“Tears before bed-time?”
“Let’s hope not.”
“What are you talking about out there? She’s my visitor, Clarissa! Let her come through, don’t you keep her gossiping!”
We exchanged a glance, and I was split between enjoying our conspiracy and guilt over betraying Helen, and then I went on ahead into the big, bright, room.
“Hello, Helen. It’s good to see you again. How are you?”
“Not getting any younger,” she said crisply. Her eyes were sparkling; she looked pleased with herself. “You see, Clarissa, didn’t I say she would come? I knew she wouldn’t be scared of rain!”
“I couldn’t live in Scotland if I were.”
I was soon settled into a chair beside Helen, with a cup of fresh, strong, hot coffee close at hand and my unobtrusive little tape recorder pointing in her direction.
“I thought we might talk a bit about your childhood,” I said. I had decided to be organized and chronological about my investigations, even though, after reading The Second Wife, I longed to talk about that.
A small sigh escaped her, and I felt I’d disappointed her in some way. “Very well. Ask your questions.”
“Well . . . do you want to start by telling me your earliest memory?”
She looked vague. “I can try. Mostly what I remember are things, not events, so it’s hard to put a time to them. The first house where I lived, where I was born – we were there until I was about eleven – all my memories are there. I could close my eyes now and take you on a tour of that house, describing every room, all the furniture, every nook and cranny, not just how it looked from every perspective, but the texture of the rugs and the painted walls and the bathroom tiles, the smells and tastes as well – but that would be far too boring.”
I felt my heart beat faster in sympathy. In fact, this was exactly how I felt about my own first childhood home, which remained more clear in my memory, more real, than anywhere I had lived since. Those first ten years of life, in which I had so exhaustively explored my surroundings, had given me a depth of useless knowledge, made me an expert in the geography and furnishings of the house at 4534 Waring Street, Houston, Texas, between the years 1952 and 1963. I supposed that other people – unless, like my first husband, they’d moved house every year or two – carried around with them a similarly useless mental floor-plan and inventory – but until now I’d never heard anyone else talk about it.
“I remember, there was coloured glass in the window, a fanlight, above the front door, and when the sun shone through it made a pattern of magical, shimmering colours against the wall. I remember trying to touch the colours, to catch them, and feeling frustrated that they slipped through my fingers – I was too young to understand.
“And there was a wonderful old, dark wood chest that I was always trying to get into. It didn’t matter how many times I saw inside, that it was only blankets and linens and so on, I would still imagine it was hiding some treasure. That was one of my fancies . . . my dreams and my fancies, now, I remember some of them as clearly as the things that were real. Perhaps my earliest memory was a dream.
“I had a toy. It might have been my first toy, maybe my only one – children didn’t have so many toys in those days, you know, we made do with bits and pieces, cast-off things our elders had no use for, a wooden spoon with a face for a doll, but this was a ready-made toy, it had been manufactured for no other purpose but play. It was a doll made of rubber, an ugly little thing really I suppose, but it was my baby and I loved it dearly. Sometimes I’d put my finger into its mouth to let it suck – because its mouth would open if you squeezed it, and close again when the pressure was released – and sometimes I’d take its whole head into my mouth and suck on it – not very motherly behaviour, but I wasn’t much more than a baby myself, and perhaps I resented having been weaned – at any rate, I wanted something to suck. Once I bit off a piece of its nose – something about the colour and the texture of it convinced me it would taste nice, but of course it didn’t; it tasted of rubber, nasty, although the sensation of chewing it, feeling it slide through my teeth and then catch, again and again, was intriguing enough that I was in no hurry to spit it out. After I’d chewed a hole in it, of course the doll no longer worked properly, the mouth wouldn’t open and shut like before, but that didn’t bother me, I still loved it and carried it around with me everywhere until one day I suppose I must have dropped it when I was out, and my mother didn’t pick it up, and so I lost my baby, my treasure, my first child, you might say.”
