Tiny pieces of enid, p.18
Tiny Pieces of Enid, page 18
‘No,’ Enid said.
‘No,’ Olivia repeated. ‘OK.’ Neither spoke for a while. Olivia wasn’t going to make Enid go back; it wasn’t her place. ‘Why did you leave?’ she asked, voice still hushed.
‘Uh, well…’ Enid shifted in her seat. ‘I think…Roy, I hurt. You know, hurt him.’ Olivia stared ahead, her eyes narrowing. She didn’t believe that Enid could hurt anyone.
‘Did he move in with you, back at the home?’ Olivia felt Enid shake her head gently against her side. ‘No,’ Olivia said, beginning to understand. ‘You haven’t seen Roy then, for…’ The sentence trailed off. ‘Enid,’ she turned to face her, lifting her gently as she did, ‘do you want to find Roy?’
‘Oh yes,’ Enid gushed. She bit the side of her bottom lip and raised her eyebrows, a young girl in love.
Olivia made a hasty decision, but in her heart, she knew it was right. ‘I’ll try and help you find Roy.’ She spoke slowly, taking her time to make sure that Enid understood. Enid touched her own chest with her fingertips. ‘Enid, I’m Olivia. We’ve met before. I don’t think that you would have hurt Roy. I won’t take you back to the home – not yet.’ This wasn’t a purely selfless act, Olivia realised. She didn’t want to go home either. ‘Does Roy live here?’ she asked, and again Enid shook her head.
‘Uh, oh.’ Enid looked at her own lap as if to compose herself and then looked back at Olivia. ‘Um, uh, new, um…home,’ she said. ‘New home.’ Olivia gave the faintest of nods, before wrapping the sheets resting on Enid’s lap around her shoulders.
‘You’re freezing,’ she said, thinking fast. ‘Do you mind if I find a way into your house? I might have to break in.’ Enid didn’t answer, but her eyes seemed to smile. ‘Alright then, I’ll be back in a minute.’ At the door, Olivia smiled at Enid and said, ‘Don’t go anywhere.’ She was relieved to see Enid smile back, recognising the joke.
Back outside, Olivia held onto the side door handle to Enid’s house and shoved her shoulder into it, but it didn’t budge. She placed her hands onto the kitchen window from the garden and shook, but of course it didn’t move. She didn’t know the first thing about breaking and entering. When she pulled at the handle on the sliding patio door though, there was a jolt. A small movement. Just a suggestion of possibility. She tried again, and managed to move the whole door, just enough for a slither of an opening. It wasn’t locked. She held onto the handle with both hands and pulled back, her entire bodyweight behind her. The movement was rusty, but she was in.
‘Alright Enid, I’ve managed to find a way in. One of your patio doors was unlocked.’ Enid raised a hand and opened her mouth. After a moment, she closed it again.
‘There’s a knack,’ she said, and despite the situation, Olivia laughed. She held on to both of Enid’s hands and helped her to her feet. Enid didn’t resist, and the two women left the caravan face to face, Olivia backwards and Enid forwards.
The small police station up the hill only opened in the daytime. Olivia figured they would probably have someone there overnight, just to pick up phone calls from the family, in case of developments, but they wouldn’t be back to check Enid’s house until the force was back on shift. That gave Enid and Olivia roughly until eight. They’d be safe in the house until then.
Once Enid was inside, Olivia went back out to fetch the bedding from the caravan.
‘I need to make a couple of phone calls,’ she told Enid, as she struggled to turn on the electric fire in the lounge. ‘But I promise,’ she grunted as she forced the dial round, ‘I’m not ringing the home.’ She felt the warmth of the fire on her face as it came to life. ‘There,’ she said to Enid. ‘You warm up.’
Enid pulled the duvet up to her chest and took a deep breath in. The house was dustier than she’d remembered, and the smell wasn’t quite right. Gone were the days of biscuits and tea, of Roy in the garden walking freshly cut grass into the house. Most of Enid’s possessions had been removed too, with the exception of the furniture and a few pictures. Slowly, it appeared, her old life was physically disappearing from the earth.
When they’d come inside, she had allowed Olivia to lift her feet onto the sofa, and she had watched as Olivia had put a cover expertly over the caravan’s duvet. Now, Enid was lying horizontal, snuggled up with the fire on in her own lounge. She could feel her body coming back to life, the warmth seeping in through her skin into her bones.
