Mad Joy

by Jane Bailey

  I stopped pedalling. Turning, I saw a figure on a bicycle on the long sweep of the road behind me. It was shouting.

  ‘Joy! Joy!’

  As he came closer I could see that Howard was exhausted. He had found his old bike from before the last war and his long legs had made up the time between us. Now he was shattered.

  ‘Howard!’

  ‘I’m coming with you!’

  We stood in the middle of the road, panting.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ he breathed. ‘No petrol. Nothing. Everyone’s searching. Mrs Bubb’s called the police.’

  ‘She thinks he’s your real grandson.’

  ‘Mrs …?’

  ‘Celia does.’

  We cycled on without talking. I knew Dip Woods because the bus used to pass it on my way home from leave. Passengers got off there. People got on. We turned off down the unsigned lane leading to the woods. I was alert now, looking out for clues, not sure which side it was on, searching for entrances.

  And then we saw it.

  Two pillars covered in ivy rose beneath the trees at the side of the lane. They were widely spaced, and between them a straight, imposing driveway led up to the porch of a pink-stoned symmetrical building.

  I put my bicycle against one pillar. ‘I’ll go,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not letting you go alone,’ said Howard, dropping his bicycle. ‘That’s why I’ve come – to be with you.’

  ‘There’s no need.’

  He took my arm and placed it through his, folding his other hand over mine. ‘I was insensitive earlier. I completely forgot: this is your nemesis, isn’t it? They’re your idea of hell, aren’t they, places like this?’

  ‘This very one.’

  ‘This one?’

  I nodded. There was the same pink-brown façade, like a smear of old blood. It was smaller than I remembered it, but no less terrifying for that. Its tall windows reflected no light from the woods, and stared blackly into the darkness. There were pale quoin stones at the edges of the building, making it look like the piping on Celia’s school blazer. There was a smell. A sickly, sweet familiar smell that sent me reeling back in time, and I was walking down this path with someone older, someone taller, someone holding my hand.

  I clung on to Howard hard, and he responded with a little pressure on my hand which said he had tight hold of me.

  I willed my feet to keep going, but I was wading not walking. We could see Celia’s car parked up ahead to the left of the building, and it kept my legs going.

  ‘Can they put me back in?’ I asked.

  Howard squeezed my hand. ‘Why should they? You’re just visiting with me.’

  ‘I was signed over to them. Surely they have to take me back if they find me.’

  The building was getting larger, we were nearly at the door.

  ‘Don’t say who you are.’

  As we approached the front door itself there were new horrors. The musty mix of old flowers and old coats and floor bleach made me freeze. I had scrubbed this porch floor so many times. I flinched at the instant recognition of the tile pattern. Memories I’d thought were dead.

  Howard rang the bell. My breathing stopped and I tried to think of Andrew. That hug …

  A short, grey-haired woman answered the door. I was relieved to see that I didn’t know her at all. Howard explained that he had come to see his daughter, Celia, and we were invited in.

  But there were more horrors. Standing in the entrance hall I was assaulted by the spiteful shoe-polish smell of orchids. It smacked me about the face like Sister Conceptua had done. It reeked from every outpost of my memories and I wasn’t going to let it in. I would find the orchids – there they were in that pot – and I would snap off the heads and stamp on them. I would smash everything, unlock all the doors, set all the inmates free.

  But the grey-haired lady smiled pleasantly, the red-stoned brooch of a dove sparkling innocuously from her soft, grey twin-set. I tried to dislike her, wanted her to show something of the horror I’d known in this place, so that Howard would understand.

  ‘We’re having a cup of after-lunch tea in the rest room at the moment, if you’d like to join us.’ She indicated a room off to the side, where we could see easy chairs and some dazed-looking people, and I realized that ‘we’ did not refer to the staff. ‘Some of the residents like to have a little nap, so we’ll keep our voices down.’

  We followed her into the long room which I couldn’t remember ever having entered before. It was lit at both ends by tall windows, and a dozen or so residents were lolling in chairs, napping or sipping at regulation cups of tea.

