Authors: Grace Wynne-Jones
And sure enough there was a horse outside – a nice white
horse with a handsome man beside it. The power of Badedas
seemed an incontrovertible fact as my mother and I sat in that
cinema.
It was a mistake, perhaps, to buy Badedas myself and test
this hypothesis, but I was that kind of teenager. After my
bath I’d hang around the bathroom draped in my towel and wait – gazing hopefully out onto the lawn. I did this a number of times with decreasing expectation. Actually something did happen eventually, when I’d ceased to believe in Badedas at
all. A bat flew out of the airing cupboard.
Along with many people, I held the mistaken belief that a
bat would be almost impossible to dislodge from my hair.
I screamed for my mother, who rushed in enthusiastically because she had a fondness for this particular nocturnal mammal. She liked them because their innocent intentions
were so often misunderstood. As I flapped around the
bathroom, screeching at her to save my hair from the black
creature’s clutches, she told me to calm down.
‘See – see, Jasmine,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t mean you any
harm. Look at its little face. It’s as frightened of you as you
are of it.’
My mother smiled at me then. A big, broad beaming
smile, almost as big as the moon’s. This was, for her, a
happy moment. My mother loved me. I can see that now.
Did Bruce ever love me? I know he thought he did. We
were both too young when we met at that dance. Susan
dragged me to it to help me get over Jamie. It turned out
Bruce was getting over someone as well. We spent the whole
evening talking about these people who no longer loved us.
Bewilderment was our bond. It still is in a way. I don’t want
to hate him any more. I’ve decided that.
The weeks are going by so fast I almost forgot my
forty-first birthday. I’ve been going out quite a bit – with
new friends I’ve made at my massage course or with Anne
and Susan. We go for long walks or to the cinema. Some
times we just sit and chat and then suddenly decide to
go to a restaurant and have a meal. We laugh a lot at
nothing very much. I suppose you could say we have fun.
Sometimes I watch myself, out with my friends, single, unattached. ‘I can do this,’ I think, with some amazement. ‘This is all right – this is okay.’
Bruce is getting rather intimate with Alice, his production co-ordinator. They’re not living together or anything like that, but they do date. I’m pleased for him in a way. I’ve always liked Alice, and Bruce needs a relationship more than I do. I used to think he was so emotionally self-sufficient, but he isn’t. He said he pretended to be because he thought that’s what I expected. We really don’t seem to have talked together very well. It amazes me how little we have learned about each other through the years.
Our marriage would have made a great documentary. One of those ones where camera crews camp in people’s houses at periodic intervals and rob them of all dignity. Cait’s pregnancy would have had the director salivating. The ratings would have been up there with
I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here.
Cait’s baby isn’t Bruce’s. They did the test the other day. I must say I’m very relieved. It would have got rather complicated – you know – Katie visiting her half-brother and probably getting pally with her father’s ex-mistress. Blood ties do force a certain tolerance. I would probably have ended up inviting them all to dinner.
Alice
has encouraged Bruce to start painting again. He painted a picture for me for my forty-first birthday. He arrived with it in a fluster of embarrassment and left it, parcelled up in yellow paper, on the kitchen table.
‘Can I open it now?’ I asked.
‘No. No. Wait,’ he pleaded. ‘I’ll know if you don’t like it, even if you say you do.’ Then he fled like a frightened child.
The painting was of a woman staring up at a huge sky full
of stars. The sky I saw that long ago evening in California
when I thought what an amazing, magical place the universe
was. I told Bruce about that sky, but I didn’t think he’d
remember it. I don’t remember it too well myself now.
I sat for ages staring at that painting. It must have taken Bruce hours to do it. I knew he was trying to say something
through it, something that he couldn’t say in words. That he cared more than I realised, maybe. That he knew me better
than I’d guessed.
‘If only he’d done this last year,’ I thought. ‘The year of the big 40. The birthday he forgot.’
I considered waiting for a while before phoning to thank
him. I considered letting him stew in his insecurity. But I found I couldn’t. I found I didn’t want to. I wanted to free
myself from all this resentment I’ve been feeling. I knew that
soon it would start eating away at other things too, if I let
it. Resentment is like that, I’ve discovered. It doesn’t know
when to stop.
But if I didn’t forgive Bruce, could I forgive myself? Forgive
myself for not being who I wanted to be. Forgive myself for
the fears, the frailties I’ve been reproving myself about for
so long.
You see I once really did believe life could be as magical as
that huge Californian sky. I really did. Now I know it isn’t. Now I know life is something you try to get through the best
way you can. You have to get to know your limitations.
