Echo

The Echo

Undoubtedly Sarah was seriously ill. So if I wanted to be sure of
seeing her before she died, I would have to fly. We have no
relationship, but Richard wired the money and pleaded, so I suppose
I'll go. Which won't stop it all being one big waste, not to mention a
change to the rules. Richard and I have our little obligations, is how
I see it. He has Sarah and the two aunts, whereas I have the other
aunt, one uncle and a friend of Mother's.

It would be nice to say that Mother held us both by the hand on her
deathbed and made us promise to keep in touch with the relations and
especially with each other. That she went on to say how different we
were as sons, but how proud she was, glad that each of us was doing
what he wanted, and leading his own life. But she didn't. I wasn't even
there. Richard was of course, but he's never reproached me. I knew she
was sick and I did try to get home. If I'd been able to borrow the
money I could have flown, but I was forced to take the boat and the
train. I thought it would be like earlier times when she'd ask me to
come.
"Daniel," she'd say on the phone, "two days is fine. I'll put a hot
waterbottle in your bed." And she would, unless she was too ill to get
up, and then she'd get a neighbour to do it for her.

Richard was always there ahead of me, happy to be the perfect son.
Unconscious of how self-pleased he looked, diligently seeing to his
obligations as if they were pleasures. Fulfilling his responsibilities
light-heartedly, as if it was all exactly what he wanted to do.

Not that Mother was just an obligation to me. I looked forward to
seeing her, even when she was ill. But I had to be reminded that I
loved her. And when I was away, I had to be reminded that she was
leading her own life in a different part of the world. I seldom think
about people unless I'm with them. Mainly because there's very little
to think about. They're spending their time leading their own lives,
getting on, just as I do. There's no need for constant reminders.

It would be easy to say that it's because Richard has a house and a
steady life, and because Hilda likes people as much as he does, that
makes the pair of us so different. But I think Hilda gets fed up with
Richard and the whole world of people that orbit round them. I can see
her screaming at him that she'd like a quiet night by the fire. Pursing
her lips to explain that a seeing his friends would not take her out of
herself, even if it has in the past. And he nods understandingly which
makes her want to scream even louder. Of course I could be making this
all up. I don't know Hilda very well. I'm only turning her into an ally
so that I don't have to feel that it's all down to me.

Nothing changed between Richard and me after Mother died. I took up my
few correspondence relationships and went on moving and working, and he
continued with his steady and settled life. If Mother could see me I
hoped she approved. Relationships by letter are great, except that in
my case I seemed to control them. Trapped by the fact that if I didn't
write for six months, I would hear nothing. But the week after I posted
a letter I always got a reply. It still happens. It makes me feel like
a kid on a mountain top who stops shouting to make the echoes, and just
listens. Longing that just once the mountain would speak of its own
accord.

I never write to Richard. I refuse to see him as an obligation, and I
don't nothing ever so overwhelms me that I am forced to sit down and
tell him all about it. The nearest I came was one time when I was
working in a small village in Holland. In the tobacco factory. I hated
it, but I was particularly short of money and took a job packing shag
on this machine for eight hours a day. I couldn't wait to get away
every evening. But there were some people who worked two shifts,
sixteen hours, one after the other. It would have driven me mad.
Although perhaps when those people stopped they felt twice as much
relief as I did. And when they finished it was too dark to see the
spanking little red tiled houses, the polished steps and the shiny
gnomes.

When I got back to my room I would throw off the bed covers, upset my
carefully folded clothes and knock my books about the floor. But the
landlady never learned and the next day she would return the room to
looking like a funeral parlour waiting only for the corpse to make it
complete.

The one thing that kept me sane during those six months was a perfect
mauve coloured Morris Minor, with big chrome bumpers and a split
windscreen which I could see from the window of my room. Sometimes when
things were really bad, I would leave the house and cross the road and
stand by the car. Somehow, its Englishness, its perfectness, perhaps
even its mauveness, combined to relieve me enough to go on. Once I felt
so bad I tried to sit in the front seat, but the owner set his Doberman
on me. I nearly wrote to Richard and Hilda, because they do up Morris
Minors in their spare time. But I couldn't. I took a photograph instead
and made up my mind to show them, but I haven't yet.

In spite of its shininess and the sparkling chrome the car didn't
belong in that town. I left when the man sold it. My landlady told me
he bought and sold things, when I enquired. It was almost the only time
she spoke to me, except to say: "This untidiness, yes? It is English
habit? I have no knowledge of this."
I told her I liked the way I left my room and there was no need for her
to tidy up. But by then it was too late.

