by Morag Joss
But it was many years since they had embraced each other. That was fair enough, there was no call for grown women to go around hugging and kissing each other all day, but Evelyn and her Mam had occasionally given each other a peck and a pat and it had probably done them good. But Grace had never been that kind of child.
Evelyn sighed and put down her knitting. Uncle Les looked forward to their weekly visits to him in hospital on Wednesdays, the shop’s half-day, and Grace should have shut up below and come up by now. If they had a quick early dinner they could make it to the half-past-one bus and that meant an hour and a quarter with him before all visitors had to leave at half past three. If they missed the bus going, they had barely half an hour. But more and more often Grace would slip away after shutting the shop and not come up for her dinner until it was past quarter to one. When Evelyn had asked her where she got to, all she would say was she hadn’t noticed the time. Any further questions were met with a sullen silence, not that Evelyn really needed to ask any; the smell of cigarette smoke and strong drink on her were explanation enough.
The other thing that worried Evelyn constantly was Grace’s attitude to Uncle Les. When he had first been taken ill, Grace had made it clear she didn’t care. He’s as tough as an old boot, that one. Don’t let him fool you, he’ll see you buried, she had said harshly. It was only after that first month, when he suddenly relapsed and then deteriorated, that she had begun to take any interest in how he was, wanting to know from day to day if he was out of danger or not. For about three weeks it had seemed to matter to her whether he lived or died. But then when he had been declared on the mend but facing a long, slow recovery, she lost interest again.
In fact, for the past four or five visits, she had spent at the most a few minutes at the bedside, keeping her coat on and refusing to sit down, before announcing that she was off for a walk and would come back for Evelyn at the end of the visiting hour. It was a blessing that Uncle Les had been too ill to take offence, but he was getting stronger now and Evelyn did not want him upset by Grace’s attitude. Grace just didn’t seem to recognize how much they owed to Uncle Les, and how much they still relied on his goodwill.
Just then she heard Grace’s solid tread on the stairs. Evelyn sighed again, got up, and went to the kitchen. There were potatoes to mash, and with a bit of luck the sausages in the oven wouldn’t be burnt quite to cinders.
On the bus, Evelyn squeezed into the window seat and Grace planted herself beside her, breathing hard. She sounded hot and heavy, but it was only May and there was a cool, fresh wind. Grace pulled in her breath and held it. Evelyn felt the tension in her and reached out to place a hand on her arm.
“Are you all right, love?” she said. “You sound a bit puffed.”
“I’m all right,” Grace said, shifting away from Evelyn’s touch.“Indigestion.”
“I’m not surprised,” Evelyn said with a forced chuckle. “By the time you were sat down to your dinner you’d barely five minutes to eat it.”
Grace had no reply to that and they travelled on in silence. The bus dropped them at the hospital gates. It was at least another five minutes’ brisk walk across the hospital grounds and down several echoing corridors to the Respiratory Diseases ward. Evelyn knew better than to take Grace’s arm so as usual she kept at her side by concentrating on the sound of Grace’s feet, waving her white stick to and fro ahead of her as she went. Today, Grace’s loud breathing mixed with the sound of her footfall. Her indigestion did seem to be troublesome. Maybe this would teach her not to cut it so fine on Wednesdays in future. Evelyn was about to suggest that she really needed to give herself a bit longer to digest her meal when Grace stopped dead.
Evelyn was alarmed. “Grace, what’s up? Are you all right?”
There was silence for a moment. “Aye, stop fussing, it’ll pass,” Grace growled. From the direction of her voice Evelyn knew she was either crouching on the ground or doubled over. “It’s just a stitch in my side.”
Sure enough after a short while Grace said brightly,“Come on, then. Let’s get it over with.”
“Oh, Grace, you are unkind about your uncle,” Evelyn murmured. But she was pleased that Grace sounded more like herself, even if it had to be a rather short-tempered self.
