Our Mother's House

by Julian Gloag

When he turned to the children, he was thoughtful. “Well,” he said, “you’re a ripe bunch of little bastards, aren’t you?”

  And then he laughed.

  WINTER

  29

  The sun shone east by southeast into the deserted garden. Its November warmth was not strong enough to melt the white coating of frost on the grass. In the sunlit stillness the sounds of Saturday morning came sharp but distant, barely touching the repose of Ipswich Terrace.

  In Mother’s room the yellow sunlight was fastened to the panelling above Charlie ’ook’s unmade bed. Like an escutcheon it hung over the raised headboard, stained with the remnants of raindrops on the window. The runnelled sheets still gave up the odour of the nighttime sleeper to the empty room.

  The room was changed since Mother’s time. It lacked the permanence of the furniture that still stood, dampening to decay, in the tabernacle. It was bare. The window was hardly ever opened now—the curtains never closed. Anyone might have slept there for one night and then gone on without a single memory of the room. Only the desk remained as it had been, to lock in the past.

  In the kitchen the sun struck through the windows of the back door and shot water gleams from the glassware in the open cupboard. All the heat and noise of the house was concentrated in the one room. The smell of breakfast was strong.

  Charlie ’ook, shaved and hair immaculately combed, guarded two huge frying pans with his waving spatula. “Hubert—mind out for that toast.”

  Hubert whipped the tray from under the grill and expertly swivelled four slices of bread to expose the underdone areas to the heat.

  “Right-ho!” Charlie ’ook laughed. “Bacon nearly done. Plates out, Di. Ready with the butter, Jiminee.” He picked an egg from the bowl and cracked it against the edge of the frying pan, using only one hand. He dropped the empty shell into the tin pail under the sink and repeated the process.

  “All right,” he called, “bacon done. First plate up, Di. Ready to pass, Dunstan. Pour the tea.”

  Diana held out the first of the oven-warmed plates and Charlie ’ook forked three strips of bacon onto it and scooped up a clean white egg. “Next,” he said. As Diana held out the second plate, Dunstan put the first one in Willy’s place on the table. Hubert handed four pieces of toast to Jiminee, who began to butter them. Elsa carefully filled the mugs with tea.

  “Why can’t I do something?” asked Willy suddenly.

  “You can put the sugar in,” said Elsa.

  “Three heaped for me,” said Charlie ’ook over his shoulder.

  For almost a minute there was silence except for the scrape of spatula against pan. Then it was all done and there was a plate at every place.

  Charlie ’ook flicked the light out under the pans and dropped fork and spatula into the sink. He went to the head of the table. All the children stood at their places, waiting for him. “Well,” he said, grinning broadly, “grub up, thank God!”

  “Grub up … grub!” they echoed him, breaking into laughter. Already it was a ritual. “Grubup!”

  “Fall to!” At the signal, they all sat down.

  “ ’ere, pass up that ketchup,” said Charlie ’ook.

  “You know what it is?” he asked, thrusting his knife into the neck of the ketchup bottle. “System. System—that’s what gets things done.” He spread the mound of ketchup over his eggs—he was the only one to have two (“bigger frame”)—and began to eat. “I knew a bloke once who ’ad the perfect system. The horses. Blimey, absolutely perfect it was. It ’ad taken him years to work out. You used to see him at damn near every meeting in the country. ‘How’s the system, Joe?’ we’d ask him. ‘Oh, comin’ along,’ he’d say.” He filled his mouth with tea. “He was testing it, you see. For years he was testing it. Then he started to bet. I remember the first time I saw him after he’d begun—at Redcar. ‘Doing very nicely, thanks,’ he said. And he was—even then you could see it. He had a new hat, I remember. Altogether he was more prosperous looking. Then after a bit we didn’t use to see him anymore. I run in to him once or twice going into the members’ enclosure. By that time he had a car with a chauffeur.” Charlie ’ook sat back and sipped at his tea. A glint of butter from the toast shone on his chin. “He got fat too—I remember that.” He stared meditatively out of the window. The children watched him. They had almost forgotten about their breakfast.

  “Did he win a lot?” asked Hubert.

  Charlie ’ook smiled. “I dare say.”

