I - A Short Story

I

James turned another page of the magazine he had been gazing at sightlessly, glossy pages full of pictures of objects that would make life perfect. A change came over him: he sat up straight and appeared to be listening. He put down the magazine then stood. Tara would be home in about seven minutes. She was bone-tired, fed-up, and wanted nothing more than to soak work out of her skin in a hot bath. James headed through to the kitchen.
         When Tara opened the front door, she was greeted by the scent of roses and a cup of hot lemon tea.
         “The bath should be about ready. I'll get dinner on while you relax.”
Tara stared at him for a moment, an unreadable expression on her face but all too obvious discomfort in her heart. James' felt his own heart twinge painfully in response.
         “Up you go,” he said in his gentlest voice.
Tara let herself be pushed towards the stairs, then climbed them wearily. The bath was just about full. Rose petals floated on the ruffled surface of the water.
         James turned his thoughts away forcibly, left Tara to her privacy. He returned to the kitchen and went to the fridge. One at a time, he considered ingredients and placed them on the counter. A white onion, wrinkled along one side where it had been resting on the shelf, and with the first hints of a green shoot seeking light from its centre. A single clove of garlic, torn from its siblings in their papery shell, flesh fresh and crunchy under its purple skin. The two red raw steaks he had picked up from the market on his way home from work, their surfaces wet with blood and water. He had paid over the odds for them to make the shopkeeper stop talking.
         Focus.
With careful deliberation, he took out an iceberg lettuce, some juicy tomatoes, the remaining quarter of a cucumber, some asparagus. They were ingredients, nothing more.
         He turned on the radio and began to chop up the onion, listening hard to everything the presenter had to say, trying to hum along to the songs and jingles.
         When Tara came back downstairs, she laughed with pleasure at James' accomplishment and wrapped her arms tightly around his body.
         “Thank you,” she murmured into his chest, a smile warming her voice.
James stroked her back and her hair, and lightly kissed the top of her head. He could not share her pleasure, and he would not.
         He had chosen to come back here after being away so long, and that choice had implications. How long would it take for him to confront them?
         Tara's hair smelled ever so slightly of roses. She deserved to have dinner cooked for her every night, not just the few occasions when James could manage it.
         “I'll sit down,” said Tara, leaning back to look at his face. “You fry the steak.”
James blinked and smiled. He nodded.
         “I'll be one minute.”
He pulled away from her and after a moment she went through to the room that was their living room and dining room combined. She sat down -
         Focus.
James pulled his mind away and cooked the steak to perfection.

Sleep had been the hardest part, nearly impossible for quite some time after James' return. He would lie down and close his eyes, and at once the tendrils of his mind would spread out in every direction, filling him with knowledge of the pillows and blankets, the mattress and bed frame, the dust and the mites, the carpet and walls and ceiling and the air that flowed between them, drifting on subtle currents around and around and out of the window, floating outwards into the town, into the sky, into everything...
         Tara lay beside him. That was her name. She was his girlfriend. His. James'. She was warm and beautiful, an opaque body with a mind hidden away inside. He envied her more than he would ever dream of expressing, envied her peace and comfort, the fact that she was like everyone else. But he was more, and maybe she would envy him, if she could understand.
         James stared at the ceiling and counted sheep. Sleep might not come, but he would remain within himself for as long as possible, or at least, until he made the decision.
         He must have achieved the elusive state of sleep, because the next thing he was aware of was a space beside him where Tara had been. She was in the bathroom, brushing her teeth, filling the air around her with the hint of mint flavouring as she hummed to herself.
         The space where she had been was cold; she had been up a while. She had invited some friends over for a buffet dinner, along with both sets of parents and some people James had known before he went away. It would be imperative that everything be ready long before they arrived.
         James swung his legs out of bed and placed his feet on the plush pink carpet. For a moment, he enjoyed the feeling of it on his toes, then he stood up and tried to prepare himself for another day.
         By the time he had showered and dressed, Tara was hoovering the stairs. James offered to take over, but was sent to clean the bathroom, a fiddly task that required more concentration. With a bucket full of cloths and sprays, he trudged back upstairs. He started with the shower that hung over the bath, removing the shower head and putting it in the sink to soak, scrubbing the tiles and the grouting in between, then brushing away the limescale around the taps and polishing them to a shine. Then he moved on to the thick glass screen.
         Tara came up a couple of times to check on him, and complemented him on his progress.
