recognize her,” I said absently. “Don’t know where from, but …” A white woman about my age, dressed in too structured a blue suit for too hot a day, stood at the back of the crowd, watching. She was with the crowd but not of it. I touched the screen with one index finger and felt the static that had collected upon it. “You are so bloody familiar, lady …”
“Marc!”
“… who the hell are you?”
“Marc, for god’s sake!”
There was a click and the television went off. I stood up and turned around. Lynne was standing, her weight rested on one hip, with a look of just contained anger upon her face. She held the television remote control in an outstretched hand, pointed now at me, as if it were a weapon.
“Please, will you tell me what is in those boxes that is so damn important?”
“Yes. Of course. Right.” I walked over and started rummaging through one of them, suddenly aware that I was essentially naked and beginning to feel a chill. “Photographs,” I said. “Old stuff. Me with friends at school. Outings. Later stuff of teenage parties.” I picked up a handful of the pictures and started shuffling through them, discarding them back into the box in a fall of dust and crumbling paper as I went. “Me on holiday when I was a kid.” I stopped at one image: me and Luke, both being held aloft by my mountainous, bare-chested dad, all three of us grinning at the camera, somewhere pine-forested and hot. I must have been about seven, Luke five. “Me with Dad.”
“Marc?” Her voice was softer now, almost careful, as if she were trying to coax me out of a dark cave.
I turned to her and smiled reassuringly. “No, honestly, love, it’s fine. I’m fine. Hang on.” I carried on going through the pictures. “Sometimes you need pictures to remind you of all the things you’ve done, don’t you? All the people you’ve screwed over. The mistakes you’ve made.”
Lynne was standing next to me now as I flashed through my youth in a set of garish, creased images. All she said was, “I see.”
Finally I found the picture I had been looking for. It had been taken at a friend’s party: There was the living room, empty of furniture. (It was customary to remove it all, in case it got trashed.) My friends were sprawled about on the floor, cans of beer and bottles of cheap wine at hand. A few couples were deep in their various clinches in the corners. At the center of the shot, the reason for this picture, apparently, was a pile of adolescent boys sitting on top of each other in a heap, four deep, grinning at the camera. Stefan was on top. I wasn’t in the heap so I must have taken the photograph, but I’m sure I thought the pile of humanity bloody funny. We must have been about fourteen or fifteen at the time, a point when, if you are drunk enough, piling on top of each other can be hilarious.
My interest in the image lay elsewhere, though, off to one side: a dark-haired, rather pretty, rather large girl, sitting with her back to a fitted cabinet and staring up at the camera with complete disdain.
“There she is,” I said, resting the top of my thumb against the blurred image of her face.
Lynne squinted at the image. “Who is she?”
“Someone I knew when I was a kid,” I said, distracted once more. I heard Lynne sigh with irritation.
I turned to her. “She’s a girl I used to know called Wendy Coleman,” I said. “And I owe her an apology.”
Seven
M y mother comes from one of those old English families which have always believed in giving service to the state, much as popes have always believed in God. Whenever there was a colony that needed ruling or a war that needed fighting, a people that needed subduing or exploiting or indoctrinating, you could be certain a Welton-Smith would be on hand, ready to help out. There were Welton-Smiths at Trafalgar and Balaklava and Ladysmith. They helped Cromwell rampage through Drogheda and Wexford in 1649 and still managed to be cheering at
“Marc!”
“… who the hell are you?”
“Marc, for god’s sake!”
There was a click and the television went off. I stood up and turned around. Lynne was standing, her weight rested on one hip, with a look of just contained anger upon her face. She held the television remote control in an outstretched hand, pointed now at me, as if it were a weapon.
“Please, will you tell me what is in those boxes that is so damn important?”
“Yes. Of course. Right.” I walked over and started rummaging through one of them, suddenly aware that I was essentially naked and beginning to feel a chill. “Photographs,” I said. “Old stuff. Me with friends at school. Outings. Later stuff of teenage parties.” I picked up a handful of the pictures and started shuffling through them, discarding them back into the box in a fall of dust and crumbling paper as I went. “Me on holiday when I was a kid.” I stopped at one image: me and Luke, both being held aloft by my mountainous, bare-chested dad, all three of us grinning at the camera, somewhere pine-forested and hot. I must have been about seven, Luke five. “Me with Dad.”
“Marc?” Her voice was softer now, almost careful, as if she were trying to coax me out of a dark cave.
I turned to her and smiled reassuringly. “No, honestly, love, it’s fine. I’m fine. Hang on.” I carried on going through the pictures. “Sometimes you need pictures to remind you of all the things you’ve done, don’t you? All the people you’ve screwed over. The mistakes you’ve made.”
Lynne was standing next to me now as I flashed through my youth in a set of garish, creased images. All she said was, “I see.”
Finally I found the picture I had been looking for. It had been taken at a friend’s party: There was the living room, empty of furniture. (It was customary to remove it all, in case it got trashed.) My friends were sprawled about on the floor, cans of beer and bottles of cheap wine at hand. A few couples were deep in their various clinches in the corners. At the center of the shot, the reason for this picture, apparently, was a pile of adolescent boys sitting on top of each other in a heap, four deep, grinning at the camera. Stefan was on top. I wasn’t in the heap so I must have taken the photograph, but I’m sure I thought the pile of humanity bloody funny. We must have been about fourteen or fifteen at the time, a point when, if you are drunk enough, piling on top of each other can be hilarious.
My interest in the image lay elsewhere, though, off to one side: a dark-haired, rather pretty, rather large girl, sitting with her back to a fitted cabinet and staring up at the camera with complete disdain.
“There she is,” I said, resting the top of my thumb against the blurred image of her face.
Lynne squinted at the image. “Who is she?”
“Someone I knew when I was a kid,” I said, distracted once more. I heard Lynne sigh with irritation.
I turned to her. “She’s a girl I used to know called Wendy Coleman,” I said. “And I owe her an apology.”
Seven
M y mother comes from one of those old English families which have always believed in giving service to the state, much as popes have always believed in God. Whenever there was a colony that needed ruling or a war that needed fighting, a people that needed subduing or exploiting or indoctrinating, you could be certain a Welton-Smith would be on hand, ready to help out. There were Welton-Smiths at Trafalgar and Balaklava and Ladysmith. They helped Cromwell rampage through Drogheda and Wexford in 1649 and still managed to be cheering at
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