Entanglement

‘Aren’t you supposed to be having a crisis or something?’

She pulled away and laughed, a surprisingly low chuckle for someone so slight. ‘Look!’ she gestured inside to the kitchenette, her sleeve riding up to reveal a livid bruise on her wrist. She tugged at her cuff and Charlie looked away.

‘Ben,’ he said.

‘He came back!’ Annie exclaimed with a shrillness that made her brother’s jaw tighten.

A great coal-haired sprawl of a man, Ben dwarfed the chair he sat on, limbs splayed out in all directions.

‘Hi Chaz,’ he said, ‘bit early for a social call, isn’t it?’

Charlie glanced at the clock – it had just gone 8 – and grimaced. ‘Bit early for anything, mate.’

Annie held the kettle up, brow furrowed but her mouth set in a smile, her spare hand fluttering about her face.

‘Tea, dear boys?’ she asked. ‘Got a bit of a busy day ahead of us.’

Annie’s father had left before she was born, just as Charlie’s father had done. One morning when Charlie was four, their mother had leaned across the dirty breakfast table, scarlet dressing gown gaping open across her leaking breasts, and said to him, ‘You’re the man round here now.’ Eating his Weetabix, he had looked with intrigue at the baggy skin of the mewling creature she was holding and said nothing. From then on, though, he’d known this baby would be his responsibility; that he would need to protect her from the tidal waves of fury and despair and the many drunken boyfriends that passed through their mother’s life.

They had moved with their mother from place to place, the oniony smell of dirty linen and glasses ringed with whisky residue the only constant. And yet there had always been good days. Those were the days when their mother blazed with light, turning on her heel on the way to school and pulling them aboard the number 19 bus, climbing with them up the stairs to the seats at the front where they would see their friends below walking in the opposite direction. They knew better than to question her, for fear that they might lose this moment of brightness, her tinkling laugh. They would go to the zoo or to the cinema, where they’d watch as many showings in a row as they could, legs hooked over the plush of the seats in front. The problem was that there were always more bad days than good. The dark days, she had called them once when she’d tried to explain, ‘It’s as though all the colour’s drained out of the world, Charlie,’ she’d slurred from where she lay, ‘like it’s all made out of tracing paper.’ He had learned early on that she was lost to them on those tracing-paper days and so, whenever the darkness fell, he’d taken charge, looking after Annie as best as he knew how.

Charlie swigged his tea while Ben drummed his fingers on the side of his chair. Annie leaned back against the work surface, the tendons in her neck flicking, her hands still fluttering. Charlie noticed the stale odour of dirty clothes; the rumpled bed with a greying corner of the mattress exposed; the sink full of dishes smeared with ketchup and hardening grease. Annie clasped her fingers around her wrist as she spoke.

‘What happened there, anyway?’ Charlie asked, nodding towards her wrist, trying to keep his tone light.

Ben’s face darkened. He stood up. ‘Right. I need a piss. We’ve got to start getting ourselves scrubbed up, Chaz, so perhaps you could – y’know—?’

Charlie looked at his sister’s fiancé and gave a faint smile, though he felt his hands tighten into fists. ‘What’s that now, Ben?’

But Annie interrupted and changed the subject before he could answer, her eyes widening at Charlie as she spoke. For a moment he considered what would happen if he just spoke the words out loud. What are you doing to my sister? But her eyes were fixed on his and he could see what she was asking him to do, so he drained his cup, said goodbye and pulled the stiff door open. From the bottom of the steps he looked up to see his sister’s head peering over the railings, her pale hair streaming loose.

‘Don’t forget to be there at eleven!’ she shouted.

Raising his arm in a wave, Charlie walked out of the alleyway, swallowing the sudden urge to run back up the steps and take Annie away with him.

1.2

It was the morning of their wedding and fat green lime leaves were swaying by the window, a blue October sky behind them. Stella spoke in hurried whispers, though she could have been as loud as she wanted, since there was no one but John there to hear her. But her voice stayed soft as she pressed her hand against the glass and looked out, misting the pane with her words: This day is the beginning of a whole new life.

Outside, Kilburn had woken up. Cars and buses jostled along the High Road. Old women pushing baskets and young mothers pushing prams walked as if still asleep, their eyes cast down, unaware of the rumbling traffic or the loose stride of the young man side-stepping past them. And he in turn did not see them; the old and the baby-laden had no place yet in Charlie’s world. Guitar music spilled from Woolworth’s and he found himself stepping in time until the sound faded into the noise of the busy street. He looked up as he walked, passing under the striped awning of the butcher’s, the red and white swirl of a barber’s pole, a line of stone composers’ heads above the door of the music shop, their features softened with muck and time.

At Maida Vale, between the strange coupling of high-rise flats and grand houses, he moved south. Traffic fumes caught in his throat and moisture gathered in the curve of his back. A bus honked as he ran across the road towards the Tube station, the driver shouting from behind his cab window. In the heat of the Underground, Charlie waited on the platform, staring into the dark mouth of the tunnel. A soot-black mouse darted between the rails, but otherwise he was alone. He studied the poster on the wall behind the track, an advert for the extended line out to the airport. Fly the Tube! it said, and Charlie sighed. As if he could even afford the fare to Heathrow these days. Around him the air lifted, billowing a warm rush of soot and stale cigarettes as the rails shivered in anticipation. The train clattered into view and squealed to a stop, its doors yawning open. No one got off. Charlie stepped into the smoking carriage and dropped onto the blue and red seat, pulling out his packet of Chesterfields as the train drew out of the station.

