Morna passed the cheese across, let her hand linger on the other’s tray. Wasn’t there some bond between the two of them? Both leaving only daughters on an alien continent, both returning to cold and empty houses. Glasgow. That was on the way to David and his island—except he had gone by road, not air, then crossed over from the mainland in a tiny fishing boat. He would be hard at work, not wasting time and energy rushing around in circles. She must return to work herself, go home and settle down. The lotus-eating was over. That old mither had been right about people running away. All she was doing was running to something safer, bolting back to England before the Californian fever tightened its grip. Los Angeles was dangerous. Glaring bright or throbbing dark. Never tranquil, never neutral. Sirens ripping up the night, never-never promises writhing in flashing lights in the advertisements, paint and pasteboard pretending to be gold; birds-of-paradise flowers blooming out of blood and smog, menacingly exotic with their fat and fleshy stalks, their gaudy colours, their blue and pointed tongues.
There would be no flowers back in England save the odd wan and shrinking snowdrop, a spray or two of chilly winter jasmine. She must return to cold, to commonsense, merciful routine. Four hours’ translation work each morning, long bracing walks to clear her head; housework, gardening, shopping, before peaceful evenings reading with a single glass of wine. She was right to leave. Chris could cope without her. It was only one short week, for heaven’s sake. The old Scots dame had been married at that age, with a baby on the way. Chris wasn’t even alone, but staying with her adored and indulgent father in a family home with every material comfort.
‘She didn’t want me there, you know.’ The old woman swilled her tea, wiped her mouth.
‘I … I beg your pardon?’
‘My daughter. I was in the way—I see that now—just a pest.’
‘Surely not?’
‘You needn’t humour me. I may be old, but I’m no fool.’
‘N … No, of course not. I didn’t mean …’ Morna picked up her own cup, tried to cover her embarrassment.
‘And what age are you?’ The questions were still rapping out.
‘Er … forty-one.’
‘You’re halfway through, then. Mibbe. You cannae tell, can you, when your time’s up?’
Morna didn’t answer. Her own mother might be saying much the same, telling some stranger she was a nuisance to her daughter, in the way. Had she made Bea feel that? She tried to think coherently, but Bea seemed very faint. She must make her stronger, reforge their ties. She would go straight from Heathrow to Oxshott, bring Bea back to stay with her, offer her the little things she valued—company, Scrabble in the evenings, proper home-cooked meals. Suddenly, she bundled all her remaining food in her paper serviette—croissant, biscuits, butter, jam—pushed it into the old woman’s scrawny hand, found room on her tray for a second dish of fruit. It seemed imperative to feed this body up, keep it going, keep death away at least a little longer.
The woman said nothing, just unwrapped the serviette, peered closely at the biscuits, poked a bony finger into the croissant as if checking it were fresh. She tore a piece off, crammed it in her mouth.
‘Are you dietin’?’ she asked at last, still with her mouth half-full.
‘N … No.’
‘Och, they’re all dietin’ nowadays. My daughter’s skin and bone—lives on fruit. Strawberries for her breakfast. It was porridge and a fry-up when she lived with me.’ She swallowed the last butt-end of croissant, wiped her mouth. ‘And where do you live—North or South?’
‘South. Weybridge, actually.’
‘Never heard of it. Have you got your own place?’
Morna nodded.
‘House or flat?’
‘A house.’
‘I’m in a tenement myself—the bottom floor of one. They keep tryin’ to shift me, though. When you’re old, they’re always meddlin’—wantin’ to cage you up, shove you into hospitals. But I’m set on dyin’ where I was born—safe in my own home.’ She laughed, transferred the biscuits to her handbag, snapped it shut.
Morna glanced out of the window. The sun had disappeared, the sky a leaden grey. They were clearing away the trays now, in preparation for the long descent. Thirty minutes later, the first glimpse of patchwork land was blurring through the clouds. She squinted down at it. This was her country, temperate and staid, where old people laughed off death, allowed themselves to age and fade without face lifts or false hopes; where men wore sober suits, not yellow socks or pompoms; where women hid emotions, respected the word love; where funfairs were restricted to Bank Holidays, buildings to a dozen storeys, and trees were bare and brown in the five-month winter.
