Fallout (6 page)

Leaving work in the spring twilight, thoughts spinning in his head, he found he was unable to turn into the streets that would take him home and was walking around in small circles on the corner near the closed-down Chinese restaurant. He made himself stop. And breathe. And think. The silent town lay stagnant around him and Luke Kanowski realised that his life was harming him.

The next morning he did not go into work.

Stepping off the bus onto the lumpy verge outside the asylum the grass was frozen and the mud beneath as stiff as toffee. The sound of the bus and the burnt diesel smell disappeared. He was alone. He climbed the fence and started across the grounds, around the side of the chapel, past the mortuary, and then the long wall of Rose Ward to the front door. He had often wondered, had often asked his father, which of the wards he had slept in when he was billeted there but –
These places were not called Rose or Hazel when I was there
, Tomasz would answer so Luke had long since stopped asking.

The patients had just finished their breakfast. The smell of it was in the air, toast and the hot-metal of the urns. Luke walked through the familiar corridors and waited in the dayroom as people began to come in. Nearly all of them were known to him, some saying hello, others not. He rehearsed sentences, forgot them – pacing just to do something – and then his mother came in and he stopped. She was wearing a skirt and blouse and a cardigan – clothes she had owned as long as he could remember, clothes that had never been outside this place – and pale green slippers over her woollen tights. She stood in the doorway, unaware of him, and for that moment she was anonymous, the patient she was when he was not there to make her a mother. Putting it from his mind, he went to her quickly and she frowned, confused at the sight of him. Her confusion had increased with age; distress replaced by a growing bewilderment.

‘It’s not the weekend,’ he said, to save her asking. ‘It’s Wednesday. I took the day off.’

They kissed. She was dressed and carrying some sewing and a book.

The chair she liked best, by the window, was occupied by a tiny old woman in a shawl.

‘
Ooph!
’ exclaimed his mother, showing him her sewing and the book she was carrying, her planned morning, ruined.

She had called this same ancient woman a
salope
before, Luke didn’t want to get involved in an argument.

‘Never mind. Shall we go for a walk?’ he said.

She shrugged, staring viciously at the old lady in her place.

Luke touched her arm to get her attention. ‘Leave these here. Walk.’

‘No! I must put them away – someone will take them.’

He took her arm. ‘All right, leave them in your room and we can get your coat. It’s cold.’

He waited for her by the door to her bedroom, respecting her privacy, and then longer, while she fumbled slowly with the buttons of her coat. Helplessly, he imagined other people’s departures, happy, reasoned mothers waving them off. Eric Trimble’s parents constantly urging him to marry and leave them in peace. Brave would be the girl to marry Eric and live up to his mother’s exacting standards.

‘Ready now,’ she said, smiling up at him.

‘Good,’ said Luke, but could not smile back. He wished he was either more or less of a coward, that he could do this thing well or not at all.

Hélène held his arm as they walked the paths. The frost had melted, leaving the grass wet, spring sunshine washing everything. He must speak; it blanked his mind to do it, like the moment’s grace between the impact of a blow and the pain. He took a breath.

‘I’m leaving home,’ he said and stopped walking. She did not – she just let go of his arm and carried on. He was going to have to say it again.

‘
Luc?
’ she said, over her shoulder.

‘Did you hear me?’

Sometimes she did this – this performance of stubborn feyness that took in nobody – because she didn’t want to hear. He closed the distance between them, reached her and she took his arm again and looked up at him brightly.

‘Will you send me postcards?’ she said.

He glanced down at her but she just started to walk again, slowly.

‘Postcards,
Luc
?’ she said again.

‘Of course.’

‘From what place?’ she asked. ‘Where are you going?’

‘London.’

At that, she stopped again and they stood, the two of them, with the birds singing and the distant hum of the generator the only sounds.

‘What a beautiful day,’ she said, lifting her chin, breathing in.

He looked around. There was not much beauty in it to him.

‘Now, off you go,’ said his mother.

‘Now?’ Luke was surprised. ‘I’ll take you in.’

‘No,’ she said, dismissing him. It was the only power she had. ‘I’ll go in alone.’

