Being Small Read online

  “I don’t go to school.” I did go to public swimming-pools, but that was different. That was impersonal, and this was exactly not. And if I did get looked at, stared at there, it really was about the scar.

  “Lucky boy. Well, you’ll learn. We wander in and out, and don’t think twice. These your sweats?”

  Obviously they were, my singlet and shorts, nobody else had left their dirty running gear lying on the floor; and never mind that he’d brought me other clothes to wear, I still yelped as he scooped them up, and he still laughed at me as he felt through the pockets of the shorts, found Homer and fished him out.

  “I’m just putting a load through the machine now, they may as well go in with the rest. If they’re not dry before you go home – well, who cares? You weren’t going to put them on again tonight.”

  Which meant I could borrow his gear till the morning. I was grateful, and embarrassed; and out of my depth and all at sea and all sorts of watery metaphors, and suddenly there seemed to be nothing I could do but close my eyes and gulp a breath and let my body slide down that deep, deep bath until the clear waters closed above my head.

  ～

  I lay there as long as I could, trying not to think of parallels, of bodies naked and preserved, observed in liquids. I am not small, I am not Small – but the words were slithery and hard to keep a grip on, and eventually I had to give up, to let go, to surge up out of the water gasping and blinking and shaking my head against the ringing in my ears.

  Kit wasn’t there, of course. Nobody was, just this great puddle that I’d spilled out of the bath. I groaned, and wondered who would realise if I mopped it up with a towel – and then watched the water slip with a sense of purpose across the slates, till it found a drain I hadn’t noticed in the corner. Stupid of me. There was a shower, right out in the open there; there had to be a drain. A wet-room, Kit had called it, and now I understood why. I could splash as much as I liked, spray water all around the walls, it’d all just run off and drain away.

  Another day, in other company, that might have been fun. Right now, I was nervous just standing up to find soap and shampoo on the shelf, with my back to that unlockable door. Relax, he’d said, but even in the saying he’d stolen any chance of it.

  Maybe he was right, maybe I would learn. I did hope so. In the soft lights of a luxury bathroom, the grudging little cubicle in Mrs Alleyn’s eaves was losing any brief attraction it ever might have held. In the meantime I washed quickly, hopped out and scuttled for the safety of a towel.

  Hasty drying, with both eyes on the door and willing it not to move, not to open even a fingernail’s width till I was decent, and I wriggled damply into Kit’s jeans. No underwear: that was novel, interesting, not uncomfortable. The jeans were maroon with fraying sea-green seams, rotted to rags at the cuffs, a snugly comfortable fit. The T-shirt was a faded coral, still holding its shape but way too wide across the shoulders, so that the sleeves hung down past my elbows. Kit had one of those bantam-cock bodies, neat and strutty, broad above and narrow below. I guessed that the jeans must have been his party trousers before they were retired: exhibition-tight, denim doing lycra’s

  job.

  I used a corner of the towel to scrub condensation off the mirror, just to see. My own clothes were all cheap and baggy, street fashion because that was easiest, and mostly black. Black gone to grey, mostly. Unless my mother chose them: she’d dress me in colours when she could, but not like this.

  And that’s how Kit found me, of course, when he quietly slid the door aside and came back in. In front of the mirror, not preening but looking, yes, and liking.

  “Oh, you’re out already. I was just bringing you that drink you didn’t think you wanted,” and he waved a glass gently, tall and shimmering with bubbles, ice, a wedge of lemon. Thoroughly moistened outside, I was startlingly dry again within, and suddenly craving. Which he saw and laughed at even as he set the glass down in a soap-dish, by the shower and out of my reach.

  “One more minute, let me look at you first. Stand still.”

  He twitched the towel from my nerveless fingers and rubbed briskly at my hair, two-handed; then he went to the shelf, twisted the top off a flat grey pot and took out a fingertip’s-worth of something that he slapped between his palms as he walked back to me.

  “What’s that?”

  “Clay,” he said, all matter-of-fact as he worked it lightly into my hair.

  “Really clay?”

  “Really. Dug by virgins with silver spoons by moonlight, I expect, the price we pay.”

