Jonathan Lee - High Dive

On the bed she was trying to decide if it was worse at this stage to risk being called a slut or risk being called a tease. She wished there was some safe position in between those two bald judgements where a person could simply be. The carpet was covered with her clothes, bags. There were water glasses everywhere, each in a different stage of fullness. She had tidied the room this afternoon. This counted to her mind as tidy.

His chest was broad and smooth. The elastic waistband of his boxer shorts left a pink line of pressure on his hips. His tan-line ran just below. He kissed her breasts. He pressed himself against her thigh. He was more handsome with his clothes off than he’d ever been with them on. This probably couldn’t be said of most people. It stood in his favour. So did the volume of other girls who fancied him. She needed someone to need her. She didn’t want to dwell on the vast unoriginality of that. It was nice to feel swept up into someone else’s concentration. She had a sense that she’d been trying to stay away from mistakes, and that it might be better to let them occur.

The best part of the evening was lying in bed with him, watching her little black-and-white TV, their bodies almost touching. He seemed fine with the fact she didn’t want to go the whole way. He had produced a condom in case it was needed, and the only passive-aggressive thing he’d done after that was to unwrap it and keep it nearby. He didn’t try and twiddle her nipples. She was grateful for that. The unused condom lay there now on her yellow bed sheets, in the thin light of the TV screen, like a dead jellyfish, or a scrap of litter, or a length of sun-bleached seaweed — something the sea had coughed up in the night for beach walkers and dogs to behold.

FROM THE BACK garden came the sound of splintering wood. Ancient Jones had hired someone to rip down his fence. He wanted it replaced with a tall stone wall and had ignored Dan’s offer of help, and also his advice about planning permission. So many of Belfast’s elderly saw no profit in the concept of compliance. A wall was a wall and if they needed one they’d have one.

‘We got another threat,’ he said.

His mother was reading a book entitled The Complete Encyclopedia of Practical Palmistry . On a side table a plate of toast crumbs was positioned on a copy of IRIS magazine. ‘No no,’ she said.

‘We did, Ma. In the night. You know we did.’

‘I know nothing. I’m a washerwoman.’

‘Letter box went. A note.’

Her empty gaze floated up over the spine of the book. ‘You’ll give yourself a headache, Dan.’

‘A headache’s the least of our worries.’

She sighed. ‘It’s a mystery, is what it is. Mystery’s all there is. People like making their threats. It’s the same as the ideas about emigrating. They enjoy — Kathy’s your example — talking up these ideas of emigrating to Australia, to all sorts, a load of made-up places.’

‘Australia’s as real as Ireland, Ma.’

‘Like hell it is. Didgeri-bloody-doo.’

‘Some really do emigrate.’

‘And others don’t.’

‘You’ll play the percentages, is that it?’

With her slippered foot she nudged at a mug on the floor. ‘Will we go again?’

‘Not for me.’

‘Go on now, wet the tea if we’ll talk.’

‘I’ve no thirst,’ he said.

She yawned and put the book down. Spit sparkled on her dentures. Her chair had been in a different position yesterday, a yard or two closer to the lamp. She was always moving tables and chairs around the living room, repositioning the footstool and the porcelain, half killing herself with the effort. The optimum layout eluded her. He was not sure if she had a notion of perfection in mind, or if she simply liked the feeling of not-quite.

He was correct to tell her about the letters and phone calls. He judged that something could happen soon. There’d been dog shit through the letter box on Tuesday and again on Wednesday and if things were about to get worse she needed to know. There was the bomb too, due to go off in about forty hours — assuming this, assuming that. The bomb: an implausible afterthought. But it was the afterthoughts that tired you out, arriving as they did on top of your ordinary worries. No one would suspect him of being involved, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be recriminations for the community.

He’d held his mother’s bony shoulders yesterday and tried to emphasise that the risk of burnout now was high. And what had she said, lifting his dad’s golf club half an inch off the ground? ‘I’ve got the five iron to protect me.’

It was almost funny. Acceptance, acquiescence: for a woman like his mother these were hitches in the swing.

He pulled the letter out of his pocket and read from it. ‘ Burn you Fenian cunts . More or less plain, Ma? More or less blunt?’

‘I saw it on the kitchen table.’

‘Good.’

‘I’ve read and understood the thing.’

‘And?’

‘I thought it could’ve done with a comma.’

‘This house, gone. The value, gone. I’m not sure you get it. The memories.’

With the word ‘memories’ he saw her expression harden. She pitched herself forward, shaky, refusing his help, the golf club taking her weight. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘Is that …?’ She was eyeing the patio doors, her shoulders rolled, a twitching in her hands.

‘What?’ he said.

‘No,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he said.

She was contemplating, probably, her own reflection in the glass. Reality sinking in.

‘Jesus,’ she repeated. ‘No, no. I really think it is. Can it be? You’ve stirred it up, Dan. We’re in all kinds of hell now. King of over-kings.’

‘What?’

‘God save us.’

‘Ma?’

‘Jesus Mary Joseph. We’ve no control, none.’

She instructed him to open the patio doors. Seeing the mad voltage in her eyes he obeyed. He followed her outside. Chimneys were ranged against a pewter sky. A magpie was marching mutely along a length of rain-bright guttering.

‘What are you on about?’

She shook her head and leaned on the five iron. ‘Knotweed.’

‘Not what?’

‘Weed! That’s what this is, Dan! The stuff you’ve been saying is bamboo! It’s Japanese knotweed is what it is. I’m only now seeing this clearly.’

What was she telling him? How should he read her? He tried to shut out the sounds of the fence coming down next door.

‘This is the worst thing that could be happening to us, Dan. The McCluskeys have had a terrible time with the stuff. Terrible. They couldn’t remortgage! And forget selling. Forget it. With this, forget it all .’ She looked one way and then the next. Raised a weathered hand and let it fall.

‘We’re talking about the threats, or what?’

‘Knotweed! Against the fence! You stirred it up with your whipping.’

‘But —’

‘This is the worst thing, Dan. The worst. This’ll cost us what we’ve got.’

There was actual foam in the corners of her mouth. The worst thing. A weed. Did she really believe it to be true? He felt he was witnessing the culmination of some strange process. She’d been drifting day by day away from the woman she used to be, and now she was deep in some other realm, bobbing on illogical waters, utterly beyond the reach of reason. Her mouth was trembling. She was whispering ‘knotweed’ over and over, different shifts of emphasis, forming it into questions, exclamations, prayers, protestations. Last night’s rainwater sang in the downpipe. He heard it in gaps between the destruction next door. What the fuck did weeds have to do with mortgages, with moving her somewhere safe? He asked her. She didn’t answer. What did Japan have to do with Ireland? Knots? Weeds? The McCluskeys? She was mumbling, pacing, conversing only with herself. He laid out each constituent piece of the puzzle but could not make a picture emerge.