by Esther Freud
‘No time for that!’ Sister Gerarda flitted across the drive, taking them with her on to the lawn. Rosaleen felt the grass mulch between her toes.
‘There she goes.’ They caught a flash of Peg’s white legs across the field, and as they rounded on her, tacking back and forth, Rosaleen was reminded of the lamb loose on the lane above the farm and how they’d cornered it on their way home from the O’Malleys’, pushing its wool body through the hedge to where its mother bleated in the field.
‘Peg!’ Sister Gerarda called into the night. ‘Stop the foolishness.’ The girl was backed against a tree. They could hear her breath, ragged. ‘It’ll go better for you . . .’ Was the nun searching for her real name? If so, she couldn’t get a hold of it. ‘Come into the house, will you?’ Her voice was pleading. A pound a week they got for every one of them, or so it was said. ‘You’ll be safe inside with us.’
They were closing in, not more than a yard or two away. They could see the light of the girl’s eyes, and a trickle of blood where she’d caught her cheek. Run, Rosaleen willed her.
‘Come on, there’s a pet.’ Sister Gerarda stretched out an arm. ‘You’ll get a nice warm cup of tea.’ Peg let out a piercing scream. The scissors flashed, the needles formed a spear. The girl beside Rosaleen fell and did not rise.
‘Stop this nonsense!’ The nun’s voice trembled. ‘It’ll go against you, that’s a fact.’
Peg advanced, her weapons low. She was shivering and growling, and when she lunged Sister Gerarda gave a fearful gasp and fled across the field.
Rosaleen held Peg in a stare. She moved backwards, hoping to reassure her, but there was a ridge of earth, and her ankle wrenched. The pain of it, white-hot and dizzying, dropped her to her knees.
‘I’ve wet myself.’ The other girl lay near. Her teeth were chattering. ‘What a scolding I’ll get.’ She whimpered into the pillow of her arms.
Rosaleen had no time for comfort. She must make her escape, but all she could do was sit on the damp grass and look on as Peg hared away towards the trees.
The girl let out a long, low wail. ‘My pains,’ she stammered when she had the breath. ‘I’ve started!’
‘No!’ Rosaleen was determined. She might still have the strength to run. ‘It’ll be the shock.’
The girl gripped her hand. ‘Don’t leave me.’ There it was again, a rolling moan.
‘I’ll get you help.’
‘I mustn’t have the baby here,’ she begged, and so together, staggering and hopping, they doubled back towards the home.
ROSALEEN WAS IN THE INFIRMARY when Peg was returned. The Gardai had her arms behind her back. ‘Only doing our job,’ they smirked as they cast their eyes the length of her twig legs, dirty with scabs and bruises, minding her until the doctor came, until he’d quietened her with a shot. Swift as anything, the spirit went from her, and she was hauled away.
‘You still here?’ A nun glanced round. ‘Away with you. To bed.’
Rosaleen, her ankle bandaged, hobbled up the stairs.
‘Lord!’ Carmel exclaimed in the dim light from the hall. ‘Now what will you do?’
Rosaleen was too tired to reply. She stripped off her muddied pinafore, the calico knickers that stiffened with each wash, and wrapping the blanket round her she lay down and faced the wall. ‘You won’t get far like that.’ Carmel sighed.
Hot tears scorched her eyes. Felix, and the love she felt for him, the hate, burned through her as she mumbled out their song.
Kate
‘HOW ARE THINGS?’ BECK HANDS DOWN THE HIGHER PICTURES, although I could quite easily have stood on a chair.
‘Fine.’
He shoots me a look. ‘I’m glad.’ It’s clear he expects more.
I’ve come in early to dismantle the show, and once everything is packed and accounted for, I step into the yard. A bench has been pulled up before my tree, and the plastic chairs are arranged on either side. Beck follows and stands at my shoulder. ‘I may have to start smoking again.’ He is admiring, and I laugh, and even though he wears his usual floury apron, I check for the missing button at his waist.
‘Why do you stay with him?’
‘We have a child,’ I answer, fierce, and I walk instead across the yard and in through the glass doors.
It’s hard to leave a man who isn’t really there.
That afternoon I hand out sheets of paper and ask my group to drip patterns on to them with ink. What was I thinking? Sam is shaking, and Jen has smears across both cheeks. Soon the table, walls and floor are scattered black.
