The Artificial Anatomy of Parks Read online

  I heard the front door open and male voices, feet stamping; it’d been snowing lightly since we got in. I went to the top of the stairs and crouched out of sight as Aunt Gillian came into the hallway to greet them.

  “It’s freezing, Mum,” James said.

  “How’s our notorious guest?” Uncle George said.

  “Not doing as well as we hoped.” Aunt Gillian sounded worried. “She was actually quite difficult earlier. Edward said she wasn’t exactly setting the school on fire at her Primary, and we thought maybe the boarding school would be a good influence on her, but she sounds like she’s struggling… Of course, it’s hard to tell how academic Evelyn was, because she had to leave school so early, but… ”

  “Boring. What’s for dinner?” James asked. They went into the kitchen and I went back to the bedroom.

  My father was due late on Christmas Eve. We were already in our pyjamas, killing time until we could go to bed, and Georgia was fizzing with excitement; she kept hugging me and Michael and her stuffed dog, Humphrey. “I won’t be able to sleep,” she kept saying.

  My heart skipped when I heard the doorbell, and then there he was, carrying Mr Tickles in the travelling cage. I let him hug me, quickly, then opened the cage and carefully lifted Mr Tickles out, kissing his ears and stroking his belly.

  “I see Gillian got you here in one piece,” my father said.

  “Oh shush,” Aunt Gillian said, taking his coat. “We had a lovely ride over, didn’t we, Tallulah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Edward, would you like some mulled wine?”

  “That would be nice.”

  She left us alone in the hall and Mr Tickles struggled out of my arms and padded after her. I inspected my feet, so it seemed like I had something to do.

  “Ah. Are you looking forward to tomorrow then, Tallulah?” my father asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. It’s nice of Gillian to let us take over the house, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t understand what he meant. There were only two of us, and my father barely seemed to be there at all. I looked up, he looked back at me, but not like he really saw me. I didn’t answer him, and after a moment he walked into the kitchen and I followed, confused. He rubbed his eyes a lot while Aunt Gillian fussed over him, heating up the soup she’d made us all for dinner earlier. He didn’t ask me any more questions, or touch me again.

  We half-watched TV, then went to our rooms. I climbed under my blanket and Mr Tickles sat on my pillow. He looked thinner and mangier than before and I wondered whether my father was feeding him properly.

  Georgia tied her stocking onto the end of her bed, and mine onto the doorknob, then turned the main light off and climbed into bed. I could hear the grown-ups downstairs, the murmur of voices and the chink of glasses and Georgia a few feet away, her breathing getting slower and heavier. I squeezed my eyes shut, but my brain was buzzing and I didn’t fall asleep for hours.

  Christmas morning was louder than at my house, and later to start, and we were only allowed to open one present each in the morning. Gillian’s Christmas pudding was homemade, like my mother’s, which she used to start making in February, but it was dry and there were too many pieces of fruit in it. We had to watch the Queen’s speech after lunch, while everyone opened the rest of their presents and drew up lists of what they’d got. Michael and James argued over who had the best haul; I pulled a cracker with Georgia and won a windup musical toy that annoyed Uncle George no end. In the living-room, in front of the TV, my father sat upright, fingers drumming on the arm of his chair. I’d stared at him over my food earlier, trying to find signs of grief, or guilt, but he looked exactly the same as always. It made it worse that he’d known that I might struggle at boarding school, I thought, because it meant that he’d wanted me out of the way at any cost, even if it meant humiliation for me. Aunt Gillian’s words rang in my head the whole time – ‘Edward said she wasn’t exactly setting the school on fire at her Primary.’

  Around six o’clock I escaped to my bedroom. I took the photo of my mother out again and rubbed my thumb across it, over her face. “Merry Christmas,” I said.

