by Esther Freud
‘Muuum.’ Freya is awake.
‘Muuuuuum.’ She has her own special drawn-out name for me, and with each repetition it gets longer.
‘Coming!’ Three more strokes and I force myself to stop.
Freya is sitting in her bed, a fearful bird in the nest of her quilt. She has her back pressed against the wall, as far as she can get from the terror of the carpet. ‘Come on, you.’ I give my voice a cheerful lilt, and she wraps her arms around my neck and hangs there as we make our way downstairs. I boil her an egg, butter toast, and we sit at the table with the radio murmuring while I calculate how soon I can get back to work. Three IRA gunmen have been shot dead in Northern Ireland. Soldiers opened fire on their car as it . . .
‘When you die . . .’ I turn the radio off, too late. ‘Will you wait for me, when you get to heaven?’
‘Of course!’ I wonder if it’s right to indulge the idea of heaven when I’m not sure what I believe, and to distract her, and myself, I shuffle and deal a pack of cards and we play Snap as loudly as we dare.
It’s lunchtime before Matt appears. ‘Feeling better?’
I nod. I am. A bit.
Freya is colouring. ‘Smello.’ It’s true, he smells powerfully of beer, and she sticks out her tongue.
‘Don’t be like that.’ He doesn’t pretend to be amused, and when he leans across to see her page, she covers her picture with her hands.
Matt sits at the table and takes out his tobacco. He eases a pinch into the crease of the paper.
‘Anything you’d like to do today?’
‘I’m meeting the boys’ – he tilts his chair – ‘rehearsing.’
‘And tomorrow?’
The legs snap back against the floor. ‘What are you trying to do, ruin my weekend?’ In the silence that follows we listen to the furious colouring of our child.
‘Sorry,’ he says later. ‘Bit of a bad head.’ He goes to the sink and, pressing two aspirin from their pack, he gulps them down.
That afternoon, once Matt has set off to corral the members of his band, I curl up with Freya on the sofa, and when halfway through Pinocchio she falls asleep, I extricate myself and slip into my workroom. Ten minutes, I promise, and I bend to my branch, to the curve above the dip where, much as a chicken keeps on strutting after its head has been lopped off, the leaves still cling.
IT’S LATE WHEN I HEAR Matt fumbling with his key. He hates it when I double-lock the door, thinks it’s him I’m shutting out, but tonight the lock felt flimsy with its one loose catch, and Freya had alarmed me with her fears. There was a monster waiting underneath the bed, and she couldn’t hear her story until I’d made myself safe.
‘Matt,’ I hiss from the top of the stairs as he swings his jacket and a plant pot shatters to the floor.
‘Shhhory.’ All around is earth and the jagged shards of clay. ‘Katie, damn, I didn’t mean . . . listen, Kate, I love you.’ He sounds like everyone who was ever drunk but tonight he’s my drunk, home, and I believe him. Three-legged we shuffle to the sofa where he does his best to pull me down. ‘Let me get a quilt at least.’ I’m laughing, but by the time I’m back he’s asleep.
‘DO YOU KNOW,’ FREYA STARTS the next morning as soon as she’s awake, ‘it’s easier to die standing up?’ She crawls to the top of the stairs, and I have no choice but to follow as she bumps down on her bottom, pads along the hall, only stopping when stray beads of earth catch on her palms. She looks at me accusingly as if to say, Be it on your head, and she stands up.
It’s cold today, the pale sky striped with cloud, but with Matt still on the sofa, the safest thing to do is leave the house. We walk through the morning-after streets, grey paving strewn with stains and litter, but once we’re through the railings, trailing up beside the first expanse of the heath, the sun breaks through. There are joggers, cyclists, two small football-kitted boys using their father as a goal. We wind along the path beside the ponds, stop to watch a Labrador plunge in after a stick, heaving in his big brown body, his mouth a smile, his tail wagging even as he shakes himself dry. There are men swimming in the next pond. We wait for one, in minuscule red trunks, to stop strutting and dive, and when he does, and the blue pond closes after him, we shiver as we watch to see where he’ll come up. Three, four, five. He reappears in an arc of spray and, with only a second’s pause, strikes out.
We walk uphill, curving away from the terraced pools of water towards a circle of trees. Last year’s pine cones are scattered on the ground and I crouch down with my back against a trunk.
