The Misremembered Man (6 page)

“How awful.” Lydia reached for her napkin. “So what did you do?”

“Well, I thought I’m not going to let the young pup away with that, so I said, ‘I’ll thank you to mind your manners, young man.’”

“Good for you! And what did he say to that?”

“Oh, he got worse. He said: ‘May I suggest that if you don’t like my tea you take your custom elsewhere, because I
hey
a business to run and no time to stand around here discussin’ the virtues of tea-making with a couple of oul’ buzzards like you.’”

“The cheek of him!”

“Exactly: the cheek of him. So we got up, and poor Beattie with her corns and all could hardly walk, and she said: ‘Don’t worry, we’re going. You’re badly brought up and I don’t mind saying it, and if you were a son of mine, I’d box the ears off you!’ And d’you know what, the people in the café gave us a round of applause as we left, and he was livid, so he was.” Elizabeth pushed the dessert bowl aside. “Is there any tea?”

“Of course there is. I’ll make it now and I promise to heat the pot,” said Lydia, smiling. “I am sorry, Mother. That doesn’t sound as though you had such a good day after all.”

“Oh, we got over it soon enough. We weren’t going to let that young rascal spoil the rest of our day. We treated ourselves to a few wee things. Beattie got a nice paint-by-numbers set called
Horse and Foal by Lake
and I bought that cottage tapestry and that pair of elastic stockings, the Wolford ones with the reinforced toes. The ones I showed you. And then later on we had a nice spread in the Lakeside Hotel. Oh, they know how to do things there…”

Lydia got up to prepare the tea.

“…Georg Jensen silver and that Blushing Rose china your Aunt Hattie adored. You know, she took a liking for it in Belgium when she was there in nineteen thirty-one. She went to work as an au pair to the Vansittart family. Oh, they were very grand you know, aristocratic I believe…”

“Really…?” Lydia scarcely listened. She was used to her mother’s ramblings, and as she reached for the teapot and the tea caddy, gazed out the window to remind herself of how beautiful the garden looked. She was proud of her vegetable patch, where the rows of carrots, potatoes, cauliflowers and sprouts expressed her unstinting devotion to the soil, and her confidence in the power of Mother Nature to provide all goodness. Because for Lydia, order and neatness did not stop at the boundaries of one’s home; they extended to the scrubbed paving, trimmed hedges and carefully cropped lawns that lay beyond it.

“…and after that we did pass-the-parcel, and then Mrs. Leslie Lloyd-Peacock showed us slides from her trip to Canada. Oh, Mrs. Lloyd-Peacock is
such
a lady! She would be connected to the Rickman-Ritchies, you know, the linen people. Oh, very grand, very well off and such good friends of your father’s….”

“Mmm…,” murmured Lydia. She noticed a scattering of naughty dandelions between the rows of vegetables, nodding their little heads in the noon breeze, and wondered how on earth she could have missed them thus far. She made a mental note to pluck them immediately after tea.

She carried the teapot to the table and stole a quick glance down the hallway, but there was no mail as yet. She could not afford to have her mother collect any letters, because her ad had already appeared and she hoped and expected an envelope of replies soon, even though it was very early days.

Elizabeth was examining the cabled cuffs of her sweater dress. “…oh terrible good with her hands, could tackle any Aran stitch put in front of her; cables, garters, fagots, twists, the chunky bead, fisherman ribs, and y’know her bunny bobbles were the talk of the country. You name it and she could do it…”

She left off the examination and studied Lydia, who, having placed the teapot on the table was fetching Auntie Dot’s tea cozy, a wondrous item crocheted in the shape of a purple strawberry.

“You know, Mrs. Leslie Lloyd-Peacock’s slides put me in mind of the sea.”

“Oh really,” said Lydia, half listening. “How’s that?”

“Made me long to go on holiday. Portaluce, that’s where I want to go. Why don’t we go and stay with Gladys next week?”

“Really!” Lydia was suddenly alert. She’d no wish to go anywhere until she’d received that all-important letter. “Gosh, Mother, if memory serves, you and Gladys always end up fighting.”

“Gladys is the one who starts it! But then she never was anything but impetuous.” Mrs. Devine addressed the sugar bowl, suddenly thoughtful. “Takes after her Aunt Millicent.” Lydia could see another reminiscence coming on.

“Look, I’ll tell you what, Mother: We’ll go the week after next. How’s that?”

“Why not next week?”

“Well…” Lydia didn’t know what to say. “I’m just not ready yet. I’m…tired.”

“I thought that was the reason one went on holiday: because one was tired.” Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. “You’re up to something.”

“No, Mother, I’m not up to anything, and anyway Auntie Gladys would need a week’s notice. It’s high season, you know.” Lydia proffered a plate of cherry slices. “Now, some cake.”

