She kept the kitchen in darkness, the fridge throwing a shaft of light onto the floor, flashing up the items on the dresser. A hint of red. The inside filled with all those things. All those secrets. She grabbed the milk and moved across to the oven.
The gas flared into life and she warmed her hot milk, stirring slowly, her reflection pale in the window opposite, the garden in darkness beyond. The red tin sat on the dresser behind her; she could feel its presence as she poured the steaming milk into her mug, switched off the gas, returned the milk carton to the fridge.
She took a breath and picked the tin up, carrying it across to the kitchen table and placing it down gently. Biting her lip, she wrapped her dressing gown tight around herself and sat down.
The lid came away easily and she stared at the top of the small pile, picking up her mug and taking a sip. She was comforted by the warm milk, a taste from her childhood, her mother’s hand on her brow, soothing her back to a dreamless sleep. ‘My Elsie,’ she would whisper in the dark, ‘my precious girl.’
Elsie swiped at her eyes, a whisper in the room, ‘I was your Elsie, wasn’t I?’
Her eyes were dragged down to the blanket that lay folded on the top. She lifted it out, set it to one side, a tremble in her hand.
It uncovered the bag of boiled sweets, the bright discs inside a shot of colour. Her mother always set aside the green ones for Elsie, her favourite. Elsie knew they were her mother’s favourite too but that never stopped her passing them straight to her daughter. The thought lifted her mouth but then she saw the photo underneath and the smile slid from her face.
The face of her father stared up at her, his expression serene as he gazed to the side. She hadn’t thought about him in years. She traced the picture as she sat there, a man she had never known, wondering at the sound of his voice, his accent, his smell – engine oil, perhaps? Woodsmoke? Did he have big hands? Would he have grown a beard in later life? What type of father might he have been; what might have changed had he lived? Everything, she thought sadly, as she placed the photo to one side.
Her mother hadn’t talked about him a lot. Elsie hadn’t realised that was strange. Devoid of school friends and playmates and relatives, she wasn’t used to chatter from other children about their fathers. It was simply her and her mother: two peas in a pod.
As a teenager though, Elsie had grown curious. Who was the man who made up half of her? Her mother had met him at a tea dance, apparently, in 1955. Their first dance was to ‘Secret Love’. Yet it wasn’t one of the LPs in her mother’s small collection. Her mother told her that he loved tinkering with machines, his hands and forearms permanently smeared with black streaks, making her laugh when he held her face in his and left marks on her cheeks. He could be quiet, detached, leave for long walks. He was excited about being a father. He didn’t have siblings, only parents who lived in Norfolk, who visited them once. They didn’t approve of the match. And then he had gone out on a wet day, his motorcycle had slipped from under him and he had died there in the road. Her mother had stayed in the house they had bought together and two months later, she had given birth to Elsie at home: ‘The most wonderful thing that ever happened to me.’
Elsie picked out the square of yellowed paper, the childish drawing she must have drawn more than fifty years ago, two stick figures holding hands. Two peas in a pod.
Had it been the most wonderful thing, she wondered, as she stared down at the red tin, the china paddle brush, the blanket and the black-and-white photo of a baby. Had it?
Everyone should be loved like this, have a person who is interested in every small moment, every thought, every memory. Who sits back and listens, asks questions; an excuse to learn more. It is life-changing to get the sense that you are that important to someone. That is always what you did for me: let me think that I was endlessly fascinating even when I was just boring you about the weather, the spring bulbs I’d planted, our trip to the village pantomime.
We would sit and talk about the past, and the future. We would make plans.
There was that day, in the house, when we had pulled the LP collection out, you browsing the big, black records before selecting a favourite. The scratch of the needle as the turntable started to spin, the crackle at the start of the track and then the whole room filling with the unmistakable opening notes of ‘Twist and Shout’. You pulled me up off the sofa with two hands, dragged me into the middle of the carpet and, watched by a hundred china figurines, you taught me how to jive. The unfamiliar sight of you shaking your hips, twisting your feet and body lower, lower, lower to the music as you showed me different moves.