  “From the banks of the sacred river Alph?”

  “That’s the one,” and now his smile was less teasing and more fraternal. Only his fingers teased lightly, twisting and lifting; and then it was all satisfaction, that smile, and he wiped his hands on the towel where he’d left it hanging over my shoulder, and he turned me round to face the mirror again and said, “Better?”

  It wasn’t a question. He knew already. My hair looked wild, slept-on, in a good way. Freshly-towelled might be a better way to say it, but ready to stay so for the rest of the night. And the earrings glittered gold against that dark unkemptness and I liked that too, it was new too but a different newness, a different voice against this rush of strange; and I wanted to keep the clothes, worn as they were, and of course I couldn’t say so because of course Kit would just say do it. I daren’t even be too effusive in my thanks. I’d only known these people twenty-four hours; there was a generosity in them that I distrusted deeply. Unless it was myself that I distrusted, or my brother. Our ability to reciprocate. We were neither of us any good at giving things away.

  But if I couldn’t be open-handed for fear of his filling them with gifts, I could at least not be mean-spirited. I smiled at him through the mirror, or rather I shrugged off all my caution and let him see what lay beneath, how simple my pleasure was.

  “Good.” His hands were still on my shoulders; he turned me again, towards the door this time. And whisked the towel away, and said, “Pick up your drink, and go see Quin. He’s expecting you.”

  “Gerard said he was asleep...”

  “That was then, this is now. He sleeps; he wakes. It’s a pattern. Get used to it. Go.”

  ～

  There was gin in the glass, but not too much. It was mostly tonic, ice-cold fizz with a bite to it, perfect. I sipped as I went, down the passage and not hurrying, taking the chance to linger, to browse the titles in the bookshelves; and so slowly to Quin’s door, which stood open.

  Music was leaking out, distantly familiar, eerie voices riding a woodwind thread over percussion. I was snared by that, drawn on almost without thinking, inside almost before I understood that I was moving.

  Quin was in the bed, of course, and propped up as I’d seen him yesterday. Gerard was in a chair at the foot of the bed, not close. For a moment that looked odd, but then I thought not. Easier for Quin to see him, he didn’t have to turn his head. They were too comfortable with each other, these two, they didn’t need to be touching-handy.

  Nor did they need to be talking, apparently, even with their eyes. Gerard had his closed, Quin’s were turned upward to the ceiling; they sat in each other’s eyeline, but not under each other’s eye. They were both listening to the music, but independently so.

  That seemed to be how they lived their lives, too. Or at least how Gerard lived his life and Quin his half-life, his encroaching death. Sometimes I wondered what that must be like, to face the world solo. Solo but supported, which was different again, perhaps better again. In this house everyone was individual, undivided; and no one carried anything alone.

  Do I sound jealous?

  Perhaps I felt jealous. Even of Quin, perhaps, on his big bought-in deathbed there, with all his guardians about him. Especially of Quin, perhaps. I knew too much about survival to envy Gerard what he had to come. That was the label I’d worn all my life, what the scar said, some part of what I had to carry: that I was the living twin, the only twin, the strong one. Secretly
, some part of me had always fancied being Small instead.

  I stood just inside the doorway, gripped by that music and that moment. After a minute Quin saw me, attracted I think by my stillness, by my utter determination not to move.

  “Michael,” he said. “Come and sit.”

  “I don’t want to disturb you.”

  Gerard opened his eyes. “We may be quiet, but we’re not in church. Come in, sit down, talk to us. It’s all right, we’ve heard this piece before.”

  So had I, but I had to come at it backwards. Something about war and a poet, but not war-poetry, and not English... Drama and death, plenty of death... Ah. Federico Garcia Lorca, I’d spent a week on him once: reading his work and his biographers’, following some links and finding others. There’d been movies made and ballets, music written. Song cycles, from his poetry...

  “George Crumb,” I said. “Ancient Voices of Children.”

  Gerard’s eyebrow twitched. “I’m impressed. This was big for us in the seventies, but I didn’t think it was still in the repertoire. Or did you peek?” with a nod towards the CD case where it lay by the stereo.

