Boot off, he says, gesturing at the floor, Or – may I? – and begins to untie my laces. His fingers are quick, but it’s still a struggle: Mr Stadnik’s lesson has not been wasted. The urge to strike him is raging. I have to check – no vibration in the room, no blue gaslit mother-fury sweeping around the back of my neck – it’s me, just me, wanting to bring the last straight down on his thick head while he crouches there, fumbling with my boot. He’s muttering to himself, pulling on the heel until it slips off into his hand.
The foot must be treated with respect. Ah! Good shoes and a good bed, as my mother used to say—
A knock on the door stops him. Jean is peering through the glass, wiping the rain off with a gloved hand, as if she’s waving at someone very far away. Hewitt springs up from the floor.
Your aunt, he says, in a dead voice, What a nice surprise. Jean isn’t pleased, either. I can see it in her face. Perhaps I was meant to wait for her outside. She grimaces at my stockinged foot, raises her eyebrow when she sees the contraption with the leather straps.
Didn’t you used to have a machine for that? she says, throwing her gloves down on the bench.
Ah, Miss Foy, I did. Certainly, I did. An amazing device. But it was declared dangerous, you know, he says, And my clients, they much prefer the personal touch.
While Jean gives him her look, I’m slipping my boot back on.
Well, I suggest you do your personal touching in the back, she says, We don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea, do we?
Of course, he says, But not now, I think. My girl’s due back in ten minutes. We’ll measure you next time, my dear, he says, bowing to me, It’ll be my pleasure.
all-day breakfast
There’s not a lot of wisdom in age, despite what they say. Truth is, as you get older, things get further away. Objects, I mean, like telephone boxes and the shops and that. Places you have to imagine walking to, or in the case of traffic, getting out of the way of. And near up, everything’s such a mist – you’re practically blind. Well, I am. Can’t see my hands up close: they’re as blurred as a drunk. But I can feel them all right: my very own chicken claws, one in each pocket. Then there’s the other stuff, memories for instance: now they really should be far away. But just one nudge and they’re right under your nose. And it is all in the nose. That innocent scent wafting out of the chemist? That’s my father’s hands after he danced with my mother; and that particular, early morning winter air with a tang of spring in it? Joseph Dodd, waiting in the church plantation, twirling a feather between finger and thumb. It all means something. Like the rusty railing you’ve touched, which in a second is the iron chain of the swing you gripped so tight when you were five: fear and bliss, mixed. A pub with its door open to the world – any pub, anywhere, letting out the stink of beer and smoke – there’s the pictures on a Saturday morning, with the close-up crush of my father’s suit. Fat frying? Mr Stadnik’s head, bent like a supplicant in front of Aunty Ena; and Aunty Ena herself can waft up at any time, in any corner of any room. As long as there’s dust in it. My grandfather’s particular smell is a rarity: pipe smoke, as dead to the air these days as he is. They come at random, they come in droves, reckless, unbiddable. Just like the spirits used to come. It’s enough to drive you mad.
Why don’t they warn you? Why don’t they say that there’s cruelty in the air? You go half blind, half deaf, your feet are so far away from you they might as well belong to another person: a lame one, at that. Eating’s a burden. Sleep is a stranger. So many bits of your body stop working, you hardly care any more. It’s a joy to think you’ll soon be dead. But not the nose: it does its job too well, it hoards your whole life. I can’t remember what I ate for supper, but fifty-odd years can be five minutes ago. Leather. Hewitt is, and always will be, leather. I couldn’t pass a shoe shop without the dread of him ghosting up. My own shoes are pre-worn, Salvation Army. They were someone else’s first, and that someone else wore plastic shoes. Synthetic won’t trouble me.
I didn’t want to get confused about what was stolen. It might only have been a day gone by, but I could tell it was leaving; so much else was filling up the space. That girl who stole from me, she’d left the door open; the outside was pouring in like rain down a gutter. Write a list, Carol had said.
