by Sam Hayes
‘Have you met Elizabeth yet?’ Jonathon asked, but I didn’t hear him initially. The passing guests milling in and out of the blowsy marquee were too attractive to ignore. All those prominent, educated people at my fingertips. ‘Mary?’
‘Sorry?’ The champagne was fizzing my thoughts.
‘Elizabeth Carlyle. I asked if you’d met her?’
‘No, Jon, she hasn’t.’ David answered for me. ‘She has that treat yet to come.’ Both men laughed. ‘Mother is around somewhere but seems to be avoiding everyone. Last time I saw her, she was sobbing into a pillow.’
‘Oh, that’s terrible,’ I said. ‘Shouldn’t we find her?’ Another piece for the patchwork. A clue about David’s mother.
David laughed. ‘If you haven’t met her, you won’t understand that she likes to sob.’ He gave a devious grin. David’s mother was an enigma, just like her son. It wasn’t until I saw her that I understood completely.
Matron walks past but then stops; a second thought. ‘If you’ve got something to say, Mrs Marshall, you can say it to me.’ She believes it’s that easy. I want to demand that she fetch Julia, bring her to my side so that I can tell her everything, warn her, plead with her to get away before it’s too late. But how do I do that when the right words don’t even exist?
‘Perhaps your daughter will visit today, and that pretty little granddaughter of yours. What’s her name now?’
Flora, I tell her silently. I can only hope that yet another generation doesn’t become infected. Seeing him with Julia, with the children, it’s a glimpse of what might have been. All I can do is silently watch, holding my breath, praying that my daughter treads a different path. How can I risk losing everything I’ve ever loved? She’d hate me after all these years.
Matron is right. Some time later, Julia and Flora arrive. ‘You don’t look any better, Mum.You’re very pale. Are they feeding you enough? Have they done any more tests yet? What medication are you on?’ My daughter reaches out to touch me but then thinks better of it. Her questions float between us, brushing our faces like cobwebs. ‘Anyway, Flora made this for you.’
Flora creeps up to me – not the perky little girl who used to chase chickens and gather fallen apples in her skirt, but rather a tamed, forlorn creature who has obviously been told that her grandma is very ill.
I made you a card with things at your farm, she signs. Her little hands pass over a piece of brown cardboard box squashed in half. She places it on my lap. It’s smeared with white glue that’s still wet in places. Wispy feathers, spongy moss, twigs and tiny stones cling on. Flora pushes a twig back into its bed of glue when it falls off.
It’s to make you better, Grandma, she signs.
And by one ounce out of a million tons, it does.
Julia spends most of her visit fussing with the nurses. She’s agitated, that’s for sure, and doesn’t seem in the least bit interested in talking to me. She flits between the day room, where I’m sitting with Flora as she colours, and the nurses’ station. Down the corridor I hear her voice spinning demands at the staff. I know from experience that they will smile politely and tell her they’ll mention it to the doctor when he does his rounds.
‘You don’t quite understand what I’m saying, do you?’ Julia has followed the matron back into the day room. ‘There are conflicting reports and I don’t know what to believe.’
‘Mrs Marshall.’ Matron looks up from her clipboard. She is trying to tick off and account for all her patients. Someone does this every hour. Now she has been interrupted, she hangs the board by her side. ‘It’s a matter for the doctor,’ she explains predictably. ‘Your mother is stable. I will certainly mention your concerns to the consultant on Monday.’
I hear something from Julia – a protest that she can’t visit on Monday, something about mixed-up reports, something about prison. Then her voice washes away down the corridor as she tries another nurse. Flora looks up at me from the floor. She is sitting in a patch of temporary sunlight. An angel sent.
Flora, I sign, and if hands could whisper, this would be it. Come and sit on my knee.
Flora frowns and glances around for her mother. What have they told her?
Come on, I won’t bite. Perhaps my words aren’t clear for her. My fingers form limited outlines as I don’t want to draw attention to myself. Come here so Grandma can tell you a secret.
