Her eyes are pale blue, the black pupils shrinking. She knows.
A heartbeat.
She can’t know, but she might have guessed. How well does Jean know you?
You shift your gaze to the poster paints on the kitchen table, the slender paint brushes and three tiny yellow balls of fluff, each stuck on to a pair of plastic claws. There’s a reel of shiny ribbon on the table, un-spooling. The twigs, from which the decorated eggs will hang, lie knobbly and dark on newspaper, a damp patch spreading beneath them. Your stomach churns again.
‘I don’t think I can do this any more,’ you whisper, burying your head in your hands. The skin smells of potato peelings.
‘Right you are.’ Her voice is brisk. Jean’s taken a fortnight’s holiday to ease you back into ‘real’ life, because Michael thinks that to be too much on your own would be unwise. They’re both watchful, anxious not to allow you near whatever brink it was you toppled over before. You’re never alone.
The chair creaks as Jean leans forward to rest a hand on her arm. ‘Tell you what, old thing, I’ll make you a cup of Nescafé and then we’ll go to the copse and pick some primroses before the kids get back, shall we? They’re perfect now, the primroses. We could dig up a few for the garden. Dad might like some too.’
You smell cigarette smoke and a faint whiff of perm solution in Jean’s hair and see the primroses shut in the boot of the Morris; bags filled with the breath of soil and roots and crinkly green leaves, petals pressed against misty plastic: creased; fragile and dying.
You drop your hands into your lap, holding them there. ‘I’d just like to walk by the river. On my own.’
Jean hesitates, cigarette between two straight fingers, elbow poised on the palm of a hand. Her eyes slide over you, up and down.
‘Just half an hour to myself, down by the river. If you could take Susie to Brownies, I’ll be back before Andy’s home.’ Fingering the pearls at your neck, you smile brightly.
You go along the river to Cock Marsh, trying to amble. Three swans glide by: a lamentation. The cows turn their heads, chewing. There are dangling catkins, rolled leaf buds like fairy cigars on the beeches and, among the trees, glossy bluebell leaves. In the distance, water rushes over the weir.
There’s a houseboat tied up by the lock so you walk towards it, although it’s not his. This one is empty for the winter. You rub at the rust on the padlock securing the door and listen, as you did that first day outside the dining room, hearing his heavy shoes on gritty boards, his sigh, your voice echoing in the uncarpeted room that smelt of damp glue and soot. He strides towards you again, huge, the top part of his overalls hanging from his waist, thick coppery hair surging at the neck of his shirt. The sudden dipping movement as he bends to his shoes, the bulk of him so close, his head near your feet, shoulder muscles shifting.
You take a breath, let go of the padlock and make yourself face towards home, walk in that direction. Watching your feet, you almost bump into Mrs Reeves stepping through her garden gate with secateurs in one hand and an empty trug over her arm.
‘My dear, how nice to see you out and about! Feeling better?’ In the March sunshine, the face powder on her jowls is dusty. ‘How about a cup of tea, it’s almost that time?’ She peers at her wristwatch as you shake your head. Before you have time to voice a reply, Mrs Reeves has put down her trug. ‘And how is that adorable daughter of yours?’
Mrs Reeves is one of Michael’s wealthiest patients. She’s been extremely generous to the children. Toy trains, dolls, even a Wendy House. You must prepare yourself to listen. Mrs Reeves shakes her head over the misdemeanours of somebody’s daughter. You have been ill for months; village life has passed by. You should catch up with things. You look up; wisps and smudges of white on the blue: clouds. The easterly wind bites.
‘And, my dear, shocking news about the Sinclair’s eldest, Ian; such a dashing young man. Have you heard? Eh?’
The prick of goose bumps on your neck and cheeks: his name.
Mrs Reeves has cocked her head to catch the reply. ‘No? Surely, Michael ...? Eh. Yes? Not long after he went out to Paris. Well, it’s a terrible tragedy, terrible tragedy.’ Mrs Reeves smacks her lips together, rummages in her pocket for a handkerchief and gives her nose a hard blow.
Your stomach has fisted. You must hold yourself very still. ‘Mrs Reeves, no, I haven’t heard.’
