Remember, Remember

by Hazel McHaffie

  This time we’ll pay someone else to take the risks. A local firm, recommended by a neighbour: McCracken and Son. Friendly, efficient family business, it said on the van.

  ‘Give us a week, Mrs Burden. It’s a scaffawdin’ job. A week, 10 days max.’

  I have low expectations. But soon the first-class bill for second-class workmanship will be forgotten in the flood of demands from the lawyers and estate agents and insurers and taxmen. And at least Mother will never know.

  This has to be the easiest bit of the house to deal with from my point of view, a chance to slacken the pace for a few days. Every joint and muscle is crying out for a reprieve. There’s only the hallstand to dispose of, three umbrellas and some coats. Then I have ‘a week, 10 days max’ to sort out the neglect in my own home. And spend the weekend with Aaron.

  I’m unprepared for the wave of nostalgia when I take down the dark green raincoat. The picture of her tripping up the path to the washing line, the bird-table or the vegetable garden, burns against my eyelids. Always in that same green coat. For as far back as I can remember.

  I inhale the musty odour but get no scent of her.

  It’s a weird feeling reaching into her pocket, somehow disrespectful of her privacy. There’s a broken clothes peg, a tiny rounded stone, an embroidered handkerchief, a bus ticket stuck to a boiled sweet, a mangle of fluff, in the right pocket. I dump the lot straight in the bin.

  I’m almost casual about delving into the left side.

  The envelope looks unexceptional and I’m poised over the black sack ready to dispose of it when something stops me. The stamp is foreign, the postmark smudged out of existence. I draw out the single sheet of paper. The letterhead is a hospital in Pretoria. It’s addressed to my grandparents.

  The date is 1937.

  Dear Mr and Mrs Fenton

  It is with great sadness that I write to tell you that an unidentified male patient thought to be in his twenties was admitted to this hospital four months ago. He was unconscious on admission and suffering from a fever of unknown origin. Although we treated him aggressively I’m afraid we were unable to save him and he died without regaining consciousness during the night of 25th November.

  Naturally the police made strenuous efforts to establish his identity in order to trace relatives. Last week a young gentleman came forward purporting to know the deceased whom he subsequently identified as your eldest son, Reuben. Documents were found in Reuben’s flat which corroborate his friend’s evidence and we are therefore writing to offer you our profound sympathy in your loss.

  The police will, I’m sure, have contacted you to advise you of this sad news, but I thought you might like to hear from us that we did all in our power to try to save your son and regret that our efforts were in vain. It might be some small comfort to know that he did not suffer at any point while he was in our care, and indeed he was unaware that he was so gravely ill.

  If you would like to receive further details of Reuben’s illness and death please do not hesitate to contact us and we will do all in our power to satisfy your wishes in this regard.

  Yours sincerely

  Gilbert van Oosterhousen

  Senior consultant in tropical medicine

  Seven decades on that letter is still neatly folded in its envelope, as if its contents were known by heart. When did my mother start to carry this with her? Does it pre-date her illness and serve as evidence of her devotion to her big brother?

  There was always a special tone in Mother’s voice when she mentioned Reuben. He was her protector in childhood, her lodestar in adolescence, and her cherished memory in the decades that followed his death. Maybe tragedy endowed him with an aura of sainthood. Maybe he really was the hero she remembered. I shall never know.

  Only once did I ever hear her mention her own pain.

  The occasion was December 1981 – the beginning of the blackest weeks of my life. Forty-four years after Uncle Reuben died.

  I had just buried my own beloved brother, Lionel. Mother had stood at the grave, a taut figure with clenched fists but parched eyes. I stood as close to her as I dared and watched numbly as the coffin slid through the drizzle and sank out of sight. I went through the motions of receiving condolences.

