sUnwanted Truthst

by Unwanted Truths (epub)

  ‘No Jenny – your real father,’ she rasped.

  ‘What! You don’t need to say anything about that, Mum. I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘He was from Africa.’

  ‘Africa!’ Jenny stared hard at her mother. ‘Africa? What are you talking about?’

  ‘South Africa, he was from South Africa. He was a soldier.’

  ‘I’m not interested Mum. I never will be. You and Dad are my parents.’

  Her mother’s lips lifted at the edges, and she closed her eyes.

  Jenny remained seated on the bed, staring at her mother until her heart slowed, then picked up the vase of carnations – their blooms browning around the edges – from the bedside table. She refilled the vase from the wash basin, arranged the gladioli, positioning them so that her mother could see them and sat by the bed for a further half an hour. Her mother’s breathing became shallower. At nine o’clock she kissed her on her forehead and left.

  Driving home her mother’s words ran through her mind. It must be the morphine. It can’t be true? The only things she knew about South Africa were the cities of Pretoria and Cape Town; Table Mountain and apartheid. She remembered a scrapbook she had when she was a child, and the hours she had spent cutting and pasting pictures of hippos and elephants. She remembered pestering her parents to emigrate to South Africa, saying it sounded so much more exciting and warmer there. Why would she remember that, when she had forgotten so much else? ‘He was a soldier. It was the end of the war. Things were different then.’ Her mother’s words reverberated in her head. Why should she tell me to find my father? What about my mother?

  Two days later the phone rang, ‘Mrs Maynard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s Sister Gillespie here. I’m phoning to tell you that your mother has slipped into a coma, but there’s no need for you to rush over.’

  ‘A coma, what do you mean? She was dozing on and off last night, but she knew we were there. I’ll come over. I was just about to phone the hospital to see how my father is.’

  ‘Look, as I said, there’s no rush. You can go and see your father first, and then come over.’

  ‘Alright,’ Jenny’s hand shook as she replaced the handset. She stood and stared out of the lounge window. A postman was opening the gate to the house opposite. I must phone Robert.

  *

  Robert put his arm around Jenny’s shoulders as they approached Charlie’s bed. She drew a deep breath and pulled the curtain back. The hospital gown had slipped off his shoulder, exposing a white triangle of flesh. His face had collapsed. A pair of false teeth lay in a glass of water. ‘Hello Dad, they fixed your leg then?’

  ‘Bit sleepy, but I’ll soon be on the mend,’ he slurred.

  ‘Well you’re bound to be for a while, because of the anaesthetic.’

  ‘Mum alright?’

  Jenny bit her lower lip. ‘Yes, they’re looking after her really well. We saw her last night and we’re going up again straight from here. We can let her know that we’ve seen you; and that you’re O.K.’

  Robert put a hand on Charlie’s bare shoulder. ‘Now, you just concentrate on getting better Dad.’

  ‘Tell her, I’ll be out of here soon.’

  *

  ‘How long will it be?’ Jenny asked at the bottom of the sweeping staircase, thinking it was always dark in there, even when the sun was shining.

  ‘It’s hard to say. It could be tonight, or it could be a couple of days. You go up and I’ll make you both a cup of tea.’

  ‘If it’s a couple of days, my dad might be able to see her. The hospital said they may be able to bring him then, didn’t they?’ she looked at Robert.

  ‘Yes, they did. But would she know he was here, Sister?’

  ‘Well, hearing is always the last of the senses to go. So, yes, she would recognise his voice.’ She placed her hand on Jenny’s arm.

  Tears welled behind Jenny’s eyes. ‘I really hope she can hang on a bit longer. At least Lorna and Nicky are back at school, I’ve arranged for our neighbour to look after them until we get back.’

  ‘Stay as long as you like. I’ll be here ‘til ten o’clock this evening.’

  Jenny gripped the polished curve at the bottom of the banister. ‘I don’t want to go up, Robert. I don’t want to see her.’

  ‘Come on, take my arm.’

