Eventually, the door was opened. The woman was small, neat and bespectacled. She wore a nondescript skirt, a high-buttoned blouse. Unseen petticoats rustled as she moved. She seemed respectable, vaguely Victorian. She called Lucia “little one” and appeared to regard her with great pity. She was French, Lucia thought. That didn’t surprise her. Simone must know people, women, in the French community, if there was such a thing in London. Lucia didn’t know. But there were French restaurants, she supposed, therefore there were French people. The woman led them along the unlit corridor towards the rear of the house. Down a short flight of steps there was a door. Lucia counted the steps. Eight. A cellar. The woman asked Simone to wait at the top. She opened the door.
‘Can’t she stay with me?’ asked Lucia, crying anew, stopping halfway down.
‘No, little one, it would not be right.’
‘But… but…’
‘I’ll wait here,’ said Simone. There was a ladder-backed chair against the wall at the top of the stairs with a round, worn, patchwork cushion. Mum would have liked the cushion, Lucia thought. But the colours were dull browns, yellows. Simone nodded and smiled at Lucia.
‘Est-elle ta soeur?’ said the woman to Simone. Lucia guessed the meaning; she knew the words elle and soeur. She wished she’d had the chance to learn French properly. Perhaps with a French sister-in-law it might yet be possible.
Simone and Lucia locked eyes. ‘Yes,’ said Simone. ‘She is my English sister.’
The woman nodded. ‘Elle ne sera pas blessée.’ Simone nodded gratefully. The woman smiled at Lucia. ‘I will not hurt you,’ she said. She stepped into the room and switched on a light. Lucia looked up at Simone, Simone nodded, and Lucia descended the rest of the stairs and followed the woman into the cellar.
The French woman was true to her word: Lucia was unharmed, in many ways. She thought the woman was a nurse, or once had been. She’d seemed to know what she was doing and everything had looked and smelled clean. That was something. It was probably the best she could have hoped for in the terrible circumstances. She supposed she had Simone to thank for that.
She struggled home on the train that afternoon with a flask of tea that Simone gave her and a small bag full of “provisions”. Their parting was difficult. There was a hug, of sorts. Simone said she must telephone her if she started to get pain, if there was too much blood. There probably wouldn’t be… but “Madame G” would be able to help if there was.
Lucia sat on the train, a thick towel between her legs. She was glad she had remembered to wear dark clothes. She felt nothing but a dull ache in her abdomen. The pain was not much worse than her regular monthly cramps. She was tired. She could feel the blood seeping from her, and she told herself it was her monthly – a bit late, a bit heavy, but her monthly. Nothing more. By the time her train pulled into her station, she had started to believe in the tale she had told herself.
She told Mum she was ill. She’d probably caught a bug in London. Yes, she’d had a nice day. They’d bought pink lipsticks and white stockings, and false eye-lashes and ivory satin bridesmaid shoes. It was all back at the flat in London. Simone was keeping everything close to her, to be organised. No, she hadn’t seen Edward. He was at work, of course. No, she didn’t need to wear the shoes in just yet. There was plenty of time. Yes, it was good of Simone to provide her with the flask of tea. There was nothing in the bag! Simone had popped sandwiches in there for her and Lucia had eaten them on the train.
‘I need to go to bed now,’ Lucia said and the effort of walking up the narrow, steep staircase was immense. Never had her small bed in her small, dark bedroom looked more inviting. She visited the bathroom to change her towel. There was an awful lot of blood. No wonder she felt so weak. She hid the bloodied towel under her bed to dispose of later. She would burn it on the fire when Mum was at the shops. That was how she and Mum always disposed of their “private things”. She had another dozen or so towels, bought for her by Simone. Besides those she had a few of her own hidden away in her knicker drawer. She had plenty of supplies. Simone had also bought her a new sanitary belt, a pretty white lacy one. Lucia had never seen anything so beautiful. Her old belt was worn and bloodstained and had turned a horrible grey-ish colour. She hoped she wouldn’t leak onto the beautiful new one, or onto her clothes or her bed, but of course any suspicions could be dispelled as Mum would assume she was on her monthly, which she was, she reminded herself. There was really nothing to worry about.
