The Art of Forgetting

by McLaren, Julie

  Judy knew something that no-one else knew, and that is what this story is all about. She kept the secret all those years and it was tucked away safely not hurting anyone for such a long time that sometimes she wondered if it was really true but it was. She couldn’t hurt all those people.

  One day, Judy found something and that is what this story is all about, as she kept it and never told anyone and she has it still and she will find it again, one day, when all this is over and everything has been sorted out.

  And that is really what this story is all about, because Judy has to tell somebody now, before it gets too late, but nobody will believe her unless she finds it. They don’t believe anything she says these days, just like they didn’t believe Linda’s mother. She knew her daughter would never have just left her without a word, without a goodbye, and that is what this story is all about.

  Oh dear.

  Chapter 8

  At first, Laura finds it hard to know what to think. This is clearly part of the same narrative, but it is far less lucid and chronological than the first section. Some of it is written in pencil, some in pen and there is even a paragraph in a think, black ink that has seeped through to the following page. Added to that, it is achingly sad. It seems that her mother’s deterioration is etched into her words. She knows she needs to read the whole thing again to make any sense of it, but she wants Kelly to read it too, so she calls her.

  “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve found another bit of Mum’s story. I’m at the house now.”

  “What on earth are you doing there at this time?” asks Kelly, but Laura does not want to go into that. Instead, she tells her about the find and asks if they can meet.

  “I suppose so,” says Kelly. “Of course I want to read it, but I’m teaching tomorrow and I can’t be late. Can you come over here?”

  Eventually, they decide to meet in a pub. It is one of their Sunday lunch venues and although it is closer to Kelly, it will avoid Laura driving all the way to Kelly’s flat and then home again in the dark. Of course it will mean that Laura is back later than usual, but Patrick does not seem to mind when she calls him and he doesn’t even ask why there is this sudden need to meet Kelly. Laura opens her mouth to tell him then changes her mind. “OK, see you later, if you’re still up,” is all she says.

  They find a quiet table in a corner then settle down to read, each with a small glass of wine. Laura feels a small tingle of recklessness. She never drinks when she is driving, not even one drink, but Kelly persuades her she can’t possibly fail a breath test after one small glass. She sips it gratefully as she reads their mother’s words again.

  “This doesn’t follow on,” says Kelly after a few minutes, and Laura sees in an instant that she is right. That’s why this section seems so different. There must be at least one part missing.

  “Do you think there’s more after this too?” she asks.

  “Who knows?” says Kelly. “But if there is it wouldn’t make much sense if this is anything to go by. Fucking Alzheimer’s!” she says, loud enough for the woman behind the bar to look up.

  They carry on, right to the end, hardly speaking. Sometimes Kelly mutters under her breath, but Laura reads in silence, absorbing the significance of the words to a far greater extent on her second reading.

  “Bloody hell!” says Kelly, leaning back and taking a gulp of her wine. She runs her fingers through her hair, making it stand up even more spiky than usual.

  “I know. All that stuff about somebody dying, and she never said a word. I suppose it must have been the boyfriend – Andy, wasn’t it? But why on earth didn’t she talk about it? It was so many years ago, and anyway she met Dad and had a lovely life. Surely she would have come to terms with it by then?”

  Kelly can’t work it out either. Here is a whole chunk of their mother’s history they know nothing about. Whilst the Linda business is recognisably a secret, having your boyfriend die is nothing to be ashamed of and they can think of no reason why she would keep it to herself. It is also unclear whether their father knew about it too, and this raises even more issues. If he knew, she must have sworn him to secrecy and that must have felt strange. If he didn’t know, what sort of relationship was that? They had both seen their parents as ideal partners, totally committed, sharing everything. This makes them uneasy. Had Mum kept a secret from her husband right until the day he died?

  As if this isn’t enough to contend with, it is also clear that Mum knows – or did know once – something very significant about Linda’s death. She appears to know who killed Linda and to have been searching for something that would prove it, and that throws a whole new light on the subject.

  “You do realise that we can’t just leave it now, don’t you?” says Kelly.

  Laura has no choice but to agree. “But that doesn’t mean I’m rushing into anything,” she says. “I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment, with the house, and the dog ...”

  She stops, feeling the tightness in her throat and reaches down for her handbag so Kelly will not see the incipient tears in her eyes. However, there is no fooling Kelly.

  “Come here,” she says, pulling Laura into a hug. “No-one’s going to put you under any more pressure. Do you want me to talk to Robin? See if there’s anything more he can do?”

  Laura insists she is fine. She is tired, and reading this has thrown her off kilter, but she will be OK in the morning. She hasn’t told Kelly about her problems with Patrick, partly because talking about them will give them more substance, but also because she is embarrassed on his behalf. No, she will keep it all together as she always does. She waves cheerily as she drives away, leaving Kelly standing beside her car.

