by Carol Mason
‘I think I just want to be given my freedom. I want to go out and flirt and not feel bad about it. I want to imagine what sex might be like with someone I find attractive, and maybe even get to experience it. I think I want to feel like I’m with someone I’m not stuck with. If that makes sense.’
I’m reminded of what Eddy told Evelyn about my mother. How he loved her, but how we change. ‘Do you suppose anybody is happy with their life, Sally? I mean, really and truly happy with everything?’
She runs a finger around the base of her brandy glass. ‘Of course. Millions. We just don’t know any of them.’
FORTY
‘How is that orange tasting, Eddy?’ Michael hands him the last segment.
‘It’s very juicy,’ Eddy says, enthusiastically. ‘But – ooh! – it tingles in my jaw.’ He touches near his ear.
Evelyn and I smile. We’ve come into the conservatory to enjoy the sun and the view of the garden. It’s the first time I’ve realised that we have the same aquiline nose. I have his skin, too; we both tan easily. I am lean through my hips, with long legs, like my dad.
This is why he looked familiar. On seeing him, I was seeing myself.
‘Good morning, Julian,’ Evelyn says to an elderly man who walks slowly past us, dragging an oxygen tank.
‘He always likes his game of golf,’ Eddy says, following Julian with his gaze. Michael has just removed the towel he’d tucked down Eddy’s shirt before he started eating.
‘Eddy thinks Julian’s oxygen tank is for his golf clubs,’ Michael tells me, under his breath.
I smile into the palm of my hand.
‘I usually read him stories from the newspaper,’ Evelyn says to me. ‘World events, you know. He likes to stay informed, don’t you, Eddy?’
Eddy is looking at me, and doesn’t seem to hear.
‘Do you want to go for a ride?’ The gardener passes us on his ride-on, and waves.
‘On the bus across the lawn?’ Eddy perks up.
Michael beams another smile at me. Then he says, ‘Eddy, do you recognise Alice from somewhere?’ Because Eddy keeps on looking at me.
‘No,’ he says, seeming sadly puzzled. ‘I don’t think so. I’m sorry. I’m not good with faces. But she is very pretty.’
‘That’s fine, Eddy,’ I tell him. ‘There’s no reason for you to know who I am.’
His face brightens suddenly. ‘Is she your daughter?’ he says to Michael.
I can’t help but squeal with laughter.
‘You certainly know how to pay a guy a compliment!’ Michael pulls a horrified face and passes the paper cup to Evelyn. It’s Evelyn’s job to make sure Eddy takes his pills along with some water.
‘Why do I have to keep taking these?’ he asks.
‘We all have to take these when we reach a certain age, Eddy,’ she explains. ‘They’ll make you feel the best you can be.’
‘I don’t think that’s going to be very good,’ he says.
‘I’ve already taken all of mine,’ Michael pats the top pocket of his nurse’s blue tunic. ‘They clearly haven’t given me a fountain of youth.’
We chuckle again.
‘You must be having a positive effect on him,’ he whispers to me as Evelyn feeds him his pills. ‘This is the most talkative we’ve seen him in a very long time.’ His breath creates a pleasantly warm draught on my neck.
‘Would you like to read him some articles, Alice?’ Evelyn asks.
Michael winks at me. ‘I’m off to do my rounds.’ He wheels his medication trolley toward the door. ‘Stop by the office before you leave to say bye-bye.’ Then he adds, ‘My child.’
I chortle again.
‘I try to choose cheerful stories,’ Evelyn says when he’s gone. ‘Sometimes, I do the crossword puzzle. Once or twice, he’s even helped me find words.’ Pride crosses her face, briefly. ‘If you want to sit and read to him, I might pop back home. I’ve a few chores. I could come back in an hour?’ She’s already standing up.
‘Thanks. Take the time you need.’
Evelyn kisses Eddy’s cheek. ‘Sometimes, he falls asleep. So don’t be surprised if he doesn’t last long. When I come back, we can take him to water the plants, if you like. He loves doing that, don’t you, Eddy?’ Devotion fills Evelyn’s eyes, and a part of me can’t look, because it touches me so deeply.
‘Yes,’ Eddy says, automatically, blankly.
