by Beth Morrey
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
She stared at me incredulously. ‘The vote, of course!’
‘What do you mean? What happened?’
She leaned across to the next table, grabbed a newspaper and shook the front page in my face. I took it from her and read the headline. The words blurred in front of me, then came into sharp focus. I blinked.
‘I can’t believe it.’ I kept my head down, still reading so she couldn’t see my expression.
‘You’ll see how it all unravels, now. All this bollocks about global trade and sovereignty. What a crock of shit.’
Hanna brought over my coffee and I thanked her, pushing aside the paper. People tended to over-dramatize, so all this talk of recession and deporting foreigners would no doubt come to nothing. I busied myself adding milk to my coffee and nibbling the little almond biscuit they served with it, realizing it never occurred to Angela to think I had voted anything but the same way as her, the same way as everyone we knew. I resolved that she must never know what had happened in that voting booth, how far I’d strayed. Like other unmentionable things, it must be rolled up, stuffed away and forgotten.
We made our way to the playground, Angela still grumbling as I helped Otis collect twigs to make a bird’s nest. I watched Bobby trotting back and forth, tail waving as she sniffed and frolicked here and there. I’d grown used to her company on these walks, used to the other company we found as a result. In the few short months she’d been with me, I’d talked to more people here than in the fifty years before. The realization shamed me, just as the headlines had earlier.
I watched Otis on the swings, kicking his legs to propel himself higher and higher, and wondered what opportunities would be lost as a consequence of that vote, what chances would be denied him, what he would miss out on. Maybe it would be fine, maybe it would be a disaster, maybe something in between. Whatever the outcome I’d have to live with it, and my part in it. Just another cross for me to bear.
Chapter 24
June gave way to July and the sun scorched the grass in the park until it withered and yellowed. Bobby wilted, spending her days flopped in the hallway where the tiled floor was cooler. Her fur was so thick, I considered taking her to the groomers to get it clipped, but when I suggested the idea to Angela she was horrified.
‘She’s like Samson, it’ll take away her strength!’ she said, clapping her hands over Bobby’s pricked-up ears. But there was no doubt she felt the heat, and I took to walking her earlier in the morning to escape the worst of the sun’s rays. I rather liked ambling around the park on our own before anyone else arrived and took possession. The beginning of a summer’s day bristled with possibility, and unlike Bobby, I relished the heat seeping through my veins, firing up my cylinders – I didn’t feel quite so stiff and old in summer.
Mel came to visit one Saturday, her first time back to the house since our fight, and we were both surprised to find that we enjoyed each other’s company, even in the very same room where we’d rowed so viciously the year before. After lunch, we went to take flowers to Leo together, which although a sober event, at least felt companionable. On the way back, she broke the sombre silence brought on by the visit.
‘I miss him.’
I stared at the huge gnarled trees that lined the broad avenue we were walking along. ‘I miss him too.’
‘Sometimes I talk to him as if he’s still there. As if he’s going to say ‘buck up, hedgehog! Onwards!’
I tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a sob. ‘Did you …’ I was going to ask if she got my letter, but all of a sudden it felt like too much. ‘Did you go to look at that place on Eltisley Avenue?’
Mel and Octavia were thinking of buying a bigger flat as they had too many books, but they couldn’t decide between one near Midsummer Common and another closer to Newnham. She outlined the benefits of both, then mentioned she was worried about her research funding being cut as a result of ‘Brexit’. Like Angela, she never questioned my own role in it all. I didn’t tell her, not being so stupid as to knock down the wobbly bridges we were building, but did suggest that Leo might have voted differently if he’d been able to.
Mel stared at me in astonishment. ‘Of course he wouldn’t have voted to leave! The very idea!’
‘But …’ I wanted to make my case without giving myself away. ‘He always used to moan about Brussels bureaucrats …’
Mel snorted. ‘Yes, and he also used to moan about Disraeli’s crappy novels but that didn’t stop him thinking he was a genius.’
