Read Online The Light of Day: A Novel by Graham Swift - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Graham Swift
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saw me—though I tried. But who was I? His mother’s spy.
Jealous of a son who went his own way in the end, back to Seattle, and hasn’t done what I’ve done, every fortnight, for over eighteen months. No more word from Michael. Just me.
A second punishment, like a second death: you’re not my mother any more. She took it hard, I know, I can guess. If Helen had never—
But could she blame him—
she
blame
him
? And how must it feel? Your father, your mother: to lose both.
She
should take it hard.
Hard enough for him just to have been there—here, on this spot, two autumns ago—with his father’s relatives all around him, all in a state of shock. The body held in the morgue for nearly three weeks.
Sarah wasn’t there, of course, wasn’t free.
But I was here, right here. The mystery man who showed up from nowhere to watch things, then slipped away. To make his report.
A day in December. Not like today. Moist and murky and mild. Wet clods of earth, trampled grass.
I think of Rachel, as if her eyes are on my back.
How can you hate the dead? Absurd. As absurd as supposing the dead can feel fire. But I do, I can, even after two years. Look what you’ve done to her, look where you’ve put her. I stand here and hate him, and never tell Sarah. Yes, I’ll take flowers. If he were alive I could kill him. Absurd, but I could. I’ll never tell Sarah that. I could kill him—but, now, I can’t.
Yes, I went. I laid the flowers. A beautiful day, brilliant and clear. The rows of trees like flames.
No, no message.
And if he could speak he might even say, “No, you don’t hate me, do you? It’s not hate at all. It’s not hate you feel. You’re glad, aren’t you? I’ve done you a favour. You’re glad you’re where you are now, and you’re glad I’m here.”
15
How did it begin? And when? Even Sarah couldn’t answer that. Only that she knew it had—knew in the way that you first know things, in the nostrils, and then the signs come later, the clues, the traces, to confirm what your nose has already told you.
For a little while she was like me, a detective, a private nose, on the scent, on the trail, but not wanting to be on it, not wanting to know what she knew.
Then one day she gave him a look—gave Bob a look— the kind of look, she said, she never thought she would or could ever give. And he cracked under it, crumbled, had no choice but to confess.
And the strange thing was that he made it seem like he was the helpless victim now, he was the one to be pitied.
An old dodge perhaps. But was there a period at least, an initial stage, when he’d felt himself slipping, sliding, and tried to resist? That sweet good period—autumn slipping into winter, three years ago—which, for all of them, seemed to be about something else. This new presence in the house, this new soft mood. The urge to protect. He should have been tougher perhaps, more callous—more clinical. Wasn’t he used to that? Pity and charity sliding, melting into something else.
Or was it just a single moment? Maybe. One of those moments that turn everything upside down. No preliminary period of veering, and arguing with himself, no watching her every day like some substitute father but at the same time like a spy in the dark. A moment, an opportunity. They were alone together in the house. The dead of winter. Curtains drawn. They caught each other like startled animals. A door left open. A look that passed between them, a look that wasn’t so much like two looks colliding and instantly bouncing away, but like a single bolt sliding shut, a look as unmistakable as that look Sarah would give him just weeks later.
“I just gave him a look, George . . .”
She didn’t demonstrate, but I think I knew what it was like. Like that look she gave me on my first visits. A look like a knife. Don’t play with me, George. I don’t need your pity.
If life puts something in your way, what do you do? Deny it? Close your eyes, turn your back?
Jealous of a son who went his own way in the end, back to Seattle, and hasn’t done what I’ve done, every fortnight, for over eighteen months. No more word from Michael. Just me.
A second punishment, like a second death: you’re not my mother any more. She took it hard, I know, I can guess. If Helen had never—
But could she blame him—
she
blame
him
? And how must it feel? Your father, your mother: to lose both.
She
should take it hard.
Hard enough for him just to have been there—here, on this spot, two autumns ago—with his father’s relatives all around him, all in a state of shock. The body held in the morgue for nearly three weeks.
Sarah wasn’t there, of course, wasn’t free.
But I was here, right here. The mystery man who showed up from nowhere to watch things, then slipped away. To make his report.
A day in December. Not like today. Moist and murky and mild. Wet clods of earth, trampled grass.
I think of Rachel, as if her eyes are on my back.
How can you hate the dead? Absurd. As absurd as supposing the dead can feel fire. But I do, I can, even after two years. Look what you’ve done to her, look where you’ve put her. I stand here and hate him, and never tell Sarah. Yes, I’ll take flowers. If he were alive I could kill him. Absurd, but I could. I’ll never tell Sarah that. I could kill him—but, now, I can’t.
Yes, I went. I laid the flowers. A beautiful day, brilliant and clear. The rows of trees like flames.
No, no message.
And if he could speak he might even say, “No, you don’t hate me, do you? It’s not hate at all. It’s not hate you feel. You’re glad, aren’t you? I’ve done you a favour. You’re glad you’re where you are now, and you’re glad I’m here.”
15
How did it begin? And when? Even Sarah couldn’t answer that. Only that she knew it had—knew in the way that you first know things, in the nostrils, and then the signs come later, the clues, the traces, to confirm what your nose has already told you.
For a little while she was like me, a detective, a private nose, on the scent, on the trail, but not wanting to be on it, not wanting to know what she knew.
Then one day she gave him a look—gave Bob a look— the kind of look, she said, she never thought she would or could ever give. And he cracked under it, crumbled, had no choice but to confess.
And the strange thing was that he made it seem like he was the helpless victim now, he was the one to be pitied.
An old dodge perhaps. But was there a period at least, an initial stage, when he’d felt himself slipping, sliding, and tried to resist? That sweet good period—autumn slipping into winter, three years ago—which, for all of them, seemed to be about something else. This new presence in the house, this new soft mood. The urge to protect. He should have been tougher perhaps, more callous—more clinical. Wasn’t he used to that? Pity and charity sliding, melting into something else.
Or was it just a single moment? Maybe. One of those moments that turn everything upside down. No preliminary period of veering, and arguing with himself, no watching her every day like some substitute father but at the same time like a spy in the dark. A moment, an opportunity. They were alone together in the house. The dead of winter. Curtains drawn. They caught each other like startled animals. A door left open. A look that passed between them, a look that wasn’t so much like two looks colliding and instantly bouncing away, but like a single bolt sliding shut, a look as unmistakable as that look Sarah would give him just weeks later.
“I just gave him a look, George . . .”
She didn’t demonstrate, but I think I knew what it was like. Like that look she gave me on my first visits. A look like a knife. Don’t play with me, George. I don’t need your pity.
If life puts something in your way, what do you do? Deny it? Close your eyes, turn your back?
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