Stars Across the Ocean

by Kimberley Freeman

  ‘So, there,’ Genevieve said. ‘Are you quite satisfied now? You’ve come a long way for that story. Will you go to find Marianna? I can give you her address.’

  ‘I know where she lives,’ Agnes said, grudgingly. She didn’t want to share any of the secrets of her adventure with Genevieve. ‘I’ll be returning directly to London. Do you have any message for me to pass on to your sister?’

  ‘I expect she won’t want to hear from me, dear, and I really have nothing to say to her or the little fellow, Julius.’ Then Genevieve impulsively put her hand to her hair and withdrew a comb. ‘Here. A souvenir of meeting your aunt. Thank you for helping me out with those crooks.’

  Agnes didn’t point out that if Genevieve owed them money and was running away so she needn’t pay it, that technically made her the crook. She took the comb, a marcasite butterfly studded with pearls, and felt very keenly that she was on the wrong side of the ocean.

  ‘When do you sail?’ Genevieve asked, her eyes going to the clock again.

  ‘The ship I came here on leaves her berth this evening.’

  Genevieve focused on her for a moment. ‘You’d best hurry, then, dear. It’s nearly five and the last train to Sandridge Pier will be leaving soon.’

  ‘The last …’ There was a last train? The thought had never crossed her mind. She had been fixated on the idea that the ship would leave without her, not the train. ‘Which direction is the station?’ she gasped, leaping to her feet.

  Genevieve pointed. ‘That way. Oh, but don’t go without giving your Aunt Genevieve a hug.’

  Genevieve stood and embraced her. ‘What a pleasure to meet you,’ she said.

  ‘And you,’ Agnes said, but the words felt like dust on her tongue. It had been anything but a pleasure.

  •

  It wasn’t simply a case of heading ‘that way’. Agnes had to return to the Temperance Hotel and collect her trunks. Mrs Hardwicke demanded an extra day’s fee because she’d not been able to let the room to anyone else, and was so slow at totting up the account that Agnes threw all her remaining money at her, took the trunks and ran.

  She made it to the railway station only to see the last train speeding off into the coming curtain of rain. Agnes said every curse she knew, standing on the long platform as the smell of coal smoke and fish markets filled the air.

  She dropped her trunks and sat, with her head in her hands. No money to hire a carriage or even bribe the driver of a cart, as Genevieve had. Her ship sailing tonight and no way of—

  Agnes lifted her head. The railway line went straight to the pier. She didn’t need a train to find the Persephone. Jack had said it was only three miles.

  She stood and lifted her trunks, then realised the larger one would slow her down. She opened it and pulled out the sapphire blue evening gown, the one she had worn on that beautiful night in Paris with Julius, and stuffed it into her smaller trunk. Then the smaller trunk wouldn’t close, so she removed her spare corset and spare shoes and anything else she wouldn’t need, and left them on the platform.

  Agnes picked up her small trunk, jumped down onto the train line and began to walk, sleeper to sleeper, towards the sea.

  •

  Rain fell. Drizzle that intensified to a deeper shower then passed, leaving her damp. The clouds parted on a pale sky. One foot after the other, over the river and out of the town, and across bushland as the sun set gold and red on the horizon. The cry of seagulls told her she was drawing near. Agnes kept going, all the way past the stores and warehouses and out onto the pier, her feet damp and aching, her hand raw from clutching her trunk. An hour from where she started, the ships at the pier came into view. She eyed each in turn, looking for the Persephone, but couldn’t see it. She turned and went back. Still couldn’t see it.

  ‘You right, lass?’

  Agnes jumped, then saw a man smoking a pipe, sitting on a barrel a few yards away. Fighting down frantic feelings, she asked him where the Persephone was.

  ‘Persephone? She left the berth half an hour ago,’ he said.

  ‘No!’ Agnes cried. ‘I haven’t missed it. I can’t have missed it. I need to get back to England. Back to my mother!’

  ‘Calm down, lass, calm down,’ he said, and he stood and moved closer to her, pointing out towards the sea. ‘She’s at anchor in the bay. Won’t leave until morning.’

  ‘How can I get out there?’

