Burden of Memory

by Vicki Delany

  Deep in thought, Moira watched the pavement pass under her feet. She reached the corner and lifted her head to check she was going in the right direction.

  People all around her were breaking into a run.

  An explosion, and the growl and groan of buildings collapsing.

  Before her disbelieving eyes, the block of flats where Moira had spent three delightful days crumbled into dust. Alarms sounded and people ran. She dropped her suitcase and ran also. The flats, homes where families lived and children played, were no longer. As if a spoiled giant child had tired of his toys and trampled them underfoot in a burst of evil temper. A rocket: the new weapon a vengeful Hitler was unleashing on the people of England as his vision of Empire collapsed all around him.

  The street came alive with activity in an instant. Moira fell to her knees and scratched her way through timber and rubble. Around her men and women in wardens’ uniforms joined her, beating out fire, clambering across the rubble, heaving aside bricks and blocks of concrete, searching for survivors.

  With a shout, they pulled out an old woman, her gray hair streaked with even grayer dust. “My husband,” she gasped, and the searchers dug deeper.

  By nightfall, Moira’s hands were a bloody wreck: she had scarcely a nail left on her fingers. She had inhaled so much dust that she was reminded of the Algerian desert when the hot winds blew.

  Lights were brought to illuminate the destruction and the searchers carried on. Moira’s probing hands found a beautiful silver teapot, shining brightly in the light of the emergency lanterns, and numerous remnants of shattered china ornaments, rough kitchenware, children’s toys and scraps of cheap cloth.

  They pulled Pamela out around midnight. Her hair was still shiny, the black curls jaunty around their blue ribbons. Her face was pale and untouched, a bit dusty, her legs scratched and bleeding. Moira scrambled through the dust and over the rubble, arriving as Pamela opened her mouth and let out a lusty scream. Moira fell to her knees. She poked and prodded Pamela as the girl screamed all the louder. Miraculously, she didn’t seem to have come to any harm.

  Moira wrapped the child in her arms and buried her face into her chest as the searchers brought up Rose’s lifeless body.

  Refusing any help from the ambulance crew, Moira carried Pamela away from the remains of her home and her mother. She collected her suitcase from the gutter, hailed a taxi, took a room at the Savoy, and settled a shocked Pamela into bed. The next morning, after making arrangements for Rose’s body, she set about locating Rose’s parents. Fortunately Rose came from a farming village so it wasn’t difficult to find them.

  Two days later, Moira and Pamela took the train to meet Pamela’s grandparents. As Moira extracted herself from Pamela’s frightened grip and tucked the little hand into her weeping grandmother’s, she remembered that she hadn’t contacted the hospital to tell them she would be delayed.

  She hoped that Matron would understand.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Moira’s mood deteriorated steadily as the weekend progressed. She confessed to Elaine that she wanted only to have her house to herself. To be rid of all these tiring relatives and to enjoy a nice casual dinner (something with lentils would be nice—the very idea of feeding Charles a lentil!) around the kitchen table once again, with scented wood burning in the hearth, and the dogs dozing under the table. But Charles had a bee in his bonnet about the fire and refused to leave. He insisted on calling the police regularly to check on developments. Of which there were precious few. Frustrated with the progress of the arson investigation, he then demanded that the police charge Dave with assault over the incident that resulted in his broken arm, but as Charles had moved first, and Dave really hadn’t done anything, there was nothing the police could do.

  ***

  On Sunday morning, Moira announced that she simply had to get out into the fresh air. Temperatures were well above average for mid-October, and it might be six months before they had this opportunity again. Ruth pushed the wheelchair out to the deck, Alan fetched a table from the storage building, ignoring the “do not cross” tape fluttering, forgotten, in the wind, and Elaine followed with a chair for herself and one for Ruth.

  They settled Moira’s chair up to the table, and Ruth tucked a thick blanket around the old woman’s scrawny legs. Last, but certainly not least, Lizzie appeared with the laden tea tray.

  It was so hot that Elaine eyed the clear blue water like a wide-eyed inner-city child arriving at summer camp for the first time. It looked perfect for a quick dip, or a long slow luxurious swim. Too bad about the near freezing nights and what effect that has on lake water.