It compounded my shame to think I’d voted to give Leo a voice and ascribed him the wrong one. Every day brought a new story to add to my overloaded conscience. Angela told me that Hanna the waitress had returned home one day after work to find that someone had daubed ‘Poles go home’ across her door. The economy was in free-fall, everyone said, the pound losing so much value that it would soon be worth about as much as the sticks Bobby brought me on our walks. What would happen to my pension? Money was tight enough as it was, every day brought more bills for me to ignore, and the other day I’d had a phone call from Horace Simmonds, our bank manager. He was an old friend of Leo’s, so I placated him with some half-hearted assurances. I knew I shouldn’t ignore it but it felt like too big an issue to deal with – easier to roll it up and stash it away. I couldn’t tell Mel any of it – she’d start up again about me downsizing – so instead suggested we take the dog for a stroll.
When we arrived back at the house we found Angela waiting for us at the gate with Otis and a black bin bag. Remembering the bag that Sylvie brought me, I thought of the dog bed in my living room, coated in a layer of hairs, reeking of Bobby’s sour old sock stench, a smell I was gradually learning to live with. Once again she was drooping in the heat. As we drew nearer, Angela put her hand in the bag and pulled out something blue and plastic, which she shook in our faces triumphantly.
‘Got a hose?’ she asked, grinning. It was a paddling pool.
We took it to the lawn in the back garden, and Angela began blowing it up while Mel got the hose out of the shed. It was only a small pool, with three plastic rings, but seeing it there reminded me of summers when the children were small and I used to set up a sprinkler for them, watching them shriek with delight as they ran backwards and forwards. I was touched by the recollection, an oasis in the desert, as I had a depressing tendency to think of those years as endlessly miserable and exhausting. Like dwelling on a single criticism in a sea of gushing compliments, I recalled my failures rather than my triumphs: for every sprinkler snapshot there seemed to be a whole album of snappy early starts rearing up to rebuke me. We had some lovely times, Mel, Alistair and I. I just had to work a bit harder to remember them.
Once the pool was inflated, Mel filled it up while Angela helped Otis put on his swimming trunks as he hopped from one foot to the other in excitement. Bobby circled the pool, tail wagging warily, and then sat watching and panting as Otis put his toe in the water. It took him about ten minutes of dipping and screeching to finally immerse himself, but then he was off, splashing and shouting, skinny little body glistening in the sunshine. We drank the Pimm’s and lemonade Mel had brought with her, and sat on Sylvie’s green, flowery cushions, watching him enjoy himself. After about an hour he started to get cold, so I fetched a towel and he sat on his mother’s lap, snug as a bug in a rug, while we idly chatted and Bobby lay with tongue lolling.
Eventually we went indoors to find some shade, Mel exclaiming over my new living room and admiring the portrait of her grandfather, William Jameson, and Angela persuading her to stay for a takeaway. They went off to find the menu, and after putting the kettle on, I went back outside intending to use the paddling pool water to give my plants a much-needed drink. But as I stepped out the back door I was brought up short by the sight that greeted me.
Every now and again, some inner demon in Bobby’s brain would unleash a brief but intense frenzy. Sylvie called it the ‘funny five minutes’. We’
d observed it on a few occasions in the park, when she’d sniffed something interesting, met a dog she particularly liked, or simply when the mood took her. It didn’t happen often, but when it did it was monumental. She would race around in a furry whirlwind, barking on every about-turn, carving up the ground with her claws, a tangle of limbs and teeth, until she’d exhausted herself, and then she’d flop down, eyes rolling, looking to be congratulated on her performance.
Now the paddling pool had instigated a fully-fledged session. In and out of the pool she jumped, splashing with abandon, leaping out to shake herself and race around the garden. Then back in for another demented dip, out for a shake, race round the lawn, and repeat. As it went on, the spectacle became more and more amusing, and I started to giggle. Angela, Otis and Mel joined me at the back door and soon we were all laughing helplessly, wiping tears and splashes from our faces as Bobby’s antics drenched us as well as her. Finally she skidded to a halt in front of us, panting vigorously, the wet fur plastered to her body making her look half her usual size.