  I got off to a bad start in 1992. My teachers were losing patience with me. Before, when I got homework or tests back, they wrote comments like good effort, or come and see me and we’ll go through it. Now they wrote I’m starting to get really worried, Tallulah. I dreaded seeing the grades circled in red on the bottom of the page. I began forgetting to hand homework in on time, skipping classes and hiding in the toilets, or in the school nurse’s waiting area.

  “You must have really weak genes, or something,” Cressida said. “To be ill all the time.”

  I didn’t say anything. I wondered if maybe my mother had had a weak heart – I knew that was genetic. Maybe that was why she’d been ill all the time by the end; maybe that was why she hadn’t survived.

  “We’re going to have to get in touch with your father,” Miss Rochard told me, sadly. “I’m sorry, Tallulah, but your grades aren’t improving at all. It’s school policy.”

  “Please don’t,” I said. “I’ll get better, I promise.”

  “Well I’m glad you’re willing to work hard,” Miss Rochard said, but she looked worried. Her hair was dirty and scraped back in a bun; she was chewing her nails too, and it wasn’t the first time she’d worn the same outfit twice in a row. “Please try to concentrate,” she said to me. “For me, please?”

  “Okay.”

  “I trust you, Tallulah. And you can trust me too – I’m here for you.”

  “Okay.”

  A week later, Miss Rochard burst into tears during a sex-education class. The next day, Ms Conrad appeared; Miss Rochard had some personal problems, and they didn’t know when she’d be coming back.

  Ms Conrad had no time for daydreamers, she told me; either I learn to focus, or spend my lunchtimes going through the lessons by myself.

  I glared at her as she walked back to her desk, mad at how smug she looked. Turning, she caught my eye and raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t there something you should be getting on with, Tallulah?” she said.

  I stared at the page in front of me, but my heart was pounding so hard that I could feel it in my skull. Please let me leave this school, I begged silently. Please let me go back to my old friends and live in my house and see Mr Tickles. I’ll be nice to my father. If he lets me go back, it means he has nothing to hide, anyway.

  “Tallulah?” Ms Conrad called. “I can’t see your pen moving.”

  “Tallulah, write something,” Abi whispered. “Or you’ll get another detention.”

  I met up with Starr every week in my first year, but it wasn’t until the summer term that she started talking to me properly. I was trying to blow on a grass stalk like a whistle; she was striding ahead. Starr was nearly a foot taller than me and she had breasts and a gang of friends who did whatever she wanted. I didn’t see why Aunt Gillian called her ‘poor Starr’ either.

  “Tallie, I’m sorry I haven’t really seen you much,” she said, stopping suddenly. “And I’m sorry I didn’t come and see you when you first got here.”

  I threw the stalk away and pulled up another one. “You have your own friends. Whatever.”

  “It’s just, Mum was always so weird about you guys. And then I felt guilty for not coming to the funeral… ”

  I stopped listening; I played with my stalk and thought about Aunt Vivienne that summer, how she’d drunk more than usual, laughing hysterically, linking arms with Uncle Jack, and the looks she’d given my mother as she was doing it.

  Ten

  My father was busy again over the summer holidays. Aunt Gillian and the cousins were off on a family holiday in Greece for two weeks, so I was sent to my grandmother’s this time.

  “They’ll join you there in August for a bit,” my father said. “And I’ll come down when I can.”

  No one picked me up. I caught a bus from town and walked at the other end. The road to my grandmother’s was alm
ost a dirt track. I was dragging my suitcase behind me and by the time I arrived I was covered in dust.

  I stopped at the bottom of the drive, partly to wriggle my fingers to try to get the blood flowing in them again, and partly to take stock of my surroundings. Looking around, I saw the trees were encroaching onto the path and the grass was high, almost halfway up my calves, and I wondered whether the gardener had left.

  My grandmother must have been watching out for me, because the door was thrown open before I had a chance to knock. “Come in,” she said, “and may I enquire what on earth is going on with your appearance?”

