Oh Dear Silvia

by Dawn French

  He wants to run away right now, and dodge telling Silvia anything, his life would be much simpler and much more bearable without these interminable visits, but he is compelled to stay and continue. He knows in his deepest place it’s the right thing to do. He doesn’t owe Silvia anything, but he owes it to himself to remain generous. He was kind-hearted before he met her, and, despite the damage her coldness has caused him, he is determined to remain kind-hearted.

  He never wants to be like her. He looks back at her. A motionless mound. No, he will never be like her, as long as he has breath in his body and as long as he has a grandchild like Willow to continue living for and through. Perhaps, just perhaps, if somewhere in her faraway locked-in place, Silvia can want a little piece of the future that Willow stands for, she might push herself upwards, outwards, away from the quicksand of this deep sleep, even if it is simply to assuage her jealousy or her curiosity or, even, her torment.

  ‘Y’know what I think? I think she chose a beech because that’s what she sees when she comes there with me. She doesn’t really know the difference between all the different trees that are there yet, although I try to tell her in kid-size bites. There’s a hoary old poem my gran used to tell me about all the different woods and how they burn, but I can’t remember it all, must look it up, something like, “Logs to burn! Logs to burn! Logs to save the coal a turn!” … um … “Beechwood first burn bright and clear, Hornbeam blazes too, if the logs are kept a year, and seasoned through and through” … it goes on like that, um … “Oak logs will warm you well, if they’re old and dry” dum de dum de dum “pinewood” something “sparks will fly”.

  ‘Anyway, it’s something like that, and so me ’n’ Willow chanted that first bit about the beechwood over and over again on the way to find the spot to plant her tree. It was good. The rhyme fitted nicely with the chug of the barrow’s wheel. Better than “Wheels On The Bus”. Dear God, save me from any more verses of that monster song. I have taken to making my own lyrics up now to make it vaguely tolerable when she repeatedly requests it. I particularly like “The bankers on the bus go grab, grab, grab” and “The grannies on the bus go get away, get away, get away”. Yes, that one is particularly good … very … um … caring …’

  Ed realizes how supremely cheeky this is in relation to Silvia, and the measure of his own sheer front causes him to laugh. He quickly loses control on the volume of his laughter as it explodes from him and so he is forced to leave the room as quickly as possible. He bursts into the corridor outside, and has to let his laughter rip.

  Winnie is sitting at the nurses’ station and sees him.

  ‘You OK deh, Mr Shute?’

  Ed can hardly speak. He doubles over, and grabs his knees.

  ‘Yes, yes thanks, um … sorry?’

  ‘Winnie. Mi name Winnie. Or nurse. Or pssst.’

  ‘Yes. Right. Yes. Thanks Winnie. Just had a weird moment there. Found something funny … y’know … that I shouldn’t?’

  ‘Mi know, yes. It strange, dis ward can mek you do dat. You gotta laff innit, cos if not, it’s all tension an’ waterwork. Das no good. Not fi you, and certainly not fi dem. I don’t tink Silvia mind you laffin. Not at all, Mr Shute.’

  ‘Ed, please.’

  ‘H’Edward.’

  ‘I think she would mind Winnie. That’s why I’ve stepped out, but, goodness. Phew. I feel better for it, I can tell you.’

  ‘Good. Release. Yes, good. You wan’ cuppa tea?’

  ‘Yes, that would be good, thanks.’

  ‘Yu mos’ welcome. Mi bring it to you in dere.’

  ‘Right. Cheers. Yes. Thanks.’

  Ed coughs and shares a smile with Winnie as he briefly bathes in the warmth of her colossal understanding and her undeniable goodness. For a simple moment, they both stand there, each finding a rare comfort for a couple of seconds. It passes quickly enough. But it was definitely lovely.

  Buoyed up, Ed returns to his seat in Silvia’s room, squelching his muddy boots all the way.

