Ash and Bone

Elder picked them up again as they emerged.

At the foot of Victoria Street, the man reached for her hand and she pulled it away. Down through Hockley not touching, side by side. Coffee shops, bars, hairdressers, retro clothing, Indian restaurants. Goose Gate into Gedling. Waiting for a gap in the traffic on Carlton Road, his arm went round her shoulders again and she did nothing to resist.

Now they were in Sneinton, short rows of narrow streets, terraced houses, back-to-backs, some with brightly painted front doors and patterned blinds, others with makeshift curtains at the windows, broken glass. The house they stopped outside was midway along, a fading 'Not in My Name' poster alongside one more recent, 'War Criminal!' writ large above a photograph of George W Bush.

A cat, ginger and white with a white-tipped tail, jumped up on to the window ledge and rubbed its head against Katherine's arm as she stood waiting for the man to unlock the door. Running between their legs, the animal followed them into the house and the door closed behind them. Though it was yet the middle of the day, he glimpsed Katherine for a moment, standing at the downstairs window, before she pulled the curtains closed. Whether she saw him or not, he did not know.

8

He stood there for five minutes, ten, fifteen. My father. He thinks he's my father. There was still time to walk away. Elder walked, instead, across the street and, seeing no bell, knocked on the door.

The music playing as the door opened was loud, rhythmic and fast, nothing he recognised.

'Yes?'

'Rob Summers?'

'Depends.'

'On what?'

Summers smiled. The check on his shirt was mostly shades of green and grey; his eyes a pale, watery blue.

Elder looked past him into the narrow hall. Coats hung, bunched, along one wall; a strip of carpet, worn but clean, along the floor.

'Police, right?' Summers said. 'You're not selling something, not religious. You must be the police.'

'Not exactly.'

A smile of understanding passed across Summers's face and, relaxing his shoulders, he leaned sideways against the wall. 'Katie,' he said, putting a little singsong into his voice. 'Your old man's here.'

After a moment, Katherine appeared at the end of the hall, waited long enough to recognise her father's face, then turned away.

'I suppose you'd better come in,' Summers said.

The room was small and dimly lit, a small settee and two unmatched armchairs taking up much of the space. Shelves either side of the empty fireplace were filled with books, videos and DVDs, crammed in this way and that. More books and magazines lay in piles upon the floor. In one corner was a small TV, video recorder alongside, DVD player on top. More shelving stretched along the back wall, what had to be several hundred vinyl albums below the different elements of the stereo system, CDs in profusion above.

The smell of dope hung, faint but sweet, upon the air.

Summers lowered himself into one of the chairs and motioned for Elder to do the same. The bass beat from the speakers was repetitive and insistent.

'Get you anything?' Summers asked. 'Coffee, anything?'

'You think you could turn the music down a little?'

'Sure.' Summers pressed the remote on the arm of his chair.

'I want to talk to Katherine,' Elder said.

'That's up to her.'

'I've come a long way.'

'Cornwall, isn't it?'

'Yes,' Elder said, surprised that he knew, that she had bothered to tell him.

'Your choice, wasn't it?'

'Look.' Elder leaned forward. 'You can see the state she's in.'

'State?'

'You know what I mean.'

'I'm not sure I do.'

'Those people in the Square…'

'What about them?'

Elder shook his head.

'They look out for her,' Summers said. 'Leave her alone.'

'And you?'

Summers pushed himself up from his chair. 'Back in a minute, okay? I'll see what she says.'

Alone in the room, Elder looked around. White Stripes. Four Tet. The People's Music. Diane di Prima. Ginsberg. Dylan. Drop City. Neil Young. Several copies of the same pale green booklet on top of a stack of magazines. Scar: Poems by Rob Summers. Elder lifted one clear and flicked through the pages. the snap of his cuff a blade's edge brilliant threads vermilion wings sweat coils slow and sure violet rope around your neck face blinded

I brace my back against a sudden blaze of light

'You read poetry?' Summers said, coming back into the room.

Elder let the booklet fall closed on his lap. 'No, not really.'

Summers sat back down.

'You write a lot?' Elder asked.

'A lot?' Summers smiled. 'I don't know about that. But yes, when I can. Poetry mostly. The occasional short story.'

'And you can earn a living doing that?'

'I wish.'

'What do you do?'

Summers smiled again. He smiled a lot. 'Teach, what else? Class at the university. Adult Ed. Bits and pieces here and there.'

'I do want to talk to Katherine,' Elder said. 'Then I'll go.'

'She knows you're here. It's up to her.'

'If you asked her,' Elder said.

Smiling, Summers shook his head. 'That's not the way it works.'

'Rob,' Katherine said from the doorway, 'it's all right.' How long she had been standing there, Elder wasn't sure.

'You want me to stay?' Summers asked her.

'No, it's all right.' Her face was pale, tiredness darkening her eyes.

Summers touched Katherine lightly as he went past.

Elder waited for her to come and sit down, but instead she walked to the window and opened the curtains enough to be able to look out. The music came to an end, and voices could be heard, faint and indistinct, through the neighbouring wall. In the kitchen, Rob Summers was washing pots, putting them away.

'I'm sorry,' Elder said finally.

'What for?' He had to strain to make out the words.

'Whatever I've done to make you this upset. Angry.'

When she turned to look at him there were tears he hadn't anticipated on her face.

'I don't know what you expect from me,' Elder said. 'I don't know what you expect me to do.'

'Nothing.'

'You're hurting yourself, you must realise that.'

Slowly, Katherine shook her head. 'You saved me. From Keach. After he did all that stuff to me. He was going to kill me and you saved me.'

'Yes.'

'And now you wish you hadn't.'

'That's ridiculous.'

'Is it?'

'Yes.'

'You don't like me like this.'

Elder paused. 'No. No, of course I don't.'

'You want me to be like I was before.'

'Yes.'

She slid her hands across her face. 'Dad, I'm never going to be like I was before.'

How long he sat there he wasn't sure. Summers didn't reappear. Katherine left the room and then returned and the next thing he was standing beside her at the front door.

'You'll be careful,' he said.

'Yes, of course.' A smile fading in her eyes, she seemed young again, young and old beyond her years. You're seventeen, he wanted to say. Seventeen. What are you going to do with your life?

'If… if I need to get in touch?'

'Call me at Mum's.'

'Not here?'

'Bye, Dad.' Fleetingly, she kissed him on the cheek. Her hand touched his. She stepped back into the house and closed the door. A moment later, maybe two, the curtains were pulled back fast across.

***

Beyond Plymouth the train slowed its pace, stopping every twenty minutes or so at this small town or that. Countless times, Elder picked up his book only to set it back down. Staring out of the window into the passing dark, there was only his own face staring back. Six miniatures of Scotch lined up, empty, on the table before him: the slow but steady application of alcohol to the wound, the plastering over of helplessness and guilt. Should he have stayed? With a sweep of his hand, he sent the bottles flying, ricocheting from seat to empty seat and skittering along the floor. The few people still in the carriage tightened their faces and made themselves as small as they could.