Саймон Ингс - The Smoke

Well. It must have been something I said. Because all of a sudden this dream, or vision, or whatever you would call it: it is done with me. It spits me out and

(0) here I am again, among the toppled props of DARE . I hunker down beside you, squatting over a tank of brackish water, and lying on the bottom, the plastic model of a futuristic TV submarine.

It is not often I am at a loss for words. But if this transformed Fel is representative of what the Bund is becoming, I reckon I had better get used to this dumbfounded feeling. Logic dictates that there must always be a greater and a lesser than oneself, but Jesus, how did Fel do all that? How was she even here, never mind in that slippy, big/small form? And how did she leave that inside you? That dream? That room? That world?

It’s no good; even if I wanted to, I couldn’t rip her gift out of you. It’s indelible; it’s practically somatic. If you ever do have kids, they’ll probably end up dreaming that very dream themselves.

‘What are you talking about?’

It takes me a moment, bowled over as I am by what’s just happened, to realise that you are speaking. Ah, so you are awake! And staring at me, what’s more, as though I was the phenomenon that needed explaining! (What a joke.)

‘What?’

My God, you remember none of it, do you?

‘Do you want something?’

Not Fel in your arms. Not her mouth against yours. Not her heat in the bed. Not the room. Not the Moon. Not the music. None of it. Poor purblind boy, kneeling there, quite unaware that there are Gods going to war over you!

I imagine you will never really know her gift is there inside you. I imagine it will only ever visit you in dreams. I imagine that is why it is there: to sustain you. To remind you that the world is bigger than you are, and that love is possible.

For that gift to make you conscious of what you lost – no, that would be too cruel.

‘What do you want?’

You cannot see how much people love you, can you? (Echoes of you and your mother, there.)

All right, then. One second. Deep breath. Regroup. Set Fel aside, and all these latest miracles: why am I here?

Oh yes. Idiot. Why do you think I’m here? I thought your silly life needed saving.

We stand and move away from the tank. I back off. For a while, we watch each other. It is not a hostile moment. Eventually you buck up the courage to approach me. I’m short enough that you can look down on the top of my head. I’m going a little bald, do you see?

Now listen: if I were you – best guess – don’t worry too much about your Aunt Stella. She’s well underground where she is, and art centres will not be among the Bund’s primary targets. Your instincts are right: look after your dad.

‘You can talk.’

No, I can’t. Look closely. My mouth is simply hanging open in a parody of speech. Is my mouth moving? It is not.

You gesture at me, then at your own neck. ‘Do you want me to remove that thing?’

Well. I run a finger around my collar. Obviously not.

I realise this probably seems a bit trivial to you right now, but the grease is working its way through that paper bag of yours at quite a rate. In fact, I reckon it’s going to tear any second – and I could kill for a sausage roll.

‘Oh.’ You open the bag and pull out a pastry and, timidly, remembering perhaps Wilkes’s savaged face, you throw it at my feet.

Charming.

‘What?’

Is this your idea of a serving suggestion?

‘Sorry.’

But what the hell. I pick the roll up with my foot and, standing on one leg, lift it from my foot to my opposing hand to my mouth, into which the roll disappears in a single gulp.

‘ Taaaaaaa. ’

(This much a chickie can vocalise.)

I have something for you, too. Since one good turn should always beget another.

Hold out your hands.

There.

It is a dolly.

Not much, by today’s standards. Not much, compared to a selkie’s gift of sustaining dreams. (And do I feel upstaged by Fel? I surely do. And does it rankle? Yes, it bloody does!)

But here: it is your dolly. I have refreshed it. I have cleaned and mended it. I have slipped ribbons through the torso at points to create the suggestion of arms, pressed to the sides of the figure as though it were standing at attention, like a soldier. Do you like it?

Really?

Your tears say you do, and this is good.

Now. Take my hand. That’s it. And let’s see if you can get it right this time.

‘I knew you loved me,’ you begin. The words are hard. The words are inadequate. Never mind. You are saying something, finally (and anyway, I can read your heart).

‘I knew you loved me. I knew you meant the dolly for me. That it was a present. A love token? Is love even the right word?’

Yes. Love is the right word.

‘I was so young. I didn’t understand. If I ever could have understood. If I understand even now. What chickies seem to mean by love: it is so strange. Abject and—’

Go on. I can take it.

‘Your love is terrible, somehow.’

There. Yes. You’ve understood something. It is.

‘Funny and horrific and savage and self-destructive, all at once.’

Yes. Terrible. Terrible.

‘Too much for me. I was afraid of it. Ashamed of it. And I so wanted to be like James. And James so wanted to be like his friends. And his friends so wanted to be like… I don’t know. Like men they’d heard of, tough men, army men, maybe not real men at all, just the stories of men. Images of men. Men on a poster somewhere, or in the lyrics of a barracks-room song. So yes, I led them to that place on the moors. Where I found your doll. That earthen table. That knoll. Beered up and staggering, but I knew what it was. Those concealed holes. Your warren. I knew you were there. I brought them to that place, your home, so we could all be men together, rough and violent and to hell with the consequences. And, yes, it was me who struck the first match.’

There.

‘It was me.’

Yes. It was you.

‘Are you satisfied?’

Satisfied?

‘Is this what you want? To hear that I’m sorry?’

Well—

‘Is this why you haunt me? Oh, I know you. I see you. When you go, I forget. Then I see you again, and I remember. And I am so tired of it all. The game. A mouse being played with by a cat. That’s what I am. And I am so very tired.’

Poor love.

‘And I am sorry. I am sorry for what I did. But what difference does that make? My being sorry?’

Difference?

‘The match has never gone out. Has it? You’ve never let it go out. Have you? Now I understand. Smoke over the valley. The dolly always in my hand. You’ll never let me go. You never will.’

Shush.

‘You never will!’

I never will. But you don’t understand.

‘Please—’

Shush. Can’t you understand even now?

Yes. Calm down. That’s right.

Now. Look at me. Really look at me. My long, tiny teeth; my narrow tongue, working the crevices between them; my wide thighs and knock-knees and big feet. My outsize ears and enormous black eyes.

Can you not see? Can you still not see?

Can you not see how much I love you?

Your skin in the light, that day on the moors. So fresh. So young. That tiny little mind of yours, still growing. So serious and so uncomplicated. And so I fell in love with you. I fell in love with you the moment I saw you. I have never stopped loving you. Even in the moment you lit that match, I loved you. Yes. That’s how terrible it is, my love.

So please. Just once. Hold me.

There.

Your lips on the top of my head.

Oh, my darling! Oh, my monster! Oh, my man!