The landlady reminded me a little of Sarah. They each had a way of
turning their head when asking a question. The first time I noticed
this similarity, I re-read some of Sarah's old letters and fleetingly
wondered if Richard might swap her for one of my obligations, the uncle
or even Mother's friend. It would be only fair to let him pick. But
Sarah and Richard have been linked ever since he was a child. Besides I
haven't seen her since I was nine and living at home. If I met her on
the street I wouldn't recognise her unless she asked me a question and
turned her head in that funny way. Although if I was still a small boy
I would recognise her in spite of any changes. She would still be
bigger than other adults, more uncompromising in how she spoke to me.
Refusing to stoop to my level or to adjust her vocabulary. It was just
too bad that I was a child.
"You'll jolly well have to grow up quickly then if you want to
understand what I'm telling you," she would say, staring at where my
face would be if I was a foot taller. I didn't like her. She brought
Richard and me to exciting places but there was no room there for
children. We had to do what she did, eat what she ate, or go
without.

One question which did bother me: "Whose friend is she?" Had she gone
to school with Mother, or was she the woman Father would have married
if something had been different? I remember even wondering if she might
be Richard's mother. He always spent more time with her and moved into
her house when Father died. Living with Mother was impossible now that
she was confined to bed. But a school with other boys my own age and
adults who were strangers was more what I wanted. Her desire to make
grown-ups of us exaggerated our differences. Making me feel even less
significant. Making her look bigger, more austere than she probably
was.

Sarah sent me things at the school, presents for my birthday, a book
she saw, a scarf she liked. But they belonged to someone much older. I
didn't want a book about industrialisation in pre-world war one
Scotland. And the rack of pipes was confiscated. Even the scarf was the
match of one worn by my form master, a man who hid in cupboards and
behind doors listening. I threw it out rather than risk turning out
like him.

I wrote to Richard and to Mother every Friday. The letter to Richard
was not really addressed to him, but to Molly. I wrote "Dear Molly," in
pencil at the top of the page and then wrote the letter in ink. When I
was finished I erased the "Dear Molly" and inserted "Dear Richard." I
didn't know anyone called Molly, but I wanted to write to her.
Sometimes she had long hair and sometimes she was my own age, but
always she could stand up to Sarah. I liked writing to her, and of
course she never replied. Once when I had erased her name I almost
wrote "Dear Sarah."

When I stopped writing to Molly I stopped writing to Richard, but he
kept writing to me. Week after week a letter, even now. The content is
still much the same: Sarah, always Sarah. When he got married he added
a paragraph to update me on Hilda, and as each child was born an extra
paragraph was born also. Sometimes I feel I'm there living with them,
watching events as they happen.

I stopped writing to Molly because I couldn't tell her about Dennis. I
had always talked to her about him so I couldn't just leave him out.
Dennis got killed, it was an accident. Everyone said he was my best
friend but I did have other friends. If being an adult is being able to
admit your mistakes then it was my fault that Dennis died. But it was
still an accident. I had always been honest with Molly but if I
couldn't tell her about Dennis, then I had to stop writing to her
altogether. I missed him more than the teachers or the other boys did,
although they talked about him more. I hardly talked at all then. Sarah
sent me a book called "Bereavement" but I was too young to understand
it. Molly would have sent it back, but I kept it hoping to understand
it someday.

I was surprised when she wasn't at Mother's funeral. Explaining to
myself that perhaps she was too old for funerals, especially now that
she was becoming senile. Richard was always writing about her
forgetfulness with things and people, especially their names. How she
could be chatting about old times when someone would realise she was
reminiscing with the wrong people.

Richard says she's even started to call him "Daniel," which must be
very upsetting. She hasn't seen me for thirty-two years, during which
time I have changed from a sickly orphan into a self willed adult, as
independent and maybe as aloof as I remember her to be. But Richard has
looked after her, dedicated himself, perhaps even behaved like a son to
her and she's calling him by my name. I'm a thousand miles away and for
most of my life have only acknowledged her existence by accepting
delivery of her presents and letters, and yet my name leaps off her
tongue.

I hope Richard has been nice to her for his own pleasure and because he
likes her. Still if he was resentful the tone of his letters would have
changed. But he still comes across as sincere and proper, and a slight
coldness which could mean anything. He's never approved of me, but if
Sarah calling him Daniel upset him, something in his letters would have
changed to let me know how he felt. There have been no new paragraphs
now for years and I don't suppose there will be until one of his
children gets married or has a child. But by then Sarah will be dead
and her paragraph will die with her, if not immediately, then later
when her affairs have been tidied up.
She's told Richard she will die soon, and has told him where her will
is. Everything will go to him I'm sure. Not because he deserves it but
because he's there in her life all the time. And of course if he is her
son, then why not? People do odd things in wills. Only when Mother died
was Father's found and a sum of money located which should have been
passed to Sarah.

The world will be the same if everything goes to Richard or to the
local cats' home. And if she's as dotty as Richard says she could
easily have told her solicitor: "And the rest to Daniel, my son
Daniel," meaning Richard. I wonder if he'll mind. If he'll take me to
court and fight for his share. He can have it, all of it. Unless I
thought she meant it, the old goat. Unless I thought she wanted us to
fight. Then I would make him go him all the way. Clean or dirty I would
fight him. He wouldn't get a penny without a struggle. And when I'd
won, I'd make him a present of it, except for the price of a stamp to
write to Molly and the cost of a bunch of flowers to put on Dennis's
grave.