Boy on the Wire (7 page)

I wrote, of course. My father wrote me a letter about a month after I arrived in London, giving me news of events in the city, the cricket match he’d attended, what he was growing in the garden. Those sorts of things, I seem to remember. I replied. There were other letters every month or so.

After two years, I had managed to enrol at university and I stopped writing back. I didn’t tell him about the university. I thought he might ask me why I didn’t come back, thinking he might say universities in South Africa were every bit as good as those in the UK. But that’s not why I stopped, not really. I was making my own way, getting further away from them and they no longer had a right to know.

He carried on writing for a while after I stopped, but then he stopped too. I checked my PO Box every now and then, but nothing. Nothing by email either, though my father probably did not use email. It was still very new. Of course I could be mistaken about that. Why would I have known, after all?

Soon after I graduated, I checked again and there was a letter, but not from him. It was from a lawyer, stating that my father had died: a heart attack. The letter was postmarked four weeks earlier. I had missed the funeral. Not that I would have gone, but now I had no choice.

It was winter and there I was, standing in a post office in Earls Court, around me crowds of people. But it was silent where I was. The world was still. I looked for another letter. I thought maybe there’d be one from Peter. For a time I found myself actually wanting one. I came back every day for a month. But I did not really expect one and did not receive one. I did get another letter from the lawyer, saying the estate had been left to Peter. I did not reply, did not try to get in touch at all. There was nothing to be said.

I was in a pub in Camden the night after I got the letter announcing his death. Someone pushed me. Or I pushed him, I forget. I am not exactly a regular fighter, but I have a size advantage over most. I swatted his arm away as he pushed me and then punched him on the nose with my right fist. At first he had just been an annoyance, but something took over then. I lost myself, felt my fist go into his face, the cartilage scrape against bone. Felt the blood, the warmth, the stickiness of it, though that was later. The man went down. The crowd parted. I went after him. It was not enough. I went for him and took him by the shirt and punched him in the face again – and again. Like punching a pool of mud. A fourth time. He escaped my grasp somehow and crawled away. I stood there, a piece of his shirt in my hand, my own shirt spattered with blood. The pub was quiet. I was on my own, didn’t know anyone there. Just drinking. No one stopped me leaving, no one came after me. I walked south, sat on a park bench near Euston station and held my fist – I think it was still clenched – in my other hand and sat there until dawn.

I had tried for years to forget my family: the silences, the things unspoken wedged between us, Peter’s part in Paul’s death that he never seemed to acknowledge and was never brought into the open – for which he had me to thank. I thought I had succeeded. But my father’s death altered that, broke the scum on the surface of the pond. Just one left now. I remember wishing they had both died at the same time. I would be free of them then, and the hold they had on me.

It was a setback but no more. Seven years after my father’s death, I met Rachel. By then I was sure it was all over. I had forgotten these people, my family. I had friends. Not many admittedly, as the bank took up most of my time. But now I had Rachel. Rachel took it all away. I left it all behind, properly this time. Leaving Port Elizabeth had been just the first step. I sloughed off the skin of my past. Not just the skin, the bones, blood and gristle of it too. A lizard, shedding everything until just spirit, emerging anew from the undergrowth.

I have brought the letter with me. I had put it back in the drawer, but as I sat in the car, my hands on the steering wheel, I decided to go back for it. I place my hand into the pocket of my trousers and feel it there. I will read it, but now doesn’t seem like the right time. I know it is for me, or relates to me. There is nothing on the envelope to say it is for me, but I sense it. Everything in this house is for me, everything relates to me, everything means something to me. I can feel it – the creep of my family, the rising stench of them, the corpses floating, drifting upwards through years of silt to rest, rotten, on the surface.

That first letter from Peter I received in London in March 2011. Once read it could not be forgotten. I had to come back, though I did not know it then, did not know it for a while. That was the first bubble in the pond, the first sign something was coming. I remember the day. Snow. Rachel. A snowball down her shirt. And then later, undressing her, the wetness on her back, the soft hairs. I kissed her, and then I remembered the letter. At least, it shifted from the back to the front of my mind. She asked if something was wrong. The coldness in my stomach. Perhaps I should have told her then. Why didn’t I? I cannot think why I didn’t. It was the logical thing to do, the sort of thing a husband would tell his wife.

