Fiona McFarlane - The High Places - Stories

‘So, James,’ says Greg, kicking affectionately at his brother, ‘what do you want for Christmas?’

‘A new china cabinet.’

Greg laughs. He has a spooky laugh, man-sized, though he’s not a man. James’s face gets the look it does when he’s made Greg laugh: happy and speculative. There’s always the risk that Greg will stop.

‘Get up here,’ Greg says. ‘I’m Santa.’

James sits on Greg’s knee.

‘Hey,’ calls Tony, halfway up the escalator, ‘this tree’s so big you could sit in it.’

* * *

Glenda makes a call to Bev Wolfson. The rain stops while she dials. Bev says, ‘Glenda! Come for a drink. The boys are probably in the yard. They’ll be among the hordes. Why don’t you come over? Bring Phil.’

Bev’s talking so loud I can hear her. I shake my head at Glenda and Glenda shakes her head into the phone.

‘Do you mind checking, just quickly?’ Glenda asks.

* * *

Where’s Tony’s brother at this moment? Checking out a noise in a loading bay? He may have a walkie-talkie somewhere in his zip-up jacket. The smoke from his cigarette is going up up up.

‘What about you?’ says James. ‘What do you want for Christmas?’

‘I’ve got a list,’ Greg answers. ‘I’ve sent it already.’

This concerns James. He knows, in a solemn and informed way, that Santa Claus isn’t real. He assumes Greg knows this too, but now he isn’t sure. He looks up to the second-floor mezzanine, where a diminished Tony is circling the tree like a compact angel, inspecting it from all directions.

‘Who’d you send your list to?’ James asks.

‘To Grandma and Pop. Who else? They give the best stuff.’

James knows this — we all know this. Even Glenda has buckled under the pressure.

‘Mum and Dad give good stuff,’ says James.

Greg says, ‘Mmm.’ Then he says, ‘It’s all educational.’

Maybe Tony’s brother is right there, thinking about Christmas, the nuts and candles and bad wine, the old people who knew you when they were young. He leans against the stage, removes his jacket, places his walkie-talkie beside him. Tony has finally found himself the perfect position: a bench, the balcony rail, a small step into the tree. He yells down to them, his voice echoing and enormous.

‘I could get into it from here,’ he says. ‘Think it’s stable?’

* * *

Bev hurries in from the yard — imagine her agile steps among the plants.

‘The boys aren’t here,’ she says, and she reports James’s bike. There’s a small moment when you begin to wonder, and in the middle of it, you remain calm.

Glenda finds more phone numbers — the Barters’, the Carrs’. I say I’ll take a drive.

* * *

‘It’s not all educational,’ says James. But he’s scanning through a mental list of every gift we’ve ever given him, and it’s true that there’s always an agenda: Keep quiet! Learn to read! Hand-eye coordination! Ancient cultures!

By now Tony is in the tree. Who but a kid like Tony would think to climb into that tree? He just stepped right into the middle of it — I’ve seen him on the CCTV tape, quiet and at a distance. Tony slightly fuzzy in black and white, stepping into the tree like a chunky Chaplin, slapstick and crazy. He’s got nineteen seconds and he lets out what I’d call a whoop. Some kind of sound that has to do with height and secrecy and finding things out; with disobedience, with being in space — the new view, the absurdity of it. He pockets a bauble, like a thief or a bird, and he’s both, making a place in the tree, rearranging it, shifting things round up there. Tony’s got it — he’s riding that tree, he’s found his footing. What a feeling to be in the middle of all that, a kid like Tony looking around, looking down.

The tree shakes a little, unhappy, like something in a fairy tale waking up.

* * *

I’m driving slowly with my window down, watching pedestrians and making people uncomfortable. Everyone’s out after the rain, walking on the wet grass, following dogs, peering into flower beds. The birds are crazy with the late sun. The houses are transparent and available, curtains open for early Christmas trees, back doors visible through front doors, and pieces of smoke-filled garden. In each house, someone is on the phone. You can hear their phone voices in the street, and it’s as if Glenda has called every one of them, all at the same time. There are small boys kicking soccer balls across yellow front lawns. There are boys climbing trees to retrieve lost objects, and boys at windows pressing their open mouths against cool glass. I wonder when this place got to be so wholesomely full of childhood. None of the boys look like James or Greg, not even for a hopeful moment.

I go through the Hughes Road roundabout twice. The shopping centre rises out of exit ramps and bright banners and the kind of low bushes that can withstand drought and exhaust fumes. There are barriers over all the entrances. In my head, I compose a list of the things I need to buy there tomorrow: a new belt, bulk laundry liquid, stamps. I’ll take the boys for a milkshake before we go to the hardware store. I keep floating the car through our avenues and drives and boulevards and crescents until the streetlights turn on. They say: Nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about.

So does Tony. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

Then the tree comes down.

* * *

It takes forty seconds, at least, for the tree to fall, and for Tony to fall with it, and for the shaking of the knotted branches to subside. The tree settles against the stage and the tiled floor and the columns wrapped with holly leaves — once this settling has taken place, the tree has fallen. It has fallen in two pieces but the star that sat on top of it is hanging in midair, held by an invisible cord, three floors up and circling like a disco ball. There are gold-coloured globes rolling across the floor, speeding down the slope that accelerates shopping trolleys toward the car park. The tinsel and the fake pine needles rustle in a peculiar way, windblown and floor-stunned. The tree is so fake it smells like Christmas, like plastic ribbon and shopping bags and wrapping foil. If you look closely at the branches you can see the way the short brown fronds have been woven into long green ones to replicate the look of a real pine tree just past its perfectly green prime. You can see the way plastic pine cones grow out of the branches like natural accidents.

The tree covers the children. Viewed from above, with the security camera’s eyes, they’re completely hidden.

Here’s Tony’s brother. He’s been hired for a reason: he’s unafraid, highly trained, possibly armed. He knows first aid, and I mean really knows it. He’s assisted more than one old-aged pensioner overwhelmed by the size of the shopping centre. Apparently, this is how he spends his day shifts: crouching next to old men as they lie with their heads on his folded zip-up jacket, waiting for their children to arrive. This is the kind of information you can pick up about a person.

Here’s Tony’s brother finding Tony in the branches. Tony isn’t moving.

Where are Tony’s parents at this moment? Their names are Aldo and Lara. We know them in the abbreviated way that comes of having children in the same year at school. Tony and Greg haven’t been friends for long, so we haven’t yet memorised the angle at which you must back out of their driveway or the smells that emanate from their house just before dinner. Maybe they’re at the supermarket buying steak or oranges. Maybe they’re taking advantage of Tony’s absence and having sex; maybe they’re too tired for sex. Maybe Lara is showering while Aldo walks the dog. Whatever they’re doing, they’re intact.

But Tony, at this moment, isn’t moving. He’s managed, somehow, to keep his grip on the tree’s thick trunk, but his hands are held there by twisted wires and his back against another branch is bent too far. His brother knows not to move him. He’s trained for this, or a version of this. But Tony is his brother.