Cuckoo

by Wendy Perriam

  Pancakes. That was it! Pancakes with maple syrup and thick whipped cream on top – a real American breakfast. She sieved the flour in a basin, cracked eggs, added milk, humming as she beat the mixture smooth. It was only now that relief and elation were beginning to surface, like the froth on the batter. She was ashamed of that elation, ought to stifle and disown it; yet to have the house to themselves again, to remove that sullen, slouching presence, stop the bumpy seesawing between guilt and resentment, pity and anger … It was the only way she could survive, the only hope of saving her relationship with Charles. They were equal now. Both had lost their children, both been unfaithful and unreasonable, and both preferred to rip out a messy, blemished page, and begin again on a clean one. She didn’t even want to be his equal. Safer to be his child, his only child, loved and spoiled, with no rivals, no siblings; protected from the harsh world outside, from having to earn her own living, or struggle for her own identity.

  She beat and beat the batter, till her arm ached, refused to use the painless electric mixer. She must put everything she had into those pancakes, even the strength of an elbow, the discomfort in a wrist. She tipped an inch of the frothing batter into the pan. The syrup was already heating with cinnamon and butter; the cream whipped stiff with sugar. For a few more days, there would still be another child, but not a rival. Now Magda was indisputably departing, she was no longer any threat – only a cropped and branded orphan, a displaced person, temporarily squatting in a foreign land. There wasn’t any love, but there was pity, guilt, regret. And, so long as the kid was with them, there must be white flags and olive branches, penitence and peace.

  She knocked at Magda’s door with the loaded breakfast tray. ‘Magda?’

  ‘Go away! I’m busy.’

  ‘But I’ve brought your breakfast up …’

  ‘Don’t want any breakfast.’

  Frances put the tray down and opened the door a crack. All she could see was the spiky outline of Magda’s butchered head. ‘But it’s pancakes, darling …’ She took a step inside.

  ‘Yuk!’

  ‘I thought you’d like them. They eat them in America for breakfast.’ Magda was kneeling on the floor, on a pile of jumbled clothes.

  ‘So? This is Richmond, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but …’

  All the dressing-table drawers were open and Magda was scooping out her underclothes and flinging them on the pile. ‘I don’t like pancakes.’

  ‘You haven’t tried them. They’ve got cream and maple syrup on, and …’

  ‘Double yuk!’

  She mustn’t get annoyed. No point starting all those rows again. If Magda didn’t want pancakes, well, let her go without. She banged the tray down on the dressing-table. The child hadn’t even glanced at it, had ignored the mug of chocolate, the frosted glass of orange juice.

  ‘Charles has rung your mother.’

  ‘Oh?’ The hands stopped scrabbling in the drawers, the head looked up. The girl was far too proud to say anything directly, but she must be hoping desperately that there had been no change of plan.

  ‘It’s all right, you can go. Piroska’s longing to have you back.’

  The hunched shoulders capsized with relief, the knuckles unclenched. So she and Magda were both relieved. Couldn’t they build a bridge out of that one common feeling?

  ‘Look, Magda, you don’t have to rush off immediately, you know. Of course, I realize you’re longing to see your mother, but … why not stay with us for a while, and let your hair grow?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather Piroska saw you with your hair a little prettier? I could take you to Evansky’s and ask Geoffrey to tidy it up a bit …’

  ‘No.’

  ‘All right. It’s just that – well – I didn’t want you to think you weren’t welcome. I mean, Charles and I are happy to have you here, just as long as you want to stay.’ All lies. She had nothing else to offer the kid but lies. ‘You don’t have to go at all, unless you’re absolutely sure about it. You do understand that, don’t you?’

  Magda was sweeping all her possessions off the desk and dumping them in a plastic bag. ‘I want to leave today.’

  ‘Today, Magda? But that’s impossible.’

  ‘Tomorrow, then.’

  Relief was swirling round the room, swelling up like yeast. Frances could almost see herself stripping off the sheets, ripping down the posters. Relief like that was wicked and unnatural. She had failed as a mother, even as a human. No wonder Viv was so contemptuous. Magda would be better off without her.