  ‘Sorry about that, love. Just had a … um … moment. Where was I? Oh yes, little mite is in the wheelbarrow cradling her copper beech baby. Although it’s a different variant to any of the other trees in the wood, it will totally totally fit, and yet it will also stand out. Somehow, in all her tiny four-year-oldness, she knows that. She has learned what a beech is, what the smooth silver-grey bark looks and feels like and how elastic it is, what standing under that huge dome does to your senses, and with the copper beech, when it is mature, and the leaves are fully reddy-purple, she will feel like she is standing in a grand speckled rose-tinted cathedral.

  ‘It’s going to be magnificent, but right now, today, it needed her full-on nurturing. She had to be the mum, and honestly Silv, you should have seen the care she took. Her little jaw was set, as soon as we arrived at the spot, just on the edge of the wood, where it would start its new life. She was so attentive to everything I said.

  ‘It’s a responsibility isn’t it, this age? They look up to you, literally, and believe everything you say, and they want you to know stuff and be right. Christ. I felt so … what? … important. Yes. That’s it, I am very important to her. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arrogant enough to think I am genuinely important in the greater scheme of things, or even to believe that I am important to anyone else. But. I know that in Willow’s little life, I am very important, and so I try my hardest to live up to that. I tell you, I have to up my game, I really do. So. Anyway.

  ‘We stopped at the outer edge of the wood, where there is more space but still enough shelter. The spot was about two metres from a middle-aged Scots pine, one of only three in there, who will act as a nurse for this little beech. I told Willow that transplanting is like minor surgery, and that this young beech could suffer a huge shock and not survive if we drop her or harm her or her roots in any way. She handled that sapling as if it were a Ming vase, and would hardly let me near.

  ‘For one tiny, lovely moment, I asked her to stand still and listen to the wood. Of course she heard the wind in the trees, and birds and rustling and whistling, but I asked her to listen for the music of it. I don’t even really know what I mean, except that I listen out for it all the time, it’s a kind of vibration and I know she hears it too because she always reacts if something in amongst it is out of place or time. She hummed a long low base hum to me and told me that was the music she heard. Like this …’

  Ed hums a low steady note, which reverberates around the room.

  If Silvia were awake, she would feel it in the pit of her stomach and in her sternum and in the tiny pools of water in her ears.

  ‘And y’know what? That’s exactly what I hear. Wonderful. Willow boldly told me that, “Trees need air and water and hugs Granpop, like me.” She is right, of course, but I had to make sure the soil is well drained there, beeches won’t grow if it’s too damp. Compromises the roots. Makes them weak. Well, none of us do well with soggy undercarriage, do we Silv?!

  ‘I had already prepared the site, checked it wasn’t clay-heavy, dug it over, killed any enemy weeds, removed stones and mixed in some well-rotted compost. Home-made of course. I gave Willow the spade and she thrust it into the ground directly straight down. She’s seen me do it many times. She made the notch in the ground and together we waggled it back and forth to make a larger slit. We placed the baby tree into the notch, taking loads of care to make sure the roots were all pointing downwards, and the collar of the tree, you know the part I mean? Where the trunk meets the roots yeah, well, making sure that was below ground level. Then we pulled the tree upwards so the root collar was level with the ground, removed the spade and firmed in the soil with our feet, trampling it in very carefully.

  ‘Willow didn’t want us to kill any worms. So we didn’t. She told me not to scrape the bark with my boot. So I didn’t. She told me not to stamp too much as that would “hurt the tree’s ears”. So I didn’t. She poured a bucketful of water on to the patch so the new baby could drink. Then I poured some wa
ter into her little mouth so she could drink too. She was constantly checking out the tree all the time she was glugging away, making sure they both were drinking.

  ‘I needed to put a loose plastic guard around the tree to protect it from deer and rabbits. Willow decided that she would ward them off by shouting loudly at them “Go away deer! Go away rabbit! Don’t eat my tree!” … which I think may well work. Then I put a stake in the ground and strapped the tree to it. It will only need that for a year or so, ’til the roots establish themselves. Willow insisted I strap her to the spade in the same way.

  ‘She kissed her tree, and we stood side by side, one big, one small person gaffer-taped to a spade, next to our infant offshoot, feeling very proud and very excited about the future of everyone and everything present.

