The Sea Gate

by Jane Johnson

  ‘You threw that cup at me!’ she accuses. She turns to the ward sister. ‘And I was only doing my best for poor old Mrs Kitto. Her special tea always perks her up.’

  ‘Special tea?’ My suspicions fire up again.

  ‘Her friend brings it in for her. Such a kind old soul – in this little flask…’ She indicates a tartan-patterned Thermos that is now rolling around the bottom tier of the trolley. I swoop upon it, wrapping the sleeve of my sweater over my hand to pick it up. The tea lady curls her lip. ‘’Tain’t hot!’ she says contemptuously. ‘That’s how them flasks work – keep the tea hot on the inside while the outside say stays cool.’

  ‘Very clever,’ I say. ‘What will they think of next?’

  She fixes me with a hard stare. ‘I do hope you haven’t broken it. A person can get very poorly drinking tea with a bit of broken glass in it.’

  The ward sister is watching this pantomime with her hands on her hips and a deep frown.

  ‘Could I have a quiet word?’ I ask.

  25

  THE FOLLOWING TUESDAY THERE IS A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. I go to open it and find a young woman in a navy blue jacket clutching a clipboard. She greets me with the determinedly brisk politeness of the professional who is forced to be pleasant in order to carry out an onerous task. ‘You must be Rebecca!’ She extends a small, well-manicured hand. ‘I’m Terri Jones, from social services. Come to do the assessment for Mrs Kitto.’

  ‘Miss Kitto,’ I say under my breath. She looks about twelve. I usher her in.

  ‘What a beautiful old house,’ she says, standing there in the hall, taking it in, the brittle veneer giving way to genuine surprise – and suddenly I see it through her eyes: the gleaming wooden panelling, the lovely old banisters and carved newel post, the authentic wallpaper, the lofty ceiling with its original mouldings, the fleur-de-lys floor tiles, the light streaming in through the stained glass panels beside the door colouring the floor with pools of cyan and scarlet. More light pours in from Gabriel’s room, which is where I take her first.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, looking alarmed at the sight of the cage. She scans through the paper on her clipboard. ‘I don’t think I’ve got a tick-box for parrots. We do ask about pets, but by that we generally mean a dog or cat—’

  She is interrupted by a long wolf-whistle from the incorrigible old bird, which takes her off-guard and charms her, especially when I say I am the one who will be taking care of him.

  On the way to the kitchen we are met by Reda, who pops his head out of Olivia’s suite, no doubt intrigued by the sound of female voices. ‘This is Miss Jones, from social services,’ I tell him; but ‘Oh, do call me Terri,’ she says, giving him her hand, which seems a slightly odd thing to do when meeting someone’s builder. I half expect him to lift it to his lips, but he smiles and shakes it and says he must get back to work, he’s just finishing the snagging. Terri walks around the suite, ticking boxes, checking the grab rails, asking if Olivia will need a frame to get up from the loo; also checking out Reda’s handsome backside, snug in its dark overalls. I catch her looking and she gives me a conspiratorial grin.

  She measures the doorways for wheelchair access, watches as I operate the controls on the hospital-style bed we have installed in Olivia’s private room, asks whether I have noticed the old lady’s remarkable improvement over the past couple of weeks. ‘Ever since she knew she was getting out!’ she declares, as if Olivia is being released from a prison sentence. Though hardly for good behaviour.

  I have noticed. I’ve driven into Truro most days to see her and each time she has surprised me with a sharp observation, a stronger grip on my arm, a less pronounced limp as we patrol the corridors, building her strength. She utterly refuses any help in the bathroom – ‘I can pull my own knickers up, thank you very much!’ – and with the tip of her tongue poking between her lips as she concentrates on the fiddly coordination of fingers, buttons and buttonholes, has proved she can dress herself (another box ticked on the reablement list) given a little time and patience.

  Once back out in the hall, Terri Jones says, ‘Lucky Mrs Kitto, having you two looking after her. Your husband is absolutely delightful: you make a wonderful couple. I can see she’s going to be in very good hands.’

  Dumbfounded, I watch her slip out through the front door and down the garden path.

  Reda comes out, wiping his hands on his overalls. ‘Husband, eh?’ he says, and grins at me.

