The Gap of Time (11 page)

So many stories of lost and found.

As though the whole of history is a vast Lost-Property Department.

Perhaps it began when the moon splintered off from the earth, pale, lonely, watchful, present, unsocial, inspired. Earth's autistic twin.

And all the stories of twins begin. Pairs who can't be separated but can't be together. Of shut-outs and lock-outs, and feuds and broken hearts and lovers who think they are immortal until one of them dies.

Paradise stories—part moon, part womb. Two planets spinning off in space. The mother-ship. Atlantis. Eden. Heaven. Valhalla. Brave new world. There must be another world.

We set off in boats. The stars were lights on the tops of the masts. We didn't know that stars are like fossils, imprints of the past, sending light like a message, like a dying wish.

We set off in boats, thought we'd sail to the rim of the world and slip over the edge like a raft on a waterfall, spinning to the place we knew existed, if we dared to find it.

It must be here somewhere.

The missingness of the missing. We know what that feels like. Every endeavour, every kiss, every stab in the heart, every letter home, every leaving, is a ransack of what's in front of us in the service of what's lost.

In the sky, Planet Moon is 239,000 miles away.

That's not far when you remember that the sun is 93 million miles away.

But if you were standing on red Mars it would look as though blue earth and pale moon were twins sitting side by side, heads together, bent over a book. Never separated in time.

The moon controls earth's tides. The daily ebb and flow of our life here. And because of the moon, earth's climate is stable. Moon's gravitational pull means that earth doesn't wobble too much. Scientists call it obliquity. The moon holds us fast.

The early separation of earth-moon, hundreds of millions of years before life of any kind happened on earth, has no reason to be the grand motif of our imagination. But it is.

Saturday morning. Spring day.

The Fleece occupied a high plot of ground with a long view down to a small road that led, winding and particular, to the highway. Beyond lay the river, like possibilities, like plans, wide as life when you are young and don't know that plans, rivers, possibilities must sooner or later empty into the ocean beyond.

But today there is no beyond.

The long tables in the garden were spread with white cloths. Over the tables were light steel frames hung with Chinese lanterns to be lit when the sun went down.

Clo had repainted the peeling benches, burnt and sweated in the heat, and spliced new ropes on the swingboats where the couples liked to sway, lazy in the lowering sun.

Perdita had kicked Clo out of his bed early that morning and sent him shopping.

“What am I supposed to buy him?”

“Use your imagination!”

“That's real cruel because I don't do imagination!”

Clo was over six feet tall and built like a wrestler. Baseball cap on backwards, shades slotted down the front of his T-shirt, jeans stuffed into oversized skater boots, he was throwing cushions around searching for his phone when Perdita handed it to him. “I put the list of stuff in your phone,” she said. “Buy what we need, and then—just see what happens.”

“You'd better pray for me that something happens.”

Perdita poured him coffee. Clo drank it down. “How come you run this household?”

“You want the job?”

Clo looked down onto the top of her head—he was at least a foot taller than Perdita. He gave her a hug. She hugged him back. He was turning to go. “Hey—what you get Dad for his birthday?”

“A harmonica,” said Perdita.

“Why didn't I think of that?”

Clo got into his Chevy Silverado, dropped his shades, turned up the music, slid down the window and set off along the winding dust road to the highway. The skyline of the city broke the horizon line in the distance. The early sun reflecting off the steel and glass turned the buildings into gold ingots. The air was fresh and starting to warm.

Saturday morning. Spring day.

EXIT HERE FOR AUTOS LIKE US:

It was the first turn off the highway as you left Bear County.

There was a sign:

PICK A CAR! ANY CAR!

Autolycus was a dealer. A wheeler-dealer. A dealer in wheels. A soapbox salesman with a silver tongue.

Autolycus. Part Budapest, part New Jersey. Chutzpah of Old Europe meets chutzpahdick of the New World.

Autolycus: ponytail, goatee beard, cowboy boots, string tie. Part crook, part sage.

It was the up-wing doors of the DeLorean that Clo saw as he drove along the highway in his Chevy. Clo pulled in ahead of the DeLorean and got out. Autolycus was bending over the rear engine. Steam from the radiator and gasket head hid what was left of his tiny body not concealed by the up-shot gull-wing doors of the car.

“Is that the car from that movie
Back to the Future
?”

Autolycus straightened up, his eyes reading Clo's amiable, open face as he stood, sunglasses in hand, tall over the low-slung car and its high-strung owner.

“You got a hammer?”

“You want to use a hammer on a car like this?”

“I want to use it to smash my head in. I was screwed by the guy who sold it to me. I'm too honest.”

“I can give you a ride if you want.”

“That's a pretty truck you got there. I like a Chevy. Brand-new.”

“Yeah—we had a good year last year at the Fleece. You been there?”

“The Fleece? That's your place?”

“Sure is—so, it's my dad's place, but I'm his son.”

Autolycus swabbed his hands on a medicated rag, locked up the DeLorean and hopped into the Chevy. “Stitched leather—and so clean. I like this.”

“Dad always said, no matter how old or beaten-up your car, you keep it smart. I learned that lesson when we was poor and now we're rich.”

“And I thought the American dream was done, and only the rich got richer—or politicians.”

“Don't get me wrong—we're just a family business, but yeah, it's a good business.”

“So where you heading, big guy?”

“Downtown. It's Dad's seventieth birthday today. We're having a party. My little sister sent me out to get a few things and maybe a special gift for him, like a son would get his dad. I said, what the Holy Lion of Judah am I supposed to get him?”

“You religious? He religious?”

“I was raised on the Good Book. We don't do church so much these days but I still believe that God has his ways.”

“You believe that God sends us what we need?”

“Sure do—Dad always says my little sister was sent by God, even if she's a pain in the ass.”

