I jumped from the tree and went back to the barn. Barley was there, chewing away, happy, quite happy, quite normal. It was all right then, perhaps.
It is my turn next. Aggie wouldn’t dream of going upstairs before me – because she’s the eldest. Always, Ellenanesther are first, and then me, and Aggie last of all.
In the kitchen I splash my face with water and then I make a trip to the privy. It rains still, pours from the sky, drenching, cool, refreshing. I stand for a moment feeling it trickle down my face, and then I walk away from the house to the little dark shed. It is hard to get into at this time of year for briars and brambles and honeysuckle and all sorts have clambered all over it. For a pee I just squat in the grass, usually, but tonight I have to stumble down the garden, feeling the wet scratch of ferns and wiry grass around my knees.
There is a stench in here, especially when it’s been hot, but still, I like it. Once it was regularly scrubbed: brick floor; double wooden seat; and the light would float like bubbles through the knot holes in the door. It was fresh and clean, a good retreat – though freezing in the winter. I remember sitting on the seat with Mother once, that was nice. She came with me because I was scared of what was down the hole. She sang a song as we sat there and I was never afraid again. There is a murmuring of flies underneath in the summer, and sometimes even the soft tap of one against my bottom. They are only flies though, they cannot harm me. And it is nice here. Some tendrils of clematis have forced their way in and there is even a luminous white flower just visible, just hovering.
I sit and listen to the noises of the night: the steady thrumming of the rain; scufflings in the grass, small creatures. There is a bird singing, a sweet liquid song it has. I don’t know what it is. Nightingale? Blackbird? I’ve never learned. I have lived here for every minute of my life and yet I am not a country person. I do not know the details of the country. I am not at home here: will never be. I think if Mother had been a bird she would have been that sort of bird, with that sort of song.
Mother will keep coming into my head tonight. There is so much I don’t know. If only she had lived longer; long enough to really talk to me, for me to understand. I still feel, old woman that I am, that I do not really understand. I understand almost nothing. What I know is like the skin on the surface of the water, glittering and rippling and reflecting, but underneath it is so deep and I do not know what is there.
My grandfather, Mother’s father, was called Artie. He blacked his face with charcoal and sang upon the stage. A minstrel, he was, a real artiste, Mother said. She thought he was wonderful, but her mother disapproved. She had run away from her family and married him for love, and her rich and respectable family had cut her off without a penny. Washed their hands of her, Mother said, and I thought of the black charcoal, and I thought that I understood. Mother’s mother had been a lady at heart, with very proper ways, and when the love wore off she was very bitter. She was angry with Artie for dragging her down, Mother said. She taught my mother to be a lady, to talk properly and to be polite. She tried to teach Mother that Artie was vulgar, but she never really believed that. She loved the songs and the music and the colours, and she loved her father who played with her and taught her songs instead of table manners; and stuck out his tongue and didn’t frown at her. Mother taught us the manners and the way of speaking; she taught us to read and write a bit and count. She tried to teach us to play the piano, but only Aggie really had the knack. She taught us the songs too, and Aggie sings them still.
After Ellenanesther were born Mother cried a lot. One day when she was crying, I sat beside her and held her hand. She was sitting in her chair, the chair I like to sit on now – if Aggie doesn’t get there first – and I sat on the wide arm of the chair and I held her hand which felt hot and thin and dry. ‘Dear child,’ she said, and then she started talking, telling me things, all in a jumble. She was crying and talking quickly and laughing too sometimes, and all the time she gripped my hand so tightly that I kept the prints of her fingers for hours. That was when she told me about the ice swan and the violet petals, a sea of violet petals upon the snowy tablecloth. She was dining with a man; and they had oysters and beef and creme caramel. And her long black hair was piled up upon her head and she wore glittering jewels and her dress was emerald green and low in the front, and her skin was white and perfect. She must have looked beautiful; and I was proud that she talked to me so much and held on to me so tight – but I was frightened too. And it was another man, not Father, it was just before she met Father. And she loved this man – I do not even know his name – and she thought that he would marry her. She said she wished that he could have seen Agatha, could have seen what a beauty she had turned out to be. And I minded that. Why Agatha and why not me?
