Dead to Me

by Lesley Pearse

  But that first night as Verity lay sleepless, listening to the rain hammering down outside, she hated her mother with every fibre of her body. She knew that once the local newspaper heard about this, they would have a field day, possibly connecting the family with Archie Wood and resurrecting what he had done and how he’d brought his wife to this tragic end.

  Everyone at school, the neighbours, even the ladies at the library would hear about it. How could she ever hold her head up again?

  The next morning Aunt Hazel blurted out that she absolutely knew her sister had staged the gassing for sympathy, never expecting to die.

  ‘She thought you’d be home by five as you always were, and you can bet your life she turned that gas on just minutes before five o’clock. She was the same all her life, always trying to get attention with whatever means she could. Well, this time it caught up with her. She’s gone now, and good riddance – so much for crying wolf.’

  Verity knew her aunt wasn’t really glad her sister had died, she’d heard and seen her crying, and could see the sorrow etched into her face. She suspected Hazel felt guilty that she hadn’t asked the doctor to pay a home visit weeks ago, and then maybe it would never have come to this.

  But whether Hazel was grieving or glad, at least Verity could now admit she too knew her mother had staged her suicide. Why else would she have put on her best pink dress and her pearls? That wasn’t the act of someone totally out of their mind with hopelessness.

  It also meant Verity could talk freely about guilt and anger and all the other emotions that came in waves, threatening to overwhelm her.

  She rather admired Hazel’s unconventional way of dealing with her grief; she spat out words like ‘sensationalist’, ‘traitor’ and ‘halfwit’ as she stripped her sister’s bed and packed her clothes away. She banged things around, even kicking furniture at times. Fury appeared to make her feel better.

  Verity wished she could feel anger like her aunt’s; it would be good to rant about what a terrible, uncaring mother she’d had. But what she felt was a deep sadness, a big lump of it inside her that made it hard to eat, sleep or share her feelings with anyone.

  She wrote a letter to Susan telling her what had happened, thinking she’d be worried when she wasn’t at the library. She hoped her friend would call round, as it would be a relief to talk to someone.

  Hazel had a few days off work to enable her to arrange the funeral, though there wasn’t anything much to arrange. She had no desire to invite neighbours to the service – Cynthia had never spoken to any of them – and those people she’d known as a young girl were almost all dead now or very old. She didn’t have any real friends, only old bridge partners who certainly wouldn’t come all the way to South London.

  Hazel said it was best that no one came anyway – after all, suicide was a sin. She also didn’t want to alert any of the reporters who had banged on her door in the past few days, trying to get more information on the still-missing felon Archie Wood.

  The vicar at the local church where her parents were buried would only allow Cynthia to be buried in the unhallowed ground at the edge of the churchyard, so Hazel took the view the interment should be done as speedily and privately as possible. She added that the wisest thing for her and Verity would be to draw a veil over it all, and try to forget.

  The funeral was to take place on the fourth day after Cynthia’s death. In the days preceding it, Verity and Hazel spent most of the time sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea and talking. It wasn’t all about Cynthia, either; Hazel spoke about their mother, and said how she too used to play games to get sympathy.

  ‘Whenever I said I was going to leave, she always became ill,’ Hazel said. ‘Such an actress! She could vomit, starve herself and writhe in pain. But it was all put on, and I got wise to it eventually. She was not a nice woman, Verity, she had no real heart. So I suppose it isn’t surprising that both Cynthia and I could be so calculating.’

  ‘You aren’t calculating,’ Verity assured her. ‘You do come across at first as chilly, but you were kind and generous to take Mum and me in. But tell me about Grandfather. What was he like?’

  ‘Quiet, gentle, hardworking. He was a train driver, you know,’ Hazel sighed. ‘He deserved better than Mother, she bullied him, nothing he did was ever good enough. He used to spend all his spare time out in the garden, he made it beautiful, but she even ridiculed him for that and said he wasn’t a real man. I asked him once why he didn’t leave, but he just smiled and said it was his duty to stay. He passed away just before he was sixty, with a heart attack. Mother turned to bullying me after that.’