‘I’ve been thinking . . .’ Freya’s face is hopeful. ‘I think you’ll die when I’m eleven.’
‘Let’s have a race.’ I’m determined to distract her. ‘First one to the bottom of the hill is a—’ She is off, and I am after her, knees jolting, hair flying, London stretched before us, a frieze of stark black towers, the mess of houses on the far side of the railway, our own tucked in between two blocks of flats. I let Freya hurtle ahead of me, bouncing and lunging over the uneven ground so that I have to stop myself calling out ‘Careful’ as my mother would have done. Careful, until I wanted to harm myself to show her I’d survive.
AS IF I’VE CONJURED HER, that afternoon my mother calls. She wants to know if it’s safe to park outside the house; she doesn’t want to be towed away, or broken into. ‘Don’t worry.’ I’d forgotten she was coming, and I look around the kitchen with her scrutinising eyes.
Usually my mother stays with Alice when she visits London, but Alice is abroad with work. Her firm has sent her on a six-month placement to Atlanta, a promotion which has made our parents inordinately proud. I open the fridge and stare in at its contents.
‘Morning, my lovelies.’ Matt has staggered up from the sofa and Freya, who is icing digestives, puts a whole biscuit into her mouth and bares her teeth around it.
I’ll make soup, I decide, and I go upstairs. I strip Freya’s bed. Tonight she’ll have to sleep in with us, and I’m grateful that last night took place last night because it means tonight will be better. ‘If you want to be helpful,’ I shout down to Matt when I’ve calculated the mix of food, coffee and aspirin will have set him straight, ‘you could take Freya out for half an hour.’
I turn on the Hoover so that I’m spared any response and I follow it over Freya’s carpet, into the corners, grimacing as it sucks up the lid of a miniature china teapot which I must retrieve. The inside of the Hoover is a world unto itself. I sit and stare into the bag. The fluff of the carpet, dark strands of hair, a penny gleaming in the dust, and I imagine myself at art school attempting to find a way to frame it in a Perspex box. Now I pluck out the lid, replace it on the china pot, and close the Hoover up.
‘NO,’ I hear Freya scream. ‘I don’t want my coat. Mummy never—’ I drag the Hoover across the landing and into our room and wander it round the base of the chest of drawers, nose it under the bed. There is a shrilling as the nozzle blocks. I tug on its slinky neck and peel away a square of paper that will not be swallowed. Call me. The words are written in blue biro. Bastard. There are three kisses and the letter S.
Downstairs the door slams. I switch off the Hoover and listen. ‘The fart went rolling down the street, parlez vous. The fart went rolling down the street . . .’ Matt’s voice sails up to me and I hear Freya giggle. I twist the note and throw it in the bin.
The morning after the first night I spent with Matt, I woke to find a page of kisses on my pillow. I held the pencil crosses to my mouth, and later, as I dressed, my body liquid, my thoughts unspooled, I folded the sheet of paper into the pocket of my jeans. Do I still have it? I wonder now, and I lift down the box into which from the age of ten I’ve placed my most treasured possessions. As a child I’d kept it locked with its own key. And No One – I was fierce with my instructions – was allowed to look inside. Now the key lies carelessly on top. Without Alice, without my mother, there is no one to keep out. I creak open the lid. On the top is a note from Freya, I luv yuo Mumy. And below this, as if there has been no
thing in between, the plastic anklet she was labelled with when she was born. I sniff it, hoping to find a trace of her, the blood and milk, her embryonic nails, or failing that, the scent of hospital, of disinfectant, tears. There is no smell, only the silk slip of the plastic, the nub of the button. Below this is an assortment of necklaces, earrings, a choker I’d made myself from beads, and there, at the bottom, weighed down with foreign coins, is a picture of my mother. It is small and square, a photo-booth image, hand-drawn. Dark hair. A smile unnaturally wide. I uncurl its corners. It was the first thing I placed here and I am seized again with the same violent desire no one should know. Mother, I’d written on the back, and I look at it now. Who are you anyway? I take her to the mirror, where my eyes surprise me with their wildness. I attempt to smile. Wider. But it’s as false as the woman I have drawn, and although I’d like to scrunch it into nothing, I replace it carefully, covering it feature by feature with my ornaments until it disappears from view. It is only then that I remember the kisses. Where did they go? I slam the lid, and seizing hold of the Hoover, I pull it to the top of the stairs, scratching and rattling as I bump it down.
