was brain-damaged. The term was an insult, a blasphemous invitation to disloyalty.
Brain-damaged
. Something wrong with her head. If anyone else had said that about his mother, Edward would have been obliged to get in a fight and deliver a thrashing. But even as he listened in hostile silence to this calumny, he felt a burden lifting. Of course it was true, and he could not fight the truth. Straightaway, he could begin to persuade himself that he had always known.
He and his father were standing under the big elm on a hot, moist day in late May. After days of rain, the air was thick with the abundance of early summer—the din of birds and insects, the scent of mown grass lying in rows on the green in front of the cottage, the thrusting, yearning tangle of the garden, almost inseparable from the woodland fringe beyond the picket fence, pollen bringing father and son the season’s first taste of hay fever, and on the lawn at their feet, tiles of sunlight and shade rocking together in a light breeze. In these surroundings, Edward was listening to his father, and trying to conjure for himself a bitter winter’s day in December 1944, the busy railway platform at Wycombe, and his mother bundled up in her greatcoat, carrying a shopping bag of meager wartime Christmas presents. She was stepping forward to meet the train from Marylebone station that would take her to Princes Risborough, and on to Watlington, where she would be met by Lionel. At home, Edward was being looked after by a neighbor’s teenage daughter.
There is a certain kind of confident traveler who likes to open the carriage door just before the train has stopped in order to step out onto the platform with a little running skip. Perhaps by leaving the train before its journey has ended, he asserts his independence—he is no passive lump of freight. Perhaps he invigorates a memory of youthfulness, or is simply in such a hurry that every second matters. The train braked, possibly a little harder than usual, and the door swung out from this traveler’s grasp. The heavy metal edge struck Marjorie Mayhew’s forehead with sufficient force to fracture her skull and dislocate in an instant her personality, intelligence and memory. Her coma lasted just under a week. The traveler, described by eyewitnesses as a distinguished-looking City gent in his sixties, with bowler, rolled umbrella and newspaper, scuttled away from the scene—the young woman, pregnant with twins, sprawled on the ground among a few scattered toys—and disappeared forever into the streets of Wycombe, with all his guilt intact, or so Lionel said he hoped.
This curious moment in the garden—a turning point in Edward’s life—fixed in his mind a particular memory of his father. He held a pipe in his hand, which he did not light until he finished his story. He maintained a purposeful grip, with forefinger curled around the bowl, and the stem poised a foot or so from the corner of his mouth. Because it was Sunday, his face was unshaven—Lionel had no religious beliefs, though he went through the motions at school. He liked to keep this one morning a week for himself. By not shaving on Sunday mornings, which was eccentric for a man in his position, he deliberately excluded himself from any form of public engagement. He wore a creased collarless white shirt, not even smoothed by hand. His manner was careful, somewhat distant—this was a conversation he must have rehearsed in his thoughts. As he spoke, his gaze sometimes moved from his son’s face to the house, as though to evoke Marjorie’s condition more precisely, or to watch out for the girls. In conclusion, he put his hand on Edward’s shoulder, an unusual gesture, and walked him the last few yards to the very end of the garden, where the rickety wooden fence was disappearing beneath the advancing undergrowth. Beyond was a five-acre field, empty of sheep, colonized by buttercups in two wide diverging swaths like roads.
They stood side by side
Brain-damaged
. Something wrong with her head. If anyone else had said that about his mother, Edward would have been obliged to get in a fight and deliver a thrashing. But even as he listened in hostile silence to this calumny, he felt a burden lifting. Of course it was true, and he could not fight the truth. Straightaway, he could begin to persuade himself that he had always known.
He and his father were standing under the big elm on a hot, moist day in late May. After days of rain, the air was thick with the abundance of early summer—the din of birds and insects, the scent of mown grass lying in rows on the green in front of the cottage, the thrusting, yearning tangle of the garden, almost inseparable from the woodland fringe beyond the picket fence, pollen bringing father and son the season’s first taste of hay fever, and on the lawn at their feet, tiles of sunlight and shade rocking together in a light breeze. In these surroundings, Edward was listening to his father, and trying to conjure for himself a bitter winter’s day in December 1944, the busy railway platform at Wycombe, and his mother bundled up in her greatcoat, carrying a shopping bag of meager wartime Christmas presents. She was stepping forward to meet the train from Marylebone station that would take her to Princes Risborough, and on to Watlington, where she would be met by Lionel. At home, Edward was being looked after by a neighbor’s teenage daughter.
There is a certain kind of confident traveler who likes to open the carriage door just before the train has stopped in order to step out onto the platform with a little running skip. Perhaps by leaving the train before its journey has ended, he asserts his independence—he is no passive lump of freight. Perhaps he invigorates a memory of youthfulness, or is simply in such a hurry that every second matters. The train braked, possibly a little harder than usual, and the door swung out from this traveler’s grasp. The heavy metal edge struck Marjorie Mayhew’s forehead with sufficient force to fracture her skull and dislocate in an instant her personality, intelligence and memory. Her coma lasted just under a week. The traveler, described by eyewitnesses as a distinguished-looking City gent in his sixties, with bowler, rolled umbrella and newspaper, scuttled away from the scene—the young woman, pregnant with twins, sprawled on the ground among a few scattered toys—and disappeared forever into the streets of Wycombe, with all his guilt intact, or so Lionel said he hoped.
This curious moment in the garden—a turning point in Edward’s life—fixed in his mind a particular memory of his father. He held a pipe in his hand, which he did not light until he finished his story. He maintained a purposeful grip, with forefinger curled around the bowl, and the stem poised a foot or so from the corner of his mouth. Because it was Sunday, his face was unshaven—Lionel had no religious beliefs, though he went through the motions at school. He liked to keep this one morning a week for himself. By not shaving on Sunday mornings, which was eccentric for a man in his position, he deliberately excluded himself from any form of public engagement. He wore a creased collarless white shirt, not even smoothed by hand. His manner was careful, somewhat distant—this was a conversation he must have rehearsed in his thoughts. As he spoke, his gaze sometimes moved from his son’s face to the house, as though to evoke Marjorie’s condition more precisely, or to watch out for the girls. In conclusion, he put his hand on Edward’s shoulder, an unusual gesture, and walked him the last few yards to the very end of the garden, where the rickety wooden fence was disappearing beneath the advancing undergrowth. Beyond was a five-acre field, empty of sheep, colonized by buttercups in two wide diverging swaths like roads.
They stood side by side
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