A Traitor to Memory

I've been to Cheltenham. Sarah-Jane Beckett is Sarah-Jane Hamilton now and has been Hamilton for the last twelve years. She's not much changed physically since she was my teacher: She's put on a bit of weight but she's still not developed breasts, and her hair is as red as it was when we lived in the same household. It's got a different style—she wears it held off her face with a hair band—but it's straight as a poker, as it always was.

The first thing I noticed that's different about her now was her manner of dress. She's apparently moved away from the sorts of dresses she wore as my teacher—which were heavily given to floppy collars and lace, as I recall—and she's advanced to skirts, twinsets, and pearls. The second thing I noticed that's different was her fingernails, which are no longer bitten to the quick with chewed-up cuticles but are instead long and bright with polish, the better to show off a sapphire and diamond ring that's the size of a small African nation. I noticed her fingernails because whilst we were together, she made a great job of waving her hands when she spoke, as if she wanted me to see how far she'd advanced in good fortune.

The means to her good fortune wasn't at home when I arrived in Cheltenham. Sarah-Jane was in the front garden of their house—which is in a very smart neighbourhood where Mercedes-Benzes and Range Rovers appear to be the vehicles of choice—and she was filling an enormous bird feeder with seed, standing on a three-step ladder and pouring from a weighty bag. I didn't want to startle her, so I said nothing till she was off the steps and rearranging her twinset as well as patting her chest to make sure the pearls were still in place. That was when I called her name, and after she greeted me with surprise and pleasure, she told me that Perry—husband and provider of largesse—was away on business in Manchester and would be disappointed to discover upon his return that he'd missed my visit.

“He's heard enough about you over the years,” she said. “But I expect he's never believed that I actually know you.” And here she trilled a little laugh that made me distinctly uncomfortable, although I could not tell you why except to say that laughs like that never sound genuine to me. She said, “Come in. Come in. Will you have coffee? Tea? A drink?”





She led the way into the house where everything was so tasteful that only an interior decorator could have managed it: just the right furniture, just the right colours, just the right objets d'art, subtle lighting designed to flatter, and a touch of homeliness in the careful selection of family photographs. She snatched up one on her way to make our coffee and she thrust it at me. “Perry,” she said. “His girls and ours. They're with their mother most of the time. We have them every other weekend. Alternate holidays and half terms. The modern British family, you know.” Again that laugh, and she disappeared behind a swinging door through which, I assumed, the kitchen lay.

Alone, I found myself looking at the family in a studio portrait. The absent but seated Perry was surrounded by five women: his wife sitting next to him, two older daughters behind him with one hand each upon his shoulders, one smaller girl leaning into Sarah-Jane, and the last—smaller still—upon Perry's knee. He had that look of satisfaction that I can only assume comes when a man successfully creates offspring. The older girls looked bored to tears, the younger girls looked winsome, and Sarah-Jane looked excessively pleased.

She popped back out of the kitchen as I was replacing the picture on the table from which she'd fetched it. She said, “Step-mothering is rather like teaching: It's a case of constantly encouraging without ever being actually free to say what one really thinks. And always there are the parents to contend with, in this case their mother. She drinks, I'm afraid.”





“Is that how it was with me?”





“Good heavens, your mother didn't drink.”





“I meant the rest: not being able to say what you think.”





“One learns diplomacy,” she replied. “This is my Angelique.” She indicated the child on Perry's knee. “And this is Anastasia. She has something of a talent for music herself.”