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‘You have to take your medicine’
Ada crouched on the floor, the crude wooden boards coarse against her feet, one hand holding the spherical bedpost for support and the other holding a bottle of clear liquid and a spoon. Her Da was under several woolly blankets, courtesy of her Papa, who insisted on doing so even though he said he didn’t need them. Now he was prying his lips shut, turning away from their daughter and indeed, away from the foul-tasting medication that burned his throat and created a fire in his insides. She let out an exasperated sigh and stood up. A daily routine for almost two months now, ever since Da first became sick and couldn’t walk on his own without getting severe bouts of nausea and dizziness. Then came the sleepless nights, twisting and turning in a deep aching pain, while Papa would break his slumber to bring water, heated towels, and the like, careful not to wake Ada as he didn’t want her to worry. What he didn’t know what that she always heard the floorboards creaking under her father’s steps to the kitchen, always saw the wavering light of a faint candle, always saw shadows.
As if conjuring those moments that she thought about, Maurice came into the room, his hair disheveled from the wind outside that knocked against the windows like an untamed animal, a worried look on his face that never seemed to fade. ‘He isn’t listening to me,’ said Ada, glancing at Alec as if he were a child who, when complained about, would give up resisting. He didn’t.
Maurice held out his hands and Ada gave the medicine and utensil to him, taking a kiss on the cheek from her father before she left the room. Alec clenched his jaw, very well knowing what would ensue, and determined to withstand it.
‘Alec, darling, you have to take your medicine,’ he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and pressing his feet very softly. ‘I know it tastes absolutely horrible, probably more than my cooking, but you must take it.’
Alec’s empty stare to the corner of the room loosened and a small smile appeared, his chest momentarily rising in a silent chuckle, which calmed Maurice in return. At least he could still make him laugh.
‘No,’ he finally spoke, ‘nothing tastes worse than your cooking.’ Alec looked towards Maurice and smirked, ‘but I’m being cruel. You’ve gotten much better since the first time.’
‘So what’s my progress from the first time to now?’ he asked, unscrewing the bottle cap with his thumb and forefinger and poising the spoon.
‘I’d say it’s gone from completely inedible to somewhat bearable.’
‘Then maybe,’ Maurice held out the utensil of medicine, ‘in another thirty-five years it’ll be completely divine.’
Alec laughed, the sound filling the dark room with light and mirth, which made Maurice let out a chuckle as well. For a moment, all was well. Alec opened his mouth and took the remedy, screwing his face in disgust before finally forcing it down and breathing out.
‘Ghastly,’ he murmured, his lips twisting as he tried to rub out the taste from his tongue. Maurice patted his leg softly as if to say ‘I know, darling,’ and pushed himself onto the bed, coming over to the other side and then finally sitting down, head against the wood headboard. Instinctively, Alec leaned towards him, temple resting on the firm bone of his shoulder, feeling the cotton on his skin. When he spoke, Maurice felt his voice pressing into his arm, permeating him so it seemed like the sentence came from inside his own body, resonating upwards.
‘What’s going to happen to me?’
Maurice had heard these words before. From his own self. The man he had been all those years before, heartbroken and utterly dejected, feeling like he had lost all the happiness he had ever known in twenty-three years, eyes full of hot tears as the man he once loved closed the door behind him. What’s going to happen to me? I’m done for, I’m done for.
‘Nothing,’ he said resolutely as if silencing his terrible memories while also replying to Alec. ‘Nothing will happen to you.’
His lover looked up, craning his neck to see the steely gaze that seemed to burn a hole in the opposite wall, and immediately regretted thinking out loud. But he knew the truth, he pondered, having already passed the panicked and frightened stage. For the past few days now, he started wondering what it would be like. Would it be peaceful? Would it hurt? Would it be like a sleep where it’s all nothingness and occasional dreams? Then the unmistakable would dawn upon him, that he had no problem with the inevitable, but what of Maurice? He drew in a cold breath. What about their daughter? Their choking sobs that would echo in this house that was once so full of joy, so full of happiness. No, he thought to himself, forcefully reining in his wandering mind, you have to hold on, old man. You must. Empty mindedly, he began to massage Maurice’s thigh as if to clear away the knots that he knew were twisting in his mind, as if to say, ‘I’ll be okay, don’t you worry.’
