Motherland

by William Nicholson

  ‘Of course it’s not your own fault.’

  Louisa is sitting on a sofa in the big drawing room with cushions all round her and a little table by her side. Mrs Lott brings through a pot of tea and some home-made scones. Kitty offers to pour the tea.

  ‘Still, it’s good to be home,’ says Louisa.

  Then she shakes her head and bites her lip and says, ‘No, it isn’t.’

  Suddenly she sounds like a frightened child.

  ‘I’ve become so useless.’ She’s on the point of tears. ‘In the nursing home I sit about all day, doing nothing, and it’s restful. Here I sit about all day, not doing things I should be doing, and I feel terrible. What’s gone wrong with me, Kitty?’

  ‘It’ll pass,’ says Kitty. ‘You’ll get better.’

  ‘Darling Kitty. Do you mind if I tell you a secret?’

  ‘You say anything you want,’ says Kitty.

  ‘I’m so afraid I might never get better.’

  ‘Oh, rubbish!’ exclaims Kitty.

  ‘There is a good side to it, though. I’ve become much nicer to George. He turns out to be such a lovely man. And of course, he adores little Billy.’

  ‘You’re just feeling tired,’ says Kitty firmly. ‘People don’t just not get better for no reason.’

  ‘Well, I’ve thought about that,’ says Louisa. ‘Really, most things happen for no reason. We die for no reason. It’s not a punishment or anything. It’s like in the war. It’s all just chance. Remember Ed saying how he believed in luck?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Kitty.

  ‘We’ve had good times along the way, though, haven’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Kitty.

  George comes in to join them, and it’s marvellous to Kitty to see how his presence cheers Louisa. He sits by her side on the sofa and fusses over her.

  ‘Have another scone. You’re to be stuffed like a goose, doctor’s orders. She’s so much better, isn’t she, Kitty? Getting her colour back.’

  ‘She’s going to be just fine,’ says Kitty.

  ‘In the spring we’re going to go to the South of France,’ he tells Louisa. ‘To Menton. You and me and Billy. We’ll sit in the sunshine and watch the boats in the harbour and get lazy and fat, all three of us.’

  ‘Will we, George? I shall like that.’

  *

  Kitty collects Elizabeth from the kitchen, where she always goes when they visit the big house, and they walk back home across the park. Kitty is filled with troubled thoughts. Louisa has always been the one who laughs away such moments, the living proof that even as life lets you down there are good times to be had. Now the good times seem to be receding into the past.

  I’m thirty years old, Kitty thinks. Don’t tell me it’s over.

  They stop at the kissing gate out of the park and Elizabeth puts up her face to be kissed.

  ‘I do love you so much, darling,’ says Kitty.

  When they get back to the farmhouse, there’s Hugo’s van in the yard, and Hugo himself in the kitchen. His presence is not welcome. Kitty is feeling too fragile to deal with his boyish flirtations.

  ‘What are you doing here, Hugo? You know Ed’s away.’

  ‘That’s why I’m here,’ he says. ‘To talk about Ed.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about Ed.’

  ‘I want tea,’ says Elizabeth.

  Kitty looks round a little distractedly, glancing at the clock, trying to calculate how long it will be before Pamela gets home from school. She likes to have her tea ready on the table.

  ‘Soon, darling.’

  Elizabeth runs off. Kitty puts the kettle on to boil.

  ‘You know it and I know it,’ says Hugo. ‘We’ve just never said it aloud.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘Ed’s drinking too much.’

  ‘Oh, God.’

  Kitty knows she should sound surprised, even angry, but she can no longer summon up the energy to defend Ed.

  ‘He’s not really capable of doing the job any more,’ says Hugo.

  She turns to look at Hugo, so serious, so earnest; the boy become a man.

  ‘I didn’t know it had got that bad,’ she says.

  ‘I’m getting calls from producers saying he’s showed up hours late, or not at all. The orders he places have to be rechecked by someone else, we’ve had so many errors. Last week we received a shipment of a hundred cases of rosé we’ve never stocked before. Ed couldn’t even remember placing the order.’

  Kitty stares at him hopelessly.

  ‘Why are you telling me this, Hugo?’

