by Ruth Hogan
I don’t know how long I stay like this before something makes me look up. I don’t know what it is, but when I do I catch just a glimpse of a passing figure. Not even as substantial as that; a mere shadow, a ghost. But I know who it is. It has been a lifetime since I saw him, but I know. Shock fires adrenalin through my leaden limbs and I set off down the pier to find him. There, again; the back of his dark coat and his hat held on with one hand as he dodges between the shelters and kiosks. I’m running now, freezing rain slashing against my face. I reach the fairground and I see him ahead at the galloping horses, but he’s getting away from me.
‘Valentine!’
I scream it so loudly that I can feel it searing my throat. He turns for just a moment and looks straight at me through the veil of driving rain. And then he’s off, running towards the end of the pier, and I have lost him again. When I get there, of course, he is gone. I grip the metal railings with icy hands. My knuckles are blue; the colour of fresh bruises. A giant warm hand covers one of mine and Eli appears on my other side. Joseph Geronimo nods towards the bleak wilderness of water.
‘Let him go.’
He waits patiently for my silence to be long enough for me. The comfort of his warm hand on mine eventually pulls me back.
‘Did you know him?’ I ask.
‘I know who he is.’ Joseph Geronimo hands me a cigarette and puts another between his lips. He lights them both and takes a deep draw.
‘I also know that he’s long dead and doesn’t belong here any more.’
‘I knew him when I was a little girl.’
It seems to me that I’m bound for Bedlam no matter what, so if I can’t avoid the madness, I should at least give myself the satisfaction of trying to explain it. Joseph Geronimo says nothing and waits for me to continue.
‘My mother met him when he was alive; years ago, before I was born.’
I tell him that she met Valentine as his daughter lay broken and bloody in the middle of the road, and that she held the child’s hand and watched Valentine sobbing as his little girl died. I tell him about the entries in my mother’s diary for the date of my seventh birthday, and the days after. He shakes his head in disbelief and gives me a wry smile.
‘Jesus, Tilda, you’re much more trouble than you look, aren’t you?’
He flings an arm round my shoulder and squeezes me hard.
‘Come on. Let’s go and talk to Penelope.’
Half an hour later we are all in Penelope’s sitting room, drinking tea jollied up with whisky and eating mince pies. I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience. This morning I learned something that has erased an entire volume of my life story and left only blank pages, and hours later I’m sitting calmly drinking tea and comparing mince pie recipes. Eli is asleep in front of the fire. I think even he’s had enough for today. I have decided that Joseph Geronimo and Penelope are to be my interpreters. The past described in my mother’s diary has become L. P. Hartley’s foreign country, and I need some help trying to understand what happened there. I hand the little blue book to Penelope, open at the page where I want her to start reading. Aloud. Penelope nudges her spectacles a little further up her nose and clears her throat as though she is about to make an announcement.
19 November
Tilly will never forgive me.
She must never find out what I’ve done. I did it for her, but she must never know.
21 November
God forgive me, I killed him. I never meant to. I didn’t plan it. It just happened.
Penelope looks up, her face stretched with horror and bewilderment. I meet her eyes with a steady gaze.
‘Go on.’
The night before Tilly’s birthday I got drunk. I’m not supposed to drink at all with my pills but I always do. I couldn’t face what I knew was coming. I knew that she thought he would be there; her perfect daddy, home for her birthday. But I knew that instead he was going to break her heart. So I washed it all away with the drink. Because I’m a coward. Poor Tilly, what chance does she have? Her father’s a selfish, ungodly bastard and her mother’s a pathetic, drunken coward. A mental case.