  ‘My friend Frank has a rowing boat. He’ll take you if you’ve got coin.’

  Coin. She had no coin.

  ‘Oy, Frank, come over here, then. Can you take this lass out to Persephone?’

  Frank came over. He was a tall man with big dirty hands and a dirtier cap. ‘Aye, for a shilling.’

  ‘I have no money. I …’ Then she remembered the comb Genevieve had given her. She pulled it out of her purse. ‘Will you take this?’

  Frank took the comb and eyed it. ‘This is worth more than a shilling,’ he said.

  ‘I’d say it’s worth more than a pound or even ten,’ Agnes said. ‘But I don’t want it as much as I want to be on that ship.’

  Frank smiled at her. ‘Right this way.’

  •

  By the time they had walked up to Frank’s shed and launched the rowing boat out into the bay, it was fully dark and Agnes was weary to her core. Frank rowed her out across dark waters, between the masts and rigging that were black against the velvety sky. As they approached Persephone, Frank began to call out. ‘Ahoy! Ahoy, Persephone!’

  A lamp appeared at the side of the boat, one of the older sailors looking down at them. ‘Why if it isn’t Miss Agnes. Jack will be glad to see you.’ Then he turned away and called for a rope ladder, and within minutes she was aboard. She had made it.

  Jack, having heard the news, came running up from the galley. She smelled of boiled potatoes as she folded Agnes into a hug. ‘She didnae want you? Grand! We got you back.’

  ‘It’s more complicated than that. I … I need to rest. Can we talk after supper?’

  ‘Aye, lass. I’ll leave you be. Sorry things haven’t worked out as you’d hoped.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ Agnes said, smiling. ‘I’m just … I’m a long way from where I ought to be, Jack.’

  ‘But are you heading in the right direction?’

  ‘Aye,’ Agnes said, looking up through the masts at the stars. ‘For once I am.’

  The Present

  Living with Mum every day for just over a week, it becomes horrifyingly apparent how much she has already declined. She moves in and out of lucidity; at times she speaks in circles, at others in long, intelligent lines. Sometimes, the worst times, she is not there at all. She looks at my face like somebody might look at a puzzle to be solved: finding the parts with her eyes, concentrating hard, and then … then she is with me again and we both pretend the grey moments haven’t happened.

  Dr Chaudry comes every day. She is young and kind, and Mum clearly adores her; though that doesn’t stop her from complaining bitterly later, when the doctor is gone. It is early the following week when I call Dr Chaudry’s office and make an appointment to speak to her without Mum around. Her surgery is above a health-supplies store behind Portishead’s high street. The morning is cool, and the sea fog has rolled away. I love the smell of the air here. It is fresh and bristling with salt, so different from our inner-city apartment back home, where hot days drive me to open the windows to the smell of exhaust fumes and the takeaway shop on the corner. Seagulls cry in the distance. I take a deep breath.

  In Dr Chaudry’s waiting room, there are two elderly gentlemen and a young mother with a sleeping baby. The baby looks so tiny, so new. The mother … she must be fifteen or sixteen and I am struck again by how everybody seems to be able to procreate but me. This girl can’t drive or vote, and yet, here she is, a mother. She rocks the baby absently, her lips pressed against its soft forehead.

  I have barely sat down in the tartan-covered chair when Dr Chaudry emerges from one of the white doors and calls me
in.

  ‘It’s nice to see you again, Tori,’ she says, as she closes the surgery door behind us. ‘I presume this is about your mum?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Take a seat,’ she says, and I do. The patient’s seat. I feel nervous, but I’m not sure why.

  ‘Your mum is thriving with you here. You’re doing a great job,’ she says.

  ‘Thanks. All I’m doing is loving her.’

  ‘Yes, well. Love is underrated in medicine, I think.’ She smiles at me.

  ‘It won’t fix her, though, will it?’ I say. ‘I was hoping you could give me some details about her … condition and what to expect.’