  I saw him straight away: the top of his little brown head as he read a comic on his lap.

  ‘Andrew!’

  ‘Mummy!’

  I ran over to him and he leapt to his feet. I could tell he was pleased to see me, and he let me hug him and make a fuss. ‘Oh, Andrew! Andrew!’ I began to kiss him and kiss him, and he wriggled free, laughing.

  ‘I’ve made lots of friends. This is Mabel who plays the piano …’ A middle-aged woman in girls’ plaits stood up suddenly and curtseyed at us. ‘… and that’s Mr Man who sings songs and reads me stories …’ He indicated a man napping in a chair, the Beano covering his face. ‘… and this is Aunty Celia and she drives a big car and is Granddad’s daughter and she’s got loads of Beanos and Dandys I can have …’

  I looked at Celia, and she looked down at the cup of tea on her lap.

  ‘Are you the Princess Royal?’ asked Mabel suddenly.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She looked devastated.

  ‘Are you the King of England?’ she asked Howard.

  ‘Yes. Yes I am, actually.’ Mabel genuflected and Howard held out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you. So glad you could be here.’

  Mabel beamed.

  I wrapped my arms around Andrew again, but once more he wriggled free and went to show Howard his comic. Only then did I become properly aware of Celia and I sat down next to her.

  ‘Tea?’ The grey-haired lady held out a cup for me. ‘I might be able to find you a biscuit.’

  ‘That’s all right. I’m fine.’

  She bustled off to fetch some tea for Howard, as bright and as smiley as a fairy godmother.

  ‘Celia—’

  ‘I suppose you’re going to accuse me of kidnapping him.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘He wanted a ride in the car.’

  She looked at me now with a slow bat of her eyelids, as if it were the only respectable thing she could have done.

  ‘You took him without telling anyone.’ I may have said it through gritted teeth, I’m not sure. The man behind the Beano was beginning to stir and I was trying to keep my voice down.

  ‘All right!’ she hissed. ‘So I took him without asking. He’s my nephew, isn’t he?’

  She was trying to pull the rug from under me again. I looked at Howard, but he was deep in a cartoon with Andrew, who was sitting on his knee.

  ‘Have you any idea what you’ve put us through?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Have you? You know the police have been called?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ she sighed.

  ‘Why did you do it?’

  ‘He’s quite a sweet boy, isn’t he? Well done you.’

  ‘Why?’

  She leant back in her chair and turned her head to face me. One of her toffee-coloured curls had come unpinned and fell down the side of her face. Her eyes, as they met mine, filled with tears.

  ‘I wanted to know what it was like to be real,’ she whispered.

  I watched as a tear spilled over and ran down to her chin.

  ‘But you are real.’

  ‘I mean … the genuine article.’ She dabbed at her cheek with the back of her hand. ‘The favoured one.’

  ‘Who? Andrew?’

  ‘Andrew … you. Andrew because of you. You’re both real relatives of Howard. I’m just a pretender.’

  ‘I’m no more
a real Buckleigh than you are.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t you even know it, Joy? Don’t you see? You’re his love child. Gracie and he—’

  ‘Celia, I ran away from this place when I was about five. Gracie took me in. I know she’s not my real mother. I’ve met my real mother, and she’s dead now.’

  Celia sniffed for a few moments. ‘So Andrew’s not Howard’s real grandson. I thought …’

  I put my hand on hers. ‘Why does any of this matter? Why do you care about it so much?’

  She looked at me in helpless astonishment, her eyes pink and uncomprehending. ‘How could you understand? At least you had a mother who loved you!’ Then she began to sob, and I was embarrassed and intrigued by her loudness.

  ‘Well, actually …’ But she was right. I had had a mother who loved me. And only now I began to glimpse the atrocities that Celia had known at the hands of her mother. For how could it be that Celia, of all people, felt unloved? How could this strong, manipulative, confident child be the same woman who sat before me, crushed and sobbing for someone to say that she mattered in the scheme of things? That without having to comply with a set of requests, without having to supply information, run errands, spy on others, achieve unreachable goals, break unbreakable hearts, look better, smarter, more fashionable, more glamorous than anyone else’s daughter, without having to do any of these things, she was lovable anyway, just as she was.

