The Painted Lady: A moving story about family loyalty, friendship and first love

by Ursula Bloom

  ‘That isn’t true.’

  ‘Well, if you think I believe you, you make a mistake. It’s true all right. You may blind other people, your old fool of a Nonna, and all that crowd, but you don’t blind me. I’ll go, and once I go I’ll never come to your beastly flat again. I can’t think why I did in the first place.’

  ‘Because you had nowhere else, and that’s what is worrying me now. Where will you go?’

  ‘I’d worry about yourself more than about me, I’ll be right as rain. Plenty of young men pleased enough to see after little Sheila. Plenty of them.’ She made an exaggerated exit, going off to the bedroom jauntily, tripping over the threshold and almost falling, then slamming the door behind her.

  But with the morning she sobered up, and felt miserable. In her heart she knew that she had behaved badly, but she wouldn’t go on staying here, she knew; she’d have to get out. She packed her small belongings before breakfast, and when she emerged into the sitting-room she found that Madeline had been up all night with Val, who was still asleep in the same sprawling attitude, his arms hanging limply. Madeline looked utterly exhausted, but she had got the meal, and she only hoped that Sheila was not going to begin an argument.

  Sheila said nothing; she ate in silence, not fancying much, and wishing that she could get a liqueur brandy to start her on the day. Nothing like a good old brandy to make a girl feel glowy! But there wasn’t any in the flat because she had drunk it all the last time. She went back to her room for her bag, telling herself that really she’d be glad to shake the dust off her feet, for the whole thing had been a mistake; her father had been quite right when he had said that you couldn’t reform a village kid, they were all the same; smugness was Madeline’s trouble, she stuck by her silly Catholic principles. Sheila was deciding that she’d try to get a shakedown with Hetty Hillier, who lived in Charlotte Street; not very high-class was Hetty, but amiable, and Sheila had a bit saved against the rainy day which had now obviously arrived.

  She brought the bag out into the sitting-room. ‘I’m going,’ she said, and then, as Madeline made no response, ‘And thank you for nothing.’ Finally, from the very threshold, ‘You’ll make a mistake if you take him on. He isn’t worth it.’

  Then the door slammed.

  Val was unconscious until late in the afternoon, coming round to a dreadful hang-over, through which Madeline helped him. He would have to stay here with her for to-night, he couldn’t possibly get home in his present condition, shaking, drawn, and white. Besides, now that she came to think of it, she didn’t know where his home was; somewhere north of the park, she believed, but where? She made him strong coffee (Uncle Luigi had always been dosed with coffee and aspirin, and had bobbed up again on it), but what Madeline was not to know was that, whereas Luigi was a spasmodic drinker of unconsidered trifles, Val Peters was a routine drinker of spirits, and that he was fast riding for a serious fall. He was better late that night, went and had a bath, which freshened him up, and came back wearing a blanket round him and able to smile again.

  ‘You’ve been jolly good to me, Madeline.’

  ‘Anybody would have done it and you’ve done me a good turn too, because this got rid of Sheila.’

  ‘I couldn’t be more pleased! You don’t mean that she’s gone?’

  ‘Absolutely! The curious part is that, now she actually has gone, I’m not sorry about it any more. I thought I’d feel dreadfully guilty, and I don’t.’

  ‘Excellent! I wish I didn’t feel so damned ill, though. I suppose you haven’t a stiff one you could give me?’

  ‘I don’t know that I ought to.’

  ‘Of course you ought. Find me one, there’s a good girl.’

  She found it for him, and gave it to him; recovering, he was almost his old bright self, sleeping that night on the sofa whilst Madeline slept exhaustedly in the next room, wondering how she would ever get through the day’s work at Elfrida’s in the morning, and woke feeling even more limp.

  It was Val who made a proposal to her next day. She’d been a brick, why not come along to his home and stay there permanently? He needed her to see after him, he wanted someone to help him as she had helped him. When she shook her head, he would have no nay; he did not mean an arrangement like she imagined with her funny little mind, she meant more to him than that, he explained. She must realise how much he needed her.