She climbed into bed. The sheets were clean – cool, calm. They smelled of Mum. Lucia closed her eyes. She lay there for several minutes, not sleeping, not crying, not regretting. She thought about Edward and their secret – the secret she now half-shared with Simone. Life was complicated, and she was tired, and she turned to her pale yellow bedroom wall. She was vacant, she realised; emptied out. She had no feeling at all. It wasn’t that bad. The worst was over. Soon, she slept.
Tuesday 29th June 1976
Dear Elizabeth
My mum and dad keep on arguing. My mum wants a job and she has aplied for one at the habadashary shop. She says it is right up her street and I think she means it would suit her which it will because she is good at making things. She makes my dresses. I do’nt mind if mummy wants to have a job but daddy is cross and says its his place to earn the money and keep us. Mummy tells him to stop being old fashiunned and he says its not old fashiunned its common sense. I want them to stop arguing and I think my dad should just give up because Mummy told me in secret she is going to take the job REGARDLES.
I want to go and live with the Fossil sisters because nothing like this ever happens to them. The Fossil sisters are in Ballet Shoes, the book I told you about before. Your name has to begin with P to be a Fossil so I would choose Pippa. By the way, look out for an exciting parcel heading your way in a few weeks, once I have saved enough pocket money. I cant say more about it now apart from it might be a very nice book that I think you will love.
I will close now,
From your couson in England, Tina xxxx
Nineteen
January 2014
Tina picked a space in the near-empty car park and shuffled the car, back and forth, back and forth; she couldn’t manoeuvre when she was nervous. She was an appalling driver, she decided, cursing herself. Finally, she parked to her satisfaction and checked her face and hair in her vanity mirror. Perhaps she should have applied more make-up? She touched up her powder. She snapped shut her handbag, got out of the car and locked it. She turned to face the building, took three deep breaths, and walked towards the door.
Denise the receptionist looked much the same, Tina was pleased to see. Her nails were still bright pink, her face well made-up, her short brown hair neat. It was reassuring. And she remembered Tina.
After a brief chat, Tina took a seat in the waiting area and Denise bustled off to make coffee.
There was nobody else waiting. This was good. Tina didn’t like being nosed at and wondered about. This place was discreet and quiet. Denise brought the coffee and handed it to Tina with a warm smile. ‘Kate won’t keep you,’ she said. ‘She’s just reading over your notes again. She’s running a tad behind this morning.’
‘Kate?’
‘Ah, you saw Virginia last time didn’t you? She left a couple of months ago. I’m sure I told you when you rang for your appointment?’
‘Oh. I must have forgotten.’
She hadn’t forgotten, she just hadn’t been listening as usual. Was the departure of Virginia a good thing or a bad thing? Probably it was good, Tina decided as she sipped the coffee. It might be better to talk to somebody new. The coffee was better than she remembered. Good coffee was always a comfort, so she settled back in her chair. She took from her bag Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf – Kath’s reading group choice – and tried to read. It was an odd book, quite beautiful in places, but opaque. Concentrate, concentrate!
<
br /> She didn’t want to have to start all over again, either with the book or with the counselling. Being asked all those horrid questions that she couldn’t answer. In many ways it would be easier to try to carry on where she’d left off. But she couldn’t remember where that was, or what she and Virginia had talked about. All she could remember was discomfort and pain. She wished she was at the Haynes’s house, as she would normally be on a Thursday morning, tidying away Poppy’s toys, hoovering the stairs. She had cleaned their house yesterday instead, by prior arrangement. She hadn’t told them why.
Denise sat at her desk and worked, her bright pink nails flashing like jumping beans on her keyboard. The fish tank in the corner hummed and clicked; it must be the pump that makes the noise, Tina thought, and she didn’t want to look at the little bright blue fish, trapped in the tank, swimming around aimlessly in the artificial world. They could never ever get out. The door to the left of the reception desk opened a crack, something was said, and the door was left ajar.
‘Christina?’ said Denise. ‘Christina? Would you like to go through? Kate’s ready for you now.’
