Knowing Anna

by Sarah Meyrick

  ‘Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!

  Cut the hawsers – haul out – shake out every sail!

  Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?

  Have we not grovell’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?

  Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough?

  Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!

  Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;

  For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,

  And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

  O my brave soul!

  O farther, farther sail!

  O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God?

  O farther, farther, farther sail!’

  The church was quite literally on the path, so the group was soon on its way. Theo came over to find her. ‘Sleep all right?’ he asked.

  ‘’Kay,’ she said. ‘Did Sam . . . you know . . . ?’

  ‘No. All well there . . . Ah, now that’s what I wanted to show you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Over there. Can you see the vines?’

  ‘So are we in flipping France or something?’

  Theo laughed. ‘Looks a bit like it, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘It’s Denbies. The biggest vineyard in England. Something like three hundred thousand vines, covering an area of several hundred acres.’

  ‘So how did you end up a, like, world authority, Dad?’

  ‘Looked at a job there, once upon a time.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Beth couldn’t imagine her father job-hunting somehow. Greene Fingers had always been part of their life. Mum used to say that he was so entrenched in his work that taking even a week’s holiday meant digging his roots out of the soil.

  ‘Yes. After we sold the farm. I rather fancied winemaking. Thought it was rather romantic. Mind you, back then English wine had a fairly terrible reputation. It’s different now. Denbies pick up international awards, these days.’

  ‘So why didn’t you go for it?’

  ‘The garden centre seemed a safer bet, somehow,’ said Theo. ‘I could hear your grandfather’s voice telling me that there was no future in English wine. Shame, really.’

  ‘Well, you get to be your own boss, now Mike’s gone,’ said Beth, with a sudden surge of sympathy for her father. ‘Your name on the shop front. That’s pretty cool.’

  At that moment a railway bridge came into sight. ‘That’s my cue to round up the boys,’ said Theo. ‘There’s a nasty bit of main road coming up. Better make sure everyone knows. But thank you.’ With the ghost of a smile, he took off, leaving Beth the choice between talking to Mary Anne (no thanks, who wanted to spend half-term with a teacher, for fuck’s sake?) and catching up with Lucy, Ella and Chloe. Oh well. Perhaps it was time to play happy teenagers for a bit. She’d probably outpace them on the steep hill anyway.

  The sight of the stepping stones had her anxiously checking around for Sam. Where was he? Would he keep his balance if the stones were slippery? In the event, though, she saw him pick his way across carefully enough, safely sandwiched between Uncle Tom and Catherine. Perhaps he was beginning to learn his limits.

  Milo, on the other hand, had no such brake on his exuberance and decided to jump from stone to stone. He was clearly showing off, trying to impress Sam and his friend George. Milo’s arms and legs were flying, windmill-like – he was shrieking with excitement – and then, almost in slow motion, it seemed, he overreached himself, misjudged the gap and slipped backwards into the river with a great splash. Luckily, Uncle Tom was just behind him and swiftly fished him out of the water, slung him over his shoulder, and fireman-style carried him over to the other side of the river.

  ‘Milo,’ said Tamsin, exasperated, when she caught up with him. ‘Why is it always you? Now you’ll have wet feet for the rest of the day.’

  Milo, tipping the water out of his boots and tugging off two wet socks, was chuckling, lapping up the attention. Then Smith emerged from the river and shook himself over Milo, setting him off into new peals of laughter.

  ‘Piggyback needed?’ asked Theo, who had turned back to see what the commotion was all about.

  ‘No, really . . .’ said Tamsin. ‘It’s his own fault entirely. He’ll have to put up with squelching for a bit.’

  ‘I’ve got spare socks,’ said Mary Anne. ‘Why not let Theo carry him for a bit while his boots dry out?’

  ‘Well . . . if you really don’t mind,’ said Tamsin. ‘Thank you. Don’t suppose you’ve got a carrier bag for the wet pair, Mary Anne?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And I’ll take over when you need a break, Theo,’ added Uncle Tom, smiling at Tamsin.

