by Gillian Best
I took off my shoes and slid into bed next to him. I moved his arm gently hoping I wouldn’t wake him and then I put his arm around my shoulder, holding it tightly against my chest. He murmured softly as though he was about to wake and I kissed his hand.
I did not know if he was dreaming and if he was, what was happening in the dream, but he was calm. In that moment he was the man I loved, the man I had married and the man he had always been. He was my John and if this was where I would be able to find him, if this was the last place where he was himself then this is where I would come. I lay next to him, my wet hair dampening the pillow and I wondered if he could smell the sea on me, if it permeated his dreams.
I didn’t manage to earn enough money working for the church to pay for my swim, and with two young children John and I couldn’t afford to spare anything. It would have to wait another year and I would have to find another job. I resigned myself to it. The sea would still be there when I was finally ready.
Then, one Sunday in mid-August, Edward stood in front of the congregation and spoke. Over the months that we had been working together he had asked about my swimming in a way that no one else had, curious about all the tiniest details. I had thought it was unusual, but I enjoyed the chance to talk about it.
I told him about my training, how many miles I’d logged over a month, how I went about getting used to the temperature, how I gained weight to insulate me from the cold. I showed him the sores on my shoulders from where the straps and the salt chafed and burned my skin. I let him smell the horrible sheep grease I used in an effort to protect my skin. And I told him about the myrtle bush.
That Sunday morning Edward began the service by mentioning the plants in the Bible.
‘The myrtle is a sort of shrub, with evergreen leaves, and small flowers bloom in the height of summer. Like so many other Bible plants, the myrtle is the only representative of its family in Israel. It is not mentioned in the Bible until the time of the captivity. The first reference is Nehemiah 8:15, in reference to the celebration of the Feast of the Tabernacles. But I want to draw your attention to the references to myrtle in Isaiah 41:19 and 55:13. They refer to the divine establishment of the people in the land in subjection to Jehovah. As an evergreen, fragrant shrub associated with water, the myrtle is a fitting symbol of the recovery and establishment of God’s promises.’
He paused briefly, looking out into the congregation, letting his words settle in. From the back pews, I heard a mother hush her child, followed by the crinkling of a sweetie being unwrapped.
Edward continued. ‘And so it is here for us, that the myrtle is also a fitting symbol for recovery. Many of you have contributed to the recovery of our church, offering your help, assistance and expertise. I mention the myrtle because a member of our congregation, Mrs Martha Roberts, has been volunteering to help us with this recovery. She has also been training to swim the Channel. Each day, twice a day, she goes to the harbour and swims. On the shore there is a myrtle shrub where she keeps her towel while she’s in the sea. Mrs Roberts has the opportunity to make an attempt on the Channel this year, and just as we could not have recovered the church without her help, so too can she not make this extraordinary attempt without ours. She does not know this, but I have been working with some of you to ensure that she is able to try this year, this September. Her pilot, Charlie Rose, has volunteered his services. As a congregation we have raised enough money to pay the federation’s fees, so that her swim may be officially recorded. I hope you will join me in seeing Mrs Roberts off when she takes this challenge on.’
I turned to John, who was barely able to contain his glee.
Writing On The Walls
Our home phone rang, which was unusual.
‘Hello?’ I said, on what had been until then a perfectly ordinary Tuesday afternoon.
I had come home from teaching and was indulging in my secret, guilty pleasure of chocolate biscuits and one of Flashman’s historical adventures.
The person on the other end of the line didn’t answer immediately and I wondered if it was a telesales call, some random computer trained to dial endlessly, hoping to find someone willing to talk.
‘Is Harriet available?’
It was Martha.
‘Have you tried her mobile?’
There was another pause.
‘No.’
‘You should be able to reach her on that number,’ I said.
‘Iris?’
The tone of her voice, tentative and unsure, was completely unlike the Martha I had secretly got to know over the years.
‘What’s wrong?’ I said, instantly aware that something awful was upon us.
‘It’s John,’ she said.
My hands went weak.
‘What about him?’ I asked.
‘He’s in hospital.’
‘Martha,’ I said. ‘We’re coming.’
An hour later I had gathered up my two best girls and we were packed in the car, driving along the M20 as Harriet spoke to Iain somewhere deep in the early hours of the Australian morning, and Myrtle distracted herself by working her way to the next level on a game on her phone.
The car was silent and I was left with my own private thoughts. It was not unlike the annual pilgrimages I made along this same stretch of road, a few days after Myrtle’s birthday to come, in secret, to share something of our life with Harriet’s mother.
Each visit was the same. I would pull up to their house, park the car and ring the bell. Martha would answer and invite me in for a couple of hours. Over tea, I would dash through the highlights of the year, focusing mostly on Myrtle and glossing over anything that might be in the least bit provocative.
Fourteen years ago had been the first time that I’d come. It had been some months after Myrtle’s first birthday and it had been difficult to get away, but I had seen how overjoyed my parents had been to meet our gurgling daughter and I could not deny that pleasure to Harriet’s parents. I had believed a granddaughter would soften them. I had pressed the bell with hesitation, and when Martha answered the door my hesitation began to turn into regret.
