The Ocean Liner

Wisconsin

Cubby Hubbard had to plan his visits with more care these days. After the decades of near-isolation, people had dredged Rosemary’s name out of their memories and had started calling to see her. Her family had begun to drift back around her. Or at least some of her family. She had already outlived her parents. Her father, devastated by a stroke a few years after Rosemary’s lobotomy, had ended up in a worse condition than she, unable to talk or walk. Her mother, once so sharp and ambitious, had declined into dementia. From what the nuns had told Cubby, Rosemary had never forgiven either of them, despite the irony of their fates. Of Rosemary’s siblings, four had already died, in accidents or at the hands of assassins, giving the family name, which had once been so proud, the ring of tragedy.

Those who remained had begun to show an interest in the recluse at St Coletta of Wisconsin. They came to see her and sometimes they took her on outings, to revisit the places of her youth, or to see new ones. There was even a tendency to turn her into a cause célèbre, and make her suffering an emblem of compassion – she who had received so little compassion in her life, except from strangers.

So Cubby had to plan his visits with a little foresight so as not to coincide with other visitors, or find Rosemary not there. It wasn’t too difficult, because Rosemary’s visitors and outings were not so common – she still spent most of her time alone – and with the help of the nuns, something could always be arranged. But it was a long journey to make, and he didn’t like to make it in vain.

He drove the car he’d rented through the Midwestern cornfields of bronze and gold, now almost ready for the harvest. Along County Road Y, the strips on either side of the tarmac, which they called berms here in Wisconsin, were speckled with pale-blue forget-me-nots. He was remembering a time when he hadn’t needed to check in advance, because he had always found Rosemary alone, and St Coletta had been the middle of nowhere.

He had been coming to St Coletta twice a year for half a century. This was his hundredth visit.

It was eight months since he’d last seen Rosemary. He wasn’t able to travel as easily as he had done in the past. Everything was more effort, more of a challenge these days. The passing of the years was something he’d learned to accept; yet it struck him to the heart to see Rosemary huddled in her wheelchair now, in front of the porch. She had been robust through her middle age, retaining some of her physical vigour, though her movements had always been clumsy. She had loved to walk. But in recent years he had seen her shrinking, fading, becoming immobile. The nuns had told him she would inevitably be wheelchair-bound one day, and during the past eight months, that day had come.

He got out of the car. She raised her head, and he saw her face light up. In her eighties, she still retained that magic, that ability to make your heart sing with a smile.

‘She’s not talking a lot any more,’ Sister Hedwig murmured to Cubby. ‘So don’t expect too much.’

‘Okay. She looks awfully frail.’

‘She’s quiet. At least her temper’s better lately.’

‘Glad to hear it.’

‘I’ll leave you two to get some privacy. The buzzer’s round her neck if you need me.’

Cubby sat beside Rosemary in the chair the nun had vacated. He saw that the call button was indeed hanging around her neck, along with the rosary, which pretty much covered all spiritual and temporal emergencies.

‘Hello, Rosemary,’ he said.

She didn’t reply, but held her hand out to him, still smiling her lopsided smile. He took it. They sat in silence for a while, holding hands, as in the old days.

‘Your garden’s very pretty,’ he said at last. He pretended to examine her fingers closely. ‘Aha. There it is. Your green thumb.’

He saw a spark of amusement in her dark eyes. ‘Cubby,’ she whispered.

‘That’s me.’ It was warm in the sun. He felt his skin flushing, and unbuttoned his collar. ‘I didn’t think it would be so hot. I wouldn’t have worn a flannel shirt.’

‘Love – sun.’

‘Yeah, I know you do. You’re a sun-lizard, aren’t you?’

‘Tortoise.’

Cubby laughed. She could still surprise you with the things she came out with. He stretched out his arms, with their patterns of discoloration. ‘The doctors say I have to watch my skin. I take medicine that – well, never mind.’

‘Medicine?’

‘Nothing to worry about. I brought you some stuff. Want to see?’

