The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy: A Novel

by Rachel Joyce

  Several years after I had begun my garden in Embleton Bay and found the tall piece of driftwood that reminded me of you, I found another. I was down on the beach, hoping to spot oystercatchers on Craggy Reef, when something hard poked my bare foot. I stopped. Cleared the sand away. It was a blackened piece of driftwood, about the length of my arm, but hunched over into a knotty V-shape, and worn into fragile points at both ends. It was so full of sadness it almost knocked my breath away. I could see only David. I carefully carried the driftwood up to my garden and spent the day deciding where to set it. In the end I chose a bed of stones and a creamy burnet rose. I planted cuckoopint around him and when the red berries came I thought of my wool mittens.

  I kept working in my garden that night, long after the sun had gone down, long after the moon had come up and cast a silver trail over the waves. I needed to hear the sea and the wind and keep some movement in my hands. I couldn’t bear to go inside.

  Concerning the future

  LAST NIGHT I dreamed I went to my sea garden again.

  In my dream, Harold, I was attempting to secure the wood figures and stake the seed heads, but the wind kept whipping the sea into swirls of black and white, and tossing my hair and thrashing my garden. The plants and figures began to lift and blow in the air, like a shipwreck in the wind, and I tried to chase after them but I couldn’t. I saw the storm carry them away.

  When Sister Mary Inconnue arrived, I could not think about my letter. All I could write was:

  What will happen to my sea garden?

  Sister Mary Inconnue sat in front of the window with her red fingers lifted to her mouth, palm to palm. Behind her, the clusters of leaves in the tree were plump hands too, and little spikes of blossom poked from the branches. She was deep in contemplation. ‘Is it the first time you have thought of this?’ she said at last.

  It wasn’t. The question has been in me for a while, but it has lurked in the shadows and I have concentrated on other things because I have not wanted to look at it.

  As I waited for her answer, I watched Sister Mary Inconnue carefully. I was so afraid of what she would say, and yet so needful of the truth, that I saw nothing but her. The tree disappeared. I even forgot I was me. I saw only Sister Mary Inconnue and her green eyes.

  ‘Have you made a will?’

  No. I felt my throat tighten.

  ‘You need to make a will, Queenie. You know that, don’t you?’

  I began to cry and she held my hand but the emotion was not one of fear any more and neither was it one of sorrow. It was because she was right and I knew she was right. I had only been waiting for someone to say the words.

  ‘It is not so terrible, dear heart, to make a will. It is like cleaning your house before you go on holiday. It is only making things neat. You need to ask Sister Philomena. You need to say you would like to make your will.’

  A little later, Sister Lucy washed my hair. She massaged the conditioner into my scalp, and I felt a melting in my toes and hands. Once again I pictured my sea garden, but this time the chaos had gone and the only movement came from the skittering of orange-tipped butterflies. Down in the bay the sea was an unruffled blue, and the waves were lace frills. There was no wind. Sister Lucy wrapped my head in a warm towel. She blow-dried my hair and painted my nails.

  ‘You look happier today,’ said Sister Catherine. ‘Would you like a spell in the garden?’

  I squeezed her hand to say thank you.

  ‘Good,’ she smiled. ‘Me too. I’ll fetch my cardigan.’

  The Spanish Inquisition

  ‘MAUREEN SAYS I need a jacket,’ you told me. Do you remember that day? What sort of jacket? I asked. ‘The sort of jacket a father would wear for his son’s graduation ceremony.’

  We were driving back to the brewery. The Devon lanes were hemmed in with growth. It was like driving through thick green canopies. A few miles on, you cleared your throat. You said, ‘Have you any idea, Queenie, what sort of jacket that would be?’

  ‘Are you asking for my help, Harold?’

  ‘I am, actually.’ A David-ism, if ever I heard one.

  We stopped in Kingsbridge at the men’s outfitters. You introduced me to the salesman – he’d had a son at school with David. ‘This is Miss Hennessy. Funny thing. We met in the—’

  ‘Canteen,’ I said.

  ‘Stationery cupboard.’ You laughed.

