Dying to Know You (13 page)

I didn’t tell her that.

Maybe I should have.

Maybe she’d have understood.

I thought it would be great, really good.

This morning, when a lot of this stuff has come clear, I saw I was kind of bringing Fiorella to meet Dad, to show her off to him.

Does that sound daft?

No. It sounds true.

And it was like that at first.

For three days it was like that.

And nights.

Nights like I’d never imagined nights could be.

I’ve never been so happy.

Maybe I was too happy.

Can you be too happy?

Maybe you can. Maybe when you’re too happy you believe whatever you want is possible. Everything can be the way you want it to be. Nothing can stop you.

That’s what I felt here with Fiorella.

You know what I mean?

What I’m saying?

I know what you mean.

I’d never had it like that before.

I don’t mean just the sex. But, you know, all of it, the two of us alone in the night.

It was like everything came together then, all of me. You know?

I know.

My body, my mind, all my feelings, all my thoughts. All of me.

And I think it was the same for her.

I know it was.

She said it was.

And it was when we were together like that is when it happened.

What? …

What happened?

Like a wave.

Like a tidal wave.

Like a tsunami, rushing up like I was a boat on the wave, carried on the wave, not able to stop or change direction.

Not that I wanted to. No no!

It was good, it was so,
so
good!

And while it was happening this stuff started coming out of my mouth.

About having a baby.

About wanting us to have a baby.

About starting it right then …

I don’t know where it came from.

It was me. But it wasn’t me saying it.

I was out of it.

Out of my head.

Out of myself.

I was gone.

But I was all here as well.

All there.

Wanting us to have a baby …

I tried to make her.

Make her let me …

She got scared.

I didn’t mean to scare her.

But she got scared.

And made me stop.

And then I felt so—

Shocked.

With myself.

I couldn’t speak.

Couldn’t look at her.

Ashamed.

[
He was panting, almost hyperventilating. Sweat covered his face. His eyes were big and staring. I felt he was seeing himself, observing himself, as he had been at that moment, and at the same time he was experiencing it again, and he was amazed by himself.

He stopped and said nothing for a while, until the fit had passed and he was calm again.
]

Anyway, that was it.

She couldn’t take it.

I frightened her.

She dumped me.

I tried to get her back.

Phoned her to say sorry and explain.

But she wouldn’t talk to me.

Her mother answered.

I don’t think she ever liked Fiorella going with me.

I know her father didn’t.

She said Fiorella didn’t want to speak to me or see me ever again and I should leave her alone.

That’s when the slide started.

Couldn’t get her out of my mind.

Couldn’t give her up.

And that’s when I started fretting about Dad again.

And it got so bad I couldn’t go to work.

I didn’t want to go to work.

I didn’t want to do anything or see anybody.

Couldn’t leave my room.

I knew I was worrying Mum sick. But it was like I was stuck in mud. All the energy sucked out of me.

I could hardly move.

Spent the day staring at the walls doing nothing, the same thoughts, the same feelings sloshing around inside me like blocked-up plumbing that’s gone wrong.

Maybe it had. Maybe the plumbing in your mind had gone wrong.

You mean I’d gone crazy?

I tell you, thinking about it now, it does seem like I was crazy.

This morning I feel like I’ve just come out of the loony bin.

But I didn’t feel crazy at the time.

The plumbing might be dodgy but not my thoughts.

My body felt pretty grotty, but everything I was thinking seemed logical.

As logical as a game of chess, every move planned, and the aim clear.

I’d lost Dad.

I’d lost Fiorella.

[
He chuckled. A bitter sound.
]

The king and the queen both out of the game!

And there wasn’t a hope in hell of getting them back.

So I’d lost.

Why go on?

Time to end it.

But you haven’t.

No.

What stopped you?

When I was thinking about it.

All those hours.

I was thinking about how to do it.

Looked it up on the internet.

One site listed all the ways. But it said, if you mess it up, you end up a basket case. A vegetable. Still alive but worse off than before and not able to do anything about it.

For the best ways, the surest ways, I didn’t have the gear.

Like a gun or poison that worked in seconds.

But even if I had, nothing like that seemed right.

I wanted to do it somehow that seemed right.

Does this sound silly?

I mean, it’s like choosing the right fishing gear, or a car, or, I dunno, anything. You want what suits you.

Well, it was like that.

Another site had examples of the way some famous people had done it.

And there was one, a famous writer, the way she did it I knew was the right way for me.

Everything sort of came together then.

I knew the place, and the place had what I needed for the way I wanted to do it.

I think I know the writer who you mean. Water and stones.

I love water. Always have. Dad too. He taught me to swim when I was a baby. So young I don’t even remember.

But if I chucked myself into the river I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from swimming.

So I was going to fill my backpack with heavy stones, and tie some to my hands and feet.

The pile on the bank.

That’s how it started.

But there’s a lot more than you’d need.

[
He smiled. A first since I’d arrived. But still didn’t look at me.
]

How come?

It was dawn when I got here.

Enough light to see by.

Started looking for stones.

They had to be right as well.

