The Juniper Tree

by Barbara Comyns

  It was over three weeks before I saw Bernard again and I was beginning to think he had dropped me. After all, I was really Gertrude’s friend and he had only been interested in improving my mind and as someone to keep Gertrude amused. Then, one Saturday evening as I was re-arranging the shop window, Tommy suddenly cried, ‘Bernard’s coming.’ She always seemed to know when he was coming before he appeared. We were standing together, looking hopefully through the window, when his car drew up beside the Green and, seeing our eager faces, he smiled at us in a normal way. I’d been imagining him as I’d last seen him, broken and unshaven, his upper lip drawing back from his teeth every now and then.

  We went into the back room together and he sat in his usual chair which I’d never liked to sell because we called it Bernard’s chair and Tommy curled up on his knee like a contented kitten and we sat there in the dusk, drinking rather inferior sherry and talking in low tones. He told me that Charlotte had given up her teaching for the time being so that she could look after the baby and run the house after Marie left. It was a noble thing to do because she enjoyed her work and independence and was giving it up for the restricted life of a mother-housekeeper. ‘Thank God we still have old Mrs Hicks coming in to do the cleaning, but for how long, we don’t know. She adored Gertrude and it isn’t so easy for her to work for Charlotte; the sisters have such different temperaments, or rather, had. Poor Charlotte, she tries so hard not to quarrel with me. I almost miss our battles.’

  He wasn’t with us for long but it was arranged that Tommy and I would stay in Richmond the following weekend. ‘You’ll have to face it sometime, my dear. I know the house is just a shell of a place without her, but you want to see Johnny, don’t you? We call him Johnny now, but I don’t know if Gertrude would have approved. Better than Otto, I suppose, but anything she liked to call him would seem perfect to me.’

  I had seen little of Stephen since Brit returned to the States. He’d telephoned a few times and called once when I was out and once when I was at home; but he had been in a restless mood and didn’t stay long. Somehow, not through me, he heard about Gertrude’s death and came to see me immediately. He’d never met her but knew how much the friendship meant to me and, although he teased me about the ‘pompous Bernard’, he never joked about Gertrude. I think they would have got on very well because people were always at their best with her and Stephen at his best could be very charming. He was at his best that evening and did all he could to comfort me. Brit wasn’t mentioned once the entire evening and he bought me flowers and Chinese food, which we nibbled sitting on the floor in front of the gas fire. That night we went to bed together, more as friends than lovers. It was a thing that occasionally happened between us at times of stress, a way of comforting each other that was in no way a commitment.

  Bernard came to fetch us the following Saturday as we had arranged and there was Tommy jumping around us and talking about Gertrude and the swim in the bath she was looking forward to, the swing and the toys waiting in her bedroom, the dog and the carved bear guarding the house in the courtyard. She hadn’t been to the Forbeses’ house for weeks and had missed it sorely, poor child, but I was so on edge I could have hit her. Instead I covered my scar with my hand, a thing I hadn’t done for months. Bernard gently removed my hand and slipped it into my pocket, saying in the kindest way: ‘Relax, you silly girl. It won’t be as terrible as you imagine. There’s Johnny, for one thing, and we have been so looking forward to you coming.’

  I smiled at the thought of Charlotte looking forward to my visit. Usually she hardly noticed me and I couldn’t remember a single conversation between us, just ‘Hallo’, ‘Goodbye’, ‘It’s very warm’, ‘It’s very cold’, and surprisingly ‘What a dear little girl you have. Is she adopted?’ Yet, there she was, standing on the doorstep with a welcoming smile on her fine face and a kiss on both cheeks for me and a hug for Tommy-Marline, who ran into the house looking for Gertrude although I’d already explained to her that she was away. ‘Has she gone to the shops?’ she asked and all I could think of saying was that she had gone very far away where there were no shops and she had taken Petra the dog with her. Petra had died in her sleep a few days after Gertrude. Mrs Hicks had found her lying under the kitchen table, but as she often lay there, hadn’t realized she was dead until there was no response to a bowl of her favourite food. Then, being a quiet woman who disliked scenes, she had knocked on Bernard’s door and said, ‘Please, sir, the dog appears to have died. It’s making no movement.’

