Being Small by Chaz Brenchley

he said. “Come and sit.”
    “I don’t want to disturb you.”
    Gerard opened his eyes. “We may be quiet, but we’re not in church. Come in, sit down, talk to us. It’s all right, we’ve heard this piece before.”
    So had I, but I had to come at it backwards. Something about war and a poet, but not war-poetry, and not English... Drama and death, plenty of death... Ah. Federico Garcia Lorca, I’d spent a week on him once: reading his work and his biographers’, following some links and finding others. There’d been movies made and ballets, music written. Song cycles, from his poetry...
    “George Crumb,” I said. “ Ancient Voices of Children .”
    Gerard’s eyebrow twitched. “I’m impressed. This was big for us in the seventies, but I didn’t think it was still in the repertoire. Or did you peek?” with a nod towards the CD case where it lay by the stereo.
    “No. I heard it once, a while back.”
    “Just the once?” That came from Quin.
    “Uh, yes. I was into Lorca for a bit,” for a week but I didn’t want to say that, “so I chased up everything I could. And, well, I’ve got this freak memory. I don’t forget much.”
    Actually it was Small who had the memory, my pocket elephant, my spare hard-drive. I could outsource my experience, safe in the knowledge that he hoarded everything. No use saying “Forget it,” not to Small; he never would, and he never would let me.
    “That must be convenient,” Gerard suggested.
    “I suppose. It’s just normal, I live with it.”
    “Sounds like hell to me,” Kit said cheerfully, unexpectedly at my back. Focused on the music and its sources, I hadn’t heard him coming.
    “That’s because you do nothing worth remembering, and plenty that you crave to forget,” Gerard said dryly.
    “Plenty that I drink to forget. Michael, never stand between a man and the drinks tray,” as he pushed me further into the room, and down into a chair. “Do you need a top-up? No, you don’t. Help yourself when you do, I’ll be in the kitchen. Tea’s in an hour. Just the four of us, yes?”
    “Oh – no, not me, you don’t have to...”
    “Of course I don’t have to, but I will. If you’d like to stay. Yes?”
    “Well – yes, then. Please. Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    I hoped that was true. I hadn’t been angling for an invitation, any more than I’d angled for a bath, and I didn’t want them thinking so. On the other hand, images of last night had been brightly in my mind, set against the likely reality this evening, sorting bags and boxes while I chewed on whatever food I could find, what Mum had thought to bring with us or buy in. Determined not to gatecrash, I had none the less deliberately put myself in their path here, done them the favour with Nigel, given them the opportunity to be grateful if they chose.
    I thought there’d be another price to pay. I thought Quin at least would be safe to extract one. I didn’t trust his smile; I thought he was reading me like a book. But then, I thought that all human relationships were like this, a series of mismatched trade-offs, favours and IOUs, shifting debits and credits with each side keeping their own tally and none of the figures audited. I didn’t see how the world could work otherwise, what would ever keep it turning. You always had to be leaning forward, a little off-balance, trying to get ahead.
    Only Quin didn’t need to do that anymore. He lay queen-like at the centre of his particular court and everyone danced attendance on him, and he could never, never think to pay them back.
    Reminded me of someone, couldn’t think who.
    I sipped gin with no thought of a refill, content to make this last; I listened to the music, and watched the two men do the same. Or do it differently, rather: they knew what I only remembered, and there’s an order of magnitude between.
    The chessboard lay at my elbow. I could offer Quin a game when the music finished, show willing. I thought he’d say, though,