The Misremembered Man

by Christina McKenna

  “My sorrow is my business! And yes, she was a sister in the sense that all she seemed able to do was criticize and try to dominate me. The problem was one of jealousy, I fear. Elizabeth was plain and dull and I was, well, shall we say more sophisticated.”

  Lydia was shocked. “What a mean, selfish thing to say!”

  Gladys tightened the kimono about her, drained the remains of her glass and stubbed out the cigarette. She held Lydia with a contemptuous look.

  “I wouldn’t be so high and mighty—”

  “Me high and mighty?”

  “You know nothing!” Gladys snapped. “The truth is always difficult. Now that you’re alone, you’ll have to learn about things the hard way.”

  “You’re cruel.”

  “And you’re naive!” She got up. “I’m going to bed. I have a long journey ahead of me tomorrow.”

  Lydia looked at her aunt’s feet, at the feathered mules and lacquered toenails, and decided she really could not take too seriously anything this woman said.

  “I may be naive, Gladys, but at least I act my age.”

  “Oh, you do that all right—and look where it’s got you!” Gladys’s bosom rose and fell rapidly under the silk kimono. She would not be reprimanded by this flat-chested little spinster.

  Lydia looked up at her, wondering suddenly how this brash, gaudy woman could ever have been her dear mother’s sister.

  “My mother never liked you and I understand why.”

  Gladys snorted. “You don’t know the half of it!”

  She rustled to the door, then turned.

  “By the way, a man telephoned for you the other evening. I forgot to mention it. A James Something-or-other. Claimed he met you through a newspaper ad or something equally preposterous.”

  Lydia could feel herself blush. She decided then and there that she really detested her aunt and was on the verge of ordering her out, but knew that any such move would only serve to compound her guilt.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, and that’s exactly what I told him. I said that I could not imagine a niece of mine going to such tawdry lengths to find herself a man. So I told him he had the wrong number and to please not bother this house again.”

  Gladys pulled the door behind her and swept up the stairs, leaving Lydia devastated by the callousness of her timing. There was nothing left for her to do but bury her face in her hands and burst into tears.

  The morning of Gladys’s departure was strained but cordial. The differences aired the previous evening lay like an open wound between the two women.

  Neither of them had any wish to probe or examine why the damage they’d wrought on the other still hurt so much. Apologies were not forthcoming. Time would heal, so they did not refer to their quarrel, deciding that it was best to let things be.

  Elizabeth’s death had brought a new set of rules into play. Lydia understood that she did not need her aunt to be a player in this new game. She, Lydia, was in control now and would conduct her life on her own terms. She had been answerable to her mother out of duty, but now she was answerable to no one. Aunt Gladys was superfluous; tolerable at the end of a telephone line, which perhaps was enough.

  When she kissed her goodbye that morning, she decided that that was how she wanted things to be for the present, and Gladys knew somehow that, for the time being, her comfort and support would not be required.

  Lydia turned back to the empty house and shut the front door behind her.

  She stood in the hallway until the last notes of Gladys’s car had died away. Then silence descended again and the whole house held an air of heavy aftermath, as if she, Lydia, were the only survivor of a nuclear catastrophe. For the first time, she truly understood how it felt to be alone; to lean on her deepest, most meaningful self. The walls of Elmwood would be of little comfort in the days to come.

  She stood for a while, mustering strength, then wandered through her “motherless” home, going from room to room, testing her courage, hoping she’d be strong enough to face the void. She felt as though she had journeyed through a darkened tunnel and had suddenly come upon this strange, bleak place, shaped to the contours of a new absence, but shimmering still with a supernatural presence: her dead mother’s presence.

  In the living room she struggled with the echoes Elizabeth had left behind: the partially knitted sweater in the tapestry bag, the half-read novel on the windowsill, the television shows ringed in red for what was to be her last evening’s viewing.

  Lydia wept again as she looked on all these things, and came to understand that grief could not be fought, only lived through. Like some Greek tragedy, it would end at some stage, but only when the gods thought fit.

