Cold Fire Page 7

  ‘You must be tired,’ she says.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You want to take a nap?’

  ‘You?’

  She smiles, undoes the top button of her blouse.

  ‘Maybe.’

  We don’t make the sea.

  The sea’s like my talisman. Maybe that’s why the next day is so weird. I didn’t get a top-up. Maybe that’s why I didn’t listen to Frank.

  *

  16.

  Me and Helen eat a late breakfast. I linger over tea, her over coffee. She takes two cups to my one. The coffee smells good, but the tea is fine. It’s got my milk in it and I walked for that damn milk.

  Thirty minutes there, thirty minutes back. That’s the longest I’ve walked since getting ill. I wouldn’t have turned back. How can you turn back when you’re with a seventy-something guy with a fake hip and no stick?

  I ache like a bastard, though. I ache in places I wouldn’t imagine it would hurt. My legs ache, my good one the worse, I guess because I favour it. My hand, from clutching the stick, but my neck, my shoulders, my back, too.

  But it’s a good kind of tender. It’s better than the tender you get when you’ve spent the night throwing up after a bender, or the back ache you get from sitting at a desk for four hours straight.

  I’m wearing my dressing gown, sitting at the table in the kitchen. I’m looking at Helen’s legs as she reads the Sunday papers, even though it’s Tuesday.

  We don’t rush anymore.

  I take the tennis ball from my pocket and squeeze it with my right hand. I can’t dent the ball, like I can now with my left hand, but I count out a hundred, going at it as hard as I can.

  Helen knows I’m doing it. She doesn’t say anything, but she’s happy. I can tell.

  I can do things now that I couldn’t do before the stroke and the coronary. I can walk for an hour. I couldn’t do that before. I’ve got callus from my stick. I’ve never had calluses. I’m forty-two. I’ve never had calluses. Frank’s got calluses, and he hasn’t worked in ten years.

  Calluses seem honest to me. More honest than all the nosebleeds I had from years of putting shit up my nose, or bleeding from my arse because I’d had to fight to get a big shit out that’d been stuck up there for a week, then tickle it round the U-bend. Drugs aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

  I squeeze out another thirty repetitions on the tennis ball, but by then I’m about to drop it, so I put it away for now.

  Most days I go for two hundred. I decide right there, I can do more.

  There’s no rush, but the days running down, too. I don’t want to die with soft hands.

  ‘We missed the sea yesterday,’ Helen says. She doesn’t look up from the paper. I’ve still got my eye on her legs. I’ve got a libido again. It’s making up for lost time.

  ‘I know. Want to go early today?’

  ‘Shall we walk?’ she says it lightly, but I know she’s feeling me out, testing where my limits are. She knows I’m aching, but she’s been taking it easy on me, driving me down to the sea.

  I wonder how much of this is Seetha’s doing. I can imagine Seetha and Helen, working out the timing. Figuring out when I can be put back in harness.

  She’s let me find my own way. She’s right, though. I’ve been babying myself. I walked further yesterday than I have for years, and even with my cane and gimpy leg, if it took thirty minutes to Skip’s, I could probably make the sea in twenty. Probably less.

  ‘OK. After lunch. I ache a bit. We’ll have to take it easy.’

  ‘Of course,’ she says, but the way she says it, I know she’s going to push me.

  Fine, I think. I’m not going to be a pussy about it.

  I tell her we’ll take the long way around. Through the estate. Down the hill, through the old town. To our bench.

  I’m showing off. I’m sure she’s been talking to Seetha.

  We’ll take the short way back, though.

  If I don’t kill myself first.

  *

  17.

  We set out after lunch. Spring is in, but the air still remembers winter. It’s that kind early spring when one week you’re in your shirtsleeves, the next you’re in your long johns.

  I’ve got on a long coat, a jumper, and a woolly hat. I hate it when my ears get cold. It makes my jaw ache.

  Helen’s hair’s long enough so it covers her ears. She’s got gloves on, though, and a scarf.

