The Memory Game Read online

  ‘Sorry, am I irritating you?’

  ‘I was only joking.’

  We went upstairs, into the high picture room painted green and deep saffron yellow. The winter sun flooding in through the arched windows illuminated the dull, rich colours; the room felt cool and grave as a church. We walked together along Hogarth’s The Rake’s Progress, all that savagery and anger. Caspar paused in front of ‘The rake in Bedlam’.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘By cell fifty-five, that man with a sceptre and a pot on his head, he’s urinating. Can you see the look on the faces of those two fashionable ladies?’

  I peered at the grotesque scene, making out dim and writhing figures, and shivered.

  ‘It’s Bethlehem Hospital, Bedlam. It was in Moorfields, just outside the city wall. Hogarth’s father was in prison for debt, it made a great impression on him. Look at the face of that old woman on her knees, Jane, she seems only half-human.’

  I watched his face, his steady grey eyes. I noticed how he used my name. It suddenly occurred to me that it had been a very long time since I had last felt happy. Standing with Caspar, in a house like a man’s brain, it was as if I was looking out from the gloom I had inhabited for so long, through a window, into a different kind of future: brighter. I could see views, sky. For a minute, I stood quite still, while hope clutched me. I caught his eye for a moment.

  ‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘I want to show you something.’

  We descended the stairs again and crossed two rooms.

  ‘Look through there.’

  I saw what looked like a totem pole made up of fragments from different columns. On it was carved the name ‘Fanny’. I turned to Caspar with raised eyebrows.

  ‘Yes?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s the tomb of the dog that belonged to John Soane’s wife. But it’s also the name of my little daughter.’

  ‘I thought Fanny was one of those names we can’t use any more.’

  ‘I’ve tried to revive it.’

  ‘Are you married?’

  ‘No. I live on my own.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be.’

  Outside, blinking in the chilly light, we grinned stupidly at each other. Then Caspar glanced at his watch.

  ‘Lunch?’

  ‘I shouldn’t.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘All right.’

  We walked to Soho, past the delicatessens and the porn shops, and stopped at an Italian café-cum-restaurant. We had goat’s cheese half-melted on crisp toast, and green salad, and a glass of white wine each. He looked at my ringless hands and asked if I was married, and I told him I was separated. And I asked him how old his daughter was. She was five. Lots of people, he said, thought he was some kind of superman just because he did what hundreds of thousands of women did without anyone noticing them at all.

  ‘I didn’t know about love before Fanny, silly thing that she is,’ he said.

  I told him about Robert and Jerome, how grown-up and tall they were, how they protected me, were always on my side, and he said he’d love to meet them one day. And then the possibility of there being a future to this, a ‘one day’, opened up before me and I felt dizzy and scared, and I lit a cigarette. I said I had to go. He didn’t try to stop me, just saw me to my bike and watched as I got tangled up with the lock and the helmet and wobbled off.

  I felt like an adolescent, dizzy with excitement, and I felt like a terrified old woman being dragged back into a prison by hundreds of thin, sharp ties. I could have an affair with Caspar – no, I knew when I thought of his hand lightly on my shoulder, or his straight grey gaze, that I could have a relationship with Caspar. We wouldn’t just climb into bed with each other one night after a bottle of wine, we’d dig back into each other’s past, uncover old wounds, give ourselves up to the addictive grief of love. And it wasn’t that I wasn’t ready – that’s what counsellors always say, that you have to wait, to grow strong again, to learn to live with loneliness. I was ready, all right. It had been a long time since I’d lost myself to love. I was ready, but I was scared. I felt tired. A mild headache thrummed in my temples. Wine at lunchtime.

  I rode my bike along Oxford Street, which, in the winter afternoon, was already lit up by its Christmas lights. God, I hate the way we now have massive Disney characters hanging across the roads. I hadn’t finished Christmas shopping yet, though I’d bought a pair of binoculars for Dad, and lots of ridiculous stocking presents from Father Christmas, who had always come to the house, long after the children had discovered he was me. It had always been my favourite bit of Christmas Day – the early morning, when everyone would crowd into my bedroom, sit on the bed, pull knickers and soap and corkscrews from their pillow cases. It suddenly occurred to me that I might be alone this Christmas morning: the boys would come for dinner, of course, and so would Dad, and maybe I should invite Claud because I couldn’t bear to think of him eating a neat meal for one, though probably he’d go to Alan’s and Martha’s. But maybe I’d wake up on Christmas morning in an empty house.

