The Poets' Wives

by David Park

  ‘A good soul,’ she said before any of them could speak and then turned her attention to the fire, kneeling down at the hearth.

  ‘I’ll do that, Mum,’ Francesca offered, placing her hand on her shoulder.

  She shivered at her daughter’s touch and when Francesca asked, ‘Someone walk on your grave?’ she nodded then concentrated on getting the fire going. She felt weary again and without turning her head told them that she was feeling a little tired and if they didn’t mind she was going to have a lie-down before tea. They could call her when things were ready and after making sure they knew where everything was in the kitchen she excused herself and climbed the stairs to the back room. She pushed the door lightly closed after her and shut the wardrobe door that had been left open. Now it gave back her reflection and she turned her eyes away almost at once because it seemed to offer too sharp a scrutiny and she was no longer sure if any of the things she had done were right. She wondered why she couldn’t remember the faces of the young women in the riad – it was as if their full formation in her consciousness had been softened and rendered vague and indistinct. Yet there were so many other things that seemed to press their sharp reality into her memory, some of which she was glad to have, others that she wished could be removed but over which she found herself unable to exercise any control.

  Not then married, it was the bed in which she had first secretly slept with Don. Down below she could hear the clang of cooking pots and the laughter of her daughters and the girls’ whispered voices in the riad, see again their ghost-like movements when they glided in and out of rooms or appeared suddenly in doorways, framed only by the light behind them. What ghosts now hovered over the bed with its creaking mahogany frame and ancient mattress? She had been young, but not so young that she hadn’t known what she was doing or what it meant, and if the rawness of desire had been tenderised by the spill of words then she was grateful for all of it. The sun, the moon and the stars. She couldn’t remember exactly but they had probably been present in the moment. Or perhaps it was the sea and maybe even the universe itself where love reached through the dark oceans of space to the very edge of time. So the act of love was leavened with so many words, sifting through her senses like some impossibly warm fall of snow, and if she had taken her pleasure in them then it was as a listener with no words of her own. Even then right at the start no words of her own. Perhaps she wasn’t capable of her own. Then his words had come to a sudden and permanent halt. There was the arrival of children of course and the inevitable silencing of passion but whispered words in the darkness where had they gone? Then there was only the inarticulacy of need, the years of taking whatever was required for self. Had she been a fool? She didn’t think so because what she had once felt was as real as anything she had ever known and if with the passage of time she had come to feel something entirely different it didn’t lessen the truth of that earlier experience.

  She felt cold and hugged the duvet tighter. Even when everything else might have gone it was what she missed the most – the simple shared warmth of a bed. Perhaps she would be foolish to shut the door to that possibility, however slim, in the future. She felt confused about everything and above all what still had to be done. Too late now to go back but even that knowledge failed to renew her sense of resolution. So in the morning when the light was bright and young she would go to the end of the pier and slip the ashes in the sea. And she would be watched over by her two daughters who even now were making her a meal – she couldn’t remember the last time such a thing had happened. Perhaps as far back as when they were teenagers and it was Mother’s Day. What did they think of her? What did they really think in those moments when they were able to set aside what they were expected to think under the bind of filial obligations? As she listened to the low murmur of their voices, unable to distinguish the words, she felt once more that she had failed them but in ways to which she could no longer give a simple name.

  The ghosts of their childhood were in the cottage too. Their fall-outs and their laughter. Huddled at the fireside around their father as he read the Narnia books, urging him to read on when he pretended he wanted to stop. It wasn’t just a way of postponing bed – she could see it in their widening eyes, flecked with the fire of imagination, that they were desperate to follow the story’s steps ever further. And once when Rory, exhausted by the day’s activity, had drifted into sleep, his father had carried him in his arms up the stairs and gently slipped him into bed the way he might slip a letter into an envelope. She too had been a child in this place. She tried to remember the life that child had dreamt for herself but nothing would come. Perhaps she never dreamt; perhaps that was the seed of her failure, always just being prepared to accept whatever happened. She thought of the sea dreams of the poetry and slipped a page out of her pocket and read the poem about Rory again. She had read it many times already but it had not lessened her confusion or understanding about what it really meant. She looked across at the pillow where her husband’s head had once rested and wanted to ask him if his poem was true, if the words were real and not just images that were momentarily infused with whatever fleeting meaning coloured them. Was the poem a true offering to his dead son or just another tribute to some divinity he hoped would benignly bless his words and disperse them like holy seed? Just another way of ensuring the propagation of his own life? If it were true why the need to put it in a book? Why the need to give it to anyone other than his son?

  She had first slept with Don in this bed that seemed now to be cavernous and patched with coldness. So it was here in this very place that she had thought love held out to her the possibility of something that could endure in the face of life’s transience and here she first came to believe that words were strong enough to bear you up above the reach of whatever it was in time’s grip that deadened and rendered all else meaningless. But what were words now without love? She tried to tell herself that words alone had no special claim over life, that it was the heart that spoke truest always, but even in the same moment her conviction faltered because she knew that throughout her life she had believed words were holy things that should be reverenced. Always she had bowed her head to them and so it felt strange even then to fold the page again and replace it in her pocket as if it was entirely at the mercy of her control.

