In the vacuum there's no light, no sound, and the hours are filled with arbitrary flashbacks, memories and friends, all young still with bright eyes and unbending certainties. We drank too much, talking long into the night, knowing more than anyone, about everything. Most of all, I think about you, Lizzie, with amiable scowl and sketchbook. We swam at night, ran naked on the beach. Greece: the colours radiant, as if from a postcard; white houses, blue sea, retsina, a pale translucent green, like a jewel; your orange hair. I called you an orang-utan and it made you laugh, a low, self-conscious sound that took me away from the abstruse claustrophobia of childhood: father in a cardigan, a job with the local council: security for life; mother in a woolly hat turning life's flux to satire working in the library, the pleasant woman with earth-coloured clothes and craft fair ear-rings; a nervous tic. I transformed satire to irony with good A-levels, a grant to study industrial design. We are a middle-England family, basic by nature. I'll never forget their house, Lizzie. The rose bushes lining the crazy-paving path Father had laid himself; Italian china saved for guests; don't let the neighbours hear and ours is not to reason why. My room had striped wallpaper where Che Guevara peered across the space at Eminem and dad chewed his lips and mum said it was only a phase, cheek twitching, and I sat locked within those paper bars reading foreign poets on winter nights rolling dad's dog ends in green Rizla. Do you remember that day when we climbed to the top of the hill and I said I could see Atlantis in the distance. You said it was only the horizon. You were right; you were always right, but I loved the spark in your eyes when we argued. The town looked small; the carpet of olive trees, the rocky coastline, a hint of mist and maybe it was something eternal rising from the sea. We avoided the tourists and sat in the Plaka where artists sold paintings and the retsina lent the fish the taste of miracles. We read the English papers: royal sleaze, political shenanigans, cricket scores, cloud over middle England. We talked about things at home and felt as if we belonged far away from people with neat gardens and dogs named Doogle; my father as he put the lawnmower away and reappeared with the car polish: economy of time and motion. There was a sign on his desk at the treasury that read 'Think Ahead,' the d just squeezed on at the edge of the card: 'Think Ahea...d.' If there'd been nothing else, I would have loathed my father for that sign. I drank cheap cider, smoked too much, and a wintry feeling stole into me like a cold at Christmas. There were friends with growing tensions, work boots, places at university. We sat up all night listening to music, our words scripting the manifesto of rebellion. There was something wrong. We weren't sure what. But we were going to change it. I went to college and spent summers at home: mother's hair turning grey, stains on her teeth. Father with oiled secateurs and Julia, who I saw in the High Street, although she didn't stop to say hello. It was Julia who had invited me to share a great secret in the park when we were both sixteen. Three years had passed and she had become the Creature from the Black Lagoon with her perm and pushchair, a boyfriend with a lip ring and features from an artist's impression. She must have sold her navy blazer through the free ads in the local paper. London was a black and white movie of abandoned shops, hard luck stories, harmonicas spitting from vacant doorways where posters flapped and the smell of urine rose with mediaeval indecency. I went to a barbecue and met Susanna; there was garage music, no wine; the wind too cold for her to take off her red tights and, anyway, you're only after one thing. Susanna? Susan? Stephanie? Simone? Something that hissed like the old mens' harmonicas. I told you and you laughed. You wouldn't have taken off your red tights, either, you said. But you did. Dad said I should find a summer job. I had never realised he had a sense of humour. I stopped eating mother's cakes and puddings. I stamped along the river bank growing thin and drawn, and when I arrived back at college that year you spoke to me for the first time. You asked if I'd had a good summer and I said no and you laughed, shielding your teeth with your hand. A grey pallor had eased the youth from my cheeks. I had stopped playing cricket. I had learned how to drink and sometimes it seemed as if only my words made any sense. The more I drank the more sense they made. Yet you always contradicted me, Lizzie. When I said the world was selfish, you said it was evolution. I called the middle-classes the enemy and you said they were frightened. When I talked of war and want and suffering, you answered with the law of cause and effect: Karma; it had a lot to answer for. You were the same age as me, Lizzie, but you always knew more than I did. We shared a single room. You painted everything white, even your black velvet trousers and the sound system I'd brought from home. I put your sketches on the wall and you took them down again. You cooked Arabic food and didn't wear any clothes and I loved your skinny arms and pale sad eyes and orange hair. I remember the Julias and Susannas and Stephanies. But you were the only one I wanted. We found enough money to spend a few weeks in Greece and when we came back I saw the future before us like a tunnel in an abandoned mine. We consumed the months through winter and spring. I didn't notice the vanishing raves and early nights as the exam date drew closer. They would all become