The Light's On In The Afternoon
“This is the beginning of the rest of your life.”
Remus mumbled along as he continued his unpacking. His hangover that morning had been killer and he greatly regretted not leaving any of the biscuits for his breakfast as he chugged down tepid tea from the limestone-filled kettle and set about trying to make the kitchen more liveable. All the old crockery was still in the cupboards, collecting dust, so he spent most of the morning scrubbing plate after plate after plate, leaving them to dry and banishing the mis-matched crockery he had brought with him down to the cellar, still packed in its boxes.
“You know it could be a canter, if you were just a wee bit less of a wanker.” Gerry Cinnamon’s Scottish brogue felt comforting as Remus cleaned. It almost made him miss Scotland. Almost. It definitely made him miss his Gran. A lot. He hung his head over the sink and let the hot tears drip off his face and into the warm soapy water. He missed his Gran terribly.
That was the funny thing about grief, Remus had learned in the few brief weeks since her passing. It would hit at the strangest moments. He and his gran had never even listened to Gerry Cinnamon together, she mainly only turned the radio onto ‘magic’, singing along to the jingle. She wasn’t even Scottish. By rights, Portishead should make him miss her more, but Scotland had been where they had made their home together, and Scotland would always represent his gran to him. Scotland was where is Gran had stayed.
He changed the music and decided to get started on his bedroom instead.
*
His back and neck ached from spending the previous night asleep in the armchair, and he hadn’t changed out of his jeans or set up the washing machine, so Remus felt sore and gross as he set about trying to create a space he could attempt to live in.
There were three bedrooms to choose from; where his Gran had slept, her brother’s bedroom, and their parents. Or two bedrooms, in reality. Remus still wasn’t brave enough to even open the door to his Gran’s old bedroom. In the end, Remus chose his great-uncle’s old bedroom, because the window overlooked the overgrown garden. There was also already a desk pressed against the wall furthest from the bed, with bookshelves drilled into the wall. It was a bit smaller than the master bedroom, but it was the only space Remus thought he could make feel like ‘home’.
Amy Winehouse’s mournful crooning soothed his jagged nerves as he hoovered and wiped and scrubbed all the lingering dust and dirt and evidence of passing time out of the room. The bed frame was an ornate brass affair that was a tad ostentatious for Remus’ tastes, but he had neither the money nor the desire to buy modern furniture, so it would have to do. The desk was covered in etchings clearly done by his great-uncle, and they had ignited in Remus a bittersweet emotion so powerful he had been unable to do anything but sit and stare into space for the better part of an hour.
By the time the sun reached its zenith, Remus’ favourite books had been unloaded onto the bookshelves in order of importance, and his ancient laptop was set up in the middle of the desk, alongside his pencil case and his record player, and his record collection was stored safely underneath, barely leaving any space for his feet. His bed was dressed, and on top of the plain asda sheets he had reverently laid the hand-made quilt his gran had gifted him for his sixteenth birthday. It still smelt like her- like laundry powder and over-sweet perfume, and it was now soaked in salty tears made bitter by the tang of loss. There was a pewter lining to the dark cloud of grief that hung above Remus as he surveyed his new bed. Fenrir had never slept in it. Had never seen it. Would never see this house, or this life that Remus was starting to build for himself. Remus raised his hand and traced the raised scars that traversed his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. They were wet and slick with tears, and the scar tissue felt smooth and familiar beneath his fingers. He dropped his hand and clenched his fingers into a fist. No thinking about Fenrir.
There had been an armchair identical to the one in the sitting room in the master bedroom, and he had spent an agonising hour gently easing it through the narrow hallways of the house and wedging it into the corner of his new bedroom, next to the window so the sunlight hit it just right. He draped it in a blanket his gran had knitted him one winter when he had been sick with the flu. The wool was now salt-stained.