  They walked slowly up the staircase and into the bedroom. The curtains were drawn, but a gap in the centre threw a shaft of afternoon sunlight across the carpet. Jenny sat down on the bed and took her mother’s hand. She stared at her cracked lips; every intake of breath was an effort; and each exhale a relief. She no longer looked like her mother. They stayed until nine-thirty. Before going to bed that evening, Robert moved the telephone from the lounge onto the bottom stair. When the phone rang early in the morning they didn’t speak. Jenny sat up and stared into the darkness. She heard Robert’s voice, ‘We’ll come straight over,’ and then his feet on the stairs coming closer, ‘get dressed Jen. We’d better go.’

  *

  A nurse Jenny hadn’t seen before opened the door. ‘I’m so sorry Mrs Maynard, but your mother slipped away ten minutes ago.’

  ‘ ‘You mean we’re too late, she’s gone?’ Jenny cried. ‘We came as fast as we could. We should have stayed last night Robert. Then we would have been here. I should have stayed. Why didn’t I stay? Now we’re too late.’

  ‘It’s very difficult to anticipate when it’s going to happen. The change in breathing is an indicator, but sometimes, relatives just leave the room for a moment and they go; it’s almost as if they wait until they’re on their own.’

  Jenny turned to Robert, ‘I didn’t have to go home, it was you who said we ought to go. You could have gone back for Lorna and Nicky, and I could have stayed. I could have slept in the chair. Why didn’t I do that?’ Tears rolled down her face.

  ‘Jen, Jen, try not to think of that, it’s not going to make any difference. As the nurse said, you could have been here and just left the room for a minute, and it could have happened.’ He pulled Jenny towards him but she pushed him away.

  ‘But at least I would have been with her,’ she cried.

  *

  Jenny braced herself as she walked into the ward. She couldn’t erase the picture of her mother’s body from her mind. She had never seen a dead body before, and it wasn’t how she wanted to remember her. They had stayed in her room until the nurse had persuaded them to leave. She could still feel the coldness of her mother’s skin on her lips. She took a deep breath and parted the floral curtains around Charlie’s bed. Pulling up a chair she reached for his hand and took a deep breath. ‘Mum’s gone, Dad.’

  ‘She’s gone. Gal, gone, you say she’s gone.’ Charlie gripped Jenny’s hand and frowned at her as he tried to make sense of what she was saying.

  ‘She didn’t suffer, Dad. Robert and I were with her at the end.’

  ‘Peaceful?’

  ‘Yes, yes it was.’

  ‘She’d put up with enough pain in her life. She was a fighter.’ His blue eye moistened.

  ‘Yes, she was.’ The sight of his tears released her own. ‘I’ve spoken to the ward sister, and Robert’s waiting to speak to the doctor.’

  ‘I saw her at the weekend, didn’t I? It was the weekend wasn’t it, before my op? She spoke to me didn’t she?’ Charlie tried to hoist himself up in the bed.

  ‘Yes, you did.’ Tears streamed down each cheek.

  ‘Gal, Gal!’ he shouted out.

  ‘Dad, Dad,’ Jenny rested her hand on her father’s arm. I think the doctor’s coming over to give you an injection.’

  ‘Injection, I don’t want no bloody injection. You tell him.’

  ‘We’ll do everything that needs to be done Dad. You just concentrate on getting better.’ Jenny pulled a crumpled tissue from her bag and wiped her face.

  A doctor carrying a kidney dish parted the curtains.

  ‘Gal, Gal!’ Charlie shouted louder than before.

 
; *

  Jenny opened her eyes and felt a giant standing on her chest, pinning her to the bed. She remembered what she had to do. There was no alternative but to get through the day as best she could. She didn’t cry until she saw her father being wheeled carefully down the ramp of the ambulance and up the path towards the churchyard gate. ‘Hello Dad, you look very smart in your best suit and tie,’ she leant over and kissed him on his forehead. Wiping her eyes, she lifted his cold hand and gave it a squeeze in an attempt to reassure them both.

  ‘It was a lovely service; just what your mum would have wanted.’ Doris caught up with Jenny as she pushed Charlie’s wheelchair out of the west door of the church, and into the autumn sunshine. Her husband George lingered a few yards behind. Jenny noticed he’d put on weight around his midriff since she had last seen him, and now looked less like a Greek god, and more like Aristotle Onassis.

