The Hours Before Dawn

by Celia Fremlin

  ‘Is Granny coming?’ interrupted Harriet, shrill and inquisitive through her bread-and-jam.

  ‘Yes, dear, she’s coming after tea, and so—’

  ‘Who is?’ enquired Margery, waking up as usual in time to hear the tail-end of every conversation.

  ‘Granny, dear,’ repeated Louise patiently. ‘So do you think, Mark—?’

  But it was no use. It never was any use trying to discuss anything at mealtimes. And it isn’t as if I’ve deliberately tried to bring them up on progressive lines, thought Louise dismally, as she scooped an imaginary beetle out of Harriet’s milk. I haven’t had any theories about letting them express themselves – why do they behave so exactly as if I had? Is it something in the air of the present century? And was there something different in the air of previous centuries – something which children breathed in – and lo and behold found themselves quiet and docile and in awe of their elders? Or is it that the disciplining of children is a lost art, like the making of frumenty, or the medieval staining of glass? In that case, then the only difference between progressive parents and others is that the progressive ones are making the best of a bad job by parading the universal incompetence as a special virtue of their own….

  ‘Granny!’

  With a screech like a parakeet Harriet was across the lawn and clinging to her grandmother with arms sticky to the elbow. Children are just like cats, thought Louise. They have an unerring instinct for the person who most wants to avoid them, and they cling and clamber on that person with relentless and unsnubbable devotion. If only Mark’s mother had been the kind of grandmother who revels in just the sort of affection with which Harriet was now belabouring her! Only, of course, if she had been, Harriet wouldn’t be doing it….

  Mrs Henderson senior meanwhile had picked Harriet off her skirt as if she was a burr, and was continuing on her way across the lawn, her smart black suit, her sheer nylons and her flawless nail-varnish putting Louise and her crumpled overall utterly to shame.

  ‘Oh – hullo, Mother – come and have some tea,’ said Louise, getting herself clumsily out of her deckchair. ‘Do sit down.’

  ‘No – no, thank you, dear, I can only stay a moment. I’ve got to go straight on to that wretched cocktail party. Besides, you know, now my children are grown up I like to make the most of never having to have meals in the garden at all, ever. My present flat hasn’t even got a garden,’ she added, with undisguised satisfaction. ‘But finish your own tea, dear, and then perhaps we can collect those books of mine and be done with it. Half of them want getting rid of, really, but I don’t know when I’ll get a minute to go through them.’ She glanced at her watch; and Louise, hastily gulping down the last of her tea, led the way into the house.

  ‘There’s just one thing,’ she said, as they mounted the top flight of stairs – ‘it’s a bit awkward – Miss Brandon’s been out since this morning, she won’t be back till quite late, and I forgot to tell her you were coming. Mightn’t she think it’s rather a cheek if we just walk into her room while she’s out…?’

  ‘If she’s out she can’t think anything, can she?’ said Mrs Henderson practically. ‘And if by any chance she comes in while we’re at it— Oh, don’t you worry, dear! I’ve been caught red-handed at worse than this in my time!’ She laughed merrily, pushed the door open with a flourish, and stepped briskly into the room.

  But a second later even her assurance faltered. She stopped dead, and Louise, following on behind, nearly tripped over the enviable high heels. For there by the window sat Miss Brandon, quite motionless, staring out into the garden.

  ‘Oh – I’m so sorry! I really do apologise. I understood you were out.’

  It was Mrs Henderson senior who spoke. Louise herself was too much taken aback to say a word. Miss Brandon had said she was going to be out all day – had, in fact, sought out Louise in the kitchen especially to tell her so. And quite unnecessarily, too – she had her own key, and her comings and goings were no business of Louise’s. When had she come back then? How long had she been sitting up here, silent, and apparently unoccupied? For there were no books or papers laid out, no sewing – nothing to suggest that she had spent the afternoon either working or amusing herself. Of course, it might be that she had only just come in, while they were all out in the garden and wouldn’t have noticed; but something in that hunched, motionless pose seemed to preclude this possibility. It was not the pose of a woman who is simply resting for a few minutes between one activity and the next…. Louise felt suddenly ill at ease. There was something unnerving in the thought that this woman had been sitting there motionless, perhaps for hours, simply staring out into the garden – a silent witness of Louise’s ignominious encounter with Mrs Philips; of the untidy, ill-managed picnic tea; of all the ineffective, half-hearted tussles with the children which had mingled with the golden afternoon. And above all, why, if she had planned to spend the afternoon thus, had Miss Brandon announced so positively that she would be out …?

