by Beth Morrey
Afterward, we sorted out her things and I found one of her banners, Votes for Women, stitched in violet, white and green, and wept into it, yearning for those days when she would come home to us from a march or a meeting, flushed and triumphant. Mama would never have given up a career to run a household. She marched to the beat of her own drum, whereas I seemed to listen out for everyone else’s. Mainly Leo’s. He suggested we move to Lancaster Villas, but there were too many memories, and I didn’t have a stick to contain them all. My father, Fa-Fa, Jette, Henry, and then my mother. The threads unpicking, one by one, leaving me untethered.
We needed a new start. Leo had finished his PhD, and when the London job offer came it seemed fortuitous, if anything could be called so at that time. Sibby and I agreed to sell the Kensington house, and with my share plus the money from our Cambridge place, we had a good budget for our new London home. Although we wanted a big house, I was determined to find a bargain. So we searched in unfashionable areas and eventually found what we were looking for in Stoke Newington. In those days it was scruffy and insalubrious, full of what Fa-Fa would have called “shady characters,” but we saw the house on a sunny day and felt nonchalant about our ability to integrate into the community. In reality of course, Leo lost himself in his work, I lost myself in childcare since I’d given up my work at the library when we left Cambridge, and neither of us really bothered with the community at all, just let them run riot outside our huge house.
Inside, as the children ran riot, all I ever did was clear up messes, spending my days drearily wiping noses and bottoms and tables and floors, wondering why I’d wanted so many rooms to clean. As Mel and Ali grew older, all they seemed to do was scatter debris in their wake, toys and clothes and books and God knows what else for me to pick up. I would occasionally buy an item for the house, or we would be given something, and after a few weeks of them knocking it over, or spilling something on it, or simply because I was irritated by the presence of yet another thing to clean, I would inevitably shove it in the attic, out of the way.
All my mother’s belongings had gone straight up there, ready for when I felt able to deal with them. But when that time came, I simply didn’t have time, because I was too busy wiping and picking up and shouting and, at the end of the day, collapsing and pouring myself a drink.
I was containing the tide downstairs, at least on the surface, but up there things were getting out of hand. Yet I found I could mostly ignore it, pretend it didn’t exist. When Melanie and Alistair left home and I finally had the opportunity, I couldn’t bring myself to go up and sort it all out. And then when Leo got ill, I was taken up looking after him, wiping and picking up and shouting all over again until, when he was gone, the silence enveloped and overwhelmed me. Such crushing silence. It seemed like my whole life had been a cacophony, a constant buzzing and background chatter, and then Leo went and there was suddenly total and absolute stillness. Stillness, and silence and space. What I’d supposedly craved all those years, and it was the worst, most cloying thing I’d ever experienced. I thought I’d go mad with it, so that’s when I had to get out. To go to the park again, to hear the trees waving in the breeze, the birds sing, a dog bark—anything to avoid the hush of my empty home.
When I went to the attic with Sylvie, Angela, Otis and Bobby that day, it was for the first time in years, and I was both comforted and disturbed by the company. We traipsed up to the first floor together, Sylvie exclaiming the whole way, Angela and Otis less interested because they’d already explored this bit, Bobby just along for the company. When we got to the landing Angela looked up at the ceiling.
“Where is it?” she asked.
“Where is what?” I followed the direction of her gaze.
“The loft hatch?”
“There’s no hatch. There are stairs.” I led them through to what looked like a cupboard at one end of the landing. Unlocking the door with a key I kept in the kitchen, I pulled on a cord and a light came on, revealing a tiny wooden staircase curving up.
“Wow!” said Otis, scampering forward.
“Careful!” I called, but he’d already disappeared, followed by a scrabbling Bobby. Angela and Sylvie followed and I brought up the rear, clinging to the little rope banister.