  I remember the salesman asking for news of David and you saying he’d sat his finals. The salesman told us that his son had a job on the rubbish trucks. Nobody said this, of course, but side by side, of those two absent boys, it was clearly David who’d excelled. While he fetched a selection of jackets, the salesman continued to speak in reverential terms about David’s intelligence. He’d been smarter than the teachers. He taught himself ancient Greek one weekend from a library book, as well as how to dismantle a bicycle. And I remember noticing your face. The way it shone.

  ‘And do you remember that day,’ laughed the salesman, ‘when they found the bugger on the roof of the science block? What was he doing? Reciting poetry?’

  The shine went from you. You glanced in my direction and dropped your eyes towards your feet, as though you were worried what I would think. As far as you were concerned, I still hadn’t met David. ‘Ah, yes,’ you murmured. ‘I’d forgotten that.’

  ‘Pardon my French,’ said the salesman to me.

  ‘I like this blazer,’ I said, pointing at one in a speckled Harris tweed. I hadn’t really looked; I was only changing the subject because you seemed so troubled by the memory of David on the roof. The jacket had wide lapels, three buttons and a breast pocket, and it came in a Harold shade of brown. The salesman said it was the new autumn stock, ready for September, and matched it with a plum tie. Oh, no, you said quickly, replacing it with one in fawn. It occurred to me that the reason you were so desperate to avoid attention might have something to do with your childhood, though you had only mentioned your mother twice. Maybe it was because you were struggling to shake your arms free of your sleeves but I saw the lost boy in you and rushed to help.

  ‘Thank you, Queenie. Do you mind looking after my jacket?’

  ‘Not at all.’ I had been looking after you for over three years, remember. I folded your jacket carefully over my arm.

  Looking back, the Harris tweed was too formal and too thick. I never saw you wear it again. But as you slipped it over your shoulders, a new memory tickled the salesman and he began to laugh. ‘Or what about that night the police found David playing hide-and-seek on Fore Street? He could have killed himself, the bugger.’

  You looked sick now.

  ‘Pardon my French,’ added the salesman.

  You gave what you could muster of a smile and said that the jacket would do very nicely, thank you, and so would the tie. We left quickly and you remained distracted all the way back to the brewery. You kept running your hand through your hair and giving shakes of your head, like little shocks.

  ‘How exciting to go to your son’s graduation,’ I said. And what I meant was, It will be OK, Harold. You are big enough for this. David needs you.

  When I asked David about his finals, whether there had been a question about Plato’s Republic, he laughed down the telephone. ‘What is this?’ he said. ‘The bloody Spanish Inquisition?’ At least I think that is what he said. What he came out with was ‘Wa is zis? Tha bla-y Spash Inkyzishun?’

  There was no hiding he was drinking even more heavily. When he returned home and came to visit me, the smell of spirits was so strong I was afraid of striking a match lest we both shot up in flames. I would make him toast to soak up the alcohol and pour a glass of milk, but he’d stopped eating in front of me. I’d have to leave the plate and the milk at his feet and go off to do something else. He was like a scorched animal. Thin and frightened and unable to join in with the most basic things. I suggested once that we could go dancing if he wanted, and he glanced at me as if I had sworn at him. What about visiting the doctor? ‘There’s nothing w
rong with me,’ he snapped. ‘I’m tired. That’s all. I’m exhausted.’

  Other times he would complain of the cold, and I’d fetch a blanket from the bedroom only to find him already asleep in the armchair when I returned. It shocked me how slight David looked in sleep, as if, given a sudden rush of air, he might lift up and blow out of the window. I wanted to pile a thick wool blanket on him just to add ballast. I had to find a way of talking to you.

  The opportunity came after David’s graduation ceremony. We were in the car and I asked you how it had been. Had the Harris tweed jacket gone down well? I asked. You said the usual, ‘Yes. Yes,’ and added it was a bit itchy. It had been difficult to bend your arms. Then a little later you admitted David had been busy. You hadn’t seen much of him because he had all his friends to see. What friends? I thought. He doesn’t have any. I remembered my own graduation ceremony. My mother, sitting on the grass with her legs wide and eating sandwiches with her pinkie finger raised into a spike. My father, still holding my mother’s straw hat and using it now as a plate to catch crumbs. They were out of their depth. They were a burden, and I couldn’t wait to get away. But I would never have abandoned them.