I sat in the Korna Kaf at the bus station and thought about it. I normally enjoyed sitting at the very corner table of the Korna Kaf, right in front of the curved window, because the whole world goes by. You can watch but you don’t have to take part. I wasn’t enjoying it this time; I had a lot to think about. The lady in the pink check apron came over. She normally does.
Nice hat, she said, Here you are, love,
putting a cup of tea in front of me. She always did that, and she didn’t have to say what she said the first time she brought me a cup of tea, because me and her, we’ve got an understanding. When I’ve finished it, I have to leave. That’s the understanding. I think she’s kind enough, but when I don’t dream of a room and fill it full of things, I dream about walking in and ordering the
All-Day Breakfast Only £1.99!
It’s funny the way they think putting £1.99 will make you believe it’s not really two pounds. I’d have the All-Day Breakfast Bonanza: Bacon Sausage (2) Kidneys stroke Black Pudding Egg Tomatoes stroke Beans Mushrooms Fried Bread stroke Toast.
I’d like my kidneys devilled, I’d say. No mushrooms.
You need money to do that. And to get money, you need a place. But if you have no money, it’s not easy. You try finding a Fixed Abode, as they call it, without any means of fixing it. And if you have no fixed abode, you can’t get any money, not off the assistance, anyway. I went there once. I didn’t want help with a room; I had the notion of asking them for a car. It seems a ridiculous thing now, but then, I just wanted to take my car to the end of land, and live in it. I didn’t even know you had to learn how to drive. You could say I’d been very sheltered; it wouldn’t be a bad supposition. So I found the place where they’re supposed to give you assistance, and I waited. There were lots of other people, waiting and smoking, and one man who wouldn’t sit down and went off now and again to kick a wall. I waited until someone – a woman with her baby – said I had to pull a piece of paper from a box on the stand and they’d call my number. She went and got it for me, and I took the piece of paper and waited and twiddled my thumbs and waited and just before closing I spoke to a boy behind a glass.
Where do you live? he asked, holding his pen above the form he was filling in for me. I could’ve said, I live in the present.
I couldn’t have, because the words were failing. And besides, I didn’t have it – the way to explain things – it had abandoned me. I’ve got it now, of course, now everything’s coming back; the rats are piling on to this sinking ship. But at that time – the filling-in-a-form time – I was derelict. I was simple again. I was back before Before. So I told him the truth: I didn’t live anywhere. I just wanted a car.
Where would we send the postal order? he said, placing his pen down on the form.
Why not put it in my hand?
It seemed a reasonable request. I wasn’t getting angry like some of the people in the waiting room were when it came round to their turn. That woman with the baby, she’d been sitting there for hours. But he wrote my name on a piece of paper and pulled the shutter down, leaving me on the other side, staring at the slats.
It wasn’t a completely wasted journey. Someone had left the frame of an old pram outside, in the gutter. I took it with me; my case was so heavy, and I didn’t know how far I’d be going. It was ideal, really, as if it had been left there just for me. My case fitted it perfectly, and it was easy to pull along. I enjoyed the sound of the wheels behind me, the grip of the handle – white ridged plastic – feeling all the bumps coming up off the road. All that was good.
It wasn’t abandoned, the pram. I stole it, if I’m true.
It had a carry-case, and bedding and a small brown teddy. It had three coloured rings attache
d to the frame. Then there was someone behind me – a woman – calling out. I thought it must be the owner of the pram, so I raced away as fast as I could with my lucky find. It’s not as if I stole a baby, just a bit of metal on wheels. It was such a long way to walk, such a heavy case.
That was an age ago: thirty-odd years. I haven’t starved to death. Haven’t been arrested. It used to feel bad, the hunger, but one good thing about getting old is that you’re not so bothered about food. I never gave a second thought to the woman in the waiting room, sitting with her baby on her lap and her pram outside with the tied-up dogs and bicycles. Not until I got robbed: that’s given me more ideas than I care for. The menu in the Korna Kaf with all the breakfasts on, well, that was just another idea I had – I wasn’t the slightest bit hungry for food – it was the thought I hungered after, of being able to have the thing I wanted most in the world. Imagine an empty room, and fill it. Imagine a plate, cover it in food.