  ‘Silly woman,’ I say, but my insides are leaping.

  *

  Olivia gets discharged from hospital the very next afternoon. Such unwarranted efficiency must mean they are desperate to be rid of her, and as she waves her walking stick in the air and berates the poor paramedics labouring up the steps with her wheelchair, I can quite see why. ‘Careful, careful, young man. Are you trying to kill me? Think of the paperwork.’

  She looks up at me, standing in the doorway, and her eyes narrow. ‘Where’s my fucking porch?’

  The paramedics guffaw: someone else taking the flak at last.

  ‘It… er… fell down,’ I say, berating myself for failing to garner the courage to prepare her for this shock.

  ‘Porches don’t just “fall down”!’ she barks, surveying the strange absence, the pale stone revealed by the collapse.

  ‘It was pretty rickety…’

  ‘Did I tell you to put DEMOLISH THE PORCH on the to-do list?’ she demands, but by now it’s a rhetorical flourish.

  I usher her and the paramedics inside. One of them, a younger man with a shock of yellow hair like a dandelion, gives me a sly wink as he passes, and I grin back. ‘But see how much more light you get inside the house without it,’ I cajole our charge.

  Even though I can’t see Olivia’s expression, I can feel her taking in the changes that have occurred since she left. I have lost several layers of skin, many pints of elbow-grease, and put hundreds of hours of effort into making every square inch shine. The air smells no longer of parrot shit but of lavender floor wax and lemon polish. There is love in this house once more, where there had been bitterness and despair and hatred. I hope she can feel it.

  I offer the paramedics a cup of tea but ‘Bugger off, arsehole!’ the parrot squawks, and I see them shoot a look at one another, then at me. ‘Blimey,’ says the older man, ‘it’s a madhouse.’

  The dandelion-haired paramedic bears his shockingly white teeth at me in a grin that expresses both chagrin at his compadre’s rudeness and enjoyment of my discomposure, then wags a finger at Olivia. ‘Goodbye, Miss Kitto. Behave for this lovely young lady, eh?’

  ‘Oh, bugger off. And you’ – she points at me – ‘help me out of this blasted chair!’

  They beat a swift retreat, back to the quiet, safe space of their ambulance, parked down on the lane.

  ‘“Lovely young lady”,’ Olivia echoes sardonically, and her left eyebrow twitches up. At first I think it’s just an involuntary reflex, but no: it’s a deliberately cocked eyebrow. My goodness, she has regained far greater control of her facial muscles in the past few days.

  ‘I’m sure he says that to everyone,’ I tell her dismissively, helping her to stand. She sways dangerously for a couple of seconds, then plants her stick firmly and heads towards the parlour. It is, I must admit, nice to receive a compliment and I feel a sudden warmth in my cheeks, but it is as nothing compared to the way Olivia’s face is suffused with joy as her gaze alights upon the parrot’s cage.

  ‘Ah, Gabriel!’

  Her dark eyes brim suddenly with tears as she leans on my arm, setting her handbag on the floor so that she can stroke his head tenderly through the bars.

  I settle her on the sofa with her stick and her handbag within reach, riddle up the fire and bring Gabriel to sit with her. She is astounded at his good behaviour with me – sitting good as gold on my hand, allowing me to transfer him from cage to sofa arm without so much as a peanut by way of a bribe. I leave them together to catch up while I go to make tea, turning at the doorway to see the pa
rrot leaning his head into Olivia’s caressing fingers. He is making a sound I have never heard from him before, the sort of noise you’d describe as a purr, if parrots could purr. Perhaps he is copying one of the orchard cats; perhaps there was a pet one in the house once.

  When I come back with a tray bearing cups – new ones to replace the flower-patterned ones – the fat brown tea pot emitting a curl of aromatic steam, a little milk jug and sugar dish I found in Penzance and a packet of chocolate digestives, she turns to me and beams. ‘How lovely of you! I feel like a queen.’

  ‘I’ll show you around your new royal quarters after you’ve had your tea. I think you’ll like it very much. I hope you will.’

