The Windsurf Boy, page 21
For a while Barbara chatted about what the nurses had said, and what the meals had been like, casting pleased glances at her grandson. Then she took a visibly deep breath, and said, ‘Anna, dear, there’s something I want to tell you.’ Seeing the look of surprise and anxiety she added hastily, ‘Oh, it’s nothing about my health, dear, nothing to worry about. But you may think it’s bad news, just the same … It’s something I’ve discussed on the phone with Richard, because after all he is the eldest, but I feel guilty that I haven’t told you too. You know I sold my flat?’ Anna nodded, waiting with a curious tremble in her stomach, for the news. ‘Well, to be mundane I’m living off that money at the moment, to pay for Nurse Anderson’s tender mercies! I’ve got my little income of course, but it’s nothing nowadays, and it is … well very dear at “The Park”. I suppose you have to pay a high price for peace.’
‘I know,’ Anna said.
‘The fact is, dear, that Richard and I decided on the phone together, or rather I decided … that I should think seriously about selling “Ahoy”. You told me the other day that it’s in a bad state of repair. I can’t ask any of you to take the responsibility of having it done up, and Richard said it would be hard to divide because none of you would want to put in more money than you would get out, in use. Do you see what I mean?’
‘He would say that,’ said Anna sourly.
‘Don’t be like that, darling. He was being very helpful to me. I know you hate the idea of selling the old place but I think we should. I really do. You can’t cling to things for ever, can you? And if it isn’t renovated soon it will fall down and be worth nothing. If we sell now we’ll still get a good price...’
‘Yes,’ said Anna, her voice full of irony, remembering the conversation in ‘Hacienda’, I hear the market is at its best right now.’
‘Is it, dear? I didn’t realise you knew about those things. Well, good. There’s two reasons for doing it now, apart from that. Firstly, I need to know that I can stay here for as long as I need to, without worrying. Don’t pull a face, dear. Despite all our gloomy talks I fully expect to be here next summer! And secondly, I prefer to think that after I’ve gone there will be a nice sum of money that I can leave the three of you. It could be evenly divided, instead of all the complication of a piece of property that you want to keep, Richard wants to sell, or whatever. Daddy always said that people should never share property – it makes for awful legal and family wrangles.’
Mumbling, ‘Yes I suppose you’re right, I suppose it does,’ Anna rose and stood by the window, looking out on the lawn dappled with sunlight. It was hot; almost impossible to imagine the storm three days ago. Patients walked among the shrubs, or were walked by nurses or pushed in wheelchairs, and all the time the birds kept up their noise in the branches above. Above it all, in the distance, gleamed the water where the widening Syne lost its identity in the sea. The scene, so strange on that first day, now seemed beautiful to Anna; and so familiar that it was easy to imagine that this was the only world – the other one, of babies and weddings and gardens and boats, an illusion.
‘Anna?’ whispered Barbara, plucking at her skirt. ‘Are you terribly sad? Are you really sorry to lose it? I can’t bear to think …’ Still looking from the window, Anna said, ‘No, don’t worry. I was just thinking that I mind less than I would have thought. Perhaps it’s just the surprise … and I’m numbed. But I can’t go on wanting to keep things the same, because they can’t be. It’s not possible. It’s not … mature.’
Her mother frowned, ‘I don’t see what maturity has to do with it, darling. You’re too self-critical.’ Anna shook her head. ‘No, I know what I mean, though it’s impossible to tell you. Since I’ve been down here I’ve done … I’ve been stupid in some ways. Like a child. But never mind about that, tell me how we’re going to handle it. Will Richard do all the boring things like getting an agent?’ She had made her voice so brisk that it sounded artificial, and Barbara looked at her strangely. ‘Anna, you’re not being honest with me. Are you quite sure you don’t mind about it?’
