I Remember You

by Harriet Evans

  ‘Tess?’ said a voice right behind her. Tess screamed and jumped half out of her skin, clutching onto the gravestone for support. She turned around.

  ‘Adam?’ she said. A silhouetted figure, black against the bright sunlight, was standing behind her holding something. She screwed up her eyes. ‘Oh, my God,’ she said. ‘Adam! It’s really you, isn’t it? Oh my bloody God.’

  ‘Not very pious language for a churchyard, Tess,’ the figure said, walking towards her. ‘You’re by my mother’s grave. Do you mind not swearing like a navvy and using her headstone as an armrest?’

  It was Adam. He was wearing a long grey coat; he seemed to be taller. His face was weatherbeaten and tanned, laughter lines etched in white at the corners of his eyes. She stood up straight, laughing, and ran towards him.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ she cried again, hugging him hard. ‘You’re back!’

  He hugged her too, squeezing her tight. ‘It’s good to see you, T,’ he said, and the sound of his voice was overwhelming. She realized how much she’d missed him. ‘It’s bloody good to see you.’

  She drew back, smiling wide. ‘Adam Smith.’

  ‘You remembered too,’ he said, looking at her, and then at his mother’s grave. ‘Bless you. You remembered.’

  ‘Of course I did,’ she replied, hugging him tight once again. ‘Welcome back.’

  He was the same old Adam, yet he was different. More grown-up. Distant, perhaps. He was carrying some rosehip stems and holly, wrapped carefully with twine, and a battered flask of coffee.

  ‘They were the only things growing in the garden at Leda House,’ he said, after he’d laid them gingerly down on the grave and they had stood in silence, lost in their own thoughts, for another moment. ‘And she loved roses.’ They retreated to the low wall at the edge of the churchyard, and Adam poured out a cup of coffee, handing it to Tess, and taking a swig out of the flask himself. They both fell silent once more.

  Eventually, Tess said, ‘So. Where have you been?’

  He smiled. ‘I was in Morocco.’

  ‘That much I gathered,’ Tess said.

  ‘Sorry I wasn’t in touch,’ Adam said frankly. ‘I didn’t really know where I was going. I just knew I needed to…get away. It wasn’t till I was far away I realized how bad it had got. How—bad I felt.’

  ‘Really?’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘The whole thing. Leonora having her stroke. Having to face up to it all so suddenly. Us rowing. I’m sorry.’ Adam spoke softly, staring down at the ground, holding the flask between his legs. ‘Then—her dying. And all of that. Waiting for the damn body to come home.’ He breathed in as if it hurt, and closed his eyes, drawing himself up a little. ‘All at the same time. Man. The funeral—that funeral.’ His eyes lifted, to the Mortmain tombs by the side of the church, and the recently dug grave. ‘And—do you remember how hot it was? Those nights. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t damn well sleep. No matter what I did, no matter how much I tried to tire myself out.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Have you heard from her?’ he said quietly.

  ‘Francesca? We’ve spoken a couple of times. I had an email last week. She’s OK.’

  ‘Have you seen her? Is she—’

  ‘She’s OK,’ said Tess.

  He nodded, as though he understood. ‘I have to talk to her.’ Tess also nodded briefly. ‘I treated her so badly. That last night, before I left. We totally lost it with each other. Took everything out on each other.’ He closed his eyes again for a moment.

  ‘What happened?’ Tess said softly.

  He looked warily at her. ‘It was all very dramatic, but when I look back on it it was stupid. She hit me.’

  ‘Did she?’ Tess didn’t entirely blame her. ‘Hard?’

  ‘Pretty hard.’ He shook his head. ‘She gave me a few home truths. Then I threw your cake stand on the floor,’ he said. ‘I was furious. Sorry, darling. I know how much you loved it.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Tess said, the flicker of a smile crossing her lips. ‘She gave me a few home truths too. She was—’

  ‘—right,’ they both said, in unison.

