The Memory of Lost Senses

by Judith Kinghorn

“She’s my girl,” he said, opening his eyes, looking into hers. “She’s my girl,” he repeated, shrugging his shoulders and trying to smile. He glanced away, tilting his head to one side, frowning, searching. “No . . . no, she’s my wife, I think.” He straightened himself, nodded his head. “Yes . . . she is. She’s my wife. I’m married. I’m married to Cecily . . . my Cecily.”

  And he placed his head in his hands and began to weep.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  He was there, sitting up at the bar reading a newspaper, and she smiled as she moved toward him. Even now, four years after his return, four years after he had returned from the dead, Cecily’s heart leapt at the sight of him, his presence made all the more precious by his long absence.

  But he had kept his promise, as she knew he would: he had come back to her.

  Cecily had refused to relinquish hope. Inspired and reassured by stories in the newspapers, tales of missing soldiers and prisoners of war returning home months after the cessation of fighting, she had clung on, waiting, expectant. And though she had never quite been able to envision how he would return, when he would return, or how she would react or how he would be, she knew in her heart that he was not dead. And if he were not dead, he would, eventually, find his way back to her.

  When it happened, there was no forewarning, no trumpet call, nothing to herald his arrival.

  It was early evening, a weekday—perhaps a Tuesday or Wednesday, she could never quite remember. The sky was overcast, the air damp and threatening rain. She had gone out to the garden to take in the washing hanging from the line he had put up for her, years before. She was already late to collect her son, had spent the previous hour reading and marking Class Three’s homework. As she gathered up sheets that had hung out since dawn, a figure appeared on the periphery of her vision. She did not turn, not immediately. She heard her name, a familiar male voice. But it had happened before, and would happen again. The sound of Jack’s voice, her name, carried in the wind, echoing back to her, inflected in sighs and sounds. But the blur at the edge of her vision did not move and began to take on a shape. And as she turned her head, turned to face him, she saw at first only a bearded stranger, a black eyepatch and a stick; a disheveled man in shabby clothes. And when he stepped forward and began to move toward her, she stepped back, pulling the collected bed linen in front of her as though it were a shield.

  Later, she would replay this scene over and over, see it in slow motion: see herself, arms filled with linen, turn slowly, so slowly, and him, at the end of the pathway, standing watching her, perfectly still; see herself step back as he begins to move toward her, see her arms fall, white linen float down to the grass; and as the landscape moves, the sky comes down and the earth rolls out like an unfurling carpet, bringing him back to her.

  “I was beginning to think you were taking your revenge,” he said, easing himself up onto his feet.

  “Revenge?” she repeated, wrapping her arms round his waist.

  “Keeping me waiting so long,” he whispered. “I missed you.”

  “And I missed you. But thirty minutes is not two years, Jack Staunton.”

  He smiled, shook his head. “It wasn’t two years . . . was it?”

  “Almost.”

  She placed her bag on the marble counter, watched him as he turned to the barman to order her a drink. Even now, she found it difficult not to stare. Older, injured, war damaged, he was perfect to her. The burns, flesh still charred when he had appeared to her that day, had healed as best they ever would. There were scars: scars from new skin and scars on old skin. The skin grafted to his face, his eyelids, cheeks and nose, as well as to his neck and hands, masked some of the damage to his young, once fit and able body. And the somewhat patchy beard he would not part with.

  But the lack of early, proper medical attention to Jack’s in- juries, including his two shattered legs, meant they had not healed the way they should have, could have. One leg remained badly twisted, at the knee and at the ankle, and made walking difficult without the aid of a stick.

  Watching him, she said his name, and he turned to her. “What’s that?”

  “Oh nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “So, tell me,” he began, sitting down and swiveling his chair round to face her. “How was Cynthia? Did she like it, your story?”

  “Her name is Sylvia, Jack, not Cynthia.”

  “Of course, Syl-via.”

  “Think . . . saliva?” she suggested. “Though it’s not her name.”

