But although Eleanor rehearsed in her head what she’d say, she couldn’t bring herself to ask her mother about something so personal. In the end, she pleaded with Peggy to tell her what she needed to know.
Peggy sighed. ‘I suppose your mum’s got enough on her plate, all things considered. All right. Sit down.’
And she’d explained. She made Eleanor giggle by holding up a sanitary towel by the loops and swinging it from side to side. ‘We used to call them “mouse hammocks”,’ Peggy said, laughing. She showed Eleanor how to fix the loops to a sanitary belt, then she wrapped one in a paper bag and told her to keep it with her all the time, along with a couple of safety pins, which she could use to fasten it to her knickers if needs be.
Three weeks after her thirteenth birthday, Eleanor started her periods in the middle of a maths lesson in a stomach-hollowing gush. She fixed a sanitary towel as she’d been shown, but instead of feeling confident and grown-up, she felt awkward and conspicuous, as though she was walking around with a bath towel rolled up between her legs. When she got home, she changed into clean knickers, screwed up the bloodied ones and pushed them to the bottom of the dustbin. The school nurse had given her two more towels, but she’d need more soon, so she’d have to ask her mum. Her stomach went over at the thought of talking to her mother about such an intimate thing; so instead, she told Peggy.
‘Have you told your mum? Peggy asked.
‘No,’ she admitted. For some stupid reason, she felt as if she was about to cry. She swallowed ‘I just . . .’ She pretended to cough to disguise the tears that had sprung to her eyes.
Peggy looked at her for a moment. ‘Would you like me to tell her?’ she asked gently.
Eleanor nodded.
When she came home from school the next day, her mum came in from the garden, took her gardening gloves off and put them on the draining board. ‘How’s everything?’ she said. ‘Are you feeling all right?’
‘Yes, okay. Why?’
‘I . . . I just wondered. I’ve left something for you in your room.’ She looked as if she expected Eleanor to say something. After a moment, she continued, ‘Well, if you have any questions, or if you need anything – a hot water bottle, or an aspirin, anything – you must come and ask me, all right?’
‘Okay,’ she mumbled, and turned to go downstairs to her room.
‘Ellie?’ Her mum’s voice was soft. She didn’t usually call her ‘Ellie’. And she sounded a bit sad. ‘You will ask me, won’t you? If there’s anything else you need to know?’
Eleanor said, ‘Okay’ again and scurried downstairs before her mum could say any more. On her dressing table were two packs of Kotex, a little box containing a pink sanitary belt and a booklet called Becoming a Young Woman. She didn’t really need it now, but at least her mum had got it for her. She went back upstairs to say thank you, but as she stood looking through the kitchen window, watching her mother pulling up the weeds that had taken hold after the wet summer, she lost her nerve. She didn’t see her mum again until dinner time, and that didn’t seem appropriate, then the next day slipped past and somehow the time never felt quite right. But every month from then on, two packs of Kotex appeared in the bottom of her wardrobe like magic.
*
How confused will she be today, Eleanor wonders as she waits for her mum to answer. But Marjorie’s ‘Hello?’ is strong and confident. Relief. ‘Hello, Mum, it’s me,’ she says, adding quickly, ‘Eleanor.’
‘Hello, Eleanor,’ her mum says immediately. ‘Did you have a good drive back?’
‘Yes, thank you. Listen, I’ve been thinking. What with this horrible Alzheimer’s thing, well, I was wondering . . . I thought it might be a good idea if I were to come and stay with you for a few weeks. Help you get things organised so you don’t have to rely on Peggy all the time.’
Marjorie doesn’t say anything. So Peggy was wrong; her mum still doesn’t want her around. ‘It was just an idea, anyway.’
There’s a pause, then her mother says, ‘That’s awfully kind of you, darling. And I have to admit, it would be a help. Peggy’s marvellous, you know, absolutely marvellous, but I think she’s getting a bit fed up with me. When do you think you could come?’
It’s a moment before she takes it in: her mother wants her to come; she sounds happy about it. ‘In a couple of weeks, I should think. There are a few things I need to do here, but probably before Easter.’
