Digging Out (27 page)

For a moment, I continue to put up a fight, and then, as I had last night at Beryl’s, I admit to being knackered—driving on the wrong side of the road in the dark is not nearly as tempting as the thought of a soft bed. Once inside, Evan points me toward the sofa near the fireplace. “The phone is just there.”

“What is it, five or six hours’ difference? I can never remember.”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve not called the States in some time.” Not missing a beat, he continues. “Perhaps if you go through the operator, they can tell you. I’ll just go now and make the bed up for you and get out some fresh towels.”

As he walks away, I eye his strong shoulders, admiring how his jeans fit his bottom, remembering how much I loved him, loved to look at him. I am immediately embarrassed and surprised by these memories.

The camp operator tells me Hannah’s group is off on an overnight; the owner of the camp has gone with them. She assures me that everything is fine. Next I call Dafydd. He’s in a meeting, but I leave word with Barbara to tell him I’m fine and I’ll call again.

The room is dimly lit, the fire still going, although now it is only red-hot embers. And the cottage is quiet. I kick off my shoes and put my feet up, resting for just a moment.

I hear Evan, from under a heavy fog, as he moves about the room, but I can’t seem to get my eyelids to move. I feel it when he puts the blanket over me and tucks me in, but I am too tired to respond.

* * *

Evan takes me for my first driving lesson, unofficial of course, because I am fourteen, still way too young to legally drive. He is trying to teach me how to steer, shift the gears and use the petrol pedal, all at the same time. I keep confusing the brake with the clutch. It seems a lot to learn in an afternoon. He suggests we take a break, go to his house for biscuits and tea. It sounds good to me since I don’t want to go home—in fact haven’t wanted to go home since Parry moved out. He is living with Gilly, who none of us, even Evan, know that well, except to say hello. Evan has been trying to convince Parry to make it up with Da. He thinks that would help Parry pull it together.

I follow Evan into the small kitchen while he turns on the kettle and gets the cups out. We talk about the rules of driving, coming to a full stop at a stop sign, things like that. I watch as he pours out the boiling water into the kettle.

Outside, the sun is setting in a blaze of gold and saffron in the blue cloud-scattered sky.

“Come and look, Evan.” He puts the teapot and cups on the table and comes over next to me.

“After all, there’s still beauty, isn’t there?” he says quietly, then turns and kisses me, on the cheek. I surprise him when I kiss him back full on the lips. Then his arms are around me and mine around his neck, the two of us there in the sunset. When he touches my breast I don’t stop him, so he hitches my dress up and feels them both bare, the nipples hard between his fingers. His hand slips awkwardly into my panties. He hesitates, then begins caressing me. I have not done this before but I want him so badly I lift my leg and he puts his finger in and moves it around till I almost cry out, his tongue against mine, mine moving just as fast around his. My body loosens against him—his is hard against me. I pull him closer.

“Alys,” he whispers. “Oh, Alys.”

I’ve never heard my name said like this before.

Then, suddenly, he pulls away.

“Please don’t stop,” I say quietly, confused.

“Alys, I can’t. It’s, it’s’ You’re too young. So young you are. I just can’t. I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t have to be,” I say, embarrassed, pulling myself right. I am afraid of what I am feeling and what I would have let Evan do.

My dress falls straight and I run my fingers quickly through my hair.

Evan smiles tentatively at me.

We sit down across from each other at the small table and sip our tea. We smile at each other, acknowledging what is new between us.

Awakened by movement in the kitchen, I forget for a moment where I am. The fire has gone out. There is a blanket over me. But then I remember: Evan’s house, with daylight now coming through the opening in the pine green velvet drapes. I pull the blanket up around my neck and shudder down, thinking about how we actually started, Evan and me. One day I was living at home and the next I was more at Evan’s than not. It wasn’t till Gram told me I was making trouble for Mam by my actions that it even came to my attention I might be doing something that wasn’t proper.

Then is not now. I sit up, run my fingers through my hair, try to straighten myself out a bit. I am in dire need of a shower. The front door opens and then closes. Footsteps move away on the flagstone. I get up, quickly fold the blanket on the sofa, cross the cold flagstones in my bare feet. At the kitchen sink I let the water run and cup it with my hands into my mouth. Through the window, I see Evan in his garden in the shining morning, picking something and putting it into a pail.