  She sat down in her mother’s chair and looked with sadness at the knitting. She was about to pick it up when the phone rang. She took a deep breath and prepared to answer it in a steady voice.

  “Good morning.”

  “Miss Devine? Lydia Devine?” The man’s voice was brisk and businesslike.

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “Charles Brown, here. Brown and Kane. I was your mother’s solicitor. I’m terribly sorry for your loss, Miss Devine.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Brown.”

  “Terribly unexpected. Your mother was such a fine lady. Such a shame.”

  Lydia didn’t quite know how to respond, so she thanked him again and waited for him to state his business.

  “Perhaps you’d be kind enough to call in, Miss Devine. I have your mother’s will. It’s fairly straightforward. Not putting pressure on you, mind, but in my experience it’s often best to get these things over with as soon as possible.”

  “Yes indeed. I can come at whatever time suits you, Mr. Brown,” Lydia found herself saying.

  “Splendid. Shall we say half past three next Friday?”

  “Yes, fine.” She scribbled the date and time in the desk diary.

  “Good, I’ll get my secretary to send you confirmation in the post.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Brown.” Lydia prepared to hang up.

  “Oh, just one more thing, Miss Devine.” The solicitor hesitated. “Besides the will, there’s a letter for you.”

  “A letter…from whom?” Lydia could not say why she suddenly felt uneasy.

  “Your mother left it with me some time ago, with instructions that it was only to be passed to you on her death.”

  “Oh…I see.”

  “I’ll expect to see you on Friday, then. Goodbye, Miss Devine.”

  With that the line went dead, and Lydia was left once more in the echoing hallway, with the image of her mother and the mysterious letter, wondering what exactly this new, untested future could hold.

  Chapter thirty

  Jamie lay in his crumpled bed with Paddy at the bedside. Shep was at Paddy’s feet, looking hopefully up at his master.

  “See that wee dog there, Paddy? He’s the only friend I have.” Jamie propped himself up on an elbow and looked fondly at Shep. “That wee dog and yourself and Rose.”

  “Och now, Jamie, me and Rose’ll always help you out, so we will.”

  Three weeks had gone by since his encounter with Miss Devine, and twenty days had passed since he’d made that telephone call to her home. The call in which he was cruelly snubbed by that strange woman. He could only conclude that Miss Devine had not been honest with him. She had given him a wrong number in order to get rid of him.

  “Jamie now, it doesn’t do any good to be lyin’ in the bed every day.”

  Paddy shook a cigarette from a crumpled pack and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. He handed another to his friend.

  “There’s more trout in the river, ye know. Sure maybe ye could answer another advertymint. Wouldn’t do any harm, now would it?”

  “Och now, Paddy, I couldn’t put meself through all that again.” Jamie hoisted himself into a sitting position against the bolster and puffed the cigarette into life. “Her and me got on so well, and a don’t think a co
uld meet the likes of her again.”

  Since that call to Lydia, when he was snubbed by the rude woman, he’d blamed the whole world for his failure. But most of all he blamed God and the wretched toupee. He’d stopped saying his prayers, had thrown the hairpiece on the fire and watched it melt and shrivel, as its remains turned to ash and vanished up the chimney.

  He’d lost interest in eating and had started drinking instead. He had stopped tending to the animals, until finally Paddy had intervened and rescued things.

  “Rose made an appointment with Dr. Brewster for you, Jamie.”

  “I’m not goin’ near no doctor, Paddy.”

  “Now, Jamie…it’s in an hour or…an hour or so. Rose sent me…she sent me…to drive you there. And she sez…she sez if you don’t go she’ll go herself and get the doctor to come to see you here.”

  Paddy sucked on his cigarette, noting the alarm in Jamie’s eyes.

