The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore (17 page)

After a couple of minutes, I try again, but the demons return immediately, waiting to collect. But I'm fucked if I'll deliver.

“Shit.”

I'm stuffed, but there's no way I'm closing my eyes with hell building across the backblocks of my mind.

I try to make out Andrew's sleeping figure in the dark room, and refuse to think about blood spilling from walls, and how this must always be happening but can only be seen at moments of heightened awareness. This is when a gargoyle face drifts in from a corner of the darkness, and then another and another and another. I try opening my eyes wider, but it makes no difference.

“Fuck off,” I say, and Andrew stirs in his sleep. “Shut up and fuck the hell off.”

I shut my eyes and the faces disappear… for a second or two. Snap them open to an empty room, and it stays that way a few seconds… until darkness takes shape again and again and again: demons laughing in silence, sneaking closer.

Shut.

Open.

Shut.

Open.

Shutting and opening for ten blinking minutes, until I'm too beat to care about sleeping with demons or not, and scared senseless about not waking again.

Old Lofty comes courting that night. He wants to make amends. I half-wake to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, whispering love words, still wearing the bus driver's cap and the minister's black vest and white collar, smelling of damp stone and mildew.

“I'm here,” he says. “Let me in.”

“Piss off,” I shout, lashing out with a clenched fist. My hand crumples as it connects with the cold stone of his face, but I pummel at his beak of a nose until I'm sure I've done damage. When I stop, I cry out, because it's not Old Lofty at all, but Kate.

“Kate!”

“It's alright,” she says. “It wasn't me. He stole you from me. I'm back now though.”

“Forever?”

“Forever and ever. I'll never lose you again. We have to be together. You promised you'd never give up on me, no matter what. You promised.”

“Amen.”

We tumble into making love, and it doesn't matter that Andrew's sleeping a few feet away, nor that Mum and Brian are in the next room. It doesn't even matter when our lovemaking loses its gentleness and becomes brutal, ferocious, and more to do with martyrdom and possession than love – until I recognise the incongruity of this.

“Kate?” I say, squinting through the dark at my empty pillow, and discover it hasn't been her at all. She's long gone. And the incubus is slinking off too. Bastard!

In the late morning, when I stir, I'm raw from fucking with granite. There's blood on the wall and my knuckles are split open; there's blood on the sheets and my prick stings when I try sitting up. I pull the sheets to my chin, and they smell of damp stone and mildew.

If I could dig my way out of here I would, and so I shut my eyes to dream of sleep.

TEN

I haven't allowed enough time to get to Abetsby. I know it. Stupid! Drum the steering wheel, ride the clutch. Crappy little hire car – no, the car's fine. Northampton's a snarl though; a snarl of Christmas shoppers, delivery lorries and office workers dragging themselves between mid-morning piss-up parties, and the one-way maze is a trap – a fucking labyrinth of traffic lights, designated lanes, roundabouts…

At the roundabout by the hospital, I'm forced to stay in the wrong lane by a taxi and the queue of cars behind. I'll be late if I miss this turn and have to crawl through the town centre all over again, so I indicate right, but the traffic bunches tighter, bumper-to-bumper, and the drivers stare straight ahead, pretending they can't see me. All I can do is inch forward into straddling two lanes and hold this position until the driver of a van hits his horn, waves his arms at me as if I'm the lowest form of life and lets me pull over. The car behind flashes its headlights.

Smiling through gritted teeth, I mouth my gratitude back at him, windscreen-to-windscreen: “Fuck you very much!”

Passing the hospital entrance, there's no guilt at not stopping. I'll call on my way back this afternoon.

After a twenty-minute journey across a million tons of concrete and bitumen, through a landscape that's no longer recognisable, I reach Abetsby, but that's almost the end of my story. Turning from a junction, an oncoming coach almost collects me side-on. Spam jam. The driver swerves, hits the horn and sticks a finger up. He slides open his window and shouts, “Learn to drive, moron!”

Shit, why am I doing this? Is it only to know that Kate's alright? Is it really out of concern for her, or is it all for me? Is there any part I can claim I'm doing for Elin? And what if I'm mixing something up that'll never settle again? Am I dreaming that Kate needs to be saved, simply because I want her to save me yet again? And if so, from what? Mundane middle-age? Ennui? The loss of youth? The absence of something more poetic and lyrical? The acceptance that all love is finite, without even dust and ashes left behind?

Has love aged gracelessly into obsession? Can we honestly say there's ever a distinction between the two? Is this what Kate recognised in me and escaped from all those years ago?

Life's for living, I remind myself, but what does that justify?

Anything and everything? Perhaps there's no one answer.

