Authors: Grace Wynne-Jones
I wander towards the kitchen, which is very tidy and extremely
fitted – there are, for example, no stray jars of honey hanging around attracting ants, as there are in my kitchen. What I find is
Aunt Marie guiltily helping herself to a chocolate chip cookie. My
parents are rather like Fiona in that they regularly acquire
seductive foodstuffs and then get guests to eat them. Without the
guests, a packet of high-grade chocolate chip cookies could last them a whole month.
‘Oh, hello, dear,’ Marie says, trying to eat the biscuit as fast as
possible. She claims to be on an almost constant diet. ‘How nice
to see you.’
I say that it’s nice to see her too, even though I wish she wasn’t here. I want to go up to the attic and look for the music box Aggie gave to me and April. She bought it in Switzerland, when she and Joseph were on holiday. I don’t know why it’s suddenly become
so important to me, but I don’t like the idea that I may never see
it again.
‘What mug would you like?’ Marie is opening one of the tidy
cabinets. This is something we agree on: we both believe that
coffee or tea tastes better if it’s in a mug that has a pleasing colour
and shape.
‘I think they’re pretty much all the same, aren’t they?’ All of my
parents’ mugs are blue. They don’t want to be bothered with choosing between different colours and patterns.
‘Oh, no. I got them this nice orange one,’ Marie says.
It is indeed a very nice, bright tangerine colour, and there are
small golden stars around the rim. It isn’t the type of mug I would
have expected Marie to buy – which is just another reminder that
people are rarely quite the way you think they are. They have
secrets, hidden parts: things that even they themselves sometimes
don’t know are there.
‘That would be lovely.’ I smile. ‘It’s a very nice mug.’
‘I’m sorry I can’t find the honey,’ Marie says, as she places a s
teaming mug of tea before me. ‘You like honey in your tea, don’t
you?’ She pours in some milk – just the right amount. I smile at her gratefully.
Marie is a curious mixture of things I admire and things I
deeply dislike. She is plump and has a bossy side, which retreats
and advances or sometimes just hangs around waiting. Because of
this, you never know which particular Marie you are dealing
with. On some days, you can see she is doing her very best to
listen and only give advice if she is asked for it. This, however, is
not in her true nature.
Her true nature, when unleashed, says, ‘So, dear, how are things between you and Diarmuid?’
I know I should expect this, but it is always a surprise, because
no one else in the family asks me about Diarmuid. I think they just don’t know what to say.
‘Oh, grand,’ I say grimly. ‘We’re in frequent communication.’
‘But I just don’t understand it, dear. Why aren’t you living in the same house? What
happened?’
She is cradling her blue mug. ‘Did he hit you?’
‘Of course not.’ I shudder.
‘Or have an affair?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Was he a secret gambler? Or…’ She lowers her voice and looks
around furtively. ‘Or did he have some… dreadful sexual deviances?’
I shake my head. Marie is like a terrier when she wants to find
a reason. In Marie’s world, women do not just leave their
husbands on a whim – especially not women like me. I’ve always been the responsible one. April was the one who stole lipstick and jeans and records from shops, as a teenager; she was the one who
came home drunk and argued about wanting to have a tattoo. I was the good girl. I still want to be the good girl – only I’m not any more. I can see it in people’s eyes.
Marie is still waiting for some sort of reply, so I say, ‘It’s complicated. It’s not that I’m avoiding your question; it’s just that… well, it’s all very complicated.’
‘But
why
is it complicated?’ Marie leans forward. ‘None of us
understand it.’
I think guiltily of my relatives in their finery outside the church.
The wedding was on a sunny day. Erika and Fiona were
bridesmaids, and Erika ran like an Olympic sprinter when I threw
my bouquet. She didn’t catch it. It was caught by a cousin whose name I keep forgetting; what I do remember about her is that she has a post-graduate degree in business studies and, at Marie’s last
family gathering, informed me that she planned to work in
personnel. I assume she’ll tell me all about it at the next gathering
in September. And I may have to tell her that I am separated and
pregnant and that my crisp addiction has returned. My crisp addiction always resurfaces at Marie’s parties; I grab whole handfuls of them and stuff them into my mouth. Sometimes I
wish these cousins weren’t quite so well adjusted. If only one of
them could become a lesbian, or start a degree and then leave it because of an unsuitable man…
Pregnant.
The impact of the possibility suddenly hits me.
Maybe it wouldn’t be all that bad if I was. It would supply some
sort of answer – give my life the direction it so clearly needs. I suppose it is possible to get pregnant even if you’re expecting your period – which should, by rights, have already started. I
place my hand gently on my stomach. All that bingeing at Fiona’s
has given it a noticeable bulge.
Marie is staring at me. There was a time when I thought I had
to answer her questions, but now I know there are some
questions you can’t answer. She is getting frustrated; there is annoyance in the way she sweeps some bread-crumbs from the
table. She’s probably under orders from the family to prise these
details out of me. I know I am a frequent topic of conversation; I have even learned that Uncle Bob, Marie’s husband, refers to me a
s ‘the Bolting Bride’.
Marie’s cloyingly sweet body-spray is wafting towards me.
Some of her determination must be drifting in the air too, because
I take a deep breath and say, ‘Marie, sorry to bring this up again,
but why does no one want to talk about Great-Aunt DeeDee?’
