But then something amazing happens a few days later. There are only four of us at the gallery this time. Martin tripped and broke his foot five days ago. Ronnie refused to change out of his pyjamas. Eddy walks right up to Christina’s World and stares at it.
‘Do you remember a special house, Eddy? Is that what you see when you look at Christina’s World?’ I ask him. Now, I feel a whole new debt to that painting. A new unanticipated reverence; it was Christina who brought us all together, after all.
Miraculously, Eddy says, ‘Yes.’
‘What do you remember, Eddy?’ Michael pushes gently.
Eddy’s eyes are still fixed on the painting. He is standing with his thumbs and forefingers tucked in his jeans pockets. Today, unlike other days, he stands taller and impregnable, the posture of the young Eddy. His response is so completely certain of itself. I can’t quite fathom the change.
‘I remember there was a house,’ he says. ‘And I remember there was a girl.’
Evelyn turns as still as a statue. I think we all do.
‘Whose house was it, Eddy?’ Michael asks. ‘Do you recall?’
‘It was Evelyn’s house,’ Eddy says, without a beat of hesitation.
‘Do you mean this Evelyn, here?’ Michael asks.
Eddy follows the direction of Michael’s finger. ‘This Evelyn,’ he repeats. But it seems rather parrot fashion; there’s an empty look in his eyes that makes my heart sink. Evelyn and I squeeze hands tightly. I don’t know who is giving comfort to whom.
‘Can you tell us anything about Evelyn’s house, Eddy?’ Michael clearly isn’t discouraged.
‘It didn’t look like that, did it?’ Evelyn prompts. But I can hear the false note of faith in her voice. ‘It had flowers. Lots of flowers, didn’t it, Eddy?’
‘Fuchsia!’ he says, almost instantaneously, and Evelyn places both hands over her nose and mouth, and slightly sways.
‘Fuchsia were one of her favourite flowers,’ he says. The slight cataract dullness to his gaze disappears. His eyes suddenly became luminous, like freshly polished glass.
‘Whose favourite flowers, Eddy?’ Michael asks.
And as fast as he asks it, Eddy says, ‘Evelyn’s.’
I stare at him in amazement. For the first time, the two Eddys I have known – Eddy from the stories, and the elderly Eddy who stands here – are exactly the same person to me. Time has narrowed. The past has caught up. The man who pushed me on the swings is right here. He’s never been anywhere else. I rest a hand between his shoulder blades, still intoxicated by the feel of his skin and bones under my fingertips.
I look at Evelyn; she still has her hands over part of her face. Tears are streaming either side of them.
‘You were a gardener once, weren’t you, Eddy?’ Michael pats him on the back, his fingers briefly making contact with mine. ‘That’s why you enjoy weeding at Sunrise Villas, and you enjoy riding the lawnmower. And you know that looking at flowers makes you happy.’
Eddy searches Michael’s eyes, then moves on to me. I have a sense that comprehension lies just beyond his grasp, clearly eluding him as he reaches for it. Then he looks back at the painting. ‘I planted the flowers for someone. I planted them for Evelyn.’ His tone is definite and sure of itself again. We are moving in and out of focus. In one smooth move, his eyes come to rest on Evelyn.
Then it’s somehow miraculous. His face transforms again. He looks like he’s seeing an almost-forgotten ghost from his past.
‘Yes!’ Evelyn says, her voice filled with a twitter of girlish joy that I haven’t heard before. ‘You did! You planted all kinds of flowers – jasmine, sweet peas, roses. And she loved them always, just as she loved you. And they still bloom there, to this day. Just like her love for you.’
I remember Evelyn saying that she’d insisted that the new owners didn’t dig up the flowerbeds. They had apparently looked at her as though she were cute, endearing and a tiny bit mad. But they’d given her their word.
Eddy is studying Evelyn as though she were an intriguing riddle he’s determined to solve. This curiosity lasts a moment or two, but then he frowns, his eyes returning to the painting. ‘There are no flowers in Christina’s garden. If there had been, she could have sat out there and been happy.’
‘But she was happy there!’ Evelyn jumps in. I am fascinated by how she is speaking in the third person. Perhaps she is afraid of shattering the moment by making it too real and too much for him. ‘She used to sit in her garden with people she loved – her mother and father at one time, and then someone else – a man who meant the world to her. A man she loved and thought of every day of her life.’
Evelyn looks at both Michael and me, as though for help. Her fingertips move from the centre of her chest, to her chin, then back again. By the intensity of her expression, I can tell she’s more shaken up than perhaps she ever imagined this moment would make her.
‘Do you remember that man, Eddy?’ Michael gently asks.
Eddy gazes off into the near distance. It’s as though his mind is a searchlight coasting over a black sea, looking for a lost ship.
‘Do you recognise this house?’ Evelyn seems to regain herself, and smartly digs in her bag. She shows him the picture she once showed me.
At first, he doesn’t appear to realise that he’s expected to look at it. Then, warily, he takes it from her. He stares at it long and hard, at the small stone cottage with the dark front door. At the young girl standing alone in the garden.
He doesn’t say a word. But a smile of wondrous infatuation suddenly transforms his face.
FORTY-TWO
Today, I’ve brought them to the beach. It’s mild and sunny. I have packed sandwiches, beer and a chocolate cake from my favourite German baker. Next week, I’m driving them to Holy Island, to see Evelyn’s old house.
‘Remember the treasure trove?’ Evelyn says, saucily now that Eddy has nodded off. She reaches into a large leather bag, pulls something out and flips open a page of what’s clearly a school scrapbook. Among the postage-stamp-sized portraits of the Class of 1955, she singles out one with the tap of her finger.