The springy curl of his beard at your neck, his smell of turps and sweat; my darling, he sighs at your ear – but when you glance over your shoulder there is just grass in the breeze; cows ripping at it.
Mrs Reeves wipes her nose thoroughly, shoving the handkerchief up each nostril. ‘Well, yes, my dear. That contraption he rode around on, his “scooter”. And the roads in Paris – well, I don’t know if you’re familiar—?’
In your ears, the boom of blood. You shake your head, tasting metal.
‘His mother would be very grateful if you were to call in, eh? I’m sure it would be a great comfort for her, my dear.’
‘Tell me—’ you enunciate each word with care ‘—what happened.’ It sounds like an order. You put your hand to the flint wall. ‘I mean, pardon me, Mrs Reeves. Please. I haven’t heard—’
‘Well, it was right in the centre of Paris. You knew he went over to teach art out there? Delightful city, but my dear, the traffic! And he was knocked off the—’
Fierce as labour, the pain has you hunched, pressing a hand against the rough tweed of your skirt. ‘He’s dead?’
‘Oh no! No, he did come out of the coma, finally – such an ordeal for his poor mother. She was quite exhausted by it all. But now, of course, they want a second opinion, because they’re saying he’ll never walk again and as for his painting—’
Your legs are numb but you’re stepping for the last time into the tiny space that rocks as he ducks through the doorway behind you and there’s liquid movement, bright with the sun pouring in through windows on three sides and ripples of light on the ceiling, reflections from the water, the air dancing with dust motes on streaming rays of light, canvases stacked against a wall, the floor splashed with crimson paint, his beard thick with its reddish glints, the white line across the back of his neck where his hair’s been cut. He’s asking about the children and wiping his hands on an old cloth, his fingers with the blond hairs above and below the joint; he lifts a hand to your cheek. He’s asking again, cajoling. Paris: a glimpse of yourself, washing at a basin under the slope of an attic room – a low bed, canvases – but the children ... Your ears thrum with the sudden fog of absence. You turn and tear along the towpath towards the weir, stumbling on the hummocky grass, choking, hand to your mouth.
Chapter 7
‘It’s me, Mum.’ I kick the front door closed and let my satchel thud to the floor. A pile of post is spread across the doormat. I’d better pick it up.
‘Mum?’
The house is cold. Today Mrs Spencer pointed her cane to the globe and told us more snow was coming from Siberia. If you live in Siberia you have a fur coat and hat and log cabin on the Siberian plateau. Most probably, the bear that holds the coats in Grampy’s house is a Siberian bear.
She must be in bed again.
Utterly worthless. It’s our favourite saying, me and Hugh.
I tread on the heel of first one shoe then the other, flattening them, wriggling my feet out. Then I tread on the toes of my socks until they’re wrinkly on the hall carpet. I scramble up the stairs on all fours making as much noise as possible.
The door to their bedroom is closed. There’s an icy draught across the lino. I put an ear to the wood and my hand on the doorknob and then something happens. Something weird in my head makes me stop. Like trying to remember a dream.
No bag in the hall; Father must be out. I knock on the door. Nothing. I open it. Freezing wind from Siberia rushes in through the open windows and the net curtains rise up in the air. The bed is tucked in and neat.
I shut the windows and sit on the big bed, hands on the candlewick tufts. Bouncing gently
, I watch my reflection in the mirror on the wardrobe bounce too. Today is ...
This week I am Register Monitor so I missed writing the date in my exercise book because I was collecting all the registers from all the classrooms to take to the headmaster’s office.
Yesterday was Captain Scarlet and Mysterons on telly, so today is ...
I’m too hungry to think.
The wardrobe is stupendous, like a monster alien landed on the flowery carpet. It has four doors that are dark and shiny as beetle wings. Along the very top wood is carved in swoops and curves like stag beetle antlers. The panels on all four doors have swoops and curves too.
I’m not allowed in here by myself.
I stop bouncing and move to the end of the bed, away from the wardrobe, but it’s still there, its four big dark doors reflected in Mummy’s dressing-table mirrors.
