Camellia

by Lesley Pearse

  All Bert's good memories of Bonny faded at that moment.

  I'd like to be on my own for a few minutes, if you wouldn't mind,' Camellia said a little later. 'I mean before I have to identify Mum.'

  Bert nodded. He had intended to say that tomorrow morning was soon enough for that, but he had a feeling Camellia would rather take all the shocks in one day. 'I'll come back for you in half an hour,' he said as he stood up. Then turning on his heels he ushered Carter away with him.

  Once she was entirely alone, Camellia leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes, remembering the day she was told her father was dead. It was 14 March 1956. She was just six then and it was also the day her snug, predictable world started to fall apart.

  Aside from it being a particularly cold, windy morning, it started just like any other school day. She had porridge and a boiled egg for breakfast in the kitchen, and, while she ate, her mother plaited her hair and tied a neat ribbon bow on each end.

  She had been so proud of her mother then. Many people likened Bonny to Marilyn Monroe because of her identical blonde wavy hair, and her glamorous pencil skirts and tight sweaters. Camellia thought she was even prettier. Even now, at eight in the morning, she was dressed in a pink wool two-piece and high heels, her hair just perfect.

  'I hope this wind drops by tomorrow,' Bonny said as she adjusted the second ribbon. 'Daddy isn't a very good sailor.'

  John Norton was in Brussels attending a meeting about the unrest in Egypt which it seemed could close the Suez Canal and prevent oil tankers getting through. He had taken the car ferry from Dover on Monday morning and was due back on Friday.

  'I wish Daddy didn't have to go away all the time,' Camellia said wistfully. 'It would be nice if he came home every night.'

  Bonny smiled and ran one hand over her daughter's hair affectionately. She was sure that this trouble in the Middle East was just a storm in a teacup. But John was afraid it might end in a war and he'd been very tense and preoccupied for some weeks. Bonny thought her daughter had picked up on his anxiety and this was what had prompted her remark.

  'He'll be back for the weekend. If the weather's better, I expect he'll take you out on the marsh to see if there are any new-born lambs yet. I know Daddy would much rather be home with us too every night, but this is the way he earns his money, darling. He's a very important man.'

  When Camillia reached the top of Mermaid Street she turned. Bonny was still in the doorway, ready to wave one last time. Camellia waved and plodded on. The shops were just beginning to open, Mr Bankworth in the greengrocers waved and shouted for her to hold her hat on, and Mr Simmonds her special policeman friend rode past on his bicycle and tinkled his bell at her.

  All day the wind grew even stronger and it rattled the classroom windows. They learned the eight-times table and had a spelling test. Miss Grady gave them another ten words to learn by tomorrow morning, and said 'Woe betide anyone who couldn't spell them'.

  It was something of a surprise for Camellia to find mother wasn't waiting for her at the gates at half past three. She met her most days, and sometimes they went down to Norah's tearooms by the Landgate for crumpets and tea. But Camellia didn't mind, it gave her a chance to look in Woolworths. Bonny didn't like Woolworths much, she said the wooden floor made it smell funny, but Camellia overlooked that as she loved to look at all the sweets and lemonade powder in their glass compartments and watch the assistants weighing them up in cellophane bags. It was her ambition to work there when she was grown up, though Daddy always laughed when she said that and said he thought she could aim a little higher.

  As she walked down Mermaid Street, sometime after four, she sang Alma Cogan's 'Never do a Tango with an Eskimo'. It had been playing in Woolworths and she was determined to learn all the words so she could sing it to Daddy when he came home from Belgium.

  The second surprise of the day came when the front door was opened by Superintendent Willis. He was a friend of her parents and sometimes came with his wife to dinner, but until today she'd never seen him in his police uniform before. He was a big man with a raw red face as if he'd been out in the wind for weeks, but today he seemed bigger than ever, filling the small lobby inside the front door.

  'Hullo, Mr Willis,' she said, dumping her satchel on the floor. 'Where's Mummy?' Without giving him time to reply, she slipped in round him and into the living room.

