The House of Women

by Alison Taylor

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Weird!’ Phoebe wrapped her hands around the tumbler. ‘Like something in a horror film, metamorphosing into something else. She’s as high as a kite, jittery as hell, falling over her own feet, dropping things, laughing like a hyena one minute and weeping buckets the next, and saying she feels better than she’s done for years.’

  ‘I think Dr Ansoni should at least know she’s stopped the tablets.’

  ‘So do we, but Mama said she’d be wasting her time and his, because she can’t avoid the withdrawal.’ She took a gulp of lemonade. ‘Annie and I had a chat while she was out earlier, and we’ve decided to monitor the situation, because Annie agrees with me that Mama’s been more real in the last few days than we’ve ever known.’

  ‘Real?’ McKenna asked, drinking the ice-cold liquid.

  ‘“Real” as in “here”, a real live person instead of a half-dead one. You can’t know what I mean because you’ve never seen her at her worst, when she was so spaced out she couldn’t even focus her eyes, let alone concentrate. She did a lot of weeping then, too, only she didn’t seem to realize. In fact, she wasn’t aware of anything much. She’d wander round the house, muttering to herself, and moving so slowly you’d swear she was wading through sludge. She said her body felt heavy and droopy and stiff at the same time, and her back and all her joints ached, so she could sympathize with Uncle Ned over that much, at least.’

  ‘They were using drugs from the same chemical family, albeit for a different purpose,’ McKenna said. ‘They cause stiffness in the joints because of the way they act on the central nervous system.’

  ‘I told her that, you know, and I told Uncle Ned his sleeping tablets were making him ache even more.’ She ran her finger around the edge of the glass, scowling. ‘And I absolutely hate being proved right all the time! It seems like I know more than I should.’

  ‘So how did you know?’

  ‘Asking questions, as usual,’ she replied, the scowl falling victim to humour. ‘Annie had a general anaesthetic last year to have an impacted wisdom tooth pulled, and afterwards, she ached so much she could hardly move because of the drugs she’d had to relax her muscles. So I borrowed Uncle Ned’s university library card to mug up on the drugs swilling through my family’s veins, as it were, and I could’ve saved myself the trouble, for all the notice either of them took.’

  ‘Don’t judge their weaknesses too harshly,’ McKenna said. ‘You’ll despise yourself if you discover some of your own.’

  ‘With our track record, it’s a case of when, not if.’ She chuckled. ‘We’re a real genetic mess.’

  ‘It could skip your generation. Gladys said Bethan has the same colouring as her mother, even though Annie’s dark like you.’

  ‘Bethan looks like her father. He’s tall and thin and fair. She’ll be quite tall, I imagine. Her legs and arms are long already.’

  ‘I didn’t realize you knew him,’ he said, the knot retying itself in his innards.

  ‘Of course we know him! He’s a teacher in Llandudno. He was engaged to Annie for yonks, and she broke it off when she found she was having Bethan.’

  ‘Why?’

  Phoebe shrugged. ‘I suppose it made her wonder if she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. People say a crisis concentrates the mind, don’t they?’

  ‘Are they still in touch?’

  She nodded. ‘It’s all very civilized. He’s gone to the zoo with them today, and he’d marry Annie tomorrow if he got the chance, but as far as she’s concerned, he’s history.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘When George came on the scene last year, I told Annie I’d quite like him for a brother-in-law, but she said he’s a non-starter, and I don’t think it’s because he’s black, ’cos she’s not given to that sort of prejudice. I know they like each other as friends, but there’s none of that gut-wrenching stuff they’d need for marriage.’

  ‘Then perhaps you could save him for yourself,’ McKenna suggested. ‘If you start his training now, he could be well to heel by the time you’re old enough to marry.’

  ‘I don’t fancy him either, even though he’s so gorgeous-looking. We’d never have more than a cerebral relationship.’

  ‘Aren’t you rather too young for that kind of decision-making?’

  ‘Not really,’ she said airily. ‘I know what I like in a man. You must be quite fanciable, especially for someone of Annie’s age.’ Smiling broadly, she added: ‘Did you know your hair’s going a bit grey at the sides?’

  ‘You’re very observant.’

