James Hannah - The A to Z of You and Me

There’s a lot of pacing going on out there. No one’s staying anywhere for long.

Slow figures drift past my doorway, closing in on Old Faithful.

Slow spirits.

Come to take her away.

Tender noises from next door.

Gentle huff. Pause.

Gentle huff from Old Faithful. Periodically pausing.

Her own heart, slowing.

I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here for this.

Hands

Yes, there again, my dad’s hands, kneading and rubbing my calf to work out the cramp.

Or walking to school with Laura–

‘Mum said you had to hold my hand over the road.’

‘Hold your own hand,’ she says, callously.

Oh. I’m on my own.

I don’t know why, but I flush hot and feel empty in my tummy, and a surge of hot tears boils up. I try to fight them back, I do. I don’t want her to think I’m getting in the way. I know she doesn’t want to because she wants to look good in front of Danny Refoy and his mates. But Mum said . This is what she said we had to do.

The thunder in her glare as she snatches up my hand and drags me across the road.

You took my hand for the first time after our second date — our first proper date after your Easter trip back to the Lakes — walking away from the Blue Plate Café.

I looked down at you, questioningly.

‘What?’ you said, holding up my hand. ‘You weren’t using it, were you?’

‘No, no, be my guest.’

All that anxiety about whether it had gone well, about whether we might kiss — gone. I kissed you on to your bus back to your digs.

I didn’t want to let go, once you’d set the seal.

I waited too. While the engine idled and the driver checked his watch, I waited, and when he finally hissed the door shut and pulled away, I waved you out of sight.

Then I floated off into town to meet Mal.

Was this love?

It felt like love.

The kazoo next door pauses, stays paused. One more murmur from beyond: ‘Do you think that’s it?’

And the kazoo begins again.

No more murmur. It was not it.

Hands, hands.

Your hand in mine.

My hand in yours.

Our hands.

So lovely, so simple to be able to take ownership of someone’s hand.

Palms pulsing together.

‘Have you noticed,’ I say, ‘you’re normally the one who says “I love you” first? Then I say it.’

‘I hadn’t noticed.’

‘I never think the second means as much.’

‘So I’m winning, would you say?’

‘It doesn’t mean I’m not thinking it. I always feel a bit defeated when I have to follow up with “I love you too”. It’s like the sequel to a film: I Love You and I Love You Too. You know the second one’s always going to be a predictable reworking of the first.’

You laugh. ‘Well,’ you say, ‘it’s just like this noise that drops out of my mouth. Sometimes I think it’s down to things as simple as luh-luh being nice to say. You say luh-luh, and it feels nice with your tongue and it creates a resonance in your head that feels nice. Nice vibration. And that’s got to be a good thing.’

‘Bluh blah bloo.’

‘Yeah! Exactly that. Bluh blah bloo.’

‘Bluh blah bloo too.’

And the kazoo pauses once more.

Silence.

Soft breathing of the fans of the machines fills in the emptiness.

And that’s it.

No more from Old Faithful.

And still no more.

And still.

Heart still.

I hear a strangled sniff, a man’s voice. Mr Old Faithful.

Newborn widower.

The coffee machine rasps into life once more, works up through its steady crescendo of warming the water, reaches its peak and ceases.

And Amber. Amber must be out there too.

Mumless.

Muttering now from next door. Mr Old Faithful, I think, and Sheila. Sheila’s tones sound kind and concise. A nurse I’ve not seen before emerges, and then Sheila herself appears, leading Mr Old Faithful and Amber too. None of them looks in, but they walk past my doorway and troop into a room across the corridor. Its door clicks rudely shut.

It’s just me out here now.

Me and Old Faithful, on either side of the partition.

The lately living and the due-to-be-dead.

I’m here.

I’m still here.

I’m still awake.

I’m thinking nothing.

What is there to think?

The latch sounds again, and the door draws open. Sheila passes my doorway and disappears into Old Faithful’s room once more.

She speaks, softly but clearly, and I can make out her words. ‘Hello, lovey,’ she says. ‘I’m going to take your wedding ring now, OK? Just going to give it to your husband for safe-keeping. I’ll be as gentle as I can.’

There is no response.

’Til death us do part.

There it is.

Love ends at death.

Does it?

Heart

‘Why do you think people link love to their hearts?’ I say.

You look up at me in the orange streetlight, push your hair inaccurately back from your face with your mitten. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Or, like, why is your head supposed to be so sensible?’

‘Mm. I don’t know. Come on, let’s tie a few of these to the bike rack.’

I reach into the bag and try once again through my gloves to untangle one of the crochet hearts.

You’ve plunged into the activity as usual, mittens off and gleeful. I don’t know how you do it. How can you stay so buoyant when it’s so insanely cold?

I’ve got to say, it’s only reluctantly that I draw my gloves off too, and immediately I can’t feel my fingers. I take up the heart and begin to tie its two specially loosened threads around the nearest part of the bike rack. By the time I’ve finished one, you’ve tied on five, and we both step back and admire our handiwork.

‘They are having an impact, aren’t they?’ you say, anxiously.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘They look great.’

They do, they do. I thrust my hands rapidly back into my gloves.

‘I was worried they’d be a bit small and look a bit random, but they’re just right. They look like they’ve been thought about.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Come on, let’s finish this off and head over to the churchyard. Almost halfway done.’

Almost half? I look down into the jute bag, which now holds about thirty crochet hearts. My own heart sinks. It’s as much as I can do to prevent a childish whimper escaping my throat.

Come on, come on. I want a new response. I just — I need a response that’s going to help you finish this.

‘Hey, come on,’ I hear myself saying. ‘Let’s go over to King’s Walk. There’s a tree on the corner that looks out over the whole town. Let’s hang a bunch in the branches, I think they’ll look great.’

There. I’ve launched those ambitious words into the air between us to convince myself as much as you. The hug you give me as we set off is return enough.

‘Hey,’ you say, ‘then we could go back and have pancakes for breakfast, couldn’t we? I’ll make you pancakes for being my amazing helper.’

‘With bacon and maple syrup?’

As we make our way along King’s Walk, the sun splits the horizon, and strikes the landscape through with a clean clear light.

Come on now, come on, I wouldn’t be seeing this view on any other day. It’s almost worth the cold, and there is satisfaction to be had from hard work. It’s not all lying back and letting it all come to you, like so many bacon-and-maple-syrup pancakes.