by Helen Harris
Unlike the Masons, they did however seem to understand that Ruth was not naturally a servant, that she came from a good family and had only been reduced to her present situation by unfortunate circumstances. They made sure that whatever socialising was organised during those austere post-War years for the Jewish young people of Sheffield, Ruth was always included. Her escort was usually Morris Rosenkranz, Selwyn’s nephew, who had broken with the family tradition of finance and accounting and was studying to become a doctor in nearby Leeds.
Morris Rosenkranz was a serious, polite young man but Ruth never really considered him as a fiancé. How could she? He might be from the employer’s family and Ruth the employee but still she felt herself to be in so many ways superior to the Rosenkranzes. Apart from the ones who had gone abroad to fight during the war, none of them had ever been abroad. Before the war, Ruth had holidayed every year in Switzerland or France or Italy. The Rosenkranzes did not read much either; their leisure pursuits centred around the synagogue, bridge and coffee and cake. Besides, there was the whole religious aspect. How could Ruth conceive of marrying into that primitive ritual and superstition: kissing doorjambs, separate sinks for meat and milk? But in time she came to realise that Morris Rosenkranz was the exception in his family. Not only had he chosen to move away and study medicine, he always had a paperback book in his pocket to read on the train and when he had finished reading it, if it was any good, he passed it on to Ruth.
One evening, he took her out to dinner in a restaurant in Leeds and ordered shrimp. Ruth had been living with the Rosenkranzes for long enough to have learnt that shrimp was a forbidden food. In Germany, her family had eaten everything including pork in all its delicious forms. She must have raised her eyebrows because Morris explained to her that, as a scientific rationalist, he had abandoned religious practice and only kept up appearances at home to preserve the peace. That had been the first revelation for Ruth.
But still it never crossed her mind that she might one day end up marrying Morris. For one thing, she did not see her future in the North of England. Quite where she did see her future was another question. There was obviously no possibility of ever returning to Germany. But she still hoped, hoped desperately for wider horizons than Yorkshire.
In due course, Morris graduated and, to his family’s dismay, he took a job in London. Ruth discovered that she missed him and he must have felt similarly because he wrote her letters, beautiful letters which impressed her with his insight and sensitivity. He came home in April for Passover. It was an eight-day holiday and he and Ruth went out walking together every day. Old Mr Rosenkranz was seriously ill by then and needed full-time nursing care which left Ruth with a good deal of free time. On the last day of his holiday, Morris proposed to her, sitting beside her on a bench in one of Sheffield’s finest municipal parks.
“In the normal course of events,” he said delicately, “of course I would have asked your father first.” But in her terribly sad circumstances, he could only hope that she felt her father would have approved of him.
Sylvia was sobbing, with great, wrenching sobs. “Oh Ruth,” she repeated, stricken. “Oh Ruth.”
Ruth had been so shocked, at first she had not known what to answer. She had asked Morris if she might please think it over and give him her answer the next morning before he caught his train back to London. He had obviously been disappointed – he must have hoped she would fall into his arms – but politely, respectfully he had agreed. Ruth had lain awake all night, debating. Never had she missed her parents so much, nor felt so acutely the absence of anyone to turn to for guidance.
Obviously, it was better to be married than unmarried; that much was simple. But never having thought about marrying Morris, she now found herself, out of the blue, faced with having to make a hugely important decision. She liked Morris, she liked him a great deal in fact. He was a doctor, an honourable and secure profession. She would be able to move to London: a huge plus. But she was just twenty-one; should she be getting married at all? To the first person to ask? And did she want her life, for ever after, to be tied to the Rosenkranz family and to Sheffield? What would her parents say if they ever miraculously returned and found out they had in-laws who prayed, rocking heel to toe, wrapped in silk prayer shawls?
