by Marisha Pink
SIX
LEAVING Jez to his daily rituals, Aaron departed the house for the first time since he had arrived. He walked with purpose through the streets, a baseball cap pulled low over his face and his chin firmly tucked into his jacket collar, in an attempt to conceal the coarse beard that he was still yet to find the time to shave. He knew where he was headed and rounding the corner he spied a small petrol station that he was sure would serve his needs. Approaching the forecourt he saw them: pink, yellow, red, white and every colour in between. He groaned at the thought of having to engage in decision making at such an early hour, but then a tangerine flash caught his eye, the last remaining bunch of orange lilies, and he knew exactly what to do.
He lifted the bunch of flowers from the bucket and, shaking off the drops of water that had collected along the stem, brought the flowers to his nose, allowing the familiar scent to fill his nostrils. His mind was immediately pulled back to his youth when his mother had scolded him for playing ball inside, fearing that he would knock over one of the many vases of orange lilies that she had routinely filled their house with. He smiled a wistful, nostalgic smile as he reminisced about happier times and momentarily forgot his current woes. This was how he wanted to remember her, just as he had always known her, and not as the lying, deceitful portrait that anger had painted in his mind.
Returning to the present, he fished in his pockets for loose coins and, after paying the cashier through the small window of the petrol station, set off on his way once more. He continued along the quiet leafy streets past several sets of traffic lights until the roads became narrow lanes that twisted through the countryside, and the houses were larger and spaced further apart. An old stone church loomed into view and on arriving at its crumbling façade, Aaron walked alongside the moss-covered walls until he reached a small plot of land at the rear. The cemetery was tiny, but well kept, the grounds neatly manicured and the graveside flowers constantly refreshed by those left behind. He followed the paved path to a row of cherry trees at the back of the plot, where a shiny new headstone formed of pink granite bore an inscription that it pained him to read:
DR CATHERINE RUTHERFORD
1955–2012
BELOVED WIFE, MOTHER AND FRIEND
FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS
Tired from the long walk, Aaron seated himself at the foot of the grave, oblivious to the dampness that was seeping through his trousers from the dewy lawn. He stared impassively at the headstone, silently mouthing the carefully carved words. They were true; his mother was beloved and she would forever be in his heart despite everything that he had discovered in the past few days. But now there were new words too; hateful, spiteful words, that sprung to mind whenever he allowed himself to think about her for more than just a second.
Aaron had never felt so lonely or confused in his life. He was grateful to Jez for listening to his woes, but the simple truth was that he had no-one else to turn to. He had few friends, even fewer that he trusted, and his only confidant lay six feet below the ground on which he was sitting. He had learnt to be comfortable in his own company and could usually resolve the challenges that he faced on his own, but knowing that his mother was there if he needed her had provided a source of comfort that he had unwittingly come to rely upon. He was in desperate need of someone to talk to; someone to guide him through the myriad emotions that he felt and to help him decide what to do about Kalpana, but there was no-one.
He arranged the lilies carefully beside the headstone, brushing his fingers lightly over the engraving before sitting back against his heels. In the stillness of the cemetery he mulled over the same thoughts, again and again, with no reprieve. The love and loyalty he felt towards his mother’s memory sharply contrasted with his newfound resentment, and it made for a strange feeling that he was exhausted trying to comprehend.
‘Why aren’t you here?’ he eventually cried out, his voice shaky and uncertain.
The headstone maintained its silence.
‘I need you, Mum. I’m sorry that I didn’t make it home in time, but you should have waited … just a little bit longer … I was almost there. We could have talked … properly. I would have believed you, I promise.’
Tears of frustration gathered in his eyes and he began to weep openly, the words on the headstone becoming nothing more than a pink blur. He buried his face in his hands, muffling the sobs and sniffles that had become an undesirable daily ritual until he felt a warmth on the back of his neck.
‘I believed her,’ said a soft, reassuring feminine voice.
Aaron had been so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn’t heard Aunt Ruby tiptoe into the cemetery behind him. In her hands she held a small bouquet of orange lilies identical to the bunch that Aaron had brought, and she smiled softly at him when he turned to face her.
‘Where have you been, dear? We’ve been worried sick about you,’ she said reproachfully.
Aaron wordlessly shrugged his shoulders and stared guiltily at the ground. He didn’t care what Arthur thought, but he hadn’t meant to worry Aunt Ruby.
‘Mind if I sit?’
Aunt Ruby took Aaron’s continued silence as a sign of indifference and lowered herself down beside him, arranging the pleats of her long skirt neatly over her chubby legs. Aaron turned back to face the headstone and the pair sat together in silence, sharing in the peace and serenity of the cemetery as the sun cast its rays over them from between the trees.