‘Yes?’ Martha had said with her typical curtness.
I wasn’t sure she remembered me. We had met only once before and that had been over a year previously.
‘I’m Iris,’ I said.
‘I know who you are,’ she’d said, pulling her cardigan tightly around herself against the beginnings of autumn.
I looked at my feet, ashamed that I’d wanted to include her in our world when she so obviously did not want to be included. I didn’t know quite what to say so I showed her a picture of Harriet holding Myrtle in the hospital.
Martha took it and squinted at it in the bright daylight. I watched her face change when she realised what she was seeing.
‘Come in,’ she’d said.
It wasn’t a formal arrangement, but in time she came to expect me. I believe she looked forward to these clandestine visits that were equal parts wonderful and heart breaking. It was only one afternoon and I knew it wasn’t capable of changing everything but I thought it might slowly eke out a space in which our family might fit into theirs.
I told Martha about Myrtle’s swimming, school, likes and dislikes. I told her the stories that we told ourselves, remembering Myrtle’s first steps, first words and first days: at nursery, school and swimming. I provided the details that make up a life. Myrtle loved strawberries, hated bananas; loved asparagus, refused to eat mushrooms. I said that our daughter smelled like chlorine. That whenever I smelled bleach, I thought of her.
The first year I went to visit, when it was time to leave, Martha had hugged me tightly and said, ‘Thank you.’
Because I’d been making the trip in secret every year, I’d learned the route, but I worried that Harriet would notice that I was making good progress without the help of directions. She was too wrapped up in the logistical nightmare of pulling her family together over miles and miles of distance to notice.
‘I’ll
let you know,’ Harriet said into the phone as she unfastened her seat belt. ‘I’ll phone again when I know more.’
She bolted out of the car and burst into the house.
Myrtle watched Harriet and turned to me. ‘Why is she so freaked out? If she doesn’t like them?’
‘She might not like them,’ I said, putting my arm around her shoulders. ‘But she does love them.’
‘What?’
‘Family is complicated.’
Inside Martha was on the sofa and Harriet sat at her side. The tension that filled the room was suffocating.
‘Why? Why did you wait so long?’ Harriet demanded. ‘We could’ve done something.’
‘What could you have done?’
‘Helped.’
‘Helped to keep him from falling? How would you have done that, exactly? And from London no less.’
‘Would you have even accepted it? You didn’t seem to need anything when Iain and I were here before. You had everything under control.’
Myrtle whispered to me, ‘Do something.’
‘Tea?’ I suggested with too much enthusiasm. ‘Would anyone like tea?’ My chipper tone grated against their strain.
Martha and Harriet glared at me. They were intent on having a fight and I was powerless to intervene.
‘Are they keeping John in hospital overnight?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ Martha said.
‘Myrtle, why don’t you and I go and see if we can’t cheer him up. Bring him dinner or something.’
‘They won’t let you,’ Harriet snapped.
‘Why not?’
‘Against the rules, remember that article I did last year?’ Harriet said.
‘Well, we’ll just go along for a visit then.’
‘It’s past time now,’ Martha said. ‘They won’t let you in.’
‘Then Myrtle and I will go and have a drink. We’ll stop at the Chinese and pick up a takeaway. Is that alright? Because quite frankly I don’t want to listen to the two of you do this and you need to get it out of your systems. So go. You have one hour.’ I grabbed my daughter’s hand and we stormed back to the car.
I drove through the streets that I had grown familiar with over the years searching for somewhere to go but the tearoom Martha and I sometimes went to was shut, and it seemed that most of Dover had given up and gone to bed on this dreary, rainy evening. Myrtle was silently staring out the window and I despaired that we would ever find anywhere we could sit until I saw the lights of a pub glowing through the gloom.
We went inside and found a table easily. I prayed they wouldn’t make an issue of Myrtle being under age and they didn’t, which I put down to either the look on my face when we walked through the door or the tone of desperation in my voice when I ordered a glass of wine.
Uninterested in her fizzy drink, Myrtle looked around for something in the way of entertainment which she found almost immediately.
‘Mum, look!’ she said, pointing to the wall. ‘What is that?’
On the wall next to our table was a name, date and time: 10 September 1982, Jules Russell, 9:32. Next to it was another: Omar Amon, 31 July 1981, 8:144. The pub was covered in them. The handwriting was different but they were all essentially the same.
‘What is it?’ Myrtle asked.
I shrugged, so she went to ask the barman and though I didn’t hear his answer I expected it was good because I heard her clap her hands excitedly. She rushed back to me, nearly tripping over a chair as she did.
‘It’s swims,’ she said, her face lit up. ‘We have to find Grandma’s name.’
‘I don’t know if this is the sort of place your grandmother would have come,’ I said.
‘He said everyone does it,’ she replied, pointing to the barman.
She went back to the bar and I watched as she described Martha. The barman, who must have had children himself, listened patiently and then led her to a spot near the door. Myrtle took a picture on her phone and tapped away furiously. I hoped she wasn’t sending it to Harriet.