  ‘I’m very cheeky, too. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to annoy you. It’s because you remind me of Uncle Ned in so many ways it seems OK to say whatever comes into my head. You make my imagination work like he did, too.’ She paused, reviewing her words. ‘That doesn’t sound quite right, does it? Why won’t words ever say what you mean?’

  ‘You managed very well in your essay.’

  ‘That’s different.’ She drained her glass, and began making patterns in a ring of condensation on the table top. ‘Some days, I feel so miserable and scared I want to die, then on others, I feel wonderfully strong and powerful, especially when I’m writing, even though it’s such hard work.’ She looked up, eyes dark with concentration. ‘And I think everyone feels the same inside, but either they don’t understand, or being more than one person gets too frightening, so they take to drink, or drugs, or sex, or anything that’ll stop them being alone with themselves. I sometimes wonder if Mama simply let the sad Mama take over.’

  ‘Whatever gifts you have came in part from her, you know.’ Lighting his first cigarette, he went on: ‘And perhaps she blotted out the reality of the world she lived in because she saw something nearer to her heart’s desire, and knew it was just out of reach, whereas you can move between the two as and when you like. For all you know, she might have similar perceptions and impulses, but not the ability to make use of them.’

  ‘Uncle Ned would’ve said she couldn’t perfect the art of escape or achieve the art of revelation.’

  ‘And insight can be excruciatingly painful, which is perhaps why people are so reluctant to admit to it. Drink and drugs and sex at least blur the outlines of harsh reality.’

  ‘I suppose that’s what’s wrong with the professor.’ She dried the table with the cuff of her shirt, and watched McKenna despoil the pristine ashtray with a tube of grey ash. ‘I think your inner life is the one that really matters, and it’s a terrible waste not to live it, but I suppose you can’t if you’re afraid of yourself.’ She picked up his lighter, tracing her fingers over the engraved initials. ‘I watch little Bethan, wondering

  what she knows and what she’ll remember of now, because even though I’m nowhere near grown up, I can hardly remember being her age, and I don’t know how I learned all the things in my head. Uncle Ned thought we start learning by looking outwards, referring everything back to our body, and he said most people stop when they know enough to get by, because after that, you have to look inwards, and that’s the hard part. But it’s the best part, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s your inner space,’ McKenna said. ‘As infinite as outer space, but even more exciting and mysterious because you have your own sun and moon and stars.’

  Her eyes gleamed. ‘But it can get scary, especially if you’re not sure you aren’t batty to start with! I wish I had an “off” switch in my head, sometimes, so I won’t drive myself completely into the ground. I got really psyched up when I realized I could sort of see sounds, or hear colours, but George said it’s not unusual if you’re trying to develop your faculties.’ She put the lighter back on the table, and sat back, folding her arms. ‘We had a really interesting discussion about whether a person’s height, or size, or whatever determines their assessment of the world. Do long-sighted people see more than short-sighted ones, for instance, but miss the small details, or do big people feel more than small ones?’ She grinned at him. ‘Your eyes are glazing over.’

&nb
sp; ‘I’ve had a busy day, and at my age, you begin to feel it.’

  ‘Annie said I can talk the hind legs off a herd of donkeys. You should tell me to shut up, you know, ’cos I’ll go on for ever if you let me.’ Unfolding her arms, she rose, and switched on the kettle. ‘I’ll make a pot of tea. Mama should be back any minute.’

  ‘What time is the professor due?’

  ‘About half-seven.’ She pulled a face.

  ‘Will Annie be back by then?’

  ‘Dunno.’ She counted four tea-bags into the pot, and felt the side of the kettle. ‘They might have a meal out. Bethan likes going to a burger bar, even though I keep telling Annie she’s running the risk of Bethan ending up like Auntie Gertrude.’

  He felt what people always describe as someone walking over their grave, and shivered despite himself.

  Phoebe watched him. ‘You shy away from some thoughts, don’t you?’

  ‘The picture you paint isn’t very pleasant.’

  ‘It’s a possibility. We never know what might happen.’

  ‘That isn’t always exciting.’

  ‘I suppose not.’ Steam began to force its way from the kettle, and brewing the tea, she added: ‘But it’s better to look on the really black side so you can recognize the other when you see it. If you’re never miserable, for instance, you’ll never know when you’re happy, and, more to the point, you won’t value the happiness when it’s there.’

