by Tessa Hadley
She took away the dish and gave Joyce a handful of tiles, each one different. They were in glowing colors, blues and reds and yellows: mostly patterns but some pictures, a fish and a bird, drawn as crudely and casually as a child might draw them. They didn’t even seem quite perfectly square.
—You should go there, Miss Leonard said. Or Italy. You should go to Italy too. You should eat pasta asciutta and drink Chianti. Children suffer under a blight of ugliness in this country. What’s for dinner today, for example? Can you smell it? You usually can up here. Boiled liver and cabbage? Boiled cod and white sauce? No wonder their paintings are ugly.
Miss Leonard was suddenly impatient with Joyce. She picked up the drawing of the shell as if it exasperated her and scribbled on it with a piece of charcoal, crudely, exaggerating the horns of the shell with bold black Vs.
—Don’t be meek, she said. That’s what I can’t bear. Boiled cod and white sauce.
* * *
The making of Aunt Vera’s outfit for ladies’ night was fraught with problems. Both fabrics were difficult to cut and sew. Lil needed pinking shears and didn’t have any. She cut the three-quarter-length sleeves of the jacket in one with the bodice and then let in gussets under the arms, but the gussets were difficult and puckered on the corners. Nonetheless, there was a certain gathering excitement in the week or so while the dressmaking was advancing. It was full summer now. There were rust-colored weeds and shaggy old-man’s beard among the tall mauve grasses. The full-grown leaves on the trees lolled in the heat and showed their gray undersides, the rhines were rank and shallow.
Aunt Vera stood on the kitchen table for Lil to do the hem. The floor was strewn with scraps of cloth and ends of thread and pins. They were still not sure how the outfit finally looked. Too many bits were provisional, pinned or unfinished, and then Vera inside it was too obviously her ordinary self, her hair untidy, her face long and tired with bruise-colored pouches under the eyes. She was scowling and fretting at being kept prisoner while Lil fussed. Joyce hoped something different would happen when she did up her hair, powdered her skin, put on lipstick and scent, put in her garnet earrings.
Meanwhile, she was testing Joyce on her English history. She told an anecdote about Palmerston that Joyce had heard from her before, in school. Palmerston said, “There are only three people in the world who have understood the Schleswig-Holstein question. One’s dead, one’s mad, and I’ve forgotten.” There were other stories about Palmerston: how he cheered when he heard that the London dockers put a Hungarian general in a barrel and rolled him down a hill, and how he was fit enough to vault over a gate the day before he died. Vera had favorites among the men in history. When she talked about them her voice was coy, as if she were sharing some kind of flirtatious joke.
Into the indoor quiet erupted Peter and Kay with news that they had caught an eel, Martin following importantly with an enamel bucket, which he set down on the floor for everyone to admire. The eel stirring in its dark coils in the bit of muddy water was like a sight of something urgent and shameful that was best kept hidden. Ann, who had been sitting on the low stool learning her lines for the pageant, was fearless with animals and wanted to reach in the bucket and touch the eel, but Lil said she’d get an electric shock.
—It’s the wrong kind of eel, said Peter impatiently, but he held himself well back and peered into the bucket with excited loathing, from a respectful distance.
—Take it away, children, said Lil, removing a mouthful of pins. I do not want that dirty creature anywhere near this precious sewing.
—We could eat it, said Martin, trying to sound at his most reasonable and practical.
—We could not, said Lil. If you think for one moment I’m going to grapple with that blinking thing and kill it and gut it, not even knowing whether it’s habitable or not.…
—You don’t mean habitable, said Peter, but there was relief in his voice.
There came the sounds of Uncle Dick’s car negotiating the tormenting ruts of the lane. Lil and Vera looked at each other.
—Can we keep it as a pet? said Martin. Please? He didn’t seriously expect an answer.
—D’you want him to see? said Lil to Vera.
—Heavens, Lillie, what do I care what he sees? Anyone’d think I was a bride in a wedding dress!
