by Ros Franey
‘Late nights at Roebuck’s, is it? That sounds familiar.’
‘That and Lodge business, mostly. Oh, and the Mechanics’, of course. He’s doing a good deal of charity work.’
We have reached the front of the taxi queue and nothing more is said till we’re driving up Woodborough Road. Staring out of the windows, I’m thinking that, boom or not – and even on a bright summer day – how grimy and poor the city looks. People on the streets are much paler than the French, sort of suet-coloured. I think about the food in Bordeaux.
‘And how’s Mother?’ I ask at last.
Maisie doesn’t reply for a moment. Then she says, ‘Oh, Mrs Lang’s keeping well enough; her usual self. You know.’
I turn back from the window and look at her. ‘How d’you mean?’
‘Well …’ Maisie isn’t meeting my gaze. ‘She keeps herself busy. She runs a sewing circle at the Mission.’
‘And?’
‘Well, there’s the garden. And her Bible study. She does a lot of Mission work for the Pastor, your grandfather. She does get tired.’
‘Does she go and visit Fred?’
Maisie raises her eyes and looks at me now. ‘How, d’you mean, duck?’
‘Beatrice told me,’ I say impatiently. ‘You don’t need to hide it, Maisie.’
‘Mrs Lang said—’
‘Yes, I can imagine what she said. There’s not nearly enough gets talked about in this family! It’s not your fault, Maisie. Beatrice told me last night.’
Maisie sighs. ‘That poor lad.’ We both think about him for a few moments. She looks as if she wants to say something further. I wait. ‘Well, since you ask,’ she goes on guardedly, ‘Mrs Lang thinks it’s better not to disturb him, though your father would go …’
‘But?’
‘But Fred won’t see him.’ Maisie gazes at me, her eyes troubled. ‘It’s his illness, Annie. Fred’s not himself. He told Mr Lang …’ She falters.
‘What did he tell him?’
‘Oh,’ she shakes her head. ‘Some nonsense.’
‘Have you been?’ I ask her.
She hesitates. Then she gives a little nod. ‘I take him a cake sometimes. He used to like my Dundee, and I always say it’s got the goodness. Food’s grim in that place … But I don’t let on that I go,’ she adds with a warning look.
I reach over and squeeze her hand.
We have arrived at St Ann’s Hill and the taxi turns into it, bumping up the cobbles. ‘Eeh, Annie, I don’t fancy our chances getting that suitcase of yours up the steps,’ says Maisie loudly, one eye on the taxi driver.
The driver grins. ‘Don’t worry, duck, I’d have carried it up for you anyway.’
‘There’s a nice man for you,’ says Maisie, beaming at him. ‘And since it’s Mr Lang’s money, you’ll get a nice tip an’ all.’
I climb the steps slowly, following the taxi driver: past the ash-pit with its rank-dank smell and up into the yard. Mother’s tubs are blooming with summer flowers, nasturtiums, sweet William and little blobs of white alyssum and blue lobelia alternating around the outsides, the way she always plants them. Behind them stands the house, smaller than I remember, its red brick more soot-blackened, its windows dark against the sunshine outside. In the place where Nana’s kennel used to be, there’s nothing now except a slightly darker rectangle where its frame touched the ground.
I follow Maisie into the scullery. Like the rest of the house, it has shrunk. I hadn’t realised how cramped it is, and dark, the small window above the stone sink letting hardly any light through. Perhaps Maisie notices it too, because she says, ‘Seems wrong to be bringing you the back way like this; you ought to be walking in the front door.’
