Between the Regions of Kindness

by Alice Jolly

  As Rose walks on everything looks so normal – the trees lining the Green, the families trailing homewards with prams and baskets containing the remains of picnics, and the three spires of Coventry glimpsed in the distance. Except that as Rose looks across the restful city, its image is overlaid with another, blurred black-and-white shadows from newsreels and newspapers – an impression of the Spanish cities after the aerial bombardments. Rose shuts her eyes, shivers, walks on. The day is sliding towards the grey of evening and lights flicker on in the windows of houses, which are turned in on themselves now, guarding their safety, watching, waiting.

  Rose hurries on towards the Peace Pledge office – although the office isn’t actually there any more. Everything of importance has been packed up, hidden underground, the bank account closed, the records and leaflets hidden away in people’s houses where the police can’t find them. Peace News continues to be produced but the name of the printer has to be kept secret or he’ll lose his business. Rose still has a key to the basement of the building. So when she arrives, she goes around to the back, looks around her to check that no one is watching, slides the key into the lock of the back door and enters the corridor with its dustbins and ragged noticeboard. Frank comes up the cellar steps to meet her. He wears a navy roll-neck jumper and his shirt hangs out of the bottom of it. He’s thinner now and his face has lost its shine.

  She steps into his arms and he holds her against him, kisses her. Then he turns and pulls her down the cellar stairs after him. A gas lamp burns from a nail and Frank has laid a sheet across the rusty iron bed which is wedged in a corner. He takes hold of Rose, kisses her again. Rose pulls back, her eyes join with Frank’s and suddenly she understands. It comes at her with the acid sting of truth. Frank loves her. She herself has never been interested in love, had entirely discounted the possibility of it, but now here it is, unwanted.

  Rose undoes the front of Frank’s shirt, presses her head against the flat of his chest. His skin is pale, blue-veined. Of course, if she married him then his body would be hers, permanently. And he’s a possession that she can’t help but covet. A painted shepherd she can put in her own glass cabinet. Frank turns to the gramophone. He insists on keeping it here even though Rose has told him that it’ll get damp, that someone will hear. A thump, a throb, a rustle. Paradise here, paradise close, just around this corner. The place happiness is for me. Frank undoes the buttons of her dress. She kicks off her shoes, lies down, shuts out the waiting city. Shuts out the throbbing factories, the bicycles, the stamp of boots.

  Afterwards she lies with her head against Frank’s back, rests her hands on his hip. The record has come to its end, the gramophone throbs and crackles. Rose gets up to switch it off. Frank probably wants her to play the record again but she’s bored by those sentimental old songs. Her mind moves back to an evening earlier in the week. She and Arthur had been pushing their bikes back from the factory and she’d said to him then, Arthur, how do I come to be in this mess?

  And he’d said, Ah well, Rose. No point in asking, is there, who betrayed you? You did it to yourself.

  Oh Arthur. Why don’t I marry you instead? It would be so much easier.

  Rosa. My bella. You have only to name the day.

  Now she runs her finger along Frank’s hip and wonders what will happen to him. Hopefully he will avoid prison. He might even get sent to a farm that isn’t too far away. The two of them are on a rock in the sea with the water rising around them, less and less space to stand on. What happened to Frank? How did he change? Violet says that he did it for her but is that true? And must she marry him to thank him? No. Frank simply saw what is true and evident and has held to it. Now he turns over, holds her close.

  Rose, when we’re married, promise me one thing.

  When we’re married. The words are sonorous as a church bell tolling at a funeral.

  Promise me you won’t ever see Violet again.

  But Frank. You and Violet.

  Rose pictures them for a moment, standing in the hall at 34 Warwick Road, the mirror image of each other, Siamese twins; when Violet moves her right hand, his left hand echoes her movement. That which should have been indivisible has been divided and she was the one who broke it apart. And she had done it for no reason except that she could. And now she will have to marry Frank because although he was educated at the grammar school, and lives in Fitzmaurice Street, he will be nothing without her. He isn’t a brave man and yet he’s being brave. He can’t be left alone in this.

