The Things We Never Said

by Wright, Susan Elliot

  But the day before his birthday, he and Alan had gone up to the heath after school to hang around the trailers in the half-light, hoping for a glimpse of a clown, an acrobat or even Magnificent Marco the Human Cannonball. Rumour had it that Magnificent Marco had been injured so often he had his own bed at the hospital.

  Jonathan was sleeping at Alan’s that night and he couldn’t wait, partly because Mrs Harper said she had a surprise for him, but also because she made dinners he’d never get at home, like fish fingers and chips, followed by butterscotch Instant Whip with a cherry in the middle and what she called ‘chocolate mousedirts’ sprinkled on top. As they crept from trailer to trailer, taking turns to climb on each other’s backs to peek in uncurtained windows, he thought about the cold, silent mealtimes at home, the constant smell of potatoes boiling away on the stove. Couldn’t they have chips just once?

  ‘Oh, buggery!’ Alan said. ‘Mum said five at the latest and it’s ten to now. Better leg it.’ They ran across the grass, past the church and down Lewisham Hill to Alan’s flats, feet pounding the pavement and breath charging white in the chill November air. As they clattered up the pissy-smelling stairs, he wondered what the surprise could be.

  The tickets were on the kitchen table, propped up against the tomato ketchup. Alan’s mum was smiling. Eat up, chop-chop, or we’ll be late and we’ll end up sitting where the elephants do their business. Jonathan was weak with gratitude and so excited he couldn’t swallow. Mr Harper winked and ruffled his hair. Not hungry, Tiger? Oh well. Waste not, want not. And he scoffed the chips three at a time and everybody laughed. Jonathan pictured his father pushing equal amounts of mince, swede and potato onto his fork. Sometimes, he wished Mr Harper was his dad. Mr Harper liked the circus; Gerald said it was ‘a vulgar, gaudy spectacle full of dwarves, misfits and layabouts’, and Alan was a Guttersnipe and Mr Harper was an Oaf and a Wastrel. Jonathan didn’t know what a wastrel was, and he wasn’t going to look it up.

  At the circus, they saw a lady in a ballet dancer’s dress riding a horse standing up, four men walking down a pretend staircase on their hands, and clowns with orange hair and giant bow ties turning somersaults. When some of the clowns asked for a volunteer to hold the hosepipe and help them drench the others, Jonathan stretched his hand right up so they could see him. He could hardly believe it when they picked him.

  Later, after Alan’s mum kissed them goodnight, he went over it in his head. The very best bit, he decided, was after the hosepipe, when the clowns gave him a huge bag of sweets and asked where his mum and dad were and Mr and Mrs Harper shouted ‘over here’ and waved. The clowns carried him back, holding him high up on their shoulders while everybody clapped. When they put him down, everyone was smiling and proud of him. This was the best day of his whole life.

  *

  ‘I was expecting you before now,’ his mother says as she opens the door, the hall clock chiming five behind her. He’d said late afternoon, and is about to point this out when he notices how tired she looks. ‘Sorry,’ he kisses her proffered cheek. ‘Traffic was terrible.’ As always, she’s fully made-up, but today her lipstick and face powder seem uncharacteristically noticeable and clumsily applied.

  ‘Father’s in the sitting room,’ she says. ‘I’ll be in when I’ve made the tea.’

  It’s almost dusk, but Gerald hasn’t switched the lights on. He can see perfectly well in the remaining light, he says, and just because Jonathan deigns to visit them, he sees no reason to be extravagant with electricity. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ Jonathan snaps, flicking the switch.

  ‘Blasphemy, now, is it?’ Gerald makes a big deal of shielding his eyes. There’s a slight tremor to his hand, Jonathan notices. What little hair he has left seems to have yellowed even more, and there are dark, brownish crescents under his eyes. He seems particularly frail today; thinner than he was three weeks ago. ‘So,’ Jonathan says, sitting in the chair opposite; his eyes stray to the four different pill containers on the side table. He’s sure there weren’t that many last time. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘That’s your mother’s chair.’ Gerald picks up his pipe, taps it on the side of the ashtray and begins to fill the bowl with tobacco.

  ‘She’s making the tea. I’ll move when she comes in. I was asking how you are; you look tired.’

