Man at the Helm

by Stibbe, Nina

  She said it to upset Little Jack even more. Isn’t it funny how siblings do that to each other? Really, my sister’s heart was breaking for Little Jack having to give up his name for Bluebell, and yet she felt compelled to poke around in the pain of it.

  The pregnancy was wonderful, though – if you didn’t count Little Jack’s reluctance to become Jimmy. It was, as previously stated, the happiest we’d seen her. And she confided in us that she experienced butterflies in her pelvis from dawn to dusk, which is one up from butterflies in your stomach excitement-wise, and is a woman-only thing.

  I longed to tell someone – well, Melody. It wasn’t worth it, though, because however nice Melody was, she was only really interested in her own family and if I told her about this secret pregnancy she’d be bound to tell me some sickening secret of her own. I’d confided in her once before over a previous thing to do with our mother, only to have her blurt out that her mother had taken to wearing a loose kaftan with no underpants and sipping cider vinegar in a bid to combat moistness in her undercarriage. Remembering that and the bath thing, I decided against telling her anything that might in any way lead back to anyone’s undercarriage, especially our mother’s, which I always wanted to keep private.

  Then, a few months into the pregnancy, our mother began to have a miscarriage in the middle of the night when Charlie was at home in his bungalow. It went on and on and there was endless blood and pain. My sister rang an ambulance and they took our mother on a stretcher. As they left the house I said, ‘Don’t drop her.’ I said it so that our mother would hear and know that I cared.

  And the ambulance man said, ‘Don’t worry, love, we never drop people on Wednesdays,’ and gave me a reassuring smile.

  Later, I realized with a panic that the ambulance had arrived at past midnight, meaning it wasn’t a Wednesday at all, it was a Thursday, and therefore they might have dropped her. I let myself cry then, making out it was that silly worry, when really it was the whole unexpected horror.

  At five o’clock in the morning my sister and I decided we’d make Mrs Lunt’s pot-dots to cheer ourselves up, but it was harder than we thought and we gave up before the pastry dough had ‘come together in a soft ball’ and chucked it in the bin. So instead we rang a few people up, people we knew, whose numbers were in our book. We dialled and hung up as soon as they answered. The phone would ring and ring and then someone would say, ‘Hello?’ groggily, with a question mark. We fell about laughing at the groggy hellos. We almost wet ourselves. We even rang our dad and he did the funniest groggy hello. So we did him again but it made us sad the second time. So we decided to phone Charlie, but not to hang up.

  A woman answered and said Charlie was asleep and was it an emergency. I said our mother had gone into the Royal Infirmary. There was a pause while the woman and I had realizations about each other.

  ‘I’m sorry, wrong number,’ I said.

  ‘I hope things turn out all right, dear,’ the woman said.

  Then my sister cleaned up the dreadful bed and the blood-soaked towels and didn’t even ask me to help – she let me lie on the settee with Debbie. She cleaned the kitchen and fed Debbie and at eight o’clock we got Little Jack ready and set off for school. He dawdled and cried and knew something was up.

  ‘Is Bluebell here?’ he asked, waiting at the zebra.

  ‘Bluebell might not come after all,’ said my sister.

  ‘We don’t know that,’ I said, ‘not for sure.’

  ‘Bluebell’s definitely not coming,’ she said (to me).

  The smell of pepper filled my nose, which usually meant tears would come. I’d got my heart set on Bluebell: he was real to me and hearing so definitely he wasn’t coming – that he’d died – I felt my heart break, I really did. I felt a small but definite crack. But I did a couple of coughs and we crossed the road, all holding hands.

  I upset my teacher that morning. She mentioned that I looked ‘particularly unkempt’ and I said I was sorry but our daily help had let us down.

  ‘Could your mother not get off her backside?’ she muttered.

  ‘She couldn’t, actually,’ I said rather rudely.

  ‘And why is that?’ asked Miss.

  ‘She’s temperamentally unsuited to doing laundry,’ I said.

  We did needlework after that and my embroidery stitches took a bad turn. Miss, who was already cross, said she wasn’t surprised by my sloppy stitching when our mother was such an irresponsible woman. Which I thought a coincidence, bearing in mind that our mother was – that very morning – at Leicester Royal Infirmary miscarrying an unknown man’s baby. Maybe even Mr Dodd’s. And Mr Dodd himself was just along the corridor, teaching Little Jack’s class leaf-rubbing with wax crayons.

