‘Doesn’t mean a thing to you, then?’ He smiles, but I get the feeling he doesn’t find it as funny as he’s pretending.
‘Just tell me.’ Why am I always having to say that to people?
‘Don’t judge us all too hastily when you get your answers, okay?’ He opens the door, and swings it back. ‘It was a long time ago. Before Suscutin, which I’m guessing you take. I’m not judging you. I take it too.’
‘Most people do.’
‘Yes,’ he agrees. ‘Most people do. Some don’t like themselves for it.’
‘Like you, you mean? Why not?’
He hesitates, then says, ‘I like the dream it’s selling us. Just not the fact it has to be sold.’
‘What dream is it selling?’
‘That love lasts forever.’
Ah, now I understand. He’s fallen in love and moved up here for the quiet life, sustained by Suscutin, but he misses London. He misses being Phineas Spice. ‘So where’s your other half?’ I ask him. ‘Your dream?’
‘Wrong way round,’ he says, amused at me. ‘I made the changes so that if love comes along, I’ll be ready for it. Worthy of it.’ He winks. ‘One of these days, it’ll find me.’
‘In Shefford, Bedfordshire?’
‘You are just so young, aren’t you, mate?’ he says. ‘Right. Out you go. Don’t come here again.’
RENOVATIONS.
If twenty-nine is so young, why do I feel so crumpled? Time has folded me this way and that, and left its marks.
Twenty-nine is old enough to have seen things change, and to change along with them. It’s more than old enough to know things might change back, one day. But not yet. There’s no point in racing towards it. There’s no reason to force change in the hope someone likes it.
I’m not like Phineas/Alexander, who’s sitting in his shop pretending he’s become lovable, and that some good man or woman will notice. I’m not stupid enough to imagine that could work.
I can’t reconcile that dreamer with the man I read about in the file. If there’s one question I wish I’d asked him, it would be why did you choose such a stupid pseudonym? Phineas Spice is a pathetic name.
But even if I knew why he called himself that, I get the feeling I’ll never understand him. The file, the facts: they give me no insight into a person. It’s the equivalent of somebody reading press cuttings about me and thinking they’d know what happened when I was part of the Six. You can’t get to know someone through the written word. A compilation of actions, laid bare on the page, have all motivation missing from the information.
I find myself driving east.
Living on the edge of Grafham Water seemed like a good idea, once we came to the attention of the press. They couldn’t get at us from every side; that long calm lake – a reservoir, in fact – deterred just about all of them, except for the few who were desperate enough to hire boats from the local sailing club, from time to time.
I stop the car down the road from what used to be our house, on the verge where the paparazzi used to park. I get out, and stretch away the hours of driving. It’s a warm evening, and still. I skirt around, keeping a distance from the barn conversion, large, on a remote part of the water. There are no cars parked directly outside. We rented it, paying for six months up front after we’d been brought to the attention of the world as the Stuck Six. Howard made the decision to give an exclusive interview to get the money together. He didn’t consult us. But I was grateful that he organised everything, and didn’t make me speak in public.
I was different, then.
He was in charge, and when he said it was time to leave Birmingham, our jobs, our studies, our friends, we did it. Some articles called him a cult leader, but the truth is that somebody had to be the boss of us. The entity we were. You don’t get six people together for any period of time and find decision-making works in a democratic sense. For one thing, there’s not an odd number to sway a vote.
The hawthorn provides cover from the big window at the front, and I skulk around to the side of the house, where changes start to become obvious to me. There’s a storage area with a slanted roof jutting out from the wall, between the kitchen and the bathroom windows. Logs are arranged, pyramid-style, inside – a good supply. A burner must have been installed, ready for a cold winter.
But that was always Dan, stocked up for the worst situation while hoping for the best. He was so adamant we would make it through the difficult times, stay together even after he moulted. But when I said I couldn’t stand it any more he was the one who gave me the money he’d been saving, and an address of an old friend in London who I could stay with.
I wonder why he chose to buy this place when the money came through, and to live here still.
I should knock at the front door, like a guest, in case he’s in. But I end up at the back door, trying the handle as if I still have the right to enter.
It’s locked.
My instinct tells me nobody’s home.
I look through the glass pane and see little differences everywhere rather than the things that have stayed the same. These variations on my past jump into clarity: an amateur’s painting of Grafham Water at sunset with a charm about it; a silver spice rack; an open cookbook and a blue striped teapot. None of these objects look like Dan’s taste to me, and everything is far too tidy. He’s living here with someone, is my guess, and he hasn’t told me. Or any of the others. I think if he chose to tell one of us, it would be me. We told each other everything.
But perhaps lovers always say that of each other, and it’s never exactly true.
I hope he’s happy. And other clichés.
I move away from the door.
We never swam in the Water; I don’t know why that’s so strongly in my mind. We didn’t even spend long looking at it. It would have been a photo opportunity extraordinaire for the photographers that camped outside, or sailed past. Mickey Stuck, looking depressed and alone – is there trouble in paradise? And to strip down, reveal my body to them, was unthinkable. Mickey Stuck, youngest member of the Six, showing off the physique that makes him so desirable.
I take a stroll down the footpath, overgrown, that leads to the familiar view that trapped me while the world waited for us to end. There, at least, nothing has changed. Nothing apart from me.
Gwen is dying, and I’m looking at an old view.
I take off everything, shed my clothes on the grass and wade into the water. It swallows me, claims me. Fuck, it’s cold, my lungs tighten with it, but as it slides up over my skin my body adjusts, and then I’m swimming. If there was someone with me, waiting on the shore for me, I would call – Come in, the water’s fine.
It is fine. It’s good, and it’s only for me. I don’t need to share it. If I wanted to, I could swim right across this reservoir. I’m fit, I’m still young, I’m free.
Of course, I’d be naked at the other end.
So I splash around for a bit longer in the late afternoon light, trying out one stroke, then another; I even do a bit of butterfly, feeling my shoulders working hard, starting up a deep ache in the muscles. When I realise I’m shivering I head back to the shore.
There’s a flash of red on the footpath. It swings, and emerges from the bushes; it’s a handbag, suspended on a woman’s shoulder, giving away her presence like a bright target. She has something in her hands.
She holds the small object up and out, in front of her. I watch her gesture, and place its meaning. She’s taking photos of me on her phone.
‘Come on then,’ I shout, and then I’m walking towards her, naked, shouting loud and fast, and she turns and skitters away behind the bushes, out of my view in seconds.