by Jean Levy
‘Sweetheart, just because you forget things, it doesn’t mean you change. You’re still the same person.’
‘How can I be? I don’t know how I used to think about things.’ I felt myself start to cry. I tried not to but there were too many tears that had to be wept for that woman I couldn’t remember. I wiped my sleeve across my face. ‘Matthew, what happened to me? Why can’t I recognise the people I used to know!’
He eased me onto a chair, pulled another chair close and sat down beside me.
‘I really don’t know what happened to you. I’d tell you if I did, whatever they say, but I think you’re the only person who will ever be able to explain how you came to be lying on that beach miles away from home. It’s what everyone, including the police, are hoping you’ll remember.’
Mrs Dickson was suddenly beside me offering a box of tissues. ‘Don’t you upset yourself, Sarah dear. It will all sort itself out, just you wait and see.’ She pointed to Matthew’s mug. ‘Is that your coffee, Matthew? Are you going to drink it?’
‘No, it’s cold!’
I heard myself choke out laughter. How did he do that? How was he able to make me laugh when I felt so despondent? I dried my eyes. ‘Mrs Dickson, I’m so sorry I never recognised you. It must have been awful for you.’
‘I was just a bit upset to see you here all on your own, with that foolish woman bothering you like that. They call themselves doctors, but if you ask me, they should never have sent you home on your own. And they should never have kept you away from the people who care about you. Especially Matthew. He broke his heart about it.’ She picked up the kettle. ‘And you call me Annie, just like everyone else.’
I watched Annie take the tea-making in hand and tried to imagine Matthew in his office, speaking on the phone, miming thank you as Mrs Dickson placed a mug of coffee on his desk. Tried to imagine him breaking his heart. I glanced briefly at his fraught expression then smiled.
‘Mrs Dickson … Annie, tell me about Matthew.’
Annie Dickson responded without hesitation. ‘He’s a lovely boy. But he’s a bit too fond of himself. And he drinks too much. I’ve told him time and again, no good worrying about what you eat if you rot your liver. But you were just pulling him into line nicely, so we’re all glad you’re together again.’ I noticed Matthew rolling his eyes:
‘Annie, do you know his girlfriend before me?’
‘Sarah, for God’s sake! Of course Annie knows her, although mercifully Lucy has not honoured the office with her presence for some time. Annie, why don’t you let me make the tea and you can go and get on with whatever it is you do.’
She ignored him. ‘Lucy Ashdown was very attractive. Just like a film star. Mr Dickson used to come over all of a bother whenever he saw her …’
Matthew exhaled frustration.
‘But she could be a nasty piece of work. No time for the likes of me and Mr Dickson. She treated people like dirt. And she’s no friend of yours, Sarah, so you be careful when she’s around.’
‘OK, Annie, thank you for that excellent summary of my ex-partner.’ Matthew positioned himself between me and Annie Dickson: a kind of human barricade against further opinion. ‘Sarah, Lucy Ashdown is out of the equation.’
‘What does that mean?’ I asked, trying to glimpse Mrs Dickson behind Matthew.
‘It means she’s kicked him out of his house, fleeced him for everything and moved on to some other poor bugger,’ said Annie Dickson. I threw my hand over my mouth.
Matthew spun round. ‘Annie! Good God, this is ridiculous!’
‘I agree with that,’ said Mrs Dickson, lifting a large plastic box from her bag. ‘Would you like some chocolate cake, Matthew?’
‘For your information, Mrs Dickson, and I’m sure you already know this, I was happy for Lucy to occupy my house until she could make other arrangements. And I was only too pleased to buy her out of the company …’
‘It was yours anyway!’
‘And I’m sure you’ll be very happy working for some other financially ill-advised soft-touch. I’ll take my tea in the lounge when you’re both ready. And a large piece of cake!’ He turned back to me and kissed my cheek. ‘Perhaps when you’ve finished discussing my private life with my cleaning lady, you’ll join me for a few minutes before I have to dash off to the office to make some more dreadful decisions.’
I watched him go and waited as Mrs Dickson sliced the chocolate sponge. ‘Just a thin piece for me, Annie. Was she really like a film star?’
‘She was very glamorous. But nowhere near as pretty as you. Can you pass me the tea plates? Then you’d better go in there and make sure he’s all right. I think I might have upset him. But all this messing around with you not knowing things, it can’t be good for him either.’
I discovered Matthew slumped on a sofa frowning at the lazy twirls of pink and blue glitter in my LOST snow globe. I took it from his hand and placed it on the coffee table. Then I sat down beside him.
‘My publisher obviously thought I was important enough to deserve … what do you call it? Merchandise? Tasteful, isn’t it?’
He folded his arms. ‘Actually it was me that had them made. For your book launch last summer. There’s still a crate of them at my flat. You collect them. They were everywhere in here.’
‘What shaky snow globes?’
‘Yes, your minders must have packed them away. Hopefully into landfill.’
I tried not to smile. I wanted him to know I was still annoyed with him. ‘I’m really angry with you for not telling me things.’
‘Sarah, I …’
‘When did you move into your flat?’
He sighed. ‘Last September.’
‘Have I been there?’
