My Real Children

by Jo Walton

  “How long will it be?” Trish asked.

  “Impossible to tell.” Doug ground his teeth. “I’ll let you know when I know. And I’m going to tell the others too, even though Helen will fuss and Cathy will have a fit. There’s a lot of stigma about AIDS that there shouldn’t be, and I’m going to be public about it, so they’ll know anyway. But I wanted to tell them myself.”

  “I’m proud of you,” Trish said. “You’re being so brave and responsible.”

  “You’re crying, Mum,” Doug pointed out.

  “Shouldn’t I be crying, hearing that my son has an incurable illness?”

  That evening when the children were in bed, Doug told the others. Helen and Don had gone home, so he had to break it to her separately the next day.

  It took him three years to die. For the first two of those years he was constantly in the public eye, writing and performing for AIDS charities. Then, in August 1992 he got sick and came home. It was like being under siege, reporters constantly camped on the doorstep. Alestra was just about to leave for university, and hated being photographed and seeing her picture in the tabloids.

  “It’s my fault,” Doug said. “I made myself news, and I can’t turn that off because I don’t like it. I’ll have to go into hiding.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Trish said.

  “It’ll mean giving up your classes and everything.”

  “Not for long. And you’re more important.”

  They didn’t go far. Doug went into a hospice in Grange-over-Sands. It was run by Buddhists, but after she got used to the oddity of seeing nurses in orange robes that didn’t seem strange. Trish stayed nearby in a guest house. The hospice had a central courtyard with sand neatly raked around stones in a Zen pattern. All the rooms opened onto a cloister that ran around this courtyard. The cloister was full of benches. The courtyard had a glass roof. “I expect in a warm place it would be open to the sky, but they made concessions to the weather,” Trish said.

  They could also sit on benches in front of the hospice, where they could see Morecambe and the nuclear power station over the water—often they could see Lancaster’s microclimate and a sharp-edge of rain that was falling there while in Grange the sun shone. Doug was taking painkillers and the pain came through all the same. He played the guitar until he was too weak. They walked slowly into the village and watched ducks in the duck pond, some of them ridiculous colors. Trish went home sometimes to collect things they needed and see Bethany; Doug stayed where he was.

  In those strange months in Grange, Trish noticed that she was becoming forgetful. She would lose words—she’d be in the middle of saying something and forget how she had meant to end her sentence. She’d forget what something was called, or the name of an author. Once she forgot the word “Korea” and had to say “That peninsula near China, where there was a war in the Fifties.” She remembered her mother and felt a cold dread.

  She talked to Doug about it. “I wish I had the chance to live long enough to get senile like Gran,” he said.

  “Maybe I’ll have another heart attack before I get that bad,” Trish said, optimistically. “Getting old is a terrible thing.”

  “It’s better than the alternative,” Doug said, grinning.

  “I don’t know. Maybe you’re lucky to miss it. They say those the gods love die young.”

  “It’s just that there’s so much I would have wanted to do. I always thought there was time to have kids later, time to write the serious music I wanted to write, time to see the parts of the world I haven’t seen. Most of what I have seen has been touring, you know how it is, everywhere seems the same. Japan, Paris, I always said I’d go back when I had more time. Now I never will. And all the songs I meant to write. All the songs I did write, the ones I sweated blood over, and what will I be remembered for? That little bit of nonsense about George and Sophie getting married on the moon that I wrote in five minutes in the back of a taxi.”

  “That’s a wonderful song, and it was a wonderful thing you did for your brother. Don’t undervalue it because it came easily.”

  George and Sophie and the twins visited. Rhodri and Bronwen were four now. They loved the ducks on the pond. Sophie and Trish took them for a walk up Hampsfell while George and Doug had a long conversation. From Hampsfell it was possible to see all the way to the Lake District, where Trish had been so often with the children when they were younger and then with David. She could also see far out over the bay below them. Up there she could almost get enough air.

