The First Day by Phil Harrison

Author:Phil Harrison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

It was March when everything turned. Or April, I suppose. In March the seeds were sown. Around the middle of the month, on a Thursday night, Philip appeared at the door. It was shortly after ten o’clock. Anna peered through the window first, surprised at being disturbed so late. She gasped to see Philip’s face, bloody and badly bruised, with a gash on his left cheek, still open. He was holding it shut with his T-shirt. His shirt was unbuttoned, his chest also showing wounds, pale patches of violence. Anna brought him inside, her heart racing. Philip himself seemed unperturbed, almost unnaturally calm.

What happened? she asked him.

I told you they would wait for the right time, he replied.

But this, she said. For God’s sake.

He sat at the kitchen table as she attended to the immediate wounds. You have to go to the hospital, she said.

He shook his head. No.

You have to, Philip, she said. Look at you.

You can fix me, he said.

Jesus, no I can’t. He nodded, closed his eyes.

It doesn’t hurt, he said.

Whether it was the shock, or the necessity of the moment, Anna found herself moving mechanically, cleaning the wound on his cheek, applying iodine, gently wiping off the blood on the more minor scratches. His chest was a collection of changing colours, blues and reds. The image came to her of Curran’s paintings.

Does your father know? she asked him.

He shook his head.

Your cheek will scar, she said, after she had finished.

His eyes were still closed. He had barely flinched, even as the stinging fluid burned the bacteria from his cuts. He was indifferent, a teenage Buddhist. Only pain, no suffering.

Whatever, he said.

She made up a bed for him on the sofa. When she left him he thanked her. She lay awake in her bed, picturing his chest, his broken skin. Whatever. She could not separate him, she found to her surprise, from his father. She closed her eyes but the images repeated over and over, first the boy, then the man, Orr’s lips on her body and her hands on the boy’s, and she shuddered awake, sweating.

In the morning she rose early. He was still asleep, on his back, the way his father slept. His breathing was quiet, calm. The plasters on his cheek had stained red, but seemed to have worked to hold the cut closed. She made tea and sat in the kitchen, staring out the window. It was spring, trees returning to bud. Birds sang. The traffic rose slowly, the rumble of the city imperceptibly growing. Philip appeared in the doorway. They looked at each other. She shook her head, and—unable to do anything else—smiled. He sat across from her and she poured him tea.

Now what? she said.

Now what what? He smiled, then winced, raising his hand to his damaged face.

No smiling for you, she said.

She reached across towards him, towards his face. He moved back, instinctively. I’m not going to hurt you, she said. He stared at her, then let her touch him. She appraised the plasters.

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