‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Dominic has moved to the bottom of the staircase to inspect the sauna’s heating controls. ‘Why do we have to do anything? What do you think we should do?’
‘The longer we keep her down here the more trouble we will have to face.’
‘How can we let her out?’ The frightened look on Camilla’s face proves that she understands the implications. ‘She’s already told us what will happen to you. They will take you away and put you in a special unit. Is that true? What if it is? How can we let her out? Why would we even want to?’
‘But we can’t keep her down here indefinitely!’
‘Why not?’ asks Dominic, with a strange little laugh. ‘No one will miss her.’
‘What about when she doesn’t turn up for work?’
‘We’ll make up excuses. We’ll say she’s gone back to her clinic, or the health farm.’
‘She would have given them prior warning.’
‘Then we’ll have to make it sound as if she is giving them warning. That’s not impossible. Camilla can do her voices, she’s brilliant at imitating Mother, and if we practised long enough we could copy her writing.’
Vanessa listens, amazed, as Camilla and Dominic sort out the details between them. They make it sound so simple, as if they are merely working out the rules of a new board game. There is no doubt that Mother can hear them, too, but she does not interrupt. There is no sound from the sauna but the low, almost indistinct hum of the heater.
What they are saying is certainly possible. They have Mother’s voice on the answerphone, so that would deal with most incoming calls. In honeyed tones the message says: ‘Caroline Heaten is unavailable just now so if you would like to leave a message followed by your number she will call you back later.’ It sounds like an invitation to the bedroom in black and white, the way it is done on very old films with fox furs, pillbox hats and shoes with little straps. They could stick with that one or they could change it. Daddy’s money goes into the bank every month and Mother carries her Access card in her handbag which is still upstairs in the drawing room exactly where she dropped it. Between them they could regularly draw out any cash they might need and Mother has accounts at all the large London stores.
Daddy pays the school fees. Bart has already been dealt with and Daddy, understandably, does everything in his power to avoid meeting Mother or speaking with her. A phone call from Camilla would satisfy the child acting agency—DOTS, which stands for Daughters On The Stage—where Mother works three days a week. She’d got the job—it did not pay well—because of her old press cuttings and publicity photographs, and because she informed them that she had ‘connections’ in the theatre. She used to tell people she enjoyed working there because it kept her in touch, but Vanessa suspects that she hates the clients… she loathes the talented kids who succeed despite her, those that gain the kind of acclaim that Mother only dreams about.
For many years Mother bullied Camilla; she tried to live out her dreams through her second daughter who was pretty and clever and natural on the stage. All the children had endured that—every single one of them, including the gauche and plain Vanessa had done their time in pantomime, and the tiny twins, led on, bewildered and snivelling, at three years old, were a triumph in Cinderella at the London Palladium. ‘RADA for Camilla,’ ordered Mother, long before the child could walk. And Camilla, obedient and sweet, pranced and simpered for Mother, plié-ed and pirouetted for Mother, went to the local dancing class and was told by the crippled prima ballerina, Ceci Koch, who ran it, ‘This child was born to dance.’ Mother glowed. Then, one day, for no apparent reason, to Mother’s rage and incomprehension, Camilla had simply refused to carry on. ‘I want to dance in my bedroom, alone.’
‘But there’s no bloody point in dancing like that. Don’t be outrageous. What is the point in dancing if no one can see you, you fool!’
‘I can see myself in my mirror,’ said Camilla.
Last year, when Camilla grew out of her leotard, when her worn-out shoes became too tight to put on, Mother refused to replace them. ‘Because there is absolutely no point,’ she said grimly. Vanessa does not think that Mother will ever forgive Camilla for letting her down like that. And on the rare occasions when Daddy and Suzie take Camilla to the ballet… it was Swan Lake the last time… Camilla says she enjoys it. But she goes very quiet the day after, and once Vanessa found her crying in her bedroom.
Ilse is paid by banker’s order—a fact of which Vanessa is well aware because Mother often grumbles about not being able to dock the odd hours when the slovenly Ilse arrives home late and Mother is there to notice. ‘I ought to pay her cash, weekly, the same as Mrs Guerney. You have so much more control over cash,’ Mother says. Yes, she’d even tried to deduct money, once, for Mrs Guerney’s breakages, but Mrs Guerney wasn’t having that. She removed her floral overall, she picked up her slippers, she put her hat on there and then and threatened to walk out so Mother crossly backed down.