In the end, she decided to let Siggy, now nearly thirteen and according to the Rosenkranzes’ beliefs almost a man, be the arbiter. If he liked Morris, if the two of them hit it off, then she would go ahead. Siggy would have a home, a proper home, to come to in the school holidays. Well, fortunately, Morris and Siggy had got on famously and Siggy had wholeheartedly given his approval. In January 1948, she and Morris had got married in the ugly red brick synagogue with all the hullabaloo the Rosenkranz family expected and Dr and Mrs Mason sitting in the congregation, looking like two fish out of water.
It had all turned out to be utterly unimportant anyway; her worries about social standing and religious practice. She had married Morris because she knew he was the sort of young man her parents would have wanted her to marry and, even though it had not been a match born of great passion but a carefully weighed decision, they had grown to love each other deeply and they had been extremely happy together for forty-seven years.
“Tell me,” Sylvia said tentatively, “about your children.”
But Ruth put up both her hands in a defensive gesture. “Not now,” she said, sounding terribly tired. “Not now. I think that’s quite enough for one day, don’t you? Besides, shouldn’t you go back up to your flat in case your son is trying to get through to you?”
Sylvia climbed heavily back upstairs, severely shaken by everything which Ruth had told her and by the reminder that someone’s life could so easily appear to be one thing on the surface and yet be, shockingly, something entirely different underneath.
As she reached the landing, she could hear her phone ringing inside the flat. It stopped ringing before she could get the door open but started again almost straight away as she came in. She picked it up and it was Jeremy, beside himself.
“Where the hell have you been?” he exploded, the minute she panted, “Hello?” “I’ve been calling you for the past two hours. The mobile networks are all down. I had no way of knowing where you were. Why on earth didn’t you call me to let me know you were alright?”
“But I did,” Sylvia said shakily. “I called your mobile loads of times. And Smita’s. I just got your messages.”
“I told you,” Jeremy sounded at the end of his tether. “All the mobile networks are down. Why didn’t you try our home number, for Christ’s sake?”
“I assumed you were at work,” Sylvia said weakly. Even today, of all days, she seemed to be doing everything wrong.
“Well, I’m not,” Jeremy retorted angrily. “I’ve been at home worried stiff about you for the past two hours. Where on earth have you been?”
“I was with Ruth,” Sylvia said faintly. “I was frightfully worried about you. And Anand and Smita.”
“Anand’s fine,” Jeremy snapped. “You know we never take him on the Tube. And Smita’s in New York. I’m quite worried about the nanny though; she hasn’t turned up for work and with all the mobiles down, she’s probably got no way of contacting us. I just hope she’s ok.”
Sylvia tried to remember which nanny it was; Galina had left after six months because she and Smita hadn’t seen eye to eye. She had been replaced by Eva who had lasted less than a month and Eva had just been succeeded by – was it Anna or Agnes?
Abruptly, she asked, “I didn’t know Smita was in New York?”
Jeremy answered briefly. “She had to leave a couple of days early. Something came up.”
“Will you be needing me?” Sylvia asked eagerly.
She heard Jeremy sigh. “Well, I’m stuck here for now,” he said, “unless Agnieszka shows up. But I doubt you can even get here, you know; apparently the whole city’s come to a standstill. Only emergency vehicles can get through.”
Sylvia imagined herself walking heroic
ally all the way to Belsize Park but thought better of it. She said, “I’ll come the minute I can.”
But Jeremy said sternly, “No, stay at home until we’re absolutely sure this thing’s over.”
Sylvia asked, horrified, “You mean there might be more bombs?”
“Well,” Jeremy said, “have you heard about the bus?”
Of course Sylvia hadn’t and when Jeremy told her that a double-decker bus had been blown up in Tavistock Square, it seemed to Sylvia that her lifelong image of London had been blown sky high too and she had to sit down suddenly as the colours began to drain from everything.
Late that night, as she was finally slipping into an uneasy sleep, her telephone rang and she jolted awake. It was Cynthia.
“So you’re still alive,” her sister began sarcastically. “Did it not occur to you at any point today that I might be worried about you? Did it not cross your mind at all to ring and let me know you were alright? I suppose you thought I couldn’t care less? Is that it? You imagined that if you had been blown to pieces, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid?”
