on my feet, and I need to squat lower to hear what he was saying away from the phone. “I just want a look at your—” The song of the sea blots out the next muffled word and accompanies “I won’t be riding anywhere near them. Look, I’m getting off.” As the ringtone ceases I rewind the section of tape and play it yet again. Was my father viewing bones or stones? Several replays leave me unsure, and I lurch to my feet to see that my mobile has taken a call. Once I’m past the bright young female voice that Frugo uses on its network and online and at its automatic supermarket checkouts, I hear my father.
“This is fun, isn’t it?” he says but doesn’t mean. “I expect we’ll meet up sooner or later. I really could do with a word before I’m much older.” As his hollow voice is almost drowned by the thunder of a train I deduce that he’s under a bridge. “Hang on a minute,” he says, and I assume he’s waiting for the train to pass until he adds through the uproar “Bloody hell, Gav, you won’t believe—”
That’s all, and it’s lent a full stop by the single yip of a car alarm. Or is that a solitary clink of bricks? There’s certainly plenty of rubble around town just now. As I poke the key to call him back I reflect that while I was listening to him I ought to have been listening to him. It’s as if he’s able to inhabit two places and a pair of times at once, though he didn’t sound particularly happy with the trick. A bell signifies his ringtone, and then he says “I’ve got on my bike…”
“Get back off it, then. Why aren’t you answering now?” I imagine him speeding away from whoever threw a brick at him. “It’s me again,” I say as soon as he gives me the chance. “You’re right, this isn’t much of a joke. I’m at home now, so ring either number. I promise I’ll pick up.”
I sit on the edge of my chair, ready to grab the mobile or the cordless phone, while the sun removes the patina of light from the window opposite. Are the offices disused? I can’t recall seeing anyone at work in there or even entering them, though admittedly the entrance is out of sight from my apartment. The view into the room is still blurred by dust or grime, through which I see parts of two desks and the edge of a grey filing cabinet and a calendar beside it on the wall, but not the date. Behind and between the desks the greenish hooded shape isn’t a figure after all. It’s an old coat abandoned on a hook.
I need to produce the information for Waterworth, and I bring up my accounts on the computer. I’ve listed all the payments for my tours, though not the tips some customers added, but I’ve never bothered listing names. If Waterworth wants some, I’ll provide them—he has no means of checking how genuine they are. I copy the amounts and dates into a new file. The amounts represent the takings for each date, and I have to divide them—twenty pounds for Liverghoul, twenty-five including train fare for the High Rip Trip, twenty for Pool of Life. There are years of them, and by the time I’ve finished making sense of them it feels like years since my father last rang. I gaze at the indirectly sunlit street while I think of calling him, and then I see there’s no hooded shape in the room opposite.
So the offices are in use after all. Why am I wasting time over them? In a rage at my procrastination I grab the mobile. “Where are you?” I demand once my father has gone through his routine. “Are you down a tunnel? My mother said you might be. I really would appreciate it if you’d call as soon as you get this.”
Will he think we’ve been discussing him behind his back? Anything I add may aggravate the impression, and I terminate the call. I put the names I can remember to the amounts on the screen, and then I set about inventing. Derby, Strange, Underhill, Colman, Aikin, Houlston, Farren, Roscoe, Lemon, Molyneaux, Pocock, Hime…I’ve no idea where I’m dredging up these names
“This is fun, isn’t it?” he says but doesn’t mean. “I expect we’ll meet up sooner or later. I really could do with a word before I’m much older.” As his hollow voice is almost drowned by the thunder of a train I deduce that he’s under a bridge. “Hang on a minute,” he says, and I assume he’s waiting for the train to pass until he adds through the uproar “Bloody hell, Gav, you won’t believe—”
That’s all, and it’s lent a full stop by the single yip of a car alarm. Or is that a solitary clink of bricks? There’s certainly plenty of rubble around town just now. As I poke the key to call him back I reflect that while I was listening to him I ought to have been listening to him. It’s as if he’s able to inhabit two places and a pair of times at once, though he didn’t sound particularly happy with the trick. A bell signifies his ringtone, and then he says “I’ve got on my bike…”
“Get back off it, then. Why aren’t you answering now?” I imagine him speeding away from whoever threw a brick at him. “It’s me again,” I say as soon as he gives me the chance. “You’re right, this isn’t much of a joke. I’m at home now, so ring either number. I promise I’ll pick up.”
I sit on the edge of my chair, ready to grab the mobile or the cordless phone, while the sun removes the patina of light from the window opposite. Are the offices disused? I can’t recall seeing anyone at work in there or even entering them, though admittedly the entrance is out of sight from my apartment. The view into the room is still blurred by dust or grime, through which I see parts of two desks and the edge of a grey filing cabinet and a calendar beside it on the wall, but not the date. Behind and between the desks the greenish hooded shape isn’t a figure after all. It’s an old coat abandoned on a hook.
I need to produce the information for Waterworth, and I bring up my accounts on the computer. I’ve listed all the payments for my tours, though not the tips some customers added, but I’ve never bothered listing names. If Waterworth wants some, I’ll provide them—he has no means of checking how genuine they are. I copy the amounts and dates into a new file. The amounts represent the takings for each date, and I have to divide them—twenty pounds for Liverghoul, twenty-five including train fare for the High Rip Trip, twenty for Pool of Life. There are years of them, and by the time I’ve finished making sense of them it feels like years since my father last rang. I gaze at the indirectly sunlit street while I think of calling him, and then I see there’s no hooded shape in the room opposite.
So the offices are in use after all. Why am I wasting time over them? In a rage at my procrastination I grab the mobile. “Where are you?” I demand once my father has gone through his routine. “Are you down a tunnel? My mother said you might be. I really would appreciate it if you’d call as soon as you get this.”
Will he think we’ve been discussing him behind his back? Anything I add may aggravate the impression, and I terminate the call. I put the names I can remember to the amounts on the screen, and then I set about inventing. Derby, Strange, Underhill, Colman, Aikin, Houlston, Farren, Roscoe, Lemon, Molyneaux, Pocock, Hime…I’ve no idea where I’m dredging up these names
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