Lori & Joe E-Book

Amy Arnold

• Herausgeber: Prototype Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 234

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Lori and Joe have lived in the Lake District for many years, in a quiet valley where one day is much like another. Bringing Joe his regular cup of coffee one morning, Lori finds him dead. She could call an ambulance, but what difference would it make? Instead, she heads out for a walk over the fells. As she makes her way through the November fog, Lori's thoughts slip between past and present, revealing a marriage marked by isolation, childlessness and a terrible secret she's never disclosed. Arnold's musical prose merges form and content to express what cannot be communicated through language alone. Taking place over the course of a single day, yet revealing the secrets of a marriage of many decades, Lori & Joe is a sparse, intimate and deeply moving story of entrapment and isolation, and of a life in which desire is continually overcome by inertia: nothing changes and nothing is ever (re)solved.

Leseprobe

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Amy Arnold lives in Cumbria. She has degrees in Music and Psychology, and studied postgraduate Neuropsychology at Birmingham University. She’s worked as a university lecturer, teacher and swede packer. Her debut novel, Slip of a Fish, won the 2018 Northern Book Prize and was shortlisted for the 2019 Goldsmiths Prize.

Lori & Joe

Amy Arnold

For Jocelyn and Amber

Lori & Joe

To be in the fog is to be in a state of suspension. What’s true is then not true: the mind’s liberation.

Etel Adnan, Sea and Fog

The kitchen, somewhere in South Lakeland, late November 1999

IT’S EARLY, IT ISN’T QUITE LIGHT, AND THE FOG IS DOWN OVER THE FELL

Still down, Lori thinks, and she rubs at her eye again, and well, she hasn’t exactly given it much of a chance to clear, no, she shouldn’t go expecting miracles with the eye when she’s only just got herself out of bed, and Lori stands there at the kitchen window and looks out over the valley. The third day of fog, she thinks, or the fourth. She’d be hard pushed to remember fog settling like this, sitting over the fell, for days on end, and if anyone’s going to remember anything about fog on the fell it’s her, and well, it doesn’t pay to go thinking about the number of hours she’s spent looking out of this window. They add up, she thinks, if you do the same thing morning after morning for years on end it’s bound to add up, and Lori looks out over the valley at the fog and she thinks, if anything it’s creeping down. Moor Head to the quarry overnight, she thinks, and she turns and looks at the coffee sitting there on the side. She can leave the coffee for a while, yes, she’s only just started on the coffee, and she puts her hand up to rub her eye. Grit, she thinks, whether Joseph can see it or not, yes, it’s there when she blinks.

Imagine having to brace yourself every time, she said, and he had her stand out on the porch. He pulled her lower eyelid down with his thick fingers.

No grit in there, love.

And Lori looks out across the valley at the fell, and well, doesn’t she always think that darkness uncovers the fell, or at least the shape of the fell, yes, the fog is the one that takes, the fog moves in without fear or favour, she thinks, and she’ll let the coffee brew, she’ll let it sit and it’s both eyes really, and Lori puts her hand over the left eye, then the right eye, and she thinks, the right one’s almost as bad, and well, yes, she knew that, she knows that. Forget the eyes, she thinks, the eyes will clear by lunchtime, although she has to say that the whole business has made her take a bit more care up there in the bedroom first thing, yes, it’s only a matter of time before the carpet catches her out, all its little rucks and wrinkles. Landmines, she thinks, and well, she should be done with things like that at her age, she should be stepping down onto something soft and fluffy now she can see the big six-o up ahead, although she isn’t there yet, no, she isn’t all that far north of fifty, and the coffee can sit. Leave it, she thinks, and aren’t they always saying take the carpet up, get rid of the carpet once and for all, when they haven’t so much as pulled up a corner on the east-facing wall where the damp comes in. And Lori looks out over the valley, and she thinks, fog or mist? clag? and no, there won’t be any point in starting on the carpet until spring comes around. Let it dry out, she thinks, because she’s hardly mistaken when she says there are a hundred things to do before getting around to the carpet, and well, she can start with the coffee, yes, pour the coffee out and take it up now. Too much time at the window, she thinks, and she puts the back of her hand up to rub the eye. Just the left one, she thinks, leave it at that, and it still isn’t quite light. The light will be a while coming on, she thinks, if they’re almost in December, yes, another year gone in the blink of an eye, and will she stop with the eyes? yes, that’s enough talk about eyes already, and Lori turns and sees the coffee there on the side, and well, she knows she’s gone and left it too long again.

