The Frances Garrood Collection

by Frances Garrood

  ‘And what exactly do you expect me to do?’ I began to feel seriously angry. ‘Feel sorry for him? Bake him a nice Victoria sponge with a chisel in it? If that disgusting old man’s ended up in prison, then it’s probably high time, and no more than he deserves.’

  ‘I know it’s terrible, Cass. I know that. But in a way he can’t help it. That’s the way he is. He’s just, well —’

  ‘Hang on a minute. Are you telling me that he’s done something like — like what he did to me — again? Are you saying he was free to do it again? Is that what’s happened?’

  ‘Well, yes. I mean, he hasn’t actually harmed anyone. Not really.’

  ‘Oh, sure. Just paraded around naked, or showed his disgusting appendage to some poor innocent schoolgirl. Nothing to worry about, then. No harm done.’

  ‘Something like that. He was in this park, and —’

  ‘Mum, I don’t want to hear about it. I really, really don’t want to hear about it.’

  ‘No. Of course you don’t. I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ My anger evaporated as quickly as it had arisen. I was never able to stay cross with Mum for long, and now I took pity on her. ‘Look, Mum. I know you were fond of him. I know he’s your family. But you’ve got to understand that this has come as quite a shock to me. I thought he’d — disappeared a long time ago. I’d no idea you were still in touch with him.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t. Not really. Just — just the odd Christmas card. That’s all.’

  Only my mother would send Christmas cards to the man who had abused her daughter, not to mention her hospitality. Only my mother had this extraordinary capacity for forgiveness. Only my mother could be so naive, so trusting, so stupid.

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘I know. I know, Cass. I’ve been so silly. But I really thought he’d change. He promised me, when I sent him away. He said he’d get help.’

  ‘Where did you send him?’ My curiosity got the better of me. ‘Where’s he been all this time?’

  ‘He’s got this cousin in Northumberland. He’s a vicar or something. It sounded — safe.’

  I knew very little about either Northumberland or vicars, but they sounded as though they might offer something in the way of security, if not actual redemption. But apparently not.

  ‘And I had to tell you, Cass, in case it gets into the newspapers.’

  ‘The newspapers! Is that likely?’ I asked.

  ‘You never know. The press seem to like — that sort of thing.’

  ‘You’re — you’re not going to visit him, are you?’

  Was there the tiniest hesitation, before Mum replied? It would be just like her to battle her way halfway across England to visit her fallen relation.

  ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that.’

  ‘But — but would you mind if I wrote to him, Cass?’

  ‘Why ask me? It’s nothing to do with me.’

  ‘It is. You know it is. If you don’t want me to, I won’t.’

  ‘Oh, no. You’re not doing this to me, Mum. I’m not taking responsibility for what you do or don’t do. This has to be your decision.’

  ‘But I wouldn’t want to upset you, Cass.’

  ‘Mum, you are upsetting me. This phone call’s upsetting me. I didn’t ever want to hear — that man’s name again, and now here it is, out of the blue, and you’re asking my permission to write him comforting little notes in prison!’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll just not tell you. How would that be?’ Mum said, after a moment.

  ‘OK. Don’t tell me. But the thought of you even thinking about him after all this time — well — it’s horrible. I don’t want to talk about him or think about him ever again. You do whatever you have to do, but please leave me out of it.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Cass.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shall I ring off now?’

  ‘Perhaps you’d better.’

  ‘Goodbye, then.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  When I’d returned to my room, I wondered if I hadn’t been a bit hard on Mum. I sat down on my bed and tried to unscramble my thoughts. Sheets of paper with my notes on the digestive system surrounded me (we were supposed to be revising for a test), and I shoved them to one side. My own digestive system was making threatening noises, and for a moment I thought I was about to be revisited by the rather unappetizing hospital supper I had just eaten. I took some deep breaths to steady it, then went over to the washbasin and splashed my face with cold water.

