The Buildings

The steel beam lowered in for the worker to grip, his hands the first around the hard edges pulled close to his chest. The twelve of them at his side with their gloves along the length, all the faces turned to scowls at the unwieldy broadness dropping inch by inch until it met its place down by their feet, teetered against the empty space below.

            They fed the beam straight into the frame until it lay by the one lowered in the hour before, to the one where the worker now knelt, the flame of his torch flickering an unsteady light against a pair of shallow cheeks. They untied the chains and waved up for the crane. One step to either side and they feared the harnesses wouldn’t do much for them, not with the welding tools strapped across their chests. One wrong step and they would fall down past the forty eight floors to an ugly end.

Walking along the river with the sun going down, so nice on the warm summer evenings with the towers spread out like that, like arms going out and around the city, so comforting, so close. The phone in his hand,

‘I’ll be back before it gets too late,’

sent and up and out and she’ll read it on the sofa probably, feet up, or in the foot-spa with the water quivered, vibrating like it does.

The interview set to start in under an hour. The first time the artist had wanted to talk in a decade and it was all up in the public consciousness, the painted buildings, the knighthood, and as he lingered along the river he watched the new towers half-built and the blue boards around the edges with the pictures; computer made impressions, young couples sat on the benches not yet made. They didn’t seem to fit, their clothes too colourful and he looked up over the board, glanced at the building going up and the men still working. A shower of sparks up near the top; couldn’t be safe, but beautiful in the way it seemed like a river of fire, something he’d only seen in films.

He looked at the skeleton of the building, the levels rising one after the other and a thought came about all the ceilings stacked up. If the ceilings came first, came from the ground, and the walls were put in after to contain them, anchor them down. Without the walls the floors would continue to rise, out and away, into the sky with the redness spread out and the clouds turned to sheets. What would be left then? All the people with their hands in the air, the escalators left stranded, lift shafts stubbed out. He looked at the building with the river of fire coming from the top and he snorted a little, but only against the roof of his mouth, lips closed.

Hardly an art critic, more current affairs, hardly an art critic but they’d sent him anyway. His new editor, younger than himself, had said it would be a feature, enough pages for photographs. The artist had chosen the time, the place. There was an hour to kill so he’d walked along the river to his flat, the complex nearby to where he was then with the river below and a bridge running over, the sun going down so that it fell to the towers on the opposite shore. No message from Ann yet, with her feet set to soak and the TV on. Her feet still so small and so beautiful and that time last winter when they’d lain in bed with the snow falling, the window wide and the snow seen falling, so close under sheets and her foot in his hand, the skin above the heel, his fingers pressed softly and the moan that came from her, so slight and so thin, slipped out with silk around his neck. 

A dizziness bloomed there and he worried about the dreams that had been going on for the past nights, the past week. It was hard to say for sure. He’d had them as a child and when they came then it was always at the onset of a fever. There was no fever now but it was hard to sleep.

 “I’m just waiting near the building.”

“Is it cold?” she asked with her voice soft on the line.

“It’s not too cold, still quite warm. Warm enough.”

“I was watching TV,” she told him.

“Anything good?” he asked.

“Nothing you’d miss.”

There were noises there, behind the familiar tones which came out from the cold screen against his ear. He asked her if she had eaten and she told him she had. He thought he heard a laugh but he might’ve been wrong. There was the TV in the background and the sounds of the building site coming into his other ear, the men high above working and the noise of their tools cracking into the newly built walls. It sounded like dogs, the hammers on the stone, barking dogs but hard to be sure.

“I’ll come back as soon as I’m finished,” he reassured her.

“That’s sweet but there’s no need to rush.”

“I know, but I’ll be back soon.”

“I might be asleep when you get back.”

“It won’t be late.”

The sound of the TV buzzed a man’s voice, too faint to clearly hear. “I’m feeling a bit tired, I may be asleep.”

“It won’t be late.”

He leant his weight against a railing and felt for the packet of cigarettes in his pocket. A delicate headache with the smoke gone up. She knew he loved her, she wouldn’t forget.

The dreams were not really there when he slept, more in that hour when the light outside had sunk away, before the lights of the room were switched on, when the things in his bedroom were hard to see, when they could disappear at any moment. The TV, the window, the doorway, all of them at any second flickering out of view. Then it happened that he didn’t understand the sizes of things, as if his whole vision was smaller than the thing he was looking at. It gave him a headache as he thought of it then and he looked at the laces on his shoes, neat and tied, until his headache went away.    

That morning he’d looked at the artist’s paintings, a coffee-table sized book he’d got from his editor. Pages of pictures of tall buildings, one after the other, each time he turned over they rose up, seemed like photographs but the artist had painted them all. Impressive, this city which he’d lived, metaphorically lived, for the past decade, one he’d invented completely from the ground up. There were streets, alleys, highways, all lined with the buildings so detailed and the shapes of trees arranged in rows along the pavements, perfectly spaced. There was a constant haze, the sun a faint smudge hung behind curtains of smog, but always there, on every page. The Idiot Sun, the book was called. He guessed that was why, and he moved for an hour along those streets, the heat of the morning coming over him as he stared into the windows and brushed against the doorways. He turned from one street into another, across the pages from end to end, but not one person did he meet on his way.

It was different before. The early paintings were all portraits. The artist would have friends sit for him, contemporaries. These were what had given him the first big prizes. He’d been so disarming in his studies, so sincere. They were beautiful in the way the eyes would be, like looking at the real thing. He’d liked those when he was young, Ann as well. When they were younger he’d bought her a print by the artist, one of a woman gazing straight out to the viewer with this look on her face, looking like she was staring into the sea, at least that’s what he’d made of it. She’d hung it in their bedroom, so much had she liked it, and after they’d made love and after he’d finished he’d lain and looked at this woman’s face with her eyes so dark and her skin so clear. But the artist’s style had changed. The people of his portraits had become buildings, now that was all they were, pages of buildings, rows of streets. That’s all there was.

The woman behind the desk had her eyes pinned on him the moment he walked through the door.

            “If you go to the top floor, you’ll find him there.”

