The House of Flowers

by Charlotte Bingham

  Her mother was already seated in front of a book propped against the salt and pepper set in the tea shop in Benton where they had arranged to meet when Kate arrived, frozen-cheeked, blond hair awry and blown into a positive bird’s nest by the January gale.

  ‘No hat?’ her mother wondered in surprise. ‘No wonder you’re so windswept.’

  ‘You know it’s frowned upon at Eden Park to wear hats now, Mother,’ Kate reminded her as she sat down at the table. ‘It’s considered unpatriotic.’

  ‘I’ve never heard such nonsense,’ Helen Maddox replied. ‘Does that mean we’re meant to burn the hats we already have? Simply not wearing a hat is not, to my mind anyway, going to make the slightest bit of difference to the war effort.’

  Kate apologised for keeping Helen waiting, blaming the inadequacy of the transport rather than the reluctance of Eugene to let her go. Her mother assured her that given the conditions under which they were all expected to carry on some sort of normal life there was absolutely no need.

  ‘Besides, I have my book,’ she said, holding up a Boots Library volume. ‘I never go anywhere nowadays without a book. There’s always a wait somewhere or other.’

  While they were waiting for their tea to be brought, they engaged in desultory small talk, as if they hardly knew each other, or as if they were avoiding getting to know each other any better, like strangers on a train, or people on a bus.

  ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight, dear.’

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘Too much. Hope it doesn’t affect the tennis.’

  This was a wound, but whether it was intentional or not, Kate could not know.

  ‘I’m sure I’d manage, Mother,’ Kate murmured evasively. ‘Anyway, it’s not the tennis season, so I’ve plenty of time to put on condition before summer comes.’

  ‘Not with the way this food rationing is going, dear. I know we’re meant to be tightening the belt, but soon there won’t be anything to tighten it round. Someone’s going to have to do something about these wretched U-boats in the North Sea or we’ll all starve to death.’

  ‘That’s Jerry’s general idea,’ Kate stated as the waitress put down two cups of watery-looking tea in front of them. ‘And they’re not doing too badly from the looks of it,’ she added as she stared at the contours of her cup.

  Kate laughed at her own joke, hoping that by doing so she would be able to lighten the atmosphere, although she realised only too well that it was a lost cause. Ever since the death of her brother, Kate couldn’t remember her mother laughing. The tragedy had left a scar on Helen Maddox that Kate doubted time would heal. Not that Helen had ever been an extrovert, always giving her daughter the impression of being a quiet and intensely private person, characteristics perhaps forced upon her by the marriage she had made to a bombastic, bullying man. But now that she had lost her son, and even though she still maintained her usual immaculate appearance, her inner self seemed to have shrunk dramatically, leaving just a tidy shell of a person, outwardly composed, inwardly absent.

  Because of the despair that nowadays seemed perpetually to clothe her mother, while not rejoicing in the fact there was a war on, Kate was nevertheless grateful not to have to live at home any more. She had settled to the feeling that while her own healing from the loss of her handsome, courageous and dashing brother would take a considerable amount of time, for her mother there seemed no hope in view, despite the fact that, as Kate well knew, Helen Maddox was doing everything in her power to try to appear normal.

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do without these trips to Benton,’ Helen announced out of the blue. ‘It’s not that I’m not grateful for my work with the WVS – I am. In fact it’s doing me the world of good since it reminds me constantly that there are an awful lot of people worse off than myself. But I just need to get away from home sometimes. I need to get away completely. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you, dear. Being cooped up in the same place night and day with the same mob of people. I couldn’t stand that. Not at this time of my life. I just couldn’t stand it.’

  ‘I enjoy it, Mother. I like the people I’m working with, and although it’s war work and we shall be glad when it’s finally over, the job is fascinating. And exciting.’

  Helen looked at her daughter briefly during the silence that invariably followed a short burst of conversation. Although Kate was not aware of it, Helen knew a great deal about the sort of work Kate might be doing. She also knew that she would be forbidden to discuss it. Nevertheless she would have loved to ask Kate details of her life at Eden Park, much as Kate might have loved to amuse her mother with them. But it was not possible, which was probably why, since the war started, their conversations had become so limited.

