Always the Sun (22 page)

Bill smiled. His eyes sparkled pleasantly. Sam found his grip, strong and restrained, oddly reassuring.

Sam said, ‘I hear you share a tattooist.’

Bill stepped back and put his head at an angle.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘You hear that, do you?’

Bill looked at Frank.

There was a long, still moment.

‘It was a joke,’ said Frank.

‘I’ll bet it was,’ said Bill. ‘You cheeky monkey.’

His eyes were dead in his face.

The moment passed. Bill smiled again, and it was like the sun coming out. He turned that inclusive, intimate grin on Sam and said, ‘I was sorry to hear about your trouble.’

Phil came strolling back, his hands buried in his pockets.

‘Thank you,’ said Sam.

‘And Carnie Frank here tells me you’d like something done about it.’

Sam hesitated.

‘Listen,’ said Bill, pleasantly. ‘You’ve come here today because you’ve already made a decision.’

Sam lowered his eyes.

‘I’m sorry if I cut to the chase,’ said Bill. ‘But this is my day off.’

Sam looked around.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Right. I’m sorry. I thought you
lived
here.’

Bill examined the vast horizon, the unbroken forests stretching away in all directions.

‘Good God no,’ he said. ‘I’m not one for the country. I just pay the occasional visit. For the constitution.’

Sam nodded, as though he understood. He had the peculiar impression that Bill was far, far older than he appeared.

Bill came closer. Sam could feel his force field.

‘I never had children,’ said Bill. ‘Never needed them. But I understand a father’s love.’

Sam said nothing.

Bill looked at him.

He said, ‘And you love your boy? Jamie, is it?’

‘Yes,’ said Sam.

Alongside him, Unka Frank shuffled, uncomfortable.

Bill smiled, fascinated.

‘And is it a fierce thing, that love?’

Sam blinked.

‘Yes,’ he said.

Nobody spoke. Sam watched a murder of crows describe a loose spiral in the air.

Bill said, ‘All right then.’

Sam hesitated, fearing that he didn’t understand. But the meeting was over. Bill turned his back and wandered towards the frame, to get his gun. He paused on the way, to sip champagne.

Phil took Sam by the elbow and guided him back towards the canopy of trees. Without speaking, the three of them made their way back down to the clearing where the cars were parked. Halfway down, Phil lost his footing. They watched him toboggan on his arse, smearing his trousers with a broad, muddy stripe. He stood up and, disgusted, dusted himself down.

He said, ‘Fucking typical.’

Sam and Unka Frank waited, without looking at each other, while Phil collected himself.

When they reached the cars, Phil opened the boot of the Aston Martin and took out a suit-holder. He laid it on the low roof-of the car and unzipped it. Inside was a clean, pressed suit identical to the one he wore.

Loosening his belt, he said, ‘I told you he’d be in a good mood.’

Unka Frank touched an index finger to the brim of his Stetson.

He said, ‘Nice one, Phil.’

Phil looked distracted. He was pulling his belt free of its loops.

‘No problem,’ he said. He placed the belt in a coil on the roof of the car and began to remove his trousers. Then he stood in jacket, shirt, tie, socks and shoes and held the muddy trousers up to the sun. His legs were white and hairy.

‘Look at that,’ he said.

Frank tutted and nodded his head.

‘Bad news,’ he said.

‘Do you know how much this
cost
?’

‘No,’ said Frank.

‘Well,’ said Phil, ‘I didn’t buy it at M&S, if you know what I mean. We can’t all be New Age travellers, mate.’

Frank chuckled.

He said, ‘I’ll see you in a bit, then.’

‘Yeah,’ said Phil. ‘See you, then.’

Frank beckoned Sam to get in the car. He remained silent until they reached the gates, which swung slowly open on creaky hinges, allowing them access to the public, if empty, highway.

Then Sam said, ‘What the fuck was
that
all about?’

Frank shrugged. He was chewing the beard that sprouted beneath his lower lip.

He said, ‘I think he wanted to see if he liked you.’

‘If he
liked
me? What does that have to do with it?’

Frank shrugged.

‘He’s that kind of bloke.’

‘What kind of bloke,’ said Sam, ‘exactly?’

‘The kind of bloke,’ said Frank, ‘whose tattoos you don’t mention.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Sam. ‘I was just being friendly. I didn’t even see any tattoos.’

‘That’s not the bloody point,’ said Frank. ‘Jesus Christ. Didn’t I ask you to be careful what you said?’

