The Bricks That Built the Houses (13 page)

A few months after he’d moved in, Susan called him into the office. It was hot outside, and the air was full of other people’s sweat, evaporating off their skin as soon as they’d had the chance to exude it, and Susan’s breasts were lower down her body than usual. Hong hadn’t been in for a few days.

‘David love, I’m afraid it’s not good news. And you know how fond I am of you. We’ve worked together here the best part of two decades. Sixteen years. That’s longer than some people know their own families.’ David nodded, picked up some paperclips from the tray on the desk, fiddled with them. Susan’s eyes were damp. ‘And I really feel I’ve seen you grow, David. You’ve grown into a fine young man and it’s been a pleasure being around that growth, David. But look, times are
not so great, as I’m sure you’ve gathered. People don’t have no call for going down the old high street optician’s that can’t, no way, compete with the successful chain stores that have got money for the advertising and the designer brands and the flash machines. And the rent is just going up and up, and as much as I’m sure that’s good for someone, it ain’t no good for us, is it, David?’

David was quiet, listening. He stood still, waiting for her to finish speaking. Nothing moved, he felt as if he could feel his hair growing.

‘I don’t understand what you mean, Susan.’ His face was soft-featured and attentive. No hint of irony in him. No sarcasm, everything said as he thought it, no nuance, no hidden meanings, there was never an underlying tension, never a hint of insincerity with David. Susan cleared her throat and looked at her knee.

‘Now, I don’t want to have to do this as much as you don’t want me to have to do this.’ A pause fell on them like a duvet across a bed. She was watching him closely. He didn’t flinch.

‘I’m sorry, Susan, I don’t understand,’ he said again patiently.

‘Come on, David.’ Susan got up from her chair and walked over to him, and for the first time in sixteen years she put her arm around his shoulder, her cheek close to his cheek. She smelt of cocoa butter and rice pudding and sanitising hand wash. ‘It’s over, David,’ she said sadly. ‘We’ve got to go. Bright Eyes is closing down.’

He had all the money from the sale of the house, but nothing was stable, he recognised nothing about his life. He was learning to cook, learning to wash his own pants. He was out of the only job he’d ever had. He was giddy on terror and joy.

It was a Tuesday. He called Susan on her home phone. ‘Hi, Susan, it’s David, I want to buy Bright Eyes.’

The deal went through. Bright Eyes was his.

He threw himself into it. A new coat of paint on the walls. A new sign above the door. He polished the display cases, arranged the new lines of designer specs by roundness of shape.

On opening morning he’d arrived at the shop just after dawn. No one else was around but him and the road sweepers, it was too early even for the market men. He stood and felt the weight of the keys in his hand. He fitted them in to the lock. Felt them click into place. He turned the key, opened the door and walked into his shop.

His.

Shop.

Our shop, Mum
, he thought to himself, enjoying the smell: the lovely cleanness, not like a chemical, impersonal cleanness – but clean, like a safe place. Like somebody cared.

David hung his coat up and took off his scarf and stood there, with his hands in his trouser pockets, staring at the racks of spectacles and thinking of his mother with infinite affection. Regretting every dish he’d left on the side, every
cup of tea he hadn’t thought to make her. And he began to talk to her.

‘Oh I don’t know, Mum,’ he said. ‘Silly old day, wasn’t it, really, yesterday? Not much we can do though, is there? About that?’

He didn’t say much that was important, he just chatted absent-mindedly to the frames as he walked the broom around the spotless floor, sweeping up nothing, over and over again.

Miriam’s hands are against his cheeks, they are cool and smell of cooking and soap.

‘Don’t worry, Dave,’ she says. ‘Think about the other day, how nervous you were about me meeting your Dale, but it was lovely, wasn’t it? We all got on fine.’

He nods. It is true. David had been nervous about Miriam meeting his only son because Dale has a tendency to be big and rude. But Miriam is right, as she always seems to be, they had all got on fine.

‘Just relax,’ Miriam tells him. ‘They’ll love you. You’ll love them.’

And she touches his face and David feels the familiar orchestra striking up in his chest.

Pete looks at his mother and sees a quietness in her that he isn’t used to. No one has said anything for a few minutes. Pete
looks pointedly at his sister. Harry feels his eyes but doesn’t look up. David is staring out at everyone, smiling, trying to catch someone’s eye, pushing his glasses up his nose.

