News Where You Are

44. Michael, October 2009

Elsie and Michael often saw Phil on television. They’d watch him sometimes on Saturday nights, surrounded by his glamorous assistants, his skin glowing, his teeth and eyes catching the light like glass, and he was the same old Phil to them. He was still the boy with too much oil in his hair who wanted to be Stewart Granger. Elsie would say, ‘You should drop him a line,’ and Michael would nod and agree that he should.

He remembers Phil’s wedding. Michael didn’t think he was right for best man. He thought Phil should pick someone better with people, better with words and speeches. Phil told him he didn’t care about any of that. What he wanted was a best man who would look after him on the scariest day of his life. He said that Michael had always looked after him, that he relied on him. Michael found that funny. He’d always thought it was the other way round.

He supposes now that the usual things happened to them: wives, jobs, house moves. They saw less of each other over time. They’d send a few scribbled lines in Christmas cards, but then a new address got missed and they drifted out of touch completely. It would have been easy for Michael to contact Phil through the television, but because Phil was in their living room so much he never really felt as if they’d lost touch.

Elsie sometimes worried that Michael was too self-contained, but Michael didn’t think that was true. She contained him; he had no need of anyone else.

He and Elsie walked a lot when they were courting. He had never been a great talker and she had never made him feel that he should be, but when they walked they talked. Nothing, they’d be the first to admit, of any great consequence, just the easy flow of observations, memories and thoughts possible only with each other. They always ended up in the park, under the tree they thought of as theirs, lying in the long grass, glimpsing the sky through the leaves and feeling the earth spin beneath them.

When she had the fourth miscarriage, he held her tightly all night, not letting her slip away. They cried and knew it was the last time. He promised her they’d be okay, just the two of them, told her they didn’t need anyone else. He knew it was harder for her, but for him it was true — he already had everything he wanted.

Even now, he’s never lonely. He stands at bus stops on busy streets and no one sees him. He sits in the lounge at night listening to the stairs creak. He spends his days in the unit crafting fine-precision tools that no one, as far as he can tell, wants. But he’s never lonely. He has no desire to attend the coffee mornings at the local community centre. He doesn’t want to talk to the limping young vicar who knocks at his door once a month. He doesn’t reply to the invitations that come from the school to their annual old-folks’ party.

He feels no connection to his hands and feet. He stares at them and wonders who they belong to. He watches with fascination as they put teabags in cups and shuffle to the post office. He isn’t lonely. He doesn’t want company. His Elsie has gone. His Elsie has gone.