The PEN,O Henry Prize Stories 2011 Part 14

"No, you shouldn't."

"What do you mean?"

"Not exactly your scene, dear. And what if someone should see you?"

Peter hadn't apologized because he wasn't wrong so there was no need to. The ball flew high over his head. He always loved that moment, the purity and stillness of it, the ball in another element, silently traveling over the noise below. It sank toward the green. Jack blocked it down with the side of his boot, turned on the spot, and looped past the defender. Peter ran toward him, feeling Jack's father's gaze fastened on him. Jack ran three strides and struck the ball cleanly. It shot up, humming, into the top left corner of the goal and Jack stopped still with his arms raised as his teammates rushed toward him. When they'd gone, Peter patted him on the shoulder. Jack turned round startled, shrugged the vicar's hand from his shoulder, and ran away. Another boy shouted, "You taking sides now, ref?" Peter shook his head, back in the game. "Backchat. Don't make me warn you twice."

Rob waved as he and Ca.s.sie arrived. They sat at the back of the congregation as though still interlopers. Ca.s.sie pulled up her bra straps beneath her blouse, settling her heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Rob murmured something to her and they both, simultaneously, turned their faces up to Peter. Through the ceremony they were calm and amiable but as if not quite getting the point. They looked continuously expectant, like children awaiting the end of a magic trick that never arrived. Every week they sat like that until they were released into the real world of air and cars and food and TV.

Rob was larger than Peter had remembered. Perhaps he went to the gym. Certainly he had the big cylindrical thighs of a bodybuilder. They held him up on the bulk of himself, as though he couldn't ever properly sit down. Briefly, Peter glanced at his crotch, at his trouser front clogged with his member. Ca.s.sie's ringed hand rested on her belly. They looked peaceful, animal, comfortably thoughtless. Rob caught Peter's eye for a hot moment and confused Peter by giving him an inappropriate encouraging nod.

The following week Peter thought that Rob looked hungover. He sat with his arms folded, his drained gray face tilted back, observing proceedings from under half-closed eyelids. At the door he excused himself. "Bit d.i.c.ky today. Must've been the takeaway last night." He rubbed his stomach to ill.u.s.trate but Peter wasn't having it.

"I'm sure it was. You can't always trust them, can you? Temperance. Temperance in all things." That was a foolish choice of word he'd heard himself say twice. Quite probably Rob didn't know what it meant.

He'd chosen the wrong moment to go to the shop. Peter was surrounded by schoolchildren in loud groups. They wandered erratically across the pavement in front of him, shrieking at each other, stepping off into the gutter, oblivious to oncoming cars. Before he could pay for his milk, bread, and baked beans, he had to wait behind a few of them as they bought the sugary drinks and sweets that shook their concentration into a useless noisy fizz. He rolled his eyes at the shopkeeper, who didn't respond, seemed confused, in fact.

As Peter was leaving the shop, a man entering greeted him. It took Peter a moment to recognize Rob because Rob was wearing a suit. He'd made the standard after-work adjustment: top shirt b.u.t.ton undone, tie pulled a little loose. Peter hadn't thought of Rob as someone who would need to wear a suit for work.

"It's Rob, isn't it?"

"That's right."

Peter often ran into parishioners when he was out and actually quite liked to. It was contact that required only his fluent, professional self, and it made the world sometimes cheerful and friendly, familiar.

"How are you? How's ..."

"Ca.s.sie?"

"Yes, I was going to say Ca.s.sie."

"She's diamond. Really well. Won't be long now."

"No, I suppose it can't be."

"It's a big relief, to be honest, Reverend. Ca.s.sie, she, um, she miscarried a couple of times."

"Oh. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

"Yeah. Well. So. So, we're properly excited."

"I'm sure you must be."

"Here, I've got a scan I carry around I can show you."

"Oh, don't worry."

"No, no, it's just here." Rob pulled a folded piece of paper from his wallet and handed it to Peter. "It's a little girl."

