September Starlings

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘No.’ I often judge people fairly quickly by listening to their first words, am sometimes right, frequently wrong. That ‘Can I help you?’ had been patronizing, even scornful. I glanced down at my shoes, shabby after two years’ wear, straightened my shoulders, looked him full in the face. ‘I’m just visiting, having a walk around.’

  He coughed, placed a huge hand to his mouth, curled the fingers in a gesture that was too delicate for someone of his size. ‘I’m afraid that’s not allowed, miss.’

  ‘Madam.’

  ‘Ah.’ He turned round, gazed towards the nearest building. ‘This is the office complex. Do you have an appointment to see somebody, an interview for work, perhaps?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to leave.’

  ‘Really?’ I perched on a low wall at the side of the path leading up to what was now the office complex. It used to be a cow-field, I thought. ‘And I shall have to refuse to leave.’

  ‘One moment, please.’ He walked away, swinging his arms like a corporal who is about to face a fierce sergeant. I became bored with watching him, stood up, sauntered across to the old section, the barns that had been used by my father. There were padlocks on the doors, bars at the windows. A man swept the ground with a stiff broom, and I asked him about the old part of McNally’s. These were the storage sheds now, he informed me. I stood and looked past the bars, remembered my father weeping at his bench. Mother had wiped him out completely, had built a new and clinically clean empire.

  ‘Laura?’

  I swung round. ‘Mother.’ She was a true fashion-plate, a two-dimensional figure from some up-market magazine. Her face was thickly but expertly made up, and the jewels on her fingers were not paste. The suit was perfectly cut, a business outfit with a feminine finish in the finely tailored lines.

  ‘My dear, how are you?’ The accent had been worked on, was just about halfway between Mayfair and Manchester Piccadilly. ‘It’s been ages.’ She kissed the air at the side of my face, made little squeaking noises that were meant to illustrate her supposed joy. ‘Come. We’ll go inside and have some tea.’

  So this was Mother’s latest role. Confetti would have been delighted to meet such a wonderful woman, a female who could build a business with one hand and apply face cream with the other. But Mother was not sufficiently emancipated to allow herself to be seen with a shabby daughter. We entered the office building by a side door, cut through a corridor before reaching Mother’s office. A plaque bore the legend, ELIZABETH McNALLY. CHIEF EXECUTIVE. I caught sight of a pale girl at a typewriter, glimpsed her worried face before Mother closed a second door. ‘My personal assistant,’ she said. ‘An absolute treasure.’ She pressed a button and a disembodied voice asked, ‘Yes, Mrs McNally?’

  ‘Tea for two, please.’

  I slouched in the chair opposite Mother’s, noticed the despair on her face as she assessed my poor deportment. ‘So, I just came to see how you were,’ I said. ‘Since you never have the time to come and see how we are.’

  ‘I’m no worse than usual.’ She screwed a pink cigarette into a white holder, flicked a switch that turned on a window fan. ‘Extractors,’ she mouthed. ‘I know you don’t like tobacco smoke.’

  ‘Your grandchildren are very well, thank you for asking.’

  ‘Give me time.’

  ‘And Gerald will start school soon. He already reads, writes and counts.’

  ‘Good.’ She flicked ash into a hideous ashtray of dark onyx. ‘You obviously don’t need money. I notice that my cheques have not been cashed.’

  ‘Quite.’ I had done my duty, had obeyed Confetti’s instincts, was ready to leave at any moment. This was a farce, though Mother probably considered it to be a drama in which she played the chief role. As ever.

  ‘And you sent back the car. You could have kept it, you know.’

  I hadn’t wanted it, hadn’t wanted to look at the vehicle that Frank had driven to his death. Most of all, I hadn’t wanted anything from this woman. ‘I can’t drive.’

  ‘But you must learn.’

  ‘Yes, I must.’

  She tapped scarlet finger-nails on the huge desk. There was a lamp on its surface, one of those brass things that are often seen in American movies, a very important-looking item designed to shine its light only on the paperwork. Her eyes followed mine and she informed me, ‘It’s a reading lamp.’