They reached the ward after the usual squeaky walk along the polished linoleum floors and brick-lined corridors. When they got to the bedside Grace muttered that Uncle Les was asleep. She almost pushed her mother into a chair and said she would be back at half past three. Evelyn opened her mouth to protest, but changed her mind. It might not be such a bad idea if Grace took herself off, since she was clearly in a nasty mood. She didn’t quite trust her not to make a scene and that was the last thing anyone wanted, especially around sick folk lying in a hospital ward.
After a minute or two, Uncle Les woke up. Evelyn knitted away, addressing remarks to him, which he answered sleepily. She was quite content not to have to make too much conversation, and she wondered to herself how many more Wednesday visits would be required. She noticed that his voice sounded stronger and he hardly coughed at all. There had been mention of a convalescent home in the countryside for a month’s recuperation, which would certainly be a difficult journey for her and Grace by bus.
When Uncle Les drifted off to sleep again she tap-tapped her way with her white stick to the end of the ward where, as she expected, a nurse came out and greeted her. Yes, she confirmed, Doctor was very pleased with Mr. Hibbert and fully expected that another week should see him strong enough to leave hospital. A spell of convalescence in a wellrun establishment such as the Maud Braddock Memorial Home for Invalids would be just the thing. A few more weeks of fresh air and not overdoing things would put him properly back on his feet. Evelyn nodded and turned to go back, waving her stick in front of her.
“I’m just due to do my rounds,” the nurse said.“Here’s my arm, if you’ll allow me?”
Without waiting for a reply she took Evelyn’s arm and tucked it cosily under her own, and led her slowly back up the ward. As they went, she spoke in a gentle voice to Evelyn about the flowers placed here and there. Mr. Crowe had orange chrysanthemums, but the lovely scent came from the simple lilies of the valley in a little vase on Mr. McIntyre’s bedside table. His wife had brought them from the garden. Evelyn squeezed the nurse’s arm.
“I had lilies of the valley for my wedding posy. Over twenty years ago. Oh, I can see that posy now! Lovely, it was.”
The nurse murmured sympathetically.
“Aye, and the wallflowers in the gardens out yonder,” Evelyn went on, “they’ve a grand smell, too. I walked past them from the gate.”
“Yes, I saw they were out. Lovely colours.”
“Aye, they’re bonny-lookin’. As I remember.” She turned and smiled at the nurse, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Oh, dear, I am sorry!” the young nurse said. “I’m so thoughtless. Only with you coming every Wednesday, I got to thinking if I couldn’t see, what I’d want would be somebody letting me know what there was to see. Then I might sort of see it in my head. Only maybe it’s not like that at all. Oh, I’m ever so sorry if I’ve offended-”
“Nay! Nay, go on with you! You’ve got it spot-on. I’m not used to it, that’s all, somebody thinking about it that way. My Grace, now, she…” Evelyn fished her handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her eyes. “She’s just not a big talker, I suppose. Well, thank you, lass,” she said. “Thank you ever so.”
They had arrived back at Uncle Les’s bed and the nurse helped Evelyn back into her chair. “You’re right welcome. You’ve another fifteen minutes,” she said. “We’ll miss you when Mr. Hibbert goes.”
Evelyn beamed. Then the nurse leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “Sister was saying your smile lights up the whole ward. You’re an inspiration, you are. Take care now.”
It seemed impossible to Evelyn that she might inspire anyone, but she went on smiling at the compliment, and turned her attention again to entertaining Uncle Le
s with snippets of news.
When Grace arrived back sullenly at a quarter to four, Evelyn was waiting for her under the porch of the entrance to the ward. It had begun to rain. Grace marched back to the bus stop so fast that Evelyn had to call out to her to slow down. Not a word was exchanged on the journey home. On the bus, Evelyn pondered the words of the nurse, wondering about the sympathy that had come from the young woman so naturally, as if she were filled with it and it overflowed. Where did it all come from? She knew it was wrong of her, but she couldn’t help hoping that even a little of something similar was lodging somewhere deep in Grace’s heart, and would come out one day. Then she immediately felt guilty. The nurse probably had a mother waiting at home ready to notice that her young daughter looked tired or troubled, or had done way, or had a new glow about her. It wasn’t Grace’s fault.
