Tin Man by Sarah Winman (2)

In the front bedroom, propped up amongst the books, is a colour photograph of three people, a woman and two men. They are tightly framed, their arms around one another, and the world beyond is out of focus, and the world on either side excluded. They look happy, they really do. Not just because they are smiling but because there is something in their eyes, an ease, a joy, something they share. It was taken in spring or summer, you can tell by the clothes they are wearing (T-shirts, pale colours, that sort of thing), and, of course, because of the light.

One of the men from the photograph, the one in the middle with scruffy dark hair and kind eyes, is asleep in that room. His name is Ellis. Ellis Judd. The photograph, there amongst the books, is barely noticeable, unless you know where to find it, and because Ellis no longer has any desire to read, there is little compulsion for him to move towards the photograph, and for him to pick it up and to reminisce about the day, that spring or summer day, on which it was taken.

The alarm clock went off at five in the afternoon as it always did. Ellis opened his eyes and turned instinctively to the pillow next to him. Through the window dusk had fallen. It was February still, the shortest month, which never seemed to end. He got up and turned off the alarm. He continued across the landing to the bathroom and stood over the toilet bowl. He leant a hand against the wall and began to empty his bladder. He didn’t need to lean against the wall any more but it was the unconscious act of a man who had once needed support. He turned the shower on and waited until the water began to steam.

Washed and dressed, he went downstairs and checked the time. The clock was an hour fast because he had forgotten to put it back last October. However, he knew that in a month the clocks would go forward and the problem would right itself. The phone rang as it always did, and he picked it up and said, Carol. Yes, I’m all right. OK then. You, too.

He lit the stove and brought two eggs to the boil. Eggs were something he liked. His father did, too. Eggs were where they came together in agreement and reconciliation.

He wheeled his bike out into the freezing night and cycled down Divinity Road. At Cowley Road he waited for a break in the traffic heading east. He had done this journey thousands of times and could close his mind and ride at one with the black tide. He turned into the sprawling lights of the Car Plant and headed over to the Paint Shop. He was forty-five years old, and every night he wondered where the years had gone.

The stink of white spirit caught in his throat as he walked across the line. He nodded to men he had once socialised with, and in the Tinny Bay, he opened his locker and took out a bag of tools. Garvy’s tools. Every one of them handmade, designed to get behind a dent and to knock it out. People reckoned he was so skilled at it he could take the cleft out of a chin without the face knowing. Garvy had taught him everything. First day with him, Garvy picked up a file and struck a discarded door panel and told him to get the dent out.

Keep your hand flat, he’d said. Like this. Learn to feel the dent. Look with your hands, not your eyes. Move across it gently. Feel it. Stroke it. Gently now. Find the pimple. And he stood back, all downward mouth and critical eye.

Ellis picked up the dolly, placed it behind the dent and began to tap above with the spoon. He was a natural.

Listen to the sound! Garvy’d shouted. Get used to the sound. The ringing lets you know if you’ve spotted it right. And when Ellis had finished, he stood up pleased with himself because the panel was as smooth as if it had just been pressed. Garvy said, Reckon it’s out, do you? And Ellis said, Course I do. And Garvy closed his eyes and ran his hands across the seam and said, Not out.

They used to listen to music back then, but only once Ellis knew the sound that metal made. Garvy liked Abba, he liked the blonde one best, Agnetha someone, but he never told anyone else. Over time, though, Ellis came to realise the man was so lonely and eager for companionship that the process of smoothing out a dent was as if his hands were running across a woman’s body.

Later in the canteen, the others would stand behind him and pout, run their hands down their make-believe breasts and waists, and they would whisper, Close your eyes, Ellis. Do you feel it, that slight pimple? Can you feel it, Ellis? Can you?

It was Garvy, who sent him to the trim shop to ask for a ‘trim woman’, the silly sod, but only the once, mind. And when he retired, Garvy said, Take two things from me, Ellis boy. First – work hard and you’ll have a long life here. And second – my tools.

Ellis took the tools.

Garvy died a year after retiring. This place had been his oxygen. They reckoned he suffocated doing nothing.

Ellis? said Billy.

What?

I said nice night for it, and he closed his locker.

Ellis picked up a coarse file and smashed it into a scrap panel.

There you go, Billy, he said. Knock it out.

It was one in the morning. The canteen was busy and smelt of chips and shepherd’s pie and something overcooked and green. The sound of a radio crept out from the kitchen, Oasis, ‘Wonderwall’, and the serving women sang along. Ellis was next in the queue. The light was harsh and he rubbed his eyes and Janice looked at him concerned. But then he said, Pie and chips, Janice, please.

And she said, Pie and chips it is then. There we go, my love. Gentlemen’s portions, too.

Thanks.

Night, my love.

He walked over to the table in the far corner and pulled out a chair.

Do you mind, Glynn? he said.

Glynn looked up. Be my guest, he said. You all right there, Ellis mate?

Fine, he said, and he began to roll a cigarette. What’s the book? he asked.

Harold Robbins. If I don’t cover the front of it, you know what this lot are like. They’ll make it smutty.

Any good?

Brilliant, said Glynn. Nothing predictable. The twists, the violence. Racy cars, racy women. Look. That’s the photograph of the author. Look at him. Look at his style. That is my kind of man.

What’s your kind of man? You a bit of a Nelly, Glynn? said Billy, pulling up a chair.

In this context, my kind of man means the kind I’d hang out with.

Not us then?

I’d rather chew my hand off. No offence, Ellis.

None taken.

I was a bit like him in the seventies, style-wise, that is. You remember, Ellis?

A bit Saturday Night Fever, were you? said Billy.

I’m not listening to you.

White suit, gold chains?

Not listening.

All right, all right. Truce? said Billy.

Glynn reached across for the ketchup.

But, said Billy.

But what? said Glynn.

I bet you could tell by the way you used your walk that you were a woman’s man with no time to talk.

What’s he going on about? said Glynn.

No idea, said Ellis quietly, and he pushed his plate away.

Out into the night, he lit his cigarette. The temperature had dropped and he looked up and thought that snow was threatening. He said to Billy, You shouldn’t wind Glynn up like that.

Billy said, He’s asking for it.

No one’s asking for it. And cut out the Nelly shit.

Look, said Billy. Ursa Major. Can you see it? The Great Bear.

Did you hear me? said Ellis.

Look – down, down, down, up. Across. Down. And up, up. You see?

Did you hear me I said?

Yes, I heard you.

They walked back towards the Paint Shop.

But did you see it? said Billy.

Oh Jesus, said Ellis.

The horn blared out and the assembly line slowed and the men busied themselves in handover and departure. It was seven in the morning and the morning was dark. Ellis wondered when he’d last seen the sun. He felt restless after shift, and when he felt like that he never went home straight away because the loneliness would pounce. Sometimes, he cycled up to Shotover Woods, or out to Waterperry, just him filling the hours with the dull burn of miles in his calves. He’d watch the morning lighten against the trees and listen to birdsong to soothe his ears after the clash of industry. He tried not to think too much about things, out there in nature, and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. When it didn’t, he cycled back thinking his life was far from how he had intended it to be.

Along Cowley Road, orange streetlight scattered across the tar, and ghosts of shops long gone lurked in the mists of recollection. Betts, Lomas bike repair, Estelle’s, Mabel’s greengrocers, all gone. Had you told him as a boy that Mabel’s wouldn’t have been here when he was a man, he never would have believed it. A junk shop called Second Time Around now stood in its place. It rarely opened.

He passed the old Regal Cinema, where thirty years ago Billy Graham, the evangelist preacher, had beamed out from the big screen to 1,500 of his faithful. Shop keepers and passers-by had gathered on the pavements to watch the masses stream out from its doors. Drinkers outside the City Arms pub had looked on awkwardly and shuffled their feet. It had been a stand-off between excess and sobriety. But hadn’t the road always been a point of tension between east and west? Two ends of the spectrum, the haves and have-nots, whether it be faith or money or tolerance.

He crossed Magdalen Bridge into the other country where the air smelt of books. He slowed to let a couple of students pass wearily in front of him – up early or still up late? It was hard to tell. He stopped and bought a cup of coffee and a newspaper down by the market. He cycled one-handed and drank it resting against a wall at the end of Brasenose Lane. He watched bleary-eyed tourists make use of a jet-lagged morning. Beautiful city you have here, one said. Yes, he said, and he drank his coffee.

The following day, a Rover 600, pulled from the line, was waiting in the bay. Ellis checked the handover book and notes from the day shift. Another left front wing. He put on a pair of white cotton gloves from his pocket and spread out his fingers. He ran his fingertips across the damage line and could just feel the disparity, so slight that even light on paintwork could barely catch it. He stood upright and stretched out his back.

Billy. You try, he said.

Billy reached out. White gloves moving across the body. Pausing, retracing. Bingo.

There, said Billy.

You got it, said Ellis, and he picked up the dolly and spoon. Couple a taps, he said. That’ll do it. Quick and light. There we go.

He checked the paintwork. It ran a perfect silver line, and Billy said, Did you always want to do this? And he surprised himself and said, No. And Billy said, What then? And he said, I wanted to draw.

The horn blared out and they walked out together into the biting freeze. Ellis pulled his hat down low and retied his scarf. His gloves came out of his pocket and he had to chase down a tissue that rolled away with a sudden gust of wind. He didn’t mind Billy’s laughter, Billy’s laughter was easy.

I’ve got a date on Friday, said Billy.

Where you going?

Pub, I think. One in town. We’re meeting by the Martyrs’ Memorial.

Really? said Ellis. Where’s your bike, by the way?

Over here near yours, said Billy. I don’t know why I suggested meeting there, I couldn’t think of anywhere else. And look at this, he said pointing to the side of his nose. Spot.

You can hardly see it. You like this one?

Yeah, I like her, I really do. She’s too good for me, said Billy.

And then Billy said, You have anyone, Ellis?

And he said, No.

And Billy said what no one else ever said. He said, Terry told me your wife died?

And the way he said it was gentle and direct and uninhibited, as if the death of love was normal.

She did, said Ellis.

How? said Billy.

Terry didn’t tell you?

He told me to mind my own business. I can, you know. Mind it.

Car accident. Five years ago now.

Aw fuck, said Billy.

And Aw fuck was the only suitable answer, thought Ellis. Not, Oh sorry, or, That’s awful. But Aw fuck. Billy was steering the conversation better than anyone had in a long time, and Billy said, Bet that’s when you started on nights, right? I didn’t think you did it for the money. I bet you couldn’t sleep, right? I don’t think I’d ever sleep again.

Billy and his nineteen years understood. They stopped at the gate and stood aside to let cars pass.

Billy said, I’m going to the Leys for a beer. Why don’t you come?

I won’t.

It’s just me. And I like talking to you. You’re not like the others.

The others are OK.

D’you ever go for a drink, Ell?

No.

Then I’m gonna keep trying. I’ll make you my project.

Go on. Off you go.

See you tomorrow, Ell! and Ellis watched him disappear amongst the dozens of others heading out towards the estates of Blackbird Leys. He got on his bike and cycled slowly back west. He wondered when the kid had started calling him Ell.

It was eight in the morning and the sky across South Park had begun to lighten. Frost had settled on windscreens and birds’ nests, and the pavements glistened. Ellis opened the front door and wheeled his bike into the hallway. The house felt cold and smelt of wood smoke. In the back room he put his hand on the radiators. They were on, but they were battling. He didn’t take his jacket off right away but stacked the hearth and got the flames going instead. He was good at building fires. He built the fires and Annie opened the wine, and the years rolled out. Thirteen, to be precise. Thirteen years of grapes and warmth.

He took a bottle of Scotch out of the cupboard and came back to the heat. In the silence, the echo of industry receded, just flames now, and the soft thud of car doors opening and shutting on a new day outside. This had always been the worst time when the quiet emptiness could leave him gasping for breath. She was there, his wife, a peripheral shadow moving across a doorway, or in the reflection of a window, and he had to stop looking for her. And the whisky helped – helped him to walk past her when the fire was doused. But occasionally she followed him up the stairs and that’s why he began to take the bottle with him, because she stood in the corner of their bedroom and watched him undress, and when he was on the verge of sleep, she leant over him and asked him things like, Remember when we first met?

