The Storyteller's Daughter (30 page)

“I won't, I promise.”

The evening we watch the sunset, Digger refuses to leave with Ewan. Instead the scruffy dog sits by the side of my mother's bed, cocking his head to one side and looking baffled as Ewan whispers to him from the doorway: “Come on, boy. Come along.”

My mother has fallen asleep, her hand hanging out from underneath the covers. Digger sniffs her fingers and gives them a gentle lick, letting out a small whine, before settling himself down on the carpet. He has made himself perfectly clear: he is here for the long haul.

For the next week he stays, only reluctantly leaving my mother's side when I insist on dragging him out for a walk tied to piece of string. The rest of the time he lies quietly on her bed, allowing her to brush him gently with an old hairbrush. After three days he looks like a completely different dog. His matted, straggly fur is now smooth and shiny, and with all the dust having been brushed out it looks at least a couple of shades lighter. My mother claims that next year she will enter him into Crufts under the name Horatio, which she thinks is far more fitting for such a handsome dog.

On Fridays and Wednesdays Ewan comes as usual, letting himself in the back gate and getting straight down to a couple of hours work in the garden. When he is done, he comes to the house and knocks quietly on the back door in case my mother is asleep. He hands me tins of dog food from his van, and removes his muddy boots before padding up the stairs in threadbare socks to see Digger, who wags his tail furiously against the mattress, but never leaves my mother's side.

From downstairs, I can hear Ewan's voice, slow and deep, and I know that he is telling my mother tales of Gods and Goddesses, heroes and heroines as he sits by her side. He moves the TV from the kitchen into her bedroom, spending nearly an hour fiddling with electric cables and aerials, so that she can watch all her favourite cookery programmes. He makes her herbal teas which fill the house with the scent of sage, peppermint, dandelion and chamomile, and which ease her pain better than the pink and blue pills combined. He hands me a flier for half price pizza, on the back of which he has scrawled the preparation instructions for various concoctions, as well as handing me a large bag of leaves, which I spend ages identifying with the aid of a gardening book rather than calling him to admit that I don't know my milk thistle from my rosehip.

As usual, whenever Ewan is working in the garden I take him his mug of coffee. There are no homemade delicacies to accompany it now, no apple strudel or fudge cake, just a plate of jaffa cakes if he's lucky and I've remembered to pick some up from Tesco. The day I approach him empty handed and announce that the kettle has just boiled, he looks quizzically at my empty hands.

“Well, I don't see why I should keep trudging down here to serve you,” I say. “You've got legs, you can come to the house and have it.”

Ewan stares at me as if I am someone he doesn't quite recognise, while I turn and walk back up the path, my face strangely hot, my stomach knotted, wondering if he will follow me. When I hear the clatter of his spade being dropped on the ground, and then the sound of his boots on the grass, I smile to myself, feeling relieved.

“You look dreadful,” says Ewan, as I sit opposite him at the kitchen table.

“Thanks. You're such a flatterer.”

“Sorry,” he smiles, “that came out wrong. I just meant you look really tired.”

I rub my eyes, feeling like I could fall asleep right here and now. “I'm fine,” I tell him.

Ewan stuffs a whole jaffa cake in his mouth and shakes his head.

“Liar,” he mumbles, crumbs stuck to his lips.

He's right, of course, I'm not fine at all. I'm not eating. I'm not sleeping. I am desperately trying not to think about the past, telling myself that now is not the time, that I have to concentrate on caring for my mother, but every time I look at her gaunt face, Gwennie's words come flooding back, filling me with all kinds of conflicting thoughts and questions and feelings. One moment I want to track down the people who wronged my mother and tear them limb from limb, and the next I just want to curl into a ball and pretend that none of it is real. One minute I want to tell my mother that it's okay, that I know the truth, that she doesn't have to pretend anymore, and the next I want to shake her and tell her that this isn't fair, that she can't just leave me, not now, not on my own. I want to scream but I need to be composed, I want to weep but I need to be strong. I am so tired and so confused, and there is only one thing I am sure of: I need to keep it together, because I am all she has.