  Dr Chaudry begins to explain, sometimes using medical terms and then translating them for me. I catch the key concepts. ‘Middle-stage Alzheimer’s.’ ‘Progressing a little faster than we’d usually see.’ ‘Not safe out of the clinic, or without ongoing care.’ ‘One to two years, maybe three, before she will have to be institutionalised in full-time care.’ ‘Not sure what your plans are.’ And so on. Mum is sick; she isn’t getting better. If anything, she is worsening. She has about two good years left, and then she’ll likely be lost; after that she’ll have to be nursed in a hospice until she dies. In those two good years, it’s the clinic or home with me.

  But I have a job. I have a husband. I have a life, on the other side of the world.

  I don’t cry, although I very much want to. I hold it in, because I need to be strong for Mum. According to Dr Chaudry, I’m really the only person who can convince her to resign from work so she can access her retirement money; I’m the only person who can convince her she needs to move into the clinic. I suggest the idea of paying somebody to come and check in on her once a day at home, but Dr Chaudry shakes her head.

  ‘I’m sorry. She has a history now of wandering. It’s too much of a risk for her to be alone for hours on end.’

  I think about the wound on her face, turning pink now as it heals. About how what’s happening in her brain will not heal.

  ‘Are there nicer rooms at the clinic?’ I ask Dr Chaudry.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. Tori, you can count on me as an ally. Margaret is one of my favourite patients. She’s so …’ She trails off, because neither of us can say it any more. Mum isn’t bright and brilliant, or at least she is only in flashes now, flashes that are destined to dim.

  •

  When I arrive back at Mum’s, she’s sitting on the sofa staring at the television.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ I call, dropping the rental-car keys on the bench.

  She turns, looks at me blankly for a moment, then seems to gather herself and smiles. ‘Hello, dear. Where have you been?’

  ‘With Doctor Chaudry, remember? I told you before I left.’ I immediately regret pointing this out, because she blinks back at me and her expression is hurt.

  I pick up the television remote and hit the off button, then set it down on the coffee table once again and sit next to Mum.

  ‘How are you feeling right now?’

  She glances around the room. ‘Oh, well. Could be better, I suppose. I was watching a show and I couldn’t remember anyone’s names. That troubled me a little.’

  ‘I had a good chat with Doctor Chaudry.’ I stop, wait, let the moment grow heavy.

  ‘What is it?’ she asks, in a constricted, frightened voice.

  ‘Mum, you have to retire from work.’

  ‘No I don’t. I’m fine. I don’t operate heavy machinery. I’m not going to kill anyone.’ She shoots out of her seat. ‘Has Andrew Garr been telling you stories about me? You know that man hates me. And Doctor Chaudry too. She’s younger than you! What does she know about anything?’

  I stand and gently pin her arms by her side. ‘Mum, Mum,’ I say softly, until she stops talking and looks at me. Defiantly. ‘Mum, we’ll bring all your books and papers to you, wherever you are. You can work at your own pace. Just because you’re leaving the college, doesn’t mean you can’t keep doing your research.’ I think for a moment about how many books they might let her have at the clinic. I will have to ask about a bigger room. When her retirement money comes, it might be enough to cover it.

  She plops back down on the couch and sighs deeply. I wait a few moments, and then she says, ‘All that I am is there at Locksley College.’

  I sit next to her and put my arm around her. ‘Not to me. To me, it’s never mattered where you work or how many books you published.’

  She leans her head on my shoulder. ‘Oh, my darling girl. I am sorry. I’m not very good at being a mother and I am even worse at getting old and sick.’

  I squeeze her close against me, and I suspect she is crying a little but secretly. Then she withdraws and looks at me with big, frightened eyes, and she says, ‘What if they don’t let me have my books with me in the clinic?’

  ‘Then we’ll find a clinic that will,’ I say, and I am determined but at the same time worried that there may be no such place.

  She nods, then says, ‘I feel as though I am about to cross an ocean, and it’s grey and grim and lonely.’

  I am struck speechless by her words, and then she takes a deep breath and says, ‘Will you tell them for me?’

  ‘Tell who?’

  ‘Professor Garr, the college, the retirement fund. Tell them … I’ll be leaving.’

  ‘Of course. Of course I will.’