Nausea. Heartbeats. Sweat. Flight. Sob. No. She smiled weakly at Denise, who beamed back as though she was saying, “Go on, you can do this,” and perhaps that was exactly what she was saying, with her smile and the gentle nod of her head. She probably saw nervous people every day. Tina finished her coffee in three gulps, put the mug down next to the neat pile of Country Living magazines, tucked Mrs Dalloway back into her handbag, and got up from her chair and walked slowly towards the door marked Kate Wishaw. Tina reached out and took two deep breaths and pushed the door. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Kate Wishaw just yet, the stranger to whom she was soon going to be pouring out her heart. She was aware of a figure sitting in one of the chairs, but Tina still couldn’t look, so she turned towards the door and closed it, making sure it clicked shut; she wanted to be private, unheard. She took two more deep breaths and only then did she turn towards the room, to look at the woman who occupied it, who was rising from her chair, her mouth open in shock and surprise to mirror Tina’s own feelings.
‘Tina?!’
‘Kath?!’
Twenty
August 1964
The bridesmaid’s dress could have been silk. It should have been silk. Somehow that would have made everything more bearable. At the first fitting, the day they had bought the material, the day Lucia had told Simone about her… predicament, Lucia had been terrified, self-conscious of her small bump, her fleshier-than-it-had-ever-been waist. Simone had been kind about it. ‘You will diet, Lucia, no?’ she’d said, nodding in a knowing fashion to the dressmaker. ‘At the next fitting she will be super slim!’ The dressmaker, herself rather dumpy, had smiled. ‘Seams could be adjusted,’ she’d said.
Now the wedding day was here and Lucia would have to smile for the camera. It wasn’t easy to smile these days. On the morning of the wedding she listened to her Helen Shapiro records. She had grown to love them once more. In those dark days, weeks, after the trip to London, Lucia had come to rely on Helen’s voice as her comfort, her companion, her confidante. There was something so strong about that voice, something invincible, and Helen was so young, and therefore courageous. Lucia wished they could be real friends, in real life, which was a stupid girlish thought, but there it was. They were the same age.
Lucia knew that today she would have to put on a brave face. She had seen nothing of Edward since… since. He was busy at work, or helping Simone with wedding preparations. He had visited Lane’s End House only once since Christmas time, and Lucia had contrived to be “out” on that day. But Lucia knew that today he would be unavoidable, and so would she.
Robert was back from New Zealand. Lucia was rather unmoved, unlike their mother, by his return. He’d always been nothing much to her, and vice versa. It was the same with Ambrose, who was a law unto himself, secretive and, Lucia suspected, quietly engaged in unlawful activities. He was a little strange. Not a traveller like Robert, more of a roamer. Often he’d disappear for days on end, then come home bearing a bad smell, and he’d be ravenous, with an odd look in his eyes. Mum and Dad didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much they were prepared to do or say. He was a grown man, after all, and he paid his keep when he was at home, which was more than Lucia did.
Mum was thrilled beyond measure that all her children would be together for the wedding. It was going to be lovely.
It was Edward and Simone’s day and, of course, nobody really noticed Lucia, the nylon-besmirched bridesmaid, over made-up, hair piled up on her head in a beehive do. Lucia’s hair was too short for the style and she knew she looked silly. She spent most of the day switched off from all that was around her. Many of the guests wanted to hear all about Robert’s New Zealand adventures. He was going back, he said to everyone who asked, for good. This was just a flying visit. When Robert and Lucia finally got around to talking at the reception, they exchanged a few meaningless wedding day pleasantries. Then Robert told Lucia off for not smiling for the photographs. It was bad form, he said. She was the bridesmaid and it was Edward’s big day. She should buck her ideas up.
‘I don’t want to smile,’ she said. ‘I have a headache.’