I wander into the cowshed, touching the tops of the leather couches as I pass, looking for my bag. I feel as if I have had a hard night sleeping on concrete. I am dying for a cigarette. When I find them, I light one, inhale deeply, immediately get dizzy. After a few more drags I snuff it out in the fireplace.

In the bathroom, the tiles are clean and white and cool under my feet. Evan has left a stack of towels on the counter for me. I take off my clothes, having been in them for two days, and run the water for a bath. It is strange and then not so strange to be standing naked in Evan’s bathroom, looking at myself in his mirror.

I sneak a look into his medicine cabinet and glance at the tidy shelves, everything lined up and organized. There is no makeup remover, no perfume. Seems to be just as he said—he has made this life without a partner. I close the cabinet door quickly. The steaming bath feels good. I completely submerge, holding my breath for as long as I can.

I towel-dry my hair and tie it back. Then I put on my crumpled
clothes and use my finger to brush my teeth. When I come out of the bathroom Evan is in the kitchen. He has started a fire. Cut flowers are arranged in a vase on the table.

“Morning, Alys,” he says, looking up from his cooking. “You fell asleep on the sofa. I hope it was all right that I let you sleep. Did you find everything you needed in the bathroom?”

“I did,” I say, remembering how easy we used to be with each other years ago. “Thank you.”

“I’m making a quick omelette, and then I’m off to school. D’you like coffee or tea?”

“Coffee, thanks.”

“I was wondering,” he starts rather formally. “I imagine there’s a lot for you to do while you’re here, people you will be wanting to spend time with, but …” He pauses. “Well, what I mean to say is that it might be helpful if we could spend a bit of time going over things, getting to know each other again, perhaps clearing the air. I finish at half past three today. I could make you dinner, here?”

For a moment I hesitate. Having dinner with him alone in his house intimidates me. Thankfully, I remember I have promised to see Mam and Da.

“Mam. I promised Mam I’d cook them supper. I actually want to do a bit of shopping for them, cook a few meals they can have ready in the fridge. Try to take the strain off Mam a bit. Perhaps
you’d
like to join us for an early supper? I can’t imagine they’d mind.” I figure with my parents around we will stay on even ground.

“I’d like that,” he says immediately.

“You didn’t get to the guest room last night, but wouldn’t it be a bit easier for you to be right here, steps away from your parents, rather than trekking back and forth to Cardiff? You’ve so little time as it is. There will be food in the fridge and a telephone at your disposal. I’ll keep the fire going when I’m around. No strings attached.” He raises his right hand. “I’ll try to keep my attitude light.”

I can tell how hard he is trying. Why I would think his dinner offer is dangerous, and not this offer, is beyond me, but I accept.

“I’d like that, Evan. Thank you for asking.”

The drive back to Cardiff is easier than it was coming up. I know my way, straight down the M4 as if I’ve done it a hundred times. It takes me forty minutes. There are tasks to fulfill now, places to go
and people to be with. It is as if I am beginning some new phase of an old life, moving info it, if only for a little while, getting the chance to live with it in a different way. While I am checking out of the hotel, I ask the concierge where I might find a supermarket. His idea of a supermarket is a small shop in Rhiwbina that certainly has the basic food groups: potatoes, tomatoes, onions, swedes, parsnips and eggs, but not much in the way of herbs or other exotics. How spoiled I have become, living in a place where I can drive up, park the car and quickly get everything under one roof. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe I am actually more isolated. Here, as I gather paper towels, loo paper, cereal and tinned soups, I have a long conversation with the shopkeeper. Next door I have a nice conversation with the butcher while he cuts me two legs of lamb—“from local sheep”—and several chickens. “Do you want the chickens with their heads on or off? With the feathers or without?” One of the legs of lamb is an offering for Evan.

Down the road is a greengrocer with a larger selection of fruits and vegetables and fresh herbs, and next door is a bakery. I love the contact and brief conversation with each shopkeeper.

When I arrive at Da and Mam’s, Mam doesn’t seem to be around, at least not downstairs. I put the perishables in the fridge and go upstairs to see how Da is feeling. He is propped up in bed watching the telly with his oxygen mask on. He starts to remove the mask.