‘Your mother’s not stupid. She knows she couldn’t cope for a minute without Mrs Guerney,’ Daddy says.
They can find the key to Mother’s desk and write cheques to cover the monthly bills… they can send for a new chequebook when Mother’s runs out, they need never show themselves at the bank.
Mother does not have a car so its lack of use will raise no suspicions. Mr Morrisey next door, who has three, asked if he could rent their garage but Mother thinks renting out anything is common and anyway, why should she do anything to accommodate ‘that nasty little man with boils on his neck. He would probably overstep the mark and store things in it.’ Since her last heavy fine and disqualification she says it isn’t worth running a car. ‘Frankly I’d rather use taxis. London is getting impossible and you can’t park anywhere.’
Oh yes, there are ways of thinking about the situation which do make sense; they are called daydreams. They are easy, they are lovely, but before she allows them to carry her completely away, in a low voice, Vanessa points out the screamingly obvious. ‘Mother’s not going to stay quiet for ever. If she starts banging or shouting then Ilse or Mrs Guerney will hear her eventually. If she screamed loudly enough she could probably be heard by people walking past on the pavement.’ With the snow lying on the ground outside it is hard to tell how clearly passing footsteps can be heard and Vanessa cannot remember. The children rarely visit the gym. Even in the days when Daddy lived at home it was his place, and he preferred to exercise alone.
Dominic frowns. His mouth, which so often trembles, is not trembling now and he says in a voice soft and high, ‘If she starts doing that then she must be punished. If she behaves herself then she will be rewarded.’
‘Dominic! How can we punish Mother?’ Intimidated by Mother’s close proximity, there is still room for shock and surprise over Dominic’s vicious determination. He should not be taking photographs either, not at a time like this. Pretty, more like a girl should be pretty, he, in spite of the rigid self-control which he will not break, seems far more angry than frightened. He shrugs but does not answer her question. Vanessa shivers, and Camilla, nearly naked in her layers of pink netting and her satin shoes, must be frozen. ‘Come on, let’s go upstairs and talk. We should not be discussing these matters here.’
It is as they are leaving the basement that Vanessa notices her brother turning up the sauna heating to an exact 78 degrees. A considerate, sensible boy, he must assume that Mother is cold. She must be cold because why else would she be wearing her coat? Dominic, of course, having not seen her, cannot know that.
Nine
‘CAN ANYONE ELSE HEAR the thudding of my heart?’
‘Why, Vanny, are you frightened?’ With her small, quick hands Sacha has Mother’s present on the kitchen table and is opening it gleefully, while Vanessa and Camilla peel the potatoes. ‘I am going to keep this bow. Why do you think Daddy wasted a bow on Mother?’
‘The turkey ought to be smelling by now,’ says Camilla gloomily.
When the door
bell rings the five of them freeze. They stare at the unwrapped present—just a nasty glass fruit bowl decorated with fragile flowers—as if it is the object itself which has sparked the fear. Gradually, sitting rigidly on their chairs, the younger ones tear their eyes from the bowl and turn them on Vanessa. Who would call on Christmas Day morning without being invited? On Boxing Day, when Daddy was living at Camberley Road, everyone came… it was open house and visiting children, tired and excited, brought their best toys and showed them off while Daddy’s friends laughed and drank downstairs. Mother adored occasions like those, and it wasn’t until later, towards evening-time, when she’d drunk too much that her mouth fell slack and her eyes turned vacant and she caused her embarrassing scenes. Once, Vanessa remembered, Mother turned into a dog and went crawling along on the floor between everyone’s legs, and the drips of passion-fruit sorbet. She was wearing her curly brown wig, like a spaniel’s hair. It was on all fours, that day, and with snarling teeth, that she waged war on her husband. Daddy and his co-presenter, Alex Graham, tried to get her upstairs, but she growled at them; she would not go, not even when some of the women in their tight cocktail dresses scuffled about on the carpet trying to persuade her. She pulled and hung on to her shame like a bone. None of the children said anything but Vanessa, a tight bundle of sorrow and distress, could see they were hiding cruel little smiles.
