by Meira Chand
It was all choking in her throat now, the dead events of which she had only the ash of memory, that came and went as they pleased. It was more than she could bear, she must do something to stop it, to show them she was not a heap of old bone. She was as real as each of her memories. And it came to her then, just slipped whole and cool into her mind. She knew what she would do, her head sang with it. And Mama most certainly would have approved.
When her feet touched the floor she felt weak and giddy with excitement. She sat back on the bed to steady herself. About her shadows moved across the walls behind the candle’s small bright eye. The deep black corners of the room were like the pockets of the past, unending, full of density and substance. What right had Geraldine? What right? The carpet was soft and supportive under her feet. She went very slowly, moving one leg after the other. She thought, they told me I couldn’t walk. Or was it that she should not? But it did not matter. She had deceived them. She reached for the handle of the door. Its knob was smooth beneath her hand, opening quietly. And suddenly she wanted to laugh out loud, for she knew there was nothing she could not do.
It was Geraldine’s room she must go to. She concentrated on her legs, pushing them one before the other. Her hands felt their way along the wall. Geraldine’s door was before her now, and opened noiselessly. Here, too, a candle had been lighted. The room flickered about her. Maud walked forward; she knew what she must do.
She found Geraldine’s walk-in closet easily. And in it the dress, almost the first one she touched. She knew it in spite of the darkness, she knew the sleek cold touch of the velvet, held in her mind since childhood. She knew it at once in the darkness, hanging limp and lifeless in Geraldine’s closet, like a wretched misjudged soul. ‘Poor thing,’ she said, and took it from the hanger.
Before the mirror, in the candlelight, she held it to herself. And saw again the fur circular and muff Mama had sometimes worn with the dress. The thick folds of the gown gleamed lustrously in the soft light. On the dressing table the little flame of the candle flickered, the dim room drew close about Maud Bingham. But her heart began suddenly to pound, and she gripped the dress tightly to her body, for she saw in the mirror a ghost. It could be nothing else. The creature stood skeletal and pale, the bones of the face shredded cadaverously by candlelight, thin white hair askew on its balding skull. Maud Bingham backed away, but the ghost moved only slightly, standing its ground. And she saw then that it was herself she gazed at. The shock made her tremble all over.
Slowly, she unhooked the dress, her fingers shaking. Sitting on Geraldine’s bed she lifted each foot into the skirt and, her gums chattering with excitement, pulled the gown over her thick pink nightdress, and stuck her arms into each velvet sleeve. She heaved the weight of it onto her shoulders, and stood before the mirror again. ‘Oh Mama,’ she said.
And waved in her hand an imaginary fan, just as Mama might have done. A little fan of feathers and sequins, like the one Mama had often fluttered prettily.
‘Mother ... Mother . .. Mother ...’ She stopped, her head reeling from her thoughts. She knew that voice, it was Geraldine. Nearly stumbling in the long thick folds of the dress, she hurried to the closet again, pulling the door behind her.
‘Mother ... Mother ... Mother ...’ Geraldine’s voice was in the room, outside the closet.
Maud held her breath, standing still between the hangers. The soft touch of silk and cotton folded close about her. There were stale smells from the armpits of a dress hanging against her nose. On a shelf above, the small cold claws of a limp fox collar dangled on her neck. She feared she might sneeze. Outside she heard the rush of movement and the shriek of Geraldine’s voice again.
The clothes blew softly back upon her and hid her as Geraldine pulled open the door and stuck her head inside the closet, then shut it again with a bang. On her neck the claws of the fox moved and scratched her gently. Maud Bingham was delighted she had evaded her daughter.
She giggled and pulled from the shelf above the fur collar, wrapped it around her neck and groped again on the shelf. She found a wide-brimmed hat and tugged it down firmly upon her head. Then she waited for a while, listening, before carefully opening the closet door.
The squat stub of a candle still burned in the room and she picked it up as she passed. Her hip was stiff, she hobbled painfully now. But the room was quieter, the wind seemed to have dropped and no longer charged the house. The night appeared more orderly, a low mewling sound outside was all she could hear. She felt suddenly weak and giddy with tiredness, and sat on Geraldine’s bed to rest. But the thought was strong in her still, she would deceive them. It was like a window in her mind, opening out, and her heart palpitated with excitement. She made her way to the door; the smell of mothballs drifted up from her dress as she moved.