And then it came to me: it’s a menu, and a menu is only a list. A list of food to order, pay for, and eat. I could make one of those. While I drank my tea, and watched the world running about under the rain, I did it, without any assistance at all.
twenty
Confound Expectation! See And Believe!
Winifred Foy Has a Gift – For You!
On page two of the newspaper, inside a thick black box, is a picture and some writing. The letters are bold and swirling and black. Winifred Foy is me, but I can’t say I know her. Underneath the photograph, in dense script, it gives the time of the meetings and the new place, which Bernard calls a Venue. We had to move; the old church hall was too crowded, the caretaker said, a risk to life and limb.
Too bloody popular, more like, said Jean, and to me, You’re too good for your own good.
It might have been one of Jean’s back-handed compliments, like saying I was a fine one when I did the wrong thing, but there was no mistaking her tone. At first, she seemed happy enough that the benches were filled to bursting, people standing at the back, coming to see us from Fakenham, from Ipswich, even. It was when the clapping began that her mood changed. I don’t know who started it; not a regular, not a face I knew. I’d just been bringing through a small boy for an elderly woman down at the front of the hall: her grandchild, who had died years back. He had a terrible, draining cough, and looking at the colour of him made my eyes water – blue as a starling’s egg, the palest, translucent blue. There was nothing particular about the meeting, apart from the little boy. The grandmother and the women on either side of her had a cry, but they do anyway, sometimes; Bernard calls it an Occupational Hazard, he says I must get used to it. At the end of the session, when I’d sat down on the chair that Bernard said I should use these days – to give me An Air of Authority – someone at the back began to applaud. Then more people clapping, and more, until everyone was on their feet and the sound was raised to the ceiling. To me it was a noise full of joy.
No one wants a repeat of that, said Jean, when we’d got back home, We’re not a circus act.
She looked to Bernard for agreement, but his face was closed, impossible to read.
They’re simply showing their appreciation, he said, helping himself to his night-time brandy, Think of it as a sign of respect.
Of respect? she cried, Not respect for the dead, that’s for sure – and pointing her finger at me – She’s turning it into a pantomime.
She is doing no such thing, he said, relocking the cabinet in the sideboard and easing himself down into his seat. There was an ache of silence in the room. They often bickered, but this was an argument brewing. I’d never seen Bernard so stony. He held his glass up to the light and gazed through it, as if it held an answer.
What she is doing – he said, after taking a long, measured sip – Is bringing us good fortune. That’s all there is to it. Jean spoke no more about the clapping that time, but the way she did my hair before the next meeting, scraping it against my scalp and jamming the wig down on my head, I knew that despite the finality of Bernard’s remarks, Jean definitely thought there was more to it.
Let’s not have any hysterics tonight, she muttered, prodding my shoulder with a stiff finger, Let’s not get things out of proportion. This isn’t the music hall, you know.
But the applause had nothing to do with me. By the end of the following evening, not only was there clapping, there was a man standing on a chair, with his fingers in his mouth, whistling. People were out of their seats. Bernard was standing too.
The idea for the advertisement came after we were given notice on St Giles hall. Jean had mentioned a photograph once before, so when Bernard said we should place an advertisement in the paper, with a picture of me, Jean’s reaction was a surprise.
Why not a photograph of you, Bernard? You’re the attraction, after all. It’s your life’s work.
Not pretty though, am I? he said, with a sudden, mirthless grin, Not a crowd pleaser, like this one.
Jean went quiet. She looked over at me, back at him, back at me.
You call that pretty? she said, You need your eyes testing.
~
Bernard got his own way. We went, all three of us, to a studio he knew on Colegate. The photographer was a tall, bald man with a bent back. He leaned on the arm of the sofa, offered me a cigarette from a silver case.
She don’t smoke, said Jean, And she don’t take any clothes off.
She’d got the idea just by looking: the room was full of framed pictures of young women, smiling coquettishly over a bare shoulder, lying on a rug in a swimsuit, pouting, with their hands in their hair.