The barman waited for her to finish her message and then showed her the next spot, and the next. Her reaction was the same for each: picture then message. The only difference was the size of her smile, which continued to grow. She nodded enthusiastically to whatever he was telling her, tucking her brown hair behind her ears in a way that reminded me of Martha: all speed and efficiency.
It made me wonder if I had ever told her grandmother about that tick, and that made me think of more and more things Martha had missed from Myrtle’s life – they hardly knew one another at all, but there was something that drew them together, a commonality of spirit or character that drew them both to the water.
‘Look!’ Myrtle said, shoving her phone in front of my face.
I blinked and moved the screen away from my face in order to focus. ‘I had no idea,’ I said.
‘It was two days before I was born!’
She sunk into the chair next to me, satisfied to have her curiosity piqued in a direction I knew Harriet would disapprove of. I put my arm around her shoulder.
‘The barman said she comes in here after. Each time. The lady in the harbour, that’s what they call her. She’s famous here.’
‘Is that so?’
She nodded and turned to me conspiratorially. ‘He asked if I was going to do it.’
‘Do what?’
‘Mum,’ she said, tilting her head to one side, looking at me as though I was daft.
Leave it to the barman to plant an idea in her head that I could never remove.
‘Are you?’ I asked.
She looked at me curiously, as though unsure of how to take the question, though I didn’t need a reply to know her answer. It was written all over her face.
‘Don’t tell your mother,’ I said.
She did a little fist pump the way she did when she won a race and went back to her phone, no doubt alerting her friends on the swim team to the plan.
In the morning we all piled into the car and went to see John. His ankle was broken but because he had been disorientated when they found him – out for a walk or a wander, depending on who you believed – the decision had been taken to keep him overnight. Propped up in bed he seemed to be in a decent humour and smiled when he saw Martha.
She, however, was not best pleased. ‘All these years, and nothing. You wait until now to break something?’
He held out his hand for her and she took it.
‘They said to rest, but how am I meant to do that if they come in every hour and ask how I’m doing?’ he said.
‘Where’s your doctor?’ Harriet asked.
He eyed her and I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t think he recognised her.
‘Dad,’ she said.
His face changed, the furrow in his brow returned and it looked like he was coming back to us.
‘The doctor,’ Harriet said. ‘What did he say?’
‘She,’ he replied. ‘He’s a she. The doctor.’
‘Then what did she say?’
‘That I was lucky.’
She turned to me. ‘I’m going to see if I can find out more.’
I squeezed her elbow and saw how scared she was. She would never say as much but seeing him there in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines, his frame bonier than she had expected – she was struggling with it. Battling herself to see which Harriet would emerge – the one who loved the father she’d grown up with or the one who hated him.
She left the room quickly and I followed her into the corridor.
‘Harry,’ I said.
She started the run so I chased her, down the stairs, through another corridor until we were outside and finally she stopped. When I put my hand on her shoulder she turned around and her eyes were red and swollen, her nose snotty and runny, so I wrapped my arms around her and held her as tightly as I could, her hands – balled up into fists – jutted into my chest.
‘I can’t,’ she sputtered. ‘I don’t, I don’t know what to do.’
I smoothed her hair and held on as tightly as I could. Her chest shook as she sobbed and then she grew calm enough to speak.
‘There are things that can be done, but she won’t. She won’t have any of it.’
I thought of the last time I had come to see Martha. John had ambled down the stairs to make yet another cup of tea. His shirt had been buttoned wrong and there had been dark shadows under his eyes. He looked wild and was moving erratically, jerking about as though his legs weren’t entirely under his control.
‘What is the problem, John?’ Martha had said.
He had ignored her, throwing open the cupboard doors, then slamming them shut. ‘Why do you insist on moving everything around? How am I meant to find anything in this mess!’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘He should calm down eventually, or at least he’ll run out of steam. Either way, he’ll sleep soon,’ she said, looking at the clock that hung on the wall over the table.
‘Sleep?’ It was only just past eleven in the morning.
‘He’s become a night hawk in his old age. He spends most nights shuffling around the house. I hear him take the case out, lay the things on the table. Sometimes he puts them back, other times I come down to a disaster. The maps have been quite troublesome recently. He crumples them up and stuffs them in strange places, cupboards, behind the sideboard.’
‘That’s not good, Martha. What if he goes out?’
She looked at me as though to say, what can I do? And I saw how tired she was, the black circles under her eyes a matching set to her husband’s.
‘If he goes out, all I can do is hope he comes back.’
‘He needs help. So do you. What has the doctor said?’
She shook her head. ‘He refuses to go. Shouts bloody murder if I even mention it. He thinks there’s a conspiracy with the doctors, that something they’ve given him is making him so forgetful.’
‘Martha,’ I said because there was nothing else I could say. ‘I should tell Harriet, Iain. We can help.’
Again, she shook her head. ‘You can’t help a man who doesn’t want help,’ she said firmly.