  ‘I chose the readings and hymns myself. I couldn’t ask Mum what she wanted when she was so ill,’ Jenny whispered. ‘As for Dad, well, he always refused to talk about anything like that.’ She thought they had never talked about anything important, even when they were well. ‘I’m pleased that you could both make it.’

  ‘We flew back yesterday. We’re staying with Alan and Jackie.’

  ‘You must be warm in that fur coat?’ Jenny said. ‘The sun’s quite hot.’

  ‘No I’m not. It’s freezing here compared to Larnaca.’

  Five years earlier, Doris had sold her house in Woolwich and bought a villa in Cyprus where they now spent the majority of the year. Since her marriage Jenny had taken to visiting her aunt regularly, and had found that she missed their conversations. She could talk to her aunt about subjects she felt inhibited about discussing with her mother. Alice always made some disparaging remark when she mentioned she was seeing Doris. When Jenny had told her about her aunt’s intended move, and that Doris would have preferred an apartment in Torremolinos, but to please George – who had wanted to return to his roots – she had agreed to buy in Cyprus. Her mother had said that, ‘She never wanted to please Jim.’

  ‘Jackie and I are so sorry about your mum. My dad… Uncle Jim always had a soft spot for her. Here, let me wheel him for you?’ said Alan.

  ‘Thank you, but it’s a bit tricky between the graves. Just let me take those tissues off his lap.’ Jenny leant over her father, picked up the box and adjusted the tartan blanket around his legs.

  ‘That’s better isn’t it Dad?’

  Charlie sat erect in his wheelchair and stared straight ahead; his plastered leg jutting out from under the blanket. The wheelchair seemed to diminish him.

  A family of jackdaws cackled as the mourners gathered in silence around the open grave. Alice’s coffin was slowly lowered into the ground.

  ‘In sure and certain hope of the resurrection into eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to almighty God our sister Alice, and we commit her body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’

  As the familiar words of consolation were spoken by the vicar, Jenny bent down, picked up a handful of earth from the pile and scattered it on the coffin. She passed a handful to Charlie and manoeuvred his wheelchair closer to the edge making it easier for him to perform his final duty.

  Alan stood aside as Robert gripped the wheelchair. ‘Let’s go and look at the flowers Dad.’ He pushed Charlie back up the grassy slope to a concreted area by the west door. Jenny followed hand in hand with Lorna and Nicky, both wearing suitably solemn faces. She hadn’t wanted them to come to the funeral, knowing that their tears would make her more upset. ‘They can stay next door and join us at the house afterwards,’ she had said to Robert.

  ‘No Jen, it’s best that they come. They’re old enough to say their goodbyes.’

  The autumnal sprays and wreaths were laid in a row. Jenny knelt down looking at each message of condolence in turn.

  A huddle of elderly women wearing dark coats and hats stood whispering as they waited to inspect the flowers. Jenny recognised them as her mother’s friends from the Townswomen’s Guild.

  ‘It’s good of you to come,’ Jenny said.

  ‘We were all very fond of Alice. I mean your mum. I saw her the week before last at Copper Cliff. She had a lot to put up with, but I remember she always said, that there was always someone else worse off than her, didn’t she?’ she turned to the woman on her left. ‘We’re all going to miss her on Wednesday afternoons, especially me. At least it’s a sunny day; nothing worse than pouring rain at a funeral.’

  ‘Yes, that’s something I suppose. You’re all welcome to come back to the house. Robert will organise a lift for you.’

  ‘No, it’s alright dear – we just wanted to pay our respects. You’ve got enough on your plate with your dad in the wheelchair. He looks so frail. How’s he coping, poor man?’

  ‘Well it was only ten days ago that he had his operation, so considering what’s happened, he’s not doing too badly. The ambulance is bringing him back to our house, and then they’ll come and collect him later.’

  ‘It’s terrible for him and for you too, dear.’

