How It Was

by Janet Ellis

  ‘Yes, he told me that,’ I said. Why did they discuss me? Did he say anything else?

  She tugged again at the pile of papers. It was utterly mystifying, I thought, how she could be so nosy.

  ‘Finished with this?’ She held up a copy of Argosy. ‘I hardly have time to read. But I’ll try to get through it.’ She rifled through the outgrown children’s books, reading their titles aloud. ‘Puppy Tales. Judy for Girls. The Adventures of Binkle and Flip.’ Sheila replaced each one in turn. ‘Oh, look! A paper doll book. I used to adore these. No one’s cut you out, have they?’ she said, addressing the pictures in a baby voice. ‘Look at all your lovely clothes. Who’s giving you away?’ Her eyes glistened with pleasure as she turned the pages.

  ‘Would you like to take that, too?’ I said.

  Sheila hugged the book to her. ‘May I?’ she said. ‘Silly, isn’t it, but I would.’

  We sipped our tea in silence. A bird twittered loudly outside. ‘Isn’t that pretty?’ Sheila said. ‘It’s like the one on Going for a Song. I love Arthur Negus, don’t you? Better let you get on.’ She stood, smoothing her skirt, although it would have taken a Chieftain tank to crease it. She picked up her handbag and wiped one hand along its underside. ‘I expect you and Adrian will see each other at the party, anyway, if not before,’ she said, still brushing away imaginary crumbs.

  ‘What party?’ I wished I needn’t ask, but how could I not?

  Sheila clasped her hands together. ‘Oh, silly me. That could have been quite a faux pas, couldn’t it? But I’m sure you’ll be invited. Adrian and Agnes are having a big do in a couple of weeks. Hasn’t he mentioned it?’

  ‘I don’t really know him that well. There’s no reason for them to invite me. Invite us. Our daughters are at the same school, of course, but I’ve never met his wife.’

  ‘Haven’t you? She’s looovely.’ Sheila breathed the word languorously, as if short vowel sounds wouldn’t do the woman justice. ‘And she’s the very definition of “long-suffering”. Although “turning a blind eye” might be more accurate.’ She smiled and leaned so close to me that I could see tiny red veins snaking across the whites of her eyes. ‘Family money,’ she whispered. ‘Adrian knows which side his bread is buttered on.’ She inspected me carefully, her snake eyes narrowing. ‘Of course he’ll invite you,’ she said. ‘He invites everyone. Last time I went to one of their dos, I met his butcher there, for heaven’s sake! He throws invitations out left, right and centre. And you two have a real connection, after all. They live in an absolutely lovely house.’ She gazed wistfully into the middle distance.

  It was easy to imagine Adrian in the centre of a riotous throng, the butcher capering beside him like a jester, garlanded with a string of sausages.

  ‘I don’t expect to be invited,’ I said. I opened the door. Cold air rattled the glass in the window frames.

  ‘Oh, I’ll have a word, I’ll make sure you are.’ Sheila pulled the edges of her coat together over her solid frontage and forced its large buttons through the small holes. ‘Thank you for the tea. It’s fun to keep it casual, isn’t it? Oh, by the way’ – Sheila scampered back towards the table and held up one of Sarah’s photographs – ‘I think this one’s the best. Just my opinion. I expect it’s hard to be objective, isn’t it, when it’s your own child?’ She wound her scarf around her neck, looping and doubling the fabric, as though she were practising for a Girl Guide badge.

  ‘Bye, Marion dear,’ she said. She smiled and her pink teeth shone.

  After she’d gone, I filled in the form and ordered the pictures and wrote a cheque and swept everything into the envelope without looking at Sarah at all.

  Chapter 55

  6 October

  Bobbie actually came and found me today. I was in the furthest part of the rec, right by the rhododendrons. We used to play ponies there, when I was in the Upper Third. Every break was a gymkhana. We had lots of branches set up as cavaletti, and some little sticks driven into the ground. We weaved in and out of them as if they were several feet high, not a few inches. Of course, they’re all gone now. She said she’d been looking for me. I was so happy that I could hardly look at her. She asked if I’d got a boyfriend. I was going to fib, because Neil had taken me to the cinema last Christmas and I could pretend that counted, but she said that she didn’t have a proper boyfriend till last year, so I didn’t have to say anything. She asked me if I’d been kissed, and I said I had. The first time didn’t really count. Neil had to bring me home on the bus, my parents made him. We got to the end of my road and I was just about to say goodbye when he put his hands on my shoulders and sort of collided his mouth with mine and moved about from side to side. I could feel his teeth behind his lips and it made me think of his whole skull beneath his skin and under his neat brown hair. Bobbie said was it properly with tongues? I shrugged as if it didn’t matter either way.

