The Misremembered Man

by Christina McKenna

  “So, James, what can I do for you this morning?”

  “Well, you see, doctor, I’ve had this back for a while now. Can’t seem to get rid of it.”

  “Where exactly is the pain?”

  “Ehh, in me back, doctor.”

  “Yes, I know that! But could you be more specific?” The doctor replaced his glasses and canted forward. “Where exactly…upper, lower, middle?”

  “Oh, aye, now I’m with you. The lower bit; aye, the lower bit. Gets me in the morning something fearful. ’Deed begod, there are times when I can hardly get outta the bed atall, atall.”

  “Quite so. Worse in the morning then, is it?”

  “Oh…far worse.”

  Dr. Brewster, slightly hung over, dyspeptic, and weary of listening to the grunts and groans of the culchies and bogmen of Tailorstown, studied Jamie, saw a man who drank like a sea trout and smoked like a stovepipe, and decided, against his better judgment, not to rise and exert himself with any kind of invasive prodding.

  “Sounds as if you have a touch of lumbago,” he said, reaching for his prescription pad and pen. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “Lamb what, doctor?”

  “Lum, James, lumbago. Comes from lifting heavy objects and lack of exercise.” He narrowed his eyes in an accusatory manner. “Which I can see, with the farm and your lifestyle, probably fits the bill.”

  He began to write. “Any stiffness in the buttocks or genital area?”

  “In the…in the where, doctor?”

  “Backside, private parts, man.” The doctor indicated Jamie’s groin with a few swift circular motions of his pen.

  “Oh, down there. Naw, never any stiffness there…not that I know of anyway,” he added thoughtfully.

  The doctor considered him over the rims of his glasses. “Yes, indeed. What age are you now, James?”

  “I was the forty-one this May past, so a was.”

  “Still a young man, James. You should get out more. Take a break at the seaside. Good food, sea air…Do you the world of good.”

  “But who would look after things? Y’know I can’t leave the cows and the hay and stuff.”

  “Nonsense! Doesn’t Paddy McFadden live down the road? Paddy’s a very obliging sort…. Portaluce, that’s the place.”

  Dr. Brewster wrote extravagantly in his pad, his great chins quivering with the effort. “Still taking the Valium, I trust?”

  “Yes, doctor.”

  “Helping, is it?”

  “Helpin’ a bit, doctor.” Jamie consulted the floor, at once sad. “But they’ll not bring Mick back.”

  The doctor, sensitive to the sudden mood shift, stopped writing and laid down the pen. “I know, James. It must be very difficult without your uncle,” he said gently. “But y’know, time’s a great healer. The medication will help you. How long’s it been now?”

  “Ten months, two weeks and five days, doctor. God I never thought he’d die. That mornin’ I found him dead, I wanted to die, too.” He began twisting his cap in his hands. “Still do sometimes.”

  “Come now, James, that’s no way to talk. It’s been hard for you, I know. But you’re a tough one and you’re making good progress.”

  “But I miss havin’ nobody to talk to, doctor. It’s just me and wee Shep…Mick was always there and we talked ’bout everything.”

  Dr. Brewster drew a handkerchief from his top pocket and began polishing his glasses slowly and ruminatively. “Hmm…that’s why I’m suggesting you take that little break by the seaside. It’ll take your mind off yourself and you never know who you might meet.” He returned the hankie and replaced his glasses. “Y’know, James, there are lots of people in your position, but especially women of your age, who’ve dedicated their lives to caring for parents only to discover that when they die they’ve no one to turn to. You’re only forty-one after all. A woman like that would be very glad to meet a man like you.”

  “God, d’you think so, doctor?” Jamie brightened slightly. “Y’know Paddy and Rose told me I should maybe try and meet someone, too. But I don’t know if any woman would look at the like-a me…a wouldn’t know what to say to them.”

  “D’you know, James, that fact alone would make you the ideal husband. There’s nothing a woman likes more than a silent man; most of them could talk for Ireland anyway, my wife included.”