  He smiled. “How was dear Saliva?”

  She shook her head: “You really have no recollection of her at all, do you?”

  “No, should I?”

  “Perhaps. She was, I think, your grandmother’s oldest friend. And that summer—the one when we first met, before the war—she was there, quiet, unmarried, rather touchy, slightly troublesome, and quite obsessed with Cora.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but you are painting a pretty dismal image. Do I really need to remember Sylvia?”

  She lifted her hand to his face. “No, my dear, you don’t. The only person you need to remember is right here. Anyway,” she went on, “in answer to your question, I’ve left it with her, which was the plan.”

  Sylvia had read some of her manuscript there and then: some of the first chapter. As Cecily sat drinking the tea a woman called Wendy had brought in to them, she had watched Sylvia’s mouth twitch, watched her raise a hand to her spectacles, pushing them back up her nose, watched her turning pages. She had listened to her breathing, the occasional sigh. Eventually, Sylvia had looked up at her, smiled and said, “Hmm, yes . . . interesting.” And that was all.

  Cecily had wanted more, had said again, “I’d value your opinion . . . I’ll leave it with you if I may.”

  “How was she with you?” Jack asked.

  Cecily shook her head. “She’s no different. No different at all to how I remember her,” she said, lighting a cigarette. And as her husband took a glass from the barman and placed it on the polished marble in front of her, she smiled at him.

  “What is it?” he asked, taking hold of her hand. “Tell me.”

  “Oh, I was just thinking about everything, on the way here in the taxicab. I was remembering all those days and nights . . . all those days without you . . . and thinking about Cora, remembering all of it.”

  He nodded. “I knew it would be tough. But I did offer to come with you . . .”

  She shook her head. “No, it was best, I think, that I went on my own. Anyhow, you don’t remember her.”

  “And perhaps with good reason.” He pushed his folded newspaper across the marble. “Take a look,” he said.

  A headline read, “Lawson’s Lost Aphrodite Found.” Beneath it, a small back and white image of the painting, and Cora’s young face staring out at her.

  She said, “You did the right thing.”

  “You mean you did the right thing. She left it to you. Left everything to you.”

  “She thought you were dead. We have done the right thing,” she added, placing her hand over his.

  “It always strikes me, the irony—me having lost my memory, coming back to my only blood relation, who had no memory of me, could not remember me.”

  “But she did! She did remember you. She spoke about you all the time, it’s just that she didn’t recognize you, didn’t recognize the you that returned, and she had gone anyway, left us by then . . .”

  He glanced down at her hand over his. “It makes me sad to think she never knew, never realized that I’d survived and come back.”

  “I’ve told you before, you need to try and take comfort from the fact that in her mind you were there, with her. Everyone she ever loved was with her.”

  Cora had failed to recognize the battered, bearded man with eyepatch and stick as any relation. And certainly not as her grandson, not as the unblemished, hands
ome young man who had gone off to fight, to fly airplanes. He had been killed and, in an attempt to accept that, or perhaps in order to protect herself from that, she had simply slid further into a world inhabited by ghosts. She did not hear the war veteran in front of her claiming to be Jack or, if she did, chose not to. Too much time had elapsed, and those in front of her were not those she remembered.

  On one occasion she had even spoken to Jack about Jack, telling him he must meet her grandson. “He likes cricket,” she said, vaguely. “He’s a leg-spin bowler, you know.”

  Cecily and Jack gave up trying to explain. They visited her, sat with her, listened to her nonsensical conversation and jumbled words and names. Sometimes she recognized Cecily, and once she asked her, “Who is he, that man? Is he your husband?” As though he might perhaps be hers. “Yes, he’s mine,” Cecily replied, smiling at Jack, winking. “He’s mine and I love him.” Cora’s face had erupted into a smile, a wonderful breathtaking smile Cecily would always remember. “And does he love you?” she asked.

  Cecily turned to Jack. “Well?”