Sleep came in the end. It always does. It’s not sleep itself that’s the problem, it’s when you sleep; Arthur and I both knew well enough by now how determined people were to prevent us from sleeping at times it was inconvenient to them. But of course they couldn’t stop us any more than we could stop the dreams that came when we did.
That first night alone and waiting for him, I had a dream that began in water, dark water flickering with iridescent, darting fish, though on reflection it might have been a dark sky alive with butterflies. Whether air or water it was warm, and in it my breath softened and slowed and I swam or floated towards a bumpy-looking ledge that turned out to be the distant line between a lake and a sky just beginning to blaze with light; as I came nearer, the horizon split against the rising dome of the sun.
The dream woke me as if a torch had been shone into my eyes. I got up to get a drink of water and I stood in the kitchen listening to the kind of low noise all kitchens make, not really a sound at all. Every kitchen’s undercurrents are the same and different, and kitchens smell the same and different. Here it was milky, sweetish. I wandered out to the back garden. The fresh air rushed at me and I plonked myself down on the terrace steps. It was so cold and lovely.
I was shivering. I was in need of food, too, I realized; my stomach began to grumble. Though I knew I should go in and get warm and find something to eat, I went on sitting there, looking up at the sky. I wondered what it would be like to be in a house near running water and surrounded by mountains so that every night would be filled with flows and echoes. I could hear the emptiness up there, and it made me think of flying, not with great flapping wings but in the way the gift of flight is bestowed in a dream or by magic, when the wind streams under you and you soar without effort simply because you have been granted the belief that you can. I closed my eyes and felt myself flying close to the top of a hillside invisible in the dark but there all the same, rising from a gleaming stretch of water.
Before it grew light, and now thinking practically of Arthur’s return, I went back upstairs. I chose quickly from the wardrobe, not taking time to assess its contents carefully. The clothes were obvious, anyway: sensible, not ugly but certainly not alluring or attractive. There was something so habitual and plain about them it seemed impossible they had ever been bought new, or chosen at all, never mind with pleasure; it was difficult to discern anything in them that would cause them to be selected from among others. I put on olive green slacks, a cream sweater, and some slip-on shoes. I looked like nobody, or anybody. I didn’t mind. For years I had been heading the same way myself, towards a capitulation to the expectation that women past a certain age dress only for weather, convenience, and disguise. It was obvious to me that it had been decades since Arthur had either been asked for or offered an opinion of Ruth’s appearance.
I didn’t know when to expect him, of course. My safest course was to wait out each day in my usual way, but with extra caution; probably he would not return alone and they might barge in while I was asleep. So when dawn came, I made my way up to the attic. The air was pleasantly thick and warm. I was so tired I could have bedded down on the bare boards but I was pleased to find a pile of curtains and some rolledup rugs. I arranged them into a kind of nest and settled down, dragging a dusty white net curtain around myself so that it covered me completely. I held it to my face until it was wet and salty. Then I opened my eyes and pulled the cloth right around my head and held it taut so I couldn’t blink. I stared through its gauzy whiteness. The sun from the skylight glimmered through, a cloudy bright rectangle in the flat, milky shadow of the sloping ceiling. I breathed in and pretended I was in the countryside in a field full of flowers, looking up at the sun just after it has rained. Over the white nylon I ran a finger down my nose and over my cheeks and across my lips, which were smiling now. My musty smooth curtain was a new white skin come to cover me up so nobody would know what I was like underneath. I fell asleep, and the day passed.
When I got up again I was restless and could not settle to anything. I knew he would not come at night, but still I tried to kill time by measuring my every move in little units of anticipation, awaiting his return. I stripped his bed and changed the sheets, smoothing my hands over the pillow just where his head would, very soon I prayed, leave a soft dent. I opened the bedroom window with some funny idea that he had flown away and now he’d be able to get back in, like Peter Pan; if I were to go down to make tea, he would alight on the floor above me in the moment between my filling the kettle and opening a bottle of milk. If I counted the strokes as I brushed my hair, he would be here before I reached a hundred. If I started to sing to myself in a low voice, affecting a nonchalance I didn’t feel, it would summon him back, and the opening of the door would be the first sound to interrupt this meandering, patient song of mine.
