Meeting Lydia

by Linda MacDonald

“It’s three weeks away … We’ll be okay. You could visit your parents again – as you cut your holiday short.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She tried to gauge his tone. Did he want her to go, or did he want her to stay? Would he use her going to make her feel guilty at a future date? He was sitting with the newspaper folded on his knee and a pen in his hand. He had been doing the crossword, an excuse not to speak.

  “Do you want to go?”

  “Yeah … I think so …”

  “You don’t mind meeting up with those awful boys you never told me about?”

  She ignored the dig. “I think I’d like to meet them now.”

  “You wouldn’t embarrass yourself like you did on the Greenwich pier!”

  Marianne’s eyes flashed. “That was ‘embarrassing myself ’, was it? Is that what you thought? Your wife lost her trolley?”

  “I’m teasing. Don’t be so touchy.”

  She didn’t believe him. “Dylan approved.” She stopped short. Suddenly aware of what she had said.

  “Dylan, poor lad, was just a kid. You can hardly take his approval as justification.”

  “There you go again … defending her.”

  “Mari …”

  “She needed to be told … and so do the bullies of the world.”

  “Kids don’t know what they do. They don’t realise the pain they cause.”

  “’Scuse me, but they do. That’s the whole point. If they weren’t causing grief, they wouldn’t do it. They want to see their victims squirm. They soon get tired of baiting those who laugh it off.”

  “What I mean is that they don’t realise the full consequences. You can’t blame them now.”

  “No, I guess not, but I can make them feel just a little bit guilty.”

  “How will you do that?”

  “I have my ways.” She hadn’t yet, but she had three weeks to think of some.

  “They’ve probably forgotten anyway.”

  “How dare they forget! It’s time they were reminded!”

  “Oh Mari … What’s happened to the compassionate person that I married?”

  She walked away, eyes brimming. Did he really believe she’d lost her compassion?

  The long summer days can be so relaxing and carefree and beautiful when all is well, but in times of stress and without the distraction of work, they drag. Later, she sat in the garden under the apple tree and the afternoon turned to evening and the August air began to chill as the sky darkened. Still summer, but with a gentle warning that it was on the wane; that the long hot days would soon be gone and the balmy nights, just a pleasant memory. Still she sat, pulling her cardigan around her shoulders, unable to go inside and greet the reality of her life – her grieving daughter and a husband baffled by her moods and sudden apparent lack of care, for him and for the bullies of the world.

  Cottage garden flowers lined the borders in a mass of blues and creams and pinks. The hollyhocks, planted soon after they bought the house, were the backdrop to the rest. The celebrity gardeners would call it ‘loose planting’ or ‘blousy’, but it was just a matter of scattering seeds and watering and letting nature do the rest.

  “Your flowers are here,” Marianne had said every year when the hollyhocks began to stretch their vibrant fairy blossoms to the sky. “These are for you, Holly.” The plants had self-seeded and now there were hollyhocks everywhere, against the hedge on one side and the fence on the other; in the front garden too, often admired by passers-by despite their tendency to be blown obliquely by the wind.

  She hadn’t stopped caring for Johnny. He was and always would be the closest thing to the perfect man for her, and this tragedy had just reminded her of the fragility of life. It reminded her of the things that we don’t say to people that we probably should say before it’s too late.

  Joy has gone from this house. It went the day that woman was invited across the threshold. How can I bring it back? I’m lost in the bramble tangles and I don’t know how to get out.

  34

  Theobabble and Geobabble

  Dylan’s death plunged Marianne into a state of pessimistic gloom. She brooded on the end of life and what it may be like, and all her dreams seemed pointless. How many more autumns might she see? Would there be grandchildren before she returned to dust? What about the book that she was going to write? Oh it was all so awful! Only three and a bit more years and she would be fifty. Images of Auntie Gladys floated into her mind. Great-Auntie Gladys, grey-haired and wizened, shuffling along in her slippers to her rocking-chair where she spent the day knitting and sleeping, meals fetched on a tray.

  “Why does she walk so slow?” She heard herself asking her mother at the age of six.

  “Nobody ever says,” her mother had said. “A prolapse, perhaps.”

  “What’s a prolapse?”

  It was something that might happen after you were fifty along with all kinds of other unimaginably horrible things.

  To: Edward Harvey

  From: Marianne Hayward

  Date: 21st August 2002, 20.34

  Subject: Heaven

  Hi Edward,

  The past ten days have been ones of sad contemplation of the meaning of life and addressing my ever fluid beliefs. Things are very difficult here. Holly is in pieces.

  We don’t know what to say, so say nothing for fear it is the wrong thing. We creep around the house silently, frightened to be normal in case normality offends her.

  I want to tell her that there is a heaven and there is a God and that Dylan is in a better place; that there’s some great plan that makes sense of the nonsense. But I don’t know what I believe and it would feel fraudulent – like telling her about Santa when she was three …

  She says that if there was a heaven, then Dylan would have given her a sign. He hasn’t yet.

