by Gary P Moss
He swore he could smell the curried dips from a hundred yards away. His aunt’s house, somehow managing to be both compact and roomy, looked warm and inviting. Tim shrugged off his winter coat, left his shoes in the short hallway. The buzz of amiable chatter coming from the lounge added to the warmth. He spent a couple of minutes shaking hands, exchanging kisses. There were wide smiles everywhere he looked.
He piled a buffet plate high with homemade party food, including warm vol au vents recently out of the oven, stuffed with his favourite: his aunt’s spicy curry. He sat next to his other aunt, already in animated conversation with two teenage girls: Tim’s second cousins. One of them pointed to a framed photograph on top of a piano in the corner of the room.
‘What do you think?’ she asked Tim. ‘We had it framed for her birthday.’
The photograph was a formal pose of Tim’s grandparents on his father’s side. He’d never met any family on his mother’s side, in fact he didn’t know if there even were any.
‘Wow,’ Tim said. ‘It’s just how I remember her. I don’t remember seeing it before though.’
The other aunt raised an eyebrow.
‘I doubt it, Tim. That photo was taken a good twenty years before you were born.’
Tim stayed quiet.
Weird. It’s just how I remember her.
His aunt must have got it wrong. He pushed the thought to one side. There was another memory he needed some clarification on. He turned to his aunt.
‘I was at a writing class, and we were discussing memory and narrative, about things that trigger especially warm memories. We were asked to draw something relevant to the memory.’
The two girls were also listening now, breaking off their conversation to hear what Tim had to say.
‘What was it?’ the youngest asked. ‘What did you draw?’
‘It was, and bearing in mind I’m the world’s worst artist, an extremely rough sketch of Thornberry Primary school. Still, it was better than the swan I drew playing Pictionary the last time I came here.’
‘I remember,’ his aunt said, laughing. ‘It had no neck; no wonder no one could guess what it was!’
‘Ew, school!’ the youngest girl said, screwing her face up. ‘Not my warmest memories, that’s for sure!’
His aunt stayed quiet for a minute. She looked thoughtful. When she spoke, she looked as though she were struggling with the concept. It was a look of confusion.
‘And what was it about the school that still gives you such a warm feeling?’
‘Well, I know it was a tough time for Dad, and I was looked after by Granny and Grandad for a little while. But I loved it. Everything seemed warm, and safe. Probably because Granny taught me.’
The look of confusion stayed on his aunt’s face. The girls stayed quiet, perhaps sensing there was more of this story to come.
She called over to his aunt Lottie, the birthday girl.
‘Lottie, did your mum ever teach at Thornberry Primary?’
Tim’s heart thumped.
‘No, I don’t think so. She taught up the road, next village, till she took early retirement. Rosehill Primary.’
Tim called across to Aunt Lottie.
‘Are you sure? My memories are quite clear on this one.’
‘Quite sure. I know you were here for a while, but I can’t remember any details; I was abroad at the time. I’m sure she’d already become—’ His other aunt spoke before Aunt Lottie completed her sentence.
‘And it was before I married your uncle so I can’t help you there, I’m afraid. Ask him, he might know.’
She called his uncle over, explained the conundrum. He scratched his head.
‘I was young then.’ He winked at his wife. ‘My mind was on other things.’
The girls stared at their grandfather, waiting for some previously unknown juicy titbit from the most conservative man they knew.
‘On work, girls, on work. I was off chasing my career in those days.’
‘So, sorry, can’t help you there, Tim. But I’m sure Mum never worked at Thornberry.’
Tim’s uncle went off to supervise his young grandson at the piano. The little lad was making one heck of a racket.
The conversation turned to other things; university hopes for the older kids, the scandalous prices charged by property lawyers, and all sorts of seemingly random topics. Tim listened, showing an enthusiasm he wasn’t feeling. He loved the rare companionship of his family, drafted in from all over the world, and he wasn’t about to dampen spirits by projecting his shocked and slightly depressed interior onto the party.
How had his memories deceived him for so many years? He’d put a more than twenty years out-of-date image of his granny into a job she never had. Maybe he really loved the school and spent so much time chatting to Granny each day about it that he imagined she was with him all the time. He let the gloom subside while he discussed the two girls’ school reading lists with them.
A little while later, Aunt Lottie approached Tim, who was still sitting on the sofa, alternating conversation with his other aunt and her two granddaughters. Lottie held a heavy-looking photograph album in both hands.
‘Look, Tim. I thought I’d seen one. It’s a picture of you and your granny. You’d have been about four or five at the time.’ She turned the album around, placing it on Tim’s lap.
His face blanched.
He was as he might have expected to look, but his grandmother looked nothing like the woman in the photograph frame standing atop the piano. There was perhaps a twenty-year gap, his other aunt had told him, between the photograph on the piano, and him being born. So, add another five, he thought. Twenty-five years. His grandmother looked twice her age from the earlier photograph. She was smiling. Still warm, still loving. But ill. Very ill.
Aunt Lottie lifted the album away from Tim.
‘You look shocked. You were young, so you probably don’t remember her as she really was. She was in the early stages of dementia there, Tim, so she would have already retired. She couldn’t have taught you.’