Once Evelyn has left, we sit there. The first time I’ve been alone with him in thirty years. But with everyone gone now, Eddy doesn’t seem to realise I have stayed. I comb the newspaper. It’s not easy to find a cheerful story, but eventually I come across a cute one about a child and his Dartmoor pony. I read it slowly, looking up once in a while to see if he’s still awake. And he is. His eyes are glued to my face the entire time.
By the time I’ve read a couple of other stories, Eddy’s chin has dropped to his chest. I can watch him without him knowing, which is perfect. The thick, steel-grey hair, recently cut, parted to the left. The noble head, perfectly aligned with the spine – immaculate posture, even still. The shallow rise and fall of his chest and the gentle rumble of his breathing. I sit like this for what feels like ages, picturing him pushing me on the swings, watching me in my dance class, reading Evelyn’s last letter telling him to forget about her.
His left hand is curled by his leg. I stare at it for a while, then slip my fingers between his index finger and thumb. My heart is pounding. I’m surprised he can’t feel the vibration of it, transmitted through our veins. I am fascinated by the sight of us holding hands, seeing myself as a little girl dragging him into the park toward the swings, while he says, Hold on! I can’t run as fast as you! A memory? Or do I just wish it were?
Evelyn comes back an hour or so later. I have lost track of time. She sees us holding hands, and smiles. Eddy is still sleeping. ‘We should leave him now. I thought I’d take you across the street for a late breakfast. And Michael wants to come, too.’
‘Michael?’
‘He said it’s his parental obligation to supervise.’
I laugh. ‘Oh dear! This joke will never end!’
I pick up my bag and cast my dad a final glance. When I pop a kiss on his cheek, he smells of the orange he ate earlier.
FORTY-ONE
There are three more of these visits in short succession. Usually he sleeps. He’s not as communicative as before, though; I feel we have regressed.
One day, Michael wheels in an old-fashioned stereo and the home’s donation of old records. We select some songs from Eddy and Evelyn’s era, and play them for him. He loves the music! He rests his head back, and his facial expressions seem to ebb and flow along with the tune. Then, when Michael downloads The Ronettes’ ‘Be My Baby’ on to his iPod – the song Eddy had hammed it up to, to Evelyn, at the wedding where they met – it’s fascinating. Eddy raises his head. He leans in close to the iPod docking station. You can almost see him listening, intently, as though each lyric were a brain-teaser, slowly peeling away layers of a mystery that he’s set on getting to the heart of.
‘He remembers how you met!’ I whisper to Evelyn.
‘Either that, or he’s never seen an iPod before.’ She smiles.
I wonder if we are giving up hope.
But then something amazing happens a few days later. There are only four of us at the gallery this time. Martin tripped and broke his foot five days ago. Ronnie refused to change out of his pyjamas. Eddy walks right up to Christina’s World and stares at it.
‘Do you remember a special house, Eddy? Is that what you see when you look at Christina’s World?’ I ask him. Now, I feel a whole new debt to that painting. A new unanticipated reverence; it was Christina who brought us all together, after all.
Miraculously, Eddy says, ‘Yes.’
‘What do you remember, Eddy?’ Michael pushes gently.
Eddy’s eyes are still fixed on the painting. He is standing with his thumbs and forefingers tucked in his jeans pockets. Today, unlike othe
r days, he stands taller and impregnable, the posture of the young Eddy. His response is so completely certain of itself. I can’t quite fathom the change.
‘I remember there was a house,’ he says. ‘And I remember there was a girl.’
Evelyn turns as still as a statue. I think we all do.
‘Whose house was it, Eddy?’ Michael asks. ‘Do you recall?’
‘It was Evelyn’s house,’ Eddy says, without a beat of hesitation.
‘Do you mean this Evelyn, here?’ Michael asks.
Eddy follows the direction of Michael’s finger. ‘This Evelyn,’ he repeats. But it seems rather parrot fashion; there’s an empty look in his eyes that makes my heart sink. Evelyn and I squeeze hands tightly. I don’t know who is giving comfort to whom.
‘Can you tell us anything about Evelyn’s house, Eddy?’ Michael clearly isn’t discouraged.
