You Never Told Me

by Sarah Jasmon

  ‘So, Britta got her boat in the end.’ Margareta’s gaze was distant, as if reliving many memories. Did it ever become less of a shock, to hear about people from your younger days who were no longer there? She came out of her reverie and examined Charlie’s face. ‘And here is her daughter. This is very nice to see.’ Finally, she took the photograph, adjusting her glasses before examining the scene. It was strange to think of this small woman in charge of that big working boat, dressed in her overalls with oil staining her skin. Was she thinking of the changes time had made? The bright eyes came up, as if Margareta had heard her thoughts. ‘The changes time makes. But here we are. Do you like the boat?’

  ‘I do, yes.’ Charlie assumed she meant Skíðblaðnir. ‘The people I was moored next to remember you. Bob. He got me started on the boat, showed me the ropes.’

  ‘Bob.’ Margareta’s face was thoughtful, then she shook her head. ‘So many people. And is he old like me?’

  How did you answer that? She tried. ‘He’s, well, I think it was his father who knew you?’

  Margareta thought, then gave a brisk nod. ‘So. We will leave that behind. I am so glad you are here, Sylvia’s daughter. I always hoped I would meet you.’

  Sylvia? Charlie thought briefly of her father, of Eleanor’s concerns over his memory. Had she got here only to find it was too late to talk? Margareta had seemed so sharp, though. She grappled for the right words. It was a natural slip, confusing names, but embarrassing to have to put her straight. ‘Britta. My mum was Britta, remember?’

  ‘Britta, Sylvia, a name makes no change. I would have told her that if I had been there.’ She sounded irritated, cross at having made the mistake. ‘But it is good for you to know. And you have met your sisters?’

  It was getting worse. Maybe she should just say thank you, how lovely it was to meet, and make a quiet exit. Did Sally and her mother know that Margareta was getting confused? Surely they’d have said if they did, would have warned her to be careful. ‘I’ve just got the one sister,’ she said. ‘Eleanor. She’d have loved to be here, but she’s got small children.’

  Margareta answered with a touch of impatience. ‘Yes, two more. Eleanor and Charlotte. But you’ve come to ask about Sylvia.’

  ‘I’ve come to ask about Britta,’ she said, trying to hold on to what she thought she knew. ‘My mother was called Britta, and I’m Charlotte. And I only have one sister.’

  Just then the kettle murmured before seeming to take a breath, letting it out in a loud and sustained whistle.

  ‘We shall make coffee first,’ Margareta stated. ‘And then we will sit down and talk. And the dog does not need to be on a lead. She will be fine.’

  They were back in the living room. Margareta was in the armchair, Bella somewhat unexpectedly sitting as close to her as she could. The old lady reached down to ruffle the terrier’s ears as if she was used to having a dog by her feet. She was completely relaxed, as far as Charlie could judge, which was more than Charlie could say for herself.

  ‘Now, explain how you knew where to find me.’ Margareta’s tone was firm, judicious. Charlie must make a case, and it had better be convincing, it said.

  Charlie took a deep breath and laid out the main points, the photograph and Bob’s suggestion, finding the newspaper cutting. She had placed that in its plastic folder on the side table by her chair when they came into the room. Now she picked it up and held it out.

  Margareta took the offered sheet, but she was reading the wrong side, the one with the fete and the story of the grandmother. Charlie wanted to explain, but there was something in the silence that stopped her. She could feel her pulse beating in her throat. Everything beneath her, around her, was beginning to wobble, like a stage set knocked up out of remnants. Margareta spoke first.

  ‘I am sorry, this was my mistake. And of course, you are young, too young. But I have been waiting so long for the baby to come and find me. When Sally called me and said Britta’s daughter was here, I just assumed—’ For the first time, her voice trembled. Then she reached out to touch Charlie’s hand. ‘But you, also, have come to find out who Britta was. Perhaps if you tell me what you know?’

