Girl With Dove

by Sally Bayley

  My aunt grinned. She liked the idea of Cardinal Wolsey exploding, Cardinal Wolsey making a horrible mess all over the kitchen floor, Cardinal Wolsey drowned in fat, Cardinal Wolsey with his tall purple hat crushed and sticky, being mopped up on the end of a broom.

  ‘Overweening pride … the man had overweening pride. It was bound to explode. You can’t keep up that kind of caper day in day out. Bang! Pop goes the weasel!’

  But Cardinal Wolsey wasn’t a weasel. He was a swollen hippopotamus wading his way through the siltiest mud he could find, until one day he fell into a deep bank he hadn’t suspected and he couldn’t get out. This was his downfall. Downfalls happened a lot in politics. Before long, someone was bound to head for a downfall. Plip, plop, belly-flop, and they were stuck head-down in the mud.

  Politicians were always heading for downfalls. Michael Heseltine was always heading for one, and so was Alan Clark. Served them right, too. Heseltine and Clark were both handsome men, but they liked to go out on the razzle. Heseltine was vain, my aunt screeched, looking pleased. He was a handsome man with large eyebrows who fancied himself as an eagle. At any moment he might take off. Whooosh!

  Heseltine, Clark, Healey, Heath, Howe. I remember these names from the sound of my aunt’s voice yelling them out from the back room. ‘Heseltine, Clark, Healey, Heath, Howe.’ They were the names of politicians that sounded like the names of rivers. Politicians rolled from her tongue like water. Politicians: that was her favourite game. She loved to say their names, as though she knew them; as though she had just met them last night at a party and they’d all become friends; as though she had sat in a bar on the Thames across from Westminster and talked about the devious Heseltine and the arrogant Clark and the dull as ditchwater Geoffrey Howe. But he knew his stuff, my aunt said. Geoffrey Howe knew what he was talking about. He just isn’t a flashy man. He has a quiet ego. A certain kind of modesty.

  And then there was Scargill. When my aunt pronounced ‘Scargill’ her lip curled. She hated Arthur Scargill, she hated what he stood for, the trade unions, which meant workers’ rights: the right to have tea breaks and sick pay, the right to go on holiday to Butlins, the right to have a lie-in on Sunday morning.

  But I think my aunt hated Arthur Scargill mainly because he was scruffy. ‘Scruffy Scargill … Scruffy, Soggy Socialist Scargill.’ Arthur Scargill was a soggy socialist. You could dip him in tea and he’d disintegrate. Arthur Scargill was a Rich Tea biscuit floating in a pale brown sea.

  Arthur Scargill, Michael Heseltine, Geoffrey Howe, Alan Clark and Margaret Thatcher, they all lived under my aunt’s bed. Stalin, the Kremlin, Khrushchev, Gorbachev, Bolsheviks, perestroika, the tsar, serfs, glasnost, words with hard, steely edges, words that cut through my brain, words announced like murder: Stalin, the Kremlin, the Bolsheviks, the Tsar, St Petersburg, Catherine the Great (who was a great queen) and Perestroika. Perestroika was the final stab in the chest and the heart. Perestroika was the final death blow. Perestroika, Perestroika, Perestroika and you were dead, laid on the carpet and caked in blood like Mrs Robinson upstairs.

  17

  Margaret Thatcher Moves In

  After the night at the Beach Hotel, Mum began to dress differently. Her face changed. She frowned more. Mum began putting on her Margaret Thatcher look. I came home from school and there she was, the woman with the pale face, blonde hair and lipstick; the lady standing in the hall with a string of pearls around her neck; the tall lady dressed in a puffy cream blouse with a big floppy bow; the lady with a wave of blonde hair curling upwards; the woman with a shiny patent black handbag with gold clips that bit your fingers if you tried to open it; the lady wearing peach lipstick, the colour of fruit.

  Everywhere I looked I saw Margaret Thatcher. She was everywhere we were and sometimes, I think, everywhere we weren’t too. When we weren’t looking, she was in the cellar, tidying things up and sorting out the bulbs; Margaret Thatcher was separating tulips from daffs, bluebells from hyacinths, marigolds from Michaelmas daisies. Sometimes I could hear her down there talking to herself, sounding cross.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, who on earth put all of this here? You can’t possibly find anything in here … And those bikes are a death trap, an absolute death trap … I need to get to my bulbs.’

