Faith Fox

by Jane Gardam

  Jocasta closed her eyes and concentrated on the Good. She emptied her mind of images, sounds, scents, tastes, sensations. She lifted herself out of her body until she was out of the chapel. Not outside in the snow, nor above it in the icy air, but higher, higher, farther towards the moon, towards the moon, towards the sun, beyond the sun, approaching the dark that she knew would one day take her, envelop her, twist her and at last fling her out into everlasting knowledge, the presence of Truth. Beyond prayer, beyond words, Jocasta sat asking nothing, being nothing, wanting nothing, hoping nothing.

  Philip, looking across at her from the pew where he sat with Emma, saw that she was no longer there with Jack, with Andrew, with him, with anyone. He didn’t care. What’s a mother? Faith hadn’t got one. She was OK. All this was for her. All these people. Even Ernie. And Alice back again. Card games again. He wasn’t mad about that. He was with Emma now. Boarding. ‘I am Jocasta’s son.’ Oh great. Tell us another. Where’s Nick? Happy Christmas, I don’t think. Stupid old Jack, but Emma says it’s just because he’s so holy. He doesn’t see what’s under his nose. I love Emma. I love Emma. Who wants a mother?

  ‘Did you say Amen?’ asked Emma of Susannah. ‘Say Amen, Philip.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Philip and under his breath: ‘Ah bloody men.’ Alice looks awful. I wonder what’s up.

  ‘Salley, Salleeeeee, Pride of our Alleeeee,’ shouted the great and glorious voice of Gracie Fields in Alice’s ears. Alice turned her collar up and shrank into it, her pointed face lined and drawn, her eyes tight shut, her knobbed hands clasped in prayer. Jack was strong on that. You pray properly, not lolling about like that postman or that great tussock in the turquoise-blue bomber jacket from the pub, bossing them all about—wonder they get any customers at all. Now then, tired, yes, but let’s get to grips. Dear god, thank you for all the experiences of these past days, particularly the opportunity of seeing Thy works in other places, and so that I can pray for all them stuck in London on the trains and in the streets, bundled in plastic bags, God help them. Also I pray for that gorilla feller and that fat lass with the trolley never able to get up and down in the lift for water owing to the wastage of electricity. God bless that fond Madeleine in her trouble she’ll come through, being so good at acting. God bless the general. Very kind of him coming out so early to get me off that bus. Very good manners, poor old soul, with his little moustache. Paid the taxi and would have paid the fare down, I’m not a pauper. God bless Henry Jones and his friend Jerry. You meet some funny people, but we had some laughs. ‘Come back,’ says Henry. ‘Plenty of work down here. They’re in their dotage. It’s an old folks home, this place, but they’ve plenty of money and they understand service. They’re very nice, and many with titles.’ I took to Henry Jones and I’ll flatter myself he took to me. Dozy place, though, nothing going on, not like a farm or here or back in Lancashire. God bless Mother and Father and that cat. God rest their souls, all of them. Yes. And God bless our Philip and I didn’t like not saying goodbye. He’s looking peaky—we’ll have a hand of cards on Boxing Day. Who’s all these people he’s in among? It’s that Emma at the school. Like the Ovaltine girl. Reminds me of that Holly. Well, no Dolly and Toots. And no Andrew. No loss. No general. No loss either. That general’s down with Madeleine, seeing to her. In her grief They can’t be together in the house with his chair still in the sitting room, it’ll be a hotel. Expensive. Best of luck. Well, Puffy. He’s out of his chains. Gone. God bless him. It wasn’t the sausages. Last thing he said was, ‘Don’t blame yourself, Alice.’ Perfect gentleman. I liked that man, God. I’d have stayed with him. Noticed me more than Jack ever did. Funny so damaged. So deep, deep sick, so pinned down hand and foot and neck—like that Gulliver. My Puffy. My Puffy. Made me put on that gramophone. Damn near forced me. Threatened me till I put it on. ‘Salleeeee in our Alleeee’. ‘A grand Lancashire lass,’ he said. ‘You remind me of her, Alice,’ and he laughs, wheeze, wheeze, while I carries on and on. ‘You love her really,’ he says. ‘All that sound coming out. All that life. You would have liked to be Gracie Fields, Alice Banks.’ Then he’d call out, ‘Where are you, Gracie?’ He’d laugh till the tears came. Dear God, I’m missing the funeral, but no odds. He was mine for a while. I loved him. And he loved me, so there. Forgive me, dear God, for loving another woman’s husband. I’ve nothing against her. She’s South, that’s all. South and posh and daft. God bless us all. ‘Amen.’

