The Unforgotten

by Laura Powell

  His tongue clicks against the side of his mouth as he opens his lips to reply but she interrupts him, scared of what he might say.

  ‘Or that Bible story, I’m sure you remember it. The one with the baby and the two women – two prostitutes or were they two queens? You know, they both say it’s theirs.’

  She realises she is talking very quickly; she isn’t sure whether she even sounds legible or whether the sentence has merged into a single bloated, nonsensical word.

  ‘Didn’t the king suggest they cut the baby in half. And one said yes, the other said no?’ She pauses. ‘I can’t quite remember the rest or what she said—’

  ‘And she said, “O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it.” But the other said, “Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.” Then the king answered and said, “Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. She is the mother thereof.” Kings, chapter three.’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispers.

  ‘You said you had to make a choice?’

  ‘How do you know? If it was the right one.’

  She can hear him breathe out slowly.

  ‘That verse continues: “And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment…”’ He speaks a little louder, as if moving closer to the grid between them. ‘Sometimes we must listen and let ourselves be guided.’

  ‘Guided?’

  ‘Sometimes a decision can be too great to make alone.’

  There is another long pause. She sits on her hands and wonders how to word it. How would you know about decisions and choices? What does guided even mean? Guided, how? What could you possibly know, sitting here and spending your days inside this little, safe box? Whatever she says will sound angry; best she say nothing at all.

  ‘This was a mistake,’ she says, jumping to her feet and almost banging her head on the ceiling. ‘Jerry will be wanting his supper.’

  ‘It’s all right, Mrs Sugden.’

  ‘I need to get home and marinate the lamb.’

  ‘Mrs Sugden, why don’t you—’

  She steps out and gulps the clean, pale air. The church is exactly as she left it, her two blue bags still on the front pew. She grabs them and hurries for the door.

  The sky is still steely but the traffic has thickened. One streetlamp has flickered on, colouring the pavement a strange watermelon pink. Someone is pulling down a squeaky metal shutter over the door of a vegetable shop. A boy scoots past it wearing a blue raincoat and clutching the handlebars of his silver scooter while a woman, his mother probably, holds his hood. Mary watches them carefully as she walks behind them, or glides perhaps, for she doesn’t notice her tread or the firmness of the pavement beneath her shoes.

  Then she is off the high street and onto a quieter road of Georgian semis that she has passed countless times before but somehow never noticed until now. The traffic is thinner here and the pavement is slick with crunchless leaves. In front of her, no more than forty steps away, is the mouth of the cul-desac – her cul-de-sac; a deceiving word for something so plain.

  Fifty-four steps and she could be at her front door, the key in the newly greased lock. Sixty-two steps and she could be in her kitchen, trimming fat off the cutlets, rubbing them with rosemary and that sandpapery sea salt Cath bought her for Christmas. Perhaps she could switch on the radio; that would shut it all out. But would it? If she concentrated hard enough, could she really make herself believe that she never saw those newspapers and that she has been nowhere all day but inside that safe, square kitchen of hers with her drawer of polished teaspoons and sharpened steak knives and neatly stacked salad forks?

  ‘Give me a hand with this, love,’ says a hard voice.

  Mary is suddenly aware that she is sitting down, but has no recollection of doing so. She can still see the cul-de-sac but it is further away and slanted sideways. Her polythene bags are on the pavement, and her bottom and thighs and back are pressed against a cold metal patio chair – someone else’s patio chair. She is reaching down, her shoes are kicked off, and she is rubbing her bunion through her stockings.

  ‘Yoo hoo, are you asleep down there?’

  Mary notices a pair of feet, which must belong to the voice. They are squashed inside pink stilettos, a half moon of blister spilling over the top. Mary looks up further. There is a pink leather skirt, so shiny she might see her own reflection in it if she stared. Above that are two balled fists on the figure’s hips. Up more and she sees the tips of the woman’s stiff yellow perm; a pair of soft chins; then two eyes, frowning and etched with age lines and kohl.

