Between the Regions of Kindness

by Alice Jolly

  I can’t believe you’re letting everyone down like this, the astronaut says. This company has spent years building up a reputation and a client base.

  Lara imagines turning a dial inside her head that switches Craig off, tunes him out. She smooths down her skirt, relieved to find that it’s still a skirt, that she is still the person she thought she was. It seems miraculous now that her foot connects to her leg, that her hand connects to her arm, that her head sits firmly on her shoulders. The astronaut is still talking but she turns away from him and heads towards the door. He’s saying something about terms and conditions, employment law.

  Reaching the door, Lara turns the handle – which is still mercifully just a handle – and opens the door. She keeps her head up as she walks towards her desk. Behind her she can hear the astronaut shouting at one of the giraffes. Suddenly it occurs to her that the astronaut is just like her father. How strange that she worked for him for so long and it’s only now that she sees this entirely obvious fact.

  Everyone in the office knows something has happened because they’ve heard the shouting. As Lara reaches her desk, she thinks about that fax she needed to send, and examines a phone message left on her desk. But she doesn’t have to send the fax or return the message. Instead she can go home – sleep, eat, organise. Sarah and Shuna – with their young, empty faces, their twenty-something purity – are watching from their desks.

  Family Difficulties, she thinks. For the first five years working for Craig, Lara never mentioned having a son and she’s never, in all her time at the office, asked to leave early due to a childcare problem. Even when Mollie’s car had broken down on the way to the scout camp and the irate organiser was shouting down the phone at her, even when Jay had been rushed into hospital for his appendix, even when he was at the police station because of the drugs. In all that time she’d never mentioned Family Difficulties. In fact, she’d always felt a robust contempt for those women with nappies and bibs in their sagging handbags, women who couldn’t even meet for a coffee without explaining all of their childcare arrangements in wearying detail. But now it seems that Family Difficulties are bound to get you in the end. The only mystery is how she survived so long.

  She thinks of friends she could call. Annabel? She doesn’t want another conversation about killer bugs in Middle Eastern rivers. And neither does she want Annabel to ramble on for half an hour about her teenage son and his mysterious new mobile. He claims he was given it. But did he actually steal it? Lara is used to all that now – the speed at which her crisis is instantly translated into someone else’s angst.

  The truth is that no one is really interested in anyone else’s problems. Two or three people have sent cards with confused messages. What does one say? Jay’s departure doesn’t fit into the usual catalogue of death, divorce, bereavement. People don’t know whether to express support, regret or outrage. Lara knows that people only send cards and flowers in order to maintain their own idea of themselves as good people. Or else they do it because they want their piece of the drama. Everywhere they go they’ll be saying – Oh yes, of course, we know his mother. Dreadful, dreadful.

  She could try speaking to some of the other relatives but their numbers have dwindled over the weeks. They disappear almost immediately once they know that their sister, son or friend is now coming home. All they want to do is forget and how can you blame them? The only person who might understand is Oliver and he doesn’t have a phone. Maybe she’ll go around and see him when she gets home.

  Unsteadily she picks up the file of letters on her desk. Jay is in Baghdad and he’s heading towards a power plant that will be a key target if a war starts. The information rises up and catches at her throat. Lara starts to choke, her whole body rocked by coughing. Tears run down her cheeks. She reaches for tissues and then finds herself laughing – a shrieking, mirthless laugh which turns into a sob and then a cough. Kylie is coming towards her with a box of tissues. She can’t bear to become a person who is offered tissues.

  Kylie is followed now by Sarah, both of them wide-eyed. For a moment Lara sees Sarah’s hand, with its pastel-painted nails, stretched out in what can only be genuine kindness. It would be so easy to take that hand, to accept the trip to the coffee shop across the square that is being suggested. But Lara has no place inside her to put such kindness. And she can’t allow Jay’s danger to become a question which will yield to coffee and nods of understanding. So, hurriedly she takes a tissue, mutters in a strangled voice that she’s fine, turns away.

