The Warning Bell

by Lynne Reid Banks

  So when Bruce casually suggested that they give home-leave a miss till Matt was older, Maggie made no objection. ‘We’ll take him next year,’ Bruce said. ‘The “scandal”, ha ha, will have died down by then.’ She knew full well that this was just an excuse; the reason he didn’t want to go home was that he was perfectly happy where he was. Besides, there was the possibility of promotion for a man diligent enough to forego his full leave until the wells were properly established.

  So they had a fortnight on the coast and settled down again in their rut. None of the WC thought this in any way odd, with a four-month-old baby. But when, the following year, they decided to go south to the Cape instead of north to the British Isles, then there were some raised eyebrows.

  ‘Don’t you want to show off Matt to your family?’ asked Joan, who, as Matt’s godmother, felt she had the right to ask. ‘You haven’t had a row with them or anything, have you?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Don’t your parents like Bruce, is that it?’

  ‘They don’t know him.’

  ‘Oh! Oh well … I sometimes think it’s no bad thing when the in-laws are too far away to interfere. One reason why I adored Africa from the outset was because it didn’t contain any of mine!’

  So that year they visited South Africa, leaving Matt with Tolly. At sixteen months Matt was convinced he had two mothers, of whom the black one was not the least important. Maggie had grown accustomed to this emotional dispensation; when he was with her, he made it clear that he loved her just as much as Tolly. But when she returned from her holiday (which she had not enjoyed, despite — or perhaps because of — having visited every theatre in Cape Town, some of them twice), she found Matt treating her as if she were an intruder. She swore she would never repeat the experiment.

  ‘From now on, where we go, he goes,’ she said to Bruce, and to redress the balance took Matt to sleep in their room. This put a temporary stop to the Tuesday and Saturday ritual — Bruce had inhibitions about sex in Matt’s presence — but for her that was not the worst of the arrangement.

  Matt soon remembered who she was, and Tolly rather reluctantly stopped monopolising him. Matt grew, and talked, and called Tolly ‘Tolly’ and Maggie ‘Mummy’ as was right and proper. But it was still Tolly he cried for when he was hurt or in one of his sad moods, and when, at Bruce’s insistence, he was moved back into his own room, and some time afterwards was not to be found there when Maggie drifted in early one rainy morning to look at him, it was to Tolly’s hutch that she unhesitatingly ran.

  She didn’t go in. She never had gone in, afraid of the contrast, about which (Joan had made it abundantly clear) there was nothing she could possibly do because ‘that was the way things were’. But she knocked gently, while the rain made a bead-curtain hanging straight down all round the rim of Bruce’s big umbrella.

  ‘He here, Madam,’ came Tolly’s voice instantly from within. Her face appeared in the wood-framed door jamb, shining, her hair, short as a boy’s, shining too, with its dressing of pungent oil. ‘He came to visit me in the night. Bad dream.’

  ‘Why didn’t you bring him back?’

  ‘I no come in house at night, Madam. And it rain so bad. I think better bring him back in morning.’

  Maggie felt a pain in her heart, but there was neither anger nor jealousy in it, only a profound regret.

  ‘Is he asleep now?’

  ‘Yes, Madam. I bring him across when rain stop.’

  ‘Thank you, Tolly.’

  She walked back across the lawn, squelching; the tough roots of the kikuyu grass kept her from sinking far in, but the gardener wouldn’t be pleased… She wondered if he was watching her now, from his hutch, if any of the servants could view her splashing retreat from their domain with her mac pulled on over her nightgown and the cold rubber boots over bare feet… Lucky they couldn’t see her face, anyway. They hated you to cry in front of them. It distressed them more than it would have done white servants, somehow; they seemed to think it must be their fault. And it wasn’t Tolly’s fault, of course it wasn’t, that Matt would run through a tropical downpour to get to her in the wooden shack where, even at two years old, he knew he shouldn’t go, instead of into the next room to his mother…

  She decided she must have him to herself for a while. So when it was time for their next leave, home to Scotland they went.

  At least, Maggie and Matt did. Bruce, big bold shameless Bruce, cried off. He went to Paris. On a spree, Maggie vaguely supposed, and wondered why she didn’t mind more about that than about the fact that he had, cheerily and quite determinedly, refused to come with her and lend her moral support.

