Now That You're Back Read online

  ‘I’m sorry, I thought you were. I must have been mistaken. How have you been?’

  ‘Oh, fine.’

  And it made sense to say that, as if the years we hadn’t seen each other had made us better acquainted.

  ‘We have a progressive friendship, then.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean, Christine. I even . . . you are Christine?’

  ‘Yes, I’m always Christine. I meant we have a friendship of the kind that progresses without us. We hardly spoke when I knew you at school and now we seem almost conversational. I find that happens a lot; the less you see each other, the more you get. The best kind of marriages might be like that, what do you think?’

  ‘I think they might very well be like that. But you’re not married? Divorced?’

  ‘No, I’m not. Not either. I like your voice the way you have it now. It’s only a little bit odd. Do you speak to yourself that way?’

  ‘If I speak to myself in the first place. I don’t think I’d admit to that.’

  ‘Inside your head, that’s where people talk to themselves. What’s your car like?’

  ‘Red. Undisturbed, I hope. It’s outside my flat. I walked here.’

  ‘Mm.’

  And I wanted to walk with her then. I thought the most pleasant thing at that moment in the world would be the exercise of strolling through orange-grey drizzle and looking in at windows with Christine close enough for the unaccidental brush of shoulder and hip. The idea of it all was so strong that for a little while I had to close my eyes. When I glanced at her again she was smiling and waving to someone behind me. I looked at the blue of the veins in her wrist, the rose-coloured ends of her fingers. She looked at me.

  ‘I’m staying with Shona, you don’t know her.’

  ‘Shona.’

  ‘You don’t know her, but I’m staying at her house and I said I would be back early. I’m walking there now. You can keep me company.’

  I’m not an especially sheltered person, I don’t lead an impoverished life of solitary card games and lonely trips to cinema matinees. I am not in the habit of recalling in palpable detail, every moment of every uneventful walk along ragged pavements under autumn rain that I have made with man, woman, child or domestic pet. But walking with Christine was special even before it happened. Everything was heightened. I was heightened. The feel of the air when I inhaled was heightened, was almost overwhelming, in fact. I wasn’t sure if I could bear to move. It was all very singular.

  There is, I know, nothing more tedious than second-hand enthusiasm. I won’t describe every garden gate and every shadow as we passed them, the wonderful effect of the fish and chicken bar’s illuminated sign as it fell and rolled on the slick of the paving. Instead, I will bring us all to the end of the journey and the brick terraced house where Shona lived. You will take it for granted that the bricks and the terrace and the house were all imbued with an indescribable quality the like of which I had never before encountered.

  I am standing, as I stand sometimes now in daydreams, with my back to the street and my front to Christine who is gently insinuating the spare key that Shona gave her into the front door lock. This is a very Freudian moment. I have temporarily forgotten how to inhale, but this does not disturb me as inhaling is no longer necessary.

  Christine opens the door with a dull exhalation of hallway and we both see a dim smirr of light from the top of the stair and the loom of various furnishings. I notice that I am steadying myself by bracing one hand up against the door frame.

  Christine inclines her head to me, smiles and with a gesture I find quite confusing at first, presses her thumb lightly across my lips from top to bottom, making a little seal just below my nose. I want to sob, or something very like that, but listen to her voice instead.

  ‘Good night, then. I hope you have a safe journey home. It isn’t far if you take that other road there to the left. And –’

  She slides the palm of her other hand along my arm from the shoulder to the elbow, where it rests.

  ‘Just to let you know, you are thinking “That feels nice. I don’t know what this is could I come in Durex Elite – where were they – blue packet a picture of her standing and wearing a cream silk petticoat and nothing else God nothing else the light in another woman’s face – what was her name – this wouldn’t be like that there is something very odd about this house – what would she feel like to be inside of – where else will she look – not in there you mustn’t think it no not that but imagine snug very snug I can imagine her tits they would be marvellous edible shut up impossible dream joke wicked all this stuff reeling out like a prick like a rope not like a prick I don’t have a prick like a rope God the white light of hitting something. What is this?” Sorry. I don’t mean to pry.’

  I had to grip her arm to keep myself from stumbling. I had never heard anyone say my thoughts out, word for word, including the punctuation. That hadn’t happened before. I believe that things like it do not often occur. It was a shock. It was an invasion. I have never liked people telling me the way they guess I’m thinking – that feels oppressive and sly and is tediously inaccurate. Someone telling me precisely what I am thinking, beat by beat – that seems to affect my soul.

  ‘But I can’t see your soul, only how you picture it. I’m sorry if I frightened you. You seemed so lonely, I only wanted to say hi.’

  ‘There are places where I like to be alone.’

  ‘Partly it was selfish, too. I needed someone to know why I had to be the way you remember when I was young. And you remember so clearly, I wanted you to know what made me fall so often, have so many accidents. You see it’s very distracting, hearing what everyone thinks all the time. It took me years to get used to it.’

  ‘You can do this to everyone.’

  ‘Of course, I can’t help it.’

  She gave a slight frown and squeezed my hand.