Joseph will bang through. Any minute now he’ll reach for his stick, and she thinks, hold on, yes, wait for it, and she stands at the kitchen window looking up at the ceiling and she thinks, what are you doing now Lori Fitzgerald? get on up there with the coffee, go on up and say your piece.

At least it’s been well-brewed, yes, that’s what she says, she says more or less the same thing every morning. You have to say something, she thinks, and she puts the back of her hand up to her eye, and the stick’s only a joke. She knows that, yes, she knows about the stick, but she can’t help anticipating. And Lori stands in the kitchen and looks up at the ceiling. Hold on, she thinks, wait for it.

And she’ll put the heating on before she goes up with the coffee, yes, they can afford to have the heating going for an hour on a November morning, and she looks up at the ceiling and she looks out over the valley at the fell and she thinks it’s about time she paid the fell a visit, if winter’s almost on them, if she’s starting to think about having the heating on again, and Lori looks over at the laurel and she looks over at the fog there on the side of the fell and she thinks, not even a breeze. Good enough, she thinks, and she knows that she’ll be waiting right past Christmas and into the New Year if she’s waiting for a perfect day for walking, and even then, she thinks, yes, even then, and the last thing she wants to do today is hang around here at home whilst the boys talk bike. Although they’re hardly boys, she thinks, you couldn’t make up a full head of hair between them. And Lori turns and sees the bike leaning up against the kitchen table and she thinks, well, help yourself Joe, yes, go ahead, because everything’s the bike with him these days, isn’t it? it’s been nothing but the bike since the day he retired and now the house is filling up with magazines, with components, it’s almost getting too much, and well, a few magazines is one thing, Lori thinks, yes, you can stack a few magazines and put them in a corner somewhere, but two rear cassettes in the outside loo, no, no, she can’t produce a thing in there with those cogs, those teeth, gleaming right at her, and she’d drop the whole matter if it ended there. She isn’t so small-minded that she can’t see her way past a few components and magazines, but there’s the bike itself, the Chambéry, the LeMond Chambéry. Like a king, she thinks, yes, it’s the kind of name you have to announce. Which seems unfair, she thinks, when the cat doesn’t have a name, when the cat still trots around the place as nameless as the day she arrived, and Lori turns and looks at the bike leaning up against the kitchen table and she looks at the clock there on the wall and she thinks, still early, too early for banging through, although she can’t help anticipating. He’s drilled it into her, she thinks, and she pours out the coffee, yes, go ahead with the coffee now, and of course, Lori thinks, Joseph is expecting the boys tomorrow, yes, Saturday for the boys, not today, and she turns and looks back over at the fog and she thinks she’ll go out for a walk anyway, she’ll have a morning on the fells, and she thinks, what’s Chambéry anyway? what is that? and well, whatever it is it’ll have to go. The kitchen’s small enough, yes, aren’t they always saying, aren’t we always? she thinks, and she promised herself last night that she’d deal with it this morning. You can’t go bringing up important matters before bed, Lori thinks. Nobody wants to sleep on an open wound. And she’s seen the way he touches it, she’s seen him run his hand along the top tube when they’re eating, yes, a fork in one hand, his other hand on the top tube. It’s almost a caress, she thinks. It’s almost loving. And he can wheel it out to the shed after they’ve had coffee because it’s nothing but talk with the boys anyway. Cadence and power, drafting and slipstreams. The Chambéry itself never moves, no, he’s had it up against the table since summer and well, at least she hasn’t had to wash his Lycras for months. That’s been more than a small blessing, she thinks, and she’ll go on up with the coffee now and later this morning she’ll walk up onto the fell, and Lori looks over at the laurel and she looks over at the fog on the fell and she feels a flutter of excitement. It lifts her up and sets her down. And she thinks, get your stick Joe, pick up your stick and bang through then.

