The Light of Amsterdam (44 page)

Only the occasional small canal complete with barge or a drainage channel suggested the country they were rushing through and as Jack determinedly inserted his earphones and flicked through his playlists he couldn't help but glance at him and wondered what void had opened up again. He told himself that it was an emptiness born of teenage angst that would in time fill with things that would nurture and comfort. And there was the song in the bar to hold on to and which continued to offer the possibility of hope. But as his son reached up his hand to secure the earphone he caught the faded lattice of scratches on his wrist and he couldn't help but think of Cobain, destroyed by his pain and fear, his inability despite everything that he had to dam the widening breach inside. The shiver of that fear made him talk silently to his son and without meaning to his hand moved sideways as if underscoring his unspoken words as he said, so please, Jack, don't scare the hell out of your parents with this crap, please don't ever hurt yourself in any way, just try to be happy however hard that is and please don't think that it's glamorous or heroic or anything other than sad and a giving up. But the words were no use and all he had done was scare himself and the landscape fleeting past the window brought no relief with its flat, featureless topography that was imbued only with a sense of the year's light draining away.

A young woman walked through the carriage, her dress sloppy and unattractive and more suited to summer than winter, her bare legs streaked with an uneven fake tan that made them look as if they had been smeared by acid rain rather than the sun. She was one of the Belfast Indians and then he felt a little ashamed for his snobbish judgements because he knew she had come with Karen and he didn't want those kind of ideas to carry over to her. He had been sorry for her when she had confided her story and hoped he had conveyed that sympathy effectively because all the time she had been talking he understood how much it was costing her to tell him about the man who had deserted her. He tried to think back to it in the need to convince himself that he hadn't repaid her confidence with bland platitudes but wasn't sure. And at the end of the day he told himself that however much she had been hurt by her daughter, what she was worried about wasn't as fraught as the place they found themselves with Jack, which at regular intervals felt as if they were tottering on the edge of some abyss. Perhaps he was exaggerating, getting it all out of proportion, and they were just temporarily in the trough of a teenage wave that soon their son would crest and move steadily and safely on.

He thought too of this stranger whose path had crossed his in curious ways. He thought he liked her but wasn't sure and despite how often he told himself that he wasn't a snob he was aware that she wasn't well educated and came from a class that he had long since left. Although he tried to pretend that none of these things mattered he couldn't help being conscious that he didn't like some of the clothes she wore and her daughter and her friends were a bit of a nightmare. And anyway what gave him the right to assume that she might be interested in him? After she had told him everything in the café she had been embarrassed, made her excuses and left and he had realised that he could have been anyone willing to be the sympathetic listener. He tried unsuccessfully to catch his reflection in the glass but knew already that he was older than her, a bit worn and frayed at the edges and with declining prospects. Jack squirmed in the seat as if scratching his back. He was increasingly becoming a boy of tics and involuntary movements as if sparked by some inner electricity at curious odds with the comatose exterior. If his father ventured into some new romance and seemed to confirm the closure of his parents' relationship there was no way of telling how he would react. And anyway in his own current state of emotional confusion it would be madness for him to stumble into some new attempt at romance, the very thing that had brought him to this quandary. He was in a place and time when he needed to focus on his painting and concentrate on keeping his job.

‘I'm hungry.'

He was so far away in his own thoughts that the voice took a few seconds to register as his son's who after having spoken had turned his face full to the glass.

‘How much longer does it take?'

‘About ten minutes. We can get something to eat at the airport.' He was amazed how in terms of having his bodily needs met his son could revert to childhood in the blink of an eye without any evident consciousness of irony. These were the first words he had spoken during the journey. He had momentarily taken one earphone out.

‘So what did you think of Amsterdam?'

‘It was all right.' A positive which as he anticipated immediately needed to be countered by a negative. ‘It's not as good as New York.'

‘You've never been to New York.'

‘Everyone who has says it's class.' He put his earphones back in.

So Amsterdam wasn't as good as New York, Dylan wasn't as good as Cobain. It was fair enough, he supposed. Your father's choices could never be as good as your own – it was the natural process of life.

They were arriving at the airport now and after getting off the train they joined the queue at the escalator and although he didn't see her he clocked some of the Belfast girls at the top. One of them was carrying a pair of large red wooden clogs, another was wearing an orange Dutch football shirt; all clutched bottles of water carried, he imagined, in an attempt to dilute the alcohol swimming through their bodies. He hoped he wouldn't meet her directly or have to sit close to her on the plane, guessing that it would be embarrassing for them both. He was grateful that there was no sign of the girls at the check-in and suspected that they had got waylaid at one of the shops. He hurried Jack through security, telling him that they would get something to eat as soon as they reached the departure area.

He needed to go to the toilet first and told Jack to hold their hand luggage, pleased to see his twitch of nervousness at being left on his own, but when he returned his son was talking to Karen, nodding his head at whatever she was asking him and looking slightly embarrassed and suddenly boyish again.

 

It was Jack, standing on his own, his pale face white as paper smudged by the inky black of his clothes. He seemed nervous, even a little scared, shooting furtive glances at the people hurrying past him, even though his assumed posture was trying to suggest nonchalance, even indifference.

‘Hi Jack,' she said, ‘managed to lose your dad?'

He blushed a little colour into his face then said he was in the loo, pointing over his shoulder as if he felt the need to convince her of the truth of his statement.

