Geraniums, Part 2

[gatty.livejournal.com]

Nerissa contemplated her scrambled eggs. There were no sausages. They had all been eaten by the time she came down the next morning. It was her fault that she’d overslept. Despite her better judgement, she’d made a start on the letters that were in the box with the trunk. All her suspicions had been confirmed. Some of the letters confirmed things a little too much for her liking. But they had made fascinating reading, if a little embarrassing at times. It felt like eavesdropping, prying into something that wasn’t her business. And this was her great-grandfather she was reading about. It was so easy to forget that the person these letters were addressed to was the same person as the 102-year-old dying in a care home across town. This was someone her age, in love with someone they weren’t supposed to be. The letters were so… It made her feel bitter about her own life. She didn’t want it to. This was about her Grandda, not her, not her own sulks and paranoia. But still, with every one she read, she felt that there was no way that anyone would ever feel like this for her.

Stabbing her eggs, she tried to drive those thoughts from her head. She knew where they lead. Pointless worrying that got her nowhere and did nothing to make her feel better. If she was destined to a life of spinsterdom, then so be it. At least she would have no one to think about, save herself. Hmm. This was not the time for a black mood. If there was anything else to come out of her late night reading, then it was the renewed desire to speak to her Grandda before he died.

Excusing herself from the table, and leaving what was left of her breakfast to Tristram’s insatiable hunger, she found a thick coat and stout boots, put them on and slid from the bungalow before anyone could catch her. The air was crisp, the result of the nights frost. She trod carefully on the pavement, avoiding the larger patches of ice. Nerissa, for one, couldn’t wait until summer, or even spring made it’s presence known. Winter was all very well for pretty views and snow and that, but unless you were impervious to the cold, or inside in several layers and lots of central heating, the cold could reach into you bones and take root, never leaving until you could soak yourself in the sun for a few fleeting months. Her breath clouded in the air reminding her of the perishing cold that awaited any part of her, should it leave the protection of her thick coat.

She wasn’t quite sure where she was going. As she rounded the corner to a street she didn’t know, this spur of the moment walk was starting to seem less and less of a good idea. Her grandparents lived outside the old town walls of Bury St. Edmonds among a rather objectionable new development. The walk into town wasn’t that far, but she wasn’t too sure that she was even walking towards the town. Nerissa considered turning back, but was dissuaded by the mass of people waiting at the house for her to do things for them. After ten more minutes walk, she found herself spat out of a maze of back streets in front of Abby Gate. Her spirits had risen with the walk, the increasing age of the buildings reassuring her that she was at least out of the development, and now she found herself standing next to the Angel hotel where she knew some of the wealthier relatives were staying. There was nothing left of the Abby itself, except a lump of wall now hidden by the snow that covered all of the Abby gardens. The Abby Gate was itself quite pretty, sitting lower that the road that ran beside it, an indication of how much the land had moved since it’s construction. The cathedral hunched a little way in the distance, scaffolding clinging to the tower. Her Gran had told her that a lottery grant had been got hold of, and they were now erecting a gothic spiky bit. As the scaffolding went up, the reception on her Gran’s tv went down.

Staying on the hotel side of the road, she walked a little way along, watching the patterns left in the snow from the people trampling up and down. Footsteps crossed with other tracks, blurring the path of the walker. A swirl of imprints where several people stopped to pass the time.

Not looking where she was going, she walking into a tall chestnut-haired woman wrapped in a fashionable coat, purse tucked under arm.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

The woman looked at her from under a zealously plucked eyebrow, then tottered off, kitten heals not suited to the frost, however managing to remain giving off the impression that every step was designed to remind the casual on-looker of the phrase ‘like jello on springs’.

