Lifetime Burning

by Gillard, Linda

  ‘I loved you too. Even though you were only my uncle, I really loved you.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Rory said, his voice unsteady. ‘Everybody seems to. God knows why, since I’ve always gone out of my way to be thoroughly obnoxious. But I can’t be held responsible for the perversity of human nature, can I? Well, only my own… Anyway, there’s nothing more I wanted to say. Thank you for your time and patience.’ He turned towards the French windows and, fumbling slightly, opened them.

  ‘Rory?’

  He turned back, his face drained, no longer veiled by a sardonic smile. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where is Flora?’

  ‘Apart from inside my head, you mean? I haven’t the slightest idea. But she’s alive.’

  ‘How can you know?’

  He shrugged. ‘I just know. And the thing that bloody petrifies me is I’ll know when she isn’t.’

  I kept up with my family’s exploits through newspapers and magazines. I picked up papers wherever I found them, read them, then used them to insulate my clothing, make pillows and bedding. In winter I sat in reading rooms until librarians kicked me out. I became known in my circle as quite an astute political commentator, renowned for my sense of balance - acquired no doubt as a result of my omnivorous reading habit. I devoured everything, from the Financial Times to the Morning Star.

  I had a precious pair of scissors that I kept on a piece of elastic round my neck. These were mainly for self-defence but I also used them to clip out articles and pictures of the family or anything else that took my fancy. I saved reviews of Colin’s novels and a lengthy profile of him from the Guardian when he was short-listed for a literary prize. (I always knew that boy would go far. He was wasted as an actor.) I came across an article about the Chelsea Flower Show in a gardening magazine with a photo of a prize-winning wildlife garden, designed by ‘father and son team, Hugh and Theo Wentworth’. The photograph showed them standing side by side, Theo not quite as tall as Hugh, both of them tanned, smiling, looking fit as fleas. I never found a photograph of Rory but I collected several music articles written by him and reviews of concerts he conducted. He seemed to devote a lot of energy to youth orchestras.

  I kept everything, carefully filed by subject, in manila envelopes safety-pinned to the inside of my coat. Over the years it became quite an archive. I used to rustle as I walked.

  My family kept me warm. They kept me company.

  Then, unfortunately, they killed me.

  1987

  Charlotte and Theo sat in the summerhouse at Orchard Farm in two battered Lloyd Loom chairs, facing each other, but not touching. The gloomy interior was lit only by the last of the evening sunlight as it filtered through a window almost obscured by rampant honeysuckle, the scent of which mingled with the smell of mice and rotting wood. Theo sat with an old picnic hamper at his feet and was leafing blindly through a pile of leather-bound notebooks. He opened one randomly and his eye fell upon an entry in Rory’s hand.

  May 26th 1975

  Fox seen around dawn, strolling across lawn. Bloody mouth containing remains of chicken. Vixen killing for cubs?

  Theo - watch the woodpile. Wren is nesting there.

  Theo tossed the book back into the basket and said, ‘I just can’t bear to think we made love for the last time and—’ His mouth opened, then closed again and he spread his hands. ‘I didn’t even know.’

  ‘I can’t bear to think we made love,’ Charlotte murmured.

  ‘Lottie, don’t. Please don’t take that away from me. Don’t take everything.’

  She looked down at the basket and nudged it with her foot. ‘What are those?’

  ‘The wildlife diaries. Don’t you remember them? They go way back. Hugh and Dora sometimes sit in here and go through them, comparing notes about the garden.’ He lifted a journal and opened it. ‘This is the very first one. Your spelling was hilarious.’

  Charlotte held out her hand. ‘Show me.’ The yellowed pages crackled as she turned them and a pressed flower, a snakeshead fritillary, transparent with age, fluttered to the ground. ‘1975 was the year after the accident, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Rory wasn’t speaking then. He used to communicate in writing.’

  ‘He’s written half a page about barn owls here… He must have written all this for you, you know. Colin couldn’t have cared less. And I was only interested because you were. Maybe I was in love with you even then.’