When he was finished with the bathroom, there was the food shopping to do, a long list of ingredients and nibbles. Tara had finished the cleaning by the time he got home, and they unpacked the carrier bags together.
         “You're happiest when you're busy,” commented Tara as she handed him crisps to put on top of the cupboard.
         “Not happiest,” James replied truthfully, “But it is easier.”
         “When are you happiest?” she asked, avoiding looking him in the eye. It took James several moments to fight down the urge to find out what she wanted him to say and several more to search for a suitable answer.
         “When I'm free from worrying,” he said at last.
         “Oh.”
Tara passed him the rest of the crisps in silence, then she said only, “Let's have some lunch.”
         They sat opposite one another at the dining table and picked at cheese on toast.
         “Don't you like it?” asked Tara eventually.
         “Of course I do. If it were my last meal I'd be perfectly content. It's just, I'm not very hungry.”
         “Me neither,” admitted Tara with a nervous laugh.
         “Why don't I clear the plates away. Do you want a drink?”
         “A couple of shots of vodka maybe. No, a cup of tea would be nice, thanks.”
         When James returned a few minutes later, she was sitting up straighter in her chair and her face had a hard look to it.
         “What's it like?”
         “What?”
         “You know...”
         James sighed, and brought the tea to the table.
         “You know I can't explain it. I've tried before.”
         “But try again.”
James pulled out the chair on her right and sat down. He gazed into the middle distance, trying to find the right words.
         A cloudy evening, a group of friends heading for the park to drink cheap wine and talk and enjoy the freedom of the long summer. It was dusk, and a cool breeze was rising. Someone had started to run, full of the joy of living, and everyone else had followed suit.
         “You were there at the accident,” he said, “You saw me fall.”
“Yes, and I saw the blood pouring out from your cracked skull and saw you being rushed to hospital. They wouldn't let me come because we weren't related, even though we had been together three years.”
         “I'm sorry. If I had been at all conscious of what was going on I would have demanded you come too.”
         “Don't joke. I thought you were going to die.”
         “So did I. As we drove along I was aware in some way, though I couldn't feel my body. I was aware of pain, but also of this great wide openness... I floated up and out and then I... wasn't.”
         He paused. She was frowning in incomprehension.
         “Anyway, you were there when I woke up too.”
         “Yes, you didn't seem like you.”
         “I wasn't, not just me anyway. I was you, and I was mum and dad. I was even the nurse who told you not to shake my hand too violently.”
         He paused, growled with frustration.
         “You see, the world was wider, no, I was wider, I was the world. I am... I could be... I had to be small again, I had to make the world small, three dimensional, simple. I wanted to stop the hurt I was causing, the hurt I felt like it was my own. I'm not making any sense, am I.”
         Tara was staring at him with wide, blank eyes.
         “So why did you go away?”
         Startled by this apparent change of direction, James floundered.
         “I went to university. Most people our age did.”
         “But we wanted you to stay. You could have gone somewhere closer, stayed at home where we could look after you.”
         “That's exactly what I didn't want.”
         He could tell by the flaring of her nostrils and the setting of her jaw that he should not have said this.
         “I mean, I needed to get away. Not from you, at least, not because you were you. It was a chance to escape.”
         “Escape?”
         James screwed up his eyes, massaged the back of his neck with his fingers.
         “At university I could start again... I wasn't connected to everything and everyone like I was here. It was a chance to be almost normal. You can't imagine what a relief it was to have my thoughts to myself again. It wasn't easy. I had to be very careful. Once I fell asleep in a lecture and woke up thinking I was the entire row of people behind me. Once I caught myself drifting apart in the currents of the lake when I was supposed to be looking for fish. But Tara, I was a real person again.”
         “And then you came back.”
         “Yes...”
         Long black lashes brushed her cheeks as Tara closed her eyes.
         “Why?”
         There was a long pause, then Tara's eyes snapped open again.
         “No, don't tell me. We have to get ready for the party. Did I tell you I invited Dave? You remember him, Sophie's old boyfriend? They're married now, you know. They're both coming, and so's John, and Simon and Tony from the old gang, and obviously my parents. Oh, I said I'd call your mum if we needed anything. I might just ask her to bring round some more strawberries for the pavlova, in case there aren't enough... “
She stood up and headed for the phone.
         “You start getting everything out for the flan. Can you think of anything else we might need?”
         James shook his head, trying to focus on and process the rapid stream of words that continued to babble from her lips.
         “Why?”
         “James, the flan. We'd better hurry. We only have a few hours until they start arriving.”
         “Tara.”
