At first he thought it was sign language.
It was a Wednesday, four p.m., and Trent had taken his usual seat in The Crimson Café to sip his usual cappuccino and pray that nobody spoke to him or otherwise disturbed his peace. Today was his day off – a treat he gave himself midweek, every week; a little incentive just to help him get through to Saturday morning without losing his mind.
Trent worked for himself: did graphic design for a growing list of regular clients, pubs, hotels, even the occasional retail outlet. He created signage, brochures, magazine adverts. It was easy work, and the pay was decent. Kept him in beer and aspirin, the twin supports of his existence since his wife had been killed in a road accident over six months ago.
But Wednesdays…those were just for him, to clear his mind and rest on his laurels. And he always enjoyed a late lunch at The Crimson Café, where the pasta was home-made and the service was never anything more than mildly intrusive.
The woman was sat in the far corner, next to the toilets. She was short, unremarkable except for the fact that she was wearing a grubby parka coat and it was the height of summer. Trent only noticed her because her rapid hand movement caught his eyes as he was glancing at a particularly attractive redhead who’d just walked out of the ladies.
It looked as if the woman was playing that old childhood game of Cat’s Cradle, only without the necessary length of twine. Her empty hands flew through the air in front of her face like small tethered birds, making swift geometrical patterns and cutting through fresh air as if there were some purpose to it all. Maybe there was, to her; perhaps she was mad, like half of the transients in London.
Trent looked away when she caught his eye, concentrated on his lukewarm coffee. The last thing he needed right now – or ever – was to be buttonholed by some card-carrying weirdo.
He examined the sweet menu, trying to decide whether or not to have a slice of cheesecake, when his daughter walked into the restaurant.
Trent was surprised, but only mildly so. Even though he hadn’t spoken to her for over a month, Rita knew that he was a creature of habit. If ever she needed to find him, she knew where to look – especially on a Wednesday afternoon.
He watched her over the top of the menu, admiring her slender grace and intelligent features as she cast her eyes over every head in the place, looking for him. Instead of making himself known, he considered hiding. Or running. Then he wondered where on earth the thoughts had come from.
“Dad,” she said, seeing him at last and approaching him across the emptying room. She looked slightly flustered beneath the heavy layer of makeup that she always wore to work, as if she’d been running. Her breathing was heavy, and sweat shone on her powdered brow.
In that moment Trent knew that he was probably going to end telling her what he’d not told anyone since finding out.
All of a sudden he was reminded of September the 11 th , the day the planes had crashed into the World Trade Centres in New York. His son, Billy, had been working in one of the Twin Towers for over a year at that point, and as events unfolded live on his PC monitor, via an internet newsfeed, Trent had felt his stomach clench.
He’d calmly turned off his mobile phone, and unplugged the main landline from the wall. For a while there he’d wanted nothing more than to be alone. Forever, if he could manage it.
He felt that way now: unable to talk to anyone about such a huge and indescribable situation. He couldn’t even say the word out loud, not even to his own face in the mirror. Cancer, the word to end all words; the one that nobody wanted to hear.
Last September he’d managed to pull himself around and make some calls. It had turned out that Billy had been on holiday in Jamaica with a married lady friend, telling only one close friend about the illicit trip. It had taken Trent two whole hours to uncover this vital information. Two hours that were filled with a dread he’d remember until his dying day. The pure uncut dread of someone you love having been taken away.
He couldn’t do that to Rita, even though he wasn’t that sure of her feelings toward him, not any more. Sometimes he thought she even hated him – she certainly blamed him for her mother’s death. And with good reason. After all, it had been he who’d drunk to much and forced Gemma to drive the car on that cold wet night, and him who’d survived the crash when she had not.
But he’d stopped blaming himself a long time ago. Had in fact stopped blaming anyone in particular. Now he just blamed everyone .
Rita sat down opposite, smiling in a way that he couldn’t quite read. She looked like a small child all over again, but with a knowledge in her eyes that was almost painful to see.
“Hi, daddy,” she said, winking at him.
“Coffee?”
“Yeah. Please. Black, one sugar.”
