by Rosie Thomas
They passed the end of Denebank and Alexander stopped the car further away, in another street. Alexander drove an unremarkable, mud-splashed estate car, but Julia felt his tact.
‘I’ll wait for you,’ he promised.
Julia got out and slowly retraced the way to Denebank. She felt conspicuous as she turned into her mother’s street, as conspicuous as she had done in Felix’s car and without the polished shelter of it. The two or three people that she passed looked blankly at her. It seemed a long way to number sixty. When she reached it she went up the path, past the broken-down metal fence, and knocked on the door. She had only a moment to stare at the splitting wood under the flakes of old paint before it opened. Margaret Rennyshaw must have been waiting in the hallway.
They looked at each other, greedy, defensive, eager and appraising all at once. No one seeing them together would have guessed at their relationship, but Julia and Margaret knew immediately that there was no mistake. Julia was Margaret’s daughter, as incontrovertibly as Lily was her own.
‘You’d best come in,’ Margaret said in her husky voice. ‘We don’t want the whole street knowing our business, do we?’
Julia followed her in and the door closed behind her.
Beyond the hallway was a front room, filled up with a three-piece suite in black leatherette with red piping and a big television set. On a low coffee table with upcurved ends two cups were laid out with chocolate biscuits arranged in a fan-shape on a chrome dish.
In this enclosed space they could look at each other. Julia saw dark hair like her own, only seamed with grey. She saw a strong face with deep lines running from nose to mouth, dark eyes that had begun to fade with age, a body that was indeterminately shaped under a colourless jumper and skirt. She had imagined herself comparing their features, cataloguing the precious similarities that would prove their relationship, finding triumphantly that their hands or their mouths were the exact same shape. She was dismayed, now, to find that there was no need to do so. Their features were different, but the underlying physical resemblance was clear. Her mother looked an older, wearier version of herself, or as she might have become already if she had been different, less lucky.
Until the last moment, Julia thought with a wry sadness, she had clung to the romantic dreams. It was only now that the rosy clouds finally drifted away.
‘Let’s get a look at you,’ Margaret said. And after a moment, ‘You look fine.’
‘And you too,’ Julia answered. ‘So do you.’
‘Sit down, then,’ Margaret ordered. ‘I’ll make a cup of coffee.’ She was formal, as if Julia had come from some authority to inspect the life that she shared with Mr Davis. She went out into the kitchen, leaving Julia to look around her, and came back very quickly. Julia sat with her cup and saucer balanced on her lap. A chocolate biscuit that she didn’t want was thick and sticky in her mouth.
‘I’m sorry about the state of the place,’ Margaret began. Julia glanced around her, noticing for the first time that the embossed wallpaper was stained, and ripped away in places. The orange and brown patterned carpet was threadbare, and from the worn patches in it it appeared that it had come from another, bigger room. ‘Only Eddie’s had some money problems over the years. We haven’t got ourselves straight, yet.’
Julia felt the exhaustion and the hopelessness of the street outside creeping in, and lying heavy in her mother’s house.
‘It’s a nice room,’ she lied. Margaret didn’t waste her energy in contradiction. She lit a cigarette, inhaled, then tapped the non-existent ash in her saucer. She looked at Julia under lowered eyelids through the smoke. Then she smiled. The smile made her seem warmer, and suddenly familiar, then Julia realised that it was because it was like her own. There would be other similarities that would catch at her too. This was what it meant. This was what she had come looking for. A confirmation of where and what she had sprung from.
The sense of circularity came back to her.
‘Funny, isn’t it?’ Margaret said slowly. ‘We don’t know each other. Don’t know anything. Where do you start, after you’ve said you’re sorry?’
Julia moved closer to her. The damp palms of her hands stuck to the black sofa.
‘Don’t be sorry. Don’t let either of us be sorry, right from now.’