  We walked back towards the school buildings together. She opened the back door of the changing room, the one that’s supposed to set off an alarm but doesn’t and pushed me inside. It’s odd being in there when it’s empty. I told Bobbie that I always think that the coats are waiting to escape with us at the end of the day, like accomplices. You’re always being watched in school, I said. Someone always wants to punish or make fun of you. You can’t talk back, or run where you shouldn’t, or cry or shout without someone knowing about it. You’re all together, all the time, all day, so no one ever forgets if you were ever vain or clumsy. They always remember when you were sick or when you walked about without knowing that your skirt was tucked into your tights. If you get given a nickname in school, it’s as permanent as a tattoo. But the moment you leave the building, it’s like you’re set free.

  Bobbie said she felt pretty free all the time. I wished I hadn’t said all that.

  She sat me down at the far end so we could see the door, and then we could hide, or say we needed the toilet, if someone came in. A games bag kept bashing me on the head, which seemed to be full of hard shoes. She said I needed to learn about snogging and she’d be my teacher. She told me to stick my tongue out. I wanted to ask her why she’d chosen me for this lesson, but when I looked at her, she was just waiting for me to do as she said, so I did. It’s weird that the minute your tongue’s out of your mouth, it makes you feel naked all over. She leaned towards me. I was giggling, so she told me to close my eyes. She touched the tip of her tongue to mine. It felt huge. Without being able to see her, I couldn’t tell where that warm, wet, solid bit of Bobbie came from. She could have been someone else, too. It was only because I could smell her scent that I knew it was her. It was like that bit on Ask the Family where you have to identify an object from looking at a close-up photo of part of it. It’s hard to recognise a cheese grater or a lemon squeezer like that.

  When I opened my eyes, Bobbie was killing herself laughing. I didn’t know what to say, so I got up and tucked a stray plimsoll into the wire locker under the bench. Bobbie said it’s okay to be a virgin. She said she lets Jeff touch her under her knickers, but she hasn’t gone all the way yet. She said he wants to, of course. I want a boy to want me like that. The last party I went to, the music was really loud, and this boy kept talking to me. He had to get closer all the time, shouting into my ear above the noise. Eventually, I could make out what was he was saying. It was only did I know Debbie, and could I tell her he fancied her?

  This party was going to be different. I’d walk with Bobbie, as if I was arriving at a wedding. In fact, it was just as if she was going to be giving me away.

  She told me that Jeff was going to meet her later. There’s usually a little group of boys from the grammar waiting around by the gate after school. They move in a clump, like seaweed under water. When they see the girls coming out, they always look at their own shoes or take a few steps backwards or put their hands on their heads. The girls talk loudly, laughing and clutching each other’s arms and ignoring them. But you only have to walk a few yards away from the school to find them all divided
into twos, standing as close as if they’d been glued together. I peeked out of the window of the library and saw Jeff waiting. I couldn’t see his face, but he’s got quite long hair. As they walked away, Bobbie tucked her hand into the back pocket of his trousers and he held on to her waist, lifting her blazer.

  Adrian Mr Cavanagh was waiting for me in his car. He sounded the horn which made me jump. When I got in, he drove off fast, without saying anything. He parked outside a house, which was enormous. It must be where Bobbie lives too, of course. I couldn’t help looking around. He saw me looking back at the house. He said don’t worry, no one’s in. I followed him into a sort of studio at the end of the garden. He gave me a dress and told me to put it on, he said he’d wait outside while I changed and he wouldn’t look. It was a blue velvet dress with a lace collar. I know it was one of Bobbie’s: it smelled of her. He kept saying are you ready, are you ready, which made me clumsy and slow. The dress was a bit tight. I struggled to do it up.