  ‘To be honest Silv, I feel like I planted Willow today, as well as that tree. Yep. I’m confident about how well she can grow. She’s going to be fine. She’s going to be … just … fine. I will make sure of that. I can’t ensure the future of that new tree but one thing I know about Willow’s future is that it will have me in it. Because being alive means having a future. It does Silv. For the first time in ages, I can see a future. For us anyway. Now you have to decide if you’ve got one …’

  Winnie opens the door and brings Ed a cup of tea.

  ‘Deh, h’Edward. Someting to warm you …’

  Twenty-One

  Cassie

  Monday 4pm

  Cassie is inside the room.

  She has just spent forty minutes drinking watery coffee in the café downstairs, trying to pluck up the courage and the willing to come inside Silvia’s room and sit down. In the end, she decided to go for it purely because she is frustrated at having made the trip so many times, and only once having been able to get further than the café.

  The bus fare and the coffee together have meant that it’s all become very expensive. Cassie manages on very little. Ben works hard, but he is an apprentice and every penny counts. Ed sometimes gives his daughter whatever money he can spare but, essentially, Cassie gets by on nearly nothing, and these trips to the hospital have stretched that nothing to the limit. For that reason alone (or so Cassie convinces herself ), she has made it, up in the lift, along the corridor to the ITU past the nurses’ station and through the door of her mum’s room.

  Once the door closed behind her, Cassie felt that she was undeniably IN, committed to the decision, and that an about-turn would be out of the question; so she sat down tentatively, in the visitor’s chair. That was five minutes ago, and only now is she starting to regulate her breath. She can hear her breathing as if she is a diver underwater, from a long way inside her head.

  She becomes aware, in the deafening quiet of the room, just how much she speaks to herself internally and how very desperately she seeks the comfort of that. She is able to both listen and speak to her own soothing voice simultaneously. How? It must come from somewhere other than her immediate thoughts.

  From her soul perhaps? Whatever, she hears it …

  ‘Shhh, little heart, stop beating so fast. It’ll be alright. It’s just a woman lying there. Can’t hurt you. Breathe deep. In. Out. In. Out. Same as her. In. Out. There, there, there. Shhh.’

  Gradually, Cassie calms herself and drinks it all in. The room, the smell, the light, her mother’s body, her hair, her hands, her feet which are uncovered at the bottom of the bed. Strange. Why aren’t they under the sheets? Cassie wishes she could fold the sheets and thin blanket down to cover Silvia’s feet, but she knows this is impossible for her right now. She can’t bring herself to touch Silvia. Just looking at her like this, when she is so unanimated, feels too intimate, never mind touching her. Cassie feels the heaviness of guilt – she is invading her mother’s vulnerable sick space. By simply sitting here, she is breaking boundaries that have formed like fur on a kettle element, slowly and poisonously. Cassie couldn’t bring herself to believe she wouldn’t see her mum again back then. She waited and waited so hopefully for a phone call. Prayed for it. She knew it had to come from Silvia. The forgiveness was in her gift. It was surely Cassie who had done the most wrong, wasn’t it? Cassie desperately hoped they would mend. But as each unforgiven day went by, it all stayed undone and grew worse.

  The mess was very heavy and impossible to shift.

  Like any erosion that is subtle and stealthy, it is enormously potent. Especially since Cassie can’t work out what she did so wrong.

  What would warrant being so totally rejected? Yes, she got pregnant very young and she knew immediately it happened that this would annoy her mother. Her feminist mother. But what is a feminist, then? Isn’t a feminist someone who will fight for the rights of women? And didn’t Cassie have the right to have her baby? And wasn’t the baby also Silvia’s grandchild? And wasn’t the baby also a girl? Who had a right to be born? And then be loved? By her ‘feminist’ grandmother? Well, this is how Cassie interprets it anyway.

  Why wouldn’t she? None of Cassie’s questions have been answered because Silvia has inexplicably thrown her out and pulled up the drawbridge of her love, for Cassie seemingly never to experience it again. And why would anyone suddenly stop loving their daughter? Cassie fleetingly experiments with the thought of ceasing to love Willow. She can’t even entertain the idea because it is unthinkable. What happened? Did Silvia suddenly run out of love? Have ‘love-fatigue’ or something? Or … or …

  Cassie’s most profound and dreadful thoughts start to emerge again, dangerously close to the surface now, so Cassie speaks internally, to steady herself.

