by Chris Castle
Sara Jane had just finished
writing the letter when the doorbell rang. She walked to the door, saw the
frame of the man, it was a man after all, no doubt about that, and asked him
his business. He introduced himself as staff sergeant Powers and stood away
from the door. Without thinking, she opened the door up and looked right out
onto the man on her front porch.
“Ma’am,” he said, looking her
straight in the eye and not wandering anywhere else. A gentleman, thought Sara
Jane, couldn’t think of it anyway else. A real gentleman, from the way his
voice sounded, to the space he allowed her.
“If this is about Daryl, then I’m
afraid you’ve wasted your time, sergeant. One of you boys came up here a month
ago with the letter.” She nodded to him, remembering the boy who handed her the
letter, shuffling his feet like a kid. Waiting to see out of the corner of his
eye what a woman would do when she found out her husband was dead. Whether she
would faint dead away or take him by the hand. He was waiting for her hand; she
could see that in the boy’s eyes, hungry and willing all the while, like a bird
who stole for the sake of stealing. Instead, she simply nodded and wished him
well, waiting until the door was closed and the engine edged out down the lane
before she gently slid down the doorframe and onto the floor.
“I understand that, ma’am and you
have my condolences. See, my visit here is two-fold, you understand. The
government likes to have a member follow up on the bereaved to see how they are
coping.” He finished the sentence then seemed to swallow the other down. With
his hat in his hand, his black hair ran a little unruly, Sarah thought. Too
long for a soldier.
“Your hair’s running wild,” she
said, sensing something wasn’t right. Being married to Daryl had taught her to
learn where a lie was coming in from, or at the least, sense the traces of
something that rang hollow.
“Yes it is ma’am and I apologize
for my appearance,” the man said. If Sarah didn’t know any better, she’d swear
he was blushing. She put him at forty, but a man who held his age well and not
like a burden, like Daryl’s pa, who was forever more than a man than his son.
But still, there was a youthfulness in this man before her, or at the least
something that hadn’t been hollowed out completely in defeat.
“Well, the other reason is this
ma’am. The war you know has been raging is… spilling out now, all over the
country. The cities are breaking up, people rioting. I’m ahead of it and
warning people about what might come this way, soon enough.” He ran his hand
through the hair, so black, she half expected ink to be on his fingers when he
was done.
“Sergeant, are you telling me
you’ve gone AWOL?” Sarah’s husband, her pa, her brother, were all forces. She
knew enough to ask real questions. Behind the looks that everyone saw, a tomboy
brain readied the questions.
“There’s no law in the streets
anymore, ma’am. Can’t run from something that doesn’t exist. I’m just trying to
do my share, how I think is best. You’re the last property in this area, as far
as I can tell.” He nodded again, then took another step back, as if he was
readying to leave. Sarah made a decision in the blink of an eye. She’d called
so many wrong; she figured one had to run right eventually.
“You’d best come in, sergeant.
Yep, I think you’d better come in right now.” She smiled. Now they were at the
end of the world, she felt free like never before. Everything inside her, her
heart, her mind, was a kite running on the beach. “And call me Sarah, or Sarah
Jane if you prefer.
“My name’s Porter,” the man said,
stepping back towards the porch, pushing his hair behind his ears and following
her lead.
Sarah led him into the open room,
offered him a seat. She looked round as she walked over to the coffee pot, idly
thinking that the place looked as good as it could be. She’d not expected
company, not now, not ever again. But now this gentleman was sitting on the
chair close-by, she was glad of him. Even at twenty six, Sarah Jane had felt
lonely for a long time, either on her own or otherwise. It was true when they
said you could be alone with everybody, she swore to that; either during those
dog-heel drug parties Daryl used to throw, or lying in the same bed as him. All
she ever felt was loneliness, ever since her ma died, and that was the truth.
“That’s very kind of you, ma-Sarah-Jane,”
the man, Porter said, as he took the saucer from her. He smiled. “I haven’t had
a coffee served on a saucer since I don’t know when. Much obliged.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Sarah said,
feeling fool enough to almost start blushing herself. Wait until the end of the
world to start acting like a teenager, she thought, shaking her head. “You’ve
seen trouble then, Porter. I mean, I only follow the news and what they tell me
and I don’t know if I can trust them anymore than the boys in the bars, truth
be told.” She shrugged as she sat; smoothed down the dress she was wearing as
she did.
