‘You’re sure?’
‘Quite sure.’ I sat up and gave her a hug. ‘Besides, you’re my mother. How could I possibly want any other?’
She nodded, satisfied for the time being.
‘But I don’t know what to do to help you, Cass.’
‘I don’t want you to do anything. Just be there, Mum. Just get on with things as normal. I have to sort this out for myself, but if I know I have your support whatever — well, whatever happens, then it’ll make it that much easier.’
The rest of the household were equally supportive, and Greta would happily (if that’s the word) have wept along with me if Mum had permitted it.
‘No, Greta,’ she said, as Greta reached for her handkerchief. ‘This isn’t your depression. It’s Cass’s. You can’t just cash in on it like this. Go and make yourself useful.’
So poor Greta, unable to show her solidarity in the way she knew best, made a reproachful retreat to the kitchen.
Lucas, who was still besotted with Gracie, was distracted but kind; Call Me Bill bought me flowers; and two ex Lodgers called in to ask after me. In fact, the only person who thoroughly resented my presence was New Dog. New Dog and I had never really got on, I suspect because he recognized in me a rival for Mum’s attention. Now that my victory was beyond doubt, he spent his time sulking in corners or snarling unpleasantly at me from behind doors. In the end, even Mum lost patience with him.
‘New Dog! Basket!’ she yelled at him, and New Dog was so astonished at this unaccustomed treatment that he stayed in his bed for a whole day.
But after a week or so, New Dog and I came to some sort of understanding, and we took to going for long walks together in the fields behind the house, New Dog hobbling with astonishing speed on his three legs and rolling in cow-pats, while I brooded on the meaning of life and what I was going to do with mine.
As the weeks went by, my depression began to lift. Without the pressure of work and the expectations of other people, I felt the knot of anxiety that had taken up residence in my stomach begin to relax and dissolve, and I began to experience moments of happiness once more. Spring was on the way, and here in the country I was able to appreciate it to the full. On fine days, New Dog and I took our walks to the accompaniment of skylarks and blackbirds, blackthorn blossomed in the hedgerows, and the woods were taking on the faintest tinge of green. Greta had started her spring cleaning — an annual ritual which she undertook alone since no one else was interested — and Mum was talking of getting a new job (a sure sign that the year was under way).
I had forgotten how much I missed home, and began to wonder what had been the attraction of London and my independent life there. The familiar routine, from the sound of Greta’s feet on the creaky staircase as she went down in the morning to put the kettle on to New Dog’s last trot round the garden at night — all these things had been woven into the fabric of my life for so long that I found myself settling back in as though I had never been away.
When the time came to go back to London to see Dr Burns, I was overcome by panic. I don’t know what it was that I was so afraid of — after all, it had been made clear to me that I wouldn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to; that no pressure would be brought to bear upon me — but suddenly the very thought of getting on the train for that now familiar journey, of walking through the doors of the hospital, of all those busy purposeful people, was almost unbearable.
Seeing my anxiety, Mum insisted on coming with me.
‘It’s all right, Cass,’ she said, reading my thoughts. ‘I won’t talk to anyone. I’ll just keep you company on the train. I won’t even come into the hospital if you don’t want me.’ Then her eyes lit up. ‘I tell you what,’ she added triumphantly, ‘I’ll bring New Dog with me, then I can’t possibly go in with you, can I? New Dog and I can have a nice walk in the park, and we can meet up afterwards and you can tell me how you got on.’
In the event, this proved to be an inspirational idea, for New Dog (who had been bathed and blow-dried by Greta before we left, and was now fluffy and sweet-smelling) kept everyone in our carriage entertained all the way to London. It would seem that having only three legs had its advantages, and New Dog, who could be very charming when it suited him, was not above exploiting his handicap to the full. In the hour and a half it took us to reach our destination, he sat on at least three different laps and was fed a variety of sandwiches and biscuits.