  Our mother came home from hospital later that day. She was wretched and awkward, with bluish rings around her eyes. It was very embarrassing. She lay in bed moaning through clenched teeth and wouldn’t look up from her pillow. She didn’t cry as such, but moaned like an injured and forlorn animal in the forest. And my sister and I knew we had our work cut out.

  What good does crying do?

  None. Not unless you’re prepared to cry very loud and in front of people. And we weren’t.

  OK, there was no Bluebell but, on the plus side, our mother bought a puppy to cheer herself up – a miniature poodle called Honey. Honey took our minds off Bluebell and did all the usual puppy things like shaking a teddy and being sweet with Debbie. It was a help in the happiness campaign, although fairly short-lived because our mother soon got fed up with Honey and stopped finding her delightful. For one thing, she whined and made a horrible noise when eating (like a starving rat), and for another, she had a dodgy leg which popped its socket every now and again and it made our mother feel funny. We liked her, though (Honey): she had a sweet character, was very loving and not aloof like another poodle we’d known (Katie).

  Also, still on the plus side, Charlie reappeared and was romantic in his behaviour. Our mother asked why he’d stayed away for so long and he explained that he’d been so short of money he couldn’t afford to pay anyone to do the plastering etc. on the two bungalow shells he was doing up, and that meant spending all God’s hours doing it himself. Our mother was appalled that such a stupid thing had kept them apart and gave him three hundred pounds to take someone on immediately.

  Later, I asked our mother if Charlie might be married. Not that I minded, just that it was as well to know these things.

  ‘Men like him are always married,’ she said.

  ‘So will he stay married?’ I asked.

  Our mother explained that Charlie was stuck in a dreadful rut. And although he was keen to get out of the marriage, he was less than halfway through some major kitchen renovations he started in 1969 and felt he couldn’t leave Mrs Bates until it was finished.

  ‘Can’t Mrs Bates do it herself?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s not 100 per cent compos mentis since an accident with a train door,’ she said, ‘and she’s like a limpet clinging on.’

  ‘Can’t Charlie just get on with it, then he’d be out of the rut?’ I asked, meaning the kitchen.

  Our mother reminded me that Charlie was already renovating two bungalow shells and hardly had a minute. But was doing his best.

  I was keen to solve this conundrum and irritated by the shortsightedness of the main players. ‘Well, couldn’t you get someone like Mr Lomax the Liberal candidate to fix the kitchen?’ I asked.

  Our mother didn’t say anything for a while, but said eventually, ‘I did lend him some cash a while ago to get it done, but he’s so busy.’

  One day our mother asked me to go to Charlie Bates’s home – which was in the next village – and sneak a look at the kitchen renovations. It was a strange thing to ask me to do, but I did it.

  ‘It’s number 12, Bradshaw Street,’ she said. ‘Don’t be seen.’

  I went on my Raleigh Rustler. I could cycle no-handed by then (no other girl could). So I emphasized it by folding my arms across my c
hest. This gesture had the added bonus of making me feel purposeful, a thing I’ve always liked.

  I arrived at Bradshaw Street and cycled past number 12 a couple of times. It was a pretty bungalow with a greenhouse-style porch at the front, full of leggy plants and old pots. I went round to the back and peered through the kitchen window. It was a state. No cupboards or sideboards, just bare breezeblocks, all lumpy with bits of cement. A trolley with a teapot and a tin of Marvel. I saw our old Potterton in the corner. I recognized its distinguishing features. And I saw her, Mrs Bates, with a short grey bob, in the next room, smiling at the telly and perhaps even talking to it.

  ‘So did you see the kitchen?’ our mother asked when I got home.

  ‘It needs a lot of work,’ I said.

  ‘Sketch it out,’ she said. ‘I want details.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘For Mr Lomax,’ she said.

  Our mother became impatient with Charlie regarding his half-finished kitchen renovations.

  ‘I’ve a good mind to pay someone to go in and complete the work,’ she said, testing the water.

  ‘I thought you’d have got it sorted by now,’ said Charlie.

