by Adele Geras
Nanny Mouse came into her own with new babies. She had a gift for them, knew how to make the right noises and do all the proper things that seemed miraculously to soothe them. There were people who were good with animals and whose dogs were always amazingly well-adjusted and docile, and Nanny Mouse worked her spell on any child she encountered. She was the best babytamer in the world.
When Mark was first born, Nanny travelled up to London to help Rilla ‘establish a routine’ for the child, and Rilla was endlessly grateful to her for that. She also, guiltily, was relieved that Leonora realized that her own presence wouldn’t be nearly as useful. She’d arrived at the hospital in time for Mark’s birth then, after giving out presents and making all the right grandmotherly noises, she went back to Willow Court and Nanny Mouse stayed with Rilla for two weeks, teaching her all the things she didn’t know about feeding and bathing and swaddling. Nanny Mouse believed that babies felt more comfortable wrapped up like small Egyptian mummies, and because Mark never objected and slept very well from the start, Rilla dutifully wound a length of flannel sheet around his body every night for ages and ages.
It seemed, though, that even Nanny Mouse might have met her match with Chloë. She wouldn’t submit to swaddling, and pulled her arms free every time from the confining cloth. She howled at the slightest provocation. She had her own agenda, James said, and was sticking to it. You had to admire the child, he said.
Rilla stared into the darkness. The wails had stopped now but she was wide awake. She got out of bed and pulled on her silk robe, deciding to go and see if Nanny Mouse was still up.
She opened the door and looked down the corridor. There was a golden line of light under the nursery door. Probably the silence meant that Chloë was being given a bottle. Nanny Mouse wouldn’t mind if she came and chatted for a while. She’d be pleased.
Rilla tiptoed along the carpet and opened the nursery door. There was Nanny Mouse with Chloë in her arms, on the nursing chair by the window. She was wearing her camel dressing-gown. Could it really be the same one she’d had when Rilla and Gwen were children? It most probably was. All Nanny Mouse’s garments lasted for ever, or else she had a stock of identical replacements that no one knew about.
‘Rilla my dear, come in!’ she whispered, smiling. The baby was sucking gently from a bottle. ‘I shan’t be long dealing with this little one and then I’ll make us a nice milky drink.’
‘Lovely!’ said Rilla, sitting down at the nursery table, and trying not to think of how she longed for a good slug of whisky, or anything alcoholic. Nanny Mouse thought milky drinks were the elixir of life and in her opinion there was almost no problem a good cup of cocoa couldn’t solve. Horlicks was her cure for sleeplessness and Ovaltine was just the ticket when you were feeling poorly. Her hair, white now, was done in a plait which hung down her back. She must be quite old, Rilla thought. Older than Mother even, and yet she doesn’t change at all. You couldn’t even say she was wrinkled, not really. Her skin seemed thinner, and she looked even more mouselike than she had as a young woman but, basically, she was always just the same. That was the best thing about her. Perhaps, Rilla thought, there was something in this milky-drink idea after all.
‘How are you, dear?’ Nanny Mouse said. ‘You don’t have to put on a brave face with me, you know. Are you managing?’
‘Oh, yes, I’m managing,’ Rilla said. ‘But I do get lonely sometimes. Even though the house is quite small, I feel as though we’re all rattling round in it, me and Markie and Beth. As though we’re waiting for someone.’
‘You’ll get used to that, dear, don’t you worry. It’s bound to be difficult just at first. After a while,’ she looked up at Rilla and smiled in a way you could only describe as knowing, ‘it’ll seem quite natural to be on your own and you’ll be relieved not to have to consider the needs of a man. You’ll be able to please yourself, Rilla, and that’s always nice, isn’t it?’
She had a point, Rilla thought. It was nice, that part of it. What wasn’t so nice was having no one to share with; no one to chat to about everything that came into your head, no one to be there in the bed with you when you woke up every day, no one to see how lovely the children were and how they changed every day, every hour almost. There was also the small matter of sex, which had been fun and a pleasure and which had ceased for a while to be any kind of a problem. Nowadays, there was plenty on offer, but it came hedged about with difficulties – how involved did you want to get? Was this or that person suitable? Could you risk Beth or Mark seeing a stranger in the bedroom in the morning? They were the sorts of difficulties Rilla thought she’d put behind her for ever when she married. That’ll teach me, she thought.
