by Louise Beech
Aunty Mary took down the picture of him holding a set of shark’s teeth. She cries in the bathroom when she visits us and she won’t let Uncle Martin in and he tells her through the door that he loves her and hates to see her sad. I wonder if she is crying because Uncle Henry took her sun.
Or because there is a hand around her heart.
When she comes out she pats my head and hugs me really tight.
‘Forget him,’ she says. ‘Forget him, forget him.’
I think Uncle Henry was never here. I think we all made him up. It’s easy to forget a story. You just close the pages and all the words suffocate. The pictures take longer to dissolve.
But they do after a while.
I open the shed door and then Geraldine’s wire hutch flap and call her name. I can hear Mother talking on the telephone to someone inside the house. My footprints are deep in the snow and my hands itch and burn even though it’s cold. I whisper for Geraldine to go, to run, to escape. But she sits at the back of the cage, wiggling her black nose at me. I love her so much. My heart feels like a hand is squeezing all the hate out of it.
Run rabbit, run rabbit, run run run, I whisper.
She comes to my sore hand and licks it and sniffs the air. Then she leaps onto the wooden floor and lollops into the garden. She twists and leaps across the white and I laugh.
Mother is coming now. I can’t stop laughing because Geraldine is free. She will not die. Mother shouts at me and chases Geraldine and tries to catch her. But she squeezes under the fence and snow flies away from her feet like that stuff they throw at weddings.
Mother shouts and shakes her head and shouts again. I have to go to my room. She pulls me upstairs, saying I’m reprehensible, and I don’t even care what it means. I tell her she’s not my real mum anyway. Tell her she’s a bastard and I never liked her. My heart feels like a hand is squeezing all the love out of it. But I can’t stop laughing. I know that it’s not love unless it hurts. But I can’t stop laughing.
My mother calls me Catherine, and I cry.
22
Nothing’s unfixable
Christopher turned the tap full on and allowed it to spurt an angry waterfall for a few seconds, then twisted it off with a squeak. He looked at me; we waited. It didn’t drip. I stared, expecting it to defy him, but no more water escaped the rusting spout.
He had fixed it.
‘What did you do to it?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘I just fiddled about with the pipe, tightened it here and there.’
‘But it was completely broken.’
‘Nothing’s unfixable. Did I disturb you?’
I sat up, pulling the duvet with me. The sofa seemed to sag under the weight of my full memory. I emerged from its warmth enough to look around the room.
Everything seemed different. Not only because Christopher stood in the kitchen, looking like he needed a shave and some sleep. It was different like it had been rebuilt after a flood. Like someone had polished it. Edges appeared sharp, colours defined, and the light coming through the half-open curtains bright.
Dangling from a hook on the door, I could make out the individual fibres of my scarf; flecks of rich orange within brown, fat strands with thin. The picture of me with Geraldine the rabbit lay on the coffee table where Christopher had abandoned it. I knew now who had taken the picture and this knowledge enhanced its colours. It should have darkened them, but I saw sun not just shadow over the dress.
‘Katrina?’
I looked at Christopher, awkwardly leaning against the kitchen worktop, jeans creased. Our dirty cups from last night sat on the draining board. His face was full of a million questions.
‘Where did you sleep?’ I asked. ‘Did I fall asleep before you?’
He came to the sofa and sat at my feet as Fern had done so many times, as Nanny Eve used to. He held the watch. Looking at it I remembered the strap chafing my wrist. I liked the memory; it was a reminder of pain being necessary. He glanced at the cushion on the floor, dented where his head must have rested, and said he’d slept there.
‘You must have been cold,’ I said.
‘You left the heating on. It clunked on and off all night. I was fine. I used to go camping all the time, so this was bliss to me. I can sleep on a washing line.’
‘We don’t have one or I’d have offered you it.’
‘You took off the watch,’ he said.
I didn’t want to talk about Fern. I looked at the radiator as it chugged into life again. Two black bras and a pair of pink socks hung on it. They had been there three days – I should put them away, I thought. I looked back at Christopher. I couldn’t remember turning the heating on last night.
