Craig Dobson

pale

On vibrate, insistent and angry, the phone rages liked a trapped insect. He knows it’s her telling him she’s staying out — she’s met Tanya or Jo or Amy or any other name he can’t put a face to — and won’t be back. To let him know. So he won’t worry.

He stares out at the snow until the phone stops. Turning a fraction, he catches his breath, his back flaring, the pain a sudden everywhere between his hips before it settles on the centre of his lower spine. Why don’t the pills work faster? He puts his hand to the hurt. There, just there. Where your tail would be if you were still a monkey she’d said, when he showed her, nearly in tears. He clenches his jaw at the memory, his hand bunched into a fist, waiting for the text he won’t read. Ting! Jessica, Laura, Susie and Gail. The afternoon spreads before him, empty and silent as the valley outside.

‘I wonder who he is?’ he says aloud. He forces his hand open, red finger wounds in his pale palm filling with blood beneath the skin. The cabin echoes with his question. I wonder who he is? ask the bright pine walls. The ache in his spine answers Where your tail would be. A clot of snow falls from a fir tree nearest the window, veiling the branches below for a few seconds, forcing them to drop their snow too, their dark green needles bobbing back to stillness above the curtain of descending white. White-grey, white, dark green and brown outside. Inside: pine-orange, pine-pale, pine-yellow and pine-white. The afternoon spreads before him.

The tablets have begun. Soon, he’ll make the stairs… …  If you were still a monkey. It’s losing shape now, the pain. Sloppy, incontinent, weakening. He finishes his beer and pours a brandy, drinks it, forcing the fire down, clasping his fist again. Stares at the stairs. Drinks another, in challenge.

Lifting his foot to the first stair spills a liquid pain between his hips, spurts of fluid razor, stopping him… still a monkey. Slowly, take it... Breathe. The pain no worse on the next step. Slowly. Another. Slowly, another, slowly, again, slowly until… king at the top now, a pine-world beneath him, orange and pale and conquered. Wobbles of pain only, squabbling with themselves. Walk about the floor, stride the flatness. Numb now, safer, braver. Parade the floor, painless. Then ticker tape back down the stairs and another brandy to celebrate.

And then the gun. ‘Not a monkey, a monkey hunter!’ The gun smaller than it should be, little and slight. The pellets small, delicate, pointed, each with a dainty waist. Little dresses of lead. He pumps the gun’s spring and loads the first dress. Aims for an empty beer can. Phthuut! The afternoon a ringing emptiness of wounded tin, down on the worktop and then tumbling to the floor to lie dead, tin-leaded. King of the hunt now! Raising the gun in victory…. ‘AARGH!’ sudden pain, sodding pain, sodden with booze and pills but still pain. STILL! STAND STILL! Standing stone… breathing stone… resting stone… standing, breathing, resting, moving… slowly, slowly, back to the brandy.

Michaela or Ali or Loretta or Liz… such a crowd! Real laughs! All the long afternoon. I mean that’s why we came, right? To this party in the snow. To be together and to meet new people, together? Remember? Pump the gun spring. Load the little lead dress.

‘I wonder who he is?’

The afternoon ringing with tin-struck-again, the can crawling on the floor, twisting on the pine-orange, pine-brown boards till it stills, bright and dead as the day is grey.

‘If you were a monkey, son…’

Amelia, Marie, Charlotte and Jane… the whole long snowfall hours of day. Where’s your tail? Pathos of pain, painlets, twitching on the spine (where my tail should be), more of a dance, a jigging discomfort. Jiggy jiggy go the pains once again. Pump the gun. Aim.

‘What do you prescribe, Doc?’ he utters loudly. ‘What, Doc, what d’you say? Come on, man to man, what’s the cure for jiggy jiggy down the spine, then up again… you know, where your tail should be? Too much jiggy, jiggy all round, Doc, what’s the cure?’

Little pains as the speaking stops. Jiggy jiggy, hopscotch, leapfrog, up and down those hips… Where your tail… Pamela, Maggie, Bell and Louise… all the laughlong, snow-puffed day of days. Tell it to the beer can, darling, tell it to the tin! Don’t mess with me, son. Jiggy over. Jiggy done.

‘I wonder who he is?’

#

Close-cold. Hard damp, smothering, even through the woollen scarf. Thick damp and close, sudden chilling round him, over him, robbing. Not king of these stairs, outside. No sir. Not these. Ice is king here. Thoughts of pain, sharp as stair-slip, sober him. Through-the-scarf breathing, brandy to keep the cold off, to keep off the wheezing… not king here. No sir. Ice is king.

What? Not again!? she’d said, as she walked into the kitchen where he stood, deaf to anything more than the blades of pain through his spine, all his weight supported suddenly on his arm on the worktop above the still-open dishwasher, his other hand holding the dirty cup he’d been loading, the pain stabbing into his back, his face reddening as panic filled his mind and, if he moved at all… NO! STILL! STAY STILL! Stone and breath, waiting, still as… still as… stone and breath only. Waiting until there was space enough between the pain to notice the incredulity in her voice changing, lightening towards a laugh, suddenly relieved, the long days opening sharply before her the crisp-fallen, soft-close excitement of strange alterings and the safety of track-covering snow that would not show anyone where she’d go, disappearing among the endless names where he couldn’t follow with his pills and his pain again. Her voice changing to a mothering, all-will-be-well-baby tone, the names falling round it and the snow falling on them, covering any tracks. It’s where your tail would be…