Once we played Sardines and I shut myself in the wardrobe. I hid underneath Mum’s fur coat. It was covered with a plastic bag that rustled. The fur was silky and smelt of mothballs. There was a leather smell too. I pushed both hands into a wobbly pair of high-heeled shoes. Green shoes, to go with the dark-green ballgown she wears to hospital dinner dances, when she wears the furry scarf thing with its rows of tails.
I bounce, slide off the edge of the bed, roll across the floor and jump up like in The Magnificent Seven. I pull open two of the wardrobe doors: white shirts, sleeves sharp; dark jackets and trousers. Horrible hospital smell. One brass pole on the inside of the door has ties in lots of colours. Two brass poles along the bottom of the wardrobe have a line of shoes in pairs.
The black telephone by the bed begins to ring. I am not allowed in here. The ringing stops. It leaves a space in the air. I slam the wardrobe door – a puff of mothball smell – and run out of the room, throwing a leg over the banisters, sliding down.
The telephone rings again.
I stand at the bottom of the stairs.
I’ll go to Grampy’s, get fish and chips for tea like we did last week. Money in the bus-money box on the tallboy: lots of shillings and sixpences. Tipping coins into my hands, I fill all my pockets, shorts and blazer.
The newspaper package of fish and chips is hot and a bit wet. I won’t unwrap it. I’ll save them until I get to Grampy’s.
I switch on the light. The kitchen table is cluttered with stuff.
‘Only me, Grampy!’
The tea-plate with yesterday’s slice of chocolate cake, not even a bite gone. Next to the teapot under its cosy, another plate. Toast and marmalade. Water in a Pyrex bowl covered with a tea towel. A Vick smell. Half a cup of tea, gone yucky.
‘Gramps?’ I call down the dark hallway.
Raw liver-and-kidney from a half-opened tin of cat food mixes with the Vick. It makes me cough into my hand. I run to the front room: empty. The bedroom: empty. Greenhouse? I knock over the metal watering can.
The damp newspaper package of fish and chips is still squashed under my blazer. Pushing the toast plate to one side, I put it on the kitchen table. The smell – another cough, splattering spit into my hand.
Sindy the cat squeezes through the half-open door, meows round the licked-clean bowl. I finish opening the tin, scrape out jellied spoonfuls that Sindy gulps as they wobble into the bowl.
The grandfather clock in the hallway chimes half past five.
Now.
My head’s a muddle. My gut hurts from hunger. I should set the table. Clear it first.
I stack plates and cups on the draining board, leaving the special chocolate cake on its flowery plate for Grampy’s pudding. The table’s sticky. A cloth, grey and crispy-dry, hangs on the tap. I rinse it under hot water, squeeze, rinse again. I get out two plates and the knives and forks. I look at the kitchen table and the newspaper package. My tummy bubbles.
Perhaps it’s Grampy’s day for visiting Granny Clementine.
I can’t wait any longer.
The chips are good, fat and floury in the middle. I scrape slimy black fish-skin into the bin, put a bowl over Grampy’s plate of fish and chips, a clean tea towel from the drawer over the chocolate cake.
Big trouble I’ll be in – they must have told me where they were all going to be. They must have told me where I was supposed to go. Only I wasn’t listening. I keep trying to fill the gap in my head. Telly, I think, but the two empty chairs in the front room and grey ash in the grate are all wrong.
Back home, the telephone is ringing.
Where is she? She said she’d be in when I got home – and Auntie Jean. Yes, today they were decorating eggs. We were going to do some after school, when Susie got home from Brownies. At breakfast, she showed me the jelly stuff that she’d blown from the eggs into a mug.
The inside of my nose hurts with the cold. I’ll light the fire – it’s laid up ready. But then I’m upstairs again, looking at my face in the wardrobe mirror. All that the mirror is really, is glass with silvery paper behind, that’s all. Utterly worthless. It’s not what it looks like.
This time, Mum’s side of the wardrobe.
Hands on the metal handles, I open both doors at once and the first thing is mothball air. The second is a shiny pole, with wooden coat hangers clacking like Susie’s castanets. No coloured sundresses, no furry sleeves of coats, no tweed skirts. Two shiny poles along the bottom. No gardening shoes, no high-heeled ball shoes, no beach shoes; no nothing.
