Page 36 of The First Time I Saw You
For the second time today, I peek through the tunnel, but there is nothing at the end of it except the beginnings of a beautiful sunset, oranges and reds mixing together as though the sky has been tie-dyed.
I open the door and there is a wooden box, about the size of a ring binder. I lift it and take it into the kitchen where I place it on the table next to my closed laptop. My fingers run around the edges of the box until I find the catch and open it.
Inside, wrapped in delicate blue tissue paper, is the duck-egg blue picture frame.
Week Thirteen
Samuel
Ah, it’s good to be home at the best of times, but after the journey that I’ve just had, it’s even better. My mam and da’s house is crammed to the gills with family that have come to see me. When I say come to see me, what I basically mean is Mam has invited all and sundry to visit as if it’s Christmas Day; the oven is on and the thick, rich smell of roast beef hangs in the air.
I’m sitting next to the electric fireplace, which gives the illusion of a flickering open fire, my crutches leaning precariously against it. The old pictures of me and my sister in various school uniforms at various ages stand on top, as they have for years; the edges of the frames are chipped and worn, but smell of the polish that Mam uses religiously twice a week. On one sofa – beneath the photos of myself in my graduation cap and gown, my sister in her hockey kit and my parents’ wedding photo – is my gran, my sister, her husband Duncan (who I used to play rugby with) and my niece (Gertie, three) and nephew (William, five), both of whom have inherited Sarah’s red hair and who are sitting on each of Duncan’s knees. Sitting on the floor by their feet are my cousins Jill, Jane and Janet, all in their late teens, with the same thick, dark curly hair and huge blue eyes. My Aunty Katherine is sitting opposite them on the other sofa, where my Uncle Pete has now joined her.
On the coffee table are mugs of thick brown tea in chipped mugs that don’t match, a biscuit tin the size of London Town itself and a ripped open bag of Haribo which is spilling its contents on to the floor.
I can describe all of this because it is home. But I can’t see it. Most of this is down to the position my neck brace keeps me locked in. All I can see right now is my sister, Duncan, the tops of Will and Gertie’s heads and some of the photos above their red curls. Their legs dangle into the abyss and the dark roof leans down on us.
The kids on the floor; the tea on the table; my mam as she lifts the whistling kettle from the hob and fusses with the strings of her apron; Da as he sits at the back of the room peeling carrots to go with the mammoth joint of beef; they have all been sucked into the walls of the darkness. My family, which always feels so big, now feels small and out of reach. How am I going to tell them that I can’t see? That I’m going blind?
The pressure of the tunnel feels heavy today, more like a mine than a passageway; its darkened walls are leaden and dense, and I feel it pushing in on me. I’m not strong enough to hold the roof above my head; I’m not strong enough to fight the gravity which longs to pull it crashing down on top of me. Every sound in the room adds an extra layer of pressure: with each voice it feels heavier, with each laugh the weight leans on top of me – the scrape of a cup, the creak of the springs in the sofa, the crack of a biscuit, the scrape of the vegetable peeler against the skin of the carrots – each sound becomes a burden and it pushes me down. The heat of the room squeezes the walls of the mine closer; the smell of the beef surrounds me like impenetrable fog. I feel like I can’t breathe the air as it mixes with the different perfumes of my nieces, which are cheap and sweet. The plug-in air freshener creeps into my mouth and my jaw aches as though I’ve eaten something sharp, like the time I made lemon curd at school – the citrus had been so strong that Mam’s eyes had squinted when she ate it, but eat it she did . . . the whole bleeding jar. I need to get out of here. The tunnel is too small for my family to fit in; they’re sucking out the oxygen.
My mouth is dry, and as I try to reach for my crutches, my hands are shaking. Sarah’s face peers around the edge of the darkness, her eyes narrowing as she looks at me.
‘Get me out of here,’ I say, my breath coming in sharp bursts.
The sounds are sliding off the roof; the chatter has stopped as Sarah shouts over her shoulder for Mam to get me a drink of water. The creaks in the sofa have stilled but the silence pushes down even harder on the ceiling, the rafters beginning to buckle under the pressure, and I’m frightened that it’s going to collapse and I will be buried here, buried in the dark, the sounds of my home suffocating me.
‘Don’t be so daft, you’re not blind!’ Da laughs, clears his throat and walks over to the kitchen sink to swill out his mug. ‘We’ll get you to Specsavers, they’ll sort it out.’
‘They’ve got a lovely range of frames, Samuel,’ Mam chips in. ‘You can get some of those designer ones, and they have two for one on. You’ll be grand, love, you’ll look distinguished, so you will. Mr McLaughlin, pop the kettle on, we’ll have a cuppa and have a look on the website.’
‘Da, sit down,’ Sarah orders. I see Da turn to look at her, nodding his head. ‘Right you are, Sarah love, right you are. No need to get your knickers in a twist.’
‘The doctors in DC have done some tests,’ I begin.
‘Well, there you go! You need Irish doctors for Irish eyes. Bloody Americans, always making a mountain out of a molehill.’
I take a deep breath and try to curb my irritation at Da’s inability to listen to anything negative about his family.
‘I’m losing my peripheral vision, Da. I can’t see the clock over your shoulder, I can’t see the right side of Mam’s body. It’s like looking through the end of a telescope. All the edges around the centre are dark, like I’m looking through a tunnel.’ I ignore Mam’s sharp intake of breath, ‘And that tunnel is going to close. I won’t be able to see anything when it does.’
‘When?’ Mam asks, her voice quiet and shaken.
‘Within a year . . . if I’m lucky.’
‘A year? That’s plenty of time, Sammy, my boy.’
‘Plenty of time for what?’ I ask with trepidation.
‘To write your bucket list.’
‘Shush your hole, Mr M! He’s not dying . . . are you, Sammy, are you dying?’
‘No, I’m not frigging dying!’
‘But his eyes are, that’s right, isn’t it, Sammy? Let’s give them something to see before they pack in, eh?’
And with that, Da claps his hands together as if I’ve just told him to get last orders in and Mam makes a pot of tea.