  For a moment I contemplated going into the hot jaws of one of the department stores, thick with perfume, to grasp wildly at shirts and ties and jerseys for the boys. But they hated shirts and ties from department stores, and it had been a long time since I’d stopped choosing their clothes for them. On an impulse, I rode to one of my favourite shops in London, the hat shop in Jermyn Street, and I bought three fabulous and expensive trilbys: a brown one for Jerome, a black one for Robert, and a bottle-green one for Kim. I hung the bag on my handlebars, and pedalled towards Camden, where I bought lots of tiny paper cases for the chocolate truffles I was going to make for everyone, and some handsome green jars. In one shop, I saw a pair of earrings in the shape of tiny silver boxes. Far too expensive. I bought them for Hana and carried them away in a pretty, ribboned box.

  That evening, I played my three Neil Young albums while I made tomato chutney and ladled it into the green jars, which I labelled, and I made chocolate truffles with bitter dark chocolate. I rolled them in cocoa, and laid them in their little cases. Tomorrow I would make boxes for them. The kitchen smelt of vinegar and bitter chocolate. I still felt excitedly energetic, so I poured myself a glass of red wine, lit a cigarette, and with a satisfyingly sharp pencil and my favourite ruler (long, with one flat edge), I made an architect’s drawing of my house. I doodled a fat kitsch cherub against the clean lines of the roof. When I went to the office, I would photocopy the drawing onto white card, and send off the copies as Christmas cards.

  I poured another glass of wine – the headache was gone – and smoked a cigarette. Perhaps I would give up smoking for New Year. Through the window, I saw that the moon was quite full, and on an impulse I put on a thick overcoat, belonging to Robert, and went into the garden. It was a beautiful night, clear and bitingly cold. The stars looked close, and the branches of the pear and cherry trees were stark.

  At one end, under the overgrown bay tree, was the unmarked graveyard of the boys’ numerous pets: hamsters, guinea pigs, two rabbits, a budgie. The boys used to play football on the lawn, churning it into mud. In spring and autumn, we would have binge gardening weekends, planting seeds that the neighbourhood cats would dig up. In April, the trees would blossom, the froth of pear and cherry and the waxy candles of the magnolia tree, and for a few weeks the garden would become a place of astonishing loveliness and grace. Claud and I used to sit out here with our drinks when the weather was fine. We’d had summer parties, with Pimm’s and strawberries, and the boys had handed out crisps. We’d had loads of barbecues, some of the hot dogs and fizzy drink kind, some with prawns on kebabs, and cajun mackerel, and flat mushrooms marinaded in a spicy sauce. My recall snagged again: there was something I wasn’t remembering. What had Alex told me to do – let myself remember.

  Clutching my wine and cigarette, I made my private New Year’s resolution early: that I would not rest until I had walked through the landscape of my memory and reached its heart, and that I would give mys
elf permission to be happy.

  It never occurred to me that I could make the second resolution without the first.

  Twenty

  ‘He what?’

  ‘He wants to come for Christmas dinner with a television crew.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous. For a start, what television crew would agree to work on Christmas Day?’

  ‘I think his would. It’ll be like the Queen’s message to the Commonwealth.’

  ‘Jane, you haven’t agreed?’ Kim never squeaked; now she was squeaking.

  ‘Well, it was so difficult. I mean, this clearly means so much to Paul, and he’s already done so much work on it, and I suppose I feel that if I’ve gone this far down the road with it, I might as well go all the way.’

  ‘Are you seriously suggesting that Paul and Erica should arrive on Christmas Day, plus Rosie, of course, with cameras rolling, and film you cooking turkey? Christ, Jane, your father’s going to be there. And Robert and Jerome. And I’m going to be there with Andreas.’

