Goldsmiths - University of London

Irene sat in the armchair, watching. She felt – what was the word? – dank. Almost damp and almost not.

Dank U. Thank you. Was that Dutch? A Dutch canal in the rain on the trip to Holland years ago, to buy some pottery, to cheer her up. A tiny Delft milk-jug, so small and delicate, so breakable, dwarfed on the mantelpiece by the photo of her son. Dank U.

Gerald wanted to go back, to celebrate their forty years. He wanted to drive her through Holland and France and ride the hairpin mountain roads to Italy, to Venice, to cheer her up. Thank you.

How ungrateful of her to keep putting it off.

The postman was another red flash at the gate, squelching his boots on the gravel and dropping the thud through the letterbox before huddling off across the drive and disappearing into the drip drip drip of the street.

Just a circular about the new development and another offer of a loan. She put them on the hall table and padded to the kitchen to pack her shopping bags.

In town the streets were push-pull full; she shovelled her way through the crowds of students, tour guides, buggies and bores, working her way through her list:

Card for Jocelyn

Purse

Cheque pay in

Photos (Boots – and eye test?)

“Airwaves”

Travel agents

Until, arrested by “Airwaves” and unable to recall why or what or how (a radio? a magazine?) she stopped to check her handwriting and the crowd surged her sideways, into the doorway of the student travel centre. When she’d written “travel agent” she’d really meant “Thomas Cook”, but there it was, next on her list, and here she was, at the student travel centre, and in she went, just like that.

It was like walking onto a stage. They sat behind lines of desks directly in front of her, row after row of young faces saturated with the bold overhead light, their chins cupped in palms, waiting for her opening line. And in the pause of her entry there was no sound at all, just the faint blink of a fluorescent tube.

“Good afternoon,” she said. They were all looking at her – surprised? Amazed? Concerned? She wondered what on earth she was supposed to do next, an older woman standing in the wrong spotlight. And then she remembered,

“I’d like to find out about hotels in Venice, please, for January.”

The room sighed and took up their phones and computers and a blond voice on the front row said, “Take a seat, please, I’ll get some things up on the screen for you.”

Irene took off her coat and scarf and placed her umbrella, dripping wet, against the desk. Her three plastic shopping bags slumped into a crumpled pile on the carpet and as she sat down she slipped and slid across the smooth surface of the polished wood chair. She clipped and unclipped and clipped her purse.

“I’m Trudy,” said the girl.

“It’s for my 40th wedding anniversary,” said Irene.

“Oh, you don’t have to apologise,” smiled Trudy, twinkling her glitter green eye-shadow. “That’s lovely, what a lovely treat, Venice is so romantic.” She turned the screen so that Irene could see a list of figures and numbers and digits. She put on her reading glasses and leaned forward.

On the desk there was a brochure open at a page of bare grey rock, flecks of snow and red clapboard buildings on a barren hillside. A church, all wood, and a container port in cold, cold water.

Another picture, the beginnings of greens and blues striped across a dark black sky. And a word floating among the faintest of stars: Greenland.

“Have you, er, travelled much?” she said to Trudy, tracing the vowels along the jags of the east Greenland coast: Kalaallit Nunaat, Illoqqortoormiut, Tasiilaq.

“Oh that, that’s for another client, I’ve not been there, although I’d love to go to Antarctica one day, I’ve mostly been in Asia and Australia.” Trudy moved the brochure to one side and pushed forward the gilt and gondolas of Venice. “Now here’s a lovely hotel, four star, just off St Mark’s Square…”

Irene nodded and okayed and lovelyed out loud, but in her head she played with the long open vowels – Ka-Laa-Llit Nun-aat – until Trudy had finished and was looking at her and she realised she was supposed to take her leave. But she could not stand up.

"Anything else I can help you with?" Trudy looked at her, waiting.

“My, er, my, yes, my daughter would, er," and then she stopped, felt the air expel hard from her lungs. She stumbled: "Are those the Northern Lights? The picture in the other brochure?”

Her cheeks were hot and red. That she could voice such a thing, desire such a thing, it was wrong, it was a lie...

 “Is she interested in a trip to see the Northern Lights?” said Trudy, pulling Greenland back into view. “Oh yes, well this might be just the thing.”

And she turned the page.

What she saw first was the blackness, the impenetrable nothingness of the landscape and the buildings in the foreground, because what came behind was so glorious, so shiningly triumphant, she could almost not fix her eyes upon it. It began as a tiny figure at the edge of the page and then streamed fantastically across the dark sky, emerald fire beaded with blue and silver, until at its brilliant extreme it began to dance, yes it began to dance, a vivid flash of colour lifting itself limber from the page to dance with her, here in the now, in a joining and a joy.

She gasped and pulled back.

“When does your daughter want to go?” said Trudy from the white glare of the open room.

Irene took a breath, stood up and grasped for her bags and coat. She had not heard anyone speak of her daughter since that day, the only day she had had. Her 40th birthday next year, an anniversary she could barely breathe, never mind articulate. Your daughter.

“Can I take this with me?” she gasped.

