Between the Regions of Kindness

by Alice Jolly

  You can do it. Of course you can.

  Rufus doesn’t need to say that Jay will never need to know what’s happened in his absence. Jay will need to feel that the home front has been united – perhaps for the first time ever.

  And after that we’ll do the reconciliation scene – all right? Rufus says.

  The distant pool players blur in a sudden rush of tears. Lara sees a whole world before her, a world which she has never known. Happy Families. Mrs Bun the Baker’s Wife and Miss Bones the Butcher’s Daughter. Or that Ladybird book world of Janet and John where father sits by the fire smoking a pipe. The loss strangles her, every bone feels broken. How she hates him. But as she leans forward and sobs, she allows him to lay his hand above hers on the sticky, dark wood table. Lara longs for one person in the family to be whole, able-bodied. The jukebox plays.

  Dad, why do you always come back?

  Oh, socks, shirts, car insurance, he says, stares away from her, into the pool-table gloom, but then looks back. Because I made her a promise, he says. A long, long time ago. And I’ve broken a lot of promises in my life but I won’t break that one.

  She can’t allow his sincerity. The old habit can’t be broken.

  So was that before or after you pushed her off the roof?

  Rufus eyes her narrowly. She expects him to shout but his voice is smoke and gravel. Oh yes, of course. Monstrous Rufus pushes poor weak defenceless Mollie off the roof. What a bastard, what a scandal. Come on, Lara. You spent eighteen years living with us – or at least eleven. I think you know.

  Lara wonders what she’s ever known. The fault line. That’s what she’s always tried to identify but every time she comes close, it shifts. The push and pull of need and sufficiency, of tenderness and brutality, their strange dance of hate and desire. Movements so swift that only Mollie and Rufus, with their surprising neat feet, their carefully aligned movements of hips and arms, can ever hope to follow. And there she is, her feet always dragging behind, endlessly out of step.

  Maybe it was the war? Lara says.

  Rufus shakes his head, sighs. You know your mother was actually too young to remember any of that. And as for the pimp who seduced her when she was only fourteen. I don’t know. But sometimes things do happen in life, things so bad that all you can do is just get up, walk on, take care not to look back. The present isn’t determined by the past. Not unless you let it be.

  But Dad.

  Listen, love, you will never understand. You can’t. There may actually be no Mollie to understand. Now come on. For Christ’s sake. Get on with the present day. Allow that boy to be something other than an argument between you and your mother.

  Behind them the music swirls again and balls on the pool table click. And she thinks then of Jay. Where is he now? He made the call from the Palestine Hotel so he might still be there. Maybe he’s in the lobby and perhaps it’s not so very different from this Brighton pub. The same sky overhead, the same foggy air – hotter there perhaps and laced with sand, but still the same. Blonde marble there instead of dark wood. And more light but still the feeling that everyone is passing through, purposeful but lost, caught as though by a camera in this particular moment, spectacular and insignificant.

  Rufus has finished his beer and stands up, ready to leave. Again she sees how the years have accumulated in him, leaving him stiff, heavy, marooned. He puts on his coat, squares his shoulders. Lara thinks of what Mollie says about him. She does have a point, finally. What must it be like to spend your whole life working towards something and never having the success you feel you deserve? Underneath all the layers of pretence, there’s a kind of purity to him, a courage. Oliver once told her that people can die for lack of praise. We all of us live in the belief that hard work and determination will be rewarded – but sometimes it just isn’t like that. Lara could feel some pity for her father but she knows that, beyond all else, he would hate that.

