When I Was Otherwise

by Stephen Benatar

“I don’t want them.”

  “A keepsake.”

  He didn’t seem to understand.

  “A souvenir!” she repeated. “One for you and one for me.” Now she held out only the top set.

  “But why do we need a souvenir?”

  “Something to remember her by.”

  “Oh! I thought we were keeping Daisy herself to remember her by.”

  Marsha had to admit he could be right. After a pause she gave a shrug. She tossed the dentures in one corner.

  Something scurried off in terror.

  Without her teeth Daisy’s face looked smaller.

  “She does stink, doesn’t she?”

  “No, Dan! No, of course not! Darling, you don’t say things like that, not about the dead. And even if she does—a very little bit—well, please just try to remember. That those who live in glass houses…”

  “But I don’t stink. Not half so much as you.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, yes, yes! Yes, you do. Much worse.”

  “Prove it, then!”

  These days their moods changed as quickly as their topics of conversation. Soon afterwards, Marsha was saying, speculatively, “Perhaps she’s gone to that place which she once told me about. Where things were as they might have been. I wonder. I do hope so. What do you think, Dan?”

  He considered this question carefully; then gave a series of wise nods. “There’s life in the old dog yet,” he said.

  At which they both laughed. Affectionate laughter. And they grieved a little, too.

  “Anyway, Dan, she looks so peaceful.”

  “Does she?”

  “Yes. In some ways it would be such a pity to disturb her. Even if we dared.”

  “It’s up to you, old girl. Why don’t we sing a hymn? Like in a funeral service? Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.”

  But Marsha was the singer.

  “I don’t think I know any hymns.”

  “Oh! Sing ‘Daisy, Daisy’ then. To cheer her on her way. Also, it would tell God she was coming. In case he might have missed her because of its being dark.”

  So she did. While Dan stood stiffly to attention.

  She sang it more sweetly than her sister-in-law ever had, even if her own rendering lacked some of the vitality of Daisy’s, lacked some of that special oomph.

  “It won’t be a stylish marriage—

  I can’t afford a carriage—

  But you’ll look sweet

  Upon the seat

  Of a bicycle made for two.”

  She went on: “That’s all either of us ever wanted, Daisy, isn’t it, deep down? A bicycle made for two. And we each had it for so pitifully short a time! Even one’s children in the end, the very best of them, grow up and desert one and don’t really care what’s happening.”

  “I wonder if she’s run into Mother?” asked Dan. He grinned at his sister, impishly.

  “I wonder if she’s met her own yet?” smiled Marsha, suddenly every bit as impish. Dan thought about the schoolgirl and the young lady, even about the little child, this beloved sister once had been.

  At any rate they felt that Daisy had been given a good send-off.

  Except, of course, they realized that they had only half sent her off. And they watched out for alteration over the succeeding weeks—Dan with probably as great an interest, finally, as Marsha. It was a fascinating study. And, although in their main objective they were undoubtedly disappointed, alteration they most certainly did find.

  Slowly, like a figurehead being gnawed at from within, the flesh began to fall away from Daisy’s coloured, leathery old face (Marsha had reapplied her makeup; she could no longer bear the nakedness) until the very whiteness of the bone itself began to shine through. Beneath the blankets and the striped pyjamas a similar change was taking place. They didn’t look to examine the extent of it but her hands still lay crossed upon the top sheet, like conflicting pointers to a buried treasure far out beyond the tea stains, and the weight of the hearing aid in the breast pocket—its cord still stretching tautly to a vanished ear—emphasized the contour of the caved-in chest. Especially on the left; above that off-white tideline sprinkled with her fallen fingernails.

  And Daisy did stink. It was no good trying to pretend she didn’t. Every day Marsha would spray the room with a sweet and heady air freshener intended for the lavatory. (Luckily they’d bought three dozen cans.) Yet as time went by their nostrils not only grew acclimatized to it, that heady, aromatic stink, but acceptant, welcoming. Gradually, it had become the smell of safety.

  The last time Marsha had reapplied the makeup Dan stood and watched her. They both knew it was the last time—the exception that proves the rule, thought Marsha. The occasion gave off a sense of ceremony.