‘You remember what you told me?’ he asked gently.
‘I remember,’ I said, and glanced at the tap, expecting it to drip. But its tears had finally dried up.
Christopher watched me and I couldn’t interpret the frown lines.
‘Does this change who I am?’ I asked. ‘Are you repulsed by me?’
‘God, no.’ He put his hand on the duvet near mine. Not over it; perhaps he was revolted, despite his denial. ‘Why would I be? You were nine – a child. That man was … he was … inexcusable.’
I pushed disorderly hair behind my ears and shrugged. They were my thoughts too, but I had to be sure how he felt. I longed for a bath but feared the water might wash away my newfound memory, strip it away as the flood water had Marilyn from my living-room wall.
‘Inexcusable,’ he said again.
‘So why didn’t you touch my hand?’ I asked.
‘I’m afraid,’ he admitted.
‘So you do see me differently.’
‘I’m just afraid of hurting you. Afraid I’ll seem pushy, presumptive. I don’t know what to say. I have no idea how you must feel, what you must want me to say.’
I put a hand over his. My palms flaked but didn’t itch. The fire that had kept me awake, driven me to endlessly scratch, had now cooled. Christopher turned his hand palm-upwards to meet it, wrapping his fingers around mine, warm and safe.
‘Don’t be afraid, I’m tough,’ I said.
‘You are.’
No intrusive tap dripping or radiator clunking or sound from the Sunday street broke our silence; it was wonderfully quiet.
‘What do you want to do?’ he asked after a while.
‘Today? Now? Or with my life?’ I’d never known the answer to that question and today was no different.
‘Will you talk to anyone?’
I looked at him. ‘I have to tell my mother.’
‘Surely you don’t have to do anything yet. Wait and see how you feel.’
‘I’ll never be ready but I need to.’
She was the first person I’d thought of when I opened my eyes. Her image brought more questions. Had she known? No. She couldn’t have. It was impossible that she could have carried that knowledge all these years and been so frequently insensitive to me. Had she maybe known afterwards and just not found a way to talk about it? I doubted that too; she always spoke her mind. But could I be sure?
‘I want her to understand me – like I now do,’ I told Christopher. ‘I want her to know why I was such a difficult child … and adult.’
‘There’s no rush, Katrina.’ Christopher squeezed my hand. ‘You’re still dealing with it yourself.’
‘Maybe she’ll care.’ My voice was barely audible.
Outside, a car screeched to a halt. Heels scraped on path, a girl said her head hurt, a door slammed and it pulled away. Christopher asked if I’d seen my uncle since I was nine, whether he had come back at all.
‘No. I’m pretty sure not, anyway. I don’t know why he left. It was all very sudden and odd. I’m still getting used to remembering it all. I think one morning he was gone, and everyone was obscure about why. Naturally I didn’t ask much – I was more than happy to forget him.’ I paused. ‘And how well I did that…’
Christopher asked if I thought my mother had known – or Aun
ty Mary, being his sister; and maybe that was why Uncle Henry went away. I shook my head. But was I sure?
We sat in silence again. Then after a while he asked if I was OK and looked at me as though I might sprout horns or turn green like the Hulk.
‘It was such an intense way to remember,’ he said. ‘It was like you were there, like it was happening now. I was scared you might never come back. I’ve heard so many stories on the phones; I’ve listened to people die; but I’ve never heard anything like that, Katrina. It was like you were dying.’
‘I’m not dead.’ I squeezed his hand. ‘Not knowing why my memory was so vague or why I couldn’t recall chunks of the past was worse than last night was. Now I know; and oddly it doesn’t feel like a surprise. Maybe I always knew – it doesn’t feel like I ever didn’t. I might not be fine later or next week, but I’ll deal with that then.’
The phone rang. I looked at the time: eleven. Probably my mother. The thought of her unsettled me. I knew what our next conversation might be and wondered if I would be capable of it. I let the phone ring.
‘Do you know who it is?’ Christopher asked.
‘I just don’t feel like talking to anyone yet.’
