by Bryony Doran
She can feel all the blood drain from her face. ‘I can’t remember,’ she stammers.
‘Well, Mother. Why did you do it?’
‘Listen to you.’ She sits forward, suddenly angry. She picks up her bag from the table. ‘What right do you have to pry into my private life?’
Rachel stands waiting for the bus. She is still shaking with rage. How dare he question her on her private life, and how dare he question the way she had treated his father. He had no idea what she’d had to put up with.
She had met him at a dance in the City Hall. He was a good-looking lad, in an ordinary sort of way. He kissed her on their third date. It was a good, sweet kiss, but nothing else. She wished he had at least attempted something else, like some of the other boys had. Their desire for her had made her want to go further, but with George, there was none of that. Was he too respectful? He obviously liked her. She was puzzled. War broke out and before he went off to the front he asked her to marry him. The war brought with it a sense of possibility, a smell of change, so she said, ‘Maybe, maybe not!’
Her mother had been furious with her. ‘You silly girl,’ she’d said. ‘You could be getting and saving his wage, ready for when he comes home.’ Rachel hadn’t cared. She wanted to see what other hands the cards dealt her and, until they were married, she was still free.
She remembers him coming home on leave in 1944, two days after her twentieth birthday. He seemed different. He had become quieter, stronger and thinner; and Rachel could see the muscles in his face twitch taut. They went to Whitby for their honeymoon. Two days in a boarding house. Rachel wanted to ask him if he’d ever done it before, or if it was just her that he felt no passion for?
Edward must have been conceived in those two days; silent sex in the dark each night before they went to sleep.
Nine months later, Edward was born while George was still in Germany. For reasons of her own she had expected that the baby might come after seven months.
By the time George came back, Edward was already three months old.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
She had started school that Easter, so she must have been nearly five. It was the first time since she’d been a baby that her parents had returned. Her gran didn’t tell her it was her mum, but Angela knew that this woman with black toenails and an open sore leaking down the side of her nose was her mother. She never heard what they were talking about that time; her mother never got past the front door and only stayed five minutes. Angela watched from her bedroom window as they loped off down the street without a backward glance. They hadn’t come to see her. That much was obvious.
The second time they came, Angela’s life changed forever.
She’d been torn between observing the man she thought was her father, who stood across the road nervously picking his nails, and listening to what was going on downstairs. The whining tone of her mother’s voice drew her to the top of the stairs. She was pleading for something. The same tone over and over. Her gran wasn’t saying anything.
‘Please Mum, just to tide us over. Let us try and make a new life for ourselves.’
When her gran spoke, her voice was low and precise, so low that Angela could only just make it out, ‘Don’t you think I have enough expense bringing up your daughter without one penny from you? Your poor father at sixty-six is still having to work his socks off.’
What her gran said hurt Angela, but what her mother said made her break out in a cold sweat.
‘I could take her off you, you know? She only stays here because I let her.’
Angela heard the front door open and her grandmother using the same tone, low and precise,
‘Get out! Get out!’
Occasionally over the years they would get a phone call in the night. The phone would ring and ring. Once, she got up to answer it. She knew then why her grandfather stopped her grandmother from answering it. The voice was slurred as if the woman was drunk:
‘Mother?… Is that you? Could you send me some money?’
She replaced the receiver without a word and went back to bed. She could hear her grandparents arguing; her granddad threatening to get the number changed. It never was. Her gran needed the ring of the phone in the night because, however painful, at least she knew her daughter was still alive, eking out an existence somewhere across the other side of the city.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Edward feels tired, his back aches and he has pins and needles in his right foot. He can hear Angela scratching, rubbing … more scratching.
‘You’re quiet today,’ he says.
‘Yes, sorry. I’m concentrating. I think this is the best pose yet.’
He is kneeling as if praying to Allah, his forehead resting on an old piece of blanket that Angela has brought from home. Edward finds the blanket prickly. It is a rough grey army blanket. Its only sense of luxury is a pale blue blanket stitch neatening the edges. He remembers one from his childhood. It was pink and soft and the ribbon had frayed all along one edge and sometimes when he awoke in the morning it was tickling his nose. His mother had eventually mended it, making the ribbon band narrower. Edward, for some perverse reason, had missed the tickle.
He feels slightly disgruntled that she has asked him to take up such an undignified pose. She seems to have taken little account of his disability, or his dignity come to that. He looks between his legs, sees his penis dangling free. There is only one benefit to being in this pose; he can’t see her. He wishes now that he had never got her to agree to being undressed. He thinks back to that time. Would he have still gone ahead with the sittings? Yes, probably, and he wouldn’t be in the tangle he’s in now. But there again, does he not wait all week just to be here, studying the wonder of her? He feels so fragile, as if perched on the edge of a deep ravine, knowing that if he jumps he will feel the exhilaration of flight, but knowing that when he reaches the bottom his whole being will be smashed into a thousand pieces.
‘This blanket’s scratchy as hell,’ he grumbles.
‘Would my lord like me to bring a nice soft baby blanket next time?’
‘You may mock, but you don’t have to have your face pressed into it.’
