Crustaceans (12 page)

Always before my grandmother had accepted whatever I brought her, and she'd never found fault, as my father would do. It was the faults, I supposed, that she'd valued – and this gift was too perfect, too much like real pottery. Of course it must have come from a shop. But still I wanted her to know that I'd made it, and as I packed the last piece in the box I said, Grandma, do you remember the pictures I brought home from college; the ones of my pots? She didn't appear to be listening, but gazed softly at Ruth, as she'd once gazed at her photograph, and again I said, Grandma? Do you remember those photos? Her eyes were filmy, her scalp showing pink through her hair, and she looked at me vaguely. Paul, Ruth said from her chair by the window, her voice a small warning; wasn't there something else you wanted to say? And I nodded. I folded the flaps on the box and pushed it aside. I sat down on the sofa, and smiled to my grandma, and finally I told her our news. Oh, she said as if startled. She clasped one hand in the other, her fingers swollen and waxy, and I noticed then that she no longer wore any rings, the ones my grandfather had given her. It's due in December, I said. Is it? she asked. You're the first person we've told, I added. Am I? she said, and turned again to face Ruth. But you won't want a bastard, dear, will you? No, I suppose not, Ruth replied, and looked over her shoulder, stared out at the gardens. That wouldn't be right, my grandmother said. No. You'll have to get married now, Paul; won't you?

TWENTY-ONE

The steps down from the esplanade are smoothly layered with snow. I descend the boards slowly, holding tight to the handrail. The wind now is ferocious, the beach wide and empty, and soon there'll be darkness. The cold tears at my face, burns in my ears. I hunch into my coat and head out for the strand, my gaze fixed to the ground, searching the pebbles for hagstones, one more to take back to our caravan. The sand is packed hard, solid with ice, and I leave no trace as I walk. The tide is returning. At the rubbish-strewn ridge by the shore-line I hear the waves break and spume on the shingle, the gulls shrieking above me, and for a moment then I glance out, lift my face to the sea, but the cold here is too much, I have to look down. I turn and follow the line of the ridge, scanning the debris, the driftwood and Coke cans, frosted cartons and seaweed, until I find what I've come for. The stone is shaped like a bird-skull, just small enough for your fist, and the bore-hole is perfect. It's flint, Euan, I say; can you see? I drop it into my pocket and hear the chink of my bottle. I crouch with my back to the sea, the wind searing past me, and pull off my gloves. With numbed fingers I roll up a cigarette. I unbutton my coat and shelter beneath it, catch a flame from my lighter and draw deeply. The coloured bulbs on the esplanade are shining. A concrete ramp slopes down from the last of the beach huts – nearer now than the steps – and I hurry towards it.

The long promenade is empty, as far as the pier behind me, the dark cliffs in the distance. The huts are shuttered and bolted and the paintwork is peeling. At the top of the ramp there's a lifebuoy, and a telephone mounted in a small yellow box. The poster between them says
WARNING – THIS COULD BE YOUR CHILD
. But the child is a girl. She flops wetly in the arms of a man, her eyes closed, her mouth gaping open. She's no weight at all, and he can't be her father. He regards her face calmly, fixedly, a drip of water on the end of his nose, a quiff of wet hair. His jeans are soaking, his shirt.
TEACH WATER SAFETY
, it says. Which we did – you had your first badge for swimming, a natural fear of the sea – and as I stare at the girl's limp trailing arm, her damp tendrils of hair, I think only that I ought to phone Ruth, remind her that I've come here. Today at least we should talk. But this phone connects straight to the coastguard –
EMERGENCY ONLY
– and though I know there's a kiosk fifty yards further back, and another across the wide road, the impulse is already fading. I have nothing to say, and it isn't the sight of this lifeless child that brings me almost to tears but frustration, the dull familiar ache of futility.

Ruth moved out in October, nine weeks ago, and lives now with a friend, a woman called Julie. They used to work in the same building. I don't know how long she'll stay there. Their house is a small one, no different from ours: another long terraced street, cars parked up on both pavements, estate-agent boards in the gardens. Sometimes I drive past it, and once I dialled her number. I listened to Julie, her crackling voice on the answerphone. I heard the beep and said nothing; I replaced the receiver. Our lives were now separate, and though Ruth called me soon after, I let her message run on. She said she would visit – she mentioned your birthday, if that was okay – and I remembered again the moment she'd left me, the pause before she'd opened the door and the silence that remained long after she'd closed it. Her last glance had made no appeal. I made no motion to stop her. There was the creak of the gate and her heels on the pavement, the clunk of her car door. I heard the engine, its slow acceleration, then silence. In the house nothing moved. I stood with arms folded, my head and one shoulder pressed into the wall, my legs crossed at the ankle. I'd always believed she would leave me, she would eventually go. There would be no choices, no need to act. Ruth would move on and I would not prevent her. Minutes passed. I rolled myself from the wall and went through to the living room, sat down in my armchair. The curtains were open and I looked to the window; I met my reflection. An hour or so later I switched off the light and lay down on the sofa.

