by Angela Huth
Mean to me: why are you so
Mean to me?
It was a song Fen often sang, joining in the olden-days lady who sang it on the record player. Ruth Etting, she was called. She had a sad, quavery voice, but when Fen sang with her, holding a pretend cigarette holder and clutching at her breast with comic tragedy, it always made Emily laugh.
Bored by her blue leaves, she peered behind the bush. She could see, through the open window of her own classroom, Mrs Riley at the blackboard pointing at something with her stick. The lesson, Emily calculated, would soon be over. She got up, taking the pitcher of ink with her.
As she walked back across the playground it occurred to Emily everything about her had a peculiar sharpness. Previously, she hadn’t been aware of this. But now the sky was blue glass, the sun a glinting coin, the playground a stretch of emerald splinters, while the edges of the school buildings themselves were cruel as blades. The grass ended. She crossed a gravel path. Her feet sank into the soft earth of a flower bed. In the mottled room through the open window one or two heads twitched up from their books. They had no faces, just huge eyes stuck on to one-dimensional white shapes.
Emily lifted the heavy pitcher, hearing for a second the slosh again inside it. There was a lightning pain in her stomach as she reached up. With all her strength she threw it through the window.
She watched the raging of the inky storm only for a moment. She was aware of blue everywhere, splattered like fighting blood on desks, walls, skin, clothes. Girls were screaming, one was crying. Mrs Riley’s voice, from somewhere, whipping up the frenzy :
‘Duck your heads, girls! It’s a maniac!’
Emily ran away.
She ran through the garden spurred on by the kind of excitement she had felt on the church tower. Throwing the ink had released something within her: she was light-headed with relief. Quickly, she reached the gate to the walled kitchen garden, another out-of-bounds place that would be safe for a while. It was a peaceful, silent half-acre, divided by tiny cinder paths, smelling faintly of herbs and silvery shrubs, and the warmth of the sun was packed close by the old brick walls. Emily sat on a wooden bench, panting. Her hands were brilliant blue. She tried to wonder what would happen next, but the song was still in her mind, confusing her. She waited, unafraid.
This time, in Mrs Parker’s study, all the patience and quiet had gone. Mrs Parker had admonished her in a harsh voice which rose to a shout. She asked no questions, this time : just spelt out in terrible clarity the destructiveness, the futility and the sheer bloody-mindedness of Emily’s act. Then, her wave of immediate anger over, her voice subsided into tones of weariness.
‘Emily, this is your very last chance. Do you understand? I will give you one more try-against the wishes of Mrs Riley and other members of the staff, I might add. But if there’s one more complaint, if I hear of one more misdeed of any kind, I shall have no alternative.’ She paused. ‘I shall have to ask your parents to take you away from here.’ Emily shifted slightly in her chair. Her hands, still unwashed, were in a blue knot on her lap. ‘There,’ Mrs Parker went on, ‘I believe I hear your mother’s car.’
Until that moment, Emily had been calm and silent. Now, anxiety rose within her, nauseous.
‘Why’s Mama coming?’
‘I thought it best to send for her, to explain. And to take you home.’
‘But it’s before lunch.’
‘Nonetheless, I think it would be wise for you to go home for the rest of the day.’
‘Oh lummy.’
There was a knock on the door. Fen hurried in, untidy and harassed. Emily stood up, hiding her hands behind her back. Mrs Parker told her to fetch her blazer and wait for her mother in the car.
During the long wait the sky clouded over and it began to rain. Emily watched the heavy drops gather into streamers and jostle about the car windows: beyond them, she could see the figures of her friends hurrying across the playground. The red and green stripes of their blazers blurred and ran in the screen of raindrops, making them pretty, flower-like shapes.
Fen eventually appeared, wet and worried. The windscreen wipers made two clear arcs: as they drove away, Emily could see looks of enquiry and astonishment on the faces of the passing girls.
‘Whatever made you do it, Em? Please, darling. Tell me.’
‘I don’t know, Mama. Really I don’t.’
‘You must have had something in your mind.’
