Ancient Fic

[gatty.livejournal.com]

Written when I was 15 so please pardon all epic fail. And typos, I'm sure this was beta'd but hey, I am fighting an uphill battle with minor dyslexia so shit happens.

Title: Geraniums
Author: Gatty
Warnings: Swearing, angst, LONG WTF TWO JOURNAL ENTIRES




Nerissa hunkered down next to the musty cardboard box. The lid was taped down with browning sellotape, which she slit easily with a penknife. ‘Dad’s Stuff’ was scrawled on the side in fading pen. She didn’t think it could have been opened once in the past forty years. It felt odd to be opening something that no one had seen inside for decades and decades. Dad’s stuff… She didn’t recognise the handwriting. Before she could peel back the lid, her brother Tristram slouched in with the gait of one who’s trousers are only staying up through sheer will power. She could hardly see his eyes behind the thick fringe of blond hair that was sculpted to fall across his face like a curtain. He was average height, slim and nothing like her in anyway. She took after her mother in some respects, but most of her appearance was an odd blur of generations of plain people marrying other plain people to produce her, the plainest of them all. Her hair was dull and mousy, sitting neatly on her shoulders. Her skin was no worse than any of her peers, with an irritating tendency to flush of its own accord at nothing in particular. Her eyes were brown, failing to be quite as almond shaped as her brother’s, her brows thick, her cheekbones non-existent. To her endless vexation, Tristram seemed to have stolen all the pretty genes in their generation. His eyes were large, mahogany brown and with lashes any woman would kill for. He had a pale, almost translucent complexion without a hint of teenage acne; his nose was dead centre, beginning, continuing and ending neatly, unlike her horrific ski-jump nose. His mouth, which seemed to naturally rest in a pout, was irritatingly perfect, his smile even more so, and she would put money that his face entirely conformed to the rules of the perfect Golden Proportion face that had been ‘discovered’ a few years ago. How dearly she would love to smash that face against a concrete block. However that desire was crushed by the kinder side of her, the side that considered avoiding an assault and battery charge to be a good thing.

Tristram draped himself across the living room armchair, appraising the room with a disdainful glance. He was right. It was awful. Their grandparents, like all grandparents seemed to have been brought up in a time when taste hadn’t been invented yet. Chintz was a perennial favourite through the bungalow, closely followed by Laura Ashley rejects. Thankfully they would only have to stay for a little while more. Nerissa had argued that it would make more sense to stay in a hotel, but her mother insisted on staying near her father, who was coping rather well, in Nerissa’s opinion. There was always the option of staying with the large amount of relatives who had turned up from all over the shop, somehow related in ways that Nerissa didn’t quite grasp. Her great-granddad seemed to be an inordinate amount of people’s great uncle or second cousin twice removed, or something. They had taken over all the area’s B&Bs, rather terrorising the local tourist network. For most it seemed to be an excuse to go somewhere they’d never been before and look at old buildings and local museums and not be at home where bills were sent. Few of them had met him more than once and a couple had even asked who he was. However, the B&Bs were furnished even worse than her grandparent’s bungalow, so she stayed put, where she had her own room and didn’t have to talk to any of the awful American relative who had arrived the other day.

“Why are you going through those boxes now? We have to leave in five minutes,” said Tristram in a tone of ultimate boredom.

“Because I want to. Besides, I’m not going,” she replied, finally opening the box.

“Why? Mum said we’ve all got to be there.”

“I hate that place. It’s full of old people, dying left right and centre.” She lifted out a stack of old magazines. “And no one is there to visit them. It’s like they’ve just been left there to die, so no one has to think about it.”

“They have. They dumped Grandda in there to die. We’re only here because he’ll be off any day soon.”

“It’s not right.”

“I didn’t say it was. If you don’t think it’s right to leave them there and ignore them, then why aren’t you coming now?”

Nerissa half shrugged and looked away. “Aren’t you fascinated by what could be in these boxes? I don’t think they’ve been opened for a good forty years. Mum just brought all this stuff in from the safe store.”

“It’s mouldy old magazines. Why do I care?” Tristram picked at an offending doily that graced the back of the chair. “Whose stuff is it anyway?”

She turned the side of the box with the label on it towards him. He looked blankly at her. “It’s Grandda’s,” she explained. “Mum said we need to go through it all. Decide what to keep and what to chuck. You can tell it’s old – look ‘Dad’s stuff’ that must mean that Grumps packed it up, ages before mum was born.”

“Because, you know, he stopped calling him dad after he was one himself.”

“Shush.”

“Why do you still call him ‘Grumps’? I haven’t called him that since I was a kid.”

She looked at him from under a raised eyebrow. “One, you still are a kid.”

“I’m 15,” he replied indignantly.

“Two, you always call him Grumps. Three, that’s his name.”

“I thought it was Cecil or something horrible like that.”

