How It Was

by Janet Ellis

  To believe otherwise was to think badly of him. My desire for him was like an arrow in flight, I’d taken aim and I couldn’t call it back. With too little concern about my building materials, I began to create who I needed him to be.

  Chapter 32

  21.54. The mashed potato Marion has ordered for him wrinkles on the tray in front of Michael. He has no appetite. Food has never been a priority, anyway. He has eaten what was put in front of him, without complaining, his whole life. He has never expressed any particular appreciation, either. In the early days of their marriage, Marion struggled with recipes and ingredients. He hadn’t said anything, he knew she’d believed she was doing her duty, but he would much rather she’d just opened tins. He remembered a dessert of some sort that had struck him as particularly silly: it involved great clouds of sweetened froth and submerged mandarin segments. He wouldn’t have minded if she’d just mixed cream and sugar together and offered him that.

  Most of the nurses come into his room without knocking, but this girl pushes the door open gradually into the space. She inclines only her head round the door, the rest of her body hidden. He’s reminded of a puppet show. ‘Mr Deacon?’ she says. ‘Just need to do your checks. Can I come in?’ He can at least nod. He’s grateful for her courtesy. She bends down to pick something up from the floor. ‘Oh, what’s this?’ she says, holding out an envelope for his inspection. ‘I think it’s been sitting here for a while, there’s a footprint on it.’

  Michael’s heart lurches. The letter must have slipped from Marion’s cache. Addressed to M Deacon, the nurse would have imagined it was meant for him. Behind his mask, he makes a sound, though neither he nor the nurse can tell what it is.

  ‘Okay?’ she says.

  He can tell he’s frightened her and tries to speak. His strangled sounds alarm her more.

  ‘Shall I get someone?’ she says.

  He shakes his head, a gesture that seems to tear at the skin of his face. His hands are not his to take the envelope from her, they are pricked and clamped and lie useless by his side. Clips and tubes proliferate.

  ‘Would you like me to open it?’ she says.

  Michael is presented with a quandary. To have her read it might reveal far too much; he prefers the neutrality of being just a patient. But he is curious about its contents. She is already sliding a pointed thumbnail along the flap.

  ‘Lovely,’ she says, examining the card. She holds it out to him. It’s the sort you buy in the gallery gift shop, a proper copy of a painting. ‘The Blue Boy,’ she says, squinting at the small print. ‘Dear Marion,’ she begins. He does not stop her from reading.

  Michael listens to Sarah’s brief, anodyne message, the sort that doesn’t need an answer, but in his mind’s eye he sees her at seventeen. Taller than him. Standing in front of a set of bare shelves. They’d been like that for months. They stayed like that for ever. She wore a short, suede skirt that was too big for her, which remained in position like armour while her tiny waist twisted inside it. On her feet were multi-strapped sandals, which encased her lower legs up to the knee as if she were displaying her own skeleton outside her body. She’d made holes in both sleeves of her jumper and stuck her thumbs through them. She always kept the scars covered. What she said then is louder to him now than the words the nurse reads. ‘I can’t be in a place that has her in it.’ He had set things in motion without demur. He and Marion had parted noiselessly. He was reminded of skaters, letting go of each other’s hands to glide and spin on different parts of the ice. Sharing a house with Sarah rearranged his thinking and soon he couldn’t imagine his life with anyone else. When she left she had put, first, a town, then an entire ocean between them. ‘It’s not an exorcism,’ she’d said, folding the few clothes she took with her into a rucksack. ‘It’s a baptism.’ Her absence was not unkind. She had prepared the way for his last, magnificently tender pairing.

  ‘I’ll put it here,’ the nurse says, propping the card on the locker beside him. There is something furtive in her expression. ‘Mr Deacon,’ she says. ‘May I have the stamps? Would you mind? My brother collects them.’ She gazes at the envelope. ‘America,’ she says. ‘Your daughter’s in America.’ She smiles at Michael, marvelling at him as you would at a baby that liked olives. She examines the postmark. ‘This was posted a while ago, wasn’t it?’ He tries to speak. She looks around to make sure she’s not observed and then removes the mask. ‘Just for a moment,’ she says. ‘So you can say what you want to say.’

