Cuckoo

by Anne Piper

  My knees get very stiff now, though thank goodness I’m not as bad as Edith, who can’t kneel at all. I sat back smiling at Miss Larkins beside me. The early sun streamed through the old east window in a dazzle of reds and blues and yellows. There are times when I feel quite homesick for Heaven to see my John again among the blessed angels — and Albert of course. I hope Albert’ll be feeling better in Heaven. Sometimes his complaints were hard to bear, even though I knew he was suffering so much, poor dear. John never complained. Even to the last he never said a word against her. I can’t believe it’s true that everyone loves everyone in Heaven. I couldn’t ever love Katharine, not anywhere. Perhaps I’ll go to Hell for hating Katharine, perhaps she’s in Hell already. Please God let Katharine not be in my part of Heaven anyway, just John — and Albert on Sundays.

  Silly bits of wafer they give us now instead of bread, and the Communion wine’s not as strong as it used to be either. Nothing’s as good as it used to be. It’s time I went, if only it weren’t for Prudence. I must hang on as long as I can for her.

  She was at the french windows in the dining-room throwing corn to the pigeons when I came back. She doesn’t wear a pinafore on Sunday. Edith had given her a clean pink frock, and as she stood there in the sunshine with red lights in her thick brown hair, the pigeons at her feet, I thought sadly, it’s going to take more than my prayers to make her plain.

  “Morning, darling,” I said, and she came over and kissed me.

  “Have a nice church?” she asked. “Who was there?”

  “All the usual people, except the doctor’s wife.”

  “Oh, they’ve gone away for a fortnight. Liz told me. She’s alone in the house with her old Nannie. Can I ask her up to tea?”

  “Of course, darling. Help my kidneys and bacon, will you?”

  I sat down and Prudence brought my breakfast from the sideboard. She tucked her napkin into her chin. We always have kidneys for Sunday breakfast, always have done since John was a boy. He used to love them. Albert preferred eggs. He’d have liked eggs seven days of the week if Edith and I hadn’t been firm with him.

  After breakfast on Sunday I wind the clocks. When Albert was alive we used to have a little man to come and do it, but I do it alone now. We have several clocks. Eight loud tickers altogether; a grandfather clock downstairs and up, and one on every chimneypiece. The kitchen clock Edith winds every day. Eight of them steadily eating up my life. But it doesn’t do to get fanciful. My life would be eaten up even if the clocks weren’t there. Besides they eat up Prudence’s just as fast as they eat up mine.

  By the time I had written a couple of letters it was time to start out for church again. Prudence has a big white straw hat this year with cornflowers and daisies on it, and I make her wear white gloves like mine and carry her own Prayer Book that Albert gave her. She took my arm, and we held up the parasol between us. Edith goes to evensong.

  “Don’t scuff your shoes in the dust, Prudence,” I said. “Lift them up properly, patent leather marks so, and your socks will be grey before we get there. Got a clean hankie and sixpence for the collection?”

  “Yes, Grannie.” I kept my breath for walking after that.

  Prudence has a very sweet little voice when she sings the hymns. She gets confused with the timing of the psalms, but she’s not the only one, the choir are often at sixes and sevens. Mr. Miller will take them too fast. I let Prudence go out before the sermon. Albert wouldn’t have liked it, but then Albert knew the proper length for a sermon. This vicar wanders on sometimes for twenty minutes in search of a point, without finding one either. Prudence put her sixpence in the bag and slipped away round the pillar. I sat back in my place.

  In one of our old parishes there was a Colonel who got out his watch and laid it on the pew in front of him as Albert began to speak, and when the ten minutes was up he shut the watch with a snap. When he heard the snap Albert knew it was time to stop, and so did all the congregation. If Albert ever dared to go five minutes over the Colonel, they got restless and coughed and shuffled their feet. It worked out well though. We all knew when we’d be sitting down to luncheon, and plenty of time for a little chat at the church door first. This hot summer morning the vicar chose to drone on for nearly half an hour. I must have dozed off for a few seconds because it wasn’t long before I heard him clatter down the pulpit steps, but when I looked at the time a solid twenty-five minutes had passed. I couldn’t have told what the sermon was about. I wondered if anyone had noticed. It’s the first time I’ve ever done that, fallen asleep in church.

