Читать книгу The Shock of the Fall - Nathan Filer, Nathan Filer - Страница 20

I didn’t describe the special handshake I do with Dad.

When we became amis we decided on a handshake. I think I’ve mentioned it already, but I didn’t say how it goes. It’s a special handshake, not a secret handshake. So I can tell you.

What we do is reach out with our left hands and link our fingers, then we touch the tips of our thumbs together. We must have done this thousands of times.

I haven’t counted.

Each special handshake takes a brief second, but if each one was placed end to end they would stretch for hours.

If somebody took a photograph every time, at the precise moment our thumbs touch, and viewed the photographs in a flip book, it would make a time-lapse film – like you get on wildlife programmes to see plants grow, or weeds creeping across a forest floor.

The film begins with a five-year-old boy, on holiday with his family in France. He’s been trying to delay bedtime by talking to his dad about the hermit crab they caught in the rock pool. The handshake was his dad’s idea. Their thumbs touch, and the camera clicks. In the background, on the hotel balcony, the boy’s Mum and older brother look on. They reveal a hint of pride, and jealousy.

Day and night flash in a strobe, seasons collide, clouds explode, candles melt onto icing sugar, a wreath rots way. The boy and his dad rush through time, thumbs pressed together.

The boy grows like a weed.

And in every moment is a world unseen – beyond balconies, outside of memory, far from the reach of understanding.

I can only describe reality as I know it. I’m doing my best, and promise to keep trying. Shake on it.