The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore (21 page)

“You don't know what you're missing.” Picking up the book I've been reading, she flicks through the pages. “Can I have a glass of water, Tom? I'm gasping.”

“I'll make tea if you want me to.”

“Thanks, I'd love one. Can I have both? I need something to quench my thirst. I got hot just walking from the station.”

I give her a glass of water and prepare tea. There's nothing to say, so I make no attempt, and Lofty raises his eyebrows and pretends to yawn.

The silence thickens. It grows into a silence to cut with a knife, then to hack at with an axe. While the kettle boils and the tea brews and the silence grows, I tidy away the dishes, clean the sink, fold the tea towel, empty the bin of rubbish. Elin returns to the book, feigning interest in the blurb and cover design.

Then, having turned to see what she's doing, and in being trapped in this second of contact, I offer half a smile that is also half a frown. I almost regret it, but the damage is done and I'm glad, and Old Lofty pats me on the back. For a few moments she says nothing, but it's coming, the breaking of the silence.

“Are you alright, Tom?”

“Fine, thanks. How are you?”

“You're very quiet,” she says. She says it quietly.

I shrug. It's in me now, the will to hurt and be hurt, to get it all done with and scuttle our relationship quickly.

“Have I disturbed you? Would you rather I hadn't come? I thought it'd be a surprise.”

Lofty whispers: “Show her the door, you idiot.”

“Don't be silly. I'm glad you came. I love surprises.” I tense my jaw, disappointed by my weakness. Surely there's a way to tell her straight without being a bastard.

She's silent while I pour tea.

I pass her a cup and say: “Tea. Milk, no sugar; not too strong.”

She holds the cup without drinking. “You don't want to go for a walk, I take it?”

“Perhaps not.”

“Haven't seen much of you this last couple of weeks,” she observes. “Not since you cancelled that last time.”

I go to the window and tug at the handle, knowing it won't open. It never has. Outside will be the stink of rubbish thrown down from the street.

Lofty nods encouragement and rubs his hands together.

“What do you want to talk about then?” But in such coldness I recognise something of my mother.

Cupping the mug of tea between her hands, and silent, she looks from me to the floor and back. Then, in one sweeping movement, she puts her mug down, grabs her blazer and opens the door. Turning to face me, I see she's crying.

“Sorry I disturbed you, Tom. Next time I'll wait for a written invitation before I impose on you.”

I need to let her go, but can't. There are people I never want to become.

“What are you talking about? What have I said?”

Her exit is checked.

“Come off it! Do you think I'm stupid? That I haven't got feelings?” Her cheeks are wet. She leans against the door to find her handkerchief and it latches shut again.

For a second I'm relieved, then surprised at feeling relief.

“Come on, sit down, Elin. Don't go. Not like this.”

She stays by the door.

“You know your problem, Tom? You're so wrapped up in your own little world you can't see anyone or anything else at all. You're blind. Why don't you open your eyes? You need to open your eyes. It's not healthy. It's like you're frightened of getting too close to other people.”

“I know. I'm sorry,” I say. “Sit down, Elin. Have a drink. Please.”

“Why? Why should I? If there's nothing between us, then I might as well go. I need to know. Just don't piss me about. I hate that. I hate people pissing other people about. I need to know if there's anything between us.”

I swallow. “There is. Of course there is.”

“Is it something I've said, or maybe I've done something?”

“No, it's me. My problem.” I sit down and straighten the blanket. “Won't you sit down?”

She blows her nose, turns from the door. “Shit, it's cramped in this room! It's a poky little room. I hate it. Just being cooped up here makes me feel uptight. I don't know how you stand it. And that hallway…'

“It's a shitty room,” I laugh. “Slums ain't what they used to be. Makes me uptight. Would you rather go for a walk?”

“Yeah, I think I would. I'll just wash my face. Have you got a flannel?”

“Somewhere. I'll find one.”

Even so, any romance with Elin is bound to go the same way as every other romance, but by then Kate might be ready to be with me again and, well, second time around… In this manner of thinking, May and June pass. The days are longer, lighter and warmer. I phone Kate once and she suggests we go to the concert after her exams. It seems we've almost moved full circle.

“We'll get together soon,” are the words she uses, and I interpret them in all kinds of ways.

Patience is paying off and I see how it might play out, until one Saturday morning and what begins as an urgent tapping on my door. It begins soft and hurried, but soon becomes a loud pummelling – a fist flailing against timber.

