Lee Rourke - Vulgar Things

‘You have a large family …’

‘No … Not really, I don’t know where my mother is and … well, my father, Rey’s brother, died some time ago now. They didn’t have the best of relationships, you know …’

‘I’m sorry to hear …’

‘You see, this is the thing … Vulgar Things … his book … Well, I think it has something to do with, it’s about my father.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s just something about it … Not like he’s apologising, but more like he’s offering an alternative, a different narrative of the same thing …’

‘Thing? I’m not sure I follow …’

‘That’s just it … I haven’t worked out what that thing is yet, I just sense that it has something to do with my father.’

‘Jon, you have to concentrate on the job at hand … Clearing away his belongings … This place …’

‘The island?’

‘Yes, this place … It’s a strange place, it entraps people, it can do funny things to people’s minds … It’s such an odd place … You’d be best leaving as soon as you’re finished, don’t hang around here … get back to where you belong … I mean you well, I like you, you’re always welcome here. Just don’t get too involved with this place …’

‘I’m trying not to, thanks for the advice.’

Silence suddenly falls between us. I take sips from my Bloody Mary. It’s just what I need. We remain sitting at the bar, staring at the optics in front of us, allowing the silence to consume us. I’m in two minds: a) stay at the caravan to finish what I have to do, or b) head back into Southend as soon as I’m feeling better, back to Toledo Road. I quickly decide on neither option: I’ll wait until the evening to go back into Southend. I’ll finally check out the Sunset Bar, where I know Laura works. Maybe she’ll be able to talk to me there, away from the flat and those men. I turn to Mr Buchanan once my mind is set.

‘Mr … Robbie … Are you serving food?’

‘Yes, we are …’

‘Could I have the biggest fry-up your chef can muster? I’ll pay extra …’

‘Of course …’

‘With a pot of tea?’

‘Sure …’

‘I’m famished.’

cliché

I stay in the Lobster Smack for a good few hours, well after finishing my fry-up — which was good — and Mr Buchanan has left the pub for a ‘meeting’ in Leigh-on-Sea. I drink peppery tea and a couple more Bloody Marys while reading the newspapers. I’m feeling better. The pub has filled up somewhat and I bathe in the general brouhaha. The talk is football and recession, and something about a man who’s renovated a Thames sailing barge that got caught on the rocks near the jetty. A couple of locals try to strike up conversations with me, now that they’ve seen me in here a few times, but I’m not really in the mood, so I ignore them. Instead I think up ways in which I can make Laura mine, but they all seem idiotic, the thoughts of a man who’s lost the plot, but something in me seems to resist the feeling of humiliation that goes with such thoughts and I continue to scheme and to run through imaginary scenarios: I’d take Laura on my arm and lead her away from Southend for good.

I know my behaviour is a cliché, but I don’t care, something that doesn’t surprise me any more. None of it matters, by which I mean everything else other than Laura and me. Even Uncle Rey’s manuscript fades from my mind as Laura takes over again: the desire to be with her, for her to look at me the way she did the first time I set eyes on her. I need her in my life, in whatever manifestation — even another fleeting glimpse of her, if that’s all I’m offered. For her just to walk into this pub now. I’d die happy on the spot if she did that.

the underworld

The rain is pouring. I sit on the train to Southend clutching my stick, my pockets stuffed with twenty-pound notes, maybe about three hundred pounds in total, maybe a bit more. I must have gone to the cash point but I can’t remember. In my rucksack is the chapter from Uncle Rey’s manuscript, ‘The Underworld’. The air inside the carriage is stuffy. I pull out the manuscript from my bag and begin to read.

The Underworld

It was a duty call, really, a way of paying my respects, when death hits you, it forces you to reconsider things, I guess thats why i went, but its never easy, people warned me along the way, like they always do, people like that, id already found the ring he’d given me when we were small, it had taken me an age to find it, it really had, I looked and I looked every where, once it was found I could take it with me, lay it by his cofin, return it to him — where it rightly belonged, Id never forgotten the day he gave it to me, when we were small, little nippers, before we were teenagers even — he’d found it by a tree when we were out exploring, it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever saw, this huge ring, golden, the image of a bough etched into it, he just found it there, as if he was meant to find it, like some one had left it there for him, just for him, only him, ‘I want you to have this’ he said ‘why?’ ‘because you’re my brother and it will take care of you, just like I will’ I clutched it to my chest, we told no one, knowing it would be taken away from us and sold, or given away to someone else, i kept the ring with me all the time never leaving it out of sight, sleeping with it under my pillow at night, it became part of me, completely me, only my brother could take it away should he have wanted to …

the funeral was busy, it took me a long time to get there, I travelled by foot, crossing long distances, all the while thinking of him, wanting to see him, it was a black day, there were people i didnt want to see, to set eyes on, to speak to, but I knew she’d be there and wed have to at least acknowlege each other like you do at these occasions, it had been such a long day, such a long time, Laura, that beautiful thing who’d haunted my dreams, my days, my thoughts, i figured just being there, to hand back his ring, dropping it onto the coffin would be enough for her to acknowledge me, to just simply smile, or nod her head, it had been such a long time, its all supposed to be under the bridge now isnt it? all that stuff we went through, the boys all growing up, i would have to see them too, of course I would, what would they make of me? what would the youngest make of me? the youngest, the most perfect of all …

i was walking in the darkness, towards him, his coffin, with shadows all around us and nights loneliness above, there was no life ahead or within, like walking in a vast wood with no light, the sun blotted out by Saturn or moon or nothingness where black night has stolen the colour from the world, where nothing exists but him, there, dead, vanished from me and us, for as long as ever will take to die itself, hiding from me all of those things i wanted to say to him, because he knew, he knew what i’d done to him and I had never spoken of it to him, or mentioned it to any one and it was tearing me apart, ruining me inside, turning me, against my will, into darkness …

Before the church is a giant and shady elm tree, spreading branches like arms to greet me, to greet you, full of years, nightmares cling to its branches, false dreams, beasts prowl around it, the centaurs guard its secrets, I was struck with sudden dread, i drew my stick and presented it — but each monster was an apparition, bodiless, hot air, hollow and airy, from this tree I followed the path to the church, we all did, paying our respects …

i held the ring tightly in my hand, I thought I caught sight of her, my Laura, it could have been her, I was sure it was her, standing there, by the gates, black ribbons in her hair, dressed in black, cheekbones high on her drooping face, I looked back and she had gone …