  When she gets home Patrick is already in bed, but now Laura is anything but sleepy. She can’t stop thinking about the turmoil of her mother’s young life and wondering how she managed to become so well-balanced, so grounded. But more than that, she cannot stop thinking about the other, much darker secret that now lies buried somewhere in her mother’s mind. Will it ever rise to the surface? Certainly events from the distant past seem to be much clearer than those from even yesterday, but there is no apparent logic to when they resurface. She is more likely to tell an equally confused fellow resident the secret of Linda’s death than she is to reveal it to her family. She also wonders about the evidence her mother has been seeking and if they have thrown it away, unaware of its significance. Whatever could it be?

  At least there is some explanation for the chaos in the house now, she thinks as she sits at the kitchen table with a mug of chocolate. Mum must have been searching for this critical piece of evidence, whatever it was, but she was also living in fear of a stranger who came to the house. That was probably the social worker they had contacted. She had tried to gain access a couple of times, but then events had taken over with the Lydia incident and it had been too late for that kind of intervention.

  Poor Mum, thinks Laura with a sigh. None of them had any idea what was going on, especially after she tried to stop anyone going upstairs All the time we thought it was because she was imagining people up there – and that was an issue too – but it seems she was gathering her possessions for some kind of journey. Or maybe this was her way of organising everything. This is saddest part of the situation; Laura sees her mother almost every day, but she cannot ask her to explain what happened during those last few months. All she has is these jumbled and incoherent thoughts, muddled up with random memories of a lost love and a secret too significant to be told. What did she find out and why did she decide to keep it to herself?

  For several days in a row, Laura visits her mother with no especial difficulties arising. She is relatively calm and appears to have forgotten all about her escape plan. Neither is there a repeat of her confusion over Laura’s identity, if such it was. That is why Laura decides to broach the issue of Linda once more, and she waits until they are in the garden and alone to do this.

  However, it is a complete w
aste of time. Her mother professes to hate Linda. She says she is the worst neighbour she has ever had and accuses her of trying to break into her house and steal her possessions. So it is clear she is actually talking about Lydia and this is likely to lead to an outburst. Laura’s heart sinks. Look what she has done! This Linda business has caused nothing but problems, and now Mum is standing up and looking around her with a very angry expression on her usually pleasant features.

  “Ah, good morning! I’m glad I’ve bumped into you,” says a cheery voice beside her. “Have you seen the Achillea up at the top there? Absolutely stunning. I’ve tried to grow it in my garden but never had any success. Shall we …?”

  It is Emil, and he offers his arm to her mother who takes it, as docile as a lamb. All her anger has evaporated and they walk up the garden in a row, the three of them, with Mum in the middle. At the top, Emil points out a tall, golden yellow plant which is actually very beautiful. It is also a magnet for bees, so they stand there for a while, watching them as they land and settle then take off again, only to be replaced by others.

  Laura can’t be sure if this was a fortuitous coincidence and Emil happened along with his superior knowledge of flowering perennials just when he was needed, or if he saw the unfolding situation and stepped in to rescue her. In any case, Mum browses happily along the wide border, telling him about the plants in her own garden, and all is well. That’s the last time I’m going to mention Linda, whatever Kelly says, thinks Laura. She gives a little shudder as she imagines how the situation could have deteriorated had Emil not intervened.

  Later, she sees him as she walks across the terrace. Mum has nodded off in the day room, so she is leaving for the day. He is still alone, so she assumes his mother is sleeping too and he is waiting in the hope of seeing her later.

  “Thanks for earlier,” she says with a rueful smile. “I was struggling there, but she loves plants and that was just the right distraction.”

  “My pleasure. At least your mother is still open to distraction. She’s a lovely lady.”

  “Yes, she is. She’s still in there, but some days it’s quite hard to find her. I must learn the names of some plants so I can use the same trick. Anyway, thanks again, I’m off to attend to the other bits of my life,” she says, smiling again.

  For some reason, she turns when she reaches the side gate and she can see him still sitting on the terrace, completely alone. Did she say the wrong thing then? Had she implied that her own life was full and his was empty? He does seem to be here every time she visits. Poor man! If this is the place he chooses to spend so many hours, it doesn’t say much for the rest of his life. Laura gives herself a metaphorical shake. She must stop worrying about other people’s problems when she has so many of her own to contend with, but that does not stop the image of his solitary figure popping into her head again as she drives home. All those empty chairs around him.

  They are eating dinner when the house phone rings and Ricky jumps up to answer it in his best answering-the-telephone voice.

  “Yes, she’s here. Please wait while I pass you over,” he says. Laura smiles and touches his head as he gives her the handset.

  “Laura here,” she says. She is only half-listening, as Lily has pulled a face at Ricky and he turns to her for intervention. She frowns at Lily and gestures at them both to eat, then tries to catch up.

  “... So I took them to see him and they loved him, straight away. I haven’t promised anything, obviously, but they do seem ideal.”

  It takes Laura a while to work out what she is hearing and she has to apologise and ask Candy to run through it again, but it is the news she has been dreading. A retired couple have recently lost their elderly dog and heard about Jip via their daughter, who had kennelled her own dog there during half term. They don’t want a puppy, but would love to take on an older dog and give it a home. Laura can think of no good reason to say no, so she thanks Candy and says they sound perfect. She will check with Robin and Kelly, but she is sure it will be fine.

  She takes the handset back to its place on the window ledge and stands there, her back to the children. When she turns round, she is smiling.

