Edwin and Matilda, page 4
The truth was, Edwin had no idea what his mother had been thinking. He had no idea. Moreover, he knew nothing about her – nothing at all.
No, that was not quite correct. He did know something – a small fragment of information gleaned from the article written in Chinese that he had happened upon in Dr Aubrey’s waiting room. One evening, after closing his studio for the night, he had wandered down to his local fish and chip shop and made his usual request for three fish and one scoop of chips. He had sat on a plastic outdoor chair near the counter as he had struggled with the thoughts that ran through his head, staging an internal battle over whether or not he should ask May, the woman who for years had been serving him his regular Thursday-night meal, to translate the article for him. As he sat, waiting for his dinner to cook, he had played and replayed the arguments over and over again. If he got the article translated he would have to trace his mother. He couldn’t have it translated and then leave it at that. That option would be impossible. The moment he knew what the article said, a whole series of motions would clunk into place and he would have to keep pace with them, journeying from one fragment of information to the next. The problem was, he wasn’t sure that he was ready to make that journey. Even though eight years had passed since he had laid eyes on the magazine, he was still unwilling to make that commitment.
If he didn’t get the article translated he could go home and watch Coronation Street and spend this evening like any other. He could just sit peacefully and not do anything. Every now and then he could bring the article out and look at the photograph and wonder what the piece of writing said – he could even create his own version of the story – and then he would be able to put the magazine down and go back to watching television or reading a book or looking at the photographs pinned to his ‘wall of strays’.
The one thing that always caught him – that drifted back and forth above him like a fishing net skimmed across the surface of a pond – was the knowledge that if he didn’t get the article translated he would never know what it said. In fact, what he most wanted was to know what the article said, but then be allowed to un-know it again, so that whatever was written wouldn’t haunt him. That was what he wanted: the right to simultaneously find out and forget the information.
It had taken months of Thursdays before he eventually got the article translated. He hadn’t arrived at the fish and chip shop with that intention, but it had been a peculiar week, a week in which nothing had gone to plan. It had not even been a Thursday, he recalled, when he placed his order for three fish and a scoop of chips. It was a Tuesday. He had arrived early, just after five, and when he entered the shop May was sitting on the plastic chair rubbing her calves while her daughter, Nancy, worked behind the counter, pre-frying chips for the night’s customers. Seeing May sitting down he had suddenly realised she was an old woman. He had never noticed it before, but now, for the first time in his life, he took in her black hair streaked with grey, her sallow skin and her sunken eyes. For a second longer than was polite, he found himself staring at her and it was only her voice that jolted him out of his dream. ‘Mr Edwin,’ she laughed, ‘your wife not cook for you tonight?’
It was a small thing – an off-the-cuff remark, no more than a joke, really – but in hearing May utter that small sentence Edwin was struck dumb. He had, he realised, been frequenting this chip shop every week for as long as he could remember, and for all that time May had assumed he was married. Despite the fact that they saw each other every week, they knew nothing about each other. Perhaps he knew more about her – her family did work alongside her, after all – but she clearly knew nothing about him. She didn’t even know he was not married, had never been married – that his father was dead, that he had no siblings and a mother he could barely remember. For a second he felt stricken. It was as if he had suddenly seen himself for what he was: a man completely alone in the world, unloved by anyone – a kind of shapeless, weightless orphan. He had no connections – to anyone. He was a remnant, or something else, some other shredded scrap – he didn’t know what.
He found himself smiling at May, nodding his head as if by simply pretending to have a wife he might somehow feel more substantial. But he felt slightly dizzy and in that moment, without being conscious of having made any decision, he found himself pulling the magazine from his briefcase and passing it to May and, in a faint voice, asking her to read the article to him.
I haven’t told anyone this before. After my mother left, my father would come into my bedroom every evening to say goodnight. He never missed a night. Never. No matter how busy he was, he was always there – like a well-dressed shadow, I used to think. He would sit on the edge of my bed and look down at me and smile and say, ‘Night and bless.’ And then he would sit for a few minutes looking at my face. I think now that he was trying to see my mother. He was searching for some resemblance, some flicker in my expression that would bring her back to him. That’s what I think he was doing. Often, though, I would close my eyes and just lie still and I would feel his hand reach out and stroke my hair, and I would feel him kiss me very gently and he would say, ‘I love you,’ and I would imagine that it was not him in my room, but her. He touched me so gently that I would persuade myself she had come back. Sometimes, I would be so sure my mother had returned that after a few seconds I would open my eyes wide … and there would be my father, his eyes tightly closed, lost in thought, still stroking my hair.
FOUR
Two thoughts entered Edwin’s mind in quick succession. The first, that after all this time, he had finally started out on his journey to trace his mother. The second, that his decision to seek out Matilda’s house might appear odd.