Robert nodded. He looked at her in disdain. ‘You’re a selfish little cow, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘You always have been.’ He moved off to speak to somebody else. The tears came, too readily as they always did nowadays. She sought out her mother, and was comforted when she detected Anne’s familiar scent of violets. She shed tears over her mother’s pretty mauve jacket, which had been bought brand new for the occasion. The mauve of the mother did not look well alongside the peach of the daughter. It was a clash that Lucia tried to ignore, but couldn’t avoid. It was just as well the photographs would be black and white, and people would only be able to guess the colours in years to come. Mum tutted and consoled, and gently rubbed her daughter’s back. The nylon scratched and sparkled and clicked. Mum took out a handkerchief, and tried to wipe the streaks of black mascara from Lucia’s thin cheeks. Lucia told her mother exactly what Robert had said. Mum murmured about young men and their wicked tongues; men and their ugly ways. ‘Take no notice, there’s a girl.’
Lucia stiffened when she felt Edward’s gentle hand on her shoulder. Something ran through her, a bolt of dread and fire. Something else.
‘Is everything all right?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows at Mum.
‘Oh yes, she’s just had words with Robert.’
‘He had words with me!’ said Lucia, and she shrugged off Edward’s hand.
‘He’s getting a bit drunk,’ said Edward. ‘Take no notice. Shall I have words with him?’
‘No!’ cried Lucia. ‘There’s no need for that. Enough words!’
Mum moved off to talk to somebody else. Lucia watched her go, willing her to stay. But Mum was gone, surrounded by a gaggle of guests offering up their congratulations. Lucia looked down at the floor. She needed to get to the ladies to clean up the mascara properly.
Edward had removed his jacket, and his smart white shirt looked nice on him. She didn’t want to notice. But she couldn’t help it.
‘Thank you for being our bridesmaid,’ said Edward. ‘You look beautiful.’
They both reddened.
‘Thank you,’ she said. She looked at him then. He was still her brother, never mind what had happened between them. She wiped at her face.
‘Lucia, I—’
‘What?’ Surely he wasn’t going to—
‘I’m sorry for what happened.’
He was. Oh. Oh no.
‘It was abominable,’ continued Edward. ‘I don’t know… I was drunk, I think, and a bit out of sorts. I… I don’t know what happened. I don’t drink any more. Not a drop.’
‘You had champagne during the speeches earlier. I saw you.’
‘I only h
eld the glass and pretended. I’m stone-cold sober.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m very happy with Simone. I’m crazy about her.’
‘I know.’
‘I hope you’ll be crazy about somebody too one day.’
The image of Clive rode into her mind and out again; his handsome features slipping away from her, deformed and twisted. If it hadn’t been for Clive, the thing that happened with Edward wouldn’t have happened. Her disappointment that evening, her desperate walk home, the warm fire and the gentle Edward, drunk, and waiting for her…
She threw back her head. ‘I think it would be better if we never mention… it… again. That night.’
‘Yes,’ said Edward. ‘You’re right. I’m so sorry. I’m more than sorry. I really am… words can’t express it.’
‘It’s in the past,’ said Lucia. ‘It’s over.’
‘Yes, it is over,’ said Edward. ‘But it should never have happened. Truly.’ He looked like he was going to cry. His lip wobbled.
‘We all make mistakes,’ she said, trying to comfort.
‘Indeed.’
‘So shall we agree that it’s all dead and buried and carry on as if it never happened?’
‘Yes. I think that’s the only thing we can do.’ Edward whipped out a white handkerchief and blew his nose. After that he looked more composed.
‘Then that’s what we’ll do,’ she said.
‘Thank you, Lucia.’
Robert and Ambrose drank together, laughing at everyone and everything, for the whole world was apparently hilarious. William drank with them too, sipping at wine. No doubt he considered himself “one of the boys”. Lucia watched her brothers from her vantage point of a stool at the bar; she sat alone, sipping demurely at a lemonade, and her brothers glanced back at her, sniggering.
‘Path-et-ic!’ she mouthed across to them all, glaring. They laughed all the louder. Later, she went home with Mum and Dad. She tore off the peach dress and threw it onto the bedroom floor, not caring what became of it. She kicked off the ivory satin shoes. She peeled off the false eyelashes, removed all traces of make-up, and let down her sticky hair. She brushed it ferociously, flakes of lacquer floating around her.
A Life Between Us Page 11