She just sits there, motionless. ‘We don’t talk about her, Sally,’
she says in a steely voice. ‘I thought I’d made that clear.’
‘But
why?
’
I lean forward, like Marie did herself. ‘I just don’t understand it.’
Marie’s bright little eyes get the distant look that Diarmuid has perfected. She starts to fiddle with the zip on her yellow tracksuit,
pulling it up and down distractedly.
‘
Why?
’
‘Oh, stop asking me that.’ Her voice is hollow, and her face has
that slightly melting look about it that happens when someone just might cry.
‘OK. I’m sorry.’ I pat her hand. ‘It’s just that Aggie says she wants to see her. She virtually begged me to find her.’
‘That poor woman! She doesn’t know what she’s saying any more. Her memory must have almost gone.’
‘No, it hasn’t,’ I say. ‘She remembers lots of things. She even
remembers…’ I’m about to say that Aggie remembers my
mother’s affair in California, but this is another thing we are not
supposed to mention.
Marie stands up abruptly and goes to wash her mug, running
it brusquely under the tap. ‘Look, Sally, if Aggie was herself she
wouldn’t want to see DeeDee ever again. She only wants to see her now because she’s forgotten.’
‘Forgotten
what?’
I’m almost jumping up and down on my
chair with curiosity.
‘That DeeDee broke her heart.’ Marie grabs a tea towel and
starts to dry the mug roughly. ‘So please don’t ask me any more
about that woman. It’s just too painful.’ She appears to be addressing a geranium on the windowsill. Then she turns round sharply, as though expecting me to remonstrate. ‘That’s all I’m going to say on the matter.’
At that moment Mum comes into the kitchen. ‘Hi, dear!’ she beams. ‘Sorry I was so long. The tennis club is having a charity
dance and we were discussing the prizes for the raffle.’ She bends
to kiss me on the cheek. ‘Will you stay for dinner?’
‘I’d love to,’ I say, ‘only I’m going hillwalking with Fiona.’ I am
buzzing with questions about DeeDee, but I realise that it will be
impossible to lure Marie back onto the subject.
‘Hillwalking!’ Mum exclaims. ‘Good for you. There’s nothing
like getting out into that fresh country air.’
As I listen to Mum and Marie having a mild argument about the therapeutic benefits of gardening, I wonder how DeeDee broke Aggie’s heart. Was it because she disappeared without a
trace… or was it something else? And surely they should be more
worried about what happened to her? The fact that they aren’t
implies that they know more than they are letting on about where
she may have gone. I also wonder whether not talking about DeeDee has made it easier for the family to avoid other uncomfortable subjects.
If I’m pregnant, they’ll probably avoid talking about that, too.
Instead they’ll buy me things – baby clothes, special skin cream
for stretch marks, attractive blouses that are somehow supposed to make me feel I have not lost my womanly allure. They won’t want to know what I’m feeling. And when I try to tell Aggie
about it all, she’ll say, ‘Oh, look, there’s another floating sheep!’
I help myself to another calorie-loaded cookie. I ask Marie if she wants one, and she says, ‘Oh, no, dear,’ as though she has never touched a cookie in her life.
‘Do you mind if I have a quick look in the attic?’ I say.
‘Go ahead. What are you looking for?’ Mum enquires.
‘That music box, the one Aggie gave me and April. I think Aggie would like to see it again.’
‘Heaven knows where it’s got to.’ Mum sighs. ‘I don’t think it’s
in the attic, but have a look if you want.’
I go upstairs and negotiate the narrow, rickety ladder that leads
to the attic. It’s fastened to the ceiling and you have to pull it
down. The dust makes me sneeze. I push open the old, unpainted
door and fumble around for the light switch.
I look around, expecting to find boxes and sentimental objects
my parents aren’t quite sure what to do with; only they aren’t there. The attic is almost empty, apart from a jumble of sports equipment – badminton racquets, croquet hoops, a riding hat. There is also an old lagging jacket my father keeps planning to
put on the hot-water cylinder. There are no old teddy bears, none
of the stuff one should find in a place like this. I remember now: my parents did a major clear-out when they moved to this house three years ago. It’s as though, in some way, they’ve been trying
to erase the past.
A large beach ball catches my eye, and I smile. At least I
recognise that. Dad and April and I used to kick it around on the
beach while Mum read books about lone sea voyages. She
claimed to find them ‘restful’. She devoured books about travel
when we were younger. She loved nothing better than finding out
how someone had spent a year with the Bedouins or met jungle tribes who had remained free from the trappings of modern life.
I spot one of those books: it’s about a woman anthropologist who
studied the ‘native ways’ of the Aborigines. I pick it up and blow
the dust off the jacket.
When I open it, I find a small red notebook cradled in the centre. The paper is frayed and old, and the big, bold writing is
in faded blue ink. I open it. ‘Marble Cake,’ I read. It must be one
of Aggie’s recipe books. I skim through it and see the ingredients
for Vietnamese Chicken, and Sweet Potato Casserole with Lentils.
Aggie must have been more adventurous in her cuisine when she w
as younger. I tuck it into the pocket of my jeans. Maybe I should
read it out to her; maybe it will help her remember who she was
– who she is. She’s drifting away from us, and I must find ways to
call her back. If only I could find the music box.