  The room was almost bare, as if he’d only recently collected all the things he needed. I wondered if Bobbie had been in there. I stood as still as I could while he drew me. I didn’t say anything. I could see my school uniform on the floor where I’d left it. I wished I’d been allowed to keep it on. After a while, Adrian Mr Cavanagh said he’d got enough to work with. He said okay, get changed, I’ll drive you back, but I wondered if he wished I could just leave by myself. It took me ages to take off Bobbie’s dress. I was reaching behind me for the zip and wriggling to get out of it until my arms ached.

  When I came outside, he was smoking, leaning up against the wall. He offered me a cigarette. I took it, although it was only the second time I’d ever had one. He said, of course, really, he liked to paint a woman nude. That was the real challenge, he said, getting the flesh tone and the expression in the eyes right. I looked up at him quickly but he wasn’t looking at me. I leaned against the wall beside him. He seemed to be more himself than any of the boys I know. Their arms and legs are spindly and new, like those baby animals in films, struggling to get to their feet. He says what he wants to say straight away, instead of leaving awkward gaps or coming out with the wrong thing. He wasn’t practising what he said. It wasn’t a rehearsal for someone else. It was all meant for me. I felt as if I was filling up with something rich and sweet. I wouldn’t be able to stop having more, even though it made me sick.

  You could paint me like that, I suppose, I said. He turned to look at me. Yes, he said. Yes, I could.

  He didn’t say anything on the way back. I looked out of the car window all the time. He dropped me outside the school. As I got out, he leaned over and said I was a nice kid. I kept thinking if he’s with me he can’t be with her.

  Chapter 56

  I won’t wear my canvas sneakers to the hospital. I’d left them by the bed last night and slipped them on when I got up, but it seems very important that I change my shoes before I go. I need to put on a more a substantial pair, I think, something with a proper heel. I survey all the shoes in the wardrobe with increasing distress. I can’t remember buying any of them. How did I walk around the narrow aisles in shops, scrutinising my feet and ankles in the small mirrors, then choose to buy any of these? They seem out of character, as if I were auditioning to play another version of myself. I select a pair of brown courts. Headmistress shoes.

  Michael is still in the world. As long as his body takes up space, he exists. You can claim he is making a substantial contribution. He is still the sum of himself. When he is gone, in his new, past tense, I will become his interpreter. He will be Michael was or Michael always did or Michael never could. He had his own ideas and opinions, things that made him angry or amused him but I will have to explain and filter him from now on. He lies – where? I can’t remember when they remove the body. I used to do it, of course. It was routine, just a response to an instruction. It wasn’t a person I helped to heave from the bed, but a heavy and uncooperative object. I must have ignored all the photos and the unfinished books, the cards and children’s drawings. I can see myself then, in my uniform, pushing a gurney along a corridor to the morgue. There was only a sheet between me and the new death but I chatted to the orderly, catching up on gossip, laughing because we knew no one could see us. Michael is about to be consigned, first to memory, then to a future without any of us. He will become a figment of repeated anecdotes or the sudden finding of his name on a book’s flyleaf or an opened letter. These glimpses will substantiate him briefly, flickering to illuminate one moment in time. Without him to give voice to his point of view, who owns it?

  Rosalind Piper was very tall. I’d only seen her once before, when I was hurrying to change. There was no indication then of her height. In the doorway of our house, she seemed out of proportion to her surroundings. Not least because her visit was entirely unheralded. ‘Mrs Deacon?’ she said. ‘Miss Piper. Rosalind. I’m so sorry to catch you unawares. I should, perhaps, have telephoned ahead.’ There was a slight clip to her voice, as if the vowels were flattened between her teeth. I had an impression of what my mother would have called good breeding. She held Michael’s wallet out to me. It was something so familiar that to see it in someone else’s hand made me physically recoil. ‘He left this in the office,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘He was cursing this morning. He’s not here. In fact, he’s away today. Overnight. In Rome. Of course, you of all people will know that.’

  ‘Indeed,’ she said.

  ‘Would you like to come in?’ I said.