Passing the stairs to Nate Cooper’s den, she heard sounds of voices and shuffled on as fast as she could. They had not found her. The thought sang in her head and she hugged herself in glee and pulled the wide black hat more firmly down upon her head. The corridor led her forward, shadowy and dim. The bodice of the dress fell off her shoulders and she hauled it back up again. There was a door to her right, and stopping, she opened it. The room was small and without any light. Her candle cracked the dark as she entered and fell on the turgid texture of a modern print hanging on the wall. But then her mouth quivered, for she saw the glass door across the room. Picking up her long skirt she hobbled towards it then stopped, a faintness washing through her. She gripped the brass rail of a bedstead and sat on the edge of the mattress. She must rest before she did anything else, for all her activities had tired her out. She lay down, settled her head on the pillow, and immediately fell asleep.
7
The noise of the storm drummed in Akiko’s head, until she felt she could bear it no longer. Her nerves were frayed as torn linen. The room, the noise, the crush of tired people and crying children, and her own small shattered world, crowded down upon her. She could not cope, her throat filled with tears, she wanted to be alone with Daniel. She felt like a piece of flotsam, pitched helplessly upon the events of the day.
‘Please, for a while come and sit with me,’ she whispered, standing beside him at the window. The night still pummelled the glass before her; she was numb with it all. He turned and saw the stress in her face.
‘Yes, come.’ He put a hand on her arm. ‘Let’s go down to the landing.’
He guided her from the room. On the steps outside they peered down the stairwell, and saw by the light of their candle, the movement of water at the bottom of the stairs. A soft lapping noise came up to them.
‘It’s really filled up down there,’ Daniel said.
On the upper landing they found a stout orange sofa, whose round bolstered shape reminded Akiko of Geraldine. When they sat down he put an arm round her.
‘I don’t want to talk. I just want to sit with you here, like this,’ she told him, and leaned back upon his shoulder. A candle glowed on a Korean chest beside the sofa, its brasswork butterflies and hinges glimmered in the dark. The plaited strips of the parquet flooring stretched away across the landing.
‘You can see by tonight how little you can expect to regulate life, and yet how much you can survive,’ Daniel sighed.
In the glass of a print on the opposite wall they observed their own reflection, measuring themselves against the night and before the future under the flickering candlelight. The house was empty and quiet here, the storm removed from them. They sat in their separate silences, linked by their arms and the unfinished situations that lay folded and passive within them still. The pictureglass across the landing reflected them like a crystal ball, caught and paired together and already compliant within its walnut frame.
‘When I go back to America, you shall come with me,’ Daniel said. ‘I shall not let you go now that I have found you. And you will be happy there. You will be welcomed.’
There was the smell of floor polish, and the smell of candles, and the briny flood dow
nstairs. The odours rose up through the dark well of the house, a yeasty thickened smell. She knew she would remember it always as the forking of her life. Many times she had touched darkness for a sign but found only emptiness, dry and unexpressed. Now a new direction was taking shape. She listened to the slap of trapped water at the bottom of the house. There was nothing she could say. She wanted no more than Daniel. As she rubbed her cheek against his hand and closed her eyes upon his shoulder, Geraldine’s scream sounded through the house.
‘Mother. Mother. Nate, Mother’s gone. She’s not in her room or anywhere.’ Geraldine appeared from the door of Maud Bingham’s room.
‘What do you mean, she’s gone?’ Nate yelled. ‘Where could she get to, an old bone like that?’ The stairs shook as he descended. Arthur followed after him.
Akiko and Daniel rushed with them into Maud Bingham’s room. The bed stood square and empty. Arthur bent immediately and looked beneath.
‘I’ve looked everywhere. Everywhere,’ Geraldine cried.
‘Perhaps she’s gone to the bathroom,’ suggested Eva, appearing with her arms full of blankets.
‘I told you I’ve looked everywhere.’ Geraldine was hysterical.
‘Can she walk alone?’ Eva asked.