Her footsteps were still in the snow on the steps. He grips the gun. Deep breath. Down we go. One down, grip the rail, stop, two down, grip, stop… and on, on, following where she’d gone. Onto the snow at the bottom, to the soft space her foot had been in on the ground… and been again, there… and there… and there! Going off, into the snow hours ago. There she goes! He follows her, in no-fresh snow. One foot, two foot, slow foot, true foot. He can tell the hurry in her step. Only half his normal stride now, he can’t match it. He’s losing her. There she goes! Round the tree where the road starts, the road she took to meet Fenella and Rachael and Jenny and Maeve. That must be their tracks in the snow, coming down the road. Look! There she’s met them. There! Where all the tracks mix and mingle, one on another and — must be — where they’ve all gone off together, skippety-skip, for chocolate and drinks and selfies and songs, though he can’t tell which step’s hers now, in among the others, even in no-fresh snow. Can’t tell which is hers, which is her friends’, can’t tell hers from theirs… or others’… coming and going, tracks on tracks, both ways, up and back, the road full of tracks. Tracks covering tracks. Girl track, boy track. Her track, one track, invisible among… He turns back.

Hasn’t noticed the pain’s back. Back in the back, now. Slow track. One foot, two foot, slow foot, true foot. Plod back, slow track, creep back, crawl back. Holds the gun tight. Pellets in his pocket. Cold as. Sober as. Stone as. Stops. Must move, must do. Lifts the gun, slowly. Holds the gun, slowly. Pulls the spring, slowly. Pumps the spring, slowly. Loads the pellet, slowly. Where to go, slowly?

Walks off-track. Gentle, gentle, keeping level. Slowly. Not king here, either. Snow’s king here, hiding sudden drops, hidden holes to stumble over, pain-fall, back-stab… Stop! Stone breath, still breath, sober breath, slow breath. Gentle. One step, two step, slow step, true step. Into the new snow, true snow, pure snow. No tracks here. New land here, new world here. New step, true step, one step, two step.

His face aglow now. Good blood, warm blood. Not pain blood or panic blood, not anger, booze or shame blood. Stone blood this is. Cold blood burning in the snow. One blood, two blood, cold blood, true blood. Lowering the woollen scarf, he frees his mouth, gasping the breath, each great feast of cold pure air cleansing, warming, burning, cleaning, feeding him and filling him. No pain now. Health’s taken the pain. Two foot, true foot. Among the trees in the blank snow, alone in the blank snow, foot after foot between the dark trunks and the green pines, the sharp branches and the snow branches, the grey sky and the white world. Painless and breathless, his face aglow. Alone to go.

#

The bird is asleep. On the branch in front. Shoulder height. Grey breast towards him, head folded back, tucked under to the side. Must’ve heard him! Must’ve! Is it dead? He stops dead. Can’t hold his breath, so opens wide, billowing thick and slow in a mute half-choke. The bird sleeps on. Hasn’t heard. Bird hasn’t. World hasn’t heard. Only the blood, beating behind the slow breath, has heard. It fills his head, a blood-sound roaring behind the breath struggling slow and quiet, wreathed in grey rising to the ash of sky, leaving disbelief fading as the bird sleeps on, waking to the soft sound of the pellet between its feathers, to the soft fall and the snow which its last wing strokes smooth to a sheet where it lies, stilling, stilling…

Warm in his hand, softer than anything he knows, grey feathers, rose-tinged, still holding the warmth in. Its head loose now, lolling, black line collaring its neck. Lighter than he’d thought. Bones beneath the warmth, too. Tiny and light, its claws still curling. One wing stretched out and down towards the ground as if gesturing All this. He holds the head; it tips to one side on his fingers. The grey sky lightens an open eye whose ruby colour is the only red. Where’s the blood? Why’s there no blood? On the snow… why’s there no blood on the snow? Only the ruby eye, small and clear, closing.  

#

The day goes with each step he can’t remember. Only the pine trunks and the snow-left darkness of branches are solid, and the gaps now and then in a dip in the ground where snow never went. Above and below, sky and snow fade, their details soften, the night leaking in, filling the thin cold air around him, wringing from it fresh snow, small at first, growing larger, a swarm of not-dark softly falling.

Following the wide line of the disappearing road as it takes his own earlier steps with it. His back is back now, its low start aching. His head’s thick where the health’s left and the brandy’s left and the pills have left. His back pain appearing in the disappearing black. Promising him the cabin, the pills and drink and the night closing round him there, empty and long, the phone shaking again. Fiona and Kirsty, Mary-Bell and Jane. I wonder who he...

Snow thick before his eyes now, half-hiding the cabin. Down from the black to the not-black. Settling round his slow step, two step, black on not-black true step, making new steps where the old ones had been, before the new fall. Down now, drifting round him, as he one step, two step, slow steps back to pills, back to brandy, back-to-her-not-back. Down covering everything. Softness drifting down, where any tracks would be, covering. I wonder who he... His back again. Where your tail would be... Down again everywhere, drifting around him, covering him as he slow steps, true steps back to the tablets and brandy and… If you were a monkey. Covering everything, as it takes him back to the door… to anything, everything, anything taking him in to… Mica, Tamsin, Veronica and Lynn.

Craig Dobson has been published in Agenda, Bandit Fiction, Black Works, Butcher’s Dog, Crannóg, The Dark Horse, The Delmarva Review, The Frogmore Papers, Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Interpreter’s House, Literally Stories, The London Magazine, Magma, Neon, New Welsh Review, The North,  Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Prole, The Rialto, Stand, Southword, THINK, Under The Radar, Rue Scribe and Short Fiction Magazine.