Having Esther in the house was no trouble; the bairn was quiet and well behaved, and liked to have a job to do. They lived harmoniously together, and it was a comfort to find the child already asleep in the big feather bed when she put the lights out and came through in her nightgown, to wind the clock and say her prayers. Esther was still a bairn, her hair in two thick plaits tied with ribbons, but she was already growing long-legged. In a year or so she would be much less fond of spending weekends with an old woman. She looked forward less to having Louise, not ready yet for the demands of Louise’s constant chatter, her need to be doing something – usually disruptive – or her stream of questions, many of them unanswerable.
It was in church the children were least able to distract her. Always, there, she was conscious of Andrew’s presence at her other side, upright in his suit, his Bible held between the work-worn hands, knuckles enlarged by arthritis. Esther sat quietly in his place, sang all the hymns in her clear, tuneful little voice, and sucked her pan-drop peacefully, day-dreaming through the sermon. Louise, however – Louise shuffled and fidgeted, sighed and kicked her shoes off, took the pan-drop out to see how small its smooth pebble had become, dropped it, dived for it, had it wrapped in Granny’s hanky, and finally – thankfully – fell asleep, her hot head heavy on Celia’s lap. Roused at the end of the sermon for the final hymn and the blessing, she was dazed, eyes unfocused, her rosy cheek imprinted with the shape of a coat button.
Outside, the dog, that had been lying in the shade of the churchyard wall, came up wagging his tail, and they walked back to Braeside. Now, there was no difference between the girls. Whether it was Esther, released from good behaviour, or Louise, revived, each of them would skip ahead of Granny and Eileen, racing the dog up the hill.
Margaret, of course, was still too young to be away from Janet on her own, even in this familiar house. She was a clingy child. Just as well she’d not had to grow up with her own mother, who had shown so little interest in her even as a baby. Diana had looked less blooming than usual at the funeral, despite her heavy make-up. Was she sickening for something? It certainly wasn’t grief: she’d had no more attachment to her father-in-law than to any other member of Gordon’s family. Margaret, trying to please her, excited rather than happy in her mother’s rare presence, had been whiny and fretful until Diana and Gordon went to London. Now they were in Egypt, but Gordon planned to come home soon to deal with whatever arrangements were made about the farm.
Celia had never been critical of her son, but now Andrew had gone there was no one to whom she could say what she thought about Diana, so she said nothing. Still, there was no better mother than Janet; the girls were a credit to her and Margaret would be well looked after. She turned her attention to the scones, and got the baking bowl out.
‘Can I spread them?’ Esther asked.
Her grandmother handed her a dish of softened butter. ‘There’s rasp jam in the larder. You can get that out if you like.’
They had their tea in the kitchen, kept warm by the range on this cool April day. Andrew’s old dog, never before allowed in the house, lay in front of it. His feathery tail swept the floor when Esther bent to give him a piece of scone.
‘You’re spoiling that dog.’
‘So are you, Granny!’
‘Aye, well, he’s auld and done like me.’
Esther felt hot all over. ‘You’re all right, aren’t you Granny? You don’t have a bad heart like Grandpa?’
‘I’m fine lass. I’ve a sore heart, but that’s a different matter and it’ll nae kill me.’
Esther thought about this. ‘So have I,’ she discovered. ‘It hurts, just here, when I think about Grandpa.’ She pressed her chest with both hands.
Tomorrow afternoon Granny would put her on the bus so that Daddy could meet her in Aberdeen and take her home in the car. They had a new car, blue with slippery leather seats. She described it in detail to Granny. The name sounded like a person: Morris Oxford. She imagined Morris being mild and gentlemanly, with a moustache.
‘It’s big enough for all of us. It was a bit of a squash in the last one now me and Louise are bigger.’
‘You’ll be all right on the bus.’
‘Oh yes.’ She was the only one allowed to go on her own; Louise could not be trusted and Margaret was too little. Now that her father had a new car she was less sure about this privilege, and would have liked to be fetched in it.