  Frank, listen. It doesn’t have to be like that.

  No, Rose. I’ve decided – and now it’s time for you to do the same.

  Those who are not for are against. Rose has run with the hare and hunted with the hounds for long enough. She turns her face towards Frank, kisses him, feels that familiar shock run through her body. She would rather die than accept that this world in which they’re living is all that is possible. What Violet said will prove accurate – Frank will bring her down. But finally it doesn’t feel like her fault, or Violet’s, or Frank’s. It feels like some larger force has taken over. Not war, or love, those clichéd levers of destiny, but something older and deeper, something infinite and ancient, far beyond human control. She touches Frank’s face, holds him tight. Will he be a partner or a millstone? She knows the answer to that question but remains defiant. She is strong enough for both of them – and this is their moment. Frank will be sent away – maybe he won’t come back. Maybe the city will be invaded and soon they’ll all be under German rule. But here under the gas light, lying on this narrow bed, with its clean white sheet, they can lie flesh against flesh, and hear the city all around them, its muscles tense. And beyond that the darkness of the skies, the heavens, indifferent.

  15

  NOW

  Mollie – Brighton, February 2003

  It’s early but Mollie prefers to get up. Best not to spend too long in bed, people die in bed. In the kitchen, she yawns, pours a slug of whisky into her coffee. Her face is dry with yesterday’s make-up and her throat sore with last night’s cigarette smoke. In a corner, a pool of cat piss is spreading across the tiles so she drops two sheets of newspaper over it. Picking up the remote control, she turns the sound up and flicks through the channels. The picture on the screen is dissolving into zigzags so Mollie wobbles the wires at the back. Nothing was said on the television yesterday or in the evening papers but surely there will be something today? It’s three whole days since they heard that the buses had gone into Iraq – but now nothing and nothing and nothing. But Wilf or Martha will come around straight away if they find out anything.

  Although Rufus is not at home, Mollie can feel his rage. The reviews of his play come out today and he’s gone for the papers. The rage always starts before he’s even read them. Usually Mollie ignores most of what Rufus says but, with Jay gone, she has fewer defences against him. La-la-la-la-la. A grey old day but it’s sure to brighten up. She needs to do some tea and toast for Mr Lambert. Plunger. She needs to take one up to the third floor to unblock the sink. After she’s got the breakfast, she’ll give Lara a call and then pop around to the peace protesters. It worries her that Lara hasn’t visited. Occasionally she leaves a message with some news but nothing more. Of course, she was furious about that message Jay sent, bless him. Mollie realises that soon she might have to apologise to Lara although God knows what she’s done wrong. Anyway, no point in thinking about that. Hand it over to the Good Lord and hope for the best.

  Two empty champagne bottles stand on the table and Mollie throws them into the bin, then she fills a china vase and unwraps a wilting bunch of flowers. She should have tidied up last night but they all stayed up too late and drank too much. After the show there was a party backstage, then Mollie drove Rufus home, and the stage manager came back as well, and it was four o’clock before they got to bed. The music from last night still tingles in her ears. On the sideboard there’s a cake, which Martha brought around yesterday, bless her. She’s a good soul. Mollie
lifts the cake. Ah well, could be useful as a doorstop or something to smash over the head of a burglar. Or feed it to Stan, Stan and Stan. Turns out that lot haven’t got any papers so they’re in no position to be fussy.

  Upstairs the front door bangs. Oh God, spare us, Mollie thinks. Now it begins. There won’t be more than one or two write-ups, if that, but still Rufus will have bought every paper. Last night he talked long and drunkenly about how it’s totally and completely unimportant what critics think.

  The buggers. The buggers. Just look at this. He stamps down the stairs and into the kitchen, wrestling with a newspaper. Sections drop from his hands and float to the floor. Mollie hurries to scoop them up, looking for the news pages, hoping that she might see something about the human shields.

  Will you turn that bloody television off? Rufus says.