‘She’s mental,’ said Otis admiringly, as Bobby stood for one last shake and settled down to dry in the early evening sun.
Bobby’s deranged romp had depleted the pool but there was still enough for me to give my roses a good soak while we waited for the takeaway to be delivered. Wandering amidst my flowers, I watched Bobby’s crinkling fur and spread-eagled paws twitching, and felt envious of her ability to let herself go like that. She was such an avid, simple creature; she had no secrets, nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to apologise for – she just let it all hang out.
The pool was still half-full, lapping gently at the sides after my onslaughts with the watering can, so I slipped off my sandals and stepped into it. Cool and silken between my toes, I gazed down at the abiding blue swilling around my weathered feet. I wanted to wash away my sins, shed them like an old skin and step out refreshed and unblemished, a clean slate. As if shuffling round a paddling pool, recently vacated by a mad mongrel, could achieve that. I could already see the dog hairs gathering round my ankles.
One of my earliest memories was my mother taking me to the Parliament Hill Lido when I was tiny. I remember watching her swimming in the pool, dark hair swarming behind her. She whipped round and swam back towards me, then held her arms out of the water. ‘Milly! Come!’ I was standing on the side in a little knitted costume that itched at the shoulders and the water would stop the itch, but I couldn’t jump because there was a spider in the way. At least, it wasn’t a spider, just a crack on the poolside tile, but it might have been a spider. It might. I couldn’t get past it, just in case it moved and then it was a spider. So I just stood there, desperate to take the plunge but stuck at the side. Eventually my mother couldn’t resist floating away.
Bobby huffed herself onto her haunches and wandered over to look at a fly scrabbling on the surface. I noticed earlier that she seemed very fond of Melanie, who took every opportunity to fuss her and tell her she was beautiful. Surprised to find myself feeling a little jealous, I pulled one of her ears and sighed. ‘She reminds me of things I’ve done wrong.’ I thought of our argument, the guilt that made my rage all the more encompassing. Rage that had now dissipated, but still hung in the air like static. Despite the fact that Mel and I had brokered a kind of unspoken peace, I preferred not to think of that day; if I could ignore it for long enough maybe the lack of thought would make it fade like an old photo.
‘Mum, what on earth are you doing?’ It was Mel at the back door with a loaded paper bag in one hand and a poppadum in the other. I hastily got out of the pool and shuffled back into my sandals.
‘Just trying it out,’ I said, taking the poppadum off her and sliding past. Shaking her head, she followed me inside, a still-damp Bobby squeezing through between us. I’d have to save my funny five minutes for another day.
Chapter 25
Lancaster Villas
Kensington W8
21st September 1942
My dearest Will,
I had a letter from Sibyl the other day. I was surprised because you know she is not one for lengthy epistles or indeed any form of communication for that matter. Too busy with her chickens. Anyway, she wrote to say that Henry & Milly are doing very well, they are at school up there and enjoying the countryside by all accounts. Best of all Sibby included a note from Milly herself! I can’t bring myself to send it to you in case it gets lost so the following is inscribed verbatim:
Dare Mama
I lov you. Ar room is hiy. Ther ar sheep.
Milly
Isn’t that fine! I’m so glad Sibby didn’t try to correct any of it, I wouldn’t have enjoyed it nearly as much. There was also a picture, which I think may have been one of the sheep. I won’t try to recreate it here.
Things are pretty much the same in London. Father has stopped going down to the cellar during the raids. Says he’ll either die or he won’t and going downstairs won’t make a difference. Mother has started sewing again, always a bad sign.
