by Jean Levy
I hurried to hold the door as Mrs Dickson stepped through, closed it as quietly as possible then rushed back to the window to catch a last glimpse of her as she disappeared from view. I noticed a silver-grey car pull away behind her. Was that the same car as before? I couldn’t make out whether the person driving it was a man or a woman.
I snapped the blind closed, strode back into the kitchen and wrote HORNSEY faintly on the cover of my shopping pad and was startled by another blast of fear so intense that I had to catch hold of the work surface to prevent myself from falling. I fought to control my breathing, took two, three deep breaths then turned towards the laughter. A child’s laughter. I’d heard it before. Always from a long way off. But this time it seemed to be coming from the street outside. Had I accidentally left the front door open? I pushed myself upright and peered cautiously through the lounge. No, the door was closed. I went to the window to check the pavement outside. There was nobody there. Another deep breath. I looked around me. What had I been doing before the laughter? Oh yes … I went through to the phone and copied down the last incoming number, but as I slipped the small notelet beneath the tea towels, I could feel the bad thoughts breaking through: bad thoughts about things I couldn’t remember, intangible things, lost things, things I ought to worry about if I only knew what they were. Bad thoughts about places I didn’t know. And people watching, knowing things about me that I didn’t know myself. So I took my afternoon pill half an hour early. So that the worrying wouldn’t happen.
*
That afternoon I decided that I really would start writing, so I readjusted the blind to allow just enough light to fall onto my desk then went back to the kitchen to fetch my mug of tea. The black and white cat still wasn’t there. Some days it didn’t appear until the evening. I stepped over and checked through the kitchen window. Sometimes it sat on the wall, close to Miss Lewis’s, catching the sun. But today it was overcast. I wandered back into the lounge and sat on the sofa, sipping tea and observing the parallel strips of light falling across my desk. My eyes strayed to its single long drawer. A very old drawer, with a brass keyhole. Unlockable. Its key had probably been lost years ago, thrown away in a pinafore pocket or stolen by a magpie like in a story my granny once told me. Granny Clark. A little like Mrs Dickson.
I finished my tea, placed my mug on the coffee table then strode purposefully to my desk, sat down, removed a slim cardboard folder from the drawer, and read the declaration on the front cover:
Grandma’s Apple Stories
I opened the folder and, not for the first time, stared at the top sheet. A sketch: watercolour and faint pencil lines, barely visible. Neatly done, a fat grandma sitting in her armchair, a green apple perched on her lap, just beneath her slipper a title, scratched in red ink: Annabelle Bramley. The next sheet was a half-finished sketch, a small girl, colourless apart from her golden curls, holding a green apple up to the sun. At her feet a small pile of apples was coloured yellow. The caption read Colour them delicious.
I turned back to Annabelle Bramley, pulled my notepad closer and, for the next twenty-five minutes, failed to write anything at all. For some reason, despite the very clear fable marked out in my head, I was unable to write down those opening sentences about Granny Bramley and her cat, and Farmer Joe’s orchard where all the apples turned sour. I had forgotten how to write. I was perfectly able to speak and think and read. I could write down single words. Could even take a run at phrases. But joining the words into sentences was a whole different thing.
After a few moments of hopeless self-loathing, I wandered over to the bookcase set into the shallow recess beside the chimneybreast. Its shelves were bare apart from a flat pile of poetry books halfway down and, below that, a deeper shelf with a few taller volumes, mostly children’s literature, an atlas and an elderly dictionary. Among the children’s books was a set of eight heavily-illustrated volumes about where things really go when they’re lost. I had read these books several times in the last few weeks, each time trying to remember writing them. I eased one out: The Lost Red Mitten. Inside there were thirty-two pages, which told the mitten story. Thirty-two pages of coherent sentences, albeit sentences appropriate to a child. Nevertheless, sentences into which I had written proper meaning. Yet, for the last few weeks, every effort to write had been destined to failure, doomed to tiny outbursts. I carried the book back to my desk, sank into my chair and once again read its opening narrative:
Jenny Berry opened her drawer and took out her one red mitten. Then she frowned. She stood up on her tiptoes and looked inside the drawer. The other red mitten was nowhere to be seen. She looked under her socks and scarves. She pulled out her woolly hat and her leg warmers. But however much she searched for that other red mitten, she could not find it. It was LOST. Where could it be?
