by Carol Mason
I am standing up. The shock of it makes me lose balance slightly. Evelyn has now come to the bathroom door, and I hear the catch of her breath. ‘What did you just say?’ I ask.
His eyes are fastened on mine, so brightly. ‘You were taking piano lessons. You had your music all set out.’ His voice has a note of triumph about it.
‘Yes!’ I put both hands either side of his face and kiss him swiftly on his brow. ‘That’s amazing! You’re right! I was. You came to visit me. You stayed for dinner.’
‘I know I did,’ he says, seeming quite pleased with himself.
‘You recognise April!’ Evelyn comes over to us, breathless and sprightly like a bird.
‘Of course,’ he says, as though there is no possible reason why he shouldn’t. ‘You are my daughter.’ He looks at me. Then, to Evelyn, he says, ‘And you’re my wife.’
FORTY-THREE
In the party room, a dozen or so elderly people, who have no idea that today is any different from yesterday, sit in chairs in a circle. Three nurses run plates of goodies to them from the buffet. ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ has just switched to Wings’ ‘Listen To What The Man Said’, and one of the nurses is unsuccessfully trying to coax a sing-along, with only one patient – Ronnie – joining in.
Today is Evelyn and Eddy’s joint birthday celebration. She’d failed, until a few days ago, to tell me that their birthdays fall only one day apart.
Michael is sitting beside me and Eddy near the bay window. Suddenly, Martin walks over to us, as though on a mission. ‘Wings was the group formed by Paul McCartney after the Beatles split up. But soon after that a terrible thing happened to Paul. He was shot by a mad man. Someone took his life and ended his talent.’
‘You certainly know your music, Martin!’ Michael winks at me. It clearly doesn’t matter to him that, in Martin’s mind, the wrong Beatle had died.
A short while after, I try to get Eddy to engage with me, but it’s not promising. There have been no more glimmers of recognition. I have come to accept this. I will go on talking to him about the past, and tell him the remarkable story of how I came to know him. I will not give up on my father now that I’ve found him, no matter what state his mind might be in. He has remembered me once. He might do so again. I take enormous strength from Michael’s belief that our memories, where love is concerned, are stored forever in a special vault. No one and nothing can touch them.
When I look up, Michael is slow dancing with Evelyn to Rita Coolidge’s ‘We’re All Alone’.
He’s wearing a fitted, white T-shirt that shows off his muscular upper body and firm upper arms. He appears to be concentrating very hard to avoid stepping on Evelyn’s toes. From time to time, he joins in on the odd line of the song. Once in a while, his eyes meet mine. Just the presence of Michael in the room makes me smile.
‘Your turn,’ he says. I realise he’s holding out a hand to me.
‘Oh no!’ I clasp my hands behind my back, quickly. ‘I’ve got two left feet.’
‘Well, I’ve two right ones, and we can’t look any stranger than this lot.’ He nods to a few of the nurses, who are good-sportedly dancing with each other.
I get up, and there’s a funny feeling in my stomach. Can it be the butterflies? ‘This one’s for you, Evelyn,’ Michael says, dragging me into the middle of the floor. It’s Nat King Cole’s ‘Unforgettable’.
‘Do you think all these nurses will wonder if I’m your girlfriend?’ I ask, when I’m in his arms. We’re almost the same height. But he’s broad and his chest is hard, and I like the feeling of him against me. I’m aware of the intermittent press of his fingers in my back.
‘Oh heck! I’m really hoping. But I’m sure they’ve already gathered I’m out of your league.’
‘You really shouldn’t say that about yourself. I mean, even though it’s true, of course.’
‘Actually, I shouldn’t sell myself short. I’m the sex symbol of Sunrise Villas. This happens when you’re the only male under the age of seventy.’
I chuckle, and his fingers give another somewhat communicative press.
‘Look at Evelyn and Eddy,’ I whisper, my lip catching the tip of his ear. Evelyn is gazing at the back of Eddy’s hand as she tenderly strokes it. ‘You know, I downloaded Long John Baldry’s ‘Let the Heartaches Begin’, and she wouldn’t even let me play it, because the memory hurts too much. Makes me feel so cheerless! No one will ever love me like that.’