  They spent a productive morning. Moira chatted freely, mainly about the war in Italy and the hardships of operating out of a Field Surgical Unit or Casualty Clearing Station. She could have been a writer, Elaine mused, not for the first time. Moira’s command of the language was beyond compare; she had Elaine ready to jump into that lake, not to play, but to soak off the thick, choking dust of the Italian summer of 1944 and the blood of dying Allied and German soldiers.

  Moira recalled the crushing disappointment of being left behind in England while the rest of her hospital went to France and on to Holland, the result of the most embarrassing of minor illnesses—an infected bladder. Between the rich words and vivid sentences Moira breathed the light and dark of the war years, the smell and feel and touch of everyday hardships and delights. The blood-rushing tingle of life lived at its peak. The contrast of things that became everyday occurrences: death and destruction and suffering beyond reason all around today; dances and giggling friends and a treat of Mrs. Peeks pudding tomorrow.

  Moira was leaving something out; Elaine knew it. She wasn’t satisfied that she had heard all there was to learn about the years after the Italian campaign.

  On a personal level she was thrilled to realize that her instincts, long dormant while she struggled on one tedious movie script after another (sure to be the next BIG thing, always-one-eye-on-Hollywood-Ian had assured her), were waking up, like a huge old grizzly recovering from a long hibernation. She had the instinctive feeling (this bear knew that delights beyond compare were waiting out there) that something intensely personal, fundamentally important in Moira’s life had happened. Something that turned the competent, severe, self-assured yet joyous young Canadian Nursing Sister into a far more cynical woman. Something that turned her into the woman who sat on this beautiful deck on this beautiful day in Ontario in an autumn at the beginning of the new millennium. Elaine would wait until Moira was ready to tell.

  And if that didn’t happen: Elaine would steer her back at a later time.

  A boat pushed off from the island. Kyle and Dave were rowing over to the mainland to help Alan with odd jobs around the property. Charles must have been watching from the windows; he came out onto the deck and stood at the top of the stairs, glowering. He looked very much the landed gentleman in pressed white trousers and an English cricket sweater with colored stripes around the V-neck. Only the cast encasing his arm detracted from the landed-gentry effect.

  They watched the rowboat pull up alongside the dock and its occupants clamber out. Moira and the women around her fell silent, waiting for a tornado to touch down. Kyle fastened the rope to the dock while Dave sauntered casually up the lawn.

  “Morning, ladies.” He doffed a pretend cap; a sneer lurking under the salutation.

  “There’s no work here for you today,” Charles said. He was not shouting; he simply spoke loudly enough to be heard by them all. “So you might as well go back.”

  Kyle finished tying the boat in a rush and ran up. “Good morning, Moira. Mr. Stoughton. Nice day, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” Moira said.

  But Charles was not to be distracted. “I said that there’s no work here today. Please be on your way.”

  Attracted by the voices, Alan rounded the far corner of the cottage. As usual Hamlet and Ophelia were right behind him. They were unsure whether to bark at the inva
ders or rush to Moira as she had food. They did both.

  “Really, Charles,” Moira said, breaking a cookie in half and tossing the pieces to her dogs. “These young people are welcome here. I’m sure that Alan has chores he needs help with. Don’t you, Alan?”

  “Well, uh….”

  “Moira, dearest, you need to know a bit more about these people whom you have so kindly invited into your home. It seems that our friend, Dave, has a history with the police.”

  Dave took a step forward. Kyle grabbed his arm, but he shook it off.

  Amber sauntered out onto the deck as if she were on a catwalk in Milan, luxuriating in the feel of everyone’s eyes on her. She was dressed as if it were mid-summer rather than a week past Canadian Thanksgiving in high-heeled sandals, a pair of pink short shorts and matching midriff-exposing crop top, informing all the world that she was a boy’s toy. She flashed a brilliant smile at Dave.

  “This has gone far enough, Moira.” Charles didn’t even glance at his great-niece. His voice was calm. Calm, under control, and determined. The voice of a man used to being in command, now reaching the end of his patience. “This young man has a police record as long as your arm. Minor stuff to be sure, bar brawls, reckless driving. But we all know that it isn’t much of a leap from the small stuff to major crimes.”

