THE WRITING ON THE WALL AND OTHER STORIES
Penny Edwards
Copyright © 2016 Penny Edwards
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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To my husband and daughter
Contents
The Writing On The Wall
WAR WOUNDS
MRS BLACKBIRD
TRIFLE IN THE TOPIARY
ROLL YOUR OWN
CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?
A TOAST
9.58 SECONDS
THE £10 NOTE
A BROKEN HEART IN TWO LANGUAGES
Acknowledgements
The Writing On The Wall
1
berlin 2006
Peter Bayer was seventy-three. He’d taught at the school just up the road for most of his life and, when the wall came down, saw no reason to move. Nobody could say life had been easy and when it was built, he’d lost contact with many friends, but he’d learnt to enjoy life as best he could and had had the good fortune of a happy marriage to Elsa.
This evening they’d had a good meal of beef stew and boiled potatoes, the sauce slightly salty, perhaps, but the consistency good and the meat tender. He wiped the tablecloth several times. A few drops of dry sauce on Elsa’s side were persistent and difficult to ease off. He got the spray from underneath the sink and put a liberal amount on the plastic cloth. It successfully removed the stain and he placed the vase of flowers back in the middle. He yawned. He couldn’t help himself, but once he’d started he couldn’t stop and by the time his mouth opened for the fifth or sixth inhalation, a tear began to trickle down his face with the sheer effort of it all. It had been a long day. But there was nothing unusual in that. In fact, these days it was difficult for him to distinguish day from night and he guessed the only real clues were turning on the lights and pulling the curtains. For instance, at three this morning Elsa was tugging the jacket of his pyjamas and he’d woken to discover they were both lying in her urine. He’d probably nodded off in a cat-nap kind of way sometime between four and six, after he’d sorted out all three of them – Elsa, Peter and the poor old bed – but three was when it all really began.
A few years ago, a time that now seemed untouchable, they’d wake at about half-seven or eight, or maybe a bit later if they were particularly tired, smile and look a little perplexed as dreams merged with reality. He’d offer to make them both a cup of coffee, and bring the drinks to bed where they’d quench their thirst and plan their day. He liked the fact that they were always good at listening to one another, taking it in turns to give in a little bit and do what the other wanted and enjoying it anyway because they could see the pleasure on the other’s face.
This morning, at six-thirty, he’d brought Elsa a cup of coffee, but she’d taken a sip, decided she didn’t like it and chucked it across the room. His own coffee was cold by the time he’d cleaned the floor as much as he could. It was beginning to rebel, fed up with being washed and scrubbed and no longer prepared to play ball by allowing the offending liquid to completely disappear. When he managed to get round to gulping down his own, it was a disappointing experience, offering nothing of the gently sipped and quietly thought-over one that had helped him make those plans with Elsa.
She lifted herself from her pillow, scrambled her legs away from the duvet, and then swung them round to reach the floor. He told her to wait as she began to lift herself from the bed, but he knew there was no certainty that she would.
He went to the bathroom to prepare a bowl of warm water to bring to her, but as he’d come to expect, he could see her worried face behind him in the mirror. It was his shadow and it barely left him. So instead, he just filled the sink. Like milk from a baby’s bottle, he tested the temperature on his own skin first so it wouldn’t distress her, then soaked a flannel, squeezed it and washed his wife’s face. She smiled up at him.
“That’s good, Daddy,” she said. “Please wash my face again.”
He stroked her cheeks with the flannel. “Close your eyes,” he whispered and he gently wiped across first her left eye, then her right.
They went back into the bedroom, Elsa holding his hand for guidance, and he sat her on the bed. He went to her chest of drawers and pulled out a white bra, but she said she wanted the pink one. He put this on the bed, then looked for some pants and a petticoat. She showed no objections to the ones he chose. It was hot and he thought she wouldn’t need anything on her legs, but she demanded thick tights, so a pair was taken out and placed by the other things. He opened the wardrobe door, picked out a cool, cotton dress, the pink and blue floral one she wore that evening in Freiburg. Elsa grinned.
“Freiburg,” she giggled. She wanted a cardigan, the orange one; she would be so hot, he thought, but didn’t argue and so, like the dress, the cardigan left the wardrobe as well.
Slowly, he helped her take off her nightclothes and, when she was naked, she started to put on her dress.
“No, my darling,” he said quietly. “You put these on first,” and he held up the bra, pants and petticoat. He held her in his arms and kissed her forehead. “Otherwise, you’ll have to wear your underwear on top of your dress. You’ll look like a pop star.”
She laughed. She was rather taken with this man’s idea that she might look like a pop star and danced a little jig, still wrapped in his arms.