She needed cold and cure. Her body might be numb, but her emotions were still raw, reacting over-violently to every smallest thing. She was close to tears for no other reason than the anonymous old duck beside her had a daughter who’d been jilted, a second tiring flight ahead without a cup of tea.
She turned back to the window, stared out at the grey and sullen skyscape. Fields were swallowing up in urban sprawl, tiny cars on toytown roads, Lego shops and houses looming larger as they swooped lower, lower. Morna closed her eyes, felt a sudden thump and lurch as the plane touched down. She reached across, fumbled for the old lady’s hand, gripped it for a brief embarrassed moment until the screeching whine of the reversing engines had shuddered into silence; opened her eyes again to see the first flakes of dazzling snow starring the drab grey concrete of Heathrow.
There was a queue for passport control. Morna joined it, shuffled inch by inch towards the desk, her legs stiff and aching under her. Everyone looked tired—a line of pale and faded faces, crumpled clothes. They were like refugees arriving at a prison camp. She was almost surprised when the official at the desk merely checked her passport rather than branding a number on her arm.
She walked on towards the baggage hall, found a phone booth and some coins. Her Scots neighbour had disappeared—too old for all the queues. She had been collected by a stewardess as soon as they touched down, given special treatment. She must do the same for Bea, make her feel she mattered, wasn’t just someone on the side-lines who had been shunted into a rusty shed marked ‘Death’.
‘Hallo Mummy darling. I’m …’ Morna broke off. Not her mother’s voice but Vera Grant’s—fussy little woman who divided her time between the Legion of Mary and the Women’s League Of Prayer.
‘It’s Morna, Mrs Grant, Bea’s daughter. Is my mother there? Oh, I see. How odd. She didn’t tell me she was going.’ Mustn’t sound so curt. It was hardly Vera Grant’s fault that her mother was away. She was only there to feed the dog, keep an eye on things. Why should she mind in any case? Having Bea to stay was usually a drag and now she was reprieved. Reprieve felt leaden like her legs. She had decided on a week of service and her mother had eluded her, proved she didn’t need her, had returned to Hilden Cross for a whole ten days.
‘When exactly did she leave? I mean, I only phoned three days ago and she didn’t mention it. This morning! What, just like that?’
Mrs Grant sounded slightly peeved herself. Bea had apparently decided that it was absolutely imperative that she leave for the retreat house right away. She had been fetched at noon by a Miss Madge Parkin and her very ancient Morris, leaving Vera Grant to hold the fort—and Joy—with only two hours notice. Morna’s commiseration was cut short by the pips. She inserted two more coins.
‘Mrs Grant? Could you let me have her number there? I haven’t got it with me. Yes, I’ll hold on. Thanks a lot.’ It was bound to be that wretched Father Clarke again, interfering because Bea was on her own, probably suggesting a retreat because he was running it himself. ‘Yes, I’ve got a pen. That’s the code from London, is it? Thanks, Mrs. Grant. Sorry to have bothered you. Yes, I’m fine. Yes, I did enjoy America—just left a few days early. Are you well? And Joy behaving herself?’
Strange how exhausting small talk was. Morna rang off, slumped against the coin slots, closed her eyes
a moment to rest her throbbing head. She felt like David’s silver coin, covered with a stubborn gritty scale. Concretion, he had called it—a good word—hard and clogging. If someone scooped her up from the bottom of the ocean, the bottom of a phone box, they would find her whole body caked with that concretion, her usual sharp-edged self dulled and grimed. It was an effort even to pick up the receiver. But she ought to phone the retreat house, tell her mother she was back, find out how she was, maybe even coax her home again. She fumbled for more coins, winced at the high-pitched female voice which answered.
‘I’m sorry, but we don’t take messages except in an emergency. The retreatants are here for spiritual peace and growth, you see, so we try and block off all distractions. They’re in the chapel, anyway, for Father Malachy’s talk. He’s come all the way from Dublin and …’
Morna swore under her breath, pocketed the unused 10p pieces. Priests again. Her mother would hardly need company or service when she was surrounded by eminent clergy, eating three good meals a day, and with a non-stop cabaret in the form of talks and Masses.