  ‘You treated her badly,’ Tess said. It was a statement.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But not because I didn’t like her. And I’ve treated a lot of people badly.’ He took another swig of the coffee. ‘God, this is maudlin. Enough. T, tell me how you’ve been. What’s happened with Peter?’

  She stared at him in astonishment. ‘Adam, we’re in a graveyard, it’s your mother’s birthday, you’ve just got back from nearly four months away, we’re allowed to be maudlin. What on earth are you talking about?’

  Adam stared back at her, and then gave a shout of laughter. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Course I am,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know where you’ve been. Tell me.’

  ‘I went to Morocco.’

  ‘Yes, you told me that already,’ she said. ‘More, please.’

  ‘OK, OK.’ He held up his hands, and shuffled along the wall away from her a little, turning so he was facing her. He said, ‘Well, I didn’t really do anything much. I flew to Spain, got a boat over to North Africa, and then I travelled from town to village, hitch-hiking, you know. I stayed in the Atlas Mountains. In all sorts of different places.’ He stopped, and drew breath. ‘I didn’t know where I was going. It was—great. Sometimes I’d spend a night with a family in a tiny house, sometimes in some lovely mansion with a courtyard and a fountain. Once I slept in a tent, out on the edge of the desert.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Tess, looking ruminatively out over the view. ‘That must have been amazing.’

  ‘You’d love it, I kept thinking that,’ he said. ‘And you know, I kept thinking how much Mum would have loved it, too. She loved the food. Remember those tagines?’

  ‘That’s weird, I was thinking about all the things she liked when you arrived,’ Tess said. ‘How much she loved tagines. Mangoes, and all of that. I wonder who—’

  I wonder who she got that from, she was going to say.

  The mood had changed. Adam gave her a sideways glance, and then stared ahead again. ‘Now it’s back to reality, I suppose,’ he said. He drained the rest of the coffee, and then fastened the lid on the flask. He cleared his throat. ‘So—how have you been? What’s been going on here?’

  ‘Well, guess,’ said Tess, trying to keep her voice light. ‘Not much, really. They’re turning on the Christmas lights tonight.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said flatly.

  ‘I’ve got a new flatmate.’

  ‘Who?’ He turned to her.

  ‘Liz.’

  ‘Liz? Oh—oh, Liz.’ A flash of something, a bit of shame, a pretence of looking cool, crossed his face, and then he smiled, shaking his head. ‘Right. She’s nice.’

  ‘Yep,’ said Tess, not really wanting to say more. ‘She’s very nice.’

  ‘Bit different from Francesca, I bet.’

  ‘That’s oh so true. Very—organized.’

  ‘Hm.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Do you remember when Francesca ordered a case of champagne for my birthday, and shook the bottle up as she was opening it because she wanted to know what it was like to be a Formula One winner? God, it went everywhere.’ He grinned at the memory.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Tess, primly.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, trying not to smile. ‘Well, you were probably out. Hanging out at the cake shop or chatting to Jan and Diana about sensible socks and where to buy them.’

  Tess gasped in outrage. ‘I wasn’t as bad as all that. Was I?’

  ‘Well, for a bit,’ he said. ‘Till you went to Rome.’

  She nodded, a bit too eagerly. ‘Right.’

  ‘You probably needed a bit of downtime, after leaving London.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Tess didn’t like the turn the conversation was taking.

  ‘You know, growing your eyebrows all bushy. Wearing those thick cardigans,’ said Adam blithely. Tess shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘You rea
lly know how to lay on the charm, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s you,’ he said, pushing her gently, his tone contrite. ‘I’m only joking. You know—you know I don’t mean it.’

  She put her arm round him, and patted his back.

  ‘How’re you feeling about—about everything?’ she asked.

  ‘About the Mortmain situation?’ he said, accentuating the words. ‘I don’t know, T. There’s still loads to sort out, I haven’t really got my head round a lot of it.’

  She squeezed his shoulder. ‘What do you have to do first?’

  ‘See people, say hello.’

  ‘Adam—’ she said. ‘You should know, you’re not the most popular person round here at the moment.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, flinching a bit. ‘Because of what’s happening with the water meadows.’ He glanced up at the spire of the church, as if to look behind him would be too much. ‘I have to decide what to do.’