  Files, books, stapler, the tube on her desk full of pens. She should take everything because she may need some of these things when she goes to a new job. Logistics – she needs to hire a car, find boxes, sort papers, explain to Kylie and Sarah, say a proper goodbye. Then the knowledge comes to her that she can just walk out. On her desk there’s a photo of Jay and she wants that – and her laptop. It belongs to the office but she’s taking it anyway. She reaches her hand out towards it, but it is still plugged in. Kylie dives under the desk and pulls out the plug. Sarah takes the photograph from Lara’s fluttering hands and packs it into her bag. Thank you, Lara says. Thank you. And goodbye. She waves her hand in an awkward regal wave, loops the bag onto her shoulder. Why does she feel nothing at all?

  19

  BEFORE

  Rose – Coventry, November 1940

  Rose nudges the pram along the road towards the cemetery, guiding it through the crush of black overcoats, dripping hats and umbrellas. The rain has been coming down since dawn, washing the ash and soot into the gutters. An ivy-covered wall near the cemetery gate has fallen down but the bricks have been stacked up to keep the pavement clear. Water has seeped into Rose’s shoes, and her fingers, gripping the handle of the pram, ache with cold. Mollie tries to sit up, starts to wail but Rose takes no notice of her.

  It has to be a mass funeral, everyone understands that. Not enough wood or carpenters can be found to make the coffins, and anyway carpenters are needed to repair houses for the living rather than make boxes for the dead. One hundred and seventy-two so far and there’ll be many more to come. They can’t even identify all the bodies. Fighter planes are in the sky because the talk is that the Luftwaffe might bomb the funeral. That seems possible now. No one says anything much. Instead they stare and stare, their eyes gasping, as they take in this new world. And the cathedral. Although the tower still stands, and the tower of Holy Trinity looking down on them now.

  The gate of the cemetery is thick with mud but two men lift the end of the pram and Rose raises it as well, struggling to keep a grip, as her feet squelch and slip. The men put the pram down on firmer ground and Rose pulls a handkerchief from her pocket and leans into the pram to wipe at Mollie’s streaming nose, takes a bottle of milk from her bag and pushes it into the child’s outstretched hands. Why is she always moaning and screaming? What can be the matter with her?

  Rose presses on past cypresses and yews, past the bomb craters in the older part of the cemetery. Diggers have been brought in because of the number of holes to be dug. They stand in the background, against the cemetery wall, their dinosaur outlines black against grey smudges of sky, a line of roofs, the smoking chimney of a factory. Duckboards have been laid across the mud and people queue to step across them and look down into the long trenches dug for the dead. The crowds of people standing in those queues seem themselves to have become part of the mud and the colourless sky above. Calloused hands grip handkerchiefs or the brims of hats. Everyone has found black to wear, even if it is only a black raincoat over stained dungarees. No one pushes or complains. Other than the rattle of the rain and squelching of the mud, an occasional muffled sob, everything is silent, hollow.

  Rose tries not to think of Mrs Watson – her toothless grin and her hair done in a plait like a little girl. Mrs Watson had always understood. Bloody murdering bastards. They’ll not be the ones that die. You mark my words. It’ll be the poor buggers like us that get it. It’d been her choice, of course, but she should have g
one to the shelter and everyone had told her that. But she’d been adamant. Nursing on the front two years in the last war. They didn’t get me then, they won’t get me now. At least I’ll die in the comfort of my own bed.

  Three hundred copies of Peace News had gone up with her when fire ripped through the backs of three houses in Back Street West – and fold-up chairs and tables belonging to the Union as well. Not that it mattered much because no one had time now to distribute leaflets. Except it would have mattered to Mrs Watson. Mercifully, Rose’s own things – the few things which remained – had been in the front bedroom and were left more or less untouched. Ivy and Win had come after work to help. They’d both tried to persuade her to go home to her mother although she’s told them a hundred times that she’ll die before she does that. And then Mr Bostock had arrived and said straight away that she must move in with them and he’d come with a team of others from the Peace Pledge. And with barrows they picked up everything and carried it away, while Mrs Bostock found a camp bed and blankets for the sitting room.