  ‘I said, ARE YOU ASLEEP DOWN THERE?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Mary slipping, on her shoes quickly and pulling herself upright. ‘This must be your chair.’

  ‘Yes, and it’s my pub an’ all. So if you’re not going to buy a drink or help me carry this table inside, you can bloody well move on.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Mary. And, to her surprise, she is ready to cry.

  She reaches inside her pocket for a tissue and feels something gathering in her chest, pushing its way down into her stomach, then back up towards her throat making her choke and splutter, but tears still don’t come. Tears never come. She can’t remember when she last cried.

  Mary’s feet don’t quite reach the floor. They dangle off the high barstool, her elbows propped on the sticky bar.

  ‘You look like you could do with one of these,’ says the landlady.

  She stands behind the bar, pouring a bottle of something golden brown into two glasses.

  ‘I should go home,’ says Mary, not moving.

  ‘You live across the road, don’t you? I’ve seen you walk past but you never come in.’

  Mary is wondering how to reply. There is a loud smack as the landlady sets down the tumblers on the bar.

  ‘Chin, chin,’ she says and flings back her head, draining her glass.

  She looks at Mary expectantly.

  ‘I don’t drink alcohol.’

  ‘So that’s why you look so uptight,’ says the landlady and grins.

  Mary doesn’t smile back. For so many years, its burning, chemical smell alone was enough to make her skin itch and her throat sting. There is another long pause.

  ‘People tell me things, you know,’ says the landlady. ‘Whatever it is won’t shock me.’

  Mary frowns. How do you know I have something shocking to tell, she wants to say. She automatically glances down at her left breast. Then she picks up the glass and necks the liquid. It stings the back of her throat, making her cough. But the burning is vaguely familiar, and soothing too in its way.

  ‘You could tell me you’d just murdered a man and I’d have probably heard worse.’

  ‘What if I told you I covered up a murder?’

  Mary is too shocked at her own words to meet the woman’s eye or look for her reaction.

  ‘Like I said, it’s difficult to shock me,’ says the landlady evenly.

  Mary frowns. Don’t you want to know why, she wants to ask.

  ‘I’ve never told anyone that,’ she says instead, but more angrily than she intended.

  ‘You look like a nice, god-fearing lady,’ says the landlady, pouring a second round. ‘So you must have had your reasons.’

  ‘I was protecting someone,’ says Mary, staring into her glass. ‘An innocent man went to prison for twenty years because of me.’

  She wishes she could push the words back down her throat; she didn’t even sound remorseful, just emotionless and factual, as though she were reading a definition aloud from the Oxford English Dictionary. The landlady still says nothing. If she were admitting all this to Jerry, she knows exactly what he would reply: ‘Go to bed, my dearest. You’re just having one of your not quite right days.’ He and Cath said that a lot, as though not quite right days were in the Oxford English Dictionary too, just above the definition of not quite right people.

  Mary swallows t
he second glass of whisky and enjoys the way it scorches her throat. She doesn’t cough this time but her eyes fog over making the landlady look featureless and fuzzy.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask why?’ says Mary, staring at her but not properly seeing her. ‘Or how I live with myself?’

  The woman shrugs.

  ‘We all do strange things for the men we love.’

  ‘Love? I haven’t said anything about men or love!’

  She refills the glasses again without looking at Mary. This time, she only stops pouring when they are full to the lip. Mary sips it.

  ‘I don’t know why I told you that,’ she says eventually. ‘I haven’t even told my husband.’

  ‘We all pick and choose what we tell our other halves, love,’ snorts the landlady.

  ‘I’m not like you,’ she says, then flushes. ‘Sorry, that’s not what I meant.’

  The landlady shrugs. Mary finishes her drink then sets the glass on the bar. Her insides are very hot, as though a fire has started in her gut and is slowly curling its way upwards.

  ‘It’s just… I was so sure I’d done the right thing. Then today I saw that poor man’s face for the first time in goodness knows how many years – decades. And it made me think; how could I have done that? How can choosing one man’s life over another ever be OK?’