Nerissa tried to smother her amused grin, and turned around to set off in the vague direction of the second corn exchange, but was quickly brought to a halt by the imposing stone cross that bared her way, the hard edges softened by the snowfall. The war memorial. She squinted heaven-wards. If that’s a hint, it’s not subtle. She would have to go and see Grandda. She was out, she was almost there. She couldn’t not. The original photo was still in her pocket she realised, as if it knew what she was going to do today before she did. It would drive her mad not to at least try to ask him about it. It – it felt like something real that connected her to her family. It had always seemed to her that her and her family were quite separate things, only converging at Christmas – and communal tragedy, she reminded herself – there even seemed to be an impenetrable rift between herself and her mother and brother. They inhabited a different world to her. They got on like a normal family, as if she were the outsider, tagging along. Her whole family seemed to have nothing to do with her. They didn’t seem to even be real people. There was her brother, the teenage stereotype, who tried to hard to stay exactly where he was. Her mother, who seemed so absent after their father had left; before then she had been a child, an only known her mother as an intimidating adult. Her Gran and Grandfather, once again, living the cliché, doilies, knitting and all. Then there was her Grandda, always a mysterious figure, interesting, eccentric, but just as separate as the rest of them by the empty gulf that was his past. But now there was something there, something to make him a real person. She had to talk to him.

*****

It only took her twenty minutes to locate the care home, her mental map of the town still shaky. The woman at the desk had recognised her and waved her through with a smile.

“I don’t know what mood you’ll find him in this morning, only Doris has been in to see him yet, and I haven’t had a word with her since then.”

Nerissa nodded her thanks and walked slowly down the halls to the familiar room. The labelled door stood ajar. Peeping in, she saw her Grandda lying propped in bed, almost in the same position he had been in yesterday. She slid in quietly, and pushed the door to, some part of her brain feeling guilty for coming, almost as if she were sneaking around behind her family’s back. Pulling a chair up beside the bed, she took his frail hand in hers. His eyes were shut, glasses folded on the table. Wrinkled though his skin was, she could see the boy from the photographs still there. Unlike her Grandfather, Grandda hadn’t become ‘portly’ as her mother put it. Staying active until the bitter end had prevented that. He wasn’t jowly, like her Grandfather. He almost seemed too thin sometimes, but then he did even in those photos, she thought.

His eyelids flickered, then opened, his mouth smiling slightly. Focusing on her, he blinked, a puzzled look creasing his brow.

“Cecilia?” he asked, in a voice that sounded like reeds on sandpaper.

“No,” she replied softly. “It’s me. Nerissa.”

He frowned. “Nerissa…? Oh. Oh.” His eyes closed again, a pained expression barely concealed. Then he opened them, and smiled kindly at her. “Nerissa, my dear, how are you?”

She squeezed his hand. “I’m fine, Grandda. Are they treating you alright?”

“Yes…yes. It’s perfectly acceptable.”

She felt her eyes narrow against the tears that built behind her lids. He seemed so fragile… he hadn’t recovered from yesterday at all.

“Grandda,” she began haltingly.

“What is it?” He sounded like a storybook grandfather, soft and kindly. Nothing like himself.

“I wanted to ask you about something – some pictures I found while clearing through some of the safe store boxes.”

He laughed weakly. “Clearing up after me already?”

“No! No… we were just moving some things…” her voice caught. She wouldn’t’ cry, she wouldn’t. “I found some photographs… and some sketches.”

Grandda frowned again. “What’s this?”

“Look.” She pulled the photograph from her pocket, and held it up for him to see.

Fumbling on the bedside table, he put his glasses on, their strong lenses making his hazy brown eyes seem out of proportion with his face. He squinted at it, then reached out a shaking hand. She passed it to him, silently. He held it close to his face, his gnarled fingers knotted with arthritis that had set in as he gave up gardening. His gaze averted, she scrubbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her jumper. As realisation dawned, his face softened. His eyes misted, as if her were focusing a long way away from the photo in front of him. His other hand pulled from her grasp, to stroke the corrupted and stained card.

“I – I remember this day.” His words were soft and slow, but clear. “I can remember it. I can see him sitting there. Oh - ” he broke off, his voice strained. “Oh, I can see him - ”

“James?” she asked, trying not the let any trace of excitement spill into her voice.

“Y-yes… oh – no, take it, take it – I can’t…”

His hands shook and he dropped the picture onto the bedspread, his face growing hard.