  I took a deep breath. ‘Is David OK?’

  You paled. I assume I paled too. The space between us pulsed.

  ‘OK?’ you repeated.

  ‘Sometimes students find it hard. After they graduate. I know I felt a bit lost. I couldn’t find work.’ I was trying to be careful.

  You gave a series of sighs. You also pulled a little too sharply at the steering wheel and we took a corner uncharacteristically fast. But I pressed on. ‘Does he need—?’ I didn’t get to the word ‘help’ because finding this so difficult I paused. Before I could say any more, you rushed straight in with an answer.

  ‘He’s going on a walking holiday. The Lake District. Just as a stopgap. Until he gets a job.’

  This was news to me. It gave me hope for David. It implied he was thinking about the future. You kept filling the silence as though to prevent me from saying anything further. ‘At least he has a degree. At least David has done something with his life.’

  You didn’t sound like you. You sounded like someone who was angry with you.

  I thought the holiday would do David good. But I was also relieved. With your son home, Harold, you looked tired. And you weren’t getting rid of beer cans any more. They were empty bottles.

  So when David told me about his idea, I too encouraged him. It was the first time he’d looked excited in months. The exercise, the air, the change of scene. I hoped all these things could help. And when he asked me for cash for a pair of walking boots because the money Maureen had given wasn’t enough, I gave it. I remember saying with a wry edge that I looked forward to seeing the boots and him laughing and saying, ‘Yeah, right.’ At least he’d had the decency to ask for the money.

  Do you believe he went to the Lake District? I even wonder sometimes if he sat his finals. He hid so much about himself. With David, I look back and so many things don’t add up.

  But now that David was apparently happy, you seemed happier too. We played fig ball again, I remember. I asked about the holiday and you said he had rung Maureen a few times. I made picnics for our drives. Another afternoon I suggested we should watch the birds at Bolberry Down and I didn’t know it then but it would be our last time. A few days later, David came home early from his holiday.

  He seemed to have moved into yet another space. When he spoke, it was faltering as if he couldn’t quite get the ideas in his head to match with words. He didn’t maintain eye contact and his cheeks were dents in his face. His skin had no colour; even his eyes, his mouth, his hair were blurred to a shade of grey. There were days when he came to visit and he practically fell into the room. Or he’d phone in the middle of the night and tell me he was down by the quay. He always reversed the charges and it was hard to make sense of a lot of what he said, but if I hung up he rang back. He’d accuse me of not listening, of avoiding him. His ranting could go on for hours. Several times I went down to the quay and found him passed out on a bench. I helped him back to Fossebridge Road, but, not wanting to cause you embarrassment, I never went as far as your front door. I opened the garden gate for him and pointed to the path. I always made sure there were lights. Once I even saw you staring out from an upstairs window. You seemed so tired, Harold.

  I tried to warn you one more time. It was lunchtime and I ran after you when I saw you leave the canteen in a hurry. I wanted you to know how worried I was. I wanted you to know David needed help. ‘Harold?’ I called. ‘Could I have a word?’

  You turned and said, ‘Ah hello. Gosh.’ You were crying. You tried to hide in a handkerchief.

  Reps pushed past us and you had to keep averting your face so that they wouldn’t see your eyes. If only I had not made that stupid mistake at the beginning in not telling you I had danced with David. Or perhaps I should just have said, I love you. It had all become so tangled and complicated. My words wouldn’t come.

  You said, ‘I’m sorry, Queenie. I have something, you know, something in my eye. Could this wait for another time?’

  ‘Harold, this is important. It won’t wait—’

  ‘I have to go,’ you said. You repeated as you rushed away, ‘Another time, Queenie. Another time.’

  There was no other time. David disappeared for a week. And I look back now and I see that even then we must have believed, you and I, in our way, that it wasn’t too late for us to save him. That a part of you, a piece of your flesh, was not beyond our help for the simple reason that he was a part of you.

  But five days later, David was dead.