‘A bit. I get her up a few hours in the day, for her circulation. But she can’t hobble far, I’m sure.’ Geraldine’s eyes brimmed and overflowed, mascara ran in black tributaries.
‘Where the hell is she, then?’ Nate exploded. ‘How many times must I tell you, Gerry, to go when the old girl calls?’
‘She couldn’t have gone down. Oh Nate. She couldn’t have gone down now, could she?’ Geraldine sobbed.
‘I was with her as you know. And not so long ago either. When I left she was asleep,’ Arthur reassured.
‘We had best all start looking,’ Daniel suggested and Nate nodded while Geraldine sobbed on Eva’s shoulder.
‘Half the time the old girl lives in the past. She’s getting too much for Gerry,’ Nate told them.
‘Could she really have wandered downstairs?’ Daniel asked.
‘Can’t walk far by herself. She broke a hip sitting down in a chair a few years ago. She can’t get far. Damn miracle if she did. God, I need a whisky. What a night.’
‘I’ll get a torch from upstairs, we’ll go down and look for her, and the whisky,’ Daniel offered. Nate Cooper nodded, and turned to the sobbing Geraldine.
‘We’re going down, Gerry. We’re going to look for the old girl.’ In agitation Nate swished back the curtains of the window. He stared glumly at the black face of the glass and beyond it into the night. There violence continued to snarl at him. In the background Geraldine sobbed. Nate watched the waves bang down on the garden wall, burying his estate in explosions of spume. Then his face sharpened suddenly, he took a step forward and squared himself with the window.
‘What’s that?’ he said to Daniel, who had returned with the torch.
‘What?’
‘That. Off the horizon there, don’t you see it? That white line.’ Nate pointed.
They strained their eyes at the window. The women and Arthur rushed forward. They could see it growing as they watched, a long thin finger of white across the bay, growing thicker and nearer, stretching as far as they could see. They watched it curiously, unable to decide.
‘What is it, what is it? Oh Nate,’ screeched Geraldine.
‘Will you quit the hysterics, honey. We’re trying to decide what it is. Dan and I here are breaking our brains, aren’t we, kid?’
The line of white was constant and steady, thickening fast. They pressed their faces to the black vibrating glass. A great dyke of foam was rolling and hammering towards them out of the black wild night and the sea.
‘Good God. Holy mackerel. It’s a tidal wave.’ Nate breathed the words in condensation onto the window glass.
Daniel and Akiko drew a sharp breath. Geraldine screamed and was helped to a chair by Eva. Arthur Wilcox began to dance on his toes.
‘No. Not a tidal wave, a storm surge. A storm surge. A sudden tide against the coast. It can raise up the level of the sea by as much as three metres, in moments,’ Arthur shouted.
‘Good God,’ gasped Nate.
‘What can we do?’ Daniel asked.
‘Nothing, lad. Nothing,’ said Arthur.
And then, at that moment, from downstairs they heard the sudden sound of singing. A drunken, slurred, unintelligible song, the high notes cracking and shrieking out in a terrible, grinding rhythm.
Arthur Wilcox fled the room, the others followed.
8
Coming down the stairs they descended into the splintered singing of Kyo’s drunken voice. It swelled and multiplied, as caressing as a cactus limb. The voice curled through Akiko’s body, sounding shameful and grotesque.
Daniel’s torch wheeled about in the darkness, slicing open the black wet mess of the ground floor. They stood on the last stair and stepped down into ankle-deep water. It moved about them in an ugly way, washing against walls with a restless slap. They splashed across to the lounge and stood in the doorway, staring without a word.
‘You get her, quick as you can, kid. I’ll search out old Maud. When that wave hits, the whole flood will rise.’ Nate Cooper hurried off to prospect for Maud Bingham.
Akiko stared and knew she would never again see anything so terrible. Shame pulsed hotly through her, and she lowered her eyes. Before them in the room the stubs of three candles still lived, faltering sometimes in invisible draughts. The piano rose like an island out of the flood, reflecting the gleam of the candle flames; upon it stood Kyo, hopelessly drunk.