  Her handbag was everywhere too. I remember it as black and gold. ‘Smart,’ said Maze. ‘Very smart.’

  Gold clasps sat on top, like a crown. I touched them and they snapped. Mum’s bag was a speaking crown.

  Most days I found it at the bottom of the stairs when I came in from school. Then it was at the end of the hallway when I went to the bathroom; it was under the kitchen table when I went down to pick up my knife and spoon; it was on top of the sink when I went to wash my hands. Margaret Thatcher’s handbag was all over the house.

  Her hair was everywhere too: whenever I looked in the mirror there was a hard turret of it; her hair was lying in the sinkhole when I drained our bath water; it was caught on the hairbrush left in the bathroom; it was flying off the front doormat when I walked in from school; it was stuck between the clips of Mum’s handbag as she sipped her coffee and ate her thin white crust in the morning. Every Saturday morning I pulled out strands of hair from the mouth of the Hoover and realised that Margaret Thatcher’s hair looked just like ours.

  Before long, Margaret Thatcher was following us around the house. She was snapping at us to finish our homework and go outside; she was lifting her heavy bunch of keys from her black, gold-clipped handbag and yelling, ‘Which one of you swines has swiped my mints?’ She was frowning her face into hard lines and making her thin lips. But when she went out to the bank or the shopping arcade she was smiling her full, rich, fruity smile because she knew everyone would be looking, because everyone looked at Margaret Thatcher wherever she went, especially the people from the newspapers. ‘Snap, snap, snap. Flash!’

  When she went out she wore her pearls, pearls clipped at the back of her neck; when she went out, she lifted her hair high up off her face and layered it with lacquer. Then L’Oréal hairspray wafted through the house like a chemical cloud, and when we smelt the lacquer, we knew that Margaret Thatcher was about to appear. At any minute, Margaret Thatcher would be coming out of Mum’s bedroom with her hair held high and tight as the pyramids. And the smell of L’Oréal hairspray would follow her all the way to the bank.

  ‘I keep a can inside my handbag just in case the wind has a go at me,’ she said. ‘The wind through the arcade can be vicious, vicious, you never know when it might take a turn at you.’

  ‘Best not to be caught out,’ said my aunt. ‘Don’t forget to ask for a bit more this time. Mr Fortescue knows we keep our word. We always keep our word. We borrow but we give back. And try to find out who he voted for … it would be nice to know he was on our side.’

  ——————————

  I remember those years with Margaret Thatcher mainly through the newspaper, those grey headlines rubbing off on my fingers as I picked it up from the front doormat. And the paper, so it seemed, was full of people shouting; there was always someone wanting to get rid of someone else over money or marriage.

  One day it was J.R. Ewing from Dallas who was about to get it.

  ‘Get it in the neck, J.R., get it in the neck!’

  ‘Shhh, you lot. It’s starting. Shh! For goodness’ sake, sit still!’

  Mum was sitting on the sofa behind us pretending not to care. But she cared very much. Everyone cared about J.R. Ewing, even Sue Ellen.

  ‘He’s got charisma,’ said my aunt. ‘It’s in his smile, Ange …’

  ‘Shh! It’s about to start!’

  My aunt pulled the curtains across to block out the light and we sat and hugged our knees and waited. Then, all of a sudden, J.R. Ewing was walking across the screen towards us, looking for Sue Ellen.

  ‘Sue Ellen, I know you’re in there,’ said J.R., standing outside the shiny bathroom door.

  [Bang, crash, wallop, thud. Sue Ellen falls to the floor.]
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  ‘Leave me alone, J.R. Stop your spying on me.

  [A glass crashes to the floor.]

  ‘Where is my son, you Goddamn son of a bitch? Where is my son?’

  ‘You know you can’t see your son, Sue Ellen. You’re a drunk. Little Bobby needs a responsible mother, someone he can rely upon.’

  ‘My son needs me, J.R. A son needs his mother.’

  ‘You’re not capable of raising a son, Sue Ellen. Bobby is gonna stay with me. You need to prove you’re a responsible mother, Sue Ellen, and I don’t see any of that happening anytime soon.’

  [The door opens, and Sue Ellen emerges with hair stuck to her face; her eyes are large and smeared in black rings. She’s been crying.]

