Four New Words for Love (20 page)

But it isn’t. It’s a collection of photographs, dozens, perhaps more than a hundred, thrown in in any order. The box is battered. She must have had this with her all the time. He
never noticed. He tips the contents out, turning them face upward and fanning them over the counterpane, trying to achieve some kind of perspective. The largest portion are the postage-stamp booth
photographs with the same subject: two girls, individually or in combination, their faces laughingly vying with one another to command space. Every close of the shutter has caught the spontaneity
and affection. They can be easily categorised by age, not just because of the transformation of the subjects, but because of the photographs themselves, dogeared, dubiously tinted by obsolete
processes, faded with time and coated with a patina of handling. Gina is obvious, the woman he has spent the past months with emerging from the adolescent face that assumes a look of humorous
gravity, and a wistfulness when photographed on her own.

The other girl is a mystery to him. She undergoes a marked transformation. In the earlier photographs she is the same colour as Gina. There isn’t a great distinction in their development.
Their paths diverge as Gina shades into gamine. The fullness of the other girl’s face is obviously part of a growing voluptuousness, made more obvious by another photograph where she bolsters
her cleavage to present it to the lens like merchandise, one eyebrow raised as if appraising the viewer. Gina is a blur of hilarity in the background as she is edged out the picture. Perhaps this
was for the boys. He is useless with ages, but looking at Gina he would guess they are around fourteen or fifteen. He can imagine her boy-like figure in contrast to the other.

The other girl is already changing colour. It can’t be attributed to some quirk in the chemical development, because it doesn’t happen to Gina and it’s consistent. They
can’t all have been taken from the same booth. She begins to glow as she fills out. In one of the last ones her face is obscured by a turban of intensely thick smoke, suspended above the
tangerine delta of her impressive cleavage.

And then there are other dual booth photographs in which she doesn’t figure. Here is Gina, an animated version of the young woman he knows, holding up a baby for the preservation of the
moment, again and again, in different backing, in different clothes, raising a mittened hand, laughing, pretending to scowl, smiling at the baby with an intensity of directed love that’s more
palpable than the cosmetic glow of the orange girl. From the elaborate outfits he assumes the baby is a girl.

There are other pictures too, dozens, taken beyond the confines of the booths. The girls at the bottom of what looks like a gangplank, everything beyond the pool of the flash in darkness, Gina,
vulnerably young, pulling a coat around her, shoulders raised, hunched in the obvious cold; the other, seemingly oblivious in glowing décolletage, as they snort tusks of air in shared mirth.
The baby in a swing, craning backward to smile back at Gina. Who is the photographer? Perhaps the orange girl who appears with Gina in a corner café booth, the baby bolstered in a high chair
between. But then who is the photographer here? A stilted shot in a shabby room, flooded with daylight, a glimpsed bend of a river from a floor-length window behind. He guesses this is done on auto
timer from the contrivance of the arrangement. Gina stands between two girls her own age, the orange one and another nondescript girl, the latter self-consciously contemplating her shoes while the
other two stare out confidently, down the corridor of time to this perusal.

There are more of the same that yield nothing new. The baby grows in increments at each exposure and is eventually seen walking in the same shabby room, one foot raised in preparation for the
next haphazard step, a disembodied hand hovering.

For all these photographs he pores over there is so little subject matter beyond what he sees again and again. How was her world populated? He wonders if a search through his photographs would
be more edifying. At least you would be able to glimpse his antecedents. There would be his mother and father, and further back moustachioed Edwardian men and corseted women. At the bottom of the
box is a small purse with a miscellany of things whose significance is lost on him: a bus ticket to somewhere called Cathcart, a card from a Glasgow trattoria, a much crumpled final demand utility
bill, which he laboriously flattens beneath the angle poise, hands trembling, for its redemptive address.