So he smiled politely and moved to look towards the room behind. He could feel the woman’s gaze on the back of his head as he walked into what he guessed was the corridor to the lift, the walls lined with pale frames containing blank spaces, completely white, and he took a second to see what was there. They’d caught his eye, with five minutes still on his watch, five minutes to kill he didn’t have to rush.

As he moved closer to one of the pale frames he could vaguely see what was there in that space. It seemed nothing but white, a white rectangle in a pale white frame, but as he walked forward he could make out the details of what seemed to be a mountain; a light grey peak coated with snow that stretched far up towards the top of the painting. A curious effect, a few feet for it to go from nothing to this. Invisible at a distance, the lines of the painting were very faint and the image could only be seen when examined closely. At the bottom lay what seemed to be a wooden cabin surrounded by the outlines of trees. He looked towards the cabin, through the small window set into the wall.

It was impressive, the detail, unseen before, and moving to the next painting he again peered at the white expanse. This time the sight that came to his eyes was of an interior, seemingly a room of someone’s house, three figures he thought. The walls of the room were ornate, with curving pillars, a high ceiling. There was a window in the centre of the room although he wasn’t able to make out what could be seen through it. Of the figures one seemed to be sleeping, or at least lying down on some form of sofa, while the other two seemed to be engaged in a sexual act. His eyes widened as he took in the scene. One of the figures was lying atop the other, the thinness of its waist leading up to the curves of its chest. The figure’s head was turned away from him, but he could see the figure beneath grasp the buttocks of the one above, the fingers pressed into the skin and the slight shade that lay beneath. The other figure was lying peacefully; separate from the others, its body looking up towards the ceiling of the room. He took a few steps backward, his soles softly pattered on the marble floor, and with the steps he took the image faded into a pale blankness. The woman at the desk was looking at him still and from that distance her eyes seemed like small dark stones.

The electric light of the lift cast its dimness as he rose; a glass window in front for him to see the whole city spread out, the streetlights running out far below into orange spider legs. Ann had once come with him to the top of the Gherkin and he’d waited there for ages for her to say something. She’d stood there looking so beautiful and she never said a single word. He’d bought her flowers and she held them in her arms with the colours all against her.

            It was wrong to hate her.

The artist was sat on a brown leather sofa. His arms outstretched, his eyes half closed. Motioning for him to take a seat opposite the journalist sat with his recorder out and rested it squat on the glass table between them. It was clear to him then that the artist had been drinking. The smell came over heavily, it wasn’t like he was sat that far away, but the strength of it stung, whiskey he guessed, Islay he hoped.

“Would you like a drink?”

The bottle was poured before the journalist had uttered a peep.

They talked for about half an hour, about the book of paintings that he’d looked at that morning, about the tower-blocks the artist had painted. The artist spoke slowly; the words coming out like a piece of string tied one end to each of them, slack in the middle. The journalist told the artist about the print he’d bought all those years ago, the one he’d hung on the bedroom wall. He smiled as he remembered, about how the eyes were so real and the look on the woman’s face. How she looked out to sea, searching the waves as they rose and fell, creases unending and he’d looked at the print as he lay there in bed with Ann turned to sleep, her thigh against his, the warmth bleeding in and he looked at the woman with her face so clear, her eyes so dark, with the snow falling outside, down past the window.

Why had he stopped painting portraits?

He was offered another drink and he smiled and tilted his glass so that what little was left pooled into the side. The artist poured the bottle and the journalist watched his hands, older than his own, the fingers wrinkled into rows of lines that forked and met. So deep those groves that he felt like he was wilting into the nightmares he’d had, in the dark of his bedroom with the sizes unsure and he blinked his eyes and he stared down at his shoelaces, not missed by the artist who asked if he was okay, if he was fine. Maybe a fever was coming, his head wasn’t warm but it was hard to be sure. He told him he was a national treasure, that’s what people had said. He asked him how it felt.

“It’s a compliment, I guess.”

“Well it must be nice.”

“If people want to say these things about me then it’s their business,” the artist said calmly, his voice like thin bamboo and a cough rising in his throat until it echoed out across the space of the flat. “If they want to say nice things then I can hardly complain.” The artist smiled and drank at his glass.

“It’s good whiskey,” the journalist said.

“Finest there is.”

He himself breathed and drank, the glass hard against his bottom lip.

“Why did you stop painting portraits?”

The artist shrugged and told him that they were hard to make. He would make them if he still could.

“I couldn’t get people right.”

The artist coughed again. He craned his neck to one side, then to the other.

“Do you ever go to the coast?” he asked.

“Sometimes.”

“There was a time when I had this girlfriend. We hadn’t known each other long but she knew about my paintings, she was a friend of a friend,” the artist rubbed the area around his left eye with the knuckles from his left hand, “we went to this place on the coast. I used to go there when I was a boy. The place had changed so much.”

The artist leant further back against the sofa, his face sagging below the cone of light from the halogen bulb above them.

 “They’d put up all these new towers, all of them there. I used to have this little place to stay with a great view of the sea, but with all the building work you couldn’t catch a glimpse of it. And that was fine and all; I didn’t have much I could do about it. But I watched the people there do their building work and I felt calmer looking at those walls and ceilings than I did looking at my girlfriend. When you look at a building you’re more honest with yourself. It’s exterior from top to bottom.”

The artist rose and passed over to a pile of canvases stacked up against the wall, he took a second to sift through them before removing a small frame. The artist showed him the picture of his old girlfriend. She looked a lot like the woman in the print him and Ann used to have on their old bedroom wall. Certainly from a distance it would be easy to mistake it for the one in his memory. The painting was framed in the same way, the light was similar too, but this woman’s eyes were not so dark, were not so deep. The shape of her face was rigid in the way the harsh angles rose broadly from her chin to her cheeks, closer perhaps to scaffolding in the way it fixed resolutely to the boarders of the canvas.

“That was the last portrait I painted.”

 Staring at the picture of the woman the journalist pictured her blue eyes becoming a reflection of the sky, two glass windows pulled open to reveal a corridor lit by lights which hung from the ceiling in ornate casings.