I felt self-conscious at first but your expression was so carefree and enthusiastic that I followed your shouted instructions, let you set the needle back to the start, felt tiny beads of sweat at my hairline as we twisted, jived and danced like lunatics in the middle of a room where I knew every mark and item but didn’t recognise this new me.
How I felt like I could burst with the thrumming beat of the song, the happiness of the moment. You had crooned in a terrible, too-high voice and I felt an ache in my stomach as I laughed and laughed, stopping to grip my sides. Imagining in that moment a future where we’d do nothing but be together, playing records and jiving in our living room without a care in the world.
Chapter Twelve
BILLY
I wasn’t in the mood any more to go to the ABC cinema on the map, panicking when I realised someone might see me with an old lady. That was all I needed. But Mrs Maple was already standing in her porch dressed in her coat when Mum dropped me off with a wave.
‘I’m taking my reading glasses,’ Mrs Maple announced as she closed the door, ‘and a few items we might need.’
She was talking faster than normal, her fist squeezing the handle of her cream leather bag, which was massive and full. I wondered why she was being weird and what she thought she would need for a trip to the cinema.
‘Are you going like that?’ she asked, her mouth a thin line as she looked at me.
I glanced down at my jeans, a hole in the knee, my faded T-shirt, and gave a small shrug, not wanting to admit that my choice at our new house was made up of one other pair of trousers and about three T-shirts, most sat in the laundry basket. We’d left my favourite navy T-shirt with a pin man on the front in London and Mum said Dad wouldn’t be able to send it. That had caused another row.
It was why I was in such a bad mood. I didn’t know why I was so angry sometimes. And Mum had barely noticed anything going on at school. Yesterday, I’d been walking out of the gates with Becky. She’d been telling me about a group of them who were going to hang out down on the meadow that weekend but then Daniel had appeared with Max and Javid close behind and he’d followed us down the road making kissing noises so Becky got totally embarrassed and didn’t tell me what time, just turning down a road even though I didn’t think she lived down that one.
‘Well,’ Mrs Maple said, fiddling with the collar of her coat, ‘let’s head off. If we leave now, we should make the 11.17 a.m. train. I wrote out the outgoing and return times from the schedule outside the station yesterday.’
‘OK.’
‘And I packed some snacks. For the journey.’
‘How far is Reading?’ I asked, thinking it was close and wondering why we would need snacks. Mum had popped there when I was at school, something to do with a solicitor. It sounded well boring and she hadn’t explained much about it anyway.
‘Eight minutes.’ Mrs Maple flushed. ‘But they are to last all morning.’
‘Alright…’ I said. My stomach rumbled. Snacks or not, I hoped she’d buy us popcorn. Mum and I had had more toast for breakfast and shared a banana before her shift, although she’d said she’d get some tips today and had promised to buy us pizza later on.
We walked to the train station in silence, skirting puddles from heavy rain in the night. The café was pretty busy, steamed-up windows hiding most of the faces, and my heart raced as I prayed no one from scho
ol would see me. The florist, the small supermarket… each time I felt my chest tighten. A lady was peering at us out of the chemist window and Elsie muttered something as she noticed her too.
‘Oh goodness! Billy, walk quicker.’
Too late, the lady with the crazy coloured hair had stepped into the street. ‘Elsie, I thought that was you.’ Her eyes were smudged a bit underneath and she kept staring at Elsie and back at me. ‘And this is…?’
‘Billy.’ Elsie sighed and I wondered how they knew each other. Probably an old lady thing, but now I thought about it, I’d never really seen Elsie with friends or anything – it was always just her.
Not that I thought she was friends with this woman, who had sucked in her mouth. ‘Billy. I haven’t seen you before. A relation?’ she asked Elsie and I wasn’t sure what she was getting at.
‘Neighbour,’ Elsie replied quietly.
I could see she was sort of struggling so I piped up, ‘We’re going to the cinema!’
The woman’s eyes got even rounder. ‘The cinema in the day, what a luxury! Some of us have to get on.’
I didn’t like her.
‘We need to catch a train,’ I said, realising Elsie had gone quiet and tugging on her arm. ‘Come on, Mrs Maple…’ And when we were far enough away, ‘Mrs Maple, who was that?’