When he’d left his house earlier in the day he’d simply remembered he still had her photographs and that he would be passing through Ranfurly, where she lived, later that day. It had seemed very straightforward – a kind of practical arrangement: she had paid for the photos and he was in a position to drop them off without going to any inconvenience – or cost. But as he stood at her gate, he wondered why he hadn’t couriered the photos out to her weeks before – and then he began to feel uncertain. Suddenly he worried that perhaps he had promised to send the pictures but had forgotten about it. It was quite possible Matilda would respond to his gesture not with gratitude but with anger; she might very well feel annoyed with him for taking so long with her wedding pictures. For a second, Edwin considered going back to his car, driving to the local post shop and sending the photographs from there, but then he decided he was being ridiculous. What did it matter, really? He’d retired, he was giving her the photographs she – or Jacob, rather – had paid for. End of story, as people said.
As he approached the front door he hoped she wouldn’t be home. It would be easier to leave the pictures and just go. He could put them in a safe place – on the couch or table he could see on the veranda – and then he could leave and go about his other business, his real reason for being in this part of the country. It was only as he made his way up the garden path that it dawned on him that it was unusual for so much furniture to be outside. Not only was there a couch and a table but also several chairs and, oddest of all, a piano. The gardens of student flats back in Dunedin were often surrounded, he knew, by random pieces of furniture, but it was unusual to see a piano included in the mess.
The TB sanatorium had had a piano. An old upright, very plain, with the words ‘Wallis’ and ‘London’ in gold on the underside of its lid. He’d never learnt how to play. He was entirely without musical talent – a surprising fact given that both his father and mother were such competent musicians. It was his mother who excelled at the piano, while his father often accompanied her on the violin. His father’s fingers, he remembered, were well suited to the violin: they were long and tapered. For some reason Edwin thought they looked European. It must have been because his father’s hands were so unlike those of any of the patients in the sanatorium. Even the weakest, most poorly of men had hands that retained a memory of strength. He remembered how the hands of the men, palms flat against laundered white sheets, would catch his eye as he walked through the wards in search of his father. It wasn’t the men’s worn faces, their tired expressions that would move him, but their hands. Even as a boy of ten he saw in their large, immobile hands an indication of what had been lost – a life that had been compromised by the onset of disabling disease. It was the hands that suffered – that was what he thought back then. The hands that grieved for a former life: a useful life.
Music hands, piano hands – and most of all violin hands – were different. They could adapt to a change in circumstance. They could turn the tissue-like pages of a book, take a needle and thread and embroider a handkerchief, darn a sock or mend a tear in a shirt … but those men’s hands were useless when taken out of their environment. They knew no other purpose than to haul bales of hay, cut wood or grab a sheep roughly by its scruff, directing it one way or the other through the pens. The hands of those men had no idea what to do in a clean, airy ward, so they remained motionless on the turned-down sheets, as idle as two working dogs chained to a kennel on a late summer evening.
Standing on the veranda before the wedged-open door, Edwin tapped gently on the keys of the piano. Although he could not play, he knew one or two tunes well enough for them to be recognisable. They were songs his mother had taught him. It was funny – he hadn’t thought about them for years, though he would hear them occasionally on the radio, often during the Saturday-night request show on National Radio, where people from one town or country would contact distant friends and family members in another – the music forming a bridge across the ocean that separated them. ‘I’m thinking of you. I haven’t written for a long time. We’re all fine over here. How are you? You must remember this … ?’ The fragment of their greeting contained in three minutes of Vera Lynn, Flanagan and Allen or that Canadian – well, he assumed he was Canadian, the performer with the rich, deep voice. What was his name? Edwin asked himself, annoyed once more at having come across something so familiar and yet so far out of his reach. He hummed snippets of tunes to himself but the Canadian’s name continued to elude him. It was strange but he felt he could picture the performer – although, in truth, he had never seen a photograph of him. In his mind he could hear the voice: the mellow tone, a bit like Val Doonican’s, a little like that other man whose name he had forgotten. But still he couldn’t recall the name. What is his name? What was the song? My old Canadian home? My home? Canadian? Come on, Edwin, think!
His frustration was made worse by the fact that it was not a song his mother ever played – she preferred Chopin, Schubert and Debussy to any of the popular songwriters of the day. Had she stayed, Edwin might have developed a stronger interest in the piano. It was possible. A vague image came back to him: of himself sitting on his mother’s knee while she played Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’. He recalled the warmth of her body against his back, the way he snuggled into her as if she was an armchair moulded, through frequent use, to the contours of his body. He remembered watching her fingers as they glided over the keys – how he imagined them as butterflies, or spiders … butterflies for ‘Clair de Lune’, spiders for Chopin’s ‘Valse’, a dying moth for the ‘Moonlight Sonata’. He would shadow her movements, anticipate where her fingers would alight next, which key, what note – he sometimes rested his hands gently on the backs of his mother’s own as she traced the keyboard. His small hands on her larger ones – his black-rimmed, chewed fingernails; her creamy skin, tapered fingers, round, sugar-almond nails. His hands touching hers, pretending that they were hers, that they were two halves brought together … that they would remain so until he was a grown man.