  “I know now, Jamie, that ye wouldn’t want the doctor to be comin’ into your house and seein’ ye in the bed an’ all…”

  Paddy was looking meaningfully about him, taking in the full measure of Jamie’s abhorrence of tidiness. The floor was strewn with dust balls, chicken feathers, bread crusts and stray bones—from prehistoric pots of soup, he supposed—which Shep had carried into the room to gnaw on and hadn’t carried out again. Under the bed there was a cat’s cradle of boots, twinless shoes, odd socks, and scattered amongst them several Guinness cans—crushed and bent up with the careless befuddlement of the elated drunk—two empty naggin bottles of John Powers whiskey, and innumerable discarded Gallaher’s Green cigarette packs.

  On the bedside table a bowl and saucer did double duty as ashtrays, the table top and everything else upon it dusted in gray ash. There was a throng of objects which Jamie considered useful: a Tate and Lyle bag of sugar with spoon protruding, a bottle of Dr. Clegg cough mixture, a pack of Mrs. Cullen’s headache powders, a delft leprechaun whose belly doubled as a clock-face—which he’d bought in Portaluce—a cracked ceramic jug holding a monkey wrench and a spirit level; hung about the jug was a string of wooden rosary beads, and propped against it, a novena to Saint Jude, with the inscription, Patron Saint of Hopeless Cases, printed in heavy type across the bottom.

  “Aye, a s’pose you’re right,” Jamie agreed reluctantly. He could see that there was no way out; he’d have to go and see the doctor.

  “You’ve just got a wee touch a that day-pression, and it’s unnerstannable because you’ve been badly put about by that woman.”

  “Aw, now. You may stop talkin’, Paddy. I never thought it would turn out so bad.”

  Jamie put his hand up to his now-bald head, as if remembering the terrible sacrifices he’d made. His scalp was still red and scarred from the toupee adhesive, and more shaming was the fact that he could not conceal the evidence of his foolishness. His comb-over was gone. Another good reason for his not going out to face his friends in the pub. A dirty oul’ cap could not be worn out on a Saturday night, when everyone else was dressed up, nor could it be worn to Mass, if indeed he’d had a mind to attend a church of a Sunday.

  Paddy got to his feet.

  “I’m goin’ out now, Jamie, to collect the eggs and footer about a bit, so when I come back you’ll be up and ready now, won’t you?”

  “Aye, a s’ppose I will, since there’s nothing else for it.” Jamie yawned widely and rubbed his eyes.

  Shep followed Paddy across the bedroom floor, his paws tip-tapping on the linoleum. In the open doorway the dog turned and looked beseechingly at Jamie, willing his master back to his old self.

  “Go on there now, wee Shep,” Jamie said, shooing the dog away with a dismissive hand, and heaving himself out of bed. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

  One hour later, Jamie was sitting in Dr. Brewster’s waiting room. He was alone, save for a mother with a baby in a stroller. The young woman looked as tired and depressed as Jamie, though he guessed for very different reasons. The child cried every time the phone rang, setting off a howling that would only cease when the receptionist had finished the call.

  The baby served as a sad reminder for Jamie, forcing him to look back through time at a younger, fragmented version of himself. It was a time he did not want to face. The screaming child in the stroller had a mother to tend it. He’d had no one. All the anger he bore toward his faceless mother came flooding back. It was because of her that he now found himself in this sorry state. All at once he wanted to strike the young woman, who was carrying the baby up and down trying to soothe it. Hit her and all she represented for all the years he’d been made to suffer, for the beatings he’d taken from the women in black, and the men who’d corrupted his innocence. But Jamie knew he could never give full voice to his anger, so he did the only thing he could do. He held his head in his hands, stared down at the floor and let the tears rain down inside himself.

  “Well, James, good to see you.” Dr. Brewster was seated behind his desk as usual, peering over his bifocals. “How’s the form? The lumbago clear up, did it?”

  Jamie sat down meekly and removed his cap. He was unsure of what to say.

  “Oh, the back’s fine doctor, but that’s…” He stared down, twisting the cap in his hands, unable to finish what he wanted to say.

  The doctor adjusted his glasses and leaned forward. “You don’t look at all well, James.” He was alarmed at Jamie’s weight loss—not only that, but his patient seemed to be suffering from some curious scalp infection.

  “Can’t eat or sleep, doctor, and I have no interest in nothing.”