  ‘Now what kinda mother would appear looking like that in front of her son? You should be ashamed of yourself, Sue Ellen. Bobby isn’t gonna want a mamma who looks like that. He wants a beautiful mamma, a mamma he can be proud of. You need to get yourself cleaned up, Sue Ellen. You need to make yourself look like a pretty little mamma again.’

  [The scene shifts. J.R. Ewing is sitting at his desk at Ewing Oil. It’s night and the lights are low. Suddenly, J.R. hears a noise. He’s frightened.]

  ‘Who’s there? Bobby, is that you? Sue Ellen? Whoever it is, come out! I want to see you. Stop hiding away like a coward in the corner.’

  J.R. has a whiskey in his hand. Sue Ellen would be glad to find him like this, looking like a drunk, like her. The scene shifts again. We see Sue Ellen coming up in the lift. She’s inside Ewing Oil. She’s heading for his office.

  Sue Ellen has a gun with her, tucked inside her handbag. No one knows she’s there, outside the door that says ‘J.R. Ewing’ in gold letters. Her doctor was expecting her, but she’s taken a detour, pulled into the underground car park and taken the lift. She slips along the dim corridor clutching her bag. The office door is ajar. Casual, she thinks. How typical of him, so casual. She sneaks in.

  The man she hates is bent over his desk, scribbling. She could shoot from here, she thinks. He wouldn’t see her. No. She wants him to see her. She wants him to look right at her and be afraid. Not yet. She must go further into the room. She wants him to look her right in the eyes as he begs for mercy.

  ‘Who’s there?’ The man at the desk lifts his head. He’s looking at her. She has his full attention.

  ‘It’s me, J.R. I’ve come for a little farewell drink. What’ve you got on offer? Oh, I see you’ve already helped yourself. Mind if I join you?’

  Sue Ellen walks over to the drinks cabinet, gun raised above her head. She helps herself to a whiskey. Then, she walks towards J.R., pointing the gun, and raises her glass to his.

  ‘Chink, chink,’ she says. ‘To your health … to a good life ahead of you, J.R.!’

  ‘Now Sue Ellen, what are you doing here? You’ve no business being here. I’ll have to call Dr Barber and put you back in that sanatorium. We can’t have you going around waving guns at people in the dark. Have you been drinking?’

  ‘I haven’t had a drink for two weeks, J.R. I wanted to keep myself nice and clean for seeing you.’

  ‘Well, here we are. You’ve seen me now. Now just give me that gun and I’ll take you home.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, J.R., but I’m not ready to go home yet. I’ve got some important business … something I’ve been meaning to clear up for a while.’

  ‘You’re not talking a great deal of sense, Sue Ellen. I think you need to go home now. I can run you home. Just give me a minute.’

  ‘I don’t need to go home, J.R. I’ve got some important business to attend to.’

  And then suddenly, out of nowhere, three shots were fired and J.R. fell to the ground where he lay completely still, and everyone everywhere gasped out loud, so loud that all the televisions in England and Scotland moved an inch or two and Mum said under her breath, ‘Well, you can understand why! He took away her child! He took away her only child. That man should have been shot. He should have got it in the neck, several times over!’

  18

  The Estate

  Dillmouth was a charming and old-fashioned little seaside town.

  (Sleeping Murder)

  Soon after J.R. was shot Awful Fred died. But I need to explain who Fred is, because you haven’t heard about him until now. Fred was my grandfather, although I had never met him, and Fred was Awful because he married my sweet grandmother, Edna May, and made her do the washing up and cook the dinner for years.

  We never saw Fred alive, so it was difficult to imagine him dead, but I tried to anyway. I imagined Fred lying out flat in the funeral home and my mother and aunt and my Aunt Jayne staring down at him and then one of them – not Aunt Jayne – would spit on his face because that is what people do when they hate someone. They spit on their face and then cover them in dust.

  I do know this: nobody went to Fred’s funeral except my mum and aunt and Aunt Jayne, and when they came back all they talked about was Fred’s Estate. This was the story they told, the only story I know to this day.

  Fred had died leaving behind two terraced cottages in Lancing on Sea. Terraced cottages in Lancing were worth thousands of pounds.

  ‘Forty thousand each … eighty thousand a pair,’ my aunt said.

