by Lucy Lawrie
‘You’re not in Newcastle for Christmas?’
Steve sat down in one of the flowery armchairs. ‘Martin’s moved back in. God, what a relief. It was never going to work, the three of us living in the house like that. But I’m going to see Calum one Saturday every month. I’ll go down on the first train and let Katya and Martin get out for the day, have some time together. They’re both into cycling.’
‘So, you’re back?’
‘Just got back yesterday,’ he said. ‘Wanted to scoot out of the way before, y’know, Christmas day.’ He grimaced. ‘They hadn’t found a replacement for me at the college yet, thankfully, so I’ll be going back there next term.’
‘And you’ve been drawing?’ I nodded at the sketch pad, lying on the arm of the sofa.
He reached for it, and made to close the cover, but I put a hand out to stop him. The sketch showed Miss Fortune playing the piano, head tilted slightly to the side, eyes closed, the skin between her eyes pinched into parallel frown lines.
‘That’s her Rachmaninov face,’ I said.
He smiled. ‘Yup. The second piano concerto.’
‘It’s amazing, how you’ve made her hands so full of movement.’ I shook my head. ‘How do you do that?’
He pulled the pad away with a gentle tug. ‘It’s only a sketch. Just playing about, really.’
‘How has she been?’ I inclined my head towards Miss Fortune.
‘Yeah, not too bad. Looks like we’ll be able to get her a place at that independent-living place near Musselburgh. She’ll have her own little apartment, but communal eating facilities and whatnot, and trained staff on hand all the time. Murray’s been brilliant, by the way.’
‘Oh, the copyright infringement thing? Have the other lawyers agreed on a figure yet?’
‘No, but Blue Bear’s Dance is going to make life a lot easier, put it that way. For her and for me, frankly.’
He did look more relaxed today, his face more boyish and the lines less pronounced.
‘So what are you doing for Christmas lunch?’ I asked.
‘M&S finest. Nine minutes in the microwave.’
I couldn’t leave them here, with the smell of microwaved vegetables wafting round the flat, him sketching images conjured from decades before.
‘I wonder, could I tempt you with jam sandwiches on the beach? Pip and I aren’t going to Murray’s till three, so we were going to go and build Christmas sandcastles. You could sketch the beach, and the sea. It’ll be beautiful today.’
So Steve fetched Esme’s coat, and her black clippy handbag, and bundled his art things back into his bag. I drove them to Yellowcraigs beach, just down the coast, where the sea shone cobalt blue under the December sky. Just a few skeins of cloud drifted overhead, though it looked as though rain was gathering over the hills on the Fife side.
Wrapped up in our coats, we walked along the sand without talking – though Pip was still singing ‘Away in a Manger’ – our feet sinking into the drifts until we reached the foreshore, where Miss Fortune stopped. She stood, gasping from the exertion, with her hands on her hips. ‘So lovely – to see – Kirrin Island again!’ She nodded across the sea to Fidra Island and its storybook lighthouse nestled white beyond the grassy crags. ‘Shall we play the Famous Five, Pip?’ It was the first time she’d called him Pip.
She reached down, pulled off her shoes, and set off across the sand in her tights. Pip looked at me for permission, his eyes wide and urgent, then scrabbled to remove his own socks and shoes, and went after her, stubby little feet smacking across the ridged, wet sand.
‘God, his feet are going to freeze.’
‘They’ll be fine.’
I spread out the picnic rug, and took out Tupperware containers with Pip’s jam sandwiches and the cheese and tomato ones I’d made for me. We’d stopped at a petrol station for crisps and chocolate ‘to make them go round’, as my grandmother would have said.
We sat in silence, listening to the water swishing back and forth. I waited for him to speak. I knew it would come, the same way I knew the tide would keep moving up the beach.
‘So I’ve realised a few things recently,’ he said. His voice was light, but there was a very slight shake in it.
‘Oh?’