  Edith suddenly appeared at the back door, a dress-shop bag over one arm, the cat struggling under the other. Jumping to his feet, McKenna almost upset the lemonade glass.

  She smiled vaguely at him, then dropped the fretful animal to the floor. ‘What have you done to the poor lamb?’ she demanded of her daughter. ‘He was trying to climb on to the roof.’

  ‘I shut him out the back because he was lying in the road earlier.’

  ‘Was he? Oh, dear!’ Sinking into a chair, she rummaged in her pocket for cigarettes, and as McKenna offered his own, said: ‘I do hope he’s not getting silly with age.’

  ‘Maybe he’s got the feline version of BSE,’ Phoebe offered, pouring tea into three mugs.

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous!’ Edith snapped. ‘You and Annie are obsessed with this BSE thing!’

  ‘With Auntie Gertrude around, it’s hard not to be.’

  Drawing hard on her cigarette, hands trembling, Edith said: ‘Did Ned say Gertrude had human BSE?’

  ‘No.’ Phoebe put the mugs on the table. ‘He said she was always a bit more odd than the rest of them.’

  ‘Quite.’ She knocked ash from her cigarette, and turned to McKenna. ‘Did Gladys tell you what happened to her sister?’

  ‘Not really. Annie told me about the little girl who died.’

  ‘She was called Louisa,’ Phoebe stated. ‘I’ve seen her grave. She died from consumption.’

  ‘TB,’ Edith said, irritation in her voice. ‘And it’s not in the least romantic, the way novels pretend. That child had a savage, lingering death, and it turned poor Gertrude’s mind. She’s the way she is because of grief and guilt and family weakness, and not because of anything else.’

  Phoebe sat down, wafting away the cigarette smoke. The cat jumped on her lap, nuzzled her bare arm and made her smile, while Edith talked on. ‘I do wonder if we weave stories around the realities simply to make them less horrific and more palatable. Gertrude’s had a dreadful life, very little of it her own doing.’

  ‘Uncle Ned said once somebody has bad luck, they can expect more,’ Phoebe offered, ‘because they’re being pursued by the world of the dead.’

  ‘“Uncle Ned said” is like a mantra for you, isn’t it?’ Edith commented. ‘And it rhymes with dead. And I’m not being nasty,’ she added, as Phoebe’s face threatened to crumple into misery. ‘I was making an observation.’ Drawing on her cigarette, she turned again to McKenna. ‘Gertrude was a real beauty in her youth, you know.’ As he thought of the human wreck he had kept company with the day before, she went on: ‘And she was bright too, even though she was given to flights of fancy at times. With that, and the family’s money, she could have taken her pick of the local gentry.’ She paused to drink. ‘Everyone expected her life to go from one good thing to something better.’ Glancing at her daughter, she added: ‘And you can stop rolling your eyes like that. All most parents want for their children is peace and happiness, in that order, as you might discover one day.’ Then she asked McKenna: ‘Was your father in the war? Gertrude’s father was exempt from call-up because of the farm, and I’ve always had the impression they felt the walls of Llys Ifor would protect them from the destruction that touched other families, even in that neck of the woods. Some of the village men never came back from the war, and of course, several people were maimed by the stuff they handled at the explosives factory.’ Rather abruptly, she stopped speaking, and looked at him, a hectic quality in her eyes. ‘D’you want to hear all this? I don’t know how long you’ve been waiting, but Phoebe’s probably exhausted you already.’

  ‘Please, go on,’ McKenna said, smiling.

  ‘You can’t stop now,’ Phoebe insisted. ‘You’ve never told me about Auntie Gertrude before.’

  ‘Because it’s not really our business,’ Edith said. ‘I’m telling you now to stop this BSE nonsense.’ She paused again. ‘During the war, there was an internment camp near Bala, like the one on the Isle of Man. Enemy aliens and conscientious objectors were sent there, and later, a few prisoners of war. Gladys says the government stockpiled poison gas in the mountains, too.’

  ‘It’s probably still there,’ commented Phoebe, ‘leaking. That’s why so many people have cancer.’