‘A busybody,’ Elsie muttered and that made me laugh.
‘Not a fan?’ I giggled.
Elsie blushed. ‘Get on.’
Finally, we reached the station, where a man sat on the nearby bench with his nose in a newspaper and a couple of older girls I didn’t recognise were all waiting.
‘Made it,’ Mrs Maple said, giving me money for the ticket machine. ‘Two day-returns, off-peak apparently. Will you sort it? It was a man in a booth in my day, not this confusing thing,’ she added, staring at the screen and the card slot.
Shrugging, I pressed the right buttons, pushed the coins through and the machine spat out our tickets.
‘You’re a good boy,’ she said in a delighted voice as I handed them over. ‘I shall keep them in case there is a ticket inspector.’
The train appeared, the carriage half-empty, and we shared one of the tables. Within a minute Mrs Maple got out a small Tupperware box from her cream bag which she opened and passed to me. I peered inside, heart sinking at a few sad-looking raisins and four custard creams.
‘I’m alright,’ I said, passing it back and patting my tummy. ‘Big breakfast,’ I explained when her face fell.
Reading was busy: smelling of engine oil and coffee, cigarette butts on the pavement outside the station. A cyclist passed, a taxi horn blared up ahead and Mrs Maple was talking to me as I stared around at the Saturday shoppers, a child crying with his mum, a man in a sleeping bag in a doorway.
It looked a bit like a part of London and I felt my throat thicken. Bending down, I pretended I was doing up a shoelace.
‘The station, well, I knew they had modernised but… and the cinema used to be… it is rather… gosh, that is…’
I straightened, realising Mrs Maple was seriously confused. The lines on her face deepened as she started to walk, stopping to stare down the side streets before heading back the other way. We should have brought the hand-drawn map along.
Swallowing my homesickness, I caught up with her. ‘Mrs Maple, are you alright? Are we heading the right way?’
‘To be honest,’ she admitted, moving us into the doorway of a closed-down furniture shop, smeared glass and dust beyond it, ‘I haven’t the foggiest where we are. Reading town centre is transformed. I… It’s unbelievable. I can’t recall a thing.’
‘Alright, well, we can ask someone. Someone in the station, perhaps?’
‘What a good idea, I hadn’t thought of that. They are bound to have an Information Desk.’
In the end it was the homeless man in the sleeping bag who helped us out, Mrs Maple stopping in front of him. ‘Young man, could you assist us? The last time I was in Reading John Major was Prime Minister.’
I almost dived behind her.
The man sat up. ‘Course. Remember the Town Hall?’
‘Yes,’ Mrs Maple said, the first smile since we’d arrived.
‘Well,’ he pointed, ‘keep that on your left and follow the road down and through to the Oracle shopping centre…’
He continued, Mrs Maple nodding and thanking him, dropping a folded five-pound note in his cup. ‘What a very nice man,’ she said as we moved away, my mouth dropping open as I followed her. Where was Mrs Maple the battleaxe? The man had grinned at her! Told her to have a lovely day!
‘Is that really true?’ I asked as we moved through the streets, the people thinning out as we headed down the hill, around the corner and over a bridge, the river grey beneath us.
‘Is what true?’
‘That Reading’s eight minutes away from the village but you haven’t been here since, like…’ I wasn’t sure about John somebody. ‘A long time ago.’
‘Oh, look,’ Mrs Maple said, bringing her hands together, ‘we must be close.’
A row of chain restaurants the man had mentioned appeared and there, on the end of the block, stood a huge Multiplex cinema, adverts flashing up on screens, a row of cash machines to the side.
‘So, when the map was drawn that was a long time ago…?’ I asked, curious who had drawn it and why.
‘Yes, a long time ago now,’ Mrs Maple said, a frown appearing, wearing a look as if she didn’t want to talk about it.
‘So, who drew it then?’
‘Hmm…’ She could totally hear me.
‘Who drew the map?’
‘Oh, look, there’s a John Lewis.’
‘Because maybe the map is trying to lead us somewhere?’
‘My mother drew the map,’ she finally said, looking at me.