  I pour out a cup of tea for her and she takes it gingerly. The surface of the liquid ripples with the trembling of her hands, but it’s not as pronounced as you might expect and she manages to set cup and saucer down on the little table without a spill. Then she sits back into the sofa and looks past me, around the room – at the polished surfaces and the steam-cleaned rug, the fresh flowers glowing in the winter sunlight; at her paintings on the walls. Her gaze settles on The Sea Gate, now taking pride of place where Reda helped me hang it.

  ‘It’s so beautiful,’ I tell her. ‘Cousin Olivia, you’re a wonderful painter.’

  ‘I was once,’ she says wistfully. ‘A long, long time ago.’ She pushes herself to her feet, and with the aid of her walking stick shuffles across the room to examine the painting with me following nervously in case she stumbles. She reaches up and brushes the canvas with her free hand.

  ‘Who carved those patterns on the other side of the gate?’ I ask her softly. ‘And the ones in the cellar?’

  Her look becomes shuttered and she returns to the sofa to reapply herself to the tea and biscuits. I pass her a wet wipe. ‘I’m not crying, you know!’ she says fiercely.

  ‘It’s for your hands. After touching Gabriel.’ I have been well drilled by social services.

  ‘Gabriel is a pristine creature, aren’t you, my darling?’

  I snort at her wild lie and try a different angle. ‘Is his real name Djibril?’

  She freezes with a biscuit halfway to her mouth. ‘Why are you asking me all these questions?’ she demands, suddenly furious.

  Not the time to raise the matter of the skeleton, then. I feel suitably admonished, and apologize, and we sit drinking our tea in an awkward silence punctuated only by Gabriel’s happy whistles.

  When she has finished her drink, her energy seems to drop, and a little while later her eyelids droop and soon she is asleep and snoring, her mouth half-open, like a child’s. I reach over and smooth her hair from her cheek and arrange the cushions supportively around her, then reach my arm out to Gabriel, who hops onto it as if he is the best-trained bird under the sun.

  Back in his cage, he shells his reward peanuts with deft flicks of his beak and does not seem to mind at all that I have latched his door and rendered him a prisoner once more. I clear away the tea things and wash them up in the kitchen and sort through the food purchases to make a choice for supper.

  By the time I get back to the parlour, Olivia is on her feet at the window, her knobbly old hands braced on the sill, looking out over the tangles of garden vegetation towards the sea. When she turns at the sound of my entrance, her face is wet with tears.

  ‘I’m sure you thought sometimes you’d never be coming back here,’ I say softly.

  She starts, then squares her shoulders and fixes me with a penetrating gaze. ‘Nonsense. I always knew I’d be coming home.’

  We gaze at one another. I can feel all those unanswered questions hanging heavy in the air between us, but I know I cannot ask them yet.

  ‘Come and see your room,’ I say to her. ‘See what Mo and Reda have done to make you comfortable. I hope you’ll like it.’

  ‘I’d better.’

  I escort her slowly down the hall to the new suite. The room is warm and welcoming. I have lit the candle in the hurricane lamp to complement the inset lights overhead, currently turned down low, controlled by a dimmer switch, and a small bowl of incense which sits smoking beside it, full of complex scents – roses, musk, perfume, spices: a gift from Reda. It masks the smell of gloss paint – we only finished painting the woodwork yesterday.

  I show her the en-suite bathroom, with its walk-in shower-bath, high-level loo, and grab bars, and explain how the taps and the emergency cord work. The spare modern lines of the white suite have been offset by sandy travertine, and a huge metal and camel-bone mirror that Reda brought from home hangs over the sink and vanity unit. ‘I think she will like it,’ he said. ‘It will make the room look less… utilitarian.’ He beamed as he told me he had to go to his French/English dictionary to find this word.

  His generosity left me speechless. And he was right: she does love it. ‘So beautiful. It brings back so many memories.’ Her voice drops almost to a whisper. ‘I remember walking through the bazaars and seeing lovely things just like this, all handmade. You know, you could see them displayed for sale and walk a few paces away around the back of the stall and find men squatting on the ground, beating out patterns in brass and silver with these little hammers, cutting tiny shapes out of ebony and camel-bone and piecing them together like a jigsaw. I could watch them all day, they were so skilled, so intent on achieving perfection. I love the way those craftsmen worked – just think how many hours it took to be created by such clever hands.’