  “How m-m-much?” whispered Jiminee.

  “Well,” Charlie ’ook cocked his head to one side, “I don’t suppose you could live like he did much under seven or eight thou a year. No taxes, of course.”

  “Eight thousand p-p-p-pounds?”

  “Pounds—a year.”

  Dunstan banged his knife and fork against his plate. “Betting,” he said, “that’s sinful.” The children glanced at him briefly, and then turned back to Charlie ’ook. Poor Dun, Hubert thought, nobody listens to him anymore. It was true—Dunstan’s spurts of protest carried less force every day. He sat now, black, his clenched fist trembling slightly, glasses gleaming.

  Apart from Elsa, only Charlie ’ook paid Dunstan any attention now. “You’re right,” he said seriously, “absolutely right—unless you win, that is.” He drank some more tea, then took out his cigarettes and lit one. He sat forward abruptly. “I bet none of you’s ever been to the races, have you?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Tell you what—we’ll all go. Have an outing. How’d that be, eh? In the spring, when the flat starts. It’s no fun now—sticks are always chancy, and the wind on the course is enough to freeze your balls off.” He winked and clapped his hands together. “What say, eh?”

  Dunstan and Elsa were silent, but the others could hardly contain their excitement.

  “Right, you’re on. Well now, we got to sort out the Saturday morning jobs. Who wants to come shopping with me?”

  “Me—me—me—me!”

  Charlie ’ook laughed. “Drop more tea, Elsa. Last week it was—Diana and Elsa, right? Well, this week,” he rubbed his chin gently, “it better be Dunstan and Hubert.”

  Dunstan frowned. “No, thank you very much. I never go shopping.”

  “Me, me—let me go instead,” Willy cried out.

  “Oh, come on, Dun,” said Hubert, “it’ll cheer you up.”

  Dunstan pushed his chair violently back and stood. “I don’t want to be cheered up!”

  “Hubert’s right,” Charlie ’ook said, looking curiously at Dunstan, “shopping on a Saturday can be a lot of fun.”

  “I want to stay here. You can’t make me go.”

  “He’s afraid,” Diana said matter-of-factly, “he’s afraid to leave Mother.”

  “I-I …” Dunstan’s face turned deep red. His body quivered.

  “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” said Charlie ’ook.

  Elsa leaned forward towards the standing boy. “Go on, Dun. Go with him.” She was deadly serious.

  The shock of her words made Dunstan let go his breath.

  “Elsa!”

  “It’s all right,” she said urgently, “it’s quite all right.”

  Amidst the silent children, Dunstan slowly sat down, staring at Elsa.

  Suddenly Charlie ’ook put back his head and let out a gust of laughter. “Goddamit,” he managed to get out, “god-damit—she wants you to keep an eye on me!”

  Elsa flushed and turned on Charlie ’ook’s laughter—but before she could speak, high above them was the sound of a hard knock on the front door.

  Charlie ’ook stopped laughing at once. “We expectin’ anyone?”

  Hubert shook his head.

  Charlie ’ook stubbed his cigarette out in his saucer. “I better go an’ see who it is.” He hesitated as if waiting for someone else to offer; then he got to his feet.

  As soon as he was out of the room, Dunstan said to Elsa, “Why did you say that, Else—why?”

  “Because,
” said Elsa quietly, “it’s like he says—someone ought to keep an eye open.” She glanced at Hubert.

  “But couldn’t you go?” said Dunstan almost pleadingly.

  “I went last time.”

  “But why me?”

  “I’d rather have you go than—than …” She didn’t try to finish the sentence.

  “You mean me—don’t you?” said Hubert.

  Elsa drew in her breath. “Yes,” she said, “yes, I do mean you. You just don’t care anymore, Hubert. You’re a … a bad influence.” She talked directly to him. “None of them care any more, and it’s your fault!”

