Tin Man(30)

It’s a poem about grief, I say to Dora.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up – for you the flag is flung – for you the bugle trills;

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths – for you the shores a-crowding; For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning . . .

Dora bends down and kisses me on the head. She walks to the water’s edge and I race after her. Pretend to save me from drowning, I say and I jump in the river and swim to the middle of the pond, arms and legs kicking and flailing. She swims towards me, whispers to me to lean back, to let go. Everything’s going to be all right, Michael, she says, as she pulls me across those warm, still waters. And all the way, I quote, O Captain! my Captain!

I race back to the hospital because I want to tell Chris about the film. And I’ve played it in my head, so many times, what I’m going to say to him when I get back to the ward. I’m going to stand in the doorway and recite the poem from start to finish. It will be like theatre. The doorway the stage, he the audience, and the nurses may stop to listen. I know already how it will be. Something good in a difficult day. When I arrive at Chris’s room, my knees fail. The bed has been stripped, and the room is empty. Chloe sees me. She rushes over. It’s OK, Michael, she says. It’s OK. His parents came. They’ve taken him home.

I’m in G’s room watching the late news. The BBC reporting from Germany. The Berlin Wall is down and the gates are open. Cars are honking, friends and families are reunited and champagne is drunk. Chloe comes in and brings me a tea. She puts her arm around me and says, nodding to the TV, No one thought this was possible ten years ago. And now look. Life changes in ways we can never imagine. Walls come down and people are free. You wait, she says.

I know what she’s trying to say: Hope.

G died on 1 December 1989. I haven’t cried. But sometimes I feel as if my veins are leaking, as if my body is overwhelmed, as if I’m drowning from the inside.

I’ve taken to the sofa. I’m not sure of the date, I don’t care. I feel so heavy, I can barely move. I eat vegetable broth, and lots of it. I’m aware, some days, how this flat must smell.

Every time I stand up, I rearrange the cushions on this sofa so it’s ready for me to lie back down again. Small gestures are important. I lie facing the balcony, and in the evenings, I lose myself in the transfer of light. Sometimes I open the sliding doors and hear Christmas approach. I hear the chatter of who’s going where and who’s buying what. I listen to the drunken songs from office party revellers and sometimes I make it outside and watch illicit snogging in the shadows. I wonder if this stolen act is the start of something or the end of something.

The digital clock flicks over. At 18.03, there’s a knock at my door. I look through the peephole. I see a woman’s face – a kind face, sort of familiar, but not a friend. I open the door and she says, Michael? (I’m surprised she knows my name.) She says, I’m Lee. Maybe you don’t remember me? Four doors down that way, she says, pointing.

She says, I haven’t seen you out the last few days and I thought you could do with a few things. I tried you yesterday, but . . .

And she hands me a large bag of shopping.

There’s wine, too, she says. So careful when you put it down.

I stare at her. I say, Thank you, and begin to unravel. I feel her hand on my shoulder.

She says, You know, if you need anything over Christmas, we’re staying put and— I cut her off before her kindness overtakes me. I thank her again, and wish her a happy time.

I empty the bag on the kitchen counter. Potatoes, wine, a ham and a pork pie and salad, a feast. Chocolate, too. A card. On the front, an image of Victorian London under snow. Inside, With Our Very Best Wishes, Lee and Alan.

I put the card on the table and it makes a difference to the room, to my mood especially. It’s Christmassy. I light a candle and open the sliding doors. Traffic and chill air. Lee and Alan. Who knew?

Christmas 1976. The sudden fall of light along Cowley Road. The smell of chestnuts Mabel roasts in the kitchen and sells in the shop. The smell of oranges punctured by cloves. The holly sprigs and mistletoe that Ellis and I used to gather out at Nuneham Courtenay.

I say to Ellis, Last tree and we’re done.

Where to? he says.

Divinity Road, I say. Up by Hill Top. Here’s the invoice, and I hand him the sheet.

He looks at it. Anne Cleaver, he says.

See you afterwards—

– Course, he says.

Eat here?

Great, he smiles. He leaves the shop, tree on his shoulder, fur hat on his head, and I watch him cross the road.

I sit down in Mabel’s armchair. The clock ticks over, and customers come in and make additions to their orders. But mostly, I read. Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, A Christmas Memory. I go out the back to make a cup of tea. I look at the clock and wonder where he’s got to.

In seven years, France has changed in our storytelling. It is now a holiday of single beds and single lads, sunbathing and French beauties. We keep secrets from one another now, secrets about sexual adventures, who’s done what. They’re secret because we don’t know what to do about the thing we were. So we stay away from it and don’t touch it, in case it stings. Avoidance is the dock leaf.

He’s taking forever. I’m hungry. Mabel’s not back from her friend’s, and I feel like company. The cold inches across the stone floor and finds my toes. I stand up. I jump about. I go over to the record player and search out my favourite record. The introduction plays and my heart shimmies. The Impressions. ‘People Get Ready’. I open the shop door and let my feet take me across the floor.