Sitting down again Anna buried her face in her hands, just for a second or two, before looking up at Barbara. ‘Oh, I mind,’ she said, ‘but at the same time I don’t. I think it’s the right thing to do, by instinct, though I never thought I’d agree with Richard about anything. I do now, but for different reasons. I love that scruffy little cottage more than I’ve ever loved any place, but … it’s damaging me.’ Puzzled, Barbara asked what she meant. ‘I’m too old to play at Wendy Houses,’ Anna said dully, ‘I don’t expect you to understand, Mummy. But it’s to do with what I just said, about keeping things the same, all the magical things, the things you remember. It’s been an escape for me, that house: trying to get back, chasing something out of reach all the time. Perhaps I’ll understand it more, what’s been happening, when I’m back in London, and maybe I’ll be able to tell you then – but not now. All I know is I’ve been wandering from room to room in the cottage in a dream, just as you must have done ten years ago, and now I feel it’s all over. It must be. John, Daddy, you … everybody. So I’ve got to learn to be on my own now – and actually that’s thanks to you.’
Barbara looked amazed, and put a hand on her own breast, as if she were about to swear an oath.
‘How?’ she asked. ‘I don’t understand at all. I feel I’ve done nothing for you this holiday, except be quarrelsome.’
Anna grinned, unexpectedly. ‘Oh, you’ve helped me a lot. You’re a tough old biddy, you know, and you’ve toughened me up too. Anyway, it’s good that “Ahoy” is … er … over. Over for me. I’ve been under its spell for too long.’
‘But you won’t forget?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I shouldn’t need bricks and mortar and a heap of junky furniture to help me remember, now should I?’
They fell silent. ‘I called by at Molly’s house on the way here,’ Anna said. ‘I took her a bunch of roses, and him a bottle of Tio Pepe, because they’re so good. They seemed pleased.’
‘I’m sure they were, darling,’ said Barbara in a far-away voice. ‘That was so kind of you, to think of saying goodbye to them.’
‘Oh, but I’ll be seeing them again,’ Anna interrupted hastily, ‘when I come down, you know, soon. At weekends.’
Tom demonstrated how his new car could right itself, by its own power and momentum, when it crashed into the skirting board. When the noise and their exclamations of dutiful admiration had died down, Barbara asked, yet again, when they were going home. It was as if, Anna thought, she was incapable of storing the information she received each time, because she did not want them to go – or perhaps because it was not important enough for her to remember. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said, ‘but not until the evening. I’d rather leave when most of the traffic has gone. I’ll spend the day cleaning the place up, and packing, and saying goodbye. To the Treadles, and the people we’ve met.’
‘And is it work on Monday?’
‘No, Mummy! Monday’s the bank holiday, but I’ll never drive then – it’s too much of a nightmare. I’ll do the washing; and John sent a card to say he’ll come and take Tom out for the day. I haven’t told him yet...’ she lowered her voice, ‘because I knew he’d be beside himself and go on about it all the time.’
‘You forget bank holidays, when you’re my age,’ said Barbara.
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘I don’t suppose you’d want to drive back then.’
‘No, I just told you! Anyway …’
‘Oh no, dear, I quite see. When is Tom back at school?’
‘Another nine days to go. He goes to his friends, the O’Briens, when I’m at work, remember I told you? I give her money, and it works quite well. David O’Brien is in his class. It’s odd, but I don’t altogether mind the thought of the routine beginning again. You can’t stay on holiday for ever – but I’ll miss seeing you.’
‘Don’t worry about me, dear. I’ll be fine. It’ll be nice to see the others … oh, by the way, I’ve got a present for you.’
With some effort now, Anna noticed, Barbara hauled herself from the chair and walked slowly and unevenly across to the wardrobe. Her arm shook as she reached up and pulled something wrapped in tissue paper from the top shelf. ‘Here you are, Anna. You gave Molly some roses so I’m giving you some. Only these will last.’
Anna pulled the folds of paper apart, to reveal her mother’s tapestry, finished now and neatly pressed. The crimson roses glowed in their blue vase, surrounded by an intricate border in subtle but sombre hues; and Anna raised it to her face for a moment, as if the pictured blossoms might come alive and fill her nostrils with their scent. She smelt the clean, dry odour of the linen and the wool, and looked closely at the thousands of small stitches that made up her mother’s gift, whispering in a voice she did not trust, that it was beautiful.