  ‘I have to say the skies have been quite quiet these past few nights,’ Helen said, finishing her tea. ‘Unnaturally so, after what seemed like almost incessant raids.’

  ‘We’ve been quiet too, although we did have a bit of a scare a few days ago. It was quite funny as it happens. Some poor lad on the estate accidentally set fire to a box of fireworks. It was his birthday and the whole lot went up with a bang. The entire place went into a spin. Talk about everyone reaching for their guns. Remember I told you about Eugene Hackett, the Irishman who lives nearby on the Eden Park estate?’

  ‘I remember you telling me something about him, yes,’ Helen replied, her eyes drifting away from Kate’s face and out to other people sipping tea, or pretending to enjoy their tasteless biscuits.

  ‘He was outside our cottage before you could say knife – pistol in hand in case of emergency. And young Billy—’

  ‘You’ve told me about young Billy, too.’

  ‘He grabbed this airgun Major Folkestone had given him, thinking when he saw Eugene’s silhouette in the doorway that he was the enemy. Luckily Marjorie grabbed the rifle before Billy could take a pot-shot—’

  ‘Otherwise you might have lost Mr Hackett.’

  ‘I’m not sure about that,’ Kate laughed. ‘Billy’s air rifle is not the most lethal of weapons. But Eugene would have got more than a jolly good sting.’

  ‘Is this a good idea, Kate?’ Helen wondered. ‘You and Eugene?’

  ‘What do you mean, a good idea, Mother? And what do you mean, me and Eugene exactly?’

  ‘I know I haven’t met him—’

  ‘No you haven’t,’ Kate agreed with unaccustomed edge.

  ‘But it’s pretty obvious you’re keen on him. Every time you talk about him—’

  ‘What? Every time I talk about him what, Mother? He just happens to – to live in the Park – and to be great fun, that’s all. He makes us all laugh. He’s just – he’s just a rather – he’s just a great character, that’s all. So I don’t really know what you mean about it being a good idea.’

  ‘You just want to be careful not to rush headlong into anything. It’s very easy in wartime.’

  ‘No one’s rushing into anything, Mother. Now let’s see if we can get another cup of tea, shall we?’

  Kate looked round for a waitress as a necessary distraction from the way the conversation was headed. She and her mother had trodden this particular path frequently at their recent meetings, Kate always being left with the impression that since her mother had lost her own son, she was determined that Kate was not going to be allowed to fall in love with someone else’s son.

  ‘We could have something to eat, you know,’ Kate added, picking up the skimpy menu handwritten on a card barely six inches in length. ‘They do rissoles. We tried those before, remember? They weren’t that bad. We might as well strike while the iron’s hot, before they cut the meat ration again, which they’re threatening to do.’

  ‘Kate dear,’ Helen announced, with a distinct change of tone that made Kate look up in alarm. ‘I have to tell you something.’

  Kate looked across at her mother’s pale, finely featured face, wondering what on earth Helen could have to tell her that imparted such a note of doom into her voice. ‘Are you all right?’ she aske
d, suddenly genuinely concerned as she stared into the eyes she knew so well.

  ‘Not really – and I’m not sure how to tell you this. Because it’s all so very unexpected really.’

  ‘Something is the matter. I don’t mean that, because obviously something’s the matter. I mean is something the matter with you? Or with – with Daddy?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me, Kate – and there’s nothing wrong with your father either,’ Helen replied. ‘Other than the fact that he’s left me.’

  Kate stared at her mother, once again stuck for something to say. If she’d had to put money on it, she would have placed her bet on her mother’s leaving her father. If anyone had a more than justifiable reason for running out on what was left of her family it was her poor benighted mother, a woman who had, over many years, been all but verbally beaten into subjection by her father’s unstinting sarcasm.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she found herself wondering, still clinging on to the menu which her mother now calmly removed from her grasp to study herself. ‘I mean he hasn’t just taken himself off for a while, you know how people can? The way people are always doing in newspapers. You know.’