The rain was falling more heavily now, splashing into great pools of water by the side of the road, darkening the skies with an early winter; the sodium lights whirring into orange.

She marched through the streets with the stolen vigour of those youthful bodies in the travel centre, her knees oiled and smooth, her hips turning and turning, her face pressed against the rain. She threw herself into the pavement throng, allowing the people to stride alongside her, merge with her, peel away from her, thrusting herself deeper and deeper into the warm, wet mass of bodies hurrying and shoving ever forward, turning her face up to the noiseless spray of the rain until she was gliding along on the shine of the pavement, and maybe she raised her arms open, maybe she opened her mouth to drink, but the crowd was too fast…

A boot snapped at her heel, rolling her ankle into jelly. She slipped sideways and tried to steady herself, but the crowd kept moving, crashing her hard onto the paving slabs, her elbow taking the full weight of her rain-blown body, shopping bags and all.

“What?”

“Your Rover club letter. On the table.”

“What about it?”

“Says here they’re all looking forward to the rally in January. Seems like everyone’s off over the Simplon pass to Lake Como for the Winter Reeler, whatever that is….”

“Don’t wave that in my face.”

“‘Dear Gerald, have you made sure your passport is up to date? And remember you’ll need Green Flag for Switzerland.’ That’s what it says here. ‘See you at Lake Geneva on January 25th.’ Is that why you’re taking Mum to Venice? So you can do the Rover Rally on the way?”

“Can you please keep your voice down? You know your mother’s trying to rest. I’ve talked about this with her, we’ll join the rally for a couple of days, just do the bit over the mountains and then we can head off to Venice.”

“Dad, she’s not well, she’s had such a bad fall, she’ll have only just finished her physio by the time you leave. And it’s such a long way to drive, you might get caught in the snow – remember that time we got stuck on the motorway coming back from France – that Christmas?”

“I’m not too old for this, James, if that’s what you’re trying to say. I drove to Madrid last year for the Rover meet, just me and Jeff, it was absolutely fine.”

“Well, why don’t you just go on your own, with Jeff or someone? Leave Mum here, where she can get better. You could go later in the year – May would be lovely. You could fly to Venice.”

 “We’re not flying. She hates flying. Look, she won’t even have to get out of the car, I’m having heated seats put in the front – got a good deal from Roy, I showed him some leather reclinables on the Rover club site and he said, don’t worry, I can get them cheaper...”

“Dad, she might slip and hurt herself on the ice – this time was bad enough, but she could end up seriously hurt, never mind her arm, she might break a hip or something.”

 “She’ll be fine.”

“And the baby might come early, you can’t forget that, Mum’s so excited about it. She’d be so upset if you were stuck on some mountain pass just as her first grandchild arrives.”

“James, it’s…”

“Dad? Please? Sorry, I don’t mean to be difficult. I know you both need a holiday. But I’ve only got a week’s paternity leave and Georgia has nobody else... It’s going to be hard for her, having a baby with no Mum of her own to help her. Dad?”

“Your Mum needs to get away. This anniversary business is very important to her. I need to make sure she enjoys herself. Look, you know we will help with the baby, she’s very happy to do that, it’s just…”

 “What’s this? This Arctic brochure? Where did this come from?”

“Your Mum got it. I don’t know, she went to the travel agents to choose a hotel for Venice. She’s always picking up catalogues and stuff. Maybe she got it for you and Georgia.”

“I don’t think we’ll be going on any adventures until Georgia’s had the baby.”

“Well, maybe it’s for your honeymoon…”

“Ok Dad, ok, we’ve been through this. I’m fathering a child out of wedlock. That’s just how it is. But I am going to be a father and…Dad?”

“You know, years ago, about a year after we were married, I took her to Holland. That was our honeymoon. A bit late, but I’d got that job with Morris and I wanted to take her somewhere special. We’d never been abroad before. She wasn’t well, then, but we had a lovely holiday…”

“I know, I know, I’m just, I have to think about Georgia, and you’re the only ones we’ve got, and I’m worried about Mum, you know, of course, I don’t want her to hurt herself.”

“… and I think we need to do it again.”

Gerald was listening to his audio book, spies and guns, hands rolling the steering wheel round and round the bends. The car was hot. She wondered how he could concentrate through the sleepy heat, the whirring beat of the road on the window: Ka-Laa-Llit Nun-aat, Ka-Laa-Llit Nun-aat. It was very warm. Ka-Laa-Llit Nun-aat.

And then the car bumped to a halt on the kerbside. Irene opened her eyes to a small shuttered restaurant, lights and warmth escaping through the ivy and the slats. They were somewhere in eastern France.

“Wakey wakey,” said Gerald, opening her door into the frozen night. “I’m starving. Let’s give this place a go. Come on.”

He was still fairly good looking, she thought, once they’d sat down at a table by a hot radiator, although in the last few years that attractive muscular breadth of his shoulders had slipped down and landed in a heap of extra flesh around his middle. He was calling the waiter now, in that embarrassing French he’d picked up from one of his Magic Language audio-tapes which filled the car after the spies had shot everyone, drank up their vodkas, kissed the Russian lovelies and gone home. She wondered where that confidence came from, that ability to believe in yourself at every moment, whatever the situation, because although she knew she could speak reasonable French, probably better than his, she could not open her mouth to summon the waiter, to order the food, in case it came out all wrong, the wrong tense, the wrong verb, the wrong accent. He just opened his mouth, bread and all, and spoke.

