Beside the Sea (5 page)

Still no light outside, same rain, same people, I think it was the ones I’d seen earlier still going round in circles, was it really that dismal where they lived that they had to dawdle like this before going home? What were they after in town that they couldn’t find in their own homes? Me, I couldn’t wait to get inside, had enough of exposing my face to the air.

When I got back to the hotel the manager was no longer there, the phone was ringing all on its own and there was a smell of sausages, he must have been making a little snack, I wondered what time it could realistically be, was this dinner or tea?

Those stairs were pure torture, I looked at the tips of my toes to stop feeling dizzy, the bottle of water weighed a ton and, when I reached the third floor and realized I was only halfway up, I was so disheartened I sat down and started singing a song to myself, just to have something else to think about. Brave sailor back from the war, Hushaby, your shoes all worn, your clothes all torn, Brave sailor where have you been, Hushaby. I thought about how tired that sailor was, how tired the whole world was, we were all exhausted, weren’t we? Who felt like getting up in the morning? If people weren’t paid any more, wouldn’t half the world stay in bed? Not necessarily… sailors love the sea, even when it’s grey, even when it’s nasty, and soldiers love war… even in the snow, even in the mud… I’m the only one who’s so exhausted, didn’t I use to long to be knocked down by a car and break my leg so I’d finally have a good enough reason to be left in peace? When am I going to be left in peace? I’m just missing a few chemicals, yes, that’s what I tell myself when I swallow my pills, I’ve got fewer chemicals than other people… maybe it’s that simple, maybe that’s all it is: a few more chemicals… a few less… Brave sailor back from the war, Hushaby… it’s the Hushaby that makes it seem tired, that song, when a man’s really hushed he’s bound to stop. To stop laughing and putting on airs, I mean he can just forget it. There’s
nothing better than a man who can forget it, and there’s nothing so bloody rare, either. You find it mostly in songs, and films, in everything you can’t touch. Dear lady, I’m back from the war… Dear lady, I’m back from the war… I stood up and climbed the remaining floors counting the steps, there were thirty-six of them, thirty-six little numbers to count between my kids and me.

Stan had locked the door, I knocked, he opened it very gently, he didn’t look welcoming but when he saw it was me his eyes lit up, I knew he was happy. I handed him the plastic bag and I smiled, too, we were making our peace.

Kevin was asleep, dribbling on the pillow, still curled up in a ball, his little fists tight and his wet noonoo by his cheek. Well, there was someone who was happy, it made you feel good just seeing him. And envious. I slid in beside him, his feet were freezing but I could feel the warmth from his breath, it smelt good.

You took ages! Stan said in a sad little voice. I closed my eyes and rolled myself into a ball, too. Shit! always whinging, always questions, after doing the shopping surely I had a right to a bit of rest, my crying fit had worn me out, sleep would sort that out, why did Stan never take a nap? Lie down, I said, you need to gather your strength, I’ve got a surprise for you two. Really? he said, a bit suspicious, what is it? Lie down! I ordered…
I mean, really! I was the mum, I was the one who should say what we did and when we did it, why wouldn’t the kid lie down? Are we going home? I heard. I opened my eyes to look at Stan but it was so dark in the room I couldn’t see him properly, I couldn’t seem to understand why he’d said that. All these years I’d regretted my kids had never had a holiday and now we were here they could only think of one thing: getting home. They were cats, these kids, mustn’t make changes. Never mind. I was glad, I really was, to have slipped my moorings, glad to be somewhere different, hardly any light, we’d got to the edge of the world and that was a good thing.

I sat up in bed and said to Stan, Listen, when I say a surprise I mean a surprise, okay? So eat some biscuits, trust me and let me rest. But what
is
the surprise? My God, he’s made up his mind to drive me mad with his questions, any other kid would have jumped for joy if his mum told him she had a surprise for tonight, any other kid would have gone to bed to make the time pass faster, but mine was a mix of anxiety and suspicions, mine only took shallow little breaths, mine didn’t trust anything or anyone! His teeth were chattering, I grabbed him by the shoulder. Lie down, I said, and I was so angry he obeyed me right away.