I traced my hand across the bold print and felt a wave of panic rise up through my chest. And then another, stronger. The afternoon pill could never really stop them happening. It could only dull the thoughts that provoked them. I pulled my blank notepad towards me, snatched up my pen and wrote a single word: LOST.
Episode Five
There were nine items on my vegetable list. Two of them were tomatoes. So I went directly to the tomato section, ripped off three flimsy polythene bags and started to help myself to the mini Italian plums. As I loaded thirty, perhaps forty, of the not really plum-shaped fruits into a bag, I assessed the huge beefsteaks in the next compartment, arranged there so that the mini tomatoes would look especially small and the beefsteaks especially large. I don't like beefsteak tomatoes. Too many pips. So I scooped up twenty normal-sized tomatoes, divided them equally into the two remaining bags and knotted them closed. Beetroot next, red onions, carrots, butternut squash, yellow peppers, cauliflower, courgettes. I rechecked my list then did a quick scan for possible omissions. Perhaps a frivolous bag of baby salad leaves flown in from Mexico, half a world away, then drenched in spring water to wash away the taint of foreign grime? Perhaps a bunch of British asparagus, first of the season? No, there’s something not right about asparagus. I turned the list over, read STRAWBERRIES, and pushed the trolley towards fruit, pausing briefly to read the name of an apple I did not recognise: Fuji.
‘Hi! You also shop on Saturday!’
I caught my breath, turned. ‘Sometimes.’ I glanced into his trolley. ‘You eat a lot of fruit and vegetables!’ There I was, being bold again.
‘Five a day. And some. And you eat a lot of tomatoes!’ He moved closer to me and started to sort through a pile of bagged-up grapes. ‘I read somewhere that if you eat a lot of tomatoes your skin turns orange because of the carotenes.’ He looked straight at me. ‘Obviously not in your case.’
I suffered a stultifying wave of self-consciousness. The lipstick was probably making my skin look even paler than usual. Perhaps the carotenes would have been a good thing. Why was I so pale? It was probably all those weeks under artificial lights. I felt bleached, etiolated. I couldn’t work out what to say so I turned back to the contents of my trolley and shunted the onions away from the squash.
‘I’m sorry, that was rude of me,’ he said. Then suddenly he was abandoning the grapes and walking around my trolley. Towards me. I waited for panic to close my throat.
‘Did you finish your writing?’
The panic didn’t happen. I just felt awkward. The way anyone would feel. ‘Not quite. I’ve been suffering from writer’s block.’ I felt myself smile.
He smiled back. ‘I’ve heard a large cappuccino can work wonders with writer’s block.’ He put his head to one side. ‘Perhaps a latte?’
But our exchange was interrupted by a woman barging past and parking her shopping and strapped-in infant alongside my trolley, boxing me in. The child dragged itself round, twisting its head until it looked as if it might snap completely off its neck, and stared at me, scrutinising my face, all the while its mouth opening more and more until, for no apparent reason, it emitted a penetrating shriek of laughter. Laughter. It reminded me
of … I caught my breath.
‘I have to get back,’ I whispered, as my throat closed over.
He glanced at the child then took a couple of paces back to offer me an escape route.
‘Just Thursdays and Saturdays then,’ he said. ‘I find Tuesdays are also great fun. Over by the tins of tuna.’
Another shriek of laughter.
I pushed forward, avoiding the gaze of the wide-eyed infant. The child kicked out repeatedly as I squeezed past, but its feet failed to reach my trolley. I mustered another smile and hurried away, holding my breath. If you repeatedly suspend your breathing, as if you were trying to defeat hiccups, the self-imposed breathlessness can delay the crisis, check the tyranny of panic just long enough for you to make it through the checkout and the driving rain to the safety of your car. Without looking back.