But on Christmas Day only the select few were ever invited.
Perhaps Mr Morrisey next door has some weird, boring idea about clearing the snow…
The bell rings again, viciously, like an alarm. Surely, down in the basement, Mother, awake and alert, will hear it. To ignore the caller would cause too many problems. Even if whoever it is goes away, it is essential to know who is ringing that bell; Vanessa cannot endure not knowing. There is no time to run upstairs and spy from the window. There is no time to remind the twins to keep their mouths shut. So, with aching legs and a set expression on her pale face, feeling dead, she goes to open the front door.
Out on the step, with the silent blankness of snow softly falling, there is no sound from Mother.
‘Daddy!’
No longer an outcast, Vanessa is safe in Daddy’s arms, just his little girl not rotten and growing up any more, mewing into his snuggly fawn duffle coat. Over his shoulder his dark blue Jaguar is crouched in the snow—ROB I. ‘How very bourgeois,’ Mother would sneer. ‘What vanity!’
Daddy says, ‘Happy Christmas, my darling!’
Bless me Father for I have sinned.
Oh Daddy help me. If only he knew what they’d done. Maybe, handsome, rich and powerful, he of all people can still make it right… There is no sound from the basement. Is Mother, lying quietly in her dark pool of self-pity, trying to worry them, feigning death?
‘Where is Caroline?’
‘She’s gone back to bed.’
‘Is she ill?’
‘No, no, we made her! We’re cooking the dinner for fun… it ought to be ready by tonight. She said we could. There’s a programme on TV she wanted to watch.’ The lie is out. It sounds excited, it feels elated like a streamer being thrown.
Daddy’s clear grey eyes are wary. ‘She’s been up, then?’
Vanessa forces what she hopes is a natural smile. ‘Of course she’s been up. She watched us unwrap our presents. Why didn’t you say you were coming?’
‘Because I didn’t want to disappoint you if anything went wrong, and then I saw the snow and decided it was now or never.’ He bangs his cold hands together as he follows his daughter into the warmth of the house, to the warm light of the kitchen. ‘I didn’t see you last year so I was determined to make up for it this time.’
They both know that he had risked more than snow to get here. There’d be Suzie’s disapproval at his end, and Mother’s scathing condemnation at this. So Daddy is capable of courage and action, in spite of Mother’s tauntings, her crass insensitivity. Vanessa should have kept faith. He would not have given Dominic Nintendo if he hadn’t been meaning to come all the time!
Daddy, blowing cold balloons of white air, braces himself with his hands to a point above his head as his children throw themselves at him and hang for a moment like wild decorations.
He seems to make his decision immediately, right then and there, filled by a sudden magnificent burst of assurance. ‘What do you think Caroline would say if we popped to the flat for a couple of hours? Would your special dinner survive in the oven for that long? Isobel’s already arrived, and Joe.’ He is careful not to mention Suzie.
‘I don’t think she’d mind.’ Dominic sounds far too certain. ‘And dinner won’t be ready till very late.’
‘I could ask her,’ puts in Camilla, too readily, with a clever and knowledgeable look. But it’s all right, Daddy doesn’t notice.
‘Go on then, my pretty ballerina. I’m glad it fits you. Dance your way upstairs and go and see. But be careful now, make sure you don’t upset her.’
‘I’ll go and get dressed,’ says Dominic. ‘And can I bring my Nintendo?’
Daddy hardly hesitates, hardly thinks of Suzie before he agrees. Catching sight of Mother’s present still lying in its remnants of paper he smiles wryly, ‘She didn’t like it, then?’
‘Oh, she did! She did!’ Vanessa can’t bear that violet shade, she hates to see it fleck his eyes just like a cry of pain—and what if he guesses that she didn’t like her crucifix? ‘She left it there because she said she wanted to fill it with fruit.’ Vanessa clings to her crucifix. It is so much more pleasant to make Mother up, it is so much easier to turn her into a fantasy person.
‘And she loved the bow!’ It is Amber’s turn; she is delighting in the game. Everyone knows she is lying but the rules have changed; it no longer seems to matter. She sounds quite unaware of the lie. ‘She put it in her hair, didn’t she, Sacha?’
