by P. G. Glynn
Watching the door in case Mam came in and caught her, Lucy settled on the edge of the bed, took a deep breath and said: “Is it only when a girl is sitting that she shouldn’t open her legs?”
“Judging by the fact that you’re blushing, I imagine I understand your meaning. But there’s no need to be embarrassed with me, dearest. So let’s have the rest of the question.”
Unable to look at Marie, Lucy confided: “It’s been worrying me that I might catch a seed while I’m standing or walking, as I don’t always stand with my legs together and … and can’t walk like that.”
“I’m glad to hear it! If you could, you’d be a contortionist and that, thankfully, isn’t a requirement for an actress. Well,” now it was Marie’s turn to take a big breath … and to ensure that she kept a straight face as she said, “first of all I can assure you that such seeds can’t be caught. Unlike colds, or germs of any sort, they have to be planted. Darling, living in the country you must have seen cows and pigs making calves and piglets … and now that Hugo has been born you’ll also have seen how he’s different from Carla. It’s with his little thingy that he will one day plant his seed in the space between his wife’s legs … but only when she consents and they’re both in bed. Does that make any sense?”
Glad of Marie’s matter-of-factness, Lucy said: “Yes, except … ”
“ … you can’t imagine Mam ever letting Pa put his thing in her? Crikey, you’re probably thinking about Otto and me similarly!”
“It does sound … unpleasant,” Lucy admitted, quickly taking advantage of her sister’s willingness to shed light on these mysteries and adding: “If that’s how the baby gets in, how does it get out? Bethan says it somehow comes through its mother’s belly-button.”
“Then you can tell her from me that it doesn’t! Babies are born by the same route that they’re conceived, which is a bit of a tight squeeze. So now you know why I screamed. Is there anything else you want to know?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I haven’t frightened you?”
“No.”
“I expect you’re wondering how I could bear to get so close to Otto.”
“I’m not!” Lucy protested hotly.
“If you were, I’d tell you that I used to wonder about such things too. Most unmarried girls do. After learning what you’ve just learned, I looked at everyone from a new point of view, asking myself whether they could possibly have done ‘it’. Then, as the dust settled – and especially once I’d done it myself – I realised that as long as love is involved it’s a completely natural activity. And,” she added with a grin, “it can bring most agreeable feelings. Making love with someone isn’t something to be dreaded, dearest, but to be welcomed later on, when you’ve found the man of your dreams.”
“So you found him?” Lucy asked, rather doubting that Otto fitted this description.
“Yes,” Marie answered, a faraway look in her eyes, “I did.”
Feeling that she was treading on forbidden territory, Lucy said: “Listen! That sounds like Thomas-the-Post. Do you suppose he’s brought the letter we’re waiting for, from Uncle John?”
There was a letter from their uncle’s address but penned by Gwen. Short and succinct, in childish script, it said: ‘John can’t put pen to paper because he isn’t here and I don’t know where he is as he took himself off two days since. I’ve reported him missing. Giving him money was the stupidest thing Mary ever did.’
After reading it in the family’s presence, Marie breathed: “Oh no … let nothing have happened to him! I couldn’t stand it if anything had and … and it’ll be all my fault if it has.”
“No, it won’t,” said Otto. “It’ll be his own. If you like, I’ll hire a car and we’ll go to London at once so that I can help look for him. I’m sure he’ll be found … probably just a little the worse for drink.”
+++++
He shuffled along in a fog, neither knowing where he was nor where he was going. It was very foggy and despair was closing him in. He had failed his darling.
He had tried so hard not to fail but there was something in him preventing his ever succeeding in anything. It need not have been like this. It could have been so different. But, because he was the man he was, everything had turned out wrong.
And he had had his last chance. Marie had given him the opportunity to prove that he could do something right in his life. It should have been so simple to find her a house and write to tell her that he had done as she wanted. Nothing, though, was ever simple for John. He had a knack of complicating things and of watching as his good intentions disintegrated. How well intentioned he had been with that wad of fivers given him! But old habits …
Christ, why couldn’t he have exercised some self-discipline? If only he could have kept off the drink …
It was not in him, though, to practise self-control. When God in His wisdom dished out characteristics He left John with something missing. He must have had His reasons but John wished he’d been given the missing bit.
Still, his sins and shortcomings weren’t God’s fault. John could not honestly blame these on anyone but himself. He had had his chances and thrown them to the wind. How very careless of him … how wicked!
He was weak and ineffectual and it was time to face up to this. He wasn’t good at facing up to things. In fact he was inexpressibly bad at it. Oh, to have been good at something … anything! Was his epitaph to be that he had failed miserably … that he’d been a taker, never a giver, and that he was a starter, never a finisher?
John could think of no alternative. He was skint. Marie, trusting him, had found him unworthy of her trust – or would, when Otto received no response to his letter. How could John respond and tell his beloved and her husband that their money was gone … that he had nothing to show for it? He could not.
