by Adele Geras
Why did she never mention my family? Eva wondered. We went through the War trying to pretend they didn’t exist. Perhaps this was the advice given by the vicar, or Dr Crawford, or one of her friends. Eva was twelve years old when the subject came up seriously for the first time.
1946
Eva knew, as soon as she came back from school that day, that something different was about to happen. Agnes was waiting at the kitchen door and even before she’d offered her a drink and a slice of bread and margarine, she said, ‘Hello, Eva dear. Would you mind coming into the sitting room for a few minutes? There’s something we have to talk about.’
Eva’s first thought was: what have I done wrong? She followed Agnes into the little-used room at the front of the house. The two of them generally sat in the warm kitchen, which had a sofa in it, and a table on which to do homework. The fire hadn’t been lit for a long time and the sitting room felt chilly and unwelcoming at this time of day as the light was leaving the sky. It must have been autumn, because Eva remembered looking down at her legs and she was wearing woollen socks, darned many times over, and her winter school shoes, which were getting tight. Everything was rationed. There was a great deal of making do and mending in the Conway house and Agnes often said it was Eva’s good fortune that she’d been put in the care of someone who’d been taught to darn so well that she could make socks last for years and years. Agnes was also good at undoing old jumpers and knitting them up again in different shapes, but nothing, Eva thought, could alter the fact that the colours were boring and sludgy. As she sat and waited for what Agnes was about to say, she began imagining a jumper knitted to match the autumn leaves: many shades merging into one another, melting into a rich arrangement of orange and brown and gold and with a touch of raspberry red to make the other colours sing. They sat down in the two chairs on either side of the unlit fire. Agnes said, ‘We’ve hardly ever talked before about your family, Eva, and this is a hard thing to say to a child of your age, but I feel that I must.’
‘I’m twelve, Mother,’ Eva said. ‘I’m not a little girl any more.’
‘Well, no, I know you aren’t, but still. It’s hard to say this. When I first took you in, you were very ill. Do you remember? You lay in the bed upstairs and didn’t speak for almost a month. You were running a high temperature and cried, sometimes as if your heart was breaking.’
I should help her, Eva thought but instead replied with, ‘I don’t remember that very well. But you told me what happened. How I came to be in your house. In the bed upstairs.’
‘I also told you … not then exactly, but later, after. After you started to speak English and when I was sure that you understood, that when the War was over, we’d maybe be able to trace your family. Find out what happened to them.’ Eva nodded. Part of her wanted to tell Agnes the truth, but how could she? How could she say: I never really believed you. I knew I was alone and that everyone I had, everyone who was my family before was gone for ever. I’ve always felt alone. Agnes Conway took me in and did her best. It’s not her fault she can’t ever be my real mother. Eva could see that Agnes was trying to hold back the tears. She was blinking fast and twisting her hands together. She lowered her glance and spoke quietly.
‘I’ve made various enquiries. With the Red Cross and other agencies. It doesn’t matter who, really, but I’ve been in touch with everyone, you may be sure of that. I’m so sorry, dear. I truly am. The thing is—’
‘You couldn’t trace them. It’s all right. I’ve never expected them to come and find me. Not really.’
‘They’re dead, Eva. I’m so, so sorry.’
Eva saw tears slowly falling from the corners of Agnes’s eyes and she sprang up to comfort her. ‘Don’t cry, Mother! Please. I never thought they were alive. Really I didn’t. Please don’t cry.’
‘No, of course not. How selfish of me. Fancy my crying when you’re the one who should be consoled. Perhaps we should go to church tomorrow and say some prayers for their souls? Do you think we should?’
No, Eva said to herself. The prayers are for you to feel better, not for me. She had never been able to believe in a god, but saying that would make everything more difficult, so in the end, she muttered, ‘I don’t really mind. If you think that’s a good idea. ‘
‘Wouldn’t you like a slice of bread and cup of tea?’ Agnes sounded relieved to be talking about normal, everyday things again. She was nervous about any conversation which might lead to strong feelings being expressed.