LORI’S WALKING UPSTAIRS CARRYING TWO MUGS OF COFFEE

Coffee, she says. And she promised herself last night she’d say something to Joe about the bike. Yes, get the Chambéry out of the kitchen once and for all, she thinks, and she goes on up a few steps and she thinks, not Chambéry, no, not with the r sitting there in the front of the mouth.

Like this, love. As if you’re about to gargle, she thinks, and well, she’s never been any good at gargling either. That’s another thing she can’t do, she thinks, and when it comes to doing anything like that, when it comes to any sort of performance, she means, she hasn’t got a cat in hell’s chance of getting it right and she thinks, forget it, forget Chambéry, yes, she’ll say LeMond, she can bluff the d if she needs to, yes, easier to bluff the d than risk Chambéry, and Lori walks on up the stairs.

Coffee, she says, and she’ll give the eye a good rub when she’s put the coffee down. Hold on with the eye for now, she thinks, and after they’ve had coffee she’ll go walking up on the fell, and it must be the third morning they’ve woken to fog, if not the fourth, she thinks, yes, she’d struggle to remember another time like it, and Lori walks on up the stairs with the coffee and she imagines herself walking down the bridleway to the church, she imagines herself crossing the little bridge over the beck, and here she is again, here she is on the stairs with two mugs of coffee. One for Joseph and one for her, and she pushes open the bedroom door with her foot.

Coffee, she says, and she thinks, put the coffee down then rub the eyes. Both of them, because there isn’t any use in pretending it’s only the left, and it’s still so early. It still isn’t quite light and Lori stands inside the bedroom door and looks across the room and out into the valley and well, look at that, she thinks, the tups are out with the ewes at last, and she’ll put the coffee down and rub her eyes, God, yes, that’s one thing that really can’t wait, she thinks, and Lori says, coffee, and she looks over at the bed and she thinks, something isn’t right over there, no, something isn’t quite as it usually is, and she stands inside the bedroom door with the two mugs of coffee and she thinks, look again, yes, look more carefully, and she takes a little step towards the bed.

Joseph’s dead, she thinks. And she thinks, what are you doing Joe? what are you doing with your face all contorted like that? and she thinks, no, wait, it isn’t the face, why does she think it’s the face when really the face is almost normal? yes, if the face is anything it’s only pale, although she’s seen it paler and she thinks, eyes then, always the eyes, yes, she would have guessed on the eyes without looking even, and she thinks, put the coffee down, God, yes, unburden yourself of the coffee at least, and Lori puts one of the mugs down on her bedside table. She walks around the bed and she puts the other mug down and she thinks, let it go there, where it always goes, and she takes a couple of steps over towards the window.

The carpet, she thinks, the bloody carpet’s a liability, and she rubs her eyes and she sees that, yes, the tups are out on the in-bye with the ewes at last. Lambing will come late then, she thinks. No lambs until the end of April at least, yes, they’ll be waiting a while for lambs, she thinks, and she knows it’s stupid, standing there at the bedroom window looking out across the valley thinking about what to say next, and she knows that whatever she says will be as if it was never said, but still she turns to the bed.

Joe, she says, the fog has settled on the fell.

IT’S ONLY JUST LIGHT

Lori pulls the garden gate behind her until she hears the latch. It really must be early still, she thinks, and she looks down the lane. She looks right, then left, and there isn’t anyone. Get going then, she thinks, and she starts on down the bridleway, one foot in front of the other, and she thinks, simple, yes, with feet it’s almost always simple, and Lori walks on down and she looks across the valley and up at the fog on the fell, then she looks into the white sky and she thinks, a good morning for the time of year, a fine morning even, what with the tups out on the in-bye with the ewes at last, and she walks on down the bridleway into the valley and she hears the water running between the stones at her feet and she thinks, it’s so early, nothing’s begun, and she pulls up the zip on her jacket although it isn’t exactly cold, no, she can see by the colour of the place that they haven’t broken in to winter yet, and Lori thinks of all the rain they’ve been having these last months. After a while it runs right through, she thinks, and she looks over at the fell, at the bracken and stone and grass, and she looks at the thick moss on the stone walls either side of her and she thinks, something has to thrive. Let it, she thinks, because things will come right by spring. And Lori rubs at the eye although the eye’s almost cleared and it’s really only the right one that causes her trouble, and hardly any, Lori thinks, and she makes her way down into the valley. It’s a good morning, she thinks. We aren’t anywhere close to freezing yet, and she looks up at the heavy sky and well, no, she wouldn’t say heavy, but the sky has come down to meet the fell, and Lori looks from east to west because there’s almost always a fracture to be found.

