Swallowing the Sun Read online

  She knows he’s standing in the doorway watching her – she can always tell without looking. It doesn’t make her uncomfortable. He won’t stay long – a few seconds and then he’ll be gone. Why does he never come in? Why does he never come in and sit on the bed and talk to her? Does he think that what she does is so important she can’t be disturbed, that she has no time to fritter away talking to her father? She know he’s intimidated by what’s in the books, even a little frightened of them. She sees it in the way he opens them surreptitiously when he thinks she’s not looking, the way he lifts them and holds them, traces their titles with his fingers. Maybe she should tell him that they’re full of things that don’t mean very much in the real world. That they don’t tell you how to be happy. Maybe he knows better, more important things than can be found between their covers. So why doesn’t he come in now, sit on her bed and give her some advice? Tell her the things he knows. About how you find someone to love. When you give yourself. She swivels on her chair to signal him in, but there is no one there and when she turns the music down, she hears only the sound of running water. She lifts the little glass dome, shakes it softly and watches the snow fall.

  *

  Her feet are sore from standing all day. She sits on the edge of the bed and rubs them with a cooling foot gel she bought in Boots. As she does so, she reads the label which says ‘With mint, arnica and witch hazel’. She’s not sure it does much good but she likes the sound of the words, the scent of it, the feel of it on her skin. These few moments at the day’s end feel like they give her back her body, salvage it from the hours of heat and cooking in the canteen, the rawness of pans and ovens, the slop and leftover mess, the unrelenting noise of children. She examines the back of her leg for the spreading blue web of veins. Sometimes she feels as if she’s falling apart before her very eyes. She stands and starts to brush her hair. Tonight it feels as if it’s soaked in all the grease and food smells of the day. She can’t wash it every single day and into her movement seeps a frustration at not being able to brush the smells away. What’s the point anyway of cooking different meals when all they want are burgers and chips? And some days there’s more thrown about than eaten and it all ends up on the floor. She pushes her face closer to the glass and pulls and stretches the skin on her cheeks into a leaner, tighter shape, then runs one hand slowly down her neck as if to smooth it. Sometimes she feels as if she never wants to see or touch food again.

  ‘Martin, what are we going to do about Tom?’ she asks. ‘He’s put on more weight this week. I found a store of chocolate and sweets hidden in his room. If he puts on any more weight, more of his clothes aren’t going to fit him.’

  ‘I don’t know, I just don’t know,’ he says. ‘He’s got to want to do it for himself. And I think he’s starting to smell.’

  She holds the ends of her hair and sniffs them. ‘Maybe we should take him back to the doctor.’

  ‘It didn’t do much good last time. They just give you some diet sheets which he sticks to for about a day. He’s got no will-power.’

  She angles her head to the glass so that she can see him in the bed. ‘Martin, do you think you could talk to him? I’ve tried, maybe it would be better coming from you.’ She watches as he rubs his forehead with the palm of his hand as if he’s trying to ease away some pain. Her eye catches a thread of grey in her hair and she holds it to the mirror, separating it from the other strands with her fingers.

  ‘I don’t know what to say to him, Ali. I think you’re better at it – he’ll listen to you. I don’t know what goes on inside his head.’

  ‘You’re his father,’ she says as she pulls at the hair and suddenly she feels angry at everything – at her job, at the mess on the canteen floor, at the grey hair. ‘Why don’t you try to spend some time with him, go somewhere, do something with him?’

  ‘You know I’ve tried, but he’s not interested in sport or anything else I can see except stickin’ his head in that computer. If Rachel didn’t need it, I’d get rid of it.’

  ‘What do other fathers do?’ she asks. ‘And maybe we’ve given too much attention to Rachel. I think he should get that mobile phone. Tell him if he even loses a couple of pounds we’ll get it for him. What do you think?’

  ‘I’ll try anything you think might work. I’ll talk to him, think of something for us to do together.’

  She takes her final look in the mirror – the right side of her face, the left side, her neck, fingers some little blemish she’s suddenly noticed on her forehead and then licks the tip of her finger to try to brush it away.

