Nest of Sorrows

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Sorry. Where was I?’

  ‘Going away.’

  I’ve already gone. ‘I need to live somewhere else. Now, the choice is yours. You can come with me, or you can stay here with Daddy and Granny Dora.’

  ‘Oh.’ Long seconds ticked away. ‘Are you going abroad? Anywhere exciting?’

  ‘No. I’ll probably stay with Granny Rachel for a while.’

  Melanie pursed her lips. ‘Ugh. She’s got no bathroom. I’m not going there.’

  ‘There’s a bath in the kitchen, a proper bath under that table-top thing. She manages.’

  ‘And the toilet’s in the yard.’

  ‘Yes. Don’t screw your nose up like that, Mel. The wind might change and you’ll stick like that forever.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Mum. Granny Rachel keeps a thing under her bed.’

  ‘That’s because the toilet’s down the yard.’ She paused for a moment. ‘So you’ll be staying here?’

  ‘Yes.’ Melanie’s brow was furrowed again. ‘But . . . but all the girls at school will find out you’ve gone. They’ll feel sorry for me like they did for Jenny Blake when her father died. I’ll get pointed at. You can’t just go off like that. People will think you don’t like me.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I mean, Jenny Blake’s dad had no choice, did he? He got a heart attack in the night and never woke up. But if you choose to leave me . . . I haven’t a lot of friends, Mum. People don’t like me because I’m a bit fat. This will just make everything worse for me.’

  ‘I’ve said I’m sorry, dear.’ She reached across the table, then recoiled as her daughter’s hand snatched itself out of what was meant to be a friendly grip. ‘There’s something I have to do, love, something I have to try. It’s a big secret, even from myself.’

  ‘How can you have a secret from yourself? That’s silly. You’re just being silly again.’

  ‘Then allow me to be silly. You must try to understand. All my life I have never had the chance to consider myself. When I was a child, well, there’s no need to burden you with all that. But after leaving college, I got married, had a baby. I didn’t even do my probationary year until after you were born. Melanie, it’s hard for you now, but when you’re twenty, you’ll understand. I have to go off and find out what I am, who I am.’

  ‘You’re a teacher. You’re Daddy’s wife and my mother.’

  ‘Exactly. I can only see myself as part of other people; Standard Four’s dragon, a mother, a wife. You are far too young for this, Mel, and again I say I’m sorry. But I need a life of my own, I need to find out what I can do.’

  ‘That’s selfish.’

  ‘And you should know all about selfishness. I am going off to have the teenage years I never got as a kid, the years you’re having now. After a while, I shall probably stop being a teacher and become something entirely different.’

  ‘Such as?’ The lip curled into a sneer. ‘What else can you do?’

  ‘I can draw!’ There, it was out. The thing she had never dared say aloud even in an empty room. ‘I can do cartoons, birthday cards, cereal packets, anything I turn my mind to. This means I am going to live a very odd life. People with jobs like that lead a strange existence. I shall be travelling about with my portfolio, trying to sell myself to advertising firms and newspapers and comics.’

  Melanie stared at her mother. ‘Will you be famous?’

  ‘I doubt it. I shan’t use my own name anyway. But I can’t do it here, Mel. Not with Granny and you and Daddy around. I need lots of space and privacy.’

  ‘Rich? Will you get rich?’

  Kate heaved a great sigh, sad because her daughter could measure success only in pounds, shillings and pence. ‘I hope to become rich in spirit.’

  ‘Oh. And that’s what’s important to you?’

  ‘At the moment, yes.’

  ‘But . . . why can’t you stay for a few more years, just until I’ve left school then it won’t matter as much?’

  Kate swept a hand around the neat kitchen. ‘Can you see me spread out here with ink and paint? Can you? Boothroyd is now, Mel.’

  ‘Boothroyd?’

  ‘He’s a duck, well, a drake. I can make him look like anyone. He makes comments about the political situation, funny remarks about the government. Then there’s Boothroyd Junior, he’s for children’s comics. I must get on with it, Mel.’

  ‘Oh.’ The voice was tiny and hurt. ‘Don’t you . . . don’t you love me, Mum?’