  “No. I heard it once, a while back.”

  “Just the once?” That came from Quin.

  “Uh, yes. I was into Lorca for a bit,” for a week but I didn’t want to say that, “so I chased up everything I could. And, well, I’ve got this freak memory. I don’t forget much.”

  Actually it was Small who had the memory, my pocket elephant, my spare hard-drive. I could outsource my experience, safe in the knowledge that he hoarded everything. No use saying “Forget it,” not to Small; he never would, and he never would let me.

  “That must be convenient,” Gerard suggested.

  “I suppose. It’s just normal, I live with it.”

  “Sounds like hell to me,” Kit said cheerfully, unexpectedly at my back. Focused on the music and its sources, I hadn’t heard him coming.

  “That’s because you do nothing worth remembering, and plenty that you crave to forget,” Gerard said dryly.

  “Plenty that I drink to forget. Michael, never stand between a man and the drinks tray,” as he pushed me further into the room, and down into a chair. “Do you need a top-up? No, you don’t. Help yourself when you do, I’ll be in the kitchen. Tea’s in an hour. Just the four of us, yes?”

  “Oh – no, not me, you don’t have to...”

  “Of course I don’t have to, but I will. If you’d like to stay. Yes?”

  “Well – yes, then. Please. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I hoped that was true. I hadn’t been angling for an invitation, any more than I’d angled for a bath, and I didn’t want them thinking so. On the other hand, images of last night had been brightly in my mind, set against the likely reality this evening, sorting bags and boxes while I chewed on whatever food I could find, what Mum had thought to bring with us or buy in. Determined not to gatecrash, I had none the less deliberately put myself in their path here, done them the favour with Nigel, given them the opportunity to be grateful if they chose.

  I thought there’d be another price to pay. I thought Quin at least would be safe to extract one. I didn’t trust his smile; I thought he was reading me like a book. But then, I thought that all human relationships were like this, a series of mismatched trade-offs, favours and IOUs, shifting debits and credits with each side keeping their own tally and none of the figures audited. I didn’t see how the world could work otherwise, what would ever keep it turning. You always had to be leaning forward, a little off-balance, trying to get ahead.

  Only Quin didn’t need to do that anymore. He lay queen-like at the centre of his particular court and everyone danced attendance on him, and he could never, never think to pay them back.

  Reminded me of someone, couldn’t think who.

  I sipped gin with no thought of a refill, content to make this last; I listened to the music, and watched the two men do the same. Or do it differently, rather: they knew what I only remembered, and there’s an order of magnitude between.

  The chessboard lay at my elbow. I could offer Quin a game when the music finished, show willing. I thought he’d say, though, if that was what he wanted. I thought that was how this household worked, that they all deferred to Quin in his decay, because that was what he would expect.

  Let him say, then. One way or another, I expected to sing for my supper. I’d be disappointed not to. A bath and a supper left me lagging, in their debt despite the dogwalk; I wanted to go home ahead, netting brownie-points against tomorrow. At the very least, I wanted to feel that I was in the game.

  I thought Quin knew that; I thought I’d get the opportunity.

  ～

  No chess that day. I wanted not to suggest it, not to seem to push my only claim on his company. He might have offered, only that someone else came while the Crumb was still echoing in our heads, in the silence of the

  room.

  This guy was in his thirties, and he greeted the two men with a kiss each, me with a friendly nod. His name was Tony; he settled into a chair, saying, “I know I’m early, but I cleared it with Kitty in the kitchen, she’s putting another pint of water in the soup. I’ve had such a day, I couldn’t tell you...”

  “Do try,” Gerard said. Dryly, I thought. Quin gave him a look.

  “Well, I will, but bear with me. I’m good for nothing. It started at eight, can you believe it? Eight o’clock in the morning, and this client calls up in a tizz. On the mobile, if you please, I could have been anywhere with anyone and doing anything; and she knows I’m never myself before midday. Oh, you bitch, I thought, take your mind off your dick for one minute and think about someone else’s, can’t you? But no, she has to be serviced, then and there. So I’m down to the office with nothing inside me but a cold swill of last night’s coffee, and we have a crisis meeting over what’s really not a crisis at all, she’s just getting antsy about the numbers. Well, some people do get scared when you get into seven figures. So I crunch them up for her, and she goes home happy, and I really wish I could have done the same; only by then there were three appointments waiting, and...”

