The Last Wave

by Gillian Best

  ‘Really?’

  She nodded. ‘He’s been getting worse lately. He goes through these phases, where he’ll be fine for days and weeks at a time, remembering the basics, who I am, where we are, when we are, but then out of the blue, he’s gone. He’s been wandering, during the night sometimes. I haven’t been able to do anything for him because I’ve been ill myself.’

  ‘Cancer?’

  She nodded. ‘Breast cancer, but that seems to be on its way out.’

  I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘He came downstairs last week and saw me without my wig.’ She smiled that kind of smile people have when they’re about to tell you something really awful. ‘And he didn’t recognise me.’

  She took a biscuit from the plate and snapped it in half, dunked it in her tea and ate it.

  Later, on the train back home, I couldn’t get the image out of my mind of Martha and John standing in their lounge, surrounded by all that boring brown furniture and the horrible Laura Ashley-type floral wallpaper, and him not being able to recognise his own wife.

  I couldn’t believe that my grandparents were up there, all by themselves, with no one to help them because they wouldn’t talk to my mum. If that had happened with Iris’ parents we would’ve been down to Devon in a flash.

  I got to the bowling alley in Brick Lane just after 6pm and my mums were already there, blowing up balloons.

  ‘Hi!’ Iris shouted the minute she saw me.

  She was waving and doing what she did best, which was being the most enthusiastic person ever, no matter how ridiculous she looked. Which was good in this case because seeing her holding a blue balloon in one hand and waving as though she were in a crowd of hundreds and not just a nearly empty party room was the only thing that could have possibly made me smile. She looked completely out of place there, still in her primary schoolteacher clothes, all floaty pastels, loose and unstructured.

  She and Harriet looked like polar opposites. Sometimes I didn’t understand how they even managed to meet, let alone get together. Harriet was dressed in something black on top and black on bottom, fitted and finished with a leather jacket that she’d had since I could remember and was really, really worn in some parts. Iris and I hated it but she wouldn’t throw it away.

  I went over to them and Iris nearly knocked me down with hugs and kisses.

  ‘Happy birthday, my darling.’

  If she had been a dog, she would’ve been a Labrador. Harriet would have been a pit bull. Both loyal and protective, but in different ways.

  Harriet put her arm around my shoulders and squeezed. ‘How was practice?’

  ‘Alright.’

  She brushed the hair off my face. ‘Everything okay?’

  I shrugged, taking a balloon and stretching. ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  Iris tied a knot at the end of the blue balloon she’d been holding when I walked in and held it over her mouth. I smiled half-heartedly.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What’s wrong, Myrtle?’ she repeated.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘I do,’ she said. ‘What happened?’

  I sat down at the table that was covered in a ton of decorations making it look like they were getting ready to host a birthday party for a six-year-old and put my chin in my hand. I knew telling them would make them upset in different ways but that nonetheless it would completely ruin the whole evening, but I also didn’t really feel like having a party so I thought, why not?

  ‘Martha,’ I said. ‘I went to see Martha today.’

  ‘Martha who?’ Harriet asked in that nervy way she had where you knew she already knew the answer.

  ‘Martha my grandmother.’

  She nearly spat her wine on the floor and Iris put her hand over her mouth in shock.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Iris said.

  ‘No it’s not,’ Harriet said.

  ‘She has cancer. And John’s got Alzheimer’s,’ I said. Then, just because it seemed better to get it all out there, I added, ‘They have a lot of pictures of me, in the house.’

  Everything stopped after that. Harriet looked like she was going to faint. She reached out to steady herself, using the back of a chair for balance. Iris sat down next to me and put her hand on my knee, resting her head on my shoulder and clinging to me in the way she had that I hated, especially in public.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ Harriet said. ‘Fucking unbelievable.’

  ‘Harry,’ Iris said. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Because I’ve never met them, and I wanted to.’

  ‘You should’ve told us.’

  ‘You would’ve said no,’ I said.

  ‘With good reason,’ Harriet said.

  ‘Mum, it’s not a good reason. Whatever it was that you fought about it was ages ago, and I wanted to meet her. She’s a swimmer you know. Didn’t you think I might like to at least meet her once before she dies? She’s my grandmother and she has cancer. And she says that whatever it is, John can’t apologise for it because he might not recognise you anymore,’ I said, my voice getting wavery. I felt my cheeks flush and I felt ready to burst into tears.

  Harriet didn’t say anything right away. She drank her wine in gulps while she thought about what to say. ‘Cancer?’

  I nodded.

  ‘How was she?’ Iris asked.

  ‘Okay. She doesn’t have any hair.’

  Harriet closed her eyes and went really pale, even for her.

  ‘Cancer?’ she whispered.

  I nodded.

  ‘How did you find out? Did she tell you?’

  ‘Sort of. She took her wig off before we went in the water.’

  ‘In the water?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘Yeah, she wanted to go swimming.’

  ‘You went swimming?’

  ‘Yeah, in the sea.’

  ‘Let me understand this. You went, without asking or telling your mother and I, to Dover on your own, to meet my parents and after you found out that my mother has cancer and my father is losing his mind you went swimming?’

