Sipsworth

by Simon Van Booy

The front garden had been paved over, but cracks in the cement sometimes bled flowers she could name, as though just below the surface of this world are the ones we remember, still going on.

Returning after sixty years, Helen had felt her particular circumstances special: just as she had once been singled out for happiness, she was now an object of despair. But then

after so many consecutive months alone, she came to the realisation that such feelings were simply the conditions of old age and largely the same for everybody. Truly, there was no escape. Those who in life had held back in matters of love would end in bitterness. While the people like her, who had filled the corners of each day, found themselves marooned on a scatter of memories.

Long ago one just like it had belonged to her son. And herein lies the cruel paradox of human existence⁠—not that you die, but that all happiness eventually turns against you.

David would have loved this place. Heavens above, it would have been an argument for sure. As she lingers, it isn’t any particular memory that comes, just random things, like the way he pulled her hand, even when she said no he couldn’t have it; he would lean his small body into hers⁠—not to get his way, but to reassure her of something they never said out loud.

None of this has any effect on her. It is no longer Helen’s world to worry about. And in her mind it is the same news over and over again, with the only difference being that people think they’re hearing it for the first time.

After screwing closed the taps, Helen removes each piece of damp clothing and steps gingerly into the clear liquid. Immediately, a deep warmth radiates to her core. Who could have known that in advanced age, sensual pleasure would come from sitting in a plastic tub of hot water like some tropical insect?

The only real proof of her advanced age are a chronic, persistent feeling of defeat, aching limbs, and the power of invisibility to anyone between the ages of ten and fifty.

Helen stares at her old, unreliable hands. Not a soul alive would have believed the miraculous things they were once capable of.

If she dies in the night, he will be alone. The lemonade cap will be licked dry within a day. The food won’t last much longer. And with no way out of the sink to help himself, it will be a worse fate than if she’d left the creature outside at the mercy of rain and the neighbour’s cat. Reality is all corners and sharp edges. Then a more unsettling truth drops: Helen is no longer able to die. What she has both wanted and feared for so long is now impossible. Squeezing both fists, she turns sharply to the bedside table. “It’s like having a baby! At eighty-three!” As if loosened by anger, a memory drifts toward her like a small feather: she has seen

Helen is certain now that the creature in her sink must surely have been a child’s pet that outlived his use as a companion and was left to die. Except he is downstairs in a pie box. Not dying. And for the first time in many years, against her better judgement, neither is she.

wasn’t scared of the bombing, but other children were crying because their pets had been left behind. It made me so mad that I began to sing ‘Over the Rainbow.’ Do you know, after a verse or two, everyone joined in. We sang and sang until the all clear came. Then we left that place, not realising it was somewhere special that we would return to, over the years, in our minds.

But from the way my mother held my hand, I believed that nothing terrible would happen to us.”

“The only consolation of being the last to go,” she admits, “is knowing the people you loved the most won’t suffer the way you do in their absence.”

Helen notices her hand trembling⁠—not because she’s holding a live mouse, but because it’s the first time she’s been touched by another living thing for over twenty years.

Once the dishes and pot are upside down on a tea towel, Helen goes upstairs and has a long, hot bath. She’s back in Australia, moving from scene to scene like someone on a set. “Wherever you are, David, I hope you can forgive your old mother for that car business.” She remembers the look on his face after she’d humiliated him for not caring. He had tried to be honest with his mother and she had berated him for it. Helen wipes her eyes with a corner of towel. “My sweet David.”

she watches Dr. Jamal zoom off in his big car, Helen imagines him as an elderly man with a cane, appearing on the floor of her old cardiology wing at Sydney General⁠—and then the duty nurse calling Helen over in the middle of her morning rounds. Would she have listened to his story? There were times, Helen realises then, that she could probably have been kinder to people.

“He’ll call later, I’m sure,” she tells herself. “Or perhaps I’ll visit him at hospital.” She imagines handing over a box of chocolates, or going into Banbury and buying him a Rolex watch like the one Len always wanted. Why not? Why hold anything back? The time in her life for restraint has now passed.

The last scene is of the heroine on a train. A woman who knows she is moving away from the best part of her life toward the version in memory that’ll come to define her. She watches Venice in the distance, growing smaller and smaller, then turns away before it can disappear to nothing.

“And if it comes time for the long journey, Sipsworth, don’t be afraid. Any mice you knew before, you will see again when they were at their best. Resist any fear,” she goes on, her own eyes closing. “I won’t be there when you arrive . . . but if you happen to see someone who looks like me, that’ll be David. He knows who you are and will be waiting for you. Len will be there, too, with a slipper and fresh peanuts. They’ll take you in and look after you. I want you to let them know that I’m fine. I wasn’t for a long time, but I am now.”