  She knew something bad had happened the moment she saw her mother. She was sitting in an armchair, her slim shoulders hunched, just staring into the fire, she didn't even turn her head as her daughter came into the room. There was a young policewoman with fair fluffy hair sitting there too, but she jumped up, her face flushing pink as if she was embarrassed.

  'Mummy! What's wrong?' Camellia asked, rushing over to her mother, alarmed by her tear-stained face and puffy eyes. 'Has something happened? Why are the police here?'

  There was a moment's heavy silence. Camellia could hear the grandfather clock ticking and the coal on the fire crackling and she instantly sensed that all three adults had been so immersed in whatever the problem was that they'd forgotten she was due home from school.

  'Mummy?' She felt suddenly chilled to the bone. 'Tell me!'

  'Oh, darling! It's Daddy,' her mother said in a strange, strangled voice, and all at once she was sobbing, grabbing Camellia onto her lap and holding her so tightly, she could scarcely breathe.

  It was Mr Willis who explained what had happened. He crouched down in front of her and said Daddy had something he called a 'heart attack' while he was in Brussels.

  'But when's he coming home?' she asked in bewilderment, looking from Mr Willis's red face to the policewoman's white one, then back to her sobbing mother. 'He is coming home isn't he?'

  The man's big hand came down on her shoulder, it felt so very heavy and his usually jovial face seemed to sag. 'I'm afraid he won't ever come home again, sweetheart,' he said gruffly. 'You see, he died from the heart attack. Daddy's gone to live with Jesus.'

  Much later that night Camellia lay beside her sleeping mother in her parents' bed, and tried to make sense of everything she'd heard and observed in the last six or seven hours. It seemed like a bad dream, but yet she knew it wasn't. Dr Negus really had called and given her mother the medicine which had finally stopped her crying and sent her to sleep. Mrs Tully, the cleaning lady, was now sleeping in Camellia's bed and Granny was coming tomorrow to look after them. Although it was warm and cosy in the big bed and her mother's body comforting, Camellia couldn't go to sleep.

  There was enough light from from the street lamps out in Mermaid Street to see her parents' room clearly. Mirrored doors on the wardrobes reflected back more eerie light, Bonny's collection of perfume bottles on the dressing table glinted, and a white frothy negligee hanging behind the bedroom door looked ghostly. This room had always been a sanctuary to Camellia, both her parents' personalities were stamped firmly here, her Daddy's books and box of cufflinks beside his side of the bed, Mummy's hand cream and nail varnish by hers. Even the bed smelled of them both, a whiff of Daddy's hair oil on his pillow, perfume on Mummy's. At weekends Camellia always got into bed between them in the mornings and over a cup of tea all three would discuss jobs to be done, places they wanted to go. But now as she lay there, her father's scent filling her nostrils, snippets of overheard adult remarks made during the afternoon and evening buzzing in her head, all at once she understood that everything which just this morning had seemed so permanent and secure, was shattered.

  It was four weeks after her father's funeral when Camellia heard her mother and Granny arguing up in the big bedroom as she sat downstairs doing some crayoning. Camellia didn't want to listen, but she couldn't help it, their voices filled the small house.

  'I won't have you speaking to me like this,' Granny said, her voice quivering as if she were crying. 'I came here to help, but I can't do that unless you co-operate.'

  'Clear off back to London,' Bonny screamed at her. 'All you've done is criticise and fuss rou
nd me. I'm trying to get back to normal, but you won't let me.'

  'You can't go out wearing a pink dress so soon after being widowed,' Granny retorted. 'What will people think?'

  'I don't care what they think,' Bonny's voice rose even higher. 'I'm sick of looking like an old hag, sick of staying in with you while you clean, dust, wash and witter on like a frustrated mother hen. I'm sick of everything.'

  Camellia began to cry. She was slowly accepting that without Daddy nothing would ever be quite the same, but she couldn't understand why her mother was so nasty to Granny. She alone had made everything seem just a bit better, she cooked and cleaned, she took Camellia down to the swings on The Salts, took her to school and taught her to knit and sew in the evenings. She was a bit of a fusspot, but she was kind and loving.