After starting off late, I arrive early. Too early to knock on the door, too awkward to park outside and wait, I drive down the street and leave the car close to the main road, then dawdle towards the house. My feet are silent on the pavement, and I miss the happy clatter they once kicked up along this very street.

The first thing I notice is that the old factory has a vinyl banner hanging along the wall, over where the
KETCHELL SHOES
sign once was. The banner reads:
DISCOUNT FURNITURE WAREHOUSE SALE NOW ON
. The second thing I notice is that the trees, which are leafless, haven't been pollarded in several years; they're full-crowned, which would be sure to make Kate happy. The third thing I notice are the corbel stones above each porch: a sheaf of corn, a fish swimming, a bird flying, a torch…

“She's made a cake for you,” Kate said. “It'll be alright.”

Relax, relax, relax. But I'm still not sure what I'm going to say.

Their front door has an elaborate holly wreath mounted above the letterbox. I haven't seen real holly like this in years. I knock at the door and wait.

And wait.

There's no answer, no sound within.

I knock again and the knock echoes back at me from an empty and hollow house. It's a minute to eleven. Perhaps they've decided not to see me. Perhaps they moved years ago and I've got something wrong in all of this. Then I hear footsteps on the stairs and a shadow approaches the glass of the front door.

“Tom Passmore,” I say to her dad, holding my hand out. “Thanks for letting me call.”

“Come in,” he says, and directs me down the hall.

“Thanks. Thank you.”

I recognise the smell of the house after all these years, and there's something hopeful in this: the yeasty smell of home brew, the gas fire, a scented laundry powder or fabric conditioner. But how is it these things can still be the same?

“You best give me your coat and sit yourself down,” her dad says. He points to a chair close to the heater.

I give him my coat, but remain standing.

Like the hallway, the living room is festooned with Christmas decorations: ribbons of red and yellow crêpe paper plaited together, twists of tinsel, paper bells and coloured lights. There'll be a Christmas tree in the front room.

Her mum comes through from the kitchen and says: “Hello, Tom.”

“Hello, Mrs Hainley. It's good to see you again.”

“So you live in Australia now?”

“Yes.”

“And you have a family?”

“That's right. Elin, my wife, teaches at the local primary school. We have a son, Daniel, and two girls, Tamsin and Elspeth.”

“Ah,” she says and smiles. “And they came with you, did they?”

“No, it was a last minute thing. Everything happened in a rush.”

“I see.”

“You're looking well. You're both looking well.”

“You'd probably like a hot drink. It's bitter outside. I'll put the kettle on. Will you have tea or coffee, Tom?” She places a hand on my arm as she says this, and I remember how she made me realise years ago that not all mothers are the same.

“Whatever you're having,” I say. “Don't make anything on my account.”

“It's time for our elevenses.”

Mr Hainley returns from hanging my coat somewhere and I wait until he's seated.

“How are you both?”

“We can't complain,” he says.

“Wouldn't be much point,” she adds, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “Good health's a blessing, don't you think? To be healthy and happy. We're very lucky. And you, Tom? How are you? Apart from being worried about your mother, of course.”

“Good, but jetlagged. My body clock's all over the place. I keep expecting to look out the window and see a bright summer's day. But apart from that, I'm good.”

“And the flight? How was your flight? It must take a few hours to fly from one side of the world to the other.”

“Twenty-three. But it wasn't too bad. I slept a lot – I think.”

The kettle whistle blows and Kate's dad says, “That was quick.”

“I boiled it earlier,” she tells him. “How do you like your coffee, dear?”

“White; one sugar please.”

Mr Hainley leans forward. “It's been a long while. A very long while.”

The past has been my shadow all my life. I've sought my connection to it without fully realising that it's always been attached and trailing along wherever I've gone. It shapes the way we walk through life.

Why do I realise that now?

Before I can stop myself, I say: “Twenty years or so since I was here last.”

He nods and sits back.

“Seems like yesterday though,” I add. “Of course, I met Kate a few times in London, when she was at university.”

“Ah.”

There's the clink of a spoon against a porcelain cup, the rattle of a tin. Close to, the gas fire hisses, and I avoid fully remembering lying in front of it with Kate by counting the Christmas cards on the string above their mantelpiece. Eighteen. Surely one's from her?

“Here you go, Tom,” her mum says. “Help yourself to a biscuit.”

“Be a devil and take two,” her dad says.

There's a silence that beats two moments too long and sucks me unaccountably forward until I'm spilling all my questions at once: “How is Kate? Is she okay? I thought I might drop her a line for old times' sake. Where does she live these days? What does she do? Perhaps you could give me her address?” And I'm probably the most surprised of the three of us.

Her dad sighs and her mum puts her cup down.

“Why?” he says.

“Is she well? How's she doing?”