Sam watched the blue sky flickering through the leaves overhead.

Quietly, he said, ‘You’re really scared of this man, aren’t you?’

‘Too bloody right I’m scared of him,’ said Frank. ‘And so should you be.’

They arrived at a junction. There was no traffic, but Frank paused there anyway. He took a series of slow, deep breaths.

‘Anyway,’ he said, turning right. ‘No harm done. He liked you. Let that be an end to it.’

Sam lit a cigarette. His hands were shaking.

He said, ‘So, what happens now?’

‘They’ll call you,’ said Frank.

He put on another tape. They didn’t speak again until they were back at Balaarat Street.

18

On Monday, Sam took delivery of the Chrysler.

Jamie saw the shining globular form hunkered down behind the hedge. He ran from the house. He was in the passenger seat, pushing buttons, before Sam had signed the delivery chit. Then he joined Jamie in the front seat. They looked at the empty road, hooking away from them.

Jamie said, ‘Can I drive it?’

‘No.’

‘Go on. Let me.’

‘You can’t.’

‘Yes, I can.’

‘How?’

‘I’ve watched you do it.’

‘It’s not as easy as it looks.’

Jamie sighed.

‘There’s the brake,’ he said, ‘and there’s the clutch. And there’s the accelerator.’

‘There’s more to it than that.’

‘Like what?’

Sam looked inside the glove compartment. Then he adjusted the driver’s seating position. He toyed with the steering wheel.

He said, ‘Do you fancy going somewhere?’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know. Let’s go for a drive.’

‘Where to?’

‘Surprise. Go and pack.’

‘Don’t you need to?’

‘Need to what?’

‘Pack.’

‘Look behind the sofa.’

Sam had already booked them a room in a seaside hotel, and he’d packed an overnight bag the day before. It was hidden behind the sofa. While Jamie went in to pack, Sam flicked through the driver’s manual. His eyes slid down the words without purchase. He put the manual back in the glove compartment and searched for the indicators, the windscreen wipers, the horn. He looked up to see Jamie lugging both their bags down the garden path.

They drove with the windows open and the radio on, hardly bothering to speak. Sometimes, Jamie passed comment on the car’s performance and Sam’s occasional slips—several times he forgot where the indicators were, and twice he stalled at a junction. They both cheered when they saw the first distant sliver of ocean, glinting like a knife on the horizon.

Sam had booked them into a white-washed bed and breakfast hotel. It stood on a hill that dipped steeply into the cobbled centre of town. The day was at its highest and they were lazy with the baked heat of the car’s interior. Sam parked up and registered them at the desk. They ascended the musty stairs and dumped their bags at the foot of two monastically taut single beds, and went straight out. They lingered in the narrow streets, window shopping at rather baroque tourist shops. Sam bought them each a pair of sunglasses, cheap Rayban copies, and a Cornetto. They sat on the sea wall and watched fishing boats bob on the receding tide.

‘So,’ said Sam. ‘How are you feeling?’

Jamie shrugged and took a bite from the last quarter of his ice cream.

‘Are you feeling any better?’

Another shrug.

Sam put his hands down behind him, taking his weight. He kicked his heels against the wall.

‘You’re going to have to think about going back, pretty soon.’

They watched a flock of gulls gathering in the sky. Individual birds broke away and dived, white and silver flashes. Others crowded and cawed at a faded boat chugging in against the tide. Sunlight reflected on broken water. A low bank of cloud lay on the horizon, coloured like the gulls.

‘How do you feel about that?’

‘About what? Going back?’

‘Yeah.’

Jamie dropped the ice cream’s wrapper. It went helicoptering down, landing in the shallow, oily water that lapped at the slick harbour wall.

‘Don’t know.’

They watched the birds.

‘You don’t have to.’

‘Don’t have to what?’

‘Go back.’

Jamie brushed the hair from his eyes. The wind ballooned his jacket.

‘I’ve got to go somewhere,’ he said.

‘Somewhere, yes. But not back there. Not if you don’t want to.’

Jamie hugged his knees.

‘Everywhere’s the same,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

Sam wanted to answer him, but no answer presented itself. He laid a hand on Jamie’s back, between his shoulders. He felt the delicate, bony knobs of his spine.

He said, ‘Do you like the car?’

Still hugging his knees, Jamie grabbed the scuffed suede toes of his trainers and rocked on the fulcrum of his coccyx.

‘It’s great,’ he said, without looking up from the water.