  Kate hesitated, but only for a moment, remembering her own childhood and a parent who had never shown her love. When she spoke, she knew she was talking from the very depths of her soul, that she was dredging up truth from beneath all the confusion.

  ‘I love you. Even when I don’t like you, I love you. In fact, I probably love you most when you’re at your terrible tricks. You remind me of myself. There’s something about you, Mel, something that you won’t grow into until you’ve got past the spots and the puppy fat. Like me, you’re independent and stubborn. Like me, you would have been a self-made aristocrat whatever your beginnings. You have an awful pride and I am proud of that pride. Never let anyone put you down, child. Never let anyone tell you what you might have been, what you should or could have been. And keep a distance from Granny Dora, because she’ll tell you you’re better than you are – better in her way, at least. Don’t let them turn you into what you are not, keep going with what you are. I shall stay in touch with you . . .’

  ‘Oh, Mum!’ Tears welled in the large emerald orbs. ‘Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me!’

  ‘I shall never leave you, Mel. Wherever I am, you will be with me, and vice versa. And you’ll always be able to find me when I’m needed . . .’

  The child jumped up and fled from the room.

  Kate sat very still, tears pouring silently down her cheeks. She had not expected it to be so hard; she had not known her own feelings for this daughter. Exactly! She pushed the sleeve of her cardigan against the end of her nose. Everything was clouded here; she couldn’t know anything here. Not with him and his shoe-trees, not with Dora and her pills. Away. She had to get away. Tonight.

  But Kate didn’t go anywhere that night, because this was the night when Christine Halls’ world fell apart. The reverberations of this were to echo down many future years, but no-one saw past the immediate and terrifying shock for a long time.

  They were seated in the dining room, Kate, Geoff and Melanie, the latter pair struggling to finish off Dora’s delicious apple crumble. Dora did not take kindly to remaindered food; she saw it as an insult, a blot on the landscape of her considerable culinary skill. Dora had taken herself off to the granny flat where, in spite of uncompleted decorations, she was no doubt in residence and working on her sample for tomorrow morning’s surgery. She had already consumed three gins and an unusual amount of dinner wine, and had made off through the front door towards her own entrance with a large jug of mineral water.

  Geoff expressed his concern. ‘I think Mother’s a bit tiddley. Why on earth is she drinking so much?’

  Kate choked on a mouthful of cream cracker.

  ‘Mother’s never been a drinker, except of tea. Stop fidgeting with that good food, Melanie. Granny will not be pleased if you leave it.’

  Kate recovered her composure. ‘Mel needs to lose weight. If your mother carries on producing such gargantuan meals, our daughter will be the size of the Queen Mary. She can leave it if she wants to.’

  Disgruntled but unwilling to argue, Geoff returned to the original subject. ‘I should hate Mother to become alcohol dependent.’

  ‘She isn’t,’ said Kate. ‘She’s just trying to increase her flow.’

  ‘Flow of what?’

  ‘Micturation.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘She needs to pee.’

  His face darkened. ‘No need for that at the table, Kate.’

  ‘She isn’t doing it at the table. She’s got that blue plastic jug i
n her bathroom. Her bathroom that used to be my garage. My garage for the car I never got.’

  He tapped his fingers on the table. ‘You’ll get your car, don’t worry. But why does Mother need to . . . make water in a jug?’

  ‘For a sample. For the doctor.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘She’s decided to have diabetes.’ After darting a meaningful look at Melanie, Kate continued, ‘She must have heard of someone with a sugar problem, so she’s cashing in on the act, another illness for her list. Though I daresay the doctor will find her urine to be clear, apart from alcohol. At this rate, she’ll be producing pickling vinegar.’

  ‘That’s enough, Kate.’

  ‘I hope so. God knows she’s filling a big enough bottle.’

  Melanie pushed her dish away. ‘Can’t eat any more, I’m stuffed.’

  ‘The language at this table!’ cried Geoff. ‘It’s obvious that you get all this from your mother, Melanie. It is unladylike and very unbecoming.’

  ‘Be yourself, Mel,’ said Kate, immediately sorry because she was using the child as a buffer between herself and Geoff. ‘Remember what I said earlier . . .’

  ‘Did I miss something?’ His eyes were fear-filled, as if he’d failed to meet a deadline at his precious work.