‘No. I didn’t. Honestly.’
Fen sighed. They were out in the lanes now, high banked with dripping green. She put a thin hand on Emily’s knee. She didn’t seem at all cross.
‘Anyway, I love you. You know that,’ she said.
The school judged that Emily behaved well for the rest of the term. She was docile, quiet, causing offence to no one. She tried a little harder, even in maths. But it brought no rewards.
On the first day of the Easter holidays she was in the orchard with Fen. They were picking early daffodils to put in the house before Idle and Marcia Burrows arrived for the weekend.
‘I’ve got to go away for a week, Em,’ Fen said. ‘To the north.’ She broke the news lightly.
‘No? Poor you. Why?’
Fen straightened up, bunching her daffodils together.
‘To be honest, I want to go. I hate leaving you, but I want to stay with Kevin.’
‘You’re going to stay with Kevin?’ Fen nodded. ‘But nobody would want to do that. And anyway, I thought you weren’t ever going to see him again?’
‘It isn’t as easy as that.’
‘I don’t understand.’ A sudden tiredness flowed through Emily. ‘What’s happening, exactly?’
‘Well, we’re trying things out. Different things. To make it all right in the end. I know it’s difficult for you to understand. I know it is. But you mustn’t worry.’
‘But I don’t like you going away, especially to Kevin.’ Emily sighed.
‘Oh, darling. I haven’t made the decision without a lot of thought. For everyone,’ Fen added. ‘Come on, let’s get a few more. Then we’ll go in. Cheer up. A week’s not long, is it?’
‘Yes, it is, it’s ages. And I hate you going away.’ Emily’s voice quivered, though she felt no danger of tears. She looked at her mother whose face was far away, very bright, very beautiful. ‘I hope you have a horrible time,’ she said. ‘And as for these stupid old flowers.’ She threw her bunch of daffodils to the ground.
Nine
The hour between Fen’s departure for her Easter holiday, and the arrival of Idle and Marcia Burrows, caused Mrs Charles indignation too overpowering to be contained in silence. She stumped about the house, her face clammy in the mild heat of the spring evening, venting her outrage on Emily.
‘And what does some two-penny-halfpenny seck-er-terry know about keeping a house, I’d like to know? I ask you. The betting is I come back on Monday morning to find the place a pigsty. Well, all these irregular goings-on – I don’t know what the world’s coming to, I really don’t. But I shall have to tell your mother when she comes back from her holiday. She’s going to have to make up her mind one way or the other.’
Emily, who found Mrs Charles’ train of thought confusing, debated whether it was best to say nothing or to support both her mother and Marcia Burrows. She decided that silence might be taken for agreement, and agreement with Mrs Charles on any subject was something she could never contemplate.
‘The place certainly won’t be a pigsty,’ she said. ‘Marcia Burrows is very tidy – much more than Mama, in fact. And Mama needed a holiday. She’s lost nearly a stone, so there.’
At the tone of her voice Mrs Charles’ duster stopped licking at the china on the dresser for a moment, then gave a vicious swipe at a blue china mug. It crashed to the ground, quite shattered. There was an almost imperceptible pause in the writhing movements of Mrs Charles’ indignant body before she bent down to gather up the bits.
‘And that mug was given to Mama when she was a child by a frien
d of hers.’
‘Was it, just? Well, you’d never catch my mother larking off to Scunthorpe or wherever just because she felt like it. My mother had one holiday in twenty-five years and died of internal abcesses, big as eggs the doctor said they were, as a result.’ She thrust the broken pieces of china into her apron pocket and rattled them about.
‘What are you going to do with those bits?’
‘Throw them out, of course.’
‘Leave them on the table and I’ll try to mend them.’
‘Don’t be so daft. There’s a thousand and one pieces.’
‘All the same, I’ll try.’
In the grip of her unbearable vexation, Mrs Charles slammed the pile of fragmented china on the table before Emily. It was obvious that to mend the mug was impossible, but Emily scooped the bits protectively under her hand. She hated the thought of Mrs Charles being the one to throw them away.