  ‘Yes.’ We hadn’t seen one another for years, and we were talking about lamps and old cars. ‘Well, I’d better go.’ I stood up, smoothed my coat.

  ‘Can’t you buy yourself something a little more sensible, Laura? A nice camel-hair coat or something in tweed?’

  ‘No. I’ve children to feed.’

  She opened a drawer, pulled out a tin, took a wad from it and threw it on her desk. ‘Is cash preferable to cheques?’

  It was plain that she didn’t remember anything, that she had wiped the slate clean not only of my father, but also of me. Perhaps I was just a small and unsavoury problem that she recalled occasionally, like a troublesome molar or a bout of flu. ‘You are just like Tommo,’ I said. ‘You do things, say things, forget things. It’s all forgotten, isn’t it? The cruelty, the neglect, the nastiness?’

  She sighed, put her head on one side. ‘You know, dear, most of that is in your own mind. I do worry so about you. Have you mentioned to your doctor that you have these strange dreams? Because that’s all they are, just nasty dreams. I never hit you, seldom shouted at you, gave you a very happy childhood.’ She rose, came round to my side of the desk and perched on its edge. ‘I’m a wealthy woman, Laura. Because I’ve a head for business, I finished what your father never had sufficient courage for. Oh, he had moved into other towns, but his thinking was too … too small. I expanded properly, went into mass production. But although I keep going on the surface, I am not a well woman. I need someone to live with me.’

  I walked to the door. ‘Then get a man. Father’s dead now, so it will be legal this time. You’d enough of them while he was alive, so why are you alone now?’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Because there’s too much money at stake. I don’t want any man to hitch his wagon to my star.’

  Someone knocked at the door through which we had entered. The second door opened, and a ghostly face peeped through a small gap. ‘Shall I get that, Mrs McNally?’ Mother’s personal assistant looked frightened to death and I empathized with her, remembered my own fears.

  ‘No, Susan.’ Susan disappeared. ‘Come in.’ This order was directed towards the corridor.

  The burly guard stepped into the office, came to an abrupt halt when he saw me. ‘Oh,’ he said, his voice rather high-pitched. He cleared his throat, descended an octave or so. ‘I thought … I saw this young woman in the grounds and—’

  ‘No matter,’ she snapped. ‘Go back to your post.’

  He marched out in double-quick time. I watched my mother as she took some pills from her bag, counted them into her hand before swallowing them with a sip of water. ‘I really do need you to come home.’

  ‘No.’

  The tea arrived, but I did not stay. As the nylon-aproned woman placed the tray on a side table, I left the office and fled down the passage. I shouldn’t have come, would never come again. The woman who had birthed me had no concept of proper human behaviour. It was plain that she thought I’d come for cash, probably hush money. The sign on her face needed no neon lighting, no help to send its message. ‘I don’t know this shabby young woman,’ it had read, ‘But if she cleans up her act and comes to live with me as a servant, then she will be my daughter.’

  I did not run far, just as far as the farmhouse. I stood on the front lawn, a stretch of perfect emerald grass where no weed would dare to show its face. The sheet of green was striped like a football pitch, had been carefully tended by another of her lackeys. Around its edges there were shrubs, dwarf conifers, rose-bushes that had been cut back for the winter.

  But it was the house that held m
y attention. Gone were those lovely sash windows, gone were the cornerstones that had framed the delightfully flawed panes of glass. Mother had opted in a big way for light, had torn the once-proud house to shreds. Picture windows, six of them. They sat in the warm stone walls, huge blind eyes with lids that hung tired and expressionless, wood-framed transoms extended on metal catches to let in a little air, to let out a lot of smoke. She had murderded Ravenscroft, had done a face-lift in reverse, and the old house had not survived the anaesthetic.

  Houses matter to me. That isn’t to say that I’m particular about where I live, but I think places have souls. There’s often one house in a terraced row, just a single dwelling where the architect’s original plan still shows. A good solid door with the panels intact, no sheet of hardboard covering the pattern. Window frames cared for, painted with love and a good brand of gloss. Intact, treasured, respected. This farmhouse had been extended, had lost its character. The main part of the building had been altered to tone in with the new, so the guts had been torn out and discarded like offal in an abattoir.