Three hours later, we were on our way home again.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I said to her, as the train pulled out of the station. ‘I’m so so sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ Mum’s efforts to conceal her disappointment were heroic. ‘If it’s not right for you, then it’s not right at all.’
I thought of the kindness of Dr Burns and especially of the final words of Matron.
‘I took a gamble when I took you on, Nurse Fitzpatrick. I think we both knew that. You’ve given us a lot, and I hope we’ve done the same for you, but I think you need time at home and perhaps a change of direction.’ She had smiled at me, closing my file. ‘Maybe one day — one day — we’ll see you back here again.’
But I think we both knew that that was not to be. I had made my last journey to St Martha’s.
Thirty-five
The door opens and Greta comes in, bearing a huge basket of fruit topped with a shiny yellow ribbon.
‘Iss all right I come?’ she whispers, approaching the bed tentatively, her eyes already filling with tears.
Poor Greta. She has aged immeasurably since Mum’s illness, and I worry about what will become of her when the inevitable happens.
‘Of course it’s all right.’ I give her a hug. ‘But she’s asleep at the moment.’
Greta puts her basket of fruit on the locker and takes a chair.
‘She has pain?’ she asks.
‘Yes. Some pain. But they’re giving her stronger injections now.’
I pray that Mum’s eyes remain closed, for she finds Greta’s visits upsetting. Greta longs to help, but there is nothing she can do, and the distress this causes them both does nobody any good.
‘How’s the dog?’ I ask her now. The dog — Last Dog (perhaps Mum knew something we didn’t) — is an animal after Mum’s own heart. He has never learnt to follow even the simplest instructions, and conducts his life with no reference whatsoever to the feelings of those who care for him. Mum adores him. Greta, however, does not.
‘Dog iss very bad,’ Greta says. ‘He take cheese and pork pie.’
‘Oh dear. Does he miss Mum?’
‘Last Dog miss nobody.’
‘Oh well. At least that’s one thing less to worry about.’
‘Your mum, she like the fruit, yes?’
‘I’m sure she will.’ Mum hasn’t been able to eat anything for days, but it’s no good telling Greta that.
For some time, we sit together in silence, listening to the tiny shallow sounds of Mum’s breathing and watching the blue and gold of another beautiful autumn day in the world outside the window. I am too exhausted for conversation, and I suspect that Greta is feeling much the same.
After a while, Greta gets to her feet.
‘I go. Yes?’
‘Well, it’s lovely to see you, Greta, but there’s not really much you can do.’
‘You tell her I come?’
‘Of course I’ll tell her.’ I summon up a smile. ‘Look after yourself.’
‘Poor Greta,’ Mum whispers, when Greta’s left the room. ‘Couldn’t — couldn’t talk to her.’
‘I’m sure she’d understand.’ I squeeze her hand. ‘I didn’t know you were awake.’
‘Disappointed. Hoped it might be — you know.’
‘She’s on her way. She’ll be here soon,’ I say, praying that I’m right.
Mum nods and sighs again.
‘I’ll wait, then.’
Poor Mum. I think she’s ready to let go, but she can’t. I didn’t think she’d live through the night, but I had underesti
mated her. Mum has unfinished business.
I undo the cellophane wrapped round the basket of fruit (not so useless after all) and help myself to a banana.
I’d now been home for three months, and while much better, I still had no idea what I wanted to do. I had become a regular visitor to the labour exchange, but jobs were in short supply locally, and I had no transport to travel further afield. I was entitled to the dole (what a dreadful word that is, sounding as it does like the tolling of a bell at a wake), but missed my monthly pay cheque and the self-respect that came with it.
In the end, I applied for — and was given — a job in a small local art gallery. The elderly proprietor, who had the unlikely name of Humphrey Hazelwood, was a man of great charm and kindness, and we immediately hit it off.
‘I’m afraid you may find the work a little dull after all the excitement of hospital life,’ he told me at my interview.
