The Road Between Us (12 page)

VII

Four and a half months after Edward’s release

AS HANNAH DRIVES, EDWARD TAKES IN THE COUNTRYSIDE – SUNLIT
heaths and open farmland punctuated by round bales and thick hedgerows, each blurring into the other. This is his first visit to see his father at the nursing home, and he hopes that Hannah doesn’t sense his apprehension about it.

‘I used to go and see him after school,’ she says, keeping her eyes on the road. ‘Before his memory went. He taught me to use oil paint.’

‘Did he? Wish he’d taught me, but then I never had any talent for painting.’

‘He had a very unorthodox way of holding his brush, because of his missing thumb. It made his style, like, much more bold. Visible strokes of the palette knife, too. Mixing paint right on the canvas. Thick layers of it … We’re almost there.’ A gear change down into second. ‘Just over this hill. You get a great view from the top.’

‘Would you mind if I get out here and walk the rest?’ Edward asks. ‘I could do with some fresh air, before we go in.’

‘Course not.’ Hannah brings the car to a halt once they have crested the hill. ‘I’ll go on ahead and park. Just follow the road down. It’s a couple of hundred yards.’

Edward watches the Volvo disappear around a corner and then
walks over to a dry-stone wall. Below him are the bosomy folds of a deep, wooded valley bisected by meadows feral with dandelions and buttercups. Only the bleating of unseen sheep and the song of skylarks disturbs the silence.

He inhales slowly and, on his out breath, realizes that he is home at last, that this is deep England, the remembered country. But where there should be joy in his heart he feels only resentment and melancholy. Frejya should be here with him. They should be savouring this view together.

He takes in another sound. A peal has started up, rung on eight bells, summoning Christians to church. It must be Sunday. He turns in their direction and sees a spire rising above a distant sun-dappled coppice. The change-ringing, as old as the Norman invasion, and as evocative in its way as the minarets of Arabia, weaves with memories of church from his childhood: of fits of giggles at moments of solemnity, of the smell of mown grass around the gravestones, of wood polish, of mildew, of tattered regimental flags … of a handkerchief licked by his father to clean his face.

The bells have re-ordered now, changing their sequence with mathematical precision. As he listens to their descending scale he turns and follows the road around the slope of the hill.

He sees the lawns first, ripples of heat-mist dancing across their even surface. A few yards farther on he sees a Palladian hall. With its mellow stone-flagged terraces and its strutting peacocks it could be the home of a duke.

Hannah is striding with unbearable youth towards him. She waves. They enter through the main door and, once inside, the building’s function becomes unambiguous. Though his sense of smell has yet to return fully, Edward recognizes the stagnant air immediately from his stay in hospital: cloyingly warm, stifled by self-closing fire doors, pricked with disinfectant, urine and flowers.

The linoleum on the floors renders a passing wheelchair silent. Its occupant waves a friendly stick to greet an old man with amputated legs who is descending on a stairlift. Hannah leads the way through a communal room where a dozen elderly residents are
watching
SpongeBob SquarePants
on a wide-screen television. Their faces seem frozen, old men looking gormless without their teeth in, women with hairy chins. Their features seem exaggerated: big noses, big ears, big, arthritically crooked hands. Some have overbite, others yellow eyes, one has glasses too large for his head. They look like aliens.

Once through this area, Hannah points in the direction of an open door.

‘That’s his room.’

‘Does he know I’m back?’

Hannah shakes her head. ‘He’s been told, several times, but … I think I’ll leave you to it. He gets agitated when he has more than one visitor. I should warn you, the only thing he says is “answer”. Don’t know why. There’s an empty pond in the garden with some chairs around it. I’ll wait for you there.’

Edward hesitates before entering. At first he does not recognize the old man sitting in a wheelchair by the window. Age has shrunk him and the old kimono he is wearing looks the wrong size, as if he is a child trying on his parents’ clothes. His eyebrows are wiry, there are dark pouches under his eyes and his chalky hair looks weightless and soft against his small, birdlike skull. The bones in his shaking hands look too big, the skin on them loose, except for the stump where his thumb was, before it was amputated during the war. There the skin is tight.