‘It didn’t look like that, did it?’ Evelyn prompts. But I can hear the false note of faith in her voice. ‘It had flowers. Lots of flowers, didn’t it, Eddy?’
‘Fuchsia!’ he says, almost instantaneously, and Evelyn places both hands over her nose and mouth, and slightly sways.
‘Fuchsia were one of her favourite flowers,’ he says. The slight cataract dullness to his gaze disappears. His eyes suddenly became luminous, like freshly polished glass.
‘Whose favourite flowers, Eddy?’ Michael asks.
And as fast as he asks it, Eddy says, ‘Evelyn’s.’
I stare at him in amazement. For the first time, the two Eddys I have known – Eddy from the stories, and the elderly Eddy who stands here – are exactly the same person to me. Time has narrowed. The past has caught up. The man who pushed me on the swings is right here. He’s never been anywhere else. I rest a hand between his shoulder blades, still intoxicated by the feel of his skin and bones under my fingertips.
I look at Evelyn; she still has her hands over part of her face. Tears are streaming either side of them.
‘You were a gardener once, weren’t you, Eddy?’ Michael pats him on the back, his fingers briefly making contact with mine. ‘That’s why you enjoy weeding at Sunrise Villas, and you enjoy riding the lawnmower. And you know that looking at flowers makes you happy.’
Eddy searches Michael’s eyes, then moves on to me. I have a sense that comprehension lies just beyond his grasp, clearly eluding him as he reaches for it. Then he looks back at the painting. ‘I planted the flowers for someone. I planted them for Evelyn.’ His tone is definite and sure of itself again. We are moving in and out of focus. In one smooth move, his eyes come to rest on Evelyn.
Then it’s somehow miraculous. His face transforms again. He looks like he’s seeing an almost-forgotten ghost from his past.
‘Yes!’ Evelyn says, her voice filled with a twitter of girlish joy that I haven’t heard before. ‘You did! You planted all kinds of flowers – jasmine, sweet peas, roses. And she loved them always, just as she loved you. And they still bloom there, to this day. Just like her love for you.’
I remember Evelyn saying that she’d insisted that the new owners didn’t dig up the flowerbeds. They had apparently looked at her as though she were cute, endearing and a tiny bit mad. But they’d given her their word.
Eddy is studying Evelyn as though she were an intriguing riddle he’s determined to solve. This curiosity lasts a moment or two, but then he frowns, his eyes returning to the painting. ‘There are no flowers in Christina’s garden. If there had been, she could have sat out there and been happy.’
‘But she was happy there!’ Evelyn jumps in. I am fascinated by how she is speaking in the third person. Perhaps she is afraid of shattering the moment by making it too real and too much for him. ‘She used to sit in her garden with people she loved – her mother and father at one time, and then someone else – a man who meant the world to her. A man she loved and thought of every day of her life.’
Evelyn looks at both Michael and me, as though for help. Her fingertips move from the centre of her chest, to her chin, then back again. By the intensity of her expression, I can tell she’s more shaken up than perhaps she ever imagined this moment would make her.
‘Do you remember that man, Eddy?’ Michael gently asks.
Eddy gazes off into the near distance. It’s as though his mind is a searchlight coasting over a black sea, looking for a lost ship.
‘Do you recognise this house?’ Evelyn seems to regain herself, and smartly digs in her bag. She shows him the picture she once showed me.
At first, he doesn’t appear to realise that he’s expected to look at it. Then, warily, he takes it from her. He stares at it long and hard, at the small stone cottage with the dark front door. At the young girl standing alone in the garden.
He doesn’t say a word. But a smile of wondrous infatuation suddenly transforms his face.
FORTY-TWO
Today, I’ve brought them to the beach. It’s mild and sunny. I have packed sandwiches, beer and a chocolate cake from my favourite German baker. Next week, I’m driving them to Holy Island, to see Evelyn’s old house.
‘Remember the treasure trove?’ Evelyn says, saucily now that Eddy has nodded off. She reaches into a large leather bag, pulls something out and flips open a page of what’s clearly a school scrapbook. Among the postage-stamp-sized portraits of the Class of 1955, she singles out one with the tap of her finger.
