Remember Me

by Trezza Azzopardi

  It’s our teaching has brought her this far, she tells Bernard, who is sulking over his brandy, Not a pot to piss in when she turned up.

  They’re downstairs in the parlour, tight as a drum now, pooling their worries in the lamplight. Bernard’s voice is dark and miserable.

  She doesn’t need us, Jean, he says.

  She hasn’t got the means to go it alone.

  A long stretch of quiet, then one of Bernard’s sighs.

  She can leave whenever she chooses.

  Jean’s laugh cuts the air,

  Then let her, she says, Ungrateful little madam.

  Be kind, my dear, he says, after another pause, Be kind to the child.

  She’s no child, she says, and for a moment I think she’s about to tell him about Hewitt, what he did. What we did. But there’s only silence, and in it, and through it, I see a chance. In the morning I will ask if I can go to Hewitt’s, to get my fitting done. I am their creation and their Godsend, after all. And a Godsend needs a decent pair of shoes.

  ~

  It’s a shock to see him. Jean is ahead, always ahead of me, and where better, she says, to get my feet measured, than in the comfort of my own home. Our little palace.

  Normally, I don’t do house calls, says Hewitt, But you, my dear, are a very special case.

  He’s wearing a mustard-coloured jacket and a cravat, like a country gentleman come into town for an outing. He has a large leather bag which squeaks when he opens it: tape measure, cream gloves, a sheaf of crisp white tissue paper, the little casket to put your foot in. Hewitt’s Devices are spread across the floor. When she sees my face, Jean is triumphant. She excuses herself to the kitchen to make tea; really, she will stand and listen in the hall.

  Any news from your mother? I say, willing Jean to march back in and stop me, Any medical troubles lately?

  Hewitt breathes in his sing-song way, lalala.

  She hasn’t bothered me since, he says, No bad dreams, no wakeful nights. You cured me, he says, and laughing to himself, Ex-or-cized the spirit.

  I tell him straight away that I lied, that Jean told me what to say. Head down, very quietly, he says,

  I know. I don’t believe in all that rubbish. It’s just entertainment, really, isn’t it?

  He looks up, serene, untroubled, almost smiling.

  Then why did you ask for me?

  I liked your face, he says, You remind me of someone I knew.

  Fiddling with the leather straps, pulling on his gloves.

  Why the gloves? Afraid you might catch something? Hewitt reaches for my ankle.

  My dear, allow me, he says, Medicated, new, from America. A massage first, you see, to relax the foot. I could kick him now, that’d bring Jean running. But he takes my foot in his hand, brings it between his knees, and strokes it. I close my eyes, and think of his mother and her coarse words, and my own mother, and my own father. All gone. His hands on my feet are soft and warm.

  ~

  He said they were the tiniest feet that ever had shoes made to fit. The most dainty and fragile, like alabaster, he said. Crouching with his head bowed, and me in the armchair with my leg raised and my petticoat glowing in the morning light. Taking the right foot and placing it in the box, pulling the strap across the bridge of my foot. Feeding the little lace through the hole, pulling it, measuring, marking, all the time stroking, sliding the wooden frame to toe and heel. His thumb caressing the arch, the skin below the ankle. A perfect fit.

  Divine, he said.

  twenty-three

  Mr Stadnik turns his teacup round in a careful circle, examining the rim and then wiping it with the corner of his napkin. We’re in the corner of Gurney’s teashop, away from the window where people might see us. I’m not supposed to be here; I’ve run away. It was simple, in the end, not like running away in the stories my mother told me. Jean made me feel as if it was my choice, but really, it happened without me knowing. It would have been different if Bernard was there, but he was taking his walk – his constitutional. Jean was sitting in a chair in the window, sewing.

  I’m going out for a bit, I said, pulling on my coat before she could stop me, To get some fresh air.

  Fine, said Jean, tacking thread along the hem. She didn’t make a move. But as I opened the door, she called me back.

  Take that with you, she said, pointing to the corner of the room where she had put my case. She didn’t look at me again.

  Tell Bernard I’m sorry, I replied, not knowing what else to say.