‘I think a dull job is just what I need at the moment,’ I said. ‘Although I’m sure I shan’t find it dull,’ I added, afraid of offending him.
The gallery was housed in a half-timbered building in the High Street: sandwiched between an even older tea shop and an estate agent. It was a building of uneven wooden floors, low beams and narrow doorways, with a treacherous little staircase up to the first floor. In many ways it was totally unsuited to its purpose, since the windows let in little daylight, and despite strategically placed lighting, customers frequently had to be escorted out into the street to inspect their prospective purchases. But this being England, such inconveniences were generally considered to add to the gallery’s charm, and if it would never make its owner rich, then it almost certainly afforded him a comfortable living.
The job itself was interesting without being demanding, involving meeting artists and customers, helping to hang pictures, answering the phone and doing a little typing, and it proved to be exactly what I needed.
‘General dogsbody,’ Lucas remarked unkindly, when I told him what I was doing.
‘If you like. But it’s a job.’
‘If you say so.’ Lucas had never quite understood how I could turn my back on a career for which I had trained so hard, and had done his utmost to make me change my mind.
‘I do say so. Lucas, I need a break, and this is relaxing while still being work.’
And it was true. It was wonderful to have so little responsibility, to meet people without being expected to save their lives, and yet still to be able to have an intelligent conversation. The pressure was finally off, and I was enjoying it.
Mum seemed reasonably happy with my choice, and I heard her telling friends that I was ‘working in the art world’. She herself was going through an energetic phase, and to that end had decided to train as a postwoman (‘Lots of exercise, Cass. And you meet so many interesting people’).
I hoped she wouldn’t be disappointed, for many people were out when the post arrived, and the rest were unlikely to have the time to exchange pleasantries with the person who delivered it. She had hoped to be allowed to take New Dog with her. After all, as she explained, many of the customers had dogs, so why shouldn’t she. Besides, New Dog would fend off the ankle nippers and hand-biters who plagued the lives of those who delivered the post. But the Post Office wasn’t having any of it, so New Dog had to stay at home with Greta.
I remember that summer as one of the more peaceful periods of my life. While I wasn’t deliriously happy, neither was I discontented. I was enjoying being at home, and had met up again with some of my friends, including Myra, whom I hadn’t seen since our schooldays. Myra was now a hairdresser, with a tiny flat of her own and a shaggy boyfriend who favoured beads and kaftans. She was refreshing company, for she didn’t hassle me about my future or reproach me for my past, nor did she question me on the delicate subject of my love-life. I was warmly invited to join her and the beaded boyfriend on some of their outings, and found myself having fun. It was a long time since I had had any fun.
The seventh anniversary of Octavia’s death passed without incident. Since the disastrous expedition to The Sound of Music, Mum had stopped trying to turn it into an Event, so after taking flowers to the grave, we went out for a quiet family meal.
‘It does get easier. Just a bit,’ Mum admitted, over her prawn cocktail. ‘But it never goes away. It’s always — there. Part of me.’
‘Part of all of us,’ I said.
‘Perhaps I should have had another.’
‘Another what?’
‘Baby. Another baby. After all, we’d all got used to having one around, hadn’t we?’
Lucas and I exchanged glances.
‘Mum, Octavia wasn’t like a dog. You can’t just go and replace a baby. If you’d had ten more babies, they still wouldn’t have been Octavia.’
‘Then I shall have to leave the babies to you and Lucas,’ Mum said, spooning up that nasty pink sauce which always comes with prawn cocktails.
Summer gave way to autumn, and once more the leaves began to turn and the swallows lined up on the electricity wires outside our house in preparation for their journey south. I had now been home for seven months, and still hadn’t made any long-term plans. Next year, I would be twenty-four. Twenty-four. Mum had had Lucas by the time she was twenty-four, and while she was hardly a shining example of how to lead a life, it could never be said that hers had been without interest.