She was in the shed helping her grandmother get the hens’ mash ready when they heard across the yard the sound of the telephone ringing in the house. Her grandmother went to answer it, hurrying at the shrill sound.
She was gone a long time, so Esther went into the steading to look for kittens. She was hoping the tabby’s would be born this weekend. She was certainly very fat now, trailing her belly close to the ground, mewing for attention then turning her back and walking away when you spoke to her. In the shadowy barn Esther found the cat making a nest for herself on some sacks, but still without kittens. Eventually, she realised she had been gone a long time, but when she went back to the shed where the eggs and hen food were stored, her grandmother was not there and the pails were still on the floor, filled with mash. Esther crossed the yard to the house. In the kitchen her grandmother was sitting at the table, doing nothing. This was so rare that for a moment she was nonplussed.
‘Granny – will we feed the hens now?’
‘That was your Uncle Gordon on the phone,’ her grandmother said. Her face was different, grimmer, and Esther felt almost frightened. She waited, chewing the end of one plait, so that for some time afterwards she associated the news of Diana’s illness with the taste of hair in her mouth.
‘I thought she didna look herself,’ Celia Livingston said, to herself and not to the child, whose presence she barely seemed to take in. ‘What a mercy they’re nae in some foreign place now. What’s to be done, though – what’s to be done?’
Had her husband still been there, she would not have said a word in front of the bairn, who stood looking at her, mystified. It was a sign of how the world had changed in a few weeks that she so far forgot herself as to say the dread word cancer to a little girl.
The following weekend was Louise’s but she had been invited to a birthday party.
‘We said, Louise,’ Esther scolded her. ‘We said one of us would keep Granny company now she doesn’t have Grandpa. You promised, we all promised.’
‘I know, but Granny won’t mind,’ Louise said, blithely indifferent to Esther’s disapproval. ‘Susan’s invited the whole class. I can’t be the only one who doesn’t go to the party.’
‘I think that’s just selfish,’ Esther said. She ran downstairs to her mother, and offered to go to Granny’s this weekend instead of Louise.
‘You don’t have to,’ Janet said. She had been touched by the girls’ solicitude, but looked doubtful. ‘Granny really won’t mind.’
‘I want to.’
‘Are you sure? Is it not a bit dull for you on your own?’
‘I’m not on my own. I’m with Granny. We do lots of things and it’s not boring at all.’
‘Well, if you’re sure. I’ll see what your father says.’
Esther was satisfied. This was a matter of form: one parent always made a show of consulting the other but experience told her that what one gave permission for, the other endorsed.
‘Poor Margaret,’ Louise sighed when Esther told her. ‘She’ll be all on her own.’
‘You’re only going to the stupid party for an afternoon,’ Esther retorted. She thought for a moment. ‘She could come with me. I’ll ask Mummy.’
For a few seconds, Louise swithered, realising she might be the one left out of something. The party won.
However, Margaret was beginning ballet lessons that Saturday, filling her with a sense of her own importance for – Janet realised – the first time. Louise’s bragging about the party had no effect; nor did the thought of not being able to go to her grandmother’s with Esther.
Esther was glad to be going to Granny’s; at home her parents were always talking about Diana, who was in hospital in London, and although their conversations ended abruptly when one of the children came into the room, Esther and Louise had at least gathered a good deal of information and caught some of their parents’ foreboding. They had been told not to speak to Margaret about it and even Louise realised this was an order that must be obeyed.
Esther could hardly wait for the week to pass. At Braeside the kittens must have arrived. There was Granny’s raspberry wine, sweet and sharp, to look forward to, and the creamy porridge she made for breakfast; there were the plants on the window sill it was Esther’s job to water. There was Easter Logie to visit, the neighbouring farm; in their yard she could speak to Jessie the sheep, old and very grubby, who had started life as a pet lamb.
