Transition
“Who’s this?” She grabs a picture frame sitting on the bookshelf, tosses it in the air and catches it with her other hand.
“That is -”, I falter for a second but she fails to notice the hesitation. “That is my father.”
She deposits the frame one shelf below the one from which she took it and continues to finger through my belongings.
“You look like him, especially the hair. Christ, does no one in your family ever get a haircut?” She trails her red-tipped paws across a few dusty paperbacks.
“I haven’t cut it since he died.” I think I must have mumbled because the only response I get in return is, “nice ficus.”
She moves from one object to another, prodding and caressing. The books, the plant, a lampshade, a knick-knack, an ornament: if she doesn’t touch it, she doesn’t see it. She is obnoxious and fascinating and beautiful. A tiger in a bird house; her presence here is unnerving. A loud enough distraction at least, but the room can barely contain her.
I am on edge. My heels are digging into the floor but I feel unsteady, as though I am balancing on my toes. The sensation of butterflies has seeped into all my crevices. They flutter under my skin. When she isn’t looking I move the picture frame back to its original spot, glancing only momentarily at the grey eyes staring at me from within the little tin window.
“It’s fake,” I say. I’m not sure why.
“Hm?” She is molesting my DVD collection now.
“The ficus, it’s fake.”
“I know.” She knows.
She is aggressive and exciting. And horribly, horribly beautiful. She is too many things. She is a stranger. An acquaintance of a friend, of a friend – I don’t even know her. If I hadn’t been dragged out tonight I would never have met her.
Or rather she would never have pounced upon me. Thrust in my direction by those friends who had insisted I show my face this evening, lest they forget what it looks like. Thrust at me so close to last orders that when the lights came up and the chairs around us were flipped on their heads she wasn’t quite done with me yet. She didn’t know enough, she hadn’t felt enough. She had barely even begun. She wanted to see my place, she wanted another drink and she didn’t want to go home. She didn’t want to hail a cab. What fun was that? She wanted to run through the January rain. She wanted to get wet. She wanted to get out of breath. I could hardly refuse a tiger.
And now her hair is soaked from the downpour outside and my stomach and head and fingers and toes are full of bubbles from the beer that I drank. Her painted eyelashes cling to her eyelids, inking them more and more black with each blink and the tang of wet pavement toys with my nostrils. Her hair is leaving drops of water all over the floor of my living room as she indulges in this self-guided tour of hers and my chest heaves, still winded from the recent burst of exercise forced upon my out-of-shape heart.
And her hair keeps dripping. And dripping. There is no pattern, droplets fall at random intervals. They are as brazen and as mesmerising as she is. They snake their way around my furniture and I’m beginning to think that if she keeps this up, if I keep letting her snoop and poke at this little cave of mine, then the dripping will never end. The dots of water landing in miniscule puddles on the grotty floorboards will be met by more dots of water and they will be met by more still and they will join, board by board, pooling together, swelling into waves to wash away the dirt that has accumulated over the last three months. My hair, apparently, not the only thing left unattended since my father’s death.
But they don’t. The drops just continue on their tour until they come full circle and I realise that she is facing me.
“So…” she says. The word is so loaded that it thunders to the floor, reverberating around the room, demanding attention. She is bored of everything else. The only thing left for her to explore with those paws is me. There is a hungry twinkle under her smudged-up eyelids; I do not stand a chance, I can barely hold her gaze. Her stripy-sock covered feet pad closer though. Her shoes are by the door I see, along with a heap of soggy winter-wear; some gloves, a scarf and a damp coat, bunched up, abandoned with the rest, arms inside out. I am still wearing mine, I only just notice.
She stands in front of me, her raw, pink nose almost reaching mine. I am unbuttoned. I am unzipped. A feeling like regret is creeping up my back, but she is stronger than me, and I am desperate for the distraction.
The picture in the frame is a black and white snapshot of a boy my age that I stole from my mum’s garage. It was in a box of memories, underneath some school pictures and doll-sized trainers. The boy’s hair, or, the man’s hair I suppose, is so long that it covers his eyebrows. It is candid, but he was caught mid-laugh and is gleaming at the camera. It was taken pre-me; a pencil scribble says 1981. He looks like a very nice man.
