by Julian Gloag
Julian Gloag
Our Mothor’s House
Contents
Spring
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Summer
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Autumn
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
Winter
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
Spring
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
A Note on the Author
… I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.
Song of Solomon 3:4
SPRING
1
Mother died at five fifty-eight. Her last act was to reach out for the gold fob watch that lay on the bedside table. Unsurely grasped in the thin fingers the watch fell and its soft rhythm ceased, marking the precise minute as if in evidence of some crime.
It is possible that Mother lived a few moments longer. But there was no way in which she could signal her children. For weeks she had been able to speak in no more than a whisper, and the embroidered bell rope that hung above her bed had long been disconnected from its clapper in the kitchen. “Can’t abide bells,” Mother had said when, years ago, she had taken the lease of 38 Ipswich Terrace. “Have quite enough of them on Sundays and at funerals.” But even if the bells had functioned, she was too feeble to tug the bell pull. Her once inexhaustible energy had lately withered to where she could not lift a spoon without Elsa’s aid.
And Elsa, who had looked in as soon as she got back from school, to find Mother asleep, would not disturb Mother’s quiet hour.
Yet Elsa’s anxiety, which being the eldest she bore for the others, forced her continually to come to the bedroom door to listen. She heard nothing. There were plenty of noises in the house: the sound of clashing crockery from the kitchen where Diana and Jiminee were washing up; the gurgle of Willy’s laughter in the playroom and Gerty’s “It’s my turn now, Willy”; Dunstan’s perpetual cough as he sat with the leather-bound volumes of sermons in the “library”; a sudden burst of hammering from Hubert in his workroom. Elsa was aware of them all unconsciously—if any had stopped for too long, she would have gone to investigate—but she did not listen.
When the downstairs clock began to strike half-past six, the waiting was done. She opened the door and stepped inside. The room smelled exactly the same, of old curtains and night lights, of lavender soap, of the dust that rose up between the polished floor boards, and of the polish itself that came in red and gold tins from the lady who called three times a year.
Mother smelled the same too. Mothersmell—the white calm scent that came from the big bottle on the dresser.
Mother’s head was turned towards Elsa, her eyes only half closed. Her left arm was outstretched, supported just above the elbow by the edge of the bed, hand open to receive. Touched by the evening breeze from the open window the ends of the knot that tied the turban about her head fluttered like desultory pennons.
Elsa crossed the room and stood on the burlap mat close to the bed. Briefly she laid her hand on the cold wrist. Then she bent down and picked up the watch. It too was cold. She warmed it in her hand, turning it rhythmically over and over. The night light rippled, then straightened. It needed snuffing.
Outside the starlings were in their evening twitter before settling down. From the gloom of the high-walled garden came the perfume of the lilies of the valley that grew thick below the window. It was a warm May, almost summery. The lilies had begun early and they were almost over now.
Elsa lifted her head a little. Outside she heard the murmurings of the children waiting to be called in. Alone of them, she knew of Mother’s death; just as only she had realised that Mother was dying all these last weeks. Mother had known too of course, but it had been a secret unshared between them. Mother did not believe in dwelling upon unpleasant things.
Suddenly Elsa said aloud, “I’m thirteen.” She repeated it, “I’m thirteen,” as if to rebut the growing shadowiness of the room—a shadowiness only increased by the small flame of the night light. She looked down at the watch in her hand. Five fifty-eight, it said. She knew that was not the right time. She put it back on the night table where it belonged.
She turned away from the bed and went across to the dresser and took the wigstand and Mother’s wig and put them on the table in the centre of the room. She fetched the tortoise-shell comb from the top drawer where it lay among the faintly scented men’s handkerchiefs that Mother always used. Then she sat down on the edge of the wicker chair and began to comb the wig.
She pressed the comb firmly down into the auburn curls, pulled them almost straight and let them fall back into place. Ever since Mother had become too weak to move, this had been Elsa’s nightly duty. She had always known that Mother wore a wig, and all the other children knew too—she had explained about it as soon as they were old enough to know. Even Willy, the very youngest, knew now. Yet the subject had only been referred to twice in Mother’s presence: most recently, when Mother had said, “I’m tired tonight, Elsa dear, comb my hair for me like a good girl.” The other time had been two years ago, when Jiminee was five. It had been at teatime and Jiminee had suddenly looked up at Mother and said, “Hello, Wiggy.” There had been a hushed sigh of silence as Mother gazed at the blushing Jiminee over the tea table. Then all at once Mother had burst out laughing. She didn’t say a word, she just laughed. And all of them began to laugh and rock back against their chairs and shake the table until the teacups rattled. Only Jiminee remained untouched; he sat there, blushing and flickering his eyelids, his smile flashing on and off like a Christmas tree light. And when the laughing was finished, they had gone back to eating their tea and nothing was ever mentioned about it afterwards, except that Jiminee was looked at with a new respect for a few days.