I wish I knew why he didn’t marry Mother. I wish I knew. I do not even know his name. She was so beautiful, my mother, and so funny and so loving. How could he not have wanted to marry her, with the swan of ice and the emerald dress and all?
There was another thing about Mother, she could sing, really sing. Her voice was like … like stars and crisp apples and cool water. Oh … it was like a smile. It made you smile inside, a warm tickle in your belly. She knew so many songs too; sweet ones and sad ones and love songs and funny songs; and she could speak in all sorts of different voices, mimic people and make us fall off our stools with laughing. Oh Mother. Oh how I miss you still.
She nearly was a singer. If she hadn’t married Father she would have been. She said, ‘I could have managed, Milly. I had my voice. I didn’t need to marry, not really, but it seemed the only way. I didn’t want to disgrace my mother. It would have killed her. It seemed the only way, when your father turned up out of the blue like that and proposed, promised to take me away. It seemed the only way out.’
I was only a little girl and I did not understand. It was no use her talking to me, ignorant little wretch that I was. I just held her hand while she talked, and thought about the ice swan, and I did not understand.
I am getting cold, sitting here. There is something in here with me, a mouse or something like. The cats will be out soon to hunt them. They bite the heads off them: mice and voles, rats, birds, even small rabbits – and they bring them into the kitchen – gifts for Aggie. I hate to see the baby birds. It upsets me when they bring in baby birds, for they are so ugly – bulbous blue organs in distorted pink sacs. They make me feel sick. I wish they wouldn’t bring those in.
Tomorrow Mark will come with another bottle of gin and all the rest. A jar of olives for me, the green ones stuffed with red. Aggie hates them now though she craved them once, and I eat them all myself. I am intrigued by the idea of these meals that come in their own pots, to which you only have to add water. Chinese too! Whatever next!
‘That’s me done,’ I say to Aggie who has been sitting in the dark waiting. She pushes her needles through her squeaky wool, and waits for me to say my line. I could upset her by not saying it, by saying something else, but I don’t.
‘Goodnight. Sleep tight. Watch that the bugs don’t …’
‘Bite. Sweet dreams.’ She angles her face up to me and I bend down and brush the withered softness of her cheek with my lips. This is our only touching.
At last it is really night. All I have to do now is get under my blanket and listen to Agatha talking to her cats, bidding them good hunting; and then she stumps stiffly and creakily up the two flights of stairs to her room. Once she is quiet, I am free. There are hours and hours of night and I can think what I like, remember what I like, without Aggie getting in the way.
The rain still pours and George is noisy tonight, strangely noisy. His groans will intrude upon my night. No cellar is deep enough, far enough, to allow us to forget George.
The best nights are the nights when I remember Isaac, when it all comes back, all the good times when I was a little girl with a friend, and then a young woman. On the worst nights Father lurks, thoughts of Father and George are there in the shadows waiting for me to b
ecome unwary, waiting to slide into my head.
I hardly sleep any more. I have forgotten how. I suppose I slide into a doze now and then – but I do that all the time. I don’t have a set time to sleep and a set time to wake like real people. All day I stay downstairs and I am awake and half awake and then I doze and then I wake; and in the night, upstairs, it is the same. Sometimes the states merge into one, like a half-waking dream, pictures of the past flickering transparently upon the wreck of the present.
There goes Aggie again, bang and crash and scrape. Where she gets the energy from I don’t know. I can hear her pacing. I can hear her sighing. Why must she always sigh? I swear I can hear her sighing, even from here.
Oh I don’t like the noises tonight. I do not think it will be a good night. The rain streams down, and Agatha paces, and George moans and the cats are howling – and there is another noise. I do not want to think. Do not think. Think about something else. Something else. Something nice. Oh I shall go mad. Think about something nice.
One hot cloudless summer’s morning, Mother packed food into a basket. ‘I have a plan,’ she said. ‘We’re going for a picnic.’
‘Hoorah!’ I shouted. ‘Shall we have ham? Shall we have currant cake and lemonade?’
‘Hush,’ laughed Mother. ‘You must wait and see.’