He remembered them dancing; in the early years it was part of who they were. Elsa was always one of the first up at the local dances, taking his hand and pulling him towards her with such an enthusiasm it left him quite breathless and unsure that he could ever live up to her expectations. All he could see was the other blokes eyeing her up and it was a long time before he could allow himself to believe she seemed to be keen on him. They laughed a lot because the rock ’n’ roll was fast and full of an energy that came easily to Elsa but not quite so much to him, so he was constantly a second or two behind. He loved her laugh: it never ridiculed, only instilled a level of confidence in him that he hadn’t experienced before, so he enjoyed his inability to catch up as much as she did. There was a lightness to their life that seemed to either not recognise any worries or treat them with an air of indifference if they were spotted.
When they’d eaten some porridge, he half a bowlf
ul, she a few spoonfuls less, he told Elsa they needed to go to the flat. The English woman was due this evening and he needed to make sure the flat was ready. Alke, he was sure, had done her usual excellent job of cleaning it, but he always liked to just look around and put the final touches to it before any holidaymaker came.
He started to put her coat on for her, but, and this was quite normal, she resisted ferociously, with flaying arms and angry words, every utterance causing a twitch or a tightening in his body.
“It’s a lovely day, the air will do you good,” he tried to cajole her, while thinking – and this was selfish, he knew it was selfish – the air would do him good. But he was unlucky.
“No, no, I don’t know who you are. Mummy tells me not to go anywhere with strangers.”
The house, the house, it was always the house. But he knew somehow that today she wasn’t going to move.
Her face always looked at his with such an urgency and an unbearable earnestness that, despite his frustration, it was sometimes very difficult not to just pick her up and say, “I know, sweetheart, you’re absolutely right, it’s true,” for it held such a heavy weight, mouth quivering, eyes wide and full of tears, he could almost feel a disaster of unthinkable magnitude would be the inevitable outcome if he didn’t agree with her and act upon what she said. So maybe some terrible outrage might occur if he didn’t say to the stranger in the supermarket, a young man probably in his thirties who had just brushed past them to reach for a few mushrooms, that Elsa was very angry at the way he’d been so outrageously flirting with her and didn’t he realise that this was her father? Or that the woman in the blue coat by the bread was one of her dearest school friends. But the problem was this could be true. They were about the same age and Elsa’s recollections of decades he had trouble conjuring up could contain the odd enviable accuracy.
Such was the confused life they now inhabited that he often questioned his own sanity, a doubt that crawled upwards inside him like poisoned ivy because he didn’t spend enough hours in the company of the sane, who would hopefully reassure him that his fears were nonsense. They understood every word he said, as did he them.
And so he gave up. It was the seventh time he’d relented in as many days. He took her to her favourite armchair where he sat her down and from where she stared at him for some time afterwards.
After her last bite of bread at lunchtime, Elsa had asked him what the time was, an innocuous question in itself and a perfectly reasonable one. She’d never been one for watches and so, over the years, it had become a question he was accustomed to. He told her it was five past one. At six minutes past, the question came again. And at seven minutes past he had the same enquiry. He was sitting opposite her, on what they’d both come to know as his armchair. He had a pen in his hand – it was as if years of marking school books from this very chair had never really left him – and a notepad on the little table next to the chair. He was always making notes, something that caught his eye on the telly, a thought he had, something he had to remember, et cetera, et cetera, but this time, he drew a matchstick each time Elsa asked him the time and after six, he scrawled a diagonal line across them, like a prisoner calculating their release date by counting off time already served. When there was finally a silence and it was no longer of any interest to Elsa what time of day it was, he calculated that he’d served seven weeks and three days. And it was only just two o’clock.
He rang Alke. He was so sorry to bother her, but could she possibly come and sit with Elsa a bit later on? Mrs Thompson, the English woman, would be getting to the flat about six. Would it be possible for her to come round about five-thirty? It’s just that Elsa wouldn’t go out. Alke said that would be fine, happy to help. He put the phone down and smiled at his good fortune in knowing Alke. Where the hell would he be without her? And Elsa, thank whoever it was he thanked, was OK with her.
When he got to the flat, it was, of course, beautiful. Alke had scrubbed it to within an inch of its life and it looked wonderful. Poor thing, he’d given her a particularly busy summer, what with the World Cup and Karl getting him properly set up on the internet. He smiled and drank in the memory of going to a World Cup Match, only three months ago, but it felt as if it had happened more like years previously, when Karl had taken him to see Germany against Ecuador, something he once never thought imaginable in his lifetime. Oh, the sheer joy of seeing one’s own country. Marvellous. And Karl’s wife, Ingrid, had looked after Elsa. She wasn’t as bad then.
He glanced round again. The flat was fine. All he needed to do was wait. At ten past six there was a knock on the door.