  Marie was putting Johnny to bed when we all trouped in to see him. There he was, sitting on her knee and looking at us with Gertrude’s beautiful eyes. He was very large and handsome and exactly the sort of baby she had wished for, but, as Marie put him in my arms, again I had the slight revulsion to him although his very white skin and rose-red cheeks appeared more natural now. His Aunt Charlotte had very much the same colouring. Bernard obviously doted on the child and his eyes never left him, but he did not hold him in his arms – perhaps he was too shy in the presence of three eager women and a transfixed little girl. From the moment Marline saw the beautiful child she adored him as if he had been her own baby brother, which indeed she thought he was, and she never showed the slightest trace of jealousy.

  On the surface we got through the weekend without too much suffering; but there were some painful moments. Once, when Bernard and I were walking together in the garden, we came across Gertrude’s half-tame magpies chattering on a low bough of the juniper tree and they looked at us with clever eyes as if they knew that she was dead. We were both aware of something almost sinister and I, who was often afraid to touch people, clutched Bernard’s arm and buried my face in his shoulder so that I couldn’t see their knowing eyes. We were both shaking.

  On Sunday evening we couldn’t bring ourselves to play Gertrude’s records, or any records for that matter, so we settled for Scrabble. I wondered where the Scrabble had come from, Charlotte perhaps. The Forbeses didn’t play games, with the exception of chess. I was quite enjoying the game when Bernard, who was winning, suddenly jumped up, scattering the letters, muttered something about ‘Damn fool game’ and left the room.

  On Monday, when he was driving us back to Twickenham, he stopped the car near Marble Hill and apologized for the Scrabble incident. ‘It’s Charlotte trying to be a ray of sunshine that gets me down, although I know she means it for the best. The other day she suggested brightly that I went for a nice walk in the park with the dog; she’d forgotten that she had been dead for three weeks or more – poor creature, nothing to live for, like me. I sometimes feel that I’m harnessed to remorse, misery and loneliness for the rest of my life. I can’t see how it can ever get better. There’s Johnny, of course, but it will be years until I can really talk to him. I watch him, though, and he’s changing all the time. He has Gertrude’s eyes, have you noticed? And Marie says he’s very advanced for his age. My poor Gertrude, how she would have loved him.’

  Tommy was becoming restless in her little seat in the back of the car so we drove on and, just as we were half way down Heath Road and were held up in the traffic, I suddenly remembered a beautiful August day when Gertrude and I were in the flowery thicket and she had made me promise to look after her baby if anything happened to her. I’d forgotten all about it; but now, in this ugly, traffic-filled road, it came back to me with great clarity and it was as if we were still in the Burning Bush Restaurant, under the juniper tree with the magpies moving about in the branches above, and I was making this serious promise.

  I turned to Bernard, who was frowning at the almost stationary traffic, and cried, ‘Oh, Bernard, I’ve just remembered I promised Gertrude I’d look after her child if anything happened to her. How could I have forgotten?’

  Bernard’s frowning face relaxed as he turned towards me: ‘Of course I know you will do anything humanly possible for Gertrude’s child, whether you have made promises or not. You are absolutely trustworthy, Bella, dear.’

  Then the traffic
cleared and we drove on. Now I felt doubly committed to little John Bernard.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I hadn’t seen Miss Murray for several months. Then she turned up at the shop like a fairy godmother with her usual large basket filled with damaged china. She had heard about Gertrude’s death and thought going through the china would cheer me up. She knew the Forbeses fairly well and called Gertrude a headstrong woman because she had insisted on having her baby at home. ‘She would have been pushing her baby through the streets like any other woman if she had gone into hospital. Having a baby at home was so foolhardy at her age, don’t you agree?’ Then, relenting, ‘I might have done the same, though.’

  ‘It’s a very fine child,’ I said listlessly as I picked over her rejects. Then, with more interest, ‘I like these Italian cups with the cupids. They seem perfect to me.’

  She examined them for a moment. ‘Well, they’re on the heavy side, don’t you think? And there are only three of them. No one wants three cups, it’s six or perhaps four or even two. I know, sell them as a pair and keep the odd one yourself.’

