First Aid

by Janet Davey

  The Garden of England, they used to call it, her grandfather said, when Jo said she and Peter were moving to Kent. I don’t know if you’d agree with that. What do you want to go and live there for, her grandmother said, aren’t the jobs in London good enough for him?

  Jo’s former house, the one that had had to be sold when her husband left, had been cheerful-looking – flat-fronted, painted blue, with pretty railings that were rusty but more or less intact, only a few curlicues missing. Leaning out of the back bedroom window, she had been able to see the sea. She still missed waking up there. She wished that she and the children had been able to stay put but they hadn’t been able to afford that. They had lost continuity. She had done what she could to keep ordinary family life going, but Ella and Rob had known the difference between a solid house and a sheet draped over a clotheshorse. Ella’s carefully kept mementoes had suddenly seemed wrong in the new place and she’d thrown them away. She hadn’t said what she was doing. Jo had found them in the bin, picked them out and hidden them in one of her own drawers under her jerseys: shells, felt mice, rings from Christmas crackers – nothing bigger than her now full-sized thumbnail. The objects had hardly covered the bottom of a plastic bag, because, although numerous, they were minute. She had kept them for nearly a year. Then she had thought she was being silly and had got rid of them. That was the last of Ella’s tidiness. She never arranged her possessions again.

  The flat they moved into was part of a low terraced house, further back from the sea, yellow stock brick – similar to the East Greenwich house where Jo had grown up. It had the same orientation – the hall to the right and the front room to the left. Jo hadn’t even had to think about which path to walk up, as she would have done had it been the house next door. She had come home, though without the welcome party.

  The entrances to the upstairs and downstairs flats were side by side at the end of the narrow hall. The builders had nailed a piece of plasterboard over the old door to the front room. On the inner side, they had left it looking like a door, only without the handle. When Jo viewed the ground-floor flat with the estate agent, she caught herself trying to get out that way, putting her hand out to turn something that wasn’t there. She hadn’t got far, she thought, ending up in a sliced-up version of her childhood home. She had wondered which half of the house to go for. It had seemed arbitrary. She liked to let a decision settle – to forget about it and then hope the answer would come to the surface, like cream on the old bottles of full-fat milk, but there hadn’t been time for that. She and the children had needed somewhere to live. The estate agent had pointed out the good points of both halves and told her that other clients were interested. She had thought about feet crossing the floor above and cooking smells rising from below, as if there had been an extra intermediate floor designed especially for her, with nothing but disadvantages. She had imagined the interested clients. Up and down. She had seen them in her mind’s eye: both men. The first was a bit good-looking and a bit ugly, with even teeth and said hullo when they met, in a neutral kind of way, and the second was rather similar. Her opinion of men was at a low point. In the end, she had chosen upstairs. If Annie had been her only child she would have had the flat with the garden, but Ella and Rob were too loud. Their voices would have travelled the length of the block. There were enough rooms for them to have one each as a bedroom, though Annie often ended up getting into Jo’s bed in the night. They made do without a sitting room. The kitchen, off the first half-landing, had space for a table and chairs and an armchair.

  The ground-floor flat had been occupied a few weeks later. A couple moved in. Dan and Megan. They didn’t cook, or not thoroughly enough to cause rising smells, and they made no noise indoors, just discreetly revved their motorbike when they left for work in the morning. They had a text above the number-plate that said The Kingdom of God is Within You. Luke 17: 21. Their silence made Jo self-conscious about her children. She hadn’t realised how disagreeable they always got in the hour before they ate, clumping about the place, falling out with each other. They hadn’t improved with age. She had tried to keep them quiet.

  ‘Mum. The train keeps stopping.’ That was Rob.

  Jo didn’t speak. And she kept her eyes closed.

  ‘Why does it keep stopping?’ he said.

  Annie, who had settled down, stirred.

  ‘Don’t wake Annie,’ Jo said.

  ‘Is there a particular reason, do you think?’

  Jo shook her head.