‘I’m fine, actually,’ she said to Nanny Mouse. ‘Just from time to time, I get a bit weepy. Nothing that won’t get better, honestly.’
‘That’s my brave Rilla,’ said Nanny Mouse, and stood up to lower the sleeping Chloë gently into her cot. ‘Now come downstairs with me, and we’ll have a real treat. Hot chocolate tonight, I think.’
Suddenly, Rilla felt ridiculously happy. She followed Nanny Mouse down the stairs to the kitchen. Everything would be much better after a mug of hot chocolate. Everything was going to be all right. She’d work again. There had to be a part out there for her, somewhere. It was just a question of searching it out, and she was determined to do it. She’d manage, all on her own. And before she got back into bed, she’d look in on Markie and Beth, asleep in the room next to her own. Her children. Her reasons for being happy.
*
Rilla looked out of the window next morning and wondered why last night’s hopeful mood had evaporated. The sun was calling attention to itself, shining far more brightly than it had any right to do in spring. A green mist of new leaves wreathed the branches of every tree. Daffodils and narcissi were scattered everywhere in the grass, and Rilla wondered as she did every year what it was about daffodils that people liked so much. They’re boring, she thought. Yellow and boring. She noticed that the camellias had buds that were just on the point of opening into the white and deep pink and very dark red flowers which she loved. This was a day bursting with every cliché of happiness and hope, and the fact that she wanted to lie down on her bed and cry and cry made her feel even worse, guilty as well as unhappy. She sighed, and made her way to the bathroom, where she unscrewed the cap on her bottle of Valium. I’ll feel better after breakfast, she told herself, making sure not to meet her own gaze in the mirror.
*
‘What’s going on? Nanny Mouse, what’s happening?’ Rilla stood on the bottom step of the staircase and stared. The grandfather clock on the landing struck nine as she spoke. Nanny Mouse was dressed in her travelling suit and dark blue felt hat, holding a small leather suitcase in one hand and her handbag in the other. She looked as though she were about to burst into tears, a most un-Nanny Mouse-like state of affairs. Leonora had an arm around her, comforting her. Gwen and James were by the door. James said, ‘Come along, Nanny, or you’ll miss that train. Engine’s running …’
‘But I haven’t said goodbye to the children,’ Nanny Mouse cried. ‘Nor to Rilla. I haven’t explained …’
‘Here I am, Nanny,’ said Rilla. ‘And I’ll say goodbye to the children for you. You go and get your train. Mother’ll explain everything, I’m sure.’
‘I’m so sorry, dear, truly,’ said Nanny Mouse as James guided her towards the door. ‘I shan’t be gone longer than a few days. I may come back tomorrow if all’s well. If I can arrange for someone else to be with Gladys. Goodbye! Goodbye … thank you, James, dear. I’m just coming.’
When the car had finally driven off, Leonora said, ‘Well, it can’t be helped. Poor Nanny Mouse!’ She led the way to the dining room. The children were already up and about in the garden. Whatever emergency had overtaken Nanny Mouse and caused her to pack her suitcase and leave Willow Court, she’d managed to get the children washed and dressed and fed before she left. Rilla helped herself to cereal and a bowl of fruit and sat
down next to Gwen.
‘So,’ she said. ‘How come all of you haven’t eaten yet? I thought I’d missed breakfast altogether, it’s so late.’
‘We’ve been at sixes and sevens,’ said Leonora. ‘Nanny Mouse had a telephone call early this morning. Her cousin Gladys, who’s her only living relative as far as I know, has fallen and sprained her ankle rather badly, I believe. She can’t walk and is rather at a loss as to what to do. Nanny Mouse is going to help her for a couple of days, and see if she can arrange nursing care and so forth.’
‘Poor thing!’ Gwen cut her toast into two neat triangles and spread one of them with butter and marmalade. ‘She hates leaving the children. I don’t think she trusts us to look after them properly.’