‘Before Easter. Right you are, darling. I’ll write that down. Now, what was it . . . ? There was something I had to tell you but I can’t for the life of me . . .’ There’s a pause. ‘I expect it’ll come back to me at some point.’
Eleanor
A few weeks, she tells herself, that’s all. Just to get some idea of what arrangements might need to be made in the future. She deliberately doesn’t bring much with her – clothes and toiletries, obviously; her laptop, a few books – but once she’s unpacked, she wishes she’d brought more, just a few more things to dot around her bedroom to make it look a little less bleak.
For the first few days, her mum seems fine. So normal that if you didn’t know, you wouldn’t guess anything was wrong, and she begins to wonder whether she really needs to stay for more than a few days. But then she walks into the kitchen to find Marjorie diligently putting the contents of her handbag into the freezer.
‘Mum, what are you doing?’
‘If you don’t put it all away as soon as you get back from the shops, it’ll start to thaw, then you can’t use it, you see.’
‘You’ve already put the shopping away, Mum. You did it as soon as you came in – I helped you unpack everything.’
Marjorie looks at her blankly.
‘Look.’ She reaches into the freezer and takes out her mum’s purse. ‘This isn’t shopping.’ Next, she hands her the frost-covered foldaway shopping bag she always carries, then her hairbrush, her powder compact, half a tube of fruit gums.
Marjorie looks bewildered at first, then she bites her lip. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I suppose it’s this Alzheimer’s.’ She shakes her head. ‘I knew it would make me forget things, but I didn’t realise it would make me so stupid.’ She sounds so distressed, Eleanor’s irritation evaporates.
‘You’re not stupid, Mum. It’s the illness. Come on.’ She gently pushes the freezer door shut. ‘Go and sit down and I’ll bring you another cup of tea.’
She thinks about something Peggy said the other day: ‘I know it sounds awful, but in a way I think it’ll be easier for her when her brain goes completely. Then at least she won’t feel daft every time she makes a mistake.’ Eleanor had been shocked. Of course she knows that Alzheimer’s is progressive, that her mother’s brain function will gradually deteriorate. But hearing it put so starkly had jolted her. She thinks again about Marjorie needing to tell her something; she has always hoped that eventually she and her mum might be able to talk properly about what happened, and about the grief they have in common. But maybe there won’t be an eventually.
*
Her bedroom is cold, and the bed feels slightly damp when she gets into it. It’s a good half-hour before she feels comfortably warm, and she’s only just dozed off when something wakes her with a start. She lies still and listens; there’s movement upstairs. She gets out of bed, pulls on a jumper over her pyjamas and goes up. Her mother is sitting hunched over the kitchen table in her thin, sleeveless nightdress, weeping quietly. She isn’t wearing any slippers and the room is freezing.
‘What is it?’ Eleanor says. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’
‘I . . . I forgot, Peg,’ her mum says without looking up.
Eleanor is about to correct her but stops herself. She takes her jumper off and drapes it around her mother’s shoulders.
‘I woke up, and I saw he wasn’t there. He often gets up, you know, when we’ve had words. I know we haven’t been getting on.’ A fresh wave of tears overtakes her. ‘I mean, we hadn’t. I couldn’t get over it, you see. Because there was more to it. I think I must hav
e blanked it out. Poor Ted. He was very patient . . .’
‘Mum,’ she speaks as gently as she can. ‘What do you mean, more to it? What did you blank out?’ She can feel her heart thudding hard in her stomach. ‘Mum? When you say you couldn’t get over it, are you talking about what happened to Peter?’
‘I wasn’t being fair to him, Peg.’
‘Mum, it’s me. Eleanor.’
Marjorie turns to look at her, but her eyes are teary and vacant. Then her bottom lip trembles. ‘I forgot, you see. Just now, when I woke up. I thought I’d come up and talk to him, try and explain. I thought he’d be sitting here with a whisky, like he used to, but he’s gone, isn’t he? I forgot.’
Maybe what she’s talking about has nothing to do with Peter. ‘Yes, Mum. Dad died quite a long time ago. But what did you mean just now? When you said there was more to it?’
