The Artificial Anatomy of Parks Read online

  My grandmother tightened her grip on my hand. “You’re a very loving girl, Tallulah.”

  “Let’s try this soup,” I said.

  I stayed with her until she fell asleep. Her head rolled forwards and she started mumbling,

  “Not like that, careful – you’ll fall, Albert – put me down – I can’t breathe – ”

  I ran a sink full of hot water in the kitchen and dropped the dirty dishes into it. My father came in. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that he was standing there, hands resting on the back of a chair. “I haven’t perhaps said,” he started, then cleared his throat. “Thank you for taking care of Mother today. I know it’s a lot of responsibility for someone your age.”

  I wiped my hands on a dishtowel, and turned to face him. “Have you told Aunt Gillian or Aunt Vivienne yet?”

  “Gillian’s coming up tomorrow.”

  “What about Aunt Vivienne?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll do the dishes.”

  I dropped the dishcloth onto the table and went upstairs.

  I could see Aunt Gillian’s suitcase in the hallway. I was sitting halfway up the stairs, listening to her conversation with my father in the kitchen.

  “Of course she’s not coming,” she said.

  “Did you tell her what happened?” my father asked.

  “Yes, yes. You know what she’s like. She has other ‘engagements’, Edward. Too busy to see her own mother.”

  “Don’t be too hard on her, Gillian.”

  “No one’s too hard on her.” Aunt Gillian’s voice was rising. “She likes to play the victim, and you know it.”

  I felt a stab of irritation. If Vivienne’s story about being knocked out was true, she was a victim.

  “She has no thought for others,” Aunt Gillian said.

  I walked slowly upstairs. My grandmother was sitting up in bed, spooning porridge into her mouth. “How are you today?” she asked.

  “Gillian’s here.”

  She grimaced. “I see.”

  “How’s your porridge?”

  “Disgusting, without salt. Salt is the only good thing in this world.”

  “Other than gin,” I said, sitting down on the end of her bed.

  “Hruh,” she said. “You’ll never settle down with a tongue like that.”

  “I don’t want to settle down.”

  “We all need somebody, my darling.”

  “Even you?”

  “I have somebody,” she said, nodding her head at me.

  “But really, did you need Grandad?”

  “What’s with the questions all the time?” she asked. She flung the bedcovers back. “Open the window, I need some fresh air.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, getting up quickly. “I’ll do it. You’re meant to be resting.”

  “I’ll rest when I’m dead,” she said, gritting her teeth.

  I opened the window, and went back over to the bed. “Don’t use that word.”

  “Dead?”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said. “It’s what we’re born to do.”

  “Can we please not talk about it?” I said, biting the inside of my cheek.

  “Tallulah,” my grandmother said gently. “You have to let go at some point. Look at me – I’ve buried both parents and a husband. Sometimes it helps to talk about it. And sometimes it helps to throw away their things so they’re completely invisible everywhere but in here.” She tapped her chest. “That’s what I did with your grandfather.”

  “Why?”

  “When he died, it was almost as if I died too.” She sighed. “I went through the house ripping all the telephone cords out of the wall, so I would never have to hear more bad news.”

  “So you did love him?”

  “It’s complicated, darling.”

  “If dying is so horrible for other people, then why do you want to do it?”

  She held her arms out to me. “But there might come a time when I’m in a lot of pain, sweetheart.” She held up her hand as I turned to leave and I went back to her. She smiled at me and brushed a lock of hair away from my face. “We won’t talk about it then. But I’m not afraid.” I twisted away from her. “Fine, go downstairs. Tell Gillian I’m ready to receive her now.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  The next few days Aunt Gillian cooked and cleaned for us while we played cards upstairs on my grandmother’s bed. I was in charge of taping Murder, She Wrote and looking after the garden. My grandmother watched from her bedroom window now, screaming orders at me from there. She also let me smoke her cigarettes, until Aunt Gillian caught me behind the rose garden. “What would your father say?” she cried.

  “Not much,” I said.

  My father had left the day Aunt Gillian arrived, threatening to come back and take me home for Christmas. I tried to make my grandmother let me stay but she sided with him.

  “But I don’t want to leave you,” I said, frustrated.

  “Edward would be lonely if you didn’t go,” she said, stroking my arm, and I tried not to look too sceptical.

  “You’ll be lonely if I do.”

  “I’ll enjoy the peace and quiet.” She saw the look on my face. “Of course I’ll miss you, silly girl. But I’m getting too old to keep an eye on you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Okay.”

  The night before I left, my grandmother showed me where the champagne was kept and I opened a bottle, under her direction, and served it in two glasses that had been chilling in the fridge. I sipped at the drink, not sure about the dry, sharp taste.

  “Here’s to us,” she said.

  The taxi driver taking me to the station the next morning was cheerful, but I didn’t want to talk. I still felt guilty for leaving. The district nurse had wheeled my grandmother out to say goodbye, although she’d tried to walk. “I don’t care,” the nurse said, when my grandmother waved her arms indignantly. “You go in the wheelchair or you don’t go at all.”