Peter looked at the faint white swirl, the luminous bones, the brighter white of its heart and spine. "A little girl, is it?"

"Yes. There." Rob pointed with the nail of his little finger. "That blob there is her heart beating away."

"Yes, I thought it was. You must be very happy."

"We are. Anyway, I'll let you get on. We're seeing you next week, aren't we, to talk through arrangements?"

"That's right."

"Great." Full of his fatherhood, full of his ordinary joy, Rob gave Peter a friendly pat on the shoulder as he left the shop. Peter looked back at him and tried to smile.

Peter walked slowly to football. It was no longer a release for him, a clearing onto which he stepped once a week to move in light and air. Now it was something else that opposed him, another place of solitude without freedom. Dimly he knew that it was his fault, that his personality had seeped out and somehow stained it all.

The day was chilly also, the pitch heavy and stiff. Wind hustled the trees. Cold rain flung across and stopped, started again. The ground was waterlogged near the center circle. Running through it, the boys' boots stamped up flashes of water that soaked their socks. They played slowly. Jack was impatient, working with more energy and will than the other boys. Peter watched his frustration and indulged the temptation to thwart him further. Three times when Jack had received the ball and was ready to start on one of his glorying flights toward goal, balanced and expert, his hair fetchingly lifted by the wind, Peter blew for offside. It was satisfying to snap the leash and watch him stop, letting the ball roll from his feet, unused. You're not going anywhere. He knew he was doing it, that the offsides were marginal at best, and he heard confirming voices of protest from the sidelines. So he wasn't surprised after the game when Jack's father, his face and voice by now so familiar, approached and said, "Look, I don't know what it is but you've got some sort of a problem."

"I'm not sure I know what you're talking about."

"Don't use your posh voice on me. If you don't know, that only makes it worse. I'm not saying you're funny with kids."

"You better not be. That would be, that would be."

"I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that there's something about you and Jack. I've asked him. He said there's no funny business whatever. Point is, I've got a good lad here, a good player, and he's not getting a chance to develop. I've found somewhere else for him, a Sunday league game he can play in. So you won't be seeing us again."

Peter regarded the man with narrowed eyes, that face so familiar now, the small blue eyes, the sprouting chest hair at his collar. "I have to say I'm relieved," he said eventually.

"You what?"

"Jack's a little cheat, isn't he? Can't trust him to play properly at all. It'll be nice to get rid of him. The game will be much improved."

"Now, listen." Jack's father jabbed a pointing finger at Peter then shook his head, giving up. "If you weren't a man of the cloth, seriously ..."

He turned and walked away.

Off the grid. That was how Peter thought of himself when he lost contact with G.o.d, when Jesus was a dead man and he was alone. Then the world was vast and contained nothing, nothing real, only his loneliness between hard surfaces. How long he spent like this was a secret kept between him and G.o.d, and of all his secrets this was the most private. Of course this all belonged in the category of "doubt," which was integral to faith and sounded strong and simple, even heroic, in the spiritual lives of others. But for Peter right now it meant sitting alone in his house with the radio on, the light coming down, leftover baked beans hardening on his plate, and his soul shriveling inside him like a slug on salt. It meant thinking of Steve out there, loose in the gusty evening city. It meant wanting Steve and Steve not wanting him back.

Sometimes Peter wished for ordinary things, ordinary thoughts. He could have had what the others were having, had he been born that way. But this, apparently, was not what was destined for him.

Peter was angry with loneliness the day Rob and Ca.s.sie came to his office to discuss the christening. He sat them down without offering drinks, watched their gazes travel nervously around his bookshelves and religious images, unable to settle.

"You see, this is something to be taken very seriously. Nothing more seriously in fact. Now, I know that I serve a function. I know that's what I do as far as some people are concerned."

"Sorry, I don't follow."

