The Memory of Lost Senses

by Judith Kinghorn

  Cora sat alone, staring out toward the tops of pine trees. Had she needed a prompt, a visual reminder, they would have served her well, for she had stared at that very same image—a blur of darkest green against brilliant blue—many times before. But at that moment she saw no wooded hillside and no English sky; she saw only the blush of ancient stone, the sunlit ruins of a distant place. She saw the velvet contours of seven hills, a hundred steeples and domes and, beyond them, the windswept meadows where the land met the sky in an azure haze. And with this image came the remembrance of the weightlessness of youth, when her world had been a small empire of infinite possibility.

  “Such plans, such dreams,” she whispered, “such promises.” Had it really only been a season? Yes, between autumn and spring. He had swept into her life without warning, turning winter into summer and her world upside down. But hadn’t she known, even before she met him, even before she set eyes on him? Wasn’t there something in the name, she thought, trying to remember that very first time she had heard it, which sounded . . . familiar, anticipated? She could hear her aunt say it, picture her standing in the hallway of their apartment in Rome. That was the beginning, she thought; that was when I came alive, truly came alive, when I heard that name for the first time.

  Knowing he was in Rome for only the season made every minute of every hour of every day count. “It’s why and how I began to live . . .” She smiled as she recalled her boldness on that first solo visit to his studio, and she could see the place once more: the violets she took him, standing in the dirty jam jar; the canvases stacked up against the walls; the kettle on the open fire; the paper-strewn floor; and him, standing in his chalk-smeared, crumpled velvet jacket, holding up a teapot. “China or Darjeeling?”

  “China or Darjeeling,” she said to herself, half laughing.

  But her memory, as it was wont to do now, moved on at random to a later date, and with an intake of breath she closed her eyes . . .

  “We’ll come back each year,” he said, lying back, folding his arms behind his head. “Yes, we’ll return here each winter.” He glanced at her. “What do you say?”

  “I say, yes!”

  She threw herself down next to him. The remnants of their lunch—grapes and peaches, cheese and bread—lay scattered about them, the bottle of wine and two almost empty glasses on the table next to him.

  “Of course, once we’re married I’m going to have to sell heaps of bloody pictures to support you and our horde of badly behaved children.”

  “And how do you know they’ll be badly behaved?” she asked.

  “Because I do . . . because they’ll be just like you,” he said, turning to face her.

  She lifted her hand to his brow. “We’ll be happy,” she said, tracing a dark curl with her finger, “so happy.”

  “We will, and we’ll live in total squalor.”

  “Squalor?”

  “Chaos . . . Total and blissful chaos.”

  “But where will we live, George?”

  “I’ve already told you, everywhere. We shall live everywhere! All over the place and wherever we like. We’ll live like gypsies . . . but we may need more than one caravan. We’ll come here each winter, divide our time between Rome and Florence, head to Paris in the spring, and the south of France perhaps in autumn.”

  “But not England?”

  He stared at her and smiled. “No, not England. Who needs England?” he asked, pulling her to him . . .

  She opened her eyes, glanced down at her hands, her wedding band—immovable now. “I was the gypsy,” she said out loud.

  There was a muted rhythm to the evening. The air was soft and still. But it had been a long and arduous day: too long, and much too hot. And it had been a relief to get back to the solitude and peacefulness of her garden, the place that was now her home. Stiffly upholstered in navy, faded with age and wear, she felt heavy and weary. Not simply from that day’s journey, but from a lifetime’s journeys, and the journey of a lifetime.

  A seasoned traveler, undaunted by timetables, foreign languages and customs, she had spent decades crisscrossing Europe by land, by river and by sea. But there would be no return to Rome, not even for the winter, and there could be no more trips to Paris. She would never again stroll through the gardens of what had once been the Tuileries Palace, or catch a steamer and sail the Rhône to Avignon, or from Marseilles to Civitavecchia and, later, stand on the deck of another, heading upriver to the Ripetta. Her wings had finally been clipped.

