I wake to the sound of someone knocking on my door. I check my watch: it’s not even seven a.m. yet. I stagger out of bed expecting to see Gloria there, but it’s Irene the bed and breakfast owner.
‘Has something happened to Gloria?’ I say, panic rising. Images of Gloria wandering off in the night, not knowing where she is, getting lost or injured or—
‘No,’ Irene says, looking awkward. ‘Not exactly. It’s just that she’s sitting downstairs in the hall saying you’re going home. And I didn’t have you down as leaving till later in the week. I wondered if she might have got . . . confused.’
I pull on some clothes and make my way downstairs. Sure enough, Gloria’s sitting in the hall with her big, heavy (totally unnecessary) coat on and her suitcase all packed.
‘What’s going on, Gloria?’
‘We’ve got to go,’ she says. ‘I want to go home.’
‘What do you mean?’ I say. ‘We’re going to the Lake District, and Whitby. And wherever else it is you want to take me. Remember? You and Peggy booked it all. Look in your notebook. It’s all in there.’
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she says. ‘I’ve just changed my mind. I don’t want to go. It was a bad idea.’
‘No!’ I say. ‘It was a great idea.’
I’m surprised how upset I feel. I really felt like we were just getting started, like she was getting started. And I’m dying to know more of Gloria’s story. What happened with Sam. Finding out about Nan and Vinnie. What Gloria’s secret was. She can’t change her mind.
‘No.’ She’s firm. ‘It was a mistake.’
I look at Irene helplessly and she shrugs.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’
‘No,’ says Gloria. ‘I just want to go home now.’
‘Well, I don’t,’ I say. ‘And I’m driving. I want to go for a walk. You can either come with me or wait for me here.’
She looks at me.
‘Or you can call a cab if you want to pay the fare back to London. Be my guest.’
And I open the front door and walk off down the steps of the bed and breakfast. My heart is thudding. I’m taking a risk.
‘Wait!’ Gloria calls after me. I turn round. ‘Well,’ she says. ‘If you’re going to be difficult about it, I suppose I may as well walk with you.’
It’s quiet in the centre of town, just a few people around compared to the throngs there will be later, the still-early morning broken by occasional bells ringing. Along the backs of the colleges the grass is still dewy. Gloria and I walk in silence.
‘So, go on,’ I say at last. ‘Why do you want to go home?’
‘I just do,’ she says.
‘I thought you wanted to tell me stuff.’
She doesn’t reply.
‘I think you still do.’
She still doesn’t reply.
‘So why the sudden change of plan?’ I try to think it through. ‘What is it that’s made you want to give up?’
‘It was a mistake,’ she says at last. ‘I shouldn’t have started delving back into the past. It’s best left there.’
‘What is?’ I say. ‘Your secret, the one no one else knows. Is that why you want to go home? Are you scared to tell me?’
‘I’m not scared,’ she says, too fiercely. I know I’m right.
‘Tell me,’ I say. ‘Look. You know you can trust me. I know you want to tell me. What harm can it do now, all these years later?’
She doesn’t answer and we follow the path slowly round, back towards the bed and breakfast.
As we get close she stops.
‘I had a baby,’ she says, quiet but clear.
I stop and turn to her.
‘What?’
I’m so shocked it takes a while to sink in. That was her secret. But of course. It all makes sense. The way she reacted when I told her I was pregnant. That was why she changed her mind. That’s why she’s so interested in me. She went through the same thing. Except for her it must have been a million times worse than for me. Unmarried and pregnant in the 1950s – and with Sam being the father, the racism she would have suffered. I can’t even begin to think what that must have been like.
‘When I was seventeen,’ she says. ‘I had a baby.’
Dr Gilbert’s surgery. It has a particular smell, though I’m not really sure what it is. In my mind it is the smell of cleanness and healing: antiseptic, soap, cod liver oil and bandages, and books and the green leather of his desk. It’s always been comforting somehow, the smell of being looked after, of knowing you would be made better. But this time I will not be made better.
