My Brother has Come to Visit
NIALL MOORE
My brother has come to visit.
I see him through my bedroom window, a black speck in a white storm. He reminds me of an ant, zigging this way and that, irregularly and without rhythm. But I know he is only following the trail. I wonder how he managed to find it. Snow has fallen steadily all day, layering into a thick white coat on the hills. Perhaps, it is instinct. Or memory. He must remember.
I wish he hadn’t come.
*
My brother stands silently on the doorstep beneath the falling snow. He knows I have seen him. He will wait.
My brother is patient, but he didn’t use to be.
When I open the door, my brother is exactly how I remember him. Taller than me - but not by much - and wrapped up to his neck in a grey winter coat. He’s still wearing the same black beanie I remember, pulled snugly over his ears.
He walks by me without smiling.
My brother used to smile a lot, but not anymore.
I have lit the fire, three logs crackle inside the dusty fireplace. My brother sits down beside the warm hearth. He doesn’t take his coat off. It’s an expensive coat; the material looks warm and soft and probably it has many pockets on its inside lining. Not like mine. My coat has holes in the pockets, and the material is scratchy and irritates my skin.
It is obvious that his coat is better than mine. Is that why he won’t take it off?
I seat myself in the armchair opposite my brother. He has taken the nicer one. The one with the padding which still provides support and the colour which has not yet faded away.
I look at my brother and he looks through me. He doesn’t say anything and neither do I.
Does he remember?
*
My brother used to talk a lot when he visited. Back then, he would chat about anything with anyone, but his favourite topic to talk about was himself. He could talk for hours about his important work and his pretty girlfriends and all the big trips he was going to go on. And people always seemed to like to listen. Even the people down in the village liked to listen. They listened to him more than me, even though he rarely visited and I was there every week. My mother told me it’s because my brother had ‘charisma’, she said he’d had it ever since he was a little boy.
I remember how my brother used to look when he talked. His eyes would light up, and he’d smile wildly and throw his arms all over the place, like a great circus showman. And everyone else would gaze up at him, hanging onto every word. Everyone except me - I had heard it all before.
Sometimes though, when one of his tales was drawing to an end, my brother would glance down at me with faint bemusement, and he’d say, ‘But that’s enough about me, how have you been,’ and then, with a slight grin, he would add, ‘little brother?’ That’s what he called me. It was his little joke because he was born after me. He must have thought it was funny, the way no one listening would stop and question it – not even the villagers, who knew me.
Talking to crowds scared me. My brother knew that. He knew that I didn't have his charisma.
But everyone would be staring, waiting for what I would say. So I would shift uncomfortably in my seat and I would try to explain to them about the house – it was our parents originally, and I tried to keep it up to shape, but the costs... And they would all listen - politely at first – but then their attention would drift. They would check the clock more often than usual. Exchange glances. Go up for another drink. And then inevitably someone would turn to my brother, who would be chatting to the girl next to him, showing off his newest watch, and ask,
‘But what about the case? Did you settle it?’
And then the clamour would start again.
‘And Jessica did you get her number?’
‘Surely you got her number!’
‘Never mind Jessica – I want to hear about the case!’
‘Yeah, tell us more about that!’
And my brother would glance at me, for only a second, with a look I could never quite discern. Then in a flash the light would return to his eyes, and he’d sit up straight in his chair, and he would go on and on and on.
But that was a long time ago.
Now my brother sits in front of me, and we listen to the sound of silence. I study his face with disquiet. He looks weary, and I would pity him were it not for his eyes. Gone is the spark that I remember. What remains is black and unnerving.
Why has he come? What does he want from me? Why won’t he speak!
I leap to my feet, overcome by a sudden and frightening urge to wrest my brother from his chair and throw him out into the snow.
It is the eyes! It is the eyes which bother me! Why must he stare and stare, with those hateful, sullen eyes!
And then my anger abates as quickly as it had come, and I collapse into my chair, shaking.
Does he remember?
*
Night with its moon, and all its stars, has settled over my lonely hills and vacant woods.
I lie in my bed, teetering on the edge of sleep. Through my bedroom window I see my brother outside in the night, though he is not alone. A figure – shorter than my brother, but not by much - accompanies him. I watch intently, as together they wander into the dark enormity of the trees. They are so small. And so easily swallowed.