And he said, Of course I do. I was delivering a Christmas tree.

And?

And I rang your doorbell, smelling of pine and a bit of winter. And I saw your shadow approach through the window, and the door opened and there you were, plaid shirt and jeans and thick socks you wore as slippers. Your cheeks were bright, your eyes green, your hair splayed out across your shoulders, and in the lap of dusk it looked blonde, but later I would find hues of red. You were eating a crumpet, and the hallway smelt of crumpets, and you apologised and licked your fingers and I felt shy in my fur hat, so I pulled it off and held up the tree and said, This is yours, I presume, Miss Anne Cleaver? And you said, You presume right. Now take off your boots, and follow me. I kicked them off obediently, and followed and I never looked back.

I carried the tree into the front room where cloves had punctured the skin of oranges and I could see where you had been only minutes before. Your indent was still warm on the sofa with a book open to its side, a table with an empty plate, a cardigan, and the slow fade of a fire.

I placed the tree in its stand and helped you cover the base with gold paper. From gold paper I moved to lights, from lights I moved to baubles, and from baubles, I reached up high and placed a star on top. When I came down I came down by your side, and didn’t want to leave.

You said, Have you nowhere to go?

No, I said. Just back to the shop.

No trees to deliver?

No trees, I said. You were my last.

So what’s at the shop? you said.

Michael. Mabel. And Scotch.

Ah, you said. That famous children’s book!

I laughed.

You have a nice laugh, you said.

And then we didn’t speak. Do you remember? Do you remember how you stared at me? How unnerved you made me feel? And I asked you why you were staring at me.

And you said, I’m wondering if I should take a chance on you.

And I said. Yes. Yes, is the only answer.

As dusk moved into darkness, we raced down Southfield, holding hands, stopping once in the shadows where I tasted crumpets on your lips and tongue. We stopped at Cowley Road. The front display at Mabel’s had been packed away and music blared out of the open door – ‘People Get Ready’ by The Impressions. You squeezed my hand and told me it was a favourite of yours. Michael was alone in the shop, dancing and singing out loud to the song, and Sister Teresa was standing in the doorway watching him. We crossed the road and joined her. The music ended and we applauded and Michael took his bow. Sister said, Will you be coming to church this Christmas, Michael? We need singing like that.

He said, I’m afraid I won’t, Sister. Church is not for me. And he said, Do you have everything you need for the big day? And she said, We do. And he said, Wait, and went into the back. Here, he said.

Mistletoe, she laughed. Long time since I stood beneath that, and she wished us all a Merry Christmas and left.

And who is this? said Michael, turning his gaze on you. I said, This is Anne. And you said, Annie, actually. And he said, Ms Annie Actually. I like her.

The year was 1976. You were thirty. Me, twenty-five. These are the details you never thought I’d remember.

We all three sat outside in the garden behind the shop. It was cold but I didn’t feel cold with you by my side. Mabel came out to say hello, and you stood up, said, Sit here, Mabel. And she said, Not tonight. I’m going to bed to listen to the music. What music? you said. But she didn’t hear, just disappeared back inside.

We built a fire in the middle of bricks and we drank beer and ate baked potatoes and sank down into blankets as our breath misted, as stars appeared as fragile as ice crystals. The sound of a trumpet interrupted our words and we all three jumped at the back wall and held ourselves up by our fingers, as we looked across the wild and overgrown churchyard. We saw the dark silhouette of a trumpet player leaning against a tree.

Who’s that? you asked.

Dexter Shawlands, said Michael.

Who’s he? you said.

An old flame of Mabel’s. Comes here once a year to play her song.

That’s love, you said.

The next day, the alarm went off at five in the afternoon as it always did. Ellis sat up sharply. His throat felt tight and his heart was racing. Whatever confidence he had in himself had disappeared in his sleep. He knew this mood and it was a fucker of a mood because it was unpredictable, and he rolled out of bed before he couldn’t. He turned off the alarm and it would be his first triumph of the day. The second would be cleaning his teeth. The room felt cold and he went to the window. Streetlights and gloom. The phone rang and he let it ring.

The first flurry of snow fell as he cycled down Divinity Road. There was a weight to his body, and he’d tried to explain it once, to a doctor, but he never really had the words. It was a feeling, that’s all, an overwhelming feeling that started in his chest and made his eyelids heavy. A shutting down that weakened his hands and made it hard to breathe. When he passed through the gates of the factory he couldn’t remember the journey at all.

He spent the hours preoccupied and distant, and those who knew his history warned others with a quick nod or wink in his direction, meaning ‘wide berth, fellas’, and even Billy kept his head down. During a lull, he sat against his locker and took out his tobacco and began to roll. Billy stopped him and said, What you doing, Ell? And Ellis stared at him and felt the kid’s hand on his shoulder. Bell’s gone, said Billy. Dinner, Ellis. Come on. Let’s get your stuff.

In the canteen, he could feel his leg twitch. His mouth was dry and there was too much noise, it was all around him and under his skin, he could feel his heart thumping. And the smell of cooking was overwhelming and he had a plate piled high with food because word had gone round and Janice felt sorry for him, so she piled the plate high, and men nearby complained, but she shut them up with that certain look she had. And now Billy and Glynn were at it. Ever read The Stud, Glynn? Who hasn’t? Should be on the national curriculum. Ever done it on a swing, Glynn? I have actually, you ignorant twat. Oh yeah? Children’s playground?

The noise. The fucking noise, and he got up from the table. And he was outside and snow was falling and he could hear it fall. Look up, look up and he did. He opened his mouth and caught snow on his tongue. And he was calm again, out there alone, just him and snow. The noise settled and the quiet drone of traffic lifted into the sky.

Billy came out and saw him looking up with tears frozen before they could fall. And he wanted to say to Billy, I’m just trying to hold it all together, that’s all.

He wanted to say that because he’d never been able to say that to anyone, and Billy might be a good person to say it to. But he couldn’t. So he walked past him without looking, walked past and ignored him just as his father would have done.

He didn’t go back to the line. He got on his bike and began to ride. The back wheel pulled away every now and then, but the main roads had been gritted, and soon he was racing away, thinking about nothing, a body expending so much effort trying to escape from something he could never put words to. When he got to Cowley Road he was distracted by a light coming out of Mabel’s old shop, and that’s why he didn’t see the car until it was too late. It sped out of Southfield and it happened so quick, the terror of freefall. He stretched out his arm to lessen the impact and when the kerb rushed up at him he heard the crack in his wrist, and the heavy thud winded him. He saw the taillights of a car moving away, heard the rhythmic sound of rotating bike wheels. He let his head rest against the cold pavement and the weight lifted. He could breathe again.

A man ran out of the dark and said, I’ve called an ambulance. And the man crouched down at his side and said, Are you all right?

Never better, said Ellis.

Don’t sit up, said the man.

But he did sit up and he looked about at the snow.

What’s your name? asked the man. Where’d you live? The sound of a siren coming towards them, getting louder. And Ellis thinking, All this fuss over nothing. I’ve never felt so clear.

When he was small, Ellis remembered how he used to like to watch his father shave. He used to sit on the toilet cistern with his feet dangling, looking up at his father because his father was so big. The air was steamy and the mirror dripped with condensation and neither said a word. His father wore a vest, and sunlight streamed through the window and fell on his shoulders and chest, and his skin was patterned by fleurs-de-lis that had been carved into the glass, and the overall effect made his father look as if he had been sculpted from the finest marble.

He remembered how he watched his father pull his skin this way and that way, drawing the razor across the bristles, the sound of sandpaper in the folds of soap. And sometimes he would whistle a tune of the time, and then tap tap tap, the foam fell into the steaming water and small black flecks settled against the white porcelain and remained there, a tidemark, when the basin ran dry. And he remembered thinking that his father could do anything and was afraid of nothing. And those large hands that liked to spar in the boxing ring were also capable of beautiful gestures, like splashing on to his cheeks and neck the sweet musky scent that completed him.

And once, in that sweet state of completeness, Ellis reached out and held him. A brief moment of ownership before his father’s grip tore into his arms and wrenched them away, before the sound of a door slam instantly replaced the tap tap tap of love. And Ellis remembered thinking how he would have given anything to have been like his father, anything. Before the pain of that memory stopped him reaching for him again.

He didn’t know why he thought of this now, lying in his bed, plastered from hand to elbow, and he could only conclude it was because earlier in the hospital, the nurse had asked him if there was anyone she could contact.

No, he’d said. My father’s away on holiday in Bournemouth with his woman, Carol. She wears strong perfume. That’s how I know when she’s been around. They always thought I never knew but I did. The perfume, see?

Talking bollocks because of the drugs.

And now he was in his own bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking of all the things he could have done that would have made this moment more convenient. Top of the list, he thought, was a Teasmade. They were ugly. But they were useful. He just wanted a cup of tea. Or coffee. Something warm and sweet, but maybe that was simply the shock coming out. He felt so cold, pulled on a T-shirt he found under his pillow. He thought the room was shabby. All the jobs he never finished. All the jobs he’d never started. A garage full of oak floorboards, five years in the waiting.

Music from next door bled into the room. Marvin Gaye, old-school seduction. It was the students. He didn’t mind them, they were company of sorts, and he sat up and reached for a glass of water. He used to be friends with his neighbours but he wasn’t so good at it now. He used to be in and out of their homes, but that was before. But his neighbours were now students and, next year, there would be another bunch not to get to know. He looked at his watch. He leant across the bedside table and took out a Voltarol and co-codamol and finished the last of his water. He exercised his fingers as best he could but they felt stiff and swollen. He wasn’t sure what the bottle of whisky was doing next to his bed. It was that fairy again, he thought.

The music from next door turned to sex, and he was surprised because he’d assumed sex was not a frequent occurrence for the students next door. They studied Statistics and, statistically, they had little chance against the kids studying Literature or PPE. Or Art, come to that. Well, that’s what he thought. It was just the way it was, some subjects were sexy. The bed was knocking against the wall, they were hard at it. He lay back down and started to drift off to the sound of a young woman coming.

When he woke again, the clock said seven. It was dark outside and streetlights lit his room. It could be morning, though it was probably evening. Absolute silence in the world. Nobody watching out for him. He rolled out of bed and stood up shakily. He felt bruised and tender and could see mauve shadowing spreading across his thigh. He went across to the bathroom.

When he came back he poured out a small measure of Scotch in his water glass. He stood at the window and drew the curtains wide. South Park was dusted in white and the streets were empty. He drank the whisky and leant against the books. He glanced down at the photo of the three of them, Michael, him and Annie. Annie loved her books. That’s how he’d surprised her on their sixth wedding anniversary. Led her blindfold from her job at the library, to what would become her own bookshop in St Clements, and there, restored her sight with two brass keys. Michael had been waiting inside with champagne, of course. What am I going call this place? she said, as the cork flew across the floor. Annie and Co., they suggested, trying hard not to sound too practised.

Ellis flicked the catches and opened the window wide. He shuddered, unprepared for the incoming freeze. He knelt down and stuck his arm out the window. He clenched his fingers, opened his fingers. Clenched them, opened them. He was diligent and did exactly what the nurse had told him to do. He suddenly felt tired again and the bed looked far away. He tugged at the duvet and pulled it towards him. He wrapped himself up and fell asleep on the floor.

The heat of the room eventually woke him. He was wedged up against the radiator after a restless night of bad thinking. He had no idea what day it was but had a sudden recollection of a phone call with Carol, a promise to check the heating in their house later that day. He sat up and smelt his armpits. There was something murky lurking in the fibres, and he got up and went across to the bathroom and ran a bath. The throbbing in his hand had subsided and he wrapped his arm in a plastic bag as the nurse had told him to.

Out in the garden, the crisp air felt good to breathe. Blue skies had nudged out the grey of yesterday and for a brief moment, in the faint rays of winter sunshine, the promise of a new season teased and the snow had already turned to mush in its presence. Ellis leant back against the kitchen wall with the sun on his face.

You all right, Ellis?

Ellis opened his eyes. He was surprised the young man standing at the fence knew his name.

Yeah, not too bad, he said.

What happened?

Ellis smiled. Fell off my bike, he said.

Shit, said the student.

Wait, said the student, and he disappeared inside. He came back out with a steaming mug.