Olivia was on the phone in the hall. She hadn’t closed the door fully behind her, and Enid was glad. It was nice to feel company, to have movement elsewhere in the house.
‘We’ve just got so much to talk about, I’m going to stay over at Susan’s.’ Enid could hear the words, but she didn’t pay much attention. It wasn’t any of her business. Then Olivia snapped. ‘Stop,’ she said abruptly, and Enid started to pay more attention. ‘Stop it. Stop.’ She was almost shouting. ‘David, no. You’re being paranoid.’ Enid clutched the duvet, and for a second, she thought she could hear the telly behind her. The finest exotic birds in the world. She heard the flapping of large wings taking off, felt the tip of one in her hair as it flew past, and then, just as quickly, it stopped.
‘Look, I’ll be back in the morning. I love you. Please don’t worry.’ Olivia’s voice was calming, placating. ‘No, I do love you,’ she said, before taking the phone away from her ear and looking at the screen.
Enid had recognised Olivia in the caravan, but only as a familiar face. She didn’t know how she knew her, only that she did know her. Olivia hadn’t taken Enid back to the home and she’d offered to help find Roy, so Enid had trusted her, known that she was on Enid’s side. But now she saw it – the car outside, the violence, the made-up eyes. She saw David’s smirking face.
She watched Olivia lift the phone once more.
‘Hiya,’ she said, tone once again changed, this time a forced nonchalance. ‘Yeah, long time. Very long time. How are you?’ Olivia started pacing up and down Enid’s hall as the person on the other end spoke. ‘I have a huge favour to ask,’ Enid heard before Olivia turned and walked away towards the kitchen. Enid overheard her say, ‘Vouch for me. No, no, I’m not in any trouble,’ as Olivia turned and headed back towards the front door, then turned again. This time she stopped walking next to the kitchen, and Enid found it hard to hear anything. When she did finally resume pacing, all Enid got was, ‘yes, we should actually meet for a drink soon – I’d like that.’ Then there was a lot of thanking before a quick goodbye. Olivia came back into the lounge.
Enid wanted to tell Olivia that she understood what she was doing, that everything would be well in time, that time is in fact the greatest healer as well as a perceived enemy. But she couldn’t. There was too much she wanted to say to Olivia. She wanted to tell her that she was proud of her, but she only ever had the capacity for a few words at a time, and so, with wet eyes, she just nodded.
39
Enid woke up groggy, her body even heavier than usual. She used to lie in bed in the dementia home and imagine walking through her old house, back when coming home had felt like an impossibility, when Enid had been certain that she would never see her old walls again. She used to walk through each room, remembering only certain flashes of décor and moments of her life, but clinging onto those details like they were the only pieces of her left.
Now, sitting on the sofa in her own lounge, her and Roy’s lounge, she felt more lost than ever. Had she remembered it wrong? Had she never hung pictures on the walls? Where were the small china pots which she had been sure she’d kept on the mantelpiece?
It had taken her a long time to sit upright from her position on the sofa. Olivia was sleeping on the floor below her, and it had been hard not to wake her. Enid wanted to be alone. It was still dark outside, and she needed some time.
She had recognised Olivia just a few minutes after she’d woken up. A small fraction of a lost reality, curled up on the floor. Olivia was a reminder that Enid had lived in a different house to this one before today. She also remembered that Olivia was in danger, though she couldn’t remember what the danger was.
Light from the street outside seeped in through a crack in the curtains, just enough to navigate the room. The silence of night in Enid’s own road was familiar. She stood up quietly and slowly, steadying herself by holding on to the shelf next to her to stop from falling. Didn’t there used to be a record player on that shelf, along with pictures of a man whose name she could no longer recall? Avoiding the sleeping body on the floor, Enid edged her way past the nest of tables and towards the hall.
She held on to the door handle and looked back at Olivia. She looked so peaceful now, but soon it would be morning. Enid went out into the hall and closed the door behind her.