  Until her father's death 'Granny' had just been the name of a faceless person who sent hand-knitted cardigans and beautifully dressed dolls for birthdays and Christmas. For some unexplained reason she hadn't visited before, at least not in Camellia's memory anyway, until her son-in-law's death. But now Camellia had got to know the old lady, she didn't want her to leave.

  'I will go home if that's what you want,' Granny said, but now her voice rose too as if she were losing her temper. 'I've never understood you, Bonny. I've given you everything, I never thought of myself. You're nothing but a selfish, hardhearted little baggage. Those tears aren't for John, just for yourself. You ought to get down on your knees and thank the Lord for the good years he gave you, for Camellia and your beautiful home. What did I have when Arnold died? A council house, a daughter who couldn't care less about me and a widow's pension. But I didn't mind about that, I just missed Arnold and I still do.'

  The quarrelling finally stopped, but it was some ten minutes before Granny came downstairs. She had put some powder on her face, but her eyes were still puffy. She smiled at Camellia sitting on the settee, but her weak attempt at normality didn't fool the bright six-year-old.

  'Don't go, Granny,' Camellia implored her. 'I' like you being here.'

  'I have to go, my lovely.' Granny flopped down on the settee and took her on her lap. 'Maybe Mummy will be better once I'm gone. She won't listen to me about anything, and I can't do any more.'

  Camellia had no argument to come back with. She cuddled into the woman's arms, wishing she could think of something to say to both older women to make things right.

  'How will we manage without you?' Camellia asked. It wasn't so long ago that her mother had stayed in bed all day, even now she left everything to Granny. 'Will Mummy make the meals and do the shopping again?'

  'I'm sure she will.' The older woman sniffed. 'She'll have to, won't she?'

  'I miss Daddy dreadfully,' Camellia blurted out, knowing somehow that saying such a thing to her mother would only irritate her still further. 'Will it always be like this?'

  She meant would the big hole he'd left in her life ever be filled? Would there ever be a night when she wouldn't remember how he always read her a goodnight story? Or a weekend when she didn't think of their walks together out on the marsh. Mummy had never taken as much interest in what she did at school, about her friends, or even what she thought about as Daddy did. She had tried to stop thinking about these things, but she couldn't.

  'It will get better,' Granny said firmly. 'I can't promise it will overnight and all those memories of your daddy will stay in your mind, because they're special ones and you'll want to hang onto them. But you will find they don't hurt so much soon.'

  'Were you like Mummy when Grandpa died?' Camellia asked.

  'No, I didn't make a big fuss when he died,' Doris said carefully. 'But then Grandpa was seventy and I knew he couldn't live forever. It's different for Mummy. She'll still only twenty-seven and she expected your Daddy to be with her for years and years.'

  There were a great many more things Camellia wanted to ask, like why her mother didn't seem to care about her any longer. Why she wanted to put on a pink dress instead of the black one, and why if Granny was Bonny's mother did she seem to dislike her so much? But somehow she knew these and other questions niggling at the back of her head were best left unasked.

  'Will you come to see me again?' she asked instead.

  Again Doris hesitated. She knew she would catch the next train down if ever Bonny needed her, despite everything that had been said. But a sixth sense told her that her daughter was intending to cut off her entire past, because she was through with grieving.

  'I'll come if you need me,' she said quietly. 'Maybe Mummy will let you come and stay with me during the holidays. Write to me, my lovely. Always remember I'm your Granny and I love you.'

  Camellia's memory of her father's death had started the tears again. She wiped them away with the hem of her overall and stared up at the sky. But another vivid, and this time shameful memory slipped into her mind.

  It was five years after her father's death, in February 1961 when Camellia woke one Friday night to the sound of Johnny Kidd's 'Shakin' All Over'. The music wasn't just loud, it was deafening. Switching on the light Camellia saw that it was ten past one, she wondered how long it would be before one of the neighbours called the police.

  If it wasn't for the photograph beside her bed, she might have thought those cosy, quiet days of her early childhood were just a fantasy she'd dreamed up to comfort herself.