  ‘As chairman of the firm,’ he says. ‘I’m going to have to ask him to take a leave of absence.’

  Chairman of the firm. Leave of absence. And he’s still in his twenties.

  ‘Is that a nice way of saying you want him to go?’

  ‘That depends on whether he can sort himself out,’ says Hugo.

  Kitty says nothing. The kettle boils. She takes it off the stove, but she stays standing there, one hand resting on its handle, as the steam dissipates into the air.

  ‘Look, Kitty, I like Ed. And I’m grateful to him. He’s worked like a Trojan building up the business. We probably have more contacts in provincial French vineyards than any other importer. But his heart just isn’t in it any more. I can’t let him damage the reputation of the firm.’ He pauses, looks down, gives a quick shake of his head. ‘And I hate seeing him hurt you.’

  ‘Hurt me?’

  ‘Come on. I’m not blind. He’s killing you, Kitty.’

  ‘Killing me?’

  She repeats his words like a fool to play for time. Nothing Hugo says comes as a surprise, except for the fact that it’s Hugo who says it. If anything it’s a relief to hear it spoken aloud.

  ‘He’s stealing your life away from you. You’re so lovely and so kind-hearted and so … so full of light. And now, it’s as if he’s dimmed you. He’s letting your light fade. He gives you nothing, Kitty. You must see that. He’s stealing your spirit, because he has none of his own left.’

  Kitty bites her lower lip to hold back the tears. This is so exactly what she feels that it frightens her.

  ‘But I love him,’ she whispers.

  ‘But he’s no good for you. You must see that.’

  Tears brim in her eyes. Hugo jumps up and takes her in his arms.

  ‘You know how I feel about you,’ he says. ‘You’ve known from the beginning.’

  ‘No, Hugo— ’

  ‘Why not? Aren’t you at least allowed to live?’

  It’s too much for Kitty. The tears flow, and as she weeps he kisses her: at first as if to brush away the tears, and then on the mouth. She doesn’t push him away. She has no resistance left. And it’s good to be wanted, and held in a man’s arms, if only for a moment.

  A clatter at the door. She looks round. There’s Pamela, frozen on the threshold, staring at her.

  She backs away from Hugo and wipes her eyes.

  ‘And I haven’t even got the children’s tea on the table,’ she says.

  ‘Hello, Pammy,’ says Hugo.

  Pamela says nothing. Elizabeth comes pushing into the kitchen from behind her.

  ‘I’m so hungry,’ she says, ‘I’m going to die.’

  ‘You shut up, Monkey,’ says Pamela, her eyes still on her mother.

  ‘I won’t shut up!’ says Elizabeth. ‘And don’t call me Monkey!’

  Kitty is now in motion, putting out bread and butter and honey, milk and biscuits.

  ‘Monkey, Monkey, Monkey,’ says Pamela.

  ‘Now, Pamela,’ says Hugo.

  ‘You’re not my father,’ says Pamela.

  ‘Tell her not to call me Monkey,’ Elizabeth cries, tugging at her mother’s skirt.

  ‘You know she doesn’t like it, Pammy,’ says Kitty.

  ‘Why do you side with her always?’ Pamela is suddenly furious. ‘Why is it always me who’s wrong? Why do you hate me?’

  ‘I don’t hate you, darling.’

  Kitty
is overwhelmed. It’s all too much. She wants to sit down and cry until she can cry no more.

  ‘You know I don’t like Rich Tea biscuits, so why do you get them?’ Pamela senses her mother’s weakness, and attacks with all the cruelty of a self-righteous seven-year-old. ‘I don’t know why I even come home. The food’s always dull or horrid. We never have cakes with icing, like Jean has, or chocolate milk. I wish I lived in Jean’s house and Jean’s mummy was my mummy.’

  ‘Pamela!’ says Hugo sharply. ‘That’s enough.’

  Pamela turns her burning eyes on him.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she says. ‘It’s enough.’

  She goes back out into the hall and can be heard running up the stairs.

  Kitty proceeds with the automatic tasks of slicing and buttering bread, and pouring milk into glasses.

  ‘You’d better go, Hugo,’ she says. ‘I’ll talk to Ed.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ says Hugo. ‘You don’t want me to go to Pamela?’

