If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (25 page)

The way she closed her eyes and quietly trusted him to not spoil her remarkable good looks. The two of them, in their empty kitchen, the noise of the world drifting in through shuttered windows, no conversation between them, his deep concentration, and when he had finished the bare floor around her chair was like a lake at midnight, still and dark and shining.

He does not speak of these things to people, there is nobody to speak them to here, nobody who knows. If he was asked he would say okay mostly, mostly I am okay, it is okay. But there are times when he feels too much, when if he could tell someone he would say I cannot possibly bear it anymore I want to tear the paper from the walls and fall to
my knees and hammer upon the floor with my useless ruined fists.

He listens to the sound of the television from the front room, his daughter is watching, there are young people talking about music and football, he hears his daughter’s voice behind him and she says daddy have you ever seen any angels?

He pauses, his face squeezing into a slight frown, he wonders what his daughter is thinking of. He turns and he says I see you every day, and he squeezes her face with his wrists and blows a parpytongue onto her forehead. She wriggles away and says yuk and says no I mean real angels, and she skips onto the garden path and stands on one leg, looking at him, waiting for answers.

He shrugs slowly, he says anything is possible and smiles. Her eyes widen and she says have you have you? He looks at her and remembers the moment she was born, the nurse holding her up into the air like treasure lifted dripping from the sea, he remembers the long silent pause before that first scream of arrival, her tiny face screwed up into wet wrinkles like the stone of a peach.

He says angels? He says I do not know, I do not think so but I will keep looking. He says have you been looking? and she turns away and she nods shyly.

He says hey hey now don’t be ashame, it is okay to be looking for these things, it is good okay? and she looks at him.

He says what have you seen? and she doesn’t say anything, she stands a little closer and she says I saw wings in the sky at the top of the sky.

He says well that is a special thing, you have seen more than I have ever seen, well done you, and she smiles and her face is like the ribbon pulled from the wrapping of a gift.

He says do you want to see another special thing, and he
points to the rooftops opposite, he says can you clap your hands for your daddy, and when she does so the whole ridgepole of pigeons springs up into the air, ballooning off down the street as a group, circling, landing on another rooftop in a matching single line.

He says, do you see them now, do you see they do not bump into one another, do you think this is special? and she looks at him and she thinks she should nod so she does.

He says you know in the place where you were born in, and he doesn’t say back home because he doesn’t want her to think like that but that is what he means, back home where they were a family and they belonged, he says in the place where you were born in there would be flocks of thousands of birds, gathering at dusk, and when they turned in mid-air the whole sky would go dark as though Allah was flipping the shutters closed for a second. And not any of those thousands collided he says, do you think this is special?

He says my daughter, and all the love he has is wrapped up in the tone of his voice when he says those two words, he says my daughter you must always look with both of your eyes and listen with both of your ears. He says this is a very big world and there are many many things you could miss if you are not careful. He says there are remarkable things all the time, right in front of us, but our eyes have like the clouds over the sun and our lives are paler and poorer if we do not see them for what they are.

He says, if nobody speaks of remarkable things, how can they be called remarkable?

He looks at her and he knows she doesn’t understand, he doesn’t think she’ll even remember it to understand when she is older. But he tells her these things all the same, it is good to say them aloud, they are things people do not think and he wants to place them into the air.

Angels, he says, and she leans forward as if she is expecting him to pass on a secret. I do not know about angels he says, perhaps there are many, perhaps they are here now he says, and she looks around and stands closer to him and he smiles. But there are people too he says, everywhere there are people and I think it is easier to hold hands with people than it is with angels, yes?

He stops to get his breath back, he knows he is confusing her and maybe boring her, he knows that really he is saying these things to himself.

He says I’m sorry I am talking too much, he says come and give your daddy a hug, and she presses into him and he clamps his arms around her.

Now go and play again he says, the rain has gone, go and find your friend and keep looking for angels he says.

She stands away from him, she turns away, she turns back and kisses him on the mouth and she runs away down the street.

She runs past a rain-jewelled spider’s web laid out like lace across a pile of coat-hangers in a front garden.

She runs past a pigeon in a puddle, beating water across its wings.

She runs past number eighteen and she sees the boy who lives there talking to the girl from two doors down, she has short hair and glasses and she is smiling politely and he is blinking a lot and not quite looking at her as he says so you’re moving out then, and the armful of air between them is heavy and thick and impenetrable.

She runs past the old man from the next house along, he is standing in his front garden and the sound of his breathing is as though someone were forcing air through a cracked harmonica.

She runs past the young man scrubbing his trainers, he still can’t get them clean and he slams his hand into the
water in frustration, the bubbles lifting up into the air and drifting down like diamond confetti.

She runs across the road, towards a woman leaning out of an attic window, hanging out a red blanket, shaking it like an air-traffic signal, she runs past the man at number twenty-five, he is back up his ladder, retouching the paint where the rain has streaked through it, a twirl of movement catches his eye and he turns to look through the open window of next-door’s bedroom, he sees a boy and a girl, the boy is sleeping, they are both naked and tangled up in each other, the light in the room is clean and golden and happiness is seeping out through the window, the girl looks at him and smiles and whispers good afternoon.

And the young girl runs to the end of the street and she still can’t see her friend with the ribbon anywhere, she looks up and she sees a crane arching over the rooftops.

Nearby, a few streets away and a hundred feet up in the air, the man with the carefully trimmed moustache stands motionless and blind. When he opens his eyes he can see the city spread out beneath his feet, the rooftops of the terraces stretched out across the side of the valley, attic windows flashing in the afternoon sun, traffic circling the roundabout, people stretched out in the park, pinned to the ground like collected butterflies. He can see all of this, and the whole city is shimmering and shining so much that it feels as though he’s standing on a diving board over a swimming pool, waiting to somersault and twist into clear blue water. But when he looks below him he doesn’t see the refracted image of swimming-pool tiles, he sees only the cracked tarmac of the club carpark, stony ground surrounded by a small crowd of people with their faces all turned towards him.