  ‘They’re not going to be there all day. They’ll just get an impression of a bit of the family at Christmas. They’ll go away long before we eat.’

  There was a gurgle from the other end of the phone, and I realised with relief and something approaching delight that Kim was giggling.

  ‘Will you help me, Kim? Get through it, I mean?’

  ‘Never mind that, what shall I wear? I’ve never been on telly before. Is it stripes or hoops that are verboten?’

  ‘Here you are. One dry sherry, one mince pie.’

  The sherry was pale yellow, the mince pie hot and spicy. I sat carefully on the sofa that looked as if it had just arrived, cushions plumped up, from the department store. I felt like a stranger, a polite guest.

  ‘It’s very nice here.’

  The room was immaculate, like a space that was about to be photographed for a colour supplement. On the ivory walls hung six small prints. A square rug lay exactly in the middle of the wooden floor. On either side of the new sofa sat two new armchairs. A book about Norman churches and the Guardian, folded, lay on the small table. A cactus flowered prettily on top of the old piano, newly polished. In the corner, on a clever elevated stand, was a small Christmas tree with white lights. From where I sat, delicately holding my sherry and mince pie, I could see a kitchen that was so immaculate that I wondered if Claud had ever cooked himself a meal in it.

  ‘Yes, I’m pleased with it. I did it just as I wanted.’

  We smiled nervously at each other across the ordered space. I thought of the clutter in my kitchen: great bowls of squashy winter tangerines, piles of bills and unanswered letters, lists I’d made out to myself and then never looked at again, broken plates I’d been meaning to mend for days, Christmas cards I was going to hang on string along the eaves but hadn’t yet got round to, a regretted but not discarded bunch of mistletoe tucked among the cups on the dresser, daffodils thrust into vases and dotted around the room in untidy bursts of yellow, bits of architectural drawings I’d started then abandoned, photographs I had not got round to putting in the album, dozens of books, several recipes cut out from magazines and not filed, a half-finished bottle of wine. And, of course, a moulting spruce whose decorations, courtesy of the boys, looked as if they’d been thrown on in drunken handfuls. Indeed, they had been thrown on in drunken handfuls: Jerome and Robert had been horrified by the coordinated aestheticism I’d achieved this year. Christmas trees, they said, should be gaudy and brash. They’d dug out the great pink and turquoise globes and glittery stars, all the baubles we’d accumulated over the years, and hurled them at the tree.

  I brightly suggested we have some music.

  ‘There is no music,’ Claud said.

  ‘Where are all your CDs?’

  ‘They belonged to a previous existence.’

  ‘If you didn’t want them, why did you take them?’

  ‘They weren’t yours.’

  ‘Are you seriously telling me’ – I was appalled – ‘that all the music you’ve collected over your whole life, you’ve just, just, binned.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I looked around the room. I realised that, with surgical ruthlessness, Claud had sliced away any evidence of our life together, of our family. This wasn’t order. This was emptiness.

  ‘Claud,’ I blurted out, ‘how do you remember Natalie?’ Even as I asked, I knew my question was odd, oblique.

  ‘How do I remember her?’

  ‘I mean, I’ve been talking to people about her and it struck me as odd that we’ve never really talked to each other about our versions of her.’

  Claud sat down in a chair and scrutinised me with the professional air that had always infuriated me.

  ‘Don’t you think that your preoccupation is going a bit far now, Jane. I mean, all of us – her real family, to put it frankly – we’re trying to pick up our lives. I’m not sure it’s entirely helpful to have you poking about in our past for your own private psychological reasons. Is this what your analyst has been encouraging you to do?’

  His manner was mild and correct, and I felt like a schoolchild, unkempt and fidgety on his neat sofa.

  ‘Okay, Claud, lecture over – so how do you remember her?’

  ‘She was sweet and bright and loving.’

  I stared at him.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, Jane. Just because you’re in therapy, you suspect anything that’s straightforward. She was my little sister, and she was a dear child, on the brink of womanhood when she tragically died. That’s that. That’s how I remember her and that’s how I want to remember her. I don’t want you sullying her, even if she has been dead for twenty-five years. Okay?’