She kissed his cheek, pressing hers against his.

‘Live well for me, Luc. Don’t say goodbye when you go.’

And then she walked away. She did not turn back to look at him; she did not mark the moment, make it harder, make it hurt. She just walked away. Luke watched her go. He thought that she was a good mother, and had always been. He wanted to tell her but he did not know how and she would not have believed him.

After that it was quick. He gave his notice at the mill office and withdrew all his savings from the bank with fugitive delight.

‘You should visit my mother,’ he told his father, but he knew Tomasz would not. Tomasz had cried when he told him he was going; but then, he cried a great deal anyway, Luke observed.

He took his cold money, his familiar clothes and his record player – with the catches sellotaped over for safety. He took as many of the things he loved as would fit into his bags, and left for the station. He imagined carrying the glass crucifix to London on his back and almost did it, just because the idea made him laugh.

Friday. Five o’clock. Darkness falling. Luke had only been to King’s Cross once before, for the National Gallery with his mother and now, bent under the weight of his belongings, the pigeon-seething arches high above him, he walked through the crowds with the ghost of her at his side, and fear for her. The distance between them stretched from his back like sinew.

He crossed the street to a newsagent and bought a stack of postcards – Buckingham Palace, Beefeaters – and digging into his pocket for a pencil, wrote two of them there in the shop, leaning on the counter.

In London. Safe. Luke.

Both the same. He addressed one to the asylum and one to his father’s house and then he went out and posted them immediately in the box on the corner. He couldn’t hear them drop, they just disappeared, two small gestures towards redemption. The line was cut. The noose, the hook, the web had gone. He was free-falling and newborn. All he could see was grey and black. Lines of cars and noise covering everything and the crowds of blind strangers. Then, all at once, the long line of streetlamps came on. Nobody else looked up but Luke. He turned his face to the celebration parade of lights. The streetlamps greeted his release in silent chorus. The short burst of a car horn brought him back.

He had one plan and no back-up.

He looked around for a phone box, pushed through the people and hauled open the door. He set down his bags and record player on the ground but they didn’t fit and stayed wedged half in and half out, rain spreading in dark stains on the canvas. The phone box smelled of piss, glass panels scratched with initials from coins or knives, cigarette burns on the chipped paint divides. Luke pulled up the A–D phone book from its metal casing and ruffled the thin pages.
D for Driscoll
.
Paul Driscoll
. Producer.
D
. . .

And Paul Driscoll, all unknowing, just a few tube stops away, shaved before the dripping mirror of his flat in Barons Court.

Paul almost didn’t hear the telephone ringing over the running tap but when he did he wiped the soap from his face and turned off the water. It had stopped. He waited, looking at himself emerging from the mirror that dripped as the air cooled, then turned on the tap again. He knew the phone would start if he did. And there it was. Insistent and bogeycoloured, it stood on a small table near the front door. Paul went to it and picked it up.

‘Paul Driscoll.’

‘Hiya, Paul, it’s Luke.’

‘Who?’

‘Luke Kanowski.’

‘Have you got the right number?’

‘I hope so. There are five in the book and you’re the last.’

‘Do I know you?’ Paul could hear noise behind, traffic.

‘I’m Luke Kanowski from Seston. You were in a Mini with Leigh, I think she was called. Joe Furst?’

‘Bloody hell. What are you doing in London?’

‘I was hoping you might have some ideas.’

Evening had darkened the room while he was bathing. Paul switched on the overhead. Sudden brightness. He remembered ghostly Seston, the pub, the bizarre young man spouting
Oedipus
, and beautiful, curvaceous Leigh Radley whom he hadn’t seen since.

‘Hello?’ said the crackly voice of Luke Kanowski. ‘You busy, then?’

‘Yeah, hold on,’ said Paul. He thought some more. Then, ‘I was just on my way out – want to meet up for a coffee or something?’

‘Coffee?’ said Luke, as if the word were golden. ‘Yes.’

They met at the tube station; Paul, short hair, workman’s jacket; Luke, leaner, in his father’s air force greatcoat, three feet apart from one another and appraising. Paul took in Luke’s duffel bag and holdall.