  I must pull myself together and stop overreacting. Nothing had changed; I was perfectly safe, and Uncle Rupert was well out of reach in his prison cell. I wondered whether they’d allow him to continue inventing things, and whether there was anyone to bring him his tobacco and aniseed balls. My emotions were a mixture of anger and fear and icy contempt, but I felt no pity whatsoever. I like to think that I am, as a rule, a sympathetic person, who tries to see the best in people, but I could see no best at all in Uncle Rupert. To this day, I think he is the only person I have ever thoroughly loathed, and while years later I was able to reach a degree of understanding, if not actual forgiveness, I have been unable to summon up any real feelings of compassion.

  ‘Are you OK, Cass?’ Angela asked me at breakfast a few mornings later. ‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘I suppose in a way I have. Well, heard about one, anyway.’ I buttered a piece of leathery toast.

  ‘That sounds intriguing.’

  ‘Not intriguing. Rather disgusting, actually.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘No. Not really. If I don’t talk about it, maybe it’ll go away.’

  It could well be that it might have helped me if I had been able to talk about it. Not at breakfast, perhaps, but at some other more appropriate time. When Angela managed to relieve her brain of its usual preoccupations with men and clothes and make-up, she could be a surprisingly good listener, and had I been able to unburden myself even a little, it might have made all the difference.

  But hindsight is a wonderful thing, and my anxiety didn’t last for long. Besides, at that time I was still unaware that the legacy bequeathed to me by Uncle Rupert went a lot deeper than an unpleasant phone call, some shocking memories and a few broken nights’ sleep.

  Twenty-nine

  Despite my mother’s undoubted courage during her illness, she has not been an easy patient. Unaccustomed to being told how to behave, she did not take easily to her role as a patient, and couldn’t see why she had to fit into a routine; why she was only allowed visitors at certain times, and why she wasn’t allowed to smoke in bed.

  ‘But Mum,’ I tried to explain. ‘It’s dangerous. Can’t you see that? You might fall asleep with a cigarette in your hand and set fire to yourself.’

  ‘I never have before,’ she replied.

  ‘You’ve never smoked in bed before. In fact, come to that, you’ve hardly ever smoked at all.’

  ‘I’ve hardly ever needed to. It’s very stressful, this whole dying business. I just felt I needed a cigarette. What’s the harm in that?’

  So on several occasions, we closed the door and opened a window, and Mum smoked while I listened out for the brisk footsteps which heralded the approach of authority. When we were eventually caught out, it goes without saying that I was the one who made all the apologies, while Mum sat, cigarette in hand, mutinous and unrepentant.

  The half-finished packet of cigarettes is in her locker still, hidden from prying eyes inside a toffee bag. But Mum won’t be smoking any more cigarettes now, and idly I wonder what will happen to them. They will probably be handed over to me later, when she is gone, together with her other belongings. I have always hated these collections of patients’ ‘personal effects’; the last pathetic remnants of people’s lives; the toilet articles, the handfuls of coins, the half-eaten packets of sweets or chocolate, the get-well cards which failed to bring about the hoped-for miracle.

 
I wept over the contents of the first bedside locker I had to clear out after its owner had died; all those little reminders of a life once lived and the small treats brought in by a family who hadn’t yet come to terms with the prospect of an inevitable outcome. I remember that there were, among other things, an old newspaper with the crossword half-completed, a home-made card from a grandchild, a freshly ironed pair of pyjamas, some sweet papers, a wristwatch. What would the family do with them? I wondered. What was a newly widowed woman expected to do with a worn shaving brush and a pair of spectacles?

  It was the staff nurse, a kindly woman with more understanding than I probably deserved, who took me aside and helped me see that it wasn’t so much that I hadn’t confronted death before, but rather that I had, and I realized she was right. Octavia’s death, something which I thought I had managed to put behind me, was still very much a part of me, and as we talked, I was able to tell her about our hopelessness when we were confronted by the toys and clothes and all the other baby paraphernalia that had remained after my little sister’s death.