By late afternoon it had stopped raining and the edges of the grey clouds were trimmed with a golden white promise of better things to come. There was something primitive and reassuring about a sky like that and, as I watched from my kitchen window, hope seemed to radiate down onto the flat roof of my garden shed. I swigged down my four o’clock pill and caught sight of the red and green apple, still resting in the fruit bowl, untouched since two days ago. Its skin was perfect, unbruised, nothing that might identify its previous traumatic impact with my shoe, nothing that might reveal its singular history. I thought I might like to paint it. I went to touch it then pulled back my hand as a beam of light burst through the window and reflected off its waxed surface. What an image! I remember thinking that, if I had a camera, I would photograph it and then copy the patterns of light frozen, unchanging. I turned towards the lounge. There were cardboard boxes in the big cupboard, opposite the cramped dining area. Between the kitchen and the lounge. I had no idea what they contained. Perhaps a camera. Perhaps now was the time to discover what I owned. So I left the Braeburn basking in the afternoon sunshine and went to investigate.
I positioned myself in front of the cupboard and, after a moment of breathless anticipation, pulled open its doors and gazed up at the unreasonable amount of china, at the rows of identical glasses. I tried to imagine the banquets such splendid tableware might deserve. I couldn’t believe that my life had ever included so many people eating food. That this small apartment could once have housed occasions that required quite so many bowls and platters. A lower shelf was crammed with an assortment of vases. Could I ever have been given lilies, carnations, roses, in sufficient quantities to justify so many vases? I reached up and pinged a long-stemmed glass and listened to the crystal ring clear in my empty life. The sound recalled a moment: honeysuckle, pink rose petals falling on to white linen. Then it was gone.
Lower down there were two rows of black and white boxes: five smaller ones along the bottom shelf and three larger ones on the floor below, all covered in the same disgusting geometric design. I pulled out one of the smaller boxes and read the label stuck to one side: CDs. I decided against opening it. The next box was labelled BRIC-A-BRAC. It contained a mass of unfamiliar ornaments. I eased out a tacky water-filled dome, held it towards the light and watched its chaos of pink and blue glitter snowing down onto a jumbled heap of objects: a tabby cat, a rag doll, a book, an oversized red mitten. Around its base a gold inscription read: Raggedy Lyme – where your LOST things hide. I tipped the snow globe upside down, watched its sparkles collect into a heap, strode round to place it on the bare mantelpiece and left the unlikely snow coming to rest around a past I was unable to remember.
The next three boxes were CHRISTMAS TRIMMINGS. I lifted a lid and stared at the network of tinsel and coloured balls, peered round into the lounge and tried to recall a tree covered in all these packed-up things. But I couldn’t. I prodded everything back into place then pulled at one of the bigger boxes, read the label half-obscured down one side: BOOKS, pushed the lid upwards and read a few titles: The Bread Bible; Wedding Etiquette; The Canapé Banquet.I had no idea why I owned them. I didn’t feel like the kind of person that cooked.In fact, I didn’t feel like the kind of person that did anything.
The next box said CAMERAS. Cameras? I eased it out onto the carpet and lifted the lid. So much black camera equipment! I dragged the box nearer the table and started to set out the various bits of equipment. After ten minutes or so I had arranged everything according to presumed function. I selected a small digital camera and poked buttons. Nothing. It probably needed charging. I read its name: Fuji; sorted through the various adaptors until I found the correct charger, plugged it into the camera, carried it through to the kitchen and wiggled the charger plug in next to the kettle. A red light flashed on. Suddenly the black and white cat was rubbing itself against my legs. Without thinking, I bent over and stroked its head. The sensation of my hand passing over its fur took me by surprise. It felt familiar. I watched the animal carry its affection over to the table leg and rub itself against that.
‘Do you remember me from before, puss?’