Oh, I can have wonderful, mystical conversations on foreign beaches, but the feeling – the sense of freedom
– doesn’t last. I have my moments, and I enjoy them, but
essentially I’m rather plain. Rather ordinary. It doesn’t bother
me so much now.
There is something I really wish, though. I wish I could
treat love the way my father treated his bees. He saw bee-keeping as a challenge. An assignment. However often he streaked, stung and shrieking, across our lawn, he still trudged intrepidly back towards the hives, after a dab of antihistamine. And he got his honey in the end. He did. It’s easy to forget that because the lawn bit was so dramatic.
Still, there’s a lot to be said for living alone. I’m even growing to like it in a way. Maybe that’s why socks keep going missing. They know we’re not supposed to live
in pairs.
Susan’s just phoned. She bumped into Charlie in town this morning. I should go round and see Charlie, she says. But she won’t explain why.
‘I don’t know if I want to see him,’ I reply.
‘Just go. You have to – it’s very important,’ she says urgently.
‘Susan – what’s…?’ But she’s hung up. When I try to ring her back the phone’s engaged.
I’m really worried now. I hope to God Charlie’s all right. What on earth does he need to see me for? Bunty and I race through the twilight towards Bray.
I’m a bundle of nerves by the time I reach Charlie’s house. The lights are on and his van is parked outside, so I know he’s home. What on earth am I going to say to him? I haven’t seen him in ages. My mind is awash with possible predicaments that could have prompted this urgent journey. By the time I reach the front door I’m almost in tears.
There’s no answer when I ring the doorbell, but I decide to go in anyway. I rummage around frantically in my bag for Charlie’s spare set of keys, but I don’t have them with me. Then, for some reason, I decide to go into the garden. And, as I do so, I see Charlie’s silhouette. He’s standing by the oak tree – a shovel in his hand. He’s
digging. Every so often he stops and stares into the dis
tance.
‘Hello Charlie,’ I call out with great relief. He looks round,
startled. Then he looks away.
‘Doing some gardening?’ I say, determined to be friendly.
‘Susan said you needed to see me. Why do you need to see me?’
‘She phoned you, did she?’ His jaw is clenching and
unclenching. He looks like he’s going to cry. I’ve never seen
Charlie look this way before.
‘What is it Charlie?’ I approach him gingerly. Fearful now.
Charlie adds the last sods to the patch of earth he’s been
digging. When he turns towards me I see his eyes are tender
and sorrowful.
‘He wants to spare me something,’ I think. ‘What is it he
wants to spare me?’
The moon is shining now, casting a strange silvery glow
over the garden. The night seems very still. Very quiet. I look
around. Rosie’s pen is empty.
‘Where’s Rosie?’
Charlie doesn’t answer.
‘Where’s Rosie?’ my voice is raised now. Suspicious. ‘Tell
me where she is. Where is she?’
He just stands there, looking at me. There are tears in his eyes.
‘No – not Rosie,’ I feel numb. Disbelieving. ‘No – no – not her too. It’s not true – is it Charlie?’ I’m imploring him now.
Charlie turns away from me and looks down at the soft
sods of earth.
I stifle a sob and stare at the empty pen. ‘How did it happen?’
‘I just came out this morning and found her lying in her pen.
The vet said it was probably old age. She was quite old.’
‘How old?’
‘About twelve.’
‘Is that a good age for a pig, Charlie?’
‘Yes – it’s a ripe old age for a pig.’ He tries to smile.
He moves towards me, but I back away.
‘We’ll miss her – won’t we, Charlie?’ My voice sounds
small.
‘Yes, we will, Jasmine. Yes, we will.’
‘I’m sure lots of people would think it’s silly – the way we’re
going on about her. But she was special. She was unusual.’
‘She was our role model.’ Charlie smiles again, but I can’t
smile back at him. We stand there numbly for a while. Too
sad to speak. I wonder what Rosie would have done in the
circumstances. Scratched herself probably. Rosie liked a good
scratch.
Suddenly I feel cold. I’m shivering. Something inside me
is curling into a tight ball of pain. I don’t know how to do
this any more. I don’t know how to stand here. To stand
this. I know I have to leave. I can’t stay here feeling so sad. It’s unbearable. I need someone to hold and comfort me.
Someone who loves and understands me. Someone I can trust.
But how do you trust – how do you? I just don’t know.
‘Charlie, I’m sorry but I have to go.’ I say it softly, between
half-sobs.
‘Why do you have to go?’ The question is gentle, tender.
‘Because if I stay here any longer, I think I’ll crack open
and I don’t think you, or anyone else, will be able to put me
together.’ I look up at him, stricken. ‘Charlie, I’m not the per
son you think you love. You’ve no idea how frightened I am.’