  ‘Amen,’ said Jack. ‘Will you all please sit. Philip, will you go now to the cradle and be ready. Nick? Where is he? Disappeared. Well, perhaps you, Ernie, then, would be ready with the lighting. Jimmie—how good to see you—could you hold the other end of the, er, backcloth, and be ready to unroll it?’

  Mr. Middleditch and Jimmie unrolled the backcloth. Philip, after a couple of nudges and ‘Go on, you’ll be fine,’ from Emma, walked to the back of the chapel, towards the cradle in the semidark.

  ‘All lights out, please,’ said Jocasta. Now only the light of the snow shone blue at the windows. The tiny flames of the paraffin heaters spluttered. ‘Right, switch on.’

  The great, blazing, triumphant celebration of birth burst over the tatty chapel. Everyone gasped. In a moment, whispers. ‘Look at that. It’s Ernie.’ ‘Look, it’s her—the woman up at the ridge hotel. Look, that’s the postman. Isn’t Jocasta terrific? She’s a genius. Look at the background. Look at the moors spread behind.’ ‘No. It’s not moors. It’s real high mountains. It’s the Himalayas. Look, that space in the middle, it’s like a great eye.’

  ‘Philip,’ Jack called. ‘Right? Bring her up, boy, come along.’

  Philip was standing behind the crib at the back of the chapel aisle. He was looking down into the lute-shaped nest. He was rubbing one leg against the other, his arms hanging down, his hair over his eyes. Everyone was turning to watch him. Behind his glasses he was staring steadily, deeply, thoughtfully, into the cot. Then he ran back down the aisle and pushed himself along a pew and in beside Jocasta. He flung himself at her, held her tight with both arms and placed his head in her bosom. A sob, then a great yell of pain, came from him.

  Emma quickly ran up from her pew to the cot-cradle and looked in, then looked desperately towards her husband. Alice Banks stood black-eyed, grim, beside the electrified Middleditches, facing Jack and the altar, not looking round. It was Thomasina who pushed Emma aside.

  ‘Jack,’ she called. ‘Faith’s not here. The crib is empty.’

  CHRISTMAS EVE–AND–CHRISTMAS MORNING

  On the late afternoon of Christmas Eve Toots and Dolly were watching television. They had not closed the curtains over the big Victorian windows of Toots’s room and the night shone blackly in. If they switched off the main light—which they seldom did, Toots saying that he liked to see what he was doing even if it was nothing at all—the white patches on the grass could be seen outside and snowflakes still falling thickly all the time. Each had been thinking to draw the curtains but somehow had gone on watching the coloured square, the glitter of a leg-show, a comedian with the face of a horse, advertisements for cars, autumn leaves falling in Spain, Father Christmases dancing in line in Rome. Then the news at six, then the soap that they both enjoyed because there was no unpleasantness in it, not like EastEnders. The programmes for the rest of the evening went up.

  ‘Christmas Eve. No better than any other night,’ said Toots. ‘Same stuff, only worse.’

  ‘Now, we had the wireless carols at three o’clock. They never let you down, King’s College Chapel.’

  ‘It’s because you can’t see them. It puts you off, seeing them. I’ve seen a lot of boys. I can see through ruffs and cassocks.’

  ‘They sing like angels.’

  ‘I never saw an angel.’

  ‘It’s heavenly. There’s nothing like it.’

  ‘I can’t get to grips with heavenly. Shut the curtains, Dorothy.’

  ‘Dorothy—well I never! What do you want fo
r supper, Tom?’

  They sat on, watching a newsflash about the weather.

  ‘Well, there was no two ways about it in the end,’ she said. ‘Andrew couldn’t possibly have come up in this today. I dare say nobody else will have come, either. If they’re there, they’ll be stuck. They’ll be stuck for all the holiday. Thank goodness I was firm with him. It would have been sheer bravado.’

  ‘Aye. We’re fine our two selves.’

  ‘I think, mind you, Toots, it’ll be Mrs. Middleditch’s tomorrow. Be ready for it. Don’t create. She’ll cook a lovely dinner. You’re not to complain.’