Fearing some mad-drunk bastard, I'm putting my foot and knee ready to shove the door shut again before unlatching it to peer out, when it catapults open and Elin falls into the room.

Her eyes are red and swollen, her hands hover in front of her mouth, and my first thought is that she's been attacked. Only last week a schoolgirl was raped near Whittington Underground. She's pale and beneath her eyes are the shadows of half-moons. Her voice begins in a hoarse whisper, but turns into a strained croak.

I can't understand.

“What's the matter?” I say, putting an arm round her.

“What's up? What's happened?”

“She's dead,” she groans, gasping each word. “Jo's dead.”

What?

I lose my balance.

“What?”

“Jo's dead!”

Sobbing with each breath, she tries to swallow air, but the knowledge chokes her. I hold her tight, cushioning her. She folds onto the floor, onto her knees, and I go with her. The door to my room is open, and from the hallway the stink of mildew is stronger than ever; I hear footsteps and laughter on the pavement outside, and a car starting.

“No. Say
no
.”

“She's dead! I saw her. Oh God!”

The sobbing fuses into one long wail.

“When? How? Tell me, Elin.”

It's the deepest grief.

“How, Elin?” I persist, trying to calm her. “Talk to me. Tell me.” I clamp her shoulders between my hands, make her look at me, make her speak.

“Last night,” she pants. “Motorbike accident… on the way back… I went to the hospital. She's dead! Why is she dead? Her parents…”

The day caves in as Elin tells what she knows. Her grief sends waves crashing around the room, so I put aside my own shock and cling to her, to stop her from being washed away. I can't abandon her, can't just let go and watch her drown.

We lie on the floor and cry, and I hold her tight as the day passes. Elin lies there, staring into a corner, barely blinking, no longer hearing me, and I stare at the ceiling and stroke her hair.

And more than Jo has died.

This is what death does. Apiece of the world falls away. We spend the afternoon, the evening, the following days and weeks, placing our hands in the hole that's left, trying to name our surprise; picking at the scab of our grief, unwilling to let it heal over. Elin's closest friend has died, and something in her withers and is in danger of dying too, and if I leave her so I can be with Kate then it'll certainly die.

She'll be lost in grief, and I'll be lost in being a bastard forever.

I'd like to see Kate though, to explain why there has to be a distance, why I've stepped back from our plan to spend an evening together, why Elin is fragile and mustn't be hurt, so that she might understand and might wait a while – just in case. She'd understand if only she knew and, indeed, I know too well she'd despise the cruelty of any other response. She wouldn't forgive me. Not ever.

London summer, like most of that city's seasons, exists distinctly as summer for a fleeting moment only. There's merely a token beat or two from a long-forgotten rhythm; a clumsy step from the old dance, with no accompaniment and no further knowledge. Just two or three days of unsullied summer heat and a ripe, juicy sun, and Elin and I sit in the park, soaking it up, trying to heal. However, the freshness quickly wilts, the days grow stifling and the city smells of cooked concrete and carries the throb of an over-heated engine.

And then it rains, and the rains last five weeks and summer is forgotten… until autumn, when a lost summer is mourned. Jo's ashes, shaken to the wind from a cliff top in Kent, have sailed and sifted and settled by then.

One September Saturday afternoon, cutting through Piccadilly Circus on our way somewhere else – pavements up, roads half-closed, generators chugging, jack hammers pounding, and even Eros removed for renovation – we happen to meet Kate. She comes from the opposite direction, walking quickly, accompanied by two girlfriends.

“Hello, Tom. It's been a while.”

“Hello, Kate,” but then I don't know what else to say because there's too much that needs to be said; so I introduce Elin. “You remember Elin. I met her at your party.”

Kate smiles and says to me: “It's good to see you. You're looking well.”

“You too.”

What else can I say? How can I tell her that in order to remain faithful to what makes me love her, I can't abandon Elin? How can I let her know, as we stand facing one another, that because we've been pulled in opposing directions for so long, it's proved beyond me to find my way back to her without more help?

“Are you off somewhere special?” she asks.

“Getting books for the start of term. How was your summer job?”

“Finished, thank God.”

“When do you start back?” I ask.

“Two weeks.”

“Me too.”

