Our Mother's House

by Julian Gloag

  “That was different, Dun, you know it was. Christmas meetings and birthday meetings was just to choose Mother’s present—it wasn’t anything like this. It was—” Hubert tried for words to express the difference, “Well—now it’s changed, that’s what I mean.”

  Diana rose, touched her hands to the table, and leaned forward to Hubert. “Oh, no, Hu, you’re wrong. You really are wrong. Why, Elsa herself said it—nothing has changed.”

  Elsa interrupted quickly, “That’s not fair, Dinah, I didn’t—”

  Diana smiled. “I think,” she said before Elsa could finish, “I think we all ought to go and lie down.”

  Elsa remained silent. One by one the children got up and followed Diana out of the kitchen. At last only Hubert remained to keep Elsa company. They didn’t look at one another. Hubert found a little patch of grease by his hand and began to rub it with the tip of his finger. It was so quiet they could hear the burr of the electric clock. There was the taste of salmon pie in his mouth. It made him feel a bit sick.

  Elsa went to the sink and came back with a damp cloth. She lifted Hubert’s hand and carefully wiped away the grease. They both stared at the clean wet patch.

  “What did I do wrong, Hu?”

  He shook his head and fingered the dampness on the table. “You should of told me—you should of told me about what we’re going to do.”

  “You don’t—you don’t think I’m wrong, do you, Hu?”

  He didn’t look at her. “I dunno. It isn’t a question of right or wrong. It’s just that …”

  “Yes?”

  “I dunno.” He didn’t want to speak anymore.

  “Well,” Elsa swung the dishrag in her hand. “I’ve never seen Dinah like that before.”

  “Dinah’s barmy,” Hubert said sharply. The damp patch on the table was dry now. He got up. What’s done’s done. We’re all barmy, come to that.

  “Hu?”

  He looked at her quickly and away again.

  “Hu?”

  He shook his head emphatically. “I’m going to lie down.” He pushed by her and went to the door. Then he looked back. There she was, standing with the dishrag in her hand, staring at him. She was small and it made him angry. “Do I look like a freak or something?” She’d no right to look at him like that—like a little kid. He knew she was going to cry, and if he stayed he would cry too. Crippen!

  Crippen. He left her standing there and slammed the door behind him. “Crippen!” he said aloud. He ran down the passage and into the front room that was so seldom used. At once he smelled the wax polish and the everlasting dust from the thickly upholstered couch.

  It was warm with the windows closed and the sun shining in most of the day. It was bright and white where the windows were, but dark inside with brown wallpaper and dark furniture and the dark carpet and the dark floor. It was like the darkness of a church—but nice and looked after. When he’d had measles and the room upstairs had been kept dark because the light was supposed to hurt his eyes, it had been like this almost. He didn’t have to do his jobs then. It was peaceful. He didn’t have to think.

  He stood in the centre of the room. He felt tired and weak—as though he’d got the measles again. Slowly the sun went behind the clouds and the shimmering white veil in front of the windows became just net curtains again.

  Hubert sighed.

  He shouldn’t be cross with Elsa. It wasn’t her fault. But if only they’d rung someone up—even old Halby. They could have told him. It was all wrong to put a deader in the garden.

  A deader—that was Mother!

  Hubert went down on his knees. “Oh, God,” he said, “don’t let me forget Mother—please don’t!”

  9

  There was no moon.

  The soil under the wall of the house where the lilies grew was stony and hard. Perhaps only lilies of the valley could ever have thrived there.

  The afternoon’s drizzle had moistened the top layer of earth, so that the digging had been easy at first. But now, however hard he drove the spade, it didn’t penetrate more than an inch or two. A rigid bar of iron bore down on Hubert’s shoulders as he dug. He stood in the shallow trench and forced the spade down. He kicked at the blade to drive it deeper and lifted a meagre scoop of earth and dumped it on the side. Down, kick, up. Down, kick, up. He didn’t bother to count anymore. Straight black stalks—his brothers’ and sisters’ legs—surrounded him as he worked, but he didn’t notice them either.