  She would have refused again, but circumstances conspired against her. It was a bad day at the shop. Two customers came to make a fuss over a frock that they had been sold. Madeline, in no mood for discussion, was short with them, and they went over her head to the powers-that-be. Madeline did not suppose that the syndicate intended rapping her knuckles quite so hardly, but found too late, extremely unfortunately, that one of the customers was a cousin of the Director. Madeline was told that any further trouble would result in her dismissal, and she felt disconsolate about it. They expected too much work and too smooth a tongue; it was impossible to keep sweet to some of these pestering women, and she said so. But she saw the danger light ahead, a red glow on her horizon, and, although there were other jobs, she knew now that all these intimate, friendly little shops were tarred with the same brush, and that the whole business of the rag trade irked her.

  Not only that, but suddenly she was called to go to Nonna. All through her life in London Madeline had looked upon Nonna as being an institution. She had thought that it was highly possible that Mamma might die, or run away, or do something peculiar, but Nonna would stay for ever, a hale-and-hearty active little woman serving out her groceries from the little shop, ever cheerful, with her deplorable English and her fat, abrupt little fingers.

  A child was dispatched to Elfrida’s for Madeline, with a message from Uncle Luigi, who had got into a panic. Nonna had slipped on the cellarhead whilst trying to do something clever, and had fallen down to the bottom of the basement cellar where goods were stored; she was hurt. When Madeline heard the news she realised that she loved Nonna a great deal more than she had believed, and that now she did not care if Elfrida’s dismissed her, or what happened to her own future; she had got to get to Nonna and see what was the matter. She ran all the way to the shop.

  There were no customers, and that in itself was unusual. The first person that she met was Mario Lugo, standing in the sitting-room in his restaurant maître d’hôtel suit, with his green velour hat stuck firmly on his head. ‘Oh, my God,’ said Mario.

  ‘What has happened?’

  ‘She is very ill, Maddy, she is very bad. They want to take her to the hospital, but she won’t go. She hates hospitals because of what they did to the bambino. She says she must stay here.’

  Madeline felt her breast bridle at the thought of anyone trying to take Nonna to the hospital against her will; of course she must stay here, and she personally would fight Nonna’s cause to the bitter end. She went upstairs. On the tiny landing Uncle Luigi was standing crying bitterly; he looked incongruous in his old cardigan, the collarless shirt, and his hair, as always, needed cutting. He was talking to a fat little man who was obviously the doctor.

  ‘She cannot live,’ said the doctor, ‘and we ought to get her into hospital.’ Madeline ushered herself in.

  ‘I’m her grandchild. How long can she live?’ she asked.

  ‘A few hours, a day perhaps. No more. She cannot stay here, for there is no one to nurse her.’

  ‘I will stay and nurse her,’ said the girl.

  The doctor looked at her with interest. ‘But she is a log, she is quite helpless, and in pain. The pain may be considerable.’

  ‘Surely she can be given something to ease it?’

  ‘I have already given her all that I dare, and there are some little tablets which I can leave for her, but she must only have one at a time. They are very strong.’ He looked doubtfully at the weeping Uncle Luigi; after all, the girl was intelligent and might manage, this sobbing fool was impossible. ‘You really could stay with her?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, and I will. Sh
e has always hated hospitals, and I wouldn’t let her go into one for the world. If she is to die, let her die here in peace, please.’

  He said, ‘Very well; but it won’t be easy, you know.’

  ‘I know that.’

  When he had gone she went into the bedroom which smelt of frowst, and she saw Nonna lying in the middle of the flock bed with her poor old face drawn, and her funny, furtive little eyes closed. Somehow she had never thought that Nonna could look like that.