  All three of us siblings were stunned by the sheer impertinence of death, but Eugene and I at least recognised our responsibility for Mother. I remember so distinctly how much like our father Eugene looked; aged at least a generation overnight, it seemed. Adeline, stunning in black, wandered around, silent and unresponsive.

  It was that night, when Mother and I were left alone, here in this house – that it happened.

  Keeping busy, I managed to retain my control for the first couple of hours after the guests had gone, but when my eye caught sight of a photograph of the four of us, the finality hit me foursquare. I fled upstairs and threw myself on the bed, muffling the sound of my agony in the covers. I couldn’t rid myself of the horror: my brother left alone outside in the cold; all that soil, that heaviness suffocating him.

  I don’t know how long she’d been sitting on the edge of the bed, but when I felt her hand stroking my hair, I struggled to sit up. Her fingers pressed me back down.

  ‘Cry, Jessica. Cry. Let it out.’

  I flung myself on her chest and cried with an abandon I had never experienced before, nor have since. She held me in silence.

  ‘How can you be so calm, Mother? How can you?’ I sobbed.

  ‘There’s more than one way to weep.’

  ‘But he was your son!’

  ‘And there can be no greater grief.’

  I stared at her. This was grief?

  ‘Pray God you will never know a pain like mine,’ she said, so low I thought she was actually praying. ‘But I know what you’re feeling right now. I know, Jessica. I know.’

  I looked up into her face and there was a look in her eyes that stilled my tongue.

  ‘My brother Reuben died when he was only 23. All alone in a foreign country. He contracted some fever or other – we never knew what exactly. A stranger found him. It was months later we heard he was dead. He was never a letter-writer and we had no inkling that anything was amiss. For a long time I didn’t believe it. I was only 17 at the time and I cherished a dream that the young man they found wasn’t our Reuben; it was some other family’s son. Reuben would breeze back into our lives and everything would be right again. I remember jumping up every time there was a knock at the door, thinking this would be him; actually waiting for the postman to bring that letter telling us he was having the time of his life somewhere exotic and far away. I remember searching crowds looking for a glimpse of him, imagining he’d lost his memory; we’d bring him home, coax him back to full strength again. I don’t remember exactly what it was that finally extinguished my hope, but one thing I do know is that I thought then that I must die too. Life could not go on without him.’

  I hardly dared to breathe. Her voice when it came again was all cracked at the edges.

  ‘The guilt has never left me. And now… again…’

  ‘But Mum!’ I said, jerking upright, ‘You couldn’t have helped Uncle Reuben. It wasn’t your fault. And there was no warning for Lionel. It was a massive brain haemorrhage. He died instantly. The post-mortem says so. He wouldn’t have known a thing about it. Even if he’d been here and not in London there was nothing any of us could have done. They said that.’

  She wasn’t listening.

  ‘He was always ambitious, Lionel. My baby. How could all that life, that energy, be wiped out? Snuffed out. Like a candle…’

  That was the only time Mother and I ever cried together.

  When Dad died, Mother kept her feelings under wraps. And I didn’t weep for him as I had wept for my brother. It was natural that he would die before me, although no one expected him to go that young. But my kid brother had no business leaving me and I missed him in a million little ways.

  I often looked at my mother and wondered at the emotion bottled up in
her. I felt fear as well as awe, and perhaps an erosion of trust. If she could suppress a sorrow greater than mine, what else could she conceal? Could I ever believe what I saw again?

  All the anger I see in her now, all the fear, is it the emotion finding expression at last? She’s like a tree standing astride a great fault-line between the past and the future, her roots loosened by those seismic shocks, and with each reverberation she slips further into the crevasse.

  And was it her habit of suppressing feeling that led to her loss of memory in the first place? Her grief was invisible, therefore it didn’t exist. If her grief didn’t exist, Lionel and Reuben didn’t exist. And suddenly her whole life is in question. Does she exist?

  And if tragedy could rob my mother of her sanity, what could losing a brother do to me, an altogether weaker character?

