Girl, Balancing & Other Stories

by Helen Dunmore

  The way Mum spoke, it sounded as if Mrs Bathgate had been looking after Auntie Binnie, not the other way round. But Mum was wrong about the money. Mrs Bathgate left Auntie Binnie a thousand pounds, and wrote in her will that Auntie Binnie could stay in her house until it was sold.

  ‘Mean old devil. Mean as mustard, the lot of those Bathgates, always have been and always will be,’ said Mum. ‘A thousand pounds!’

  It sounded a lot of money to me. I wondered what Auntie Binnie would buy with it. Dozens and dozens of scarves and ornaments. Maybe even some new clothes instead of old ones that smelled of other people. Or things for her painting. Auntie Binnie had confided in me once that she would love to paint on canvas, if only she had the money.

  ‘I suppose she’ll have to come here,’ said Mum. ‘We can put you girls in together, and Binnie can have Sarah’s room—’

  ‘Mu-um!’

  ‘Or maybe you’d rather share with Binnie.’

  But Auntie Binnie didn’t come and live with us. The Bathgate house was on the market, and Auntie Binnie showed everyone round personally and told them everything about it. She even demonstrated the stairlift, but still nobody bought the Bathgate house. A month went by, two months.

  ‘Would you believe what Binnie’s done now!’ Mum exploded. She couldn’t explode too loudly, though, because she had the car keys between her teeth. ‘Just let me get these bags down—’

  Mum dumped the shopping, dropped into a chair and stared at us dramatically. ‘She’s only spent that thousand pounds already.’

  ‘What on?’

  ‘Would you believe it – art classes.’

  ‘But Auntie Binnie can paint already.’

  ‘Can she,’ said Mum grimly. ‘Well, she’s enrolled as a full-time student at the Folk Centre, whether or not.’

  ‘An art student? Is Auntie Binnie going to be an art student?’

  ‘Apparently,’ said Mum. ‘And don’t eat those biscuits out of the packet, please.’

  Auntie Binnie hadn’t spent all the thousand pounds, however. She gave Sarah and me a twenty-pound note each, and bought Mum a huge camellia in a pot. It was called Himalayan Fire.

  ‘Oh Binnie, you shouldn’t go spending your money on us,’ said Mum.

  ‘It flowers in January, after everything else,’ Binnie said. ‘The man told me.’

  ‘It must have cost a fortune,’ said Mum later. ‘I hope he didn’t diddle Binnie.’

  Auntie Binnie was at the Folk Centre every single day. When she wasn’t having classes she was working in the studios. You could work in the studios all evening and at weekends if you wanted, and Auntie Binnie did want. We hardly ever saw her. I had to wait nearly three weeks before I could ask her what being an art student was like.

  ‘It’s a traditional skill-based course in one way,’ Binnie said, in the voice she used when she was repeating what the lady in Boots had told her about Mrs Bathgate’s prescriptions. ‘Although each of us is on her own journey.’

  ‘But what do you do?’

  ‘Lots of things,’ said Auntie Binnie. ‘We’re having an exhibition at the end of term.’

  ‘Can I come?’

  But Auntie Binnie looked doubtful. Didn’t she want us there? Her own family?

  ‘You can if you want, Jessie,’ she said at last. ‘But don’t …’

  ‘Don’t what?’

  ‘It’s not the sort of thing your mum’s going to like.’

  Naked ladies! I thought gleefully. Auntie Binnie’s been drawing naked ladies. Or even bare men.

  ‘I won’t tell Mum,’ I promised.

  It was a couple of days later that Mum said, ‘Jessie, did Auntie Binnie ask you about the photographs?’

  ‘No. What?’

  ‘She came round when Sarah was in and asked if she could go through all the old albums. She’s took away lots of old photos of herself when she was little, Sarah said.’

  ‘She didn’t ask me. I wasn’t even here,’ I said, automatically defending myself.

  ‘But Binnie’s never been interested in photos. She didn’t even want a copy of that studio portrait we had done of you and Sarah. She’s got no sense of family like that.’

  ‘You could ask her what she wanted them for,’ I suggested.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Jessie.’