The waiter loomed towards them, and took the order. Then he slid away as if on roller-skates. Trent had decided against the cheesecake after all.
“How are you? Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I know daddy.” She looked at her hands as she spoke: not a good sign. “I’ve been…busy..”
“Busy? With what?”
“Stuff.”
The coffees arrived, and Rita slowly stirred hers until the waiter rolled away again. Trent caught sight of the gesticulating woman as he waited for his daughter to speak. The woman was leaving the building, still working her hands in the air. Still mutely communing with some invisible counterpart. Her face was blank, the muscles slack, as if she were in some kind of daze. She moved along the street at speed, still waving her hands, twiddling her fingers; tying imaginary knots in the breeze.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, princess.” He hadn’t called her that since she was thirteen. It was probably the reason why she felt free to talk, to let out what she’d been holding tight inside.
There were tears in her eyes when she said: “Daddy, I’m pregnant.”
Trent looked at her, at his beautiful daughter and the pain in her face. His little career girl who didn’t even have a regular boyfriend.
“Whose is it?” he asked, biting back any other words that might want to break free from behind his teeth.
“I was raped. Drugged, at a party. I…I’m not really sure.”
Trent didn’t say anything else; didn’t trust himself to unclench his jaw.
“Don’t worry, the police are looking into it. I wasn’t going to say anything, but I guess with it being mum’s birthday today I just couldn’t keep it to myself anymore.”
Gemma’s birthday. She would’ve been forty-eight: two years older than Trent. And he’d forgotten.
He looked into the eyes of his partially estranged daughter, and silently swore that he’d bridge the gap that was even now widening between them. Took her small cold hand in his own. Squeezed it; squeezed it tight as he could without breaking the bones.
“We’ll get through this,” he said, forcing a smile. “All of it.”
And that was when Rita finally cried, her face breaking open like an eggshell.
The woman he’d seen earlier, the one with the seemingly possessed hands, walked past the window, returning from the far end of the busy street. This time, in a revelatory moment of unalloyed epiphany, Trent suddenly realised what she was doing. It was like a window opening into a darkened room, letting in light to momentarily scatter the shadows.
“Wait just one minute,” he said, and left the table, running out into the street. Rita watched him with an expression of shock on her face, but waited, trusting him to return.
He caught up with the woman easily; she was no athlete. He reached out and tapped her on the shoulder, hoping that she wasn’t merely insane.
She turned around, still twirling her tiny hands, and stared at him. Her lips were closed tight, her face rigid in concentration. She was lost in her bizarre task.
“What are you doing ?” asked Trent, desperation, hope, despair all mingling in his voice that suddenly seemed so tiny and distant.
The woman smiled, baring yellowing teeth under her split lips.
“I’m tying up loose ends,” she said, without a hint of irony. “All of them. I even got one of yours a while ago, in that café. Got it good and proper.”
Trent felt like weeping. For some utterly unfathomable reason, he’d guessed that she was doing this – that this strange and bland little woman was somehow, and for some cryptic reason, trying to perform a hundred minor miracles.
“But why?” he said, knowing deep down that there would be no straight answer to his question.
“Why not?” said the woman, smiling. “Every day people break their bonds, their attachments, to the ones that they love, and who love them. For some reason I’ve been allowed to see these millions upon millions of loose ends that hang in the air like strands of cobweb.
It’s my job to try and tie as many as I can back together. And maybe I can help a few lost souls find their way back to something worth hanging on to.”
She turned away, still moving her hands; their motion never, ever seeming to cease, not even for a second.
Then, as if called by some great and silent signal, other people on the street, and inside the many shops and bars and restaurants, joined in the act. Women in business suits, men in smocks, little children with chocolate smeared across their faces. Every one of them tying invisible knots in the air, rejoining broken connections and shattered promises, binding emotions that had been long severed. All around him, for a time span of not more than twenty seconds, hands flew in the air like huge pale butterflies, making a sound not unlike that of shuffling papers.
Trent returned to The Crimson Café, held his daughter close enough to hear her heart beat for the first time in years, and silently thanked whatever powers he’d momentarily glimpsed working behind the scenes.
/end
by Zed