  ‘What will happen when we get to the next station?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing will happen.’

  Rob was quiet again. Then he said, ‘I wish we could just be there.’

  The next stop was a station. There were changes in the train’s reverberations that came from being shut in alongside buildings and under a canopy. The colour under her eyelids deepened with the change in light. No doors banged. The train started up again.

  ‘Sit down, Rob,’ she said. ‘Don’t touch the window.’

  ‘I’m not opening it. I just want to look out,’ he said.

  But she heard him go back to his seat.

  ‘Anyway, how do you know what I’m doing?’ he said. ‘Why have you got your eyes closed if you’re not asleep?’

  She didn’t reply. I don’t want to see anything, she thought, and I don’t want to be seen. There had been the short period in childhood when she had believed she became invisible if she hid behind her hands or squeezed her eyes tight. It had left a defiant trace. She couldn’t recall the moment when she realised that she could be seen – or whether it was one of disappointment or relief. It was no good asking her children things like that. They claimed not to know what she was talking about.

  ‘Hot drinks in this weather.’

  ‘Sorry, Rob?’

  ‘Hot drinks in this weather. She’s got a point.’

  Jo thought that was what he had said.

  Rob’s watch beeped. Jo didn’t know which hour it was marking. The train moved slowly and absorbed more heat from the sun. Annie’s face stuck to Jo’s bare leg and the seat stuck to her thin skirt.

  The day had begun all right. Though Jo had been reluctant to leave the comfort of bed, the sky, enticingly blue in the gap over the curtains, had encouraged her. Felpo had been beside her, stretched out long length as usual. There was only a sheet covering them – not tucked in – barely dipping between them. She liked his reckless use of space. Nine months in the womb was long enough to be trussed up, he had said when she had commented on how much room he took up. He was using the rest of his life to recover, he had said. She hadn’t been complaining. She wouldn’t have wanted to lie there without a part of him touching her. After they made love he always slept where he ended up – on one side of the bed or the other. He wasn’t territorial. She appreciated that after all those married years of semi-detached owner occupation.

  She had got up and left Felpo dozing. He was lazy as a cat until the moment when he had to move and then fully awake. In the kitchen Annie and Rob were already sitting at the table. The air coming through the open window smelled summery. Her bare feet felt at home on the floor. Dan and Megan shut the front door, and minutes later revved up their motorbike and sped down the street. Jo put the supper pans into soak and removed an empty wine bottle from Annie’s reach. Breakfast was Annie’s most exuberant time of day. She disowned her position as the baby in the family and saw herself as Rob’s contemporary, engaging him in conversation as soon as he sat down. She tried to keep pace with what he ate, demanding the same amounts, spooning the stuff in, until it filled her mouth – seeping milk on to her pyjamas when she tried to talk. Rob ate his cereal and kept edging away from her, ending up with his chair tipped against the wall and the bowl on his knees. It was hard for anyone else to talk with Annie chattering on. Jo made toast, singeing it under the grill while she fed the goldfish a pinch of multi-coloured flakes. She watched it come to the surface and gulp. Then she cut off the black bits from the toast and told Annie
not to fuss. The mornings had felt leisurely since Felpo moved in. He calmed her.

  He came to say goodbye at around nine o’clock. He said he wasn’t sure when he’d be back – maybe some time in the afternoon if he was lucky. He’d been helping someone repair a boat for the last week. All through the hot spell he’d worked out of doors. He kissed her, then Annie. She enjoyed both kisses – the first on her mouth, the second a surrogate on her daughter’s cheek. She hadn’t known that he wouldn’t kiss her again. She looked out of the window and watched his van pull away.