  “It’s not my fault. It’s not me that doesn’t care—it’s you. You and Dun.” Suddenly his own anger hit him like a blow. “You just sit there and blame somebody else—me. You don’t do anything. You just blame. You’ve been like that ever since Gerty died—you don’t see any good in anything. You just—just … sneer. That’s all you do—what good is that? Sneering and blaming. Can’t you see? Everything’s all right now. But nothing’s right to you two. Nothing’s right except what you say’s right—according to you. But you don’t do nothing. Can’t you, can’t you,” he raised his hand as if to tear understanding out of the air, “can’t you see—can’t you let things be.” He groped, “We’re happy now—aren’t we? What’s wrong with that?”

  She did not answer him. She just sat there and it could almost have been that she was going to cry. For a moment Hubert saw her as the old Elsa—when they had been together against everyone, when he had looked up to her. That he could attack her, that he could say such things to her, shot a bolt of fear into his heart. For a second he wavered. Then he looked away. “Come on,” he said, “we got to do the washing up.”

  The next instant Charlie ’ook came back into the kitchen.

  “Well, well, well—what have you been nattering about?” He slapped his hands together. “That was the coalman. Going to have lots of fires. I sent him round the back. He’ll be here in half a mo.” He stood, half-aware of their tenseness, but making his geniality ride over it. “Come on, what are we waiting for? Let’s go an’ open the gate for ’im, eh?” He flung open the kitchen door and stepped out into the bright November sun. “Lovely day,” he called, “come on.” He broke into a whistle.

  They had not been in the garden for a long time. They stood in a group with their backs turned to the tabernacle and watched Charlie ’ook striding down to the garden door. He shot back the bolt, flaking some of the black paint, and opened the door to the street.

  Hubert held his breath and then blew it out in a long frosted plume. At the bottom of the garden, all the leaves were down. They clustered at the roots of the three clumpy box hedges. It was almost winter all right. Hubert let the frosty air fill his mouth. It made him dizzy, like the cold stuff the dentist gives you, he thought. Charlie ’ook’s whistle came faintly across the lawn. Hubert turned slightly to the Halberts’. Old Halby’s hedge was cut as precise as ever. He looked up higher at the white-blue glittering sky. A million miles away a silver silent plane flitted. He breathed in, feeling the coldness filling his lungs until like balloons, at a sudden release, they would carry him up, up out of the garden along the cord of his vision to the sky. He would mount and be lost forever in the blueness.

  He caught at his breath, as if it were alive and would escape him. Then he looked down and the garden wavered. Coming across the lawn were Charlie ’ook and the coalman, a big sack bending him as if the sky had tumbled on his shoulders.

  “In ’ere, mate.” Charlie ’ook heaved the cellar door wide. The coalman put his shoulder against the boards that came halfway up the opening; for a moment he balanced, and then with a quick jerk started the cascade of coal. The black dust rose, sparkling into the sun.

  “One,” said Charlie ’ook loudly, rubbing his hands. “Cold, i’n’ it?”

  The coalman stood up. He nodded, folding the sack against his stomach, and slapping little spurts of dust into the air. “Warm in the sun, though.”

  He wiped his face with his hand, as if pondering. He settled his cap a little further back on his head. Even without the weight of the coal, he still stooped—his head, neck and shoulders forming a continuous sloping line. He walked back across the lawn, making another set of dark prints on the whitened grass. Behind him the dust still danced and the tarry smell of coal was sharp and satisfying.

  They stood in silence, sucking at the smell.

  “We’re not going to be cold this winter,” said Charlie ’ook at last.

  “How much are you getting?” Elsa asked.

  “A ton, my girl—one glorious imperial ton of black diamonds.”

  “We never had more’n six hundredweight before.”

  “Ah—an’ I bet you all had chilblains.”

  “But we can’t afford—” began Elsa.

  “You leave that sort of thing to me, eh?” Charlie ’ook grinned at her and she did not protest anymore. She too felt the brightness of the day.

  “Now,” said Charlie ’ook, cocking his head to one side, “what about a game? Get a little of the old circulation going.”

  “He!” said Willy.

  “He? All right—who’ll be it?”

  “You!” came in a chorus. “You, Charlie.”

  “What, me?” He laughed.

  “Charlie’s it!” sang out Jiminee.

  As Charlie ’ook took a step forward, the children scattered wildly. Charlie ’ook walked slowly, shaking his head and muttering, “Now who shall it be—who shall it be? A little tasty fat one or a big tall skinny one?”