  44

  NOW

  Jay – Baghdad, May 2003

  Hi Mum, Granmollie, Grandad, all you guys back home,

  It was great to speak to Mum a few days ago. I guess you’ll have heard what happened. This Spanish journalist called Jordi just got killed – shot in the back of the head at point blank range and he wasn’t down some dark alleyway in a dodgy area. He was in the Green Zone on his way to a meeting in the middle of the day and someone just shot him in the back of the head. I didn’t know him properly but he was someone I’d said hello to plenty of times and there are loads of people here who did know him well. Everyone is just in shock – people not even crying, just sitting around with these flat expressions on their face, not saying anything at all. Hans was in the next street when it happened. And my friend Patricia is broken up in one hundred pieces because although he’s not the same news channel she knew him pretty well. And everyone knows hundreds, maybe thousands of Iraqis got killed, certainly many more than the media are saying, and probably a load more are going to be killed before too long and no one thinks that matters less but it’s just really scary because it means that foreigners are actively being targeted. Also it just shows that this place is breaking down, which is anyway clear as you’ll have seen on the news.

  It was always so obvious that this was going to happen, which is why the peace movement asked all those questions about reconstruction plans but no one listened and now things are really out of control and now it’s a sad time here. Except that I don’t feel it so actually. A few weeks ago I was really low and fed up and hopeless but that passed and I feel really fine. I’m glad to be alive, and here in this city that I love, and I feel you all very close to me, right here. In the evenings I just sit around in this house where I’m staying. It’s not great there because the electricity is off and the daughter of the family had a miscarriage, probably caused by the stress of the bombings. But still people cook food and play music and they light candles and talk. I go up on the roof and from there you can see quite a lot of the city. It’s really beautiful sometimes when the sun is going down and from below I can hear people chatting and laughing. It’s really strange the way people’s lives just go on. Sometimes one of the women down below sings to her kids. It’s like a lullaby to get them off to sleep. She has this really beautiful, quiet, echo-like voice and it’s just such an amazing sound travelling over the roofs. I can’t really understand much of what is going on although I get more and more.

  There’s an old guy here who is the great uncle of the family and he has a kidney problem which isn’t going to get proper treatment and so being entirely realistic I should think he doesn’t have too long to live. He speaks really good English so we talk a bit together and he’s really happy. Just really, really happy. It’s hard to know why except we both agree that maybe it’s easier to be happy when you don’t have anything much to be happy about. Anyway I have to go now because Greg needs the computer. Thanks so much for all that you guys are doing in England. I love you.

  Jay

  45

  BEFORE

  Mollie – London, March 1963

  The show is over. Mollie sits in front of the lighted mirror in her dressing room and waits. She’s taken off her make-up, changed her clothes, applied cream to her face, neck, hands. She pinned her hair up in a high ponytail but still she waits. The room is windowless, the ceiling low. Costumes – silk and lace, itchy and stiff – hang from a rail. They carry the imprint of other bodies, the material worn thin at shoulders and cuffs, stitching stretched across the bust.

  Behind her, vases of white lilies, red roses, carnations, violets are crammed onto a narrow table. Some of the flowers are wilting now and their petals, brown at the edges, have floated down onto the table. The dank smell of their water lies heavy in the overheated room. Mollie stares at her hand – small and vividly white under the harsh lights. If she looks hard enough, she’ll see straight through her fingers to the white Formica of the table below.

  Usually a driver takes her home but tonight she’s cancelled him. Although perhaps
in some shadow life a woman who looks just like her has walked out through the stage door, wearing a mink stole and an acetate satin shift dress, signing autographs, sliding into the car, giving a queenly wave as it pulls away. Mollie wishes she could do that now, as she has done so many nights before, but her white hand is the same colour as the white table below and it’s hard to see the difference between hand and table.

  A rattling noise sounds in the corridor outside. Footsteps shuffle. The other dressing rooms are being locked up now. The show is over, has been over for more than an hour. People must have come in earlier to enquire as to her needs, to offer assistance. What did she say – if anything? Standing up, she reaches for her mink stole, then leans down to pull her two-tone shoes with tapered toes from under the dressing table. Her hands seem able to position her shoes, fasten the clip on her stole, but still they’re transparent. She reaches to pick up her black evening bag, even though it’s full of acid that might spill onto her hands or clothes, burn through her flesh. Her fingers close on the slim silk, feel through to the document within, the birth certificate that can’t be hers because the date is wrong.

