The Trapeze Artist Page 26

  The pupils seem to grow even wider, so that they blot out the irises all together in miniature eclipses.

  ‘Do you hear what I’m telling you?’ demands Paul, his voice high and hysterical. ‘I’m saying I killed him! I threw a stone and it got him on the side of his head amd he let go and then he fell off!’

  Paul’s voice wavers. At any second he might start shrieking or maybe collapse. And it occurs to him that the only time he has ever seen Paul overcome with emotion before was on that very night.

  ‘If it wasn’t for me he wouldn’t be dead!’

  Abrupt as a thunderbolt, Paul’s words hit home. Suddenly it hurts to look at him, and he yanks his gaze away, back to the street. He can still hear Paul though, sobbing manically, and feel him, his fingers digging painfully into his arm. After a long while Paul’s panting turns to wheezing and then slows almost to normal, and his grip relaxes.

  ‘How could I have hit him?’ Paul asks, his voice now soft with an almost childlike wonder. ‘I mean – me, who never so much as kicked a football in my life. Who couldn’t even hit the ball in rounders. How is it even possible?’

  ‘It doesn’t make any difference,’ he hears himself say firmly. ‘It was just an accident.’

  He is right too, this is something he knows rationally and so he forces himself to turn back and take Paul in his arms. But even as he holds Paul, he knows he is lying. Deep down, in a place so buried its whereabouts have long been forgotten, it does make a difference. It makes all the difference in the world.

  Sometimes when he thought about his past, it would seem to him as if it had not really happened at all, but rather as if he was still waiting for it to take place. As if he had drifted through it in a walking, talking sleep, one that made each year merge indistinguishably into the next and turned existence into one long cycle of rituals and patterns. Breaks, holidays, trips abroad stood out like islands in the endless nothing, yet even they looked flat and dull if he closely examined them – the time when he had walked around a small town in France all on his own, unable to speak the language and feeling that everyone was whispering about him, or the occasion he had taken a train to Cornwall and found himself stranded in a miserable bed and breakfast with no idea what to do with himself.

  Time sipped at him like the sea lapping against a peninsula, weathering it down imperceptibly, inexorably, until there came a day when it was ready to crumble entirely. He felt the effort of carrying himself through the days like a great weight, the burden of having merely to be, that grew heavier and heavier until finally the knowledge that what lay ahead was only more of the same, stretching on until his consciousness saw fit to close down on him, became more than he could stand.

  It is early afternoon when he rises. He goes to the window and looks out, and sees the sun winking over the shiny glass surfaces of office blocks. In the bathroom he mechanically goes through the motions of using the toilet, brushing his teeth and showering. He has a coffee in the kitchen and smokes a cigarette from the packet Paul has left out on the table, admiring the way the smoke trails from the tip and curls skyward, becoming more and more translucent until it is gone altogether. Simple things can still be beautiful, he thinks.

  On his way out of the flat he runs into Paul, staggering out of his room in a set of pyjamas that have a pattern of robots warring with angels on them. Paul looks at him bleary-eyed, and he notices bags under Paul’s eyes and for the first time thinks how old he looks.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  Paul’s voice sounds rough and at least an octave deeper.

  ‘Just off for a walk.’

  ‘About last night . . .’

  He pauses, curious to see if Paul will apologise, say he was off his head, maybe even try to take it back. But Paul does not say anything in the end, just leaves his desire for some ungrantable pardon floating unsaid in the atmosphere and stumbles groggily back to his room.

  The roads of the city are deserted – almost phantom-like in their emptiness. He wanders aimlessly, turning up streets and crossing squares, getting lost and not caring, feeling increasingly like a phantom himself. He does not think about Edward. The ground is too sore, the knowledge that he has based his entire way of living on unnecessary guilt too frightening to examine. Instead he thinks about his mother, and experiences a sharp pang of longing. He wonders what she has been through since he left and if she will have changed, if she will just be the same frightened mouse-like creature as before. He suddenly needs to see her again. It occurs to him that despite spending his life with this woman, really he knows so little about her – about her upbringing, where she met his father, or what she dreamed of for herself when she was young. She has never spoken about such things, and has never expressed an interest in speaking about them either. Now is the time to ask questions, he realises – now, before it is too late. He resolves that he will call and tell her he is coming home. And when he gets home he will not pretend the last few months did not happen, will not act contrite as if he regrets what he has done. He will tell her every last detail and then he will demand details from her, about who she really is. Somehow, he will make things right between them.

  When he returns the door to Paul’s room is ajar but the curtains inside are still drawn. The lights are off and the figure in the bed has not moved. He goes to Paul’s phone, lifts it and dials. There is no answer at the other end and so he hangs up and dials again. But the phone rings and rings and still no one picks it up.

  On the day of the town fête he will drive down to the school field to inspect the rig they have set up over the stage, and to attach the rope and trapeze. It will have been erected by a company who usually set up lighting scaffolds, and the two men who have pieced it together will be standing examining their handiwork looking baffled, as if confused as to what anyone could possible want with such a structure in the middle of a field.

