Open Water, Caleb Nelson [best summer books txt] 📗

‘If you’re sure?’

‘I’ll go grab it from my room.’

‘Can I come?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Can you give me a piggyback upstairs?’

‘Erm, sure,’ you say. You turn, bending your knees slightly. Her fingers find tender purchase in the grooves between your collarbone and shoulder blades, and she takes refuge on your back, laying her cheek across the side of your neck. Her thighs in your hands, you make the short journey with ease.

‘I’m not too heavy, am I?’

You shake your head as she dismounts. She wasn’t heavy but there was a weight to her which didn’t match the lean figure you studied in your kitchen. Which is to say there was more life in your hands than you expected.

‘Jheeze.’ She cranes her head ninety degrees to read the spines of the towers of books on your table. Takes a perch on the edge of your bed. Her eyes dance across the titles. ‘I miss being able to read anything. I’m doing English Lit at uni,’ she adds.

‘Ah. Well, feel free to borrow anything.’

‘I’m reading this great book at the moment: The Same Earth by Kei Miller. But I’ll be back,’ she says, here and not quite. ‘Maybe,’ reaching towards the smallest stack, a pile you always return to, ‘for some Zadie.’

‘Good choice.’

Bellingham station is a short walk away, and you cut through the park en route. In an enclosed area, four young men converge to play basketball on a day free of the mist and gloom spring can bring. Three are dressed for the occasion, one is not. The latter holds a tiny, yapping dog on a leash, while dispensing tips for success.

‘Hold it with one hand . . . nah, that one is just for support. There you go.’

One of the other players, imbued with fresh knowledge, launches a shot skywards. The arc is nice, but as the ball spins through the air, it’s clear theory will not marry practice. The ball misses everything it can: backboard, rim, net. The young man shrugs off the teasing, gathering the ball, assuming the position, willing to try again.

She falls into your stride as you make your usual ­journey – down the hill, through the park, along the main road of this tiny London town, complete with its Morley’s and the ­off-­licence, the Caribbean takeaway, the always empty ­pub – to the top of the small slope where the station waits.

‘I guess this is goodbye.’

‘For now,’ you say, hoping the disappointment doesn’t show. You don’t want your time together to end.

‘For now. I’ll see you soon. I kinda have to now,’ she says, tugging at the hoody. ‘I’ll link you before I go back to Dublin.’

The groan escapes before you can contain it.

‘What?’ she asks.

‘That’s far.’

‘It is,’ she says. ‘I’ll be back, though.’ The train pulls in and she taps her Oyster card on the reader, stepping on board. You both wave as the doors close. She smiles at you as she settles into her seat, waving again. You begin to do the same, chasing after the train in pantomime fashion, spurred on by her laughter. You run and wave and laugh until the train gathers speed and the platform runs out. She escapes the frame, until it is just you on the platform, a little breathless, a little ecstatic, a little sad.

7

And it wasn’t that day, or the day after, but sometime after that, you cried in your kitchen. You were alone in the house and had been for a week or so. Headphones sending sound into the silence, a tender croon stretched across drums designed to march you towards yourself. In an easy rhythm, the rapper confesses his pain, and so you stop and ask yourself, How are you feeling? Be honest, man. You’re sweeping debris across the kitchen tiles, reaching into the corners for ­far-­flung flecks. Moving the brush in an easy rhythm, you begin to confess, your joy, your pain, your truth. You dial for your mother but she is still far away, wrestling with the grief of her mother’s passing. You want to tell her that you miss her mother, to confess that you lost your God in the days your grandma lost her body and gained her spirit, to tell her you couldn’t face your own pain until now. She would need you intact, you think. You end the call you initiated. You dial for your father, but you know he will not have the words. He will hide behind a guise, he will tell you to be a man. He will not tell you how much he hurts too, even though you can hear the shiver in the timbre of his voice. You decline the call. You dial for your brother, but he too carries the house of your father. He will not have the words.

So you’re in the kitchen, and you’re alone, but this isolation is new. Something has come undone. You are scared. You know what you want but you don’t know what to do. This pain isn’t new but it is unfamiliar, like finding a tear in a piece of fabric. You cry so hard you feel loose and limber and soft as a newborn. You want to pull and push and mould yourself back together. The headphones slip from your head as you slide to the floor, loose and limber and soft. You’re wailing like a newborn. You’re alone. You don’t feel in rhythm. There’s nothing playing. The music has stopped. A break: also known as a percussion break. A slight pause where the music falls loose from its tightly wound rhythm. You have been going and going and going and now you have decided to slow down, to a halt, and confess. You are scared. You have been fearful of this spillage. You have been worried of being torn. You have been worried that you would not repair, would not emerge intact. You lost your God so you cannot even pray, and anyway, prayer is just confessing one’s desire and it’s not that