  The day for the bare men and naked ladies was drawing near. Auntie Binnie didn’t say anything more to me about the exhibition, but I saw a poster outside the Folk Centre. Saturday, 7th December. The exhibition would be open all day, and tickets cost two pounds.

  I’d never been inside the Folk Centre. None of us had. I paid my two pounds to a lady with funny hair and then I went inside. I was early and there weren’t many people there. The big echoey rooms were full of paintings and drawings and things made out of clay and wood and newspaper and metal. I looked at all the name labels but none of them was by Auntie Binnie. There were lots of drawings of a bare man who looked as if he didn’t know he hadn’t got any clothes on. Some of the drawings made his legs look strange, but some of them were good. None of them was by Auntie Binnie.

  A lady was kneeling down on the floor. She was arranging lots of little clay figures on to a table, so they faced the door as if they expected something wonderful to come through it. Her hair was short and black, like fur. She was big and square and strong, but the clay figures were delicate: different from my fairy, but a bit the same as well. I wondered if the lady had made them. I moved closer. A label said ‘Out of the Blue’ and underneath it said ‘Fabiola Quiggin’.

  I must have accidentally read the label aloud, because the lady looked up.

  ‘Did you make all those?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Are you an art student?’

  ‘In a way. I do some teaching as well.’

  ‘My Auntie Binnie’s an art student. She’s got some of her paintings in this exhibition, only I haven’t found them yet.’

  ‘Your Aunt Binnie?’ Fabiola Quiggin frowned. ‘What’s her second name?’

  ‘Cochrane.’

  Fabiola Quiggin sat back on her heels and gave me a long look. ‘Binnie’s a family name, right? You’re part of her family?’

  ‘I’m her niece.’

  ‘Are you Sarah, or Jessie?’

  ‘Jessie.’

  Fabiola Quiggin nodded.

  ‘How did you know our names?’ I asked.

  ‘Your aunt is a friend of mine.’ But she kept on giving me the long look, as if being Auntie Binnie’s friend didn’t necessarily make her my friend at all.

  ‘Oh. Are her – is her painting in this room?’

  ‘Her work’s through there. In the centre of the next room. You’ll find her name on the label.’ I felt that she was still watching me as I walked away. That long look settling itself on my shoulder blades.

  But there were no paintings in the middle of the next room. Fabiola Quiggin had got it wrong. There was only a big thing made of twisted wire. It hung from the ceiling. I moved closer. There was a label on the floor under it. ‘Family Cage’, it read, and underneath there was the name: ‘Benedicta Cochrane’.

  The wire cage swung a little. Inside there were no colours at all. Against the wire bars there were photographs of a little girl, staring out. Lots and lots of photographs, so that as you walked around the cage, you saw the same little girl every time. In some of the photos she was smiling, and in others she looked sad. The wire bars made stripes across her face. From the bottom of the cage there hung plumes of colour, almost down to the floor. I stared at the colours. They were so familiar, they were—

  I reached out to touch them. They were silk and satin. They were magenta, lilac, flame, crimson, rose and scarlet. They were Auntie Binnie’s scarves, cut to ribbons and hanging from the base of the cage and from its bars like fountains of colour.

  ‘Family Cage’, by Benedicta Cochrane.

  Fabiola Quiggin was watching me from the doorway.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked. />
  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I think it’s beautiful. I think your aunt is a very talented woman.’

  I reached out and touched a long ribbon of magenta silk. I remembered the scarf it came from, and how I used to stroke it when it was around Auntie Binnie’s neck and I was sitting on her knee. I had stopped asking Auntie Binnie if she would leave me all her scarves in her will when she died. And so here they were. I wondered if Auntie Binnie would find my fairy and put that into an exhibition as well.

  ‘You’ve got a bit of a look of her,’ said Fabiola Quiggin. She came across to the cage and pointed at one of the photos. ‘Especially in this one. She must have been about your age when this was taken.’

  I stood still, and waited until Fabiola Quiggin moved away. The girl in the photo looked out of the cage at me. Her hair was cut short and it was fairer than mine. She had freckles on her nose. I had freckles too, in summer. But surely I couldn’t really look like Auntie Binnie?

  The girl in the photo looked straight at me. She didn’t have a big, bold smile, like Sarah’s in the studio portrait. But she was smiling as if she wanted to be my friend.

