Fall from grace, p.1
Fall from Grace, page 1
Fall From Grace
Alan Feldberg
Copyright © 2024 Alan Feldberg
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The right of Alan Feldberg to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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First published in 2024 by Bloodhound Books.
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Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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www.bloodhoundbooks.com
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Print ISBN: 978-1-916978-48-5
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
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A note from the publisher
This book is dedicated to my daughters,
both of whom live and breathe in it.
Chapter One
Now
A room feels different when there is a dead person in it. It feels like a place you don’t belong. Like you’re witnessing something you have no right to. It becomes a shameful place.
I’m sitting on the bed. It is a high bed. Why do old people always have such high beds? Is it the bed that’s high or do they just double up the mattresses? I had to look over my shoulder and do a little backwards hop to get up here. My feet don’t even touch the floor.
It’s not my bed. It belongs to Doris. She is the dead person in the room. She is sitting in the chair by the window. In my head she’s always been Flo, and I’ve always called her Flo. She thinks that it’s quite common to give some people names that aren’t their own, names that feel like they fit better. She thinks it’s because we knew them by that name in another life. It makes sense. If you believe in reincarnation. I’ve not decided on that yet.
I can’t tell you how old Flo is. She is of an age to have a high bed. Haha. And her eyes weep from the outer corners, not the inner ones. I think that’s a sign of advancing years, too. There isn’t anyone else here. It’s just us. Does she count? She’s been dead for hours. I said hello when I came in, boiled the kettle for some tea and came and sat down on the chair beside her. The large bay windows look out over the street onto the ocean. When it’s windy, as it is today, we sit and watch the breeze blowing the tops off the waves breaking shallow on the beach. Far out on the horizon it looks like it might be raining. There are great, grey clouds tumbling over each other. If I could walk on water, as once I thought I could, I wonder if I could walk out to them or if they’d remain as far away as they are now.
I stare at the back of Flo’s head, the top half of it sticking out above the high-backed chair. Her hair is thin. I can see right through it to her scalp, where there is a wart, bright pink against the pale, almost fluorescent white of her skin. The wart is all bunched at the top, like it’s being drawn down a hole in the middle. I think irreverently of a baboon’s arse. I get a sudden urge to walk up behind her and squeeze it. The idea repulses me. My dog had warts. Whatever came out of them stained his fur the colour of a muddy puddle and when I patted him I was always careful to steer clear. Sometimes I misjudged it and my fingers would bump over one of these growths. I’d have to rub him vigorously somewhere else then. Somewhere where he was smooth. He’d think it was love. But really I was wiping my hands on him.
I hop off the bed and resume the chair opposite hers. Her eyes are open and they reflect in bulbous miniature the scene beyond the window. I lean in closer. I’m looking to see if I can spot seagulls in reverse. I can’t. Only three tankers that seem to be hovering in space.
‘What should I do now?’ I ask.
She always has good advice to give. She told me once to save all my positive energy for the people closest to me, not to waste it on the rest. It seems simple, but it carries a lot of weight when you think about it longer.
‘Flo? Should I call someone? Your son?’
I pick up the phone and dial. I listen to it ringing on the other end. I’m just about to hang up when someone answers. It’s a girl. She sounds young. She asks if she can help me. I don’t answer at first and she asks again. Eventually I say, ‘Can I place an order for delivery, please?’
It’s evening now and I am back in my own flat. I am in my own chair. It is night and the tankers are orange lights twinkling out of the blackness. The empty pizza box is on the carpet next to the empty dog’s bed. No one can see me here, my hands limp in my lap, a smear of barbeque sauce down my shirt. I’ll wear this shirt tomorrow. And the day after that. Who can stop me? No one can. That’s who. I look again at the lights of the tankers. I hear the wind drumming the pane. The seas will be high and stormy out there but the lights don’t seem to move. I stare at them until they blur then double.
I am thinking of someone else now, as I always do at this time of night. A dozen images, two dozen, arrive at once. I am not sure if they are the moments themselves or the pictures I took of them. And then that last image. She is nine years old. She is watching from her window – was it her? – as I duck into the car.
I blink and the lights of the tankers come back into focus. I look over at my bed. It seems so far way. I sink a little deeper into the cushions. She will be a teenager now. I don’t believe it. At some undefined point I will fall asleep in this chair. When I wake up it will be 1,847 days since I last saw her. They are both gone from me.