Doris Crink, the postmistress, was an attractive widow in her early fifties—petite, slim, well groomed—who still felt it necessary to make an effort, especially with her appearance. Her dear husband’s death had been premature. They’d only been married four years when he was hit by a delivery van, driven by a shortsighted retiree, whose attention had been momentarily diverted whilst wresting a barley-sugar from its wrapper. Since that fateful occurrence, the mere sight of the said sweets could trigger in Doris an immeasurable panic. Such a catastrophe had not put her off, however, and as the years passed she never lost hope of marrying again. By tending to her looks she kept that flame of hope alive. You just never knew when the right man might come along and fan the flame into a roaring fire.

Doris was surprised to see Jamie McCloone coming through her door. He had little reason to visit her establishment because he rarely sent or received letters. He did have a savings account, however, which, she was glad to see, was seldom debited (or for that matter credited). It held quite a healthy sum, too: £3,129 and fippence to be exact, which had been lodged soon after his uncle’s death.

Ms. Crink had inherited the business from her parents and had run it for as long as anyone could remember. Consequently, she knew the intimate goings-on of most members of that small community. As the shrewd clairvoyant can determine a person’s future from the clothes they wear and the things they say, so Doris could judge the state of a marriage or a person’s circumstances through the mail they received and the transactions they conducted over her woodwormed counter.

“Another red reminder from the gas board for the Kennedys at number nine, I see,” she’d say. “Thomas must be hitting the bottle.”

“That daughter of Betsy Bap’s out of work again,” she’d observe on another occasion. “That’s the third welfare check she’s cashed this month. Oh, she takes after her mother, that one: a strumpet, the temper of a billy goat. The Lord himself couldn’t work with
her
.”

All such speculations and slanders about the people of Tailorstown would be relayed to Mildred, her sister, who worked in the clothing store next door: Harvey’s, Purveyors of Ladies and Gentlemen’s Fashions. At supper in the evenings, in the cramped kitchen behind the post office, the ladies would mull over the day’s events, sifting through the evidence of what was said, done and bought by their customers, in order to build a case against them. Sometimes the purchase of a pair of silk stockings and a withdrawal from a savings account on the same day—
and
by the same person—could fire their imaginations with the fury of a Cape Canaveral rocket, before returning them to earth like a damp squib.

“Oh, she couldn’t be having an affair. She’s only just married,” a Crink sister might observe. To which the other would respond with: “Well, I can’t see a hellion like Mickey McCourt allowing his wife to buy, let alone notice, she was wearing a pair a them, can you? Oh, something’s going on there, you can be sure.”

As Jamie McCloone approached her counter, Doris Crink removed her spectacles, believing she looked better without them.

“Jamie, haven’t seen you in a long while. How’ve you been keepin’?”

“I’m not so bad atall, Doris. But me back’s givin’ me a bit of bother, so it is.”

“Ach, I’m sorry to hear that. Y’know that back’s goin’ round. Aggie Coyle is nearly kilt with it.” Doris was studying Jamie sympathetically. He might not be an oil painting but he was a civil enough creature, and he did have £3,129 and fippence in his savings book, and no wife to be whittling away at it…or, Doris mused idly, not yet anyway. “Is it the rheumatism, is it?”

“No, Doris, it’s the lambago, the doctor says. And he give me tablets to take and wants me to take a rest by the seaside, so he does.”

“Well, so you should, Jamie. That’s very good advice. You’re liftin’ too many heavy things on the farm, no doubt.” She placed her elbows on the counter and leaned confidentially toward him. “Y’know I had a bit a bother with me ears last winter, and Dr. Brewster told me the exact same thing. He said: ‘Doris d’you know what you need?’”

“God-oh, did he tell you the same thing, did he?”

“He did indeed. He said: ‘Doris, you need a good rest by the sea in Portaluce with them ears of yours.’ And you know, I took his advice and went for a week and came back,” Doris gave the counter a triumphant slap, “as right as rain with no ears atall.”

Jamie pushed up the bill of his cap to air his scalp a bit, both flustered and flattered that a woman of Doris’s sensibilities would confide as much in him.

“Boys-o, that’s a good one—he told you the same thing. Oh, he’s a smart man, Dr. Brewster. He knows what’s wrong with you by just lookin’ at you, so he does.”

“Oh, a gentleman.” Doris inhaled deeply and shook her head. “None of that pokin’ and proddin’ at a person. Oh, a very decent man…couldn’t get the better of him, so you couldn’t.”

“Aye, yes, you couldn’t get the better of him, that’s right. I know what you’re sayin’ right enough.” Jamie pulled on his ear and righted his cap again.

