Whatever Remains

by Penny F. Graham

  Finally the tubes were removed and Denis was allowed to wake from his coma. His condition was not much improved and over the next few weeks he slipped back into a confused and irrational state. The weeks passed at a snail’s pace, the days folding in on themselves one very much like the last. That hot dry summer seemed to linger eternally but when death came, it came suddenly. One evening in late February, I received a call from the hospital urging me to come. He had slipped into merciful unconsciousness, his face grey and sunken on the white pillow, his breathing laboured and irregular. It was obvious he was near death. He died later that night without gaining consciousness. He was just a month or so shy of his 92nd birthday.

  The funeral was a dismal affair. The summer heat had at last broken and it poured rain. The sound of rain beating on the windows of the small chapel threatened to drown out the words being said. Meaningless and empty words, I thought, as Derek spoke of his father. I had not been asked to speak. Not that it mattered, as there was nothing I would have wanted to say.

  The death of our father should have brought we three siblings closer together but our yesterdays walk with us and memories of past sharp words from my brother sat heavily on me. A while after the funeral, Derek showed me a small handwritten piece of pad paper telling me it was Denis’s last will. Some time earlier, I had been told by a family member that the will had been written when Denis first heard I had found his real family. There had been a hastily convened get-together at Derek’s home to discuss the situation and Denis had impulsively rewritten his will. Pat, his eldest child, once lost now found, received not a trinket or a teaspoon; in fact not a word.

  Derek provided the information that was recorded on his death certificate. Unfortunately, that information perpetuated many of the myths of Denis’s life. I was deeply disappointed that, even in death the details of his life had been recorded incorrectly. Some years later, Lindsay and I spoke to the staff at the ACT Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages and were told that we could correct wrong information and add missing information if we had documentary evidence to support the changes. We did have that documentation, and Denis’s death certificate now records the details of his life more accurately.

  Chapter 24

  UK and Russia, 1998

  A year after Denis’s death, it was time to once again pack our bags, lease the house, say goodbye to our family and friends and head for the UK and then on to Russia. The enigma of my mother’s early life was still waiting to be solved. Where had she really come from, where were her roots? Was it true she was born in Astrakhan and left with her parents as a baby? And so on, and so on. So, slowly, my mind was considering what options we might have to discover more of my Russian heritage. Once again we would need to travel over the oceans, this time to Russia, that huge country that straddled both Europe and Asia. We would then need to journey to the grassy plains that bordered the Caspian Sea. Slowly the idea took shape. Who knows what we would find if we could make that long journey to my mother’s supposed birthplace, Astrakhan, at the mouth of the mighty Volga River.

  By 1998, Russia was slowly opening up to the idea of capitalism. To obtain the correct documentation to enter Russia and travel unaccompanied was, if not exactly easy, at least doable. However, before tackling the hard yards of Russia, we planned to spend some time in England and Scotland visiting relatives and doing some sightseeing.

  We spent a few days in Perth before leaving, catching up with our family and visiting my Russian relatives. They were most interested in our intended visit to Astrakhan and we once again went over all they knew of Julia’s past. We all considered it very unlikely that we would find any tangible proof of her coming from Astrakhan, especially as we did not speak any Russian. Still, just to be where we thought she came from would be enough for me.

  It was a late evening arrival into Heathrow. Worn out from the journey, we cleared Customs and headed into London on the Underground. We had been lucky enough to get a night’s accommodation relatively cheaply in a charming little hotel on Russell Square. But part of the deal was that we had to vacate the room by 8 o’clock the next morning! By the time we arrived it was 11 pm UK time, but our exhausted body clock suggested it was 6 am.

  Still weary from the flight and the early start, we got the train to Goring-by-Sea the next morning, cat-napping as the train trundled out of London and headed for the south coast. It was high summer and the rocking of the train and the warmth of the carriage conspired to cause our chins to drop and our eyes to close, depriving us of the pretty views from the train window.

  Pat and Albert were at the station to welcome us to their home. And how nice it was to once again sit around their breakfast table sipping our cups of tea and dipping strips of toast into our lightly cooked eggs. It felt like coming home.