  ‘It’s not quite as easy as that, darling. You have to have a passport and a permit. Charles is looking into it, but it takes time. And then there’s your ticket and all your stuff at school. Mother Perpetua phoned, you know – and Mother Gregory. Yesterday morning. They didn’t sound too pleased.’

  ‘Why not? They should be bloody glad to get rid of me.’

  ‘No one’s glad to be rid of you, Magda.’ Shameful how glibly the lies tripped out, easy honeyed lies.

  ‘Who cares, anyway? I still want to leave tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, it won’t be tomorrow, I’m afraid. That’s simply not feasible. But I’ll see what I can do to make it soon. Charles can sort out your visa, and I’ll phone the airport first thing in the morning.’

  Magda was scrabbling in her cupboards now, tossing out shabby slippers and broken shoes. Half of them were Bunty’s. ‘I’m not flying.’

  ‘Not flying? Then how …’

  ‘I’ll go by train.’

  ‘Train? No one goes by train to Budapest.’

  ‘I do.’ Magda tugged a shoe-lace with her teeth.

  ‘But you can fly first class. It’s really nice, first class. They give you special meals – super things like caviare and strawberries. And free champagne.’

  She yearned to drown Magda in champagne, stuff her with celebration meals, swaddle her in smiling, soothing air hostesses. Anything to make it easier. Cardboard coffee and plastic sandwiches in a jolting railway carriage were more suited to an orphan or an exile, and would only swell the guilt.

  Magda was scraping dried bubble-gum off a pair of dirty jeans. ‘I don’t like champagne.’

  ‘But you’d be there in just two hours, darling.’

  ‘Don’t call me darling.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I …’

  ‘That’s three darlings in the last three minutes, and not one at all before. I suppose I’m only ‘‘darling’’ because I’m leaving.’

  ‘Magda, how could you think …’

  ‘Oh, forget it.’ Magda ripped a paperback in half, and hurled it in the bin. ‘Look, I don’t intend to fly, OK? I want to do things my way. Charles flies. I don’t.’

  Frances was silent. So that was it. Magda despised her father so much, she couldn’t even bear to board an aeroplane, in case he’d been there first. She wanted to rip his life and genes to shreds, and build herself from nothing. Frances sank down on the blue frilled bedroom chair. Even a darling was a casus belli.

  ‘All right, then, you’d better go by train. I suppose there are trains? You’ll have to take the ferry, first. I’ll get Charles to look up the connections and he can drive you down.’

  ‘No.’

  Christ! How many more ‘no’s’ would line the route, before that train roared into Budapest? Why did Magda make things so damned difficult? They could have seen her off at an airport with far more ease and ceremony – a decent meal at Heathrow’s plushy Terrace restaurant, coffee and comfort in the first-class lounge.

  ‘I don’t want him to take me.’

  ‘Well, you can’t go on your own.’

  ‘Why can’t I?’

  It was just like the early days. ‘Don’t want to.’ ‘Why can’t I?’ Except Magda sounded tired and broken now – still defiant, but despairing. She was mouthing the same rebellious words, but all the stuffing had gone out of them. What difference could words make now, in any case? They had only a few short miles to
drive before they tipped her over the edge of England. If only they could strew those miles with roses, make the going soft and painless, line the road with love and coloured streamers.

  Magda had shoved her clothes and shoes aside, and had made a separate pile of treasures on the floor. She was stretched full-length beside them, almost lying on them, tatty, dilapidated cast-offs, the flotsam and jetsam of Viv’s house: an airgun which had once belonged to Philip, one of Viv’s trailing velvet skirts, a chocolate box without the chocolates. No sign of the things which she and Charles had given her – they were probably left at school – the sensible shoes and the five-language European dictionary, the pocket calculator, the brown leather gloves from Harrods. All she had saved were Bunty’s faded T-shirts, Rupert’s teething ring, a broken china dog.

  Frances squatted down beside her, amidst the tarnished treasure-trove. One short tuft of hair stood up, absurdly, on the shingled head.

