Hemispheres (23 page)

I’m Danny, I persisted. Yan Thomas’ lad. I wanted to talk to you.

I trailed off. A long silence while he studied my face and slowly released my hand. The burnt skin on my scalp tightening.
Guests behind us began to shift uncomfortably, waiting for us to move on.

This isn’t the time, he said. Or the place. Come to the yard tomorrow.

I lowered my eyes.

Darling, he said. You remember Yan Thomas. Of course you do. Well these are his boys. Daniel and his brother. Lads, this is
my wife, Helena.

There’s a lot of Yan in you, she said. The eyes are just the same. Deep and mysterious.

She was looking at Paul. He grinned, sheepishly.

Erm, no, Danny’s the son, he muttered. I’m just a mate.

She turned to me. Shoulders turned from smooth rosewood, gold circlets about her upper arms. The peacock-blue dress plunged
at the back where coltish muscles jumped beneath the golden skin right down to the first swell of her buttocks. Her face a
bitter almond, short blonde hair cropped at the jawline. She looked disappointed.

You don’t look as much like him, she said.

It was a calm voice, public school but not harsh. The unhurried contours of southern England.

Perhaps around the mouth, she conceded. Out of the two of you I would have sworn it was him.

She looked Paul up and down again, as if appraising horseflesh. Fraser noticed.

Daniel and Paul were just leaving, he said.

Surely you won’t turn them away. The honeyed voice. You can see they’ve come a long way.

They aren’t dressed for a wedding, he said, crisply.

Poppycock. I won’t hear of it. They’ll behave themselves, I’ll make sure of that.

A smile materialized on Fraser’s face. Emotions seemed to dawn on him slowly, his features taking a moment or two to arrange
themselves as required.

Of course, he said. Silly of me. You must stay boys. Help yourselves to food. Enjoy yourselves.

He stretched his arms out towards the interior of the marquee. We moved off, drawing curious glances.

Did you see her looking at me? muttered Paul, a slow smile creeping across his face.

He was flushed when he stood to speak, but the small intent eyes were hard and concentrated. The room subsided into a hush.
His wife was seated beside him, long viscous neck tilted towards him, chin resting on one hand. The picture of attention.

Perhaps some of you may be aware that I spent some time in the paras, he began. You’d be forgiven if you weren’t aware, because
I tend not to talk about it. There was an explosion of laughter here. He acknowledged his audience with raised palms and they
quietened. But at the risk of boring you still further, I want to tell you what I learned in the army.

This could go on all night, muttered Paul, next to me. We were right at the back, among the distant relatives and hangers-on,
small children bored and running noisily between the tables.

Because I only learned one thing in the army.

Hurrah, shouted somebody.

In fact I only learned one small, simple word.

Even better, came the shout. There was a gentle frisson of laughter. Fraser paused. He knew how to work a crowd. They were
silent, attentive, champagne glasses forgotten on the tables in front of them.

Respect, he said, quietly. Respect. That’s all. Not much for twenty-five years’ service. But actually, it’s all I’ve ever
needed. It’s a code for life. And since I learned that, I have striven every day to show respect to my wife, respect to my
beautiful, clever daughter. Ah, sighed the audience. And respect to my friends and comrades.

Respect my arse, smirked Paul. He was going to chuck us out of here.

He drained his toast glass without waiting for the speech to finish, and sloped off towards the bar. I was growing sleepy,
full of buffet food and without much shut-eye in days. Plus I’d been tucking the booze away since we arrived. I steadied myself
on the table with an elbow, and the marquee lurched.

What do I mean by respect? he continued. Well, I mean accepting another person, entire and whole. Accepting the good points
and the bad. I mean generosity, and I mean hospitality. Because we’re all connected, aren’t we? No man is an island, as the
poet said. What goes around comes around, eh? – as the lager commercial said.

A splurge of laughter. I watched Helena’s occluded eyes circle the room, until they came to rest. Not on her respectful husband,
but on Paul, leaning against the bar and quaffing a pint of lager. She blinked like a buzzard.

