The Playroom

by Frances Fyfield

  DEDICATION

  To Fanny Blake, Robin Blake, and the boys

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Acknowledgement

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  About the Author

  Also by Frances Fyfield

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  My thanks to Jennifer Davies, tutor par excellence, for her wisdom and her nursery rhymes.

  PROLOGUE

  The child woke, her face hot from the stab of sunshine arrowed through the window to her face. She turned on her stomach to avoid the glare, burrowed back among the clothes on the floor, attempting to restore the comfort of sleep but a buzzing at the window gradually disturbed her. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Everything was silent apart from the buzzing and the tick-ticking made by the boiler in the cupboard outside the playroom door. Sometimes at night when the boiler gave a kind of whoosh, sign of life elsewhere in the house, someone running a bath and taxing the work of the gas flame, she could deceive herself that the very sound meant rescue, but nothing had ever followed. Now she was inured to the noise but the buzzing was different. There was a wasp at the window, grizzling at the pane, crawling upwards then dropping back; picking a nervous route round one frame, buzzing for a second, settling back again as if exhausted. Head hurt, I s’pose, she thought, trying to block out the noise, but her heart began to pound and in one automatic reaction, she began to crawl further away from the window. Progress would have been quicker if she had picked up the whole armoury of skirts, dresses and scarves with her, but the logic which had made her use them in the absence of any other cover defeated her now. Besides, she was weaker than she had been yesterday, more transfixed by the wasp than the hunger which had diminished. The wasp made her cringe more than the sight of her own vomit in the corner and the clawing pangs which had accompanied every other wakening.

  Forgetting the wasp for a minute, she remembered she was hot; too hot in the shroud of assorted clothes, hot and smelly although she could smell nothing, merely aware of being damp and flushed. She kicked away the shiny material which covered her, pushed up her T-shirt and with both hands, pulled down the cotton shorts to her knees, thought better of that and pulled them up again. She had some instincts of modesty, a clear memory of a voice saying, ‘Don’t do that, darling, please.’ She moved her legs listlessly, looked round the walls for the hundredth time. Pinned to one pastel surface was the legend, written large in red felt pen, ‘I AM FOUR TODAY’; another poster, further down, ‘TINKER TAILOR IS TWO’. Her own poster was tatty in one corner from where she had tried to chew it. The paper of the other was so shiny hard she had not tried the same tactic, while the satin dress was still wet with saliva on one long sleeve from where she had stuffed it into her mouth before going to sleep. She noticed idly how the stained shorts she wore seemed to have become larger almost overnight, slipping down with ease, moving round her middle when she moved, and she wriggled for a moment, enjoying the sensation of having nothing on her tiny person which restricted her at all. She examined her own, huge knee joints; they grew bigger by the hour. The sound of the wasp, some confused memory of winter birthdays and being cooler than this, brought the insect at the window back into focus. She sat up, a full six feet in between them giving her some feeling of security. Then she began to whimper, rubbed her eyes again, stared.

  The sash window was open two inches at the bottom, held there by window locks in the side which prevented anyone of normal adult strength from pushing it beyond. The lower frame was scratched from where she had clawed after the early screaming had brought no response, episodes forgotten now. She remembered getting on a box and hitting the window with one of the metal toys, but neither angle nor strength had allowed any real impact until the toy broke. Jammed between the lower frame, sticking into the room, wearing a polythene sheet, guarded by the wasp, was a sandwich. She looked round wildly, dizzy with anticipation, the old fear of the wasp forgotten. Fear of things which buzzed and stung was a terror confirmed by the hideous shock of a striped bee once attached to her pink forearm administering a pain she could not begin to describe even in screams: in that other life of freedom she would shout at bees and wasps when she spotted them within ten feet, Go away, rotten thingy, go away. Or wheedle at them, Nice waspie thingy, go way please, eat someone else, please. Now the terrible sight of the wasp was irrelevant. She scrabbled to her feet, unsteady in step, pushed everything before her towards the window. Toys, dresses, boxes fell from below her bare feet as she scrabbled at the gap, reaching for the touch of polythene, feeling it between her fingers, her eyes suddenly level with the black and yellow of the wasp buzzing with businesslike fury next to her grasp. If it stung her in the eyes she would not care, falling back, watching the thing still at the window while she tore at the plastic with her teeth, spitting out bits, clutching the contents in one fist and stuffing bread into her mouth. She did not like the taste, beef, mustard, hot, grainy bread as dry as blotting paper with big lumps, all of it tasting of nothing but food, bolted without chewing until her throat was blocked and she began to choke. Coughing, she brought up most of the first half-slice, took stock, looked at it, put the mess back in her mouth and chewed more slowly, regarding the second sandwich jealously, keeping one hand across the bread in case it should move. Or the wasp should get there first. She shuffled back again, further from the window. She would eat the wasp too, and the single thought of that, the only thought since waking, all the rest action and reaction, made her grimace. Yuk.