  ‘Blast!’ His father twists around in his chair. ‘Where the devil has your mother put my cigarette lighter?’ He always calls it that, even though he hasn’t smoked cigarettes for years. As he turns, he knocks his copy of The Times off the arm of his chair. It’s folded to the crossword page, and as Jonathan picks it up, he notices that Gerald has only filled in a couple of the clues, which is unusual; he usually has the whole thing finished by lunchtime.

  ‘Hang on,’ Jonathan says, ‘there it is.’ He can see the silver lighter poking out from under Gerald’s chair. He bends down to retrieve it and then hands it to his father.

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Gerald holds out his hand. ‘My thanks.’ There is a clunk as he puts the stem of his pipe between his teeth, holds the flame to the bowl and then sucks and puffs until the room is filled with billowing blue-grey smoke. He turns to Jonathan with the lighter still poised. ‘Well?’ he says. ‘Aren’t you having a cigarette?’

  Jonathan shakes his head. ‘No, I told you last time. I’ve given up.’

  Gerald takes his pipe from his mouth and holds it just an inch or two away as blue smoke curls out of the mouthpiece. ‘Given up? Don’t talk such nonsense. You’re as bad as your mother.’

  ‘I did tell you.’

  ‘Yes, but you’ve given up before and you’ve never stuck to it, have you? Why should this time be any different?’

  This is it, he thinks; the perfect opportunity to explain about the baby. But he can’t come out with it now, not while his mother is still in the kitchen. ‘I’m beginning to think more about the health risks, I suppose.’

  Gerald shakes his head in irritation. ‘I tell you, you’re more likely to die from worrying about what’s going to kill you than from enjoying the odd smoke.’ He sucks on the pipe again and turns to look for something on the bookshelf next to him. ‘Ah,’ he reaches for a slender red pack that lies among a stack of papers on top of the books. ‘Here we are.’ He tosses the pack – Henri Winterman’s Slim Panatellas – onto the coffee table. ‘You’ll have a cigar, though.’

  Jonathan looks at the pack. It’s so tempting. But he’s smoked cigars before and kidded himself that it didn’t count. He ended up on fifteen a day at one point. ‘No,’ he shakes his head. ‘Thanks anyway, but I’d better not.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Gerald says, still looking at him. Then when Jonathan doesn’t respond, he sighs heavily, picks up the pack of cigars and throws them back on top of the books.

  Jonathan sighs as well. They used to smoke together; it had never been particularly companionable, but it was one ritual they’d been able to share. It hadn’t occurred to him that Gerald might actually miss it. Maybe one cigar with his father wouldn’t be the end of the world, but before he can speak again, Gerald’s face assumes what Jonathan has come to think of as its default countenance, a mix of irritation, disdain and impatience.

  ‘So.’ Gerald’s voice is stony now. ‘How is your Business and Enterprise College or whatever it is they call the local comprehensive these days?’

  ‘School’s fine.’ Jonathan can hear the tightness in his own voice. All right, so his school is hardly Eton, but he doubts his father would be impressed even if it were. His father had been furious that he hadn’t gone into teaching straight after university, but he’d been determined to do his own thing so he’d pretended Gerald’s disapproval didn’t matter. It was only much later that he began to accept that it bothered him, it really, really bothered him. When he decided to become a teacher at the age of thirty-five, he hadn’t expected a fanfare, but nor had he expected Gerald to simply flick his newspaper and from behind it, ask if Jonathan was sure the profession would have him.

  ‘No problems w
ith behaviour?’

  He hesitates for a moment then shakes his head. ‘Nothing major.’ In fact, managing behaviour in his school is a constant battle, but Gerald would be contemptuous of any failure to control a class.

  ‘I saw some of your pupils in Lewisham the other day. Savages, most of them. The school seems rather lax on discipline.’

  Discipline. For a moment, Jonathan flips back in time; he sees his father looming over him, carefully greased hair flopping forward as he brings down the cane onto Jonathan’s outstretched palm. Jonathan vows that he will never, ever, lay a finger on his own child.