  ‘Listen love, it’s done. You either live with it or you do something about it.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for that,’ says Mary in a high voice and half laughs.

  ‘It’s never too late.’ The landlady swirls her glass and stares inside it. ‘This chappy you covered up for; he must have been something really special to be worth all that?’

  Mary winces. Even now, she can’t bring herself to picture his face again.

  ‘It was a long time ago,’

  ‘Still, if you’re not sure whether you did the right thing, find out,’

  ‘You make it sound so simple.’

  The landlady shrugs again and turns around to wipe glasses with a grey dishcloth.

  ‘Anyway that would mean…’ Mary trails off.

  She knows his address by heart, though she has never visited him. It was more a comfort to carry it with her, knowing she could see him if she needed to. She never imagined she would. Mary glares at the landlady’s back, angry suddenly.

  ‘Forget what I told you,’ she says curtly. ‘I was just being silly and emotional.’

  She rummages in her handbag for her purse and slaps a note on the bar, just as the pub door swings open and a man shuffles in, his chin buried into his chest and his back curled over his walking stick. The landlady glances at him briefly then leans over the bar to Mary; so close Mary is forced to breathe in her tobacco breath and her perfume that smells of dolly mixtures. Mary tries to focus on her but she is grey and fuzzy; the whole room is grey and fuzzy. Mary grips onto the edge of the bar and holds herself upright.

  ‘Listen,’ whispers the landlady in her smoky voice. ‘If I’ve learnt one thing from spending half my life listening to people from behind this bar, it’s that lies are worse than cancer. Trust me. They eat you up and poison you, so you either let them rest for good or you cut them out.’

  She fills Mary’s glass, then totters over to the old man at the far end of the pub who is gripping the bar and singing a lullaby in German.

  ‘One for the road,’ she calls.

  ‘Thank you,’ says Mary, but it doesn’t sound enough.

  She wishes she could untangle exactly what the landlady had meant but the words were woolly and had knitted together. All she knows is that this woman meant well and, for that, she is grateful.

  Two hours later, Mary spears the lamb with her fork and tries to focus on the conversation.

  ‘The point of the matter is,’ says Jerry, smacking the table, ‘Tony Blair’s had his day.’

  ‘Go on, I’m dying to hear where you’re going with this,’ smirks Leo, raising an eyebrow at his father-in-law.

  Mary fumbles for something to say but her head is still cloudy, a silhouette of someone printed in the centre. She presses closed her eyes and fights to see the figure’s face more clearly.

  ‘Look, you’re giving Mum a headache,’ cuts in Cath.

  ‘You might want to bury your head in the sand, Catherine, but those poor army boys on their way to Iraq can’t,’ cries Jerry in a rare burst of impatience.

  Cath glares at her father, then looks across the table to her daughter.

  ‘Holly, why don’t you tell your gran which universities you’re applying to?’

  ‘But I still haven’t decided.’

  ‘We’ve talked about this,’ says Cath warningly.

  ‘I don’t see what’s wrong with St Andrews. You’d swear I was suggesting Australia from the way you talk about it.’

  Mary nods encouragingly at them both but she has lost the thread. She can’t tell why Cath’s voice has an angry edge. Something about Iraq and St Andrew?

  ‘But I thought you agreed Reading would be far more sensible.’

  ‘No, that’s what you said. Actually, didn’t you grow up in Reading, Gran?’ says Holly, looking at Mary. ‘What do you think? I mean, what’s it like as a city?’

  ‘Lovely,’ says Mary with a vague nod.

  She hates lying. She could just blurt it out. She has never even been to Reading, everything I told you all about my past is a lie. She often wants to say that, but there would be too many questions. She chews on her lamb. It is tender, the way only Cath can make it.

  ‘What, so we should turn a blind eye? Withdraw from Iraq?’ cries Leo.

  Cath groans and stacks the dirty plates.

  ‘Let’s leave them to it,’ she says, heading for the kitchen.

