The Memory Box

by Margaret Forster

  Maybe he floated the idea of moving in, after Tony left, from kindness. Maybe he thought I would be lonely, considering Tony had lived with me longer than anyone ever had, well over a year. If so, he couldn’t have been more wrong. The best thing about Tony’s departure was that it allowed me to reclaim my own territory. The relief was enormous, even if it was tinged with guilt. I swear that waking up to find I was on my own remained absolute bliss for weeks afterwards – I’d wake up, stretch out in the bed, realise I was alone, and feel such relief. I don’t think I was ever meant to live with anyone, except my parents, as a child. I am too intolerant, too irritable, too fond of silence. I suppose I had survived so long (long by my standards) with Tony because I’d been away on jobs a lot that year, and because he worked late himself, often, and I had whole evenings undisturbed. It was when I hit a spell of a couple of months without any assignments, which can occasionally happen, that things began to go wrong. We loved each other (I think) but I discovered then that, put to the test, we weren’t really compatible. It wasn’t so much a case of his liking one thing and my another as of our personalities. The attraction of opposites had been an attraction, but over time, living together at close quarters, it was being so different in temperament that brought us unstuck.

  It’s odd, but it takes a long time for temperament to show itself, or so I’ve always found. No one can really be certain of the temperament of another until they have lived with them for a while. Attraction is all about physical things at first, obviously – I mean, you see someone, usually before you hear them and before you know them. What I saw in Tony wasn’t what he was like. His calmness was not so evident. On the contrary, he seemed particularly sharp and alert, as though he were on the watch all the time, noting things, analysing them. And he spoke too quickly for me to consider he was a settled sort of person of quiet tastes. Then, even after he had moved in with me, it took a while for me to appreciate how extremely solemn and serious he was, about everything, and how (to me) unnaturally patient. Nothing seemed to anger or upset him. I’d drop and break something and swear furiously; Tony would drop and break something (though he hardly ever did, being much too careful) and simply pause for a moment, looking at what he’d done, before going to get a brush and pan to clear it up. It wasn’t just a case of staying calm over trivial upsets either – he was the same over important things. He once had a briefcase stolen from his car with incredibly important documents in it which he needed the next day. Did he yell and roar and go berserk? Did he hell. Turned a little pale, did a bit of hard swallowing, but there was no violent explosion of rage as there would have been with me.

  At first, Tony’s temperament made him the ideal person for me to live with. He balanced my constant state of near agitation and I found this so soothing. It was like having my mother with me again: he could cope with me as Charlotte had always done. But then his studied (except that it was natural) steadiness began to annoy me in ways hers never had. I wanted him to shout at me when I was being impossible, I wanted him not to be so bloody, nobly understanding. And sexually I wasn’t sure I was happy with him any more. He was a good lover, if being a good lover means being both tender and passionate and always thinking of my pleasure as well as his own – what more could a woman want? – but I was no longer excited. I persuaded myself, or tried to, that this didn’t matter, that sex always gets less exciting with familiarity, but I didn’t really believe it. I thought there should still be some spark there whenever I saw him. If I loved him, as I thought I did, where had it gone? In its place there grew irritation with how he was, his habits.

  It made me want to move away, though it was Tony who literally had to do the moving since it was my flat. I thought he never would. He didn’t seem to see what had happened, how I had reached the stage of trying to be out if he was in and vice-versa. He said things like, ‘We don’t seem to manage to spend much time together these days,’ as though it was something we both regretted instead of something I’d conspired to achieve. Then he put what he called ‘my moods’ down to my father’s sudden death and my mother’s illness, and made endless allowances. I had to be brutal and ask him to go. It was as though I’d shot him. His face drained of colour and his expression was incredulous, but he said nothing at all. He just went, with no pleading, and for that I was grateful.