“Was it the stamps you were lookin’, Jamie?” she asked, opening her book, suddenly officious. Another customer had just entered the premises and she didn’t want to be seen to be getting too friendly with Jamie, lest rumors started circulating.

“Yes, Doris, a coupla stamps and a coupla them envelopes. And a need a pad a that Basildon Bond over there.”

Doris lifted an eyebrow at such a list, wondered what Jamie McCloone might be up to, and quickly filed away the tantalizing snippet for discussion with Mildred later on.

She began totting up the cost with her pencil. Jamie lowered his face to Doris’s left ear.

“And I’ll be needin’ to take out a wee bit a money for the wee trip y’know,” he whispered.

“Certainly, Jamie. If you’d just fill this wee form out, and while you’re doing that, I’ll let this customer away.” Doris looked up expectantly at the waiting youth behind him, all thoughts of romance shelved for the time being.

H
e scrubbed the floor on his bony knees; his purpled hands clamped on the wire-bristled brush. He was doing four big tiles at a time, his body shuttling back and forth, machine-like, mopping up the sludge with a greasy rag that he’d rinse out in the bucket. Four hundred and fifty tiles in the cold refectory; only a hundred more to go.

Every five minutes he’d stop and move to the next set, hauling the bucket with a screech farther along the speckled terrazzo, positioning his knees on the sodden towel, rinsing and wringing and scrubbing—scrubbing, scrubbing until the gray flecks flashed white under his determined strokes, until his heart beat too rapidly and his arms went numb.

Mother Vincent timed him with her fob watch, appearing sporadically at the open door, either withdrawing satisfied or advancing enraged. He dreaded her coming, the hard heels cracking across the empty room, a hail of hammer blows to his heart.

“Not good enough, Eighty-Six! I told you five minutes exactly per section.” Her words struck the walls like rifle shots, and made the floor beneath him sway.

He knelt before her with his face upraised, his swollen hands crossed in a penitential pose:
Saint Francis Beholding the Afflicted
.

“S-sorry, Sister,” he stammered.

“How old are you now, Eighty-Six?”

He did not know his age, but knew that such an admission would earn him a ringing slap; maybe just one, maybe several, depending on how Mother Vincent felt. He thought hard. He remembered the time he’d entered the refectory, 7.30
P.M.
He shifted his knees on the soggy cloth, kept looking up, seeking out her face so as not to linger at the tooled leather belt that swung at her waist, the cane in her hand.

“Seven and a half, Sister.”

“Quite,” she said, sneering at the inaccuracy of the guess. She’d noted him from the day he’d arrived on her step five years earlier, but why should she tell him his real age? These sons of whores deserved nothing.

“Do you see that clock down there?” and she pointed needlessly at the far wall. “That clock is there so you can time yourself. Now reverse three sections and start again.” She drove the last words down, bending low to level with him. The air vibrated with her anger. Fear crushed his throat. Her eyes locked with his.

“Remind me why you’re here, Eighty-six?”

“Because…’ He swallowed back the tears. “Because I’m bad and me mammy d-didn’t want me…and she put me h-here because…’

He stopped, terrified. Her unblinking eyes and doughy face made him think of hooded figures in the forest, death and buried bones, a headstone-crowded darkness.

“Stop that at once!” She slapped him across the face, grabbed him by the shoulder and trailed him to a bench set along the wall. He immediately scrambled up onto it.

“Stand up!” They were at eye level. “Do you know why your sister is
not
here, Eighty-Six?”

He shut his eyes tight. He did not want to say the word. But another blow to his cheek brought the answer she required.

“Di…died, Sister.”

“She died. That’s right: she
died
.” She spat the awful word into his face. “Your mother put the pair of you in a shopping bag and dumped you on our doorstep. Your sister was already dead.
We saved you
.” The boy was looking down at his feet, the tears falling freely now. “Only for
us
you would have died too, you ungrateful, greedy, thieving little devil.”

She pulled him off the bench and flung him across the floor. He collided with the bucket, sending the water everywhere. He ended up sprawled on his knees in the dirty puddle, unable to right himself.

“Now look what you’ve done.” She unhooked the strap at her side.

He screamed and doubled up under the lashing leather, believing that the tighter he held himself, the less pain he’d feel, an instinctive yet useless tactic he’d used many times before.

Then she stopped. He heard her rapid breathing and slowly uncurled himself into the full, throbbing aftermath. He retrieved the damp cloth and attempted to soak up the “sin” he’d just been found guilty of.

“I’m not finished with you
yet
, Eighty-Six.” She hauled him to his feet again. “I’m waiting, Eighty-Six. Your mother put you here because
what
?”