There you go, he said. Coffee. And he lifted the mug across the fence.

And Ellis didn’t know what to say. He felt fucked up a bit from the pills and the sleep but it wasn’t that really, it was the gesture that unsettled him, the kindness that made the words catch in his throat and, eventually, he said, Thank you. Thank you, your name, I—

Jamie.

Yes, right. Jamie. Of course. Sorry.

Anyway, enjoy it. I’m going back in. If you need anything, let us know.

And the kid was gone. Ellis sat down on the bench. The coffee was good, it wasn’t instant, it was real and strong, and stopped the hunger. He needed to shop. He couldn’t remember when he ate more than toast. He drank the coffee and looked across the garden. It had been quite a haven once. Annie’d had the vision and she’d turned it into a seasonal palette of rotating colour. She took out books and studied them late into the night, sketched out her ideas. She halved the lawn and planted flowers and shrubs he could never pronounce. Tall grasses became water in the wind, and around the bench the joy of nasturtiums every summer. You can’t kill nasturtiums, she’d once declared, but he had. All those delicate, brilliant ideas had withered in the shade of his neglect. Only the hardy remained beneath the overgrown brambles. Honeysuckle trailers, camellias, they were all in there somewhere, and he could see thick clusters of scarlet heads shining out of the undergrowth like lanterns. Weeds grew around him, along the borders by the back door and kitchen. He bent down and picked up a handful and they came away surprisingly easily from the soil.

He felt warm liquid trickle from his nose and he wondered if he had the start of a cold. He searched for a handkerchief but had to make do with the hem of his shirt. When he looked down he saw blood. He held his hand under his chin and caught the pooling blood as best he could. He went back into the kitchen and pulled off a wad of kitchen roll, which he clamped hard to his nose. He sat down on the cold tiled floor and leant back against the fridge. As he reached for more paper, it was then that he imagined his wife’s hand instead. He closed his eyes. Felt her hand in his hand and the softness of her lips leaving a shimmering trail across his arm.

You’re so distant these days, she said.

I’m an idiot.

You are, she said, and laughed. What’s got into you?

I’m stuck.

Still? she said.

All the things you were going to do, she said.

I miss you.

Come on, she said. You could still do them. This isn’t about me. You know that, right, Ellis?

Ell?

Where have you gone?

I’m here, he said.

You keep fading out. You’re really annoying these days.

Sorry.

I said, This isn’t about me.

I know.

Go find him, she said.

Annie?

He kept his eyes closed long after she was gone. He felt the cold of the room, the hard floor. He heard blackbirds and the persistent drone of a fridge. He opened his eyes and pulled the compress away from his nose. Not bleeding now. He staggered up and felt so much space around him he almost choked.

By the afternoon the snow had virtually gone but he kept to the roads because the roads had been gritted. At Cowley Road he waited for a break in the traffic and crossed. He looked about for his bike but couldn’t see it in the vicinity. He couldn’t imagine anyone would want it, top of the range it wasn’t. Cost him fifty quid ten years ago and even then, everyone said he’d been done. Time for a change, he thought. The pain in his arm prompting his sudden equanimity.

He remembered the night of his accident, how he had been distracted by a light in Mabel’s old shop, and he turned back towards it and tried the door. It was locked, of course, with no sign that anyone had been about. He peered through the opaque swirls of dried Windolene into a ramshackle interior overflowing with junk. He found it hard to equate that cluttered space with the one of his boyhood. A faded green curtain used to hang at the back, separating commerce from home. To the right of the curtain, a table. On top of the table a cash register, a record player and two piles of records. The display at the front was made up of sacks of vegetables and crates of fruit. In the middle, opposite the door, an armchair that smelt of tangerines every time you sat in it. How was it possible the three of them had moved about this space with unequivocal ease?

It was Mabel who had asked him to join her the night Michael arrived in Oxford after his father’s death. A friendly face of similar age to her grandson. He remembered standing where he was standing now. Him and Mabel, the welcome party. Both nervous, both quiet. The streets silenced by snow.

For years after, Mabel used to say that Michael came with the snow because that was the only way she could remember the year he moved in with her. January ’63, it was, thought Ellis. We were twelve.

They watched Mr Khan’s minicab slow down and stop in front of the shop. He got out of his car and raised his hands skywards, and said, Oh, Mrs Wright! What a wonderful thing is snow!

And Mabel said, You’ll catch your death out here, Mr Khan. You’re not used to it. Now did you remember my grandson?

Oh, indeed! he said, and he raced round to the passenger door and opened it.

One prodigal grandson, he said, with two suitcases full of books.

Come in, come in, said Mabel, and the three of them huddled around a small electric heater that was losing the fight against the night’s sudden freeze. Mr Khan walked through with the suitcases and disappeared into the back, his footsteps heavy on the stairs and on the landings overhead. Mabel introduced the boys and they shook hands formally and said hello, before self-consciousness stifled them. Ellis noticed the cow-lick at the front of Michael’s cropped dark hair and the horizontal scar above his upper lip – the result of a fall against a table, he’d later learn – a feature that, in the wrong sort of light, could turn his smile into an unexpected sneer: an idiosyncrasy that would become more developed over the years.

Ellis went to the window. The clock ticked quietly behind him, light from the Italian café spilt yellow on to the white street in front. He heard Mabel say, I expect you’re hungry, and Michael said, No, not really, and he came and stood next to Ellis, instead. They looked at one another in the reflection of the glass and snow fell behind their eyes. They watched a nun make slow and careful progress towards the church of St Mary and St John next door. Mr Khan came back into the room and pointed.

Look! he said. Penguin! he said, and they laughed.

Later that night, in Michael’s room, Ellis said, Are they really full of books?

No, just the one, said Michael as he opened a suitcase.

I don’t read, said Ellis.

What’s that then? said Michael, pointing to the black book in Ellis’s hand.

My sketchbook. I take it everywhere.

Can I see?

Sure, and Ellis handed over his book.

Michael flicked through the pages, acknowledging images with a slow nod of his head. He suddenly stopped. Who’s that? he said, holding open a page at a woman’s face.

My mother.

Does she really look like that? asked Michael.

Yes.

She’s beautiful.

Is she?

Don’t you think so?

She’s my mother.

Mine left.

Why?

He shrugged. Just walked out.

D’you think she’ll come back?

I’m not sure she knows where I am any more, and he handed back the sketchbook. You can draw me if you want, he said.

OK, said Ellis. Now?

No. In a couple of days, he said. Make me look interesting. Make me look like a poet.

Ellis turned away from the window. A bus inched into view and he crossed the road and waved it down. He sat alone at the back and closed his eyes. He felt groggy all of a sudden. The disorientation of mixing memory and medication.

He rarely went to his father’s house when nobody was there, rarely went when only his father was there, truth be told. He did anything to avoid the wordless connection neither felt comfortable with. He got off the bus before he needed to and walked the rest of the way under a sky that was becoming overcast again. What was it about these roads that plunged him into a state of childlike anxiety?

The light had virtually disappeared by the time he reached the front door, and a feeling of foreboding had taken hold. He put the key in the lock. Inside, the sound of traffic retreated and the grey light darkened, and it could have been evening. He felt nervous and unsure, now it was just him alone with the years.

The house was warm, and that was all Carol had wanted to know, whether they’d left the heating on to counteract the imminent freeze. He could go now, and yet he didn’t. The perverse pull of the past drew him inside to the back room, virtually unaltered since the days of his youth.

The room smelt of dinner, still. A roast. They always had a roast the night before they went away because they never knew what the food would be like at the hotel. That was his father’s thinking for sure. He looked about. The table, the dresser – that dark slab of oppressive oak – the mirror, so little had changed. The armchairs might have been re-covered but tug away the maroon and navy Bute, and the melancholic imprint of the past was still there. He opened the curtains and looked out on to the garden. Faint patches of snow amidst the rockery. Crocus heads wistful and purple, and the Car Factory over there showing a fake dusk. He noticed the carpet had been changed but the overwhelming hue of brown hadn’t. Maybe Carol had put her foot down? Maybe she had said either it goes or I go. Maybe Carol was the kind of woman who could make those demands without repercussion. He stood in front of the wall opposite the door where his mother’s painting of the Sunflowers used to hang.

She would suddenly stop in front of that painting, and whatever she was saying or doing at that precise moment came to an abrupt halt in the presence of the colour yellow. It was her solace. Her inspiration and confessional.

One afternoon, not long after Michael had come to live in Oxford, they came back to the house together and it was the first time his mother, Dora, and Michael had met. He remembered how charmed they were by one another, how engaged they were in conversation almost immediately, how Michael manoeuvred her seamlessly into the space his own mother had vacated.

He remembered how Michael stood in front of the painting of the Sunflowers with his mouth wide open and said, Is that an original, Mrs Judd?

And his mother said, No! Good Lord no – how I wish it was! No. I won it in a raffle.

I was just going to say that had it been an original, then it might be of considerable value.

His mother stared at him and said, How funny you are.

She brought sandwiches in from the kitchen and placed the plate down in front of them and said, D’you know who painted it?

Van Gogh, said Michael.

Dora looked at her son and laughed. You told him.

I didn’t! he protested.

He didn’t, said Michael. I know quite a lot.

Eat, she said, and the boys reached for the plate.

He cut his ear off, said Michael.

That’s right, said Dora.

With a razor, said Michael.

Why’d he do that? asked Ellis.

Who knows? said his mother.

Madness, said Michael.

You don’t say? said Ellis.

I would’ve cut off something more discreet, said Michael. Like a toe.

All right, all right, said Dora. Enough now. D’you know where Van Gogh came from, Michael?

Yes. Holland. Same as Vermeer.

See – he really does know a lot, said Ellis.

You’re right, said Dora. Holland. And the colours he was familiar with there were earth colours, dark colours, you know, browns and greys. Dark greens. And the light was like here, flat and uninspiring. And he wrote to his brother Theo that he had a great desire to go south – to Provence in France, that is – to search for something different, a different way of painting. To become a better artist.

I like to imagine how it would have been for him, stepping out of the train station at Arles into such an intense yellow light. It changed him. How could it not? How could it not change anyone?

Would you like to go south, Mrs Judd? asked Michael.

And his mother laughed and said, I’d like to go anywhere!

Where’s Arles? said Ellis.

Shall we see, said his mother, and she went to the dresser and pulled out an atlas.

The pages fell open heavily at North America, and a cloud of dust rose. Ellis leant forward as countries and continents and oceans flicked by. His mother slowed at Europe, stopped at France.

Here we are, she said. Near Avignon. Saint-Rémy and Arles. That’s where he painted. He searched for light and sun, and found both. And he did what he set out to do. Painted using primary colours, and their complements, too.

What’s a complement? Ellis asked.

Complementing colours are ones that make the other stand out. Like blue and orange, said his mother, as if reciting off the page.

Like me and Ellis, said Michael.

Yes, she smiled. Like you two. And primary colours are?

Yellow, blue and red, said Ellis.

That’s it, said Dora.

And the composites are orange, green, and purple, said Michael.

Bingo! said Dora. So who wants cake?

We haven’t got to the Sunflowers yet, said Michael.

No, we haven’t, she said. You’re right. OK, so Vincent hoped to set up an artists’ studio down there in the South because he was keen to have friends and like-minded people around him.

I think he was probably lonely, said Michael. What with the ear thing and the darkness.

I think he was, too, said Dora. 1888 was the year, and he was waiting for another artist to join him, a man called Paul Gauguin. People say that, in all probability, he painted the Sunflowers as decoration for Gauguin’s room. Did lots of versions of them too, not just this. It’s a lovely thought, though, isn’t it? Some people say it’s not true but I like to think it is. Painting flowers as a sign of friendship and welcome. Men and boys should be capable of beautiful things. Never forget that, you two, she said, and she disappeared into the kitchen.

They listened to the sound of a cake being brought to a plate, a cutlery drawer opened, Dora’s happiness in a song.

And look how he painted! said Dora, suddenly propelled back into the room by a new thought. Look at the brushstrokes, you can see them. Thick and robust. Whoever copied this, copied his style too because he liked to paint fast, as if he was in the grip of something. And when it all comes together – the light, the colour, the passion, it’s—

The sound of a key in the lock made her fall silent. His father strode past them into the kitchen. He said nothing but made noise. Kettle heavy on the stove, cups, drawers opening, banging shut.