Obediently Lil went on pinning, while Vera on the table moved stiffly round for her as if she were on an old slow turntable. The children took the eel outside, Ann following them, chirruping coaxingly into the bucket. She was wearing her Mary Queen of Scots headdress, her heart-shaped face with its sly dark eyes uncharacteristically demure under its little gothic vault. There was a pause while in the yard Uncle Dick duly admired the eel. He sounded as if he was in a good humor. He blocked the light, standing in the doorway, with Kay in his arms; Lil lifted her head up from her concentration on the hem.
—What d’you think, Dick?
He was blinking in the shadows after the glare outdoors. Kay, who with no prompting or encouragement adored her father, had laid her head on his shoulder and was fingering his lapel while she sucked her thumb.
—Smells like a real old witches’ kitchen in here, Dick said.
—That’s them children bringing their creatures in.
—Well, let’s see what kind of a mess you’ve managed to concoct. Turn round, turn round.
Lil stood back and Aunt Vera turned on her turntable again, looking tense and exposed.
—Lift up your arms. Turn round.
Obediently Vera lifted her arms like a ballet dancer. Lil pressed a hand to her heart.
—Is it all right?
—Isn’t it a bit tight? he said cheerfully. It makes her look like the back end of an upholstered sofa.
—She does not! said Lil stoutly, but her voice was full of doubt. D’you think it’s tight?
—Should have cut it with a bit more room in it, he said, and they could see immediately that he was right. And isn’t there something funny with those sleeves?
—I like the sleeves, said Joyce, in a great effort of optimism.
—I could undo them, said Lil, and try to get a better seam.
—Oh, it’ll do, he said. Don’t bother.
—It’s not worth the bother, said Aunt Vera calmly, lowering her arms. It’ll do as it is. I’ve got better things to do than stand up here every evening like a dressmaker’s dummy.
She looked around for her way down from the table; someone had moved the chair she’d climbed up by. The brown satin dress seemed suddenly exposed as an awful failure: the lovely luxuriant deeply glowing cloth had been spoiled, cut in clumsy lines that made Aunt Vera’s belly a huge coconut, perched comically on top of her long legs, and her bosom a pair of slanting torpedoes. When Lil moved the stool for her to step onto, Vera hesitated; and Joyce knew she was paralyzed by her humiliating sense that the skirt might rip or she might topple.
—Allow me, said Uncle Dick. Smiling, he offered her his free arm, and she let him help her down onto the stool and then half swing and half jump her from there to the floor. She stood flushed and stoical.
—There’s room in these seams for me to let it out. Lil was contritely seeking remedies.
—Don’t fuss, said Vera sharply. Help me get the wretched thing off.
—Never mind, Lil, said Uncle Dick. Your sister isn’t interested in clothes, she’s got her mind on more important things. She doesn’t care what she puts on.
Joyce was suddenly hotly aware of her own frock that she’d changed into when she got home from school, a friendly old cotton thing with faded sprigs of blue flowers. She’d had it for years: Lil had made it for her when she was a flat-chested child, and it was so familiar that she wore it as unthinkingly as her own skin. For the first time now she saw it as if from outside: how tight it was across her developing bust, how high the waistline came across on her chest, and how compromisingly short the skirt was, even though Lil had let the hem down twice. A kind of rage flared up in her at her mother and her aunt, t
hat they were so unknowing, so helpless themselves, allowing her to go on wearing this and never seeing how it exposed her. She wanted to run upstairs to hide, only she couldn’t move for fear they all saw how ridiculous she looked.
—In case any of you are interested, by the way, she proclaimed loudly, I’m going to go to art school.
Of course they had all forgotten she was even sitting there; they turned on her slow glances steeped in adult preoccupations. Whatever was she talking about?
—You’ll do no such thing, said her aunt. Not with your brains.
But Vera’s power was gone, standing there full of pins in her stocking feet, suffering so abjectly because her husband didn’t like her in her dress.
Joyce didn’t want brains. She thought instead of lemons: yellow, astringent, Mediterranean, against a dark and sensual background.