She watched as his eyes hardened
a little, making him older than before, clearly remembering the things he’d
seen.
“You’re right not to trust them. Any
of them. I saw the news and nearly started laughing, same with the papers.
They’ve all got their interests, but there’s no clear sides in this.” He sipped
his coffee, readying himself, Sarah knew. “Even the men I worked with split
into sides, like kids. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, see? No rules. Out
there, now…it’s havoc plain and simple.” He looked up, shook his head. He set
the saucer down, raised his hand.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to scare
you, Sarah-Jane, but it’s the truth. All of it, it’s all mobs and hurting now.”
He looked up at her, thinking something, almost as an afterthought. “You can
trust me. I know you don’t have any reason to, but you can…can trust me. I got
no reason to lie.”
“I know that Porter. And I’m
thankful you coming out here to find people, myself included.” She wanted to
re-assure him. As soon as he came in, he sat a distance away. He didn’t follow
her as she walked away from him, the way the rest of them all did. He wasn’t
like that, not hungry. He was something else, she knew almost right away; he
was haunted.
“Well, you’re in-front of it now,
so let’s do the best we can, right now, okay?” She nodded to him and smiled.
“Okay,” he nodded back. He tried
to smile and some of the lines across his brow fell away. She was glad for
that, at least.
“Is that you’re first name, or
you’re last?” She asked from out of nowhere. “Porter?”
“First. My ma was a Cole Porter
fan, all the show tunes. She used to play them to me every day, just so I
understood. I think my pa would have been jealous of him, if he’d had a bad
bone in his body.” He broke into a true smile now and the years fell from him.
“They say you rebel, grow to hate what you’re parents love, but I didn’t. I
play those songs al the time. Hell, I even got them in my jeep now. It’s about
the only thing that can get me to sleep, after everything.”
“I believe that, I do,” she said,
finishing her coffee. “My pa was a soldier like you, but guess what my ma was?”
She looked over, saw him shrug. “An airline stewardess. Back in the sixties,
when it still meant something. I’ve got so many photos of her wearing the
outfit; powder blue, with a sharp blue hat resting on top. Even in the photos
you can see she’s…in bloom, you know? Like an actress out of an old black and
white movie. I still got her outfit in my bedroom, wrapped in plastic. Daryl,
my late husband, used to tease me something fierce about it, saying how creepy
it was, when he wasn’t trying to get me to wear it.” She rolled her eyes, shook
her head. “He never understood, you know? You don’t think it’s creepy, do you?”
She looked over to him. For some reason, right then, it seemed important to
find out what this stranger thought about this, about the prized possession
that meant so much to her.
“I think if I could have kept
anything of my parents, I would have kept everything. I would have built a
house to keep it all together. That’s what I think.” He nodded and she knew
that was enough. “The one thing I got are flowers and plants; that’s what my ma
and pa used to work on, all the time. Even now they’re house is gone, every
time I see a flower, a rose, I think a part of it’s theirs, you know? That’s
what I think, at least.”
“That makes sense to me,” she
said, walking over to collect his cup. She made up two more. As she was making
them up she heard the squawk of his radio come to life on his hip. He turned it
down, held it close to his ear while the news came through. She waited until it
was done before she walked back in.
“I should turn the radio on? The
TV reception’s given out last time I checked it, this morning.” She set the cup
down and she looked at him, a little pale now, as if he was on his way to
becoming a ghost.
“Thank you,” was all he said at
first. This man would remember his manners when he lay dying she thought, smiling
to him. She hovered where she was, not leaving him yet. “The radio?”
“Maybe we’ll leave the radio for
now,” he said, looking into her eyes. His were wet, not through tears, not
quite, but something like a truth; the real truth that a body knew and couldn’t
escape, or fix. The two looked hard at each other for a second and then
somewhere, inside themselves, they made an agreement, silently and only through
their eyes. The only lie they would tell, Sarah decided, as she made her way
back to her chair.