  Nonna’s inert hands lay on either side of her, for they had ceased their activities for ever, but her lips still moved and she prattled on aimlessly; the girl, taking a seat beside her, heard her pour forth an incredible string of broken English, as she talked of her youth in Tuscany, of her romance, and the way that he had looked at her, the sunshine of the piazza, and the smell of the lilies in the church where she was married. Or she was back again in the country lanes of Kent, walking along the old Pilgrims’ Way with the hokey-pokey cart, and the silly villagers who thought that ice-cream (their own so pewtiful ice-cream) was bad for their stupid children. Then the little birds that she had bought and had found through their fortunes the way to the people’s hearts. The scraping together of money, having her bambino in country ditches as best she could, and finally the Soho shop, the so very beautiful big enormous shop, where they sold delicacies of the first-class order. Gorrenzi’s makka-the-money, lots of the money, said Nonna to herself, makka-the-money, so-very-good, so-very-fine. Only a little work needed, and how she had worked! She prattled of noodles and gnocchi, she talked of the merluzzo with its delicious smell, and the cakes she made for Easter, for the festa. In more sober mood, she was at Confession again, or she had the darling little grandchild with her, her own Madeline whom she loved so much more than all the others.

  Madeline bent over her. ‘I’m here, Nonna.’

  But Nonna could not understand, for her childhood had enclosed her and she was back again gathering flowers in Tuscany; she was happy.

  As night fell the pain came back, and brought her to a fuller realisation of where she was. ‘It hurts so much, Madeline, it hurts so much,’ she gasped. ‘Help me, Madeline.’

  ‘Yes, Nonna.’ She went to the tiny box of tablets that the doctor had left and she took out two. ‘Here, Nonna this will make you better,’ she said tenderly. If she were to die, poor old thing, why not let her pass over easily? thought the girl. She put the tablets on the old woman’s tongue, propping her head so that she could drink the water.

  ‘So bitter, nevaire have I tasted so bitter,’ said Nonna, ‘and in water too. No chianti. Where my chianti?’

  ‘It will make you sleep, and when you wake up you will be much better,’ said Madeline confidently, and held her hand as one holds the hand of a child when it is afraid.

  An hour later she knew that Nonna would never wake again.

  TEN

  Madeline caught a violent cold at Nonna’s funeral. Uncle Luigi had insisted that it should be an impressive ceremony, and was himself exceedingly drunk long before it started. ‘Uncle Tony came, only to find that he would get nothing out of it, and to express his disgusted lamentations all the way.

  It was a soaking winter’s day, with the boughs of the cemetery trees clanging together in a dull wind, and the rain driving right through them as they stood at the graveside.

  When Madeline got back from it Val was waiting for her, and, thinking that she looked ill and tired, he called a taxi and took her over to his little house in St. John’s Wood.

  It was still raining, and the streets shone in moist pools under the lamps, as if they were rivers, but the girl felt too depressed to notice much. The taxi went up the road beyond the station and she could see the formidable shape of the church on the right, as though it cast an enfolding wing about the graveyard beneath it. They stopped at the little house, this had belonged to Val’s aunt and had been left to him when she died. It was small, standing back from the road, with a paved approach and a minute garden where rose trees stood leafless on standards, and the evergreens glistened with moisture like crystal beads. The hall was small but friendly, and the big spreading sitting-room behind it had a hodgepodge of pictures and ornaments, of curved sofa and grand piano, but was attractive in its way. Mrs. Knappe, his housekeeper, took one look at Madeline, then hurried her up to bed, in a chintz-hung bedroom with a thick velvet pile carpet. For three whole days Madeline did not know what had happened, only that one of the bulwarks of her world had collapsed, that she would never see Nonna again, heaping out her noodles and spaghetti, boasting about the beauty of her food, of the delicacies that Gorrenzi’s could offer a customer.

  It hurt to breathe, there was something deep down in her lungs that pricked and tore at her so that she dreaded the intake. A sword or a Norwegian waterfall cascading through her. Which? Then there were merciful lapses of unconsciousness, of risings and fallings as though caught in the swell of some remorseless tide, then coming to, a long while afterwards, and very tired.

  Mrs. Knappe was standing at the end of the bed talking to a nurse. The nurse was directing that chicken broth might be a good idea, and Mrs. Knappe was trundling off uncomplainingly to fetch some. The moment that the door closed on Mrs. Knappe, Nurse, seeing that her patient was conscious, came to her, to reassure her with, ‘Now you are quite all right.’