* * *
Joyce and a girlfriend took swimming things to the beach one day when the exams were over. This wasn’t a friend from Amery-James, it was an old friend from the North, Helena Knapp, who was staying for a fortnight and with whom Joyce had temporarily recovered an old, easy, sarcastic way of being. On the causeway leading down to the beach they passed a parked car, and Joyce, giggling, pointed out the naval peaked cap left on the backseat. Sometimes Martin and Peter came down here to spy on courting couples. There were shallow hideaways for lovers in the dunes that undulated rather unspectacularly back behind the shore, grown over with little dark-green shrubby bushes and bleached long grasses. That afternoon the tide was out. It wasn’t like real seaside: to reach the water they had to wade out for a quarter of a mile through mud that was soft and warm and sucking, melting away ticklingly under the soles of their feet. Mud clung like tan socks halfway up their calves. The coastline on the faraway other side receded in infinitely promising blue and purple layers of hills; farther up the estuary, where the crossing was narrower, they could see the two ferries plying to and fro.
The skies were the only spectacular feature of the estuary scenery. Changeable and full of drama, they loomed domineeringly over the flatland and altered the color of the water hour by hour; this afternoon it was pale brown, like milky coffee. The girls, up to their mid-thighs in tepid water, watched a sudden jostling company of small angry clouds overhead; fat warm raindrops plopped down all around them. It seemed very funny, to be in their swimming costumes in the rain. Their costumes were new, they had chosen them yesterday in a department store in town: Helena’s was a blue-and-white striped halter neck, Joyce’s was a strapless bloomer suit with a pattern of black-and-white birds against a dark pink background. Lil had given Joyce four pounds to spend out of the old tobacco jar where she kept her savings. The girls were in love with their new costumes and couldn’t stop looking down at themselves and at each other. They didn’t really want to submerge in the muddy water and spoil them.
Someone was calling them from the beach. They both looked round; it was Uncle Dick. His car was parked up behind the other one, and he stood on the shingle in his work uniform with his jacket over his arm and his sleeves rolled up. They couldn’t hear what he was saying.
—What? they shouted back, knowing it was futile and he wouldn’t be able to hear them either. They savored a few moments’ delicious remoteness, lingering there inaccessible in the spatter of hot rain, feeling the impotence of the figure on the shore to reach them.
—What in hell’s name does he want? Joyce wondered languorously.
—The legendary uncle, said Helena. Won’t there be outbreaks of lawlessness if he’s not at his post?
When he persisted and signaled furiously for them to return, they began reluctantly to wade back.
—Does your mother know you two are down here cavorting around half naked? he shouted, as soon as they were in hearing distance.
—We told her! Joyce shouted back.
—She said we could cavort, said Helena placidly, covered by the noise of their rather exaggeratedly splashing through the shallows, in our new costumes.
—You’re asking for trouble. You know what kind of spot this is.
—What kind of spot is it? Joyce did a perfect imitation of nonplused and wide-eyed.
—Get yourselves dried off, he said angrily, pointing to their towels. I’ll take you back in the car. Your mother and your aunt have no idea, letting you run around the place like hoydens. Anyway, it’s coming on to rain.
—Hoydens? murmured Helena in delight. They rubbed their legs down, streaking the towels with mud.
—What do you think hoydens do? wondered Joyce.
—Whatever it is, I think we should try it. To begin with, they cavort.
—I love to cavort.
—So do I.
They sat in the backseat of the car: Uncle Dick had spread out a towel, so that they wouldn’t make wet marks on his upholstery. He lectured them about looking after themselves and having some self-respect; because he couldn’t turn round to speak to them, the words seemed to emanate from his dark, stiff back. At some level they were genuinely impressed by his concern. As a matter of fact, a few days before, a couple of lorry drivers had given them a lift to the beach and when they got out one of them had grabbed Helena’s hand and tried to put it on his trousers, until his friend swore at them and drove on.
But Joyce was also exhilarated by Uncle Dick’s very exasperation and his fear for them. If there was danger, then that meant you counted for something. You had at least the power—the power that Vera and Lil didn’t have—to disconcert him, to make him mutter to himself and drive with impatient thwarted accelerations and brakings. Behind the sternness of his back in its dark hot serge, the girls sat basking in the miracle of their new costumes, which were hardly wet, and which they somehow knew he both wanted and didn’t want to look at.