  Perhaps I’d better go and see Dr. Williams next week. I can’t of course, he’s away, and I won’t have that young whipper-snapper partner of his anywhere near me if I’m dying. Besides I can’t be dying, I feel very well, if only it weren’t so hot, and I’m not ready to die. I’ve got to make proper arrangements for Prudence first.

  I nodded to the vicar’s wife on the way out; I must have her to tea and ask her advice about young girls. But that can wait. Now I knew Edith would be waiting for me. She likes us to be at table by a quarter to one on Sundays so that she can get cleaned up in time to catch the two o’clock bus into Fullersham for her weekly visit to her friend Mrs. Merrill. She rang the gong three minutes after I got into the house, I barely had time to wash my hands.

  “What kept you?” Edith asked as she put the joint down in front of me.

  “The vicar preached for twenty-five minutes,” I said.

  “It’s that hot too,” said Edith.

  “Yes,” I said casually. “I’m afraid he went on so long that I took forty winks before the end.”

  Edith didn’t seem surprised; I was watching her closely as she took Prudence’s mutton round to her.

  “Best thing you could do,” she said. “Enough is as good as a feast, but no one’s ever told that vicar so. His wife should speak to him.”

  “I’m glad I went out,” Prudence said. “I went over to Liz and she’s coming to tea today.”

  “Today, is she?” asked Edith. “Well mind you’re good girls while I’m out, and don’t bother your grandmother.”

  We drank our coffee in the garden. Or rather I drank my coffee and Prudence ate the hard sharp coffee sugar. Edith had put my chaise longue in the shade of the beech tree on the back lawn. Prudence brought out a deck chair, and sat down beside me with the Sunday Times crossword and a pencil.

  “I can’t do any, Grannie,” she said after a moment. “You try. I’m going to get my drawing book.”

  She ran into the house and I laid the paper on my knee. All the print swam together. I couldn’t make head or tail of it. I took off my glasses and leaned my head against the cushions. The beech leaves flickered and swam together too. I could feel them fighting to hold back the sun.

  Suddenly I was in our orchard at home, and more than half a century had lifted away. I lay on my back eating cherries, a discarded book against my cheek and above me the apple leaves moved apart, flashed and melted together again. I remember that, because I was quite alone, and because it was very hot, I had lifted my stiff white skirts high up my black stockinged legs, and let my hair down. It lay loose all round me. It came to my waist in those days. Fine, fair hair. I can boast about it now, with the fairness gone these forty years. I let it down because I wasn’t used to having it up. I had only just come out and I hated the heavy weight it made on top of my head. But this Sunday afternoon I was happy.

  I had escaped to my secret place at the bottom of the orchard, leaving my three elder sisters to entertain the house party. It was a dull collection of people. Two old friends of my parents, their son who seemed much interested in my eldest sister, Alice, and Rose’s fiancé, Herbert. Nobody needed me, and nobody would find me here. But a sudden thought made me sit up. I’d be getting grass stains on another white dress and there’d be trouble with Ethel. In a panic I pulled the dress over my head, and lay down again in my white petticoat which wouldn’t matter. I closed my eyes happily. I became aware that the shad
e between me and the sun had deepened, and opened my eyes to see in alarm that Herbert leant against the tree looking down at me. Whatever would he think of me, lying about the orchard in my under-clothes. I sat up and could feel my blush spreading across my bare shoulders.

  He sat down beside me. He was fair too, with melancholy eyes.

  “Please don’t mind, Margaret,” he said. “You looked so lovely lying there, like the Sleeping Beauty.”

  “Oh, Herbert,” I gasped. I was appalled, he couldn’t ever have seen Rose in her underclothes, and he was going to marry her. I reached out for my dress. Herbert caught my arm and laid it back in my lap. “Not yet, please,” he whispered. My world was shaking, this couldn’t be happening to me. Surely men were as upset as girls if they caught them unawares. Surely a gentleman would have gone away softly without waking me, or if he had woken me would have turned his back while I dressed and pulled down my skirts. He was looking at me so oddly too, and I stared back with horror.