He nodded. We were both accustomed to the phones, had been united by them. It was strange to ignore one together. The last call I’d answered in his presence was from Sid. He’d hung up tired and I’d wandered back into the lounge where Norman waited to have a chat and Christopher had watched me over his paper. I’d watched him too. I’d watched him so often. He had tied a tea towel around my leg’s bloody cut that first shift and he hadn’t want to swap Wednesdays because of me and he’d fixed my tap. Now he held my hand as a man might his pregnant wife’s.
‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.
‘That I’m hungry,’ I said. I felt like I hadn’t eaten for days.
‘Shall I make something – go and get a hot sandwich from somewhere?’
‘Toast will be fine.’
‘I’ll do it.’
I said I could do it and started to get up, but he insisted. In the kitchen, he found bread and dropped two pieces in the toaster, turned on the kettle and rinsed out the cups we’d used the previous night. I pointed to the cupboard and said he’d find marmalade there.
‘You need Christmas decorations in here.’ He squashed the tea bag in each cup three times. ‘There’s spare stuff at Flood Crisis – all the volunteers have been fighting to get their hands on that Singing Santa.’
I remembered us sorting through the box of festive trimmings, the confession that his wife had left him on Christmas Eve, giving him the red watch as a parting gift. People don’t come back, he’d said.
He was wrong. I had.
The toast popped up and Christopher smeared it with marmalade and brought it and the drinks to where I lounged, still wearing clothes from our night out. For simple food, it tasted incredible. I’d often had marmalade with my dad. It was a quick and easy breakfast when we were going off on some adventure. The orangey taste always filled my mouth with good memories.
‘I haven’t put a tree up either,’ Christopher said.
I thought of that long-ago tree, bare, waiting to be prettied, the year Uncle Henry left. The marmalade soured and I drank tea instead.
‘I didn’t bother last year,’ Christopher continued. ‘What’s the point? They should do a “tree for one” – like those sad “meals for one”. A small tree that fits in the alcove near your freezer full of TV dinners.’
‘I don’t want one,’ I said. ‘But I might find a Virgin Mary.’
‘I saw one in a junk shop whose eyes lit up red.’
‘Just my kind of Mary,’ I said.
I loved talking with him like it was a normal Sunday morning, one that any couple anywhere might have. We did not make small talk to avoid bigger talk; instead it augmented our heavier words. But it would have to end. He’d have to leave at some point, and the thought made my chest feel like four bibles were piled on it. I also knew I could not yet take our relationship further, so it was futile fantasising about future cosy breakfasts.
He got up and took the plates and mugs to the sink. I watched him wash and dry them, putting them away in the wrong cupboard.
I tried to describe my concerns. ‘You know … I might not be able to … you know … give you anything … What I mean is…’ I paused and tried to put my words into a logical order, but they wanted out, like a woman’s baby in the transition of labour, when she cannot go back, only push.
Christopher put the tea towel down and looked at me.
‘Remembering is immense,’ I said. ‘The word isn’t even enough to describe it. It’s like I had an infected wound and now it’s been cleaned. It hurt like hell but I feel better. It still stings but I’ll cope and I guess I have to let it scab over. I’ll have to live with the scar. I’m terrified of telling my mother. But it just isn’t an option not to. And I’m not sure why – whether it’s for my sake or hers.’ I held my head. ‘So I can’t get into a like a proper relationship or anything with you. Not yet. I know you’re not asking for that; I’m just saying.’
‘I know.’
I felt like he did and yet I wanted him to argue, to insist that I was selfish.
‘But I do like you,’ I said.
‘I know.’ He smiled. ‘I like you too.’
‘If I were in a normal place right now, I would.’
‘I doubt you’ll ever be in a normal place, Katrina.’ He paused. ‘Are you Katrina? Should I call you Catherine now?’
‘I like Katrina,’ I said. ‘It’s who I am with you.’
He looked at the clock, fidgeted, said, ‘I don’t want to go but I’m supposed to be at Flood Crisis in an hour.’ He came back to the sofa and I pushed the duvet back and got up too.