  ‘They’ve already started, you know that,’ she said. Perhaps he didn’t know. Perhaps they’d gone ahead without him. ‘People in the town are—’

  Adam’s jaw was rigid. ‘People in the town,’ he said, throwing her arm off his shoulder. ‘All my life it’s been people in the town who’ve dictated this and that. Who cares what they think?’

  ‘They live here, Adam,’ Tess said gently. ‘They love it here. It’s going to change everything.’

  He put his hands on his hips, and stared ahead. ‘Well, they knew it was happening. And where were they when Mum got here and no one would look her in the eye, because she was unmarried and pregnant and living alone? Where were they when she died? When—’

  ‘That’s not fair.’ Tess spoke softly, and rose to stand next to him. She said, ‘Remember how Diana helped you clear out the house? How Mick let you stay with him, all those nights when you were too drunk to go back to the cottage? Mum and Dad, they lent you money for the funeral.’ Her throat was thick. ‘And Ron, oh, I know he’s a busybody and a silly old man, but he gave you that bag of clothes, in case you needed stuff. They wanted to help you. You just didn’t want them to help you back.’

  ‘Now you’re the one who’s not being fair,’ he said, but in a mild voice. His hands dropped to his sides: ‘Oh, T, I don’t want to get into all of this again. That’s why I went away—I just can’t face it…’ He bowed his head, as if his voice would crack. ‘It’s this damn inheritance. It’s all this.’ He jabbed his thumb at the Mortmain tombs. ‘I didn’t ask for it. I never got to talk to Mum about it, I don’t even know how she felt about it. It’s like—it’s like there’s a huge part of her I didn’t know, and I loved her so much and she kept it from me.’

  ‘She had her reasons,’ said Tess. ‘Your mum was a wise woman. She was wonderful. If she didn’t tell you, there’s a reason. She knew what Leonora was like…’ She trailed off, tactfully.

  ‘She knew her own mother was a cow, you mean,’ Adam said sombrely. ‘I keep thinking…who was my grandfather? Who was Mum’s father? Because he must have been a wonderful man, to offset her.’

  ‘Perhaps she changed,’ Tess said. ‘You don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Adam acknowledged. ‘But she made it very hard to like her. And she wouldn’t tell me anything. I can never like her for that, you know.’

  ‘That’s an awful thing to say.’

  His eyes were cold. ‘Perhaps it is, but when both your parents are dead and you haven’t seen your dad’s family for decades, and the only family you’ve got is this—this woman who looks at you with—’ his face contorted, and he spoke in a rush—‘with hate, Tess, like she thinks you’re the lowest of the low because she hated your mother, because having her was so shameful to her she couldn’t ever tell anyone she had a family, a daughter and a grandson…and you can’t do anything to change her mind…it’s, yeah, it’s pretty unnerving.’

  ‘She wasn’t very lovable,’ said Tess.

  ‘She wasn’t, I’m afraid.’ Adam nodded. ‘All these years I’ve been, I’ve been keeping this secret, because I had to, and trying to…’ He shook his head. ‘Trying to meet her halfway. But she gave me nothing. Responded to nothing. Acted like she didn’t care. I’d have tea with her twice a year, and she’d berate me for an hour and a half about how I’d let her and the Mortmains down, how I should have gone to university, why didn’t I have a job? What was I doing with my life? And then I’d leave, and that’d be it. And I couldn’t tell anyone.’

  ‘You couldn’t have told me?’ Tess said.

  ‘She was desperate for me not to tell anyone. Said they could know when she was dead and that was it.’ The corners of Adam’s mouth turned up, swiftly, sadly. ‘I wanted to talk to you about it. But you know perfectly well, T, we weren’t close after that all happened. I treated you abominably badly. I couldn’t burden you with anything else. I don’t think you’d have listened anyway.’

  Tess didn’t know what to say. After all these years of getting over him, of losing the friendship that meant so much to her and then finding it was repairable, gradually, of wondering what on earth he was thinking and why he was the way he was, and he had given up all his secrets to her in five minutes. She tugged his arm.