At this, Flora hops up, abandoning her felt pens like she is about to learn all the mysteries of the universe. It’s as easy as that to win a child’s attention. I could coax her into my car with the promise of puppies and candy. I could drag her into my mind by pledging a glimpse of my past and a flash of her future.
What is it, Grandma? Are you getting better yet?
The truth is, I tell her carefully, that I am not ill at all.
Elizabeth Carlyle was see-through thin. She made a brief but memorable appearance just after the food was served, just as the meringue and gateau plates were being cleared away. Shortly before this, David had disappeared from my side once again, and I later discovered that he was inside the big house with his mother, discussing things, he told me, as he downed yet another glass of champagne at the table. We’d both had too much.
‘Here she comes,’ he said, as if he was announcing royalty. The other guests seemed to instinctively know when to turn their heads. ‘Bloody decent of her to make an appearance at last.’ David had removed his jacket and his cuffs hung wide open around his wrists. He loosened his tie. ‘She’s getting more attention than the bride.’ The bitterness was palpable.
‘Introduce me,’ I said, leaning over to David, but only because I’d had the champagne. Elizabeth Carlyle looked terrifying. She cruised the cream carpet that led to the dance floor with the elegance of a black swan gliding on a still lake. ‘She’s beautiful,’ I whispered truthfully. David was sprawled in his chair, playing with the cutlery he hadn’t used.
He clattered the knife on to the table. ‘No. No, she’s not,’ he said brusquely, resignedly, angrily. He stood up.
David strode over to his mother and roughly intercepted her on the dance floor. The string quartet started to play. I watched the battle taking place between mother and son. Elizabeth danced reluctantly, wanting to escape, although still desiring to steal the show. From the unnatural tightness in David’s steps to the ice in his mother’s eyes, it told me there had been sour words between them earlier; perhaps all of David’s life.
David gripped Elizabeth as they tracked a path across the floor. His fingers laced between her ribs as if he would never let her go. But a minute later, he did. Elizabeth Carlyle swept from the dance floor as soon as her son’s arms fell to his sides.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked Jonathon. He had come to sit in David’s vacant chair.
‘They hate each other.’ Jonathon poured me more champagne and left me wondering. ‘So what’s a nice girl like you doing with David anyway?’ By now, a cluster of his friends had drawn around – Sarah, his sister, included. They all wanted to hear my answer.
‘Yes, tell us how you met?’ Sarah asked. Her cheeks were touched with red, to match her hair, and the same colour showed up in her eyes as she waited for my reply.
I laughed nervously. I didn’t know how much David had already told them. ‘We met in Cambridge,’ I began. They would probably assume I was a mature student or worked on the university campus.
‘Hey, Mary,’ the young man opposite said. I’d forgotten his name. ‘Any chance of . . . ?’ He grinned and held up his empty champagne glass.
‘Oh.’ My reaction was instant. I didn’t stop to think. The bottle was next to me, and I stood up, grateful for the reprieve. I circled the table and refilled his glass.
‘While you’re there, Mary,’ his partner said, ‘can I have a top-up too, please?’ But the bottle ran out halfway through her measure. They all looked at me expectantly. ‘I’ll go and get another one,’ I said, still not realising, not even as a round of laughter trailed me to the bar. When I returned and fil
led all seven glasses at our table, there were more requests.
‘I see some people have cheese and biscuits.’
‘And coffee.’
‘Yes, can we have coffee, Mary?’
‘I appear to have lost my napkin, Mary. Could you fetch me another?’
The comments came with increasing accuracy, and it was only after I returned from the buffet with platters of cheese and extra napkins that I began to understand what was going on.
Finally, ending the cruel banter, it was Jonathon who stood up and barked, ‘Enough!’ The group instantly ceased their play, although none of them appeared particularly sheepish. ‘Come with me, Mary,’ he said and led me away. I was furious but too intimidated to show it. Still dazzled by their wealth, their status, their proximity, I allowed myself to be saved by Jonathon. I didn’t know where we were going or why, but I was thankful to be out of the marquee and plunged into the fresh evening air.
