‘It’s best,’ she said stubbornly, and walked out of the room.
Alan closed his eyes, retaining the image of his father’s corpse-like countenance, white and shrunken above the knot of his silken muffler. For a long time Father stood there; the sound of his breathing filled the room. Then he went into the hall. From the front parlour came the noise of voices singing and the jangle of the untuned piano. The front door slammed. Alan sat up and brushed the fluff from his clothes. Aunt Nora returned with a stack of plates.
‘So you’ve come back to the land of the living,’ she said, smiling at him.
‘Where’s Dad gone?’
‘Home,’ she told him. ‘He wasn’t feeling too good. He’s not well, Alan. Your mam should make him see a doctor.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with him,’ he said, shaking his head irritably.
‘He gets pains in his chest.’
‘He eats too much,’ he said. ‘He always has.’
Alan wouldn’t join the party in the front room. Madge was sent through to persuade him but he refused. ‘We’re levitating,’ she said. ‘We sing “Shall we gather by the River” and someone goes right up in the air.’
‘I’ll bet,’ he scoffed.
‘Mrs Enright went up two feet. She might have gone higher but she was worried about showing her drawers.’
‘My dad’s been and gone,’ he said. ‘Auntie says he’s not well. He ought to see a doctor.’
‘He eats too much,’ she said carelessly. She looked flushed and happy, her hair ribbon hanging in a bedraggled bow above her ear. He told her they ought to be going soon, it was getting late.
‘I want to stay,’ she whined. ‘Why can’t we stop the night? Mother wouldn’t mind.’
‘I’m not stopping here. It’s too damp. There’s not the facilities.’
‘Silly old Alan,’ she said. ‘You’re scared of everything.’ And she would have kissed his cheek, only he fended her off; and she went with a pretence of huffiness to join the old ladies rising in the front room.
She was right: he was scared – but not of the damp. He was afraid of leaving his parents alone together in the house. He had to be sure Mother was in the upstairs room and that the car was parked on the path. He needed to be certain Father was sitting safely by the fire, listening to the voices in the dark.
On the tram journey to the station, Madge said she reckoned she knew what all the cheque-signing was about. ‘Auntie told me when you were asleep.’
‘I never slept.’
‘Our house belongs to me and Auntie. In our name.’
‘She’s no right to gossip,’ he said.
‘It’s family business … not gossip.’
‘She ought to have more sense.’
‘It’s to stop Mother spending all the money on hats and things.’
‘Shut your mouth.’
‘He’s bankrupt. He can’t have things of his own.’
‘I don’t want to know,’ he said. ‘You keep your lies to yourself.’
It was raining; the streets glistened under the street lamps. Along the dock road the cobblestones would be slippery under the wheels of the big car. He ought not to have let Father go home alone. During the war they had come back one night from visiting Aunt Nora and the sirens had begun to wail behind them. Father cursed, putting his foot down hard on the accelerator, trying to put distance between himself and the town. Through the back window Alan watched the bloated fish of the barrage balloons, sliced in half by the pale beams of searchlights. The car skidded on a patch of oil, and a pound of apples, lodged in the front compartment, burst their paper bag and cannoned about the seats.
Though the war was over, Father was still caught in a crossfire, harassed by battles, by phantom cities tumbling about his ears. This moment – as then – he could be slumped over the driving wheel, hands raised in an abject gesture of surrender.
On the train, Madge said loudly. ‘Have you ever thought how many clothes our mam buys? All those cotton frocks and handbags to match.’
‘Shut up,’ he cried. ‘She has a right to her dresses. What do you know?’ And he glared at her so fiercely that for once she had no reply and stayed mute on the upholstered seat opposite him, looking down at her lap.
When the train drew out of Hall Road station, he imagined she stared more intently into the darkness. They ran along the coast now, swaying beside the golf course and the invisible sea.
‘Looking for the camp, are you?’ he asked bitterly. She annoyed him so. ‘Still chasing Jerries are we?’
‘I don’t chase,’ she said. ‘I don’t have to. You don’t know anything about me.’
She was near to tears, her face red and her mouth wobbling. He stopped goading her then; he didn’t want a scene in front of the other travellers. When it was their stop she ran ahead to the door and darted away down the platform. She ran headlong up the steps, the belt of her raincoat trailing behind her. He waited till the train had gone and crossed the line by the wooden planks inside the tunnel. It wasn’t allowed but there was no one to see him. When he climbed the ramp he thought he glimpsed Madge on the other platform, hovering behind the ticket box. He waited a moment, fearing she would follow him and anxious for her safety. But he had been mistaken. He walked between the coalyards and the bicycle shed towards the road. How silent the village was compared with the town. He could smell the damp grass, the sharpness of the sea breeze; the privet hedges boxing the front garden showered his shoulder with raindrops. At the corner he was almost blinded by the headlamps of a car driving at speed. The car braked and he heard his Father calling out furiously – ‘Alan, where’s your mam?’
He ran to the window and stared in stupidly. ‘Where’s Madge?’ he asked.
‘Don’t give me lip,’ shouted Father. ‘Have you seen your mother and her fancy man?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I haven’t.’ And he cowered away from the car and his father at the wheel, denying all part in it: the man was bankrupt. The car drove on.