  It’s very comforting to think of meeting up again with those we’ve lost. But has mankind just manufactured the idea of an afterlife as a way of coping with the terrible thought of nothing? How can we all be together again as we are on Earth? We surely can’t. If there is an afterlife, it’s not going to be anything like our perception of it. How can we recognise another person’s soul? If we reunite again with loved-ones, what about those who have married again having lost their partner? Is there no jealousy in heaven? Are we naïve to believe in such a thing?

  Yet the idea of consciousness evaporating into nothing as the last breath is taken is equally unsatisfactory. I tell myself that a nothing after death can’t be any worse than the nothing from which we emerged, but what about all that acquired knowledge and wisdom? All that feeling and emotion cannot surely die. What a waste that would be.

  For a long time I was attracted to the idea of reincarnation and although it still seems logical, I am left with questions of where the souls started from in the first place and how they keep up with the population explosion. Perhaps there is a soul-factory in heaven!

  Perhaps one of the reasons for current World problems is the quantity of new souls that are in the system! Maybe with an ever-increasing quantity, we sacrifice quality! And maybe this is where God fits in. At some point in evolution, did God say, “okay World, you’re evolved enough for a few souls now.” Then the soul-machine was started and a few precious, floating amorphous shapes spewed forth, eventually to make their way into the bodies of man’s earliest ancestors. And that, of course, is assuming that other animals don’t have souls.

  At the moment the idea of living again does not appeal. I am very attached to my own life, but I’m used to being me. The thought of starting out again as someone else is very unappealing – exhausting even. We are all imperfect, but I know how to cope with my imperfections now. Imagine what it would be like to wake up one day with someone else’s parents and someone else’s dreams …

  Enough! I am rambling … A product of lack of sleep, stress and fears for the future that I don’t want to burden the rest of the family with. (The computer doesn’t like this sentence!)

  I am sorry I misse
d our meeting. I hope your lecture went well and that you had a good time in Cumbria. Did anyone tell you there’s going to be a Brocklebank reunion at the end of the month? Pity you’ll be away. I am probably going to go. (With some reservations and much trepidation!)

  Have a safe and successful trip to Scilly. Hope you find something wonderful!

  Best wishes,

  Marianne

  As soon as she had sent this email, she had immediate regrets. He would think she was unhinged; he would wonder why she was taking up his time with the speculative theorising of a student. She was a grown woman. She should have done with all that years ago.

  There was also the problem in that she had invited a discussion on one of the three taboo subjects. But theology is not the same as religion, she thought. And this is surely theology.

  To: Marianne Hayward

  From: Edward Harvey

  Date: 21st August 2002, 22.55

  Subject: Re: Heaven

  Dear Marianne,

  Holly will be okay in time. The young are very resilient. The content of your email suggests an extended reply, but birthday celebrations yesterday (mine!) mean lack of sleep and time, and am off to Scilly next week and family require much attention before I leave! Hope there’s no fog for the crossing! Need every available day!

  Will contemplate your interesting thoughts on the islands (where better place to think of heaven?!) and get back to you in due course.

  Perhaps the Burgess Shale holds the key?

  Enjoy the reunion!!

  Ted

  Burgess Shale, thought Marianne. Sounds familiar, but yet another deficiency in my education. Too much time spent listening to Radio 1 in my youth; too much time reading trash.

  “What is the Burgess Shale?” she asked Johnny after supper, flitting between the kitchen and the living room, tidying up, putting things away.

  He peered over The Times and took a deep breath. “It’s a small quarry in the Canadian Rockies. Why do you ask?”

  “Something Edward mentioned.” She hovered for a second before disappearing.

  “Still mailing him then.” It was more of a statement than a question and seemed not to require a response.

  “Tell me about the Burgess Shale.” She came back carrying two mugs of tea and a plate of rock buns and she didn’t look at Johnny while she set his mug down on the table beside him.

  “Some people believe it’s evidence for the leap from simple to complex organisms in a very short period of time called the Cambrian Explosion. It shows the sudden appearance of shelly invertebrates – and no transitional fossils, like you would expect. It’s as if they were planted – but of course they weren’t. Creationists say this unexplained gap disproves Darwin’s theory of evolution and gives evidence for Genesis: that God created this complex life very rapidly – perhaps in the Biblical one week period.”

  So that explains why Edward thought it might be relevant.

  “Do they have any ideas about how it happened?”

  “There are several theories. There was a lot of controversy about whether it’s just an artefact of preservation, or evolution at a very dramatic pace. Most people believe it’s real … I favour the idea of snowball Earth – that is Earth covered in ice. The evidence for this is glacial till all over the world … And then global warming occurring – but very suddenly. So we went from igloo to greenhouse in a relatively quick timescale. This could lead to rapid developmental change of the type shown by the Burgess Shale.”

  Marianne was unsure whether this would help her to understand Edward’s reference, but she listened attentively all the same. It had been a long time since she had heard Johnny talking about his subject and a little voice within whispered that this was something they used to do all the time, and that there was no reason why she couldn’t be having the same discussions with him as she was currently having with Edward.

  Johnny continued: “The ‘Intelligent Design’ theory might also be an explanation – although not one that I favour.”

  Marianne put her head on one side. “And that is?”

