Lee Rourke - Vulgar Things

The rest of the drawers are full of newspaper clippings, mostly of significant military and terrorist events — the Falklands War, the first Invasion of Iraq, 9/11, et cetera. I read some of the headlines. All I feel is an overwhelming sense that life has passed me by. It has been there, things have happened, but I’ve been looking the other way, wherever that is. Nothing has slapped me across the face and woken me up from slumbers I haven’t been aware of; all that suffering, all that commotion and I remained asleep, each event passing me by, my life a series of silent alarms.

The clearout carries on into the evening. The caravan looks odd, everything in boxes and bags, just the record player spinning more Dr Feelgood against the wall by the empty shelves. I decide to clear out the telescope and everything that’s in the shed the next day, so that I can have one final attempt to view Saturn later in the evening. As soon as the task is finished my thoughts suddenly return to Laura. Even though I should phone Cal and contact Mr Buchanan, I begin to think about her, that maybe she was put up to it: the failed robbery, the money and the lies, maybe this was everything she wants to run away from? Even though I know it’s not true, I still plan to pay her a visit at Toledo Road the next day.

it stops

I sit back and listen to the staccato guitar riff bouncing off each of the empty walls. It feels like the entire caravan is shaking, rattling in time with each fractured chord. I stand by the filing cabinet, rocking back and forth, my eyes closed, my hands passively by my sides, the music cutting into me, fragments and snippets of lyrics slicing into me, parts of drums, harmonica, bass and guitar. It swirls around me, revealing its make-up in geometrical shapes, lines, arcs and ellipses, circles, oblongs, triangles. It’s mathematics. All flashing, strobing behind my eyelids. The voice and guitar morphing discordantly. All of it wrong. All of it out of sorts, but somewhere within all this I know there’s perfection waiting. I know it’s there. I can feel it. I don’t want it to stop. I want the record to keep playing, over and over, manufactured in some way so the needle can keep returning to the beginning, over and over again, so I can remain where I am, here, cocooned in a whorl of sound, protected, away from the world, enclosed, away from everything …

It stops. The needle reaches the end of the record, resetting itself, ready for another play. I open my eyes. Stuck in imperfection, I can’t take any more, so I leave the record like that, just as Uncle Rey had done: the record on the turntable, waiting for someone else to start it again. I walk back over to where Vulgar Things is by the armchair, thumbing through it, flicking the edges. I place it on the coffee table in the centre of the caravan. I look over it: it looks just right sitting there, it feels like it’s sitting in perfect symmetry with everything else: the geometry of the room, the caravan, the site, the island itself: dead centre. I leave it there, knowing I never need pick it up again.

bags and boxes

I walk out of Uncle Rey’s caravan. The evening light makes the sea wall seem to move with me, or flicker beside me, as if it’s made of flimsy stuff, a temporary structure, like a caul or veil. I walk through the gate and up the grass verge to touch the wall, pressing against it, palms out, flat against it. Pushing and pushing, just to make sure. The cold, reinforced concrete sends a shiver through me. It feels solid, safe and immovable. I walk along it, the jetty down to my left. I try not to think of Uncle Rey and Laura, my mother, down there all those years ago, but it’s hard not to. I shut my eyes, I don’t want to see it. I walk like this, feeling my way with my stick, all the way to the Lobster Smack to see Mr Buchanan.

As usual he’s sitting at the bar reading the paper. The man in the Dr Feelgood T-shirt is sitting next to him. The pub is busy and all the tables are full; the smell of food is too enticing to ignore and I look for somewhere to sit, where I can eat and have a private conversation, but it’s no use. Mr Buchanan looks up from his newspaper and waves me over, pointing to a free stool next to his. It’s as if he’s been expecting me.

‘Curry night.’

‘What?’

‘It’s always this busy on curry night …’

‘Oh …’

‘You here for something to eat?’

‘Well … Yes … But I also need to speak …’

‘Yes, good … we need to speak about the caravan …’

‘Yes …’

‘Is it all clear?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wonderful … Wonderful … This is on me, tonight’s on me … For all your hard work.’

‘Thanks.’

‘What you having?’

‘Oh … I’ll have the Lamb Dupiaza …’

‘Good choice, good. It’s a hot one.’

‘That’s okay.’

‘What do you want to drink?’

‘Oh, a pint of Staropramen, please …’

‘I’ll serve it to you myself.’

Something feels wrong. I can sense it. It’s as if he knows something I don’t, or that he’s preparing me for something, some bad news, by acting like everything is fine. I sit on the stool. The man in the Dr Feelgood T-shirt looks up from his pint and nods to me.

‘Nice T-shirt …’

I look down at myself. I’m still wearing the same T-shirt.

‘Oh, this … it used to be Rey’s …’

I immediately feel like I’m doing something wrong: wearing a recently deceased’s clothes out in public. It doesn’t feel right. I want to go back to the caravan and change into something else, but it’s too late. Mr Buchanan walks back around the bar with my pint and places it in front of me.

‘Here you go, Jon. I wanted to bring it to you rather than serve it to you across the bar …’

‘Thanks … Robbie …’

‘I’ve ordered your food.’

‘Really, thanks … I can pay, you know … Please …’

‘No … It makes me happy.’

‘Okay … okay … Thanks.’

‘So …’

‘So …’

‘Is the caravan all packed away?’

‘Well, yes, everything’s in bags and boxes. I’ll arrange a van to take it all away on Friday … It wasn’t too bad … you know … Just his personal things … Letters and video recordings … messages …’

‘Messages?’

‘It’s hard to believe what he did to himself, you know … It’s easy to forget about something like that …’

Mr Buchanan remains silent for a while. He shuffles on his stool and coughs a few times to break the silence, but it’s obvious that he’s either a) trying to stifle some urge to tell me something, or b) he’s got absolutely nothing to say to me, now my job is complete, at all. I wait for him to speak. I’ve all the time in the world now, it seems. It doesn’t matter to me either way, I tell myself. What has happened has happened and there’s nothing I can do to change things. I look across the bar, over the heads of people sitting down to eat, towards the windows. The light has faded, the blackness is washing in from the estuary. I’ve only been on this island for a week and already I recognise about 80 per cent of the regulars sitting around me. I suddenly turn to Mr Buchanan.

‘You knew, didn’t you?’

‘Pardon?’

‘You knew …’

‘Jon, I don’t know what you mean …’

‘You knew all along … about what he did … The reason why he cut himself off from everyone out here …’

‘Jon … look … I really have no idea …’

‘You knew.’

‘Okay, yes … Something, I knew … a little bit of what went on …’

‘You knew about me?’

‘About him and her … it was a long time ago …’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Them coming here …’