Camellia

by Lesley Pearse

  Back in her room, huddled up in bed, suddenly everything which had puzzled her for several years became crystal clear. Why all the old friends had stopped calling. Why the neighbours whispered behind their hands when she walked down the street, the odd looks she got from men, and why her old school friends from Collegiate stopped asking her round to play. But most of all the meaning of the word 'whore' which a horrible boy at school had called her mother.

  From that night on things seemed to get worse and worse. Bonny bought herself an expensive new outfit each week, but Camellia was still wearing clothes she'd long outgrown. The parties became more frequent, noisier still, with coarse men rampaging drunkenly up the stairs and often bursting into her room mistaking it for the bathroom. Soon Bonny made no attempt to cover up that men stayed the night, the smell of their perspiration lingered in the bedroom, there were stains on the sheets which were seldom changed and the beautiful rugs in the living room had cigarette burns and beer stains on them. Bonny was often drunk during the day too, sometimes insensible on the settee when Camellia got in from school. Any attempts at housekeeping were abandoned, the only food in the house bread and jam. Camellia had a stodgy school dinner, bought a couple of stale buns from the baker's as she walked home, then Bonny sent her out for chips later.

  Often she was left alone all weekend, a ten-shilling note left on the table to feed herself. But Bonny had only to sweep through the door on Sunday night, a silly soft toy in her arms for Camellia and say she was sorry and it would never happen again, and Camellia forgave her.

  The neighbours were less forgiving, there were no longer polite requests to turn down the music but hysterical screaming at the door and hammering on the windows. Vicious, abusive unsigned notes were stuck through the door, endless warnings of legal action, sometimes threats against her person, but Bonny only laughed and tossed them airily on the fire. She said the neighbours were small-minded and jealous, and that soon she and Camellia would move away.

  It was two weeks before Christmas in 1962, when she was almost twelve, that Camellia discovered her doll's house had been taken from her room while she was at school.

  A sense of foreboding filled her as she looked at the space on the carpet where it been that morning. For some time she'd had a feeling that something very bad was going to happen. Bonny had been moody and withdrawn for several weeks – she hadn't mentioned anything about Christmas, not even about the decorations and there hadn't been any parties at the house for three weeks.

  She plodded back down the stairs. She had grown even fatter during the summer and running was now beyond her. She didn't like anything much about herself, but she hated her size more than anything. Not quite twelve, she was forty-two inches round the hips and she weighed eleven stone.

  'Where's my doll's house?' she asked.

  Bonny was sitting in an armchair, smoking a cigarette and reading a typewritten letter. For once she wasn't made-up, in fact her hair didn't even look as if she'd brushed it and she had a stain down the front of her pink twinset.

  'I've sold it,' she replied, without even looking up.

  'You've sold it!' Camellia was incredulous. 'You couldn't have! You're joking aren't you?'

  I've got more on my mind than making jokes,' Bonny snapped at her, putting down the letter and looking up at her daughter. 'Come on now, darling. You're too old for a doll's house and I needed the money.'

  'But Daddy bought it.' Camellia's eyes filled with tears. 'It's all I've got left of him. How could you?'

  If you really understood how bad things are, you wouldn't ask that,' Bonny retorted defensively.

  It was only now, perhaps because Camellia was angry with her mother that she noticed she didn't look as pretty as she used to. Her eyes had dark shadows round them, her skin looked grey and there were tiny lines around her eyes and mouth.

  'Why didn't you take some money out the bank if you needed something?'

  Bonny looked at the child's reproachful tear-filled brown eyes and sighed. She knew she shouldn't have sold it without asking, but she was desperate, she'd run out of alternatives now. Sometimes she forgot that Camellia was still just a child. She might be quick on the up-take about most things, but clearly she hadn't grasped their situation.

  'There isn't any money in the bank, darling,' Bonny said more gently. 'I think it's time I explained a few things to you.'

  Camellia slumped down onto the settee and listened in ever growing dismay as her mother reavealed she was not only broke, but in debt so deep that the house was going to be taken from them.