‘He wasn’t even forty when I lost him.’ The tears are rolling down her face. ‘How could I have forgotten such a thing? To think I wouldn’t let him come home after all that had happened. And it was my fault, you know.’
‘What was, Mum?’
‘No one thought it at the time, but I know it was my fault.’ And then she makes a long ohhh sound that is so sad, so full of anguish, that Eleanor can hardly bear it. She wants to know more and is tempted to probe, but this is not the time. ‘Come on, Mum,’ she says gently. ‘Let’s get you back to bed.’
Marjorie, September 1972
There had been a spectacular thunderstorm overnight, but it didn’t seem to have cleared the air at all, and Marjorie could feel the pressure building behind her eyes. She’d considered calling in sick this morning, but it was only a headache; maybe she could just work it off. The ward was stuffy and airless and her head was thumping so much that she was actually glad to get out into the sluice room, where at least no one was moaning or fitting or needing to be fed or toiletted.
She and Ted had argued again last night, and she wondered whether that was what was making her head scream.
He’d still been awake when she went down to bed, even though she’d sat up reading Woman’s Realm from cover to cover until gone midnight, then spent ages checking all the doors were locked, writing a note for the milkman and putting out the milk bottles. She’d tiptoed across the floor to switch off the light, and when she pulled the chain in the bathroom, she put the seat down and sat on it to muffle the sound of the flush. The bedroom light was off and she could hear him breathing. She was glad she’d let Peggy talk her into buying one of the new continental quilts – if she’d had to untuck sheets and blankets she’d almost certainly have disturbed him. Gingerly, she lifted the corner of the quilt and slipped in beside him, careful not to let her arm touch his. She lay on her back and closed her eyes but as soon as she began to feel her muscles relax and her breathing slow, she felt him turn towards her, and then the warmth of his arm as he curled it around her waist. Instinctively she turned towards him, desire fluttering in the base of her stomach. But if she put her arms around him, if she responded in any way and then couldn’t continue with what she’d started, things could be worse than if nothing had happened at all. So she stayed still, trying not to hold her breath. Perhaps he wasn’t properly awake. Perhaps, as long as she didn’t move, he’d drift off again. But then he whispered, ‘Marjie? I’ve been waiting for you.’ She sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Ted.’ She felt his body tense, and then he turned over so abruptly and violently that she bounced on the mattress. He snapped the bedside light on and sat up, throwing back the covers and swinging his legs round to the floor. ‘We can’t go on like this,’ he said. ‘At least, I can’t.’ He turned to face her. ‘You’ve changed. You always used to enjoy—’
‘Of course I’ve changed, after what happened.’
‘No, no; that doesn’t explain this. It happened to me too, remember? But I still love you, and I still want to show you in the same way I always have. You might even find it a comfort.’
A tear leaked out of the corner of her eye and rolled down her face into her ear.
‘It was one of the things I loved about you, how you were never coy, how you weren’t afraid to enjoy sex.’ He sighed. ‘Do you remember how we used to spend whole days in bed when we were first married? And even before, that time at Keston Ponds. It was you who started it, for heaven’s sake. I never tried to force you. Never tried to get you to go to bed with me before you were ready, not like some men would have.’
Keston. That was the night she lost her virginity, three days before their wedding. And when she walked up the aisle on her father’s arm, her stomach gave a thrilling little flip as a memory of that night skipped into her mind. At that exact same moment, Ted, standing at the altar, turned round and beamed at her. As she paced regally towards him in her long white dress, she had to shake away a vivid image of the two of them lying on a blanket in the back of Ted’s Morris Traveller, sharing a cigarette and giggling like children because they felt so naughty – they’d actually done it and they weren’t even married yet! And she remembered her certainty that nothing could possibly go wrong. They loved each other, and she had never in her twenty-one years experienced such pure and utter joy.
‘And now you make me feel like some insensitive brute because you’ve decided you don’t like it any more.’
‘It’s not that, Ted, honestly. It’s just that I find it difficult to . . . relax, I suppose. And it doesn’t seem right that I should be enjoying myself, not after what happened to Peter.’
‘Marjie,’ he said, his voice quieter now, more gentle. ‘We’ve suffered a terrible tragedy, but everyone deserves to be happy again. You have a right to some pleasure, you know.’
