Teshuva

Teshuva*

But God said to Jonah, “is it right for you to be angry … ?”

“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

[Jonah 4:9]

The curtains were cool blue. The window, one of those old fashioned ones, had a slat that was raised up a little from the bottom, letting in the sea-salted air. Two trophies smiled on the chest of drawers. Spaceships on the wallpaper stormed around the room in a clockwise direction from the bed, as though they had mastery over space but not time.

It wasn’t weird, exactly, for Jonathan to be back in this bed. Recent events had conspired to make the possibility an attractive one. First, Tanya, his girlfriend of three years had decided to take up with another gentleman she met at the gym. She had let Jonathan know on a work trip abroad during which he was ceremoniously let go by Head Office in Germany – and then the severity of the gas crisis had meant all of a sudden that shouldering rent for two plus bills would have brought on financial ruin.

He had savings of course, but he needed those for a downpayment on his first house. He wasn’t the type to be a ‘lifer’ when it came to rent, oh no. He wanted something to pass on. He had been thinking about this anyway, finding a place back in Cornwall. He missed the Cornish pace of life - and hadn’t he promised himself before ever having met Tanya that he would paint thirty good paintings before he was thirty? A sea breeze would be the perfect companion for it, the catalyst he needed to bring himself to draw her silhouette on canvas. A place with an outdoor patio where he could install his canvas and a lounger, paint and drink beers in the sun. Though admittedly the timing was off.

He had given notice on the apartment that same day in a hot-headed call from Germany. The landlord was surprised, but said he had a friend looking and would love to move them in as soon as possible, so Jonathan had researched moving van availability and told the relieved guy he could be gone the following week. He had unburdened himself as quickly as possible of the flat he had shared with, you know who. But he had no idea where to go next, except as far away from London as possible, and as close as he could get to the sea.

He knew no one in Brighton and would have been miserable in Portsmouth, having spent one soggy weekend down there at a conference early the previous year. So he had picked up the phone to his mum. He told her all about the break-up and before he could ask, she had invited him home.

But it still felt strange now, he thought, to be in one’s childhood bedroom for want of place to stay, to be falling back, not to move on forward with the stages of life, it’s markers of maturity: moving out, stable relationship, a job with prospects, marriage, a house, children, school fees, celebrations, graveyard markers. That kind of thing.

Jonny!

His mother’s voice sped in to the room with its usual oblivious ferocity. Though the sweetest of women, her voice and vernacular were unusually coarse. He answered her politely.

Jonny? Fuck’s sake. Jonny!

He had not spoken loudly enough, it seemed. He recalled how he was unused to having to shout down stairs, back in his one-floor apartment with his lover who enjoyed spinning to his touch in the kitchen after uncorking a bottle of red wine, but he decided this was going too far and called out back to his mother a significantly louder, Yes?

I’ve made pie!

Jonathan actually laughed to himself, chuckled with his mouth behind his splayed hands. It was too perfect, too ironic, that he be home with his mother in the house of his birth, with his childhood favourite of pie on the menu. He didn’t care what was in it, particularly – all his mother’s fillings were the best, he admitted to himself, smiling. Gravy so smooth that the memory of its sensation would lead him not to be able even to wait for it to cool, so that he burnt his mouth but oh – how he adored that texture. He got up good-naturedly and descended the narrow spiral staircase until he met his mother with a Mum, I’m here as she washed her hands after taking off her oven gloves.

Is that you?

She tipped her head as she washed without turning back.

Yes Mum, It’s me.

Her hearing must not be holding up, thought Jonathan, seating himself at the tiny single person table with a chair on either side, and placed his arms on its red patterned linoleum.

Great – it’s in the oven. I haven’t got any pepper left, and I know you like your pepper so I’ll just pop over to Helen’s to borrow some. Will you be okay here on your own?

Jonathan groaned internally.

Mum, I’m 26. I’ll be fine.

She cackled then, her laugh as coarse as her voice.

Okay. I forget, you know? You’ll always be my little boy.