  Edith stared at her. ‘You could be right, actually, but no-one will ever admit to it.’ She sighed. ‘The internees had to work for their keep, and in 1942, a young Italian prisoner of war was sent to the farm. Ned said he was like a latter-day slave.’

  When she paused again, to draw breath and tobacco smoke into her lungs, Phoebe touched her arm. ‘Go on, Mama. What happened?’

  ‘Gladys remembers him well, even though they couldn’t say much to each other. In those days, she could hardly speak English, and he obviously couldn’t speak Welsh.’

  ‘How old was he?’ Phoebe demanded, hugging the cat. ‘Was he handsome?’

  ‘I don’t know how old he was, and I don’t know if he was handsome, but Gladys says she found him sweet and very kind.’

  ‘What was he called?’

  ‘Luigi. Luigi Gianniazzi. He and Gertrude fell head over heels in love with each other, and when her father found out, he told the authorities.’ She ground out her cigarette. ‘So Luigi disappeared, and Gertrude never saw him again. She tried to find him after the war, but nobody would tell her anything.’

  ‘Oh, what a wicked thing to do!’ Phoebe said. ‘She must have really hated her father.’

  ‘He was trying to protect her from her own wilfulness. She had no future with someone from an enemy country, as Luigi was then, and no-one could possibly know at the time how the war would end.’

  ‘It’s still awful.’ Phoebe snivelled, her tears making the cat flinch as they dripped on to his back.

  ‘There was worse to come,’ Edith added. ‘Gertrude was pregnant, and when the people in the village found out, they called her a wanton. She became a virtual prisoner in Llys Ifor.’

  ‘They were wicked, too!’ Phoebe said through her tears.

  ‘Were they?’ Edith wondered. ‘I don’t know. They felt cheated and deceived. Gertrude’s hopes and prospects didn’t only belong to her, you know, and with a baby on the way, she had neither.’

  ‘Is that why you went ballistic when Annie was pregnant?’ asked Phoebe. ‘Were you scared of history repeating itself?’

  ‘Something like that, yes.’ Edith nodded, her eyes darting from her daughter to her visitor. ‘And I wish you’d extend your vocabulary a little. Ballistic is one of your “words of the month”, isn’t it? Still, I suppose it’s an improvement on the other one
, although I’ve yet to decipher what apeshit actually means.’

  Phoebe blushed, and while McKenna stifled a laugh, Edith rattled on. ‘I don’t think the past will lose the power to hurt as long as Gertrude draws breath, but Gladys probably won’t mind if you talk about it occasionally.’ She reached for another cigarette. ‘She’d probably show you the wooden chest Luigi made for Gertrude. He must have been very clever with his hands because it’s almost a work of art, carved all over with the kind of shapes and patterns you find in old Italian churches.’

  ‘What’s in it?’ Phoebe asked.

  ‘Keepsakes, I suppose. Perhaps even love tokens and letters, and I think that’s where Gladys put Louisa’s little clothes after she died.’ She smiled at her own daughter, and ruffled her hair. ‘You know those two caskets of Uncle Ned’s? Luigi made those from a big branch which came off one of the oak trees in the field during a storm.’ She fell silent, chewing her bottom lip. ‘We really must see about sorting out Ned’s things, and I’m sure he made a will, even though nobody knows where it is. We’ll have to ask Gladys about the books, because George wants to carry on with Ned’s work if possible.’

  ‘How d’you know?’ McKenna enquired.

  ‘I saw him when I walked up from town,’ Edith said. ‘I noticed him from quite a long way off. He does rather stand out from the crowd, doesn’t he? And not because he’s black, although we don’t see many black people around here for some strange reason. Anyway, we had quite a pleasant chat, which is why I was so long. I’m so glad you had the sense to let him go.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me!’ Phoebe wailed. ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ McKenna said. ‘It slipped my mind.’

  ‘Don’t speak to Mr McKenna like that. I expect you’ve been talking so much he couldn’t get a word in.’ Smiling gently to take the sting from her words, Edith added: ‘I think he wants to talk to me, so perhaps you could find something to do for a while.’

  ‘Like what?’ Phoebe asked, her mouth drawn down at the corners. ‘There’s nothing to do. I’m bored.’