I smile. ‘Then I’d feel like a visitor,’ I say. I lug the suitcase through the breakfast room and out into the hall, stopping from habit to listen for clues. Daddy would not be at home; but Mother? The house is silent, the hall dark and cool, a square of crimson light from the stained glass in the front door falling on the tiles beside the hatstand. I go into the front drawing room; even on this warm afternoon it gives off a chill and, when I enter, there’s that smell again, of damp coal dust and something dead rising up through the floorboards from the cellar below: it takes me straight back to that most dread night. Need to break the spell. I tiptoe to the piano. Someone has shut the lid; it was never shut in the olden days. I raise it. The keys look wan and unplayed, yellowing. Poor piano. I sit down, think for a moment whether to disturb the quiet of the house and summon a genie. Then I play, as softly as I can, the first Arabesque, my latest passion; I’ve brought the music home from France but I know it by heart. The piano is flat. Some of the notes are sticking. With Beatrice gone and me gone, there’s no one to care. Yet Miss Higgs (for I still think of her as that) is a good pianist. Why doesn’t she play? Our own mother would never have let the piano go flat. Our own mother would have met the train. Fred would not have had the ‘nervous exhaustion’ if our own mother were alive. I play more loudly … and raise the genie.
‘So you’re here, Annie!’
My hands fly back from the keys mid-phrase. I jump to my feet. She is standing in the doorway, wearing a long, thin navy dress, by which I mean the shape beneath the dress is thin, her face more angular than ever. Her eyes are like pale stones.
‘Just this minute. Hello, Mother.’
‘What are you playing?’
‘I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t disturb you.’
‘I don’t think I’ve heard this piece of music.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. It’s Debussy. His first Ara—’
‘Debussy. Yes. I might have known.’ She turns away. ‘Get that suitcase out of the hall,’ she says as she leaves the room.
Daddy comes home at six o’clock, bearing a pork pie and sliced ham.
‘… In your honour, Annie! I was over in Melton today. This pie was walking round the pig-sty two days ago, mark my words.’
We eat it with beetroot, lettuce, tomato. I consider offering to make a vinaigrette, but decide it would not be diplomatic on my first evening. Daddy is in a jolly mood. ‘Quite brightens up the house, doesn’t it, Agnes, having our little Annie home with us again?’
‘You’re looking a better colour in any case, Annie,’ Mother acknowledges.
I smile at her. I would like to have said the same to her, but it wouldn’t be true. Mother seems to have aged in the past year, little pouches visible around her mouth and a strained new set to her jaw.
‘Annie’s blooming!’ Daddy says. ‘Eighteen years old, eh? Quite the little Madam-oiselle! Make lots of friends over there, did you, Annie? Chic young ladies from the university?’
‘A few, yes, I did,’ I say, hoping I won’t have to talk about them. Bordeaux is precious. Bordeaux is mine.
‘And your French has come on in leaps and bounds, I expect!’
‘I hope so,’ I say. ‘It was hard at first doing all the classes in French, but when I got the hang of it, it helped a lot.’
‘I should hope it did,’ Mother remarks drily. ‘After all the fuss and expense of going there.’
‘Well it was a free place, of course,’ Daddy reminds her. ‘A scholarship, really. Hats off to our clever girl for getting it!’
I catch the look on Mother’s face and swiftly change the subject. ‘It was lovely to see Beatrice in London. She met the boat train. I would have been lost without her!’
‘How is she?’ Daddy asks. ‘We haven’t seen her since – Whitsun, wasn’t it, Agnes?’
‘Oh, she’s frightfully well,’ I tell him. ‘Have you noticed she’s got awfully—’ I’m about to say ‘fashionable’ or ‘smart’ or some such, but I think that might not go down too well, so I say, ‘Awfully sort of grown-up. She was wearing a very nice frock. She says you have to be neat for work.’
‘Of course you do,’ Mother agrees. ‘She’s working with some of the most eminent figures in the country. She’s a very fortunate girl.’
‘Well, I think they’re
lucky to have her,’ I say. ‘I’m sure she’s terribly efficient and practical and keeps them all in perfect order.’
‘I doubt if they need Beatrice to keep them in order,’ Mother remarks. ‘They’ve got first-class minds of their own.’
‘You stayed the night there, didn’t you?’ says Daddy. ‘Are her digs all right?’
‘She’s got quite a decent room and an armchair and a gas fire, and a view over a little park. There was a bird singing out there in the middle of the night. One of the other girls was away so the landlady let me sleep in that room; she was very kind.’
‘It sounds expensive,’ says Mother. ‘Don’t you think she’d be better off in the YWCA, Harry?’
‘Well …’ he begins.
