Memory of Love (9781101603024) Read Online Free Page A

them. I cherished him. And I took one week at a time. One Thursday at a time. Inevitably he would change. And inevitably I would lose him one day.
    I foolishly thought I could prepare myself for that.
    It was a white day with little wind. As wintry as it gets here. It wasn’t particularly cold, not by my standards. It was the light that made it clear it was winter, not the temperature. That peculiar west coast white winter light. It was as if the colour had been drained out of everything: the sky, the sea, the vegetation. Even me. I walked back and sat on the doorstep, let my eyes rest on the sea. The string of paua shells blew in the wind, occasionally rattling against the weatherboards. There was no sign of him but it was early yet. And the soup would take a while. I wasn’t sure if he had a favourite, not even now after almost a year. He never commented on the food, but ate with the same constant diligence whatever I put in front of him. I made bread on Thursdays too. I used to make the dough in the morning before I set out, then bake it when I returned. It had become a weekly routine, just like the soup. There had been a time when I lived without routines, but I had come to depend on this one. Far too much, really.
    Wintertime, I sometimes cooked yellow pea soup. Like my grandfather used to. It never came out quite like his as I remembered it, but I kept trying. In spite of my attempts at consistency, each time it somehow became a unique composition. Although I used the same ingredients: a hock of salted pork, onions, a bay leaf or two. A few peppercorns. Some marjoram, fresh when there was some in the garden, otherwise dried. Dried yellow peas that I soaked overnight. If I poured them into the cold water to cook with the pork they became soft and mushy; if I added them to the boiling water later, when the pork had cooked for a while, they came out firmer and the skins translucent. That’s how I preferred them. But, as I said, it seemed to make no difference to my guest. I always used the only large pot I had and the leftovers lasted me several days. But no Thursday turned out the same, no soup the same as any other, and the pea soup never like my grandfather’s. But that winter Thursday it was Greek fish soup.
    One hot summer Thursday I had made a salad instead of soup, but it didn’t go down well, I noticed, though he didn’t say anything. So, soup it was. He seemed to like them all. Some were experiments, not always successful, but he never complained. And never complimented me either. Perhaps he was just too hungry to be discerning.
    I thought his name was Mika, but ever since that first day when I had misheard him I had called him Ika and he didn’t seem to mind. He told me it meant fish and I thought it suited him. Even before I saw his hands.
    I had started when I first heard what he called me. Mama. It became his name for me. His very own. It wasn’t that I was a sort of mother to him, I think. No, he told me it meant light. I wasn’t sure if he meant light as in not heavy, or the opposite of darkness. I thought the former, but sometimes I liked to think he meant the latter. Whichever it was, I liked it.
    â€˜Why did you come here, Mama?’ he asked one day, instinctively knowing that I had
come
here. From somewhere else.
    â€˜Well,’ I said, ‘it’s a long story.’ He looked at me. Or rather, in his usual fashion, he looked not quite
at
me, but at some point just beyond me. It seemed like a changeable point, with the sole purpose of being close to me but not quite
at
me. He didn’t look as if he expected much in the way of reply, but his gaze remained on the same unspecified point.
    â€˜I first came here many years ago. On a holiday. And something happened to me here.’ I hesitated.
    â€˜Was it happy or sad?’ he asked.
    â€˜Sad,’ I said. ‘It was very sad.’ I looked at him and added: ‘At first it was happy though. As