‘No, thank you. I’m all right.’
Agnes smiled, relieved to be reassured. ‘I expect you want to be alone, dear. I quite understand.’
Eva reflected on this as she made her way to her bedroom. Alone. That’s what I am, really, she told herself, as she sat down on the bed and let her satchel fall to the floor at her feet. Completely alone now. Mama and Papa. She had trained herself never to think about them, but now, she tried as hard as she could to summon all her memories of them. So little. There was hardly anything to grasp, hardly anything to cling to. All she could think about was Angelika.
*
When Tom brought me home, it was past one o’clock.
‘Good morning, darling Megan,’ he said and he kissed me before I left the car. We’d slept a bit, during the afternoon and early evening, and also broke off for a bit to eat some revolting takeaway Chinese food but mostly we’d stayed in the bedroom. We’d made love several times and, to be fair to Tom, it got better and better. I felt, when I left, too tired to weigh up my emotions, and now, creeping through the hall, I hoped more than anything that Eva was safely in bed and not rambling round the house. I was sure anyone who saw me would guess at once where I’d been for the past few hours. I wouldn’t have much time to recover before Dee and Bridie came to wake me up.
I showered and got into bed, but in spite of being exhausted, I didn’t fall asleep at once. I could have Skyped Jay but didn’t feel up to an interrogation. How was this going to work? I’d have to call myself Tom’s girlfriend now, wouldn’t I? If Dee asked me, I’d be unable to deny it. What was wrong with having a nice man like Tom for a boyfriend? The sex was good. Tom was eager and athletic, yet tender too. It ought to have been mindblowing. What was I telling myself? That it wasn’t good enough? That there was something missing? I felt suddenly unaccountably sad. Simon. It wasn’t the way it used to be with Simon. I’d explained, or tried to explain, to Tom exactly what my feelings for him were. It’s a bit hard to do, when the person you’re talking to keeps on kissing you and nibbling your neck. At one point I had to push him away and say: ‘Listen to me, Tom, it’s important,’ but he’d just kissed me again and said, ‘It’s not as important as you think.’ I wiped away the tears that had suddenly come into my eyes. Go to sleep, I told myself. You’re only weepy because you’re so tired. Don’t analyse everything so much.
*
And here, now, I’m no nearer to being asleep, she thought. Eva knew that any insomnia she might suffer from was made much worse by thinking about the past. The times in her life when she’d been happy and fulfilled made her dissatisfied with how empty her life was nowadays. I used, she thought, to be successful, famous, rich and now? Well, she was still comfortable enough, financially speaking, but still, not as rich as she might have been if she’d managed her affairs a little more astutely. Too late to fret about that now, but perhaps leaving her work altogether after the arrangement she’d come to with Antoine wasn’t the most sensible thing to do. Now, she was all but forgotten. Articles like Megan’s in lipstick created an illusion that there were still people out there who cared about her, but if she was well known it was as a kind of historical figure, not as someone who carried any weight today.
Eva sighed. I might as well get up now, she thought, instead of lying around feeling sorry for myself. Outside, it was still dark, but her watch said five o’clock. She must have dozed off, without realizing it. Morning would come soon enough and she knew she could have a nap at some point during the day. While
she found her dressing gown and slippers, she had a sudden vision of the woman who’d come to find her that night: the hide-and-seek night. The game they’d played had been Angelika’s idea. Do I remember the train, Eva wondered. Not really. She sat down on the end of the bed. She could just about recall Mama’s red coat. There was a hat, too. With a veil. She could bring the hat and veil and coat right into her head, as clearly if they had been on the bed beside her. Every detail. But Mama’s face had gone and nothing she did, nothing she’d ever been able to do, brought it back. Nothing. She’d tried drawing it, and in every new face she saw, she searched for a resemblance, something she could latch on to and fix. Nothing.