Angela laughs, ‘That’s why you sound like you’re underwater.’
‘Can I rest yet?’
‘No. Please, just hang on a bit longer. That was my granddad’s army blanket you know?’
He smiles to himself. He knows that she is again trying to distract him away from wanting to move.
‘I know what you’re saying about it being a bit rough,’ she continues, ‘but it means so much to me that I wanted to draw it into the picture. I did all that blanket-stitching around the edge, you know? My gran had to show me over and over how to do it. I was really proud of myself once I’d finally mastered it. When my granddad came in from work that night he was so thrilled with what I’d done to his blanket, or he pretended to be. He gave me the whisker treatment. It took me days to finish it, especially since I kept stitching it to my skirt.
‘What happened to your parents?’ He waits for an answer.
‘Nothing,’ she says. The quiet tone of her voice warns him off asking any further questions.
He has put the bag with the rope handles inside a non-descript plastic carrier and hidden it under his coat that he has placed in the corner at the back of the room. Today, he grits his teeth. He will give her the bra today. He will do it just before he leaves.
‘Are you okay?’ she enquires, still drawing.
‘I need to move.’
‘Just hang on. Bugger. Edward, you moved.’
‘Like I said, I need to move.’
‘Just try and keep still for a bit longer.’
He’d thought that, over time, she might have learnt to be a bit more considerate. Fat chance! The dust of the old blanket is making him want to sneeze. His face feels hot, flushed where the blood has gathered.
‘I won’t be a sec, I just need to hatch in these lines to create the indents in the small of your back
.’ Edward hears her sigh. ‘I’m really struggling to get the shape today. The contours, the shadows, all seem to be playing tricks on me. Okay, relax.’
‘I’ve set. Give me a hand.’
‘Edward, before you move, can I ask you a question?’
‘Make it quick.’
‘Can I, would you mind very much … if I wanted to touch your back?’
He laughs, a sharp intake of breath, ‘Why?’
‘I’m really struggling to get the angles, so I thought, maybe, if I moulded it with my hands it might help.’
‘Okay, but not in this position. Sit me up.’
‘This position would be better.’ She stands over him.
‘Well, tough.’ He presses his hands into the blanket and raises himself up off his elbows. Angela helps him sit up.
‘Right.’ he says, ‘First, I want a drink of water.’
He feels her place her hands, like a healer, one on top of the other, on the most prominent part of his back. The pressure of her hands, her fingers trying to separate the line of his ribs. He feels her breath on his skin; smells again the faint musky unwashed scent of her, so close. She presses harder into his back. He feels himself drawn back to the edge of the ravine. A shudder runs through him.
‘Surely you’re not cold. Your skin feels lovely and warm, you’re like a little oven. Does that hurt?’
She separates her hands, moulds both of them around his hump.
‘No, no. It may look strange but it doesn’t hurt to touch. In fact, it feels lovely.’ He gives out a deep sigh. ‘How does it feel, my china bird? Like you expected?’
‘Knobbly, yet smooth and warm and soft. It’s like, as if it’s how it should feel. I don’t know. I’m not making sense am I? Each side feels so different.’ She traces her finger down his spine, ‘It’s curved, like a loop in a river. How can it happen? I don’t understand. Is it the spine that contorts the ribs, or the ribs that contort the spine?’
‘Imagine that you have a straight spine with a circle of ribs extending from it, like a rounded wicker basket, one of the vertical poles being the spine. Now if you put a twist in the spine, the ribs are still coming off in a circle but it’s no longer a round circle, it has a skew in it.’
‘Is it operable?’
‘In a lot of cases, yes. In fact, you don’t even have to operate if it’s caught early enough. It can be moulded back into place by using a Plaster of Paris girdle.’
‘So why didn’t that happen to you?’
‘Mine started when I was older.’
‘Didn’t anyone notice?’
‘I did, but I just sort of kept quiet. I was of the age where I’d stopped undressing in front of my parents and they didn’t notice until it was too late. Uncle Ruben was the first one to see something was wrong. I went for a jacket fitting and he kept clucking and frowning, then he insisted on coming back on the train with me to see my parents.
‘And have you never thought of an operation?’
‘No. I just want to be left as I am.’
‘But what about the pain? Do you get much pain?’
‘Only when some young woman expects me to take up strange positions and stay still for hours on end.’
She laughs, ‘All in the pursuance of art, my good man.’
‘When I was in my late teens the consultant suggested surgery. Having my back pinned and rodded, my ribs removed and refitted, like re-caning an old chair. I don’t think so.’
‘But why not? It could’ve made a huge difference to your life.’
‘No, I’m not sure it would. If I’d ended up paralysed, as they said I might, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you massaging my back. Don’t stop.’
‘Is it that good?’
‘You have really good hands. Strong but gentle.’
Edward closes his eyes. He is imagining himself watching Angela tracing the lines of his back. He sees her bending forward, whispering his back with the tips of her nipples. He is slipping, falling over the edge of the ravine. Oh God, he must think of something else. The rope handled bag, lurking in the corner. How is he ever going to give her the bra now? He imagines her wearing it; her breasts encased in crimson lace. He quickly opens his eyes.
