Clippings

It was an envelope, small and pastel blue; sealed and then folded up as if it wanted to disappear or the sender had meant it to. Without name, address, or stamp it was like a summer’s sky on a cloudless day; it should have heralded opportunities, yet Simon felt only trepidation, turning the square over and over in his hands. His stomach had lurched when he’d opened the box this morning, sent as promised by the care home, and the letter had all but jumped out at him; flashes of the frightening Jack-in-a-box toy he’d tried to break when just a lad, springing unbeckoned to mind. 

Now surprise and shock had subsided, leaving his emotions to eddy, ever ready to surge once more: cataracts after the calm. He thought the letter was for him; perhaps deep down, in the bedrock of his bones, he knew it. Yes, there was no inscription bearing the name, Simon Schwarz; still, this missive was for him- and he knew just who’d written it. 

He had never sent the letter. He had never meant it to be sent. Hadn’t even bothered to write his name! On and on; the internal monologue played: a wasp’s drone. His fingers twitched, an uncontrollable spasm, with longing to rip up the bloody thing: the letter his father hadn’t had the guts, emotion or common decency to send. Why should he read his last words now? The boat had long departed to the Underworld; Charon ferrying him across those waters flowing on their immutable course, and surely his father was in the Underworld by now. What would reading his final words bring? What could he learn that would make sense of the last decades? And anyway, he knew the answer already: silence plus absence equals a void; a father-shaped hole in his otherwise complete world.

Flinging the envelope onto the coffee table, where it settled tentatively atop his pile of sketches, he crossed to his phone and called up his sister’s number. For a moment he considered a voice note before deciding that now was perhaps the time to call. Caroline picked up almost immediately. 

“Simon. What’s up? You never call.”

He ignored the veiled dig.

“It’s arrived: Dad’s box. You know the one they promised to send when I was last in.”

Perhaps he’d got her at a bad time as her uptake was slow.

“Box?”

“With his possessions in.”

Confused silence. 

“From the care home. The belongings he had in his room with him- I guess…” 

He trailed off, words stifled by an image; the only time he'd seen his dad since leaving home was two weeks ago: propped in a plastic chair; the TV blaring white noise in Sunny Day’s darkened, communal lounge.  

“Oh God, yes.” Caroline said, recollection flooding her voice with relief. “I’m sorry Simon. The drugs have me in limbo land most of the time- bloody pills- but in a week I’m free of them. Then I’ve only got sleep deprivation to deal with.” The laugh of the resigned. 

He made commiserating noises; remembering suddenly her infection- last thing she needed after giving birth, but it had rather left him alone to cope with their father in his final days, although he had managed to honour the bonds of filial loyalty with just the one visit. Caroline had been wracked with guilt; he’d cursed the bacteria and called up the care home: the son, hardly prodigal, was due a return.

“Anyway. It’s with me here, now.” He gave the box a kick with his toe, surprised at the leap of pain as he made contact. What did he keep in his room? Bricks and concrete blocks? Hard things- unsurprising. “So, can you come over and take it?”

Caroline sighed slowly, incomprehension almost audible, like he’d asked her to run a marathon while breastfeeding and changing a nappy. 

“Well, I’ve just got her off. I might have half an hour max before the next feed.”

“Fine. Great. See you shortly.” 

He tapped the end-call button and flung the phone on top of the pastel blue envelope. In the silence, his toe throbbed and the square of blue pulsated, half out of view; suddenly, he realised that he hadn’t even said goodbye.  

With a sigh to rival his sister’s he stooped, lifting up the box’s top. The two flaps called to mind a scarecrow’s arms, half heartedly trying to scare. Somehow, the sight made him laugh and he felt his apprehension not take flight but peck, feigning disinterest, at what was cast his way. 

He wished for a stiff drink to steady his hands, but he’d promised Caroline he’d go easy on the liquor after he’d woken up after London Fashion Week with headlines on his new collection and a self-inflicted black eye, inked in even more attention- grabbing colours than his latest gowns. Yes, the hacks had had a field day: dresses with their trademark palette of blacks, purples and blues; and here was Schwarz, with his shiner. That was the story one tabloid had run on their front page; they’d photographed him prone on the pavement, moments before Caroline had scraped him off the floor, pulling him into his flat. Good old Caroline. It had been the day after the doomsday visit to the care home, and she’d tucked him into bed without even a word of reproof even though she was reeling from the drugs and probably felt, only days after giving birth, that she was the one deserving of a lie down. 

He returned his attention to the innocent looking box. Focusing his eyes on the cardboard’s print (Bandages and gauze- in other circumstances inspiration for a new collection perhaps) his hands blindly grasped the squishy items: a black cat; a dog, perhaps to chase it; and a hamster, which made him jump when it squeaked. Toys. Hard to believe his father had wanted them given he’d thrown all of Simon’s cuddly comforters into refuse bags and taken them to the charity shop before his son had barely started school. Perhaps they were gifts from Caroline; it was hard to think of another explanation.