There's nothing else to say. Not now, not like this. She presses her teeth against her lower lip and adds, “My parents would want to be remembered to you. I told them we'd caught up with one another. They were asking what you were doing these days. They occasionally ask about you.”

“Thanks. That's nice. Give them my regards, will you?”

“I will. I'll do that.”

One of her friends looks at her watch. “It's almost time, Kate.”

She nods. “I have to go. Sorry.” To Elin, she says: “Nice meeting you.”

“Have a good weekend,” I say.

“Yes. You too.”

Elin squeezes my hand and we walk on. And I wonder if I'll ever see her again.

*

I turn to look back, but the pounding of the jack hammers abruptly stops and Kate and her friends have gone. Everyone's gone. Vanished.

“What time is it?” I say, but no one's left to answer.

No Elin, no workmen.

And I will the world to start working again.

THIRTEEN

The world starts working again. There's a knocking breaking in on my world. A series of short reports, one after the other. Not so much a jack hammer though as the hammering of a builder constructing the frame of a house, or the rhythmic flapping of a shredded tyre on the highway, or, or, or… It's followed by the chime of my mother's doorbell, and I fall out of sleep, grab my pants and struggle with one leg as I stumble across the landing. My left foot's still asleep and I almost fall down the stairs.

The postman hands me a plastic envelope. “Express Post,” he says. “Happy Christmas.”

“Ta. You too.”

I expect it's for my mother, but it's addressed to me, and I think I recognise the writing. I've seen the loop and flow of these characters recently, and some things don't change so much.

Inside the Express packet is a white envelope and inside the white envelope a Christmas card. The illustration is of a cartoon Father Christmas (red-robed, white-bearded), perched on the branch of a massive Christmas tree in a forest of Christmas trees. Norway spruce. Perched next to him is a squirrel, a couple of birds and a mouse, and it's snowing. The idea is that they're decorative baubles on the tree, with a star shining above them.

Inside the card, she's written:

Tom. Will be in London 21st Dec. If you're able, I'll be at Café Lyons on Euston Road (near the station and Euston Square) at 11:00. Best not contact my parents again – they get
anxious. Kate.

She written to me. After twenty years she's written.

Now I'm sure it was Kate who phoned two nights back. I'll see my mother today and let her know not to expect me tomorrow; I'll phone Annette and promise to take her out for lunch another day.

“I thought you'd flown here to see Mum,” Annette complains over the phone.

“I did. I have. But she says she doesn't want me sitting there every minute like a vulture, waiting to pick over her bones.”

“That's just the way she is. She doesn't mean it.”

“Well, I thought I'd give her a break from vulture-watch for the day. Besides, I've got a chance to catch up with an old friend.”

“Who?”

“An old friend.”

“I'll have to take the day off work then.”

“Course you won't. Give the woman a bloody break, Annette. And we'll have lunch another day.”

“Forget lunch. That doesn't matter.”

I say nothing.

“How will you get to London?” she continues.

“The train,” I say. “I'd be no good driving. I don't know the roads.”

“The trains aren't reliable.”

“Well, I –”

“I have to go now, Thomas. Someone's at the door.” And she hangs up.

She is my mother's daughter.

Rain and gale force winds have kept the morning dark when I park outside Castle Station. The platform's crammed with commuters dressed in dark suits, wearing dark overcoats, carrying black briefcases and black umbrellas, and the news placards chained to the small booth declare:
SCROOGE TOMPKINS, MINISTER FOR UNEMPLOYMENT
and
TERROR THREAT WARNING
.

The same news is mirrored outside Euston Station:
BRITAIN ON TERROR ALERT
and
BLEAK XMAS FOR NEW JOBLESS
. Next to these placards are lighter side-dishes:
RIGHT ROYAL MESS – PRINCE LASHES OUT, SOAP STAR'S SEXY PIN-UP POSTER
, and
WORLD'S RICHEST BACHELORS
. The umbrellas, briefcases and suits scurry onto escalators to catch underground trains, or jostle for taxis or disappear into London streets busy with signs, advertising, shops, offices, apartments, parked cars, congested traffic… busy, busy people. The wind's less icy here, but no less fierce, and the sporadic volleys of rain are grapeshot to pepper the morning with holes.

