In memoriam
Sometimes, sometimes I remember. Most times, I forget. My memory’s not so good any more.
What I feel like is this. I feel like I’m sitting on the beach on a clear summer’s day, looking out over a lake, or maybe a sea, and the past swims round in great circles – a long distance swimmer, maybe, or a shark. Sometimes, it comes close enough to the shore for me to see. For a few seconds, or even a few minutes, I see myself in its dark eyes. That’s when I remember. And then it’s off again, cutting through the shimmering surface, blue above and blue below, in its endless laps.
This time, what I remember is the worm. The worm and the soft earth.
I was young. Four, maybe, or six. The worm dangled between my thumb and forefinger. It had squashed itself up into in a thick stubby tube, scared. I knelt at the bottom of the garden, at the edge of the hole where the tree had fallen in the winds last autumn. It lay on its side, and its roots were bare and sad-looking, splotched by clumps of mud wet from the recent rain. The roots hid in the shade now as sunshine warmed the rest of the garden.
‘Mum,’ I called.
She lay on a deckchair reading a book.
‘Mum,’ I called again.
‘What, dear?’ She didn’t look up.
‘Look what I got.’
She propped herself up on her elbows and peered over her book.
‘Mike! Put that back! Right now!’
The worm wiggled at me. I held it by the thick band near its head. ‘Worms have five hearts, mum,’ I said. ‘And they can grow back if they get a bit eaten.’
‘Get rid of that disgusting, slimy creature right this instant, young man!’
I lowered my arm into the hole and let go of the worm. Through my jeans, my knees were wet on the grass. I leaned into the hole and burrowed a tunnel for the worm using my finger.
‘There you go, little friend,’ I said.
I watched the ground swallow the pink worm like a man eating spaghetti. I pressed my palm down into the earth and closed my hand in a fist. It was cool and wet and real. I raised my hand and looked at the lines of dirt tracing the creases in my palm.
‘Go and wash up. You’re filthy, and it’ll be tea time soon.’
I scrambled to my feet and ran back up the garden towards my grandfather’s house. Where the last of the rain still hung in big drops on blades of grass I kicked, watching the sunlight shatter through the spray.
At the back of the house, I stood on the tiles in the utility room and clomped my feet, enjoying the echoes ringing back. Mud fell away from my shoes and I bent to struggle with the double knots, eventually kicking them off into the corner. I stretched across the big porcelain sink – it was so big you could have a bath in there – and ran the taps, watching the water turn brown and then clear again as I scrubbed my hands underneath the stream.
I swung my arms and jumped up the stone step into the main house in one leap. I was now in the long hallway with all its doorways. I could smell the delicious smells of my Granddad’s cooking, meats and fruits and gravy and roasting vegetables. He spied me from the kitchen.
‘Ah! Just the lad!’ He waved me towards him. ‘Come here, dear boy, come here. Your assistance is required.’
He steered me by the shoulders to stand next to him. I pushed up on tip-toe and looked out over the hob. Three saucepans bubbled away, steam rising.
‘Now, you can help me with this culinary masterpiece, my good man.’ I liked it when he called me ‘man’ or ‘fellow.’ He walked across the kitchen to fetch a small stool and helped me up on to it. He pushed a wooden spoon in my direction. ‘Hold this.’
I took the spoon. My hand was swallowed up in two rough textures, the spoon grainy and hard in my grip with the warmth of my Granddad’s calloused hand curled around mine.
‘It’s all about the figure of eight, Michael, my dear boy!’ The spoon traced the number in the saucepan, us stirring the gravy together. ‘If you forget everything else, remember that!’
‘Why would I forget everything else, Granddad?’
‘You wouldn’t, young man, you wouldn’t. Just an expression.’
‘Oh.’
We stirred in silence for a while. ‘You’re a dab hand – a natural, if ever I saw one.’ He ruffled my hair and beamed down at me. I gazed back up at him. His eyes were dark and creased, white hair peppered with hints of black. Red lines streaked across his cheeks and nose, like a spider’s web stretched over a flower bulb.
‘Now, Michael, my lad, I need one final bit of assistance from you in creating this fine feast.’
‘Yes, Granddad?’
‘I need you to pop upstairs and find my glasses. This can be your mission, to remain invisible to everyone, to train in the arts of espionage. Can you do it?’
I was up to it. I would be quick and quiet and win the day, just like in the stories. ‘Granddad?’
‘Yes, Michael?’
‘What does as-penny-age mean?’
‘Espionage.’ He said the word slowly and carefully. ‘It means to do with spies, my young chef. But on with you! Get going!’
‘Yes, Granddad!’ I saluted, not sure if I should. Granddad winked at me and gave a thumbs up.
I began my mission.