  I smiled and said I’d keep one for my early morning cup of tea, and I drank from it for many mornings.

  It is strange how that Italian cup comforted me and helped me back on the right track again. I’ve noticed that after a crisis in one’s life or a bad illness quite a small thing can be the turning point towards recovery. I can remember having pneumonia as a child. It must have been when my father was still with us because he seemed to be sitting there night and day and trying to get me to eat a kind of meat jelly called Brand’s Essence; but I turned my face away and demanded celery. I had a craving for it and the doctor eventually allowed me to chew – but not swallow – beautiful, crisp celery, and from that moment I recovered rapidly. The Italian cup acted in the same way and I began to take an interest in the shop again. I bought a new winter overcoat and made an appointment with an expensive hairdresser to have my dark hair re-styled. I even went to a Sunday morning party given by one of Stephen’s friends and I quite enjoyed it.

  The thing I did not enjoy was my bi-weekly visit to the Forbeses house. Tommy and I went there every other weekend and Tommy was happy enough playing with the baby in the nursery and ‘helping’ Marie push the pram and was becoming quite attached to Charlotte. Charlotte was trying to take Gertrude’s place, but she lacked Gertrude’s charm. She was very friendly towards me and even asked my advice about babies and household things and occasionally about Bernard. She would say, ‘He’s so fond of you, he’d do anything for you. He thinks of you almost like a daughter. What was it I said that upset him so at lunch? Why did he leave most of his prunes, doesn’t he like them? And the Vivaldi record. Why tear it from the machine and stamp on it? Such beautiful music and one of Gertrude’s favourites.’ She never spoke to me about anything intellectual although she quite rightly prided herself on her good brain. She seemed to think mine was entirely domestic and if I came out with a remark about surrealist paintings, for instance, she would say, ‘Well, well, who’s talking.’ I’m sure she didn’t mean to be unkind but she didn’t understand people and their feelings.

  Bernard suffered more than I did because he had her every day and couldn’t see the end of it. ‘She’s so insensitive, that’s the trouble, and she looks very like Gertrude at times, which makes it worse. Oh God, what am I saying? She has given up the work she loves, she’s doing everything she can to help and all I do is criticize her. I must start taking her to concerts again, she enjoys them and we get on much better when there is something serious to talk about.’ He drew me to him and said, ‘And as for you, my little one, we must continue your education. There’s a new play I’d particularly like you to see and I still haven’t taken you to a concert. Perhaps we should start with Schubert.’

  After Bernard started taking us out again life was not so gloomy and we all got on together much better. Charlotte was very generous about looking after Marline, when Bernard took me out on my mind-improving evenings, and in return I sometimes helped her with the cooking, particularly when Bernard’s business associates came to dinner.

  Marie had stayed on for nearly two extra months and was fretting to return to Australia so another nurse had to be found. Bernard was in favour of an old-fashioned nanny but Charlotte thought she would need to be waited on and it would mean meals on trays and that kind of thing so they eventually chose quite a young girl called Nell who turned out to be cheerful and kind but Bernard objected to her clothes. She was suitably dressed for the interview but must have hired or borrowed the neat, dark clothes because after the first day they never appeared again. She constantly wore crumpled jeans and T-shirts, usually with messages printed across the chest, and the thing that really upset Bernard was that every time she bent down, and one is always bending down when looking after young children, a large bare gap appeared between her shirt and jeans. Quite a nice piece of back but Bernard and Charlotte both objected to it.

  Suddenly Christmas loomed, my first Christmas in the shop on the Green. Customers began to ask for small things like glass paperweights and Staffordshire china and plates that could be hung on the wall. Large dishes suitable for turkeys were much in demand too. I spent my free Mondays searching for small treasures and to my great joy found a family of Edwardian dolls wearing their original clothes; otherwise it was mostly pretty little jugs, muffin dishes and silver jewellery, all very saleable at that time.