  Verity had never been to a funeral before, and so she had no idea what they were normally like.

  Hazel told her that it wasn’t usual to be put so hastily into the ground with the minimum of prayers and no hymns, or to have no other mourners. ‘So you must try to forget it,’ her aunt urged her again.

  When the day came, Verity made a posy of brightly coloured dahlias which she threw in on top of the coffin. It was only then that she shed a few tears, and only because she could hardly believe that anyone could have such a stark, unmourned end.

  The day after the funeral Verity took some of her mother’s best dresses and costumes to a shop in Lewisham that bought good quality second-hand clothes.

  Maybe to an outsider this would appear callous, but Verity and Hazel had talked it over and decided they needed to take positive action to free themselves of their anger and resentment. Apart from anything else, they had to pay for Cynthia’s funeral and find money to buy Verity new shoes and to keep her for the coming weeks.

  Verity got twelve pounds for the clothes – more than they had expected – and Aunt Hazel decided they would keep the remainder of Cynthia’s clothes to alter for themselves.

  Finally, Susan replied to Verity’s letter, but it was starchy and brief. She offered her condolences, but the line ‘my parents feel that it isn’t appropriate for us to spend so much time together now’ meant that in fact she didn’t want to be friends with someone whose mother had taken her own life.

  Verity was very hurt, but she kept it to herself. Hazel might say she was in favour of drawing a veil over recent events, and forgetting her sister’s selfishness, but Verity knew in reality she was sad and grieving. She would be deeply disturbed if she knew her niece was being made to suffer for her mother’s actions.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It was Sunday evening, and Verity was supposed to be starting school in the morning. Tomorrow would be two weeks since her mother’s death.

  ‘You don’t have to go back to school, if you don’t want to,’ Aunt Hazel said, putting her hand on Verity’s shoulder. ‘No one will expect you to when you have only just buried your mother.’

  ‘I don’t know what I want,’ Verity admitted. ‘It’s all been so horrible, and I feel so mixed up.’

  Aunt and niece were sitting in the parlour companionably. It had been raining all day, and since lunch Verity had been reading a book while Hazel had been taking in one of Cynthia’s dresses.

  When the sun came out, Verity suggested they went for a late evening walk.

  ‘I suppose we could,’ Hazel said. ‘Though I’m so comfy I don’t know that I want to move.’

  Verity smiled. Her aunt had become a whole lot easier to live with since the funeral. She wasn’t so sharp, and she seemed much more relaxed.

  ‘You may have to move,’ she said, pointing towards the window. Mrs Dean, their neighbour, was waddling across the street towards their door. ‘Shall I head her off? Tell her you’re lying down or something?’

  ‘She’s the last thing I need,’ Hazel groaned.

  Mrs Dean was one of the worst gossips in the street, in the hot weather she sat out on her garden wall nearly all day, watching people and encouraging them to stop and chat. People joked that if you told her a secret, the whole of Lewisham would know it within the hour. She had tried to befriend Hazel immediately after Cynthia’s death, with the sole in
tention of digging up a bit of dirt.

  ‘No, I’ll deal with her.’ Hazel got to her feet as the doorbell rang. ‘You stay here; she knows you are a soft touch.’

  Verity didn’t move from her chair – like her aunt, she was sick of people calling. They often came with a gift of food, but it was just to gain information, not real kindness or sympathy. Verity was astounded at how adept her aunt could be at offering thanks very politely, even with surprising warmth, and yet not telling the caller anything at all. But getting rid of Mrs Dean would be especially difficult; it was often said she had the hide of a rhinoceros and was never deterred by insults, threats or a door slammed in her face.

  A minute or two passed and Verity heard the front door close. Aunt Hazel came back into the room, a letter in her hand.

  ‘That was quick work,’ Verity said. ‘How did you do it?’

  Hazel half smiled. ‘I told her the vicar was here. She can’t have been at her usual perch in the window or she’d have known it wasn’t true. It seems the postman made a mistake and put this through her door. She claimed she’d only just found it, half hidden by the doormat, but I expect she steamed it open. It’s for you, dear!’

