The Realities of Aldous U

by Michael Lawrence

  As she saw it she had two choices. Two alternatives which, for once, were perfectly clear. She could either spend her days moping and railing against fate for this devastating twist, or she could try and make the best of things. She entertained the first option for very little time. There was no point despising Alaric for stealing her life – he hadn’t intended to – or in giving Kate a hard time for being there instead of her mother. They weren’t the enemy. There was no enemy. But could she do the other thing? Could she really make everyone believe that she was not in the deepest mourning?

  The clang of the doorbell filled the house. She returned the album to the carrier bag, shoved it under the bed that used to be Alaric’s, and took a very deep breath. When she went out to the landing her heart was pounding. She couldn’t see clear along the hall from there, but she heard the crazily-dressed aunt open the door, cry a greeting, and Ivan’s: ‘I don’t know, locked out of my own house.’

  ‘Safety precaution,’ the aunt said.

  There followed a brief discussion about the state of the roads, then introductions – Kate and the aunt, the aunt and Kate – and the sound of feet stomping on the mat, and Ivan asking what was burning and where all the warmth was coming from, and: ‘Stone me.’ Naia couldn’t make out every word, but she caught: ‘That daughter of yours. What a slave-driver. And talk about perfectionist.’

  ‘Where is she anyway?’

  And there it was. Unconditional acceptance of a daughter he’d never met. Alaric no longer existed for him. Never had. She saw the alternative version of her father strolling along the hall. He was the spitting image of the one she’d known all her life, except for being a bit scruffier and in need of a haircut. Kate and the aunt were behind him. Kate saw her first.

  ‘Naia!’

  The warmth of her voice. Absolutely genuine. Nothing false or self-serving about Kate Faraday. She’d always known this, as her mother had. Kate would never have entertained anything more than a mild flirtation with Ivan if Alex had still been alive.

  Now the other two were looking up as well, beaming. It was like the closing scene of some slushy film or TV drama where everything comes out right in the end. Comes out right. If they only knew. If only anyone knew. She couldn’t find any words. Any at all. The best she could manage was a small wave as she walked to the head of the stairs. Here goes, she thought, gripping the banister rail. The old wood, recently polished by herself as a visitor, was strangely reassuring. She needed all the reassurance she could get. She was on her own now. Totally alone in a world of strangers with familiar faces. As she went down, making the most of the rail’s support, there was a peculiar tightness in her chest. A lump in her throat as big as a house.

  JUNE

  Prelude

  Part One

  VOICES, SOMETIMES

  Sunday

  Monday

  Tuesday

  Part Two

  COMPETING WITH MASKS

  Wednesday

  Thursday

  Part Three

  LEGACY OF A POET

  Friday

  Saturday

  Sunday

  Monday

  ANOTHER DAY

  ANOTHER NIGHT

  THE YEARS BETWEEN

  PRELUDE

  Aldous was just six years old when he first began to wonder where they would bury him, and when. Every bedtime for as long as he could remember, his mother had made him kneel with folded hands and closed eyes and pray for the continued well-being of every relative he could think of. And when he’d dealt with the entire company he was always to finish with: ‘And please, Lord, see me safely through the night and let me live to see another day.’ Every morning he woke nervously, wondering if he was still alive. He always was, of course, but as the years wore on it never ceased to seem unlikely that God would always be so generous.

  Worries about his own mortality were far from his mind the day he saw the boat, however. It was June. He was eleven. Because of the flooding the family had been forced upstairs, which meant that he spent more time in his room than usual. This was fine with him. The situation, like the view, was a singular novelty. And this time there was something extra. On going to his window for the umpteenth time that day, he saw an empty rowing boat bobbing gently, just beyond the landing stage. He leant out to peer as far to right and left as the willows would allow. There was no one in the water. No one he could see. Curious!

  He ran in search of his mother; found her in the spare bedroom, rearranging it as a temporary sitting room. She wasn’t in the best of humors (all the bother, the devastation downstairs) but he told her what he’d seen, drew her by the hand to his room, his window. They looked out, side-by-side. There was no sign of the boat.

  ‘But it was there,’ he insisted, as though accused of lying.

  His mother smiled. ‘I’m sure it was, cherie. But it’s gone now.’

  And as far as Marie Underwood was concerned that was the end of it. But not for Aldous. His imagination took flight. Had someone fallen out of the boat and drowned? Was there a body caught in the lilies or the reeds? Had it floated away? Would it end up in someone’s garden, under a bridge, in the flooded market square at Stone?

  The mystery of the empty boat was such that it might have bothered him intermittently for weeks afterwards – months – if events had not driven it and other matters from his mind.

  Events. Visitors. That death of his.

  Part One

  VOICES, SOMETIMES

  SUNDAY

  Sunday: 1

  The rains had been heavier and longer lasting than predicted by the ash-blonde pundits, causing the river to burst its banks and cause the worst flood conditions for almost six decades. Entrepreneurs had immediately started going round with sandbags, which, pressed against doors, kept all but the merest dribble out. There were two main doors at Withern Rise, and three sets of French doors. All were sealed, but the garage doors were forgotten until it was too late. By the time Ivan remembered, the floor of the car was under water and he was convinced that it would never work again. According to the local TV news, insurance companies were bracing themselves for the claims that were going to ‘flood in’. The pun amused the presenters smirking in tandem behind their shared desk.