  ‘We’ll manage,’ said Theo firmly.

  Beth could feel Tamsin’s discomfort as Theo began the steep climb with Milo on his back. ‘I don’t think Dad, like, minds,’ she told her.

  ‘He’s being very kind,’ said Tamsin with an effort. Why do you mind? wondered Beth, watching Tamsin stealing anxious glances in Milo’s direction. Fortunately, the novelty of carrying – and being carried – soon wore off and before very long Milo had wriggled down off Theo’s back, put on the dry socks and reclaimed his soggy boots from Uncle Tom.

  ‘Silly joey,’ said Tamsin, and hugged him. ‘He’s always been a ding-bat,’ she told Beth, as Milo went to reclaim charge of Smith from George. ‘I lost him once in Melbourne when he was little. It was the worst half-hour of my life.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We were in the Botanic Gardens. We used to go there a lot. It’s a wonderful place – full of trees and plants, a beautiful lake and great bird life. There’s always something new to see. And it’s cool in the heat because of all the vegetation. One really hot day, I was buying icy-poles at the little café, and when I turned round he’d vanished. Of course I was frantic – he was only four – and I ran around like a mad woman. I thought maybe he’d gone after the flying-foxes.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A kind of fruit bat. They hang upside down out of trees. They were Milo’s favourite thing in the gardens. But in the end we found him inside one of the glasshouses. He said it was a scientific experiment. He wanted to know how long he could stay inside on a forty-degree day without passing out.’

  ‘God, I’d have melted,’ said Beth. ‘I can’t do heat!’

  ‘That’s because you’ve got your Mum’s lovely colouring. You’re even worse than I am in the sun,’ said Tamsin, who was a Nordic blonde. ‘At least Milo’s olive-skinned. But he still looked like boiled beetroot by the time I found him. I forced him under a sprinkler till he’d cooled down. We were both crying our eyes out by that stage.’

  ‘D’you miss Australia, Tamsin? Doesn’t Milo, like, miss his dad?’

  ‘Well . . . it’s complicated. Yes, there are things I miss . . . and people, I guess . . . but this is home. I was born here, you know.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Yeah. My parents emigrated when I was a baby. So I’m a British citizen, even if I don’t sound like one. Reckon this is where I belong. Where we both belong now.’

  They were nearing the top of the hill. Beth was pleased to see that she and Tamsin had outpaced most of the others. She could feel her heart racing against her ribcage and forced herself onwards, upwards, faster until she was quite light-headed with the effort. And then – right on cue as she made it to the viewing platform, the perfect prize for effort – ping! A text! Blister? Need air ambulance? M x

  Beth grinned from ear to ear. Keep u posted. Emma x

  Seconds later, ping! Emma? wtf??? Someone kidnapped Beth?

  Hmm. She replied: ‘Emma’. At Box Hill, btw

  A pause, when she could practically hear the cogs in Matt’s brain turning, all those miles away in Farmleigh. Then, a minute or two later, ping! Miss Wodehouse, I presume? x

  Oh my God, he’d got her reference to Jane A
usten! How cool was that? Cultured as well as hot! He was doing English A-level, after all. Think its Woodhouse but clever boy ;) 2 early 4 picnic x

  Thank God. It wasn’t long since breakfast, so most people were content with their water bottles, for now at any rate.

  My mum helped . . . Don’t spose other Emma walkd up, tho! Matt x came the reply. OMG! So Matt’s mum did know about Beth. Was that good – that he cared enough to mention her to his mum? Or bad – that she wasn’t important enough to be kept a secret? Mind you, if Anna had been alive, Beth would have been telling her all about Matt, she was pretty sure. So perhaps it was OK.

