Cathy and I went to Vivien’s house on weekdays. Daddy walked us down and drank hot tea with Vivien, then left us until lunchtime. She gave us lessons like we would have had at school only without the routine that would have been expected there. The lessons were centred on Vivien’s interests at that time or the thoughts she was having on that particular day.
Cathy did not keep her promise for long, though she tried. She sat down with the books and papers and made a go of it and joined in when Vivien and I discussed what we had read. But after a while she became restless. She looked out of the living room window into the garden and the fields beyond and even when she was not looking outside I knew that was where her thoughts lay. I tried to speak to her but the words bounced and echoed as if they were leaving the house and disappearing through her into the world beyond. I had an inside sort of head. She had an outside sort of head.
Following her initial efforts, in all but the coldest and wettest weather, Cathy went outside into Vivien’s garden. Sometimes she took the book Vivien had given her. Usually she did not. She slipped into the garden then ran into the fields and only came back at the end of the morning in time for Daddy’s return and we would all have lunch together as if we had been sitting side by side for the last four hours. Vivien did not stop Cathy nor did she mention her absence to Daddy. And Daddy did not ask us questions about what we had learnt. These were separate worlds.
I preferred to stay in the house. With Daddy and Cathy I spent so much of my time in the outdoors that it was a welcome change. Vivien kept her fire well stoked. When it rained the water ran slowly in thick drops down her double-glazed windows and after a time left a small trail of their minuscule residue. She kept soft blankets folded neatly by her armchairs and cushions that her grandmother and great aunts had embroidered with harvest scenes. Those mornings at Vivien’s were comfortable and safe. It was a different life.
Cathy had talked about Vivien’s awkward body but when this woman moved about her house it did not seem awkward at all. Not to me. She seemed unconcerned by the features upon which Cathy fixated. She walked with disinterest. She situated herself effortlessly within her surroundings. Violence did not define Vivien, like it did Daddy. I think this is what alarmed Cathy. I too found it remarkable. I loved my father and my sister but Vivien was not like them. She talked to me about history and poetry and her travels around France and Italy and about art. I began to see a world that suited me in a different way. I came to prefer the inside to the outside, the armchair, the blankets and cushions, the tea and the teacakes, the curtains and the polished brass, and Vivien’s books, and the comfort of it all. And while I sat and read and drank tea, Cathy walked or ran through the fields and woods and, in her own way, she read the world too.
On a Monday morning in January, we walked to Vivien’s as usual and, as usual, Cathy picked up the work she was given and took it outside. I chose an armchair by the fireplace and wrapped myself in one of the soft quilts. I rested my feet on a small leather pouf the colour of leaf litter. Vivien crouched by the hearth. The fire was unlit. She took old newspapers from the pile and scrunched them into tight balls then packed them into the grate. I watched her place coals on the newspapers then lay strips of wood around the top like the spokes of a wheel. She lit four matches and placed them by corners of the paper such that the body of the structure was slowly overtaken by rippling flames: bright in parts like ice, dull in others like scorched tarmac.
Back at school, I had learnt to read and write and count and add up but when I remembered the lessons it was not the development of these skills but the series of profound revelations that held their clarity. People used to live in caves with woolly mammoths. There were tiny forgotten creatures buried deep inside rocks. There was once a precious little baby named Jesus. Salt and sugar dissolved in water, and this meant they were soluble. Pipistrelles were the smallest bats and they could see with their ears. Rivers cut deep paths through mountains. The moon had no light of its own. Joseph wore a technicoloured dream-coat.
The lessons with Vivien were different. Today I was supposed to be reading a book about aeroplane mechanics. It contained illustrations of the components and diagrams of how they fitted together. It set out American planes alongside their Soviet counterparts and made comparisons between them. A few weeks ago Vivien had told me that she was concerned that she was not teaching us enough about science. Science and technology, she had said. And the natural world. So she had started giving us the books she had about vintage cars, the flora and fauna of the Brecon Beacons, mushrooms and fungi of the British Isles, geology of the Grand Canyon, and the manuals from cameras that had been taken to junk shops years before, with instructions about shutter speeds and aperture settings. And with all these she supplied a dictionary. She wanted to teach us the words in the books, the definitions of the objects and organisms and how to identify them by name. I did not learn much about how anything worked, or why, or how all the birds and beetles stayed alive. I just learnt their taxonomy.
Vivien remained by the fire to watch it take hold. She stretched out her hands to warm them. Her palms turned a light tawny, slowly, from the heat and glow they reflected. I wondered about her taxonomy. I wondered how Vivien could be described.
‘What do you do, Vivien?’
‘Nothing,’ she said.
She stopped speaking and I did not want to prompt her further, but she soon started again. ‘Nothing at the moment, but I’ve done various things over the years. I’m older than you might think.’
I really had no idea how old she might be. My only real comparison for adult age was Daddy, who was so worn yet so vital that it was impossible for strangers to discern his years.
‘I’ve been a painter,’ she went on, ‘and a poet. And I’ve worked in offices for money. And I spent four months becoming a lawyer but gave it up. And I even nearly became a naval officer, once, but that was actually completely ridiculous because I’m not very active and I don’t know anything about boats and I’ve never spent much time near the sea. I mean, I rented a cottage overlooking the Norfolk coast once, but I found I hardly ever looked out of the window, and when I went out for walks I went inland. Strange that, isn’t it?’
‘When Cathy and I lived with our Granny Morley, we walked by sea all time.’
Vivien smiled without teeth. ‘Most people would. But I don’t have any real interest in anything, you know. I don’t really care about anything. Not about the sea or the outdoors or nature or anything. I don’t really have any hobbies. My mother and grandmother used to sew things.’ She picked up one of the embroidered cushions. ‘But it doesn’t interest me. I do things for a bit and then get bored. Like painting or writing. It interested me for a while but I gave up.’