Later, as she got into bed, she said, so, will you tell me about it? She sat up, the duvet held up to her chest, the pillows wedged behind her back and her hair pulled round to one side of her head. She looked up at him as he took his shirt off and folded it over the back of the chair.
What do you want to know? he said.
Just what it was like, she replied. Who was there, what happened.
Well they were all there I think, he said, all the family, grandchildren, a few neighbours. A few dozen altogether I think, he said. He leant against the wardrobe to take off his shoes and socks, rubbing at the cracked skin across the back of his heels.
And was Tessa there? she said. He looked up. No love, he said, no. Tessa wasn’t there. She pulled the duvet back from his side of the bed.
Come and tell me about it, she said, I want to hear. Was it a nice service?
He unbuckled his belt, slid off his trousers, and draped them over the back of the chair. He swapped his pants for a pair of pyjama trousers from underneath the pillow, and he told her about Ivy’s funeral. He told her that a lot of them, the immediate family, had met at Donald’s beforehand, and that Donald’s wife had overloaded them with sandwiches and cake, and that this was where Kate had first met them all.
I picked her up from the station, he said. She seemed very quiet but I think she coped with it well enough. People were saying she looked like her grandmother, he said, and Eleanor looked across at him with a doubtful expression.
No, she said, I wouldn’t say that. Does she? Do you think so? He smoothed his thumb across her creased eyebrows.
A little, he said, perhaps. It’s only natural, isn’t it? She thought about it, shaking her head. He told her about the service, that the minister hadn’t seemed to know Ivy at all and had just talked in general terms about a long and full life but that people hadn’t seemed to mind. He told her that it had felt very warm in the church, and she smiled and said well at least some things change then, and she started to close her eyes. He told her about the burial, about the corner of the cemetery which had trees along both sides and seemed to be well kept; that he’d spotted her Great-uncle James’s grave nearby, and her father’s of course, and that Donald had said her father’s father’s headstone was somewhere but they hadn’t been able to find it. He told her about the wake in the Crown Hotel, how good the food was and how people had kept buying him drinks.
He didn’t tell her about the question which had hung back on people’s lips when they found out who he was, or that he’d felt like apologising and explaining for her every time, even though people were too polite to mention it. It’s the travelling, he’d wanted to say; it’s such a long way, it would be too much for her. But he didn’t say anything, because people didn’t ask. There was a gap in the conversation all day, no one saying well she could at least have, or after all this time, or I suppose she didn’t feel she could; but it was a gap which was soon bridged by enquiries about work, or Kate, or how he was enjoying his stay.
She shuffled down into the bed, rearranging the pillows behind her, and turned her head on to his chest. He could feel the warmth of her breath. He leant down and kissed her hair. She spread her hand across his skin, tracing circles with each finger the way she’d always liked to do, pressing lightly against each of his ribs, his belly button, the short dotted scar above his waist.
He told her about walking around Aberdeen the evening before the funeral, and how different things were now; the massive oil tanks and pipeworks ranged along the harbour-front, the new shopping centre, the graceful blue-glass extension to the Maritime Museum, the rebuilt houses on Torry Hill where she’d grown up. You’d still recognise it though, he said gently. He told her about some of the people he’d met at the wake, what they were doing now, that they’d said to give her their love. He told her, as her eyes closed more firmly and her breathing settled into its familiar slowness, about the long drive home, past Dundee and Dunfermline and over the new Forth Bridge, past Hadrian’s Wall, through the high bleak openness of the North York Moors. He told her how nice it had been, passing through all that scenery. He told her that there’d been no traffic problems, that it had been straightforward finding his way, that everyone had seemed to be driving carefully and sensibly.
He shifted down into the bed, kissing her on the cheek, and reached across to turn out the light.
You still want to go then? she said, opening her eyes suddenly. He looked at her.
Yes, he said, you know I do.
It’s an awful long way again, she said, so soon.
I know, he said, but I want to go. It’s important, you know it’s important. I’ll be okay. He kissed the side of her face again, stroking the top of her ear with his finger.
Have you packed? she asked. Have you written a list?
He thought of all the things he’d considered taking with him, stacked in the corner of Kate’s old room: the photograph albums, the document folders, the bundles of letters and postcards and notes, the scrapbooks, the loose objects wrapped in sheets of old newspaper and filed carefully away. He went through them all in his mind, listing each item as though in a museum catalogue, picking out the few things he’d eventually decided to take.
Yes, he said, I’ve written a list. Don’t worry about it now though. We’ll talk about it in the morning. He turned the light off, and for a while he lay there listening to the quick shallow sighs of her breathing, the kick and twist of her legs as she tried to get comfortable.
Can’t it wait David? she said. Why do you have to go now?
Please, he said. Don’t. She turned away from him, pulling the cover around herself, shifting further down into the bed. It was a long time before she was still.
1 b/w photograph, Albert Carter, defaced, c.1943
He was going to start with a picture of his father. It seemed as good a way as any to begin. It was the first thing he’d thought of packing before he went off to the funeral, tucking it into a padded envelope to keep it safe. This is my father, he was going to say, holding up the small photograph for someone to see. When he was a young man, he was going to add, before I was born. Well now, someone might say, looking closely, and what are these marks here? And then he could explain, telling it the way his sister Susan always had, the words worn comfortably smooth with repeated use.
It was a story she liked to tell; it made her feel a part of something bigger than herself, tied to a time when there were bigger things to feel a part of. She’d told it again a few weeks earlier, looking at the same picture with a group of her friends after dinner one night. Someone had mentioned seeing it on the way in, and she’d led them all through to the hallway to stand around it, balancing their cups of coffee on thin white saucers while they listened and smiled and nodded, and remembered stories of their own, and went quiet at the appropriate time. Whenever he’d heard her tell the story, people had always gone quiet at the same appropriate time.
It was taken in 1943, she said, gesturing towards the photo, a small black-and-white studio portrait mounted on a greying cardboard surround, a name and number scribbled in soft illegible pencil along the bottom. Just before I was born, she said, placing herself firmly into that generation. He must have had it taken before going away on service for the second time, to the Med, I think, and sent it back from Portsmouth for my mother to put up on the mantelpiece while he was away. Pausing
