by Maggie Ford
And always the funeral would creep into her thoughts – a lot of it dim, blanked out, but she knew there had been a vast gathering there: his family, his mates, men of the river sombrely dressed, bareheaded, hushed; tugmen, lightermen, representatives of the firm he’d worked for, people he’d known in the café he’d frequented, neighbours her mother knew, people his dad knew, even some old schoolmates of Ben’s with whom he’d kept friends. A huge crowd. Ben had been well liked.
She couldn’t recall returning to his parents’ flat after the funeral, nor could she remember leaving or getting back home. She knew Mum and Dad had gone with her but she couldn’t recall them being there. In fact it seemed during the weeks and months that followed as if she had moved in a dream. She retained little recollection of them as though they insisted on being erased from her mind. Somehow life had come back. She existed now. That’s all it was, existing, without thought for the future, without expectations.
Later she’d go on to Ben’s parents, as she was doing today, and have Sunday tea with them. Alighting from the bus in Bethnal Green Road she bought a bag of shrimps outside the Salmon and Ball, a small offering for inviting herself. Ben’s parents would be in. Creatures of habit, they went to a working man’s club every Saturday night and Mr Watson would go there again on Sunday mornings for a pint or two with his mates while his wife got Sunday dinner. In the afternoon they’d sleep a little, then get tea.
Ben’s mother was pleased to see her, but Connie detected just a hint of reservation in her welcome. The shrimps she accepted with much more delight even though she gushed, ‘Oh, Connie, you shouldn’t’ve.’
Tea consisted of the regulation Sunday ham sandwiches and celery, which never varied, today augmented by the gift of shrimps, with a homemade caraway-seed cake to follow, but the conversation was nothing like it had once been when Ben had been alive. In fact it was getting harder, all the old animation gone out of it. For months she had seemed to reach no real common ground with Ben’s parents at all until she often felt it a chore to go, at the same time not sure why she did. The house that had once held Ben, always so lively with him there, had taken on an atmosphere of desolation though both his parents seemed cheerful enough. In a way it had all the feel of entering an empty tomb. She knew that making her way homewards this evening, it would not seem as if she had been doing her duty but penance for the thoughts that had attacked her in church as she tried to block out that small insidious voice inside her head telling her that it was no longer Ben but Ian Lindsay upon whom her mind persisted on dwelling.
Ben’s mother echoed that small voice, as they were near to finishing their tea. Tea was always eaten in the best room when they had visitors, what Mrs Watson called the parlour though parlours had gone out with the war. No one called them parlours any more except for the older generation. It was either sitting room or lounge. This room in this second-floor flat, one of Waterlow Buildings’ best, overlooked the junction of Wilmot and Finnis Streets, gave a good view and let in good light. Mrs Watson’s parlour was her pride and joy, stuffed full of statuettes and vases that had been wedding presents around nineteen hundred and two, with pictures of long-gone wooden-faced relatives in Victorian and Edwardian clothes. Thick lace curtains and heavy drapes hung at the bay window, ornaments clustered on the huge mirror-embedded mantel over the fireplace, and on the whatnot in the corner. Here too reposed the overstuffed easy chairs and dining chairs, the large round table reigning in full splendour at the centre of it all.
Little used, it had always possessed that unlived-in feel even when Ben had been alive. Today as Mr Watson got up from the table, replete, and went into the back room in search of his pipe, Connie felt a shiver run down her spine from the desolate air that seemed to envelop her as Mrs Watson surveyed her from across the table.
‘Look dear, it is nice ter see you, and we know you want to come and see us. But don’t you think it’s time you started thinkin’ about yerself?’
Connie looked back at the woman who had so nearly become her mother-in-law, unable to think what to say to that. But the woman had no intention of her question being answered.
‘You can’t go on the rest of yer life holding on to Ben’s memory, dear. As much as you think you want to. Nothink’s ever going ter bring ’im back. You’re still young, Connie. You oughtn’t to keep lingerin’ in the past. That’s for us ter do, not you. We ain’t got no future ter look forward to at our age like you have. But you’ve got yer whole life ahead of you, and it ain’t right for yer ter go wasting it on memories. Leave that to us.’