Eva went down the stairs as quietly as she could and walked into the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. She looked round, not taking in anything very much, while the kettle boiled, and decided to take her cup up to the dress room and lie on the chaise longue there. In the old days, she used to be in there all the time, looking at old designs, taking dresses out of the cupboard and hanging them from the open doors so that she could be reminded of who she used to be and what she used to do before she grew old.
Eva looked at the available crockery. She liked coffee in a cup with a saucer, but didn’t want to risk the long climb to the dress room carrying anything that could spill or break or make a rattling noise. Defeated, she sat down with her drink at the kitchen table. I’ll go up when I’ve finished this, she told herself.
*
The first thing Eva did whenever she came into the dress room was check that the mirror was properly covered. It was, and she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Draped in what was once a fine white cotton sheet, it stood in its usual place next to the window. She opened the pretty flowered curtains and gazed down at the garden below. Light wasn’t exactly flooding the sky, even now, but you could see down past the back lawn and beyond the wooded area behind the house that a trace of something like dawn was struggling over the horizon. She turned to look at the room. The cupboards were shut. The chaise longue looked inviting and as she sat down she realized that she was still a little short of breath after climbing the stairs. How long would it be before she couldn’t manage them any longer? She lay back and looked at the high ceiling. All at once, the thought of leaving Salix House, the prospect of having to pack up every one of her possessions, the knowledge that no matter how wonderful any new place might be, she was still going to have to shed an enormous number of her belongings, filled her with dismay. What would go? How much would she be able to keep? What about all these clothes, her entire archive, what about that? Some home would have to be found for them and did she have the energy to start arranging such things? If not she, then who would do it for her? A hideous truth, and something which she’d known all along, seemed to be obvious to her now. Inescapable. Wherever she went, whatever it was like, she would never be as happy as she’d been here. Was that true? Could you say you’d been happy when so much of the time you’d been just the opposite? So many bad things had happened here. She couldn’t with any truthfulness say that Salix House had been filled with domestic harmony throughout all the years she’d lived there. Antoine died after leaving the house in a rage which was the result of a hideous quarrel: one Eva would never forget and which still made her turn cold when she thought about it. And Angelika: she was here too, but Eva took it for granted that whatever it was that came floating at her out of mirrors and shiny surfaces would follow her wherever she went. She’d been following her since childhood, so presumably she always would. For a moment, Eva wondered what her life would be like without the shade – somehow she couldn’t bring herself to call what she saw a ghost – of her sister.
Tears she’d not even known she was shedding ran down the sides of her cheeks and she sat up, swinging her legs down on to the carpet. She put her hand into her pocket to find the hankie she always kept there and heard Bridie’s voice in her head: ‘Why don’t you like tissues, Granny, like everyone else?’
‘Because they get soggy and horrible and you forget them in the pockets of trousers and cardigans and then when the garment goes into the washing machine it turns the tissue into powdery crumby stuff that goes all over your clothes.’ By the time Eva had finished listing all the disadvantages of tissues over cotton hankies, Bridie had grown bored and walked away to do something else. Eva mopped at her eyes now with the soft, white cloth. I never used to cry, she thought. From her earliest childhood, from the time when the four-year-old Eva realized that tears were never going to restore anything she’d lost, she’d rarely resorted to weeping. So what’s the matter with me now, she wondered, and then remembered yet another of the pat, ready-made answers Agnes Conway seemed to have to every problem: Being tired always makes you feel weepy. Perhaps that was true. She stood up and blew her nose with every intention of pulling herself together, but even though she managed to stem the flow of tears, Eva could feel a weight somewhere under her ribcage. That’s what it means, she thought. Having a heavy heart. It’s not a fanciful way of saying something but the exact truth.
13
‘Are you sure, Conor?’ I said. I couldn’t believe it. I’d overslept, even though I’d set my alarm. ‘I can take the girls and have my breakfast later if you like. I don’t mind, honestly.’
