The Moon At Midnight

by Charlotte Bingham

  Mrs Hackett sat down opposite Judy, and her handsome head inclined towards her guest with a serious sense of purpose.

  ‘I will proceed now – if you won’t be upset – to try to commit to you our sense of purpose here. To begin with there are no rules. There are no punishments. The young adults, as they are always referred to – thus setting in their own minds that they are no longer children by any stretch of the imagination – are allowed to do what they want, which means they go where they want and how they want, from their own shibeens. If that sounds alarming, believe me, you find that young adults, after the initial surprise, soon turn out a great deal more sensible than older adults ever give them credit for. That’s to begin with. Next we find that talk is of no use whatsoever – the young people who come here have often been wounded by too much talk, too much time spent dealing with them when what they really need is to be turned loose, like the horses in spring, and let gallop about a bit, so that their spirits, which are often in a dark mood when they first arrive, are changed by the feeling of freedom and unity that nature brings to us all, if we would but stop and listen.’

  As she listened to Widow Hackett Judy found a feeling of peace gradually settling round her. Perhaps it was the tea, the sound of snoring from the corner, the warmth of the room, the flowers and plants, but she found herself wishing that she could stay behind with Kim and enjoy just such benefits as Mrs Hackett was describing.

  ‘So, as I’m saying, Mrs Tate, the discipline of Loughnalaire lies within us, not within a rule book. We have no particular order to the day, no set times for set lessons, not at any rate that we give out. What happens is that teachers arrive at certain times to give lectures, and as at university those interested turn up. Curiosity d’you see, Mrs Tate, is one of the best teachers in the world, in fact the best, as far as I can see. If you become curious about the history of such a place as Loughnalaire, then your curiosity can lead you to the history of Ireland, the history of the English in Ireland, ancient Ireland, the invading Danes, mythology, and heaven only knows what other subjects. Equally, if you become interested in fly-fishing, which Phelim takes – in a moment you might well find you’re interested in the habits of fish, their feeding and their breeding. From the fish can come an interest in the lakes, and in the sea. And so we come perhaps to the Irish Sea, the coracles in which our ancestors set out across the water, the monasteries where they wrote and illuminated the scriptures, the gardens they tended, for food and flowers. And from there to the deities, to the mysticism upon which we can base belief, to belief itself, and the nature of love. More tea, Mrs Tate?’

  Judy nodded and held out her cup, a magnificent affair of faded flowers and gold edging, the saucer of which had been much mended.

  ‘I wish I’d been sent here, Mrs Hackett,’ she said simply. ‘I don’t suppose you have exams, do you? It might be difficult, I would have thought, with such a – such an unusual way of learning.’

  Mrs Hackett placed the cup beside her and sighed before returning to her own place.

  ‘We would have exams if we wanted to know how well or badly all the members of our family, as we call them, knew every subject, but it’s really of very little interest. We look at the whole person, not just a narrow piece of knowledge. Now as soon as you’ve finished that piece of tea, we’ll be on our way round the grounds and I’ll show you more, and you can ask more, and make up your own mind if this is the place for Kim. Although whether she wants to remain Kim we won’t know until she’s been here a few days, sometimes weeks.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Judy leaned forward, not understanding.

  ‘Well, see how it is, Mrs Tate. We find that when they first come to us, they often decide to change their names. It helps them forget their sorrows. At present we have, now let me see – yes, we have Bat Masterson, King Arthur and Cleopatra, not to mention any number of film stars – and all of them, at this moment, I sincerely hope, are in the middle of making us some excellent continental pastries for supper.’

  The Widow smiled suddenly, a wide smile that was soaked in humour, as if she knew just how mad she must sound to Judy, but it was also a confident smile.