Dr Gilbert is old. He’s been my doctor all my life and he has been old all that time. When I had measles he came to visit me at home. I can glimpse memories of lying in a darkened room for an unguessable length of time, shapes looming at me from the dark, some of them familiar, some dreamlike and otherworldly, terrifying. I remember the cold press of Dr Gilbert’s stethoscope on my skin, Mum’s anxious voice and the fingertips as she pushed my hair back from my forehead, Gwen crying. They were very worried about me, I discovered afterwards with a thrill. There had been prayers for me at church, and talk of ‘preparing for the worst’, Gwen told me when I was all better. Dr Gilbert had brought me ice cream when I began to recover, telling me it was good for a sore throat. I had never had it before. Sweets were still rationed then, and he seemed impossibly powerful, magical even, for producing this miraculous gift. He smiled and asked me how I liked it. ‘Very much,’ I said. ‘But could you make it hotter next time?’ ‘Gloria!’ Gwen had hissed, but Dr Gilbert had laughed. ‘You’ve got spirit,’ he said. ‘That’s for sure.’
Now he does not laugh. He purses his lips, steepling his fingers and staring at the point where they meet, rather than at me.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Sixteen weeks, I would estimate.’
The room seems to tilt a little, and I hold on tight to the wooden arms of my chair in case it should tip me off. Behind me I hear Mum stifle a sob. I can’t bear to look round at her, wearing her good shoes and the Sunday coat as if to prove our respectability, and I can’t meet Dr Gilbert’s eye, so I stare at the photograph behind his left shoulder, on his bookshelf, of someone who I assume is his son in a fur-lined university gown.
When I can breathe, and when I can trust my voice to be steady I say, ‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure.’ His voice is blunt.
He says nothing more, and I wonder if I should say something, if he’s expecting some kind of explanation or apology, so I open my mouth but he cuts me off.
‘I don’t wish to know any more about this matter,’ he says, dismissive. He is angry with me, I think, for not being the five-year-old girl any more. ‘You will be passed to a social worker. She will deal with you.’
‘How do you mean?’
He sighs, as if it is beneath him to discuss such things. ‘She will find you a place in a Mother and Baby Home. You will go there six weeks before you give birth and leave six weeks after. If you’re lucky, you may be able to conceal your condition from everyone until you go away.’
The word ‘birth’ makes me feel sick. I push it from my mind.
‘And then what? I mean, what will happen to it?’
‘The Home will sort out the adoption for you.’
‘And I can pretend it never happened?’
‘I think that’s for the best.’
‘Twelve weeks?’ I say. ‘What about school? My A-levels?’
I think of Sister Mary Francis. Will they tell her? She’ll think she was right all along about me. Arrogant. Too clever for my own good.
‘I rather think you should have thought about that before, don’t you? In the meantime you may wish to try gin and hot baths. Don’t be tempted to try knitting needles or crochet hooks, though. I had a patient die last year. Haemorrhaged. She was younger than you.’
He scribbles on a piece of paper.
‘This is who you need to contact.’ He hands the piece of paper to Mum rather than to
me and then carries on writing.
He doesn’t say goodbye.
When I get to the door I say, ‘You were very kind to me when I was a little girl. When I had measles. You said I had spirit.’ He had said it as if it was a good thing to have; no one else had ever said it like that before. The ice cream had been like a reward for it.
He pauses briefly but does not look up. Then he carries on writing. I wonder if he even remembers the ice cream.
I’m sitting opposite Gloria in an olde worlde café in the middle of Cambridge while she examines the menu. Having decided to stay, Gloria announced she wanted to spend the day sightseeing so we’ve traipsed around colleges and museums. It’s unbelievably hot and the place is packed with tourists. I can’t think about anything except Gloria’s revelation that she had a baby. At first I couldn’t believe it, but then it began to make sense. No wonder me turning up had reminded her of her own past. I’m dying to know more, but she’s steadfastly refused to say anything more about it. I haven’t wanted to push her in case she decides she wants to go home again but my mind has been full of questions. What happened to her baby? Had it been adopted? Is that what this whole trip is about? Has she found her son or daughter and that’s why we’re going to Whitby – to see them? I’m excited at the thought, that there might be a reunion, before it’s too late for Gloria. And what did Sam say when she told him about the baby? But any time I’ve even hinted at these questions Gloria has ignored me and pointedly changed the subject. Now we’re in the café I try again.