  ‘I can’t answer any of your other questions. You know my secret and I know all of yours, but we can keep secrets. I know we’re both very good at that. You’ll have to go now, but don’t worry about getting home, you’ll manage far better than you imagine. I’m sure we will meet again, but I don’t suppose it will be soon. I am going away from here tomorrow. Do take care. I have your number now – yes, I do – so I may call you. God bless.’

  Do you know what that made me do, most of all? Nothing histrionic – no screaming or obsession, paranoia – no, I simply found myself wondering how clean I really was. If someone chose to walk around inside me, how much of it would I be happy for them to see?

  I did get home, but I wasn’t alright. I was full of untidy corners and pieces of dark.

  I have never been one for confessions, for cleaning house, as our American friends would say, so for a number of months I felt decidedly uncomfortable. This did, however, eventually fade. I have found in my life that many uncomfortable things do just slip away, although I might never imagine that they could. It is almost better that I should have more and more unpleasant experiences so they can wear me into a deeper and deeper ease. This goes against popular logic, but has for many years had a practical value I find it difficult to overestimate.

  I wouldn’t mention anything too unpalatable from my past, because it would serve no particular purpose, other than to cause disturbance. Still, there was one incident I would like to mention, because it concerns Christine.

  That day had not been lucky. A great deal had gone wrong and I was worried about a colleague of mine. I don’t normally work with others very closely – I don’t have that kind of job, or that kind of nature – but sometimes there will be a person who acts with me as what I might call a colleague. That day had ended with my colleague in serious trouble and I was feeling tired and irresponsible and guilty. I was at home, lying across an armchair and discovering I could not relax. Having started tight, I was simply drinking myself tighter, if that makes any sense.

  When my telephone rang I answered it, expecting to be threatened, or fired, or
cursed in some appropriate way.

  ‘Hello, this is Christine. I can’t talk for long.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s very difficult to hear what you’re thinking when you’re drunk. I would have waited until the morning, but I began to be confused about what you might do.’

  ‘Christine? You can’t – it’s been years. Over this distance?’

  ‘Of course over this distance, if I want to. I would recognise you anywhere. And, to be honest we seem to be sympathetic. You’ve been shouting at me all week.’

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter, somewhere away, somewhere I can reach out from if I want to hear, but otherwise not. You’re the only thing that’s disturbed me in a long while. Do go to sleep. You would sleep if you tried to.’

  ‘But you don’t know –’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I know, I know about the week in September, I know about Belgian fast food. I know.’

  ‘Alright. Keep it safe.’

  ‘Everything is safe. Everything is alright. Have a bath and go to bed and think about leaving.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard. No more work – do something good for yourself. Stop hurting. It is possible. Go to bed. I’ll be thinking of you.’

  Naturally, I didn’t go to bed. Christine had been right, though, I did sleep very soon after her call and stayed well under for twenty hours, or so.

  When I finally came to, the armchair had wrecked my back, but my head was relatively stable. I could remember very little of what Christine had said – only the feeling her voice had given me was clear. That morning I found it impossible to feel as unaccompanied as usual and there was a pleasant sensitivity in my chest, a sort of warmth, that lasted almost until lunch time. I think that was to do with her.

  What came next didn’t make any sense until I saw Christine again, I believe for the very last time. I would take any amount of steps to prove myself wrong, to speak to her and watch her eyes, reading off the inside of my skull, but I know it won’t happen. My efforts would be wasted and, more importantly, would disturb her so I don’t make them.

  I was in London and it was last year at the start of autumn. There was a dull mist crawling hand in glove over the car roofs and making my mouth taste of lead. I exhaled as I walked, adding a little more to the general cloud.

  This all seemed entirely appropriate. I was cleaning up the details to close my final piece of work and when it was over, both I and the mist could be gone. For now, no one could really see me. I and the other pedestrians all muffled along between polished housefronts – carrot cake brick and bicycles and Banham burglar alarms. It is difficult in this district to tell agencies from embassies from residences from hotels and I have always liked it because no one can really belong here – we all of us just come and go.

  Behind a little corner church there was a yard or two of garden, safely fenced and locked away from passing strangers and equipped with a range of printed regulations governing its legal use. Of course, when I glanced towards a flicker of light through the chainlink, Christine was there. She was dressed as a nun.

  ‘I am a nun.’

  ‘Christine. How are you, how are you here?’

  ‘I’m very well. I have been given a way of living peacefully now. No, it’s not at all like prison, I have a pattern to be free inside of and calm. Having a gift – like my gift – it isn’t just a matter of receiving, you need help to find out just what you should do with it. It’s nice to see you. I wasn’t sure if you would pass here, but I hoped you might.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be . . .’

  ‘Somewhere else? No, my order sent me here, or very near here and sometimes I take advantage of this garden. I’m not a resident and I shouldn’t have a key, but nobody minds me – nobody minds a little nun.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

  ‘You can. Have you finished your business?’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘That’s good. Then you can be free, too. Don’t worry.’

  ‘But a nun, that’s so extreme.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t have to be. I’m not a very extreme nun. Are you sleeping better?’

  ‘I sleep very well, never better.’

