The Frances Garrood Collection

by Frances Garrood

  I don’t know what I had expected, but I found the sight of Lucas walking down the aisle carrying the tiny white coffin more heartbreaking than anything that had happened in the whole of that awful week. There had been no shortage of volunteers for this last sad task (Call Me Bill and the Lodger to name two) but Lucas had insisted. His position in the family dictated that he should be the one to carry Octavia’s coffin, and that was what he would do.

  The church was packed with people, many of whom I’d never seen before, but I was rapidly learning that the death of a child touches everyone, and that these people needed to be there for themselves as much as for us, even if we were never to see them again. The wispy grey relatives of my grandmother’s funeral were mercifully absent — they probably didn’t even know what had happened — and for that I was grateful.

  The church smelled of cool air and polish and roses, and there was complete silence as Lucas laid down his small burden in front of the chancel. It was as though we were all holding our grief in check, waiting for the permission that only Mum could give. But she remained silent; she probably had no more tears left to weep. So the rest of us had to contain ours as best we could.

  I remember envying those people whose cultures allow them to stamp and howl and rage around a grave or funeral pyre; who can express their grief physically, who can embrace and console each other while screaming their outrage to the heavens. It seemed so much more natural than our stiff upper lips and rigid self-control, and the robed ritual and musty prayers of the Church of England.

  Octavia was buried in the churchyard. There had never been any question of cremation, for Mum said she found it unthinkable that anything should be done to damage her small body even further. It was far better that she should lie among the ancient gravestones and the yew trees, where we could visit her. I know now that Mum needed a grave to tend; a place where she could go to nurse her grief. I myself have always favoured the gentleness of burial over the violent destruction of cremation, and on more than one occasion have been reminded of the comforting words at the end of Wuthering Heights:

  I lingered ... under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

  There mightn’t have been any heath or harebells in our churchyard; rather the ubiquitous daisies and the brazen faces of dandelions. But I derived some small comfort from the thought of Octavia slumbering — such a deeply peaceful, consoling word — in the gentle environment of grass and trees and sky.

  I remember little about the rest of that day. I know people came back to the house with us, and we must have offered them some kind of refreshment, but all I can recall is the feeling of utter exhaustion. Too tired to talk, too tired to cry, too tired even to think, all I wanted was to go to my room and curl up under the blankets in my old familiar bed, and sleep and sleep.

  Twenty-one

  I didn’t go back to school that term. Call Me Bill collected my trunk and the rest of my stuff, and returned with a car full of my belongings together with a box of kind little notes and messages from my friends and teachers. Miss Armitage had already sent me an uncharacteristically warm letter of sympathy, closing with the injunction to ‘be brave, but not too brave’. I got the feeling that it wasn’t the first occasion upon which she had had to write such a letter to one of her pupils, and I have never forgotten that wise advice.

  Grief is a strange thing. There were moments, even days, when I felt almost happy again; when I would read a book or go for a walk or see a friend, and everything would seem normal. Then some little reminder — a baby in a pram or a small head of auburn hair — would set me off again, and it was as though everything had happened only yesterday.

  For the first time ever, the summer holidays seemed too long. As we moved from July into August, one drab sultry day merged into the next, the dusty leaves seemed to wilt on the trees and in the hedgerows, and flowers and weeds drooped together in our neglected garden. I think we were all painfully aware of the contrast with the previous August, when the house had been alive with the cries and the new presence of Octavia, but none of us said anything. We were each of us cocooned in our own sadness and our own memories, and while we did our best to help one another, I think that for each of us the journey was a different one.

  Mum still spent much of her time in her room, but while she had gradually relinquished Octavia’s clothes, she kept the teddy and the blanket in her bed with her. Sometimes I found her sniffing them, as though she were trying to extract from them the last traces of Octavia, and one day towards the end of August, I found her in tears.

  ‘I can’t smell her, Cass. Her smell’s gone. I can’t smell her any more. I shall never smell her again!’

  I knew what she meant. I myself had paid covert visits to the bathroom where a tin of Johnson’s baby powder was still sitting on the window sill, and had sprinkled it onto my hand and sniffed it, causing the tears to well up yet again as I remembered Octavia’s bath times and her warm baby smell.

  Why do we do these things? Why do we put ourselves through such painful experiences again and again, when there is no need? Is it simply hanging on, or is there more to it? Could it be that by pouring salt into our wounds we are in some way trying to purge them? Or perhaps we are testing ourselves, just to see if it still hurts as much as it did last time, like poking one’s tongue into the gap left by an extracted tooth.

  The aloofness which had come over Mum before Octavia’s funeral had gone, and she became pathetically dependent and afraid of being left on her own. Each time she heard a door open or close, she would call out, and if any of us left the house she would question us closely as to where we were going and how long we’d be away.

  ‘Where are you going, Cass?’ Her voice followed me wherever I went, and I found it increasingly hard to be patient. Of course I needed my family, but I also needed my friends, and some time to myself to sort out my own feelings; to come to terms with what had happened and to think about my future. Because whatever anyone else might do, I had to make plans. I couldn’t allow my life to come to a full stop because my sister had died, tragic though that was. Sooner or later, I had to move on.

  When my exam results arrived I had done even better than anyone had expected, and for a few precious hours things seemed to return to normal as everyone rejoiced with me. Mum was terribly proud, and spent a happy morning with the telephone and her address book, phoning anyone and everyone to tell them how clever I was. Normally I would have found this embarrassing, but I was so pleased that she had found something to be happy about — that she was still capable of happiness — that I would cheerfully have consented to a full-page announcement in a national newspaper if that would have prolonged the atmosphere of celebration.

  Lucas’s A-level results, on the other hand, were abysmal, but then, as he himself pointed out, he didn’t deserve good results since he hadn’t done any work. He had recently decided to join the police, and they didn’t seem to mind too much about his academic prowess. I suspected then — and still do — that Lucas got in on charm, since that has always been his greatest asset, although when I suggested it I was told very firmly that that was not what the police were looking for. Privately, I thought the police force could do with a bit more charisma to ginger up their image, and Lucas might be just what they needed. No doubt my idea of a policeman’s role was naive, but I could see Lucas consoling the victims of burglaries or talking potential suicides off bridges and rooftops, and was quite sure he would be a success. As for Mum, she was so taken with the idea of having a policeman as a son that the failed A levels barely registered with her at all.

  ‘It’ll be so useful, Cass,’ she confided to me, in one of her bewildering twists of logic.

  I knew better than to challenge her. If she wanted to dream of a lifetime’s immunity from the law, then that was fine by me.

&nb
sp; As the end of the holidays drew nearer, I began to feel anxious. There had been no mention of my going back to school; no half-hearted replacing of outgrown uniform or grumbling over the price of hockey sticks. I didn’t like to bring the subject up as it seemed heartless to be thinking of leaving home at such a difficult time, but the new term was almost upon me.

  ‘Mum?’ I found her sitting in the kitchen, absently brushing The Dog and gazing into space. ‘About — well, about school.’

  ‘What about school?’ Mum removed a burr from The Dog’s tail, and examined it as though it were suddenly of great interest.

  ‘Going back, I suppose. We — I — haven’t done anything about it, and the term starts next week. I need — well, I need new things.’

  ‘New things,’ mused Mum. ‘What new things?’

  ‘My skirts are terribly short, although Greta’s let them down as far as they’ll go, and my blouses —’

  ‘You mean boarding school?’

  ‘Well, yes. Of course, boarding school.’

  ‘Oh. I didn’t think.’

  ‘What didn’t you think, Mum?’ I sat down beside her.

  ‘I suppose I didn’t think you’d be going back. But you must go back. Of course you must.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you really want to.’

  ‘Well, yes. In any case, they’re expecting me. I can’t just not turn up.’

  ‘No, of course you can’t.’ She gave The Dog a final pat and pushed him away.

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘Well then,’ she repeated, and took my hands in hers. ‘Oh, Cass. What am I going to do without you?’

  ‘Mum, you’ve got everyone else, and I’ll soon be home again. I’ll write lots, and I expect they’ll let me phone.’

  But I knew. Perhaps in a way I had always known. I wouldn’t be going back to boarding school. For even if Mum could bear to part with me — and this seemed doubtful — how could I leave her like this?

  ‘I shouldn’t be doing this to you,’ Mum said. ‘It’s all wrong.’

  ‘You’re not doing anything to me, Mum.’

  ‘Yes, I am. I’m putting pressure on you. I don’t mean to. I want you to have your own life, of course I do. And I don’t want to — hang on to you. It’s not fair. Especially with you being so clever.’

  I laughed.

  ‘Oh, Mum! What’s my being clever got to do with it?’

  ‘Opportunity, I suppose. It’s the least I can do, to let you have your opportunities. You could go far, you know, Cass. You could even be a doctor.’

  To Mum, being a doctor represented the pinnacle of achievement.

  ‘Mum, I don’t want to be a doctor. The thought’s never even crossed my mind.’

  ‘Ah, but you could be. If you wanted.’

  ‘Almost as good as being a policeman?’ I teased her.

  ‘Even better than being a policeman,’ Mum said, giving me one of her increasingly rare smiles.

  I got up and walked across to the window. There was already an autumnal light in the sky, and the bushes were festooned with those pretty jewelled spiders’ webs which seem to appear towards the end of summer. The grass was thick with dew, and swallows were beginning to line up for their autumn journey. This time of year always reminded me of blackberry-picking and the glossy brown of newly hatched conkers, of sharp pencils and clean white rubbers, and the inviting smell of shiny new exercise books. Most people see spring as the season for new beginnings, but for me it has always been the autumn.

  But not this year. This year, I wasn’t looking forward to autumn at all.

  ‘I won’t go back, Mum,’ I said, turning away from the window. ‘I’ll stay at home with you.’

  ‘Oh, you must go, Cass. Of course you must,’ Mum said, but I could see the relief already beginning to dawn in her face, and I knew she wouldn’t need much persuading.

  For a few moments I was filled with anger. I had been packed off to boarding school with no reference to my feelings and through no fault of my own, and now, when I was really settled, I was being compelled to leave. It wasn’t fair. Whatever might or might not have happened, it simply wasn’t fair.

  But my anger was short-lived. I looked down at Mum, who had aged ten years in the past few weeks; at the empty high chair which was already gathering dust in the corner of the kitchen, and at poor lonely Greta, who had just come in with a basket of clothes to iron, and I sighed.

  Of course it wasn’t fair, but then life wasn’t fair. How could I ever have expected it to be?

  Twenty-two

  My old school had been the local secondary modern, for in order to remain with my friends when we left our primary school, I had taken pains to ensure that I failed the eleven-plus. I had enjoyed my time there, where the company was convivial, the discipline lax and such talents as I had as yet undiscovered. Now, however, it appeared that I was High School material, and if my education were to continue, I had little choice but to enrol.

  The local High School was prestigious, and proud of it. It had a good record of Oxbridge entrants (the honours board in the assembly hall glowed with the collective triumphs of the girls who had passed through its classrooms), and it was very soon made clear to me that in the fullness of time, my own name was expected to appear among them. To this end, pressure was applied at every turn; pressure to work hard, pressure to conform, pressure (it seemed to me) to sacrifice any pleasure I might have found in my studies in the interests of better examination results. And I was not accustomed to pressure. So, before I had been there a term, I switched off.

  In vain did my teachers lecture me on wasted talent and the importance of my future. In vain did they talk of present frustration and future regret. I was deaf to them all. If my future really was my own, then presumably it was up to me what I did with it, and as to future regret, well, that too would be my problem.

  I’m sure that much of my lack of co-operation was due to the effects of Octavia’s death (something which my teachers seemed to disregard, although they were all aware of it), but I had always had an obstinate streak too. Apart from Mum’s decision to send me away to school (and for that, I had long since forgiven her), I had always been consulted as to what I wanted to do, and I saw no reason why that should change.

  At the beginning of my second term Miss Carrington, the headmistress, sent for Mum, but if she had any hopes of getting parental co-operation from that quarter, she didn’t know my mother.

  ‘Silly cow,’ Mum said, on her return from this interview. ‘I see what you mean, Cass. I don’t think I’d want to do anything that woman told me, either.’ She paused. ‘But think about it, Cass. You are clever, and you don’t want to waste it.’

  This was the nearest Mum came to trying to influence me, and I did think about it. But since Octavia’s death, the dreaming spires of academe had lost much of their appeal. I was probably being foolish, but nowadays I found it hard to contemplate any kind of future beyond the life that I had at the moment, and in any case, leaving home seemed an impossibility. Mum needed me, of that I was certain, but I was becoming increasingly aware that I also needed her and the familiarity of home. It wasn’t just the loss of Octavia itself which had made me insecure; it was the realization that nothing could be relied upon any more; that you could wake up one morning expecting everything to be as usual, and go to bed the same evening with your world in tatters.

  Mum, finally acknowledging that all of us were suffering to some degree, was wonderfully kind to me, and it seemed that once more we had slipped back into our original roles; she was the mother, and I very much the child. I think it probably did her good to realize how much she was still needed, and it may well have been some small help to her on her long road to recovery. There were still occasions when she would cling to me, but as the months went by, there were reassuring glimpses of the old mum, and I began to hope that perhaps there might eventually be life after Octavia for all of us.

  Meanwhile, we had a fresh diversion, for just after
Christmas (and I shan’t even attempt to describe that first aching Christmas following Octavia’s death), there occurred an unexpected development in our household when, quite out of the blue, Call Me Bill took Mum aside, presented her with flowers, and made her a proposal of marriage.

  While obviously shocked, Mum also appeared to be both touched and entertained by this unexpected offer, and quite at a loss as to how she should deal with it.

  ‘Just imagine,’ she said, when she told Lucas and me about it. ‘Just imagine Call Me Bill proposing! Proposing to me! Me and Call Me Bill married!’

  Lucas and I tried to imagine, but neither of us could manage it. Call Me Bill married was enough of a challenge in itself; Call Me Bill married to Mum was something that not even our lively imaginations could begin to address. Apart from anything else, Lucas and I had long since decided that Call Me Bill wasn’t interested in sex, and the thought of Call Me Bill in bed with my worldly wise mother must surely be out of the question. Perhaps he was planning a celibate relationship; one of friendship and mutual support. But if that was the case, how would he cope with Mum when she returned to her normal philanderings?

  ‘He’s probably sorry for me,’ said Mum.

  ‘Mum, everyone’s sorry for you at the moment, but they don’t all come round with offers of marriage,’ I said.

  ‘True. But what on earth shall I say to him?’

  ‘You mean you haven’t given him an answer?’

  ‘I said I’d think about it.’

  ‘That was a bit of a cop-out,’ Lucas remarked.

  ‘Well, I couldn’t just turn him down, could I? It would have been so unkind.’

  ‘So you’re not planning to turn him down,’ Lucas said.

  ‘Of course I am!’

  ‘Well, then. The sooner you tell him, the better. It’s even more unkind to leave him in suspense.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Mum sighed. ‘I didn’t think Call Me Bill was the marrying kind,’ she went on. ‘I suppose this’ll change everything. He’ll be upset and move out, and nothing will be the same.’