Peter stared. "People need me for this and that, to get their children into the good church schools, to visit the elderly relatives they can't be bothered to see and so on. But I have to insist, I am a servant of G.o.d, of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and He demands faith and respect-"

"I understand," Rob cut in. "It's a stressful job. You're stressed."

Ca.s.sie rolled forward over her belly. "Highly strung," she suggested, and lapsed back.

"That's not what I'm saying, actually."

"And I promise you," Rob went on, "we're not taking the mick in any way. We're here-aren't we, Ca.s.s?-because we want things done right for our little girl." Here he reached across and rested his hand lightly on his wife's belly.

"Well, good. That's good." Peter felt a stab of envy: that was what it was. Recognizing it, his anger gave way. He felt his body soften with contrition, humiliation. He could behave better toward them now he knew. "That's good. That's what we want to hear. So, I'll take you through the ceremony, what we'll be doing."

He made them a cup of tea and they talked on. A rain shower rang against the window. It made the room they were in a hushed small shelter. Peter felt close to them. He felt kind.

He walked home under lit streetlights and a mildly exhilarating sky of cold silver and long colored clouds where the sun was setting. Water clucked in the drains. The small trees shone. When he got in and found that Steve wasn't in he didn't pause. He changed his shirt and jacket and went out after him, walking to the station against the flow of returning commuters, tired and grim but still moving at a tough city speed. He sat in an almost empty carriage through the long, rattling journey out of the suburbs and down under the ground.

He emerged in the West End and realized that he hadn't been into town for months. It was dark now. The place was full of entertainments. It had lost its daylight shape and now was structured by its fantasies, by the floating lit signs for different shows and shops, restaurants and bars. The people there all moved toward them or poured away around him down into the station. The traffic was loud. A bus shuddered in front of him. He walked to the street with all the gay bars, to one in particular he knew Steve visited. The street was already full, men everywhere, smoking outside the bars, talking into their phones, laughing, watching. Their hard bodies inside their T-shirts. He pa.s.sed close to some to get inside once he'd found the place. He could smell them. He kept his gaze low. The music was horribly loud. Its ba.s.s thumped right through him like a new and panicking heartbeat, overruling his own. He walked around, couldn't find Steve, and realized he was relieved. What would he have said? He sat at the bar. He could see it all happening from there, could see the desire creeping out between the men. He ordered gin and tonic, wanting to be adult there, wanting to be strict and colonial.

He drank several with a few thoughts beating in his head, like: how different this place must look in the mornings, with the lights on when the cleaners arrive, or: look at that one. The lights in there were strips of blue. Skin looked violet. Cheekbones were sharply shadowed. All this alien beauty. He drank more, expecting Steve finally to walk in. The place filled with more men but Steve did not arrive. Someone materialized next to Peter, a man of about his own age. He wore a white shirt. He looked round at him, at the shape of his shaved head, then let him slide out of view again, but the man put his hand on Peter's. He brought his face close and shouted through the music.

"It's not that terrible, is it? Tell Auntie what's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong."

"If you say so. All alone, though. Gloomy."

"Why do we have to do this?"

"Don't know what you mean."

"All this. Why do we have to do this?"

"We don't have to, duckie. We like it. I bet you do too."

"Is that enough? Is that right?"

"Isn't it enough?"

"People don't care. They're not ashamed."

"Quite right. Absolutely shameless."

"Your hand's on my thigh."

"What?"

"Your hand's on my leg."

"Is that where I left it? Shameless of me."

"It's not ... we don't have to."

"But we like it. Why don't you come with me a minute? I want to show you something."

Back at home in the bathroom, Peter took off his shirt, splashed cold water up into his armpits and over his face. He brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth with mouthwash. He took his clothes off and left them on the floor. He went to bed. Steve was waiting for him.

"h.e.l.lo," he said.

"h.e.l.lo."

"Where've you been? Blimey, you actually smell of drink."

Peter pulled the quilt over his shoulder, lay on his side with Steve behind him. "I went looking for you."