Connie remained silent as she felt she was expected to. Mrs Watson gnawed uncertainly at her lip. ‘Look, dear, we don’t mean no disrespect and we don’t want ter throw yer good intentions back in yer face. You’re a good gel, Connie. Yer ‘eart’s in the right place. But you’ve got ter start livin’ a new life and not keep comin’ ’ere to see us, as much as we like seein’ yer. All yer doin’ is raking up the past for yerself, and that ain’t ’ealthy. Do you understand what I’m tryin’ ter say?’
As Mrs Watson’s voice faded away in anticipation now of her reply, Connie gazed around the silent parlour. That’s what it was, silent, dead, full of the dead, of dead memories. Then she nodded. Through sudden tears, she nodded. The next moment she was up from her chair, hurrying around the table to be gathered into the woman’s waiting arms.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m so miserable.’ She could hear her own words smothered by Ben’s mother’s embrace. ‘I miss him so.’
‘Of course yer do, love.’ A hand was gently patting her on the back. ‘We all miss ’im. We’ll never stop missing ’im. ’E was our eldest son.’
With a firm gesture born of grief too hard to bear, Mrs Watson put Connie from her, smiling damply into Connie’s own damp features. ‘Now, dry yer eyes. Silly old fool, me, in tears too. I didn’t mean to upset yer. Look, it’ll start gettin’ dark soon and yer’ve got all that way to go ’ome. Don’t you worry about helpin’ me wash up or anythink. You just toddle off ’ome.’
Mr Watson had come back into the room, the aromatic smoke from his pipe instantly tainting the grave-like atmosphere the room held; an atmosphere that would never feel any different now, not this room, not this whole flat, forever bathed with the loss of Ben. Suddenly Connie wanted to get out of it, find the clean, fresh, busy, living air of the outside world, away from the mausoleum this place had become which now, even to enter, provoked an involuntary shudder. It hovered here, like an unseen skull or a total sense of nothingness.
‘Connie’s goin’ now,’ Mrs Watson announced.
His thick eyebrows rose in surprise through the haze of smoke he was creating. ‘So soon? We’ve ’ardly finished tea.’
‘Well it is only early April and it still do get dark quick, and I did say she ought ter be on ’er way or she won’t be ’ome until after dark.’
She turned to Connie with a warm smile, her eyes quite dry now, her husband unaware of the tears that had glistened there just a moment ago. ‘Now if you want ter come and see us any time, you’re welcome. Don’t think you ain’t. I expect we will see you some time or other. But remember now.’
It was tantamount to telling her to stay away in the most circumspect way possible, and for her own good. But she wondered if in truth it was for their own peace of mind that they really didn’t want to see her again, her visits resurrecting what they needed to lay to rest. It felt like rejection.
As she took leave of them at the door, hurried down the flight of worn stone stairs, the door closed behind her with a note of finality that brought a sob to her throat. From the cobbled street below she turned to wave at them standing at the lace-curtained bay window. Her heart felt it was spilling over, her eyes misted with moisture.
It was over. Ben’s memory must be laid to rest. She didn’t want it to be over, wanted to cling to the last shreds of it until she was no longer able to think or feel. Even her visits to his parents remained something to cling to no matter how disma
l the visits were becoming. But everything was saying to her that she must let go. Nor would she go to church any more – that half-expecting Ben to kneel beside her, sweeping away an awful nightmare, that too was over. As Mrs Watson said, all the weeping, all the prayers in the world wouldn’t bring him back. She must get on with her life. But, oh, dear God, she didn’t want to. It was going to be hard, so very hard, letting go.
‘Ain’t seen your Lily for some time. Not for over a fortnight. You two all right?’
