The Weight of Things Removed | Novel
| Milo
Chapter 1 (Part 1)
"I shouldn’t
take this job, it wouldn’t be right," Leonard thought to himself as he
gingerly rubbed his bristly chin, and wrapped his fingers around his few tufts
of coarse, cocoa coloured hair. He slapped his laptop screen down and pushed
away from the table, as his hands gripped the armrests indecisively before he
belatedly stood up. He left the bedroom and walked down the empty hallway to
the bathroom, and once inside he started running the bath. Leonard rubbed his
chin once more and considered shaving. He turned on his shaver, but shortly
afterwards turned it off without shedding a single strip of hair. The
bath filled with an arrhythmic gurgle and the room gradually became
uncomfortably hot, and so he left it and returned to his bedroom to pick up his
phone; he nimbly went to the messages screen and sent his wife a quick text.
I need a bit of
advice, are you free to talk?
Leonard paused as he waited to see if he’d
receive a speedy reply, however his screen neither flashed nor vibrated and so
he was forced to carry on with his day. He got in and out of his bath with
little drama and returned to his laptop to check out a number of different
requests and commissions. When his wife replied he was in the midst of his
work, and was researching an article for eight to ten year olds titled: Howard Carter and the
Pharaoh’s Curse. He paused to take a sip of his tea and to check her response.
Stuck in meetings all
day, is it urgent?
Nope, I’ll see you
when you get home.
He carried on at a steady pace for the next few
hours, and it didn’t take him too long to finish the article. He was even able
to proof read and submit it for review, before it was time to pick up Marley
from school. He changed from his comfy red joggers, into jeans and a green,
paisley patterned shirt before grabbing his car keys and leaving.
The drive to the school
wasn’t particularly taxing and he was able to miss most of the school traffic
by taking a winding, meandering route to St. Bartholomew’s. Yet during the
habitually uneventful twenty minute drive he found himself to be mildly
irritable, and quite unfocused on the road. He felt a specific yet benign sort
of frustration; as though he had hay fever, despite the fact that he didn’t
have hay fever, or as though he had forgotten his glasses, despite the fact
that he had never worn them. Indeed Leonard was gripped by this tiny
irritation, in that he wasn’t peeved by anything in particular that had
happened on the road, but rather by something he had forgotten at home. That
concerning commission…no there was no point in thinking about it, because he
wouldn’t accept it. He had arrived at St Bartholomew’s and so he parked in his
regular spot; some thirty metres away and opposite the church. Normally he
would wait for Marley inside his car, but for whatever reason he decided to
wait outside the school gates instead. The school bell rung shrilly and obnoxiously,
and even as a grown man he felt relieved by that pointed sound. He watched as
Marley wandered outside the gate with an absentmindedness that caused him to
miss his father, and he continued down the street towards the family car.
Leonard watched him with a curious grin which quickly turned into a concerned
one, as he felt a weirdness about his son’s mindless obedience:
Just head straight to
the car Marl, I’ll always be parked right beside the church. Ok?
His oft repeated command echoed inside his oddly
taught and furrowed head; moreover he considered that hidden inside this mess
of parents herding their children home, anyone could be watching Marley. Any
sort of kind and loving, or wicked and malicious person could be camouflaged in
this most child friendly of spaces...
“Marl,” he called and his son spun around before running back to him.“Dad! What you come all the way to the school gates for?”
“Just didn’t feel like waiting in the car, how
was school today?”
“It’s alright, what’s for dinner?” His son asked
as they walked towards the car together, they both opened their doors at the
same time and his son bounced into the front seat. Leonard heard the satisfying
click of a seat belt and followed suit with his own.
“Have a guess,” Leonard muttered as his feet
played with the pedals and his hands fiddled with the gear stick before they
started to pick up speed.
“Um, pizza?”
“Not pizza guess again,”
“McDonald’s?” His son asked with an uncertain
grin.
“During the middle of the week? Definitely not!”
Leonard scoffed audibly, however as he thought about it the suggestion became
more appealing. After all one of the main drawbacks of working at home was that
you were still at work when you wanted to rest, and you were still at home when
you wanted to work. Consequently he leapt at any and every chance he had to
loiter outside of their flat.
“Fish and chips?” Marley asked to which Leonard
nodded his head.
“Why not? We’ll grab something for mum as well,”
he acquiesced much to his son’s joy. Since his decision had been made he took a
right at the roundabout instead of carrying on straight, as that would have
taken them away from the high street and closer to home, and after a few more
minutes of driving he found a parking spot in front of the nearby Sainsbury’s.
“How much time do we get here Marl?” Leonard
asked as his son strained to read the sign.
“Can’t see,” he muttered in reply, “one, twooo…”
“Go out and have a closer look,” Leonard
instructed as he checked his pockets to make sure that he hadn’t again dropped
something, as he would routinely drop his keys or phone down the side of the
front seat as he left the car. The door slammed shut as his son ran over to the
sign and craned his head upwards, and he placed his hands across his eyes to
block out the sun. Leonard had finished checking his pockets and so he closed
the door and locked his car; he then sauntered the short way to join his son.
“We can stay here for one hour,”
“So what time do we have to be back by?” Leonard
asked as he checked his own watch, making sure that he knew the answer before
his son replied.
