Landed (13 page)

Behind him, a lorry comes into the street. More runners. He lets them overtake him. They hurl the black bin bags into the mouth at the back of a foul-breathing vehicle, which grinds past him.

A sound carries, of the tide hitting a pebbly shore, the sound of waves crashing in a nearby road, a different lorry, swallowing glass.

He takes a left, a right, once more the emptiness.

Electronic noise bursts out of an open window, a bedlam of various beats. It sounds like someone inside the house is throwing metal balls down the stairs, musical juggling; a racket of repetitive precision. It dissipates behind him. Owen feels jittery. He wants to hurry up.

 

The bicycle is a white racer, leaning against a silver birch tree. It has no lock. Owen stops, looks around. He squeezes front tyre, full of air, back one too. The brakes function. The bike has no accessories – no mudguards or lights or basket – it is naked, skeletal like a bird. The next thing Owen knows he is riding it along the wide pavement, his hook clamped to the handlebar, his left hand ready to brake. Weaving in and out of trees, then sliding onto the road and pedalling hard.

Out of the suburb and into the urban entanglement of metal, noise, velocity. Free as air, veering in and out of nervous traffic. The vast roundabouts on the inner ring road. Sailing under the wheels of juggernauts, pantechnicons, the suicidal frailty of a bicycle, a sailing dinghy in these shipping lanes.

Owen enters the main post office. Inside, the queue is long and layered back onto itself like an intestine. Owen is moved intermittently forward by some kind of peristaltic shunt. Television screens on the wall above the row of serving kiosks advertise a succession of commercial products and services. Red numbers on a counter high up on the wall rise gradually higher. ‘Cashier number five, please.'

In front of Owen are two women. They address each other every now and then, while they gaze around the room. ‘So obvious,' the dark-haired one says. ‘Who's she think she's fooling?'

There is a long pause, as the other woman, with brownblonde hair, tries to imagine exactly who she does think she's fooling. In time she replies, ‘Makes her look a lot younger though, don't it?'

Now it is the dark one's turn to ponder. ‘Bob said he'll get me one for my birthday,' she announces. ‘But that's years off.'

Owen enjoys the stately pace of their conversation. It reminds him of childhood. There is something old-fashioned, rural, about it.

‘I don't mind having stuff taken out,' the blonde woman resumes, dreamily. ‘Wouldn't have nothing put in, mind.'

The dark-haired woman nods at the ticket in her companion's hand, says, ‘About time,' and they advance upon a vacant kiosk.

When it is his turn Owen clears his post office account. One hundred and seventeen pounds and fifty-nine pence. The young man behind the counter presses his knuckles against the wad of notes and turns them over with his thumb, counting them at incredible speed.

In the library there are two long rows of computer monitors, back to back. People peer into them, bathing their faces in the pale glow. Owen is fortunate to be given a slot when the person who'd booked it fails to show up. A moderate amount of mail. Spam, mostly. Using the index finger of his left hand and a pencil in his hook, Owen taps the keyboard with two digits. He sets up an auto out-of-office reply.
Owen Ithell is no longer to be found at this address
.

Owen looks for a book to take on the journey. It would need to be something he could share with the children. He wanders up and down the aisles.
Children's Guide to the Wildlife of Britain
. People sit and read, study. The illusion of peace. Their minds within the mind of the library. He has heard of a library in the shape of a human head. Windows in the eyes and ears, was it? No, it had walls of glass. I am in it now, he thinks.

 

Mid-morning. The clouds break up. The rucksack presses against Owen's back, he can feel the sweat on his shirt. The straps bite into his bony shoulders. He leans back. An aeroplane rises in a blue sky, like a toy thrown up by a child in a distant suburb. The smell of asphalt. On a cricket ground, out by the side of the wicket, an irrigator: on a tripod a long bar from either end of which water shoots upwards. The bar spins on its axis on the tripod, first this way, then that, so that the jets of water are made to describe helices. One double helix after another, repeating, dissolving.

 

Owen enters the school by the back entrance, through the cramped staff car park. The little playground is empty. Crisp packets, snack wrappers, rustle and stir in the brisk morning. A hard sun rises above the climbing frame. He screws up his
eyes. The sky is white. He walks round the side to the front entrance and rings the bell.

The school secretary opens the door. Sally is a large woman in her late forties or early fifties. She wears what look to Owen like colourful pieces of material flung over her body. Her body a piece of furniture covered in drapes, in throws of fabric. It is difficult to guess her shape beneath. She perspires along her upper lip.

‘Come in,' Sally says. ‘Come in.'

Owen stumbles into the reception area.

‘Would you like to sit down?' Sally asks.

Owen doesn't want to sit down. He isn't sure what to say.

‘Is everything all right?'

He hadn't thought about what he would say. He hadn't considered the need to say anything. The head teacher comes out of her office.

‘Won't you sit down, Mr Ithell?' she asks.

‘Can I fetch you a glass of water?' Sally offers. There is a long pause. They lean towards each other, as if the three of them are praying together. There is the smell of something organic in the vestibule. A machine in Sally's office comes to life with a quiet belch, followed by animated squeaks. Owen realises the smell is coming from a large brown paper carrier bag in the corner: an uncollected bag from the PTA fruit and vegetable scheme.

‘I'll fetch him a glass of water,' Sally decides. ‘He's white as a sheet.'