Delving deeper into the box, his fingers grabbed a solid item with the weight and dimension of a book. Lifting it out, the lurid ‘70s colours of the cover grabbed his eye, so it was a moment until he realised what the item was: a photo album; even worse- a family one. Embossed on the front were the family names: Lorna, Adrian, Caroline and Simon Schwarz. He’d never seen this album before; if asked if such a thing existed, he would have said highly unlikely, given his father had burnt or thrown most things when their mother had died over a decade ago. But, here was a family album, heavy in his hands. 

Opening it the cover creaked like an arthritic joint, and Simon gasped in pain. Staring from the first page was the ghost of his mother’s face, a phantom caught in the brown pixels, solidifying in the small image- losing wrinkles and liver spots- now smooth and unblemished, but with the same wide smile he remembered. Behind her, with a supportive hand on her shoulder, his father; the tight line of the mouth softened - by what? Just youth, or could it be a touch of pride as his wife’s belly bulged with their baby: the long-awaited boy. 

Hardly breathing, he turned the page. A baby in a christening robe, white folds of fabric trailing nearly to the floor. The gown piqued his interest with its elaborate lacework and the matching bonnet excited him to such a degree he nearly reached for his ever-ready sketchbook, until his eyes focused on what was actually important: his face, small features mirroring the larger ones looming in disbelief from above the page. 

At that moment, Caroline burst in like a peal of thunder. Ever since she had become a mother a few weeks ago, she had been toting around infant carriers, change bags and other baby paraphernalia, cacophony rumbling in her wake. 

“Don’t get up,” she instructed him, throwing down an overflowing bag which promptly spilled a milk bottle, rattle, muslin square, packet of baby wipes and her telephone onto the floor. 

“I’ve left Lucy asleep while Max does home office; I’ve probably got twenty minutes before she’s due her next feed.” She gave him a playful push to move along when she saw him surveying all her mess. “It was easier just to bring it all with me than find a bag for just my wallet and phone.” 

She pointed to the cardboard carton, “so, this is Pandora’s Box,” before flopping down onto the sofa next to him. “Man, is it good just to sit!”

“Father or mother’s hand?” He asked, shifting the album so it rested on both their laps, pointing to the writing he found hard to decipher. 

“Dad’s of course,” she said, only glancing at the album, no discernible waves of surprise or panic washing over her. “Oh, I could just shut my eyes for forty winks; you fancy going through all of it without me?” She yawned the yawn of major sleep deprivation. 

“Well I can, but aren’t you even the tiniest bit interested in this?” He jabbed his finger at the photo of his baby self, nearly lost in the trimmings of ornate Victoriana.

“Not really,” she managed through a second yawn, “I think I know most of them off by heart; Dad’s favourite pastime was showing them to me at every visit.”

Simon swallowed, he felt like he was choking on incredulity. He might have only visited once, but no album had been produced for him.

“Right. So this would be my first birthday?” 

He pointed to the photo on the next page; a diminutive Simon in little shorts, bouncing curls already at his shoulders, reaching up to grasp soap bubbles as a miniature Caroline- still a head taller than him- stood before a banner proclaiming “Happy Birthday,” blowing the ghostly orbs from a small dish.

“You always loved bubbles,” she murmured through shut eyes, “shame you didn’t stick to soap ones, you’d save your PR a fortune at all your snazzy events.”

He ignored the jibe and turned the page, his heart jolting when he saw the photo. It was his second birthday; he didn’t need any inscription or commentary from Caroline to tell him that. All the fun and joy of the last image was gone; now he was sitting rigidly before a birthday cake, shaped like a football. With puffy eyes, his face was framed by a severe haircut: short back and sides. He didn’t remember the moments caught by the camera, or the time after. Perhaps they had eaten the cake, his mother’s mouth softening from the hard line preserved in the photo; perhaps his father’s smirk of triumph had slinked into the corner, where it belonged.

No, those memories were lost to time; what remained, his first memory in fact, was the preceding hour. His mum’s cries: there was no need to shear the child. His father’s determined tone: no son of his was going out to play with the long curls of a girl upon his head. The clash of blades as he took the kitchen scissors out of the knife drawer; the ripping of newspaper, placed upon the floor with the instruction to stand upon it, and the swish swish of his hair falling from about his face, little lost waves. How light he had felt afterwards, like a soap bubble about to rise up, only inside he had popped already. 

“Take the clippings and put them in the bin.” His father had instructed him, before tossing the scissors into the drawer and departing, job done. 

