‘Da…’ she felt her mouth fall open. To hear his name, the little boy who had been born too soon, fighting for the brief time he lay in her arms, a name she hadn’t shared with anyone, ever. ‘How?’
‘Or your mother, Dinah?’
‘Who are you?’ Her voice now no more than a whisper, she placed her trembling hand over her mouth.
‘I’m Chen. I’ll leave you now, Violet. Choose wisely and know that it’s a wonderful thing to be given this chance, a really wonderful thing.’
He stood as Natalie walked briskly towards the table, her expression close to tears, suggesting the call with weasel face hadn’t gone too well.
‘Happy Christmas, Violet.’
‘Hap, happy Christmas,’ she managed, watching as he walked away, lifting his hand in a small wave as Natalie passed him by.
‘Who the bloody hell was that?’ Her granddaughter reached for a chunk of bun and pushed it into her mouth.
‘That was Chen.’ Violet fished up her sleeve for her handkerchief and blew her nose. It was fanciful, trickery, ridiculous, and yet a thought so glorious she allowed herself to be quite taken by the absurdity of it all.
The question was, if itwerepossible, who would she choose?
***
Chen’s words occupied her thoughts, making her a distracted guest when she was wheeled to her daughter’s house and placed in front of the TV while the family chattered their plans, grew tipsy on bubbly wine, wrapped gifts and gorged on chocolates that came in a plastic tub that back in her day had been a useful metal tin. The family took it in turns to walk over to where she had been plonked and squeeze her shoulder, smiling into her face like she was a baby,
‘You all right?’
This before offering her another cup of tea. It was bewildering to her; how much liquid did they think she needed?
Safely home, Violet was aware it was Saturday. A day that had loomed in her thoughts since meeting Chen. Trying not to give any heed to his absurd proposal, yet still with a tingle of excitement in her veins, quite taken with the idea. Like having a lottery ticket tucked into your pocket and dreaming of what you might do with the unlikely win.
Darling had settled her for the evening and adhered to Violet’s request to be left in her chair. It was one of the loveliest things about her carer, the fact she didn’t try and explain what might be best or speak overly loudly or slowly as if Violet was a dum-dum. Instead, she simply nodded, ‘Sure.’ And did as Violet asked, whatever she asked. Giving equity to their interactions – despite the nature of their association – which meant more than Violet could ever express.
Sitting in the chair, with the usual hum of pain in her hips and throb of discomfort in her knees, she listened as the night fell quiet. There was a stillness in the air, the sky was clear, allowing for the majesty of stars to shine brightly in the inky blue canopy. The kind of night when magic felt possible!
‘You’re a silly old fool is what you are.’
Violet chuckled, as she settled back and closed her eyes, waiting for the clock to strike and knowing that she would feellike a proper dunce when she opened them again and found it all to be a ruse. A silly, preposterous distraction when she was old enough to know better.
Unsure how long she sat quietly, Violet had the strangest feeling, as if she were sinking, and the chair shifted beneath her. There was a sensation of floating, so much so that she held onto the arms to stop herself from falling.
It wasn’t that she was sinking, not at all, but rather that her tiny frame seemed to lift in the seat as if, without the weight of age and the wearying experience of life dragging down her bones, she was a feather! Nimble! Tiny!
Still with her eyes closed, she was struck by a smell, so evocative it took her breath away. It was the unmistakable scent of her parents’ home. A smell she didn’t know she had forgotten. A combination of cooked vegetables, the slightly sour odour of washing that was nearly dry yet not rigorously clean, the beeswax polish used to buff the sideboards and the lavender water her mother liked to douse herself in post bath. A unique blend, a heady bouquet she would have been hard pushed to accurately describe yet, the moment she inhaled it, could recall with precision.
Tears trickled down the back of her throat; was this real? Afraid to open her eyes and prove she might be dreaming, she sat tight. Aware now of her back, her spine which felt soft and flexible, like she could run up and down the stairs for days! Gone was the creaking fragility to her bones, the lumbering encumbrance of immobile limbs, the tightness to her knuckles and joints that meant she feared falling. So brittle, she was certain she’d shatter like china on impact.
A wide smile formed on her mouth, where whole teeth, solid and sturdy in her plump gums now sat. Hesitantly opening her eyes, she placed her shaking hand over her mouth, before jumping up and walking to the mirror that hung over thefireplace in the front parlour of her childhood home. Her fingers touched her cheekbones, her lips. My goodness, she had been so young! Her skin like peaches and cream without a line, a wrinkle, a dent, a scar and no dark patches of sun damage through which poked obstinate bristles.
‘How on earth?’ It was at once wonderful, overwhelming and glorious!
She was here, at home on October 14th, 1940.
Dizzy with joy and disbelief, she noted the smoke from her breath as she exhaled in this chilly room where the meagre fire did little to warm the air and the coal barely glowed in the grate. It was sparsely furnished, a little more drab than she’d remembered, yet familiar. The two brown chairs with cream lace antimacassars draped on the back, and wide rounded arms, perfect for resting a book or cup of tea. A framed black and white picture of her unsmiling grandmother in her high-necked blouse sat on the mantlepiece. The rag rug in front of the fireplace, where a companion set of tongs, prong, brush and dustpan dangled from a polished brass stand.
The large radio sat on the end table and the embroidered footstool her mother had received when her great aunt Lily had died rested on the floor. Violet had quite forgotten that too. It was a room that lived in her memory as a place of colour, of joy! Yet the reality was a certain bleakness, a dour room really that could only benefit from central heating, bright paint, soft blankets, colourful cushions, and a couple of fancy lamps, which, of course, would all be available to whoever lived here, in time.
Part of the gloom, of course, came from the lack of streetlamps, the blacked-out windows and the shiver of fear that ran through every house in this country at war. Looking towards the door, she wondered if her mother were in the kitchen, and her heart stuttered with the desire to run to her mum! Chen’swords came to her now,‘you can’t leave the room, or you will find yourself at home.’
Violet didn’t want that, didn’t want to waste a second, and so sat down again, sat very still, and waited. She ran her hand over her frock, one of two she owned, and the green, knitted cardigan she wore over the top, made by her mother’s own hand. Lifting the hem, she raised it to her mouth and kissed the wool, inhaling it, recognising her own youthful scent in a time before deodorants and perfumes were readily available. Her tights were thick wool, and it was jarring to realise that the faint odour of a body in need of a good wash came from herself. These the days when bathing happened weekly, and hair was washed about the same. Her scalp itched with the need to feel the soft suds of a decent shampoo.
