Crustaceans (16 page)

Yes, son, he nodded, and tossed his cigarette into the nettles. Briefly he touched the top of my arm. He stepped into the garden, and as I followed slowly behind him – stooping sometimes to hear what he said – he described how my father had found her, seemingly asleep on the floor of the kitchen, her head in her arms and the oven wide open. It was two in the morning, and she had finished a bottle of whisky. She wasn't long out of hospital. Her doctor had discharged her three days before. She'd been given a course of shock treatment, and it seemed to have helped her. She was a little forgetful perhaps, slow on the uptake, but cheerful. She had said she felt fine, and there wasn't a note; she had left no explanation. Nothing, my grandfather said, and made a noise then like a gasp, something caught in his throat. He paused by the flowers at the end of the lawn, bunched his fists in his pockets, and I glanced to his face, looked quickly away. From the kitchen there was silence. I sensed my grandmother was watching, and cautiously I said, Maybe I was the reason, Grandad. If she hadn't got pregnant? But my grandfather didn't reply. He had said as much as he could do – as much, I supposed, as there was – and gazing up to my bedroom, the windows blankly reflecting the sky, I remembered the day she had brought me here from our house, the hedges swollen in sunshine and the clack of her heels, the mauve indentation where her ring should have been. In the kitchen she had bent to embrace me and told me to be a good boy; she had said she would come for me later. But of course she hadn't returned – days had passed before I'd seen her again; several weeks more till she'd returned from the hospital – and then again she had gone; she had left me. Because, I'd come to believe, she hadn't wanted a child. She had died because her future was never meant to include me. And as I followed my grandfather now to the kitchen, dipped my hands in the sink and took my place at the table – the blue-painted wall directly before me, my grandparents' chairs to each side – I knew I would probably always believe that.

TWENTY-SEVEN

You hadn't much sense of a future, the shape of a life. I remember your last day at nursery and your first day at school. It was always my job to take and collect you. At first in your buggy, and later walking beside me, we left our house at eight thirty, returned home around four. Your school was called Highfields, and for nearly three years we passed by it routinely, twice daily. Every morning we crossed over the road at the pelican and walked alongside the railings. There were netball hoops in the playground, Portakabins, footballs, a low distant cluster of buildings. The narrow streets all around, deserted before and soon after, would be streaming at that time with children, their parents, and as we eased our way through them, past the noise and crush at the gates and the cars bumping on to the pavements, I would tighten my grip on your hand. But though I knew in the end I would lose you – soon enough you'd take your place inside those railings – it was rare that you showed any interest. Even on your last day of nursery, you didn't look up. The windows glowed in the murk of that morning and I lifted you into my arms; I pointed across to the buildings. That'll be your classroom, I told you; just after Christmas. I
know
that, you said, squirming to get down, pushing against me; you don't have to
show
me, Daddy.

Your nursery was called BusyBees, five long streets further on. The pavements widened and the buildings grew larger. There were basements and forecourts and name-plaques. We passed solicitors, architects, software consultants, an office supplier's, two homes for the elderly. Every day we passed by them. Our route never varied, and we talked very little, at least not to each other. You would speak to yourself, in your own world, and if I heard you say
Daddy
I knew you couldn't mean me. Most mornings you'd have something with you, something from home, and that day it was one of Ruth's compacts. You ambled along at my side, absorbed in your face in the mirror, the click of the clasp and the hinges, and you barely lifted your gaze till we reached the gates of the nursery. Then you dropped it into my pocket, as I knew that you would, for whatever it was you were carrying – a toy or a shell, one of Ruth's things or something of mine – its use for you ended as soon as I pressed on the doorbell, and then you'd be gone, striding past Sophie or Lesley or Hannah, whoever it was that ushered you in, often forgetting to say goodbye in your hurry, your impatience to get on with your day. See you later, I'd call, though that morning I crouched down and hugged you; I kissed the top of your head.