Margaret nodded. ‘But I was sorry, then. Didn’t you think I was? I didn’t want to let you go. I cried, more than I’ve ever cried for anything since. They left you with me for a day after you were born. I held you, and looked at you. Then they came and took you away. I could have stopped them, couldn’t I? I often thought, after, that I could have.’
‘No,’ Julia said firmly. You were too young.’
Margaret looked older than her real age now. Julia felt sad that she had never known her when she was still young, still hopeful. There was a small, lonely silence.
‘Tell me about yourself,’ Margaret said. ‘Go on. Everything, all about it.’
Julia did her best. But as she talked, she knew that she wasn’t doing it right. A divorcee, with one daughter who lived in the country with her father, wasn’t what Margaret wanted. Nor did she much want to hear about a remote job in Italy, with sick people and nuns and an unimaginable garden. Margaret sat listening, and smoking, without comment. Julia saw her glance at her earth-ingrained fingers, and her plain, faintly dated clothes. She seemed not very interested in Lily, or in Julia’s present life. If I had still owned Garlic & Sapphires, Julia thought, it would have been quite different.
‘I used to have a business, a chain of shops. But I sold them. I’ve been much happier since then.’
‘Hmm. I suppose that’s the main thing. What about your nice car?’
‘I haven’t got a car. I borrowed that one, from a friend.’ If she had still had the scarlet Vitesse, even, it would have helped. She tried to tell her some more about Montebellate, and the triumph of her gardens.
‘Well,’ Margaret said at last. ‘You’ve had the advantages, haven’t you?’
Have I? Julia thought. And wasted them? Her mother looked baffled, and disappointed. Julia almost told her that she had once been Lady Bliss, mistress of Ladyhill. Margaret would have been proud of that, as Betty had briefly been. She might be impressed too if she talked about Mattie. But Julia didn’t want to bring Mattie back here, to the estate with her, even in words.
‘It’s your turn,’ she said at last. ‘Tell me about you, now.’
Margaret turned down the corners of her mouth, gestured around the room. ‘You can see for yourself. Haven’t had much luck, have I?’
Julia felt suddenly, hotly impatient with her. ‘Why not? Tell me what got you here. Tell me about my father. Your other children.’
Her flash of irritation seemed, oddly, to enliven Margaret. She tossed her head with a touch of coquetry and lit another cigarette. ‘Your father, now. He was clever. Been to college. He was a teacher. Keen on me, he was.’ She chuckled with pleasure at the memory. ‘Dirty devil.’
Margaret must have been attractive once, Julia saw. Not pretty, any more than she was herself. But magnetic. Perhaps even beautiful. Margaret wouldn’t ever have been short of a man to keep her company, Julia guessed.
‘Why didn’t he help you?’
Margaret glanced at her. ‘Why do you think? He was married, wasn’t he?’
She told the story willingly, even with some relief. He was a teacher at the secondary modern that had been Margaret’s school until she left at fifteen. And he had lived at the other end of the same street, with his wife.
Partington Street, Julia thought. She remembered the Asian woman, and the skinhead who had shouted after Lily. The street would have been different then, in the last year before the War. It would have been a tight-knit, homogeneous community. One day, Margaret told her, on her way home from her job in a shop, she had met the teacher. They knew each other, and they were going the same way. They met again the next day, by accident, and then by arrangement. Soon they were meeting at times and in places
that were nothing to do with the walk home from work.
Margaret was looking out of the window, beyond the dismal road. ‘There was an empty house, on the way back to our street. And it was getting on for winter then. Dark by teatime. We used to slip into the old house together. No one ever knew. He used to call me his wicked little Meg. If I was wicked, it was him who taught me to be.’ Margaret laughed, a throaty, reminiscent, knowing laugh.
A not-very-bad girl, Julia thought. Half knowing, risking it. Like Mattie and me. Circles again.
‘What happened?’
Margaret shrugged. ‘What I should have known would happen, if I’d had any sense. He got another job. Moved away, before I even knew I’d fallen pregnant. He said he’d write, send for me when he’d told his wife that we loved each other. Never did, of course. And I never gave him away. My dad went mad, but I never told a soul.’