  She would sleep now and when she woke share whatever her daughters had made for her. She found it difficult at first and wondered if a glass of wine would have helped but then her body somehow generated enough heat to smother the coldness nipping at her and freezing so many of her memories into what seemed like an icy permanence. She looked at the wardrobe with its shut door, its frosted mirror with the mottled glass. Had any of her children ever tried to hide themselves in it or intoxicated by the stories thought it might be the portal to some magical world? She thought again of Jiao stumbling out of the back of a lorry, momentarily blinded by the light and then opening her eyes to what she thought would be a better place. Rory far from his home, mysteriously taking a narrow night path under the stars; his fallen body looking as if it was only sleeping. Everything drifted hazily through her and then a sea was ebbing slowly out and gradually she released her weariness to it and let herself slip into the solace of sleep.

  When she woke she was confused for a second about where she was or how long she had slept. The bedroom window was a dull square of grey and then she was conscious of the smell of cooking and everything came tumbling back. The door was bevelled by a thin strip of yellow light. She knew she had to get up but it felt as if even the greatest act of will couldn’t lift her head from the bed so she closed her eyes again and tried to ease herself slowly into waking. She was frightened she had slept too long, that she had spoilt her daughters’ meal. And then there were footsteps on the stairs, light as a child’s, a knock on the door and Francesca’s voice asking if she was OK and telling her that the meal would be ready in about twenty minutes. She didn’t want her daughter to come in and see her so sleep-muddled and was glad when at h
er reply the footsteps went away.

  She smoothed some of the creases out of her clothes and in the bathroom splashed her face. In the mirror it looked blotched and she tried to conceal and restore it with make-up and a brush of her hair. When she was satisfied that she had made the best of herself she sprayed a little perfume on her wrists and then, after lightly touching the mirror with the tip of one finger as if in her own private leave-taking, she closed the door and holding on to the handrail went carefully down the stairs.

  It was not what she expected to find. They had cleared Don’s desk and moved it into the middle of the room, covered it with a cloth that she had forgotten was in the back of a drawer and formally set the makeshift table with the best plates and glasses that could be found in the kitchen cupboards. Only the blazing fire and candles on the table that were pressed into saucers or jam jars now lighted the room. In the middle of the setting were the white chrysanthemums arranged in a blue glass vase that she recognised as a wedding present from a lifetime ago. Suddenly she remembered the urn and looked around the room desperate to see it.

  ‘The urn?’

  ‘Over there on the bookcase,’ Anna said. ‘Don’t panic – we haven’t got rid of it.’

  It nestled inconspicuously on one of the shelves she had cleared of books. She nodded and looked again at the table. They were using four chairs out of the kitchen.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘What made you do it?’

  ‘Just as a small thank you and I suppose as a farewell to the Don,’ Anna said as she opened a bottle of wine. ‘A kind of last supper.’

  ‘Is that why there are four chairs?’

  ‘No, we’re not setting a place for the Don – it just looked unbalanced with three,’ Francesca said.

  ‘Can it be for Rory?’ she asked before she could stop herself and then observing the glance that passed between her daughters knew she shouldn’t have said it.

  ‘It can be for Rory,’ Francesca said and she was grateful for the kindness. ‘Sit here, Mum, where you can see the fire.’

  Her daughters looking after her like this made her feel old and then she realised that sometime in the future they would return once more together to take care of everything that had to be done. She knew that she would make it straightforward for them, have all her affairs settled and easily accessible. There would be no list of requirements except a desire for as simple and speedy a conclusion as possible. She looked at their faces and even in the softened light saw their sharp excitement, their childlike desire to play at making everything perfect, and for the first time she felt both the pleasure and the inexpressible sadness of having children.

  ‘There’s nothing matches,’ Francesca said. ‘Everything’s a bit hotchpotch.’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.

  ‘You could have done with a trip to IKEA, got some cheap sets of things,’ Anna said as she poured wine into her glass.

  ‘I quite like it this way,’ Francesca said, slightly altering the placement of some cutlery and then holding out her glass for her sister to fill. ‘What shall we drink to?’

  There was a moment’s hesitation and she saw Anna look at the extra chair. She didn’t want to embarrass them any further and so she raised her glass and said simply, ‘To us.’ They leaned across the table and lightly clinked her glass and she saw it kissed by the light as she held it briefly in the air.

  ‘Your father once asked me what I saw in the fire and I didn’t know what he meant and I said something stupid like “flames”.’

  ‘I hope he didn’t do that terrible snorting noise he did when I told him my English teacher’s favourite book,’ Anna said.

  ‘I don’t remember but he said something about me being a literalist and I think he was probably suggesting that I had no imagination.’

  ‘You certainly did have an imagination because you were able to see something in him,’ Francesca offered in a way that made her defence seem sincere but somehow childish.

  ‘Although he didn’t meet my parents’ approval he was seen as a great catch by my friends and sometimes even by complete strangers who would sidle up and tell me how lucky I was.’