Autolycus nodded. “I guess this is one of those God-sent days too. God sent me to you.”

“I'm the one that's helping you out!”

Autolycus nodded again—he cocked his head sideways and took a flask from one of his pockets. He swigged. “You want bourbon?”

“I want to keep my licence.”

“My doctor says I have to drink every day for my liver.”

“Go right ahead.”

“So what's your name?”

“Clo.”

“Good to meet you, Clo. A good day and that's a fact.”

Saturday morning. Spring day.

Perdita saw her father on a ladder, hammer in his hand, nails in his mouth. She had thought he was still sleeping. She put on fresh coffee and went into the garden to wish him happy birthday.

Over the years Shep had worked hard to build up the bar. The Fleece served food: the best fish soups, crabs in their shells, rice and peas, black beans. If it was a way out to drive, along the levee where the cormorants prophesied the weather, well, the drive was worth it.

In the beginning Shep had done most of the work himself; restoring the long shutters, finding lengths of iron balustrade to rebuild the balcony that ran all the way round the building.

He had worked with Perdita strapped to his back. She had been put down once and he was never going to let her be put down again. At night she slept in his room and he told her old stories of love and loss. She was too young to know that's what they were. What she knew was the sound of his voice.

As she grew, Shep taught Perdita piano and harmony and they listened to the music Shep had grown up on himself—girl groups like the Marvelettes, protest songs, Dylan and Baez, and Shep's favourite, Marvin Gaye.

Perdita went out into the garden. Her father was watching the buzzards wing-level with the wind.

“Happy birthday, Dad.”

He put his arm round her. “I have something for you.”

“For me? It's your birthday—not mine.”

Out of his pocket Shep pulled a soft, worn leather pouch.

“This came from your mother. I was waiting till you turned eighteen, but instead I turned seventy. Didn't want to drop dead and not give this to you myself.”

“You're not dropping dead.”

“Here.” Shep emptied the contents of the pouch in her hands.

Perdita sat silently, looking at the shining cold-fire beauty—the making of the world. A layer of time. That's what diamonds are.

“Are they real?”

“Sure. Diamonds all the way.”

“She wasn't poor, then.”

“I don't reckon she was a poor woman, no.”

Perdita was holding the diamonds that her mother had held as her mother must once have held her, in both hands.

She started to cry.

“Don't cry,” said Shep. “You were loved then and you are loved now. Isn't that enough?”

Perdita nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She was at that age when sometimes she was a grown woman and sometimes she was still a kid.

“I'll put it on this afternoon,” she said, “for your party.”

“I don't know why we're having a party. It's a lot of fuss.”

“What's the point of being old if you can't party?”

“Am I old?”

“Yeah, you're old.” She kissed him. “But you're not dying.”

“Maybe I'm old, but I'm still a better dancer than you.”

She reached up and swatted him—Shep was tall like Clo, and a foot taller than Perdita. Then she took his hand and they sang and danced together for a minute—Shep on melody and clicking his fingers, Perdita singing over the top in harmony.
Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars…

“Was my mother a good dancer?”

“She was a good singer. She wrote you that song. The first one I ever taught you.”

“Did she really write it?”

“That's her music notation in her handwriting. That's her piano part. She was a cool musician. That song was her letter to you. You want to sing it later?”

Perdita stopped dancing and shook her head. “I'll sing all your favourites.”

“Let's go inside and run through a few on the piano. Are the girls here yet?”

“Not yet, Dad. It's early.”

Shep nodded. “I guess it is. I didn't sleep last night. Mortality was visiting me.”

“You're fine!”

“High blood pressure.”

“So why not leave the work to me and Clo?”

“Surest way to die is to stop working.”

“What did she die of? My mother?”

Shep put his arms round Perdita. “You know I don't know.”

“You kept these diamonds all these years and you never told me. Maybe there's other things you never told me.”

Shep laughed. “Sweetheart, if I knew the who and the where and the why and how—why wouldn't I tell you?”

“Would you?”

Perdita didn't know anything about the BabyHatch. All she knew was that her mother had died and that Shep had adopted her. From a church a long way away. The past was a long way away. Nearly eighteen years' drive.

Whenever she asked about her mother Shep said, “She was a damn fine woman.”

When she asked about her father, he said, “I don't know about him at all.”

When she asked her brother, Clo, he said, “Ask Dad.”

So she had stopped asking questions because there weren't any answers.

Overhead the buzzards circled round their cold, high cry, circling as if they were looking for something they had lost. A long time ago.

Saturday morning. Spring day.

Out on the highway Clo had the radio up full-blast like he was trying to blow up the car from the inside with a double-barrelled bass. As they pulled up towards the stop lights, the Chevy booming, its metal flanks pulsing, Autolycus put his hands to his mouth and yelled—

“OK, big guy! Exit here towards the roundabout!”

Clo pulled into the exit lane. “I hate roundabouts! They were just coming in when I was a kid. I like a road straight ahead of me. Stop sign now and again to take a drink. Cruise control. No stress, no steering.”

Clo didn't look like a man who did much steering, leaning his forearms on the wheel, his big hands drumming to the beat.

Autolycus took another swig from his flask and put on his shades against the reflecting sun.

“Let me tell you something for nothing that no highwayman ever will tell you, ever will know. You listenin'?”

Clo turned the sound down and the car stopped reverberating.

“Here's the truth…if roundabouts had been invented sooner the whole of western civilisation would be different.”

“The whole thing?”

“Whole damn thing.”

“How'd y'work that out?”

“Remember the story of Oedipus?”

“Eddy who?”

“Guy who murdered his father and married his mother.”

“Was that on Fox News?”

“It happened a while back. Oedipus is racing up some narrow road when he meets an old guy in a chariot.”