  Long ago he’d had a dream of standing on a high cliff with nothing but darkness below—not the sleepy darkness when the lights were turned out upstairs, but an icy darkness of falling. He’d been afraid. When he’d woken, there’d been a funny hard excited feeling between his legs. And now, as he thrust the spade in and prised it up, the feeling came again. Down, kick, up—gradually he and the spade seemed to become one moving thing drawing its power from the hard pulsating centre.

  “Sssh!” said somebody as the blade grated on a stone.

  He went on digging. They said if you dug deep enough you’d come out in Australia. Down, kick, up—Australia. The hair tickled his forehead and he smelled his own sweat. He’d get there—to Australia. When one of the sides fell in, he didn’t join in the groans, but attacked the fresh heap of soil. The trembling in his arms and the hard arch of his hand were nothing beside the throb within him of Australia.

  “How much have we done now? Let’s have a look.”

  Hubert was on the upswing and the light of Jiminee’s torch caught him full in the eyes. He blinked hard and the light shifted downward. Hubert stared at the shallow hole, ragged at the edges and unevenly dug.

  “It must be at least two foot,” a hopeful voice said.

  Hubert shook his head to himself. The ground was pitted with smooth brown sockets where stones had come out. Like holey cheese, he thought. They must have been at it for hours and look what they’d done! The throb within him slackened slowly.

  “It’s my go now, Hu,” Elsa said.

  He handed the spade to her and climbed out. His legs ached so that he could hardly bend them. He straightened up and stood a little away from the others. Jiminee switched off the torch. It had begun to rain.

  Hubert lifted his head so the rain could fall on his face. It chilled the sweat below his hairline like a cool hand on his brow. There was no wind and the rain was so fine it was noiseless. The only sound was Elsa’s breath and the scratch of the spade and the new earth landing on the pile at the side of the grave. He closed his fist and felt the tightness of a rising blister under the caked dirt.

  The garden was full of black heavy shapes that suddenly swelled up and then shrunk as he looked. The denseness of the trees hid the greenish neon light on the other side of the wall, and only the leaves at the very top were touched with the glow. He smelled the wet bark and tried to think of the daytime. Long ago the Halberts had gone to bed and the windows of the houses further down the terrace were light-less. Everyone was asleep but them. The garden was an enormous pit of night. The darkness concealed them, but it did not comfort.

  Elsa’s whisper came up to him. “You four go in. You’ll catch your death out here. I’ll come in when I’ve finished my turn and the next one can go out.”

  He left the graveside and followed the others reluctantly. When Dunstan turned the light on in the kitchen he blinked again. No one had anything to say. They stood, hands hanging down as though they had done a crime.

  Hubert looked at the clock and noticed with surprise it was only half-past one. For a moment he thought perhaps the kitchen clock had stopped too, but the circulating second hand still moved confidently round. Maybe, he thought, we’ll do it after all.

  “Why d-don’t we have some cocoa?” Jiminee said tentatively.

  No one answered him for a moment. Then Hubert said, “I don’t want any.”

  “I don’t think,” said Diana, “that it would be right to have cocoa now.”

  Jiminee sniffed and slowly wiped his nose with the back of
his hand, leaving a thin streak of mud-free skin across his cheek. There was a warning intake of breath from Dunstan.

  “Sorry, Dun,” Jiminee said quickly.

  It seemed much colder in the kitchen than outside. Hubert shivered. The pulsing warmth had completely left him. He could feel the coldness of his kneecaps and the backs of his hands. They could easily light the oven and warm the room up, but Hubert didn’t suggest it. It seemed somehow right to be cold now.

  “Keep still, Jiminee,” Dunstan said in his high voice, breaking the silence and halting Jiminee’s perpetual jiggling dance. Jiminee’s grin flashed on and off as he tried to keep himself rigidly still. The only time Jiminee really ever stopped the constant flicker of his limbs was when he was absorbed in drawing. Hubert wanted to tell him it didn’t matter; but the effort of speaking was too great.