  ‘Kind of. I found out about John when we got back.’

  She shook her head as though if she did it hard enough, everything I’d just told her would go flying out her ears. ‘You don’t go swimming in the sea.’

  ‘It was okay actually.’

  ‘I’m not asking if you enjoyed it. I’m telling you you’re strictly forbidden from ever going in the sea like that again.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s dangerous and I’m your mother, that’s why.’

  ‘That’s not fair!’

  ‘She’s a good swimmer, Harry, and besides, I think that misses the point,’ Iris said calmly.

  ‘You’re right. You’re grounded. You’re forbidden from going again. It’s not up for discussion. It’s a fact. You do not go there.’

  ‘Harry,’ Iris said, reaching out for her hand and drawing her near.

  ‘What? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is, Iris? Have you seen someone with serious hypothermia? With their tongue so swollen from salt that she can’t speak, covered in hideous welts from all the chaffing? Face swollen from jellyfish stings? Dodging boats and high seas and waves that could easily capsize that stupid fishing boat that goes with her. Have you ever seen any of that?’

  ‘They didn’t swim the Channel this afternoon, did you?’ Iris asked.

  ‘No, we swam in the harbour. She didn’t even tell me about the Channel.’

  ‘That’s hard to believe. It’s all she talks about,’ Harriet sneered.

  ‘You guys are always saying how important family is, how much you love me, how happy you are to be my mothers. I just wanted to know them.’

  I got up and turned away from the table, intending to storm out of there and walk around outside by myself for a bit, so Iris could tell Harriet to cool it, but when I turned around my friend Robin from swim team was there, holding out
his arms ready to give me a hug.

  ‘Hiya,’ he said in that way he had where he seemed shocked and embarrassed at the same time. I let him give me a big hug, and he whispered, ‘Is she going to coach you?’

  ‘I didn’t get a chance to ask,’ I whispered back. ‘Other things happened, tell you later.’

  We let go of each other and I hoped my mums hadn’t noticed anything unusual.

  ‘Am I in trouble with coach?’ I asked before anybody could ask any other questions.

  He shook his head. ‘I said you weren’t feeling well and he did the whole you shoulda phoned him yourself, integrity, responsibility speech.’

  I nodded. We got that speech at least once a week.

  ‘So,’ he said, looking at my mums who were not putting a lot of effort into appearing as though nothing had happened. ‘Happy birthday!’ he said, and handed me a package wrapped in Christmas paper.

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘We didn’t have much selection at home.’

  I smiled at him and unwrapped it. It was a book: Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World.

  ‘Perfect,’ Harriet said, storming away from the table.

  ‘It is, thanks,’ I said.

  Coming Home

  The customs official asked me the reason for my visit. ‘Business or pleasure?’ he said in the surly grey English morning.

  ‘Neither,’ I replied.

  ‘You’re British,’ he said. ‘This is an Australian passport.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m coming home. Neither business nor pleasure, more of a requirement. A way to lessen the guilt that’s grown with every year that passes and every year in which I’ve found excuses for not making the journey.’

  He looked puzzled.

  ‘My mother,’ I said. ‘Cancer.’

  He stared at me. My eyes were red from the wine consumed during the flight to steady nerves that had grown strained the closer I got to home. The way he looked at me felt as if he were trying to decide whether or not I was a good son or a bad one. I could have told him myself, if he’d asked. I was a bad son trying to make up for lost time before time stopped.

  ‘Welcome to Great Britain,’ he said.

  I got on a train, a tube, then another train headed out of London. I wore sunglasses in the dull light that felt unfamiliar and familiar at the same time. I was assaulted by things from my childhood that were once unnoticeable: accents and the particular smell of laundry.

  Through the middling weather that I had grown up with the train ferried me closer to the white house with a black lacquer door, brown sofas, and a wardrobe with a hole punched in the back, the result of an eruption of teenage frustration, the source of which I had long since forgotten. The house that had once been home, but the twenty-three-hour flight had turned into days and months and years and it was just a house now.

  It was just a house, I told myself, four walls and a roof. Carpeting, wallpaper and a garden. It was nothing to be afraid of.

  Three days ago the phone had rung late at night. I recognised my sister’s voice instantly and the years since we’d spoken collapsed.

  ‘Iain,’ she’d said.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Good news arrives at reasonable hours but bad news barges in, possessing neither the restraint nor the decency to wait.

  ‘You need to get on a flight.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  Her voice was choked. ‘Mum. We’re going up to the house.’

  ‘We’re?’

  ‘All of us.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s not the sort of thing you say over the phone.’

  ‘Harry,’ I said. I pictured my sister in the tracksuit she had worn when we were teenagers: hood up and pulled tight around her head.

  ‘We’ll be there tomorrow night.’

  ‘Harry.’

  ‘Cancer.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s not exactly forthcoming.’

  It sounded as if she was crying. ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘I don’t know, you’re the one who phones.’

  ‘I haven’t called in a while,’ I said, which opened a torrent of guilt.

  I rationalised: I’ve been busy, my life is here not there, and even when we do speak, they only want to hear about the good things because those are worthy of an expensive long-distance phone call.

