It was too cold for her to sit outside for long. She shuffled along the sea wall to the pub and found a seat next to the radiator. She sipped a gla.s.s of barley wine and watched her great-niece and great-nephew from the window. This evening she would be able to tell her nephew that she had seen his son and that he was safe. She looked at the arthritic swelling on her hands and at the knots in the floorboards. She unb.u.t.toned her overcoat and sat back. She felt happy to be on the coast again and at ease with the knowledge that her time was winding down. Today was a great adventure, perhaps the last. She was quite content.
Ellis watched Mafi"s Morris Minor disappear round the bend at the top of Nelson Road before setting off purposefully to the call box on Coastguards Alley. He took a deep breath and dialled the only London number in his diary apart from his sister"s, and asked to speak to Mr O"Rourke.
"Who shall I say is calling?"
"His son."
The line was silent. Ellis covered the mouthpiece whilst he swallowed and cleared his throat. Then the tone of the silence changed and Ellis knew that his dad was there. Ellis allowed himself to breathe, inviting his dad to speak. Denny declined the invitation.
"Dad?"
Still there was silence.
"It"s Ellis."
"h.e.l.lo, Ellis."
"How are you?"
"I"m fine, son. How are you?"
"Pretty good."
"Good."
His dad"s pitch was perfect. It carried neither anger nor a crumb of tenderness.
"I just called to say I"ve seen Chrissie and Mafi today and that I"m going to call you every Friday evening from now on."
"Did you know Tim Wickham and his wife split up?" Denny O"Rourke asked.
Ellis slumped and looked across the bay. "That"s probably because I slept with her," he said solemnly. He knew that his dad wasn"t going to speak again. "Bye, Dad," he said, tenderly.
Ellis and Jed shared a spliff on the beach that evening. The sea ripples rolled in softly at perfect intervals. The moonlight rode them like a folded paper boat. Ellis thought of his dad"s voice. Jed thought of what he and the little boy he called his baby brother might do together this weekend.
"The European water spider is the only spider that has evolved to live permanently under water," Ellis murmured.
"Go on," Jed said.
Ellis did so, gazing at the lights on the headland across the estuary and whispering, as if Jed were a sleepy child.
"It lives in ponds and streams, slow-moving streams. It spins a dome-shaped web and anchors it to a plant. It comes to the surface of the water and gulps down a bubble of air and takes it to the web and releases it. Gradually, it fills the web with air until it is like an air-filled balloon. It lives in the balloon, under the water."
"I don"t know where you get it from," Jed said, dragging deeply on the joint.
"I read it in a book," Ellis said.
14.
Hedley Wilkinson knocked on Ellis"s door on Christmas Eve. "A strange thing," he said, "but fortuitous, in a sad way."
"What?" Ellis said, wondering if the old boy had finally lost his marbles.
"I was walking, not five minutes ago, past the phone box on Joy Lane when it rang and I picked it up and it was a young lady saying she wanted to speak to you."
"Me?"
"Yes, you, and did I happen to know you? I said that I had that honour and she requested that I give you this message. Your aunt Mafi is sick and she may die any time, tonight probably. You"re to go home straight away. Would you like to borrow my car for the Christmas period?"
Ellis stood bemused. Hedley"s role in his life was becoming more odd. "No, thanks. I"ve got one."
"But is it reliable? A good runner? This is important."
"Was it my sister?"
"Yes. Oh ... I suppose so. I don"t know. It would have been, I imagine. How would I know? Do you have one?"
Ellis thanked Hedley and ushered him out.
"Ellis!" Hedley"s eyes appeared at the letter box.
"What now?"
"You will go, won"t you?"
"Yes."
Although he had never sat beside a human body so frail, Ellis adjusted swiftly to the sight of her. Mafi had grown old at a steady pace. What he saw now wasn"t a marked decline, just further erosion taking her to the brink.
He knew he should have gone straight to his father but something fear probably had propelled him directly up the stairs to Mafi"s room. This was, he already sensed, yet another error of judgement on his part. Before he had time to rectify it, the door opened and Denny tiptoed in, pressing his forehead against the door as he closed it noiselessly. Only then, as he stepped towards the bed, did he see his son. His face tautened to anger and he left the room immediately. Ellis cursed himself and rested his head on the bed. He listened to Mafi"s breathing whilst her hand made circles in his hair.
"Imagine this ..." Her voice was faint and very slow. "There was a meadow on the edge of the Marsh. Your daddy was walking there when he saw her standing among the campions and poppies and when she ran her hands across the tips of the meadow gra.s.s up flew b.u.t.terflies, hundreds of b.u.t.terflies, white and red and brown and pale blue. They danced and fluttered around her head. When she laughed they flew away. Disappeared into thin air. Your daddy knew that he wanted to be with her for ever."
"Was that my mum?" Ellis asked.
"It was," Mafi said.
"Did it really happen?"
"Yes."
"How do you know for sure?"
"Because I was there. And it feels like yesterday to him. He never wants you or Chrissie to have a broken heart, that"s all."
"I don"t think he"s very pleased to see me."
She tugged sharply on Ellis"s hair, causing him to sit up. "If only you"d talk to people, properly, the way you talked to your spiders when you were little," she said.
Ellis walked downstairs and from the kitchen doorway he watched his father making a pot of tea. For the first time ever, he glimpsed the unbroken entirety of Denny O"Rourke"s life and he saw a man still in love with the b.u.t.terfly-lady, still missing her, still hurt by her.
"h.e.l.lo," Ellis said, with all the apology he could invest in the word.