  Dr. Brewster let out a laugh and Jamie smiled.

  “That’s the spirit, James. Now promise me you’ll have that break?”

  “I will indeed, doctor.”

  “Good man!” The doctor took up his pen again and continued to write. “Now, I’m prescribing painkillers. Two, last thing at night; should ease things in the morning.”

  He tore off the page and handed it over.

  “Me back’s not too serious then, doctor, is it?”

  “No, not serious. Gladys Millman. The Ocean Spray guesthouse.”

  “What?”

  “On the promenade. They say it’s hard to beat.”

  “Oh, I see. Thank you, doctor.”

  Jamie got up, grateful that the ordeal was over, and thankful that the doctor had not examined him or inquired about his fag and booze habits.

  “I’ll go now, doctor,” he said, relieved. “Ocean Spray, you say.”

  “That’s the spirit, James!” Dr. Brewster got up and ushered him to the door. “Now keep taking your medication. It’ll stop you from brooding too much. It’s very important that you don’t come off them until I say so.” He patted his arm, “And after you take that break in Portaluce, call in and tell me all about it. Will you do that, James?”

  “I will indeed, doctor. Right ye be. Thank you, doctor. Cheerio now!”

  Lydia parked her Fiat 850 two-door car outside the Cut ’n Curl hair-dressing salon on Killoran’s high street, and helped her mother out of the passenger seat. This was a complicated business—the unfolding of Mrs. Devine—what with her rheumatism, arthritis, and general reluctance to being helped by anyone. A good five minutes was taken up, with Lydia grappling and the elderly woman resisting, before finally both stood upright, the car door was banged shut, and they made their way slowly and carefully into the salon.

  Susan, the young assistant, was immediately in attendance with her cheery greetings, eager to get Mrs. Devine out of her coat and her head into the washbasin as soon as possible. In Susan’s business, time was money, and Elizabeth could be quite a handful at times, “could keep a nation back” with her long-winded stories and remembrances of times past; stories in which the opinions of her late husband, the Reverend Perseus Cuthbert, and the foibles of the young always figured large.

  With her mother safely installed, Lydia reminded her of the arrangement. “I’ll pick you up in two hours’ time, Mother, at…” She pulled back the cuff of her jacket and checked her watch, “…at half-past three exactly. That would be correct, Susan, for the rollers and rinse?”

  “Yes, that would be about it, Lydia,” the hairdresser said over her shoulder, already steering Elizabeth toward the washbasins. “A half-hour extra for the color to take.”

  “And where are you going?” Mrs. Devine demanded of her daughter. “Why can’t you stay here with me?”

  “Mother, I told you: I have things to do.” And with that she made her escape.

  Lydia drove back home, relieved to have some time to herself. It was only in those interludes of absence, when her mother was not about, that she could fully appreciate solitude and silence. Often, she longed for a life of freedom and independence, would dream of living in a quiet place, answerable to no one but herself. At the same time, she drew a veil over such a future, was reluctant to picture it too clearly because of the harsh reality that would precede it. Deep down, she dreaded the day when her mother’s voice would not call out her name, when she’d not be needed to help her find “the dark way through her dress,” when a breakfast tray would not be required in the elderly lady’s bedroom.

  Her mother’s needs always came first, and Lydia rarely
questioned why this should be so. Such allegiance and daughterly docility had been planted in her long ago by her strict Presbyterian father. Even in death his uncompromising spirit persisted. His thunderous sermons still echoed down the days, and the fearsome image of him in the pulpit, nostrils flared, great hands gripping the Bible stand, remained as defined and real as the Vermeer print that hung in the drawing room. She being an only child, the fourth commandment—the one about honoring parents forever and always—carried an excessive potency for Lydia. In no time at all, the helpless, obedient little girl had grown into a selfless, loyal servant, taking on the functions of nurse, cook, maid, gardener, cleaner, caretaker—and whatever other roles her demanding parents decreed needed filling. What a gift she was! The malleable, dutiful daughter to the righteous, controlling couple.

