Sun Child

by Angela Huth

  ‘Won’t you be afraid, being alone in this house with her when she dies?’

  ‘Not me,’ said Marble. ‘I’m one of those who can cock a snook at death. I’ve seen so many. My mother, she laid out everyone in the village that got taken, didn’t she? For nothing, mind. For no reward.’

  ‘Goodness,’ said Emily. ‘The part I wouldn’t like would be putting false teeth into a dead mouth.’

  ‘That’s no bother.’ Marble, sipping steaming tea, was all courage. ‘Teeth, when they’re out of a mouth, are dead things anyway. You get used to them. You don’t think of them as talking things when they’re lying in their glass at night.’ Tentatively, her tongue tripped round the edges of her own fair set, causing them to dance a little, allegro non troppo. ‘But I don’t know what’s got into your head, really I don’t, Miss Emily. This isn’t what I’d call Chistmas talk.’ She appeared quite shocked, suddenly. A moment ago, Emily could have sworn, Marble was just as interested in the conversation as she had been. Now, she urged Emily to hurry; she had a lot to do before it was time for Mrs Whicker’s breakfast.

  Emily picked up her stocking and left the kitchen. Perhaps, she thought, her parents would be awake now, and she could open it with them.

  The hall was gloomy. Marble hadn’t yet swept up the ash in the grate. Glancing at the upstairs landing Emily saw a subdued light hovering there, too frail still to fall to the ground and cheer the place where she stood. She heard a creak, a step. Then she saw her mother gliding along the passage, her hand skimming the intricacies of the oak banister. She wore her mustard cloak. It billowed behind her as she hurried down the stairs.

  ‘Em! Happy Christmas! You didn’t come and wake us.’ They were hugging, whirling about. The velvet of the cloak had caught Fen’s smell of stephanotis.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Emily asked, when they stood apart again.

  ‘Out for a moment.’

  ‘Why? Can I come with you?’

  ‘No. I won’t be long.’

  ‘Oh please, Mama.’

  ‘I said no.’ Fen pulled the hood of her cloak over her head. ‘You go and get dressed and take your stocking into our room. I’ll be back by that time and we can all open it together.’ She moved to the door. Emily followed her.

  ‘But what are you going out for?’

  Fen laughed.

  ‘You are an inquisitive thing. Maybe it’s something to do with Christmas surprises, so you’d better not say anything to anyone. Promise?’

  Let in on the secret, Emily understood.

  ‘Promise,’ she said.

  Fen hurried through the front door, causing a draught of air that chilled Emily, standing in her pyjamas. When her mother had gone she stayed where she was for a moment, listening. A muffled clatter from the kitchen was the only sound. She tiptoed to the cloakroom and pulled down from a hook an old raincoat belonging to her grandmother. She put it on, and slipped her feet into a pair of fur boots. Then she, too, crept through the front door, shutting it quietly behind her.

  Out in the drive there was a strong cold wind. Emily ran against it, stooped, to the front gate. There, she hid behind an icy laurel bush and peered down the road. Her mother was running towards a telephone box at the end of the road. When she reached it, Fen opened the door and went in. Shivering, Emily turned back towards the house. She tried to imagine what the surprise must be: something that Fen couldn’t talk about on the telephone in the hall. Well, she’d soon know.

  On her way she looked up to see her father standing at the window of his room. He waved at her, a surprised expression on his face. Emily increased her speed. No doubt he’d ask her what she had been doing. She’d think of something. Not for anything would she break her mother’s trust, especially when a telephone call was most probably something to do with a present for Papa. That’s what it definitely must be. Something to do with a present for Papa. A flicker of excitement burnt out the cold in her body. She threw off the raincoat and boots and hurried upstairs, dragging her stocking behind her. Strangely, her father asked her no questions.

  In the afternoon Emily went with her parents to the beach. In spite of the cold she was glad to leave the house, relieved to get away from her grandmother for a while, who seemed to be possessed by some demon of a Christmas spirit. In church she had sung out of tune with such gusto that each member of the congregation had taken upon himself the charitable act of giving her a staring frown, trying to make her take heed of her vocal antics. Mrs Whicker realised both the attention she was causing and the vagrancies of her voice at the same time. In reaction, she tipped back her head and laughed out loud. Then, worse, she shouted her apologies in a shrill voice that soared above the organ. People hid their smiles, but not well enough. The vicar himself was forced to clap a hymn book over his mouth to hide his own grimace. Idle alone was unconcerned. He bent over his mother, and whispered something, pointing with his finger to the right place in her carol book. Emily, filled with shame, had marvelled at his compassion.