  His mother comes in carrying a tray, which Jonathan takes from her and sets down on the coffee table. In the interminable period it takes for Gerald to add sugar, stir, sip, and replace the cup in its saucer, Jonathan feels as he often does in this house – as though he’s ten years old again. Little has changed since then; the walls are a lighter colour but the same paintings hang from the picture rail; the curtains have a different pattern, but they’re still dark and heavy; the mantle clock, wall plates, vases and knickknacks gather dust now just as they did then. Tense Sunday afternoons; crossing the room with his father’s tea, gripping the saucer tightly and praying the cup wouldn’t rattle; Gerald’s scrutiny from over the top of his glasses. And the sounds: the gas fire, hissing and popping; the tick of the old clock; the terrifying sound of Gerald listening.

  He puts his cup and saucer on the table. I’ve got something to tell you. Or straight out: Fiona and I are having a baby. He wishes Fiona had come with him. Maybe the baby will bring them closer. His father is looking at him. Just say it. He clears his throat, looks at his mum, then at Gerald. ‘Now that you’re both here, I have some—’

  Gerald clicks his tongue irritably. ‘Have you run out of razor blades?’ His voice is prickly. ‘Or is it now acceptable for a schoolteacher to walk around looking like a vagrant?’

  Jonathan stands up. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, does it really—’

  ‘Gerald, please,’ his mother interrupts. ‘It is the weekend. I think you’re being a little ungracious.’

  ‘There’s always something, isn’t there?’ Jonathan says. ‘We can never just have a normal, nice afternoon without you finding something to complain about.’

  ‘I see I’ve offended your delicate sensibilities.’ Gerald grapples behind his chair for his stick. ‘So if you’ll excuse me.’ He struggles to his feet, batting away his wife’s attempts to help him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Maggie can feel someone shaking her gently, but opening her eyes is an effort. She recognises the nurse. ‘Betty?’

  ‘Hetty,’ the nurse smiles. ‘Not bad, though. This time last week you couldn’t remember your own name, never mind no one else’s. Up you get then; you’ve been asleep since breakfast and you’re to see His Nibs after dinner, by all accounts.’

  ‘Who’s—?’

  ‘Dr Carver, lord and master. He says you can get dressed today.’

  Maggie thinks for a minute. ‘Dr Carver,’ she mutters. The name is familiar. She looks at the nurse. ‘I can’t remember—’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that, dear. It’ll come back, you know, bit by bit.’ She starts to tidy the bedcovers. ‘Meself, I don’t think them pills are helping, neither.’ She tucks the sheet in briskly. ‘But what do I know? I’m only a nurse.’

  Maggie dresses in the things Hetty has brought for her. Although she vaguely remembers these clothes – navy Crimplene slacks, a white blouse and a pink Orlon cardigan – the process of putting them on feels odd and unfamiliar, and the seams feel abrasive against her skin.

  ‘Now, come down and talk to some of the other ladies, there’s a good girl.’ Maggie should feel patronised, but she doesn’t, because she now knows who Hetty reminds her of: it’s her mother. A pang of sadness creeps through her, because at the same moment as she remembers this, she also remembers that both her parents are dead.

  She follows Hetty down the ward, out through the double doors and along a dark, tiled hallway with a shiny parquet floor that smells of Johnson’s furniture polish. The day room has the same high arched ceiling and tall windows as the ward. Cigarette smoke swirls in the sunlight, and Maggie remembers that she smokes. She feels four years old again, on her first day at school when she didn’t know where to hang her coat or who to sit next to. Some of the women sit at the tables playing cards or doing jigsaw puzzles; one or two look up as she and Hetty pass, but mostly they don’t seem to notice. There is a television set in the corner, with the word Rediffusion in white lettering at the bottom of the polished wooden casing. Right in front of the set, a balding, skeletally thin woman in a turquoise dressing gown is kneeling with her face inches from the screen, apparently watching the test card. More women sit in the chairs that line the walls, some rocking back and forth, others quietly weeping or just staring into the past.

  As they make their way through the room, an elderly lady with crudely dyed blue-black pigtails bounces towards them. ‘Cha cha cha,’ she says cheerily. Her voice is high like a child’s, her face beaming. ‘What’s going on; what’s coming off.’ She twirls around, holding out the hem of her ill-fitting frock, and then sinks into an expansive curtsey. ‘I’m a little bit up the pole today,’ she tells Maggie. ‘Better than being down the pole, but Dr Carver says I’ve got to stay in the middle. Cha cha cha.’

  ‘Norma, love,’ Hetty lays a hand on her arm. ‘Don’t get too excited, now.’

