Ivy and Abe

by Elizabeth Enfield

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘To stop her getting pregnant, silly.’

  He grinned and I could feel myself blushing.

  I knew what had to happen for a woman to get pregnant. I didn’t know that people kept doing it, even after they’d already had five children. Was Jackie telling me his mum was going to have another baby? I didn’t dare ask.

  ‘Is it because of Kirsty?’ I asked instead, in the darkness of the tent.

  ‘Yes. Sort of. I’m going to sleep now.’

  He turned away, pulling his sleeping bag up around his neck.

  ‘Night, Abe.’ I pretended to be asleep.

  I don’t know how long we lay there before Abe started to cry. ‘Abe?’ I whispered, because it was night and quiet. I’d never seen him crying. Not ever.

  ‘Sorry.’ The quiet sobs grew louder.

  ‘What for?’

  He didn’t answer. I could see the contours of his back, heaving beneath the sleeping bag. I pushed my arm tentatively out of mine and rested it on his shoulder. ‘What’s the matter, Abe?’

  He turned over and even in the darkness I could see his face was streaked with tears. ‘Sometimes I just can’t stand it.’ He pushed his sleeping bag down and moved towards me, so that my arm was now right round him.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said, in the way my mother spoke to me, when I was really upset. I moved closer and stroked his hair, trying to soothe him. Eventually his breathing grew quieter, and when I thought he was asleep, I moved my arm ready to shift back to my side of the tent.

  But he wasn’t asleep. ‘Stay,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to be by myself.’

  I pulled my pillow nearer to his, sat up slightly so I could nestle into the crook of his arm and we fell asleep. I was still there when Mrs McFadden unzipped the tent and peered in. ‘Oh,’ she said. That was all.

  She left the flap and walked away.

  Abe was still asleep as I eased myself out of the embrace we’d fallen into. I wasn’t sure how much of the night before he remembered, but I felt odd when we went in for breakfast and his mother asked if we wanted toast as well as cereal.

  ‘I’ve got to go into the village after breakfast, so I’ll drop Ivy home,’ she added.

  I felt odd, sitting next to her in the car too. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong, or if I’d done anything wrong at all.

  Not long after that there was another phone call.

  I answered it, in the early evening.

  ‘Is that Ivy?’ It was Abe’s father.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘May I speak to your mother, please?’

  He never called. Just as my father never made phone calls at home, no social calls. He made business calls from the office, and Mr McFadden sometimes made work calls from home. But he’d never ring here. Mrs McFadden did, to chat to my mum or ask about some arrangement to do with me and Abe.

  ‘I’ll go and get her.’

  I hovered, wanting to know what was being said, but Mum flapped her hand at me, shooing me out of the hallway.

  ‘What did he want?’ I asked, when she’d finished talking.

  ‘Abe’s staying with us tonight.’ No further explanation. ‘I’m going to pick him up.’ She was looking for her car keys.

  ‘Can I come?’

  ‘No, Ivy. You stay here. I won’t be long.’

  She was half an hour.

  Abe looked confused when he arrived without his overnight things. Mum was fussing over him. ‘Do you want a drink? Anything to eat? I’ll find some old pyjamas of Jon’s for you. Would you like to watch television? Ivy will sit with you.’

  ‘Has something happened?’ I asked Abe, when we were alone.

  ‘Mum’s been taken to hospital,’ he said, without looking at me.

  ‘Oh. Is she ill?’

  ‘Jackie had to ring for an ambulance. He found her in the car in the garage.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, as if I understood but I did not.

  A year later, things were almost normal in the McFadden household. The house had begun to fill again with family and friends. The big news was that the neighbouring farmhouse had been bought by Peter Van der Zee, who was practically famous. He ran a chain of men’s clothing shops in Surrey, Sussex and Kent.

  At the time there was a Van der Zee shop in nearly every market town. It was where anyone with an office job went to buy their suits, shirts and ties. I’d been to the nearest branch with my mother, to pick up suits Dad had bought for himself but left to be altered. On one occasion I’d been to take back a tie he had liked, until he discovered that Mr Piper had the same one.

