The Poets' Wives

by David Park

  So she drove them round the coast to Portrush and they had lunch in the Ramore and both daughters laughed at how big the servings were.

  ‘People obviously don’t think they get value for money unless it’s reflected in the quantity,’ Anna said but neither of them seemed to have any trouble finishing their portions. And then when they had gone up to the dessert counter and laughed again at the baroque sculptures of cream and cake, they eventually opted to share something, giggling like schoolgirls at their indulgence and declaring they’d have to do a month’s diet to atone for the excess. It pleased her to see their heads bent close and to hear their laughter and for a moment she was almost grateful that they had been summoned to this final ritual. There had been no real time during the funeral period for her to talk to them at length and all her focus and energy were taken up by the arrangements for the service and receiving the constant stream of visitors who came to pay their respects. So even for this short time it felt as if her children had returned to her and she was their mother again, driving them, supplying them with information about things and even despite their objection paying the bill.

  ‘There’s no way I could even look at an ice-cream now,’ Francesca said.

  ‘Nor me,’ Anna echoed, ‘although I would quite like to see if it’s how I remember it. It was a place I always liked – you felt you were an adult if you were able to go with your friends and no parent.’

  ‘I think you’d find it changed – everything’s modernised and plushed-up,’ she said. ‘And the last time I was there with your father he thought the price for a coffee and a scone was outrageous.’

  ‘Tell me, Francesca,’ Anna said as she wiped her lips with a napkin, ‘when a very overweight young Henrietta arrives in your shop for a wedding dress does your heart sink?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s a challenge. Covering up what needs covered up, drawing the eye to what’s best. A customer is a customer and anyway who’s perfect, Anna?’

  ‘I see lots of perfect specimens everywhere I look in London.’

  ‘Think of the price they pay for it,’ Francesca said, sipping her black coffee. ‘It can’t be worth it, can it? But do you remember what the Don used to call what I do?’

  She knew the words that were about to be spoken by her daughter and so heard them simultaneously in two different voices as Francesca said, ‘ “Coating debutantes in icing sugar” – that’s what he called it. Don’t laugh, Anna – I could have strangled him.’

  ‘You’d have had to join the queue.’

  She didn’t want them to talk about their father, didn’t want anything to spoil the pleasure she found in their company, so she went and paid the bill, then ushered them into the car. It was her conviction that he had been the one who had driven their children away so she had to believe that if they finally accepted his absence then her daughters might return, if not to the place where they were born but to her life.

  After they had driven to Portstewart she parked the car and they took the cliff path round to the beach. Down below, the sea pushed in roughly against the rocks. There wasn’t room for them to walk three abreast so Anna went in front setting a brisk pace while she stayed with Francesca. Her daughters expressed their surprise at how many apartments and new houses they passed and when eventually they reached the steps down to the beach they stopped and looked across the water to the village they had left earlier in the day.

  ‘Would you believe the sun seems to be shining over there but not here any more. I told you it was what life was like,’ Francesca said.

  A rising breeze trembled a fine mist of sand along the stretch of beach.

  ‘So how do we do the “Lark Ascending” bit in the morning?’ Anna asked.

  ‘I’ve an old cassette player with me and a copy of it on tape.’

  ‘So then he doesn’t expect a violinist and a piano player performing at the end of the pier?’

  ‘Thankfully not.’

  ‘I’m glad it’s early in the morning so we don’t get an audience. It would all be even more embarrassing than it’s already going to be,’ Anna said.

  ‘And he doesn’t expect us to dress in black gowns or something,’ Francesca said as she brushed a wind-stirred strand of hair from her eyes. ‘I could always knock us up some sackcloth and ashes.’

  ‘I think our normal clothes will do the job just fine,’ she said.

  ‘Do you think we should do it in our pyjamas?’ Anna said, smiling at her own joke. ‘Like the way you now see women going to the supermarket for milk, or driving their children to school.’

  ‘Normal clothes might just be best,’ she said, worried for a second that they might conspire the joke into a reality.

  ‘We’re only joking, Mum. We’ll turn ourselves out appropriately,’ Francesca reassured her, patting her arm.

  ‘So, Francesca, fashion expert, what is an appropriate mode of dress for dumping your father’s ashes off the end of a stone pier?’

  ‘Well this season I think it’s something a little subfusc, perhaps trimmed in ermine and sensible shoes of course – flats, I think – and definitely no heels to prevent the risk of accompanying the ashes.’

