by Rosie Thomas
‘What can we go on, Mum?’
She took one hand in each of hers and swung them round.
‘Everything.’
They plunged into the crowds and noise together. The tinny music and the barkers’ shouts, the smell of candyfloss and frying onions and the whirl of colours swallowed the three of them effortlessly. Within the circle of the fair Annie felt suddenly no older than Thomas and Ben. The fierce pleasure of childhood excitement touched her, and it was intensified by the added, subtle pleasure of her adult capacity to indulge her children, and share their indulgence.
With Tom pulling ahead they stumbled to the giant Waltzers at the centre of the fairground. The rumble of cars spinning on the wooden track drowned out even the blaring music. The riders screamed joyfully from their seats as they were swept past.
Annie clutched at responsibility for long enough to shout to Tom, ‘Benjy’s not old enough for this!’
Tom turned for a second, his hands on his hips, the sudden, living replica of his father. ‘He is. We can look after him. One on each side.’
‘I am old enough,’ said Benjy stoutly.
‘All right, then.’ They beamed at one another, colluding.
The huge machine was winding down and the riders’ faces, laughing, sprang out of the blur as the cars swung slower up and down the undulating slopes. As soon as an empty car rolled past, Thomas was off up the steps. He squirmed inside it and fended off the crowds who swarmed around it.
‘No, this is ours. Come on, Mum, Benjy.’ They ran up the steep steps after him, hand in hand, and jumped into the padded tub. Annie wedged Benjy tightly between Tom and herself and drew down the chrome hoop for them to hold on to.
‘Here we go,’ Tom yelled, leaning with the car as it began to turn to spin it faster.
Faster, and then faster again, and then to the point where centrifugal force pressed them helplessly against the chair back and tore the shouts from their throats. Annie drew her arm tighter around them, feeling their thin shoulders rigid with delighted fear. Benjy’s face was three amazed circles, and Tom’s smile was pinned right across his face. They spun faster and the world blurred into a solid wall, and the boy who took their money came balancing along the spinning edge and whirled their car faster on its axis, grinning at Annie and then pursing his lips to whistle as the wind blew her skirt up over her thighs.
‘Oh boy.’ Thomas was shouting with joy and Benjy managed a faint, tiny echo.
Hold on to them, Annie thought. Hold on. Forever.
And then they were slowing down again, gasping and laughing, thrilled with their daring as the world resolved itself again into its separate parts.
‘Wasn’t it great?’ Thomas demanded and Benjy screamed, ‘Wasn’t I brave?’
‘Oh, it was,’ Annie said weakly. ‘And you were, both of you. How could I have gone on that without you?’
They struggled off with rubber legs, the ground’s immobility strange under their feet.
‘What now?’ asked Thomas.
Seeing his face, Annie wanted to take hold of his delight and keep it, so that it could never fade. So that nothing would fade ever again. But she couldn’t do any more than put her hand on his shoulder, just for a moment, to link herself to him.
‘Something gentle,’ she pleaded.
‘I know the one you like,’ he said triumphantly. He took her hand now, and stretched out the other to Ben. ‘Come on. Don’t anyone get lost.’
He threaded them through the crowds to the huge mirrored roundabout whose steam organ ground out a pleasing, wheezy waltz. Annie looked up at it. The ornate lettering around the canopy spelled out, as it slowly revolved, The Prancers. H.W. Peacock’s Pride.
‘The hobby horses,’ she murmured. ‘I do like the hobby horses best.’
‘They’re pretty slow,’ sniffed Thomas. But he enjoyed the ride, whooping from his horse’s slippery back and hanging on to the gilded barley-sugar pole, as much as Annie and Ben did.
After the hobby horses they rode under the musty green hood of the Caterpillar, and on the Dodgems with their blue sparks and thundering crashes, and on the Octopus, and all the others even down to the toddlers’ roundabouts at the outer edges of the magic circle where Benjy swooped on the fire engine and rang the bell furiously as he trundled around, while Thomas squeezed himself into a racing car or helicopter and scowled at Annie every time he came past.
