But, look, would you be feeling like this if he was, say, away on his gap year? he asks me.
For a second or two, I'm confused. I see a strong tanned boy in a T-shirt picking grapes. Or standing by a truck in the middle of a desert somewhere. He looks happy. He doesn't look like my son.
No, I say.
Well, then.
He goes back to his book.
He goes back to his book. But the other day, when I was doing the same thing - picking away at the keenest, rawest part of the wound much too late at night and after one too many glasses of wine - I accused him of not caring enough.
I didn't put it exactly like that. But after I'd described to him as meticulously as I could some aspect or other of the pure, lurching grief I'd been experiencing, I turned to him and said: But I don't think you feel it like that at all, do you?
And he was silent for a quick moment. And then he told me how when he went alone to Lord's the other day to watch the Test match, he could hardly bear to look at all the other fathers coming in with their seventeen- or eighteen-year-old sons. He felt so jealous and lonely and sad that it almost broke his heart.
It took every ounce of strength I had not to burst into tears right there in the pavilion, he said.
I reached for his hand and held it tight.
* * *
Driving us back from somewhere late at night, driving along quite a fast road, not a motorway, but driving quite fast because there's hardly any traffic, the boy's father notices I keep on bracing my foot against the floor and am having to concentrate on not putting my hand out to touch the dashboard.
What is it? he says glancing sideways as I grasp the door handle. What's the matter with you?
Nothing's the matter, I'm OK. Could you drive a tiny bit slower, please?
I'm not even doing 60.
I know. It's just -
He flicks another look at me. Tries to smile.
Come on, he says. Relax. I mean it. You've got to stop this. We're not going to crash. What is it exactly that you're worried about?
What is it? What am I worried about? Where is it coming from, this feeling of being so exposed to - harm?
The air is dark. Thick. Everything moving backwards so fast. Everything moving past us. The road swallowed up before I can register it.
I just feel I'd rather be in the back, I tell him, but even as I say it I'm half laughing, because I know how ludicrous it sounds.
In the back?
Yeah. It just feels kind of safer. It's like I want to have something between me and the point of impact.
He laughs too and then he stops.
Impact? What sort of impact exactly are you expecting?
I have no answer to that.
I finally get myself to a Families Anonymous meeting. I don't ever manage to find one for myself Instead I end up going to the same one that the boy's father has been going to all these months, except that he's decided to take a break for now.
Wednesday evening, seven o'clock, birds singing outside. An easy drive, but I park the car reluctantly. I don't want to go. I'm only going because I just can't find a reason not to go any longer.
We sit around a table, not that many of us, just seven or eight, men and women, the warmth palpable. I'm the youngest there, the most obviously nervous, the newest. The one finding it hardest to reach out. Which surprises me, because I always thought of myself as someone who could do just that. But then I used to think of myself as lots of things.
We go around the table introducing ourselves.
When it's my turn, I tell them the barest facts. Our boy's age. His choice of drug. That he's not living with us any more.
Silence.
So I hear myself telling them that he got a girl pregnant. That he stole from us. That he gave his younger siblings skunk. That he hit me. (Always a gasp when I admit this to anyone.) I tell them that I'm not sure where he is right now but I hope he's OK. That I love him deeply. Deeply.
It's just, I say, my voice wobbling, it's just that I miss him so much.
When I feel the tears start to come, I stop. Bite my lip till it hurts. Wait for the next person to speak.
But it doesn't work. These people are unembarrassed. They're used to listening - making space for people to talk, however long it takes. And the silence goes on long enough to make a tear slip down my cheek.
Mary Sanders-Hewett has blonde bobbed hair, a red car and a yellow handbag. This is how she said I would recognise her in Kettering Station car park. And she drives fast. Not dangerously fast, and not fast enough that any normal person would notice, but it takes all my energy not to put my hand out to grip the dashboard.
I took the train here. I haven't driven anywhere out of London in months.
And it's a warm, windy day and in the car, one hand all the same discreetly holding on to the edge of my seat, I keep on sneaking glances at her pretty face with its straight, slender nose and fine, fair features.
Here I am, sitting in a fast car next to the very last Tyssen. Your mother's family. Energetic, creative, distinguished - and fast.
Mary pulls in on a slope next to their wisteria-covered cottage and jerks on the handbrake and we climb out, squinting in the sunshine. Then into the cool, flower-scented darkness of the hall, where two large collies hurl themselves at our legs.
There there, down, down, calm down, both of you!
Mary hushes but they keep on going. She explains which is the older one and which the younger and which one came first. I make a fuss of both. They don't exactly calm down. I follow them all through into the long, low sitting room carpets and cushions and an even headier flower-petal smell.
On a low polished table, two red-bound volumes are waiting. My eyes go straight to them.
Here you go, says Mary. And she hands them to me then perches at the front of an armchair to my left, holding one of the dogs against her legs and patting it.
I open what I quickly realise is the original manuscript of Florence Suckling's book. A manuscript containing all the visual elements - photographs and even little paintings - that were omitted from the published version.