Margaret was proud of her loyalty. She had gone through what needed to be done all alone.
Julia felt no stirring of longing to know the handsome, deceiving teacher who had been her father. She felt that she knew him already, and disliked his weakness.
‘Never told a soul,’ Margaret repeated, ‘until you.’
Their eyes met. There was the first, faint stirring of a real bond between them.
‘Go on,’ Julia said softly.
As she talked, her mother seemed to soften. She told her story without the self-pity that Julia had detected at the beginning.
Within three years of the birth of her illegitimate daughter, Margaret had been married to Derek Rennyshaw, with a baby son of their own, They had had a rented house in Forrester Terrace, and Derek’s Navy pay. At home without her husband, Margaret had written her pleading letter to the adoption agency.
‘They wouldn’t tell me anything,’ she said.
‘I know.’
Julia took the folded letter out of her bag, handed it over the low table to her mother. Margaret read it, her face expressionless, and then passed it back again.
‘You see? I did try. I didn’t just let you go.’
‘I know you didn’t.’
The slack bond stirred again, like an anchor chain pulled by the tide.
After Derek’s discharge at the end of the War there had been two more children, both girls. Derek had had a good job as a long-distance lorry driver. And then he had been killed in a head-on collision with a holiday coach.
Margaret had gone out to work as a barmaid. The work suited her, but the family had hardly made their way. Much later, after uncomfortable years, she had met Eddie Davis. He was a builder, with a small company of his own. He was married too, and his wife had never divorced him. Undeterred, Margaret had moved in as Mrs Davis. There had been a brief, prosperous interval. Then Eddie’s business had collapsed.
‘He went bust. In a big way,’ Margaret said flatly. ‘That was it, then.’
Julia learned that Mr Davis was still an undischarged bankrupt. The council house, the telephone and the rented television and the hire purchase agreement on the black suite were all in Margaret’s name, as Mrs Rennyshaw.
Julia saw, and understood.
Margaret’s mouth went tight again. ‘Easy to end up with nothing, isn’t it? But Eddie’s all right. We’ve been together a long time.’
‘You didn’t have any more children?’ Julia asked, needing the history to be complete.
Margaret shook her head. ‘Four is enough for any woman.’
Julia accepted her own inclusion in the total, and accepted the weariness of the admission. She asked about her half-brother and sisters. The two girls were married. They had moved away with their husbands, one to the North and one to Plymouth. Mark was married too, but he still lived in Ilford.
The other Rennyshaws on the electoral roll, Julia remembered.
‘Mark’s a good boy,’ Margaret said. ‘He’s a gas fitter now.’
Mark was clearly the favourite child. Julia accepted that too, as she knew she must and could accept everything else about this family that was hers and not hers at all. There were seven grandchildren. She accepted that Margaret had only a little interest to spare for the unknown eighth, for Lily.
Anyway, I’ve got three grandmothers already, Julia heard Lily say. She felt an unsteadying rush of love and gratitude for her own daughter.
‘So there you are,’ Margaret finished. The softness had gone again. ‘I’m sorry I can’t give you much to be proud of. You were expecting something better.’
Once again she made Julia feel like an inspector from an unwelcome authority.
‘I wasn’t expecting anything. I’m not what you were looking for either, am I?’
Once more her directness seemed to please Margaret.
‘I’ve no right to look for anything.’ She looked down.
Their cups of coffee had gone cold on the table between them. They had been talking for nearly two hours.
Almost in a whisper Margaret added, ‘I’m glad you came. I’m grateful. It can’t have been easy for you.’
Julia glanced around the bare, chilly room. It was a room that had been given up on. As its centrepiece the chocolate biscuits arranged fanwise on a chrome dish seemed almost unbearably sad. Julia stood up abruptly and went to her mother. She put her hand on her shoulder and Margaret looked up into her face. Then Julia bent down, awkwardly half-knelt, and put her arms around her. Their cheeks touched.