  My hair was pulled back in a ponytail and held there with a rubber band; my fringe was long enough to cover my eyebrows and the tips of my eyelashes. My t-shirt was crumpled and, looking down at my feet, I realised I had odd socks on.

  “I… ” I started, but she was already walking off.

  I followed her into the kitchen. This was the first time I’d been at the house by myself with her, but for some reason I wasn’t afraid. A kettle was boiling on the stove; there were fresh chrysanthemums lying on the table, bound with blue string, and a cigarette smouldering in an ashtray on the floor by the open back doors, like she’d been smoking and looking out on the garden.

  “Tea?” my grandmother asked. “I don’t drink the stuff, but I know people do.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Your hair looks like you cut it yourself.”

  “I did.”

  My grandmother looked away, but I thought she was smiling.

  I picked up my suitcase and lugged it up the stairs to my old room. I had a cold shower and changed into a new t-shirt. I tried to do something with my hair, but it was too matted, so I snapped the elastic band back around it and went downstairs. My grandmother was out in the garden, walking around the vegetable patch; it looked like she was squeezing tomatoes, checking them for firmness. “Tallulah,” she called, “bring me the spray can from the windowsill.”

  I took it out to her, noticing how the sill itself was crumbling under its white paint. The sun was low in the sky, flashing at me through the leaves and branches of the oak trees that grew near the house. My grandmother didn’t seem to notice it; she walked between the rows of tomatoes, spritzing them with whatever was in the can. The fat, red fruit, the deep green of the vine leaves, the golden light, the straw hat she was wearing; everything was so vivid and I felt a tug in my chest that my mother would never be able to look at anything as beautiful as this again.

  The peace was beautiful too. Except for the birds, and my grandmother’s soft tread, there was no noise at all. It was a relief after the confusion of living with hundreds of other kids.

  My grandmother turned and walked back towards the house. “Are you coming?” she called to me. And then, like she’d read my mind, “No point in catching a cold now you’re free.”

  Before my father came to visit that summer I was left to my own devices, so I had time to roam my grandmother’s house and garden. Everywhere I looked seemed to have been touched with neglect. The ornamental pond to the right of the lawns was covered with a fine sheen of algae, the rose garden was withering, the jetty was rotting, the lake clogged with reeds and, beyond the lake, the orchard of apple and cherry trees grew in rows of straggling, twisted wood. Only the vegetable patch near the house had survived. “What happened to the gardener?” I asked my grandmother.

  “The National Trust stole him,” she said, sourly.

  Inside the house, the furniture was faring just as badly. Chesterfield sofas were spilling out their stuffing, wooden trunks were splintering, rugs were threadbare and curtains fell off the rods if you pulled too heavily on them. I wandered through the rooms, picking up fluff and dirt as I went, and thinking that my father couldn’t have made our house more different to his old one if he’d tried.

  In the hospital, Aunt Gillian’s plumping up my father’s pillow. I find myself wondering if it’s greasy after being under his head for four days straight. My father would hate that, but maybe they already changed it.

  “Open your eyes, Edward,” Aunt Gillian murmurs. “We’re all waiting for you.” She looks around at me. “Might as well try,” she says.

  I force a smile. I want to say: No. I know you’re worried, but he can’t open his eyes ’til I’ve got all the answers. Not now I’m doing something about it.

  A nurse comes into the room. “Time to move the patient,” she says.

  “Do you have to?” Aunt Gillian says. “I’ve just made him comfortable.” She sticks her lower lip out, like an irritable child.

  “I’m afraid I do, yes,” the nurse says. “It’s to prevent atelectasis and pneumonia, and bedsores.”

  “What’s… ” Aunt Gillian begins.

  “Need some help?” I ask.

  “Go on,” she says. “But don’t let the doctors know I roped you into it.”

  We turn my father onto one side. I feel like flinching when I touch him – his skin is so warm and yielding. I have to set my jaw and pretend he’s someone else. The other two don’t notice.