  She maneuvered the car into the driveway of Elmwood House and cut the engine. She sat for a time massaging her temples against a headache, and gazed up at the respectable, ivy-clad vicarage where she’d been raised. It held memories of everything she knew: her infancy, girlhood, womanhood. She thought of the child she had been, inching her way toward maturity; so naive, facing the great and as yet walled-in future that had been so carefully planned for her by her parents. What chance did she have in the face of all that authority and good sense? It had been decreed that teaching was an honorable profession, and Lydia had willingly acquiesced. What else could she do? In her heart she had wanted to be a beautician, a hairdresser even, but could hardly have dared voice this desire. Her father would have considered her vain and frivolous and certainly no daughter of his.

  Yes, her father: her intractable, inflexible father. For more years than she cared to contemplate, she’d lived according to his exacting standards. He’d constructed the rigid little box into which he’d fitted her life, his beliefs and opinions screwed tightly in place, and had hammered down the lid with his righteous reasoning. All her life she’d felt constricted. Now that he was gone, she wanted to stretch herself, collapse the sides of all that restraint, and break free.

  She continued to stare up at the house, the prison, the box in which she’d grown up, and wondered at what point the child had become an adult. Because for Lydia there had been no defining moment, no chalk line crossed nor touch tape broken. She had lived forever, it seemed, under a disciplining hail of “no’s” and “never’s” often she felt she was still a minor with little experience of the real world.

  She was forty and had never had sexual intercourse, had never drunk alcohol, had never flown in a plane or traveled in a fast car. She often wondered, too, how far her upbringing had colored her likes and dislikes. She had no desire to swim in the sea or sunbathe on a beach or by a pool; did not like sleeveless dresses or a hemline above the knee. She retained an aversion to dogs, and still carried a scar on her left ankle where the neighbor’s wire-haired terrier had sprung into the yard and bitten her when she was just a toddler. She hated being photographed in direct sunlight, could not go out without her sunglasses, an umbrella and a freshly laundered hankie tucked into her right sleeve. She had never danced to live music (but in her bedroom had shuffled her feet to Andy Williams, the volume turned to a low hum so her father would not hear, pop music being considered “the devil’s refrain”).

  She had a dislike of certain foodstuffs: shop-bought bread, corn on the cob, tomatoes and cheese—such things having a tendency to make her feel unwell. She never ate between meals or standing up, hence her steady, unfluctuating weight. She hated crowds and went shopping in the early morning to avoid them. She was obsessed with time, was never late for an appointment and looked with disfavor on those who kept her waiting. She believed in the guiding power of the Lord, attended service every Sunday, could sing most hymns without straining her voice and could recite all twenty-seven chapters of Leviticus by heart.

  In short, she was her father’s daughter, and it took his death and his absence from her life to confirm for her that she had become a walking contradiction. Perhaps now that he was gone, she could finally be the person she wished to be. She pushed open the car door with a fresh resolve. It’s time to change, she thought, and slammed it shut, causing a flock of ravens to bluster free of the garden elm.

  In the kitchen she prepared the breakfast she’d postponed in deference to her mother. She had the best part of two hours to herself while Elizabeth got primped. She guessed that the hairdresser could do for her mother what drink, or other indulgences, could do for others. The styling of her hair was one of the few pleasures she had left.

  Lydia sat down at the table, spread her napkin wide, poured tea, and smeared her toast with a film of Golden Bee honey from a frilly-topped pot. All at once she became conscious of the solitude, and how it was not a negative quality but one that gave her strength in the calm, bright room. She noted the hush that swelled between the random sounds: the traffic hissing past on the road outside, a child crying faintly in the house next door, the clicking of stiletto heels on a nearby sidewalk. And, nearer still, the thinning whine of the kettle cooling on the stove, the clink of her cup on the china saucer, the thrum of the fridge in the corner, her own sips and swallows.