My cigarette has burnt out. I taste the staleness of ash. A fibre of tobacco has caught in my throat. I bend over and cough, hack hard at the pavement, but nothing will come, I can't shift it, and I think I will vomit. My spittle is sour and thin. My eyes are watering and there are pains in my chest, my temples. I steady myself against the sea-wall and take out my whisky. I swill the taste from my mouth, finish the bottle, and let it drop to the sands. In my pouch there's enough dust for one cigarette, and I ought now to look for an off-licence, take a bus the rest of the way. I'm not sure I can walk any further.

TWENTY-TWO

Two days before Christmas, six years ago. It was dark as evening in mid-afternoon and the house you came home to was freezing. I'd forgotten the heating; I was forgetting a lot of things then. A spray of cards lay on the doormat; a red number five winked from the answerphone. The living room curtains were open. I lit a fire and dragged a chair near it; I fetched some pillows for Ruth to sit down on. She wouldn't take off her coat. You were swaddled inside it, sleeping – your blotched gummy face – and as I stood over you, smiling, one hand on Ruth's shoulder, I looked across to the window to find our reflection and glimpsed a movement outside, someone arriving with flowers, a huge wedge of Cellophane. I hurried out to the porch before the bell could disturb you. Our next-door neighbour – we didn't know her name; for almost a year she'd ignored us – brusquely passed them into my arms, and my thanks were effusive. I was floating that day and presumed she had bought them; of course she'd want to share our good fortune. I invited her in; I said she must meet you. But she was already leaving, ducking under the tree by the gate, and seemed not to hear me.

The card said
Many Congratulations, Polly xxx (Mum).
Which is how your grandmother would always sign herself – the
Mum,
the
Grandma,
forever closed off; an afterthought, perhaps an apology. She published an announcement in the
Telegraph
too, then another on each of your birthdays; one more after that. She sent us the clippings. She was good at such things, and could wrap the most awkward of presents. On Father's Day, Mother's Day, New Year and Easter, we knew there'd be gifts – little somethings, she called them – and a letter at the end of each month, her handwriting flawless. She posted a note of condolence when my grandmother died, and a cheque for new clothes when Ruth was promoted, but often too there'd be leaflets – about cot deaths, meningitis, immunisations – and sometimes also an article, neatly clipped from a magazine, offering advice to young parents. One described the resuscitation of small children, another the commonest causes of accidents. We should be wary, it seemed, take nothing for granted; and though Ruth was annoyed, as I was – we'd picked up the same leaflets, read similar articles – still I joined a course in first aid, and eventually passed my exams, for which I also received a card from your grandma. But she very rarely came over to see us, not once you were born. Her life, she complained, was no longer her own – meaning, Ruth said, that
hers
wasn't. Remarried into money, to a former lord mayor, it seemed she spent her days now on charitable works. She sat on several boards of trustees. She was chairwoman of her local hospital's League of Friends. A Sunday magazine profile had called her
redoubtable,
tact and discretion her watchwords. She raised funds for equipment, and organised the activities of two dozen assistants – all dressed in blue pinafores, white blouses – and oversaw the arrangement of the bedside bouquets. She was, said the article, very particular about flowers.

Funereal things, I'd never much liked them, and I'd never bought any for Ruth, but these were different, or I was. They were in most of the first pictures I took, the ones I pinned in my studio, showed to our friends and posted to relatives. Their scent and your sudden presence were equally surprising, elusive. They filled three vases – one next to your cot – and when at last they started to wilt, the petals falling around you, I took a photo to a florist's and came home with another bouquet. It cost more than we could afford, and the selection wasn't quite right, but for almost a year I would continue to refill your vase – though cheaper flowers each time – until your first birthday, when Polly repeated her gesture, the same arrangement exactly. Her message, too, was the same. Ruth shook her head and dropped the card in the bin. She wanted to throw the bouquet away. You can't, I protested. Congratulations for coping so well without me? she replied; because that's what it means, Paul. Sorry you never see me, and sorry I take no interest in Euan, but well done, and here's another bunch of useless bloody flowers … And I nodded. I said she needn't go on, but still I insisted on keeping the flowers, though this time when they withered I didn't replace them.