* * *

The dog wants to sit beside him, is dissuaded, investigates the farrago of smells beneath the seat, accommodates himself to the movement and sways in tandem with Christopher
above. He has confused the train times, the way he feels he has confused a number of things since her departure. He didn’t realise till she had gone how many small things he depended on her
for. Sunset is earlier than he anticipated. He envisaged some friendly metropolis, gilded with winter sunset and the incipient spirit of Hogmanay, and now he feels they are racing the fading light
and haven’t crossed the border yet. Like Dracula he has never been north of Whitby. He feels a sense of growing apprehension as colour drains from the passing scenery.

Above his head is a small bag with two changes of underwear and socks, some toiletries, another shirt and the dog’s worming tablets, the last snatched up on a whim. The dog no longer has
worms. He was at a loss what to pack because he doesn’t know how long he will stay, or where, or what kind of reception he will meet if he even succeeds in finding her. His imagination has
run the gamut of reactions he might or might not elicit: relief, reproach, anger, indifference, tearful apologies – he simply doesn’t know. In his wallet is a sample photograph of the
four faces who recurrently appeared on the scattered bedspread. The picture of her is superfluous: she is one of the indelibles on his fly-paper memory. The orange girl will identify herself. Even
if the colour has faded the remarkable bosom won’t have. The third girl always appears to be making for the periphery of the pictures in an attempt to rub herself out. He isn’t
confident he can identify her. The picture of the baby is the latest of the available selection, poised at the apex of her swing, gleeful, scant hair flying. Or is she an infant? When do they
qualify? Does it matter? What age is she now? Will she have changed beyond recognition? The questions are hitting him like hail. What is he thinking, that some photo-fit family of miscellaneous
parts held in his speeding wallet is awaiting his recognition? How stupid is that?

He forces down the corrosive doubts and looks out the window. The border has come and gone. With no announcement he is in the darkened Scottish lowlands. Individual lights wink in the gloom and
he imagines secluded farmhouses, the terminus of inaccessible roads, whose warm interiors smell of leather, dogs and tobacco. Rural station signs, rendered a blur by the speed of the express, flit
past, the train threading lights in the darkness. The stations become less intermittent and more comprehensible as they slow. The impatient gather their wares and stand redundantly in the aisle.
And now they are sliding past the inevitable periphery of all cities: dormant rail stock on sidings, arc-lit construction sites, the monotonous catalogue of darkened factories, the glare of a
retail park with its quilt of cars. A river arrives, leafless branches of bordering trees festooned with Christmas lights, doubled in the water, dark as oil. They slide across. The train finally
stops, the dog emerging at the pneumatic hiss of the doors and the smell of food and commerce it admits. He lets them all disperse before gathering the fragments of resolution that propelled him
here, collects his overhead bag and the dog, and steps off. It is a wrought iron Victorian emporium dotted with concession stands. The revellers outnumber the rest, or seem to in advertising their
enjoyment. There is singing down the concourse and beyond the exit. The cold is aggressive.

He finds the taxi rank and stands, self-conscious in his difference and the uncertainty of his mission. These people all have destinations. How are there enough to go around? The dog attracts
pats and friendly remarks, only half of which he understands. The queue is raucous and good-natured and moves quickly. He is momentarily caught up in the general contagion. His taxi arrives, the
next ticking black cab, and the young man behind needlessly slaps him on the shoulder.

‘You’re up, pal.’

He climbs in and fumbles the utility bill through the gap in the glass, pointing out the address.

‘I’ll get you there but I’m no payin’ the electric.’

How very droll. He had heard that Glaswegians, like Liverpudlians, are always anxious to prove the comical credentials of their city, or as he recalls Gina saying at an item on the news,
‘Everyone’s a fucking comedian.’

‘Up for Hogmanay?’

‘Yes.’

‘Visiting kids?’

The intercom magnifies the driver’s voice and his hesitation.

‘Daughter.’ The explanation is too long and might show him in a sinister light.

‘You’ll get a good view of the fireworks from that floor.’ Nodding towards the flattened bill on the passenger seat.

‘Good. What floor?’ He hadn’t looked. Is there a loft? He had no idea how tiring uncertainty could be, and a sedentary journey has drained all his reserves.