‘Sentimental rubbish.’ Mrs Charles’ face across the table was the greenish colour of an old bruise. ‘And your father not here on time.’
‘I expect the train was late.’ Screwing up her hand, Emily could feel the shavings of china digging into her skin.
‘You can never trust men. My father, what he wasn’t up to, I can tell you. If it wasn’t drink, it was the other. Men’s all the same, right across the country …’
Emily left Mrs Charles to her soliloquy. She went upstairs to her parents’ bedroom and threw the remains of the mug in the wastepaper basket. There was a note stuck to the mirror on the dressing table, Fen’s large handwriting on the back on an envelope. Afraid I forgot to get any more soap, E can get some in the morning. Bread being delivered all week, drink organised. Please don’t let E stay up too late, lots of love. P.S. I mean that Emily read the note several times, hearing the words in her mother’s voice. Then she touched the remaining necklaces that hung from the mirror. Fen had taken the best of them. Only the old ones she never wore were left-two strings of pearly shells, mauve-pink, frail, mostly broken: some emerald plastic beads, and a string of heavy amber lozenges, each one so scratched that its original gleam of yellow was dulled as if by mist. Emily lifted a handful of all the beads, and let them swing away from her. Some of the shells broke at once, scattering minute chips of silver on the carpet. The swin of the necklaces made a soft chinking noise, familiar, the noise they made round Fen’s neck on her exuberant, dancing days.
After a while they settled back in their place, hanging still again, dead. Emily turned away. Gradually she absorbed the unusual tidiness of the room. The chaise longue, without its rubble of clothes, was strangely naked. The books on the table had been moulded into orderly piles, and the old Sunday papers folded neatly. On the table at Idle’s side of the bed was a small bowl of narcissi, but the photograph of Emily, as a baby, had gone. Both windows had been left open, but it was not cold. A shaft of evening sun showed up the worn condition of the patchwork quilt on the bed. Emily, kneeling on the floor, ran a finger round the hexagonal shapes of some of the patches – fragments of faded cornflowers, old gingham, calico, satin drained of the quiet colour it had once been. The quilt, where the sun was, had become warm: the bed beneath it sank into a soft and mild valley. Emily climbed into it, keeping her body in the warm part, as a swimmer avoids shadows in the water.
She sat there.
Idle and Marcia Burrows arrived from London with quantities of frozen foods. Idle also brought, for Emily, a new pack of cards. Their backs were patterned like brilliant stained-glass windows, each one different. Almost at once Idle suggested that he and Emily should play a game of Knock at the kitchen table, while Miss Burrows prepared supper.
‘Drink, Marcia?’ he asked. Emily had never heard him use her Christian name before. She looked at him. His face was cheerful as he poured two glasses of wine. Marcia, for her part, seemed happy too. She wore a pink silk scarf round her throat which threw a matching glow on to the lower half of her face. She laughed when Idle handed her the glass of wine.
‘You’re a wicked influence!’
‘Nonsense.’ Idle turned to Emily. ‘Marcia’s not going to type a single word this week, Em. Orders. She’s going to cook for us, and look after us, and we’re going to look after her.’
‘Oh.’ Emily, shuffling the new cards, was dazzled by their stained-glass backs.
‘Now, come on.’ He sat down, rolling up the sleeves of his London shirt. ‘You’re hopeless at that, darling one. Let me do it.’
Emily handed him the cards. Beyond the brightness of his face was the dimmer shape of Marcia Burrows as she filtered from cupboard to cupboard. She seemed to know her way about. She seemed to know Fen’s place for everything. She never had to ask, she made no fuss. When she produced dinner, Idle congratulated her on being a good cook and housekeeper. She blushed with disappointed pride. But the kitchen was confused: its normal shape and feel were hidden by her presence, and there were no smells of baking coming from the oven.