  Norma grins, curtseys again and with another tinkling ‘cha cha cha’, dances off to talk to someone else.

  Maggie can feel her heart thudding. She stands a little closer to Hetty.

  ‘Pauline!’ Hetty calls out to a young woman who has just come into the room. ‘Sleeping Beauty here has finally woken up. You’ll look after her for me, dear, won’t you?’ She pats Maggie on the shoulder and nods encouragement before bustling off to attend to something else.

  Pauline is about Maggie’s age and looks like a model in her candy-pink summer dress with a white cardigan slung loosely around her shoulders. Her hair is lacquered into a beehive and she’s freshly made-up; Maggie can see the powder on her cheeks.

  ‘Hello, Maggie,’ she says, her voice unexpectedly deep and smooth. ‘Feeling better? It’s nice to see you up and about again.’

  ‘Again?’ Maggie is sure she must sound like a complete idiot. But she doesn’t know this glamorous woman. Perhaps she’s one of the nurses, off duty. ‘I don’t think we’ve—’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s the treatment; it plays havoc with your memory. Still, they’ll probably ease it off a bit now you’re improving. Shocking, isn’t it, what shocking does to you?’ She laughs heartily at her own joke.

  ‘Shocks?’ Again Maggie hears herself repeating what’s being said to her like a simpleton. ‘Electric shock treatment?’ She has to say it aloud so that she can take it in. ‘Is that what I’ve had?’ But then a memory switches on in her mind: there’s a black box with wires; cold jelly is rubbed into her temples and she feels something rubbery being shoved between her teeth. Someone is holding her arms. A hot silver pain flashes in her skull, making her gasp. She has the sensation of being flung about, her bones and teeth shaking and rattling as though they’ll never stop, then she feels herself plummeting down, down, down . . .

  She shudders, feels faintly nauseous at the memory.

  ‘Most of us have it at some point,’ Pauline says. ‘Makes you forget why you lost your mind, helps you to find it, then makes you forget where you put it again!’

  ‘You’ve had it too?’

  Pauline’s face darkens. ‘Four or five times a week at first.’ She glances left and right. ‘You want to be careful; make sure you talk to the others even if you don’t feel like it, especially in front of the nurses – if you’re too quiet they’ll say you’re “morose and withdrawn”. And whatever you do, don’t let them catch you daydreaming or looking out of the window – that counts as “vacant and preoccupied”.’

 
Maggie looks at the women sitting in the chairs by the wall; most of them look vacant and preoccupied.

  ‘Didn’t know what bloody day it was half the time,’ Pauline is saying. ‘Nor whether I was supposed to be eating breakfast, dinner or tea. Still, it usually comes back in the end, the memory.’

  ‘Usually?’

  ‘Well, that’s what they say. You’ll be all right; you’re not a Chronic, and it’s mainly the Chronics who have problems.’ She leans towards Maggie. ‘See her, over there?’

  The woman standing by the window must be in her sixties, Maggie guesses. She’s looking out of the window while brushing her long, seal-grey hair.

  ‘She’s waiting for her husband to come and pick her up. He’s been dead twelve years, but she forgets. They used to keep telling her, hoping she’d hang on to it, but they stopped in the end because they were just putting her through the horror of it again and again, every single day.’

  Maggie tries to take all this in but it is too much, and she feels her eyes fill with tears. Pauline produces a packet of Kensitas, lights one and hands it to her. She takes a deep draw on the cigarette, feeling instantly calmed as the smoke hits the back of her throat, then she sways a little, suddenly dizzy. Pauline puts a hand out to steady her, then guides her to a chair. ‘Don’t worry,’ Pauline says gently. ‘I’ll keep an eye on you. I’m on a home visit this afternoon, but I’ll be back by teatime.’

  Home. The word starts to poke around Maggie’s consciousness like all the other memories. Home. She tries to concentrate, but she can’t make the word break its moorings.

  ‘Where do you live?’ she asks Pauline.

  ‘St Leonard’s-on-Sea. It’s near Hastings. Do you know it?’

  Hastings, Maggie thinks. It definitely . . . and then she remembers. ‘Leonard!’ She grabs Pauline’s hand. ‘That’s my brother!’ She can see his face. Her mother and father are dead, but she has a brother, Leonard! His features are just beginning to solidify in her mind when a loud clapping of hands slaps her thoughts shut.