The day before, I went back to the meeting. ‘“We come to Al-Anon because our lives have been affected by the disease of alcoholism,”’ a man reads calmly. ‘“It is too difficult a thing to manage on one’s own.”’
It is? And then, because I still hope that it might not be: too difficult for most?
‘“To find contentment, and even happiness, whether the alcoholic is drinking or not,”’ the reading continued, ‘“we have to accept that we are powerless.”’
I’d sat on my chair, fear mangling my senses. ‘I’m Val,’ the woman to my left had said. ‘I’m grateful to be here today.’
‘I’m Kate,’ I managed, ‘and I’m . . .’ But my name was a dam holding back tears, and before I started, I was lost.
‘Welcome, Kate.’ A soft chorus of voices rose, and the man on my other side handed me a tissue. ‘I’m Gideon. I’m feeling – excuse my language – fucked off.’
Helen was tired. Fatimah was confused. The young girl whose father was in hospital told us how, when she’d gone to visit, her sister had stolen the money from her purse.
I am powerless. I sank down in my seat.
There was an Irish woman with hoop earrings and aubergine-dyed hair. She was back from her home town, where she’d been attending a funeral. ‘I’m glad that I forgave him, before he passed . . .’ Tears shone, even as she smiled, and she reached up an arm clattery with bangles and for a minute she covered her eyes.
‘Bloody hell!’ Neil curses from the far side of the table. ‘I’ve ruined it,’ and he holds up what can only be a penis, and we all watch as the ink begins to run.
‘LET’S GO AWAY SOMEWHERE.’ Matt is dancing me around the kitchen.
‘Where?’
‘Ireland.’
I do my best to keep from frowning. A frown could smash the whole sweet castle to the ground.
‘In Ireland artists are respected. Musicians get given tax exemptions. We could find a place, by the sea.’
I smile encouragement; I’ve made these journeys before – by train through Europe, to South America by plane, one night we set up home in Wales – but I’ve come to understand Matt’s dreams need beer, and by the morning they are sunk.
‘When we’re settled’ – he nuzzles my neck – ‘maybe we should think about another child.’
My throat tightens. ‘I’m not sure.’
All evening the radio has been playing hits of the eighties, as if the eighties were the distant past. Matt pours his raw, warm voice into my ear. ‘We could start thinking about it before then, if you like.’ He twirls me round as the music soars, our bodies jolting against cupboards, chairs, the ironing board, which sways one way and then the other, rocking the iron which I had no time to switch off when Matt swooped in and rushed me off my feet. It topples sideways before it dives. I lunge for the cord and, missing, catch its hot face in my palm.
‘Damn!’ I douse my hand with water, drowning out the sound of Matt’s recriminations. ‘What a stupid fucking idiot I am!’
‘It’s OK.’ The burn stings, but I keep my hand under the cold tap, wait there until it’s numb, until, by the time we go to bed, our new life is forgotten.
I BUY A GAUZE PLASTER on my way to work. I’ll ask Beck for a dish of ice before I seal it on, but when I arrive, Donica is already in the foyer. She has unpacked a can of drink, a box of raisins, a ribbed support sock, and laid them on the table. I stand before her. ‘Will you be joining us today?’
Donica lifts the catch on her fizzy drink. There is a burst and a sigh as bubbles are released, but before she can raise it to her mouth, I’ve fallen to my knees. ‘I’m begging you.’
Donica is as startled as I am. She opens her mouth and closes it again.
‘I want you to try the class.’
She looks round. ‘You’re embarrassing yourself. Get up.’
‘I won’t get up, not until you promise.’
I can feel Beck watching from the counter. Donica riffles through a bag, and not finding what she wants she tries another, pulling out a large book bound in bubble wrap. ‘Seeing as I’m prepared.’ She shows me the label, Sketchbook, and scrabbling again, she brings out a pencil in its own transparent case. ‘In my experience this is the best kind to use.’
‘So you’re coming in?’
She lifts her chin. ‘I’ve never been begged for anything before.’
I rise to my feet. ‘This way.’
No one speaks as Donica manoeuvres into the room. Her bags rustle, her voluminous clothes catch against the backs of chairs. She sits herself at a table and takes out a pot of yoghurt.