“No radio,” she said, confirming
the lie, watched as it eased him down from where he was in his mind. “I only
cried once for my husband after he died, Porter. He was a mean man who hurt me,
but I’m not sure I shouldn’t have cried more, all the same.” There was no time
now, she realised, no time for games, for half-truths.
“I could understand that. Sometimes
when men died that I knew, I didn’t feel bad for them, knowing how they were,
on the inside. Truth was, I felt a kind of relief, knowing they weren’t going
to be close by to hurt anyone else. It’s what makes us human, I guess.” He had
agreed to it, this pact. The feeling of being free again, the kite soaring
high, ran through her again, overwhelming the fear, keeping it pushed down, at
bay.
“Do you have any place to go,
Porter?” She said, smiling at how oddly formal she sounded, how polite they
were both being, here, at the end of the world.
“No…I guess I don’t, Ma’am…Sarah-Jane.”
He said.
“I was thinking we should eat.
You look as if you could eat and I think it’s late enough in the day to be
thinking about it. What do you say?” She was already pushing herself out of the
chair before he had time to agree. In that way, it was settled.
There was food in the oven, but Sarah
took the biggest chocolate cake built out of the fridge and set it on the
table. Her aunt had brought it over, as she did every month, worrying over
Sarah being on her own, trying to make plan after plan for her. The other
months she would cut a sliver every other evening and eat it down while
reading. It reminded her of being a kid, cake and cocoa and writing her diary
while her parents washed the dishes close-by. The happiest time of her life. She
told Porter all this, no longer inhibited by any structure or rules; free to
say whatever pulsed through her mind.
“You know what worried me though,
out of all of it?” She said as she cleaved off another huge slice and dumped it
on his plate. He started laughing.
“Lord! That is the size of a
house brick, Sarah-Jane!” He shook his head, but pushed the fork right on in. She
smiled while he looked down to his plate, glad he was loosening up to, free to
use her name without thinking.
“It wasn’t getting big, not once.
I ran for the school, always enjoyed it too. No, it was because I had these
braces, train tracks, and I was worried about dirtying up my teeth after having
all that metal stuck on them for so long.” She speared a slab for herself, saw
him nodding right along.
“Same here. I got them all fixed
up, nice and straight and then went out and got drunk and chipped the front one
all to hell. Made my ma cry, almost. Only got them fixed with the army a few
years back.” He looked up. “Divorce present.”
“Tell me. Tell me something else,
something you would never tell a stranger.” She looked at him, saw him crease
his eyes, thinking.
“I own comic books. Since I was a
teenager up until I was twenty or so. Still grab them off the shelves when I
get the chance, in a corner store, or a bookshop. Got them all bagged up, like
your ma’s air stewardess dress. Sometimes I break them out and read them, sit
for hours, just reading. Takes me back, I guess. Like your cake and cocoa.” He
looked away from her then, pretending to look at the cake. His skin flushed and
she couldn’t help but put her finger on the back of his hand.
“That’s a sweet secret to tell
someone. And it beats lying all ends up, right?” She drew her finger away, but
still felt the heat on the tip.
“I always dreamed of buying a
chandelier,” she said, trying to push away the embarrassment he felt. “I’d see
them in movies or in catalogues sometimes and I just couldn’t get the idea out
of my head, you know? They just seemed so…impossible. Like my ma’s uniform, or
something. From another time…a better time.” She looked down and saw the plates
were empty, the forks smudged and fulfilled.
“Maybe that’s why you liked it,
because it was impossible. That makes sense to me, seeing something and not
being able to reach it.” He collected up the plates. “I don’t know if I’m going
to have room for anything more after all that.”
“We can choose,” Sarah said,
hooking her fingers through the cup handles. “We can do anything we like.” She
set the cups down and reached into the cupboard. She pulled out the wine, set
it down where the cake had sat before.
“I haven’t had a drink in almost
twelve years,” he said staring at the bottle. Sarah drew it back without
thinking, but then saw him raise his hand. “No…No it’s a good idea…I think…I
think today is the day for it.” She brought the bottle back and pushed two
glasses forward. He reached into his shirt pocket and drew out a packet of
cigarettes.
