The Memory Box (11 page)

Rory didn’t improve as he grew older. He was referred to as ‘bolshie’ by his father and grave doubts were cast over his honesty and integrity and all the other virtues his family prided itself on possessing in abundance. Both his parents were Camerons, though in no way related, except presumably several generations back, and they held their family name in great respect, as proud to be Camerons with all they considered this implied as my own father was to be a Musgrave. Rory, by the age of sixteen, was becoming known as ‘not fit to be a Cameron’. He’d disgraced himself in all kinds of ways anathema to them. He was clever, but regularly failed exams; he was never short of pocket money, but was caught shoplifting items he could easily have bought; he got drunk, crashed his mother’s car (which of course he was not old enough to drive), dyed his hair green, had his left ear pierced, wore torn jeans and in general did all the
classic
wild teenager things so objectionable to his deeply conventional parents. The list of his misdemeanours grew longer and longer. My father used to smile, while shaking his head, as he passed on the latest on Rory from Isabella. He prophesied that Rory would probably turn out to be a hero when he’d finished sowing his wild oats, but in fact he never did finish sowing them. The moment he left his excellent Scottish public school, to which he’d most unsuitably been condemned by his ambitious father, who’d been there himself, he promptly embarked on a life of minor crime.

It was cars at first. He had his own car, given to him on his seventeenth birthday, a perfectly adequate second-hand Volvo, but that wasn’t good enough. Encouraged by the youths he associated with and learning from them (though that was no excuse), he stole sports cars, changed their number plates, had them resprayed, and resold them. He told me he had only intended to do it once, for himself, but he got away with it so easily he decided to do it again and then again and make money out of it. But the money wasn’t the attraction – though Hector had stopped his allowance by then, so he had to earn a living somehow and had no intention of doing any regular work – and he never pretended it was. He loved the daring of it, the excitement, the pitting of his brains against those of the police (‘no contest’ he boasted). But he had a little sense left in his head, enough to stop the lark before his luck ran out. Abruptly, he switched to trading in antiques, his own idea this time. The trading consisted of keeping an eye on local newspapers, the funeral notices and will announcements, and then targeting widowed old ladies. He would go and visit them and ask very politely if he could help them dispose of any furniture. Because he was entirely unthreatening, still slight in build and blond and with a cultured Edinburgh accent, and by then dressed for the part in a suit, and a sparkling
white
shirt and old school tie, he was well received. He bought bits of furniture at absurdly low prices and sold them for absurdly high ones. This was not of course criminal, just a form of cheating, if one sanctioned in the trade. He always knew the real value of what he bought and he always knew the old ladies did not. He said he made them happy by giving them his time and listening sympathetically to their woes. But this kind of thing was only the respectable front for a much more dubious enterprise which, when he hinted at it, I told him I did not wish to know about. Whatever it was, he came unstuck in his late twenties and had to leave Edinburgh hurriedly. Ever since, he’d lived in London, though never for long in the same place.

Rory came to my mother’s funeral, which was good of him. Charlotte had never been sure whether she liked him or not, and he had always sensed this and been wary of her. It was only my devotion to him that made her tolerate his visits later on, when she had heard enough about his wicked ways to justify her unease. But he came to her funeral and was kind and tried his best to comfort me. He told me I was not to forget he was my best friend and would always be there for me. I was touched. Touched, but not fooled. Rory’s concern for me might be genuine – no, it
was
genuine, I’m sure – but he cared more about himself. I knew that if my needs clashed with needs of his own he would put himself first. Normal, I suppose. He was just a normal man. But ever since the funeral he had been most solicitous and had rung me often, though I knew it wasn’t just because he felt sorry for me. There was self-interest there too. Once Tony had gone, I think Rory fancied himself as my flatmate. He hadn’t suggested moving in outright, but he’d hinted at it. I’d been very careful to give out clear signals of refusal.

I could never share a flat, or even a big house, with Rory. Not because he is untidy (though he is, horrifically) or because he smokes heavily, but because of his personal life.
He
has never so far as I know had any relationship lasting more than a couple of weeks, and he says he has never wanted one, this causes him no grief. He moves on from one man to another, in spite of these being dangerous times, and says this suits his taste perfectly. Perhaps, but without being judgmental, it would not suit me. I couldn’t bear a constant stream of youths passing through my flat. It wouldn’t matter how discreet Rory was, and discretion was not something he was known for, I would hate the presence of strangers. It is hard enough for me to share my living space with someone I love, never mind with those I would not even get to know. Rory ought to have understood that, since he didn’t like sharing himself.