  As it was getting colder they decided not to walk the beach and instead retraced their steps and at her daughters’ insistence they went into Morelli’s, but for hot chocolate and coffee rather than ice-cream. Anna inevitably expressed her disappointment at the modernisation then reluctantly conceded it was more comfortable than the place she remembered from her childhood. She was telling them of some really great spot in Brighton she had discovered that retained its fifties décor and furniture, preserved in perfect retro aspic, when her phone rang briefly before going dead and she excused herself and went outside to try to get a signal. She watched her daughter through the glass as she paced up and down then crossed to the sea side of the road. Her frustration was obvious from her body language and the way her arm jerked the phone again and again to her ear as if an excess of energy might shake it into connection. Francesca was saying something but suddenly it seemed important to keep focused on her other child, the one she now believed she knew least about. So she felt a moment’s irritation when passers-by briefly blocked her view or a waitress collecting trays lingered too long. She wondered if Anna’s instinctive impatience with whatever was faulty or too slow in offering the response she desired now secretly extended to her. And she worried about a Chinese girl whom she had never met and whether her daughter’s impetuosity might lead them both into dangerous waters. But she knew there was nothing more that she could say and to try and do so would risk pushing herself even further out of her orbit. She wanted to blame Don but knew that it must also be in part due to herself and her failure to present Anna with any sense of an independent life. Her daughter doubtless thought that she couldn’t come to her without coming to her father. She glanced briefly at Francesca who was sipping hot chocolate and watching a toddler at another table while talking about Eugenie’s hat but the words slipped away and she stared through the glass wondering if this was always how she would be destined to see her daughter, at a distance and separated by the mistakes she had made in the past.

  When she returned to Morocco she wanted to stay in the same riad, hoping that the two young women would still be there and that they might remember her. Was it even possible that they too might be willing to share something of their lives with her? All her marriage she had held on privately to her life, giving only of herself to her children and at the mercy of what they chose to give back. When this thing was done in the morning might she not find some new strength to reach out beyond the confines of herself?

  ‘Did you get a signal?’ Francesca asked as Anna sat down with them again. ‘Do you want to try my phone?’

  ‘No,’ Anna said as she tipped her cup towards her and inspected the remains. ‘I’ll try again later.’

  They sat on, ordered more coffee, whiling time away with conversation and in no hurry to return to the cottage. At intervals she glanced
at her watch wondering if their seeming slip into lethargy was a result of boredom. She didn’t know what to talk about any more and it felt as if she had used up most of the potential topics already. If they had both married or had children’s progress to share then she knew things would have been easier, but what right had she to wish husbands and families on to them when neither displayed any great desire for either? She no longer knew if it was selfishness on her part to want them married. She was hardly in a position to advocate it and once again wondered if what they had seen of their parents’ marriage had been enough to prejudice them against the idea. Anna was talking about some film she had just seen and as she listened to her assertive judgements she took comfort in the knowledge that her daughter would never let her life be absorbed and lessened by another.

  She thought too of Jiao who had probably journeyed to England over many months, a frightened hungry human cargo transported in the back of lorries or in the holds of ships; Jiao who had come with such high expectations and now found herself little more than a slave, prisoner of the destructive desires and whims of men, and it made her angry. So she shouldn’t find fault with Anna if there was something that was hard and strong at her core. It should be welcomed even though at times she thought of it as the same quality that served to exclude her from her daughter’s full embrace. And she still wanted that embrace, one that was true and deep and not governed by a filial sense of duty.

  She went to the bathroom and when she returned Francesca told her that she and Anna would like to make the tea in the cottage but just as she started to think that it was because they didn’t relish the prospect of her offering, Anna said that it was something they would like to do and she knew it was meant as a kindness. So she accepted and told them what she had brought and before they returned Anna bought two bottles of wine and Francesca purchased a few bits and pieces in a small supermarket close to the car park. The wind was strengthening now and as she drove back she resolved to light the fire but when they arrived she suddenly felt overwhelmed with weariness, having to force herself to kneel and light it. It was her job, she told herself, and when it was about to take there was a knock on the front door and as she turned with her hands dusted by ash and coal she saw both her daughters staring at each other and then looking at her.

  ‘You’ll have to open it, Francesca, see who it is,’ she said, holding both her palms upwards towards them as if offering evidence why she couldn’t.

  Still kneeling at the hearth she heard the voice of John Gibson and his wife Gillian. It was clear that Francesca wasn’t sure who they were and hadn’t invited them inside so she called to them to come in.

  ‘It’s John and Gillian,’ she told her daughters as she stood up and dropped her hands to her side. John was wearing a jacket and a shirt and tie. He had clearly dressed for the visit. ‘You remember John, don’t you, girls? You’ve been out in his boat more than once and he’s been good enough to look after the grass and generally keeps an eye on the place for us.’

  ‘Of course,’ Francesca said, shaking their hands and apologising for not recognising them. ‘It’s been so long.’

  ‘It has indeed now. Right enough,’ he said and then nodded to his wife who stepped forward and handed her a bunch of white, globe-headed chrysanthemums.

  ‘We’re sorry for your loss,’ she said, handing her the flowers and nodding at both daughters to show they were included in the expression of sympathy.

  ‘They’re lovely, Gillian. Thank you.’

  ‘The last of the summer,’ John said as he dropped his eyes momentarily to the floor. ‘We’re not intruding, are we?’

  ‘No, no, have a seat,’ she answered as she glanced with surprise at both her supposedly sophisticated daughters who suddenly seemed to stand awkwardly, momentarily deserted by an understanding of how to show simple hospitality. ‘Francesca, put the kettle on and, Anna, clear a seat for John and Gillian. You’ll have to excuse the mess – we’ve been sorting out stuff. And I’m just going to wash my hands – I was lighting the fire.’

