by Judith Kelly
The daylight disappeared. The cupboard was cold and damp, and smelt like mouldy earth. Outside in the playground the senior girls’ voices cried out: ‘All in! All in!’
Then a nun’s voice: ‘Get in with you! In, in, in!’
Then the coughs and voices ebbed away until there was silence. Apart from a crack in the door, there was no light. I whimpered, a cupped hand still protecting my nose. My skin itched at the thought of spiders and creepy crawlies swarming up my legs in ticklish streams. To drive them away, I began to stamp my feet in a steady rhythm. My nose pounded to the beat of my feet. It had stopped bleeding, but felt sticky and swollen.
I wiped away the drying blood with my sleeve. Nausea soured my throat, and I tried not to gag. I wanted someone to hold on to. Anyone. But now I really had turned into a bad person, and nobody would want me any more, nobody would like me. What should I do? Maybe even Frances would chase me away. No one wanted a friend like me.
I forgot the bugs and curled up on the floor. When would it be time to come out? Stifling darkness pressed down on me. I hugged myself, shaking. I felt like a different person lying there in the dark; it was as though I had said goodbye to some central part of myself, leaving an unfamiliar shell.
I remained curled on the floor, breathing in the smell of dirt and mould, for what seemed like hours. I listened as hard as I could for footsteps. Everything stayed quiet. I don’t know how long I had been there when I finally heard a click in the lock and the handle snapped down.
It was still daylight. I pulled myself stiffly to a sitting position. Attempts to open my eyes brought bright lights and shooting pains. I groaned and then made out a large figure looming above me, black on white. A pair of clean lace-up boots, shiny and hard as a man’s.
Sister Mary leaned over me. ‘Right, upstairs with you. Wash your face and go straight to bed.’ Her voice wobbled as she spoke.
I felt her hand tug my arm. I stumbled out of the cupboard into the daylight and gasped as hot pain shot through my eyes. What had happened to my eyes? The light stabbed like needles, even through my closed eyelids. Guided by Sister Mary’s hand, which now shoved me insistently towards the stairs, I put one hand against the wall to support myself as I struggled upstairs towards the washroom. My tongue felt like a lump, and my mouth was glued shut.
A nun met us on the stairs. I stopped and looked up. It took me a moment to focus my eyes. Then I saw that it was Sister Cuthbert staring down at me with an anxious look on her face. Sister Mary put her finger to her lips and took the nun to one side, speaking quietly.
I stood clenching my teeth together, staring at Sister Mary as her whispered voice rose and fell. Finally both nuns looked at me. Sister Cuthbert motioned for me to come closer.
I swallowed, and stayed where I was. Sister Mary would kill me if I said anything to the other nun. Sister Cuthbert beckoned again, more urgently. Slowly I fought down my fear. I went up to her. She smiled sympathetically as she scrutinised my face.
‘Oh dear, oh dear, we have been in the wars.’ The sympathy didn’t seem to belong; it could be peeled off her eyes like a plaster from a grazed knee. ‘Your face is very swollen,’ she said, as Sister Mary glared at me sideways, from behind the jutting edge of her headdress. ‘You must have taken quite a tumble, but you’ll live. Best go and sleep it off.’
‘Yes, Sister,’ I whispered. I couldn’t look at Sister Mary. I had the sense of being hemmed in by evil. Things are so wrong here.Things are so wrong, and I’m so scared ...
I hobbled rather than walked the remainder of the way to the washroom and the rescuing darkness of my bed. I wrapped myself tightly in my blanket. My stomach began to make crawling sounds. The rustling on the other side of the dormitory sounded suspiciously like a mouse scurrying across the hollow floor. I lay with my knees up, as close to my body as I could get them. As well as biting my fingernails, I’d developed a habit of sucking the tops of my arms, which were now covered in small bruises. I squeezed my eyes tight shut, as if somehow blindness would protect me.
Nana and Pop. Nana and Pop. I chanted their names over and over. I took out each memory, caressing them like favourite photos. I didn’t want to lose or forget anything, because I wanted to get out of here, I wanted to get back to my grandparents. I’d been so happy living with them after Dad had died. The only way I’d find my way back would be if I remembered everything about where they lived.
