The Darkening Hour

by Penny Hancock

  So Dora does have a man!

  I’ll tell Ummu the gossip next time I speak to her. I can already hear her words: ‘I expect he must have offered her something Roger didn’t!’

  I’m startled then by a rustle outside the door. I put Dora’s photo down, my heart thudding, and turn. There’s the thump of feet on stairs, the banging of a door. I’d forgotten about Leo. He’s up. I hear running water, the clank of the pipes.

  I pick up my dusting cloths, pull on the rubber gloves and open the door. I’ll slip downstairs before he comes out of the bathroom.

  I’m about to leave, when temptation gets the better of me, and I nip back to Dora’s dressing-table. She won’t miss one tiny tube of hand cream, but for Ummu, it will be like gold dust.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  By the end of Mona’s second week my anxiety about leaving Daddy with her has vanished. Daddy’s cared for. Leo’s content. My house is clean.

  And I no longer have to hurry straight home from the office to check on them all.

  On Friday after work Gina and I put on our coats and make for the George and Dragon as we used to do in the days before Mummy fell ill and Daddy came to live with me.

  We find a seat by the fire.

  ‘How’s it going with this carer?’ Gina asks.

  ‘She’s a godsend. I don’t know how I managed without help for so long.’

  ‘It’s done you a lot of good. You look great.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. You were looking awful a while ago. There’s a marked difference.’

  Blimey, I had no idea how haggard I must have appeared.

  ‘But Dora, it isn’t surprising. You’ve been bereaved.’

  ‘Oh come on, Gina, that was a year ago.’

  ‘Yes, but we’re so crap at death in this country. We expect people to get back to normal straight away, which probably means the whole process is far harder in the long run. Mary was telling me that in Nigeria, they give people forty days to get over a death in the family. They expect people to withdraw to grieve. Here we have to go straight back to work.’

  I smile, pat Gina’s shoulder. ‘It has been tough, you’re right,’ I say. ‘Mummy’s death was difficult, but caring for Daddy’s been hardest.’

  ‘Can’t your brothers and sister have him from time to time – give you a break?’

  ‘To be honest, Gina, it’s more trouble than it’s worth asking them. They don’t know him like I do. Anita and Terence are too selfish to put themselves out and Simon’s a dead loss. Anyway, now I’ve got Mona, everything’s going to be a lot easier.’

  ‘But where does she sleep, now you’ve got Leo and Daddy in the house as well?’

  ‘She has the spare bedroom.’

  ‘The one next to you?’

  I nod. Later, I’ll wonder why I told this small white lie. Right now it comes out so easily, I’m barely aware I’m doing it.

  ‘Lucky her. I forget you’ve got all that space. I wouldn’t have room for a live-in help even if I could afford it. You know, I’m so relieved to see you,’ Gina says. ‘I need to tell you my problems – if you can bear it. I’ve been longing to talk to you. The bastard’s getting married.’

  ‘Oh, Gina!’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind, but the girls are bloody thrilled. They say it means they’ll be getting presents from Tiffany’s – she’s rolling in it, Dora. How can I compete?’

  ‘You can’t,’ I say. ‘Not financially. But for Christ’s sake, you’re their mother. You don’t have to compete. All that bling is worthless next to your love. Look at Leo. He had the life of Riley with Roger, but he came home to me.’

  The minute I’ve said this, I wish I hadn’t. Leo may have ‘come home to me’ but he certainly hasn’t come home intact. I can see what she’s thinking. Leo’s hardly the best example. And I’ve glossed over the truth. Leo didn’t ‘come back to me’ willingly. Given a choice, he would have stayed in Morocco at his international school, sailing and playing tennis. He came because he had no choice, once Roger insisted on an English sixth form.

  And now there he is in front of the TV. Withdrawn and depressed. I almost preferred it when he was getting into trouble dealing drugs. At least he was out there, doing something.