She looked at me as if expecting some comment, but I could not respond. I felt almost giddy with déjà vu – only this wasn’t merely déjà vu, but something much stronger and stranger, and it had cut the ground right out from under me. I didn’t know what to think about what I was hearing: could it be coincidence? Lots of children in the past century must have owned rubber dolls and sucked and chewed them to destruction. She hadn’t even described it very well – my doll had been a sort of clown, but hers presumably was a baby.
When I said nothing, she went on.
“I don’t remember when I lost it, how it happened, when I noticed, if I was upset, and I don’t know how long after that it was that he came back to me in a dream.”
I noticed the switch from “it” to “he”, and saw my own long-lost clown doll in my mind’s eye.
“It wasn’t a detailed dream, it was just him. He had come back. But instead of being glad to see him, I was frightened, and I screamed and woke myself up. I woke the whole house up with my screaming.
“When I told my mother about it I began to cry. She thought I was unhappy because I missed my doll. She didn’t understand. To have the doll back was the last thing I wanted. I was terrified in case I did by some chance find it again, because I knew . . . I knew it would be like the dream. He would have changed. He wouldn’t be my baby anymore. What the dream had shown me was the familiar become strange, how frightening the ordinary can be. You understand?”
I stared back as if hypnotized and just managed to nod my head. But I didn’t understand. How could this person – a stranger, and of another generation – have had the very same dream as me? Even her interpretation, although different from my own, rang true, so that I thought yes, that was the real reason my dream had scared me.
As I still said nothing, after another little pause, Helen went on talking about her childhood. I hardly listened. I was in a welter, all confused, of frightening emotions as I tried to make sense of this impossible connection between us. I could not accept that it was mere coincidence, that both of us had shared the same experience as children – an experience that had given rise to the same dream, which had been significant enough for both of us to remember it all our lives. There had to be a reason for it; some link, an explanation . . .
And suddenly I remembered what I had, of course, known all along. That dream of mine, that highly significant, personal memory, was no secret. I had written about it. I had put it into a short story that anyone could read – I knew that both Clarissa and Helen had read it, because it was in the volume I’d found in their bookcase.
But what did Helen mean by telling me back my own story as if it were one of her own memories? Was it a joke? A tease? A veiled compliment?
At any rate, unless she was genuinely senile, confused enough that she couldn’t sort out her own experiences from things she’d only read about, she must have expected me to recognize what she was doing, and comment on it. I recalled her suggestive pauses, the way she had looked at me and awaited a response, and I almost groaned aloud.
What an idiot she must think me!
Maybe she was feeling foolish herself, knowing her joke had misfired, thinking, perhaps, that my dream was not real, but something I’d made up, a passing notion that meant so little to me that I’d forgotten it and took her “memory” at face value.
I couldn’t say anything now – she’d reached high school in her recollections, and it would be far too rude to interrup
t her to say that I’d belatedly got her joke – I’d have to wait until she gave me an opening.
Maybe it was because I was concentrating so hard on not missing my chance to speak, but I could not get involved in what she was telling me. It seemed remote and unreal, second-hand, as if she was just retelling a tale she had memorized. Maybe that was my fault: perhaps she felt it was her duty, to get things right and in the proper sequence, and had prepared this potted history for me. But I missed the lively, spontaneous jumble of impressions that had come bubbling up the day before when she’d talked about her years in Paris.
We had soon reached the point where the young Helen Ralston made her dramatic, life-changing decision to leave America and go to study art in Glasgow.
“But you know all that,” she said briskly. “And I’ve told you about Paris . . .”
“Wait, wait.” I held up a hand. “Slow down and back up. You didn’t tell me about your time in Glasgow – not at all. I sort of understand why you went, but not really—”
“What do you mean ‘not really’? I told you, it was because of his letters. I suppose I fell in love with him. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time such a thing has happened. I still have those letters, you know! I can show you.”
“I’m not doubting you,” I said quickly. “But what happened after you got to Glasgow – you haven’t told me any of that.”
She gave me a long, hooded look – very like a bird of prey considering whether it was worthwhile to pounce – before she spoke. “But you know, don’t you.” It was hardly a question.
