Tin Man(35)

Get that stuff off and go to your room.

I began to undress, burning with shame and humiliation.

And the skirt, said my father.

The skirt slid to the floor exposing my nakedness. My father looked away in disgust.

I want to keep this, I said, holding up the handbag.

No.

Just to put my pencils in.

If you ever take it out of this fucking house—

I waited for the conclusion of this threat but it never came. My father disappeared downstairs and out of the front door, leaving me naked, bewildered, orphaned before time. I was too young, too confused to understand fully what happened in that room. That my father had said so little had been the wound, though. For him there was nothing to discuss because discussion would have made the moment real, just as my mother’s departure had been so real. Instead, I was swept under the carpet to join her.

I see how decisions are made, in moments like that, that change the trajectory of one’s life. Well, he won’t like football, will he? He won’t like sport, he won’t like getting dirty. He won’t like doing boy things.

So when my father went off to his football matches, I went to Mrs Deakin’s to read, or to make cakes with her for the church fayre. But I wanted to shout, I like football too! and I want to be with you. I want to be around men and their laughter and their ways! But in four years, I was never invited. And I retreated further into the background until I could barely be seen against the wallpaper and curtains, until I eventually disappeared, erased by the notion of what a boy with a handbag should be like.

I never did use the bag for pencils because it was too precious. I put valuable things inside, instead. Marbles. French coins. A list of all the books I’d ever read. A pearl-handled penknife. And when I emptied out the bag, one day, caught on the penknife was a piece of thread, a different colour to the lining. I pulled at the thread and it became loose, and I just kept pulling until a sliver of lining came away. And behind the lining was a small black and white photograph showing a woman walking towards the camera. She was quite pretty and wore sunglasses and she was smiling, her arm outstretched towards the person who was taking the picture, my mother, I presumed. I didn’t know this woman but the picture was taken at Trafalgar Square because I recognised the lions and the gallery in the background.

As I grew older, I came to understand this woman was my mother’s freedom. We love who we love, don’t we? I hope she loved her.

It’s a rare, overcast day and I walk over to Mausole, to the St Paul asylum where Van Gogh spent a year before he died. The air along this stretch of road is filled with the scent of honeysuckle that has crept over a neighbouring wall. I think it’s honeysuckle. It’s sweet and fragrant, but I’m not good with plants – that was Annie’s thing. I veer off through olive groves where the sun has yet to take the colour out of the wildflowers. In two weeks, though, the grass will be scorched and lifeless.

The pines along the avenue drip with earlier rain. Daylight is flat and shy, and the air fecund not stifling. Clouds are low and blanketing, and there is peace. In the chapel, my nose pricks with the fumes of decay and I quickly leave those moribund stones to their plangent tale. Outside, the world is vital. I take comfort in the ochre-coloured building opposite, where the doves cry aloft.

Ahead of me two coaches pull up and scores of tourists disembark. I feel angry because I’m not ready for people. For over a week, I’ve kept to myself at the mas. Have eaten breakfast and dinner in the shadow of overhanging trees and have occupied the lone sunlounger at the far end of the pool. I’m just not ready.

The sky explodes with rain and a deep growl reverberates across the dark low clouds. I watch from under a pine tree as people scream and scramble for shelter. And then just like that, the clouds break and the sun appears and the air is seething, and leaves steam, and plastic macs are peeled off and cameras come out again. This is not how I planned the day. And instead of going back to the mas, I take off across the fields, and I climb away and climb high into the garrigue and rosemary. I look down, like a Roman ghost, on the ruins at Glanum. The footfall of the past whispers across the Millennia. In the distance, I can see Saint-Rémy and the oscillation of Avignon. I can see the Alps. I venture further into the landscape. If it was a man I would call it rugged and thoughtful and scruffy. If it was a man I think it would be Ellis.

It’s your Wedding Day, Ell. You’ve stayed the night at the shop because it would be bad luck to see Annie’s dress. You’re standing at the window in my bedroom overlooking the churchyard. You turn and face me as I come up the stairs and I’m surprised to see you’re not dressed yet. You’ve showered, and dried yourself badly. Your hair is wet and your back glistens and the top of your boxer shorts are damp. You say, D’you remember . . . ?

And you talk about the time you came here after Dora died, after your father forced you to punch the good out of your life. How you climbed the stairs to this room with bruised knuckles and swollen eyes, how I held the wrap of ice against your hand and told you that life would get better. And, I realise, the story’s not about Dora, or your father, or grief. But about us.

D’you remember? you say at the end.

Yes.

Come on, Ell, I say. And you turn away from the window and come towards me. I hand you your watch. Your hands are shaking. I hold up your white shirt, still warm from the iron, and you slip your arms into the sleeves. You attempt the buttons, but your fingers are clumsy and thick.