A New England

A New England When alone, Phil thought of colours. He thought of a
painting that hung in the house he grew up in. It had always been
there, as much a part of the furniture as the skirting board, the knife
rack, the footstool he rested his ankle on while clipping his toenails.
One day he walked past it and stopped, he put his hands behind his back
and gazed at it for perhaps twenty minutes. It had suddenly captured
him, the look in the eyes of the girl, the shapes the tips of the
treetops made against the cobalt sky. It was as though it had been
painted that day. "Where did you get that painting from?" he asked his
father when he returned home. Phil noticed the way his dad stood and
looked at it, the positioning of his feet and hands were exactly the
same as he his own just an hour earlier. "Why do you ask now? You have
walked past it every day without mentioning it." "I'd never noticed
how?beautiful it is." He flinched as he used the word. His father
nodded. "You're Grandfather painted it. Look." He held his arm up to
the corner, by the frame. "His initials." "Grandpa was a painter?"
"This was the only painting he ever produced. The lady in the dress is
your mother. She was eighteen years old at the time. It was a present
for your Grandmother's birthday. He had never painted before, and never
did do again." There was sadness in his voice as he walked away. Phil
emptied glass from the dustpan into the dustbin, with the nonchalance
of an old lady sweeping leaves from her garden. With the two window
panes missing there was a draft, but he could not bring himself to
measure out the cardboard, or even to put an extra layer of clothing on
for warmth.. The first time it had happened he phoned the police. The
phone-call was a wasted one, he soon learned not to bother with them,
the only time they ever made an effort to come to the pub was after the
arson attack. That was when he made his mind up. Dawn, his wife,
disagreed. The arguments almost tore them apart, she moved away for a
week, saying if he wanted to sell The Smoking Chimney, he could do it
without her. He drove down to Norfolk to collect her, apologise and
bring her back. "If it ever happens again," she had said to him. "Then
we will talk about it some more. But promise me, if it doesn't, you are
going nowhere." Phil promised. As he opened the till to take out his
car keys, there was another screech of breaks from outside, a loud
smash of glass. Phil turned around to see glass falling onto the carpet
like confetti. He smiled, picked up his phone and called Dawn. Anton
and Sakiyah married on her sixteenth birthday. He proposed to her on
his sixteenth birthday and they spent the following four hundred and
thirty days planning the wedding. Bethany watched them stood together
at the altar. From the day she first heard the news, to the day they
went shopping for the dress, to licking tequila off a barman's elbow on
the hen night, she wanted exactly what Sakiyah had. Sat on her seat
next to David, the groom's father, she pictured what her daughter's
face looked like, the view that only the priest and the twelve piece
orchestra had. She guessed she was smiling, not in the way she would do
in the photographs later, or in the way she flashed a quick thank-you
with her cheekbones after being given a lift home, but a smile she had
never seen before, and never would do. Bethany never thought it would
happen, but she was jealous of her own daughter. The church bells rang
as Anton and Sakiyah were met on the steps by the congregation. Bethany
looked around her and wished she could be as happy as all the others
trying to catch the bride's eye. By the cemetery gates, she noticed a
statue of the Virgin Mary. She looked to it and prayed for the strength
to get through the day. A piece of confetti hit her on the side of the
nose, inside it felt she'd been cut by a piece of glass. Suddenly, she
clicked back into wedding mode, stooped down, collected a handful of
confetti, hurled it in the air and watched it spread over her
daughter's veil. "I didn't see you during the photographs mum" "No. How
were they? I had?something to attend to." "They were good. I'd have
liked you to be in them though." "You have hundreds of photos of me.
You and Anton, you're the only two people you need in your wedding
photo. At mine and your dad's wedding, there were only eight people."
"Mum." "Don't worry about me. Let me get you a drink. Phil." She
shouted, Sakiyah gestured to the glass of orange juice in her hand, and
Phil, turning his back on a bustling bar, smiled at them. "Another
orange juice? And for you Beth?" "Vodka." By the time the bottle of
orange juice had been unscrewed and poured into a glass, Sakiyah had
waved goodbye to her mum and was surrounded by girls Bethany recognised
from school. Phil winked at her as he gave her the two drinks. Bethany
smiled, downed the vodka, and left the orange on the bar. "Bethany."
Phil sat on the pew next to her. He had called last orders, all of the
wedding guests were finding their way to their homes or hotels. A few
remained, most of them couples. "It's alright. I'm about to go. You
don't have to worry about me anymore, Phil." "Stay. As long as you
want. I'd not be a good brother if I just stopped worrying." "Phil." "I
need to tell you something important. We might be moving. Me and Dawn.
Definitely me, hopefully Dawn too. Things have been going badly."
"Between you and her?" "And for the pub. Ever since Pukka opened across
the road." He gestured at the door. The jukebox went silent while one
track segued into another. They both looked through the window at the
street outside, full of teenagers spilling out of the pub. "Have you
been in there?" Bethany shook her head. "Awful place. I'm not saying it
because they are taking our customers. I'm saying it because it is full
of?vermin. "You've been drinking, Phil." "It's what I do. We're
selling, Bethany. We're getting rid of the pub, it's too much work.