  Two of Rob’s friends came round for him, calling up from the street. Rob borrowed some money from her and went out, crashing down the stairs. Annie fell quiet and the only sounds then were the small ones of the chink of plates being put away and Jo’s own footsteps crossing the room. Ella switched the radio on in her bedroom but the noise was faint coming through the wall. Jo hung the damp drying-up cloths over the sill. She was happy without noting her happiness, or notching it up. Ella came into the kitchen and then Jo could hear the words of the song because the doors were wide open – but the peacefulness remained. Ella made herself a cup of coffee and sat down. The silence between them, in the absence of small talk, was domestic, not hostile, unaffected by the music which swam through the rooms and out into the street. Jo recognised herself in Ella, the same unsmoothed edges in looks and temperament. She didn’t ask questions about the previous evening. Did you have a good time? Where did you go? Why were you late? She and Felpo were already in bed when she heard Ella bang the front door to the flat and come in. She hadn’t checked the time. The questions she might have asked were inconsequential enough but would have veered off into spot-lit interrogation even as she spoke. She wouldn’t have meant them to sound like that but intention had nothing to do with it. Jo knew when to back off and she had learned when not even to begin. That left a space with nothing much in it for the present.

  Ella drank her coffee, sitting with one foot tucked under her. She stared absently at some mid-point on the table. Jo sensed she was contented to be there with her – Felpo and Rob out of the way. The minutes passed. Ella only looked up when Annie squealed and tried to hide under her chair. She watched as Jo grabbed Annie and lifted her over the sink to wash her hands, the warm water splashing over them both, the soap slipping out of reach. She must have been in a good mood, because when she passed the kitchen again later, she called out to say goodbye.

  Jo was the last to leave. She went to the shop for the morning, as usual, taking Annie with her. She was only out of the house for three hours.

  When Felpo came home in the afternoon Jo was on the telephone to Trevor Lucas, her employer. He had made an appointment to visit a client, Mrs Ena Tiemann, about a house clearance and had scribbled the address down on the back of a second-hand paperback. The stuff for sale had seemed promising but he couldn’t find the book.

  Jo heard Felpo’s feet on the stairs and the click of the key in the lock. He came in and walked to the far side of the room. She was saying ‘Did you put a glass down on it? Look again when you’ve woken up properly. Perhaps you sold the book.’ That was Trevor, she said when she put the phone down. Felpo said, ‘Of course.’ She took it as an easy acknowledgement. She didn’t speak like that to anyone else.

  She looked across at him, standing a few feet away from her. She was happy to see him – back maybe for the rest of the day. Annie was playing in Ella’s room and had fallen quiet; sometimes after lunch she fell asleep. The older two would stay out in the sun. She went towards him. He said something, but he wasn’t facing her and she wasn’t paying attention – she was thinking about the afternoon ahead, what they might do in it.

  He said he was leaving. She heard him that time. But you’ve only just come back, she said. He said it would be better if he went quickly and would she get out of his way. She might have smiled. She always smiled when she saw him. I mean it, he said. He wasn’t standing still any longer, he was roaming about the room. She said, all right then and moved a couple of paces to one side. She didn’t know where to move to. He said, right out. Out of the house. Come back once I’ve gone. She wondered whether to laugh because it was his voice, yet it wasn’t his voice and she didn’t know what he meant. She might have started to laugh. He picked up the empty wine bottle from the side and slammed it down on the work top so that it shattered – pieces of green glass everywhere. She took a step towards him, thinking of helping, of getting a dustpan. Don’t come near me, he said. He dodged round the table. She was between him and the door. She said – as if it were part of the game – I won’t let you go, not like this, and she stretched her arms out, barring the way. He put out his hand. At first she thought he was giving her something. She didn’t know what he was doing.

  It was characteristic of him to offer her absurd choices and even at the moment when she saw what was hidden between his thumb and his index finger she recognised his way of doing things and wanted it back. They would be sitting in the van deciding where to go for a day out. He’d say they could drive to St Tropez or Sandwich. Jo was free to say the impossible one and it hung buoyantly in the air as if they really had chosen it.