  “It’s a scientific way of looking at the God explanation. Darwin said chance mutations lead to evolution, but some say that’s a mathematical impossibility. Anyway … if any organism can’t be put together in step by step changes, then Darwin’s theory wobbles.”

  “I thought Darwin was accepted as fact?”

  “Some bloke discovered that the flagella of bacteria are each made of lots of interactive parts – and if any were missing, the whole thing wouldn’t work. So it must have been created as a whole. This would require a creator, i.e., God. But a creator from a scientific rather than a religious perspective.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Newspaper, mostly. There’s a lot of heated debate in the States about what should be taught in schools. I’m surprised you haven’t come across it.”

  Marianne detected the disapproval in his voice. Detected an ‘if you didn’t read so much rubbish, you’d be better informed.’

  Johnny continued: “What prompted Edward to mention the Burgess Shale?”

  Marianne noted the slight sarcasm as he spoke Edward’s name. “I was writing about heaven …”

  “A bit deep for email?”

  “Mine are – sometimes. He hasn’t much time to be deep back.”

  “Glad to hear it! Do you remember when we used to talk about deep things?”

  “I do.”

  “Why were you writing about heaven?”

  “Because of Dylan.”

  “You could’ve talked to me.” He sounded hurt.

  “It never seemed the right time.”

  There was a pause. Marianne looked away, conscious that the conversation was heading into difficult areas.

  “We could talk now.”

  “I don’t want to go through it all again.”

  “What’s happened to us?”

  “She happened.” Marianne said this quietly, but again, as soon as the words escaped, she wanted to suck them back like a vacuum cleaner. Her temperature rose suddenly and she panicked.

  Johnny responded equally quietly. “But she – as you put it – was just your overactive imagination playing tricks.”

  “You’re blaming me again.”

  “I’m not. You’re being irrational.”

  Green eyes flashed.

  “No … No … Not irrational … Oh Johnny, you just don’t get it, do you? It’s hard just now … Being hot … being so old.”

  “And you think it’s not hard for me too?” Johnny rose from his chair. “I’m going out for a walk … Need to clear my head … May go for a drink … Don’t wait up …”

  “But your tea …”

  He didn’t turn back and was gone before she had time to protest. She knew he was upset. Perhaps he needed time on his own. Even with Holly almost permanently holed up in her bedroom, the past two weeks had been claustrophobic; getting under each other’s feet; nowhere to go.

  For the next two hours Marianne sat in an almost catatonic trance, brooding and wondering how she kept making things worse when in her heart all she wanted was the opposite. Before she went to bed, she wrote one last email to Edward before he went away.

  To: Edward Harvey

  From: Marianne Hayward

  Date: 22nd August 2002, 23.17

  Subject: Re: Heaven

  Hi Edward,

  Johnny told me about the Burgess Shale, so I understand the reference!

  If you’re worried about fog, I guess you’re going by helicopter. We went on the boat – which is great if you don’t get sick!

  Happy belated birthday (a Leo!!) and all the best for a safe and productive trip.

  Marianne

  Johnny still wasn’t back from wherever he had gone. She clicked Send and sat back in her swivel chair. That was it. Soon Edward would be gone too and her cyberspace – even her world – would go colourless again.

  35

  Chaos

  It must ha
ve been about two in the morning when a noise downstairs woke Marianne. She had been dreaming again about Edward. This time he was giving a talk in a rambling lecture theatre, to a scattered audience who gazed at him with rapt attention. The seating was steeply banked and the lights were low; a PowerPoint presentation flashed on a large screen on the wall. Marianne sat towards the back and in the middle, next to a woman called Gloria Awaratife. They had worked together once, about five years earlier, but hadn’t seen each other since Gloria had moved to a job with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in charge of trialling specifications for the new vocational courses in Health and Social Care. Large, and flamboyant in dress, with a personality to match, a husband who worked in African war zones for BBC News, five daughters and a Jack Russell called Banjo, she was ever telling stories about one or other of her family and always full of warmth and support for the then much younger Marianne.

  “He only looks about twenty,” mouthed Gloria, grinning broadly, exposing what seemed to be more than the required number of teeth.

  He did look young. A bespectacled and slightly taller version of the boy of eleven at Brocklebank Hall; dark hair still short and groomed, and a brisk efficiency about his presentation style as he clicked a remote mouse and eloquently described the photograph of an archaeological site of crumbling walls with ancient stones scattered on the ground.

  “He’s the same age as me,” whispered Marianne, pondering in the dream that they would meet soon when the lecture was over, and that she would feel old and careworn by comparison.

  It was with this thought that she was brought to wakefulness by the noise. What was it? A door opening or closing? She squirmed under the duvet, stretching slightly, still with a comfortable feeling left over from the dream. Then sudden anxiety when she heard another noise; then calm as she realised Johnny was still not in bed and assumed it to be him, fumbling around downstairs after a late night in the pub. She began to drift into sleep again, but something kept pulling her back as the noises stopped and still there was no sign of Johnny.

  After about half an hour of semi-wakefulness, she got out of bed and grabbed her dressing-gown. It must be Johnny, but what is he doing? It was years and years since he had slept on the couch.