How It Was

by Janet Ellis

  Chapter 18

  I must have dozed, because someone has cleared away the half-empty beaker of coffee and refilled the scratched plastic jug with water. The room is rudely impersonal. I’ll give the nurses something when this is over. We used to love the sort of visitor who rewarded us with boxes of chocolates or biscuits. Make sure you share them with the doctors, they’d say, but we never did. I look at the clock above Michael’s bed. Twenty to nine. His untouched meal lies on his table. I’d ordered it for him yesterday, when it seemed possible he might eat macaroni cheese. He’d been away on a business trip once and brought home a dark blue packet of spaghetti, about two feet long. He produced a little piece of Parmesan cheese to go with it. He’d described how the shop was hung with huge, red hams and dotted with baskets of biscuits and sweets in coloured twists of paper, as if he’d visited a place of worship. I’d wrestled the strands into and out of boiling water as best I could, but some of them stuck hard to the bottom of the pan. The raw sweat smell of the cheese clung to my hands for hours afterwards.

  The doctor comes in, on his ward rounds. He’s young, of course. ‘Can I have a word?’ he says. ‘Outside?’ We stand in the corridor. ‘We’ll have to make a decision,’ he says. ‘About the mask.’ He looks at me then looks away quickly. He shouldn’t feel awkward, this is all we have to discuss.

  ‘Who has to decide?’ I say. ‘You?’

  The doctor takes a step back from me, as if I’d challenged him. ‘I’m not the senior registrar. He’s the person who’ll discuss it with you,’ he says.

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I mean, of course. I remember now. Sorry. I used to work in a hospital.’

  He looks at me.

  ‘I was a nurse,’ I say. I can see him trying to take in this new fact. His hair is a faint ginger red, the sort that will go grey without leaving a trace of this fiercer colour. He has matching freckles. I want to ask him if he likes dancing, if he has a girlfriend and if she stays awake until he gets home, waiting to talk to him. Or to have sex. The expression on his face suggests he cannot imagine this old woman in front of him being either younger, or a nurse.

  ‘Mr Deacon is sentient,’ he says. ‘He’s aware of what’s happening to him, he knows enough to express himself, to make decisions. But I can’t be the one to ask him. I’ll ask the registrar to pop in.’ He looks back at his notes. ‘Do you need to let anyone know what’s happening?’ He is trying to make sense of the situation.

  ‘Everyone who needs to know is being kept informed,’

  I say.

  He almost shrugs, but maintains his impassive stance.

  This will be how it’s done, then. A decision made first in some office, confirmed in a corridor and completed in a bed. Paperwork made flesh. There’s no suggestion of Michael leaving the hospital and going home to die, it’s more efficient if he finishes here. The gap between his death and the parcelling of him to the morgue will be closed more easily this way. I think of his last cup of coffee with me, the last time he listened to the radio in our garden, turning the aerial to find the signal. When I go home, I imagine that I’ll find his last, unfinished crossword puzzles and the last clothes he put in the laundry basket. ‘I’ll clear the room,’ he’d said to me before, in that previous, terrible time of loss. ‘You don’t have to touch anything, Moo.’ I’m filled with a dread of his absence now, made worse by the fact he still lives. I have always hated the bed half cold.

  The house we’d moved to in those days, when the children were little and Michael and I were young, stood in a semicircle of identical houses, just far enough apart to be described as detached. The other owners chose the same type of flowers for their front gardens and kept their curtains pulled apart to the same distance during the day. There had been local objections to this development, Sheila had told me. It would take years before our houses looked as if they should be here. There was a prim nervousness to them, as if they knew half the village disapproved. She’d moved here from an old cottage on the other side of the village. ‘Marvellous to have everything so neat,’ she’d said. ‘None of the walls in the old house were straight, Marion. It was full of character, of course, but you can’t get rid of damp with character.’

