Edwin and Matilda, page 8
One other aspect of the visit had caught Matilda’s attention. At one point Richard had mentioned that a few years earlier two very old women had visited the sanatorium. It had turned out they had lived there many years before, back in the forties or fifties. Richard wasn’t sure of the exact dates but, he guessed that the women were both in their seventies or eighties. He paused for a moment, then added that despite their age they had looked healthy, the way people who live in the country so often appear: strong despite their years.
Of the two women, only one had talked. The other had remained silent throughout much of the afternoon and he had thought at first that she was slightly senile – unable to follow the conversation. Eventually, however, he had changed his mind, concluding that she was probably just hard of hearing. From time to time the more talkative woman would address her as if seeking confirmation of some fact or other, saying, ‘Isn’t that right, Jess?’ and the woman, Jess, would nod her head but otherwise maintain her silence. To be perfectly frank, he had found the silent woman’s behaviour slightly disconcerting. In fact the feeling was stronger than that – she made him feel uncomfortable. It was as if, he explained, there was a shadow about her, an aura of sadness – as if she had experienced some terrible loss or tragedy in her life. He had laughed then, explaining that in his former life he had sometimes consulted a spiritualist and from her had learnt about auras and chakras and such. He believed in that type of thing, he said, without offering any further explanation.
Matilda had been looking at Edwin when Richard mentioned the name Jess and had been surprised to see him visibly flinch. It had been barely discernible but it had been no less powerful for that. It was a gesture she recognised because it had been one she had made herself on the day her doctor had called, asking her to return to his surgery because he had something to tell her – information he could not give over the phone.
As Edwin had sat quietly, Richard had continued to natter, explaining how as a flight attendant working in first class he had acquired the skill of remembering names. By concentrating on some visual feature – a facial mark or a gesture – he was able to make connections between a face and a name. For example, Jess, the silent woman, had a strange scar just above her lip. It gave her face a slightly lopsided look, which reminded him of a farm dog his uncle once owned. The dog’s name, curiously, was Tess – hence the connection: lopsided grin … Tess … Jess. Not that Jess looked like a dog, he laughed, but that was how his method worked – visual connections. The other woman had no facial marks but she did have lively eyes: they were green – ocean green. Her name, he finished, was Violet.
Matilda had felt disturbed by Edwin’s expression, the way he was simply staring into space. He reminded her of someone who, for whatever reason, could no longer make sense of his surroundings. She knew that look, she knew it, and although she had no idea what had caused it, she felt her heart go out to him. Yet, despite recognising his isolation, she had said nothing. Instead she had taken the only action that seemed to her – at that moment – to be respectful: turning away from him, allowing him the privacy he needed. But his expression had stayed with her. She had seen that something was wrong, that Richard’s conversation had set something – she didn’t know what – in motion. She had listened more carefully from that point on, had been aware of Richard saying, boasting almost, that he even remembered Violet’s surname: it was Gray – which was amusing, didn’t they agree? Neither Edwin nor Matilda had responded and the room had fallen silent.
No one had spoken for several seconds. Richard had stood up and gone to look through the window, plucking at his jersey – some minute balls of lint – as he gazed out across the garden. After some time Matilda heard Edwin sigh and then listened as he asked: ‘The other woman’s name – Jess – can you remember her surname?’
Richard had shaken his head. ‘No, I don’t know her name. I’m not sure I heard it …’ Then, smiling, he had added, ‘Unless I’ve simply forgotten it.’ There was something triumphant in his tone, as if he was pleased with himself for being able to forget a name. He gave the impression that he had been released from some terrible bind, a talent that no longer gave him pleasure but had nevertheless maintained its hold over him for years and years.
Still picking at the pieces of fluff on his jersey, he went on. ‘I have Violet’s address somewhere. She told me she had some cartons of photographs of the sanatorium and invited me to look at them at her home in Alexandra.’ He sighed, too dramatically, thought Matilda, before adding, ‘Of course, I’ve been so busy with this place that I haven’t had time.’ His voice trailed off and he wandered over to the cork board hanging on the wall next to the telephone. He flicked through the scraps of paper layered deep on its surface. ‘Her address is here somewhere …’ Finding the piece he was looking for, he copied the address onto a yellow post-it note, which he passed to Edwin. ‘Violet was a good-looking woman. Strong. Do you remember her?’
Edwin, Matilda recalled, had shaken his head. He said little after that but had sat very quietly, his palms pressed against his thighs, glancing occasionally towards the window as if expecting someone to walk by. Eventually, after a period of silence, he sighed and carefully folded the post-it note into quarters before tucking it carefully into his trouser pocket. Then he had shrugged his shoulders and smiled, looking embarrassed. ‘Sorry,’ he said, though to whom he was speaking, Matilda could not tell.
It was because Edwin had remained so downcast that Matilda had spoken to him on the journey back to Ranfurly about films. She had felt she ought to do something to lift the mood, and not being confident when it came to making small talk, she had grasped at the first thing that had entered her head: movies. Now, however, she felt uncomfortable. She didn’t know why but she had the impression that she had let him down, that she had not done anything to help. She definitely had the feeling he needed help.