  Andrew came over to ask why Aunty Celia was crying and climbed on my knee. As I squeezed his shoulders and breathed him in, I saw something through the tall back window which opened on to the garden.

  Howard came and sat next to Celia on the other side of the couch to me, and took her hand in his. At the far end of the long garden I saw a dark figure moving like a phantom among the rose bushes. I knew before I saw the startling band of white in the blackness of her forehead that I couldn’t escape her. She was heading this way.

  I stood up quickly and grabbed Andrew’s hand. ‘There’s something I need to do. I’ll be back.’

  59

  ‘Are we going home?’ asked Andrew.

  ‘Soon. I just want to …’ I stood in the hallway and turned to the back of the house. ‘This way.’

  We stopped by the back door, and I stared at it.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and see the garden!’ Andrew was pulling at me now, reaching for the door handle, having seen the sunlight through the panes of glass. It was a brass knob, gleaming in places, dull and mud-coloured at its base. The keyhole was empty now, but it was different in other ways, shrunken somehow, less grand and threatening. Andrew had reached up and was turning it. And I had reached up too – to an eye-level handle on a grand, grey, sinister door in my bid for freedom.

  The nun was coming for the door and we stood back as she opened it from the garden.

  ‘Hello,’ she smiled, a picture of innocence (but I wasn’t fooled). ‘Are you lost?’

  I looked at her pale cheeks marbled with delicate pink threads, her gentle grey eyes gazing expectantly – almost tenderly – at mother and son. I did not recognize her.

  ‘No. No –1 was wondering if I could … Is Sister Conceptua here?’

  ‘Sister Conceptua?’ She looked confused for a moment, and then thoughtful. ‘Wait here one moment. Won’t you sit down?’ She indicated two metal chairs next to the orchid display and I declined. Andrew went to sit down anyway, and lay down on both seats, because he could.

  Very shortly the nun returned with another nun.

  ‘This is Sister Frances, and I forgot to introduce myself: Sister Agnes.’

  She held out a dry, cool hand, and I felt obliged to shake it, and to repeat the procedure with Sister Frances. ‘Joy – Joy Buckleigh.’

  ‘And this must be your little boy! Oh, isn’t he a dear!’ Sister Frances was already moving herself delightedly towards the seats, but I got there first. I wasn’t taken in by any of it.

  Andrew showed off a bit and started to shoot us all to get more attention. Sister Frances smiled at me shyly. ‘You wanted to know about Sister Conceptua?’

  ‘Yes. Is she still here?’

  ‘Are you a friend?’ She raised her eyebrows and smiled, almost defensively I thought, as if to say ‘I’m interrogating you but let’s pretend I’m not.’

  I shook my head, aware from Andrew’s fidgeting that my time was limited. ‘No. I wanted to talk to her, that’s all. There’s something I wanted to say.’

  Sister Frances and Sister Agnes looked briefly at each other. Sister Frances clasped her hands together and said: ‘I’m afraid Sister Conceptua left some years back.’

  ‘Most of the nuns have gone now,’ added Sister Agnes. ‘We’re only here in a pastoral role.’

  ‘And some practicalities.’

  ‘Oh yes! We do plenty of practical things too.’

  ‘But Sister Conceptua left before the others – she was very ill.’

  ‘Ill?’

  ‘She became very … her mind, you know.’

  ‘Mad?’ I asked.

  The other nun nodded, smiling. But Sister Frances continued: ‘Let’s say … mental problems. I didn’t know her well, but … I think she was quite a force to be reckoned with.’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘She was taken to Coney Hill in Gloucester – you know, the asylum? I believe she died there last year. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Oh.’ To my utter amazement, I felt tears on my face, and my mouth was doing that ugly distorted thing it does when you try not to cry. Sister Frances took my hand in surprise, and the other nun tried to coax Andrew away from the plants whose leaves he was plucking and folding into ammunition.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again.