  ‘It’ll be all right, you’ll see! And if they pull any faces, dump Matt on your mother and take off for London. See your old theatre chums, have some fun — I’m going to. I’ve earned it. So have you,’ he said robustly.

  His suggestion about ‘dumping’ Matt was so patently silly that she didn’t even argue. Their meeting-grounds, conversationally speaking, were getting narrower all the time anyway; they just didn’t seem to be on the same wavelength about anything.

  Tolly didn’t expect to be taken. At the same time, she didn’t relish being left behind. Matt didn’t relish it either, and there was a scene at the garden gate when Matt clung around Tolly’s neck and Tolly cried and didn’t do much about pulling him off. Maggie had to do it, and rather roughly too in the end because Matt simply knotted his hands somehow and had to be forcibly unknotted or they’d have missed the plane.

  The flight was ghastly. Matt started screaming from the noise of take-off and the ear pressure, and when Maggie unbelted him and took him on her knee, the stewardess insisted he should be put back to comply with regulations. Maggie was unwontedly furious and shouted at her, and Matt, unused to hearing her shout, stopped crying in astonishment for a moment and then burst into even more high-pitched shrieks. Though they subsided eventually he kept up a continuous whining and whimpering; it was only for an hour while he slept that Maggie had any peace in which to compose her soul for the ordeal to come — the ordeal-by-Robertson.

  One good thing — she could feel the change of air coming over her as the plane flew north. Perhaps it was psychological, but as they passed over the shining Alps she was certain she could feel a rush of cool, well-oxygenated, invigorating air flowing around her. She sat up straight, soothed Matt with a steady hand (it had begun to shake with nerves earlier) and her brain, long padded in African cotton-wool, seemed to free itself and begin its reversion to a pre-African tempo and clarity.

  Was it babyish to care that the family disapproved of her? To be nervous of facing them out? Obviously their attitude was ludicrously out of date, antediluvian in fact. For all they knew of the circumstances, she and Bruce had simply followed in the footsteps of ten million couples before them. They were not to know that in this case, it had all been as wrong as it could be. But whose business was it? She’d left England, averting all gossip, and if Bruce hadn’t gone mad with those damned premature cables no one would have been the wiser.

  But her rationalisation availed her nothing. All that counted was her father being able to crow, and her mother, minding. What if her mother fixed her eyes upon her and said, ‘As long as you’re happy,’ meaning: ‘Was it worth it?’

  She looked down at Matt, sleeping now, slumped against her side. Beautiful, ever-evolving, enchanting creature, she’d got him out of it, anyway — part of him. The part that wasn’t Tolly’s, the part that wasn’t, inalienably, unreachably, already his very own. Once she had thought that if you bore a child, it was automatically yours, that some part-physical, part-mystical bond united it to you for always. She’d assumed that the love generated by birth could only be broken by some cataclysm or deliberate act. But she, of all people, should have known better. Mother and child love, like any other kind, had to be earned, then maintained; it could be shared, or transferred, or terminated, or superseded. In a word, having a child was no answer to loneliness; in f
act, by demanding so much, raising such high expectations — costing so much that one had a built-in expectation of being repaid — a child could produce the most poignant disappointment and loneliness of all.

  She had not thought such thoughts in three years.

  She changed planes in London and tasted the air properly. Her whole inner being was abruptly reflated. She lifted Matt effortlessly on to her hip and strode briskly through the long passageways, bowling her hand-luggage ahead of her on its trolley. She breathed deeply. It was just like waking up from a long torrid dream. She thought of the life she had left, only hours before. All she could distinctly remember about it was the mildew on Bruce’s tennis racquet, and the fact that she had neglected to remind the servants to hang his damp suits out after the rains… She gave a laugh, which Matt innocently echoed. ‘Smell that air!’ she exclaimed aloud, ebulliently, nuzzling his neck. No cloying scents or dank vapours to clog it on its surging way into her lungs… Oh, what did it matter what her father said, or her mother thought? She would handle it. She would even make Ian laugh! That would be her holiday task.