  ‘Dad bought a new tie from Van der Zee’s last week,’ I’d told Abe. ‘It was blue with a kind of red swirly pattern, so from a distance it looked more red than blue.’

  ‘Outlandish,’ Abe replied, opening his eyes wide, as he said it.

  I’d never heard the word before and had no idea what it meant. ‘He had to take it back. You’ll never guess why.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Mr Piper had the exact same tie!’

  ‘Oh.’ Abe started making swirls in the dirt with the tip of his toe and I wondered if my repeated tales of Mr Piper bored him or if he was just more interested in Mr Van der Zee buying the farmhouse next to his home.

  When we’d talked about the imminent arrival of Peter Van der Zee, Abe and I had created a fantastical creature who bore very little resemblance to the man who came to live in the house. It was his ownership of the men’s clothing shops that lent him, in our imaginations, a touch of exoticism – and his name. If you were from Zee, you might as well have been from Samarkand or outer space.

  So by the time the furniture lorry arrived and, with it, the family’s car, we were expecting some sort of velvet-suited, cigar-smoking, pointed-shoe-wearing ‘outlandish’ character.

  Instead, a very ordinary middle-aged man, his nice-looking wife and two children emerged from the car. The children were the wrong age for any of us to have much to do with. One was already at Oxford, studying Mandarin – a subject that made him almost as exotic as our imaginary Mr Van der Zee had been. The daughter, who was younger, was doing A levels at a boarding school in Dorset. So Mr and Mrs Van der Zee were effectively childless and semi-retired too.

  They threw their energies into their new home, stripping out kitchens and bathrooms, putting up conservatories and gazebos, but in between they were friendly. They took their dogs for walks and said, ‘Hello,’ a little louder than anyone else. They stopped their car and wound down windows to engage in conversation, and Mrs Van der Zee, whose name was Barbara, invited women round for coffee and couples for cocktails.

  Pam McFadden was one of the first and, because they lived next door, one of the most frequent recipients of an invitation for ‘a mug of instant’. So she broke the swimming-pool news. The Van der Zees were going to build one. A proper outdoor sunken pool, not one of the metal stand-up ones they advertised in Sunday supplements.

  ‘The pool’s almost finished.’ Mrs Van der Zee stopped her car outside the McFaddens’ house. ‘Do you want to come and see?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  It was a thing of wonder. A big hole in the ground lined with myriad blue tiles and a few workmen. ‘They’re just sealing it,’ she explained. ‘But it should be ready to use by next week. The water will be a bit cold but come round and help us christen it, won’t you?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Of course! What’s the point of it if there are no children here to enjoy it? Now then. While you’re here, would you like something to eat or drink before you go home? There’s Coca-Cola in the fridge.’

  ‘Yes, please!’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  I’d never had Coca-Cola or swum in an outdoor pool.

  It was early May when the pool was ready. The water was cold but that didn’t bother a couple of ten-year-olds.

  ‘You can change in the pool room, if you like,’ Mrs Van der Zee offered, the first time we went.

  I’d a
rrived with my costume already on under my clothes and fussed about under a towel. A changing room was not a necessity. Not until a few weeks later when the weather and the water had warmed up and a sudden storm broke.

  Mrs McFadden and Mrs Van der Zee were sitting at a table near the pool, with cups of ‘instant’, chatting. They kept glancing at the sky, as Abe and I tried to do proper breaststroke.

  ‘You have to put your head in and move your arms and legs at the same time, like a frog,’ I said authoritatively. I had no idea really but I loved the feel of the water. I wanted Abe to love it too.

  ‘It always gets up my nose,’ he complained.

  ‘You have to breathe out when your head is under water so you can breathe straight in when you take it out.’ I took a deep breath and buried my face in the water to demonstrate. I felt a few drops on my back. ‘Stop splashing me and try it,’ I said, coming up for air.

  ‘I wasn’t splashing. It’s raining.’

  Abe was right. Big fat drops were pummelling the water. His mother and Mrs Van der Zee were gathering up their coffee cups and heading for the house.

  ‘Can we stay in?’ Abe asked. ‘We’re already wet.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Mrs McFadden looked at Mrs Van der Zee.