‘The chicken’s great, Mum.’

Miriam looks at Pete, grateful that someone has broken the silence.

‘Thanks, love, I just did it the way I always do. Just the usual.’

Pete smiles at her. Harry shudders inwardly.

David sees his moment. ‘So, erm, do you do much cooking then?’ He pushes his glasses up his nose.

‘I wish I did more, David,’ Pete says. ‘Can’t seem to get past beans on toast these days.’

‘Oh yes? I make a good beans on toast myself!’ David pushes his glasses up his nose again. He speaks all sentences as if they have an exclamation mark at the end. ‘I like to sprinkle some grated cheese on top! Or sometimes underneath! You know, before you pour the beans on? Makes it melt more thoroughly!’

Harry stares at David, his thinning hair combed through with gel, silvering at the edges, face like an empty bowl, gazing dumbly, wondering what else he could say about beans. She can feel her lip crawling up into a sneer. Harry’s dad is in her mind. Him and his silent, difficult ways. Him and his lofty conversation.

She feels like an impostor when she’s around Pete and her mum together. She becomes aware of everything about
her that she got from her dad. Shrunken and difficult next to her shining, rose-lipped brother.

‘Yeah, I’ve done that. I’ve put cheese on top before. It’s nice, yeah.’ Pete could be saying anything, just words. As long as words are being said then it’s fine, his mum will feel better.

Each nervous second pushes against the next one. David’s urgent eyes seek out something to remark on. Miriam breathes quietly, wonders how she can calm him down. Her eyes find his but he can’t read the gaze.

‘And how’s work, Harriet? Recruitment, isn’t it?’

She flinches as she always does when people call her Harriet. It feels like someone else’s name. A constant reminder of all she gets wrong. But her mother won’t call her Harry.
I gave you a name for a reason,
she had said.
You are my daughter after all
.

‘Yeah, that’s right, David, it is. It’s fine, thanks, trucking on. Moving up towards a more managerial role. I’m working with a good team, you know, good prospects.’ She rattles off the usual.

‘Oh, sounds great. That’s what I did, worked my way up. Best way to do it, if you ask me.’ David takes a large handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and blows his nose without breaking eye contact with Harry. Harry stares at him, unsure if this gesture is meant to be significant in a way she doesn’t understand. David finishes, puts his handkerchief away and urges Harry to keep talking with an eager smile and a slight nod of the head.

‘It’s a good job,’ Harry says, a little shaken. ‘Steady. And I can’t complain, you know, jobs are hard to find at the moment.’

‘That’s right. You’re right there. That’s very true. I think a lot of people are struggling these days to find anything at all, ain’t that right? My boy, my Dale, he’s been lucky, he works for his mother’s partner’s firm, been there since he was sixteen. Scaffolding, he does. He’s very good at it. You’re looking for work at the moment, aren’t you, Pete?’

‘I am, yeah. Well, I’m signing on,’ Pete says.

‘And what is it you’d like to do? Ideally? Your mother says you’re very bright.’

‘He is!’ Miriam smiles at Pete. ‘He’s always been a keen reader. Very bright, aren’t you, Pete?’

Harry glances at her mother. Her heart feels like it’s squashed up underneath the table leg, keeping the surface steady.

‘To be honest, Dave . . .’ Pete lets his knife and fork rest in his hands. ‘I don’t have a clue, mate. I mean, I thought I did. But now . . .’ Pete trails off, defeated.

‘Oh dear. That is a shame!’ David says cheerfully.

‘He hasn’t worked in years,’ Harry explains. ‘Thinks it’s beneath him.’

Pete narrows his eyes at Harry, protests slowly, but with feeling. ‘I don’t think it’s beneath me, I just can’t do it, I can’t do minimum wage and zero-hours contracts any more. Working all hours and still can’t make the rent, still can’t save a penny. I want a career like anyone else.’

‘Yes! A young man must have a career!’

‘I’ve been all sorts. Handyman in a hotel, I’ve worked in a shoe shop, I’ve cut ham at Asda’s meat counter, I’ve couriered packages, I’ve poured pints. I’m hardly workshy. But I’ve got a
degree
, David, in international relations of all things. I thought I wanted to go into politics, but it means nothing. It means, excuse the expression,
fuck all
. I’ve no prospects, no security. I can’t trust myself. I have no fucking future in the workplace. Look at me. I’m nearly twenty-seven, I live at home with my dad, I’m skint, I’m signing on. That’s the reality for me, David, I’m afraid.’ Pete breathes heavily, phlegm growls in his chest. Surprised at himself for the outburst.