I didn’t even hear her get up. She made her own breakfast and took herself off to school without a single ‘happy birthday’ from anyone. I was so ashamed when I eventually managed to drag myself out of bed. I was sick; whether it was from the drink or the shame I don’t know. On my knees in front of the toilet, stinking of vomit, my face wet with snot and tears, I hated myself for being me. But I tried. I cleaned myself up, and then the house. I invited Wendy and Karen and Mrs O’Flaherty to tea. I rushed round making sandwiches and a cake with Smarties – Tilly’s favourite, even though I knew it would count for nothing. He was still everything. But I had to try. I just wanted my little girl to have a happy birthday. When she came home from school her disappointment was like a slap in the face. Bless her heart, she played the game. She opened her presents and ate her tea. And I stood there, the fake mother between the genuine articles, Wendy and Mrs O’Flaherty. They seem to find it so easy; kids, husband, housework. To them, it comes as naturally as breathing. I just feel like I’m suffocating. Tilly hated the doll I got her. I don’t understand why she asked for it – she never plays with dolls. But still she went along with it, pretending to be pleased. But then Karen had to mention him: Stevie, the spectre at the feast. It wasn’t her fault, but that was the end of the ‘happy birthday’ game. The others went home and left us alone again. Tilly sat and looked at her presents. I could see that she was desperately holding herself together, like a sandcastle being lapped by the waves. And we both knew that the tide was coming in. I think she was doing it for me; protecting me from her hurt. She acts like she’s the mother and I’m the child. So what did I do? I drowned my sorrows. Again. Pathetic, despicable, worthless bitch that I am, I drank myself to sleep. Again.
I don’t know what woke me but I knew straight away that something was wrong. I couldn’t breathe. I knew it was Tilly. The sight of her in the garden will haunt me every moment until I die. I didn’t know how completely, unconditionally and desperately I loved her until I saw her against the flames and smoke, howling in misery. All she wanted was him. So I gave her the next best thing – a cast-iron alibi for her daddy. It was the only thing that could keep him from her on her birthday if he loved her best in the world. He was her hero; nothing could stop him except this. My twisted gift to Tilly was to keep her dream daddy alive. To keep him perfect, I had to kill him. I panicked and I lied. And now I must find a way to live with the lie and make it true. I have to find a way to keep him dead.
‘Jesus, Tilda, and I thought the doll was bad enough.’
Joseph Geronimo does the rounds with the whisky bottle, while Penelope pauses to take in what she has just read.
‘I buried that bloody doll in the garden. Just like my mother buried her secret in her diary.’ I giggle. It’s not funny, but it’s the whisky. I can never drink whisky. Penelope ‘huh-hmms’, ready to continue.
24 November
The questions have begun. At first Tilly was too upset to ask. She clung to me as if she were afraid that I might disappear as well. She cried until she was sick. And I have had to watch and listen to her misery, knowing that I have caused it. But I only did it to save her from knowing that her daddy doesn’t care anymore. And surely that would have hurt her more. But now she wants to know things; details. I have to be so careful. I have to tell her enough to satisfy her but not too much in case I get muddled. Stevie sent her a birthday card. I told her that he must have posted it just before he died. I told her that he drowned on the way back to the pub one night. I didn’t say he was drunk, but maybe I implied it. Slipped and fell into the sea and that lots of people saw it happen, but it was dark and rough and no one could rescue him. I said that I couldn’t tell her straight away, because I didn’t want to spoil her birthday; that I was going to tell her a few days later. But she’s so sharp. I try to keep my story straight but I can see that she doesn’t trust me
. I would willingly die for her but she doesn’t even trust her own mother.
Jesus Christ, he’s gone. Why can’t she just accept that he’s never coming back? But she couldn’t and so there were more questions; more salt in the wounds. She pushed me too far and I lost it. What little control I had left after a cocktail of pills and a bottle of whisky as a chaser. God only knows what I did and said. I don’t remember and I don’t want to, because it frightened her to death. My beloved baby girl is terrified of me and now she is all I have left. I’ve lost Stevie for good. If he ever finds out what I’ve done, he’ll hate me forever and take her away. And then I’ll have nobody. Nothing. I may as well be the one who’s dead. In a moment of madness I’ve sacrificed my husband for our child and I’ve got no idea what to do next.
Penelope is quiet for a moment. She and Joseph Geronimo both look at me, perhaps to check how I am coping. The whisky is washing my wounds and dulling the pain. But I’m glad she didn’t remember what she did and write it down. I don’t think, even now, I could bear to hear it spoken out loud; that I was so afraid of my own mother that I wet myself.
