It comes out before I can stop myself:
Maybe the ghosts wouldn’t let her.
I picture them in their white nightgowns, blocking the door; my mother standing there in her satin dress and blue slippers, trying to swerve past them like you do in British Bulldogs. Or if they knew she was heading for the church, they might be chattering at her, grabbing her with their bony fingers, asking her to send a message, asking for a prayer to be said. You never know what a ghost might want from you.
My father stops stirring. He doesn’t believe in the ghosts. He rests the pan on the draining board and takes a bunch of hyssop from a paper wrap. He sits down next to me on the step.
Budge up, he goes, moving me over. The hyssop smells of fields. Some of the heads have tiny blue flowers, which he drops into my lap.
Y’know, Pats, they’re not real, the ghosts.
But Mam says they don’t give her a minute’s peace. He finds this funny. He does a quick laugh, then stops. Sucks air through his teeth.
Your mam suffers with her nerves, he says, And the ghosts – well, she was just trying to explain what it feels like, that’s all. Like they live in her head. But she’ll be right as rain with a bit of rest, you wait and see. So don’t you go worrying about the ghosts, Pats, they’re only on the inside.
~
My father is telling lies: the ghosts are real. He admitted it, in a way; he said they live inside her. I know how that feels: I’ve got a bird inside me; it flaps if things start to go wrong. When I’m at school, for instance, and the teacher asks me something I don’t understand and the other children laugh. I’ll be sitting there in the back of the class, at the table in the corner, all the other children scratching their heads in front of me, and the bird will start to flutter. I bet that’s when the ghosts seize their chance: I’m looking at the felt animals trailing two by two into their felt ark, at the picture books with Jesus doing his miracles and St Brendan standing on an island which was really a whale, probably the same one that had Jonah in its belly, and all the time, the ghosts are at home, pinning my mother to the mattress.
They were always gone by the time I got back. My mother lay on her bed like Snow White in her glass box: skin the colour of pond ice, wide eyes, long black hair. She wore it twisted in a plait, wound round her head and clipped up with a silver comb which shone its teeth when she moved. Her hair was her glory, she said. That was before the ghosts came to live in her.
Going to the school put me out of their way. I tried to stop it. I thought by memorizing how she looked, I could keep her just as she was. But I was distracted by other pictures: the Virgin looking startled in her pale blue frock, Moses floating down the river with his pink fist raised to the sky, Jesus standing on a mountain, handing out bread.
At first, she teased me. She said I’d forget my own name if ever I could remember it, so how could I do my schoolwork and still be minded to look after her?
Could Jesus help? I asked, thinking of a miracle. She smiled.
Maybe, she said, If you promise to say your prayers every night, like a good girl.
I avoided cracks in the pavement, I crossed my fingers and touched wood, and at night, I prayed. Despite everything, the ghosts took their fill. Each day a little more of my mother was stolen. In no time at all, her eyes went hard as jet; her hair, brittle as spun sugar.
Once or twice in the day she would get up from her bed and make her way to the closet at the end of the scullery, her bare feet inching along the flags. Watching the journey back again, I could feel the time it took: balancing with her arms held out on either side, walking her tightrope between this world and the next.
~
I try not to mention the ghosts. My father doesn’t like it. It’s not his fault if he can’t see them. I’m learning to believe in some things, but not others. If I close my eyes I can picture the lists on either side of my slate: God and his mysterious ways on one side, the ghosts and meddling devils on the other. My father believes in home remedies, and rest, and time. He’s full of ideas. Today, he’s putting his faith in hyssop, stripping off the woody bits, scraping at the edges with his nails.
Don’t know what your mum’ll make of this, Pats, he says, holding up a stem and sniffing at it. He pulls a face and holds it out to me, What do you think?
I don’t tell him that I think my mother won’t be allowed to drink it, that the ghosts won’t even let it touch her tongue.
I think it smells lovely, is what I tell him.