By the next morning I was worried. I spent all day in the attic, unable to sleep. So I heard everything as I lay there: the arrival of a car, the front door opening, people talking, and after a few minutes a woman’s voice more insistent than the rest. In all the noise and movement I could not make out a sound from Arthur himself. After a while the house grew quiet again, and I slept. When I woke, I guessed it was around three o’clock in the afternoon. Maybe they had put him to bed. I thought of him in his room, wakeful, curious, perhaps still afraid. I willed him to turn over and close his eyes, not to fight sleep, and I fancied I heard a little whine, the kind an animal makes when it knows that the time for choosing to fight or to give in has passed, because either it is already defeated, or it is safe. Then I fell asleep again.
27 Cardigan Avenue
Dear Ruth
I’m back. I couldn’t wait to get back.
I’d forgive you for thinking me slow to catch on-well, I have been slow-but I’ve got it now. I’m getting to the crux of it now. I can think clearly here. You’re here, but only here. You’re nowhere else. Not in the hospital. I missed you terribly.
The hospital-it’s a zoo in there.
The ward was hellish. I came to thinking how could this get any worse-then it did. Mrs. M swooped in and perched like buzzard refusing to budge because, she said, somebody had to catch the doctor and explain the situation. She said the nurses don’t pay attention to anything these days much less pass it on to the doctors-all this according to The Great Tony. I was lucky, she said, to have an NHS insider like Tony on my case. You need somebody who can get to the right people, knows their way around the system.
She brought a book for me, something somebody had given her but it wasn’t her kind of thing. An anthology. She didn’t know till recently I was a poetry fan, she was surprised to find the house swimming in it or she’d have passed it on before.
Doctor didn’t come all morning, so finally she went. I had a squint at the book, it didn’t do anything for me either.
Poetry isn’t like water or air. You actually don’t need it to live. I can hear you disagreeing, but it’s a fact. Poetry’s more like the wine or perfume in a life. It’s nice to have, but you can get along all right without. You can manage with just having everything plain, or at least you can until you’ve acquired the taste for the more rarefi
ed, then it’s harder. But as long as you’re getting along without anything fancy, you don’t see that you’re missing much.
All right, you’re frowning at that. But that’s me. Ordinary and plain. It’s my history, I suppose. There are some histories you couldn’t squeeze a poem into sideways and that was mine, not that I’m complaining. Good people, my parents, though of course you only knew Dad and he wasn’t the same man after Mum died. All that’s history, too, in the background-nobody really remembers.
Funny word-I’m thinking about words-the background. My background-when was it? Where is it now? Overdale Lodge? Or before we met? Or after? When does anyone’s background stop and their foreground begin? We were married all those years, isn’t that a background in itself, does it blank out what came earlier, does whatever comes after meld into it and get lost, or does it stand out sharper? Maybe we’re just a fuzzy pair of figures somewhere in a painting, so small and on the edge that only we know we’re there at all. Nobody else really sees us.
But it’s still ours, our life-no matter it’s just a collection of dots in one corner of a picture, no matter we’re background figures, no matter how many people miss that we’re even there.
But you can’t set it down, not even our little life, nobody can-not in a picture, not in words.
I just wish I could.
I remember the kind of pictures you liked. The ones you said were like film sets if only they’d known how to make films then. In the Renaissance. We watched that thing on TV, remember, about how they painted them to make your eye go straight to the little golden figures cavorting about in flowers without a stitch on, and next onto the tumbling green cascades and ruins and peacocks, and then to the blue distant forests and mountains and sky. Was the order of the colours meant to calm you down or something, make you think deep thoughts? Maybe that’s the kind of background you need for poetry. Or for cavorting.