  She shook her scarf free from her neck and handed it to me. It was warm and light. She passed me her coat next, but there was no assertion of rank in her manner. She followed me into the sitting room.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I would, please,’ she said. ‘I’m skiving, really. But I did think Mr Deacon would need his season ticket when he travels into work tomorrow. It’s nice to get out of the office, actually. Oh, how lovely!’ She reached for a little china figure. ‘Royal Copenhagen, isn’t it?’ she said, turning it upside down like an auctioneer.

  ‘It was a wedding present,’ I said. I didn’t think I’d taken much notice of it before. ‘Why don’t you wait here while I make the tea.’

  ‘May I come with you?’ she said.

  I watched her take in the kitchen furniture and the pictures and ornaments on display. She wore a belted, checked dress. Its wide collar framed a maroon polo neck and a string of pearls that hung at the level of a mayoral chain. I thought she was the sort of girl who would receive pearls on a significant birthday. And who would expect to, as well. Her pleasant face was neither too pretty nor too plain. She looked as if she’d happily make up a four at tennis at a moment’s notice. You could hand her anything – a parcel to post, a small child to care for, the route of a walk in Cumbria to follow – and she would undertake the task cheerfully and in the right shoes. I wished I had a cat. I’d like to have watched it settle on her lap. She wouldn’t have fussed about the fur it shed.

  She clasped her mug. Her nails were frosted with a perfect pink. We regarded each other. The silence was unusually comfortable. She pulled a crumple of apricot tissue from one sleeve and dabbed at her nose. There was a faint smell of lavender.

  ‘What were you going to do if I was out?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I had an envelope ready,’ she said. She patted her handbag. ‘To post it through your letterbox. Or I’d have left it with Mrs Turner.’

  ‘Sheila?’ I said. ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘Oh no.’ She looked fleetingly guilty. ‘Mr Deacon has mentioned her, that’s all. He tells me she is always around.’

  I couldn’t imagine Michael talking about his life here to anyone. ‘So am I,’ I said. ‘I’m home all the time as well, I suppose. It’s never really occurred to me until now, but it’s true. I don’t – I mean, I can’t drive. I go on errands but I hardly ever leave the house for very long. For the most part I’m just – visited.’

  She sm
iled. ‘Mrs Deacon,’ she said, ‘if I lived somewhere as cosy and lovely as this, I wouldn’t want to leave it, either.’

  I looked at her quizzically, waiting for some spark of spite or condescension. There was none. The house relaxed under her benevolent gaze, the objects stood proud on their shelves.

  ‘To be honest,’ she said, ‘I really wanted to see where you lived, too. Mr Deacon speaks so fondly of his home and you and—’ She stopped abruptly. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to imply that – or he – Sorry, I don’t mean to be forward. I suppose I just hope I’m as happy as you are when I’m married. That’s all.’

  I stared at her. She radiated a kind of unassailable assumption she would never be made to feel unwelcome anywhere. ‘Any plans to be married?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I’m engaged,’ she said. Her left hand fluttered as she resisted the temptation to proffer her ring on splayed fingers.

  ‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘When is the wedding?’

  ‘Next year,’ she said. ‘I’ll be Mrs Unwin-Taylor. Preparations are all in hand though, courtesy of my mother. I think I’ll feel more like a guest on the day than the bride.’ She smiled happily. ‘I don’t think Jock will want me to carry on working much after that, though, of course.’

  I frowned. ‘Won’t he?’ I said. ‘Will you mind?’

  ‘Oh goodness, no,’ she said. ‘I love working for Mr Deacon but once I’ve got a family, that’s it.’ She inclined her head. ‘Did you work before?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I was a nurse,’ I said.

  ‘Marvellous!’ she said. ‘Such a useful thing to do. I’m really not in the same league.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re very useful,’ I said. ‘Especially today. After all, you’ve returned the wallet.’

  She smiled again. It came so naturally to her to smile. I thought how comforted Michael must be to see her smile every day.

  ‘I did, didn’t I?’ she said. ‘Even if my motives weren’t entirely pure. It was so nice to meet you properly, Mrs Deacon. Forgive my barging in.’ She rose to her feet, confident that I hadn’t minded. At the door, she paused. ‘I’m so glad I came,’ she said. ‘Now I can imagine Michael being here.’