What about it?
I twist the tissue in my fingers.
How much of it you've got. I mean, it's easy not to think about it when you have a lot of it. But once there's less -
She turns and fixes her grey eyes on me. Solemn grey eyes, full of questions, full of possibility. Eyes so like the eyes of my boy. She takes my other hand, the one without the tissue.
Your hands are so warm, she says. It feels like a miracle.
I smile. A miracle. A miracle of warmth, of life. She twists my wedding ring round the way my daughter would.
And yours are so cold, I tell her, but she doesn't seem to hear me.
She's thinking hard, listening for something. A voice in her head?
He'll come back, she says, I just know he will.
Oh Mary. No one knows anything, I tell her. I know you mean well and you're only saying that to be kind, but I'm afraid I've stopped listening when people say those things. You can't know. No one can.
She looks at me, suddenly fierce.
Ah, but it's not true - you forget. People do know things. The way you know about me.
I know about her.
It's true, I agree, I do. I know.
What do you know?
She looks right into my eyes and I look at her and then I have to look away.
Tell me what you know, she says.
And straight away I start to see what I didn't see before: how different the church looks. How the shadows have grown deeper and darker, how the floor is rougher, the pew we're sitting in much lighter and smaller, small leather prayer books on the shelf Lilies haunting the air.
I glance at the Yelloly plaques. And Of course, they're gone. No longer there. Not yet there.
She's still holding my hand and her own hand is warm now. I can feel the life beating through it, the hope.
Mary?
Yes?
What month is it?
She stares at me, puzzled.
You don't know what month it is?
Is it May?
She smiles.
Of course it's May.
May of what year?
She laughs as if I'm testing her.
1837!
You're twenty?
That's right. But in December I shall be twenty-one.
When I leave the church, the sun is low in the sky and an oldish man is mowing the grass between the graves on a sit-on mower. Leaving a wide wake of bright green behind him.
The air smells shrill and green too, of the beginning of life and the end of summer, the end of the day and the beginning of evening. The beginning, middle and end of this journey. The edge of the sky behind the church is bright orange. Shepherd's delight. A perfect evening. Tomorrow will be another lovely day.
As I walk back down the gravel, the man raises a hand and waves to me, and I lift my hand and wave back.
The years fold and pleat together. I don't know how they do that. Long stretches of time turn to nothing.
And even though you don't know it yet, one day you are buried in the dark, damp earth and another day I am born and then just three seconds after that I am eighteen, may be nineteen, walking through the streets of an Italian town wearing a bright tomato-red sundress, the sun on my back. I remember the sundress. What happens to the sundress? And I am crying and then laughing and then I am twenty-one, the same age you were when you died, except that I'm alive, so intent on being alive - and this is the last time in my life that I will ever remember being alone.
Because not so many years after this - a quick pleat of years, a stretch of time so elastic you can barely feel it - I will meet someone and, not long after this, we'll have a child and we'll bring him home from the hospital and, just as I always knew would happen, his father will run me a bath and I will climb into it so very gratefully while he takes our son into the bedroom.
Our boy. That's what we call him. From that very first moment, even though he has a name, that's what he is.
Our boy.
Is he OK? I'll call from the bathroom, even though I know the answer. Is the boy OK?
He's fine. The boy's just fine. You relax, take your time. Stay in the bath as long as you like.
And I will. I will take my time. I will never know quite how to relax, but certainly I will take my time.
It's hard to know about time, but still I will lie in that bath, just as you lie in the dark earth, and it will seem like no time at all has elapsed between the Italian street and this deep warm bath. No time at all between one moment and the next. And if that is true, if time can stretch and stretch, or else snap back in an instant, then surely death can't be anything very important?
I'll lie there m that warm bath for a long time on that February afternoon - I February 1989 - feeling so happy and so complete.
And when I get out, carefully because I'm still stitched and sore, and the bath water drains out into the frosty air, I'll pad into the bedroom wrapped in my towel, the TV on, cartoon-hero music playing, and I'll see them both there, asleep in the armchair in front of Mighty Mouse.
A long-haired, soft-faced boy in a woollen jumper, mouth open, fast asleep. And a warm-haired, tiny-fisted one lodged in the crook of his arm.
I thought I'd never see my boy asleep again. But I was wrong. He's started sleeping here just occasionally, turning up now and then and asking if it's OK If he puts himself in his old bed, stays the night.
Well, sometimes it's night but usually it's more like day. But we always say yes. Just for the moment, anyway. We're not quite sure whether it's the right thing to do - some would say yes, some would say no - but, because there really are no concrete answers, for now we're doing it. We're doing it because right now we can't really manage to do anything else.
And he's here now as I write this, asleep upstairs, arms and legs thrown out of the duvet, mouth open, poor old Kitty curled against his leg, satisfaction spilling out of her face.
