The Silk Factory
Page 4
‘An arch?’
‘Yes, that’s it. Not smooth, rough-cut, you know – by the waves. Helena and I went swimming every day, further along. We took a picnic. Helena got stung by a wasp by the bins and I put an ice cube on it to stop her crying …’ She tailed off.
Rosie, amazed by this sudden flood of memory, tried to encourage her to say more. She had heard that dementia patients could often summon up detailed memories of the distant past even though they couldn’t remember what they’d had for breakfast that very morning. ‘Who took the photo?’
May’s face softened. ‘He was the campsite owner’s son. He was called Stephen. We wrote for a while … then the next year Mum and Dad wanted a change and we went to Filey, then Scarborough the year after that.’ She put the photograph back on to the heap face down and turned to gaze out into the garden, her eyes sad, thoughts far away.
Rosie took it and wrapped it in the piece of sewing saying, ‘It’ll save it from scratches.’ She imagined the holiday romance, walks along windy cliffs, stolen kisses at the door of the little caravan. How sad that they hadn’t gone back. She wondered how many other loves May had had and still regretted losing. She had thrown herself into her civil service career working in the Highways Department. Articulate and practical, she had risen in a man’s world. She had never married. Rosie carefully pinned the needle and thread into the fabric so that it wouldn’t get loose in the bag and prick May’s finger in her rummaging through her belongings. Like Sleeping Beauty, she thought, her brain making a strange connection to thorny thickets of briar enveloping a pinnacled castle where a girl lay dreaming of love; time stopped for her at sweet sixteen. She reached across and took her aunt’s hand.
May looked at her as if she was surfacing from a great depth, struggling to comprehend, ‘Helena?’ she said at last and Rosie, too exhausted to start all over again, just squeezed her hand.
Nurse Todd came in and seeing their joined hands, nodded and smiled as if this was a very satisfactory outcome for a first visit. ‘Shall we put your things away safely in your bag, May?’ she said but May was once again lost in thought. Nurse Todd started to pack away the mound of objects. Noticing the TV remote she exclaimed, ‘Ah! We’ve been looking everywhere for that!’ and surreptitiously slipped it into the pocket of her uniform. ‘This happens all the time,’ she said to Rosie. ‘May likes to watch Doctors but some of the men are very vocal about watching the sport.’
Rosie smiled at her aunt’s ingenuity despite male vociferousness.
Nurse Todd said cheerily, ‘We’ll have to keep it under lock and key. They all do it; sometimes it’s like hunt the thimble in here.’ She put the tidied bag back under May’s chair.
‘Can I come and have a word?’ Rosie asked before explaining to May that she had to go. She kissed her lightly on the cheek; it felt dry, so soft and loose, compared to the feel of hundreds of bedtime kisses on Sam or Cara’s plump cheeks, like a peach that’s gone over; her smell was a mixture of sweet and musty. As she bent over her, May lifted her hand and touched Rosie’s scarf, a filmy material with a William Morris pattern in cream and pale blue.
‘Nice,’ May murmured.
Rosie unwound the scarf and softly draped it around May’s shoulders. May fingered the edge of the fabric, looking down at its lustrous folds against the dull, bobbly cardigan. She looked up at Rosie with eyes as open and delighted as a child’s.
‘It suits you,’ Rosie said. ‘I’ll come and see you again soon.’
She followed Nurse Todd from the room and asked about May’s health. The nurse gave a recap: sometimes she became very confused and recognised no one, and she was often distressed when she woke at night. She was in better shape physically: arthritis, but still able to walk independently, her sight still good enough with reading glasses for her to attempt a little sewing although she had to use a darning needle and grew frustrated at the size and ungainly shape of her stitches.
Thinking of her pleasure over the scarf, Rosie said, ‘Should I bring in some clothes? She used to be so particular about how she looked.’
Nurse Todd flushed a little. ‘There are a lot of spillages. It’s better if they’re in things that you can get them in and out of easily.’
