What Becomes (8 page)

It takes a while to realise every one of us will land and not survive it. We are a tragedy waiting to happen, or a design flaw, at the very least. And that murmur in our ears before we sleep – we imagined it was blood flow, heartbeats, tinnitus – but it's not, it's the drop. It's whatever's left lashing past you, piece by piece, soaring up out of reach: minutes pulled to rags, ripped out of hours, days, weeks – it's falling.

But let's not get dragged off into that.

Not here.

Not now.

Floating is what we're here for now – not falling – today we are being sustained.

All's well.

I couldn't have a theory about puppies, rainbows, laughter. It has to be a meditation on the meaningless brevity of existence.

No days off with me.

Myself and I.

And then there's the other theory – the one about laughter.

No. Leave that one be.

But I do have a theory about laughter.

Which isn't what I want to think of here.

Shouldn't let it seep out and colour the water, taint it, change its grip.

And, then again, I can't avoid it now.

So.

Laughter. That unmistakable sign of happiness. The first time you hear it for real, kicking out of your head, that punch of sound – then you know everything at once. You've got the truth of it right there, wet against your tongue.

The warm noise curled against your tongue.

Like here.

Like now.

Adrift in the truth of something – the taint of that.

No, my mouth is empty as my mind.

No, not so.

I was older than the kid at the party when I found out about laughter. Saturday teatime in the family house, that tall and narrow house, and I'm nine. I seem to remember myself being nine, and with my friend – acquaintance, anyway. I make my pals one at a time and without enthusiasm, pick vaguely sadistic loners with an intensity about them. This isn't a pattern I wish to repeat, but occasionally I can't help it.

And I'm watching television, sitting on the floor and too close to the screen – one or other of my parents would have views about that, would express them, but they're busy. My pal is behind me and she is uncomfortable and I don't care. As of this afternoon, I hate her. By next week we will never speak again.

And I am laughing.

I am laughing more loudly than I ever have. I believe I am laughing more loudly than I ever will.

My acquaintance is not laughing.

This makes sense because we are not watching a funny programme, we are watching
Doctor Who
,
which is science fiction, children's science fiction – running about and monsters and saving the day – and the Doctor has pals and saves them, too, or they save him, or even when he dies, he doesn't quite leave them, he bounces right back looking like a different actor and everything goes on just as it was – running about and monsters and saving the day. It's very exciting but slightly frightening as well and so it doesn't often make me laugh.

But I'm laughing today. I can't stop.

When I was younger my parents would wonder aloud if the show wasn't overly worrying for me – things that were threatening walking up out of the sea, minds being taken over and running away, louping, breenjing, scared soldiers firing bullets that never worked, never prevented the bad things on the way. I wanted to watch, though. I wanted that small way of being terrified.

I am watching now and unconcerned by what I see and from upstairs, coming in through the ceiling, there are noises – not completely familiar, but I understand them. I have heard things like them before. And I am still laughing, howling, hurting my throat, and then I stand and swallow and I say, ‘Excuse me,' to my acquaintance and I walk from the room and then run, take the stairs two at a time and across the landing and there is the door to my parents' bedroom and it is locked.

I didn't know that it could lock.

This brings about a complicated adult feeling, because inside the room is my mother – I can hear her squealing sometimes, these cries – and my father is with her, hitting her again – this time he is hitting her so much that there are other sounds of impacts against the walls, or the floor, of furniture shifting, clatters – and I cannot get in to stop this, but I know that I couldn't anyway – not even if the door were open, pulled wide, and the light running up into every corner.

I don't want to see what's in there. I am glad that I'm locked out. This makes me a bad child, a bad daughter.

I hammer on the door while knowing my acquaint-ance will hear this along with all the rest which my laughing couldn't cover but at least I tried. And I don't want to be let in. I am lying with the whole of myself, pretending I've come to save her, stop him, when inside I know that I can't because I'm too frightened.

But maybe my hammering will make things better, change them.

But that's another lie. I know the way my parents are – if I hammer but I can't get in then they won't notice and nothing will be different, only more of the same. I am embarrassed for being a bad child and ashamed for turning into this lie and for going downstairs again to see my acquaintance and say, ‘Sorry about that,' in exactly the way my father and my mother tell their acquaint-ances, ‘Sorry about that,' when something unimportant has gone wrong.

I sit down and start laughing again.

I look at the screen.

And here's the Doctor with the hat and the curly hair and the great big eyes. I've always liked him. The episode when he arrived to replace the preceding Doctor, I remember being nervous and little and troubled by change. I was trying to guess if he'd be nice and all right – keeping cautious the way that I might when I get a new teacher – and it took such a lovely short time to know he could be relied upon, was fine. The Doctor does what he ought to, sorts things out. He opens doors when they need to be opened and he locks them when they should be shut and he shouts at important people who don't expect it and he makes them listen and be sensible. I'm no longer young enough to believe that he exists, but he's a good idea, entirely good, and when I'm by myself I still like to concentrate hard on the pictures that start each episode, because they haze forward and forward, seem like a tunnel to something, I don't know what, but I'm quite sure I wouldn't mind it. I would go there. I'd be brave. I have heard people talk about meditation and hypnosis and I imagine this is mine.

My acquaintance usually doesn't enjoy the show, doesn't want to talk about it on Monday mornings, has no interest in how the adventure is getting along. This is another reason to dislike her. She is also why my parents are upstairs – my father knew he could get away with this while I had company and would be trapped into being polite. I have been brought up nicely, to entertain visitors, to be caught.