The door wasn't locked when I came to collect you, and the hallway was empty. I paused and breathed deeply. I checked the menu-board for what you'd been eating, and I gazed at your coat-peg, the name sticker fading. I stared at your face in a photograph – two years younger and plumper – and I examined the paintings taped to the walls, any one of which might have been yours. Then for the last time I opened the door to the Quiet Room, where once I would have found you – the smaller children having their story, restlessly listening – and crossed to the noise of the Art Room, where I took my place by the sinks and looked for your head amongst all those others, your dark bob of hair. You were wearing an apron, poster paint on your hands, and when finally you saw me you stopped working abruptly, abandoned the apron and came over to meet me. You tugged at my hand – it was time we were leaving – and though Hannah and Kay came forward to hug you, and I insisted you say goodbye to your friends, and thanks to your teachers, it seemed none of this was important; it meant nothing to you. I collected your toothbrush and mug from the bathroom, and the drawstring bag with your plimsolls, then your workbooks and drawings and paintings, and found you alone in the hallway, trying to button your coat. As I crouched down to help you I smelled the perfume in your clothes, the scent of your teachers. I counted your fingers into your gloves, and eased your hat over your ears; I held you by the shoulders and smiled. And that was the end of it, your three years in that place. You didn't glance back as we left, but rushed on ahead, and when later I asked what you'd been doing all day, you told me you couldn't remember.

In the evening, once she had put you to bed, Ruth sat down on the sofa, curling both legs beneath her, and lifted your workbooks onto her lap. She arranged them in order and tucked back her hair; she licked her thumb and turned the first page. The sheets were dog-eared and stapled, larger than foolscap, and as she browsed through them I went out to the kitchen; I poured myself a drink and came to sit with her. I leant into her shoulder and looked again at your tracings of the preprinted letters and numbers, then your less tidy attempts to write them unaided, with no guidelines to help you. There was your name at the top of each page – a broad scrawl to begin with, becoming tighter and smaller – and your sketches of houses and people, insects and animals, some immediately recognisable, a few only clear from their captions, and all of them strangely proportioned, oddly misshapen. You gave your men fat circles for hands, their fingers as long as their legs. The women had eyes too big for their faces. Well done, Euan, we'd say; that's lovely, no matter what it was that you showed us. And those were the words in my head as I looked at your pictures. You had done well, applied yourself, approximated a likeness, expressed yourself, and in the process produced something that was lovable, your mark. Ruth was weeping when she put down the last book. I gathered the pile into my arms and said I would take them up to the attic. When? she said sharply. And I paused, laid them back on the floor. Eventually, I smiled; whenever.

Ruth wept too on the morning you started at school; quietly, as she stood in the kitchen, her briefcase packed ready for work. I touched her arm and she sighed, attempted a smile. She shook her head and gathered her things, hurriedly pulled on her coat. She went through to kiss you, and whispered something into your ear, ruffled your hair, but you didn't glance up from the television, and seemed not to notice her leaving. Even as I helped you into your clothes – your green and grey uniform – you didn't take your eyes from the screen. I laced up your shoes, and asked if you wanted to take anything with you, but you laughed and said, No. You chatted excitedly all the way to the school. And though you held my hand tightly as we went through the gates, across the playground and into your classroom, there was no fearfulness or shyness. I remember you stared at a girl who was bawling. You saw a book that you recognised and you showed me. You picked up some sticklebricks. And then you told me to go. You pushed me away, and sat cross-legged on the mat in front of your teacher, patiently, keenly waiting for
what next.
For you there was only ever
what next.
But I didn't go. I went outside and looked back through the window. The other parents edged by me, and I continued to stand there. I waited until your teacher began calling the register, until I saw you lift up your arm, and it was then that I left you, turned and crossed the wide playground. The streets were deserted and I walked slowly home. I had a kiln to unpack that day in my studio, but I went first to your bedroom and collected your workbooks, your scattered drawings and paintings, and took them at last to the attic. I stayed up there all morning, rereading my notebooks, carefully sorting your things. There was so much of it, Euan, and already so much that seemed to be missing.