We don’t want her looking like a tart, said Jean, frowning at a gallery of simpering faces, She’s a clairvoyant, not a showgirl. Are you sure we’re in the right place? she asked Bernard, who was trying not to notice the pictures. He gave the man an embarrassed smile.
We’d like her. . . enigmatic, a little mystical, he said, Nothing too . . . flamboyant.
The man said he would do his best.
~
According to the picture in the newspaper, I am half mystery, half wonder. All hair. There’s a swirling vapour around my head that wasn’t there in the studio, and two points of light, like tiny slivers of stars, in each eye. It looks exactly right.
He’s certainly done some work on that, says Jean, holding the paper at arm’s length in front of Bernard and his breakfast, I don’t know about packing them in. Looks to me like she’ll scare them off.
Bernard raises his head from his plate of porridge.
Well, I think she looks marvellous – it really captures the mood, doesn’t it, Win?
It’s just like it is, I say, wanting to take the picture from Jean and hide it in my room so I can look at it again later. I’ve never had a photograph of me. I didn’t know my eyes had pieces of the sky in them.
No good asking her, says Jean. ‘It’s just like it is!’ – What’s that supposed to mean?
Bernard sighs, and pushes his plate away. Jean is peculiar these days, argumentative for no reason. This morning it’s the photograph that’s vexing her, but any little thing can set her off.
What she means, my dear, is that it is a very good likeness.
It’s beautiful, just beautiful.
Bernard tries his best, but that isn’t what I mean at all.
It’s different, I say, trying not to make Jean angry, It looks like the feeling – when they come through. Like my hair is doing that,
I say, pointing at the vortex of light in the picture. Bernard is nodding in agreement.
Yes, Jean, you see, that’s how the Gift manifests itself to her. The photographer has simply interpreted her aura. And, in my opinion, he’s done very well.
My aura, yes, I say, wanting to sound like Bernard, That’s exactly how it looks.
Thank you so much – says Jean, acid – For enlightening us. How silly of me not to notice your aura.
~
We rehearse every spare minute, to prepare for the opening night. Be
rnard has moved his chair into the bay window, trying to make the parlour look like a stage. He’s been teaching me words. He calls it the Language of the Afterlife, although a lot of it is just being polite to the people in the audience, repeating the things they say. Jean calls it the gift of the gab. She says there’s more to it than parroting. When I’m alone in my room, I practise my words on the Russian dummy. She never smiles, never weeps.
The vibration is with us now, I say, holding my hands outstretched, Bear with me, madam. Move closer, sir, if you will. A little closer. Would this be your husband, madam? I can see a church. The dummy smirks on.
Or perhaps it is your son drawing near. Was he to be married? I have the letter M, you see.
Bernard says always read the face. The face will tell you everything. Look beyond the skin, he says. Because no matter what you think you can see, if you don’t say the right words, people won’t understand. And names are slippery; names are like grease, Bernard says. All you have to do is hit on the right letter, and the look on their faces will help you.
M or N, it isn’t clear. I am but a lowly interpreter, madam. Please forgive me if the name is incorrect. The dummy says nothing.
~
Bernard is singing. When he gets to the last line of the hymn, reaching for the note like a girl in a high, trembling voice, I have to come out and stand in the centre of the window, raise my arms, and say,
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We’re honoured to have your company this evening. Please take your seats.
I’m no longer allowed to stand at the front door collecting money in the silver bowl. Bernard says it’s undignified for the star to be seen ‘consorting with hoi polloi’, so he’s formulated some new rules: I have to remain in the back room of our venue until the singing is finished and the light comes on above the stage. Then I must walk out with my arms raised, just like we do in the rehearsal. Bernard’s had some handbills printed that we are supposed to give out to people in the street; it shows the photograph of me, with the words ‘Winifred Foy, Clairvoyant Extraordinaire!’ on one side, and on the back, a list of Testimonials from Satisfied Customers. Bernard made them up. A little embellishment, he said, and only what he’d heard spoken, anyway. He’s given out fifty already; and he’s instructed us to carry a few about our person, he said, should the appropriate occasion arise. I love it when Bernard speaks like that; he could give lessons to the King.
Remember Me Page 15