  Who lives there now? I wonder. We sold it to a man I didn’t much like. I didn’t meet his wife; he mentioned her in passing but never suggested she visit. I haven’t been back since, not even to that area. Too much has changed and vanished. I do know that I couldn’t wait to get home that day. I was in agony. One of my shoes rubbed at the heel. Their insides bulged with little pillows of padded fabric and caught my skin. When I’d bought them there was a cardboard advertisement propped up by the till, showing a woman gambolling through daffodils. She was attempting to point their blunt toes. At my last visit to Sarah’s school I’d noticed that the headmistress, a woman of robust dullness, was wearing an identical pair. The saleswoman said they’d be as comfortable as slippers. She lied, I thought, practically counting the steps until I was home. I would have to save from my housekeeping allowance even to get a new pair. As soon as I got through the door, I’d slip the wretched things off. The last few paces were agony.

  A car stood directly in front of the back gate. When we’d moved in, I’d thought that having a public footpath so close by was rather quaint. But people often left their cars at this last point before the road narrowed and the path began. It made opening our garden gate difficult and I felt observed as they clambered in and out, taking their time. There was someone standing next to the car as I approached, his hands in his pockets and staring at the ground. I braced myself for a small confrontation but then I realised it was Tom Spencer, not the car’s owner at all. He looked up as I approached and, as soon as he saw me, his eyes flicked rapidly to one side and his head went down again.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, staring pointedly ahead. I’d now have to manoeuvre past both him and the car with my heavy bag and my painful foot. I was never quite sure whether to greet him or not; he looked uncomfortable if you even waved from a distance and he skittered away if your paths crossed. He was simple, that was all. People gave him odd tasks to do and he weeded or painted with a plodding obedience. He could be about to offer to do something for me now, of course, that might be why he was loitering. I had my answer ready. I put my shopping down, suppressing a groan of relief at being free of it and fished my key from my handbag. He followed me uninvited through the door. He wiped his feet on the mat outside, lifting his legs high behind him after each swipe.

  ‘Car shouldn’t be here,’ he said, inspecting the soles of his shoes. His laces were heaped into an extravagant knot, the result of much looping and retying. Molly probably put his shoes on for him, making sure they stayed put no matter how much he jiggled or stomped during the day. He went and stood by the sink and examined the window above it with some care. I’d written a note, in letters large enough to be read from the path and stuck it on the kitchen window. ‘Your note’s gone,’ he said. It was true, two torn strips of Sellotape were still stuck to the glass, empty of their instruction.

  ‘Ah, well, it must have fallen off.’ I kept moving towards him, hoping he’d move aside to let me past. He was leaving it very late. He rolled his shoulders back. His jacket was too tight. It stopped at his waist and wrists in bands of thick ribbing. The pattern, open checks in red, white and pale blue, reminded me of pictures of Canada, large pine trees and piles of logs. This thin fabric wouldn’t have been enough to keep out an English winter let alone deep, piled snow.

  Raising his head slowly and then too far, so that his chin rose, and I could see his Adam’s apple move in his smooth, hard neck, he breathed in hard. ‘Can I use your toilet, miss?’ he said.

  I hesitated. He could go to the downstairs cloakroom. I needn’t apologise to him for the chaos of coats and boots in the hall on the way. He was waiting for my answer. I thought he was probably about fifteen years my junior, twenty-two or so, but it was hard to tell. When I was in my twenties, I thought anyone over thirty was ancien
t. I wondered what he saw when he looked at me. I was conscious of the fact that one button dangled on a thread from my unfastened coat. My cardigan hung open, too and my blouse was bunched up. He was looking at me with the watery, unfocused gaze of a newly-woken child. He had remarkably clear skin. Did he even shave? ‘Of course,’ I said. I spoke a bit too loudly, as if to suggest there was someone else in the house. ‘It’s just to the left,’ I added, but he was already walking down the corridor.

  I slipped my shoes off, both feet now aching in solidarity. My toes expanded painfully on the cold lino. The note had fallen into the sink below the window where the dripping tap smudged and blurred the words. I heard the door of the cloakroom open and close, then the lock sliding noisily in place. I thought of him concentrating as he negotiated the unfamiliar room. He would catch sight of himself in the little mirror. There was nothing outwardly to show how damaged his head was inside. Perhaps he was dropped as a baby. Sarah had rolled hard off the side of the bed once, and I’d found Eddie fallen at the bottom of a flight of stairs I hadn’t realised he could climb. Apart from the endless pause each time, staring at their first white, then reddening, faces and waiting for them to cry, they’d seemed unharmed. The sort of hurt that bruised them but didn’t rattle their brains in their skulls so that they’d never be able to hold a proper conversation or travel abroad alone.