  ‘Do have the stamps,’ Michael says. She smiles. ‘But could you put the card away?’

  ‘Pardon?’ She leans towards him, tucking her hair behind her ear.

  He can see that she wears only one little stud in her lobe but there are many more piercings. He imagines her sticking all manner of earrings through the holes on her nights off, in defiance of the rules here. Great hoops and outrageous sparklers. ‘In the drawer, please,’ Michael manages.

  ‘Not on display?’ she says, disappointed. She gives him a moment to change his mind, holding the card towards him.

  ‘No,’ says Michael and regrets that he hasn’t even the strength to say: ‘thank you’.

  He admits to himself that things may not end as he wishes. The thought is both unnerving and satisfying. It’s as if he were completing a crossword puzzle only to discover that, although they are correct, some of the answers are not words he knew.

  Chapter 33

  29 September

  Bobbie’s father, Mr Cavanagh, is called Adrian. I tore a page out of my Page-a-Day diary and wrote his name on it and folded it over until it was small. I put it in the Jesus box, with the others. It’s got a picture on the lid of Him with mighty beams behind His head and a massive halo. The names rub against each other in there. There are seven now.

  Number 1 is Greg, who I met at a party. He told me my breasts were SBHs, which is Standard British Handful.

  2. Daniel, who came round door-to-door selling pictures on velvet he’d painted himself. He said they were inspired by Africa. He didn’t say if he’d been there. He had very beautiful eyes, but he didn’t come back, even though my parents said they were quite interested in buying something.

  3. John, who is Lizzie H’s cousin. He had grown much taller the last time I saw him, which made him attractive.

  4. Neil, who went to the same holiday swimming club as me. It was only for a week and I hated most of it, but on the last day he made me laugh until my tummy hurt.

  5. Anthony, who is the son of one of my parents’ friends. He shouldn’t be in there really. He’s a bit gross but he asked for my phone number.

  6. Kev, who goes out with Izzy in my class. He’s a biker. She says when they go round the bends on the roads together, he leans the bike so far over she nearly scrapes her knees on the tarmac. I’ve never spoken to him, just seen him with her after school.

  7. Adrian. I’ve never called a grown-up by just their name, so I added Mr Cavanagh.

  After a while, I tore out another page and wrote Bobbie’s name on it. It had my New Year resolutions on the other side:

  Be nicer to Eddie.

  Stop biting my nails.

  Get a boyfriend.

  I’ve nearly stopped biting my nails.

  Chapter 34

  ‘Mrs Deacon?’

  The young doctor is hurrying after me. I’m by the lift. We both glance up at the display: the number three is illuminated and will be for a while; these lifts are very slow. His white coat flaps open. He wears this official garment without ceremony. Nearly fifty years ago, I stood in front of the full-length mirror in the outfitters. It was the first time I’d seen myself dressed as a nurse. The little cape hung heavily, and I could feel every pin anchoring my cap. It suited me.

  This doctor’s face is anxious, he looks as if he’d like to hand this encounter to someone else. ‘The registrar can pop in tomorrow,’ he says. ‘The morning round, I think. It’ll be at about—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what time,’ I say,
‘I’m going to be here all day.’

  He looks down at his shoes. They are plastic, round-toed, the sort of shoes small children would wear on the beach. He smiles. ‘Practical,’ he says, shrugging.

  ‘Ugly,’ I say.

  ‘The thing is,’ he says, ignoring my remark, ‘the thing is, it would be a good idea to get the family here. Soon. Would that be possible?’

  I don’t answer. I don’t want to make this easy for him.

  ‘Do you have children?’ he says.

  I nod.

  ‘And grandchildren, I expect?’ He thinks he is being kind.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But not in this country.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Well, it’s just that whoever wants to see him should come, to say—’ He stops.

  I know he means well, but I also know he’ll have to have this conversation many more times, with many more people, over the years. He is gauging how much truth I can stand. He deems me a practical type, able to assimilate what’s happening without hysterics. I’m not even crying, am I? ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I’ll tell everyone who needs to know.’

  I negotiate the agonisingly slow lift and the car park’s obstructive exit without irritation, as I’m rehearsing the calls I must make. I wish I didn’t have to speak to anyone else. I don’t want to hear their voices. I turn off the car radio and drive home in silence.