  Louise checked herself. This was absurd! She was allowing herself to become the very caricature of an inquisitive landlady! Miss Brandon surely had a perfect right to change her plans without coining and announcing it to Louise; had a right, too, to spend Saturday afternoon doing nothing in her own room if she wished. Even had a right to amuse herself by watching the goings-on in the gardens within her view. Goodness knows Mrs Morgan next door spent enough time doing just that; no doubt she too had been enjoying her ringside view of the row with Mrs Philips, and was even now watching hopefully for the second round – which could not be long delayed, reflected Louise gloomily, unless someone quickly stopped Harriet dragging that watering-can across the flagstones by a piece of string. Perhaps Mark would stop her. Or perhaps Mrs Philips had set off already for her evening stroll. Or perhaps …

  ‘Louise, dear,’ Mrs Henderson was saying crisply, ‘don’t stand there dreaming – really, I sometimes think you’re worse than Margery! – Miss Brandon is asking you, haven’t you got some kind of a box we could borrow? A packing-case? Grocery box? Anything to put the books in—?’

  ‘Well—’ began Louise doubtfully, her mind hastily but without much hope ransacking the untidier recesses of her home. ‘There might be. But our grocer always sends such big floppy boxes, and then the children get hold of them to be dog-kennels or something—’

  ‘My dear, you needn’t say any more!’ interrupted Mrs Henderson. ‘The word “Children” is enough. It goes without saying, that if there are children in the house, there won’t be a single container of any sort in less than eight mangled pieces! Don’t you think,’ she went on, turning to Miss Brandon, ‘that the most wonderful moment in a woman’s life is when her last child clears off and leaves her free – free?’

  Miss Brandon did not reply; unabashed, Mrs Henderson continued: ‘Look; isn’t that a suitcase you’ve got up there on the wardrobe? Could you possibly lend it to me? I think it’ll just about hold all this lot.’

  For a moment Miss Brandon still did not speak. Then, as if rousing herself with an effort, she said:

  ‘Of course. Let me get it down—’

  With a powerful and oddly graceful movement she hoisted the case off the top of the wardrobe and laid it before her visitor. Quite a big case it was, reflected Louise, in spite of Mrs Morgan’s neighbourly disparagement. She hadn’t particularly noticed it herself in the darkness and bustle of that evening of arrival; but now she looked at it with interest. Such a distinguished-looking case, with its rich dark blue leather, and its array of foreign labels. Greece Miss Brandon seemed to have been to – that would be in connection with the book on Homer, no doubt. Turkey too, and Sardinia; Helsinki; Portugal…. How absurdly out of place such a case seemed in a suburban street like this….

  Louise was aware of a queer, lurching giddiness. When – where – had she thought exactly these thoughts before? Where had she seen that suitcase – or one the very double of it – and had found herself thinking, exactly as she was thinking now: How out
of place that is! Fancy seeing a suitcase like that here, of all places!

  But what place? Louise passed her hand across her forehead. What would be the most unlikely place to find a suitcase covered with foreign labels? A Church jumble sale? A Westcliff boarding house? Louise shook her head. Was she, after all, merely experiencing that well-known sensation of ‘having-done-all-this-before’? Didn’t they say that this sensation was very commonly caused by lack of sleep?

  She became aware that Miss Brandon was watching her. Watching her interest in the suitcase, her puzzlement. With an awkward, hasty movement the older woman pushed the suitcase nearer to the wall, planted herself in front of it and began packing the books with hasty, nervous movements.

  The task was soon finished, though with shockingly little help from Louise, and the party set off down the stairs; Miss Brandon, at her own insistence, carrying the case, while Louise followed with the remainder of the books piled in her arms, and Mrs Henderson went in search of Mark.

