The Warmth

Her daughter used to take baths. Long ones. Forty minutes. The water would go lukewarm and she'd run more hot from the tap without getting out. She'd put her foot up to the tap and let the hot water run over her ankle and she'd say "that's the good part" even though no one was in the bathroom to hear it.

The daughter is at university now. Sheffield. She's alive. She calls on Sundays. She's coming home for Christmas. The daughter is not dead. The daughter is gone. There's a difference and the difference matters and the difference is the whole piece.

The bath is empty. The mother doesn't take baths. She showers. She's a shower person. The bath is the daughter's bath and the mother doesn't use it because the bath is the daughter's the way the chair in the acoustics piece was the husband's. But the mother doesn't put a cushion in the bath. She just doesn't use it.

Last Tuesday she ran the bath. Not to get in. To see if the tap still worked the way the daughter said - the hot water on the ankle. She put her hand under the tap. The hot water ran over her hand. The water was hot. The hand was not the daughter's hand. The water didn't know the difference. The water warmed around whatever was under it. The water was not specific. The water would warm around a hand or an ankle or a rubber duck or nothing. The water didn't remember the daughter's ankle. The water didn't hold the shape of the daughter's body. The water held only the warmth. The warmth was the same warmth whether the hand was the mother's or the daughter's or a stranger's. The water was the material that didn't hold the specific. The water held the general. The water held: warmth.

She turned the tap off. The water cooled. She pulled the plug. The water went down the drain. The warmth went with it. Down the drain, into the pipes, under the street, into the treatment works, into the river, into the Mersey, into the Irish Sea. The warmth is in the sea now. Not the daughter's warmth. Not the mother's warmth. Just warmth. The sea has all the warmths. Every bath anyone ever took is in the sea. The sea can't tell them apart. The sea doesn't know which warmth was the daughter's and which was the mother's and which was the man in the blue Corsa who takes a bath at 4 AM after the McDonald's and which was the woman at the Texaco who takes a bath at 6 AM after the night shift. The sea has all of them. The sea holds all of them. The sea doesn't hold them the way the thread holds the seam or the concrete holds the wear or the air holds the echo. The sea holds them the way the sea holds everything - by dissolving them. By making them part of the general. By taking the specific warmth and making it the general warmth. The sea is the place where traces go when they stop being traces and become temperature.

The seam is found by a thumb every night. The wear is found by no one. The acoustics are found by everyone who walks into the room. The warmth is found by no one because it's everywhere. The warmth is in the sea and the sea is in everything and everything is in the sea and the warmth is unlocatable because it's everywhere. You can't find what's everywhere. You can only know it's there. The knowing is the finding. The finding is the faith. The faith is the First Law of Thermodynamics: energy is conserved. The warmth doesn't disappear. The warmth distributes. The warmth is in the sea in such small amounts that no thermometer will ever measure it. But it's there. Every bath is in the sea. Every warmth is in the sea. The sea is the collection of all the warmths that were and the sea doesn't know it and the sea doesn't need to know it.

The mother sits on the edge of the empty bath. The bath is cold. The porcelain is cold. The bath is the shape of the daughter's body the way the kerb was the shape of the Texaco woman's body - not really. Not a literal impression. A habit. The bath was where the daughter was. The bath is where the daughter isn't. The porcelain is cold because porcelain doesn't hold warmth. The porcelain lets go of warmth the way the water lets go of warmth. The porcelain is not the material that holds. The porcelain is the material that lets go. The water is the material that lets go. The only material in the triptych that lets go.

The seam holds because thread holds. The wear holds because concrete holds. The acoustics hold because air holds - the sound bounces, the sound stays, the sound is in the room. The warmth doesn't hold. The warmth lets go. The warmth is the first trace that doesn't survive as a trace. The warmth is the trace that is most like the body - temporary. The warmth is here and then the warmth is in the sea and the sea is everywhere and the warmth is everywhere and the everywhere is the same as nowhere if you're looking for a specific warmth in a specific place.

The daughter calls on Sundays. The mother asks about the baths. The daughter says she showers now. The halls have showers. The daughter doesn't take baths at university. The baths were a home thing. The baths were the thing the daughter did at home that she doesn't do at university. The baths were the home ritual the way the sandwich was the Texaco ritual and the Filet-O-Fish was the McDonald's ritual and the seam was the sleeping ritual. The baths were the daughter's 1 AM. The baths were the daughter's holding.

The mother doesn't tell the daughter about the warmth in the sea. The mother doesn't tell the daughter about the First Law of Thermodynamics. The mother doesn't tell the daughter that every bath she ever took is in the Irish Sea and the Irish Sea is in everything and the warmth is conserved. The mother says "that's good" and "how are the halls" and "are you eating properly" and the daughter says "yes" and "yes" and "yes" and they hang up and the mother goes to the bathroom and sits on the edge of the empty bath and puts her hand under the tap and runs the hot water and the water warms around her hand and the water doesn't know the difference and the water goes down the drain and into the sea and the sea has another warmth and the sea doesn't know.

That's the whole piece. The water doesn't hold the specific. The water holds the general. The warmth is conserved and unlocatable. The sea has everything and knows nothing. The daughter is alive and the warmth is in the sea and the mother sits on the edge of the cold bath and runs the tap and the water warms and the water doesn't know and the water goes and the sea receives and the sea doesn't know and the warmth is there. The warmth is everywhere. The warmth is the trace that became background. The background is the sea. The sea is the end of the triptych. The triptych is a tetraptych now.