  But on the whole, I was enjoying my new career. It was exhausting and demanding, but never boring, and I developed a new respect for the courage and humour of my fellow human beings. True, not everyone suffered their ordeal in saintly silence, and there was always that tiny minority of patients who expected to be given the majority of the attention, but it was all part of the job, and if I occasionally had to retire to the sluice to take a few deep breaths (in those days, junior nurses spent a great deal of their time in the sluice), there was usually someone around to commiserate.

  And so I moved from a surgical ward to the Outpatients’ Department, with a couple of weeks off for lectures and study (this time a welcome break) and then on to a spell of night duty.

  Working at night was like being in a different world; a world of dim lights and murmured voices and soft footsteps. There were no meals to give out, no blanket baths or dressings to administer, none of the routine maintenance of the day shift. Doctors appeared when they were needed, their hurried evacuation of their beds evident in uncombed hair or a glimpse of pyjamas under a white coat. Any rushed activity heralded a new admission or an emergency, and in the case of the latter I did my best to keep my head down. With my lack of experience, I felt I would be of little use in the event of a cardiac arrest, and while I had been trained in the arts of resuscitation, I was in no hurry to try them out on a real patient. Clarrie — the reassuringly unrealistic and limbless rubber patient we practised on in the classroom — was one thing. I was happy enough to empty my lungs into her recumbent body, or thump new life into her imagined heart. A genuine emergency was something else altogether. Fortunately, on these occasions it was usually made clear that I was surplus to requirements, and I would be relegated to ‘keep an eye on the rest of the ward’ while the serious business took place behind drawn curtains.

  Mum’s impromptu visits had ceased some time ago (no doubt the novelty had worn off), and her contact was sporadic. But when the time came for the third anniversary of Octavia’s death, I received an excited phone call.

  ‘I thought we’d all go and see The Sound of Music, Cass. How does that sound?’

  ‘The Sound of Music. Well, it’s certainly a thought,’ I said carefully, wondering where on earth the inspiration for this extraordinary idea had come from.

  ‘Yes. Octavia would have loved it —’ would she? — ‘and we can all go out for tea afterwards.’

  ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘Oh, everyone. Greta — she’ll love the mountains, won’t she? — and of course Call Me Bill, and we’ll pay for Richard, and —’

  ‘OK, Mum. I get the picture.’

  ‘You don’t sound very excited.’

  ‘Well, it’s not easy. Getting the time off may be a problem, for a start. And how do you know it will be on?’

  ‘I saw it advertised, that’s what gave me the idea. It’s such a happy family film, Cass. It’ll help to cheer us all up.’ She paused. ‘And last year wasn’t — well, it wasn’t very successful, was it? I’m determined that this year will be better.’

  I agreed that almost anything had to be better than last year, and a visit to the cinema was certainly a novel idea. I myself had already seen The Sound of Music twice, and Mum to my certain knowledge three times, but it was a nice story and the songs were tuneful and cheery. Maybe Mum was right. It could just be that The Sound of Music was what we all needed.

  But in the event, it proved to be far from what Mum needed.

  We started off happily enough as we trooped into the cinema with our bags of sweets and settled ourselves in the back row. Greta wept at the sight of the mountains, but then that was to be expected, and Call Me Bill dozed off a couple of times, which was probably to be expected too (Call Me Bill was not what you would call a romantic). But Mum seemed to be enjoying herself, tapping her feet as Julie Andrews sang and danced her way across the Alpine meadows, and humming along to ‘I Am Sixteen Going on Seventeen’ (much to the annoyance of the people in front of us). So far so good. But as the film progressed, I noticed that she was becoming quieter. When ‘Raindrops on Roses’ came round for the second time, I was aware of vague snifflings, and by the time we had reached ‘The Lonely Goatherd’, she was beside herself.

  ‘What on earth’s the matter, Mum?’ I whispered, reaching for her hand in the darkened cinema. ‘You said yourself, this is a happy film.’

  ‘They’re — all — alive,’ sobbed Mum. ‘All. All alive.’

  ‘Of course they are. It wouldn’t be a happy film if they weren’t!’ I squeezed her hand. ‘Shh, Mum. We’re going to disturb everyone else.’