  ‘How did you find out?’ I asked.

  ‘Myrtle.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She went to see them. Mum had a wig.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They went swimming.’

  When my sister said that, I couldn’t keep from laughing. I imagined my mother, marching out of hospital in the midst of her treatment, jettisoning her wig, the bags of chemotherapy dragging behind her. I pictured them as poisonous jellyfish threatening to burst and sting her at any moment. And, as she had done over the course of many Channel swims, I knew she would ignore them. The sea, her answer to everything. The sea, for my mother, would make it all better.

  The sun had set by the time the train pulled into Dover Priory and I had to take off my sunglasses. The only thing that had changed were the adverts.

  The drive was shorter than I’d remembered and in less than ten minutes I stood on the pavement in front of the house. My parents’ house.

  The lights were on. I strained to see where everybody was, what they were doing, and what I was walking into. But it was a bad vantage point and I couldn’t see anything except my mother with her back to me, washing something in the sink.

  I didn’t know what to do. Ringing the bell seemed too formal, walking right in seemed too informal. I didn’t know if they’d hear me if I knocked.

  My mother turned her head towards the kitchen table or someone standing just out of sight and I saw her face. Her cheeks were sunken and she’d lost enough weight so that her cardigan looked too big. That she had cancer was bad enough, but to be confronted immediately by how much she had aged was more than I was prepared for.

  Mum moved away from the sink and took a roast out of the oven. Once she’d set it on the counter I rang the bell.

  A few moments later I heard a bit of a scuffle, and the door opened onto my father and Myrtle.

  My father looked me up and down suspiciously. ‘What do you want?’

  Not the warm welcome I had imagined, even from him.

  ‘Hi Uncle Iain,’ Myrtle said, trying to push my father aside. ‘Perfect timing. Grandma’s just putting dinner out.’

  Weird, too, hearing her call Mum Grandma. Like waking up one morning to find that the Cold War had been one big misunderstanding.

  My father looked at Myrtle. ‘Harriet, do you know this man?’

  She took his hand in hers and dragged him to the kitchen. I heard her say, ‘Mum, he’s doing it again.’

  ‘Hi,’ I said to the empty doorway. I picked up my case and the dog charged at me the second I’d entered the house.

  ‘What happened to Webb?’ I shouted as the dog jumped up, licking my face. ‘When I left he had four legs!’

  Mum nearly dropped her serving spoon when she saw me.

  ‘Oh my God, Iain, you’re going bald!’ Harriet said as she ran at me and wrapped her arms around me.

  ‘Iain,’ Mum said. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

  I gave her a hug and a kiss. She felt frail in my arms. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  ‘Myrtle, set another place,’ she said.

  My father lurched into the kitchen. ‘Hi Dad,’ I said.

  He looked at me dismissively and put the kettle on. He fiddled with the button, and it refused to switch on. ‘Goddamn it! Why doesn’t anything in this house work?’

  Everyone ignored him, which was unusual, but then his behaviour was not how I remembered it.

  He looked around wildly. ‘Have you all gone deaf? The bloody kettle’s buggered again.’

  ‘John, stop shouting,’ Mum sai
d. ‘Sit down at the table, please.’

  ‘Stop telling me what to do!’

  Mum took a deep breath and Harriet led him by the hand to the table, helping him into his seat.

  I went over to Mum’s side and offered to help with dinner. She brushed me away.

  ‘What’s going on with him?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s fine.’

  ‘No, Mum, he’s not.’

  ‘Did you come all the way from Sydney to tell me that?’

  She still had her sharpness, which was reassuring. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I came to see you.’

  ‘You should’ve called. We’ve a full house,’ she said as she brought the roast to the table. She handed me the carving knife. ‘Make yourself useful.’

  I wanted to know what was going on and why she’d kept it from me, from us. I was working to a tight schedule, my life in Australia temporarily on hold in order to tie up loose ends here. But it was obvious that wasn’t going to happen tonight. Family was not something that could be tidied up and filed away. It continued, whether you wanted it to or not.

  Mum served Dad first, as was our custom. He watched her, and when she put the plate in front of him he lowered his head and sniffed.

  ‘What is this, chicken?’

  Mum nodded.

  ‘It doesn’t smell right,’ he said, pushing the food away. He turned to Myrtle and said, ‘Harriet, go and put some tomato soup on.’

  No one moved. Mum cut a potato in half and chewed slowly. Dad waited, looking at Myrtle and when she didn’t get up he said, ‘You’re just as willful as your mother.’

  We ate quickly. There was no sense talking with my father’s constant interruptions.

  I couldn’t sleep. The jet-lag was punishing but more than that, my childhood bed was claustrophobic, making it difficult to resist returning to the old version of myself I’d left behind. My thoughts wandered to the things that made me want to leave in the first place: the close atmosphere of the town and the house, the way nobody ever spoke directly, and my need to reinvent myself, which was something that could only really be done by leaving everyone I knew behind. Wrapped in the same duvet that had seen me through my teenage years, I felt like that boy again, acutely aware of the whispers that lurked behind netted curtains, in queues and in the politely banal questions of the people I had grown up with.