  I walked down the hill towards Auntie Maisie’s shop, my insides twisting with an anger that went beyond mere rage. My mother had snuffed out my father’s life, had tried to diminish mine, was continuing to leave a trail of rubble in her wake. That poor house, that lovely, ruined place. And all those crippled, active people thrown out of work, probably because they didn’t fit in with the colour scheme.

  ‘You look a bit fetched-up,’ said my aunt after her usual fussy greeting. ‘A bit on the upset side. Have you been up yonder?’

  I nodded.

  ‘She’s doing well, isn’t she? They’re saying she’ll be a millionaire come 1970. See, sit yourself down and I’ll make us a bite. Freddie?’

  He appeared at the back window, his face wreathed in smiles as soon as he saw me. Once inside, he took off his thick gloves and warmed his hands on my face. ‘I’ve been tending my vegetables,’ he said.

  ‘Aye, well you can tend the shop for a bit, Freddie. I want to make Laura a cuppa.’

  We settled at the big square table in the room behind the shop. They had given up the house next door, were letting it to a newly married couple. ‘We can manage this road while there’s only two of us. Right.’ She stirred the tea, banged the brown lid home, poured the liquid into a pair of china mugs. ‘What’s up with you? Did she come out of the wrong side of the bed again?’

  ‘There’s only one side to Mother, Auntie Maisie. You should know that after all these years.’

  ‘Aye, happen I should. Has she offered you no help?’

  ‘Just money.’

  She poured the milk, took a tea towel off a plate of newly baked cakes. ‘Would you sooner have a butty, love?’

  I shook my head, sipped the tea. ‘I couldn’t eat a thing.’

  ‘You should take the money. Your dad would have wanted you to be comfortable.’ She paused, waited for an answer, gave up after a few seconds. ‘I hear that nun’s finished up at your house. What’s it like living with her?’

  ‘Crazy.’ I forced a smile, didn’t want my aunt worried. ‘She’s gone all eccentric, looks like something from a desert island, flowery prints and wooden necklaces. To top the lot, she’s very big at the family planning clinic in town. She’s a feather in their caps, because she left the convent when the church found out about her faith in birth control. And she’s a noisy beggar. I think I’m getting the benefit of her being cooped up in a convent for so many years. She lets off steam and I get scalded.’

  The warm-hearted woman reached out a work-reddened hand and placed it on top of mine. ‘Never think you’ve got nobody, lass. There’s me and our Anne and your Uncle Freddie. Then there’s your kiddies and Sister Wotsername-as-was and Miss Armitage – that old teacher of yours – she’s asking after you. Bit of a scandal there, something to do with a man, but I speak as I find, and she’s a good soul. Plenty of us care for you, Laura.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She patted my arm, picked up a cake, took a healthy bite and chattered on in spite of her full mouth. ‘She’ll be the loser at the finish, will our Liza. She’s turned that many folk away from her, she’ll be lonely at the end.’

  I travelled home on the bus, a box of toffees and tinned food on my lap. Auntie Maisie was right. I was a rich woman, because so many folk cared about me, needed me. Most of all, I was wealthy after being loved by Frank. The love of a good man is beyond price. I smiled to myself, sucked a Nuttall’s Minto, looked forward to going home.

  ‘So I’ve to go home immediately if not sooner.’

  I could not take my eyes off her. She was wearing a dirndl-type skirt that looked as if it might have started life as kitchen curtains, three rows of striped glass beads, some twenty-odd bracelets of metals so base that they left her wrists green, and a very strange coat that she’d probably pounced on at the nearly new shop. ‘Where did you get that coat? No, don’t tell me, Confetti-Goretti, it sticks out a mile. You got it as a bargain at that blinking second-hand shop. Well, you’ve surpassed yourself this time. That’s a loose woman’s coat.’

  She glanced down at herself. ‘You see, I’ve never gone in for a tight fit, as I can’t seem to wear clothes tidily, so the more room the merrier and—’

  ‘The term “loose” is applicable to the wearer, not to the size of the garment.’