He had nothing to show for almost fifty years of living. Half a century on from being born he had as little to bless himself with as he had had at birth – less, if one counted the promise that accompanied each new arrival. Now Hugo had arrived and John had not even telegraphed a congratulatory message to Marie and Otto on their son’s advent. He had meant to, like he had meant to do so much. But …
Marie would know, wouldn’t she, that he loved her deeply and hoped with his whole heart life would treat her kindly? If she didn’t know he would find some means of telling her so even if it was the last thing he did. He hoped she was happy with Otto. She had seemed happy … until Nell turned up at Claridge’s with that bad news about the Tavistock Theatre and Charles Brodie. Then a cloud had enveloped her and he had known she was not over Charles – not by a long chalk. But at least she had loved and been loved, unlike John who must now accept that love would not come to him – romantic love, that is. He had loved Marie forever and she had loved him. So why was he bellyaching? There could have been no better love than Marie’s. She was the shining light in a dark old world, the evidence of God’s best handiwork. And it was comforting to know that Otto loved and looked after her – the vigilant stallion watching over his mare. God bless him. God bless them both as they grew old together …
John would not grow much older. He had reached the river. With fog filling and surrounding him, he saw the water beckoning as it had long beckoned. How blessed rivers were, with their dark depths … their sense of purpose! They knew where they were going … knew how to get there. From the very beginning John had envied them their knowledge.
First there had been the Usk, where he had fished as a boy, aching for the day when he could run away, following ‘his’ river to its destination. Well, he had run – ultimately to London. He should have kept on running. It had been an act of sheer folly to stay stationary long enough for Gwen to catch him. But he was done with such futile regrets. There had been other rivers: none closer to his heart than the dear, relentless Thames that had perhaps all along awaited John.
As he stood staring at its rushing torrent words from one of John Masefield’s poems stole unacc
ountably into his head. ‘I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied … I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, to the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife; and all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, and quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over’.
Yes, he had somehow known that the Thames would answer his needs and that, standing here, he would hear the insistent call of the sea. John responded at last to its call and his thoughts, as the river took him, were of Marie.
33
Marie could see that she need not have worried: there was nothing wrong with Uncle John. In fact he looked much better – and younger – than the last time she was in London. Gazing at his dear face she saw that he had the unmistakable look about him of a man who had found happiness.
In response to her unspoken question he said: “I’m free of Gwen and my freedom is … sweet. So please don’t be unhappy on my account. And please tell me you’ve forgiven me.”
“What is it that I’m supposed to forgive?”
“My weaknesses. Fortunately you’re strong, not weak like I was, and you’ll come through the trials ahead. It won’t be easy, but the easy way isn’t best. You’ll be rewarded in the end.”
“How do you know such things? Why are you speaking as if … ”
“ … my weaknesses were in the past tense?” He smiled and Marie had never seen his features so illumined. “They are, my darling! I can see now as I never saw before and am whole again. There were reasons for my shortcomings and for the dark side of my existence and, knowing these, I feel as if I know everything. I don’t, of course, but I adore this feeling.”
“Why is my feeling one of loss?”
“Because you have no memory of walking in the light, although we all walk there between lifetimes … and because you think I’ve died.”
Marie had not known she thought so. Now, as she considered his words, she asked him: “Are you dead? Is that how you found freedom from Aunt Gwen?”
“Yes, except that death frees us from more than the shackles of marriage and the bodies that we’ve outgrown. It shows us how to live in truth and in harmony with ourselves as well as with the universe.”
“So death is a better life?”
“You catch on quickly,” he smiled. “But then you always did. You haven’t told me yet whether I’m forgiven for losing all your money and for failing to find you a palace fit for a princess. I did my poor best, but backed losers, Marie, just as you backed a loser when you put your faith in me.”
“Nonsense!” she said. “I knew you all along as a winner and as a man who could rise to the heights if only he could believe in his own ability. It was the belief that you lacked, Uncle John, not the means to achieve.”
Reaching for her hands, he held these saying: “Bless you, my darling, for believing in me. That meant more that you can imagine. Incidentally, in time you’ll come to see that the money was as well spent on the gee-gees as it would have been on a house in London.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that for the present your destiny lies in a different direction. Remember, Marie, when the going seems hard, that I shan’t be far from you. Love is enabling me to be your guardian and, together, we shall win through.”
It was misty suddenly and Marie could not see him. He faded so completely from view that she felt panicky. Her feeling was quickly replaced with an understanding that seeing was unnecessary. Uncle John was walking beside her and would walk there however limited her vision.
Hearing a cry, she opened her eyes and tried to bring her surroundings into focus. This room was not in Beulah. It was far too large and sumptuous. And it was not Carla crying, for the child was lying on the big bed beside her, fast asleep. There was no sign of Otto and as for Hugo – where was he?
Slowly Marie remembered Daisy Pritchard, whom Otto had hired in a hurry so that they could leave at once for London. She was a girl from Gilchrist who had always wanted to work with children and who was a marvel when it came to soothing Hugo. She must be soothing him now, while Otto was very likely miles from Claridge’s … helping the police find …
Closing her eyes tightly and trying not to cry, Marie knew with numbing certainty that Uncle John would not be found alive.
