Flames from the primus stove flicker blue-green, and the smell of methylated spirits hovers over the bacon Mum is frying. An overall covers her floral holiday frock, and she’s singing, You Are My Heart’s Delight. It makes yesterday’s journey seem unreal.
Dad is shaving in his enamel bowl as he does every morning in Blountmere Street. He studies his reflection in a piece of mirror before he puts on a short sleeved shirt, the colour of chewing gum. I’ve never before seen Dad wearing anything but long sleeved working shirts made of twill. His arms fascinate me. They’re strong and sinewy and somehow attractive.
‘Hello, sleepy head,’ Mum greets me. ‘We thought you were going to sleep forever, didn't we, Les?’
I wait for Dad’s usual grunt, but instead, he says, ‘We weren’t surprised. It was a long journey for us.’ We and us aren’t words Dad uses. I didn’t think he knew them.
Mum continues, ‘There’s a toilet outside the farmhouse, a proper one with a flush. And while you’re there, you might as well pop into the house and get some clotted cream.’ Mum throws a cloth as white as the one we use in Blountmere Street over the table.
Our bell tent, an Army Surplus one I’ve no idea how Dad’s got hold of, is nestled in a hollow. Thick hedgerows, smothered in an assortment of flowers and leaves I’ve never before seen, shelter us on two sides. They give off a perfume that, no matter how much I inhale, it isn’t enough.
As I skip across the field, I hear Dad ask Mum, ‘You brought any of that strawberry jam you made? Good stuff. Well up to your usual standard.’
I look back to make sure it’s really Dad who’s spoken and not a substitute holiday version.
Inside the farmhouse kitchen is a collection of bottling jars like the ones Mum uses for her preserves. There’s a stack of crockery in the sink, while more crockery, most of it blue and white, hangs on hooks on the wall. Flowers are strewn across the whole of one bench and tins into which the farmer’s wife is spooning a thick yellow paste take up most of the wooden kitchen table. At the remaining space, a girl is painting a picture of a jam jar of wild flowers in front of her.
The girl’s hair is almost white and curls down to her shoulders just as I wish mine did. I imagine a craftsman chiseling her bones, shaping her skin over them and then painting her white and pink.
‘This is Damielle,’ the farmer’s wife tells me. ‘You’re probably much the same age.’
The white and pink girl with the strange name looks up at me. ‘I’m trying to paint these flowers, but it isn’t easy.’ She smiles and asks, ‘What’s your name?’
When I tell her, my voice sounds harsh and jarring but the girl replies, ‘Paula’s a nice name.’
Not when it’s followed by Dibble.
‘If you want someone to show you around, I’m sure Damielle will be pleased, won’t you dear?’
‘I’ll take you to a special cove where they say there were once pirates. It’s a secret but I’ll share it with you.’
I smile. It might even be better than Tony’s gang’s camp on the bombsite.
Devonshire – The Sunshine County hadn’t begun to describe the countryside with its narrow lanes bordered by hedgerows, the homes of hundreds of birds and insects.
The Common which has always been my most favourite place in all the world is barren by comparison. The grass is coarse. The trees are dull and sooty. Here, around every bend and over every hill there’s a breathtaking panorama of greens and browns rolling towards the sea which is fringed by pale sand and watched over by guardian cliffs. And blending into the landscape are clusters of whitewashed cottages with thatched roofs and gardens crammed with hickledy pickledy masses of flowers.
Damielle’s like a wood nymph. She knows where birds make their nests and rabbits have their burrows. She shows me a squirrel moving an acorn to its mouth, which makes me wish I’d seen it before I’d danced the part. In turn, it makes me think of Bill. We haven’t seen him since the night of the concert. I wonder if Mum misses him.
Standing on the cliffs, we call to the waves. Damielle tells me the sea will carry our voices to someone standing on the shore of a far-off land.
In our secret cove, we peer nervously around rocks in case a pirate should be lurking.
‘Keep your eyes open for booty,’ Damielle says. I nod. I don’t know what booty is.
‘What’re we doing today, then?’ Dad asks, spreading a layer of clotted cream on top of strawberry jam and a thick slice of bread.