  I poured another slug of sherry into my miniature glass, and took a sip.

  ‘All right, what are your last memories of her, then?’

  This time Claud did seem to think a bit before answering – or perhaps he was just thinking about whether to answer at all. Then he nodded with an expression almost of pity.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re doing, but if you insist. We were all at the Stead arranging the anniversary party for when they arrived back from their cruise. I was to fly off to Bombay the following morning. Like most of us, Natalie was helping. On the day of the party and in the morning, you and Natalie and I were rushing about doing errands. Remember?’

  ‘It’s a long time ago,’ I said.

  ‘I remember taking her in the car to collect Alan and Martha’s present, and we talked about what she was going to wear, I think. All I remember after that is that I took charge of the barbecue, and I didn’t move from it until the early hours of the morning.’ He looked at me. ‘But you wouldn’t know about that, would you? You were too tied up with Theo. Then I left before dawn the next morning with Alec. The first I heard of Natalie’s disappearance was two months later when I came back home.’

  I carefully picked up the crumbs on my plate with my forefinger.

  ‘Did you see Natalie in the morning?’

  ‘Of course not. I saw nobody, except mother, who drove Alec and me to the station at about three thirty in the morning. As you know. Come on, Jane, you’re just going over and over old ground. And I can’t help you much: I wasn’t there the day she disappeared.’

  He passed his hand over his forehead, and I realised how tired he was. Then he smiled at me, a goofy little intimate half-smile; the hostility went from the atmosphere and was replaced by something else, just as disturbing.

  ‘Don’t you know,’ he said almost dreamily, ‘how much I regret not being there? For a long time, I thought that if I hadn’t gone off, then it wouldn’t have happened. That I could have prevented it or something ridiculous. And I feel still as if I were separated from the rest of the family because they were all together in it, and I was apart.’ He grinned mirthlessly at me. ‘You always called me the bureaucrat of the family, didn’t you, Jane? Perhaps it’s because that’s how I can feel properly a part of it.’

  ‘Claud, I’m sorry
if I’ve been blundering around.’

  Without thinking, I took his hand, and he didn’t take it away, but looked down at our fingers interlocking. We sat in thick silence for a few seconds, and then I drew back, embarrassed.

  ‘What are you doing for Christmas?’ My voice was too bright.

  It was his turn to look embarrassed. ‘Didn’t you know? I was going to Martha’s and Alan’s, but Paul invited me to spend it with him and Peggy.’

  ‘But they’re coming to me.’ A nasty thought struck me.

  ‘Paul didn’t think you’d mind.’

  ‘It’s impossible, Claud. It’s impossible. Dad will be there, and Kim and her new lover, and the boys and Hana. Oh, shit, there’ll be a TV crew there as well, filming us all. What do you want us all to do? Play happy families for the cameras?’

  ‘It was you who said we could still be friends.’

  I had said that. It was a stupid cliché, a fake consolation, and a lie, but I had said it.

  ‘And I want to be with my sons at Christmas.’

  I knew it was a terrible mistake. What was Kim going to say to me?

  ‘All right.’

  Twenty-One

  I was sitting down, the dry moss of the stone scraping the curved ridge of my spine. I knew that Cree’s Top was behind me. The River Col was on my left, its surface slate grey, reflecting the cloud cover which had obscured the sun. It was suddenly cold in my sleeveless dress and I hugged myself with my prickly, goosepimpled arms. The screwed-up pieces of paper were almost lost in the murky surface and, flowing away from me, they disappeared into the shades and reflections long before they were carried round the bend. The branches in the elms on my right rustled and swayed with a sudden breath of wind that threatened rain.

  I stood and turned round until I was facing Cree’s Top and looking along the path that wound up its slope. Sometimes bushes hid its progress until it disappeared into twilight. I walked determinedly up it. Each time I returned to this river and this hill which separated me from Natalie, the objects seemed more vividly present. The grass was a richer green, the river more detailed in all its ripples and flurries. On this occasion, the detail was not just more precise but somehow harder as well. The water looked heavier and more solid, the path was more rigid under my feet, even the leaves looked like blades that would cut the fingers that brushed against them.