‘Tomorrow, we’ll try to walk you outside,’ Maurice said, his voice wavering as he tried to hold in his tears, swallowing slowly. ‘I’ll put the chairs out and we’ll make pots and pots of tea to last us the entire day, and we’ll stroll all around the hill until the sun goes down, and Ada can play the piano…’ He trailed off.
‘Yes,’ Alec added, whispering. His hand went up to cup Maurice’s cheek, as he pushed himself upright, stabled with his other hand on the crumpled bedsheets. Their lips met as Maurice’s hands found his lover’s hair, loose curls that caressed his forehead, that became short and tightly bound on the back of his neck like gnarled, enchanting vines.
The world melted away.
Ada heard her father’s painful cries early in the morning before the sun rose and the night was slowly starting to be painted a dismal, sorrowful blue. Her translucent curtains trembled from the light wind, the walls in the room beginning to close in. When the realization came, her heart sank deep, into her stomach, and then past the floor, past the rain-soaked earth, and she felt as if her senses were snatched from her, no longer being able to see or say anything. Not even being able to make a sound of agony. Her ears rang as a high-pitched noise burrowed itself into the recesses of her brain, that robbed her of all reason. She ran into her parents’ room and found her father clutching his beloved, his life, pressing the shoulders hard so his knuckles turned ivory white, his face buried in an unmoving chest.
Ada ran to Maurice’s side and held him, coaxing him away from the body, knowing how much he wanted to hold him, to touch him just a little longer.
‘Papa, please…’ Her voice did not seem like her own, as if someone else was talking for her, using her mouth to speak, using her muscles to pull her father. He howled and sobbed like a wounded animal, forever holding Alec, his body shaking and quivering. Ada let out a choked sound, a heavy stone lodged in her throat that forbade her from crying, from expelling emotion, although she wanted to. And then finally, it came. She covered her trembling mouth, searing tears falling over her hand as she began rocking back and forth, still holding her father’s back, wanting to hug him to share his grief and for her to share hers, but she knew that she would never be able to understand his anguish, the agonizing pain that cut a deep gash into his heart. She didn’t even notice when Maurice held her in his arms, pressing her into his chest and letting her scream as he wept.
Three months passed.
Autumn changed into a cruel winter, heavy rain falling almost every day, leaving no time for a change in the damp atmosphere. Wet and cold. Bland food, icy fire in the fireplace each miserable night. Blankets that could never provide any warmth to Maurice. He and Ada had stopped talking, not because they were angry or bore any resentment towards each other, but because they both felt that there simply was no point. No words were exchanged except about meals, about finances at the end of each week, or taking care of the animals. In the first few weeks following the death, Maurice wouldn’t speak a single word. Ada tried to break the heavy silences by talking about something trivial, anything to hear her father. But he wouldn’t reciprocate, not even looking to face his daughter who looked to him with pleading eyes. Eventually, conversations resumed, but with an air of sorrow always clouding them, as if speaking too much would cause them to break down in fits of tears.
Ada had gotten used to her father looking away into the distance at something that, it appeared, did not exist in this cursed realm. His glassy eyes reflecting the useless fire being ravished by damp logs, lips almost always parted as if waiting to call out his name.
Alec.
‘Papa,’ said Ada, putting a hand on her father’s shoulder. The reply was so low that she initially thought she had imagined it.
‘Yes?’
‘Octavia asked again if she could come to pay her respects. But if you’d rather not I could say no…’
‘It’s okay,’ he said, looking back, putting his hand on hers and slipping a thumb underneath to hold it. ‘You can tell her she can come.’ He smiled lightly.
