by Ruth Hogan
‘I had a dance lesson today with Miss Cynthia and I made a new friend called Bunny.’
‘I used to be a wonderful dancer in my day.’
‘Yes, I know. You already told me before. But today’s not your day, it’s my day, and I want to tell you about me.’
Gina laughed. It was strange, but Tilly felt more at ease with Gina than with any of the other grown-ups in the house. Strange, because in many ways she was the most difficult. You could never tell what kind of mood she was going to be in. She was bossy, fussy and sometimes just plain rude. And sometimes she wouldn’t talk to you at all. But somehow Tilly felt that they were equals. She could ask her anything, things she couldn’t even ask Queenie, and she always got an answer. She wasn’t always sure if the answer was true, but she always got one. And Gina never treated Tilly as though she were just a child.
‘Come on then. Thrill me with your theatricals. Tell me all about your dance lesson.’
Tilly wound up the key on the brass box with roses on, and to the appropriate soundtrack of the ‘Waltz of the Flowers’ described Miss Cynthia and her pupils in florid detail.
‘The first dance I did was to a piece of music by Sarky called “Shuh, Tuh, Vuh”, which doesn’t spell anything in English, but spells “I Want You” in French. Miss Cynthia said we had to dance as though we had a flaming Aga.’
Gina smiled. She pointed to a heart-shaped wooden box painted with doves and flowers.
‘Wind it up.’
Tilly recognised the music instantly.
‘Now you can show me.’
Gina’s room was considerably smaller than the ballroom, but Tilly did her best to recreate the original performance. Eli took cover under the dressing table. She ended with a dramatic flourish and collapsed on the bed to a round of applause from Gina. They lay in silence for a moment and Tilly could feel her heart beating in her chest.
‘How can you tell if someone’s dead and not just sleeping?’
Gina sat up and reached for her glass of gin and tonic.
‘Bite them.’ She swigged her gin with enthusiasm. ‘What other music did you dance to?’
‘The Thieving Magpie by Mussolini.’
33
Tilly
Eli was watching Tilly struggling to get her feet into the proper position to begin a demi-plié. Her tongue was pressed hard onto her top lip and her forehead was crumpled into a frown of fierce concentration as she did her best to keep her back straight and her bottom tucked in, to avoid what Bunny called ‘looking like a duck doing a poo’. She was giggling merrily at Tilly’s rather ungainly efforts in between giving instructions in her version of Miss Cynthia’s voice, pursing her lips into a prim little bow and pointing imperiously.
‘Happy feet! Don’t forget those happy feet!’ she commanded, pointing her own toes to show Tilly exactly what she meant and then dissolving into giggles once more. Her laughter was contagious and it wasn’t long before Tilly caught it and both girls were rolling around on the grass and clutching their tummies in helpless laughter. Eli watched them serenely from his own little patch of sunshine. They were playing amongst the gently whirring windmills in the back garden of The Paradise Hotel. A whole year had passed since Tilly’s first dance class with Miss Cynthia and her windmills had long since spilled out of the flower bed that Queenie had given her when she had first arrived. She and Bunny had become firm friends and although Bunny didn’t go to Tilly’s school, they played together at the weekends and in the school holidays, and of course they saw each other at Miss Cynthia’s classes. But it wasn’t just dancing that made their friendship special. It was their daddies, too – or rather lack of them. Bunny’s daddy had gone away, and she didn’t know where, and nobody would tell her. Sometimes it made her so sad that she forgot what it was like to be happy. Tilly could still remember what that felt like, but at Queenie’s, happiness had gently trickled back into her life like melting butter through the holes in a hot crumpet.
‘Where do you think my daddy is?’
Their laughter had worn itself out and Bunny sat hugging her knees, her big blue eyes staring solemnly at Tilly from beneath her blonde fringe. Tilly shrugged her shoulders.
‘Maybe he’s gone away to work.’
‘Well I’m still waiting for him to come back. I’ve been waiting and waiting for ages. I think he must have got lost,’ Bunny said sadly.