‘I wanted you to have it, darling,’ said Barbara cheerfully, ‘To remind you of me. All this time I’ve been making it, and moaning at you, so you deserve to have it. It will outlast me, darling, and that’s for sure.’
‘Don’t, please.’
‘It’s all right, Anna. We have to smile about it all, and in any case, it’s true. You’ll be able to hand that on – I think that’s why I love doing tapestry work. You know that it will last for ever, like the work on those Victorian footstools that’s survived feet for a hundred years and is still intact. Can’t say the same for us, can you?’
Anna shook her head, feeling stifled, although the windows of the room were still wide open. She folded the tapestry into its tissue, and looked at her watch. ‘We must go in a minute. There’s so much …’
‘I know, darling.’
‘Listen, I won’t waste energy worrying about you, now, at least. I’ll phone you a lot, and Hilda and Richard will see you, and once Tom’s back at school I’ll arrange it so as I come down every weekend. I’ll stay in that guest house at the end of the road, or do it in a day sometimes.’ She was speaking rapidly, as if to fill each fraction of a second.
‘Oh, but don’t let it get in the way of your…’ Barbara started to murmur, but Anna interrupted. ‘It won’t get in the way of anything, Mummy. Because there is nothing for it to get in the way of. Do you understand that? I shall come because I want to come. I want to see some more of you yet.’
She was moved by the enormous smile that spread across her mother’s face, like that of Tom when he saw the car. In that second Barbara did not look like an old woman, but like the girl who smiled from the wedding photograph, her hair dressed in a fashionable roll; or like the young mother Anna remembered quite clearly, holding hands with her husband in the garden’s evening calm. She did not sound sad, only mischievous, as she put her head on one side and asked, ‘So this goodbye isn’t going to be the last one, dear?’
‘Not on your life!’
‘Good. I’m glad. Tom – come here and put that car in its box. Come and kiss Granny, because Mummy’s going to take you back now.’
He did so, pushing against her with such exuberant roughness that Anna saw her mother wince, and hissed, ‘Be careful, Tom, for goodness’ sake.’
‘It’s all right, really,’ Barbara protested, holding out her hand to Anna, and suddenly she sounded so weary that tears filled Anna’s eyes. Impulsively she knelt upon the floor, putting her arms around her mother’s waist and burying her face in her dressing gown, smelling from her lap the fresh scent of lemon talcum powder, and beyond it, the warm woman’s fragrance she recalled from childhood, cuddling upon her mother’s knee, or sulking in tears because of a childish quarrel. Barbara’s hands folded about her head, stroking, and she murmured, ‘There, there,’ in a drowsy voice, as if in a dream, or as if she had become part of the memory, Anna could not tell.
They stayed like that for a long time, whilst Tom stared silently, excluded and disturbed by an emotion he did not understand. As the gentle fingers wound the strands of her hair around and around, Anna felt as if she were melting deep inside, and rushing backwards, buried within her mother, for ever, whilst all the time that fragrance made her happy, the scent of lemons. Outside the birds still sang, and in the corner of the room the radio continued to mumble, its music finished now – a familiar friendly voice telling of future programmes, the weather, and the time.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The tide was unusually low, so it was possible to turn right in front of ‘Ahoy’ and walk along the stretch of beach that was usually covered, past the tangle of undergrowth and low trees that rose sharply from the usual waterline. A low sun gilded the far-out reaches of the river. The mud seemed alive with a million invisible sucking and squelching creatures, but the river was quiet. The end of the season; people had started to go home.
They unlatched the gate and walked along the beach in silence. Occasionally Tom made a remark and Anna murmured vague assent, glad that was all he required.
There was still the boy, she thought, still the windsurf boy to think about, quite deliberately as before, and yet with some resentment too – that even now he could slip between her mother and herself. They had been humiliated in front of each other, Matthew and she, and yet she could not hate him for that. It was George who was right, and she, Anna, foolish; made foolish by the boy, just as she had been made pathetic when John had left her, and (it suddenly occurred to her) ridiculous, by all her mother’s secrets.