Bile rose in my throat and I swallowed back hard. I wanted to sleep, to lie down and sleep. I would do it anywhere, with my
arms wrapped around a toilet bowl and my cheek resting against the cold tiles, in a shrubbery with a holdall scrunched beneath
my head, on another cold station with the moon melting into the world like an aspirin. My chin slipped from my hand and I
pitched forward, before shaking myself awake. Fraser was winding up.

So you see, he said, respect breeds respect. That’s what I learned from my daughter. And from that day onwards I swore that
I wouldn’t let any man marry her.

He stopped, abruptly. There was bemused giggling. Helena lifted a canapé and popped it into her mouth like an owl swallowing
a chick.

Until, he carried on, to cheering. Until she found a man who would show her the same respect that I always have. And in Jonathan
–

He was slowing towards his conclusion now. – in Jonathan, she has found that man, and I wish them the greatest of happiness.

He raised his glass.

To Selena and Jonathan, he boomed. Selena and Jonathan, echoed the room.

The string quartet had been replaced by a four-piece band playing cheesy covers from the sixties and seventies, and many of
the guests were dancing as evening fell away into night. I looked at the pint of
lager in front of me and couldn’t remember how it got there. Bubbles rising insistently through the yeasty liquid.

What’s the matter, boomed Paul. Can’t take your drink?

He raised another pint to his lips and tilted his head back and necked it in seconds. Plonked it down aggressively on the
table, where there was already quite a collection of empties.

I’m fine, I said. Tired.

The turf floor of the marquee was beginning to look inviting. I could just crawl away under the tables, into a dark corner.

Have you enjoyed your evening boys? Helena Fraser was sitting at our table.

Grand, said Paul. Free bar, he added. Grand.

Then he looked at her.

How does it feel? he said. Your daughter getting married.

She laughed.

She’s not mine. I’m just the trophy wife. Number one had the child-bearing hips.

I swayed on my seat, trying to bring her into focus. Small, perfect white teeth like beach pebbles, her tongue flicking between
them. She looked at me but her body was turned towards Paul.

Yan, she said. Your dad. He was an unusual specimen. One in a million.

She looked sidelong at Paul.

He could charm the knickers off just about anything, from what I remember. She touched my arm with her hand, long turquoise
nails immaculately manicured, matching her dress.

Including me, she said, very quietly.

Her skin shimmered, the tip of her tongue between her teeth.

I haven’t shocked you, she said. How old are you Danny?

Sixteen, I slurred.

Sixteen, she purred. Sixteen and legal.

Then she turned to Paul like I didn’t exist. Conversation over.

You must be older, she said. Do you work out?

Nah, he said. It’s all natural.

Me too, she said, tongue between her teeth.

So if Selena’s not your daughter, he said. I reckon you must be feeling like a bit of a spare part at this bash.

Perceptive, she said. I don’t like all this upper-class backslapping. I prefer my entertainments to be a little more diverse.

I was just saying exactly the same thing to Danny.

She laughed.

May I have the pleasure of a dance?

The pleasure, he said, is all mine.

He stood up, tall and tanned, his eyes flashing, and the two of them disappeared onto the dance floor. Like a stricken Zeppelin
my head descended towards the table and burst across my forearms, and I waded in and out of a shallow sleep.

I thought I saw them dancing together to something slow. Her blonde head was on his shoulder, eyes closed, and coloured lights
swept across them like the onrushing sea. They turned and I saw how his hand rested in the deep V-shaped plunge of her dress
at the back. It was proprietorial, the way it hung there in the fabric, with every right and intention to move down across
those glossy buttocks, but choosing not to, for the moment.

I slipped back into sleep, down into the depths and then rising slowly again to the surface with bubbles crawling from my
mouth. Glanced over and they were gone. My clothes, my boots, were soaked with cold sleep, weighing a ton, pulling me under.
I let myself go down, into the depths, felt salty sleep rush into my nostrils and my throat, filling up my stomach to the
brim.

Ow Danny.

I was being shaken by the shoulders, none too gently. I opened my eyes. The marquee was almost empty, the band beginning to
pack up their instruments, sharing a smoke and a few drinks from the bar. Some
of the young waiters were still around, collecting up empty glasses and litter, light beginning to grow outside.