  We walk down the alley, a thin dirt track between Bob’s and the next house along. The grass is bare in the middle of the track, worn down. Short elsewhere. The grass doesn’t need cutting yet. We haven’t had rain for a few days, so the ground is solid. The stick doesn’t sink too much.

  I peek over the fence and Bob’s there, in his garden. He looks over and catches my eye. I nod. He stares at me. I look to see if Helen’s seen him. She’s too short to see over his fence though.

  I think about saying hi, then I think about telling him to fuck off. I think about smashing the slats of treated wood on his fence and pushing my way through and driving a splinter of wood into his neck then rubbing his blood in my hair and laughing in his fucking face.

  But that’s not me, and it’s gone as soon as it comes. It’s not me. It’s him, and his thoughts aren’t mine. It’s gone.

  Yes. I think about telling him to fuck off or saying hi and forcing the issue but I don’t do either. I’ve met plenty of rude people before and half the time I’ve been one of them. I just look away and put it from my mind. I couldn’t give a toss if one of my neighbours is some kind of Norfolk troll. It’s nothing to me. Fuck him, and his ugly shed.

  A little laugh pops out.

  ‘What?’ says Helen.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say. I don’t want to spoil her day telling her about our weird neighbour. ‘Just daydreaming.’

  She gives me a little smile and I squeeze her hand with my weak right hand. I give her a little wink.

  ‘Take it easy,’ I say. ‘Might be a little something in it for you when we get home.’

  She laughs properly and smacks me on the shoulder.

  We come out onto Cedars, just like Frank said. It’s a nice area. Good, solid houses. A lot of new builds are pokey, but these look dependable, like they’ve got interior walls made out of actual brick. I could be wrong.

  We’re in the middle of Cedars. I feel like an explorer. It’s a good feeling. Exploring, like when I was a kid, playing with friends over the dip, dumping our bikes carelessly and just running. Times way back before I remember the dip was a quarry. You couldn’t imagine it, when I was a kid. The trees seemed so tall, the dip so huge. You didn’t think about the age of trees and quarries and time moving on when you were ten.

  Just like me and Helen didn’t really think about where we were going. Just a rough idea, a vague sense of direction, and an adult’s version of hide and seek. Instead of trees; anonymous houses. Pretty much the same, but for doors and windows and plants. The trees that had been planted were new. Still short, trunks still spindly.

  ‘It’s like the village out of the Stepford Wives.’

  ‘Frank won’t come here,’ I say.

  She nods. That about sums it up. We were chatting before, excited by our adventure. Since we got onto Cedars, we’ve fallen quiet. There’s just the muted clack of my stick and the sound of our feet. Three normal steps, one slide, one clack.

  ‘It’s quiet.’

  ‘Too quiet,’ I say.

  Not great, but it gets a smile. We’re old enough to have seen a western or two.

  Up ahead, there’s the universal road sign for dead end, but before we get there, I spot a small break in the street, between two houses. A concrete path. Blink, and you miss it.

  ‘Do you think this is it?’ I say, pointing it out.

  ‘It must be,’ Helen says. She shrugs. ‘In for a penny.’

  So we follow the path. It’s not that long a path. More of a back alley between Cedars and the street over.

  We come out by a c
luster of four houses with a shared driveway and too many cars. There’s another cut through that leads to a row of houses and a road name.

  We’re on Townshend.

  I can hear traffic, a way off. It’s the first sound I’ve heard since getting onto the estate. I don’t know why, but I’m relieved.

  ‘That’s weird,’ she says.

  I know she means the ‘H’.

  ‘Just a funny spelling.’ I imagine the building company thought it added gravitas to what is just an estate, whichever way you look at it, strange name or not.

  The road sign doesn’t tell us which way to go. All it says is Odds/Evens, with arrows pointing left and right. I don’t remember Frank telling us the way from here.

  The road sign shows a little symbol that denotes a cul-de-sac, but give no hint of which way is out, which way is further in.

  I don’t want to go further in.

  ‘Which way?’ says Helen.