  All the food at the hospice was vegetarian and macrobiotic. Trish, who rarely ate meat anyway, enjoyed it. “I wonder how far we’d have to go to get a burger?” Doug asked one day when he was very weak.

  “Carnforth?” Trish wondered aloud. “There’s certainly nothing in the village. Do you want to try?”

  “I was joking, but actually yes, I’d love to. Let’s do it. One last crazy expedition!”

  They got into Trish’s car—a sober and fairly new Fiesta, not the Beetle Doug had bought her long before. Doug could hardly keep himself upright in the passenger seat. He wound down the window. “It’s great to feel the speed,” he said, though they were barely going at thirty on the winding road. They went south to Ulverston, where they found a Burger King. Trish ate onion rings. “I hope you know these are terrible for my heart,” she said.

  Doug could only manage half his burger. “That was delicious,” he said. “All that ketchup and mustard, not to mention dead cow. I expect I’ve set myself back several cycles on the wheel of resurrection with that.”

  “Do you believe in that?” Trish asked.

  “Not even a bit. I picked this place because it was near and they’d give me privacy.”

  Doug slumped asleep on the drive back and Trish had to call for help to get him into bed. The next day he winked at her as he ate his seed porridge for breakfast. “Thanks for indulging me yesterday, Mum. Thanks for being here.”

  Trish blinked away tears. “I’m glad I can be here. I’m glad there’s something I can do for you.”

  * * *

  Doug died in November. Trish was at his side. He was asleep, breathing with difficulty, and then his breathing just stopped. The nurse went over and opened a window. “So his soul can leave,” she said.

  “Is that a Buddhist belief?” Trish asked.

  “It’s an Irish one,” the nurse said.

  “This is the third death I’ve watched. First my mother, then my ex-husband, and now my son.”

  “It never gets easier,” the nurse said.

  All the papers had been signed and all the arrangements made, except for the death certificate. Trish walked out into the dawn and wished she still believed in God. The sea was still lapping on the shore, the last stars were vanishing as the sky brightened. But the sky was empty of comfort. There was no loving God waiting, no heaven where Doug could find happiness. Just the cold contingent universe where things happened for random reasons nobody could understand. Nevertheless, while she was torn apart with grief for Doug she also felt at peace. His struggle was over. There was no more pain. And she had been with him and helped him. She had seen his whole life, from his birth to his death. “Everyone is born,” she said to the empty sky. “Everyone dies.”

  It was cold comfort as time went on and she began to understand what missing him meant.

  Doug’s funeral was held in Lancaster cathedral, which was packed for the occasion. There were pop stars and punk stars and actors, friends of Doug’s and reporters and fans. The family sat alone at the front, packing into two pews. Trish tried to sit still. There were musical tributes and people talking about how Doug would be remembered. George talked about what the song had meant to him. Afterwards, the body was quietly cremated. Trish sprinkled the ashes on the roses with her mother and Mark. “Put me here too,” she said to Helen.

  “Mum! Morbid!” Helen said.

  “I’m sixty-six, I have to think about it.”

  “No you don’t!”

 
Trish took up her evening classes again, but more and more she found herself using her notes for a kind of reassurance she had never needed—a furious checking on names and titles. She started to make endless lists so that she wouldn’t forget things, and if she didn’t put things on her lists she often did forget. She confided in Bethany but not in her children. “They keep telling me that this house is too big and I should buy something smaller,” she said. “If they knew about this, they’d have me in sheltered accommodation before you can say Jack Robinson.”

  Bethany shook her head. “Maybe it’s the heart tablets. Maybe they’re making it worse. I read something about that.”

  Trish went to the doctor and changed the prescription of the beta blockers, and her memory did seem to improve. She heaved a sigh of relief and tried to get on with her life. The family gathered for Christmas and the absence of Doug was like an ache that even the youngest of them seemed to feel.