‘No,’ Tim said. ‘Of course not.’
It was early evening when Tim returned to York the next day. A quiet Sunday, and to his pleasant surprise, the trains had arrived on time and no engineering works had held up the journey. The air was frigid. Disembarking, he blew steam clouds and rubbed his hands together. He had much to ponder.
He’d woken fresh in the morning after a great night’s sleep, which surprised him considering he initially thought the hotel bed was too small, the pillows too firm, and the quilt too heavy. He’d taken a long walk before breakfast, along the winding streets that had on previous occasions felt so odd to him. Like floating, as if he wasn’t there at all. But not this time. He’d felt as though he was part of the town now, that he shared a little of its history, that he’d really lived there. Even the grass, carrying a light frost, had seemed brighter, more alive.
It was as though some weight had been lifted from his shoulders the evening before, as if some great truth had broken through this weird twilight existence each time he’d visited previously. Perhaps it was the lie within the truth? Well, not a lie exactly, as it certainly wasn’t intentional, but a mistake, a warped memory. It had saddened him deeply, seeing the photograph of his granny and him, to the point where he desperately wanted to reach out to her, to tell her he loved her. He felt as though, in the photograph, he was merely a prop, a useless thing to fill the frame, unable to help or to prevent a wasting disease. Strange. Odd that in exchange for giving up the lie, or the mistake, he’d been presented with something else; a new acceptance, at least underfoot, as if the ancient strands holding Thornberry together had finally accepted him, had decided to let him walk unfettered.
Like other people. Like other people with uncluttered, true memories.
Coming out of the railway station, Tim decided he’d walk back to his apartment, a roomy place above an antique shop. He’d bought the freehold years ago but had no need of the shop. It was al
ready rented out to a delightful lady who’d been worried she’d lose possession, but Tim was very happy for her to stay. She’d been ecstatic when he’d informed her that she’d only have to pay a nominal rent.
Gothic-inspired Lendal Bridge was tourist-free at that time of night. Tim, for once, was able to walk along unhindered by rushing city workers and dawdling visitors. He couldn’t blame the tourists at all for wanting to slow down and admire the great River Ouse, particularly when a high sun made the water glitter and dance. He glanced down at the tarpaulin-covered pleasure boats, an unchanging fixture on the river since he arrived in the city as a young lad. Some of his schoolmates had worked on them, scrubbing decks in the summer holidays for much-lauded wages. Not Tim though. Not then. Since the swimming lessons, he could look at the water, albeit briefly, for what it was, geographically important enough to attract the Romans, and later, the Vikings, whose legacies were still very much visible almost everywhere you went.
For so many years, Tim had avoided even looking at the Ouse. Childhood nightmares, mostly remembered from his time living in his grandparents’ cottage, usually consisted of him travelling on the top of a bright red double decker bus, him sitting right at the front from where he could pretend he was driving. It was usually Ouse Bridge, not Lendal Bridge, where the dreams took a disturbing turn. Literally. Witches would suddenly appear up above, speeding along on their broomsticks, somehow forcing the bus up and over the sides of the bridge. As the bus hurtled through the air, Tim would wake, sweat running down his chest. It was the only downside to the cottage. Everything else about the place, and Thornberry, had been idyllic.
At least that’s how he remembered it.
After admiring the Minster in all its frosty glory (the massive, ornate structure never failed to impress him), he followed the last of his route until the turning for Lord Mayor’s Walk. He crossed the deathly-quiet road and headed to his flat.
Tim dumped his holdall in his bedroom then relaxed with a steaming mug of tea. He thought about the trip. It had been a great success, at least as far as a family reunion was concerned, and his aunt certainly appreciated everyone making the effort to be there. That other thing though. His flawed memory of his grandmother, both in her looks and her role in his young life, had flattened him. Initially, he saw it as the mixed-up memory of a small boy. Understandable really. And, after all, it didn’t detract from the overall picture still etched in his mind; of warm, happy times with Thornberry Primary seemingly at its centre.
He was sure that his aunts and uncle couldn’t all be mistaken, could they? They’d admitted after all, they’d been away at the time. And it was only a couple of miles that separated the two schools; swapping one out for the other, that could be overlooked, couldn’t it? He still had a couple of days off before he was due back at work at the university. It was literally a five-minute walk away from his flat, but he never once regretted its proximity. It was his life. He decided what he’d do next. In the morning, he’d give Thornberry Primary a call and make some enquiries. It couldn’t be that difficult to find out if it was his mistake rather than his relatives’. Then he’d forget about it. He opened his laptop, then Googled the school’s name. He was pleased to note it had a professional website and clear contact details. His frown deepened. Was he wasting his time? He’d seen the photograph. She looked too ill to teach.
The voice at the other end of the telephone was clear, professional and warm. It had a gentle lilt, obviously southern.
Tim explained his query, informing the secretary he was researching his family tree and wanted to know if his grandmother had indeed transferred from Rosehill to Thornberry at any point, especially around the mid-seventies.