Two
One Friday in November, Kay was hot and whining and clung to Lil. In the evening she was worse, and when they telephoned the doctor and described her symptoms he told them to take her straight to the hospital. Uncle Dick drove; Vera sat in the front seat, and the other children saw Lil put Kay into her arms, wrapped in one of the American quilts. They felt the drama of the occasion, but it did not occur to them that Kay would not come back. Just after the car had driven off they found her bit of old sucky blanket lying on the kitchen floor, and Martin ran with it along the lane after the car, but they’d turned onto the road before he could catch up with them. Peter even clowned around after they’d gone, pretending he was ill too, looking up his sleeves and inside his shorts and claiming that each tiny freckle was a rash, squealing and insisting that Lil come to see it, until she rounded on him, asking him if he didn’t have any heart. He then undid his shirt and pretended to look anxiously for it.
Lil got undressed and went to bed eventually, after sitting by the telephone for a couple of hours; this was a kind of endurance in itself, as she feared the thing and hated using it, never knowing which bit she was supposed to speak into (even though Uncle Dick had had it put in for her, so she could place her orders for the delivery vans). It was Joyce who heard the telephone ringing in the deep middle of the night and stumbled downstairs in the dark and then stood with the receiver to her ear in the front room, standing on one leg and then the other because the cold flowing into her bare feet from the stone flags was unendurable.
—We’ve lost her, her aunt said, muffled and different at the other end of the line; and confusedly Joyce thought for a moment she meant it literally, that somehow in the confusion and immensity of the hospital, where Joyce had never been, it might be easy to mislay a little girl, particularly one as stubbornly silent and inconspicuous as Kay.
Lil had heard the telephone too and had followed Joyce down the dark stairs more cautiously. Now she was scratching matches, trying to light a candle.
—Tell your mother we lost her, Aunt Vera was saying angrily.
A match flared up and illuminated Lil’s face just as she heard. Mutely Joyce proffered her the telephone, but Lil waved it off.
&n
bsp; —I can’t, I can’t talk to her, she hissed, shaking her head. The match went out.
They stood in a cold dark silence, the sulfur smell livid on the air between them. Joyce understood that this was not just her mother’s usual fear of the phone. Lil was thinking that if she’d been there with Kay, she’d have prevented this, she’d have held it off somehow. It was the way Vera was, so full of opinions, so determined to be different, that brought on catastrophe.
—Is she there? demanded Vera.
—I’ll go and tell her.
—It was meningitis. The doctors gave her antipyretic drugs and antispasmodics. There was nothing they could do to save her. They keep them in the dark, because the light hurts them. I was holding ice to the back of her neck, to help the pain, and then she slipped away. They were bringing the serum from the infirmary to inject her with and the nurse had to tell them she’d gone. About an hour ago. We’ve been sitting with her, your uncle and I.
—All right, I’ll tell her.
Joyce couldn’t begin to find anything appropriate to say to her aunt: she felt herself a strangely neutral quantity, as if she didn’t count, in relation to this disaster. After she hung the receiver back on the telephone, she and Lil went on standing in the dark. Lil gave off an intense heat—she was always opening windows, and she often had to improvise a paper fan to cool herself—and also a special encouraging smell, like sharp dried fruit (this was probably something to do with the cigarettes). Joyce knew both these things intimately, from all the childhood nights she’d slept with her mother, when she was ill or had bad dreams. She would have liked to cling to her now, to be consoled.
—I should have gone with her, Lil wailed softly. I should have been there. They don’t know her like I do. There was nothing wrong with her yesterday. It can’t be right.
Joyce stood awkwardly, not knowing how to help.
Her strongest feeling in the days that followed was embarrassment, and a suspicious jealousy of this grief, dropped down like an extravagant unwanted drama in their lives, spoiling everything. She didn’t even tell anyone about Kay at the College of Art, which she had begun attending that October. When she had to take a day off to go to the funeral, she simply said it was “a relative,” so they all assumed it was someone old and unimportant; and the next morning she was back drinking coffee in a noisy, smoking, joking crowd in the Gardenia Café as if nothing had happened. Pictures of the scene rose in her mind: the small coffin, the stricken adults, Uncle Dick cupping his hand around his eyes to hide his weeping, the dismal Far-mouth cemetery tucked at the end of a raw road that wound past the bonded warehouses from behind the customs offices. She forced them back down again. These two possibilities must be held apart if she was to hang on to this new joyous life where she at last belonged.
