In Her Wake

by Amanda Jennings

  I turn and drop to my knees beside the dark circle of urine and reach for the towel that Dawn left next to it. I press it into the wetness. The smell is strong and I gag through my tears. The seat cushion needs washing, I realise. So I carry it, sopping wet, through to the kitchen to find Dawn scrubbing at the soup bowl and cup. Shame cuts through me. The pan is in the cupboard. What reason would I have had to wash, dry and put the pan away but leave the bowl, spoon, stained kitchen roll and empty soup can out?

  I open my mouth to speak, but Dawn gets there first.

  ‘Don’t. Even. Bother,’ she says spitting her words out as she rams the dishcloth into the sink. ‘You couldn’t even heat her soup?’ She spins away from me, picks up the already clean bowl and starts scrubbing at it again. ‘All these years and I’ve never not heated her food.’

  ‘I don’t know what happened. I—’

  ‘Shut your mouth.’

  She reaches for the bottle of bleach and undoes the cap. She pours the viscous green-tinged chemical liberally around the sink, then using her fingers she scrubs it around the stainless steel. I watch as the skin on her hand begins to turn pink. I want her to stop, but I can’t speak. I am frozen, mute with horror as she grinds her fingers into the neat bleach.

  I’m sorry, a voice inside me says. I’m so sorry.

  Guilt and humiliation tighten their grip on me and, however hard I bite on my lower lip and dig my nails into my palms, I can’t stop myself from crying. I lower my head in the hope she doesn’t notice.

  ‘Oh, yeah, that’s right. That’s perfect.’ Dawn snorts bitterly as she thrusts her hand around the sink with such ferocity that I worry she might tear her skin. ‘Turn the tears on.’ She shakes her head and drags her hand across her outraged face, and I notice the shining snail-trail of bleach just millimetres from her eye.

  ‘Dawn—’

  ‘Shut up.’ Her tone is low and ominous. ‘Get out of this flat.’

  ‘Please, I—’

  ‘That’s my mum you abused. I’ve cared for her all my shitty life. You’ve no idea what I had to give up to do it. I tore my soul in two to look after her. How could you do that? I wouldn’t treat a dog on the street like you treated my mum. You go on about how much you want to help and then two and a half hours. That’s all I asked for. Two and a half measly hours.’

  I don’t move, glued to the spot by remorse and fear. She walks over to me, leans into my face, so close I can feel her breath on my skin and smell the bleach on hers.

  ‘Get out of this flat, you silly little cow.’

  FORTY-TWO

  The only noise in the room is my breathing. The image of my mother sitting in her own urine is impossible to push away. I lie on my bed and stare upwards. As I do, the walls of the room begin to creep in on me. Little by little the ceiling comes nearer, the walls encroach, until I am lying in a crypt, the sheets are my shroud. I remind myself I am in a bedroom in a guest house in a town by the sea called St Ives and I turn on my side, curl myself into a ball and wait for sleep to take me away.

  A noise wakes me.

  I sit bolt upright and listen for it again, but all I can hear is my heart pounding and my breathing loud against the dark stillness. I look at my clock; it’s nearly three. Someone in the room. Someone watching me.

  I clench my fists, as a figure moves into the shaft of moonlight that streaks through the window.

  Tori.

  She moves silently. Sits on the end of my bed. Her blonde hair curls into soft ringlets at her shoulders. Her eyes are wide. Her skin is pale, white tinged with yellow, not a freckle nor a blemish on it.

  This isn’t a dream. Or at least it doesn’t feel like one. It’s as if she’s real, though I know she can’t be. It’s my mind playing tricks on me. It’s stress or exhaustion. She is watching me, blinking slowly, her hands lightly clasped on her lap. A clammy sweat spreads over my body and I rub my eyes, squint hard at her, but she doesn’t fade. There’s a smell in the room. I try to place it but can’t. It’s familiar and pleasant; it calms me, wraps me in a comforting cocoon, eases away the fear.

  Are you real or in my head?

  ‘You know,’ she says softly. ‘I loved you coming to see me.’ She lowers her gaze. ‘I used to look forward to it.’

  My skin prickles like nettle rash.