  ‘I’ll put your clothes and towels in the pool room,’ Mrs Van der Zee said, scooping up our things.

  ‘Thanks,’ we shouted, as she headed for the wooden shed where they kept all the cleaning stuff.

  ‘It’ll stop in a minute,’ Abe said confidently.

  It didn’t. The rain fell harder and the surface of the pool was almost choppy.

  ‘I think I might get out now.’

  ‘Me too.’ Abe followed me to the steps and we ran the short distance across the concrete flagstones to the pool room.

  Abe picked up his towel and began rubbing himself dry but mine was missing from the pile of clothes Mrs Van der Zee had placed on the wooden bench that ran along one side of the room. ‘My towel’s not here.’

  ‘Oh, no! Well, you can use mine in a sec.’ Abe wrapped it round his waist and shuffled under it, pulling his trunks off and putting his pants on. ‘Here.’ He handed it to me, and I did the towel dance, wriggling beneath it out of my wet costume and into my dry underwear.

  ‘We’ll get soaked if we go out again.’ Abe looked out of the window. ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘Do you think Mrs Van der Zee will mind if we use the mats?’

  There were two foam mattresses that the Van Der Zees laid by the pool. They were propped sideways against the wall.

  ‘We’ll put them back,’ Abe said, dragging them out and laying them side by side but propped up against the bench – a kind of comfy sofa-bed.

  ‘Ow.’ I tugged at the elastic band that secured my hair in the pigtail Mum said I had to put it in for swimming. ‘There’s too much hair caught in it.’

  ‘Turn round,’ Abe said, and I put my back to him, allowing him to free the end of my hair from the band and loosen the three plaited strands so that it would dry.

  ‘Your hair’s so dark when it’s wet,’ he said. ‘It’s like …’

  ‘Not so ginger?’ I hated it when people at school said it was ginger but I didn’t mind referring to it like that with Abe.

  ‘It’s not ginger,’ he said. ‘It’s red.’

  ‘I still don’t like it,’ I said, which was true, but not so much the hair as the comments it attracted.

  ‘I do,’ Abe said, unwinding the final section of my plait. ‘It’s got so many different colours in it. There!’ He smoothed the loose strands with his hand and I turned around.

  ‘Thanks.’

  We sat with our heads resting against the ledge of the bench, our arms touching.

  ‘Did I tell you Mum’s sister might be coming to stay?’ Abe asked.

  ‘No. What sister? When?’

  ‘Auntie Katrina. She lives in Scotland.’

  ‘So you don’t see her very often?’

  ‘No. She’s coming on the sleeper train.’

  ‘I’d like to go on one of those. I’d love to just go to bed on a train and wake up somewhere else.’

  ‘Do you think it’d be easy to sleep?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  And I don’t know if it was the fug of the pool room, with the rain outside, or that I was tired from swimming or just the talk of sleep, but I must have dozed off, while we were chatting.

  I awoke to the sound of a door opening and Abe’s mother’s voice. ‘They’re still in here,’ she said.

  I opened my eyes and felt my arm, which was numb from the way I’d been leaning against Abe.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ Mrs Van der Zee was behind her, her head silhouetted by the sun, which was out again.

  ‘It’s stopped raining now,’ Mrs McFadden said. ‘Time to go home.’

  We got up, put the mats back where we’d found them and gathered our wet things while the grown-ups waited outside. I didn’t hear what Barbara Van der Zee said to Abe’s mother but I heard her reply: ‘They’ve always been like that. They’re like an old married couple.’

  I wondered vaguely who she was talking about.

  ‘That’s one of the things I’m worried about.’ She lowered her voice. ‘He’ll miss her.’

  A few months later I would replay those overheard snippets of a conversation.

  It was my mother who told me. It felt like a huge betrayal. She wasn’t to blame for the news she had to impart, any more than she was responsible for the sequence of events that led to it. Nevertheless my childish mind held her to account.

  Dinner had been normal – pork chops, mash, cabbage and questions.

  ‘What do you want to do for your birthday, Ivy?’

  ‘I want to see the dolphins at the Aquarium.’