Retreating into herself, she began to replay the conversation that had taken place at Richard’s, looking for clues that might explain Edwin’s mood. Before Edwin had fallen silent, she had felt drawn into his stories of sanatorium life, willing them to continue so that she could visualise more clearly the life he had experienced. For a while she had even considered that the sanatorium itself might make a good subject for her documentary. But as Edwin spoke, it dawned on her that the thing that continued to hold her attention was not the sanatorium but Edwin himself. Although he wasn’t particularly old – at least not in the way she defined old age – he appeared almost to belong to a previous age. A quiet age, one she wished she had known. She’d have liked to have had a childhood like his: one that simply unfolded day by day rather than collapsing into a frightening mess, as her own childhood had. Compared to hers, his life had been calm. He was lucky.
The reason Matilda liked old people was simple: it was because they were still alive, because they had survived. She sometimes wondered if old people understood or appreciated that – or even thought about it. She hoped they did. She wanted to think that every now and again an old person would take a step back from their everyday life in order to murmur appreciatively, ‘At least I’m still here.’ To Matilda, that was one of the few things worth saying.
There had been a time, not so long ago, when Matilda had believed she didn’t deserve to live. Few people knew of that time in her life – her mother, her younger half-brother … her stepfather. Not her real father. He belonged only to the years of her early childhood, when she lived in Auckland.
Like everyone else in Auckland she had been aware of his presence. He had a high media profile, appearing on television, in magazines and at charity events. For most of her childhood it seemed to Matilda that the only place he rarely showed his face was at home. He was a very successful businessman and, as such, was less a physical presence in her life than a financial one. He paid for things.
They had lived on the North Shore. Her father and mother were already part of the establishment when she was born. Of course they hadn’t always been so wealthy. Matilda had discovered that her parents had met in a bar in London. Her mother had been a waitress, her father a customer. They had quickly established a connection based on an identification of their accents: his was New Zealand, hers Australian. Amid all the noise and strangeness of the city, it had been enough to bring them together.
Returning to New Zealand, Matilda’s father was well liked by everyone – except, it turned out, her mother. Settling down in an eight-bedroom home in Takapuna, Charlotte, Matilda’s mother, had quickly discovered that she had no power over her husband, nor his schedules, meetings or gala events. She felt diminished and, because of that, took to hiring staff. Not because she needed help around the home but because the people she hired were, by definition, beneath her and she could tell them what to do. They were employed to notice her. But even that plan failed. The staff didn’t notice her; she was too timid, too respectful. She hardened herself; trained herself to be less reasonable, more critical. She learnt that the only way she could gain any sense of self was by reminding her employees that she was in charge. Her behaviour shamed her; she wondered what had happened to her, how she could have become unrecognisable, even to herself.
In a last attempt to improve herself, to become a better, more interesting person, she decided one day to begin an art collection. She had no real interest in art but had noticed that among the wives of her husband’s associates, art played a major part in the conversation. Visiting the pristine concrete houses maintained by the wives she was able to learn – and recognise – the names of the artists held in their collections. At first she was surprised that most appeared to collect only the works of a few artists – there was little or no variation in the art work displayed on the walls of their personal galleries. However, after a while she understood that the most important part of collecting was the fact that art was the means to attaining status: acquiring the right painting allowed her to enter a new class, and although it was a group with a strong hierarchy (and she would never get off the bottom rung) she was glad, nevertheless, to be a member.
Then one morning, as she lay in bed gazing at her latest purchase – a work she liked, though she couldn’t say why – Charlotte realised that in all the time she had been collecting, she had never spoken to an artist. At first she thought she must be mistaken – at one of the many openings she had attended she must have been introduced to at least one artist – but the more she searched her memory, the more certain she was that she had never talked to any painter about their work, or why they painted. And despite the sun, the stream of light that poured into her room, she had felt a sudden chill. She knew, without doubt, that she had failed.
And that was the mother Matilda had first become aware of; that was the mother she knew.
She pictured her mother as a person who had forgotten how to live. She recalled that her mother used to talk about a trip to Vienna, a visit to the hairdresser or an appointment with the school principal in such a way that it appeared she was unable to distinguish between them. Her mother’s behaviour confused her – she didn’t understand. She would look and look and look at her mother and she appeared like any other adult woman. There was nothing missing from her face or her body, but Matilda could not make her mother work. She didn’t understand what had happened to her mother, but once she had been watching her father work on his computer when it had crashed. Hearing her father explain the problem – his description of how the computer had frozen; that all the information was still there but unobtainable – made Matilda think of her mother. She concluded that, like her father’s computer, her mother had simply crashed.
Matilda had hoped her father would be able to fix her mother. She willed him not to go away on business trips. Whenever he was home she would push him towards her mother in the hope that his body, his presence, would make things better. She would watch, barely able to breathe, as her father kissed her mother and she would wait for her to return his embrace. And time and time again, nothing would happen. Her mother’s eyes would flicker in recognition but she would say little beyond reciting some schedule of activities that was lined up for the forthcoming week – a charity event at the gallery, cocktails at the museum, dinner with the Pearsons, barbecue at the yacht club … As far as Matilda could tell, her mother didn’t engage in any of these events; she attended them but her experience was such that they might just as well have been titles listed on a programme rather than anything real.
