Remember Me (4 page)

Don’t know what your mum’ll make of this, Pats, he says, holding up a stem and sniffing at it. He pulls a face and holds it out to me, What do you think?

I don’t tell him that I think my mother won’t be allowed to drink it, that the ghosts won’t even let it touch her tongue.

I think it smells lovely, is what I tell him.

~ ~ ~

I am my grandfather’s age. I’m not infirm. I have outlived my mother and my father, which is just as it should be. No one wants to live longer than their child.

~ ~ ~

The breaking started that night. My mother never got to taste her calming broth because the ghosts snatched it from her and threw it at the wall. I knew they would. I
didn’t actually see them myself, so when I asked her which one of them did it, she pointed to a space behind my head. I looked at it for a bit; there was just a spreading stain down the wall
where the liquid had run. When my father saw it, he gave me a funny look.

Her aim used to be so good, he said.

~

It’s over a month since my grandfather stood at the door and went away again. My father is preparing me for the Worst, as he calls it.

If the Worst comes to the Worst, he says, when he’s explaining what will happen. According to him, the Worst will be that my mother will go into the hospital and I’ll have to go to
my grandfather. My father doesn’t understand that there are more terrible things. We can’t begin to know what the worst will be for her. But for me, it’s leaving her alone;
forgetting her. I know if I go away, the ghosts will eat her up, piece by piece. I try not to mention them, but I can’t help myself. I nag him all the time.

Why will I have to go?

Y is a letter, you ought to know better, he says.

But why?

I’m not a disobedient child: I say my prayers, I try to remember things, I try to be useful.

Who’ll look after Mam? I argue, And who will help you clear up? I have to stay!

He looks at me and then down at his shirt, so I think he might cry. It’s not that I’m no good at tidying, it’s just that so much has been broken, and so much
stolen. It began in a small way with the broth. Next was a vase my mother kept on her dressing table. I went in to see her before bed, and my father was down on one knee, wrapping something in
paper. The flowers were in a neat bundle on the lino, just next to his foot. He looked like he was genuflecting. When he saw me, he held the paper close to his chest and put his finger to his lips:
my mother was asleep.

The draught got it, Pats, he whispered, Silly, eh?

Shortly after, things began to vanish: our porcelain lady on the mantelpiece, the two gold-edged dinner plates from the top shelf of the dresser, my mother’s handmade slippers, and my
coronation beaker with George and Elizabeth smiling on the front. I was given it last May. I thought it was a picture of my mother and father until one of the moonface children told me it was the
new king and queen. So it wasn’t such a loss.

By the time the mirror got broken, my father had run out of things to blame. It had been smashed in the middle, the slivers jutting from the frame like icicles. The loose pieces squeaked as they
came free, but some of the splinters were lodged fast. You could see yourself in pieces. My father didn’t mention any draughts that time. He just looked straight into the place his reflection
would have been and said,

Your mother never did like that picture.

Then he laughed.

We didn’t have much to start with: we ended up with nothing. I’d wake up in the morning, or come in from playing in the yard, and something else would be gone. My mother didn’t
seem to notice: she was too busy getting thinner, lying in her bed with her eyes shut tight against the ghosts. She didn’t care about anything else; keeping the ghosts out, that was her
occupation. She used to tell me about her slippers, how she got them made specially for her wedding day, getting her feet measured, and how the man said they were remarkable feet, the tiniest feet
he ever saw.

It’s better that they’re gone, she said, when I told her about the slippers, Your father never liked them.

I thought that when the ghosts took all they could, they’d leave us alone. I even considered helping them out, hiding a few things round the back of the yard so they wouldn’t find
them. But by then, there was nothing left to hide. All broken or smashed or stolen. The ghosts had taken everything; the only other thing they wanted was my mother.

It was nothing. I kept telling myself it was nothing. I told myself other things as I went, looking at my feet, not looking up. If I didn’t see anyone else, they
wouldn’t see me. I kept telling myself it was an easy walk, early enough, not many people would be on the street. The morning was bright spark clear. The trees on the Avenues dripped gold.
That sort of morning, it could make you cry.

