The Day We Met

by Rowan Coleman

  There’s a cough outside the door: it’s Greg. “Caitlin is on my phone. She wants to talk to you, Claire.”

  Mum reaches through a gap in the door for the thing, the phone, as Greg calls it, and I take it. “Caitlin,” I say. “Where are you?” Because for a second I cannot remember, and I’m frightened that she is lost too.

  “I’m in Manchester, Mum,” she says. Her voice seems so small and far away. I look around, trying to see her, and then remember that she is not here. “I spoke to Paul today.”

  Paul, Paul, my Paul, her father Paul. She went to Manchester to see her father. “How was it?” I ask her.

  “Not good.” I strain to listen for clues in her voice. She sounds oddly calm; her voice seems light, peaceful. Is that how it really is, or how I want to hear it? “Paul says that he isn’t my father. He said…” She draws in a deep breath. “He says that maybe it’s all in your head, because of the AD, and that. I mean, I know that it’s not. I just have to look at him and I know that he’s contributed to my gene pool—and he’s not blind, he must see that too. But he doesn’t want to face up to it, and I don’t really blame him. Shall I come home?”

  I find myself standing up, water pouring off me, running down my body in rivulets. Mum grabs a large soft wrap, still warm from the radiator, and winds it around me.

  “Paul Sumner says you are not his?” I ask. Of all the things I’d expected, it wasn’t that. I didn’t expect him to deny what is written all over Caitlin’s face.

  “He says that he isn’t my father, and that maybe you got muddled up, because you were ill? He was so sure, Mum. And he was so sure that I stopped being sure. And now I don’t know what to do, and I’m not sure I even care. Shall I just come home? It seems pointless being this far away from you now. Greg told me about today. It sounded so horrible. I want to be at home with you all.”

  “No,” I say. Stepping out of the bath, I walk into the hallway and find Greg standing there, looking uncertain and wary. He sees me and averts his eyes. “No. You stay there. I’m coming. I’ll talk to Paul Bloody Sumner.”

  “But Mum, are you sure? After today?”

  “I’m coming,” I say, meeting Greg’s eyes, and he nods.

  “Claire.” Mum is leaning in the bathroom doorway. “A few moments ago you said you didn’t want to ever leave home again, and now Manchester? Are you sure?”

  “I am not leaving things like this,” I say, determined. “This isn’t about me: it’s about Caitlin. I need to fix this. I have to go. You will come with me, and we’ll take Esther. It will be a girls’ road trip. You’ll make sure that nothing bad happens….”

  “Will Greg come too?” Caitlin asks hopefully, listening in to our conversation. It’s touching that she wants him there as part of the family, but he’s part of her family now, and not mine.

  “Greg’s got work to do,” I say.

  He stands on the landing for a second longer, his arms wrapped protectively around his body, and then he walks into Esther’s room and closes the door.

  “We’ll come up first thing,” I say, looking at Mum, who simply nods. “Caitlin, are you okay? Are you very sad?”

  There is a pause on the end of the line.

  “Actually, funnily enough, I am not sad at all,” Caitlin says, sounding rather bewildered. “I think I might be sort of happy.”

  —

  A little while later, after Mum has dried and brushed my hair and the house is full of sleep, I get up to go to the bathroom. Hearing a noise, I pause outside Esther’s room, and I worry that she might be having a nightmare about being left in a street by a woman who forgot she existed. I stand there, and listen, and very slowly I realize it’s not Esther, but Greg—and he’s crying. My hand goes to the doorknob and floats over it for a moment or two, and then I turn around and go back to bed.

  I don’t know what I would say to him.

  friday, july 24, 1982

  ruth

  This is a postcard from St Ives, my first ever holiday with Claire on our own after her father died. And it was also the place that I lost her.

  I didn’t want to go on holiday without him. Even though we had only ever been on one family holiday before, it felt wrong to carry on. Looking back, I think I felt that it shouldn’t be allowed—Claire and I carrying on living our lives almost exactly as we had before. I thought that we should mourn his passing forever. But that wasn’t fair. Claire loved him, but she never knew him the way I did, he never let her. For her, his death was sad, but understandable. For me, it was losing the love of my life: the one person in the world I respected and adored above all others. I didn’t want life to ever get back to normal.