  I’m affronted by the stillness of the house. Only a couple of circulars on the mat indicate there’s been any change at all. I switch on the lights in all the rooms, to defend myself from shadows. I turn on the television. Instead of concentrating on what’s on the screen, I can only see, washed up from the past of thirty years ago like wreckage from a storm, that other life.

  Reading Sarah’s list of boys was comical, until I got to his name. Next to where she’d written: ‘Adrian Mr Cavanagh’ there were stars and an open-petalled flower, the sort you draw in a big, lazy swirl without taking your pen from the paper. I opened the Jesus box and examined the other contents. Two baby teeth and a badge saying, ‘Tower of London’. Some silver charms tarnished without use. A tiny phial of Ma Griffe. An origami swan. A small glass monkey and a postcard of a Spanish dancer, her skirt made of real ribbon. Sarah had tried to hoard these things in secret, but children have no power. While everyone was out, I could roam through every inch of the house, opening all the cupboards and drawers at will and undisturbed.

  I put on my coat. I willed the space where his car might stand to stay empty until I returned. It was only half past nine. I didn’t like to think of his bed somewhere, and him either in it or not in it, or about who else might be there with him. I pulled the notebook from the drawer and wrote ‘biscuits’ on the little sheet of paper, as if I might forget the task if I didn’t.

  Almost as soon as I’d shut the front door behind me, Sheila walked down her own path. When she caught my eye, she waved and increased her speed. We were separated by three front gardens.

  ‘Going out?’ she said.

  ‘Just as far as the corner shop,’ I said. Had she been waiting for me? She wasn’t wearing a coat, so she hadn’t intended to leave her house for any length of time. She had her handbag. She probably picked it up whenever she left the house, even for a moment.

  ‘Marion’ – she put one hand on my arm – ‘come and have a coffee. Just for half an hour.’

  ‘I’ve got a friend coming later. I can’t—’

  ‘When’s she coming? This morning?’

  ‘Midday.’ I couldn’t fib. Sheila probably clocked me on and off, anyway.

  ‘Super. Who’s that, then?’ It didn’t occur to her not to ask.

  ‘Bridget.’

  ‘Ah, your old school friend. Lovely.’ She implied that people you’d known at school didn’t really count as chums. Michael had a Rolodex on his desk. Its little cards would flatten apart at the name he needed. I imagined Sheila must have a similar system, only hers was in her head. It had just whirred and stopped at Bridget’s name.

  I’d only been to Michael’s office once. We were going to the theatre and I’d been in town already, both of which were unusual. We’d had to make quite a complicated plan involving Michael actually taking a small suitcase of my clothes with him on the train, so that I could change for the evening. Michael’s secretary was a tidy young woman, whose clothes fitted her as neatly as if she’d been sewn into them. Miss Piper. I didn’t know her Christian name then. She sat at a little desk outside his room, like a sentry, and she indicated the door for me with a slight hesitation, as though it were private and I shouldn’t really be admitted. The suitcase sat in the middle of the room; it must have been stowed somewhere else all day. I knelt on the floor and opened it. My clothes, slightly dishevelled after their incarceration, looked as dear and familiar as old friends. The room was not overlooked – the only window gave on to a nondescript inner area of the blank, windowless walls of other offices – but nevertheless I’d felt conspicuous and exposed at the thought of taking my day clothes off there. I went and stood behind Michael’s desk, on the same side as his chair and next to the wall, as though that offered privacy. Curled up next to the chair’s leg was a crumpled apricot tissue. It was the sort that came out of a cardboard box decorated with flowers. I remember, too, that the room smelled of lavender.

  ‘You’ve got ages,’ Sheila said, steering me along the pavement. ‘Coffee. Shop. Home.’ She made a bouncing motion with one arm as she spoke, as though you got to each appointment by hopping. She retrieved her purse from her handbag, opened it and took out a key, dropped the purse back and closed her handbag’s clasp with a loud click. ‘Now, in you go.’