‘Well,’ David offers, ‘things might pick up!’

Pete’s cutlery starts to rattle against the plate. He puts his knife and fork down and clenches his fists on the table top. ‘I could study more, keep going with university, but I’d need to get sponsored, I’d need full sponsorship, and there’s no way I’m bright enough or my ideas are interesting enough to get that. And for what, anyway? What’s the point of learning if it can’t put food on my table and a roof over my head? I mean, I’ve thought about teaching.’

‘I’m sure you’d be a great teacher!’ Did that sound sarcastic? He didn’t mean it to. David listens as eagerly as he can.

‘I might be one day, but right now, if I went into it, I’d be as bad as those teachers I had who I hated. You need passion for a job like that. Otherwise you’ll end up one of them.’

‘Perhaps you’d like to come and work at Bright Eyes with us?’ It fell out of his mouth before he’d realised what he was saying and he watched it fidget on the table like a frog on a hot pavement.

The first day miriam walked in, David had seen something in her, some longed-for hint of dignity he hadn’t seen since his mother passed. She was elegant, in a straightforward kind of way. She came in smiling and looking around properly as someone should, taking in the rows of neatly stacked spectacles, the colour of the carpets, the giant pair of glasses suspended above the till, the entrance to the eye-testing room, the chairs lined up outside, the framed black-and-white poster of iconic glasses-wearers, the headed notepaper on the desk by the tills that said
Bright Eyes
and had a small sketch of a pair of glasses with the right lens twinkling.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘My name is Miriam Chapel and I haven’t had a job in twenty years but I’m a fast learner. I’m committed, and I’ll do any odd job that needs doing. I’m sociable, I enjoy people’s company. I mean, I like to help people, I really do. And I’ve worn glasses all my life so I really understand how important it is that people choose the right frames. And I’m wondering if you need any help here?’

She was dressed in a grey pullover, a navy coat, dark trousers, flat shoes. Her hair was neat and soft and curled around her ears and her face was sparkling, just sparkling like that. He
smiled deeply, from the soles of his feet, beneath them, from the carpet of his shop, and he extended his hand.

‘David Fairview,’ he said. ‘Pleased to meet you. And let me tell you, first of all, what an absolute coincidence it is that you’ve come in here like this, because, look . . .’ He lifted up a piece of paper that he’d been sticking Blu-tack onto the corners of as she’d walked in. It was a
Help Wanted
notice. ‘Look!’ he said. ‘And I don’t believe in coincidence, Miriam, I don’t. I believe in signs.’ He held up the sign in his hand.

He looked at her, right in the eyes, and held her gaze and saw something so familiar and intoxicating in the colours of her iris that he felt an electricity charging through him that made him forget himself. She was smiling.

‘How strange!’ she said. ‘Isn’t that strange?’

And David, still smiling and full of electricity and looking her right in the eyes, tore up the
Help Wanted
sign and threw it in the bin.

‘You’re hired, Miriam Chapel!’ he said. ‘I like the way you carry yourself. I feel like you’d be an asset to the shop.’ He looked around, and back to her. ‘Can you start tomorrow?’

Miriam adjusted her glasses. She felt a little flustered, which was strange for her. Maybe it was something to do with the way he was staring straight into her face like that, straight into her eyes. It made her feel looked at in a way she hadn’t been looked at in a long time. For years, maybe.

‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Of course!’ She threw her hands up into the air, clapped them together and held them in front of her chin. ‘What time do we start?’

‘We start at nine thirty.’ He grinned, pushing his hair back with his fingers, pulling his stomach in.

‘Great!’ she said. ‘Wow, this is fantastic! This is the first place I’ve tried! Would you believe it? Thank you so much, David. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

They smiled and sang out their goodbyes and, as she swung through the door, her perfume wafted in the push; David smelt the freshness of the petals, the weight of the musk.

Pete chews his food slowly.

‘Thanks, David, that’s very kind, but I wouldn’t want to impose, and I’m sure something will come up.’

Silence falls, thick and heavy. Pete feels he is peeling thin layers of skin off the flesh of reality and peering at the pinkish texture underneath. Everything has been revealed in all its tender soreness.