Your Father Sends His Love (10 page)

He starts to trace the outline of the wings, then stops.

‘What else have you been hiding from me?' he says. ‘What else have you got tattooed? You haven't got a T and an M, one on each buttock, have you?'

In her class she's seen how laughter can soon become the baying of a mob. She hears the same keening in Tom's voice now, feels the people behind him, pointing where he points.

She sees him in the dressing-table mirrors; the three panels showing different aspects of his face: thin and greyly pinched. She can smell the pool on him, a scent that gathers as he gets up quickly from the bed. He is looking at the door, the pillows, the rug.

‘Are you not going to say anything?' he says. ‘Are you not going to say anything at all?'

‘I won't apologize,' she says. ‘I made a promise. I made a promise to Gwen.'

She looks at him in defiance: yes. He is shaking his head and staring at the wings' reflection. He kneels down and his hands come for her face, her cheeks between penitent hands.

‘You told me you wouldn't do anything like this again,' Tom says. ‘You swore it to me, remember?'

‘I said I'd never do anything that affects us all without telling you beforehand,' she says. ‘This is about me. Me and no one else.'

There is a kind of pleading, but for what she cannot say. Her breath is fast and shallow. He shakes his head and removes his hands from her face. He stands and looks down on her until she's standing too. She holds out her
hands,
come now
. He lists for a moment and then folds his arms around her. In the mirror, he can see his hands on her wings. His fingers on the tips, palms small against their span. He can hear the girls talking and fighting; Chloe is saying terrible things. Chloe is saying things that are making Amy cry.

‘It's only my body,' Maria says. ‘That's all, it's only my body. My body, isn't it?'

‘We'll get through this,' Tom says. ‘We will.'

‘It's only my body,' she says. ‘It's only my body, isn't it?' she says.

The two girls are fighting. Tom looks at the wings. He holds them as they shake, as they shrug from the tears.

‘Yes, Maria,' he says. ‘Yes, it's only your body.'

SOMETHING ELSE TO SAY

The Tap has twenty-seven beers on draught. Twenty-seven beers on draught and only one toilet. This is something to say. Yes. And the toilet is upstairs, at the top of a spiral staircase. This is something else to say. A follow-up. There is a third thing to say, too: you wouldn't have thought it would be allowed, what with Health & Safety and all that. And the beer, of course. Twenty-seven different kinds to sample and discuss. Four, then. Four things to say.

The Tap is a renovated Portland stone lodge south of Euston railway station. It has a squared horseshoe bar with space only for stools and standing, the twenty-seven beers named and numbered on a chalkboard above. When ordering use the name of the beer, or part thereof, never the number. Remember: you are served better if you ask for a recommendation. There are tables upstairs, but they are too close to the single, solitary toilet. The Tap has twenty-seven beers on draught and only one toilet.

As I walked in there were four things to say. Four.
There was a man behind the bar and a man sitting on a stool to his right. He was finishing a pint of dark, almost black beer. He wore battle fatigues. Sand camouflage – Iraq, Afghanistan, those kinds of places – heavy, polished boots. He wore a wedding ring; in front of him a newspaper open at the gossip pages. His hair was grey, his stubble dashed with white, wrinkles like knife marks on clay. Too old for the army. Surely too old. Too old to be a ground trooper. To fight. Surely.

‘Another?' the barman asked.

‘No,' the army man said. The army man stood and picked up his old kitbag:
smile, smile, smile
. He walked past me, walked straight past me without acknowledgement. Like the changing of the guard, of the watch. An old kitbag, an open newspaper, an empty beer glass. A fifth thing to say. Yes.

‘When I got here there was a man wearing battle fatigues. Full battle fatigues, but he looked much too old to be a soldier. How old do you reckon you have to be before you have to stop fighting?' Five things to say. The last one a question. A conversation starter. Good.

Above the bar, numbers fifteen to twenty-three had no corresponding beer. Chalk ghosts of percentage signs and names and prices were smudged on the slate. Remember: you are served better if you ask for a recommendation.

‘What can I get you, mate?' the barman asked.

‘What would you recommend?'

The barman was young. Bearded, friendly faced. There was nothing to say about him. He turned to the chalkboard, put a hand to his beard, looked at the empty spaces where beers fifteen to twenty-three should have been. Whichever beer the barstaff recommend, they always say it's quite hoppy. Hops are in fashion. Rish had told me this. He'd pointed this out years ago. Five things to say. Five.

‘Well, how about Independence?' the barman said. ‘It's quite hoppy.'

He served me a taster in a shot glass: all head, a liquid hit at the end. I nodded in appreciation, the way Rish had shown me. The barman poured me a full glass. I wondered what number Independence would be when it was eventually slated. I guessed twenty-one. For some reason I thought:
21, Kelly's Eye
. The bingo call. But Kelly's Eye is one. Twenty-one is Key of the Door. I thanked the barman and paid. Five things to say.