I’m kicking myself. ‘Oh the room’s not all that big,’ I say hastily. ‘It’s up in the attic and you have to walk up lots of stairs and … and the bathroom’s two floors down …’
‘That’ll do, Annie,’ Mother says. ‘It sounds vertiginous.’
I laugh and throw her a grateful look, but I don’t think she was joking.
Then, taking advantage of the softer mood, I breathe in a deep breath and say, ‘Um, Beatrice said something about Fred.’
Mother pauses, a forkful of pork pie halfway to her mouth. ‘What about him?’ She puts down her fork and waits.
‘Poor Fred. I understand he’s not well.’
‘He needs rest. He needs to be left in peace.’
Daddy says, ‘He’s getting the best possible care.’
‘How is he?’ I ask. ‘Have you seen him, Daddy?’
‘I have been in there, yes.’ My father stirs his tea vigorously. ‘It’s – well – it’s an old building, of course, but they keep it cheerful.’
I can’t resist asking, ‘How often do you go?’
‘Just the once.’ Daddy isn’t looking at me.
‘They have a very clear policy,’ says Mother. ‘The doctors firmly believe that he needs to be kept away from his usual surroundings.’
Daddy throws her a glance. ‘As your mother says, they’ve got this idea that it’s better not to visit. But I know about it, as well, from the Mechanics’, you see.’
‘The Mechanics’ Institute? What have they got to do with it?’
‘Well, we organise a few things for them, outings for some of the patients; and there’s a staff choir and we send in visitors, too. It’s a lively place, believe it or not. Very forward-looking.’
This is interesting. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘So it’s not bad for everyone to have visitors then?’
‘Oh … well, Annie. You can’t generalise about these things, of course.’
‘But for some patients it’s good to have visits from outside, is it?’
‘Annie,’ Mother cuts in, ‘we need to talk about your arrangements for the summer. Have you any thoughts of what you intend to do? Because I have several suggestions.’
‘Of course, Mother.’ I drag my mind away from the subject of Fred. ‘Actually, there’s one thing: please can I have piano lessons again? I’d like to start working for Grade Eight. Please may I?’
Daddy says, ‘I don’t see why not, if you can fit it in with your studies, don’t you agree, Agnes?’
Mother sighs. ‘That’s generous of you, Harry.’ But turning to me, she says, ‘I do hope that now you’re home, Annie, you will cease to live to please yourself, as you have been during your lucky year in France, and apply yourself to the good of others.’
‘Yes, Mother,’ I murmur.
‘You will, of course, be visiting Pastor Eames at your earliest opportunity,’ she goes on. ‘And I took the liberty of suggesting to him that you might share some of my duties visiting the sick. I find it exhausting, and it would do you good to see how some of our congregation have to suffer.’
I take a sip of tea. It’s good, strong English tea with fresh milk and I missed it in France. ‘I shall be glad to visit the sick,’ I tell her. ‘And – with your blessing – I should like to start by visiting my sick brother, though not, of course, until after I’ve been to see Grandfather Eames.’
Mother’s eyes narrow.
‘Annie …’ Daddy half-raises his hand towards my arm.
‘What I mean, naturally,’ I hurry on, ‘is that I should like to visit the hospital and ask the nurses and doctors whether they might permit me to see Fred once in a while.’ I look from one to the other. ‘Do you think, since I’ve been away for a year, that perhaps I’m not too closely connected to the state of mind that brought on his illness? I would like to ask them, at least,’ I finish, with what I hope is a placatory glance towards Mother.
There is a short silence. I jump up and go to refill the teapot with boiling water.
‘I’ve been meaning to ask you, Annie,’ Mother says as I sit down again. ‘As a young person, perhaps you can enlighten me: what kind of world is it we now live in, in which someone who comes eighth in a competition should win a scholarship? In my day, eighth was mediocre. Where is the virtue, would you say, in rewarding that?’
‘Oh I say, Agnes,’ Daddy breaks in. ‘She was eighth in All England – out of the whole country!’
‘I’m aware, Harry, of what All England means. I’m interested in Annie’s opinion.’
She waits.
I stare at my plate. It’s Miss Higgs triumphant, as ever. There is no satisfactory answer I can possibly make.
