Sweets From Morocco

by Jo Verity

  ‘No. She thought it was hilarious. I expect they gave that Hulbert chap a hard time, mind you. She said he was pretty disappointed when he discovered that they didn’t have a cellar. And to clinch it, they had a rock solid alibi for that whole weekend. Their boiler had packed in and they’d been staying in a hotel while it was being replaced.’

  Lewis raised his eyebrows. ‘You want to go to Cranwell Lodge? Isn’t that a rather prosaic outing for someone from the metropolis?’

  ‘You tell me. I’ve a sneaky feeling that these visits to Cranwell Lodge are what’s keeping you in this Godforsaken town.’

  He glanced away. ‘Now you’re being downright silly.’

  ‘Let’s go tomorrow and then I can judge for myself.’

  Chapter 16

  Tessa closed the door and flicked on the light. Furniture, curtains, wallpaper, rug next to the bed – all the same. She dragged her finger across the surface of the bedside table, expecting to find five years accumulation of dust deposited on it, but her skin remained clean. Her mother came in to clean the room, yet she had moved nothing, not even the bedside lamp. Tessa opened the wardrobe. There were her clothes, or more accurately the ones which Lewis hadn’t stuffed into the duffle bag. And on the hangers at the far end, her school uniform. Whilst she had been going from bedsit to bedsit, lover to lover, this room had been holding its breath, lying in wait for her. She shivered.

  Undressing quickly, she took her dressing gown from the hook on the back of the door, slipped it on, and got into bed. The sheets were cold and she drew her feet up, enveloping them in the hem of the dressing gown. Her head throbbed. It was hours since she’d had a cigarette. Earlier that afternoon she’d tried to open the window, thinking to lean out and puff the telltale smoke away, but the winter rain must have caused the frame to swell and it wouldn’t budge. She reached for her handbag and took out the vodka bottle, shaking it to confirm that it was empty, but raising the bottle to her lips anyway, tipping it to get the last drops.

  She’d considered sending a wreath and making some excuse – work or holiday – but she had been fond of her grandmother. Gran had done her best for them when their mother suffered her first breakdown. Tessa wanted to acknowledge that, and also to ensure that the real Gran, not a fictitious paragon framed by some vicar’s imagination, got a mention before she was consigned to family history.

  It was a while since she’d seen Lewis – last summer, in fact, when he’d come to London to watch a chess tournament and they’d had a meal together near Paddington. She loved being with him but it was risky. His face, his hands, the way he spoke; his cautious response to events; his interest in the physical world; his na•ve faith in the system. Lewis the man was Lewis the boy and he still had the ability to breach the defences she’d spent years building around her heart.

  She wondered if her mother was asleep. What must it feel like when one’s mother dies? Death, drawing a thick black line across the page, signalled the instant when nothing more can be said even if there is more to say. Her parents, in their own way, had tried to look after her. They simply hadn’t been much good at it. One day, when she was successful and had justified the upheaval surrounding her leaving, she might feel able to let them all back in to her life.

  Jay had sulked when she’d phoned to let him know that she wouldn’t be back until the following evening. But she could hardly be blamed if her grandmother’s funeral clashed with one of his sporadic visits to London. Then, when he’d put the pressure on, saying that he might not be free the following night, she’d told him that she’d take that chance. It was easy to be resolute when she couldn’t see his face or smell his musky sweat.

  She slept fitfully, waking when her father blew his nose, signalling the start of his morning ritual. She stayed where she was, beneath the tangle of blankets, picturing what was going on. Underwear, socks, vest and trousers on. Bathroom to wash and shave. Back to the bedroom for shirt, tie and shoes. Downstairs. Kitchen for a breakfast of cereal, toast and tea. Comb his hair. Jacket on. Out of the front door immediately after the news headlines.

  Tessa went downstairs at ten-to-eight – enough time to say her goodbyes but not enough to start a fight.

  ‘Your mother’s not been sleeping well but she’s dropped off now.’ He was pouring a cup of tea and she noticed a blob of white foam beneath his ear lobe.

  ‘D’you still wet shave, Dad?’

  He sighed. ‘Go on. Tell me I’m a dinosaur.’