  ‘You can’t be in love at seven.’

  ‘No, I suppose not. But you were special to me. Even then.’

  ‘Self-interest. I stopped Colin beating you up.’

  ‘No, I think I felt some deep connection with you.’

  ‘Perhaps you sensed I was your brother.’

  ‘Half-brother. Don’t make it worse than it is. I didn’t feel it with Colin. I still don’t. He and I don’t have anything in common apart from genes.’ Charlotte tossed the notebook back on to the pile.

  Leaning back in his chair Theo said, ‘You know, there must be millions of people out there who are products of incest and they don’t know it. Their parents might know, but they don’t.’

  ‘We do.’

  ‘And that makes a difference?’

  ‘Of course it does.’

  ‘I don’t see why. It’s either wrong or it’s not. I can’t see that knowing makes any difference to the morality of it.’

  ‘We would know what we were doing was wrong.’

  ‘So it’s OK to act immorally, so long as you don’t know what you’re doing?’

  ‘Oh, you know what I mean! You couldn’t be blamed, could you? If you didn’t know?’

  ‘Who’s going to blame us? Our father? My mother?’

  ‘It would be wrong, Theo. You know it.’

  ‘If we never had kids, would it matter?’

  Charlotte frowned. ‘Being brother and sister?’

  ‘No - being childless.’

  ‘It would matter to me. Knowing I could never have them.’

  ‘You could be infertile anyway. Or I might be.’

  ‘Yes, but the point is the knowing, isn’t it? Knowing in advance. And I’d always be worried about getting pregnant. I’m sure I could never go through with an abortion. Flora couldn’t, could she?’

  ‘I’d get sterilised.’

  ‘It’s called a vasectomy if you’re a bloke.’

  ‘Well, I’d have one of those.’

  ‘Supposing we broke up? You might want kids with someone else.’

  ‘I wouldn’t. I’ve no intention of reproducing my genes. Ever. It wouldn’t be fair. On my partner or the child.’

  Charlotte was silent. Theo watched as she bent her head and withdrew a tissue from the pocket of her jeans. As she dabbed at her eyes he said, ‘If you really wanted a child you could get pregnant by somebody else. I wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Don’t be sick, Theo!’

  ‘What would it matter? If a child is all that stands between us?’

  ‘It isn’t all - don’t you see? I feel differently now! I feel… ashamed. I feel dirty! I can’t just pretend I don’t know!’ He didn’t reply. ‘I’m sorry, Theo.’

  ‘Well, we probably would have split up one day anyway. Nothing lasts for ever. Till death do us part doesn’t really mean much nowadays, does it?’

  ‘I’ll always be your friend.’

  ‘No, you’ll always be my sister. Till death do us part.’

  Charlotte blew her nose, forced a smile and said, ‘Maybe there’s no incest in Heaven.’

  ‘Or alternatively, we could try the other place where no doubt anything goes.’ Theo stood and went over to the window. He leaned on the wooden sill and, his mop of hair gathering cobwebs, gazed up at the sky. ‘Pipistrelles. Look at them! Such a beautiful word for such an ugly creature.’ He watched the careering bats for a while, then turned back to the hamper, rifled through the notebooks and withdrew one. Picking up a short stub of pencil, he sat down again, turned the pages then began to write.

  ‘You ca
lled that your special pencil,’ Charlotte murmured. ‘Rory gave it to you, didn’t he?’ He nodded and continued to write. ‘Theo… I still love you.’

  The pencil lead snapped. Staring down at the words he’d written, Theo said, ‘And I still love you.’ He looked up, his blue eyes - Rory’s eyes - fierce and bright. ‘But that’s hardly the point, is it?’

  She raised a hand to his head, threaded her fingers through a curl and removed a spider. ‘It should have been.’

  If I hadn’t rung Rory… If I hadn’t been drunk… If I’d spent the night in a hostel… No point in speculating now. What’s done is done. I always met trouble halfway.

