The dust behind the TV

It seemed unlikely the gilded bandstand would ever host music again. But surely there was someone left here, in this unremarkable market town, willing to at least clean up the fag ends, the spent fireworks, the weeks-old dog turds. Even in the dark he could see the full depressing horror of the detritus, which was spread all over the bandstand’s central platform and the poorly maintained grass around it. William could hardly stand to look, and was angry about the dog turds in particular. Municipal neglect was one thing, but this felt utterly vandalous.

Onwards he plodded, seething and sad, until cast in the muddy-orange light of a lone streetlamp, he saw the familiar terrace of Victorian houses. Opposite, new builds that had been just a hole in the ground the last time he’d been here marked the village’s ugly expansion that would soon tether it in a chain of identical pebble-dashed blocks to the outskirts of West Hanburn. The bins were out for the morning, and a fox moved craftily from one to the other, sniffing for whatever came most easily. It paused at the sight of William’s lopsided silhouette, then vanished into the darkest corner it could find.

Stopping beneath the streetlamp, William fiddled with the empty medication packet he’d been keeping in his pocket while he counted the Victorian houses. He could never remember the number, but for some reason could always recall it was the fifth house from the left end. He continued his doddering walk - the painful shamble of an old man - now remembering the crass little gnome that lived by the milk bottles, and the neighbour’s ugly monkey puzzle tree, seeming even more incongruous and spindly after all these years.

Like most of the houses along the street, the lights were off, but the glow from a TV flickered through a gap in the curtains. He knocked a bit too hard given the late hour, and the sharp tap-tap ricocheted horribly across the road. Something banged inside and a dog started barking.

Good grief, what a silly idea this was.

The door opened and a long black snout poked out from the unlit crack to sniff William’s legs. He stooped to give it his hand to smell, hoping to God it wouldn’t go off on one. When William looked up, Ol' John was there, plainly annoyed by the dog’s excitement.

“Hello, mate,” William said.

“What’s happened?”

Ol' John pulled the door open while yanking the dog’s collar to keep it from jumping up.

“Nothing’s happened,” he said, standing with some effort.

Fighting with the dog and trying to look at his watch, Ol' John stepped back to let William inside. The dog was released, the TV quickly turned down, and a light was put on. The dog did its best to smell as much of William as it could before it was cursed at and banished to the kitchen.

“Bit bloody late for a social, William.”

“I know, I know. But I’ve been at a funeral today and couldn’t drive by without stopping. I thought: he’ll be up. He’s always up late.”

“Oh yes,” Ol' John boomed. “Who’s gone this week?”

He’d become deaf without knowing it, William thought.

“An old boy I used to work with,” William said, raising his own voice. “Robert Brown. This goes back years and years.”

“Name sounds familiar,” he said, but it was obvious he held no interest in the specifics. No change there, William thought. Instead, Ol' John simply stated that he didn’t tend to bother with the ones from work.

“You just accept it differently to when you were young,” he said. “I do, at least.”

Ol' John’s face was pale and mysteriously yellowed around the sides of the nose. The rest was largely obscured by scruffy white hair, a thick beard and jam jar glasses. His magnified eyes looked down with sudden introspection. “I’m probably the last of anyone I ever worked with.” He thought for another moment, and said, “In fact, I’m sure of it.”

William readied himself to make the request he was embarrassed to ask, but found himself discussing the lovely stupidity of dogs instead, and how funny it was that Ol' John still had the same brown shaggy carpet that had been there since the war. It was going to be there, Ol' John mused, poking a slippered foot at an ancient fag burn, until he finally popped his clogs. He offered William a warm beer from a box on the floor as William searched the room for her pictures. They were there, like they had always been, along the far wall where the room was still dark. And there was one of her and the nieces on the mantelpiece too, except the ceiling light caused a reflection which obscured her face.

“Let me turn this rubbish off,” Ol' John said as he retrieved the remote from beside his overflowing ashtray and pressed a button repeatedly before giving up and switching the TV off at the wall plug.

“I don’t get many visitors. I have a horrible feeling I can’t smell my own stink anymore.”

“It smells fine,” William lied. “Don’t be daft.”

“Gillian never used to let me smoke in the house, but after she went I thought sod it.” He looked up and addressed Gillian’s ghost. “If you still don’t like it you can bang on the radiators, my love.” He began laughing until his laugh became a cough and that set the dog off. “Oh, be quiet you daft bloody creature!” he shouted through the wall behind him.

He fell backwards into his chair, the same one that had always required a blanket to cover up the tattered cushioning, and lit himself a fag.

Christ, his arms were thin.

“I thought I’d forgotten all about you,” Ol' John said, considering William with something of a shifty glance. “I forgot I even knew you until just a minute ago.” He looked down again, suddenly lost in thought, and said, “I’m not all that sociable these days.”

“You don’t still see your bowls lot then?”

