Read by Sophie Morris-Sheppard
On the south side of Pont St Michel a man closes his ears to the screeching of his children. A family man, look at his bitter face, upturned to the winter sun. He is encircled by demands that can never be satisfied. He hears needless repetitions and irrational complaints. He is tired, and visualises the sun’s rays burning away the top layer of skin, rejuvenating him. But he is wrong; the tangent beams are too weak, the year too old. And the fatigue... the fatigue is too deep.
Our family man holds his hands to his ears and devolves diplomatic responsibility to his wife. She can sort this fracas out. He twitches with the guilty glimpse. Not the burnished calf, nor the curve of the neck… no, the symbol, in its entirety – of self-determination. The straight line connecting desire and outcome, unobstructed by the needs and the wants and the urgencies of others.
*
She pauses at the kerb. She saw him – not him, rather the unit, the collective. It fascinated her, and gave her hope. She takes her phone and checks the text again – date, time, she is early – with busy but useless hands. She rushes through a gap in the traffic, takes a small risk. She is happy to take risks if the reward can be assured. Our man admires her lithe movement and turns back to the business in hand, that of dealing with closer entreaties.
A cage elevator lifts her seven floors to a well appointed office that she has come to know well. Behind this book-lined, certificated front resides a suite of sterile rooms where function supersedes all other considerations. While she waits on a chair she glimpses the end of the bridge through a filigreed iron balcony. The family is still there. It has barely progressed. They bicker, they debate, they live. The man she has come to meet enters. He apologises, shakes her hand briefly and sits behind a desk. He studies a sheet of paper cursorily, but he knows his lines.
‘Je suis désolé, aucun n'a survécu au processus.’
I am sorry, none survived the process.
She breaks eye contact and looks beyond him, down to the world of the unthinking. The bridge is framed, a privileged view. The mother bends down to wipe away a trail of snot, laying down another hard molecular layer of unconditional love. Such trivial services, they accrete, into parenthood. The appointment ends with a brief rehearsal of the options. Will she go through it again, the drugs, the intervention? Why is that man so agitated in his movements? Why was his face so etched in frustration when I walked past him? He, who lives in a world of certainty.
*
The youngest one needs to piss – here, on a road bridge over the Seine, at rush hour! The father stands straight, holds the small of his back. Why does life have to be conducted eighteen inches off the ground? He sees her emerge from an elegant block of flats. Think your way into her life. She cannot live there, she is dressed for work. She cannot work there, why leave so soon after arriving? An appointment, an important one. A creative meeting, some defining moment in her professional life. She rushes back across the road, towards the bridge. Did she notice me earlier? Do I still merit notice? He beckons the family,
“Come on! The tickets are for a fixed time slot…”
*
The party proceeds slowly to the embankment. The lady in heels closes in. Her sunglasses are now pushed up onto her sleek brown hair. She examines them carefully. There are four. Funny, they looked more numerous earlier – always moving, always shifting, he to her, the smallest to the mother, the oldest to the father, the youngest to the elder, then swap around, change allegiance, show new favour, punish with absence. What a complex system is the family. She studies the mother. He does not interact with her. He directs all his energy down, to the groundlings. Is this normal? she wonders. When her family comes she will ensure…
*
She slows. There is something in her eye. Typical. A beautiful woman approaches and the wind blinds her with grit, her mascara runs, she looks away.
He watches as she picks up speed and hurries past for the second time, south to north this time, onto the bridge. She is utterly distracted, and covers her face. His wife kneels to adjust a badly zipped coat. Through the screen of fingers he catches a blinking eye. Tears stream, dragging the black pigment with which she accentuated her lashes onto wet cheeks. She is deeply unhappy – it is more than grit.
“Oi, Daddy…” calls the mother of his children. “If you’re quite finished looking at the scenery we need your manly strength here, it’s completely stuck!”
He goes to it, smiling at last. The sun has brightened, it has warmed his blood. He has everything he needs, and everything he could ever want.
(c) Phil Berry, 2015
Phil Berry (b. 1971) is a novelist, medical writer and the author of a book series for children called 'All the Pieces'. He studied medicine in Bristol and works as a hospital doctor specialising in liver disease. He lives in London.
Sophie Morris-Sheppard recently played Rebecca Locke in a series called The Paradox, a project which she helped devise as a short film in 2011. She is involved in several new writing initiatives in London. Her professional credits span the full spectrum of theatre, TV, commercials, film, voice over, rehearsed readings and most recently role play. www.sophiemorrissheppard.com
Our special Parent & Child night was held on Tuesday June 23, 2015 at the Peckham Pelican to raise awareness and cash for The CATS Foundation, a charity funding research into the devastating genetic childhood diseases Tay-Sachs & Sandhoff.
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