Читать книгу 59 Memory Lane - Celia Anderson - Страница 7

May Rosevere sits on the sun-warmed decking, watching the tide creep in. She does this most days if it’s convenient, but the trouble with tide times is that they will keep on changing. If it’s cold, May wraps herself in an ancient baby shawl to sit in her swing seat. The memories have faded from the wool, and the baby who wore it must be thirty by now, but it still makes her feel cosseted. She doesn’t need the shawl today. Summer is in the air and the garden around her granite cottage is looking green and lush.

A man with a neat grey beard wanders along the beach. Tristram, thinks May, waving her handkerchief. He doesn’t see her – his hat is pulled down over his ears and he’s too busy throwing a bright red ball into the sea to look up towards May’s place. The man’s black Labrador looks at him in disgust and ignores the ball. His smaller, biscuit-coloured dog isn’t any more enthusiastic, too busy digging in the sand. The sound of Tristram’s booming laugh carries through the still air and he plods on towards the stone jetty that marks the western edge of Pengelly Cove. May reaches for the diary she keeps by her side, turns to the page for 1 June and makes a note. That ball will probably be washed up later. It must have a whole lot of good memories buried inside it. Then reality hits, as it does several times a day. Her beach-combing days are over. Even if she happens to see it float in, she can’t get to it.

It’s only a couple of hundred yards from May’s back porch to the tideline, but the beach might as well be on the moon. Being a hundred and ten years old tends to limit your orbit. May’s shoulders slump. This is a crisis. For weeks she’s been feeling less and less lively, and she knows the reason why. Her memory supplies have completely dried up.

May looks down at the elderly cat curled up by her feet. ‘Well, Fossil, I’m just going to have to come up with a plan,’ she tells him.

The cat blinks its yellow eyes and says nothing. May doesn’t really expect a reply. Although she has certain abilities, talking to animals isn’t one of them.

‘I need a new source of memories,’ she continues. Fossil yawns, and sticks out the tip of his tongue. ‘There’s no need to be rude,’ May says. ‘This is serious. If I don’t find a way to … acquire more of my treasures, I’m stuffed, as Andy would say.’

Andy is May’s neighbour. His terraced house abuts her new home. May’s solid granite single-storey cottage at 59 Memory Lane was built to last. It was a tea shop up until last year and in its time has been extended to have five rooms plus a bathroom and a long conservatory with a stunning view of the bay. It’s too big for May really, but it’s private, and suits her well. There are any number of basking places for the days when it’s warm enough to sun-worship, a lawn around the house where the wooden benches and tables used to stand, and even a small car park that goes right up to the sea wall.

May rents the parking spaces out to a few selected villagers. She doesn’t need the money – the sale of her house up on The Level has left her very comfortably off – but she likes the comings and goings and the friendly chit-chat when people drop off their cars at the end of the day. Loneliness has rather taken her by surprise since she moved, and the car park activity is a welcome distraction. Living alone has its benefits but she sometimes tires of talking to the cat. When she lived in the heart of the village, May knew everything that was going on, and kept a close eye on her neighbours’ affairs by dint of popping in and out of their houses on a variety of pretexts and by getting involved in the social life of the local Methodist Church. You don’t have to believe in God to make salmon sandwiches and dispense weak tea.

May’s new home has weathered well, and looks as though it’s been there for ever, the newer sections blending in seamlessly, with ivy and wisteria covering the joins and close-growing shrubs hugging the walls. There is yellow lichen on the roof tiles and the door is painted almost the same colour. She has huge earthenware pots of succulents either side of the front step that take no looking after, and a quirky blue and yellow ceramic sign that spells out the name of the cottage in swirly letters – Shangri-La.

Andy gardens for May whenever he has time, and does a few hours’ routine office work for a local garden centre when his landscaping business allows or the weather is awful. His six-year-old daughter, Tamsin, lives next door with him. May stirs, and groans slightly as she hears the pounding of small footsteps approaching on the wooden floor of the deck.

‘Hello, May,’ says Tamsin in a loud stage whisper. ‘Have you finished your nap?’

‘I wasn’t asleep.’ May lets her glasses slide to the end of her nose so that she can peer at the child. She looks angelic. Dark curls frame a round, rosy-cheeked face and her eyes are huge and brown with long lashes. Anyone might think butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, as May’s mum used to say. They’d be wrong.

Tamsin reaches the garden chair and slips her arm through May’s, head butting her shoulder. ‘I’ve done with school,’ she says.

‘For today,’ answers May, trying to look stern.