I left them, but perhaps they never really left me – always watching over my shoulder. There, watching me graduate from King’s, standing silent in the back row as I married Rachel, and in the corner of the darkened room when the letter dropped onto the mat. I should have been able to smell them.

A letter from my brother, the man in many ways responsible for all this, taunting me. I couldn’t just leave it, couldn’t just forget it.

And then the second letter, and nothing in that to atone for his part in this either, somehow managing, I don’t know how he did it, to imply that he was the wronged one, me the despicable liar. And then saying, implying again, what he was going to do, and leaving me no choice but to follow him so as to put things right, so as to save him, to save him once again.

I am angry with myself for not bringing more flowers.

I am not Jewish, but I take twelve stones, three for each member of my family, and place them on the gravestones.

Goodbye.

I do not look back.

7

I walk through the rooms of the red-brick house. The smell of paint is fading and underneath it the old smell is coming back. Faint, but now that I notice it, it seems to get stronger and stronger. I feel ill. The smell baked into all the layers of paint and soaked deep into the plaster, deep into the brick.

In the bedroom I stand in front of the bed. There is a hollow on one side of it; on the other a smaller hollow. Again I wonder about a family. There is no evidence of one. No pictures on the walls, no photographs other than the old ones I have found. Perhaps that was it, though, a divorce, uncontested. All the furniture went with the wife and children to their new house in Cape Town or Johannesburg. Perhaps in one of the drawers I have not been through I will find a number or an old mobile phone.

I do not think it likely, though. A sister-in-law, nieces, nephews – this place does not seem like it contains the memories of a different offshoot of the family. It is empty of that.

Perhaps the hollow is from my mother. Perhaps the bed has not been changed. Perhaps in here I could find flakes of my parents’ skin, and put them together piece by piece. A human jigsaw.

I find little things that I should do to the house: patches I have missed, paint splashes to clean off windows, cracks to fill in. But I leave it all, at least for now. My heart is not in it. It has beaten me. That is the thought that comes to me. Eroded what I had left, what I had built up, like acid.

I stand in front of the kitchen window drinking a glass of water. I drink it without stopping. I cannot remember the last time I drank. I pour another and drink this one more slowly.

I lie in bed with the curtains open. The moonlight picks out my shape under the sheets. I lie still, listening to the crickets and the night birds. It’s like I have never left. These sounds are part of me. They are what I went to sleep with when I was learning about the world. They’re at once comforting and unsettling, a reminder of the time before. But also they sound out of time, as if I have shifted through time and, as I lie here, so too do the children lie in their rooms with our mother and father sitting downstairs watching TV, reading the papers. I can hear the television. What will they do if they come up here and find a strange man in their bed? Will they recognise me as their son, the same child, as they once said, who just could not stop telling stories? Or would they take a stick to me, set on me with kitchen knives?

I put my hand to my face and there I can feel the scar, the one on my chin. I return to that day in the mountains.

I slipped on the path and cried out and Peter came back. Just for a second. He came back and saw what had happened and then he turned around and ran again and by then Paul was standing on the ledge, looking down at the water. Too far to jump.

He had beaten Peter to the ledge, because Peter had come back for me. Peter was older. He should have been first.

My fists were clenched at my sides. I was further up the path now and could see them through the bush, just a glimpse of them if I crouched slightly.

Peter’s hand on Paul’s back. Around his shoulder. Or, his hand in the centre of his back, muscles tensed.

Their brown backs in the sun. Bones sticking through the skin.

I rubbed the grit off my legs and arms. No cuts yet. No blood. Just scrapes.

I surprise myself with what I remember, what I don’t remember. I remember things like this, things like Peter’s hand on Paul’s back. Most of all I want to see the seconds after this. I want to see it again – what happened. But I cannot.