  Mollie presses her finger onto the volume control.

  Rufus finds the right page. It says, ‘Dreary subject matter. Failure to grip.’

  Oh dear. But that’s only one.

  Listen, just listen to this. Rufus starts to read. He’s wearing pyjama trousers, brogues and a large wool jumper. His face is red and stubbly, his thick hair stands on end and his eyes are bleary from last night’s drinking. Mollie wonders why age has mellowed everyone except her husband.

  Last night…

  Just be quiet, will you? Listen. Bugger. God, my head hurts. Where is it? It says ‘Dreary subject matter.’ Dreary bloody subject matter, my arse.

  Pearls before swine.

  Rufus pours himself a whisky. Can’t bloody win. What do these people want? Nice little middle-class drawing-room dramas. You try to put a proper play on. You try to actually make people think. Tossers. Arse-licking teenage cowards making a living by spitting on other people’s creativity.

  Why don’t I get you some bacon and egg?

  Are you listening? He stamps around the kitchen, shuffling through the papers again and again, reading sections, waving pages at her in disgust. Mollie nods her head, drinks her coffee, clears up, starts on the bacon and egg. The play is called Going Nowhere. Mollie had always thought it an unfortunate title but hadn’t liked to say so.

  What did Rufus expect? He knows quite well that no one wants serious theatre any more. They want a When-Did-You-Last-See-Your-Trousers farce. Or they want big sets, purple lighting, dry ice. It isn’t possible just to put two people on a blank stage any more and let them speak the truth. But Rufus won’t give up. He may have done his voiceovers and his television ads but he always goes back to the theatre and Mollie respects him for that. Oh but the price is high. She’s lived with Rufus’s creative vision for nearly forty years and she’s tired. How much rejection can anyone take? So hard to be endlessly misunderstood. She thinks of that comment Lara always makes – There’s no curse worse than minor artistic talent. Lara is a bitch but what she says might be true.

  Mollie catches sight of George Bush on the television, turns the volume up.

  Leave that alone, Rufus shouts and, picking up a book, hurls it at the television. As the book sails through the air, it catches against the vase of flowers on the table and sends it crashing to the floor. Mollie stares at the pieces of the vase and the wilting flowers spread across the tiles. From next door, banging sounds. It’s the gossip of the street, of course. That mad actor shouting at his wife and throwing plates. Well, they can sod off, the whole lot of them.

  Why does everything have to be about that boy? Rufus says, gesturing towards the television. What do you think? That lot risking their lives, that lot having the courage to actually do something which might be some use. Finding out what war is. I don’t think so. An absolute bloody waste of time. One thing you can be sure of is that none of that lot’s going to get killed. And nothing they do will make the blindest bit of difference. Just a bunch of bloody towel-head savages. A lesser phase of evolution, that’s all. So why the hell doesn’t he just come back? Attention seeking. That’s all it is. Not surprising really. I mean, look at his mother. Her son is risking his life and she won’t even take one day off work.

  Rufus.

  Hardly surprising the boy’s got problems, is it? Brought up believing he’s less important than curtains?

  Rufus, you know quite well that Jay has never been neglected, Mollie says.

  No, of course not. That’s the whole point. Like mother, like son. Spoilt them both rotten. All very handy for her, forcing you to do all her childcare while she’s off in London working every hour that God sends for that ridiculous pink-faced toad. But what about me? When I worked in London people respected me.

  You go to London all the time.

  Shut up, will you? Christ, you don’t even get any support from your own bloody wife. Lara, Jay, the bloody lodgers, everybody else except for me. That queer upstairs even gets given his breakfast before me.

  I’m getting your breakfast now.

  Mollie drops slices of bacon into the sizzling fat. La-la-la-la-la. There will be better days soon. They should be kind to each other now that they’re old. At least the play has provided a distraction over the last couple of weeks. Better than sitting there all day watching the phone. Mollie knows that, deep down, Rufus is terrified that something is going to happen to Jay. That’s partly what all this shouting is about. Rufus wouldn’t have been doing this play if it wasn’t for Jay. Jay had needled him – telling him to stop wasting his time on bad-quality television, questioning his values and ideas. If only Jay were here now, he’d find a way of sorting Rufus out.