‘I really like you, Janey. My feelings for you are really quite strong.’
‘So why did you go? Why did you go to Newcastle?’
He shook his head, as though despairing of ever finding an answer. ‘I dunno, Janey.’
I waited.
‘I suppose,’ he said quietly, ‘I’m used to being on the outside. That’s why I spent my teenage years holed up with Esme in her flat. It meant I could opt out of everything: school, friends, my own family. And then later, with Katya and Calum, and Martin. I’m always the one looking in. You were different. You wanted me inside.’
I nodded.
‘And then somehow you didn’t. You pushed me away, just when I’d finally found what it took to open up to you. Not only that, you seemed to think I was some kind of monster.’
‘It was a shock.’
‘Oh, I know I arsed the whole thing up. Completely. The way I told you. I can see that now, but it still hurts. That you could think of me that way.’
‘Oh no, look, they’re heading towards the water.’
He sprang up and jogged out towards Esme and Pip. In a moment they were all walking up the beach, Pip skipping in anticipation of the picnic. He flumped next to me on the rug, and I rubbed his freezing feet with wads of napkins before popping his socks on. I bent and kissed them, holding one snug foot in each hand, feeling the soft little bones flexible under my grip. He shrieked and rolled away.
‘Jam sandwich?’
I gave him one from the box and he sat, knees bent up in front of him, holding it with both hands in front of his mouth, face earnest as he closed his teeth carefully around the pointy part of the triangle.
Steve picked a cheese and tomato one. ‘Mmm, su-perb,’ he said, to no one in particular. ‘Can’t have a picnic without cheese and tomato.’
‘Me try?’ said Pip, turning.
Steve handed the sandwich to him. ‘Don’t take too much, yeah?’
Pip turned the sandwich round in his hands, looking at each of the edges. Carefully, I looked away, far, far away out to sea.
‘Mmm,’ he said after a moment, indistinct through a mouthful of sandwich. ‘Can’t have picnic wivout teese and mato.’
I glanced at Steve, who raised an amused eyebrow at me but said nothing. We sat eating, to the sound of the wind, and Miss Fortune humming along to ‘Away in a Manger’ as she nibbled at a Wispa. Pip kept throwing sideways glances at Steve. When he’d finished his sandwich he crawled over to his bag and pulled out his sketchbook.
‘Er . . .’ began Steve.
‘No, Pippy,’ I said. ‘That’s Steve’s work, sweetie.’
But he’d pulled it out and opened it up. A few loose sheets fell out: the portrait of Miss Fortune at the piano, a picture of a path winding through winter woods, half finished.
And there was one of me. He’d sketched me, in watercolour pencils. I was lying on my side on the sofa, in my flat, curled around Pip, who was sleeping. The throw was draped over our legs, and I was wearing my green cardigan. My head was resting on a cushion, one or two stray curls lying across its velvet sheen. My left arm was tucked around Pip, and I was holding something in my hand, cupping it as though it was something precious. The tendons on my wrist stood out, ever so slightly, with the effort of holding it in just the right way.
It looked like jewellery, or a bunch of keys. Silver, shining, white to silver to black. I looked closer. A handful of musical notes. The beginnings – the merest whisper – of a tune.
I drew in a deep breath and held it.
‘Mama and me,’ said Pip nodding. Then he turned to Miss Fortune. ‘Play sea castles again?’
‘Stay out of the water!’ I called as they wandered back down the beach.
‘They’ll be fi
ne,’ said Steve, who was putting the sketches back in his bag and closing the clasp.
I gathered my courage. It had to be now.
‘Are you in love with me?’
He frowned, and his face clouded over.
Oh God, he was going to say ‘What does love mean?’ He was going to say it was just biology, a pattern of learned responses. The pain bit in again. I was going to have to leave. I was going to have to walk off this beach, drive home, drop him and Miss Fortune back at her flat, and wrench him out of my life.