What Matilda did not know was that her mother was not, as she imagined, past caring. The fact was, her mother cared deeply. The greater her husband’s success, the more pronounced her own sense of failure. And of all her failures, Matilda was her greatest. Matilda was the one thing in the whole world Charlotte wanted to care about and yet so entrenched was her behaviour, her reliance on the barrier erected between herself and those around her, that Charlotte didn’t know how to approach her daughter. She didn’t know what to say to her. Try as she might, she had nothing to talk about.
Looking at Matilda, Charlotte saw a mirror reflecting all the things she had done wrong. This caused her so much pain that she decided the only way she could make things better was by finding other people to do the job she was so clearly unable to perform. She didn’t want to risk hurting her daughter any more than she already had. So once again she hired help: a nanny. And so the wheel of her own defeat began to turn again – but this time, unlike before, Matilda was riding beside her.
Then, one day, when Matilda was about six, her mother left. It wasn’t until she was an adult that Matilda understood what had happened: that her mother was depressed; that she had been overcome by loneliness; that she had been experiencing the isolation of being married to a man who was always too busy, too tired or too preoccupied to maintain a relationship. At the time of her mother’s departure Matilda had no idea of what had happened. Her father had appeared one day, lifted her high in the air and said, ‘And now we can have some fun!’ He’d hugged her and added, ‘While the cat’s away, the mice will play!’ and then disappeared into his office, reappearing once or twice each day to lift her up and laugh: ‘Now we’ll have some fun!’
Matilda spent most of the following week playing outside, floating leaves on the pond – the ‘infinity pool’ – in the garden. Now that her mother was gone she didn’t have to worry that the leaves would turn brown and sink to the bottom of the pool. Part of the ‘fun’ that her father had talked about was not having to worry any more. The other part of her father’s fun was his departure to Britain. Matilda didn’t mind. On the few occasions she had spent time with him she had felt lost for words. Despite her father’s proximity during the past week, she hadn’t known what to say to him. Going for a walk together, she discovered that although she could answer any of his questions, she couldn’t proceed further than that – she couldn’t make conversation with him. The few times she had tried she had been struck by the impression that her father found her boring. Although he never interrupted her, he always seemed to be only half listening to whatever it was she was saying, his eyes wandering from her to his surroundings to his watch and back to her. She didn’t know how to hold his attention so she did the only thing she could do: she retreated into silence.
The morning before her father left, an older woman arrived to stay. She was a stranger to Matilda, someone her father or his secretary had found. Matilda couldn’t imagine that this stranger would be interested in her life so it came as a surprise to discover that the opposite was true. The stranger, it turned out, was perceptive. Without making a fuss, she quickly established herself as a presence in Matilda’s life. At first Matilda didn’t understand what was going on. She would be engrossed in one of her many projects only to stop, look up and see the stranger watching her. For one of the first times in her life, Matilda was aware of making eye contact with an adult. It was a remarkable experience, one she would never forget: the simple fact of being seen.
It was the stranger who took the time to explain to her that her mother had not simply walked out but was sick – not physically but mentally; that the thoughts in her mother’s head were so powerful they could cause pain but Matilda was not to worry because her mother would get better. In a few weeks’ time everything would return to normal; her mother would come home. ‘In the meantime,’ the stranger said, ‘you are not to worry. This is a matter for grown-ups, not children. This is not something you have to be scared about or try to fix, so you’re not to worry about your mum – or anything else, for that matter. I’m here now and I’m going to take care of everything. I’m going to look after you.’ Then, giving Matilda a hug, the stranger had added, ‘That’s what I’m paid for.’
I wanted to make Edwin laugh. I don’t know very many funny stories but I do know one – it’s the story of how I met Jacob. I was working on a charter boat, up north on the Whitsunday Islands. The vessel, the Sail-Easy, was a luxury craft with a glass bottom. Passengers paid to spend a day cruising over the reef while enjoying the fine wine and light meals served by its friendly, helpful crew. Me, in other words. Although the work itself was easy, I found it tiring. I wasn’t well at the time. In fact I was pretty sick.
We used to get a lot of wedding parties. In Australia weddings are big business – but then I guess it’s the same here. On this particular day there were sixty people on board, the maximum number we could carry. It was a beautiful day, not a breath of wind and just a slow, gentle swell. The reef appeared to glow and flash, so bright were the coral and the small fish that swam about. It was so beautiful. I wish I’d learnt to use my video camera back then so I could have filmed it. Nevertheless, I felt sick. I was feeling so ill that I began to wonder if the side-effects from the drugs I was taking might be worse than the sickness itself. At least I could make sense of my disease. The drugs were another matter. Anyway, all I wanted to do that day was lie down and sleep or, better still, die for a couple of hours – until the party was over. It was that kind of day.