She walked across to the baggage carousel, watched the cases gliding round and round, was tempted to pick up someone else’s luggage, steal not their goods but their identity, return to a different house and rôle. If she selected the right suitcase, she might be wife of judge or pop star, muse to a poet, boss of a chain of factories, mother of twin prodigies. Her own home seemed too empty, milk and papers cancelled for another seven days, no friend or client phoning since they all assumed her absent; her doubts and regrets breeding in the silence.
She checked her watch, still set to LA time. Half past eight. Neil would have already left for the office, having breakfasted with Bunny. Would they have criticised her rude bizarre behaviour as they downed their bacon and hash-browns, worried over Chris? Was Chris herself annoyed, or lying sleepless? She ought to phone immediately, reassure them.
She asked three other passengers for change, rehearsed her stock of lies as she sorted through the coins. A crucial job of work with a two days’ deadline, a sudden stupid worry about burglars or a break-in, an urgent appointment she had only just remembered, an agonising toothache. Chris would explode them all. Why not tell the truth? She had pierced inside the atom, glimpsed the structure of the universe, fled in panic. Impossible, ridiculous, and not the whole truth, anyway.
It was Bunny who answered, far too soon. How could you be connected to Los Angles quicker than to Oxshott? Morna held the receiver at a distance from her ear. Bunny’s voice was loud, swamping her in great washes of concern, uttering little squawks of worry and surprise, pouring out endless frenzied questions. Morna half-answered the first few, used the pips as an excuse to ask for Chris.
‘She’s not here, Morna honey.’
‘N … Not there?’ Chris was rarely even up at half past eight, unless it was a school day, let alone dressed and out of the house.
‘She’s having her second lesson with the pro. He had to make it early. It was the only space he had. Neil dropped her on his way to work. But listen, honey, I still don’t understand how this French bureau of commerce or whatever could phone you with a job when you were out in Disneyland all day. I mean, even if …’
Bunny’s voice seemed to be booming round the airport, boomeranging back. There were other noises—a baby crying, a crackling announcement of some hold-up with the luggage on a flight from Ottawa, the man in the phone booth next to her talking very fast and loudly in a foreign language—all the sounds fusing and distorting, breaking into fragments which felt like sharp glass splinters in her head. She forced her mouth to work. Forming words had always been a simple skill before, almost automatic. Now it needed effort, and at a time when her whole body wanted only to sink down. She hacked out a few more sentences, blessed the second set of pips.
‘I’m sorry, Bunny, I’ve run out of coins.’ She still had a handful, but what was one more lie? ‘I’ll write, okay, but do give my message to Chris as soon as she gets in, and special love, of course, and tell her …’
She had already been cut off. She picked up her bag, mooched away from the phone booth. So Chris was at a golf lesson, learning to improve her swing, not lying sleepless with anxiety on account of an absent Mum. She tried to force a grin. That put her in her place. Neither her mother nor her daughter was exactly counting the days till they laid eyes on her again. She had been stupid to imagine that Bea would even have welcomed her return. Her conventionally pious mother would hardly approve of her beloved only granddaughter being left on her own in what she considered a distressingly irregular ménage in a distinctly foreign country. She had never sanctioned the visit in the first place, loathed the thought of her dead-and-buried son-in-law being rudely resurrected, along with a new necrophiliac wife. She would only fuss and fret, ask too many questions, conclude that Neil or Bunny had driven her out of the house, bite back ‘I told you so.’
Why not just go home? Even without Bea, there would be plenty to keep her busy—unpacking, washing, shopping, sorting through the mail. Perhaps a letter from David, a gust of cold clean island air. Cold! It was stifling here in this airless hall with no windows and no view. She took a deep breath in, trudged back to the baggage carousel. Her suitcase was now circling with the others, dented in one corner, scratched along the top. Well, there was her dirty washing. She had better get on with it. She grabbed the case, walked towards the channel marked ‘Nothing to Declare’, passed a group of Customs men who barely glanced at it, went on towards the exit. Her holiday was over. Back to work. She slackened her pace, changed arms on the case. Strange how work seemed less compelling in an empty echoing house with no one to distract her from it, no one to look after. She was tempted simply to camp out where she was, find a seat or stretch out on her suitcase until the seven days were up. At least she would be on the spot, ready to meet her daughter’s plane as soon as it touched down. Chris might be upset at leaving Neil, need a mother’s comfort. Except Martin would be there as well, offering rival consolations. Strange to play second fiddle after years of …
She swung round. Someone was calling out. It was the old Scots crone, sitting huddled with her luggage on a little motorised buggy. As the oldest passenger, they hadn’t let her walk, but were driving her to the transfer-bus which would take her to the terminal for Glasgow.