‘I’ll have a look what there is left at home,’ Rosie said mildly. She hadn’t meant to sound critical but felt quite determined on the point. The May she knew would be mortified to be dressed in clothes from some communal clothes store that fitted her like a sack. She smiled, ‘I’ll pick out things without lots of buttons.’ She thanked the nurse and shook her hand at the door saying that she would be back in a few days and asking if it was OK to bring the children.
‘Of course. It brightens everyone up to have young faces around,’ she said.
As Rosie drove home she reflected that the visit had answered her question: May clearly needed care; she was certainly not going to be able to come back to the house. At least the home seemed sound and the staff competent and well intentioned; that was a relief. She would visit as often as she could while they were here, she decided, and, once she was back in London, when Josh had the children for a weekend, she’d try to get up to see May and make sure she had everything she needed. Still, she thought how sad it was for May to have reached the last few years of her life and to be so alone. However kind the nurses were she was still cared for by strangers. It struck a chord with her own loneliness, now that both Josh and Mum were gone. I have two children, she told herself. I still have someone to love, that’s all that matters, but a child-like voice at the back of her mind was saying, But now there’s no one to love and care for you, is there? Just like May.
Later that evening, when the kids had been collected from next door, bathed and tucked up – Sam now in the spare room next to hers with his toy cars ranged along the windowsill in a nose-to-tail traffic jam and Cara in a collapsible lobster-pot cot at the foot of her bed – Rosie gave Corinne a call.
‘Hello, you, how’s it going in the wilds of the North?’ Corinne said. ‘Everything good?’
‘Pretty much. The kids are fine. My neighbour’s nice. I’ve been to see May too; she’s a bit of a character …’
‘And? Something’s bothering you.’
‘Well, it’s silly really, but this odd child turned up and it’s freaking me out. She was in the garden and then by the time I went out there she’d gone and I couldn’t work out how she got in.’
‘How old was she?’
‘I don’t know, maybe eight, nine?’
‘Not likely to mean any harm then; maybe she’s just curious about who’s moved in? Wants to see if there’s anyone new to play with.’
‘Maybe … but today I think she came into the house.’
‘How do you mean, you think she did? You didn’t see her then?’
‘No, just heard footsteps on the stairs, at least I think there were.’
There was a pause. ‘You probably imagined it. Old houses are always full of funny noises, and you’re bound to be all on edge in a new place and with the trial of sorting your mum’s stuff out ahead of you. It probably makes you a bit … well … jumpy. You know how you can get when you’re overwrought.’
‘I suppose. But May reckons she comes in the house and steals things.’
‘Yeah, all the things she finds later under the bed or down the side of the sofa.’ Corinne giggled. ‘Come on, you’re not going to let yourself get spooked by the wanderings of a batty aunt?’
‘No – no, I’m fine.’ Rosie let it go. Corinne had a point; May was in the home exactly because of such irrational imaginings. ‘How about you?’
‘Well, I’ve just heard that the school isn’t renewing my contract this year.’
‘Oh no! Why not? They can’t do that two weeks before the start of term, surely?’
‘To be honest, I thought this might happen.They’ve been wanting to make cuts in the department for ages. Actually, I’m not that bothered.’
‘How do you mean? What’s going on?’
‘What? Tell me!’
‘Luc asked me to marry him.’
Rosie let out a squeal. ‘Corinne! That’s wonderful! I’m so happy for you. When? How?’
‘I went over at the weekend and we had one of those deep conversations. We’re both hating being apart … and he’d been scouting around for a job for me. He’d made a contact who works in an agency placing language teachers in foreign companies whose managers need to improve their business French …’
Rosie swallowed hard. ‘So you’re going back to Paris; he’s not coming over here?’
‘It makes more sense this way. His job pays more than mine; our families are there—’ Corinne broke off. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry, that was tactless.’