~ ~ ~
I am my grandfather’s age. I’m not infirm. I have outlived my mother and my father, which is just as it should be. No one wants to live longer than their child.
~ ~ ~
The breaking started that night. My mother never got to taste her calming broth because the ghosts snatched it from her and threw it at the wall. I knew they would. I didn’t actually see them myself, so when I asked her which one of them did it, she pointed to a space behind my head. I looked at it for a bit; there was just a spreading stain down the wall where the liquid had run. When my father saw it, he gave me a funny look.
Her aim used to be so good, he said.
~
It’s over a month since my grandfather stood at the door and went away again. My father is preparing me for the Worst, as he calls it.
If the Worst comes to the Worst, he says, when he’s explaining what will happen. According to him, the Worst will be that my mother will go into the hospital and I’ll have to go to my grandfather. My father doesn’t understand that there are more terrible things. We can’t begin to know what the worst will be for her. But for me, it’s leaving her alone; forgetting her. I know if I go away, the ghosts will eat her up, piece by piece. I try not to mention them, but I can’t help myself. I nag him all the time.
Why will I have to go?
Y is a letter, you ought to know better, he says.
But why?
I’m not a disobedient child: I say my prayers, I try to remember things, I try to be useful.
Who’ll look after Mam? I argue, And who will help you clear up? I have to stay!
He looks at me and then down at his shirt, so I think he might cry. It’s not that I’m no good at tidying, it’s just that so much has been broken, and so much stolen. It began in a small way with the broth. Next was a vase my mother kept on her dressing table. I went in to see her before bed, and my father was down on one knee, wrapping something in paper. The flowers were in a neat bundle on the lino, just next to his foot. He looked like he was genuflecting. When he saw me, he held the paper close to his chest and put his finger to his lips: my mother was asleep.
The draught got it, Pats, he whispered, Silly, eh?
Shortly after, things began to vanish: our porcelain lady on the mantelpiece, the two gold-edged dinner plates from the top shelf of the dresser, my mother’s handmade slippers, and my coronation beaker with George and Elizabeth smiling on the front. I was given it last May. I thought it was a picture of my mother and father until one of the moonface children told me it was the new king and queen. So it wasn’t such a loss.
By the time the mirror got broken, my father had run out of things to blame. It had been smashed in the middle, the slivers jutting from the frame like icicles. The loose pieces squeaked as they came free, but some of the splinters were lodged fast. You could see yourself in pieces. My father didn’t mention any draughts that time. He just looked straight into the place his reflection would have been and said,
Your mother never did like that picture.
Then he laughed.
We didn’t have much to start with: we ended up with nothing. I’d wake up in the morning, or come in from playing in the yard, and something else would be gone. My mother didn’t seem to notice: she was too busy getting thinner, lying in her bed with her eyes shut tight against the ghosts. She didn’t care about anything else; keeping the ghosts out, that was her occupation. She used to tell me about her slippers, how she got them made specially for her wedding da
y, getting her feet measured, and how the man said they were remarkable feet, the tiniest feet he ever saw.
It’s better that they’re gone, she said, when I told her about the slippers, Your father never liked them.
I thought that when the ghosts took all they could, they’d leave us alone. I even considered helping them out, hiding a few things round the back of the yard so they wouldn’t find them. But by then, there was nothing left to hide. All broken or smashed or stolen. The ghosts had taken everything; the only other thing they wanted was my mother.
nothing
It was nothing. I kept telling myself it was nothing. I told myself other things as I went, looking at my feet, not looking up. If I didn’t see anyone else, they wouldn’t see me. I kept telling myself it was an easy walk, early enough, not many people would be on the street. The morning was bright spark clear. The trees on the Avenues dripped gold. That sort of morning, it could make you cry.
I kept telling myself that it didn’t hurt, my face, and there wouldn’t be so much damage. But my head felt tight.