  I didn’t stay in a hostel because it was the height of summer and at the best of times those places stank of inadequate sanitation, vomit and unwashed bodies. I preferred to sleep out under the sky, the little bit of sky I could see between office blocks and multi-storey car parks.

  I was drunk because a charitable crank had given me a tenner. Well, that’s not strictly true. He’d given me £10 but I was drunk because I’d phoned Rory. I’d heard his voice. After thirteen years. I couldn’t speak, but he knew it was me. He said my name. He begged me to come home. But I couldn’t answer. Words wouldn’t come. I just listened, then I cried.

  I’d rung him because it was our birthday. I’d picked up a paper and noticed the date. June 20th. We were fifty-eight. (I couldn’t imagine what Rory looked like at fifty-eight. Whenever I thought of him - and I thought of him every single day - he was always about twenty-two.) So I’d rung him to wish him a happy birthday.

  But it was a waste of time because when he answered I couldn’t speak.

  2000

  Rory sat at the foot of the stairs, clutching the telephone. The dining room door opened and Theo put his head round.

  ‘Grace says, are you going to come and blow out all these candles? She thinks fifty-eight constitutes a fire hazard.’

  Rory looked up, his eyes unseeing. ‘That was Flora.’

  Theo stepped into the hall, closing the door behind him. ‘Bad news?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Nothing… Nothing at all…’

  There’s a knack to getting a good night’s sleep on the streets. The inexperienced sleep in doorways, improvising Wendy houses, but that’s a big mistake. People dump the remains of their takeaways on you, then you get bothered by rats later. Sometimes men urinate on you. They’re too drunk to see you or too drunk to care. Some bastards do it deliberately. So you don’t go sleeping in doorways, not if you’ve got any sense.

  I used to like sleeping in out-of-the-way places, off the main thoroughfare. It’s safer for women to sleep during the day and keep on the move at night, but you learn to sleep lightly and I always used to wake at the first hint of trouble.

  Except when I was drunk.

  I’d found an abandoned sofa in a side street. I think it must have been thrown out by some club or office. There was nothing wrong with it. Last year’s colour, I suppose. No one else had found it yet and I was able to lie down, almost full length, on this lovely comfy sofa. It was Heaven. I’d have slept like a log, even without all the vodka.

  They probably thought I was a bundle of old clothes. Or maybe they did it deliberately. Someone’s idea of a bit of fun.

  I must have spilt some vodka. My coat was full of newspaper. Some kid probably tossed a match. What does it matter now? When I woke up I found I was burning. I was burning and I was already screaming. My hair was on fire and my lungs were full of smoke and I was choking and when I wasn’t choking I was screaming. I jumped off the sofa and beat at my clothes, trying to put out the fire, but as I moved, whirling like a dervish, the draft just fanned the flames.

  My last thought was for Rory. That I hadn’t wished him a happy birthday and now I never would.

  2000

  Rory sat up in bed with a strangled cry. Grace woke immediately. Before she’d even turned on the bedside light, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, reaching for the phone.

  ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Flora. She’s in pain. In danger… Somewhere - I don’t know…’ He sounded confused and was jabbing a finger at number pads on the phone.

  ‘Who are you ringing?’

  ‘An ambulance.’

  ‘But what are you going to say? You don’t know where she is! No one does.’ Rory’s finger hovered above the phone. Grace put an arm round his shoulders and registered that he was shaking. ‘Darling, I think you just had a nightmare. Put the phone down and get back into bed. Even if Flora is in danger, there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. But you’re probably just imagining things.’

  ‘No, I’m bloody not!’ He started to cough, then doubled over, choking. He closed his eyes but couldn’t shut out a vision of Flora, like a glorious avenging angel, a fiery halo round her head, her golden hair burning, her garments made of flame.

  Grace held him till the screaming stopped, then, as he seemed barely conscious, she rang for an ambulance.

  My family gathered at Orchard Farm to discuss my funeral, all of them except Charlotte who, I discovered, had been in Australia for many years. It was a shock seeing them all. I hadn’t seen Rory for thirteen years, except once on a TV screen. I hadn’t seen Grace for twenty. If we’d ever met I might not have recognised her. The years hadn’t been kind. But far kinder to her than to me.

