Vivien marches back into the room and hands Eileen an ashtray. Once she’s sat down she tells Eileen about a fantastic dentist she’s found in London, through a friend called Ettie. Actually, he’s not a dentist but a hygienist and he’s managed, finally, to stop her teeth being so sensitive. He’s given her a special brush that made her gums bleed at first but now she’ll never use any other kind. She can eat anything.
It’s the first time I’ve heard her mention anything about her life in London. Now I know she has a friend called Ettie and a dentist called a hygienist.
Eileen accepts another top-up and they start to discuss their time together yesterday afternoon. They try to remember what they had talked about yesterday afternoon. Then they move onto yesterday afternoon’s weather and compare it to today’s downpour, which, they agree, is thankfully easing into drizzle. Or is it spitting? Not once did anyone ask about my research.
A while later, Eileen has left, and Vivien and I are in the kitchen preparing lunch together. Vivien starts to dress a small chicken to roast while I peel and chop a squash at the sink. Now and again one of us will remind the other of something from our childhood, someone we used to know, songs we used to sing or the clothes we wore that now seem absurd. It’s a delight to hit on something we can both recall, that we eagerly begin to elaborate on, jogging each other’s memory with every comment, building up the details for each other. But for every memory we share, there are many more that we can’t bring together, that we can’t seem to evoke in each other, that turns out to be something only one of us remembers or the other only vaguely recollects or, sometimes, remembers completely differently.
With the back of the knife, I scrape the bright orange chunks of chopped squash off the chopping board into a pan of cold water, then sit at the table with a colander to pod some broad beans.
“Well, darling, wasn’t that nice to meet Eileen?” Vivien says, bringing the conversation back to this century. “Nice to know someone in the village.”
“I suppose so,” I say, not thinking particularly.
Vivien pauses and annoyance flicks over her face. “Ginny, you really shouldn’t presume that everyone knows about your research,” she says sharply, cracking rosemary over the chicken’s breast.
“I don’t presume—”
“It might embarrass them if they don’t,” she continues. I don’t say anything, although I think she expects me to. “And, to be honest, I’m not sure anyone cares that much,” she finishes.
It was cruel of her, I agree, but I know she’s only stirring for a reaction. Don’t ask me why she’s suddenly launched into this attack. I have no idea, and I’m not sure which direction it’s going in either. Vivien stops what she’s doing and rests both hands flat on the table at either side of the bird.
“I’m not being unkind, but it’s been a very long time since you retired, Ginny. That’s all.”
I burst open another pod with a pop, and scrape the beans out of their furry jacket with my overgrown thumbnail. I wonder when Vivien retired. She’s told me nothing about her life even though she’s obviously told Eileen, so why should she come back and make all kinds of guesses about mine? She doesn’t know anything about my line of work.
“It’s not the kind of career you ever really retire from, Vivien.” I try to put her straight. “It’s a vocation, not a job, and I’m afraid I’ll take it to my grave.”
Vivien is quiet and I can feel her looking at me hard.
“Well, what moth work are you doing right now?” she says casually, taking a lemon and stuffing it right up inside the bird.
“Well, right now, Vivien,” I say, a little bored by her line of questioning, “I’m not doing as much. I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“I know all the knowledge you have is incredible, I just didn’t realize you’d been doing proper research…”
“Proper research?”
“I mean, I thought you’d finished all that a very long time ago.”
“I’m always in research,” I correct her. “One project invariably leads to another. That’s the nature of it. You can never finish research. There’s always more to discover.”
Vivien leans over the table towards me. “Ginny,” she says softly, almost in a whisper, and as she starts to speak I lean in too, to catch what she’s saying, “you are extraordinary…” She laughs suddenly.
“Extraordinary?” I whisper, pulling back, another long pod ready to split in my hand.
“Yes. Extraordinary,” she says, in a more serious tone. “I mean, why don’t you ever get it?”
I didn’t say anything. If she was looking for a reaction, I couldn’t work out what kind she was waiting for. As for being extraordinary, well, you’ve probably gathered by now that I’m pretty straight down the line, sometimes, I’ll admit, a little too guarded, a little too taciturn, too serious, perhaps, but I wouldn’t call it extraordinary. I’m not impetuous like Vivien and I don’t go around cloaking my thoughts and feelings in the elaborate costumes of hidden meanings, abstruse subtexts and sly insincerity. It’s Vivien who’s always been frustratingly complicated, whose equivocating you need to decipher. She’s always saying things she doesn’t really mean or pretending to be someone she isn’t. I don’t know how she can see through all the confusion she creates in her head.
“Oh, I see, I suppose you don’t think you are. Is that it?” she goes on as if she’s read my thoughts. “I suppose you think you’re just like the next person, as normal as the neighbors. Well, isn’t it remarkable that the rest of the world thinks you’re extraordinary?” she adds spitefully.
Well, one thing I’m absolutely sure of is that the rest of the world can’t be thinking about me very much. I never see them. I don’t go out. She must be furious with me about something, but I can’t think what I’ve done. It’s lucky I find it easy to ignore her gibes.
Then she seems to have a change of heart. She comes over and holds my face in her hands and strokes my hair, as a mother might her child. She brushes a wayward gray lock behind my ear.
“Ginny, what I am getting at is…” That’s a promising start, I think, but she’s stalled.
“Is what?” I prompt her.
“I don’t understand why they felt you needed to be protected all your life,” she says, making herself no clearer. “I don’t see why they presumed you were incapable of understanding. You were this delicate and rare flower that a little truth would bowl over and crush. They both tried to build a high wall round you and patrol it all your life. Well, I don’t think it’s right anymore. I think it’s your right to know the truth.”
Ah, she’s drunk. I recognize it now. She’s ebullient, excited, even. All the signs flood back to me. I know she doesn’t mean anything she’s about to say or do. It’s the alcohol. I close my eyes.