  “With all my heart,” he said, looking from Cecily to his grandmother.

  And for a moment, just a moment, Cecily thought she saw something in Cora’s eyes, a fleeting recognition, as she stared back at him and said, “Yes, of course you do.”

  “What time do we need to be there?” Jack asked.

  “Seven, I think. Mr. Davidson, the curator, wants to meet us, meet you. He wants to introduce you to the biographer.”

  “Whose biographer?”

  “Lawson’s, of course. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten, I told you this morning, remember? The retrospective is to coincide with the publication of the book, The Life, Letters and Work of George Lawson.”

  “But why do they want to meet us? If it’s to talk about the painting, I know nothing about it. Do you?”

  Cecily shook her head. “No, nothing really, other than it’s by him, and of her.”

  “Oh God, they’re probably going to ask all sorts of questions, like when and where it was executed and so on and so forth.” He shook his head. “You know I can’t handle too many questions.”

  She tightened her grip on his hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll answer any questions they might have as best I can.”

  He glanced to his watch. “I suppose we should get a move on.”

  She didn’t reply. And when he turned to her, he asked, “What are you smiling at now?”

  She shook her head. “Oh, nothing really,” she said. “I was just thinking about how Sylvia will react to my novel. I just hope she’s not shocked.”

  “Why on earth would she be shocked?”

  “Because . . . because it bears little comparison, I think, to the true story.”

  “She’s a novelist, it’s fiction. And you said you gave them all a happy ending. Can’t do better than that.”

  Yes, she had given her heroine a happy ending, an ending no biography or memoirs could ever do. Whether it was the right ending, the one Cora would have wished for, she would never know but she suspected that perhaps it was. Because though Cora had never confessed to any great love affair with the painter, George Lawson, she had spoken of him in such a way that it had been plain to see she had once loved him. When she told Cecily of her marriage to his father, Edward, she had simply said that he was a good man, a good husband, but that it had been a mistake for her to marry again. And by the time she told Cecily about that marriage, Jack had gone, and Cora was already muddled about who was who and where she was. Quite often it had been difficult for Cecily to know whom she was speaking about, and she continually made mistakes with names and places and dates. But there had been clues: in the painting, and in the names themselves. She had, after all, named her son after George, and mentioned that he was godfather. Could he, Cecily wondered, have been the father of her son?

  It had been a thrilling thought for a while, that Jack could be Lord Lawson’s grandson, that her own son could be his great-grandson. But as Cora sank further into her dementia it became impossible to ascertain the truth, and impossible to pose those questions. Cecily had waited, hoped that Cora might say more, say something, and though she had, none of it made any sense.

  Now, it no longer mattered whose son Jack’s father had been. Jack had no memory of him, none at all, and very few of his mother. “But do I need to remember?” he had asked her, whenever she tried to coax memories. “Can’t we just live for now, look forward?” The only thing that mattered to Jack was here and now and the future. And so that’s what mattered to Cecily now, too.

  “When are you going back,” Jack was asking, “to pick it up?”

  “I said I’d call in on Friday before we go down to collect the children.”

  “It’ll be interesting,” he said, smiling, lifting his glass, “for you to hear what she makes of it all.”

  “She won’t like it,” Cecily said. “I know that. But I’m going to ask her again about George Lawson and Cora.”

  “You really want your story to be true, don’t you?”

  “No, not necessarily, but I would like to know the truth.”

  “Did you tell her about the Uncle John character, the blackmail?”

  She sighed. “Yes, and she said the same as you. Said it was all nonsense.”

  “I never said it was nonsense,” he replied, tenderness in his voice. “I simply said that it didn’t seem feasible. She may well have received some unpleasant letters, though you never found any, did you?”

  “No. No, there were very few letters at all.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, then she said, “You know, you once told me—years ago, I think it was on your last leave—that you’d found out something about Cora.”

  He laughed. “You’re not expecting me to remember what it was now, are you?”