Two days later, Sam went back to work. He was about to leave for home after finishing his Thursday shift when his mobile rang in his briefcase. He dug for it urgently, fearing an emergency.

‘Hello?’ he said.

‘Sam?’

‘Yes?’

‘Phil.’

‘Phil?’

‘Phil. We met.’

There was a pause.

‘In the
country
,’
said Phil.

‘Oh,’ said Sam.

He turned away and cupped the phone close to his mouth, like a soldier lighting a cigarette.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ said Phil. ‘Six-thirty a.m.’

‘Look,’ said Sam. ‘I’m not too sure about this. You know.’

‘No,’ said Phil. ‘I don’t know.’

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose.

He said, ‘Where do I meet you?’

When Phil had finished issuing instructions, Sam gathered his things and walked to the car, the Batmobile shape in the gathering darkness. He didn’t imagine that Dave Hooper was squatting like a troll behind the cars and in the corners. Instead, he imagined Dave Hooper at home, in front of the TV with a beer in his hand.

Without making a conscious decision, he consulted the
A-Z
that he kept, new and unused, in the glove compartment. He kept it there for much the same reason that one might bake bread in a new house. On the way home, he took a detour and parked outside Dave Hooper’s house. The street was quiet and narrow. Cars were parked half on the pavement. Sam had to double-park. He crossed his forearms on the steering wheel and stared at Dave Hooper’s house. It was much the same as the houses either side of it. Much the same as Mel’s, and Janet’s.

Much the same as the house Sam had grown up in. There was a scrap of front garden, bordered by a low hedge. The lights were on in every room.

He sat there for perhaps an hour, without knowing what he was waiting for. The Hoopers didn’t reward him with as much as a shadow passing across a window. Possibly nobody was home.

Eventually, he turned the key in the ignition and pulled away. There was no movement in the Hooper household. The combination of illumination and stillness was eerie. He glanced in the rearview mirror, as if looking for a passenger on the back seat.

He took a second detour, this time past Mel’s house. Again, all the lights were on. He thought about calling her—
Where are you? Outside. In the car.—
she would laugh and invite him in. Or perhaps she would be afraid the neighbours would see, and draw the wrong conclusion. For the same reason, he didn’t want to be seen staring at his sister’s house, disconsolate as a lover, so he stayed for only a moment. But he had the strong impression that Mel’s house too was empty. Then it seemed to him that all the houses on the estate were empty, and all the houses in the city beyond it. The city spread, a patchwork of hills and roads and rivers and estates, to every horizon. It was empty of all life, except the foxes and the rats and the pigeons. Houses stared at him as he passed. Only he and Jamie remained, and their memory of Justine. And he knew that even that connection was insubstantial and fading fast. It wasn’t enough to keep them together. Whatever joined them was dissolving. Soon it would rupture and they would fall separately into different worlds. Perhaps it had already happened and only Jamie knew it. Perhaps that accounted for the pitying looks Sam sometimes caught coming from his son’s direction. The mildness of that pity was terrible and debilitating. Jamie looking at him as if something were over.

Sam thought he was vanishing.

He walked to the door, trying not to panic. The key turned in the lock without noise. He rolled into the living room as if on castors. Jamie was watching TV and eating a tub of Cherry Garcia. He barely looked up.

‘You’re late,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ said Sam. ‘Sorry. Stuff to do.’

The explanation could hardly have been less necessary. Jamie’s eyes flicked back to the television.

Sam lay all night with a portable radio close to his ear, an indistinct, ghostly murmur that lulled him into a state that was not sleep but was not quite consciousness either. He rose, exhausted, while it was still dark. He stood before his wardrobe and wondered what he should wear.

The absurdity of the thought made him catch his breath, and stifle a giggle. He selected clothes that would not draw attention, but which could be easily discarded without their absence being noted: an old pair of jeans, through at the knee, a cashmere sweater gone raggedy at the cuffs. (The sweater was a gift from Diane, his mother-in-law. But it was an unflattering beige and clung too tight to his belly and the rolls beneath his armpits. Like all big men, he showed the fat easily.)

He splashed cold water on his face and made a pretence of cleaning his teeth. Then he vomited up a yolky green bile. He sat on the lavatory, shuddering, while the nausea passed. The feeling was familiar. He had vomited similarly on the morning of every exam he’d ever taken, and on the morning of his marriage too.

He marvelled that things could change so utterly and yet remain so much the same.

He cleaned his teeth again.

He moved through the house as he did in dreams. He fought the urge to look in on Jamie. He didn’t want to contaminate him with the deeds of the morning.

