‘I want to show her the mermaid’s chair.’ I nudge Dawn to one side and take the handles again. ‘The Merrymaid. I thought she might like to see her.’ I wipe my bare arm across my forehead. ‘God, it’s hot.’
Dawn is dragging her feet like a petulant teen.
‘You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to. You can go and get a drink in the pub and wait for us if you truly can’t bear it.’
She perks up at this idea. ‘Really? Yes, I think I’ll do that instead. Do you want me to get a drink for you, too?’
‘Please come in with us.’
Her lips tighten and she looks away from me, over the trees behind the church.
‘Look, Dawn, it’s for Mum. You said she used to come here all the time to sit by that carved pew.’ Dawn scuffs her toe against a pebble on the path. ‘Maybe seeing the Merrymaid will help. What if she draws strength from her?’ I remember how I felt when I had my own hand pressed against the carving.
‘Draw strength from her?’ Dawn scoffed.
‘Or,’ I say, as frustration overspills. ‘We could get that grumpy taxi driver back, take her home, and shut her in that room for another twenty years.’ I stare at the miserable face of my sister. ‘In fact, why don’t we stick up all those bits of newspaper again? We could even nail the window shut, I mean, trust me, I know how well that works if you want to keep someone inside.’
And then she turns on her heel and walks away from me, pulling the gate closed behind her. It doesn’t shut properly, but clatters against the frame and swings back open.
‘Suit yourself,’ I whisper, and start to push the wheelchair towards the door of the church, the wheel clicking rhythmically as we go.
When I reach the church I pause before opening the heavy door with a prickling anticipation. The air inside is still cool, in spite of the heat outside, reason enough, in my mind, to go in. I allow my vision to adjust to the darkness, enjoying the stillness that cloaks us. I think back to the first time I stepped into this church, a time before Dawn and before my mother, before Bristol and Mark Tremayne.
I push Alice as close as I can to the pew.
‘Look, Mum’
She slowly turns her head towards the carving. I watch her face for signs of recognition. I take her frail hand in mine and pull it towards the carving. Her fingers reach the polished wood and I guide them over the mermaid’s face and hair, then downward to the tip of her tail.
‘That’s the Merrymaid. That’s Morveren.’
She gives an imperceptible smile, just the corners of her mouth. But it neither blooms nor holds.
‘Speak to me,’ I whisper. ‘Just one word.’
I want to be able to burst out into the heat and announce a victory, that the carving has brought back speech to our dumbstruck mother, that it was a miracle and Dawn the doubting Thomas.
‘Please, Mum.’ I lift her hand to my face and stroke it down the length of my cheek.
Outside, Dawn is leaning against the wall of the pub, huddled in the shade, hunched and sullen-looking.
‘It was lovely in the church,’ I announce. ‘Cool. You should have come in.’
Dawn ignores me but shoves herself off the wall and walks with me down the lane towards the coastal path. Dawn’s mood and my irritation make conversation impossible. This isn’t how I imagined our first family trip out.
‘Dawn, this is daft. We came here for a walk, not to be annoyed with each other. Let’s forget all that, shall we?’
After a long pause she nods and smiles, only a slight smile, but a smile nonetheless. But despite our truce, we still don’t speak as we push Alice onwards. The cows are still munching in their fields, surrounded by clouds of flies that don’t seem to bother them. The air is salt and heat and silage. It’s like the summer afternoons I remember as a child, sitting on the lawn at The Old Vicarage with the sun on my back as I picked blades of grass and tried to make a whistling sound by holding them taut between my thumbs and blowing.
‘Look!’ I say, forgetting any remnants of tension. ‘Up there! Some sort of bird of prey.’
‘Where?’
I pull Dawn over to me and point.
‘There,’ I whisper. ‘Can you see?’
Dawn is quiet for a few seconds as she scans the sky. Then she nods. ‘I can see it,’ she says. ‘It’s a sparrowhawk.’
We shield our eyes from the sun and watch the bird, which hovers noiselessly, high above our heads, its wings outstretched as it hangs in the air, shunted upwards by the intermittent nudge of a thermal. Its gaze is fixed on something that no doubt scurries or scampers or hops on the ground below it.
