Cath Staincliffe - Blink of an Eye

Someone passed a joint to Phil, who toked on it three times before offering me some. It was pure grass, seeds in it spitting as I took a long draw. I held the smoke in deep and passed the reefer on, resisting the reflex to cough. The buzz overlaid the loose, fuzzy feeling from the drinks and soon we were dancing. Not touching, but dancing. Maybe an hour later, we left. Outside it was dark, not cold. My ears were hissing from the music.

‘I’m not far, just down the road,’ Phil said. ‘Or I could walk you home.’

I didn’t usually go back with men I met on a first encounter. But I trusted Phil. He felt safe.

‘Whereabouts?’ I asked him.

‘Just on Platt Lane.’

We meandered along. I was still walking when he called, ‘Hey, Carmel.’

I swung back; he had halted outside a building.

‘You live in a shop?’

‘Upstairs.’

I read the sign Rock Records , saw the display of record sleeves (several I owned: Elvis Costello, the Clash, the Slits, X-Ray Spex) and the top twenty record charts through the grille over the window. There were other notices there: Musical accessories sold here and Blank tapes best prices.

‘Who has downstairs?’

‘Me.’ He smiled; he had a dimple, just one on the left, and a chipped front tooth.

‘No, really?’

‘True.’

I stared at him. It seemed so grown-up.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Brilliant!’ I said.

We had to go through the shop to reach the flat. He was careful about locking up; there were bolts and padlocks all over the place. ‘Got robbed three times last year,’ he said, flipping the lights on.

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Four years, started when I left school.’

‘Do you make enough to live on?’

‘Long as I can bum cigs off someone like you,’ he joked.

He did all sorts to get by: sold records and cassette tapes, as well as accessories for guitars and drums and percussion. He had a PA to hire out for small events. And decks, too. Then there were the gigs the Blaggards played, though they probably spent more on drugs and alcohol at those than they ever got paid.

‘This way.’ He took me up the stairs at the back, rickety wooden steps, no carpet. Posters on the walls covering up the mottled paint: Iggy Pop, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Che Guevara, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid .

At the top of the stairs there was a bathroom and the narrow hallway doubled back leading to two rooms: a kitchen/diner at the back and a bedroom-cum-living-room at the front. There were records everywhere, music papers and piles of books. The place was messy but not dirty. Not damp like mine.

I felt suddenly shy seeing his bed, a mattress on the floor covered in a brightly patterned blanket. And wondered where to sit, what to say.

‘Tea?’ he offered.

I agreed, and he put a tape on and left me. The music was lovers’ rock, similar to the stuff on the sound system at the shebeen. The sofa looked like an antique, an enormous squashy pile of red velvet that I fell back into.

He brought mugs and a plate of biscuits, then bummed another cigarette off me and skinned up. We smoked it, finished the tea. We still hadn’t touched. Was I reading the situation wrong? Only one way to find out. ‘You want to dance?’ I said.

He stood up, reached out a hand and pulled me up. Long, bony fingers, nicotine stains. His hand was cool and dry. He pulled me close so my breasts and belly were pressed against him, angled his hips so there was pressure there. Bump and grind. I closed my eyes, the music swirling through me, passion growing.

As the track faded out, he stopped moving and I opened my eyes. He had a warm, sleepy look on his face and nudged closer to me. We were kissing, slow-kissing, tasting of tea and tobacco and dope. He gave a little groan and broke it off. But I pulled him back, kissed him hard and started to take his clothes off.

He woke me at one-thirty the following afternoon with tea and fried-egg sandwiches, and the Sunday papers. We ate and swapped sections of the newspaper. He started the cryptic crossword, something I never even attempted.

He talked to me about my course and what I was going to do next. ‘Apply for jobs, go wherever I can get something.’ A pang as I said it, thinking that this might just last a few weeks then.

We watched a black-and-white western on television. His reception was rubbish; the picture kept fizzing over. We got high again using my last cigarette and made love.

I had to go. I’d still more to do on my dissertation and I hadn’t been to the launderette yet, either. One of the few places open on a Sunday in Manchester.

Would I see him again? Would he say anything? Did he like me as much as I liked him?

‘You busy Friday?’ he said as I laced up my shoes.

‘No.’ A spurt of pleasure, warm inside.

‘There’s a do on, the West Indian centre. Go for a curry first?’

‘What time?’ Feeling giddy.

‘’Bout eight.’ He named one of the curry houses. He offered to walk me home then, but I said there was no need.

We kissed outside the shop.

It was sunny, sunny and warm. The streets were busy with people going to the park opposite. I grinned all the way home. It could have been hailing stones and hurling lightning. I wouldn’t have minded.

By summer, I’d moved in.

Wandering into the kitchen, I saw the little girl’s photograph on the front of the paper, dark hair in plaits, a plump face, chubby arms. Dumpy. Overweight. Sucked in the accompanying headline – TRAGIC GIRL ROAD DEATH – before I had a chance to censor myself. Felt a rush of heat, of nausea as I understood what I was looking at. ‘What on earth did you buy that for?’ I rounded on Phil.

‘Don’t you want to know what they’re saying about it?’ he said, sounding puzzled, a little irate.

I gave a laugh. ‘No, obviously not.’ Perhaps she was wobbling on that bike, lost her balance, veered too close. My mind whispering things I’d not dare to voice aloud. Sneaky things. She was wearing a polo shirt; a school photo, perhaps. An uncertainty in the smile.

I moved to go and he caught my wrist. ‘Carmel, we don’t deal with this by pretending it’s not happening. By sticking our heads in the sand.’

‘So we rub our noses in it?’ My voice broke. ‘I can’t…’

‘We can’t help Naomi if we’re ignorant, blinkered.’

I looked at him, his frank blue eyes, his beard already growing in. I closed my eyes, wanting to be blinkered; more than that, wanting to be blind and deaf and dumb to all of it.

He hugged me and we stood like that, the heat of him warming through me, his hand moving to stroke my head.

He was right, I knew it intellectually, but my heart was lagging behind, my instincts were off kilter. At work, with any other family, I’d have been saying something similar: face the facts, accept the truth, only then can you act on the situation. Gather all the relevant information, analyse, understand, develop a strategy, a plan.

‘I’ll read it,’ I said quietly. ‘I’d rather not have an audience, though.’

‘Hey,’ he said softly, ‘you sure about that?’

Why was he so fucking understanding? Tears burned at the back of my eyes. I nodded miserably.

When he left the room, I made a cup of tea and sat down at the table. Pulled the newspaper close. Stared at the photo again. Was it recent? Must be. Had she turned nine by then? The smile was small, slightly false, no teeth showing.

I steeled myself to read the article, aware of all the questions crowding in my head, insistent and intrusive: was she the eldest, the youngest, what was her family like, what was her name, where had she been going on her bike, who broke the news to her mother?