  Her mind flicks back to Somerset House – the high windows looking out onto the street, the pale brown light, the radiators sighing, secretaries in clicking shoes passing along the endless corridors. Cavernous ceilings, a smell of cooking cabbage, desks behind glass, queues. She had thought it would be so simple. Just a copy of her birth certificate so then she can apply for a passport. She needs one because she’s got auditions with Seven Arts and MGM. They’re making a film of Tennessee Williams’s play The Night of the Iguana. Only one of the minor roles – but still.

  And so she sets out mid-morning, with a mild headache from the night before, walking along the Strand through aching sun, towards Waterloo Bridge, Somerset House. And amidst the muffled echoes of the reception area, she fills out a form. Name? She writes Mollie Bunton, of course, the name of the father she never knew, who was killed near Dunkirk. It feels strange to write it down, she never has before.

  Mollie Fawcett, Bertie’s stepdaughter, that’s who she really is. Bertie always said, Of course you’re really my daughter, the best daughter a man could have. Briefly tears crowd to her eyes as she thinks of him. Date of birth? 28 February 1940. Coventry. All done. She hands the form in, collects a number, sits down on a bench seat under one of the long windows. Other people eat sandwiches, pour tea from flasks, comfort whining children. The minutes stretch into hours, lunchtime arrives. Many people who arrived after her have gone. Finally she is called to the counter. The man behind the glass can’t be more than thirty-five but is entirely bald.

  I’m sorry. There must be some mistake. No one of that name, on that date.

  But there must be.

  No. We have checked several times.

  28 February 1940.

  Are you sure? Because that really can’t be the case.

  A light, round like the moon, shines down onto the man’s smooth head.

  The register must be wrong.

  That’s impossible, the man says. It is never wrong.

  She feels a slight jolt, an unsettling of the pale brown light.

  Mollie Bunton. She says the name loudly. 28 February.

  The man’s hands, gripping a piece of paper, are small and sinister. So very hairless, but with red spots, as though recently shaved. His glasses are square and thick, his eyes behind them red and watering. On his chin, a shaving cut has a piece of tissue paper stuck to it. Inside the stiff cuffs of his shirt, his wrists are horribly thin, the blue veins standing up against shivering white skin.

  Are you sure? Because that really can’t be the case.

  Please will you check. 1940. It must have been 1940.

  Again she waits, wishes she had brought sandwiches with her. The sunlight at the long windows has gone. Occasionally she hears the distinctive growl of a taxi’s engine or the upper level of a red bus appears at the high windows next to her. Men read newspapers, a woman knits, her needles gently clicking. Occasionally Mollie looks up at the row of moon lights which hang behind the glass partitions, their weak light softening the brown shadows. She is called up to the same counter again.

  Yes, we did find that name. 4 November 1940. Would you like a copy?

  Mollie swallows, looks back briefly at the bench where she was sitting, those high windows. She shuts her eyes, takes a grip on her mind. That speck of tissue paper has gone from the man’s chin revealing a smear of blood. What difference does that date make? She just needs a piece of paper that will enable her to get a passport. And that’s what she’s being offered. Clearly there has been some mistake but what is the point in asking questions? In arguing?

  Yes, she says. Yes.

  The man gives instructions about how to get a copy of the certificate that clearly isn’t hers. Those hairless white hands gesture, his cuffs move up revealing more of those stick-thin wrists.

  Shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes.

  She nods and smiles but when she sits down again she’s shaking. She’s always known, of course. Something has always been out of place, dislocated, fractured. Now she wants to know. What happened in Coventry? Is she not her mother’s child? Images appear of her mother lifting a baby from a burning house – some other person’s baby? An illegal adoption, an arrangement made between friends that was never formalised? The only person who would know is her mother and she’s never spoken to Mollie since that night when she left, after the police station, after Ludo.