  But there were other things sapping her once renowned energy. Things she could not speak of, which thrashed on the periphery of her thoughts and lay heavy on her conscience. If she could only exhale, fully exhale, she thought, she might be able to release the burden, feel lighter. Breathe, her aunt had told her, breathe, as though it was the easiest thing in the world to do. But it had never been easy. And now, this holding-in was almost too much.

  She moved her hand, feeling for the paper in her pocket: yes, it was there, still there. She had not dreamed it. She would look at it again later, in private; decide then what to do. She must not panic, must not imagine the worst. After all, it had happened before. Been dealt with before. This time would be no different . . . though there was, of course, Jack to think of now.

  She had thought of telling Sylvia, and had come close to it on the train earlier that day. Sylvia’s instincts had always been so very acute. She knew when something was amiss. But it would be wrong, selfish, to burden poor Sylvia, who would undoubtedly panic and imagine the very worst scenario. And yet, when Sylvia had taken hold of her hand and said, “Something is troubling you, Cora, I can tell,” she had longed to tell her: to tell her everything, all of it, from beginning to end.

  But the train’s movement, a gentle rock and forward motion, that familiar sensation of transit, and a landscape, albeit foreign to her, gliding swiftly past had soothed her. The upper windows of the drawing room carriage had been pulled open, and she had closed her eyes, savoring the caress of warm air upon her skin, searching for that familiar bouquet of cedar, cypress and pine. And fleetingly, for a second or two, she caught it, the memory of it, heady, intoxicating, life affirming; then it had gone. Gone forever, perhaps. And the tightness about her chest—the restriction, lack of breath, the weight—returned, and with it a sense of sorrow.

  When she caught her reflection in the carriage window she had been surprised once more by the aged face staring back at her; the inclination of what had once been upturned to now be downturned; the eyes, once sparkling and wide, now small; unreadable, even to her. Oh, that she could turn back time, that she wasn’t in England, surrounded by English people and their need to know; their voracious hunger for information. And for what reason? To know where and how she fitted in? People had stared, people had smiled; yes, they always did. They bowed their heads as she passed by, and then bowed them again each time she caught their eye.

  Early on in life she had become aware of this dichotomy: how easily the succor of attention turned to the discomfort of scrutiny. Now she thought, how queerly people stare. Was it age? she wondered. Or was it that they perceived something different, not English, something foreign to their sensibilities and tastes perhaps? Or was it something in her expression? Impossible surely. No one knew: no one living.

  She was pondering all of this when Jack appeared, looking hot and exhausted in his cricket whites. And the shape of him, his gait, and those familiar dark features pulled her back and made her smile. He bent down, kissed her cheek, and then fell into the chair next to her with a sigh. He told her about the match, inquired after her day.

  She said, “And did you see your friends?”

  He stared out over the manicured lawn in front of them. Yes, he told her, he had seen his friends.

  He was distracted, she could tell. And she knew it was not the cricket.

  “If there’s someone you’d like to invite here . .
. to tea, or to dine with us . . .” she ventured.

  He turned to her. “Someone?”

  “Someone in particular . . . a girl, perhaps.”

  “There’s no girl.”

  “I was thinking of Sonia Brownlow, or perhaps Cecily.”

  He tried to laugh. Repeated Sonia’s name and rolled his eyes.

  “Or Cecily?” she said again.

  He stood up, pushed his hands into his pockets and swiveled round on his feet.

  “This is your home now. It’s our home. I want you to know you can invite your friends here,” she said, reaching out to him, placing her hand on his bare forearm.

  He looked down at the ground. “Her name’s Cecily Chadwick . . . she’s our neighbor. But I don’t suppose we’ve much in common, not really.”

  “I’d rather like to meet her.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not sure when I’ll see her again.”

  Cora laughed. “She’s our neighbor, you said. I’m quite sure it’s not beyond you to walk a few hundred yards and invite her here. You can tell her that I’d like to meet her.”