Dad was in his wheelchair drawn up at the breakfast table. He refused to have his breakfast in bed, commendable Danny supposed, but not helpful for Mum who in the middle of getting breakfast must pull and tug him about to get him out of bed and into his chair. Danny was glad to have been home this morning. The tide had dictated no need to go out early, so he’d been able to see to Dad for her. This morning, with Dad being extra awkward, an April drizzle making him stiff and fretful, it hurt Danny to have his father, once so powerful and independent, clinging to him for support as he eased him off the bed. It had brought home once again how much he was needed here. If only Lily could see it that way.
He had tried to contact her, but every day the rift grew wider. He’d sent letters, called on her, but the message was always the same – no replies to his letters, no response to his calls except for her mother, stony-faced from tales of woe Lily had no doubt woven for her, saying sharply, ‘Lil’s not at home, nor do she want to see you.’ It had all ended so abruptly, sometimes he couldn’t believe Lily meant it, imagined that she would come back. Sometimes he wondered, had she ever really loved him? It affected him day and night. He tried not to be surly and sharp with everyone, but he was.
‘Come on, Dad, bloody move! For God’s sake try to help yourself a bit.’ Immediately he had wanted to bite his tongue off because Dad, glaring back at him, had been trying to help himself, his upper body wriggling to get the useless rest of him off the bed with its hard, sawdust-filled mattress, his arms reaching out for his son’s support, grunting and mumbling in his deep voice, cursing and bemoaning his lot. This was what Mum had to put up with every morning of her life when she was left on her own with him.
‘No Dad, we’re not all right.’ He had blurted it out in reply to his father’s enquiry. He wanted to get it all off his chest to someone, and why not his father? ‘No, Dad, me and Lily’s far from all right. We’ve split up.’
‘Split up?’ Dad’s mouth, full of bread and jam, sprayed a small fleck of half-masticated food on to the baize cloth that covered the kitchen table around which he, Danny and Josie sat. Josie was still out of work.
Josie’s blue-grey eyes were wide. From the kitchen range, Mum spun round towards him. ‘You can’t’ve split up – not you and Lily.’
Danny didn’t look at her, didn’t look at anyone. ‘I’m sorry, Mum, we have.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she don’t want to come and live here with all of us.’
‘Did you say she had to?’
Now he looked up. He could feel the imploring in his eyes as he gazed at his mother. ‘What else could I say? How can I go off and leave you to look after …’ He let the rest of that trail off, but knew his father was already ahead of him; heard him grunt, but pride prevented Dad from making any comment. He felt it bad enough without putting voice to it.
‘I just feel I’m needed here,’ he tried again. ‘And you need the money, Mum.’ Now it was her turn to feel the embarrassment and withhold a reply. He hurried on, feeling he was digging himself into a hole. ‘If me and Lily had got married and got ourselves a place to live, I’d still be cockling, using Dad and his brothers’ boat. How could I pocket what I made on behalf of Dad and let you two fend for yourselves? I couldn’t do it, Mum. Not only that, I’d be paying out rent on my place, keeping the two of us, and trying to help you two out. I thought it’d be a far better idea for me and her to stay here. I thought you understood that, Mum. That you thought it was a foregone conclusion. This is a nice house, it’s not all that tiny, on the end of a terrace, and it’s got that extra bedroom Grandad built all those years ago, and an outhouse. With Pam and Annie gone away,’ he didn’t care at this moment that Pam’s name was taboo in this house, ‘there’s plenty of room for me and Lily. You could have had my old room, Mum, sleeping on your own now, and I could have had yours and Dad’s old bedroom in the front, and I know you’d have given Lily the run of the house maybe leaving you free of all the worry while you looked after Dad.’
‘Got it all worked out, son,’ his father’s voice growled, but he was ignored as Danny ploughed on. ‘It was that I wanted to be here, to support you. I owe it to you and Dad. I couldn’t just move off and wash my hands of everything.’
‘Of course you couldn’t,’ Mum said. Breakfast was forgotten. She came and sat on the empty chair near Danny, and took one of his hands. ‘But I wouldn’t have asked it of you, love.’
‘I thought it was understood.’
‘I suppose it was, in a way. We need you, Danny, but I wouldn’t have asked it of you.’
‘What’s going to happen about you and Lily, then?’ Josie asked.
‘Mind your own bloody business,’ her father silenced her.