  ‘Won’t you let me help you sort your things? I’m good at packing.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’ll be easier with two of us. Are you going to take your books?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Just this one?’ Frances picked up a small, dog-eared copy of The Secret Garden, which had been stowed inside the chocolate box. On the cover was a frail, blue-eyed angel child, with blond hair blazing down her back. She made Magda look tonsured in comparison, clomping, rough, unruly.

  ‘It’s Viv’s copy, isn’t it? I remember her reading it to Bunty. I loved it myself, when I was a child.’

  ‘Leave it alone!’ Magda made a grab at it. A small white envelope fluttered from its pages to the floor, and landed wrong side up. ‘International Telegram’ was printed in bold blue letters along the bottom edge, and above it, smaller but quite legible, Saturday’s date. Magda snatched it up, stuffed it in the pocket of her jeans, and turned her back.

  There was a sticky, strangulated silence. Frances felt last night’s dinner nudging her gently in the throat. A telegram was somehow always sinister, presaged death, disaster. Magda was picking at her nails, tearing down the little tags of skin around her cuticles, one finger sore and bleeding. Frances glanced at her. Why a telegram? And why, in God’s name, had Magda kept it secret? It could only be her mother who had sent it – Magda knew no one else abroad. Charles must have heard about it when he phoned Piroska, just an hour ago. But why hadn’t he mentioned it? Was it news too terrible to share? Miklos and Piroska were married and expecting twins … Hell! Even now she was still obsessed with twins. News like that wouldn’t send Magda rushing off to Budapest. Her mother must have sent for her – that would explain everything – her escape from boarding school, her sudden insistence on leaving them. Perhaps the grandmother had died and Piroska now had money and a decent place to live. No, Charles would have heard that, on the phone. Maybe she was near death. Hadn’t Charles said something about having the whole flat to themselves? That’s what he must have meant. But surely Piroska wouldn’t want her daughter involved in all the grief and disruption of a funeral. Wouldn’t she have waited until the death was certain, the mourning period over?

  It could be different news. Something strange and unexpected; a new, complicated chapter about to burst upon their lives. God forbid! Perhaps Charles hadn’t really listened on the phone. With a breakfast session looming, he was bound to have been rushed, and could well have rung off before Piroska had a chance to get it out. Charles often cut phone calls short. And people.

  But why hadn’t Magda told them – any of them? Even Viv knew nothing about a telegram, nothing about Magda’s plans to join her mother. Viv despised Piroska. Any woman who abandoned her own flesh and blood was anathema to Viv. That was reason enough for Magda to keep it secret from her – besides the fact that Magda knew Viv wanted her to stay – as a friend for Bunty and a new chick in her nest. Frances felt a sneaking sense of pleasure. Viv had been thwarted – no longer the trusted confidante, sharing secrets with Charles’ daughter, excluding his own wife. This time, she, alone, was aware of the latest twist.

  All the same, it was worrying. Didn’t she have a duty to prise out the contents of that mysterious telegram? Magda was far too young to deal with death and dilemmas on her own. At least she should tell Charles. Perhaps Piroska was deceiving him, double-crossing all of them. But why?

  She walked slowly to the door. She’d have to phone Charles at work again, and only hope she’d catch him in a coffee break. He’d be frostier still, a second time. She paused, with her hand on the door knob. She shouldn’t really interrupt him in the middle of a meeting. American Continental was worth five hundred million dollars and had just got a grip on the Middle East. Its President owned two Greek islands and a chunk of Scotland, only bothered with London twice a year. You didn’t disturb a man like that with anything less than the collapse of the dollar or failure of the Federal Reserve.

  What could Charles do, anyway? Even if she waited until he was home with them that evening, there would only be uproar and defiance, another sleepless night. She tried not to hear the tiny traitor voice whispering inside her. ‘Don’t make an issue of it, don’t tell Charles – he might change Magda’s mind. Or force her to change it. Supposing she stays in England, after all? Then you’ll have to share him again. Rows again, chaos again, endless complications.’