“They’re all dead too. Christ! Even the bloody pavilion’s gone. Fucking kids burned it down! That was years ago. Eight, nine, ten…the last decade of your life is sure to be the quickest.”

William sat in the creaking three-piece that, like Ol' John’s ancient comfy chair, was pressed flush against the wall in an awkward arrangement Gillian would have been upset about. Ol' John made no effort to turn, so they both awkwardly faced the opposite side of the room and sipped their beers and William said he was sorry he’d called so late, and that he could never remember the house number but could always remember that it was the fifth from the end and that everyone in the village hated the monkey puzzle tree. And why don’t they clean up that nice Victorian bandstand, he said, because there was dog shit and fag butts and goodness knows what all over the ground. Bloody needles too, no doubt, right where their girls used to play in the summer. No one cares about anything anymore, they concluded. It had all gone to the dogs ever since the new builds went up. They remembered the days when you never locked your front door and the kids could walk anywhere they liked, and they had to sit for a moment in silence because that time felt so long ago it was as if it had never really happened, which privately confused them both.

“I didn’t think I’d see you ever again,” William said, but Ol' John did not answer so William stood up to study each of the photos hanging on the wall in their mismatched frames. There was Elizabeth — his gorgeous, lovely, impossible Lizzy — by the pond at that thing they did with the school one year when she was her most beautiful. And one of Ol' John when he wasn’t all that old at that Christmas down in Southampton in goodness-knows-what-year with Syd and…Paula? Or was it Pam? Or was that his first wife and Pam was the cousin that married the bent copper? There were Ol' John’s girls when they were fat babies being washed in a caravan sink and screaming to High Heaven, and there they were, six years later, smiling for their school photo. And again, wearing too much make-up on Anna’s wedding day making her dear old mum so proud. There was a picture of William too, arm around Elizabeth when she was pregnant with Jenny, down by the allotments. They used to brew weak beer in the shed there and laugh that it tasted of piss.

“How could you forget I ever existed when there’s a bloody picture of me right here?”

“Is that you? Bloody hell. You did have hair at some point then.” Ol' John chuckled to himself. “Where you parked?”

William returned to the sofa, the dog squeaking in the kitchen and clawing the door. “By the church,” he said.

“What you driving these days?”

“Corsair.”

Ol' John pushed his lower lip outwards and bobbed his head from side to side. “What litre is that? Like… a one-point-five?”

“Probably.”

Ol' John slapped the side of the chair and told the dog to shut up and the dog went quiet.

“How old’s your girl now?” Ol' John asked.

“She’s just turned forty-four.”

“Little Jenny is now forty-four! What’s she doing?”

“She’s back at the florists, five days a week. Nina is at secondary school now.”

Ol' John thought for a moment and said, yes, he remembered being told that. His girls would know. They would’ve told him because they stay in touch because Anna works with a girl that knows Jenny from school, or something like that.

“Your girls okay?” William asked, retrieving his beer and taking a deep gulp.

“I suppose so. They phone me to check I’m not dead, but I’ve not had a visit in years. They let me go to stay with one or the other at Christmas and Easter. They work it out carefully between them, no doubt.”

William stood again, irresistibly drawn back to the photo of Elizabeth on the mantelpiece. This time he used his sleeve to wipe away the dust.

Those brown eyes, those curls. He tutted in the wonder he’d ever known her.

Ol' John looked him up and down and said he could not believe William had stopped by after, what? Ten years?

“And it’s half-past-bloody-eleven too,” he said. “On a fucking Monday!” He smoked his cigarette for a short while, his head cocked in contemplation and seemed to practice what he was going to say next before he said it.

“How’s your health?” he said. “You look terrible. Sorry.”

William shrugged. “I had a bit of a heart attack a few years ago. Minor one, like a warning shot.” He gently placed the photo-frame back down on the mantelpiece. “You know my mum was only fifty-two when she died? Bless her.”

“That is sad. I never ever spoke to you about that.” He inhaled a long, thoughtful drag of his cigarette. It was clear he wasn’t going to start talking about it now, but he did say: “That shouldn’t happen. Women shouldn’t go before the men.”

“And here we both are.”

Ol' John muttered something to himself and said he couldn’t stand it being away from her, and as William prepared to say he agreed, Ol' John hauled himself upwards with great effort to let the dog back in the room, leaving William confused as to who he was talking about.

“Kelly, behave!” he screamed at the mad creature as it rushed past him to continue its investigation of William. William took its head and pressed its ears together and stared into its eyes until it calmed and licked its chops and settled at his feet.

“She’s a right soppy bitch,” Ol' John said. “She’s a tart too,” he added with what could have been sincere jealousy.

William gave the dog some more attention, rolling it onto its back. Neither man spoke for a while, but now there was less awkwardness in the silence. Eventually William said what he was so reluctant to say: “Mate, do you think I could kip here tonight? I’ve had a beer now, and it’s a long drive back home still.”

“You can fucking move in if you like!”