“Do you know where she is now?”

The artist shrugged. “We didn’t know each other for long.”

Looking through the woman’s open eyes the journalist felt as if he was moving step by step along rows of doors with pale wooden frames. He tried his hand but each door was locked, each one barred. The journalist looked at the woman’s face, thought about it hung up on his bedroom wall instead of the print he’d had with Ann when they’d first lived together. He sat on the side of the bed with her sleeping by his side, her feet so soft, seen by him, caught by the gaze of the woman forever framed above, her feet so soft and the skin so close to him that he couldn’t begin to know how to grip it.

The artist asked if he wanted to get some air, he said he was looking a little green, and so finishing what was in his glass the journalist stood and followed him up and away. They walked to a set of elevator doors in one of the walls of the flat. The metal doors opened and they stepped inside. Soon they were on the roof where the air was still warm, warm enough and it seemed so open and so fresh for him there with the whole city down below them like that. Out here he could see how old the artist truly was, his hair blown by the faint wind so that it seemed light across his scalp. The wind blew soft but it came steady over the two men, the white strands of the artist’s hair seeming like smoke that clung unsteady to his scalp. By now the artist was starting to stumble, his legs weak and unsure and the journalist placed his hand under his arm for support, the bone hard and clear through the material of the jacket. The artist turned back, the waft of booze that came from his lips made the journalist wince and he almost dropped the old man as they turned to the edge of the roof.

Below was the city, the blocks that spread in clusters like limbs, the lights dotted unevenly and the roads far below like vessels of blood, the red lights of cars moving little by little, forward and out in small steel bubbles and he thought of the foot-spa, Ann’s feet sunken in the quivering water, her toes a mirage. He remembered the other man, the other man who had touched those feet; how she’d let his fingers, younger than his own, run their path from the tip to the heel. He thought of her blue eyes becoming a reflection of the sky, two glass windows pulled open to reveal a corridor lit by lights which hung from the ceiling in ornate casings. He imagined her eyes open, and he passed through their entrances. He moved step by step past the rows of doors with pale wooden frames, the carpet reaching along to the metal shutters as he waited there patiently for the lift to come. Encased in steel he rose with the floors passing one by one until he reached the top where, with tentative steps, he could peer from the edge and see the whole city spread out, the forms of towers stood there like ghosts and the sun above a faint mark in the haze.

He held her in his arms, she’d been honest and it was her after-all who had come to him. He’d held her and he’d kissed her forehead and she was so sorry and he knew, he knew.

 He travelled back down through the building, he’d looked at every archway, every corridor, he searched desperately, frantic to find her there but all was empty, no sound no echo.

“The city you’ve painted. It’s just walls and glass?”

 “No. I wouldn’t say that. Ah, there’s stairs and shafts, streets and pavements. There’re empty rooms but that doesn’t mean people don’t live in them.”

The artist had undone his fly and had pulled out his penis, before the journalist could say a word, before he could raise his hands and politely protest a stream of liquid shot out and away from the edge of the roof. The artist put his finger to his lips and made a gesture that said it was all okay, that it was something he did. The journalist watched it flow. The distance was impressive, maybe only the height, and the journalist felt sorry for the people below upset by the sudden rain. A river of fire, a shower of sparks.

“It’s more heartfelt. More sincere.”

On the way out he stopped once more at the corridor, the receptionist looking at him through the archway which hung over their heads. She had her hand ready at the button to open the doors, but he let her wait. He took his time and stared again at the white pictures which lined the walls. The mountain with its snow covered peak, it must have been made with the finest of pencils. Such delicate lines and he traced the path from the cabin into the forest. He took a step back and it vanished from view. He moved towards the picture of the room, peering at the ornate walls with their arches and curves coming out of the blank canvas, the bodies on the floor, the hands grasping the other from beneath; on its knees with the soles of two small feet open to the air, the toes tucked tightly under the thighs of the other. The slender neck of the figure arched back, its hand desperate against its chest. A hollowness in his stomach again and he felt unsteady, the fever definitely coming, the whiskey through his veins. He looked at the figure on the sofa, only half-seen in the white space, its head looking away from the others, up towards the arches that curved from the walls to the ceiling.    

            “Who made these?” he asked, calling out weakly to the receptionist further down the corridor.

            She leaned her head to see what he was talking about. Seeing him point at the pictures on the wall she shrugged her shoulders.

            “Do you want me to let you out now?”

He walked into a flower shop near the station, the colours of the blooms bright against the light green walls and the fluorescent lights hung above in strips. He looked at a pre-prepared bunch which lay in a small bucket of water, tulips.

            “I’m on my way home.”

            “I’m going to get ready for bed.”

            “I won’t be long.”

            “How was the interview?”

            His right hand was in his jacket pocket and he wrapped his fingers around the recorder with its buttons resting snuggly.

            “It was okay,” he said.

He thought about the white hair, the skin of the artist in the night air as they’d stood on the roof of the building. The wind had come over them and he was afraid that at any moment it could lift the man he’d supported by the arm and carry him away.

He could hear the TV on in the background still, someone laughing, an audience probably, probably. He could walk for a while longer, the night was still warm, there was no need to rush. His wife yawned and made a pleasant hum.

            “I’m just so sleepy, and it’s an early start for me tomorrow.”

            “Ah yes.”

            “I’ve just brushed my teeth. I’ll be asleep when you get back.”

            “I won’t be long.”

            “I’ll probably be asleep.”

            “I’ll try not to wake you.”

He paid for the tulips and held them tightly in the palm of his hand as he walked across the road to the entrance of the station. He would leave them for her in a vase of water. He would leave them for her so that when she woke and walked into the kitchen she would see them there and knew he had thought about her. 
He thought again about the floors of the building all rising up into the dark, the walls torn down and the ceilings left to float. What would be left then? The rooms all open.

The time they looked over the city together and had walked down by the river, they’d sat on a bench and hadn’t said a word to each other. She’s held the flowers, the colours all against her.