On Wednesday she came back from school miserable and feverish; on Thursday Janet kept her at home; by Friday they were certain she was incubating chickenpox, rife in the city. Her parents had another conversation behind closed doors. Was it better to quarantine her with Granny or keep her at home so that the others caught it too? Better to have chicken pox when you’re young, Janet decided.
‘Well, keep her here then. If she’s going to be ill, you’ll want her at home anyway, won’t you?’ Harry knew nothing about chickenpox, except it had made him scratch incessantly when he had it as an eight year old.
Janet said, ‘What about this blessed party – and the ballet class? Should I keep the other two at home in case they’re incubating it?’
They pictured, briefly, Louise’s paroxysms of grief and fury should she be denied the birthday party.
‘For goodness sake,’ Harry said. ‘It’s not the plague. Let them go. Half of Aberdeen’s got it already, according to you. We’d be as well spread it round the other half.’
By Saturday morning Esther was too miserable to argue about staying at home, but she fretted about the kittens. ‘Phone Granny up,’ she begged. ‘Find out if they’re born yet – can I go next weekend?’
A week and a bottle of calamine lotion later, Harry drove a subdued Esther, still scratching scabs, out to Braeside for convalescence. It was going to be a long month: Louise was in bed now.
Celia, who would otherwise have had Eddie drown the unwanted kittens, had moved the cat and her family into the kitchen for Esther’s sake and there was a fresh batch of pancakes waiting.
‘I don’t know,’ Harry said when he got home again to Janet running up and downstairs after Louise, who did not take kindly to being ill. ‘You’re always saying your mother was such a disciplinarian with you and Gordon. Esther can do what she likes – cats on her bed and cream in her porridge!’
Janet laughed. ‘I can assure you, she was never like that with us!’
‘Any word from Gordon?’ he asked.
‘No. But I can’t think about Diana if I’ve got three lots of chickenpox one after the other. ’
Later, she was sorry she had said that, as if she did not care. Just as Margaret finally ran out of scabs to pick, Gordon called to tell them Diana was back in hospital, but the treatment was awful, she was very ill. He sounded depressed, even hopeless. Janet put down the phone feeling that it must be bleak for him, so far from home. Gordon had lived for many years away from home, Harry reminded her. ‘It’s different now,’ she said. She meant, death makes a difference. They knew Diana would not get better.
She had coughed all the way through her father-in-law’s funeral. They had told her off for smoking too much. She had had bronchitis in the winter, and blamed that for her cough, for feeling unwell, not going to the doctor until it was too late. Perhaps it was always too late; she had probably had lung cancer for months. When Janet thought of Diana she saw her with blonde hair and red-tipped nails, pastel twin sets and pretty dresses – oh, that bonny white one with the scarlet poppies. She could hear her loud laugh and see her raising a glass of gin and tonic, stacked with ice. Now she imagined Diana in hospital, diminished, desperately trying to stay pretty, stay herself. She was ten years younger than Janet, and it seemed impossible someone so vivacious could die.
In the end, Harry said, ‘You’d better go and see them. You could stay a week or so anyway. Your mother will come and give me a hand.’
Nervously, Janet planned a journey to London on her own.
‘I’ll pay the fare,’ Gordon said, his voice warm with gratitude. ‘If the family can spare you – ’
‘They can,’ she said. He was her brother after all – and who else would be close enough for this second terrible loss?
On the unfamiliar sleeper, finding it, despite her anxiety, a novelty worth experiencing, Janet lay awake, rocked by the train’s rhythm, thinking of the two of them as children at Braeside, then during the war, when she was so afraid for him, as their parents were. In wartime, she had travelled these long distances by train in uniform, but never alone, and sitting up all day or all night. She must have had more confidence then. Something happened to you when you married and had children; you were reduced from the person you’d been at eighteen and nineteen, though so much had been added to you. Drowsily, she puzzled it out, missing her children already, and Harry. She was not afraid of what lay ahead, wanting only to give Gordon comfort. She had not been with Bess when she died, since she had been posted to Exeter all that year, her leave periods short and far between. She had not realised anyway how quickly death was going to come.