  And then she disappears like the seal, there one moment and gone the next.

  FORTY-THREE

  I wake with a nervous energy fizzing through me. My first thought is of Tori, of how she came to me last night, but I dismiss it. How silly to think of her as anything other than a figment of my imagination. I used to see her as broad as daylight when I was a child. We would play for hours. Have conversations. It is ridiculous to think anything of it. She was a hallucination, a reaction to stress. Nothing more than that.

  My main concern is Dawn. The thought of seeing her terrifies me. I can’t face her raw disappointment and anger again.

  Why didn’t I heat the soup?

  It would have taken a minute. Two minutes maximum. And not taking her to the toilet? It doesn’t bear contemplating.

  It’s pouring with rain and by the time I arrived at Phil’s café I’m soaked through. I take off my jacket and drops of water splatter the floor.

  ‘What a summer, eh?’ he says with a shake of his head.

  ‘What’s the word for rain?’ I ask, shaking my hair out.

  ‘Glaw,’ says Phil. ‘Morning, Tori.’

  ‘Myttin da, Phil.’

  ‘Aye, myttin da, nice one, love.’ He hands me a coffee and passes three sachets of sugar across the counter. I regard them for a moment or two then shake my head. ‘I won’t, thanks. I’m giving up sugar.’

  I sit in the window and repeat the word for rain over and over until it sticks.

  Glaw. Glaw.

  Glaw.

  The glaw cloaks the harbour in grey. The sea is grey, too, a fabulous gunmetal grey. The beach holds a single stalwart family, the children seemingly oblivious to the downpour, playing happily, wheeling about in large circles. The parents are dressed as if it’s January, clutching takeaway tea and huddled under a golf umbrella.

  I sip my coffee; if I could stay in town all day I would. The idea of facing the flat makes me feel queasy.

  ‘Can you teach me another word?’ I say to Phil as he clears the dead cups and crumbed plates from the table beside me.

  Phil puts his tray down and rubs his chin. ‘OK, try this one. Dwy genes.’

  ‘Say it again?’

  ‘Doo. Gen. Ez,’ he repeats slowly.

  ‘Dwy genes,’ I say. ‘Got it.’ I blow across the top of my coffee. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘That means goodbye, love. Dwy genes. Goodbye.’

  ‘And one more.’

  He laughs. ‘You think you’ll remember another?’

  ‘Make it an easy one.’

  ‘An easy one…’ He pauses, thinking. ‘Try ov vy. Ov. Vy. You’d say Tori ov vy.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘I am,’ he says. ‘I am Tori.’

  I say the words over in my head.

  Ov vy. Ov vy. I am.

  Who am I?

  Ov vy who?

  ‘No. Not that. Something else,’ I say. ‘I won’t remember that.’

  He doesn’t question me. ‘What about sewena, then?’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Yes, cheers is good,’ I say as I raise my coffee cup. ‘Sewena.’

  ‘Sewena, love.’ And he lifts a pretend glass to me.

  ‘Phil?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What brought you down here?’

  ‘To Cornwall?’

  I nod.

  ‘To be honest there’s not much to say. My life took a turn and I ended up coming here.’

  ‘Go on,’ I say. ‘If you don’t mind. I’m interested.’

  He hesitates. ‘Where do I start? I had a good life. No, better than good, it was great. Gorgeous wife, clever, fun, she
was everything to me and I loved her more than anything else in the world.’ He smiles at distant memories. ‘I had a nice house, great job, two kids who’d finished school and were starting out on their own. I was happy. I even had a job I loved. I was dead lucky.’

  He turns away from me and peels the cling film off a metal tub of grated cheese.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Restructuring. I was non-profitable.’

  ‘You lost your job?’

  ‘I did. The boss told me I had two weeks. Eighteen years I’d given them and only one sick day in all my time.’ He pauses and scratches his chin. ‘I left that afternoon with a cardboard box and a pocket money pay-out.’ He sighs. ‘I’m not proud of it, but after that I sort of hit the rocks. Slumped on the sofa, didn’t shave, watched telly day and night. My wife got me through it. She was incredible. She let me mope for a while, and then one day, out of the blue, she marches in, turns the box off, puts me in the tub, then drives me down to the job centre. Said she’d had enough of seeing me with a face as long as a horse. Said I’d find something, anything to get me out and about and smiling again.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘No, love.’ He laughs. ‘But the wife did. Three weeks later she left me for the bloke behind the desk at the job centre.’