I’m out tonight, said his father.

Fine, said Dora, and she watched him leave the room with a mug of tea.

And when it all comes together? asked Ellis.

It’s life, said his mother.

The following Sunday, snow had fallen hard and had settled well, and his mother drove them out to Brill with the toboggan. It was the first of many memories he had, of how Michael sought Dora’s attention in those early days, how he clung to her every word as if they were handholds up a cliff face. He said he had to sit in the front on account of car sickness, and he spent the entire journey complimenting Dora on her driving and her style, steering the conversation back to the Sunflowers and the South, back to colour and light. Had he been able to change gears for her, Ellis firmly believed he would have.

His mother got out of the car and buttoned up her coat. She said, Don’t forget to look around you when you get to the top. Take it all in as if you were going to paint it. You may never see snow like this again. See how it changes the landscape. See how it changes you.

I will, said Michael, and he marched on ahead, full of purpose. Ellis looked at his mother and smiled.

They dragged the toboggan through snowdrifts and up steep edges and flowing inclines to the windmill, and to the view of the ermine hills and farmland around. And they could see Dora in the distance. Wrapped in a red coat and thick scarf, she was leaning against the engine, warming herself, a plume of smoke curling from the corner of her red lips. Michael raised his arm. I don’t think she can see me, he said. She can see you, said Ellis, positioning the toboggan at the edge of the slope. Michael waved again. Eventually, Dora waved back. Come on, let’s go, said Ellis. One last look around, said Michael.

Ellis sat at the front and gripped the rope hard, his feet resting on the runners. He felt Michael clamber on behind him. Felt his hands reach around his waist. Ready? he said. Ready, Michael said. And they nudged the toboggan forward until it pulled away over the side, and they were thrown back by gathering speed and unexpected troughs, hidden beneath the drifts. He could feel Michael tight around his waist, his scream in his ear, as they bounced down the hill, trees an indecipherable blur, racing past those coming up, and then all of a sudden, there was no traction, there was only air and flight, and them, and they were peeled away from one another, and from rope and wood, and they fell to earth, winded and dazed, tumbling in a flurry of snow and sky and laughter, and they only slowed when the land flattened out, when it brought them back together again and held them still.

Shortly after his fourteenth birthday, Ellis came home from school and saw his mother sitting quietly in front of her painting. The scene reminded him of being in church, watching the kneeling in front of devotional panels, prayers hoping to be heard. He didn’t disturb her, he remembered, because her demeanour and intensity frightened him. He went upstairs to his room and put the image behind him as best he could.

In the days that followed, however, he couldn’t help but watch her. Shopping trips had her pausing for breath along streets she used to race down. Dinners once devoured with delight were picked at, refrigerated, later binned. And one Saturday when his father was at the boxing club and he was doing his homework upstairs, he heard the crash of plates and ran down to the kitchen. His mother was still on the floor when he got to her, and before he could brush up the broken china, she reached for his hand and said something strange, said, You’ll stay on at school till you’re eighteen, won’t you? And you’ll do your art? Ellis? Look at me. You’ll—

– Yes, he said. Yes.

That night in his room, he searched for signs of something wrong in his sketchbooks old and new. The drawings he’d made of his mother a year ago compared to the ones of now were proof on the page because he knew her face so well. Her eyes were sunken and the light they emitted was dusk not dawn. She was thinner too, sharp around her temples, her nose more pronounced. Really, though, it was about her touch and gaze, because when either fell on him, neither wanted to let him go.

The next day, he got up early and went straight to Mabel’s. She was cleaning the front window and was surprised to see him so early and she said, Michael’s still in his room, and he said, I think Mum’s ill. She stopped what she was doing and drove him back home. Dora opened the door and Mabel said, He knows.

His father went on nights, which surprised no one. He escaped his wife’s night-time fears and left her in the care of her son. Mabel instructed him in basic cooking and housekeeping, and she concocted a menu for him that included leftovers and an ever-changing stew. After school, Michael came back with him and they built fires for Dora and kept her warm and entertained with stories.

Michael said, Listen to this, Dora – Mrs Copsey stormed into the shop yesterday and said (and he imitated her), What in God’s name is that next to the cauliflower, Mrs Wright? It’s okra. Mrs Khan asked me to get some, said Mabel. But they have their own shops down past the Co-op, said Mrs Copsey. But Mrs Khan likes to shop with me, said Mabel. That may be so, said Mrs Copsey. But put out rubbish, Mrs Wright, and you’ll attract flies.

She didn’t! said his mother.

She did, said Michael. And then she said – These people just don’t know how to be English, Mrs Wright. But they’re not English, said Mabel, and you said the same about the Welsh twenty years ago. Good day to you, Mrs Copsey. Careful of the flies!

And Michael reached for Dora’s hand and they laughed and Ellis remembered how grateful he was that Michael’s care was instinctive and natural because he could never be that way with her. He was constantly on the lookout for the last goodbye.

Her illness advanced rapidly, and between pillows of morphine, brief moments of consciousness would arise where the two of them would always be waiting for her with an idea –

I was thinking about colour and light, said Michael. And I was thinking maybe that’s all we are, Dora. Colour and light.

Or with a distraction –

Look, Dora. Ellis has drawn me, and Michael held up the sketchbook. Dora reached over and held her son’s hand and told him how clever he was to draw so well. Never stop, will you? she said. Promise me.

I promise.

Make him promise, Michael.

I will, Dora.

Two months after Ellis had first suspected something, his mother went into hospital. As she left the house, she said, I’ll see you later, Ell. Don’t forget to wash and don’t forget to eat.

It was the last time he saw her.

The emptiness of the house overwhelmed him and he couldn’t free himself from the sudden panic that ambushed him when the curtains were drawn. Some days he smelt perfume, too, that wasn’t his mother’s and it made him sick. In the end, he packed a bag and went to stay at Mabel’s. He was never sure if his father had noticed he was gone.

Working in the shop at weekends was a good distraction, and brought back his appetite for food. But it was the routine of being cared for again that was the silent wonder. He stood taller. That’s what people noticed.

He and Michael were in the shop the day Mabel returned from the ward and told them Dora had died. Michael ran up to his room, and Ellis wanted to follow him but his legs wouldn’t move, a sudden moment of paralysis that marked the end of childhood.

Ellis? said Mabel.

He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t cry. Staring at the floor, struggling to remember the colour of his mother’s eyes, just something to hold on to, but he couldn’t. Only later, would Michael tell him they were green.

Funeral day, and they stood in silence at the dining table making sandwiches. He buttered, Mabel filled, Michael cut. The only sound in the room came from his father who was polishing his leather workboots. The angry scratch of bristles being worked across the toe. The sound of spit, sharp and incessant against a clock counting down. A hearse pulling up outside.

In Rose Hill chapel, Ellis sat at the front next to his father. The organ sounded much too loud and his mother’s coffin looked much too small. He smelt the same perfume he noticed on occasion at home, and when he turned round, sitting behind him was a woman with peroxide-blonde hair and a kind smile, and she leant forward and whispered, Don’t forget, Ellis, your dad needs you: a declaration as shocking to him as his mother’s death. He stood up, an action so instinctive it caught him by surprise. And years later, he came to believe that the courage it took for him to walk out of church that afternoon, amidst the whispers and stares, used up his life’s quota.

He hitched a ride down to the river and the man in the car said, Cheer up, mate! You look like you’ve been to a funeral. And Ellis said he had, said it was his mum’s, and the man said Christ, and said nothing after that. Took him to the gates at Iffley Lock and handed him a fiver when he got out. Ellis asked what the money was for and the man said he didn’t know. Just take it, he said.

He crossed the lock and walked the towpath to Long Bridges bathing place, his and Michael’s favourite hangout. The trees had passed through autumn and it should have been cold but an unseasonal warm breeze followed him under Donnington Bridge, gathering up geese, launching them into flight.

At the bathing place he found himself alone. He sat down next to the steps. The call of ducks, the sound of a train, oars slapping against the water: life in continuum. He wondered when the sun would shine hot again, and an hour later, Michael shouted to him from the bridge and ran towards him. When Michael was near, Ellis said, What are we going to do without her?

And Michael said, We carry on and we don’t give up. And he knelt down and kissed him. It was their first kiss. Something good in a day of bad.

They sat there quietly, not talking about death, or the kiss, or how life was going to change. They watched the shifting colours of the sun and the deep shadows eavesdropped on their grief, and the vivid descant of birdsong slowly muted to unimaginable silence.

He never knew what made him look up, but when he did his father was watching them from the bridge. He didn’t know how long he had been there but a knot of tension bedded down in his gut. He knew his father hadn’t seen them kiss but the proximity of their bodies couldn’t be mistaken. Knee against knee, arm against arm, the clasp of hands out of sight, or so he thought. His father stayed where he was and shouted, Come on, let’s go! And when they got to him, he didn’t look at them but turned and started walking away.

His father drove badly, slipping gears, braking sharply, a wonder he never killed anyone. He dropped Michael at the shop and when Ellis was about to get out too, his father said, Not tonight, you’re not. You stay here.

The car journey home was oppressive and made in silence. The pain in his stomach grew and he felt so adrift in the care of this man. This man who didn’t really know him, this man who had just stalled in the middle of a junction, who was slumped over the steering wheel as horns blared, who kept saying, Fuck fuck, over and over. Ellis opened the car door and walked away.

He walked aimlessly till night fell. He bought chips and ate them on the street, sitting with his back against a wall, his mum would have been so ashamed. He only returned home when he was convinced his father would have passed out on a bed or floor upstairs.

The lights were out when he entered the hallway. Quietly, he placed his foot on the first stair when a voice startled him and drew him back into the darkness of the front room.

In here, said his father, switching on the standard lamp at his side. He stood up from the sofa and the plastic sheeting crackled with static. In his hand, one of Ellis’s sketchbooks.

You’re getting soft, he said, flicking through the pages. Look how soft you’ve got, and he threw the book across the floor. It opened at a drawing of Michael.

He said, Let me tell you something. What you want to do and what you’re going to do are two very different things. You’re leaving school year after next.

I’m not, said Ellis.

I’ve got you an apprenticeship at the Car Plant.

Mum said—

– She’s not here.

Let me stay till I’m eighteen. Please.

Get into guard.

Eighteen. I’ll do anything after that.

Get. Into. Guard. The. Way. I. Taught. You.

Ellis raised his fists reluctantly. He watched his father pick up his work boots and put one on each hand, the hard leather soles facing out towards him.

Right now, said his father. Punch.

What?

Punch my hands.

No.

Fucking punch them. Punch them.

I said punch them.

And Ellis punched.

He could barely hold the phone, let alone dial. But thirty minutes later, Mabel stood at the door, her nightdress glimpsed below her coat. He remembered how she walked into the house and told Leonard Judd to stay away from her and not to speak till she was good and ready. She went upstairs with Ellis and put a few of his clothes and school books into a bag. She led him out to the van and drove back to the shop.

When she stopped at the lights she said, Bide your time, Ellis.

Mum wanted me to do my art, he said.

You don’t need a canvas to do that, she said. I knew a tinny, once, who worked on those cars as if he’d sculpted them himself. Make peace with it, my boy. Make your peace.

They pulled up outside the shop. Faint light from the kitchen edged through the curtain at the back. Mabel said, While I’m here, you always have a home. You know that? This is your key. I’ll leave it on the hook in the kitchen. And when you’re ready, you take it.

Thank you, Mabel.

The clock in the kitchen said two seventeen. Mabel opened the fridge and wrapped the contents of an ice tray in a cloth. Hold this against your hands, she said, and Ellis took the wrap and followed her up the stairs.

He said good night outside her room and continued up to the top bedroom. He opened the door and the room was dark and smelt of Michael. He could see the dark shape of his body sitting up in bed. He went over and lay next to him.

He’s making me leave school, he said. I’m going to the factory. Just like he did. Just like they did bef—

– Shh, said Michael, and he took the ice and held it against his hand. He’ll change his mind, he said. We’ll make him. Mabel will.

You think? said Ellis.

I think, said Michael.

