Not Much

Silence screamed into the place beneath the branches. The bench crouched under the tree, the last of its green paint chipped and flaking, scattered like the confetti of better times. I used to like the silence. It had been a silence of quiet things; my mother’s hands as they carefully unwrapped the foil containing our sandwiches, the quiet breath of wind into this small patch of green between the buildings. This was our place. The colour in the grey.

A weathered sign clung to the edge of the scorched grass. “Park Green. Do not feed the squirrels.” Park was a stretch. No more than a tree, a bench, and a sun-bleached patch of grass. But it was ours. We escaped here every day for lunch. A thin scraping of jam between bread and an old yellow packet of dry-roasted peanuts. Sunshine in the fog.

I sat in my place on the left side of the bench. No answering creak came from her side. There was a band around my chest in the shape of her arms. If I didn’t turn my head, I could imagine I could still see her outline out of the corner of my eye.

She’d had a gentle silence, my mother, a quiet softness that was there until the end. Now, the silence scraped raw in the void her absence had torn. Now, the silence lay bleeding, fraying around the edges, unraveling and catching on the moments of my day. Leaving me living in the constant pressure before a gasped breath.

Something moved in the branches above me, and I almost looked. The summer had been dry, suffocating heat smothering the city. Autumn was close. I could feel the quiet unraveling of the seasons. Everything was coming loose. Fading away. But today, the last of the heat clung to the baked brick of the high-rise flats on either side of our island.

My fingers shook as I unwrapped the foil. The sandwich was squashed, and jam leaked out of one side. I would get better at making them. The peanuts were my favourite anyway.

Something tickled my wrist. A loose thread from my jumper. I tucked it back into my sleeve. My body knew it was too hot for a jumper. Sweat itched my sides and back. But my mother had made it. I’d found it in the old drawer last week. It was too small for me now, the sleeves a good four inches above my eleven-year-old hands. But I could not take it off. The last of her was wrapped around me, holding me together.

I tore a small corner off the yellow packet of peanuts and tipped some into my hand. One. Two. Three. Very carefully, without turning my head, I leaned across her absence and placed the nuts on the cracked arm of the bench.

A chittering sound came from above me, moving lower down the tree.

Every day, after we had finished eating, my mother would leave a small pile of nuts on the bench. A small kindness. Not much, she would say, but enough. I would catch the flash of a tail above us and know they were waiting for us to leave. For it to be safe. She would smile up at the branches as first one squirrel appeared, then another. Safer together and braver for it.

Over the years, they had grown bolder. Some would sit on the bench as we approached and come down sooner as we were leaving. Sometimes, if we were quiet enough, the smaller ones would come down and play in the grass. I loved watching them. Loved seeing them dash through the green in play, rolling over and over, red fur flashing in the sunlight. They would steal the nuts from the bench and hop through the longer tufts of grass searching for the perfect spot to dig and then stomp on the ground when they buried their prize. Eyes big and ears and tails up. My mother had laughed at their games. Face lit up and shoulders down as she watched their movements. Utterly still, and then a flash of red as they darted for cover.

Move. Freeze. Move. I wondered if she had seen the echo in our own movements. A part of me knew she had. It was in the way her face clouded over when we stood up to leave. A shadow in her eyes as the flats blocked the sun.

Sometimes I would try to will them to stay a little longer. To keep the sunshine on her face for just a moment more. And sometimes they would listen.

I couldn’t look at the squirrels now. But their small noises helped soothe the rough edges of the quiet, helped cover the howling absence of her sound. They had thrived in the haven of the oak. I didn’t know how many there were now, but the branches were full of their strange barks. I could almost feel them. A writhing mass of furry bodies. All tangled up and stronger together.

I pulled my legs up to my chest and bent my head, trying to find the good silence. The one where it was gentle and soft and wasn’t so raw. The band constricted around my chest. I imagined her arms around me, and heat built behind my eyes. Tears fell hot onto my arm. Soaking into the jumper and making the material shine, for just a moment. I sank deeper into the bench. I wanted to shrink. I wanted the silence to swallow me whole. Into the place she had gone.

A window opened two stories up.

“Roddy!”

I flinched. Cold drenched the sweat on my back. My father did not like the squirrels.

“Get up here.”

The ice in his voice was the sharp kind. I could hear the liquor coating his words. I moved woodenly. Gathering the foil and the little yellow packet with stiff fingers. My father didn’t like much of anything. How could I be too much, and not enough at the same time?

I left the sunshine and entered the grey of the stairway. Stale air suffocated me. I held my breath as I climbed to the first landing, skirted the dark stain in the outline of her head, and made it to the second landing before I needed to breathe. I unlocked the door and entered the tiny flat that had been my home. Now it was just a mausoleum of memories. Worn-down appliances gathering grime. Mum had always kept it clean, but he didn’t. Old smoke from his cigarettes coated the walls like oil. He didn’t look after anything.

I paused on the threshold. Freeze. I couldn’t see where he was from here, and walking too close would earn me a new bruise when the ice was in his voice.

A flash of green. My eyes caught on the leaves almost touching the still-open window. The tree had grown tall enough to reach the glass this year.

Move. I carefully crossed the room and heaved the heavy glass up and onto the second latch. Hot air washed inside, but at least it wasn’t stale. I could hear the quiet chitters from the branches.

Footsteps came from the bedroom. Freeze.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing hanging out on the street like a rodent?”

I put my back to the wall. There was a tightrope. My shoulders should face him, but my eyes should never reach his.

He stumbled across the room, leg catching on the small table, and dragging it half with him. A cloud of stale beer followed him, drenching his hair, dripping from his teeth.

“I saw you.” His finger jabbed at my face.

“Feeding those damn vermin again. We ain’t got food for ourselves and you... You dare to throw it away. You ungrateful waste.” He hissed the last word into my face.

The chittering in the tree grew louder. Something was building at the back of my head. A buzzing pressure.

He lurched back, and his eyes seemed to focus, snagging on me.

“What are you wearing? You look like a baby.”

He moved towards me. “Take it off.”

I shook my head. Grasping the wool.

Colour in the grey.

My back banged the cabinet.

He grabbed at me, caught my sleeve, and yanked.

The chittering swelled. A thousand voices filling the void. The pressure built. The band was too tight. I couldn’t breathe.

The loose thread came away in his hand.

Terror clawed at me. No.

Victory splashed against his filmy eyes. He’d found the place his fists never could.

He pulled the thread as hard as he could. There was a small pop, and the end of my sleeve disappeared, racing up my arm. Uncovering the bruises. I tried to fight him, but he was too strong. He was always too strong. Glee leaked from his mouth as my seams came apart. He hauled, hand over hand, the thread unspooling faster and faster, the last of her disappearing across my shoulder, across my chest, disintegrating until there was nothing left of her, nothing left to hold me together. My shelter and my mask. Gone.

The chittering stopped.

I looked at him without my mask and caught the moment he finally saw me.

The pressure burst.

A bark came from high in the tree. An alert. I called. And they came. Streaming up the branches and into the kitchen like a wave of unholy fire. They swarmed him. Claws and teeth shredding his skin, his veins, his eyes. He tried to scream, but the fur choked him. He stumbled backward, out of the kitchen. Towards the stairs.

The crack as his head hit the landing was an echoing clap to my mother’s.

I laughed.

I may not be much. But I was enough.