A Life Between Us

by Louise Walters

  She didn’t want to walk into the hall on her own, but when she swung open the doors and walked in, nobody took any notice of her. The village hall was thronging with young people from miles around. It was festooned with paper chains, lanterns and streamers. She looked around for Clive, and saw him at the bar, which was already three people deep. She waved, and he half-waved back and mimed drinking. She nodded and mouthed, ‘Babycham.’ He nodded, and looked away from her. He looked at the floor. He doesn’t look happy, she thought. And it would have been better if he had picked her up at home and walked her here, so they could have arrived together, and everybody would have known. It hadn’t felt right, walking up with Ambrose. Lucia looked around for a table, and saw two chairs free at one end of a long trestle. She sat down and spotted her brother, standing with a pretty girl in a corner up by the stage. She watched, fascinated, as he kissed her. Lucia noted the girl’s simple ponytail, her dark blue pencil skirt, her short-sleeved blouse, her sturdy arms. Lucia stared as the arms snaked around her brother’s neck. Mum was worried that her third-born son was going to get some poor young girl “into trouble” one day. Carousing like he did. Lucia had shrugged. It was up to him, wasn’t it? It would be his fault. Mum, you worry too much. We’re grown-ups now.

  Clive eventually joined her, bearing two Babychams and a large tankard of something dark. He didn’t want to have to go up to the bar again, he said, not for a while. Lucia wondered if he was trying to get her tipsy. She didn’t get tipsy. Unlike William, who was now regularly sneaking drinks from the cabinet at home, and watering what remained down. He thought he was being so clever.

  Clive carefully placed the drinks on the sticky table. He sat down opposite her. Lucia waited. The room was unnaturally hot. It was noisy. Yet Clive was quiet and restrained and she didn’t know why, and she wasn’t about to ask. Something was amiss. The romantic date she’d anticipated was melting away. Out of the corner of her eye she was aware of Ambrose’s hand sliding up and down the girl’s thigh. Which girl was it? Lucia didn’t know. She had lost touch with almost everybody in the village. But for Clive’s invitation, she wouldn’t even be here.

  ‘I like your dress,’ he managed in the end.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You look a bit like Audrey Hepburn but with blonde hair.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  And their silence grew monstrous, amid all the noise and music and jollity, and she feared she was going to cry. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. This was no date. She caved in.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, taking the horrible maraschino cherry in her mouth and chewing, then swallowing it. It was the only thing she had eaten all day, and it was revolting. She took a mouthful of Babycham. Her head span. She felt a wave of nausea flow into her. Ambrose and the girl were kissing, cuddling. Lucia looked away, fascinated but embarrassed.

  ‘I don’t know what the matter is,’ said Clive.

  ‘You must know what’s eating you?’ she said. It was difficult to make herself heard above the din, but he had heard her.

  ‘I do know,’ he said. ‘Yes. I know. But I can’t – we can’t – look, I really like you.’

  ‘I really like you.’

  ‘But I can’t take you out.’

  ‘Why not?’ she asked, chilled at last. The snow and her unheated bedroom and the inappropriately sleeveless dress had not chilled her. But now she was frozen. She didn’t understand. She took another sip of Babycham. Her head span.

  ‘You’re only engaged, Clive,’ she said, hoping he would hear her. The music was becoming ever louder. ‘That’s not the same thing as married. Besides, didn’t you tell me and Sheila that you didn’t like your… your fianceé that much and it’s your mothers who want you to get married and not you or even her?’

  ‘I’m not engaged any more,’ he said.

  ‘But that’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, it’s not good. I’m a bastard, Lucia. I really am.’

  ‘No. You’re nice,’ and she leaned across the table and placed her cold white hand over his warm, strong one. It was a pity he’d felt the need to swear, but she could ignore that.

  ‘Shall we go outside?’ he said, pulling away his hand and standing up. ‘Bring your drink if you like.’ She picked up her glass, and looked across towards the stage, but Ambrose and the pencil-skirted girl had disappeared. She thought she saw some billowing of the thick stage curtains.