Yet however much Ruth resented your grandmother, it seemed she would always resent your grandfather more. I hadn't met Jim before you were born, though we'd spoken several times on the phone, our conversations far longer than any Ruth would allow him. He worked then for a lingerie company, and travelled most days of the week, a suitcase of samples in the back of his car, a spare suit in a zipper screening one window. A few weeks after your birth he turned up on our doorstep. Small and portly, he brought with him a smell of aftershave, deodorant. His belly domed out over his belt-buckle. His grip when we shook hands was as firm as my father's, and in his stance, his jowly face and deep-clefted chin, the flat bridge of his nose, I thought he looked like a fighter, pugnacious. But he was clearly still nervous of Ruth, her distance, and when she told him you were sleeping he said not to worry, we mustn't disturb you, there were bound to be other days. He said he often passed near us. Oh, just go up, Ruth told him, and walked through to the kitchen. She switched on the kettle. He'll be waking soon anyway, she said; and glancing to me, Jim slipped off his jacket, stepped out of his shoes. They were polished and wrinkled, the same size as Ruth's, and as he climbed the stairs in his socks I saw that his heels were threadbare. At the door to your room he straightened his tie; he hitched up his trousers. It was half an hour before he carried you down. You were sucking on the crook of his finger, gazing up to his face, and when he passed you into Ruth's arms he said, Thank you, then took a step backwards. He's lovely, he said, and fumbled around in his pockets, unfolded a handkerchief. He shook his head at himself and blew his nose loudly. I looked to the floor. Ruth murmured it was time for your feed and eased herself past him. She disappeared to our bedroom.

From my own father, just after New Year, we'd received a bottle of whisky, a single malt in a gold cylindrical box, a year younger than we were. I'd never much liked whisky either, or spirits of any kind, but I'd found a taste for it then. The burn in my throat resembled the parching of smoke, and of course I was no longer a smoker. When that bottle was empty I'd bought a replacement – a supermarket own-brand – and it was this that I opened for Jim as he stood weeping that day in our kitchen. We drank to his grandson, to you, and always then when he called I made sure there was whisky, a glass or two before he departed. And Jim's visits were frequent, as regular as your grandmother's letters. He said he'd be passing our way; he didn't like to impose … Sometimes he came at the weekend, and though Ruth never refused him – Euan'll be here, she told him – she hardly spoke whilst he was with us. Often she arranged to go out. It's not me he's coming to see, she argued; I don't see why I have to sit here and watch him. She said she found him embarrassing, the way he fussed over you, the voices he made; and I remember his laugh, the comic-book cackle, each time he lifted you into his arms. He liked to bury his face in your tummy. He pulled off his tie and rolled back his sleeves and got down on the floor with you. It seemed he couldn't hold you enough. His face would be pink when he left, his hair out of order. Your first smile was for Jim, and I thought he deserved it.

Your grandfather's hobby was woodwork and he made almost every present he gave you. The first was a small boat, ten holes in the deck, a numbered peg in each hole. The pegs were painted as sailors, planed smooth and varnished. I tried to slot one into your hand as you sat in his lap, but you dropped it; you gripped my finger instead. Oh well, Ruth said, and picked it up from the floor. She returned the peg to the boat and quietly went from the room. A month or so later he made you a highchair, which Ruth didn't think would be safe, and then a rocking horse, which she thought you'd fall off. But still he kept trying, though of course Ruth complained he was trying too hard. Once I asked him to make us a bird-table – which he brought the next time, the joints as intricate as any toy that he made – and once, as we sat drinking, talking about tools, his workshop, he showed me his hands. They were like Ruth's, like a woman's, slim-fingered, unblemished. I have to be careful, he said; mustn't chip the nails, not in this business. He gestured out to his car. It's silk, a lot of that stuff. His second marriage had failed and it was his girlfriend, he said, who looked after his hands. He called her his girlfriend. Her name was Liz, and she had three grown-up children, one still at home. She sometimes filed his nails, rubbed cream on his hands, saw to his splinters. He didn't think they'd get married. If the clock works, he shrugged, why mend it? He said these things in confidence, when Ruth was out of the room.