  ‘Thanks, miss.’ He was behind me, close. I hadn’t heard him come back. Distantly, the cistern clanked and refilled.

  ‘You got any jobs need doing? Miss?’ The boy put his hand on my shoulder and we both jumped, startled. I squealed. ‘Sorry, miss.’ He shook his fingers as though he’d burned himself. ‘Thought you hadn’t heard me. Sorry, miss.’ He looked appalled. I couldn’t think how to comfort him without touching him. I wanted to put a reassuring hand on his arm to pat or squeeze. My back was pressed up to the sink, there was nowhere for me to move. Despite his downcast eyes and the way he was trying to shrink away from me, he suddenly seemed to take up more room than he did before. I’d once found a bird trapped in the living room, which flew about wildly as it tried to escape. This boy had the same frightened, ragged look about him. That had ended badly – I couldn’t catch it and it never again found the open window it had flown in through. It had injured a wing as it battered itself against the walls and hard surfaces. Michael had carried it outside, placing it far enough away from the house so that we wouldn’t actually have to watch it die.

  ‘Don’t tell,’ he said, blinking back tears.

  ‘Tom.’ I was brisk with a mixture of annoyance and nerves. ‘Nothing happened. Off you go.’

  There was a pause, then he shook his head, as if to rearrange his thoughts, and left.

  I rubbed my temples. My fingers found a little metal bar above my left ear. When I’d tidied this morning, I’d found one of Sarah’s old hair slides on the sideboard. I’d pinned it in my hair to leave my hands free while I carried what I needed to take upstairs. I went into the hall and peered into the mirror on the hat-stand. The slide winked where it was fastened. I had done everything, talked to everyone, all day, with a child’s decoration stuck on my head.

  There was a spatter of dripped water on the floor in front of the basin where he must have shaken his wet hands. The bar of soap was sticky with recent use. I felt a sudden pang for his mother, doggedly instilling in her broken son these little decencies. The seat was still up, though. Michael always returned it to the closed position, and I was trying to train Eddie to do the same. It just seemed more polite, somehow. It gaped open now like a vulgar expression shouted aloud. The boy had left his mark. He would have stood here, holding himself, while I was only feet away. The door handle was wet. I went to the airing cupboard and selected a little flowered cloth. Just before I hung it on the empty ring, I sniffed it and inhaled Persil and fresh air. If he came back, I’d make sure he left with my scent on his hands.

  Chapter 19

  24 September

  Sometimes I put Mum’s clothes on, when everyone’s out. There’s a Chinesey sort of dress, with a mandarin collar and dragons on it, that I like looking at myself in. I go into the sitting room wearing it, like I’m the adult. It feels like a room in someone else’s house when it’s empty. I move the ugly black and white china cat, licking its chest with a large, pink tongue, from the top of the radiogram. The LPs are stored at one end, packed as close together as a pack of cards. I look for Julie Andrews. I love the way her pink skirt flies out on either side of her. She holds a travel bag in one hand and a guitar in its case in the other, swinging them up high as though they’re both empty. I slide the record on to the turntable. I pull the stylus back till there’s a click, to set it spinning. I like the hiss before the music starts. I feel as if the needle goes straight to my heart. What I want is for everything to stay just like it is and for everything to change.

  Once, in the middle of a music lesson, I had sung middle C before Miss Mullarkey had played a note. It came so easily to me that I was surprised no one else could find it in their heads. I could do it over and over again. Miss Mullarkey told me I’ve got perfect pitch. It’s a useless talent. We haven’t even got a piano. Sometimes, I sing the note out loud all by myself and I know it’s still true.