I thought I would never see him asleep again, but I was wrong. I was wrong about a lot of things. may be the best we can hope for in this unknowable, unguessable life is that we might turn out to be wrong. That the things we dreaded might not happen, or not as badly anyway. That those we thought we'd set our hearts on might turn out not to matter very much.
I used to think that love was the solution to everything, but I was wrong about that too. It's just the most irresistible part of the problem.
Mary is gone. She lies under the church floor at Woodton, her bones dissolved to nothing, her brief, unknown life turned to dust, and the fact that I know this - and have discovered that I do, after all, care very much about it - makes no difference to anything.
It makes no difference that I found her, that I know where she is. It makes no difference that I wrote this book, or that you chose to read it. I never met her, and neither will you, we never will.
The conversation in All Saints Church never happened, just like so many things that will never happen, however much you might want them to. And nothing I do or think or feel can bring that young girl back to life, and it took a while for me to be able to put up with that idea, but I know it now and I think I can live with it. I've learned to live with so many other difficult things.
I'll tell you one thing that did happen, though, that has happened, that will happen.
* * *
We will conceive our first child on a hot, light evening in May - an evening very similar to the one just a year later when his crying makes me cry, an evening almost identical to the one seventeen years after that when he knocks me to the ground. An evening probably not so very different to the one when Mary lost the rest of her life.
But we don't know any of this yet. All we know is that the birds are calling outside and particles of dust are drifting in these bright, warm shafts of evening light and we think we might love each other and our bodies are about to collide and in a few moments, in this bed, you will turn to me and then, in one of the long moments that follow, he will begin to exist. Our boy.
But that hasn't
happened yet and right now this moment, so full of possibility, is all we have.
AFTERWORD
TWO MONTHS AFTER I finish writing this book, I pick my boy up in the pouring rain. I haven't seen him for weeks - he has no phone and he won't give me the address of his Peckham bedsit.
We go to a cafe, where he orders steak and fries and I order peppermint tea. I try not to snatch too many glances at his face. He looks OK, not as thin as last time and his hair has grown long and curly. He has his guitar wrapped in a bin bag to keep it dry.
I tell him how good it is to see him. He shrugs. I tell him I've got something to show him.
Remember that book - the one I started writing ages ago, about the girl who lived two hundred years ago?
Mary Yelloly?
I didn't think you'd remember the name. Well, I started finding out about her and it was just that her story was so unrelentingly sad. And all of this stuff with you - it was all happening at exactly the same time. And one day I suppose I just ground to a halt. I couldn't do it. And then I realised: I could only write truthfully about Mary if I wrote about what was going on with you as well.
He wipes a chip through ketchup and gives me a weary look.
So - what? My whole life story's in this fucking book?
It's not quite like that, I say, pulling out the manuscript. But please, I really do need you to read it, tell me what you feel about it. Don't worry, it's not so much about you - or at least it is - but it's more about me really. A mother's story. And I know you're not going to like everything in it. In fact there's quite a lot you might not like. But please, please try and remember that it's been written with nothing but love.
He sighs, eats another chip.
It's a book about how much I love you, I tell him again, though I realise you may not choose to see it quite like that.
He warns me that he won't be able to read it fast. (I'm pretty busy, you know, I've got a lot on.) But, just over twenty-four hours later, we're in another restaurant with the marked-up manuscript spread on the table between us.
It's so lovely to see you two days running, I tell him truthfully. I should write books about you more often.
He almost smiles.
Yeah, well, Mother dearest, you've been very clever with this so-called book.
But he goes on to tell me there are some things he objects to.
Really? Like what?
Well, for a start, this bit about selling my brother skunk. I never gave him skunk. Hash, yes. Big difference. And you say I encouraged him to get stoned on the way home from school, but that's not true. I was actually trying to stop him.
By giving him hash when he was only thirteen?
Yes! To prevent him having skunk!
Ah.
And another thing: when we're discussing the termination thing, you have me just sitting and fiddling with my Xbox as if I didn't give a fuck. And yet I remember sitting down in the sitting room with you and Dad and having a really serious conversation about it, both of you going on at me.
Really?
Definitely!
OK, I say. I'm sorry. I'll look at it. I can easily adjust it.
He turns the pages. He's marked up the bits he's unhappy with. So few bits. I'm amazed at how many pages have no marks on at all.
At one point, he shakes his head.
You and your short, snappy little sentences, he says. I know what you're doing, you know.
It's how I write.
Yeah, yeah. And then this bit, the bit where you and Dad throw me out for the last time and you have me saying I'll take a knife and stab you through the heart.
You don't remember saying that?
Fuck's sake! If I said it, I wouldn't have meant it!
I know that, I say slowly. It's not that I think you'd have done it. But you must admit it was a pretty aggressive thing to say.
He looks at me for a moment with his clear grey eyes, but he says nothing.
And then, when you say I finally dropped out of school, you very conveniently omit to mention that I'd already got myself on to the course at Goldsmith's.
I think about this.
