I knew I really had no right to be angry with Todd, because if it were the other way around, I’d want him to return to being the person I thought I knew too—someone sensible and levelheaded who respected authority and didn’t cause unnecessary embarrassment. But I think you’re pleased that I argued with policemen and accosted grown men on their doorsteps and in their flats and took no notice of authority and that it’s all down to you.
As I walked alone through the streets, slippery with frozen slush, I realized that Todd didn’t really know me at all. Nor me him. Ours was a relationship of small talk. We’d never stayed awake long into the night hoping to find in that nocturnal physical conversation a connection of minds. We hadn’t stared into each other’s eyes, because if eyes are the window to the soul, it would be a little rude and embarrassing to look in. We’d created a beltway relationship, circumventing raw emotions and complex feelings, so that our central selves were strangers.
Too cold to walk any farther, I returned to the flat. As I reached the top of the steps, I collided with someone in the dark and was jolted with fear before realizing it was Amias. I think he was equally startled to see me.
“Amias?”
“I’m so sorry. Did I give you a fright? Here…” He held a flashlight for me to see my footing. I saw that he was carrying a bag of earth.
“Thanks.”
It suddenly struck me that I was living in his flat. “I should pay you something while we stay here.”
“Absolutely not. Anyway, Tess had already paid next month’s rent.”
He must have guessed I didn’t believe him. “I asked her to pay me with her paintings,” he continued. “Like Picasso with his restaurant bills. And she’d painted ones for February and March in advance.”
I used to think you spent time with him because he was another of your waifs and strays, but he’s got a rare kind of charm, hasn’t he? Something masculine and upper class, without being sexist or snobbish, making me think in black and white of steam trains and trilbies and women in floral frocks.
“I’m afraid it’s not the most salubrious of dwellings,” he continued. “I did offer to modernize it, but Tess said it had character.”
I felt ashamed of myself for being irritated by the lack of mod cons in the kitchen, the state of the bathroom, the draughty windows.
My eyes were further accustomed to the darkness and I could see that he had been planting up your pots outside your door, his bare hands stained with earth.
“She used to come and see me every Thursday,” continued Amias. “Sometimes just for a drink, sometimes for supper. She must have had so many other things she’d rather be doing.”
“She liked you.”
I’d realized that was true. You’ve always had friends, proper friends, in different generations. I’d imagined you’d do it in reverse as you got older. One day you’d be an octogenarian chatting to people decades your junior. Amias was totally at ease with my silence and with consideration seemed to sense when my train of thought had finished before speaking.
“The police didn’t take a great deal of notice of me when I reported her missing. Until I told them about the nuisance phone calls. They made a big song and dance about that.”
He turned his face back to his planting and I tried to have the courtesy for him too to finish his train of thought in peace before I butted in.
“Did Tess tell you anything about the phone calls?”
“She just said she’d been getting vicious calls. She only told me because she said she’d unplugged her phone and was worried I might need to phone her. She used to have a mobile, but I think she lost it.”
“‘Vicious’?” That was the word she used?”
“Yes. At least I think so. The ghastly thing about old age is you can’t rely on yourself to be accurate anymore. She cried though. She tried not to, but she did.” He broke off, for just a moment, struggling to keep his composure. “I told her she ought to go to the police.”
“Tess’s psychiatrist told the police the phone calls were in her head.”
“Did he tell Tess that too?”
“Yes.”
“Poor Tessie.” I hadn’t heard anyone call you that since Dad left. “Awful not to be believed.”
“Yes.”
He turned to me. “I heard the phone ring. I told the police but I couldn’t swear that it was one of the nuisance calls. But it was immediately afterward that Tess asked me to look after the key. It was just two days before she died.”
I could see the anguish in his face, illuminated by the orange glow of the street light.
“I should have insisted she went to the police.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Thank you, you’re very kind. Like your sister.”
I wondered whether to tell the police about the key, but it would make no difference. It was just another instance of your supposed paranoia.
“A psychiatrist thinks that she was mad. Do you think that she was, after the baby, I mean?” I asked.
“No. She was very upset, and very frightened, I think. But she wasn’t mad.”
“The police think she was mad too.”
“And did anyone in the police ever meet her?”
He carried on planting bulbs, and his old hands, the skin paper-thin and misshapen by arthritis, must have been aching in the cold. I thought that this must be the way he was coping with grief: planting dead-looking bulbs that would miraculously flower in springtime. I remembered how after Leo died, you and Mum seemed to spend so much time gardening. I’d only now seen the connection.
“These are King Alfreds,” said Amias. “Her favorite variety of daffodils because they’re such a strong yellow. You’re meant to plant them in autumn but they come up in about six weeks, so they should have time to flower this spring.” But even I knew that you shouldn’t plant things in frozen earth. For some reason, thinking that Amias’s bulbs would never flower made me furious.
Just in case you’re wondering, yes, I even suspected Amias at the start of all this. I suspected everyone. But as he planted bulbs for you, any residual suspicion withered into absurdity. I’m sorry it was ever there.
He smiled at me. “She told me that scientists have put a daffodil gene into a rice plant and made rice with vitamin A. Imagine that.”
You’d told me that too.
“The vitamin A in daffodils is what makes them yellow. Isn’t that amazing, Bee?”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
I was trying to concentrate on my design team’s roughs for a new corporate logo for an oil distribution company, noting with annoyance that they’d used PMS 683, which was already used in a competitor’s logo. You didn’t know there was any other chatter in my head.
“Thousands of children used to go blind because of a lack of vitamin A in their diet. But now with the new rice they’re going to be fine.”
For a moment I stopped thinking about the logo.
“Children are going to see because of the yellow in a daffodil.”
I think it was the fact that a color could save sight that you found so miraculously appropriate. I smiled back at Amias and I think in that moment we both remembered you in exactly the same way: your enthusiasm for life, for its myriad possibilities, for its daily miracles.
My vision is returning to normal again, the darkness transmuting into light. I am glad for the faulty electric light that can’t be turned off and the spring sunshine pouring in through the overly large window. I see Mr. Wright looking at me with concern.
“You’re very pale.”
“I’m fine, really.”