Agatha ran to the mirror to look at her face, and to smooth her hair. ‘Do I look nice, Mother? Shall we be seeing anyone?’
‘Well … first I thought it could just be us. But I’d like a word with Mrs Howgego so I thought we might walk that way. She might like to join us. Then Milly could play with Isaac. Would you like that, Milly?’
‘Oh yes!’
‘But Mother …’ said Agatha.
‘But what?’ she demanded.
‘But Father wouldn’t like … I thought … I mean Mrs Howgego isn’t exactly …’
‘My darling little snob,’ said Mother in a hard new voice that we had never heard before, ‘your father has some funny ideas, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.’
‘But that’s lies!’ I exclaimed, thrilled.
‘No, it’s not lies,’ said Mother more gently. ‘We know that Mrs Howgego – and Isaac – are nice. They are our friends. Your father doesn’t understand, doesn’t understand how lonely it gets out here. He won’t know unless we tell him. If he asked, if he actually asked, “Did you go on a picnic with the Howgegos,” you’d have to say yes, otherwise it would be a lie. But it’s not a lie if he doesn’t know anything about it. Anyway,’ she added less convincingly, ‘I’m sure he wants us to have fun. It will be fun, won’t it?’
We nodded.
‘It’ll make us happy.’
‘Yes.’
‘It won’t hurt anyone. It won’t hurt him.’
‘No.’
‘Well then, let’s get going!’
Mrs Howgego looked at the mountain of grey sheets and shirts on the floor.
‘They’ll wait,’ persuaded Mother. ‘Come on Candida … it’s a lovely day …’
‘Go on, Mam,’ said Isaac.
‘Please,’ I said.
‘Oh all right,’ said Mrs Howgego. ‘This lot’s waited long enough, another day won’t hurt …’ Mrs Howgego didn’t have a proper time to do things like Mother who always got the washing out of the way on Monday so that Tuesday was spent in the steamy heat of the iron. ‘You two get round the back and pick us some of them raspberries and redcurrants,’ she said, thrusting a bowl at Isaac. Holding hands, we ran outside joyously and ate more than we saved and returned to the kitchen with red-stained lips and fingers.
‘That’s your share then,’ said Mother smartly. I didn’t care. I could see Mrs Howgego’s bulging baskets of food waiting beside Mother’s on the floor, and I shrugged carelessly. Mother laughed. ‘What a little piglet you are!’
Agatha flung me a scornful glance from her slim height.
‘Let’s not go too far,’ I begged. I was hungry for all the lovely things in store. ‘My feet are aching already.’
‘Just to the dyke,’ promised Mother. ‘I’ll tell you what, Candida, let’s walk along the dyke to the trees. It’s not much further, and then we can sit in the shade.’
Davey and Bobby came too, Davey riding on Isaac’s shoulders. I dawdled behind, watching, knowing that I must pay attention, that I must store up these happy moments in my head. Agatha walked ahead as always, slim and straight, carrying the smallest of the baskets; Mother and Mrs Howgego followed, both heavily laden, little Bobby dangling from Mrs Howgego’s skirts, their heads bent towards each other, deep in conversation. Isaac followed, a slim reed of a boy, swaying with the weight of the fat baby balanced on his shoulders. There was a happiness surrounding us all, a holiday feeling that you could almost see.
It wasn’t far to the dyke from the Howgegos’ house. We walked further along than usual, to a shady copse of willows, and soon we were spreading Mother’s large old red and white spotted cloth on the ground. Agatha tried to arrange the food artistically but the baby kept crawling across and putting his fingers into everything; and I could not control myself and kept picking the crusty bits off the end of the bread.
The sun was hot but there was a bit of a breeze and the willows rippled shadows across our chosen spot. It was a perfect place, a little hollow by the side of the dyke where the baby could crawl safely and our mothers lean themselves back in comfort and talk.
There was silence at first, except for the chewings and the slurpings. There was cold sausage pie and pickled onions and walnuts; and fresh bread and butter and cheese; there was quince jam and bramble jelly and raspberry buns and honey buns and currant cake. There was a bottle of cold tea, and lemonade, and Mrs Howgego’s ginger beer, a warm, flat friendly drink. I could never again taste ginger beer without thinking of this day; this picnic by the dyke, with Isaac and Mother.