  But there they were, in black and white, a family group. Camellia was five when it was taken, wearing a velvet party dress with a lace collar, her mother in a now rather dated waisted costume, and much shorter hair than she had at present, and her father standing behind their couch wearing a dark suit.

  Camellia could see she was plump even then, but she looked kind of sweet, albeit too serious. Now she was fat, really fat, and her dark eyes seemed to have retreated into puffy flesh, like two slits. John Norton was dead. Sweet little Camellia was now a big lump. And Bonny wasn't a real mother any more.

  Even the happy days at Collegiate School were over, snatched away back in December, two days before her eleventh birthday.

  Bonny claimed she had been advised by the head teacher that as Camellia wouldn't pass her eleven-plus exam, she might as well go to the state junior school, in the new year, then on to the secondary modern next September. But that was a wicked lie, she was always near the top of the class and Miss Grady had often said she was clever enough to win a scholarship to one of the best girls' schools.

  Camellia switched off the light and pulled her pillow over her head to shut out the noise. She didn't need to go downstairs to see what was going on. She could imagine the scene in the lounge because she'd seen much the same thing countless times in the past. Bonny would be centre stage as always. She probably was wearing her long hair up in a ponytail and one of her dresses with a full circular skirt, a wide belt nipping her waist into a hand's span, beneath it a cancan petticoat with a hundred yards of frothy pink and white net. She would be jiving with someone, possibly that awful man who dressed like a teddy boy in a long red drape jacket and shoestring tie, unless he'd had the heave-ho recently. All the other men would be watching Bonny's legs to get a glimpse of stocking tops as she twirled.

  Who all the men were was a mystery to Camellia, they just appeared late at night, but she knew they always far outweighed the few women who came to these impromptu parties. Bonny had no women friends any longer. Auntie Pat, Babs, Freda and Janice had disappeared in the same way hot cooked meals, ironed school blouses, help with homework and nights by the television with her daughter had.

  For a year or two after John's death, some of the old friends still dropped in occasionally for a cup of tea and a chat. Superintendent Willis, Mr Dexter the dentist, and Malcolm Frazer who owned the Mermaid Inn in particular, though they never seemed to be accompanied by their wives. But gradually they'd stopped coming too, and Camellia sometimes thought she'd actually dreamt that the dining table used to be laid with starched napkins, flowers and candles and that her mother had once spent all day in the kitchen pr
eparing special dinners for groups of friends.

  She must have fallen asleep again, for when she woke again the music was turned off and the house was quiet again, except for a thumping sound.

  She listened for a little while, trying to place where the noise was coming from. It sounded like a branch banging on a window. It wasn't at her window, and as her mother's overlooked the street and there were no trees there, it couldn't be there. But as she listened the noise grew more insistent. Puzzled Camellia got out of bed and went out onto the landing.

  Number twelve was over three hundred years old and all the rooms were on slightly different levels. At the top of the stairs was the bathroom, Camellia's room was next, up two steps there was a short passage and another step up to her mother's room which covered the entire front of the house. Next to the closed door was an even narrower staircase which led to two tiny attic rooms kept for guests. Camellia assumed the noise was coming from there. The house was prone to funny sounds, the pipes bubbled and the boards creaked. She thought perhaps one of the attic windows had been left open and the wind was banging it.

  But as she crept forward in the darkness to go up the stairs, she stopped short at another sound. It was just like a pig grunting and it was in time with the thumping!

  Her initial instinct was to run in to her mother, but as her hand closed round the door knob she suddenly realised not only that the noise was coming from within Bonny's room, but what it was. She froze, too shocked to move.

  Her knowledge of sex was scanty. She knew there was some kind of special cuddling which made babies, and if you did it when you weren't married it was very bad. She'd heard too, boys saying nasty swear words in the playground and she instinctively knew what she was hearing now was that word 'fucking'.

  As she stood there, unsure whether to burst in and stop the man from hurting her mother, she heard Bonny's voice above the grunting.

  'Harder, do it harder. I love it!'

  Camellia felt herself go hot all over, like someone had just opened a furnace door in front of her. She backed away, covering her mouth with her hands, afraid she was going to be sick.