  I think. Listen for the traffic. But there must be a lull, because it’s silent again. Just my breathing, my heart, the wind.

  ‘Let’s try this way. We can always come back.’

  We walk on.

  There’s a guy, up on a ladder. He’s painting a window frame. I breath out, relieved. I’d been holding my breath. I didn’t like walking all that way, not seeing anyone. Probably just an adjustment. Walking in London, even from a tube station to a bus, you’d see a thousand people.

  Helen nudges me, makes this face. Like, aren’t you going to ask him?

  I shake my head. I feel better now. There’s no need. Things are fine.

  True, the place is strange, but it’s still early, and up ahead I can see a patch of green – a field. The road curves. We follow it. The playing field is on our right, all of a sudden, then the traffic sounds come back in. But of course, they were there all along.

  A hundred yards and we’re out on the main road.

  Down the hill, the Stop Shop. Up the hill, the coast.

  We’re in our own little dip here.

  I laugh, but it’s nervous.

  ‘I see what Frank means,’ I say. ‘No people.’

  ‘The guy painting his windows.’

  ‘Yeah. Apart from him.’

  ‘You know,’ says Helen, ‘I was getting a bit freaked out myself. I was imagining the guy would turn toward us, have no face, or something.’

  I get goose bumps. I remember the man in the sports shop. Faceless and on fire.

  ‘Don’t,’ I say.

  Helen looks sideways at me.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You want to go back?’

  ‘No. I can make it.’ Besides, I’m not going back that way. That’s what I want to say. And that it feels wrong. That it makes me feel wrong. But I don’t say any of those things. Because I can’t explain it.

  ‘I was only kidding,’ she says. She looks worried.

  ‘I know, but…I don’t know. Come on, let’s go. I want to see the sunset.’

  So we walk.

  The estate falls behind us to the right. We pass a set of wide gates, shut, imposing. Behind them, a long driveway leads up to a grand old building. There’s a sign, hand painted, on one brick gatepost. Eventide Homes.

  It sounds like it should be from the Liturgy of Hours, but it’s not. I’m not a good Catholic, but I’m from an Irish family. It’s in the blood.

  I don’t know what it is.

  The pavement disappears after a while, and we’re walking on the verge. It’s uphill, but I can smell the salt air. It draws me on.

  After what seems a long time the hill tapers down to flat. A few cars pass us. It’s a quiet stretch of road, but I’m grateful for those cars.

  By the time I can see the sea in the distance, I still have that sense of the unreal, but the sea is maybe five hundred metres away, and I push everything to one side and concentrate solely on putting one foot in front of the other.

  I’m slow, dragging my foot more. That foot’s getting heavier with each passing step and I need to stop and rest, no matter how much I want to do this. I’m sure Seetha has a rule for hills, but I know she wouldn’t begrudge me taking a break.

  We sit down for a while at a bus stop.

  Helen’s got a chocolate bar in her pocket. She gives it to me. I share it with her. I can’t eat it all.

  My head’s killing me. I’ve got one of the worst headaches in memory. Lights are flashing in my eyes – both of them.

  For some reason, I don’t want to tell Helen. But she knows. I can’t hide my face.

  ‘Sam, what is it?’

  I try to grin, but I must just look sickly.

  ‘Sam, talk to me. You’re scaring me.’

  ‘Just a headache.’

  ‘Should I call someone?’

  ‘No. Come on.’

  ‘I’m calling the doctor.’

  I’d only seen the local doctor once, and he’d struck me as a jobsworth. He’d go one of two ways – hospital for a raft of tests, or a couple of paracetamol.

  ‘No. No doctor. Come on. The sea.’

  She frowns, but she can tell I’m not going to budge.

  We make it. In the end I’m looking worse than I have since the hospital. Sweating, head pounding, blinding lights flashing in my eyes.

  I pretty much collapse on the bench. Our bench. She shakes her head and gets her mobile out. I grab her wrist, with my good hand. My grip’s got stronger than it used to be.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Wait ‘til sunset. If it doesn’t go, then you can call.’