  ‘They sing happy birthday to you if you go on your actual birthday!’

  ‘Dolphins don’t sing.’ Dad, the killjoy.

  ‘They can.’ Cathy backed me up. ‘I went with Jenny last year on someone’s birthday. They really do sing.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘They grunt.’ Cathy demonstrated with a tuneful throat clearing.

  We all laughed, except Mum, who shook her head, the way she often did when she thought a conversation or event had happened before. ‘Déjà vu,’ she said, half laughing – too late.

  Nothing about the meal made me think anyone was about to deliver bad news. It was only when we’d finished that I realized something was up.

  ‘Ivy, you don’t have to help with the washing-up today.’

  ‘Why not?’ It wasn’t my birthday. I hadn’t done particularly well at school. I wasn’t ill. I’d stopped asking if I could be exempt from the task because I was adopted because it worried me when my parents went along with the ruse. I clearly wasn’t adopted. Apart from my red hair, I bore a resemblance to my parents and siblings that was too strong for me to be anything other than part of the family.

  Adoption was just a game that I tried to use to my advantage. ‘Do I have to do the washing-up? I’m adopted.’

  Sometimes, when my parents were feeling indulgent, they did let me off, despite protests from Jon and Cathy.

  ‘You’re not adopted.’

  ‘Then how come I’ve got red hair and you haven’t?’

  ‘Cos it’s a recessive gene. Our granddad had red hair. It just didn’t come out in us.’ Jon knew all about Mendel and his sweet peas. ‘You’re just lazy. And the youngest, so you get spoiled.’

  But I didn’t want to be spoiled today. ‘I don’t mind. I’ll dry.’ I jumped up, eager to put off whatever the bad news was that exempted me from after-supper duties.

  ‘No, Ivy, you sit down.’ Mum was adamant. ‘I’m afraid there’s some sad news.’

  I already knew that. Mum hadn’t made her ‘Blancmange is a dish best served cold’ joke, the one she made every time we had blancmange for pudding, the one everyone laughed at as if it was the first time they’d heard it, the one I laughed at too, even though I didn’t get it. T
he one Jon never shook his head at and said, ‘Déjà vu,’ to, the way he did to Dad.

  I said nothing.

  ‘I know you’ll be very sad. I’m sad too,’ Mum began. ‘But I saw Pam McFadden today. Don’t look so worried, love.’ The endearment. ‘It’s not the end of the world.’

  I shuddered. The Jehovah’s Witnesses had been round a few days earlier with a definite date for that. Dad had insisted on inviting them in for coffee. He’d said he felt sorry for the children. ‘They get dragged around on Saturday mornings spreading doom and gloom while you go swimming.’

  ‘And resurrection,’ Jon quipped. ‘If you didn’t get that bit you just wasted the best part of an hour and a half and a packet of Bourbon biscuits.’ He resented the liberal offering of his favourites, when we were limited to three at teatime, more than the threat of the world ending.

  In fact, he rather liked the idea of Armageddon in one form or another. Four years older than me, Jon remembered the Cuban Missile Crisis properly. He was ten at the time and desperately seeking what-ifs that might really change the world, not little ones that seemed to make no difference.

  ‘If Hitler hadn’t been born, someone else would have led the Nazi Party,’ he’d say to me. ‘But if a comet hit the earth, you’d have about two seconds before it all ended.’

  But the world was not about to end, not the wider one, anyway. Just mine.

  ‘The McFaddens have decided to move,’ Mum said.

  ‘House?’

  ‘Yes, house. But also, well, country, I suppose.’

  ‘Country? Where are they going to?’

  ‘Scotland. Just outside Edinburgh. Mr McFadden’s got a new job and Mrs McFadden wanted to be closer to her sister after …’ She was still unable to talk about the event that had divided everything in the McFaddens’ world into before and after. ‘Well, she needs to be near her family.’

  ‘But what about their friends?’ If they moved to Scotland, I might never see Abe again.

  ‘It’s not the same,’ Mum said gently. ‘When something like that happens, you need your family around you. I’m sure things would have been different if it hadn’t been for …’ Again she avoided saying it. ‘It’s been really hard for Mrs McFadden.’