  “Actually, we don’t know anything of the sort. Sir,” Kyle said.

  Charles was not impressed. “I haven’t yet looked into your background, young man. Perhaps I should do that next.”

  “Oh, Charles, do please be quiet. This is getting quite tedious.”

  “Moira, don’t you understand? This young thug and his friends are a danger to you. To us all.”

  Alan ran up the steps. “Careful, please, Charles. If Dave has a record, that’s his business. As long as he’s not wanted for anything, and I assume he isn’t. The police have had plenty of contact with him. Regardless, it has nothing to do with the others over on the island.”

  The patrician face turned red with indignation, and Charles turned the force of his wrath onto Alan. “This is family business. I suggest you return to your chores, Manners.”

  “Charles, stop.”

  “I will not stop, Moira. You and your lame ducks. Manners here is as bad as the rest of them. As long as he keeps up the pretence of pottering around in the garden and charming you silly, he has free room and board and all the time he needs to devote to his useless attempts at art. For heaven’s sake, he must be almost forty. It’s past time he made his own way in the world like any respectable man.”

  Free from the force of Charles’ anger, Dave and Kyle wisely decided that discretion was the better part of valor and edged out of the circle of attention. Before leaving, Dave cocked his forefinger at Amber and the girl skipped lightly down the steps.

  “That is quite enough, Charles,” Maeve said from the doorway. It was the first time Elaine had heard the timid old woman raise her voice. Megan and Lizzie stood behind her. The rising sounds of argument had attracted everyone. Only Phoebe—the dedicated assistant—was missing. A good researcher, caught up in the intensity of her work, wouldn’t look up if Napoleon’s army were marching across the property (unless it were to take note of the details of the general’s uniform, and the types of weapons the men carried), never mind a family squabble.

  “If we have issues to discuss,” Maeve said, “I suggest we do it in privacy, as a family.”

  “Well, of course your sympathies are with Moira’s lame ducks,” Megan huffed, her face twisted and her voice ugly with spite. Elaine’s ears pricked up. Family strife always made good copy. Time to find out the whole story of these sisters. But rather than returning the attack, Maeve’s eyes filled with tears and she lowered her head.

  “Stop this!” Moira’s voice was calm, but her hands gripped the edges of her chair like liver-spotted and wrinkled talons. “This is my home and I am sick and tired of you bunch squabbling and yelling. Why don’t you go home?”

  “I agree,” Maeve whispered. “I insist that you take us home, Charles.”

  Good for her, Elaine thought. Timid Maeve had probably never used the word insist in her entire life.

  Megan slapped her sister across the face, the sound so shockingly loud it might have echoed across the lake. “How dare you talk to my husband in that tone of voice, how dare you. You vicious old cow.” Megan was as well dressed and made up as always, but even the heavy makeup couldn’t hide the ugly red blotches that covered her cheeks and neck or the hatred that twisted her painted mouth and narrowed the sculpted eyes.

  No one moved. Dave, Kyle, and Amber missed their chance for escape, so caught up were they in the family drama.

  “You sit here with me, Maeve.” Moira’s voice turned to steel, and she patted the vacant chair beside her. “Megan is in need of a nap. Before she starts packing, that is.”

  Maeve wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. Lizzie handed her an unused paper napkin.

  “Megan, go inside!” Charles shouted, his icy control finally breaking. Here he was about to confront Moira about the inhabitants of the island and by implication her supposed leadership of the family, when his fool of a wife turned his issues into a sideshow. “Lizzie, please help my wife upstairs. She needs to rest.”

  Megan deflated visibly and accepted the cook’s arm. Lizzie pulled the French doors shut after them.

  “I’m not finished with you two, yet.” Charles remembered Kyle and Dave.

  Ignoring him, they, along with Amber, disappeared around the cottage, forcing Charles to accept his defeat.

  “Why is Amber always hanging around that young man?” he said, to no one in particular. “I would have thought she would have more sense. You have to talk to her, Maeve. Not that you have a grain of sense yourself. Maybe I’ll call her father.” He walked into the cottage, a tired old man, shaking his head.