  The beach was quite deserted, the sky and sea an interchangeable grey. A long range of beach huts, padlocked and shuttered, were brightened by a crust of pure white on their roofs, while snow that had fallen among piles of seaweed was of a more sullied kind : the iron in the weed had stained it ugly yellow. Same colour, Emily thought, as her mother’s cloak.

  She walked in silence over the ribby sand between her parents. They kept in step, their breath three balloons in the air before them. The brush of the outgoing tide was a distant sound. Nearer, harsher, a couple of seagulls made ragged cries above their heads. Other years, when she was small – even last year – Idle had carried Emily part of the way on his shoulders. The gulls had dipped and swayed about her, almost near enough to touch. Now, she was too old to suggest such a thing. She sighed quietly to herself, thinking of the distance to the far breakwater.

  ‘Extremely cold,’ muttered Idle. His hands were deep in the pockets of his London coat, his shoulders hunched.

  ‘Don’t know why we always come,’ answered Fen. ‘It’s never a pleasure.’

  ‘Sometimes you’ve enjoyed it, darling, haven’t you?’

  ‘Never.’

  They continued in silence some way. A charged silence. Emily felt compelled to break it. She put on her most cheerful voice.

  ‘Oh, Mama, don’t you remember that year I was awfully young and I fell in a pool and got soaking? That was funny.’

  ‘Yes – that was funny.’ Idle was eager. ‘That made us laugh. We had to run all the way back.’

  Fen sniffed. Gulls’ screams tore at the air.

  ‘Horrible birds,’ she said.

  Idle stopped and looked out to sea, his eyes concentrated on the horizon.

  ‘Look, Em. That huge ship. Perhaps it’s coming from France.’

  A few yards beyond them Fen stopped, too, searching out the ship in the indeterminate greys of sky and sea.

  ‘Oh yes! Look, Mama! ’ She bounded from her father to her mother. She clung to Fen’s arm, shouting – unsure why she was shouting. The sight of a boat on the horizon didn’t interest her in the slightest. ‘Look, Mama. It might be coming from France.’

  Fen glanced down, hair blowing about her face, eyes filled with tears. Emily was sure they were tears, though a second later, when Fen looked back to the sea again, they seemed to have gone.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Emily asked quietly.

  ‘The matter?’ Fen began walking again. ‘Nothing’s the matter except the wind hurts my eyes.’ She wiped them with the back of her hand. Emily imitated the gesture.

  ‘Mine too,’ she lied.

  Idle caught up with them. This time he went to Fen’s other side and took her arm.

  ‘Let’s go back,’ Fen said.

  ‘But we’re not halfway there.’ Idle sounded surprised.

  ‘So? You were complaining about the cold.’

  ‘But we always get as far as the breakwater … Every year.’

  Fen gave a sarcastic laugh.<
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  ‘Then why not let’s take our chance and break the great tradition? We’re not enjoying it – are we, Em?’

  Emily kept her silence for a while, until she was prodded by Idle.

  ‘You decide then, Em. Which do we do? Go on like we usually do? Or turn back?’

  Still Emily remained silent, contemplating.

  ‘Which ?’ snapped Fen.

  ‘I don’t mind, really.’ Emily could barely hear her own voice against the gulls. ‘Perhaps as it’s specially cold this year …’

  ‘Very well,’ said Idle.

  They turned and began walking back. Emily concentrated on stepping into her old imprints in the sand. She came across a cluster of shells, and remembered her grandmother. She bent to pick them up. Fen and Idle, separated again, paused to watch her.

  ‘For goodness sake hurry up, Em.’ Fen was stamping her feet. ‘It’s freezing. We can’t wait around while you collect shells. Grannie never does anything with them, anyway.’

  Emily looked up.

  ‘Hurry up,’ said Idle, gently. ‘Just a few will do.’