“No, no, Da. You don’t have to take it off. I’ll come closer.”

But he pulls it up around his head anyway.

“Where’s Mam?” I ask.

He shakes his head.

I wonder if she leaves him often. She can’t possibly be with him twenty-four hours a day. Perhaps she’s gone off to the shop or next door. She must have friends.

“The cemetery, most likely,” Da says, quietly. “She does that some mornings.”

Of course. I imagine they all visit there often, if not daily. Poor Mam. What must it have been like through all these years? The years without Gram to steady her. The years when there has been no one for her but Da

Da moves his legs to give me room to sit on the edge of the bed.

All of my anger gone, I want to ask him about the bench, but
think better of broaching that subject just now.

“I’ve brought some chickens to throw into a soup,” I say.

“She’ll like that, Allie. She won’t let on, she won’t. Your mam’s not good with saying so, but she’s glad you’ve come,” he says, his words coming out choppy with his heavy breathing. “She didn’t think you would. She’s spent a good many years being sorry. She’s said out loud at least a dozen times that she didn’t handle you properly. But she did her best. She was caught in a bind that choked her like everyone else. At first everyone blamed me. Later, everybody blamed themselves.” He starts to cough.

I put my hand on his knee and then I lean toward him, pulling him up straight, thinking that might help him stop coughing. It does.

“It’s been too many years without you she’s had to make do with just me. You did the right thing, leaving here,” he says. “When I’ve gone, take her with you, Alys. She deserves some better years. A fresh start. Away from the darkness here” This last bit comes out in a whisper.

What is he asking? In my wildest musings I have never thought about living with either of them again, least of all Mam. What would that be like?

While I am chopping the vegetables for soup, I try to imagine Mam sitting in the rocker in my kitchen, talking to Hannah, washing her clothes, hanging them out on the line—a view of the sea in the distance—walking along my stretch of the Santa Monica beach. She wouldn’t actually have to live with me, would she? Perhaps just nearby. There are the Sunshine Towers, beautiful condominiums with a pool and sauna several blocks away from me. And in town, a bit farther away, are the rows of small bungalows for assisted living. But Mam would never allow anyone else to clean for her or cook her meals. I can’t imagine it; she is too private, too much to herself, even with Da.

The front door bangs, followed by creaking up the stairs. A few minutes later Mam is standing by the kitchen door, her coat over her arm.

“Da says you’re making chicken soup. That’s nice.”

I turn.

“He’s not so good today,” she says. I can hear the fatigue in her voice, the giving in and giving up to what is happening, what has
been happening for months, having to watch Da fade, and having no control over it.

“I don’t really know what to do,” she says, laying her coat over a chair. “He’s dying, you know.” This seems so big for Mam to admit out loud, so revealing of her sadness.

“He’s worried about you,” I say.

“Me?” She’s surprised, her hand on her chest.

“After’ You know, I’ve been thinking. Da and I were talking about me taking you back to the States.”

“No,” she says immediately.

“No?”

“What in the world would I do there? My life is here. Everything I know is here. This is my home, Allie.”

“I know, but it will be so lonely without him. Beti and I are in the States.” Suddenly, I really want her there, for her and for me. “Our children are there. You could make a life.”

She looks at me or, rather, through me. A long silence stretches between us.

“I could visit?” Her eyes settle in on me, hopefully.

“Of course you can.”

“We’d always meant to, like,” she adds. “Somehow time got away from us. Always so much to do round here, I guess. You know how that is.” She bows her head. “I’d best help you,” Mam says then, moving toward the counter where I’ve been chopping. “That is, if you wouldn’t mind, like? Da will be wanting his tea sooner rather than later.”

“I’d like that, Mam. I could use some help.”

We make small talk about her trip to the cemetery. She says she goes about every other day. She tells me she is also trying to keep Gram’s garden up in the back, at least the tomatoes, although she’s hard pressed these days to find the time. As I am washing several sprigs of mint, she comments on how she’s never thought of putting mint in chicken soup and how inventive I am. I tell her about my wonderful friend Elizabeth. I tell her about Elodie. Considering everything that is going on and not going on, we are very much at ease with each other.