  But it was too late. Mum was sunk in misery, impervious to the shushings and the fierce glances of those around us, and in the end I had to take her out, with the rest of our party in reluctant attendance. We emerged into pouring rain (for which we had come totally unequipped), and hurried Mum into the nearest cafe, where we sat her down behind a potted palm and ordered strong coffee.

  ‘Now, what’s all this about?’ I asked her, stirring sugar into her coffee and pushing the cup into her hand. ‘Come on. Drink this up and tell us what’s the matter.’

  ‘They’re all alive,’ Mum said again, between sobs. ‘Beautiful alive children. We should never have gone to the cinema. It was a silly idea.’ She took a sip of her coffee and added more sugar.

  ‘But we could hardly have gone to see a film about dead children,’ I reasoned, beginning to get her drift. ‘That wouldn’t have been a very jolly thing to do.’

  ‘No. But I didn’t realize,’ Mum said. ‘I just didn’t realize.’ Poor Mum. How could she have known — how could any of us have known? — that the joyous singing and dancing of all those merry, healthy children, with their bright smiling faces and their unlikely abundance of musical talent, would be for Mum a dreadful reminder of what could never be for Octavia? Never mind that Octavia was unlikely ever to have danced or yodelled on a flower-spangled mountainside; but if she had lived, at least the possibility — however remote — wouldn’t have been so cruelly snatched away.

  After an uncomfortable half-hour, in the course of which we tried to cheer ourselves up with scones and cream and fruit cake (Lucas seemed to be the only person with any appetite), we escorted Mum home, where I helped her up to her room.

  ‘Oh, Cass!’ She sat down on her bed and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘I thought I was over it. Over the worst of it, anyway. But I’m not, am I?’

  ‘Poor Mum.’ I sat down beside her and took her hand. I noticed that there were grey streaks in the auburn of her hair, and that new lines were forming round her eyes and mouth. ‘You know you’re not over it. You’ll never really be over it. But these waves will become less frequent, and you’ll be more — more used to it.’

  ‘Will I?’ The face turned towards mine was childlike and hopeful, as though I might have the answer; as though I might be able to make everything all right again.

  ‘I
think so. Of course, I don’t know. Nobody knows. But that’s the way it seems to be with most people.’

  ‘Is that the way it is for you, Cass?’

  ‘Well, it’s different for me. She was my sister, and although that’s awful, it’s not the same as losing your own child, is it?’

  ‘That’s the trouble.’ Mum sighed. ‘There’s no one to share it with. No — father.’

  It was the first time since her pregnancy that Mum had mentioned Octavia’s father, and I was surprised. Perhaps it had taken Octavia’s death and the long journey which followed it for her to realize that another parent would have made a difference; there would have been someone else to share her bereavement in the way that only a parent can, someone who would have fully understood how she felt.

  It was natural that Mum should be upset on Octavia’s anniversary, but I was worried about her. Would she be all right when I returned to London the next morning? Of course Greta would keep an eye on her; and Call Me Bill, although never exactly warm, was kind and dependable. But Lucas was out a lot, preoccupied with his job and a very dishy WPC from his department, and the Charlton Heston Lodger had departed some weeks ago after an unseemly row about scrambled eggs (I never did quite get to the bottom of that) and had not yet been replaced. As far as I knew, there was no new man on the scene; no one to offer the kind of support which Mum seemed to find so essential for her emotional survival.

  ‘You will look after Mum, won’t you?’ I said to Lucas that night, when Mum had gone to sleep.

  ‘Don’t I always?’ Lucas leant against a kitchen worktop, drinking beer out of a can.

  ‘Up to a point. But you’re — well, you’ve got other interests.’

  ‘You mean Gracie.’ Lucas grinned. ‘Aren’t I allowed a life?’

  ‘Of course you’re allowed a life,’ I said, thinking that Gracie seemed an oddly inappropriate name for a policewoman. ‘I’m just asking you to look out for her, that’s all.’