teachers and consultants: Friday night cinema, babies named Rupert, baby sitters with thin knees tucked under the dashboard of the BMW still not paid for. "Life's a cliché," I complained. "Everyone knows that," you said and the lager cans rattled in the past and the empty spaces filled with the smoke from countless hand-rolled cigarettes. I looked with eyes that never closed and felt different from everyone else. We aren't living. We're cloistered in our petty routines. We can't do anything about it you said and I disagreed and you said it was reality I couldn't face. There was something I didn't understand. You said I must learn to love myself. It sounded stupid and I got angry. You talk about other people you said. But what do you do? Your eyes weren't angry. They were pale and sad. Nothing, I said. Nothing. But I'm going to. You must learn to love yourself and I laughed and stamped around the streets and went to the library. Light lay over the path ahead like moonlight over the sea in Greece. I searched through chemistry books and made notes and bought sulphur and weedkiller, an alarm clock, a packet of six inch nails. We talked and played tapes and I watched your shadow on the white walls of our room. I was pleased with my secret mission. I got up early, packed my goods in a bag and said I was going to see my parents. You were bleary with sleep and your eyes wouldn't stay open. I wanted to get back into bed and make love, but didn't. Your eyes were afraid and I called you an orang-utan and you smiled; you smiled, but didn't laugh. Don't go, you said. But it was too late. Karma was doing its thing. I didn't visit my parents. They would have said I looked ill and thin and wasn't eating properly. Anyway, they were both at work. I spent half the day wandering around the park, then went to the pub. I didn't see anyone I knew, although the blue school uniforms made my think of Julia. I went down to the river and watched the shadows. I felt like climbing to the top of the bridge, kicking out the fairy lights, then jumping off, just to see if I would drown. I imagined the headlines in the local paper; mother controlling her tears; dad wearing a black arm band, and everyone saying I'm sorry, as if they'd pushed me. I wandered back into town. I passed my old school and found myself on the same primordial journey that led to my parents' house. The rose bushes had been pruned and the crazy paving path gleamed in the glow of the porch light. Father would turn it off after the news. I had a fleeting urge to go in. I would have shouted and slammed doors and told them what I really thought of them. I walked half way up the path, then changed my mind. I had more important things to do. The bag I'd been carrying had become heavy and I wanted to get rid of it. I don't know why I had chosen the council offices, but if I was going to strike a blow, I had to start somewhere. There had been a scandal. They said the councillors were getting a rake off closing down the hospital. It didn't matter if it were true or not. I didn't really care. I had no clear plan for the future. But at least I was doing something. The offices were dark. I found a window at the back of the building which I covered with tape; when I broke it, there wasn't a sound. I had seen it done in a cop show on television. I dropped the bag through the gap and climbed in. Once inside, I became nervous, but I had gone to far to back down. I went from room to room and decided that the best place for the bomb was the treasury department, where they kept the records of people who hadn't paid their tax. I set the alarm for half past eight. I didn't want anyone to be hurt, but I wanted people to be about. I wanted to shake everyone up, make them think. I don't know what went wrong. There was an electric blue flash and an explosion that must have been heard miles away. I was thrown against the wall, then there was nothing. I woke in hospital where I remained for a long time. The burns on my hands and chest gradually healed, then I was discharged. There was a trial, but I was only vaguely aware of what was happening. People kept patting me on the back and I'm sure they said it was out of character and I was only young and I'd suffered enough. All I can remember was your presence behind me. Your smell was warm and musky and I wanted to touch your skinny arms and run my fingers through your orange hair. In the vacuum I concentrate on the silence. Only when you stop thinking will you understand. Only when you stop seeking answers will you cease having views. Close your eyes and see. The faces from the past fill the blank spaces that aren't filled with you. Close your eyes. The whole world is inside you. You are a reflection of the universe. You are the father of creation, as well as the son. I think of your words and I feel them growing as fragile butterflies that flutter against the silence and form voices in the dark. The trial passed. I was set free and my parents gave us the money to go to Greece. I swim in the sea and feel the sand between my toes. I am learning to love myself. I still don't know why you care for me, Lizzie, why you bring me food and guide me through the days. It doesn't matter what hour it is that you leave the bed and open the curtains, for my eyes shall never see the daylight and my ears shall never hear your voice. © Clifford Thurlow		Short Stories Home The Little Black Dress Tail Lights Family Planning Voices In The Dark An Acquired Taste Oneshot Calling Poppy Conjugations Greta May Holes North Of Nowhere Smokers The Glass Labyrinth

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