‘I’m glad I found you,’ she whispered. ‘We needn’t lose each other again.’
In that moment, Julia knew that the bond between them would never grow taut. It would never be a lifeline, like hers to Lily, but it would still join them. Their acknowledgement of it over the biscuits and cold coffee, this awkward embrace, was the coda to her years of dreams. There would be no more dreams, and none of the luxury and pain of speculation, because the truth was here.
In time, Julia guessed, she would meet Eddie Davis, and be introduced to Mark and his sisters. The announcement of her existence would be a shock, but the shock would be quickly forgotten. There would be visits to Denebank, as there were to Fairmile Road, perhaps with Lily. There would be exchanges of presents at Christmas and birthdays, telephone calls at the festivals that called for family unity. The times of the year when she had dreamed of her real mother, when she had convinced herself that she was longed for in her turn.
She would be assimilated, as all truths came in the end to be assimilated. Her recognition of that, Julia thought, showed her that she wasn’t young any more. She didn’t feel much regret for youth as she knelt beside her mother’s black leatherette chair.
Margaret patted her shoulder. It was a tentative caress, as if the display of affection didn’t come easily to her. Julia nodded her head. The brief embrace was over. She stood up, went back to her own chair, but didn’t sit down.
‘I think I should go now,’ Julia said quietly. Margaret looked up, but she made no move. ‘Thank you for coming.’ She seemed exhausted. Julia was suddenly tired too. Her bones ached.
‘May I come again?’
‘Of course you can, my love.’
She had called her my love on the telephone as well, Julia remembered. It was the barmaid’s casual phrase, nothing special for herself, of course. Jessie had used the same endearment but differently. If Jessie had been my mother, Julia thought, with a moment of intense longing that she quelled immediately. She told Margaret that she mustn’t get up, turned at the door to smile at her, and let herself quietly out of the house.
She went back along Denebank, walking quickly, aware of Margaret’s stricture that the neighbours shouldn’t know all her business. As she walked, Julia’s tiredness left her. Her head came up, and she straightened her shoulders. She felt loose and light. The few people who passed stared at her, and she realised that it wasn’t because she was conspicuous, but because she was smiling.
It was relief that buoyed her up. She had the truth, and her possession of it added another dimension to her freedom. The truth was neither traged
y nor miracle, but as ordinary as life. As precious as life.
Julia turned at the corner, to look back at the street and at her mother’s house. She saw it clearly, stripped clear of the fascination and fear that had shrouded it. The outlines were all sharp, as if a summer thunderstorm had washed the dust from the city air.
She turned again and almost ran to where Alexander was waiting for her.
He was sitting in his car reading, but he closed his book as soon as he saw her. Julia slid into the seat beside him. When she looked into his face she felt another surge of love. It consumed her, and it burned up her fears. She felt brave, and sure, and grateful. Her face was as bare as the truth and she offered it humbly to him. She knew too that if he refused her now, she was finished.
Alexander leaned closer, then touched his mouth to hers.
That was all.
A moment later the traffic flowed past them, they fumbled with the mechanism of seat belts, Alexander started the car and swung the wheel. They were both smiling, dazed with their good fortune. Light danced on chrome trims and reflected into their eyes from the windows of buses. And when they looked again they saw one another as clearly as Julia had seen Denebank, without the veils of romance but with all the dust of bitterness and jealousy washed away. They had the chance to be new again, and they had learned enough to know that they must take it.
‘Tell me what happened,’ Alexander asked her.
As they drove, without much idea where they were going, Julia described her mother and the house in Denebank, and told the story that had deposited her there.
‘What do you feel?’ Alexander asked. Julia loved him again for his unobtrusive sympathy.
‘I feel relieved?’ she answered. She told him about the circularity that seemed to have brought her back to where she had begun, with Mattie, and her acceptance of those patterns of truth, at last, because she knew that she couldn’t change them.
‘I’m free,’ Julia said. ‘It’s taken a long time, hasn’t it?’