+++++
“Murderess!”
Marie faced her aunt across the hole in the ground containing Uncle John’s coffin and blanched at the word hissed at her. Aunt Gwen was standing between Ma and Pa Jamieson and an April shower was dampening the proceedings, necessitating the use of umbrellas. The vicar, feigning not to have heard anything amiss, continued his intonations. “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes … ”
“If anyone murdered him, you did!”
Marie had spoken louder than intended and the vicar frowned, saying: “Ladies, please!”
“She’s no lady,” Gwen said, pointing a bony finger at Marie, “and has no business being at his grave. She drowned my John as surely as if she had pushed him into the river. Can’t you get rid of her?”
Knowing the truth of the matter from Uncle John himself, Marie had nothing to fear from Gwen. And she had a profound sense of her uncle hovering above his coffin, watching and listening. How he must be enjoying this! “You did the pushing,” she said, “and he’s a lot better off where he is than with you in that prison you trapped him in.”
“Ladies!” entreated the vicar again, as rain dripped from his umbrella on to the skirt of his cassock. “Kindly remember that we are here to honour our dear, departed brother and pay our last respects.”
“Prison?” echoed a livid Gwen. “I didn’t trap him in no prison. How dare you suggest that I did? I kept a spotless home for him.”
“Without any love in it.”
“What has love to do with anything?”
Marie said simply: “Everything … because it’s all there is.”
+++++
After the burial they had obviously not gone back to the house in Marylebone Lane. Marie never wanted to see Uncle John’s old home again. And she had nothing left to say to Gwen, who had fallen strangely silent after Marie’s response to her question. If she had reacted to that with silence, what would her reaction have been to Marie’s dream? Not that Marie was by any means convinced she had dreamed. She and her uncle had surely experienced a soul meeting.
She was glad he was happy and was trying to take his advice not to be unhappy on his account, but was finding it hard. She missed him so and, despite her new knowledge, could not seem to help blaming herself for giving him more money than he had probably ever seen before in one bundle. Had she only used a modicum of common sense, Uncle John’s body would probably not have needed fishing from the Thames. But then he would still be with Aunt Gwen, enduring a living death: a strange phrase, given that death was clearly something to be welcomed. Life was altogether strange and death, apparently, even stranger.
At times Marie had a strong sense of her uncle’s presence, almost as if he were physically in the room with her. During these times, which arrived without warning but with a distinct chill on the air, she felt sure his joyful spirit had come visiting. It was good to feel such certainty that there was now joy where before there had been grief, but she kept wishing she could expand her vision sufficiently to see as well as feel. Perhaps in time she would achieve this expansion … and come to terms with his physical absence.
“London,” she said, “will never be the same without them.”
“Them?” Otto questioned.
Daisy had settled the babies down and had now gone off on an errand. Seated with her husband in the salon of their suite two evenings on from the day of the funeral, Marie said: “Uncle John and the Tavistock. They were part of the fabric of this city and now they’re both gone.”
“It has all been quite a shock,” Otto responded. “Perhaps we should be taking stock and establishing whether it’s
healthy to be here at present.”
“Healthy?”
“Yes.” Beside her on the brocade sofa, he slipped an arm round her shoulders. “You’ve been through so much and this trip to Britain isn’t turning out a bit as expected. It’s hard to cope with two major losses, especially while still recovering from a birth. I think you’re bearing up incredibly well … but that it might be better for your health if you were not surrounded with reminders of … past times. In your shoes, I particularly wouldn’t want to be within spitting distance of the Thames. While you’re regaining your strength and grappling with the circumstances of John’s death, it might be an idea for me to take you and the babies away somewhere.”
Marie had been touched by the degree of Otto’s solicitousness ever since the note had come from Aunt Gwen telling of Uncle John’s disappearance. He was unfailingly sweet and gentle and reassuring, for which she would always be grateful. “I can’t bear to think of him … doing himself in. It isn’t as if fifty pounds meant anything much to us, nor as if it would have been catastrophic if it did. I just wish he had not been so alone at the end and so depressed. Once in a while I feel like his murderess.”
“There you are!” Otto said.
Marie looked at him in astonishment. “Is that cryptic comment supposed to make sense?”
“My meaning is that nobody could have dealt better with Gwen than you did, yet because of these surroundings you’re now letting things get out of perspective. From a distance you’d soon start seeing everything more objectively. It’s amazing the difference distance can make to our perceptions when we’re upset. John’s old hunting-ground is just no place to be, currently.”
“Nor is Beulah. I’m not going back there, to listen to Mam’s ‘I told you so’s’”.
“That’s a relief! I’ve had as much of your mother as I can stomach for the time being. But Beulah and London are hardly our sole two alternatives. It’s a big world out there. Why don’t we try Australia? I’ve never been that far and, to my mind, the farther we are from here the better.”