  You will be, was all she said.

  ~

  Finding Mr Stadnik was difficult. When I asked people in the city, no one knew his name. A road sweeper, Bernard said, so I walked the roads, feeling the time stretch out in front of me, thinking of Bernard coming home, persuading Jean that there had been a mistake, Jean shouting at him. Then both of them would be bound to set out to look for me and bring me back.

  On the corner near the pawn shop stood a cart, with a battered umbrella slung across the handles. I’d passed the shop many times since coming back from Aunty Ena’s farm. Haunted by the memory of my father’s suit hanging in the window, I would turn my head, look the other way. Today, I stopped. No suit. But the man coming through the door carrying two brown bags was Mr Stadnik. He gave me a broad, toothless smile, nonchalantly loaded his cart, tipped my own case into it, and pushed it ahead of him. As if we always met this way.

  Princess, he said, Come and take tea with your old friend! The cake plate in the centre of the table has no cakes on it, just two dry-looking biscuits; a pot of tea the colour of straw, a small white jug of something like milk.

  For what we are about to receive, says Mr Stadnik, lifting his cup and waggling his little finger in the air. He drains it in two gulps, takes off his glasses and breathes on them, rubbing them with the other corner of his napkin. He looks to be particular – fastidious, Bernard would say, if he could see Mr Stadnik now – but his coat is frayed at the cuffs and shiny at the elbows, his collar is grey, the skin on his neck is grained with creases of dirt. He’s attempted a shave; in places his chin is scraped and raw, in others, dotted with white growth. There’s a tie around his neck; the knot is small and tight and marked on either side from where his finger and thumb have been. He’s older, dirtier, but to me he’s just the same. I would just like to stay in this teashop forever, to be with him, with the steam running rivulets down the windows, and the soft rain, and the dull lead-grey of the sky outside. He’s real and earthly and sitting only inches away from me, with his head a bit on one side, nosy as a jackdaw on a fence.

  And they just come to you? he says, replacing his glasses on his face and looking over them, They just . . . appear, that’s it?

  They rise up, I say, Mr Foy – that’s Bernard – he knew straight off, when he found me. He said I was a gift from God.

  He did, says Mr Stadnik, And you are. Indeed, you are.

  I had already explained about Bernard and Jean Foy, how they looked after me, how Bernard found me when I was sent back from Stow Farm. How they taught me everything I know. Feeling ashamed, I don’t tell Mr Stadnik that I’ve left them. He’s preoccupied with knowing about the Gift; how it works, what happens when the spirits come.

  I feel a vibration, I say.

  Like an earthquake? he asks, raising his chin and staring at me through his glasses. Two tiny reflected windows hide his eyes.

  Like a train when it’s coming into the station. Sometimes like an engine.

  He’s keen on this idea. His finger traces a question on the cloth.

  Ah – a motor car?

  Bernard says words don’t do justice to the Gift. Paint the scene, he said, In your mind’s eye. So I try to paint one for Mr Stadnik.

  Like the fairground, I say, When the horses turn. Their saddles all colours. The whooshing by your head as they roll past.

  The horses? He raises one eyebrow.

  The gallopers.

  Mr Stadnik seems satisfied with this. He reaches for a biscui
t and dips it up and down in his tea, until it breaks off and plops into the cup. Then he smiles.

  And the colour, he says, fishing out the biscuit and sucking it off his spoon, Always blue?

  Yes, different kinds of blue. The vibrations are blue.

  Why not yellow? Or red? Or green? Why are these vibrations blue?

  I have no answer. I want to please him, but I can tell that he doesn’t believe in me, even though he stood in the hall that night and watched. Mr Stadnik was there because Bernard had given him a leaflet in the street, and asked if he might want an evening’s work, putting out the chairs and clearing up at the end. Mr Stadnik didn’t recognize me, he said, until I stood up and spoke. He hasn’t mentioned my hair.

  The spirits come to me in blue because that’s how my aura interprets them – in the Afterlife, I said, pleased to find Bernard’s words in my mouth.

  Very good, says Mr Stadnik, Lovely colour, blue. But not because blue is important to you, in any way? He looks at me for an answer, tries again.