  ‘I don’t want to see their faces. I don’t want to see anyone pitying me, not ever. I am—’ Her voice breaks and she finishes in a whisper. ‘I am bigger than that.’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ I say, kissing her forehead. ‘I’ll take care of everything.’

  •

  I have already started the process of organising Mum’s retirement before my dinner with Andrew. Everyone at the college is warm and helpful, and so very kind. I get to see my mother through their eyes: they tell me they love her humour and her charm and admire how hard she has worked her whole life, and they want to do whatever they can to ease her transition, including taking care of the paperwork and packing up her office for her. I tell Mum about it, but she is distant and mildly angry every time I bring it up, so I love her instead. I read to her. I remind her of things we did when I was young. We don’t talk about the clinic, but Dr Chaudry has all but assured me Mum can have one of the larger rooms on the fourth floor when she returns, with a view of the park instead of the brick wall.

  I feel guilty and a little worried leaving Mum alone on Friday night, but she tells me that I should go and enjoy myself – even if it is with that Andrew Garr, whom she doesn’t trust – and that she will go to bed early. I program my mobile number into her phone so she can call me easily, and together we fill out a sticky note reminding her of where it is and what to do if she gets confused.

  ‘Don’t leave the house,’ I say.

  ‘I won’t. What makes you think I want to leave? I’m in my nightie now. I’ll watch the telly and go to sleep.’

  I meet Andrew at the Chancellor’s Club, which is inside a lovely old stone building with a clock tower, on the western side of the campus. I make my way through a bar where students have gathered around tables and talk loudly and animatedly, and through to a subtly lit dining room. As the door swings shut behind me, the noise dies off. I can hear quiet music; folk guitar. Andrew sits at a table in the far corner with a menu open in front of him.

  He notices me on my way over, stands and takes my hand. He wears a smile that I recognise. A smile that he can’t stop. A smile too big for the corners of his mouth. I don’t know that Geoff has ever smiled at me like that.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he says, and I find his admiration so intoxicating that I decide I will not think about Geoff. That my relationship with Geoff has been out of kilter for a long time, and I should simply let myself enjoy Andrew’s company.

  We fall into conversation, both eager to get to know each other. I tell him about Mum’s decision to retire, and his relief and happiness for her is genuine and beautiful. Food and wine c
ome and go and we are talking and talking, and still talking as the dining room empties and the wait staff start putting up the chairs.

  ‘Come on,’ Andrew says, standing and taking my hand. ‘I want to show you the gallery.’

  His hand is warm, and he moves to withdraw it once I am standing, but I squeeze it instead. He considers me a moment, smiles, then locks his fingers between mine. We exit the building, and skirt the cold quadrangle where a pair of drunk students are engaged in the kind of passionate kissing that only the young seem capable of: as if they are trying to climb into each other’s souls.

  Andrew drops my hand as he pulls out his wallet and removes a swipe card, then swipes us into the tower. He feels about on the wall inside for a light switch, and in front of me a staircase is illuminated.

  ‘This way,’ he says, taking my hand again and leading me up the stairs. On the first landing he switches on another light, and swipes us through wooden doors and into a gallery. It is softly lit, with tall glass cases in two rows. The cases hold all kinds of Victorian objects: tea sets and snuff boxes and hairbrushes and wind-up toys and things I can’t identify. The things my mother is obsessed with: the signs of daily life as it was lived, not just men’s lives, but women’s too, and children’s. I move along, gazing at the cabinets.

  ‘I have good news,’ Andrew said. ‘We have approval now to name the gallery after your mother.’

  ‘Really?’ I beam. ‘That’s wonderful.’

  ‘We want to have a ceremony. Do you think she’d come? She needn’t speak.’

  I don’t know what Mum is capable of, whether the idea would confuse or frighten her. ‘Perhaps,’ I say. ‘Can I tell her about it?’

  ‘I’ll write her a letter,’ he says. ‘It might sink in better if she has it in writing. She always seemed to love it in here. She often came in to sit and think or read.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ I have stopped at one of the cabinets. ‘What is that?’ I’m pointing at a black box, with a pattern of flowers on it and multiple small compartments, one of which is open.

  ‘It’s a Chinoiserie box for playing cards,’ he says.