‘So?’ I say to Gloria as she looks at the menu.
‘So what?’
‘So . . . what happened? What did he say when you told him?’
‘Told who?’
Again I find myself wondering whether she really can’t remember what we were talking about or whether she’s just trying to avoid the question. I look at her to see whether there’s a clue in her expression, but she’s holding the menu up in front of her so that I can’t see her face.
‘Sam,’ I say. ‘Remember, we were talking about when you found out you were pregnant. What did Sam say when you told him?’
‘Scones might be nice,’ she said. ‘If they’re not too dry. I can’t abide a dry scone.’
‘Was he happy? I mean, I know he must have been shocked but it was what he wanted, right?’
‘Or carrot cake.’
‘Gloria!’ I try not to let my frustration show in my voice because I don’t really know why I’m so desperate to know what happened, and also if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last week it’s that the more Gloria thinks someone wants her to do something, the less likely she is to do it. ‘Do you not want to tell me?’
She puts down the menu and looks at me.
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ she says, her voice flat. ‘I never saw him again after that day.’
I stare at her. I’m so shocked that for a moment I can’t speak. The waitress comes and takes our order and I’m so busy thinking about what Gloria’s told me that I just sit there and she orders for me.
‘No,’ I say, once the waitress has gone. ‘I don’t understand. He can’t have.’
Gloria just stares out of the window as if I haven’t spoken.
‘He can’t have abandoned you. Not Sam. He wouldn’t do that.’
Gloria still doesn’t say anything, just sits and hums quietly to herself. I tell myself not to push it. It’s not fair. Just because it all happened a long time ago doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt to think about it. Maybe she’s changed her mind. Maybe she doesn’t want it all dragged up after all. Or maybe she does, but in her own time.
We sit there in silence for a while and I become aware of the family next to us, with a baby in a highchair and a screechy toddler. The baby is dribbling regurgitated chocolate cake down its chin. I’m grateful when the waitress brings our order.
‘What shall we do after this? We’ve done a lot of walking. We could just go back to the bed and breakfast. Or a film? Do you like the cinema? Or just go and find a pub by the river before dinner?’
‘Yes,’ she says half-heartedly, and gives me one of those looks that makes me doubt not only whether she’s listening, but whether she’s completely sure who I am.
‘What did he actually say?’
‘Young lady,’ Gloria says loudly to the waitress as she passes. ‘Could you bring us another pot of tea? This one is chipped. I’m not paying good money to drink tea out of a chipped pot.’
I think about the fetid state of Gloria’s kitchen and attempt to give her a stern look, which she pretends not to notice. I smile apologetically at the waitress, knowing what I’d feel like saying if a customer said this to me at the Happy Diner, what I’d say to Mack and Big Jim about them afterwards. The waitress ignores me and sullenly takes away the teapot without a word.
‘Gloria,’ I whisper. ‘It’s not her fault.’
Gloria doesn’t say anything, and I suspect her of having said it just to change the subject.
‘So what happened? What did you say to him? What did he say to you? You can’t just have left it like that?’
‘Can’t I? You seem to know an awful lot about it all of a sudden. About what people should and shouldn’t have said or done.’
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘It was a long time ago,’ she says. ‘More than half a century. I can’t remember who said what to whom. I’m senile, remember? I can’t remember who the prime minister is.’
‘Well, he’s not very memorable, to be fair. But . . .’ I try to work out what she’s telling me. ‘But he wanted to marry you. What about everything he’d imagined? Little Vivienne and Danny? This was what he wanted, wasn’t it? I thought he’d be over the bloody moon. I thought he’d be marching you up the aisle before you could say “shotgun wedding”.’
