The Last Wave

by Gillian Best

  ‘Come back to bed,’ I said. ‘It’s not even nine in the morning.’

  ‘Day’s a-wasting.’ She crumpled the duvet in the far corner of the room.

  It took us over an hour to get out of London, but once we were drifting along through the green fields, dotted with trees and bushes and nature showing off, I was lulled into sleep. The car stopped and the last thing I remembered was a sheep standing perilously close to the motorway. Iris put her hand on my shoulder to wake me, so the first place I looked wasn’t out the window, though it should’ve been, the first place I looked was her face and she beamed back at me, the woman I’d fallen in love with years ago.

  ‘We’re here,’ she said.

  ‘Where’s here?’ I looked out the window. ‘Turn around.’

  ‘We’re already here. What’s the harm?’

  ‘I don’t want to do this.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll go introduce myself.’

  ‘Iris, don’t.’

  She put her hand on the door release and glanced at me. I shook my head but that didn’t stop her. She opened the door and walked up the path. I didn’t follow immediately, hoping that without me she would turn around and we could get away unnoticed. But she didn’t stop and so I had no choice. That’s the thing about family: it’s not about want. Want has nothing to do with it.

  The front door was painted a high lacquer black, exactly the same as it had been the last time I was here. The myrtle bush looked bigger and was actually beautiful in full bloom. Everything looked – as I had known it would – neat as a pin because that’s how my father preferred it. Left to her own devices, I always thought my mother would ignore everything but the myrtle.

  Iris put her finger on the bell and just before she rang it I whispered, ‘We can still turn around.’ She pressed it regardless and it echoed in the corridor.

  I prayed they were out at church or at a friend’s house playing cards or anywhere else, as long as they weren’t in, but the chances of that happening were slim: my parents had never been particularly social.

  I heard a kerfuffle coming from the kitchen and looked through the window to see my father holding a cup of tea as my mother looked on with a mixture of irritation and sadness. She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and shook her head as she came to the door. She didn’t look out the window to see who it might be but if she had she would not have seen me as I shrank behind Iris.

  She opened the door and my wife smiled the biggest, warmest smile she could. I knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  ‘Yes?’ Mum said.

  Her voice. I didn’t realise how much I had missed it. With just one word I was taken back to her table and my childhood, to a time before I had learned to make my own decisions, and after she had been brave enough to make hers.

  I put my hand on my belly instinctively as I looked at my mother’s face. She had aged but not much, her shoulders were still broad and strong, and her posture was still aggressively good. The skin on her jowls was looser and her face looked softer but she still looked the way I pictured her. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and hold on tightly. I wanted to burst into tears and for her to smooth my hair down and make me a cup of hot chocolate and tell me everything would be okay. I wanted to be the little girl she loved, curled up on her lap.

  ‘I’m Iris,’ she said, holding out her hand.

  Mum took it and then she looked at me and when she put it together she dropped Iris’ hand.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  Dad appeared behind her and my body bristled. He looked at Iris and then me.

  ‘Have I forgotten you were coming?’ he said.

  His face was a mirror. I had taken after him physically: tall with a narrow face, and a complexion prone to burning upon any exposure to sun, quite unlike my mother who turned a lovely toasted olive colour.

  ‘Go inside,’ my mother told him.

  ‘Or did you forget to tell me?’ He looked at her accusingly.

  ‘John, go inside. Drink one of the cups of tea you’ve made for yourself.’ She gave him a gentle shove.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s taken us so long to visit,’ Iris said.

  Mum ignored her and looked at me. ‘It’s not a good time.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know,’ I said.

  ‘How could you? You don’t phone.’

  ‘But we’re here now,’ Iris said in the relentlessly cheery voice she saved for her students. ‘We’re so pleased to have caught you at home. We just thought we’d pop by for a cup of tea.’

  ‘You don’t pop by from London,’ Mum said.

  I suppressed a smile.

  ‘But you’re here now,’ she stepped aside. ‘You may as well come in.’

  We settled into the lounge that hadn’t changed. The brown sofa was flanked by two brown chairs, the throw cushions were still beige and looked as if no one had ever thought to use them, their shape was still perfect. The wallpaper, which had always looked as though it had come from a pub, was peeling back at the seams, but that obviously wasn’t a concern. Interior decorating was not an interest my mother had ever had.

  Furniture sees everything: it is where we fall in and out of love, where we share bad news and good, where we hold hands and each other. It sits silently, watching, and makes no judgements but holds memories in its fabric. The red wine stain when arms were thrown up in celebration, the gravy stain from the last Christmas when everyone was home, and the cigarette burn from the secret party we had thrown as teenagers. It was all still here. A still life.

  My father sat in his chair, which is where I pictured him when I thought of him. He was a living photograph, wearing the same uniform of wool trousers, corduroy waistcoat, check shirt and tie, all in earth tones. My father didn’t wear blue because it was my mother’s colour. He was the hills, and she the sea. The difference in his appearance that day was his feet. Where before he had always had Oxfords on, now he wore carpet slippers. It was an admission more than anything else that though things inside the house had not changed, their lives had at least in some way. The slippers meant that life outside these four walls was no longer for him. Mum, I noticed, had her shoes on.