I kept telling myself that it didn’t hurt, my face, and there wouldn’t be so much damage. But my head felt tight.

I thought it might look bad. Your skin isn’t so robust when you’re older: it’s like parchment, it tears more easily. I was trying to find something to cover my head when it
happened. I had nothing, you see, the girl had left me nothing at all. I must look a fright, is what I thought, so I went downstairs into the back of the house to see if there was something –
anything, an old bedsheet or a bit of cloth – to cover my head. It’s not vanity. The morning came up sharp as ice after all that wind and storm, and I didn’t want to be seen out
like that in daylight. If I’m true, with my head bare I felt stripped. There was nothing downstairs that might be useful. Nothing in the cupboards or on the floor. The window was wide open,
just as she’d left it, so I climbed out to see what I could find in the yard. The house at the back is broken into flats. It’s called vulnerable housing. I’ve got that wrong.
It’s for the Vulnerably Housed. It means they’re not safe. I’ve been offered it before now. The Sisters said it was like a shelter, but there was something about the name of it:
vulnerable, vulture, revulsion. I got confused; the idea of going there – I couldn’t entertain it.

As it turned out, I ended up in the next street. I wasn’t to know. I wonder now whether her saying the name of the place suggested it to me; put the thought in my head. Everyone puts a
thought in my head. I’ve barely got room for one of my own. But at least I was living there by choice, under my own steam; at least I wasn’t a Case.

The couple in the bottom flat had got themselves a dog. At first I didn’t see it. The fence runs along the end of the yard; it’s not high, you can look over the top into their
garden, and I was just doing that, looking over it, that’s all.

If I’m true, I was looking to see if I could find something; even truer, if I could steal something from their washing line to cover my head. I’m not proud of that. The dog leapt up
from behind the fence and bit me on the face. I didn’t see it, it was so quick, and it was just one bite – a snap, really – then someone swearing on the other side. It stung, but
I think that was the shock. There was no water on, so I couldn’t even wash it under the tap. My cheek went hot and cold. It felt blown out when I touched it, like the pricked skin of a
sausage. When I looked down, I could see it pinking up a sunrise in my eyeline. I just went straight out of the house. I wouldn’t be going back this time, is what I told myself. I was naked
on my head, and my face was puffed out and split like those pumpkins on the market, but I wasn’t going back to that house. I began thinking that the lads that were staying last summer had a
point and the place
was
haunted. Old Hewitt, lying in wait, ready to bite.

Your head feels fine, I said, as if saying the opposite would make it true. Only I didn’t say it out loud. I don’t speak out any more, not ever, unless it’s to the boys on the
market, or if somebody should ask me something direct. Then I keep my answers short, and to the point. I have lost the art of conversation. I have buried it. But if I was going to say anything,
I’d say what a time of it I’ve had: last night and then this morning. Nothing happens for years on end and then – bingo! – everything happens at once. Like buses. Wait for
ever, then along come three.

There was the pain, and the shock, and an old, familiar feeling in my chest: something fluttering to get out. I had to keep telling myself that it wasn’t real, not like there was a bird in
there, in my cage; it was just anxiety. Somebody once tried to convince me that pain was only an opinion. Walking into the city at dawn, looking down at my feet and trying not to think about the
cold cutting into my face, I was of the opinion that I felt quite a lot of pain.

I kept telling myself the same thing, because there was no one else to tell me.

It would all be all right. It was nothing.

Go gently now, gently!

My mother put a hand up and pressed it flat against her head. Her nails were ragged from biting. Like a cat examining its catch for signs of life, she would scrutinize her fingers, now and then
selecting one to gnaw. Fragments of blue fluff from her bedjacket were caught in the snags.

I sat behind her, my legs bent. Every time I brushed, her neck jerked back. It was pliant as a reed. I was trying to be gentle, but her hair was a mess of knots, fuzzy in places from where it
rubbed against the pillow. I tried not to pull the strands; pulling made it come away like candy floss.