Tilly picked a daisy and twirled its stalk between her finger and thumb.
The girls sat in silence for a while, listening to the bees buzzing greedily around the honeysuckle and the clatter of pots and pans coming through the open kitchen window. Lil was cooking dinner for the guests and wafts of boiling potatoes mingled with the sweet, warm scent of roses and honeysuckle. Tilly wanted to help Bunny, but she wasn’t sure how she could. She still thought about her own daddy; missed him; even cried sometimes, alone in the dark when a picture-thought of him would drift through her head staying only long enough to make her hurt. The thought that her daddy might still be stuck in Bermondsey worried Tilly like an impending visit to the dentist. What could he have done that had made God so cross with him? Maybe God had made a mistake and muddled him up with someone else. Tilly couldn’t decide which was worse: her daddy being in such deep trouble with God, or God making a mistake. She knew that wherever he was, she couldn’t find her daddy now, but maybe she could help Bunny find hers. She didn’t have a clue where they might look, but at least they could try.
After Bunny had gone Tilly decided to go and see Queenie’s mother. The old lady had been quite poorly for the last few days and hadn’t left her room much. She had taken to having Cecily or Tilly serve her gin and tonic on a silver tray while she stayed in bed and listened to music. Perhaps she would know where they could look for Bunny’s daddy. Tilly unfolded her crossed legs and stood up, rubbing her calves where the blades of grass had imprinted a pattern like raffia matting.
She went into the back dining room to fetch the gin and tonic and found her mother sitting at the table, drinking tea before the rush of the evening meal. Her mother had looked very different since they’d moved in to Queenie’s. Her face seemed smoother and she smiled every day. She reminded Tilly of the statue of Mary in St Patrick’s Church, who had the most beautiful face that she had ever seen but always seemed just a little bit sad. She went over to her mother and stood a little awkwardly by her side, playing with the button on her cardigan.
‘Do you miss my daddy sometimes?’ she asked.
Her mother put down her cup and saucer and smoothed down Tilly’s hair, holding her face tenderly in both hands.
‘I miss him every day, Tilly. Every day.’
Just a quarter of an hour later the evening meal service was in full swing and the dining room was packed. Tilly marched in looking for her mother. She found her with a plate of grilled pork chops, vegetables and gravy in each hand, about to serve them to an elderly couple.
‘Sofa Loren’s dead,’ she announced.
Her mother nearly tipped a pork chop in gravy down the front of the old lady’s spotless white blouse, but steadied her waitressing wobble just in time. Aware that Tilly’s news had aroused a mild degree of curiosity amongst the diners, her mother forced a nervous laugh and replied, ‘Oh, I’m sure she’s fine. I expect she’s just asleep.’
Tilly was indignant. She knew a dead person when she saw one.
‘No – she definitely isn’t. I took her a gin and tonic and when I got there she was dead. I need to find Queenie and tell her.’
The occupants of the dining room sat with mouths open and cutlery suspended in mid-air. Tilly’s mother set her plates down and attempted to usher the conversation with her daughter out of the room.
‘Now, Tilly, you know how tired she’s been lately. She’s probably just in a very deep sleep.’
Tilly wasn’t budging. She folded her arms and fixed her mother with her most serious stare.
‘She’s not. I promise you she’s dead. Cross my heart and hope to di
e.’
Her mother looked away from her in exasperation and saw to her horror that Queenie had come in and was serving faggots and onions to a family of four in the corner. Determined to put a stop to Tilly’s nonsense once and for all, she placed her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes.
‘How could you possibly tell whether she was dead or just asleep?’
‘I bit her.’
As Queenie set down the steaming plates in front of her guests, one of them clutched at her wrist.
‘Excuse me, dear. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but who is Sofa Loren?’
Queenie didn’t miss a beat.
‘Oh, don’t worry, Mrs Martin. She’s the cat.’