  Charlie swallowed. It sounded as if she didn’t know anything, but the bones of the story were at least a familiar tale, a story she could tell without too much thinking. ‘She grew up in Norway, near a forest, but I don’t know exactly where. I think she was an only child. The only thing I know for certain is that she came to England at some point and met my father.’ That was it, that was all. It sounded threadbare, pathetic. How could she ever have believed that this was the whole history? ‘Did you know her when she first came to England?’

  ‘In a sense, yes.’ Margareta paused, resting her fingertips against her mouth. She seemed to be deciding what to say next. When she did speak, her voice had taken on the rhythm of a storyteller, the sound of it setting off a trigger somewhere deep in Charlie’s subconscious. She had no time to follow the sense, though. ‘There was a woman in the village, a strange woman, with one son and one daughter. Her name was Hilda Burrows, she was of a type that I think you don’t see these days. She believed that she was right about everything, and expected her daughter, in particular, to conform.’ She turned her head so that she was looking directly at Charlie. ‘People say that the world is a different place now, but human nature has not changed so much. Bullies will be bullies. The only thing that really changes is how they act it out.’

  Charlie waited for her to continue, but Margareta was resting her hands on the arms of her chair, in preparation to stand. The delayed movement somehow emphasized her age, an awareness of what her body was unable to do. She paused, the weight of herself balanced in transit. Then, finally, she completed the movement with a momentum that carried her on at a brisk, decided pace towards a set of shelves at the side of the room. With her back to Charlie, she spoke again. ‘I came to this country as a young woman, as a bohemian. We had ideals, you know, for the possibilities of a better world.’ Charlie nodded, though she didn’t think Margareta was waiting for an answer. The left-hand section of the shelves had a door closing the contents in, swinging out with no noise, no creak of hinges or catch of a lock. This wasn’t a cupboard that would smell of the past. Margareta’s hand went towards a large book, lying on its side on the top shelf. It came out slowly, its weight wanting to stay where it was. Margareta balanced it in both hands, her face turned down towards the blank cover. She picked up something else, a paper folder stuffed with loose snaps. Then, with an abrupt dismissal of the hesitation, she brought it all back to her chair. ‘Come.’ She gave an impatient gesture to summon Charlie towards her. ‘It will be easier if you see.’

  The book was an album, the cover dark blue and ridged in mock snakeskin. One corner had a gilt protective edging, the other curled up, revealing a soft crumble of grey, cardboard layers. Margareta leafed through the stiff pages at speed – not, it seemed, to stop Charlie from seeing them but just to reach the point she was aiming for. The page she stopped at had six prints caught beneath the plastic film layer. They were all small and square, and age had given them an orange tint. Charlie examined them more closely. It was odd how that was the shade to endure, bathing each scene in a permanent glow of sunlight.

  ‘I came to London in 1959,’ Margareta was saying. Her finger touched on the image at the top of the page nearest to Charlie. They were bending their heads at the same angle, caught in the intimacy of the action. She wished Eleanor was there with her, to take charge, to ask the right questions. Margareta’s finger tapped on the page, demanding her attention.

  The print was of a young woman, sitting cross-legged on what seemed to be a wooden deck. She was partway through coiling a rope and was looking up at the camera in laughing protest. ‘Was this you?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Charlie sensed rather than saw her nod. ‘I was supposed to be in England for one year, attending classes at the School of Economics. A friend’s boyfriend lived on the river, in an old barge, a wr
eck.’ Her finger went to the next picture. Four young people this time, heads together, captured in the middle of a burst of laughter. ‘This one, Freddy.’ She touched on the figure at the end of the row. He was somewhat older than the others, dressed in a dark fisherman’s jumper, the brim of a cap shading his expression. ‘When Lisa went home that summer, I stayed. I was—’ Charlie heard exasperation in the pause, a retrospective wonderment at the choices one made in one’s past. ‘Less interested in economics than I had thought,’ she finished up. She turned over more pages, stopping to go back before flicking through further. She didn’t stop to explain the in-between sections. ‘These weren’t the boats that you find today, you understand, with their shiny paint and satellite dishes.’ She shook her head. ‘Freddy’s boat was old, could not be moved. We took on water every time the tide rose. The hull was crumbling about us. He refused to see it, imagined that he would one day wave a magic wand and take to the sea.’ Her finger dropped again, this time on a slightly under-exposed snap of a different boat. The small figure of the young Margareta was alone this time, though wearing what looked like the cap from the earlier picture. ‘I had an opportunity to take on a working boat. The waterways were supposed to be at an end, you know. These boats had been used for maintenance; they were obsolete, superfluous. And so I gained Guillemot and told my parents I would not be coming back.’