  ‘You missed the bus, darling. Years ago. Your mother’s probably holding your ticket in her handbag.’

  ‘Stop this! What’s got into you lately?’

  She shrugged, glancing at Melanie and wishing with all her heart that the child would leave the table. ‘Just getting my own back for past put-downs, that’s all.’

  ‘What put-downs? Where and when?’

  Fortunately, she gave herself time to think and breathe, time to prevent herself from launching into a long diatribe that might have caused mayhem. It all sat on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back fiercely. She could have told him where and when – probably would have told him if Mel had not been sitting there. Works’ parties, in the car when he was trying to stop her learning to drive, at her mother’s house, even on open days at her school he had crushed her in front of others. She nodded. Yes, she was always clumsy and her dress sense was often wrong. No, she shouldn’t drink cider, she shouldn’t drink pints. And yes, her hair sometimes had all the delicate texture of dried straw. All spiteful, petty and mean in spirit.

  Dora crept in, rather the worse for wear, her walk unsteady, the greyish white hair tumbling over one eye. ‘Ooh Lord,’ she groaned. ‘It’s full. I managed to fill it. Are you quarrelling?’ Even in her present condition, she missed little.

  ‘Yes,’ said Kate.

  ‘No,’ pronounced Geoff simultaneously.

  ‘Yes they are!’ yelled Melanie. ‘And Mum’s leaving us. She is! Don’t look at me like that, Granny! She told me before, and it’s supposed to be a secret, only I think it’s too bad and I don’t care about splitting on her.’

  Dora Saunders belched not very discreetly, her hand straying along the sideboard for support. ‘I don’t feel very well,’ she moaned sadly.

  Melanie flew out of the room.

  ‘I had to tell her,’ said Kate lamely. ‘She’s my daughter. I couldn’t just dash off without explaining . . .’

  ‘Dash off?’ shouted Geoff. ‘There’s no need for you to dash off anywhere.’

  ‘I’m going to be sick.’ Dora followed her granddaughter with a speed that was miraculous in one supposedly riddled with osteoarthritis.

  ‘You can’t leave,’ he said now. ‘One foot out that door, lady, and you don’t get back in.’

  ‘Fine. But I want a lump sum, compensation for fourteen years of penal bloody servitude. And take that look off your face – perhaps it wasn’t quite fourteen years.’ She nodded thoughtfully. ‘The first year or so wasn’t too bad. I thought you were so dashing, so elegant. What you were, what you are, is a big fraud. You’re a flaming nancy-boy. Huh. Ironed laces? Whoever heard of a real man with ironed laces? And I don’t want to sleep with you any more. I cannot compete with your army of women.’

  ‘Women?’ His face coloured deeply. ‘Which women?’

  ‘The women you have receipts for! I’ve seen them, bills for Chanel and Je Reviens. Well, don’t bother “reviening” for me, I’ve had enough of your returns. Has it occurred to you that I am now the age you were when we married? While you’re like a man in his dotage?’ Oh God, she hadn’t meant it to be like this! Not with all this bitterness. Hadn’t she decided that it was no-one’s fault, that she would go quietly and gracefully? Yet still the words tumbled out of a mouth over which she seemed to have lost control. ‘I’ve had enough of you, your house, your job, your Rotary Club and your blinking mother. So I’m off to find a better life, even if it’s a life without comfort and apple bloody crumble.’

  He covered his face with his hands, and she was just on the verge of forcing herself to apologize for her tone when the back door flew open.

  ‘Geoff! Kate! Please, somebody, help me!’

  Pristine! Kate clenched jaw and fists. ‘In the dining room,’ she called eventually.

  Christine arrived in the doorway between dining room and kitchen, her face whitening, legs obviously buckling as she clung to the door jamb.

  ‘Catch her,’ yelled Kate, but she was too late. Poor old Pris lay flat out, head on the carpet, feet on the kitchen tiles. Even this had been done tidily, thought Kate as she and Geoff struggled through the house with the dead weight of their neighbour.

  They placed her on a sofa, where she came to after several seconds. ‘Where am I?’ she groaned. ‘Where’s Derek? Oh Derek, Derek, no . . . no . . . NO!’

