Shell House (6 page)

       
I have so much to say and I don’t know how to write it down. I feel as though I’ve been there a whole week rather than just a day.

       
After a very awkward start, a coffee and chat about the weather, he showed me around the house. I’m sure it was purely because he didn’t know what else to do. It made me cry again but I managed to hide it, I think.

       
I know he was trying to make it okay for me but his kindness, for that’s what it was, overwhelmed me and I felt a mixture of abandonment and loss. There was no sign of me having existed. My bedroom had been completely changed. I’m sure to anyone reading this it sounds pathetic. Why should I expect my bedroom to stay the same after what I’d done?

       
What hurt, I think, was the fact that the house and its rooms were just as they were all those years ago apart from a few extra items here and there. And yet all the traces of me had been removed. I would have found it easier if the whole house had been altered. I remember the sideboard in the hallway had housed all our family photographs. These had been replaced with new ones with a few old ones of my mother dotted here and there. It was strang
e−
when I saw the pictures of her I suddenly had a fleeting feeling of really disliking her even though I never knew her. I felt a rush of emotion to shout at her and I can’t explain why.

       
The house throughout felt generally, as though Harry had got a pencil with an eraser on the end and rubbed me out and drawn in some replacements to disguise the fact that I ever existed, but however hard you rub, the imprint is still there.

       
But there you go. Maybe I shouldn’t expect anything less after the horror I caused. I just can’t help thinking that I was still his daughter though and I’m desperately scratching around in my mind for some empathy. How would I feel if it was my daughter? This is something I can’t answer because I didn’t have any children. I am far too tired to explore this right now. I wanted to get it all down on paper whilst I was feeling it but there is such a mixture of emotions running through me. They’re so fleeting that each time I formulate any thoughts the next one arrives. They are dotted with flashes of memories too.

       
We didn’t talk about what happened. Not the actual events anyway. He just occasionally referred to it as ‘when you went away’. It was as though I’d been kidnapped and missing for years.

       
I wondered for most of the time I was there if he was suffering from senile dementia. He could very well be. He’s quite old.

       
We have agreed one thing, that there is a lot to talk about and I may need to extend my visit.

       
I am exhausted and need to sleep now.

Harry Rochester   2
nd
December 2010

       It is 5.30 a.m. and I can not sleep any longer, not that I have slept much in any case. It’s an inevitable occurrence when you reach a certain age. Although most people I know go to bed earlier, which is why they arise at the crack of dawn. I, however retire quite late and still wake up at the crack of dawn. It’s partly due to wanting to catch the sunrise coming up over the sea. A pleasure I never tire from. I digress...

       
It’s strange but it’s as if the person I imagined in my mind is disappearing. Gabrielle is nothing like the vision I had and it’s left me with a peculiar feeling. It did occur to me that she may not be who she says she is. I remember her as a child and then there’s the adult I imagined her to be in my mind, although faded now, and then there is this new person whom I have just met. I can’t seem to merge the three into one. I am desperate to hold onto the remnants of the adult I imagined because she is part of Gabrielle. There must be some elements of truth in this person I fabricated.

She is quite clearly my daughter, our child; she looks so much like her mother yet she has my long limbs and build. Her features are identical to
Emma’s although her blue eyes are slightly paler and her hair is darker. It took my breath away when I opened the door. She is beautiful and again the vision I have of what I thought she’d be is fading as I think of her face. It’s like seeing a person walking away from you into the mist in the distance. Maybe she’ll flash before me when I’m not expecting it or in my sleep. It sometimes happens when Emma’s voice begins to fade from my memory or I can’t picture her face clearly. I used to panic when this happened years ago but I’ve learnt that it comes to you eventually, you just have to be patient.

      
I don’t know why I feel such a strong need to hang onto this fabricated image. She’s been with me for so long, I suppose.

       
I will see what happens today. Hopefully it will be better, easier. She was very quiet and I’m hoping she’ll come out of her shell a bit more as we spend more time together. I’m glad she’d organised to stay, albeit in a cottage. Probably for the best though; she needs her space and I need mine.

2/12/2010
   Rebecca Banford  

        I have to write this down before I forget. I had quite a restless night filled with many dreams. I must record it before I go to my father’s house otherwise it’ll be washed away with the tide by the time I get back.

       
I dreamt I was in a box similar to a coffin and I couldn’t move my arms or legs. The whole thing was upright and I was pinned in it as though I was a doll on display in a cardboard box. Someone was talking to me, a man. I don’t know who he was; there was something familiar but it’s hazy. It definitely wasn’t my father.

       
Then I remember wandering around a large white room with glass boxes everywhere. That is very familiar to me.

      
I know there will be lots of memories flooding back to me and some of them will be unclear.

       
As I write this the dreams are fading now. The most vivid part is the coffin or box. I could ramble on but I won’t because I can’t formulate the images into words. I must keep my notepad by my bed as I do at home.

2/12/2010
  11p.m   Rebecca Banford  

        I have had a fulfilling, sometimes enjoyable but very difficult day with Harry. I approached the whole thing head on, rightly or wrongly. I thought the words would never come out of my mouth.