  Madeline knew that she wasn’t all right, she was perfectly aware that she had been very ill, and that she didn’t feel much better now; in fact the weakness was horrifying. But it was Val who told her the truth later on. A patch on the lung, said Val, nothing to worry about at all; after all, most people had them at some time or another, and it was a damned good job that he had had the foresight to bring her here for it. She saw that he had been drinking a good deal; probably he had been anxious about her, and in a way she ought to be flattered by that, but it worried her that he should have found this solace.

  She made a tardy convalescence, lying here in the pleasant room, listening to Val reading his poems, opening occasional letters from Frank (he had gone into a sanatorium in America for treatment, for the lung had threatened to be a nuisance), but this was a very charming sanatorium, one that even the most exacting could not quibble about. He wrote glowingly.

  It was queer that suddenly Madeline did not seem to want him so much ‒ Rozanne, Elfrida, and Nonna and Soho had all faded away, even Frank ‒ and that now she was here, she knew that she would stay here ‒ anyhow, for a time.

  ‘And,’ wrote Frank, ‘you’ll be surprised to find that picture I painted of you will be in the Portrait Society’s Exhibition this year.’

  That in itself was a triumph.

  Val insisted on taking her down to Ventnor for a fortnight as soon as ever she was well enough to move. Nothing like a change of air, said the doctor. They went to the Royal Hotel, when the almond trees were in flower, and the daffies growing wild at St. Lawrence, nodding in that supreme peace which is part of the island. Here was beauty with none of the grandeur of Norway, but the simple unspoilt loveliness of England in spring: Kipling’s

  Violets of the Undercliff

  Kissed by Channel spray.

  Val pointed them out to her. Val was a strange mixture; he could linger ecstatically over those same violets, go into raptures over the St. Lawrence daffies, or the almond trees in the garden, then disappear into the bar and emerge, hours later, in a state of complete inebriacy, so that his speech had thickened, and his intelligent face had grown bloated and distorted.

  ‘Why do you do it, Val?’

  ‘I don’t want to do it. I want to stop it, but how can I? I get such a hell of a hang-over; it goes on and on until I feel like felo de se, and then it is a choice between that or getting drunk again, I couldn’t care less. Besides, anybody but a fool would get drunk again.’

  ‘There must be some way out?’ she said.

  ‘There isn’t. I’ve searched for the way out. Of course I could go into an inebriates’ home, and meet a lot of tatty old gent
lemen, half gibbering, and be tended by a horse-faced male nurse and a few unsympathetic T.T. doctors, but do you suppose I could survive it? Not for a moment! I’ve thought of trying one of those advertised cures: ‘Stop drinking in forty-eight hours. Father has never looked inside a tankard again. Name and address of this document can be sent on application.’ But, seriously, I should have thought the answer to that was D.T.s, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I would. But there must be other ways. Let me try to find you a doctor, someone who can do something. When we get back to town, let me find someone.’

  ‘I refuse to go on to milk. If I have got to die, let me die comfortably pickled.’

  ‘Only, you’re worth something so much better. Your poetry is lovely, you yourself are a charming person, you’re worth saving.’

  ‘You sound like a revivalist meeting. In a moment I shall get up and shout “I’m saved ‒ I’m saved!” I feel it coming. I’m saved with a couple of hallelujahs.’

  ‘Joking apart, I think a cure is not out of the question.’

  ‘One of these days we’ll try,’ and he went back for a quick one before lunch.

  None of this is going to be easy, she thought, and she determined to do her best.

  The spring broke early at Ventnor: for that lovely radiant island is the first to welcome the turn of the year. Spring, with its flowering shrubs, and its carpet of daisies and violets, its budding hawthorns, its first light lacing of green on apparently dead branches. They stayed for six weeks, and during that time she grew strong again, her colour came back, and, barring a little cough which she could not lose, everything appeared lighter. She would hardly know that she had been ill.