Family Chorus

by Claire Rayner

  Behind them the front door slammed and there was a bustle in the hall and Lexie turned and looked to see Bessie standing there. Behind her there was a man in a chauffeur’s uniform and Bessie said to him a little breathlessly, ‘Just put it all down there, will you? That’s it. And then, if you don’t mind, wait in the car —’

  The man walked over to the sofa and set down his burden. Lexie stared at it and then at Bessie and then, at last, at Molly.

  Molly wasn’t looking at the man. She was looking at Lexie and then, as Lexie got to her feet, clumsy with amazement, she said, ‘You see? I had to come here. Where else could I go? You’ll have to take her on just for a while, anyway. Later, maybe, I can try again. Later —’ Her voice trailed off and her eyes slipped away from Lexie’s face.

  Bessie bent over the sofa and very carefully unbuttoned the cover on the carrycot the chauffeur had set down. She reached in and carefully brought out the child who was lying in it.

  ‘Her name’s Sophy,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Molly told me on the phone. Her name’s Sophy. She’s three months old. Imagine. Three months old —’ She held the child out to Lexie and put her in her arms, and Lexie stared at her, feeling her mouth go dry with amazement.

  ‘You knew?’ was all she could say, stupidly, looking from the child to Bessie and back again. ‘You knew?’

  ‘Only when I phoned,’ Bessie said, and laughed and leaned forward to touch the baby’s cheek. She was half asleep, her eyes blinking in the brightness of the light, but she roused at Bessie’s touch and turned her head towards the finger, the small mouth grimacing and pursing. ‘Look, she’s hungry —’

  ‘Everything you’ll need is in the carrycot — at the bottom there,’ Molly said and stood up. She still didn’t look at the baby, or at Lexie now, only at Bessie. ‘I told the nurse to fix everything you’d need for tomorrow. There’s a vacuum flask with the milk — you’ll see if you look. I have to go now.’

  ‘Go?’ Lexie said and twisted her head to stare at her. ‘Go? But you’ve — what about her?’ She held the baby close to her with a sudden instinctive movement and the baby whimpered. Without thinking Lexie began to rock her, bouncing her gently in her arms.

  ‘I told you,’ Molly said. ‘I told you — I’m going to work. It’s better that she should be with her own. You and Bessie — better that way, Laurence doesn’t care, he’ll never care. He’ll never go looking for her the way Max — he doesn’t care. But you do, don’t you? You’ll look after her till I can work things out —’

  ‘But —’ Lexie said, and then had to swallow to get the words out. ‘But you can’t just give her to me this way and then go away! You can’t!’

  ‘Why not? You gave me to Barbara, didn’t you? I know you didn’t go away, but it was easier for you. You could work in New York, and you did. You went away to work. It didn’t make any difference that you came to the apartment to sleep and eat — you went away to work. It was like you weren’t there, I always knew that. It was Barbara who was there, who looked after me. Well, now I have to go and work. And there she is and what do I do with her? Take her away on the road with me, on location, give her to a nurse to look after? I’ve done that already. Three nurses there’ve been since she was born. Three — they don’t stay. They can’t understand about work and they can’t keep up with me and they don’t stay. I was going to try with them again, see if I could make it work, but I know I can’t. And Bessie phoned and I knew that was the way it had to be. You and her. So here she is. And I have to go. I’ll come back when I can — whenever I can. I don’t know when — there’s work — just like there was for you, there’s work. I have to go, for Christ’s sake!’ And she almost shouted it, staring at Lexie with her eyes glittering. ‘You hear me? I have to —’

  There was a silence that seemed to ring in their ears, and then with a brusque little movement Molly went to the door, where she stopped for a moment. But she came back and this time she did look at the baby in Lexie’s arms. She said nothing, just stared down at the small face, and the baby seemed to look gravely at her, her dark blue eyes fixed on her mother’s and then she smiled, a wide gummy grimace that creased the round cheeks into little cushions of pleasure. Molly put out her hand as though she were going to touch her and then turned and went. They heard her footsteps as she ran down the path and then the slam of the car door.

  After a little while the baby began to cry.