  He pulled away. “I can’t say that! It sounds perfectly dreadful, as though we’ve discussed her, which we have now, but . . .”

  “Jack, you simply say that your grandmother is keen to meet her new neighbors. That’s all. I’m sure she’s not a mind reader, not yet.”

  He looked down at her. “What do you mean by that?”

  She smiled. “I simply mean that I’m quite certain she isn’t able to read your thoughts.”

  “Can you?” he asked.

  “Perhaps . . . but that’s because you, your heart, are so very precious to me. You’re all I have.”

  “I should go inside, clean myself up,” he said, moving away from her.

  She smiled as she listened to his footsteps fade, lifted her glass to her lips. The liquid, like the air, was syrupy and warm. She thought about Jack and the girl from next door, tried to picture them together, and wondered what they had spoken of. She wondered how her grandson appeared to a young, innocent village girl. Handsome surely. Burdened? Damaged? She closed her eyes. No. He was neither burdened nor damaged, she told herself, firmly, silently. Poised on the brink of magnificent manhood, Jack was her legacy to the world, the embodiment of everything good in her life, its sum total, distilled to one. And she lifted her face to the sun once more.

  But it was in such moments she was catapulted back. For there was no forward, her life lay behind her. Anamnesis: when the journey ended, this was all one was left with, memories. Of foolishness, pride, rapture, pain, sorrow, and regret. Sweet and bitter and bittersweet, they floated about the ether like thistledown in the wind, difficult to catch hold of and, once caught, never quite as lovely.

  It was impossible for her to remember what she had said to whom and when. Had she ever told Sylvia the truth? She could not recall what, exactly, she had told her all those years ago in Rome, though she knew she had told her something—something of the truth. That’s what had whetted Sylvia’s appetite, surely, that glimpse, the glimpse of a story. Oh yes.

  The problem, she realized, one of the problems, stemmed from the fact that history had been overwritten, and not just once, and not just by herself. Now, it seemed increasingly hard to unravel the facts, the truth of events and circumstances. Could history change its shape with time? Had her subconscious mind intervened and run rampant, editing and rewriting her own story? Memories did indeed change shape with time, she knew and understood this. The conscious mind followed instruction, could be controlled. By reason and logic, and survival? Yes, survival. It could even override the heart, sometimes, for a while. But the heart was infinitely powerful. It could be ignored—to an extent; it could be restrained, repressed, but it could never be controlled. One could never control one’s heart.

  But now there were gaps and missing links, for seasons and, sometimes, entire years had been erased, people discarded, abandoned along the way, left standing at a dusty crossroads without so much as an adieu. Distant recollections were worn-out flimsy things that only occasionally had resonance, the ring of truth about them. And that once sharp mind, the very foundation on which her life had been built, had slowly come to let her down.

  Old age. It was frustrating and yet queerly liberating at the same time. Made frustrating by the obvious and anticipated limitations, both physical and mental, and made liberating by those very same things as well: not being able to remember, not being expected to know or get things right. What does it matter, she thought, if I make a mistake? No one will know. Everyone is gone.

  She heard a door close behind her.

  “Good gracious,” Sylvia began, sitting down with her notebook and pencil. “I do believe the air is hotter now than it was this afternoon.”

  Cora said nothing. She smiled as she watched Sylvia open her notebook, flick a few pages, scanning the penciled scrawl: so childlike.

  And why would she not be? Nothing had occurred to induce her to leave that state, to make her grow up. Sylvia’s entire life had been an uninterrupted, solitary affair, without claim to either requited or unrequited love. No lovers, no children, no husbands, Cora thought, continuing to watch her. Had her lips ever once been kissed? No. She would die a virgin. And yet, she had known passion, of a sort, for had she not spent a lifetime imagining it, picturing it, writing it? But dear Sylvia’s novels were so very naive, so clichéd, and they were all the same. Sylvia had admitted as much herself. “It’s my formula,” she had said only the previous day, looking quite put out.