  “Alan,” Moira said, watching her brother-in-law leave. “Would you please go to the island and invite Rachel, Jessica, and Karen to lunch. And Willow, of course. Ruth, we will be having guests for lunch. Please ask Lizzie to prepare something hot and nourishing.

  “The time has come to ask them about their plans for the winter,” Moira continued. “As much as I hate to say it, they can’t spend the winter out there. I’ll be sad to see them go.”

  Alan rowed Rachel, Karen, and Jessica over with a scarcely contained Willow bouncing up and down in the front of the boat. Moira asked Lizzie to be sure the men were called in for soup and sandwiches in the kitchen. Elaine went with Alan to fetch more seating. The storage building still smelt strongly of smoke. She gathered an armful of cushions. They were untouched by the fire, but if they couldn’t get the smell out, Moira would surely be wanting to replace them, come spring. As if they knew the reason for the invitation, Rachel introduced the subject as soon as they were all served with glasses of iced tea, a sliver of fresh lemon floating in each. Time to move on, she told Moira. It had been an exceptionally warm autumn but it would be getting cold soon.

  “Where will you go?” Moira asked.

  “We’re going to split up. Me and Jessica are heading back to Toronto,” Karen said with a mighty sigh. “There are jobs in restaurants, temp positions in offices.”

  “I’m off to my mother in Victoria,” Rachel said, smiling at the child. “You’ll like Victoria, Willow. Lots of water and flowers that last all through the winter.”

  “No snow?” Willow asked sadly.

  “I’m sure we can find some.”

  “What about Kyle and Dave?” Elaine said.

  “Kyle will be coming with Willow and me. We’re together now,” Rachel said with a touch of a highly flattering blush. “Though I don’t know how my mother’s friends will react to that.”

  “And as for Dave, who the hell cares,” Karen said. “Sorry, Moira.”

  “Never heard that expression before,” Moira said, making them all burst into gales of warm female laughter.

  Lunch was served al fresco. A beautiful me
al of thick corn chowder and make-your-own sandwiches. Followed by a warm chocolaty cake-pudding with a rich chocolate sauce and gallons of hot coffee. Perfect for an autumn afternoon. Once again, Elaine marveled at Lizzie’s capability to pull a meal for a crowd together out of practically nowhere. She would have been worth her weight in gold back in the gold rush.

  “Isn’t Dave your friend?” Elaine asked once they were all served soup and were passing around platters of huge buns, cold meat, cheese, and roasted vegetables.

  “Not at all. He kinda latched on to us, and we didn’t quite know how to get rid of him. We’re too polite, I guess. So he tagged along. I’m sorry if he caused some trouble. We all are. Great soup this.”

  “Thanks.” Lizzie had pulled up a chair for herself and was helping Willow choose her sandwich ingredients.

  “Not your fault,” Moira said.

  “He didn’t start the fire,” Karen said. “I’m sure of that.”

  “Of course, dear.” Moira mumbled the expected platitudes.

  “No, really. I know it.”

  “How can you be so positive?” Elaine asked, debating between ham and roasted red peppers. Unable to decide, she helped herself to both. “He wasn’t with the rest of you that night. He didn’t come over in the boat, to see what was happening. He was already here.”

  “He wasn’t in camp when the fire started, that’s true. But his father died in a house fire when he was a child. Dave was burned, quite badly. I don’t know much of the story. His mother wasn’t home when it happened, but Dave and his father and sister were in the house. The father died, the sister escaped unharmed. ’Cause it hasn’t been hot, you probably haven’t noticed that he never takes his shirt off. He never does, no matter how hot it gets. His chest is terribly scarred. He’s terrified of fire, won’t go near it. Isn’t that right, Rachel, Jessica?”

  “It’s true,” Jessica said, shivering despite the sun’s warm, caressing rays.

  “He won’t help make our fire,” Willow piped up. “Sits way back. Where it’s cold. When we roasted marshmallows I had to cook his for him. And he waited till they were all cold and yucky before he would take them. Ug.”