‘Eliza!’
Not the Huldra but Katarina, a more solid temptress, calling me to the house.
‘Look at you,’ she said as we met up at the top of the track. ‘You’re dressed for London weather.’
I dressed pretty well the same wherever I was, sticking to soft materials and muted colours. I particularly liked grey, grey in all its handsome shades: sky, dove, sea, asphalt, granite, cloud, and black of course. Today I was wearing a grey and black dress in something silky that was not quite silk and a plain dark grey sweater that had cashmere in it, together with black woollen tights. ‘My jacket’s warm,’ I said.
‘But look at your shoes.’
I looked down at what I could see of the black patent leather shoes with bows on from under the snow. I liked those shoes because they made me think of Minnie Mouse. If you wanted to compile a list of Best Dressed Cartoon Characters, I thought as I followed Katarina to the house, Betty Boop would win, but only just, with Minnie Mouse coming a very close second. Olive Oyl would obviously end up with the booby prize in spite of her size zero figure.
Uncle Ian was in his favourite chair by the window facing the fields and the wood beyond. He must have been listening out for me because he was already halfway out of his seat by the time I entered the room.
Uncle Ian had always had a good smile. He did not deploy it much, but when he did, it was to great effect. It was a focused smile, not just for anyone. It made you feel favoured. He directed this smile at me now and held out his hands. I thought he looked markedly better than when I had last seen him, only a few days ago. His complexion was fresher and his eyes were clearer.
‘So what have you decided about my proposal?’
I had forgotten his habit of launching straight into a subject without pausing for even a ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’ or ‘Chilly for the time of year?’ or ‘My gout is playing up something terrible.’
‘I am incredibly grateful for your generosity . . .’
Uncle Ian stopped me with a wave of his right hand. ‘Let’s have some coffee. You must be tired after your trip.’ He eased himself down towards the seat of his chair, gathering speed as his arms gave way. As seat touched seat the look on his face went from surprised to relieved; one tiny victory in the unwinnable war against age and decrepitude. It had to take a lot of energy to remain true to the person you used to be once age made you grateful simply to have made it down on to your seat.
‘Your mother tells me that there is a house you like up for sale.’
I was beginning to be in awe of my mother’s ability to interfere across continents and time-zones. I nodded. ‘They haven’t dropped the price, though. It’s incredibly expensive.’ I sat down myself and for a moment I felt a strange mix of pleasure and embarrassment at the ease with which I, still a young woman, moved.
I said to him, ‘I really don’t want anything from you, anything material, I mean. Please.’
He frowned. ‘I don’t know why you have to make this so difficult?’
I closed my eyes for a second. I opened them again and looked out over the snow-covered ground and the small patch of light left by the struggling sun. ‘It’s money Rose should have had,’ I said. ‘Surely you can see how that makes me feel?’ There was a pause and I relaxed a little.
‘I can see that you are allowing yourself to be irrational.’
‘Is it irrational not to want to profit from your best friend’s death? A death for which you carry responsibility?’ I realised that not only had I spoken out loud the thoughts that had filled my mind since he first made his suggestion but I had raised my voice as well. I sat back in my chair, my hands gripping the armrests.
‘I’m a very wealthy man. What do you think I should do with my money? Maybe I should arrange to be buried with it like some long ago potentate?’
I couldn’t help laughing at the thought. ‘Of course not. But you could give it to charity. You could set up a charity trust in Rose’s memory.’ I felt excited by the idea. ‘Wouldn’t that be wonderful?’
Uncle Ian sighed. He used to sigh just like that when, as a child, I just would not stop arguing my childish point. ‘I did that years ago, Eliza. The Rose Bingham Foundation. The money goes towards the education of girls on the Indian subcontinent.’
I felt stupid, put in my place. I should have known that anything I thought of Uncle Ian would have thought about already.
‘I was born in India, did you know that?’
‘I think I did but I’d forgotten.’