  Emily quickly stuffed a handful into her pocket. They walked on, not speaking.

  Then in a rare moment of quiet from the gulls, Fen suddenly turned to Idle and burst out :

  ‘Your mother may not be dead by this time next year, but it’s absolutely the last time I come here!’ She startled Idle and Emily with her vehemence.

  ‘Darling! What’s the matter?’

  ‘I hate this bloody place,’ Fen went on. ‘It’s the gloomiest place for Christmas I know. And anyway, what sort of fun do you think it is for Emily?’

  Cautiously, Emily took her mother’s arm. It was rigid. Idle remained calm.

  ‘It’s not much fun for Emily, is it, Em ? We all know that. It’s not much fun for any of us. But we always make up for that when we get home, don’t we? And the poor old girl. She’d never come to us. Imagine what it would be like for her alone. She looks forward to our coming the whole year. You know that.’

  ‘The poor old girl,’ Fen scoffed. ‘She’s an evil old woman.’

  ‘Darling, please.’

  ‘Well, she is.’

  ‘Fen.’

  ‘You can do what you like, next year.’

  ‘We’ll talk about it later.’

  ‘You won’t change my mind.’

  Emily was aware that her father sighed. She stretched out her hand towards him. He took it and drew closer to her.

  ‘What a silly old argument,’ Emily said.

  ‘Quite,’ said Idle.

  ‘Mama, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Fen smiled out to sea. Her arm relaxed a little. ‘I suppose I just can’t bear the thought of three-handed bridge this evening when we could be at home with Tom and people. I can’t bear the thought of cold turkey and Marble’s disgusting salad for dinner – ’

  ‘I helped tie up the turkey this morning, by the way,’ Emily interrupted.

  ‘You didn’t! What did you have to do?’ Idle seemed particularly interested.

  ‘Oh, I just squished its legs together while Marble tied the string.’

  Fen looked down at Emily and laughed.

  ‘Race you,’ she said.

  ‘Right. Race you.’ But a surge of relief had weakened Emily’s knees. As they both broke away from Idle she had to cling to her mother, needing to be pulled. They remained side by side, their footsteps chipping into the hard sand. Then they heard Idle pounding up behind them.

  ‘Caught you! You’re hopelessly slow.’

  They all stopped, panting, laughing, warm now. Idle put an arm round each of them. Emily could smell the nearby seaweed. A tomato sun had appeared from its day behind cloud and hung low in the sky, its reflection a small scattering of confetti in the sea. Squares of light were appearing in the dusky buildings of the town above them, and a solitary church bell began to ring.

  They climbed the steep steps to the promenade, holding hands, helping each other, and returned to Mrs Whicker for an evening of annual festivities peculiar to the house – bridge, ginger cake, and records of Chopin played by Paderewski, with whom the ubiquitous Lord Warren had once shaken hands, many Christmases ago.

  When they arrived back Emily felt a peculiar tiredness. It was as if she had exerted herself in some way-what way, she could not fathom-and the effort had left her drained. She curled up in a satin armchair, her limbs heavy, relieved that for the moment no one required her attention.

  Her grandmother and parents were playing cards in front of the fire. The only one to whom the game gave any real pleasure was Mrs Whicker. Bolt upright in her chair, which she shared with Badger, her mouth was set in an unmoving smile. She wore a silvery dress with a ruffle of red and green parrot feathers sewn round the collar. These she had plucked herself from the dead body of Matilda, a parrot Robert (the most romantic husband) had given her during their engagement, and who had died, sensitive bird that it was, a few days after their decree absolute. Robert had kept the parrot, to the horror of his secretary, in his room at the Foreign Office for three months before giving it to his future wife. The purpose of this period of isolation was to teach it to say ‘I love you’. It learnt the words but not the discrimination that should go with them, and shrieked that it loved everyone who came into the house. Its endless amatory proclamations affected Mrs Whicker with a new neurosis-she confused the parrot’s words with her husband’s feelings, and the foundations of their romantic marriage were shaken. However, after their divorce Mrs Whicker’s feelings (as they always did) reverted to ones of unblemished love, such as they had been for Robert in the beginning, and as the parrot was the only one who declared its love for her at the time, she loved it in return. It was her habit to wear mementoes of her husbands as well as to furnish her house with them : thus, when Matilda died, the idea of the feather collar seemed to Mrs Whicker an inspiration. Robert had been in no position to give her jewellery : the feathers were soft, glorious colours, and reassuring to the touch as diamonds. She stroked them from time to time, with great gentleness, and continued to smile at the fan of cards she held in her other hand.