  “Margaret, my Sleeping Beauty,” he said hoarsely and then he kissed me and I kissed him too. I couldn’t help it. He had me in his arms, his hands on my bare back. After a minute I began to realise what I was doing, Herbert belongs to Rose, kept hammering in my head, but it seemed to me that it ought to be hammering in Herbert’s head louder than mine. “Herbert, don’t, don’t,” I gasped, drawing back from him. “You must be mad. What about Rose?”

  He put his hand over his eyes.

  “What about Rose?” He echoed me stupidly.

  “You’re engaged to Rose. You’re marrying her next month, what do you mean by doing this to me?”

  His hands dropped to his sides, and he looked at me blankly.

  “Nothing. I mean nothing, I’m marrying Rose next month.”

  “Well, don’t you think you’d better go?” I felt very grown up, to be so in command of the situation.

  “Yes, I’ll go,” he said, and he stood up slowly. I scrambled to my feet too, clutching my dress to me. We stood facing each other.

  “God, it’s too much,” Herbert said, and before I’d had time to be properly shocked at his swearing in front of me, he had pulled me roughly into his arms and started to kiss me again, forcing my head back so that all my hair fell down across his arm, forcing my lips apart. Worst of all I liked it, and I knew I shouldn’t. I must be utterly wicked to like such a terrible thing, and to let my sister’s fiancé kiss me at all. I broke away from him sobbing, and shaking all over, and turned and ran, stumbling in the long grass, ducking under the low branches. I could hear him coming after me shouting, “Margaret, come back, I won’t hurt you. Margaret don’t be such a little fool — you don’t understand!”

  I slipped into the warm darkness of the potting shed as I came round the corner into the kitchen garden, and through the little cobwebby window I saw him panting past towards the house. I leant against the bench, wondering for a minute if I was going to faint. I concentrated on the rough brown flower pots stacked along the wall in orderly rows according to size. I carefully lifted out one of the smallest, gritting my teeth against the horrid noise of earthenware, stood it on the bench in front of me, dropped in the broken chips and started to fill it slowly with the trowel from the little pile of earth at the side. ‘Herbert belongs to Rose, Rose belongs to Herbert,’ I said with every layer of earth I sprinkled in, and when it was full I banged the earth down hard with the handle of the trowel saying, ‘I am a wicked woman.’ It made me feel better, as if I was exorcising a spell. By the time I had finished my hands were no longer trembling. I picked up my poor white dress from the floor, blew some of the earth off it, and pulled it on. I unlatched the potting shed door and peered out blinking into the dusty, white afternoon. I could see nothing but rows of peas and the empty strawberry nets with one wretched bird caught in them trying to beat its way out. I went into the house across the back yard and up the back stairs. When I reached my room I folded the shutters across, tore off every garment I had on and stuffed them all into the dirty-linen basket. I slammed the wicker lid down on my shame, put on a clean cotton night-dress and lay down stiffly in bed staring at the ceiling, and wondering what would become of me.

  Rose found me a little later, she had come to tell me tea was ready.

  “What’s the matter, dearest?” she asked kindly. “Are you ill?”

  “Yes,” I said in a muffled voice through the sheet. I had been crying for the last half-hour but hoped she wouldn’t notice in the gloom.

  “I’ve got a terrible headache. I was out for a walk in the sun without a hat.”

  “You poor dear.” Rose was very worried. “Do you think Mama should send for Doctor Hughes?”

  “Oh no, it’s not as bad as that. I just don’t want any tea. I don’t think I’ll come down again today.”

  “Very well, dear, I’ll tell the others.”

  “Are the others all right?”

  “Oh yes, we’ve all been in the shade most of the time, except Herbert. He went off to do some sketching, and came back looking rather pale and saying it was much too hot. So it is, we’ve decided not to play croquet after tea. Herbert is going to read to us instead.”