I closed my eyes. I could see every detail of their house in London, as clear as a picture - the balcony with the geraniums, the kitchen with the sun streaming through the windows - and I could walk every room blindfold. I remembered all the familiar sounds of the area of London where they lived: The cries of the newspaper vendors in the languid evening air; the last few birds in the street, the bustling of traffic and the murmuring of the sky before darkness spilt over.
All these sounds marked out a familiar road. Then, bedtime was the time when I used to feel happiest. Cosily tucked in by Nana with a kiss on my forehead, and a night of easy, dreamless sleep to look forward to.
I shivered as I lay in the dormitory. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t pull these two worlds together. Nothing connected to anything else any more. Nothing was in its right place. That life was no longer mine. There were no feelings left. I couldn’t even feel my breathing; I couldn’t feel my ever-present hunger or the cold.
I hunted in vain for some thread I could hold on to. I could only get away from this unbearably strange present by going back to the images of my past: a world whose rules were slowly disa ppearing.
‘Nana and Pop,’ I whispered into my blankets. ‘I’m so sorry.’ I gave a quiet sob. My nose still throbbed. I curled myself into a frozen ball, praying to forget the convent.
Nana and Pop. I couldn’t think of one without the other. They were always together. I carried their picture in my memory like a black-and-white snapshot when the shadows look harsh under the gloss: Nana, walking her two Dalmatian dogs along the pavement in Connaught Street, London; behind her Pop’s out of-focus Bentley, ice-cream white, with a shiny chrome fender. And then black and white fleshed into colour and I saw Nana dressed in pale green and cashmere. A brooch or a jewel pinned on her cardigan. Pearls around her neck. A flowered scarf. Her ripe nut-brown hair, with only the faintest tinge of grey at her temples.
Every night I got trapped in the same dream, finding a path that led to a precarious bridge, curving high over the Thames to London. Every night I almost made it across the bridge, and every morning Sister Mary woke us before I could cross it and find my way back to Nana’s house.
Mum and I had lived with Nana and Pop for four years after Dad died. Nana had been ready and willing to take us in when we had nowhere else to go.
‘Judith, your bedroom has a balcony that overlooks the main street,’ she declared when we first arrived. I bounced up on my toes, thanking her, and then I looked at Mum and wondered why she wasn’t excited about living in such a big house. When she smiled at Nana it was only with her mouth, not her eyes.
Pop called himself a ‘schpieler’. He ran his own betting offices in Mayfair and Brighton, and each day he held my hand as we walked to the Hampden Gurney School, near Marble Arch. I loved London, with its jungle of packed red double-decker buses grinding nose to tail, the continual murmur of dragging sounds, the silvery sigh of Pop’s car. He was big and safe, with twinkling dark eyes that smiled down at me as I skipped along at his side.
Sometimes he’d let me play in his car, holding on to the steering wheel and pretending I was the driver. He’d take me with him to his betting office in Bond Street, where I’d watch him taking bets from low voices that burred like bees over the telephone. Framed around his office walls were images of long-dead horses standing with their meek heads poised in the air as if listening for the shouts of the vanished crowds. I loved to listen to the rise and fall of Pop’s voice as he bawled orders, and was sure I could do it just as well, given the chance. When he gave me a toy red telephone of my
own, I picked up the receiver and said: ‘I’ll have two shillings each way on Salamander running in the 2.30 at Epsom.’
Pop loved this story. He told it to all his friends, and they teased me about taking over the family business someday.
Every evening we’d sit at the dining table with its starched white cloth, and Pop would talk to me like a grown-up. He’d peer at me over his copy of The Winner and joke: ‘Do you know how many horses owe me money?’ or ‘Never gamble, it’s a mug’s game.’ And after dinner he’d brush my hair with his hand, muttering something in Yiddish.
Nana was an avid reader, and it was she who whetted my appetite for books by giving me Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Mum had read this book when she was a child, and now she loved to show off and quote the first page to me word for word. When Nana gave it to me she put a drop of honey on the inside cover saying, ‘Eat!’ because in her view, learning was sweet.