“I’ve read one side of the story. I’d really like to hear yours.”
“I don’t know why. I’m sure you can imagine it well enough. Why is it people are only interested in women because of their connections to some man, some famous man?”
“That’s not true.”
She wasn’t listening to me. “The letters I’ve had from people wanting to know the truth ! That’s what they say, but it isn’t the truth they want at all, just gossip. Did Helen Ralston try to kill herself because Willy Logan wouldn’t stay with her, or was she trying o get away from him? Or was it nothing to do with him at all, and he only happened to be there? Something happened – it happened more than seventy years ago – does it matter why it happened?”
“It matters to me – your story is the one I want to hear.”
Her eyes flickered. “Then why keep asking about Logan?”
“I’m not – I don’t mean to. I want to know what happened to you. How you felt about things. Everything. Your childhood, your youth, the time you spent in Glasgow and Paris, and everything else. I know you weren’t with Logan for long. Not even two years. Out of ninety-six years, that’s not much. But it is a part of your life – the things that happened to you in your early twenties—”
“The truth.”
I shut up.
She leaned forward, fixing me with her deep-set, faded blue eyes, her hands like claws clutching the chair arms. “The truth is that I don’t know why Helen Ralston jumped out of that window – or if she was pushed. It happened to someone else. I don’t remember anything about it.”
I knew that serious accidents could sometimes result in memory loss, but I thought of the way she had given me back my own dream as if it were her own, and I wasn’t sure I believed her.
“Okay. But you mentioned a diary—”
“Yes, and I’ll let you see it. You can see all of them, in due course.”
“Thank you. That will be very helpful. And we’ll leave that day in August. But – would you mind talking about something else that happened before you left Glasgow and W. E. Logan?”
She shrugged her shoulders slightly. “What is it you want to know?”
“About the island. Achlan. I wonder if you could tell me about that.”
There was a sharp click, and we both looked at the tape recorder, which had switched itself off.
“It’s okay,” I said, reaching for it. “I’ve got another cassette in my bag.”
“I’d like something to drink. My mouth is so dry.”
I stood up. “Shall I get you some more water? Or something else?”
“Why don’t you go fetch Clarissa, and we’ll take our break now.”
It was too early; we’d had barely an hour together, and I knew that after the break she’d be bound to go for a nap. My disappointment must have shown, because she gave a small, thin-lipped smile. “Oh, don’t worry. We’ll get back to the island. I promise you, we’ll get back to Achlan.”
Clarissa did not seem surprised when I knocked at her door.
“She was up at six this morning, rummaging through her papers, sorting things out, making notes, muttering to herself. Getting ready for you. Nearly bit my head off when I dared suggest you might not come today, because of the weather. ‘Of course she’ll come! She has to come!’.”
Strangely, a shiver ran through me at the idea of the two of them talking about me in my absence, although there was surely nothing odd or sinister in it.
“Such a shame, when you’ve come such a long way for such a short visit . . . tell you what, why don’t you stay for lunch today, and talk to Mum again later on?”
“That would be wonderful – if she’s up for it.”
“I’m sure she’ll tell you if she’s not.” Clarissa grinned.
Over fresh coffee – decaffeinated for Helen – and slices of apple tart, talk about Helen’s life went on, leapfrogging a couple of decades to London during the Blitz and the brief war-time love-affair with Robbie, a much younger fighter pilot. He was Clarissa’s father, although he’d not lived to see his only child. I was surprised to learn that Clarissa was sixty – I told her honestly that she looked much younger – but she’d been born during the war, to a grieving single mother.
“I named her after Mrs Dalloway,” Helen informed me. “I was reading that book during my confinement – in fact, I read it three times. It was the only escape I had, a window into the world before the War, London before the bombs fell, before . . .” she trailed off, blinking rapidly, and her daughter stroked her hand.