  “Well,” she says brightly. “That was good news!”

  By the end of the next day, it is all organised. Of course no-one could object to such an apparently fortuitous solution to the problem, and all that remains is to meet the new owners and satisfy themselves that they are as ideal as Candy says. Laura knows it is ridiculous that part of her hopes they will somehow reveal themselves to be dog-beaters or to live in a one-bedroom flat on the fourteenth floor, but she can’t help it. Jip is not just a dog who needs a home. He is her mother’s dog and they were devoted to each other, especially after her father died. He symbolises something, although she cannot articulate what, and she is fond of him too. Of course it is right that he has a new home, but why can’t it be here, with people he already knows and loves?

  She rehearses one more attempt at persuading Patrick, but when he comes home she can’t bring herself to say the words she has chosen so carefully. She knows he will never agree and she will end up in tears again. So she tells him where to find the various elements of his meal and busies herself with the children’s lunchboxes, swallowing down her anger and trying not to slam the cupboard doors even though that is what she wants to do. She wants to stomp around and act unreasonably. She wants to make a stand for Jip.

  The exchange is to take place on the following Sunday. The couple are perfect, just as Laura had feared they would be, but there is another task to complete before Jip can go to his new home. Mum must see him one more time, and they have decided to collect her on the Saturday and bring her to the house for an hour or two. Jip will be there, and they will keep him overnight before driving him over to the village where his new owners live – not in a one-bedroom flat but in a perfectly nice house with a garden and plenty of walks nearby.

  Laura is dreading the whole thing, and she finds herself telling Emil about it as they sit on the terrace with their respective mothers. Mum is quiet and withdrawn today and Emil’s mother is asleep in a wheelchair, a colourful blanket over her knees. Emil listens calmly, but the story comes rushing out, overflowing like milk left on the hob too long.

  “That’s sad. You’re doing the right thing, but it’s hard, isn’t it?” says Emil. He glances over at his mother. She is still in a deep sleep, but he leans over to speak in a conspiratorial whisper, as if she were wide awake and in full possession of her faculties. “I had to re-home her cats, and that wasn’t easy even though I hated the bloody things. Honestly, they were the most aggressive cats I’ve ever come across, and they ruled the house by the time mother moved out. I had to wear protective clothing just to gain access!”

  Laura smiles at the image. She knows he is probably exaggerating to cheer her up, but it is comforting to know there is such a lot of shared territory. Every family of every resident here will have been through similar situations. If there are no pets to re-home, there may be frail or lonely husbands and wives to consider. Even if there is no house to sell, there will certainly be possessions to sort out and financial affairs to manage. So much responsibility. So many decisions to take, and all this alongside the sadness of watching somebody’s very essence trickle away like water from a leaky bucket.

  Before Laura knows it, two nurses arrive to take their mothers inside for lunch and she realises that more than an hour has passed. She kisses her mother on the cheek and receives a smile in return – the first of the day – then bends to pick up her bag. As she straightens, she sees that Emil has produced a carrier bag from somewhere, and is holding it in front of him in a way that indicates this is not simply a bag of groceries. There is a small, awkward moment and then he plunges his hand into the bag and produces a book. There is something about his eyes she cannot quite work out.

  “I brought this for you,” he says. “I hope you don’t think I’m being presumptuous, but you said you would like to learn the names of some
plants ...”

  Laura looks at the book. He is holding it out to her and it fills the space between them. It is a large hardback book, brightly coloured. ‘The Cottage Garden,’ she reads.

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” she says, stepping back a pace. “It must have cost a fortune! Really, you shouldn’t … I wasn’t ...”

  “Please take it,” says Emil. The book continues to hover between them and the weight of it is making Emil’s hand shake slightly. “I have so many books like this at home. People know I like to garden so they buy me gardening books, but there is a limit to how many I need. I won’t miss it, I promise!”

  Somehow, some of the weight of the book has transferred itself to Laura’s hand and they stand there, holding it between them as if it is far too heavy for either to manage on their own.

  “Well, if you are absolutely sure,” says Laura, and the deed is done. Emil smiles and reiterates all he has said, withdrawing his hand at the same time, so Laura is forced to take it. She finds herself wondering where she can keep a book of this size – it will not fit on any of the shelves – and it all feels a little strange. She takes the carrier bag Emil is holding out for her, thanks him again and leaves. But something has shifted and she doesn’t quite know what to make of it.

  Chapter 9

  It is Saturday and Laura is being bright and cheerful. This is partly for the children’s sake and partly because she is trying to cheat herself. Kelly is bringing their mother over any minute now, and Candy arrived with Jip about an hour ago. This provoked such a crescendo of squealing and excitement from the children and Jip himself that Laura had to send them all out for a walk with Patrick.

  Now she is alone and it would be easy to switch off the smile, even to sit down for a minute and hold her head in her hands, but she does neither of those things. Instead, she bustles about heating up loaves of ciabatta and garlic bread. She slices tomatoes and washes salad. She opens packets of cured meat and arranges a selection of cheeses on a board. This is the kind of lunch Mum loves, and she hopes it will help to make today a happy occasion. As happy as it can be, anyway.