by Ruth Hogan
‘Now, just wait there a minute until it’s dry.’
Tilly stood in the kitchen with her arms outstretched, shivering in her winter vest while the lotion dried. Her mother stood watching Tilly jiggling from foot to foot and pulling faces, and she began to giggle.
‘Oh Tilly, you look like some sort of mad scarecrow.’
Tilly thought how much prettier her mother looked when she laughed.
‘Can I have red fizzy pop with my lunch today?’
Her mother laughed even more. But she nodded.
15
Tilda
I kept my promise to Daniel, much to Queenie’s delight. I went back to the café the next day; and the next, and the next. And today I am going without my comfort blanket. I am not taking the diary with me to hide behind and use as a reason for being there. I am just going for breakfast. And to see Daniel. I might as well be naked. These are dangerous waters for me. I really like him, and that means I’m in trouble. He always seems pleased to see me; no, more than pleased. He comes out from behind the counter to meet me and take my coat. He talks to me and teases me, but kindly. He makes me laugh. He even makes me feel almost normal. Yesterday, he gave me a hug. I’m in real trouble here. A small, but persistent, voice in my head is warning me to get out while I can. But I don’t want to. It’s not as though I’m a virgin. I have had relationships before. I’ve known the rapture (and on one occasion, revulsion) of first dates, and the exquisite thrill of dizzying first kisses. I’ve wasted minutes, hours, even days just marking time until I next saw the one I thought I loved. I’ve known the fear and fire of physical intimacy; of breath on breath, mouth on mouth, and skin on skin. But afterwards I always want them gone. Sometimes in minutes; sometimes days; sometimes weeks. But eventually, I always want them gone. Self-preservation always wins. If they stay too long, they will find out about me, and then they will leave anyway. One of them said I had no trust, and he was right. Without trust, love is a frail, hollow thing, easily frightened away. I haven’t really trusted anyone. Not yet. Whenever I think of Daniel and his green eyes, it makes me catch my breath. Sometimes I do it on purpose just to feel it. Other times, he slinks into my thoughts like a cat through a door left ajar. But the effect is just the same. People will think I’m asthmatic.
Eli trots along beside me on the rimy pavement as I wonder for the umpteenth time if Daniel really likes me or is just being polite. We are so very different. He nods and smiles and chats to his customers as he glides easily through the intricate patterns woven by social interactions, balancing plates and cups and saucers like a circus juggling act on ice skates. I’m more like the clown with too-big shoes, who gets squirted in the face with water from the fake flower. I can see the café now. The lights are on inside, but it’s still early. I don’t want to be the first customer and look too keen. But I do want to be the first customer and have Daniel to myself for a bit. Oh, for heaven’s sake, woman! Get over yourself! My hand is on the door handle now. I hesitate for just a moment, but Daniel looks up from behind the counter and waves me in. We are alone. Together.
‘Right, my lovely but mad friend! Give me your coat and sit yourself down.’
I make towards a table in the corner, but Daniel shoos me away from it with my own coat.
‘Oh no you don’t. No hiding over there. I want you close by where I can keep an eye on you.’
I can’t help but smile. I stand and wait, a little awkwardly, but willingly nonetheless, while he hangs up my coat and returns to seat me at the table nearest the counter.
‘Now. What can I get you?’
I suddenly realise that, so far, I haven’t spoken a single word.
‘No. Don’t tell me. I’ll surprise you!’
Not a single word. Maybe that’s why I’m beginning to feel so comfortable with him. I don’t have to say anything if I don’t want to. The bell over the door jangles and two sharp-suited young men burst in from the cold, breathing steam and rubbing their hands together. Daniel greets them warmly and, whistling, prepares their takeaway coffees. They venture back outside, their hands cradling the paper cups full of scalding liquid.
‘Right then. And now for you . . .’
He winks broadly and disappears behind the counter. From my chair I am too low to see what he is doing, but it involves a lot of banging and clattering of pots and pans. It reminds me of the old kitchen at Queenie’s. Oh God! I hope he’s not cooking boiled eggs. Ten minutes later he presents me with a face on a plate. The eyes are fried eggs; the nose is a mushroom with stalk still attached; a large grilled tomato has been cut to resemble a pair of pouting lips and the creature’s hair is an ocean of baked beans.
‘You don’t have to eat it all if you don’t want to. There’s toast as well.’ And a pot of tea.
‘Thank you. It’s lovely.’
Daniel cups his hand to his ear in mock surprise.