I thought it might look bad. Your skin isn’t so robust when you’re older: it’s like parchment, it tears more easily. I was trying to find something to cover my head when it happened. I had nothing, you see, the girl had left me nothing at all. I must look a fright, is what I thought, so I went downstairs into the back of the house to see if there was something – anything, an old bedsheet or a bit of cloth – to cover my head. It’s not vanity. The morning came up sharp as ice after all that wind and storm, and I didn’t want to be seen out like that in daylight. If I’m true, with my head bare I felt stripped. There was nothing downstairs that might be useful. Nothing in the cupboards or on the floor. The window was wide open, just as she’d left it, so I climbed out to see what I could find in the yard. The house at the back is broken into flats. It’s called vulnerable housing. I’ve got that wrong. It’s for the Vulnerably Housed. It means they’re not safe. I’ve been offered it before now. The Sisters said it was like a shelter, but there was something about the name of it: vulnerable, vulture, revulsion. I got confused; the idea of going there – I couldn’t entertain it.
As it turned out, I ended up in the next street. I wasn’t to know. I wonder now whether her saying the name of the place suggested it to me; put the thought in my head. Everyone puts a thought in my head. I’ve barely got room for one of my own. But at least I was living there by choice, under my own steam; at least I wasn’t a Case.
The couple in the bottom flat had got themselves a dog. At first I didn’t see it. The fence runs along the end of the yard; it’s not high, you can look over the top into their garden, and I was just doing that, looking over it, that’s all.
If I’m true, I was looking to see if I could find something; even truer, if I could steal something from their washing line to cover my head. I’m not proud of that. The dog leapt up from behind the fence and bit me on the face. I didn’t see it, it was so quick, and it was just one bite – a snap, really – then someone swearing on the other side. It stung, but I think that was the shock. There was no water on, so I couldn’t even wash it under the tap. My cheek went hot and cold. It felt blown out when I touched it, like the pricked skin of a sausage. When I looked down, I could see it pinking up a sunrise in my eyeline. I just went straight out of the house. I wouldn’t be going back this time, is what I told myself. I was naked on my head, and my face was puffed out and split like those pumpkins on the market, but I wasn’t going back to that house. I began thinking that the lads that were staying last summer had a point and the place was haunted. Old Hewitt, lying in wait, ready to bite.
Your head feels fine, I said, as if saying the opposite would make it true. Only I didn’t say it out loud. I don’t speak out any more, not ever, unless it’s to the boys on the market, or if somebody should ask me something direct. Then I keep my answers short, and to the point. I have lost the art of conversation. I have buried it. But if I was going to say anything, I’d say what a time of it I’ve had: last night and then this morning. Nothing happens for years on end and then – bingo! – everything happens at once. Like buses. Wait for ever, then along come three.
There was the pain, and the shock, and an old, familiar feeling in my chest: something fluttering to get out. I had to keep telling myself that it wasn’t real, not like there was a bird in there, in my cage; it was just anxiety. Somebody once tried to convince me that pain was only an opinion. Walking into the city at dawn, looking down at my feet and trying not to think about the cold cutting into my face, I was of the opinion that I felt quite a lot of pain.
I kept telling myself the same thing, because there was no one else to tell me.
It would all be all right. It was nothing.
four
Go gently now, gently!
My mother put a hand up and pressed it flat against her head. Her nails were ragged from biting. Like a cat examining its catch for signs of life, she would scrutinize her fingers, now and then selecting one to gnaw. Fragments of blue fluff from her bedjacket were caught in the snags.
I sat behind her, my legs bent. Every time I brushed, her neck jerked back. It was pliant as a reed. I was trying to be gentle, but her hair was a mess of knots, fuzzy in places from where it rubbed against the pillow. I tried not to pull the strands; pulling made it come away like candy floss.
I’d better do it, she said. She sat up on the pillows, hanging her head to one side, easing out the tangles with her fingers. She wound it up on top and secured it with her comb. When she finished, she turned round and patted the edge of the bed.
