Swimming Upstream (24 page)

“Come on. I want to,” I insisted. I stood up and
looked round the kitchen. “What have you got?”

I opened the small fridge, tucked under the
worktop by the door, but it was switched off and smelled of damp and mould. I
hastily shut the door again.

“Your fridge isn’t working?”

Uncle Silbert waved his long, bony hand. “I switch
it off when it’s not being used.”

“Oh. Okay. Tea and toast, then? Do you have bread?”
I made a mental note to do some checks, find out if there were benefits to
which he was entitled and not getting. Some way that his bills could be paid
for him so that he would have no need to turn his fridge off. So that he would
put the heating on instead of living in the kitchen.

Uncle Silbert shook his head. “I don’t think so…”

I opened the larder door. Inside was a tin of
Campbell’s condensed cream of mushroom soup and a packet of stale breadsticks. I
opened the can and tipped it into a saucepan, and lit a second ring on the
stove. While the soup was warming, I chopped up the breadsticks for croutons
and made the tea. A carton of warm milk stood on the work surface by the
kettle.

“I’m going to go shopping for you,” I said,
pouring the soup into bowls. “As soon as we have finished this.”

“There’s no need,” said Uncle Silbert. “The lady
who takes me, she’s coming tomorrow. This will be enough, for now.”

“What about breakfast?” I asked. “At least let me
get you some bread, some butter and some more milk.”

“Your company is more to me. Please. Stay.”

I smiled and sat down. “Okay. So how are you?” I
asked. “Did you hear the bomb?”

“It shook the entire building,” he said.

“You must have been worried, wondered what it was?”

“I knew what it was. You never forget what that
sound is like. Of course, we were much closer, it was much louder.”

“Oh. Of course. I can imagine.” I stopped eating. “Well,
no. That’s silly. Of course I can’t.”

“Maybe you can.”

I put down my soup spoon and looked up at him. “Zara’s
not well,” I said. “She may not come round for a while.” I told him what had
happened.

He nodded. “She’s an angel.” he said. “But she’s
always been this way.”

“I didn’t know,” I told him. “I thought it was
just life. Ups and downs. Joy and sorrow, you know? Two sides of the same coin,
or so they say.”

“For some it is. For others it’s too much joy, too
much sorrow.”

“But how does that happen?”

He smiled. “You’re wondering will it happen to
you.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Could it?”

“I can’t see it,” he said. “Not in you.” He
reached out his hand and patted mine across the table. “You know, in the war
the Japanese did some terrible things to their prisoners. Things that you would
never believe one human could do to another. Men were tortured, burned and
beaten, they had limbs broken. They were used for bayonet practice. Their
bodies were cut, they had objects inserted.”

“Inserted?”

“Into the cuts. To cause pain. It was horrific. Many
died. Many were horribly scarred. But others, others survived and went on to
live normal lives. To marry, get jobs and have children.”

I shook my head. “It’s hard to know how you could
survive something like that. And still live a normal life, that is.”

He nodded. “It never really goes away, of course. Not
completely.” He paused. “The original trauma will often replay like an old tape
throughout your life.”

 “How do you mean?”

“Well. You see,” he said. “As humans we all have
to make sense of the world around us and put it into some sort of order in our
minds. Our expectations are based on our past experiences. If life has been
good to you, you expect it to be good in the future. But if you have suffered
some kind of traumatic experience, that’s what you are expecting all the time:
a random and devastating event that is impossible to predict or control. So you
are living in a state of constant anxiety. Until another similar event sets it
off.”

I nodded. “That makes sense. When the bomb went
off, when I saw what had happened, it made me feel things. As if something like
that has happened before to me. But I just can’t remember anything. Apart from
the fact that my father died, suddenly, when I was six,” I said. “But I just
can’t seem to remember anything about that time.”

“Well. It’s a strange kind of irony. The things
that affect us most are the things we can’t remember.”

“Really? How?”