The sitting room smells like a bar. I draw the curtains, plump up the cushions, and vacuum it so thoroughly that the reek of beer is replaced by hot, scorched dust. In the kitchen I fill the sink. Bacon fat, the clog of beans. In need of help, I slam Patsy Cline into the CD player and as I scour the grill pan I roar out the words of ‘Crazy’ and, cheered, sweep everything off the table and put each item in the place that it belongs. By the third verse I’m positively happy. I wipe the cooker, polish the knobs, and I have to stop myself from squeaking clean the glass in the back door.
I turn the music loud and run upstairs to clean the bathroom. Are you all right? Mum’s concern fills the room. I scrub the basin. Scrub the bath. Wipe down the shelf and rearrange the bottles of shampoo. I’m fine! I pack the towels into the laundry basket and hang fresh ones on the peg, but I’ll not be able to fool her, however brightly I smile.
Aoife
WE WERE GLAD THEY WERE AWAY IN THE CLEAN AIR OF THE country. Do you remember how bad it was that winter when the smog came down? Not bad for business, we thought they’d never leave, and who can blame them, stumbling out into the street, feeling their way with fingertips and toes, and that poor fellow, the Murphy lad, God rest his soul, who never did reach home. That’s when we started saving, every penny we could spare. The farm was your idea. Hadn’t I spent my life trying to get away from the peat bog and the harvest, and then what do I do, go and marry a man with Ireland in his blood? It was Mam’s funeral the first time we made the visit – too dangerous with the war to get back for my da – and there we were on the train to Killumney, the same journey I’d made all those years before but in reverse, walking over the fields to Kilcrea. My brother Jim had the farm by then, he’d worked it half his life, and he was welcome. A low place, with chickens messing as they pecked into the kitchen. I was ashamed for you to see where I’d been raised, but you showed it to me fresh. Through your green eyes I saw how bright was every blade of grass, how rich the soil, how ancient were the hills.
The next summer we sent the girls over as soon as they were done with school. Rosaleen and Angela, Kitty was too small, and the report came back that they were grand workers, our eldest if you can believe it, out in the fields the whole long day, pulling wild oats from barley. We’ll put you on the payroll, you told Rosaleen, when we have our farm. She was eleven, thin as a reed but strong, and she said she’d do it, if she could have a donkey. You riled at that. There was always something, but there’d been a donkey at Kilcrea and she’d fed it an apple on the flat of her palm. She’d call it Teddy, she said, and ride it through the lanes, and once she was back at St Joseph’s she wrote to us about him, page after page, as if he was already hers.
It took too long, that was the truth of it. Sixteen by the time we’d saved enough, seventeen when we moved, and at seventeen there isn’t a girl alive wants to go from London to Youghal, but that’s what she had to do. By then she cared nothing for donkeys, although I found one for her anyway. Meet Teddy. He was a dusty old mule, stubborn as the day, and she only glanced at him, made a sad face at the droop of his head and left him for the rest of us to tend. Teddy, I’d coax, as if I didn’t have better things to do, walking backwards with a carrot, Kitty sitting straight as a sergeant, kicking with her heels. Even Angela did her best, heaving her whole weight against his flank. It was only at night he’d waltz away to stand under the oak for which the house was named, and we’d wake in the morning to see him nosing out to reach a clump of thistle.
We’ll send him to the knackers, you’d say to rouse her, but Rosaleen would only shrug. She had other things on her mind by then, if you remember. Dear God.
Rosaleen
ROSALEEN ATE HER LUNCHTIME SANDWICH AT A PUB IN FLEET Street. She’d brought along the paper, the front page of which covered the trial of the American pilot Gary Powers, accused of espionage by a Russian court. ‘If Eisenhower had just apologised.’ Three newspapermen had joined her table.
‘If Khrushchev hadn’t made him look a fool . . .’ A heavy, bald-headed man was squeezing in beside her.
‘But you’ve got to admit it was funny . . . Weather research!’ His friend was smirking.
‘Not funny,’ the man to Rosaleen’s left cut in. He wore a shimmery blue suit. ‘They were going to be discussing nuclear arms reduction, for Christ’s sake.’