  ‘Oh.’ I could tell by her face that she was greatly disappointed. It was one of those dreadful garments with shaggy fur all round the edges, then braided fasteners that were supposed to attach themselves to fancy toggles. Except that Confetti wore the coat open, so the effect was not quite as cheap as usual. ‘Well, isn’t that a turn-up for the book now, Laura? Me in a streetwoman’s coat.’

  ‘You need high boots with it,’ I said. ‘In purple or burgundy, boots that cover your knees. Then a very short skirt that shows your knickers every time you bend over. For the skirt, you could try black leather or very open crochet.’

  She tore off the coat and tossed it aside. ‘Then I’ll stick to the sheepskin, even though it is adrift on two seams.’ She dropped into a chair, kicked off the blue clogs. ‘Mammy has forgiven us all. She’s had a vision and we’re all summoned, have to get there immediately if not sooner.’

  ‘Really?’

  She nodded mournfully. ‘She’s seen the light. And as she found the light very attractive, she’s decided to go into it rather earlier than originally planned.’

  ‘Light?’ I asked.

  ‘Heaven. She’s arranging her death.’

  ‘Oh.’ It was difficult to choose many words at this point.

  ‘This incandescent glow hung over the cowshed at midnight, she says. So she’s forgiven me for being a failed nun, and she’s even extended the hand of motherhood to Eugene, despite the fact that he had to get married after indulging in sex and unconsecrated communion wine.’ The bangles rattled as she smoothed down her fast-growing hair. ‘He probably drank the wine before enjoying the sex, but who’s to know the real truth of it? So I’m off in the morning.’

  I thought about it, decided that I wasn’t pleased. ‘I’ll miss you.’

  ‘I’ll be back. My mammy may have seen a vision over the cowshed, but it would be more to do with cough medicine than the hereafter.’

  Confetti has never thought along the same lines as an ordinary person. In those days, the route she took was always tortuous, always exciting. If she had been a driver – and we must thank the Almighty for great mercies because she never touched a car – then Confetti would have chosen to drive on the B roads. Her arrival might have been tardy, but she would have seen some interesting sights along the way. Her head was positively bursting with information, and she would spill it out in great quantities, with the result that one needed to home in on a certain wavelength in order to extract the pertinent points. I was tuned in and I was going to miss her. ‘What has cough medicine got to do with lights over the shippon?’

  ‘She’s an addict. Mammy had a terrible cough for
years, was thought to be consumptive. Then Fidelma O’Flaherty came across from her farm and gave my mother one of her brews. Now, it’s a well-known fact that Kevin and Fidelma O’Flaherty brewed all kinds of stuff that should never have seen the light of day and that—’

  ‘Or a light over a cowshed at midnight?’

  ‘Exactly. In fact, there’d been some terrible explosions over at O’Flaherty’s farm, and Kevin lost a pig and a finger, and that was a terrible shame and the cause of great concern all round. The finger wasn’t too important, as it was on his left hand and he is a right-handed person, but the pig was a creature of notable stock. Anyway, aside from all the aforementioned, we began to notice that Mammy had improved something wonderful when she started on this cough cure. She still had the cough, but she was beautifully happy until the bottle was empty. The upshot was that she bought a job lot of the stuff, so that’ll be the light over the shed.’

  ‘I see.’ She was better than radio, heaps better than television. My children would grieve for her, because she was the most motherly woman I had ever known. ‘You’ve got to come back.’

  ‘Oh yes. I’ve got to come back and put my dowry to good use.’

  I gazed into the electric fire, watched the fan as it circled over imitation coals. It wasn’t going to be easy without Confetti. She was one of those people who bring joy and energy into the most mundane situation, and she had lightened my mood considerably over the past weeks. Strangely, there was still no fear in me. It had died with Frank, though the sadness remained alive and kicking.

  ‘Will he come for you?’ She often bit into my thoughts like that, frequently answered questions before I asked them.

  ‘He’s had a letter from Anne,’ I said. ‘She warned him that any further contact would merit prison because of the injunction.’ I chewed over the thought for a second. ‘I’ve not seen the last of him.’