  Iris took my hand in hers and my body tensed. I had never held hands with anyone in this house. My parents, married for over thirty years, were not physically affectionate with one another and I could have counted on one hand the number of times I saw them kiss. Contact of any kind was for other people.

  ‘You have a lovely garden,’ Iris said to my father.

  He stared at our intertwined fingers.

  Mum brought the tea things through and nearly dropped the tray when she saw us. I tried to release myself from Iris’ grasp but she squeezed my hand tightly. To let go would have been much worse.

  ‘Milk?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Thanks,’ Iris replied.

  ‘You still take yours black I assume?’ she said to me.

  It was such a small, everyday question that it hardly counted as a question at all, but it was my childhood. In that one sentence I heard her say she was hurt that I didn’t call, that she missed me and still remembered me.

  The moment that passed as tea was offered round was filled with a familiar uncomfortable silence that reminded me of childhood, disappointment and things left unsaid and it felt longer than any of Mum’s Channel swims had ever been.

  Mum perched on the edge of her chair. This was not the first awkward, impromptu afternoon tea she’d hosted and it probably wouldn’t be the last. My father had a habit of bringing people home after church: not because he wanted to spend time with them, but so he could be seen with them.

  ‘How is London?’ my mother asked.

  ‘Yeah, good,’ I said.

  Iris shot me a look. ‘It’s wonderful. We went to the theatre last week, and we have tickets to the new exhibition at the Tate next month.’

  ‘I’ve never been to the theatre,’ my mother said.

  ‘That’s terrible! You should come down, we’ll make a weekend of it. We’d lov
e to have you.’

  My mother forced a smile. ‘How kind of you to offer.’

  ‘Never cared much for the theatre,’ Dad said. ‘Don’t see the point in it.’

  ‘Some people enjoy it,’ I muttered.

  ‘Sorry?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing,’ I replied.

  ‘And what sort of things do you enjoy?’ Iris asked, in her best schoolteacher voice.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve been introduced.’ His voice was like ice.

  ‘Iris,’ she said.

  ‘And how do you know Harriet?’

  Before either of us could reply, my mother said, ‘She’s a friend of Harriet’s from London.’

  ‘She’s my—’

  ‘Friend from work,’ Mum interjected. She closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘John, would you get the biscuits please?’

  ‘What?’ he said, unable to take his eyes off Iris who tightened her grip on my hand.

  I’d forgotten what it was like to be on the receiving end of his stare.

  ‘John, the biscuits. Just put them on a plate.’

  He scowled and bristled at being asked to do women’s work, and though I expected him to say something, he went into the kitchen without a word.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Mum said absently. ‘Why now?’

  It was a good question but I couldn’t tell her that Iris had essentially kidnapped me and I couldn’t tell her the reasons why it had to be that way because I could barely admit to myself the thoughts that I was having. I looked at my mother and gave myself permission to acknowledge my feelings: it had been five years, my wife has never met you and I’m pregnant with our first child, and the distance has faded my bad memories and I wonder if you still think of me. I wonder if you still love me and think of me as your daughter because sometimes in a random moment, I’m reminded of you and I wish I could tell you that I miss you. The short answer was that, regardless of the fact that she had stood by my father when he cast me out, I still loved her.

  But even if I had been able to say those things to her, and even if she had wanted to hear them, saying them in the lounge would have been wrong. Those answers were for the sea.

  Dad came into the lounge with a fresh cup of tea and seemed startled to see us but tried not to show it.

  ‘Where are the biscuits, John?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  Sighing, Mum went over to him and whispered, ‘Biscuits. I sent you to the kitchen for biscuits.’ She tugged at the cup but he wouldn’t let go.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘You have a cup already.’ She pointed to the side table.

  He looked at it and then at the cup in his hand. ‘That’s gone cold.’

  ‘No it hasn’t.’

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘John, please.’ She brushed the hair off her forehead. ‘The biscuits.’

  He tried to laugh it off. ‘How thoughtless. Can I get more hot water for anyone else?’

  I shook my head and Mum turned him toward the kitchen. It’s the little details that give us away.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing. Everything is fine.’

  The sound of things falling out of the cupboards came from the kitchen followed by my father’s voice. I got up but Mum stopped me.

  ‘Leave him.’

  ‘I’m just going to see if he needs any help.’ It was a sentence I never thought I would say.

  Moments later, he passed through the lounge, oblivious to us and went upstairs. I ignored my mother and followed him.

  ‘Everything alright, Dad?’ I said from the foot of the stairs as he gripped the bannister.

  He grumbled something in reply that I didn’t catch.

  I turned and my mother’s eyes were closed, her shoulders hunched forward and she looked old and tired. This was the woman who had raised my brother and I, and who had swum the Channel nearly ten times. Her body language made her unrecognisable.

  ‘What’s he doing?’

  Mum leaned back for support. ‘I don’t know.’

  I looked away and wished we hadn’t come. That the versions of my mother and father I had created – versions that kept only their best parts – had remained intact so that I was still able to think of them, and grow fond of them from the comfort of my own home where I felt equipped to deal with whatever life may throw at us.

