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Back I Know What I Saw
Chapters (59)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise for I Know What I Saw
  3. By the Same Author
  4. Dedication Page
  5. 1
  6. 2
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  53. 49
  54. Now read on for a preview
  55. 1
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  57. 3
  58. 4
  59. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I run until I can run no more. My lungs are burning hot and screaming for air. Then in my mind Grace appears and she is opening the gift. She unwraps the badly taped and papered package and pulls out the sleeve. She is smiling as she takes the record out of the cover and out of the paper slip, handling it by the edges, and drifts over to the record player. The stylus is up with a gentle microphoned thud and then down once more.

Silence.

A hiss.

Then a rhythmic beat until finally the vocal kicks in.

There’s trouble on the uptrack

And trouble going back

I’ve had trouble with my memory

And less with my back …

And there is her face once again. Her eyes are shut and she is swaying to the music, lost in the mood.

35

Thursday

I need a fire. I jump back over the wall and follow a routine I once knew well. I stoop to the pavement, scrabble around for cigarette ends. When I’ve collected a dozen or so butts, I put aside the largest one and deposit the remainder in my pocket. Now I need paper. Newspaper is best but now with smartphones you can only find them stacked in metal bins outside tube stations. Eventually I find a discarded half by a bus stop. The edges are damp with something but the main body is still dry. Next, fuel. Wood is really the only thing you can use. Paper or cardboard burns too quickly and smokes heavily. I climb back over the wall again and hunt around for dead branches and twigs. After about an hour of foraging, I have the makings of a decent fire. I drop them in a small heap behind a hedgerow that carves out space for the rose garden. Here at least the orange glow won’t be visible to passers-by or to passing traffic.

I light it with the lighter in my pocket and soon it becomes a fire that crackles, taking hold and settling in. The ashes from the paper blow away finally and then I relax. I sit on the ground and warm my hands against the icy night.

The flames make me feel as I always feel when looking into flames. I’m a child after a bath on a cold November night, sitting on a towel being dried by my father. Rory is next to me. The smell of hot coals is in the air. The nostalgia here – at this precise spot in the historical reel – is safe. Mum is nearby making notes for an academic paper. Dad hasn’t begun to mutate yet. I’m not old enough yet to poke those fires in him. I lie back and listen to the snap of burning twigs. The randomised patterns settle me. My eyes flicker open and shut.