Cuttlebone

Saturday, it’s Saturday today. He sits on the side of the bed, hands on knees, whistling softly. It’s ten to six. He looks down at his hands.

At five past six he pulls the bedding straight. The sun’s already up, the tall trees in the front garden look grey and ominously still. Zeeger Kaan fluffs up the pillow and lays it on the duvet cover. He’s had a window wide open all night, but you couldn’t really say it’s cooled off in the bedroom. It was a short night. Under the window the hydrangeas have started to flower. He walks to the toilet and sits down to pee. When he’s finished he doesn’t flush, but throws a few sheets of toilet paper into the bowl and closes the door as quietly as possible. The ticking of the inherited grandfather clock in the hall is loud and cavernous. He thinks of the tiled floor covered with walnuts. Some people eat their walnuts fresh; around here we always dry them for days on end first. Another four months or so and it will be that time of year again. No, more like five.

He doesn’t go back to the bedroom to get dressed. The front door needs opening. He turns the key and unbolts the upper half. The air outside is as still as it is in the house. He goes upstairs.

Jan is lying on his back, legs wide, one arm over his stomach. The curtains are open, the window is shut tight, the duvet has slid down to the floor. Sweat gleams on his nose; a mosquito, fat and red, is sitting on his forehead. He’s dumped his bag on a chair, his clothes are draped over the back. Zeeger Kaan stands there for a long time staring at his son, at the brown-checked curtains, at the trinkets on the coffee table, at the bed Jan is lying on, at the mosquito, which eventually takes slow flight and lands again on the sloping white wall.

At quarter to seven he gets the paper out of the letter box. There aren’t even any dewdrops on the flap. Still dressed in just his vest and underpants he walks, newspaper in hand, up onto the road. Empty. The chocolate Labrador watches from the path. ‘Food?’ Zeeger Kaan asks. The dog barks.

He throws two mugs of dry food into the dog’s bowl and goes into the living room with the paper. After reading the ‘Town & Country’ section, he lays the paper on the coffee table and notices the empty space under the bookshelves. ‘What’s she going to come up with next?’ he mumbles. He goes into the bedroom to get dressed. He wants to go outside, into the back garden, but a basket full of colours keeps him in the laundry just a little longer. He fills the washing machine, sets the temperature to sixty degrees and presses the button. After the machine has been running for about a minute, he goes out through the side door.

At the side and front of the house there’s lawn and trees; behind the house, perennials, and further into the garden, more trees. Anna’s been nagging him about the chestnuts in the front garden for years. She wants him to cut them down because it ‘gets so dark and gloomy’ in the house in summer. Water flows over an algae-covered granite ball and disappears between rocks in the ground. ‘Bloody slugs,’ he says, passing the hostas. He stops under the walnut tree. The dog walks on a little and sits down by the side of the ditch. It’s shady even there, from the row of pollard willows. Together they look at the farm. When a couple of jackdaws land on the roof ridge, a tile slides clattering down, catches the gutter and arcs down onto the gravel. If she wasn’t awake, she is now. There isn’t a single nut at his feet.

At ten to nine he fills the coffee machine with water and tips five scoops of coffee into the filter. He puts the glass jar of ground coffee back in the sideboard, then reconsiders. Jan likes it strong. When he looks up he sees his granddaughter standing on the windowsill and waving enthusiastically with both hands. His daughter-in-law appears, a plant slides out of view, then Dieke’s gone too. He hasn’t even had time to wave back.

A few minutes later Jan pads downstairs in his bare feet, looks around and grabs the paper from the living room.

‘Good morning,’ he says.

‘Yep,’ says his son.

‘Coffee?’

‘Yep.’

Rekel immediately creeps under the kitchen table to lie on Jan’s feet.

‘Sleep well?’

‘OK.’ His son rubs his forehead and opens the ‘Town & Country’ section. He doesn’t ask him if he slept well. Alone. It seems some things are more or less normal, no matter how irregularly they happen.

‘Food?’ he says.

‘Do you have zwieback?’

He gets the zwieback tin out of a cupboard and puts it on the table, drops a single sugar cube into Jan’s coffee and starts to eat. His son eats too, but doesn’t say anything, reading the articles Zeeger read earlier. Pile-driving starts for modern school building, Blue-green algae in recreational lake, Cyclist hit by car in Den Helder, Local resident in finals of international swimming race. ‘I’ve got cuttlebone,’ he says.

‘What for?’ Jan asks.

‘To clean it.’

‘How’s that work? Rekel, get out of there.’

Sighing, the dog comes out from under Jan’s side of the table and walks back under it on the other side, where he lies down on Zeeger Kaan’s bare feet.

‘Wet it, rub it, then wash it off.’

‘Can I see?’

‘Here.’ He pulls his feet out from under the dog and walks through to the laundry, where he picks up the green bucket with the five pieces of cuttlebone. Jan’s followed him and takes one out. He studies it, running a finger over the smooth shining side and pressing a hole in the soft side with his thumb. Exactly what he did when the man at the stone suppliers in Schagen handed the stuff over to him completely free of charge.

‘Paint in the garage?’ Jan asks.

‘Yep. I’ll come with you.’

‘No need, I’ll find it.’ Jan takes the bucket and disappears through the side door. The dog ambles off behind him.

And now? What should he do now? Wait till Jan’s gone. He looks at the breakfast table, the empty plates covered with zwieback crumbs, the half-full cup of coffee and the mild cheese that’s started to sweat. Then he clears it all away.

A few minutes later Jan comes back, disappears into the bathroom, re-emerges without his T-shirt and goes upstairs. Comes back down again in shorts and worn trainers, and fetches his T-shirt from the bathroom. He smells of sunblock.

‘You going?’ Zeeger Kaan asks.

‘Almost.’

‘Found everything?’

‘Sure. You’ve got a flat.’

‘What?’

‘Your back tyre’s flat. On your bike.’

News to me, he thinks. He watches his son walk off, not to the garage, but over the bridge, holding his T-shirt loosely in one hand. Aha, he thinks. Then he unloads the washing machine and hangs the trousers, towels and shirts neatly on the line while looking around the garage in his mind’s eye, trying to remember where he put the puncture repair kit.