  ‘Look, Adam. I know it’s going to be hard, coming back, but you’ve done the right thing. And you know something? I’m here for you, brother.’

  He smiled. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I mean it. You need a friend.’ She nodded. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t one before. But I’m your friend now. It’s going to be OK, all of this. You’ll sort it out. It’s a fresh start, remember? Not going back to the past.’

  Adam nodded. ‘You’re right,’ he said, his voice lightening. ‘Now the will’s nearly sorted out, and I’ve cleared my head, I can sort of see the horizon again. I just need to leave the past behind.’

  ‘That’s a good thing,’ she said fervently.

  ‘Perhaps we both do,’ he said. He held out his hand, and she shook it, then he put his arm round her, and pulled her towards him. ‘Buy you a drink?’ he said. ‘If you think I dare show my face in the pub.’

  ‘I’ll be with you,’ she said. ‘Remember, that’s a promise.’

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Thanks, T.’

  ‘Just don’t sleep with my housemate again, OK?’

  ‘That’s also a promise.’

  They walked through the graveyard, his arm still around her shoulders. Tess’s feet were freezing, she noticed now, a clammy coldness that was almost painful. She stamped her boots on the ground.

  ‘It’s beautiful here, I have to say,’ Adam said. ‘All that time in this totally different landscape, and I’d think of being back here.’ He looked behind him, down into the valley. ‘All these people who were here before us. They had the same view.’

  They turned towards the church, to avoid the Mortmain tombs. ‘Do you think you’ll change your name?’ Tess said.

  ‘No,’ said Adam. ‘Too weird to do it now. And—it comes with all this stuff. Stuff I don’t want.’

  They were in front of the church now, in the shadow of the building. Tess stamped her feet again and stopped, in front of a row of graves, fiddling for her gloves in her coat pocket. She stared at the grave in front of her.

  ‘Adam…’ she said. ‘Philip, Adam.’

  ‘What?’ Adam was tying his scarf a little tighter. She pointed.

  ‘Philip Edwards. Adam…’

  And she read:

  In Loving Memory of Philip Edwards 1924-1943

  He died for his country that we might live in freedom Beloved son of Thomas Edwards, vicar of this Parish, and Mary Edwards

  Brother of Primula Edwards

  Have I been so long a time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?

  They both stared at the stone. There was silence for a full minute.

  ‘Philip Edwards,’ said Adam. ‘My God.’ He bowed his head, collecting himself. ‘You know, that was one of the readings Leonora asked for, at her funeral.’

  ‘I remember.’
Tess had now read the order of service about twenty times. Thoughts were jostling for space in her brain. ‘That’s him. She—she called out his name. When she—’

  ‘What?’ Adam said.

  ‘Just before she had the stroke.’ Tess remembered it now, as clearly as if she were back there. She could hear the traffic, smell the fumes, see the rage and hate, the expression—was it despair?—in the old woman’s eyes. Where’s Philip? Where is he? ‘It must be him. It has to be.’

  Adam slowly shook his head. ‘My God.’ He looked back at the grave. ‘So it was you, old chap,’ he said. He stared, unblinking. ‘He was only nineteen.’

  ‘You can find out—’ Tess began. ‘Make sure. Perhaps there are relatives—’

  He stopped her. He was smiling. ‘I am sure. That’s the weird thing.’ He tensed his shoulders and then let them drop. ‘Right,’ he said, as he breathed out at the same time. ‘God, what a welcome back.’

  ‘He’s with his daughter,’ Tess said. ‘In the same graveyard. I wonder if he ever knew?’ She bit her lip; tears filled her eyes, and she turned away, so he wouldn’t see how upset she was.

  ‘We’ll never know,’ Adam took her hand. ‘Let’s go and get that drink, T. I think we deserve it.’ They walked to the church gate. ‘Happy birthday, Mum,’ he said softly as they turned onto the high street, towards the Feathers. ‘I miss you.’