Astonishing Splashes of Colour (17 page)

She comes to the door with me. “It was lovely to see you, Kitty. Do come again.”

“Thank you for the tea.”

We walk into the hall, and I fight my usual desire to open the trunk and see all her Indian life packed away. As we stand there, she remembers something. “Wait a minute,” she says, and disappears abruptly into the kitchen. I hesitate for two seconds. Then I bend over and hastily lift the trunk lid—it is heavier than I expected—and shut it again immediately.

It’s empty.

Miss Newman comes back with a tidy parcel of shortbread in a paper napkin and presses it into my hand. “Something for later,” she says.

“Thank you,” I say.

Now I know why she talks more about Jack and less about India. She has lost her memories of India.

She stands at the door, watching me climb the stairs. “Goodbye, Kitty.” She is waving.

I turn back and wave. I don’t call out in case James hears me and comes out.

I find it difficult to settle after this. My mind, which has been leaping through the last few days, letting me read quickly and think analytically, has suddenly braked. I know why. It’s the thought of finding out more of my mother’s life. I like this idea of a person being contained in a box. Better than a few unidentifiable ashes in an urn. There are boxes and boxes of papers in the attic of Tennyson Drive, amongst forgotten furniture and spiders’ webs. I don’t like going up there, but I intend to try.

I want to go immediately, but know I should slow down and approach it cautiously. I need a time when nobody is home, which is almost impossible. I need an excuse to go up there, but I can’t think of one.

The doorbell rings and makes me jump. James waits all this time to speak to me and when he finally gets here, he rings the doorbell. He has a key. He can come in any time he wants to. I wish he would learn to be spontaneous.

I open the door, and there he is looking foolish, holding a Tesco’s carrier bag.

“You’ve got to go for your doctor’s appointment,” he says. “I thought we could eat together afterwards.”

“What do you mean,
I
have to go? I thought it was
we
?”

He coughs and looks at the floor. “I rang up and told them I won’t be coming.”

Anger rises inside me, boiling up from my stomach and branching out in all directions, making my feet, my hands, the tip of my nose throb with the desire to scream at him. “She wants to see you too,” I say slowly, my voice shaking.

“I know,” he says.

I want to put my hands round his neck and shake him. I want to shout at him, bully him, force him to come with me. How can I face Dr. Cross without him?

“Kitty—” he says.

“What?”

“I can’t.” He looks up and I see that it upsets him nearly as much as it does me.

My anger fizzles like air out of a balloon, and I sag with exhaustion. “So much for twenty-first-century enlightened man. You’re not supposed to have inhibitions these days.”

He spreads his arms, too ready to surrender. “I’m a failure. I’m sorry.”

I pull him inside the flat and put my arms round him. “Only half a failure. At least you can cook the meal while I’m gone.”

“Don’t you want me to walk you there?”

“No. I’ll go on my own. I want to eat as soon as I get back.”

He follows me into the kitchen with his groceries and looks at my rows of dirty coffee cups. He picks up a pile of books on the kitchen table and stacks them neatly, corners lined up, spines all facing in the same direction. Then he goes over to the sink and starts to run the hot water. He picks up the washing-up liquid from the window sill, squeezes it and puts it back in the cupboard under the sink. He won’t start cooking until the kitchen is clean.

“What time is the appointment?” I ask.

“Half an hour’s time.”

I don’t know why he won’t talk about Henry or even say his name. It’s as if he has to be cushioned with emotional cotton wool, to protect himself from all the rage he can’t touch. Real anger is too messy for him. Once it’s out in the open, it can’t easily be tidied away. Or maybe he’s got so used to protecting me that he can’t break out of the habit.

It’s a good thing he came. I had no idea what day it was. But, of course, he knew that.

Dr. Cross’s room is tidy, like James’s flat, but more occupied and attractive. There is a picture on the wall, a Matisse print of apples. The light is exactly right. The room occupies the middle condition between James’s flat and mine. Normality, I suppose.

“He wouldn’t come,” I say as I sit down. “I’m sorry.”

She smiles briefly. “No, I thought he wouldn’t.”

How could she possibly know? She has never met him.

“Ask him again,” she says. “If you can learn to talk freely to each other, about the baby, it will help you both.”

She knows how we live. She knows about our next-door flats.

“I’m going to investigate my father’s attic,” I say excitedly.

She has no idea what I am talking about, so she waits for the explanation. I like this patience.

“There might be things about my mother in there somewhere,” I say. “You know, letters, photographs, clothes—” I tell her about my visit to Miss Newman and the box of Jack’s life.