Rosemary nodded. He disengaged his fingers gently from hers and went to the car, returning with the holdall he’d packed in California. ‘These are candies, fudge and whatnot. The stuff you like. I’d better put it in the house. It’ll spoil in the sun.’

The cottage was spotless, almost clinically so. He stood at her little dining table in the cool interior, looking at the painting of Jesus on the wall, one finger indicating the thorns that bound his sacred heart. Seeing Rosemary always changed him. The even tenor of his life was disrupted, like a pond into which someone had heaved a rock. The ripples spread, squeezing and stretching his emotions until he didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or cry.

When he went back out again, she had picked the photograph album out of the holdall and was paging through it. ‘Children,’ she said. It was one of her favourite words.

‘Yet more photos of the grandchildren,’ he said apologetically.

‘Beautiful.’

‘Yeah, they’re okay. A pain in the ass sometimes. At least they go home when you’ve had enough of them.’

‘Love.’ He thought she meant the grandchildren, but she was smiling directly at him. ‘Cubby,’ she said again. ‘Love.’

‘I love you too.’ She nodded a few times. Her lips tried to frame some further words. He waited, but she didn’t manage to get them out. She didn’t seem able to string a complete sentence together any longer. ‘I brought you something else. A poem I came across a couple of weeks ago. I thought you might like it. Should I read it to you?’

‘Yep.’

He took the book out of the bag and opened it to the page he had marked.

Her hand touched his, stopping him. He saw that tears were spilling down her cheeks. He closed the book. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you, honey.’

She shook her head. ‘No more.’

‘Okay, no more. I’ll leave you the book if you want to go back to it. There’s a marker in the page. Maybe one of the nuns can read it to you.’ He didn’t know whether she’d understood the words, or whether just the cadence of the poetry had moved her. ‘He was an Irish poet.’

‘Mmm.’ She fumbled for a handkerchief and blew her nose.

‘I just loved that line, the sorrows of your changing face. It reminded me of the first time I saw you, in London. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. About your face. Of course, you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. But it wasn’t just that. It was the way your expressions changed, all the time, never staying the same from one moment to the next. Your face was so alive, compared to other girls. It was restless. It was luminous and dark at the same time. Once you saw that, you could never un-see it.’

‘Mmm.’ He wasn’t sure if she was listening to him. She was staring at the geraniums that nodded in the sun. They’d prettied her up for his visit, with some lipstick and eyeshadow, and her nails done nicely. They kept her hair dyed black, her original colour, but it was cropped short these days, easier to manage, he supposed. There was a safety-belt clipped round her waist to keep her in the chair.

‘You looked scared a lot of the time. But there was something dangerous about you.’

This time he got a reaction. She seemed amused. ‘Still dangerous.’

‘Oh, I believe you. You’re still a bomb waiting to go off, aren’t you?’

She tilted her head and glanced at him from under her eyelashes. For a fleeting moment, it was there again, the captivating mischief of long ago.

‘Yep,’ he said, ‘you’ll always be the best Kennedy Girl.’

Slowly, the smile faded and the light went out of her eyes. Her eyelids drooped, and she was asleep. He picked up her hat, which was lying next to her chair, and laid it gently on her head to shade her face. Then he lay back in his chair and folded his hands on his chest. The air smelled sweet, of new-mown hay and the ripening fruit in the orchards. He closed his eyes.

He was awoken by Sister Hedwig’s hand on his shoulder.

‘Sorry to wake you, Mr Hubbard, but I think you may be burning.’

Cubby looked down at his arms, which had turned a dull red. ‘You’re right, Sister.’

‘We’ll have tea indoors.’

Afternoon tea was one of the rituals Rosemary most loved. She’d picked up the habit in England, at Belmont House, during the happiest period of her life. It was a proper English tea, with dainty little cakes and finger sandwiches. The two nuns who looked after Rosemary set everything out in a cheerful display, with flowered china and Irish linen. Cubby accepted a cup of Oolong and a plate of petits fours, though he didn’t touch the latter.

‘How’s your health, Mr Hubbard?’ Sister Gertrude asked, eyeing him keenly.

‘About what can be expected,’ he replied.