That’s how I should have spent the rest of my days, in bed with my kids, we could have watched
the world the way you watch telly: from a distance, without getting dirty, holding on to the remote, we’d have switched the world off as soon as it fucked up.

I rubbed Stan’s back through the blankets to stop him shivering, for him to go back to being nine years old and let go of all those fears that don’t belong to a child his age. I walked round the town, you know, I told him quietly, I’ve got the hang of it, we won’t get lost any more, the man in the shop was all thankyous taking the coins, and this evening we’re going to spend the rest, all the rest, that’s all I’m going to tell you! I’d like to go home, he said very gently, he was begging me. I stopped warming him up, I lost interest in him, turned the other way and closed my eyes.

Yet again it didn’t do any good. That room meant nothing to me, I was just passing through, between two strangers, it was a waiting room, a whispering gallery, there was a crowd around us, from before and from afterwards, which had left traces that were all muddled up. What was I, in the middle of all of them? What was I doing? I closed my eyes, and wasn’t welcome anywhere any more, I was ejected, thrown out like some nasty little scrap. It was spinning inside my head, jostling about, I know that feeling well, it’s what happens before the terrible thoughts, the ones that take me straight to the place I mustn’t go, feelings I never have when
I’m awake, yep, there are some things I can only do when I’m asleep, I go back to them in my sleep, that’s where we’ve arranged to meet.

I buried my head in the pillow to make it go away, but it just thumped harder. It was knotted and heavy. Animals with pincers, scuttling little crabs who want to suck my blood. And they always tell me things aren’t going well, things aren’t going well at all, it’s all gone wrong and it can still get worse, something terrifying’s waiting for me and it’s all my fault, I went about it all wrong and it’s too late now. I try to fight it, to wake up a voice to say it’s not true, nothing’s going to come and gobble me up, I haven’t made such serious mistakes, it was just kids’ stuff, pranks that didn’t mean anything, it was meant for a laugh, I do what I can, I’m not some giant, some perfect mother who lets everything roll like water off a duck’s back, without leaving any scars – I know there are some people who are never hurt, shame I’ll never be like them, I’ll have to come to terms with that. I wasn’t getting anywhere, there was no peace for me in that bed and I may well have slept the night before, but it was bound to be the last time, now something was holding my head above the waterline of sleep, I just had to realize it, that was all.

I opened my eyes, the room was almost
completely
dark now, you could hear rain against the window panes, the wind was up, if I’d been alone
with Kevin it would have been easier, but there was Stan rebelling against everything, standing up to me. I looked at him as best I could, I wanted to know why nothing was straightforward with him, he’d started quietly eating the biscuits, nibbling at them, and he gave me a fake smile full of crumbs.

The sea must have been black now, too, like this shrunken patch of sky. The sea was swollen with dead sailors thrown into its waters, Hushaby. The sea was a freezing great floating graveyard. Was Kevin’s enchanted castle still on the beach? Had the tide risen that far and snapped it up in one mouthful? And what about all those shells… other children will pick them up, when the water’s all blue and the sun’s broken through the sky. There’ll be classrooms full of them, dead seashells, sick notes picked up along the beaches.

The rain was spattering against our window, poison released from above, the rain was at war with us, that’s what was blurring the colour of the sky, would there be lots of lights at the funfair and lots of people, too? Here at the hotel you couldn’t hear anyone any more. It wasn’t a hotel, it was a tower, a rocket that never took off, we were closer to the sky than the others, suspended in thin air, with clouds pressing against the window panes.

