Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan

Author:Tim Maughan
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: MCD x FSG Originals
Published: 2019-04-01T23:00:00+00:00

10. AFTER

“You okay?”

Mary rests against the doorframe. Grids hadn’t come back from the kitchen, even after she’d heard Tyrone leaving, so she’d come to check on him. She’d found him sitting on the edge of his bed, an open shoebox at his feet, a crumpled photograph in his hand.

“Yeah. I’m good.” He looks up and smiles, that certain warmth he reserves for her. “Tired.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling.”

“You was okay today? With them peoples?”

“Yeah.” She shrugs. “It was fine. Just like anyone else coming in, really.”

He nods, smiles again. His eyes fall back down to the photo in his hands. Mary wonders how many people have seen him like this in the last five years. Vulnerable, human. She feels honored, special—but also a sense of responsibility that troubles her. The same burden she feels for everyone that comes into the shop, demanding she gives them closure, wanting her to stitch up the wounds of their loss. But this is worse, because it’s Grids, and so far she’s not been able to deliver.

She crosses from the doorway to the bed, gently sits down next to him. She knows exactly the photo that he’s looking at before she sees it. The high cheeks, gold hoop earrings, the tightly curled hair in bunches.

“You miss her?”

“Yeah.” He looks up at her, and for a second she thinks he might cry. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s seen him like this, but still it surprises her. “Yeah, I do, Mary. I miss her every day.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stupid, really.”

“No. It’s not.” She puts a hand on his shoulder.

“You’ve—you’d tell me, right? Tell me if you’d seen her? Tell me if you’d heard her, even?”

“Of course I would.” That twinge of guilt, that burden of failed responsibility, the fear that she’ll never find anything, the sense of being a fraud, a con artist, that she feels every day in the shop. But worse again, because it’s Grids. Because if it wasn’t for him taking her in she’d still be out in the street, or back at the camp digging around in other people’s trash. She silently fights back panic, wondering how long he’ll tolerate her turning up empty-handed.

“I know you won’t find her … but, y’know. Maybe another photo. Maybe some of her music, yeah?”

“I know. I’m always looking, Grids, every day I’m out there. I promise.”

“I know, I know.” He laughs at himself, shakes his head. “Get me. Pathetic. Like those people that come in the shop every day, always looking for someone that ain’t there.”

“Nothing pathetic about it. Everybody is looking for someone.”

“I guess.”

They sit there in awkward silence for a moment, her hand still on his shoulder, unsure what to say.

“I told you about her, yeah?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you did.” Maybe half a dozen times. She knows the story by heart. “Tell me again if you like. It might help.”

“Nah—”

“It might help.”

“Help?” He looks almost offended, as though he’s about to shutter away his vulnerability again.

“Help me, I mean,” she lies, thinking fast. “It might help me, y’know, find her.

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