  ‘What’s it all about?’ she asks herself out loud. ‘Why does everything have to be such a struggle?’ Then before she finally replaces the lid on the foot gel, she takes one last sniff, inhales the scent of mint, arnica and witch hazel and tries to let it journey deep inside her.

  *

  He wants her to come to bed. He wants her to come now, so he doesn’t want to talk about Tom, doctors or anything else. He wants her to hurry so much that he almost goes to her and pulls her away from the mirror. Her hair looks shiny and alive – he watches the way it sways with the movement of her head. She should let it grow longer again, the way it was when she was younger. Before the children came. He likes the way she holds her head as she brushes her hair, the sound as it moves through the strands but now he is impatient to hold her in his arms, to pour out the love that rises up inside him and begs for release. All their past life courses through his being, all the things shared and hidden to the world. She was the first to love him, the very first to show that he was worth loving and he owes her for that. With her, he’s safer than anywhere else he’s been in his life and he lacerates himself with curses when he thinks how close he’s come to losing that, to throwing it all away. And what for – a transfer of light that runs through his hands and can’t be grasped? Let her come to bed, let her come now and he’ll hold her once more in his arms and be safe again and he’ll give his love more tenderly, more fully than he’s ever given it. Tenderness, gentleness, all the time she deserves, and although it’s hard for him he will tell her that he loves her. He will say the words she used to tease him about his reluctance to use. And he’ll mean them more than he’s ever meant anything in his whole life.

  Now she’s coming, coming at last. There is a slowness in her movements, a weariness that is unfamiliar to him. He flaps back the duvet on her side but not enough to show that he is ready to love her. She sinks into the bed but as he stretches out his arm she moves to her side and reaches for her book. ‘Are you going to read?’ he asks, trying to suppress his disappointment.

  ‘Just for a few minutes,’ she says. ‘Just to get the day out of my head.’

  He feels only the stirring of his doubt now, a loss of confidence, wonders if she will be able to read in his body the drive of his desperation, the depth of his need. She knows more about him than anyone else, so just maybe if he comes to her now she will know what he has done. It’s a risk that he will take because he cannot let the day end without trying to take himself back to the place he belongs, that place where he wants to be more than anywhere else.

  He moves close, strokes the back of her hair, runs the tip of one finger down the nape of her neck and then across her shoulder. ‘My hair needs washed,’ she says, still reading her book. He traces the outline of her shoulder.

  ‘Martin,’ she says, snuggling back into him.

  ‘What?’ he asks.

  ‘Buy a lottery ticket tomorrow. It’s a rollover. Do a lucky dip.’ She reaches a hand over her shoulder for him to hold. It still carries the sweet scent. His other hand moves slowly under her arm and across her side until it cups her breast.

  ‘I’m lucky already,’ he says. ‘The luckiest man alive.’

  She stops reading and sets the book on the bedside table. Turning to face him she asks, ‘Are you all right?’ She scans his face and there is curiosity in her eyes. ‘Is there something wrong?’

  He knows he has already said too
much, the kind of words she doesn’t hear him say. ‘I’m fine’, he says, not looking at her, even when she places her hand on his cheek. ‘I’m tired too.’

  Now she thinks she’s doing what they do for each other – being strong when it’s the other’s turn to be weak. So she puts her arm around him and tells him everything will be all right, that everything will work out fine, but the more she does it the more he feels a fraud. That he’s extracted her care under false pretences, that it’s unearned. He will pay her back from now on, starting even in this very moment when he will love her with all the tenderness that he can muster, give her every gentle demonstration of his love. Use words if he has to. He’ll take that risk. So he pulls her close and strokes the back of her hair, kisses her lightly on her eyelids, watches as a smile starts to cross her face. Watches as it collapses into quiet swearing as the phone in the hall rings.

  ‘Maybe it’s for Rachel/ he says.

