The Green Crocodile

The flight out gave Jason the chance to try to navigate his way through a mesh of memories and guilt. There were moments of quiet meditation at 37,000 feet but not many, with the family row three rows back and the inevitable grizzling child. Easyjet did not always make it easy. He would like to have looked out over the rippled white tops of clouds layered out beneath, placid and peaceful but as he had an aisle seat he had to do his contemplations with the constant passage of passengers shuffling to the toilet and the stewards passing through collecting rubbish.

He wistfully recalled his first flight as a child, the surprise and excitement when he realised that the plane angled steeply up on take-off forcing him breathless back into his seat. That was the first of many flights with the family, Mum, Dad, his sister Annie to the Costa Calida. He felt that he should have enjoyed it more but after the fifth or sixth time to the same resort he had become an irritated and bored teenager distancing himself on the beach from his family. He always had been an ungrateful child, he knew that, he did not need Annie to tell him though she did, often and forcefully. He remembered turbulent flights, early morning take-offs and late night landings. They all melded into one. Hot days in the shade, Mum going topless to his acute embarrassment, Dad with his eternal cold beer. Then there was that flight, somewhere over France when his Dad announced that he was going to live in Spain. They had all laughed, and Mum had said don’t be silly, Ray, Spain’s for holidays. But his Dad remained stern in the face of their hilarity. I am, he insisted, maybe not now but one day, you’ll see. And see they did. Just five years ago, two after his wife, Jason’s Mum passed painfully away he took them all out for a meal at Wetherspoons, and said, I’ve bought an apartment in Spain.

An apartment in Spain, a one bedroom first floor place with views of other apartments. Five years. Five years, and Jason had never been out to visit him. It’s not as though he did not respect him, he thought that he may have even loved his Dad, some of the signs had been there, and Annie told him so. It was just that the apartment in Spain was a delusion, a flight of fancy his Dad had in his ageing days. Of course Jason knew that it was real but he did not want to acknowledge it’s existence or more particularly his Dad’s flawed judgement. It represented separation, more than a teenager sulking on the beach but a genuine break-up of the family such as it was. Why, he mused couldn’t he have bought a bungalow in Prestatyn not a flat a thousand miles away. Perhaps, he thought his Dad just wanted to be as far away from him as he could. His thoughts flipped back, his Dad had never been a distant Dad. As soon as Jason had fought his way out of the amniotic sack his Dad was there to hold him, gingerly if not tenderly. It was later that he began to shrink. He knew that the family lived in an unexamined world accepting things as they were, blithe and blinded until his departure. And now he really was as distant Dad, and not even a Dad in the respect of one he could talk to.

They had talked, of course they had; sporadic phone chats, occasional video calls with his Dad sat in the shade of an umbrella on his patio, red wine in hand grinning at them, no thought Jason, more like gurning, an inane vacant expression on his red stained lips. There was even a WhatsApp group with rare postings. They had talked, stiffly not wanting to give anything away. Now that was a thing of the past.

As the plane banked over as it came into land Jason could see beyond the two other passengers down to the alien landscape, parched, stained and fawn, and he wondered again why his Dad had deserted him five years before for this chosen land. It did not seem right, not proper to decamp to a foreign country. It’s not where he belonged.

Jason was unnerved driving on the right hand side of the road. He had never done it before. The hire car was like his own at home except that he kept fumbling with his left hand to change gear only to stub his knuckles on the car door before hurriedly changing to his right hand. Nothing seemed quite normal, everything out of kilter. The motorway stretched out forever, and with all the signs in kilometres it made the distances seem impossible. Overtaking slow moving lorries had him stiff with panic especially when fast moving Seats came up behind intimidating him pushing him on before rushing by into the heat haze. After an hour it was with the utmost relief that he was able to take the slip road, and onto a smaller road that carved a way between orange groves and olive trees with dust eddying from the desiccated edges. Eventually he came into Jalado, the village name caused him to withdraw back into the phone call less than a week ago, a heavily accented voice struggling to articulate the news, this is Jalado policia, is that Mr Jason Paterson. Jason barely recognised his own name it was so mangled. He had acknowledged that it was. The voice on the other end was not only finding it difficult to articulate himself into English but also trying to add a note of sympathy. It is your father, he is dead. Dead? What does he mean dead? Dead and buried, sorry. Is this some sort of joke?

But it wasn’t. After half a morning deciding how to tell her he went to see Annie. She started to cry, and so did he though a filial embrace was out of the question as they had never been taught how to parade whatever affection they may have had for each other even in the bereaved seclusion of their own homes. The stupid bastard, she mumbled. They buried him before they found my telephone number. Annie was adamant, I can’t go out there I’ve got the kids. So Jason booked the cheapest flights, and before long he was pulling into the squat array of apartments that had passed for his Dad’s home.

He could not work out the numbers on the gate, was 32a upstairs and 32b downstairs or the other way around? So he passed through onto a patio, and tapped on the doors. A woman in a garish green leafed patterned dress appeared, and pulled the patio doors open barely an inch. Hola, he said, I’m looking for Ray Paterson. She immediately looked startled, oh, he’s…Yes, yes, Jason interrupted to save her from having to find the right expression. I know, I’m his son. She first appeared relieved then a little anxious, I’m sorry. Yes, thank you. She still did not open the big glass sliding door, and was looking increasingly uncomfortable and red in the face. Do you know what happened? Then Jason realised his question was too direct, too brusque. Even though she shook her head he heard her mutter through the gap, crashed, he’d been…It was obvious that he was not a welcome visitor, she was not hostile just politely eager for their conversation to end. Upstairs? He asked tersely whilst dangling a spare set of apartment keys in front of her as if to justify his presence. She nodded and stepped backwards into the depths of her living room.