  "That's why you had to leave Collegiate,' she finished. 'You see Daddy didn't leave me enough money. I tried to cut down the spending, but it's all gone now.'

  'But what are we going to do?' Camellia sobbed. She wanted to remind her mother that only last week she'd bought yet another new dress and a couple of new records, but even in her own misery she could see Bonny was on the point of tears and she hated to see her cry.

  I've found a little house in Fishmarket Street.' Bonny wrinkled her little nose in distaste. 'I'm afraid it's not very nice, but it was all I could find. I'll get a job and we'll make it cosy together.'

  Camellia sobbed again. She was fat and plain, she hadn't one friend, everyone at school laughed at her and said nasty things about her mother. Her doll's house and all those beautiful things her father had bought to furnish it were gone too, to another little girl who would never understand how precious it had been to the previous owner. Now, on top of it all, she was being forced to leave the home she loved.

  'I'm sorry, darling.' Bonny drew her into her arms and enveloped her in the smell of Joy. 'I haven't been a very good mummy to you, have I? I'm selfish, lazy and a spendthrift. But I do love you!'

  Camellia dried her eyes yet again and got up from her bench. Even after everything Bonny had put her through, the men, the drinking, squandering money and the neglect, she still loved her mother. Neighbours and town gossips might only remember the bad things, but she had a small store of precious golden memories, which all seemed so much more important now. Picnics in summer, trips to London Zoo. Laughing helplessly at each other in the hall of mirrors on Hastings pier, racing down the dunes at Camber Sands. Bonny had been a child herself at heart, always ready for fun and mischief. They might have been mother and daughter, but they were always best friends.

  Chapter Three

  'Bert's outside in the car waiting for you, lovey,' Enid Rowlands said as Camellia came out of the toilet wearing her navy-blue skirt and white blouse. She picked up a damp cloth and wiped the girl's face again for her. 'And I've told him he's to bring you back here afterwards. We've got a nice little spare room upstairs. You can't be alone at a time like this.'

  Camellia thanked her. Until that moment she hadn't even considered where she might sleep tonight or in the future. Somehow it made Bonny's death even more real, it meant she didn't have a home of her own any longer either.

  Mr Simmonds said very little on the ride to Hastings. Now and again his hand reached out for hers, squeezing it in silent sympathy, and she was glad he didn't feel he had to make any conversation. Camellia watched the people in other cars. They were nearly all families, driving home after a day at the seaside, tired and sunburnt, the children in the back seat dropping off to sleep. She recalled that when her father was still alive she'd always knelt up in the back of the car and waved at people. Perhaps children didn't do that any longer.

  The mortuary was tucked away in a back street. An old red-brick building with painted-over windows. As Mr Simmonds took her arm and led her in, her stomach lurched and she suddenly felt faint with the smell of antiseptic.

  'It's okay, some of us do feel a bit queasy in these places/ Mr Simmonds said very soothingly. 'But it's only the hospital smell, nothing more. You won't be seeing anything nasty. Bonny will just be in a room on her own, on a trolley, all covered up. We'll just take a look at her together and you confirm it is her. That's all there is to it.'

  They w
ere led into a small room by another man in a white gown. It was exactly as Mr Simmonds said. The man waited until Camellia was standing by the trolley and then lifted back the sheet covering her.

  It was of course Bonny, despite the frantic prayers Camellia had offered up that it wouldn't be. She looked just the way she did in the mornings after a night of drinking. A bluey tinge to her skin, older and kind of hard. If it hadn't been for her hair stained darker by the mud, Camellia might have believed she was still asleep.

  She confirmed it was her mother, but she couldn't kiss her. Her heart was telling her to. Her whole being wanted to stroke that golden hair, hold her tightly one more time. But she didn't. Instead she just looked, then turned away as if she didn't care.