He slipped on his jacket and closed the door quietly. In the garden it was cold and still. His breath condensed in clouds. In the sky a number of winking aircraft described an intricate mandala. Speeded up, they would have knitted a golden filigree, a hemispherical net that enclosed the city like a sugar cage. At the gate, he stopped to dry-heave.

There was very little traffic on the roads. He passed a few nightworkers on their way home and a few people pulling an early shift. After so many years as a shiftworker, he could easily tell who was going and who was returning. He saw himself reflected in the puffy, tired faces that sped by in their little bubbles of light.

He drove through Robinwood, past the Dolphin Centre, past Farmer Hazel’s fields. In the shallows of the country, he followed the road that led eventually to the slaughterhouse. Soon the last, trailing edge of the city was behind him. He drove at a reduced speed, until he located the lay-by Phil had told him about. It was a gravelly scoop taken from the side of the road. As instructed, he parked the car and killed the engine. It was cold and he wished he’d worn better clothing. He juddered his legs for warmth, and hugged himself. He muttered songs through inert lips.

The hiss of an engine and the sweep of headlights caused him to start and sit upright. But whoever was at the wheel of the vehicle that passed, it wasn’t Phil.

He glanced into the back seat, as if somebody might be there. Since the previous evening, he had found it difficult to shake the feeling that somebody was with him. Here in the darkness, he was giving himself the creeps.

He convinced himself that nobody was on the back seat. Then he saw movement in the bushes. It was too abrupt to be the wind. He supposed it was a bird, hopping from spindly branch to spindly branch, awaiting the dawn. Or perhaps it was some ground-dwelling mammal, some hangover of an agrarian past: a badger, a hedgehog. Perhaps it was a fox or even a feral dog, attracted here by the permanent spoor of carrion that issued from the slaughterhouse. Sam wondered if the undeviating smell was like pornography to a carnivore.

There was a hiss on the gravel. He glanced up, sharply. In the mirror he saw that a pearly black Renault Espace people-carrier had cruised to a halt behind him. It was the size of a small bus. Already a man he recognized as Phil was jumping down from behind the driver’s seat. Phil wore a donkey jacket and a beanie cap pulled low on his forehead. He buried his hands in his pockets and, breath steaming, he crouched at the driver’s side window of Sam’s car.

Sam engaged the engine to lower the window.

‘All right?’ said Phil.

Sam swallowed and said he was.

Phil nodded. He seemed quite cheerful.

He patted the bodywork and said, ‘Couldn’t you have brought something more conspicuous?’

Sam shrugged, embarrassed.

‘It’s new,’ he said.

‘You don’t say,’ said Phil. He stood, dug his fists into his kidneys, and bent backwards. Then he looked round himself: a slow, broken spiral of vapour followed his mouth. He rested his splayed hands on the roof of the Chrysler.

‘How is it?’

‘How’s what?’

‘The car. Does it handle like a bus?’

Sam recalled Mel and Jamie’s excitement when he agreed to buy the car. He felt protective of that moment.

‘It’s surprising,’ he said. ‘It handles all right.’

Phil was smiling.

‘I’m still getting used to it, though,’ Sam said.

Phil nodded.

‘It reminds me of a taxi,’ he said. ‘A proper one, a black cab. It’s surprising. Those things can swivel on a sixpence.’

He clapped his gloved hands.

‘So,’ he said. ‘Are we ready, then?’

Sam looked up at him.

‘What do I have to do?’

‘First thing,’ said Phil, ‘I’d nudge your car along a few feet. Just so it’s a bit more hidden from the road. Nudge it behind those bushes up there.’

‘What about my tyre tracks?’ said Sam. ‘Should I rub them out with a branch or something?’

Phil laughed obligingly, then he saw that Sam wasn’t joking.

He smiled.

‘I shouldn’t worry about that,’ he said. Then he rapped on the roof three times, a signal that Sam should get under way.

Sam nosed the Chrysler six or seven feet forward. Getting out of the car, he had to fight past a tangle of bushes. From the tip of one there hung a short length of used-looking toilet tissue. Sam edged past it with extreme care.

‘Look at that,’ said Phil. ‘That’s disgusting.’

He dug his hands deeper into his pockets and scuffed his feet on the muddy gravel.

‘I hate the fucking country.’

He offered Sam his hand. The shake was friendly enough.

‘You can sit in the front,’ he said. ‘With me. Since you’re the guest of honour.’