He had to push hard to open the apartment door, almost a shoulder charge, and he wondered how his Dad had managed as he never was a robust sort of man, bird-boned even the last time he saw him face to face five years ago. The first thing that struck Jason was the darkness and the foetid smell emanating from the living room into the passageway. He fumbled his way to a window, felt around until he found a cord, and rolled up the window blind. He stared in mute dismay then in displeasure at the room, almost entirely empty of furniture save for a single deckchair and a large TV screen. He crossed through to the kitchen, a tiny space littered with the detritus of simple living, and he wondered what had been enacted in this barren wasteland of failed domesticity. There was nothing here that said prosperous retirement in the sun just squalid echoes of scraping-by. He wondered if he should have come out to Spain to rescue his Dad, the sort of rescue that screamed of his own redemption. But had his Dad wanted to be rescued? He had never indicated that he was a modern day Crusoe, quite the reverse.

There may have been a lack of furniture but what was in evidence was a mass of empty drinks containers scattered on every surface and in every corner. He bent to pick one up, a square plastic five litre container the label said vino tinto and the price sticker 6 Euros. It frightened Jason, so little for so much. And they were everywhere like a scree slope of transparency. Carefully he stepped through to the bedroom. On the bedside table was a framed photograph of all the family, Dad, Mum, Annie and himself sat on a beach years ago with sun burnt faces that could not read the future. Across the bed was a large green inflatable crocodile. Jason recognised it immediately.

Hardly two weeks ago their Dad had surprised them by sending on the What’s App group a photograph of him in the apartment block swimming pool. He is hanging on to a smile in the azure blue water, his thin arms draped over an inflatable two metre long green crocodile. And here it was lying undisturbed on his Dad’s bed as though it had taken up ownership, its cheesy flash-toothed grin pumped up with air. Then Jason realised that it was not pumped up with air but with breath. His Dad’s breath. It was amongst the last breaths he had ever taken, and there it was preserved in that expanded polythene monstrosity staring up at him.

Distracted he looked around at the mouldering tee shirts in the wardrobe, the rusty razor in the bathroom. He could see nothing of worth to take back home as a memento of his Dad or his wasted life in Spain. Except perhaps the bedside photograph, a slight tangible suggestion of what may have been contained in his Dad’s thoughts. But there were hundreds of similar photos in boxes in his own attic, stuffed envelopes of high days and holidays which never saw the light of day. But there was the green crocodile full to the brim with the living breath of his Dad. He could not take the green crocodile on the plane, he was sure that Easyjet would have an embargo on such items. But if he let it down, deflated it to put it in his luggage the whole point would be lost. It was the oxygen from his Dad’s lungs, the vapour that had kept him alive that now filled the creature not the creature itself that had taken on a position of such importance in his mind.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, the green crocodile tipped over beside him Jason wondered if he could decant his Dad’s breath, somehow squeeze it from the inflatable into an empty bottle, though not one of the huge empty wine flagons. He could carry it on the plane so his Dad’s breath would be at home where Jason believed that he belonged. His inchoate plan stalled when he thought how would he know that the breath had transferred and not dissipated mid flow? Would he see it like wisps of smoke passing between them? Then, abandoning that idea as impractical he wondered if he alone could breath in his Dad’s last breath? Breath it in like party-goers sucking in helium to out Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse. What, he thought would it be like? Would it smell of cheap red wine, would he taste the sourness of his Dad? It struck him that this way he would not be sharing it with Annie but he consoled himself that they rarely shared things anyway, there had always been a selfish emotional dislocation between them. She would never know. But isn’t it all a bit creepy, he thought, inhaling his Dad’s last intangible remains? Catholics do it all the time, eating the flesh of Christ in a fervour of cannibalism merely for a speculative love. However he recognised that was only symbolism, this was the real thing. Yet it started to seem to him to be a little distasteful, an unpleasant appeasement of his conscience, a tacky temporary memorialising. He could not bring himself to do it, and he turned away.

In the end Jason had just three days to wallow-out his indecision. Three days in which he refused to return to his Dad’s slum. He stayed in his hastily booked hotel room listening to the air con’s wheezing, his mind in fluxion. Occasionally he made a foray along the resort’s promenade mesmerised by the endless heaving of the sea. It was the last day. He had a late afternoon flight, and with a long anxious drive back to the airport it was early when he let himself into his Dad’s apartment for the final time. Annie had messaged him even earlier, how’s it going? And he had simply replied, OK, because he could not fathom out what to say to her, where would he start?

He went straight to the bedroom. The green crocodile stared at him from the bed with bleary plastic eyes, and a haunting grimace on his elongated snout. He thought, on balance, yes on balance he would have to act. So in the kitchen he rummaged through the cutlery draw until he found the knife with the sharpest point, carried it through cringing distastefully at the dried shreds of old food clinging to the blade. He poised over the green crocodile like an Aztec priest about to perform a sacrifice then plunged the knife into the taut back of the beast.

Jason was a little disappointed at the anti-climactic result. The green crocodile did not explode nor whizz around the room like a released balloon. It merely sighed, and impercebably started to deflate. It would take a long time, not five years perhaps but long enough. He knew that he could not wait, and that his Dad’s breath would slowly leak out in its own time, and start to infuse the room as the crocodile sagged flaccidly until it lay an unrecognisable limp green mass on the bed. He sniffed the air. There was nothing there save the lingering stink of a stale room, nothing to taste, nothing to remind him of his Dad and his diasporate existence. There was nothing there. Nothing. Perhaps there never had been.