  “No, I suppose not,” she said, sighing. “You said you couldn’t tell me until you had spoken to her about it . . . whatever it was.”

  “Well, whatever it was, we’ll never know.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Sylvia had already moved the envelope about the room: from the mantelshelf to the windowsill and back again. Now it lay on the table in front of her. She enjoyed looking at it. It made her happy to see it sitting there, waiting to be opened. She would find the right time. Until then, she could wallow in its potential, imagine its contents . . .

  My own dearest Sylvia, Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me . . .

  My dear Sylvia, Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?

  Dearest Sylvia, Soon, I shall be gone, and I cannot bear that thought without first making amends with you . . . my only true friend . . .

  Dear Sylvia, Mr. Cordery is planting out the herbaceous border and I was wondering if there are any violet plants to be had in London at this time of year . . .

  Sylvia, I am at a loss to know WHAT to say to you, even now. The fact that you took it upon yourself to speak to X and visit Y is beyond me, but . . .

  Sylvia placed the envelope on the table in front of her. She poured herself a sherry. Then she sat down. She tried to ignore the cream paper in front of her. She looked about the room, sipping the warm liquid in her glass. It was at moments like these she often wished that she had taken up smoking, or another hobby: something one could pick up and put down, something to distract oneself with. But now the envelope was shouting out at her, begging to be read. And that was what she had been waiting for: beseechment.

  She picked it up, read her name out loud. Then, slowly, running her index finger under the flap, she severed the seal and lifted the paper to her face. It smelled of violets, the scent of Cora. And she sat with it, unsealed, in her hands for some time. It was the first step. She glanced at the clock: five to seven. She would wait five more minutes.

  It was a difficult five minutes. Time seemed to slow down, minutes stretched out, se
lf-consciously, as though knowing they were being watched. Finally, the clock chimed the hour and she pulled out the sheets. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight: eight pages from Cora! Her heart soared.

  The letter was dated 15 September 1917. Sylvia lingered for a while on that date, making calculations: seven years after they had last seen each other . . . six years ago . . . and wasn’t that the time when Jack went missing? She read the first three words a few times over, out loud and slowly, knowing she could loiter there in safety: “My dear Sylvia . . . my dear Sylvia . . . my dear Sylvia . . .” It was a good start, a nice opening. She cast her eyes down over the page. Certain words sprang out: Cecily’s name, Jack’s name, the word blackmail and a few capitalized words, which appeared to her rather angry. She took a deep breath and began.

  My dear Sylvia,

  How very queer it feels to be penning a letter to you once more, and in the knowledge that by the time you read these words I shall be no more . . . for I am to ask Cecily to pass this on to you in the event of my death, which I fear cannot be too far away.

  Much has happened since we last saw each other & none of us I am certain could ever have imagined or begun to comprehend the obscene horror upon us now. I am unable to make any sense of the carnage & see only the WASTE. Like everyone else, I have prayed & pleaded with God, I begged him to keep Jack safe, to end this fighting, but my darling boy is “missing,” & though I try to keep Hope and Faith, to live within that state, God’s voracious appetite for young souls offers me no hope at all. I do not see my grandson returning & experience tells me I will not be spared.

  It is this sense of waste that has caused me to reflect upon my own life, & I see now only the brevity of our time here, that it lasts but a moment, & I begin to understand that the most important thing of all is to be TRUE to oneself . . . something I have struggled with, due perhaps to the absence of anyone to remind me & other things which I shall come on to. I realize also that before I am able to forgive myself I must forgive others . . . and so, dear Sylvia, I want you to know that I forgive you. Though I cannot condone your underhand tactics, & consider blackmail wholly immoral & beneath you or any decent human being, I am quite sure by now you bitterly regret such an undertaking. However, I know you were desperate, & I see also that I was much to blame. Furthermore, I know that you were not alone, & that the coincidence of another at the same time as yourself was unforeseen & not in your plan.