Eliza
Katarina came marching through the fairy-tale woods in a state of high agitation. ‘It’s damp on the ground. The warmth’s gone out of the day. What were you thinking of?’
She got Uncle Ian to his feet with ease and I looked at her and then at me, wondering where the secret of this woman’s strength lay. She read my mind and gave me a small smile. ‘Training,’ she said. ‘There’s a knack to it like with everything else.’
Once home, she called Hans, the district nurse. He checked Uncle Ian over and pronounced that no ill effects were apparent from the afternoon spent in the woods. I didn’t believe in God but that didn’t stop me thanking him with all my heart.
I was due to leave the next morning but I was reluctant to go.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ Uncle Ian said.
‘We have a very busy period coming up at work and I don’t know when I will next be able to take time off and come over.’
‘I might come over to see you,’ he said to me, with a look at Katarina. When Katarina didn’t rise to the bait he said again, louder this time. ‘I said, I might go over and see Eliza.’
‘I heard you.’
‘So why didn’t you reply?’
Katarina paused in her dusting and looked at him, her hands on her hips.
‘Bloody woman,’ he muttered.
‘Pay no attention. I certainly don’t,’ Katarina said to me. ‘I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.’
Uncle Ian gave her a long look as she left, then he turned back to me, saying in that same loud voice as if he were hoping she could still hear him, ‘Yes, I’d like to see that house of yours.’
‘Why are you two bickering?’
‘Who’s bickering?’
I thought of the stories I’d heard of defenceless old people being mistreated by the very people charged with their care. It was hard to see Katarina in that light but I had to ask. ‘She’s not bullying you, is she?’
Uncle Ian looked at me as if I’d gone weak in the head. ‘Ha. I should like to see her try. No, of course she isn’t, poor woman. She gets on my nerves, that’s all.’
My shoulders relaxed and I sipped my coffee. I never would have thought it when I first came to the quiet house by the lake but I’d grown to like that bitter brew they served.
‘Anyway, where were we?’ Uncle Ian said. ‘Oh yes, me visiting.’
‘There was a time,’ I told him now, ‘when I thought I might not carry out any of the repairs but just live in the house and give the money to charity.’
He laughed. ‘Did you really? So what changed your mind?’
‘The realisation that you might do just that, come and visit. Plus I got seduced by the appeal of soft furnishings.’
He started to laugh and then the laughter turned into a coughing fit and I got scared and called for Katarina, who came rushing with a glass of water. ‘Drink this, Ian dear,’ she said and she held the glass to his lips with one hand, stroking his thinning hair with the other.
The coughing subsided and Uncle Ian sat back in the chair, his eyes closed. When he opened them again he frowned and said, ‘Both of you, stop looking at me as if you’re measuring me for my coffin.’
‘Best to get these things done,’ I said.
He glared at me. ‘You don’t have much of a bedside manner, do you?’
I had been glancing surreptitiously at my watch. The cab was not due for another twenty minutes. It was always the way, it probably was for most people, but however much I dreaded a parting, once that parting was inevitable I just wanted to get on with it, so that I could lick my wounds in peace and start counting down the days until the next meeting. The difference this time was that I feared that for Uncle Ian and me there would be no next meeting.
‘I said, don’t look so worried. I’ll be fine. And Eliza, will you promise me something, me and Rose?’
I had grown used to him speaking as if Rose were only in the next room so I simply told him, ‘Of course. Anything.’
‘Don’t waste any more of your life on regrets.’
I opened my mouth to speak but he raised his hand to stop me. ‘To my mind waste should be counted as the eighth deadly sin.’ He leant forward and peered at me. ‘You think I’m exaggerating?’
I shrugged like a child. ‘No. Yes. Perhaps.’
He fell back against the chair. ‘You think you owe me something, Eliza? Then you owe me not to waste your life. War, inequality, discrimination, poverty, in the end those things are all about waste. As is failing to live the best life you can. No more, Eliza.’
I put out my hand and took his. Uncle Ian, like my mother, was not much for touching and usually his hand slunk off back to his side like an embarrassed schoolboy, but not this time. ‘I promise,’ I said. ‘At least, I promise to try.’ After a couple of minutes we let go of each other’s hands and I said, ‘But it’s an unusual situation; you give me a home and you tell me to have a lovely life and then you somehow make it sound like by accepting your gifts and following your advice I’m doing you a favour.’
‘You are. I’ve come to believe there’s a particular hell where all the unused gifts, the wasted opportunities, the ill-spent hours end up, and if you listen hard enough you will hear a terrible wailing and gnashing of teeth.’
I smiled weakly. ‘I think I’ve got it.’
It was his turn to take my hand. ‘And don’t look so worried. I’ll still be here when you come back.’
Now I did smile. ‘A bit of a pointless visit if you’re not.’
He gave a dry laugh. ‘So,’ he said. ‘Off you go.’
‘The car’s not here yet.’ I had no sooner said that than it arrived, beeping its horn as it came up the drive. I got to my feet and Uncle Ian lifted himself an inch off the chair before sinking back down again. I busied myself checking I had my tickets and my passport.
‘Eliza.’
I looked up at him. ‘Yes, Uncle Ian.’
‘Be happy.’
I nodded.
‘You can be a black hole, Eliza, or you can be a candle. Which is it going to be?’ I must have looked surprised because he laughed. ‘One of Ove’s little bons mots.’
‘Ah. Still, it makes a corny kind of sense.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ We kissed and I picked up my handbag. Chopin’s Nocturne Number 2 was playing on the old-fashioned CD player as I walked from the room. When I got to the door I turned round and we looked at each other. I thought, he knows it too; he knows this is the last time that we’ll see each other. I wanted to run back to him and hug him but I knew that if nothing else the shock of such a display of emotion would surely kill him.
‘Goodbye then.’ I gave a little wave.
He raised his hand. ‘Goodbye, Eliza.’