  In truth, Sylvia had assumed Cora too busy to notice the coincidences, the synchronicity. But Cora had always known, always been aware that she had been the source of inspiration; that it was her experience, her unique perspective, that had expanded Sylvia’s understanding of the universe, and of men. And Sylvia was not the only artist whose vision had been inspired, for the soft contours of Cora’s once youthful shape were frozen in tinted marble, the symmetry of her young face captured in oils.

  “You know, it astounds me how you find so much to write about,” Cora said now.

  “Words, dear, just words.”

  “Words,” Cora repeated, fiddling with the locket about her neck. “And how many of those, I wonder, have been spoken and written only to be rued. We have too many words now, too many words for too many things. And new ones being invented all the time.”

  “But that’s the beauty of language, dear. Man’s need for expression is, I think, the most powerful urge of all, the need to say who we are, how we feel, what we think, hmm?”

  “And perhaps also to shock, to inspire reaction”—she shrugged—“instill fear?”

  Sylvia appeared pensive for a moment. “Yes, they can be powerful tools.”

  “Indeed. And illuminating. One can, if one is so inclined, identify one’s friends and one’s enemies simply by examining their choice of words. Even one word, a name . . .” Cora said, staring at her.

  Sylvia nodded but made no reply. And Cora watched her as she peered through her spectacles at a particular page, then lifted her pencil to her mouth.

  “You really oughtn’t do that, you know. I read somewhere recently that lead is not good for one to ingest.”

  Sylvia glanced up at her. “Oh?”

  “Poisonous, I presume.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, but don’t look so worried. I hardly think one can take one’s own life in the lick of a pencil.”

  “Unlike arsenic,” Sylvia said.

  “Or carbolic acid . . .”

  They stared at each other.

  “I meant to ask you, does he know? Have you ever told him how?”

  “Of course he knows,” Cora replied sharply. “It was in the wretched newspapers, though I did my best to stop it. I imagine everyone knows, or knew at the time. But I’ve never discussed it wi
th him, and neither do I intend to.” She paused for a moment, exhaled loudly, and then added, “Hopefully he does not allow himself to dwell on it. Any of it.”

  “Well, yes, and he seems so . . .”

  “Fine?” Cora suggested.

  Sylvia tapped her pencil on her lip, then nodded. “Yes, fine.”

  “Well, I rather think he is. He’s not like her, you know? Good gracious no, nothing like her. He’s like his father, and like . . .”

  “George?”

  Cora turned to her. “Like his grandfather,” she said.

  “You know, the timing of it has always struck me as a queer thing,” Sylvia began again.

  “The timing of it?”

  “Yes. The fact that it happened immediately after the government’s census . . . that she recorded herself and then, almost the very next day, was no more.”

  “They’re abominable things,” Cora said, raising a hand dismissively.

  Sylvia smiled. “But you’ve never had to do one, dear.”

  “No, and nor would I!”

  Sylvia shook her head. “It’s the law, I’m afraid. Everyone has to.”

  “The law is an ass.”

  “You know, you’d have had to give them your full name,” Sylvia went on. “Yes, and oh my, that would confound them!” she said, clapping her hands, and then intentionally mispronouncing Cora’s full name. “And ’ow you spellin’ that, ma’am?” she added, in a mock cockney accent, Cora presumed, and giggling.

  “I do not use Lawson, Sylvia, as you very well know. My name is quite long enough without it. And anyway, the name proved . . . problematic. I have no desire to raise my head above the parapet again.”

  “No . . . no, of course not,” Sylvia replied, gathering herself. “And you’re right, censuses are awful things and ask all manner of questions: what one’s occupation is, how many children one has given birth to. Oh, it goes on and on. And for the life of me I do wonder why. Wonder who all this information is for.”

  “Statistics,” Cora said, with great emphasis. “Statistics and pigeonholing, placing us all into tidy identifiable groups. The modern world is becoming obsessed by statistics . . . utterly intrusive and condemnable, I think.”