At Oxford Circus he emerged, buffeted by Saturday shoppers, a rip-tide that threatened to pull him along the swarming pavement. Eyes fixed ahead and hands wedged in his pockets, he pushed against the crowds until he reached the right turn into Denmark Street – musician’s paradise, he thought, remembering the first time he had walked down here with Limpet. His friend, who rarely seemed impressed by anything, had gazed at the guitars in window after window, taking in with greedy eyes the smooth curves of wood and wire. Most of the shops were yet to open, but outside of Trihorn Music a man was smoking, a silk scarf tied around the puff of his Afro. Charlie recognised him as Al, the bassist in Limpet’s latest band, and they nodded to one another as he passed. Alright, man? Yeah, alright. A few doors down, a sign in the steamed-up window of a café read: Bacon Rolls – 10p and feeling in his pocket for change, Charlie pushed the door and walked into the smell of smoke and frying fat.

A few miles north, Limpet was waiting on the platform of West Hampstead station for the train to Brondesbury. It would be a brief stop at his dealer’s – a small bag of weed for after the wedding – and then he would head into town. A short way down the track a train was approaching at high speed, not scheduled to stop. Inside the train, a young boy was playing with his new rubber ball. Back and forth against the wall he threw it, catch and release: a gentle game for a well-behaved boy. But when the ball rebounded at an angle and flew from the open window, it entered the air at the speed of the train, colliding with Limpet’s outstretched hand with enough force to break his metacarpal. Clipped around the head by his outraged mother, the young boy clutched his ear and wailed as the train sped on, his cry unheard by Limpet, who had fainted on the platform.

In Paddington, Stella sat in the hospital waiting room with John, watching swollen-bellied women and stern-faced midwives as they came and went. Eventually, she stood and spoke to the lady at the desk, who eyed her middle, still soft and flat. She wasn’t being difficult, Stella said in a quiet voice, but she had to get married that afternoon, so would her scan be much longer? The older woman laughed, loud and joyous, and led them to a corner office where a dark-haired sonographer was waiting.

Their little swimmer was loop-the-looping, that was what John said, though from where Stella lay the screen was just a fuzz of green blobs. A good baby, the woman said, you’ve got a good baby there, and Stella was shocked by a sudden understanding that it was actually a person somersaulting inside her. Through a crack in the blind she could see a needle’s width of sky, the loose clouds passing, a tiny bird darting by. Then she was wiping jelly from her stomach and tugging her T-shirt and they were walking past the laughing nurse, who wished them luck, and out into the noisy brightness of Praed Street, where people swooped by as she leaned against John’s chest, his hand tucked in the back pocket of her jeans.

At the register office, Annie and Ben stood in front of a wooden desk, a crowd of twenty or so family and friends gathered behind them. The brown carpet tiles rasped and Annie’s dress strained against the sharp blades of her shoulders as she wrapped her arms about herself. At the swish of the door, she turned to see Charlie, waving as he slid into a seat just as the registrar began to speak. He’d never understood what she saw in Ben. From the first time Annie had introduced them, he’d known he’d never like the man. Hadn’t trusted him then and didn’t trust him now. After the vows were said, Ben’s hand pressed down on Annie’s shoulder as they kissed and Charlie felt again the urge to pull his sister away from that man’s grasp. With a shout of ‘She’s mine!’ Ben flung Annie over his shoulder and ran along the aisle between the plastic chairs. As he watched, Charlie felt the growing chatter of the guests recede and in the ringing distance of his mind he heard the words as clearly as if he’d spoken them himself: it’s too late to change things now.

Afterwards, they stood for photos on the steps, as the Saturday traffic roared down the Euston Road. There wouldn’t be any symmetry in those pictures, thought Charlie as he stood alone beside his sister, wishing that Beth could have come back this weekend. Ben’s family gathered on the other side. They were big and loud and, judging by the reek of alcohol coming from the two cousins standing closest, more than a little drunk already.

The pub on Marylebone High Street was still quiet as the rowdy party piled in, but soon the cousins were bellowing rugby songs and the room screeched with laughter and chat. It was fun for a while, to be carried on all that noise, and Charlie drank three pints before he started to wonder why Limpet still wasn’t there. He apologised his way between a group of older women who were deep in outraged conversation – Did you hear about the undertaker’s strike? Poor Bessie’s still waiting for her Albie to be buried. Can you imagine? – moving towards the payphone by the bar. He dialled, ready with his two-pence piece for when the pips went, but no one picked up. He pushed the coin back in his pocket, noticing how hot the pub had become. It was time he left. Behind him, someone thrust another pint into Ben’s hand, who roared with approval, peppering Charlie with spittle-spots as he passed. Wiping his face with his sleeve, Charlie kissed Annie on the cheek and squeezed her wrist. Seeing her grimace, he remembered the purple spread of bruise across her skin underneath, but she waved away his worried look.

‘It’s nothing, Charlie, honestly.’

Surprised by the daylight, he was blinking back the sunshine when Annie burst out of the pub and caught him by his arm, laughing. ‘But where are you going, Charlie?’

‘Going to find Limpet – he was supposed to be here, but he didn’t show. I’m going up to Biddy’s to see if he made it to work.’

‘Ah, Limpet, my long-lost love. He’s a fine man, that one.’

‘Annie, are you maybe a little bit drunk?’

She grinned and wound her arm through his, resting her cheek on his shoulder. He turned his head to kiss her hair and then gave her a gentle shove.

‘Go on now, off you go.’

She giggled, swaying slightly as she walked back through the door, the beery breeze from the pub buffeting her dress, its filmy whiteness clinging to her like a shroud.

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