  Epilogue

  They were sitting in a row on the wall, eating sweets which Josh had stolen from the shop on the corner. They’d said Sophy could have the same share as Josh, because if she hadn’t been so good at pretending that she had something in her eye and crying so dreadfully the shopkeeper would have noticed what Josh was doing behind his back while he bent over her, but she said she didn’t want them. It was good being like that, she’d discovered, doing things people didn’t expect you to do, and not doing things they did expect you to do. It made them interested in you all the time, and she liked that. People were best when they were interested in you, in what you were doing and saying.

  Now she sat and watched them eating the sweets, swinging her legs and liking the feeling of emptiness she had. The sweets would have been good, but the empty feeling was better. It made her feel strong and in charge of herself and the boys too, and that was better than sweets could ever be.

  Josh caught her watching him and held out the last piece of chocolate. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘It’s nice,’ and again she shook her head.

  ‘I’ve already said no. You shouldn’t keep asking people after they said no. It’s stupid.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. People change their minds.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ Daniel said and licked the inside of the paper that had wrapped the chocolate, chasing the last crumbs with his long pointed tongue. ‘You said you was goin’ to stay out of school and go to the pictures, and you didn’t. You went to Madame Tussaud’s instead. That was changing your mind.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ she said witheringly. ‘It’s having a better idea. That’s what I did. I had a better idea, so I went and did that instead. It’s easier to get into Madame Tussaud’s for nothing when all those stupid tourists are there, and there’s a lot there now it’s summer, so doing that was a better idea. I have better ideas all the time.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Quentin. ‘All the time. I’ve got one now. Let’s go and be Neil Armstrong doing giant steps down at the playground.’ He jumped down from the wall and began to walk stiff-leggedly and slowly, in a circle, jerking his arms as he went.

  ‘That’s not how spacemen walk!’ Sophy said and laughed, a clear ringing sort of laugh, and she listened to it and was pleased. She’d been practising that laugh a long time and now it was sounding good, just as though she hadn’t practised it at all.

  ‘I’ll show you.’ She jumped down from the wall and began to move like the Apollo Eleven spacemen she had seen on television. Her arms moved heavily and slowly and her legs rolled under her as she thought herself into being Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon. She was heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy and there was no air and the whole world was watching her on their televisions, taking giant steps for mankind —

  ‘That’s right, that’s it!’ Josh was crowing. ‘Look, Quentin, she makes you look like a caterpillar, that’s the way it is —’ He clapped his hands and jumped down beside her, trying to imitate her, and then Daniel came too as Quentin watched, scowling, and some people walking along the path towards the playground stopped and watched and laughed. It was good, Sophy decided, very good. And time to stop, because if she went on too long they’d stop looking, and she ran back to sit on the wall, while the others went on pretending to be spacemen very badly and the passers by went away, bored. I’ve got it right again, she thought, and squeezed her arms against her side, feeling good.

  Soon Josh came and sat beside her again. She let him sit close enough for his bare arm to touch hers, and she laughed inside herself because she
knew he liked her a lot and sitting that way made him feel good. He was twelve and knew about liking girls more than Daniel and Quentin did. They were only ten, as she was, but rather stupid. Girls of ten, especially a girl like Sophy, were much better than boys of that age, she decided. Even twelve-year-olds were a bit dull and, bored suddenly with Josh sitting there beside her and breathing unevenly the way he was, she jumped down.

  ‘I think I’m going home,’ she announced, rubbing her dusty hands on the seat of her jeans and then through her hair. She liked to see her curly hair all fluffed up: it made her look more interesting. ‘Gran’ma’ll be waiting for me.’

  ‘You never care whether she’s waiting or not,’ Josh said. ‘You never do. You said you do what you like, all the time.’

  ‘So I do. Only I have to tell her something —’ She nodded mysteriously and then laughed. ‘I have to tell her something I want to do. She’s going to make a fuss about it, but I’m going to do it. So I better go home now. It’ll be easier if I do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she gets miserable when I’m out a long time, because my Auntie Bessie died. Ever since then she gets ever so miserable if I’m out.’ She lifted her eyebrows at him turning her mouth down expressively. ‘What can I do? She needs me.’

  ‘My mum says your Auntie Bessie was a hundred years old when she died,’ Quentin said suddenly across from the pathway. ‘Was she a hundred years old?’