It is an odd connection between us. We like to be on our own and find it a strain to share with lovers, however devoted we are to them (not that Rory has ever shown much sign of devotion). We don’t like our homes cluttered up with others. The only-child syndrome, perhaps? Always having everything as we wanted it? But I’m sure there are as many only children who go the other way, who cannot bear to be alone and require constant companionship to make up for their years of deprivation. At any rate, Rory, like me, lived on his own but, unlike me, had never bought his own place. He said he couldn’t afford to, but I know there were many times when he had the money to do so. He went on living in rooms not his own surrounded by furniture he’d never have chosen, never properly inhabiting anywhere he lived. These were sad places. He never invited me to any of them, but once I tracked him down and turned up on his doorstep and he was obliged to let me in. It was a basement flat in Kilburn, damp, dark and with walls painted a really lurid purple. He’d made no effort to do anything at all to it and just laughed when I shuddered. He said he wouldn’t be there long, and he wasn’t. I never visited him again. It was too depressing to witness his circumstances.

Maybe he floated the idea of moving in, after Tony left, from kindness. Maybe he thought I would be lonely, considering Tony had lived with me longer than anyone ever had, well over a year. If so, he couldn’t have been more wrong. The best thing about Tony’s departure was that it allowed me to reclaim my own territory. The relief was enormous, even if it was tinged with guilt. I swear that waking up to find I was on my own remained absolute bliss for weeks afterwards – I’d wake up, stretch out in the bed, realise I was alone, and feel such relief. I don’t think I was ever meant to live with anyone, except my parents, as a child. I am too intolerant, too irritable, too fond of silence. I suppose I had survived so long (long by my standards) with Tony because I’d been away on jobs a lot that year, and because he worked late himself, often, and I had whole evenings undisturbed. It was when I hit a spell of a couple of months without any assignments, which can occasionally happen, that things began to go wrong. We loved each other (I think) but I discovered then that, put to the test, we weren’t really compatible. It wasn’t so much a case of his liking one thing and my another as of our personalities. The attraction of opposites had been an attraction, but over time, living together at close quarters, it was being so different in temperament that brought us unstuck.

It’s odd, but it takes a long time for temperament to show itself, or so I’ve always found. No one can really be certain of the temperament of another until they have lived with them for a while. Attraction is all about physical things at first, obviously – I mean, you
see
someone, usually before you hear them and before you know them. What I saw in Tony wasn’t what he was like. His calmness was not so evident. On the contrary, he seemed particularly sharp and alert, as though he were on the watch all the time, noting things, analysing them. And he spoke too quickly for me to consider he was a settled sort of person of quiet tastes. Then,
even
after he had moved in with me, it took a while for me to appreciate how extremely solemn and serious he was, about everything, and how (to me) unnaturally patient. Nothing seemed to anger or upset him. I’d drop and break something and swear furiously; Tony would drop and break something (though he hardly ever did, being much too careful) and simply pause for a moment, looking at what he’d done, before going to get a brush and pan to clear it up. It wasn’t just a case of staying calm over trivial upsets either – he was the same over important things. He once had a briefcase stolen from his car with incredibly important documents in it which he needed the next day. Did he yell and roar and go berserk? Did he hell. Turned a little pale, did a bit of hard swallowing, but there was no violent explosion of rage as there would have been with me.

At first, Tony’s temperament made him the ideal person for me to live with. He balanced my constant state of near agitation and I found this so soothing. It was like having my mother with me again: he could cope with me as Charlotte had always done. But then his studied (except that it was natural) steadiness began to annoy me in ways hers never had. I wanted him to shout at me when I was being impossible, I wanted him not to be so bloody, nobly understanding. And sexually I wasn’t sure I was happy with him any more. He was a good lover, if being a good lover means being both tender and passionate and always thinking of my pleasure as well as his own – what more could a woman want? – but I was no longer excited. I persuaded myself, or tried to, that this didn’t matter, that sex always gets less exciting with familiarity, but I didn’t really believe it. I thought there should still be some spark there whenever I saw him. If I loved him, as I thought I did, where had it gone? In its place there grew irritation with how he was, his habits.