  Poor Barbara

  ‘WHY IS THERE a Christmas tree in the dayroom?’ asked Mr Henderson. ‘It’s the twentieth of May.’

  ‘And what is that smell?’ said Finty, inhaling deeply.

  We sat in our wheelchairs at the doorway, breathing in the resinous scent of pine. The curtains of the dayroom were drawn and the room was dim, daylight a weak trickle at the window edges. The only real source of light was a small fir tree speckled with silver bulbs and red baubles. It flickered in the dark. There seemed to be a figure sitting alone in a chair, though it was hard to see.

  ‘Take the patients inside,’ said Sister Philomena to the other nuns. ‘I will fetch Barbara.’

  Sister Lucy was so happy, she kept laughing and bumping my wheelchair into furniture. I lifted my face towards hers and gave a confused look. For the first time she didn’t look panicky. She said:

  ‘Wait and see.’

  The person I did not know remained apart. Now that my eyes were accustomed to the dark, I could see that she was small, about my height. She wore a light summer coat and sat with a handbag at her feet. From the way she waited, dressed for outside but sitting all clenched tight, she didn’t look like a patient and neither did she look like a regular visitor. I thought of myself a few weeks ago, not wanting anyone to speak to me or look at me. I tried to smile at the stranger to show I was friendly, but she gave a little shiver. I forget these days. I forget what I am.

  At last Sister Philomena carried Barbara into the room. Barbara was as small as a child. ‘What is happening?’ she murmured. The words were slow, but that could have been the drugs. ‘I can tell something is happening. Have I died? I’m not dead, am I?’ Her face was so shrunken that the skin of her neck hung in folds like a blouse.

  ‘No, no,’ said Sister Philomena with a smile. ‘You are not dead, Barbara.’

  We all laughed. Possibly it was with relief. ‘Not dead, Babs,’ cackled Finty. ‘No way, José.’

  Catching sight of Barbara, the stranger sat so straight she almost shot out of her chair. Then she froze. She perched on the edge of her seat with both hands high, gripping the collar of her coat close to her ears.

  Sister Philomena settled Barbara in a reclining chair right next to the stranger. The stranger pressed her mouth very tight. Then Sister Philomena asked one of the volunteers to fetch a bla
nket and pillows. They tucked and slipped them around Barbara, asking if she was comfortable, if she was warm enough, but Barbara didn’t reply.

  In a soft voice, Sister Philomena said, ‘Barbara, you have a visitor.’

  The stranger gave a sob. It was like a little burp. She grabbed a tissue from the box and whipped it to her mouth.

  ‘Can you hear me, Barbara?’ said Sister Philomena.

  Barbara nodded. Her right hand made a little groping passage in the direction of the arm of her reclining seat and then through the air, towards the stranger. Suddenly the stranger clasped Barbara’s hand very tight, and I saw that, of course, she was not a stranger. She was the neighbour. Barbara’s neighbour. She had come to visit.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ said the neighbour, all in a rush. ‘I’ve been so busy.’

  Her eyes darted from one of us to the next as if she were a condemned person, arguing for her life.

  ‘At least you turned up, darlin’,’ said the Pearly King. The woman looked startled again. Maybe she mistook his voice for a piece of heavy machinery.

  ‘Better late than never,’ said Finty.

  Sister Philomena stood and reached for one of the baubles on the tree. She placed it in Barbara’s hand. ‘Do you feel how shiny it is?’ she asked, the words like a lullaby. Barbara nodded to show she did. She still gripped the hand of her neighbour. It looked as if she would never let go.

  Sister Philomena lifted down the paper angel from the top of the tree and gave that to Barbara too. She asked if Barbara could smell the pine, then she lifted Barbara’s fingers and guided them towards the branches.

  Sister Philomena held Barbara’s left hand and whispered her name and told her it was Christmas, it was Christmas, and her neighbour was here. Everything would be all right now.

  Briefly in the night I heard Barbara sing. ‘Away in a Manger’, I think it was. The song came and went, so faint I had to lie very still in order to find it. For the first time in a week, I did not hear Barbara get up. I did not hear her roam the corridors.