  Emily slept. She dreamed she and her parents were back on the beach, a crowd of gulls above their heads so thickly massed together the sky was invisible behind them. The birds didn’t make ordinary gull cries, but laughed human, scoffing laughs. When she tried to ask her parents why, only a croak could come from her own mouth. Fen and Idle began to run. Low in the air the gulls pursued them. Emily, too, tried to follow them, but her legs would not move. She saw her mother stretch out her arms and rise into the air, joining the birds. Then, a long way from Emily, her father flapped his arms to follow Fen. But he remained on the sand, immobile. Emily couldn’t reach him, he couldn’t fly away. The gulls’ laugh grew fainter as the birds flew higher. Emily, waking, saw her grandmother’s smile.

  The following morning Fen complained of a headache, and stayed in bed. Idle seemed unusually concerned about her and looked, Emily noticed, as if he himself had had a bad night. Fen, lying back on her pillows in the giant bed, was pale and lethargic. She stared dully at a shower of sleet that swept against the windows, her eyelids swollen, her hair tangled. Emily, who had climbed on to the end of the bed, felt at a loss as how to entertain her. It was so unlike her mother to be without energy. This lack of spirit unnerved her, made her afraid.

  ‘How do you actually feel, Mama?’

  Fen gave the faintest smile.

  ‘As if a block of concrete was pressing down on my head.’

  ‘How horrid.’ Emily tried to imagine it. They listened to the sleet in the wind. ‘Well, anyway, we’re going home in about four hours, aren’t we ?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mama? What was that secret you were going to telephone about yesterday morning? Was it something to do with a present?’

  Fen moved her head a little.

  ‘It was all something to do with a very complicated plan, too complicated to explain, really.’ She
shut her eyes. Emily was hardly satisfied with the explanation, but saw that this was a bad time to pursue the subject further. She debated whether to suggest telling her mother a story, or whether to leave her to sleep.

  At that moment her father came in. Fen opened her eyes. Idle sat on the end of the bed, beside Emily. He and Fen exchanged a look which Emily didn’t miss – the kind of look, she knew by experience, that was the harbinger of bad news.

  Idle began gently.

  ‘Em, there’s something that Mama and I need very badly : that is, a holiday. I’ve been working terribly hard for months and months, and Mama-well, this weather seems to have bitten into her. She doesn’t look very well, does she?’

  Emily fiddled with the elastic top of one of her socks. Now she considered it, Mama didn’t look all that bad.

  ‘I suppose not,’ she said.

  ‘So. Now is the only time I can get a few days off. I think we really ought to take our chance. I’d like to take Mama away to the sun.’

  Emily looked at her mother. Fen’s eyes were worried, enquiring.

  ‘What would I do?’ Emily asked.

  ‘Well, we thought you might like to go to Aunt Tab. Just for a few days.’ Tabitha Wylie was a distant relation of Idle’s. Emily hadn’t seen her for a couple of years. She recalled a woman with a loud voice, a lot of dogs, and gigantic cedar trees in the garden. She had enjoyed herself there, once, because Aunt Tab had given her limitless sweets. ‘How would that be?’

  ‘But you’ve only just come back.’ Emily turned to Idle. ‘I’ve only seen you for a few days.’

  ‘I know, I know. It’s bad luck all this should happen in your holidays. But it really will be for such a short time. We thought you’d understand. All right?’ Emily climbed down from the bed.

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said.

  ‘Here.’ Fen stretched out her arm. Emily went to her. ‘We wouldn’t be doing this, Em, unless we really needed to. You know that, don’t you?’ There was an urgency in her voice. Emily nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  She left the room and went downstairs, trailing her feet, trailing a hand down the banisters. Marble was crossing the hall. She seemed deflated now Christmas was over. Her navy dress, no longer pristine, reflected her melancholy, and the curls of her fringe went every which way. She looked up at Emily.