Purring reverberated throughout the kitchen. I watched the animal’s dedicated rubbing against the dishwasher. Then I strode purposefully back to the china cupboard and eased a fine willow-pattern platter out from under its matching tureen, carried it back to the kitchen, set it down on the floor and emptied a heap of cat biscuits down amidst the oriental lovers. After a few tentative attempts at stretching its neck, the resourceful animal took up a position in the middle of the vast plate and ate from around its own feet.
Strangely satisfied, I turned to check the camera. The light was still red and the sunlight had already faded. I glanced over at the apple, dull now against the ripening bananas. Oh well, perhaps there would be sunshine tomorrow and, if not, there was probably a flash option. I went to investigate the pile of instruction manuals and discovered a chunky Fuji booklet full of symbols and diagrams of people taking photographs. I carried it into the lounge and started to read, paused, then looked at the mantelpiece, empty apart from its newly-stranded snow globe, at the bare walls, at the bookcase with its barren shelves. I thought of my bedside table with just a lamp and an alarm clock. All that camera equipment and no photographs.
The third large storage box did not contain the ALBUMS its label promised. It contained nothing.
Episode Six
Sunday was always a difficult day but that Sunday began particularly badly. The curtains were still drawn against the night when I was startled from sleep by a shrill burst of laughter. A child’s laughter, over as soon as I was aware of it. I sat up and stared at my bedroom door. It was definitely a child’s laughter. I might have heard it before. I might have even been dreaming about a child laughing. I couldn’t be sure, because if I did have dreams, as soon as I was awake they were beyond remembering. One moment I would be asleep and the next moment I would be completely awake with never anything left of my sleeping, apart from, occasionally, an anxiety. And, that day, a little girl’s laughter.
I checked the alarm: 05:34. I didn’t want to be awake as early as that; my morning pills were not due to be taken for almost two and a half hours. I slumped back onto my pillows and tried to go back to sleep but the anxiety left over from dreaming grew worse, focussed upon nothing, and became unmanageable. Became fear. I watched the clock change. At 06:01 I wandered through to the kitchen to make tea and get my pills ready. The black and white cat was asleep on the doormat, just below the cat flap. A quick flick of its ear acknowledged my presence. I filled a bowl with milk and lowered it to the floor then walked over to add MILK to my shopping pad. It was then that I noticed HORNSEY written faint on the paper cover. And, for some forgotten reason, I thought of Mrs Dickson.
By eight o’clock I had showered, dressed, cleaned the refrigerator and taken my pills. At some point during all of this the cat must have slipped away, probably when I was dealing with the salad drawer. It was obviously off for the morning in search of the sun. I carried my tea through to the sofa and sat until quarter to ten, when the shops would be preparing to open and I’d be able to wander past the
ir windows lost in the crowd.
*
I made my way towards the High Street, enjoying the fresh breeze and the anonymity. Just by Islington Green I nipped into a newsagent and bought an A-Z, then walked the short distance to Starbucks, bought a latte and sat by the window turning the spiral-bound pages. I found my own street, traced my finger from the Indian restaurant along Essex Road towards the Green then on to the likely location of Starbucks and the map I was currently holding in my hand. I turned pages and for some reason noticed the word HORNSEY written in capital letters. Did I recognise that name? I flicked back the pages. According to the scale, Hornsey was about three and a half miles to the north of where I was sitting, a good hour’s walk, probably more. Mrs Parkin had said I should think of going for a walk. Perhaps I would walk to Hornsey. A man in a dirty anorak sat down at the next table. I kept my head down and studied the route that led north from Islington Green. It stretched across more than one page. I opened my bag, took out my notebook with attached pencil and marked the route, a process which demanded a certain awkwardness with the attached notebook. I feared I might be drawing attention to myself. I could smell the man at the next table. It was time to leave.
Turning left out of Starbucks, I started to walk towards Highbury Station, checking my map every so often to confirm the sequence of street names. There were a lot of roads. The walk would take longer than anticipated. I quickened my pace along Holloway Road and eventually came to the junction with Hornsey Road. How convenient those old names were, in the days when things were less complicated, when roads told you where they were going or where they had just come from.