If he was going to have to stop and cry for an hour every time he came across something that reminded him of his Gran, it would be years before he fully unpacked and settled into his new home. She was everywhere. She was in the sunlight, in the shadows. How was he supposed to sleep in a bed she had likely bounced on as a child? Knobbly knees bent in the air as her and her brother had indulged in childish fancies. How was he to eat at the same dining table that had seen her grow up? Cook in the kitchen she had baked her birthday cakes in? Clean up the garden she had spent her childhood running around. He started crying again.
Almost as pressing as the grief was the hunger. In the madness of the move, he had not gone shopping, and hadn’t eaten a real meal in three days. He didn’t even know where the closest shop was, but now he never had to pay rent or mortgage again for at least the foreseeable future, he could afford to buy whatever groceries he wanted. No more scrimping and saving at lidl on a student loan because his landlord had raised the rent again. He’d have to be careful until he found a job, of course, but he had enough to tide him over without denying himself the luxury of branded cereal, or meat.
*
Remus was having a well-needed cigarette, sat on his front stoop in the late afternoon when he saw the same boy from yesterday, wearing a backpack almost as big as he was, come barrelling down the street, followed by who Remus assumed was the same man from the window the previous evening.
“Hello mister!” The boy called when he saw Remus, changing course and letting himself through Remus gate, much to Remus’ amusement. He wasn’t very used to children, and forgot they had no concept of personal space.
“Hello, Harry.” Remus responded, praying he had remembered the boy's name right. Going off the beaming smile he got in return, he did.
“You can’t just enter other people’s front gardens like that, Haz.” came a deep voice, and Remus looked up to see the man leaning on his gate. He wasn’t what Remus expected at all. He looked young- Remus age, or slightly older. Too young to have his own child, really. Harry must have come along before he was twenty. He also didn’t look like a typical father. Long, black wavy hair sat arranged on his shoulders, and there were silver hoops in his nose, the centre of his lip, and adorning his ears. He was wearing eyeliner. He was- attractive, Remus thought. And he looked nothing like the brown-skinned boy bouncing up and down on Remus’ step.
“It’s alright, we’re friends from yesterday, aye?” Remus called to the man, smiling. “I have your tupperware young man. If you can wait here for two seconds I’ll go and get it for you.” Remus stubbed his cigarette out on the step and heaved his aching body up, jogging inside and grabbing the tub and lid from his drying rack.
“Here. thank you so much for the biscuits, they were delicious.”
“That's okay! Me and Dadfoot made them yesterday, and I’m really good at sharing.” Harry replied seriously, his big brown eyes staring up at Remus. He was an adorable child.
“You’re verra good at sharing. Is that your dadfoot?”
“Oh, yes! Dadfoot, you’ve not introduced yourself. It's very rude.” Harry called to the other man, who rolled his eyes good-naturedly, and made his way up the stairs to them.
“Alright? I’m Sirius.” his voice was warm and deep, and if they’d been in a bar or club, Remus would have been all over him. As it stood, he likely had a stunning wife at home waiting for him and her son to return into her welcoming embrace.
“I’m Remus.”
“New to the area?” Sirius asked, bringing a hand up to ruffle Harry’s unruly curls.
“Ah, yeah. This was my Gran’s house, and now it's mine, so.” Remus couldn’t bring himself to say he ‘inherited’ it, the implications were too clear and painful.
“Well, welcome to the neighbourhood. If you ever need anything, Haz and I are right next door.”
“Oh, yeah, likewise. I mean, if you ever need emergency childcare, just give me a shout.”
Remus said it before he realised that as a single man it might come across really, really weird, but Harry grinned up at him and started nattering on about how fun it would be to have a baby sitter, and Sirius just shrugged and thanked him before herding Harry back down the stairs and into their own house.
Remus got his baccy out of his back pocket and rolled another, smoking it as he gazed up the street where he was now to try and rebuild his life, without Gran, without Scotland, without anyone. So lost in thought he burnt his fingers on the filter, but then he just rolled another. It was a long time before Remus went back inside. Gran would have scolded him to see him chain smoke like this, but Gran wasn’t here anymore.
His tears wet the collar of his jumper as they streamed down his face, limitless.