Pressing my back against the wall of the kitchen, I drew my fingers up into the point of a gun and edged my way out into the hall. I was swift and silent, a shadow in the house. I darted from the kitchen across the hall to the lounge doorway. My socks padded my footsteps on the brown carpet. I dared a glance round the door frame into the lounge. My father lay back in the leather armchair, eyes closed, breathing slow and loud. The newspaper was slack in his hand. I knelt down and forward-rolled across to the other side of the doorway. I was nearly at my goal: the staircase. I tiptoed across to it.
I’d made it.
I stood at the foot of the stairs and looked up. The dark brown bannister – oak, maybe, or mahogany – stretched up into gloom. The curtains were shut upstairs.
I started to climb, right foot first, then left up to the same step. I hung on to the bannister and made sure to tread softly.
Right foot first, then left.
The air began to change. It became still and quiet, and even the smells from the kitchen downstairs seemed to fade. It felt close, like the air in an Egyptian tomb in one of my books.
Right foot first, then left.
I realised I’d never been up here on my own.
Right foot first, then left.
I left the sun behind, the upstairs becoming murkier as I climbed.
As I stepped on to the landing, the gloom seemed to wrap itself around me. I wanted to keep quiet, but for different reasons now. Shadows stretched out, lines of inky black snatching at me from patches of darkness. I could see long fingers waiting to pull me back into the wells of cupboards and cabinets, a prisoner forever.
I didn’t want to open my Granddad’s bedroom door. I didn’t want to see what lurked inside. But I had to. It was my mission.
Stepping across the landing, my hand reached out against the cold smooth paint of the bedroom door. The door creaked as I pushed and stepped over the threshold.
The room was not like the rooms downstairs. There was no clutter, no hidden treasures locked in drawers or buried at the back of cupboards. A huge old bed filled the room. It seemed to creak in answer to the door, a language beyond me. The dark wooden bedstead matched a large dresser in the corner. The dresser was covered in lace doylies and silver photo frames. In each frame was a photo of the same woman, dressed in white and looking like the ghost of my mum.
I guessed it must be Grandma.
I stood frozen. My breathing became shallow as terror welled up. I felt like the very sound of each breath, in out, in out, would give me away. If I waited still as a statue then maybe everything would be okay. Maybe Granddad would come and help me. The walls seemed to close in. Even as I waited, eyes fixed forwards, I imagined a ghoul creeping up behind me, hand reaching out to grab my shoulder, all pointy teeth and blood red eyes.
In another corner stood a wardrobe, one door open. The door spilled blackness on to the carpet, terrible secrets held within. I thought of monsters and dark things, of eyes under beds and claws reaching up. My heart was racing even as I tried to keep my breaths shallow.
I had to do it, had to break the spell. I had to move quickly, so quick they couldn’t catch me. I tried to take another step but my legs wouldn’t move. My eyes swivelled, the only thing moving in the room. I felt them strain, wide open but trying not to look at anything.
There were yellowing books on one bedside table, and one half of the bed looked messy and used. The room smelt a bit of Granddad, but also of something else. It smelt of earth and age and of things I didn’t understand. I spied the glasses in a case on the dresser, next to Grandma.
In the dimness of the room, a shadow passed across the curtain. The shadow brushed across Grandma’s face and for a moment her image flickered, and I saw skin and bone and deep sockets where her eyes should have been. I could see mum in her.
The room began to swim, panic seizing me in its fist. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and ran over, snatching up the glasses. I ran, ran for my life, ran back downstairs, imagined shapes lunging after me as I flew past. Back in the kitchen, I paused, gulping air. I handed the case to Granddad without a word. He took them, winking at me and raising a finger to his lips.
‘Mission successful, I see. Fine work.’
***
Later that day, after the horrors of upstairs had been banished by the sunlight and we’d eaten, I thought back to the room. Granddad’s room, and Grandma’s. I was back at the bottom of the garden, playing by the roots of the old dead tree. I mimed battles with my action figures, burying them in the ground when they were shot by an enemy. As I dug around to revive one of them, my fingers brushed against something slimy and cold, something that felt odd in the heat of the day.
It was a worm.
I plucked it from the ground and held it up in the light. It seemed strange to me, like some other species, apart and separate from that morning, a creature born of the depths of some other world. My mouth curled in distaste, and I flung it away into another flowerbed and brushed my hands together, wiping them clean on my trousers.
Now, I’m back on the beach, looking out across the blue. As the past swims by again, what I notice is not the thing in the water but the thing in its wake. Following behind is a snake, or serpent maybe, and I see that it is slowly catching.
As I wait on the sand, a wet voice whispers to me, sibilant and calming. It speaks from soft earth and darkness. I think of worms and I think of the shade of old tree roots in a garden.
I think of Grandma.