She untied her apron and walked over to the peg opposite where Jonathan was sitting to fetch her coat – also red. Mary was not afraid of a touch of colour, thought Jonathan approvingly.

Shall I leave the door on the latch?

Sure.

Jonathan smiled as she left, sniffing the air which almost had a taste in it. If he opened his mouth, he could almost be inhaling mushrooms, chicken broth, pea puree. After a few minutes, he decided to have a peek at the food in the oven to make sure it didn’t burn. As soon as he had put on the oven glove and reached for the oven door’s bar, he heard the screech of sudden brakes loud all over the kitchen.

His head twisted in a whiplash to the front door, and then he heard a thud like a car door being slammed shut. He left the house immediately, emerged out in to the street to see a car, also just visibly red at this time of night, had stopped at an angle almost half off the road with the bumper edging up to a neighbour’s garden. The driver of the car had come out in to the road, a silhouette waving a hand at full headlights that were no longer moving. He kneeled on the road and bent low, as though talking to someone. He nodded his head and looked up, saw Jonathan and let out a whistling breath from puffed out cheeks for an instant before beckoning him over. Jonathan looked out at the scene, knowing somewhere in him that under the darkness under the cars’ beams, somewhere under there, was the horizontal body of his mother. He looked out again, spotted her purse and the corner of her red coat in the shadows and ran over. It was her. She was dead.

*

For some time, Jonathan had made efforts to find his mother’s phonebook to let her friends know of her passing, as was expected at a time like this. But eventually, after checking in each of her drawers and closets, he could not bring himself to search any further. Instead, he had sat down with a box he had found somewhere that would have been difficult to find if he hadn’t been looking. He lifted the top from the light blue box and beneath tissue paper were photographs and letters, the first, his father to his mother, and then underneath, several more from her to him.

I adore you Mary. Let’s make a family.

Gabriel, you mean more to me than any other on this earth.

That kind of thing. Jonathan wasn’t looking for anything salacious but found himself scanning the letters quickly, looking for keywords or phrases he wasn’t even sure he knew. He devoured the letters and then saw the photographs. He held them on his lap until they slipped over the edge of his thigh as he lay down on his side, the feeling gone from his limbs. A few crumpled under his weight as he kicked his legs. One got a tear.

He had arranged black cloth on all mirrors and photographs in the house. A couple of bulbs had fused when he had walked around the house, as he did from time to time, and so he had only the hallway light draining in for most of the evening. He was reading her book collection, the single shelf in the house that had books on it, beat-up paperbacks and the occasional unmarked hardback that might turn out to be anything from a gardening manual to an 18th century classic.

His brother, Marcus, had come and gone. It had been a Monday when Mary had passed, and he’d explained that he needed to do the school run for the next few days. When it came to Friday, Marcus didn’t show and his mobile wasn’t picking up. Jonathan had only tried once, to be fair. But he assumed that was enough.

*

In the third week of mourning, Jonathan decided to treat himself. He left the house, and only once he was around the corner did it occur to him that he hadn’t shaved. He felt the prickly hairs around his chin and lips with a hand, jutting out his jaw, but decided that the moment had passed. He was out now and would not turn back. He walked the few streets into the old town centre.

All the buildings were made of the same heritage-status stone, characteristically tinged with an almost invisible pink that, when hit by the sun, turned into gorgeous rose light. Cyclists were taking a tour of the town, some regional cycling group, thought Jonathan, seeing as there were about fifty of them all in serious sports gear. They smiled as they sped past at Jonathan waiting to cross the street.

He really had no idea where he wanted to go. The simple act of using his legs was enough for the moment. A bakery nearby had just laid out a tray of cream puffs with jam in their window, but Jonathan wasn’t interested in them. Instead, he wandered down the next alley to come his way and found himself at the rear entrance of a supermarket, near a slope into a large underground car park. He remembered needing shampoo but before he entered he turned to look around, and saw an entrance to a small store in the wall behind him. It had an aquatic motif above the door – a cartoon octopus and goldfish. Without really thinking, he entered the shop.