  Rose knows she’ll never get the pram across those duckboards – and anyway she doesn’t know where Mrs Watson’s body would be. Instead she stands watching the crowds as they wobble and stumble, filing past the gaping trenches, which are surely dug a mile deep into the earth. A line of black wool overcoats, leather-gloved hands, grey hair loosely pinned, stockings full of holes, shoes with cardboard tied on the soles. Some drop flowers down onto the dead. Those trenches must be filling up with water, Rose thinks. One vast woman collapses crying into the mud and lies there flailing, her hand waving, seeking purchase on something, anything until her husband and his friend come to heave her up. One side of her coat is caked in mud, her dentures have come loose and so she spits, coughs, pushes them back in.

  Rose wishes that she had picked flowers but where would she have put them? It seems wrong to go without having done anything at all – but what is there to do? At least Mrs Watson wouldn’t have expected anything, being staunchly atheist. Well, if there is a God he’ll have a bleeding lot to answer for when I get to those pearly gates. There are so many dead that after a while it becomes hard to know how to apportion grief. Rose thinks of the ARP warden sitting in the street. He was one of the people who had gone into the elastic factory – forty women and children were in the cellars there and because of the elastic the heat like an inferno.

  Rose heads back to the entrance, shoving the pram through the mud, but the gate is blocked by another digger coming in. A man catches hold of the end of the pram and helps to lift it aside. Something in the man’s swift movement makes her think for a moment of Frank and his letters. She finds those letters to be full of self-pity but they also frighten her. She has learnt that what doesn’t bend will break. A gust of bitter wind drags at Rose’s hat and she moves to the side of the pram, sheltering by a shack with a corrugated-iron roof and canvas sides. She will miss living at Mrs Watson’s, although what Violet had said about the lice had turned out to be true. No doubt they will have survived the blast.

  The wind is sour with the smell of bleach and Rose rubs her hands together as she waits. Behind her, the canvas of the shack rattles in the wind. Rose turns around just as the flap of the canvas blows to the side. Inside the shack, lumps of tarpaulin are stacked on makeshift racks. Rose draws in a short breath as she realises that the tarpaulins cover lines of bodies. At the lowest level there are no shelves so the bodies are lying on the ground, in the mud and the inch of water that has accumulated. Lime, like a dusting of snow, is sprinkled over everything.

  The sound of the digger roars as it struggles through the mud. The canvas sheet blows again in the tugging wind. The tarpaulins don’t completely cover all of the bodies and so there are feet sticking out – purple feet, tiny and shrivelled with the toes scrunched up like animal claws. Each pair of feet is tied with a metal tag around the ankle. Rose feels her head sway and catches hold of the handle of the pram. Mollie is screaming now, her tiny face bright red. Rose swings the pram around and pulls it behind her, tugging at it, the smell of lime stinging her mouth and throat. A hand reaches out and pushes the pram forward. A woman steps aside, pulling two tearful children with her. Rose finds herself back in the road, still tugging the pram behind her.

  She stops for a moment, shakes the rain from her hat and then puts it back on. Finding Mollie’s bottle of milk, she tries to settle the child down although her hands are so cold that she can’t feel the blankets as she straightens them. Despite the milk, Mollie still wails. Rose sometimes wishes she could just park the pram in a doorway somewhere, run off and leave it there, never go back. Wind rushes down the street, slapping against cheeks and tearing at hair. A car engine splutters and dies. Somewhere behind Rose, perhaps in the churchyard, a man is keening like a wounded animal. Rose grips the handle of the pram and steps on down the road. Ahead of her she sees a tiny woman, a neat ghost, moving towards a parked car. The woman wears a fitted black coat with a grey fur collar and cuffs and a saucer black hat, perched to one side of her head. On her arm she carries a square black bag. The woman turns and looks back down the crowded road and her eyes fix on Rose. Rose sees that face – that familiar face, paler but otherwise unchanged.

  Rose. Oh, Rose.

  Violet reaches out her arms and Rose, abandoning the pram, walks straight into them, holding Violet close. It’s been more than a year but that time means nothing now.

  The baby? Rose says.

  She’s quite all right, Violet says. Quite well. Born three weeks ago now.

  Oh, I am pleased. Because I did hear.

  A spasm passes across Violet’s face but she forces a wintry smile.