He felt his forehead, warmer now, and as he sat on the train he looked through the book, The Idiot Sun, with its pages of buildings rising out of the white haze. He walked through those streets, his feet tracing their way forward against the pavement, looking up at the rows of windows hung above his head. The towers rose higher than he could see. Their true size unsure to him, and he felt soon unable to grasp the wooden frames of the doorways, the glass planes of the windows which all looked out to him there stood alone in the road.

And he sat in the seat with the train rocking gently left and right.
And his eyes felt heavy looking at the pictures of buildings that the people had built.

Thoughts on Felina

Since watching the final episode of Breaking Bad I’ve been left feeling a little odd.

I enjoyed it, really enjoyed it, but I’ve had to check several times whether I actually did enjoy it, whether or not I simply willed myself into liking it. After the final credits rolled I was left with a strange sense of numb completion, with the episode somehow managing to be both satisfying, seemingly neat, yet at the same time cold and uncertain. Sure, there were moments of definite catharsis; Jesse’s revenge on Todd, Jesse’s escape in the car, basically all the Jesse parts, but overall the episode was of a very different tone to most of the series.  

The first thing to say is that throughout the episode Walter White acts like a ghost.  He drifts through Albuquerque, he lurks in the dark of the Schwartz’s home, he appears in his estranged wife’s kitchen and watches his son through two sets of windows. Returning from New Hampshire, Walt seems to move and act like a shadow, removed from the action yet able to ventriloquise previous voices. He speaks as Heisenberg for the Schwartz household, as the naive dilettante in his fake-business pitch to Lydia. His own voice when we hear it is calm, affirming that what he did, he did for himself. It’s a clear psychological end-point on his journey, yet it’s spoken as if outside the story, already in the past tense as he concludes: “I liked it. I was good at it. I was alive.”    

Alongside this ghost-like characterisation is an emphasis on machinery. Walt’s final violent showdown doesn't funnel rage but rather a looping mechanism which continues to click back and forth even after all the main players have died or left. When Walt himself finally dies he does so touching the empty apparatus of his previous career as if it were a lover. These moments are in turn brutal and tender, yet at the same time mechanical and inhuman.

And this is why I think the ending excelled.

The seemingly neat conclusions visited over the hour hide a cavern of uncertainty and moral ambiguity. We’re given precise, almost perfunctory moments of resolution; meeting Skyler, watching Walt Junior for a final time, saving Jesse, and yet these moments refuse to reboil the tensions which have bubbled over again and again during the five seasons. There are the outlines of resolution, shapes of closure, but it seems to be an act of shadows; well-made rooms for narrative full-stops, but empty, stripped of all furniture.      

‘Ozymandias’ was the climax. The death of Hank, the family knife-fight, they were the moments of definite human climax. Felina’s genius was in showing an inhuman climax; an episode where all the structures of resolution were present and correct, but what those moments contain is only the ghosts of former passions already dead.  

In the end Walt dies with a smile on his face, surrounded by scientific equipment, and the idea of that is both deeply comforting and icily distant.  

Back in the UK

Hey all,

I'm back in the UK. Now that I no longer have to negotiate the Great Firewall I'll be able to put more stuff up here.

I'm currently writing for a residency at the Victoria and Albert Museum with LIFT. We're keeping regular video diaries of the bits and pieces we've been playing with, which you can check out here.

Hello. Sorry for having fallen off the edge of the planet, been up to things in China.

Two little updates from the past months.

First, the lovely people at The Cadaverine went and published my story, 'Two Buckets'. Read it here.

And secondly, I have a show on in Dublin at the moment. If you happen to be around then get yourself a ticket. It's called Tongues of Fire and details are here.

I'll also have a new story up soon. Huzzah!

TM

A Time Capsule

They said he had the day off school, it was being fumigated. A shell-shaped nest of wasps was found above the sports hall, hanging above a basket-ball net and buzzing like a band saw. Apparently it wasn’t safe.

His mother was at work when they called, I was with a newspaper and a red pen. She could pick him up but then she had to get back to things and anyways it made sense for me to keep an eye on him and he was my son after all and I could spend some good time with him, the two of us boys. Us bucks. He had a letter from his teacher which I signed and we sat down together in the kitchen for an early lunch. I asked him what he wanted and he wanted bacon sandwiches so I put the frying pan on the flame and some bread in the toaster. Both of us liked it slightly toasted and with a big bottle of ketchup we ate them down quickly, the warm stretch of the crust down the throat and a hot gulp of coffee held for a second to savour. He with his milk like a priest at mass, so serious in expression, hands clasped, eyes focused.

They were starting a new project at school, something they should work on today and write up later in the classroom. A time capsule; a little box or tube with items and notes to be buried and dug up by future generations who would seemingly have great need for old tapes and books of stamps. He seemed pretty keen on it so I told him to go around the house looking for things he would like to bury. I attempted to look once more at the newspaper but it only made me feel depressed so I folded it away and set about washing the dirty plates and frying-pan, my hands soon wrinkled from the washing-up liquid, my arms submerged, vanished under the bubbles.

The suds clung beside my skin in a small patch and it seemed like a city, built quickly in the blink of an eye. Rapid developments stretching out from the centre like embryonic vines with only rows of freshly planted trees to guard the concrete intersections as they passed and swooped like migrating birds. I drove those roads, away from the new towers spanning the horizon, my bonnet pointed back to the centre, towards home and his hand suddenly pulling at my shirt, the fingertips felt through the material against the small of my back. Pointing at a delicate heap on the table behind he said he was ready. I told him that he had done that quickly, I’d only just finished washing up and again that look of seriousness, always so serious, a stout nod of the head and another tug of the shirt. The tip of the plug against my little finger and I let the water go down and away and out.

Collected on the table was a ball of string, a key, five small pebbles, a toy hippo, a tea-light candle, a tiny ceramic gnome and a ring. I told him that he couldn’t bury the ring and he asked why not and I told him just because, because it wasn’t his to bury and he went a little red and said he was sorry. I told him it was okay and picked up the ring, disproportionately heavy, placed swiftly in my trouser pocket. I understood the toy and I imagined the gnome was for similar reasons, for they were play-things that would not be missed, but I did not understand the need for the candle. With the patience of a saint he looked me in the eye and explained how it was reasonable to assume that the sun would become no more, and that the people who uncovered the time capsule would be in need of a source of light. I did not know how to respond to this so I patted his little head and asked about the string. For shoelaces was the answer.