They've beaten us. The gel haired short skirt generation has got the
better of an old barman." "What will you do?" Bethany looked at Phil
like an older sister. Despite being two years older than him, she
always played the role of the tearaway, the problem child. She looked
up to Phil. He ignored her. Her cries for help went largely unnoticed.
Not just by him. The lack of love between brother and sister was
nothing compared to in her marriage. It was Phil that picked up the
pieces. He had always been jealous of her popularity at school, wished
he could swap places with her. In the end though, he was the only one
to visit her in hospital. Him and Sakiyah. She had been too young to
understand. "I've not talked to Dawn about it yet. A friend has bought
a pub." He paused, worried about how his sister may respond. "In
Switzerland. I'm visiting him at the weekend, he wants me to run it for
him." No response. He looked at her eyes. She had understood, she had
taken it in. She was not drunk. "And Dawn?" "Dawn will come. I'm
convinced of it. It is what she needs, what we need. The only problem
is-" "-James." "James." Phil nodded, with the finality of a punch in
the stomach. I am on a beach in Florida. We live here now. Or we are on
holiday. No, we live here. I am tanned, my hair blonded by the sun. I
wear a shawl to protect my shoulders. They burn easily. Anton is in the
pool. He splashes around with our daughter, Holly. Or Jasmine. He
splashes around with our two daughters, Holly and Jasmine. He isn't
tanned. Still pale like whitewash, and slightly flabby. I make fun of
him for it. He says he will lose weight. He eats chips covered in
ketchup as he says it. Again, I laugh at him. He feigns dented pride.
The ketchup was brought over by my mum. She is well again. She has a
new husband. Not a rich man. Kind. He has a moustache. He acts like I
am his own daughter, I behave like I am. "Is there anything you want me
to bring?" mum had asked before she flew over here. "Tomato ketchup." I
answered without thinking. There was nothing else. "I don't like the
flavour of it over here." I don't need to tell her which brand I want.
When she went into the supermarket and scanned the shelves for the
bottle she will have thought back to when I was first starting to eat.
Chicken nuggets, covered in ketchup. I would touch nothing else.
"Chicken nuggeys" I called them. Her new husband will have asked her
what she was smiling about. She will have told him about Chicken
nuggeys. He will have laughed and absent mindedly imagined me as a
toddler, my mum as a 21 year old, feeding me. The picture in his mind
will be exactly the same as a photograph taken at the time; down to the
colour of my bib, the style of my mum's hair. Sakiyah sleeps. Anton
watches her, he knows she is having a peaceful dream. Looking at her,
he finds it hard to imagine she has any other kind of dream. He lays
awake, he had never slept with a woman before. Not just in the sexual
sense. He had worried for months about the wedding night. He wondered
if she had as well. They had never spoken about it. The main worry had
been the nakedness. The intimacy. As a child he could never make things
out of Lego. He would put things in the wrong place, the bricks would
never stick, there were always bits missing. One time he tried to make
a ship, the end result looked nothing like the picture on the box. That
is what he had worried about before the wedding. But it had not been a
problem, as soon as the lights were dimmed, every block clicked into
place, every brick went where the manual instructed, the mast stayed up
and the ship cruised into the harbour. It is when the lights are off
completely, and he lies, trying to sleep, that the problems come. He is
too conscious of his own breathing. It seemed louder with every breath.
He panics, scared at the possibility of never being able to share a bed
again. He tries to relax. He thinks of home, of sitting in The Smoking
Chimney with his friends, with James and Simon. He thinks of his wife.
His wife! It makes him smile. But not relax. 'You should not need to
think about breathing as though it were a chess match, thinking five or
six moves ahead.' That is what he tells himself. His legs are sore, his
whole body uncomfortable, but he dare not move in fear of making noise.
An hour passes. Sweat spirals itself around him like rope. He makes one
last effort to relax. One effort to save his marriage. He starts to
copy Sakiyah's breathing patterns. He synchronises his lungs to hers.
Her heart beat becomes his metronome, as her ribcage dilates, so too
does his. Suddenly, the perspiration evaporates, the duvet softens, his
head sinks into the pillow and they breathe throughout the night,
subconsciously, as one. James sat in The Smoking Chimney, as he did
every evening. His stomach still hurt, walking from the supermarket to
his home the previous night, he'd been punched outside Pukka. A lad
much younger than him, no older than eighteen. James had not felt
scared. Just on seeing his attacker he knew he was in no danger, it was
not the weight of the punch that had caused him to fall onto the
pavement, he had just been caught off balance. He had not stolen his
wallet, had not pursued the attack. In many ways James wished he had
done, then there would have been a purpose. It was lucky he chose
James, a pacifist, a weakling, a coward. All his friends knew that
about him, his colleagues at the school. But his attacker was not to
know it. James thought of other people he knew, who would have torn
anyone apart if faced with anything similar. People whose interests
were flick knives and kick boxing, rather than country music and wine.
Why couldn't people from Pukka find these people to start fights with?