  The children formed a wide dancing circle around him.

  “Charlie can’t catch me!”

  “I can’t, can’t I? I got eyes in the back of my head!” But he merely strolled. Then suddenly he turned and with python speed darted back on his tracks. Diana had followed behind him. She yelled with fear and laughter and ran. Her fair hair blowing out behind her, she sped across the lawn. She was the fastest of them all, but not faster than Charlie ’ook. He was almost up with her, when she stopped dead and turned smiling at his touch.

  He couldn’t halt himself in time and he crashed into her with a force that knocked her to the ground. Grabbing at his arm, she pulled him down on top of her. The children waited for tears. For a moment Charlie ’ook and Diana were still; then he hoisted himself on one elbow. “You’re not hurt, are you?” he asked.

  Diana lay on her back and looked up at him. Her hair spread out on the frosty grass. She closed her eyes and began to laugh. The children stood round watching the two of them. The girl’s laugh was full and calm. It seemed to Hubert that he’d never heard her laugh like that before. She opened her eyes again and they caught the blue of the sky. Her gold hair spread, her blue eyes, her hands palm up, she laughed at her abandonment of flight.

  Charlie ’ook grinned. He put his hand on the girl’s side and moved it up under her armpit and began to tickle her. Her laugh changed to a higher pitch as she squirmed away. She sat up abruptly. “I’m it, now.” She looked smilingly around. Charlie ’ook heaved himself up and the children backed away. Then they were all running, filled with shrieks, with Diana after them.

  Willy, scampering towards the house, tripped and fell. He lifted his head, his face formed to yell, but before he could utter a sound, Charlie ’ook caught him beneath the shoulders and lifted him high in the air. “She won’t catch you now!” he said as he ran to the tabernacle and swung Willy onto the boards that served as a roof.

  Willy stood amazed, not knowing whether to choose grief or laughter. Then, looking down at the running children, he stamped his foot in triumph. “I’m the king of the castle!” he called out.

  Diana, almost up with Dunstan, glanced back and saw Willy prancing on the boards. She stopped and stared, the grin gone from her face. One by one the others turned too, until all of them stood in a scattered circle watching their youngest brother on his perch. And the little boy accepted their silence for admiration.
/>   “I’m the king of the castle,” he shouted in his glee, “get down you dirty rascals!”

  “The tabernacle,” murmured Diana, half-frowning.

  Fist clenched, Dunstan stepped forward, then stopped.

  The coalman had just emptied his second sack. He straightened his shoulders for a moment and saw Willy. “ ’ere,” he said, “you must ’ave wings to get up there.”

  “I have got wings,” Willy shouted to his audience. “I’m an angel.”

  Charlie ’ook’s laugh burst out into the morning air. The coalman was struck with a deep wheezing chuckle.

  From coalman to Charlie ’ook the children looked in puzzlement. With timidity they began to smile.

  “You can’t catch me, Dinah! I’m the king of the castle!” Willy jumped up and down on the rattling boards.

  Diana ran up to the tabernacle and put up her hand to grasp Willy’s legs. He danced out of her reach. “Yah-ooo! You can’t catch me!” Standing on tiptoe and stretching her white arm to its fullest extent she could not quite touch the stamping feet in the centre of the roof.

  “She l-l-looks like Alice in W-W-Wonderland!” said Jiminee.

  Like a secret password, Jiminee’s words released the children into sudden and consuming laughter. They ran forward—calling “Alice! Alice!”—and surrounded the tabernacle. They leapt up, trying to find a grip on the slippery smooth boards, and slithered back. They pounded with their fists, and their white breath shot up at Willy in soft darts.

  Behind them, unnoticed, came the adult murmur of the male voices.

  His voice sharp with delight, Willy lorded it over them. They could not reach him and did not try anymore. They beat their fists on the boards, drumming out the chant.

  “I’m the king of the castle, get down you dirty rascals!”

  On the roof of Mother’s tomb Willy danced in time.

  The drumming and the shouts carried clear in the Saturday still air. On the second floor of the Halberts’ a curtain was moved aside and a face looked down into the Hooks’ garden. For a while, the watching face remained. Then the curtain fell back.