And well, no, not today. White, from end to end. This is how it’ll be then, Lori thinks, this is how it’ll turn out, and thank God, because she wasn’t going to go putting the bucket out in the back room before she left the house. She’s sick of being the one who does the bucket, or at least remembers the bucket. Joseph has to be asked, she thinks, and if they just got the back roof sorted then there wouldn’t be all this friction between them every time it rains. Yes, get the back roof done, Lori thinks, all it needs is a sheet of polycarbonate, that’s what she’s been told, it’s an afternoon’s work, a day at the most, yes, she could ignore the problem with the main roof if they got someone in to do the back one. Joseph knows people, she thinks. She’s been saying the same things for years, she sends herself round and round in circles and the rain will hold off today, for a few hours at least. She won’t be out long. Up the fell and back down, that’s all she’ll do today, and if a few drops of rain get in it’s hardly a big deal, no, the bucket only needs to be out when the rain’s really hammering and well, she can see it isn’t going to end up like that today, no, it’s far from a bad day for the time of year, Lori thinks.

And that’s four dead bodies she’s seen now. The number goes on rising, and well, it will, she thinks, there’s only one direction of travel where that’s concerned, and everything was the same this morning. She looked across the room and out into the valley.

Coffee, she said. She always says the same thing. Twice on the stairs she says it, twice in the bedroom and of course it’s coffee, it’s always coffee, and she has to admit she’s been expecting this, yes, it was anything but a surprise to see Joe laid out on the bed with his eyes pinned to the ceiling, and she thinks, not the ceiling, no, his eyes pinned to the woodchip wallpaper, which is sad, she thinks, and the woodchip is hardly her fault, no, she warned him enough times. Don’t start with the woodchip, Joe.

It’ll cover all the imperfections, love, it’ll –

And they call each other love, although it doesn’t always get through, no, the longer you know each other the harder it is to penetrate, and well, you start in one place and finish in another. My Lo, my love, yes, it’s easy to see how things mutate, and Joe, my Joe, laid out on the bed first thing, she thinks. She’s been expecting it, rehearsing it even, yes, every morning she pushes the bedroom door with her breath half held. She treads cautiously, which is nothing to do with the carpet because the carpet’s just fine over there by the door.

Coffee, she says. She almost sings it, and she thinks, not sings, Joe’s the one who sings. There isn’t room for another singer about the place.

Coffee. Coffee, she says, and the valley and the fell just sit there. They haven’t moved as much as an inch in all this time, in twenty-five years, Lori thinks, and it’s always the eyes. It’s unnatural to fixate. Although how can she go around saying that when she’s only seen four dead bodies, and out of those only two pairs of eyes? or does she mean sets of eyes? no, pairs, she thinks, and she isn’t going to go including the old woman at the bus station in this, no, forget about her, Lori thinks, and eyes or no eyes it was her mother who went first, which was probably the right order of things, yes, nothing wrong in that, Lori thinks, and on the evening of the day her father died she’d said to Joe, do you know where he’s gone? she was looking out of the kitchen window, the sun had just about left the valley, and well, she can’t blame him for pouring himself another glass of wine and holding the bottle out.

Drink, love?

She’d shaken her head. She’d had him pinned, she’ll admit that now. Do you know where he’s gone? do you know where they go? That’s what she’d said, and she’d thought, stammer your way out of that one, and she’d looked out of the window and left him to tie himself up with his Ds and his Ns and when he’d finally finished she turned around and held her hand out for the bottle. Always Ds and Ns, she thinks, but it hardly happens these days, does it, nobody would ever know, and leaving him with the woodchip was the right thing to do. The last thing she wants is to get mixed up in anything complicated. God, yes, she hasn’t got the stamina for messing, for meddling, she thinks, and all things considered four isn’t too many, four is probably the average number of bodies you see in a lifetime, and she won’t include the old woman at the bus station because every time she thinks back to that day she can’t be sure she saw her dead, no, it wouldn’t be strictly true to say she’s seen five. Four, yes, four dead bodies, plus the woman at the bus station.