‘You!’ I cry.
The young Evelyn is wearing a modest, navy-blue dress with a crocheted cream collar. ‘Well, look at you! Your long wavy hair. You look like a young Veronica Lake.’
Evelyn dips her chin, in that cutely coy way she saves for compliments. ‘I was twelve years old when I had my first permanent wave. They doused your head in chemicals, stuck pin curls in you and then baked you to about two hundred degrees until you were nearly cremated.’
I chuckle.
‘I found these, too. They were among his things.’
The photo shows four young women, in evening dress, holding cocktail glasses. The photographer has caught them right as they’re bursting into laughter. Three of them are brash and busty. But it’s the girl on the left who has a gentle candour in her eyes that says she’s more interested in the photographer than the jokes. ‘Look how stunning you were, Evelyn!’ I say. She’s wearing a sleeveless, black shift dress and a leopard-print pillbox hat perched at a jaunty angle. Her thick, dark hair has been flipped at the ends, and around her wrist is a single strand of pearls.
‘It’s from the wedding, right?’
Evelyn nods. ‘Eddy took it. If only I could go back to that moment and feel that thrill again. I would give anything.’
‘Oh my! This is amazing! You look so dignified and regal! No wonder he couldn’t take his eyes off you, Evelyn. I can’t take my eyes off you!’
‘Oh! Silly!’ She passes me another one – of a sports team – and taps a small face in the back row.
‘Is that my dad?’ A hand flies to my mouth.
‘Yes. The date’s on the back. He was thirteen.’
The same beaming smile. The same dark, thick hair. Seeing him as a boy unleashes quiet heartbreak.
‘He wanted so badly to be a professional footballer, but he was needed at home, to earn the bacon.’
I brush away a stray tear. ‘My mum destroyed everything with his face on it. Even their wedding photos.’ Oddly, I think of Justin. I’m glad now that I didn’t make life difficult for him by making it hard for him to leave. Not only have I kept my dignity, but I’ve proven to myself that I’m better than my mother.
I can’t stop gazing at him. ‘I never, ever, expected to see my dad as a teenager.’ When I eventually pass the photo back to her, she kisses it, briefly, and smiles at it, coy and proud.
I wonder what his life had been like at home, what his mother and father were like. Because by moving me away, my mother had robbed me of grandparents, too. ‘We have to show him the pictures when he wakes up!’
One of Michael’s stash of articles said that even if
we forget everything else, memories of our childhood linger like perennial ghosts, amorphous but never entirely stamped out. I take comfort and encouragement from this. In some ways, you can really only account for your life where your memories begin, and before that you exist somewhat at the behest of those who know you. A bit like dementia, only in reverse. The end of life and the beginning can be almost the same.
‘I want you to have it,’ Evelyn says. ‘He would want you to.’
‘I’ll take good care of it.’ I smile. ‘Now I have a photo of my dad! This makes me happier than you could ever know.’
‘And you’ll take lots more.’ She taps her temples and stares at a sleeping Eddy.
Back at the home, I open his window, and the room fills with the chirps of birds making a play for a feeder. Eddy stands right behind me looking out on to the gardens.
‘I like this view,’ I tell him. ‘I could stare at it all day. It’s so peaceful and green.’
‘In winter, the birds have nothing to eat. I think they want to go home, but they don’t know where home is,’ he surprises me by saying.
‘I think they quite like hanging out here in the summer,’ I tell him.
Evelyn is refilling his water jug in his en suite bathroom. I pull the small photo from my bag.
He walks over to his armchair and sits. I crouch beside him. ‘Do you recognise anyone in this picture?’ I ask him, gently.
At first, he doesn’t look, then when he does, he shakes his head.
‘You might not know this, but one of these boys grew up to be my dad.’ I gaze up at his face, pulsing with a restless optimism. ‘Do you know which one was my father, Eddy?’
His eyes go blankly to the photo again.
I sink. I’ve been too fired up since what happened in the gallery. ‘That’s okay.’ I squeeze his knee and try not to sound oppressively defeated. ‘You know what? I think I’ll tell you another time, when you’re a little less tired.’
‘How are your piano lessons?’ he asks, without skipping a beat.