Apart from a few liver spots, the hands are almost transparent. The only patch of skin that still looks young and smooth is on the side of the old man’s face, where he has been burned – another war injury. It is a different colour, yellow and taut. Stray silver bristles make it look like an unripened nectarine. He is recognizable to his son, just about, but his edges are softer, as if someone has placed a veil over him. There is a whistling sound coming from him, as elusive as steam from a boiled kettle. He is taking little sips of air.

Edward raises the sunglasses he has to wear even indoors. ‘It’s me, Dad. Eddie.’

When his father fails to look up, Edward puts out his hand to shake. The old man stares at it with watery curiosity.

‘I’ve brought you this.’ He hands over a bottle of Irish whiskey.

His father transfers his stare to the bottle.

‘Would you like a glass?’

The old man looks at his son with pale, cloudy eyes.

‘It’s me, Dad.’ He reaches over and touches his father’s mottled hand. ‘I came back … Dad?’

‘You OK there?’

Edward turns towards the female voice. There is a nurse in the doorway holding a tray with two cups and saucers, a jug, sugar bowl and a teapot. ‘Come along now, Charlie,’ she says. ‘You’ve got a visitor.’

Edward chews his cheek. ‘I think he would prefer to be called Mr Northcote.’

The nurse looks embarrassed. ‘Sorry. We tend not to use titles and surnames here.’

‘His generation are quite formal. They like strangers to address them by their surnames.’

‘Sorry.’

Edward sighs. ‘No, I’m the one who should say sorry. It’s fine to call him Charles, or Charlie. I’m sure Charlie no longer cares what he’s called. I’m just a little shocked at seeing him like this, that’s all. It’s been a while.’

‘You’re his son, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, I’ve … been away.’

‘I saw that on the news. I’m pleased you’re back safely. Mr Northcote watched you on the news as well, though I don’t think …’ The nurse smooths the old man’s hair. ‘He’s no trouble, you know. He just sits here. Listens to music sometimes. The Beatles are his favourites. And he paints.’ The nurse points at some childish paintings of trees and houses Blu-Tacked to the wall. In one the sky is green, the grass blue. There are pots of poster paint and thick, numb brushes. ‘He’s quite the Picasso, isn’t he?’

Edward stiffens. ‘He used to be a Royal Academician.’

It strikes Edward as odd to be talking about his father as if he isn’t here, yet in a way he isn’t. He is a husk. How old must he be? He was born in 1917 so that would make him ninety-five. His dentures are in a mug and his face looks like it has collapsed in on itself without them. Edward reaches over, rinses them in the sink and holds them up to his father’s mouth, which opens obligingly. When he then straightens his father’s tie and takes a comb from his pocket and runs it through his fine, white fringe, Charles looks up in surprise and says in a small, high-pitched voice: ‘Answer.’

Edward recalls how deep his father’s voice had always been. ‘Answer what, Dad? What’s the question?’

‘Answer,’ the old man repeats. Alzheimer’s is thickening his tongue like some strange accent.

‘How have you been, Dad?’

‘Answer.’

Edward pours two cups of tea. ‘Are they treating you well in here?’

‘Answer.’

‘I’m sorry I never got a chance to say goodbye properly. I thought I was only going to be in Afghanistan for a couple of weeks. I was always heading off somewhere, wasn’t I? All those postings … We never did get to spend much time together, did we?

… But it’s what you wanted for me, right, Dad?’

‘Answer.’

‘I always knew how proud you were of me. University. Foreign Office. You didn’t have to say it.’

Edward is finding it oddly reassuring and easy to be here with his father having this one-way conversation. There is no comeback. No attempt to understand or empathize. It is like talking to himself, a monologue for two voices. ‘Did you hear what happened to me in Afghanistan? They took me hostage. Held me for eleven years in a cave …’ He shakes his head and smiles grimly. ‘I did some painting in there, Dad. You would have appreciated it. You were always trying to get me to paint but I didn’t have the confidence, do you remember?’

‘Answer?’

‘I didn’t have any paint so I used my own faeces. Daubed it on the walls like Jackson Pollock.’

‘Answer.’ An urgency has crept into his tone. ‘Answer.’

Charles is now staring at a wooden information board on the wall, like the ones in church that tell you the hymn numbers. On one side are painted the questions that residents must frequently ask, and alongside these are slots for the handwritten answers.

Today is
…
Sunday
.