  Chapter 20

  Now, here’s a thing. A postcard from Sheila. I didn’t know I’d kept it. ‘Do you remember Sheila?’ I say to Michael, but only because he is safely asleep and will not answer. It’s a view of Margate with a picture of two larger-than-life kittens superimposed over the top. Sheila was the last person to worry about the incongruity or the artistic gaffe. September 1986, it says. It’s lovely here today, Marion. It’s an understatement to say I don’t regret the move! Please come and stay again. I really do think the sea air did you good and helped you get over things. All the best. I try to conjure her, solid and loud, as if she could walk in now and start examining Michael’s chart or his medicines without permission, as was her way. She will not take proper shape, however hard I concentrate. But I often thought I saw Beattie Moore, out of the corner of my eye. For ages after her actual appearance as I went into the sitting room I would turn quickly, as if she still sat on the sofa, one leg bent. Or I might think I caught a glimpse of her beyond the wobbling glass of the front door. Beattie’s beret and her pink coat flashed like fish scales under water in my peripheral vision. Can you be haunted by the living? Beattie’s visit had been to the other, smaller house. The house I had been living in when I met Philip. After he’d died, I’d often stumbled into the furniture or tripped down the stairs, as if I were lost inside it.

  When Beattie turned up, I was at that heavy, late stage of pregnancy, feeling comfortably full of baby. I’d spend some time each day organising and admiring a small layette of clothes and shawls. I was sorting these things, trying to persuade the sleeves of a tiny cardigan to fold, when the doorbell rang. I was tempted to ignore it. I was planning to listen to Woman’s Hour later that afternoon and doze through the serial.

  The woman standing there was tiny, her clothes would have fitted a child. Her coat was pulled in tightly at the waist with a black patent belt and fastened with enormous buttons. Her fingers were long, the nails painted dark purple. She held her hands to her chest, one folded over the other, the pose of a stone angel beside a grave. A ring with a large green stone flashed from her left hand. She wore a beret, pulled low over a sharply cut bob. She reminded me of someone, but the thought wouldn’t crystallise into fact.

  ‘Marion Deacon?’ she said.

  Her voice was unexpectedly low and slightly husky, as if she’d recently had a cigarette. I couldn’t smell smoke. Her scent reminded me of my old French teacher’s velvet perfume. I hoped my polite smile would last until I had some clue about who this person was. She was regarding me with what seemed like determined neutrality, neither returning my smile nor looking away. Perhaps she’s canvassing, I thought, although I wasn’t aware of anything that might need my vote.

  ‘I’m Beattie Moore,’ the woman
said. ‘I’m Philip’s mother.’

  Several possible options flickered in my head. Slamming the door in the woman’s face competed with shaking her hand. I thought I could just say: ‘Philip who?’ Instead, I said, ‘Would you like to come in?’

  ‘Not really,’ the woman said, stepping forward. The hallway was small, little more than a turning circle between the doorways on either side and the steep rise of the stairs beyond. My size forced us into sudden and awkward intimacy. The woman stared at my stomach. ‘When’s it due?’ she said.

  ‘In about two months,’ I said, as if I didn’t know exactly how many weeks and how many days away the date was.

  ‘Not your first, is it,’ Beattie said. It was not a question.

  I wanted to breathe deeply through my nose, as if the lessons of the antenatal classes would carry me through this encounter, too, but the woman’s face was too close to my own. Her features were disproportionately large and gathered at the front of her face, as if she’d been tipped forward while they set. She didn’t look like Philip, I thought, although I was finding it hard to recall his face.

  The floral curtains and three-piece suite in the sitting room looked too neat and domestic, like a childish riposte to upheaval and adult grief. I regretted the vase of tulips on the table. ‘Would you like some tea?’ I said.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ the woman said. She sat down and undid her coat. A released mass of floral fabric seeped over her knees. She crossed her tiny feet at the ankles and swung them as they hung over the edge of the sofa. On the road outside, someone rang a bicycle bell, then there was a clatter of thin tyres and a jangling frame as it passed by. On the windowsill stood a photograph of Sarah, aged about four, wearing a romper suit, her feet bare and partly buried in sand. ‘She looks like you,’ the woman said. She wriggled her long fingers into her coat pocket and held out a piece of blue-tinged paper, folded over twice.