I glance at my watch: quarter-past-nine. Having allowed for delays that didn't happen, I'm almost two hours early, so decide to locate Café Lyons before heading to the British Museum, where it'll be warm and dry. And within a couple of minutes, there it is, the place for our rendezvous, the shortest of walks from the station. Kate chose well. Its burgundy paintwork and gold lettering, coupled with the façade of French Windows, which'd be drawn open in summer, give the place a continental look. Maybe we'll get croissants and decent coffee here.

I figure I can kill an hour in the museum before returning to Euston Road, and still be early for Kate. This time I'll be waiting for her.

The wind comes howling towards me with a fresh barrage of rain and I begin hurrying to the Underground. Except something happens.

I'm caught and I'm held by the sight of a car bursting into flower twenty-odd metres ahead. Stopped and mesmerised. Early spring on Euston Road. Orange and red flowers blossoming huge towards the memory of a distant sun, green doors sprouting out and across the road. Petals of twisted metal.

Beautiful.

Can only watch.

Stunned.

Winter one moment and spring the miraculous next. Then back to winter: the windows of small shops, apartments, offices, freeze and shatter into hailing shards of ice. The bleak season. A storm of glass, icicles, dust, sand.

Bleak and bitter.

The rending of metal.

Close to the car, an elderly man wearing an Abercrombie and a bowler hat, of all things, vanishes faster than a magician's rabbit… along with three or four other pedestrians.
Abracadabra!
And a pregnant woman pushing a pram, who wasn't there before, appears for a second and then disappears again – magically. And a man on a bicycle, his trousers tucked into his socks, a bike-clip over the top of each, grips his rearing bike, cartwheels backwards and flies upside down – still pedalling.

Then: more than a shimmer, more than a ripple, the streetscape disintegrates in the wake of an invisible tsunami. But silent. Every sound is sucked out of the day into something quieter than the tick of a wristwatch, the beat of a heart. The silence of it picks me up and blows me backwards. A bench catapults into the air. A news placard spins, like a giant frisbee, towards me. Flying. Magically.

So jetlagged. To be picked up and washed into a welcome sleep. It's the strongest of currents. Strong enough to pull the sea flat until it's the mirror of calmness, the smoothest of glass. So still. Not a ripple. Not a breath.

*

I'm standing on a rock, staring at a sea flat enough to walk upon and clear enough to sleep below. The temptation is to lie down and tug its turquoise blanket about me, to place a shell in each ear and drift.

“All mine,” I say to the beach, wanting to plant my footprints in the sand, but know that's not true. I belong to the sea more than the sea belongs to me. I whisper words which are grains of sand on the end of my tongue: “I belong to the land more than the land belongs to me and,” looking up, “I belong to the sky more than the sky belongs to I.”

If I strike any of these surrounding boulders with the edge of a stick they'll flower into bushes of fire. If I lay the stick on the sand it'd slither away to the nearest apple. This day, this place, this moment, is a waiting almost complete.

Why?

I don't know.

A flock of stones roost in the shallows, mesmerised to stillness with their watching. I might shout and wave my arms and make them spread their wings in raucous flight, and the commotion would end this moment, but I need to hold it, and so I sit on a hump of rock and stroke its pitted, volcanic hide.

There's a splash against the rock; a few droplets of sea bead on my knees. I look down and the rock winks at me with an eye that is wider than the span of my hand.

Remembering a childhood fairytale, of a man turned beast, riding on the back of a giant fish, I know what'll happen next and won't resist it. The magic and mystery have been rationed too long – rationalised, minimised, reduced – and so I'll go with the flow.

There is a flow. I can feel the tremble of it. So much so that for a moment I believe I'm observing a parting of the waters, a pathway through the ocean, and I stand. It is, however, the gradual rising of the rock I'm sitting on, far more submerged beneath sand than anyone could have known.

“Sit down!” a voice tells me. Gruff.

Not a rock, but a whale.

“No fishing boats,” I say, scanning the horizon. “No trawlers.” I think of nets, harpoons, the squealing terror of my mount, and how I might not survive. I think of myself. I look for a piece of fin to hold onto, or a couple of barnacles.

“Shut up and enjoy the ride,” the whale says.

Travelling for less than a minute, but more confident of my grip, I glance over my shoulder, expecting to see a crowd gathering on the shoreline, marvelling at my departure. How will this be written in tomorrow's newspapers? Land, though, is nowhere in sight; only a vast flat ocean. Time must be travelling fast today, or slower; I can't work out which, and it doesn't matter now. The sea is silent and smooth as syrup, and not a trawler or net buoy in sight.

