by Jane Bailey
People were clapping: distant popping in our ears. ‘Dance with Gracie!’ I whispered.
He smiled, and walked me back to the house. The lawn filled with couples dancing.
‘Dance with her,’ I said again.
He gave a breath of a laugh and went into the kitchen to find his pipe.
The following morning I helped the children stack up the remaining chairs on the front lawn, ready to be taken back to the village hall. I was just returning to the house when Donald, one of the evacuees, dropped his stack and gave a little yelp.
‘Who’s that?’ he shouted. ‘There’s someone there!’
Running towards him and following his line of sight, I saw someone darting through the orchard. I ran over to the far end of the orchard and the five-bar gate and waited. The ewe stopped a few feet away, looking hangdog and cheated.
Already, her face was coated in fresh blood, and her fleece was matted with bits of twig and leaves and dust.
We stood studying each other for some time.
‘You love them that much?’ I said.
I unhooked the rope from the top of the gate, and watched her great grey woolly behind as she bolted past me and trundled across the next field. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course I do.’
50
All seemed well after that, or as well as it could be with James away and in unknown danger. July passed peacefully and with the happy little landmarks that children’s growing provides. So long as James came back safely, I couldn’t imagine anything rocking our boat again. But I hadn’t bargained on another visitor late in August: one who would pose a far greater threat to my happiness.
It was just beginning to get dark when I heard the slowly beating wings of a wood pigeon as it wheeled away, heralding the crunch of footsteps on the gravel outside. I looked up from my darning, head cocked, waiting. People continued to speak jauntily on the wireless as if nothing had happened. Howard must have let him in, because I heard voices in the hall and no sound of a bell.
‘Look who’s come to see you!’ said Howard, as he showed the visitor into our living room.
A foolish hope that it might be James – home for some unexpected reason – fluttered and then sank back into my chest. There was a burst of canned laughter from the wireless as I saw Philip Bird standing anxiously before me, and Howard went to turn it off.
‘Oh,’ I managed.
‘I’m sorry to intrude so late.’ He was flushed and troubled, and brought with him a waft of energy and manhood that the living room seemed unable to accommodate. I stood up to fetch him something: biscuits? Ovaltine? He declined all refreshment, but eventually took a small brandy handed to him unbidden by Howard.
‘How are you?’ I said at last, when he was settled on the sofa next to my armchair.
‘Oh, not too bad.’ He twirled his glass and frowned into it. ‘Well, actually, my mother’s very ill. That’s why I’m back this way.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m so sorry to hear that,’ said Howard, playing the host far better than me. ‘Is it serious?’
‘Her heart. She’s had a couple of small attacks before, but this one was more serious. It doesn’t look as though she’ll … I don’t think—’
‘You poor chap. Is there anything we can do? Is she in hospital?’
‘No. The doctor’s been. Says she just has to rest.’
Howard was attentive, but I was aware that I was merely sitting there, unable to comprehend the reason for the visit, and wishing that he had not come unannounced. I would’ve liked to have heard the rest of the wireless programme.
He caught my eye, and apologized again for intruding. Then he glanced at Howard as if Howard were intruding. Then, scratching his head, he addressed me awkwardly:
‘You know I haven’t always … I’m not a very good son.’ He rubbed his hand over his face, as if he might wipe off the old one and reveal a new one. But he didn’t. ‘The fact is, I can’t stand being there. I just had to get away.’ There was the faintest hint of a sob in his last word. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.’
At this first show of emotion Howard was instantly courteous, but managed to find a reason to absent himself, secure in the knowledge that emotion was a woman’s business, and nothing for him to concern himself with.
As soon as he had gone I wished he hadn’t, for it was easy to see why I had once been so attracted to Philip. Despite the fat tears that now rolled down his cheeks, and the memory of his depression, he was to me an extraordinarily handsome man. I reached out a hand over the arms of our chairs, and he took it.
‘Is there someone with her?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes. A neighbour. She’s being well looked after. It’s just … I can’t stand being there. I know it’s awful, but I was wondering … I don’t know, if there was the slightest possibility I might stay the night? Just one night—’
‘Of course.’ I said it without thinking. He was clearly too distraught to go back tonight. And since he’d come by bus he would have to return on foot, or else Howard would have to get the cart out, and I knew he didn’t like using it in the dark. It was obvious he should stay now he was here.
‘How’s James? I still feel bad about the accident. Did he get over his injuries?’
‘Oh, that. Yes. He flew on the south coast for a bit, then got himself injured again. He’s test flying planes in India right now. Anyway, I’m sure that accident with you wasn’t anyone’s fault.’
‘I suppose not. There was some confusion over who had the control: him or me.’
The words hung in the air like a kestrel, absorbing more weight with each second of silence.
I could feel his hand stroking mine now. I pulled my feet up underneath me in the armchair and leaned towards him. ‘Tell me about it. You never really explained why you don’t get on with your mother.’
‘Ah! Families! Bloody families!’
I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. So I tried, ‘What’s your family like, then?’