  “Oh,” I said faintly. I was glad Herbert had shown some signs of guilt and remorse too. I stayed in bed until he left on Monday morning. I didn’t see him again until the reception after the wedding. He bowed to me stiffly then and did not speak, he seemed unable to meet my eye, and looked away over my head. I was determined to go into a nunnery. I felt polluted all the time, but a year later I married Albert. The fourth daughter can’t be too particular.

  I never had to feel wicked again because in nearly fifty years of married life Albert never once kissed me in Herbert’s abandoned way. I have since decided that it was Herbert who must have been the wicked one. I should never have thought of such a thing by myself.

  “I must tell Prudence about men,” I muttered, opening my eyes.

  “What about men, Grannie?” she said, her head bent over her drawing book; but as I looked at her I realised she was still far too young.

  “Never mind now, darling. Some men are very thoughtless. I must have been talking in my sleep.”

  “Yes, you’ve been asleep for a long time. I just heard the church clock strike three. Look, I’ve drawn the house I want to live in when I’m grown up, that’s you in the corner with a watering can.”

  “Very nice, darling. I like the rose bush. What time is Liz coming?”

  “I said about half past three. I’ll go out and see if she’s coming down the road.”

  I closed my eyes again. I usually slept on Sunday afternoons, that was a very different matter from sleeping in church, and besides I was half awake all the time.

  I was back in the Vicarage garden after John’s death waiting for Katharine to come. Prudence was digging in the little sand pit we’d made for her. She was only two, fat and jolly with a white cotton hat on, her one word was Nannie, that meant me, not her real Nannie at all. I sat up on the iron seat watching the child while the nurse slipped out for some stamps. I still felt stunned with the loss of John. I couldn’t even seem to get on with a piece of knitting. I remember I just sat there like a black image. It must have been a bit of a shock for Katharine to come round the corner of the house and see me dark and still, and Prudence running across the grass laughing with the white hat flapping.

  Prudence seemed to know her mother, at least she went straight to her though she hadn’t seen her for six months. Katharine looked at me over the top of the child’s head as if to say, You see, it doesn’t matter, I can treat her how I like, she’ll always love me best. And then she lifted Prudence up and came and laid her cool cheek against mine. I managed not to flinch away, and she sat down beside me, taking one of my hands in hers.

  “Oh, Mother,” she said, and there were tears in her eyes, but I wasn’t going to break down for her to see my grief, let her shed her crocodile tears alone, I didn’t want any of her sympathy. John was never anything to her in life, she c
ouldn’t claim him from me now he was gone. I was with him when he died, I closed his eyes. His wife should have done it, but she wasn’t ever what I call a wife.

  So I asked her stiffly if she’d like a cup of tea, she sighed and let my hand fall back in my lap and said softly, “Yes, I expect I would. I hadn’t thought. I’m very thirsty. Shall I go and ask Edith?”

  “No, I’ll go. You stay here with Prudence.” I was glad of the excuse to get away from her.

  “Mrs. John would like some tea, Edith,” I said. I’ve never discussed Katharine with Edith, but I know she feels the same way about her as I do. I could tell then by the toneless way she said, “Yes, madam, where shall I serve it?”

  “In the drawing-room,” I said. “Nannie will take Miss Prudence up to the Nursery.”

  I walked into the drawing-room, and looked across the lawn to a charming scene. Mother and daughter playing together in the sand pit. Katharine was filling Prudence’s bucket and turning out a row of neat sand cakes. The brazen hypocrisy of it, pretending to enjoy the child’s company when she was quite happy to go off and leave Prudence behind for months on end. I drew the curtains across that window, the afternoon sun was too bright for the carpet anyway, and sat down with my back to the garden, by a big photograph of John. I had a bunch of sweet peas beside it then, and there have been flowers of some sort by that photograph every day for the last eight years; often I put them in one of the tall silver cups he got for rowing. I’ve never begun to forget him. For every hour of every day, I’ve carried him with me in my heart. No one can understand a mother’s love or a mother’s loss. I don’t believe Katharine even looked at John’s photograph when Edith called her in to tea. She’d have married again, I’m sure of it, if she hadn’t died so soon afterwards.

  Albert doddered in from the study and kissed her very warmly that day. He always was an old fool for a pretty face, and he was fond of Katharine.