We glide without effort, out, further out, without doubt beyond all that is out.

Apart from this whale, whose power and silence is beyond me, I suspect I'm the only living, breathing thing on the face of the world. The earth is still, the clouds can't move, the sky is vacant. If I could find the sun it'd be a broken egg yolk, spilt and caking over. If I could fly, I'd discover trees turned to statues, lifeless, silent. Perhaps I've inherited the world.

“You?” the whale spouts, catching me with spray. “You're wrong. So wrong.”

“Where are we going?”

“Have you forgotten your appointment?”

“Appointment? What – ?”

Before the question is finished, a speck on the horizon appears. It may be fifty miles away or fourteen; two hours or thirty seconds.

An oil platform, I tell myself, or a small island.

Neither oil platform nor small island, it's a Victorian weatherboard cottage with boathouse attached, freshly painted in heritage colours – Indian Red, Cream, Brunswick Green – and conveniently located for the middle of the ocean. It sports a return verandah, enclosed by handrails and turned newels, and is decorated with authentic period fretwork and corner brackets.

As we glide closer, I notice half-a-dozen sets of small tables and chairs under the shade of the verandah. (There's shade there, but still no sun out here.) A banner is stretched between the gable finial of the cottage and the gable finial of the boathouse; it reads:
BOATHOUSE CAFÉ
. There's a ripple in the water and a murmur of voices lapping across one another, a soft slapping against the side of the timber decking. A cappuccino would go down a treat, but I'd settle for someone to greet me.

Halfway into the dark of the boathouse, the whale stops. Two steps lead onto the decking. “Don't just sit there,” the whale says. “I haven't brought you all this way for the ride, you know.”

My legs are stiff, but I clamber off and, in a blink, am looking at a row of empty chairs, empty tables. Should I sit down? Will someone appear with a menu? What's expected here?

I press my nose against a window, but it's impossible to see anything of an inside, and all I achieve is a grease spot: my sum total. Wandering to the end of the side verandah, there's no customers here either. It's a pleasant location for a café, although a little inaccessible, and I wonder how many more cafés might be dotted around the ocean, or if this is my only one.

At first sight, the rear verandah is also empty – except for the row of chairs and tables awaiting customers – until I notice a figure halfway along. She has her back to me and blends with the shadows too easily. I'll ask whether she's been brought here too and whether she can explain what's happening, but before the words leave my lips – quick as a blink – I know she's waiting for me. The whale has brought me to her.

There's something I might remember, if only I could.

She stands with a slight scrape of her chair, turns and smiles a familiar smile.

“Hello, Tom,” she says. “I was concerned you might not get here for a while.”

It's Kate. She seems older than I've allowed her to grow in my imagination, but that could be because the fussy, floral, long-sleeved dress doesn't suit her, and the bonnet she's wearing belongs in a pantomime.

The table is laid for afternoon tea: lace tablecloth, china teapot, hot water jug, cups, saucers, tea strainer, a plate of scones, bowl of jam, tea plates, silver knives and teaspoons. She's here in front of me, standing, waiting.

“No greeting after all these years?” she says, stepping forward, leaning to plant a brief kiss on my cheek. Adead cold kiss. And I step back.

I peer closely at her, careless of appearing rude, and she twirls for my inspection, melodramatically drapes herself against a verandah post. A touch from a silent movie. Typical Kate. If I stare too hard she may shimmer and disappear.

“You want me to pinch you?” she asks.

“Is it really you?”

“Of course. Who else? Did I give you a turn?” And she laughs.

Stepping toward her, I say: “Kate,” and want to hug her, but can't.

“Now, won't you sit down? You've had a long journey – years and years – you must be tired. I'll pour the tea.”

“How genteel.”

If the mockery in my tone is apparent, she chooses to dispense with it by adopting it for her own. “Quaint, ain't it?” She looks at the teapot as if she wants to pick it up and pour but can't. “I've been waiting for you,” she says.

Perhaps this moment has taken too long in the arriving and she can't move beyond it now. Maybe the tea is stewed.

“Am I too late?” I ask.

She chuckles in a most un-Kate-like manner. “Twenty years, give or take. But no matter, you're here now and that's all that counts.”

“Water under the bridge?”

“Lapping the decking? Yes, exactly.”