Love in a Mist Read online

  ‘I do get a bit bored some days,’ she said. ‘I’m never exactly rushed off my feet but believe it or not it can be busy. It’s quiet today which is why it’s nice to have you to chat to.’

  She got us hot drinks from the machine – milky coffee for her, hot chocolate for me, my second of the day. It wasn’t as nice as the one at the motorway services, but Sandy gave me permission to complain.

  ‘Machine drinks, yeeuch,’ she said, stirring in sweeteners, ‘but beggars can’t be choosers.’

  After she’d told me about work, which didn’t take long, she asked me about school, and friends, and we discussed what music we liked and the stars of Neighbours. She fancied Simon Le Bon, but not Rick Astley even though he had a good voice. She had been engaged, she told me, but got cold feet and called it off. She’d done the decent thing and given Steve his ring back. There was nothing the matter with Steve; she just wasn’t ready for marriage and neither was he though he wouldn’t admit it. They were still friends – here she sighed – maybe that was all they’d ever been really, and we both agreed that you needed a bit of electricity, didn’t you?

  At the end of the bit about Steve she asked me, with what I thought was a slightly different look in her eye, ‘What about your dad?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know … He’s really nice, he must be a fun father to have.’

  I’d heard this before, often, but not from someone as pretty as Sandy. ‘He is.’

  ‘I bet you have some laughs, the two of you, out on the road together.’

  I wasn’t sure whether we ‘had laughs’ exactly, but neither did I want to complicate things. ‘Yes – yes, we do.’

  ‘I thought so …’ Sandy smiled, shaking her head enviously. ‘What about your mum, does she work?’

  ‘She works for the local rep.’

  ‘Wow, that sounds interesting.’

  ‘She really likes it.’

  ‘What does she do there?’

  ‘She helps in the box office.’

  ‘Lovely.’ Sandy gazed at me. ‘What busy parents.’

  ‘They are.’

  There was another little pause during which I could feel her covertly studying me.

  ‘He looks incredibly young, doesn’t he?’

  ‘I don’t know, does he?’

  ‘Well of course you wouldn’t, he’s your dad.’

  ‘People say he does,’ I admitted.

  Why did they? Why did people always wind up talking about my parents?

  The phone rang. ‘Well,’ said Sandy, swivelling round to answer it, ‘we all think he’s lovely.’

  I picked up on that ‘we all’. So apparently there was a whole group of people who were fans of my father’s.

  In due course he emerged smiling broadly through the double door. My peripheral vision caught a microscopic change of manner in Sandy. I recognized it as the look on a classmate’s face when she slammed her desk lid down on some contraband item as a teacher entered the room – a moment of swift, pleasurable guilt.

  He leaned on the front of the desk, looking down on us, this young-looking man who was my father.

  ‘How are you, ladies?’

  ‘We’ve had a good time, haven’t we?’ said Sandy. ‘I wish I could have such nice company every day; she cheered things up no end.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’

  ‘Would you like a horrible coffee before you hit the road?’

  He laughed. ‘You make it sound so tempting, but I’m full of the decent stuff they serve through there.’

  Sandy looked at me, eyebrows raised. ‘Spurned!’

  ‘I’ll sneak a few of these though, new line …’ He took a handful of sweets from the bowl and slipped them into his jacket pocket. ‘Come on then, Floss, better get going.’

  I stood up, and Sandy came round with me.

  ‘Safe journey.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘My pleasure, love.’ To my surprise she leaned forward and deposited a quick kiss on each cheek. ‘I hope your dad brings you again.’

  ‘Well,’ said my father, just loud enough for Sandy to hear as we headed for the door, ‘some people get all the luck.’

  We drove out of the city and into a world of picture-perfect green fields, dotted with large smart houses with smooth lawns, white fences and metal gates. The villages we passed through were pretty and (even I could tell) exuberantly prosperous.

  ‘All very nice,’ commented my father, ‘but I’d hate to live here. What if you don’t keep your door knocker polished?’

  This made us both giggle. I was reminded of what Sandy had said, and realized We’re having some laughs.