‘The work with the foundation has been the most rewarding thing I’ve done. Although it took Barbro to make me see that it was the right thing to do.’ His smile was wry as he continued, ‘I went through my own period of irrationality and to me, then, helping others when I hadn’t been there to help my own child seemed like a betrayal. Though, as I said, Barbro made me see that that was perverse thinking.’
‘I can do perverse thinking,’ I said.
I thought of how, after the accident, I had scurried around like some creature from Aesop’s fables looking to others for answers. The school chaplain had told me that the best way to make amends and to receive forgiveness for one’s sins was to dedicate one’s life to God and to helping one’s fellow man. I remember arguing with him. I had sinned against Rose. Was it not a false equation to think that you could make up to X for what you had done to Y? If it were me who had been sinned against I wouldn’t like it. ‘Oh Eliza, sorry to have cut off both your legs but you will be delighted to hear I’ve just given your next-door neighbour a couple of state of the art artificial ones and a turbo-charged wheelchair with cup holder.’
Of course the chaplain had not seen it that way. To him any sin was a sin against God and any good deed, a homage. That all made perfect sense. If you believed in God.
‘I know you listen to the local vicar but do you believe in God?’ I asked Uncle Ian.
‘Yes I do,’ he said. ‘Do you?’
‘I don’t know. I think I’m with Woody Allen when he says “To you I’m an atheist; to God, I’m the Loyal Opposition.” ’
‘I know the fellow,’ Uncle Ian said, although it wasn’t clear if he meant God or Woody Allen.
‘You’ve done so much good with your life,’ I said.
‘You’re a kind girl,’ Uncle Ian said.
I shook my head. ‘Oh dear no. Or perhaps in the little things that are easy. Were I a properly good person I would go and work for a charity in some war-torn hellhole or in a third world orphanage. I’d be feeding the starving, myself, with my own hands rather than simply sending a bit of cash now and then. But I don’t. Instead I choose to sit at home in comfort and feel bad about not being good enough.’
‘I could say the same. Most people could. You should talk to Ove. He’s very good at putting things in perspective.’
I smiled in a non-committal way.
‘Don’t just smile. Do it.’
I stopped smiling. ‘OK.’
‘So you will speak with him?’
‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’
‘Well, make your mind up.’
‘Yes.’ I nodded emphatically, hoping that would be enough for now at least.
And thankfully Uncle Ian let the subject of the Almighty drop, for then at least. ‘It’s waste I can’t stand,’ he said instead. ‘And there’s so much of it about. Wasted opportunities, wasted talent, wasted lives. That’s what the foundation is for, to stop some of that dreadful waste.’
We were silent for a while. Then I said, brightly, as if I had just thought of it. ‘Why don’t we give the money you so generously want to give me, who doesn’t need it, to the foundation instead?’
Uncle Ian gave me a long look. Then he got to his feet, leaning heavily on the armrests of the chair as he raised himself up. Then he sighed. ‘Well, if that’s what you’d prefer.’ And he walked out of the room.
Thirteen
The sound of a heavenly choir filled my bedroom and for a while I stayed where I was, warm
in my bed, listening to the high clear voices and waiting to wake up. When I realised I was awake already and that the music was coming from outside, I scrambled out of bed and over to the window. A procession of white-clad figures was making its way up the track towards the house, their voices high and clear in the dark still morning. The young woman leading the way wore a crown of candles on her fair head. She looked as if she were cut in two, and I thought again that I had to be dreaming until she came closer, into the circle of light from the porch, and I realised that it was the blood-red ribbon tied round her slender waist that had caused the illusion. The other young women were dressed in similar long white gowns and so were the two boys bringing up the rear, but instead of the crown of candles the other girls wore garlands of tinsel in their hair and the boys wore pointed white hats decorated with gold stars, like magicians in a Disney cartoon. Then it dawned on me, thirteenth of December was the festival of St Lucia, the coming of light in the season of darkness. I threw on a dressing-gown and hurried downstairs.