  ‘Hello, Auntie Bi—’ I whispered. Then I stopped, and started again. ‘Hello, Benedicta Cochrane.’

  ABOUT THE FIRST WORLD WAR

  ‘DOES THIS YOUNG man know it’s my birthday?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Barbara.

  ‘I’m a hundred years old today.’

  ‘I know,’ says the young man.

  I woke at five this morning, same as always. Barbara brought me a special birthday cup of tea.

  ‘You’re not waiting for your tea on your hundredth birthday,’ she said.

  It’s all a lot of nonsense, having a birthday when you’re a hundred. I’m the same as I was yesterday. Here they come, Mrs Darshan from the kitchen and Barbara with the pink cake and the gold-paper crown. Mrs Darshan makes a beautiful sponge. She places the cake in front of me, and I read the icing aloud.

  ‘“Happy Hundredth Birthday, Mrs Jackson, and congratulations from all your friends at St Monica’s.”’

  How she got all that on a cake I’ll never know.

  ‘In my country we show respect,’ Mrs Darshan says, if any of the young girls says a word out of place.

  Barbara’s decorated the table with gold-edged serviettes and a flower arrangement. We didn’t use to bother with all that sort of thing, years ago. You didn’t make a song and dance about your birthday. I remember one day I was reading a book Miss Lambert lent me, and the children in it were getting dressed up for a birthday party. I said to Stuart, ‘What’s a birthday party, Stuart?’ Well, I was going on seven and he must have remembered it, because when I came back from school on my birthday there was Stuart, home early from work. He’d bought a bag of iced buns for our tea, and a bottle of ginger beer.

  That young man with the tape-recorder is still waiting.

  ‘Did I tell you that it was my birthday? I’m a hundred years old today,’ I tell him, in case he forgets why he’s here.

  ‘Yes.’

  They put the crown on my head. It tickles and slips down. I’m afraid it’s going to go over my eyes and make me look foolish in the photograph, but Barbara rescues me.

  ‘Should I fix it for you with a hair-grip?’

  ‘That was a very nice cup of tea, Barbara,’ I say. But she thinks I mean the one I’m drinking now.

  ‘I’ll get you another in a minute. There you are, Mrs Jackson, that’s fixed. It won’t slip down now.’

  Barbara won’t have us called by our first names, not by anyone. She and Mrs Darshan think alike, for all Barbara’s got her social-work qualification. It hasn’t spoilt her. She lets me call her Barbara. I tell her she’s welcome to call me Ivy any day of the week, but no, she says. It doesn’t set the right example for the Community Care students.

  ‘I’ve had a lot of birthdays,’ I say. The young man leans forward.

  ‘I know,’ he says. ‘How far back can you remember? Can you remember the First World War?’

  They’ve all got the First World War on the brain. All the ones who come in here from the schools with their history projects.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about things like that on my birthday,’ I tell him. He shifts his backside and fiddles with the tape-recorder. He didn’t give his name, did he? No. Mumble mumble about the First World War. But if he thinks he’s getting anything about Stuart, he’s mistaken.

  ‘Would you like to cut your cake, Mrs Jackson?’ That’s Barbara again. I told her beforehand I didn’t want candles and singing. Just a nice cake, cut up so there’s a piece for everyone. But this young man’s terribly disappointed, you can tell.

  ‘Aren’t we going to sing Happy Birthday?’

  ‘Not today, thank you,’ I tell him.

  I eat a little bit of my cake.

  ‘Isn’t he taking a picture for the newspaper, Barbara?’

  ‘He’s not from the newspaper,’ she says in her gentle voice.

  I thought he was. That’s what happens on a hundredth birthday. We’ve had two in the time I’ve been here, so I know. They take a photograph, and they write a little piece for the paper, and it gets pinned up on the noticeboard in the hall.

  ‘Oh, he’s not from the newspaper office then.’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘You remember. We talked about it this morning. He’s Alice’s son.’

  ‘Oh yes, I remember,’ I say. ‘Lovely moist sponge, Mrs Darshan.’ But when I look around, Mrs Darshan’s not there any more. I’ll ask Barbara who this Alice is later on, when the young man’s gone.