Sitting at a stool by the window, I looked up Kelly's Eye on my telephone. Its derivation. Military slang; possibly a reference to Ned Kelly. This is good trivia. Nice fit with the army man, too. A continuation. Five things to say. No, six. Twenty-seven beers and only one toilet; the toilet is up narrow stairs; you wouldn't have thought it would be allowed; the man in battle fatigues; Kelly's
Eye. And the beer. Yes, the beer. The Independence. Quite hoppy. Yes.

Outside, a delivery from the Five Points brewery was in progress. It was around 12.15pm and I had six things to say. Behind me the barman was on a stepladder, writing the names of the beers in chalk. Good, steady hand. I watched each one with interest until Independence came in at nineteen. There is no bingo call for nineteen. I discovered this from the Kelly's Eye page. No bingo call for nineteen, but there is for fourteen. The Lawnmower. This is good trivia. Fourteen is the lawnmower because lawnmowers have a fourteen-inch blade. This is not something to say. Too much bingo trivia. Six things to say. Six.

Waiting should never be advertised. Even to those for whom you are waiting. Ideally, the arrival of a companion should occur when one is so immersed in something else that one jolts when he or she says hello. I thought this exactly in those words. It sounded pompous. I thought it again, as spoken by James Mason. I looked up James Mason on my telephone. He was born in Huddersfield. This was glorious: Rish would be delighted. There is nothing better than an unexpected Yorkshireman. This is something to say. Seven things to say. Seven.

I took out a book to read. Do not read a newspaper,
it looks like waiting. Crosswords doubly so. There was a bookmark: a train ticket. I read three sentences from the centre of the right-hand page, went forward three sentences, back three sentences, but nothing looked familiar. I tried the left-hand page. Nothing there either. I flicked forward and back. Nothing seemed familiar. I find that with reading. I am a skipper. A jumper. I lack concentration.

The book's spine was cracked, its cover torn; there were ink smudges on the page ends. He may well comment on it.
I see you still can't take care of a book
. Yes.
You always make them look like something smuggled out from a Bangkok prison.
Give him something to talk about first. Clever. I set it down on the shelf under the window next to my pint glass. I couldn't mention it, though; it would seem forced. Still, seven things to say.

From the window seat I watched the exit and entrance to Euston bus terminus, beyond that, the railway station. People walked past and no one looked like Rish.

New York City, midtown in late-February, a bar called the Ginger Man, sauerkraut and sausages, Victory Pilsner, afternoon drinks with the promise of an evening over on the Upper East Side with friends of Rosemary, sounds like a euphemism and in some ways it is, the look on Rish's
face and in his eyes, below a haircut, subtly fashionable, the strong accent still, Whitby, Dracula country, and a new way of ending a meal with a dab of a napkin to the mouth, three guys walking through the door, proper Jews, forelocks and everything, Rish talking about some jerk at work, his rhyming words, and the Jews ordering their beers from the menu, hundreds on draught, and the barman serving the drinks in frosted mugs and Rish smiling, his teeth not yet American, and saying he's got something to tell me, and I already know what he's going to tell me because I arrived the night before and Rosemary elegantly dodged wine with dinner, and through that smile, its wattage, he tells me the news, his news, and we embrace in the post-work rush and the server takes our order for more expensive beer and we toast the unborn, may your first child be a masculine child, Luca Brasi, and Rosemary arrives soon afterwards, work suit and heels you can hear and she looks older – perhaps it's the pregnancy – and she says to me
don't say it
and I say
what?
and she says
you know
, and I say
what?
and she says
don't say it
and all I can think to say is
Rosemary's Baby, Rosemary's Baby, Rosemary's Baby
, but I say nothing and when she goes to the toilet – there are hundreds of toilets at the Ginger Man, this is America and there would never just be one toilet – I realize I've never seen the film
Rosemary's Baby
, and don't really know what it's
about, and Rosemary comes back and we toast her health with the Virgin Mary that the waitress has brought over and Rosemary's accent is perfect, screen-goddess American, and Rish's accent is Yorkshire, ee-by-gum Yorkshire and my accent is all over the place and I am drunk from the Victory Pilsner and there are three of them and one of me and New York's a-go-go and every drink tastes nice, and they talk about the apartment they will move to, their parents – her parents, let's be quite clear about this – helping them get somewhere bigger than the shoe-box apartment they rent above a Brazilian restaurant in Chelsea, and we are clinking glasses and may their first child be a masculine child, Luca Brasi, and there are three of them and one of me, three of them and one of me.

His reflection in the window. Twenty-seven beers and one toilet; the toilet is up narrow stairs; you wouldn't have thought it would be allowed; a man in battle fatigues; Kelly's Eye; James Mason. And the beer. Twenty-seven different kinds. And his reflection in the window. He put his hand on my shoulder. I turned and smiled and stood and we embraced for a moment longer than necessary or normal, then a moment more than that, then a moment more. Then we broke.

Rish had lost a little weight from his face. He was
red-eyed and his skin was flawed with squeezed spots. He smelled of the same aftershave he always wore. There was grey at his temples. Standard issue, stress related.