by Gavin Broom
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\nJanuary 1st, 2009 \u2013 At Austin’s<\/p>\n
The new year is in its infancy \u2013 minutes, maybe only seconds old \u2013 and born to a drunken world already neglecting it. \u00a0The antique clock facing Austin\u2019s bar that had everyone spellbound now looks out at our backs and people who’d shaken hands and embraced are strangers once again.<\/p>\n
In the photograph, Claire and I stand near the usual mob at the bar who do their best to spoil the shot. \u00a0My hand sits on her waist. \u00a0Her blonde head finds its nest on my shoulder and her smile is warm and crooked like she’s stifling a laugh. \u00a0James is in front of me, typically worse for wear, frozen in celebration, cheering with wide eyes and mouth. \u00a0Next to him, in a white dress, Kerry blows the camera a kiss.<\/p>\n
That night, the booze fuels talk of approaching thirtieth birthdays, promotions at work, subtle suggestions of overdue engagements that secretly terrify as much as the idea of weddings. \u00a0There’s talk of seizing the day, of the less worn path, of not settling like our parents, of making something of ourselves, of having big plans. \u00a0The thing I notice, though, through all the hope and expectation captured on our faces, is that none of us know what’s coming. \u00a0We don’t have a clue.
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\nFebruary 15th, 2009 \u2013 Birthday<\/p>\n
It was James who suggested this inspired way to combine Valentine’s Day and Claire’s birthday while picking up some Best Boyfriend in the World points along the way. \u00a0The result of this idea is a stereotypical Parisian taking a stereotypical photograph of two stereotypical tourists.<\/p>\n
Claire and I are rosy-cheeked, wrapped in long coats and scarves at the top of the Eiffel Tower. \u00a0It’s impossible to tell if we’re smiling or grimacing against the brutal chill. \u00a0Over our shoulders, the crisp, grey city does its best to look as though it hasn’t posed like this a million times already today. \u00a0There’s no such thing as privacy up here and other tourists sandwich us as they have their pictures taken or talk with their significant others and it makes me think of all the paths, all the billions of decisions that have been made independently across the globe to make us all share this moment. \u00a0It makes me think of my own path.<\/p>\n
Later that evening, back at the hotel, we sit at the bar and drink whisky until our blood thaws. \u00a0The bartender is disinterested and surly until he realises we’re Scottish and not English as he’d assumed. \u00a0After that, he’s our new best friend and the three of us drink and chat into the wee hours. \u00a0When he announces that he’s originally from Cameroon, bored with Paris and looking to move on, it ignites something in Claire. \u00a0Excited, she grabs my hand and suggests we deliberately miss our return flight. \u00a0Instead, she wants to withdraw her life savings and travel through Europe to the Far East, working on a farm in Switzerland, pouring drinks or waiting tables in Dubai, sleeping on a beach in Vietnam. \u00a0Over and over, the bartender says what an excellent idea it is and the more he says it, the more animated Claire becomes and the more detached I find myself. \u00a0She looks at me for a reaction and I smile but when I don’t speak, she gives me back my hand and leaves me with thoughts of paths and how unmade decisions are still decisions and unspoken words can still be heard.
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\nApril 1st, 2009 \u2013 April Fools<\/p>\n
James’ reason for surprising Kerry with a party and proposal on April Fools’ Day is surprisingly simple and valid: she won’t be expecting it. \u00a0And he’s right. \u00a0When she walks into the function room, her hands shoot to her mouth, her knees buckle for a moment and she needs to be calmed by her sisters and friends. \u00a0Eventually, she collects herself and even though she’s crying, she’s laughing when she says yes.<\/p>\n
Claire asks me to take a photograph of Kerry’s hand, now seemingly as complete as her life thanks to a chunk of compressed carbon set in a platinum band. \u00a0I’m no expert on such things but I have to admit to being impressed by James’ choice. \u00a0It suits her hand; makes her fingers look slender and elegant. \u00a0I can’t help wondering how much it cost, how much James earns and, if it’s more than me, what he did to deserve it. \u00a0Any of it. \u00a0I do as I’m told and take the photo. \u00a0As I review the image, I notice the French tips on Kerry\u2019s fingernails and a patch of uneven fake tan around her wrist and my stomach flinches at what I suspect may be a ruse.<\/p>\n
At ten o’clock, the DJ takes a break for the buffet and it’s while we’re eating that Claire raises a subject I knew was in the post from the moment James told me of his intentions. \u00a0Still, I pretend to be taken aback and tell her I thought the plan was to go backpacking across Australia or cycle round the world or work on a salmon farm in Tibet or open an orphanage in Mozambique. \u00a0That’s when something changes, something leaves her eyes and whatever it is, wherever it goes, it doesn’t come back.
