Black Bread White Beer (19 page)

That was their wedding, there. Not the stiff afternoon eight months later both painfully aware of the cost and trying to fool the other out of their self-consciousness. But that moment on the makeshift dance floor was boozy, sweaty perfection. The whole village was in on their bubble; approving of and championing their hope. A perfect start to that Christmas. First of many. Bloody brilliant.

How he has got her dancing, he does not know. There was no power in his suggestion, softly spoken and burdened with compromise. Still, here she is on her feet, holding onto him as they move in a tight space circling the tables.

There is reticence over a full embrace. Instead, they are joined loosely; able to separate at the first sign of the slightest misstep. He is too scared to tempt fate on the jukebox so they dance along to the radio: an urban ballad neither is familiar with but which succeeds in making them feel old. Their moves are silent and awkward. Two cousins at a wedding forced together after accusations of being spoilsports.

Claud nods towards the girl at the bar, preferable to making eye contact with him.

‘Bren will think we're a pair of nutters.'

‘She's gone to change the barrel. We'll have some privacy for a bit. Anyway, she's not going to mind, so long as I get another round in. Probably seen worse.'

Claud looks for confirmation before continuing. Peers through the clear border of the frosted glass panels that separates the Snug from the rest of the bar. Brenda has disappeared. The information should relax her, but does not. Same as the drink; untouched. Still dances as a pupil, stiff as a board.

‘I'd rather be sitting down. If someone comes in I'll feel even more stupid than I already do.'

‘Uh-uh. Stay on your feet. Till the song finishes, at least.'

Couples should slow dance, even if they cannot bear to touch one another. Her hold is barely a grasp, as if his shoulder is burning paper; without substance. Her face, downward and studious as she follows his feet, followed by a tense nod, distracted and insular, after noticing their body positioning. He too realizes his mistake, twisting his body a fraction, so that their torsos are at an angle, ballroom-style, rather than touching. He wants to pull something out of her without making her uncomfortable. But he is clumsy and unsuccessful, as if confirming that he too finds her disgusting.

‘Just until this song's over, yeah? Too much makes me dizzy.'

She speaks through her teeth, every word as tortuous as the steps.

‘Sure. Whenever you like.'

When she told him the news three weeks ago, his first impulse had been to pull her off the sofa in delight. They danced to what was playing at the time, the theme tune to a soap opera followed by an advert for a building society.

‘We did it! God knows how, 'Mal, but we did it!'

Laughing then, breathless with the wonder of it. Carelessly spilling their joy in the direction of the make-believe on television. Taking her by surprise, him too, he twirled her round several times to screaming, cheering, elation. They could afford to be that generous with their happiness. In that moment there was more than enough to go around.

Twirls morphed to a cuddle-dance, still giggling breathlessly like schoolchildren who had been told of an imminent treat. Their moves were an amplification of all the bliss they had ever known: the pleasure and then the greediness of Christmas and birthdays, first date, first kiss, first shag, passing exams, getting wasted at the very same Glastonbury, first year at their respective universities, driving down to the coast mid-summer, plugging into people power at raves, slipping back into parental homes at dawn, the first corporate pay packet, sunbathing on hired catamarans, knocking back aperitifs on a pensione terrace, that moment on their wedding night when everyone had finally cleared off and they sat in bed scoffing the remains of the cake.

The cha-cha-cha around the TV was qualified to rank in that scale, though it towered above all else: the Nth Power of pleasure and high-fives; something beyond simple personal gratification. In between catching his breath he saw the same realization reflected in the depth of her eyes, punctuated by brief, acknowledged flashes of fear. She blinked a delicious heart-stopping fear that spoke for both of them. The focus of their meticulous planning, and her belligerent hectoring, was finally real.

They were no longer dancing a couple, newlyweds, boyfriend and girlfriend. They were dancing as a family. Forever it would be so.

She pulled his face to her cheek, roughly, affectionately. A move she usually practised when drunk.

‘Come here. Give us a kiss.'

‘You've made me very happy, Mrs Joshi.'

‘And you me, 'Mal. Even before this. I just never thought we'd get here.'

He wants to tell her now that they are still dancing as a family on this hard pub floor but cannot bear to see the disbelief that will appear on her face. How she will think that he is playing with her. More cruelty. If he was braver, able to pull her closer to him, he would push her fingers into his pockets and allow her to find it for herself: the retrieved hospital bracelet.

He never left us, you see. I was keeping him safe. There is a sense of something lost that we will always carry around, but this plastic in my pocket is the real thing. The almost sheer, tangible object that makes our baby concrete.

They could frame it if she wanted. Encase it in a clear resin block to sit on a bedroom shelf. He could run to gold-plating if she wanted; if that made it less painful. The parents of stillborn children get to take hand and footprints of their sleeping babies. Theirs should be similarly honoured.

Conflicting thoughts flood him. Will she allow the bracelet to be cut so that he too can wear him on a chain around his neck? Whether she can bring herself to share. Whether he can. He ponders the price of selfishness; whether the damage it will cause outweighs the continued
comfort of having the complete coil safely in his pocket. He is a child pleased as punch with finders keepers. Needs more time with his treasure before disclosing.