‘You don’t have a clue what it was like back then.’
‘So tell me.’
‘Well, for a start you couldn’t get married in those days under the age of twenty-one without your parents’ permission.’
‘Seriously? Well, couldn’t you have run away together? Eloped, or whatever?’
She concentrates on flattening crumbs on her plate with her fork.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘What was it like then?’
She stares out of the window again, and is silent for so long that I think perhaps she’s forgotten I’m there, or what we were talking about. It happens sometimes, this losing of the thread. I can’t tell when it’s the dementia, or when it’s just a convenient way of changing the subject.
She turns to me. ‘Could you find me an ashtray, dear? They’ve forgotten to put one on our table.’
I try not to roll my eyes.
‘Gloria,’ I say patiently, ‘you can’t smoke in cafés any more. I explained it all to you at the Savoy when you shouted at the poor barman for asking you not to, remember?’
‘Did I?’ she says vaguely. ‘I’ll just pop outside then.’
She picks up her bag, and as she weaves her way through the chintzy tablecloths I can’t help feeling I’ve been had, and that she engineered it as a way to stop the conversation. The waitress plonks a fresh pot of tea down on the table in front of me.
‘There,’ she says, making it sound like an accusation.
‘Sorry,’ I say, thinking of the number of times I’ve smiled sweetly at a rude Happy Diner customer, while imagining tipping the contents of the tray I’m carrying into their lap. ‘She doesn’t mean anything by it. She’s not very well.’
The waitress tuts and gives me a what-do-I-care look and I feel defensive of Gloria suddenly. The more time I spend with her, the more I think that she’s most likely to be a total pain in the bum when she’s feeling most vulnerable. Like an armadillo defending itself by rolling itself up into a ball so that only its hard shell shows. Well, a bit like that. I watch Gloria’s back and imagine her
face if she knew that in my head I was comparing her to an armadillo.
Am I right? Is it defensiveness, because she’s feeling scared? Or am I just projecting onto her the characteristics I think she ought to have, like Ollie used to with his pet rat before it died? I’d explained to him that animals felt things differently to us, that we couldn’t imagine how they saw the world. (He’d looked at me pityingly.) But we do it all the time with people. Give them feelings that are ours, imagine they’re feeling what we would, or what we think they ought to, when really they might not be at all.
Is that what I do with Reuben? Do I give him credit for being more than he is? Let him off for being an insensitive idiot because I know there’s more going on underneath? Or think I know . . .
I scoop a forkful of Gloria’s untouched carrot cake into my mouth and chew it thoughtfully. Maybe that’s what happened with Sam. Maybe Gloria let herself believe that he was honest and kind and in love with her because she wanted him to be. Everything she’s told me about him makes me think he was in love with her, that he’d have done anything for her. But maybe she’s not even remembering it right. What was it she’d said about memories? Some are real. Some are made up. But they are the stories that tell us who we are.
But still, I feel shocked at the thought of it, of seventeen-year-old Gloria going to tell the man she loved that she was having his baby, and then – for whatever reason – never seeing him again. In fact, I don’t just feel shocked, I feel shaken. How could he have done that to her? Had they argued? Had he pretended to be pleased and then done a runner? None of it makes sense.
The carrot cake is delicious and when I look down at the plate I realize I’ve eaten most of it without noticing. No wonder my jeans are feeling so tight.
I don’t know. I can’t help feeling Gloria’s not telling me everything. There are so many gaps. Why doesn’t she want to talk about it?
I turn back round to the window and Gloria’s gone.
‘So what happened? What did he say when you told him?’
She sits there, the girl – Hattie – wide-eyed, waiting for me to tell her the next instalment. It is just a story to her. Something that happened so long ago it has no relevance now, no real meaning. It is not her fault. Perhaps it was a mistake, coming on this journey. Perhaps the past should be left where it is, buried and allowed to disappear.
How Not to Disappear Page 16