  Kate’s foot began to wiggle under the table as she realised she could not stop saying ‘you know’ while Helen shrugged her shoulders, but didn’t look up, continuing to study the choice on the card in her hand.

  ‘Not according to the note he left on the mantelpiece, Kate. And not according to the total removal of his belongings, and most of the money from our bank account. He left me the car, I have to say that for him – but only because it’s laid up on bricks in the garage, and with petrol so strictly rationed it isn’t much use to him. Me neither.’ She paused. ‘I think you’re right. Let’s have the rissoles. I feel quite hungry now.’

  ‘How could he?’ Kate puzzled, the reality of it all sinking in suddenly. ‘I mean how could he? How could Daddy do this to you? And at a time like this? How could anyone do this at a time like this? Just walk out on someone in the middle of a war?’

  Helen glanced up at her and when she did Kate frowned and dropped her eyes. That wasn’t what she really meant and her mother knew it. What she had really meant was how could her father walk out on her mother just a matter of a few months after losing their son. If ever Helen needed help and support it was now, yet her husband had simply packed up his things and walked out on her, leaving a short note of intent on the mantelpiece, and no money in the bank.

  When her mother had finished explaining the circumstances of Professor Maddox’s precipitous departure from the family circle, never once taking her eyes off the menu she was holding, Kate simply stared at her, shaking her head once more before placing her hand on her mother’s arm.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked. ‘How are you going to cope – if he hasn’t left you any money?’

  ‘I shall have to get a job, Kate. Like anyone else. What else am I supposed to do?’

  Kate felt a great and sudden surge of anger as she found herself thinking quite unreasonably that her brother had sacrificed his life for nothing. Robert’s tragic death had really nothing whatsoever to do with her mother’s present predicament, as Kate well knew. Surely the very least her father could have done in the circumstances was to try to look after what remained of his family? His heartless desertion of her mother now appeared to Kate to be a direct affront to the memory of her brother. To relieve her feelings she searched in her handbag for a cigarette.

  ‘There must be something you can do,’ she stated, finding she only had one smoke left. ‘Things like this aren’t necessarily definite.’

  ‘I wonder what you know, Kate? About things like this.’

  Kate looked up in surprise. She had never heard her mother address her in that tone of voice before.

  ‘What I don’t know I suppose I can at least imagine,’ she replied quickly. ‘I’m not in pigtails any more.’

  ‘Look, Kate. Your father has left me for another woman, and when a man does that there is nothing a woman can do. I’m certainly not the kind of person to chase after a man, and beg him to come back—’

  ‘For another woman?’

  There was a short, appalled silence as Kate, having lit her cigarette, stared in amazement at her mother through the small spiral of smoke that was escaping from her mouth. The thought of her father’s leaving home had been unbelievable enough, but the idea of his running away with another woman was almost too much to accept.

  ‘It’s not that surprising. After all, your father is a man, and men do this sort of thing. Often at times like this as well. At least that’s what people keep telling me.’ Helen bowed her head and searched in her bag for a handkerchief.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Kate leaned forward and lowered her voice, aware that several women sitting nearby had begun to take a close interest. ‘Mother – I said are you all right?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Kate. I didn’t mean to give way! But this has all been a bit of a shock.’

  ‘Perhaps I ought to take you home,’ Kate whispered, half getting up, ready to go to her mother’s side, aware that people were now trying not to stare at them. ‘Perhaps we really ought to go home.’

  ‘What for? What’s the point? There’s nobody to go home to – nobody lives there any more. Your father’s gone, Robert’s dead, and you’re away working. What’s the point of going home?’

  Her mother gave a sudden dreadful sigh and closed her eyes in an attempt to staunch her tears.

  Kate summoned a waitress who was hovering in the background, and asked if she could fetch a glass of cold water, while she herself pulled her chair round to her mother’s side, putting an arm round her shoulders in an attempt to try to calm her.