I weigh each word. I attempt to place the figures exactly where they were. Precisely here on this rock, a hand held precisely there, the little finger on a shoulder blade, the palm centred on a mole. Each time I do, the figure shifts, the hand moves, just a little, moves while my gaze is averted. The words, the pictures they form, play tricks on me. I pin them down again, but it is no use. People of water.

I sit in the chair to read the letter. The envelope is sealed. I break it open and inside is another envelope with my name on it, nothing else. John Hyde, the formality of the surname. I am not sure which I notice first, that it is addressed to me or that, after all this time, I am able to recognise my father’s handwriting. The last time I saw it, I was perhaps twenty. I turn it over a few times before opening it.

5 October 1999

Dear John

Many times I have been on the verge of getting in touch. I have known about you for some time, about your life. I have spent money on a private detective. I hope you do not regard this as an invasion of your privacy.

The detective told me about your travels. You must have seen a lot and have many stories to tell. He told me too how you were accepted into King’s College and how well you are doing. Graduating at the top of your class at such an institution is a wonderful achievement. I had not heard of it but I asked the detective and he said it had a good reputation and then I went to the library and did some research. I am proud of you. Your mother would have been as well.

I was not surprised to hear you were studying literature. You were always a reader and blessed with an imagination none of the rest of your family seemed to share. Not much money in it but I am sure you will find your way. You have an iron will in you. I have always known it, always seen it. It is commendable, in many ways, and will take you far.

In the end I did not get in touch. I respect your decision to stay away. I understand it too, as much as I can. Your sensitivity – this is how I explain it. You were always more sensitive than the rest of us. The loss of Paul and your mother: it is understandable that you had to get away and make a fresh start, cut off reminders of the past. As much as I wanted to see you, I could not call you back. I had to wait for you, wait for you to decide to return. In the end, I could not wait long enough.

I am sorry we lost contact. But I do not blame you for this. I want you to know that I do not blame you for anything, no matter what I might write in this letter, no matter what you might have thought in the past. I never have. There was no blame to be attributed after all. No blame in an accident.

I am writing with a request. I do not wish to sound melodramatic but I have only a few months left. If I make the next century it will be only to experience the first short weeks of it. The doctors say I will become less lucid, less able to do things like write letters or have coherent thoughts.

I have an inoperable tumour in my brain. I have known for some time now. I do not fear what comes. It comes to us all. I am not so old to have already made my peace with death, but I am old enough for it not to be a surprise. Sixty. Not exactly a match-winning innings but a reasonable score. I am being treated well, and I am not alone. I have your brother.

Peter and I are talking again. Though we are not as close as some fathers and sons, we have become closer recently. He has been good to me. After you left, it took a while but he came round for lunch one day and since then we have been on stable ground. And once I told him about the cancer he started coming round more often, every few days in fact. He has even asked to move back in with me. I will consider it as no doubt it will be a help and a comfort to have him here.

It will be a help to him as well. He is working as a chef in a hotel on the coast. It is not very well paid and living without the burden of rent will make his pay cheque go further.

I have decided to leave the house and what’s left of the estate after my medical bills have been paid to Peter. There will not be a great deal. Perhaps just enough for a small investment property. I hope you are not upset by this. It is partly because I hear you are doing so well and have no concerns for your future. The money, especially after being converted into pounds, would mean little to you. Peter, on the other hand, has not applied himself to anything. This is his second job in two years and I am concerned he will not make a go of it. He is not wasteful of money, does not do drugs, at least as far as I know. He just does not appear to be interested. As if there is always something else on his mind other than what he is doing. There is still time of course – he is only twenty-eight. I live in hope.

I will ask him to send this letter to you. It will be sealed of course. Perhaps he would not agree if he knew exactly what was in it. I hope he will not let me down. I could have my lawyer send it but the purpose of it would not be served that way. I hope – perhaps against hope – that the letter will lead to a reconciliation between the two of you.