That's true, I say, I'm sorry, I don't know why I didn't say that. And how is it, by the way? Are you still going?
He hesitates.
There've been some attendance issues, he says.
You haven't been going?
I'm going. But if I miss a single session now, they'll kick me out.
You'd be mad to give up on all that work, I tell him. Just stay and do the exam, for goodness' sake.
What d'you think I'm doing?!
He looks back down at the manuscript.
To be absolutely honest, he says carefully, I wasn't all that interested in the stuff about the Mary Yelloly person.
Well, that's understandable.
I'm not saying it's bad, necessarily. But may be you have to be pushing fifty and female.
Thanks a lot!
But the bit in the church, at the end. I did think that was pretty good.
You did? I feel myself flush with pleasure. You really liked that bit?
He nods, takes a forkful of pasta. Moments pass. I realise I don't want this dinner to end.
But if you want to know, he says softly and he doesn't look at me now. You're right: it was then.
What was then?
When I started smoking.
You mean-
You and Dad. All those evenings. I'd be in bed holding Kitty and just watching this little dot on the wall while I listened to you two arguing.
My heart jumps.
Was it so many evenings? (In my head those bad months have shrivelled to something small and dark and tight.)
The first time I ever smoked a joint alone - I felt so guilty.
oh, darling.
He swallows and I think, He's still here, the exact same boy. The shape of his mouth when he was five years old. What did we do to him?
I'm so very sorry, I tell him slowly. We had no idea. We were so wrapped up in our own problems. We were idiots.
Yeah. You were.
I love you so much. We both love you so much.
Yeah, well.
We walk along Walworth Road in the cool dusky evening. Me in my old coat and trainers. His tall shape towering over me. I tell him how very much it means to me, that he's read the book like this. So quickly. So carefully and kindly.
I was dreading giving it to you, I tell him. But you see, I had to write it. It was just the only thing I could possibly write.
I know that, he says quietly. I understand about writing.
Well, you're good, I tell him, to understand that.
He says nothing, lightly strums his guitar.
But I've been very merciful, you know, he says as we walk past Co-op Funerals, Argos and Super drug, litter blowing against our legs.
I know you have, I say, I know.
So don't you go thinking I approve of what you've done.
OK, I say, and I steal a glance at his face, which, despite his words, is warm, amused even. For a moment, I feel like the child.
When we turn into our road, he perches on a car bonnet and asks to play me a song he's written. It's rough, forlorn, full of passion. When he plays, his face changes and he turns into someone else, someone I don't really know.
I stand there listening to the song. People walk past. I don't know who they think we are or what they think we're doing. The sky has almost lost its light and I can smell cooking and exhaust. The boy who lives across the road - a boy who only a year or so ago was at school with him and is at university somewhere now - sticks his head out of the window, grinning.
Hey, man! I thought it was you! What you up to, then?
Just playin' a song to my mum.
Cool! You OK?
Yeah. You?
Yeah. Good to see you, man.
We walk on down the road towards our house. I ask If he'll come in for a bit. He says he won't.
But you could drive me t
o Brixton.
Where are you going?
The Academy. Gotta meet some people.
So I run into the house to grab my cardigan and car keys and, when his father hears that our boy is outside, he comes out to say hello.
The boy is sitting on the bonnet of our car, curly head bent, playing chords. He looks up slowly when his father approaches.
Hello, boy.
Huh.
How's things?
OK. (The smallest flicker of a smile.)
When we're almost at Brixton Academy, he tells me he's got another song he wants to play me.
One I wrote about you.
So I pull in on Brixton High Road and put on the flashers. Close my eyes as his music fills the car. I catch phrases: . . . waiting for your hand . . . as daylight breaks over my shy bones . . . I've made mistakes . . . lonely in the rain. Again, that unknown young man's face.
And my tears start to fall, but it doesn't matter because he's not looking at me, he's looking somewhere else - beyond, apart. The car rocks every time a heavy lorry shudders past. He's singing about me but he's gone somewhere else, somewhere I can't go.
When he's finished, he still doesn't look at me. I can't really speak. My heart hurting. Salt in my mouth.
It's so beautiful, I croak. Thank you.
He smiles to himself, a wobbly little smile.
I knew you'd cry, he says. And he opens the car door and, guitar under his arm, he's gone.
AN END
When you've finished painting me in red and black,
to suit your fiction, lies and facts,
and you've recognised the truth of me,
that over live or die I'll live in dreams.
My place of safety, liberty
is the only reason my heart still beats.
So when you're sick of war and you want me back, overlooked aspirations of all I lack,
my ship will still be sailing on,
off the edge of ambition and into the sun,
where you can race to find the man,
who always was, and still is, your son.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book owes a lot to so many people. Tony, Bryony and Julia Yelloly generously put their entire family archive quite literally in my hands. Every biographer dreams of stumbling upon a dusty old box that's lingered in an attic for a hundred years. That's what happened to me and I can't thank them enough.
The Lost Child Page 27