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\nJune 21st, 2009 \u2013 Solstice<\/p>\n
Every year, my dad made a big deal of the shortest night. \u00a0For as long as I can remember, he talked about setting off in the car when the sun went down and driving until it rose the next morning, just to see where it would take him. \u00a0Given that this allowed him about five or six hours driving time, I would tell him that he’d either end up just past Birmingham if he went south, somewhere in Caithness if he went north and in the sea if he went any other direction. \u00a0Neither option sounded particularly appealing. \u00a0He’d look annoyed when I said this. \u00a0Apparently, I missed the point.<\/p>\n
On this particular solstice evening, much like all the others, he’s going nowhere. \u00a0The doctor says he can’t get home, the surgeon wants to talk to my mother in private about more procedures planned for the morning and the nurse gives him a hard, square cushion to hug on to when the coughing gets bad. \u00a0The cushion has a face drawn on it in black marker; cock-eyed with its tongue sticking out of its grinning mouth. \u00a0Dad thinks this is hilarious and while Mum’s still away, he asks me to take a photo on my phone. \u00a0He holds the pillow next to his face and strikes a matching pose. \u00a0When I show him the result, he’s delighted. \u00a0Twins, he says. \u00a0He asks if I can print a copy and bring it with me tomorrow. \u00a0I tell him that if the surgeons have their way, he might not be in the best shape to look through photos. \u00a0It’ll be a piece of piss, he insists. \u00a0A piece of piss.<\/p>\n
On the drive home, Mum repeats her conversation with the surgeon and talks about how she feels things have run away in the last few weeks and everything’s moving too fast. \u00a0It’s all I can do to keep driving because what I really want to do is pull over, take the phone out of my pocket, show her the photo and see if between us we can find anything that’ll make us smile. \u00a0The phone stays where it is, though, and the pack of glossy printer paper I buy after I drop Mum off isn’t unwrapped until much, much later.
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\nAugust 7th, 2009 \u2013 Satellites<\/p>\n
Claire phoned me first. \u00a0Being honest, it amazed me it wasn’t the other way round and hadn’t happened much earlier, especially as it had been a tough summer, during which I\u2019d become well acquainted with the bottom of a bottle. \u00a0Given these conditions, a drunken call in the middle of the night, begging for a reconciliation, wasn’t so much likely as downright inevitable. \u00a0I remember thinking it was good to be surprised. \u00a0The feeling doesn’t last.<\/p>\n
We meet in a coffee shop in town the next evening and it\u2019s the first we\u2019ve seen each other in three months. \u00a0I have a latte. \u00a0She orders a green tea of all things, which I read as a flag in the sand, a definite statement that things have changed and they’re not changing back. \u00a0For the next thirty minutes we’re civil while we tiptoe through our conversational minefield and then she reaches into her bag \u2013 new, I notice \u2013 and hands me something I mistake for a birthday card. \u00a0On the front of the card is a drawing of a teddy bear holding a balloon. \u00a0Inside, there’s a grainy, black and white photograph that looks like an image from a weather satellite. \u00a0Just as I realise why a cloud looks like a tiny foot, it all falls into place and I become conscious that Claire’s speaking to me, explaining something, saying my name, but the words are too bassy, too muffled, as though we’re underwater. \u00a0I don’t move my head. \u00a0I keep my eyes focused on that little foot. \u00a0I let the waves of nausea crash and wash over me and wait for them to subside. \u00a0Eventually, the tide goes back out.<\/p>\n
It’s only when she gets up that I notice the makings of a bump and puffiness in her cheeks. \u00a0She tells me she’ll be in touch and that I can be as involved as I want but, because we’re still looking for different things, in every other regard it’s business as usual. \u00a0I’m left holding the photograph with the very tips of my fingers, as though it’s made from the most delicate of porcelain. \u00a0The sky is orange and shadows are long when I throw some money on the table. \u00a0I notice that her cup of green tea hasn’t been touched.