He wrote me a story, years ago, when his hair wasn’t quite so long any more. When my shoes were still held together by Velcro and my food was still carried around by lunch box. It was about a dog who could talk. His name was Scotty. Scotty the dog. (I really was still quite young; there were cartoons on my bed sheets and I couldn’t sleep without the fluffy diplodocus I’d been given on my last birthday and Scotty the dog was the most genius thing I had ever heard of in my life. It was better than ice-cream). And it was my story, my talking dog. He’d written it just for me, he said.
Scotty the dog couldn’t find his best friend. She was there one minute, and then she was gone. And so he had to go on a wild adventure all around the neighbourhood in search of her, encountering lots of crazy characters along the way. Some trustworthy, some not. That’s it really. Eventually he realises that she lives next door and has been right on the other side of the wooden fence all along. It’s a happy little ending; they play in the mud together. And that’s all I really remember because the details of the story are fuzzy. There may have been a wicked hedgehog, a meddling blackbird, a wise old ladybird, but I don’t remember exactly what they did or said. I know I loved it though. I remember loving it. That part is fuzz-free.
I asked my mum to tell me the story, after he’d left. (I still had a lunchbox but the Velcro was gone). She didn’t know what I was talking about. He’d never told her such a story, she said. Would the one about the dragons be ok? And it was ok. If he hadn’t told her the story then it was all the more exclusive. That helped.
For a while I thought that maybe he was on his own wild adventure. He’d lost us somehow, these things happen, and he was off exploring with a ladybird, getting held up by a hedgehog. Then I found out, I guess I was snooping, that he was living somewhere else, with someone else. Starting a new family. And then I thought it was maybe like when I’d have to draw a picture or something at school but it went badly and I’d have to rub it all out and start again from scratch. It’s such a pain when you get it wrong the first time.
I stopped doing my homework for a while, I got in a bit of trouble with my teachers and I hid my diplodocus at the back of my wardrobe. I was grumpy sometimes, but somewhere, at some point, I got over it. I really did.
Then earlier this year (when lunchboxes were but a distant memory), I got a call from a person. A person just a few years younger than me. A person I had never been allowed to meet, asking if I was the estranged son of William McLendon. He was sorry, and he had a quiver in his voice when he told me this, but William had passed away two days ago. Heart attack. He thought I should know. It was only fair. He told me when the funeral was going to be and said that of course I was invited to come along.
But he also told me that he and his brother did not wish to talk to me there. This was a very difficult time for them. He hoped that I could understand.
“Your favourite film?” She asks me. We’re onto a new game now. It’s the post-show question and answer section of tonight’s entertainment. She’s stolen the pillows and I am ensnared by her legs: the helpless mouse that is toyed with, teased, tormented before getting chewed up and spat out on the garden patio.
“Or TV show?” She wants more. And for some reason, which I hesitate to admit might be her current state of undress, I feel that I cannot possibly evade or lie or brush off. I share with her, my favourite film, and TV show, and book, and band. But her appetite cannot be quenched. She is curious and relentless and charming, and I appear to be enjoying myself. And so we discuss favourite places, favourite countries. There is a heated debate about popular fizzy drinks and we agree to disagree on the issue of pizza versus pasta. Next round? Childhood memories. Board games, cartoons, bedtime stories. I can’t stop spilling and spilling. You know those cupboards that are so filled to the brim with old junk and forgotten treasures that when opened everything tumbles out at once?
“There was this story my Dad used to tell me. It never had a proper title, but it was brilliant. Well, I was really young I guess, but it was about the adventures of Scotty the Dog. He could talk and he had a tartan collar and there was a hedgehog and -”
“Oh my god, The Incredible Adventures of Scotty the Dog!”
“I don’t… wait, what?”
“The Incredible Adventures of Scotty the Dog. He’s lost his friend and the ladybird helps him find her again!” I can feel my heart rate simultaneously slowing down and speeding up. “My Nan used to read it to me all the time! There was a whole series of them actually. Shit, who wrote them? It was Ed something.”
“I don’t think I understand.” My eyes feel a little like they might implode.
“Do you not remember who wrote them? Shit, its right there. I can almost remember! Was this bald guy, his picture was in the back of the books.”
“I don’t -”
“Stuart!”
“I thought it was Ed?” Well, no. That’s not what I thought at all. I’m blushing.