They pause and look at one another and I fear the worst: she died shortly after I last saw her and I've spent years mourning the wrong kind of loss; or she misinterpreted my reason for abandoning her when we'd begun getting close to one another again and has spent her life despising me.

The gas fire hisses. The clock ticks.

“She's fine,” her mum says. “She'd want us to give you her regards if she knew you were here.”

“Really?” I say. “Thanks. That's nice.” But it's not enough. Not now I've come this far. Regards aren't big enough to span twenty years and link two people who once touched one another and danced to the same song. The last few days have left me needing more. If I create a silence vacuous enough then maybe they'll fill it.

The clock on the sideboard ticks, the gas fire hisses.

Mr Hainley leans forward in his chair. “What were you hoping for, Tom?”

“How is she? Is she well? Is she happy? Does she ever…” I look at the clock, I look at the gas fire. “I mean, does she have a family of her own and what does she do and where does she live? I always imagined she'd end up living abroad somewhere – on the continent.”

Her mum turns her mug. “No, she doesn't live abroad.”

“Not London? She didn't stay in London? I'd have thought she'd have had enough of London?”

“No, not London. She could never stomach the pace. And so expensive.”

“So, what's she doing with herself these days?”

The coffee cup goes down again and it's her mum's turn to lean forward. “Don't you think the past is sometimes best left alone, love? Let sleeping dogs lie, eh, for both your sakes.”

“I just want to know she's okay.”

“She is.”

“Will you be speaking with her anytime soon? On the phone perhaps?”

“Why?”

“Will you let her know I was here? Please.” I take a breath. Among the crêpe paper decorations and the balloons, there are garlands of red-berried holly above the doors and a sprig of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling. “And tell her I asked to see her, if she wants to, just to catch up for old time's sake. I'm not in Britain for long.”

For auld lang syne
.

Her father opens his mouth, but then shuts it again. Her mother says: “How old are your children, Tom? Did you say it's three children you've got? And your wife, is she Australian?”

I lift my cup to drain my coffee, but it's all gone. And I want to see what time my watch says, but I resist.

The moment the doors to the ward close behind me, the heat stifles my breath. It's an airless place this hospital, and I'm annoyed no one's considered it might actually be killing its patients.

“You don't look well,” my mother says.

“Thanks,” I say. “You're looking fine.”

“You can't bury me yet,” she replies, a tad too loud.

The woman in the next bed glares from her one unbandaged eye, as if I'd wished my mother dead… which I might have done at times, but not today.

“I can see that.” And I raise my voice too. “As I said, you're looking a lot better. It's good to see.”

She's got more colour to her face, her hair isn't as limp; there's an edge of mischief to her voice. She's better and I'm worse. The jetlag is dragging me down. And the sense too that I'm trailing something alongside me; something I can't identify and something I can't shake. I'm tired, but far beyond sleep.

“I feel better,” she says.

“Good.”

“Heaven knows why. The way they're treating me, you'd think they're trying to finish me off so they can give the bed to another customer.”

I imagine a nurse being rough with a needle or an auxiliary dropping her into a wheelchair. “What happened?”

“Today's lunch. I wouldn't feed it to a dog. In fact it probably was dog. Maybe they've got one of those foreign cooks.

I wince. “So, you didn't eat lunch?”

“I had lunch. I sent the first tray back though. Disgusting. Even during the war we did better than that. Why they give these people jobs in the first place, I'll never understand. It might be okay in their country, but…”

There are ways of not listening to this. I try closing my eyes. The world tilts a little.

“You tired?”

“A little.”

“You don't have to come and sit here, you know.”

“I know.”

She motions for me to close the curtain that separates her from her one-eyed neighbour. “Makes me feel like I'm on public display,” she pretends to whisper. And then, when I'm seated again, she says: “I appreciate you coming, Thomas. Really. It must have taken some organising. And so close to Christmas too.”

“That's alright.”

A woman coughs. A telephone rings.

“Things haven't always been easy between us, have they?”

The question stops me. For a moment I hold my breath, then shrug and try smiling, but end up looking at the bump in her bedding where her feet are. It's one thing wanting all your life to have your mother be honest and to clear the air, yet quite another to face it.

“But we were very close once, you and I, Thomas, when you were little,” she adds. “We used to have a great time together. You were such a funny little boy.”

I nod.

“Do you remember?”

I shake my head. “No, I don't think I do.”

“I didn't think you did. That's a pity. Sometimes we forget the wrong things.” She closes her eyes, then opens them a few seconds later. “It's a pity we want to remember the bad things in life rather than the good. That's human nature, I suppose. We all do it, even when we try not to.” She pauses, as if expecting me to agree or disagree, but I say nothing. “Parents sometimes make their biggest mistakes trying to do what's right for their children.”