‘Right!’ She stands up. ‘I think I’ll have another go at drawing your back.
Can you try and get back into the same position?’
Edward groans, ‘I thought we’d finished.’
‘Please… … . .’
‘I’m not sure I can. I don’t feel so good.’ He takes a deep breath, trying to slow down the beating of his heart.
‘I won’t be long, honest,’ she pleads, ‘If you just give me ten minutes I think I can pull it off now.’
He shakes his head in disbelief. ‘What a slave driver,’ he says, placing his head back down on the blanket.
‘Right, I’ll just put a fresh piece of paper on my board.’ She comes to stand above him, board in hand.
‘Why are you standing so close?’
‘Gives me a different perspective, I can now see all of your back and with the sun having moved the light is catching different areas, like sand dunes in the late afternoon. I can see the whole of your spine, follow it right down to its source where it splays out at the base; shadowed as it passes the valley created by your hump.’
‘Are you sure you aren’t a poet as well as an artist?’
‘I wonder how the spine decides which way to curve.’
‘I can’t remember which way it is but it’s more prevalent on one side in boys and vice versa with girls,’ he mumbles into the blanket.
‘Are you on the side of the boys or the girls?’
‘Probably the opposite from what I should be.’
‘I think I’d already supposed that.’
Back at his lodgings, Edward realises that he would like nothing more than a hot bath to ease his aching back. His tea, a cold-plated salad, is waiting for him on the side in the kitchen, cling-filmed to perfection. He’d hoped that Mrs Ingram would be out at the bingo, but no, she is there, hovering,
‘Late tonight, Mr Anderson? Good job I did you something cold.’
She laughs at her own joke. As if it isn’t written in stone that Saturdays are always cold ham salad.
‘Would you mind if I had a bath, Mrs Ingram?’
‘But it’s not Thursday.’
‘Yes, I’m aware of that, having seen what’s for tea, but I would still like a bath.’
‘Well, yes, all right then, but I was about. I was thinking about going to the Bingo.’
‘Then go.’
‘Yes, but, I don’t like leaving you on your own if you’re going in the bath, and there’s no hot water. It’ll take half-an-hour.’
‘If we switch on the immersion now and I have my tea meanwhile, then the water will be hot enough, and I promise I won’t drown while you’re out.’
‘My Gus drowned in that bath you know. They said it was a heart attack. It was awful. They had to lift him out of the bath naked.’
Edward holds onto the metal handles and sinks into the warm water. If only he could put enough in so that he could float and not feel the hard surface of the enamel on his back. He still hasn’t given her the bra. Next week, definitely. Next week he will give it to her, he promises himself. He closes his eyes and there, floating in the water, is Mr. Ingram. He sits up. Now, every time he takes a bath, he’ll know that Mr. Ingram is with him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Rachel is seated on a bench in the centre of the main gallery. She is studying a painting of a woman with glossy black hair. The woman is looking out of an open window, leaning her elbows on the stone sill. The pale yellow paint of the house is peeling away to reveal the grey rendering beneath. The woman is smiling invitingly down to the street below.
Her teeth fascinate Rachel; they are slightly crooked but of a perfect size for her face and the artist has caught exactly the glint and translucency. There are no secrets in the woman’s eyes; everything is on display.
The picture irritates her, especially since it has temporarily replaced her favourite picture, a bowl of glistening white roses. Rachel closes her eyes and breathes deeply. She feels so restless that even the picture of the white roses would not have calmed her today. She delves into her shopping bag and retrieves a sandwich box and a red thermos flask with a white screw-on cup.
It was today that she had wanted to meet Edward for lunch at Henry’s, but for some reason he had put her off until next week. And she had the girl’s ballet ticket, not that she deserved it. Fancy manipulating Edward like that. What was she playing at? If she’d seen her at Henry’s she could have taken her to task. Is that why Edward had put her off? Had he seen through her little plan? She supposed there was nothing to stop her going to Henry’s on her own. She could save her sandwiches for tea.
She thinks back to their last lunch together at the Blue Moon Café. Strange, Edward saying that about his father taking him to the art gallery, and about the Grimshaw paintings. It was as if he knew why she had been to Leeds. She had gone to see if they were still there. The ones her mother used to take her to see as a young child.
She knew instinctively the days when her mother would be taking her to the art gallery. A few days before, a restlessness would come upon her mother, a noticeable anger with her work. The bursts of the sewing machine would be faster, louder, not caring if she annoyed the neighbours on all three sides. Then one morning Rachel would wake very early, sometimes, in winter, before first light, to silence. Rachel knew that day they would be going to the art gallery.
Her mother would pack salt beef sandwiches and a thermos of strong, sweet black coffee into a canvas bag. The coffee was the family’s only luxury; coffee beans her father brought home from the market.
They would walk into the city, away from the ugliness of the back-to-back, red brick streets and always they would go to the gallery. It was free and warm and there were their pictures. Her mother would wander round and round. Rachel would try to keep to her mother’s pace but often she was too slow and Rachel would dance ahead. Sometimes her mother would sit on the bench in the centre.