‘Your mum? Why?’
She lifted one hand and rubbed at her neck. ‘I’m not sure.’ I gave her a doubtful look. It was like when she told me it had been her mum’s tin. What was the big secret? Why had her mum filled biscuit tins with strange things and buried them?
‘Well, she must have had a good reason.’
‘I think,’ Mrs Maple said slowly, her eyes not quite meeting mine, ‘she must have wanted me to revisit all the places we had gone as a child.’
‘But why?’
‘Oh look, a cinema,’ she cried, pointing over my shoulder, ‘and although it isn’t the one we frequented, we could go in?’ she said, turning to me. ‘It is a cinema at least.’
I thought of the map, the building in the top right labelled ‘ABC’. The whole point of our journey. If she wanted to revisit the past didn’t it mean we should look for the other cinema? Why was she acting so odd?
‘We could try and find the old one?’
Mrs Maple waved a hand away. ‘No, no, let’s watch something,’ she said, a new energy in her. ‘No need to always live in the past.’
Shrugging, I agreed – there was a massive thick grey cloud above us and I didn’t want to be running around lost in the rain.
We chose a film, a comedy with talking dogs which normally I’d say was too young for me, but Mrs Maple didn’t want to watch an action movie that I thought looked good.
‘It’s a 12 certificate,’ she said, one eyebrow arching in my direction.
‘The dog one then,’ I replied, aware of a group of older lads looking over in my direction, suddenly just wanting to get into the darkened room.
She rolled her eyes, a small smile on her face, ‘That’s a better idea. Honestly, Billy, you’d get nightmares.’
‘Mrs Maple, I’m ten, not six.’
‘All the same…’
I watched 12s all the time, even 15s when Dad was home, although Mum did get really angry with him once when I had woken in the middle of the night screaming about zombies.
Mrs Maple bought the tickets and a huge tub of sweet popcorn and asked me if I wanted a drink too. The Coke would last me all day.
‘Aren’t you getti
ng something?’
Mrs Maple tapped her nose. ‘I packed my peppermint tea in a thermos,’ she said, looking at her wrist. ‘And look at that, it’s almost time!’
Time for what I wasn’t exactly sure but I wanted to sit down and make a start on my popcorn – a couple of pieces had already fallen and bounced on the carpet. The talking dogs couldn’t be that bad.
The cinema was cool, with plush leather seats and loads of leg room, and it was pretty empty as we moved into our row, the screen large and looming in front of us.
‘It is enormous,’ Mrs Maple said, eyes boggling at it. ‘The screen’s about ten times the size I remember.’
It was weird seeing someone so amazed by normal things. It was obvious that Mrs Maple really hadn’t been out and about much. It made me feel a little bit warmer towards her.
‘These are our seats,’ I said, letting her sit down.
I pushed myself back in the leather, pressed the button on the armrest to make it tilt and as it started to move, Mrs Maple leapt up again. ‘How are…? What the…? Oh!’
It had clearly blown her mind.
‘Alright?’
‘But…’ Then she realised I had made it happen and stared at me, wonder in her voice. ‘Show me how to do that.’
‘It’s that button there,’ I said, and, as she went to sit, I pressed it and the leg part went up and that toppled her into the seat. Before the film had even begun I was clutching myself laughing as Mrs Maple, legs stuck right up, squirmed like a beetle that couldn’t right itself, calling out in her seat, ‘Enough now, Billy.’ Then, as the tilting stopped and she realised I was chuckling, she started to laugh too. ‘Oh, what do I look like?’ she said, dabbing at her face.
We had to be shushed when the trailers began.
Chapter Thirteen
ELSIE
She had hardly slept the evening before fretting about the upcoming trip to the cinema. Setting aside her nerves of the day itself: the strange prospect of returning to her past, a whole day with Billy, she was nervous it might encourage him to find out more about the things in the red tin. Would he start to ask more questions? Would he want to explore every place on the map? That would be impossible and Elsie stayed awake worrying at the thought. Then just as she’d dropped off she had woken, convinced she could hear crying through the walls of next door.
The Garden of Lost Memories Page 8