Then he spoke, quietly, the breeze whipping his voice away so I could hardly hear it.
‘There’s this yes inside me, when I see you. Or hear you. Or even just when the thought of you crosses my mind. In fact I think it’s always there. It’s all through my body like a heartbeat. Like a rhythm, behind everything. Newcastle was all wrong. So wrong. I can’t fight any more. I had to come back.’
‘So?’
‘It’s always you. It’ll always be you. You’re so deep inside that it feels like you’re all through me. Like it was always going to be you. From the moment you came into Esme’s music room that first, rainy Thursday night, and I hummed along to your playing in the back room while I was doing my maths.’
‘You’re rewriting the past,’ I said, with a wry little smile.
‘Some things are so strong that they do. They just do.’
He held out an arm, and it looked kind of lost, just suspended there, waiting for an answer. I wriggled over the rug and curled myself into that space, the space within the circle of his arm that was only ever meant for me. With his left hand he lifted my chin, and pausing, as though one world was about to tip into another, he moved his lips to mine.
51
THREE MONTHS LATER
Hattie
I’m so proud of Janey today. She’d played down her new job, said she was just an administrator for this new music charity. But it seems like she’s basically running the whole thing. They co-ordinate musician volunteers and have them perform at old people’s homes and schools for children with special educational needs and that kind of thing. Today was their annual lunch for the Scottish Alzheimer’s Trust, and there was a string quartet and the most amazing contralto – a sixth former from St Katherine’s – who sang ‘When I Am Laid In Earth’ from Dido and Aeneus.
Janey chose the music, organised the venue and the food.
But the music, it was one of those occasions when the music somehow transcends everything. One of the old people was actually crying with joy. She was gasping and moaning. One of the carers patted her arm and offered her a biscuit, but Janey walked straight over and put her arms around her. Where does she get this from? This confidence? She does something for people when their feelings become too much. She holds them. Contains them, using nothing but herself. It’s like what she does with Pip and it just astounds me every time.
I was sitting there thinking about all that when he came up to me, a big man with dark hair and a goofy sort of face. A lovely, goofy sort of face. ‘Hi, you’re Janey’s friend, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘I’m Paul.’
‘Oh, Jungle Jive Paul?’ I said. ‘Alzheimer’s Paul, I mean.’
His lips twitched, but he kept his face straight and solemn. ‘Er, Alzheimer’s Paul, yes.’
‘Congratulations on the, er, lunch thingy. The event. And congratulations on hiring Janey. She’s the best.’
‘She’s incredible. This passion she’s got. She’s taking us to a whole new level. I mean, look at this, today. Look, do you mind if I join you? Just sit here and talk to you for a bit? I’m a bit tired of all the – you know – dementia chat.’
‘Isn’t Geoff here today?’ I asked. It was a bit direct, perhaps, but there was something about him. Something that made me want to cut through all the crap and the small talk as quickly as possible. Why waste time dancing around the whole silly Geoff thing when, well, when there was so much other stuff to do.
Paul rubbed his chin slowly. ‘Ah. You heard about Geoff, did you? God, this is awkward. Yes. Geoff was, um, just someone I came up with. Jody was getting a little bit intense. I needed a little space, shall we say. Geoff was just . . .’
‘Your imaginary friend,’ I supplied.
He exhaled and sat back in his chair. ‘Exactly.’
‘Entirely reasonable in the circumstances, I’d say.’
That’s when he smiled.
Physical attraction. It has always felt a bit too inkling-like for comfort. Stomachs fluttering and blood surging and all that. But this time I was, well, curious about it, and about what it might be trying to tell me. About Paul. About myself, standing there at the edge of my future. It had taken Janey, with her trailing sleeves and her stubborn grey eyes, to make me see: I didn’t need to be afraid of what I could feel.
‘Look, I’m not sure . . . I don’t usually . . .’ He shook his head, appealing to me to understand, and somehow I did.
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Neither do I.’