“Yeah, Ed Stuart! I remember because I used to ask my Nan why he had a first name for a last name. Ha, I forgot about those books. Brilliant.”
My head feels like a balloon being filled up with lead. I don’t understand and I do understand. I’m shocked but not shocked at all. How did she know my story? It isn’t my story. It was never my story. It was told to other children by other parents. Other parents who didn’t pretend that they wrote it themselves. She scrabbles out of bed and heads for the bathroom, telling me that she is going to use my toothbrush.
I decide to get a haircut.
It starts with a trip to the barbers. A trim. I can feel the pounds dripping off my shoulders as the man behind me shears the mess on top of my head. My eyes are no longer prickled by my curtained forehead and the back of my neck is, for the first time in a long time, cool. No uncomfortable beads of sweat clinging to my nape, slipping out of my pores. A handheld mirror appears behind me and I’m asked if it’s alright. Does anyone ever say no?
A bell jingles above me to announce my departure from the premises and I am confronted by the unrelenting rainfall that has been cast over the city for months. Or weeks. Who knows, when there is grey everywhere you turn, it’s kind of hard to keep track. Days slip together, tripping over themselves. Time gets lost.
I encounter an umbrella-clad someone in the street and they acknowledge me with a head bob and a grimace. And a slowed down pace. Fuck. And a greeting. I squint. This someone is just another someone in a street speckled with someones, it takes me a moment or three to realise that he is an old teacher. An old secondary school teacher. Is it? He taught me science. No, he taught me maths. Or did he teach me to floss? Maybe; it could also be my dentist. Wind makes everything harder to see, but there isn’t even a crumb of uncertainty on this man’s face. I am, apparently, instantly recognisable. And now I feel ill. I excuse myself and head for the nearest Superdrug.
I avoid the sight of myself in the sliding doors as they open to reveal a dry haven away from the bluster of the street. The air is loaded with perfume and the heating has been turned up one notch too many as compensation for the dire conditions outside. It is muggy and it takes far longer than it should to find the razors. I don’t need make-up, I don’t need snacks, I don’t need tampons, I don’t need anything from a range of soaps all infused with a wide variety of different exotic plants and fruits and I don’t need eleven different kinds of what is undoubtedly the same little white pill. I need a map and I need it to lead me to the electric razors.
Instead I scour every inch of the shop until I locate the right aisle; it is always the last place you look. There is too much choice but since I don’t have any particular urge to sculpt my sideburns into pieces of fine art, I grab the cheapest. I also pick up a toothbrush. The girl at the till rings me up and hands me a voucher for five pounds off selected hair-care products on my next visit. If my neck wasn’t beginning to creak under the strain of my increasingly heavy hair I would probably laugh. Instead I dash out, avoiding the sight of myself in the sliding doors as they open to reveal the hellish mush that is outside.
I don’t hail a cab, what fun would that be? So when I reach the mustard-clad interior of my building’s stairwell I am wet to the bone. My core is an ice-box. My muscles are beginning to ache, starting to seize up from the full-body shiver that racks my whole frame.
In my bathroom I set the razor to number one and flip the switch. The vibrations shudder up my arm and down through my skull, warning me not to make any sudden movements. I am turning the white tiles mousy-brown with a thousand tiny fragments of myself. Until all that is left of the hair on my head is a thin coat of soft fuzz.
The stubble feels nice on my hands but heavy on my head. Loose hairs have wormed their way under my clothes, itching and scratching and grating, and my skin burns as it thaws out under the fan heater. I climb out of my shoes and I peel off the clammy layers: jumper, t-shirt, jeans, boxers, socks. I am still weighed down. Is there a setting less than one?
I get to work, turning my brown scalp ghastly-white until the rain-streaked window yields a new reflection and I run my hands over the unfamiliar bumps and contours uncovered by the blades and a ten tonne dumbbell flies off my shoulders and my cheeks crease as they break the self-imposed static that has held them for months.
I’ve nicked myself; I wasn’t very careful. I plaster the cuts around the back of my neck with little shreds of toilet paper. Six in total, like cool refreshing snowdrops. They cling to my nape, whispering and hinting in hushed tones: tickling my earlobes with the news that the season is changing.
Amy Ralston is currently living and writing in Scotland. Last year she graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in English Literature.