There was something about Cynthia’s grating, rancorous voice which had the same effect on Sylvia as chalk being scraped down a blackboard and she cringed under her covers.
“No Cyn, no,” she tried to answer but Cynthia was in full spate and wouldn’t listen to her stammered self-defence.
“Do you know I saw you on a stretcher on the television?” Cynthia nearly shrieked. “You were dead. You had a grey blanket pulled over your face and you were being carried by two ambulance men. It was ghastly.”
“What are you talking about?” Sylvia exclaimed, wide awake now and horrified. “It wasn’t me, obviously. Whatever made you think it was?”
“Not wishful thinking,” Cynthia retorted. “If that’s what you’re implying. It was your feet, if you must know. I saw your feet sticking out from under the blanket. They were blue but I could tell they were yours; I’d recognise them anywhere.”
Sylvia curled up her toes instinctively under the covers. “What’s so remarkable about my feet?”
Cynthia cackled. “Oh go on, Syl. Don’t pretend you don’t know; you’ve always had the most misshapen toes. You used to get teased about them when you were little.”
Sylvia wiggled one of her feet out from under the covers and stared at it; were her toes so very misshapen? As she considered her foot unhappily, Cynthia carried on, “That’s what sticks in my throat, Syl. I can still recognise your feet on television after all these years but I know you would never in a million years recognise mine. Or any other part of my body for that matter. Because you’ve blotted me out, Syl, that’s what you’ve done, you’ve blotted me out of your life completely.”
“We saw each other at Christmas,” Sylvia said faintly.
“Oh and I should be grateful for that, I suppose,” Cynthia retorted sarcastically. “Lady Bountiful comes down to Lewes at last for Christmas dinner with her sister but just happens to mention that the only reason she has come is because her son and daughter-in-law and darling little grandson are up in Leicester having Christmas with her parents and so otherwise she would be all alone in London.”
“I never said that was the only reason I had come,” Sylvia began.
But Cynthia snapped, “Oh spare me the hypocrisy, please. You may think I don’t care about you anymore but the bottom line is I still do, Syl, I care a great deal but you, clearly, couldn’t care less about me.”
Sylvia blurted out, “Oh stuff and nonsense, Cyn. They weren’t my feet anyway. And my toes really aren’t that misshapen.”
Cynthia gave a harsh laugh. “You don’t change, do you?” she remarked and she hung up without saying goodbye.
Ruth’s advice about Jeremy’s threatened redundancy took Sylvia by surprise. She consulted her the very next time they had tea together, having spent the intervening days fretting over her son’s predicament.
Ruth’s advice had nothing to do with Jeremy or Smita for that matter either. It had to do with Sylvia herself and she was shocked to realise that she could be at fault here too, even before she had done anything at all.
“You must not become too deeply involved in their lives,” Ruth warned. “It is tempting, I know, when one only wants to help and one’s own life is sometimes rather – quiet. But it is a mistake, Sylvia dear, maybe even a grave mistake. You must let them solve their problems themselves. Don’t go rushing in with unasked for advice and suggestions. They won’t thank you for it and they may resent it deeply. Be content with your lovely little golden grandson and leave everything else well alone.”
“But if his father loses his job it will have a bad effect on Anand too,” Sylvia argued. “And besides, Jeremy and Smita aren’t getting on that well already, if you ask me and if Jeremy is going to be unemployed, then surely things will only go from bad to worse.”
Ruth looked alarmed. “If there is already conflict between them, how do you think your intervention will improve matters? How did you get on with your mother-in-law? How would you have liked to have her involved in your marital ups and downs?”
Sylvia was aghast at the idea of a comparison between herself and Daphne Garland whom she had loathed with every fibre of her being for twenty-eight years. Roger’s mother had thought Sylvia a flighty young woman and when she turned out to be apparently unable to produce grandchildren year after year into the bargain, she had urged Roger to divorce her. She had even turned a blind eye to Roger’s indiscretions, believing that Sylvia’s shortcomings justified them and maybe even hoping for a welcome little accident along the way.