At the top of the stairs I found Sylvie and Angela standing together, staring. Not having been up in there for so long, I marveled anew at the size of it. There were two huge spaces, both with sloping ceilings either side, separated by a doorway. Each room had a dormer window that looked out over the roof onto the street, and at the far end was another little round window, mired in years of grime. Every bit of floor space was covered in furniture and boxes; boxes and boxes, stuffed with bric-a-brac, odds and ends, books, toys, clothes, and of course, all my mother’s things.
“Jesus Christ,” said Angela, her hands on her hips.
“Gosh,” murmured Sylvie. She reached out and squeezed my hand. Otis appeared, his hair covered in dust, clutching a toy train.
“This is cool!” he said, and went back into the far room to continue his explorations. Bobby trotted over, a worn teddy bear in her mouth.
“No, that’s not for you.” I removed it, tapping her on the snout.
Sylvie took it off me. “This is a Steiff,” she said, turning it over in her hands.
“Yes,” I replied, patting off the dust and resisting the urge to clutch it close. Arbuthnot. Arbuthnot Bear. “It was mine as a child.”
Angela found an old trunk and began rooting around in it. She pulled out a dress and held it against her, twirling in front of us. It was a delicate green silk, with beading and feathers—a flapper dress.
“Is this an original?” she demanded.
“Yes,” I said again. “It was my grandmother’s.”
“Shiver me timbers,” said Sylvie. “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
I suddenly wanted to go downstairs again. “I think I’ll take Bobby for a walk,” I said, grabbing her by the collar. Her ears pricked up at the word.
“I’ll come with you,” said Angela, laying the dress back down with a final stroke of its soft plumes. “I want to buy some wine. Can I leave Otis with you, Sylvie?”
“Yes, fine,” said Sylvie absently, settling herself down by a box.
Down in the kitchen, I collected some poo bags while Angela fetched her purse. Bobby’s afternoon walk was a shorter one, and we tended to just circle the block to a patch of common ground where she could sniff and do her business if she felt like it. There was a store on the corner and Angela disappeared inside, emerging a few minutes later holding a paper-wrapped bottle.
“Listen,” she said as she rejoined me. “I know you don’t really like us up there.” I started to protest but she waved the bottle at me dismissively. “No, I know you don’t like it, but you’ve got to let us help you. It needs sorting out, and we can all do it together, and Sylvie can make your house look nice and then you’ll feel better. About your husband and everything.” She threaded her arm through mine as we turned back. “When Sean, Otis’s dad, left, I sat in my flat for months. And then I stole Nancy and sat with her and Otis on the sofa while Sylvie banged on the door. I thought I could block it all out. But I had to let her in eventually.”
I didn’t reply, as Bobby was squatting in the gutter along the road outside my house. I picked it all up and dropped it into a nearby bin.
“You’re getting good at that,” said Angela, watching me from the gate. “Quite the expert.”
I snorted, taking the bottle off her as I pushed past. “Come on, then,” I said, unlocking the door.
We spent the rest of the evening drinking and rummaging. Otis discovered a chest of toys and delved in delight, driving trains through the dust and lining up Dinky cars; Angela tried on my grandmother’s old dresses, hats and shoes, parading in her finery, glass in hand. She looked surprisingly pretty when she wasn’t dressed in those clum
py androgynous outfits she usually wore. Sylvie unearthed pieces of furniture and fabrics, exclaiming and making notes. I sat in an old leather armchair, reading my mother’s letters to my father, sent during the war and returned with his belongings when he was killed. Beside me, Bobby lay, quietly panting. I read with one hand on her back to feel the rise and fall of her breathing. Whenever a detail upset or unsettled me, my hand would go back; up and down, up and down. Her fur was warm and springy like the dog bed.
“Right, that’s it, I’m ordering a takeaway,” said Angela when we’d finished the wine and she’d exhausted the contents of Jette’s trunk. I relinquished my letters and tucked them back into their little folder. Sylvie looked up, putting down a vase she’d been examining.