I’d better do it, she said. She sat up on the pillows, hanging her head to one side, easing out the tangles with her fingers. She wound it up on top and secured it with her comb. When she
finished, she turned round and patted the edge of the bed.

Come here, then, she said, And let me see.

She tilted my face up to hers, and stared into me. Her eyes narrowed.

Who is the fairest of them all?

My mother had started doing it after the ghosts smashed the mirror, so I already knew what to say.

You are, my Queen.

A smile breaking at the corners of her mouth.

No, she’d say,
You
are.

Staring deep into my eyes. Trying not to smile.

No, Queen.
You
are!

On and on, until one of us laughed and broke the spell. Sometimes I did this on purpose; I didn’t like the way she stared, as if she really could see someone else inside
my face.

We lived in her room, on Caley’s chocolate and stories: the one where a girl grows her hair and a Prince climbs up it, where an ugly cobbler with a funny name steals a baby from a
Princess, where a wicked Queen poisons a young girl because she’s jealous of her beauty. My mother was just like Snow White. Most of the time, she didn’t care what she looked like, she
only wanted to lie down and sleep. Until suddenly, the ghosts went quiet. And just as suddenly, my mother woke up.

There was going to be a fair at Chapelfield on midsummer’s night, with boat-swings and sideshows, and a cinder circle where people would have a dancing contest. My father had promised to
take me. Mrs Moon was very excited when he told her. She said she could leave her Bonnie to look after the kids, and then she could come too.

I haven’t been dancing for years, she said, twirling in the yard for everyone to see, Not since Edward. Mrs Moon had doll’s eyes, round and shiny. Whenever she spoke of Mr Moon,
she’d blink very deliberately, the tears dropping down her cheeks like drips from a tap. My mother didn’t see her performance, but she heard it. The idea of staying at home while Mrs
Moon went in her place did not appeal; she decided that she must come with us. My mother announced that she wanted to be in the world again; she would like to dance too. My father was pulling on
his work clothes when she said it. He stopped, the vest halfway down his body. His ribs were blue with bruises. He’d only been working with the drayman for a week, and hadn’t got the
hang of catching the barrels. He gave my mother a strange look.

Dance? You? he said.

Us, she said, Just like before.

Holding her arms up high above her head.

Like that? he said, pointing at her nightgown, her bare feet.

I can put my lovely slippers on, she said, forgetting they were gone, My wedding shoes. My father shot me a warning look.

Haven’t worn those slippers since I don’t know when, she said, swinging her body over the side of the bed, Now, where have I left them?

He pulled her upright, put his face very close to hers.

They’re gone, remember? he said, Medicine doesn’t buy itself.

Then I’ll dance barefoot, she said, turning away, See if I care!

~

She plagued him with it for days, chewing on her nails, worrying about how best to do her hair, asking me if I knew what Mrs Moon would be wearing. My father never said No, but
he never said Yes. He just said Wait and See. And told me I must watch her.

He must have known. By the time midsummer’s day came, she’d forgotten all about the fair, Mrs Moon stealing her husband, the idea of dancing in her blue silk slippers. The ghosts
were her only interest: seeing them, and getting them away. They were fat as pumpkins, she said, she could see them floating above her head, their round faces grinning.

There, that one up there, get it, Pats. Get it down!

And I would chase a shadow from the wall, just to please my mother. An hour or two might pass, and then she’d start up again.

Are you blind? Over there! she’d say, as I fretted the ceiling with the broom, That one!

She said the windows needed cleaning,

To frighten the buggers away, let God’s light in, and the floorboards under the bed had to be swept, because they were clever and small, they could hide themselves in the rolls of dust.
But she couldn’t do a thing herself.

I’m weak as a kitten, she’d moan, clinging to the furniture as she crept around the room. So I cleaned for her while she sat in her bed, waving the spiders out of her face. On the
Friday, the day of the fair, she closed like an eye.

Now I’m ready, she said.

But she just lay there on her bed, her skin snow-white and sweating in the heat. My father said we could go anyway, even if she didn’t want to come. But I had to promise
to stay with her until he got back from work.