by Esther Freud
The sky pressed down on her, the heavens above were grey, and soon her knees were stinging, the knuckles of one hand swollen where the scissors stuck. Beside her, women moved forward in a row, hanging their hopeless heads. We’ll get away from here, she promised as she clipped at the stalks of grass. We’ll leave this place together.
Kate
THE EVENING OF THE EXHIBITION IS CLOUDY AND WARM. ALEC and Marjorie come in together. I wait apprehensive while they examine their Scots pines. ‘Mine’s a disgrace,’ Marjorie shrieks. Alec says nothing, although I hope he knows it’s good. Sam arrives with the care worker who found him living in the Hyde Park underpass, camped out on a cardboard bed. Who were the other homeless? I strain past him down the slope of a tunnel, and I see my mother in a sleeping bag, a sign before her: HELP. ‘Sam,’ I greet him. ‘How are you?’ His features bleached, he tells me that he’s fine.
Neil arrives late, followed unexpectedly by Donica. Beck offers her a drink but she has provisions, labelled, and she finds a seat and proceeds to unpack.
I watch as the guests circle. Naina has a niece. Alec, a careful, haunted ex. I stand with Neil beside his nude, and we talk about the weather. ‘It’s been a fuck of a summer,’ he says, ‘but what can you expect?’ He has a brother, disabled, living in Reading.
There’s a shout, and Jen, who has wandered into the yard, puts her head back through the door. ‘See this!’
I file out after the others, glancing round for Matt, who’s promised he’ll come straight from work, who’s said he’ll be there for the unveiling. Instead there is Beck. I flush – we’ve caught each other unaware – and when I turn everyone is staring at the tree. They stand in silence, and the wall light, around which we had to cut, flicks automatically on. ‘The moon!’ Marjorie gives a gratifying gasp, and there is a scattering of applause.
Neil slaps me on the back. ‘Speech!’ He is insistent, and so I climb on to a chair and thank the centre for their support, the guests for coming, and more than anything, the artists for their contribution. Beck watches from the doorway, his apron off, and I’m about to thank him, for the van, the ladder, for spending what turned out to be most of a day fixing the panels to the wall, feeding us with home-made pizza so delicious that even Freya stopped talking long enough to eat, but I don’t get a chance because Beck is tussling with a new arrival, and everyone has turned towards the door.
I do my best to draw them back. I tell them why I chose an oak. How symmetrically it grows, how deep the roots are, how it is possible to count its age without chopping through the trunk. ‘The oak is the best-known and loved of British trees, it produces male – the catkin – and female flowers, and its fruit – the acorn – is a nut.’ I’ve lost them. There’s a shout and Beck is flailing – I see one arm swing out before he disappears – and there is Matt, his suit jacket catching on the handle so that for a moment he is yanked back as he storms into the yard. I take a beat and continue. ‘There are live oaks, white oaks, red oaks of North America. Turkey has oaks, and Hungary . . .’ People drift off, crumpling their cups, whispering to each other.
‘It’s beautiful.’ Matt staggers towards me. I don’t look at him. I can’t. ‘Kate.’ He reaches for me.
I step away.
‘Don’t do that.’ He grips my arm. ‘Let me guess. Why is it you don’t want me here?’
‘This is my work.’ I tear myself free. ‘Don’t ruin it.’ I’m halfway across the yard when he has me by the hair. The pain is searing but I don’t call out. He pulls me against him, one arm round my neck. ‘Do you take me for a fool, is that it?’ And then, from nowhere, his grip loosens and he is stumbling backwards, and as he falls his head cracks against the ground. I spin round to see Neil, white-faced, his fist still clenched.
‘Fuck.’ Neil shakes his hand.
I heave Matt’s shoulder but he doesn’t move.
‘Oh fuck,’ Neil says again. ‘That’s me done for.’ But Matt’s eyes flutter and they open.
‘How’s your head?’ I kneel down.
‘Ow,’ he says and, despite himself, he smiles.
I leave him and go inside for water. I see Beck, a button missing, his pocket torn. ‘I’ve called a cab.’
‘Thanks.’ And although when I return Matt is sitting up, insisting that he’s fine, there’s nothing else to do but leave.