  Of course, I haven’t always viewed her plight with such sympathy. It’s different now. But don’t let me give the wrong impression. I’ve raged, I’ve rebelled, I’ve resented, I’ve hated.

  Gross behaviour does that to you. The endless repetition does it. Enduring hostility, aggression, total lack of cooperation, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, only to have her answer the doctor’s questions graciously, does it. Cleaning up after her, does it. Being nipped and hit and cursed, does it. Even the silences can do it.

  Nowadays her moods are easier to handle because she’s past retaining emotion. She’s sure I’m a spy come to poison her – a doughnut will make her smile. She’s afraid of the man in the TV who’s watching her – brushing her hair takes her to a safe place. She’s upset because her family have deserted her – we go into the garden and she’s happy again. There’s no longer any pressure to explain or reason with her.

  I still wish she’d been given those drugs to slow the progress of the illness. I wish I’d found an advocate to plead for us. I resent the fact that families like ours still save the NHS millions but are denied support. But I no longer feel it was all my fault.

  The remaining coats hanging in the hall, one grey, one black, hold no auras and give up no secrets. I drag the hallstand into the porch for James to take away.

  The hall, stairwell and landing are ready for the professionals to emulsion over the memories.

  Pandora is, as ever, immaculate. As is her house. There is no evidence that she’s been at work all week, or that two children live here.

  Max has already eaten when I arrive (I’m told) and soon afterwards he’s despatched to his room to do ‘homework for 90 minutes’, ‘music practice for 30’, and then bed.

  The take-away Turkish food which arrives soon after me is delicious. Pandora tells me about ingredients and traditions. I concentrate on not spilling anything.

  Pandora never gives in to the craving for dessert. Ever. The coffee is so dark and strong my eyes water, but I sip it slowly, doing my best to follow the leaps of her conversation from the latest software, to the new neighbours ‘from Kensington’, Karah’s school report, Pandora’s own recent appraisal… like an express train.

  ‘And Enrico? How’s he?’ I slip it in during a lull.

  ‘He’s fine. In Saudi Arabia this month.’

  ‘He’s away a lot,’ I venture.

  ‘It’s the job.’ Her hands are busy gathering the cups and saucers, her eyes watching her hands.

  ‘Pandora, I don’t want to interfere…’

  ‘Then please don’t,’ she says briskly.

  She suggests a stroll round the garden where Reg, her ‘man’, has clipped and swept and weeded until the lawns and borders look as if they’re made out of modelling clay. Even the chairs on the patio are equidistant from each other around the table. I get the distinct impression that the birds circumvent the airspace above this precision.

  ‘How’s Gran’s house coming on?’ she asks, her first enquiry of the evening.

  ‘We’re getting there. Once the stairs are done, I’m going to tackle the dining room. It won’t be as beautiful as yours, of course, but as long as it’s freshened up – as long as it sells.’

  ‘Would you fancy living there yourself?’

  I’m taken aback and negotiate a water feature while I take my time answering.

  ‘No. Too many memories. Besides, it’s too big for one person. Would you ever want to move?’

  ‘Probably not. I’ve got this place as I want it now. But I didn’t do the work. You’re doing Gran’s house. It’s your effort. It belongs to you. It’s different.’

  She bends down to feel the heavy head of a purple allium.

  ‘Goodness, it’s close tonight,’ she says lightly. ‘Feels like thunder in the air. I could do with a cold drink.’

  Even in the gathering gloom she doesn’t share confidences. Neither do I. And I dare not ‘interfere’.

  I go away more burdened than when I came.

  Chapter 7

  MOST OF THE FURNITURE in Mother’s dining room is at least 90 years old. I’ve always loved the sideboard. It’s solid oak and beautifully carved. I’d have it in my house if I had the space.

  I feel the heat flood my neck and face. No! Such thoughts are the stuff of fantasy at my age.