  I can probably count on one hand the number of times there was physical contact between me and my father after I went to school. Much like the number of times he called me up. I suppose he called my grandmother about as often.

  He called that summer, the night before he arrived, but just to let us know he’d be with us by late afternoon.

  My grandmother waited for him downstairs, in front of the Wimbledon final. I lay on my stomach in the first-floor hallway, listening to the muted thwack of tennis balls and excitement from the crowds. When the crunch and spray of gravel came, I drew back from the top of the stairs. A key turned in the front door; I heard footsteps as my grandmother came out of the living-room. “Edward.”

  “Hello, Mother.”

  There was a small, dry, kissing sound.

  “How are you?”

  “Fine. How’s Tallulah?”

  “Delightful.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I haven’t got a clue.”

  “I distinctly remember asking you to keep an eye on her, Mother.”

  “Stop fussing, Edward. The girl’s not as foolish as she looks.”

  I had to hold in a sneeze, and missed most of what my father said back.

  “… damage. Hardly a candidate for your particular brand of attention.”

  “No need to be uncivil, Edward. Come and have a drink. That hideous man is going to win Wimbledon.”

  “Agassi?”

  Her voice got louder. “I’m sure Tallulah will be along shortly to say hello.”

  I lingered on the top step for a while before going downstairs. My father and grandmother were in the living-room, sitting in their usual spots.

  “Hello, Tallulah,” my grandmother said, looking at me over the rim of her glass.

  “Hi.”

  “How has your summer been so far?” my father asked.

  I shrugged.

  “I thought we could have a belated birthday celebration for you. Is there anything in particular you’d like to do?”

  “Not really.”

  “We can ask Cook to make you a cake,” my grandmother said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I don’t want to do anything.”

  “You’ve got to do something,” my father said, impatiently.

  “Don’t force her to celebrate if she doesn’t want to, Edward,” my grandmother said.

  “You’re not helping, Mother.”

  “Tallulah doesn’t want to have a birthday party. Surely that’s all there is to it.”

  “Tallulah is still a child.”

  “I’m going outside,” I said.

  I felt prickles of anger all over my skin as I crossed the lawn to the oak trees and started to climb one. The bark scratched the palms of my hands and my bare legs. I shimmied up to the lowest branch and sat there. I hated grown-ups and the world they ran. My father didn’t care about me and none of my teachers cared abou
t me, apart from Mr Hicks. They wanted me to fit in and pretend to be happy as if nothing had happened. Even Malkie hadn’t bothered to come and see me. I lay back along the branch, steadying myself with my hands, and kicked my feet against the trunk of the tree. After a while my father came out and stood beneath me. “I’m sorry, Tallulah,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  I looked down at him.

  “But these things are important,” he said. “Evelyn’s gone, but we can’t give up.”

  “How did Mum die?” I asked, surprising myself.

  My father shook his head. “I don’t think that’s an appropriate conversation to have right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you shouldn’t dwell on these things.”

  “I should know,” I said. I looked back up through the branches.

  He sighed. “Your mother was hit by a car.”

  “But she wasn’t dead straight away, was she?”

  “No.”

  “So how did she actually die? Why couldn’t you save her?”

  He took a while to answer. I kept staring at the sky. “She died of an aneurysm, caused by trauma to the skull. There was nothing I could do.”

  “Was Uncle Jack there?”

  My father’s voice changed. “How did you know about that?” He took a step forward. “Had he come around before?”

  “You answer me first.”

  We were silent for a moment, eyeing each other. I put my feet against the trunk and pushed hard. It didn’t move, but the strain felt good. I could tell my father didn’t want to talk too much about that day in case he revealed something. In my mind, he’d already slipped up by saying there was nothing he could do – my father had always been able to do something. That was why there had been so many missed parties, and dinners, and ballet performances. Because he was needed elsewhere – to save someone.