And I am still laughing.

This keeps on without any effort from me and is part of the sounds of the house and not mine.

I am also staring at the screen, but can't follow the story – that's an irritation – like the way they move the programme around, so you have to check when it starts – fifteen minutes later, five earlier, you never know – and maybe the cooking smells are nagging through at me, because it's almost time for tea, but I can't go yet because it hasn't finished and I have to be near the adventures and soak up their happiness, their braveness, so I can take it in with me to the table where she'll be defenceless, so soft that it makes me angry, and he'll be complaining about the food, or asking me questions I can't quite answer. He'll be starting to build a fight and she will be in a kind of free fall and I won't feel like eating, but if I can't then that will be a problem and one more reason for an argument, because if there is something wrong with me then he will hurt her, so there can never be a single thing that's wrong with me.

I am old enough to see that I can't stand this – can't stand him as he is, or her as she is – I cannot stand this any more. But I do have to. This is clear.

It is also clear that I want to be able to shout at them, to explain, ‘There is nothing that fucking frightens me more than you, there never fucking was and never fucking will be. It's you I shouldn't have to fucking watch. And I don't want to be either of you and I know I will be both.'

Because I am old enough to fucking swear.

And I'd maybe end up laughing afterwards, I can't guess and won't find out, because I'll never shout a word at anyone – too polite.

Laughing now, though.

Before I run up to my own room – forget I should excuse myself to my acquaintance, I just leave her and go to find my little hatchet. I've started collecting hard-edged tools, pseudo-weapons. It's not as if I'll ever use them, but I do like to have them around, and I run more, out on the landing, stop at my parents' door and clatter the hatchet against it. I barely dent the wood and I am worried I will get in trouble and worried that my mother's dying, will be dead, and worried that my hatchet might hurt someone in my family.

I have a family.

There are three of us.

I hate the three of us but not enough, not yet.

Because this part of me is still waiting for everything to turn out well.

I still expect myself to save the day.

But all I do is laugh.

Which is making the sound of hurt things, who are trying not to be, falling things who are trying not to be, dying things who are trying to bounce back, looking like a different actor so that everything goes on just as before.

Which is my theory about laughter.

For what it's worth.

Which puts the poison in the water, the bad colour in the slippery dark.

You have to go and spoil things. Every time.

So change the subject.

Be elsewhere.

He mainly had dusty shoes, that Doctor – scuffed about and covered in pale dust, as if he'd been surviving, travelling all his life, as far away as he could be. I loved it when he wore the dusty shoes.

But I ought to forget more, clean things out.

Headache at the thought of so much memory, of me.

And I think that I'm crying – the water jolting in around me, the torn breath – I definitely think I may be crying – salt to salt.

I know what I'm like.

This need to be happy, to be solitary, to have someone of my own, to be brave, loved, hated, terrified, to make a family, to stay without one, to find the perfect pain.

I know.

This mess.

This awful mess.

I know.

To be rid of it, bounce back and start again.

With dusty shoes.

They would be the best thing and the safest.

Forget that I ever expected to save the day and never try again and put on my shoes and get running, get racing away.

This is all I want now – dusty shoes.

I'd be happy with that.

CONFECTIONER'S GOLD

They are both almost used to this, their tiredness. Two days now without sleeping, not even a nap since they got here.

Which was on Friday – when they got here.

It was definitely Friday and they have kept very firm about this, because in retrospect their movements are unlikely, unclear. For example, after the Friday they ran clean on through a Saturday that seemed to exist for only an hour or two – the length of a rain shower and a squabble, a slammed door – and then it became the unfamiliar Sunday which currently surrounds them, insistent and over-bright. This is obstinately Sunday and lunchtime and the pavement is unsteady as they walk. It dodges playfully underneath their feet and either shakes the man towards the woman, or else shakes them apart. They cannot decide which is more unbearable.

The man swallows and feels his throat raw after so much talking, shouting, talking. His face, eyes, scalp, plus the whole of the area where he used to think – he is sure that he used to be able to think – the whole of his head feels only weak and blunted and slightly dry. He can't tell if he's still blinking, but isn't sure if he'd be able to go without. Against the inside of his forehead, he can feel her voice – Elaine's voice – repeating his name –
Tom
– it scuffs at the bone –
Tom
– and is apparently not just his name any more, but also an accusation.

Tom is as certain as he can manage that he wants to sleep very soon and then wake up not Tom at all, not responsible, at the very least, not here. He would like to be surrendered, to admit defeat.

While Tom wonders if they ought to stop for coffee and if even that might be impossible, Elaine is at the edge of enjoying how difficult it has become to lift one foot and set it forward, hoist the other, then the same again. She finds the process fascinating.

This is strolling.

This is us strolling.

It also occurs to her that they ought to be hand in hand, herself and her man.

Two lovers strolling together.

Two relatively young people who have sex with each other strolling together.

Two very close to middle-aged people who are scared of having sex with each other strolling together.

Two people strolling.

If you over-think things, then they get away from you.

Anyway, she's almost convinced they should be reaching out for what they know, holding on while the day swims and finding comfort in themselves. But they can't do that. Not at the moment. They are no use.

She hunches her fingers in against each other – as if she might be able to hold an idea and be satisfied with that. Then she realises this will look as if she's clenching her fists – because she
is
clenching her fists – and she gives up, opens her palms to the cold again. She has no gloves because she's lost them, dropped them, set them down in a stupid place and gone away. Another mistake.