  When she saw Mrs Henderson’s miniature three-wheeler drawn up in front of the house, Miss Brandon dumped the case down on the pavement in surprise.

  ‘Don’t make me laugh!’ she exclaimed, with the schoolgirlish brusqueness which occasionally marred her poise. ‘Don’t tell me that your mother-in-law’s proposing to get all this lot in there! And the seat’s all covered with dinner-plates already,’ she added, peering in through the toylike window.

  ‘I expect she’ll manage,’ began Louise uncertainly; and at that moment Mrs Henderson reappeared, followed by the reluctant Mark, who, hidden in the bedroom, had begun to hope that he was escaping the whole of this book business.

  ‘Manage? Of course I’ll manage!’ she exclaimed, always alert to defend her little car against any hint of criticism. ‘And thank you so much, Miss Brandon – you’ve been most kind…. What’s that, Mark?’ she added, as Miss Brandon turned back towards the house – ‘but of course it’ll go in, dear. You just have to get it up a little farther – slantways – no – the other corner, dear. You’ll soon get the knack—’

  ‘For God’s sake – it weighs about a ton!’ protested the panting Mark as a corner of the blue suitcase caught him savagely on the ear. ‘How on earth did you manage to get the thing downstairs?’

  ‘Miss Brandon carried it,’ explained Louise anxiously. ‘She insisted. I did ask her if it was too heavy, but—’

  ‘She must be Strong Sam of the Fair in disguise!’ gasped Mark giving the suitcase a final shove. ‘Mother, I do wish you’d get a bigger car if you want to cart all this junk about. It wouldn’t be any more expensive in the long run – in fact, it would work out cheaper, because—’

  ‘You know very well that a small car suits me better for business,’ interrupted his mother. ‘The smaller the better for parking in town. You’d know that if you were a motorist. And in any case,’ she added, plunging into the recesses of the queer little vehicle to rearrange a soup tureen under the steering wheel, ‘in any case, I absolutely refuse to own a car that could possibly be big enough for Family Outings. The very first Family Outing I ever took you for, Mark when you were only five months old, I remember resolving then and there that the greatest pleasure of my old age would be the knowledge that I’d never, never, never have to go on a Family Outing again. And it has been, too,’ she added complacently, settling herself into the driving seat. ‘At least, one of the greatest pleasures.’ As she spoke, she glanced with genuine pity towards Louise, who was sagging untidily against the garden gate.

  ‘Cheer up, child!’ she admonished gaily. ‘Only another twenty years, and then you’ll be able to have some fun, too!’

  Louise started.

  ‘I do have some fun!’ she began indignantly. ‘I’m very happy—’ She stopped, wondering if the words sounded insincere. For she wasn’t happy exactly, not just now; she was too sleepy most of the time. It was more that she possessed happiness, as one might possess an evening dress tucked away in the back of a wardrobe. Even though one might find no time to wear it, it was still there; it wasn’t like not having an evening dress at all….

  Her thoughts were interrupted by an agonised snort from the overworked little car; and with a wave of her elegantly-gloved hand, Mrs Henderson was gone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘Hullo – Hullo! Is that you, my dear? This is Jean Hooper speaking. Listen. Can you be an absolute angel? Can you do something for me?’

  Louise sighed. Would it be Christine? Or Tony? Or both? And would it be for the whole day, or only for tea? She asked herself the question that Mark had asked her, in masculine bewilderment, only a few days before: ‘Why on earth do you put yourself out for the woman?’

  Well, why did she? Not for friendship’s sake, certainly – why, she and Mrs Hooper didn’t even call each other by their Christian names yet. Though, of course, that was largely because their acquaintance had begun in adjacent beds at the maternity hospital where Michael was born; and there everyone was so firmly ‘Mrs’ So-and-So that you got into the way of it, even with someone who became an intimate friend. Not that Mrs Hooper had become an intimate friend – far from it. And yet, reflected Louise, there was undoubtedly something likeable about her, in spite of everything. Her very selfishness had such a childlike, confiding quality that one scarcely knew how to resent it. But all the same, decided Louise grimly, I don’t like her all that much! Not enough to have Christine dribbling and screaming in the sitting-room all the evening – especially on a Monday with Mark home early, and Margery to be got off to her music lesson. No, most decidedly not.