‘We’ll manage splendidly,’ said Leonora. ‘There are, after all, three of us to share the work.’
Rilla said nothing. Shit shit shit shit shit, she thought. This is all I need. We’ll have to be on duty the whole time, watching the kids, and making sure they’re all bathed and fed and amused. Shit. She blinked tears away, knowing how selfish, how rottenly spoilt she was, but not able to stop feeling like a child who’s suddenly been robbed of a treat. Pathetic. She was being totally and completely pathetic. Of course Nanny Mouse had to go and look after her cousin. And she wasn’t one of those mothers who was always dumping her kids on someone else. I’m not like that, she thought. I love playing with them, reading to them, being with them, but just this once, I felt like a real rest. Just for a change. Some time for myself. Shit. Before she had come downstairs, Rilla had practically decided not to have toast today, but what the hell. She took a piece from the rack and covered it with a thick layer of butter. If Leonora says a single word, Rilla thought, I’ll chuck the butter dish straight at her.
*
By Saturday morning, Rilla was determined to escape Willow Court and play truant. She outlined her lips with a more than usually firm hand and filled them in with a shade of lipstick that was darker than she normally wore. She dressed in the best approximation she could manage to a business suit, a pair of black wool trousers, a white silk shirt, and a moss-green velvet jacket, which she would have to leave hanging open because of her rather-too-generous bosom. Never mind, the thing was to get a costume that would reflect the new Rilla, the one who wasn’t going to ask permission to go down to the village for a while, but was simply going to announce her intentions at breakfast and go.
The door to her bedroom opened and Mark came running in.
‘What you doing, Ma? You’re pretty!’
Rilla gathered him into her arms and put her face into the crook of his neck, smelling his warm skin, and kissing him in the tickly way he loved, batting her eyelashes against his cheek. ‘A fluttie kiss’ they called it, because that was Mark’s word for butterfly.
‘Not as pretty as you,’ Rilla said.
‘No! I’m not pretty!’ Mark was indignant and Rilla laughed. Surely five was a bit young to be so macho?
‘All right, not pretty, but my best, loveliest wonder boy.’
That met with Mark’s approval and he beamed at Rilla and began pulling her hands. ‘Come to breakfast. Breakfast time. Come on.’
‘I’m going out after breakfast, Markie,’ Rilla said, following him out of the room and wondering whether her determination would stand up to objections from her son. But there were none.
‘Efe and Alex got a den. I seed it,’ he said.
‘I saw it, Markie.’
‘No, you didn’t seed it. I seed it.’
Rilla gave up. This wasn’t the time to correct Mark’s speech. It was okay. Everything was going to work out splendidly. He’d be fine without her and she, for her part, would be much better off away from Willow Court for a bit. Only a tiny part of her was willing to admit, even to herself, her real reason for wanting to go down to the village – she was curious to see what had become of the cottage Hugh had lived in all those years ago.
She could think about those days now without much nostalgia, and perhaps looking at something that would remind her of another awful time in her life would help her see her divorce, her lack of work or any prospect of it – the whole ghastly scenario she seemed to be caught up in at the moment – as purely temporary. Things pass. Every pain fades. You forget. That was what seeing the cottage would surely prove to her. For the last few years, on visits to her mother’s house, she’d avoided going to the village at all or, if she did, she made sure to stay down this end of it and not venture up past the shop. Well, now she was going to be grown-up about the whole thing, and enjoy revisiting the scene of her first love affair. She would also try very hard not to think about why that first love affair was still the one she regarded as real, the best, and so forth. It was a bit like Method acting, she decided. She would pretend to be in control, and maybe true control would follow.
At breakfast, she spoke clearly, firmly, and in a way that she hoped made it impossible for anyone to make any childcare demands on her.
‘I’m off down to the village this morning. I’ll be back before lunch,’ she said, looking at Leonora and trying not to see Gwen tightening her lips. ‘I’m sure you’ll all manage for a while without me, won’t you?’ An extra bright smile at this point was evenly distributed round the table and Rilla followed that with a lie. ‘I noticed that new antique shop, what’s it called?’