 “Evie still comes along to the meets, you know,” said Gerald, coughing on his crusty baguette. “You should try it again, plenty of the wives are still there, keeping up with the gossip. Might cheer you up a bit.”

 “I never really liked Evie,” she said. He’d ordered her a salad whose French name suggested the farmhouse comfort of sweet greens with local cheese and ham lardons. When it arrived was nothing more than large chunks of fatty bacon ladled with shop-bought vinaigrette.

“But you always seemed to get on so well.” He sipped at his glass of wine. “Evie’s always asking after you.”

“Do you think you should be drinking that?” she asked.

“Fine, one glass is always fine,” he said, “It’s OK here, drivers will flash you if the gendarmes are lying in wait with their speed cameras, to let you know to drive in a straight line and keep on the right side of the road.”

He laughed. He was trying hard, she thought, really hard. I must make an effort. “Maybe I’ll come to one of the club things when we get back,” she said, expecting to catch a shimmer of relief or hope or even joy in his face, but his eyes just blinked out at her from behind his red-veined mask.

“Great,” he said, through a mouthful of steak.
“Although, you know, I’m probably going to be very busy with the new grandchild,” she said. “I know James is keen for me to help out once he goes back to work. Maybe I’ll come back again in the summer, when things settle down a bit.”

“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “We’ll sort something out for James. Please don’t worry.”

“But poor Georgia, her own Mum…” she started, but Gerald was stopping the waiter and asking for dessert and she slumped back into her seat.

It had gone 9 o’clock when they left the restaurant. The car started well enough, humming its rhythm through the dark, but within a few miles Gerald thought he could hear a high pitched squeal when he revved up the engine.

“It’s done this before,” he said, pulling the car off the highway and onto a gravel path, “Better just check it out. Can’t be too careful. With Rover these days, you can’t always get the parts when you leave the UK.”

They were in a lay-by with a panoramic viewpoint and Irene could see the town lights beaming over the edge of the stone wall beside the passenger door. She got out of the car. Gerald was hunched over the engine, tinkering with his bits and pieces.

She sat down on a viewing bench and looked over the town to a fortified citadelle crowning an outcrop above a river loop which ran a full circle around the town, encompassing hatchings of streets and medieval townhouses, squares lit up in blue and roads traced by yellow points which flew upwards to hang in a cloud of haze above the city. Behind the citadelle rose the hills, the foothills of the mountains that would over hundreds of miles rise slowly into the Jura range and then upwards into the Alps. And above a sky so strong with stars, black and black.

And red.

It appeared slowly, a slash in the sky, but once it had settled she could not recall its birth, just its being there, just as the river was there, the mountains were there, and the sky was there. And then it began to shimmy across the valley, shifting and turning, folding in on itself and shining outwards, reaching down to her, unbinding her. She held out her hand in silhouette against the crimson, twisting and turning her fingers in time with its dancing shapes: pirouetting, twisting and leaping, a joy and a hallelujah.

Gerald was beside her, saying something about the engine, but then he stopped.

 “What is it?” she said.

 “Beautiful,” said Gerald, his head tilted upwards to the stars. “I don’t know, you know, it could be the aurora, the Northern Lights. Get them sometimes at this latitude I think, especially this time of year if the weather’s right. Gosh. People travel miles to see this. Spectacular…”

She stopped listening. She did not want to name it, confirm his guess, in case it might fade away. She wanted to hold it in her hands, gaze at it forever, a gift.

And as she looked the red twitched and shone and the shapes parted and it was blood, red like the blood across the belt of her belly which they wiped clean away that night, when she pushed and pushed and screamed and screamed and the midwife held her hand – “don’t give up now, love, you’ve done so well, I can see the head, just one more push” – and she screamed her tiny baby into the world – “a girl!” – but when her scream ended there was nothing but the rush and the fuss of the doctors between her legs, the midwife still holding her hand and under it all a silence so hard, and she wriggled and propped herself up and glimpsed, just one glimpse in a lifetime, her daughter so clean and so whole and so silent, as they wrapped her up and bundled her away.

Irene could feel the sob choking in her throat. Gerald got up to go but she took his hand. They had not spoken of her in nearly 40 years. Hush hush, there there, you'll get over it, we'll have another one, don't talk about it, you'll only make it worse.

In the heavens, the red flashed and shimmied and shined. She recalled the stained glass windows in the church where she had said goodbye to God, the bursting of her heart, and as she gazed upwards at the dancing shapes it was as if the span of some ancient and yet more actual deity was flaming through the stars, waltzing her spirit across the sky.

 “That's her, isn't it, in heaven?” she whispered.

 “Who?” said Gerald.

She could not speak her name. She could not say this to him.

 “Elisabeth,” she said.

He squeezed her fingertips, then stood up and went back to the car.