Those Creative Types

The tablecloth was freshly ironed. He should have walked out as soon as he saw those military creases.

But no. He had to sit. He had to nod politely once, for yes, when she offered him a cup of tea.

Of course it came in a pot. Stewed, the opposite of how he liked it.

She was still older than him: five years, three months, no one was counting the days too (thirteen). It had been twice that and two years again since he had last seen her, and that time he had worse news, for her, anyway, than on this one. It should be easy then, this visit.

Here’s what she should say: It’s great to see you again. How is your wife, how are your children?

Then he’d be able to tell her what had got him up that morning, 3.23 a.m. Cold sweat, left hand slightly shaking, firm conviction, one and one only: he had to get in the car and drive.

On the road out of town he missed a tree on the side of the road, but only by that much. He had wanted to teach it a lesson, with all its fine jewelry of branches and height and majestic indifference. That tree needed to be told about natural selection, it needed to know that he was the boss as long as his kind had access to saws and axes. He saw it standing in his rearview mirror as he drove past, untroubled, unaware of how shaky its real foundations were, believing the lie the feeling its rootedness gave it, its paws stuck deep in the earth.

It was two hours into the trip before he realised where he was heading. His car with a mind of its own was leading him there instinctively, as if he had been driving there everyday instead of not at all.

She didn’t ask him how he was. She didn’t ask him about his family.

“I see there is a bit of raking out the front there. You want, I can do it for you.” He thumbed over his shoulder at the window. He’d noticed piles of dried leaf carcasses heaped on her lawn as he walked in, as if he made mental lists of the chores around this house all the time.

“That’s alright.” She placed her cup neatly back on its saucer. It made a clinking sound. She kept watch on it like it might jump at any minute, her eyes darting from the cup to the tablecloth and back.

“It would be no trouble,” he pressed. “Before I head back.” Go on, he thought. Ask me how long I’m here for. Ask me why.

She glanced at him, but quickly, too fast to convey anything like all the things backing up in his mind at that moment. It would take a team of hypnotists and a fast running percolator making coffee for all of them, around the clock, for a week, to communicate all the things in his head right then. Words would only be the half of it. If he were to begin, there might be tears, there might be howling involved. Come to think of it, he reflected, he might even need some paint. Red and black would be enough to get him started. He scratched his forehead and a tiny laugh escaped him.

“Jacob.”

He stared at her, willing it. He was close now. Close to breaking wide open. He wanted to; he could feel it all pushing up against his skin, like a fat man’s chest against the elastic of his braces. Start it, he urged silently. Just say something.

She gestured towards the back door. “The rakes are kept out there, by the shed. You still know where?”

He nodded. As he stood he accidentally knocked the table with his right knee. His tea sploshed over the side, a brown stain edging outwards on the white canvas of the cloth, sticking it to the tabletop beneath. He stood up slowly and raised his cup. Watching the stain spread, he turned his cup fully on its side, hypnotised by the physics of it: the muddy brown liquid turning itself into solid as it merged with the cloth, changing it forever into something that could only have clean whiteness as a thing of its past.

He looked at her. She was staring fixedly at her own cup, as if afraid it would follow suit of its own volition. That made him laugh again, but louder now, turning from hiccoughs into great, rich, man-sized belches, like smoke from a factory chimney bubbling out and clouding a blue sky. He bent over and put his hands on his knees, he was laughing so hard. Tears came to his eyes and ran down his face, making a meal of the caked grime that had built up over the last five days in his attempt to turn the grief into a physical experience, pushing his face against any surface willing to take his weight as he threw himself into feeling.

“Sue,” he said through his laughter. “Sue, don’t you know? Don’t you know all about it?”

At this she stood. He had forgotten that she was almost as tall as he was. They had got that from their father. That and the flyaway red hair that now got stuck in her mouth as she looked him in the eye and said, “I do. I know all about it, Jacob. It’s been on all the news. Now if you don’t mind, those leaves are waiting.”

She pointed to the front of the house but she was looking at him. He looked into her eyes wonderingly. They had once been the same blue as their mother’s but had grown unflinchingly precise, as if over the years Sue had stripped away those parts wasted on seeing anything outside of the facts of her life: their mother’s shrinking and shitting and shrieking and the absence of anyone else to care. He had forgotten about them being blue. He’d got used to seeing his own brown ones, day in, day out, reflected back at him from his son’s face, answered by his wife’s green ones. In his family, blue hadn’t featured.

“But, Sue,” he said now and there was no doubt about it; something had broken. The skin on his face felt as if little hooks attached to weights had anchored themselves to it, so that new creases, craggy and looping, were making histories for themselves out of his flesh.

“Jacob,” she interrupted. “I know all about it. You go and rake those leaves now and I’ll make up a bath.”

They stood like that, neither blinking, but Jacob was the first to crack; Sue had always beat him at the staring game when they were kids, and today was not going to be an historical first. He turned and grasped his way to the door while his sister remained standing, watching him go.

The air outside was crisp. There was a smell of winter although the sun was still shining bright above; the early knowledge the world has that things won’t stay the same forever. Looking up from the pile of leaves, he thought he could hear the sound of water being run inside. He saw an image of his sister, bending over the old bathtub with its enamel scratched away just above the soap dish from years of wear and tear. He frowned, wondering momentarily if she would put out one of the guest towels or the family towels for him. Then he thought of the tea stain, its spread halted by now by the sheer mass and volume of the heavy cloth, just one small spot of cardboard stiffness in a field of soft, flowing white. He went back to work, shovelling through the leaves and grass, the clumps of moist dirt already turning black and rich underneath, becoming fodder for next spring’s flowers.