‘You have a good time?' she asked, glancing over to where her daughter's friends had ensconced themselves on a row of plastic seats, the floor space round their feet suddenly awash with a debris of bags and possessions.        

‘Yes.'

‘Buy anything interesting?'

‘Just a leather jacket – I got it in a market.' He blew a wisp of hair upwards as if the conversation was taking his breath away.

‘That lot over there have bought half of Amsterdam and mostly the biggest load of junk you could ever see.'

He blinked his eyes rapidly then as he rubbed his cheek she caught the fading scratches on his wrist.

‘I don't like flying,' she said. ‘But you're
OK
, aren't you?'

He nodded and she noticed his pale blue eyes. He could be a handsome boy if he wanted. He still had two parents, two parents with money – what had he to screw himself up over? Now his father was coming but he paused to look at one of the information screens. She watched him over Jack's shoulder as he narrowed his eyes to peer at the monitor. He looked like a man who needed glasses. He hadn't registered her yet and so she told Jack she'd see him and then for some reason touched him lightly on the shoulder the way as a mother she might have touched her own child.

She found a seat at the end of the row and within a few minutes was given the job of looking after everyone's belongings while they went off to spend the last of their money. The screens told them they had to wait in the departure lounge before proceeding to their gate and she was glad because it delayed the moment when she would have to see the plane and once again be filled with alarm and confusion at how something made from the heaviness of metal could lift itself high in the air and then stay there. She told herself that the first time had to be the worst and that this return flight would be easier to endure. But she knew too that she didn't want to go home and have to go through the humiliation of the wedding, to have to share the day with someone whom the thought of having to meet almost made her feel physically sick. But it was the price she would have to pay and suddenly love felt like the worst kind of debt that would hang over her all her life and have to be repaid every single day until it bled her dry.

There were other things that she knew as well. She was going to pack in the home and try and get a job on the tills at Asda and it wasn't just because of the bracelet – something that she had to find a way of resolving – but because she'd had enough and because it was a place that always made you feel worse than you already felt. She'd seen a programme on television about
SAD
and that was what the home inflicted on her, depriving her of whatever warmth she had been able to gather in herself, not just through all the things she had to do but because every day you had to look at your own end. And would Shannon be a faithful caller, bringing her grandchildren on her regular visits? She couldn't imagine it.

There was one other thing she was certain of, and it was that she would return to this city some time in the future. Probably on her own – she knew she could do it, that there was nothing to be frightened of, apart from the plane and perhaps there was a pill she could take that would help blank out the fear. She wanted to experience it all again and this time in summer. She wanted to exist in a different life and even for a little while in her imagination live in one of those old houses in the hidden square. It was a secret she felt she shared, a good secret and one that was better even than any of the photographs on the desks she cleaned.

He was sitting with Jack several rows away facing her but far enough not to make easy eye contact. Some of the girls returned with coffees and sandwiches but none had thought to bring her anything. There was no sign of Shannon. She couldn't imagine Jack who couldn't stand straight and look her in the eye performing in the bar and she wondered if his father had made it up to make himself feel better. They didn't really resemble each other as they sat like two strangers with an empty seat between them. She wondered what his wife looked like and what had gone wrong for them. If he had been the one who cheated. Despite her determination she wondered, too, if in time enough desperation would build up to allow her to ask Marty in for the cup of coffee he was always angling for. She told herself that if she did she was finished, would have traded in whatever was left of her self-respect, but she knew nothing about the future was certain any more.

 

As always he had got them there much too early, rhyming out his motto that it was better to be safe than sorry. They had arrived even before the check-in desk was open and she begrudged the wasted time that could have been spent in the city itself. When they eventually made it through to the departure lounge they had toured the shops each on their own while the other watched their hand luggage and kept their seats. She had brought him a coffee and a croissant and as they waited she tried to tell herself that everything had slipped back into place and if nothing was ever said they could curtain it with the normal rhythms of their lives. But already there were little spaces of silence settling as they were excluded from some of the normal reflections on their trip that might otherwise have served them. Nor had either of them mentioned Judith and her coming visit, almost as if each had privately resolved not to venture outside the comfortable parameters of the familiar life they shared.

‘Would you like anything else?' she asked as he finished his coffee.

‘To be home without the trouble of getting there.'

‘Why don't you go and buy chocolate for Anka and Celina?'

‘I hadn't thought but I suppose I could. Do you think I should?'

‘Why not? Use up some of those euros you've left.'

She was glad when he ambled slowly away towards the shop and she was left on her own. Without the struggle for conversation she was able to once again itemise the most important things that needed doing in the few remaining weeks before Christmas, glad that there was so much that needed her attention. The girls from Belfast straggled by her and she smiled inwardly at their bedraggled, weary state which contrasted so much with the excited clamour they had generated on the outward journey. One of them was getting married – she couldn't remember which one now – but she wished her luck, hoped that it would bring her happiness. She remembered the boat with the wedding party, the bride in the brightest of white and flowers in her hair. Then as the boat vanished under the bridge there came in its wake a slow procession of the city's inhabitants, each one coming out of the previous night's mist like a ghost but then forming in her memory as real as the travellers scuttling past her. The shopkeeper whose family was still in Africa; the Japanese couple with whom they shared a drink; a woman standing at the top of the hotel steps and then a mother with her child; and with them the nameless, half-remembered faces of all those who ran and cycled in the park, who played with their children or walked their dogs. All of them she was leaving behind, all of them she was taking with her. And she was part of it and whatever else might be taken from her this could never be taken away. The city had given her that at least.