25 November
I must make a new life for Tilly and me, and I have to do it soon. Stevie’s job will finish in the new year and he’s talking about coming home in January. I write to him and send him Tilly’s letters, but I always burn his replies. After I’ve read them. We have to disappear before he comes back. It kills me to think that I will never see him again. Never hold him again. But I had to make a choice, and I chose Tilly. I need to show her that I can be a good mother. After Christmas I’ll think of something. I just have to try to keep this mess from Wendy and the others until I do. Though God knows how. The drink doesn’t help. It loosens my tongue and I say things I shouldn’t, especially to Tilly. But without it I couldn’t carry on. It softens and sweetens and muffles and blurs. It cushions me in case I fall. I’ll give it up soon, but I need a little help for a bit longer. And then I’ll stop.
‘Me too.’ It comes out a little bit louder than I intended. ‘Soon,’ as I wave my empty teacup at Joseph Geronimo. He obligingly refreshes it. Penelope puts the diary down and takes a sip from her cup. And then another. She looks across at me, seemingly nervous.
‘Ta-dah!’ Again, it’s a bit too loud. The whisky is playing havoc with my volume control. ‘What do you think of that, then?’ I enquire of each of them in turn with my hands and eyebrows raised. ‘It’s no wonder she took to spending so much time in church!’
The discussion that follows is made both easier and more difficult for me by the whisky. Easier because the people and events we’re talking about feel once removed, more distant, like a cousin. More difficult, because I’m finding it increasingly hard to concentrate and not laugh. Penelope struggles at first. She knew my mother well, but the diary is that of a complete stranger to her. After a lot of brow furrowing and a bit more whisky, she speaks.
‘I know without doubt, Tilda, that she loved you more than her own life and nothing I have read here casts any doubt on that. But she was obviously ill and desperate and terrified of losing you. It doesn’t justify what she did, but perhaps it helps to explain it. Sometimes good people do terrible things because they truly believe it’s the only thing they can do.’ She looks at me, trying to read my face. She won’t find anything sensible there.
‘Bloody awful for you, though,’ she mutters, almost to herself. She sips more whisky from her cup.
‘Oh, for pity’s sake, there’s no tea in this any more. Where are the bloody glasses?’
She gets up and fetches some cut-glass whisky tumblers from the sideboard. I am fighting the urge to giggle at Penelope’s ‘language’, as my mother would have called it. Hearing Penelope swear is like hearing a nun fart. This was supposed to be a serious discussion, but I’m really struggling now.
‘She didn’t have to tell you any of this.’ Joseph Geronimo takes out a cigarette, but remembering where he is, doesn’t light it. ‘It takes a shit load of guts to admit to something like this, especially to the person you were trying to protect in the first place. And she didn’t bury her secrets forever. She knew you’d find the diaries. She meant for you to find them.’
‘Yes, but she knew she’d be dead before I did. It’s easy to be brave when you’re a corpse.’
Penelope goes to say something at this point, but decides to have another sip of whisky instead.
‘Even so, she could have taken her secret with her forever, so why didn’t she?’ Joseph Geronimo puts his cigarette between his lips and takes it out again.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake man, light it. And can I have one please?’ Penelope passes him an ashtray and he offers her his packet. She grins like a naughty schoolgirl. Her cheeks are looking very rosy as she draws tentatively on her cigarette.
‘I haven’t had one of these for years.’
I am trying to muster up some proper anger towards my mother but somehow I can’t find the will to do it properly.
‘She bloody well knew she wouldn’t have to answer to me for any of this. I can hardly go and stomp on her grave.’
Joseph Geronimo smiles. ‘Well you could, but I don’t expect it would help you much. For what it’s worth, I think she was trying to put something right.’
Penelope is getting back into the swing of her smoking now.
‘Perhaps your mother spent the rest of her life answering to herself, and God, for what she did. I’m sure it never left her a moment’s real peace.’