  Snow was still falling. She had liked snow, the soft ease of it, as a child, but not any more, not tonight. She hadn’t been able to find her coat as she’d followed Clive from the hall. She’d spotted one of her wellington boots, kicked around and jumbled up in the melee of outer garments and boots. So she shivered in her party shoes and her little black dress, clutching her Babycham, as she and Clive stood quietly together around the side of the building, beneath a window that beamed the pulsing hall’s yellow light out into the night. Mostly Clive talked, while she listened. His talk was rapid and earnest and to the point, leaving her in no doubt. Lucia’s teenaged heart hardened there in the ice and snow. It hardened against Clive, against Sheila, and it hardened against the world, every last inch of it. Something in her, small and quivering, closed up for good.

  ‘You creep!’ she shouted once he had said what he needed to say, and after his silence had become one with the soft-falling snow. She smashed her glass into the wall and bits of it flew all about, performing a strange dance with the snowflakes, glinting treacherously in the hall light. She had to go home, get out of there. How could he, how could she!? Lucia failed to stifle a sob. She turned to go from Clive and with no warning at all she vomited, all over her dress, all over her shoes, all over the snow, and her humiliation was complete.

  Sunday 18th January 1976

  Dear Elizabeth

  Thank you for the lovely Barbie doll you sent me for Xmas (that means Christmas) she is a beatiful doll and I’ve never seen a Barbie before. Meg is jelous but not very jelous because she doesnt like dolls much. Meg says Hello. In England we have Sindy dolls. I will try to send one to you for your birthday in March, I havent forgoton you see. I love my new doll so much. Iv’e named her Elizabeth because you sent her to me. I am glad you liked the bath cubes but its a shame that some of them got crumbled up in the mail. (We would say in the post.) Some of my Sindy cloths fit Elizabeth but some do’nt because the dolls are diffrent shapes. For Christmas Meg and I were given a big jar of aniseed sweets. They are orange and deliciuss. We are back at school now. I like the holidays and I am sad to be back at school. My teacher is called Miss Tyson. She is nice.

  Love from your cousun in England,

  Tina x

  Nine

  December 2013

  Meg was in a sulk, Tina could sense. Tina had not visited the grave for nigh on a month. But the last couple of visits had been so upsetting, so disappointing, so… frightening. Tina managed to ignore the echoing twin-voice in her mind that never let her go. She’d decided to let her sister sulk. She had to get over it. Tina had a life. Tina had a new friend. Kath was nice and she was funny. She sent text messages. Meg had never sent a text message.

  On the morning after December’s book group meeting, as she drank her coffee and ate four slices of toast spread thickly with peanut butter, Tina decided she would give in and go to the grave today. She owed it to her sister. December was not an easy month. Apart from August, and the birthdays, Christmas was the hardest time.

  Meg was definitely in a sulk. She answered questions in monosyllables. On visits like these, it seemed to Tina that the eight-year-old Meg was present, not the forty-six-year-old. The eight-year-old Meg was disconcerting. She was a little girl who didn’t get it, who didn’t understand what it was to be an adult.

  ‘I went to my reading group again yesterday,’ Tina said. Perhaps it was unwise to mention the book group. To talk about these sorts o
f things… they were boasts, really, weren’t they? Luckily, the group was something of a departure, because Tina rarely socialised, and she felt reprieved. Meg would have to try to understand. Tina had a life. That was just the way it was. She glanced around. The few people present were quietly going about their business. Only the woman in the green coat was near, reading as she often was.

  Meg said, ‘What exactly is that anyway? A “reading group”?’

  ‘It’s kind of a social thing. We all read the same book, then get together once a month to talk about it.’

  ‘It sounds am-maaaayz-ing.’

  ‘It’s all right. Actually, it’s fun. I love talking about books. I’ve been asked to choose January’s book. I’ve picked I Capture the Castle.’

  ‘Stupid.’

  ‘It’s not stupid. It’s brilliant. It’s by Dodie Smith.’

  ‘So what?! Stupid name.’

  ‘I always wanted to be Cassandra Mortmain. Once upon a time I suppose I was her. Well, like her anyway. Sort of.’