Carrying a child will always be an unknown quantity to a man. No matter how closely the expectant mother communicates it, or the length of time he may attempt in a simulator suit, his depth of knowledge will only ever amount to a fraction of the real experience. He has felt her stomach, read every leaflet but still knows nothing.

A bracelet means nothing. Claud is dead on her feet, shuffles as if blindfold. The last song has mixed into the next, something dance-y and unsuitable, but he does not release her. She is the conduit for his solace; a flesh-and-blood lightning conductor. It is a poor substitute for the real thing but he is past caring. This is all he has. With one hand in his pocket he clutches at the plastic between his fingers and wishes for a heartbeat.

‘When I was changing,' she says now, ‘I had a look inside that box that Mum won at the tombola. It was a bell. Like the ones Morris dancers wear. What do you think she's going to do with it?'

‘Give us a turn at dinner? Don't know. They're supposed to be lucky aren't they, those bells?'

‘A couple of rattles over our heads to bring us good luck.'

‘Would you turn your back on an offer of good luck?' he asks, seeing that she needs to be pulled out of herself;
chewing hard on the inside of her mouth in pained concentration.

‘No. Not right now.'

He leads her outside to the Green. Holding her hand as lamp-light guides them to the spot. She is quietly submissive. The strength of her trust can be read through her grasp: firmer than he realized; tenacious to the end.

They should be shivering as the sharpness of the early evening air hits them but the last round of drinks has coated their insides with a vigorous, acidic fire. Even Claud, encouraged by her movements on the dance floor, made some headway into her red wine; two big gulps for courage, then slower and measured sipping once her taste for it returned.

The alcohol has brought looseness to her movements. Her steps are light and there is fluidity to her left arm as she gently swings his hand as they walk. It recalls the confidence of his glory days, back when he was a late teenager; when the casualness of walking hand in hand with a girl could give him all manner of strength. How the gesture itself, both shy and commanding, promised all manner of possibilities; all pleasurable ones that made him feel alive.

Past the pub lamp's radius, a third of the way into the
Green, they find their footsteps melting into blue-black. The terrain underfoot is firm if not entirely smooth. There are no sudden dips to mind, but there are smallish holes dotted around from the dogs which he stumbles into. When she pulls her weight back to balance him, he imagines being saved from sinking sands, or drowning. The way he has acted today, she could just have easily left him.

‘Where are we going? If you're looking to get home it's the opposite way.'

‘Almost there. You'll see.'

Tramping on damp grass. Grateful, she says, for wearing a pair of Liz's joggers instead of her patent heeled boots. Everything about her gear is practical and outdoorsy, almost as if she knew they would end up here, walking into black.

That afternoon, at the Herald, the Green felt a toy town in its scale: a landscaped miniature amid the wild growth of the working countryside surrounding it. In darkness, it becomes epic. He feels the openness of their surroundings rushing past his shoulders, somehow unclamping all that has knotted and twisted inside him. Black footsteps casting shadows he had not anticipated. Black on deep navy; black on black.

Stealing a glance behind he sees how a shadow has also fallen across the right side of her face; his too, he presumes. They are two half moons walking towards a possible
salvation, about to embark upon a spontaneous, hopeful experiment.

It came to him during the last dance, after she stopped crying. It did not matter what she told him: her eating a prawn sandwich on Thursday lunchtime because she had been obsessing over it to the point of worship. The prawns had nothing to do with what happened. He was more cowed by the way she kept it to herself and let the secret fester until it grew to an illogical magnitude. Ashamed really, that he had not had the sense there was something to pull out of her.

‘I'd been pining for the taste for days. Dreaming all week of that sweetness. When I saw the platter at the working lunch, something snapped. And I was conscious of people watching me, even though none of them knew I was pregnant, but I still ate it very quickly because of that. I had two triangles; one after another. And what made it really bad was that they didn't taste of anything!'

Clarity arrives in the worst way: through her inconsolable tears. What was needed, he sees, what had been missing all day, was support from a force that would not lay blame with shellfish or uncomprehending husbands. A higher power. There was no point in converting religion, no reason in forcing yourself into the realm of whether belief was actually possible, if those processes could not be called upon during these rootless moments.

The Church was never for him. A wedding present to
her family that's all. Even the poor conversion vicar saw that. Ma and Puppa had lost all faith in him praying to the blue and grey gods that childhood incredulity had long since marked incomprehensible. But something
was
out there, had to be, otherwise how else could they make sense of this? The loss could be explained by science; the healing, not.

‘Why do you think people turn to religion in hard times? As a last resort or because they actually get something out of it?'

‘If you wanted the Church you're the wrong way, too.'

‘I'm not talking about the Church. I'm asking whether you believe.'

‘In what?'

‘Something outside of ourselves. Think about it.'

Their footsteps become shorter because she is tired and falls a further pace back, stretching their hold to its end point. He moderates himself accordingly, wanting to reach it as soon as possible but without dragging her like a caveman. She must be open and willing to try.