  She became aware also of her mother’s cluttered kitchen and the emblems it contained, snagging for a moment on the nail of a childhood she wished she could forget. It seemed that all the bric-a-brac on walls and shelves hauled her back to the episodes that had put them there. Those things Lydia knew could not be removed until her mother died. Those connections. Those reminders.

  The risen Christ looked fondly down upon her from a gilt-edged print on the far wall; an anniversary gift which she’d bought her parents in The Good Shepherd bookstore when she was twelve. The man behind the counter had frightened her. She remembered his hooded eyes and the long white beard, his purple mouth, like a buried bruise. He might himself have been the risen Christ. He had counted the change into her palm with long pale fingers and rasped “Praised be the Lord, my child,” causing her to run for the door.

  She remembered her parents’ smiling approval as they unwrapped the picture. Her father had conjured a hammer and nail as if from nowhere and secured it to the wall. And there it had hung, unmoved, for twenty-eight years. She guessed that the portrait of a smiling Queen Elizabeth below it might have hung there just as long, and the fan of souvenir spoons from trips to the coast, and the faded tapestry of birds gliding on their smudged reflections over a pond—its age, whom it had belonged to, she did not know, but she believed it might have been another precious wedding gift.

  It seemed that every room in the house had the power to entrap her with some form of sentimental pull.

  The sound of the postman at the front door brought her back to the present. She went immediately into the hall and collected the letters lying on the Bless This House mat.

  There was a bill from the electricity company, a circular from Gallagher’s furniture store (“20% off all Draylon suites”) and a stiff vellum envelope which looked like a greetings card. She trashed the furniture flyer, stuck the invoice in Uncle Sinclair’s wooden cat on the kitchen windowsill, and sat down again at the table to open the letter. It was addressed to her.

  It was a card with a gilded edge, a wedding invitation. Lydia saw that it was from an old college friend: Heather Price. Gosh, she hadn’t seen or spoken to her in years.

  Herbert and Henrietta Price

  Have great pleasure in requesting the company of

  Lydia Devine & Partner

  On the occasion of the marriage of their daughter

  Heather

  to Mr. Simon Taylor

  on August 28th 1974 in St. Hilda’s Parish Church

  & afterwards at the Ross Park Hotel,

  Main Street, Killoran

  Lydia reread the invitation with a mounting sense of unease. It was that word “partner” which caused her the most discomfort. All her old girlfriends seemed to be married now, and she was not. She had attended too many of those weddings, knew all too well the emba
rrassment of being seen in the company of her fractious mother, and the attendant smirks and sly looks that went with the questions: “Any word of you, Lydia? When are you going to give us another big day?”

  She returned the card to the envelope, angry at the very thought. Yes, she would go to the blasted wedding, and she would find a man to accompany her—even if she had to hire one for the day! After all, her father was no longer around to censor her every move. And as for her mother: She was not her partner, and was therefore not invited. And, by heavens, she would no longer stand in her way!

  Lydia knew what she had to do. She’d look up Daphne at the library and ask her advice. Daphne always knew what to do in such circumstances. She rose, galvanized into action, checked her watch, saw that she had most of an hour left, grabbed her purse and left the house.

  Chapter five

  Tailorstown, a small village in County Derry, had started out with Flynn the grocer, O’Shea the bar owner, Duffy the undertaker, a smattering of dwellings and the obligatory parish church. Over the decades it expanded its buildings and population through the committed efforts of the above-mentioned stalwarts, alongside a steady influx of traders and urban speculators. So the ladies from the shirt factory met the bricklayers from the council estates, and in time the school and every church pew were filled with the by-products of their passions. Tailorstown was a success.

  To the outsider, the village was nothing more than a one-horse town leading nowhere, ringed by the peaks of the Slievegerrin mountains, which neither sightseer nor adventurer yearned much to see. Like most small villages, Tailorstown remained unremarkable, of interest only to its townsfolk and the local historical society. A society which had been formed, out of frustration, by a retired school principal, who, after a lifetime of hammering the daylights out of pupils, needed a displacement activity to keep bitterness at bay.