We don’t talk in the taxi. I’d direct it towards A&E, but Matt wouldn’t get out even if we stopped there, so we rumble towards home. I pay Celine as he slopes away upstairs, and ask after Freya’s evening. What she ate, what games she played, how happily she got into the bath. It seems my capacity for news of her is infinite. Do I think by knowing I’ll reclaim lost hours? When Celine is gone, I stand in the kitchen alone. I’m hungry now, and tired. I think for a moment I might call my mother. Darling? I can hear the panic in her voice – is that how rarely we speak? I consider phoning Alice, but Alice has gone back to Georgia, the Peach State of America, and she will be at work, five peach hours behind. I take a biscuit and sit at the kitchen table. My throat is tight and the crumbs catch in my jaw. I lay my head on my folded arms and do my best not to think. Not about my job, the night, my life. Not now when there’s nothing I can do.
THE FOLLOWING MONDAY I STAND in the dim light of the vestry, breathing in the quiet. There’s no one here, not even a priest, and when the clock chimes high above me I hurry out into the churchyard. A man shuffles by, his trousers tied with string. He’ll know where I’m supposed to be. There are dark trees, fir and yew, and the stones are green with lichen. Unsteady, he makes his way down a drop of steps, one step, two, then veers off along a path. This can’t be the way. I check the address, and when I look up the man has sunk on to a bench and is draining liquid from a bottle. Down another flight I find a door tucked into an alcove. The wood is dense and seamed with iron. I knock and wait, but no one comes. I’ve tried, I tell myself, surely now I can go home? and I walk on round the building, glancing in at lino floors, stacked chairs, children’s drawings pinned around the walls. I’m at the far corner when I find I’m staring in at a circle of bent heads. I duck away but a woman has caught sight of me, and jumping up, she motions for me to walk back the way I’ve come. My face burns. No – I gesture – I’m not sure . . . but the woman has decided, this is where I’m meant to be, and so I hurry, as she is hurrying, back past the empty rooms, round the side of the building, up a flight of steps to where she is waiting. ‘The door usually stays open. Sorry.’ She is short and sturdy and her eyes are warm.
‘Is this . . . ?’ I’d like at least to check, but she’s herded me into the silent room and is pointing out an empty seat.
‘Resentment.’ A girl in leggings and a voluminous jumper leans across and whispers.
I stare at her.
‘Today’s topic.’
‘Ahh.’ I nod, as if I understand.
‘So’ – a man on the far side clears his throat – ‘I may as well come in,’ and after declaring himself a grateful member of this fellowship, he tells the room how hard it has been, spending the weekend with his family when everyone ignores the fact his mother is so bloody sloshed she drops the lamb roast on the floor, burns her hands as she scoops it up, falls asleep halfway through the meal. ‘Morning,’ they say, when she appears the next day, and they start all over again.
There is a pause and, just like the man’s family, no one says a word. ‘It’s good to be here.’
There is a small shift in the room and again we sit in silence.
An elderly woman is the next to speak. ‘Clara. Grateful member of Al-Anon.’ There is a pause as she gathers herself, the lines scored into her cheeks straining with the effort of disclosure. ‘Last week, my . . . my qualifier . . .’ She takes a jagged breath. ‘He was out in the street, he’d gone to buy provisions’ – her eyes flick fast – ‘when he fell. An ambulance was called. I was at work. I have to go to work!’ and her face collapses and she is sobbing, great gulps of sorrow breaking out between her fingers.
‘You.’
‘No, you.’
They slither into an agony of politeness and once again we sit.
‘Right,’ the girl beside me starts. She doesn’t look much older than eighteen. She hasn’t spoken to her father for three years, but now he’s been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, her sister, who’s stayed loyal, is begging her to visit. She will, she probably will . . . She shakes her head slowly. Her mother died when she was ten. That’s when her father started drinking.
