Read Online The Liar's Chair by Rebecca Whitney - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Rebecca Whitney
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room – my head thick with sleep and last night’s whisky – as the figure of the man pacing the country lane replays in my brain.
Crash
against my windscreen. I no longer squeeze my eyes shut or hold my head in my hands; the images will keep coming no matter what I do. Sometimes, if I’m lucky and I wake from a
dreamless sleep, it takes a few seconds to recall the source of the disquiet, and then
boom
, back it comes, barrelling into me. From my bag I take the packet of diazepam and knock back a
pill with some water from a half-finished glass on the floor. A noise of clanking cups and cutlery comes from the kitchen, plus Will whistling through his teeth to the buzz of the radio, but
I’m not ready to face him yet.
This room is full of furniture, so many pieces it’s hard to manoeuvre in the space. Mostly they are finds from skips and junk shops, pieces that other people have done away with, and for
good reason. But to Will they are special: mismatched chairs in swirly granny fabrics, a 1960s sideboard with chunky knobs, a coffee table made of orange wood and glass – items that are
vaguely kitsch, but not vintage enough for good taste. An old jukebox sits in one corner, not the cool American diner variety with curved edges and illuminated plastic, but late 1970s with sides of
tan plastic and a playlist featuring the Darts and Showaddywaddy. The paper song-listing is crinkled with mildew. By the time Will found the machine the rain had already got in and it didn’t
work – it never will – but he doesn’t mind or even want to fix the thing. He’s saved it to give it a place to while out the years, like a horse gone to pasture.
In pride of place on the mantelpiece is an antique clock: dark wood, ugly pre-deco glass face that opens for winding; a job Will never forgets even when hung-over. His grandmother left it to him
and he believes it’s valuable, but there are heaps of these same timepieces clogging up the windows of charity shops. The heavy clunk of the clock’s tick fills the room with stasis, but
the feeling is one of containment and safety. As long as I don’t think about leaving. And as long as I don’t have to stay.
Wind launches itself at the building. The walls shudder with each blast, like a cheap stage set, and the cold seeps through the near-useless membrane of the single-glazed window. My hands and
feet are yellow, and I wrap Will’s dressing gown tight round me and rub my fingers and toes, but the blood won’t come back. From the tatty armchair where I sit, I look through the
window of his two-bed bungalow, set up on a hill on the outskirts of town. A camera flash of winter sun bounces from windows across the road, the light too thin to take the chill from the air.
Tiers of houses on sloping streets give the impression of teetering down the hill, like a brickwork glacier, and in the valley below they are met by a dam of factories in an over-stuffed industrial
park. Beyond that is Will’s own personal fragment of sea. From his vantage point up here on the hill, he can watch the boats and trawlers slide in and out of port, big rusty hunks of metal
and rigging which for Will transform into vessels of magnificence and beauty. For that view alone it is worth living here.
This house used to belong to Will’s gran and he spent most of his boyhood here. One drunken night he told me the story of his mum, how she’d had him when she was a teenager. He
remembers her popping in from time to time to bring him sweets from her job at Woolworths. Later she got a boyfriend, and as Will grew older he saw her less and less, so it was his gran who brought
him up. I get the impression the old woman had had enough of child-rearing by the time Will came along, but some care is better than none at all. Will has never met his dad. He thinks he was, or
is, a fisherman, and Will’s obsession with the pubs around his town, striking up conversation with anyone who works on the water or in the
Crash
against my windscreen. I no longer squeeze my eyes shut or hold my head in my hands; the images will keep coming no matter what I do. Sometimes, if I’m lucky and I wake from a
dreamless sleep, it takes a few seconds to recall the source of the disquiet, and then
boom
, back it comes, barrelling into me. From my bag I take the packet of diazepam and knock back a
pill with some water from a half-finished glass on the floor. A noise of clanking cups and cutlery comes from the kitchen, plus Will whistling through his teeth to the buzz of the radio, but
I’m not ready to face him yet.
This room is full of furniture, so many pieces it’s hard to manoeuvre in the space. Mostly they are finds from skips and junk shops, pieces that other people have done away with, and for
good reason. But to Will they are special: mismatched chairs in swirly granny fabrics, a 1960s sideboard with chunky knobs, a coffee table made of orange wood and glass – items that are
vaguely kitsch, but not vintage enough for good taste. An old jukebox sits in one corner, not the cool American diner variety with curved edges and illuminated plastic, but late 1970s with sides of
tan plastic and a playlist featuring the Darts and Showaddywaddy. The paper song-listing is crinkled with mildew. By the time Will found the machine the rain had already got in and it didn’t
work – it never will – but he doesn’t mind or even want to fix the thing. He’s saved it to give it a place to while out the years, like a horse gone to pasture.
In pride of place on the mantelpiece is an antique clock: dark wood, ugly pre-deco glass face that opens for winding; a job Will never forgets even when hung-over. His grandmother left it to him
and he believes it’s valuable, but there are heaps of these same timepieces clogging up the windows of charity shops. The heavy clunk of the clock’s tick fills the room with stasis, but
the feeling is one of containment and safety. As long as I don’t think about leaving. And as long as I don’t have to stay.
Wind launches itself at the building. The walls shudder with each blast, like a cheap stage set, and the cold seeps through the near-useless membrane of the single-glazed window. My hands and
feet are yellow, and I wrap Will’s dressing gown tight round me and rub my fingers and toes, but the blood won’t come back. From the tatty armchair where I sit, I look through the
window of his two-bed bungalow, set up on a hill on the outskirts of town. A camera flash of winter sun bounces from windows across the road, the light too thin to take the chill from the air.
Tiers of houses on sloping streets give the impression of teetering down the hill, like a brickwork glacier, and in the valley below they are met by a dam of factories in an over-stuffed industrial
park. Beyond that is Will’s own personal fragment of sea. From his vantage point up here on the hill, he can watch the boats and trawlers slide in and out of port, big rusty hunks of metal
and rigging which for Will transform into vessels of magnificence and beauty. For that view alone it is worth living here.
This house used to belong to Will’s gran and he spent most of his boyhood here. One drunken night he told me the story of his mum, how she’d had him when she was a teenager. He
remembers her popping in from time to time to bring him sweets from her job at Woolworths. Later she got a boyfriend, and as Will grew older he saw her less and less, so it was his gran who brought
him up. I get the impression the old woman had had enough of child-rearing by the time Will came along, but some care is better than none at all. Will has never met his dad. He thinks he was, or
is, a fisherman, and Will’s obsession with the pubs around his town, striking up conversation with anyone who works on the water or in the
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