  Camellia lay back in the seat and closed her eyes as they drove back to Rye. Bert knew she wasn't asleep, it was just her way of dealing with what she'd just seen. But as he glanced at her pale, expressionless face so close to his shoulder, he was reminded of another time he had driven down this road with her, some eighteen months earlier. It had been about the same time of day, around four thirty or five in the afternoon. Not a hot sunny day though, but a bitterly cold afternoon in February and already dark.

  He was driving back from Hastings towards Rye in his Morris Minor, a tricycle for his son's fourth birthday on the back seat. It was Saturday and so cold he was sure snow must be on the way. He couldn't wait to get indoors and warm himself by the fire. The heater in the car wasn't very good.

  As he drove he was thinking about the past. It was incredible to find he'd been in Rye for fourteen years. It seemed such a short while ago that he was a young constable out on the beat. Now he was thirty-five, a sergeant, married with two small boys. To think, until he was twenty-eight, he believed he could never love any woman except for Bonny Norton!

  Bert winced. What a fool he was over her! Always looking for her, hoping and wishing but never quite daring to do anything about it. Thank goodness Sandra came along when she did! Bonny was anyone's now for the price of a drink or two. If he'd got tangled up with her after John died, his career and happiness would have been finished.

  Sandra was a total opposite to Bonny. Small and dark-haired, shy and loving, she didn't have a devious thought in her head. He had met her out at Peasmarsh, the year after John Norton died, she worked there as a nanny for Clive and Daphne Huntley. They were rich folks, the kind that couldn't be bothered with their kids. They'd had a burglary one night and he'd gone out to take a statement from them while the CID looked for fingerprints. Sandra made them all tea and before Bert left the big house he'd persuaded her to meet him on her night off. Eighteen months later they were married and living in a policehouse.

  As he went over the brow of the hill at Guestling, his headlights picked up a figure some five or six hundred yards ahead. It looked like an old lady. He wondered if she'd missed the bus, as he couldn't imagine anyone choosing to walk along this dark, deserted stretch of road without good cause. He slowed down. She was hobbling, and just the way her shoulders were hunched up suggested she was in distress.

  Bert went on past her to where there was a layby on the side of the road. A stream of cars coming through from Hastings obscured his vision for a moment. Leaving the engine running he got out of his car, pulled his sheepskin coat round him more tightly and called out.

  'Would you like a lift, love? It's a bit cold and dark to be out walking on this road!'

  He anticipated a rebuff. Old country women were a tough breed and she wouldn't know he was a policeman.

  He could see her a little better now, not her face as that was partially obscured by a hood or scarf round her head, but enough to see she was fat and shabbily dressed.

  'I'm a policeman,' he called out again. 'Sgt Simmonds from Rye.'

  He thought he heard a sob, though it could've been only the wind. He walked towards her.

  A car sped past in the opposite direction and for a second its headlights lit up her face clearly. To his astonishment it wasn't an old lady at all, but Camellia Norton.

  'Camellia!' he gasped. 'What on earth are you doing out here?'

  'Is it really you, Mr Simmonds,' she said, moving a little faster towards him.

  The rear lights of his car weren't bright enough to see her face clearly, but he sensed she was crying and saw one hand move to wipe her eyes.

  'Come on, love, get in the car,' he said. 'You must be frozen.'

  Bert hadn't seen the girl for some time, even though he'd run into Bonny on many occasions in the George and the Mermaid. He knew all about their eviction from Mermaid Street and the move to Fishmarket Street, but Bonny just laughed it off and had implied that things were on the up and up for her. As Bonny always looked unfailingly glamorous, despite her drinking and chasing men, Bert hadn't actually believed all the rumours about how dreadful her daughter looked these days.

  But now as he put on the car's interior light to get a better look at Camellia, he was shocked to find they weren't rumours but truth. He knew she must be fourteen now, but she looked much older because she was so fat. Her complexion, which as a young child had been clear and glowing, was now sallow, with a crop of vicious spots on her chin and forehead. She pushed back her hood to reveal hair which, aside from being dull with grease, also appeared to have been cut off abruptly with garden shears, and her thin gabardine school mackintosh was several sizes too small, pitifully inadequate against the wind and cold.