‘I’m very thankful to have been given the opportunity,’ I mutter at last. It sounds more honest than saying something about God’s will, but still horribly lame. ‘Imperfect as my achievement was,’ I add. I raise my eyes and look at her.
She regards me for a moment. ‘Is that the best you can do?’
‘Mother, I don’t know what you want me to say. I will visit the sick with you. I will do my best.’
And that’s all I can remember about coming home. With a single swipe she has reduced me to eight years old again.
TEN
1926
Of all the trouble I have ever got into with Mother, the most serious was when I was eight years old. I do not like to think about it, but it’s what happened next, so I shall write it fast and then it will be over.
I’d been on at Marjorie Bagshaw to let me go with her and her mother to Goose Fair, which is our world-famous three-day fair every Autumn, nothing to do with geese, but there are dodgems and coconut shies and candyfloss and mushy peas. Marjorie’s mother said yes, if I had the permission. And Mother said she ‘supposed so’ as long as I was back by half-past four. I could tell Mother wasn’t all that pleased about this outing, probably on account of Marjorie’s family not being Saved, but Daddy gave me sixpence and we had a lovely afternoon. Marjorie’s older sister Iris came too.
Mrs Bagshaw was a jolly sort of mother and I liked her because she was a bit dramatic. She enjoyed dressing up and for the Fair she was wearing a rather dashing crimson costume with a purple hat. She let us go on the carousel and I chose a black horse with a beautiful blue bridle and many-coloured ribbons to ride on; Marjorie’s was white with silver stars in its ears. Iris said she was too old for all that; she’d rather go on the dodgems, which Mrs Bagshaw said she couldn’t. Mrs B. hugged us both when we jumped off our horses and ran back to her. It felt funny and I pulled away because we don’t do hugging in our family, but immediately I wished I hadn’t. There was a man on a tightrope with a long stick walking high in the air between two roofs and we had toffee apples which splintered into smithereens when you crunched into them and you had to stuff your mouth really full in order not to drop it all.
But then a terrible thing happened. While we were concentrating on the tightrope man who was nearly at the end of his walk and had stopped to twizzle the stick over his head, which made him wobble, Mrs Bagshaw suddenly let go of our hands and jerked away and shouted something angrily at the top of her voice. By the time I realised what was happening, she had left us and was plunging through the crowd screaming, ‘Stop him! Stop that man – he’s stolen my purs
e!’
Marjorie and I huddled close to Iris and watched in horror as the crowd surged around and swallowed her up. There were shouts and confusion and a policeman blowing a whistle and when Mrs Bagshaw reappeared her eyes were blazing angry and we had to go to the Station and it was all the most enormous fuss, quite exciting at first. I tried to tell them I didn’t see anything because I was watching the man on the high wire, but no one seemed interested. Iris stayed with her mother but Marjorie and I were sent outside into the corridor where people were hurrying up and down with important-looking notebooks and files. There must have been all sorts of crimes committed at Goose Fair because the police station was crowded to bursting. After a while, a man in handcuffs was bundled up the corridor and taken into the room where Mrs Bagshaw and Iris were talking to the constable. Marjorie dug me in the ribs: ‘Look, that must be him!’ she whispered excitedly.
But watching the clock above the desk, I saw with alarm that time was passing at great speed.
I tugged at her sleeve. ‘Marjorie, I’ve got to go. Mother said to be back at half-past four.’
‘Well you can’t go, can you? Mam’s in with the constable.’
‘D’you think she’ll be coming soon?’
‘I don’t know, do I?’
‘Shall we ask that man behind the desk?’
‘Give over, Annie. Your mother can’t mind – it’s not your fault if you’re late home.’
But I knew better. I began to wish I’d never come. Before my horrified eyes, the hands of the clock positively whizzed towards half-past four; I swear I could see them moving.
At about quarter-past, my prayers were answered when the door of the inner room finally opened and Mrs Bagshaw came out, looking grim. Iris was grinning from ear to ear. ‘They’ve got him!’ she announced.
‘I hope he goes to prison for a long time for that,’ said Mrs Bagshaw tartly.
‘Was it him that we saw, then?’ Marjorie asked.