Читать книгу Down Sterling Road - Adrian Michael Kelly - Страница 8

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But the days don’t come and go like heartbeats, they slow down like the middle of a long run when you feel the wall coming on and just want to stop. Except, like Dad says, you’re so far down the road what the hell else are you gonna do except keep plodding on – like the second hand of the clock on Christmas Eve, it looks like it’s ready to pack it in when Dad finally calls at six and says Sorry, son, I’ll be a wee while yet.

How come?

Patient transfer.

Peterborough?

No. Serious. Kingston General.

You’re on days tomorrow, Dad. Supposed to be you gets to come home.

On-call guy’s got flu, Dad says, then he puts, Jacob can tell, his hand over the phone before he tells Jim Digby I can’t believe this kid. Jim laughs then Dad comes back on and says See you, don’t wait up.

’Kay.

After he hangs up, Jacob wraps the Luciano Pavarotti tape, leans it against the tree stand. Plugs in the lights. The old tree still looks pretty in the dark.

Gets half his spaghetti down. Tosses the rest. Dishes done. Teeth brushed like they show you in school, but his gum still bleeds. Cavity’s the size of his fingertip now. He dabs Dad’s Orajel on it. Gets into his PJS, bed. Leans over a pile of X-Men. Reads and listens for the front door and the footfalls, but his eyes get heavy, sore. Light off.

Flat on his back, Jacob makes prayer hands on his forehead. Closes his eyes. Breathes phooh and says I know we don’t go to church anymore or anything and I don’t want to be selfish so even if Dad didn’t get me Prismacolor pencils that’s okay, please just let us have a good Christmas. It’s the third one now.

Then he rolls, and curls, and breathes way down into his belly. Back at the old house by the river Dad used to climb on the roof and stomp around Ho ho ho, not asleep yet? and for a second, two, Jacob thinks he hears it. But it’s not. It’s just Dad with the lights left off, bumping into furniture and swearing on his way to the stereo. In the hush and dark Jacob hears everything – the soosh of the record being slid from its sleeve, the needle’s hiss and the speakers’ crackle heartbeats before the story begins. One Christmas was so much like another… booms the big warm voice, and Dad cranks the sound down, but Jacob knows the words … in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep

Even when Jacob and his brother couldn’t understand the words, when they just liked the sound of the big warm voice, Dad always played Dylan Thomas on Christmas Eve – Listen, boys – and drank hot toddies and honey with Mum. Now he listens alone, to all of it, twice. Lets the record keep playing at the end – t-chikt, t-chikt – goes to the fridge and gets more ice. Jacob, heart hammering, can picture everything – the tree, blinking on, blinking off, and Dad on the sofa, drink about to spill, staring at the blank TV. Please let him go to bed, he’s working tomorrow and he needs a good sleep.

The clock flips click from 4:59 to 5:00 and Jacob’s eyes blink open again. He stays still, listens to the dark and the hush. Then hears Dad’s apnea. Lies there some more. Dad snorts, makes daft sounds. Goes quiet again. At quarter to six Jacob gets out of bed, picks up the tin wastebin in the corner of his room. Waits for a snort then drops the bin clang. But Dad just snuffles and groans.

Wake up, Dad. Wake up.

At six Jacob says to himself Just a quick look-see. Ever so slowly opens his bedroom door. The dark apartment like held breath, streetlight glow through the windows. Cold linoleum against the balls of his feet as he closes his eyes except for a slit and sneaks to the living room.

And opens his eyes.

Two presents. Dad’s, and another one. About the size of a sketchbook. Jacob sneaks over to give it a shake, but jumps when Dad’s alarm clock buzzes. Spins and takes big quiet steps back to his room.

Dad hits the button and makes big wake-up noises like he’s been dragged by the heels into the world and isn’t too sure he wants to be here because it’s all bangers and mash and bodies on stretchers.

Jacob, breath held, waits just inside his bedroom door.

Waahhh, y’up, son?

Jacob fakes a yawn. Pardon, Dad?

Dad laughs. I heard you.

Me?

Who else could it have been, I wonder.

Don’t know, Dad.

It’s quiet, then Dad says What day is it today, son?

It’s Christmas, Dad.

Christmas? Well, Jesus Joseph and Mary it is. Guess I’ll sleep in then.

Can’t, Dad, you’re on days.

Is that right, now? Well, in that case.

The wait. Then Jacob mouths the words when Dad sings O how happy I would be, if I hadda cuppa tea!

First tea. Then prezzies. The way it always was. Jacob uses the special yellow mug with the red lion rampant on it.

Here’s Dad tying his robe, hair like a messy nest. Well, my favourite mug and all. Thanks, son.

Welcome.

Careful not to spill, Dad takes a stool from the kitchenette, plunks it down by the tree. Jacob sits on the floor. One of the gold balls has fallen off a bottom branch.

Eh, hang on a minute, son. Wee repair job here.

Dad loops the string round some bristles, bends the branch’s wire a bit. There we are, he says, right as rain. Now then, what have we here, ho ho.

Jacob points, says That one’s for you.