  She carried the flowers into the kitchen and found a vase while telling Francesca what biscuits to put out and which plate to use. As she washed her hands she strained over her daughter’s clattering to hear the conversation from the other room and hoped that Anna was making the effort to put them at their ease. So she was pleased that when she went back in Anna was talking naturally to them and they seemed a little more relaxed and with their former nervousness less obvious. For a second she thought John was going to stand up and offer her his seat so she hurried to take her place on the footstool at the side of the hearth.

  ‘There’s still a little of the summer lingering on,’ he said, looking towards the window’s brightness.

  ‘It must be a trick of the memory but the summers all seemed much warmer when we were here as a family,’ she said as she stared at the fire and wished she had managed to get it going properly before their arrival.

  ‘That’s not yesterday,’ he offered and glanced at his wife perhaps as an encouragement to speak.

  ‘And, Lydia, your girls are all grown up now and living in London,’ Gillian said. ‘Anna was telling us she works on a newspaper. Don must have been very proud of her.’

  She was relieved to see Anna smile and nod lightly in apparent affirmation.

  ‘He was a great man, was Don,’ John offered. ‘All those words in his head and many’s the night I’d be out walking the dog and go past the window and he’d be sitting there at his desk writing his poems.’ He pointed to the desk as if its physical reality was a necessary confirmation of his memory.

  ‘He had a mighty send-off,’ Gillian said. ‘All those writers and famous people. We cut out the bits in the paper afterwards.’

  Francesca came in with the tea and biscuits on a tray and rising she told her daughter to take her seat while she served. There were no napkins but she supposed it didn’t matter and she poured the cups and passed round the plate of biscuits.

  ‘The paper said there was someone from the government there but we didn’t see her,’ John said as he balanced his cup and saucer on the broad flatness of his thigh.

  ‘We might have seen her but we don’t know what she looks like so we wouldn’t have known it was her if you see what I mean,’ Gillian explained.

  She was pleased to see her daughters politely nodding their understanding and pleased too when a few minutes later Francesca offered to top up their cups.

  ‘When I see these two girls all grown up I still think of them as wee’uns playing on the beach with buckets and spades,’ John said. ‘So how do you like living in London?’ he asked.

  ‘I like it fine,’ Francesca said, ‘but it’s always nice to come back home for a visit. We had some good times here in the cottage when we were younger.’

  She caught her daughter’s eye contact with her sister but their expressions didn’t change.

  ‘I mind one summer when you were all mustard keen into catching crabs and I used to tell you that if you caught any more there’d be none left in the sea,’ he said, smiling at the memory.

  ‘Francesca makes wedding dresses and hats now in London,’ Anna said, gesturing towards her sister. ‘Isn’t that right, Francesca?’

  ‘Yes that’s right,’ she said, glancing again at Anna. ‘Keeps a roof over my head.’

  There was silence for a moment and she looked intently at Anna and hoped she wasn’t going to be mischievous.

  ‘Making wedding dresses – that’s a nice job,’ Gillian said.

  ‘But in no rush to wear one, neither of them,’ she said, making the joke then wondered if she should have.

  ‘Sure there’s no rush any more. They say women are all getting married later now and better to decide at leisure than repent in haste,’ Gillian said, adding, ‘isn’t that right, girls?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Anna said. ‘But you’d think we’d be able to find Mr Right in a place as big as London.’

  ‘You’d think someone would like a
nice Irish girl,’ Francesca suggested, playing along with her sister.

  ‘Their loss, their loss,’ John said in what she suspected was a genuine offer of consolation. And then after silence had settled again, ‘I suppose you’ve come over to spend some time in the cottage.’

  Her two daughters looked at her, giving her the time to say, ‘Yes and to help me tidy everything up, sort out Don’s things.’

  ‘A right lot of books and papers,’ he said, looking around the room and at the packed boxes. Somehow he managed not to see the urn or if he did perhaps mistook it for something else. ‘I don’t know how one person could read so many books.’

  ‘John’s not a great reader. But I like a good book.’

  ‘So what do you read?’ Anna asked.

  ‘I’m sure you’d think it was rubbish but it keeps me entertained. I get books out of the mobile library – the girl knows what I like and always keeps me something.’

  ‘And did you ever read any of our father’s poetry?’

  ‘A bit beyond us, I’m afraid,’ John said as his wife nodded in agreement. ‘But it must have been right good stuff if even half of what those other poets said at the funeral was true. And it would never have been in books if it wasn’t best quality.’

  Before Anna could ask any more questions she quickly turned the conversation back to the weather and the latest news in the village and nodded as she listened to a long, slow litany of births and deaths, weddings and builders gone bankrupt. When the news had been exhausted they sat in silence for a few seconds until John stood up and announced that they wouldn’t trouble them any more and as she took his cup and saucer from him he offered as his final requiem, ‘The place won’t seem the same without him,’ then formally shook hands with them all before assuring her that he was happy to go on looking after the grass for as long as she needed.

  She thought Anna was going to say something about her intention to sell the cottage but her fear was misplaced and after their visitors had departed both daughters stood smiling at her.