  I stare into my glass. It’s so bloody hard getting it right. Roger and I both thought that Leo would slot into life in London – a golden boy, returned from abroad, smiling and healthy and glowing with the kind of confidence we’d believed his education had given him. That he would attract friends and admirers. I’d thought we would go out together, mother and son, enjoying London’s galleries and concerts.

  I never imagined he’d become this depressed recluse. Uninterested in anything that isn’t on a screen. Pale and grouchy and monosyllabic.

  How differently things turn out to what you plan.

  Gina toys with her glass.

  ‘What I’m saying,’ I go on, ‘is that nothing can replace the mother-daughter bond. This, what’s-her-name, she’s got novelty appeal at the moment. But will she be there when the girls go through heartbreak? When they need a cup of tea and a shoulder to cry on? Does she love them unconditionally? I think not.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ Gina says. ‘Because it feels awful. Him with that woman, the girls all starry-eyed about her too. And me all alone.’

  ‘I’m sure it does. But, honey, it won’t last, I promise. You’re their mother. How’s the dating agency going?’

  ‘Oh. Well. There’s one possibility. I’m meeting him next week. But to be honest I don’t hold out much hope. What are the chances of meeting your soulmate through the bloody internet?’

  ‘You never know!’

  I take a slug of martini. It’s lukewarm and is missing the requisite sliver of orange zest. It makes me miss Max. He would never stand for lukewarm martini.

  I’m doing well though. So far, I’ve avoided referring to my lover.

  Gina disapproves of my affair because Max is married; her sympathies lie with Max’s wife. She thinks she knows how Max’s wife would feel if she found out about me, because Gina’s been through it herself. The difference is Max isn’t leaving his wife for me. But Gina remains convinced I’m in the wrong. She thinks I should get out of Max’s life, give his marriage some breathing space.

  She has no idea how impossible this would be for me. And she doesn’t understand that his marriage, I have grown to suspect, survives because of, not in spite of me.

  ‘Don’t remind me,’ Gina says. ‘You met Max at the Albert Memorial waiting for Roger.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to—’

  ‘It sounds as if I’m criticising you. But you know, I still find the whole thing with you and the married man problematic.’

  ‘Actually, I’ve hardly seen Max lately.’

  I suddenly feel as if I might cry.

  This has happened to me a lot since Mummy died. It washes over me, almost without warning, a need to shed all the pain I didn’t even know I was carrying. If I could unpick it, I’d say it was losing Mummy, seeing Daddy change, and missing Max, but it isn’t just that. It’s something else. Something to do with the strain of keeping it all together. Doing the right thing at work and home sometimes feels too much – I’m afraid one day everything I’m holding up will collapse on top of me. It’s only the thought of Mona, the way she’s come to take care of things, that affords me a little comfort.

  I stare at Gina, blinking back tears.

  ‘Don’t take offence,’ she pleads.

  ‘Why bring Max up? You know we always fall out when he comes into the conversation.’

  ‘I just thought . . .’

  ‘Perhaps you should try not to think then!’ I say, before I can stop myself.

  ‘Dora. I care about you. I don’t want to see you hurt. I don’t want to see you losing your—’

  I pull my coat on, wrap my scarf round twice. It’s going to be cold when I get outside.

  ‘Bye. See you tomorrow.’

  I leave th
e pub, distraught. Not just because of Gina’s comments, but the reminder that I haven’t seen Max for so long. When will I see him next? Is Gina right on a certain level? Am I bound to be hurt?

  Sometimes his absences seem to balloon, so that I begin to doubt he actually exists, I certainly begin to doubt I’ll ever hear from him again.

  He’s reassured me that when things go quiet it’s because he’s bogged down with work, or embroiled in his family, but still I find the silences intolerable. Now I’ve got Mona it’s ironic that time I could be spending with him is already slipping by.

  I walk home, feeling alone and betrayed.

  But five minutes after I’ve left, the regret sets in that I’d overreacted. Gina is my friend, she’s concerned for me.

  As I would be for her if she was in love with a married man who is never, ever – however much I carry a secret hope – going to leave his wife and children for me.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It’s past Daddy’s usual bedtime when I get back from my drink with Gina but I go down to see him as soon as I’m home.