When they had ridden every roundabout they plunged into the sideshows, from the bleeping electronic games that all three of them adored, to the tattered old stalls where Annie and Tom vied with each other to throw darts at wobbly boards or shoot the pingpong balls off nodding ducks. Benjy was furiously partisan, pulling at Annie’s arm and shouting, ‘Come on, Mummy. Why don’t you win?’
Annie laughed and threw down her twisted rifle.
‘It’s no good, Ben. I’m not nearly as good as Thomas is.’
‘Here you are, baby,’ Tom snorted, thrusting the orange fur teddy bear that he had won at Benjy. ‘Is this what you wanted?’
‘I just wanted Mum to win,’ Benjy retorted. ‘I don’t want her to be sad.’
‘I won’t be sad,’ she promised him. The outside reached in, just for a moment, between the caravans and flags. ‘I won’t be sad. Let’s go and see the funny mirrors.’
They lined up in the narrow booth and paraded to and fro in front of the distorting mirrors. The images of the three of them leapt back and forth too, telescoping from spindly giants to squat barrels with grinning turnip faces.
The boys roared and gurgled with laugher, clutching at one another for support. ‘Look at Mum! Look at her legs!’
‘And her teeth. Like an old horse’s.’
Annie laughed much more at their abandoned enjoyment than at the gaping figures. Adults never laugh like this, like children do, she thought. Not giving themselves up to it.
In the end she had to pull them away from the mirrors to make room for the press of people coming in behind them. She hauled them out into the sunshine, blinking and still snorting with laughter.
‘Are you hungry?’
‘I’m so hungry.’
‘And me.’
They picnicked on hot dogs oozing with fried onions and ketchup, and Annie bought them huge puffballs of candyfloss that collapsed in sticky pink ridges over their beaming faces.
‘You’re letting us have all the bad things, Ma.’
‘Just for today,’ she said severely.
When they had finished the repellent meal they turned to her again.
‘Is it time for the Big Wheel now?’
By unspoken agreement, they had saved it until last. They crossed the trampled grass now and joined the queue in its spidery shadow. Benjy tilted his head backwards to peer up at the height of it.
‘I was too little last time.’
Annie crouched beside him, straightening his jacket, an excuse to hold on to him.
‘You’re big enough now. After the Waltzers you’re big enough for anything.’
They grew so quickly. They were here and now, together. Wasn’t that enough? As they inched forward in the queue the cold fingers from outside reached in to clutch at Annie. She tried to shake them off, and hold on to the day’s hermetic happiness.
It was enough, because it would have to be.
At last their turn came. The attendant let them in through the little metal gate and they climbed into the little swinging car, the boys on either side of Annie. The safety bar was latched into place and the wheel turned, sweeping them upwards and backwards. As they soared up they felt the wind in their faces, scented with grass and woodsmoke up here, above the packed crowds and the hot-dog stalls. When they reached the highest point the wheel stopped turning and they hung in the stillness, rocking in windy, empty space. Ben gave a little squeak of fear and burrowed against her, and Annie held her arm around him, hiding his eyes with her hand. But Tom leaned forward, his face turning sombre.
Beneath them spread all the tumult of t
he fairground, suddenly dwarfed. Beyond was the undulating green of treetops, rolling downhill, and the houses edging the heath, a jumble of slate and stone. London stretched out beyond that, pale blue and grey and ochre.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Tom said.
Annie felt tears in her eyes, and ducked her head. She put her arm round him and drew him close to her.
‘It is,’ she whispered. ‘It’s very beautiful.’
They sat silent in the rocking chair, and looked at it. In that moment of stillness Annie felt that she loved her children more than she had ever done before.
And then the wheel jerked and began to turn again, sweeping them down towards the ground.
After the ride they stood in the shadow of the wheel again.
‘What shall we do now?’
Annie took out her purse. She opened it and showed them the recesses. ‘Look. We’ve spent all the money. I’ve got just enough to buy you a balloon each to take home.’
They peered into the purse, needing to be convinced. Then they sighed with reluctant satisfaction. They agreed with the logic of staying until every penny was spent, and then of having to go home. On the way out of the noisy, joyful circle they chose a pair of red and silver helium balloons, decorated with Superman for Tom and Spiderman for Benjy. And then with the balloons tugging and twisting above them they plodded back down the hill to the car.