‘What does that mean?’ Sister Gertrude was always a bit sharp.

‘Means I can’t complain.’ He changed the subject. ‘Does Rosemary go everywhere in the wheelchair now?’

‘She had a couple of falls. Nothing too serious, thanks be to God. But we don’t want to take chances with her.’

He looked at Rosemary, who was eating cake with great concentration. ‘You care for her wonderfully.’

‘And you, Mr Hubbard – you’ve been her most constant visitor. You’ve been coming to St Coletta as long as I can remember.’

‘Well, she means a lot to me.’

‘It’s a rare quality, fidelity. Devotion. We admire you for it.’

‘I can’t claim to have done anything special,’ he said wryly. ‘I never felt I had much choice.’

‘But you do have a choice,’ Sister Hedwig chimed in. ‘God always gives us a choice.’

‘I never felt that. I loved her from the moment I saw her. I couldn’t help it.’ The nuns said nothing. Rosemary was intent on her food, apparently not listening to the conversation. Then her lids drooped and she fell into one of her sudden dozes.

‘It was a terrible shame,’ Sister Gertrude said in her abrupt way. ‘What was done to her. It was cruel.’

‘Now, now,’ Sister Hedwig said. ‘Nobody expected the operation to go so terribly wrong.’

‘They knew what they were doing,’ Sister Gertrude said grimly. ‘They wanted her out of the way. No embarrassment, no breath of scandal. Well, they’ve paid for what they did. Four of her brothers and sisters dead, all violently. Her parents struck down—’

‘The family had the best intentions, Sister Gertrude. Rosemary was a danger to herself. Going with strange men. Who knows what might have happened.’

Sister Gertrude sniffed. ‘Look at the girls today. Look how they carry on. They let their sex drives run free. They don’t get locked up or lobotomised.’

‘In the Thirties,’ Cubby said quietly, ‘a woman with a strong sex drive was in danger of being called insane. Especially if she didn’t try to hide it. And Rosie couldn’t hide her feelings. She didn’t know how. That’s why she was so vulnerable, and so terribly fragile. She loved life and fun, and didn’t care too much about the consequences. I loved her for her spontaneity. We never got a chance to see what she would have grown into. What they did to her didn’t change my feelings,’ he went on. ‘But it froze them. She vanished, but she was still there. It might have been easier if she’d—’ He didn’t finish the sentence. ‘I don’t think there was ever much chance that we could have had a life together, but after the operation, I had to give up whatever hope I still had left. I still love her. I always will. I’m a grandfather, and I have my own life at home, but deep inside, it’s always me and Rosemary. Frozen a lifetime ago. Just waiting for something that will never come.’

Rosemary had woken up. Her eyes were on his, dark and warm. Her lips moved, framing words, but without a sound, as though only he could hear and understand.

He took her hands as they were saying goodbye.

‘Rosie, I don’t know when I’ll be able to see you again. They want to do an operation in a couple of weeks’ time, and after that – well, I don’t know how things will be. So if I don’t come for a while, I hope you’ll understand.’

She nodded.

He kissed her. ‘If I don’t see you through the week, I’ll see you through the window.’

He left her sitting in front of her little house, huddled in the wheelchair, flanked by the nuns.

He had plenty of time to get to the airport for his flight, so he drove slowly, the windows down, enjoying the balmy evening air and the sunlight on the cornfields. He found it soothing. The ripples in his life were flattening out. He was returning to his customary calm. Or was it numbness?

A long time had passed. A long, long time. And yet it had gone by in the blinking of an eye. How did you explain that, the way the years and the decades sped past so slow, so fast? It was a mystery.

County Road Y was deserted. There was not so much as a car coming either way, just farmland and crops. The pain in his chest, which had been there all afternoon, was swelling so much that he found it difficult to drive any further. It seemed to occupy the whole of his body.

He pulled over and stopped the car beside a field of grain that rolled down between clumps of trees and lost itself in the haze of twilight. He tried to breathe.

The last verse of the poem came to him; the verse Rosemary wouldn’t let him read to her: