I don’t think I like cats very much. Why is she even here? Her mission in life, apart from irritating me, seems to be to wilfully destroy delicate life, birds and mice and shrews, such dear little trembling creatures. I make a note to contact the Blue Cross. Let them take her. I don’t want her here any more.
I am alone in the world. My father is actually dead, my mother may as well be dead, and I don’t even have Charles Dearhead any more to make sterile love to. I miss him, all of a sudden – because, I believe, even sterile love is better than no love at all.
And I no longer remember to eat. My clothes are becoming loose, my hair lank. I can’t be bothered to hoover or dust, wash up or shop.
I fret, I sleep.
I dream that I am a little girl again, being bounced on my father’s knees, squealing with delight, waving my hands around, too vigorously, scratching his cheek, but I didn’t mean to – ‘I’m sorry, Daddy’ – and he’s dabbing at his cheek with his handkerchief, annoyed, but telling me not to worry, little Robbie Roberta, and he tells my mother my nails need cutting, and my mother, sitting in her chair by the fire, her long hair shining in the firelight, ignores us. And now I can no longer decide what is real. She was still with us. Maybe it was the following day that she left? She didn’t collect me from school. I waited and waited in Miss Romney’s class, and she let me cut paper and card in the guillotine. Miss Romney remained bright and cheerful, but I knew she was worried. Eventually, Dad came into the classroom and picked me up and hugged me. He was crying, which I didn’t like. He shook his head at Miss Romney, thanked her and carried me home.
I must be unwell, I have a temperature, I think. I feel aglow. A day in bed. That’s what I need.
Day one: sleep. Sweat, a lot. The logical part of me that appears still to function underneath the raging tells me I have flu, a fever.
Day two: more fever, more sweating, Portia’s endless complaining, my mother’s sleek and shiny hair in the firelight. Nothing happens, but I think I feed Portia. I ought to feed Portia. My father has a gravestone, but it’s written in a strange script that I cannot read, and it is high summer. The bees are buzzing around the honeysuckle that grows under my kitchen window. The bees are buzzing around me, swarming, hideous and loud. I think my phone is ringing, I think I hear a girlish and familiar voice saying she’ll try my mobile. My mobile, plugged into its charger on the bedside table, rings. I can’t move. It rings, it stops. I think I sleep.
Day three? Feeling hot and thirsty and weak, and hating Portia. She looks thin too, I think. And then I understand, she would look thin, I’m not feeding her. I ran out of her food, possibly yesterday, possibly the day before. I’m surprised she is still here and has not absconded to the neighbour who, I am fairly certain, feeds her regularly, just as she fed Tara. This could be day three, or day six, or seven. I can’t count any more. And the awful truth is that there’s nobody to help. I am alone in this world and living now among the fevered and garish rubble that once was strong and good, my life that I had once built for myself.
Day four, I think, or eight? The doorbell ringing, and my not truly hearing it or connecting with it, and it ringing again.
My mobile rings. I grapple for it as it falls on to the floor. I pick it up, I can’t read the name. Was it my father? Surely not my mother?
‘Hello?’ I think the voice is mine. Or maybe it’s Portia’s? She has been speaking to me recently. At least she is still here. I am not alone. Oh, she looks hungry.
‘Roberta? It’s me. Philip. Are you all right? I’m at your flat. But I guess you’re not in?’
Philip? He’s never been to my flat.
‘I am here,’ I manage to say. My voice sounds like a squeak. ‘Hang on. Please.’
I stumble into the hall and, sure enough, there is the shadow of a real person through the frosted glass of the door. I eventually unlock it, and I stare at a man who looks exactly like my former boss, Philip Old, only more handsome. He stares back at me. The first person I have seen in four days. Or five. Or eight? Is it Friday? Somehow, I think, it must be a Saturday. The sun is shining like it does on Saturdays. It’s bright, and shining frostily, like it does in autumn. Is it still autumn? I have been floating through the poetry of summertime. My Dad has a gravestone, but I can’t read what it says. The language is foreign, it is gobbledegook. The honeysuckle is in full bloom. The bees torture my head, they crawl inside my ears and into my mind, colouring my world – ugly, visceral colours. My mother is so beautiful.
‘Roberta, you—’
I think he gets no further. The world is folding in on itself, I can’t breathe, my throat is tight, I can’t think or compute, but I know I’m slumping, and I know there is someone there to catch me, so I must let it happen, I must slip down into the unconsciousness which I know is waiting for me.
I can feel arms, I hear heavy breathing. ‘Oh fucking hell!’ somebody says. But whether it’s Philip or Portia or myself, I don’t know.
And I am gone. Into the darkness. And it is heaven.
I wake up in my bed. It’s been hours, I think, since I faded out. I am in clean pyjamas. It is dark outside. I can smell coffee, cat food, toasting bread. I am not alone. I sit up, fragility keeping my movements slow and pained.
‘Hello?’ I call. I can hear Radio Four murmuring from my kitchen.
Philip appears in my bedroom doorway. ‘Hello,’ he says, his head on one side, smiling. He is eating toast.
‘I don’t really know what’s going on,’ I say.
‘You’re ill. You’ve been ill for days, I suspect. Sophie was worried when she couldn’t get a reply on either of your phones. She rang me at home this morning. I came to see if I could help. You fainted on me in your hallway. Nutshell.’
‘What day is this?’
‘Sunday.’
‘What time?’
Philip examines his watch. ‘It’s twenty-six minutes past seven.’
‘At night?’
‘Yes.’
‘What time did you get here?’
‘Around two this afternoon.’
‘I passed out for five and a half hours?’
‘No, you were out for a minute or so. Don’t you remember? I carried you in here, we changed you into your pyjamas. I tucked you into bed.’
‘I don’t remember.’
Was I wearing knickers? Unwashed for days? Had Philip removed them? Did Philip see me naked?
I blush.
‘Don’t worry, Roberta,’ he says. ‘Your dignity is more than intact. Besides, we’ve known each other for quite a while now, haven’t we? So if I happened upon your underwear while helping you into bed, it’s of no great consequence. Is it?’
‘No.’
There is a strange silence in the room. Philip stands in the doorway, looking at me. I have not seen this expression before. He looks like he feels sorry for me. I don’t like it much. I am relieved when Portia glides into the room and jumps up on to my bed. She purrs as I stroke her and hold her to my face, feeling her soft fur, reacquainting myself with her familiar cat smell.
‘Thank you,’ I say to Philip, burying my face in Portia.
‘For what?’ he says.
‘For everything. Thank you. For being such a good friend,’ and here I am now, crying, tears rolling down my cheeks, the cat leaping away because she has never liked crying. I notice she is no longer speaking to me.
Philip sits on my bed, puts down his toast and takes my hand in both of his. His hands are warm and buttery.
‘I’m sorry about your father,’ he says.
‘I didn’t tell you about him.’
‘No. But everyone else did. It’s a small town, Roberta. You should have told me. Why on earth didn’t you ring? I could have helped. And I would have liked to have gone to the funeral. As it was … it was difficult. You and I parted on bad terms, I felt.’
‘I couldn’t … I don’t expect anything from you.’
‘I’d do anything for you, Roberta. Any time you ask. You m
ay have worked that out by now.’ He smiles kindly at me.
‘No, I haven’t worked that out.’
‘Then you must be extremely dim.’
I have no reply to this. Philip is sitting on my bed, holding my hand, making what sounds like a declaration of loyalty, if not devotion. And I am scared and sad and feeling rotten and I can’t imagine how I must look and smell. I wonder if he has emptied Portia’s litter tray. I rather think I was sick in the bathroom at some point in recent days. I don’t recall cleaning it up.
‘Roberta. Look. We’ve been beating around the bush for so long now. It’s all becoming such a bore. We’ve already wasted too many years in the sense that we have not been honest with each other. Whether from simple shyness or fear or even compunction, I don’t know. What I mean is, I love you like a sister. But that doesn’t make me your brother, does it?’
I think Philip just uttered the words ‘I love you’. Ambiguously, of course. Typically. But he’s right, too many years have been wasted, too much time has passed, and if I were to die now – and, believe me, I feel close to that state – I know what my one overwhelming regret would be. I know this, I have admitted it to myself. I just need to find the guts to admit it to him, and now.
‘I don’t have a brother,’ I say. It’s not, of course, quite what I meant to say or wanted to say, but it will have to do. At least it’s true.
‘Would you have liked one?’
‘Yes. Oh yes.’
‘Me too. I have a sister. But she doesn’t approve of me.’
‘Philip?’
‘Yes?’
‘I love you too,’ I mean to say. I am breathing hard and fast, and my heart is thumping like it has to be free of my body. And I’m sweating – but that doesn’t matter, because I’ve been sweating for days. I have to say these words to this man, who is still sitting on my bed holding my hand. I have been quiet for too long, quiet and stupid. I deserve this chance. I’m going to take it.
But all I can manage is, ‘Can I come back to work?’ It’s pathetic.
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ says Philip. ‘Of course. But only when you’re up to it.’
‘Thank you,’ I say. Nothing more.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Philip, does she make you happy? Jenna?’ I feel breathless and charmed. Slowly, slowly I’m building up to it.
‘Sometimes. It’s … difficult.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m awfully stupid, Roberta. I’m a man, after all.’
‘You’re not stupid in the least,’ I say.
‘I don’t find relationships easy.’
‘Does anybody?’
‘My parents did. I never heard a cross word between them all through my childhood. Mind you, I was away at school much of the time.’
‘Boarding school?’
This is the first time he’s told me anything about his childhood.
‘Boarding school, indeed.’
‘I see. You were … quite well off, then?’
‘I still am, my dear, I still am.’ Philip winks at me. He’s not done that to me before. ‘When one is fortunate enough to go through life with sufficient money … it should make life so easy, shouldn’t it?’
‘Yes, I … I suppose so,’ I stammer, blushing.
He seems amused. ‘Yes, well. Enough of this bullshit. I’m going to get you some toast, you can’t have eaten properly for days. Then I’m going to leave you to get more sleep, but I’ll bed down on the sofa tonight, if that’s okay?’
I nod weakly.
And he carries on. ‘I phoned Jenna earlier to fill her in. She’s being very understanding, actually, and hopes you feel better soon. And don’t worry about anything, I’ve fed the cat and cleaned up. I’ll be here in the morning, and we’ll talk properly. You’re still feverish, but I need to know you mean what you say about coming back, and I want you to understand that I mean what I say. All you have to do is eat, then sleep. Do you mind if I open that bottle of Pinot Grigio in your fridge?’
I eat two slices of hot buttery toast, then two more. Then I sleep. I dream, drifting in and out of sleep. He loves me, he loves me not. Finally, I lie still, I close my eyes, I go over all that Philip and I have spoken about.
And he’s here all night, watching over me, my friend.
26
Dorothy and her boy. He was dark-haired, skinny, alive, and together they were sitting on a riverbank at nearly twilight. The river moved softly, a water vole scurried from the water into his hole in the bank. She heard a noise like a thousand angel wings beating, but it was starlings, a huge flock of them, a murmuration swarming over the treetops, black, moving as one, this way, that, evening sunlight reflecting from a myriad of wings like shimmers of pure gold. Dorothy reached for her son’s hand and he smiled as, together, they watched the birds, the mother and her son, hand in hand, contented and joyous. But there were no more starlings. Instead, there were crows, and they were angry. And in front of them, fleeing for its life, was an owl, its wings beating furiously, a fear in its eyes that Dorothy and her son could clearly see. Dorothy clutched her boy to her, cradled his head in her arms and rocked him until the terrible spectacle was over. And like all dreams it was soon over, half remembered.
But that day in 1939, the day of Sidney’s birth, was never just half remembered, although she tried hard to forget. The pains did not abate.
She couldn’t finish her laundry, and had to leave Albert’s Sunday trousers in the mangle, her undies floating in the copper, the soapsuds forming a scum on top. She sent Albert on his bicycle for Mrs Compton, who followed him back on her own bicycle, both arriving red-faced and tired. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, a warm, fresh day in May with a softening breeze. Mrs Compton bustled into the kitchen with a heavy-looking carpet bag, black and worn, which she placed on the table. Dorothy, sitting by the range, looked up at Mrs Compton.