She swayed and staggered on the piano top in the motions of some bawdy dance, gyrating in randy movements before an invisible audience. Once she stopped, picked up the bottle near her feet and took a lusty swig. Then she was off again.
‘She must have come back down for the whisky. I had begun to wonder where she had gone,’ said Arthur from behind Akiko.
‘Kyo,’ Daniel shouted, but the woman took no notice. He drew a breath and waded into the room. Akiko followed, her mind numb. Before her the spindly limbs upon the piano jerked like a puppet’s on a string. The shredded sounds of the ribald song pressed inside her head. She remembered the words again then, and closed her eyes upon her own abasement. Akiko, sometimes I like to hope you think of me. Mother. The words melted with her shame. She could not believe only hours before she had handled them wonderingly, like precious glass. None of it seemed possible in the sequence of one day. She reached out and held tight to Daniel’s hand. Behind them Arthur Wilcox flashed a torch about. His voice sprang up suddenly, yelling loudly in their ears, mixed with terrified screams from upstairs.
‘The surge. The surge.’ Arthur focused his torch on the window.
It happened in moments, there was no time to move. They looked together at the window and saw the black shelf of water, blacker than the sky, hovering and trembling as if to crash, yet standing, growing, advancing each moment, bearing down upon them. It rose to great height, a flourish of foam riding its summit, a final wrath released from the belly of the storm. It swallowed the garden wall, sucked it into itself without a break and came on towards the house. They saw then, carried upon its crest, a fishing boat ripped from its moorings, pitched about like a paltry toy.
Then the moment exploded. Glass was breaking and flying. Kyo was swept into the foaming water and mangled there. The split second unrolled like a slow motion film, stamped forever in Akiko’s mind. She saw the loose slump of Kyo’s body slung backwards by the roll of foam, slices and fragments of glass fly about and the great dark underside of the boat, thrust in through the window, riding up upon the piano as Kyo was thrown into the water. Her limbs flung about there, red strings of hair flashed in the froth as she was hurled against the piano again. A bloody slash opened up her head.
Akiko screamed. Then the world boiled about her like a thing possessed, a mountain of water poured into the lounge, whipping her ba
ckwards, tossing her head over heels. The raging weight of it hammered upon her. The world was at once white and unbridled, green-veined and marbled, black as slate and iron. Her lungs filled, she was choking and drowning, the savagery ripping her limbs from her body. Her lungs burst and gushed. Then there was blackness.
Again there was the green depth of water about Daniel, but this water, murky and dark, was pummelling and roaring about him. It was not the glassy underworld in which he had released himself from the car, deep beneath the river. Released himself into guilt and regret. Some terrible watery revenge was being beaten out upon him, and it was everything he deserved, everything. He remembered how he had pulled and pulled helplessly at Casey’s body, unable to move it in the car. He remembered how he had manoeuvred himself through the open window. This was retribution, what he had waited for and knew would happen. He did not resist it, but accepted what must be. No other thought filled his head. Water gushed into his lungs, into his mouth and nose. Casey, he thought. Casey. It’s what I deserve.
The water foamed, gnashing, hard as stone. Then he heard Akiko scream beside him and saw a tumble of limbs, saw her break the surface as he, too, was thrown up, only to be tossed under again.
‘Akiko.’ The water separated him from her.
‘Akiko,’ he yelled, and grabbed her as the water hurled her up. He pulled her to him, holding her tightly. They were out of their depth, he could not feel the floor, but the water no longer poured in with such force. He struck out, thrusting and pushing with his legs, battling with it all.
‘It’s all right. It’s all right. We’ll make it,’ he shouted in Akiko’s ear, swimming towards the stairs.
And in the midst of the clamour his mind suddenly opened, for his purpose in the night was clear to him now. It was retribution, retribution that would cut him down, unless he could pass through its slender eye, unless he could return a life for the life he had been unable to save. He thought of the night behind him, each segment of the disaster, each fragile escape, and found for himself a pattern in its mad tapestry. Found the fragments he must fit together to turn the night upon itself. Through it all the expectation of life had been infused with the expectation of death, equally divided. Each time at his side life had reassembled itself, shrugging off death. His mind was clear now, and he braced himself against the water. This was the last time, he knew.