  ‘No. It’ll only make things worse.’

  She puts out the tea for Elizabeth.

  ‘Here you are, darling. Do you want me to spread the honey for you?’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ says Elizabeth happily. Then as she spoons out unwarranted amounts of honey, ‘I don’t want to live in Jean’s house. I want to live here.’

  *

  Kitty meets Larry off the train at Lewes. Driving back, she asks after Geraldine, who is spending a week in Arundel with her parents.

  ‘Geraldine’s fine,’ says Larry.

  Pamela and Elizabeth greet Larry with cries of joy, and fight over who’s to sit on his lap. Kitty looks on with a smile.

  ‘Sometimes I think they see more of you than they do of Ed.’

  ‘Pure cupboard love,’ says Larry, searching his weekend bag. ‘Now what have I got here?’

  He takes out two small packets of sweet buttery biscuits from Normandy.

  ‘And the bananas!’ cries Elizabeth.

  ‘Bananas?’ says Larry. ‘What bananas?’

  His gifts are always much anticipated, always the same. He takes a bunch of ripe bananas from his bag and hands them over. The girls retire to gorge.

  ‘How are bananas?’ says Kitty, meaning his work.

  ‘Challenging,’ says Larry. ‘My father has just decided to retire. Which puts me in the driving seat.’

  ‘But that’s wonderful, isn’t it?’

  ‘As I say, challenging. After all these years of having the market pretty much to ourselves, it looks like we’re about to get some serious competition. A Dutch firm called Geest.’

  ‘Geesed? As in goosed?’

  ‘Almost.’

  ‘You’ve been wanting to take over for ages, Larry. Now you can do all those things you’ve been dreaming of doing.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the exciting part.’ He looks round. ‘I take it Ed’s away.’

  ‘As usual. I want to talk to you about that. Later, when the girls are in bed. Oh, Larry, I’m so glad you’ve come.’

  The guest bedroom above the kitchen is known as ‘Larry’s room’, because whenever he comes, with or without Geraldine, this is where he sleeps. He’s in the room, hanging up the modest changes of clothes he’s brought for the weekend, when he hears a soft tap-tap on the door.

  ‘Come in!’ he calls.

  No one comes in. He opens the door himself. There stands Pamela, looking unsure whether she wants to come in or run away.

  ‘Pamela?’

  She twists about on her toes and turns her head this way and that, but says not a word.

  ‘You want to talk to me?’

  She nods, not meeting his eyes.

  ‘Come on in, then.’

  She comes in. He closes the door. Realising she might find it easier to speak if he isn’t looking at her, he continues with hanging up his clothes.

  ‘Larry,’ she says after a while, ‘do you think Mummy would ever leave us?’

  ‘Leave you?’ says Larry. ‘No, never. Why would you ever think such a thing?’

  ‘Do mothers ever leave their children?’

  ‘No, they don’t, sweetheart. Hardly ever.’

  ‘Judy Garland got divorced. She’s got a little girl.’

  ‘But she didn’t leave her daughter, did she? And anyway, film stars aren’t like us.’

  ‘So Mummy wouldn’t ever go off with another man?’

  ‘No, Pamela, never.’ She has his full attention now. ‘Why are you asking me this?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Then tell your mother. You can tell her.’

  ‘No!’ says Pamela. ‘I could never tell her!’

  ‘Pammy, this must be some silly muddle you’ve got yourself into.’

  ‘It’s not a silly muddle! You don’t know. But I jolly well do know.’

  Larry can see that she wants to tell him, but holds back for fear of the consequences.

  ‘How about I promise not to tell anyone else, if you tell me?’

  ‘No one else at all?’

  ‘No one in all the world.’

  ‘Not Mummy or Daddy?’

  ‘No one. Cross my heart and hope to die.’

  ‘You have to do it,’ Pamela says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cross your heart.’

  Larry makes the sign of the cross.

  ‘No, not like that!’ Pamela demonstrates, describing an X across her skinny chest. ‘Like that.’

  Larry complies. There follows a silence. Then Pamela bursts into tears, and mumbles some indistinct words that Larry fails to catch.

  ‘Come here, sweetheart,’ he says gently, opening his arms. ‘Whisper it in my ear.’