I will ask him to wait until after my death, and until after the estate has been settled before sending it. I do not want my death or distractions over the will to get in the way of what I am trying to say, what I am trying to achieve. It is for that reason I will ask that you be told my death was due to a heart attack and happened very quickly, so your judgement and your next actions will not be falsely motivated.

So here it is (a simple thing to ask, less simple to carry out): I hope that you can find it within yourself to write to him. Perhaps even to come and see him.

I have asked the same of him, without mentioning that I was writing to you. He has said he will think about it. It is hard to tell if he means it.

I want you two to get back on speaking terms and for you to forgive each other. The two of you are all that’s left. Family was very important to your mother. To me too, of course. But if you won’t do this for me, perhaps you will do it for her.

I use the word forgive and do not use it lightly. You two were never the same after Paul’s death. Your mother and I tried to bring you back but it seemed like there was something between the two of you. You were silent when together. Two foxes circling each other, tails bristling. Or, better, two north magnetic poles: we pushed you together, but as soon as we let you go you pushed each other away.

Forgive what, you may ask. It is hard for me to answer this. I have been trying to answer it ever since Paul died. I am not sure I have the answer even now. In an accident there is nothing to forgive.

The change in Peter after Paul’s death was profound. Before, he was the happiest boy you could wish to know. You were more thoughtful, sometimes a bit sulky even, but you were young, more introspective. Your brothers were quite boisterous with you, though they loved you of course. There were some moments when your mother and I would have our hearts broken by seeing the three of you, your arms around each other. I remember one day you fell off your bike. There was a rope in the middle of the road. I think you were playing cops and robbers. You went over it, your bike flipped, you went flying. Peter and Paul rushed up to you – I saw it happen from the other end of the garden – and they gave you a big hug and tried to stop you crying. I carried you inside and they came too and sat beside you holding your hand as your Mom wiped away the blood. That was one of those moments.

Perhaps they did the same on the day Paul died. You had quite a cut on your leg. On your chin too. Perhaps you called for Paul. You used to do that. You would call for him to help you. You adored him, looked up to him – to Peter too – in spite of the rough-housing. There were times Peter (more than Paul) found it annoying, but that is to be expected. He was twelve, you were eight, that is all the reason needed.

You would have cried out, I’m sure. You never told us how you got those cuts and scrapes, though I suppose it was not the first thing on anyone’s mind. There was blood all over the place and most of it was Paul’s. That you were cut seemed of little concern.

Once again I digress.

It made your mother and I ache to think what you had gone through. Both of you. Peter especially. Jumping at the same time. I imagine – he would never admit it – he felt guilty. As if he was responsible. But he was not. It was an accident.

Even if one pushed the other, it was an accident. There was no pushing anyway, was there? You were too far away to see. You said you were further up the path when they went over.

Sometimes it was hard remembering it was an accident. It was like you two had a secret from that day on. Something you would not talk to us about. I wonder, did you talk to each other about it? I think not. What was it, John, this secret? Or did we imagine it? It is possible we did, probable even.

We were never the same, either, your mother and I. The death of a child makes you see the world in a different way. Perhaps it caused us to see you differently too. I am sorry for that.

We failed you. And Peter. No matter what really happened that day, we failed you. We tried to talk to you after the accident, to talk about what you had seen, might have seen. One of those times, perhaps it was the last time I tried, to my regret, you said something. You were turned away from me, sat on the edge of your bed, turned away from me, and you said something and I asked you to repeat it and you did and the words were ‘I said, I saw.’ I saw. Those simple words. They stunned me. They silenced me completely. Silenced both of us. We sat there, not touching and these words were between us and I had to leave. I understood them, of course, understood the bare words, but what they meant, what they might mean, I could not grasp. Would not, perhaps.

To my regret, I say again. I had to leave because there was this thing in the room I knew was there but could not see, could not name, could not bear to look at. I know you wanted to carry on talking, but I could not be there. What did you mean, John? What did you see? Did you see Peter push Paul? Is that what you meant?

I ask, but I ask knowing I will not get a reply, do not deserve a reply, and that is why I can ask.

I had an idea what you meant, of course. We both did, your mother and I. But we could never speak it, speak of it, though it was with us all the time in this house, immovable.