  As soon as Verity saw the Devon postmark she knew it was from Ruby. The unformed childish writing confirmed it.

  ‘It’s from my friend Ruby,’ she said, knowing her aunt must be curious. ‘I wrote to her that night mother had the accident on the chair, and I posted it the next day. She won’t know mother is dead.’

  ‘Maybe that’s just as well, and her letter might cheer you up,’ Hazel said. ‘I’ll go and get the tea ready and leave you in peace to read it.’

  Verity felt a little pang of something akin to love for her aunt, because she wasn’t demanding to know who this friend was – or even to read the letter – the way her mother would have done.

  She opened the envelope hastily, her excitement rising rapidly.

  Dear Verity,

  There’s a shock! I thought you would forget me. You wrote kind of funny – I suppose you think someone would read it, but they don’t. Anyways, sorry you had to move and leave the nice house. Is your aunt kind? Are the girls at your new school nice to you?

  I got lucky coming here. You must have thought it was a prison place but it ain’t. A lady spoke up for me in court, she said I never had a chance with my ma and I needed to go to a decent home. Well blow me down if they didn’t bring me down here by the sea to stay with Mrs Wilberforce. She lets me call her Wilby, time was she used to have eight or nine kids staying, but she lost her old man and she’s getting too old for real young ones. I really like her and living here, I get good food and kindness. My reading and writing is much better now and she’s making me speak posh too and have manners. I told Wilby all about you and she said you can come to stay any time you like. I’ll put the telephone number at the end, so you can ring me. It ain’t hard to get here, the train goes from Paddington. I would love it if you came.

  Big love,

  Ruby

  All at once the flood of tears that had been suppressed for so long came, great gulping sobs that eased the horrible lump she’d had inside her. The letter was badly spelled, with no real punctuation, but there was affection in every word, and Ruby didn’t even know that things were so bad for her.

  Hazel came in, stopping in surprise to see her niece so distraught.

  ‘Whatever is it?’ she asked. ‘Is it something nasty in that letter?’

  Somehow, through the sobs, Verity was able to tell her aunt about Ruby and how she’d got to know her. Hazel looked horrified at the bit about the stolen clock, but she took the letter and read it.

  ‘Sounds like she’s fallen on her feet,’ she said. ‘She is clearly very pleased to hear from you. Even if she’s no great shakes as a letter writer.’

  ‘I’m so pleased to get her letter,’ Verity said and tried to dry her eyes. ‘I don’t know why I’m crying.’

  ‘I do,’ Hazel said. ‘You’ve bottled it all up – not just your mum, but everything – for a long time. Ruby is like a key, she’s unlocked your emotions for you.’

  ‘Mother would have gone mad if she’d known about Ruby,’ Verity said.

  ‘Well, your mother was a snob as well as a fool,’ Hazel said. ‘When we were kids, we were often barefoot, we didn’t even have a better dress for Sundays like most around here. I thought I was dead lucky when I got taken on as an apprentice to make curtains and that. It’s a proper trade. But your mother was always above herself. She said she’d kill herself, rather than sew or be a shop girl.’

  ‘Did she really marry my father because she thought he had money and was well connected?’

  ‘I know so. She met him up West. She used to hang around with Iris Petherall back then, a snooty Blackheath girl, her folks had money. They took the two girls with them one night to the theatre and afterwards went for supper somewhere a bit smart. I don’t remember where, but there was a band and dancing, and Archie was there. He’d been in France during the war and no doubt he made himself out to be a bit of a hero. Of course he was handsome, and posh too. Funny thing was, Cynthia didn’t talk much about him the next day, only that his parents had a big house in Shropshire. I got the feeling she’d set her cap at him, and I was right. They got married a few weeks later.’

  Verity gasped. ‘Really! That fast?’

  Hazel winced. ‘I can guess how she persuaded him, but it wouldn’t be proper to tell you that, any more than to tell you why I always knew he was a cad and a bounder. Anyway, back to this letter from your friend. Why don’t you go down to the telephone box and ring her now? It’ll do you a power of good to speak to someone of your own age.’