  ‘You the circus guy?’ one of them will say, a lanky man with thick black stubble lining his jaw.

  ‘That’s me,’ he will answer, surveying the truss, which stands at seven metres height. The men will have driven the base stakes into the ground on either side of the stage, securing the truss with long ropes that anchor it down from the very top.

  ‘You really gonna hang a trapeze from this thing?’

  He will jiggle the shoulder over which he has draped the trapeze, and pat his bag which contains the rope. The man will lose his suspicious expression and look impressed.

  ‘Thinking of popping by later. Ain’t never been bothered about these fêtes before. Boring, ain’t they? But my girlfriend’s mad keen on gymnastics and stuff. Reckon she’ll want to see you.’

  ‘Great,’ he will say.

  He will climb up and attach the trapeze with a karabiner on each rope, and then hang the rope half a metre to the side of it. The two men will watch wordlessly, one of them footing the ladder. Over at the edge of the field, in the playground beside the school, a group of children and their mothers will also be watching, and he will wave to them from his vantage point, and a couple of the kids will wave back.

  ‘Ah – there you are!’

  As he descends the rope Sue will materialise from round the back of the stage with a couple of other women in tow, fellow council members she will introduce with such speed that he will miss both their names. The women will smile and one of them will raise an ironic eyebrow behind Sue, as if sharing a private joke. Sue will look up at the trapeze and clap her hands together.

  ‘Oh! Isn’t it just the most exciting thing you ever saw? I can’t tell you how much interest we’ve been getting – I’ve had people asking all sorts of questions! I just know this year is going to be the best ever. We’re going to put you on right after the Mayor’s speech. People tend to switch off a bit when he talks so it’ll be a great way to keep them listening!’

  She will pause to laugh delicately as if she’d made a witty little joke, and he will grasp the opportunity to give them a polite nod and excuse himself.

  ‘T
wo o’clock sharp!’ Sue will trill from behind him as he leaves. ‘Don’t you forget about it now!’

  He will wave back at her, knowing there is little chance of that happening.

  He woke to the familiar sound of his alarm and the dull sense of the impending day ahead. But as he climbed out of bed he knew there was something different. He showered as usual, cleaned his teeth and dressed as if it were an ordinary morning, but as he was combing his hair he noticed that the hand holding the comb was quivering with minute spasms. He held it up to the mirror and observed it with surprise – it looked as if an electrical current was running down his arm and into his fingers. He put the comb down and peered at his reflection. He looked the same as ever, pale and serious, but there was a new light to his eyes, something about them he couldn’t quite define. He knew then – perhaps not consciously, but in his heart and in his bones – that he wouldn’t be going through this Sisyphean ritual again.

  Downstairs his mum was already up. She was always first to rise, and if he woke early he would often hear her pottering around in the kitchen, tinkering with plates and pans as she examined drawers and cupboards for stains and dust, endlessly polishing and repositioning items about the room.

  ‘I’m worried about the dishwasher,’ she said as he sat down at the table. ‘I think it needs someone in to look at it.’

  She had been worried about the dishwasher since he bought it for her at Christmas three years ago. She had grown increasingly insomniac as she got older, and claimed it made a howling noise that kept her awake. She had never liked the look of it, and refused to believe it cleaned anything more efficiently than washing items by hand. Six months ago they had got rid of the television because she said it emitted a shrill buzzing that made her skin itch unbearably, even when switched off. Lately she had become even more suspicious of the Internet, which she denied served any useful purpose and insisted caused bad eyesight.

  ‘Then don’t use it,’ he said simply.

  She drew a short breath, shocked. He reached into the collection of cereal, bowls and milk she had arranged perfectly on the table and poured Bran Flakes into a bowl. His mother crossed her arms.

  ‘I want someone to come,’ she said.

  ‘Fine,’ he replied. ‘Call someone up.’

  She didn’t like to make phone calls any more. She said it made her nervous not being able to see the face of the person she was talking to, and she had once read an article in the local paper that suggested excessive use of phones was linked to cancer. He was the one who dealt with such matters.

  ‘What’s wrong with you today?’

  He lifted his spoon and noticed that his hand was still trembling. With great care he inserted a spoonful of Bran Flakes into his mouth and crunched down. They tasted of nothing. Robotically he chewed and swallowed his mouthful.

  ‘Answer me!’ cried his mother. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he heard himself say, and was surprised by the bitterness in his voice.

  ‘Understand what?’

  He drew a breath. It was not true that she wouldn’t understand, he realised, but it was true that she did not want to. He felt her eyes demanding that he apologise, that he stand up and say he was very sorry and that he had got out of the wrong side of bed that morning, that it was down to nothing but an unpleasant mood. He felt her willing him to do it, felt her need him to so strongly it was almost stupefying. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t apologise, smile, alleviate her fear. He dropped his head.

  ‘I don’t feel well.’

  ‘You look perfectly fine to me!’

  ‘I think I might be having a breakdown.’

  There was silence – silence and the gentle rattling of the dishwasher pounding water against the crockery inside it. If you listened ever so carefully you could hear a thin sound that resembled a screech, just like his mother said, and the realisation she was right penetrated the fog in his head like a laser beam. Suddenly he was filled with the urge to tell her all the things she didn’t want to hear or know about – to make her listen, whether she liked it or not.