Chapter Two
Then
I am in the middle of a wood not far from where I work. I am bent double, rummaging beneath low-hanging branches. Every now and then my rump bumps a tree and its leaves shake a load of freezing rainwater on me. In this position it streams under my collar and down my spine, making me shiver. Sometimes I swear. Sometimes I just think about swearing.
I love it here really. Often I’ll come here during my lunch hour because I know there is no chance of bumping into anyone I know. I don’t have to do much when I get here, to make it worth my while. I’ll usually just kick the leaves about, enjoying the fact that I’m alone and won’t be disturbed. There are all sorts of trees here. I don’t know their names. Some of them carry their thick plumage all year round. There is a word for trees like this. Is it evergreen? Can it really be as self-explanatory as that? There are bare trees here too. They are stark and jagged in comparison. Almost deformed-looking. Their exposed branches jerk in the wind, clawing at the sky like arthritic fingers. Coniferous. It pops into my head just like that.
Today I have a purpose though. I am on a special mission. It’s for Grace. Most everything I do is. She has been fretting lately. About school and other things – who knows exactly what bright nine-year-olds fret about. I want to find her a piece of wood. That’s my mission. Not just any piece of wood. It needs to be just right. I don’t know what just right will look like, but I’ll know it when I see it.
It’s been raining all morning. The earth is sodden and sucks my shoes down with each step. They squelch when I lift them again. I imagine the state I’ll be in when I return to work, when I walk past their desks to my own. Dragging behind me something that could easily be mistaken for a club. I see the stares. Perhaps they’ll worry I’ll use it on them. Before he turned the weapon on himself. But I’m not that person.
There is a dog here now. Where did he come from? He is at my heels. He is playful, but also a little uncertain. Like me, he probably thinks this is his territory. I look up. A woman is nearby. She isn’t coming any closer. She is hiding beneath a hood.
‘Hello,’ I say. I say it cheerfully and deliver a smile with it.
She whistles quickly and the dog hurries after her as she walks away. There! There! That’s it! Just what I was after. I knew I’d know it. It is smooth and bone white and just the right thickness. Its knuckles and gnarls lend it a certain mystical charm. It’s perfect. Only it is the middle part of a much longer branch. I lean down and tug at it and more of it stirs beneath the foliage. It must be all of ten feet. At one end it fans out and thin fingers entangle themselves in other trees. But this is for Grace. There are no lengths. I want this branch and only this branch. I plan to make it into something special that will magic away my daughter’s fears. An d I won’t be denied. I begin dragging the entire thing through the wood. Finally I get it into the open. By wedging it into a farmer’s gate and jumping on its middle I manage to break it down to the solid mid-section. It is still longer than my arm, but I can whittle it down further at home. For now, this will have to do.
It is evening now. Quite late. Grace is asleep. It was just her and me tonight. I made her favourite dinner. Takeaway. Haha. Dolores is away. Another work trip. Where is it this time? She did tell me. Frankfurt? Cologne? Yes, Cologne. I made stupid jokes about smelling an opportunity and being on the scent of money. She stared at me dead-eyed. I don’t mind really. Her job matters to her. And she’s good at it. At least I assume she is. Why else would they fly her all around the world? By they I mean he.
I slip out the front door and retrieve the branch from my boot. Yes. Much too long. I come back inside and start searching for a saw even though I know we don’t have one. Have never had one. I look in all the kitchen cupboards and drawers. I look in that black hole beneath the stairs. I go out into the back garden and walk around the perimeter. Why? I don’t own a saw. I know I don’t. I’m not my father. I see him now bent over the workbench. Something is in a vice. What was he making, or fixing?
I return to the kitchen and unsheathe a breadknife from the wooden block. I put my thumb against the blade. It is sharp but flimsy. It will have to do. I put the branch in the sink and begin to cut. An hour passes. It feels like an hour. I take the branch out and examine my progress. Lack of. I get a screwdriver – I still have one of those – and hammer it through the branch. I take the branch outside and bang it against the wall. The shock jars my elbow. I’m not as robust as I was. I return to the kitchen and pick up the knife again. No, I won’t be denied.
I start thinking that I must be the best dad in the world. Nay, parent. The things I do. Other dads would give up. Or not even start. They can’t be bothered. But I bother. I don’t mind the hardships. Each one separates me from them.
Eventually I manage to cut through the branch. I scrub it clean and put it on the radiator to dry. Then I sit down and begin writing a letter with my left hand.
It is morning now. I don’t know what time. Early. Grace is here. She woke me up by jumping on me.