  Mum pulled her lumpy grey cardigan tighter. ‘He’s not always himself these days. I came home from a swim to find he’d used all the cups in the house. And the first thing he did was ask why there were no clean mugs. They were everywhere.’ As she spoke she looked out at the garden.

  Iris drew a breath in and I knew she was going to try and offer my mother some words of comfort but I squeezed her hand and as I did I realised this was probably the longest we had ever held hands in all the years we had been together.

  ‘This house is getting too big,’ Mum said. ‘With you in London and Iain in Sydney…’ She went to the mantle and ran her fingers over the picture frame that held one of the few family photos we had. It was taken down at Shakespeare’s Bay, the day after she’d first tried to swim to France and hadn’t succeeded. My brother and I were smiling but you could tell our expressions were put on for the camera. My father looked protective with his arm around her shoulder and my mother looked crushed.

  ‘Why is this here?’ I asked.

  ‘Your father likes to remember the good old days,’ she said.

  I didn’t know whether to be hurt and angry, or touched by the fact that somewhere deep inside my father might miss me.

  ‘How is Iain?’ I asked to distract myself from a line of thinking that would make the afternoon harder than it already was.

  ‘Fine, I suppose. He hasn’t phoned recently.’

  And that was the problem. They stayed here and waited for news to come to them. They were not people who picked up the phone to chat and keep in touch. That was not their job. If there was something newsworthy to relay, you called them.

  ‘He’s busy with work,’ she said.

  She turned away from the picture and as she was sitting down there was a horrible crash from upstairs.

  She was off like a shot, shouting at my father as she went. We followed her and there was something reassuring about seeing her run up the stairs.

  Dad was on the floor of their bedroom surrounded by bags, boxes and suitcases.

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ Mum hissed.

  ‘I was looking for something.’

  She scooped things up and shoved them back in the wardrobe quickly, which was unlike her. ‘This has to stop. We’ve talked about this. If you want something just ask and I’ll get it.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me as though I’m a child.’

  ‘Stop acting like one.’

  Witnessing this private moment that passed between my parents made me want to run back to London as quickly as possible. It made me question what else she did for him and would have to do in the future. I was not ready for my parents to unravel.

  My father tried to laugh it off. ‘I suppose this is the way you’ll remember me from now on, isn’t it?’

  I couldn’t answer.

  Mum helped him off the floor. ‘Who’s your friend?’

  ‘Iris, Dad.’

  He smiled. ‘Lovely name.’ He acted as though the preceding hour had not occurred. ‘Now, who wants a nice cup of tea?’ Without waiting for the reply he went downstairs.

  I put my hand on my mother’s arm. ‘What’s that about?’

  She was silent until Iris excused herself to help with the tea.

  ‘Stress,’ she said.

  ‘Is it?’

  She folded up the old blue blanket that I remembered wrapping around her shoulders when we dragged her back into the boat the first time she tried to swim away and put it at the foot of the bed.

  ‘All he has to say is that she has a lovely name.’

  Mum nodded. ‘This is the firs
t time I can see the benefits of this.’

  Without thinking I said, ‘Of what?’ Daring her to put a name on it.

  But she must have known what a name would mean and simply said, ‘Growing old.’

  ‘Is he alright?’

  She shrugged in the same way she did when I used to ask her about what it was like to swim so far, in a nonchalant way that meant I was focused on the wrong thing.

  ‘Pregnant?’ she said.

  My cheeks flushed and I put my hand on my belly. I wasn’t even showing.

  Everything was overwhelming and I felt as if I would burst into tears as she watched me, waiting for a reply. I wanted the impossible: for us to go back to that Boxing Day lunch and for them to react differently.

  She slid the boxes in side by side and ran her hand over the top brushing off an invisible layer of dust.

  ‘Folic acid. You’ll need supplements.’

  ‘I’m taking a multivitamin.’

  I picked up a worn leather case and paused. ‘Is this what he was looking for?’

  She smiled. ‘It’s one of his things.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s mostly cups of tea, but it’s driving me to distraction.’ She sighed. ‘I worry now, when I leave him for too long.’

  ‘Why?’

  She straightened her cardigan and smoothed down her skirt. ‘You just never know what you might come home to.’ Her voice was tight and she was shoving things into the wardrobe now, not putting them away properly. This was something she would have to do again in the very near future.

  I thought of Iris and her family and the weekly phone calls and the way her face lit up when she heard their voices. The way they laughed together and teased each other and knew each other in the deepest sense. I knew my parents’ phone number and little else.

  My mother took the case onto her lap and ran her hands over the salt-stained leather as though it were an old friend.

  ‘He always brought it. In the boat, when I swam.’ She opened it and rummaged through the assortment of things that to the untrained eye looked like rubbish, removing an old jam jar of pebbles, which she held up to the light from the window.

  ‘Ten pebbles, ten swims.’

  It had been her first attempt and I had begged her to be allowed to come along in the support boat with my father. I had wanted to be part of it – the whole thing seemed like the sort of proper adventure I dreamed of. Dover was not set up for the kind of rollicking exploits I read about in books and I did not know then that this would be the first of many swims.