  No one was looking their best, but Rory looked like a corpse. The bones of his face stood out as if his skull were trying to force its way through his skin. I couldn’t bear to look, so I sat beside him on the sofa, in the space between him and Colin - my lovers, father and son.

  They discussed the details of my cremation. Hugh asked Rory if he had any suggestions for music for the ceremony. He just shook his head listlessly. Dora requested that everything should be as simple as possible and suggested a couple of my favourite hymns. I was touched she remembered which they were.

  The conversation dwindled and in the ensuing silence my mother started to weep. Theo was instantly at her side, his arm round her, his long fingers, so like his father’s, stroking her sparse, white curls.

  ‘Poor Flora… We failed her, didn’t we?’ my mother asked between sobs.

  No one answered, then Hugh said, ‘I know I did. But try as I might, I can’t think what more we could have done.’

  Dora squeezed Theo’s hand. ‘Loved her more, I suppose.’

  ‘Or loved her less.’

  It was the first time Rory had spoken. Heads turned to look at him, then silence descended again, punctuated by Dora’s quiet weeping. Theo looked up at Hugh who nodded, then my son lifted my mother gently, easily, as if she were a doll, and carried her out of the room.

  Colin passed a hand across his face, then leaned forwards in his chair, tense fingers laced together. He exhaled, then said randomly, ‘What do you actually die of if you’re badly burned?’

  Grace hissed, ‘For God’s sake, Colin!’ Hugh looked at him for a moment, glanced across at Rory, then said, ‘Shock, I believe. Shock caused by a massive loss of fluid.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ Colin leaned back in his chair again, looking even more uncomfortable.

  ‘Flora died of shame.’

  No one looked at Rory. No one spoke.

  I laid the ghost of my hand on his, his poor crippled hand. His head jerked and he looked down suddenly, disbelieving.

  I knew then that the pain must have stopped.

  Epilogue

  2000

  Theo strides up the garden path towards the house, raising a hand in salutation to Hugh and Dora. He pauses to watch as Dora, enthroned on her electric cart, points to a rogue purple phlox in the middle of the white bed. Hugh wades into the undergrowth with deadly intent.

  Theo is kicking off gumboots outside the back door when the phone rings. He pads indoors in stockinged feet to answer it.

  ‘Orchard Farm Nursery.’ He hears a low murmur of voices, the sounds of cutl
ery, musak. ‘Hello?’

  No one answers and he’s about to replace the receiver when a tentative female voice says, ‘Theo?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  Silence again. Then, ‘It’s Charlotte. Lottie… Theo, are you still there?’

  A long pause. ‘Yes, I’m here. I was - I was just… very surprised.’

  ‘I got your postcard. About the funeral. I was very sorry… to hear about Flora.’

  He sinks into a chair. ‘Did Grace explain?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I hadn’t seen her for years. Not sure if that made it better or worse. Why are you ringing, Lottie?’

  ‘Because I want to see you.’ Theo doesn’t reply but leans on the table, his bowed head supported by his free hand. ‘I want to buy you a ticket to Sydney. I can’t face coming back and Mum says you don’t have much spare cash—’

  ‘Lottie, are out of your mind? It took me bloody years to get over you!’

  ‘Please come. Just for a holiday. It will do you good to get away from the family.’

  ‘Lottie, I have a business to run and, as Grace so helpfully pointed out, it’s not making me a rich man. I can’t just drop everything.’

  ‘Yes, you can. Come for two weeks. Mum says your staff will manage.’

  ‘I’ll kill that woman! Have you discussed all this with her already?’

  ‘Only the practicalities. Not how I feel.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘I no longer care who or what you are. What I am. I just want to see you… Will you come?’ He doesn’t answer. ‘Theo, will you come?’

  ‘I don’t know… I’ll think about it.’

  ‘There’s something else. Something I wanted you to know.’

  ‘What?’