  Our houses were similarly sized but the builder had had some fun ordering them slightly differently inside, making hallways wider or narrower, or putting kitchens where you might be used to a dining room. In Sheila’s house, the stairs veered sideways to a little platform before going off at a different angle to continue upwards. The platform looked like a tiny stage. There was no room for any performance, it was half taken up with a nest of tables, topped with green leather held safely under glass. Beside it was a box full of medical supplies. It looked like a little field hospital of bottles, dressings and pills. Sheila’s mother lived with them so I supposed they must all be to do with her care.

  I had met her mother at a Christmas drinks party Sheila had held for the neighbours. ‘Shared locality, shared friendship,’ she’d said. She had placed all the chairs against the walls. The old woman had perched on the same one all evening, glaring into the space in the middle of the room and refusing vol-au-vents and any attempts at conversation. ‘This is Marion, Mother, she lives down the road,’ Sheila yelled.

  The old woman looked at me. Thinning strands of her hair formed a lattice over her pink and barren scalp. ‘Don’t they all?’ the woman said.

  She’d sounded quite, what, exactly? Cockney? She certainly didn’t have Sheila’s clipped vowels. She’d looked quite healthy, as robust as she could behind the wrinkling and trembling of her years. She hadn’t looked as if she’d needed much treatment of any sort, anyway. I shivered. If you had to do all the sort of things for old people that you had to do for babies, wiping and dressing and helping them eat, then Sheila must be some sort of saint. It was hard to reconcile that notion with Sheila’s four-square, earthly demeanour. It was more than likely that she just left the box outside her mother’s room and told her to fend for herself.

  ‘Come in.’ Sheila opened the sitting room door wide and gestured to me to go through. ‘I’ll get coffee.’

  She continued to talk to me as she went down the hallway and as she reached the kitchen, she raised her voice to a high shriek to cover the distance between us. I couldn’t match her volume in return, and anyway I felt foolish yelling back from the settee, but Sheila didn’t appear to mind the conversation being one-sided and carried on. It seemed to be to do with objecting about the removal of a zebra crossing. Or possibly the instigation of one. When the kettle began to whistle, Sheil
a got louder still. I sat on the edge of a seat so hard and ungiving I thought it might bruise me. Cushions of stone-like inflexibility were set at precise intervals along its length. Sheila hadn’t suggested I take my coat off, but it tightened at the sleeves and collar as I sat, so I stood up and undid the buttons.

  ‘Sit down, sit down,’ said Sheila, coming back in – as though I’d been standing, waiting for her, all that time. She carried a small tray and tiny cups tinkled on their saucers as she set it down.

  On a matching plate, three plain biscuits were arranged in a fan. ‘Sugar?’ Sheila held out a bowl of coloured crystals.

  They seemed larger than the usual sort and were difficult to persuade on to the spoon. The teaspoons were miniature, too, making my fingers feel large and imprecise. I thought of Adrian’s hands, making the cup he’d held look small.

  ‘So,’ Sheila said, ‘how nice your friend is coming. She lives in the north, doesn’t she?’

  ‘She does, yes.’ I took a sip of the coffee. It was extremely hot. The thin china burned my lips. I had to set the saucer down before I could replace the cup, balancing the doll-sized spoon in case it fell. The shock of the heat made me too quick and careless and the liquid spilled over one side, a little Vesuvius erupting on to the table.

  ‘Never mind!’ Sheila said loudly, obviously minding very much. She rushed out of the room, hissing, ‘Cloth!’ as she went.

  I stared helplessly at the spreading puddle. I thought I’d better move whatever might be in its path, picking up first a porcelain flower arrangement with a disproportionately large kitten investigating the blooms. Next, a heavy frame. It was a wedding photograph. Sheila and Alan, her arm looped through his, her gloved hand hovering so that it wouldn’t crease his jacket. They stood in the middle of a group of smart people, seven or eight of them, caught in the act of throwing confetti over the couple. I stared at the faces. One of them was Adrian. Unmistakably him, although the picture was a good fifteen years old, if not more. The other people were turned towards the newly-wedded pair, he was looking at the photographer. He wore a wide, double-breasted jacket. A little handkerchief, neatly folded, peeked from his pocket and he held a trilby in one hand. Even in black and white, he was the most colourful person there.