Exactly right.

Right shape. Right look.

Have you noticed the stones in the water by the bank?

All sizes and shapes and colours.

In the water they look so bright. So fresh.

Like gems.

I thought it would be easy to find what I wanted.

But it wasn’t.

I put the first one on the bank.

Then the next.

Then another.

I kept going because I kept thinking I might find one better than the others.

Then it got to be like I couldn’t stop.

It was like when I’m fishing.

You know?

Concentrated, absorbed, you forget everything. Time. Other people.

The pile got higher and higher.

And then it got so big it got top heavy and fell over.

Collapsed.

I didn’t like that.

It was a mess.

I hate messes.

So I started again.

But this time I kind of planned it.

Made a square of bigger stones, bigger than I’d need except for the base.

When I’d laid the base, like a platform, I had a thought.

I’d brought a photo of Dad to have with me when I did it.

But now I thought I’d bury it in the pile of stones.

A memorial.

Sort of.

Yes. A memorial.

I think I still meant to do it.

But I wanted to build this memorial to Dad and him and me being here.

This time it took a lot longer than before.

For each layer I had to have the right size and shape of stones, getting smaller towards the top, to make the thing solid and stable.

I needed a lot more stones as well.

So I kept going.

And you know what?

What?

I started to enjoy it.

And the more I went on, the better I wanted it to be, and the better I made it, the more I enjoyed it.

I kept undoing what I’d done and redoing it better.

With better stones from the river for each layer.

And that’s when you turned up.

[
He chuckled again. Smiled again. Looked at me.
]

Lurking in the trees.

Which you are no good at!

Can’t tell you how relieved I was when I saw you.

I hadn’t finished when I saw you.

I was still going to do it.

But then I saw you.

And I wasn’t.

[
He turned away.

Stood up.

Took up his rod, which he’d laid down on the ground before he started his declaration, and wound in the line.

Nothing on the hook. Not even the bait.

He chuckled again at this.

I waited for him to say some more. There was so much more I wanted to know.

But he said nothing and I sensed he’d said all he was going to say today.
]

[
I stood up.

He put his hand into a pocket, took it out, turned to me, holding out his hand, which was clasping something.

He waited a moment, then opened his hand.

Lying in the palm was a small rust-red stone, about the size of my thumbnail.

It was smooth and round, with flat sides.

And there was a hole through the middle.

Like a very small doughnut.

I couldn’t tell whether it was natural. Or the hole was manmade.
]

For you.

Why? What is it?

A present.
Take it.

[
I took it. It was unexpectedly heavy for its size.
]

Thank you.

[
I was at a loss for any other words.
]

Give us a hand to finish.

[
He turned away and walked to the stone pile, the memorial. I pocketed my present and followed him.
]

WE FINISHED BUILDING THE CAIRN WITHOUT MUCH BEING SAID,
except of a practical sort—which stones to use; how to construct the cairn so that it was stable and solid—the photo of his father buried at its heart.

Karl was concentrated, as if all the emotions of his declaration were absorbed into the stones and his attention to our work.

By the time we were done the cairn looked sufficiently monumental for anyone who came across it to see it was more than merely a pile of stones. About a metre square at the base, it stood a metre and a half high, tapering to a flat top about thirty centimetres square, which we capped with a slab of slate just the right size that we’d found in the river.

We stood for a moment or two, side by side, looking at it.

I felt something should be said to mark the occasion, but couldn’t think of anything appropriate.

Then we washed our hands and faces in the river, collected our belongings, and strolled in single file, Karl leading the way, up to the car. We retrieved Karl’s bike from the hedge where he’d hidden it and stowed it in the back of the Rover. And then I phoned Mrs. Williamson to let her know we were on our way.

By now I was feeling the pinch. My old man’s energy wasn’t up to such unrelenting activity and emotional ups and downs. And the long drive, without a stop, and the shifting of heavy stones had set off the sciatica. The last thing I felt like doing was drive the car back home. I’d supposed Karl would do this, but he climbed into the passenger seat without a word, and by the time I’d phoned his mother and eased into the driver’s seat, he was fast asleep, out like a light and dead to the world.

I had to stop three times to walk about, rest my back, and consult the hedgerows. Karl never woke, never moved during the entire journey.

When we got back, Mrs. Williamson, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, did both simultaneously. The prodigal son responded as best he could, but all he wanted was to go to bed. His mother urged food on him, a bath, a shower, a litany of questions about how he was and what he wanted (“Just bed, Mum, just bed”), and telling him
how good I’d been and wasn’t I clever to know where to find him.

All to no avail. Karl was in bed, unwashed, unfed and unconscious fifteen minutes after we arrived.

As for me, I wanted to be back in my own home and to attend to myself no less than Karl wanted his bed. But out of fellow feeling accepted Mrs. Williamson’s offer of a meal while I gave her a brief report on what had happened, including the building of the cairn, but omitting Karl’s declaration, which I knew would raise many questions to which I neither knew the answers nor had the stamina to discuss. I left her to nurse her relieved delight on her own as soon as I could, promising to phone later.