Astonishing Splashes of Colour Read online

  Every evening before going to bed, I go for a walk and watch the sea. It’s calm and smooth all week. The sea that my father says he hates. The waves roll in over the pebbles and out again, over and over, endlessly. My grandparents have died, I think.

  WE MEET UP THE CREMATORIUM. Everyone is here except Lesley, who has stayed at home with the girls. It’s the first time we’ve all been together since our wedding. We sit in pairs: my father and Adrian, Jake and Suzy (whom I avoid looking at), Martin and Paul, me and James. They are all wearing suits and ties. I love men in suits, especially the back of their necks and the sweep of their shoulders. Only Jake and Adrian have black suits—they have wives, who insist on doing things correctly. My father wears his usual herringbone jacket but his bow-tie is maroon rather than red—his concession to the occasion. Martin and Paul wear brown suits. Suzy is in a black dress, which I look at instead of her face. James looks devastating in his grey suit, and I’m glad he’s wearing the Bugs Bunny tie.

  I wear a pink dress from a small, expensive shop in Lyme Regis. I chose it because it was intense and challenging, so that I wouldn’t look like Suzy or Lesley in any way. It shimmers. When I move, it shivers through purple, blue, grey, reflecting my changing moods back to me. It’s not a safe pink; there is no connection with the pink of Adrian’s house. It is bold, daring, angry.

  The funeral is at 12:30. James and I have spent the morning preparing food at the house. We make platefuls of egg and ham sandwiches and cover them with clingfilm. We cook sausages and put them on sticks and leave crisps and peanuts waiting to be poured out into dishes. We buy packets of chocolate biscuits, Cherry Bakewells, miniature Battenbergs, ginger cakes and leave them all in their wrappings because there aren’t enough plates. We have no idea how many people will come.

  At the crematorium, there are a few other people besides our family, but we make a small and unimpressive group in the bleak emptiness of the chapel. Somebody gives a short talk about Granny and Grandpa, but he talks in clichés and I know that he never knew them.

  “This devoted couple,” he says, “faithful to the end—deeply loved by children and grandchildren.”

  What does he know? Their only child is dead, and only one grandchild really knew them and then not for the last three years—I stop listening to him. We’re supposed to have our eyes shut in prayer as the coffins go down, one after the other, but I watch them go. I think of the flames waiting to eat them. I wonder what temperature is required. I see their old, tired bodies crumpling in the heat, folding up, abdicating. How many here really knew them, really cared about them? I did! I want to cry out. I loved them.

  But I am silent. I don’t want the ashes. How can ashes substitute for those old hands smoothing down the bed linen? Or Grandpa’s lovingly pruned roses?

  We go back to the cars without saying much. Everyone is polite. The men stand back to let the women in first. My brothers are respectable, polite people. Grown men who know how to behave. I sometimes forget to see them as others see them.

  We drive back to the house and James takes the clingfilm off the plates of sandwiches while I go and switch on the kettle for cups of tea. There are several people here I’ve never met. A few elderly couples who are neighbours, a friend of Granny’s from Exeter, two old colleagues from the school where Grandpa used to teach—both retired years ago. The house is old, the people are old. I feel too young to be here.

  Betty comes to talk to me in the kitchen, an old woman herself. She fusses over details, moving cups and saucers on to the table, putting more milk in the cups, an extra teabag in the teapot. “I feel so bad, Kitty,” she says. “We went on holiday. I asked my neighbour to call in and check, but she was ill and forgot.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “To think of them dying together like that. What a thing.”

  The kettle boils and I pour the water into the teapot, filling it up again immediately for the next round. Betty stirs the tea in the pot and starts pouring without giving it time to draw. She does everything very quickly, darting backwards and forwards, shaking with a strange high-pitched laugh at unexpected moments. She reminds me of a bird.

  “It’s a pity we didn’t see you in the last few years,” she says. “They missed you.”

  I pick up the tray of cups of tea and take it into the sitting room.

