The Book of Magical Wet Animals #3
She shook her head. “I saw him a few times, but only from a distance. He was very old by then and quite reclusive. He spent most of his time up in his writing tower and I wasn’t allowed to go up there.
It was the most important rule—there weren’t many.
” She was looking down and a raised vein pulsed mauve beneath each eyelid.
“They talked about him sometimes; he could be difficult, I think. I always thought of him as a little like King Lear, playing his daughters off, one against the other.”
It was the first time I’d ever heard my mother reference a character of fiction, and the effect was to derail my train of thought entirely. I wrote my honors thesis on Shakespeare’s tragedies and not once did she give any sign that she was familiar with the plays.
“Edie?” Mum, looked up sharply. “Did you tell them who you were? When you went to Milderhurst. Did you tell them about me? Percy, the others?”
“No.” I wondered whether the omission would offend Mum, whether she’d demand to know why I hadn’t told them the truth. “No, I didn’t.”
“Good,” she said, nodding. “That was a good decision. Kinder. You’d only have confused them. It was such a long time ago and I was with them so briefly; they’ve no doubt quite forgotten I was there at all.”
And here was my chance; I took it. “That’s just it though, Mum. They hadn’t, that is, Juniper hadn’t.”
“What do you mean?
“She thought I was you.”
“She …?” Her eyes searched mine. “How do you know?”
“She called me Meredith.”
Mum’s fingertips brushed her lips. “Did she … say anything else?”
A crossroads. A choice. And yet, it wasn’t really. I had to tread lightly: if I was to tell Mum exactly what Juniper had said, that she’d accused her of breaking a promise and ruining her life, our conversation would most certainly be ended. “Not much,” I said. “Were you close, the two of you?”
The man sitting behind stood up then, his considerable backside nudging our table so that everything upon it quivered. I smiled distractedly at his apology, focused instead on preventing our cups and our conversation from toppling. “Were you and Juniper friends, Mum?”
She picked up her coffee, seemed to spend a long time running her spoon around the inside of her cup to tidy the froth.
“You know, it’s so long ago it’s difficult to remember the details.
” A brittle, metallic noise as the spoon hit the saucer.
“As I said, I was only there a little over a year. My father came and fetched me home in early 1941.”
“And you never went back?”
“That was the last I saw of Milderhurst.”
She was lying. I felt hot, light-headed. “You’re sure?”
A little laugh. “Edie—what a queer thing to say. Of course I’m sure. It’s the sort of thing one would remember, don’t you think?”
I would. I did. I swallowed. “That’s just it.
A funny thing happened, you see. On the weekend, when I first saw the entrance to Milderhurst—the gates at the bottom of the drive—I had the most extraordinary sense that I’d been there before.
” When she said nothing, I pressed: “That I’d been there with you. ”
Her silence was excruciating and I was aware suddenly of the murmur of café noise around us, the jarring thwack of the coffee basket being emptied, the grinder whirring, shrill laughter somewhere on the mezzanine.
I seemed to be hearing it all at one remove, though, as if Mum and I were quite separate, encased within our own bubble.
I tried to keep the tremor from my voice. “When I was a kid. We drove there, you and I, and we stood at the gates. It was hot and there was a lake and I wanted to swim, but we didn’t go inside. You said it was too late.”
Mum patted her napkin to her lips, slowly, delicately, then looked at me. Just for a moment I thought I glimpsed the light of confession in her eyes, then she blinked and it was gone. “You’re imagining things.”
I shook my head slowly.
“All those gates look alike,” she continued. “You’ve seen a picture somewhere, sometime—a film—and become confused.”
“But I remember—”
“I’m sure it seems that way. Just like when you accused Mr. Watson from next door of being a Russian spy, or the time you became convinced you were adopted—we had to show you your birth certificate, do you remember?
” Her voice had taken on a note I recalled only too well from my childhood.
The infuriating certainty of someone sensible, respectable, powerful; someone who wouldn’t listen no matter how loudly I spoke.
“Your father had me take you to the doctor about the night terrors.”
“This is different.”
She smiled briskly. “You’re fanciful, Edie. You always have been. I don’t know where you get it from—not from me. Certainly not from your father.” She reached down to reclaim her handbag from the floor. “Speaking of whom, I ought to be getting home.”
“But, Mum—” I could feel the chasm opening between us. A gust of desperation spurred me on. “You haven’t even finished your coffee.”
She glanced at her cup, the cooling gray dribble at the bottom. “I’ve had enough.”
“I’ll get you another, my shout—”
“No,” she said. “What do I owe you for the first?”
“Nothing, Mum. Please stay.”
“No.” She laid a five-pound note by my saucer. “I’ve been out all morning and your father’s by himself. You know what he’s like: he’ll have the house dismantled if I don’t get back soon.”
A press of her cheek, clammy against mine, and she was gone.