2
However universal the world had become, Helen had never got used to drinking from a mug at home, then picking up an almost identical one thousands of miles away. It seemed unfair, somehow, to travel such a distance, listen to music you didn’t like in taxis that were late, face hundreds of people you wouldn’t see again and play waiting games at airports, only to find yourself sipping from the self-same vessel. Surely this effort deserved the reward of something significantly different.
She found herself, therefore, looking at the photo of the single lavender, slightly out of focus, with a little disappointment. It was the same single lavender that hung opposite her bed at home, the one she saw last thing at night after she’d sprinkled a few lavender drops on her pillow and the first thing she saw every morning before she stopped her alarm.
Herr Bayer coughed politely.
“It’s a beautiful flat,” she enthused quickly coming out of her musings, “and on such a lovely street.”
“Thank you,” he replied. “We like it and it’s quiet here most of the time. But you have to be very careful of the dog mess on the street.”
She was grateful he spoke such fluent English. Apart from a little French and an even smaller amount of Latin, the latter having equipped her to occasionally understand the medical name of an illness and to read tombstones, she was unable to communicate with nearly all non-English-speaking peoples. Her universality was pretty limited.
She scrambled for the agreed cash that would secure a three-week stay. Herr Bayer took it from her and walked towards the kitchen table where he quietly counted the money. He took what seemed like a small notepad from the left pocket of his cardigan and then a biro from his right. Without saying a word he wrote out a receipt for her, then carefully tore it out of the book.
“Thank you, Mrs Thompson.” He smiled and handed her the flimsy piece of paper. “There are books and maps on the table by the sofa and the rubbish goes into the courtyard. Left out of here and left again. It’s not very far. If you need to contact me, we’re in number seven. Do you think you’ll be OK?”
She said she was sure she would.
“Before I go, I’ll show you the keys.” He picked up two keys, held together by a silver ring, from the table and walked towards the glass front door. “You have to use both keys to lock it,” and he demonstrated twice how the door was to be locked and unlocked. He smiled again and then, as if suddenly remembering something, said, “I have to go now.” He seemed agitated, tapping his back trouser pockets quite sharply; a panic had, without invitation, woken him from a peaceful interlude. “Please knock on my door if there’s anything you need.” He looked awkward. “I hope you enjoy your stay.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much. It’s lovely.” She put the keys in a glass fruit bowl on the table. They rattled to the bottom and she realised how still everything had become; a traveller no more, she’d arrived at her destination.
She scanned the room. It was pleasing to the eye. The front of the flat, including the door, was entirely window space, made discreet by fine cream linen curtains that ensured complete privacy. It was a large room, with a bed in one corner facing the street. A duvet cover, full with bright reds, oranges and purples, looking as if a modern art gallery would be proud to call it their own, left her feeling Her
r Bayer had had a younger eye to help him furnish. In another corner, near the window, were a sofa, table and TV. A pine and Wedgewood blue kitchen sat at the back and in the final corner was a spacious white wardrobe, which she couldn’t bear the thought of filling until the morning. She peeped in at the bathroom, tucked neatly behind the kitchen and it was, as with everything here, beautifully clean. She liked the red towels, which made a welcome change from the usual white or pastel shades offered holidaymakers. The information she’d received from Herr Bayer when she booked was that the flat was a converted shop and as she sat on the bed, listening to people’s feet and conversations she couldn’t understand, she wondered what sort would have sat on this East Berlin street. She was breathing the air of spy novels and it felt peculiarly exciting to be sitting comfortably in such dangerous territory where suspicion and fear pervaded every corner.
It was seven. She needed to eat. Opposite the flat was what looked like a very fashionable restaurant and hotel, but it suggested a special occasion and her travel weariness dictated that this wasn’t it. She plucked the map out of her handbag, opened it and searched for Tieckstrasse. Luckily, she wasn’t far from a main street. She picked up the keys, stepped out and double-locked the door, as instructed by Herr Bayer, pushing against it afterwards to be certain no one could enter without breaking in.
She needed only a light jumper and she’d picked out her navy crochet one that she’d almost discarded in the winter sale, then thinking it wouldn’t be warm enough but ideal for the weather they’d had recently. It had been a long hot summer, which had drifted into September quite easily. She walked down the street. She hadn’t lied to Herr Bayer. It was very attractive, wide with old buildings either side and young trees placed equidistantly on either side. She suddenly felt disorientated, almost not believing she’d walked down her own street only this morning. It was always the first night away that troubled her, filling her with a nostalgia for home comforts and friends. Her cautious excitement was tempered by a feeling of alienation and a peculiar anxiety that normality would never be hers again. Now, she felt it acutely. This was her first holiday on her own, not since her twenties or since the time when she decided she’d had enough of Stephen and the children and took herself off; no, this was her first holiday on her own, ever. She belonged to a generation in which lone female travel wasn’t taken for granted and was considered not to be the done thing for it perhaps suggested an aloneness not of one’s own making or a separation from some quiet moral code.
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