‘Miss Reeves?’
She swung round at the sound of her name. A dumpy fair-haired woman stood beaming in the doorway, well-upholstered like the chairs; her floral dress even bearing some resemblance to their chintzy blues and mauves. ‘Hello. I’m Olive Cookson. No, don’t get up – I’ll take a pew beside you. Beryl tells me you’re a great friend of Dr Edwards.’
‘Yes,’ said Tessa. ‘That’s right.’ More than just his closest friend, she added to herself – soon to be his daughter-in-law.
‘How is he?’
‘Very well.’
‘I’m glad to hear it, Tessa. You don’t mind if I use your first name, do you? Surnames always sound so stiff and starchy.’
‘Not at all. I prefer it, actually.’
‘And please do call me Olive. It’s our policy here to try to be informal, create a family atmosphere. Now, where was I?’
‘You were asking about …’
‘Dr Edwards. Of course I was! Yes, to tell the truth, I’ve been getting a bit anxious about him. You see, it’s quite some time since he last came up, so I was beginning to wonder if he might be ill or something.’
Tessa didn’t answer. Was Dr Edwards getting fed up with the visits? She knew he’d made a deliberate break with Leicester and his past; moved south to avoid the gossip – and the pity – started a new chapter in his life. At first, he’d lived alone, probably wary of entanglements, but eventually he’d met and married Joyce, and the birth of a normal healthy child must have proved a huge relief. Yet he’d never neglected his elder son; had driven here each month – though the journeys were discreet, and he’d been careful to keep the whole business of his previous marriage a secret from his new friends in the south. But perhaps he reckoned that Michael was now old enough to do without visits from his father. Which meant that she’d arrived herself at exactly the right time – to save him from abandonment, neglect.
Olive was still chatting, plying her with questions, all of which she answered as politely as she could, though she was relieved to hear the clock strike nine – a welcome interruption to the interview.
‘Goodness! Is that the time already? I don’t know where the morning goes! I’ve been on since seven, yet I hardly seem to have done a thing.’ Olive bounced up to her feet, moved towards the door. ‘Anyway, I’ll go and see what Michael’s up to. He should have finished breakfast by now.’ She paused, looked back at Tessa, lowering her voice. ‘It’s just occurred to me, my dear, that perhaps I ought to warn you. I mean, I’ve no idea how long it is since you’ve seen him, but I’m afraid he won’t be able to recognize you, and he is a very shy young man. Don’t rush up to him, will you? He’s easily alarmed by unexpected movements and might even have a seizure.’
‘I understand,’ said Tessa, as Olive closed the door. She stood smiling by her chair, twisting the eternity ring round and round her finger. She hoped she’d learn to love Michael, however shy or ill he was, and she’d certainly also promise to obey. In the Middle Ages – the period she’d been studying in her shadowy former life – the first of all the marriage vows had been to obey one’s husband; repeated at the altar before the vow to love.
She glanced out of the window, saw a girl about her own age, though dressed more like a child and clutching a rag doll. She was shambling along the path with an uneven seesaw gait, muttering to herself and occasionally bending down to pick imaginary flowers, which she then offered to her ‘baby’. A nurse hovered close behind, doing her brisk best to supervise a woman in her seventies, who suddenly lifted up her skirt, revealing bare and veiny legs, and a stained disposable nappy bulging from its plastic pouch. Tessa turned away, distressed that Michael Edwards’ son should have to live with such companions. Now, more than ever, she knew she had been right to come.
The sound of footsteps in the corridor brought her attention back inside. She stood holding her breath as Olive manoeuvred a wheelchair through the door. She was determined not to move a muscle or do anything to frighten Michael or undermine his confidence. But inwardly she was staggered by how extremely young he looked. She knew already he was only seventeen, but was still unprepared for the frail and narrow shoulders, the baby face, soft skin, the fact that he didn’t shave. All his limbs were bent, the spastic hands locked stiffly into position, the fingers useless claws. His face was also twisted, and a drool of slow saliva made a tremulous silver loop from his surprisingly full and sensuous lips to his scrawny concave chest. His eyes were not quite focused – troubled hazel eyes, staring into nothingness; his toffee-coloured hair very fine and silky like a child’s. He had calipers on his legs – ugly clumsy things, clamped into surgical boots, which looked far too big and brutish for his body. He was wearing a child’s tee-shirt, with Garfield on the front; the cat’s wily grin only seeming to emphasize his own expressionless face. His faded denim jeans couldn’t disguise the thinness of his legs; their baggy folds enclosing skin and bone.