  At that moment Milo arrived and threw himself down on the ground in a dramatic flourish. Sam appeared just behind him, out of breath but cheerful. Beth turned to her phone: Gotta go. Keep in touch. ‘E’ x She pressed ‘send’, and slipped her phone into her pocket. Mustn’t seem too keen. A bit of self-discipline (and let’s face it, she had plenty of that) only added to the anticipation.

  After the dramatic climb of the morning, the group settled into a more even rhythm again. The sun was bright, now, and most of group – apart from Beth who was always cold these days – had stripped down to T-shirts. Having made sure that Sam had a good drink of water at the viewing platform, Beth left him to it, and edged her way to the front of the line of walkers where her grandfather was leading the way.

  It really was amazing: he had to be the oldest here by some distance but there was no question that Grandpa William was one of the fittest walkers. While other people were quite honestly huffing and puffing (you’d have thought all that bloody cheerleading would have kept Chloe fit, for one, and Jackie looked as if she might have a heart attack at any moment), Grandpa William was striding ahead, clearly wanting to go rather faster than the group pace allowed. He was deep in discussion with Uncle Tom, quizzing him about his latest work project. Dull as ditch. But with a bit of luck she could hover alongside them, and anyone who happened to be looking in her direction would assume she was part of their conversation and leave her alone.

  Because she needed some headspace, she really did. For a start she wanted to take her encounters with Matt out of their special place in her mental library, examine them one by one, polish as needed, and stow them carefully back again for future reference.

  And then she had to think about what she was going to do when her GCSEs went pear-shaped, which they sure as shit were going to. Back in the old days, she’d had a plan. How naive that seemed now! She was going to do her A-levels and then go to uni to study Physiotherapy. She wasn’t sure where yet, but Cardiff was supposed to be really good for Physio, although she’d wondered if London would be a better bet because then she could still live at home. But now – since she was bound to have to do retakes – she needed to be absolutely certain that she could face all those science A-levels.

  Added to which, ever since she’d joined Big Band she’d started thinking more and more about pursuing her music. Which was ironic, when you came to think about it, because she knew, she just knew, that that was what Mum would have wanted her to do, though she would never have tried to push her in that direction, and Beth had always resisted any such suggestion. But what were the options anyway? Could you go to college to play swing band music and jazz or did you have to start with all that hyper-formal classical stuff (like Mum, of course) before you were allowed to have fun? She supposed she could ask Mr Shepherd, but otherwise she didn’t really know where to start.

  Father Stephen had asked the front walkers to stop for lunch at Colley Hill, where another lookout point offered open views of the landscape after a morning largely spent in woodland. Spotting what looked like a temple ahead, Beth went in search of a bench to sit on while she checked on her blister. As she unlaced her boots she was joined by William.

  ‘Legs surviving?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine, thanks, Grandpa. Just one little blister on my heel. You OK?’

  ‘Tickety-boo, thank you very much. There’s life in these old bones yet.’

  ‘I’ve noticed. You want to push us on a bit, don’t you?’

  William grunted. ‘Having to exercise patience, yes. This group pace. Doesn’t sit naturally, I’m afraid. But pro bono publico, and all that. Doing my best, for the common good. But while we’re here, have you looked overhead?’

  Beth leaned backwards, and tipped her head. The ceiling of the folly was painted cobalt blue, spangled with gold stars. ‘Oh my God, what’s that about?’ she said.

  ‘Rather lovely, isn’t it? It’s an astronomer’s view of the heavens.’

  ‘Stars always make me feel so, like, insignificant,’ she said.

  ‘Like the psalmist?’ said William. ‘“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?”’

  ‘How do you know this stuff, Grandpa?’

  ‘Misspent youth. Your great-grandfather prescribed a Bible verse a day and a psalm a week. This one’s Psalm 8. It goes on: “For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”’

  ‘I can’t even!’

  ‘Can’t even what?’

  She laughed. ‘No, it’s an expression. I’m, like, not sure there’s anything to say to that.’