“What it is? What’s wrong.”

No reply, his expression remained set.

“What happened to James?”

Grandda’s eyes narrowed. “You always called him James, but that was mine, that should have been only me.”

“Grandda, what does ‘someday’ mean?” she continued, fear that she was losing his lucidity creeping in at the edges of her mind.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Please! Grandda!” She caught his hand again in earnest.

“I think it best you leave now, Cecilia. You know our ‘talks’ never go well.” He pulled his hand from hers, folding it with the other on the counter pane.

Nerissa was torn between leaving, and letting him settle, or trying to get her Grandda back. She hated it when he got like this, it scared her. She felt something slide on her cheek, hot and wet. She picked the photograph from where it lay. Her Grandda had turned his face from her, staring stonily at the curtained window. Pushing back the chair to leave, she hesitated, then tucked the photo between to framed pictures on his shelf. She left the door ajar, as she had found it and padded back to the reception, the tears trickling down her face. She paused before she reached the reception, and used the cuff of her jumper once more to dry her face, though she realised as she did it that the scratchy wool would just make it look even worse. Sighing, she did the topmost buttons up on her coat and pulled her gloves on.

*****

When she arrived back it was to find the bungalow empty save Tristram who was devouring melted cheese sandwiches in front of the TV. He told her that the rest on the family had gone to the care home about fifteen minutes before. He hadn’t gone because he ‘couldn’t find any shoes’.

“God, you’re awful, Tris,” she said pulling off her coat and unwinding her scarf.

“Well, it’s not like you’ve gone with them. You just disappeared after breakfast.” He twisted a length of elastic-y cheese round one finger, the pulled it off with his teeth. Nerissa grimaced.

“I didn’t disappear. I went for a walk.” Pushing him to one side, she slumped into the arm chair. She swung her legs over his and stole a cheese sandwich.

“Hey, those are mine!”

“And now it’s mine. Kay sera sera.”

“That was a cruel and unnecessary reference.”

She stuck her tongue out, taking the remote from the coffee table, changed channels.

“Where did you go for you amazing important walk, then?”

She paused. “Out.”

He looked at her. “You went to see Grandda, didn’t you?”

“Maybe,” she replied evasively.

“And you asked him about James. Nerissa. I thought better of you.”

She glared. “You don’t know that I did.”

“Yes I do. I’m your brother, I know these things. I know that you went and asked him and it didn’t go well and now you’re pretending you didn’t because you know that I was right about leaving it well alone.”

Scowling, she made no reply.

“Well, what did he say?” Tristram hit the mute button on the remote still in her hand.

“Nothing much. I read those letters though. And I was right. About them.”

“What did he say?”

“He just thought I was Cecilia again,” Nerissa replied, not looking at him.

“What else? I know there was something else.”

“Well… he – he said something about me – I mean me as Cecilia, about our – their – talks not going well, and something about calling James ‘James’ when I, I mean she, shouldn’t have. It was a bit confusing.”

Tristram looked thoughtful. “Did you show him the picture?”

“Y – yes. He didn’t want to look at it… but he recognised it… said he remembered when it was taken.” Nerissa looked at her brother with big eyes. “I don’t think he’s very well Tris.”

“He’s dying, ‘Nissa. He’s old.” There was no scorn in his voice, only compassion. She slid her hand into his, studying his chewed nails in detail, trying to block the tears that seemed to well up at a moments notice.

“But Grandda’s not old. He doesn’t get old. Other people do.” She spoke and her voice was small and she hated it.

“Hey – maybe there’s a painting of him somewhere, and someone’s finally showed it to him – hmm?” Tristram smiled, trying to make her smile too.

“It’s – it’s just scary. You know?”

“Yes, I know.” He put a brotherly arm around her shoulders, even at fifteen bigger than her, stronger. “People shouldn’t die. It’s unfair, and it makes us think about our own mortality.”

“We’re all going to die… and that’s it. We’ll die and it’ll be like we never existed. No one will remember us in a hundred years time, no one will know about our lives, or what we did or felt, so – so what’s the point of it all?”