  The disciplines of her elders asserted something in her mind as one enormous gulp took down the substance of the crust. More left: she stared at the second slice, taking in with her eye the generous size of it, wanting to postpone the grief of finishing, closed her fingers round it and worked out how to prolong the pleasure. Sit still, eat slowly; don’t show off, tastes better that way, as if taste mattered. Her lips felt dry with salt, the same taste on the fingers which had rubbed her eyes, sticky with the salt of dried tears, a saline crust which felt as if she could pick it off in lumps the size of crystals. She had done so more than once; the taste was similar to the sandwich, gritty, interesting. There could be no more discipline than this tiny pause. Feeling inestimably good, so good she would have liked someone to have seen, she made herself tear the second sandwich into small pieces, dabbing at the crumbs to make sure none was lost, making herself take only a single piece into her mouth at a time although the succession of one after another was swift, growing swifter by the mouthful while she watched fixedly the shrinking pile of the remains, terrified they would escape. So swift, so soon, the grief of the empty space where food had been enormous. All gone, Granny, all gone, gone, gone. But a feeling of fullness, a marvellous gurgling as her tummy went into rebellion. Almost happiness, full of belief that more would follow.

  Next, nothing, same old sleepiness, sun going down and the heat which had woken her into life receding into cold. She pulled up the satin dress, watching the last shaft of brilliant light from the window illuminate the vivid purple cloth, making it incandescent. Her hand stroked the cloth, loving the touch of the material, pulle
d towards her the lurex, goldy black shawl which she also liked, but which lacked the warmth of the heavier purple. If she warmed them now, they would be warm for later; they were cosy enough and the prospect of another night-time still distant.

  Be good, child, be good: can you remember what I told you yesterday? Sing to me, my lovely.

  Who killed cock robin?

  I, said the sparrow,

  With my bow and arrow

  I killed cock robin.

  She could think of a room, full of comforting voices. Such as Silly, silly, silly; course the robin didn’t die, ’s only a song; don’t go on so. All right, if you don’t like that one, we’ll do another, but I promise you, cock robin got better, they were only teasing, didn’t have anything better to sing about, silly people. You like this one, don’t you? Come on, remember? Like this . . . The child began to croon to herself, pulling the evening dress round her chin,

  Dance for your daddie

  My little laddie . . .

  Wha’s a laddie, I’s a girlie: let a boy sing that one, not me. Don’t be silly, he won’t remember. Just go on with the next bit. Like this,

  You shall have a fishy,

  On a little dishy,

  You shall have a fishy,

  When the boat comes in.

  ‘I don’t like fishy,’ the child murmured out loud in the empty room. ‘I don’t like it and I don’t like Daddy.’ She saw a familiar old face like a shadow on the wall, lingering above the birthday poster, shaking disapproval, fading away with the last shaft of sunlight, talking quietly. You mustn’t say that, sweetie, really you mustn’t. Let’s sing another, my, you’re difficult today. ‘I don’t like Daddy, don’t like Daddy, let me out, please . . .’

  The wasp hovered over her forehead. She felt too weak, too indifferent to brush it away. If stripy thing stung, she might scream, but could not prevent it. Her arms were heavy; she would not be able to flap it away. Sing then, nothing else but singing to the bassoon noises of her tummy.

  Was a little girl who had a lickle curl . . . What came next? She was bad, that was it, no, good, that was it. Or maybe had a little lamb. And when she was good she was horrid.

  Outside the door, the noise was slightly audible, the light drone of voices, words slurred, whole sound of deceptive content. There were scratches on the black paintwork on the inside of the door. The paintwork on the outside was perfect. The child was distracted by the marks, which her eyes turned into weird shapes like the patterns on her bedroom wallpaper. As the wasp landed and stung the hand which made no attempt to brush it away, the room beyond the door was silent. No one heard the muffled shriek, one tired little scream, but upstairs in the next house, quite unaccountably, another child began to cry.

  CHAPTER 1

  Everything was going to be all right. Everything will be perfectly fine. She forced herself to stand still, raise her hands from her sides and take a few deep breaths until she was tired of taking deep breaths and forgetting to let go. That was the problem, forgetting halfway through. Concentration was not her strong point. They’d said so in all those schools. Mustn’t get tense, always made things worse: must exercise control.

  Katherine would have gone to the ends of the earth on any day of the week to avoid a row, and quarrels tended to follow whenever tension took the upper hand. Hence the deep breathing, which made her feel stupid as well as weak. Silly really: might be simpler to have the row and get it over with, but he was bound to win. What with his background and her own, quarrelling should have been anathema to him as it was to her, but was not. Rows were awful; she could not even see how he could risk them, but he did and there it was. Shouting for pleasure was all right and she sometimes did so, but never for any other reason and certainly not in anger.

  Everything was going to be all right. There was just a ritual she had to go through now, just because the eggs for breakfast had been mislaid, sitting on some shop counter along with the soap (guilty, last-minute purchases these, from a corner shop where she liked to shop and chatter although David said their stock was as old as the hills). All that seemed small enough reason to be so angry, but she could not turn back and say you forget things too, you know, not often, but sometimes, it isn’t the end of the world. She kept quiet instead. Anything for peace.