  ‘Smug bastards,’ Ivan muttered.

  But the rain had stopped at last, sometime in the night, and Naia, out of doors for the first time in days, took photos of the submerged garden before setting off in Grandpa Rayner’s old green waders. Rayner hadn’t been a tall man, and he’d had small feet, so she could only just get into them, and they pinched her toes, but at least they kept her dry as the water sloshed around her legs. She wanted to see this new ‘landscape’ from the pedestrian bridge that rose like a long, low rainbow drained of color to link the drowned Coneygeare with the drowned Meadows. It was quite a slog up the slope in those boots, but the view from the top was worth it: a wide world of water punctuated by chimneyed arks, the floating spires of churches, sunken trees in clusters. Withern could not be seen from there thanks to the great leaning willow, in full bright leaf, at the southern end of the landing stage. A pair of swans cruised serenely toward her. There was no empty rowing boat on Naia’s river. Not then.

  Sunday: 2

  Alaric had never known such contentment. For four months he had complained about nothing, longed for nothing, not once wished for more than he had. He no longer slouched around, scowling and snapping at the world. Why would be? His life was complete. Best of all, the real prize, he had his mother back. Well, as good as. He was able, for long stretches, to forget that she had given birth to Naia, not to him.

  Naia’s former occupation of this life had presented him with a few problems, however. Her mind held memories that were expected to be in his: conversations, incidents, events, jokes, shared sights and sounds. There’d been a lot of odd looks and raised eyebrows, from Alex and Ivan, from teachers, friends, but these were generally overcome without too much hassle.

  His relationship wi
th his friends was curious, even to him. He hadn’t set foot in this reality before February, yet boys who hadn’t previously so much as heard of anyone called Alaric thought they’d known him all their lives. They wouldn’t have been pals with Naia, or any girl, except under sufferance, or unless she was a ‘goer’ like Bonnie the Bike. One or two of them might have fancied her – Davy Raine, for one – but most were more likely to catcall as she passed, or raise a fist while thumping the crook of an arm, leering for one another’s benefit.

  Naia. She was never far from his mind. She no longer had a place here, but he harbored a secret dread that she might find a way to return and repossess her life: a fear he suppressed for large tracts of time, but which never quite went away. It was with him this morning, unsettling him as he stood at his bedroom window – Naia’s former window – overlooking the immersed south garden. Now that the rain had stopped, he wanted to go out and experience the new conditions. But how did you walk on flooded ground? The only boots long enough were Grandpa Rayner’s old waders, but they were far too small in the foot. Which left shorts and sandals. Sandals! What the hell was he doing with sandals in this reality? Maybe Naia had had some, and they had simply converted to male versions when he took her place. Still, uncool as they were, sandals would serve a purpose.

  He told Alex of his intention. To her face, if he called her anything it was ‘Mum’, as she would expect, but in his mind he used her name. He’d never done this with his real mother. Ivan, too, was ‘Dad’ only when necessary. He had tried to jump this last small hurdle of acceptance, but hadn’t yet been able to manage it, not quite. In time, perhaps.

  ‘Well mind how you go,’ Alex had said when he told her of his intention. ‘A person can drown in two inches of water, you know.’

  ‘Leave off,’ he said. ‘I’m nearly seventeen.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how old you are, it could still happen.’

  ‘I promise not to drown, all right?’

  ‘You’re not going to the village, are you?’

  ‘No. The long bridge, to see what it all looks like.’

  ‘Because if you were, I could do with some things.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘From Mr. and Mrs. Paine’s.’

  ‘Are they open? The village is just as flooded as here.’

  ‘They’re selling out of the window, apparently.’

  ‘The shop’s the wrong way,’ he said.

  ‘Wrong way?’

  ‘From the bridge.’

  ‘All right. I’ll go out myself later.’

  He hesitated. She wanted him to go to the village shop. How could he refuse? Once upon a time, yes, before the accident that had taken her from him, but not now. He could refuse her nothing now.

  ‘What do you want?’

  She brightened, and he followed her to the kitchen, where she handed him a list of items, some of which were either heavy or bulky.

  ‘I can’t carry all these!’

  ‘Well get what you can. I’d be glad of the washing powder. If I don’t do a decent wash soon we’ll have nothing to wear.’

  ‘What does it matter? We’re not going anywhere while it’s like this.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘Seems a fair point to me.’

  It was true about them not going far while the flood conditions lasted. They had no water transport, Ivan couldn’t open the shop because Stone High Street was a virtual river, the classes Alex ran at the College had been cancelled, and school was closed for the duration. He wasn’t too dismayed about the last of these.

  With the external doors barricaded against the flood, he had no choice but to climb out of a ground-floor window. About to do so, he heard Alex say, behind him: ‘I’m going to go through everything again. I’m determined to find that album. Such a mystery where it’s got to.’