  Geoff knelt on the floor and rubbed Pristine’s hands. Kate knew he’d seen this done in an old black-and-white Bette Davis film, so she didn’t expect it to have much effect. Rubbing people’s hands and burning feathers under their noses only worked in movies. ‘Here.’ She thrust a cup of brandy between the woman’s lips as soon as there came a more positive sign of life. ‘Here. Take a sip.’ She glanced at Geoff. ‘Better a cup than a glass. She might bite through a glass, poor soul. She must tell us what the matter is, she looks awful.’

  The brandy went down in one huge noisy gulp, then there followed a severe attack of coughing during which Geoff patted Pristine’s back and looked meaningfully at his wife. His eyes said ‘you shouldn’t have given her the brandy’, but Kate wasn’t taking him on. Her attention was given completely to Pris, who looked as if she’d been clobbered with a sledge hammer.

  ‘He’s dead.’ This pronouncement arrived once the throat was cleared. ‘He died at the top of Deane during a race. And he was winning, too, he had the yellow shirt . . .’ The word ‘shirt’ was elongated into a high-pitched wail.

  Kate swallowed deeply. This was dreadful. She would not call Christine Pris any more. Any woman who had lost a husband so cherished was deserving of respect and good treatment. ‘Dear God, Chris. I am so sorry. So very, very sorry . . .’ And so inadequate. What could one say to a woman who had been the butt of jokes for so long? How might one comfort a person whose malapropisms could cause hilarious laughter at any second? Not with Geoff, though. Geoff never laughed at Christine’s gaffes, didn’t notice half the time.

  ‘It was one of those artickerlated lorries,’ said Chris now. ‘It just folded up, sort of, oh . . . oh . . .’

  ‘Jackknifed?’ suggested Geoff.

  ‘That’s it. And Derek got killed under the load.’

  ‘What was it carrying?’ asked Geoff irrelevantly.

  ‘Potatoes.’

  Kate turned away. She would never look a bag of chips in the eyes again. Trust old Derek to end up mashed. And who ever heard of an articulated lorry carrying vegetables?

  ‘We never even had a baby,’ moaned Chris now. ‘It was my fault, not Derek’s. My filipine tubes are blocked, but there was nothing wrong with my Derek. He was . . . he was . . . the vocal point of my whole life.’

  Kate told herself sharply that she was not a nice person. Noticing Christine’
s vocabulary at a time like this was a very un-nice thing to do.

  ‘I’ve got nobody,’ wailed the voice from the sofa. ‘No family for the funeral, nobody to come and care about him. Or about me.’

  ‘We’ll come. Kate and I will come. Won’t we?’ He threw this last short question over his shoulder.

  ‘Of course we will.’ Kate faced the prostrate figure of her ‘perfect’ neighbour. ‘Make her some cocoa, Geoff,’ she whispered. ‘I daresay she needs a woman just now.’ When they were alone, Kate fetched a footstool and sat by Chris’s side, almost wincing as the grief-stricken woman gripped her hands with a strength that was near to iron. ‘Talk to me,’ said Kate gently. ‘Tell me anything or everything, whatever you feel like.’

  ‘You know the most ridicerlous thing, Kate?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, it’s the thing he enjoyed most except for bikes.’

  ‘No, love. You tell me about it.’

  ‘Jacketed potatoes with creamed mush-erooms. When we went out on the tandem, we always had to stop at some cafeteera and ask if they did creamed mush-erooms in jacketed potatoes. That was because they never served things like that at the orphanage.’

  ‘Dear Lord,’ breathed Kate. ‘Which orphanage?’

  ‘Where we met, where we fell in love. I was eight and he was nearly nine. We used to touch hands over the fence. Boys and girls were separated except on Sundays. We did this pledge, Derek and I. He would teach me to read on a Sunday afternoon if I would marry him and look after him.’

  Tears pricked Kate’s lids. ‘And . . . you both stuck to it, eh?’

  ‘Oh yes. I used to draw a picture every week, of a house with a nice garden and a hedge and a gate. On Sundays, I gave him the pictures. The curtains were always nice bright colours. We like colours. In the orphanage, everything was green and cream and brown. I made him a nice house, Kate.’