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\nNovember 17th, 2009 \u2013 Removal<\/p>\n
When I arrive at James’ flat with the van, Kerry is somewhere else, just as she’d promised. \u00a0I’m surprised at how little stuff he has and he tells me he travels light. \u00a0I remind him that he’s lived here for four years. \u00a0He doesn’t reply to that. \u00a0Instead, he mutters about how he can’t believe this is happening so close to Christmas and pays no attention when I say Christmas is really six weeks away and not that close at all. \u00a0No sense in anyone doing stuff that makes them both unhappy, I say to him when it looks like he\u2019s pouting. \u00a0No sense at all. \u00a0He agrees.<\/p>\n
In my haste to shift a chest of drawers, a photograph frame falls on the floor and cracks under my heel. \u00a0The photo of Kerry and her dog is torn and just as I’m about to find James to apologise, I spot another picture underneath. \u00a0This other, hidden photo is of the four of us at a restaurant table in Cyprus. \u00a0James and I are in shirts and the women are in dresses; Claire blue and Kerry white. \u00a0James is the only one without much of a tan because, I remember, he spent most of the holiday sitting in the shade at the pool bar drinking domestic lager and chatting up the Cypriot barmaid when he thought no one was looking. \u00a0I try to recreate the emotions from that time, the things that were going through my head, the happiness I’m sure I must have felt. \u00a0For a second, I almost have it \u2013 I\u2019m nearly there \u2013 but then it all feels too far away and not just time-wise. \u00a0I flatten the original photo back in the broken frame and although I’m not sure for whose benefit I’m doing it, I tear up the Cyprus photograph and put it in the bin.<\/p>\n
His new place isn’t as nice as he described it. \u00a0It’s dark, one bedroom and the smell of damp in the air pounces on me as soon as the door opens. \u00a0James seems happy, though, so I try not to be too negative. \u00a0We sit on cardboard boxes and share a four-pack as a reward for our efforts and he remarks about how strangely things have worked out, considering how they looked at the start of the year. \u00a0I try to remember the thoughts about my path but the finer details escape me and the best I can do is explain that I’m convinced things were always going to work out this way, regardless of any plans. \u00a0Except, I tell him, I thought he’d be the one to cheat on her. \u00a0He laughs and for the second time today, he agrees.
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\nDecember 31st, 2009 \u2013 At Austin’s<\/p>\n
The year has minutes \u2013 maybe seconds \u2013 left to live. \u00a0Looking around, I see enough familiar faces to feel like this used to be home. \u00a0Toasts are raised to what\u2019s left of 2009 and I’m reminded it’s also the end of a decade, maybe even the end of an era, and this, along with turning thirty, makes me feel old; too old to stay here. \u00a0Big Ben starts his preamble when I whisper in Kerry’s ear that I want to leave. \u00a0She smiles and without asking why, she follows me outside. \u00a0I suspect she knows.<\/p>\n
As far as I can recall, it’s always windy at the bells. \u00a0Tonight, though, it’s calm and the cloudless, speckled night sky allows a frost to shroud us while we sit on the car park wall. \u00a0Fireworks trace above as 2010 makes its entrance and I’m reminded of shooting stars and then of my dad. \u00a0Through the explosions, I end up talking about him and I mention his unfulfilled plan for the summer solstice. \u00a0She says I should do that. \u00a0She says we should both do that and reckons it would be great if everyone did it. \u00a0We could start a trend. \u00a0She laughs at my raised eyebrow and insists it would be fun to see where we end up and what adventures might be waiting for us there. \u00a0The way she explains it makes me understand what I think the whole world\u2019s been trying to tell me and I shiver, but not from the cold.<\/p>\n
A little later, we go back inside where once more the new year feels like it happened a long time ago. \u00a0James and Claire are nursing soft drinks in separate corners of the bar with their halves of the usual mob. \u00a0They glower while conversations happen around them. \u00a0I\u2019m not sure of the meaning of the smile I send to Claire. \u00a0Maybe I\u2019m apologising. \u00a0Maybe I\u2019m saying that none of us know what the next twelve months will bring. \u00a0Either way, she manages to send a smile back. \u00a0I haven’t brought my camera with me tonight, so none of this is documented and if in years to come my kid decides that he or she needs to know what Daddy got up to on this particular Hogmanay, they’re just going to have to take my word for it. by Gavin Broom January 1st, 2009 \u2013 At Austin’s The new year is in its infancy \u2013 minutes, maybe only seconds old \u2013 and born to a drunken world already neglecting it. \u00a0The antique clock facing Austin\u2019s bar that had … Continue reading
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\nGAVIN BROOM<\/strong> lives in the Scottish countryside with his wife and his cat. He’s had work published in Menda City Review, Bound Off, Espresso Fiction, flashquake and SFX amongst others. At time of writing, he doesn’t own a house at the beach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"