Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

The water was ice cold. I turned the tap slowly and watched it splash into the stained ceramic bowl. Tentatively I edged my fingernails into the flow, the cold was painful at first before my fingers became numb. I drew their wet tips down my face and shivered. Freezing droplets dewed my brow. Outside it was snowing . Large soft flakes buffeted again the glass, settling thickly on the windowsill. When I touched the glass, that too was freezing and the snowflakes only melted if I kept my palm flat against the pane for a long time, but it was too cold for that.

    “Nikolai!’ my mother called.
    I had not heard his car, or the sound of the front door opening, but there was his voice. Uncle Vanya. He laughed loudly. A deep throated, easy laugh.
    “Nikolai!’ my mother called up the stairs.
    “Where’s my little Kolya?” Uncle Vanya called up the steep stairs.
    “Nikolai come down,” my mother ordered.
    From the downstairs hallway I heard a high-pitched girlish voice.
Peering into the cracked mirror above the sink, I ran my reddened,
numbed fingers through my hair. In my small room I dragged a clean shirt from the drawer. Pulling it over my dirty t-shirt, I snatched up a tie and looped it quickly around my neck. Before descending I checked myself in the full-length mirror in Baba’s room. Standing in the musty darkness I contemplated the figure gazing back at me. I pulled myself up as tall as I could and puffed out my narrow chest.
    “Nikolai!” my mother yelled.
    I hurried down the stairs.
    “Nu, va! Look who is here!” Uncle Vanya held out his arms. A large smile spread across his red face from one side to the other. I held out my hand a little stiffly to greet him, aware of Katya and Tanya hidden behind their father’s broad back.
    “Well, well, “Uncle Vanya chuckled, “look who has grown up in to a real man since I last saw him! Well then, let us greet like men.” He took my hand in his own and crushed it.
    “Vanya!” my father said, at that moment entering, wiping his hands on his trousers. They embraced fiercely, slapping each other’s backs and laughing. My father looked thinner and more delicate than ever beside Uncle Vanya. His hair was dark and combed neatly to the side of his head, whilst Uncle Vanya had short red hair that stuck in the air. I had once told Katya that it looked like his head was on fire and she had boxed my ear so hard it stung.
    “How was Moscow?” my father asked.
    “Crazy! Oi, those Muscovites! You wouldn’t believe.”
    “But good business?”
    “Good? I’ll say.” Uncle Vanya’s laughter boomed in the small room. His waving hand caught the chandelier and sent it spinning. The little glass baubles danced in the light of the two weak bulbs.
    “Nu, Vanya!” cried Baba, bustling in with a plate of steaming potatoes. “Here five minutes and already you want to destroy the house. You’re an elephant and always have been.”
    Uncle Vanya laughed and squeezed the small woman tightly, till she beat him off.
    The room was dominated by a large table spread with a brilliant white cloth and heavy with food. Sliced ham, pickled gherkins, mushrooms and onion in oil, boiled eggs stuffed with herring and smothered in horseradish. The steaming potatoes. Vodka. Bottle after bottle of Russian vodka.
    The old wooden table had been extended to its full width and it was barely possible to squeeze around the sides of it. Baba sat father at the head of the table and directed everybody to their seats. She ordered me to the end of the table to sit with Katya and Tanya. Nervously I joined them.
    Tanya, sitting at the end, kicked my foot. I kept my eyes down and shuffled my legs away from her.
    “The drinks, Vanya,” Baba ordered. Uncle Vanya cracked open a bottle of vodka. He poured a glass for my father and himself. The liquid sat right up at the lip of the glass and I watched with interest to see whether it would burst its banks and roll down onto the new tablecloth. Baba took a small glass of vodka but my mother shook her head. Leaning across the table he made as if to fill my glass. I shot a glance at my mother.
    “Vanya!”
    “Of course,” Uncle Vanya said, winking at me. “Shouldn’t start him so young.”