‘Thanks,’ I said when we were well away from the reception party. I bowed my head in shame. ‘I wonder what happened to David.’ I’d cast a glance around the dance floor before leaving.
Jonathon smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘They’re a cocksure lot but they had no right to treat you like that. I apologise on their behalf.’ He didn’t mention David.
‘Accepted,’ I said weakly. I swept a glance around the terrace in case David was leaning against the wall, smoking within the boughs of wisteria. I couldn’t see him. ‘Before you ask, it’s true. I am a waitress.’
‘David already told me how you met.’
Suddenly, I couldn’t have felt more separated from their world. David had seen fit to tell Jonathon where I worked, as if prior warning was needed to get over the shock of him associating with a mere waitress. I tried to cling on to the last shreds of self-respect. ‘I like the work. I meet all sorts of people.’ I was lying, of course. The work was mostly tedious and hard. After each shift, my feet ached, my mind stagnated and the pay was terrible. ‘Our customers are interesting, educated and come in from the university.’
‘Interesting like David,’ Jonathon added, slipping his arm through mine. We walked down to the lake – a spreading expanse of shimmering indigo – and all the while I was searching for him, David, in case he was near. The early moon broke from behind the willow fronds, killing the trail of orange still left in the sky from the setting sun.
‘Yes, like David,’ I confirmed. ‘We’ve become good friends. Just friends,’ I added with a smile. It was an opportunity to let Jonathon know how I felt, as if my feelings would be better understood by David the more I spread them around.
‘Mary.’ Jonathon stopped and turned, moving me to face him squarely. ‘David is besotted with you. He’s in love with you.’ I felt Jonathon’s breath on my cheek. It was as light as the breeze floating across the water. The words drifted away like litter and I wanted them back; I wanted to hear them a thousand times more even though I knew it was the beginning of the end. I stood with my mouth open.
Exactly what I had been desperate to avoid was happening. Once David succumbed to his feelings, it would follow that our friendship would crumble. I couldn’t allow things to transfer to a different level, however tempting, however much I wanted to. I reminded myself daily that I was much older than David and that I needed him for other reasons. We were worlds apart and it was never going to work between us.
‘He told you this?’ I asked.
But before Jonathon could reply, I saw the silhouette of David’s figure striding down to the lake’s edge. My heart fluttered. So it didn’t look as if we were parcelled up in secrets, Jonathon had the good sense to continue with our walk. He loosely wound a guiding arm around my back, leading me on. In a moment, we were perched on the edge of the small wooden landing deck at the shore.
‘I’ve brought sustenance.’ David strangled bottles of champagne in his fists. Glasses and another bottle were bracketed under his other arm. He was breathless, exhilarated and grinned as he stepped on to the deck. His hair fell over his face and he didn’t have a hand free to brush it away. ‘God knows I need it after Mother.’ He didn’t seem upset that I was alone with Jonathon.
A rowing boat was tethered to the landing by a rope. It bobbed in the water as David settled himself next to us. ‘You didn’t introduce me to her,’ I said, thankful I had escaped the trauma. I relieved David of the bottles. Surely we’d had enough to drink already.
‘Fuck, you don’t need to meet her, Mary. She’s cold. The original Ice Queen.’ David sat on the bleached wood and clawed back a bottle from me. He picked off the foil and unwound the wire. No one spoke as the cork erupted into the night.
I set out the glasses and David stared at me as he poured. His deep eyes gave away none of his thoughts. The champagne fizzed up to the rim and David topped up the levels when it sank down again. He didn’t spill a drop. ‘To friends and lovers,’ he said, raising his glass. He continued to stare at me, leaving me in no doubt that what Jonathon had told me was true. The bubbles in my glass rose to the surface, popping, as if they never existed.
Music and laughter, sent to us from the party on the increasing breeze, broke the silence. I raised my glass. ‘To friends,’ I said, hoping to diffuse the weight of David’s toast.