  ‘If it’s a stroke you know I can’t wait.’

  ‘It’s not a stroke, Helen. It’s a headache. It’ll pass.’

  The sunset comes and goes. Helen watches it, glancing at me. I smile, as reassuringly as I can.

  I’m worried, but I want it to just be a headache. Then my sunset comes, slow and bright. Unbelievably bright. This has nothing to do with the sun. The sun has long gone. The sky’s full of clouds, light and heavy both. But my sunset lies over the top of them.

  Helen’s watching me.

  ‘You still see it, don’t you?’

  ‘What?’ I say. I know full well what she means.

  ‘The sunset.’

  I pause, but there’s no way around it. ‘Yeah. I do.’

  ‘The yellow?’

  I nod. The headache’s passing. I remember the headache I had the night we said goodbye to Seetha. The headache went with the sunset.

  It’s fading, the headache, but it’s not completely gone.

  I know, watching the sunset, what’s wrong.

  ‘Helen, the guy painting the window…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you paint double-glazed windows?’

  ‘Not if they’re UPVC.’

  I feel sick. It’s a small thing, but the chocolate I ate is rising.

  ‘You think he was a burglar?’

  I can’t say no. I can’t say that, because that’s not what I think at all. I really do think, if the guy on the ladder had turned around he wouldn’t have had a face.

  Or worse.

  After that, I don’t know what happened. I was sick, I guess, but I don’t remember. Some part of me, maybe. Some part remembers. But if I don’t think about him he can’t be there, looking out at my wife in the morning from my dead eye, because of course the stranger isn’t there. He never was. He’s nothing, and nothing I have to worry about.

  Maybe I think about the stranger for a second, maybe he thinks about me, and maybe nothing happens in that split second at all.

  All I know is I woke up in my bed the following day, not in hospital, and my headache was gone.

  *

  18.

  My headache’s gone, but I still feel ill. Wane. Stretched thin.

  My balls feel like they’re about to fall off. I’m so weak it takes me about a minute to push myself out of bed.

  Helen’s not beside me and it’s light out, so I figure she’s downstairs.

  I take
the stairs, but I pussy out. I take them on my butt, like the old days, my stick across my lap. My legs feel watery, good and bad both.

  Helen hears me thumping about. She comes to the bottom of the stairs. She still looks worried. Me going down the stairs on my arse isn’t helping.

  ‘Sam, the doctor’s coming over,’ she says.

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Because you’re ill, and you won’t go to the hospital.’

  ‘I don’t need to go to the hospital.’

  ‘You didn’t need to be so bloody stubborn last night. I was trying to help you.’

  ‘Helen, what are you talking about?’

  ‘You made me feel like an idiot, Sam.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You know!’

  ‘Helen, Honey, the last thing I remember, I was being sick by the bench. Then I wake up in bed.’

  She just looks at me, like she used to when I was fucked up at four in the morning, full of shit and buzzing. The face said, don’t shine me on.

  My face must have done the trick, because she just puts her hand over her mouth and this little cry comes out.

  ‘Sam, please. You’ve got to see a doctor.’

  I’m scared. I’ve no memory of a whole night. I’d been completely straight, so why couldn’t I remember anything?

  ‘Helen, tell me what happened.’

  She sees I’m not making it up.

  ‘You puked, I cleaned you up. I wanted to get you seen. You said you were fine, felt better for being sick. I told you I was leaving to go get the car, but I called an ambulance. I met them by the car park. You were like your old self…full of shit.’

  I let that go. She’s earned it. Plus, she’s right.

  I made a noise. Go on.

  ‘The paramedic came first. I told him about you. You were charming, but you bullshitted him, too. The ambulance came a minute or so later. They checked you over, couldn’t find anything amiss. But they wanted to take you in, just in case. You know, I told them your history. But you wouldn’t go.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I go?’

  ‘I don’t know what the hell you were thinking, do I? You were charming, but like the old you. Sam, I didn’t like it.’