  We filled the next two weeks with the usual eating, drinking, playing cards in the evenings and, of course, talking. These sedentary activities were interspersed with walks on the nearby pebbly beaches and along the windy coast line from Worthing to Brighton. We also made time to visit Parham House, a beautifully restored Elizabethan manor with amazing gardens. This was where my cousin Gwen’s two little brothers Leonard and Denis had been sent when they were evacuated from London during World War II. We couldn’t help smiling at the thought of those two little terrors running riot over Parham’s green and pleasant lands.

  Between our comings and goings, Lindsay took the train to London to organise our visas for Russia and India. We were also lucky enough to spend a day with Isobel, one of Pat’s daughters, and her family at their new home in Gravesend. We all drove down together to spend the day with them. To some, visiting a niece seems a very ordinary thing to do — for me, the very idea that I had a niece, in fact three, to visit was still an amazing concept.

  Early August saw us preparing for our trip around England and Scotland. We had been invited to borrow Pat’s little green car for the trip. We immediately christened her ‘Hilda of the Hedgerows’ and she was to prove a very reliable friend who took us over the moors, through the dales and down countless small country lanes. We said our goodbyes and headed out to the A27 that would take us to Bournemouth via the New Forest. We were to be away about a month.

  Our first port of call was my cousin Anne and her husband Frank who lived just outside the pretty seaside town of Bournemouth on the south coast of England. With a mild climate, easy access to the New Forest, the Isle of Wight and the Cherbourg ferry, Bournemouth is a popular destination for tourists. It is also a town that I used to visit as a young girl when we lived in Burley in the New Forest and I was looking forward to seeing if I could recognise the area where we used to shop.

  Anne is the middle child of Horace and Beryl Emerson. Horace, known in the family as Lol, was the second youngest child of Thomas and Fanny Emerson, my grandparents, and the closest in age to my father. I had heard many stories about Laurie. ‘Laurie’ was the name Denis had given to his closest sibling in his ‘imaginary’ family. Even though the names and, no doubt, some of the circumstances, were changed, I believed that his stories of the exploits that he and ‘Laurie’ got up to as children were at least based on fact. Anne and I had corresponded for some time and we were now to meet face to face. We found their home, a smart new double-storey townhouse on the outskirts of town, and knocked on the shiny new brass knocker. A petite blonde woman a few years older than I opened the door and introduced herself as my cousin Anne.

  We spent a pleasant and informative day with Anne and Frank discussing the various members of the family most of whom, unfortunately, were by now dead. Anne, born in 1935, had thought herself the youngest surviving children of the Emerson family, so my presence came as quite a shock.

  Later that afternoon, we drove in convoy to Christchurch, a smaller town on the outskirts of Bournemouth, to meet Denis and his wife Margo. Denis and Anne are first cousins; Denis being the son of Ernest (Jack), the second eldest of the Emerson family. Which, of course, makes me their first cousin too. I still
find it hard to accept that I have such a large extended family and get quite confused when so many names are brought up in conversation. I have to remember that Thomas and Fanny Emerson had fourteen children (eight of whom had children of their own), so naturally cousins will abound.

  We stopped at the front gate as Anne and Frank did not want to come in. There had been some unspecified falling out between the two cousins a year or two ago and they were happy for us to see Denis and Margo but there was no way they were going to come into the house. It all sounded like another typical Emerson family feud to me!

  Denis was charming. Very like my father to look at, he even had my father’s dry sense of humour. Tall and slim and, even in casual slacks and fine wool sweater, he looked well turned out and elegant. His wife Margo was badly disfigured with arthritis and nearly blind, but still very articulate and friendly. They told us about their lives. The war years, when they lived and worked in London, and their subsequent decision not to have children. Their mutual passion for breeding dogs, and their lives since they retired and moved to Christchurch. They seemed very caring of each other and lived, by necessity due to Margo’s ill health, very quiet lives.