“Says Tristram.” She flicked through some of the magazines with little interest. A couple of flying magazines, a lot on gardening. “Isn’t it amazing to think that when we’re all together we make four generations, spanning a century?”

“Positively titillating.”

She glared at him briefly before continuing. “Sometimes I wish I was a slutty girl like Susannah, so I could have a kid and then we’d be five generations.”

“I could be a father.”

“Dear lord, please let that never happen,” said Nerissa, not looking up from a 1958 copy of Gardening and Your Plants.

“I could. I slept with Tanya.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I did.”

“Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were.” She looked at him seriously for a moment.

Tristram blushed. “Okay, so I didn’t. But she was begging for it.”

“Yes, Tris, I’m sure they’re all falling at your feet.” She picked up another edition. “Oh, look, there’s a page marked in here.”

Tristram slid of the chair onto the floor next to her, a look of interest on his face, more to change the subject that due to any actual intrigue. She flipped to the dog-eared page. “Oh. It’s just an article on growing geraniums. He was quite attached to his geraniums.”

Climbing back onto the chair, he replied, “yes. Always grew them wherever he lived, Mum told me once. Did you see, they’d planted some outside his window? And some sunflowers."

Nerissa smiled. “Yes. I remember when you were little you couldn’t say geranium properly, you always said ‘germanium’. He used to give you to oddest look when you said that.”

Tristram scowled. He was not one who appreciated his childhood pointed out. If he had it his way, he would have sprung from the womb a fully-grown 17-year-old. Nerissa jiggled
bundles of paper and notebooks around trying to get to the bottom of the box. It was rather Narnian – the depth she was reaching, she really should be pushing through the floor into the basement. Her finger came across something dog-eared and card-like. She was about to pass it by, when something stopped her. She caught hold of it and eased it from the confines of the box.

It was a very old, very battered sepia photograph, showing two young men in military uniform sprawled on the grass next to a large tree. What looked to be the elder of the two, was sitting with his knees to one side, the younger lying down. He had his jacket off, the other’s head resting in the crook of his knees. The one lying with his head rested on his friend’s legs bore an uncanny resemblance to Tristram, if a little older.

Nerissa passed to photograph to Tristram. “He looks like, you, doesn’t he?” she asked, watching his expression.

“Not really.”

“The one lying down.”

“Oh. Yes. A bit.”

She got up and sat on the arm of the chair, peering over her brother’s shoulder. “Oh, come on. Those are you eyes exactly.”

“I suppose,” he replied, sulkily, and handed the picture back. “Was that in the box?”

“Yes.” She stood up again and dug her glasses out of her bag to look more carefully.

“I wonder who they are,” said Tristram after a while. “They look very young. Why were they in military uniform?”

Nerissa smiled at him. “See, this stuff is interesting. Hmm. It looks First World War-ish, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know.” He paused. “Is there anything written on the back?”

She flipped it over. “No – oh, wait, there is something. It’s very faint.” She squinted through the lens of her glasses that she was using for a magnifying glass. “‘James –James and I’, I think. There’s a date… 19…1917. I was right.”

Tristram looked across at her. “Grandda’s not called James, is he?”

“No. He’s an Algernon. ‘I’ must mean him, then.”

“What is it with our family and awful names?”

“Hmm. Do you think James was a brother?”

Tristram moved over to her to see the photo again. “Didn’t mum say that he was the only boy in seven girls?”

“Oh, yes. It’s a pity we can’t ask him.”

He looked at the recumbent figure. “He does look a lot like me.”

“You mean you look a lot like him. You must have inherited his looks.”

He looked at the ceiling in mock prayer. “Thanks Grandda, I owe you.”

The door swung open and their mother bustled in. Nerissa looked up and shoved the picture in her pocket quickly. She didn’t feel like sharing this yet. Tristram gave her an odd look, but didn’t say anything.

“Come on, get your coats, we’ve got to go.”

Tristram pulled his jacket on, and Nerissa reached for her duffel coat.

“I thought you said you weren’t coming,” he asked.

“I changed my mind.”

He grinned knowingly. “You’re going to ask about that photo, aren’t you?”

“What photo?” asked their mother without looking up from where she was rummaging through her bag for car keys.

“Nothing,” said Nerissa quickly.

“Just a photo we found in one of those boxes,” cut in Tristram.

“Good, you’ve made a start on them.” She straightened up. “Best not ask him, love the nurse said he’s all worn out.”

Tristram and Nerissa exchanged glances. If there was one phrase that never applied to their Grandda, it was ‘worn out’.

“Hurry up! We’ll be late!”

She hustled them out of the room, locking the door behind her.

*****

The care home smelled of antiseptic and the odd smell that clings to wherever old people take up residence, a mix between mothballs and cats. Nerissa always found this smell rather strange, as the bungalow her grandparents had owned for as long as she could remember was full of it, but her great-grandfather’s house never came remotely close to it. To her, it had always smelled of mulch and old books and very faintly of tobacco. Her mother had told her that he hadn’t smoked properly since before her father was born, but began to smoke a pipe in the Second World War.