  ‘I’ll not complain. I never complain. She’s a good woman. Just a bit close to home. I’ll take them a bottle of sherry.’

  ‘Yes. At least. All she does for us.’

  ‘One bottle’s about right. I thought I saw her today in that car going off with Arnold somewhere.’

  ‘They’d never go out in this.’

  ‘It was her. About four o’clock. Have you tried Jack again?’

  ‘They’re still out of order. Did you say eggs?’

  ‘No, I’ll not bother.’

  ‘Now you must eat, Toots.’

  ‘Well, a bit of bread and butter. I wonder if Holly’s mother got north? Not very likely.’

  ‘No. It’ll be a bad time for her this year. Toots?’ ‘Yes.’

  ‘I could do with Holly walking in.’

  ‘It seems early for it, but I think I might just as well go to bed. There’ll be nobody coming tonight. Not many at the Midnight; there’ll be no calling in before or after.’

  ‘No stockings to fill now,’ said Dolly.

  ‘Not for thirty years. They used to give us one.’

  ‘Andrew did. Jack always forgot, bless him.’ They thought of all the years with Jack in his wilderness, then of Andrew going, then Andrew’s triumphant return with Holly.

  ‘I always made up a stocking for Holly, even last year when she was away,’ said Dolly. ‘Sellotape and sticky labels and writing paper and a book of stamps. I posted it. A tube of Glymiel jelly for her hands. Hard to find. You’d have thought it was diamonds.’

  ‘She’d have brought Faith up right,’ said Toots. ‘Thank-you letters and that. Like her own mother did her. By God, Dolly, it’s a bloody awful condition, humanity. Everyone dying except the ones you’d never miss, and not a body coming in to see you.’

  ‘There’s someone coming now. I heard the gate.’

  ‘Well, I hope the door’s locked. It’s a terrible night. One thing, there’ll be no criminals out. By heaven, what a racket! They’re going to break the door down. Don’t open it, Dolly. Just ask through the vestibule.’

  Dolly first drew a shawl round her and then all the curtains across, leaving no cracks. The beating on the door increased; the bell pealed. She opened Toots’s door, unlocked the inner vestibule door, glazed red and blue and white, and stood in the icy space between it and the front door and called, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Let us in, Dolly, Chrissake, it’s Nick.’

  ‘Nick? Wait a minute.’

  ‘Don’t open it, now, unless you’re sure,’ Toots shouted. ‘We’re sitting ducks here.’

  Dolly undid the bolts and then turned the key of the mortice lock and found it troublesome. ‘We should have had this seen to. I don’t know. I’m getting so woolly-minded, I forgot. Just a minute, the sneck’s sticking.’

  ‘Dolly! Will yer hoory oop!’

  ‘I can’t. I’m sorry, Nick. Could you go round the back? No—wait a minute. Yes, it’s coming. Here we are. Oh, the snow. Whatever’s all this you’ve got? Now, you needn’t have bothered with presents, we didn’t expect . . .’

  Nick pushed past her, all snow and wet leather, carrying Faith’s old carrycot by its two handles. He dumped it on the carpet.

  ‘Whatever—Nick!’

  ‘I brung ’er. They was all over t’ place messing wi’ magic lanterns and that Pema’s gone barmy. The others is OK but they’re scared of that one. I was goin’ off wi’ them tonight but I didn’t. They’re away int van now. I was bribngin’ Faith ower t’ chapel and this Pema starts carryin’ on, wanted her away wi’ them int van, so I took off and brung ’er down ’ere. Put her int sidecar an’ brung ’er. It was ’er christening but they left that Pema to get ’er ready, never thought of ’er. Backcloths and tea. They get yer down, oop there. S’long, I’m goin’ to t’ pub.’

  ‘Nick. Nick. You can’t go. Whatever—they don’t know where she is. Nick—’

  The door slammed. In a moment they heard the bike start up. The cot lay on the floor between Toots’s bed and Dolly’s saggy chair. Toots was upright in the bed, wild-eyed.

  ‘Get Mrs. Middleditch. Get on that phone now. We can’t have this. What do we do? She may be dead.’

  Dolly got slowly down on her knees and looked into the carrycot, which seemed to be packed tight with a bale of coarse coloured cloth. She removed the plastic cover off the cot.

