The Boy Who Could Keep a Swan in His Head by John Hunt

Author:John Hunt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Published: 2018-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

12

Anonymity

/e’non’im-iti/ noun

His mother had insisted on two full days before she’d allowed him in after the heart attack. Phen had made tiny baby steps towards his father and then found only a replica. His father was now made of wax. An effigy. He’d turned yellow and gummy as if his body was producing resin. Pasty yet peculiarly polished, a raised hand waved in recognition. He waved back.

The oxygen mask seemed bigger now. It kept creeping up and covering his father’s eyes as if it had a mind of its own. Phen fiddled with the two bands of elastic behind his father’s head, but the plastic cone still pushed upwards, tilting his glasses above his eyebrows. “Leave it. I can’t see anyway.” The voice was the only thing left that was still pretty much the same. A little softer and raspier, it was definitive enough to remind him that somewhere in that yellowed husk lay his father.

“Can I get you anything?”

“A new heart would be nice.”

Phen straightened the already straight bedspread and puffed up the extra pillows lying on the chair. He wanted to push back the hair that had fallen across his father’s forehead but was too scared to touch him. To feel the new stickiness of his skin. He looked ridiculous with a fringe yet Phen couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it. It would have to wait for his mother.

“Failing that, you could refill my glass.”

The jug was too heavy for Phen. Even using both hands, the water poured into the narrow glass too fast then gushed out, creating a small lake between the doily and the Mills Special box.

“Vic Falls.”

For over a year the yellow tin had been three-quarters empty. Although his father no longer smoked, England’s Luxury Cigarette had remained untouched at the base of the bedside lamp.

His father began to battle for breath. Phen was afraid if he did anything else the facsimile in front of him would feel obliged to talk, so he just stood still and stared. There was no embarrassment. Silence turned the man on the bed into a body. There was shape and form but no life unless it spoke. The hiss of oxygen, a lullaby or perhaps a requiem. By the time Phen turned to go, his father’s hand had moved from his chest to his side and then, taking the arm with it, over the edge of the bed. He thought he heard snoring yet still lacked the courage to lift the hand and place it back on the white linen. The five fingers, white and limp, hung suspended as they called to the ground. Over dinner he and his mother didn’t say a single word. It was the only way to have an honest conversation.

The next day, before first class, he stood next to Jimmy the Greek at the urinal. “Hey! Piss straight what, why splash all over my shoes.” Phen apologised. “What’s wrong? You more Sad Sack than usual.” He tried to explain while they zipped up, washed hands and dried them on the back of their shorts.

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