  When she was five or six, she used to sit on the edge of the bath, watching as he whipped up shaving foam with the stubby brush and lathered his face, waiting for the moment when he dragged the razor down his cheeks, revealing tracts of smooth skin beneath the froth. Best of all, she loved the way he distorted his mouth, pulling it this way and that, stretching the skin so that he could get at the bit under his nose and the depression below his lower lip. At the weekend, when he wasn’t in a rush, he sometimes removed the razor blade and let her pull the empty razor across her own soapy face.

  ‘Not at all. It’s … nice. It’s … very masculine.’

  ‘It’s good to know I can do something right.’

  He put his suit jacket on and she reached out to wipe the shaving soap from his face. ‘Bye, Dad.’

  ‘Goodbye, Tessa. See you…’

  He turned and she was sure he was going to add something but he raised his index finger to his forehead in an odd little salute and he was gone.

  ‘Does Dad know you’re skiving?’ Tessa asked Lewis when he came down for breakfast.

  ‘I told him I’m not feeling well.’

  She yawned and stretched her arms above her head. ‘It’s sad. A grown man scared of his father.’

  ‘I am not scared of him. But I’m the one who has to live here. It’s too bloody exhausting to be in a constant state of confrontation.’

  She grinned. ‘Just keeping you on your toes. Fancy bacon and eggs? Or will we be flogged for having a fry up on a week day?’

  Peggy Swinburne, still in her nightdress and dressing gown, appeared in the kitchen. ‘Something smells good.’

  Tessa put extra bacon in the frying pan and took a third egg from the carton.

  Her mother looked thinner and greyer than when she’d last seen her a few weeks ago. Tessa had chanced to telephone and, hearing how ill Doris Lloyd was, had made a brief visit, going straight from the station to the hospital. Her mother was already there and had pressed her to go back to the house but, although Tessa had her toothbrush and a change of underwear in her bag, she’d chickened out, saying that she needed to be at work first thing next morning.

  They tucked into breakfast, teasing Lewis for burning the toast and not putting enough tea in the pot.

  Tessa screwed her face up. ‘It’s like dishwater.’

  ‘You’re lucky I’m here to make your wretched tea,’ Lewis countered. ‘I shouldn’t be.’

  Their mother set down her knife and fork and patted their hands. ‘Maybe not, but it’s lovely to have you both here. It’ll do me more good than all those pills.’

  The morning wore on and Tessa became twitchy. Yesterday the focus of attention had been the funeral but, now that it was over, she feared that the spotlight might be re-directed at her.

  Peggy Swinburne disappeared for a while and returned clutching a battered shoe box. ‘I thought we might go through these. I ought to explain who they all are.’

  The box contained the family photographs which only came out when a significant event took place. Tessa’s craving for a cigarette made the prospect of a couple of hours with sepia-tinted relatives inconceivable. ‘I was thinking I might pop to the shops, Mum. Make myself useful. Get some food in for you.’

  ‘Why don’t we all go?’ Lewis intervened. ‘Mum can do the shopping and we can haul it home.’

  Peggy Swinburne looked anxious. ‘Gran and I shop on a Friday … used to shop, I mean.’ She pressed her fingertips against her mouth.

  It took some time but they eventuall
y convinced her that it would do her good to get out of the house.

  ‘Let’s go now,’ Tessa said, ‘While she’s asleep. We won’t be more than an hour. I’ll come back here for a cup of tea and get the six-fifteen train. I’ll be gone before Dad gets home. We parted amicably and I’d rather quit while I’m ahead. Come on.’

  ‘You’ll freeze in that thin coat. Here, borrow this.’ Lewis draped his old donkey jacket around her shoulders and they left the house.

  Her bicycle was still in the shed and in surprisingly good condition considering its years of inactivity. Lewis found an old towel and wiped the worst of the grime off the saddle and handlebars, pumped up the tyres and they set off. She trailed behind her brother, glancing at their old home as they rode down Medway Avenue but the biting wind caused her eyes to water fiercely and she could hardly make it out through the blur of tears.