         She paused mid-sentence and stared at him, something like fear darting across her face. James pushed his chair back from the table and approached her, not sure what he was going to do. When he reached her, he held out his arms and she collapsed into his embrace. Her shoulders started to shake with the effort of holding in sobs. To his surprise, James felt tears in his own eyes, and he let them fall into Tara's hair as he held her tightly.
         “Shhh,” he murmured. “Shhh.”
After a time, the tears stopped falling and Tara regained her composure. Without looking at him, she picked up the phone and started to dial. James left her standing with the phone pressed to her ear, and went through to the kitchen to start on the flan.
         He got out the weighing scales and the flour. The butter was hiding behind the cheese in the fridge. He got them both out and placed them by the scales. He picked up the bag of flour, then put it down again. Then he walked through to the utility room and put on his walking shoes.
         Tara was still on the phone to his mum as James quietly opened the front door and started briskly down the path.
         He had no destination in mind, so he let his feet carry him where they would. Something was rising inside him, the answer to Tara's repealed question. He did not approach it.
         It was a beautiful late spring afternoon. The residential streets were filled with children out to play, parents mowing their small lawns or watching their offspring anxiously, soap-sudded cars waiting for the hose. James' feet paused so that he could watch a ginger cat stalking butterflies in the long grass of the garden across the road. The butterflies fluttered lazily from stalk to flower, trailing pollen, only minutely aware of the predator. Each flower and grass plant had its roots in the cool earth, seeking downwards for more food, more water; a never-ending questing for life, the same as the butterflies, the cat, the children, their parents...
         James feet carried on walking. They came to the river and followed it. Soon they reached the outskirts of town, the derelict warehouses and new developments. James' phone rang three times, but he did not answer it, not yet. He left the town behind, entering a world of spring greenery embodied in fields and trees and moss on the stones that paddled in the water.
         Birdsong echoed to and fro in the verdant branches, punctuating the continuous buzz of insects and the rippling chatter of the water. Scents swirled by in the heavy air, telling of river life and of sheep in the fields not far away. A senseless joy swelled up and rushed over the edges of James' consciousness, drowning him in vibrant life. He reached an old stone bridge and sat on one of the parapets, soaking up the sunshine that beamed down from an endless sky.
         Slowly, the answer started to unfurl its petals. James watched it slyly, not wishing to alter it by observation.
         He had left for a normal life, and when he had found it, he had returned. The meaning of this blossomed in James consciousness, and its repercussions ran through him. Loosening his rigid controls, James opened himself up slowly, coming to see that wider world in its beauty and symmetry and chaos.
         He was on the brink, all he had to do was step over.
But first...

It only took one glance for Tara to realise that he had made his decision. Without asking where he had been, she undressed him slowly, showering him with kisses and tears like the reminder of promises. They made love on top of the flowered bedspread, bathed in sunlight, then they slept for a while.
         When James awoke, she was lying on his chest, tears pooled under her cheek.
         “Don’t go,” she whispered as he stirred, “Please, don’t go.”
         'I'm not going anywhere,' he wanted to explain, but knew that she would not believe him, could not understand. Even if she had been able, it would have given her scant comfort.
         “I love you,” he whispered into her hair, knowing that he could never give her the kind of love she wanted, needed. He could never have made her happy, banished her fear, convinced her that life was stable and permanent.
         “I have to call mum and dad,” he told her gently. She did not reply, only watched him with big eyes as he wrapped himself in a dressing gown and picked up the handset.
         Saying goodbye was painful, more so because the pain would last longer for those he was leaving behind. Mum and dad seemed to understand, on some intuitive level, that it was time for their boy to leave home again, but Tara refused to accept it, closing herself off from what was happening as though she could prevent it. In the end, though, nothing could have prevented it once James had made up his mind.
         As the evening sunlight slanted through the windows, the guests started to arrive at Tara's house, but there was to be no party. The food turned to dust in their mouths and the drinks could not slake their thirst. In the kitchen, the flour sat untouched by the weighing scales.
         James walked the streets of the town he loved, letting it seep into him slowly, becoming the tarmac, the bricks, the windows, the houses and their inhabitants. He walked out along the river, opening up, becoming all of the people of the town, all of their thoughts and desires and hopes and secrets. And he kept walking.
         He became the fish in the river, the frogs, the birds hiding in the bushes and swooping overhead. He became the flowing river, the air, the earth, the heat of the sun. He reached the edge... and stepped over.
         If anyone had been watching, they would have seen a man disappear.