Out of the corner of his eye Edwin caught a slight movement. Someone was watching him. He glanced up and immediately recognised the girl, Matilda. She stood at the far end of the long central hallway. Although he knew she had seen him, and that she must have heard him playing, she showed no signs of acknowledgement and made no move to walk towards him. It was difficult to see her clearly. Although he stood on the veranda, he was not shaded by it, and his eyes strained against the bright light around him as he peered through the open door into the darkness of the hallway. Feeling increasingly awkward, he stepped forward and tapped on the door – a light knock, the kind of self-conscious knock visitors make when they can hear or see the occupant is home. A knock intended not to cause offence.
Edwin was taken aback when Matilda made no response. He felt confused by her lack of reaction. It was almost as if she was waging some internal battle, trying to decide whether or not she wanted to see him, hovering in indecision – afraid, perhaps of what she could see in his hands. Surely she had guessed that he had the photographs. In his confusion, Edwin found that his thoughts had begun to drift; instead of focusing on his next move he found himself thinking about Nova Scotia, something to do with Nova Scotia. He frowned, perplexed at the way his brain appeared to be able to take off on its own, setting its own course. My Nova Scotia home. Of course, ‘My Nova Scotia Home’ – that was the song title!
He hesitated, waiting for the performer’s name to follow and glanced at Matilda, as if expecting her to tell him. Then he noticed that a ray of light from the open door had seeped towards her, lighting her feet and the hem of her dress. It was midnight blue. Her wedding dress. As if conscious of the light, Matilda abruptly took a step, retreating further from the doorway and into the shadow. She hesitated for a moment and then, making her mind up, she walked down the passage towards him, hovering a few feet from the front door.
‘I don’t want them,’ she said, suddenly breaking the silence, pointing to the large folder in Edwin’s hands.
If he thought about it, Edwin had long ago reached the same conclusion – after all, if she’d wanted the photographs she would have collected them – but he nevertheless found himself responding, ‘Oh!’ as if surprised by her remark. He was, he realised, attempting to be polite. It would be wrong, in the situation, to respond, ‘I thought you would say that.’ He had to allow her to steer the conversation; it was up to her to draw him in – if she chose to do so.
‘You were paid,’ she continued after a moment’s silence. Her voice was not one of accusation or defence, it was flat, almost expressionless. She was merely stating a fact. But, although she was not seeking it, Edwin found himself offering reassurance, ‘Yes, they’re all paid for.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘Don’t worry, you’re not the first one – there have been others. You’re not the first client to decide to forgo the pictures.’ He saw her raise her chin, a slight upwards nod of the head followed by a simple, ‘Oh.’
His observation, however, appeared to have relaxed her. She no longer looked wary, and although she didn’t smile, her face seemed to brighten slightly as if released from tension.
Edwin knew he could leave, that he could say goodbye and take the photographs back with him – he could even throw them away now. Although she hadn’t said as much, he felt certain he had Matilda’s permission to do so. He had no desire to go chasing after the boy, Jacob. His job, as far as he was concerned, was finished: tied off like the bundles of newspapers he kept stacked in his garage. He lingered, however, his eyes roving over the pieces of furniture on the veranda, the piano, then back to the girl. He was aware that she was watching him; he heard her sigh and then ask, ‘How long have you been playing?’ Her voice was quiet, gentle, and for the first time Edwin thought he detected a slight accent – Australian, perhaps. He was about to reply but stopped, suddenly reticent. If he was to answer truthfully – and there was no reason why he shouldn’t – he would have to say that he had been tinkering with the keys since the late 1940s. Instead, he replied, ‘I started playing when I was around five or six.’
Matilda nodded and looked down at her toe, prodding at a torn fragment of newspaper with her foot. Then she spoke again, asking, ‘Who taught you?’ This time there was a boldness in her manner. Edwin recognised the tone: it was not unknown to him. In his experience, only the most taciturn of clients adopted it. It was their way of disguising their shyness; they would ask questions, talk too loudly or bluster – anything to divert the attention away from themselves. Matilda was doing it now, trying to hide behind a direct personal question. What’s more, he realised, she was trying to give the impression that she didn’t care. He felt sorry for her, so he clarified his earlier statement, saying, ‘I began to play in 1949. My mother taught me.’
His answer, he soon guessed, made Matilda even more self-conscious. She would know, now, how old he was and her natural inclination would be to show greater respect to someone so much older than herself. Edwin waited to see what she would say next: whether she would back down or whether she would press ahead until the humiliation became too great for her and she would lapse into a sullen silence. He waited and it occurred to him that Matilda herself was having some difficulty deciding what to do. Several seconds passed before she spoke again.
‘You’re sixty-two?’
Edwin nodded and Matilda looked away. She was losing the battle, he thought; she wouldn’t go on for much longer – it was not in her nature to pry.
‘My doctor is sixty-two,’ she said, rather too abruptly.
Again Edwin nodded but said nothing. He could see it now quite clearly in her expression – her embarrassment, her desire to break away and return to a more peaceful, less forced state.