  ‘That’s tough,’ I breathe.

  ‘I had nothing left, so I upped and left, and came down here to start over. Saw this place needed someone and here I am.’ He unwraps another metal container.

  ‘Why Cornwall?’

  ‘Seemed the furthest place away. It was here or Scotland and I reckoned Scotland would be chillier.’

  ‘Do you miss her?’

  Phil nods. ‘Every day. You can’t turn off love, that’s the tragedy.’

  I am quiet while I finish my coffee.

  ‘Did she marry him?’

  ‘The guy in the job centre?’

  I nod.

  ‘No, they only lasted a month. Not even that.’ He doesn’t sound bitter or angry, more resigned. ‘She reckons she wants to get back with me.’

  ‘Why don’t you? If you love her, surely that’s all that matters.’

  He shakes his head sadly. ‘Too much water’s passed under our bridge. It’s difficult to fix a broken heart. You always see the scar. It wouldn’t be the same.’

  ‘Maybe it doesn’t have to be the same?’

  ‘I’m happy enough here. This is my home now. There’s no going back. It no doubt sounds daft to you, but one day you’ll understand.’

  I understand him perfectly right now. I understand about not going back and about water and bridges and things not being the same.

  I smile at him. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Phil. Dyw genes.’

  ‘Aye, dyw genes, love. And you keep dry, eh?’

  I peer through the window. ‘I’ll try,’ I say, knowing full well there is no hope of that. I put my damp jacket on and ready myself for the rain and the flat and for Dawn.

  FORTY-FOUR

  A car drives past me, splashing through a puddle on the side of the road. The sound of the tyres in the rain triggers a memory. Just a flash. But it’s vivid and it stops me in my tracks.

  It’s raining hard. I can hear windscreen wipers and the sound of the wheels is loud but muffled. There are voices. They are talking. Their voices are low and tight. I can’t hear their words. It’s Elaine and Henry. At least I think it is. I can’t see anything. Something is covering me. Or is it? Maybe I have my eyes shut. No. No, there’s something over me, a rug or a blanket, because I can’t breathe easily. My breath is hot and damp. The rug smells musty, like old carpets. I want to take it off but I can’t. She told me not to. Told me to stay put. Not to move. There was the same fire in her eyes as his. Like the other man’s. Henry? No. The other man. So I stay under the cover, breathing in my own hot air, listening to the sound of the rain and the windscreen wipers and the two of them talking in strangled voices.

  FORTY-FIVE

  I don’t move for a while. I stand in the rain, my hair plastered to my skin, water running down the back of my jacket, over my lips, soaking me to the skin. I don’t know what to think. That was a memory. Clear as anything. Why now? Why has it only come to me now?

  Dawn says nothing when she opens the door. Instead she fixes me with an expressionless look then turns and walks away. I hover on the doorstep, water from the cracked guttering falling on me in a trail of monotonous drops.

  I go into Alice’s room, but having closed the door behind me, I find it hard to look at her without seeing the pool of urine collected beneath her chair like Henry’s pool of blood. I pick up the mermaid book and turn to The Merrymaid of Zennor, then I sit on the floor beside her, my back resting against her chair, and begin to read, allowing myself to be pulled into the story, the familiar words cosying around me.

  My heart aches for Morveren and Matthew as they run from the braying villagers. What if they’d been caught? What if the people had held Matthew down as he kicked and cried to be with his lover, while she was forced back to the ocean to live without true love for eternity? I will them on to their blissful freedom, desperate to see them disappear into the watery blackness, their hands clasped, her muscular tail thrusting them forward to their peaceful forever.

  I hear a noise and glance up; Dawn is standing in the now open doorway. I scramble to my feet and hurriedly put the book back on the shelf.

  ‘About yesterday—’ I begin.