‘Obviously.’
I traced my finger along his thigh. ‘Did we make love there?’
‘Sarah, I am not going to discuss our sex life with my cleaning lady in the next room. And yes, we did!’
I leaned against his arm. ‘Is it a nice flat?’
‘No, it’s a shit hole.’
‘Doesn’t Annie clean it for you?’
‘No! Nobody cleans it. It’s why it’s a shit hole. I’m glad this is amusing you. My life is completely wrecked and you think it’s funny.’
The rattle of china announced Annie Dickson’s approach. Matthew hurried to relieve her of the tray. ‘Thank you, dear,’ she said. ‘I’ll start in the kitchen today.’
Episode Twenty-three
Annie Dickson left well after midday, and not before I had interrogated her further about Lucy Ashdown and Matthew. I tried to continue with my apple stories but by one-thirty I was sick of trying to write while obsessing about Lucy Ashdown. I collapsed onto the sofa, picked up Matthew’s Guardian and read an article about the Cannes Film Festival. Then I wandered through to pose in front of the bathroom mirror and reaffirm how unlike a film star I looked. For some reason, this realization of inadequacy made me desperate to talk to someone …
‘Hello Peggy, I thought we could have some of my chocolate cake.’
‘How lovely,’ said Miss Lewis. She invited me inside. ‘Did you bake it yourself?’
‘No, Annie made it.’ I handed over the sandwich box.
‘The lady that comes on Fridays?’
‘Yes. Did you know I knew Matthew from before?’
‘Yes, dear, but I knew not to mention. This looks lovely. Shall we have it with some tea?’
She leaned past me to close the door. I waited to be directed whichever way. It would not have been a problem in mine because you stepped into my lounge from the street. But Miss Lewis’ house had this small hallway that we were currently standing in, this small receiving area, where you had to make a decision to turn right into the lounge or walk through into the kitchen or alternatively walk straight on up the stairs that were looming directly opposite the front door. To walk into the lounge would have been presumptuous so I waited while Miss Lewis fussed over the latch. Eventually she beckoned me through into the kitchen.
Miss Lewis’s kitchen smelled like an old person’s kitchen, just like her lounge smelled like an old-person’s lounge. It was bright with afternoon sun, which was unfortunately not strong enough to drive away the damp fragrance of cupboard corners and under-sink plumbing. I stood and exchanged meaningless nothings while Miss Lewis made tea and divided the sponge cake on to small china plates. Touching it with her fingers.
‘Shall we take this into the dining room and catch some of this nice sunshine?’ She said, picking up the tray. ‘Would you be a dear and open the door for me?’
I turned and discovered an unexpected door. My kitchen wall had no such door. I turned its brass knob and it opened into a room, less bright than the kitchen, darkly furnished: a table and chairs, a matching sideboard and a long dresser covered in china, special china that looked as if it was never used. Over in the corner there was a grandfather clock with a frozen pendulum and a brass face that declared ten minutes to eleven. I followed Miss Lewis inside. The air was thick with furniture polish and elderly carpet, both competing with the bananas ripening in the fruit bowl in the centre of the table. And there was that unmistakable mousey aroma I remembered from my grandmother’s cupboard under the stairs. I moved one of the gargantuan dining chairs, sat down and watched the teapot wobble as Miss Lewis filled the cups, craning my neck round to look at the collection of framed photographs on the sideboard, perhaps a dozen, maybe more, all arranged on a thin velvety cloth that ran the length of the polished surface. A china cup and saucer rattled towards me.
‘Alfie was in earlier,’ said Miss Lewis, lowering herself into her chair.
‘He’s at home asleep now. Peggy, how long have we known each other?’
Miss Lewis’s eyelashes fluttered above her teacup. ‘I brought you some biscuits when you first moved in. So, we’ve known each other ever since then. You were very kind when my mother died.’ She glanced in the direction of the photo frames.
I assumed she was referring to the very old lady framed in silver and black. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’m glad I was nice to you. When did I move in?’
‘Sarah, I’m not sure I should … Didn’t they tell you things like that?’
‘No. But I don’t think knowing that can make any difference. I was just wondering whether I was living here when my first book was published.’
Miss Lewis looked anxious. ‘It must be about seven years ago. Perhaps eight. Mother was still able to get around on her own.’ She lifted a piece of cake towards me, handed me a small pastry fork. ‘She died the year before last, just after her ninety-seventh birthday. You gave her one of your lovely bunches of flowers. She was very fond of you, poor old thing.’
I sipped my tea. ‘Was she very ill?’
‘No, it was sudden, in her sleep. A lovely way to go, really.’
I suffered a mental image of Peggy Lewis going in to wake her mother that morning, perhaps carrying tea in one of these china cups, finding the old lady cold and dead. Perhaps she dropped the cup, shook her mother’s stiff corpse. I experienced a wave of nausea. The smell of the furniture polish was too strong, barely negated by the weak, milky tea. Miss Lewis was watching me, her eyes the only indicator of those sad moments that this conversation must have forced her to remember.
‘Peggy, I’m sorry I can’t remember that happening. Dr Gray thinks my mind is forcing me to forget.’