Mrs Okechukwu takes Owen's arm. Before he knows it he is sitting down, next to her, on one of the easy chairs in reception, under the cross. Everything is quiet. There is an odd hush, a peculiar quality to the sound inside the school, with two hundred and fifty children in their lessons. Owen had never
noticed it before. The air seems to contain their suppressed energy. He hears a distant teacher's remonstration. A quick convulsion of laughter in a different classroom. Then the constrained quiet once more.

Sally bows before him with a white plastic cup of water. ‘I'm fine,' he says, taking it from her with his left hand. The water is lukewarm. He drinks it down, slowly, every last warm drop.

‘I need to take Joshua and Holly out of school,' he says. ‘I've come to collect them.'

Mrs Okechukwu asks, ‘Has something . . . ?' She stops, keeps the shape of her mouth around the last syllable.

‘Their grandmother,' Owen says.

‘Has she . . . ?' Sally asks.

‘She 's not well, see,' Owen says. He shakes his head. ‘Doesn't look good. May be our last chance to visit.'

The two women look upon Owen with tender wariness. It occurs to him that they'd rather look after him than entrust the children to his care.

‘She's very calm,' he says. ‘Looks like the end is close but she's not ranting. Mean a great deal to her to see her grandchildren.' Owen squeezes his eyes closed, and gulps, and opens them again. ‘Mean a lot to them as well, see,' he says. ‘Times to come.' He looks from one to the other. ‘Wouldn't want to deprive them of the chance to say goodbye.'

Mrs Okechukwu rises and says to Sally, ‘I will get Joshua,' and the two women go off in different directions. Sally comes back first, clutching a green jacket and a pink rucksack. Holly walks ahead of her. She's not seen her father in a while. Recognition blooms suddenly on her face. She grins at him. Every few steps she skips, tempted to run yet restraining herself, aware already of appropriate behaviour. So grown-up, his little girl. Her sixth birthday just a few weeks away.

Owen stays seated, but reaches out, and Holly lets him gather her to him. ‘Daddy,' she says.

The head reappears with Josh, her solicitous hand high upon his spine. He is shaking his head. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘Nana's ill,' Owen explains. He makes a solemn face. ‘We'll go and visit her.'

Owen feels Holly's body give a little wriggle beside him. ‘On the bus?' she asks, wide-eyed. Her father nods.

Josh is frowning. ‘Does Mum know?' he demands. Josh's frown darkens. He looks troubled, angry. He looks like he is doing a comic impression of his father, but it's not supposed to be funny.

‘Your grandmother's not very well, Joshua,' Sally tells him.

Mrs Okechukwu says to Owen, ‘Their mother knows about this?'

‘Of course.'

Josh has always hated disruption to or a break in his routine. Eleven years old now. When he was younger, Owen would remember too late the need to warn or remind his son of what was about to happen. We're going to the park in half an hour. Tomorrow you're seeing the optician: I'll take you out of school mid-morning, and return you after lunch. Josh found it hard to cope with being surprised. Clearly, he hasn't changed.

‘I don't want to go,' he says. His resistance is palpable: perhaps Mrs Okechukwu is exerting pressure on his neck, and he is pushing back against her. ‘I can stay here,' Josh insists.

‘It's your grandmother, Joshua,' Sally tells him.

‘Let me ask Mum if I can stay here,' Josh says. His countenance has become clouded by suspicion.

‘Is their mother going?' Mrs Okechukwu asks.

‘No,' Owen says. The notion of panic occurs, without actually afflicting him. ‘It's fine. Joshua can stay here. You stay
here, Josh. Holly and I will go. I'll tell Mummy to collect you as usual. That's fine.' He stands up.

‘Are you sure you're all right, Mr Ithell?' Sally asks.

The vestibule lurches. It feels as if the school is a raft, floating on water.

‘You're trembling,' says Sally.

Owen steadies himself against the wall, until the blood has returned to his brain. ‘I'll be okay outside. Thank you.' He takes Holly's hand.

‘If it's arranged that Joshua should go,' Mrs Okechukwu says in some confusion, ‘I believe he should.'

At that moment lessons around the school begin to come to an end. Morning break. There is a rustling sound, and something like breathing. The school building is like a skull inside of which the brain of a great creature stirs from sleep. The children are thoughts. They distract the head teacher.

‘We'll give Nana a kiss from you, okay?' Owen tells Josh. Josh nods, relaxing, the threat of disruption to his day being withdrawn.

Owen and Holly walk out of the front door and back around the side of the school. Children are bursting out of doors, hysterical, each intent upon some course of action. Girls of various ages skip over to ask Holly why she's being taken out of school. Gratified by the attention, self-important, she tells them she is going to see her nana, who is ill. Owen keeps hold of her hand, moving her along, urging himself forward too, afraid of a shout behind them, calling them back, reining them in; a phone call having been made, Mel berserk at the other end, a male teacher, others, summoned urgently to corral the out-of-control father.

But no yell comes. They make it out of the playground and through the staff car park, only then do they hear the sound
of running feet. Owen stops and turns. Josh reaches them and begins walking, obliging them to resume doing so. He doesn't want to make a scene, he's just changed his mind, that is all. Given a little more time, he'd been able to assimilate the information and decide for himself that he'd like to come on this expedition.