  ‘What are you blathering on about?’

  ‘Nothing. Doesn’t matter. I made a cake yesterday.’

  ‘Most of which you consumed yourself, I presume?’

  ‘No, I—’

  Tina winced before she even heard Meg’s unkind words; she knew what the words would be, in essence: ‘You’re getting fatter and fatter.’ It was nastily said, and it was ill-meant. Tina was never sure how to handle this sort of remark. Should she ignore it? Or try to be nice? Meg was so juvenile!

  ‘I like food,’ was all Tina could think of in reply. She did like food. It was one of the biggest pleasures of her life, and one of her surest refuges, along with books and cleaning. She had always hoped that Meg might understand that, but she had never seemed to. ‘I like food, that’s all,’ repeated Tina, and it sounded no less pathetic the second time.

  ‘You eat far too much,’ said Meg. Tina knew she ate too much. It was a habit cultivated over many years, and nobody was surprised by it and nobody even thought about it any more. Certainly nobody ever mentioned it, apart from Meg. Christ, she was annoying today. Why on earth had she bothered to visit? So what if it was December? There was no good will in Meg, none at all.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ said Tina. ‘I came out here to visit you today. How about a little kindness?’

  ‘You’re going to burst one of these days,’ said Meg. ‘What a nice mess that will be!’

  Before Tina could prevent them, her words flew out, each one a poison-tipped arrow arching towards the crumbled ramparts of her sister’s soul.

  ‘It’s better than not eating at all!’

  The silence was solid, invincible for a few long moments. Tina was flooded with instant regret. She burned with shame.

  ‘Let’s not talk like this,’ Meg said in such a whispered voice that Tina barely heard her. ‘Please.’

  Tina found herself gabbling an apology to her sister, who did not hear it. There was no point in staying any longer, not today – Meg was beyond her. Tina backed away, whispered goodbye, and left. Driving home, she reproached herself. She shouldn’t have been so unkind. There should have been a proper goodbye. As she pulled up on the drive at home and switched off the engine, Tina wondered if Meg didn’t sometimes deserve the loneliness. She hadn’t always been a kind sister. But Tina hated that thought and let it go. She felt she could see it, her bad thought, a thing, lifted up on a breeze, floating away across rooftops and treetops and oceans, and landing in someone else’s life, a long way away. And that was forgiveness, Tina thought.

  The woman in the green coat sat alone. All was quiet again. Just when she was beginning to understand Tina’s routine, the routine had been broken. The visits were weekly, most weeks. Thursdays often, Wednesdays occasionally, like today. But not recently: one, two, three, almost four weeks had passed with no sign of her. She’d considered giving up her vigil entirely. But that would not do. She could not give up. So she continued her visits to the cemetery, hoping to spot Tina. And today Tina had come, and stayed a while, and shouted again, and stumbled off.

  And was she partly to blame? Yes, of course she was, partly. But it was too late to change what had already gone, too late to alter what was in the past. You could only look forward and plan ahead. So she came here, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, waiting, trying to get up the courage to speak.

  It was simple. If you felt guilty, you had to do something about it, before it was too late.

  Ten

  December 1963

  Lucia struggled home through the thick snow, slipping

  many times. The village hall wasn’t so very far from

  home, a matter of yards on a sunny day, but tonight, it may as well have been miles. In the end she carried her shoes and struggled on in stockinged feet. The lane that led down to home was particularly arduous. She slipped and fell, five, six, seven or more times. She felt drunk, although she wasn’t drunk, as she hadn’t even finished that first Babycham. She tasted vomit, she smelled of vomit, she was in the worst mess she had ever been in, in every way. She just wanted to be at home. So she forced one foot in front of the other, sunk her feet into deep cold snow, and clenched and unclenched her fists in a futile attempt to keep her hands warm. She may as well have been naked. If she passed out and fell down, she could die, her body frozen and undiscovered, perhaps until morning.

  ‘Keep… going… one… foot… one… foot. Keep going.’