I lie in my bed, in a state of half suspended sleep. Branches sway in moonlight. A rabbit bounds across the snow beneath the tree line. Something scratches on the roof. And I lie and I wait.
Finally, a flicker of movement beneath the black canopy of needles. A solitary shadow emerges from the tree line and pauses. Though he is small and wreathed in night, I see him glance back over his shoulder, peering deep into the woods. At last, the figure turns from the trees and leaves.
I lie in my bed and close my eyes. I can’t bear to watch.
*
My brother has come to visit again.
I see him through my bedroom window. The silhouette of the forest looms against his back. He meanders through the pristine snow, following the path I know he cannot see but must remember.
He stops at the edge of the derelict fence and waits. Snow falls steadily around him. Wind howls, icy and relentless. And still, he waits for me.
My brother was never patient.
*
I open my door and step out into the white. The snow is deep and cumbersome, and my toes burn where they burst through the front of my boots. Snowflakes tumble wildly in the air, stinging my eyes as I struggle forwards.
My brother acknowledges me with cold eyes. He turns and follows the trail he must remember leads to the village. He seems to glide through the snow. His steps are quick and light, and I can hardly keep up.
There was a time I would have longed for a moment such as this. To walk – in companionable silence – with my brother. Each comfortable enough in the other’s presence to refrain from boasting or grovelling. But as we walk now, distant and cold, I find myself wishing desperately that he would speak. But the only voice is that of the wind.
*
The village is a dreary and desolate place. Stygian houses blanketed in snow line the sides of cobbled streets. From within, yellow light dances dimly though shuttered windows and under locked doors. A church – gothic and macabre – stands alone against the grey sky.
Villagers, wrapped and bundled in thick winter coats struggle against the wind. Their eyes fixate upon us as we pass, and they huddle closer to one another, whispering into their friends’ ears.
Do they know? I wonder, as the church, with its black stones and leering gargoyles, suddenly looms above my brother and I, they must know.
A white field lies beneath the church. Crosses and headstones line the earth. Rows upon rows upon rows. Every plot, every person, every body accounted for beneath the cold dirt. Except for one. My brother stands atop this empty ground and regards me with dead eyes.
I am seized by a wild and desperate need to speak to him, and more than that, to be heard by him! But my words are torn from me by a crying, screaming wind.
He must remember.
*
Night has settled again, this time black and starless.
This night, as before, I lie half suspended, watching as my brother – not alone - ventures into the woods.
I stare long and hard into the abyss. I pretend I do not recognise the short figure, in the shabby coat, who walks beside my brother. I pretend that I do not know where they are going.
And when the figure returns, alone and mournful, I pretend.
I pretend that I do not remember.
*
This morning my brother does not come to visit.
I see him through my bedroom window. A small black speck waiting beneath the dark forest. I grab my boots with their holes and my old coat with its scratchy lining and step out into the snow. When I reach my brother, he has his back to me, facing the twisted and gloomy woods. Together we venture into the undergrowth. The trail is thin and snow-covered, but we find our way. We twist this way and that over rocky steps and gnarled roots. We have walked this trail before, my brother and me. We both know the way.
The silence is oppressive. More than once I try to speak, but my words are crushed and flattened by the weight of the forest. The trees seem to grasp at me with clutching, twisting hands. Choking. Smothering. Suffocating.
Do the trees remember? They must. They were there after all.
My brother comes to a sudden stop. We stand upon the edge of a cliff. In front of us, the vast white landscape, with its rolling hills and rising forests. Below, nothing but air, for a long way down.
I remember this place. I came here with my brother once, not so long ago.
I remember us standing here, side by side, much as we are now. Me, pulling my coat tight, shivering, silent. My brother, laughing, beside me. ‘Little brother,’ he had said, looking down on me, ‘You really ought to get a new coat.’
I remember how those words made me feel.
I remember the sound of rushing air.
I remember the warmth of his empty coat in my hands.
I look at my brother and he looks at me. Quiet. Knowing. Accusing.
He remembers.
Niall is a young Australian writer born in Sydney. He is an avid writer of short stories and loves experimenting with different genres and themes. He has many novel ideas and hopes to have one of them published one day!
