Old people are loud and you can’t tell them to tone it down because then you’re the rude one. William is banging and crashing around with pots like he’s in a hotel kitchen and has no idea where anything goes. There’s a whole lot of frozen chicken pieces near the stovetop. William looks up as he chucks them into a big pot.
‘I remember one winter back in my university days, I woke up—bitter cold it was—and found a rat on my front doorstep. Frozen solid. The cat had left it there as a present. Can you imagine that?’
I really can’t so I just pour myself some Rice Bubbles and focus on the snap, crackle, pop. This is difficult because then William starts talking to himself, diluting my powers of concentration.
‘Now, do I let them thaw?’ He looks up at me again like I care. ‘Thought I’d do a casserole, make some room in the freezer for your fishy fingers.’
‘They’re called Timmy’s Fish Logs.’
‘Okay.’ William smiles and lights the cooker. There’s one single rice bubble on the floor. I step on it just to make a mess. Maybe I’m becoming a delinquent. With my French heritage, perhaps I could upgrade to an anarchist or a revolutionary before the week was out. See how William likes having me around then—marching down the street waving a flag singing my freedom songs.
I can hear the moon sending waves in and out round the corner, down the bend, up a hill and through the dunes. It’s saying, ‘Why are you there when you could be here?’
Maybe I should just let myself be wrapped up in the cold, deep water. But there is something caught. Like a loose thread hooked on a splintered doorway. And then I think that maybe I’m scared. I’ve never been close to the sea before and when you want something that much it can frighten you. When it’s finally there, the whole thing is bigger than you thought and too much to take in. What if the moon pulls the waves so far back it all disappears over the horizon, swallowed up by the setting sun?
I tell William about the black man in the middle of nowhere. ‘Did you send him?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ he says, stirring those chicken bits. He’s looking deep into that pot and he tells me it doesn’t work like that. Not all black people know each other and what a silly idea that is to start with.
Of course he’s gonna deny it. That’s what guilty people do: ‘I never saw him before in my life, Judge! Honest ta God.’
I stay in my room for the next few days and write letters of complaint even though I don’t know where to send them. Wednesday’s letter is devoted entirely to fruit and hairs. William only has tinned fruit salad and I don’t think that fruit should come in small squares. Also he’s got really long white nose hairs and I have to sit on my hands to stop myself from pulling them out. By the time Friday comes around I am really in the swing of it and I write a letter to William himself:
Dear William,
You are not me and I am not you. Dad stole my whiteness and you are his father so the buck stops here.
Mum had sunlight under her skin. She was the colour of an angel and sometimes when she stood in front of the window her blonde hair would glow. The only light I’ve got left is in the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet. That’s why I can’t get into heaven. Who’s ever seen a black angel? My wings would be made of metal and I’d fall out of the sky.
I mostly want to be like Tina Arena when I grow up. I can close my eyes and frown with immense pain. Good singing has to hurt. And when people are sad they need someone to sing the sorrow away.
I did that once to my cat Ashtray who’d gotten himself run over. He was still breathing but all broken and twisted like he was trying to look back at his tail, making little breaths in & out, in & out. I held Ashtray and sang Johnny’s ‘Burn for You’. I sang away his sorrow. Then Mum took him to the vet and she was crying even though she hated it when Ashtray crawled under the house and howled like he was crazy wild. The vet turned him into ash, which is ironical. But the point is I think I’d be a very good singer in Paris, because they have lots of cats there.
Yours in disrespect,
Dylan.
All this time William’s been in the old wooden bungalow out back hunched over these cardboard boxes. He comes out, lights up a cigarette and leans against the door watching all the smoke float up into the air. What are the chances? William gently tapping his ash into a saucer on the window ledge while I’m writing about Ashtray being turned into ash. He looks up at me, startled out of his smoko and quick as a flash I’m inside one of his memories.
There’s a sizzling sound like sausages in the pan, only it’s skin that’s burning. There’s my dad. He’s the same age I am now but already he’s full of fury. Dad takes William’s cigarette, holds down his arm and burns him with it, and then he walks away like nothing’s happened. I’m going past that moment now. Back, way back. William’s holding his newborn son, rocking him softly to sleep. My dad is just a baby, and William has hopes and worries for him in equal measure, sure he’s the most precious creature God’s blessed anyone with yet. Way back then he is afraid for him, not of him. Quick as I see his story it’s gone.
William stubs the memory out, blows one more mouthful of smoke into the air and goes back inside the bungalow. Through the door I see boxes full of paper and old files in manila folders. William leans over the desk writing notes and ticking off scribbles he’s made. Maybe he’s a spy for another government. Like Nigeria. They’re always trying to get money in and out of the country. I keep one eye closed so he can only see me half as well. But even though he doesn’t look up he can tell I am there.
‘It always catches up with you. Spend your life dealing with other people’s paperwork and forget about your own. Until you retire,’ says William.
Mum used to say you should never make decisions when you’re emotional and I was both angry and sad so I threw the letter in the bin. Besides, it was mostly about cats and Paris and not really about how I felt. But then my hands start acting on their own and before I can stop, they’re rummaging around in my backpack.
I walk into the bungalow and shove the old letters into William’s hand. For a while he just frowns, trying to figure out what he’s reading. Then smack bang he realises they’re from someone who he used to know but who disappeared a long time ago. He leans back on a filing cabinet.
‘What did he tell you?’ William says to me, even though he’s still looking at the letters.
‘He didn’t tell me anything. He ran away.’ I rip into him about all the times Dad hit Mum because inside he was still a little boy whose father had left him in the middle of the night. That dad bottled it up and let it out on the people who cared about him most.
‘You hurt my dad, and then my dad hurt us. And the only person who was always beautiful is gone.’
Thought I’d feel stronger by setting him straight but I don’t feel right at all. My gut is all twisted up inside. William looks at me like I’m a hundred feet tall and my shadow would turn him to dust if he fell under it. He’s got no words and even if he did there’s nothing that can change what’s done and dusted. Adults always think they know how teenagers feel ’cause they had once been the same age and ‘have the benefit of hindsight’, but he was never me. William’s a stranger and it’s too late for anything else. Now he’s just fiddling with that gold cross on his necklace. Back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. One day he’s gonna rub it into nothing. I look at my reflection in his eyes and realise they’re full of tears.