Her Grandda had lived on his own until she was ten, when her mother had decided that her needed to be moved into a home. He had complained ferociously, with a temper that had worsened with the years, though he always had a kind word and a biscuit for Nerissa when they visited. He had never seemed old. It was as though he had decided being old wasn’t for him, so he’d just carry on regardless of how many candles were on the cake. Nerissa’s earliest memory of him was wandering into the garden at his cottage in the country, which civilisation seemed to bypass, to find him digging on his hands and knees in a flower bed, shirt rolled to his elbows, revealing wrinkled, liver spotted arms. He had turned to her, smiling warmly, and sprayed her with his hose. She had fled into the house, squealing, thinking him mad. Which, of course, he was. Her Grandda was a proper eccentric, one of antiquated hats, quills and a quote for every situation. His house was full of fascinating things that he had collected over the many years, each one with a story that he would eagerly tell, but would never quite ring true. His room in the care home was exactly like all the other rooms. The walls were papered in a floral design that made Nerissa’s eyes hurt, the carpet, curtains and bedspread matched the walls. A deep, low chair sat in one corner covered in doilies of her grandmother’s making. A shelf ran along one wall above a chest of draws, on which a television squatted, never watched. The shelf was lined with books that her grandparents had chosen, things they thought he should like, and a photo of his wedding. Nothing in the room or anything about his life for the past seven years had been his choice. Nerissa had never thought him old, he was hardly senile, and had a better memory than she did, until they brought him to this place, and suddenly he looked every one of his 102 years. Yet however hard she tried, she could not think of him as a doddery old man. His personality was too strong for anyone to project the image of a senile old age pensioner on him successfully. Her grandparents seemed to try very hard to, but to her he was a young as she was.

So it terrified her to see him lying propped up in bed, on a mountain of flowery pillows. A drip stand stood by the bed, a thin tube snaking across the covers to where it disappeared into the back of his hand. Several more chairs had been brought to the room, and arranged around the bed for visitors. Her grandfather was already there in the chair furthest from the frail figure in the bed. At 82, Nerissa realised it wasn’t going to be long before he had to move into a home. Her mother was 51… It seemed as though suddenly all her family were ageing and dying right before here eyes without a thing she could do.

Tristram caught her hand as they entered the room and squeezed it reassuringly. She squeezed back, and hovered for a moment unable to decide where to sit.

“Come sit here, little lady.” An American voice spoke from her left. She started, not realising that the American Relative was in the room, too. He was tall and slim, dressed casually in beige slacks and a blue jumper that matched his dark blue eyes. She placed him at around 70ish, but it was hard to tell. She knew very little about him… Gene, she thought that was his name… her great-aunt moved to America to be with him after the war… made a fortune in zips or Velcro or something. “Are you Cecilia? He’s been complaining that Cecilia hasn’t been to see him for an age.”

Nerissa fluttered, unsure of what to say or do. The whole place was yelling at her to get out while she still could.

Her mother cut in before she had to answer. “No, this is my daughter, Nerissa. Cecilia was his younger sister. She died a long time ago. He doesn’t know what he’s saying half the time.”

“I can hear you.” A voice croaked from the mound of pillows and duvet. Nerissa jumped. She hadn’t thought her was awake.

“Ah! You’re With Us, Are You?” asked her mother in a Very Loud Voice she reserved usually for talking to small children or foreigners. She bustled over the his bed and fussed with the pillows. She seemed to be dealing with things in a very matronly way. Nerissa couldn’t understand how she could just keep on at everyone like nothing was wrong.

“No need to shout. I’m trapped right here.”

She lent very close to his ear, completely ignoring him. “Is There Anything You Want?”

“I can’t see anything.”

“That’s Because You’re Going Blind, Grandfather.”

“It’s because some fool has moved my glasses.” He glared at her with a beady-eyed look perfected over seven years being rude to nurses.

“They’re both as bad as each other, aren’t they?” whispered Tristram, who stood beside her, smirking slightly.

“Here You Go, Grandfather. Is That Better?” She slipped the glasses on, and he blinked owlishly at her.

“I’d entirely forgotten that you had Ethel’s nose,” he said, offhandedly.

“Would You Like Me To Prop You Up?” she asked and Nerissa couldn’t help wince at her tone.

“Only If You Think You Can Manage, Dear,” he replied matching her manner precisely. She didn’t seem to notice the heavy sarcasm, but, as Nerissa knew well, anything approaching subtly was beyond her mother.

“Shall I Call A Nurse?”

Her grandfather had buried his face in his hands during their exchange, despairingly.

“If You Like, Dear, But I Don’t Like To Bother Them. They’re Very Busy You Know.”

“Alright, Let’s See What We Can Do With Out Them.”