This time, there was no mistaking it.
London was warmer than Aberdeen. Janet realised that Spring, which had come in reluctantly at home and lingered on, still cold with night frosts, was long past here. Gordon took her first to his and Diana’s London flat in a nineteen-thirties block: handsome, even grand, but compared to home, bleak. When she saw through their open bedroom doorway, Diana’s dressing table scattered with pots of cream and bottles of scent, she wondered, feeling uncomfortable at the thought, how soon Gordon might have to clear it all away. He did not speak as if that was the case; his thoughts seemed to be all of improvement, remission.
‘The sooner I have her back home the better – the hospital’s getting her down,’ he told Janet as he hailed a taxi to take them there.
Diana was in a side ward on her own. Even before she saw her face with its orange lipstick gaudy on pale skin, the loss of weight, she would have known how ill Diana was, for Gordon told her he was allowed to stay for long periods, beyond visiting hours. This time, since Janet was here, he did not stay. ‘I need to catch up with some work,’ he said.
Diana seemed pleased to see her. Janet put a clean nightdress in the locker and changed the flowers wilting in the vase. Diana watched her moving about the room.
‘You’re a darling,’ she said. ‘You make everything so comfy.’ She opened the top of the tin of scented talcum powder Janet had brought and sniffed. ‘Lovely, thank you. All the hospital stuff stinks of disinfectant. Bring my Mitsouko, will you, next time? It’s on the dressing table.’
‘Is there anything else you need?’
‘Sit down, darling, do let me look at you, all fresh from bonnie Scotland.’
Janet sat down, reminding herself Diana was ill and she should try to be nice to her. For a moment it was very quiet in the room, though the noise of the hospital went on around them, seeming further away than it could possibly be.
A nurse came in and looked at Diana. ‘I’ll come back and do your blood pressure and temp soon,’ she said. When she had gone, Diana raised her eyes.
‘Why are they bothering? Even if my blood pressure’s sky high, it doesn’t really matter now, does it?’
‘Well – ’
Diana put a thin hand with apricot-polished nails on Janet’s arm. ‘You know I won’t get through this.’
‘Wait till the treatment’s finished, then you’ll see.’
Diana made a mocking face. She raised her hand and the diamonds in her engagement ring – loose and slipping – winked in the light; she looked at i
t with something close to satisfaction. ‘One thing about this place – you lie about doing nothing so it’s terribly good for your hands. My lovely long nails . . .’
Your nails are fine, Janet thought, but oh, that’s all. Helping Diana to sit up, she thought how brittle she was, the beautiful elasticity of her skin gone, her bones themselves fragile-seeming, all of her growing fleshless, becoming a husk of the lovely woman she had been. Her blonde hair, coarse and dry, showed an inch of darker roots already.
She made the pillows more comfortable and helped Diana lean back into their nest. She wondered if the talcum powder or Guerlain eau de toilette could make any difference, for she no longer smelled like Diana, of flowery scent or shampoo or expensive soap. The smell of sweat and sour sickness instead – Janet tried not to breathe it in, tried not to mind, since Diana, if she knew, must mind so much.
‘Margaret sends her love,’ she said. ‘She’s too little to understand, but she made you a card.’ She took it from her bag and put it into Diana’s hands.
Diana looked at the childish drawing for a long moment. ‘Sweet,’ she said. ‘That’s nice.’ Her head went back on the pillow and she looked, all at once, exhausted. ‘Useless mother, wasn’t I?’
‘We love Margaret,’ Janet said, ‘and she’s happy with us.’ Now that there was no possibility Diana would ever take Margaret away from her, she could be more generous than her thoughts had been, these last five years.
Diana turned her head on the pillow to gaze at Janet. She bit her lip, thinking, making up her mind.
‘Is something wrong – do you –?’
The Treacle Well Page 8