And she’s already crossed the beck. If she turns and looks back, she’ll see their little house and the pike rising steeply up behind it, although she won’t look, no, she’ll head on up this bit of bridleway, cross the Garburn and go on up to the intake wall, she thinks, and hasn’t she always had a good pair of legs to carry her?

The legs will be the last to go, she’s sure enough of that and if there’s anything that’s weak, it’s the stomach. The stomach’s always causing trouble one way or the other and she’ll just get on up this bit of bridleway and cross the Garburn, or is it Dubbs? she thinks, because she doesn’t strictly know where Dubbs Road becomes Garburn Road, becomes Garburn Pass, Crabtree Brow, although more or less, yes, she more or less knows, and well, it takes a good, long time to absorb these things. It takes a hundred encounters, a thousand, Lori thinks, to pass blindly from unknowing to knowing, the way a child does, and well, yes, she’s sure that’s the way children do it because every time they had a new baby next door she thought it would never learn to stand on its own two feet, never say an older brother’s name. By the time a Felix, an Emile,cut through the babble it was as if it had always been there, perfectly formed, Lori thinks. And Thwaites and Howes and Folds come as easily as Streets and Crescents these days, more easily even. They’ve worked their way inside her like a slow-acting poison. Although, once an offcomer, Lori thinks. And they’ve lived here twenty-five years, they came up on a whim, and the first time they crossed their little yard Joe held her hand. They’d only been together one winter. One winter, and the whole of it spent in his room or her room, or down in his music room, and they crossed their little yard hand in hand. It was the first time she’d seen him in broad daylight. She’d thought his hair was black! And well, no, not black, not quite dark brown, which hardly matters now, and neither does the fact that he packed up his father’s car and drove the pair of them up the M6 with nothing but the vaguest idea of what they’d do when they arrived. That’s how it was, Lori thinks, although she doesn’t remember why, no, she doesn’t really, because it wasn’t as if there was anything much wrong with the way things were back home. We were happy. More or less, Lori thinks, and she pictures herself getting on the little train to Joe’s. She pictures her jeans, her jacket, that blue canvas bag she had. Through Cradley Heath, Lori thinks, through Old Hill, Rowley Regis, and she pictures the streets bending and folding. Like intestines, Lori thinks, and then, yes, the anticipation of seeing him. It was a mild winter, the kindest she can remember, and they’d liked the life well enough. He’d had his music room, his mother’s Bechstein, and Lori thinks, why did we, if we were happy enough? and no, she doesn’t really, she’s never really.

And Lori pictures the pair of them walking up the bridleway to their little house, and she sees that the rain is coming down as usual and that even though the bridleway is narrow, too narrow to walk side by side, they’re holding hands, yes, she sees herself hanging back a bit, half a step.

And isn’t it always raining, Joe says, isn’t it always chucking it down around here? he honestly can’t believe how much rain comes out of the sky above their little house. They certainly wouldn’t call this spring down south, no, it hardly qualifies as an April shower, he says. And as far as he can remember he’s never had more than a quick drenching in spring, a quick spit, as he likes to say, although he supposes that can’t be right, no, he’s sure it must rain like this back home but he can’t for the life of him picture it raining, and Lori says yes, the rain they get here is like no other rain, none she can remember, and Joe squeezes her hand and he says, my Lo, my love, and she says in any case they definitely notice the rain more, now they have to walk the mile to the bus stop, probably closer to two miles in fact, and if you’re carrying things all the way back up the hill, if you’ve got a bag of shopping or something, she says, and Joe says, yes, but you give up one thing and in its place, and he kisses her on the cheek and she feels that both the lips and the cheek need to be wet to get a feeling like that, and Lori says, kiss me again and he kisses her on the forehead, long and slow, and afterwards he takes a step back and he says, there are worse things than rain. Far worse. And Lori looks up the bridleway, she looks at their little house. Come on then, she says, and she takes his hand.

Lori and Joe, Joe and Lori. That’s how we are, she says.

Who, Lo. Who