  £40,000? I couldn’t imagine that much money. I couldn’t even imagine £1,000. What did £40,000 look like? How much space did you need for that much money? Could you sew it into your front-room curtains?

  With £40,000 you’d be able to buy new curtains, a new front room, a whole new house, a large garden. With £40,000 you could buy your way from New Zealand to England and back again; with £40,000 times two (£80,000) you could buy a house in England and a house in New Zealand and perhaps even a house along the way. But I knew that when the money came in, Mum would start with the curtains.

  For curtains, Gwenda had chosen old fashioned chintz of pale egg-shell blue with prim urns of roses and yellow birds on them.

  (Sleeping Murder)

  As she steps onto the quay at Plymouth harbour, Gwenda Reed is also thinking of new curtains. Mrs Gwenda Reed, newly married and just over from New Zealand on the boat, who, like most New Zealanders, thinks of England as Home.

  But before she starts to hunt down a house for herself and her new husband, Gwenda decides she needs a proper rest first. House-hunting is an exhausting business. She will go to a hotel, a nice, steady, old-fashioned place with a comfy bed that doesn’t creak when she rolls over. And the next morning she will hire a car and start her drive through southern England, across the undulating downs, towards those picturesque seaside towns she remembers from the picture books Nanny Wren used to show her between bath and bedtime.

  ——————————

  My mother was twenty-five when she got her first car, a grey Morris Minor she used to drive us to and from school. That car lasted a few years, just as long as Mum could drag it through its MOT, with the help of the nice man at the garage.

  On cold wintry mornings her car was her saving grace. ‘Better than any man,’ she said, as she clawed away at the windscreen with her ice scraper. ‘It’ll start in a minute. It just needs some time. You can’t rush it. Sally, pass me that shimmy cloth in the glovebox, and for goodness’ sake do your coat up properly!’

  Scratch, scratch, scratch. I can hear the scraper going back and forth across the windscreen. I look up and I see Mum’s face huffing and puffing. I hear the sputt, sputt, sputt of the car as it tries to throw off the frost. Everything is frozen and still except Mum’s face and hands and moving back and forth back and forth across the screen in front of me. I hold my breath in and then let it out, and I watch the cloud of white smoke disappear through the window.

  When I think of Mum’s car I see myself in my navy-blue coat with gold buttons running down the front. I must be seven or eight and I’m wearing a matching navy-blue hat; a piece of elastic is pinching me underneath my chin and I’m standing next to the shiny grey snail shell looking worried. This is one of the morning
s when the car won’t start.

  ‘Do up your buttons,’ Mum says. ‘Right up to the top! It’s freezing this morning. Freezing. Get those buttons closed!’

  I look down at my navy-blue coat and start to wrestle with the buttons. But my fingers are stuck on the gold rim of the first one.

  ‘Do up your lovely navy coat!’ Mum loved the word ‘navy’. Navy was proper and posh. If you wore navy you were smart.

  I wore my navy coat to school and Mum drove me there in her grey Morris Minor. That was her car for years, until the nice man at the garage could no longer fix it and she had to hand it over. Losing her car was losing her chance of escape, because I knew that the real reason Mum kept a car was because one day she was planning to drive across the downs to London to check herself into a smart hotel. There she would put on the shimmery pink cocktail dress and sit in lovely leather chairs like the ones in Bertram’s Hotel, rich and velvet and plushy.

  There, in front of an open fire, she would find Gwenda Reed and Miss Marple sat in plush leather chairs, with a brass coal scuttle ‘filled to the top with lovely large lumps’, Mum said. ‘To keep a warm glow,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Such comfy, high-backed chairs,’ said Mum. ‘So good on the spine,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Dr Quimper would approve.’ And Miss Marple would lean gently over and tell Mum about the young woman from New Zealand she had just met who was looking for a house by the sea.

  ——————————

  Mum’s Morris Minor is grey on the outside and dark pink on the inside. Cherry, Mum said, cherry leather. I asked her once how much it had cost and she told me £250, which was twice as much as our grocery bill. Starting up the car was always a bit touch and go. We were never sure if we would hear the sound of those tired sparks catching. ‘It just won’t catch,’ Mum said. Sputt sputt sputt, said the engine. We held our breath and Mum pulled hard on the choke. Sputt, sputt, sputt.