Writing for Fun
January 2017
Ice Cold - Anne Wilson
Margaret opened the bedroom door to find the gaunt-faced figure slumped in his easy chair, his face as impassive as always. This time, though, there was someone sitting beside him – a face she had once known as well as her own but hadn’t seen in a very long while.
The room was cramped with personal belongings strewn haphazardly around its inhabitant. Once treasured possessions they had been neglected and were now covered in a sprinkling of dust. She was not usually given to cynicism but it always struck her that the expression ‘home-from-home’ used so frequently by the Management was a euphemism for careworn (an appropriate expression in the circumstances). The nursing home was, however, just on the right side of clean and the staff were unfailingly patient with him as far as she could ascertain from her frequent, regular visits. Being of a naturally optimistic disposition she regarded this as a huge compensation.
The figure in the other chair rose somewhat grudgingly and moved towards her but proffered no gesture of affection or even real recognition, so much so that she was now uncertain as to the identity of its owner.
‘Anna,’ Margaret said to the willowy figure standing before her. ‘Is it you?’
‘Hello,’ the figure replied, sighing audibly as if talking were too much of an effort. ‘Long time no see.’
It was an understatement. They hadn’t contacted each other for thirty years. Flashes of a happy youth spent together – mostly at her home – presented themselves to Margaret in mini biography form and she quickly obliterated them so she wouldn’t be forced into making a comparison between ‘then’ and ‘now’. Once vigorous, healthy parents contrasted with the knowledge of a long-deceased mother and a father who was a shadow of his former self, reliant on others for his existence. ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Margaret in bewilderment.
‘He sent for me.’ She gestured to the man in the chair.
‘He doesn’t speak clearly and he can’t write any more.’ Margaret checked herself, realising she was talking about her father in the third person when she was sure he was able to understand perfectly and when she knew he could even communicate in a limited fashion on a good day.
‘They phoned me,’ explained Anna without elucidating on the identity of ‘they’ but possibly expecting a tacit understanding it was the manager of the home or one of the senior carers. ‘Presumably he somehow asked them to. Apparently he has an old address book with my name in it.’
Margaret was momentarily annoyed that no-one had bothered to inform her of this action but the re-appearance of someone who had been so important to her overrode that consideration. She knew the book. It was a red one her mother had kept by the phone when she was a child, adding a name to it every now and again and deleting ones where the person was no longer in contact or had died. Her father must have brought with him in the move into the care home and it struck Margaret as odd that her mother should have kept details of an old school friend of her daughter’s for so many years long after that friendship had ceased and her daughter had left home.
‘You’ve never married, then.’
‘No. I haven’t moved either. I’m still living in the family house,’ replied Anna. ‘Nothing’s changed.’ The last two words sounded meaningful to Margaret’s ears and the cold delivery of the sentence struck her forcibly that the girl of whom she had once been so fond had become bitter and resentful in middle-age. She now remembered that there had always been something remote about Anna. Some unexplained, hidden depth which had become gradually more marked as they both entered their teens.
Impulsively she clasped Anna’s cold hands in hers. They were as icy as her friend’s demeanour and she was forced to release them after a few seconds, her arms falling limply to her side in embarrassed resignation when there was no reaction to the affectionate gesture.
‘Why don’t we meet up some time?’ she said warmly. ‘You still live in the same house and I don’t live far from here. Don’t lose touch again.’
Anna shrugged. ‘It happens. We outgrew each other, that’s all. Thousands do.’
It was not encouraging and Margaret knew in her heart of hearts that there would be no further communication between them. Her friend reached for her coat, turning to leave. Then something unexpected happened. The elderly figure in the chair suddenly thrust out his hand and clasped Anna’s in his. Margaret noticed something more than her friend’s indifferent reaction to her own, similar gesture. This time there was palpable repugnance.
‘Sorry,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Margaret thought she saw her friend’s eyes fill with tears as she tersely let go of his hand but it could have been a trick of the light.
‘Wait for me a moment outside,’ she pleaded with her. ‘Please wait for me.’
Her friend nodded.
Margaret plumped up her father’s cushion, talking to him encouragingly, mindful how their situations had become reversed. She was now the doting parent and he the child in need of her care. She knew there was not long left for him now.
‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ she told him. ‘I just need to have a word with Anna.’
The corridor was decorated in neutral tones with every bedroom door painted in a uniform colour and numbered. The only difference between that and a hotel was that each bore the name of its resident, otherwise it could have been any functional accommodation where a night could be spent en-route to a more exciting destination.
Her friend was pacing up and down outside the room like an expectant father. If smoking had not been banned she would undoubtedly been puffing a cigarette. Margaret recalled with certainty she had never smoked whilst they were growing up and wondered if she did now.
‘Anna. What went wrong between us?’ She felt her voice breaking – emotion unresolved from years ago. She had felt the distancing for a time before the decisive break but it was still a shock when it happened, without explanation and with no recourse for a reconciliation.
Anna laughed mirthlessly. ‘You know,’ she said. ‘You and your family. You know what went wrong.’ ‘I don’t,’ replied Margaret in genuine bewilderment. ‘We were friends for years. You used to come to our house. My parents were good to you.’
‘Oh yes, they were very good to me,’ she said bitterly. ‘Just think about it, Margaret. You were so sheltered from the world. So cossetted by them, you never even noticed.’ She thrust her face inches from her friend’s – the first sign of intimacy she had shown since they had met again a few minutes before. ‘Do you know how many times he’s pleaded with me to come here? It used to be letters, but now he gets the staff to ring. I thought if I came today, it would help me, but it hasn’t.’
‘He’s an old man,’ defended Margaret. ‘He wants to be reminded of better times.’
‘He’s a dying man,’ countered Anna, ‘and he wants absolution.’
She turned on her heels and walked away abruptly.
Margaret leaned against the wall. Memories came back in fragments, twisting and turning until they formed clear pictures in her mind; pictures she had never wanted to view because the reality of them was too painful. Her father whispering affectionately in Anna’s ear when he thought no-one was watching. Touching which she took to be avuncular affection on his part but from which her friend would sometimes surprisingly recoil. Unexplained occasional absences of both Anna and her father from a room in which the family was gathered. Anna’s innate shy, but essentially happy personality becoming a withdrawn, remote one as they became teenagers. Worst of all, the sadness of Margaret’s own mother for no accountable reason and the unconvincing, enforced jollity she sometimes adopted in an effort to assure everyone all was well. How could her own mother have known and done nothing about it? Waves of nausea overcame her and she breathed in deeply in an effort to counteract them.
She went back in and kissed the top of his head. ‘Goodbye, Dad,’ she said, knowing she would never be seeing him again.