Things quickly descended into farce, as her mother tried to lift him up, and he made it as difficult as possible for her. In the end she gave up and wandered off to find someone to help. Grandda pushed himself up, with some difficulty, but the scowl on his wrinkled face stopped any of them giving him a hand. Eventually he had reached an angle at which he could satisfactorily see them all, and peered at his visitors through the thick glasses. His gaze skipped over Nerissa, paused for a second on Tristram at whom be blinked a surprised look on his face, then moved on, finally settling on her grandfather.

“Come here, fruit of my loins, I want to talk to you.” Nerissa couldn’t help smile at him. They’d all pegged him as worn out and ready to die. All she saw was the eccentric and somewhat grumpy man who had plagued her early years with fake spiders.

“That’s you, buddy,” said the American Relative, slapping him on the back, “cause he’s not talking about me.”

The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party was recreated in the cramped room as the all swapped seats so her grandfather could be closest to the bed. Grandda beckoned to his son with a gnarled finger.

“I know you don’t like me, because I’ve hung around too long for you to inherit any thing useful, and really, there’s bugger all left to inherit. The Lacey estate is gone, and I’m bloody pleased about it. I had some of the most miserable years of my life in that pile. It brings back memories… that I wish… I wish… would… leave me…alone,” he trailed off, his voice becoming fait and his eyes unfocused. Then suddenly he snapped back to the present. “My point being. There’s nothing left because you sold my house and boxed up all my things, so you don’t get a penny. Ha. Serves you right for sticking me in this place. Now sod off.”

“He’s a card, isn’t he?” said the American Relative loudly. “Always got a sense of humour.”

He squinted at the American Relative, and moaned an I-have-been-striken-by-a-dreadful-disease-and-am-in-copious-amounts-of-pain moan. “No! Not you! Am I to spend my last moments looking at this incompetent fool? You all want me to suffer.”

The American simply laughed again, as her mother walked in again, and picked up mid-sentence. “The Nurse Said It’s Best If You Stay Lying Down, So… Oh.” She stopped as she realised that Nerissa’s great-grandfather was sitting bolt up right and glaring his Glare O’ Death. “Well, if you’re up, you’re up. Nerissa, Tristram, go and say goodbye to your great-grandfather.”

“I like that!” he exclaimed. “I’m not - ” he paused mid-sentence, and blinked a few times. “Is Cecilia here? She said she’d come.”

“Pardon?”

Grandda blinked again. “Hmm?”

“You were asking for Cecilia.”

He laughed a weak, papery laugh. “You’re getting confused. Cecilia died years ago. And I’m the one who’s supposed to be going senile.” He paused, a look of concentration on his face. “I… I think I’ll just lie down again. I’m quite tired.” He tried to lie back down, but slipped. Nerissa’s mother bustled to his side and helped him, rearranging the pillows.

“There. Is That Better?”

“Yes…” His voice was thin; no defence against her mother’s fussing.

His eyes wandered then fell upon Nerissa. He smiled faintly. “Come draw the curtain, Nerissa, it is quite dark.” She glanced at the windows streaming cold spring light into the room, then leaned forward and clicked on the sidelight next to the bed. “Tell me where is fancy bred, in the heart, or in the head? How begot… how begot… how nourishèd… reply… reply…” His eyes lost focus, and the words trailed off. Tristram took her hand again. “Has Cecilia arrived?” he spoke faintly, voice crackling from failing lips. “She said… she said she’d come…”

A nurse came quietly into the room, and looked at the display of the small machine that sat on his bedside table. She looked up and smiled kindly. “I think it would be best if you stepped outside for a while. He’s close to the end. We’ll do all we can to make him comfortable… there’s a family room down the hall and on the left.”

Quietly, the stood up and filed out of the room. Her grandfather walked stiffly with tight lips not looking at anyone. Her mother moved briskly, walking beside the American, who seemed calm and sombre all of a sudden, an odd contrast to his earlier self. Nerissa and Tristram left the room last. The nurse shut the door behind them, leaving Nerissa looking at a glossy photo pinned to the door of her Grandda glaring at the camera. ‘Algernon Lacey’ was printed on a slip of card beneath. Nerissa was reminded of a label on a box. ‘Contains one old man, incontinent and grumpy. Fragile. Handle with care.’

She walked down the shiny plastic corridor, still holding Tristram’s hand. They arrived at the family room, where her gran had been sitting, knitting for most of the day. Someone needed to be there all the time, Just In Case; she had volunteered, and decanted into the family room with a lot of knitting and several Mills and Boon romances. Nerissa sat down on the shiny plastic chair, which was drawn up to the shiny plastic table, squeaking on the shiny plastic floor. A clock ticked noisily on the wall, annoyingly out of sink with the clack of her gran’s knitting needles. No one looked at each other; they all seemed to know that this was the last time they would have to wait out here while the nurses adjusted the morphine drip. Five minutes passed. There was a tap and the door, and the form of the nurse appeared.

She cleared her throat, nervously. Being confronted by the entirety of the Lacey family, all looking at her expectantly was apparently a very unnerving experience.