  “Well, then I’ll go in the chair,” my grandmother said, disgustedly. “I suppose you’d like to start breathing for me next, would you?”

  The view outside the window of the train seemed to be getting greyer the closer we got to London, matching my thoughts. I wasn’t looking forward to Christmas alone with my father. We’d gone to Gillian’s every year since my mother’s death.

  At home, my father opened the front door wearing a dark blue jumper with leather elbow patches; I’d never seen it before. “Come in,” he said. “How was the journey?”

  “Fine.”

  I dragged my suitcase to the foot of the stairs and ran into the kitchen. Mr Tickles was lying underneath the table; he looked even more battered than before. I scooped him up and hugged him. “Miss me?” I asked him. I stroked him underneath his chin and he started his rattling.

  “I’ll take your suitcase upstairs,” my father said, appearing behind me.

  “No, I’ll do it. And I promised I’d phone Grandma.”

  “Yes, of course. Fine. How is she?”

  “She’s probably lonely.”

  “Well, Gillian and the children will spend Christmas with her, so you don’t have to worry so much.”

  I looked down at Mr Tickles who was drooling onto my hand. “She’ll be complaining when I go back then,” I said. “Gillian fusses too much for her.”

  My father frowned. “You’re talking about the Easter holidays, I take it.”

  “No,” I said, feeling a flush rising up my neck. “I’m going back after Christmas to look after her.”

  “I’m afraid not, Tallulah. You’ve spent too long away from school as it is,” he said. “Your grandmother and I both think you need to rejoin your classmates.”

  “Grandma likes having me there.”

  “Of course she does.”

  “Then please let me stay with her. Just ’til she’s better anyway.”

  “I don’t know how long
that’ll be.”

  “I need to make sure she’s okay.”

  “That’s what the nurses are there for,” he said. “And I’ll be travelling up as often as I can. Too many people will just be in the way. Why don’t you try to concentrate on school for now.”

  “I’m not letting it happen again.”

  My father looked taken aback. “Letting what… Ah. I see.” He pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Mr Tickles purred loudly in between us.

  My father was the one who broke the silence. “We’ll discuss this later,” he said. “In any case, it’s nice to have you back.” He smiled grimly, then went into his study and shut the door.

  I went upstairs. Mr Tickles trotted behind me, rubbing his gums on any sharp corners that were easy to reach. The house was hot compared to my grandmother’s. I took off my jumper and jeans, unzipped my suitcase and pulled out a dress she’d given me, a black halter neck from the fifties with a full skirt, fitted bodice and red polka dots. She’d made it herself, she said, for a Christmas party one year. My grandfather was only interested in racing and she hadn’t always got enough money from him to buy food for the week, let alone clothes. But my grandmother had been a farm girl. She planted a vegetable garden, kept chickens, walked to town to buy fabric cheaply. When my grandfather fell off his horse one winter and broke his leg, she convinced him to set up an account for her and make regular payments into it.

  “How did you convince him?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t bring him anything to eat or drink until he’d done it,” she said.

  I pulled the dress on, smoothing the fabric down and looking in the mirror. I didn’t fill the bodice out – my grandmother had warned me about my weight.

  “No one likes a skinny girl,” she said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “You look like you couldn’t bear children.”

  “I don’t think that’s what boys my age are looking for.”

  I telephoned her from my bedroom, sitting on the floor with Mr Tickles passed out in front of me. “How are you?” I asked her.

  “Hungry,” she complained. “That Nazi woman won’t let me have any dinner.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, she won’t let me have what I want.”

  “Eat what she makes you, Grams. You can’t starve yourself.”

  “Don’t you start.”

  “Eat.”

  “Fine,” she said. “You left a sketchbook here. Would you like me to send it on?”

  “No,” I said. “That’s for you.”

  I could hear pages rustling on the other end.

  “They’re very good,” she said. “Hruh, when did you do that one?”

  “Which one?”

  “The last one.”

  “A few days ago,” I said. “When you were asleep.” It was a pencil sketch of her, dozing in bed. Her hair had come unpinned and the light coming through the window had made her look fuzzy and transparent.

  “It’s lovely,” she said. “I’ll frame it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Grams?”

  “Yes?”

  “Dad told me I’m not coming back to see you until Easter.”

  “He shouldn’t have. I was going to do that myself.”

  “It’s alright.”

  “I still want you around, very much.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Don’t be angry with your father.”

  “I’m not,” I lied.

  “I’d better go,” she said. “I need to get that Nazi woman to take me to the toilet.”

  “I’ll call you soon.”

  “Goodbye, sweetheart.”

  “Bye Grams.”

  I hung up and went downstairs. My father was making stew and potatoes in the kitchen.

  “I recognise that dress,” he said.

  “Grandma gave it to me.”

  “You two seem to be very close these days.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s good. You certainly seem to have brought her out of her shell.” He was looking down at the pots on the stove; he still seemed angry from our conversation earlier. “I gather Malkie’s been teaching you the piano.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you enjoyed that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe we can see about getting you some lessons at school as well.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “I know you don’t want to go back,” he said. “But Mother is really too frail to take care of you any longer.”