Come here, then, she said, And let me see.
She tilted my face up to hers, and stared into me. Her eyes narrowed.
Who is the fairest of them all?
My mother had started doing it after the ghosts smashed the mirror, so I already knew what to say.
You are, my Queen.
A smile breaking at the corners of her mouth.
No, she’d say, You are.
Staring deep into my eyes. Trying not to smile.
No, Queen. You are!
On and on, until one of us laughed and broke the spell. Sometimes I did this on purpose; I didn’t like the way she stared, as if she really could see someone else inside my face.
We lived in her room, on Caley’s chocolate and stories: the one where a girl grows her hair and a Prince climbs up it, where an ugly cobbler with a funny name steals a baby from a Princess, where a wicked Queen poisons a young girl because she’s jealous of her beauty. My mother was just like Snow White. Most of the time, she didn’t care what she looked like, she only wanted to lie down and sleep. Until suddenly, the ghosts went quiet. And just as suddenly, my mother woke up.
There was going to be a fair at Chapelfield on midsummer’s night, with boat-swings and sideshows, and a cinder circle where people would have a dancing contest. My father had promised to take me. Mrs Moon was very excited when he told her. She said she could leave her Bonnie to look after the kids, and then she could come too.
I haven’t been dancing for years, she said, twirling in the yard for everyone to see, Not since Edward. Mrs Moon had doll’s eyes, round and shiny. Whenever she spoke of Mr Moon, she’d blink very deliberately, the tears dropping down her cheeks like drips from a tap. My mother didn’t see her performance, but she heard it. The idea of staying at home while Mrs Moon went in her place did not appeal; she decided that she must come with us. My mother announced that she wanted to be in the world again; she would like to dance too. My father was pulling on his work clothes when she said it. He stopped, the vest halfway down his body. His ribs were blue with bruises. He’d only been working with the drayman for a week, and hadn’t got the hang of catching the barrels. He gave my mother a strange look.
Dance? You? he said.
Us, she said, Just like before.
Holding her arms up high above her head.
Like that? he said, pointing at her nightgown, her bare feet.
&nb
sp; I can put my lovely slippers on, she said, forgetting they were gone, My wedding shoes. My father shot me a warning look.
Haven’t worn those slippers since I don’t know when, she said, swinging her body over the side of the bed, Now, where have I left them?
He pulled her upright, put his face very close to hers.
They’re gone, remember? he said, Medicine doesn’t buy itself.
Then I’ll dance barefoot, she said, turning away, See if I care!
~
She plagued him with it for days, chewing on her nails, worrying about how best to do her hair, asking me if I knew what Mrs Moon would be wearing. My father never said No, but he never said Yes. He just said Wait and See. And told me I must watch her.
He must have known. By the time midsummer’s day came, she’d forgotten all about the fair, Mrs Moon stealing her husband, the idea of dancing in her blue silk slippers. The ghosts were her only interest: seeing them, and getting them away. They were fat as pumpkins, she said, she could see them floating above her head, their round faces grinning.
There, that one up there, get it, Pats. Get it down!
And I would chase a shadow from the wall, just to please my mother. An hour or two might pass, and then she’d start up again.
Are you blind? Over there! she’d say, as I fretted the ceiling with the broom, That one!
She said the windows needed cleaning,
To frighten the buggers away, let God’s light in, and the floorboards under the bed had to be swept, because they were clever and small, they could hide themselves in the rolls of dust. But she couldn’t do a thing herself.
I’m weak as a kitten, she’d moan, clinging to the furniture as she crept around the room. So I cleaned for her while she sat in her bed, waving the spiders out of her face. On the Friday, the day of the fair, she closed like an eye.
Now I’m ready, she said.
But she just lay there on her bed, her skin snow-white and sweating in the heat. My father said we could go anyway, even if she didn’t want to come. But I had to promise to stay with her until he got back from work.
Remember Me Page 3