  We stopped at a pub for lunch, and sat at a table in the leafy garden with our sandwiches: ‘lots of cress and no crusts, there’s posh’. Back in the car, I asked where we were going next.

  ‘Actually,’ said my father, ‘we’re going to drop in on someone, not to do with work. While we’re in this area.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘She’s an old auntie of mine – well, friend of the family. Bit of a duty for me I’m afraid, you don’t know her.’

  I was quite excited. Auntie? Friend of the family? These were things other people had, not us – but now it appeared we did!

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Jessie.’ He glanced at me. ‘You’re fine to call her Jessie.’

  ‘OK.’

  He seemed to think for a moment before adding: ‘To be honest, Floss, she’s not all there these days. Not at all actually, a bit doolally. She’s in a home. Do you mind?’

  Mind? First Sandy, now this – things were getting interesting. I shook my head. ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘You’re a good sport, Floss. I don’t suppose she gets any visitors, so even though she won’t know who we are it’s good to show the flag.’

  We got to another town, not a massive one like Birmingham but scruffier than the manicured villages, and stopped at a newsagent’s for sweets to take to Jessie. My father scanned the plastic jars on shelves behind the counter and chose a bag of iced caramels and another of liquorice allsorts, old-fashioned sweets. The woman in her blue checked overall smiled at me as she twirled the bags so the corners looked like ears. ‘Good choice, lucky you.’

  ‘Oh, they’re not for us,’ said my father. ‘We’ve got plenty of our own; I work for Hopgood’s.’

  ‘Do you?’ She seemed delighted. ‘We stock loads of theirs.’

  ‘Pleased to hear it.’

  She wrinkled her brow. ‘It’s not you that usually comes in.’

  ‘No, this isn’t my patch. Probably Keith – Keith Morris?’

  ‘Mr Morris, that’s him.’ She handed him his change. ‘So where are you from?’

  ‘The west country, east Devon.’

  ‘Very nice.’ She looked at me. ‘By the seaside?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Golly, I envy you,’ she said. ‘We’re about as far from the sea as you can get here. Bang slap in the middle.’

  ‘Better dash,’ said my father, ‘we’re on a double yellow.’

  We drove down the high street and along a busy road through endless sets of traffic lights, me with the bags of sweets on my lap. At a big junction we turned left and were soon in a residential area with big grey houses on either side, most of which had the air of no longer being people’s homes – some had signs up advertising firms of solicitors, dentists or estate agents, with front gardens which had been made into parking lots, and others had the telltale console of apartment doorbells next to the front door. We took another side road and turned in through a gate with a sign saying ‘Oak View Residential Care’ with a row of four stars and various names and numbers underneath.

  ‘Here we are,’ said my father. ‘One hour, OK?’

  He seemed a little worried, but he didn’t need to be; that was fine with me. I was bursting with curiosity. A white notice by the door told us to ring and enter, which we did.

  I�
�d never been in an old folks’ home before, so the smell of old cooking and bleach was new to me. There were some suspiciously perfect apricot-coloured roses in a vase, and a small table with leaflets laid out in fans. A woman in a navy blue uniform came bustling into the hall, the first one that day not to appear overjoyed at the sight of my father.

  ‘By a process of elimination, Mr Mayfield I presume? I’m Hilary Taylor, the matron.’

  ‘That’s right, we’ve spoken but not met, how do you do.’

  ‘And this is Flora.’

  ‘Hello Flora. Well – I may as well take you along right away then, unless you need anything …?’ She cast me a look.

  ‘Want to spend a penny or anything, Floss?’

  I could have died of embarrassment. ‘No.’

  We followed her from the hall and through a door that opened with a pressed button and closed with a sigh and a thump behind us. Up a flight of stairs, past a lift, labelled ‘Staff only’ and through another such door, to the third door along. The matron paused with her hand on the handle.

  ‘Can I bring you all some tea?’

  ‘Yes, why not,’ said my father, ‘that would be nice.’

  ‘Right.’ She pushed open the door and stood against it as we entered. ‘Here we are then.’