“Could, um, could James come through, please.”

There was a general confused shared glance. Tristram caught Nerissa’s eye and raised and eyebrow.

“I’m afraid we don’t know a James,” said her mother primly.

The nurse blinked. “He’s asking for James, he’s quite insistent. Are you sure you don’t know a James?”

“No. We don’t.”

“Oh.” The nurse blinked again. “I’m sorry.” She disappeared from the room.

Nerissa paused then said quietly, but in a tone the caught everyone’s attention, “I think I know who James is.” She took the photograph from her pocket and handed it to her mother. “It says ‘James and I’ on the back. It’s dated 1917.”

“Where did you get this?” asked her mother.

“It was in one of those boxes you brought back from the safe store,” she explained, somewhat exasperated that her mother didn’t remember their conversation only half an hour ago. “Tristram told you about it before we left. Remember?”

Her mother’s brow creased in thought. “Oh. Yes. That’s nice dear.” She passed the photo to her grandfather, who scrutinised it.

“I’ve never seen this before. There were never any pictures before the wedding photos. Father said they were destroyed in a fire.”

“Well, that one wasn’t.”

He handed it back silently.

“I’ve hardly looked through the box this was in, and there are another two that haven’t been opened,” she continued, failing to keep her voice calm as her excitement took over.

“Let’s talk about this later, love.”

“But there could be all kinds of things in those boxes. There’s so much we don’t know about Grandda’s life… he never tells us anything properly – those boxes could tell us so much.”

“Sweetheart, now is really not the time. I think - ” The door opened again and she broke off.

The same nurse came in. “He’s resting now – we thought he’d gone, but he seems to have recovered. You won’t be able to see him again today; he’ll be sleeping. It’s best if you go home and get some sleep yourselves.”

“That’s my father for you,” muttered Nerissa’s grandfather. “Gives us all a scare then sleeps while we try and recover.”


They began to get up and put their coats on again, and gather their things together. Her mother offered to stay, so her gran could go home and get some sleep, to which she readily agreed.

“You can go home and look through those boxes now, Nerissa,” said her mother in the mock-cheerful tone she adopted most of the time. But Nerissa had already hurried from the room.

*****

Nerissa had driven back to her Grandparents’ bungalow hunched low over the wheel. It was only two weeks since she’d passed her test, which had at no point included driving a mini that held two elderly and loud backseat drivers, squashed either side a short-tempered teenage boy and an American Relative whose legs seemed to always be in the way of the gear stick no matter how he arranged himself. It was a test on her nerves more than her driving skills. When she finally managed to parallel park in a space about a foot and a half too small with heavy traffic thundering along the road, she wasn’t sure which member of her family she was going to kill first. Tristram settled the matter by asking her if she’d drive to the chippie to get a burger and did she mind if he played very loud and annoying music on the way?

Neatly avoiding her Lunge of Imminent Death, he backed down the pavement declaring his sudden decision to walk there. The rest of the OAP convention piled into the kitchen to brew up. Nerissa brooded into her tea for a few minutes then excused herself to go and look through the rest of the boxes that no one was interested in at all.

Returning to the room she glanced across what she had left to look at. The box she had begun to tackle earlier was still lying open on the floor, its entrails spilled all around. There were two other boxes left, one a deal larger than the other. The larger one had been carried in by her mother, swearing heartily, and dropped on the floor where it now sat looking for all the world like a large cardboard lump. She decided to tackle this one first, see if anything of great interest resided with in, and if not, she would return to sorting through back issues of various gardening magazines. She wondered if a museum or antiquarian book trader would be at all interested in them. Some looked very old.

Nerissa retrieved her penknife and slit the box open, pulling back the flaps of the lid. Within lay what appeared to be a tray of letters, all neatly in their envelopes. The addresses were written in a faded brown ink, the stamps alien to her eye. Squinting, she tried to distinguish the date on one postmark, but age and water damage put pot to that. They were unsealed, but one glance at a sheaf inside revealed that a good light, stronger glasses and clear head would be needed to discern what was actually written. She eased the tray of letters out of the box. Beneath was a dark wood trunk that defied removal from it’s confines. With several sweeps of the knife blade, the side of the box were cut away, leaving it standing on it’s own. She tried to pull the bottom of the box out from under it, but the sheer weight of the thing prevented her. It was a rather fine-looking trunk, somewhat worse for age, covered in dust and chipped, but impressive all the same. On the lid was inscribed the initials ‘J.C.B.’, revealing nothing. She tried to open it, but it was locked. There was no key with the box, so Nerissa, with a great exertion of strength, pushed it to one side, placing the letters on top, not feeling in the right frame of mind to tackle them quite yet.