As Elsa combed, she remembered that warm laughter in her stomach and she wanted to cry. She let her hands stay still and bent her head. “Elsa never cries.” She struggled with the thick feeling in her throat and screwed up her eyes tightly. And at last two tears came and trickled down her nose. They dried almost immediately.
The room was dark now and the figure on the bed was only a vague whiteness. The motion of combing soothed Elsa.
Suddenly the night light flickered bright and then almost went out. Stilled with alarm, Elsa looked up. Someone stood just inside the half-open door. “Who is it?” she whispered, “Dun?”
“No. It’s me—Hubert.”
She relaxed slightly. “What is it, Hu?”
“It’s struck seven, Else.”
The candle flame wobbled precariously. “Come in, and shut the door.”
As the light grew brighter and Hubert came closer, Elsa turned her face so that he would not see she had been crying.
“Is Mother asleep then?” said the boy, still whispering.
Elsa reached forward to put the comb on the table. In the silence the creaking of the basket chair at her movement startled them both and the comb fell to the floor with a sharp snap. Hubert got down on his k
nees and picked it up and handed it to the girl. She let her head turn to him as she took it; she didn’t really mind if Hubert saw.
“You been—”
“Yes!” she said.
“What’s the matter, Else?” Already he had stood up and was looking towards the bed.
“No, Hu, stay here.”
“It’s Mother, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said. “She’s—it’s all over now.”
“But she can’t—”
“It’s all over, Hu. I know, I … it isn’t any good hoping.”
For an instant in the half-light Hubert’s frown made him look so like Dunstan that Elsa caught her breath. Then he put up his hand and brushed away the hair from his forehead. On the distant main road a bus accelerated, and the noise of the traffic grew momentarily loud and then diminished like the pulsing of a tired heart.
“What are we going to do, Else?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I’ve got to think. I’ve got to plan.”
“We’ve got to think of something.”
“Don’t I always think of something?”
Hubert didn’t reply. In the passage outside the door came a burst of coughing.
Elsa stiffened. “Dunstan.”
“All of them,” said Hubert. “You got to tell all of them.”
“Not tonight. I’ll tell them tomorrow.”
“You got to tell all of them. It’s no good putting it off, Else.” Hubert spoke slowly.
“Don’t go telling me what to do. I’m the eldest, remember!”
The nine-year-old boy looked at her and nodded. Elsa drew a deep breath and rose. The basket chair creaked. “All right. I’ll just wash my face, and then you fetch them in.”
She went over to the washstand and dabbled her fingers in the cool water of the jug.
“I better put the light on,” Hubert said—and now they had stopped whispering.
“No, Hu, leave it off.” She reached out for Mother’s towel, but hesitated, glancing at Hubert. Then quickly she bent her head down and dried her face on her skirt. She went back to the chair and sat down again. She patted the back of her hair, smoothed the dampened skirt over her knees, and folded her hands in her lap. “All right then,” she said, “I’m ready.”
2
They were reluctant to enter. It was only when Elsa called out “Eldest first!” that Diana had ceased to hang back and led the way in. They waited, nervous in the face of Elsa’s solemnity. Only the figure of Dunstan, leaning against the door, was impassive.
Elsa spoke, her voice hard to conceal its tremble. “Children … children …” She stopped.
In the silence four-year-old Willy left the group in the middle of the room and went to Mother’s bedside. The children watched him. He touched the ends of Mother’s scarf and patted her outstretched arm. He put his head on her shoulder and sniffed. Slowly he turned round. “She’s very quiet,” he announced.
As if Willy’s words were a signal, the children gathered around the bed, Dunstan alone remaining still by the door. They stared down at Mother, head huddled upon shoulder in the attitude of final exhaustion, knees humped under the blanket. The light caught only her broad forehead and her cheekbones, so that her eyes were huge and black, staring down at the children’s feet. From the Mother they loved she had become in the twinkling of an eye an object of silence and strangeness.
“Children,” said Elsa, “Mother has passed on.” They did not seem to hear her.
Diana leaned down and placed her hand in Mother’s. “Mother,” she called softly, “Mother. It’s cold, Mother,” she said and she tried to lift the arm to slip it back under the covers. The jarring movement caused Mother’s head to roll to the left, and the shoulders slid a little, then stopped. Diana cried out and let go of the hand.
In a second Dunstan was beside the girl. “It’s all right, Dinah, it’s all right.” He put his arms round her as she sobbed. Although there was two years’ difference between them, Diana was small for her twelve years and always sought protection from Dunstan, who defended her with an intensity that at one time or another had frightened all the children. Now she sobbed, her head with its gold hair cut like a cap lowered against his dark one. “It’s all right, Dinah.”
“But she’s cold, she’s so cold.”
The children stared. Then Jiminee, his grin still coming and going, began to cry too.
Hubert took a step forward from his place beside Elsa. “Mother’s dead,” he said loud enough to cut off the sobs.