“I just don't know what do to make things better,” I tell Ewan. “I feel so useless.” Even as the words tumble out of my mouth, I want to grab them and stuff them back in, to say that actually I am fine, I know what I'm doing, everything's under control. But I am just so tired that I don't have the energy to pretend.

“You're doing great,” Ewan says, encouragingly.

“But sometimes I just don't know what to say to her,” I admit, sadly. “When I see her sick and in pain… what am I meant to say to help make that better?”

Ewan shrugs and stares into his coffee. “Maybe you just have to be with her. Perhaps there's nothing you can say.”

I don't tell him that every time I open my mouth to speak I am terrified of what might come spilling out, how a million questions are now constantly on the tip of my tongue, how I hush my mother each time she starts to tell a story of the past, acutely aware of the painful truth that lurks behind the lies. I don't tell him about how everything has changed, about how it now takes all my effort to see my mother as the same vibrant, positive and slightly eccentric woman I have always known, instead of someone who is bruised and broken. I don't tell him that now, when I finally know her better than I ever have done before, she sometimes feels like a stranger. I don't tell him because it is too hard to even admit these things to myself, let alone to somebody else.

“If you can't think of anything to say, perhaps try telling her a story. I know she loves that. I think it takes her away from it all.”

“I couldn't,” I say, adamantly, “I wouldn't know where to begin.”

“It doesn't matter where you begin. It's where you go that's important.”

I shake my head, although he's probably right. I know how much my mother loves it when Ewan tells her tales of dragons and Gods and whatever else he babbles on about, and in the middle of the night when she can't sleep I sometimes long for something to sooth her. But telling stories, that's just not me.

“I can't. I'm no good at things like that. I couldn't do all that imaginary make believe stuff. Fairies and magic kingdoms and romance. I just can't.”

“Sure you can. Look, I'll give you an opening line and you just say whatever comes into your head. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… ”

Ewan pauses and looks at me expectantly. I feel like an awkward teenager who has just been shoved in front of a room full of relatives and ordered to dance for everyone's amusement. I just know I'm going to mess it up and make a fool of myself, but if it might help my mother I am willing to give it a go. I open my mouth to speak, but my mind is completely blank.

“I don't know,” I say. “That's a silly beginning. What could come after that?”

“Oh, come on!” exclaims Ewan, “It's the opening of
Star
Wars
!”

“I've never seen
Star Wars
.”

“You've never… you are kidding me, right?”

“In case you hadn't realised, I'm not really into films about flying saucers or aliens or whatever it's about.”

“Okay, forget
Star Wars
. Let's try again. A long time ago, in a far and distant land, there was a – ”

I try to think, looking around me for inspiration. This really shouldn't be so hard.

“A cooker,” I say, blurting out the first thing I see.

Ewan raises an eyebrow. “A cooker? Well, that's different. Okay, and what did this cooker do?”

“What do you mean ‘what did it do'?”

“Well, a cooker just sitting there in a far away land isn't much of a story. Something has to happen.”

“I don't know. Come to think of it, a long time ago in a distant land they might not have even had cookers. Is this set in Europe? How long ago are we talking?”

Ewan shakes his head, looking perplexed. “I don't know. I think we're getting sidetracked. The exact date isn't really that important.”

“It is if the story is going to have a cooker in it.”

“It doesn't have to be realistic,” he says, looking at me as if I'm from another planet. “That's not the point of a story.”

“Well, I don't know!” I snap, feeling foolish. “I told you I'm no good at these kind of things!”

“But you're not trying.”

“I am trying!”

“Then perhaps you're trying too hard. If you just let yourself go – ”

“I can't!” I snap at him, feeling useless.

Ewan holds his hands up in the air. “Okay,” he says in a pacifying tone, “okay.”

I slump down in my chair like a sulky child.

“I'm sorry,” I say, “but I just can't.”

“What's the weather like?” asks my mother, her voice no more than a whisper.

“It's a little chilly,” I tell her, “and rather grey.”

“It was grey the day you were born, but as soon as I held you in my arms the sun came out, as if from nowhere.”