  But there was no doubt that the solitude I’d wanted and was so relieved to reclaim was dangerous once I came back from that Cumbrian jaunt. Rory’s voice on my answerphone was surprisingly welcome and on impulse I rang him straight away, before I could think about it and wonder if I could be bothered. What I hadn’t anticipated was that the moment he heard me he would say he was coming straight round and then hang up. I was so annoyed – it hadn’t been what I’d wanted at all – but once he’d arrived I found myself quite glad to see him. Someone, for once, was better than no one, and Rory was better than anyone. ‘You look awful,’ he said, and laughed. ‘So what wild adventures have you been having, cousin mine?’ I made him coffee and, because there was no way I could avoid it and make any sense, I told him about the memory box, just the bare facts. He loved it. He demanded to see the eleven objects immediately and I was obliged to get them all out and line them up again, all except of course for the discarded feathers.

  ‘What a joke,’ Rory said, and I was cross and said there was nothing funny about this. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said, ‘of course it’s a joke, a laugh. You’re getting everything out of proportion. For God’s sake, Susannah leaves you a box of junk and it gets forgotten for thirty-odd years and then when you open it you start looking for symbolic meanings – it’s stupid, you know it is, and what’s wrong with you, where’s the cold-eyed realist, Catherine? Chuck the lot out. She probably didn’t even know what she was doing, she was so ill.’

  ‘She knew,’ I said. ‘It was all carefully done. You should have seen the wrappings. And everything was numbered and arranged. It was all thought out.’

  Rory lit a cigarette, without asking permission, and studied me. ‘Such misery, dearie,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you cared about Susannah anyway. I always thought it was great, the way you were never a tragedy queen about your real mother dying, the way you never brought it up or traded on it, the way you didn’t go in for any poor-little-me stuff. What’s happened to change that? Why is this dead woman suddenly getting to you? Have you become a born-again Christian or something? Has the Lord spoken to you about your beloved biological Mama you’ve denied all these years?’

  ‘It isn’t funny.’

  ‘I know it isn’t. That’s what astounds me – you think it’s so bloody serious when it should be funny. The whole thing is ridiculous. You should treat it as farce not get all worried and mournful.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel like a farce. Things left by dead people are creepy.’

  ‘Yeah, dead creepy, geddit?’ And he laughed, hooted.

  ‘Don’t, Rory.’

  ‘Well, for fuck’s sake.’ Then he peered at me. ‘Oh, come on, Cath, you’re not crying, oh my good gawd.’

  I wasn’t, not really, but there were tears ready to roll if I didn’t control them. I allowed Rory to give me a cuddle and then he said that we both needed something stronger than coffee, and jumped up to open a bottle of wine. When we both had a glass in hand, and I was more composed, he wandered about touching the objects that had been in the box. I hated him doing that. He is always a great toucher, a fidget, incapable of just looking at anything. He has to pick things up, turn them over, examine minutely anything he is interested in. He picked up the shell. ‘Don’t touch that!’ I snapped, but he ignored me and put it to his ear. ‘Receiving, receiving,’ he chanted. ‘I’m ready for the message – loud and clear – here it comes – “I am from the ssssea!”’ He laughed and took it in both hands, running his fingers critically over every bump and ridge. ‘It’s not such an extraordinary shell,’ he said, quiet now. ‘Not from any British beach, but there are plenty of these in the South Seas and even the Caribbean. I�
��ve found them there, shit loads on Anguilla when I was there.’

  ‘Susannah never went to the Caribbean or the South Seas,’ I said. ‘She hardly went abroad at all. People didn’t, then.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘My dad told me.’

  ‘But what about before she met him?’

  ‘She met him young. She hadn’t had time to go anywhere.’

  ‘Well, maybe not. You should check with my mum. But anyway, even if she didn’t go somewhere to bring back this shell for herself, someone else must have done. They gave it to her as a souvenir, that’s all. It hasn’t any other meaning – a pretty holiday memento she passed on to you.’

  ‘Depends who gave it to her.’

  ‘Now that really is looking for messages,’ he protested. ‘This will tire my poor little brain out. You are actually suggesting, my sweet cousin, that the point of this shell being left to you was that it was given to Susannah by someone she wanted you to track down? Don’t be so silly. It-is-only-a-shell. She liked it. She hoped you would like it. End of story.’