  ‘They don’t ring this late. Go and answer it before it wakens everyone.’ She turns back on her side, facing out of the bed, one arm pushed under her pillow, the other hugging herself. They both know what the call is but don’t say it, as if saying the words increases the prospect of it being real. There is no worse sound for them now, each ring deadening and frightening, cutting them off from each other. ‘Hurry, Martin,’ she says, pushing her head into the pillow.

  When he answers it’s not his mother’s voice telling him that she’s hearing voices, that there are people trying to break in or that she can hear some child crying in the street. It’s not her saying that people are stealing things from her, or that in the middle of the night she needs to go to the shops or visit some long-dead relation.

  ‘Martin, it’s Pat – she’s gone walkabout again. I’ve had a look round but I don’t see her. Do you want me to phone the police?’

  ‘No, I’ll be over in ten minutes. Thanks for calling. You go to bed. I’m sorry about this.’

  ‘She was a bit agitated today, talking to herself a lot. Don’t really know what it was all about. George just noticed the lights on and the front door open when he was lockin’ up. I’ll keep an eye out in case she turns up.’

  He thanks Pat again, apologises for the trouble and is silently grateful she is a home-help who seems to care for more than the pittance she gets paid. When he goes back to the bedroom Alison asks, ‘Your mother?’ He nods as he scrambles into his clothes, then searches the dressing table for the car keys.

  ‘She’s gone walkabout. Have you seen the car keys?’ She gets out of bed and finds them for him.

  ‘We can’t go on like this, Martin. Something’s going to have to be done for her. It’s not fair to her or anyone else. You’re going to have to speak to Rob about it, make him do his bit as well.’

  ‘I know. I have to go. Don’t wait up. It’ll probably take a while to get her settled. We’ll talk tomorrow.’ He goes to kiss her but hesitates and then the moment is gone and he’s hurrying down the stairs and into the car and the cold night air.

  *

  Something has wakened him. It’s someone stirring, moving. He can’t see clearly so he rubs his eyes to try to push the darkness out of them. It’s Rob, standing up, moving about his bed, ‘Rob,’ he whispers. There is no answer. ‘Rob,’ he whispers more loudly. The light comes in brittle and gritty shafts that spear the thinness of the curtains. From outside there is the yellow seep of a street lamp and as he squints, it looks like the sun is rising and about to burst into daylight but it remains fixed, like a promise that is never delivered. He sits up in the bed. ‘Rob, what the frig are you doing?’

  ‘Shut up before you wake him!’ Rob whispers, and his voice is frayed and thin, but edged with determination.

  He can see now that he’s putting things into his school bag and he’s tipped the contents on the bed, that the bed is stuffed with something that makes it look as if he’s still sleeping in it.

  ‘What the frig are you doing?’ he asks again.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ Rob says. ‘Gettin’ out of here.’

  Part of him wants to laugh, part of him wants to giggle but he knows that if he doesn’t get this right then there will be no laughter in its consequences. He wants to tell him to wise up, that thirteen-year-old boys who’ve never been to the end of the Newtownards Road on their own don’t run away. Kids who are scared of their own shadow. To get back into bed and dream something nice until the morning but instead he says, ‘Right, running away. When did you think this up?’

  ‘I’ve been planning it for ages.’

  ‘And what about me, Rob? You weren’t going to tell me? Just go?’

  ‘Had to be a secret.’ There is a thin seam of pride in his achievement, the secrecy of his planning.

  ‘You think I’d tell anyone? You think I’d tell him?’ He flecks his voice with hurt. And now his younger brother is caught on the barbs of disloyalty and ingratitude.

  ‘I know you wouldn’t tell him, Martin. I know that.’

  ‘We always look out for each other, Rob. You and me – we always take care of each other.’ His voice is wounded.

  ‘I was going to write to you,’ he says. ‘Honest, I was.’

  Now he has him, now he can reel him in. And he knows, too, by the shape in the bed that this has sprung from a film he’s been watching, some fantasy that he’s seen and shaped as his own.

  ‘So where are you going?’ he asks and he lets the question echo with his admiration.

  ‘London, probably, or maybe Australia.’

