nodding at the paper.
I picked it up, but I couldn’t make out the words, which looked like a drunk spider-in-the-inkwell scrawl. There were lines and question marks and words all over the page. What caught my attention was something that I thought looked a bit like the letter M, repeated several times in enormous letters, like a child’s first attempt with a pen. There were many other less dramatic squiggles, too, in smaller but still jagged script that, in the dim light, I couldn’t make head or tail of either. I took it over to the lamp. Written sideways from the worst of the nonsense were some relatively legible words, in a clump dotted with ink soaks and splodges.
‘Pictures’, I eventually thought I saw. ‘Jewels’. ‘Evie’. And then a shape I couldn’t read, which reminded me of ‘Xxxx’. This last shape was the most neatly written of the lot, though what was Xxxx? Try as I might, I couldn’t make sense of that word. Then another moment of clarity, when, further down, amidst a lot of spiky nonsense goingin a different direction, right off the page, I saw, in wildish letters, ‘Evie’ … ‘Xxxx’ … ‘Protect’ … ‘Make amends’.
Did it mean something? Doubtfully, I came back towards the bed with the box still in my hand. The housekeeper nodded encouragingly at me. I thought she wanted me to tell Grandmother I’d understood her message. As soon as I looked at Grandmother, dribbling out of the corner of her mouth, with that alarmed look still on her face, I realized I couldn’t let her see I hadn’t understood. It would be too cruel.
From here, I could see grey roots at the top of Grandmother’s pitifully rumpled black hair. In the heavy silence broken only by our four different sets of breath, each clearly audible, I thought: Maybe I shouldn’t worry if I can’t understand what she’s written; maybe it’s some memory from long ago that’s troubling her? After all, what could be so frightening other than what’s happening to her?
‘Grandmother, don’t worry; everything’s going to be all right,’ I said as reassuringly as I could. But my voice came out scared and small. I knew I should put the lap desk down, take her hands in mine and reassure her. But I couldn’t. I didn’t admire myself, but I didn’t feel grown-up enough.
After a few minutes, her eyelids started to droop, and she slipped into a snuffly sleep.
The housekeeper nodded. Taking our cue from her, we tiptoed out.
Gaston and his wife, the housekeeper Marie-Thérèse, lived in a little maid’s room at the top of the house, so they didn’t mind staying late at work, in these circumstances, they told me.
I’d come out of the bedroom ashamed that I hadn’t known better how to deal with my sick relative. Now it was a relief to see, from the sympathetic glances they were giving me, and the warmth of their voices, that they didn’t seem to think any the worse of me. We were sitting in the kitchen and, in fact, they seemed to be mothering me. I brushed aside their wish for me to take dinner
comme il faut
in the dining room, where the table had been set hours ago, now so sadly, for two. Instead, I ate the chicken stew that had been waiting on the stove for me at the scrubbed-pine kitchen work table with them, while the housekeeper talked.
‘
Avec les trains, on ne sait jamais
,’ she began darkly (‘You never can tell with trains’), I thought explaining the dinner she was ladling out, which was far too hot and hearty for this weather. ‘
Il vaut mieux avoir quelque chose qui mijote.
’ (‘Best to have something you can simmer.’)
I didn’t think I’d be able to eat it, but I was so relieved to discover that Marie-Thérèse didn’t seem to have any of her husband’s fear of talking normally with foreigners that I decided to make an effort. I took a polite forkful, and it tasted delicious. So did the glass of white wine that Gaston poured from an already opened bottle standing next to a dish of
I picked it up, but I couldn’t make out the words, which looked like a drunk spider-in-the-inkwell scrawl. There were lines and question marks and words all over the page. What caught my attention was something that I thought looked a bit like the letter M, repeated several times in enormous letters, like a child’s first attempt with a pen. There were many other less dramatic squiggles, too, in smaller but still jagged script that, in the dim light, I couldn’t make head or tail of either. I took it over to the lamp. Written sideways from the worst of the nonsense were some relatively legible words, in a clump dotted with ink soaks and splodges.
‘Pictures’, I eventually thought I saw. ‘Jewels’. ‘Evie’. And then a shape I couldn’t read, which reminded me of ‘Xxxx’. This last shape was the most neatly written of the lot, though what was Xxxx? Try as I might, I couldn’t make sense of that word. Then another moment of clarity, when, further down, amidst a lot of spiky nonsense goingin a different direction, right off the page, I saw, in wildish letters, ‘Evie’ … ‘Xxxx’ … ‘Protect’ … ‘Make amends’.
Did it mean something? Doubtfully, I came back towards the bed with the box still in my hand. The housekeeper nodded encouragingly at me. I thought she wanted me to tell Grandmother I’d understood her message. As soon as I looked at Grandmother, dribbling out of the corner of her mouth, with that alarmed look still on her face, I realized I couldn’t let her see I hadn’t understood. It would be too cruel.
From here, I could see grey roots at the top of Grandmother’s pitifully rumpled black hair. In the heavy silence broken only by our four different sets of breath, each clearly audible, I thought: Maybe I shouldn’t worry if I can’t understand what she’s written; maybe it’s some memory from long ago that’s troubling her? After all, what could be so frightening other than what’s happening to her?
‘Grandmother, don’t worry; everything’s going to be all right,’ I said as reassuringly as I could. But my voice came out scared and small. I knew I should put the lap desk down, take her hands in mine and reassure her. But I couldn’t. I didn’t admire myself, but I didn’t feel grown-up enough.
After a few minutes, her eyelids started to droop, and she slipped into a snuffly sleep.
The housekeeper nodded. Taking our cue from her, we tiptoed out.
Gaston and his wife, the housekeeper Marie-Thérèse, lived in a little maid’s room at the top of the house, so they didn’t mind staying late at work, in these circumstances, they told me.
I’d come out of the bedroom ashamed that I hadn’t known better how to deal with my sick relative. Now it was a relief to see, from the sympathetic glances they were giving me, and the warmth of their voices, that they didn’t seem to think any the worse of me. We were sitting in the kitchen and, in fact, they seemed to be mothering me. I brushed aside their wish for me to take dinner
comme il faut
in the dining room, where the table had been set hours ago, now so sadly, for two. Instead, I ate the chicken stew that had been waiting on the stove for me at the scrubbed-pine kitchen work table with them, while the housekeeper talked.
‘
Avec les trains, on ne sait jamais
,’ she began darkly (‘You never can tell with trains’), I thought explaining the dinner she was ladling out, which was far too hot and hearty for this weather. ‘
Il vaut mieux avoir quelque chose qui mijote.
’ (‘Best to have something you can simmer.’)
I didn’t think I’d be able to eat it, but I was so relieved to discover that Marie-Thérèse didn’t seem to have any of her husband’s fear of talking normally with foreigners that I decided to make an effort. I took a polite forkful, and it tasted delicious. So did the glass of white wine that Gaston poured from an already opened bottle standing next to a dish of
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