“To do something to be remembered by, perhaps?”

“No one will remember Grandda.”

“We will.”

She dropped her head onto his chest. “There. You’ve done it again. Not been a proper teenager. You’ve been nice to your sister, and actually had emotions. How does it feel to be a freak?”

“I’m not a freak. And I have feelings at school… just different ones.”

“Like the overwhelming desire to be exactly the same as everyone else.”

“No. Just to be the part of me that people like at school. Just like I am the part of me you like when I’m with you.”

“But that’s not what you’re really like – the person you are at school. That’s not really you.”

“It’s a side of me.”

“But it’s a side that sacrifices your intelligence, and your compassion and your - ”

“No. It doesn’t. I’m all those things you think I pretend not to be when I’m at home. Saying that I’m pretending not to be clever or whatever at school is exactly the same as saying that I’m pretending not to be the school-me at home.”

“Why do you have to be different people at home and at school. Why can’t you be just yourself everywhere?”

“Because life doesn’t work that way. Not everyone will accept who you are all of the time. At school I need to bring certain qualities to the forefront, just like I need to bring different qualities to the forefront at home. Like Grandda and James – think about it. They couldn’t have been themselves, these two people who loved each other, or felt whatever, all the time. People back then wouldn’t have accepted them. They would have to suppress some things about them just to go about the world. It’s how people survive.”

“I suppose.”

“You’re not just yourself all the time. You aren’t. At school you’re yourself with the people you like, and a bookish mouse with the people you don’t – I’ve seen you. We’d be too vulnerable if we were just ourselves all the time. People could hurt us too easily, so we hide bits of ourselves. That’s all I’m doing. Protecting myself, and trying to get on in the world.”

Nerissa didn’t reply. She watched the flickering silent images on the screen without really seeing them. What Tristram was saying made sense to her, it did, but she didn’t want to give up on the idea that it should be enough for people to be themselves. She clung to it, as a way of dealing with the people she didn’t like, the people she didn’t understand and didn’t understand her. For her it was herself against the world, with the few other people who took her stance, and it worked. To a degree. But there was Tristram, with his own way of coping, and he had it all. Popularity at school, intelligence and maturity at home – and while she understood fully now, why he did it, she knew that she could never do that herself. It would be too much a sacrifice of herself.

“We’re very different, aren’t we Tris?”

“A little.”

Another silence followed, interrupted by the telephone ringing on the table next to the chair. Tristram picked up. Nerissa could not hear the person on the other end, but she saw her brother’s eyebrows furrowing; his voice grew suddenly quiet, and he avoided her questioning gaze. After a few minutes of monosyllabic ‘yeses’ and ‘nos’ he said simply, “no, I’ll tell her,” and hung up. He turned to her, found her hand again and squeezed it.

“It’s Grandda,” he said softly.

At once Nerissa felt a hot burst behind her eyes and found her cheeks wet with tears that had been mounting without her realisation. She couldn’t feel her breath properly, she couldn’t tell if her lungs were working. A tight band settled on her chest, and she couldn’t speak.

“He – he died ten minutes ago.” Tristram let her bury her face in his shoulder, stroking her hair with his hand. “I’m so sorry.”

*****

It was hard to see any of them. Algy knew they were there, but he couldn’t make out their faces. He could hear their voices. They were talking about someone. The Matterhorn… hadn’t he climbed that once? He thought so. He couldn’t think of anything in order. Trying to think of what he did yesterday… all he seemed to remember was mowing the lawn in summer. He was sure he hasn’t mown a lawn for… years. A long time. He seemed to have been around for a long time. There were so many people he could remember. People he’d known so long ago… he wondered what had happened to them. Where was Rebecca? Was she amongst the people sitting in the room? When he thought of her, he could see someone much younger than he thought he was now. He thought George was there… he thought he could remember talking to him. Given him a piece of his mind. He hoped he had. He could remember George as a boy. He has always been mean to Grace and David. He – he was the oldest… had he done an engineering degree… after the war. Yes the war. Grace had been so young when he’d left and when he came back she had gone to America… George was in the army – he knew because he remember him telling them about Dunkirque and David… David flew. He flew a Spitfire. Algy remembered he had flown a Spit, too. There had been a scramble and… a scramble and… only half the boys had come back that day. And David…