  Mary follows, Holly close behind. They divide up the tasks without speaking: Holly at the dishwasher, Cath pulling foil from a dish of blackberry crumble and Mary making custard from powder. She mixes it on autopilot but when she comes to, the milk has stuck to the pan. Cath takes the wooden spoon from her and the custard is rescued. Holly sprays the worktops clean. They move fast; too fast for Mary these days.

  They carry in the bowls and dole out the crumble while Mary hovers behind, redundant. She realises that her right hand is touching the side of her left breast, her fingers pressing into it, the way she has taken to doing mindlessly to check the lump hasn’t grown bigger than an olive pit. She drops her hand quickly and looks around but no one seems to have noticed.

  Two more conversations tumble over one another but Mary can’t fully latch on to either. She looks at them all around the table; she should be proud that they are hers and that she brought them together this evening but something is lacking, as though she is their cumbersome guest, welcome but a stranger.

  She spoons up another mouthful. The crumble sears the roof of her mouth and a blister bubbles up.

  ‘You’re quiet tonight, Mum,’ says Cath.

  Her mouth is full. Scalding blackberries scorch her tongue, the blister is ready to pop. She doesn’t know what to say.

  ‘Yes, quiet,’ she manages but they still look at her expectantly. She rests her spoon on the lip of her dish. ‘There’s something I must tell you.’

  It is the right time, only she isn’t sure how to word it and which news to begin with. Perhaps, I did a terrible thing. I let a man go to prison knowing he was innocent. It’s no excuse but I did it to protect someone I love. Loved, she corrects herself. She looks at Jerry; poor, loving Jerry. She picks up her spoon.

  ‘I just wanted to thank Cath for saving the day and for making us such a delicious meal,’ she says. ‘And for marinating the lamb so beautifully and for this lovely crumble. Are the blackcurrants from the garden?’

  ‘Mum, they’re blackberries,’ says Cath frowning. ‘I bought them from Waitrose. You watched me make it.’

  Cath looks worried. They all look worried.

  ‘Oh, I was getting muddled. I made blackcurrant jam last week, didn’t I Jerry?’

  Jerry smiles uncertainly
and the others look into their bowls. Better she hadn’t spoken at all.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Gran?’ says Holly.

  ‘Bit headachey, that’s all.’

  ‘If you want to lie down, Mum,’ says Cath. ‘Dad said you—’

  ‘Will you all stop fussing,’ she shouts.

  The room is silent. Leo clinks his spoon against his dish. Mary blushes. She never raises her voice. Jerry mouths, ‘Are you OK?’ but she ignores him.

  ‘Did you see the news today?’ says Cath in her diplomatic way and Mary’s stomach leaps into her mouth. ‘Something about a school of dolphins being found in the Thames. Must be some sort of odd PR stunt.’

  Mary relaxes again, but only slightly.

  One hour later, Cath, Leo and Holly pile into their people carrier. After they have waved them off, Jerry locks the front door and the house rings with that silence. Mary starts humming again.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ says Jerry. ‘Maybe we should have Dr Griffiths check you over, after all.’

  ‘I’m fine. Just a funny five minutes earlier,’ she says, giving him a reassuring smile.

  ‘But you…’ he begins gently, then pauses. ‘You’ve been drinking.’

  ‘You drink all the time,’ she snaps. ‘Am I not allowed?’

  ‘Mary, you haven’t touched a drop for the forty-four years I’ve known you and today you stumble home drunk, smelling like a brewery. What in God’s name is wrong?’

  ‘I didn’t stumble… And if I did, it’s because the hall mat is all squiffy.’

  ‘Did something happen today? At the supermarket?’

  ‘Look, the corner is curled up. We should go to B&Q on Saturday and buy a new one.’

  ‘Or the nightmares. Is it to do with those?’

  ‘What about John Lewis? They’re probably nicer there, but they won’t be cheap.’

  ‘Mary!’

  He stands too close, peering into her face. She closes her eyes. If only she could step out onto the street and run along the dark roads away from this stifling house. She would keep running straight, her arms outstretched, until she hit grass and then sand and, at some point, the cold barrier of the ocean. She would keep running until she was beneath it, until it wrapped her up and held her.