  I’d imagined an old lady sitting down, probably by a window, but she was standing in the middle of the room with her back to us, a tall figure who might just as easily have been a man, with roughly cut short hair, a sleeveless fleece over a floral shirt, saggy tracksuit trousers and trainers.

  ‘Jessie,’ said the matron, ‘here are your visitors.’

  There was no reply, though I did think I saw the broad, raw-boned shoulders twitch.

  ‘Jessie …?’

  Still no response. Hilary turned to us. ‘Not having such a good day, so all the better that you’re here.’

  My father looked doubtful, and said in a lowered voice, ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Hilary went further into the room so that she was facing the forbidding figure. ‘Your visitors are here, Jessie, all right? I’m going to arrange for some tea. Would you like some tea? Why don’t you sit down?’

  Looking at us to do the same, she cupped Jessie’s elbow with her hand and steered her to one of the upholstered chairs near the window (the one in which I had imagined her sitting), giving us a meaningful look as she did so.

  Jessie sat down and my father bent over and kissed her cheek before taking the seat opposite. There wasn’t another chair, so I perched on the side of the bed. It was high – I had to hoist myself up and once there my feet didn’t touch the floor which made me feel childish and stupid. Between my father and Jessie was a low oval table with a lace runner, and two pink carnations in a specimen vase.

  ‘Now then,’ said my father, with his most winning smile, which on this occasion seemed a bit forced. ‘I’ve brought Flora along to meet you.’

  I would have felt even more stupid flopping down off the bed, and anyway I didn’t want to kiss her, so I stayed where I was. ‘Hello.’

  Jessie looked at me. I’d heard the expression ‘like a graven image’ but had never before seen a face that it so accurately described. Hers was long and wide, with a heavy, rather bulging brow and wiry untrimmed eyebrows beneath which were her deep-set eyes of no particular colour, like little pale, moist stones underpinned by grey semi-circular pouches. Her mouth was long and thin, almost lipless, with a downward curve like a child’s drawing of a sad face; except that hers didn’t look sad so much as utterly, monumentally indifferent. Two long grooves ran from the outer corners of her hooked nose to the ends of her mouth, and two more from there to her chin. Her cheeks were a waste of mottled skin, ending in two distinct dewlaps. It was a face that it was particularly hard to imagine in the freshness of youth, like the face of a statue that had been left out in the wind and the rain, impassively suffering the onslaught of the elements.

  Past caring is what occurred to me as I sat there. Although there was something, some ghost of handsomeness …

  My father was telling her about our journey and what we’d been doing, saying it was ‘very pleasant’ round here, wasn’t it, and how nice Hilary seemed. Jessie sat there expressionless, knees apart, mouth set, her forearms resting on the upholstered arms of the chair. The only bits of her that seemed expressive were her big, freckled hands, which curved over the wooden ends of the chair arms, as if holding on to something more intangible … her sanity? Her temper? Whatever it was, I hoped she wouldn’t let go of it. She wasn’t wearing a ring, but I couldn’t help noticing a clear indentation on the third finger of her left hand. I wondered if that was something to do with this place, that you weren’t allowed to wear jewellery. Or had she hurled it away in some past fury?

  She remained completely silent and my father was beginning to run out of steam by the time the tea arrived and gave us something to do. The tray was brought in not by Hilary, but by a motherly underling in a green overall, one of those people who are unembarrassed by silences because they never allow any to occur. She was talking as she came in, and kept up a stream of affable chat the whole time she was in the room.

  ‘Here we are, here we are … tea and chocolate suggestives. How are you doing Jessie? … Nice to have visitors, she doesn’t get many, not any really, so very nice … Have you come a long way? … Oh just from Brum, that’s not so bad … Let’s just set these cups out, who’s going to be mother? Jessie likes a proper brew, don’t you, so you can stand your spoon up in it, that’s right, isn’t it? And a couple of sugars, saucered and blown … Are you all right perched on there, love? Anything else I can do for you? Is it a bit warm, I can open a window …?’