  It was Aaron who put the idea into my head. He can be too direct for comfort sometimes. But nowadays I need time – time to prepare for his thoughts. After our years apart there’s so much mental work to be undone.

  He made it clear from the outset. He’s come up expressly to see me. He wants to pick up where we left off. And he has every intention of helping with Mother’s house – no argument. ‘Besides, it’s the only way I’ll get to see you!’ Apparently I need saving from myself. James agrees.

  I must admit Aaron’s presence transforms the job. He works so cheerfully, as if it’s the one place in the world he chooses to be. Together we achieve so much more and I can afford to take the evenings off – as he insists we do.

  And he’s been to The Morningside again. This time, however, Mother showed him exactly what dementia looks like, no holds barred. By the time we came out of the home, my fantasy had been reduced to ashes. I stumbled off towards the car. He caught up with me and made to touch my arm. I took a step away from him, holding out one hand to ward him off.

  ‘Now you see why I can’t let you…’ I began before tears choked the words. ‘I can’t…’

  He grasped my elbow and propelled me into the car.

  ‘You, Jessica Burden, are coming for a good old-fashioned cup of tea.’

  There were only two other customers in the café and, sitting outside in the sun on a quite unremarkable summer afternoon, I eventually stopped shaking. He didn’t return to the subject of Mother until we’d finished one pot and ordered another one.

  ‘OK,’ he said, pushing his cup to one side and leaning forward on the table. ‘Explain to me in words of one syllable why you can’t let me get close to you.’

  It was like a blow right between the eyes.

  ‘You’ve seen what it’s like.’

  ‘I chose to. Remember?’

  ‘Yes, but you weren’t to know.’

  He quirked an eyebrow. ‘I’m not a kid. But that aside, why does knowing about your mother mean I must keep my distance from you?’

  ‘Because… she is my mother. What if I went the same way?’ There, it’s said.

  ‘What if I did?’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  I paused.

  ‘Sounds to me like an excuse. But if you aren’t interested…’

  ‘You know it’s not that.’ It came out so quickly, before I had time to examine the implications. It seems to be catching.

  ‘I suspected, but now I have confirmation, I am not going to let you escape a second time. Amongst my many foibles is stubbornness.’

  The relief of having someone to talk to, someone who cares enough to listen, has become addictive. Even in so short a time. I have this overwhelming need to make sure Aaron knows exactly what he’s getting into. Urgently, before it’s too hard to
contemplate life without him. Again.

  I find myself telling him about Pandora. About Blake. About Aunt Beatrice.

  ‘But you know about her from your mother.’

  ‘That was a long time ago, Jessica. A very long time ago. Before you and I were even born.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘But you’re determined to show me how flawed your family are, huh?’

  ‘Because you seem to have this distorted picture…’

  ‘My picture is of you, not your family.’

  ‘But your picture of me, that’s distorted too.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. You only know half the story. OK, I chose to take care of Mum as long as I could, but I wasn’t always nice to her.’

  ‘Would anybody be, day in, day out?’

  ‘And I rebelled inside – especially when you went away.’

  ‘Ah, now that did hurt.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I can’t go on.

  ‘I don’t hold it against you. I understood,’ he says quietly. ‘Much as I hated accepting your decision. And besides, I think I was largely to blame. I should have persisted.’

  He reaches out and cups my face in his hands, searching my eyes for something. I can’t dissemble, I don’t know what he’s looking for.

  His kiss, that starts out so gently, is like no other kiss I’ve received before. ‘You’ve no idea how much I’ve been wanting to do that,’ he murmurs against my hair.

  After what seems like forever, he turns my face up to his again.

  ‘Would it bear repetition?’

  Much later I try again to apologise for hurting him, but he puts his fingers against my lips.

  ‘Let’s forget about that and concentrate on getting it right this time. It wouldn’t have been like this before. There was too much anxiety, too much guilt. On both sides. It’s different now… isn’t it?’