‘Perhaps your mind knows what’s best for you, dear.’
‘That’s what Matthew said. But you have to know about yourself, don’t you?’ Miss Lewis helped herself to a small forkful of cake. I waited for her response, watched her help herself to another mouthful. ‘You have to know what has already happened in your life,’ I insisted. ‘They found me on a beach, unconscious. And I need to know why I was there. I can’t know properly who I am if I can’t remember that.’
Miss Lewis sipped her tea. Her silence seemed to accentuate the smell in the room. Finally, she spoke. ‘Sarah, dear, knowing is a very different thing to remembering.’ She put down her cup. ‘I was less than a year old when my father was killed by a landmine. He left my poor mother widowed with three small girls to look after. Then one night, not long after she learned the sad news, our house was bombed. It was 1941. The London Blitz they called it. Our street was badly hit. My mother carried me to safety in her arms, but my two sisters were crushed in their bed. I know all this happened but I was too young to understand and too young to remember.’ She touched her hands together. Their trembling motion looked like suppressed clapping. ‘My mother was less fortunate. She never could drive the sound of my sisters’ screams from her mind. Every night in her dreams for all of her long life she remembered those two little girls. She remembered waiting for their bodies to be found. And I couldn’t share those memories with her. All I could do was stay and listen to her sadness and try to comfort her. So you see, perhaps your mind is doing you a favour.’
I felt horribly selfish. And desperately sad about those things that happened all that time ago. A whole long lifetime ago. But the trouble with time is that it doesn’t make things any less terrible, it just erodes away your memories of them, one detail at a time. Or in my case, every detail all at once.
‘I’m so sorry, Peggy. I don’t remember you telling me that.’
‘I never have. Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it now. But I can’t help thinking that you remembering what happened to you might be worse than you not knowing.’
I picked up my fork. ‘I’m sorry about your sisters.’
‘Oh, don’t you worry about me. Those days are gone. There’ll soon be nobody left that can remember them.’ She sighed. ‘And some futures are just not meant to be. I could never leave my mother to remember alone so I stayed and nursed her until the memories died with her. And now I have my cousins’ children, and their children’s children.’ She smiled at the photographs along the velvet cloth. ‘I’m a great-aunt many times over.’
I glanced at the happy framed families. ‘I don’t think I have anybody, just Matthew. I hope he doesn’t get fed up with me being unusual.’
‘He won’t. You’re still who you were. Eat your cake, it’s very tasty.’
I stayed with Peggy for almost two hours, listening to stories about Islington after the war: rationing, rag-and-bone men, pea-picking holidays, the coronation and watching the man chopping up live eels to boil before setting them in their own jelly. I mentioned my apple stories and Miss Lewis recalled apple names and recited her sixteen times table the way nobody does anymore. Gradually the smell of furniture polish and musty carpet grew less overwhelming, but I still felt uncomfortable, probably because, next door, this was my bedroom. And some of it was my bathroom, with my toilet over where the grandfather clock was standing. Miss Lewis noticed me staring at its brass face. ‘It hasn’t worked for years. It always stops just before eleven. Probably a mouse ran up there and got stuck, like in the nursery rhyme.’
I laughed. ‘I wish I had enough space for a grandfather clock. Next door this is my bedroom. My dining table’s forced into a little nook, under where your stairs are.’
‘Well, I’m sure if you decide to stay you could always reconvert the upstairs …’ Peggy Lewis looked up and met my eyes. ‘Oh dear!’
But I was distracted by the sound of a child’s laughter. I glanced through the window into the backyard. It was the same as my backyard: dark, dank, a few unhappy buddleias emerging from the dirt swept up against the back fence. But with no metal staircase leading to an empty upstairs flat. ‘Peggy, are there children moving in next door?’
‘I don’t think so, Sarah. It’s being converted into student flats. So we’ll all have to get used to a lot of coming and going. Oh, and that reminds me …’ Her tone was conspiratorial. She felt in her pocket and pulled out a key. ‘They gave me this in case of an emergency. Give it to your Matthew so he doesn’t have to wait outside in the rain.’
*
Back in my kitchen, I read Peggy’s list of apple names and thought a
bout what she had said about remembering being worse than not knowing. I tried to imagine what my mind might be protecting me from. It must have been something so terrible that I had to be prevented from remembering everything about it. Perhaps I shouldn’t try to remember it. Especially here on my own. I glanced over at the collection of tubs and pill boxes, lined up beside the toaster, my own bespoke pharmacy. I hurried over and picked up the tub with 4 written large across it’s label, emptied out a capsule and swallowed it ten minutes early.
*
Over supper, Matthew informed me that Bob Gray had okayed my trip to see Annabelle. I was immediately apprehensive about meeting this friend-cum-stranger.
‘She’s expecting us tomorrow,’ he explained. ‘It could be dire.’
‘Tomorrow!’ I was now terrified.
‘We can put it off if you don’t feel ready.’
‘I hate not ready! Will you help me with what to wear?’
‘Probably a boiler suit and hard hat.’ He laughed at my expression. ‘Last time I was there she was welding. She’s a sculptress. Works with metal. She’s surprisingly talented for a mad person.’