  Charlie glanced from the tiny figure on the yellowed page in front of her to the face of the old woman. Guillemot. The boat in the photograph. ‘And was this still in London?’

  ‘No, no.’ Margareta turned another page. ‘I took over the boat in Oxford.’ She pointed to another grainy shot, though there was nothing visible to pinpoint any identifying features of the place. ‘And, that year, I was making journeys to keep canals open. We wanted to show that they were viable, you understand, that they could not just be filled with concrete.’

  The pages were turned again, this time stopping on a double spread where there were mostly gaps. Charlie could see the empty outlines of where the photographs had been, yellowing edges blurring into faded brown. The plastic film had lost its stickiness as well, rustling weakly as Margareta came to a stop.

  ‘Do you recognize here?’ Her finger directed Charlie to the one remaining image. Charlie examined the gathered faces. It was still on the canal, but this time facing away from the water. Behind the figures were brick walls, a clock tower just visible in the top corner.

  ‘Sorry, no.’ She shook her head.

  ‘You will have passed it on your way.’ Margareta’s tone seemed to hold a hint of reproach. ‘I spent my first winter here. Everybody was telling me how lucky I was to miss the winter of ’62.’ She gave a dry laugh. ‘Although they were forgetting that I grew up in Oslo, of course. These winters did not seem special to me. But there was still enough ice to keep me in one place, and that is when I met Sylvia.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The photograph album slipped away as Margareta told the next part of the story. A young girl, tiring of the constrictions of her life. A chance meeting on a snow-stranded bus followed by a shy first visit to the canal. Margareta, cold and lonely on her half-converted boat and ready to take on the role of inspiration to this eager acolyte. Margareta spoke in an even tone, relating facts, a judicial account. At least, that was how it seemed. Sylvia escaped to the boat as often as she could, ready always to absorb more of everything. More about the possibilities ahead, of the end of war, the end of capitalism. Margareta wanted her to know there was a wider world out there. And she was ready to talk about her childhood. The cold reminded her of it, yes, but it was also the distance. She was feeling nostalgic, ridiculous, you know. But Sylvia wanted to hear, and in the retelling it became epic, memorable.

  The story came to a stop. Margareta was sitting perfectly still, her gaze fixed on the open album. Her forehead was contracted, as if she was mentally untangling a tricky proposition. Slowly, she began to turn the pages again, looking for something in particular. It seemed to elude her, and she went back to the start, scrutinizing each page until the last one was reached. Then she laid the album by her feet and made her way back to the cupboard, murmuring to herself as she searched for something.

  Charlie hesitated, but finally gave in to the temptation. She dropped to her knees, pulling the album closer and leafing on to the pages she had yet to see. There were landscapes, with views of the canal hidden by snow. A snapshot picture of children wrapped up in woollen hats and scarves but wearing shorts, their bare legs purple in the cold. They were pushing a huge snowball along the towpath, leaning in with a colossal communal effort of construction. Next came a series of pictures tracking the transformation of Guillemot’s interior. Wooden panels began to cover the metal walls, rolls of insulating wool visible in the corner of the boat. A pot-bellied stove was installed, and a small cooker to replace the camping stove of the earlier stages. There was a bathroom, crude but recognizable, and finally one photograph of a bedroom, with two girls curled up on a bed. Charlie froze. It wasn’t just the picture. She could hear a voice, reading them a story. Britta is nine and Anna is the same age as me. I like them both just the same. Well, perhaps I like Anna a tiny, tiny bit more. It was the story from the book on Skíðblaðnir. She looked at the picture again, at the thick, shiny eiderdown laid out across the bed. Smelling of dust and damp. Eye-der-down. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? Reading the story?’ Charlie looked up at Margareta’s face. ‘We came to the boat. I’d forgotten. You made us cake, with cinnamon.’ And then she began to cry.