‘No,’ Rosie said firmly, although the thought of Streatham without Corinne was bleak. ‘It’ll be lovely for you to have family nearby. What kind of a friend wouldn’t be glad for you? And I am – really.’ She stopped herself from saying, ‘When do you have to go?’ She had no right to sound disappointed; after all, when she’d told Corinne she was upping sticks to Northamptonshire for a while, Corinne had understood that she had to do it and had never once moaned. She reframed the question and put a cheerfulness into her voice. ‘How soon will you be able to go?’
‘I’ve already started packing,’ Corinne said sheepishly. ‘Now we’ve decided, we just want to be together as soon as we can.’
‘Right. Well, that’s good then.’ Rosie asked her about the wedding. It was to be in the spring and Rosie promised to keep the range of possible dates free in her diary. Corinne’s happiness bubbled over as she told Rosie about her engagement ring and spoke of booking the church and of hotels and honeymoon plans.
‘As soon as you’ve done what you have to at your mum’s place, come out and visit us in France,’ Corinne finished.
‘It might take quite a while. As well as going through everything I’m going to have to redecorate at the very least.’
‘Well, get on to it as fast as you can. I need you to help me choose a dress.’
They said their goodbyes and Rosie laid her phone down slowly on the kitchen table, her mind distracted. As part of her plans, she’d assumed Corinne would be there to go back to when she finished here. Streatham was her base now; she’d made a home there, however modest, for the kids, a place where there would be no more upset, where they felt secure. She had her contacts at the school and knew that when she came out the other side of all this and Sam had started school, she would probably be able to pick up some hours there again, maybe even get her old job back. In the long term, she planned to send the children to the primary that fed into her secondary school so that when they moved up she would be able to keep an eye on them. It was harder for kids with single parents, with only one person there to root for them, and she was going to make sure she was right there whenever they needed her.
She hadn’t really realised how much she had been relying on Corinne. Now it felt as though yet another person was stepping off her map. When she returned to London, the small familiarity of their weekly get-togethers wouldn’t be there to look forward to; she would be left in uncharted territory without a landmark to hold fast to. Her mouth felt dry as her anxiety rose. Feeling restless and nervous, she knew she would be unable to sit still.
She set out to make a list of the jobs that needed doing in the house. With notebook and pen in hand, she went from room to room, trying to view each one through the eyes of a prospective buyer. The living room needed decorating but was otherwise in good shape; it looked inviting as the evening dimmed, a lamp glowing through an amber shade on the bureau beside the window, a Persian rug on the oak floor, squashy sofas with cream cotton covers, books lining the chimney alcoves. The kitchen needed reorganising to make room for a dishwasher and the veneer on the cupboards was split and peeling. She would just replace the doors, she decided. She couldn’t afford to have the whole thing refitted. The cost of doing the place up was going to have to come out of their everyday budget as her savings had dwindled to almost zero. She would manage on a shoestring and do it all herself.
There were a few marks on the wall in the hallway, where her mum’s bike still stood and one of her mum’s favourite porcelain plates decorated with butterflies and peonies hung on the wall. The paintwork of skirting boards, banisters and spindles needed redoing. She paused at the door under the stairs that must lead down to the cellar. She’d noticed the tiny windows at ground level at the back of the house and at the front the bricked-up chute at street level that must have once been used for the delivery of logs or coal. She undid the bolt at the top of the rough plank door and laid her hand on the brass doorknob, but something indefinable made her hesitate. A cold draught seeped from under the door, chilling her bare ankles and her feet in their flip-flops.
A sudden noise made her start. Faintly, as if from behind the closed door, came a high-pitched sound, a long keening cry, like a distant lament. Tentatively, she put her ear to the door and listened, straining to hear. It ceased as suddenly as it had begun. A faint smell of soot was borne on the stale air that leached through the joints of the boards of the door but now there was no more than the tiny whistling sound made by the draught as it passed through. She waited, shivering in the draught, but the sound didn’t come again. She thought of what Corinne had said, and told herself that what she had heard was just the house creaking as the heat left the day and its timbers cooled and contracted. Surely that was it; Mum’s cottage had made sounds as it settled, cracking noises and long sighs as the wooden joists and beams relaxed. She dropped her hand from the doorknob; it would be better to look at the cellar in daylight. Some light would shine through the tiny windows at the back. She would give the panes a wash first: they were streaked with the green dust of algae; yes, that was what she’d do.