  ‘I can imagine strangers would think he was quite the catch,’ Anna said. ‘Might have changed their opinion if they had to live with him.’

  She looked at the snowy-white globes of petals that were tinged pink at their tips. She didn’t want them to talk of Don any more.

  ‘So what culinary treats have you in store for me?’

  ‘Well now, that’s for us to know and you to find out,’ Francesca said. ‘But I wouldn’t get too excited about it in case we disappoint.’

  ‘I blame you, Mum, for our very mediocre cooking skills,’ Anna said. ‘You always did everything in the kitchen. You should have trained us up.’

  ‘You always seemed so busy with school stuff and your social life. And I don’t recall either of you showing much enthusiasm or inclination to learn.’

  ‘First term at college was a real shock,’ Francesca said. ‘The realisation that you had to feed yourself. It was really sink or swim.’

  ‘You phoned me up once to ask how you made gravy,’ she said, smiling at the memory.

  ‘A couple of Oxo cubes and boiling water, Fran. Even I knew that.’

  ‘Proper gravy, Anna, like you get with Sunday roast. Not that in student digs we ever had Sunday roast.’

  ‘At least you both didn’t have these terrible fees and ending up with all that debt.’

  ‘It must be awful,’ Francesca said. ‘To be starting out on some career with all that hanging over you.’

  ‘If they’re lucky enough to find a job at all,’ Anna said as she sat down at the table. ‘And the paper’s full of young people working for nothing. Calling it an internship doesn’t hide the fact that it’s just a form of legal slave labour.’

  Francesca went into the kitchen and returned with the starter. ‘A kind of retro prawn cocktail. Very fashionable,’ she said, smiling at her own joke.

  ‘Let’s face it, Francesca – it’s just a prawn cocktail. Like something out of Abigail’s Party. And anyway why do you always have to see everything in terms of fashion?’

  Francesca pulled a face at her sister and joined them at the table. Something in the fire sparked and they all turned their heads to look.

  ‘I did the starter and Anna’s doing the main. And the dessert is contributed by Costcutter’s freezer.’

  ‘It’s very nice,’ she said, holding up her fork as a kind of testimony. ‘It’s always nice to have something made for you, don’t you think?’

  They both nodded. Anna poured her more of the white wine. The vein of red in her hair seemed at first to have been absorbed by the subdued lighting but from time to time when she turned her head it glinted again. The corners of the room were folded in shadows and all the light seemed pulled into the centre about the table. One of the four candles they had found was scented and although she knew it was only in her imagination it reminded her of the almond blossom she had been given in the village. They never spoke of him unless she found some way to engineer it. Perhaps they would have if they had known how much it pleased her to hear his name on their lips. Their young brother who should have been at the table with them, teasing them as he liked to do and talking of where he’d been or where he was just about to go. Talking as if going to some far-off destination was nothing more than a stroll to a local park and never once in the lightness of his voice or in the quickening spark of his eyes was there even the most fleeting premonition or awareness of death’s possibility. She drank more of the wine, stared at the candle flame, the hollowing, trembling scoop where the wick had burned. She heard the words,

  I find you as always in the most distant fields

  Where the spirits have their own stars and sun.

  She wanted above all things to bring him home. To have him safely home from those distant fields to be with her and his sisters. Not to be in the earth in his father’s suit.r />
  ‘Are you all right, Mum?’ Francesca asked.

  ‘Yes, I was just thinking of?. . .?thinking of tomorrow.’

  Her daughters looked at each other and Francesca nodded a forceful encouragement to her sister.

  ‘Look, Mum, Francesca and I have been talking and we think that maybe tomorrow might be a big strain on you and that we should just do it on your behalf. What do you think? We’ll get up early in the morning and do it and then it’s over. We’ll do it properly, “Lark Ascending” and all. What do you say?’

  She glanced to where the urn sat. It was almost absorbed into the shadows with only one little pinhead of light on its dark surface ensuring its presence remained a reality. She couldn’t let them. Couldn’t let them for reasons that she could never hope to explain but she sipped her wine as if she were considering the suggestion, before saying, ‘That’s very good of you, girls, very kind, but I need to do it. It wouldn’t be right.’

  ‘It’s not as if he’ll come back to complain,’ Anna insisted, holding her arms wide in a way that suggested her indifference to her father’s wishes.

  ‘I feel I have to do it, Anna. Do this one last thing. And I know I can get through it fine with both of you there to support me. That’s why I’m so grateful that you were willing to come.’

  She could tell Anna was going to try and persuade her and so was glad when Francesca stood up and at the same time as she reached for the bowls told them both that the matter was settled and they’d do it together in the morning, ending with the words ‘all three of us’. Anna nodded but she could see the traces of exasperation in her face and that she was thinking of saying something more when Francesca reminded her from the kitchen doorway that her course was almost ready and she needed to see to it. She strained to hear what they were saying to each other in the kitchen but their words were lost amidst the sounds of serving and the opening and closing of drawers and cupboard doors. She wondered if they needed any help but thought it best not to offer and so she sat in the candlelight and stared at the fire that consumed a little by its earlier vigour had collapsed in on itself but which still offered a bright brace of heat.