"I see. Did you find me?"

"No."

"That's a bit sad. Did you have a good time, though?"

"No. Did you?"

"Not really. Awful, actually. Place is full, everywhere's full of just children really."

Peter reached behind him and took hold of Steve's wrist, lifted his arm over him, wanting to close that door again.

"Think of you. Out and about."

"Can't we just go to sleep?"

They weren't there. Natalie's feet ticked back and forth beneath the pew. They were gone, as they had said they would be, to have their baby. Imagine that, the lavish TV drama of it: hospital and pain and beeping monitors, the birth of their baby girl, the tears, the child wrapped in a soft blanket and placed in their trembling hands.

Rob and Ca.s.sie had filled the church for the christening. The pews creaked with that laden, seafaring sound that Peter liked. He looked out over the solid formation of their family and friends, the women tanned to varying shades, the men's hair glinting with gel. Rob and Ca.s.sie were meek and well behaved, perhaps because they knew Peter's moods and were nervous that all should go well. But for the rest of them, this was a day out, a souvenir experience, and he couldn't reasonably ask more of them. He reminded himself of that and his anger flared during the service only when, with the G.o.dparents, they smirked at having to repeat that they rejected the Devil. Christianity: good for horror films, good for a laugh. He stared them down.

The moment that he was waiting for, that he was dreading, arrived. Rob and Ca.s.sie's baby, to be named, with surprising good taste, Harriet Sarah, kicking her feet up inside the crisp white cotton of her gown, was placed carefully into his hands. A heaviness swelled in his stomach. It rolled up his spine, flooded his brain. He laid the beautiful small weight of her along his left forearm. Her eyes widened, struggling to focus, as her forehead rolled against his stole. The plush red triangle of her mouth opened as she breathed. The skin of her cheeks was glossy, her eyebrows faint and delicate. A baby. A baby in his arms. The Edwardian font swaying in front of him now seemed dangerously hard and ma.s.sive. He placed his right hand gently on the soft throb of her belly. To have one, to be a father. He yearned as he stared down at her, feeling sweat run through his thin hair. He glanced up, and the sight of the people standing and waiting shocked the liturgy back into his mind. He said what he had to say. Then, his fingers wet with holy water, he saw a way to disrupt the sweetness of the moment, to release himself. He dipped his fingers again and painted as much water as he could carry onto her head. She looked confused and squirmed against him. He reached for more to apply the horizontal bar of the cross and did so with as heavy a touch as he dared. She rolled her eyes, shrank down into herself then expanded, screaming. Ca.s.sie took a step forward.

"Is she all right?"

"What? She's fine. This always happens." Peter felt sweat trickling down his right side from his armpit, cold at his waist. "Water's a bit cold."

"Here, I'll take her."

"She's fine. She's fine. Please."

Peter, with difficulty, with clumsy hands, opened his front door, stepped over an ugly splash of pizza leaflets, and went and made himself a cup of tea. He put on Radio 3. He took his cup to a chair by the window that he never normally sat in and waited for his pulse to slow. The music was orchestral, late Romantic, with a winding melody that rose to mild crises of percussion and bra.s.s. It did have a calming effect sitting there out of place, a little outside of himself, somewhere not soiled with familiarity. The day beyond the window was steady: parked cars, a width of road, the house fronts opposite.

Lying in bed he heard Steve's key in the door, the light metallic sc.r.a.ping. His stale anxiety woke again inside him; it felt as though Steve were fitting his key loosely into Peter's chest, turning him over. He switched on the light and sat up. He heard Steve's tread on the stairs. Then the strong reality of him entering the room-always sudden, always shocking, however long imagined and expected. But this time Steve looked miserable. His shoulders drooped. His gaze was low. He stood as if a bucket of something had been tipped over his head.

"What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" Steve sighed. He wiped the side of his face as though clearing tears. "I'm old," he said. "I'm too old."

"Oh, baby. I'm sorry."