‘My family? What’s my family like? Well, there’s a question …’ He shuffled himself towards me too, and I made sure not to look too interested in his reply, in case it stopped the flow. ‘My father died when I was eight. TB, he had. Survived the trenches, survived the flu, and died of a bloody cough!’ He paused, but still I said nothing, waiting for him to continue, hoping he would lead himself somewhere. ‘That left us all up the creek. Mum had no work and four children. She’d had five, but my little sister died when she was two – diphtheria, it was. Beautiful little girl …’ He rocked his head back and looked up at the corner of the ceiling, and I could almost see the little girl’s face he looked so wistful.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Broke everyone’s heart. Mum … she never got over it. Never. We were none of us any good after that. Especially Daisy …’
He broke off completely, and I seemed to have lost him.
‘Daisy?’
He swung his eyes round to look at me, as if I were a stranger who had just walked in the room. ‘Yes – Daisy. She got it worst.’ He rubbed his temples slowly, and I waited. ‘See, she came after Ivy. And no one could replace Ivy. Perhaps if she’d been a boy … But our Dad doted on Daisy – he loved her, and that seemed to make things worse. There was something not right about her, Mum said. Something not right about her, and that made Dad look after her more. But she wasn’t having any of it. She already had a son who was simple – Sidney, my older brother – and she couldn’t handle another one. And when Dad died that was it. She made Daisy go into a home. Just because she had one daft son already and because the poor little mite had the bad luck to come after Ivy, and because she could never be Ivy, and because Dad wasn’t there to stop her. Only …’
I began to feel queasy. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the ugly story of his family’s unhappiness.
‘… she didn’t take Daisy to the home.’
A huge wave of relief passed over me. I didn’t want poor Daisy in a home b
ecause of that foolish woman’s grief. I didn’t want the woman I’d met to be responsible for such a crime. Suddenly his head was bent forward and he was crying again.
‘I did,’ he whispered.
My mouth was suddenly full of saliva, and I couldn’t stop it coming. I felt I was going to be sick. I didn’t want to see him crying. I put my hand to my lips, but really I wanted to put it over his, too.
‘You did?’
‘She made me. Mum made me take her. She said I was to tell her I was taking her to a nice place for tea, and then I was to leave her. And I was eight. What could I do? She said we were poor and with Dad gone and us all too young to work we’d all starve, and Sid was fit for nothing, and another one like Sid would be the death of her. What could I do? I believed her. Though we all knew Daisy wasn’t like Sid. She wasn’t anything like Sid. But what could I do?’ He seemed to be asking me, but I could say nothing. ‘So I took her. I took her to Good Shepherd House and I left her there. And she screamed when I went. And the nuns said don’t turn back, so I didn’t, but I could hear her screaming, screaming …’ He closed his eyes. ‘I did what the nuns said, I did what my mum said, only they’re not the ones who can still hear her screaming. My own little sister, my dear, dear little sister, and I just walked … away …’ His voice by now was almost inaudible between sobs.
My agitated foot caught the base of a plant tub, and I stared down at it.
‘Perhaps … perhaps she didn’t know what had happened to her. Perhaps she thought you hadn’t heard her, that there’d just been a terrible mistake, that you’d intended to come back and get her later. But that something had happened to you – something terrible – that prevented you from coming.’
He snivelled. ‘Maybe.’
‘Perhaps when you didn’t come, as the weeks went by, she thought that it hadn’t been a mistake after all. Perhaps she was terrified that her mother, her brothers – the people she relied upon to love her – had simply cast her out. And when she couldn’t understand why, she began to invent reasons for herself. She must be very bad, very, very bad and unlovable to have made this happen. And if she still didn’t quite believe it, the nuns made sure she did. They told her she was a wicked, wicked child and God was punishing her for not behaving, and nobody would ever love her if she didn’t brush her hair properly, clean the toilets properly, stop coughing, do what she was told.’ He stopped sobbing and looked at me. He swallowed hard.
‘And then one day, maybe she worked out that the bunch of keys which were always hanging behind the desk near the back door would magically open doors, and the two on a separate little ring would open the back door and the back gate, and that the scum who guarded them sometimes left them hanging there if called away to some trivial urgent incident like a child wetting the bed and needing six hard slaps. So perhaps in the time it took for six hard slaps, your little sister got the keys and tried them, and God was on her side because the second one fitted. Only she wasn’t quite as mad as they thought she was because she only took the two keys and closed the door quietly behind her, and so it wasn’t until morning that they noticed the child had gone. Perhaps she ran off into the woods and kept running … running …’
I had been getting louder and I had let go of his hand. I stood up now and ran from the room, knocking my darning off the arm of the chair. I slipped on some shoes by the front door and grabbed my coat, and I ran from that house as I’d run all those years before. I headed for the road and the woods beyond, my breath heavy with panic, and I just kept on running.
51
By now the evening had closed in and the woods were dark. I ran until my coat was sticking to me and I felt my anger steaming out of it. The evergreens were no good: only deciduous trees were understanding. In search of their calm and empathy I ran into the beech wood, but there was no respite. They were all tall and sleek as poles, straining upwards, their natural wideness stunted by their competition for the light. They had no arms to save me, and I ran on, the sweat seeping through my clothes like sap, knowing now exactly where I was heading.