I told him that he would need to write a note to go along with the items, and he scribbled away at the table while I went ahead and looked for something he could use as a container. Searching the high shelves above the oven I found an old cocktail mixer, the top half nowhere to be seen so I left it to collect dust undisturbed. Greater luck was to be found in the adjacent cupboard where a three-quarters-empty jar of peanut butter stood squat and golden. I unscrewed the lid and peered in at the rough and oily texture lain out like a martian landscape. There was still enough here for a sandwich, maybe two if stretched. Did he want a sandwich? No, and besides we were now out of bread so I used a spoon to scoop the contents into my mouth; him looking up at me from the writing with narrowed eyes and my mouth sticky around the gums. Washed and soaked for the label to be peeled off, we had ourselves a glass jar, the size big enough for the toy hippo with a squeeze. He said he was finished with his note, which was held in his hands like it was a baby sparrow. I asked if he wanted me to check his spelling to which he was at first unsure, but he eventually let me look and I saw that the note read well enough, the word TREASURE underlined several times in different colours of ink.

My garden was not big, but there was grass. I went to the tool-shed, the painted door cracked and it opened with a yearning ache as I stepped in to find something with which to dig. There was a shovel, but he said he wanted to make the hole himself so I looked for something smaller. After a quick search I found a trowel in an old plant-pot, its handle wooden and cold, the metal specked with brown dirt that crumbled in my hand like burnt wood. I passed it to him, standing in the doorway of the shed, his eyes wide and nervous of the shaded forms touching in the dark above my head. I told him that he might find a dinosaur-bone and he gripped the handle of the trowel as if he held a weapon, shoulders stiff beneath the school-jumper. I took a step forward out of the dark and he calmed, his eyes looking down at the trowel and his arm feeling its weight as he raised it and lowered it with the sunshine hanging above.    

He picked a patch of grass and set to work. I sat on a plastic chair near the wall of the house, cooler here than in the summer glare, my feet cut in half by the line between the shade and the sun, warm on my toes in their cushioned seats. His small form sat down on the earth, pushing the trowel downward and scooping up the dirt into a small pile. His jumper green like the grass around and I felt for a second sure that he had disappeared, down into the ground, so well did the colours blend. It may be that he would find something interesting in the garden, I remembered digging once as a young boy to plant apple seeds and finding some old China and a large nail. He may dig and find more. I thought again of a city, a motorway waiting beneath his trowel leading to where the buildings were taller and in greater density. There would be a big hole to find that, a cave in the middle of the green grass. I felt my stomach churn and tighten and in front of me lay the centre, quiet and still, a fortress of angles and I parked on the corner of an empty road and got out, ready to walk. The whole place was dark, lit only by a pinprick of light where the sun could enter, a thin beam cast ahead. I edged forward, following the maze of streets between the buildings, testing the route, my shoes hitting the pavement in a regular rhythm that echoed between the walls like a grandfather clock. Turning left and right, the shape of my home soon visible, him still there in his green jumper with the trowel in hand. If he had disappeared, I told myself, if he had disappeared I would have jumped down into the hole he had made to find him.

The heat had made me thirsty, and I told him I was going to get a drink and whether he would like anything. He turned to me from the lawn, his eyes tired and forehead wet. I beckoned for him to come over, saying that he could use a break and was he sure he didn’t want me to dig the hole for him? He came over, knees of his trousers grazed in brown and I said that he should go up to change out of his school-clothes and that by the time he came down I would have a glass of something ready. Him having run upstairs I was alone in the kitchen and set about finding two glasses and a big plastic bottle of orange squash which I poured into each. The sharp smell rising upwards I diluted the glasses with water from the tap and left them on the table surface. Looking out at the garden I could see the small hole, a gap in the grass, the trowel by its side. He bounded down and drank the squash, full once more with energy and little blue shorts beneath his belt. He thanked me, saying that he wanted to keep digging and I asked whether he had found a dinosaur bone and he shook his head with a serious weight once more saying no not yet. He went back outside and I watched him bend over the hole from behind the glass kitchen window, facing away from me, blue shorts against the green grass. With an almighty crack I pictured the ground of the lawn giving way entirely, his body sunk quick into the dark and the light of the sun falling through the opened hole down over the developing homes beneath, into a kitchen window where a woman stood next to a man, her hair lit like spring branches. All of a sudden he stood up with a jolt and called out for me loudly, my arteries kicking the blood down to my stomach I hurried out of the back door and straight on the grass to his side. I could not see any problem, no signs of an accident, only the trowel in his hand. What was the matter I asked, he had found a bomb he said.

 

At the bottom of the small hole the earth had stopped and part of a curved metallic object was to be found. The thing was clearly larger than the hole itself, and from this limited exposure it was impossible to make out exactly what it was. I looked at him, then down again to the hole. He said again that it was a bomb and I said it wasn’t but that I would get the shovel. He asked whether I could hear it ticking, I listened, but there was only birdcall from above. I walked swiftly to the shed, opened the cracked door once more, picked up the shovel, it felt solid in my hands; one on the handle one on the body and I held it from the hip like a machine-gun.  He with his trowel waiting for my return, I said it was certainly not a bomb but it would be good to see what it was, and I would dig around his pit. I set about pushing the head of the shovel into the ground, he watched for a few seconds before sitting down. I had surprised myself with the speed of my reaction and it felt good to throw the metal head downwards, a satisfying force in my arms. His eyes were fixed on me as I raised and lowered the shovel, scooping out the earth onto the pile he had already started. I had exposed a little more of the metal object, still hard to identify. He stood once more to look down curiously at the shape and then knelt with the trowel, his hands working the tool to lift the grassy soil.