‘Me neither. It’s a tragic waste of potential. We should drink to that some time.’ He pulls me a little closer so my cheek can almost sense the warmth of his.
His hand tightens on mine. We dance like new drivers trying to master the three-point turn. ‘Fancy exploring some other corner of the floor?’ I tease.
‘Let me work out how.’
‘You’re not really a bad dancer,’ I tell him. ‘You’re horrendous!’
Suddenly, he sweeps me in a skilful arc, casting me free with a single hand, then catching me before I lose balance. It’s like a lovely fading in and out of anaesthetic. Next, our feet seem to follow each other like sprightly lovebirds. ‘You can dance! Why were you pretending you couldn’t?’
‘I wanted you to like me for the right reasons.’
‘This is quite lovely, you know. It really is,’ I say, when I’m done chuckling. And I’m not playing with him any more; I’m rather beguiled and serious.
Then we go to get the cake.
Michael sticks three candles into the cream.
‘Three?’ I slump over the counter watching him.
‘One for Evelyn, one for Eddy and one for you.’ He strikes a match, and holds my eyes before he lights the candles.
‘Why am I getting a candle? It’s not my birthday.’
‘In a way, it feels like it should be. Something commemorative, anyway.’
‘Aw!’ I place a hand on my heart and feel happy tears come. ‘I’ve never had anyone light a candle for me for such a nice reason.’
‘You’ll have to let me do it again then, sometime,’ he says. And we smile.
We carry the cake in together.
‘Three cheers for Eddy and Evelyn!’ Michael pushes open the party room door, and we burst into ‘Happy Birthday’, along with the nurses. Very few of the patients seem to register the singing. It could well be the least jolly party on record. But Martin and Ronnie clap, and Evelyn is smiling.
‘Is it my birthday?’ Martin asks. ‘How old am I?’
‘It’s Eddy’s and Evelyn’s,’ Michael tells him.
‘Is it?’ Martin looks disappointed. ‘How old are they?’
‘How old do you think I am?’ Evelyn asks.
He studies her, then quite definitely says, ‘Fifteen.’
We laugh. ‘Evelyn is seventy, and Eddy is seventy-FIVE,’ Michael says.
‘I’m seventy-FIVE?’ Eddy repeats suddenly.
Evelyn takes hold of his hand. ‘You are. We were born five years and one day apart. We met at a wedding. Then we met again, properly, many years later.’ Evelyn winks at Michael. ‘But I think that’s where we’ll leave this story for now.’
Eddy looks at her as though he’s adding one more random clue to an ongoing mystery.
‘I’d like to stay here tonight,’ I tell Michael, as we eat cold pizza and drink a beer some hours later in the staff kitchen. ‘If it’s okay for me to sleep on the couch in his room.’
‘You might regret it. He wanders a lot. You might not exactly sleep.’
‘If he wanders, I’ll wander with him. If that’s all right.’
‘Of course. And we do have a spare room here for guests. If you get tired, you can always go in there and rest properly. No one will bother you – or at least, we can hope. It’ll be like a dry run for when you get old.’ He smiles, still looking at me with so much affection. ‘I’ll unlock the door for you and leave the key on the inside.’
‘Michael,’ I rest a hand on his pleasantly muscular upper arm, recognising, as I do, that I actually just want to t
ouch him. ‘Why have you not been snatched up by some lucky young woman?’
‘I don’t know. Older ones seem to like me more.’ His face fills with devilishness.
We walk to Eddy’s room now. ‘Tell me,’ I say, because I have to ask this. ‘Did you know all along that Eddy was my dad? I think you must have done. The names . . . Evelyn’s stories.’
‘Ah!’ I see a tell-tale flicker of guilt in his expression. ‘I can’t really say. Remember I once told you I can keep a secret? But, say I didn’t know, I’d know, anyway.’ He smiles. ‘You look like him.’ He taps the end of my nose. ‘The hooter’s a dead giveaway.’
I laugh. ‘My hooter! How can you call my lovely nose that?’