And when the house fell silent they shared a bed. They kissed, took off their tops. And Ellis couldn’t believe a body could feel so good when an hour before he was in despair.

Three months, it took, before he felt able to go back to his father’s, and when he did, circumstances had changed. The peroxide blonde had moved in, and her perfume was familiar and strong, and she had a name and her name was Carol. She sat in his mum’s chair and the painting was off the wall. Welcome back, son, his father said.

The intrusive tick of the clock brought Ellis back to the present. He stared at the blank wall. Pieces of a jigsaw, that’s all the past was now. He left a note propped up on the table hoping his dad and Carol had a good holiday. P.S., he wrote. Any idea where Mum’s painting might have gone?

He closed the front door and a mizzle of rain met his face. Streetlights hovered in the damp gloom and he wondered, briefly, when the clocks were going forward. He knew his mood would lighten with the sky.

Ellis left the fracture clinic with his arm replastered and another six weeks off work. The freedom this afforded him lifted his spirit and gave him a purpose that had long eluded him. He decided not to go home right away, but to continue into Headington to do a much-needed shop. He bought steak and fish and vegetables, ingredients he would try to use imaginatively, and he bought a bottle of wine (screwcap), and bread (sliced) from the baker. The flowers were an afterthought, the strong espresso, too, bought from the new café across the road. He got it to take away with a piece of banana bread that was still warm.

The day stayed dull, but there was no threat of rain, so he continued to journey on foot, and by the time he reached the gates of Holy Trinity, the shopping bag felt heavy and the bruise around his leg made him slow. He sat on the bench and looked out over the churchyard. He had imagined the graves would look bleak, suffering the aftermath of snow, but it was March and already the daffodils were standing proud. He could see Annie’s grave over to the left, but he drank his coffee first and ate the cake, which had a surprising touch of cinnamon.

The churchyard had been one of Annie’s favourite places to go and read. It was out of the way, but summer days she got on her bike and she made the effort. The air hazy with pollen, the sound of organ practice behind her, the occasional call of a pheasant in the field beyond. That was the reason they’d chosen to get married there.

A wedding, more real than perfect. That’s how Michael liked to describe it, and he was right. Annie’s dress was unconventional. Knee-length, white cotton with navy embroidery, vintage French. Michael had taken her to London to buy it. He’d helped her with the make-up too. Colours that highlighted happiness over cheekbones. Annie had wanted him to walk her down the aisle but Ellis had already nabbed him for Best Man. I could do both, he said, enthusiastically. The wedding, so suddenly, all about him.

In the end, Mabel performed the duty, a sweet twist on convention. You be good to her, she whispered to Ellis, as she handed the bride ceremoniously to him.

As husband and wife, they came back down the aisle to Maria Callas singing ‘O mio babbino caro’, a much talked-about choice. Her voice followed them out of the church into intermittent sunshine and a small gathering of friends and family. It was beautiful, it was theatre. It was Michael and Annie’s idea. Everything memorable came from them, he thought. In the stillness of air, confetti landed where it was thrown, and in the photographs that were to follow, heads and shoulders would be dusted in pink.

He finished his coffee and watched a group of American tourists look for C. S. Lewis’s grave. They’ll see the sign in a moment, he thought. He stood up, picked up his bag and veered through the graves to the spectacle of colour the other side of the tree.

The daffodils were a mix of white and yellow, and he knew they were his father’s doing. A groundcover of forget-me-nots, too, not yet in bloom, the man was so bloody literal. He felt angry and he thought he shouldn’t be, the gesture was kind. His father loved Annie. The daughter I never had, that’s how he described her – his mouth always primed for cliché. Ellis found it hard to understand how flowers and care could reside equally in a man of such rage. Carol had tried to explain his father’s complexity to him when he was younger. Piss off, he’d told her, the one and only time. I deserved that, she’d said, and never tried again.

Guilty. That’s what he felt and that’s why he was angry. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been there. He sat down on the ground even though it was damp. He placed the pink roses in the central urn and they looked unseasonably forced, their heads small and tightly held, still in shock he thought, after the refrigerated journey from Holland. Her name on the stone still drew disbelief and sadness.

He used to find comfort planting flowers she’d like. He remembered he even had a theme once, only red flowers or variants thereof, until he realised the muntjacs were partial to a diet of bright petals. But he came and that was the most important thing. He faced the stark landscape of headstones and it was real. He would listen to people at Lewis’s grave comment that he died on the same day as JFK, and they were right, he did. But Lewis’s death was lost to the world as the world mourned Kennedy because sometimes you look away and things change. And every month or so, bright wreaths would adorn new graves and he would acknowledge the grieving. A reminder that he and they were not alone.

But then memories began to drift beyond his reach and the panic set in. He’d call people up whatever the time of night.

What did Annie cook when you came to dinner? he’d asked.

Ellis – d’you know what time it is?

What did she cook?

The phone went dead. Over time, the friendships too. Only Carol stayed on the line.

Ell?

He could hear the muffled sound of her getting out of bed.

What is it, Ell?

Annie. She used to sing a song when she was cooking and I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what it was, Carol, and I need to know—

– Frank Sinatra, Ell. ‘Fly Me to the Moon’.

‘Fly Me to the Moon’!

She always went off key in the middle—

– Aw she did, didn’t she?

She was quite awful really, if you don’t mind me saying.

Oh, she was.

D’you remember, Ell, when the six of us had dinner at the Italian place opposite Mabel’s?

Sort of.

Your father stuck to beer because he couldn’t pronounce the wine.

Ellis laughed.

I’m being naughty. Maybe it was your engagement dinner—

– Yeah, I think it was.

You sat in the middle on one side. And—

– Who was next to me?

Michael and Mabel. And me, your dad and Annie were opposite. They played a medley of Frank Sinatra songs. All the greats: ‘You Make Me Feel So Young’. ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’. ‘New York, New York’ – that’s when you told everyone you were going there for your honeymoon. And then they played—

– ‘Fly Me to the Moon’, said Ellis. Annie stood up and she was drunk and she used the wine bottle as a microphone. And Michael joined her, didn’t he?

Oh, they were so happy, Ell. So daft and so happy.

Ellis stood up and brushed the dirt off his trousers. He picked up his shopping and was about to walk away but stopped. He took one of the roses from the urn and went over and placed it on Lewis’s grave. From my wife, he said, and he moved towards the churchyard gates.

He got off the bus at Gipsy Lane under a low sky suddenly threatening rain. The shopping bag was stretched taut and he wondered if it would split before he got it home. South Park was quiet and he could have gone for an early evening walk had it not been for the bag. He lifted it into his arms and picked up the pace.

He wasn’t sure, at first, what it was in his front garden, part hidden by a bush. But when he got to the gate, he said, Hello bike! and looked about for someone to thank. He walked on to Hill Top Road, down Divinity, but saw no one. An act of kindness from a stranger. He knelt to check out the chain and gears. Slight scuffing to the edge of the tyre, that’s all. He spun the front wheel and it rotated perfectly. He opened the front door and dropped the shopping bag on the table. He wheeled the bike into the hallway and left it at the bottom of the stairs. Later that evening, he brought it into the back room and placed it close to the fire.

Days went by clearing the garden. Slow, one-handed work that quietened his mind and had him rising with intention. He ate breakfast outside, planning the day’s assault, the smell of early rain and mud curiously exhilarating.

Secateurs he found in the garage. The floorboards were there too, stacked up against the wall at the side of the car. The smell of oak was sharp and fragrant still. He pulled a plank away from the pile and turned it sideways to see how straight it ran. He leant his nose against the grain. The smell of wood excited him, always had. He could still lay the floor in the back room, he thought. He could get back to working with wood. He was good, he was skilled, they both said so. There are things I can do, he thought.

He brought a radio out to the garden and kept the volume low. He clipped away at the brambles inches at a time and collected the cuttings in an old compost bag as he went along. Jamie leant across the fence and asked if he needed any help. Ellis thanked him and said no, but later Jamie brought him out a mug of strong tea and a plate of biscuits, and he crept under the fence and sat on the bench with him and they talked about rugby.

The stiffness in his wrist and elbow stopped him putting in a full day’s work and come the afternoon he walked what he called the tourist trail into town. Over The Plain and Magdalen Bridge, he cut through Rose Lane into the meadows and smoked a cigarette leaning against a storm-felled tree. Students jogged by and tourists dreamt, and as he got closer to the Thames, he had a sudden desire to be on the other side.

He crossed Folly Bridge, and the University boathouses shone golden in the last rays of the afternoon. The London train departing in the distance, geese, the slap of oars against water. These were timeless, familiar sounds to him.

He was drawn inexorably to the dark shadow of undergrowth that was once Long Bridges bathing place, his and Michael’s place, an ownership that extended well into adulthood. It had been closed these last years and he was surprised how quickly nature had advanced. Still attached to the concrete sides were the steps leading into the water but at the back the toilets were now roofless and filled with rubbish. It was hard to imagine they’d once called this place The Beach, but they had.

That first summer of their friendship, when the temperature nudged above seventy, they cycled down and squeezed themselves in between bodies on the grass. They sunbathed with arms behind their heads, and cooled off in the Thames’ seductive flow. He remembered how Michael had bragged that he could swim, but he couldn’t. He said that he’d read everything about swimming, firmly believing he could trip across words, like stepping stones, to the bank of experience. But he couldn’t. It would take another summer before Michael would learn to swim. But he floated, though. Face down in the river with his arms and legs out wide, and people watched, and sometimes their laughter turned to panic when they saw little sign of movement. Dead-Man’s Float, he called it: a survival position after a long exhausting journey.

And when the afternoon set down its long shadows, back on their bikes they got, still wet, still dopey, and with shirt-tails flapping, they dried out on the saddle in the breeze back to Mabel’s. Summer’s end they were sinewy and brown, and took up a little more space. Summer’s end, they were inseparable.

Ellis looked up. Geese had taken flight towards Iffley and he watched their formation until they disappeared behind the trees. Dusk was creeping up fast and the ponds had turned black and the lowering sun gave way to a deceptive chill. He did up his jacket, stamped back across the damp grass to the bridge and towpath. At the dark edges, puddles shimmered as if starting to freeze and the flues from canal boats smoked generously. Up ahead, rock music blared out from the upper room of a boathouse. A solitary young man on a rowing machine kept stroke to the beat of the music. He was shirtless, his muscles distinct in the artificial light. Ellis stopped. He felt Michael’s presence next to him, could almost smell him, the pronounced vagaries of longing. And he wanted to talk to him about the years they were apart because he hadn’t during the months when he returned. Or those moments from youth, when they raced back to an empty room and nervously explored the other’s body in a pact of undefined togetherness that would later bring him equal shame, equal joy. And those nine eventful days in France and the plans they made then – he’d let them go without acknowledgement, as if they’d never existed, or never been important to him and he never understood why. He had tried to talk to Annie once. She had asked him why he was so angry. She asked him things women ask men, things he wasn’t able to talk about and he didn’t know how to explain, not his confusion nor his discomfort. But he remembered her eyes were soft and open to him and they said, you can tell me anything, and he could have, he knew that even then. But he didn’t. And now here he was, gazing at Beauty Rowing in the Darkness, as dog walkers passed by and students mistook his gaze for desire. All of it was important, he wanted to say. You were important to me, he wanted to say.

They used to come along here as men, often just the two of them. Annie said they needed time together, she always tried to give them time, especially after they were married. She was the one who sensed things had changed, the one who knew Michael was keeping secrets from them. When did you last see him? she’d ask. About three weeks ago, he’d say.

Jesus, Ell, you’ve got to do better with people.

He remembered how Michael and he walked the towpath to the ponds one particular day, and when they got there, they both agreed so much had changed. It was only March, but there was a quiet desolation to the place. Opportunistic flashers came down there now to wank. That’s what Michael said, his grin-sneer lighting up his face. Ellis, however, remembered the desolation more a reflection of their mood.

That was when Michael told him he was leaving Oxford. Ellis said, When? And Michael said, Soon. And he said, Where are you going? And Michael said, Not far. Just London. But you’ll come back? Of course I will, said Michael. Every weekend. How could I not?