  I was suddenly sure he was right, but instead of being relieved I was disappointed. Just a shell. A shell from some part of the world to which she had never been but had always yearned to go. Maybe leaving it to me signalled her yearning, maybe she hoped I would be able to go where she had not been able to go. Well, I had. I hadn’t been to the South Seas or to the Caribbean but I had travelled far and wide, as she had not, and I intended to visit many more countries. If she wanted, she could come with me in spirit and we’d find other shells like this and bring them back to join this one. I smiled to think of this sentimental fancy, and Rory, mistaking my own self-mockery for a new cheerfulness, which he credited himself with bringing about, said, ‘That’s better, that’s a good little girlie, now.’

  He picked up the mirror next. ‘Nice mirror,’ he said. ‘Queen Anne, I think. I’ll give you fifty quid for it.’

  ‘So that means it must be worth at least two hundred pounds.’

  ‘Cheeky.’ He scrutinised the silver work on the handle and said, ‘I wonder where she got it from. There’s a mark here I’ve seen on some of my mother’s silver – look, see that curly C, round the stem of the ivy? It probably belonged to our grandmother. It’s probably a family heirloom and as much mine as yours.’

  ‘It was left to me, thank you.’

  ‘But maybe Susannah had no right to it. Anyway, you’ve always denied you’re a Cameron. You’ve always boasted about being a Musgrave: all your precious dad, with nothing of Susannah and the Camerons in you.’

  ‘Maybe, but I do have Cameron genes whether I want to acknowledge them or not.’

  ‘And you have their mirror.’

  ‘So? You’re not suggesting Susannah stole it, I hope?’

  ‘No. But if you don’t want it I should have it.’

  ‘Should?’

  ‘Just teasing.’ He was still holding the mirror when he sat down beside me and held it out in front of him so that it reflected both our faces. ‘Remember?’ he said, the teasing tone gone, ‘Granny screaming, when she saw me looking in the wardrobe mirror, that she thought my reflection was Susannah?’

  I remembered. We were both staying with her. Rory had just turned five so I was a bit younger. We’d been dressing up, Rory as a girl and me as a boy. He’d put on a pink, frilly frock of mine which I hated and he adored, and he had a pink ribbon holding back his blond curls. We hadn’t been able to tie a bow properly in spite of laborious attempts and it hung down his back. His hair was still quite long then and very thick and he was thrilled because he made such a convincing girl. But seeing him in the mirror gave my grandmother such a fright – she nearly had a heart attack, believing him for a moment to be her own dead daughter. His likeness to Susannah as a child, already remarked on, was apparently uncanny. He had the same colouring, the same shape of face, the same eyes. My grandmother told Rory never, ever, to dress up as a girl again and give her such a shock. He took heed, but only to the extent of never letting her see him do it again. In fact, every time we were together for years and years after that the first thing we always did was dress up as the opposite sex. It went on until we were about eleven, when suddenly I was the one who refused to dress up at all and spoiled the game.

  ‘I remember,’ I said, ‘but I’m sure you don’t look like Susannah now, even if you dressed up as a woman.’

  ‘Shall I?’

  ‘No, you shall not.’

  ‘You are so mean.’ He held the mirror closer, fascinated by his own face. ‘I’m sure I still do look like her.’

  ‘No, your face is too plump.’

  ‘Plump? Don’t be gross.’ He peered anxiously at himself and felt his cheeks. ‘That’s bone,’ he said, ‘good, strong bone structure, not fat. Plump, indeed – the idea. I’ve just filled out rather charmingly. And anyway, Susannah only became thin-faced when she was ill. I’ve seen the photographs. Up to the last six months her face looked like mine does now, lovely. It’s the hair makes the real difference. If I had a wig, one of those pre-Raphaelite jobs, I’d look just like her still.’

  ‘Why would you want to?’