‘No, that’s fine. It’s okay. I never drive them any more. It’ll be a bit of a treat for me.’
Bridie and Dee certainly thought of it as something special. ‘Daddy’s taking us!’ Dee said, twirling round at the end of the table with a piece of toast and marmalade hanging from her hand. ‘Are we going to have a bonfire tonight, Daddy?’
‘Of course we are. We’d never miss out on a bonfire, darling. I’ll get it all set up while you’re at school and we’ll light it when you get home. But sit down now, Dee, I want to say something to Megan.’
‘Thanks, Conor. It’s nice of you to take them. A treat for them too. But only if you’re sure.’
‘Thing is, there’s something else I need you to do, Megan.’ He sounded a bit anxious. Rowena had already left for work but it suddenly occurred to me, as I poured milk on to my cereal, that Eva wasn’t at the table.
‘Is Eva having a lie-in?’ I asked.
‘Bridie, Dee, go and put on your coats and wait for me in the hall,’ he said and the girls ran out of the kitchen, laughing. Dee was still holding her piece of toast and Conor hadn’t noticed. He was pushing a hand through his hair and seemed downright worried, now that I’d started to look at him more closely. I said, ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Well, no. I don’t think it is. It’s Eva, you see—’
‘What’s wrong? Is she ill?’
‘No, no, nothing’s happened. Well, not really happened as such. And she’s certainly not ill. Only she stormed out.’ He sighed heavily. ‘That’s the only way to describe it. She almost ran from the table.’
‘Was Rowena here then? Did they quarrel or something?’
‘No, nothing like that.’ He frowned. ‘I’m trying to remember exactly what happened. To be honest with you, I’ve gone over it and over it and I can’t think of anything that would have made her leave like that.’
‘Did she say anything?’
‘Only: I’m going for a walk now. I’ll be back at lunchtime.’
I took a couple of spoonfuls of cereal while I thought about this. ‘What’s wrong with that? It’s a nice day. Maybe she felt like a walk. She’ll be back at lunchtime, she said. Perhaps we shouldn’t worry yet?’
What I was thinking was: she’s a grown woman. She’s allowed to go for a walk if she likes.
‘Eva never goes for walks at this time of day. She never has before. And it was more the way she went. She just sort of ran out of the room. I don’t suppose …’
Conor was looking at me and fidgeting with the car keys.
‘Dad! Are you ever coming?’ Dee shouted from the hall.
‘I am. I’m coming in a second. Just wait a bit and I’ll be there.’ He turned back
to me and said, ‘Megan, I’d be so grateful if you could go after her. Go and find her. She’s probably only gone down to the village or something. Please. Make it look as though you’ve just happened to bump into her. I don’t want her thinking we’re keeping tabs on her. Will you do that?’
‘How do you know she’s not in the garden?’
‘I looked. I went out and looked round the back while the girls were eating. She’s not there. She must’ve gone down the drive, I think. Would you mind?’
‘Of course I don’t mind. I’ll go right away. I’ll take my car and drive around. I’m sure I’ll find her.’
‘Text me when you do, okay? I’ll keep an eye out on the way to school in case she went that way, though it’s less likely, I think. I’ll text you if we happen to see her.’
He hurried away and I pushed my cereal bowl to one side and went to get my coat.
*
If she hadn’t been feeling so cast down, if the whole matter of moving out of Salix House had turned out to be less fraught, then Eva would have found the look on Conor’s face at breakfast quite amusing. All she’d said was: ‘I’m going out for a walk. I’ll be back by lunchtime. I need some fresh air and it’s a lovely day’, and his mouth dropped open and he’d half risen from his chair, but she’d been too quick for him. She’d pushed her chair away and started to walk quickly out of the kitchen and he’d followed her out into the hall.
‘Are you all right, Eva? I could come with you, if you like.’