  Sophy considered for a moment. Auntie Bessie had been eighty-eight when she’d died. She remembered that because it was such a nice neat number, but it wasn’t as interesting a number as a hundred. ‘Yes,’ she said casually. ‘She was a hundred all right. And a bit more.’ Again she ran her hands through her hair and turned to go, but Josh jumped down off the wall to join her.

  ‘I’ll walk there with you,’ he said. ‘Go on, you two. I don’t want you. Hop it —’ Daniel and Quentin looked at him doubtfully for a moment and then made faces, but they stayed where they were as Josh took hold of Sophy’s arm and began to walk with her towards the park gates.

  ‘What is it you’re going to tell your gran’ma?’ he said after a while as she showed no sign of responding to his hand on her arm. ‘Is it good or bad?’

  ‘It’s good for me, but she won’t like it,’ Sophy said, and to Josh’s delight tightened her arm against her side in a sudden little spurt of excitement, so that his hand was held close against her warm body. ‘But all the same, I’m going to do it.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Promise you won’t tell?’

  ‘See this wet, see this dry, cut my throat if I tell a lie,’ Josh said at once, licking a finger and holding it out to her and then wiping it across his neck. ‘Tell us.’

  ‘You know that programme they do on television? On channel nine? The one the children go on and dance and that? And they measure the applause and then they say who’s won? And then the winner gets on other television shows? Well, I’m going to do that.’

  He stopped still in the middle of the path and pulled on her arm so that she had to stop too.

  ‘You’re not!’

  ‘I am,’ she said. ‘I’ve decided. I think it’s the best idea I’ve ever had.’

  ‘When are you going on?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know! It isn’t fixed up yet. But they’ll let me, once they’ve seen what I can do. First I’ll sing, and then I’ll do a little dance, and while I’m dancing I’m going to tell funny things. Not jokes, just say things to make them laugh. I’ve worked it out. It’ll be good.’

  ‘Yes,’ Josh said after a moment and then followed her as she began to walk again. ‘Yes, I expect so. You’re ever so good at things like that. How did you fix it? I mean, to be on the television?’

  ‘I haven’t yet,’ she said. ‘But I will, once I’ve told Gran’ma and she’s got used to the idea. She’ll have to get used to it. I’ve made up my mind it’s going to happen, so it will. I can always make things happen that way, just making up my mind. You know that, don’t you?’ And she looked sideways at him and grinned wickedly and he went very red. Indeed she could. She’d made up her mind to it that he would like her best of all the girls who played in the park, long before he’d even noticed her, and she’d made it happen, just the way she wanted to, and now he thought of no one but her, all day long and most of the night too. And she knew it.

  ‘She won’t let you,’ he said after a moment. ‘Will she? My mum wouldn’t let me.’

  ‘Because you wouldn’t be any good,’ Sophy said. ‘But I’m very good, and Gran’ma knows it as well as I do.’ She laughed then. ‘She keeps trying not to know, but she can’t help it. She used to be a dancer too, you see. She told me, and I’ve seen photographs and everything. So she can’t stop me. I won’t let her.’

  They’d reached the park gates now and she stopped and pulled her arm away from his grasp. ‘Go away now, Josh. I don’t want you to come any further. I have to go home on my own.’

  ‘See you tomorrow, by the swings?’ he said hopefully, yet knowing he was wasting his breath. ‘Same time?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, and began to skip away down the pavement towards her house. ‘Maybe. But maybe not. I’ll think about it,’ and she went, not looking back at him, just dancing along the pavement, her long slender legs in their tight jeans flashing and her dark hair swinging on her shoulders. He watched her all the way, saw her go across the road, dodging the buses and the cars, and into her own gateway, and went on watching for a long time after the front door had closed behind her.

  And then, kicking a stone along the road as he went, he made his own moody way home. Maybe she’d come tomorrow, and maybe she wouldn’t. No one could guess what Sophy would do. That was the trouble with her; she made you think about her all the time, made you notice her and then drove you mad thinking about her. And once she knew you were thinking about her, she stopped being interested in you. It hurt dreadfully and yet it was the best thing about her.

  Sophy, he thought as he pushed open his own gate and went up the path to the front door. Sophy. I wonder what Sophy will do tomorrow?

  The End

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Other Books By This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

 

 

 
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