  As with some of my other English cousins, Denis did not seem particularly surprised to hear that his uncle Len had not, as popular family myth had it, died when Singapore had fallen. He seemed quite amused that Len had gone on to bigger and better things and had lived another five decades in Australia with a new family and a new name.

  We left them to their early dinner and headed out of town towards Shroton near the town of Shaftesbury, where we had lined up a bed and breakfast for the night. What a lucky chance that was as, although I don’t recall anything memorable about the B&B, our walk up Hambledon Hill, a nearby tiny national nature reserve, certainly was unforgettable. Shroton is a tiny hamlet, just a few dots on the map. It includes a cluster of half a dozen houses, a post office cum part-time shop, a church, a pub and a very interesting hill.

  After our evening meal at the Cricketers, the local pub, we headed up what looked like a gently sloping hill that swept along the side of the valley. We had picked up a small brochure from our hosts at the B&B that described the hill, and its archaeological remains, as being of international importance. It didn’t look important, just a gently sloping hill covered in long waving grass with patches of brightly coloured wildflowers nodding in the breeze. But as we reached the top, the geography changed and ribs or rings appeared circling the higher reaches of the hill. From the summit, we could see why this was no ordinary hill. Spread before us were the archaeological remains of an Iron Age hill fort. After studying the brochure, we could clearly see the earthworks for the ramparts of the fort and the circular areas of levelled ground that marked the position of the village huts. It was a beautiful summer evening and, before the sun dipped below the skyline, we could see for miles over the surrounding countryside.

  Waking back in the twilight, we felt refreshed by our experience on the hill. After a day of driving, talking and taking notes, it had been so nice to just stand with the breeze on our faces in the warmth of the sun’s last rays, and let the atmosphere that surrounded that magical hill seep into our beings.

  Our next port of call was Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset, an easy drive away. Since we had last seen them, my cousin Daphne and her husband John had moved from their charming house in Cheltenham to this rather wind-swept and dreary-looking seaside resort. We were glad to see that they had bought a small but attractive Georgian home on the outskirts of town which had an expansive private garden (great for those two lumbering dogs of theirs) that backed onto a lane running down to the beach. Only in England would they tell you, with a perfectly straight face, the street they lived in was Poo Lane.

  Our stay was marked with the usual jostling with the two dogs for space on the most comfortable chairs and lots of eating, drinking and talking. Always hospitable and welcoming, Daphne and John showed their slightly eccentric streak, however, by putting out a loaf of bread each for the local foxes and badgers every night before bed and throwing Zack, the fatter of the two dogs, one mint at a time from the two packets of Rollo Mints that he consumed each day.

  Hilda of the Hedgerows did us proud over the next few weeks, taking us first into the Peak District, where we did some magnificent walks. Staying in youth hostels, we kept our travelling costs down by doing our own catering. Many happy days were spent wandering through chocolate box villages and walking, quite literally, up hill and down dale. My diary entry from that time says we had grown accustomed to having a glass or two of beer or cider with our lunch. Strangely, it seemed that the time needed to walk back in the afternoon was in direct proportion to the number of glasses of alcohol we’d had with our ploughman’s lunch.

  Interspersed with our rambles, we visited stately homes such as Chatsworth and many, many country churches. Churches seem to embody the history of their surrounds and we would pull Hilda over on many a grassy verge and go exploring a village church in the cool, musty grey light. We stroked the intricate carvings of the rood screens, even those defaced by Cromwell’s ravaging hordes, and marvelled at the sense of peace and a continuity of history that seemed to almost seep from the walls.

  We then moved on to the Lake District where we stayed in a charming youth hostel at Grasmere. The village and backdrop of Grasmere are undeniably pretty. One can see why Wordsworth chose to live in Dove Cottage at the edge of the village and wrote so lyrically about the place. Grasmere is on the shores of a small tree-lined lake. Quaint stone cottages straddle its shoreline and the hills beyond abound with wildflowers.