Together we’d retreat up the stairs to the drawing-room. It was large, glowing with colour, and a place in which I always felt secure. On the landing enormous Chinese ginger jars gleamed like fat-bellied gods. There were eight of them, on rosewood plinths, and I gave a name to each one. In the drawing-room we would sit on a little Chippendale sofa, beside which stood a marquetry table and a collection of snuffboxes.
Once I surprised Nana when she had not detected my approaching footsteps on the thickly carpeted floor, and she declared, ‘You don’t have to go tiptoeing around here. I don’t like surprises!’
‘Maybe I should wear bells round my ankles,’ I laughed.
‘That’s a good idea. Shall I tell you a story?’ she asked.
‘Oh, please!’ I climbed on to her lap.
Every strand of her hair was in place, dark and shining.
‘Do you know what a zaddik is?’
I frowned. ‘A zaddik? No.’
Her warm face tugged into a smile. ‘A zaddik is a holy man.’
‘Like a priest or a rabbi?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Well, this particular zaddik was not only a wise man, but also a great human being with an enormous love for all of God’s creatures, even the weakest and smallest. He felt so responsible for them that he didn’t want to hurt even the lowest ant. You know, there are some people in the world who take advantage of those they have in their power and enjoy it, but not this zaddik. He had bells put on his shoes, so that when he walked, the ants could scurry out of the way and they always felt safe in his kindly presence.’
On the word ‘scurry’ she ran her fingers up my arm, which made me squeal with delight.
On Friday afternoons, Nana had a housemaid who helped to clean the house from top to bottom before the Sabbath. Fridays were hustle and bustle. The silver had to be polished; the candlesticks especially had to be nice. In the kitchen there was busy to-ing and fro-ing, and slowly the entire house filled with the familiar Sabbath smells of roast chicken, gefilte fish, kishke and the challah baking in the oven.
After the meal it was always ‘our’ Friday evening. We’d walk through the packed streets of the West End to Piccadilly Circus, full of coloured advertisements all made up of changing lights, amid the swish of cars and taxis and the jangle of human traffic. The glossy terraced houses stacked up and down the streets. The shops in Oxford Street, all powdered and rouged, bursting with fabulous knick-knacks; the cold splendour of Marble Arch and the gleam of Hyde Park all against the backcloth of a racing sky - To me this was the greatest show on earth, and much more exciting than either the theatre or the cinema.
Where was Mum was during these outings? I supposed she must have come along with us sometimes, but in my memory it’s just the three of us, Nana and Pop and me, walking between them and swinging on their hands.
My special time with Mum was when I returned home from school and told her about my day. Then something happened that really shook my foundations with a bang - Mum found herself a boyfriend. From that moment on I began to see less and less of her and things were never quite the same again. She was engrossed in a world of her own. There were days when I didn’t seem to exist; she would look right through me or walk around me, wearing a smile that bulged with secrets. I was invisible. Something or someone was definitely making my importance shrivel overnight.
A car revving up in the street or the jangle of the doorbell had me looking out of the window at the top of a tall man’s head. With his dark hair and a big smile, he was the spitting image of Gregory Peck. I watched as he opened his woody car door and helped Mum inside. When the sound of its engine had faded away I’d slump back from the window knowing that I’d not see Mum for a couple of days.
Now when Mum made a rare appearance, my ears buzzed whenever the phone rang. Then she would usher me out of earshot. ‘Upstairs, Judith!’ she’d say, pointing her finger at the ceiling.
When she caught Mum on the phone for the umpteenth time, gentle Nana actually raised her voice: ‘A little less time on the phone and a little more with your daughter would make life easier for us all.’ Listening from the top of the stairs, I nodded self-righteously to myself. Nana was right: Mum should spend more time with me. Things should be like they used to be.