‘I don’t know who I am any more.’ It’s not a wail. I sound more like someone who’s cross because they’ve lost a glove.
Joseph Geronimo smiles at me tolerantly, as though addressing an overtired child, but his tone is serious.
‘Of course you do. You’re still Tilda. You can’t change any of the stuff that happened before and none of it changes who you are now. But now, at least, you know the truth. What you do with it is up to you. But the worst bit’s over. You’ve faced it and nobody died.’
‘No. Not even my dad, apparently.’
My inappropriate explosion of laughter must be blamed on shock and an excess of strong drink, but Joseph Geronimo has only half my excuse. The pair of us are soon helpless with laughter. Penelope kindly ignores our childish behaviour.
‘Well, my dear, it’s too soon to decide anything yet. The water’s far too muddy.’
A bit like my head. I wish I’d eaten something more substantial than a mince pie before I decided that I quite like whisky after all.
‘Now, I suggest we all have something to eat.’
Penelope must have read my mind.
By the time Daniel arrives (by process of elimination – he’d been to the café and my flat already) we are sitting amongst the ruins of a Fortnum & Mason hamper, still drinking whisky and singing ‘Danny Boy’, which, when Daniel appears, I find absolutely hilarious, along with just about everything else by this point. It’s late, and we leave Penelope tottering off to bed having tucked up Joseph Geronimo in a blanket on the sofa, much to his delight and amusement. Reluctantly, Eli leaves his warm spot by the fire to follow us back upstairs. Daniel has failed to extract a sensible explanation out of any of us, but at the door he remembers a question he has for Joseph Geronimo.
‘How did it go with Fatima-Jane?’
Joseph Geronimo raises himself onto one elbow and shakes his head.
‘I was hoping for belly, but she was more into Morris.’
Daniel clearly has no idea what he’s talking about.
Joseph Geronimo winks broadly. ‘Dancing, Danny boy, dancing!’
37
Tilda
Never, ever again. Never again shall whisky pass my lips. I make my solemn vow from the cold, hard floor of the bathroom where I am engaged in a desperate embrace with the lavatory. I have been horribly sick and I can feel an encore approaching. If I move my head even slightly, all the little goblins inside it start using my brain as a bouncy castle and the wicked fairy of hangover stabs my temples w
ith her hatpin. My stomach feels like a washing machine full of compost on a slow spin cycle. I think I might be dying. Daniel knocks on the bathroom door far too cheerfully and much too loudly.
‘I’ve made you some breakfast.’
The washing machine immediately clicks onto fast spin and begins to empty. Daniel beats a hasty retreat. Ten minutes later he tries again.
‘Come on, Tilda. Out you come. I’ve made you some toast. You have to eat something with your paracetamol.’
He’s got a point. Gingerly I loosen my grip on the white porcelain and drag myself up from the floor. I break the journey to vertical by sitting on the edge of the bath for a bit before finally standing up. The goblins are now performing Riverdance. The woman in the mirror staring back at me has skin the colour and texture of putty and the eyes of a bloodhound. It’s not my best look. As I leave the safety of the bathroom Daniel greets my appearance with gentle laughter.
‘Holy Mary Mother of God! I’ve seen corpses with more life in them.’
He gives me a tentative hug whilst sensibly turning his head to one side and leads me to a chair at the kitchen table. There is a glass containing a rather suspect-looking liquid in front of me.
‘Now drink that up and I’ll get you some nice dry toast.’
‘What is it?’
‘Best not to ask. But I promise it will make you feel better. And don’t sip it. Drink it all at once, and then hold your mouth shut until it goes down.’
It’s like standing shivering at the edge of a very cold sea in your bathing suit. You know the best thing is to dive straight in but you have to steel yourself. I pick up the glass, but halfway to my lips my courage fails me and I put it back down. On my third attempt I finally take the plunge. The liquid is cold, a little slimy and has a hot, spicy aftertaste with a hint of banana. I spend a full five minutes with my hand clamped over my mouth, sitting bolt upright assisting gravity to keep the liquid where I’ve put it. After several escape attempts it settles down and I can risk speaking.