  The flight to Scotland was lovely. She ate, Matt ate — scones and real English tea… ‘Look, Matt! Chivers strawberry jam.’

  ‘Is it cold?’

  ‘Not shivers, pumpkin! Oh, you are sweet! Wait till they all see you, they won’t be able to help loving you…’ She would go to London, she thought suddenly. For a weekend. Why not? She’d seek out Tanya, and other old friends; they’d go to three shows on a single Saturday — two-thirty matinee, five-thirty matinee, and another at eight-thirty (taxis in between!) and then, satiated, home again on the early train, Sunday. Why not? Her mother wouldn’t mind, not once she’d seen Matt…

  She almost danced down the gangway and through the concourse at Edinburgh. Stip’s face seemed to leap from the crowd.

  ‘STIP! Stip —!’

  ‘Hallo, Mags.’ His mouth formed the words without an exclamation mark. She stopped cold for a moment, then pushed forward ruthlessly to reach him. Something was wrong. Perhaps just with him? Perhaps the dreariness of his life, the stifling of his dream, had wearied him to the point where there were no exclamation marks?

  ‘Stip — don’t just stand there — give me a hug!’

  He hugged her, then met her eyes.

  ‘Oh, what?’ she whispered in shocked dismay.

  ‘It’s Dad.’

  ‘Oh God! Is he dead?’

  ‘I have to take you straight to the hospital.’

  She stood stunned, her mind racing hither and yon.

  ‘I can’t! What about Matt? Oh, look — look at him — do say something —’ She held Matt up, her one achievement. Stip put his hand on the red head. He looked only for a second, then switched back to her.

  ‘He’s dying, Maggie,’ he said softly.

  Maggie felt, for a moment, nothing but the ultimate exasperation. ‘Wouldn’t he just!’ burst from her before she could stop it.

  ‘Maggie?’ The old Stip. So good. So easily shocked.

  ‘Sorry. Sorry. Oh God. Oh, hell! What shall we do?’

  ‘We’re to drop the boy at Aunt Helen’s on the way.’

  All the way to Helen’s in Stip’s car, with Matt alert and bewildered on her knee, she was thinking furiously: Trust Dad. Trust him to ruin even this. And behind the anger, a paralysing fear of his death, of the final closing of the ledger with all the debts still unpaid.

  Helen was waiting. She had the front door open as they came up the path, and at once took Matt into her arms, crying, ‘Oh, look what a bonny wee boy!’ She kissed Maggie. ‘You poor little thing, what a shock you’ve had! It only came on him a while ago — last week…’

  ‘Aunty, cuddle him, he’s going to cry when I leave —’

  ‘Och, he won’t cry, will you, laddie? I’ve got his supper ready —’

  ‘Come on, Maggie!’ Stip urged. ‘Mum’s waiting.’

  ‘Aunty, he’s wet his pants, I’m sorry, there was no time —’

  ‘Get along now, I’ll manage.’

  They left all the cases. Stip had to drag Maggie away, still calling instructions over her shoulder. More driving, this time with a cold, wet knee. No tears. Anxiety about Matt diminished as distance grew between them. Numb, dumb anticipation. A death-bed… Stip talked. The old familiar ulcer, that everyone, including its host, had got used to living with, had ruptured. They’d rushed him to hospital, operated at once — but it was no use. A widespread malignancy. Nothing to do but sew him up and wait.

  ‘How long?’

  ‘No one knows. That’s the bad thing. Not long, though.’

  ‘Is it hurting?’

  ‘They’re keeping him pretty well doped. I’m more worried about Mum than Dad. Dad’s soon going to be out of it. Mum’s got to go on, without — her reason for living. I don’t know how she’ll cope.’

  ‘She’ll have you, and Ian.’

  ‘Ian doesn’t live at home now; he’s got his own flat.’

  ‘Oh yes, you told me —’ Stip had written. Funny how little she registered home news. Even the theatre-crits her mother cut out for her, and the occasional draft of a short story Stip was struggling with, stung her painfully. She would usually put them aside half-read.

  ‘And,’ added Stip, ‘he’s going to get married.’

  ‘Whoever’s going to marry Ian?’