  ‘It’s wet through,’ she said, ‘but this carpet stuff is dry. I’ll have to ease her out.’

  ‘Now be careful. Use your senses. Don’t do anything. Maybe we should tell the police.’

  ‘Here we are,’ said Dolly. ‘Here we are.’ She got her fingers beneath the bundle and lifted it out and began to undo it. ‘Whatever’ve they dressed her in? Whatever is this? She’s in somebody’s old curtains and I sent up that robe of your mother’s a month ago. She’s got something hung on her front. It’s a bit of knitting on a card. Looks like a big eye. Here we are.’

  Faith emerged from her wrappings. She was wearing a pale-blue plastic spacesuit with a hood. Her round eyes were wide. She stared at Dolly attentively.

  ‘Toots, look at her. What eyes! Nothing wrong there. Let’s get her out of this common thing. She’s a big baby. However’d he squeeze her into this? She’s that solid.’

  ‘I tell you Dolly, get the police.’

  ‘Now then. Here we are. Look at this hair—it’s getting to curl. Toots, d’you see? You can see the marks of the waves coming. I think she’s losing a bit round the back. They rub it off first thing and then there’s more comes, beautiful. Isn’t she good? There now! That’s better, without all this clobber, far too hot. Look at those arms. And the hands. Toots, they’re your hands, I’d know them anywhere. Hello! Hello! Aren’t you lovely? Aren’t you beautiful, Faith. Faith. Just look at that mouth, Toots.’

  ‘Faith?’ said Toots climbing off the bed, hanging his legs down the side of it, with some dignity. ‘Faith? Faithy? Cock-a-doodle-doo.’

  ‘I must get her a feed. She’ll need a feed. I’ve got the milk powder and all the paraphernalia. I knew I should. Here, Toots, you’ll have to take her. And I had some nappies.’

  ‘You’ll never do it, Dolly. I tell you, ring someone up. We’re old people.’

  ‘I said take her. Here, sit in your chair and for goodness’ sake don’t stir. Here’s your frame in front of you. Now hold her.’

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘By Gad, what happens now? Yes, I’ve got her. Cock-a-doodle-doo.’

  Faith beheld her grandfather and frowned. A deep line appeared between the eyes. She looked away in disdain. Then she swung an arm up at him and biffed his jaw. Then she opened her mouth. The top lip was the apex of an isosceles triangle. Up it went, the mouth, opening, opening. Faith yawned.

  ‘She yawned, Dolly.’

  ‘She’s tired.’

  ‘I think she’s just waking up. My, she’s got big eyes. What’s happening now?’

  Faith’s mouth stayed open but she turned dark red, then purplish. Her eyes she shut tight. Her arms began to work up and down like creations on springs. From the mouth came a roar.

  ‘Here, Dolly, she’s crying. I can’t manage.’

  ‘You’ll have to manage. Hold on to her and don’t panic, I’m sterilising bottles. Rock her. She�
�ll never have been held in a chair like a Christian.’

  At nine o’clock Faith was still roaring and Dolly was pacing with her up and down. Toots was in torment. Though Dolly had shouted ‘No!’ he had rung Mrs. Middleditch. To no avail. He had rung the vicar, who was about his Christmas duties and on an answer machine. Toots left a wild and incomprehensible message.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with her.’

  ‘How do you know there’s nothing wrong with her?’

  ‘I know,’ said Dolly, the baby’s frantic small face contorted beneath her grandmother’s chin. ‘I know. I know a cry when it’s a pain and this is not a pain.’

  ‘What is it, then? They said she never cried. They said she was a quiet baby, the quietest anyone had ever known. Always half asleep.’

  Faith began to flail her fists. Dolly lifted her higher on her shoulder and Faith flung herself at Dolly’s chin and began to suck it. Dolly shouted with joy.

  ‘She’s just hungry. It’s the different sort of milk, I expect. They’ll have her on cows’ milk up there. I’ll try her with another bottle, but I’ll change her first.’

  ‘I’m getting out of here,’ said Toots. ‘This noise going on. You’ll never manage.’

  ‘No, you’re not. You can just help me. I’m lying her down on your bed while I go for some Harringtons I have somewhere and some talcum like they say they never use now—ridiculous! I’ve a baby-bath upstairs somewhere but I won’t risk it tonight with my legs. Hush now. Hush now.’