“I think I might have to come and live here,” she said. “It’s wondrous.”
We trooped back down and Angela got on her phone to order the takeaway. From the familiar way she spoke to them and the specific nature of her requirements, I gathered this was not her first time. I wasn’t sure I really liked curry.
“Missy,” said Sylvie, pulling out a chair to join me at the kitchen table. “You must do me the most tremendous favor. Let me go through everything up there. I’ll sort it all out. I’ll tell you what’s valuable, bring things down to cheer up your rooms here, throw away the junk. You’ve got to understand, this is a dream for me, like discovering the attics at Knole . . . Never mind,” she continued, registering my bemused expression. “The thing is, let me do this. Please.”
Standing up to put the kettle on the boiling plate, I pondered. I didn’t want to sort out the things up there; I lacked the necessary physical and emotional energy—but this would get it done with minimal effort from me. Moreover, by granting Sylvie access to my house, I would be granting myself access to Sylvie—her joie de vivre, her easy charm and her cheerful consumption of food, books, people. In many ways, she reminded me of Leo. They shared a sun-like quality that encouraged people to circle, and with both of them I wanted to be at the perihelion, the closest point in the orbit. It was a tug I couldn’t ignore.
“Very well,” I said. She clapped her hands in delight while I busied myself making the tea. The idea that these two vibrant, diverting women wanted to spend time with me was as gratifying as the gift of the dog bed. I’d never really had female friends before. I told myself not to be so naïve, that Sylvie had a professional interest in my belongings and Angela had a professional interest in me looking after her son. But the fact remained that here we were, eating a curry together in my kitchen, foil dishes littering the table, as Bobby drooled underneath. Otis and I shared some mild creamy chicken and I enjoyed it very much, mopping up the sauce with Indian bread and laughing as it dribbled down our chins.
Even when they’d left, a drowsy Otis clinging like a koala to his mother, Sylvie promising to pop by later in the week to start her audit, the house didn’t resume its usual crushing silence. After clearing up the remains of our dinner, while Bobby sloppily lapped water from her bowl, I went back upstairs to have a last look at the attic before it became Sylvie’s domain. Surveying the boxes, chests and trunks—the leftovers of lost lives: Fa-Fa, Jette, my mother and father, Leo, even Alistair and Mel, since they’d begun new lives elsewhere—I fancied I could hear the echo of them all in their things. Fa-Fa’s stories, Jette’s Singer pumping away, my mother chanting her slogans, Leo chortling at Radio 4, Ali brum-brumming as he clattered his cars around the hallway, and Mel playing her guitar. I could hear it all, and it was bittersweet, but it was better than nothing.
I switched the light off and went downstairs again with Bobby at my side, locking the door behind me. When I reached my bedroom, she sat down on the landing, looking at me expectantly. Every night so far I’d barricaded her on the ground floor and every morning had found her inexplicably at the foot of my bed. It seemed churlish—and pointless—to continue barring her in the face of such uncanny and, well, dogged determination. So I opened the door, said, “Oh, come on, then!” and watched her plumy tail weave its way through to my room.
Like Angela said, I knew I’d have to let her in eventually.
Chapter 16
Not until you sit properly. Sit!”
I held the bowl above my head, while Bobby capered around, yelping and nudging me with her wet nose. Dogs are particularly demonstrative creatures, which was perhaps the reason they had always made me uncomfortable. To be open with one’s emotions, to reveal one’s devotion so obviously, seemed reckless, as if inviting a knock-back. Bobby’s expressions and body language were so vivid and explicit that I’d begun to reply to her unspoken demands, mostly in the negative. But as the days went by, I came to look forward to our “conversations,” thanking her for reminding me to lock the back door, rebuking her for not telling me her water bowl was running low, and laughing at her grumbling when I pushed her off the sofa. We would wonder what the weather would be doing tomorrow, decide to go to the park, or treat ourselves to a biscuit. She would interrupt me moping over photos and I would tell her about Leo. I couldn’t talk to anyone else about him, but found I could talk to her.