“Because she want…id, w-w-wantid you…y-y-y-you to make me…make me good, Sister?” His whole body shook as his words slid everywhere. He stopped and swallowed deeply.

“And if you’re not good and you don’t do your work, what will happen?” Her face was a mask of disdain. Sweat misted her brow. She grinned, lips peeling back from dingy teeth.

“God will puniss…punish me, and me ma…me mammy won’t come for me.”

“Correct, little man.” She straightened up. “Now get to it or there’ll be no bed tonight and no breakfast in the morning.”

She marched to the door, then halted. He set immediately to work, fearful she might come back to beat him again.

“Eighty-Six, change the water when it gets dirty. Do you hear? If you can’t see to the bottom of the bucket it needs to be changed. You understand?”

“Yes, Sister.”

And with that she left him in the joyless hall with the bucket, the brush and his small heart pounding, a trail of dread and danger battering in her wake.

Two hours later, he was finished and lay in the darkness in the crowded dormitory, three rows, ninety-six beds in all. Ninety-six hungry boys, hungry for love and hungry for nourishment, and their sleep disrupted for lack of both. Ninety-six rejects with no gifts or grace, on whom a cloudless sun would never shine.

They were all under ten years, yet none of them knew their age, or what birthdays meant, or what presents were for, or that Santa Claus came at Christmas. In their long years in the orphanage, they’d never been hugged, never been smiled at, never eaten meat or used a knife and fork; they did not know the pleasure of bathing in warm water, or the feel of cotton sheets against the skin.

Their only crime was that their mothers had died, or been too poor to keep them, or too frightened to resist the forces of power and authority that deemed them unfit for the maternal role. Each child was paying for the “love” that had brought him into being: a love that in the “holy” eyes of the children’s “carers” was tainted, because it had come from lesser beings—poor people.

Eighty-Six lay curled up tight like a tiny leveret in a tiny nest, his blanket pulled over his head. The aching in his back, his knees, his hands could not be eased. In his mind he was still down there in the deserted hall, scrubbing the unending floor. He could not sleep.

All around him, his comrades writhed and moaned in their sleep, the thin blankets that covered them rising and falling to the fearful rhythms of their dream worlds. The wind whistled in the loose window frames. He lowered the cover and peeped out, suddenly afraid. Somewhere, a door was banging. He thought it might be the door of the outside shed where the cleaning things were kept.

Immediately alert, he rose up on his elbows in a frisson of disquiet, straining hard to identify the sound and the direction from which it came. He remembered stowing the bucket and brush, but had he fastened the door again? He could not remember and, as his thoughts churned round and round, the consequences of his oversight took shape and struck him with a terrible force. There would be fifteen on the backside with the tooled belt. He would have to go down and bolt it.

He flung back the blanket, straightened his sore legs and eased himself onto the floor. It was strictly forbidden for a child to leave his bed after 10
P.M.
So he was committing one transgression to escape the consequences of having committed another.

His sockless feet whispered across the cold cement as he made his way to the heavy door, past the rows of restive sleepers. Someone whimpered, a thin mournful note sliding out from under a cover as if to pull him back. He did not stop, but carried on, quietly heaved the door shut behind him and turned to face the darkness of the corridor.

He could see the newels of the staircase in the pre-dawn light from the landing window. Conscious of the risk he was running, he made for it on tiptoe, groping at the helpless air; past the adjacent dormitory, past Mother Superior’s quarters, Master Keaney’s room. A floorboard creaked in betrayal and he stopped, frozen by the hideous notion that he’d been heard. He held his breath for a moment, his foot poised above the traitorous board. He heard the shed door slam again as if in warning, as if urging him on. He quickened his pace and flew soundlessly down the stairs, all dread falling behind him in his eagerness to be gone.

Outside, the wind battled him for control of the raging door, like a demon in the face of an exorcising priest, his nightshirt by turns ballooning out and plastering itself against his body. He was too small and his strength too weak. His bare feet slithered out from under him on the slick grass. He fell on his belly and lay there, feeling the damp grass through his shirt, his cheek to the earth, hearing all the way down beneath, where, he was assured almost daily, hell’s fires raged at its baleful core.

But he could not waste time and got up quickly. He pitted his painful back and all his weight against the door until eventually it yielded. The rusty bolt he hammered home with his little fist, the huge relief of his achievement at once releasing him to run back the way he had come.

At the top of the stairs he faltered, lassoed by a dreadful sight. The door to Keaney’s room stood open. In the darkness he felt a presence and smelled the fetid breath. Fear flared and choked him. In his mind, a curtain fell and a light went out. He yelled silently for the mother he never knew and the God who never listened as a heavy hand gripped his shoulder and propelled him forcibly into the room.