He was greeted by an empty counter and the pungent smell of fish, fish crap, fish food. A panel fan danced lazily on the ceiling in the centre of the space. He called out hello? but heard nothing back. He let his eyes wander the shop and its many, varying tanks. One, backlit, contained tropical fish, beautiful in their bold colours but barely bigger than one of Jonathan’s fingers. A small but rather deep blow up pool in the corner by his feet housed two koi fish, who were calmly ignoring each other. Jonathan had watched them a while to see if they would do anything symmetric, but that was not how fish worked apparently.

A bell rang and startled Jonathan. He realised there were foot steps behind him and turned to find the person who had just entered the shop.

Jonathan Muntz.

Yes? Jonathan asked the portly young woman stood before him.

Haven’t seen you back here in a while.

Jonathan eyed the woman, trying to decide where he was most likely to know her from, but quickly swept his eyes away, not wanting to embarrass either of them by failing to recognise her.

It’s okay – I’ve put on a lot of weight. Medication and that.

Jonathan was still at a loss for words.

Meenie. From Junior School. Well, I left in Year 4 but up until then – well, we knew each other ennit?

Of course – Meenie. Jonathan had memories of her going for goal with a header during football practice, of her splashing around in the community pool after he had accused her of not being able to swim on their first visit there, her determination to wear her blazer over her checked uniform summer dress. Total lesbian.

Jonathan thought he shouldn’t ask.

Meenie! Yeah! Right. How’s it all going? You uh, looking for a fish?

Actually selling one.

What’s wrong with it? Jonathan laughed uncomfortably loudly.

Ha. You don’t want to know.

Well, I don’t think anyone’s in.

That’s okay, I’ll just plop it in to one of these.

Wait, you can’t do that.

Why not?

The other fish might eat it! Each one is a different ecosystem.

Ecosystem hey? Look at that London vocabulary.

Jonathan blushed and Meenie took the opportunity to stride forward and empty a plastic bag she pulled from her purse into the blow-up pool koi pond.

Wait – no. I’ll take it.

What?

Jonathan reconsidered but decided he couldn’t let the fish die the worst of deaths, being eaten. He himself didn’t know the koi would have attacked the fish – heck, he didn’t even know what kind of fish Meenie had brought with her. It could be an electric eel, for all he knew. But then, the bag was fairly small and so, Jonathan thought, a fish friend would be good, and this fish would be manageable.

Alright…

Meenie slowly raised the bag until she held it out to Jonathan. Still blushing, he took the bag from her by its tip and looked in to see the ugliest fish he had ever seen.

It’s called an Ugly Fish. They’re actually very entertaining.

Huh.

You know – he wouldn’t have been eaten. That much I can assure you. Still, your choice.

Meenie smiled, raised a hand in greeting then turned and the bell rang again as she left through the shop door. Jonathan, the type never to steal, wondered if he should stay in the shop to report what had just happened to the owner, and spent a few further minutes waiting in the same spot. Eventually, he left the store, lifting the bag until he was eye to eye with the Ugly Fish in the bright rose daylight.

*

When Jonathan finally got home with the fish, having stopped off for a quiet drink in the pub to contemplate what he had done, he found his mother cleaning up.

Jonny you’re rotten.

She meant he was messy, a slob. How have you let so many pizza boxes pile up?

Mum? What are you doing here?

She gave him a curious look.

Are you taking drugs?

What?

Because you’ve been acting shady these last few weeks.

Jonathan almost dropped the fish.

Mum, you’re alive? I’m talking to you?

She looked at him puzzled – that once in a lifetime puzzlement face, like when coming out or failing high school.

Of course Jonathan you’re talking to me. Come on. I know we never talk about it, but it’s time we should.

Oh thank God. I was starting to think I’d gone mad.

You’ve been close, since the accident.

There was an accident then?

Jonathan.

What?

Jonathan. Please.

What? What is it?

You were driving, you dog turd.

What?

You hit Meenie. She died.

What?

Will you wake up please?

* "Teshuva" is the Jewish concept for the ability to repent and be forgiven by God, represented by the story of Jonah and the Whale.