Page 26 of Little Wing
And it seemed neither of them was quite sure what to talk about next. Her aunt broke the silence. ‘And your flat?’
‘Love it.’
‘I’ve been in this house thirty-odd years.’
‘And have they been odd?’
She gave Nell a pitiful smile as if to say that if that was wit then it was lacking.
Nell felt more awkward now than ever she had as a child. Back in those days, her aunt laid a towel out on any surface Nell might sit on and her mother brought snacks and a bag of toys with her. Only they weren’t her usual toys – they were the boring things like jigsaws and illustrated reference books and a Rubik’s Cube. It was as if her mother, too, avoided being judged or frowned upon. Nell remembered being set up in the hallway while the sisters’ muffled voices and shadowy figures could be detected behind the mottled glass of the door into the lounge.
‘I did ask Mum if she’d like me to bring her here one day,’ Nell said.
‘And she said?’
‘Well – she didn’t, really.’ Nell paused. ‘I don’t know where she goes, in that head of hers. I don’t know how much she hears.’ She shrugged at her aunt. ‘And I don’t understand so much of what she says.’
And, perhaps for the first time, Nell noticed a wisp of sadness momentarily soften her aunt’s rigid features.
‘But mostly Ithinkshe’s happy,’ Nell said. ‘I think she is. She lives within the TV programmes she mainlines and I think that makes her happy. If escapism is her drug, let her take it.’
‘The staff are wonderful,’ said her aunt. ‘Wonderful.’ She was going to take another biscuit but thought better of it. ‘When I’m incapacitated, mind or body, I wouldn’t mind whiling away my latter days somewhere like that.’ She paused. ‘But perhaps in Cambridge. Better standard of inmates, one would imagine.’
‘Inmates? It’s not a prison!’
‘I was joking, Nell.’ Her aunt placed her cup and saucer back on the tray, folded her hands in her lap and observed Nell. ‘It can’t be easy for you, to see her, at her age, surrounded by ancient people – and yet she’s more off her rocker than the lot of them.’
For some reason, despite Aunt Em’s steady and emotionless tone, Nell found this funny and she laughed. Her aunt regarded her quizzically.
‘Sometimes I see glimpses of recognition,’ Nell said. ‘If I keep talking, keep recalling. I try to find things to show her that might take her back and spark something. But I don’t have much luck.’
‘I know.’
‘Sometimes it’s horrible. Sometimes, when she doesn’t know it’s me – it’s awful. And when she denies she’s ever been anyone’s mother.’
‘I know.’
‘Teflon,’ said Nell.
‘Pardon?’
‘I try to coat myself in imaginary Teflon.’
Her aunt looked puzzled.
‘When she’s mean or angry – I don’t let it stick. When she keeps calling me Florence – I just let it slip off.’
‘She keeps calling you Florence?’ Her aunt’s voice was brittle and a mottled red now crept up her neck.
‘I don’t even know a Florence,’ said Nell. ‘I don’t remember her ever mentioning a Florence. Does she call you Florence too, then?’
‘No!’ her aunt barked and then softened. ‘Marjorie.’
‘I always forget,’ Nell laughed. ‘Aunt Em-for-Marjorie.’
‘You really should call me Marjorie now. Aunt Em is so – babyish.’
But Nell thought how the name Aunt Em carried with it a hopeful softening of her aunt’s spikiness. They sat in silence and looked out at the garden, the derelict bird table, a squirrel leaping like Tarzan onto the nut feeder hanging from the apple tree, the lawn so neat its edges were surely snipped by nail scissors. Teatime dilute sunshine, inky shadows starting to seep across the scene. Sitting there quietly, the awkwardness became companionable enough.