That left the small box with ‘Molloy’s Removals’ stamped on the sides. Gardening magazines didn’t appeal to her at the moment, so she pushed them under the coffee table. Copious amounts of elderly duct tape bound the last one shut – evidently whomever packed it had no intention of ever letting anyone else see inside. Oh, well, tough bloody luck, she thought and set at hacking the tape off with her nails, taking out her frustration with her family on the seal. The front door rattled, and Tristram once again slouched in, this time carrying bundles of greasy newspaper. He dropped the spare keys on the sideboard and deposited his burden.

“Where are the rest of them?” he asked, glancing curiously at the trunk and letters.

“In the kitchen,” she replied, not looking up. “That American is here, too. I hope you got enough.”

“Ah.” Tristram shifted uncomfortably. “That might be an issue.”

“It’s alright, he can have my share. I’m not hungry,” she sighed.

“Right.” He disappeared through the interior door for a minute, in which Nerissa made little progress with her task. Tristram returned and took over proceedings with unparalleled arrogance.

“Let a man have a go,” he said, elbowing his sister out of the way. With an extremely condescending look, he caught the end of the tape and pulled the majority of it off in one easy go. She glowered at him, reclaiming the box to open it. Tristram barely budged, and peered inside almost as interested as Nerissa. But not quite. Oh no. Wouldn’t want anyone to think he indulged in such lame things as enthusiasm. The interior of the third container was much the same as the other two. Multitudes of sheets packed in no particular order, dust by the bucket-load and lots of unidentifiable brown papered things tied up with string. Tristram took one of these and put his masculine ability to open anything (including, apparently, Tanya’s legs) to the withered cord. Nerissa pulled out a pile of papers and began to flick through them. Most were sketches of objects and places, an artist practising his skill. Amongst these were brief notes written on scraps of blotting paper, once crumpled, but now smoothed out, and preserved over many years. As well as landscapes there was the occasional portrait done in earnest, always formal, and mostly of a dour looking old woman with her mother’s nose.

She waved one of the better pictures under Tristram’s nose. “Do you think Grandda did these?”

“Hmm? What?” He glanced over the proffered sheets. “Yes. Maybe. There are all those watercolours of cows and trees and things that mum said he did when he was younger.”

“How much younger? With Grandda it could be anything from ten years to a hundred,” she said, putting them to one side.

Tristram ignored her tone, still picking at his bundle, so close to reaching his grail. “Mum said he did a lot of his stuff when she was little.”

“Hmm.”

“Aha!” he exclaimed triumphantly, ripping the string and brown paper, the vicious opponent reduced to a pile of crumbling remains. The wrapping, swiftly disappearing into the ether of Mess that was slowly engulfing the sitting room. Giving Nerissa a ‘see my mad skillz beat your girly ways’ look, he picked up his prize. “Oh. Just more photographs.”

“Can I see?” He passed them over without argument. “Wow… there are loads. They’re really old. Look – ‘Rebecca on Brighton Pier, 1931.’ Here,” she said, taking several more bundles from the box, “try these.”

Tristram took them, smugly and set to work. Nerissa settled more comfortably and leafed through the photos carefully, looking at each one, then checking the back for inscriptions. The photos were mainly of a chubby small child with shoulder length hair in ringlets in varied studio shots. She was shocked to read in elegant scrawl on the first one ‘Algernon, 1907’, so sure she had been that the child was a girl. He looked dolefully at the camera with big eyes that reminded her so much of Tristram’s baby photos. Now and again one or two equally chubby little girls in frilly dresses joined Algernon on the piles of cushions of the photographer’s studio, all of whom had plonked him amongst their teddies as though he were just another doll. She paused, and closely examined one of the girls when she caught sight of ‘Algernon and Cecilia, 1910’. It was the latest photo, Algernon standing, embarrassed, in a badly fitting school uniform, a girl, only a little younger, clinging to his arm with a parasol dangling from the crook of her other arm. Nerissa searched for any resemblance between herself and ‘Cecilia, 1910’ that could make Grandda think them one and the same. She could see little likeness, perhaps the mouth turned down at the corners like hers, but not much else.

She jabbed Tristram in the arm, offering him the photo. “Does she look like me?”

He glanced at it. “She sulks like you.”

“Hmm.” Nerissa put it back in the pile with the others. “Have you finished with any more?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve just done this one,” he said proudly. “Are there any more?”

“Just that one I already gave you.”

“Can I look at these before I start on it?”

“Of course you can, you idiot.” She thwaped him playfully on the head, and moved so
they could see the pile between them. “I think these are more recent.” She flipped one over. “Yes, see, 1914.”

“Because, like, that’s so much more recent than 1910,” he said, sarcasm barely covering the well practised tone of scorn.

“Shush.” She dismissed him with a flap of her hand.