When they were inside it, insulated from the people streaming by, Tom turned to Annie.
‘That was so good,’ he said simply. ‘I can’t think of anyone else’s Mum who would have gone on everything, like you. Well, I suppose they might have done. But they wouldn’t have enjoyed it, like you did.’
‘I did enjoy it,’ Annie said. ‘Thank you.’
Benjy scrambled forward and laid his face briefly against her neck, stickily, his own form of thanks.
Then Annie started the car up and turned towards home. Martin would be waiting, and the ache of Steve’s absence would be waiting for her too.
It was not many days after the funfair that Tibby’s doctor took Annie and her father aside. ‘If you were going to ask her son to come home and see her,’ he said, ‘I think it should be done quite soon.’
Annie’s brother was working as an engineer in the Middle East. Annie and Jim put through the call at once, as they had agreed with Phillip that they would.
‘I’ll be home within forty-eight hours,’ Phillip said.
Tibby lay in her hospice room, surrounded by flowers that Annie brought in from her garden.
‘There must be a fine show this year,’ she said politely, when Annie had arranged them.
Annie sat by the bed, watching her mother’s transparent face. Tibby was usually awake, but she rarely spoke. When she did speak, it was about small things; the doctors or one of the other patients, or the food they brought her that she couldn’t eat. She didn’t even talk about her grandchildren any more. Annie knew that her mother’s world had shrunk to the dimensions of her hospital bed.
It was hard for Tibby to be dignified under such circumstances, even though the staff who looked after her did all that was possible to control her pain. But she clung tenaciously to the silence that she had maintained about her illness. She didn’t talk any more about getting better, but she wouldn’t admit the fact of approaching death either. In the beginning Annie had seen the refusal as a kind of graceful courage. But as the months had passed her frustration had grown. She felt the silence now like a cold glass wall between her mother and herself.
She reached for Tibby’s hand and held it. It felt as dry and weightless as a dead leaf. As she sat in the quiet, flower-scented room Annie was realizing that she didn’t want her mother to die without acknowledging the truth, even if it was only by a word. As if to acknowledge it would be to tell her daughter, It’s all right. I know what’s happening to me. I can bear it, and so can you.
I’m just like Benjy and Tom, Annie thought. I want my mother’s reassurance, even now that she’s dying.
Love, dues. The ribbons of continuity, again and again.
Annie glanced up and saw that Tibby was looking sideways at her. Her glance was clear, appraising, full of her mother’s own intelligence and understanding.
Annie thought briefly, At last.
But then Tibby’s head fell back against her pillows. ‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll go to sleep now, darling.’
Annie stood up and leant over to kiss her cheek. ‘I’ll come in again at the same time tomorrow,’ she promised, as she always did.
Phillip arrived thirty-six hours later. Annie met him at Heathrow, and drove him straight to the hospice.
‘They don’t know how much longer,’ she told him. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Phil.’
She glanced at him as she drove. Phillip was fair, like her, but he was losing his hair and his skin was reddened by the sun. He looked exactly what he was, a successful engineer just back from overseas. Annie and her brother had never been close, even as children. Phillip had always been the brisk, practical one, while Annie was slow and dreamy. He had been his father’s son, always, while Annie and her mother had shared a friendship, she understood now, that had its roots in their strong similarity.
But she was genuinely glad and relieved to see Phillip now. She felt some of the weight of her anxiety shifting on to the shoulders of his lightweight suit.
The family bond, she thought wryly. Always there.
When she stopped at a red light Phillip put his arm round her.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t been here. Are you all right, Anne? You don’t look as though you’ve recovered properly yourself.’
The car rolled forward again.
‘How could you be here? There would have been nothing you could do, anyway. And I’m fine, thanks.’
‘It hasn’t been much of a year for you, has it?’
Annie watched the road intently. ‘It has had its ups and downs.’
There was nothing else she could say to Phillip, however searchingly he stared at her. Not to this broad, red-faced man who had stepped briefly out of an unknown world, even if he was her brother.