  As Judy was shown round the small estate it occurred to her that such a place as Loughnalaire was more special than it was possible to imagine. It wasn’t just the proximity to the sea, with its wonderful early spring colour, and the coastal paths that ran from the gardens to a great expanse of water which was whipped daily by the wind, reflecting every nuance of the weather like some vast obliging mirror, but the cottages themselves, grouped as they were near, but not cheek by jowl with, the elegant old house. Here each young adult was given their own ‘shibeen’. Generous enough in size they were also simple to the point of being Spartan. Whitewashed walls, rough hewn, a simple desk and chair, a plain iron bed, a bathroom, and galley kitchen made up the whole.

  ‘They eat alone, or they eat with us. Most eat with us, you’ll find, not just to get out of cooking for themselves but because they all turn to cooking. A bit of competition in the kitchen does no harm, we find. Plus of course there’s a great deal of music played after supper and lunch too, sometimes.’ Mrs Hackett gave a sudden, warm laugh, as she opened the door of yet another of the cottages. ‘This is reserved for young Kim. Ah yes, I see Phelim has put her bags in there, good, good. Now time for you to say goodbye. If you would oblige by not making too much of a fuss. It does help with the first few days if the parent or guardian does the quick peck on the cheek, turns on her heel and goes off with an attempt at cheeriness. It’s to do with not making them feel as if they’re being left with the gargoyles and the ogres, not to mention the banshee.’

  Hearing footsteps behind them on the stony path and a whistle that she thought she recognised Judy turned to see Kim approaching them from the beach, but before she could hurry forward she felt a restraining hand on her arm.

  ‘Remember not to show your anxiety now, Mrs Tate. For isn’t it just like the rider’s seat on a horse? Show your anxiety and it conveys itself.’

  Behind Kim, and indeed below her, talking and laughing, wandering along the shore in great groups came an army of weeders. Boys and girls, tanned and healthy from being outdoors, in fisherman’s sweaters and sturdy shoes, carrying buckets of the precious thin seaweed – all were climbing up towards them reminding Judy of some kind of young, heavenly choir. Indeed such was their outward serenity, their sense of being at one, that had they been carrying palms they might have been early Christians.

  After an anxious look back to Mrs Hackett, Judy called to Kim, ‘And how much weed did you pull, young lady?’

  Kim thrust her bucket towards her mother.

  ‘Quite good,’ she said, ‘considering it’s my first time.’

  ‘Well done, darling.’ Judy swallowed something near to a lump in her throat away, before patting Kim lightly on her arm. ‘I’d best be off now or I’ll miss the evening boat. Phelim’s taking me back,’ she added, as if it was something he always did. ‘And then I’ll be home, at Bexham, in a trice.’

  Kim looked away down at the advancing crowd below.

  ‘Dorothy said you’d be going soon.’ She nodded back down to the dark-haired girl, who waved cheerily in reply. ‘I’m going to have tea with her, in the shibeen. ‘Bye.’

  She kissed Judy perfunctorily, and as she did so Judy realised that she was being given her marching orders, and so she turned quickly, leaving Kim to walk back down to her new friend.

  Phelim drove Judy back to the boat, which she duly caught feeling oddly light without Kim and her luggage, and although she sat on her own for the whole journey, gazing out to the darkening sky and the sea stretching behind the boat in a dark, ever widening sheet, she felt at peace.

  Kim didn’t watch her mother leave. Instead she followed Dorothy back down to the beach where Dorothy had left her spade.

  ‘See?’ Dorothy picked up her spade, and then, turning once more to the path, she went on in approving tones. ‘See how much easier it is
for them, if you let them just go off, don’t make a fuss? That way they don’t feel as if they’ve thrown you to the wolves. It’s much easier for the poor things if you let them go quickly and quietly.’

  Kim nodded. It was true. It was much easier, but it was also odd, because suddenly Judy didn’t seem quite like her mother any more, more like a friend of whom she had to take great care.

  ‘Come on . . .’ Dorothy turned. ‘Oh, and by the way, what do you like to be called?’

  Kim thought for a second.

  ‘Jenny.’