‘Roy,’ she hissed up the stairs. The hall was darker than the lounge, but she could still see the walls, the stairs, and the path to the kitchen. An old classic teddy sat underneath a wicker chair on the corner at the top of the stairs, before the landing. One lopsided eye, one withered arm from where Barb had sucked at it, bare patches all over its body. Enid saw herself in a different house holding on to that same teddy, a little girl finding comfort in softness, and then she saw Barb, just three, sitting on her knees in front of the chair, leaning forward and talking to the bear about an imaginary trip to the beach. Barb faded. The bear remained.
‘Roy,’ Enid hissed again. If he was up there, he would be asleep, and Enid would have to shout louder. Best to check downstairs first, she thought.
She looked down at the table next to her. The phone was missing, if she was right in thinking that there had ever been one there. No phone books, no contact sheets or old notes left by her or Roy, but the table itself was familiar. The scratches on one of the legs from when Barb, as a toddler, had scraped keys across the varnish; the circle of faded paint where a plant pot had once sat.
The coat rack was where it had always been, and Enid recognised it instantly, but that wasn’t quite right either. Tall, wooden, majestic…bare. There were no coats, there was no shoehorn leaning against the bottom. No shoes.
Enid looked up. The picture that she and Roy had been given on their wedding day still hung on the wall opposite the stairs. Intentionally or not, she had looked at this picture at least once, nearly every day for the majority of her adult life. She knew the intricacies of every brushstroke, each stretch of blue that had a wisp of white in it indicating the crash of sea on the shore. She reached out and touched it. She felt the bumps of the windows painted onto the small beach huts, and the raised brail of the sand. It was exactly as it always had been.
She walked through the hall, past the stairs, and into the kitchen.
‘Ken,’ she whispered, ‘Ken.’ Enid looked into the corner of the kitchen where Ken’s bed should be. The tiles on the floor were bare and Enid became overwhelmed by emotion as she relived the sadness that she had felt when Ken had died. Briefly, all the other dogs that Enid and Roy had loved flashed in front of her and then disappeared. The kitchen had never felt so empty.
‘Roy,’ Enid called a little louder than before, more distressed this time. She needed comforting. In the past, when Roy couldn’t sleep, he would sometimes come downstairs and make himself a cup of tea, but the kettle had disappeared. Perhaps he had taken it upstairs. Enid looked around her. The kitchen was unused. Other than the boiler that rested in the corner, the surfaces were clear, and the shelves were empty. There weren’t even any mugs.
Enid almost fell from the kitchen into the largest room of the house, back where she’d started, in the dining room which faced into the lounge. She and Roy had their wedding day picture taken against the window in this room, with the garden behind them – Roy’s pride and joy. Enid looked out of the double doors; the garden was overgrown now. It was dark though; it was still night; Roy could deal with that in the morning.
‘Roy,’ she tried again. She was shaking. ‘Roy,’ shouting now. Her head nodded frantically. Roy’s chair was in the lounge and the sofa was in the same place as it had always been, but Roy wasn’t on either.
Through the tears in her eyes, Enid saw that the mantelpiece was empty. There was no wedding picture. Had there been a wedding? Was this even their house?
‘Roy,’ she tried to scream, but her voice cracked, and it came out whispered. ‘Roy?’ She felt as if she had died.
Then she heard her name.
‘Enid?’ It wasn’t Roy’s voice, but it sounded familiar, nonetheless. She felt hands on both of her shoulders, and she burst into pained tears as the hands pulled her back into an embrace. It was her future, her present. It was all she had now. It was Olivia.
Enid turned and sobbed into Olivia’s hair as her life caught up with her. This wasn’t her home – not any more. Roy didn’t live there, and neither did she. There were shadows of their lives together; the sofa, the painting in the hall, the tread on the carpet where they had once walked, where they had once lived, but those shadows were fading. One day, Enid realised, somebody else would live there and the house that she knew with Roy, and with Barb, would slowly disappear.
Just like Roy had, and just as she expected to do herself.
40
Enid pulled a face when she took her first sip of tea. It was different to the tea she had become used to in the dementia home, but she forced a smile for Olivia before putting the cup down.
‘I couldn’t find milk,’ Olivia explained, ‘and the water was boiled in a pan from the back of one of your cupboards. When the shops open, I can get some milk and better bags.’ Enid raised her hand and shook her head.