We sipped, smiling through the champagne, all apparently agreeing that we were drinking to friendship. I can’t recall who suggested it; whose voice it was that changed the rest of my life.
‘Let’s take the boat out.’
Flora, I say. Do you understand?
We’ve been signing away as if there’s nothing wrong. In between asking about school, Milo and the farm, I explain things to her that I’ve not been able to tell anyone. Flora’s silence makes it easy. She sits there, big-eyed, watching as my old hands offer a selection of child-friendly truths.
We connect – her young eyes dazzling mine. She nods. She understands.
With arthritic yet graceful hands I say: Don’t tell anyone, Flora. It’s a secret. Do you promise not to tell?
Flora pulls a face that convinces me my secret is easy to keep safe. Without another thought, she continues chatting about fun things again; things that are familiar in her world.
As long as someone knows, I think; just as long as I’m not the only one. I pull Flora close for a hug. This time her hair smells of marzipan.
I stare out of the window. There is a small lake at the end of the hospital grounds. I see a sparkle jump off the water before a cloud skims in front of the sun. There is a boat bobbing about. A single person on board.
You told me you don’t like lakes, Grandma. Why are you staring at it?
I reply with my arms slung around her waist and my nose pressed into her curls. Because sometimes, my darling, it just goes that you can’t help being attracted to the things that terrify you the most.
JULIA
At school, as I walk through the corridors to my classroom, the staff look at me with equal measures of pity and suspicion. The substitute teacher is sitting at my desk and treats me as if I’m an impostor. Apparently I didn’t give enough notice for my return to work.
‘Ah,’ he says with a telling lift of his chin. ‘Mrs Marshall. You’re back.’
‘So no one told you that I was coming in today?’ The sub shakes his head and there follows a silent battle for my desk. I put my handbag on the corner and hang my coat on the hook behind the door. He stays put.
‘Hey, Mrs M. How’s things?’ A couple of kids greet me as if I’ve never been away, while several are apprehensive about talking to me. They associate me with Grace; don’t want the same to happen to them.
‘So,’ I say, leaning on my desk. ‘Looks like you’ve kept things in pretty good order.’ In fact, everything looks out of order because there’s not much on my desk at all. There are a few assignments neatly stacked, but they appear to be marked already. I don’t remember leaving my classroom like this, but then again, I don’t remember things being in a mess. Not compared to how thin
gs are now.
‘You have a class of willing and able students.’
I think of Grace in hospital. Her spirit is still in this classroom; her bright, alert face always keen to offer up answers.
‘Let’s go and see the head,’ I say. The sub rises solemnly, as if we are about to appear in front of a judge. ‘Get on and read Act Two of the play,’ he tells the class. ‘There’s a test later.’ I make a mental note not to have one.
Patricia, the head teacher, seems as surprised to see me at school as everyone else. ‘Good God, woman. Are you back?’ She’s always been like that. That’s why she’s the principal, I suppose.
‘I did telephone. I know things have been a bit up and down recently, and for that I apologise. It’s been—’
‘No apologies. Everyone here is still in shock. You must be too.’ She speaks in bullet points.
‘I am, and—’
‘Mr Hargraves. Thank you for your assistance. I believe Year Seven is down a teacher today. Wretched virus. Would you be so kind?’ He doesn’t get a chance to protest.
We leave the head’s office feeling like naughty schoolkids and depart where the corridor forks. ‘Thanks for holding the fort,’ I say, wondering how I will cope alone.
Back in the classroom, I take a deep breath. And then the register, skipping quickly past the gap that comes between Cochrane and Davies.
No one mentions Grace until period three. Her empty desk glows neon, somehow taking up far more space than the other, occupied desks. I can’t stop looking at it; imagining her muddy, naked body sitting there; thinking of it now, lifeless in a coma. I deliver the essays back to my pupils.
‘What did Grace get for her essay?’ Josh leers at me. He’s always been the one to push things too far.
‘Other students’ grades are confidential, Josh.’
‘What did she look like when you found her? Was there much blood?’