  Her name is called. The copy is available now. A secretary at a different counter passes it to her and she puts the brown envelope in her bag. Good. All done. Time to get back now. She was up late last night, wants a rest before the theatre at six. But she doesn’t leave, walks up and down the reception area, sits down, stands up again. She has to know. She takes another ticket, waits. The queues are less now. In half an hour – just sit with your hands in your lap, do not think about anything – she’s back in front of the man with the bald head.

  I need you to check. I need you to find if there was any other child called Mollie born on 28 February 1940 in Coventry?

  Sorry but we can only deal with a known surname. Otherwise you have to write.

  The man is wringing those fragile hands.

  No. I need to know now. Please.

  His fearful red eyes bulge behind the square spectacles.

  I can’t. There’s still a queue. You can see.

  Please.

  Look, miss. I might be able to but you’d have to wait. Until we’re closing up, until I’ve dealt with all the other numbers.

  His thin lips are pursed, his eyes watering.

  Thank you. I’ll wait.

  And so she waits. Walks up and down the corridors, tries not to clench her jaw. Occasionally Mollie looks over towards the bald man but his head is always bent down over papers. He knows she there but refuses to meet her eye. The clock ticks on until five o’clock. Shutters are being pulled down on the glass screens at some of the counters. Everyone is leaving. A cleaner appears with a bucket and mop, another starts to empty the bins. Doors slam, keys are turned in locks. Voices are heard calling. Got through another one. See you tomorrow. Have a good evening. The bald man looks up, raises a finger, nods. She steps out across the polished floorboards.

  I did find another. Name of Mollie Mayeford.

  Mollie’s hand grips the edge of the counter.

  But that was only a name I made up.

  Even as she says the words, she knows this isn’t true. Someone else said that name? Who? Arthur. That day when he came to the house. He said he was a cousin of her mother’s. And later there was that moment, the night she left, the name Mollie Mayeford written on the notebook. The police station, the frosted glass partitions, the light suddenly dim. Her mother’s bird-claw hands wrestling with the handkerchief, her face grey and rigid, her eyes fixed on that notebook, that name.

  A period of time goes missing. Mollie finds herself sat on t
he bench under the high windows again.

  Would you like a glass of water, miss?

  The bald man clasps his hands together as though scared that he might drop them. Mollie stares at him, unable to speak. But the air is clearing. For a moment, everything had seemed tangled, cracked, ruined. But now the world is pure and healed. She always knew that she was Mollie Mayeford. When Arthur said the name she knew and that’s why she chose that as her stage name. And, of course, there is no blood relationship between her and her mother. That’s why they were never close, could never communicate. That’s why her mother never liked her.

  She looks up at the bald man, flashes him her most magnetic smile.

  It’s quite all right. It was a shock but now I understand. There always was confusion. You know, Coventry, the war. And then my mother remarried. I did always know that really my name is Mayeford.

  Oh no, my dear. No.

  Those plucked hands twist together.

  Yes.

  No.

  Why not? Why not?

  Because. Well, I’m sorry. But Mollie Mayeford is dead. Died in Coventry in April 1941, aged fourteen months.

  Mollie stares up at him, focuses on the rims of his thick glasses, then the red lids of his eyes. Surely they contain the answer to her questions? Briefly his small hand flutters towards her, then crumples, like something dying. She has to stop herself reaching out for those childish fingers, grasping the thinness of that wrist. His lips crease open into a confused smile, then relax into blank bemusement. Mollie turns and walks out into a glimmering, grey evening. Waterloo Bridge, a boy on a delivery bike dashing past. She recoils from normality as though from a slap. She is dead, has always been dead.

  She steps out of her dressing room, into the red-brick corridor. Flats and stage lights are stacked along it, and cardboard boxes containing old programmes. Behind her she hears again the rattle of keys. It’s important that she doesn’t meet the key person for he might offer kindness and she’ll not survive that. So she slides away hurriedly, her shoes clattering down dimly lit steps.