‘For ever and ever. It sucks,’ says Tamsin.

‘That’s not a very nice thing for a little girl to say.’

‘What, that school sucks, you mean? Summer says it.’

She sits down on the boards and leans against May’s legs. The pressure is comforting at first, but is soon painful. May grits her dentures. ‘Summer says quite a lot of things that you shouldn’t copy, it seems to me. Anyway, you can’t just stop going to school, Tam. You’ve only done a year so far. It goes on for a lot longer than that, as a rule.’

‘Dad can’t make me go,’ says the little girl, sticking out her bottom lip. Tamsin’s eyes are even darker than Andy’s, and she’s inherited the shaggy curls from him too. May knows there’s a regular morning battle to get a ponytail in place. She’s heard the screams. Tamsin’s already ditched her scrunchy for the day and her blue cardigan with the crest has disappeared as well, probably under a bush somewhere.

‘Why don’t you like school? Has something happened today? You were fine yesterday when you came round.’ May often keeps an eye on Tamsin until Andy comes home, if he’s not expecting to be long. She’s never been keen on children but this one is different. This one has a mind of her own.

‘It’s just boys,’ says Tamsin. ‘Why do we have to have boys?’

‘Well …’

‘They’re stinky, and they push in front of us when we line up.’

‘Hmm. But some girls push too, and boys often grow up to be grand men like your dad and Tristram, don’t they?’

‘S’pose so.’

The cat stands up, stretches, and makes his way over to Tamsin. His black fur is slightly dusty due to his habit of rolling in the flowerbeds. Tamsin looks at him doubtfully.

‘Dad said I mustn’t touch Fossil any more,’ she says.

‘Did he? When was that?’

‘Yesterday. I kept sneezing, and he said it was either hay fever or cats. Like my mum used to get, he said. But I love Fossil. He doesn’t even smell that bad today, does he? Not like boys do.’

May thinks Tamsin might be going to cry. Tears are May’s least favourite thing. An idea strikes her as she sees a red dot appear on the shoreline. ‘Would you do a little job for me, my bird?’ she says, in what she hopes is a winning tone.

Tamsin frowns even harder. ‘What do I get?’

‘Get? You don’t get anything. Young people are supposed to help older ones. Don’t they teach you anything at school?’

Tamsin shrugs.

‘Would you just pop down to the beach and pick up that ball over there?’

‘But it’ll be all wet and slimy. Why do you want a ball, May? You haven’t got a dog and Fossil doesn’t play with stuff any more.’

‘Well … I …’ May tries to think of a plausible answer but her mind has gone blank. There’s no easy way to say that the reason she’s managed to live to a hundred and ten is that she has been appropriating her neighbours’ memories for years. She’s always told herself it’s a form of borrowing, but that’s not true, because once she’s got them, she’s never quite worked out how to give them back.

Now that she’s living at the bottom of Memory Lane and can’t visit people in the village any more, May has no way of collecting their treasured objects so that she can do what she terms her thought harvesting. But she couldn’t stay in that rambling old family house once her legs started to get creaky. She was lucky to be able to keep it going for so long. Leaving Seagulls was hard, but this cottage is so much easier to live in, apart from the sad lack of new memory sources. The vibrations from her collecting missions have fed her mentally for a long time now, but she’s bled them all dry.

Tamsin prods May gently, still waiting for an answer. She’s right, in a way. A soggy toy won’t do much good. But at least it’ll have something inside it – some scrap of love and dog-type warmth buried in its depths. And May is desperate.

‘Just for me, poppet, please?’ she says, putting her head on one side and smiling in what she hopes is a sweet old lady way.

Tamsin shrugs again then potters off down the path, over the last of the cobblestones and onto the shingle at the top of the beach. When she reaches the sand, she slips off her shoes and socks and begins to twirl and bounce towards the lapping waves. Her solid little body is transformed when she dances, making her almost fairy-like. May watches. The child knows the beach completely and she wouldn’t stray far from sight anyway. There’s no need to worry, even if May was the worrying kind. She never has been until now. But unless she can find a new bank of memories, May won’t reach the fabulous age of one hundred and eleven. It’s been her dream to reach that milestone ever since childhood. All those lovely ones in a row, like a strong gate: 111. Her father, gazing at a particularly wonderful sunset over the bay, once exclaimed, ‘If I live until I’m a hundred and eleven I’ll never see anything as splendid as that sight.’ Why that number? May thought, but the idea stuck, like a lucky charm.

After a few minutes, Tamsin hops back into the garden and drops the ball on May’s knee.