We ate till we could hardly move. ‘Tuck in,’ Mrs Howgego kept saying. ‘What’s left will all have to be carried back.’ Even I came to a full-stop in the end, and had to lie still for ten minutes to let it all go down a bit. Agatha, who, it was said, ate like a bird, wandered about along the top of the dyke, picking the odd flower and singing the songs she wasn’t allowed to sing when Father was home and her true voice drifted down so we caught the odd snatch:
She sang like a nightingale, twanged her guitar;
Danced the cachuca and smoked a cigar;
Oh what a form! Oh what a face!
‘She did the fandango all over the place!’ joined in Mother.
Mrs Howgego laughed. ‘And she do sing like a nightingale, that girl,’ she said. Agatha had drifted away again.
‘Yes … she does,’ said Mother, ‘she’s got a lovely voice.’
I struggled up from the ground. I had better things to do than stay and hear them praising Aggie. ‘Come on,’ I said. Isaac was lying on his back, the shadows making complex patterns on his freckly face. I poked him with my toe. ‘Come on, lazy oaf.’
‘Milly!’ exclaimed Mother, ‘language!’
‘Oh leave the girl alone,’ said Mrs Howgego. ‘I reckon she’s right.’
Isaac jumped up. ‘Race you then,’ he said, already darting off, ‘then we’ll see who’s a lazy oaf.’ I charged after him although I knew there was no chance of catching him up, and Bobby followed.
‘Go back to Mam,’ said Isaac breathlessly, when he’d beaten me fair and square and we were lying on the grass recovering.
‘No, Zac, wanna play with you,’ said Bobby, his lip jutting out ready to cry.
‘You’re too small,’ complained Isaac.
‘Mam told me to come and play with you.’
‘Look!’ I cried pointing at something snaky moving in the grass.
‘That’s a slow-worm,’ said Isaac. ‘If I catch him for you Bob, will you go away and play?’
‘Yup,’ said Bobby fervently. ‘I want him.’
Isaac shot out his hands and caught the creature. I shuddered. I wasn’t squeamish and girlish
about spiders and frogs but couldn’t stand anything long and wriggly. It was about six inches long, a greyish bronze thing, a long lashing muscle with tiny bright eyes.
‘Want to have a look Milly?’
‘Don’t like snakes,’ I dared to say.
‘Snakes!’ said Isaac. ‘He’s not a snake! Here.’
He waved it at me and I backed away.
‘Look Bob,’ said Isaac, ‘I reckon she’s afraid of him, little ittybitty slow-worm.’
‘I’m not afraid. I just don’t like them,’ I said firmly.
‘Prove it then,’ said Isaac. ‘Prove you int afraid. Hold him.’
‘Go on, Milly,’ urged Bobby, ‘then I can have him.’
With pretended indifference, I held out my hand. It won’t hurt. It’s only little, I thought, willing my hand not to shake. He wouldn’t give it me if it would hurt. Not with Mother so near, and his mam.
‘Are you sure it won’t bite me?’
‘I’m not ’fraid, am I, Zac?’ said Bobby proudly.
The creature slithered on my hand, warm and dry. ‘Mind out, you’ll drop him!’ said Isaac, and sure enough the slow-worm dropped from my flattened palm. I could not make myself grasp it.
‘Catch him Zac!’ shrieked Bobby. Isaac leapt forward and scooped it up again.
‘What’s the matter with you then?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘Oh come on,’ he said. ‘Don’t put that face on. I was only teasing.’
‘Let’s climb trees then,’ I suggested. This was the thing that I could do as well as Isaac. ‘That’s a good one, there.’ There was a big old sycamore with wide hospitable branches among the willows in the copse where we’d been sitting.
‘Let’s creep up so no one sees us,’ said Isaac.
We reached the trees with no one seeing, and on the far side of the trunk, we scrambled up. It was a tall tree, much taller than the apple tree in the garden. Its branches were broad and strong and full of ragged leaves which tickled my face as I lay full length on my belly, gazing at the scene below.
Honour Thy Father Page 5