They reached the hospice, and went upstairs to Tibby’s room. Jim had been sitting by her bed, and he stood up now and hugged his son. Tibby opened her eyes.
‘Hello, Mum,’ Phillip said. ‘I’ve got some leave, so here I am.’
Tibby looked at him, unmoving. For an instant Annie glimpsed the same clear awareness in her face, and it heartened her. Then her mother smiled faintly, and lifted her shrunken hand.
‘Hello, darling. Come and sit here by me.’
Annie watched Phillip sit down, and take hold of Tibby’s hand.
Her sense of relief intensified, making her feel light, almost weightless. Of course Tibby knew that she was dying. Her way of confronting it was natural, for Tibby. Admiration of her mother’s bravery blazed up inside Annie.
‘I’ll call in later,’ she whispered, and she left Tibby with her husband and son.
It was early evening when she drove back again and the houses and shops and parks glowed in the rich, buttery sunlight. Annie parked her car in the hospice visitors’ park and walked up the steps past tubs of shimmering violet and blue and white petunias.
Tibby’s room was shadowy behind drawn curtains. Annie thought at first that her mother was asleep, but she turned her head at the click of the door.
‘Did I wake you?’ Annie murmured.
Tibby shook her head. ‘No. I was thinking. Remembering things. I’m very good at remembering now. All kinds of things that I thought I had forgotten for ever.’
Annie smiled at her. She knew just how it was. The fragments of confetti, precious fragments.
‘Shall I open the curtains a little?’ she asked. ‘The light outside is beautiful.’
Tibby shook her head. ‘It’s comfortable like this.’
Tibby didn’t want to see the light any more, Annie knew that. Her world had shrunk to the bed, and the faces aroun
d it. She nodded, with the tears behind her eyes, and for a moment they were quiet in the dim room.
Then Tibby said, ‘Thank you for calling Phillip home.’ Her eyes had been half-closed but they opened wide now, piercing Annie. ‘I know what it means.’ She smiled, and then she added, as if Annie were a child again, and she was comforting her after a childish misunderstanding, very softly, ‘It’s all right.’
The mixture of pain, and relief, and love that flooded through Annie was almost too much for her. She sat with her head bent, holding Tibby’s hand folded between her own. They were silent again. Annie thought that Tibby was pursuing her own memories, piecing together the confetti pictures as she had done herself with Steve.
But Tibby said suddenly, in a clear voice that startled her, ‘Is it something between you and Martin? Is that why you are unhappy?’
Denials, placatory phrases and soothing half-truths followed one another through Annie’s mind. She had opened her mouth to say, Of course not, we’re very happy, but she raised her head and met her mother’s eyes.
I was the one who wanted the truth, she thought.
‘I fell in love with someone else,’ she said simply. ‘A stranger.’
‘When?’
‘After the bomb. We were there together.’
Tibby nodded. ‘I guessed that,’ she said. The maternal intuition took Annie back to girlhood all over again. She tightened her fingers on her mother’s. Don’t go, Tibby. I’ll miss you too much.
‘What are you going to do?’
Annie looked at her hopelessly. ‘Nothing. What is there to do?’
Suddenly she could see how bright Tibby’s eyes were in the dimness. The corners of her mouth drew down, an economical gesture of impatience, disappointment, all that she had the strength for. Annie knew that she had given the wrong answer.
There was a long, long pause before Tibby spoke again. ‘I did nothing,’ she said. ‘Don’t make the same mistakes. Don’t.’ The last word was no more than a soft, exhaled breath. The confession hurt her. Tibby closed her eyes, exhausted.
Annie saw it all, the sharp outlines of the story, even though she would never know the details. Tibby and Jim had failed each other somehow, in the course of the years. Perhaps there had been another man. Perhaps a path of a different kind had offered itself. Annie remembered her mother’s wedding picture, with Tibby in her little tilted hat, her lips vividly painted. Whatever had happened, the two of them had stayed together. For her own sake, perhaps, and Phillip’s. Tibby had taken on the protection of the house and the big corner garden, and Jim the routines that commanded his days.