He shrugged.”Well, it is believed that most of our
feelings about life, the way that we make sense of it, are formed before we
reach the age of five. At that time our family is the whole world to us, and
our relationships within the family form the basis of how we will go on to
perceive the real world, the outside world. However, this is before our
memories are formed. So we have made a lot of important decisions about life,
about the world, about the people in it but we are unlikely to remember the
events that caused us to make those decisions. Then, after that, as we go
through life we find ways to block out events that hurt us too much, that are
too painful. Sometimes we don’t even know why we are feeling so hurt; we just concentrate
our efforts on finding ways to deaden the pain. Drugs. Alcohol. Sex. Work.
Anything that makes us feel good instead.”

“So how do we know what happened? How do we get
that back?” I looked up in alarm, realising that my voice was shaking. I
cleared my throat and fought back tears. “I mean…. Well, I just mean that I
think that losing my father must have been important to me but I can’t remember
anything about him!”

Uncle Silbert reached out his hand to me again and
I took it. I stroked his long, cold, bony fingers, and then I held them tight. “Trust
in it Elizabeth,” he said. “You have the answers. Know your own truths.”

I bit my lip and nodded.

After a few moments Uncle Silbert shifted forward
in his chair. He rocked himself back and forth several times and then rose. “I
have something for you,” he said. He shuffled out of the room. He was gone for
so long that I worried something had happened to him and got up to look for
him. I collided with him in the doorway as he soundlessly re-entered the room.

“Here. I want you to have this.” He handed me some
sheets of yellowing paper with small print, bound together with ribbon in one
corner.

“Ralph Waldo Emerson,” he said. “He was a 19
^th
century American essayist. Also a lecturer and poet. This is his Essay on Self-Reliance.
I think you will enjoy it.”

“Thank you.” I took the papers from him. “What is
it about?”

“Freedom,” he said.

Zara came out of hospital at the beginning of June, the
week before my birthday. Catherine and I had planned a party at the flat and
Zara said she would come. On the morning of the party Catherine went out early.
I was still in my pyjamas when she returned. She put down her shopping bag and
leaned against the sink.

“I’ve got everything for the punch, four different
types of cheeses, nuts, crisps, French bread, napkins, paper plates... oh, and
plastic glasses.”

She started to unload everything onto the work surface
where I was making toast, ripping open the packets and stacking the glasses
upside down on top of the washing machine.

“That’s a lot of plastic glasses,” I said. “How
many people have you invited?” .

“Not that many. But they were cheap. And anyway they're
always useful.”

The telephone rang. Catherine went to answer it. I
looked apprehensively at the stacks of plastic glasses. The washing machine
went into a spin cycle and they all started shuddering, and then rattling
manically, and then bouncing up and down. I leaped forwards to catch them.

“It's for you,” Catherine called from the hallway.
“It's your mum.”

I took the receiver from her.

“Happy Birthday,” said my mother. “Are you having
a nice day?”

“So far so good. Thanks.”

“Did you get your present?”

“What present?”

“Hasn't it arrived yet? I sent it the day before
yesterday. By recorded delivery. I hope it hasn't got lost.”

“I’m sure it hasn’t. It’s just the post being
slow. So come on, what is it?”

“You’ll see,” said my mother, sounding pleased
with herself.

As I put down the phone the doorbell rang. It was
the postman with a bundle of cards and a parcel for me that I had to sign for. I
unwrapped the parcel. “Oh my God,” I breathed. Inside was the missing doll.

Catherine came out of the kitchen with a glass of
purple liquid. “Here try, this,” she said. “Tell me if you think it’s too
strong.”

I was still looking at the doll. She was a rag
doll with button eyes and black wool hair and an old green and white checked
dress and bloomers. It was the doll my mother had talked about, the one she and
my dad had give me for my sixth birthday. Seeing her now was the strangest of
sensations. I could remember her after all. I remembered holding her, loving
her, sleeping with her, never letting her out of my sight. And more, I could
remember the day I got her, opened up the parcel - just as I had done minutes
earlier - to find her inside. I could suddenly see my father’s face, lit with
pleasure at my own delight; I could feel his arms around me, his lips kissing
my cheek, and his voice saying, “Happy Birthday, Busy Lizzie. Glad you like
your doll.”