  Cranwell Lodge, leafless shrubs clustering around the old house like skeletons of creatures that had perished whilst in the act of protecting it, looked forbidding in the murky afternoon. They left their cycles by the gate and Lewis led the way to the back of the house, past piles of roof slates stacked against the wall, the Belfast sink at the top of the steps up to the garden, the pulley for a long-perished clothes line fixed to the brickwork near the door. A crow that had been hunched on the chimney stack let out a hoarse cry and swooped away.

  ‘Shit.’ Tessa jumped, grabbing Lewis’s sleeve.

  He took a key from his pocket then paused. ‘Perhaps I’d better knock. She won’t be expecting me and I don’t want to frighten her.’

  ‘You’ve got your own key?’ Tessa raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Yes. It seemed sensible for someone to have one.’

  ‘It’s more serious than I thought, then.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Your relationship with her.’

  ‘My relationship? You make it sound as if she’s my girlfriend or something.’

  ‘No, Lewis. Your girlfriend is Kirsty what’s-it – remember? – that girl you don’t want me to meet.’

  He rapped on the door and they waited in silence. An indistinct form appeared beyond the glass. The bolts rattled and Mrs Channing opened the door.

  ‘It’s only me,’ Lewis said. ‘I’ve brought my sister to see you.’

  ‘How can it be “only me” if there are two of you?’ Her voice was thin and high pitched, her words perfectly articulated.

  Tessa moved close to her brother as if this might meld them together and thus disprove the old lady’s caustic observation.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Channing. Lewis is playing hooky this afternoon. We were hoping we could hide here for a while.’

  ‘Your brother isn’t the only one who has been playing truant, I believe.’ The old lady fixed her with a steady stare. ‘You’d better come in.’

  ‘That’s put me in my place,’ Tessa whispered as they followed Mrs Channing through the austere kitchen.

  The room beyond was, as Lewis had promised, essentially unchanged but it was no longer the magic cavern that it had been to her ten-year-old self. The stains on the rugs, the tatty fringe on the lampshades and the discoloured wallpaper might have been there in nineteen fifty-four but what child notices shortcomings in housekeeping? Mrs Channing, although unmistakable, was a desiccated version of the person Tessa remembered. Her white hair stood away from her head like a puff of dandelion seeds, so sparse that it failed to conceal her baby-pink scalp; her colourless face, wrinkles running in all directions, resembled crazed pottery; translucent skin stretched taut over the bulbous joints of her skinny hands. Everything else was hidden beneath a blue satin dressing gown, badly in need of washing.

  They drank stale sherry. Tessa noticed how Lewis, when asked to fetch the glasses and a packet of Marie biscuits, went straight to them, without needing directions. He stoked the fire without being told – an intimate and assertive act. He was at home here.

  ‘How fortunate that you came today.’ Mrs Channing raised her index finger. ‘I need a hand to move some more boxes.’

  Lewis stood up but Tessa hesitated, unsure if she were included.

  ‘You, too, young woman. No doubt you’re curious to see what lies beyond that door.’ The old lady pointed to the door leading into the hall.

  The hall was startlingly cold, as was the high-ceilinged room which led off it. A wooden dining table, straight-sided with semicircular ends, dominated the room. Eight chairs with studded leather backs encircled it. Two cardboard boxes and a collection of china sat on the table, surrounded by a sea of crumpled newspaper. Thirty or forty similar boxes, stacked two or three high, extended along the wall opposite the generous bay window.

  ‘Now take those,’ Mrs Channing pointed at the two boxes, ‘and put them with the others over there. Gently, mind. Gently.’

  ‘Are you moving?’ Tessa asked as she and Lewis edged crab-wise across the room, carrying the boxes between them.

  ‘No. I’m being realistic. When I die, which can’t be too distant an event, I want whoever has the unenviable task of disposing of my worldly goods to have an inkling of their history and their value. See.’ She indicated a white label pasted on the side of one of the boxes. Written in neat, ornate script was a summary of its contents. ‘Dinner Service: 1911: Wedding present: Never used.’

  Tessa shook her head. ‘But you must know who that’s going to be. You must have written a will.’ It was the pitiless remark a child might make, but the old lady had been abrupt with her and it was unlikely that they would meet again.

  ‘I don’t, as a matter of fact.’ Her face was expressionless. ‘Lewis, come with me. I need your opinion on the bathroom tap. It’s dripping.’