‘Well, it’s the high cheekbones, too . . .’ He looks at me with a certain prolonged objectivity that makes me flush. ‘It’s obvious to anyone with eyes.’
‘That might well be the best thing anyone has ever said to me, Michael,’ I tell him, very quietly. ‘It actually makes me happier than you could ever know.’
We stop at Eddy’s door. Michael’s bare arm accidentally grazes mine; the warm brush of his fine hairs is a lovely static charge. ‘I’d like to make you happier than you’ve ever known,’ he says. And he says it so quietly that I have to stare into his eyes for a sign that I’ve heard him correctly.
All the things I should say line up. I’m not ready. It’s too early. How can I ever trust again? But he places one finger on my slightly parted mouth and presses there, his eyes busy telling me something. Michael isn’t in a rush. Michael is modestly saying, Fall for me in your own good time.
I kiss his finger and smile.
FORTY-FOUR
Evelyn is one of the most enigmatic people I know. Every time I see her, she has a surprise for me.
‘I found it!’ She gives a joyful little skip. ‘I’ve looked everywhere. I knew it had to be in one of these amazingly bountiful boxes somewhere.’
In the centre of Evelyn’s lounge are about eight storage containers with their contents – everything from a corset to ancient-looking magazines – strewn all over the place.
‘My gosh, it looks like you’re having a jumble sale!’ I laugh.
She hands me a book. It’s a glossy paperback with a simple, intriguing cover of a dark-red Venetian blind pulled part way down a window. At the bottom, in embossed gold, are the words: After You Left, A Novel, by Joanna Smart.
‘Who’s Joanna Smart?’ I ask, but immediately realise. ‘Oh gosh! You are!’
‘I was published in 1987 by one of Britain’s most venerated publishing houses.’
‘This is fabulous!’ I turn the book over and scan the blurb.
They meet at a wedding. They know each other for only one day. But it’s a day that changes the rest of their lives . . .
One magazine has called it, A modern-day Lady Chatterley’s Lover. ‘It’s the story of you and my dad!’
Evelyn’s eyes light up. ‘Well, it didn’t start off that way. I’m not really sure what it started off as. I think I always had the theme, I just needed the right story to hang it on. And when I met your dad again, I found my story. It was like it had always been there.’
I look at her tears and think, God, is it really possible to cry for an entire lifetime over someone? ‘But the title? You were the one who left, not Eddy?’
‘Yes. And yet you can never know how many times I’ve played over the vision of him walking away from my front door when he’d come to take me on our date. As I stood and peeked from behind those curtains . . .’
My brows pull together. I can’t bear to picture it. I flick through the first couple of pages. ‘Look! You dedicated it: For Eddy.’
I just want to disappear into a room and read. I quickly find the first page.
Northumberland. 1983
At first all she saw was the back of his head. He was on the other side of the vast laurel tree that divided two sections of the garden . . . I skip ahead. He always came on Tuesdays, her mother had told her.
‘After he would leave, after we had made love and I was glowing from him, I would scramble to get it all on to paper. Everything I’d done and felt and said, all day. Everything he’d said . . . I was always good at shorthand. I knew that abysmal secretarial training would finally come in handy.’ She smiles. ‘I’d like you to have it, obviously. You didn’t have the benefit of knowing him as a dad. So at least this way, you’re going to know Eddy, the man – more of an account than I’ve even been able to give you.’
I clutch it to my heart. She watches me, and there’s a vaguely self-satisfied expression on her face, and I love it. I am unspeakably grateful to her.
‘I walked away from Eddy. Justin walked away from you. Neither of us did it because we’d stopped caring. You and your father both lost the person they loved to someone else. You have more in common than you might have thought.’
I think, But I don’t want to be like my father. I don’t want to have loved and lost and never know love again. Yet I know life is long, and there will be good things ahead. They already have a face.
‘I’d like to read it to him, if you think it’s a good idea.’ As a child, I remember the curious tenderness of being read to. And now I think I’ll enjoy being the one to tell the stories.
‘I think it’s a lovely idea.’
‘Did you write any other novels, Evelyn?’