‘What did you say?’ Morna had to shout. The buggy was moving faster, the woman almost out of sight.
‘Just good luck!’ The voice was swallowed up in the general stir and bustle of the airport.
Morna snatched up her case, sprinted after the buggy. ‘Wait,’ she shouted. ‘Wait! I’m coming with you.’
Chapter Seventeen
‘Anyway, I can’t. I’ve got my … period.’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘It’ll make a mess—everywhere.’
‘We can put some paper down. There’s an old Reveille here.’
‘I don’t want to do it on a newspaper.’
‘Well, towels then. I’ve got a red towel upstairs in my locker. Nothing’ll show on that.’
‘Yeah, but …’
‘What?’
‘It’s … embarrassing. Let’s leave it, Gerry.’
‘We can’t. I’m going East tomorrow—for the trials, and by the time I’m back, you’ll be gone.’
‘You can always visit England and we’ll do it there.’ Chris shifted position on the dusty floor. Where? England would be still more difficult—with Martin and her mother hovering over her and no handy basement storeroom in a sports centre, open until midnight. The storeroom was officially out-of-bounds, but Gerry had a part-time job in the centre as a security officer, and so had access to every part of the building. Gerry lived, breathed sport. Athletics was as crucial to him as diving was to Martin. Chris glanced across at the muscly legs, emerging from the brief white running shorts, the broad and powerful torso. Why did she always go for sportsmen? Gerry wasn’t even handsome, but an achiever, a success. He had the fas
test speed in the under-twenties’ hundred yards, the highest score in target shooting, and had beat his personal best in the high jump just last week. All pretty powerful turn-ons. Perhaps she ought to go to bed with him just to see if his decathlon coaching had paid off, if he broke any more records in the sack. Why did she have to have the curse the very day he had invited her to lunch? If men had periods, they would probably have invented some way of switching them on and off at will, or making them last just half an hour instead of five endless draggy days, or turned the blood white and sort of invisible like rain, instead of shaming red. Actually, this period had been the easiest one of her life—no pain, no floodings, not even any cramps—more like Bunny’s periods which were so light and hassle-free, all she needed were a few midget-sized tampons, instead of stuffing half a chemist’s shop up inside her and still being scared she’d leak. Bunny talked quite freely about things like tampons and the curse—even sex—yet somehow it was never squirmy or embarrassing. Her mother put on a special voice for sex, like those God-men did for Jesus in ‘Prayer For The Day’, whereas Bunny made it sound down to earth and basic like a grocery order.
She and Bunny had sat up several evenings, sprawling on the floor with mugs of coffee, discussing men or life or lib or God, as if Bunny were a girlfriend her own age rather than a stepmother. Sometimes she felt guilty about her own mother, especially now, when her Mum had gone rushing back to England and she’d felt a whole confusing tangle of contradictory emotions rather than simple loss or worry. Bunny and her father had been frantic, spent the rest of the day at Disneyland searching the crowds for her, which was just about as futile as trying to spot a currant in her school’s so-called steamed fruit pudding. Then they’d hurtled back home and found her second note, which didn’t say a lot more than the first one, but which had kept them up all night analysing and agonising. She herself kept seesawing from guilt to irritation. Her mother’s running away was a sort of melodramatic proof that she had been wrong to make the trip at all, that her daughter was a bully to have talked her into it. It was like rubbing her nose in it, shouting out ‘I told you so’ to the whole of Disneyland, the whole of LA airport. Yet she also felt a sense of sheer relief that her mother wasn’t there, that the tension in the house had dropped and she no longer had to fear some terrifying scene. Even at the Ocean View Motel, Morna had somehow been far too near, weighing on their consciences, arousing guilt again. The whole motel thing sounded fishy, anyway. Who was that mysterious American girlfriend who had booked her into the place, and why was no one ever allowed to meet her? Her Mum went tense and sort of flustered if they so much as mentioned it.
The Stillness the Dancing Page 31