  Margareta refused to say anything about it until they had another cup of tea. This they drank in the kitchen, sitting side by side at the table. The album had been left in the living room, but Margareta had brought the packet of photographs with her. The cardboard folder rested between them, fat, waiting. Margareta still seemed detached, but Charlie sensed a certain relaxation, a growing solicitude, even. Finally, the warmth of the drink beginning to ground her, Charlie spoke.

  ‘I’m not wrong, am I? I went to your boat, when I was a little girl.’ She waited, her hands rigid on her mug, for Margareta’s reply.

  ‘I didn’t think you would remember,’ she said at last. ‘You were such a very small girl at the time.’

  ‘The books are on the boat,’ Charlie told her, but without looking at her face. ‘Pippi Longstocking, the Bullerby ones. It was when I saw them that I remembered. It was you, wasn’t it, reading them to us?’

  ‘Yes.’ Margareta didn’t elaborate, but after a moment asked, ‘They are in this boat of Britta’s?’ She closed her eyes, giving a tiny nod as Charlie agreed. ‘I had them on my boat, I can’t remember why now. They were books I had read as a small girl, in Norwegian, of course. Sylvia liked to read them when she came to spend time with me. She was still a child.’

  ‘Sylvia is Britta, isn’t she?’ The question didn’t really need an answer, but still she looked to Margareta for confirmation.

  Margareta nodded. ‘You will want to know how Sylvia, that child of Hilda, came to be Britta.’

  This time, she emptied all of the photographs out onto the table, shuffling them round into new configurations as if she was trying to work out a pattern. Charlie didn’t try to follow her movements. Instead she sat, half aware of Bella’s movements around the room, tracking crumbs on the floor. The light was beginning to ebb from the sky, and she could make out the faintest shading of reflected sunset along the horizon. It must be beautiful from the other side of the house.

  ‘Now, you can follow the progress of these.’ Margareta’s voice brought her back to the table. She moved the top left photo up slightly as she spoke. ‘I put them away,’ she went on, ‘which felt like a coward’s answer at the time. Now I think it was a good thing. This was the summer of 1964.’

  Britta smiled at the camera, a beam of confidence and a certain bravura. Sylvia, Charlie thought. She looked older than in the photograph Charlie had found on the boat. Her hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, and she was dressed in
cropped trousers and a sleeveless white blouse. Even with the tiny size of the print, Charlie could see heavy mascara, the pale layer of powder on her face.

  ‘I found it fascinating, watching this child blossom,’ Margareta said, moving the print back into its line. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I should have left things alone, encouraged her to stay within her sphere, but all I provided was the soil, you see, the possibility of another life. It was Sylvia herself who took the steps to inhabit that place. And then she would go home and change back to the little girl that her mother expected. I would tell her, leave, create your own life, but she carried on hiding behind the person she had been.’

  Charlie took in the girl’s radiant face.

  ‘She wasn’t ready, you see. Another year and she would have been out, pfft.’ Margareta made a flicking motion with her fingers and then shifted the next photo out of the line. This was of Margareta herself, standing on a beach with a young boy and a dog. ‘My brother, Lars.’ She rested a fingertip on the boy before moving it along. ‘And our dog, Svipp.’ She watched Charlie’s face, waiting.

  ‘Svipp,’ Charlie repeated. Another tiny window opened in her memory. ‘One of the children had a dog, didn’t they, in the book?’ What was his name? It buzzed faintly at the back of her mind but wouldn’t quite come out. ‘Ollie? Olaf?’

  ‘Olle.’ Margareta nodded approvingly. ‘I went home that summer, to visit my grandmother. I left the keys of the boat with Sylvia, so that she had somewhere to go. She liked to read, you see, but her mother thought it a waste of her time. But the keys also, of course, gave her opportunity. And her mother was not always well.’ She paused for a long time, and Charlie sneaked a glance at the next photograph. There was a group of people in it, she could make out that much. Margareta picked the photo up, holding it close, as if searching for clues. ‘So many years.’