Next to him, Caroline snored quietly, then enthusiastically, oblivious to the tumult taking place right next to her. Swiftly he turned the page and saw the years had leapfrogged forward. A picture of him with his mother, a pattern for her dress on the floor. He had sewing tape draped over his shoulders, a looping necklace, and pins in his mouth; the very same scissors in his hand, wielded by his father just pages before. He still remembered how patiently he had cut along the dashed lines under his mother’s supervision; the muttered exclamations when his father had returned from work: how curly locks should mend the socks. The sarcasm had sliced through the air, swift and sure as the blades in his hands. 

He flipped the pages more quickly, desperate to end the battery. There was his sister, perhaps 17, modelling his GCSE art project, the first haute couture dress he’d made. He’d run it up on his mother’s sewing machine, tacked it with her pins and finished it with her buttons. In the photo’s background, his mother was a blur, tidying away the scraps of fabric; his father was nowhere to be seen. 

The last photo showed a jump in time: two years later, an image of the project that had won him his place at Fashion School; Caroline once more- a Uni. student now- modelling the newspaper dress he had pasted together, face unreadable, unlike the headlines splashed across her body. He remembered the day after the shutter had clicked; it was the day he’d left home, packing boxes much like the one at his feet, never to return again. Mum had come to visit him at his digs; later, even when she was sick, she’d come to his flat. On the opening shows, she’d accompany Caroline, both clapping enthusiastically in the front row, ignoring the glitterati’s sneers of disdain. 

If this was his life’s story, it seemed a mighty sorry one, compared to the glamorous public narrative: the successful designer, snapped with scissors in hand, standing before his collections of evening gowns. No, this woeful tale was best tipped back into the box’s darkness, he thought, preparing to do just that. Only as he raised the album, yellowed papers rained to the floor; clippings that had never been affixed, rather furtively tucked inside the back cover. Staring up at him from the carpet, his notable firsts, marked as such in his father’s hand, black felt tip pen announcing the content of each article: Simon’s first London runway show; Simon’s Chanel interview, Simon’s first double page spread, Vogue. The world he thought he knew lurched suddenly sideways and he dropped to his hands and knees.

When the phone exploded to life on the coffee table, he felt like it was his shuddering heart that had caused it. Gasping, he knocked his sketchbooks to the floor, scrambling to answer it. Max, his sister’s husband, was calling to let them know Lucy was awake; he’d tried on Caroline's phone but there’d been no answer. Simon looked at it vibrating- a missed call- on the floor. Had it been ringing all this time? But Max was fine, happy to look after the baby; he had already fixed a bottle and Caroline could take her time.

He put down the phone and picked up the forgotten blue envelope, just as Caroline stirred.

“Boy was that good; your catwalks are fun but give me a catnap any day!”

Slowly he heaved himself onto the sofa, gesturing to the photo album next to him. 

“Is it ok if I keep it a bit longer?”

“Sure. Shall I take these toys for Lucy? Or might they feature in your next collection: upcycled designer handbags perhaps?”

It was a lighthearted tease, but there was something in her brother’s face, the numb set of his normally elastic mouth, that made her toss the toys in the box and rub his arm. 

“Hey, you’ve found the envelope. I remember seeing it at Sunny Days, propped on Dad’s bedside table; once I even found him asleep, still holding on tight. I think that’s why he folded it so small: to fit into his hand.”

“Is it meant for me, do you think?”

“Yes,” she said gently, looping her arm about him. “I asked him once for the recipient’s name; did he want me to address it, deliver it even? But he said no. He’d forgotten so much by then,” she looked sadly at the little envelope, “somedays he didn’t even recognise me, but that day he knew what he wanted to say: that it was for you, his son Simon, and that when the time came, you’d know.” 

Slowly he peeled open the envelope, the old glue giving easily. Inside were not the last words either of them had been expecting, but the message was still clear. There was a curl, soft like a newborn chick’s fluff, luminescent in his palm. Also a photo, faded from exposure to light, as if it had been pored over many times. An image of a man kissing the forehead of his babe in arms. On the back, in his father’s solid hand: Simon, aged one week. In spidery letters, which looked like they wanted to scuttle away in fear, but remained, nevertheless. Me, aged 41.

This photo had never made it into the official history of the family album but his father had treasured it his entire life; a secret he could only impart from the silence of the grave. Holding the photograph in one hand and the wisp of his hair in the other, Simon received the message he had been wanting his whole life: there had been love, just hidden: a silent hoard. 

He gathered up the clippings: the curl of his hair, newspaper articles and the loose photo, sweeping them to his chest; he’d spent all his adult life telling a story in the weft and weave of fabric; here was the start of a whole new collection. 

Caroline put her arm around him, drawing him in.

“You always were his beloved curly locks; he just never knew how to tell you.”

He rested his head on Caroline’s shoulders, “at least now I finally know.”