by Jane Bailey
We tiptoed to the glasshouse, and I was struck by the muggy warmth as we went in.
‘Wait here!’
Celia disappeared with the efficiency of a spy, and came back with two glasses full of drink.
‘Mother’s away shopping. Here
‘What is it?’
She sat on a stool by a tall umbrella plant, and I saw her lips through the bottom of the glass as she drank it down. ‘Barley water!’
I sipped it. It was good. But however far I tipped back my head, I couldn’t match her unbearably attractive insouciance, and had to wipe the half moons from the corners of my mouth.
‘What about …’ I hardly dared to mention his name after all these years of spying on him.
‘My father? He’s out. And my brother’s on some sort of camp to do with school, and Mrs Bubb is having a doze in the kitchen. So you see, we’ve got the place to ourselves!’
I hadn’t time to digest the fact that they had a housekeeper. All I could think of was the lie I had lived – we had all lived: Tilly, Mo, Spit, Stinker and myself – for so long.
‘You have a brother?’
‘’Course!’ She put her glass down suddenly and widened her eyes at me, smiling, so that I almost thought she was teasing me. ‘You know, Joy, I think you’d like him … actually, yes! I think you’d like him a lot!’
She pulled me forcefully by the hand so that I had to put down my glass unfinished. It was that way she had of assuming the supremacy of her slightest whim. A part of me felt belittled by it, and an equal part of me was enthralled. Even then I knew that at some point the balance would have to tip one way or the other, and that then I would be changed; weaker or stronger. But I did not want to think of these outcomes because for now the enthralment was too wonderful, and I was riding high on the thrill that was Celia.
She led me through a black and white tiled hallway, past little round tables whose only purpose was to hold one statue or one potted plant. She led me up a twisting staircase with carpet and brass rods to a wide, imposing landing. White panelled doors with crystal doorknobs beckoned in every direction. She showed me her mother’s room with its many wardrobes and mirrors and busts of ladies supporting hats. She showed me her father’s room with its wide brass bed and African elephants and masks. The way she displayed them it seemed perfectly normal that a husband and wife should not share a bed if they could have one each. She let me peep in a bathroom – something I had never seen before. I didn’t want her to see my amazement as I peered into the patterned lavatory bowl and gazed at the porcelain bath on its ornate claws. I was ashamed of my awe as I reached out to feel the four heavy towels hung upon a wooden towel stand, and sniffed the soap with a little sigh of ecstasy. But Celia was delighted with her new-found wizardry, and took me into her own bedroom with a flourish, studying my face intently for these interesting new reactions.
The walls were the colour of butter and flooded with sunlight. She too had multiple hats, but they were pinned to the wall in a sort of display. Her drapes and bedspread were a flawless cream, and she had her own gas lamp above her bed so that she could read. And that was another thing, she had books – with the sort of print that grown-ups read – propped up on a little carved shelf beside her bed. On the back of her door was a large brass hook and a mauve dressing gown in what looked like crêpe de Chine. And there, on an Indian-looking rug beside her bed, was the dearest pair of beaded mauve slippers.
‘Oh!’ I said, forgetting to say golly or gosh. ‘It’s … it’s just … perfect!’ I walked towards the window and looked out. There were the lawns stretched out below us, and at the very end, beyond the shrubs and yews, was the wall behind which she had met us.
‘What about the others?’
‘Heavens! They’ll be gone now! There’s another room to see yet.’
She yanked me out and across the landing. ‘There’s loads more rooms downstairs and on the next floor up, but that’ll have to wait for next time. Mother’ll be home soon.’
I was gladdened by the idea of a next time, but uncomfortable at dismissing the others although they almost certainly wouldn’t have waited this long. But now we stood in another room, a room that felt wholly different to the others. The walls were the palest green, and every nook and cranny was filled with something. There were feathers, coins, bird eggs, a telescope, drawings, stones, and on the wall was a huge oar and a sizeable tree branch. I looked at Celia, and she was doing her wide-eyed thing, waiting for my reaction.