I’m too busy worrying about what might be the best thing for her to do to listen to the next few speakers, but then a woman comes in, cheerful. ‘Resentment: always a good topic. Although you may be surprised to hear, for all the hours I’ve gone on about him, it’s not my husband I resent. Not any more. Mental cruelty. It was worse than the punches. I couldn’t do a thing right. One time he had his hand round my neck, had me up against the wall, and there was one of those light-switch thingies, and I said, stop, there’s something sticking into my fucking head. I got a punch for swearing. He was a bully from the start, although what did I know? I was sixteen when we married. Another thing, he’d never take his keys when he went out. Didn’t believe in it, however late it was, I had to let him in. I’d run down and open the door, but if I took too long, I’d get a kicking, or if I opened the door too fast – what are you doing up at this hour? – I was beaten for that too. I thought it was normal. Must do better. The thing was, in my own way, I was happy. I had my babies. My man.’ There’s a crucifix nestled in the deep crease of her cleavage. ‘Ahhh, for those days of denial.’ Her laugh is throaty. ‘As I said, I don’t resent my husband, not any more. It’s myself I can’t forgive, for being such a sap.’
A card is raised. White with a red heart. ‘Time up already? I only just got going.’
The woman with the book flips over a page. ‘We are now into newcomers’ time.’ All eyes glance my way. ‘If you would like to introduce yourself and say a few words.’
‘I’m Kate, I’m really not sure why I’m . . .’ I do my best to rise for air, but my legs are kicked from under me, my head held in the rip pull of a wave. ‘I . . . I . . . my . . .’ Tears swallow me, and I choke to a halt.
‘If you have questions, or would like support, you can talk to one of us after the meeting.’ It’s the woman with the cheery smile.
After! We stand, a mumbled verse – serenity, courage, wisdom – pattering between us while hands are stretched on either side and, not taking them, I keep my eyes fixed on a card, Detach with love, and wonder what it means.
Aoife
YOU HATED HER FOR HOW I SUFFERED. FORGET ABOUT THE GIRL. But the pain of it would seize me, and I’d take the car and I’d drive. Across Waterford, up to Kilkenny, down through West Cork to Bantry Bay. I’d travel so far that once I had to park and wait out the night. I called. You never did believe me, but I found a phone box on the way to Skibbereen and I dialled home to let you know that I was safe. It was early morning. There was no one about, the gulls so loud I could hardly hear the ringing, but you must have been out on the farm, and I didn’t want to stop again, not till I was home.
And how are we to manage a day’s work? You were livid. I can see you now. With no hot breakfast inside us?
You can have your breakfast. I wasn’t losing face, not in front of the men: Patsy – who’d taken a shine to me, did you ever guess? – and Eamon, who could never think what to do with his hands.
Don’t be daft, woman, you told me, it’s too late now, and the men, who were cleaning themselves up, nodded their goodbyes and trudged off across the yard.
You came to me later, I’d gone straight to bed. Her bed. With the cover she liked, Harvest, pulled up round my neck. My sweet, you stroked my back. Whatever you do, don’t run off like that again. Promise me now. Your voice was thick, but I couldn’t promise, even though I did. The next day I went to early Mass. Poor Father O’Reardon, wasn’t he tired of my sorrowing? But he listened, as he always did. It’s God’s will. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it. God is watching over Rosaleen, and whatever shame she has brought down on her head, He’ll be the one to absolve her.
WITH EACH OF ANGELA’S BABIES, the missing of Rosaleen eased. That first girl, Jackie, and then a boy, born within a year. A boy! You were as pleased as punch, and then another boy, and two more girls, until it seemed there was no space for anything but celebration. There were days when Angela brought them over to the farm, the tribe of them rollicking round the yard, and Angela, so patient, never a cross word out of her. That’s when I fretted: did we do right by our children, sending them away?
Times were different. You had no truck with doubts. Wasn’t it an education that we wanted for them? Isn’t that what they got? I’d retreat to my room and let the cool beads of the rosary fall between my fingers, and I’d stay there until the comfort of the prayers had washed away my fears.
Rosaleen
MOST EVENINGS THE GIRLS NEAREST TO THEIR TIME GATHERED in the day room to knit. They must make clothes for their babies, or their babies would have nothing to wear. Rosaleen thought of the matinee jacket tucked away in her case, but there was no knowing where her case was, and she’d searched through every window of the home. She bent over the pattern for a bonnet stretched across her knee. For all that talking was prohibited, small flurries rippled through the room. There was a girl among them whose baby had been stillborn. They’d heard her cries – three days it lasted – and then a mighty hush. Word had whipped along the corridor. The child was starved of air. A doctor might have saved it. But no doctor was called. Now the girl was knitting trousers, stitches dropped in a ladder to one foot. ‘I never had a sight of him.’ Tears smeared her face. ‘They told me – look away – but when the midwife cleaned me up she let slip it was a boy.’