Mum stopped going out so much, but she and Nana didn’t stop arguing. Hearing high voices from the kitchen one day, I went downstairs in the hope that the sound of my tread might stop them. I stood outside the door and listened. Nana’s low voice muttered in uncomfortable bursts. I told myself that they were talking about Mum’s work, and grafted random words to the music of their voices, as a songwriter might. But just when I thought I had understood, the rhythm and pace of the altercation changed, and I had to start again. It was a tiring game. Finally, footsteps - slow, reluctant, deliberate - approached the stairs and I raced back to my bed.
The front door slammed. Lying awake, I listened to Nana and Pop moving around in the study below. Their voices were louder than I’d ever heard before. I could hear individual words quite distinctly: This man . . . I told her . . . for Judith’s sake . . . you shouldn’t have . . .
I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but suddenly I felt exhausted.
I found a hiding-place where I could spy on the grown-ups’ conversations. A cubbyhole inside Nana’s larder which, when opened, released an earthy, sweet smell. The larder was stacked with biscuit tins, brown bags tied up with rubber bands, squat jars of jewel-like amber marmalade with curls of peel.
Under the bottom shelf where bunches of dried herbs lay, I discovered a little cupboard. I’d take off my shoes and open the little door, turning its round brass knob to release the secret tongue inside. I had already worked out the best way to sit, with my knees drawn up as far as my chin, and crept in head first, reaching out to grab my sandals and pull the door shut after me.
I fiddled the tongue back into its wooden groove to close the door and waited. And waited. Each minute I heard the long hand on the kitchen clock click forwards a notch, and tried to amuse myself by counting the sixty imaginary seconds in between. Forty-one ... forty-two ...
All at once Nana swished in, flip-flopping in her house slippers, her skirt brushing against the kitchen table as she passed. The sound of water running in the sink, and then a deeper sound, like water filling a container. Making tea by the sounds of things. I squinted my eyes as I hid, piecing together the action. More footsteps, and Mum came in. I knew it was her by the way she cleared her throat.
‘I’ve had enough of this. What have you got against Michael, anyway?’ Mum’s voice was a furious whisper. My teeth chattered. I let them.
I heard something slam on the counter. Nana laughed coldly.
‘Michael? I’ve nothing at all against him. What I object to is that your - infatuation means that you never see your daughter any more.’
‘How dare you accuse me! She’s perfectly well taken care of!’
‘Yes, by me! Because you’re never here! I’ve already raised you; I’m hardly keen to do it again!’
‘I’m here all day! Just because I go
out the odd night - ‘
‘This isn’t what you promised me when you moved in, was it?’ Nana’s voice turned scathing: ‘‘‘Oh, Mum, it’s just for a little while, just till I’m back on my feet, and you’ll never even know Judith is there, I promise!” Ha!’
Their voices broke through whispers and became shouts. I didn’t want to hear any more. I crouched there, flushed and frozen, holding my breath. I had to stay stone still. If I stayed very still, they would stop.
‘Shut up,’ I whispered. ‘Shut up, shut up.’
A final angry voice, and then they left the kitchen, one after the other. It had worked. I hugged my knees, pressing my cheek against them. I don’t know how long I sat there. Long enough to be cold. No voices, just shuffling and creaks. I could move now; the worst bit was over.
When Nana cuddled me now, it was as if she were hanging on to me. The silences were the worst, waiting for the arguing to start again. I began to spend hours making faces in the mirror to ease the tension building within me. It gave me the chance to tryout different ones: faces that I could replace, so that I could believe I was a different person. After trying three or four different faces, or ten perhaps, or twelve, I would decide I liked only one of them - the one that made me look good - and would try to make it come back. But once the face had disappeared, there was no way to retrieve it.
Other children had nice smiles. Not me. Perhaps I would always be toothless. Nana had exchanged my milk teeth for three sixpences, saying they would grow again, but now I doubted anything she said. I wanted them to grow again so that Mum would notice me.
When Nana caught me staring in the mirror, she warned me that if I looked at my reflection for too long I would see the face of the devil and that would bring bad luck. No one guessed that my reflection in the mirror already doubled into the rough red face of the devil galloping towards me. It grew monstrous, the hairy jowls palpitating, every deep wrinkle swelling around its immense Cheshire cat grin.