  He leaned against the kitchen table and stared down at the mud on his shoes. Sunday was shoe-cleaning day—but perhaps Mother would let them off tomorrow. Mother!—he glanced up hurriedly as if he had uttered a blasphemy. But the others didn’t notice. Hubert looked at them. They weren’t looking at him. They were by themselves. Dunstan frowning, always frowning in at himself, as though, thought Hubert, he saw a big fat ugly toad inside him. He smiled and pushed down a burst of giggles that suddenly rose from his chest. Diana—there was a bit in the Bible about her: beautiful is Diana of the Ephesians, only it wasn’t “beautiful,” it was some other word. He often thought of that when he looked at Diana. And Jiminee, poor old Jiminee—his tongue coming out guiltily to lick his lips and hopping in again. They were all so by themselves. Why don’t we talk, thought Hubert—but he knew they were too far away. Why, even if he yelled, they wouldn’t hear him perhaps.

  It was so hot now. Why didn’t Elsa come? She was so long and poor Mother was waiting for her cool bed among the lilies.

  Suddenly there were five of them. Hubert blinked. It was Gerty. She stood in the doorway, her face smooth with sleep and her unbraided hair around her shoulders. The blue dressing gown, only last year handed on from Jiminee, was much too big for her and hung almost to the floor. Her hands were quite lost in the enormous sleeves.

  “What do you want?” said Dunstan.

  “Bicky,” muttered Gerty. She walked determinedly to the cupboard.

  “Biscuit,” said Dunstan. “You can’t have a biscuit every time you want one!”

  Then Hubert laughed.

  “What are you laughing at?” snapped Dunstan.

  “You’re always against everything, Dun, aren’t you? Can’t, can’t, can’t—that’s what it is with you.”

  “Stop laughing at once!”

  “Can’t, can’t, can’t, stop, stop, stop!” chanted Hubert, caught in a whirlpool of laughing.

  “Shut up!” Dunstan shouted, but Jiminee was bemusedly mouthing the words too now. And then Gerty, the biscuit tin secure in her plump hands, joined in as well.

  “Stop, stop, stop—can’t, can’t, can’t—stop, stop, stop!”

  The singsong was overpoweringly delicious and witty and it need never end. Hubert felt weak with it so that he could hardly stand up. “Can’t, can’t, can’t—stop, stop, stop!” They were oblivious of Dunstan’s shouts of “Shut up!” The laughs bubbled out of Hubert’s mouth so fast that the words only had time to be high-pitched whispers as he gasped for air.

  Then something rose out of the top of Hubert’s head and rose and rose so that it almost touched the ceiling. He found himself looking down upon the kitchen—and he could see Jiminee dancing and Gerty banging the biscuit tin and Dunstan standing frozen and still. And he could see himself laughing and holding onto his stomach. And he could see Diana, her big eyes open wide looking from one to another.

  Then he saw the door open and Elsa enter. She had the spade in one hand and with the other was trying to push back a lock of hair that had escaped from a pigtail and hung down on her cheek. It took her a long time to get the piece of hair back and all the while she just looked at them. The noise stopped—except for Hubert. He could hear himself, his voice dwindling, still going on and on: “Stop, stop, stop—can’t, can’t, can’t …”

  “I could hear you all the way out in the garden.” As Elsa spoke, abruptly that bit of Hubert fell back from the ceiling into his head.

  Gerty put the tin of biscuits on the table. “It wasn’t me that started it, Else.”

  “No,” said Dunstan, “it wasn’t Gerty.”

  “Jiminee,” Elsa said, “you ought to know better.”

  “Please don’t be angry, Elsa.”

  “I’m not angry—”

  “It wasn’t Jiminee, either. It was Hubert.”

  Diana shook her head. “He was very naughty.”

  “He ought to be punished,” said Dunstan.

  Hubert didn’t hear them. It was like a hurt, the way Elsa was looking at him. There were two little red spots on her cheek—the way there always were when she was very angry. But when she spoke, she sounded gentle.

  “Pull up your stockings, Hubert.”

  He bent down. It took him a long time to pull the heavy wool stockings up under his knees and fold the tops down neatly over his garters. The blood pounded in his head. He was hot again and very weak.

  “We must all remember,” Elsa said, “to be very quiet.”

  “Yes,” murmured Diana, “we mustn’t disturb Mother.”

  Elsa faltered for a moment. “We mustn’t disturb anyone.”

  “Hubert ought to be punished.”

  “We can think about that tomorrow, Dunstan,” said Elsa. “We’ve got work to do now. And it’s your turn.” She held out the spade. “Come on.” She opened the back door for him.