  With Christmas coming I began to have guilty feelings towards my mother. Should I send her a card or present or even go and see her? I knew Gertrude would urge me to if she were still alive, but I kept putting it off. Then the problem was solved because mother telephoned one evening and in her abrupt way announced that she was calling the following afternoon. ‘Of course I shall expect to see my Brazilian grandchild,’ she said and banged the receiver down without mentioning Mr Crimony. As she had such a low opinion of London transport it was unlikely she would come without her tame chauffeur. Although it was late in the evening I hurried to the kitchen and made a six-egg sponge cake and it rose beautifully and stayed that way. Some of my cakes came out of the oven looking perfect, but as soon as I turned my back on them they sank in the middle.

  I fetched Tommy home early from the nursery. We ran back across the Green together just in time to see a red Rover drawing up outside the shop. Out of it stepped my Mother, but there was no sign of Mr Crimony. We watched her collect some parcels from the boot of the car and make sure the car was safely locked before she crossed the road. She looked back at it with such a look of pride on her usually severe face that it even lingered a little when she saw us.

  Altogether the visit passed off better than I had expected. There was the car to talk about, the driving lessons and the test, which she passed with flying colours – ‘and to think I could have been driving all these years. Mr Crimony says I’m a born driver, except when I lose my temper with other drivers, of course.’

  Tommy said, ‘Where is he, the man called Mr Chimney?’

  Mother laughed. ‘Mr Crimony, you mean. Well, he couldn’t come today but has sent you a present.’ Then, turning to me, ‘He’s having his feet done. Poor man, he suffers with them a lot. In the summer his feet feel the heat and he has to wear charcoal in his socks, and in the winter it’s arthritis and ingrowing toenails. Now, what about these presents?’

  I was touched by the presents, all wrapped in Christmas paper. A handknitted pullover for Tommy, and the right size too, so mother must have thought about her as she knitted away in Kilburn. Very expensive-looking suède gloves for me and the promised violin for Tommy, also a large golden-haired doll, both from Mr Crimony. Mother said he had chosen the doll himself. It had its own hairdressing kit and was about as vulgar as a doll could possibly be, but fortunately Tommy thought it beautiful. Just before leaving, mother thrust another present into Tommy’s eager hands. When unwrapped it turned out to be a golliwog.

  A few days before Christmas Stephen left for the Sta
tes to marry Brit. Somehow I’d never really expected this to happen, particularly as Stephen hardly mentioned her for weeks, perhaps just to save my feelings. It seemed so final, his going so far away. I went with him to Heathrow to see him off and was almost glad when he announced that he had no English money with him and would need me to pay for his excess baggage. It was only nine pounds; but he appeared to have plenty of English notes when he paid for our taxi a few minutes before. I’d almost forgotten his little meannesses. Now I remembered how mad they used to make me when we lived together.

  As we parted I said, ‘Goodbye, old Meanie.’ Then we kissed each other and I said, ‘Goodbye, dearest old Meanie,’ and he said, ‘Goodbye, dearest little Scarface,’ and he hurried away towards the departure lounge. We never saw each other again. There were letters, but as Marie said, letters aren’t the same.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gertrude’s ashes rather weighed on my mind, lightly, but they weighed. Had Bernard already sprinkled them in the thicket or were they still in their silver box, waiting for a suitable occasion, Christmas perhaps? Would it be a solitary scattering or a gathering of family and friends? Eventually I asked Charlotte, only to find that she was as puzzled as I was. ‘The only thing I know is that they are still in their silver box in Bernard’s study. Actually, I polish it sometimes and would know if it were empty, but they have never been mentioned between us. It could be that he can’t bear to part with them.’ She drew her hair back from her strong, smooth forehead and added, ‘All I do know is that it would cause a hell of a rumpus if I mentioned them, don’t you agree?’ I agreed and we didn’t speak of them again, even to each other.

  Bernard seemed to take it for granted that we were to spend Christmas at Richmond, although it wouldn’t be a very happy occasion for adults. I’d hoped that Tommy and I would have a quiet one of our own, with no complications; but it turned out that we had to spend three days of sad celebrations. Even Nell, who had never known Gertrude, was downcast. We exchanged silly presents wrapped in gaudy paper, and Charlotte and I cooked a great meal; but we could just as well have served mutton chops, no one was hungry. At least we didn’t have crackers. Marline was disappointed about this but otherwise was happy opening and playing with her presents, and there was Johnny lying in his carry-cot before the fire.