The month is
…
August
.

The weather is
…
warm
.

Dinner is
…
lamb
.

The season is
…
spring.

‘The winters were the worst,’ Edward continues, changing the piece of wood with the word ‘spring’ written on it for one with ‘summer’. His breathing has quickened, shallow breaths through his nose. His jaw muscles are tensed. ‘There was one especially cold one where they threw down some extra blankets for me. I was even allowed a fire sometimes. Sticks and matches, when it got really cold … I sang to myself. Talked to myself often. Sometimes I would hear screaming and then realize it was me.’

Edward stirs his cup but still doesn’t take a sip. ‘Am I still in the cave? Am I imagining this?’ He stops stirring, distracted by the white noise of his scudding thoughts, then starts again.

There is a packet of nappies in the corner. ‘Nappies to nappies,’ Edward says when he sees them. Wrapped in his kimono, with his bald head sticking out, his father looks like an outsized baby in a swaddling blanket. In this moment he thinks he loves him more than he has ever done in his life. Unlike the Foreign Office therapist, his father isn’t trying to cure him. He isn’t judging him. He has never judged him.

‘Daddy,’ he says. There are tears in his voice, but not in his eyes. He takes hold of his hand again and, when he notices his father
staring at it and realizes he is squeezing too hard, he lets it go. He straightens his shoulders. ‘Know what I used for a loo? A corner of the cave. After a while I no longer noticed the stench.’ He rubs the back of his head. His eyes are glassy now. His lips are trembling. Running his hands through his hair, he stands up and begins pacing the room. ‘I almost came to admire their genuine contempt for me. No, not contempt, their indifference. They didn’t care if I lived or died … Just didn’t care. Being ignored is nearly as bad as being abused. It’s the lack of human contact … But I guess you know about that in here, Dad. No one to talk to. I guess it hasn’t been much of a decade for you either, has it.’ He kisses his father’s head. ‘I missed you. I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you. They said I shouldn’t come and visit. That it wouldn’t be good for either of us. But I’m going to see if I can get you out. You can come back and live with us. We can get a full-time carer.’

‘Answer.’

‘When I got home they told me Frejya was dead … She had been my reason for staying alive. And then that’s it, she’s gone, replaced with this exact replica. This, this … mockery.’

‘Answer,’ Charles says.

Edward hears someone behind him and turns to see Hannah at the door. She is staring at him with wolf-grey eyes that are molten and unblinking.

VIII

EDWARD CONTEMPLATES THE BLANK WORD DOCUMENT ON HIS
laptop. He thought after his visit to his father he might be capable of writing down some notes for a memoir about his time in captivity, but the empty screen seems to represent the future to him, a future that is fogged and inarticulate, like an invisible barrier. Besides, he doesn’t want Hannah to read it when …

He can’t even give shape to the words in his head.

When …

He closes the laptop, walks out into the hall and, opening the cupboard under the stairs, drags out two of the boxes of merchandising from the Free Edward Northcote campaign: more mugs, more T-shirts, more bumper stickers. They represent the scale of Frejya’s campaign, as well as his guilt at having gone and been captured. She would still be alive if he had done as she asked and turned the assignment down. Every time he sees these boxes he feels sick.

Behind them there is a bin liner full of the ephemera of Frejya’s life. He knows what it contains, all the things which Hannah collected together and intended to throw out but never did: the circled takeaway menus, the used Jiffy bags ready for recycling, the pages ripped from catalogues, old birthday cards, bank statements, a shopping list on the back of an envelope – ‘kitchen towels, bread source, olive oil, HP, tomatoes, milk’.

And behind this is the clear plastic crate he is looking for. It contains the edited records of Frejya’s life. He drags it into the hall and sits down cross-legged as he goes through it. The answering machine tape with her voice on it is sitting on the top. Hannah must have put it here. Underneath it are Frejya’s diaries, her photograph albums, her school certificates written in Norwegian: a second place in the 100 metres, a prize at a swimming gala, a commendation for chemistry. Her passports are also here, several of them, dating all the way back to her first one, the photographs inside them showing how she aged every ten years. Her credit cards are here too, along with a copy of her will, her birth certificate, their marriage certificate and her death certificate. Birth, marriage, death – all neatly filed by Hannah in a clear folder.