Stories in newspapers about undetonated bombs forced their way into my mind’s eye, left from the war and buried for safety. His sleeves rolled up to the elbows I thought of a bomb falling onto the sprouting city-scape below, knocked out of its place in the lawn by the work of my shovel. Its descent seen from our vantage point here on the grass, a shell shape dropping into the dark, slow into the chasm until it disappeared from view. The angular side-streets below, squeezed between the glass faces of developing towers. Him older, beside the woman; her voice sounding out, warm in its tone and her hand in his. The bomb now hitting there, and all about was fire and wind, the buildings blown outwards, the streetlamps shot from pale amber to darkness and the concrete highways that stretched out all buckled and torn until they could bear it no more and crumbled to autumn leaves; a bright flower seen from the lawn that bloomed and faded until there was only quiet once more.

Wrapping my fingers around the object I lifted until my arms felt sore with effort. He stood there watching me, his gaze cold and distant. He looked once more solemn, no longer helping but waiting and watching, his expression closed. I strained and pulled, the sweat running down my neck and I suddenly felt foolish, a man at confession waiting for the judged. I heaved with the whole of my body and the object below me came loose with a low thud. Holding it aloft I could see that I had in my hands not a bomb but a metal sheet, curved and rusted beyond comprehension. It may have once been a bonnet or a barrel but I could not be sure, most likely scrap-metal dumped by a previous owner of the house. I let the metal sheet fall on the grass beside me and looked at him, waiting for the shrug I was instead met with open eyes and a widening smile, the first I had seen on his face that day. Following his gaze I saw that beneath the metal sheet was a number of other smaller piece of metal, and that amongst these was the skeleton of a small animal, I guessed a cat, crushed by the scrap. I looked at him and said that maybe he should go inside while I cleaned the mess and all he could do was reply with an excited pitch that rang out across the garden, dinosaur bones dinosaur bones dinosaur bones! 

He washed the remains of the cat, grabbed into an old plastic shopping bag while I moved the fragments of metal from the hole. There on the lawn with the peanut butter jar by my feet, I waited for his return to place it in the earth. I remembered the note he had written and the word TREASURE underlined and I looked at the face of the hippo pressed against the glass. Unscrewing the lid of the jar I quickly delved into my trouser pocket for the ring, a weight in my palm, and I let it drop down until it landed between the candle and a stone with a little clack. I placed the jar once more on the ground and continued to move the metal until I saw him walking once more out the kitchen door. I asked if he was ready and he said that he was, in his hand the skull of the cat like some sacred talisman. He placed the jar at the bottom of the pit and I asked if he wanted to say any words and he said that this was not a funeral and I responded that yes he was right but that it may be nice to say a few words nevertheless. He looked at the cat skull and down at the jar and said in a stately tone that he hoped they would enjoy the toys and that the candle would light their home and that the string would tie their shoes so that they would not fall down. I told him that it was a very good speech and he nodded, the two of us then filling the hole with shovel and trowel, heap upon heap, and I promised him biscuits when the job was done. 

Lacrimosa

 We three sat there in the kitchen with the tap running, the water reaching the rim of the blocked sink and the steady pool pouring onto the cold white tiles of the floor below our feet. The man had used a pile of newspapers to block the gaps around the door and the woman had sealed the edges of the windows with planks of wood. Morning sun was streaming through the glass, bringing with it the erratic chirrup of birds sat in the garden trees which came over us like stripped blankets of song. I had made each of us a cup of tea which felt hot against the skin of my shaking hand and, lifting it towards my lips, the warmth climbed upwards beyond my nostrils and forehead. A deep sip calmed me, followed by the comfortable knock of the mug returning to the table surface.

                The man eyed the woman with a keenness I had not seen in him for some time, his hand holding hers under the table. Her eyes with him, but the fire gone, so that she only curled her lip slightly towards the edges of her mouth, her vision fixed resolutely on the space behind his head. The tip of his thumb gently stroked the skin of her knuckles, red and raw; tender fingers affectionately massaging a closed palm, unwavering in their kind grip around her wrist.

                The water had risen to our ankles; a cold bite crawling upwards to our shins as the sun made its way unopposed high above the trees and the sound of birds continued to build against the glass of the window. A thought I saw a tear fall from the woman’s face, soundless in the growing pool, and a hot quiver shook my throat as I watched the man press his loving thumb into her hand, a sight soon obscured by the surface of the water. The pots and pans by the sink lost their grip and fitfully moved against each other, their clang and thud followed by a moan of the walls; a low arching sound that strained against the liquid weight climbing in waves. My hands slow to move. My tea spread into a dark cloud around my chest.

The man wanted to say something to her, his mouth jittered towards speech but kept from sound. Her eyes still locked beyond him, away from him, the water all around her neck and a look of fear as his head angled upwards, desperate to listen but only met with the sounds of birds. Her soft lips parted slightly above the coldness, my mouth resolutely closed as the water covered my face and I was met with the red hum of blood within my ears. Looking at the window I could see the trees against the blue sky, curled and elegant but imperceptible in their rolling forms away from the panicked beat resounding through my head, the man’s hand touching the woman’s for as long as he was able.