TWENTY-EIGHT

You were seven months old the first time you sat upright, aged three and three months when at last you abandoned your pushchair. You could write your own name just before you turned four. I know the date you were weaned, and when you caught your first cold; I recorded the moment you took your first steps. I took photos of you feeding from Ruth. None of this, I once thought, should ever be lost or discarded or buried. Whatever you wouldn't remember or notice, I made it my job to preserve. But though your questions now are constant, unceasing, it seems it's only your last day that concerns you, and of course you want to hear every detail. You want to know what we were wearing, and if Ruth smiled for my camera. You want to know the age of the girl, and the name of her dog. You want to know how long it took me to find you, and if you were to blame, and if it's alright to come back now. Again and again, if it's alright to come back now.

That afternoon you were wearing your red swimming trunks, Euan; your new ones, the pair you had slept in. You had worn them all morning under your shorts, and when Ruth helped you undress on the beach I looked to the soft pouch of your penis and saw how grubby you'd made them. She dropped your shorts to the blanket beside her, and then your shirt, your sandals and socks, and later, when I began taking my pictures, I pushed them aside with my foot; I moved them out of the frame. Like me you burned easily, but we'd forgotten your sunblock. I said to Ruth that she ought to leave your shirt on, and I remember the taut globe of your belly – which always surprised me – and the way you placed your hand there as you drank from our bottle. Half an hour only, Ruth told you; then you'll have to cover up again. She touched the top of your arm, where the skin was beginning to flake. Do you hear me? she said, and you nodded. Some water dribbled on to your chin and she wiped it away with her thumb.

Ruth that day was wearing her red cotton frock, the buttons undone at the top and the bottom, and her legs were visible to the thigh as she knelt in the sand, a faint down of blonde hair. She wasn't wearing a bra, and I remember the dip of her breasts when she leaned forward. But she was wearing pants; they were red like her dress, and your trunks. They were red and expensive and once bought to please me, lace-panelled and silky, but fading, washed out, as old as her dress, whilst I was in shorts, a T-shirt and sandals, all of them new. Ruth had chosen my clothes before we came out on that holiday; she had taken me round shops I wouldn't normally go into. I hadn't worn sandals or shorts since I was a boy, and hadn't thought they would suit me. But Ruth liked my legs – they were skinny like yours – and she said I ought to show them more often. So I wore my new shorts, longer and baggier than yours, and that day Ruth wore her red pants. Her red knickers; on a lady or girl, they're called knickers.

It was Ruth who picked up my camera. She told you to stand close beside me, for it was our legs that she wanted. She called them my best feature, and the picture is cropped at my waist, my hand on your shoulder. And so later, when I took up the camera, I said now it was my turn; I would capture the feature I liked best about her. She was scooping a moat around the sandcastle we'd built. Bent forward, the sun slipped down her dress, and I focused the lens on her breasts. She looked up and poked out her tongue – she didn't smile – and no, you weren't standing beside her, not in that picture, but there were so many others; the film by then was almost used up. An hour earlier, as you'd taunted and run from the surf, I'd walked backwards, focusing, snapping, and winding. And some time before that I'd sat you on the steps of our caravan, Ruth looking out from the window, my shoes and sunhat and glasses arranged on the grass. In the morning, as you'd walked along the track into town, holding Ruth's hand and sharing her umbrella, I'd called out to you suddenly and then taken a snapshot. I'd crouched by the carousel in the funfair and waited for your horse to dip into view. I'd used a flash in the amusement arcade, and leaned over the balcony in the swimming-pool. And then later, much later – not that day, or even the next – there would be one more, the final shot on that film and the last I would take, the aperture closing around you, and then darkness.

But you were already absent – your clothes kicked out of the way – when I took that photo of Mummy leaning over our sandcastle. It had been raining all night and for most of the morning. The sand was soft and fine at the surface, damp and grainy a few inches beneath. You had gone up the slope of the beach to gather some shells, some decoration to place round the turrets. Which was my idea, Euan. I'd passed you your bucket – that was all you would need – but still you'd insisted on taking your spade, your blue one. Perhaps you'd already decided on some other plan, perhaps it was then that you'd decided to hide. I would be along in a minute, I'd told you, lifting my camera, removing the lens-cap. I had said I would find you – those were my words – and I'd said you weren't to go far. So it wasn't your fault, you weren't being naughty. I had said
find;
so of course you'd think
hide.
You were five and a half.