“How much do you remember about your mother?” she asks.

“Not much. I remember a dress—a crinkly dress—and beads.” And ‘A Hard Day’s Night.’”

“Can you remember her smell? Her colours?”

I look up quickly. How does she know I notice colours? “I don’t know—”

“Does your father talk about her?”

“Only about the times when they first met. He’s angry with her—for dying.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, Adrian, I think, told me. I’ve asked them all about her, but they don’t say anything useful. They all seem to remember a different person.”

Dr. Cross sits quietly and thinks about what I have said. She doesn’t look worried or concerned. “When did you last ask anyone?” she says.

“Oh, years ago. I was only about twelve.”

“You’re an adult now. Perhaps you should try again.”

“But they don’t know anything. They contradict each other.”

“I’m sure that’s not true. They’re older than you—they must all have memories of her. They’re probably thinking about her more now that they’re adults and old enough to have their own children.”

She’s right. I’ve been relying on childhood memories. It’s perfectly legitimate to look at your past when you’re older.

I sit with Dr. Cross for a bit longer.

“Make an appointment for next week,” she says when I go.

As I walk back home, I wonder if Miss Newman has lost the truth about Jack too. Maybe the box of his life is as empty as the trunk of India.

I check my watch as I leave the surgery and I’m delighted to see that it’s only 3:15. There’s time for a detour. I have five minutes, and I’m not sure if I’m going to make it, so I start to run.

I can see the school gates before I get there. The children are beginning to come out, so I slow down. I won’t see Rosie—she goes to nursery school and is picked up separately—but I am hoping for a glimpse of Emily. I stand on the corner of the pavement watching the children. My mind jumps back to my yellow period, waiting outside the school for Henry—who wasn’t there. I think of Hélène. Is she still in England, meeting her two children every day, while Emily comes running out here in Harborne? There is an elusive fluttering sensation deep inside me that leaps perpetually out of reach whenever I try to approach it.

I recognize the child-minder who picks up Emily. Her name is Theresa and she collects several children. No welcoming mother for Emily when she comes out of school. No Lesley ready to hear the stories of the day. How can Lesley do this? How can she bear to miss any time with Emily and Rosie, and not hear everything they have to say? They must forget so much before they see her: all those thoughts that they’ll never have again.

Emily comes out, skipping with another girl, hand in hand. Her hair gleams like polished gold—one moment still and dense as she pauses, the next shivering and disintegrating into a thousand glittering pieces as she dances over the paving stones.

She’s nearly level with me before she sees me. She stops and opens her mouth to speak, but I shake my head and put a finger to my lips. The other girl skips ahead without her. Emily and I
stand looking at each other for a few seconds. She smiles shyly, but makes no further attempt to speak.

I smile at her, and then raise my hand. I kiss my fingers, blow the kiss towards her and turn away. I don’t want to see her catching up with the others, skipping away from me.

As I turn, I nearly fall over a little boy with an apple in his hand. He’s stopped to examine it, moving it round in his hands as if he doesn’t know what to do with it. His mother is ahead. She stops and looks back at him.

“Harry!” she calls. He ignores her, so she comes back for him. “Come on, Henry,” she says. “Do hurry up. Thomas is coming to play.”

I go home to James, who is an expert at producing meals at strange times. He somehow knows when I need food. He adapts to my irregular eating habits, irritated by the messiness of it all, but prepared to be tolerant.

‘You look cheerful,” he says as I come in, exhilarated by my illicit contact with Emily. “How did it go?”

For two seconds I don’t know what he is talking about. Then I remember Dr. Cross. “Fine,” I say.

“Have you been taking the pills?”

I put a finger casually into his sauce and lick it. “You should be a chef,” I say. “You’re wasted on computers.”

He moves the saucepan out of my reach. He wages war against germs as obsessively as his parents. That’s one of the big advantages of being surrounded by the sterile empty spaces of his flat. There’s nowhere for the germs to go. They can’t creep up on you unexpectedly.

“We’ve got to talk about Henry,” I say suddenly, deciding that I will creep up on him unexpectedly instead.

He says nothing and stirs his sauce as if I’m not there.

“Our baby,” I say, putting my mouth close to his ear. “In case you’ve forgotten him. We have to talk about the baby who never was. You are the father of a dead baby who will never grow up. We’ll never have to pay a fortune for Startrite shoes with an F fitting. He’ll never read
Winnie the Pooh,
never have smelly feet, never play his music too loud, never make us watch football on TV, never struggle over simultaneous equations. He will never marry someone we don’t approve of, never give us grandchildren—”