  If she was honest with herself Mattie had been both dreading and looking forward to Jenny’s coming home. The night before she hardly slept, lying staring into the light that filtered down from the attic into the main bedroom wondering how she would cope, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t panic at the sight of her daughter’s bandaged face in familiar surroundings once more.

  ‘Darling, I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see you home.’

  Jenny lay back against the familiar faded brocade of the old family sofa.

  ‘It’s wonderful to be home, Mummy,’ she lied.

  In actual fact it was terrible. As the ambulance men had helped her through the door she’d wanted to turn and follow them, go back to the hospital, to the kind nurses and concerned doctors, for the truth was that being home was almost worse than anything that had yet happened to her, because it was only now that the extent of her injuries became totally apparent to her, only now that she realised that she, Jenny Tate, was truly scarred for life. In the hospital there had been so many other people, of all ages, much worse off than herself that she’d felt practically normal, but once home, just one foot over the threshold, she sensed at once how odd she had become, and how normal everyone else was. The moment the ambulance men said goodbye to her, and carefully closed the front door behind them, Jenny knew that everyone else in the world was going to be like her mother who was now bending over her smelling vaguely of Chanel No. 5, straightening the cushions behind her, putting on the television for her. Everyone else, apart from Jenny, was going to be perfect.

  ‘I’ll bring you tea on a tray, shall I?’

  ‘No, I can come and get it. . .’

  ‘Darling, don’t be silly, we’ll have it together.’

  Mattie hurried off to the kitchen where she half shut the door and then leaned against it, her hand on her chest, breathing in and out, as slowly and evenly as possible. She must not panic, she must not show her distress. She knew from everything she had read on the subject that the first thing nurses were taught was not to show fear or concern for their patients in their eyes. Already she felt she had failed, fussed too much. John would be home soon. John would know just how to be, he always did. John was so patient with anyone ill or injured, the old and the sick, with children, with people in the village who were down on their luck. The thought comforted her, calmed her, made her able to start to lay the tea tray, putting out all Jenny’s favourite teatime foods: scones, coffee cake, chocolate fingers, everything she could think of she had made or bought for her home-coming.

  ‘I am hoping Daddy will be back soon,’ she said conversationally to Jenny, while the kettle on the hob appeared to be taking an hour to boil, and she plumped up yet more cushions on the sofa. ‘Before he left for work this morning he said he’s going to take us out tomorrow, round the Point, that sort of thing. That will be nice, won’t it?’

  Jenny nodded, wishing that nowadays her mother wouldn’t use a special voice to her, wouldn’t talk to her as if since being in hospital Jenny’d become someone else entirely, as if the accident had left her not injured, but brainless. She stared through her bandages at the small black and white television in the corner of the room trying to make out what was on the screen, and realising it was children’s television she quickly closed her eyes. If her father too started to talk to her in a special voice she thought she might scream and run back to the bright white room in the hospital that had become her womb, her place of safety where there were no perfect people, no people without scars, fussing and using special voices, and plumping up cushions too often.

  ‘Well, now, young Jenny, back home at last.’

  She must have fallen asleep momentarily, or at least retreated into another world, because it seemed to her that she was only woken by the sheer weight of John Tate sitting down on the sofa.

  ‘Hallo, Daddy.’

  Jenny tried to smile at her father through her bandages, while her mother chattered inconsequentially in the background, pouring tea, and handing out small scones with cream and jam on them.

  ‘Glad to be home, I expect.’

  John bit into his scone and smiled as if he knew that the answer would be sure to be in the affirmative.

  ‘Not really, no.’

  John put his scone down on his plate, turned to where he could hear Mattie busying herself in the kitchen, and then back to Jenny once again.

  ‘What do you mean, Jenny?’

  ‘I feel worse here, actually. I want to go back to the hospital.’

  ‘But we’ve been so looking forward to this—’

  Jenny stared at her father, realising at once that he really, really didn’t understand. She didn’t want to have to lie to her parents, she didn’t want to have to lie to make them feel better about how she felt. Lies were for people who were going to go through life without scars, lies were for people who hadn’t been in a dreadful accident, lies were for the rest of the perfect world, not Jenny’s imperfect one.