‘You can come to Pirates’ Cove with us. It’s a secret place but Damielle said we could show you. It’s grand there,’ I say, imitating Damielle. Mum and Dad laugh. It’s a glorious sound.
Already Mum’s skin is a smooth walnut colour. ‘You’re a case and no mistake,’ she says.
Dad half laughs his agreement in a hiccupping kind of way. I’ve never heard him make that sound before.
At the cove Mum and Dad settle into their deckchairs. Dad puts his hands behind his head. His feet are bare and his pre-war holiday sandals are placed neatly on the sand beside him. His open neck shirt looks surprisingly good on him. Even on the beach Mum can’t divorce herself from her knitting and it rests in her lap. She shows no sign of beginning it, though, and reclines in her chair with her eyes closed, her legs outstretched and exposed to the sun.
‘Will you both come in swimming?’ I ask, breathless from jumping across a rocky outcrop. The sun is shining on my wet skin, dappling it silver. ‘You can start off in the rock pools where it’s warmer. You don’t even have to go in the sea if you don’t want to.’
‘I don’t think so, but your father might go in with you,’ Mum says. Her eyes are still closed.
Dad thinks for a moment, then says, ‘I s’ppose so, as long as your mother’s packed my stuff.’ But Mum’s already got Dad’s black woollen trunks half way out of her bag. Even in the sea air they smell of mothballs.
‘Why don’t you come in, too?’ I try coaxing Mum. ‘The water’s warm. See, I haven’t got a single goose pimple.’ I stick out my arms.
‘My bathing suit doesn’t fit,’ Mum says.
‘Yes, it does. It looked lovely when you tried it on at home.’
Mum blushes. ‘Shush!’ she says, not wanting Dad to hear she’s been so brazen as to appear half-naked in front of her daughter in her own front room. But Dad’s disappeared behind a rock to change. He emerges looking like a striped insect. His body above and below his black trunks is white and withered from being deprived of sunlight.
‘Well, well, you look like a Channel swimmer,’ Mum exclaims, her eyes beginning at Dad’s face, then lowering to his chest and stomach. Even when Dad has a bath on Sunday afternoons I don’t think she sees this much of his body. Several straggly hairs poke out from his chest and a few more sprout from his belly button. Mum’s gaze continues down to a bulge in Dad’s trunks. Quickly, she moves her eyes back up to his face and with an embarrassed half laugh offers him a towel. ‘Here, wrap this round yourself until you get into the water,’ she says. Then she picks up her knitting and clicks the needles furiously.
Soon all three of us are in the sea.
‘Jump!’ I link hands with Dad and Damielle as a wave approaches and we all three sing out together.
It’s happened! My dearest wish that I have a father like Carol Fleur’s has actually come about. It’s a pity Mum won’t come into the sea with us, because she’d looked like a film star again in her bathing suit. The thought reminds me of Bill. Fleetingly I imagine the way he would have looked at her if he’d seen her wearing it. Just as quickly the image is gone. Still holding Dad’s hand, we rise above the next wave.
It’s a week of “firsts”. The first time I’ve camped. The first time I’ve seen Dad swim. The first I’ve seen thatched cottages and all the things Damielle’s shown me. The first time I’ve eaten fish and chips in a restaurant - the only time I’ve been to a restaurant. The first time I’ve tasted clotted cream. And wonders in heaven, in heaven, in heaven, the first time I’ve seen Mum and
Dad enjoy themselves together.
‘Your father’ll like helping on the farm,’ Mum says as we watch Dad cross the field, away from our tent and towards the farmyard. ‘It’ll do him good to have the company of another man. He spends too much time on his own, especially now he’s window cleaning.’
‘Has Dad ever had any friends?’ I can’t remember Dad mentioning anyone. He’s always despised everyone he knew.
‘He might have when he was a youngster, but none that I know of.’
‘He must have been very lonely.’
‘If you won’t see the good in others, that’s what happens,’ Mum pulls out a suitcase.
