Wendy Remembers

wendy darling looks backs...

Wendy Remembers

I was only ten when Peter flew in through the open nursery window that fateful winter’s night. I had left the window open hoping to catch that first whiff of Christmas snow and the cold air felt good against my hot tear-stained face. My father had been so difficult lately and Mother so nagging. The house was a ruckus before their departure to Judge Hanover’s party, John complaining of a head cold and Michael refusing to go to bed. Impatient to leave, Mother commanded me to look after them, conveniently oblivious to my own wants. She was starting to treat me like a servant instead of a daughter and time and time again my feelings were hurt by her blatant disregard for me. That night she left happily enough though and I was left to shed my tears to the nursery walls.

It was near midnight when Peter flew in. A single candle was lit on the bedside table, its yellow glow of light spilling across my patterned bedspread and onto the floor. Almost as soon as I had spotted him, Peter saw that I was awake. He was a slim, passionate little boy, so unlike anything I had ever seen at school or on the London social scene my parents liked to parade me around in. He was grand and messy, dressed in ancient, grass-stained muslin with a crown of slick green leaves wrapped around his head. His hair was long and curled slightly at the ends and his skin was brown and rough, different even from John and Michael’s pale English complexions. The details of Peter’s look have never left me. For someone like me, a pent up, upper-class schoolgirl from North London, he made for a fantastic first impression. The freckles across the upturned nose, the scar over the left eyebrow, the calluses on the tiny, nail-bitten hands are mine to store away in memory for forever, a private hoard of nostalgia that grows ever more dear each year as youth slips away and old age looms. 

When I was younger I often felt overshadowed. My parents were glamorous people, a rising young couple with distinctive personality. My father was savvy and suave -- he looked great in a suit -- and my mother was striking and witty. Though she was never beautiful, few ever realized it. She had the grace of a ballet dancer and the charm of Lucifer himself. It was difficult for me to assert myself when compared to her. Some nights before my parents would dash off to their dinner parties or soirees, I would creep into my mother’s room and watch her get ready. She would be sitting at her vanity slowly combing her long sweep of blond hair, the smell of vanilla hanging immobile around her. When I returned to the house years later after her death that smell still lingered hauntingly. I would stare at her as enamored as a young lover, watching her rituals to reach splendor. I have it memorized now: the stockings, corset, and dress, the hair in the overly large bun, the powder and rouge at the last. It amazes me now to see my own daughter mimic my old behavior. She sends me the same covert gazes of jealously and admiration as I get ready to go out, her blue eyes wide and unblinking. When did my perceived elegance appear, I wonder. What does she see that I do not?

My brothers did their part too in blotting me out, though I did and still do love them dearly. John and Michael were young and rambunctious, eager to prove themselves to the older boys at school if not the world at large. Nana could never control them and they teased her mercilessly. Though they were both endowed with a rather heavy handed comedic touch, I remember their antics with fondness now. Especially anything concerning Michael. Poor sweet Michael, perhaps the more harmless of the pair, dragging his teddy bear and sucking his thumb. His teeth were never straight because of it. 

Though Michael and John were a handful, Peter was the worst of the bunch. It was because of him that I became aware of my shadowy self. I was hopeless in the face of his wild ways. Every movement he made was exaggerated, every declaration bombastic. He crashed into the lace and chenille nursery, crying about losing his shadow when I had more than enough of mine. I was timid and shy with a low whisper of a voice and eyes that always looked down, giving off the impression of constant prayer. And yet I loved Peter in spite of our differences. He was like a magnet for me. Though John and Michael were drawn to him, I was hit the hardest. It was love I suppose, confused, antagonizing first love, such a distant concept that I did not identify it until years later. I showed all the symptoms: obsessive thinking, pangs of longing when he was not around, waiting on him hand and foot when he was. And most of the time he ignored me. Really, I think Peter did not know what to do with me since I was the first girl he had had close, prolonged contact with. He had spent his life surrounded by tumbling boys, fighting off Captain Hook and his smelly band of pirates. I was a new species to him, pacifying and intelligent, with none of Tink’s silly coquettishness. Poor Peter. I look back on it now with a smile. We both must have considered each other a bit out of the ordinary.