‘At least now you’ll have the free leg out of this place,’ Carmel whispered, but the girl cried all the harder. ‘I would have traded. Even if I had to stay forever in this jail.’ There were veins, broken, on her cheeks, and her eyes were red. ‘He was to be called Gabriel.’
Carmel crossed herself with wool, and Rosaleen, fumbling with her knitting, imagined the tiny, shrouded body laid into the ground. Where would Gabriel be buried? Not in the nuns’ graveyard, that was certain, and the spectre of an unmarked field, ruts and mounds, rose up before her. She laced her hands across her bump and, lowering her head, felt for a reassuring kick. Not long now. She ran over her plan: her dawn escape, the lift she’d hitch to the ferry, the return ticket safe in the pocket of her coat. She’d squeezed herself into it the night before; her nana’s ring still fitted.
‘Where will you go?’
Rosaleen’s head shot up.
‘Back to my da.’ It was the bereaved girl they’d been addressing. ‘He’s old, and not so well, he’ll be glad to see me whatever anyone says.’ There was a pause in which she unravelled a row. ‘At least my ma is spared the shame.’ She bent over the stitches, and as she gave in to her tears two moons of milk bloomed against her smock.
They knitted in silence, with only the sniffing and the clacking and the occasional squeak of chair legs as a girl shifted her weight. Rosaleen glanced towards the door. It was unusual to go unsupervised for so long. Most nights a nun would have appeared by now to offer some reproach. Knit two together. The bonnet, forming, turned pleasingly to cradle a small head.
‘What wouldn’t I give now for a slice of soda bread and butter,’ Carmel, beside her, whispered. It was a game she liked to play, and Rosaleen, although it pained her, conjured up oysters on their own indented plate, skate with capers, and then, unasked for, her mother’s lime and tangerine jelly. ‘Did you ever . . . ?’ Was it only Mummy who stirred in fruit segments from a tin, presenting the dish so grandly that even now Rosaleen wasn’t sure if its rubbery green coolness constituted sophistication or not? Sharp pangs of hunger riddled through her. ‘A meat pie, with gravy . . . ,�
�� Carmel continued, and before Rosaleen could beg her to stop, they were interrupted by the thud of the front door. Voices rose; there was the echo of a shout. Every one of them sat tall, their needles still. Fast steps approached, and when their door flew open there stood Sister Gerarda, holding the arm of a young girl. Her hair hung lank, her freckled face was bare, and under her thin dress was the tight strain of a belly.
‘Peg’ – the nun pronounced the name as if only now introducing it – ‘sit here and settle yourself down.’
The girl looked wildly round as Sister Gerarda chose a ball of wool and, with lightning fingers, cast on. ‘You’ll work in stocking stitch,’ she said. ‘Start with plain’ – she placed the needles in her hand – ‘then a row of purl, and repeat.’ She surveyed the room, reminding them, not unkindly, ‘We are in silence here, best not to forget it.’ She put a warning finger to her lips and turned towards the door, but before she reached it Peg was up. She seized a pair of scissors, and with the needles flashing she advanced. Sister Gerarda fell against the wall, and Peg, the white wool trailing, skittered from the room.
There was a beat of silence as they all stared after her. The nun’s shocked mouth hung open. ‘Quick,’ she found her voice, and she plucked at a girl, pale and heavy, before turning to Rosaleen. ‘She’ll do herself an injury.’
Rosaleen ran in her socked feet. She could feel the others lumbering behind. Ahead of them Peg had reached the hall and was tugging at the door.
‘Quick!’ Sister Gerarda shouted, but the door was opening, the girl was stepping out.
‘Don’t just stand there.’ The nun was at Rosaleen’s side, and together they hurried on to the step. The night was clear; a sickle moon hung low above the trees.
‘Will I find some boots?’ The heavy girl had joined them. She had a hand below the shelf of her stomach, and her face swam green.