    “Nu!” Baba called, her grey head bobbing as she stood with her glass raised. ‘“a toast to Vanya and the girls’ safe return.”
    My father and uncle Vanya clicked their glasses and threw back the vodka. Uncle Vanya smacked his lips. “Not bad,” he muttered refilling the glasses. Baba sipped hers.
    “Eat, eat,” she commanded. “Katya pass up the herring.”
    Under the table Tanya kicked me again and I raised my eyes to scowl at her. Tanya was my age. She was small and weasel like, her dark hair bunched up at the sides of her head. She wore a red blouse that filled up around her neck. She stuck her tongue out at me. Above the steaming potatoes I glanced across at Katya. She wore a simple white blouse. Her hair shone in the dim light and her green eyes sparkled. She glanced at me and I looked down quickly at my dirty fingers.
    “Nikolai would you like some of the mushrooms?” she asked.
    My cheeks flushed and I shook my head. Tanya giggled.
    “You haven’t changed a bit, Nikolai Andreyevich,” Tanya said haughtily, and I could tell that she was trying to imitate a Moscow accent. I sent her what I considered to be a murderous glance.
    Despite her accent, cousin Tanya had not changed a bit either in the six months since last I had seen her. She had, if anything, grown a little more weasel like in Moscow and I put this down to the bad air that my mother always referred to when she mentioned the capital. Katya had changed though. In those six short months she seemed to have grown a couple of years ahead of me. She was taller and her hair was longer. More than this, beneath her simple, white blouse it was evident that her breasts were beginning to grow. When I looked at them I felt a hot flush spread across my face.
    “How about a song?” my farther suggested, after the dinner was
finished. He sank back heavily into the old sofa while Baba and my mother cleared the table with the help of Katya and Tanya. Uncle Vanya stood by the window gazing out into the snowstorm. His red face shone. He drained the last of the third bottle of vodka and cracked open a new one.
    Disappearing into my parent’s bedroom he reappeared a few seconds later with the red accordion he had inherited from my grandfather. Uncle Vanya played the instrument with spirit, but the girls’ mother hated it, connecting it with her husband’s drunken stupors; a custom he had inherited from his father.
    He pushed the large table to the side of the room collapsing it to its smallest state and pulled up a wooden stool and dropped his large frame onto it with a sigh and a grin.
    “Nu, Kolia,” he beamed, turning to me, “and what should I play?”
    I shrugged. I had eaten a large slice of cake and felt like vomiting.
    “Katyusha! Why not? Good suggestion,” he said slapping his fat knee energetically. From the doorway to the kitchen Tanya cast me a derisive look. I blanched, afraid that Katya would think I had chosen the piece because of her, but she did not seem to have heard the conversation.
    Uncle Vanya drew in a deep breath, closed his eyes and drew open the bellows of the accordion. The music swelled up and filled the room. A smile spread across my father’s face. My mother appeared in the doorway wiping her hands on a thin towel. Uncle Vanya pumped the accordion and his fingers flew over the keys. His large foot tapped time on the carpet. Mother danced into the room and held out a hand to my father. He jumped up and grabbed her around the waist and spun her around the cramped space. Baba clapped her hands and took hold of Tanya and moments later her short black figure was wheeling around under the dim light of the two bulbs, deftly dodging my parents. Tanya threw back her head and laughed.
    Katya grinned at the scene and slid around the dancing figures towards me. “Come on,” she said, shouting to make herself heard above the din. “Dance with me.”
    Perspiration jumped out on my forehead. She took my hand and
pulled me to my feet. Her hand was cool and hard. I was acutely aware of how dirty and damp my own were. As we moved around stiffly in the tight space I could smell her perfume and the soap with which she had laundered her blouse. We were more or less exactly the same height, but her posture made her seem taller and I felt that I had to look up into her face. I did not. I shuffled across the carpet allowing her to drag me. My face was turned down to my worn slippers and my body strained to keep a distance from her.
