Astonishing Splashes of Colour Read online

  “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 fo
r 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—”

  I stop. There are so many things in my head that he’ll never do that I can’t cope with them all. I want to stop and examine each one in detail, but I can’t. It would take a lifetime to go through them all. A lifetime that will never happen.

  James puts down the spoon that he is using to stir the sauce, puts a lid on the saucepan, leaving a small gap for the steam to escape, and turns the gas down. Then he puts his arm round me and leads me to the living room where I sit down heavily on my battered sofa.

  “Why won’t you talk about him?” I ask, and my eyes fill with tears.

  He doesn’t sit with me. He stands and looks out of the window at the same patterns of Edgbaston trees that can be seen from my father’s studio. “Because—”

  Because you spent all those years before you met me not talking, not learning how to express yourself, hiding behind your aggression and your computer. Because you’re a coward. You’re stuck in the old stiff upperlip way, however hard you try to persuade me otherwise.

  “How am I supposed to have an argument when you won’t speak?” I say.

  He sighs and remains still. Then he turns back to the kitchen.

  “How about a career move?” I shout to the empty air. “You’d get on really well with deaf people. You could learn sign language. That would be useful.”

  My father is mowing the lawn when I arrive. I go upstairs to the first floor and look out of the window on the landing. He is manifesting his usual fury with the lawn mower, swinging it round viciously, and his mouth is moving up and down as he talks to himself. I know he is reciting lists of plants. I’ve heard him do this many times: buddleia, potentilla, rhododendrons, ceanothus, lavender, hydrangea … After a while, he’ll put them into alphabetical order.

  The plants themselves are too big and wild, tumbling out from their beds with the wet heat of the summer, blurring the edges of the lawn. Taking over the garden. My father won’t mind—there’s less grass to cut.

  He doesn’t like gardening. Sometimes he sends Martin out to do some tidying, which Martin will do in his usual amiable way, piling up the pruned branches and having a bonfire in the evening. I used to enjoy helping him when I was younger, happy with his easy acceptance, smelling the dark, brown earth, the restful scent of the bonfire. But Martin is away on a trip to Germany, and however hard he tries, my father cannot persuade Paul to go out into the fresh air. So he has to mow the lawn. He’s already let the grass grow too long and it washes up in untidy piles behind him as he moves urgently through it.

  Now’s my chance to go into the attic. I’ve brought a torch, and have some excuses ready, if anyone finds me there. A broken chair that I want to renovate, my old maths books which must be up here since they don’t seem to be anywhere else, old clothes for a jumble sale.

  The entry is difficult. There is a step ladder behind a lumpy mattress in an unused bedroom, which smells damp and unlived in. I extract it with some difficulty and open it up under the loft entrance. It’s too short. I can push the loft cover away and place my hands on the edges of the hole, but I can’t pull myself up far enough. This is puzzling. I have been up here before, a long time ago, but I can’t remember how I did it.

  “You need muscles for that, Kitty.”

  Paul’s voice makes me jump and I nearly fall off the ladder. I look down at him and feel the sweat of embarrassment breaking out all over me, dripping down my back.

  “Paul!” I say, and notice that his hair is going thin on the top of his head. I climb back down, my legs trembling.

  “Whatever are you doing?” he asks. He’s holding a pile of papers and looks as if he hasn’t slept all night. He often brings his research work home and gets so interested that he stays up all night. The skin on his face is patchy and loose and there are dark creases under his eyes. He looks middle-aged and he’s only ten years older than me.

  “Well,” I say. “I wanted to have a look in the attic.”

  “Whatever for? It’s full of spiders and cobwebs.”

  “I can cope.”

  The mower is still whirring out in the garden.

  “It’s full of junk.”

  “But it might be interesting junk.”

  He looks at me and I think he can read my mind, so I surprise myself by being honest. “I just thought I might find out something about Mother up there. In a box—” This sounds unconvincing.

  He puts down his papers on a stair and looks up into the hole of the attic. He looks at the torch that I’ve stuffed into my pocket. “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything.”

  “You could just ask someone.”

  “But nobody remembers anything.”

  He sits down on the top stair and frowns. “How do you know?”

  “I’ve asked before, you know.”

  He looks perplexed. “When?”

  “Lots of times,” I say.

  He rubs his eyes. “I don’t remember you asking. Ask me now. Anything you want—I’ll do my best.”

