The Memory of Water

⁵³ MORE TO LIFE

My father runs to catch up with me as a leave the police station.

“Slade,” he calls, and I ignore him, keep walking. He catches my arm. “Let me drive you home.”

I acquiesce. I don’t have a choice.

In the car, he says, “I take responsibility for the part I played in this. But I didn’t realise the extent of it. All Eve asked me to do was call her if you ever showed up, which I did. I knew you two were friends. She said it was to protect you. All the rest of it was nonsense.”

That may be the understatement of the year, but I take his point.

“But what happened between me and you today, that was real.”

I look at him; familiar hands gripping the steering wheel, flushed face concentrating on the road.

I realise in that moment that there is more to life than writing.

“Yes,” I say, “That was real.”

He drops me off outside my house and tosses me the house keys. It’s strange to be back. To be in such a familiar place, feeling so different. So altered. On the outside, everything looks almost the way I left it. The window has been replaced, the front wall bright with a fresh coat of paint. Again I am surprised that the roof is not missing, the walls are not knocked down. But inside: inside it has been Francinarised. I stand open-armed, breathing in the smell of furniture polish and bleach. There is a visitor on the couch, someone who took the liberty of moving in while I was away. Munchkin looks at me, bored, stretches, and goes back to sleep. I walk through to the kitchen. The place is spotless and shiny. The huge refrigerator is well-stocked and restored to its previous magnificence. There is a flower garland on the kitchen table, and a note written in Francina’s spidery scrawl. “Bless You, Mister Harris.”

I put the garland around my neck and glide through to my den. Everything is in its place. I take a new Moleskine off the bookshelf, sit down, and uncap my pen. I open the book up on the first blank page and I start writing.