  It’d been on the radio, somewhere near Dunkirk. The Royal Warwickshire Regiment. An image appears in Rose’s head of men in a barn, in the half darkness, the flash of torches, a smell of hay and manure, and then the sudden thud of bullets in flesh, and the screaming.

  And you? Let me see. Violet approaches the pram and peers in at Mollie.

  Oh isn’t she beautiful. Arthur told me she’s beautiful. And, darling, you know what? I called my baby Mollie as well. I just wanted to – such fun for them both to have the same name, don’t you think?

  Rose nods her head and smiles. Fun? She had forgotten that word.

  I’m so sorry, Rose said. About Stanley. I did write at the time.

  Yes, I know you did. It was very sweet of you. I appreciated it very much.

  And now you’re here?

  Cook’s uncle. He used to work in the garden when I was a child.

  I’m sorry.

  Well, yes. And you?

  Mrs Watson.

  Oh no. Trousers and lice? Oh but Rose.

  I was living in her house. If we hadn’t gone with the trekkers out of the city.

  So where are you living now?

  Rose explains about the Bostocks. Arthur is there as well. Didn’t he tell you? We all three of us share the front room.

  Oh Rose, why don’t you come and live with me? Or we could both go to Worcester, to my aunt. Father is there, of course, although last time I saw him he thought I was his mother. Poor soul. But my aunt’s got a super house and we’d be welcome there.

  No, thank you, Violet. No.

  Oh Rose, really. Why?

  I have to consider Frank.

  Rose, really. I think the time has come. We must be honest.

  Rose views Violet’s brimming eyes with distaste. She’s noticed that this is one of the effects of war. People start to allow all sorts of things that would be better left unsaid to spill from their lips. It can be embarrassing. Rose is disappointed in Violet. She’d always thought that Violet would know better.

  Frank. Violet says, through twisted lips. When has he ever considered you? I’ve heard from Arthur. Twenty shillings a week. And giving money away to get people out of prison.

  Frank is much better placed now, Rose says. Working in the Hackney Hospital.

  He shouldn’t have done this to you. How does he
expect you to live?

  I would get a job, Rose says. If I could find anyone to look after Mollie.

  Frank has a duty. You’re married. Why doesn’t he organise for you to go to Aunt Muriel in Norfolk?

  Violet knows the answer to that question. Frank would be too proud to ask his mother for help, and even if he asked, his mother would never take her in. She came to the wedding wearing a mean little purple flowerpot hat. Surely not the one she had reputedly bought for Frank’s wedding to Violet? And she’d brought a silver teapot but made no effort to hide her disappointment.

  Violet, I’m sorry. But I have to go.

  Oh Rose, please. Please don’t. Please, I’m all on my own. And I’ve got a nurse to look after my Mollie and she would help you as well. Please.

  I’m sorry, Violet. I have to go. And you must go, you must leave the city. Go to your aunt’s in Worcester. Really, you must.

  No. I can’t go, Rose, unless you come with me. I can’t.

  How very awkward. What has come over Violet?

  I’m sorry. Rose walks away, her hands locked on the handle of the pram, tears streaming down her face. Her mind is drawn back to 34 Warwick Road, as though pulled by a magnet, back to the wide curving staircase with its worn green carpet, the leaning mahogany furniture in the dining room, the photographs in jewelled frames on glass shelves. The arch crusted with wisteria in the back garden. It isn’t the house that she wants but the world that she inhabited when she visited that house – so much of it gone now. And what does it matter what they rebuild? Now there is no road back.

  Rose pushes the pram back to the Bostocks’ house, through the blackened streets and mountains of rubble. A convoy of vans pass by, mobile canteens arriving from America, God bless them. Cardboard and plywood float on the wind. Most of Hendry Street has gone and the houses in Warmington Road have been evacuated although most are still standing. Victoria Street is closed because of a gas leak so instead she cuts along Butt Street. A barrage balloon has come down on some houses, and bobs about there, like a wounded elephant. Curtains flap at broken windows and the street is littered with beams, bricks and broken telephone wires. Beds, curtains, books, shattered light fittings, bathroom sinks all lie on piles of rubble. Fire hoses twist across the street. The city looks like Ypres in 1914.