‘What do we have here, then?’ Mrs Compton asked, hands on hips, looking down on Dorothy malevolently, or so it seemed to the labouring woman.
For surely this was labour, the pains coming and fading rhythmically, each one harder and longer than the last? It had been going on for six hours now, more or less, by Dorothy’s reckoning. But she couldn’t say exactly when they started, those first faint tremors, gradually turning to pain.
‘You’re quiet enough,’ said Mrs Compton. ‘The baby isn’t on his way just yet. Get a nice cup of tea.’ She looked at Albert, indicating the kettle on the range.
Surprised, he shook it to make sure there was water inside. There was.
‘And then relax, eat, get to bed early, both of you. I’ll come back in the morning. I’ll leave my things here.’ She indicated her bag with a tap.
Dorothy did, and did not, want Mrs Compton to leave. Fear of what was to come, the task before her, and dismay that the baby wouldn’t be born in the next hour or two fuelled her anxiety. ‘What if the baby comes in the night and you’re not here?’ she said.
‘He won’t, love, trust me, I’ve seen hundreds of women like you. And it’s your first, he’ll be a while yet. I’ll come back nice and early, I’ll come at six. How’s that? Try to sleep.’
She left. Albert and Dorothy sipped tea, Dorothy catching her breath with each pain as it surged through her body, stinging the tops of her legs, crashing through her belly like a newly sharpened knife. After a while, they ate and talked a little, Albert eyeing her anxiously. They went to bed at nine o’clock, and he tentatively rubbed her belly until he slept. Dorothy stayed awake and wished forth her baby. The idea of the pains getting any worse was becoming inconceivable.
Dorothy listened to Albert snore for a while, until she got out of bed and walked around the house. She decided to be useful, so she returned to her wash house. In between pains, she finished off the laundry and hung everything out on the line to dry overnight. The night was warm, the breeze still present, it was a perfect night for drying. That task completed, she returned to the house, quietly re
trieved the suitcase from under the bed and carried it down to the parlour. She took out all the things she had made for this baby, for Sidney. She was convinced the baby was a boy, so much so that she had not even considered any girls’ names this time. She smelled Sidney’s clothes, shook them, smoothed them and laid them out on the settee, trying to decide which outfit she would dress her baby in first. Then she packed them all away again and napped on the settee.
Around three o’clock in the morning, she awoke with a strong wave of pain, suddenly stronger, harder, and she doubled over, crying out. She feared something was wrong, some indescribable tragedy was surely unfolding inside her. The pain was unnatural. She woke Albert, sending him for Mrs Compton. Yes, she knew she’d said she would come back early, but she was needed now. It was only just gone three, yes, she knew that, but please, Albert. I’m scared. Albert thought her melodramatic, but Dorothy didn’t care. It was happening only to her and so only she knew.
When she was alone again, the pains grew stronger, harder, more frequent and urgent. It seemed that Mrs Compton and Albert would never return, she would have to give birth on her own, it would be bloody, the baby would wail and she wouldn’t know what to do. She struggled upstairs between pains, got on to the bed, and rocked on all fours, trying to keep up her breathing. She tried to focus on something else, the day ahead, whether it would be warm and dry. It seemed likely. She got off the bed, as the rocking motion and squeak of the castors were making her feel sick and reminded her of this baby’s conception. She knelt on the floor, trying to concentrate, trying to remain alive and sane.
They arrived. Dorothy could hear Mrs Compton heaving up the narrow stairs, calling over her shoulder for Albert to boil the kettle.
‘Hush now, Dorothy, all’s well!’ said Mrs Compton as she entered the room.
Dorothy did not realise she had been making any noise. ‘It hurts. I’m scared.’
‘I know, it will hurt, you’re giving birth. It’s all normal, and you will survive.’
‘There’s something wrong. Wrong here.’ Dorothy pointed between her legs and gasped, she grappled for air, a pain sweeping over and through her. Was she being squeezed through her own mangle?
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