‘No. Oh, uh, no.’ Her head continued to shake after she’d finished speaking, just to make sure that Olivia had understood that she was grateful, both for the tea, and for the company. Slowly, Enid picked up her mug again. If nothing else, she could appreciate the warmth.
The sun had risen but it was still very early, and it was blocked by a sheet of husky grey clouds. Olivia leant forward and rested her elbows on her knees. ‘This might surprise you Enid, but I’m hiding too.’
Enid let out a small laugh, but then looked at Olivia apologetically. Enid knew that Olivia was hiding.
‘Well, yes,’ she said. ‘You…you… Well. You know, you…’ Olivia looked at Enid with wide surprised eyes, before straightening her face.
‘Yes, Enid. Of course. Sorry, you’re not stupid. Of course, you know.’
‘No. I, Uh,’ Enid tried. She only knew that Olivia was hiding, she didn’t know the whole story. She suspected certain parts, but she didn’t know. ‘I don’t, you know… I, uh. Not. I don’t.’
‘It’s fine, Enid. Really. Of course, you know. It’s why you told me about your first husband, back in the home.’
Enid didn’t remember telling Olivia about Donald and she couldn’t be sure of what had and hadn’t been said. Instinctively, she reached up to touch the skin above her right eyebrow.
Olivia looked thoughtful. ‘I knew,’ she said quietly, ‘that you knew.’
Enid gave a small smile. She didn’t know – not really – but she was glad that Olivia was with her now, and that she was safe in this moment.
‘I’m so sorry, Enid. This isn’t your problem, it’s just…no. This isn’t your problem.’
Enid searched for the right words, and somehow felt less pressure to find them than normal.
‘I…uh. Oh, here.’ Enid said. Olivia didn’t reply. ‘Here,’ Enid repeated, and Olivia nodded.
‘Yes,’ she said, gratefully. ‘Thank you.’
There was a pause in which Enid felt completely comfortable. More comfortable than she’d remembered feeling in a long time, though Olivia may not have been feeling the same.
‘Right,’ Olivia said, snapping out of the moment. ‘The police will be here at some point today, to look for you.’
Enid felt an involuntary noise escape her lips.
‘No,’ Olivia comforted her matter-of-factly. ‘We’re going to move back to the caravan, just until we’ve worked out what to do.’
Enid shook her head, quickly and resolutely. She remembered the cold, the sheets and the pillowcases that had barely covered her, the fear she had felt when someone had tapped on the window outside. She didn’t try to remember who had been tapping. She remembered the darkness, and she remembered a fraction of her past: the rain; a holiday; a plate landing on Roy’s arm. Her own hands on the plate.
‘No, no. No.’ Enid was firm.
‘Not the caravan then. We don’t have to hide in the caravan if you don’t want to.’ Enid looked straight ahead resolutely, staring at nothing, angrily. ‘Enid, let me be clear about this: you don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.’
Enid felt her face soften. She thought for a few seconds, before looking at Olivia and pointing out to the garden.
‘They’ll see us in the garden,’ Olivia said. She didn’t sound annoyed, even though Enid realised herself that her suggestion had been stupid. She was just passing on information. Enid sighed and attempted to stand up, and Olivia jumped to help her. Slowly they made their way to the rusty sliding doors at the back of the dining room. Olivia forced them open, and they walked out into the garden.
Enid gazed up at the windows that overlooked the garden and wondered who lived in them now. She prayed there would be no one peering out. They walked past the weeds, overgrown and spreading across the patio. They walked through the gate.
‘Uh…so…we could, you know.’ Enid stopped and gestured towards a single garage, part-hidden behind the parked caravan. ‘Uh…it was, Donald’s. You know... Donald. He used to tinker.’
Olivia looked at Enid.
‘Roy’s?’ she asked, and Enid nodded, feeling awful.
‘It’s perfect, Enid,’ Olivia said. ‘Can we get in?’ She opened the garage door. It looked stiff, but it was unlocked, and with enough effort she managed to pull it open. Inside was almost bare; Roy’s worktop with the hall carpet wedged between it and the wall, their old wine buckets, a barbeque standing next to some old rags, four stacked plastic garden chairs and a small electric heater. Olivia plugged the heater in. ‘Shall we sit?’ she asked, closing the door behind them.