Ol' John fetched some bedding and said William would be best on the sofa because the spare room was filled with boxes, one of which had a funny smell. He fetched more beers too and lit himself another fag and asked if they could watch the telly for a bit. They watched The Paul Hogan Show, Ol' John telling William how unfunny it was, and when it ended, he asked if Jenny was with a fella.

“No, no. She’s done it all on her own.”

“Where’s what’s-his-face then? The dad?”

“Oh, he’s not been around for years. Bloody tit. I was furious at first but I’d rather he was out of it anyway. It is what it is and she does fine. And I help her out, of course.”

Ol' John said that’s what fellas are like these days. Soft and idle. “Wants dragging through the courts by his arse hairs,” he said. “You still live down on the coast? What’s that place called?”

“Obany Rock.”

“Yeah, that’s it. It’s nice there. I only saw it once though, when you first moved.”

“She’d like it,” William said, leaning down to give the dog another fuss.

“I bet she would.” Ol' John leaned down to tell the dog that he also bet there was no bloody fox shit to roll in down at the beach.

“Jen and Nina are coming to see me the day after tomorrow. She comes up about once a month and we take Nina to the beach. She loves the dunes more than her grandmother did.”

“Oh, that would make Elizabeth happy to know that.”

William hummed in agreement. “Christ,” he said, mostly to himself. “It’s horrible she never got to see her grow up.”

“I don’t hardly ever see my grandkids.”

William said he was sorry to hear that, and wondered how much of a misery guts Ol' John must have become, and how his daughters’ patience must have worn thin. But still, he’s your dad, he thought.

But then again, I’m their uncle and I’ve not spoken to them in years.

“Football mad Anna’s boys are,” Ol' John said. “Both of them. Arsenal but I don’t know why.”

“I never found a sport to enjoy. Fishing doesn’t count.”

Ol' John considered this and began laughing in what William took to be the self-wonder of some private joke, then he stopped talking entirely to carry on watching the telly.

Later, Ol' John told him he had lots more photos upstairs, hidden away in boxes. William said he would very much like to see them and so he was left there alone to pick through the memories of a family’s now half-forgotten life, as Ol' John and the dog went to bed together.

If Ol' John had stayed up with him, and if either man had been capable of it, he would have liked to tell his wife’s older brother that he could no longer stand it. He wanted to ask how Ol' John really coped without his dear Gillian, or his beloved little sister. He wanted to know how to think about the terrible distance of things past. Both Gillian and Elizabeth were trapped there, reduced to the strange invisibility of his own fading memory.

How does it feel for you, John, when you see the ancient dust gathered there behind the television and realise that’s Gillian’s skin? You know I bawled when I found, two years after she was gone, one of Elizabeth’s hairs matted into the carpet fibres. I put it inside the half-read Tudor history she never got to finish. John, you mad bastard, be serious for one moment and tell me the truth: how do I cope knowing there are two pies in my freezer — homemade, one for each of us; mine marked with a cross and hers with a heart — that we never got to eat together? I don’t see her ghost, John, and oh I wish I did. Instead I see only the cold, dark shape of my own grief in the periphery of everything. Always there, unbearable in the artless box of my home; where I keep the last remaining mementos. Nothing and everything, pointless and magical.

He placed a photo of himself smiling with Elizabeth, Jennifer and Anna on the carpet. It showed them when they camped in the New Forest and the wild horses came to be fed in the morning. Jennifer had cried with fear until her mother had calmed her and let her feed the creatures for herself to prove how gentle they really were. He placed the photo inside his jacket pocket and packed the box away.

In the morning Ol’ John took an age to wake, so William busied himself by tidying up. He washed the dishes and wiped down the kitchen tops. He dusted each and every framed photograph and emptied the numerous ashtrays. By ten he called up the stairs to say he had better be getting on. Ol’ John coughed and said would he mind letting the dog into the garden because it needed to shit and was making faces at him.

Watching the animal strain and hunch over the overgrown lawn, William heard Ol' John finally clomp down the stairs.

“I’ve got to be going, mate,” William repeated, unable to say much else. Ol' John shook William’s hand and tapped his shoulder.

“You better say farewell to her ‘n all,” he said, ushering the dog forward. William squatted to tell the dog it needed to look after its old man. The dog seemed to understand, in its way.

William drove home. Across the brown and empty fields, through which the road cut for most of the way, the low winter sun struggled to shine through sagging clouds. There was a chance — a pretty good one, in fact — that he would never see Ol’ John again. Would the other man, polar bear lonely in his kitchen, now think the same thought as he smoked the first cigarette of the day?

Only perhaps.

The skies darkened, and beyond the ugliness of the road and the farmyard detritus scattered across the fields, he saw such beauty in the plump hedgerows and small oak copses that topped faraway hills; there was an elegance, too, in the curves of the land which bore them up, and if imagination allowed, promised something strange and sacred in the hidden spaces beyond. But he would not go there, into those unknown places, and perhaps would only be disappointed if he did.