  ‘Let’s get something straight,’ she says, looking at something just above my head. ‘There is nothing you can say that can excuse what happened. I know you didn’t do it on purpose, but I don’t want to talk about it because if we do, I can’t promise I won’t chuck you out for good.’

  Her eyes, the colour of frosted grass, fix on me, and I nod. Then she pulls her ponytail tighter and I notice her hands are the colour of raw steak and on one there is a sore that looks wet with clear fluid where the skin has broken.

  Dawn walks out of the room and a few moments later reappears with a large carrier bag under one arm and carrying a small tray with two mugs and a loaf cake in a plastic wrapper in the other. She places the tray on the bed then reaches into the bag and pulls out a package exquisitely wrapped in shiny striped paper. She hands it to me.

  ‘Happy birthday.’

  I don’t understand at first. I watch her reach into the bag and take out a bottle.

  ‘It’s not champagne, but it’s fizzy.’ She takes out the cork, which pops weakly, and pours some into both of the mugs. ‘Well,’ she says, nodding at the present in my hands. ‘Open it then.’

  ‘But it’s not my birthday.’

  She doesn’t say anything, instead she holds one of the mugs out towards me.

  ‘My birthday’s in September.’ I persist. ‘The second.’

  Dawn takes a deep breath and shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Your birthday’s today. June the eighteenth. You’re twenty-eight.’

  ‘I’m already twenty-eight. I’m going to be twenty-nine on the second of September.’

  It can’t be my birthday. I can’t be a summer baby, I’m an autumn baby. I’m a Virgo, modest, shy and diligent. I read it in zodiac book of Elaine’s when I was younger. I can be a worrier, sometimes overcritical, observant. I’m a typical Virgo. June would make me a Gemini. How can I be a Gemini? I don’t know anything about being a Gemini.

  I feel disoriented. Hollowed out. I haven’t even considered I’d have a different birthday to the one we marked without excitement each year. But of course, Elaine and Henry Campbell would have no idea when my real birthday was. I think back over all those birthdays past. Henry shut away in his study or away at a conference or in the garden up by the oak tree. Elaine always tired and unconvincingly blaming the passing of summer. Never any fuss. Just a cake with plain candles and a single present. I’d grown up thinking my parents just didn’t do birthdays. We were Christmas people, like we were cat people and Cotswold holiday cottage people. But now I knew. They didn’t cele
brate it because it wasn’t real. It was fabricated. An annual reminder of their duplicity.

  ‘Morveren?’ Dawn is beside me. Her face has softened and she puts her arms around me with such genuine warmth I can’t help my tears.

  ‘I’m so sorry about yesterday.’

  ‘I know.’

  I pull away from her and dry my eyes on my sleeve. ‘If it’s my birthday today, what’s the second of September?’

  Dawn shrugs.

  ‘The day I went missing?’

  ‘No. You went missing in August. August the fifteenth.’ Dawn pulls a tatty piece of folded paper from her pocket and holds it out to me. ‘Your birth certificate. I thought it might help.’

  ‘But I’ve got a birth certificate. I used it for—’ But of course, the one I used for my university application form isn’t my real birth certificate, is it? How could it be? I feel so stupid.

  ‘It had to be a fake.’

  ‘Can you do that?’

  ‘It’s only a piece of paper. He was a doctor. Probably had a dodgy friend in the registry office.’ Her lip curls with spite as she mentions the word doctor. ‘Money can buy you anything, can’t it?’

  Standing beside my real mother, on the anniversary of the day she pushed me into this hideous world, I feel more wronged by the Campbells than ever before. I take the birth certificate and carefully unfold it. It’s worn and fragile, with holes down the creases.

  Date of birth: June 18th 1986.

  Place of birth: Truro.

  Sex: Female.

  Father’s name: Mark Robert Tremayne.

  Mother’s name: Alice Frances Tremayne.

  I refold the birth certificate and lay it on the table beside Alice’s bed. Then I pick up the mug of sparkling wine.

  ‘Sewena,’ I whisper.

  We clink mugs. ‘Happy birthday, Morveren.’ She taps the present. ‘Go on, open it. It’s from me and Mum.’

  ‘It’s beautifully wrapped,’ I say, leaning over and putting the mug down so I can open the gift.