‘It’s going to dive,’ Dawn says.
The hawk locks onto its prey. I hold my breath as it tucks its wings tight into its body and falls like lead shot from the sky. We wait for it to emerge from the undergrowth but there’s no sign.
‘It’s gone,’ I say and begin to walk on.
‘No, she’s there.’
I follow Dawn’s outstretched finger and see the bird flying upwards with what looks like a baby rabbit trapped in its talons. The bird wavers in the air as the desperate creature struggles for life. Its efforts are futile. The hawk has it. And I feel the razor claws digging deep into its velveteen body.
‘Poor thing,’ Dawn whispers.
‘The hawk needs to eat.’
‘Still,’ she says.
We continue on and soon the sea comes gloriously into sight, sunlight spilled across it like melted butter on glass.
‘I didn’t want to go in the church because—’ she says.
‘It’s fine; there’s no need to explain.’
‘No, I want to tell you. I hate that place. I hate it because … last time I went there was your funeral. And even seeing that church brings it all flooding back.’
‘Oh,’ I say, thinking back to the path I’d just walked along with headstones either side. One of those stones was mine. A shiver runs through me and I take a few deep breaths as if proving to myself that I’m not dead.
‘That was the day she began to shut down. She began spending more and more time sitting in a chair looking out of the window. Collecting mermaid pictures from magazines. She stopped talking. Even when I spoke to her, the best I got was a smile that was barely there. Anyway,’ she says with a sniff. ‘I didn’t fancy going in to the church again. Too many bad memories.’
‘I should have thought. I’m sorry.’
She shrugs.
We reach the point where the tarmac turns to footpath. The path is too narrow and stony to get the wheelchair down, but there’s a small bench to the left-hand side with enough room to squeeze the wheelchair in beside. We sit for a while in comfortable silence, looking out over the cove below with its turquoise waters and slip of white sand revealed by the retreating tide.
Occasional walkers pass by and we nod and smile politely at each other, acknowledging the spectacular scenery we temporarily share. I tip my face upwards into the sun and listen to the soft breathing of the two people beside me.
When I open my eyes I see Alice is staring out to sea. There’s something about her. Her gaze is focused, not blank, as if she’s actually looking at the sea or maybe the seagulls that wheel noiselessly out towards the horizon.
I reach over and stroke her hand. ‘Isn’t it beautiful, Mum?’
And then she slowly turns her head and smiles.
FORTY-NINE
Over the next few weeks she seems to continue to improve. There is a closeness growing that I could never have predicted that first day I walked into her bedroom, with its stale atmosphere and eerie silence, and saw that wasted stranger in her faded dressing gown staring at cut-outs on the wall.
Dawn and I have settled into a comfortable routine. Mum is listening to things we say. We’ve both seen her mouth twitch into something akin to a smile since that time on the clifftop. The first time I saw it I screamed. I couldn’t help myself. Dawn came running, thinking some sort of disaster had befallen, and when I tol
d her what I’d seen, she shook her head in disbelief.
This week she has begun to walk almost without help, a hand resting on one of our arms, her slippered feet shuffling. I am now utterly convinced it’s merely a matter of time, of strengthening her withered muscles, of continuing to talk to her, until she recovers more fully.
We take her out each day. A taxi picks us up and drives us out to the cliffs on the outskirts of St Ives or to the paths around the disused tin mines at Botallack, their sad, redundant chimneys rising out of the salty clumps of grass, a monument to a time when the area’s industry flourished. Dawn worries about the expense of the taxis but I tell her not to think about it; it’s the least the Campbells can do.
Two days ago we went to Marazion. The causeway out to St Michael’s Mount – exposed at low tide to allow an army of selfie-obsessed tourists to swarm across for National Trust cake – was uneven and seaweed-slippery. It gave Dawn the jitters.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No way.’
‘We’ll be either side of her; she won’t fall.’
‘Not worth it. And what are we going to do when we get over there anyway? Hike up the Mount with her on our backs?’