  Hazel put down her sewing after Verity had gone out to the telephone box. She was worried about her niece, because she knew she would be talked about at school, maybe even ostracized because of her mother, people were like that.

  She wished she could speak out and tell Verity how adult, kind and sensible she was, and that she’d grown terribly fond of her, but she found it impossible to say such things. How Verity had turned out so well she couldn’t imagine, as she’d had little or no parental guidance, with her mother far too wrapped up in herself to think of her child, and her father more interested in gambling and pretending to be something he wasn’t. Yet however well-adjusted Verity appeared to be, she was vulnerable now; her age, her father’s disappearance, the house being taken away and then her mother gassing herself, all this was far too much for a young girl to cope with.

  ‘I wish I knew what to do or say,’ she sighed. She had had ideas about selling the remainder of Cynthia’s treasures and getting the house tidied up a bit so Verity felt more comfortable here. But maybe she should keep that money in case her niece needed something else – money for a training course or something?

  Verity was gone about twenty minutes, and when she came back she was flushed with excitement. ‘It was so good to speak to Ruby. She sounds really happy, but she was sad for me that Mother died. She said Mrs Wilberforce said I could go and stay there with them for a while, if I wanted – even tomorrow – instead of going back to school. I’d love to see the sea.’

  ‘You’ve never seen the sea?’ Hazel was shocked.

  ‘No. Every summer Mother used to say we’d go to Brighton, but we never did. The only holidays we ever had were with Grandmother Wood in Shropshire. It was a lovely old house and a beautiful garden, with a river running through it, but there were no other children to play with and Grandmother could be very nasty.’

  Hazel thought that Verity had known more nasty people in her life than nice ones. ‘It would do wonders for you to have a holiday,’ she said impulsively. ‘I’m concerned about sending you off to people I don’t know, but if that woman Wilberforce was good enough to take in a slum kid in trouble, she can’t be a bad sort. Is there a husband?’

  ‘She’s a widow,’ Verity said. ‘She teaches Ruby at home too. She’s old enough to work now, but Mrs Wilberforce wants to br
ing her up to scratch before she looks for a job. Please let me go, Auntie? I can’t face going back to school when Susan doesn’t even want to be my friend any more.’

  ‘She was no friend if she turned her back on you so fast,’ Hazel said tartly. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll ring Mrs Wilberforce myself tomorrow, and I’ll find out what time the trains go to Torquay. You can stay back from school and do a bit of cleaning for me. And if it all works out, you can go on Tuesday or whenever Mrs Wilberforce says.’

  Verity leaned over her aunt and hugged her, and for once she didn’t recoil as if bitten by a snake.

  ‘I’ll miss you, of course,’ Hazel said gruffly. ‘Just mind you behave!’

  It was Thursday when Verity eventually set off for Torquay. Mrs Wilberforce had agreed she could come as soon as she liked, but Aunt Hazel wanted to see her off at Paddington Station so they had to wait for her day off.

  Verity was beside herself with excitement from the moment it was arranged she could go. She had to get her holiday clothes washed and ironed while her aunt was at work, and also buy some sandals. The packing took no time at all, because she only had three summer dresses that still fitted her, a pair of shorts and a blouse. Ruby had said she didn’t need a swimsuit, as Wilby had several that she could borrow.

  It was torturous waiting to leave; she cleaned the house, polished the brass, scrubbed the stone doorstep and pulled up weeds in the garden to pass the time. Even reading – the one way in which she’d always managed to escape from reality or make time go faster – didn’t seem to work.

  Finally, Thursday morning arrived, the sun was shining and good weather was forecast for the next week. Verity washed, then dressed in the pale green and white cotton dress which had been her mother’s and her aunt had altered.

  ‘You look very nice,’ Hazel said when she came downstairs to find Verity making toast. ‘That dress suits you. Now the train leaves Paddington at eleven, and it doesn’t get to Torquay till nearly four thirty, so I’ll make you some sandwiches for your lunch.’