  Bert took her icy hands between his own and rubbed them. They were red and chapped, nails bitten down to the quick.

  'What's happened?' he asked gently. He could see she was trying not to cry, too cold to even shiver. 'Why are you out here all alone?'

  'I lost my bus fare/ she said weakly, turning her face away from his, as if unable to meet his close scrutiny.

  'Well, you're all right now,' he said comfortingly, shocked that she'd already walked some four or five miles from Hastings and appalled at how she might have ended up if she had walked the entire way home to Rye. 'A hot bath and a cup of tea will sort you out. I'd better get you home. Your mum will be worried about you.'

  'She isn't there,' Camellia said in a small voice as Bert started to drive. 'She's gone away for the weekend.'

  'What! And left you on your own?' Bert's head jerked round to her in astonishment. 'Surely not?'

  'She goes away a lot these days/ Camellia shrugged. 'I'm usually all right, but this time she forgot to leave any money for the meter.'

  The story came out in fits and starts. It was clear Camellia didn't want to divulge anything, even to someone who knew her mother as well as Bert did. But once she got going it came out like a torrent.

  On Friday evening she had arrived home from school to find her mother had gone away. She got herself some fish and chips, then settled down to watch television. She hadn't even finished eating when the meter ran out and she went round the house with a candle looking for a shilling.

  When she failed to find any money she went to bed, but a further search this morning brought nothing more than sixpence and a few pennies.

  'I couldn't ask any of the neighbours,' she whispered in shame. 'They talk about Mummy enough already. I had just enough to get almost into Hastings on the bus. I took one of Mummy's rings to the pawn shop in the Old Town.'

  Bert thought this was very resourceful of her, such a solution would never have occurred to him. But then Bonny had probably acquainted her with such places.

  'The man gave me two pounds for the ring,' she said wearily. 'It was so cold in Hastings I thought I'd go straight home again. But when I got to the bus stop I found the notes had gone from my pocket. I must have pulled them out with my hanky. I walked back to the pawn shop looking everywhere, but I didn't find them.'

  By the time they stopped outside the house in Fishmarket Street, Camellia was warmer and she'd dried her eyes.

  'I'll come in with you,' he said, before she had time to make an excuse. 'We'll put some money in the meter and make sure everything's
all right.'

  He was furious with Bonny, determined to take her to task at neglecting her daughter and leaving her on her own for a whole weekend. But at the same time he didn't want to make too much of it to Camellia.

  She made no protest, but he sensed her embarrassment as she opened the front door and a smell of old fried food and damp wafted out. Bert struck a match and put some money in the electric meter, but as the lights came on he had to repress a gasp of horror at the black mould on the hall walls, the paper hanging off in strips.

  He'd seen plenty of grim places in his years in the force, but this beat most of them. It was so cold he shivered even in his thick sheepskin. Walking into the living room he could only stare in shock. The square of carpet was thin, sticky with spilt drinks, its pattern lost in a dirty film. Camellia turned on an imitation log fire with a couple of electric bars across the front. The logs were broken and dusty, the red light bulb beneath showing through. There were a couple of fireside chairs with greasy seats, a black plastic coffee table decorated with two swans and a pre-war settee with the stuffing coming out of the arms.

  Maybe it wouldn't have been so shocking if he hadn't been in their old house. How could anyone adjust to living like this when once they were surrounded by antiques, Persian carpets and luxurious furnishings?

  'It's awful isn't it.' Camellia hung her head and shifted from one foot to the other in nervousness. 'I didn't want you to see it, Mr Simmonds. Mummy was going to get it done up, but she hasn't got enough money now.'

  Bert gulped back a sarcastic reply. Just the price of one of Bonny's smart outfits would pay for this room to be redecorated, and she knew enough men who would willingly do it for her. He shifted back to being a policeman again, mentally noting all the evidence of Bonny's cruel indifference to her child's well-being, while she made sure she never went short of anything.