Elsa nodded. “That’s right. Mother’s dead.”
There was a small sigh from the children. Willy lifted his chin, “What’s dead?” he demanded.
“Dead?” Hubert murmured. “Dead is like—like Jesus.”
“Crucified, dead, and buried,” Dunstan said, “and on the third day he rose again and …” he faltered, “rose … and …”
“Mother won’t rise again,” said Elsa firmly.
Dunstan frowned. “She might, how do you—”
“No, she won’t.”
Diana lifted her head from Dunstan’s shoulder, and the two of them stared at Elsa. Physically they were utterly disparate; his face was almost a caricature of the purse-lipped, thin-cheeked figures that pursued the narrow road to heaven in the big coloured chart that hung in the little downstairs lavatory. His dark eyes, magnified in froglike menace behind the thick glasses, and his spiky black hair contrasted exactly with Diana’s smooth blondness and her blue eyes that seemed to belong to another world.
Dunstan could make even the most ordinary words sound vicious, but now he held his silence. Diana drew away from him and stood in the middle of the room, suddenly a stranger in the midst of all this familiarity, so that, Hubert thought, if you asked her her name she probably wouldn’t remember.
The group by the bed began to split up. Little Gerty came over to Elsa and looked up into her face earnestly. “Can I play with the comb now, Elsa?” Elsa nodded. Gerty was only five, but it was an old privilege of hers to use the tortoise-shell comb. Before she could properly walk she used to crawl, a fat bundle, towards the table and reach up for the comb. And she would sit on the worn rug, as she sat now, playing with the comb and her hair, unaware of the other children or of Mother’s Jesus voice reading from the book.
Hubert moved away from Elsa’s side and drifted over to the washstand. The cake of soap lay in its china dish. He touched the still sticky surface and raised his hand to sniff the familiar lavender scent. It was as if this familiarity had to be examined, tested. At the rim of the white washbowl, patterned on the inside with sharp leaves and dark blue flowers, was a jagged triangle which had broken off months ago and which he had mended with waterproof glue. He pushed his finger against it. It yielded gently, like a tooth almost ready to come out. He’d have to try again, with stronger glue perhaps—and there would be time for it to dry properly this time.
“Mother’s not dead!”
It was Diana. She stood, fists clenched, voice high-pitched, a guardian angel by the bedside. The children stared.
“She’s cold, that’s all she is—cold!”
The chair crackled uneasily as Elsa stood up.
“No, Elsa! She’s cold. We must get blankets to warm her—and a hot water bottle.”
Elsa glanced uncertainly round the dim room. She opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it so that all the blood left her lips. The children waited for her words, but she found none to deny Diana’s vehemence.
“She’s cold!” Diana said again.
Her answer was the sound of Hubert’s feet running across the room and the click of the switch as he turned on the light. They winced at the sudden brightness that exposed the bleak white ceiling above and dropped hard-edged shadows where there had been none before. Diana cried out in pain, “Oh, no!”
But she, like the others, turned and looked. The soft dusty lines of Mother’s face were now hard cuts in the flesh and the blue eyes were without expression. Her mouth was half
open in the loose wonder of death, which there was no mistaking. Diana knelt down and put her head on the blanket. She raised her hands and cupped them over her ears.
For a while no one spoke. And then, “You see, children,” said Dunstan.
There was no reply. He moved over to the bedside table and picked up the black Bible that lay beside the watch.
“Read to us, Elsa.”
“Yes, read to us, read to us,” the echoes ran around the room.
Slowly Elsa sat down and reached out her hand for the book. Dunstan hesitated for a moment and then walked over and gave it to her. He stood over her looking down as she held it clasped shut. “Open it,” he said.
Elsa looked away from him. “What shall I read?” she asked the children.
“Jesus,” said Willy, but none of the others answered.
“Go on, open it,” said Dunstan.
Elsa let the book fall open in her hands and it broke at a much-read section. She looked down and started to turn the page, but Dunstan held her hand. “Read what it says,” he said. Elsa didn’t answer. She read silently for a moment, moving her lips to the words. She frowned. Then she smoothed the page and drew in her breath. She began to read:
Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? Whither is thy beloved turned aside? that we may seek him with thee.
My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies.
I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is …
Elsa stopped. “Jiminee,” she said softly, “where are the lilies?”
Jiminee blushed and then smiled. “I…”
“Where are they, Jiminee?”
Jiminee rubbed the tear stains on his face with his bony thumb. “I … I forgot.” He grinned. “I didn’t m-mean to …” He glanced quickly at the other children.
“It’s your day, isn’t it, Jiminee?”
He said nothing. He was quite white now.
Still kneeling by the bed, Diana said gently, “Oh, Jiminee, how could you?”
“Yes, how could you?” Dunstan spoke sharply.
“I didn’t m-mean to, I d-didn’t.”