She frowned down at the muddy shingle, trying to concentrate. What was it? Where did it come from, this paralysing fear that always made her, yes, a victim – someone to whom things happened, always; or someone who, the rest of the time, fled from what was within her grasp? Perhaps it was, after all, her father’s fault, she thought, for he had always protected her, his first girl. Barbara had said so. And there you were, trapped in the body nature gave you, ageing now, and imprisoned within the mind they had created, until one day a beautiful boy came and offered escape, and then you were too afraid (‘And you don’t really like sex, do you’, John had said, a few years ago, ‘you’re afraid of it, Anna, afraid of letting go, of the mess of it.’) That night when Matthew came to the cottage, what had he expected? She could have stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, and let whatever was to happen, happen. If only … but that thought was not wistful. Anna’s fists, swinging loosely at her sides as she walked, clenched suddenly and she let out an involuntary groan, of passion, of longing, and of grief for all that had gone, all the past, and all the passing present too, with its chances not taken. The boy … did Matthew regard her with contempt beneath his composure? Or was it pity? ‘Was that what the nurses felt for Barbara?’ she wondered – the image of her mother superimposing itself on the vision of Matthew in her mind, so that in the unifying fantasy of that second, it was the face of the boy that aged.
Tom looked up at her. ‘Mum, are you crying? I thought I heard you cry.’
‘No, I’m not. I just had a bit of tummyache.’
‘Guess who I just saw along the beach?’ Anna knew; but still asked the question the child expected.
‘It was Matthew. He was headed up into that wood place up there. Exploring, I ’spect.’
‘On his own?’
‘Yes. Shall we go and look for him?’
‘No. He’d rather be on his own.’
Just then a gull rose screaming from the scrubby trees Tom had indicated. It startled him, and he took her hand, but Anna had not noticed. Abstracted, she walked on, and he was drawn along with her, resenting suddenly her secret distance from him, and dimly sensing that it came with any mention of that other boy’s name. He pulled his hand away.
Anna stared up at the undergrowth, where Matthew was wandering even now, looking through the trees at the river perhaps, or lying in the dappled coolness, on mossy ground – even watching them through the branches. At this thought she smiled up at the trees, but there was no movement. Then something fluttered inside her: an excitement, a sense of daring she had never experienced before. A decision made.
Tom had wandered a short way off and was examining a clump of seaweed. Ahead, in the distance, she could see the stout, ungainly figure of George Treadle, washing down his ferry boat at the end of the pontoon. It was impossible to keep the urgency from her voice as she strode across to Tom and said, ‘I just want to run back and get something, darling. And phone someone. You go on ahead to George and tell him I’m coming to catch you up, so that he doesn’t think I’ve let you out on your own,’
He trotted off obediently, and Anna paused long enough to see that he had no interest in glancing behind him, before she hurried to confront the tangled undergrowth. She chose one of the little choked paths that led from the shore into the tangled shade, walking quietly on the balls of her feet, and glancing around her all the time in case she should miss him. ‘Matthew!’ she half-whispered, half-called, and again, ‘Matthew!’ into the rustling trees. The need to find him forced its way into her veins and arteries: Matthew away from the river, and away from other people, just as he had been that night when she had stepped back, rejecting him, as now she would not. ‘No, no, no …’ she muttered, she would not. For soon it would be too late, for everything, as it was too late for Barbara, within her iron bed.
She paused, and stared ahead. The wood was silent, and its peace suddenly permeated her skin, giving her confidence. Midges massed in their aimless patterns over the path. Anna thought she heard a twig crack, just ahead where the massed overhanging trees and shrubs formed a little copse, and suddenly remembered what she knew about this place. It was Richard’s den, forgotten until this moment, over there where the peculiarly gnarled branch doubled back upon itself, as if to form a barrier. Even the little heap of stones was there beside the path, tumbled now and covered with moss, where her brother had built a little cairn to mark the place. ‘Still here,’ Anna murmured, forgetting Matthew for a second in that miraculous loop of time.