I smile, wondering if this could be true. At what point might the sun have suddenly emerged from behind the clouds on the day I was born? At the point when she tucked me in between the bag of compost and the watering can in the old, rickety shed? At the point where Gwennie handed me to her and she, in her state of delirium, tried to put me in the oven? At the point when she grabbed me from my grandfather's arms, declaring she would never give me up for adoption?

“It was at that moment when the gasman scooped you out of the frying pan and handed you to me,” smiles my mother. “All of a sudden, the sun shone in through the window and lit up the room.”

Sitting on the wooden little chair next to her bed, I gaze around me, trying to imagine the scene twenty-one years ago when I supposedly came into the world and lit up this room in a blaze of sunshine. My mother always said I was born at two in the afternoon, three hours after the gasman coughed out that fateful morsel of cake that hit the timer off the fridge and triggered her labour, but I realise now the sunlight never hits this room in the afternoon, even on a midsummer's day.

“I think it was the happiest moment of my life,” muses my mother.

“Shhh,” I tell her, “you must rest.”

As she drifts asleep, I listen to the rattle deep inside her chest and watch her eyes flitting slowly back and forth beneath their white, papery lids, wondering how much longer it will be now.

When she wakes sometime later I am still by her side. She turns her head towards me, opening her eyes ever so slightly, and whispers something I cannot hear. I lean in closer.

“I can smell date and almond cake,” she says.

I shake my head, sadly. “No,” I tell her, “there's no date and almond cake.”

She smiles faintly and nods. “Yes. And cherry pastries.”

I reach underneath the covers and take her hand.

“Is he waiting?” she asks, quietly. “He waits in the evenings, you know, outside the window.”

I shake my head, confused. “Who does?”

She licks her dry lips and closes her eyes. “Do you remember the time… ?” she whispers.

I wait, leaning in, listening carefully, but there is nothing more, just the rasping sound her breath makes as she inhales, and Digger's soft snoring coming from where he lies curled up at the foot of her bed.

“Wait!”

I run out into the garden just as Ewan is closing the back gate behind him. On seeing me coming he stops, watching me curiously as I stand in front of him speechless, catching my breath.

I have no idea what I'm doing or what I want to say. All I know is the sound of him throwing equipment into the back of his van, preparing to leave, filled me with panic, sending me flying from my mother's room and down the stairs.

Don't leave me! I think it's time! Don't leave me to do this alone! I don't know what I'm doing! But then what if it's not time? What if it's not today, but the day after, or the day after that, or even a week from now? I can't expect him to stay with me. I have to pull myself together. I have to get a grip.

“I just wanted to check if you needed any help,” I say, thinking on my feet.

Ewan frowns.“With what?”

I make a vague gesture towards the van, wishing I had come up with something better. “With packing your stuff away.”

Ewan looks at his van which is parked in the lane on the other side of the garden fence. “No, I'm okay thanks.”

“Great,” I smile, already backing away, “well, just thought I'd check. See you later then.”

“Meg, is everything okay?” he asks, just as I am about to turn and run back inside. “I mean, do you need me for anything? Because I can hang around, if you want me to.”

For a moment I think how easy it would be just to say yes, please don't go, please wait with me. Please help me decide whether to call the doctor, whether to phone for an ambulance, or whether to just wait and see what happens, because it's a lot of responsibility and I don't want to do it all alone and I'm scared…

“No, I'm fine,” I say.

Ewan lowers his head, trying to look me in the eye, but I turn and start striding back towards the house.

“Thanks,” I call back to him, “I can manage.”

My mother drifts in and out of sleep for the rest of the day, occasionally opening her eyes to gaze blankly at the TV where her favourite cookery programmes repeat on loop, her only reason for ever investing in cable. She mumbles something about Gordon's foul language, or Jamie's new restaurant which, in her confusion, she insists is being run by fifteen Chinese immigrants, but it is hard to understand exactly what she is saying. I place a straw between her lips, encouraging her to take a bit of the herbal tea that I have prepared, but a couple of feeble sips are all she can manage. As it grows dark outside, I switch on the small lamp which casts a soft orange glow over the room, and I settle down on the wooden chair to watch Marco Pierre White preparing a cheese and caramelised onion tart. The next thing I know, I am being woken by Digger whining gently at the foot of my mother's bed.