It made me want to move away, though it was Tony who
literally
had to do the moving since it was my flat. I thought he never would. He didn’t seem to see what had happened, how I had reached the stage of trying to be out if he was in and vice-versa. He said things like, ‘We don’t seem to manage to spend much time together these days,’ as though it was something we both regretted instead of something I’d conspired to achieve. Then he put what he called ‘my moods’ down to my father’s sudden death and my mother’s illness, and made endless allowances. I had to be brutal and ask him to go. It was as though I’d shot him. His face drained of colour and his expression was incredulous, but he said nothing at all. He just went, with no pleading, and for that I was grateful.

But there was no doubt that the solitude I’d wanted and was so relieved to reclaim was dangerous once I came back from that Cumbrian jaunt. Rory’s voice on my answerphone was surprisingly welcome and on impulse I rang him straight away, before I could think about it and wonder if I could be bothered. What I hadn’t anticipated was that the moment he heard me he would say he was coming straight round and then hang up. I was so annoyed – it hadn’t been what I’d wanted at all – but once he’d arrived I found myself quite glad to see him. Someone, for once, was better than no one, and Rory was better than anyone. ‘You look awful,’ he said, and laughed. ‘So what wild adventures have you been having, cousin mine?’ I made him coffee and, because there was no way I could avoid it and make any sense, I told him about the memory box, just the bare facts. He loved it. He demanded to see the eleven objects immediately and I was obliged to get them all out and line them up again, all except of course for the discarded feathers.

‘What a joke,’ Rory said, and I was cross and said there was nothing funny about this. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said, ‘of course it’s a joke, a laugh. You’re getting everything out of proportion. For God’s sake, Susannah leaves you a box
of
junk and it gets forgotten for thirty-odd years and then when you open it you start looking for symbolic meanings – it’s stupid, you know it is, and what’s wrong with you, where’s the cold-eyed realist, Catherine? Chuck the lot out. She probably didn’t even know what she was doing, she was so ill.’

‘She knew,’ I said. ‘It was all carefully done. You should have seen the wrappings. And everything was numbered and arranged. It was all thought out.’

Rory lit a cigarette, without asking permission, and studied me. ‘Such misery, dearie,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you cared about Susannah anyway. I always thought it was great, the way you were never a tragedy queen about your
real
mother dying, the way you never brought it up or traded on it, the way you didn’t go in for any poor-little-me stuff. What’s happened to change that? Why is this dead woman suddenly getting to you? Have you become a born-again Christian or something? Has the Lord spoken to you about your beloved biological Mama you’ve denied all these years?’

‘It isn’t funny.’

‘I know it isn’t. That’s what astounds me – you think it’s so bloody serious when it
should
be funny. The whole thing is ridiculous. You should treat it as farce not get all worried and mournful.’

‘It doesn’t feel like a farce. Things left by dead people are creepy.’

‘Yeah,
dead
creepy, geddit?’ And he laughed, hooted.

‘Don’t, Rory.’

‘Well, for fuck’s sake.’ Then he peered at me. ‘Oh, come on, Cath, you’re not
crying
, oh my good gawd.’

I wasn’t, not really, but there were tears ready to roll if I didn’t control them. I allowed Rory to give me a cuddle and then he said that we both needed something stronger than coffee, and jumped up to open a bottle of wine. When we
both
had a glass in hand, and I was more composed, he wandered about touching the objects that had been in the box. I hated him doing that. He is always a great toucher, a fidget, incapable of just looking at anything. He has to pick things up, turn them over, examine minutely anything he is interested in. He picked up the shell. ‘Don’t touch that!’ I snapped, but he ignored me and put it to his ear. ‘Receiving, receiving,’ he chanted. ‘I’m ready for the message – loud and clear – here it comes – “I am from the ssssea!”’ He laughed and took it in both hands, running his fingers critically over every bump and ridge. ‘It’s not such an extraordinary shell,’ he said, quiet now. ‘Not from any British beach, but there are plenty of these in the South Seas and even the Caribbean. I’ve found them there, shit loads on Anguilla when I was there.’