Ada had not thought it through the last time she asked her father if Octavia could visit. It had been only two weeks, and even before the question left her mouth, Maurice glared at her, one of the only few times he even looked her in that period. His eyes were fiery as his set jaw sent a clear message. She knew he did not dislike Octavia, or indeed, the relationship she had with his daughter. Her parents often teased her about it lightheartedly, knowing full well that it made her blush and smile secretly, and they had met her before as well. But she did know that her father did not want to see or meet anyone then, not that soon after.
Octavia came the next day, with a small bouquet of lilies, and met Maurice, taking part in small conversation. It was the first time Ada had heard him talk about her Da since he died, with such fondness and love that she couldn’t help but cry softly. Afterwards, the two women walked outside, linking their fingers together, a small ray of sunshine in an otherwise bleak existence. Ada brought her to her Da’s grave, behind the cottage, where Octavia laid down the flowers and said a silent prayer. The cool grass grazed their feet as their clothes rustled above moving bodies, strands of Octavia’s red hair flowing freely in the wind. Underneath the shade of a tree, they shared a sweet kiss, and Ada felt arms around her when the first few drops fell from her tired eyes.
‘I want you and Octavia to take this house after I’m gone.’
The sounds of nature crept in through the cracks between the windows, a lone birdcall ringing through the plain, the chickens clucking after being persuaded into the henhouse, the sheep shuffling in the small stable. Ada turned back to face her Papa, tightly wrapped in blankets that her Da had slept under, laying on his side, wearing his sweater.
‘What?’
‘Yes. I want you two to live here after…after I go. You’re ready, Ada, you can take care of the animals, the money – ’
‘Why must you talk about such dismal things, Papa?’ She gripped the bedpost, ‘you’re not…you’re not going to die. You aren’t even ill.’
Maurice sighed, realizing he struck a sensitive vein when he didn’t mean to.
‘I know, sweetheart. I’m not ill. I only meant…when I go…I know you’ll be able to take care of things.’
Ada let go of the bed, letting her fingers trail away, tapping slowly.
‘I commend you on planning ahead, Papa, but never mention this to me again.’
Within the next few days, Maurice gathered enough courage to sit beside Alec’s grave, crossing his legs slowly to avoid paining his bones that had grown weaker over the last ten years. He stroked the gravestone, fingering the groves of the words printed on it. Alec Scudder. He repeated this movement over and over, palming the date of birth, the date of death. Saying it in a low whisper, running it through his mind.
‘I don’t know what to say, Alec,’ he began, swallowing. ‘I’ve thought about doing this for a long time, and when I finally come to do it, I don’t even know where to start.’
A breeze blew through the plain, the sound of rustling trees filling the air, the grass moving like the waves of a calm sea. A tide approaching, then receding.
‘I remember when we came to this hill and saw the house for the very first time. We had parted with our sweet little cottage in the greenwood after the first war, then gone to Italy, and you told me one night, in the very early hours, that you had a dream of living in a house on a hill. “An open plain,” you’d say, “for us to roam and run and walk and feel the wind in our hair, moving all around us.” And I said, “Then it will be so,” and kissed you.’
Maurice rubbed a few blades of grass between his fingers.
‘I had become so...so horrible after the war. I’d stopped washing and talking and existing, and you took care of me when you didn’t have to. Placated me during my night terrors, calmed me down, kept me sane. I didn’t even...I didn’t even think about if you were being haunted by the same demons. I assumed you were okay because you wouldn’t make such a huge fuss like me,’ he chuckled hoarsely. ‘You wouldn’t let me worry about you, and I resented you for that, Alec. I wish...I wish you didn’t try to be so bloody strong all the time. I wish you could’ve grabbed me and shook me and told me that you needed help too, you needed my support and care. You could’ve done that...’