  And no one else can see these blue vibrating spirits?

  No.

  Eyes wider now,

  Not even Mr Bernard?

  No.

  But he’s a mystical? He sees this Afterlife?

  It’s called clairvoyant. Bernard sees them in other ways. He has visions of past events.

  I understand, says Mr Stadnik, How nice it must be, to have visions.

  He removes his glasses and rubs at them again. His breath wheezes as he smears the lenses. I have to correct him. This time, I know Mr Stadnik is not always right.

  Sometimes it isn’t nice, I say, Bernard says there are too many dead. Too many dead, too soon and too young. Mr Stadnik nods sadly in agreement with this.

  He is a philosopher, then, says Mr Stadnik, And this is what he tells people, your Mr Bernard?

  No! He tells them – he gives them words of Comfort. He Ministers Comfort. He brings messages of Joy.

  Bernard’s words are the best way of describing what he does. Better than my own. Just when I think Mr Stadnik is truly beginning to understand, he leans close, conspiratorial, whispering across the table.

  And glad tidings too, I think. So tell me, are there any dead people here, in this room? Those two over there perhaps, he says, jerking his head sideways.

  The table he’s nodding at has two elderly women in identical turquoise hats.

  We don’t say dead. We say ‘passed over’.

  Ah, now I’ve made you angry! he says, Forgive me. But why do you only see these passed-over people at certain times? How is it they only vibrate to you in a church hall? Why are they not crowding the streets, jumping off the buildings, out of windows, drowning in the blue rivers, falling out of the blue sky? Tell me, child. Why do they choose a particular time and place?

  Mr Stadnik glances at the two turquoise women, gives them a grin, then turns back to me with a serious face.

  Why not right here in this very room? he whispers, jabbing the table with his finger.

  Bernard says we are conduits. The circumstances must be . . . amenable. But I have seen them outside, I say, thinking of all the spirits on the roof of the cathedral.

  I see, says Mr Stadnik, eyeing the last biscuit, And you have never failed?

  No one has said so.

  Very good.

  He goes quiet, head up, searching the room for the waitress. When he catches her eye, he waves.

  And your grandfather, he asks, You’ve seen him, of course? I tell Mr Stadnik about going back to Chapelfield as soon as I got off the train. About how I looked, found nothing.

  Then come with me, he says, pocketing the biscuit and replacing it with a coin, Let’s see if we can’t find him.

  twenty-four

  We walk from the teashop, tight under Mr Stadnik’s umbrella, around the back of the market and up the steps, past a crater of mud and broken brick, and finally into Chapelfield. Bethel Street House is untouched, the bars on the tiny windows freshly painted. Little Ketts School, opposite, is still standing. Singing comes in waves from the building. It could be me in there, wearing my beret and worrying about the small things, like a name, Telltale hair, a bully with a birthmark on her throat. Almost, it could be yesterday. But Chapelfield Gardens is trampled into muddy scars, the railings have gone, and in the middle, where I first saw the gallopers, is the pagoda, dripping rain: bomb-wrecked and broken-boned. I know where we’re going. We’re going to my grandfather’s house.

  He’s not there, I say again, I came back, to find him. There’s no one there.

  Mr Stadnik upends his cart against the wall, loosens the tie around his neck and draws out a long silver chain from under his shirt. It has a watch on it, and a key. He opens the door and waits for me to pass.

  A smell of mildew and ash, and another smell underneath, of something rotting. The hall is filled, floor to ceiling, with papers, books, rags, boxes spilling their insides, bits of wood, broken pieces of furniture, all heaped up on each other. He leads me through it, squeezing a narrow path into the living room where we all used to sit, with my grandfather reading to us, poking the fire, tamping his pipe. It is dark and chill and choked with yet more papers, clothes and boxes. A few ragged shirts and suits hang from the picture rail, freckled with spots of mould. I try not to look for a blue one. Mr Stadnik passes through the door to the kitchen, where he surveys the room for a minute before placing his two latest bags high up, on top of a stack of others. The kitchen is stuffed with more of the same, crowding all the surfaces, filling every space. The fire in the living room is out; above the mantelpiece, a medley of clocks tick against each other. Each one shows a different time. Under the window, where a heap of blankets marks Mr Stadnik’s bed, a dog is sleeping. Mr Stadnik nudges him with his toe.