  Not that silences were really peaceful: they were loaded, a pregnant silence throughout the house as David prepared to go off and see some client, taking Jeremy with him. That was another cause for insult if she had chosen to take the bait: he never left Jeremy alone with her, took him everywhere like a shadow as if he was bound to fall downstairs or cut a new tooth if left at home with his mother. A case of father love run riot: apparently the clients seemed to like it, made David look like a reliable sort of chap, she supposed without imagining for a minute he would take a baby with him for the sake of his image. There was no need, she thought, with a rush of affection: he is a reliable sort of a chap. Oh damn, damn, why had she forgotten those eggs, she was sure she had brought them home.

  Very quiet; too quiet. For reasons or pastimes better left unquestioned, Jeanetta was in her own room, mimicking Mummy by tidying up while Mummy herself tidied with less heart but more efficiency in the master bedroom. Saturday, and a slight feeling of disorientation because there was no structure, a gap of a morning, and industry was certainly Katherine’s second nature. Not always productive industry, but still work. What nonsense, thinking there was nothing to do: there was always plenty to do in this house and at some point, never certain, Sophie would be arriving. Lunch, tea, or both? David had not said, slyly arranging his appointment to coincide with a visit from his mother. Clever David.

  Looking for some pleasant anticipation in order to stave off that sense of failure and the something like panic which made her so foolish whenever David was angry, Katherine smiled. Thank God, there was Sophie today, a thought which half reconciled her to his being out. They could get into a huddle, Sophie and she, with Jeanetta chirping on the sidelines. Sophie talked about nothing and everything, repeated the gossip of her friends and neighbours without ever giving a fig about the so-called more important issues of the world and her avid astonishment at the doings of all these people was only the same as Katherine’s own. ‘And do you know what her daughter did? The one I told you about? Well, she’s only run off again . . .’ ‘No,’ Katherine would breathe, chin in hand over the seventh cup of tea, riveted to the chair in the telling of other people’s disasters, ‘Never!’ Sophie would adjust, sit back in triumph. ‘Well, she did. Anyway, darling, what have you bought new since I saw you? Oh lovely, darling. Did I tell you about Mrs Major?’ Oh go on, go on, Katherine would urge, craving gossip which only Sophie could provide. Old friends from premarriage days had all been abandoned, only now with regret, and the newer ones were too sophisticated for such indulgence most of the time and she was, without ever admitting it, a little short of gossip in a street like this. Difficult to chat over a garden wall when the walls were twelve feet high with the houses beyond so very large. Never mind; even with the isolation, she found the road in which they lived quite beautiful.

  The thought of Sophie was temporary comfort, but only temporary. Katherine needed more than that to quell the feeling of reciprocal anger with him downstairs because the irritation was dangerous and he might think she was sulking, waiting for him to go. Which she was, in a manner of speaking, but not waiting and wanting. She needed something to bring back into focus the David she had known because life was quite unbearable without that man and all he brought with him. The day brightened. Early summer, sun streaming through the windows. Katherine shook the curtains and pulled them back. There was a smear on one of the panes which she rubbed with the inside of the curtain, another task circumvented for another day. The moss-green carpet where the sun lay was warm on her bare feet. Housework this morning would all be done thus, instead of wearing the favourite slippers, brown, fluffy slippers, which seemed, latterly, to have disappeared. David detested slippers, but any such foo
twear could well have been coveted by Jeanetta, who loved to put her small feet inside large shoes and hobble around like Granny. Idly, since there was no urgency in any task at the moment, Katherine took a look in the cupboard on the landing. Again, although she had looked before to see if she might spot these tasteless presents culled from one of Sophie’s markets, those places of stalls, crowds, colours and cheap goods which Katherine secretly loved, treasuring the slippers accordingly. No longer. Oh dear, oh dear. Always losing things. You’ll lose your head one day, my dear. Instead, the cupboard contained a jumble of other things, hidden by Jeanetta. Three toys which Katherine could not recognize. Oh God, not again. Now there really would be a row.

  ‘Jeanetta?’ she called. ‘What are you doing?’

  There was no reply other than the sound of shuffling and a slight cough. Probably the child hiding something else. Katherine did not persist, quickly covered the toys she did not recognize with Jeremy’s clothes and scuttled back into the bedroom, reattempted the deep breathing and tried, desperately, to think entirely positive thoughts.

  This involved sitting on the bed, just a bending at the slim waist for a moment, ready to smooth the rich cover when she rose, all such tidying motions automatic, giving self a lecture. Now come on . . . Whatever she lost or her daughter acquired with such habitual carelessness, there was still in this room a great number of things she could rightfully call her own. This quilted bedspread, for instance, well that always made her say, Katherine, you aren’t as bad as all that: you were clever enough to make this. Scraps of silk from shops and stalls where she had worked, cut into identical shapes, fashioned into this multi-shaded, blue and green bedspread of such proportions. Katherine allowed herself a moment of self-praise. However was it, in the days of poverty, the half-finished courses for which she never had quite the right qualifications, the flat with Mary and the scrappy, short-lived jobs in arty shops where she liked the smell without being terribly good at the work, had she managed to find so much silk? You’re like a little scavenger, Mary had said, not entirely disapproving: You’re selective, but messy.