‘Off somewhere?’

‘Just got here.’

‘Oh, right . . .’

‘What are you doing?’ asked Luke, keenly.

‘What am I doing?’
Standing on the pavement by Barons Court tube in the drizzle and the dark
. . .

‘I mean are you busy?’

‘I was going to see a play.’

‘In the West End?’

‘No, in fact, at a drama school. LAMDA. Students.’

‘What is it?’

‘
Three Sisters
.’

‘I love that. Can I come?’

Paul laughed. ‘What are you going to do with all that?’ He nodded towards Luke’s luggage.

Luke looked down with surprise at his two lumpy bags slumped on the pavement beside him, the record player propped against them.

‘Where are you staying?’ asked Paul, and Luke rubbed the back of his neck vigorously. He gave a shudder that seemed to go through his whole body and laughed.

‘Not sure,’ he said.

‘There’s a coffee shop on the corner. I’ve not much at home.’

They walked to the theatre in Logan Place in the damp chill, Luke bounced along, craning his head from left to right, looking up at the houses, down at the cracks in the pavement, into windows and backs of cars, firing questions at Paul and trying to shut himself up, itching with the blood rushing through him and his thoughts, topped up with life – too full, too tight. Very often he welcomed this familiar singing charge in himself but out of Seston, like a patient on day release, he had an unusual desire to be normal. Paul appeared to be indulging him, head down against the rain and smoking; taciturn and friendly.

The small foyer was cramped and crowded with people shaking off raincoats, pushing together in one movement towards the interior. Over their heads, beyond the double doors to the studio, was blackness. They went inside. Voices dropped as people took their seats. Luke willed himself to stay still and not to say he had never been to the theatre before in his life. Paul was ignoring him, greeting one or two people he knew. Luke sensed a well-controlled tension in his affability. He realised Paul wanted to impress.

‘Who are they?’ Luke’s eyes switched from face to face, from black-framed glasses to long hair trailing over the back of a seat. He could smell scent mixed with stale smoke and the singed dust on the lenses of the lights in the rig above him.

‘Agents. Producers. Friends and family of the students. They’re third years.’

‘Who, the students?’

‘Yes, the
students
. . .’ And Paul’s eyes flicked over him, briefly sardonic.

Luke shut up.

The dressing-room air was charged with fear and thrill as each girl followed rituals according to her personality; chatter or steadying breaths, warm-up or silence, like athletes drawing focus from within.

The others hurried into their costumes but Nina took her time. The sisters went on first; her entrance wasn’t for twenty minutes or more.

After the night that her mother and Jeremy had— Nina could not think what they had done, and thought of it now only as
leaving her out
. After that night, Nina had lost the fragile hold she’d had on the part of Irina. She couldn’t look at Jeremy, lost her lines, and stumbled through a week’s humiliation before Richard Weymouth had taken the part away from her. He had swapped Nina and Chrissie’s roles; Chrissie was Irina now and Nina was demoted to Anfisa, the servant. Jeremy’s performance was unaffected. If anything, it had improved.

Anfisa!
her mother had said as Nina lay on the sofa crying.
In a grey wig and some ghastly padding!
You’ll never be seen!
She never referred to Jeremy again, nor gave any sign that her failure might stem from anything but her daughter’s own weakness. It was a yoke beneath which Nina easily bent; not Marianne’s fault, but her own. And anyway, she forgot it quite fast. She had to. She had been left out. She had deserved it.

From her corner, she watched Chrissie put on her make-up as if nothing else existed in the world but her own face.

The knock at the door.

‘Five minutes. Full house.’

A brief silence, a smothered explosion of whispers. Laughter. Hope.
Five minutes
.

Chrissie turned to her, a hairpin in her mouth. ‘Nina, are you all right?’

‘Fine. Good luck.’

And Chrissie smiled and turned away. Nina climbed into her clumsy stiff costume and was grateful for its black disguise. She hid behind her make-up, the shell of years, and envied Anfisa her station; the limited desires of the servant in Chekhov’s fragile stage-house.