  When the door closed behind her the room seemed unnaturally still. My father said, ‘I’ll pour, shall I?’ but what came out of the teapot was pale as pee, and he put it down again. ‘Not brewed yet – better wait after what the nice lady said.’

  ‘This is a nice room.’ It seemed high time I made a contribution, but I was unsure of my audience and so addressed this remark to the place in general.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ agreed my father. ‘Big and light and airy.’ He peered out of the window. ‘Looks like a pretty good garden, too.’

  I could tell he was trying to involve me – to share, if not actually to pass, the buck. Dutifully I flopped off the bed and went over to take a look. The only route was behind Jessie’s chair. I sidled round the back of it with excruciating care and stood just in front of the tea table, gazing out and trying to think of something to say. I saw a patio with benches, a shaven lawn, huddles of squat shrubs, a palisade of tall dark trees …

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked, pointing. I had a pretty fair idea, but it did no harm to show interest, and we were desperate.

  ‘Which one?’ My father shuffled, peering, to the front of his seat.

  ‘That pipe cleaner one.’

  ‘Ah, yes, yup. A monkey puzzle tree. Isn’t it, Jessie – would you call that a monkey puzzle?’

  As usual there was no reply, but I did hear something as I continued to look out at the drab, empty garden … Breathing. Jessie’s breathing, suddenly deep, fierce and intense, a slight whistle on the inhaled breath, the shadow of a growl on the exhale. Though I had my back to her I could tell that her great, harsh face was turned towards me, that I was the cause of the change in her breathing, and the thought terrified me. I needed to move, to put distance between me and her, but in doing so I mustn’t look at her, or meet her eye. I didn’t know what would happen if I did, but I was certain it wouldn’t end well.

  Still with my back to her I sidestepped until I was level with the back of her chair, and then whipped round and back to my place on the bed, almost doing a Fosbury Flop in my eagerness to regain higher and safer territory.

  For several seconds I kept my head down, still avoiding the Medusa stare. Slowly, the awful breathing subsided. When I heard the sound of the tea being poured I glanced covertly at the others through squinty, n
arrow eyes as if, ostrich-like, by reducing my field of vision, I could reduce hers and so be less visible. But her head was still turned towards the window.

  My father put a cup down in front of her. ‘There you go, Jessie, your tea. Floss, want some?’ I shook my head. ‘Biscuit?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Catch.’

  I caught it and he winked at me, but I could tell he was uncomfortable too; his cup chinked against the saucer when he started to lift it, but then he put it down again as he remembered something.

  ‘We brought you a little present,’ he said. ‘If Floss hasn’t eaten them all.’ Dutifully I slipped down and handed him the two small paper bags of sweets which had been lying next to me. He held both out on his palm, tweaking the tops open with his other hand.

  ‘Iced caramels and allsorts, fancy one?’

  This offer acted on her like a whiff of salts. For the very first time she seemed not only to have heard, but to be seeing and noticing too. She reached out and delved with her big, square-tipped fingers in first one bag and then the other, laying out six sweets in a row on the table in front of her and making minute adjustments to their positions so that they were equidistant from each other and in a straight row. Then she selected one – a black and brown striped allsort, second from the right – and put it in her mouth.

  I say she put it in her mouth, but that hardly did justice to the ensuing operation. What she actually did was so much more than that. With the sweet held in front of her face between finger and thumb it was as though some subcutaneous earthquake were taking place around the lower half of her face, a shifting of the tectonic plates beneath her mouth and jaws. Her lips trembled and heaved, drew back, reached forward, parted … Her teeth (I had plenty of time to notice) were large and uneven and all her own, yellowish grey and shored up with dull metallic fillings. I was transfixed. With downcast eyes and her mouth still wide open, she placed the allsort on her tongue in a way that was almost reverential, and hoisted it back into her wet pink maw before pulling her lips back into position and closing them. Her jaws with their curtains of dewlap rotated and chomped. You almost felt sorry for the poor little sweet. I looked at my father and could tell he was thinking the same thing, but his profile was polite as he picked up his teacup and sipped.