‘What’s this? She speaks.’
He makes a low, sweeping bow and rushes off to attend to the other customers who have been gradually filling the café. Once their orders have been taken and served, he returns and watches me in a silence he is obviously completely comfortable with, as I spread my toast with butter and cut it with my usual obsessive precision.
‘Why do you do that?’
It’s merely a request for information. There is no judgement in his tone.
I think before I reply. But I realise that, just for once, my hesitation is not an attempt to conceal or to think of an excuse. I’m trying to be truthful.
‘I have to. It makes me feel safe.’
He tips his head to one side and raises his eyebrows, considering.
‘Fair enough. But eat your mushroom. It’s good for you.’
16
Tilda
Over the past week I have eaten a tree, a dog, a boat, a lighthouse and an umbrella. Every time I go to the café, Daniel presents me with a food picture on a plate. Some have been more successful than others. The chocolate brownie dog with whipped cream spots was delicious; the sausage and broccoli tree wasn’t. Yesterday’s creation was a heart-shaped pink sponge pudding in a swirl of custard. That was my favourite.
But this morning I am not going to the café. I am going to see Miss Dane for coffee. I haven’t read any more of the diaries yet. I need time to make the shift from what I thought was my childhood to another version that is dark and unfamiliar. At the moment, I’m not sure which is fact and which is fairy-tale, and so I’m going to see Miss Dane for clues. It seems she got to know my mother well while they were neighbours. She probably knew her better than I did, so perhaps she can tell me something about the diaries. I light two matches before I go. Once outside the door of the flat, I need to go back inside to check that the spent matches I know are floating in a saucer of water are out. At least today I only feel compelled to check once. Eli follows me downstairs, as though he knows that he is included in her invitation this time. As I ring the doorbell, I am still nervous, but for a different reason than on my first visit. I am nervous about what I may discover. I need to know everything. Miss Dane opens the door and greets me with a smile of genuine welcome. She ushers us through to the sitting room, where a tray of coffee things is waiting. I sit down in one of the chairs next to the fire.
‘Did you bring your dog with you this time, my dear?’
Eli is sitting right next to me, looking intently at Miss Dane.
‘You can’t see him?’
‘Oh no, my dear, but your mother told me all about him.’
‘And you believed her?’
‘Of course. There are a great many things in this world that we can’t see, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I trusted your mother, and at my age, I have faith in a whole world I cannot see. Would he like a biscuit?’
‘He doesn’t really eat much.’
Miss Dane pours the coffee and hands me a cup. The trepidation I felt on my first visit seems barely comprehensible now, as I settle back in my chair ready to gently interrogate
Miss Dane. Already I am a different Tilda.
‘Why did my mother tell you about Eli?’
‘Because she worried about you, and she said that perhaps he would always look after you, the way he had once looked after her.’
‘You mean she could see him?’
‘Sometimes she could. But he was your father’s originally.’
I had come here searching for clues, but it looked like I was going to get bombshells instead.
‘But she always denied that he existed. When he first came to me, when I was a little girl, she said I was just making him up!’
‘As I said, she was worried about you. She was always worrying about you. Your mother was a highly intelligent woman capable of great compassion, loyalty and love. But she also had a devastating illness and so she lived much of her life in fear, which sometimes led her to act in a way that she deeply regretted afterwards. She wanted so much more for you.’
‘I’m not sure I understand.’
Miss Dane’s expression is sympathetic, but her words unflinchingly direct.
‘I think that you probably understand much more than you are willing to admit.’
This time I am not offended by Miss Dane’s frankness, merely puzzled. What is the elephant in this sitting room that I’m simply not seeing? Sensing my confusion, Miss Dane relents.
‘Unless I’m horribly mistaken, Tilda, you see things, don’t you? Things that most other people can’t see. Ghosts, dead people; call them what you will, but you can see them, can’t you?’
‘Yes.’
There. I’ve done it. A single word spoken before a cautious thought could silence it. I’ve taken a risk, and a huge one at that. I have never, in my adult life, told anyone that before. Not a soul. The relief is monumental. I feel as though I have been holding my breath forever, and have finally exhaled.
‘Well, so could your father.’
Never mind bombshells; this is turning into the Blitz. In the ticking away of little more than sixty seconds, however, I swing from dumbfounded surprise to hazy recognition. Miss Dane is right. This truth is not as unexpected or unfamiliar to me as I want to believe. It just seems a long way away.
‘How much do you know about your maternal grandparents?’