Danny, you awake?

It was Paul. I looked at him and strained to focus. He sat down opposite, plonking a glass on the table in front of me.

There you go, he grunted. Sort yourself out.

I ogled the oily turquoise liquid.

Looks like toothpaste, I mumbled. I’m not drinking that shit.

Crème de menthe, he said. Minty taste, kind of fresh. Really sorts your head after too much beer.

I snatched up the shot glass and drained it. He was right. It was cold and sharp, sending a shiver through me. I felt marginally
more awake. I looked at Paul.

What happened to you?

He winked.

Kicked her back doors in, he beamed. Outside in the fucking rhodies.

I collapsed into gasps of laughter, which I struggled to suppress.

You Paul, I slurred, you are a fucking Titan mate. You’re something else.

What’s that? He looked embarrassed.

A giant of the ancient world. You’ve got the life force man, you’re a colossus.

That’s just the booze talking Danny. If it makes you feel better, you’re me best mate an’ all.

Next morning at the scrapyard we picked our way through fields where the beached hulks of cars were spread out to the horizon.
Early-morning sun shimmered across the rows of bonnets and roofs frosted with globes of dew. It was wet underfoot and we splashed
through furrows and runnels of mud.

Never thought I’d be a scrap merchant, mused Fraser. A crisp voice, deep and insistent. It doesn’t exactly run in the family.
Winchester School, Sandhurst, a commission. But this place, it’s far more lucrative
than you’d ever imagine. The profits from here are putting my youngest through school.
Ex paedore aurum
, you could say.

I looked confused.

Gold from shite, he grinned. Ran a pale hand through the deep red of his hair. I looked at the gold watch glinting at his
wrist beneath the waxed jacket and flannel shirt. Paul was loitering at a distance, opening bonnets and rooting about, not
wanting to intrude. We continued almost to the edge of the field until we came to the end of the cars, looked out over a wetland
bristling with reedmace and stands of dense alder and thorn. A stretch of open water, black and inscrutable, tufts of morning
mist caught in the vegetation.

Beautiful, no? said Fraser. The whole of the Fens was like this, once. One vast wetland running away to the sky, millions
of wildfowl rising with the wind thrumming in their feathers. Imagine it.

Then he slapped the roof of a car.

Take a seat, he said.

It was a brown Cortina, lacking tyres and side windows. We could still see the fen through the windscreen, streaks of polarized
light smeared across it. A heron stood stock-still at the edge of the reeds, its head cocked. The morning was blue and cold,
like the edge of space.

Fraser slapped the steering wheel, let his hand rest there.

Of course it’s all been drained. Farmland now, the richest in the world.

He smiled.

Shall I tell you a secret Danno?

I never said anything but he carried on anyway.

You’d think that landscape is pretty permanent, wouldn’t you? he said. The shape of the land, the contours. We die but the
land remains, the hills and the valleys, durable as stone. Well, this land is blowing away. On the wind.

He paused for effect. I recalled how he’d done this a number of times during his speech last night.

Peat, you see. The fenlands left behind a peat soil when they were
drained. The richest soil. But when peat dries out it crumbles to dust. One breath of wind and it’s gone. There’s been too
much drainage. The soil just blows away off the fields. It’s light as a feather.

He continued looking pensively out of the windscreen, then seemed to gather himself.

Sorry, he said, you didn’t come here for one of my lectures. Did you hear my speech last night?

I nodded.

Respect, he said. It’s like karma. Give and take. You give kindness today and tomorrow you receive it back. Because we’re
all connected Daniel. We’re all in the same boat.

He looked into the distance, tapped the steering wheel with a thumb. I jumped into the silence.

Do you know what happened at Mount Longdon?

Fraser was quiet. I fidgeted nervously with the plastic knob of the gear lever between us. Out on the fen the heron waited,
stock-still.

I saw George Barlow, I said. He told me about this kid getting shot through the eye – an Argie, like. And then Yan and his
mates just disappeared into thin air. I got the idea there was something he wasn’t telling me, mind –

Silence, said Fraser, cutting me dead. Silence doesn’t always need filling. You should remember that.