Olive was reassuring him, talking kindly and protectively, as if he were indeed a child. ‘This is the lady who’s come all the way to see you, Michael. She knows your father very well. Are you going to give her a smile?’
He showed no reaction whatsoever, but Olive continued unperturbed. ‘She’s coming towards you, Michael. See that pretty blouse she’s wearing? Isn’t it a lovely colour? Yellow, like a sunflower. Don’t worry, she won’t hurt you. She’s stopping now. She’s smiling at you. She’s very pleased to see you.’
‘Hello, Michael.’ Tessa tried to make two words contain all the intense emotion she was feeling – the sympathy, affection, the desire to please and serve.
Still no response at all, no flicker of expression on the pale and listless face. But it didn’t matter – she mustn’t be upset by it. It was only natural that he’d need a while to get used to her, and she had all the time in the world – a whole uninterrupted lifetime to devote to him.
‘Why don’t you hold his hand, Tessa? Touch is tremendously important for people who can’t speak or understand. They like to feel in contact.’
Tessa took two careful steps till she was standing by the wheelchair, then touched the boy’s right hand. It was nothing like a normal hand – not supple or responsive, with a sense of warmth and life – but so cold and stiff and rigid it was difficult to hold at all. But she stroked the skin, let her own warm fingers run along the delicate blue veins, building up a steady soothing rhythm.
‘That’s right,’ said Olive, smiling her approval.
Tessa raised the hand to her cheek, let it lie against the contours of her face. ‘My name’s Tessa,’ she told him, hoping he would get to know her through his fingertips, his nerve-endings. ‘And I’ll be seeing you each day now. Perhaps you’ll let me take you out, once you feel okay with me. I could wheel you round the garden and show you all the different flowers, tell you what their names are. And I know you’re fond of animals, so maybe we could go and feed the horses. I saw some in that field just down the lane.’
‘You’d enjoy that, Michael, wouldn’t you?’ Olive repositioned the wheelchair so that Michael was facing the window. ‘He loves the open air,’ she observed, peering up at the sky. ‘And the weather looks as if it’s brightening up a bit, so there’s a good chance he can sit out on the patio today.’
Tessa took his hand again, edging in so close that when she bent to smile at him, the ends of her long hair flicked across his shoulder. He made a violent twitching movement, like a nervous colt starting at a gunshot. She was startled in her turn, terrified he’d have a fit, but he quickly quietened down again, and – what really thrilled her – he hadn’t withdrawn his hand. She was aware that the first frail bonds of trust were being forged between them, as she gently touched his neck, even smoothed his hair. It felt downy like a kitten’s fur; smelt faintly of shampoo. She longed to bury her face in it, but knew she must be patient, proceed with infinite care. It was enough for the time being that he enjoyed this sensual stroking and appeared to have accepted her – in fact, more than she h
ad dared to hope. There was so much they could say through touch, without the need for words.
She glanced out at the garden. The first timid gleam of sunlight was dappling the wan sky; strengthening as she watched it, making the whole landscape come alive. All the colours were glowing and intensified; long shadows flung across the lawn, like fingers pointing to her bridegroom; accentuating the fact that she and Michael Edwards were finally together, finally at one. The sun had chosen this moment to break through – a sign to her that the time for consummation had arrived. Green and brown had been alchemized to gold: gold flickering on the tree trunks, spangling the spring leaves – gold for wealth and fruitfulness, the radiance of her wedding day.
She turned to look at Michael. His pallid face was transfigured; a bloom of rosy health flushing his sick cheeks. She noticed tiny details she had missed before – his fair fine brows, pale lashes, the faintest childish down on his cheeks and upper lip. And there was so much more she’d yet to see – all the parts still hidden under clothes – his naked feet, for instance, which she pictured thin and tapering; his secret navel and the soft hair under his arms; all his private crevices. Those were hers, to discover and explore, once the ceremony was over.
She had left the carrier bags beside the sofa, but her bridesmaid was unpacking them, shaking out the creases in the magnificent white gown, untangling its long train, in readiness for the bride. As the girl approached with the dress held reverently in her arms, Tessa stared at her in surprise. Wasn’t there something familiar about that tall imposing figure with her clear grey eyes, her braided auburn hair? She looked into the eyes, suddenly recognized the voice – that gentle reassuring voice she’d heard so often previously.