I am reminded of a paradox. An irresistible force meets an immovable object.

I still cannot talk about it. Peter and I never speak of Paul. I don’t want to know. I don’t think I ever wanted to know. Boys will be boys. You push. You’re rough. And then you two never spoke. Your silence made us think there was more to the story. Our little boy who loved to make up stories suddenly went quiet. You did not talk to us, did not talk to your brother, did not talk to him ever again beyond a few perfunctory phrases. Your silence needed to be filled. How could we not fill it? We failed you with our own silence. Better to know. Always better to know.

Your mother’s death hit Peter hard too. I think he suspected the truth. You were too young, I think – twelve. He worked it out, though. A car crash, the car off the road on Sir Lowry’s Pass, where she had no reason to be. No skid marks. The middle of the day. He found out she was not wearing a seatbelt. I’m not sure how, I tried to shield him from it all. Though it was not law like it is today, your mother always wore her seatbelt. She was dead and there was no letter, so there was no proof it was suicide but the signs were clear.

There could only have been one reason for your mother doing what she did. The death of a child – there’s no coming back from that. I am sure Peter already felt guilty about Paul’s death and this made it worse.

I am sorry if this is news to you. Perhaps I should have left this in silence too. I do not know what you know. The moment that marks out your children passing over into adulthood: when you know you do not know everything about them. With you it happened too early, far too early.

You were her favourite. It is not something a parent should admit to – having favourites. She did, though she kept it hidden from the others. Your quietness, your love of stories. She studied English Literature too, as you know. (Was that why you chose that course?) And then after, she tried so hard to get back to that place, to get back to you, to the boy, the angel she loved. She tried so hard, John. You may not even remember. Every night she took you to bed and lay there with you and read you stories. She would ask you what you thought of them, what you would do if you were one of the characters. Your answers were brief, uninterested even, though I think there were more ideas in your head than you let on. Every night, until the end.

It was quite recently that Peter asked about you. It was as if he was reading my mind. I had told him the week before about the cancer. I had been thinking about you, thinking about writing this letter, and one afternoon he came right out and asked. ‘How is John?’ It was as if he knew I had been keeping tabs on you. I answered, ‘He seems to be doing OK.’ Your brother looked at me for a second and then nodded. I didn’t really know what it meant, that nod. Could have been anything.

I told him everything. I told him everything you had been doing, where you lived, which course you were studying. He did not comment on why I was keeping track of you. Sensitive in his own way, too.

He thinks of you often. Though it was only that once he mentioned you, I can tell he thinks of you. When we sit in silence after a meal, I look at him. Sometimes he catches me looking, sometimes not. It seems to make him uncomfortable, so I try not to. I see him and I can tell what he is thinking about. You. You appear, as if real, as if a ghost. It doesn’t help that you two look so much alike. You hang there between us. Not Paul, not your mother. You. He looks to you. You stand in judgement over him, it seems. You. His whole life – and perhaps this is why he has achieved so little – lived in this shadow, this shadow of whatever it was you may or may not have seen all those years ago.

It may be too late but my hope is – I return to my request – that you find it in yourself to soften towards him, to remove judgement, if that is what it is, to save what is left of our family. Paul is gone. I have no idea what happened that day, whether Peter pushed him (I hate writing those words) or not, but perhaps it does not matter any more, perhaps it is best forgotten. Perhaps, after all, nothing happened. The silence was just silence. Stunned after your brother’s death. Two boys, daring each other, jumped. One hit his head on rocks and broke his neck. The other almost drowned. Nothing.

I still see him, you know – Paul. It is not something one would admit in polite society. I see him here in the house. I see him running through the sprinkler, hear his laughter, see him curled up at the other end of the couch. I see him asleep, this golden boy, feel the warm breath from his mouth as I lean in to kiss him.

I live with ghosts here, but I have never wanted them gone. That is why I have kept the house all these years, even though it is too big for me (you may be wondering). These visions. This house contains everything I love, everything I have loved. I could not have got rid of it.