  ‘Yes it is.’ Jenny was deliberately trying not to think about what her father was feeling. If she did, she knew she wouldn’t cope. ‘Well, you must excuse me, but I must go and talk to the others.’ Two of her father’s brothers were standing around his wheelchair smoking. She couldn’t remember them being in the church. The last time she had seen them, was twenty years ago, at her cousin Leslie’s wedding. They hadn’t been invited to hers – Alice had seen to that. As Ernie drew on his cigarette she saw that two fingers were missing from his right hand. So it was true then? She remembered her parent’s conversation years earlier.

  ‘Cissie said he lost them in a revenge attack Gal. He was bloody lucky that was all he lost from what I’ve heard about them. Always flew close to the wind did Ernie. I remember when he was a lad my old man thrashed him with his shaving strap for stealing.’ The name Kray had been mentioned, and when she heard the name again on the news a year or two later; she had shivered. As she approached, they simultaneously dropped their cigarettes, grinding them into the path with the toes of their black shoes, then, they both laid a hand on Charlie’s shoulders and said, ‘You look after yourself, old soldier,’ and with a perfunctory nod to Jenny, they turned on their heels and marched from the churchyard towards a grey Bentley. At least they came to support Dad. It doesn’t look as if they’re coming back for tea.

  *

  The following morning Jenny stood at the kitchen table and untied the wire from the flower sprays. Robert had returned to the churchyard once their relatives had left and brought the sprays home, saying it was a waste to leave them to rot when they could be enjoyed by other people. As she separated each lily, her tears fell onto the glossy leaves and glistened like raindrops.

  9

  October 1981

  Jenny dreaded visiting her father. He hadn’t mentioned the funeral, so she hadn’t either. They spoke only of the plans she was making for his discharge at the weekend. Jenny decided that there would be plenty of time for talking once he was out of hospital.

  ‘Mrs Maynard,’ the ward sister called her over. ‘You’re not to be alarmed, but your father has developed pneumonia. We’ve started him on strong antibiotics this morning, so he should respond quickly.’

  ‘Pneumonia, but he was doing so well. We were only talking yesterday about him staying with us until he feels able to return to the flat.’

  ‘Did he used to be in the army?’

  ‘Yes, for many years.’

  ‘That makes sense of some of the things that he’s been saying. So he’s an old soldier?’

  ‘Very much so,’ Jenny smiled.

  ‘He didn’t want to get out of bed after you left yesterday. Then later in the evening he developed a high temperature. But as I’ve said, you’re not to worry, this sometimes happens, especially with older patients. They don’t move about as much as younger people. You do
know that he has a tumour in his left lung?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘That may have had some bearing on him breaking his leg – it may have spread into his bones. But it hasn’t been causing him any problems with his lungs until now. You know that you and your husband can visit whenever you like.’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Oh, and thank you for bringing the flowers in the other day, they really brighten up the ward.’ The ward sister turned away and started to flick through a pile of medical notes.

  Jenny parted the curtains and was overpowered by the fragrance from the lilies on the bedside cabinet. Charlie lay propped up against three pillows and opened his left eye.

  ‘Hello Jenny. Not so good today.’

  *

  Charlie’s lungs improved over the next three days and a new discharge date was arranged. Jenny returned to work and spent her free time turning their dining room into a bedroom ready for Charlie’s return.

  ‘Can I sleep down here?’ Lorna and Nicky asked in turn as they bounced on the mattress that lay on the folding bed.

  ‘No, of course you can’t. It’s for Granddad. You know that.’

  ‘Oh please – I’ll be good, I promise. I’ll go to bed early and I’ll be really really quiet, like a little mouse, you won’t hear me, I promise,’ Nicky pleaded.

  Jenny was tempted, but reason triumphed. ‘No, now get off the bed both of you and let me make it up.’

  *

  The evening before Charlie’s discharge Jenny was in the kitchen revising for her exam while Dolly Parton’s longings burst forth from the tape player on the windowsill. Lorna and Nicky were playing hospitals in the dining room. She could hear Nicky pretending to be an ambulance with sirens blaring. Why are boys so noisy? Can’t they ever play quietly? The hatch doors were open and she heard the phone ring in the lounge. Robert would answer it. He was expecting a call about a cricket fixture.