  There is a gentle murmur of conversation, an occasional suppressed laugh, an awkwardness as people run out of things to say.

  The front door is open in case anyone comes late. I offer tea to Martin and try to avoid Suzy, who is talking to him.

  A strange woman is standing in the doorway, watching us in a way that makes me uneasy. I don’t remember seeing her at the crematorium. She is tiny, with long hair, pure white, that bushes out down her back in a curious, uncared-for way as if it is rebelling against her size and age. Her eyes, very bright and intense, project a kind of fury as she looks round at all of us in the room. They dart accusingly from person to person, and just as she’s about to meet my gaze, I look down, awkward, somehow guilty for having watched her. When I raise my head again, she’s looking past me. It isn’t me she wants, I think with a sense of relief. She is wearing a faded pink corduroy pinafore over a purple blouse, which is made of a flimsy, chiffon material. Underneath the long skirt, you can see grey socks and flat sandals. On her head is a floppy cloth hat, with a blue paisley pattern. It is slightly grubby, giving her a neglected appearance. She looks like a bag-lady. A woman of seventy acting as if she’s Alice in Wonderland.

  I take my eyes off her and offer Adrian a cup of tea, but he ignores me.

  “Adrian,” I say, “have some tea.”

  “Yes,” he says, but he still doesn’t take it.

  I look at the woman again, and think perhaps there is something vaguely familiar about her.

  My father is debating with Paul about the value of living to a hundred. James thinks he’s joining in the conversation, but my father ignores him.

  “What’s wrong with a telegram from the Queen?” says my father. “It’s an acknowledgement of your staying power.”

  “Well let’s hope you never get one, then,” says James.

  “I’ve done three quarters of a century already. I see no reason why I shouldn’t make the final quarter.”

  “But when you get older,” says Paul, “you can’t do so much. Is it worth the effort?”

  “Of course it is. Your brain still works, you know. I’ve got years ahead of me.”

  “It’s unfortunate,” says James, “that we’ll all have to pay for your medical expenses through our tax.”

  “I’m not ready to go,” says my father. His voice slows. “I only feel about—twenty—”

  Surely James hasn’t got to him. But he’s not responding to James. He’s studying the woman in the doorway. We all look. Everyone stops eating, teacups are replaced on their saucers in people’s hands.

  “What—?” says my father, and stops. He frowns, shakes his head, confusion creeping into his face.

  THE WOMAN LAUGHS; shrill and slightly hysterical. “Well,” she says. “Guy. Hello.”

  My father stares at her as if he can’t believe his eyes. I wait for him to say Lucia, Helen, Angela, one of those names on his letters in the attic, but I somehow know what’s coming.

  “Marg—” he says, and stops. “Margaret?” He puts his cup and saucer down and turns back to her. I can see his face turn red. “How dare you?” he says slowly, then much louder: “How dare you show your face here?”

  Mothers. Babies. Joined biologically by a cord. When I was born, a passageway closed and in a pinprick of time, the blood was shifted from the heart to the lungs. Just like that. Once I was part of my mother, then I was not. Our separation should have been more gradual. Not sudden. It feels as if I was thrown away.

  I hear the breathing of everyone in the room, but I can’t hear my own. Is this woman Margaret, mother of Dinah, Adrian, Jake, Martin, Paul and me? A dead person resurrected into the body
of a tiny, angry old woman? She doesn’t look big enough to be the mother of six, not important enough to be my mother.

  “Guy Wellington,” she says. Her voice is lower than before, but menacing all the same. “You have the cheek to stand there and ask why I’m here? At my own parents’ funeral? How dare you show your face here?” Her accent is unexpectedly educated and doesn’t match her appearance.

  Paul is looking at her with complete disbelief. “Who are you?” he says.

  Adrian edges towards her, his hand outstretched. “I’m Adrian,” he says. “I was expecting you earlier.” His voice has changed: higher in pitch and oddly unsteady.

  “Expecting?” says my father.