  Claire needed a break, though. My mum said so, and for once I listened to her. It’s funny, now I think about the way we went about having that holiday. Even then, in the eighties, you only flew abroad if you were rich, and I hadn’t learned to drive. I was to pass my driving test later that year. So we got a coach from Victoria, like a package holiday. Me and Claire and a lot of much older people, pensioners, wondering what on earth we were doing there—and the truth was, I didn’t really know, except I knew I had to take Claire on a holiday, and I didn’t want to have to think about it.

  It must have been hard for her. I’m not even sure I told her we were going until the day I packed the bags. We sat on the coach for six hours, and we barely spoke to each other. She sat in the aisle and read Jane Eyre. I stared out of the window and thought about him, about how sweet and gentle he could be when no one was looking. How he’d loved me, and I’d loved him. How I’d lost him, the man who made my knees wobble when he kissed me; and he’d lost me, toward the end thinking I was his mother. We hadn’t lost our love, though, not at all. It was there, still there between us. The love was still there.

  Our hotel was a pretty awful one. I don’t remember much about it, except that it was barely clean. None of it mattered to me really, although I do remember Claire being disappointed because she thought she’d be able to see the sea out of the window, and all she could see was the air conditioning unit screwed onto the brick wall opposite.

  We were there for a week, come rain or shine, and I hardly remember any of it. It was before St Ives became packed with trendy shops and cafés, I know that much. It was sunny, but not warm, and a lot of our time was spent at the beach, me sitting in a deck chair behind sunglasses, while Claire paddled in the water, kicking listlessly at the waves. She got sunburned because I forgot to put sun cream on her. I was miserable. So sad. So lonely. I didn’t want to be there, and I didn’t want to be at home. The only place I wanted to be was three or four years earlier, before we knew about the dementia. I could never imagine being happy again.

  One evening, we walked through the town, because Claire was so sick of the hotel food that she nagged and nagged me to take her out for dinner. There was a fish and chips place in the town, where you could eat in. So we walked through the town, and it was very busy, full of people, all with the same idea, it seemed, and then suddenly I caught a glimpse of the back of a head, and I was sure it was him. I was just sure it was. I thought somehow he had followed us here. Who else would it be wearing a gray suit jacket on this summer’s evening, his red hair shining? I followed him, my eyes glued to that glimpse of red, ducking down streets, pushing through the crowds, until I was almost running, desperate to catch up with him, right up until I turned a corner and bumped into the red-headed gentleman in the gray suit. I grasped at his shoulders, flung my arms around him and wept with relief, until the gentleman in question pushed me off him and told me to sober up. I looked into his face—a face that meant nothing to me. He wasn’t a ghost and he wasn’t a miracle: it was my mind playing tricks on me. I even got the hair color wrong. He wasn’t a redhead—he was blond.

  It was then I realized that Claire wasn’t with me, and it took seconds, several of them, for the arrowhead of fear to pierce through the muffled miasma of grief; and then it struck me in the heart, which suddenly began to beat fast an
d I was alive again. They were a terrible, terrifying ten minutes, maybe even less, as I ran back the way I came, shouting out her name, people looking at me, the mad woman in the street screaming. But in those few minutes, however many of them there were, the blood rushed in my veins, life shot through me: longing, fear, anxiety like I have never known since, not until recently, spreading through every vein, with every beat of my heart.

  Then there she was, looking in a shop window, like she hadn’t even noticed I was gone. I picked her up—much to her horror—and held her tightly, until she began to fight me.

  I’d lost her, and then I found her again, and I found myself at the same time.

  17

  claire

  I am not sure what wakes me, but as I lie alone in bed, I get the feeling that I have forgotten something really important—which is ironic, because obviously I’ve forgotten a lot of really important things, recently. But this feels more urgent, more worrying. I sit up and push my fingers through my tangled hair, and take a breath and consider.

