Mementos

“The crisis in Syria continues…” stated the well-groomed female newsreader, wearing a rich-burgundy blouse, staring out from the small television screen, in the corner of the room. Marjory stared at the horrifying chaos on screen, with a sense of detachment. The news confused her. How could she understand who was to blame?

“Poor children,” she mumbled to herself, pulling at a loose thread on her navy cardigan. “It’s them that I…”

Like the loose thread, her mind seemed to trail off and the ache started in her neck again…Dull pain…This was life now. But at least she had a roof over her head, food, warmth, this room, family…

She glanced at the old photograph her niece had found in a box that morning, which she’d propped up on the mantelpiece, before she left. When her niece had asked who it was, she had said nothing. Just stared.

Ivy had been two years younger than her in the photograph, black and white of course, a real photograph, not these digital ones… Ivy wore a lace dress in the picture, her big brown eyes, piercing through the glass, as if they were alive and in the room, that moment, not a faded collection of chemicals on paper from the past.

Was she still alive? Marjory didn’t even know that. Such beautiful, warm, brown eyes, that seemed to dazzle, like that of a cat caught in headlights. Perhaps she had married and moved abroad; the last time she’d seen her was at mother’s funeral, all those years ago and they’d never spoke…

Easing herself out of the easy chair, Marjory, holding her wooden stick, was drawn to the image she’d earlier ignored, of her young sister posing in their father’s front garden. She tottered to the mantelpiece, across the faded oriental rug, her trembling hand reaching out, in a feeling of desire to be close to Ivy again, across all that space and time and separation…

Suddenly, the ache from her neck shot down her arm and the picture tumbled out of her trembling hand, onto the stone fireplace.

“Blast!”

The glass cracked.

As Marjory gasped, the pain digging in, then easing off again, she stared down at the shattered image of her sister and in her head a child’s voice spoke, crisp and clear.

“Mumsy Marjory! That’s what you are. An old maid before your time. Do you think I want to be your sister? Do you think I would have chosen you? Daddy said I got all the looks and he was right wasn’t he? Take a look in the mirror,”Ivy’s ten year old voice hissed inside Marjory’s head like a screeching animal.

Astonished by the burst of hatred in her head, she steadied herself on the mantle. Ivy had always scratched and clawed at her, even then, those brown eyes set like a predator on the prey of her older sister.

“You should never have taken Norman, “Marjory said feebly, staring down at the picture as if it were real. “He was my…” but she trailed off again.

Her arthritic hands shook as she bent down and grasped the broken picture, a small shard of broken glass piercing her hand, producing a droplet of burgundy on her mottled skin. She slowly unclasped the picture from the frame, on thick card, inadvertently caressing the image of the lost child, before tearing it in half and dropping it into the fireplace again…

Ivy’s voice still spat and hissed at her. She lit a match. She dropped it in the grate. She watched the image, curl and morph and disappear into ash.

She turned back to the television screen, where a child stood with nothing, the camera zooming in for a close up as his tears rolled down his face.

Marjory wanted to cry but for who she didn’t know. The child on the screen, herself, her sister, or for the photograph itself that no longer existed. She couldn’t explain.