‘Very little. They died before I was born.’
Miss Dane raises her eyebrows in mild surprise and breathes a gentle sigh.
‘Your mother’s parents disowned her when she married your father. Cut her off like a sucker from a rose. The estrangement was immediate, absolute and irrevocable. They were very religious, you see. Baptists of some sort, I believe. They viewed your father’s ability as dabbling with the occult; tantamount to consorting with the devil. Your mother’s marriage to him was, in their eyes, the route to certain damnation. It was a horrible choice for your mother to make. And a brave one, too. But her love for your father gave her the courage she needed, and her life with him at its centre was a very exciting place to be for a young woman from such a sheltered background.’
‘But how could they bear to lose her? She was their only child. They must have loved her. How could they not?’
Miss Dane shook her head sadly.
‘I’m sure they did. But they feared God more. And it would seem that theirs was a most unforgiving god.’
‘So why did she never tell me the truth? Why did she say they were dead?’
‘I can’t answer that, my dear, but perhaps she was trying to protect you. It certainly seems to have been her life’s work.’
Miss Dane pours me another coffee. I need it.
‘Miss Dane, did you know about her diaries?’
‘Penelope, please. Call me Penelope. “Miss Dane”, from you, makes me sound like a schoolmistress. Yes, I knew she kept them, but not much more than that.’
‘I’ve started reading them.’
Miss Dane, or rather Penelope, makes no attempt to fill the silence, and calmly waits for me to continue.
‘I’m finding out things that it’s hard for me to know – or even believe.’
‘Tilda, if your mother left those diaries where she knew you would find them, then she wanted you to read them. You must trust that she had a good reason.’
‘But I’m afraid of what might come next and once I know these things, I can’t un-know them.’
‘I’m sure you are, my dear, but because of your mother, you are not your mother. You are greater than your fear. Read them, and then go on and live your life. It’s what your mother would have wanted.’
I hope she’s right. We chat about other things; more comfortable things, like how I’m settling into the flat, and what her niece brought in the shopping this week (artichokes – they went straight in the bin). After a while, Eli begins to fidget. He knows I have work to do. I thank Penelope for the coffee.
‘You are both very welcome. You know where I am if you need me.’
Back upstairs, I try to settle to some work. The cursor on my laptop blinks at me accusingly, highlighting how little progress I have made. If staring blankly at the screen counts as work, I manage a good couple of hours. My brain is occupied elsewhere, dragging Penelope’s revelations back into my past and seeing where they fit. I wish Queenie was here.
When I have had enough, my thoughts turn to what I am going to wear tonight. I’m going to the café to surprise Daniel and I want to look nice. Well, not just nice; gorgeous actually. For Daniel. Iceberg ahead. The ‘Tilda trying to look gorgeous’ outfit turns out to be a clean pair of close-fitting dark jeans, an emerald green silk tunic top and a velvet tasselled scarf. The green glass drop earrings I am wearing flash and sparkle in the light, and even my hair is behaving itself. Perfume and a slick of lip gloss add the final touches. After four matches and two checks to make sure they are out, I close the door behind me for the final time and set off to dazzle Daniel with my gorgeousness. Make ready the lifeboats.
My stomach is tumbling over and over, and my heart is banging in my ribs as I walk along the promenade towards the café. I have to stop this ridiculousness. I’m not a teenager, and it’s not a date. He doesn’t even know I’m coming. We’re just friends. So far. But I have allowed a small but shiny hope to creep into my heart. I am out of puff from walking too quickly and not breathing enough. I stop for just a moment to compose myself, before continuing at a more sensible pace. As the café comes into sight, I check myself again. A shadow flits over me like a cloud blown across the moon. It is a feeling as familiar as it is unwelcome: doubt. Man the lifeboats. I want to turn back, run home to the flat; give in to the fear. But I won’t. As I reach the café, instead of going straight in, I stand back, a little to the side, and look through the window. I want to see him first. I want the sight of him to make me catch my breath. And it does. Daniel is standing by the jukebox with a truly stunning young woman with long red hair wearing a short black dress. She has the air of someone who knows her own beauty and the effect it has on men. Someone I will never be. They are laughing and standing very close to each other. I feel sick and stupid. She reaches up and strokes his face tenderly, and Daniel, my Daniel, looks at her with his green eyes and smiles. Except that he’s not my Daniel, and he never was. Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could I be so stupid? He was only being kind to me. Nothing more. I turn away, and march along the promenade clenching my fists until my knuckles turn white. The pain of my nails digging into my palms is a welcome distraction. I will not cry. Hope has humiliated me. My ship has sunk just yards from shore. It wasn’t meant to be like this. Not today. Today is my birthday.