  It’s a beautiful night, cold, cloudless. If it wasn’t for the London lights the stars would be visible on a night like this. Strange that they’re there, in all their myriad glory, scattered across the universe – but we just can’t see them.

  I stop. The bust of Mummy I’ve placed at the top of the basement steps so Daddy can see it when he comes up, or when he looks out of his bedroom window, is silhouetted against the amber light that veils the London night sky.

  I knew, and accepted, that Anita and Simon would snaffle the valuables, when we first began to sort the family home. They were the only ones who cared enough about anything’s worth. Terence took practical stuff – lawnmowers and power tools and so forth. And, since I knew I wouldn’t have room for the large pieces of furniture that Anita had mentioned again recently, I went for things that had sentimental value. Anita had been too young to know the significance of some of these things, so I felt no compunction in taking an old warming pan, a set of silver cutlery with bone-handles in a polished wooden chest. Bales of embroidered linen tablecloths and mats. And things that held special meaning for me. One of these was this stone sculpture, a bust of my mother. It had sat on the rockery in our back garden since I was five or six, and I wanted it now in my own garden, to remind me of how she was when she was at her most beautiful.

  I never enquired who the sculptor was, and Daddy’s memory was too unreliable now. So it was too late. Whatever, the bust was a work of art. Particular attention had been given to my mother’s cheekbones and eyes, and I could see now that the sculptor must certainly have admired her.

  Each time I see the sculpture, I’m reminded of how our family was before Mummy died. Mummy held the family together, ringing each of us in turn, communicating any news so we would then pass it on to one another. There was no conflict, no resentment. I often wondered what Mummy would think if she could have seen Anita and Simon and Terence in those weeks after the funeral, squabbling over who had it toughest, at each other’s throats about what to do with Daddy.

  When our mother was very ill, in her last few days, I assured her Daddy would stay with me until we found something more permanent. I believe sometimes it was what had allowed her to die in peace. I’d done the right thing – for her and for Daddy, and I know she would have expected no less from me. I think again of what Anita said, about Mummy being controlling, and it occurs to me that we’re never sure what the truth is in a family.

  Things that have been staring at me all my life have, I realise, started to take on a different meaning as I look at them with a new, more mature perspective. The statue had been something that was just there, in the background. Now I wondered what stories it might tell if it could speak.

  As Mona emerges from Daddy’s back door, and climbs the steps towards me, there’s an odd moment where the head of my mother, and that of Mona, are juxtaposed. I feel this is significant.

  Perhaps Mona has come to replace, in some symbolic way, the things Mummy stood for. Perhaps she would enable us all to find the goodness within again.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ I ask her. ‘How did you get on today?’

  She nods, smiles. ‘Very well, thank you. Did you see I cooked for you? For Leo and Charles.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m just popping down to see Daddy, then we’ll have a chat in the kitchen.’

  Daddy’s sitting in bed in clean pyjamas, listening to Book at Bedtime on Radio 4.

  He smiles up at me, holds out his hand and squeezes mine.

  ‘You’ve had a good day, Daddy?’

  ‘Yes, thank you very much. Very good.’ His polite tone is disconcerting. Does he know who I am?

  ‘You got on all right with Mona?’

  ‘Oh yes. We bought Mummy a birthday present. I asked Nancy . . .’

  ‘Mona.’

  ‘Yes, the girl.’

  ‘Woman.’

  ‘I asked her to help me choose Mummy some flowers. And a vase to put them in. She says she’ll take them to her in the hospital.’

  Sometimes it’s as if he’s losing his memory in tiny steps, incrementally, but this, this believing Mummy is still with us reveals a massive gap in his recall – a catastrophic one. It means he has to go through the grief of losing Mummy all over again. But I can’t have him living with delusions. He has to know how things are, or his whole world will disintegrate.

  ‘Daddy,’ I say. ‘Mummy’s dead.’

  He looks at me for some time, bewilderment furrowing his brow, before a tear trickles down his cheek.

  ‘Do you know, I completely forgot,’ he says.

