Bright Burning Things(13)
The girl is holding out a bag for me. ‘That’ll be the fifty,’ she says. I hand over the note and leave, my legs heavy. ‘It’s a lovely evening, T, shall we have a picnic on the green?’ Tommy is trailing his trainers along the ground, scuffing them. ‘Pizza on the grass?’ he asks Herbie, who is still subdued and tense. Whoever said dogs have no memories? I could bet every second of our time together is inscribed in that fella’s brain, and this latest incident made no sense at all of what went before. Maybe all humans are just assholes, not to be trusted. Maybe you’re right, Herbie.
The air is sweet and soft, carrying all the scents of the aftermath of summer drizzle. My senses are heightened as I inhale the smell of the grass, the damp earth, the mossy tree trunks looking like gnarled elephant skin. As soon as we reach the green I take off my cardigan and spread it on the ground for my boys to sit on. I pull off a slice of pizza for Tommy, who gives the first one to Herbie, then takes his, sinks his teeth in, his eyes closing, a parody of a grown-up experiencing a moment of bliss. One bite is enough for me, unable to deny the origins of the cheese. Tommy opens his eyes, looks at me, studies me.
‘Yaya, the black birdies will come if you don’t eat.’
Jesus, when did I tell him about the black birds of worry? I remember being told something similar. By whom? My mother? Lara? Unlikely that it was Lara, who never told me anything, except when she wanted me to know about my father’s disapproval.
‘Yaya, you must eat!’
I tousle Tommy’s hair and say, ‘I will later – promise, darling – you’re not to worry now. You enjoy your pizza.’
My stomach feels full and bloated, though it must be empty, and I’m scared I might swallow my tongue, which seems to take up all the space in my mouth. I lie back on the patch of scrub and stare at the slouchy night sky above, so low it looks as if it might fall down on our heads and cover us in a cloak of cloud. I allow myself to absorb the moment: the sound of my boys munching, the heaviness in my limbs and the realisation that something has caught up with me. My eyelids droop, exhausted by the job of framing eyes such as mine: Woe is me, to have seen what I have seen, see what I see… The crowd is hushed, awed into silence. Ophelia’s way out was always an attractive proposition, a poetic end to a life of tragedy. As a mother, my own sense of the tragic, the personal absorption in that realm, has been punctured. I have someone else to think of and this doesn’t fit with my former view of myself. I would never have been cast as the role of the mother. A famous casting director told me this. I didn’t embody those particular attributes: I was ‘too angular and febrile’. I think this was meant as a compliment.
The warm body of Tommy climbs on top of me, lying heart to heart, an arrhythmic duo. I cuddle him to me, not too hard, not too much, not too needy, careful not to spook him. His body remains soft as it falls into sleep. I watch his eyelashes flutter as I gently caress his flushed cheeks. My body floods with a painful love. Take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun. Juliet’s words float on the air. I bury my nose in Tommy’s hair, which really is as fine as silk. Herbie is lying close, but not too close, his eyes trained on his real master, as if protecting him. ‘Sorry, Herbie, old boy.’ His tail thumps, an emblem of forgiveness. No wonder we use dogs in our lives the way we do. They make us feel better about ourselves than we ever deserve to.
6
All residual light has drained from the sky, and the damp is soaking through my cardigan, crawling its way inside my bones. I whisper in Tommy’s ear: ‘Come on, T, time to go home.’ It’s way past Mrs O’Malley’s bedtime, nothing to fear there, and yet the thought of going back to that house, where the reverberations of my actions of only a few hours ago still linger, makes my heart beat wildly. Tommy stirs. ‘Rat-a-tat-tat,’ he says, lifting himself off me.
We slink along the road, the three of us crouching in the shadow of the wall, Herbie still smaller than he should be. Tommy’s hand is holding tightly on to mine. ‘Ouchy tummy,’ he says. I bend down to kiss it. ‘All better soon.’ I know that feeling of not eating, then eating too much and too fast and the pains that follow. The two of them, Tommy and Herbie, polished off the three pizzas, and I can only imagine what kind of shape the dog’s intestines must be in: all twisted from stress and too much bread and cheese. My own must be pickled, in a permanent state of acid reflux, and yet I’ll have to add more to the mix tonight. It won’t be possible to get through the night otherwise; the shakes have already started. This time there are no dissenting voices, just a realisation that my hangover is too intense and the cravings too insistent. I finger the card with David Smythe’s number on it. Tomorrow – there’s always tomorrow.
As our house comes into view I see a car parked directly outside, blocking my access. Some people… A familiar spike of fury pushes its way through me, keys at the ready. Just as I’m about to sink the serrated edge into the metal, I realise this is not a stranger’s car. I place the keys back into my pocket and breathe deeply.
A man steps out. ‘Hello, young man.’
Tommy looks at me, troubled. We never have visitors.
‘Hello, Sonya,’ the man says.
‘It’s late.’