17
Tilly
Tomorrow it was going to be Jesus’s birthday and inside St Patrick’s there were more candles than Tilly had ever seen in her life. It looked as though all the stars in the sky had flown in through the window and scattered themselves inside the church to twinkle and dance while everyone sung carols and said their prayers. St Patrick’s was packed tighter than the number 9 bus on a rainy afternoon at going-home time. Tilly was squashed into one of
the pews with Mrs O’Flaherty and her seven offspring, and was firmly wedged between Mrs O’Flaherty herself and Declan, the second youngest of Mrs O’Flaherty’s brood, who had brought along his pet earwig, Margaret, in a matchbox for the outing. Mr O’Flaherty had just been setting off for The Star and Garter when Tilly had arrived at their house, but she heard him promising to go to midnight mass on his way home. He was a big, tall man with a fuzz of ginger hair that was almost always covered by a dark green cap. He seemed to overfill whichever room he was in, like a grown-up in a Wendy house, but his voice was soft and low, like a cat purring. Tilly supposed that if you were as big as a giant, like Mr O’Flaherty, you wouldn’t ever need to shout to get people to mind what you said. Tilly liked him. He always ruffled her hair and winked at her whenever she saw him, and tonight he had wished her ‘a very merry Christmas with bells on’.
Her mother had given Tilly a small bottle of perfume in a very pretty box to give to Mrs O’Flaherty, and a tin of chocolate-covered biscuits wrapped in Christmas paper for the children. Tilly was very pleased and very surprised. She hadn’t really thought about her mother as being a kind person, but it looked as though she must be. Tilly knew that giving presents was supposed to be as lovely as getting them, but as yet she wasn’t completely convinced. She was really happy, though, to have something nice to give to Mrs O’Flaherty, who was, apart from Karen, her best friend. She had proudly presented the gifts to her when she stopped by the house to join the family on their way to church, and Mrs O’Flaherty’s cheeks flushed with delight as she accepted them. She said that she had something for Tilly too, but that she could pick it up on her way home.
As the expectant congregation whispered and fidgeted in their pews, Tilly was craning to see the Nativity scene that was set out under an enormous Christmas tree near the front of the church, to one side of the altar. From what she could see, and much to her relief, the baby Jesus looked much more like a proper baby than the one on her Advent calendar. He didn’t at all give her the idea that he might look more at home in boots and a green tunic clutching a fishing rod, than wearing a rather baggy nappy and sleeping in a manger. Although she did think he might be a bit cold, and wondered why Mary hadn’t thought to knit him a nice blue matinee jacket with matching bonnet and bootees. Perhaps it was because of her having to ride on the donkey, which must have been quite wobbly, and she would have dropped too many stitches. Somewhere upstairs, near the beautiful, gold-painted ceiling of the church, the part where God and his angels most likely lived, the great organ began to breathe music into the air. Softly at first, its huge pipes puffed out sweet, gentle notes, but gradually the sound began to swell, and soon the pipes were blasting and booming until Tilly could feel the music echoing inside her chest. It was lovely. It was like sucking a flying saucer; the soft, fuzzy feel of the sugar paper slowly melting on your tongue, followed by the sharp lemon trill and fizz of sherbet buzzing inside your mouth. Tilly recognised the tune as ‘Hark the Herald’, and as they all stood up to sing, leafing through the pages of their hymn books to find the right page, Father Damien marched slowly down the aisle followed by his assistants and the choir. Tilly had realised after her many visits to the church that the assistants, who were both boys aged around twelve, were really only there to make Father Damien look more important. They handed him things that he could perfectly well fetch for himself, but because he was so important and worked for God, he just didn’t have to. Over their long dark dresses, the assistants wore white lacy apron things that Auntie Wendy would call ‘a bugger to wash’. When Tilly had first started coming to St Patrick’s with Mrs O’Flaherty, she had been very worried when she had thought a swear word in church, in front of God, by mistake. But with a bit of concentration, creative thought and a little practice, Tilly had managed to persuade herself that thinking a swear word completely accidentally (even if it was in church, in front of God), particularly if it really belonged to someone else, couldn’t count as a sin because that wouldn’t be fair, and God had to be fair because he was perfect. So Auntie Wendy’s ‘bugger’ didn’t count.