  Esther is sleeping at my side, her face hidden by her mass of blond curls, her fingers folded inward into the palm of her hand, which rests on the pillow next to her ear. The sound of her breathing comes in regular rhythmic waves. I’m grateful that it is not Esther I have forgotten—Esther who has become my best friend and guardian in recent weeks. She always wanted to be an angel, and now, short of wings, she sort of is. I smile at her, but still the nagging loss is dragging at my chest. Caitlin is alone in Manchester, I remember, and today I am going to her. Mum is taking me and Esther. Mum is driving us in her Nissan Micra. We are going to see Paul, my boyfriend. No, wait, Paul is not my boyfriend anymore, and he hasn’t been for a long time. Is that what I’ve forgotten, what I’ve lost? Paul. Paul, who wrote me poems about sunshine in my hair and didn’t wear underwear. Not ever. No, it’s not that.

  I get up, and look at the woman in the glass for a while, trying to reconcile myself with her reflection. Recently, I find it harder and harder to remember my age. I don’t feel it, whatever it is. I feel seventeen, full of promise and life. I have this crazy sense of expectation about the future and what it still holds for me: dreams and daydreams of what might come. I am not so sure if it is the disease or me who feels so stupidly optimistic. Part of me feels like I should have stopped hoping or caring by now. It’s not fair, to feel hopeful. Not when there is no hope.

  What is it that I have lost in the night? What have I forgotten?

  It’s very early. The house is quiet and still, the sky just lightening into a bruised shade of purple. I pull back the curtain and look out, and he is there, and I know at once who it is. My memory doesn’t hesitate for a moment. It’s Ryan.

  I catch my breath. What is he doing there in my garden? Just standing there on the ice-encrusted grass, staring at the ground, his hands in his pockets. My heart is pounding, and again I am overwhelmed by expectation: he is there and it is proof that life still holds surprises for me. I never expected to see him again after the library incident, and yet he’s here, and he’s waiting for me.

  In too much of a hurry to bother dressing, I tiptoe quickly down the stairs in my bare feet, careful not to wake anyone up, especially not my husband, who is sleeping in Esther’s room. I climb over the stair gate, slip my coat on over my nightshirt, and run over the smooth tiles in the kitchen. I feel a little as if I might be able to float, like Peter Pan on a wire. And then I remember: the door will be fixed shut and I will not be able to open it. I stand there for a second, looking at his back, shrouded in the dawn, through the pane of glass in the kitchen door. I reach out. Magically the handle melts under my fingers and a cold blast of air greets me, the door opens easily. Is this a dream? I wonder, as the world changes around me, bowing to my bidding, and allows me to go to him. It might be a dream, or a hallucination. Mr. Doctor Long Name said something about hallucinations toward the end. Is seeing him there in the garden a sign that I am almost there? The grass feels freezing, crunching under my bare toes, and the cold quickly finds its way under my coat and nightshirt. I begin to shiver, my iced breath billowing into the air. This is real. I believe it. I really am standing in my garden at dawn, looking at Ryan’s back, and he really is waiting for me. After all, it sounds like something someone like me would do, doesn’t it?

  I pad across the grass, a drizzle of pink bleeding into the sky as the sun struggles to be born.

  “You’re here,” I whisper, and he jumps, turning to see me. He smiles. He looks happy to see me, but surprised too, I think. “What are you doing here?” I ask him. “What if someone sees you?”

  “You’ve got nothing on your feet,” he says. “You’ll freeze to death.”

  “I won’t.” I smile. I laugh. Actually, I sort of like the cold. I like feeling something this much. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you throw stones up at my window? I might have missed you!”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” he says. “I wasn’t thinking of getting you up. I just wanted to be near you. Which makes me sound mental.”