Two Buckets

You go to the market to get fish. There is a place that plays dub-reggae music, regardless of the weather or time of day. The men there recognise you by now and keep a few buckets of fins and bladders under one of the tables. You’ve been a good customer to them in the past, so these slops are free of charge although you occasionally offer a fiver which is generally accepted. One of the men knows you by name, his is James. When you walk to the stall James is bent over a frozen tray of cod, using his right hand to skim the excess water onto the street. He sees you and nods. His head is large and bald and the nod he gives you is slight, which you suspect is due to the weight of his skull. He motions for you to come towards him and you do so. It is early and you have not yet eaten any breakfast so the smell of fish makes the back of your throat tighten and your stomach ripple. James does not say a great deal but he does ask how you have been and you reply as you always do that you have been well. He nods again and looks at the two buckets under the table, which you take as a signal that he wants you to pick them up. You bend over and pick up the two buckets of wet slops, although James’ silence and the oddly slow manner in which you lift the buckets makes this transaction feel troublingly significant. You tell yourself that this is not the case and focus on straightening your back. You do not have five pounds on you today, and although James doesn’t ask for it you notice that he looks slightly forlorn and you are unable to decide whether this is due to you not offering him any money or is down to some other unrelated reason. Impulsively you ask him if everything is okay. He looks you in the eye, pauses, then quickly says that he has money troubles. You assume that he means the five pounds and apologise for not having any cash on you. You say you’ll bring five pounds with you tomorrow, but he says it isn’t the five pounds; in fact he owes a lot of money to his landlord and doesn’t know how he is going to pay it. This is the most James has ever said to you and you are surprisingly pleased with this; you feel accepted by this man who sells fish and you stand with two buckets of slops like a person who belongs completely in this situation. James continues to talk about his landlord, about how strict he is with payments and about how James shouldn’t have to pay him when he doesn’t come over in the winter when the pipes are all frozen and he can’t turn the shower on.  You ask whether there is anything you can do to help, which you do not really mean, but you ask it anyway. He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, but eventually he looks at you and says that there isn’t anything you can do about it, and that he’ll have to get the money somehow. You wish him well and begin to walk back on the road towards your house.  

You walk away from the market behind a man in a black and red tracksuit walking a large, muscular dog attached to a chain leash. The hind legs of the dog stretch and quiver as it moves forwards and you remember reading in a magazine that some dogs lock their jaws when they bite and that the only possible way to get it to let go of you is to stick a finger up its bum. You suddenly notice the presence of James walking beside you. This causes you to stop and you ask whether you left anything at the market-place. He says that you didn’t, that he only came to help you carry the buckets back to your home. You have always carried the buckets on your own and although you may not be particularly strong you have always managed it without a problem. You say to James that you are alright with the buckets and he gestures towards the pavement which is wet with slop. You look towards the market and see that you have been spilling splashes of liquid for a while. Although you are not sure why James is helping you, you feel embarrassed enough to accept his offer and he grabs hold of one of the buckets by the handle. You both walk behind the man with his dog and you ask James what he knows about getting a dog to let go of you once it’s locked its jaws around your leg. He suggests punching it in the nose, which he says also works for sharks, and you tell him that apparently you have to stick a finger up its bum. James gives you an odd look and asks with great sincerity why you would ever do that.

You reach your house, which you rent with your wife, and place the bucket on the ground while you search the outer pocket of your jacket for your keys. You thank James for his help and make a joke about fish that he doesn’t laugh at. He has the forlorn look in his eyes again and you aren’t sure what to do so you invite him inside for a cup of tea which he eagerly accepts. You both enter and make your way to the kitchen. James asks whether he should take his shoes off and you hesitate but in the end say that he doesn’t need to. You boil a kettle while he stands looking at the magnetised letters on your fridge which spell out ‘BATMAM’. You tell him that you couldn’t find any ‘N’s and he nods. You pour the boiling water into the cups and ask him if he wants sugar, he says he does and you ask ‘milk?’ and he says ‘yes’. You hand him his cup of tea and he asks you if you are married. You tell him you are and he asks where your wife is. You tell him that your wife is out at work. He asks what you do for work and you are beginning to get annoyed with all these questions but you tell him that since you lost your job you’ve mostly been staying at home, working on things. Naturally he asks you what these things are and you tell him that you can show him but that he should finish his tea first. As you say this you notice that he has fashioned a letter ‘N’ from three letter ‘I’s.  James is happy that you have noticed and smiles openly for the first time that day.

You close the door to the basement behind you. You thank James for carrying the two buckets down the stairs and then flick the light-switch on to reveal a large tank of water. James takes this opportunity to tell you that it really means a lot to him that you’ve let him into your house, that he really needed something to take his mind off the problems with his landlord, and that he is very grateful for the tea you have given him. You tell him that it’s okay and turn to walk towards the large tank of water that rests in the middle of the room, the sides of which are made from sleek, dark-blue rubber. Standing next to the pool (the sides of it reach up to your chest) you use the palm of your right hand to gently slap the surface of the water. James is watching and he says that you have done a good job in making such a large tank, and although you causally thank him for the compliment you are secretly proud of what he has said. There is a dolphin on the opposite side of the tank and the slapping on the water causes it to slowly move towards your hand and nudge the tip of its nose against your index finger. It makes a noise somewhere between a squeak and a crack which James imitates and you gently pat its nose which causes it to make the noise once more which James again imitates. There is as raised platform next to one of the walls of the basement, and on the platform is an old brown sofa. You motion for James to sit on the sofa while you move towards one of the buckets of slops. You pick up a slimy piece of fin and keep it snuggly in the palm of your left hand while you move back to the tank and slap the surface of the water two times. At this signal the dolphin moves into the centre of the pool where it dives downwards so that only its tail is above the surface. With a practised effort it begins to shake its tail backwards and forwards, as if it is waving, which causes James to become suddenly animated and shriek with joy.  The dolphin swims towards the side of the tank and you drop the piece of fin into its open mouth. You clap your hands three times and the dolphin swims back into the centre of the water and this time it twirls around like a spinning top before coming back to the edge of the pool. You pick up another piece from the slop-bucket and slide it from your palm into the dolphin’s mouth. The dolphin cackles and James whoops and laughs and slaps his thigh. You clap loudly four times and the dolphin disappears beneath the surface of the water. Sweeping dramatically to the other side of the pool, you pull a piece of thin rope hanging from an overhead beam. As you do so a red hula-hoop descends towards the pool, like a plastic celestial halo. James is silent in anticipation although his breathing is heavy from all the excitement. With a sudden rush the dolphin breaches the water’s surface and flies upward through the air towards the red hula-hoop. It passes cleanly through the hoop and descents back into the water with a splash. For a split-second James is completely speechless, but then with a vital energy he stands and shouts ‘Yes’, over and over again. You are happy that the routine has impressed him, and as his shouts of ‘Yes’ become fainter, you are left with a glowing warmth and tell yourself that you made the right decision to train a dolphin. James wants to see more, but you tell him that the dolphin needs a break which he eventually accepts. He asks you whether you have anything to drink which catches you slightly off guard but you are still feeling happy with the performance and tell him that you have some beer in the fridge upstairs.