  29

  Retirement: Pat 1986–1990

  Pat retired from teaching in 1986 when she was sixty. Sixty was still the official European retirement age for women, though they were talking about raising it to be sixty-five, the same as for men. Flora also stopped teaching that year to have a baby, Samantha Deniz, born in May. Pat and Bee went up to Lancaster as soon as they had the news that little Sammy had been born. They held her on her first day of life. “She looks exactly like you did when you were born, exactly,” Pat told Flora.

  “All babies look alike,” Flora laughed. The birth had been difficult and she was exhausted but triumphant.

  Philip came from Manchester, where he was studying music. “How disconcerting to suddenly be an uncle,” he said. “You should have warned me, Flo.”

  “How could I have warned you?” Flora asked.

  “I’ll compose a piece of music for her,” he said.

  Bee and Pat drove Philip back to Manchester. “So I want to explain to you about my living situation,” he said from the back seat.

  “You’re living with someone?” Bee asked.

  “I’m living with two people.”

  “We know that, you told us when you took the flat. But is one of them … significant?” Pat asked.

  Philip laughed. “They’re both significant. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”

  “He’s had to work hard to find a way to shock his lesbian mothers,” Pat said to Bee. “I mean we didn’t make it easy for him, poor boy. He couldn’t just be gay like any normal young man.”

  “Why would it shock you, it’s what you two were doing with Michael all my life!”

  “I was teasing,” Pat said. “Sorry.”

  “You’re seriously romantically involved with two people?” Bee asked.

  “Fairly seriously, yes,” Philip said. “Sanchia’s Dutch, she’s three years older than me, she’s an organist, making a living giving piano lessons. Ragnar’s Norwegian, he’s my age, he’s a flautist with the Symphony, and he also works part time in a bar.”

  “Wow,” Pat said, trying to make up for her earlier joke. “They sound amazing. I can’t wait to meet them.”

  “Do you have any other surprises?” Bee asked.

  “Well, they call me Marsilio,” Philip said. “So if you wouldn’t mind? I’m going to use it professionally. So many people are called Philip. Marsilio—”

  “Just you and Ficino,” Pat said. “So are you bringing them to Florence?”

  “If there’s room. But just for a week or two, because I have an engagement for August, playing oboe for somebody who’s going to be on maternity leave. Babies seem to be breaking out all over.”

  “We’d be delighted to have them in Florence,” Pat said. “Flora’s not going to be able to make it this year.”

  Sanchia and Ragnar spoke perfect English, which was a relief. Ragnar looked like a Viking, huge with a curling beard and long hair. Sanchia was stunning, but she didn’t look Dutch. “My mother was from Indonesia,” she explained when Bee asked.

  Driving back to Cambridge Pat and Bee discussed them. “Not many people get into a long-term relationship when they’re in college,” Pat said.

  “No, but Philip is just the person to do it,” Bee said. “I liked them, especially her.”

  “They all three seemed so comfortable together,” Pat said. “He seems happy with them. That’s what matters.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be comfortable calling him Marsilio,” Bee confessed. “I’m so used to him as Philip.”

  Jinny came over from Italy the next week to see her new niece. She spent a day and a night in Cambridge while she was there. “I’m thinking I want to take a course in architecture next year,” she said.

  “In Florence?” Pat asked.

  “Oh yes. Because it’s in Florence I want to work. People keep building new houses around about. Suburbs. And they’re like the suburbs here. Between here and London it’s all suburbs. And you’ve seen Flora’s house. Somebody needs to be designing small houses for ordinary people to live in that are beautiful. I have the aesthetics, but I don’t have the technical qualifications. This is what I want to do.”

  “You’ve found your passion at last,” Pat said, looking at Jinny’s face.

  “I really do think I have,” Jinny said.

  “Can you still get student loans or will you need some money?” Bee asked.

  “I’m going to need some money. But I’ll pay you back.”

  “Pay it forward,” Bee said. “Pay for your own children to follow their passion. Or for other friends you know who may need help.”