Helen’s memories of the war years in London were vivid, her descriptions of that time of fear, tedium, deprivation, and passion full of the circumstantial detail I’d missed when she had talked about her earlier life. People said that when you got older the past seemed more immediate and was easier to recall than more recent years, but in every life there must also be periods you would rather forget, and others that you kept fresh by constantly reviewing. Obviously Helen had not wanted to lose a single, precious moment from her short time with Clarissa’s father – from the way that Clarissa listened and smiled and chimed in, it was clear she’d heard it all before – but the affair with Willy Logan was different. Maybe it had been too unhappy, maybe her feelings and her actions then didn’t suit her older self-image. I could well imagine her not wanting to remember what a reckless and troubled young girl she had been, whether she had seduced or been seduced by her teacher. In my experience, such an affair at such an age was too intense and life-shaping to be forgotten, but if anything could wipe the slate clean, I thought, it had to be a near-death experience.
Although Helen announced her intention that we should carry on talking, her energy was clearly flagging, so I chimed in with her daughter to insist that she have a lie down.
“I’ll stay,” I promised her. “Clarissa’s invited me for lunch. I’ll read while you’re resting. We can talk all afternoon if you’re up to it. I’ve brought plenty of cassettes.”
Helen accepted this. “Come upstairs with me. I’ll give you something to read. I’ll show you those letters.”
Clarissa went back to her work while I went slowly upstairs after Helen.
“I’ve kept diaries,” she told me after she had paused to catch her breath at the top of the stairs. “And there’s an autobiographical novel. I never wanted it published, before, but now, maybe . . . You could let me know what you think.”
; Her room was a dim, narrow space – an ordinary bedroom whose dimensions had been shrunk by the addition of bookshelves on every wall. There was one window, shaded and curtained. The shelves were deep, double-stacked with books, notebooks, and box-files. The other furnishings were a single bed, a small wardrobe, a bedside table, and something that might have been either a writing desk or a dressing table, but it was so cluttered with a mix of toiletries, papers, medicines, notebooks, tissues, books and pens that it seemed unlikely it was used for either purpose now.
“My memories,” said Helen. “We got rid of a lot when I moved up from London, but I had to keep my favourite books and all my papers.” With a heavy sigh, she sank down onto the bed. Then, with a groan, she struggled to rise again. “My diaries. I was going to show you . . .”
I put a hand on her shoulder, pushing her gently down again. “I’ll get it. Tell me where to look.”
“Thank you, dear. If you don’t mind . . .” She lay back, putting her head down on the pillow with a sigh of relief. “They’re on my work-table. Desk. The whole lot. You’re not ready to read them all, not yet, but you could look at one now, I think. Well, why not? Let me think. Which one? Hmmm.”
Her eyes closed. I watched her uncertainly, feeling a mixture of affection, amusement, and exasperation as I realized she was falling asleep. I opened my mouth to call her back, but just then she gave a tiny, stuttering snore.
I turned to look at the table and saw the pile of notebooks she must have meant. She had been intending to give me one to read. I picked up the one on top, a hardbound black and red book with lined pages. There was nothing marked on the cover to indicate its contents. I opened it to the first page, a fly-leaf where she had written her name and the year, 1981. Oh, far too late.
I put the notebook down carefully to one side and reached for the next in the stack. This one was much more battered and obviously old. It had a blue and white marbled cover with a square in the centre of the front cover where it said COMPOSITIONS. I’d had one just like it in high school in the late 1960s and had used it to record my most intimate feelings, all the daily emotional upheavals, the first stirrings of sexual interest – to my misery, unreciprocated. How I’d poured my heart out, the protestations of my elaborate and undying love for the golden Yale – sometimes, long ago as it was now, I could still remember the particular bittersweet flavour of that feeling, the ache of unrequited love. And then, in the same year – things happened so rapidly in youth – there had been the mutual attraction between me and Andy, and the pain of being unloved had been assuaged by passionate love-making in the back of borrowed cars. My descriptions of what we’d done must have verged on the pornographic – even now, the idea of someone else reading about my first love affair horrified me. I suppose it was the thought of the contents of my own, so similar-looking diary, that made me set this one aside without even opening it to check the date.
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