  Tessa felt put out. Why had Lewis kept his involvement with the old lady from her? Whenever she thought about her brother, she pictured him at school, standing in front of a blackboard, or in the living room watching telly with her mother, or mooning around with his invisible girlfriend. She hadn’t dreamed that he was popping up here to Cranwell Lodge, making himself at home.

  Snubbed and deserted, she crept across the hall and opened the door to the room opposite. It was a sitting room – high-ceilinged and even bigger than the dining room. Two button-backed sofas and several matching armchairs were grouped around a flamboyant fireplace. Several pieces of furniture – a desk, various tables, a sideboard, a cabinet – were dotted around the walls. A glass chandelier, looking too heavy for the slender chains supporting it, hung from the centre of the ceiling. Woven rugs, intricately patterned in dark reds, deep blues and rusty bronzes, covered the woodblock floor. But the mantelpiece, the glass-fronted cabinet and the sideboard, in fact everywhere that she might expect there to be ornaments and knick-knacks, were bare. The walls, too, were devoid of pictures, rectangles of un-faded wallpaper all that indicated their earlier presence. Mrs Channing had been very busy indeed.

  Voices rumbled on upstairs and Tessa walked around the room, willing the ghosts of the past to speak with her, to tell her what had gone on, thirty, forty, fifty years ago, in this now lifeless room. But she was disappointed. Pausing at a compact, upright desk, she flapped the leaf down, delighted to find that its contents were still in place. Writing paper and envelopes. A bottle of black ink. A wooden ruler. Scissors. A fountain pen – mottled green with a gold clip and lever, rather masculine in scale and design, the very sort a writer might use. She imagined it, wrapped in yellowing newspaper and tossed in a cardboard box. Such a waste. She slipped it into her handbag and replaced the leaf.

  Opening the drawer beneath, she revealed a cache of leather-bound books. Diaries. The desk drawer was filled with diaries. She pictured the exotic bric-a-brac that had once cluttered the breakfast room and which was now consigned to the cardboard boxes. The old lady had clearly led an intriguing life. Lewis and she were as thick as thieves but even if he were privy to the details of Mrs Channing’s past he hadn’t let on. It would be typical of him to promise not to tell and then to keep his word.

  She
took a diary from the top of the pile and flicked through it. Its flimsy pages were crammed with minute writing, illegible without a magnifying glass. If Lewis couldn’t or wouldn’t tell her she would find out for herself.

  A floorboard creaked overhead and she took a handful of the little books, stuffing them deep in the pocket of her borrowed coat. Mrs Channing might be a stickler for good grammar but anyone who put a dead parrot out with the weekly rubbish wasn’t averse to breaking the rules. She had probably done far more outrageous things in her long lifetime than reading someone else’s diary. Tessa would fathom out how to get the diaries back into Cranwell Lodge once she’d studied them. Lewis might even be persuaded to help if she could coax him down off his high horse.

  ‘Lewis, we should be going,’ she shouted up the stairs, keen to escape with her booty.

  When they got back, their mother was waking from her nap. She told them that she’d slept soundly and was feeling better. The box of photographs sat stubbornly in the centre of the table and Tessa, accepting that this would be the least challenging, if not the most appealing, way to occupy what remained of the afternoon, sat next to her mother nodding at the convoluted family roll call whilst wondering where Jay Costello might be at that very minute.

  At five o’clock she went upstairs. Shutting herself in her bedroom, she lifted the foot of the bed, dragged it through ninety degrees then pushed it hard up against the wall. Next, she put the table, which she had once used as a desk, next to the bed, with the chest of drawers alongside it and the lamp on top of that. The wardrobe was too heavy to move and had to stay where it was but she took a sheet off the bed, spread it on the floor and piled all her clothes and shoes on it, drawing in the corners and tying them together to form an outsized bundle. She tipped the contents of the bedside drawer into a pillowcase, tying the top quickly, denying herself the chance to revisit the moment when she had severed her connection with her life here. Finally, on the scrap of wallpaper which had lined the drawer she wrote, ‘LEWIS. Please see that the pillowcase goes straight in the bin. This lot can go to the rag man’ and pinned it to the bundle.