Thirty-six
I had never been especially good at art, nor had I been particularly interested. After achieving a reasonable O level in the subject, I had simply forgotten about it. But working in the gallery aroused at first my interest and then my enthusiasm. Talking to the artists, studying the different styles and mediums in which they executed their work and discussing the pictures with our customers became increasingly absorbing, and, perhaps inevitably, the question arose: I wonder if I could do that?
At first the answer was a resounding no. There was no earthly reason why my minimal talents should have developed, since I had neither practised nor applied them, and in any case, where and how should I begin? In the end, I discussed the matter with Humphrey, who suggested I should have some lessons. One of our artists, Edward, held evening classes, and was prepared to take me on at a discounted rate (money was still tight).
I opted for watercolours rather than oils, and my first few paintings were poor smudged little efforts. I knew in my head what I was trying to achieve, but transferring the images onto paper was a different matter. Soon, however, I began to get the hang of it, and before long I was thoroughly hooked. The gentle wash of colour over paper, the blurring of water and trees onto a background, the suggestions of light or shade, stillness or movement, the hint of a house or boat or the pale petals of a flower — all these I found deeply satisfying. I enjoyed the flowing movements of my wrist as I painted and the subtlety of the colours as I mixed them on my palette.
‘You know, that’s not half bad,’ Edward told me, after I’d been learning for about six weeks. ‘I think you could be good at this, Cass.’
I glowed with pride, and like a child who has been praised at school, I couldn’t wait to get home and tell my mother.
‘Why, that’s great, Cass. Maybe one day you’ll be a famous artist —’ Mum specialized in imagining short cuts to fame and fortune — ‘with pictures in a London gallery and your paintings on postcards. No one in the family’s ever been good at art before. I wonder where you get it from?’
I refrained from the obvious suggestion that my artistic talents might have come from my father, since Mum disliked discussions of this kind, preferring to assume that she alone was responsible for the genetic input of her offspring. For myself, I cared little about the provenance of my new-found talent. It was enough that I had discovered it.
After a while, I brought my paints home and began working in my bedroom. It was a light, south-facing room with views over the garden and the countryside beyond. I still have some of my early attempts at portraying that garden, those trees, the fleeting clo
udscapes and the jigsaw puzzle coats of the black and white cows in the fields beyond. Looking at them now, they seem amateurish and clumsy, but at the time I was delighted with them, and Mum proudly framed one for the sitting-room wall. It is in her house to this day.
After I had been painting for about six months, Humphrey suggested I might like to try to sell one or two of my pictures. We could hang them in the gallery, he said, and see what happened.
I was enormously excited. While I found great satisfaction in my painting, it had never occurred to me that anyone might like to buy my work. The idea of hanging one of my pictures in the gallery was exciting enough on its own; the thought that someone might actually want to pay for it — to live with it on their walls and make it part of their home — was beyond anything I could have hoped for.
I sold my first painting for £2, and I can still recall the pride with which I stuck the red SOLD sticker onto the frame, then went to share my news with Humphrey.
‘Well, that’s wonderful Cass. Very well done.’ He gave me a hug. ‘You know, a long time ago, I had a go at painting, but I was no good at it at all.’
‘Really?’ I was surprised. For some reason I had assumed that Humphrey must have started off as an artist himself.
‘Really.’ He laughed at my expression. ‘It was disappointing, I have to confess. I can’t imagine anything more satisfying than being able to create something beautiful; something which will give pleasure to other people.’ His voice was wistful. ‘But that was a long time ago. I accepted that it wasn’t for me, so instead I learnt a bit about the art world, and went on to start up this little business. If I can’t be an artist myself, then I think that what I do is the next best thing. I see myself as a kind of mediator between the creator and the purchaser.’
‘You’re very good at it,’ I ventured, thinking of the encouragement he gave his artists and his knack of matching the right picture to its new owner (not to mention that owner’s budget).
The Frances Garrood Collection Page 21