  ‘You don’t know her. Her name’s Lilian. Very buttoned-up “missish” sort of girl, just his style.’

  The car drew up against the black bulk of the hospital. Stip came round to help her out, and she needed his hand. She hadn’t washed or gone to the lavatory or had so much as a cup of tea since the plane; she’d been travelling for many hours and she suddenly realised how deadly tired she was. He held her arm closely and led her through the building to the private room where their father lay.

  She had known her mother would be there, but she hadn’t even thought of Ian. He was standing by the bed, his lean, unlaughing face three distinct years older, his hands behind his back straining his shoulders and stiffening his elbows. His hair had gone thin. It was almost uncanny how he didn’t look at her as they came in, as if he had gone blind and deaf — he had even stifled the human reflex to turn as the door opened.

  But Mrs Robertson jumped up instantly and stumbled into Maggie’s arms. It wasn’t till they’d held each other for a long time and Maggie almost forced her to stand back so that she could look at her, that she saw — not three years, but nearer ten had been added since the day they had kissed goodbye at the wedding. Guilt once again smote Maggie, like a flat blow in the face with a paddle.

  ‘Mummy —’

  ‘Oh, darling — where have you been?’

  The reproach was undisguised. She remembered an incident in early childhood, when she had been punished and run away to hide in the cellar behind the apple-boxes… The relief at being found. Oh, there you are, you bad girl — you bad, bad girl, I’ve been so lonely! Not worried, not frightened, not angry. Lonely.

  Her father looked so unfamiliar when she reached his bedside that she felt nothing, or almost nothing. She had not expected to, but for a different reason. She had thought she would have to make a conscious effort to withhold her sympathy from him. She had not forgiven him for Mrs Dalzell, and she knew he had not forgiven her her perfidy and theft. At first sight, she thought it was too late anyway. His face was tenantless; the drip that was relentlessly feeding his body seemed as pointless as milk deliveries to an empty house. Her mother motioned her to sit in the chair that Ian (judging by its warmth) had risen from just before they entered. Ian was now standing with his back to her at the window, hands still clasped above his buttocks, uncompromising disapproval in every line. Stip stood at the foot of the bed, his hands holding the white-painted rail, and their mother sat opposite her. She was not looking at her husband but at Maggie, drinking her in hungrily through her eyes.

  ‘How are you, darling?’ she asked in a whisper, though there seemed no danger of dis
turbing the deeply-unconscious figure lying between them.

  ‘Mummy, this is awful — it’s a terrible shock —’

  ‘I wanted to cable you, to warn you. Ian thought best to just let you come.’

  Maggie’s eyes flicked to him. An act of kindness, or of subtle cruelty?

  ‘If I’d known, I would have left Matt behind.’

  Her mother’s eyes swerved away.

  ‘Where … is he at Helen’s?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, and I dare not leave him there long. He’ll scream the place down; he’s not used to strangers.’ She wriggled in her hard chair. The doom-laden atmosphere, which she felt incapable of entering emotionally, felt like a suit of armour worn back to front. She could not wait to get out of it. What she had said about leaving Matt behind was true, but since he was here, he provided, she cravenly realised, the perfect excuse. Otherwise she would be expected to sit here for hours and days on end, spending her whole leave — her time of revival, of recreation — imprisoned in this white cell at the side of a dying father for whom she had no feelings left except a little scorpion of guilt, still rustling around the empty shell that had once held her proper, daughterly feelings.

  Stip drove her back to Helen’s. As they drove, Maggie strained forward in her seat, the pull of Matt’s angry misery dragging at her physically. But the feeling turned out to have been entirely subjective. Helen greeted them gleefully.

  ‘I managed fine!’ she said. ‘He ate his dinner and fell asleep straight away. Och, he’s a lamb, Maggie, a perfect little lamb!’

  ‘How did you manage about changing him? Did you find the nappies?’

  ‘In all that luggage? I didn’t even look. I used one of my best damask napkins,’ she said, with all the pride of a brilliant innovator. Then, misunderstanding Maggie’s dropped jaw, she added quickly, ‘They’re very soft, I’m sure it won’t rub him.’