Daddy raises his furry black eyebrows but makes no comment. He just looks very relieved to see everyone so relaxed and happy. So they have done the right thing. By locking Mother away from Christmas they’ve made sure that even Daddy, so safe and respectable, so worn out and troubled, can enjoy himself… like the time they’d found the lewd pictures and hidden them away so he wouldn’t see and be hurt—a very young Mother, abasing herself, posing naked, perverted and abnormal in her desperate attempts to be noticed and admired. Taking deep breaths after studying them intently, shocked by the way her own thin body was growing, Vanessa burnt them one by one in ritualistic fashion over her single white candle. The smoke turned dark and putrid. The smoke stung her eyes.
So the more she thinks about these things the more she convinces herself of the rightness of what they have done. It is not up to her to pass judgement, but it is up to her to protect Daddy from pain. It is up to her to guard all of them from Mother’s extremes of behaviour. Vanessa has often wished morbidly that Mother would die, or have an accident which would confine her to a wheelchair, helpless, dependent and therefore good. She would have looked after Mother, a placid and obedient daughter, happy to carry out her filial obligations. But now she is free of those wicked thoughts, made righteous by newly acquired courage, instead she wishes that she had bought a present for Daddy from Mother, but then that might be going too far.
However, Mother is right about one thing—Vanessa shouldn’t be so old-fashioned, she should relax more, and let herself go. Well look, even now, on this Christmas morning when she ought to be happy, she is worrying about leaving the house with Mother still in it, imprisoned and alone. Maybe ill. Vanessa suffers. It is rumoured that Sister Agnes never sleeps without a bottle of gall under her pillow; she rubs her eyes and mouth with it every morning. Vanessa looked up gall in the dictionary and it said, ‘something bitter to endure’. She took a lemon to bed and tried it, a sticky, unpleasant, stinging business, but after three days of that Vanessa concluded she did not yet hate herself as much or as magnificently as Sister Agnes.
More bitter than the lemon, Mother attacks Vanessa’s looks, her behaviour, but worst of
all she attacks her beliefs and her love for Daddy. ‘Not only have you inherited your father’s looks and temperament, but also his instinct for mindless worship. And that, to my mind,’ snaps Mother, ‘is a particularly dangerous trait.’ For months Vanessa convinced herself that she must swallow the gall. Mother’s tortures would make her into a better person, fitter for God in the end, for, ‘he that endureth to the end shall be saved’. But the others? Daddy? What about them? No, the situation could not have been allowed to continue any longer.
After a reasonable five minutes Camilla returns to the kitchen. ‘She says that’s fine.’ But then, quickly, hitching herself and her layers of pink netting up on the kitchen table, Camilla corrects that statement to the more likely, ‘She says if that’s what we want to do then she honestly doesn’t care.’
Daddy runs a nervous hand across his stubbly chin. ‘Maybe I ought to go up and check…’
‘She really would not like that.’
He bows his head in acknowledgement. ‘Yes. You are quite right, of course. Sometimes, you know, I forget…’ His smile is a false one and everyone ignores it.
‘She is watching her programme, but she did say to wish you a Happy Christmas.’
‘Oh?’ Daddy brightens, relieved again. Borrowing his children will be all right. He claps his hands, ‘Come on then, but dress up warm, we might even get stuck!’ How can this loving, intelligent man, this father who loves them and foists no thwarted ambitions of his own upon his children, how can he possibly consider ignoring their needs, splitting them up and sending them off to boarding schools? It is just another of Mother’s lies made up to keep them quiet. Unless Suzie…
But is Mother’s talk of special units based upon truth? Diminished and vulnerable as she remembers, Vanessa fears that it might be. Daddy would know but how can she ask him?
Vanessa closes the oven door on the turkey after a brief, humiliating inspection. The roasting pan is almost overflowing with water so she spoons some of it out. It probably will not be ready until this evening, and now they are going out she’ll leave it roasting on a low heat. After all the sweets they’ve already devoured nobody can be hungry. The plastic bag with the giblets still in it is possibly still stuck inside it. She will haul it out later when no one is looking, pretending she has not forgotten. Or maybe there is no bag.
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