  ‘Luck with that,’ he said, hoisting a leg over the ledge and lowering himself into the water.

  Sunday: 3

  Aldous remembered strolling about the garden and the village with Grandpa Eldon, arm raised to hold his hand. Grandpa’s palm had felt like stretched velvet. They’d had a goat then: a handsome white nanny called Flo. Allowed to wander freely around the grounds, Flo did an excellent job of keeping the grass down, but because she would eat virtually anything, the vegetable and flower gardens had had to be fenced off. Flo, too, was attached to Eldon Underwood, and trotted to him whenever she saw him. When he and his grandson walked round the garden, Flo kept her jealous distance. Then came a day when she could restrain herself no longer. She charged at Aldous from behind, lifted him on her horns, sent him flying onto the gravel path. Eldon, in a fury, locked the goat in the shed, and next day men came and took her away. Even all these years after the event, Aldous was sorry about that. He’d never dared go too near the beautiful animal, but he’d loved to see her tripping around the garden, nibbling whatever was within reach, standing to reach a batch of leaves or thorns or berries. But that was a long time ago. Grandpa Eldon had died when Aldous was five years old.

  If Eldon Underwood had still been about in June 1945 he would almost certainly have accompanied his son and eldest grandson to the village for provisions, delighting in the adventure of rowing there. His son’s name was Alaric Eldon, known to all but his wife and children, a few of his employees and most tradesmen, as A.E. Born at Withern Rise, growing up beside the river, it had seemed to A.E. Underwood the most natural thing in the world for him to become a boat-builder. He had started out as apprentice to J. Rickles and Sons of Eaton Fane, but for the past fourteen years had had his own yard just along the water from Withern Rise.

  The boat they were taking to the village was not one of A.E.’s finest, but it was a serviceable enough craft. It was, however, too broad to pass through the side gate, so they rowed along the drive to the main entrance. Rowing where they usually walked amused them. Aldous’s mother, had she joined them, would have enjoyed the experience far less, if at all. They had been living upstairs since the river burst its banks and flooded the house, and Marie Underwood had never ceased to fret about the damage. Every downstairs room was awash; the carpets, furnishings and wallpaper would be ruined. A.E. was as aware of this as anyone, but he was a light-hearted man who took most domestic tribulations in his stride. Some might have said that he could afford to. His yard had never been busier than in the last five years, thanks to fat government contracts for small boats.

  Today, the view from the gate, which should have been of the broad portion of common land known as the Coneygeare, was not of land at all, but of water specked with small craft similar to theirs. The very rare chance to go boating on the Coneygeare was not to be passed up.

  ‘Mr. Knight!’ A.E. shouted to the occupant of one boat. ‘Isn’t it about time you attended to my lawns?’

  The other man laughed. ‘I’ll need diving gear, Mister.’

  His employer made a scowl. ‘You’ll not be mollycoddled by me, sir!’

  And the two boats passed with much good-humor.

  Sunday: 4

  From the crest of the bridge, Naia contemplated the great lake that covered Withy Meadows to her left, swallowed the river before her, and reached all across the Coneygeare to her right. There was no question of attempting a foray into the Meadows, where the water was so high in parts that the benches were reduced to strips of floating wood, while shorter and younger trees lacked trunks. She was tempted to wade the Coneygeare, however, and started back down the slope she had just climbed – but paused before she reached the water that concealed the foot of the bridge, projecting ahead to a possibility that seemed to her little short of certainty. When she stood still, or strolled on open ground, Naia looked rather elegant, with her broad shoulders, impressive height, long auburn hair. Young men admired her – until they saw her in a hurry, especially running, when her arms refused to stay anywhere near her sides and her legs became poorly jointed stilts. Wading across such an expanse of water as the Coneygeare’s suddenly seeme
d too much of a risk. Even at a measured pace, she would inevitably miss her footing at some stage, plunge face first, or backwards with flailing arms, to splutter to her feet, hair in eyes, clothes clinging, dignity blown. So, from the bottom of the bridge, she turned homeward, unaware that her elbows instantly rose like wings and remained suspended as she stalked toward the house like a novice ballerina unused to points.

  But reaching Withern’s gate she found herself reluctant to go indoors so soon, and passed it, to turn left a few yards on and head for the old cemetery behind the house. Being slightly raised, the cemetery was less affected by the flooding than many other parcels of land thereabouts. All graves that were not further elevated were under water, but every stone and monument stood clear save for a few inches at the foot. Naia took some pictures, but when her lens turned to the wall that described the eastern boundary of Withern Rise, she put her camera away. Here, under this weathered old wall, was the grave she spent a lot of time trying not to think about. Much of the headstone was concealed by ivy, and tall weeds had grown around it since her last visit a couple of months ago. Ashamed of herself for neglecting it, she went over and pulled the ivy away; tore the weeds from the water, cast them aside with anger. How dare they grow here? But as she worked to clear the area, anger was displaced by a very different emotion, and when she straightened, her eyes, like the grave, were flooded. Then the tears were spurting, shoulders shaking, as she gave in, as she rarely did outside of her room, to the misery of her situation, the horrible injustice of it all.