Andrew O'Hagan - The Illuminations

never have chosen anyone else, even as the chill of the icebox softly caressed her hand.

ARIEL

Luke walked from the car and skipped over a puddle and smiled for no reason at the windows of the building. He looked along the seafront to where the prom disappeared into the thick of Ardrossan and took out a cigarette. The car ferry was halfway out and the seagulls wafted it on, before banking away like bombers and heading up to Largs. In the morning the coast always looked as if it was drying out, as if each town was in recovery from the bad weather and the night’s racket. Feeling for his lighter he found his wallet and took out the picture of 5 Platoon up against a wall at the barracks in Salisbury. The major’s eyes seemed fixed on something miles away.

It was the second time Luke had discovered Anne in the laundry room and this time she sat facing the machine with the suds splashing up on the glass. He stood at the door watching her and noticed a smile, the smile she had developed long ago, an expression that he couldn’t read. After a moment, she sighed. ‘I like to wash and iron a man’s shirt,’ she said.

‘That’s not very feminist,’ he joked.

She looked up. ‘I had a job in New York.’

Luke went over and put his hand on her shoulder. She held a box of Ariel washing capsules in her lap and something in her attitude suggested she understood how to cope around a washing machine. She took a tissue from her sleeve and rubbed her nose with it, then she turned it over and used the clean side to

wipe her eyes. Luke watched her and thought only an old person would do that. He would know he was getting old when he used both sides of a tissue. ‘You used to come here before the war,’ she said.

He paused.

‘I did. It’s your grandson, Luke.’

‘I know who you are. You’re the one with the flat in Glasgow and the uniform.’

‘You’re doing your washing.’

She inclined her head to look at him. ‘You’re the one with the imagination,’ she said. ‘A boy and a half. And why shouldn’t we take pictures of a pile of old dishes if that’s what we want to do?’

‘No reason,’ he said.

‘Exactly. There’s beauty in it …’

‘Yes.’

‘Art.’

‘I agree. There’s an art to telling the truth.’

‘That’s what the boys used to say — Harry and the boys. That was the style, I don’t mind telling you. Get out of the studio!’

‘Test your theories outside.’

‘I’ve met you before,’ she said. ‘And you’re quite right. No doubt about it. Go outside and see the people who have their hands in the sink.’

‘You’re talking about photography?’

‘Everyday things,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll tell you something,’ she said, tapping the box in her lap and sniffing. ‘When I lived up in Glasgow there was heaps of washing to be done. Heaps. I think there were a hundred rooms in that house and a hundred chests of drawers in every room. It was

a very big house. And I was quite young to be carrying all that washing up the stairs.’

‘You came from America.’

‘I came from Canada. Then America. Then Glasgow.’

‘Glasgow must have been some place in those days,’ he said. ‘Remember those Annan pictures we saw of the tenements?’

She paused to catch her thoughts. She smiled. ‘They were ghosts,’ she said, ‘those Annan kids.’

‘But you understood the pictures — the light.’

She turned and waved a playful finger. ‘So did you, Sonny Jim. That’s the darkroom for you. That’s why you’re number one.’

Luke had gathered from his mother and from the warden that they were going to move Anne out. They said she couldn’t manage any more and even the Memory Club wasn’t helping, though she still had bursts of clarity. It was time to place her in better care, they said, and Anne wasn’t really absorbing this information so they would be better just cracking on. There were a lot of things to box up. It was hard, too sad. The books and the photographic stuff would need a van to themselves. Luke was talking to the people in Canada about her photographs and various papers and they put him on to a person at McMaster University, a nice woman with an Irish name, who was going to be in charge of whatever they did.

‘I’m happy, Luke,’ Anne said. She just said it. He lowered his head and thought of Scullion and the boy in Bad Kichan, and he found himself exhaling slowly as he took Anne’s hand. When she said she was happy it gave him the final push he needed to announce the excursion and defend her against whatever doubts. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do,’ he said. ‘You and me. I’ve got a new car. We’re going to pack some things and go to Blackpool.

You always used to talk to me about it, remember, the lights and the trams and all that?’

‘Blackpool,’ she said.

‘We’re going to go and see the Illuminations.’

‘Nice, that. Will we take the train?’

Glasgow Central to Preston. And Harry would be waiting for me, if he could get away. Or it didn’t matter if you had to manage by yourself. Work is work. You wouldn’t believe the concentration. Masking is a technique whereby you hold back some of the light from one or two areas by placing a mask on the printing paper itself. It will affect the image you see and the reality you observe.

She asked again: ‘The train?’

‘I have a car,’ Luke said. ‘Now, listen. I’m going to work it all out and we’re going together. You and me.’

‘We’ll pack some things.’

‘We will so, Gran.’

‘We’ll pack some things and there’s always lots to do in Blackpool.’

Luke had phoned his mother. ‘There’s a flat,’ she said. ‘Part of a flat or a room, anyway, and you’ll find the number in her address book. She never wanted me to know about it. It’s hers, the flat. And it doesn’t matter any more. Just go. It’s a lovely idea.’

‘It’s tomorrow they’re coming, right?’ Luke asked.

‘Tomorrow, yes. Monday,’ said Alice.

‘We’ll go tomorrow, then.’

‘You want me to come along?’

‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘but just drive over here and help the cleaners once we’ve gone. I’ll spirit her away.’

‘All right,’ Alice said. ‘God bless.’

THE DIFFERENCE

Luke was sitting out by the exotic plants that everybody called the jungle. His gran was having a nap and he wanted to arrange things. He hadn’t spoken to Flannigan in a while and was out of touch with the boys and hadn’t said anything about his visit to Scullion in Birmingham. ‘So what about it, Flange?’ he said on the phone. ‘Do you think your fucken heap-of-shit car will make it out of Liverpool?’

‘What you doing?’

‘I’ll be in Blackpool.’

‘Don’t sweat it, lad. I’ll be zooming past all the horror-pigs on the road to get to the land of Kiss Me Quick. Just hit me up with the time and the place.’

They hadn’t talked about the tour or the tribunal or any of the stuff that was in the papers. It just wasn’t part of their training to pore over things. ‘Shit happens’ was the other motto, but, at the end of the call, the young private altered his tone and there was a pause.

‘What is it?’ Luke asked.

‘I dunno, man. Flashbacks. She said I woke up shouting in the night and like fucken crying and shit.’

‘And did you?’

‘I did, yeah. It was like I was losing my nut. My head just full of Scullion, man, the boss lying there ripped to fuck. Remember his eyes?’

‘Go on.’

‘Blood, sir. His eyes were full of blood. Fucken leg blown off and blood pouring down the fucker’s cheeks.’

‘Aye,’ Luke said. ‘It was messy.’

‘That’s the difference,’ Flannigan said. ‘You’re out. I’m nineteen. What the fuck am I going to do if I don’t have the army?’