‘It’s not fair the holiday’s nearly over and we’re having to pack everything up when we just seem to have unpacked,’ I complain. Inside, the tent has become a replica of our living room in Blountmere Street. During the day we roll up the straw mattress and cover it with a blanket to become a settee. Boxes covered with cloths have been transformed into small tables on which stand a lamp and some matches, Dad’s penknife and a dish piled with fruit. The tarpaulin Dad bought from a lorry driver somewhere is like walking on carpet and makes the tent feel permanent.
‘Everything has to come to an end. And it’s a good opportunity with your father out of the way to get some packing done.’ Taking clothes from a multi-coloured hanging Mum grandly calls a travelling wardrobe, and which she made from more scraps of material, she begins folding clothes and piling them on top of one of the box tables.
‘You can start packing some of this stuff,’ she tells me.
I kneel on the warm tarpaulin and fiddle with the rusty catches on the case. I feel unbearably sad. Devon’s where I belong. Something must have gone wrong with the order of things to destine I be born in London. I shouldn’t have to go back to Blountmere Street where I’m as much an alien as Damielle would be.
Sulkily, I begin to flatten the few things in the case. Most of it’s dirty washing that, back at Blountmere Street, Mum will scrub in the harsh London water and hang on the line to dry in the smoky atmosphere. If we lived in Devon, she’d spread it on scented bushes like the farmer’s wife does.
‘Oh no, you must have put the meat next to these.’ Mum’s knickers have blood on them.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Look!’ I hold them up. ‘They must have been next to the steak we had for our special treat.’ I was glad I hadn’t known when I ate it. Mum was usually so particular about food.
Without warning, Mum lunges towards me, knocking the pile of folded clothes to the ground.
‘Why can’t you do as you’re told, instead of being so damned nosey?’ She grabs the knickers and stuffs them back into a corner of the case.
I drop on to my haunches, stunned. Mum’s never sworn before. Never! And now it’s over something as trivial as a bloodstain on her underwear.
‘I wasn’t being nosey – I just saw them. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if it was the meat, really it doesn’t.’
‘It wasn’t the meat,’ Mum shouts. ‘Keep your fat nose out of what doesn’t concern you.’ Perspiration glistens on her forehead and above her lip as she hands me the clothes she’s knocked over. The silence is as thick as the canvass around us.
Later that afternoon, I run back to the cove to be alone, and hide behind one of the rocks. I recall overhearing Angela tell a group of girls in the Blountmere Street School playground, “When you bleed from your bum, it means you’re going to die and nothing can save you, not the doctor, nor the hospital, nor nothing. You haven’t got a chance. Your blood drips out of you until there’s none left, not a drop. Then you’re a gonna”.
A few days ago I’d heard Mum groan in the middle of the night. It had been a low sob-like sound accompanied by a restless, rustling of bedclothes. It all fitted. Once again, the fear of losing Mum engulfs me. This time it will happen. This time there’ll be no escape. Her blood will spill from her until she dies.
A burden heavier than the rock I’m sitting behind begins to crush me. How will she ever be able to bear it! But if it’s Mum’s dying wish that no one knows, then I must keep the secret for her sake.
On our way back to Blountmere Street, the weather breaks, with evil clouds unleashing their pent up fury in a slanting curtain of rain and hailstones that ricochet off the sidecar and the canvas top Mum’s fastened over us. Like bullets, they strike at the windscreen and windows and at Dad’s face until he is forced to stop and take shelter under a tree.
Condensation mixed with rain drips on to my head and shoulders. It increases to a downpour, as Dad removes our cover. His face is inflamed from the hail onslaught and his eyes that seemed to have widened during the holiday have shrunk back to small discs. ‘Where’s the bleedin’ map?’ he demands of Mum.
‘We don’t have one.’
‘What d’you mean, we haven’t got one?’
‘You tore it up.’
Dad smashes the flat of his hand on the front of the sidecar. It rocks and we’re showered with more water. I tense. Will Mum’s health be able to withstand it, or will she collapse and die before the journey ends?
‘And whose fault was that, eh – whose fault? Couldn’t you have thought to have bought a new one.’
I shiver, hug my knees and watch as the water washes away the illusions of the past week.
Chapter Six
Since I found out about Mum’s terrible sickness I can’t concentrate on anything. I’ve begun having nightmares and I have to force myself to eat. My head is full of questions.