Mechanically finishing her second slice of coffee and walnut cake in silence, Sylvia considered Ruth’s advice.
In the end, she just said lamely, “Maybe you’re right.”
She poured them both another cup of tea and, as she drank hers, she reflected that if she did nothing, as Ruth advised, then at least neither Smita nor Jeremy could blame her for whatever happened. That in itself would be welcome.
In the end, there was no need for her to intervene anyway because things turned out much better than expected; Jeremy’s contract was terminated in the spring of 2006 but, less than two months later, he was offered a new job by another department of the BBC, doing similar work apparently and with a slightly higher salary too.
Relations between Jeremy and Smita were not, Sylvia observed, particularly badly affected. Rather than lording it over her unemployed husband, as Sylvia had feared, Smita was terribly grateful to Jeremy for doing the bulk of the childcare and she joked that he did it so happily he would make a perfect house husband.
Anand’s second birthday was celebrated with a big family party. He had a small but intensely noisy tea party on the day itself, Jeremy reported, with a handful of other two year olds. It had been a nightmare apparently, in their stylish apartment, even though Smita had some time back compromised with aesthetics by fixing stair gates on the stairs and putting away most of their valuable breakable things.
Sylvia was not invited to the two year olds’ tea party even though she would have loved to come. She had not met any of Anand’s playmates and she would have dearly liked to take stock of them; to judge how suitable they were and to observe how Anand interacted with them. But Smita had made it clear that this event was for accompanying mothers and nannies only – and Jeremy of course with the camera – and Sylvia was more than welcome to come along to the family get-together the following weekend.
Sylvia swallowed her disappointment and cheated Smita by organising her own little birthday picnic for Anand ahead of time in the Sutherland Avenue gardens. There was a pair of two-year-old Chinese twins, rather pleasingly called Ming and Ling, who played regularly in the gardens and Sylvia invited their Australian nanny to bring them over to her big tartan picnic rug and share jelly and cake and join in a ragged rendition of “Happy Birthday”. So she got in first with the birthday celebrations and felt secretly smug when Jeremy reported that Anand had not enjoyed the singi
ng of “Happy Birthday” at their tea party and had covered his ears. He had done nothing of the sort at Sylvia’s.
The adult party was rather an ordeal for Sylvia and, if it hadn’t been for Anand’s shining presence, really she would not have enjoyed it at all. For a start, Prem, by far her favourite member of Smita’s family, was missing. His absence drew Sylvia into enforced proximity with Naisha who seemed at her most overbearing; she appeared in charge of the proceedings, to an extent which visibly annoyed her daughter and she kept rushing to and fro, loudly issuing instructions to all and sundry.
When she finally sat down in the centre of the big sofa, she insisted on having Anand on her lap – even though you could tell he was reluctant – and feeding him a stream of choice titbits with her perfectly manicured fingers. Jeremy was grumpy – not surprisingly – but of course he was grumpiest of all with his mother.
Worst of all, Anand didn’t even seem that interested in Sylvia. Maybe it wasn’t all that surprising with so many less familiar people there, all of them vying for Anand’s attention and some of them wearing eye-catching shimmering saris and lots of glittering jewellery. But Sylvia still felt jilted and jealous; surely her bond with Anand was special enough for him to single her out in a crowd and show them all that she was the favourite grandmother?
Naisha seemed supremely unconcerned when Sylvia enquired after Prem. He hadn’t been feeling too well for the past few weeks, she explained casually and hadn’t felt up to making the trip to London. The doctor had sent him for a few tests but the results weren’t back yet. She made it sound like a big fuss over nothing, as if Prem were just malingering in the time-honoured male way.
So Sylvia was shocked and horrified to hear from Jeremy barely ten days later that poor dear Prem had been diagnosed with cancer, a particularly nasty and very likely fatal form of cancer with a long and complicated name. Smita was devastated apparently although Naisha seemed to be bearing up.