  ‘Well, she was beautiful. Everyone said so.’

  ‘But she’s dead.’

  He put the mirror down and turned to look at me. ‘There you are,’ he said, smirking, ‘you’ve just realised. Yes, she’s dead. She’s been dead thirty-one years, sweetest, so why are you fretting over an old box?’

  I ignored that. ‘Why do you think she put a mirror in it?’ I asked him.

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake …’

  ‘Please, humour me, Rory. Please.’

  ‘All right. Because it’s valuable. And because it is a family heirloom.’

  ‘Not because she wanted me to take a close look at myself, as she looked at herself, and see the resemblance between us, search for it?’

  ‘Have you any whisky?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘More wine, then, it’ll have to be more wine. You’re driving me to serious over-indulgence. Stop it.’

  ‘You over-indulge all the time, Rory. You’re so unhealthy – all this smoking and drinking, and you never take any exercise.’

  ‘I look healthier than you, dear – I haven’t got great black circles under my eyes, thank you.’

  ‘I haven’t been sleeping well.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. You’re driving yourself mad. Trouble is, with Tony gone and as you don’t seem to have much work on, you’ve got nothing else to do but brood over this wretched box. And you were all upset anyway. It came at the worst possible time.’

  ‘I know. I’m going to go away soon. I meant to, as soon as the house was sold.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘Don’t know yet.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘Nobody. By myself, of course.’

  ‘I could go with you, if you like. I fancy a bit of sun.’

  ‘I didn’t say I was going somewhere sunny.’

  ‘Then I’m not coming with you.’

  ‘You haven’t been invited. Why should I want you?’

  ‘Because it isn’t good for you to be on your own at the moment, and I’m your best friend.’

  ‘Like hell you are.’

  But he was, he is. I’ve never been good at friendships. I don’t put enough into keeping them going. At school, I had plenty of friends but I was never really close to any of them; I didn’t go in for best friend pairing off. If I wasn’t on my own, I preferred a group. And then after school I didn’t make the effort to keep up with anyone. Same at St Martin’s. If anyone I’d been friends with there contacted me afterwards I always responded (I think), but I never made the first move myself, and people naturally notice that and get tired of it. So my only close friends came to be lovers and when affairs ended so did the close friendships, inevitably. I don’t suppose, for example, that Tony will think of me now as a friend. And with my parents dead (because they were definitely friends as wel
l as parents) that does indeed leave Rory. It was quite like old times, our bickering, and I enjoyed it. ‘Come on, then, best friend,’ I said, ‘I’ll take you out for a meal and we can do some more bonding.’

  I used to wonder if my lack of interest in close friendships was because my parents were too much my friends when I was young, and then later on, when there were things happening in my life that erected a kind of barrier between us, I had Rory. I might not see him often, and I might not always know how to reach him even, but the connection between us was so strong it could be resumed immediately. I’ve always felt comfortable with Rory, completely at ease. Maybe it amounts to a sort of conceit, but I think I know him in a way no one else does, or not to my knowledge. The Rory I know is not the person others see. He projects an image, quite deliberately, of someone flippant and careless, he proclaims his sexuality defiantly and even crudely, and though I have never understood why, I think I understand very well that this is a complicated challenge he’s issuing. He dares people to be repelled by him, by his own stridently camp representation of himself, and when they are he imagines he’s tested them and found them wanting and has nothing more to do with them. In a weird way I do much the same thing – I, too, like to project an image that tries people’s patience and I’m not satisfied until they’ve put up with my fierceness and hostility and general surliness and still want to know me. Just as Rory can stop acting a part, so can I. But there was something else, something Tony was near to realising. I think we were attracted to each other once, Rory and I. I think that on the very brink of adolescence, when we were eleven or twelve, there was an attraction between us which I may have mistaken for love (because I certainly hadn’t realised then that my cousin was gay). Nothing ever happened. It didn’t go anywhere. But when I say Rory is my best and only true friend to the exclusion of all others there is that element mixed up in it.