He could see people go in and out of there from his bedroom window. The
identikit brand name teenagers. The streets, full of Dick Head
Convertibles and Ford Tossers. That is what Simon had called them. It
was just the two of them now. The friendship group was once easily in
double figures. Often the people they knew in the pub outnumbered those
that they didn't. But some had gone to university and never returned,
some went to London or Manchester to seek their fortune, some just
scribbled The Smoking Chimney out of their address book. Now Phil and
Dawn had left, there seemed to be nothing. The songs on the jukebox
were unfamiliar. James looked around. The place was unrecognisable to
when he first came into the pub, twelve years earlier, even the glass
in the windows was different, thanks to the Pukka customers delight of
putting fists and bricks through the panes. No Phil and Dawn. Who knew
how often Anton would be around now he was married. No-one to laugh at
his jokes anymore. No-one to drink with him after closing time. Or
before closing time. It was like a death, the knowledge people had gone
and would never be back. Loneliness made him miserable. This was
loneliness. This was his life. He would be spending more time in his
flat now, he lived above the Smoking Chimney, when it became available
it was his dream come true. People were jealous, all he had to do was
walk down the stairs and he was there. The pub. Their pub. He tapped in
Simon's number on the payphone. No answer. He wondered whether Simon
knew about Dawn and Phil leaving yet. He worried his friend would
follow their lead, and start a new life. It seemed to be a popular
thing to do. Phil picked up a paintbrush. It was what he had thought
about ever since Dawn agreed to join him in the Swiss pub. While she
had spoken of her fear of leaving friends, struggling with the
language, being without television and radio, he could not wait to get
started. On the aeroplane, he thought of his Grandfather's painting.
How the only people who had ever seen it were those that had been in
their house. John Constable had never used green. He remembered that
from school. He'd mixed the colours afresh, he never used the same
shade of green twice. He would paint something as beautiful as his
grandfather had. He would only use blue. A Hundred Shades of Blue. That
is what he would call it. Just thinking of the title made him excited.
He bought canvas from an art shop in Zurich, the girl who worked there
provided him with all the paints and acrylics he would need, and he
rushed back on the tram to his new house. They lived across the road
from the pub, a small chalet rented from a family the previous landlord
knew. They had emigrated to Canada now. Phil looked around and wondered
how anyone could ever leave. It was forty minutes outside of the city
centre, close enough for Dawn to go shopping on a Saturday afternoon,
but not so close that it attracted the students, the foreigners on
holiday, the Pukka generation. The new pub, the new Smoking Chimney,
lay in the hills, from every window there was forests, trees,
mountains. Not one green, a hundred greens. Stood at his canvas, Phil
tried to paint the quietness. With each brush stroke he got further and
further away from his old life. He painted in secret, every time Dawn
went into Zurich or to the local internet caf? to keep in touch with
friends, Phil was out in the back yard, his fingertips getting speckled
with a hundred shades of blue paint. "What are you doing?" He turned
around. "Sakiyah. I thought you were working?" "I didn't know you
painted. It's good. Me and Anton need you in the bar. When we said we
could cope by ourselves, we were wrong!" "I'll be right over." Phil
smiled. Sakiyah gave him a hug. "Thanks for inviting me here Uncle
Phil." "You both like it here?" "We love it. I've told mum she should
come out." "She'll visit. She couldn't live here though, you know
that." Phil put the painting in the shed and locked it up. He put his
coat on and the two walked out of the house. "How's married life. What
is it, a month now?" "Just three weeks. It's perfect!" "I'm glad." They
walked into the pub. Already the locals had accepted them, Phil already
spoke German adequately, he was keen to learn and an elderly Swiss
couple who came in every evening would sit him down at their table and
insisted he spoke to them in German while they drank. The bar work was
easy, the shifts were shared between Sakiyah, Anton, Phil and Dawn, as
well as Leni, a barmaid who had worked there for ten years. The
regulars liked her, and she relished the chance to impress her new
employers with her grasp of English. Anton sat in the corner, checking
out the football scores in the Daily Express. "A barrel needs changing"
Sakiyah told Phil. As he walked to the staircase to go down the cellar,
James and Simon walked in through the back door and ordered two beers.
Phil nodded hello, and when he finished changing the barrel, they
showed him around their new flat upstairs. Sleeping is no longer a
problem. In England, I could not do it. I even told Sakiyah about it,
she laughed, said not to worry, that I had never kept her awake. It
reassured me, but only temporarily, as soon as I was back in bed and
the lights were off, I'd be more awake than I had been all day. I
dreaded night time. I started sleeping during afternoons, I would nod
off while watching television, which made it even harder to sleep at
night. Now, though, I like married life. It agrees with me. I like
using the phrase 'I'll ask the wife.' I like sharing everything. When
the chance came to move to Switzerland, I knew it was right for us. I
was scared, but being with Sakiyah made it all seem easy. The first
week we spent here, I still could not sleep. But one night, when I
closed my eyes, I saw a picture that hangs in the bar in the new pub
Sakiyah's uncle owns. It makes me feel peaceful. When the lights go
out, a huge bubble forms around our bed. As I wait for sleep to come to
me, I paint the inside of the bubble one hundred shades of blue.