  She should have let him go, but she couldn’t move. She stood with her back to the doorway, her arms out rigid. He came closer. She said nothing – and he flicked his hand down her cheek. The pain was sharp, but it might have been hot – she didn’t know which. Annie screamed and screamed from the hallway and that broke it. He ran past, out of the flat. Jo hung over the sink, retching. Annie carried on screaming. Then Ella was there, holding her head, pulling strands of hair off her face, tying them back. Rob was there, running the tap, dabbing her cheek with cotton wool, letting water trickle down her neck, opening a bottle of antiseptic, stinging her with it. They were sitting her down, pressing her head between her knees. They were propping her up, patting her face with a dry cloth, sticking tiny patches of sticking plaster down it, each one like the peck of a bird.

  Everything was bright. The heat of the city, dull as concrete, enveloped the train. The woman in the corner opposite had stood up and was struggling with the window, preparing to lean out and open the door. The train was moving, inching along, jolting over the points.

  ‘We won’t get out here, Mum,’ Rob said. ‘We’ll go on to the end of the line. Charing Cross.’

  ‘Whatever for?’ she said.

  ‘There isn’t time to get everything down from the rack. We can’t get off just like that. Without planning it,’ he said.

  ‘Well, we can try,’ she said. ‘Come on.’

  ‘You should have woken up before if you wanted to do that,’ he said.

  Annie was still sitting on the floor slumped against her mother’s shins. Jo lifted her on to her feet. The little girl’s legs wobbled and splayed then firmed up. She grabbed hold of Jo’s skirt and opened her eyes.

  ‘Look, Annie’s awake now. Please try, Rob,’ Jo said.

  She reached up and pulled down the buggy – almost overbalancing with the child hanging on to her. Rob ignored her. The platform, the intermittent station furniture, the station buildings, the signs saying London Bridge, passed slowly by the windows. Then Rob leapt up on to the seat and seized hold of the pieces of luggage, throwing them one after another to the floor.

  ‘Stop that,’ she said.

  The train was stationary. The woman had finally succeeded in opening the door. She got out. Rob jumped down and grasped as many bags as he could in each hand.

  ‘Get off the train, Mum. Quick. QUICK.’ He was shrieking at her.

  The crowd on the platform were wedged together. Behind her Rob was shouting and shoving the luggage against her legs. She tucked Annie under one arm and tried to step off the train. A man lunged towards her, forcing her back into the compartment. Rob’s cross breath was on her upper back – his voice in her ear. She struggled forward again, pushing against hot bodies, unyielding shoulders – and reached solid ground. She clung on to Annie. A guard shouted. Doors slammed. A slo
w rush of air passed behind her.

  Then they were on their own. A nuclear family. That’s what it felt like. Everyone else dead. The platform was empty.

  3

  ‘HAVE YOU TIME for a small top-up?’ Ena Tiemann said.

  ‘Ample time,’ Trevor said.

  He always said that. They didn’t like to be rushed.

  ‘Help yourself, dear,’ Ena Tiemann said. ‘And while you’re up, just pull the curtain across, will you, the light’s in my eyes. There. That’s enough. We don’t want to shut out all the summer sun.’

  Trevor sat down again and put his newly filled glass of vermouth on the small polished table in front of him. The room was now sharply divided between brightness and shadow. The line ran down the middle, with his chair on one side and the old lady’s on the other. His glass sparkled.

  ‘You’ve done well, Mrs Tiemann,’ he said, leaning towards her. ‘To get it all in boxes.’

  The old lady looked surprised. She bent forward a little and the pillow that was behind her head slipped out of place. Trevor got up and propped it back up.

  ‘It must have taken a good few hours,’ he said.

  She thought for a moment, then she said, ‘That wasn’t me. That was Mother. She wraps everything up in newspaper.’

  Trevor nodded. He was used to old people with mothers alive. He felt at home with the notion that, if you waited long enough, the dead returned as if they had never gone. As an idea, it was less alarming than the one that promised you’d meet them in an after-life.

  ‘Did you see her?’ Ena Tiemann asked.

  Trevor shook his head.

  The old lady was looking beyond him now, though not at the wall behind – at a far-away place.

  ‘So, do you know what’s there, Mrs Tiemann?’ he said. He separated the words slightly.