‘It’s awfully hot in here. Would you like to go for a walk?’ The little questioning lift of his eyebrow seemed achingly familiar, yet entirely new. As though I’d been waiting the longest time to meet him.
‘I’d love to. But first I should probably introduce myself properly.’
I held out my hand and it tingled as he reached out to touch it.
‘I’m Hattie.’
Janey
One sunny day in spring, we drove up to Glen Eddle: Hattie, Steve, Pip and I. We left the car in the car park and made our way along the forest track towards the bridge over the river. The boys went on ahead, Pip skipping along in his wellies to keep up with Steve’s easy, long-legged strides. They seemed deep in conversation.
‘Pip doesn’t seem so shy these days,’ remarked Hattie.
‘He and Steve always seem to have a lot to talk about. They discuss ideas for paintings and stuff. Or at least Steve goes on about his at length, and Pip nods carefully and then says something like “blue wocket” or “doggie on twain”.’
‘Does he still talk about Dend?’ she asked.
‘Dend? No, Dend hasn’t been around much recently, now I come to think of it. Only at night-time, maybe. Pip makes me say goodnight to all of his cuddly toys, and then Dend, and then him. It’s a bit of a ritual.’
Hattie paused. ‘I wonder if Dend was a sort of, well, an inkling. Pip could see that there was . . .’ Her voice trailed off before she began again more confidently. ‘Another child in your family. He could see her playing on the edges of your mind.’
Oh Hattie, with your inklings and all that worry and angst.
I nodded slowly. ‘Maybe. Yes, maybe.’ I’d learned to deal with Hattie’s inklings as I did with Pip’s frets and worries, giving them my full and careful attention, but not too much. And afterwards, coaxing her back into the here and now.
‘I love the cherry blossom. Thank you.’
She’d collected it that morning from the tree in her garden, and had brought it with her in a little hooped wicker basket.
‘And thank you for . . .’ I shook my head.
For coming back. For bringing me back.
‘Silly,’ she said, bumping her shoulder into mine and keeping her eyes fixed on the path ahead. There was no need to put it into words, because we both knew all the ways in which we had saved each other.
‘Here we are. Here’s the old bridge.’ Her voice was full of delight, as though she was amazed it was still there, waiting for us.
We threw the petals into the clear cold river while the trees sighed around us, and Pip laughed and splashed with the stones at the water’s edge. Steve sat on the bank beside him, sketching a scene a bit like the one I’d attempted in the art class. He’d drawn in the first strokes of the mountains, steep on all sides, cradling the forest, the past and the future.
The last of the petals twisted and fell, and began their unknowable journey downstream. And now that I’d let go of the daughter that could have been, might have been
in another lifetime, I was able to accept her for what she was: a tiny, lost, loved thing who never had a chance to live. I could fold her inside my heart and let her just be that, as my heart beat on, carrying me through my life and all the things that were to come.
When the light began to fade, we walked back to the car, Steve and Hattie each taking one of Pip’s hands and swinging him along like a giant grasshopper, his squeals ringing out in the quiet of the woods. We took our wellies off and packed our things away into the boot.
I was ready to go home now. Home was the flat, with Steve’s canvases stacked in the hall waiting to be sorted through, his easel in the kitchen, and half of my wardrobe filled with his clothes. It was the comfy armchair by Pip’s bed – he’d moved into a ‘big boy’ bed now – where we read stories every night, and the tide of Duplo that encroached over every available floor space over the course of the day, to be gathered back into its boxes each evening. It was Bingo’s basket in the corner of the kitchen, ready for his ‘sleepovers’ when Murray was away on business. It was evenings spent at the kitchen table with Hattie when she came over, with tea and flapjacks, and the laughter in her voice, and all the layers of myself – childhood, girlhood, womanhood – held safely there in every conversation.
Home was Pip, it was Steve, and it was Hattie, and most of all it was a quiet place inside me where I could let myself be loved.