       
He continued to behave as though I was an acquaintance, invited for tea for the first time. It was as though I’d never been there yesterday.

       
Having sat down in an excruciatingly polite manner with a cup of tea I asked him if we should talk about what happened. He was silent for quite some time after he agreed and for a while I thought he was never going to speak. Then we both spoke at the same time and the ice was cracked and slowly began to part and sink under a great expanse of water.

       
We both cried a lot, sometimes together and strangely there was no shouting, which I had expected. It was all just terribly, terribly sad. There was so much I had forgotten, blocked out, I suppose. And I guess there was stuff he had too.

       
He just kept repeating himself that he didn’t know what to say at first. Then we agreed to start at the point where I went away. Neither of us wanted to discuss the details of what happened to lead to these consequences.

       
I found myself, after a lengthy discussion, feeling quite hurt when it came to the subject of me seeing Jonathan. Harry skirted around the issue and I got the impression he either didn’t want to see me or that he knew nothing of my visit. I became quite prickly after that.

      
I suppose I am becoming attached which is causing me to feel I have a right to expectations. I must control this because I have no right over any of them. I am lucky that my father has agreed to see me at all; complacency has crept up on me quite quickly.

       
I’m not sure I can carry on with this. I can’t even tell you that I feel melancholic but there is a sadness in me that feels similar to grieving. I just want to sit and cry for a very long time.

Harry Rochester  
December 3
rd
2010

       I’m not convinced this whole process is going to benefit anyone. A great big wound has been torn apart and it’s all extremely painful and quite excruciating.

       
Yesterday was good, don’t get me wrong, but we’re both viewing it from completely different sides. As someone very wise once said, there are three sides to every story. Your truth, their truth and what really happened. I’m not sure we can get over it.

       
There were elements of yesterday where I felt so close to her and today I’m so tired and a bit maudlin about the whole thing. I don’t need all this stress at my time of life. What good will come of it all anyway?

       
She says she can’t remember half of what happened and wanted me to explain what had occurred here when she was taken away. I assume this is so she can make some sense of it all.

       
I don’t believe she’s lying or putting on an act but you never know. When she was a child I never imagined she was capable of killing two little boys but she did.

      
A lot of it I struggle to remember, but I do recall quite clearly the day she told me what happened with the two children. How she’d been asked by their mother, Ellen Tailby, to watch them for her because they were asleep and she needed to get some groceries.

       
I can’t talk about this right now.

       
I will see what happens today. I need to go on one of my walks.

3/12/2010
   Rebecca Banford   

        Strangely, I met Harry down by the sea front early this morning.

       
We’d chosen to take a walk at the same time which altered things for both of us I think. We realised we have a bond but we need to take it slower and not force it to be there. I know he’s my father and he knows I’m still his daughter.

       
I fetched us some takeaway coffees and breakfast and we sat on a bench in the bracing weather. The wind at times felt like it was filling me up and I would float away any minute as though I were being resuscitated.

       
It feels strange to walk out from the cottage. I can’t help looking at people to see if they recognise me. Of course, they don’t. There are too many new faces and the old timers have long forgotten my face.

       
We talked this morning; not about anything significant; nothing as heavy as what we have discussed so far. We spoke about what was happening right now and how it was affecting us both. The awkwardness disappeared like sea spray on the sand.

       
I cried whilst we were eating breakfast and it still chokes me now. It was the first proper meal I’d shared with my father in well over forty years. That sounds daft because we ate together the day I first saw him but it was just some food I grabbed from the local shop; it bore no significance. This breakfast reminded me of the ones he used to cook when my brother and I were small and I felt close to him for the first time since our reunion. A full English breakfast in a box and it was delicious, hot comforting food.

       
We agreed to part after that. We both needed a break and I wanted to take in my surroundings; spend some time on my own.

       
We’ve arranged to meet tomorrow instead. I’ve had a wonderful day under the circumstances. After I’d seen Harry I walked up the hill to the chapel and looked for my mother’s grave. It gave me goose bumps looking for it and still does as I write this. I found a strange comfort in visiting it though. Like it was a connection to my existence; as though she’d thrown me a safety rope to tie around my waist and keep me safe.

       
Many questions popped into my head whilst I was there. Things I need to ask Harry. I was so young when I went away I don’t really know much about her. Harry never talked about her at any great length when I was at home. I need to know these things, make sense of who I am and where I came from.

       
I’ve felt calm today; like the aftermath of a storm. Even though we didn’t argue I think in our minds we both knew we were at odds with one another. I drove to a town a few miles away and wandered around the shops and even managed to find some old photographs in an antique store. It reminded me of Mr. Jim.

       
I perused a couple of second hand book shops and I came across a copy of
Mistress Marsham’s Repose
by T. H. White. I barely recognised it at first but it stirred up memories in me like a door to a dusty room being opened after many years. I then realised it had been a favourite of mine. This then got me wondering about all my childhood things; my toys, books and clothes. I didn’t dwell too much; I was enjoying the calm contentment and I didn’t want to become melancholic.