After a time, Aunt Ruby reached forward and added the flowers that she had brought alongside Aaron’s.
‘There we go. She would have loved these, Aaron.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ve put a few bunches in the house too, to remind us of her. Your father finds it comforting.’
Aaron remained mute. Aunt Ruby was trying her hardest to engage him in conversation, but hadn’t seemed to grasp that Arthur, his thoughts and feelings, were not topics that Aaron was sympathetic to.
‘Why don’t you come home, dear? He is sorry you know. I’m sure that finding out about Kalpana like that must have been a terrible shock for you, but it’s hit him hard too. He didn’t think that he and Catherine kept any secrets from one another.’
‘Apparently it’s a family trait,’ retorted Aaron bitterly.
‘That’s not very fair now dear, is it?’
‘Fair? What’s not fair is that I didn’t get to see my mum before she died. What’s not fair is that my birth mum is alive and nobody thought to tell me. You all knew, I don’t care if you only just found out, you all knew and you didn’t tell me. That’s what’s not fair.’
Aunt Ruby sighed in exasperation.
‘Aaron, your father didn’t lie to you on purpose; you know that he didn’t. He didn’t believe what your mother had said to him and there was no reason to until you showed him the letters.’
‘But you said that you did believe her,’ Aaron continued stubbornly.
‘I did, Aaron, but that’s beside the point.’
‘Is it? If you believed her, then why didn’t he? They’ve been married for over thirty years!’
‘Because love is blind, Aaron. Sometimes it stops us from seeing things as they really are; stops us from seeing things that we don’t want to see.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Your mother was special; she touched so many lives and she was quite a catch when she was younger. She could have had anyone that she wanted and your father always felt lucky, maybe even grateful, that she chose to spend her life with him. When you love someone that much it’s hard to watch them waste away before your eyes, to watch them become a mere shadow of the person that they used to be. Arthur would never admit it, but he was struggling to cope with it all. That’s the reason that I decided to come and help.’
‘I still don’t get it,’ interjected Aaron huffily, noticing for the first time that both Arthur and Aunt Ruby shared a familial knack for long-winded storytelling.
Aunt Ruby ignored him and continued.
‘To Arthur, Catherine was
like a superhero. She was invincible and for her to get sick simply didn’t fit within his ideologies. He had held her up on a pedestal so high, for such a long time, that he was deliberately ignorant of her imperfections; but I understand that your mother was human. She had her flaws and like the rest of us she made mistakes. I believed her, but unfortunately for Arthur, believing what she was saying, believing that it was anything more than hallucinations brought on by her medication, would have meant conceding that she wasn’t the person that he had always believed her to be. It would have meant accepting that she had kept something significant from him for all these years and that perhaps he didn’t know her quite as well as he had thought. I think it was just too much for him, too big on top of everything else. Do you see?’
Aaron weighed Aunt Ruby’s words carefully in his mind. Her argument was logical, but was it enough to justify Arthur’s actions? Enough to justify why she had believed his mother, when Arthur hadn’t, and enough to warrant forgiving him for failing to keep the promise that he had made to his mother on her deathbed?
‘You can’t blame him for everything, Aaron,’ said Aunt Ruby after a while, as though reading his mind. ‘I know that you and Arthur aren’t close, but you can’t keep using him as a scapegoat for everything that you’re feeling. Your mother has to take some responsibility too.’
Aaron let out a long sigh; he knew that she was right. If it had not been for his mother’s actions and secrecy in the first place, then they wouldn’t be having this conversation at all.
‘Can I ask you something?’ he said finally, deftly drawing a line under their debate.
‘Of course, dear. Anything, anything at all.’
‘Do you think that I should go and see Kalpana?’
‘I think that you should do whatever your heart tells you to do, Aaron.’
‘But do you think that’s what she would’ve wanted? Do you think that’s the reason that she wanted to tell me about her? Or do you think she was just … scared? Just feeling guilty right before she died?’
‘Catherine would have supported whatever decision you made,’ answered Aunt Ruby tactfully.
‘I don’t know where she is. I mean, I know she’s in India, but I don’t know where exactly.’
‘I know somebody who might know,’ answered Aunt Ruby, cocking her head to one side and playfully elbowing her nephew in the ribs.
Aaron smiled sarcastically in defeat. He would have to go home eventually and although he didn’t much like the idea of facing Arthur, he liked the idea of facing a barrage of questions from Jez’s mother even less.
‘Okay, I’ll come home.’
Aunt Ruby wrapped her arms around her nephew in an embrace laden with relief.
‘Everything’s going to be all right you know, Aaron. You’ll see … I promise.’