  I squeeze his old hand.

  ‘She died a year ago, Daddy. We had a funeral. Remember?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Of course I remember. Where’s Mona, that lovely girl who bought the roses?’

  ‘I’ll send her down.’

  My chest hurts as I climb the stairs, and I’m not even sure whether it’s due to witnessing Daddy’s grief, or feeling a different kind of my own.

  Mona’s at the cooker, stirring.

  ‘Won’t you have some yourself?’ I ask.

  She shakes her head. ‘I ate with Charles.’

  ‘He wants you again. He needs settling down for the night. Then you can come and sit with me for a bit.’

  ‘Yes. Very well.’

  She comes back in as I’m helping myself to some of the dish she’s made. A lamb tagine. I try to remember if I’d asked her to buy lamb.

  ‘Daddy says you bought my mother a birthday present.’

  She smiles, moves across to the sink to wash the pans.

  ‘Oh yes. He said it was your mummy’s birthday. So we bought flowers for her.’

  ‘But she’s dead,’ I say.

  ‘I know. But it made him happy. I wanted to make him happy. This is good, I think. To believe for a few hours, that his wife is alive. He enjoyed buying the beautiful roses.’

  Mona may well be right, it might be kinder to go along with Daddy’s happy memories. Perhaps I’m wrong to jolt him back to reality.

  ‘And Leo was polite?’

  ‘Yes. I told him to go upstairs. I said he cannot stay all day in his pyjamas.’

  ‘You know, Mona, it might seem that I put up with a lot from him. But I want him to feel at home here, that he can do as he likes.’

  I pour myself a glass of wine. Mona’s being here is softening the terrible things I’ve been dealing with. Leo’s depression, Daddy’s Alzheimer’s, the loss of Mummy. Here I am, a meal made for me, my disaffected son doing something more useful than his usual indolent TV-watching, and Mona to look after me, to keep an attentive eye on Daddy. I let my remorse about the argument with Gina fade.

  ‘Tell me about your family.’

  She shrinks back a little.

  ‘Didn’t you tell me you have a daughter?’ I ask.

  ‘One daughter,’ she says. ‘Six years old.’

  I see her face plump out with happine
ss at the thought of her child.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She’s at home. In my mother’s village.’

  ‘But who is looking after her?’

  ‘My mother.’

  ‘Gosh. Don’t you miss her?’

  She looks at me blankly, her mouth turned down at the corners. Of course she misses her – stupid of me to ask.

  ‘What happened, Mona? What happened to your husband?’

  She turns her head aside. I’ve trodden on sensitive ground again. How silly of me.

  ‘I’m sorry. That must be painful. Tell me about your daughter?’

  She smiles now. She starts to speak, her hands dancing as she does so, emphasising each word in a kind of mime.

  ‘She’s six years old. She’s funny, she loves the colour pink. She loves to dress as grown-up, and to play at houses. But where I live, there’s no money, no work. It costs a lot for her to go to school, for books and clothes. I want to make a future for Leila. And she’s OK with my mother.’

  I look at Mona, re-jigging the perceptions I have of her. If her daughter is only six, then perhaps she isn’t my age at all, but younger – quite a lot younger. I notice now that her skin is indeed quite smooth, that the fatigue that had aged her when she arrived has lifted a little. Like tarnished silver after it’s been polished.

  ‘It’s hard being away from a child. When my marriage ended and I came back to London, Leo stayed with his father and I was heartbroken. It was like . . . it’s like having a bit of your body torn from you. But he was at school out there and was settled and I didn’t want to disrupt him. It’s so wonderful that he wanted to come back for sixth form.’

  The food is delicious. I take another mouthful, another glug of the red wine I’ve poured.

  After I’ve eaten, I tell Mona to check on Daddy and then to take some time off. When she’s gone I fill up my glass – I’m going to take some wine up to drink in the bath – and as I’m about to go up, I glance into Mona’s room. She’s left the door ajar, the lamp on. On the antique bureau is a vase of roses. They are pink roses, in bud, in my tall glass vase.