The photographs in this pile were mainly school shots of cricket and rugby teems, full of identikit faces, among which ‘Algernon’, who’s long hair and mournful gaze was becoming familiar to them, always featured, if squashed in at the side. There were more studio shots of him in school uniform, always looking uncomfortable. Nerissa found it odd to watch her Grandda grow and change through the images in front of her. She realised that she hadn’t known anything about him. The photos intrigued her. What could life have been like for him back then? It was a different world altogether, and yet existing in living memory. She wondered why he always looked to miserable in the pictures; why that odd hunted look appeared in his eyes in all the post-1914 photos – was it the war, was his father off fighting, a friend, a cousin?; who the girls of varying ages that repeatedly appeared beside him were, if they were the seven sisters her mother had spoken of; she wandered if he boarded at school, if he liked it there, what he enjoyed doing; what did he want the be, what were his hopes in life there in that summer of 1913 where stood out on the lawn surrounded by females of indeterminable age?

“God – look at that one,” said Tristram, passing one across to her. “How old do you think Grandda was then?”

The photo showed the now familiar figure posed in another studio shot, but this time in military uniform. For once, he was not staring woefully at the camera, but was half smiling, looking into the middle distance behind the photographer, trying to look noble, in Nerissa’s opinion. She looked on the back. ‘Algy, two weeks before he went to France, 1917’ was written in the same elegant scrawl that was on the back of most of the pictures. She did some quick mental sums.

“He must have been…16. Isn’t that awful? Sent to war at 16?”

Tristram was looking a bit pale. “I’m almost 16.”

Nerissa smiled, trying to look comforting. She knew that her brother’s history class were in the middle of their Battle of the Somme coursework, which included a trip to the war graves in Northern France that she herself had been on a few years previously. He hadn’t said anything at the time, but Nerissa knew how to read between the lines, and realised that it her shaken him up more than he’d like to admit.

“Hey, how about be look at the last lot?” she suggested, putting the photo out of sight.

“Alight.” He began to pick at the string on the last parcel.

“Oh, don’t bother doing that. Use scissors.” She handed him a red-handled pair.

“What? I thought you were against… you know… desecrating bits of history!” he cried, aghast.

“It’s string, Tris.”

“But… then why did you make me spend ages undoing the rest of them?” he whined.

“I didn’t make you. You started and it was… amusing, so… yeah. It kept you busy.” She grinned mischievously at him.

“You’re definitely a sister. You’re evil.”

“Quite probably. Here. Scissors. Cut things.”

He took the proffered instrument and snipped the package easily. Like the other two bundles, a plethora of photographs fell all over the floor. Nerissa could see from a glance that the subjects of practically all the photos were young men in military uniform. She saw a couple of old biplanes among the group photos. Her eyes fell on one studio portrait in particular, and plucked it from the pile. It was a typical studio picture of the period, but this time not of her Grandda. The boy couldn’t have been older than herself, but already had weary lines beginning around his eyes. She paused, scanning the picture again, then pulled
the very first photograph from her jeans’ pocket. Yes… she was pretty sure that this was the boy upon whose knees her Grandda was resting. Written across the bottom of the photo was simply ‘Someday’ and the letter J. There was nothing on the back. Glancing up at Tristram, she saw he hadn’t noticed her sharp intake of breath and was still examining the pictures of the biplanes. Sorting quickly amongst the group shots, she identified him several more times. Most of the inscriptions were simply ‘us at 266’. One image showed a lanky youth up a tree with ‘Wilks being a fool’ stamped on the back.

“Must be his friends from the RAF,” said Tristram waving a hand at the pictures littering the floor.

“RFC,” she corrected.

“What?” asked her brother in a wonderfully stereotypically teenage way.

“Royal Flying Core. They didn’t become the Royal Air Force until 1918. So it’s more likely to be the RFC.”

He replied with an indistinguishable monosyllabic noise.

“Have you finished looking?” She began to gather them into orderly piles.

“Yes – oh, look, isn’t that the other guy from that photograph you found?”

“Yes… I found some more.” She handed him the formal picture casually, but watched his reaction from the corner of her eye. A puzzled expression settled on his face slowly as he turned it over.

“‘Someday’. What do you think that means?” He looked at her inquisitively.

“When the war is over perhaps?”

“Hmm. The initial is for ‘James’ I imagine.”

She blinked. “The J? Oh, yes, that would make sense.” Yawning, she put her overlooking of the obvious down to sleep deprivation.

“They must have been good friends. They’re together in practically all these photographs,” he said, stacking the flimsy card pictures.

“Yes. There’s not much more in this box, just some big notebooks. I think they might be diaries.”

Tristram was already hovering over the box, scooping out two black bound books. “Sketchbooks, by the size of them.”

“Yes,” she said, annoyed that her brother should have worked things out before her twice.

“Let’s look through one each.” He took one, and passed the other to his sister, who yawned again.

“You’re tired. Go and have a bit of sleep. I don’t think anybody will want you for a bit.”

“I’m not. Honestly.” She proved her point by not yawning, though it made her eyes water.

“Whatever you say.” Tristram sat cross-legged on the floor and began to flick through the pages. “Well, someone liked planes. Oh, wait. People. Fun.” He gave a short laugh. “That’s that James again, isn’t it?” he questioned, tipping it so she could see.