  Her father put a hand out and laid it over one of her bandaged ones. ‘You’ll soon start to feel yourself again.’

  ‘More tea coming up!’

  Mattie’s voice came floating towards the pair of them on the sofa sounding more relaxed. Jenny looked ahead of her. Oh well, so long as they felt better about everything, now that she was home, what did she matter?

  Later, as she lay in the confines of her familiar room, with its pictures from a childhood that now seemed to belong to someone else, its photographs of herself and Sholto, sailing, playing on the beach, walking the Downs with their parents, the person in the photos definitely seemed to be another girl, another Jenny Tate, someone she had once known but did not now even recognise. Night time was the worst, staring into the darkness wondering if morning would ever come, staring at a future that seemed too bleak to even imagine.

  When morning came she watched the light filtering through the pale lemon chintz curtains and thought she saw sunshine which she now realised she dreaded, thought she heard voices outside raised in happy laughter in which she now believed she would never join, thought she could smell frying bacon which she would never again look forward to eating. She heard her father’s calm, clear and mellifluous voice calling goodbye to her mother, and she hated both them and their joy, and more than that she hated their happiness and their love for each other. Most of all, she hated herself.

  ‘I don’t want to get up today, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘No, of course, if you don’t want to, darling. What would you like?’

  ‘Just to stay here – no, don’t draw the curtains.’

  ‘Daddy’s hoping to come by and take us for a spin this afternoon. He thought if I sat in the back with you, he could drive us to Ditchling for tea.’

  ‘Not today, Mummy, if you don’t mind. I don’t want to go out today.’

  Jenny didn’t add or any day, because it was really quite obvious from her voice.

  Loopy called round a few days later and hearing that Jenny was refusing to come downstairs just nodded her head as if she hadn’t expected anything different.

  ‘She’s bound to hate the idea of being seen in public. I would.’

  ‘Doesn’t want to go in a car. Yesterday when John tried to coax her downstairs to go out for a spin, she burst into tears.’ Mattie looked at her mother-in-law, despair in her eyes. ‘I know I’m failing her, Loopy, and I can’t stop myself. I fuss too much, or too little. I’m either coming over too har
sh, or too smothering. I’ve completely lost my balance. I can’t sleep. I keep listening out for her. I keep thinking of myself, when I should be thinking only of her. I really thought, after the war, after all everyone’s all been through, that I might be better than this, but the truth is – I’m not.’

  ‘Rein back, Mattie. Try to take each day hour by hour, even minute by minute, it’s the only way, believe me. Tick off your achievements, and not your failures—’

  ‘I’m all failure at the moment.’

  ‘Not in my eyes.’ Loopy gave her daughter-in-law a firm look. ‘In my eyes you’re coping quite splendidly. You haven’t taken to the bottle, you haven’t fallen to pieces and left everything to some nursing agency, you haven’t become hysterical, which so many women would.’

  ‘Oh, I have, I’ve become quite hysterical. Yesterday when Jenny was asleep, I walked out to the Point and yelled blue murder, all on my own.’

  ‘Good, well if that’s what’s wanted, that’s what’s wanted. Put it down in your credit column. You did something practical to relieve your feelings. Now can I go and see my granddaughter and take her off your hands for a few days?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Mattie watched Loopy’s elegant figure climbing up the stairs with an easy swinging gait that far belied her seventy-odd years. At that moment she seemed to Mattie to be stronger than she herself could ever be.

  ‘Jenny? It’s Grandy, darling, can I come in?’

  Jenny had known all day that her grandmother was coming to visit her, and had been dreading it, but as soon as she saw her she felt quite differently. As if determined to look reassuring, her grandmother was wearing Jenny’s favourite blue dress with the embroidered collar and cuffs, and she was just as she always was, slim, tall, American, with a husky voice and an easy manner.