Oh, but I don’t, she thought. I truly don’t.
She was so lost in thought that she hadn’t noticed the ward sister coming into the sluice room behind her. ‘Are you feeling all right, Marjorie?’ It still felt odd, being addressed by her name, even though she was only a nursing assistant now.
‘It’s only a headache, Sister.’ Marjorie straightened up and tried to make herself look efficient as she finished dealing with the umpteenth bedpan she’d had to wash that morning. Usually, the sights and smells didn’t bother her, but today she found herself fighting repeated waves of nausea as she worked. Maybe Ted was right; maybe she shouldn’t work on this particular ward, not after Peter. But on the other hand, at least she was doing something to make the lives of these poor wretches more tolerable. Some of them were so bad it was hard to know whether they were aware of anything that was being done for them, but despite what some of the other nursing assistants said, Marjorie preferred to assume that they felt every touch and understood every word. Just because some of them were mute didn’t mean they didn’t hear the jokes and insults being bandied around above their poor misshapen heads.
‘You’ve gone a shocking colour,’ Sister said. ‘Maybe you should sit in my office for five minutes if you’re feeling a bit queer.’ Her voice had a concerned tone that Marjorie hadn’t heard before. No one here knew about her breakdown, so that couldn’t be the reason. Everyone at home – Ted, her parents, even Peggy – they all talked quietly, as though they were afraid they might accidentally wake her from a deep sleep. And in a way, she did feel as though she was stuck in some sort of sleep world, still wading through a nightmare she couldn’t quite pull herself out of.
‘Thank you, Sister, but I’ll be all right in a minute. Perhaps I’ll just . . .’
One of the other nursing assistants came in with a used bedpan and Marjorie felt herself sway as she glimpsed the contents, then she became aware of Sister’s arm on hers.
‘We can’t have you collapsing on the sluice room floor, Mrs Crawford – you’ll be in the way. Come along and sit down for a few minutes until you feel better.’
But even after sitting down, she didn’t feel better. In fact, she started to feel worse, and in the end, Sister let her go early, which was virtually unheard of. It was raining heavily when she stepped outside. The nausea w
as still washing over her and her head was pounding. She craved fresh air, but not the polluted, grey air of Lewisham High Street. She made her way back through the corridors and out of one of the service entrances at the rear of the hospital, and then she slipped through the gap in the fence so that she was in Ladywell Rec.
The grounds were almost empty apart from a few determined dog walkers who trudged stoically through the wet fields, huddled into their anoraks. Rain falling on grass seemed less aggressive, somehow; softer. The grass was a vivid, emerald green and for a moment, she thought absurdly that it was too green, too healthy, too vibrant and alive. She walked alongside the Quaggy, which was running high and fast today. She shuddered. The last time it was this high was just before those terrible floods the same year Peter died. Within a few hours, the whole park was a lake, and she’d got home to find Ted bailing the water out of the back door and her slippers floating along the hallway. She looked down at the brown-tinged froth that was building up along the edge of the riverbank as the current surged along, sweeping twigs and leaves as it went. Her nausea was beginning to subside, but the pounding in her temples was becoming even more intense. She needed to get home, make a nice cup of tea and lie on her bed. At least she wouldn’t have to cook as soon as she got in. Eleanor was going to her friend Karen’s after school because Karen’s mum was taking them to Brownies, picking them up afterwards and dropping Eleanor back later. Ted would be home, but he wasn’t expecting her until gone six, so he’d be sprawled in an armchair, snoozing under a copy of the Evening News.
By the time she was back on the high street, she was drenched, her hair dripping and her coat wet through. She crossed over and started to walk up Mount Pleasant Road, cursing herself for not picking up her umbrella that morning. Rain was running down the gutter towards the main road like a miniature river. Even her sensible lace-up work shoes couldn’t cope – her right foot was completely wet and water was beginning to seep into the left one, too, and she could feel cold splashes up the backs of her legs. When the house came into view, she felt her body relax. Soon, she’d be rubbing a dry towel over her hair while the kettle boiled. Maybe she’d treat herself to a couple of slices of hot buttered toast as well.
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