The young man behind him says okay sir, when you’re
ready, just relax and let yourself fall forward. He likes this young man, very polite, very trustworthy. He says to him, and you’re certain everything is ready, everything is okay, yes? and the young man doesn’t hesitate, he says absolutely sir it’s all been checked and doublechecked.

Okay then he says, the man with the carefully trimmed moustache and the perfectly straight bow-tie, okay then I will trust you. He swallows, thickly. I will just enjoy the view first okay? he says and the young man says that’s fine sir you just take your time. It’s a nice view isn’t it says the man, it’s a beautiful day for this, and the young man agrees quietly, it’s a lovely day he says.

He looks at his street, the man, he can see a young girl at this end, he can see the boys playing cricket, he can see a man up a ladder and people sitting on doorsteps. He can see a car just around the corner, and he can’t quite tell if it’s moving or not.

Okay then he says, and he shuffles a little closer to the edge, okay. The young man behind him says alright then sir, just relax and let yourself fall forward. And keep your eyes open he says, you don’t want to miss anything.

And the man with the carefully trimmed moustache and the thinning hair nods, looking straight ahead, leaning forward, dropping away from the platform, soundlessly falling like an empty bottle, like the first weighted raindrop of a storm, turning and accelerating towards the ground.

He should be here by now.

I look out of the window, I look at the clock, I look out of the window again and he is none of the people in the street.

My mother says I was in town today I went into a clothes shop, I bought one of those babygro whatsits, a white one, ever so small it was she says.

It took me a while to choose she says, there’s an awful lot of variety these days, there were three or four I couldn’t decide between she says.

I press the phone against my ear, I want to hear her better.

She says it’s a kind of fleece-type material, it looks ever so snug, it’s got a hood with a pair of teddybear ears on it, I thought you might like it.

I say I don’t know mum, it sounds like it might be a bit small for me, and she doesn’t laugh, she pauses and she says yes well I just thought you might appreciate it.

I say no sorry oh I do appreciate it mum, sorry, I say it sounds lovely mum, thank you.

Her voice lightens, she says I got it in white because you don’t know yet, do you?

He should be here by now.

He said seven o’clock, about, and it’s nearly eight and he’s not here, it’s raining and he’s not got his car and it’s getting dark.

She says so when will you find out, is it soon, it should be, they can do all sorts of things now can’t they?

She says not like when I had you.

I tell her I’ve got an appointment soon, I hear a noise in the carpark at the back and I say hold on a minute, excuse me.

I open the door and look, but it’s not him, he’s not there.

I pick up the phone again and she says what sort of appointment, a scan I say, they’re going to check everything’s okay, they’re going to find out if it’s a boy or a girl.

As I say the words, I picture a boy or a girl inside of me, half the size of my thumb, I picture each of its limbs, its fingers, the faint imprint of freshly forming fingernails, each nail smaller than a pinprick, I picture myself a year, two years, three years from now, a child on my lap, saying hold still, carefully trimming those same fingernails.

She says oh a boy would be nice I’ve always wanted a boy.

He should be here by now.

He doesn’t seem like someone who’d be late, not normally, not unless there was a problem.

Maybe he’s got lost, in the dark, in the rain.

Maybe he’s trying to phone and he can’t get through.

I say mum, look, sorry, I should go, I’m expecting someone, they might be trying to call.

She says oh, okay, oh, who are you expecting?

It’s no one I say, it’s a friend, and I say it’s someone I know from work because I don’t want to try and explain.

She says, oh, okay, I’d better let you go then, and she sounds disappointed but somehow she also sounds relieved.

I say thanks for phoning mum, I appreciate it, I really, and she’s already putting the phone down.

I look out of the window, I open the door, I check the time.

I think of all the things that can happen to a person when they’re trying to reach you.

Cars skidding in wet conditions.

Men falling out of pub doorways with tempers raised.

Boys with needle-thin arms asking for money, a flash of silver in their hands.

I think of him being lost in this weather, the rain heaving down out of the dark sky, I think of him soaked through and shivering, blinking anxiously, looking for streetnames, road-signs, familiar buildings.

I put a towel on the radiator to warm up, I put the kettle on to boil, I look out into the thick veil of rain and I wait for him.

And I wonder how this has happened, already, why I can be so worried for someone I’ve so recently met.

And I know why it is, and I don’t want it to be like that.

The kettle boils, clicks off, quietens.

I hear a siren from a few streets away and my heart clenches inside me, I rush to look outside but there’s nothing to see.

I feel like flinging open the window and calling his name.

I realise that if something were to happen to him now, if that siren was chasing to the place where he is lying in the rain, that no one would tell me.

That they would find his parents, and let them know, and ask them to come quickly, find his brother, wherever he is, and tell him, and ask him to get on the next available flight.

But that they wouldn’t find me and tell me, there is no reason why they would, and I would never know and this all seems wrong.

I put the kettle on again, I turn the towel over so that both sides are warm, I open the door and look into the night.

I see him running across the carpark, his hand held over his head like a tiny umbrella, his face looking up at me.

He runs up the steps, he says sorry I’m late, sorry, I got lost, and he stands in the doorway.

I say are you alright you’re soaked, I say come in come in, come here, and I take hold of the sleeve of his coat and pull him towards me and I close the door.

His arms, his whole body is shaking, water quivering and falling from his clothes like rain from a shaken washing line.

His teeth, when he talks, his teeth rattle like polished bones in a box, he says I got lost I tried I couldn’t it was I got lost and I say shush don’t worry it’s okay it’s okay.