The telephone rang again. This time it was for
Catherine. She sat silently for several minutes; her jaw dropped and her face
became solemn. All she said was, “Oh no,” several times, and then, finally. “Of
course I will. Of course.”

Catherine put the receiver down. “It’s my dad,”
she said, looking bewildered. “He’s in hospital. He’s had a stroke. They think
it’s only a mild one. But my mum needs me. She’s in bits. I’ve got to go home. I’m
really sorry, Lizzie. I won’t be able to stay for the party.”

“Oh, for goodness sakes,” I said. “That doesn’t
matter. I’ll take you to the station.”

I’d only just got back from Kings Cross when the
doorbell rang. It was Zara. She was wearing a see-through chiffon blouse and a
denim skirt and knee-high go-go boots. She looked very pretty, although still
on the thin side.

“Hi Zara,” I said. “'You look nice. Come in. What’s
happening with Tim and Shelley?”

“Tim can’t come. He’s had to work. I’m not sure
about Shelley. I think she’s meeting Gavin from work.”

She came in and shut the door.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her.

“Up and down,” she said.

“I suppose you feel different from day to day?” I
offered.

“Not really,” said Zara. “Try from minute to
minute.”

I hugged her and she clutched hold of the back of
my dress. She still felt fragile, as if she could snap at any moment. She
followed me into my bedroom, where I was doing my makeup.

“Who’s this?” she asked, picking up my doll and
stroking her hair.

“She was mine when I was little,” I said. “My mum
and dad gave her to me for my birthday, when I was six.”

Zara sat the doll on a chair. “Little Lizzie,” she
said.

I smiled and tightened the cap on my mascara
bottle. “So are the tablets helping, do you think?”

“I don’t know. I think so.” Zara sat down on the
bed. “When I wake up in the morning I only feel like killing myself till about
lunchtime. So I suppose that's something.” She saw the look on my face and
smiled at me. “Don't worry,” she said. “I'd never do anything about it. To tell
the truth, I haven't got the courage.”

I felt very weak, all of a sudden. I hoped that
that was true.

“Usually I just take my pills and go right back to
sleep again,” she added. “Then there’s just the afternoon to get through.”

I zipped up my makeup bag and sat down on the bed
next to her. “Maybe you shouldn't be sleeping that much,” I told her. “Maybe it
doesn’t help.”

She shrugged. “Tim and Shelley have been waking
me, and making me get up. But mornings are difficult. It just doesn’t feel like
there’s anything to get out of bed for.”

I said. “I wish there was something I could do.”

Zara smiled and touched my arm. “You’re already
doing it.” She paused. “Really. You are. Just by being my friend.”

“Well, of course I’m your friend! Now more than
ever!”

She shrugged again. “Most people can’t cope with any
sign of weakness. They see tramps on the street,” she said. “And they feel
sorry for them. But they wouldn’t want to know them, be their friend. They want
to be needed but not that much. I’m scared you’ll feel like that too, before
long.”

“I won’t,” I protested. “I promise. That’s not how
I feel.”

“I keep thinking I'm going to end up like that, a
bag lady, begging from shop doorways.”

“Don't be silly,” I said. “That’s not going to
happen.”

“Why not?” she insisted. “They're just ordinary
people who are down on their luck. One false move and you're under. Go to jail,
do not pass go, do not collect two hundred pounds. It could happen to anyone.
It could happen to me.”

“I won't let it,” I said, firmly.

“What if I made you crack up too?”

I turned to face her. We sat for a moment, looking
into each others’ eyes. Hers were weak and desperate, but there was something
else there as well. It was as if she were challenging me and begging me at the
same time.

“You won't,” I said, finally. “I'm stronger than
that.”

It was the right answer.

I decided to cancel the party.

“Please don’t, not on my account,” pleaded Zara.

“It’s okay, really. What with Tim and Catherine
not being here and you… well, I can easily get hold of people from work, tell
them not to come.”

Catherine rang a short while later to say that
everything was fine, her dad was stable, but she was going to stay for a few
days. “I can’t get hold of Martin,” she said. “He was supposed to be coming
over later.”