“Don’t know what the time is…”
“Come on check your watch,”
“Ugh but I’ve already been in school, I thought
we were getting fish chips and now you’re making me do maths,”
“Come on Marl,” Leonard insisted in a neutral and
flattened tone of voice, to which his son moaned something incomprehensible
before checking his watch.
“It’s ten to three,”
“You mean ten past three,”
“Yeah, yeah so we have to be back at ten to
four,”
“You mean ten past four” Leonard again corrected
as Marley squinted at his watch before he nodded slowly, as a cog whirred
inside his mind and a little squib of understanding lodged itself into his long
term memory. They walked away from the car and across the car park as they
ventured towards one of the nearby café’s that lined the high street. Leonard
watched as Marley stared downwards at his watch and blurted out his sporadic
findings.
“So if it was at the three it would be fifteen
past, and if it was at the four it would be twenty past…” he continued like
this as they made their way to the Millennium Café. They went inside and sat
down at a small booth in the corner, the tablecloth had a checked red pattern
and the faded, brown leather seat had popped at its lowest seam; a little pod
of fluffy stuffing could be seen out of the corner of one’s eye. The café
itself was long but quite narrow and was far brighter at the front, where the
windows let in an ample amount of sunlight their cost effective bulbs couldn’t
match at the back. The place had a mild hum as a number of the tables were
occupied by other people; next to their booth an elderly man shakily pulled a
cup of coffee to his lips, and winced at the heat before putting it down.
Further on four women, dressed in the same red suits, debated loudly about the
sins and successes of a coalition government they all seemed largely
indifferent to. A slim clean shaven waiter came over to their table, and his
prominent Adam’s apple shuddered as he gulped before speaking.
“What would you like?” He asked in an aged,
hoarse Polish accent which belied his youngish features, and it was only after
looking at his large ears, and the speckled grey hair that lined them, that
Leonard realised that he was probably a little older than himself.
“Can I have a large cod with chips please; Marl
what do you want?”
“Can I have pancakes?”
“Sorry no pancakes now, only for the breakfast
menu,” their waiter replied as he flicked the pencil in his hand against the
table, and Marley blushed before sinking his head behind the menu.
“Marl?” Leonard asked, to which his son offered a
quiet grunt in reply “can he have the chicken nuggets with chips from the kids
menu?”
“No problem boss, anything else?”
“Can I also get a second cod and chips to take
away?”
“Order the takeaway at the end boss, any drinks?”
he asked.
“Can I have a tea and an orange juice? Thanks,”
Leonard replied as the waiter scooped up their menus and stomped away, and he
was left to consider what he would say to console his deflated son as he looked
around the restaurant idly. He knew that Marley felt embarrassed about picking
from the wrong menu, and probably wouldn’t want to talk much for the rest of
the meal. Leonard had been the same when he was younger and yet despite this,
or perhaps because of it, he had been unable to cure his son of the same
crippling shyness. It was also due to this fear of being publically ridiculed
that Marley’s love of school had started to wane, and had become a grudging
indifference; indeed his son attended school like a sickly person might drink a
particularly pungent medicine to cure a stomach ache.
“How was school today?”
“You already asked dad,” he mumbled after which
he lifted up his head and shuffled in his seat, “I need to use the toilet.”
“Can you see the sign?” Leonard asked as he
pointed to it, Marley nodded and he skipped off his chair and ventured towards
it. The door was a plastic red which swung easily enough, and as Marley
disappeared behind it another man emerged from it afterwards. He had paint
stained trousers and he patted his hands on his thighs gingerly before leaving
the café, Leonard watched him through the window as he spat on to the floor and
grabbed his crotch before heading on his way with a heavy, bobbing jaunt.
Leonard took an immediate and absurd dislike to the stranger, one which he
didn’t see fit to analyse and yet he felt a little lump of his own rise in his
throat. He hastily squeezed past the table and followed his son inside the
toilet. The urinals had a stench and a sheen that suggested recent use, and the
tiles immediately beneath them had a puddle much like a toddler’s dribble
beneath it. The toilet was empty.
“Marley?” Leonard uttered anxiously, but heard
nothing in reply. However as a sudden and sickening panic started to cause
creases in his forehead, a flushing toilet interrupted his fretting; his son
had been using a cubicle.
“Dad, did you say something?”
“No, yes just remember to wash your hands,” he
said as his son went straight to the taps and squirted far too much lotion into
his hands. It took far longer than it should have for him to wash it all out,
and by the time they had returned to their table their food had already
arrived.
“Do you want any ketchup?” Leonard asked, to
which Marley nodded his head so he went to side and he grabbed a bottle of
ketchup and a bottle of mayonnaise. He squeezed a blob onto Marley’s plate and
then squeezed a blob onto his own, after which he picked up the bottle of
mayonnaise and did the same.
“You should mix them,” Marley suggested.
“No, no you can’t do that Marl, you have to keep
the ketchup for the cod and the mayonnaise for the chips.” Leonard explained as
he placed a chip between the two globs to further illustrate his point.
“You’re weird,”
“No you’re weird,” he replied as he stuck out his
tongue and Marley gasped. His son then grabbed a chicken nugget and mixed the
two sauces together, laughing as he did so. Leonard laughed too and felt a
deeper satisfaction that his son had forgotten his earlier embarrassment and
was back to being his gregarious self. Once they had both finished he ordered a
second portion of fish and chips to take home with them, and they left shortly
afterwards. They were home a good twenty minutes before ten past four.
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