Her nerves still jangled, she hurried upstairs to look in on Sam and Cara. They were fine, both sound asleep: Sam on top of a rumpled nest of duvet; Cara, who had been grizzly in the heat, cooler now, stripped down to vest and nappy. She lay flat as a starfish, on her back, her arms stretched out above her head, her knees fallen apart, utterly abandoned to sleep. Rosie watched her for a few moments feeling the vulnerability of her sleeping child, the overwhelming desire to protect her. Cara’s eyes moved beneath their closed lids – dreaming.
Rosie carried on and jotted down more household notes: there were water stains on the ceiling here, and the electric switches on this floor were an ancient brown Bakelite suggesting that the house had been only partially rewired.
She’d been so busy settling the children in, food shopping and visiting May, that she’d not got round to exploring the top floor of the house, which was reached by a spiral staircase from the landing. She climbed the stairs, her feet clanging on the black iron treads, and found, instead of another corridor with doors leading from it, that she was in a large room with a high ceiling, lit from both sides by pairs of uncurtained windows, filling the space with dusky evening light. As in the other rooms, the floor was made of wide oak floorboards, but here, completely bare and unadorned by rugs, their huge breadth and thickness was more apparent. Rosie wondered at their solidity and the substantial joists that must underpin them. The wood had the patina of age and across the middle of the room was a shiny path, as if many feet had once passed to and fro. There were black marks left by old nails and fixings on the boards beneath the windows and, in front of the marks, shallow hollows buffed to a fine shine, like a dip in a stone step worn by myriad feet. Rosie remembered her initial impression that the building might have been some kind of barracks, but if so, what was the need for the reinforced floor or the many windows, which would surely have been an unnecessary expense? The room was more like a section of a workshop that had run the length of the building; perhaps heavy machines of some kind
had been fixed to the sturdy floor and bright light had been needed for the work: light far brighter than people had been used to for ordinary living.
Whatever the reason, the room had a spare and simple beauty. The walls were painted plain white and were hung with the quilts that her mother used to make. Some were made up of intricate patterns of hexagons, plain and floral, spotted and striped, forming a rich mass of colours; some used appliqué to form pictures: a winter wood embroidered with silver thread; a bed of hollyhocks and foxgloves with jewelled bees. They used to hang in the lounge and hallway of her mum’s old home, partly obscured by open doors or the clutter of coats. Here, given white space around them and room to breathe, they glowed like fine paintings, each one a bold statement.
Under the windows that looked out over the garden stood a long dressmaker’s table and a tailor’s dummy that must belong to May. Both sisters had been keen on sewing but May had preferred a practical end in view and had taken up tailoring. Her mother’s magnifying-glass stand and an angle-poise lamp stood on the table now, and in the set of open shelves that ran the length of one wall, piles of neatly folded quilting squares lay alongside May’s bolts of cloth and sewing baskets.
Rosie walked slowly to the bench. Spread beneath the lamp was a square piece of pale blue cotton, quilted with billowing clouds on which tiny winged dumper trucks and diggers laboured, their trailers and buckets full of puffy whiteness. The words ‘Sam’s Castles in the Air’ were embroidered along the bottom, the needle still pinned to the fabric at the foot of the letter ‘r’. Beside the piece were Mum’s spare reading glasses, their arms open as if she had just put them aside for a moment to go to the door or answer the phone. Rosie touched the soft fabric as if she could send a message to her mother through her fingertips. She picked up the glasses and very slowly folded the arms before laying them gently back down.