  The next day our mother told me to put on my lilac-leaf dress (it looked like hearts but it was leaves), brush my hair out nicely and put a little bow in Honey’s head curl.

  ‘Where are you going, all dressed up?’ my sister asked.

  ‘We’ll be back soon – we’ll bring chop suey – look after Jack,’ was all she’d say.

  And we got into the car and roared off. She told me she was going to face up to Mrs Bates and ask her to have mercy on her and Charlie’s love. It made her cry a bit just saying it. And I was infected.

  ‘Wow!’ I said, full of pride.

  ‘And offer her some cash to get off his back,’ she added. ‘I wonder what she looks like,’ our mother wondered.

  The truth was she looked nice. Nice round face and a happy smile, even though she was on her own and had no one to smile at except the telly.

  ‘Plug ugly,’ I said.

  ‘How do you know?’ said our mother.

  ‘I saw her that day I went spying on the kitchen.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything? Jesus!’ she said, and glanced at me. ‘Short or long hair?’

  ‘Short.’

  ‘Good,’ said our mother. She drove one-handed while she arranged her own (long).

  We arrived outside the bungalow and Mr Lomax (the Liberal candidate) was there in his van. Our mother spoke to him through the window.

  Honey the poodle jumped out of my arms and ran around the candy-tufted garden, stopping every now and then to worry her hair ribbon with her front paws, like a curly rodent. Our mother knocked and Mrs Bates finally opened the door. Our mother began in a straightforward fashion.

  ‘May I come in, Mrs Bates? I need to talk to you.’

  We went in and were ushered into the living room. ‘Come through to the lounge,’ said Mrs Bates. Our mother winced at the word (lounge) and we all sat down. Honey took an immediate liking to Mrs Bates and vice versa, and though I’m sure Mrs Bates sensed it wasn’t going to be a joyful encounter, she fussed Honey and gave her a fig roll off a flower-shaped plate on the arm of her chair.

  Mrs Bates told us about the tabby cat called Hilda she’d had for seven years. It had started out all right, but Mrs Bates said that Hilda had totally ignored her for the last five years until one day Hilda went to live with a man at the end of the street. I wondered whether, hearing that sad tale, our mother might have qualms about the message she was about to deliver.

  ‘Dogs are more companiable,’ said Mrs Bates.

  ‘Companiable?’ said our mother. ‘Is that a word?’

  ‘I think so, it means they’re more of a companion,’ said Mrs Bates.

  ‘Oh, yes, I see, they are indeed,’ said our mother.

  Our mother offered Mrs Bates an Embassy. Mrs Bates took one and our mother flicked her lighter towards her. As Mrs Bates tilted her head for the little flame, our mother said, ‘Charlie and I want to live together. He wants to leave you.’

  Mrs Bates didn’t seem surprised.

  So our mother told how she’d accidentally married a homosexual, and that while she had absolute respect for people of all types, including homosexuals, she couldn’t have remained married to him when he was in love with a Vogel’s engineer from Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Mrs Bates frowned at the thought and Honey, who seemed to be struggling with the fig roll, swallowed.

  Our mother went on that being alone with three children had plunged her into such a pit of loneliness and driven her to drink such excessive amounts of Bell’s etc. and take so many pills that she never knew what day it was. Then she’d met and fallen in love with Charlie. And life had changed for the better and she didn’t feel the need for drink so much.

  ‘And the pills?’ asked the canny Mrs Bates.

  ‘I’m weaning myself off them day by day,’ said our mother, glancing at me. I knew this was true because I’d been to Dr Kaufmann’s surgery with her and overheard the conversations therein.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you. Charlie doesn’t want to hurt you – it’s the last thing in the world we want – but we are genuinely and fully in love,’ our mother said in her nice voice.

  The doorbell rang and Mrs Bates got up out of her chair to answer it.

  ‘What do you think?’ our mother hissed at me. But Mrs Bates was back before I could reassure our mother with ‘Yeah, good.’ Which was what I would’ve said.

  ‘So, yes, you were saying?’ said Mrs Bates, flopping back into a chair and patting her knees for Honey.

  Our mother picked up the threads of her campaign. ‘Charlie has explained the state of the kitchen and has told me he feels obliged to make it right before he can leave,’ our mother began.