  Despite the occasional downpour, we managed to get in many walks around the shores of the lake and up into the mountains. Our most challenging walk was to climb Helvellyn. At 950 metres above sea level, it is the third highest peak in the Lake District and in England. It was a long trudge up to the peak on a slowly narrowing path that became steeper as we neared the summit. It was crossing Striding Edge, a long ridge of rock, which was the real challenge. With a wind that threatened to blow us clear off the mountain, it became a struggle to stay upright and move forward. So for me, there was no striding, just inching forward along the ridgeline and hanging on to any available rock for support. As we started dropping down towards the valley, we were sheltered from the direct blast of the wind. By the time we reached Red Tarn, a small pool that nestles between the encircling arms of Helvellyn’s two edges, it was almost still. We sat and ate our packed lunch by the side of the pool. With our backs to the sun, we sat alone in a landscape carpeted with heather with the soaring mountain above and the still water below.

  We only had two weeks left in the UK and that is a ridiculously inadequate amount of time to see a place as historically interesting and diverse as Scotland. But two weeks was all we had, so it was a case of do the best we could and come back one day to see more.

  Heading up the east coast of Scotland we called in at Arbroath, a large fishing port, to meet Alison, one of the daughters of my cousin Gwen. It was good to meet more of my extended family and hear about their lives. After leaving Arbroath, with its slight tang of ocean spray and smoked herring, we headed back towards Dundee then inland to the very small but delightful little town of St Fillans on the shores of Loch Earn. There we stayed for a few days with walks over the heather-clad hills and round the loch. It was at the country club at the local golf course that I first tried haggis, a traditional Scottish dish made from sheep’s heart, liver and lungs. Delicious!

  The friendly proprietors of our B&B, Bill and Ula, told us a story about the very early days of the loch. Many, many years ago there were two warring families living in the district, the Neishs from Loch Earn and the McNabs from Killin on the adjoining Loch Tay. They had been enemies since the Neishs had robbed the McNabs of their Christmas supplies. For protection from the McNabs, the Neishs had taken to sleeping on a tiny island in the loch. One moonless night, the McNabs dragged a boat over the heather-covered hills between the two
lochs, rowed out to the island and surprised the Neishs as they slept. All but one Neish was killed. A 10-year-old boy managed to swim to safety and all the present day Neishs (and there are many) who still live around the loch are, or so the story goes, descendants of his.

  To this day the folk from St Fillans and the folk from Killin maintain, I am assured, a friendly but active rivalry. We have walked over those hills between the lochs and it would be a long hard job to drag anything, much less a large timber boat, over them. The Scots obviously take their grudges seriously.

  It was at St Fillans that what became known in the family as the ‘Sock Incident’ occurred. Travelling as one does with limited clothing, the fact that I managed to lose a sock behind the water heater in the cupboard on the landing at our B&B had serious consequences. Three socks is, in my opinion, an unworkable number. At first I was too embarrassed to own up to the fact that I had put wet clothes in their hall cupboard at night to dry. But desperation, and frustration with the lack of success using bent coat hangers to retrieve the sock, finally brought me to confess to Bill and Ula that I had used their heating cupboard as a dryer. They were most understanding and sympathetic and Bill spent the next three days devising tools of different shapes and sizes to retrieve the sock. Clever man; on the third day he managed to hook it out with a purpose-built piece of timber with a hook attached to the end.

  With many thanks to Bill and Ula and with my fourth, rather dusty, sock safely packed, we could move on. We, and Pat’s trusty Hilda of the Hedgerows, were due back at Brambles in only a few days’ time.

  Leaving the best till last, we headed for the Isle of Skye. We arrived in a downpour that continued intermittently during the time we spent there. It didn’t matter — Skye is beautiful no matter what the weather. That first night we watched, through the damp misty air, a magnificent sunset light up the waters of the Inner Sound with shafts of soft coloured light that turned the grey hills of heather a soft mauve. Despite the drizzle, we enjoyed our walks both on the rugged rocky shoreline and over the heather covered hills and glens. With trees at a minimum and streams aplenty, the open landscape of Skye invites the walker to cross just one more bubbling brook or tackle just one more rocky crag.