The Memory Tree by Tess Evans Read Free Book Online Page B

fence so it was a gloomy room even in summer. Paulina first used it to store an old sofa, a table and some broken chairs and then left it to itself, airing it a couple of times a month. Zav found this room ideal, providing him with a place to play with his mates on rainy days. In later years, they gathered there to smoke forbidden cigarettes and discuss girls and football.
    Like Sealie, Zav used his room to store his ‘stuff’ as he called it. Unlike his sister, however, his stuff could not be contained. The floor, the table, the chairs were festooned with books, jumpers, meccano pieces, flashlights, toy cars, footy cards, toffee papers and comics, while the walls were home to cricket bats, tennis racquets, camping equipment, bike parts and a large, unidentified metal ‘thing’ that he had rescued from a neighbour’s hard rubbish collection. You never know when something like this might come in handy , he explained when Hal saw him struggling with it up the path.
    And Hal? His place, his space was at Paulina’s side. After she died, he tossed in their bed, embracing the nightgown she left under her pillow. Her perfume lingered for a few precious nights, gradually dispersing into the darkest corners of their room before it dissolved into nothingness. When he was sure that Paulina’s spirit had gone, Hal left the cold bed, took his clothes from the wardrobe and went out, shutting the door. He padded softly to the guest bedroom and slid under the covers of the single bed, pulling the quilt up to his chin. The bed was too small for his large frame, but from then on, he slept in it every night until the day they took him away.
    The room was austere, with a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, an armchair and a side table with a reading lamp. He asked Mrs McLennon to tidy the other bedroom, but not to move any of Paulina’s things. She looked doubtful, but did as he asked. Hal kept the door shut and visited the room occasionally as one might visit a shrine. On their wedding anniversary, and on Paulina’s birthday, he filled the room with flowers. But he steadfastly refused to commemorate her death and was at pains to treat that day as ordinary.
    For the first few years, Mrs McLennon took the children to Mass on their mother’s anniversary. There they would pray for the repose of her soul, travelling afterwards on the bus and train to place flowers on her grave. Sealie made little gifts for her mother—a drawing, a plasticine statue and in the third year, a matchbox covered in Easter egg foil. With impulsivegenerosity, she put her blue feather inside on a nest of cotton wool and tied it with a yellow hair-ribbon.
    Looking at her handiwork with pride, she skipped up to the grave.
    Mrs Mac was shocked. ‘Selina! Show a little respect. This is no place for leaping about like a jumping jack!’
    Sealie stopped short. It was the best present she’d ever given her mother. She couldn’t understand why Mrs Mac sounded so cross. Her lip trembled and her joy evaporated.
    An appalled Mrs Mac hugged and petted her. ‘I felt that ashamed,’ she confessed to her sister, Alice, later. ‘Poor little thing. She put her present down all quiet and guilty looking— and she’d been really happy.’ Mrs Mac’s own face fell. ‘I try that hard to do the right thing, but you can’t replace a mother.’
    The truth was that Sealie’s memory of her mother was fading. The little girl knew from photographs that Paulina had been a beautiful woman, and her own memory was of them dancing together, her mother borne on air, like a cloud-wisp or a spiralling autumn leaf. Sealie remembered Paulina in a pale blue evening gown, dark hair brushing her shoulders. She remembered her in a shiny red coat, laughing as they ran hand-in-hand in the rain. And she remembered her mother’s perfume as she came in to say goodnight. As the years went by, these memories became more stylised, like illustrations in a book of fairytales. As she matured, Sealie wondered