  She stands and looks at him, her eyes travelling from his feet to his head. She doesn’t seem impressed. “Adrian,” she says eventually. “You don’t look like I thought you would.”

  “Neither do you,” he says.

  “What do you mean, expecting?” says my father.

  Margaret and Adrian shake hands awkwardly, both unwilling, as if the other one is contaminated, letting go as soon as possible.

  Granny’s friend from Exeter puts her cup and saucer down on the table next to me, the clink of china briefly distracting us. She hasn’t finished drinking the tea. “Well,” she says briskly. “I think it’s time I was going.” She looks round vaguely. “What happened to my coat?”

  Nobody replies, each hoping someone else will deal with her. James should do it, since he’s not personally affected by the return of my mother. I would like to nudge him into action, but he is sitting on the other side of the room, looking at Margaret with the rest of us, and I can’t catch his eye.

  “My coat—” Granny’s friend says again, nervously.

  “Yes, of course,” I say. After all, I’m the one who knows the house.

  I lead her into the hall and along to my bedroom where the coats have been left on the bed. I walk briskly in front of her, trying to get her to speed up. She seems frustratingly slow. I’m terrified that I will miss something important.

  “Thank you, Kitty,” she says as she buttons her long mac. She’s wearing brown walking shoes that match the woolly scarf she winds around her neck. I’d like to say, It’s only June. You don’t need a scarf in summer. But I don’t, because it would take too long.

  “They loved it when you came to see them,” she says. “They were so proud when you passed that exam—” She stops and pulls out a handkerchief from the coat pocket and blows her nose loudly. Her eyes look red. What exam is she talking about? Is she confusing me with Margaret?

  “I’m sorry,” she says again. “I knew your grandparents for such a long time. They were always so good to me.”

  She blows again. Then she kisses me awkwardly on the cheek and walks out down the hall. I’ve never met her before. I don’t know how she knows my name.

  When I return to the room, people who are not part of the family are leaving hurriedly. They know where to go to find their coats and don’t need any help. Only Betty remains. She’s interested in Margaret.

  “We were at school together,” she says casually, as if she’s continuing a conversation.

  “What?” says Margaret. She looks round in confusion. “What school are we talking about?” Her voice is now less certain.

  “Betty Thompson I was then. In the class below you at the village school. I invited you to a party once, and you said yes, but you never came.”

  “Oh yes, Betty Thompson,” says Margaret after a pause. “How are you?”

  I know that she doesn’t remember her at all, and Betty realizes it too. “Another time, maybe,” she says and walks out of the room somehow diminished. She no longer reminds me of a bird. Her small movements have become heavier, less fluid.

  So now we are left alone with this woman who cannot possibly be our mother. All the family minus Dinah, Lesley, Emily and Rosie. We are miles from home, eating picnic food, trying to have a conversation with a mother we thought was dead.

  My father has been waiting for the room to clear. As soon as the last unrelated person is gone, he attacks. “You have no right to come here. When was the last time you did anything for your parents? I bet they’d be thrilled to know you came to their funeral. Bit late, don’t you think? Bit late for everything.”

  “How dare you judge me?” she says, her voice tight with anger. “You who have no notion of loyalty or—”

  “You talk to me about loyalty? What would you know about it?”

  “A great deal more than you—”

  “Oh yes, a woman who walks out on her family, she knows all about—”

  “Walked out? Driven would be a better—”

  Their voices are fighting for supremacy, more overwrought by the second.

  “Stop it!” shouts Adrian, and they pause and look at him.

  “Well,” says Jake in the unexpected silence. “You seem to have us all at a disadvantage. We said our goodbyes thirty years ago. We didn’t really expect to have to say hello again later.” He blows his nose loudly and sneezes three times. He picks up a Cherry Bakewell.

  Martin looks bewildered. He takes gulps of tea and starts eating the sandwiches on the table next to him, neat little triangles of tuna and brown bread, demolishing each one in a single mouthful. There are plenty on the plate. They should keep him occupied for some time.

  “I don’t understand what’s going on,” says Paul, just in time to stop them shouting at the same time again. “We thought you were dead.”