  “All right.” Gripping the spade tightly, Dunstan gave a quick backward glance to Hubert and shut the door hard behind him.

  Elsa gave Gerty a biscuit and sent her to bed. Then once again the waiting began. Each of them took one of the biscuits, which were usually reserved for Sunday. They were filled with hard cream. Hubert’s mouth was dry and he could hardly swallow the crumbs. He scraped the cream off with his teeth and gave the biscuit part to Jiminee. He could not look at Elsa.

  He sat on a kitchen chair and waited—for Dunstan, for Jiminee, for Diana, for himself. He did not remember going out or coming back in again. He was just there, sitting at the kitchen table, with the waves of hot and cold washing through him. The faces of his brothers and sisters merged and shifted and separated again, like a pack of cards being shuffled. The biscuit crumbs were dry on his tongue. It was a long time waiting. When he closed his eyes he could taste the deposits of cream between his teeth. Once, he opened his eyes and saw Diana reading from the book. And that seemed strange, for Diana was never the one who read. Perhaps he dreamt it. Yet he heard her, because out of the quiet, trembling flow of her reading, words would become individual bells and he would understand them:

  … upon the hem of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; and bells of gold between them round about: a golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, upon the hem of the robe round about …

  Then it was his turn. He was alone again with the spade. But he couldn’t find the rhythm of digging—there were magic words to help, but he couldn’t remember. Bells and pomegranates, he tried, pomegranates and bells. His arms were filled inside with candy floss and the spade wouldn’t come up. He lifted it weakly at last and a little cascade of earth and stones poured back into the hole. Hubert began to giggle. He sneezed—and the giggles were cold in his throat. He half turned round to the garden, waiting for it to pounce. But it was quite still and, even when he held his breath, it did not give itself away. It waited, moment for moment it waited with him. And it looked so peaceful—the grass freckled with moonlight falling through the leaves—but it was a trick.

  And then he heard it—a creak from the garden door and a shuffling among the leaves. There were robbers come—robbers down there in the night.
Hubert stood as stone-still as a garden statue, and the leaves moved slyly. A thousand knives flickered in the moonlight, ready and waiting.

  They would win. He knew from the beginning they would win. He could not shout for help. Only his held breath and his open eyes kept them at bay. But inside his skull the blood struck rhythmically, harder and harder, and he could not hold his breath forever. He was dizzy with the noise of blood.

  He could hold it no longer.

  He dropped the spade and with one swift movement fell to the floor of the grave, crouching on his knees and elbows. He put his hands over his head and let his breath go. It didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered. He waited for the knives to strike—for the thump on his back as the hilt smashed against his spine.

  He pressed his knees and his elbows into the ground with all his force. If only he hurt himself enough, if only he could draw blood, perhaps the robbers would spare him. But he knew they wouldn’t really. They would kill him down there in the grave with their knives. And then they’d draw their knives out and they’d laugh, because they wouldn’t have to keep quiet anymore. They were merciless.

  Hubert shivered uncontrollably.

  He smelled the old hard earth where nobody had been for centuries.

  He could not believe it when he opened his eyes and saw that it was green and bright with sun and not a black hole at all. The garden was so different he could hardly recognize it. It was filled with different greens—the borders high with green plants and grey plants and almost-blue shrubs and flowers blue and red and orange, like huge marigolds. And the grass was a lighter green and the leaves of the apple tree were very dark green, like watercress. Deep orange red fruit hung from the apple tree—not apples at all. Hubert reached up and a fruit slipped into his hand. It was round and big and he laughed because all at once he knew it was a pomegranate. He picked another and, as he pulled it, the branch rang with the sound of tiny bells. They tinkled like fairy bells. He stretched to see them, but they were hidden deep in the leaves. Now that he listened, the wind blew the branch and the bells sounded all the time, and he knew they were made of gold. And suddenly, holding a pomegranate in each hand, he began to dance to the music of the gold bells. The grass was soft to his bare feet and the smell of the flowers and the spices rose around his dance to make him a coloured robe. He danced right to the edge of the pool in the centre of the garden and the water reflected the magnificence of his robe. It was so clear he could see each tiny embroidered pomegranate—in blue and scarlet and purple—as the robe swayed to the sound of the gold bells.