‘Heloïse!’ she whispered, overwhelmed with gratitude that her sister should have come today, especially after so many weeks of absence. But of course Heloïse would understand, more than anyone, the importance of the day – how critical it was and how demanding. Her own wedding had been similar: a secret marriage, held early in the morning after an exhausting night-long vigil – with no parents there, no joyful congregation, and her child left far away with someone else. And both marriages had come about only after a period of turmoil; both doomed to bring more suffering in their wake. Yet she and Michael, like Heloïse and Abelard, would live on beyond their death, famed for ever as great lovers who transcended pain, and whose love would be immortalized.
She stood beside her sister, as if trying to absorb from her the devotion she had shown in that great love. Heloïse, her dearest friend, her soul-mate, must now become her model for the future – the woman who gave everything and asked nothing in return. Even in her role as bridesmaid she was displaying her sweet nature, carrying out her duties with the greatest care and tenderness – not just helping the bride to dress, but arraying her with courage; twining confidence and selflessness into her orange-blossom wreath. The heavy gown felt light as mist because Heloïse was there to ease it on for her, to arrange the stiffened petticoats, smooth the majestic skirt. And the veil was frothy cumulus, billowing around her face as Heloïse secured it with the wreath. Next, she brought the bride’s bouquet, placed it in her hands; her fingers closing over Tessa’s on the heavy lace-swathed stems, and remaining there in contact, to encourage her. Bride and bridesmaid stood together in one aureole of light, united by their lives, and loss; united by the wedding flowers: lilies for fertility, white roses for perfection, a sprig of rue for sorrow. Tessa gripped her sister’s fingers, tempted never to let go, to slip back into history with her and let the shrouding centuries close behind them. But Heloïse was prompting her, gesturing to Michael, to remind her that he was waiting, that it was time now to dismiss her fears and cleave only unto him.
Solemnly and slowly, Tessa turned to face the groom, leaning down towards him, so that her dress and veil cocooned them both in a bridal bed of white. ‘Michael, look!’ she urged him. ‘See how beautiful I am.’
His eyes began to focus – the first time since she’d been there – and they, too, assumed a beauty of their own: unclouded trusting hazel eyes, shining with anticipation. She backed away a pace or two, to show him her full glory; the sun casting a gold lustre on the yards of swirling satin, highlighting the horseshoes on her bracelet. She watched with mounting pleasure as a crooked almost-smile contorted his thin features, and he groped out a stiff hand.
‘He loves to feel the light on his face,’ Olive murmured, moving from the glare herself.
Tessa jerked her train impatiently, resenting the intrusive remark, the facile explanation. The groom was smiling because his bride had come at last, and come to end his racking isolation. She took his outstretched hand, pressing it against her gown, so he could delight in its rich sheen, feel the sumptuous fabric cool against his skin. He was obviously enthralled, taking in each detail – the tiny rosebuds in her wreath, repeated in the embroidery on the dress; her exposed and naked throat, sloping down to the slow curve of her breast; the thrust of her warm thigh beneath his fingers.
She waited a few seconds more till the window-pane was suffused with dazzling light – golden streamers banding the beige carpet, dancing on the sill – a row of slender poplars in the garden blazing like the candles in the church. Olive remained in shadow, a witness, a mere guest; only the bridal couple bathed in sun and splendour as they knelt to make their vows. The bridegroom had no power of speech, so it was the bride’s task to repeat them; to speak the words twice over, once for him and once for her. Michael’s part would be to seal them with a kiss – his mute consent, his wordless affirmation – and once she had received that kiss, no man could put the two of them asunder.
She whispered the groom’s vows, trying to reach him with her eyes, as well as with her voice, to convey to him the depth of her commitment. Then, speaking slower, louder, to make each word distinct, she began a second time:
‘I take thee Michael, Michael,
to my wedded husband,
to have and to hold,
from this day forward,
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness …’
He was still gazing at her, smiling, ready to confirm the vows in the only way he could, once she had pronounced the final line.
‘And thereto I plight thee my troth.’
Silence rushed towards them, a silence bright with wedding hymns, carillons of bells. Reverently, she bent her head, stooped down by the wheelchair until her face was almost touching his, then kissed him on his open, drooling, chastely loving lips.
Copyright
First published in 1993 by HarperCollins
This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world
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Copyright © Wendy Perriam, 1993
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Michael, Michael Page 46