  And cutting through all the words and all the posturing, he was a high-powered accountant whose day had been much like most of his days, I thought, except that he was making an exhibition of it to amuse Quin, or possibly himself. I felt excluded, redundant, resentful; and was already on my feet and making an awkward exit, trying to pretend I was browsing the bookshelves for simple interest’s sake and hey look, the books were leading me out into the passage when he produced a paper from his shoulder-bag and said, “And I didn’t even get to finish the crossword, for God’s sake! You’ll help, won’t you? Listen, R blank E blank S and three blanks –”

  “Rheostat,” I said, before he could read out the clue. And made my exit on the word, far more dynamically, and closed the door behind me without looking back and only hoping that I was right, so that he could mutter, “Rheostat, rheostat... God, he’s right, you know, he is right. Has he done the Guardian already? He must have, mustn’t he? Did you do it here? And who is that boy, anyway...?”

  And then let them say what they liked, I couldn’t hear it. I was in the kitchen, helping Kit.

  ～

  Helping is a flexible concept. I asked if there was anything I could do; he threw the question straight back at me. “I don’t know. Is there anything you can do?”

  “Not much,” despite my sterling efforts to teach my mother how to cook for me. You can’t teach what you don’t know.

  “Fair enough. There’s no room for two anyway, unless they’re lovers. Even then, this kitchen can lead to divorce. I’ve seen it happen. You feed the hound, then sit in the offshoot with the door open and we’ll talk like Pyramus and Thisbe. Get yourself a refill before you go. In the corner there, chef’s perks. Easy on the gin, mind, there’s wine later. Did Tony scare you out?”

  “Not scare, but...”

  “...But he came on too stron
g for your tender blood. I know. I couldn’t abide him, first off. You do get used, though. You just have to hear the irony, cutting through the camp. Or hear him talk to a client. I’ve seen him on the phone; he turns it down to an ice-edge, but all the time he’s mugging furiously to us, queening it up like a panto dame. That’s it, it’s all performance. He only does it to annoy. Just don’t get annoyed, and you’ll be fine.”

  “I think I might have annoyed him.”

  “That works too. The boy has resources. Nigel, out of the kitchen, thank you very much. You too, Michael. This is a demonstration, not a masterclass – we’ll do hands-on, but later.”

  ～

  So I perched on a stool in the doorway and watched him cook. Cubes of pork with green beans and spring onions, in a cream and mustard sauce; if not a masterclass it was absolutely a lesson for me, and I did learn. In my life, garlic came dry in granules, and you shook them from a jar. Of course I knew about cloves and bulbs and garlic-presses, which was why we would never have fresh garlic, because my mother didn’t run to gadgets. More trouble than they were worth, she said, just think of the washing-up. Perhaps it was a consequence of the migratory life we led, from kitchenette to primus stove to someone else’s kitchen, but my mother’s definition of a gadget seemed to run far and wide. She allowed a couple of battered saucepans, good for heating what came from tins; she did have a huge old frying-pan, for the all-day breakfasts that were her fallback position. Not much else.

  Not like here. Here the kitchen was full of devices. Many of them looked new, but not unused. Kit did his cooking with a chopping-board, though, and a knife: which was how I learned that a garlic-press isn’t crucial after all, that the edge and the flat of a knife are all you need to address a clove of garlic.

  “Pretty much all you need, full stop,” Kit averred, when I said that aloud, or something like it. “Give me a knife, a spoon and a pair of chopsticks, and I will travel the world. Don’t look so worried, I won’t make you eat with chopsticks tonight. I think I will cut everything up good and small, though. Fork-food, easy to manage. Whoever cooks gets to clean up after, that’s a house rule. And we all eat with Quin, that’s another; and it’s been a while since he made it to the dining-room. Gerard uses that as a study these days, the table’s all buried under papers. So we eat off our laps, and I can live without spillage.”