‘It’s yucky,’ she says, pulling a face. ‘Told you it would be. Have you got any cake?’

May gestures towards the open kitchen door, and as Tamsin skips away (does that child ever walk anywhere?) she conquers her revulsion and clutches the ball tightly to her chest. But even squeezing it hard with both hands and her eyes tight shut doesn’t release more than a tiny buzz of memory, and that seems to be mainly a dog’s woolly thoughts about his dinner.

It’s no good. I’m done for, thinks May, throwing the ball as hard as she can towards the shrubbery.

‘May, why did you go and do that? I fetched it specially.’ Tamsin appears with a large plate containing four slabs of angel cake and a bag of Maltesers.

‘You were right, dear. It was very slimy,’ says May, sadly.

Tamsin looks up as she hears the click of the latch on the front gate next door. ‘Dad’s home,’ she says. ‘I’ll go and get him to make us a nice hot drink, shall I?’

She’s back in five minutes or so, followed by a long, lean man with a serious expression. May wishes he’d smile more, but she supposes he’s had a lot to make him melancholy since his wife died. Andy is an out-in-all-weathers kind of person, pure Cornish from head to toe. Tanned and healthy-looking, he’s wearing faded denim shorts, heavy boots and a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up – his usual gardener’s uniform. He’s very grubby. May looks at his well-muscled legs and forearms approvingly. Even at one hundred and ten she can still appreciate a vision like this.

Andy puts a mug down next to May and hands Tamsin a glass of warm blackcurrant juice.

‘Oh, bless you, love. Aren’t you having one with us?’

‘No time. Tam needs to get ready for a birthday party. It starts in half an hour but she looks as if she needs a good wash first.’

Tamsin moans to herself and slurps her drink, spilling some of it down her front, then lies down again next to May, adding some soil to the stains on her school skirt.

‘Where have you been today?’ May asks. ‘You look as if you’ve been working hard.’

‘Just across the road at number sixty, trying to get Julia’s place straight,’ he says. ‘It’s gone wild since Don died.’

‘It was bound to, really. Julia doesn’t like gardening, does she? Probably hasn’t got the right clothes,’ May sniffs. She has no time for Julia Lovell, even though she’s known her for many years and often shared the church kitchen with her when they were drafted in to cater for village events. Keeps herself to herself, that one, May thinks. Pretty much everybody knows what it’s like to lose somebody but we don’t all turn reclusive, do we? Drama queen. And why does she always have to be so dressed up? Her hair can’t be natural. There’s not a single grey hair amongst all that black. And straight as a die. Never bothers with curlers. Well, I suppose there’s not enough of it to curl.

‘Maybe not. I used to go round every few weeks and give Don a hand when he got past doing the rough digging and so on,’ says Andy, ‘but she hasn’t felt like bothering with it lately.’

‘No. She wouldn’t.’

‘What have you got against the poor woman? She always asks after you.’

‘Oh, you don’t want to hear me harping on about old grudges. Water under the bridge. I just wish she wouldn’t pretend to like me, that’s all.’

‘I don’t think Julia’s got anything against you, May.’

‘Ha! Why does she give me those frosty looks then?’

‘You’re imagining it.’

‘Whatever,’ says May. She’s learned that one from Tamsin and it comes in handy.

Andy laughs. ‘Anyway, you’ll never guess what Julia’s found today.’

May looks at her neighbour without much interest and raises her eyebrows. He carries on. ‘When she was clearing out Don’s den …’

‘His old shed, you mean?’

‘Well, yes, OK – his shed … she found a massive sack of letters.’

Tamsin rolls over onto her back and stares at her dad. ‘Why did the man over the road have a sack of lettuce?’ she mumbles, through the last of the cake.

‘Don’t talk with your mouth full, sweetheart,’ Andy says, ‘and I said letters.’

‘Oh.’ Tamsin doesn’t much care for things you have to read so she crawls under a nearby bush to make a hide-out, but May is all ears.

‘Letters to whom?’ she says. No need to let the grammar slip.

‘Not to whom, more like from whom. He hoarded every single thing his family in the Midlands ever wrote to the two of them. They’re incredible. Julia showed me a few.’

May digests this information in silence. Her heart is fluttering now. She hopes she isn’t going to have some sort of seizure and pop her clogs just when hope is at hand.

‘May? What’s the matter? You look a bit wobbly today,’ Andy says.

May stares out to sea, as the tide turns and the gulls wheel and cry. A sackful of memories, there for the taking. But however is she going to get her hands on them?