  “Sounds as if your depression is back again.”

  He referred to his notes. Mr. McCloone’s prescription for Valium had not been renewed in a number of weeks.

  “And it’s no wonder, because I see that you’ve stopped taking your medication.” He peered over his glasses.

  “I thought I could do without them, doctor.”

  “Now, James, how many times have we had this conversation? You can only come off your medication with my agreement and supervision. It is very dangerous to do otherwise.”

  “I know that.” Jamie continued to stare down at his hands. He could not tell the doctor the real reason for his present malaise.

  “Did you have that break by the sea that I suggested?”

  The doctor remembered being reprimanded by Gladys Millman for encouraging the like of James McCloone to the Ocean Spray. He’d told her that Jamie’s money was as good as anyone else’s, and his comment had caused Gladys to huff and puff for hours, which Humphrey considered a triumph of sorts, because he got to watch the golf for most of that afternoon uninterrupted.

  “Oh I did indeed, doctor! Had a great time at the Ocean Spray.” Jamie brightened when he thought back to that carefree couple of days. “It’s a very fine place.”

  Dr. Brewster sat back in his great leather chair and removed his spectacles.

  “Well, you know, James, it wouldn’t do any harm to take another break. Stay longer this time; say, a week perhaps.”

  “No, I couldn’t do it, doctor. It isn’t so good when you’re on your own all the time.”

  Jamie sighed. He looked past the doctor’s shoulder, out the window, onto the sun-splashed high street of the town. And there seemed to be no remove between the boy he’d once been and the present man. He was right back in Keaney’s quarters, staring through the window at the wind-torn laurels in the cemetery. And once more sitting in Mother Vincent’s office, watching the snow build up on the windowsill to the right of her black shoulder.

  It seemed then to Jamie that he’d traveled no real distance at all. The scene beyond the glass might have changed, the circumstances of his life might have become more tolerable, the adult in the chair before him infinitely more compassionate, but essentially he, himself, had not really changed. He was still the fearful, solitary boy he’d always been, yearning for the mother who’d never come. He was still helplessly alone.

  “I’m tired of being on me own,” he
said finally, and stared down at the floor. “Just tired of it.”

  “Nonsense! You’re a young man. Think positively; you’ve got the best years of your life ahead of you. All you need is to have more confidence in yourself.”

  The doctor sat forward again and laced his fingers together as if he were about to intone an earnest prayer.

  “Now, James, I know it hasn’t been easy for you, but you’re a good man and you’d be a prize for any woman. But you must stay on the medication. You see what happens when you stop. You lose all belief in yourself and that’s not good for you. Do you understand what I’m saying, James?”

  “Yes, doctor.” Jamie began to feel better. He was recalling that the wise words of the good doctor had helped him over many a bad patch.

  “And depression is nothing to be ashamed of,” Dr. Brewster continued gently. “Everyone suffers from it to a greater or lesser degree. Life isn’t easy. God knows if it was, there’d be no need for people like me, and thankfully we’ve got medication to get us over the rough parts.”

  Dr. Brewster reached for his prescription pad.

  “Now, I’m going to increase your dosage.” He began to scribble the cure for Jamie’s ills. “And I want to see you back here in two weeks’ time, to see how you’re faring.”

  He handed over the prescription. Jamie prepared to take his leave, trying not to weep in front of the doctor. He’d remembered Richard Widmark in Broken Lance say that real men didn’t cry. Like the heat of an insult suffered once but remembered always, those challenging words burned in him now as he turned to go.

  “Not so fast, James,” Dr. Brewster said. “I’d like to take a look at that nasty rash on your head.”

  Jamie’s hand shot up to his crown. He was suddenly conscious of how awful it must look.

  “Oh, that’s nothing atall, doctor. I fell against the wall when I was cleanin’ out the barn.”

  “Really?” Dr. Brewster smiled to himself. He knew the after-effects of liner tape toupee glue all too well, having battled with the evil substance himself when he was younger, and vainer—just like Jamie in fact.