They cross the river. He recognises the reflected trees. The high-rises loom like monoliths. They stop at the approach that forks to separate blocks. Water is welling up from a rising main like
gushing ink in the pooled glare of streetlight. They can’t pass. It’s navigable on foot, threading through a desolate rockery.

‘Sorry pal. Can’t drive up. It’ll come over the sills. I’ll carry your bag to the door if it helps.’

Is he an ambassador of their hospitality as well? He can’t recall a similar offer in London. What does he mean by door? The door to the block or the door of the final demand? What if
she’s there and his story is exploded in a doorstep denouement? He thinks he can withstand the driver’s anger better than his disappointment, but then he’s never been punched.

‘I’ll manage.’ He peels off a large tip. The driver promises to toast his health at the bells. What he took for pockets of snow in the rockery turn out to be compressed crisp
packets, sandwiched between forlorn shrubs, which crepitate as he picks his way. The mass of the block frowns at his approach. He frowns back trying to find a number or name. The fluorescent
hallway is vacant. He crosses the stretch of tarmac to the adjacent block to find it equally anonymous. The hallway reveals three teenagers, who stare at him alarmingly. There’s something
sinister in their indolence. The sitting one, regarded by the other two, stands. The dog barks. The boy decides otherwise and sits back on the stairs. Christopher backs away.

There is a cluster of shops on the other side of the burst water main. Again he winds his way through the forlorn shrubs. On closer inspection the cluster looks like a concrete bunker. There is
a graffitied concourse. Several embattled shops are shuttered closed. Only two are lit. He enters the first. An Asian shopkeeper with a turban is surrounded by an arsenal of fireworks. Aside from
this the place seems to sell the kind of miscellany that the desperate need in the early hours.

‘Nae dugs.’

The accent is so thick he swivels round looking for its owner. A turbaned Glaswegian does not occur to him. He swivels back to see the shopkeeper pointing to the appropriate sign. It is one of a
number, warning against the purchase of underage cigarettes and alcohol and fireworks, that somehow Christopher imagines he is not as rigorous in prosecuting.

‘Do you know what tower block this is?’ He hands the bill across.

‘Sorry, pal.’ The purchase of a conciliatory samosa for the dog doesn’t change things. ‘I’m lookin’ after this place for my cousin. Try next door –
they’re local.’

He trudges back into the concourse with the dog following. Both have been here five minutes and both are fed up. He is astonished at the next interior. Customers are confined within a perspex
rectangle. The staff and merchandise are on the other side. Transactions seem to be conducted through some kind of hatch, like a silent order avoiding contamination with the everyday. Once again he
unfolds the now grubby bill and passes it through for inspection. It is taken up by a boy in his twenties who looks as if he’s seen everything. As he inspects the bill, Christopher inspects
him. An eruption of retreating acne; hair combed in sebaceous furrows like a grooved cap. The unschooled eyebrows shoot back an inch before he regains his composure.

‘Sorry, pal. Can’t help.’

Why is everyone professing to be his pal when they are so manifestly uncooperative? If he can’t help why has he passed the bill to the nondescript woman at his side whom Christopher has
just noticed? Why is her transparent reaction more extreme than the boy’s? Will she be of as little help as him and the turbaned man next door?

‘Will you mind the shop?’ Her voice is as amplified by the intercom as the taxi driver’s. Despite the rising intonation Christopher can tell it’s not a question. The man
gestures, disgruntled, towards the responsibility of the non-existent customers. She ignores him and pulls on an earthy cardigan. There is a procedure of unlocking and locking to allow her into the
perspex arena.

‘Come on.’

He follows her, and the dog follows him, to the left of the tower blocks. There is an unsubmerged path after all, so they don’t have to negotiate the litter. The boys in the lobby look
almost affable at the familiar face, and nod in recognition to Christopher. The lift is jarring and smells faintly of bleach and urine.

‘This is thirteen E.’

‘That’s right.’

‘The bill says fourteen E.’

‘That’s upstairs.’ He refrains from saying he had worked out as much. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’

His heart compresses but she is not there. No one is there. It looks like the aftermath of a gypsy encampment.

‘Do you live here?’

‘I live upstairs.’