  “You were misinformed,” says Margaret.

  “But where have you come from?” says Jake. “Why are you here?”

  “Don’t ask her why she’s here now,” says Dad. “Ask her why she hasn’t been here for the last thirty years.”

  “Don’t ask me,” she says. “Ask your father.”

  They glare at each other.

  “I invited her,” says Adrian.

  Everybody turns to look at him in amazement.

  “Ah,” says Dad loudly. “You were expecting her.”

  “What?” shouts Paul. “We all believe our mother to be dead, but you invite her to a funeral. Could you explain the process in slightly more detail? How do you go about inviting a dead person to a funeral?” He stops for a second. “Providing it’s not their funeral,” he adds.

  My father is glowering at Adrian. “What did you know about it?” he says.

  Adrian doesn’t look right. Adrian, the calm man of letters, the confident analyst of human psychology, is struggling. “I found out,” he says defensively. “OK?”

  “No,” says my father, “it’s not OK. If I’d wanted you to find her, I’d have told you myself. What’s wrong with asking me?”

  “Ask you?” Adrian’s voice is rising. “How could I ask the man who told me my mother was dead?”

  My father turns on him furiously. “She was dead, as far as you were concerned. As good as dead. Walked out on you—”

  “Have you told them why?” says Margaret, savagely. “Like what a wonderful husband you were? Like what you got up to, like how you destroyed me with your endless domineering demands and everything else?” She’s pacing round the room, frustrated by its smallness, her strange white hair bouncing up and down with each step, her dress sweeping wildly behind her.

  “She drank,” says my father to all of us. “Whisky, all day and every day.”

  “No, she didn’t,” says Adrian. “That’s not true.”

  Margaret stops pacing and turns to him. “Thank you, Adrian,” she says, and she sounds almost normal.

  Adrian nods, and for a brief, terrible moment, I think he is going to burst into tears. The thermostat cuts in at the last moment and he tries to smile instead.

  “Except it is true,” says my father. “Can’t remember a single time when she wasn’t drunk.”

  “But where did you find her?” says Jake.

  Adrian shrugs. “You can find people if you want to. Hospital records, electoral rolls, the Salvation Army.”r />
  “Ha!” says my father. “She wasn’t living a civilized life in a respectable neighbourhood then, was she?”

  Silence. It’s obvious that he’s guessed right.

  “Drunk,” he says in triumph.

  “What do you know?” says Margaret scornfully. “People change. Even when they’ve been treated so badly.”

  How do you know if your mother is an alcoholic? When you are three, your mother is as she is; any behaviour would seem normal. But Adrian was sixteen. Surely he would have noticed. Was he really looking?

  I hold on to the side of my chair and wish I was next to James. How do I know if she really is my mother? She’s not as I expected. But I had no expectations. I’ve had no mental picture of her physical presence. She has only ever existed in my mind as a person with no body. She has never been real, but this elderly woman who looks half mad is real, and I find her far more alarming than reassuring.

  “You’re not welcome,” says my father. “You’ve managed to upset everybody.” He starts to mutter. “We come down here for a funeral, the food is prepared, we’re all dressed up—it’s a funeral, you know, not a wedding—maybe you should have come to a wedding—it might have been easier to take at a wedding—”

  “No,” says Paul, picking up a handful of peanuts. “My mother is dead.”

  My father starts again. “You deserted us, remember. You were the one who left. ‘Learn to cook,’ you said to me. No thought for the children—putting your own selfish needs first—”

  “Perhaps you should have told them the truth,” she says, and although her voice is softer, there is a dangerous edge to it. As if there are lots of things we don’t know and she’s about to tell us.

  “Yes,” says Adrian. “I think we should have the truth.”

  He already knows the truth. He has spent the last few months trying to find her. He’s been writing letters, telephoning, talking to people who might know her. Why didn’t he tell us what was going on? Why didn’t he tell me?

  “It was the book, wasn’t it?” says Jake suddenly.