And he did come back. Every weekend. Until Mabel died, and then he didn’t. He disappeared into the millions of others who walked those crowded London streets, and Ellis never knew why. He and Annie had an address, at first, somewhere in Soho. But no matter what they sent out the bird came back with nothing between its beak.

We have to stop this, said Annie one night. Go and find him.

No, he said. Fuck him.

And that was that. A six-year standoff of wasted time.

His absence unbalanced them both in a way neither could have predicted. Without Michael’s energy and view of the world they became the settled married couple both had feared becoming. They made little demand of one another and conversation gave way to silence, albeit comfortable and familiar. Ellis withdrew, he knew he did. His hurt turned to anger, there when he woke up and before he slept. Life was not as fun without Michael. Life was not as colourful without him. Life was not life without him. If only Ellis could have told him that then maybe he would have returned.

Five years they existed in this unfamiliar interlude, until teenagers – bizarrely – prodded Ellis back to life. He was in a café watching a group of them at a nearby table. They were loud and comfortably draped across one another and he enjoyed their gauche attempts at cool, at their more charming traits of silliness. But it was their curiosity and attentiveness that left an impression on him, the natural interplay of their delight. And he wrote down on a scrap of paper what he observed about them, the qualities, the playfulness too, things he thought he’d relinquished in his relationship. He felt so grateful to them afterwards that he went to the counter and quietly paid for them to have another round of coffee and cake.

Outside, as he passed the window, he saw their confusion and laughter as a laden tray was placed in front of them.

He went straight away to a travel agency and got out the scrap of paper and asked for suggestions of a trip within three hours’ flight of London. Included in this trip, however, had to be – and he read out loud – Delight. Wonder. Curiosity. Culture. Romance. Seduction.

That’s easy, said the travel agent.

And a month later, they were in Venice.

The sudden impulse had them holding hands again across tables and leaping on to vaporetti that had already pulled away. And they holed up in a small hotel and breathed in the lagoon’s old breath, and in the quiet corner of an osteria or sprawled across a bed with the thump of orgasm ripe in their throats, they found one another again.

One morning, they woke up to the flood siren and it was an eerie sound in the early hour. They got up and went outside. A skein of mist hung over the lagoon, the rising sun fiery and red and beautiful. The duckboards were out and they walked around dazed and took breakfast at the Rialto market, just a bun, but then they dared one another to have a glass of wine instead of an espresso, and it was perfect. And they walked. Siphoning information from passing tourist groups, resting against bridges in full sun, finding brief respite against the cold air, the soft slap of waves the city’s musical pulse.

Spaghetti vongole was lunch, a dish that was a favourite, and they drank more wine and Ellis read out notes from a well-thumbed copy of Venice for Pleasure. Let’s go back to the hotel, said Annie smiling. In a bit, said Ellis. But there’s a place we have to go to first, and he paid the bill and took her hand and they shared a slow amble towards San Rocco and into Tintoretto’s beating heart.

In the Scuola Grande, they stood in awe as the Bible took shape and form above them and beside them. The beauty, the anguish of humanity startled them and silenced them. On the upper floor, Annie sat down on a chair and cried.

What is it? asked Ellis.

Everything, she said. This and having wine for breakfast and you and me and it’s just everything. It’s us. Knowing that we’re OK and we can be silly too. He taught us silly, didn’t he?

Ellis smiled. He did.

And I love you and we don’t have to settle, do we?

We don’t, he said.

And I do think of him still, you know, because I just want to know we’re still important to him. I’m being selfish, I know. And Ellis said, I think about him too. And she kissed him and said, I know you do. We just love him, don’t we?

They went back to the hotel and slept in Venetian dusk. They woke in the same position and opened their eyes to the sound of glasses clinking in the bar below. They went downstairs and sat at a table by the window. The cold sulked along the calli and gondoliers sang for tourists. A fire was lit in the hearth behind them and they held hands across the table and talked non-stop about unimportant things, and they laughed well together and they were the last to leave the bar. They undressed but didn’t wash. They turned off the light and slept with their arms around one another. They said goodbye to a city reflected in a billion corrugations of water.

Three weeks later, Michael did come back to them as if he’d heard their lament across the sea. He walked in the same way he had walked out, with little explanation and that daft grin across his face. And, for a while, they became them again.

Music from next door started early and it was loud. Ellis looked out on to their garden and saw three dustbins being filled with ice. It was bound to be an all-nighter, he thought, and he felt nervous. Christ, what the hell was he doing? Jamie had invited him earlier, tagged on to the end of an apology. Said something like, we’re having a party tonight, Ellis. Sorry in advance for the noise. You’re welcome to come if you want.

He stared at his limited array of clothes. Keep it simple, Annie would have said. Jeans, old Converse, light blue shirt. Socks or no socks? He looked at his ankles. Socks, he decided. He stepped back from the mirror, and ran his fingers through his hair. He hoped they’d be no dancing because then he’d have to leave.

The champagne had been in the fridge for a year or two, bought on a whim to elevate his mood, but he hadn’t been able to face it because he never drank champagne alone, so it sat at the back of the fridge with a dark jar of pickled onions, which he had been afraid to open. He grabbed the bottle and walked out the back door. He squeezed through the hole in the bottom fence. He didn’t know why he did that, he could have gone round to the front and rung the bell like any other normal person. He’d become feral and reclusive.

He found Jamie in the kitchen, and Jamie cheered when he saw him and said something like, Look who’s here folks! This is Ellis, everyone – All right, Ellis? Hi, Ellis. Nice to meet you, mate etc. etc. The music was quite loud and Ellis had trouble understanding what people were saying to him. He smiled a lot and opened the champagne and moved back out to the garden with his new friends. He asked Jamie what the music was and he told him it was Radiohead, the song ‘High and Dry’. He rarely listened to music any more but he liked this music and thought he might even buy this music. Who is it again? he asked.

The champagne made him feel ridiculously bold (quickly drunk) and before he knew it, he had agreed to tell a joke and all these young eyes were on him. He thought for a moment.

He said, How do you make a snooker table laugh?

Pause.

Tickle its balls.

In the space after the punchline and before laughter, a brief silence ensued, in which he made plans to go home, watch television that kind of thing, but then laughter erupted, and amidst the laughter people repeated the punchline and he was saved from an early night. A spliff was put in his hand and a refill of bubbles in the other, and Jamie leant in close to his ear and told him he was really glad he was there. And Ellis said he was too. And Jamie said he’d won twenty quid in a bet. And Ellis said, What bet? And Jamie said, Nobody thought you’d come. You’re a mystery, mate.

The effect of the dope inched across his brain and he left the crowds in the garden and went back inside to find a quiet place to smoke in case he hallucinated. He was worried what might come out.

The front room was empty and blacked out, illuminated solely by a television screen that emitted blue from a vast blue ocean. He grabbed a cushion from the sofa, placed it on the floor by the television and lay down. He looked up. Dolphins were jumping over him. He smiled and inhaled a lungful of thick sweet smoke.

She came into the room then. The door opened and she stood in the doorway, a dark presence haloed by yellow hallway light. She closed the door and sealed them in, alone. He watched her move closer, too dark to see her face, but her face became clear as she leant over him and asked if she could join him. He could smell her skin and it could have been soap, or maybe the moisturiser she used, but it was a heavenly smell. He thought she was pretty. And much too young. She put a cushion down next to him and took a smoke. They swapped names, and he forgot hers straight away because he was nervous, and he told her all he knew about dolphins and their capacity for empathy, and she said, Uh huh, uh huh, and she leant across him and blew smoke in his mouth. Her hair fell over him and smelt of pine. He was aware of her aliveness, the brutal honesty of her desire.

She put her hand on his chest and he thought his heart would explode, and he felt embarrassed because he knew she could feel it.

You look scared, she said, and laughed.

Sea otters now swimming in his eyes.

She undid his shirt buttons and her fingers played on his chest and she ran a fingernail down the hairline to his stomach, and the feeling was sublime and caused him pain, and he stopped her then and said, Enough now. He kissed her hand. Enough, he said.

OK, she said, and buttoned up his shirt. But can I rest my hand here, is that OK?

That’s OK, he said, and he fell asleep with her hand on his chest and with tears spilling from the corners of his eyes.

It was morning. She had gone. He was lying alone on the floor of a strange room under a television with the lingering melancholy of a young woman’s sweet touch. The house was quiet. He crept over bodies. In the hallway, the faint sound of lovemaking and snores gathered, and a quiet telephone conversation muffled by a hand. Through dark rooms the occasional light of a computer screen, or a portable television on mute. In the garden, the dustbins were full of water and empty bottles. He crawled back under the fence, a tomcat retreating home. He went straight to the bathroom and rinsed his face and hands, and his blue eyes stood out in the bloodshot whites. He came back downstairs and made an espresso in an Italian coffee pot he and Annie had brought back from Venice. In the bottom cupboard, he found an unopened pack of coffee beans and had to search for the electric grinder because like so many other things it had been pushed to the back.

He drank the coffee out in the garden as the garden awoke. He suddenly realised the clocks had gone forward and it was officially spring and the birds were loud because the birds knew. He undid his shirt and goose bumps rose. He rubbed his hand across the plaster cast, across the phone number written large in thick black pen. Across the words: ‘Call me. You’re gorgeous. Love Becs’.

Three days later, it was his father’s birthday and he decided to make an effort. He’d bought him a new cap, a good cap, navy, and he’d bought it from Shepherd and Woodward on the High Street.

He gave him the present before the cake came out and his father said thank you and put the cap on immediately, and that’s how Ellis knew he liked it. He adjusted it a little, moved the peak from side to side until it rested heavily on his ears. He sat at the table all cap and teeth and ears and Carol said, Suits you, Len.

She said, Show me the card now, and he held up his birthday card, a picture of an anxious-looking egg with the words, I’m cracking up, written above it.

That’s funny, she said. What’s it say inside? and he pushed the card across the table to her.

Happy Birthday Dad from Ellis, she said. She looked across at Ellis and mouthed, Thank you.

They sang Happy Birthday to him (he joined in near the end) and he blew out the candles with his cap on. There were seven candles for a man of seventy-six. Carol didn’t explain why, it was probably all she had left in the drawer. Len cut his cake and Carol prompted him to make a wish, which he did, and Ellis thought, how is it possible I was afraid of this man?

They said little as they ate the cake, the sound of forks scraping against plates, the sound of glasses as toasts were made and beer was drunk. The room became hot and Ellis took off his sweater and Carol’s eyelashes slapped against her cheek as she stared at his plaster cast.

Ellis instinctively rubbed his arm and said, It’s just a joke, Carol. A mate wrote it for a joke. She doesn’t exist.

Oh, Ell, she said, and she really did look disappointed. I thought—

I know, he said, quietly.

I really did think there was something you were going to tell us, she said.

There is, actually.

Go on, she said.

I’ve decided to leave work. For good, I mean. When this is off.

Silence.

The sound of the bloody clock. The sound of his father taking off his cap.

Oh, here we go, thought Ellis. (Bit tight now, would have been better in brown. What were you thinking? Still got the receipt?)

Just like that? said his father.

No. Not just like that. Ellis smiled. I’ve given it a lot of thought.

Who’ve you spoken to?

Bill McAuliffe. In personnel.

So it’s official?

Yes.

His father finished his beer. It was a job for life, you know, he said.

I’ll be fine, said Ellis.

What are you going to do?

The garden for the time being. One-handed of course, and he winked at Carol.

Gardening? said his father.

I find it peaceful.

His father scoffed and stared at his empty beer glass. And for money? he asked.

I still have Michael’s, said Ellis.

Now you stop that, Leonard, said Carol, breaking the silence. He said he’ll be fine and he’ll be fine. You be happy for him now and that’s an order. Put your cap back on. Be handsome again.

Ellis stood in the back garden, smoking. Lights from the Car Plant spilt across the darkening sky. He heard the back door open and close. Carol, of course. Smelt her before he could see her. He’d never asked them when the affair began but always presumed it ran along invisible tracks parallel to his parents’ marriage. Mum had the painting and he had Carol. Truce.

I’m glad you’re not going back there, she said. Some are cut out for it, others aren’t. I don’t think you ever were, not really. You’ve been there a long time, Ell.

He nodded.

Too long, I reckon. I always said, When he behaves out of the ordinary, then I can stop worrying. It’s hard being born here, breathing this air. It becomes part of you, whether you want it to or not. Those lights become dawn and dusk.