  When she finally arrived home and let herself in at the kitchen door, Mum was there in her mauve house coat, preparing cups of tea. She stared at Lucia.

  ‘My God! Lucia? Oh, Lucia! Tom! Edward!’

  Mum ran the bath, boiling the kettle and saucepans in the kitchen to top up the water. She and Edward trailed up and down the stairs a dozen or more times between them. William was summoned from his bedroom by the commotion and Lucia, undressing in her bedroom, heard him ask what was going on. Mum assured him it was nothing to worry about and shooed him back to his room. Mum took Lucia’s clothes downstairs, “to soak”.

  In the bath at last, any part of her that wasn’t submerged was horribly cold. She lay back and sank herself into the water, right up to her chin. Mum had been generous with the bath salts and Lucia could no longer smell vomit. The bathroom was silent. Condensation formed on its pink walls. She could hear muffled voices from downstairs; no doubt her parents and eldest brother were speculating about what had happened to her. Soon the long-drawn bath worked its magic, and the water’s heat penetrated first her skin, then her guts, then her bones. She closed her eyes. She felt the hot tears forming. If she kept her eyes closed could she keep them in forever? The bath water steamed, lapping at her body even with her slight movements. This must be how it felt to be truly warm, from the inside out. She stayed in the hot bath, trying not to move, for half an hour, until the water eventually became too cool. She got out, dried, brushed her teeth, and dressed herself in her nightie and house coat and slippers. When she opened the bathroom door, William was sitting at the top of the stairs, apparently waiting for her. He stood up.

  ‘You all right?’ he said. His lip wobbled.

  ‘Yes. Thanks. I’m fine.’

  ‘You must have been so cold.’

  ‘It’s horrid out there.’

  ‘But now you’re home and safe.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I use the loo? I want to go back to bed. I’m knackered.’

  A little tipsy too, she thought. He must have had a tipple with Dad and Edward. She didn’t think it entirely wise of them. But it was sweet of him to have waited patiently for her; he’d not pounded on the door, yelling at her to hurry up, as he might have done.

  ‘It’s all yours,’ she said.

  She went downstairs and Edward insisted she take the seat nearest the fire. He stoked up the blaze, piling on the coals. Dad
prepared to go to bed now he was satisfied his daughter was restored.

  ‘Where’s Ambrose?’ Dad asked. Lucia looked at Edward, he looked back at her.

  ‘Right,’ said Dad. ‘Lock up before you go to bed. If he hasn’t got his key that’s his look out. You bits of kids…’

  Mum insisted on making cocoa for Lucia. She needed it, she said. She bustled off into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with her favourite tray laden with two mugs of cocoa, one each for Lucia and Edward, and a tea plate of artfully arranged Nice biscuits. ‘For heaven’s sake, eat something,’ she remonstrated with her daughter.

  ‘Go on up, Mum,’ said Edward. ‘I’ll wait for Ambrose.’

  After a minute or two of further fussing, Mum was finally persuaded to go to bed. She stroked Edward’s shiny brown hair. She kissed Lucia and held her hand for a moment. Then she left them and they listened as she made her slow way up the steep staircase.

  The cocoa was hot and thick, and Lucia leaned back in her chair and stretched herself out. Her house coat slipped away, leaving her thin white legs exposed to the warmth of the fire. She felt like a child again, cossetted and loved. Edward sipped his cocoa. They each ate a Nice biscuit. For a long while they were silent. Then Lucia recalled her struggle home, the reasons for leaving the dance, Ambrose and the girl who had disappeared behind the curtain together, Clive’s handsome face…

  ‘Don’t cry, Loose Ear,’ said Edward, and he put down his cocoa and came to her. He gently eased her mug from her thin white hands. His hands shook. He smelled of booze. He is, she thought, trying very hard to appear sober. It wasn’t a bad effort. He kneeled before her. ‘You’re still so cold!’ he said, and he placed both his hands over hers and chafed them, rubbing gently, and Lucia stared at her kind, graceful brother in awe. He looked handsome in his pale blue shirt, his slacks, his brown hair slicked back, his eyes so blue, such a nice deep blue.