  ‘Well, he ripped it all out years ago and never put it back properly like he said he would,’ said Mrs Bates, pointing towards the mismatched Western-style swinging doors.

  ‘Yes, well, I expect you know that I am in a position to be able to help with the cost of putting it right and, to that end, I’ve brought a builder along,’ said our mother, sounding like one of her own plays. ‘Mr Lomax is outside now listening to Radio 2 in his van – he’s happy to come in and assess the work needed to give you a brand-new kitchen.’

  Our mother waited there to see how the land lay. I thought she might be over-egging it.

  ‘You mean, to pay me off,’ said Mrs Bates, twirling Honey’s topknot in her index finger.

  ‘Look, Mrs Bates – Lilian – be realistic, please. You know Charlie is going to leave at some point; if not now with me, it’ll be someone else. Play ball now and you get your kitchen fixed.’

  I hated that she said ‘play ball’ – it seemed so wrong. But she was doing her best and hadn’t been through any training for this kind of thing.

  ‘And make you feel better about taking him,’ said Mrs Bates, smoothing Honey.

  ‘It’s life, Lilian. You win some, you lose some, and you just take some,’ said our mother, ‘so let’s bring this builder in and you’ll actually get something out of it – for crying out loud.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Mrs Bates, and I was sent out to beckon Mr Lomax in.

  Mr Lomax came in, greeted Mrs Bates and began measuring up in the kitchen. I played solitaire with green marbles on a smooth wooden board while he worked and our mother sat anxiously and kept picking up the Leicester Mercury and putting it down again. Mrs Bates just sat there rhythmically stroking Honey, who’d fallen asleep with her teeth bared. Soon Mr Lomax reappeared and the atmosphere changed. He had Mrs Bates leafing through chunky files, picking pine-style finishes and handles. He said he’d construct the new units in his workshop and fit them along with a whole array of modern features the following Wednesday. The following Wednesday! Mrs Bates seemed quite pleased at that. And, all being well, he’d have it done in a day.

  Mrs Bates showed flashes of real pleasure at some
of Mr Lomax’s further descriptions – the pan carousel, for instance, that could accommodate more than double the pans of a normal cupboard, the A–Z spice rack and the cascade effect on a glass door panel – and kept putting her hand up to her face to hide her smile. You could see it in her eyes, though.

  Mr Lomax said he’d love us and leave us and went, and Mrs Bates was quickly back to her expressionless self.

  ‘So we’ll be off too,’ our mother said. ‘Are you happy with everything?’

  ‘Yes, fine,’ said Mrs Bates, not looking at us. She cuddled Honey, kissed her on the nose and then held her out to our mother.

  ‘Why don’t you keep her?’ she asked.

  ‘The puppy?’ exclaimed Mrs Bates. ‘But she’s yours, and won’t the children miss her?’

  ‘They’ve got Debbie,’ said our mother, ‘and I can tell Honey just adores you.’

  We drove home via the Red Rickshaw takeaway.

  ‘You know what gets me?’ our mother said.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘She’s bloody ancient,’ she said.

  And then, thinking that happy thought, she smiled and tapped the steering wheel to the beat of imaginary music. Her idea to face up to Mrs Bates had been a good one and it was very nice to see her happy after the loss of Bluebell. The whole project had been clear-headed and purposeful. And she was the happiest I had seen her since the pregnancy.

  ‘All’s well that ends well,’ said our mother, meaning sorting Mrs Bates’s kitchen and dumping Honey.

  ‘Well done, Mum,’ I said, ‘you’re a genius.’

  ‘Thank you, Lizzie.’

  ‘Is Dad a homosexual?’ I asked, as we waited for our order in the Red Rickshaw.

  ‘They all are, if you’re not careful,’ said our mother. ‘That’s the challenge.’

  The others were overly pleased to see us when we got home. It wasn’t even late but they were both at the door with Debbie. And I saw how disheartening it must be to get home to desperate-looking children in the porch. It made me hate them and I vowed not to do that again.

  14

  It was Thursday, the day after the Wednesday when Mr Lomax the builder/Liberal candidate had been and fitted the kitchen units and fripperies in Mrs Bates’s bungalow. And we were waiting for the next thing to happen, which was supposedly that Charlie Bates would be released from the marriage and would arrive at our house and start a live-in relationship with us.