Bobby was doing her breakfast dance when Sylvie knocked a few days later. Picking up a thick cream envelope from the doormat, I found her outside, notebook in hand, dressed in overalls, her hair wrapped in a forties-style scarf, like an eager schoolgirl about to embark on a science experiment. While the dog noisily ate her biscuits, I made Sylvie a coffee and thought she might like to settle for a chat before our walk, but she was clearly itching to get going, so I gave her the keys and left her to it. She was up there all day—occasionally there would be a crash followed by “It’s fine!” floating down the stairs. She emerged just after we got back from Bobby’s second walk, covered in the layered muck of decades, scarf askew but berry eyes shining.
“It’s just marvelous!” she said, plonking herself at the kitchen table and reaching for a teacup. “May I? Your mother, or your grandmother, or whoever it was, had excellent taste. There are some real gems. That gorgeous little vase I found, it’s Murano, and there’s a divine little Maple & Co. writing bureau that will look wonderful in your living room. And what were you doing leaving an Aubusson rug up there? You’re lucky it isn’t completely moth-eaten.”
That rug was a wedding present from one of Leo’s aunts, but I kept tripping over it, and then one day I tripped and Alistair was sick on it, so I rolled it up in a fury and banished it. A wedding present . . . I fingered the morning’s post, still lying on the table, and Sylvie eyed it curiously. “What’s that, an invitation?”
I hesitated. I’d been brooding over that envelope all day. “Melanie, my daughter, is getting married.”
Sylvie bounced in her seat. “How exciting! You never said.”
“I didn’t know. She and her partner have been together for years. I don’t really know why they’re bothering.”
“When’s the wedding?”
“In two weeks. I don’t know if I’ll go.”
Sylvie stared. “But . . . your daughter’s wedding?”
I put the milk back in the fridge to avoid her eyes. “I’m not sure she really wants me there. That’s why it’s so last-minute. We don’t get on all that well.” The shock of Mel’s accusation—“You never wanted me”—still reverberated. My own Greek chorus, ever-present, however much I tried to ignore it. How could I go to her wedding?
“She sent you an invitation.”
“Probably just to be polite, to let me know it was happening.” I didn’t want to talk about it anymore, felt like the envelope opened up my failings as a mother. Sylvie could obviously sense my unease because she changed the subject.
“I’m a bit worried about Angela,” she said, sipping her tea.
“Why?” I hadn’t seen her since the night of the takeaway.
“I don’t know really, she just seems a bit down in the dumps. It’s hard for her, raising Otis on her own.”
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“Does he ever see his father?” I felt sorry for Otis having no male presence in his life. Mel and Ali had adored Leo, although he hadn’t been around that much once all the conferences and book tours started taking off. But they lived for the days when he came back, the conquering hero, dropping his suitcase in the hallway and opening his arms for their hugs. Children need a father.
“No, never. I think he came back once after Otis was born, to meet him. Otis won’t remember, of course, which is probably for the best. But Angela . . . she thinks she failed, not giving Otis a decent dad. Thinks she should have known better, judged better.” Sylvie stirred her tea slowly and licked the spoon. “Men, eh? They never have to clear up the mess.”
I thought of Denzil, with the poo bag puppet on his hand. Maybe he was the exception. It was true that during all the wiping and picking up and shouting, Leo was squirreled away in his study, engaged in his great work. He never once came out and offered to help, not even when I turned my ankle on the Aubusson that day and Ali was sick. I had to lift him up with one arm, weeping with the pain of it, while I used the other to mop up, then limp to the attic to dump the damned thing, while both children wailed downstairs.
Not usually inquisitive, something about Sylvie inspired confidences, so I dared to ask. “Did you ever want to get married?”
She laughed. “Not my thing. I’m quite happy as I am, pleasing myself.”