Queenie had been very calm and organised. She asked Gracie to finish serving dinner while she rang for the doctor. Afterwards, she sat alone with her mother for a while. Tilly stood outside the door, which was left slightly ajar, listening to Queenie talking to her mother while she brushed her hair and straightened the bedclothes. When Tilly had found her, she knew the show was over and the entire cast had already left the stage. Ginger, Sofa, Grace, Marlene, Anita and all the others who had made weekend guest appearances were gone. All that was left was an empty set. After the doctor and Queenie, they had all been in to see her and say goodbye, except for Cecily, who was too scared. When Tilly bent over to kiss her cold, powdery cheek, she could smell gin, cigarettes and Shalimar.
Later, they all sat together in the back dining room. The grown-ups were drinking gin and brandy and Tilly and Cecily were drinking cherry pop. Cecily was crying and hiccupping and sniffing, despite Lil’s best efforts to console her. Gracie looked pale and shocked and even Reg looked a little shaken. Only Queenie looked normal. Just a little bit sad round the edges. And Sofa Loren, who was standing behind her waving a glass of gin in one hand and a cigarette in the other, looked positively jolly. It was just a shame that nobody could see her except for Tilly and Eli. What had used to be Sofa’s body was still in the bedroom, laid out on the bed in a silk negligée, with her hair fluffed out on the pillow like old man’s beard. As Reg topped up their drinks, Queenie stood up and raised her glass.
‘I should like to propose a toast to my darling mother, who was wonderful, adorable, fabulous and absolutely barking mad. Thank you, we love you and goodnight!’
As Tilly drained her glass and covered her mouth with her hand to muffle the inevitable burp, Queenie looked across the table at her and asked, ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Tilly love?’
Ever since Tilly had been proved right about Queenie’s mother, the grown-ups had been fussing around her as if finding a dead person was a terrible thing. Tilly still thought that finding a dead baby chicken inside a boiled egg would be much worse.
She found the first few days after Queenie’s mother died a bit tricky. Everyone was sad, and her mother was very jumpy, as though she was in the bit of a horror film where all the lights are broken and the scary man is hiding and waiting to jump out and kill you. But Tilly wasn’t scared of horror films and she was finding it hard to be sad. She wasn’t sad, because the whole reason why people were sad when someone died was because they missed them, and you couldn’t miss them if they hadn’t gone. And Queenie’s mother hadn’t gone anywhere yet. Tilly was always bumping into her in the corridors, in the garden and the back dining room. She had even taken to wandering about in the guests’ dining room while they were eating. She hadn’t caused any trouble yet, but Tilly thought that it would only be a matter of time. She had already made Tilly laugh at a fat man slurping his soup by standing right behind him and pulling silly faces. Tilly had had to pretend that she was coughing, but the man still looked a bit cross. The only place Queenie’s mother seemed to be avoiding was her own room. But Queenie was often in there, and when she was, Eli would be with her. One day Tilly heard her crying, and went in and sat on the bed next to her and held her hand. Tilly wondered if she should tell Queenie that her mother was still there in the house, but she didn’t know if it would help, especially as Queenie obviously couldn’t see her. In the end, Queenie solved the problem for her. She was sitting at her mother’s dressing table trying out her perfumes, just as Tilly had done so many times. She sprayed Shalimar onto her wrist and said softly, almost to herself, ‘I sometimes feel as though she’s still here.’
Tilly pulled a ‘what took you so long?’ face.
‘That’s because she is.’
34
Tilda
It’s first thing in the morning, and there are two dirty mugs in the sink and an almost empty pot of still-warm tea on the table. Such simple things, but momentous too; evidence. It has been a very long time since anyone brought me tea in bed. Daniel has set off for the café, leaving me to bask in the domestic detritus that proves ‘we’ are real. Daniel and Tilda, together. A couple of weeks have passed since Breakfast at Tiffany’s but it feels much longer and Daniel’s questions about my relationship with my mother are nagging at me like an unsolved crossword puzzle clue. He has shaken my complacency (or was it fear?) and made me curious. There are already three black, twisted matchsticks in front of me as I strike a fourth and stare into the flame, trying to understand what actually happened. I can’t believe that for all those years I didn’t try harder to find out why she sent me away. Of course, I have asked Queenie, but she couldn’t help.