‘Do you remember when we found Ada? We took her in, became her fathers. We decided we wouldn’t tell her the truth about us until she was old enough, but when we did, that darling thing said that she knew all along! Such a... such a bright soul, such a peculiar child with the most amazing insight... and when she brought Octavia to meet us, you were so giddy with joy. Poor Ada kept dancing around the subject because she was so shy about it, even though we never taught her to be ashamed of love. You’d meet my eyes and smile as if to say, it’s happening, Maurice. Our girl is becoming a woman, she’s found her love. We promised each other that night that we’d never, ever let her suffer as we did. She can love whoever she wanted; she could go wherever her heart desired...’
Maurice trailed off, tears falling on the grass as he sniffled, holding his face in his hands.
That night, Ada tucked in her father after he fell asleep reading through an old notebook, flipping through charcoal drawings and illegible words scrawled with an ink pen. Like every night for the past many weeks, she kissed her Papa on the forehead, turned the light out, and closed the creaking door halfway, bidding him goodnight.
Even before Maurice opened his eyes, he knew where he was, as if the thought made its home in his heart long before he was conscious. The ground beneath him shifted like one giant being, the trees sang his name and the sounds of an ever-running stream filled his ears. He awoke, sitting up and recognizing his surroundings as the place where he and Alec had once lived, eons ago, many miles away from a very well-known estate. For this is where they had found the profession of wood-cutting, this is where they set traps for deer which often failed, this is where they made their very first home.
Maurice crawled slowly towards the stream and saw a young man looking back at him. No, it was... Maurice himself. As he was in his youth. He wore faded brown trousers and an eggshell cotton shirt held down by the straps that went over his shoulders, his messy hair falling over his temples. The bold afternoon sun was reflected in the moving stream, like a river of liquid gold shining into his eyes so sharply that he had to look away. Standing up, he walked to the basin he knew well, that dip occurring in the otherwise uniform land full of tall grass that tickled his fingers as he let his arms hang at his sides. Before he could look into that vast area, a sudden feeling overcame him, overwhelming his senses, making him gasp and reach for air. It was a certain feeling of joy, of love, of longing and peace, and as he felt that familiar hand on the small of his back, stroking softly and moving to circle his waist, he was bombarded with the impulse to break into tears.
Took you long enough.
That is what he heard, except it was not just the voice of the man behind him, but the voice of the dancing grass, the cottage, the stream, the deep, smooth basin, the azure sky. He turned around and saw, in all his glory, his beloved. Alec, he said. All the living creatures in his midst seemed to speak with him. Alec stood in the same clothes he always remembered him in when he recalled their early years together, with that same mischievous smile coloring his face that made Maurice grin too, his ebony curls freely moving in the breeze, those intensely dark eyes looking up at him with love.
Before Maurice could ask where they were, Alec lead him by the hand and pointed towards the pit of the basin. Maurice rubbed his eyes, now starting to view a structure before him that slowly began to take shape and form. It was...
Pendersleigh... the wing with the Russet Room...
… and surely enough, it was that very same house, with fragile outside walls that never seemed to keep the rain outside, that same window with the white, wooden bordering, and yes, that trusty ladder, leaning against the wall. Maurice saw the structure change, as if a trick of the eye, of the beaming sun, as it transformed from the greying house to that strange hotel, where he and Alec had spent a Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, slick in each other’s arms, sharing a secret love. Changing, changing, to the boathouse, the old villa in Italy, then finally, to their last home, their cottage in Devon. The haven nestled between hills where they saw and reveled in the joy of their daughter’s first steps, her first words, the first of all of her achievements that followed.
Maurice took a deep breath, trying to comprehend his surroundings, all the places his eyes beheld, torn between thoughts of reality and dreaming and death. Alec held him, nuzzling his neck with his nose as if to say, 'you’re here now... everything is okay. I told you, didn’t I? What did I tell you, Maurice?’
That we shan’t never be parted...
Ada found her father the next morning, her beloved Papa, in a deep sleep, indeed the deepest of all sleep, from which one never awakens. His eyes closed and the absence of a beating heart, a slight smile of peace having appeared on his face as if reflecting the first break of sunlight shining through the gaps between the curtains.