Katarina, also in her dressing-gown, was standing by the front door. Her usual calm seemed to have abandoned her. ‘Jäklar ocksa. Damn.’
‘St Lucia,’ I said.
‘Ian can’t stand it. Happens every year. They go to the old folks’ home down the road and then, not content and scenting further prey, they continue on up here.’ She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘They’re ruthless.’
‘Maybe they’ll just pass on by,’ I said.
‘On the way to where?’ Katarina asked. Then the doorbell rang. We looked at each other. Katarina remained where she was, an uncertain look on her face. There was a loud knock, followed by a young woman’s voice rising above the singing.
I couldn’t understand what she was saying but I expect it amounted to ‘We know you’re in there.’
Uncle Ian appeared on the stairs in a similar tartan dressing-gown to Katarina’s, his thinning but usually immaculate hair standing on end. It was the hair of a baby just woken, a style that suited the plump freshness of a young child. On Uncle Ian, it made you feel embarrassed, as if you had caught sight of something private. I didn’t recall ever seeing him unshaven either. The grey stubble growing in uneven patches made him look years older. I hurried up to him and ignoring the fact that one simply did not touch Uncle Ian, I smoothed down his hair. He barely noticed.
‘Katarina,’ he looked past me at her. ‘What the hell’s going on here?’
‘Lucia,’ she whispered.
‘Bugger. I’d forgotten it was the thirteenth. Don’t open. We’ll pretend to be away.’
The sweet singing changed to something more rhythmic – the same words, ‘Hej Tomtegubbar . . .’ repeated over and over.
‘Too late. They already know we’re here,’ Katarina whispered.
Uncle Ian came down the last steps on bed-stiff legs and with a sigh said, ‘All right, let them in, but wait until I’m in my chair. Eliza,’ he beckoned to me to follow.
We didn’t make it in time. The door opened behind us and the hall was filled with singing and candlelight. Like bees to their queen, the maidens and star-boys swarmed round St Lucia, tall and fair, then formed a procession. I turned to see them come towards us, the tips and heels of their boots visible beneath their white gowns. Within moments we were surrounded.
Lucia took Uncle Ian by the arm and led him to a chair, the wrong chair, the one he found it hard to get up from. She turned to me. ‘Har Ni en filt?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak Swedish.’
She switched seamlessly to English. ‘I think we need a blanket.’ She turned back to Uncle Ian. ‘Brrr. It’s cold in here.’
‘I don’t like an overheated room,’ Uncle Ian said.
I looked around for Katarina but couldn’t see her.
‘Say you’re contagious,’ I hissed in his ear.
‘Tried that last year. It doesn’t make any difference.’
St Lucia directed her steel-blue gaze at me. ‘Blanket?’
I plodded off in search of a rug, the soles of my sock-clad feet getting soaked by the little puddles of melting snow from the boots of the choir.
I returned with a paisley silk throw to find the maidens bustling round the room, lighting every candle in the room with their own. It was a beautiful scene: the white-clad young people with their tinsel and flickering flames, the perfectly proportioned room with its soft colours and warm wooden floors. Feeling like a collaborator, I handed the throw to Lucia, who arranged it round Uncle Ian, tucking it in at the back. He offered no resistance. A star-boy tried to hand him a mug of coffee. Uncle Ian waved it away. The star-boy turned a questioning face to Lucia, who turned to me.
‘It’s the cream,’ I said. ‘Mr Bingham drinks his coffee black.’
‘Cream’s good for the bones, you know. Caffeine leaches away calcium, that’s why we add the cream.’
‘But he doesn’t . . .’
‘If you show me the kitchen I will make some tea.’
‘I think he’s fine. Really. We’ll have some later. When you’ve left.’
Lucia signalled the maiden with the basket of buns. ‘We’ll try him with a Lucia bun,’ she said. ‘Ni skall val ha en lussekatt I alla fall?’
The choir sang ‘We Wish you a Merry Christmas’ in perfect English.