‘No. And, of course, this one is out of print. That copy might well be the only one left on the planet.’ She attempts a laugh. ‘I was commissioned to write a second book, but somehow I couldn’t pull it off. So I had to pay back some of my advance. I don’t think the publisher was very pleased.’
‘You could have written the flip side of events – what would have happened if you had chosen to be with Eddy and left Mark. Or, if you hadn’t watched him leave that day. If you had gone on that first date.’
‘I don’t think I was altogether clever enough to invent stories. They had to come from some place of truth in me. Besides, I hate what ifs.’
I fan through the pages, enjoying their draught on my face. And then I see something curious.
‘What’s this?’
Lodged in between the pages is a small airmail envelope. On the front, in writing that I now easily recognise, is written Evelyn Westland, and the address of Cosmopolitan magazine.
Evelyn gets up from the floor, and squints. ‘I have no idea. What is it? A letter?’
‘It’s addressed to you, Evelyn. It’s unopened.’
She stares at it, slightly daunted. ‘Good Lord! Open it. Read it to me.’
‘I can’t, Evelyn. I can’t read your letter. It’s personal.’
‘Please! You’ve read all the others. I don’t have any more secrets.’ She manages a humourless laugh. ‘One has definitely been more than enough.’
I slip my thumb under the tiny lip of the flap, which hasn’t stuck properly. The folded page inside is flimsy, so lightweight that I could probably read the words straight through it, if I didn’t want to drag out my suspense.
‘It was written on March 10, 1984, Evelyn.’ I start reading.
To My Love, Evelyn,
I wasn’t going to send this, in case unearthing the not-so-distant past might upset you, but lately you have been on my mind even more so than usual, if that’s possible, and I don’t quite know why. I hope there’s nothing wrong, and you are well. I hope that you have managed to put everything that happened behind you, without entirely forgetting me in the process.
I realised you might be left with the impression that I was disappointed in you, because I returned your letters. I don’t really know why I did. A knee-jerk reaction, perhaps: another example of me not thinking straight. But it certainly wasn’t because I was angry with you. I completely understand why you couldn’t go through with it, and I can promise you that I bear no ill feelings toward you whatsoever. Not now. Not ever. I could never think badly of you, and I hope you believe that, or our love will have failed somehow. You once said it
a long time ago – our timing has always been off. I would have been a very lucky man if I’d managed to get you to stay here for me when you were that young, beautiful, go-getter girl I knew for only one day. Our paths crossed again in a way that I promise you I will never forget, and even when we get our bleak moments, Evelyn, we have to remember to be glad of that. I, for one, will always remember the happiness I’ve felt just to know you and love you, and not for one minute would I have wanted to miss out on that.
Life hasn’t been easy lately. I should have handled some things differently, and I will try to put it all right as best I can. But I suppose this is my long-winded and rather clumsy way of saying that I want you to know I have no regrets about us. You are part of the fabric of me. If you hadn’t been in my life, I would have lost out on knowing so much of what I now know about myself, and about my capacity to love, and I will hold this belief until my dying day. My hope is that you feel the same – that you don’t regret a thing that happened between us, or how it turned out, and you never will, no matter what happens down the road.
I’m sure it’s unlikely we will ever meet again – though I personally will never say never, because that’s just how I like to think. But, nonetheless, I will always love you, and knowing you’ve loved me will always brighten my days.
Yours, Eddy
‘The date . . .’ Evelyn looks at me. ‘March 10. He wrote this eight days before he was beaten up.’ Her face turns grey, in a way I’ve never seen before, not on any living person. ‘He said he’d been thinking of me more so than usual, and he hoped there was nothing wrong. Well, it was impossible for him to know this, but I was quite sick.’ She is clutching her fingers, and I can tell she’s working herself into a small frenzy. ‘I had to go in for surgery. The magazine must have forwarded the letter to my home.’ She is looking at me with wide, riveted eyes. ‘Obviously, Mark must have received it. He’d have seen the postmark and guessed who it was from.’
‘But he didn’t open it.’
‘No. Mark would never read someone else’s post.’ Her face floods with tenderness when she speaks of her husband.