first saw them, they reminded me of me and you. You know, when we were about four or five and we used to…”

“… snuggle up on a sofa together,” I say.

“Yes, and watch…”

“
The Snowman
,” we say together.

I want the moment to last for ever, but there’s something else I have a pounding need to know. I start scrambling out of the bath.

“Where are you going?”

I grab for a towel, trail along the corridor and Zoe trails after me.

“Where are you going now?”

In my room, on my bedside table, is the flask.

I’m stumble-running all over again, stretching out my warm – trembling – hands. I clutch the flask close, and look and look. Through the transparent whorls of glass the colours shine. The threads of yellowy gold, deeper now, more intense, intertwined, curled together into some light, bright mist. And there’s a seed fish swimming. No. No! Two seed fish swimming – there they are, sparking the air.

“Two!” I shout. “Look, Zoe, two!”

“Two? Two what?”

“So you’re right, you must be right. You’ve done it. They’re going to live. They’re going to be all right. The babies. Both of them. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Zoe. Thank you for ever!”

I fling my arms around her, feel my head rest a moment on her shoulder, my chest lie flush with hers, and because I am smaller than her and all curled up, my heart beat against hers.

“Thank me,” says Zoe, “or that bottle?”

Which is when I realise that there’s something I’ve left out.

“It’s a flask,” I say, and I pull away a little.

“Yes,” says Zoe, “I remember.
Big as a storm wind
,
tiny as a baby’s breath
. Right?”

“Yes.”

She raises an eyebrow, but I’ve started now and I have to go on and I want to go on. I want to share with Zoe the most difficult thing of all.

“This bottle, this flask…” I begin.

“Yes?”

“It isn’t empty.” I’m still afraid; I’m afraid of saying it out loud. “It contains something.”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t really know. I know it has something to do with Clem, because when Clem’s not well the flask howls.” I tell her about the pulsing blackness. “Or it goes very dim and defeated. Gutters.” I tell her about the flattened flame. “But that could be to do with me, because sometimes, I think, if I’m bad, the flask suffers.”

“Suffers?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re never bad,” says Zoe simply. “You haven’t got a bad bone in your body.”

“Huh?” That would be something to think about, but I don’t have time because I need to get to Rob. “It’s also got to do with this person – Rob. In fact, the flask can sing, a song called ‘For Rob’, which is really beautiful, but sad at the same time. It makes you want to cry, hard as rain, beautiful as a rainbow.”

“You’re really losing me now,” says Zoe.

I can see how ridiculous it all sounds. Especially Rob and his song. Rob who I still don’t know anything about except that he’s to do with Aunt Edie. And I haven’t even got to the fizz-heart blue and the strips of paper moonlight yet.

“I’m not explaining this very well,” I say.

But Zoe is, for once, all patience and I know how difficult it must be for her so I try harder.

“You remember,” I say, “when we were at the Buddhist Centre and Lalitavajri talked about consciousnesses and how they have to wait around and… well, sometimes I think that the thing in this flask is, um, like that.” I finish lamely.

“What?” says Zoe. “You mean – a soul?”

And so it’s her who finally says it, lays it like a jewel between us.

“Yes,” I say, relieved. “A soul. One that maybe hasn’t found its place yet.”

“You mean it missed its sex slot?”

Trust Zoe to mention that. “Sort of. Or one that just got left behind. Lost.”

“A lost soul,” says Zoe, and she’s still not laughing.

There’s a silence.

If I’m mad, she’s mad too now.

“Zoe,” I say, “will you tell me something truthfully?”

“Of course.”

I put the flask in her hands. “Tell me what you see.”

Zoe turns the flask over. And over. Just like I did the first time I ever held it.

“Well,” she says carefully, “I see a bottle, a flask, which is very beautiful really, with little silvery lines and whorls and stuff in the glass that looks like little seeds.”

“Or fish,” I say.

“Yes, or fish.”

“And are they swimming? Are two of those seed fish swimming?”

“Swimming?” says Zoe. “No, I don’t think so.”

“What about inside?”

“Inside,” says Zoe, “it’s sort of misty, but bright as well.”

“And is that misty-bright something ordinary – or not?”

“Well,” she says again, “I think it’s just the light, the way the light plays through the glass.”

“You don’t see colours?”

Zoe looks up at me. “What colours?”

“Yellow? Gold?”

“No, not really.” Zoe pauses. “But you do, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Same as you heard the howls and Rob’s song.”

“Yes.”

Another silence.

“Am I mad, Zoe?”

Zoe puts the flask down very carefully, and then she turns to me and puts her hands on my shoulders. “I think you’re extraordinary,” she says.

“That’s not the answer to the question.”

“I think it is. I think maybe some people have, I don’t know, thinner skins than other people. Feel things differently. I think you’re one of those people. Like you and music. You feel it differently from everyone else.”

“No I don’t,” I protest. “You feel just the same about dance.”

“No, I don’t actually,” says Zoe. “I dance to other people’s tunes. You – you sing stuff that comes right from deep inside you.”

“Does that mean I can spot a soul when I see one?”

“Not necessarily. But you are open to possibilities. I don’t know about this Rob, or how the flask tells you when stuff is wrong with Clem, I don’t know anything about that. But I believe you.”

She believes me.

“And I think you should believe yourself. Trust your instinct. That’s all. I can’t really say any more.”

But she has said enough.

I hug her tighter than I ever did over the Cadbury’s creme egg. This time, she hugs me back. So there we are in my bedroom – totally separate, yet joined.