  She presses her lips to his ear and whispers.

  ‘I saw Mummy kissing Hugo.’

  He moves her round so he can look her in the face.

  ‘Hugo?’

  She nods, snuffling.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  Another nod.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the kitchen. When I came back from school.’

  ‘They were probably having a friendly hug.’

  ‘No! It was mouth kissing!’

  Larry says nothing. He’s not sure what to think. He’s not sure what he feels.

  ‘You don’t believe me.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I believe you.’

  ‘So you see. It’s not a silly muddle I’ve got myself into.’

  ‘No,’ says Larry, ‘but it may be a silly muddle all the same.’

  All through the remainder of that Saturday Pamela’s revelation fills Larry’s mind. He knows he must talk to Kitty about it, but doesn’t know how. His promise to Pamela seems to him to be overruled by the seriousness of the situation. Kitty is clearly in trouble. Apart from Louisa, who’s not at all well, he’s her best friend. Who else can she confide in?

  All day long his thoughts bounce back and forth, from Kitty to Ed to Hugo and back, missing out only himself and his own feelings for Kitty. So long controlled if not denied, he dares not unlock the secret room in which he has hidden away his love for her. Kitty is married to his best friend. He himself has a wife. Things are as they are, and must be lived with.

  But Hugo?

  It makes no sense at all. Behind the locked door waits the secret cry: if Hugo, why not me? Except he knows why it can’t be him.

  But Hugo!

  One case reported by a child, one kiss that may never have happened, has rocked the fragile equilibrium with which he’s been living for so long. The old self-accusation rises up to taunt him.

  I’ve been too weak. I’ve been too afraid. If I’d spoken out long ago. If I’d made demands. If I’d been a man.

  If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

  Evening comes. The girls are tucked up in bed, presumed asleep. Kitty talks freely now, telling him about Ed and his absences and his drinking. All the time she’s talking, Larry looks on her lovely face and asks himself, Is it possible she has sought consolation elsewhere?

&
nbsp; ‘Hugo was here the other day,’ she says. ‘He told me he wants Ed to take leave of absence from the firm. That’s how bad it’s got.’

  Hugo was here the other day.

  ‘What will you say to him? To Ed, I mean.’

  ‘I don’t know, Larry. I don’t know what to do with Ed. He knows I hate his drinking. So now of course he does it in secret. But there’s something I hate more than the drinking. Why is he so unhappy? Have I failed him? What have I done wrong? He’s got me, he’s got the girls. I’ve never asked him to do anything he doesn’t want. I don’t ask him for smart cars or fur coats. I’m a good wife to him, aren’t I? He knows I love him. And I do, I do love him. Sometimes he can be so sweet and I think I’ve got him back, the old Ed. But then it’s like a door closes, and I’m on one side, and he’s on the other, with his unhappiness.’

  She speaks rapidly but calmly, long past the stage of incoherence and tears. Larry understands that what he’s hearing is the cycle of thoughts that go round and round in her head.

  ‘Of course I blame myself, how can I not blame myself? But I’m so tired of it all, Larry, it wears me out. And there’s something worse. I get angry, too. Angry with Ed. Why is he doing this to us? Why can’t he see how good his life could be? Why can’t he see how unhappy he’s making me?’

  ‘I think he knows that,’ says Larry.

  ‘Then why doesn’t he do something about it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Larry. ‘But I’m sure of one thing. It’s not your fault. I know he’d say that too. It’s something in him.’

  ‘What?’ she says, searching his face as if to find it there. ‘What in him? Why?’

  ‘I think he’d call it the darkness,’ says Larry. ‘I don’t understand it. But it’s been there as long as I’ve known him.’

  ‘Even at school?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘If only he’d talk to me about it.’

  ‘I think the problem there,’ says Larry slowly, ‘is that he feels he’s already let you down. He feels so much guilt about you, he doesn’t want to burden you with even more. He loves you so much, it must be torture to him, knowing he’s making you unhappy too. I think he’s trying to keep it away from you, his unhappiness. Like a contagious disease, you know? He’s quarantining himself.’

  ‘Then what am I to do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Larry. ‘I suppose you could seek consolation elsewhere.’