Back on the road I passed Mrs Emery’s and headed for the village green. There was only half an old moon, hidden by clouds, and I could barely make her out but there were the arms, outstretched wide and low, waiting to embrace me.
I climbed on to her stoutest branch and stretched out, letting her bark press gently into me like a kiss.
After some time of stillness, apart from the pounding of my heart, I felt the chill of the damp clothes. I took them off, one by one – even the stockings – and replaced them all inside out. I remember Alice Snow telling me to do this for good luck if ever I was lost. It would fool evil spirits who might be looking for me in the woods. Whatever my motives in carrying out the task, I was certainly lost.
Lying back on the branch, it occurred to me now that if everything had changed for me, then it had changed for Philip, too. One moment he was racked with an inescapable guilt which threatened his very existence, and now … what? Was everything all right again? Did it make everything better to see that I’d turned out okay? Or was it worse, to be told that your worst fears were true, that yes, I had felt betrayed? I had cried for a year and a half, I had been left to rot in that godforsaken hellhole and I did remember him leaving me, turning his back, not looking round? I remembered everything.
And what of my mother? Not Gracie, but the real one, that fretful woman in the waiting room. The very things that had warmed me to her now repulsed me. How she worried about her children, how proud she was of them, how she’d do anything for them, even simple Sidney, she wouldn’t swap him for the world. Everything she had said became hateful. Did I want to see her? No, I did not. I pictured revealing myself to her, seeing her face when she realized what I had become. Would she be thrilled, that I had turned out so well? Not a mad child, after all? And would I then have to accept her as my mother, pretend that none of the intervening twenty years had happened? Would I be thought of as ungrateful or cold if I couldn’t let bygones be bygones? And what would become of Gracie? I couldn’t hurt Gracie.
Or would it be altogether different? Would the woman of the furrowed brow and felt hat be heartbroken to learn that I was sane, and that I knew everything? Would she be tormented with unbearable guilt, forced to confront what she thought she had buried for ever, hoping it would just go away? I tried to imagine each possibility, but neither of them appealed. It occurred to me with a wry smile that if I never saw her again, then the only time I had ever seen her since she’d sent me away she had stood up and spoken these words: she had asked me how her son was.
It occurred to me also that I did not have to make myself known to her at all. There was no reason why Philip should tell her he’d met me, and if I asked him not to mention me, well … he owed me that at least … didn’t he?
And yet, there was something reassuring and easy about telling the truth. The truth had a solid quality about it which defied mutation. Unlike lies, which could go on for ever, the truth was as finite as the moon’s surface, whole and contained in the simplicity of its sphere. And I was tempted by it. Once the truth was out, there could be no more doubts. Whatever happened would happen, and that would be an end to it.
But was the alternative deceit? Was withholding the truth – just deciding not to use it – a lie? Maybe I could simply carry on as before, unburdened by what I might provoke, but taking on the burden of what I knew.
Whichever way I looked at it, my deep past had been uncorked. My lifelong tactic for self-preservation had been blown, and I would have to find another. But this was the new thing I had learnt: it doesn’t matter how deeply you bury something, or how well it’s hidden, it is still there. And I had spent my life pretending, because it was easier that way. I hadn’t remembered ever having a choice about it, but there had been two: when I met Alice Snow, and when I met Gracie. On neither occasion did I choose to reveal what had happened. Now I had a brother who barely wanted to live, and a mother who had never wanted me alive
. And yet I must have always known this, so why did it hurt so much more now? I must have known it, because that was why I was running away – running – from the moment I fled Good Shepherd House with its nuns and nurses, I did not run home, I ran away, because I already knew. I must have already known.
Just as there are days in your life you never forget, so there are nights that stick in your memory for ever. The night of 25th August was like that. I did not sleep; my stomach was full of bile and my head full of worms from an upturned stone. Each minute dragged its feet through the night, and I kept seeing her face again, sitting in the waiting room with a furrowed brow, worrying over her sons – her sons! There was nothing she wouldn’t do for them. Even Sidney, simple Sidney, she ‘wouldn’t swap him for the world’. A daughter, maybe. But not the world. Oh God! And Philip – a brother – my brother. The one who walked away. I always knew I’d had a brother, one I was close to. I could no longer see the back of his head as he walked away, resolute, doing what he was told. I couldn’t get in that close. But I could feel it. I recall the feeling of rejection, the helpless, hopeless calling out to a trusted loved one, the betrayal, the disbelief, the horror, the closeness of the nuns with their beaky noses like the nurse at the hospital, their cruel little snipes, the meanness with which they used my terror to their own petty ends, to ensure I did chores, to achieve trivial little heights of obedience, because it was no wonder nobody loved me, no wonder nobody wanted me, no wonder no one had ever come back for me … They hissed at me in the darkness, spat out the cruelty of the years I had spent there, and I wriggled in their bitterness into the small hours.