The first man was watching her. ‘Will you have a drink?’ He picked up his empty glass and turned to the others. ‘Same again?’
‘Thank you.’ Rosaleen shook her head.
‘Go on.’ He looked disapprovingly at her lemonade. ‘Something stronger? What will it be? A gin and tonic?’
Flustered, she conceded. Maybe this is it, my chance to talk to an actual journalist, and as she waited for her liquid courage she compiled a list of questions. Isn’t Gary Powers a scapegoat? Is nuclear war a real threat? Who should I approach if I was to publish an article myself? But the men, once they were on their second pints, talked harder, faster, lighting cigarettes, one from the last, the only attention she had from them the hand of the man in the blue suit creeping lazily across her lap.
The next day Rosaleen ate her sandwich by the river. She sat on a bench overlooking the Thames and unfolded that morning’s paper. She flicked through the pages, studying the photographs beside each byline. She found two of the men from the pub – one was Sport, the other Money – but it was the women she examined more particularly. Their hair, their clothes, their confident smiles. Surely not one of them was so cowardly as to leave her drink half finished, slipping away with a small murmur of thanks as the blue-cuffed hand disappeared under her skirt.
‘Nice lunch?’ Betty had greeted her when she’d returned to work, and she’d nodded and continued sorting through the post.
That evening on her way home she stopped outside a hair salon. In the window was a picture of Jacqueline Kennedy, her black bob swept up off her forehead, flicking in under her ears. Rosaleen looked at her own reflection in the glass. A curtain falling to her shoulders, a fringe that dropped into her eyes.
‘I’d like it short,’ she said once she’d been ushered to a chair, and the neat man, his mouth pursed, lifted the dense mass of her curls. ‘Yes,’ he agreed, and he reached for his scissors.
Felix was appalled. ‘Where’s my Rosa gone?’ He’d been waiting for her in the street, smart in a dark suit, freshly shaved.
‘It’s the latest style. It’s how Jackie—’
‘You’re the latest style.’ He held her head in his hands. ‘At least you were.’
Her cheeks flamed. ‘It’ll grow. I just wanted to see who I—’
Felix was surveying her, a long serious look. ‘Promise me you won’t cut it again?’
Never? Hope hurled her into the future and she pressed her face against the smoothness of his cheek. ‘Is it true, you’ve finished?’
‘For
tonight, certainly.’
‘I promise.’ She grinned, and he kissed her, hungrily and for so long, she was forced to wriggle away.
ANGELA, WHEN SHE ARRIVED, was equally shocked. ‘Oh Rosaleen.’ Her hands flew to her mouth. ‘I’d hardly know you!’ She slipped out of her shoes so as not to mark the pearl-grey carpet. ‘You look ever so smart.’
It was the nicest thing, to have Angela with her. They made food from home, mashed potatoes and a chop, and they ate it on the sofa, laughing to think of Mummy’s face as they propped the plates on their knees.
‘The private view isn’t till next week,’ Rosaleen told her, ‘that’s when the exhibition opens, but Felix says we can sneak in and see it while you’re here. He’ll show us round on Sunday.’
‘But I promised.’ Angela’s face clouded. ‘The aunties, they’re expecting us for our dinner.’
Rosaleen’s anger flared. ‘And why would you agree to that? You’re here with me now, and it’s none of anyone’s business what we do.’
‘I suppose we could send a note and say we’re sick?’ Angela was pale.
‘Then they can pray for us. They’ll like that.’
‘For all they know we are ill.’
Rosaleen leant over and squeezed her sister’s hand. ‘The gallery’s in Mayfair, and if Felix can get away he says he’ll take us out for lunch.’
‘He’ll take us both? You sure of that?’
‘I’m not sure of anything, but it’ll be more fun than the aunties.’
They smiled at each other and, leaving their dishes on the floor, lay on the sofa, one at each end, and talked about the farm, about school and Cork and Declan Shaughnessy, who still called by to ask when Rosaleen was coming home. They talked about the nuns, and the newspaper, and Mr O’Malley up over the way, who’d pinned Angela to the wall while she was kicking off her gumboots, and when she pushed him off, he’d looked at her, aggrieved. ‘It was only a kiss I was after!’ They laughed, the greasy fellow, and to think she might have been hoping for more.