I am experimenting with Mum’s diet. At first I tried her on soft stuff, like Bird’s custard and yoghurt. Last night I attempted a Shepherd’s Pie. It wasn’t great but she seemed to like it. Dawn stood in the corner of the kitchen biting what’s left of her nails and watching us.
‘I don’t think that type of food is good for her.’
‘She looks great on it.’
‘Her digestion’s delicate, you know.’
I didn’t reply. As far as I can see it, Alice needs as much variety as we can give her. And I have discovered that I love cooking. I haven’t ever really cooked before. Elaine never let me near the oven. Occasionally she would hand me a wooden spoon with cake batter on it, but that was as close to cooking as she’d let me get. And since I married David he’s done it all. He says I’m not allowed anywhere near ‘his kitchen’.
‘A chef’s domain is his castle,’ he likes to say. ‘And as you can’t even boil an egg, I suggest it’s better for everyone if you leave the cooking to me.’
So I let him get on with it. I wish I hadn’t. I didn’t realise how much I enjoyed it.
And anyway it got to a point where I couldn’t take the smell of soup any longer. One day, about ten days ago, it actually made me retch, so I popped into the lovely bookshop in St Ives and asked the woman if she could recommend a recipe book.
‘What type of food?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Home cooking, maybe? Something a person who can’t even boil an egg can follow.’
She suggested two and I bought them both. I had this idea that I would read recipes out of the books to Mum, then cook what we’d read about. And this is what we do. I sit beside her, open one of the new books and run my finger down the index until something jumps out at me.
Today it’s a recipe for risotto.
‘Perfect. You’ll love risotto, Mum.’
I begin to read, breaking off to talk to her, hoping to engage her, hoping she’ll be interested enough to reply.
‘…So, making sure it’s well mixed. I have to remember to do that, Mum, to mix it well. Leave the risotto for five minutes, by which time the eggs and crème fraîche will have thickened. Oh, that sounds delicious. We’ll definitely enjoy this. Serve with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese and if you’re feeling particularly decadent some garlic bread. And voilá!’
I finish reading, close the book, and jump to my feet. ‘I need to get a few ingredients from the shops. Risotto coming up.’ I kiss her forehead and she tilts her face towards me a little. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
‘That seems an awful lot of things to buy. It’s a bit of a faff, isn’t it?’ says Dawn, peering over my shoulder at the list I’m writing.
‘I don’t mind,’ I say. ‘Do you need anything?’
Dawn shakes her head.
Ten minutes later I am at the Co-op.
‘Say it again, dear,’ says the lady on the checkout, putting a finger to her ear.
‘Arborio?’
‘No, dear, I’ve not got any of that.’ She shakes her soft grey perm. ‘You’d need to go to Penzance or most likely the big M&S on the Hayle roundabout. They do fancy things like that.’
I thank her and then go back to the rice and pasta section and grab a box of long grain.
‘Will that do the job?’ asks the lady doubtfully, as she picks it out of my basket to scan it.
‘I can’t get to Penzance or Hayle, so it will have to. I’m sure it’ll be fine. Cooking’s all about being flexible, isn’t it?’ She looks at me in a way that suggests she thinks not.
I tell Dawn to sit down while I make the supper.
‘No, I’ll help.’
I smile at her. ‘I’m fine, I think. Thanks though. Why don’t you have a bath or a read? This’ll take,’ I peer at the recipe, ‘twenty minutes.’
The cat winds herself around my ankles, mewing for food. I open a tin for her and stroke her as she tucks in, purring loudly. The tang of cat food hits me and from nowhere my stomach turns over in a light wave of queasiness. I pull my head back from the smell and wince.
‘I didn’t realise that stuff smelt so bad,’ I say to the cat. ‘Sorry you have to eat it every day. I’ll pick you up some chicken tomorrow.’
The cat lifts her head and regards me, blinks twice, then returns to her food.
When the risotto is cooked, I put a bowlful on the tray along with a glass of water, and carry it through to mum.
‘Do you want me to do that?’ Dawn says, appearing at the door as I start to feed her. ‘As you’ve cooked it. I don’t mind.’