There had been another war, he could feel it hovering at the edges of his mind. It was further away than anything else. No… it burnt at his thoughts… it was too painful. He thought he flew… he remembered a floating sensation of freedom, of everything being good and he had been happy… but then his memory shut down. There was a skewer of pain amongst the… the… he couldn’t. It hurt too much. One name drifted from the mass – James… Oh. The sense of anguish that that name dragged with it. He didn’t want to think about it… but it was flooding in now. A torrent of emotion brought him back from his wandering, but tore him from the room of whispering people… it was too much. The stead gasp of breath that had punctuated the mire of his thoughts became harder to find. He was holding onto all the people in the room, the people he could remember filling his life… he wanted to let go. It was slipping… slipping. James… he could see James. It was gone, he couldn’t feel it… they weren’t there… there were no voices. Everything was very silent and still… it was growing very bright – so bright. And then – then he could feel a gentle breeze on his cheek… he could feel his body. The light was dying slowly… he opened his eyes in search of it.

A sharp breath. His.

He was in a field. He was standing. The ground was green with grass, very green, peppered with daisies… the sky grew bluer as he stood and watched in awe… and… and there – there was…

“James?” His voice was strong and clear, ringing out through the pure air.

James smiled. That smile, oh, he remembered that smile. His hazel eyes were warm; a lock of hair danced in the wind by his temple.

“I’ve been waiting.” He spoke and Algy felt himself tremble. “I’ve found our house. Not even the milkman can find us.” James held out a hand. “Are you coming?”

Hardly breathing, Algy reach out and took his hand, looking in disbelief at the pale, smooth skin, free from liver spots and wrinkles. He was young. It rested perfectly still in James’ as though it had never left his grip.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” said James softly.

“I know,” replied Algy in barely more than a whisper.

“I’ve been waiting a very long time.”





Thank you for reading! I hope it wasn't too traumatic and full of awful writing :s Nice thing about passage of time is hopefully you get better...

Comments

[potatofiend.livejournal.com]

Aaaaah! Oh my God, I'd completely forgotten this fic! I love anything involving digging through boxes and coming up with The Gay, so I loved this then and I love it now. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with the writing at all. <3

[gatty.livejournal.com]

*blush* Thank you! Problem of reading your own stuff is you're always your own worst critic. Though it's not as bad as I though it would be.

[calliope85.livejournal.com]

Ack, meant to comment on this days ago, bad Mod...

*flails* Oh, man, thank you for this! I love fics where the secrets of the past are revealed by present historical investigation (...okay, that sounds a bit niche. I think I read The Daughter of Time at an impressionable age), and here the secrets of the past are Biggles and Algy's totally adorable and tragic gayness, OMG, which just makes it all the better. I really loved how you controlled the reveal, showing us the evidence piece by piece, but still leaving us with the feeling of so many things left unsaid - the details of Algy's family and background, his relationship with his sisters, his wife, his children. And Biggles, unchanging in the past, as Algy grows and ages without ever quite moving on. Mmmm.

So - yeah. Thanks for this :D Moar Algy-fic, I say, moar!

[pearbean.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry I haven't read/commented on this before! I've been a bit immersed in other fandoms and so I'd been putting off reading Biggles fic thinking that I wasn't "in the mood", but I just started reading this and I was totally immersed.
I loved Tristram and Nerissa, and I adored grouchy, ancient, wrinkly Algy being rude to the nurses and Speaking Very Loudly in self-defense.
And it made me wish that I'd been old enough to be interested enough to ask my grandparents about their lives before they died- that slightly wistful feeling that wound through the story.
Awesome ^_^ thank you so much for wonderful wonderful fic.

[gatty.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the lovely comment! I'm glad you enjoyed it.