Inside, the wood is not shiny like the outside. Normally it doesn’t matter. Wardrobes are usually full of stuff. A wardrobe is only empty when it’s in the shop, brand new. Or when someone dies.
I climb into the box-space to make it not empty any more.
I wrap my arms around my knees so I’m all crumpled up. My chest is filling with something like hard pebbles. I think about closing the doors to keep the mothball smell in here too and then staying here in the dark until
until
but
I get to the window. Open it; hang out, mouth wide open, coughing up the dry, cold air.
The telephone rings. I run downstairs.
On the kitchen table are two painted eggs, paints and some yellow chicks. On the stove are hard potatoes in a saucepan of water. Muddy potato peelings in the sink colander. The refrigerator hums.
I wait on the bottom stair by the kitchen doorway, biting my knuckles.
The telephone rings again.
In the toilet under the stairs I cough and spit over the lavatory pan, insides kicking, but nothing comes up. I wipe my mouth on a bit of crispy Izal paper. All of a sudden I feel so tired I have to rest my head on the cool white. I crawl back to the bottom stair. Chin on my knees. My lungs lift and fall, my heart bangs.
The telephone rings. Lots of times.
After a little time it gets like being on the river in Grampy’s boat, floating between two sets of trees and two skies. My head’s all empty, gliding like a swan. The house round me is cold and dark as icy water.
A key in the lock.
Father stoops in the doorway with his bag, trilby and mackintosh with damp splatters across the shoulders, hair over his forehead. My eyes can see in the dark. Father lifts a hand to his hat; I leap. An animal screech. Father’s hands fly to his face.
‘Good God!’ He gasps as I land on his chest. He staggers back against the still-open door, his head cracking on the edge. Scrabbling up from the floor, I can smell his armpit sweat. Father’s hands, one on each shoulder, hold me at arm’s length.
‘It’s you. Good God, Andy. What are you doing, sitting here in the dark?’
‘Where is she? Where’s Mum? Where’ve you sent her?’ I leap up and down.
‘Andy, Andy.’ Father’s voice is calm, his arms holding my body against his.
SHE’S DEAD. The words are in my head, written in capitals. Father has killed her. He has made her kill herself.
She’s dead. The Voice.
‘Andy, what has got into you? Of course she’s not dead.’
Father grips me, but I am thrown over the bridge into the icy river
dark.
The ice was seven inches thick.
Father sinks to the floor, holding me with him against his mac and its smell of shut doors in corridors. I open my eyes and see over his shoulder, through the open front door. More Siberian snow is falling. Big white flakes. One or two green leaves poke up. The path is white.
Easter, not Christmas, but it’s snowing, white.
I’m sinking into snow-white feathers.
‘Andy! Wake up.’ Father’s voice is a long way away, a long way down. I hear him from the sky. ‘Andy, can you hear me?’
A gentle shake; my head rolls.
‘Let’s get you warm.’
He heaves himself up from the floor, carrying me, pushes the front door shut with a foot. ‘Where on earth is your mother?’
On the settee, a velvet cushion behind my head.
‘—get you warmed up. You’re frozen—’
A circular hole cut into the ice.
A match flares. Newspaper balls ripple with red. Father’s face flickers with orange.
‘Why on earth didn’t anyone answer the telephone?’ Father’s on his knees beside the settee, the fire throwing orange into the room behind him. A blanket is laid over me, my body rubbed; words, voices.
The easiest way to draw a crowd.
My legs are treacle.
‘Jean found him on the kitchen floor and took him straight to hospital, this afternoon.’ Father’s words.
I struggle up. My mouth won’t work.
‘He’ll be fine. He’s having assistance with his breathing now. Why is the house so cold? In darkness? Where on earth is your mother?’
The crack of kindling; the sooty chimney smell; the rub of rough blanket on bare skin, my legs; Father talking in questions: it all goes small and far away from me.
The telephone rings and Father goes out to the dark hallway to answer it. From the settee, I watch his head dip down, close to the receiver. It must be a secret. His voice is so quiet, I can’t make out the words.
And now I will begin my dance with death.
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