“I haven’t smoked for nearly two
years,” she said, looking at the carton. He left his hand frozen in the air,
holding the packet, until she nodded to him. “Seems like the day for it.”
They circled each other for a
long moment, looking to one another and then away, making peace with their
decisions. She popped the cork and poured two full glasses, while he shook out
the two cigarettes and pulled the lighter from his pocket. They met in the
middle, setting down the glasses on the table, the ashtray. They sat, her first
and then him, and they leant forward, as if in the middle of discussing a plan,
a caper. He took the glass and handed it to her, before taking his own. As he
did the radio he had turned low hummed into life and the two of them held their
glasses, waiting for the buzz to finish. When it did, he raised his glass to
hers.
“To…today. One day,” he said,
brushing her glass.
“One day,” she repeated watching
him bring the glass to his mouth. They sipped, long and slow, sitting quietly
for a second or two afterwards. They drank a little more and then took the
cigarettes from the ashtray. He offered her the first and lit it for her, then
followed. The two of them sat, finishing the cigarettes, drinking from their
glasses, their eyes glazing from one and then the other. There was more to be
said, but for that moment, what they had was enough.
They ate, finished the bottle,
smoked a second cigarette. The radio on his waist hummed over and over, barely
ending one message before the next burst crept through. In the end he unhooked
it and slipped it to the far corner of the room.
“You’re uniform looks tired,” she
said without thinking. She didn’t mean to be rude, but the shoulders were
scuffing and the elbows looked worn. He immediately touched those self same
places, aware of what she meant.
“You look about Daryl’s size. Why
don’t you try on one of his? I kept them all pressed, neat, in the cupboard.
I’d hate to see them go to waste.” She looked at him and watched him pat
himself down, the same way she did with her dress whenever she sat, aware of
the creases and the curves. “At the top of the stairs, on the left hand side.”
He walked away without another word, up the stairs, holding his glass by the
lip.
After a while she walked up the
stairs and stopped a few from the top. She heard him pull at the belt, roll the
buttons into place. She asked if he was okay and without answering, he stepped
out into the hallway. His hair was pushed back behind his ears, the top button
was loose, but everything else was perfect. How she imagined a soldier should
be.
“Where’s your ma’s uniform?” He
said. His eyes were glazed, but she wasn’t sure if that was from the drink or
something else, like fresh tears. His voice was still clear, there was no
slurring. She walked into the same room, opened another cupboard. He walked up
beside her and stood beside her as she gently tugged the plastic away from the
clothes. She put her hand onto the collar. Then she drew it away and took his
hand and laid it on the same spot.
“It’s beautiful,” he said, as she
settled her hand over the back of his, feeling the coolness of his knuckles.
“It’s in bloom,” she said,
feeling the material pass through into her skin, like water. He walked away,
looking back to her once. Then he walked down the stairwell, waiting for her,
as she drew the uniform out of the cupboard and down onto the bed.
She walked stiffly down the
stairs, feeling the pinch and the tucks of the material against her skin. As
she reached halfway, she saw him waiting for her, the top button now done up
and everything in place. She reached the bottom of the stairs and pulled once
on the skirt. The radio in the corner was now in pieces by the door. She walked
over and opened the second bottle of red. She poured the two glasses to the
brim. Outside, in the distance, she thought she saw a puff of light. He walked
over and drew the curtains, even as she was readying herself to ask him to do
just that. The house was dark but for the two of them, their outfits gleaming
in the dusky light. He had moved a candle to the table and lit it as she set
the bottle to one side. She walked away from him and over to the radio in the
corner. She flicked it into life; surprised the power was still running and
quickly rolled over the muddle of screams, the earnest voices. She rolled the
dial on and on until it picked up a station that had played since she was a
child. There was no DJ, just the music streaming through twenty four hours a
day. ‘Nothing new’, was their slogan, ‘just the oldies’. A man sang slowly as
she turned and walked back to the centre of the room.
© 2010 Chris Castle. All rights reserved.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