‘The Treasure Chest,’ Leonora said.
‘That’s the one! I need to buy a birthday present for a very dear friend who’s just mad about such things. You don’t mind, do you, Gwen?’
‘No, of course not. Have a good time.’
Rilla smiled. How could Gwen possibly have said anything else? She couldn’t, not without making herself look ungenerous. Laying down the law and presenting everyone with a fait accompli worked a treat, Rilla saw. She should do it more often. As it was, she wasn’t going to risk something unforeseen coming up, so she bounded out of her chair and made for the door.
‘I’ll see all of you later,’ she said as brightly as she knew how. ‘Goodbye, Markie darling, and you too, Beth. Be good for Gwen and Leonora now. Thanks so much, Mother!’
*
The cottage was a disappointment. Rilla looked at it and felt a little let down by the complete absence of ghosts. A children’s slide took up most of the tiny front garden, and two noisy toddlers were shrieking as they played on it. Postman Pat curtains hung at the bedroom windows, and the whole place looked so different from what she remembered that she felt not even the slightest tugging at her heart. She walked towards the antique shop and stepped into a small, shadowy room.
‘May I help you?’ said a rather angular woman from behind a mountain of ancient crockery heaped on a table. The till in front of her could have come from the TV version of some Dickens novel.
‘I’m just browsing, thanks very much,’ said Rilla. She peered around at the stock, so closely packed together that if you really did want something specific, you’d have had a hard time finding it. Something caught her eye. Light from the door bounced off a mirror, half-hidden behind a rocking horse with no mane. As she approached it, she noticed that her heart was beating rather too loudly in her chest. Could it be? Was it? The corner of the frame that she could see looked exactly like … she pulled it out and managed to prop it against the edge of the table. It was. It was Hugh’s mirror; the one that had hung in the cottage, the one that had belonged to his grandmother. What was it doing here? Why did he not take it with him when he left? Rilla thought she probably knew the answer. The tale of the grandmother was probably another of his lies, but here it was. Surely finding it like this was some kind of omen? She peered into the glass and saw her face younger, happier, reflected more kindly.
‘How much is this mirror?’ she said, holding it up with difficulty.
‘A hundred pounds,’ said the angular woman.
‘I’ll take it,’ Rilla said. ‘Only I’ll have to collect and pay for it later, if you don’t mind. I came out without my cheque book. I live
up at Willow Court.’
‘I know,’ said the woman. ‘You’re Rilla Frederick. I read about your divorce. I am so sorry. I loved Night Creatures.’
‘How kind of you to say so! Thank you!’ Rilla smiled. That was donkey’s years ago, she thought. No one remembers me in anything else. She made her way to the antique till, glancing out of the window and saw … no, it couldn’t be. Could it? Yes, it was Mrs Pritchard, still walking around after all this time. The old busybody! She wasn’t that much older than Leonora but still, it was a shock to see her. Rilla took a step towards the window and caught her foot in something, some hanging thing, and in a split second that seemed to go on for ever, the mirror slipped out of her hand and fell to the floor. She cried out, ‘Oh, oh my God! Oh, it’s cracked. The mirror’s cracked. I’m so sorry. Of course, I’ll pay for the damage. I don’t know what happened.’ She burst into tears. ‘What an awful thing to do. I can’t imagine how I could be so careless. Do forgive me.’
‘That’s quite all right, dear,’ said the woman, coming to comfort her. ‘You can have the glass replaced. The frame isn’t broken at all. And it’s beautiful, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, yes of course it is.’ Rilla sniffed, and wiped her nose with a tissue. ‘And yes, I will replace the glass. It’ll be almost as good as new, won’t it?’
‘It will,’ said the woman. Rilla didn’t even look at the gilt cherubs and garlands on the frame. Her gaze was drawn to the broken glass, and she was filled with foreboding. Bad luck. Bad luck for ever. The mirror had shattered into an almost perfect spiderweb pattern. She looked into it and saw her own face broken into splinters edged with silver; her skin was almost green in the dim light, the dark reddish mass of her hair fractured into a thousand separate pieces.