‘Oomph,’ I said, rolling onto my side, away from her.
‘Wake up, Daddy! Wake up! I have news!’
She clambers off the bed and even with my head under the pillow I see the light come on.
‘Too bright,’ I say.
Her weight lands back on the bed and I feel her little hands on my shoulders through the blanket as she starts shaking me. I remain limp. I start snoring.
‘I know you’re awake, Daddy, you’ve already spoken to me.’
I emerge from beneath the pillow and look at her. Grace is not a pretty child. Worse than that, she is very nearly ugly. Her eyes are too small and her nose and mouth are pinched and thin. There is, altogether, not enough feature and too much face. I hate to acknowledge this fact, even privately. I wonder about the pain it will cause her as she gets older and these things start to matter more. Children can be so nasty. But they grew up so fast these days. Perhaps it has already started.
‘What’s up, my friend? What news?’
She holds the section of branch I made and the letter I wrote. She is smiling. That’s not a big enough word. She is tired, there are dark shadows under her eyes – she hasn’t slept well for such a long time – but she is fully beaming at me. I savour her expression. I did that. I think of the muddy work shoes. The soaked shirt. Being up till all hours. I don’t care about any of that. This is why I bother.
‘They wrote to me, Daddy!’
‘Did they?’ I rub my eyes and act out a great yawn. It turns into a real one. ‘Who did?’
‘Here,’ she says, ‘I’ll read it to you:
‘Dear Grace,
It was lovely to receive your letter. We do enjoy reading them so much. But I’m sorry you have been worried. I would like to say don’t worry. Remember, we are magic and have special powers. We can see things that humans can’t, and we know that in the end you are going to be very happy. But in the meantime, we want to give you this. It is one of our special benches. It has been in the fairy kingdom for more than a thousand years. I can’t imagine how many of us have sat on it in that time! It is one of the benches we go to when we have problems to solve or unhappys to make happy again. I am sure that some of our good feelings must have gone into the wood by now – it’s a living thing, after all – so perhaps, if you hold it in your hand when you are worried it will help you to relax. We hope so. Because you are our favourite human. Remember, we are always nearby, watching over you.
Love, Chantal, Queen of all the Fairies.’
When Grace stops reading she looks up at me.
‘See?’ she says.
‘I do,’ I answer, nodding gravely. ‘I do.’
She looks at the wood. Holds it up to her too-small nose and smells it. ‘Don’t tell anyone else, Daddy. This must always be a secret.’
Chapter Three
Now
I’m on the landing outside Flo’s door. Her pot plants are gathered expectantly at my feet. I can hear them. I’m sure I can. Please, sir, we want some more. They will die now. Without her. But I’m not sure. Did all that really happen? I woke up bent in my chair. Just where I left myself last night. I stayed there. I gazed blankly at the sky beyond the window. I unfolded myself, painfully, cranking my body upright, and came here. I put my fingertips against her door and tap.
‘Flo?’
Softly at first. Then a little louder. Nothing stirs in there. I grip the handle and twist. I just need to push and all will be revealed. My hand stops twisting. It lets go and the latch springs back into place. I turn away and walk down the stairs. Life goes on. For me it does.
The beach really is just a stone’s throw away. Other people say that but they don’t really mean it. So why say it? It makes me doubt everything about them. At this time of morning the tide is out and the water’s edge is hundreds of yards away. That’s not even an exaggeration. The sand is hard and wet and ribbed. I look down at it and squint. It looks like a desert. Seen from a plane window. It hurts my bare feet as I walk.
I made a mistake. Not going in there. That was poor form. She is my friend, after all. Was. Am I ready to say that? I think of the first time we met. Met is too strong a word for it. I was lugging my mattress up the stairs. It didn’t want to go. It was fighting back. Shoving me against the wall and wrapping itself up in the rail. Perhaps it knew what would happen up there and wanted no part of it. Flo was at the top, watering her plants. She was always there after that. Never when I left. Always when I returned. It took me a long time to realise she went out there to wait for me, that our little nods and hellos were the only human contact she had.
The buttons of her cardigan were one out. That first time. It created a disturbing fold in the material. I wanted to be away from it. I couldn’t comprehend how she could stand it. I’d like now to attribute more meaning to that first moment. She caught my eye and something about the look we exchanged… She said hello and immediately I realised… There was none of that. I noticed her without noticing her. Like how you realise in hindsight that you saw someone who would become important to you before they did, when they were still just strangers.