  ‘That’s nice. I do think about you, you know. You lead such a very uncomfortable life and I think about that. You could be as comfortable as me.’

  ‘Marry and settle down, you mean?’

  ‘How could you do that when the only woman who ever knew you is a nun?’

  ‘The only woman who ever knew how to make me blush.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to.’

  I can’t be absolutely sure of how long we talked, or of everything we said. The mist had seeped through my coat by the time Christine said she should go. She smiled and held my hand between hers. Her fingers made a fit no one else had managed.

  ‘You have clean hands, a gentleman’s hands.’

  ‘But I’m not a gentleman.’

  ‘Oh, you are in your heart, though. Take good care of yourself and remember you aren’t alone. Really, you aren’t.’

  ‘You’ll be praying for me, eh?’

  ‘Of course, I always pray for cynics because they won’t like it. It serves them right. But tell me what you see when you fall asleep.’

  ‘My dreams, you mean?’

  ‘No. Think of what you see just before you slip under. Yes, there you are.’

  I found myself closing my eyes and watching a large, orange red flower, slowly uncurling a fist of petals under dew, round and round and in and in towards its heart. I knew what the heart would look like. I had seen it before.

  ‘I send you that, didn’t you know? Because you need your sleep. I do have to go away now and we won’t have each other’s company again, but that’s what you’ll see every night. This way you’ll know that I’m well and still thinking of you. You’ll know you’re not alone, which I think you need. Most people do. I will miss talking to you – it’s always such a relief to not have to pretend.’

  She left me with a misty kiss on my forehead and a chance to find out that her skin still smelt the same.

  And now I am a dream man, you could say. Wherever I happen to be, I wait for my nights and that particular rest they bring me beyond what my body needs. Recently I have begun to worry that she may leave me. Perhaps there will be an accident or an illness I know nothing of until I look into an empty night and know she has gone.

  I have a feeling this is something that Christine intended. Certainly, she will know I have started praying – only God would know to what. I pray that she will outlive me, that she doesn’t forget me and that she will always be well. And sometimes I ask if the flower could be mine, really mine, to stay here just because of me. I wonder if that offends her, I don’t mean it to.

  ON HAVING MORE SENSE

  AND LO, THE Wise Old Man spake forth unto the other, more lowly persons gathered symmetrically about him.

  ‘Persons,’ he said, ‘Be it known that certain deep and significant Boons shall be granted upon you this day and at my hand. And some of these I shall enumerate to you now, lest they go forth unnoticed and generally unappreciated in the greater world beyond.

  ‘Listen and wonder. You shall be granted the Power to cause previously stolid baked goods to rise upon every possible occasion.

  ‘Also the Power of swimming in water.

  ‘Also the Boon of being henceforth forever free from ill-defined but nonetheless annoying sore throats in combination with slight catarrh.’

  And a lesser person did interrupt the sage discourse at this point and enquire with a discernibly cynical tone, ‘And what is the difference between a Boon and a Power, Wise Old Man?’

  And the Wise Old Man replied thusly. ‘If thou knewest the difference between a Boon and a Power, thou wouldst not ask it. Thou mightst also know that it’s rude to butt in.’

  The Wise Old Man did then carefully wink his left eye in a rather jovial manner and c
ontinue.

  ‘Know also that thou hast, even now, the inexpressible Boon of inhaling and exhaling most proficiently and without further instruction until the very moment of thy passing from this life into something different but equally interesting.’

  And seating himself comfortably among the roots of his most particularly favourite tree the Wise Old Man did then look around him slowly, measuring the qualities of each face he saw while his companions did endeavour quite unsuccessfully to lower themselves into positions in which they could not be in any way more elevated than their chosen Sage. When they had all lain themselves upon the leaves and earth and irritating little sticks the Wise Old Man motioned them to sit up and behave sensibly like men and women rather than door stops.

  ‘For now I must tell you the very heart and kernel of my life’s philosophy after which I shall retire to my cave in the mountains and be seen no more. Yes, my little brothers and my little sisters this very day I will give you the key to my unassailable happiness. Use it well and don’t forget a word, because it shall only pass into written form many years after our deaths and will, by then, be prey to all kinds of editorial intrusion.

  ‘So hear now all those who look upon the world for wonders, all those who would touch miracles and light, lower your eyes and close them and see what I say. The earthly paradise you seek is closer by far than you could know and guarded by a host of noble birds. Set your gaze upon those birds, oh my little sisters and my little brothers, let your minds and hearts be filled with the image and illumination, with the whirling, alchemical spirit of the penguin.

  ‘No, you are not mistaken, behold the penguin. Admit neither a flinch, nor a flicker, hold fast to that reliably waddling figure and all will be well. Trust in me as you would trust a penguin, for which of you in the privacy of your soul may ever say you were betrayed by any penguin? Well then, slip your hands into the steady flippers of this paragon of birds and make ready to learn the superlative joys of its path.

  ‘At this juncture it may be a man will cry out, “But, Wise Old Man, what am I to a penguin and what is a penguin to me? Penguins can’t even whistle – which is odd in a bird – and they are, besides, foolishly short and very far from being an every day part of my life. I am not, after all, a zoo keeper.”