Would you really like to go home? Is it because you miss school? That’s what I wanted to ask Stan but the rain stopped me talking, lashing
at the windows with its needles, I mustn’t pay it too much attention, I knew that, had to think of something else, but was Stan really missing school? All day long with the teacher, how does that work? She bamboozles him for hours on end, telling him more and more stories! I can’t even get him to read through his homework, I don’t understand it at all, specially the maths, Forget it, he told me the other day when he realized I couldn’t go through his geometry with him, is it really all that important? Calculating the angles of things? That’s not how I see life, all flat on minutely squared paper, no more mysteries anywhere, school is the kingdom of numbers, even my kids measure them, weigh them, write them down, gauge them, they compare their average with the class average, why not with the national average while they’re at it? That’s the problem: we bring babies into the world and the world adopts them. We’re the incubators, that’s all, then they get away from us and it’s not long before someone tells us we’re no longer in on the act. Do I remember school? Do I remember being nine years old? I’ve forgotten everything. Apart from my father’s songs, I don’t remember anything. The psychiatrist at the health centre tries to dig up my memories, but nothing ever surfaces, nothing good or bad, nothing. I remember so clearly the sailor’s shoes and the bed with the river flowing through it, but where my father was when he sang
that to me, or my mother, my sisters, my brother – I couldn’t tell you. It’s lost. Fallen into a hole. You struggle to live as best you can but soon the whole lot disappears. We get up in the morning, but that morning doesn’t actually exist any more than the night before which everyone’s already forgotten. We’re all walking on the edge of a precipice, I’ve known that for a long time. One step forward, one step in the void. Over and over again. Going where? No one knows. No one gives a stuff.

The rain was hurling its gobs of saliva against the window, tiny transparent flecks of spit, why were we being spat on? I didn’t know but I was convinced if I opened the window I’d soon be filthy from head to toe. Was the wall opposite covered in it, too? Were the windows below getting the same as us? Were we all sheltering from this spit from the sky? I didn’t want to know, nope, didn’t care, no, mustn’t think about it, never had thought of it, no, no and no again!

Are they good? I asked Stan. He didn’t answer. He’s gone off somewhere, he’s good at that, Stan, slipping his moorings – oh, he’s mine alright. The teacher lends him books and it’s the same when he reads: he leaves us. Sometimes I think he carries on reading his books when he’s given them back, he still thinks about them, he can read them even without the words, he’s really very good at being somewhere else.

I let him drift and turned back to the wall to try and forget that the rain had it in for me. I looked at the brown paint, some black marks, holes in the plaster, patches of mould, but the fear had decided not to let go of me, I would have liked someone to ask me for something – anything, a song, a silly face – someone to make me talk out loud, someone to see me. There were things written on that wall, too, but you couldn’t see them. I was like Stan, I could see in the dark, reading in a vacuum. It said on the wall that we weren’t the first people in that room, that lots of people had been through there, hours of rain and no light, people who didn’t know if outside was full up or just a void, who didn’t know if we’re too alone or there are too many of us, people who’d made love in this bed, lovingly or not, who’d fought too, thumping each other, lovingly or not, who’d said stupid things to each other, terrible things, the truth, and then lied to save themselves, to be believed… that bed up against that wall, that bed as big as the room, as small as it, that bed – what a piece of shit!

I could hear the rain smacking away behind me, and Stan nibbling, his new little teeth on the biscuits. Are they good, Stan? I asked more loudly, I’d like to have talked about them, to have wasted a bit of time talking about biscuits and Is it nice eating in bed, and Do you like the hotel and Do you think the rain falls straight out of the sky or
comes swirling up from the middle of the earth? Yes, does it go upwards or does it fall? Does it spin round or fall flat? Stan! I begged him, are those fucking biscuits any good? I turned round and saw that Stan was talking to me, in the half-light I could see that he was looking at me and his lips were moving… I couldn’t hear a thing, he looked worried, I threw the sheets back and got up. I left the room, the door banged hard against the bed, I ran to the bathroom and I stuck my head under the cold tap, to save myself. It was freezing. It hurt. It got inside my skull, I was being pulled by my hair, pulled towards the ceiling, my whole back was trapped in the ice, I was in pain, real pain, the explainable, logical sort, I was in brilliant white light, I was nowhere, in fact. I’d stopped falling. I got up. I woke up. I was breathing heavily from fighting the cold water, I’d made up my mind to win, to suffer for as long as possible, it felt terrible and wonderful at the same time, looking the enemy in the face at last, knowing exactly what’s hurting, and emerging dazed, breathless, worn out. I was whimpering, the struggle was almost over, I was a solid mass of pain, it was coming to an end. I turned off the water. My hair hung down around my face, viscous little black threads. I stood up, then bent double as my spine gave way and the room reeled around me. When I opened my eyes I saw that both my kids were watching me.