  ‘Silly woman, doesn’t know what she’s missing, she’s a bloody twat. That’s all. Just an ordinary everyday twat from Twatsville. In the county of Twatfordshire. In the United Twatdom. In Great Twattain. It’s her fault. Not mine. Not Willow’s. Hers. She’s the one who can’t do the loving. Not us. Dad can love me. So I’m not that bad. It is possible. I’m not so bloody hideous. I’ve got mates for God’s sake. They love me. So does Ben. And Willow. And Jamie. And lots of people. So it def is possible. I know that … For sure …’

  With those thoughts, Cassie circumnavigates around her biggest fear, a fear she has lived with for four years now, a fear that has pussed up to become a fully infected surety that she is too afraid to acknowledge. For Cassie, the awful undeniably obvious truth is that she is not good enough to love. That’s the fact. Her mother’s distance is just proof, that’s all. After the divorce, Mum couldn’t pretend any more to love any of them. Not Dad or Jamie, or her. Especially her. Who had the most need of a mum, because she was about to be one.

  Cassie often wonders when it was that her mother fell out of love with her. To know might be truly devastatingly painful, but frankly it would be better than this howling bottomless pit of not knowing. She wonders if it was when she was much smaller. Maybe she did something very naughty? Maybe she was unkind to another child and Silvia witnessed it and found it sickening. Maybe she was selfish and didn’t share nicely. Maybe she wasn’t very clever and Silvia knew that and found it unattractive. Maybe she was clumsy and broke stuff? Or lazy? Or a show-off? Or ugly? Or, most likely, all of the above.

  What Cassie knows for sure, is that it is her fault. No one can disabuse her of that knowledge, not any of the others, not even her tiny cradling inner voice, which tries very hard. Cassie is just not lovable. FACT. Yes, she wishes that stagnant lump in the bed would love her, and more than that, she wishes she didn’t wish for that, because the gnawing pain of its continued and constant absence is virtually unbearable. In fact, at this very moment, it’s just that, unbearable.

  So Cassie gets up, and after an agonizing ten minutes in that awful room, she leaves, having uttered not one word out loud.

  Twenty-Two

  Cat

  Tuesday 10am

  ‘So there y’are, strapped to the top of the plane, on one of those standing-up bracket things, it’s one of those old-fashioned planes with the double wings, and I’m in the pilot’s seat, hilarious, and we are
swoopin’ over snowy mountains and huge sandy orange canyons, and then oceans and then forests. You are completely safe because I am the best pilot in the world, but it feels edgy, y’know, because we’re takin’ this huge risk. I can see you, so I can, and you are screamin’ and whoopin’ with delight. The wind is in your hair and you are so utterly alive and … having every last jot of that experience … you are loving it … you’re free and happy and … well … awake. God. Yeah. It was amazing.

  ‘I haven’t dreamed like that since I was a kid. In proper full colour like that, and a moment that feels so wild and real and goes on for ages. I was devastated when I woke up Silly, truly I was. Jeesuz help me, I plunged badly. Thank God I was comin’ here, otherwise I swear I would have pulled the covers back over my head and spent the day in bed, tryin’ to recapture it. And failing no doubt.’

  Cat finds it hard to sit still, she is restless and jangled. She needs Silvia to calm her, but this is all she gets from Silvia now, a considerable amount of nothing at all. Silvia is a colossal torpid heap, and it isn’t fair. Cat has been through a lot to ring-fence this relationship, and look at her lying there. What was the point?

  ‘Hmm, Jung, I think, wasn’t it, who said, “We all dream, just as we all breathe.” Was it Jung? Someone, anyway. Yes. We all dream, just as we all breathe. So, we all dream then, all the time. I just don’t remember mine I’m guessin’. Not usually. Just the vivid ones like that. Wonder if it means somethin’? Maybe just me wishin’ it could be different. Wishin’ you were … back. Christ, Silly. This is torture. Please God, wake up. There’s so much to sort out. I’ve got to change … stuff. I can’t do that without you. So. Y’know … Come on. Bloody hell …’