Denny pressed a mug of tea down in front of him and left the room without speaking.
Chrissie arrived from London and pulled the Christmas tree out from its hiding place in the corner of the living room. At three o"clock, she and Denny left Mafi"s bedside and curled up together in the dining room window to listen to the carols from King"s College. Ellis was outside turning over the vegetable patch with the pickaxe. He stopped for a cigarette and clambered over the fence to the working men"s club, which was boarded up. A planning notice detailed the three small houses to be built in its place. As the day faded, Ellis lit a bonfire and burnt off the tree brash his dad had cut in the autumn. He regretted that nightfall would force him back inside. His dad had not spoken to him all day nor remained in the same room as him.
He sat with Mafi, who was too weak to speak now. Later, he bathed in deep, steaming hot water and smelled Chrissie"s fish pie in the kitchen. When he appeared for supper, clean-shaven and wearing the only shirt he possessed that had a collar, his dad finally ended his silence.
"You"ve used up all the hot water, you selfish little b.u.g.g.e.r."
Ellis went upstairs and packed his bag. Chrissie followed him and persuaded him to stay.
"You"ll never undo it if you go now," she said.
She took Ellis"s boots downstairs and placed them next to Denny"s gardening shoes. Ellis switched the light off and lay on his bed and returned to the b.u.t.terfly meadow. It was not so long ago, he reminded himself. That man downstairs is still the man in the meadow. He didn"t come into being on 17 November 1967 when I was born. He wasn"t put on this earth just to be my father.
On Christmas morning, Denny took a pot of tea and a jug of water up to Mafi"s room and did not acknowledge his son. Chrissie gave Ellis a camera. A Pentax K1000. He was thrilled.
"My friend Milek is a photographer and he says this is the ideal first camera for you."
"k.n.o.bbing him?"
"Negative."
Ellis took Chrissie out to the car. Wrapped in a blanket and sticking out of the back window was a large mirror, almost full length. Ellis had made it himself out of pale driftwood from the beach. There were tar marks in the grain and the words "Le Havre" burnt into the wood.
"I love it. I absolutely love it," she said.
They sat in the back of the Herald and shared a cigarette. The day was cold and still and the sky pale grey, the sort of grey that looks a mile deep.
Denny refused to acknowledge his son over Christmas dinner and Chrissie winced at the tension. Ellis grabbed the bottle of red wine from the table and marched out. He drank as he walked up the path to the green. He read the village notices on the school railings. There was a meeting in January to organise the campaign to save the post office from closure and there was a call to sign the pet.i.tion to fight the reduction of the 454 bus service.
He sat on a bench on the green and, with a lack of imagination that was becoming habit, decided to get stoned.
The cherry-faced man whose arm was always in a sling crossed the green and entered the Methodist chapel. Ellis had never known his name nor the reason for the sling. He wondered what ribbon of circ.u.mstances had left the man alone on Christmas Day. Then a pair of giant hands covered his face. The skin was coa.r.s.e and the fingers were fat and brutal and pressed hard against his eyes.
"Guess who?" It was an effortlessly menacing voice.
"Don"t know."
The voice laughed and the hands lifted. Ellis turned and found Des Payne taking a seat beside him.
"Happy Christmas," Des said, sincerely, and laughed.
Ellis laughed nervously. "Jesus, Des ..."
"Had you going," Des said. He leant forward in his skin-tight jeans and pulled a half-bottle of brandy from his Parker coat. He offered it up. Ellis took a nip and, having lit the spliff, handed it to Des.
"Dog"s b.o.l.l.o.c.ks," the big man said appreciatively. "Always go for a walk on Christmas Day when my uncle starts picking on my dad. Tradition."
Ellis had never credited Des Paine with a real life. He was just the overgrown skinhead from Morleys Road who had kindly declined to kill him once.
"I"ll murder my uncle one of these Christmas Days."
"Why?"
"Takes the p.i.s.s. Always scrounging off my dad, always eating the f.u.c.king turkey my dad pays for, getting p.i.s.sed on Dad"s booze and then he starts bullying him. Dad doesn"t like an argument but I could kill my uncle without breaking sweat or giving a s.h.i.t."
They toked and gazed at the gra.s.s as if it were entertaining them.
"Not really," Des muttered, as an afterthought. He puffed out his cheeks and sighed, weakened by the weed. "Where did you run off to then?"
"The seaside," Ellis said.
"f.u.c.k me! That"s all right, isn"t it?"
"Yeah, I like it."
"f.u.c.k me! Gotta hand it to you." Des smiled and nodded to himself, impressed. "So, you just left here and went somewhere else?"
They fell quiet whilst Des toyed with the idea curiously. They both felt quickly stoned.
"Must be cold by the sea."
"Sometimes it"s colder, sometimes it"s warmer."
"Is it? f.u.c.king h.e.l.l! What are the pubs like?"
"Pretty good."
"And there"s loads of this flying about, is there?" Des waved the joint at Ellis.
"Plenty."
"f.u.c.king h.e.l.l." Des breathed out smoke and handed the dog-end to Ellis, who sucked the life out of it, felt the burn of the roach and tossed it away.
"You"ve done all right for yourself," Des said. "Yeah ... you just left here and went somewhere else." Des whispered the words, as if repeating a riddle he couldn"t make sense of. He stretched his legs out and let his arms hang lifelessly. The energy had drained from him and so had the desire to crush his uncle.
"You still scared of spiders?" he asked.
"Not sure at the moment," Ellis said.