‘Lily refused point blank to come and live here,’ Danny continued. ‘She’d always set her mind on a nice little house after we were married, but I couldn’t, Mum. I couldn’t have been happy just waltzing off.’
Dad had pushed his plate of bread and jam away, had awkwardly and noisily manoeuvred his wheelchair a few inches to reach for his pipe from its rack beside the kitchen range and was now filling the kitchen with acrid smoke.
Danny looked at him, slightly and unaccountably peeved. ‘That’s how it stands, Mum. I’ve tried for a fortnight to get her to come round, but she won’t even see me. Her mum said last time I called, yesterday, that she was out with some boy. It makes it look final if anything could. You know she threw her ring at me? It went into the bushes near the level crossing …’
He stopped, seeing a small wincing expression cross his mother’s fate. Level crossing – it was something everyone avoided saying in this house, the very words bringing back memories of that day little Tony had been killed. Danny hurried on if only to swamp the words with others, his tone now filled with bombast.
‘I couldn’t find it, so it can stay there. Do someone a bit of good if they ever happen to find it I don’t want it. And I’m getting to feel I don’t want her – not if she can’t find a bit of human kindness in her.’
He did want her, felt he would never stop wanting her, but what could he do if she no longer wanted him? Bind her hand and foot and carry her off? He half grinned at the thought, but it was a bitter grin.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The hot weather had arrived. Thoughts of going up to a hill station had plagued Annie from the very start of the year, remembering last summer with a shudder. She could not again stand being cloistered with the other British wives with their silly, somewhat frantic diversions: giving themselves parts in plays they themselves had written, quite badly, or acting, very badly, in the classics; arranging little picnics, organising bridge parties, playing tennis, bowls, croquet, watching polo; all of them trying so hard to install a little bit of England in India. Here she had Alex to fall back on, up there she would be alone, seeing him for only the occasional weekend.
In February she had started begging him to let her visit her family for a month or two. After all, he wouldn’t miss her. No more than he had last summer when she had gone to Simla. It was rather the same thing, and she did so miss her family. Fourteen months had passed since she’d set eyes on them. Homesickness should have abated by now, but it had fact grown worse.
Alex’s answer was always the same. ‘Darling. I’ve told you. I’m sorry, but we just can’t afford it. Maybe next year.’ She didn’t want to wait until next year.
‘If we were to put a little by each week,’ she had suggested around February, but it was no good. Things w
ere not easy with them financially.
Alex worked hard for what he earned. His father remained unforgiving, not paying him as much as Annie thought Alex was worth; his father’s attitude was that profits must be ploughed back into the business so that it would go to his successor, Alex, when he himself was dead – this had been penned dolefully by his mother on one occasion. She still wrote to her son as mothers were wont to, ready to forgive if not condone her son’s actions, even if his father didn‘t. Alex was a long way from home. She pined for him. Had he been in England it might have been a different tale with her; as it was, he was safely hidden away out here, out of harm’s way, and could be assumed to be giving his all to his father’s company on the promise of it maybe being his one day.
In Annie’s eyes it was little less than Alex being cheated. It hurt to see him trying to keep his end up, much of his salary going to impress those far better off than he. He bought Annie nice dresses, gave her whatever she needed, took pleasure in showing her off before those who asked them to tea or bridge parties (Annie had now become quite a skilled player, and despite what she maintained the other wives thought of her was often invited to make up a rubber) or a round of golf. He behaved as if they too were rolling in money. But she’d rather have gone home to be herself again for a month or two.
She had felt it bitterly every time he told her it couldn’t be, adding for good measure what a long journey it was. There had been rows, audible enough for all the servants to hear. Annie often wondered if, for all their unobtrusive loyalty, tales of discord didn’t trickle back to other ears ever ready to gather gossip.
But by the end of March despite the first onset of hot weather, she had slowly begun to debate whether she really did feel up to the strain of that three-weeks sea voyage to England and a second three-week voyage back. She had proved herself a poor sailor that first time and wouldn’t that detract immensely from the joy of seeing her family?