‘There! You see? James’s room. My brother. What do you think?’
‘I like it,’ I said, truthfully. And there was something about it I preferred to her room, although I didn’t say this.
‘James,’ I repeated, and felt a little thrill as I caught sight of his cricket bat leaning against the wall. I breathed in deeply – a rising smell of manly things – and bent to examine one of his drawings (a wagtail) with a wicked sense of trespass.
‘Scruffy, isn’t he? Come on then …’
I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to find out more about the brother no one knew about. I was hooked on this sudden find, this little enclave of unruliness in a spotless dolls’ house.
We slipped out into the garden again via the glasshouse, and scampered down the lawn like thieves, although Mr Rollins saw me and waved to me and I didn’t tell Celia because I didn’t want to spoil it for her.
Over the wall she sent me and into the bushes, a good hour since we started. We forgot to hide my eyes, forgot everything but each other and the feelings we had made each other feel.
And then I saw them. Mo, Tilly, Spit and George, all standing in a row, just as we had left them, all staring up at the wall. George even had his eyes closed. They didn’t move, but their eyes followed me as I made my way back to the gate. And for a moment I saw them just as Celia must’ve seen us the first time.
‘What about us?’ asked George, opening his eyes.
The others said nothing. The silent questions in their eyes shamed me. I had crossed from one world into another and back again and now I had to tell them that it was my privilege alone. And when I did I knew they were already slipping away from me.
13
It was the following evening that Gracie spoke to me. She stopped me before I went out to play and sat me down by the range with a mug of milk.
‘You know Mo’s all upset, do you?’
She looked into the fire. I raised my eyes in slight surprise.
‘Mo?’
‘Izzie reckons it’s something to do with you.’ She played with her wristwatch, a delicate gold-plated affair given to her by her father. ‘I hope you’ve not been unkind, sweetheart.’
‘What’s the matter with her, then?’
More fiddling. I knew Gracie was uncomfortable telling me off about anything, and I hated to see her this way. It would have been so easy to lie to her, to put her out of her misery, but I knew she knew more than she had let on at first.
‘Izzie reckons … well … she reckons you’ve all been playing up by the Buckleighs’ and with the Buckleigh girl.’
I folded my lips tightly together and studied my milk.
‘She reckons you went into the Buckleigh house to play and left Mo and the others outside. I said it didn’t sound like the sort of thing you’d do at all. I said, Izzie, that doesn’t sound like my Joy to me.’
I could see she was trying to give me a way out, willing me to live up to her expectations. I also knew she would find out one way or another, even if I said nothing. Even now she was studying my embarrassment, gauging my awkwardness.
‘I did go with her – Celia invited me. But she invited all of us one at a time and then she just forgot about the others. It wasn’t fair. It was cruel.’
There was already something frightening in Gracie’s eyes that was more than anger. It looked almost like panic.
‘You must never go near there again. Do you understand?’
‘But—’
‘Never! Promise me. P
romise me you will never go inside that house again or play with the Buckleigh girl. Never!’
‘I—’
‘Listen to me.’ She took my milk from me and put it on the floor. Then she held both my hands and squeezed them in hers. ‘Joy, my love, this is important. Just believe me.’
‘But I don’t understand. I like Celia.’
‘You said she was cruel.’
‘I don’t think she meant to be. I think she just—’
‘Please, Joy. Just promise!’
Her eyes were imploring now, and the tone changed suddenly from reprimand to mystery. I promised solemnly, and in that moment I meant it, but Gracie had done nothing but enhance the intrigue of Buckleigh House.
14
The following day was hot. The morning sun was so bright that it lit up crowds of busy dust specks in a great shaft across the parlour. We had barely cleared away the breakfast things when there was a knock on the door.