Is it what you were hoping for? asks Mary with a smile.
It's - oh it's incredible, is all I can say.
Some of the pictures I recognise as being simply photographs of the original drawings in Tony Yelloly's box. Others are of objects I'm looking at for the first time. A great deal of jewellery, minutely captioned. And objects from your home. A photograph of a china christening bowl, for instance - chipped and with a large crack in it. Last used to baptise Constance Suckling, notes the caption. I know that Constance was another of your sister Anna's daughters. Another of your nieces, had you lived.
There's so much in here, I tell Mary. Even without looking through properly, I can tell there's so much in here.
I read through some of the text. Part of it very familiar exactly the words I've already read in Florence's book. Other parts absolutely fresh.
She must have edited it for publication, I tell Mary. Cut stuff out.
So there's stuff in there you haven't read?
Lots! My God, I'm going to have to read the whole thing.
And she smiles.
Her two dogs are nudging at my legs as I struggle to ask her: I don't suppose - I mean, is there any chance you'd let me borrow these for a week or two? If I brought them straight back afterwards?
She takes a breath and looks uncomfortable.
Oh dear. It's just - well, they're so very precious to me. I look at them all the time. They're irreplaceable.
A thud of disappointment as I tell her I quite understand, of course I do. I quite understand, I tell her again. It's a big thing to ask and I'm sure I'd feel exactly the same If they were mine - please don't worry.
Oh dear, Mary says again, I'm so sorry.
I ask her whether in that case it would be OK for me to come back some other time and perhaps spend a morning alone with the books, making notes. I'd probably only need
an hour or so.
She beams.
Of course, I don't have any problem with that!
She tells me she's about to go away on holiday. I tell her not to worry as I'm off to Yale next week to see some other Yelloly sketchbooks. I tell her about them and she looks interested.
You're going specially?
I have to really, don't I? Anyway, the kids are pleased. We're taking our two youngest for a half-term treat.
We make a date for me to come back in three weeks' time.
Before I leave, she shows me the portrait of your grandfather Samuel Tyssen on the landing - a grand and portly gentleman in a blue silk waistcoat and powdered wig.
This is the one your daughter doesn't like?
She laughs.
It's the eyes. Just look at him. You can see what she means, can't you?
I haven't spoken to our boy in almost a month but he still has his phone - his phone which we are continuing to pay for at the moment on the basis that he promises to answer it if we call him. His father doesn't think we should call him.
You're not doing him any favours. Let him come to us. He really has to get to a place where he realises how much he needs us.
Missing him badly, I call him.
Yes?
There's a lot of noise in the background.
Hi, darling. How are you? Are you OK?
Sorry, but this is not a good time.
He hangs up. I redial and get his voicemail.
Next day he calls me. Just the sound of his voice makes me go still inside.
Look, Mum, what you've got to understand is it's fucking difficult to talk to you when there are a couple of idiots hanging around me just waiting to steal my phone, OK?
Sorry, I say, I didn't realise. How are you?
(A little pause.)
I'm OK.
Are you still at Granny's?
Sometimes.
Are you going to school?
(Another pause.)
Mostly. Yeah. (His voice is softening by the second.)
And - well, how are things?
OK.
And - do you want to know how Kitty is?
(A little sigh.)
How's Kitty?
She's fine. She's OK. To be honest, I think she's missing you a bit.
Yeah, well.
Well, would you like to come over and have a meal sometime, see Kitty?
No thanks, I don't think so.
Then how about we meet up and I buy you a coffee or a meal?
He hesitates again.
We could go to Tootsie's. (He used to love Tootsie's. The vegetarian burger with extra goat's cheese and barbecue sauce on the fries.)
It's not a good time right now, Mum. Maybe some other time, OK?
And he hangs up, and I don't know whether I feel better or worse for having spoken to him. I don't tell his father I called him.
The day I drove to Croydon to buy his kitten was 30 January 1995, the day before his sixth birthday. He had wanted a kitten for ages but we begged him not to get his hopes up because it was the wrong time of year. Kittens are difficult to find in January.
But after hours spent with the Yellow Pages, I finally tracked down a pet shop in Croydon that had a litter.
Mainly black, one or two black-and-white, said the man. And there's one that's got white paws and bib and a white tummy.
Is it a girl?
Yeah. That one's female.
I asked him if he could possibly hold on to her till I got there. I got in the car and hurried to Croydon.
I still remember the precise texture of that January day. The bright cold sunshine, the horrible old white Citroen we had back then, Michelle Shocked and k.d. lang on the stereo.
The pet shop was on the grey main road, between a party shop and a kebab shop. The kittens - six or seven of them were all squashed together in one big cage. The one I'd reserved happened to be the liveliest. She was the one who was playing the most, rolling over and over and smacking the one next to her. I knew from the books that this was a good sign. The man picked her up and put her in my hands and she mewed at me but didn't struggle.
I'll take her, I said.
All the way back to Clapham, she mewed and mewed. Every time we stopped at a traffic light, I poked my fingers in the box and tried to talk to her, but nothing would console her. But, once we got her in the spare room where we were hiding her for the night, she relaxed, had a drink and started washing.
