‘I think I just need air.’
Downstairs, in the garden, a fine mist of rain falls on my face, reminding me of my wedding day. I take a few long breaths, letting the cool gusts of wind blow the ghosts away.
A few minutes later, Evelyn comes out.
‘Did my mother know about his head injury?’
‘I don’t know.’ We stand shoulder to shoulder, staring out at nothing.
‘I caught her reading something from a newspaper once, and she was crying at the kitchen table. She put it away when I came in, and bucked up. Maybe my gran sent it to her.’ It’s incredible how all this stuff has come back to me.
‘It could have been anything.’ Evelyn looks at me.
‘If she knew he was suffering, and still she kept me away from him . . . Isn’t that heinous? Maybe I would have helped him get better faster . . . Motivated him to want to live.’
‘But he did live. And I’m sure you motivated him, whether you were there or not.’
I gently touch her arm.
‘I’m just scrambling to put this all together, and wondering why I can’t remember him. It really bothers me. How can I have no real memory of my own father?’
‘You were five years old. You probably hardly saw him. He was always working. When he came home, you’d probably already be asleep.’
‘I don’t even know how I felt when she took me away. I think I was just puzzled in general about why we had to move. I think I remember missing him and wondering why he wasn’t there, but then I must have just got used to him not being there, mustn’t I?’ I rub at the fug in my head. Once again, I am filling in so many blanks with assumptions. ‘I remember being sad a lot, and sort of cast adrift, and somehow that feeling never entirely left me.’ An old boyfriend once hinted at it – that I couldn’t be entirely happy for very long.
‘Children just want to feel safe. If your mum was there and was telling you everything was going to be fine, you’d have probably just trusted that, and got on with living your little life.’
‘So you think his dementia is connected to what happened to his head?’ I think of what Michael said. I wonder if he knows I’m Eddy’s daughter? He’s aware of my last name. Then I think, Of course he does. Oddly, this doesn’t bother me the way it might have before. I seem to have accepted a lot of things remarkably fast.
Evelyn meets my gaze. ‘I’m almost certain his dementia was triggered by the attack. And none of it would have happened if it hadn’t been for me. He must have looked back on everything that went wrong for him – losing his marriage and losing you, and then his accident – and rued the day he ever met me.’
In that moment, I feel Evelyn’s pain as profoundly as if it were my own. Maybe some people could be angry with her. I am not one of them. I gently grip her spindly upper arms. ‘You don’t know it for a fact, Evelyn. Look at Ronnie and Martin, and so many others at Sunrise – they never had a head injury, yet they’ve all fallen victim to the same fate. You’re not responsible for what happened to him.’
‘Moderate to severe traumatic brain injury does predispose people to dementia, actually. I do know that for a fact, Alice. By the time I’d moved back here, Eddy was only seventy-ONE, and he was already too far gone to know me. There is not a doubt in my mind that his early dementia was caused by his head injury.’
I hate that she has this perception. ‘Evelyn, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe if alcohol was involved, he couldn’t turn a deaf ear when he should have. The fight could have happened for any reason. You don’t know what they said to him. It wasn’t your fault, and I can’t imagine he blamed you for one minute – not for anything.’
Evelyn surprises me by kissing the pads of her own fingers, then pressing them on to my lips. ‘Thank you for saying that. It means a lot that you’re trying to make me feel better. That you care enough.’ Tears roll down her face. ‘I just wish I could have got to tell him how sorry I was.’
I cite what Michael said – his touching words about our memory when it concerns love. Rain clings to Evelyn’s hair like an intricate, bejewelled hairnet. There is something beautiful about it. ‘I’m sure there’s a part of him that knows you feel guilty and that you’ve done your best for him – and for me. He might not be able to communicate it. But deep inside of him somewhere, he knows.’
‘Do you believe that?’ Her face is vulnerable, like a child’s. For a moment, Evelyn is no longer the one with all the wisdom. I am. I find it a disarming switching of roles.
‘I believe that wholeheartedly. Eddy knows.’
THIRTY-SEVEN
I am eating a smoked salmon wrap at the Theatre Royal café when I get a text from Justin.
Need to see U. 6 p.m. BB?
Bookshop Bar. One of our regulars.
I knew it. He’s cleared his head and seen sense. He wants to come back.
I stare at the words like I’m trying to crack a code. Trying to decide how I feel about this. What I will say. It takes me ages to work out how to reply. Then I simply type,
OK.
He’s seated at our regular table by the window. I spot him from across the road. The naturalness of this makes my heart somersault. He’s wearing one of his best suits. He has his head down, and is fiddling with his BlackBerry. How many times have I seen him like this? He was always there first – the ever-punctual Justin. How many times have I knocked on the window, and he has looked up, already smiling, knowing it was me?
When it’s safe, I hurry across the road, unable to pull my eyes from him. We can do it. If that’s why he’s here. We can go back and make it work . . .