  ‘Very well,’ she heard herself saying: ‘about five, then—’ and flung the receiver back into its cradle as if it was the one to blame. How did Mrs Hooper do it? How did she always manage to twist things so that it was impossible to say ‘No’? And could she do it to everybody, or was it just Louise who was the simpleton?

  It was, in fact, barely half past three when the damp and lowering Christine was dumped into Michael’s playpen; and when Mrs Hooper returned, long after the promised hour of seven, she brought with her an angular and somewhat haggard youngish woman whom she introduced as Magda. Late as it was, neither of them seemed to be in any hurry to collect the baby and go; and before long they were settled in armchairs, one on each side of the fire, without Louise having any clear idea of how this had come about. Which was a pity, because later on Mark was undoubtedly going to want an explanation of how it had come about, and in no uncertain terms; that much had been clear from every line of his body as he beat his precipitate retreat.

  The young woman Magda, it appeared, had read just everything about psychology, and Mrs Hooper proceeded to put her through her paces in front of Louise, rather as one might display a performing seal. Unfortunately, the performance resolved itself at a very early stage into a recital of Magda’s own life, beginning with the lack of understanding of her parents, and working through to the lack of understanding of her second husband, who had left her four years ago.

  ‘Of course,’ explained Magda tolerantly, ‘I understood what his trouble was. He was neurotic. He lacked inner security. Subconsciously, he felt that he wasn’t indispensable to me, and he resented it. Nothing I could do would convince him that he was indispensable. Nothing. I see now, of course, that it was hopeless from the start. Nothing would have convinced him, because, subconsciously, he didn’t want to be convinced. It was his lack of inner security, you see.’

  ‘I should have thought that the only thing that would convince a husband that he was indispensable would be if he was indispensable,’ remarked Louise. ‘Was he?’

  The two friends stared at her reproachfully. It was as if she had dashed into the ring and rearranged the hoops.

  ‘Of course he wasn’t!’ snapped Magda. ‘I told you I was earning my own living at the time – I earned more than he did, actually. Besides, my own inner integrity—’

  A ring at the front door released Louise from the rest of this sentence; and a minute later she returned wi
th her mother-in-law, a bunch of syringa and Miss Brandon’s blue suitcase. Louise noticed that among the numerous labels on the case there was now a raw patch of ragged white, as if a label had been torn off recently, and in haste; but there was no time to reflect on this now, as her visitors were waiting to be introduced.

  ‘I’m on my way to Hugh’s party, really,’ explained Mrs Henderson. ‘I have to fly; I only dropped in to get that suitcase off my conscience. Oh, and those flowers – you’d better keep them, dear. They’re from a grateful client, you know, an absolute pet, but all the same I can’t drag them around with me all evening, now can I?’ She settled herself, legs elegantly crossed, on the arm of the sofa. ‘I’ll just smoke a cigarette, and then I must dash,’ she explained. ‘Don’t let me interrupt whatever it is you’re talking about.’

  Magda, who had had no intention of letting anything or anybody interrupt what she was talking about, continued her recital. The husband was finished now – at least, this particular one was – and she had reached her son, now sixteen, who also didn’t really understand her. Nor, it appeared, did she understand him; but then he was so impossible to understand. In spite of never having been repressed, in spite of having been educated at no less than eight progressive schools, all he seemed to want to do now was to pass the G.C.E. and go in for the Civil Service. And worse still; although he had had the facts of life dinned into his ears ever since he could speak, he had so far showed no inclination to make any use of them whatever.

  ‘Of course,’ allowed Magda tolerantly, ‘it may not be really his fault. In fact, I’m sure in my own mind that it’s the girls who are to blame. They’re repressed, you know. Most of them have a fearfully conventional upbringing, even nowadays. Of course, it’s only thirty or forty years since they were all accepting meekly the notion that no nice girl ever thinks about sex at all.’

  ‘And nowadays they’re accepting equally meekly the notion that no nice girl ever thinks anything else,’ retorted Mrs Henderson. ‘If she does, then she’s repressed, inhibited, full of complexes – in fact, not a nice girl at all. Yes, it’s true: girls are very suggestible.’