Gracie went to answer it, and I heard a man’s voice: educated, official-sounding. Even now, after all these years in hiding, I could feel my pulse accelerating. I hurried into the kitchen and stood by the door, listening. But it was all right. She called him Howard. I heard the kettle clank on the range, heard them exchanging awkward thoughts about the weather.
I turned the tap on to fill a jug with water in case Gracie asked me to, and to make it sound as though I was busy. I didn’t want to hang around. I was pretty sure this man was okay, but you couldn’t be certain with gentleman callers. And he was a gentleman, I could tell from his voice. I didn’t recognize him from some years before. I stood poised by the door to the parlour, listening with the jug in my hand, trying to make out the louder words which would link the muffled words into sentences.
‘… just a thought.’
‘… her life … whatever she wants.’
‘Don’t think … take her from you.’
Then there was a silence. I pushed my ear to the door and heard nothing. And then:
‘Grace!’
More silence.
‘It doesn’t matter now …’ Gracie was saying.
‘But I’ve always … you know … can’t believe …’
‘What … matter any more?’
‘But … you were married.’
Then there was a silence so thick and unyielding I found myself pushing open the door to break it.
‘Joy? Are you Joy?’ The gentleman stood up and reached out a hand to me. I placed the jug on the table, wiped my hand on my dress and shook it timidly, feeling quite grown up. I wasn’t sure if it was safe to admit to being Joy, so I looked at Gracie for guidance, but she was staring at the window, her face golden with the morning light and haloed in wisps of gleaming hair and dust.
I looked up at the man: he was very tall and lean, and he looked as though moving his limbs was a game whose rules he wasn’t quite sure of. His shoes were enormous – like Olive Oyle’s – and as polished as horse chestnuts. He addressed me with kind, troubled eyes:
‘I was hoping to see you, Joy. In fact … I was just saying to your … to Grace here … Well, I hear you’re doing very well at school.’
He raised his thick dark eyebrows and smiled earnestly. I smiled too, and he smiled gratefully back.
‘What I was wondering was … well, would you like to go to a really good school to continue your education? Would you like to go to a school like Celia’s?’
At the mention of her name I almost gasped. I looked at Gracie again for direction, but she seemed statuesque in her stillness.
‘Celia’s? How could I?’ I managed at last.
He sat down on the arm of the chair he had risen from, and then almost fell off it.
‘Well, you could sit a scholarship exam. I’m sure you’d do well. And then any remaining fees I’d be happy to cover.’ I didn’t understand what he meant by covering fees, so I looked at Gracie again, but he continued, ‘Do you think you might like that?’
Gracie looked up at the mantelpiece as if I might find the answer there. But the sun was too bright by far, and the figurine and the cuckoo clock and the miniature copper ornaments and the silver picture frame of her parents and the embroidered ‘Home Sweet Home’ and the brass date and month holder looked far too loud and cheap and suddenly seemed to say ‘This is all I’ve got for you here,’ and she turned her head to look at me and her eyes said it was nothing but trash.
‘I … I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you think about it?’ he asked.
‘The same school as Celia?’
‘Yes – if you want. Will you give it some thought?’
I nodded, and he picked up his hat and made for the door.
‘Only one thing – don’t say anything to Celia about this yet, will you?’ I shook my head. ‘Not until it’s certain.’ He smiled and shook my hand again. ‘Goodbye, Grace!’ he called over my shoulder.
Gracie rose from her chair and came to stand behind me, ‘Goodbye, Howard,’ but her voice was weak and dragging its feet. There seemed to be nothing left of her but that thin voice.
The day after the gentleman called, Gracie did something odd. Apart from the miaows, it was the only time she had ever done anything which didn’t make sense.
I was doing some colouring at the table after tea, and the wireless was on, as usual. Gracie came in, lifted the kettle off the range, and reached up on to the high mantelpiece above it. She took down the shepherdess figurine and went into the kitchen. Then I heard the back door swing to, and an almighty crash in the garden.