Dad picks up the little present, reads the sticker. To: Dad From: your son Jacob. Guess I’m no on Santa’s list again this year.

Jacob shrugs, tries to smile. His face heats when Dad starts popping Scotch tape.

Grand wrapping, son.

Did it myself.

Dad tears the paper. Hey hey, Luciano Pavarotti!

I was gonna get you pipes and drums. Black Watch. But it’s hard to find ones you don’t have.

No, son, this is great. Your dad loves old Looch.

Jacob looks at the other present.

Dad reaches for it, says Well then, here you are.

Thanks, says Jacob. He picks it up. To Jacob, Merry Xmas, love Dad.

Dad nods, blows on his tea. Slurps, his eyebrows like drawn bows, then swallows and tries not to smile. But his front tooth shows.

Jacob looks away, pops tape.

I’m no expert wrapper like you, Dad says.

It’s really good, Dad, says Jacob, thinking that the sketch-book’s no cheapy. It feels thick, heavy.

Son, I’ll no be saving the paper.

Sorry. Jacob tears. And stops, when, in the book’s bottom corner, he sees a skeleton hand but coloured in pink and gold.

Dad bobs his eyebrows.

Jacob tears more paper, sees another hand. A live hand, with a hairy thumb, holding a skinny marker and colouring the drawing of the bones.

Holy, Dad, what is this?

Look and see.

Jacob pulls on the book’s bottom edge and the flaps of paper fall away.

The Anatomy Coloring Book?

Now, what do ya think o’ that, kid!

Jacob swallows.

Couldnae believe that when I saw it. It’s perfect for you, son. Slurp, gulp. Something missing, is there?

No. It’s great, Dad. Thanks.

Dad sets his tea down, looks out the window. His Adam’s apple bobs. I know it’s Christmas and all, he says, staring between the curtains. Then he looks back at Jacob – hard – and says But let me say this anyway. Son, it’s not your drawing I mind. You know I wasn’t too bad with a brush meself once.

Jacob hunches, stares at Dad’s shins.

Son, look at me. You like your drawing, that’s great. Really, it is. But all they comic book, wam-bam pictures and whatnot.

Fantasy art, Dad.

Whatever they call it, you’re gettin too old for all o’ that stuff.

Eleven?

Aye, and goan on twice that sometimes.

Jacob looks away, swallows.

Son, listen to your old dad. Look at me. You’ve got a talent, there’s no one gonna deny that. Neily Waldengarden’s seen it, too, knows like I do you’ve got some grey matter in that noggin. Dad leans forward and raps Jacob’s head like a door. Use it, son, is what I’m saying.

Jacob’s left nostril twitches.

Son, I’ve told you, you don’t wanna end up like your old dad, driving bloody ambulance. You could be a doctor. Like your mum.

She’s a nurse.

Slurp. Coulda been a doctor, is what I mean.

Why wasn’t she?

Well, gulp, gid tea, that. There was no money for to go to university, son. Not like here. Back home, it was only the richies. Off to St. Andrew’s and Cambridge, and see you, McKnight, get yourself a trade, boy. Nae chance. In the mines I was, by sixteen. Six-teen. With your mother it was nursing. But you could go to university, and know more than half the bampots in it do by the time you get there. I mean, look at this. Dad thumbs open The Anatomy Coloring Book. Look, he says, at the detail of this thing.

Jacob double-takes, bends closer. A big black-and-white eyeball glares back at him.

Dad pins down the page with his fingers, points to the muscles attached to the eye. Look here, son. The idea, see, is that you colour in each part differently – B, say, in green or what have you – then you use the same colour for the proper names of the parts on the left here, so’s you remember. See? B, Inferior Rectus. You’d colour it –

Green, says Jacob, Inferior Rectus. But he can’t look back at that eye.

Son, you can do this nae problem like, and then, what with how you can draw ‘n’ all, you should actually reproduce the drawings yourself, like medical students do with their dissections ‘n’ what have you. Dad draws his index finger down Jacob’s torso, says Then you’d really know what you’re made of.

Jacob eyes the long crevasse in his PJ top.

The whole human body you could know before you even get to high school. You’ll breeze through, boyo, I’m tellin you.

Jacob just nods.

Dad claps his hands and slaps his thighs to make galloping sounds. Got tae get myself shaved and away, he says.

Thanks for the book, Dad.

Welcome.

Dad jumps up, heads off. Jacob just sits, looks at his face in the surface of the gold ball that Dad put back on the tree. He flicks it with his middle finger.

Tink.

Harder.

Tink.

Harder.

Tink!

But it doesn’t break or fall.

Jacob eyes the book. Wrinkles his nose. Eyes the book. Looks out the window. Eyes the book. Thumbs pages.

Ankle bones.

The spleen.

Half a face, with the skin peeled off.

Jacob stops. Stares at a blank space on the wall.

Smells the Mennen Musk just before Dad says Son. Blinks hard and gives his head a shake and there’s Dad. Uniform on. Speck of styptic on his top lip.

That you away, Dad?

Eh, not just yet. Good thing, too. The old boy was a bit late this year.

Huh?