  “Oh, this takes me back to 1935!” she said.

  “Do you wish it really did?”

  She didn’t answer. But her hand shook a little as she put on the lipstick. And tears trembled and spilled and blurred her vision. Neither of them spoke until the work was done. Then she turned to him and shook her head forlornly.

  “I was so pretty back in 1935. I thought I had so much to look forward to. My heart was so very full of hope.”

  Her nose ran and she wiped it on her sleeve.

  “No,” she said. “It hasn’t been at all the way I pictured it.”

  “Never mind.” For a moment he laid his hand tenderly over hers.

  “The trouble is…I feel so tired.”

  “We’re getting old,” he said. “Is it nearly March?” It was actually September.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “It’s my birthday in March.” Then it faded: the sudden excitement of his smile. “Oh. Have we yet had Christmas?”

  “What?”

  “Christmas?”

  “Christmas?” she said vaguely. “Is it? Is it really? Then merry Christmas, darling.” But she added instantly: “I don’t want Christmas. No. I haven’t got anything prepared.”

  “Never mind. It was fun last year. It was nice having Daisy with us. We had jelly and tinned pineapple and we played cards. There were some chocolates too. We sat around the bed and it was light.”

  She believed that his memory might be playing him tricks but she caught his air of wistfulness and made a real effort. “Would you like…?”

  “Yes?”

  “Would you like…a humming competition?”

  “Yes! Oh, yes! Please! Let’s have a humming competition!”

  “Good!” She even clapped her hands. “My turn first? A penny for every song we recognize?”

  “No, I haven’t any pennies. You haven’t, either.”

  She considered. Then she hummed. The tune was, We’ll gather lilacs in the spring again. He tried very hard, adopted an air of immense concentration, said he really knew the melody, asked her to repeat it. But it was no use. He just couldn’t remember.

  Nor could she.

  “Your turn, darling.”

  He thought and thought; made two or three false starts. “No, I can’t think of anything. You have another go.”

  She tried ‘Putting on the Ritz’ and ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. “Oh, this is no good,” she said crossly. “If you don’t know the next one I’m not going on!”

  But he did. Mercifully he did.

  “Louder!” he said. “Louder! I’ve almost got it.”

  “Yes?”

  “Goodnight. Goodnight, someone.”

  “You’re getting warm! Very warm! Not someone; somewhere!”

  He got it, suddenly. “Vienna, Vienna! Vienna!”

  “Oh, you clever boy! ‘Goodnight, Vienna’. That was a real piece of inspiration!”

  He held out his hand and she pretended to put a penny in it. He felt pleased with himself. She felt pleased with him, too.

  “And I’ve never been to Vienna!” he boasted.

  “Nor me.”

  “I don’t suppose we ever shall—not now.” The boast ha
d lost its glitter.

  “No.”

  “Everybody speaks of Vienna and we shall never get to see it.”

  “And all those waltzes! So lilting, so gay! So very, very pretty!”

  “Perhaps you could hum one for me now?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Perhaps you could even dance one for me now!”

  “No. I don’t feel like it. Not any more.”

  “Oh dear,” he said. “I am sorry. And you’re such a lovely dancer. I’d really like to look at your medal again when you can find it, I really would. But is it nearly March?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “March the twenty-something? The twenty-first?” He stopped, puzzled. “The twenty-fifth? Or twenty-seventh? Oh, Erica.” His face twisted in anguish. “Why did we never go to Vienna? And which day is it going to be? My birthday?”

  “March the twenty-third,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “March the twenty-third,” she repeated, firmly. He needed to know and what on earth did it matter: a day or two earlier, a day or two later? Besides… That date could easily be the right one.

  Though March the twenty-third, as it happened, still lay about six months into the future.

  And even then there wouldn’t be any birthday celebrations.

  What there would be was a report that appeared on the front page of the Guardian.

  “An inquest is to be held…”

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2005 by Stephen Benatar

  Cover design by Gabriela Sahagun

  ISBN: 978-1-4976-9365-4

  Distributed by Open Road Distribution

  345 Hudson Street

  New York, NY 10014

  www.openroadmedia.com