In the next few days Emily observed Marcia Burrows quite curiously, and found herself sometimes surprised. The quiet cardigans – they changed each day while the grey flannel skirt remained constant – concealed occasional shafts of spirit that seemed unlikely in so meagre a breast. A neighbouring farmer came in one morning, swinging a rabbit in his hand. Just shot: would it be useful for lunch? While Emily kept her distance from it’s already dulled eyes-she hated dead animals – Marcia Burrows slung it eagerly on to a wooden board and at once began to skin it with a lethal knife. She was fast and skilful. Pushing her sleeves above white elbows, she plunged her hands into its guts and drew out the bloody mess with no sense of horror.
‘How could you?’ asked Emily. ‘Mama couldn’t possibly.’
Marcia Burrows laughed, a little triumphant at last.
‘Really? I’m surprised, your mother being so keen on nature. But then we’re all squeamish about different things, I suppose. I helped my mother skin rabbits from a very early age – she’d have sent me up to bed if I’d showed I’d minded.’ Her hands, which moved most delicately when she whisked, without relish, at custards, now chopped the gleaming body into those pathetic shapes of flesh whose angle only just recalls that once it was a springing thigh, a stretched rib cage. Later, it became delicious stew.
One afternoon Emily found Miss Burrows watching a wrestling match on television. Emily offered to switch to something more appropriate.
‘Oh, no, please,’ said Miss Burrows. ‘If you don’t mind. I enjoy the wresting. I watch most matches.’
‘Do you really? Have you ever been to a real one?’
Marcia Burrows smiled, eyes still on the fighters.
‘Well, as a matter of fact, I have. I plucked up courage about a year ago. You see, when the odd gentleman has asked me out, a film or theatre is usually suggested. That’s a very nice invitation, of course. So I can’t very well say: really, I’d rather go to a wrestling match – can I ?’
‘Why can’t you?’
‘I suppose I’m not that sort of person. So in the end I went alone. And very enjoyable it was, too, shouting with the crowd for the winner. A lovely evening. Now, I go quite often. Think nothing of it.’
‘Gosh.’ Emiyl felt some admiration. She broke the news to Idle later on.
‘Did you know Miss Burrows goes by herself to wrestling matches, Papa? She loves wrestling. She knows lots about it. She knew all the time who was going to win the match we watched this afternoon.’
‘No?’ Idle’s incredulity equalled Emily’s.
‘Well … if I can’t get a seat at Covent Garden, it’s the next best thing.’ Marcia Burrows was suddenly demure in front of Idle. It was as if she suspected a show of enthusiasm might embarrass. Caught off guard, she could admit some of it to a child, but in her adult world it was essential to hide all but her most superficial feelings. Better still, by denying them, to conceal them from herself as well. She blushed.
Wolf and Emily talked about Marcia Burrows at one of their meetings in the loft.
/> ‘She’s not too bad, really, is she?’ Wolf asked, when he too had heard the rabbit story.
‘Not too bad. Sort of stiff, though, usually.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Dunno, really. The way she does things. Except typing and cutting up rabbits. Then she’s fast. You should have seen her this morning. But she’s slow at everything else. Her hands and feet seem to move slowly, compared with Mama.’
‘I thought the plan was for her to fall in love with your Uncle Tom.’
‘She hasn’t met him yet, but Mama and I are going to arrange it. I don’t think she’s his type, really, but she’d be an awfully good wife to him. You know what? She cleaned Papa’s shoes last night. Mama’d never do that. I think Uncle Tom would like her.’
‘Perhaps we’d better make a plan to get him all, you know, feeling towards her before they ever meet.’
‘How could we do that?’
‘Write him a letter saying how lovely she was and everything.’ Wolf giggled.
‘Ooh, yes, and I could make her wear her best cardigan when he comes, with all the patterns on. And he might think she was much better than all his silly old girlfriends.’
‘Well, I mean, she is in a way. She wouldn’t want to be sleeping all the time, would she? Come on. Let’s write the letter now. Let’s type it.’
‘Wolf! You’ve such good ideas. But we mustn’t tell Papa. We must let it be a surprise if Uncle Tom wants to marry Miss Burrows. We could just tell them at the wedding we’d arranged it all. I think Mama and Papa’d be very pleased if they got married, actually. Except Papa would lose a secretary.’