  She caresses the inlays in the carved frame, her expression withdrawn and distant as if she is connecting with her memories. At last she gives a little shake of the head and grimaces at her own reflection. ‘For a moment,’ she says, ‘I thought I was young again, but look, there I am – utterly decrepit.’

  I grin. ‘Cousin Olivia, you look quite splendid to me.’ But I can see she’s not convinced.

  Back in the main room the hospital bed has been disguised with the lovely old paisley quilt from upstairs. The incense masks the slight smell of mildew on it, though I aired it in front of the range – or maybe it’s just the scent of long-ago times. Olivia runs her hand over the quilt: another fragment of her past.

  On the bright walls, set beneath new picture lamps, hang more of her paintings – the self-portrait from the kitchen, the trawler ploughing away into the shimmering sea. They look gallery-worthy – handsome and important, commanding this clean space – and I am proud of my selections and their staging, but Olivia glares at the last one she comes to.

  ‘I don’t want that old portrait of me in here,’ she says at last, glaring at the girl with the black eyes. ‘It’s just a painful reminder.’

  Olivia betrayed. I berate myself for not making the connection.

  ‘What would you like there instead?’ I ask.

  Her gaze goes faraway. Then she gives a shrug. ‘I don’t know. Anything else, really. Something cheerful.’

  ‘There is…’ I start, and hesitate, then make myself go on. ‘There’s a painting I found upstairs that would look marvellous there.’

  She looks at me suspiciously, her eyes very bright. Then her eyes go very wide and I can see she knows exactly which painting I mean.

  ‘Nosing around my things!’ she accuses.

  ‘It was up in the attic when there was a leak in the roof. I moved The Sea Gate so it didn’t get damaged.’ A useful half-truth. ‘I love the portrait I found with it,’ I add gently. ‘The colour in it, the warmth… the love.’

  Her gaze narrows and her mouth firms. ‘I don’t know which painting you mean.’

  ‘The one of the naked man,’ I can’t seem to help myself going on, though I know I am treading on dangerous ground now. ‘On the bed in the upstairs bedroom… Will you tell me who he was… one day?’

  She shoots a pained look at me, then grabs her stick and scuttles quickly across the floor, so quickly that I am terrified she will be overtaken by her own momentum and fall, but she reaches the door and holds the jamb, breathing heavily.

  I have gone too far. I
scoot across the room after her and take her elbow. Together we make our way back to the parlour, where she sinks heavily back onto the sofa. I take a seat in the armchair, trying and failing to find a way to apologize.

  The silence stretches on and on. At last she says, ‘Are there any sardines?’

  *

  The next day I take Olivia a cup of tea to waken her. I have prepared my careful words of apology and made a promise to myself that I will not harangue her. Balancing the breakfast tray in one hand, I rap on her door and then open it, hoping she has spent a comfortable night.

  As I take a step inside the new suite, she emerges from her bathroom with her hair swaddled in a colourful length of cloth she has wound into a great onion of a turban. She looks exotic, otherworldly. For a moment I stand in the doorway with the tray in my hands, taking her in. She smiles – less lopsidedly. What unevenness there is to her features now seems less evidence of disease than an abundance of character.

  Seeing me gazing at her, she pats the turban.

  ‘Hamid taught me how to do it.’

  ‘Hamid?’

  ‘The man in the painting.’

  A frisson runs through me. I cross the room and put the breakfast tray down on the dresser before I drop it. Olivia subsides into her chair, crosses her bare feet and regards me catlike and amused. I must be careful, let her tell me what she wishes to tell me, at her own pace, in her own time.

  ‘It suits you.’

  ‘He always said that.’

  I wait, determined not to press.

  She looks away from me, thoughtful, then sad. I can see her physically withdrawing from me, as if she is bodily slipping back in time. She glares down at her hands – the swollen knuckles, the liver spots, the blue veins snaking just beneath the surface of the papery skin – as if they do not belong to her.

  After a long time, she raises her head. ‘I loved him so much. We made our own little paradise together, a secret world, just like Adam and Eve before the Fall…’

  ‘Oh Olivia, how romantic.’