  “She’ll get better.”

  “She’ll be fine, Tallulah, but she’s tired and weak.”

  “She’ll want someone she knows around the house.”

  “It’s a nice thought,” my father said. “But you have to go back to school.”

  “It’s not just a thought,” I said.

  I turned around to leave. My father called my name.

  “What?”

  “I tried to take some time off work this week, but it wasn’t possible.”

  I knew Grandma was wrong, I wanted to say. I knew you wouldn’t be lonely without me. I knew you’d just be at work anyway.

  “I don’t care.”

  “I’m sure you don’t,” he said. “I just thought I should let you know.”

  “Well now I know.”

  I slammed the door behind me.

  I spent the holidays trying to read Romeo and Juliet, our set text, although every time I thought about going back to school my spine felt cold.

  As far as I could see, the tragedy depended on Friar Lawrence’s message not reaching Romeo on time, which seemed pretty unlucky. And Romeo made me feel uneasy, falling in love with Juliet in about a minute. He made me think of my mother and Uncle Jack in fact – now I was older, looking back, I could feel the crackle of tension between them, and I didn’t want to think about it.

  I bought the Christmas tree myself that year, haggling with the man who was selling them by the side of the road, then dragging it home. I put it up in a giant pot in the living-room and started decorating it. Mr Tickles came to watch, and tried to kill all the baubles.

  My father was off work on Christmas Day and up early, sitting at the kitchen table when I came down. I’d spent Christmas Eve alone, watching re-runs of old comedy shows.

  “Merry Christmas,” he said, awkwardly.

  “Merry Christmas,” I mumbled. The sky was bright outside, but colourless, like salt. My father was already dressed.

  “Would you like some pancakes?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  He started moving about and opening drawers, hunting for a whisk. I flopped down on a chair. “What’s that noise?”

  “I don’t know,” my father said, egg in one hand.

  We went into the living-room. The tree was swaying in the corner of the room. Purple bows and gold bells were clashing into each other and bouncing across the floor. In the middle of the tree, two big eyes stared out at us.

  “That bloody cat,” my father said.

  I reached into the branches and pulled Mr Tickles out, kissing his nose. “What are we going to do with you?” I asked.

  My father looked around the living-room. “Would you like to open your presents now?”

  I shrugged. “Do you want to?”

  “For goodness’ sake.”

  “Alright,” I said. “Let’s open them now.”

  We sat by the tree. I had five presents: Tom Sawyer from my father – ‘it was my favourite when I was a boy,’ he said – money from Aunt Vivienne, a fountain pen from Aunt Gillian, a music-box from Georgia and some pearl-drop earrings from my grandmother.

  “They’re Mother’s,” my father said when I opened the box. “An anniversary gift from my father.”

  “I thought Grandad didn’t buy Grandma presents.”

  “Not often,” he said. “On very… special occasions. I don’t know why she’s giving them to you.”

  “She says they’ll suit my hair,” I said, reading the n
ote she’d written. “What’s wrong with me having them?”

  “Your ears aren’t pierced are they?”

  “No, but I could get them pierced.”

  “And you’re only thirteen.”

  “I’m nearly fourteen.” I wondered what he meant by ‘special occasions’. Occasions like when my grandfather beat his wife, or her daughter? My father’s face was stony; he could have been thinking about those times too. Maybe he’d been afraid for my grandmother like Uncle Jack had been.

  He stretched his hand out for the box. I handed it over silently, then gave my father his present. I’d bought him Birdsong, by Sebastian Faulks. It was the biggest thing I could find at the bookshop, and the woman at the till had praised my choice. “It’s very moving,” she’d said. “And sexual.”

  Outside, I’d flicked through a couple of pages, but it didn’t seem too graphic to me.

  My father unwrapped the book slowly. “Thank you, Tallulah,” he said. “This will certainly go on the to-read pile.”

  “Thanks for my book too,” I said, politely.

  “Yes, well,” he said. “How about those pancakes now?”

  We ate for the rest of the day: pancakes, chocolate coins from my father’s nursing staff, satsumas, nuts, turkey, roast potatoes, stuffing, carrots, Christmas pudding with brandy cream. I called my grandmother to say thank you for the earrings, but Aunt Gillian answered and told me she was sleeping. After I’d hung up, I curled up on the sofa and watched films. I used to do that with my mother, my head in her lap, one of her hands stroking my hair, the other writing thank you cards. She liked to get them posted off quickly.

  During an ad break, I realised that the raised voice I’d been hearing for the past five minutes wasn’t the background soundtrack for the film; it was coming from my father’s study. He had an extension line in there so calls could come through without disturbing the rest of the house, but this didn’t sound like the voice he used for patients. I tiptoed down the hall, avoiding floorboards that I knew creaked or groaned.

  “It’s really irrelevant now,” he was saying. “It’s not the money. We have money… I don’t see why I should… I had every right to interfere… ”

  I tried to creep closer. Mr Tickles came up behind me and rubbed himself against my ankles, purring loudly. I nudged him away with my foot. “Meeoooowww,” he said, displeased.