  ‘I get up day in and day out and I go and help someone else get up. I help them have a bath and I help them take a crap. I help them eat food and I help them drink tea and I help them to sit in the garden or watch TV. I help them do all these things with no aim other than for them to survive another day. And most of the time all I can think is that they’d be better off if they just lay down and died and were done with it. What’s more, lately I’ve been thinking the same thing about myself. That I’d be better if I just lay down and died and was done with it too.’

  Her eyes were round as pennies.

  ‘Why are you saying these awful things?’

  ‘Because I’m tired!’ he cried, sounding louder and deeper than ever before. His mother flinched. ‘That’s all there is to it!’

  She quivered and he felt her gather her strength.

  ‘How dare you? What the devil’s got into you? Now I know’ – his mother stabbed the air with a finger and lifted her chin haughtily – ‘I know that you’re embarrassed because you still live at home and because you think I’m stupid and don’t understand technology and such, but you should show me some respect. I cook for you and I clean for you and I don’t expect anything in return. And what’s more I’ve never said a word about –’

  She stopped herself abruptly and looked away. He shut his eyes and for a few seconds he saw only black, a black that pounded with blood and anger and mindless frustration. When he opened them again she was clutching her head, as if to protect herself from a migraine.

  ‘About what?’ he said.

  ‘Do you think I don’t know what you get up to? Where you go when you don’t come home until late? And do I say anything about it? Do I make a fuss, tell you how to live your life?’

  He stared, unable to reply. All he could concentrate on was how much she had shrunk over the years. She had grown so thin and stooped she was now no more than a wisp of a human being – half a person at best. And it seemed to him in that moment that she had diminished deliberately, as if trying to lessen her presence in the world and thereby reduce the likelihood of it noticing her, of it coming after her, demanding anything of her. Without another word he pushed his chair back and walked out of the room. ‘Where are you going?’ he heard her cry, but he didn’t stop. He went out the front door, letting it swing shut behind him.

  She will be sitting in the armchair by the window when he enters, the place they always put her. The armchair itself will seem enormous, like a great maw of cushions preparing to devour her. His mother’s head will rest against a pillow that will have been propped up behind her neck, and her eyes will stare vacantly towards the wall, ignoring the window. Her mouth will be slightly open and tiny drops of spittle will glisten on the lower lip.

  He will stand in the doorway, his heartbeat quickening as he gathers his resolve. Then he will look back down the corridor. The home will seem unusually silent and empty – almost as if it has fallen into a ceremonial hush.

  He will step softly into the room and close the door. He will resist the need to pull up a chair, to talk to her one last time, to give himself the chance to change his mind. Rather he will go straight to the bed, pick up the remaining pillow and approach the armchair keeping his eyes levelled on the carpet. Only when he reaches it will he lift them and take one final look at her face. But he will not falter. He will raise the pillow and bring it down over those withered features, pressing with all his might. She will make no sign of resistance. A great sob rising within him, he will twist his face away to the window, forcing himself to stare out at the small strip of lawn and the yellowing hedgerow. His hands will feel numb, as if they belonged to another body in another time. The world around him will seem to diminish, grow distant, as if whatever strange fabric it is made from has lost its sheen, its essence of reality. Sound will fade until it is gone altogether.

  All at once he will pull back the pillow and h
url it to the corner of the room. The faint throbbings and hummings of the home, of radiators and electrical appliances, will come rushing back into his ears like thunder. Colour and detail will flood into the room. He will sink to his knees, grasp the body before him and bury his head in its lap. He will remain this way for a long time, letting the blanket covering her spidery legs grow sodden with his tears.

  When he looks up her face is as before, slack-jawed and staring. He will take in the almost imperceptible rise and fall of her breast and he will be filled with strange emotion. It will not quite be gladness, but something beyond gladness – a kind of awe for this used-up old vessel, the body that gave him life, and its unbreakable will to continue, even with a future of nothingness opening out before it.

  He will take her hand and set it gently in her lap. Then he will quickly leave the room.

  He drove directionlessly around town for a couple of hours, passing up and down the high street, the old shops with their familiar display windows which never changed, turning off into cul-de-sacs and doing circuits of the town hall. Finally he headed towards the church and parked on the road outside.

  He walked across the graveyard slowly, heading in a roundabout way towards the building. He hadn’t been there for years. After it happened, up until he was in his mid-twenties, he had avoided the place, taking care not even to drive past it, making detours into town when necessary. But one day when he was twenty-six he had forgotten to do this, had driven past without thinking and had found he was not filled with anguish at the sight of it. Every so often after that, when he finished work early but did not want to go straight home or drive to the bar in the next town, he would go there to walk around. He had never visited the place where Edward was buried – some other churchyard off in Kent near where he’d been born. He knew that place would not hold the same meaning for him. It was here, where the accident had happened, that Edward’s memory clung – an invisible shadow over the ground before the porch, where people walked every day without the slightest notion that a boy’s life had once ended there.