That's good, said the boy's father, who knew about cats. That means she feels at home. Oh look at her - he's going to be over the moon, isn't he?
Over the moon didn't begin to describe it.
All that evening, the last evening ever of being only five, the boy had a frozen, terrified look on his face. A kind of fearful joy. I knew what he was feeling. I knew that he suspected that he might just be getting a kitten, but was afraid to let himself hope even for one tiny second. We'd told him not to get his hopes up. And back then, he was such a good boy, he always did as he was told. The effort of not hoping was almost unbearable.
In the morning we put the kitten in a cardboard box with a bright yellow ribbon tied around it. And when he opened it and saw her small black face looking up at him, he couldn't speak at all for a few moments.
And he couldn't decide whether to call her Hoover, or Fluffy, or Scrap. Because he had a shortlist of about ten names. But in the end he plumped for Kitty because he thought it suited her best.
But she began her life as Hoover and, though I thought that only lasted a day or two, may be it was longer. Because when, a few months after our boy has finally left us, I happen to be going through Clapham and stop at a vet's on Lavender Hill a vet we haven't been to in years and years - to buy some worming tablets for our dog, the assistant asks me if we're on their records.
Only from years ago, I tell her. We've moved house since.
She frowns and scrolls down on the computer.
1995? Would that be it? A cat called Hoover? First injections?
Goodness, yes, I say. That was a very long time ago.
And I pay for the tablets and leave the surgery and walk out into the sunshine. And as I walk, a long-ago memory of a small boy struggling along the pavement with the basket containing his kitten - determined to manage it because no one else is allowed to carry her - comes into my head. I make myself think about something else.
SPIRITS
My fingers curled,
round an open bottle of
thought. Sat here
I still choke
on the liar's retort:
'I sip mine to keep
my spirits high.'
8
GRAND CENTRAL STATION, New York. A hot, damp summer's morning. People rushing, coffees and papers in their hands. I queue up and buy a return to New Haven in Connecticut.
On the commuter train, a large red-faced man in a string vest rolls around, taking up at least two seats, sighing, snoring, muttering. Now and then someone moves to get away from him.
As we pass through Hartford with its rows of pretty clapboard houses, more and more people get of fat each stop. The day gets hotter. I wonder if String Vest is going as far as New Haven. Might I even be left alone with him? But two stops later, he wakes and leaves the train, wobbling down the steps and sitting straight down on the platform with his head between his knees. We rattle off again. Relief
Outside the cosmopolitan comfort of Manhattan, America turns back into America: a raw, tired place, dusty and poor and fractious. At New Haven Station, I need the 100 but, as I hesitate at the entrance to the women's toilets, a young black woman with teary eyes grabs at my clothes and tries to follow me in, demanding $2.
Please leave me alone.
Just give me the $2!
I turn and walk quickly away and back into the station and she spits, calling me a cunt. The last person to call me that was my son. She's still standing there, cursing and crying, as I get in a cab to go to Yale.
; The Yale Center for British Art is on a very long, tree-lined street, dotted with depressing and pointless shops selling expensive things that no one needs. Perfumed candles to make your eyes water. Bath bombs. Marbled paper. Flower-patterned garden forks and trowels for people who will never touch soil. On the other side of the street, men in vests slump in the park, drinking and dozing on the dying yellow grass.
I reach the building which houses the Paul Mellon Collection and check in and head straight for the uiber-smart stainless-steel loos. Washing my hands, my face in the mirror looks exactly as I feel: incredulous. It just seems so impossible that this cool, blond building in the middle of America could contain anything of Woodton - anything that you or your family ever touched.
But it does. I sit at a table in the hushed, air-conditioned library and a pale and humourless young man with a face as transparent as his glasses carries them over just as carefully as if they were someone else's babies - a small pile of your sketchbooks.
For a moment, blinking at me, he almost seems unwilling to hand them over, and I want to laugh and ask him to explain his claim on them. Has he scrambled over the church wall at Woodton with your great-great-great-niece? Does he have your mother's crocheted purse at home in his study? Has he stood on the rooftops at Narborough and seen the whole of Norfolk spread out before him?
He shows me how to handle the books and gives me a special purpose-made rest, demonstrating how to lay them on it so as not to crack the spines. For a moment I think he's also going to ask to see if my hands are clean. I think of Tony and Bryony's dining table strewn with history, as well as crumbs and peas and glasses of apple juice.
As I open the first sketchbook - and am plunged straight back to the mauve and brown skies of Woodton, the familiar dark sweep of the Norfolk land - the librarian's still standing there.
Do you know how the books ended up at Yale? I ask, hoping he'll go away if I take the lead.
He licks his lips. I'm sorry. I have no knowledge of that.
Well, I say, I'd love to know.
He looks at me doubtfully. Then he gives me some slips of paper to mark the pages, telling me I can make a note of any pages I might like to have photographed and then I can place an order. Then he installs himself behind the nearby counter and, hands folded, watches me like an exam invigilator.
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