She nodded and turned back to her book. The pictures were better than the earlier sketched on lose paper. She noticed that the pictures were less formal – most of the time the subject didn’t seem to know he was being drawn. And he seemed to be entirely ‘that James’ from the photograph. One showed him reclining in a wicker chair, staring broodily out of a window. In the corner of the page was scribbled: ‘he says someday, but when?’ The book was full of drawings of James, some done with painstaking care, others no more than brief suggestions of lines, occasionally with notes next to them. There was James reading a book in a wingback armchair; James digging in a flowerbed; James hunched over a table, writing something; James siting cross-legged on a bed, smiling. Following the dates in the corners of the drawing, she saw that after 9/11/18 the pictures were few and far between. The figure in these no longer wore military uniform. In one he was curled asleep in a chair in slacks and a shirt, with ‘bloody sleeps through the most horrendous supper imaginable. Had to tell mother he was feeling unwell’ scrawled beside. Most of these were sketchier than the earlier ones. Then followed a series of 12 drawings all done in the same month. The first was of James lying on his back, arms behind his head, as though he were listening. There was another rough one of someone barely identifiable as the ever-present James standing over a sink, shirtless and shaving. This was followed by a close up of his face, eyes shut, head resting on a pillow obviously asleep. A few pages later was the last drawing in the book. James was lying curled on a bed, knees tucked up. He was drawn in great detail, shading painstaking to look at showed the curve of his spine, each vertibrae defined. Hair spilled onto the pillow, the play of light caught in pencil. A sheet was draped loosely across him, not covering the fact he was obviously naked.

Nerissa bit her lip and wordlessly passed it over to her brother, who took it with a bewildered expression. He looked through the book slowly, studying them with a critical eye, finally reaching the last one with a raised eyebrow, he looked up at her.

“Well?” she said.

“Well what?” He shut the book and placed it on top of his.

She looked at him anxiously. “Well, what do you think it means?”

“What I think it means? If I think it means they were more than friends? I don’t know. Perhaps.”

“And?”

He looked at her seriously. “And I think it’s none of our business. If Grandda wanted to tell anyone he would have told them.”

“But…” she trailed off. This felt so much bigger to her. It was a secret revealed that left so many unanswered questions. But Tristram was simply brushing it off. And annoyingly, she could see his point. “But there’s all this stuff we never knew about him. Don’t you want to know what was really going on?”

“We can’t go jumping to conclusions. It could all be perfectly innocent.” Tristram pursed his lips.

Nerissa raised an eyebrow incredulously. “Innocent friendships rarely include highly suspicious nude drawings.”

“It doesn’t necessarily mean that anything was going on. Even if Grandda did like him, which I suppose we can assume from all this,” he waved his hand at the spilled contents of the boxes, “it’s doubtful that anything ever happened. You’re the big historian, I would have thought that you would have realised that for yourself.”

She frowned. “But the drawing…”

“But the drawing nothing. Butt out of it, okay? Grandda’s dying, he’s hardly going to appriciate you bringing this up. It was all over ages ago. Just let it go.”

Nerissa folded her arms. He was right. She knew it somewhere at the back of her brain, but she wouldn’t admit it. Her brother infuriated her sometimes. His cool logic glossing over her hurried, jagged trail of thoughts, shedding light on things the had missed completely. Tris could manage intelligent conversation when he tried, he was intelligent, but a venir of apathetic teenage chic left him a monoslyabic moron. “You’re not the stupid teenager you pretend to be, are you?”

He glared at her defensively. “You’re changing the subject incredibly unsubtly. But I’m not stupid, and I not pretending to be anything.”

“Yes you are! You wander around with ridiculously oversized trousers hovering around your knees, you mess around in school because it makes you look cool to your friends, you go about with that Tanya because you think you should be getting some, and she’ll put out for anyone.”

“Hey, I like Tanya!” he cried angrily.

“You like what she represents. Being older, being an adult. But you’re never going to get there if you mess up now! It drives me mad to see you do this. You’re clever, I know you are, but you fail because you think that having brains is something that can’t fit in with you proper teenage lifestyle.”

“That’s rubbish. You’re talking crap. You’re a half decent sister most of the time, then you go off on these really annoying rants like you’re mum or something.”

“I just care!”

“Well I don’t. I’m going out.” He got up, and before she’d caught her breath the call him back, the door had slammed.

She sighed and picked up the sketch book again. He disliked her for not being of his norm. She was infuriated by his desperation to be nothing other than what was socially acceptable. It was stupidly hard to just be yourself. Especially at school with hormone ravaged teenagers pouncing on the outsiders. Looking at the picture of James asleep again, she smiled bitterly to herself. If her Grandda and… James had been together then they would have been judged at every turn… but no one could have known. It was against the law back then, she remembered. Well, it least it was legal to be yourself now, she thought, even if it were still just as hard.