  She remembers Jay, four years old, standing on a chair in the kitchen, saying to Rufus, You talk too much and you make too much noise. Mollie was terrified that Rufus would hit the boy but instead he waltzed him around the kitchen in his arms, laughing, and told everyone the story for days afterwards. And often Jay would stand by the sink with a bottle of Rufus’s best whisky. Help Granmollie get the boiler going again or this lot is going down the sink. And Rufus would swear and curse but he would get the boiler going again. Mollie has never achieved the same and Lara certainly hasn’t. Baghdad appears on the screen, low rise and dust coloured. Mollie picks up the remote control.

  Switch that television off, Rufus roars.

  Mollie sees sandbags in the streets and boarded-up shop windows – but no news about the human shields. Rufus comes up behind her, swipes at her, catching the side of her head, so that inside her head, her brain smashes against her skull. She ducks, hears his rasping breath and smells stale smoke and alcohol clinging to his shirt. But still she keeps her eyes fixed on the television.

  Turn it off, Rufus says, raises his hand, swipes again. Mollie screams and, pulling away from Rufus, collapses at the table. Rufus reaches for the remote control but Mollie keeps it gripped tight in her hand. Turning, she points it at the television and switches the volume up so loud so that the whole kitchen is filled by the bellowing voice of the newsreader.

  Rufus is shouting as well and although Mollie can’t hear what he’s saying, she can guess. He’s going to London, he’s not coming back. That’s what he always says. She watches him now, stamping away towards the stairs, turning back to shout one more insult at her. As he goes, she turns the volume down and presses her hand to side of her head, easing the pain. Rufus always says the same – I’m not coming back. Then he stays with his friend Baggers in Golders Green for two or three weeks until the car breaks down on the motorway, or he loses his wallet, or strains his back, then he’s home again.

  She pushes the frying pan from the hotplate and, kneeling on the floor, eases fragments of the broken vase into the dustpan. Her head throbs. She stops to pick up one large piece. The vase was white with a blue willow pattern. The fragment is diamond shaped and bears the mark on the back – English Willow, Stafford. She bought the vase in some northern town – Sheffield or Bradford? Rufus was in Look Back in Anger or was it All My Sons? They were lodging in a suburb somewhere, near a church. Lara must have been ten or thereabouts. Long white ankle socks and second-hand patent leathe
r shoes, a smocked dress. No matter what clothes she dressed Lara in, they always looked too short. One morning they went out to a jumble sale in the church car park. And Mollie bought the vase just because she fancied it, even though the rim was chipped. She’d never had many things of her own, what with the lodgings, and moving all the time. It’s a wrench now to see it go in the bin but she makes herself throw it in briskly. Ah well, nobody’s dead.

  Rufus comes down with a holdall. He’s still shouting his way through all the old arguments. Why do we have to live in this dump? Why did we ever come to Brighton? How can I be expected to do my work when I don’t have five minutes’ peace and quiet? We should sell up before the entire place falls down. Rufus always says ‘we’ although the Guest House isn’t his, not one penny of it. It’s Mollie’s inheritance, all that she’s ever had, and over the years she’s kept a tight grip on it, despite Rufus’s many attempts to wrest it from her. Wiping the table, she judges his performance – overplayed, obvious, lacking any real sense of pace.

  Don’t get any support even from my own wife, Rufus says, his voice weakening.

  Mollie knows what she’s meant to do. She’s played the part often enough before. She’s meant to wring her hands and plead with him. Rufus, Rufus, don’t leave me. I love you, I love you. I can’t live without you. She looks across at him and sees that he’s poised ready, waiting for her. He needs someone to play the scene against but she can’t be bothered now. Her shoulder hurts and she’s tired. All she can think about is Jay. It’s three whole days now since those buses arrived.