After You Left(16)

‘Sure,’ I say, though, actually, I’m not at all sure I’m going to have huge use for them. ‘What about this man?’ I point to the handsome one, who is wearing a shirt the colour of ripe tomatoes. He has a fine head of silver-grey hair and a rosy-toned complexion. I think he might be a little younger than the other two.

‘Eddy.’ Michael smiles. ‘Eddy’s a grand fellow. We think his dementia was caused by something that happened to his head a long time ago. It’s actually a very sad story . . .’

‘I don’t think I can hear a sad story right now,’ I tell him. He gives me a curious look, and I realise I may have pre-empted him; that’s probably all he’d been going to say. Anyway, it would feel disrespectful talking about them as though they’re not there. I watch Eddy, though. He sits in a world of his own, where he seems happy to be left. There’s something masculine and capable about him, an echo of the man he must have been, which makes me want to know about him. He has a marvellously straight back and big, broad shoulders. He almost looks familiar, like an actor in those black-and-white films my mother used to watch. The ones in which the heroes and heroines got to perform those climactic, closed-mouth kisses at the end, to the swell of hammy music; I was addicted to them. ‘I bet he was quite gorgeous in his day.’

‘Evelyn seems to think he still is.’

The way Michael looks at her could only be described as slightly in awe and doting. ‘Who is she to these men?’

‘Oh, Evelyn is Eddy’s shadow. She never leaves his side. She sits with him in the sun room, reads to him and walks with him in the gardens – he likes to ride the drive-on mower with the gardener. I think Eddy and Evelyn have some history; I’m not sure what. But you can see it in the way you will catch her looking at him. One thing’s for certain, she won’t give up on him. She’s fixed on him having some sort of breakthrough.’

‘Breakthrough?’

‘She wants him to remember. Something. Her? Himself? Something between them that happened? I don’t know what. She’s a bit of a dark horse.’ He looks back at me. ‘Because it happens from time to time, you know. The tiny miracles. The kernels of hope.’

He isn’t much taller than me. Perhaps five-feet-nine. He has a broad upper body – one of those body types that’s either muscular or out of shape; in the unflattering sweater he’s wearing, you can’t tell. I wonder what he gets out of all this.

‘So they were never married?’

‘Not that I’m aware of,’ he says.

‘I can see how they’d make a good couple. His ruggedness and her femininity.’

‘He reminds me of a cowboy. Clint Eastwood meets Burt Reynolds.’ He brings his warm, heavy-lidded eyes back to mine. ‘Evelyn used to live on Holy Island, but she moved closer to Sunrise so she can be near him.’

When he says Holy Island, all I can hear is the distant whisper of my wedding day, ready to pull me back if I let it.

‘She bought a swank apartment,’ he goes on. ‘Well, swank by my standards, anyway. She doesn’t drive any more, so this way she can walk every day to see him. She’s a fixture in there, and she’s always bright and cheerful. I find her fascinating. I think beautiful Evelyn once knew a much grander life.’

‘Beautiful Evelyn!’ I beam a smile. ‘You sound a little in love with her.’

He chuckles. ‘Everyone’s a little in love with Evelyn. You should have seen pictures of her when she was young.’

I glance at the pair of them again – Evelyn, standing in front of Christina, and Eddy sitting on the bench. There is something about his face – the even, balanced features, the noble shape of his head and his fine, long neck – something that keeps me wanting to look at him, I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s what Michael just said. Good-looking older folk make you want to follow the moving image of them, starting far back in time . . . ‘Do you think they were lovers?’ I ask.

‘Possibly. But, in a way, I think it might go deeper than that.’

‘Does he have any other family?’

He shakes his head. ‘No. Nor does she, I believe.’

All I can think is she sold her house to move near to Sunrise. She’s here, in the gallery, because she wants him to remember something. Whatever it is, it must matter dearly to her. And, once again, I’m pulled back to Justin being gone. Who will be around to care if the end of my life has quality? It’s safe to say it probably won’t be him.

‘Are you all right?’ I hear Michael’s voice. He is studying me. ‘You seem . . .’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Come!’ Evelyn waves us over.

Suddenly, we are staring at the painting of a girl in a pale pink dress, almost crawling toward a house in the distance, in the middle of nowhere. ‘So who was Christina?’ Michael asks with sedate curiosity.

‘The girl in the painting, dumbo,’ Ronnie growls. ‘Isn’t it obvious? The painting is about the girl.’

‘I think it’s really a painting about a house,’ Martin says. ‘It reminds me of The Wizard of Oz. The house looks like it just landed in the picture, after the tornado, with Dorothy, in her dream.’

‘That’s a great image, Martin.’ Michael pats his shoulder.