There I am, shavin away, and look who’s at the window. Cut meself. Sorry, he says to me and hands me this.

In Dad’s hand is a big present. Shiny green paper. Perfect red bow.

Here you go, kid.

Jacob just looks at it. To: Jacob. From: St. Nicholas. Dad’s handwriting.

What you waitin on, Christmas?

Jacob tugs the bow. Then rips the paper with both hands. A sketchbook! And Prismacolor pencils! Set of sixty!

Dad gets down on one knee, pats the back of Jacob’s neck. Their foreheads kiss.

Merry Christmas, son.

Holy jumpin Merry Christmas, Dad! Wish I got something else for you.

Don’t you worry ’bout that. But see you put they pencils to the use they’re meant for.

Jacob nods and nods. I’m gonna colour all day.

You’ll no be seeing the Hollingsworths at all?

Nope, says Jacob, picturing himself over there watching while Graham and Bobby show off all their presents. No way, he says.

Right then, says Dad, there’s Chunky Soup in the cupboard, wee bit o’ bread left. Should do you for lunch.

You on first turkey shift this year?

Will be whether they like it or no.

Five o’clock then?

Yepsir. Don’t be late or we’ll miss the mincemeat pie.

Okey-doke.

Okay then, I’m offskee. Gather up that paper, now.

Jacob listens to Dad thump down the stairs. Whacks back the curtains of the living room window, watches Dad brush snow off the Torino, back it out, and off he goes, fishtailing through fresh snow that sparkles under the streetlights.

What a good Christmas.

Jacob sticks his tummy out, and in his best Pavarotti voice he sings Tanka-YOO, and props the cassette beneath the tree and scoops up the wrapping paper. Makes a big ball and slams it on top of the spaghetti scraps. Flicks the cupboard door closed, steps right foot over left and disco spins to the fridge. Slugs back orange juice straight out the bottle. And spills it down his pyjamas when the phone rings. He watches it for another ring. Another.

… M’lo?

Ain’t you up yet … sucka?

Hey, Cracker.

What did you get?

What did you get?

GI Joe, Kung Fu Grip –

Neat.

New pair o’ skates. And Evel Knievel. His car crashes. Has a parachute.

I saw it on TV.

You should come over, brotha. Guess what my dad got?

What.

Brand-new Ski-Doo. Rips. Him and Spielman’s old man are taking us for rides.

Think I’ll just stay in. Play with my new stuff.

So what did you get?

Prismacolor pencils, set of sixty. Best kind. Huge big sketchbook, too. And The Anatomy Coloring Book.

Colouring book?

Anatomy colouring book. You colour the body. The inside. It’s dyno-mite.

Should come skidooing.

Maybe tomorrow.

Goin to Peterborough. Boxing Day.

Next day.

Maybe.

’Kay.

See ya, honky.

Jacob leaves the phone off the hook. Last year, Mum cried. And Dad grabbed the phone and said like a hiss Lissen to you, you daft bitch, into it on Christmas bloody mornin.

It’s just postcards now, with pictures of grizzly bears, or High River, but if Dad sees them first they get torn up and Jacob has to sneak the pieces out the garbage, put them back together.

– ark is very beautiful –

– ill love you and your fath –

Hard to square how she sounds in her writing now with back then. Screaming and teeth and nails. The ashtray zing by Jacob’s ear and smash against the wall. Are you out of your head, woman? I do no want this anymore. Then get the fuck gone with you – you hear me? – get the fuck gone with you.

Dear Mum,

How are you? I am fine.

That’s as far as Jacob gets usually. Son, have you any idea the size of the hole your mother left us in? Have you? And that’s what the paper looks like when Jacob tries a letter – a hole, and words just disappear down it.

But he turns to where he thinks west is and says Merry Christmas, Mum, from your son, Jacob.

After a lie-down Jacob wedges his pillow in the corner, sits with the sketchbook, the colouring book and the pencils stacked in his lap. Pops the clasp of the pencil case, slowly pushes the lid open.

Holy jumpin. Look at them all.

Blendable, water soluble, says the leaflet. Unique pure pigments. Ideal for the professional artist.

Jacob takes out a few pencils, twirls them between his fingers, holds them up to his nose. Whispers names of colours. Viridian Green. Cobalt Teal. Burnt Sienna. He wants to draw – Iron Man, crimson, gold, invincible. Cyclops and his crackling radioactive eyes. But then he remembers Dad’s eyes – See you put them to the use they’re made for – and sets the sketchbook aside. Tells himself he’ll colour one, just one bit. Heart starting to thump, he opens the book. Sees, eyes wide, a mouth spread like Hustler legs, with clips holding back the lips, baring the teeth and gums. The tongue, it looks alive.

Jacob swallows, turns pages. Cells. Muscle fibres. Nerves. The pelvic girdle.

A boy.

Half a boy. Dissected. His mouth, hanging open. Child, says the caption under him, of Uncertain Years. But he looks about eight or nine. And has the exact same hair.

Jacob looks away and says It’s just a picture. But he crawls into bed, curls like a busted C.

Down Sterling Road

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