  ‘I was born on a day like this,’ I say suddenly. ‘The mock orange was out in the yard.’

  ‘Mock orange is a lovely scent,’ says Barbara.

  Funny how I can see that mock-orange bush. I must have been four or five, and my mother pointed at the flowers and told me how they’d been blossoming when I was born. I used to make a little house for myself in the dust under that bush. Well, I wish I could go back to that day. Not to see myself, but all the rest of it. A whole world that’s passed away.

  ‘They’re all dead now,’ I say.

  They always want to know about the First World War. It’s the people dying that fascinates them. Millions and millions. They can’t get over those millions. But I want to say, I’ve seen the whole world die in my time, every one of them. Out of all those who were walking about the world in the brightness of that day I was born, there’ll only be a couple of dozen clinging on, eating bits of cake.

  Well, I won’t think of that. But no one thinks it’s a tragedy, do they? They want to know about what I eat and do I smoke and do I drink, and about the First World War.

  ‘Barbara—’ I say, but then I forget what it was I wanted.

  ‘Did you want another cup of tea, Mrs Jackson?’

  ‘Your brother—’ says the young man.

  ‘How does he know I’ve got a brother?’ I ask Barbara. He’s got no call to go bringing up Stuart. What’s Stuart to him? ‘I’m tired,’ I tell Barbara. ‘I want to go to bed.’

  ‘Can I take a picture of you, Mrs Jackson? For my mother?’

  For his mother! He must think I’m soft in the head.

  ‘You remember,’ says Barbara. ‘He’s Alice’s son.’

  ‘Then why can’t this Alice come herself?’ I ask.

  ‘Alice is back home. In Australia.’

  This young man doesn’t look Australian. I thought they were all big and brown out there, and this one’s pale, with reddish hair. A nice-looking boy, though, when you come to look at him. Nice smile.

  Stuart had the buns in a brown-paper bag. When we came home from school he fetched a bottle of ginger beer out of the larder, where he’d been keeping it wrapped in a wet cloth. The buns had currants in them as well as the icing. Dad was at work, and Mum was at Mr Zelinski’s where she did the alterations. Stuart poured the ginger beer into Mum’s teacups.

  ‘Happy Birthday, Ive.’

  He always cal
led me Ive. ‘Her name’s Ivy,’ Mum used to say. But I said, ‘I like him calling me Ive, Mum.’

  It was a lovely day. We still had that mock-orange bush, and the flowers were out.

  ‘Here, Ive, I don’t want all this,’ said Stuart. ‘You have it.’

  So I had three buns. They were beautiful fresh buns from Morley’s. I cut the last one in half but Stuart wouldn’t touch it.

  ‘They’re for you, Ive. It’s your birthday.’

  That young man’s still eating cake. He’s got a good appetite, I’ll give him that. Mrs Darshan’ll be pleased.

  ‘Give him another piece, Barbara,’ I say. He blushes. ‘What’s your name?’ I ask him.

  ‘Alec.’

  Alec. Alec and Alice. Sounds like a comedy duo. ‘Have another bit of cake. Or you could take a piece for Alice.’

  ‘She’s in Australia, you remember,’ says Barbara.

  She’s in my head somewhere, but I can’t get at her. Alice. Maybe when I’m going off to sleep it’ll come back.

  ‘Do you still want to lie down?’ asks Barbara.

  ‘I’ll have another cup of tea, Barbara. I’m not going to be hundred again, am I?’

  Then I remember.

  ‘I had a sister called Alice, but she died.’

  Alice came after me, but she only lived for three weeks. They say it’s a terrible thing to lose a child. I wouldn’t know. There were children all around while we were growing up. I used to think there ought to have been a spare baby somewhere for my mother, to take Alice’s place. The one thing I do remember is Stuart holding Alice. He wanted to say goodbye to her. People thought that was very strange then, him being a boy as well. When I saw the way Stuart looked down at her, I ran off and hid in the coal bunker. Well, I was only four. He said, ‘It’s all right, Alice,’ as if she could still hear him. I wanted Stuart to hold me, not Alice.

  My mother wasn’t the holding sort.

  ‘It’s a family name with us,’ says the young man. ‘My mother’s called Alice, after my grandmother. I was a boy, so I got called Alec.’