Mum used to say that.

Did she? We were friends once.

I never knew that.

In the early days, we were. But then she seemed to withdraw. Rarely went out with your dad any more. Maybe it was being a new mum. I reckon you were enough for her. Lucky Dora, we used to say.

Ellis put his arm around her shoulder.

She said, I did try and get him to change his mind about school, all them years ago.

I know you did. I was always grateful.

It was hard for us, wasn’t it? Getting to know each other?

We know each other now, said Ellis.

Yeah.

And you know you’re too good for him.

I know, said Carol, and they laughed.

Do you think he’s all right? said Ellis, looking back to the house.

Course he is. He’s just used to being a bastard. He’s one of them men who discovered later on that he’s got a heart. Makes him a better dancer.

He dances?

When we go away he does. Won’t do it round here in case anyone sees him. Says he’s got a reputation to think about. What reputation? I say. Everyone’s moved away. He’s a nice little dancer. Takes it seriously, too. I reckon he thinks he’s a little bit in the movies when he sweeps around. Are you happy, Ell?

Happy?

Christ! You say the word as if you don’t know what it means.

I’m . . . hopeful.

Hopeful’s a good word. You got a nice laugh, Ell.

Annie used to say that.

Life gets it wrong sometimes, doesn’t it?

Did you find Mum’s painting, by the way?

Oh God, course we did. We didn’t get rid of it—

– No, I’m sure you didn’t.

Let me go and ask your dad. He’s in charge of things like that.

And she turned and went back towards the light of the kitchen.

A few minutes later, the back door opened again and his father appeared. Ellis watched him stumble across the lawn towards him, and thought his father looked like a boy in his new cap and his ill-fitting jacket, and he thought he looked so unsure of himself in this modern world because he saw none of it coming, not old age nor old thinking.

You all right out here? his father asked him.

Yeah. You warm enough?

Course. I’ve got a new cap. Wool, isn’t it?

It is, said Ellis.

See you still smoke, then?

Yeah.

When did you start? Never asked you.

Nineteen? Twenty? Should stop, I know.

I started as a kid. Smoked the way others ate sweets.

Right.

I’ve asked Carol to marry me.

What? Just now?

No, said his father with a rare laugh. For the last twenty years. She’s always said no.

Really?

Says she doesn’t want me telling her what to do with her money.

And I thought she was just being modern, Ellis smiled.

Yeah, that too. But she said I had to get your permission first.

Mine?

So that’s what I’m asking.

You have it.

You can think about it—

– Nothing to think about.

But you might feel different later.

I won’t. Just marry her, Dad. Marry her.

His father took off his cap and smoothed his hair. He put the cap back on. Painting’s upstairs, he said.

On the landing, Ellis pulled down the ladder and climbed up into the loft. He wasn’t surprised by the tidiness or the order. Crawl boards splayed out in a grid system that made it easy to walk about, and boxes were neatly stacked with the contents written on the side: ‘Reader’s Digest’. ‘Shoes’. ‘Bank Statements’. He heard his father’s voice below: I left it just inside. You can’t miss it.

I haven’t missed it! Oh, for fuck’s sake, he said under his breath.

It’s here. I’ve got it, he said loudly.

It was wrapped up in one of his mother’s dresses. He tugged the fabric away from the top right corner and the bowing head of a sunflower flashed out of the gloom.

I’m handing it down, he said. Here, he said, and his father reached up and took the painting from him. His father said, Don’t forget the box as well. And Ellis said, What box?

And his father said, You’ll see it. It’s just inside to the left.

He turned to his left and saw it. A medium-sized cardboard box with ‘MICHAEL’ written on the side.

Carol pulled up outside the house. She helped Ellis inside with the painting and the box, and when he turned on the lights in the back room, he asked if she wanted a drink or a coffee.

No, she said. I won’t stop, and she turned to go.

Carol?

What, love?

The box. Michael’s things, he said. Why’s he got it?

She paused. She said, You came to us after you cleaned out his flat. You don’t remember, do you?

No.

You got back from London and stayed with us for weeks. You slept mostly. So we just kept the stuff with us.

Right.

It was difficult, Ellis. A very difficult time. Your dad thought it best to keep the status quo. What did he call that box? Pandora’s box – that’s it. He was worried that anything might set you off again. So we never mentioned it again. Just kept it up there. Did we do wrong?

No, course not—

– If we did, I’m sorry—

– You didn’t.

But we don’t have to worry now, do we?

No, you don’t.

Carol buttoned up her coat. Said, It’ll be strange not phoning you tomorrow, making sure you’re OK. Won’t know what to do with myself.

Ellis walked her along the hallway.

Come see us, she said. Don’t be a stranger.

I won’t. And he bent down and kissed her.

The front door shut. Silence now. The lingering smell of her perfume and lost, misunderstood years.

He uncovered the painting and leant it against the wall. It was bigger than he remembered. And it was a fine copy, and deserved more than the incongruous fate of being a prize in a Christmas draw. The only signature on the front was ‘Vincent’ written in blue. On the back, though, was the painter’s signature: ‘John Chadwick’. But who John Chadwick was, no one would ever know.

Fifteen sunflowers, some in bloom and some turning. Yellow on yellow pigment that darkened to ochre. Yellow earthenware vase decorated by a complementary blue line that cut across its middle.

The original was painted by one of the loneliest men on earth. But painted in a frenzy of optimism and gratitude and hope. A celebration of the transcendent power of the colour yellow.

Nine years ago, in 1987, it sold for nearly twenty-five million pounds at Christie’s auction house. His mum would have said, Told you so.

The garden took shape under April’s eye. The flowerbeds along the fence and walls of the house had been freed of weeds and transformed into perfect rectangles of tilled brown earth. Climbing roses and ivy were now supporting the crumbling back wall, and rhododendrons simply did their thing, flamboyant and loud in red and pink. He came across a family of primroses hidden under a nondescript shrub and transferred them to an area by the bench where he sat. He had grown to like primroses.

He stopped for lunch and ate outside. A plate of ham that he didn’t need to cut, just folded it into his mouth with a fork. He remembered a time when he didn’t like to be in this garden. He thought he had punished it, secretly, for being the last place he had spent time with them. He chose not to go further with those thoughts that day, and began to peel a boiled egg. A blackbird joined him on the arm of the bench. It had followed him around the garden most of the morning and made him think about the possibility of getting a pet.

By late afternoon, he had showered and had decided to walk across to South Park. The grass was newly mowed, the scent sweet, and those towering spires glinted to his left. The sun was beginning to dip, but there was still warmth, and the light, he thought, beautiful. He stopped where the three of them used to watch the firework display every autumn. Where they used to hand around a small flask of Scotch as lights above them flickered and cascaded across their cold delighted faces. Where afterwards, they’d tramp across the dewy grass and Michael would complain about his feet, and they’d make their way to The Bear smelling of bonfire and earth. The three of them, breath misting, trying to walk in synch. Left, right, left, right. Keep up, Ell, you’re fucking it up!

Everywhere he went he knew they had gone before.

He stopped. He became aware that he had inadvertently stumbled into a scene of romance. Up ahead, a young man was leaning towards a tree, and from this tree, arms reached out and draped about his neck. He didn’t want to ruin their moment of privacy, so he decided to pass through but not to look, and as he moved towards them he speeded up.

And yet, it was instinctive, his turn. Because the outline of the person leaning against the tree was so familiar to him, and so it was instinctive for him to turn and say, Billy?

Billy froze. Across his face settled the shame of discovery, and his words were quiet. All right, Ellis, he said. And Ellis didn’t want it to be like that, not for Billy and his nineteen years, so he smiled and went towards him and said, Is this Martyrs’ Memorial, then?

And Billy said, Yeah, and he looked up. Yeah.

Ellis turned to the young man and offered his hand, said, Good to meet you. I’m Ellis. I worked with Billy, and the young man said, I’m Dan.

How’s life, Billy?

All right.

Work?

Not the same. I’m still on nights and it messes with my head. I don’t know how you did it, Ell.

I know.

You’re not coming back, are you?

No.

Fuck it, Ell. You let me down. I should’ve heard it from you, not from that fucking twat Glynn. You have to do better with people.

I’ll do better.

It’s no fun being your friend. Jesus.

And I’m keeping your tools, he added.

Ellis smiled. You should. Garvy gave them to me, I give them to you. It’s continuity, right?

What are you going to do?

I don’t know yet, said Ellis.

You should get away.

You reckon?

Yeah. Take a gap year.

Ellis laughed. OK.

Billy? said Dan, quietly.

I know. We’ve gotta go.

Yeah, yeah. Go.

Billy took out a pen and quickly scribbled on a scrap of paper. There’s my number, he said. Call me sometime.

I will, said Ellis.

They left in opposite directions. Ellis was almost at the gate when Billy shouted out his name. He turned. There he was with his arm raised high. Follow the Yellow Brick Road, Ell!

Follow, follow, follow, follow, Annie and Michael sang arm in arm along Hill Top Road. June 1978. Two weeks before the wedding. Michael had organised the Stag and Hen and had merged them into one. Travel light, he’d said. Flip flops, shorts, that type of thing. Ellis watched them up ahead. The doors to Mabel’s van were open and Michael had unfolded a large map that the breeze was lifting. He heard Annie ask, So where are we going, Mikey?

Not telling, he said, and he refolded the map and threw it under the seat. All aboard, please, he said. Last one in’s a sissy.

Ellis jumped into the back, last.

Sissy, they said.

Music, please, co-pilot, said Michael.

Annie bent down and put the cassette player on her lap. Michael handed her a tape. ‘Road Trip Mix’ on the label. She put the tape into the machine and pressed play: ‘Heroes’, David Bowie. They screamed. They wound down the windows and sang out loud into summer dusk as the familiar roads of Headington slipped away behind them. Michael accelerated on to the A40, and the old van shook with effort and weight.

Through Eynsham, Burford, Northleach.

They listened to Blondie, Erasure, Donna Summer.

Through Bourton on the Water, Stow on the Wold.

They listened to Abba.

In the middle of ‘Dancing Queen’, the van changed direction but Ellis didn’t say anything. He leant forward and put his hands on Michael’s shoulders. And during ‘Take a Chance on Me’, he did something unusual and sang the solo whenever Agnetha someone sang the solo. At the end of the song, he said, Garvy taught me that.

And they cried, Garvy! Garvy! Garvy! and the old van shook as if it was laughing.

The sky was losing light and Ellis noticed Michael glance at his watch. Soon the recognisable cityscape of home came back upon them.

Mikey? said Annie.

Mikey looked at her and grinned.

They returned through Summertown, through St Giles. Don’t say a word, he said, and they obeyed. Looked out at the University buildings, illuminated and grand, at the pubs with students congregating outside.

Michael pulled up in Magdalen Road. They followed him into the shop and through to the back. The kitchen was dark and silent and Michael opened the back door. They walked out into a garden lit by scores of candles masquerading as stars. And in the middle of this constellation, two tents side by side, and behind the tents a large paddling pool where a lone boat floated with a tealight on its hull. It was simple, it was daft, it was beautiful, it was Michael.

Let me show you to your room, he said, and he walked them to the larger tent. Inside were sleeping bags zipped together. May I suggest a swim in the lake tomorrow? he said. Weather permitting, of course.

They changed immediately into denim cut-offs and flip flops. The evening was cool, so jumpers hid T-shirts and Ellis built a fire in a ring of bricks. They all turned to look as the back door opened.

Ah, said Michael. Here comes the gypsy of the old fen, the Lighter of Lights.

What’s that? said Mabel, holding a bottle of champagne.

The deaf gypsy of the old fen, said Michael.

Go on with you, she said, and she opened the champagne which took a while, and Ellis handed around mugs stained with tea and they drank from these mugs and they toasted three times.

To you two! said Michael.

To us! said Annie.

For nothing to change, said Ellis.

And that was the night Michael ran across the road to the Italian restaurant and brought back plates of spaghetti vongole, which no one had ever tasted before. A bottle of red wine, too, Chianti Ruffino in a basket. This is fancy, said Mabel.

The next morning, he and Annie awoke to the sound of rain. They dozed and huddled close as the damp crept in. They heard the sound of the back door open, flip flops running across the grass.