  I hesitate. I am torn between the chance to go into the loft without my father’s knowledge and the chance to speak to Paul, who normally only ever has half a mind available for conversation and who can disappear for months at a time. But I’m all geared up for the attic and the box of memories.

  Paul looks offended and picks up his papers, making my mind up for me. “Well, if you don’t think I’m any use, I’ll get on. I’m very busy at the moment.”

  “No,” I said. “I do want your help. But can I come and find you later—when I’ve tried the loft?”

  “I’ll have to see,” he says and starts to walk down the stairs. “I might not have time then.”

  “I really need your help now.”

  He stops.

  “Could you help me climb into the loft? It’s too high for me.”

  He sighs, puts down his papers and comes back. Without a word, he waves me away from the ladder and takes it down. He folds it up and then opens it in a different way so that it is one long, continuous ladder that reaches right up to the loft entrance.

  I feel foolish. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “No,” he says as he walks away again. “That’s why a world inhabited only by women wouldn’t work.”

  “By the way,” I say, “did you know you were going bald on top?”

  He stops again. I am expecting another insult. “Adrian has a new book due out next week.”

  “Yes. So?”

  “He hasn’t told you then?”

  “Told me what?”

  “It’s semi-autobiographical. We’re all given parts in the book—he’s changed the names, but Lesley says you can easily tell who is who. He says we were only the starting point and the characters develop into new people. But how many families do we know who grew up in an extra-large house, where the father is an artist and there are four sons: a writer, a musician, an academic and a lorry driver?”

  I stare at him.

  “I just thought he might put something of Mummy into this purely fictional account of his early life.”

  I’ve never heard him say Mummy before. It’s difficult to believe he still thinks of her in that way, but I suppose his relationship with her stopped when he was twelve, so he can’t call her anything more adult.

  “By the way,” he says over his shoulder as he goes downstairs, “I’m the academic, in case you were wondering.”

  I stand at the bottom of the ladder and try to get my breath. If this is true, why hasn’t Adrian told me?

  Because every time I’ve seen him recently, he has spent most of the time telling me off for being irresponsible.

  But he could have told me this. It’s important.

  I consider chasing after Paul, but decide not to when
I hear my father still mowing in the garden. There’s a lot of lawn, but it won’t go on forever.

  I go up the ladder, one step at a time, unsure if I feel safe enough. I climb in and hover nervously at the loft entrance, trying to calm my breathing. Then I reach down and pull the ladder up into the loft. I don’t like the idea of someone creeping up behind me.

  I switch on the torch and shine it round. The loft is enormous, although a section has been bricked up to make my father’s studio. In all directions, the light shines on old furniture, boxes, pictures, bags of clothes. I am appalled by the sheer quantity of everything and realize that I’ll need more than an hour up here. This depresses me and makes me unwilling to even start. I should have taken up Paul’s offer.

  Make an effort, I tell myself, and be methodical. One box at a time. Anything about my mother is bound to be furthest away. So, shining my torch in front of me and lighting up each section with astonishing clarity, I pick my way across the joists. Everything is stored haphazardly. Whenever anyone wanted to put more stuff up here, they simply hauled it up through the entrance and pushed the previous rejects further back.

  There must be amazing things to find. The story of our lives over and over again—not just in one box, but hundreds. Momentarily distracted, I swing the torch round rapidly, expecting a high chair, a cot, a pram, but see nothing significant. It was probably given away or, more likely, sold secondhand.

  I stop and examine a bag, wondering if it might contain my mother’s clothes. I prop the torch against a box and sort through the contents. They are boys’ clothes—short trousers, braces, a tiny green and purple bow tie on elastic. I stop and examine this. Who wore it last? Which of my brothers looked cute and intellectual in it? Adrian, who has always been serious? Jake, when performing in a concert? Paul, when he won the next round of the Maths Olympiad? Not Martin. It’s the wrong colour. It wouldn’t suit him. I stroke it. Henry could have worn this.

  Perhaps the clothes have all been waiting here for the first boy of the next generation. I slip it into my pocket and move on.

  There are boxes and boxes of bills and letters. I make an attempt to sort through one box, but it’s impossible. The letters go on forever. Letters to my father, from Lucia, Angela, Helen, Sarah, Philippa, Jennifer—who are these women who knew him so well? The dates are from before I was born. There are none more recent than thirty years ago, and none are sent to or from Margaret.