Jen spins round to me, eyes wide. FOOD TO BE CONSUMED IN THE CAFÉ AREA ONLY. There is a sign. I say nothing as Donica peels off the lid and licks it, and as she searches for a spoon I pass round photocopy paintings by Monet, Degas, Gauguin. There is a hush as one by one each member of the group appropriates a picture: a lily pond, a wheatfield, the garden at Givenchy. Donica chooses a Tahitian beauty surrounded by fruits and flowers. Yoghurt drips on to it as she opens up her sketchbook, takes up her pencil and begins to draw.
I leave them and run to the kitchen. ‘Do you have a bag of peas?’
‘Still life?’ Beck’s sleeves are rolled above the elbow. His arms are brown and flecked with fine gold hairs. I hold out my hand. ‘Ouch.’ The burn scalds across his face.
‘It’s not so bad.’
Beck dips into the freezer, pulls out an ice pack. ‘Do you have a bandage?’ And before I can tell him that I do he fetches down a first-aid box and, peeling away a strip of gauze, he smooths it on. ‘Take care now.’ He has hold of my fingers.
‘Thanks.’ I ease them away.
‘You’ve got to have the right equipment,’ Donica is telling the group. ‘This is the only kind of pencil worth using.’ The others examine the pencils I’ve provided and look at me, accusing. ‘That’s coming on nicely,’ I tell Sam, who has drawn three ears of corn, and I move across to Jen and admire the tilt of a Van Gogh chair. I take a sheet of paper for myself and sketch a woman. She has long kinked hair, parted in the centre, and her dress is thick with leaves. ‘Who’s that by, then?’ Neil asks, and I tell him I know I’ve seen it, but I can’t think where.
IT’S A GLORIOUS DAY and the meeting is full. Extra chairs are fetched, the circle widened, and I sit against the wall of windows and let the heat beat against my back. I’m happy . . . grateful . . . The sunshine has heightened everybody’s mood, and when the introductions reach me, I add, as others have before: ‘It’s good to be here.’
The woman beside me – deep shadows smudged below her eyes – is having trouble with her husband. She has twins who wake each morning before six, which wouldn’t matter if she could get a full night’s sleep, but her husband staggers in and wakes her in the early hours. ‘He could use the spare room, is that an unreasonable request?’ She blinks. There’s every chance he’ll be affronted, which is why she hasn’t asked.
I bite my lip and search the faces of the group. They are for the most part attentive, although a girl eating from a Tupperware box continues crunching rounds of celery and carrot. The mother of twins blows her nose. ‘I expect it will become clear.’ She laughs, defeated, and I wonder whose rule it is – not to offer the most obvious advice. The next woman needs to talk about her daughter. She blames her for the way they live, just the two of them together, but her family, they didn’t want to hear it when she spoke up about the abuse. Troublemaker, they called her. They were the ones who forced her out.
A young Italian tells us he’s happy for the day. The smiling faces in the street, the trees – there are so many trees in London. The front gardens. Full of flowers. Every little patch of ground has blossom. We wait for him to tell us why he’s here. ‘My girlfriend,’ he says after a pause. ‘It’s lonely since she’s gone into rehab.’ He looks pained. ‘This is my third meeting.’
There are murmurs of ‘Welcome’, of ‘Keep coming back’.
‘I’m a grateful member of this fellowship.’ It is the Irish woman with the aubergine hair. She pauses, and it seems she may not be able to go on. ‘Last week I had a message . . .’ Her eyes are fearful. ‘My daughter . . . the one I gave up . . . she’s been in touch, not with me, directly, but someone official, they called to let me know.’ Her face dissolves. ‘I’ve waited for this day. Thirty-nine years.’ She manages an almighty gulp. ‘She’s not asking to see me, at least that’s not been mentioned. It’s medical records she’s after, information . . . that’s what they’re saying, but maybe one day we could meet and then I’d have a chance, after all this time, to let her know . . .’ Her smile breaks through, and the earrings and the freckles, the fine gold of the cross, spangle out into the room. ‘I’ve always loved her. Never stopped.’ The heart card has been raised – a polite reminder to stop. I will her to ignore it, and she does. ‘It’s what I’ve prayed for, ever since she turned eighteen. I put my name down on the register when they changed the law, 1975 it was, but there’s been nothing, until now.’