  “Not at all.” I step toward him, and he puts his arms around me, all of me, pinning my arms to my sides, and lifts me up two or three inches into the air, to rest my toes on the tops of his boots. I put my arms around his neck and we stand nose to nose, warming each other. “Romeo crept up on Juliet at dawn, or sunset—one or the other—but there was something about a light breaking, yonder,” I tell him. “And besides, I don’t think I mind if you are mad, because that just means we match. I wouldn’t want you to be a figment of my imagination, though. That would make me sad—if you weren’t real.”

  “I’m real,” he murmurs into my hair. “And so are you. God, I’ve missed you, Claire.” His hands find their way under my coat, and I feel his fingers roam down my back and over my bottom, the thin cotton of my nightshirt hiding nothing from him. This is new—this heat between us—it’s new and wrong. We are two people who cannot feel this way about each other, and yet it doesn’t feel wrong to be touched by him like this. It feels wonderful, welcoming. I press myself even closer into his body, bury my face in his neck and lose myself in his touch. For now I am more than the disease: I am a woman—a desirable, lovable woman. I am me again. For just these few moments, I am purely me, and it’s only him that can give me this gift.

  “Claire, I need to tell you something,” he whispers.

  “I need to tell you something,” I say, because now is the time for the truth. Now before this happiness turns to hurt.

  “Me first,” he says.

  “Please, don’t tell me that you aren’t real,” I caution him.

  “Claire, I love you,” he says into my hair. “I love you so.” I pull back and look into his face. I barely know this man, and yet everything about him seems so true.

  “You can’t love me,” I tell him gently. “You mustn’t. I’m not here. Or I won’t be soon. I’m sick, and I’m disappearing. And I’m married. And I have my daughters. And I don’t know how much time I have left knowing them. I can’t leave them, don’t you see? Not the girls, or Greg. I have to stay with him for as long as I can. Because they love me too, and they loved me first.”

  As I speak, his eyes fill with tears. He blinks and they roll down his cheeks. I smooth them away with the palms of my hands.

  “I don’t want to take you away from your family,” he tells me. “I don’t want to do that. I just had to tell you how I feel, that’s all. And I hoped you’d listen and understand that when you are gone, I will be heartbroken. I will be bereft, and lost and alone. And I just need you to know that. That is all.”

  “Oh, my love.” I kiss him then, suddenly gripped by a passionate urgency I haven’t felt in months. I’ve been so insulated by uncertainty and loss. Just for now, though, my body takes over and I want to fold him into me; I want to be absorbed by him. As the day begins, and I feel the first touch of the warmth of the sun on my face, I know that I only have now, these last few minutes before the world wakes up and being here in his
arms isn’t possible anymore.

  “I do know,” I tell him, breaking the kiss, holding his face in my hands. “I do know, and it means so much to me. I love you too, somehow. I don’t know how. And I’m sorry we met now, at exactly the wrong time.”

  “It’s not the wrong time,” he says. “It’s exactly the right time.”

  We hold each other, our arms entwined, until the bruised sky fades to a pale cool blue and the ghostly shadows of the bare tree branches are imprinted in what is left of the frost on the grass.

  “I have to go in,” I say, glancing up at the house. “They will be up soon. They will think I’ve run away again.” I pause, reluctant to step off his feet and away from him, because it might be the last time I ever feel alive like this. Human like this. “I don’t know where you came from, or why you came now, but I am glad we found each other, even if it’s just for now.” I touch his lips with the tips of my fingers. “And if you are a dream, you’re the best one I have ever had. Goodbye, my love.”

  I step back onto the wet grass, and I walk backwards, reluctant to take my eyes off him, in case he disappears along with the mist of dew being burned up by the strengthening heat of the day.

  “I might not see you again,” I say. “Or if I do, I might not know who you are. My illness, it’s Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s eating me away, bit by bit, taking everything I love away from me. Even you.”

  He reaches out a hand to me. “Come back, just for a little longer.”

  I shake my head. “I know you love me. I can feel that you mean it. But you mustn’t, you mustn’t love me, because I will hurt you, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. You…you still love your wife. You’re not the sort of man who just stops loving someone. I know you aren’t. That’s what makes you so incredible. So go and find her, and win her back, and forget about me. Because…I will forget about you.”