  ‘Right. Fuckin’ hell, that’s a great idea. You’ve really thought this out. Just imagine his face if he gets a postcard from Australia!’ They both snigger a little. Now it’s time to bring him back. ‘And you have plenty of money?’

  ‘A couple of quid.’

  ‘So how were you planning to get to London or Australia?’ he asks, as if he’s keen to share his brother’s expertise.

  Rob hesitates, searches desperately for an answer. ‘Maybe go down the docks, hide on a boat. Or get a job on one.’

  ‘Right, right. Good idea,’ he says, as if he’s really impressed. ‘But listen Rob, I know this is your idea and you’ve really planned it out, but I was wondering if you would let me come too?’

  ‘You want to come? Maybe it would be best if we both went because he’d probably take it out on the one left behind. Wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Too right he would. We could look out for each other, the way we always do.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Rob says.

  ‘But listen, if there’s two of us we’re going to need more money. We’re only going to be able to do it if we have some money. We need to start saving, gathering it up. Listen, I know a great place we could hide it, somewhere that no one will ever find. What do you say?’

  ‘We’ll save the money and then we’ll both be able to go,’ Rob says.

  ‘And listen Rob, can you imagine his face when he gets a postcard from Australia?’

  Rob sniggers but then there is a pulse of panic. ‘Do you think he could find us in Australia?’

  ‘It’s too big, Australia’s too big, Rob. He’d never find us. Get back into bed now.’ He watches his brother do as he asks. ‘And hide that bag.’ Rob kicks the bag under the bed and retrieves the rolled-up coats from under the blankets.

  ‘What’ll we say on the postcard?’ he asks.

  ‘Fuck you, kangaroo!’ he answers and Rob starts to giggle and snigger so loudly he has to tell him to be quiet, but he’s so excited, so pumped up, he has to invoke his fear of their father hearing to silence him.

  *

  Happy families. She tries to curl into the heat he left in the bed but already it’s draining away as she listens while the car’s engine kicks into life. Moving back to her side she slips her hand under her cheek and smells the scent still lingering on her fingers. Happy families. Knock, knock. Is Mrs Bun the baker at home? Mrs Bun the baker is not at home. Is Master Pill the chemist’s son at home? The rain thunders against the caravan roof and it s
ounds as if someone is throwing great handfuls of gravel and stones against the windows. As they hold the cards in front of their faces like fans, they glance from time to time at the ceiling and once, when the whole caravan gives a little shudder, the children look over the tops of their cards with widened eyes that speak of pleasure and a pretence of fear.

  They huddle round the little table and they’ve never felt as close as this. It’s their first family holiday. A caravan in Groomsport caravan park. The caravan is called Bluebird and Rachel says it’s like Dr Who’s Tardis – bigger on the inside than the outside – and she’s right because everywhere there are beds that fold down and things that open up, so when the rain volleys against it, they still feel snug and safe, shut inside their own world. The children are in their slippers and dressing gowns. Happy families. Knock, knock. Is Mrs Chop the butcher’s wife at home? Then as the fury of the rain momentarily fades, there is only the waxy fistle of the cards and the breathing of the children as they strain to make their families complete.

  She wonders if it was the last time that everything seemed to fit. The last time that she felt in control. And suddenly Martin asks how you win the game and as she reads the rules out loud she laughs at him, telling him, ‘That play continues until the happy families are complete. When a player holds no more cards they are out of the game.’

  There is a pain in her leg and she stretches a little and tries to stir a little heat in the bed. She wonders how long he’ll be, tells herself that she should wait up for him to hear him say, as he always does, ‘Give me some of your heat,’ but knows already that she is slipping towards sleep. And now if anyone were to ask her, she would say that’s all that marriage is about – a sharing of heat, trying to protect each other from the cold outside. She moves again towards his space – he’ll be cold when he gets back. It’s important that he’s got her warmth to bring him home and when he comes he’ll snuggle into her back and girdle her with his arm. She thinks about that moment and tells herself that when it happens, in that soft limbo world between sleep and consciousness, then just for a second it will make them both feel that everything is complete.