    As we danced Tanya stuck out her weasel foot and tripped me. I
stumbled badly despite the fact that I had seen the foot coming. I fell,
pulling Katya with me. She shrieked and grabbed hold of Uncle Vanya’s trouser leg.
    “ Whoa there! ‘ he called, peering over the top of the accordion, not pausing, not missing a note.
    As I fell my hand reached out and grazed against the wooden
doorframe. Sitting on my bottom I sucked at my knuckles. Tanya laughed, twirling between the dark skirts of Baba. Mother glanced over father’s shoulder, decided no harm was done and turned her attention away. Uncle Vanya had worked straight into a new tune. It was a lilting melody that had him swaying on his wooden seat, eyes closed, short hair flaming passionately.
    Katya knelt beside me and pulled my dirty hand from my mouth.
    “It’s nothing,” I muttered.
    “Oh, but it’s cut!” she said holding it carefully in her cool smooth
hand. A single droplet of blood oozed from the graze when she applied pressure to it. I winced. the blood ran lazily down my finger and dripped from my dirty nail to the carpet. When I glanced at her pretty face she was staring intently at the broken skin.
    “Come,” she said. “You should wash it.”
    Reluctantly I followed her out into the kitchen. After the heat of the front room the kitchen was cool as we padded through it. She led me to the stairs and we ascended them in darkness,. In the bathroom she turned on the light and pulled me to the stained sink. She turned on the cold tap and let the water run.
    “Give it me,” she ordered.
    I held out the grazed fist, trembling. Taking it she unbuttoned the
slightly frayed cuff. She turned it back revealing my thin white arm. The water was so cold when she pushed my fist under it I yelped. Katya grinned.
    “Hurt?” she asked.
I shook my head. She held my hand steady and ordered me to
unclench my fist. Her skin shone under the light and I could see
illuminated the soft fown on her cheeks and her veins, light blue beneath her skin. My hand was numb when finally she released it.
    She had lost interest in my hand and was looking at herself in the small cracked mirror above the sink. She ran one of her thin white fingers over her lip and I realized she was wearing a touch of lipstick.
    “There’s a bigger mirror in Baba’s room, I told her.
    “Shall I switch on the light? I asked. “Baba doesn’t like anybody to come in here.”
Katya stood in front of the full-length mirror examining herself in the poor light that seeped into the room from the bathroom. She shook her head. From beneath our feet came the sound of Uncle Vanya’s accordion. Father was singing and there were cries and claps and stamps of feet as they danced around the small room below us. In the darkness Katya turned to me. Her pale face was softly luminous.
    “Give me your hand,” she ordered.
    I held out my fist nervously. Her fingers closed around it, teasing open the still numb fingers. She pulled me forward and slipped my hand quickly up the front of her white blouse. I felt her gasp as my cold fingers settled against her hot flesh. My muscles clenched rigid with fear. She pushed my hand awkwardly up her belly under her tight blouse and pressed it down on her small breast. I felt the swelling beneath my fingers. Her nipple scratched the palm of my hand. I looked down at my slippered feet, almost invisible in the darkness.
    There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Quickly she tugged my hand free and pushed her blouse into the long grey skirt she wore. When Tanya appeared a few moments later, peering into the dimness, she had turned and was gazing once more into the mirror.
    “Here you are,” Tanya said. She looked at me suspiciously, her weasel eyes narrowing.
    “Let’s go back downstairs,” Katya said to her. Tanya took her arm and they ran from the room. I could hear them laughing when they entered the room beneath me. My father shouted and my mother protested, laughing.
    I wandered around Baba’s bed to the window and pressed my face against the cold glass. Outside the snow was still falling in the darkness, spreading a thick, pale blanket across the street, smothering it. I put my grazed fist to my lips and sucked it absently. My feet, I felt, had begun to float, like one of the snowflakes. A warm glow spread out from my belly. I gazed out at the snow, listening to the sound of Uncle Vanya’s accordion.