  Come and say hello to Princess, he says.

  The dog crawls out of its nest, slinking towards me with its tail hooped under its body: a small grey dog with a pointed mouth.

  What happened to Billy?

  This is Billy, says Mr Stadnik, and then, correcting himself, Of course. This is Billy the Third, he says, A good hunter! We have uninvited guests here, Princess; but Billy is fast. He can catch them.

  He edges past me, shifts an armful of clothes off a chair, balancing them on the edge of the table.

  Forgive me, he says, Please sit down.

  I know it will offend him if I don’t, so I sit, on the edge of the cushion, feeling the damp seep into me. He takes the biscuit from his pocket, offers it to me, and when I refuse, he breaks it up and feeds it, piece by piece, to the dog.

  You have so many things, Mr Stadnik, Where do they all come from?

  He looks pleased for a second, as if he’s about to have a good idea, then troubled by the thought.

  They’re not mine. People sell them to the man, he says, And I get them back . . . for the people. Some of this – waving his arm around the room – is from the houses too, you see? People will come back and find nothing, not a brick or window. But I have their things here. I have them. I will keep them safe.

  I daren’t ask him how the people will know where to look. I daren’t ask him who he thinks might want a dead man’s clothes, a blackened chair, a collection of shattered gramophone records.

  Mr Stadnik paces the narrow floor space, eyeing me over his glasses. Perhaps I have offended him after all.

  Billy the Second – your Billy – he’s gone, he says. Another space of silence, and then in a soft voice,

  Do they allow animals into the Afterlife, Princess? bending down to stroke the dog, who slips like an eel under his hand and creeps back to his bed. Mr Stadnik smiles but when he speaks his voice is low, unfriendly.

  So. You would like to see your grandfather again? he asks.

  Of course! I say, Where is he?

  You tell me, he says, snapping his fingers, Call him. Make him appear. He must be in your Afterlife!

  Mr Stadnik is letting me know that my grandfather is dead.

  It’s no
t nice, I say, To tell me like this.

  I couldn’t admit the truth, even to myself. I had hoped he had simply gone away. I had hoped he would come back. Behind his glasses, Mr Stadnik’s eyes are wide.

  But surely you knew? You are famous in this city. You are a . . . wait! he says, hand in the air. He looks about the room, and from behind a clock, pulls out a leaflet with my picture on it.

  Yes. You see, it says so here, Clairvoyant Extraordinaire. This is you?

  Thrusting the paper at me. I would like to deny it, but his anger is brittle as a splint.

  Why would he not come to you, Princess? Please, bring him now. I have many friends passed over, you see, and none here, on this earthly earth. I would like to talk with him again. Sit by the fire, eh? he says, gesturing to the slump of ash in the grate, Have a good old chat.

  I can’t just call him, I say, The circumstances must be – amenable.

  Mr Stadnik sinks down onto the blanket. Above him, spikes of rain on the window. His face is grey with grief.

  Amenable, he says, Well, this was his home; that must be amenable. And here, I found him. I did not want to leave the farm, Princess, or you, alone in that world. I was sent away, you know, in the night, by men who didn’t like a stranger. Men who would shoot a stranger as easily as they shoot his dog. Your grandfather was a brave man, to take me in.

  Mr Stadnik gets up, passes by me into the hall, heaves open the cellar door.

  This is where a brave man hides, he says, pointing down the stone steps, When he is old and cannot understand. This is where he dies.

  Darker still in the hallway, with only a glimmer of light between us.

  I do not doubt you see wonderful things in your head, he whispers evenly, Pretty children in bonnets, buried treasure, starlit skies. Go on, make money from fools. It’s easy, in this time. Speak your fine words, with your fine clothes and your fine hair and your gift. But do not imagine that you bring comfort. There is no comfort in this world, and there is nothing in the next. The dead, Princess, are the dead.