  ‘Ah, but there is,’ came Father Stephen’s voice. ‘How about Psalm 147? There’s another lovely bit about the stars: “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.” Now I come to think about it, the verse before is lovely, too: “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.”’

  Beth stared at them both in disbelief. ‘This is so random! If you’re on about wounds, I’m off to find a plaster before this blister gets any worse.’

  Not eating took concentration. As long as Beth was prepared, and nothing unexpected came at her sideways, it was fine. The trouble was that other people seemed to eat constantly – honestly, even the thought of the amount most people ate made her feel quite sick – and appeared to think that you should, too. The plus of being part of a crowd was that with a bit of skill and a bottle of water in your hand, you could flit from group to group and give the impression that you were grazing as you went.

  On this occasion Beth had a rock-solid excuse to wander, as William had asked her to look out for her grandmother, who had the tricky task of joining the walkers wherever they fetched up at break times. This sounded simple enough in theory – Father Stephen had the whole thing planned out on a series of Ordnance Survey maps – but it was proving harder in practice. It only took someone to fall in a river (mentioning no names, Milo Carter) or for the road Granny was supposed to take to turn out to be impassable to motor vehicles (yesterday, for example) and it could all go majorly wrong. It was just possible that Granny Ruth might miss a turning, but if so Beth didn’t think she’d ever admit to it, any more than Father Stephen would admit to having given her crap directions in the first place.

  On this occasion, since they were ten minutes ahead of the agreed meeting time, Beth thought she’d better walk down the path in the direction of the appointed car park. She saw her grandmother coming slowly up the steps, leaning heavily on the wooden handrail as she walked, unaware that she was being watched. As soon as she saw Beth, she straightened up, smiled and waved cheerfully.

  ‘Am I in time for lunch?’ she called up.

  ‘Yeah, you’re fine. We’ve only just arrived. You’re in time for silence, too!’

  ‘I suppose there’s no avoiding that,’ said Ruth, smiling conspiratorially. ‘How are you getting on with it?’

  ‘So . . . actually . . . I kind of liked it?’ said B
eth. ‘It’s like . . . restful. Walking and not having to talk. You get into a swing, if that makes sense.’

  Ruth appeared to consider for a moment. ‘Well. Let’s see what he’s got in store for us this afternoon, shall we?’

  ‘I was reminded of one of my favourite psalms at lunchtime,’ said Father Stephen as the group gathered round. Beth rolled her eyes in William’s direction.

  ‘Psalm 147 has some lovely lines about God wanting to bind our wounds, and healing the heartbroken. It’s such a vivid metaphor, the idea of a broken heart. I know that everyone here is experiencing different degrees of heartbreak. But even broken hearts mend, over time, however impossible that seems right now.

  ‘Now. About our period of silence this afternoon. Let’s see if we can extend it a bit – let’s try and manage forty-five minutes today. It’s going to be different from yesterday, because even if we’re quiet, there’s going to be a certain amount of background noise, I’m afraid.’ He gesticulated in the direction of the motorway, audible though screened behind the trees.

  ‘But we’ll just have to live with that. There’s something very real about life carrying on all around us, even when we’re in the middle of personal tragedy. Maybe we’ll even be able to incorporate the noise into our reflections. Because today’s word is “remembering”. I want us to try dwelling in our memories – the precious memories, the painful ones. Memories of Anna, of course, but other memories that are important to us. How have they formed us? Do they need laying down? Can we offer them up to God?’

  Remembering was exactly what she’d been so desperate to do this morning, thought Beth. Now she wasn’t quite sure. At one level, it was ridiculous. She never stopped remembering her mum, and missing her. She thought about her constantly. But just occasionally, recently, she found the hours between her morning glass of water and, say, lunchtime had passed without thinking of Anna, and then she’d feel simultaneously relieved and hideously guilty. Panicked, even, that if she didn’t think about her enough, the memories would fade altogether and she’d one day stop being able to conjure her to her side.