‘We’re doing fine,’ I say, as I help a forkful of rice into Mum. I grin as she opens her mouth like a well-behaved baby bird. ‘Look how much she likes this!’
Dawn perches on the edge of the bed behind us. She is uptight, fidgeting and twitchy.
‘She doesn’t need that fancy food you know.’
I gather a forkful of rice.
‘It’s expensive. Money doesn’t grow on trees.’
‘I bought it so it didn’t cost you anything.’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘Please don’t worry about it,’ I say, trying to keep my voice light. ‘I’m happy to spend it.’
I turn back to Mum and smile. Watching her change, feeling my love for her growing stronger as she does, fills me with pleasure. Her skin is plumping up, a layer of fat gathering under its translucent flimsiness, as if she’s a balloon inflating. Her hair seems less brittle, her eyes clearer, her lips tinted a soft rose pink, though this maybe a figment of my imagination. I have never had to care for anyone in my life and it feels good.
‘There we go, Mum. It’s not quite right because they had the wrong rice at the shop, but it’s OK, isn’t it? I’ve left some for mine and Dawn’s supper too.’
‘You’ll have to tell people who you are soon.’
Her words make my stomach turn over. I turn to look at Dawn, who is standing with her arms tightly crossed, her mouth a thin, tight line, then turn away. I consider her words and their implied collision of reality and fiction as I play the fork around the edge of the risotto on the plate. I don’t want even to think about going public. I’d be stuck as Morveren for good. There would be no escaping back to Bella’s life. No hiding out in Tori’s. I’d be a victim of the nation’s sympathy, a social-media pawn, my face splashed all over that tiny black-and-white screen that flickers in the corner of the kitchen. I imagine David’s face as he reads about it. Phil, desperate to act normal, as he hands me my coffee and tries to talk about the weather. Then Greg and Fi and the girl behind the bar in the pub, all discovering I’m not the glamorous journalist but some mousy librarian with a tragic past.
‘Not yet,’ I say. ‘It doesn’t need to come out yet, does it? It won’t make anything easier for any of us.’ I gather the plate and fork an
d empty glass onto the tray.
‘It will come out, you know.’
‘Yes, but when we’re ready. We’re doing well, aren’t we? Like this? Why does anyone need to know?’
‘They don’t. I’m just saying things like this get out.’
And then we hear it. Scarcely audible, thin, but there nonetheless.
You’ve grown so much.
‘Oh my god,’ I breathe.
I drop to my knees beside Alice and grab her hand. Dawn is beside me, crouched on the other side of the armchair.
Alice looks at me with her pale watery eyes. ‘You’ve grown so much.’
‘Oh, Mum,’ I say, my voice cracking with emotion. ‘It’s been a few years.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Dawn whispers.
‘You came back,’ Mum says, rocking as if in a gentle breeze.
‘So did you.’ I lean forward and kiss her hand, letting my lips linger on her smooth, papery skin.
‘They said you were dead,’ she says, her eyes drifting to the rectangles of space where the mermaids and headlines used to be. ‘I knew you weren’t.’
FIFTY
I think Craig and I both know that he’s guessed the truth. After all, I’ve let myself in with the spare key Dawn gave me, and I’m not sure there’s any good reason for Tori-the-journalist to have free and easy access to the flat. Nevertheless we continue the charade.
‘You here again?’ he asks, as I put my bag on the table. There’s a casual air about him as he opens and closes the sticking kitchen drawer that Dawn’s asked him to fix. ‘More questions for the magazine?’
‘Dawn is the only friend I’ve made here. She probably doesn’t want me popping in all the time,’ I say with a smile.
He bends down and peers at the drawer, then gives it a gentle shake. ‘A girl like you? You must make lots of friends.’
I laugh.
‘Well, I’m glad,’ he says. He smiles at me over his shoulder. ‘It’s good for her.’
‘Is she here?’
‘She’s gone into town,’ he says. He reaches into a leather tool bag for a red-handled screwdriver. ‘She’s goes to the bank each month to draw money.’
In Her Wake Page 24
