THE MEMORY BOX
A List by Heart
1: Tiny shells from our beach. A scattering of frail bleached thumbnails that smell of home.
2: A drawing from when I was five of all of us with our two pets, Bucket, the three legged dog, and Biscweet the cat addicted to dad’s lap. The twitcher who burned his tail in the toaster. My sister married Bucket once but divorced him when he sicked on her bed (HA HA). That picture was always on our fridge, whatever fridge we had, in whatever home. The last place, Salt Cottage, a kitchen anointed by the sun.
3: Mum’s dangly earrings like teardrops. Mum has lots of earrings but she’s only packed these ones. Your only screwons, your best.
4: An empty oyster shell. It’s for me me me, no one else! I ate an oyster once and laughed and laughed. ‘Hey, Mum, I swallowed the sea!’ And was always pestering you for more.
5: A pot of Vicks VapoRub. They take it in turns to sniff deep. It plunges me back instantly to snuffly nights of rain on the roof and flat lemonade and honey toast. Yes, yes.
6: A scrap of the busy jumpy wallpaper in our bedroom with the cowboys and horses on it. Who’d sleep with that, I always moan (sorry, Mum). What were you thinking? No wonder he’s neurotic, it’s the wallpaper’s fault.
7: Mums little old manicure set. The powder in its compact is worn to a pale hardness. It smells of Granny, of kissing her cheek. For your girl and she knows it.
8: A postcard from Mums favourite artist, Rothko. It’s always on the fridge too. She says there was a time long ago in our country when art and beauty and calm not only existed but were celebrated. That time will come back. The world swings, regenerates, forgets.
9: Instructions from Dad’s grumpy typewriter he refuses to toss in spite of its disobedient E.
– NOTES FOR THE LITTLE MONKEYS –
BEd for twins by 9 and th Ey MUST do a wEE b Efor Ehand. No ghost storiEs for TidgE bEcausE hE’ll havE bad drEams. (HE bEliEvEs EVERYTHING.) ChEck regularly for nits Esp. if somEonE is scratching thEir hEad Esp. around thE Ears and thE back of thE nEck. Gritchy usually mEans slEEp. MousE will always gEt sickEr than TidgE EvEn though thEy usually gEt thE samE thinG. TEEth brushEd morning and night. DO NOT GROW DULL. DO NOT UNDER-LIVE. FIND THE BEAUTY IN EVERYTHING. DO NOT LOSE YOUR SHINING SPIRITS. YOU MAKE US LAUGH SO MUCH. WE LOVE YOU FOR THAT.
I hold the paper over my face and breathe in the greed of Mums love. Can just picture her typing away at this. She’d always do it so elegantly. A conductor not of music but of words.
And now this, your last work, your symphony of the splayed heart. Behind his typewritten sheet is a scrap of kitchen towel with your scrawl that gets worse over the years.
Soli’s laugh
Tidge’s cough
Mouse’s hand
He frowns, confused, then smiles.
Of course. These things aren’t ours but our parents’. The laugh and left-handedness Mum’s. The cough Dad’s. He holds the sheet to the light. The handwriting’s dug deep. Mum stabbed the end of the pen viciously into her chest to get it working. Time must have been short. You were stressed. The pen didn’t properly work. The watcher observes well.
10: A dried-out leaf. Soli says if it’s crushed the smell will take us back to Salt Cottage. He holds it flat in his palm then closes his fingers over it, hovering a crushing, wanting home so much. Gently she takes it from him. ‘Not now, not yet.’
11: An envelope with some feathery mats of my baby hair and another with Tidge’s. Wow. We’ve got completely different colours now. The first letters of their names identify which is which. Dad shaved his head when we were six months old because our hair had refused to grow and he did it out of solidarity. But he was enormously relieved when at fourteen months, at last, their hair began to sprout, and he could have his back.
12: The last teacup, that one with the red spots, that used to hold Mum’s champagne when she told her stories. And now he weeps.
13: A key. Old-fashioned. Too big.
‘Is that our house key?’ Tidge asks.
‘Yes,’ his sister replies then hastily adds, ‘no, perhaps,’ as if she’s imagining her little brother making a dash for home that very second, clutching the key like there’s no tomorrow left. She begins packing each item back. ‘Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea …’
14: A photo of a football on a lawn. It could be any ball, any lawn, but we all know it. He holds it tight and his sister eventually stops her tugging and whispers, ‘Have it, go on.’ She hands the key to his brother. ‘Mum said to imagine that this opens whatever we want. Keep it safe. For all of us.’
‘What about you?’ Mouse protests. ‘What have you got?’ ‘Nothing. I don’t need—’ ‘You have to have something.’
Soli sighs. Looks in the box. Plucks out the paper towel with your writing gouged deep.
A blanket of quiet, a blanket of absolute quiet.
That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great.