  Didn’t Magda have every right to be secretive? She’d been the same herself, as a child. She remembered the almost superstitious feeling that if you told an adult some treasured plan or project, the whole thing would burst, like a multi-coloured bubble pricked by a grown-up’s lighted cigarette. Besides, Magda barely was a child. Sixteen next birthday – girls could be married and leave home by then. It would be absurd for them to shackle and restrain her.

  If Magda had chosen to go to Budapest, then she must have reasons. Her mother had summoned her, was missing her, had every natural right to her. A telegram could be good news, didn’t always mean a crisis. Charles accused her constantly of over-dramatizing, and here she was again, turning a greetings telegram into a death warrant. Charles had actually spoken to Piroska, would have sussed it out if anything were wrong. It could well be a happy ending for them all. She and Charles could settle back less culpably together, knowing that Magda was loved and wanted somewhere else, and not simply running off in desperation, as Viv had implied.

  She walked back across the room, knelt down beside Magda’s bowed and silent back. Why risk rows and explanations over a simple loving message from her mother? The important thing was to make the child feel loved at both ends of her journey. She shuffled round on her knees, until she was level with Magda’s pale, shuttered face. ‘Magda?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yeah?’

  She could see the pile of pancakes, cold now and congealing. The whipped cream had capsized; a skin was forming on the mug of tepid chocolate. ‘Would you do something for me?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let me take you to the ferry.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just because I’d like to.’

  Magda punched her fist through the bottom of the chocolate box. ‘So you can see the back of me, make sure I’ve really gone.’

  ‘Of course not, Magda. Nothing like that. It’s just …’ How could she explain, with all that hostility crackling round the room? Magda had already edged away, out of reach, out of touch.

  ‘I’d rather say goodbye here. Get it over and done with.’

  ‘No, Magda. Let’s not get it over. Let’s do it properly. I think that’s very important.’

  She tried to grapple with the silence. Strange to be pleading with a kid she was only too happy to push over the white cliffs of Dover. No, no, not that. She couldn’t build her own reprieve on a child’s destruction. Almost desperately, she groped for Magda’s hand.

  ‘Magda, please say yes. I do really want to take you. I can’t explain, but …’

  ‘Dunno what you’re on about. What’s it matter, anyway?’

  Magda had shrugged her shoulder
s, tossed out the words like crumpled chocolate papers, but she hadn’t let go the hand.

  ‘You’ll let me, then?’

  ‘OK, yeah – I don’t care.’

  They stood, embarrassed, foolish, joined by their tense fingers. Neither dared be the first to pull away.

  ‘Know something?’ Magda was still staring at the ground.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m terrified of planes. Stupid, isn’t it? I’ve never ever been in one.’

  Magda terrified? Magda was tough, cast-iron, double-insulated, throwing down her mocking gauntlet to the world, challenging fathers, mothers, Reverend Mothers, God Himself. And scared of a tin-pot aeroplane.

  Frances swallowed. So it was nothing to do with Charles. ‘Know something else?’ she asked the girl, still holding her hot hand, her fingers twisted, sweating.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m frightened of them, too. Absolutely petrified! Every time I go on one, I want to curl up and die. And I’ve never even admitted it before. You’re the only one in the world who knows.’

  Magda was looking at her now, incredulously. ‘But that’s crazy,’ she objected. ‘You’re not frightened of anything. You can’t be.’

  Frances walked towards the window, now smirched and grey with rain, a glum, persistent rain, which seemed to be submerging half the world, from Richmond Green to Budapest. She traced a shaky ‘F’ on the blurred and steamy pane.

  ‘Can’t I?’ she asked, watching her fingerprints mist up.

  The ‘F’ was already half obliterated.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  It was still raining when they drove into Dover. Frances nosed her way around the roundabout, on to the harbour road and the new ugly concrete viaduct, which led from the clifftops down towards the sea. Sea was the wrong word for that flat expanse of almost greasy water, lying dense and torpid beneath a pasty sky. There was no horizon – just grey wash blurring into greyer wave. Even the white cliffs were a delusion, not white at all, but dulled by wind and weather into a grubby shade of beige.