The lack of natural light in the basement makes it hard to tell what time it is, and your head is feeling heavy so you rest it on the back of the brown sofa. James is telling you about a long-term girlfriend who recently left him. He tells you that they used to share the flat and that they were very happy together and had bought all types of furniture, but now that he is alone he can’t afford the rent and he doesn’t know what to do with all the furniture. He tells you that you are very lucky to be married and that you should treasure your wife and never take a single day of your life together for granted. He says that it is a great thing to be in love and then he bends over and begins to cry. You feel a great surge of love for this man and you gently pat his large back and tell him not to worry and that it will all work out in the end. After a few seconds he raises his head and sniffs and says thank you. His eyes look sore and wet and his lips are coated in drool but you smile with genuine affection and place your hand on his shoulder. He finishes his beer in one large gulp and casually drops the empty can onto the floor with the others before reaching to the side of the sofa for a fresh one. You have also drunk quite a bit but are now feeling sleepy so you rest your head on the back of the sofa and stare at the tank of water.  You can see James’ face out of the corner of your vision and he is also looking at the tank but with that forlorn expression. You take it upon yourself to break the silence and begin to tell him about how you managed to train the dolphin after reading a book on the subject; about how it’s fascinating to learn about how, when broken in manageable steps, you can train a dolphin to do a very complex routine. James does not respond but continues to look dejectedly at the tank and raise the beer-can in his hand which is shaking slightly. Not knowing what else to do, you continue to talk about the process of training a dolphin and then say that maybe it is getting late and that maybe James should make his way back home or to the market stall. James says he saw a dolphin on a TV show once and in that show they had a child go into the water and then the dolphin went under the child and lifted the child before swimming around the edge of the pool.  You say that you have also seen that and James asks whether your dolphin can do it. You fumble for words but eventually say that you have never practised it with the dolphin and that the dolphin is unable to do such a thing without proper training. James grins and eagerly asks whether he can train the dolphin to do it now, which you say is definitely not a good idea and that you should both probably go upstairs. James is now standing and taking his t-shirt off, followed by his trousers and socks and underpants. You are surprised with the speed of this action and can now see his cock, which is gigantic and the head of it looks like a purple version of his skull. You ask him what he is doing but he has already run towards the tank and is gleefully scrambling over the rubber sides, causing water to spill onto the floor of the basement.  You stand and begin to run over to the tank to stop him, but you forget that you are on a platform and fall to a ground with a crash.

You pick yourself off the ground and feel a sharp hotness from your lower lip which is torn and bleeding down your chin and onto your clothes. You cup the lip with your left hand and feel that the cut isn’t too deep but it definitely hurts and makes it hard for you to shout clearly to James who is standing still at the inner edge of the pool. The dolphin is on the other side of the tank, staring intently at the naked man opposite it. You move to grab James’ shoulders and pull him back towards you but he sweeps your hands aside and tells you that he works with fish for a living. You tell him that dolphins are mammals but because your lip is cut the words come out slurred and elongated and sound more like ‘door frames and murmurs’. With his back to you he takes a step forwards and gently pats the water and makes a cooing sound. The dolphin remains where it is; its mouth slightly open like it has told a joke and is waiting for a reaction. Both of its small black eyes are fixed on James and you decide that you will never really know what animals think. James pats the water once again, but the dolphin continues to stare without sound or movement. James pats the water with a greater intensity, and when the dolphin still refuses to move his shoulders visibly sink.  You tell him that things will get better and that he should come out of the pool and that you will call him a taxi so he can get home okay. He must have understood what you said because he begins to shout about how he doesn’t want to go home. He shouts about how his landlord will be there waiting for him with a knife and how he will be living like a rat on the streets any day now. His body trembles and you see the strength of his shoulders fall apart. He quietly tells you that all he wants right now is to be like the child in that show who rode on a dolphin’s back. He moves forward in the water and the dolphin is now squeaking and splashing away from James towards the edges of the tank. You grab the side of the pool and try to pull yourself up but the rubber is slippery and it is hard to get a good grip. James now has both arms around the dolphin and is struggling to wrap his legs around its body. The noises the dolphin is making are guttural and piercing and occasionally muffled as its head is pushed into the water. You manage to climb the edge of the pool and throw yourself in but your clothes make it hard for you to move quickly and now James is punching the dolphin in the face. You reach his naked body and use both hands to pull him away from the squealing animal but his grip is tight and his skin is wet and you fall backwards. You try to hit him in the back of his bald head but all this does is make him weep and shake as his face is pressed tightly against the grey surface of the dolphin. You stare at this man as he desperately clings to a terrified sea-mammal and you feel your heart break. The dolphin’s tail is splashing so much water that it makes it hard to see anything, but you can see James’ back and you can see his spine snaking down towards his coccyx. You watch as the muscles of his buttocks stretch and quiver under his skin and before you know what you are doing you have forced an index finger inside his anus and are pushing with all the force you can muster. James lets out a loud wail but continues to hold onto the dolphin so you jab the finger roughly in and out; your elbow is slapping hard against the surface of the water which hurts slightly but you do not care and can only think of that repeated jabbing motion as your fingers push angrily and irrevocably forward. With a last, forceful drive you finally manage what you wanted and James releases the body of the dolphin which floats towards the walls of the tank. Both of your breathing is heavy and both of you are shaking, and you watch the ripples of the water become less and less present until the surface is completely still. Eventually James moves towards the edge of the tank before climbing onto the wet floor of the basement.  He quietly puts his clothes back on and says that he is sorry. You do not really know how to reply to this as your mind is spinning but you say that you have five pounds upstairs if he would like it. He says he doesn’t and instead walks over to the sofa.

You sit next to James and you look at the two buckets of slop and you decide that tomorrow you will throw the contents of the buckets into the toilet. Just as you come to this decision James passes you a can of beer and in complete silence you both watch the lifeless body of the dolphin drift from one side of the pool to the other.