Knock knock, said Michael. Coffee! And he tugged the zip down and his beaming face filled the space.

Look how handsome he is, said Annie.

It’s unbearable, said Ellis.

Budge up, said Michael, water dripping down his forehead. One cappuccino and two espressos, he said. The Italian pastries in his pocket, miraculously dry.

They settled down to a morning of Scrabble, speeding up the game with double points for dirty words, which Ellis won. Lunchtime, the gypsy of the old fen came out with sausage sandwiches, and afterwards the clouds broke up and the sun cast hazy rays towards the earth and the tents began to steam. Annie helped Mabel off with her shoes, and together they went for a paddle, and Mabel said, All this, and we’re still in Oxford.

I’m going to light the candles again tonight, said Ellis.

Do it, said Michael.

And when light fell, the constellations flickered, and Ellis sat in the pool with a wooden boat rocking by his foot. The boat capsized when Annie and Michael got into the water.

I don’t ever want to settle, said Ellis, looking from one to the other.

I won’t let you settle, said Annie.

And I won’t let you settle, and Michael handed him a mug of champagne.

Ellis drank. Where are we again? he said, looking around.

Greece, said Annie. An island called Skyros.

The fishing boats are coming in, said Michael. Look. You can see their lights coming to shore.

So what’s the plan for tomorrow? said Ellis.

More of the same, said Annie. Stay on the beach. Maybe a cycle around the island, later. We don’t want to overdo it, do we? We’ve got so much time.

It was May Day, and students still had flowers in their hair. Ellis’s cast was off and he cycled through town and down St Aldate’s to the river. The sun had come out for the first time that afternoon and the towpath was busy.

He turned off into Long Bridges where the river was still, where an occasional breeze rippled the surface when he wasn’t looking. He moved away from the bridge towards the concrete bank hidden by a thick hedge of brambles, and there he undressed. He was shy at first. He sat on the side with his feet in the water and his hands in his lap. A shout from a rowing cox the other side of the trees, and the thump of blades slicing the river was the sound of Oxford in spring. The fleeting glimmer of bikes speeding along the path to his left. He slipped into the cold water and his nakedness felt electrifying. Mud squeezed between his toes, and he half-expected to feel the familiar flicker of minnows around his ankles as he used to do. He swam in the wake of a mallard and felt the pleasure of the sun breathing hard on his arm. As he swam, a memory came to him. The last summer with his mother, it would have been. He could see her again, lying amongst the crowds on the opposite bank and she was laughing. She had just asked Michael what book he was reading and he held it up and said, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. He said they were doing the American Civil War at school and they had to present something to class about Abraham Lincoln. He had chosen to do a poem about Lincoln’s death. It wasn’t easy, he said. And the book had been banned, once, on account of its sexual content.

That’s what had set his mother off laughing. Sexual content? she said. Did Mrs Gordon at the library tell you that?

She’s a liberal educationist, he said.

Really? A Liberal in Cowley? And pigs might fly.

It’s a poem about grief, he said.

Grief? she repeated. And then she said, Are they ready for you, Michael?

For my recital?

No, she said. Are they ready for you? Is the world ready for you?

He smiled and said, I’m not sure, and he began to read the poem out loud to her, hitting the last word of every sentence, to make sure she heard the rhyme.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring . . .

And Ellis remembered thinking he would never meet anyone like him again, and in that acknowledgement, he knew, was love. He could see his mother concentrating on Michael’s words, how enraptured she was. And when he stopped, she bent down and kissed him on the head and said, Thank you. Because everything she held on to and everything she believed in came together in that unexpected moment. The simple belief that men and boys were capable of beautiful things.

His mother stood up and all eyes were upon her. She walked down to the river and climbed down the steps until she was mid-waist in water. Michael ran after her and said, Dora! Pretend to save me from drowning, and he jumped in and swam out to the middle of the pond with his arms and legs kicking and flailing. And there he waited for her, ignoring the laughter that came from the side. And his mother did it. She swam over to him and silenced people’s ridicule. She calmed him, told him not to panic, and she reached under his arms and gently pulled him the length of the pond through dappled light and ripples. And all the way, Michael quoted,

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

Ellis lifted himself out of the water and sat on the side. He covered his lap with a T-shirt, conscious of the possible appearance of children, and he dried off in the sun. He closed his eyes and his body softened. He wondered again why he hadn’t gone to the talk with them that long-ago evening. And he didn’t push the thought away as he usually did, but he stayed with it, listened to it because it couldn’t hurt him today, not there.

It was a book talk, that’s all, about what? He still couldn’t remember. They hadn’t even stayed for the duration, that’s why they were found out near Binsey. Annie loved to drive out there, that’s how he knew it was her idea and not Michael’s. Oh, Annie. Bad idea. Bad.

He remembered how the floorboards had just been delivered and he sat out in the garden with a beer, looking up at the sky, noticing its stillness, thinking how beautiful it would have been to be in a plane right then, the three of them again, heading towards a new horizon. He remembered music that night – Chet Baker, trumpet not vocals – and he remembered thinking how lucky he was to love them. That he should’ve had such a thought used to wake him up in a sweat.

That was the world he inhabited between the time of it happening and the time of him knowing. A brief window, not yet shattered, when music still stirred, when beer still tasted good, when dreams could still be hatched at the sight of a plane careering across a perfect summer sky.

The doorbell rang and he thought it was them, but it couldn’t have been them, could it? Because they each had a key. He opened the door and the policemen seemed too young to bring bad news, but they did. They walked him into the front room, where time evaporated. He thought he’d blacked out, but he hadn’t. It was life as he knew it shutting down.

They drove him to the hospital. There were no sirens or flashing lights, there was no hurry because it was all over. Annie looked peaceful. A bruise around her temple, stupid really, that that’s all it took. And when he told the nurse he was ready to see Michael she said that the doctor would be along in a minute. He sat and waited in the corridor with the policemen. They got him a cup of tea and a Kit Kat.

The doctor led him to an empty room where he told him Michael had been taken to the morgue. Ellis said, Why? Is that normal? And the doctor said, Under the circumstances it’s normal. What circumstances? said Ellis.

We found a cluster of lesions down his right side. Kaposi—

– I know what they’re called, said Ellis.

Michael had AIDS, he said.

I don’t think so, said Ellis, and he reached for a cigarette but the fucking doctor told him he couldn’t. He would’ve told me, he said.

He walked out into the night and he wanted to speak to someone but there was no one left. His father and Carol were waiting for him at the front gate. Talk to me, Carol kept saying, Talk to me. But he never did.

He scattered Michael’s ashes down by his favourite stretch of river, as per instructions. He was alone. The wind bit hard across the meadow. It was the end of summer.

Dusk was falling. Ellis sat out in the garden under a blue sky streaked with gold and lilac. Jazz played from next door. The students had borrowed his collection of Bill Evans, and they were cooking. The kitchen door was open and he could hear the clash of pans, beer bottles being opened, and the murmur of a recipe. He liked to listen to them, he had grown fond of their ways.

He felt cold after the swim. He hadn’t yet showered and he went back inside to get a jumper. It was on the armchair by the fire, and he put it on immediately. He stopped in front of his mother’s painting and wondered, as he so often did, what she’d been looking for. He found the painting peaceful, so could it have been as simple as that? Peace? He didn’t think so, but some mornings, when light fell on the canvas, the yellow did something to his head. Woke him up, made him feel brighter. Was that it, Mum? Was it? He turned round and caught his foot on the cardboard box he’d brought back from his father’s. He knelt down. When? he said to himself. If not now, then when?

He tore the tape away from the top and the brief glimpse of a shirt made him draw breath. He picked up the box and took it outside to the bench. He came back and grabbed a half-opened bottle of wine from the fridge and a glass that lived on the draining board. He sat in the garden and waited for his nerves to settle.

He had no idea what he’d kept or what he’d jettisoned all those years ago. What he never forgot, though, was his shock at how little Michael had owned. One chair. A radio. A few books. His flat was a lonely space or a clever space. Minimalist to the extreme. It was a place of contemplation not distraction. A place of thought.

He lifted the clothes from the box and placed them on his lap. The pale blue T-shirt he and Annie got him from New York, the neckline frayed because he never took it off. Ellis held it up to his nose and didn’t know what to expect, the only smell was a faint trace of washing powder lifting the must. A white linen shirt, a navy cashmere sweater, miraculously untouched by moths. A striped Breton top wrapped around a copy of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. On the inside cover ‘The Property of Cowley Library’ had been crossed out and replaced with the name ‘Michael Wright’.

Across the fence, ‘My Foolish Heart’ played for the second time that evening. Ellis poured out the wine and drank.

From the box, he brought out a large envelope that he emptied beside him. A mix of ephemera from a drawer, that’s what it looked like. Torn-off images from magazines, a crumpled black-and-white photograph of him and Michael caught off guard at a bar in France looking sun bronzed and nineteen and rightfully invincible. Another photo, this one of him and Annie on their wedding day, staring at clouds of confetti as if it was cherry blossom instead. An invitation to an art opening in Suffolk – Landscapes by Gerrard Douglas. A colour photograph of Mabel and Mrs Khan outside the shop, the day Mrs Khan came to work there. Testament to a rare friendship that spanned nearly thirty years. They are wearing brown aprons and their arms are around one another, and they are looking at the camera and smiling. Mabel’s white hair has been set by rollers as it always was, her cheeks coloured by the simple joy of living. She would never retire. What’s the point of that? she always used to say. And now postcards – Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, Barbara Hepworth. A folded newspaper, an Oxford Times dated 1969. He was about to put it to one side when he realised it was the first article Michael had ever written. It was about Judy Garland.

The day she died, Ellis remembered, Michael played the Carnegie Hall album. He opened the shop door and turned the volume up high. It was his way of honouring her. People came in to listen and Mabel gave out medicinal sherry and something stronger for the regulars. Afterwards, Michael begged the Times to let him write something, to get away from making tea and making copy, and in the end he wore them down and they agreed he could write about Garland as long as there was Oxford interest too. And he found someone in Summertown who had been to the concert itself in ’61, and he based the article around that – local interest combined with global phenomena – the life-long fan who would now transfer her affection to the daughter. It was something, wasn’t it? Centre of the Universe, this shop, Michael used to say. Oh, we were. We were.

Another photograph, but this one of a man he didn’t know standing next to an easel. He is wearing shorts and his chest is covered in paint. He is smiling. On the easel is a portrait of Michael. On the back of the photograph the letter ‘G’.

A postcard of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. A memory of his mother or someone else? A phone number scrawled on the reverse. Cinema stubs – Cinema Paradiso, Stand by Me, Pretty in Pink – a ticket to Michael Clark, a ticket to the Tate/Turner Prize 1989.

From the bottom of the box, he took out a handful of books and instantly recognised them. They were his sketchbooks, the ones from childhood. And he couldn’t believe he was looking at them again because he often threw them out when the pages were full, because nothing felt good enough, or so he thought then. Only one person thought they were good enough and he’d fucking saved them. Michael had saved them. He’d gone to those bins and pulled them out and kept them across the years.

Here was his mother. A simple line drawing of her profile, no shading, just a line running from her hairline down her nose and throat. Pages of this exercise until he got it right. Her hands now, pages of hands. And a watercolour of her face pretending to sleep, the curl of a smile at her upper red lip.

Ellis picked up another book: Michael. How old was he? Fourteen? Fifteen, maybe. Jeans low and shirt off and barefoot. Fingers around his belt loops, brooding and serious. Make me look interesting, he used to say. Make me look like a poet.

Oh Jesus. Ellis sat back and closed his eyes. He listened to a conversation about olive oil coming from next door.

He drank wine and poured out more. When he was ready, he picked up another book. Inside, though, he found words not drawings, and the sight of Michael’s writing startled him. It wasn’t a diary, it looked more random than that – thoughts, ideas, doodles. November 1989, it began, the time they were apart.

He began to read. There was a momentary flutter of the page, maybe the breeze or a tremor from his hand. A young man’s voice travelled across the fence.

Ellis? he said. Ell?

But Ellis didn’t hear. ‘November 1989,’ he read. ‘I don’t know the day, the days have become irrelevant.’