But though we were doomed from the start, I think I had a good influence on Peter at the time. I offered him what he had so long spurned in his ignorance: a chance at growing up. He was so frightened of becoming a man; it was the one idea in which his irrepressible courage failed him. He wouldn’t go near the possibility of it and, as a result, was dreadfully ignorant of what age actually entailed. However, I offered him a glimpse at falling in love. Love. It is the greatest gift that comes with age. For I know that Peter did love me, as much as his short attention span and childlike narcissism would let him. It was a clumsy love, full of rusty thimbles and drooping daffodils and ridiculously grand gestures at life-saving. When he returned to the treehouse after day of adventure, he would sit with me in front of the fire as I began the darning. I would catch him looking at me and see something reflected in his eyes besides the flames, a hint of wisdom and maturity perhaps, an acknowledgement of love and eventual lost. At the back of his mind he knew I couldn’t stay there forever mending socks and playing mother. It tore at him, this alien love. But at last, after years and years of unchanging circumstance, he knew something beyond  playing and fighting and play-fighting. And if the lure of Neverland hadn’t been so strong, he would have returned to London with me, gone to school, grown up, and become my husband. But life is never so simple. Hearts are broken, tears are shed, and Peter Pan remains. 

My brothers and I returned as if awaking from a glorious, fairy-dusted dream. The shock of the damp, polluted city was a harsh reality compared to the luminosity of Neverland. My grades dropped drastically at school, I lost whatever friends I had, my appetite was reduced to near nothing, and my dreams were filled with broken images of a lost world. I believe it took me years to recover from the transition, so jolting it was. John bounced back first. He was a hardy fellow, quick, funny, and practical, who as an adult regarded the whole “episode” with Peter as some great imaginary game we made up in our youth. But poor Michael went to his death longing for Neverland and the lost boys. If Michael could have, he would have stayed. He was dragged away sobbing hysterically, hiccupping over Teddy. Being so young he would have thrived with Peter, the memories of me and John and Mother and Father fading fast. He loved the games and the jaunty camaraderie of the lost boys; to him they were a loving pack of older brothers. So now in hindsight, I wish I had let him go. The consequences of his return make me sick to my stomach. He died of trench fever in France towards the end of the war. I’m sure his last thoughts were of the smoky, woody smell of the Indian camp or the sweet, tinkling laughter of the mermaid’s lagoon.

The guilt rises in me when I think of the life I lead. It is truly blessed and I cannot regret my decision to come back. I could never give up what I have now. My husband, Richard, loves me as I do him. He is quite the opposite of Peter, steady, classically handsome, emanating masculinity. He’s in politics and he cares for the people he represents, a true caring, none of Peter’s drifting, sporadic bursts of affection. I am blessed with such a husband, whose love and support for me has never wavered. But my children -- Jane, my daughter, and Henry Michael, my son -- are the real reasons I don’t regret staying. They are such fey, beloved creatures, simple reminders of the joys of childhood. They traipse through the garden calling to each other, and I watch them wondering if Peter will call on them. Though I love him dearly, I pray he does not come and steal them away from me. They are too precious for me to lose and my heart aches at just the thought. If he lures them away, I will be bereft. Sometimes I feel like a loon, obsessively making sure the nursery windows are locked tight at night, shutting away my most treasured possessions. Don’t come Peter, I tell the sky on a breezy, summer day, stay where you belong.

The passing of time is a strange thing really. Though I do not welcome the years, they provide a comforting insulation against the stormy sorrows of youth. With Peter everything was so life-or-death, an exhilarating rush of swords and jokes and wild rejoicing. Were there ever just days of sleeping in late? Or vacations to the country, drifting idly on the crystal lakes, lounging under white parasols? Did they ever decide to take a late lunch or a long tea? They never stopped for a moment to enjoy life, to savor it. Though I admired them for it, I realized it was also their curse. They lead such strange, limited little lives, absent of the laughter of their own children, the dearest sound for any person in the world. They had no houses or families of their own, even their personalities blended into one heaping, laughing mass. But they were happy in their ignorance and I cannot take that away from them.

I remember them all fondly now. They helped a little girl recognize her faults and paved her way to womanhood. The boys will always remain my first children and Peter my first love. Memories are all that’s left now, lined with dust and set to the slow ticking of a clock.