Did she catch it or has she always had it? How come it’s got worse, and why haven’t I noticed before? I’m too frightened to think of what will happen when she dies. Angela didn’t tell the kids in the playground whether people with the disease that Mum has die in pain. How will either of us bear it! What will happen to me when I’m left alone with Dad?
I ache to talk to someone. I consider telling Tony, but he’s taken up with Fred and Lori. Apparently, while we were on holiday, they announced their engagement and they’re getting married soon. Tony’s going to be Fred’s best man and Angela is being their bridesmaid. I suppose it’s the most exciting thing that’s happened to Tony. He tried to tell me about it as soon as we got back to Blountmere Street, but I have to watch Mum every minute, so I raced inside before he’d had a chance to say much. He’s tried a few more times. On Tuesday when I saw him, he said something about Fred buying him a suit with long trousers, and Angela wearing a bridemaid’s dress that turns different colours. Normally, I’d be as excited as he is and we’d sit and confide on the back step. But I couldn’t think of anything to say. All my words have dried up since I saw the blood. I can’t feel anything but fear, and I don’t want to sit on the step anymore.
Anyway, how can I tell him that Mum’s bleeding from her bottom? Bottoms are things you have to pretend you don’t have when you’re talking to boys. Angela’s the one who knows all about it, but I can’t trust her. Sometimes she can be as sweet as Old Boy Barker’s special mix, at others as sour as gooseberries. I know she can’t be trusted with a secret like this. And I can’t speak to Dad. All he’d do would make a string of grunts, then open up his paper. The person I need to talk to is someone who loves Mum as much as I do.
‘So you want me to take you to Peckham High Street, is that it?’ Aunt Min looks baffled. ‘Why Peckham for Pete’s sake?’
I wish Aunt Min would lower her voice.
‘Because I want to buy a present for Mum.’ I shuffle my feet. ‘I want to buy her a … a vase.’
‘Can’t you get a vase up the High Street, or somewhere closer than Peckham?’
‘It’s a special vase. Someone … a friend at school … says you can only get them in a shop there.’
‘It’s too early for Christmas, and it’s not your mum’s birthday, so what’s it for?’
‘I just … um … want to buy her a present.’
Aunt Min’s face softens. ‘You’re a funny one, but you’ve got a lovely nature,
there’s no denying.’
I swallow down what feels like a ball of guilt. Mum has always maintained that once you set out on the slippery road of deceit, it’s downhill all the way.
‘You won’t tell Mum where we’re going, will you? It’s got to be a secret.’
‘Mum’s the word,’ Aunt Min replies, chuckling at her own pun.
‘Can we go tomorrow afternoon?’
‘Right you are.’ Aunt Min taps the side of her nose and winks. She probably thinks it makes her look sly.
I’m scared to leave Mum alone, but she seems relieved to see me go. I overhear her whisper to Aunt Min, ‘Thanks for taking the girl from under my feet. She’s driving me crackers.’
But in my bedroom I say a special prayer that she won’t die while we’re gone.
In Peckham High Street, I leave Aunt Min sitting at a red clothed table in a smoky café. She’s already begun to grumble about the price of a cup of tea nowadays.
I’m glad to be rid of Aunt Min and her breath and clothes that smell of onions.
I’m unsure which way to turn, and opt for the right. I think I remember Bill saying he worked at an upholsterers in Peckham. I hope I’ve got it right and cross my fingers behind my back to make it happen.
The street is dismal, with only a few shoppers about, mainly women. After passing several more dull shops and shoppers, I see the upholsterers I’m looking for. The shop front is scruffy with a couple of armchairs in the window. They’re brown and covered in what I remember Mum calling moquette.
Suddenly, I’m scared. My cardigan’s scratching my arms, and the elastic in my skirt is digging into my waist like a crab’s nippers.
I trip up the step, steady myself and enter the shop.
‘Excuse me, but does Bill Masters work here?’ I ask a middle-aged man in an overall he looks as if he’s been wearing since before The War. I’m using my posh voice I used when Mum and I were door knocking for Dad’s window cleaning round.
The Best in Blountmere Street (The Blountmere Street Series Book 2) Page 5