With the children (and you) away I am glad to have my work. The ambulances make pretty heavy driving, but I am getting used to them. My usual hours are six at night’til eight in the morning. We have to go out as soon as the bombs start dropping, otherwise there is no one left to save. At first it was daunting but nowadays we’re usually too busy to notice. The other night a bomb hit a theatre in Tottenham Court Road. The show was packed with soldiers home on leave – many of the casualties were in uniform. They’d been laid out in the road with a rug over them, and we had to check if they were all dead so we knew whether to take them to hospital or the mortuary.
I found one chap who was alive amongst them and held his hand for a while as I waited for him to pass. He said, ‘Tell Elsie I love her,’ and I said I would. We loaded him and the others up and drove them to the mortuary, but they wouldn’t take them without a doctor’s certificate. So we had bodies in the car but nowhere to put them. In the end we had to leave them in a back street. None of us liked it but what could we do? There were others who still had a chance and we had to help them.
On my days off I’ve been meeting with a few other women in Fitzrovia who are thinking of setting up an Equal Pay committee to push for better rights. The discussions are pretty lively and the other night we were so taken up with arguing that by the time we’d finished we emerged onto the street to find the blackout in full force and I had to use the white kerbs to grope my way to the bus stop. The driver was no good either, too heavy on the brakes. It was past ten by the time I got home. Mother was quite hysterical.
I must finish this as my shift starts soon, but I’ll write again as soon as I am able. I’m hoping to get some leave to go up to Yorkshire in the next month or so. Maybe I’ll get your little Missy to write you a letter of your own. Wouldn’t that be delightful?
I remain
Your darling
Lena
I found the letter from Sibyl in there too, along with my own note, grubby and creased from re-reading, with the picture of the sheep at the bottom. I thought it looked more like the sun behind a cloud, but I suppose it depended which way you looked at it. All those years I thought that the worst thing was Jonas the Labrador being taken away.
The thing I really can’t bear is that she did come up to see us, and she asked me to write to my father, but I never did, because we were too busy playing with Aunt Sibby’s animals. I thought, as Bobby nuzzled me and licked the tears off my cheeks, that if only I could go back, I’d go up to that attic bedroom and write him the longest, most misspelt letter I could manage.
I remain
His darling
Missy.
Chapter 26
On Melanie’s thirtieth birthday, Leo had insisted on throwing a party. She didn’t want it, and neither did I; couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of invites and venues, and the awkwardness of hosting an event in Cambridge. Ali was off travelling so couldn’t help, and after making the grand proclamation Leo went off to a conference
and it fell to me to organize it all, ringing round everyone and booking a room at King’s, while Mel grumbled and said she’d rather just have dinner at the Peking.
On the morning of the party, I woke with a hangover, having indulged in several strong gin and tonics while I was dealing with last-minute RSVPs – ‘No, of course, it’s not a problem at all’ – and trying to get through to Ali’s hotel to see if he would make it back from Egypt in time. The headache was incessant, prodding at my temples, and the late summer heat didn’t help, blasting through the house as I scurried about wrapping Mel’s present (a Wollstonecraft first edition her loving father picked up from Bonhams at vast expense) and calling the caterers. Then Leo arrived home and started putting his oar in, asking about wine choices and saying we should have gone for an outside do. By the time we got in the car we were both sweaty and irritable, barely exchanging a word during the drive up.
In King’s Hall, the waiters were setting up tables in the wrong place, so Leo went off to remonstrate with them while I escaped to the cool of the chapel and sat leaning my head against one of the pews, wishing it was all over.
‘Hi, Mum,’ Mel took the seat next to me and picked up one of the hymn books, thumbing through it abstractedly. ‘Did you manage to speak to Ali?’
‘He missed his flight,’ I sighed, pressing two knuckles to the sides of my head. ‘He sends his love.’
Mel snorted. ‘Typical. I might have known.’ She slapped down the book on the shelf in front of us and crossed her arms. She and Ali had a cordial enough relationship but they were very different beings.
I closed my eyes. ‘It’s not his fault, he got caught up in his dig. You know how it is.’
‘I do indeed. How many people are coming?’