  ‘I’m going to take you home, Mother,’ Kate told her, giving her the glass of water that had now been set down on the table. ‘Look – drink this, and take these two aspirins.’

  ‘I don’t need aspirins, Kate.’ Her mother gave a sigh of utter despair. ‘Aspirins are actually the last things I need.’

  ‘They’ll help calm you down,’ Kate assured her. ‘Then I’ll take you home and we’ll talk about what we’re going to do.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I meant to be so calm, and now I’ve ruined our little get-together. I’m so sorry, Kate.’

  By the time they were on the bus headed back home Helen had pulled herself together sufficiently to be able to tell Kate as much as she knew about the whole sorry business without giving way again. It seemed that the woman with whom her father had disappeared was a production secretary who worked in a department of the BBC that had just been transferred to Wales. They had met when Kate’s father had been invited to take part in a broadcast and as far as Helen knew the attraction had been instant and mutual, so strong in fact that Professor Maddox had resigned his university post and taken a more menial teaching job in Wales in order that they could be together and he could help take care of the domestic side of their lives.

  ‘If I was capable, I would laugh,’ Helen said, turning sideways to look out of the window at the invisible landscape slipping slowly past them in the pitch darkness. ‘I could never get Harold to do anything for me at home. In all the time we were married he never so much as washed up a cup, and now he’s doing all the cooking.’ She fell silent, still staring out at nothing and shaking her head slowly.

  ‘I’ll tell you what, Mother,’ Kate announced, although with a fast sinking heart. ‘I’d better give notice and come back home. You can’t possibly be expected to live at home by yourself. Not now. Not in the – not the way you’re feeling now. It wouldn’t be right.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing.’ Helen turned round sharply to her. ‘I wouldn’t hear of it.’

  ‘Well maybe I could just get some extended leave,’ Kate offered, knowing such a thing to be actually out of the question since there were all too few of them at Eden Park, and every one of them overworked. If she was going to help her mother out, she realised, she would actually have to sacrifice her
job, and in sacrificing her job would probably lose something even more important to her than her work – namely, Eugene.

  Even so, given what her mother had done for both her and her brother, Kate knew that the very least she could do was offer to come home and keep her company.

  ‘What would we live on, for a start?’ Helen persisted. ‘One of us would have to go out to work – you most probably – so what would be the point? I’d sit there all day waiting for you to come home just like I used to wait for your father – there’d be no point in you giving up your job, Kate. No, I’ll be fine. I just need a bit of time, that’s all. Time to get myself organised. I’m still young enough to be able to make myself useful in this war. There are lots of things I can do – and really the more I think about it the more determined I am not to sit down under it.’

  ‘We’re here,’ Kate announced, peering out into the darkness as the bus slowed down. ‘At least I think we are.’

  ‘I’m sorry for giving way in the café, Kate,’ Helen said as they made their way carefully from the bus stop to the front gate of the house. ‘It was perfectly unforgivable. And as for you coming back home, it really is out of the question. I’ll be quite all right by myself. I’ve spent a lot of time on my own and I’ve always been perfectly all right. I have no right to feel sorry for myself; I don’t know what came over me. Seeing you, possibly. You know you— You know you and—’ She stopped, unable to go on until she had drawn a deep breath. ‘My two children always meant everything to me and so seeing you – I suppose it was just a little too much under the circumstances. No,’ she said quickly, stopping Kate before she could speak as they reached the front door and she began to search for her key. ‘No, you don’t have to say a thing. If I’d just stopped to think for a moment. What I’m trying to say is this.’ They were inside the front door now, standing in the darkened hall where they both took off their coats and groped for the hat rack. ‘What I’m trying to say, Kate,’ Helen continued, ‘is I’m determined to help rather than complain. If you could see some of the wretchedness that I’ve seen down at the depot, whole families bombed out without a stick of furniture left, not a cup, or a photograph, everything gone except their memories and the clothes they stand up in. There’s billeting work to be done, and I think that’s where I’m needed most.’