‘I’m not sure if our records go back that far,’ Robyn said politely. ‘On our computerized system, that is. Do you have an email address so I can contact you? I may have to search through some paper records but they’re all in boxes in a storeroom. Might take me a day or two.’
‘Would you?’ Tim said. ‘Thank you so much.’ He supplied Robyn with his full name and his email address. ‘Oh, one other thing, I hope you don’t mind. Would you also be able to find out the dates I was a pupil at Thornberry? Probably around 1975 as well, give or take a year.’
‘Well, I’ll certainly try,’ Robyn said brightly. ‘Enjoy your day!’
‘You too,’ Tim replied before hanging up. He felt better already, as if he were doing something tangible instead of letting thoughts ramble around in his mind.
He saw the email from Robyn two days later. It was official, on a Thornberry Primary header.
It was far from what he had expected, even allowing for a certain level of disappointment.
* * *
Hi Tim
Thank you for your enquiry.
Unfortunately, there is no record of a Francine Collins having ever taught at Thornberry Primary.
As regards to your other question; are you sure it was Thornberry that you attended as a pupil? I have searched class rolls for 1976 as well as two years either side and cannot find your name anywhere.
Hope this helps, but I am rather sure that it doesn’t. Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.
Regards
Robyn
‘How was the trip, Tim?’
It was Angela, a Department of History colleague.
He shook his head, then scratched the back of it. He’d managed to get through a seminar on the English Reformation with an outward gusto that he wasn’t feeling, but now in a quiet cafeteria, the perplexity of his situation returned with vigour.
‘Bad as that, eh?’ Angela continued. ‘Want to talk about it?’
He explained to her what had happened, at Thornberry during his aunt’s party and then yesterday, when he’d received Robyn’s email.
‘So you see, it’s like I never existed. Weird doesn’t even begin to cover it.’
‘And didn’t your dad ever talk about it, when you went down there for a while?’
‘No, never. Oh, except for one occasion, when we’d had a few drinks, which was unusual for both of us. He told me I wasn’t happy there at all. It was weird, him contradicting what I’d always believed but I didn’t push it, and it wasn’t mentioned again. It’s too late to ask him now.’
‘At least it proves you were there. Not at that particular school, perhaps, but in the town at least. Maybe you were at the other school; you know, Rosehill?’
‘Maybe.’ But he wasn’t convinced. All right, he conceded, his grandmother might have wanted him there with her at Rosehill, but what about the photograph? He needed to remember the context. She was too ill to teach. At either school.
Had he made it all up?
Chapter Nine
The early childhood that Tim Collins had either forgotten or ceased to think about now crowded his thoughts. He tried to calm these thoughts, to separate them into what was important and what was not. He’d taken a short mindfulness course at the university, chewing on a single raisin to focus and appreciate one task and one pleasure, and he conceded it had worked to a certain extent. At least for a while. Which was great for teaching. He already had a basic grasp of what the human brain was capable of, in terms of absorbing blocks of information; it was compulsory learning during his post-16 teacher training.
But this was something so personal, it was near impossible to be objective. He dug out his birth certificate, its three hard creases bearing witness to the amount of times over the years it had been unfolded, scrutinized, refolded. His mother’s name was there, quite clearly. Her maiden name, Morris. No occupation, but an address. Not Collins, that would have been her married name, like his. But whose address was this? The marital address, or her parents’ address? He was sure the format had changed over the years, from later birth certificates he’d seen, but he couldn’t be sure.
He stared at the address for a couple of minutes. His mind whirred like a machine, as if he could hear it running. He thought it was probably where they both lived whe
n he was born. That would make more sense. But he couldn’t remember seeing or hearing of this address before. Could he remember any address from that long ago? He didn’t think so. Only when his father and him moved to York, and only then because they lived in the house for a good ten years. But where had he heard that they sometimes put the mother’s parents’ address on the certificate instead? He couldn’t remember.
He looked out the window, across rooftops to the university quad, a grassy area nestled between high medieval structures. The grass sparkled from the melting frost. He made up his mind. He’d book some more leave, he had plenty owing, and he didn’t think there’d be any problem with taking it during one of the university’s reading weeks.
He’d visit the address. It might be a pointless visit, but since he’d discovered that at least a chunk of his early childhood might have been imagined, it was time to reclaim another part of it. Even if it meant no one at the address knew what had happened to his mother, or even his grandparents. At least he might feel that he was touching some sort of base, some landmark in his own fragmented history. If only he could have discussed all this with his father, while he was still alive. But it was quite impossible, then. Tim hadn’t wanted to stir the obvious toxic memories buried deep or not so deep within his father. He’d tried once, many years before, and the only answer he received was “Tim, everyone’s an individual, and sometimes, things happen, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Of course, for Tim it had been a non-answer but he’d nonetheless read it as “We’re not discussing this, now or ever.”
He bumped into Angela the next day, during a coffee break. He told her what he was planning to do.
‘Well, I think you’re brave. And I suppose it’s a bit of an adventure, too.’
‘Not brave. There’re parts of me missing all over the place. Now I’m on my own again, and glad of it, I no longer feel I’m part of anything.’