‘I’ve been keeping you. You should go.’
‘Do you want me to call in sick?’ He glanced at the phone.
‘No,’ I insisted. ‘They need you more than I do. You’ve listened to me for long enough. Go, listen to them.’
‘You’re sure?’
I nodded; I was. Much as I enjoyed being with him, I understood that when you call in sick at a crisis line you let real people down, not some faceless organisation or office. It wasn’t merely a job. The heating clicked back on and the pipes filled with water, the trapped air juddering through the system.
Christopher insisted he shouldn’t leave me so soon after my remembering.
‘If you don’t go I’ll throw you down the stairs. Don’t make me.’
‘OK. I’d like to stay intact.’ He paused. ‘I guess I’ll see you soon, then.’ He picked up his coat and looked at it like he’d never seen it before, and then at me, and then went to the door.
I moved to where he stood and kissed his stubbly cheek. He touched mine. Then he turned the key with an unwelcome click.
Downstairs I heard Victor taking rubbish around the back and plonking it in one of the bins. One hand still on the key, Christopher didn’t move. I recalled how I’d wet his hand with my tears last night and wondered how it would feel to have those hands on my body.
I put my mouth to his. He didn’t resist or respond. I pulled away after some time and we looked at one another. Still he did nothing. I liked him all the more for his restraint – because I knew why.
‘I want you.’
I leaned into him and knew he wanted me too; I felt his arousal against my stomach. I pushed him back and kissed his neck.
He said against my ear, ‘The key’s digging into me.’
‘Wuss,’ I said.
He fidgeted and moved so he was flat against the door and I knew he feared hurting me, but that had never felt less possible. Nothing else could. When I kissed him again he put a hand in my hair and returned the urgent exploration of my mouth.
‘It’s been a while,’ he admitted.
‘Shhh,’ I said.
‘Two years. More.’
‘I’ll be gentle,’ I smiled.
; ‘No, I’ll be.’ He was serious.
I wanted to know that I was normal. Had to know if I’d been permanently spoilt by my returned memory. Had I been fixed and reborn? I needed to know how it might feel to have someone without needing to be forced or verbally abused. To be with someone who wasn’t a stranger I’d send home. To be with someone away from the suicide of a crisis-line caller.
I pulled Christopher by his collar towards the sofa, and we fell in a tangle of sheet and leg and coat, groins crashing together. Yes, I still liked the tumble. His shin hit the coffee table and he mumbled ‘damn’ into my hair, said it would bruise. I laughed and called him a wuss again. The sofa sagged under our bodies and the duvet bound us. I threw it down and knocked the bin over, spilling a half-empty coke can onto the rug. He murmured ‘the rug’ into my mouth and I said, ‘Fuck the rug’. My silvery vest fell away, I took off his T-shirt, skin met skin, hot, real, unclean, pure. His chest hair tickled my breasts. Then he stopped and sat up. Said surely it was too soon and we should wait. So I undid his zip. He shivered.
He said, ‘Katrina.’
I said yes, that was my name.
Then I pulled him close and guided him into me, pausing, savouring. He waited, understanding the pause, his words swallowed, and the can of over-turned coke still fizzing nearby.
Katrina, Katrina, Katrina. And I was; I was. The radiators filled slowly with liquid. I was Katrina. I was Catherine-Maria. I was all of them.
He said afterwards, ‘You should have been a rugby player.’
We disentangled and I felt as bare as a tree waiting to be decorated. Sadness rushed into the gap. The heat died. Had I done this too fast? He studied me without being invasive, a gift he seemed to possess naturally. The coke can had long stopped fizzing and a brown stain had settled into the rug.
‘You’re quite persuasive,’ he said.
‘You’re very persuadable,’ I said.
‘Is the rug yours or your flatmate’s?’
I said it had been there when we moved in so it must be Victor’s and that I’d pass him Christopher’s telephone number for the cleaning bill. I paused and then asked if he preferred Chris to Christopher.
‘I suppose I kind of like Christopher now you say it.’