  ‘No… No! It’s nothing. I would’ve liked to …’ What? Slap her face, tell her to see how that feels, slap her about a bit generally, stick her head down the toilet, pull her hair, strip her of everything – every last item of clothing – and laugh at her? Even now, when all the cards were in my favour, she had outdone me. Even in dying she had scored a little victory, given me the last stinging blow.

  I sighed and reached for Andrew’s hand. The nuns scuttled around me as I went back into the rest room, and brought me some tea although I didn’t want it.

  Howard stood up when he saw us, and swung Andrew up into the air. ‘You all right?’ he said to me. I nodded. ‘Because if you’re ready to go, there’s a chauffeur coming to pick us up in ten minutes.’

  ‘A chauffeur?’

  ‘Mr Tribbit is bringing his grocery van. I rang Mrs Bubb to let her know we found him. It was Mrs Tribbit who picked up the phone. They’re all there – practically the entire village, searching the grounds.’

  Now I let myself look at him, because I could pass off the slight redness of eye as stemming from deep emotion at the collective concern for my son.

  I noticed that Celia had disappeared. ‘Is Celia all right?’

  ‘She’s gone for an appointment upstairs.’

  ‘Will she be okay, do you think?’

  Howard drew his hands over his face. ‘She’ll be a lot better now, I think. All that stuff about not being real.’ He screwed his face up in confusion. ‘I mean, we’re all real, aren’t we?’

  ‘Goodbye, Mabel!’ said Andrew, waving to her dramatically.

  ‘Goodbye!’ said Mabel, jumping up. ‘And goodbye, Your Highness, so pleased you could come.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mabel, it’s been a pleasure.’ Howard gave a little royal wave. ‘I just happened to be in the area.’

  ‘And goodbye, Mr Man,’ said Andrew, lifting the Beano. ‘Thank you for singing to me.’

  ‘Oh, you off, little man?’ I heard him say. And as I turned back to take Andrew’s hand I saw Mr Man looking at Andrew, his face lit up with smiles, and then looking at me, his little head cocked to one side in exactly the same way it had been when he offered me the lavender. When our eyes met I had to slide mine away. I couldn’t bear to see the look of recognition, that instant o
f thwarted delight as I turned away.

  Moments ago I had stood in the hallway feeling brave and ready to face my demons. Now I stood in the same spot feeling shabby and cowardly. We bid goodbye to the nuns, and they stood in the doorway and waved us off like two friendly but anxious-faced guinea pigs peeking out of their hutch.

  We walked together down the drive, the three of us holding hands in a row. Andrew, who walked in the middle, turned round to wave. I turned back too, and saw, to my horror, a face at the front window. His mouth was opening and closing. I couldn’t tell if he was singing ‘Daisy, Daisy’ or shouting it.

  I carried on without looking back. Just kept on walking.

  60

  There was a letter, of course. Howard handed it to me with such painful apology that I touched his arm.

  It was, at least, unopened.

  Dear Daisy (Joy’)‚

  I don’t know what to say to help you. I can tell from your long silence, that you don’t wish to continue our frien contact, and I don’t blame you at all. It is important to rebuild your life from the rubble, and I’m so proud of how far you’ve come.

  You wanted to know why she did it. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I can see that it haunts you night and day, just as her making me carry out her wish haunts me. But the thing is what can I say? That she had lost her reason, after the death of Ivy? That no one could replace Ivy? That she resented you for not being Ivy? That she thought you were simple? That she couldn’t cope with another child like Sidney? That she was as poor as a church mouse and had to sacrifice one child so that the rest of us could survive? All of this is true, but none of it is the whole truth.

  Daisy, it is harder than I can begin to tell you to know the truth, even when it is not hidden. You see, I hated her for what she did to me. And it is true that it was an evil thing she did. But it is also true that she was a kind woman, who worked her fingers to the bone for us. And she was proud of me. And she was hurt when I didn’t want to see her. She could hurt, despite all her toughness. And so what do I know? I know nothing and I know too much. And I can’t bear it any more.

  But what I do know is this: sometimes there are many, many versions of the truth, and if you want a single truth you may have to settle for a well-constructed lie.