I spotted Katarina standing at the back behind the spare star-boy. I went over to her.
‘We have to do something.’ I whispered.
She shrugged helplessly. ‘It’s better just to let them get on with it.’
‘Why are they so determined? I mean, what’s in it for them? Do they get paid per pensioner or something?’
‘I don’t think that’s the case. I believe it’s all arranged through the council. As part of the care for the elderly.’
‘Have you tried opting out?’
She looked at me. ‘There is no opting out.’
Uncle Ian sat as far back in his seat as was possible, his own back pressed against the back of the chair, the saffron bun in his hand and his gaze fixed on the Munch painting above the fireplace. It was a favourite of his, an original etching, one of only three and made by the artist himself. Two faces, one red and one blue, leaning towards each other. They were the faces of Munch himself and of his mistress, a violinist. The sight of the painting seemed to give Uncle Ian strength and he heaved himself up from his chair. As he did so the throw fell from his knees and his dressing-gown came apart, exposing the gaping flies of his pyjama trousers. I didn’t know what to do. Had anyone else noticed? It was impossible to tell. Katarina seemed to have disappeared again. Then Uncle Ian himself looked down and spotted the gaping flies and the tuft of grey curly hair. His gaze shot back to me and I looked away, pretending not to have noticed.
When I turned round once more Uncle Ian was back in the chair, the dressing-gown and throw wrapped tight around him. His face had no colour; it wasn’t white or pink or even grey. His gaze avoided mine.
The choir sung ‘Hosanna’, their soprano voices singing the harmony and reaching the high notes with ease. I leant back against the doorpost and closed my eyes.
It was almost lunchtime and Uncle Ian, who had retired to his room the moment the Lucia choir had left, still had not appeared. I was in the kitchen with Katarina, helping to prepare lunch.
‘It’s hard when the phone stops ringing,’ she said.
‘But he has friends?’
She shook her head. ‘He had business acquaintances. It was extraordinary – comical almost, the way the phone stopped ringing and the invitations stopped coming practically the day that he gave up his last directorship. Not being asked his opinion, I think is what he finds most difficult. People used to queue up to get his advice and now he can’t give it away for free.’
‘I’ll be his friend. I’ll phone. He doesn’t need to buy me a house. Has he told you about wanting to buy me a house?’
She nodded. ‘And I think it’s a good idea. It’ll give him something to do, something to think about ot
her than the past.’
‘I don’t need him to wave his magic wand, that’s the point. Of course I would love to have more money or to own my own home but not this way. Really not this way.’
‘And is it all about what you want?’
I startled. I frowned. It’s all very well for people to speak their mind but we barely knew each other.
Katarina didn’t seem to notice my surprise or my disapproval; instead, she simply continued frying the meat patties as the kitchen filled with smoke. I wanted her to go on frying until we couldn’t see each other, until I was enveloped in my own little cloud of veal patty haze.
Uncle Ian came downstairs at one o’clock just as Katarina was bringing the food through to the dining room. He had nicked himself shaving but his hair was slicked back and he was wearing a cravat tucked into his Vyella shirt. I wasn’t sure what would be the best thing to do, to refer to the events of the morning or to say nothing and wait for his lead.
In the end I plumped for clueless gushing. ‘What a stroke of luck to be able to experience such a typical Swedish celebration,’ I said.
He frowned. ‘You think so?’
‘I expect they go around the whole neighbourhood.’
‘No, just the old people,’ Uncle Ian said. He gave the word ‘old’ an ironic emphasis that fooled no one.
I said, ‘You’re not old. Look at the Queen Mother.’
‘She’s dead.’
‘There is that,’ I agreed, ‘but I meant before she died. She was over a hundred. So thinking back to when she was your age, well, she would have to go back almost fifteen years. Just imagine. Anyway, age isn’t what it used to be,’ I said, adding to my impressive tally of platitudes.
Drowning Rose Page 9