I ran out to see what had happened, and there was Gracie, standing by the back door and breathing hard. She was staring at the lav at the end of the garden, and looked as if she were out of breath.
I followed her gaze to the broken fragments of shepherdess and ran towards the stone wall of the lav. I crouched down and picked up the larger pieces: a lace bodice, half a crook, a hollow head. I was wondering if they could be glued back together, but the rest of her was in such tiny fragments I could see it was a lost cause. Sadly, I looked back to inform Gracie, but she was gone.
I found her back in the kitchen, going about her business as if nothing had happened. Her ordinariness terrified me. Fleetingly, I remembered how it had felt to smash my doll; I should have understood. But Gracie wasn’t someone you had to understand. I didn’t like this reversal of things. Her brisk smile in the face of such evident disaster made the floor wobble beneath my feet, and nothing seemed certain any more. That was the first time I felt truly excluded from her world.
15
I went round to see Mo. She was still sulky with me about Celia for a bit, then perked up and suggested we went off to play ‘newlyweds’. This was a game in which we would find somewhere quiet, button our coats together, and lie underneath them pretending to be a newly married couple. The interest in the game lay in choosing unlikely characters from the village or from our class to be the main protagonists. On this particular day, up in the beech wood, Mo was Mo grown up, and I was Buster Keaton.
‘So, you wear false teeth – I didn’t know.’ (Mo grown up)
‘Yes – I’m sorry, my love, I also have a wig.’ (Buster)
‘Don’t worry, darling. I adore that gummy look. It reminds me of my old granddad. Mm, I’m hungry. Can you make lardy cakes?’
‘No, sweetest.’
‘Right, the marriage is off!’
‘Now you’ve spoilt it!’
‘Is this still the game?’
‘No, you’ve spoilt it!’
‘I haven’t. You’ve got to beg me to stay. Say you’ll do anything …’
‘Okay. Darling – don’t go. I’ll do anything.’ I got out from under the coat and knelt wringing my hands next to the marital bed. ‘Please – anything – I’ll do anything.’
‘Anything at all?’
‘Just name it, dearest Mo!’
‘Well …’ Mo was thoughtful, and then looked me right in the eye. ‘Take me with you into Buckleigh House.’
; I knew straight away we had stopped playing, because she stopped doing her posh voice.
I stopped wringing my hands and started to fiddle with the tag of her coat.
‘I can’t. I promised Grade.’
‘Just one time, that’s all I’m asking.’
‘She made me promise never to go there again.’
‘Why? She ought to be pleased you’ve made friends with toffs.’
I was puzzled myself. ‘I know, it doesn’t make any sense. But I think it’s got something to do with a man that came round.’ I hoped to deflect Mo from her determined plan by introducing some romance into the picture. ‘Gracie called him by his first name and he knows Celia. I thought it might be Him but he was too normal.’
‘I thought there was something—’
‘Yes, and I tried to ask Gracie about it and she went all cross and grumpy.’ I decided not to tell Mo about the offer to educate me with Celia. ‘She made me promise never ever to go near Celia or Buckleigh House.’
‘But we’ve got to find out, Joy. We’ve got to solve this mystery!’
Mo’s eyes grew wide in her bony face, then she started unbuttoning the coats as if there was no time to lose.
Just as I was wrestling with what to do next, we heard a familiar voice calling:
‘Joy? … Joy? … Where are you all? … Is anyone there?’
We both looked at each other and made our way quickly from the edge of the beech wood to the Buckleigh House gates.
Celia seemed a little annoyed. ‘Where’ve you been? I’ve waited here every evening and you haven’t come.’
Mo tugged at her bottom lip, clueless as to what to say. I was awkward too. I didn’t like this new, ice-edged Celia. But it was Mo who came to my rescue.
‘She’s not allowed.’
Celia let out a breath of laughter. ‘Not allowed?’ She caught my eye and almost smiled. ‘By whom?’