  Pat was working on a guide to Trieste that summer. She missed Michael acutely whenever she worked with a different photographer and had to explain exactly what she wanted. She was also updating her Florentine guide and refused to change any of the photographs. “None of those things have changed,” she insisted to her editor.

  “What about this gelateria?” he asked, pointing to a picture of Perche No! “Is that still there?”

  “Exactly the same,” Pat assured him. “Just as wonderful as ever. The best gelato in the world, just as it says in the book.”

  She took Ragnar and Sanchia around and was delighted to see them fall under the enchantment of Florence.

  “They did this,” Ragnar said. “As well as the music. All this at the same time.”

  “It’s possible,” Sanchia said, leaning back against Philip as she ate a gelato and stared at Orsanmichele, as Pat had done on her first visit to Florence. “I have to come back.”

  “I’m so glad you see it this way,” Pat said. “Not everyone does. My daughter Flora’s husband just said how pretty it was. And some Italians just take it for granted.”

  The next year, 1987, Bee retired. “I’ll keep on with my own research at home, but I’ll have done with all the going in to college and keeping office hours and marking,” she said. They had a ceremony for her retirement and gave her a specially designed electric wheelchair with tractor treads for use in the garden. “So much nicer than a gold watch,” she said.

  Flora had another baby in March 1988, Cenk Michael. “It’s pronounced Jenk,” she said. “It was Mohammed’s father’s name.”

  “It’s lovely,” Pat said, diplomatically. “So easy to say.”

  Philip had composed a piece of music for baby Sammy, and he composed another for Cenk. He graduated and began a life of standing in for people in orchestras while working on his compositions. He and Sanchia and Ragnar continued to live together as best they could with their careers, and to come to Florence for at least part of every summer.

  Jinny qualified as an architect. Her senior year project for a small but beautiful house won a European design award. She immediately became a junior partner in a firm in Florence. Her designs went into use almost at once. “Ginevra could make a lot of money if she went into designing for our richer clients,” a senior partner told Pat at a party.

  “It’s not what she wants,” Pat said, proudly. Jinny now lived at the Florentine house permanently and paid t
he property taxes on it. Pat and Bee still came out every summer, and Philip and his household for part of every summer. Flora and Mohammed had only been there once since their wedding.

  “We should make a new will and give Jinny the Florentine house,” Pat said. “We haven’t made wills since they were tiny and we were worried about social workers.”

  “And dear old Michael promised to marry whichever of us was left,” Bee said, smiling.

  They made new wills. “We want to leave the Florentine house to Jinny and the Harston house and the remainder of our estates to the other two equally,” Pat said.

  “That’s not possible,” the solicitor explained. “You own these properties between you, and that makes it more complicated.”

  They eventually decided to give Jinny the Florentine house now and leave the Cambridge house to whichever of them survived the other, and then divided between the other children. “Are you sure that’s fair?” Bee asked.

  “They’ll sell our Harston house and use the money. Jinny will live in the Florentine house,” Pat said. “That makes it fair, even if it is worth more.”

  “There will be death duties,” the solicitor said. “There wouldn’t be if you were married, but as things are.”

  “It makes my blood boil,” Bee said.

  They also filled out powers of attorney in case of incapacity, naming each other, remembering how they couldn’t sell Pat’s mother’s house. “These wouldn’t necessarily hold up,” the solicitor said. “Not if anyone challenged them.”

  “Does anyone in that sentence mean our children or the government?” Bee asked. “Our children wouldn’t, but the government is another thing.”

  “It certainly wouldn’t hold up under a government challenge. But it’s better than nothing.”

  On their way back home from the solicitor’s Bee started to laugh. “I was just thinking how grown up all that made me feel,” she said. “I’m sixty-one!”

  The next March Pat had a heart attack in the early hours of the morning. She knew at once what it was, a pain in her left arm and chest. She managed to waken Bee before she passed out, and Bee called an ambulance. She woke up in the Addison, alone.