But although I had been met with such memories before, Ursula’s letter was different. It was the first time in over seventy years that anyone had associated
No. I was adamant. That letter would remain unanswered.
And so it did.
A strange thing began to happen, though. Memories, long consigned to the dark reaches of my mind, began to sneak through cracks. Images were tossed up high and dry, picture perfect, as if a lifetime hadn’t passed between. And, after the first tentative drops, the deluge. Whole conversations, word for word, nuance for nuance; scenes played out as though on film.
I have surprised myself. While moths have torn holes in my recent memories, I find the distant past is sharp and clear. They come often lately, those ghosts from the past, and I am surprised to find I don’t much mind them. Not nearly so much as I had supposed I would. Indeed, the spectres I have spent my life escaping have become almost a comfort, something I welcome, anticipate, like one of those serials Sylvia is always talking about, hurrying her rounds so she can watch them down at the main hall. I had forgotten, I suppose, that there were bright memories in amongst the dark.
When the second letter arrived, last week, in the same scratchy hand on the same soft paper, I knew I was going to say yes, I would look at the sets. I was curious, a sensation I hadn’t felt in some time. There is not much left to be curious about when one is ninety-eight years old, but I wanted to meet this Ursula Ryan who plans to bring them all to life again, who is so passionate about their story.
So I wrote her a letter, had Sylvia post it for me, and we arranged to meet.
THE DRAWING ROOM
This morning when I woke, the thread of nervous energy that had infused me all week had overnight become a knot. Sylvia helped me into a new peach dress-the one Ruth bought me for Christmas-and exchanged my slippers for the pair of outside shoes usually left to languish in my wardrobe. The leather was firm and Sylvia had to push to make them fit, but such price respectability. I am too old to learn new ways and cannot abide the tendency of the younger residents to wear their slippers out.
My hair, always pale, is now flossy white, and very fine, finer it seems with each passing day. One morning, I feel sure, I will wake up and there will be none left, just a few fairy threads lying on my pillow that will dissolve before my eyes. Perhaps I am never going to die. Will merely continue to fade, until one day, when the north wind blows, I will be lifted and carried away. Part of the sky.
Face paint restored some life to my cheeks, but I was careful not to overdo it. I am wary of looking like an undertaker’s mannequin. Sylvia is always offering to give me a ‘bit of a makeover’, but with her penchant for purple eye shadow and sticky lip glosses, I fear the results would be catastrophic.
With some effort I fastened the gold locket, its nineteenth-century elegance incongruous against my utilitarian clothing. I straightened it, wondering at my daring, wondering what Ruth would say when she saw.
My gaze dropped. The small silver frame on my dressing table. A photo from my wedding day. I would just as happily not have had it there-the marriage was so long ago and so short- lived, poor John-but it is my concession to Ruth. It pleases her, I think, to imagine that I pine for him.
Sylvia helped me to the drawing room-it still rankles to call it such-where breakfast was being served and where I was to wait for Ruth who had agreed (against her better judgement, she said) to drive me to the Shepperton studios. I had Sylvia seat me alone at the corner table and fetch me a glass of juice, and then I filled time rereading Ursula’s letter.
Ruth arrived at eight-thirty on the dot. She may have had misgivings about the wisdom of this excursion but she is, and has always been, incurably punctual. I’ve heard it said that children born to stressful times never shake the air of woe, and Ruth, a child of the second war, proves the rule. So different from Sylvia, only fifteen years younger, who fusses about in tight skirts, laughs too loudly, and changes hair colour with each new ‘boyfriend’.
This morning Ruth walked across the room, well dressed, immaculately groomed, but stiffer than a fence post.
‘Morning, Mum,’ she said, brushing cold lips across my cheek. ‘Finished your breakfast yet?’ She glanced at the half-empty glass before me. ‘I hope you’ve had more than that. We’ll likely hit morning traffic on the way and we won’t have time to stop for anything.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Do you need to visit the loo?’
I shook my head, wondering when I had become the child.
‘You’re wearing Father’s locket; I haven’t seen it in an age.’ She reached forward to straighten it, nodding approval. ‘He had an eye, didn’t he?’
I agreed, touched by the way little untruths told to the very young are believed so implicitly. I felt a wave of affection for my prickly daughter, repressed quickly the tired old parental guilt that always surfaces when I look upon her anxious face.
She took my arm, folded it over hers, and placed the cane in my other hand. Many of the others prefer walkers or even those motorised chairs, but I’m still quite good with my cane, and a creature of habit who sees no reason to trade up.
Ruth started the car and we pulled slowly into crawling traffic. She’s a good girl, my Ruth-solid and reliable. She’d dressed formally today, the way she would to visit her solicitor, or doctor. I had known she would. She wanted to make a good impression; show this film-maker that no matter what her mother might have done in the past, Ruth Bradley McCourt was respectably middle class, thank you very much.
We drove in silence for a way then Ruth began tuning the radio. Her fingers were those of an old lady, knuckles swollen where she’d forced on her rings that morning. Astounding to see one’s daughter aging. I glanced at my own hands then, folded in my lap. Hands so busy in the past, performing tasks both menial and complex; hands that now sat grey, flaccid and inert. Ruth rested finally on a program of classical music. The announcer spoke for a while, rather inanely about his weekend, and then began to play Chopin. A coincidence, of course, that today of all days I should hear the waltz in C sharp minor.
Ruth pulled over in front of several huge white buildings, square like aircraft hangars. She switched off the ignition and sat for a moment, looking straight ahead. ‘I don’t know why you have to do this,’ she said quietly, lips sucked tight. ‘You’ve done so much with your life. Travelled, studied, raised a child… Why do you want to be reminded of what you used to be?’
She didn’t expect an answer and I didn’t give one. She sighed abruptly, hopped out of the car and fetched my cane from the boot. Without a word, she helped me from my seat.
Ursula was waiting for us, a slip of a girl with very long blonde hair that fell straight down her back and was cut in a thick fringe at the front. She was the type of girl one might have labelled plain had she not been blessed with such marvellous dark eyes. They belonged on an oil portrait, round, deep and expressive, the rich colour of wet paint.
She smiled, waved, rushed toward us, taking my hand from Ruth’s arm and shaking it keenly. ‘Mrs Bradley, I’m so happy you could make it.’
‘Grace,’ I said, before Ruth could insist on ‘Doctor’. ‘My name is Grace.’
‘Grace,’ Ursula beamed, ‘I can’t tell you how excited I was to get your letter.’ Her accent was English, a surprise after the American address on her letter. She turned to Ruth. ‘Thanks so much for playing chauffeur today.’
I felt Ruth’s body tighten beside me. ‘I could hardly put Mum on a bus