‘I begged her not to send you away,’ she said, ‘and you pleaded with me to get her to change her mind, but she was absolutely determined. The best I could do was get you home for the holidays. Gracie said that she had no choice, but she couldn’t tell me why. The strange thing was that she seemed utterly heartbroken about you going, but afraid to let you stay. In the end, I had to let it go. I was worried that if I pushed too hard she would leave and I would lose you both for good.’
I wash and get dressed and creep reluctantly into my mother’s bedroom. I sit down on the edge of the bed. The bed where I nursed her in her last few days. The bed where she died in her sleep and I found her the next morning. She had died as neatly as she had lived, with hardly a hair out of place. But I brushed it gently anyway, the way she had sometimes let me when I was a little girl. I still can’t say whether it was relief or guilt I felt that day. Maybe both. The grief came later, but even now I can’t be sure that I wasn’t grieving because she had never been the mother that I had longed for, and now she never could be.
‘My mother and I were never close’ – my words echo in my ears, so familiar. But ‘never’? Is that really true? Convenient, yes; but now I have begun to doubt myself. Perhaps the truth is less tidy and more difficult to explain away. Perhaps I have been selective about the past; chosen the pieces that fit with the version it suits me to tell and jettisoned those that were incompatible. The fact remains that she did send me away from the place where I was the happiest I have ever been in my life. So far. I begged her not to, but she did it anyway. It was a deeply painful rejection for a little girl and, even now, a deeply embarrassing admission for a grown woman to make. My mother didn’t want me. Except now it doesn’t fit. Queenie said that my mother had been heartbroken and afraid when she sent me away; Penelope said that I had been the most important thing in her life – perhaps too important. So, could it be something even worse? Could I have done something so terrible that she had to send me away? I have to know. I have to find that bloody diary!
I go back to the walnut box. I know that it’s not in there, but maybe one of the other notebooks can shed some light on what really happened. Flicking through them, it seems that most are diaries for the years that I was away at school and afterwards, but there is one that looks different from the rest. Thin and a bit tatty round the edges, it has a red cover and lined pages like a school exercise book. On the cover, in faintly scratched letters, it says ‘Diary of a Madwoman’. Inside, the writing is in pencil.
They have put me in the asylum. Stevie and that bloody doctor. I’m not myself, apparently. Well, I pity the poor sod that
I am. I’m so tired. I’m too tired to be anyone, let alone myself. I don’t think I’m mad, just bad. Mum and Dad were right. I married a sinner and now I shall be sinned against. Punished. And serves me right. But why should my baby be punished too? Who will look after her? They want me to write down my thoughts. It’s supposed to help. Ha ha ha! It’s my homework. Except I’m not at home, am I? They’re my loony bin lessons. They won’t give me a pen. It’s too dangerous. I might hurt myself, they say. Or someone else. The pencil is nice and safe. Blunt. They won’t give me a sharpener in case I eat it or sharpen my pencil into a weapon, or use it to escape or die. Maybe if I just lie down and stop breathing I could die. Maybe I don’t need a pen or a pencil sharpener. Maybe I could outwit all their stupid rules and just die by giving up. In the meantime I shall write down my thoughts like a good girl:
Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly Tilly . . .
Day after day, page after page, she has written just one word. Tilly. I was her only thought.
Until eventually, a few pages from the back of the book . . .
I have made a friend. And he has done me more good than all their pills and electric shocks and bloody basket weaving. Evelyn has helped me to believe that I’m just as good as anyone else; as good as Stevie and the doctors with all their clipboards and questions. He says that being normal is overrated. He has only been here a few weeks, but already he has found his answer. He says that his life feels like one big practical joke, so he’s decided to laugh in its face. He makes me laugh too. And I can’t remember the last time I laughed before I met Evelyn. Once a week, we have dance in the gymnasium. They make us stand up and move around while the music plays. But that’s not dancing. You can’t make someone dance. They have to want to. I always dance with Evelyn. He will be leaving soon, and I’m not staying here without him. So now, I’ll have to get better.