What register? The woman, her name is Ciara, is blowing her nose. I watch her as the voices circle. Confused, relieved, pissed off. Thirty-nine years! I wonder if my own mother has been counting, and not simply skipped away to a new life? I’m surprised when there’s a move to stand.
‘God grant me the serenity’ – hands on either side reach out – ‘to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can’ – I squeeze them, grateful – ‘and wisdom to know the difference.’
I WALK INTO the hot glare of the afternoon and find I’ve boarded the wrong bus. I’m heading out of habit towards work, and I’m tempted to continue, to stand at the counter of the café. Instead I get off and cross the road and wait for a bus to take me home.
I have half an hour before collecting Freya. I cool my face with water and stare into the mirror. Has my mother been waiting, worrying, is it me that abandoned her? I run upstairs and dig through the mound of trinkets in my wooden box. Freya’s newborn tag, a puzzle ring dull with disuse, and there she is, her hair a tangle as mine is now, and I hold her image, and I see Ciara and the lake of her tears.
Freya sits alone on the carpet. ‘Mummy!’ She leaps up, butting against me with her head, and, guilty for being late, I give in when she demands a treat. ‘Wait till we get home,’ I say as she clutches the chosen Mars Bar, but when we stop to cross at a red light I see she’s peeled off the wrapper and the chocolate, melted, has oozed over her hand. She does her best to lick it off, caramel binding her in strings, until the mess of it slips between her fingers and lies in a sticky mess on the street. Her lip trembles and she tugs at my arm. ‘No!’ I’m not going back to the shop. Her feet drag, but I am stronger. ‘There are biscuits,’ I tell her, ‘and Ribena lollies,’ but if Freya can’t have chocolate she wants nothing at all. Thwarted, she throws herself down in the hall. I stand above her, terrible, and as if from a great height I watch her mouth widen in a howl. Fine, I decide, she can lie there as long as she likes, and I go through to the kitchen and turn the radio up loud. It’s the hottest day of the year so far, and I search through cupboards for the paddling pool, and when I find it I remember the last time I tried to blow it up the pump was nowhere to be seen. I slump back on my heels. ‘I want
to watch TV!’ Freya screams from the hall, and although I consider it, I can’t give in. Our mother managed with nothing but Blue Peter and there were hot days then. Freya rushes through and pummels at my back.
I swing round and catch her wrists. ‘Stop it. Now!’ But she roars into my face that she wishes she had another mummy, a mummy who was nice, and in a chalky haze I strike her, sharp, across the side of her head. She stops, and I stop. Her eyes are wide, her body shocked. ‘I’m sorry,’ I tell her and, all tension dissolved, she folds into my arms.
THE NEXT DAY I CALL my mother and ask if we can visit. ‘Of course.’ She sounds wary. It’s a long time since I’ve been home.
All week my stomach knots and gripes, and there’s a tightness in my throat. ‘I’m going to try and talk to them,’ I tell Matt the night before, ‘about, you know, how they . . . when I was given up.’ But on Saturday morning it’s he who is unwell. ‘You don’t mind, do you, if I stay here?’
I seize my bag, take Freya and slam out of the door.
‘Are we late?’ Freya asks as we rush along the street.
We’re not late, in fact we’re so early that we take the slow, meandering bus from Chalk to Victoria. We sit at the top, above the driver, and to distract myself I tell Freya stories about the stops we pass. A flat I lived in when I was a student, an art-supply shop where I worked until I was sacked for stealing a tube of Naples yellow paint. At Cambridge Circus I remember a girl who had a studio high up, opposite the theatre. There was nothing in it except a mattress, an easel, and three eels lying listless in the bath. ‘If you want to be an artist,’ she’d said, ‘there can be nothing else important in your life,’ and although I’d hoped this wasn’t true, I returned the next day and rang the bell, but there was no reply.
I kiss Freya’s straggled head as we swing round past the National Gallery and point out the stone lions and the fountains of Trafalgar Square. I tell her how when I was her age there were stands selling corn to feed the pigeons, and that when we get to Gran and Grandad’s I’ll show her a photograph, Alice and me, half obscured by birds.