Alan called all over the house for Madge, thinking she was hiding to pay him out for talking about the Germans. He undressed for bed and sat in the dark at the top of the stairs, waiting for someone to come home. After a long time the car came back and was left parked in the street. He got into bed then and put his head under the covers. Shortly afterwards he heard Madge return and Father bellowing at her.
She came upstairs and went into the bathroom.
‘Madge,’ Alan whispered. She didn’t answer. She was making a humming noise as she brushed her teeth.
‘Madge … is Mother back?’
‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘I’m not talking to you.’
He ran from the bedroom and seized hold of her on the landing. He shook her so hard the toothbrush fell out of her hand on to the carpet, smearing the pile with paste.
‘Look at that,’ she whispered, kneeling in her knickers and vest to rub it away.
‘Where’s Mother?’
‘How the heck should I know?’ she said.
But he thought she did know; she was too unconcerned. Defeated he lay in the darkness, listening for Mother’s footsteps on the path.
At last she came. He held his breath ready for the outburst of violence. It was too late to turn on the wireless to fox the neighbours.
Doors closed, water ran in the sink. Nobody shouted. A knife clattered on the draining board – Father was fixing himself one of his little snacks. He heard the swish of Mother’s clothes as she climbed the stairs. She murmured something to Madge, who began to cough mutedly as though she buried her face in the pillow or in Mother’s arms. Father stayed silent downstairs – in the kitchen that wasn’t his, in the house he didn’t own.
6
Alan told Janet Leyland nothing of his mother’s nightly disappearances, nor of his father scouring the neighbourhood in the car. Coming after his disclosures about Madge’s wanderings in the dark, he feared her sympathy. She would think them all barmy, going in different directions, playing
at hide-and-seek. When he thought about it from an outsider’s point of view, he almost smiled. It was so different at the Leylands, everyone sitting down together at the supper table, talking normally, lapsing into comfortable silences when there was nothing left to say. He thought they must find him difficult to get on with. He made an effort to seem at ease; he had a way of tilting his chin that gave him an air of gravity and confidence. It fooled Mrs Leyland. She fussed over him, handing him dishes and apologising for her dullness. When her husband left the kitchen to sit in the front room, she said: ‘You must excuse us Alan. We’re not clever folk. We don’t know much.’ He nodded in a matter-of-fact way and sat on stolidly at the table, unable to contradict her. Sometimes Janet stood behind him and linked her arms about his neck. She leaned on him. He stayed very still, embarrassed by such a demonstration in front of her parents.
When they went on an excursion together, Janet paid the expenses – the tickets, the cup of tea in a café. Father had forgotten his promise to give him pocket money and he didn’t like to ask.
They met Madge one afternoon by the railway crossing, on her way back from shopping for Mother.
‘I’m his sister,’ she said cheekily; he hadn’t thought to introduce them.
‘I know,’ said Janet. ‘I’ve seen you in the village.’
‘Ah well,’ Madge said, and she prowled in a circle round them, clutching a loaf of bread and grinning.
‘Where’s your shoes?’ he asked crossly.
‘In the hedge. What’s it to you?’
Janet smiled self-consciously – she kept her arm linked proprietorialy in his.
‘Is she coming home for tea, then?’ asked Madge. ‘My dad’s not in.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ he said, frowning. ‘She can’t anyway … she’s got things to do.’
Madge wouldn’t give up. ‘Do you know our little plantation weed?’ she asked. ‘Our little Joe Stalin?’
Janet was bewildered. ‘No,’ she said, looking at Alan enquiringly.
‘Come on,’ he ordered, tugging at her arm. ‘You’ve got things to do.’
‘I’m helping a friend to make a dress,’ Janet said.
‘What a kind girl,’ cried Madge. ‘I do like helpful people. It does make the world spin more smoothly.’ And she ran off ahead of them, the soles of her bare feet showing black with dirt.
‘Is she very clever?’ asked Janet.
‘She’s batty. She needs a thundering good hiding.’ And he said goodbye to Janet on the corner and walked home quickly to give Madge a piece of his mind.
Madge had climbed the sycamore tree. She was throwing lumps of bread on to the path. ‘Stop that,’ he shouted. ‘Your hands are filthy.’
He told Mother what she was doing. ‘My loaf,’ cried Mother angrily, and was heard shouting on the porch for Madge to get down. After a few moments there was laughter; Madge had got round her. Mother came into the kitchen holding the mutilated bread, exclaiming fondly: ‘She’s a little twirp.’
‘She’s too bold. You’re not firm enough.’
‘There’s no harm,’ she said. She didn’t seem to realise how wayward Madge was, what danger she might be in.
‘I know different,’ he shouted. He was knotted up inside with anxiety.
‘It’s grim enough in this house,’ she retorted. ‘You ought to be glad she’s not worn down by it.’ She’d been at home all day, pottering about the garden. She wore a faded blue dress and a handkerchief tied about her hair. When she laughed she stopped looking tired and frowsy; her chin doubled and a little dimple appeared in her cheek.
‘Look at that bread,’ he cried furiously. ‘Look at the state of it.’
Madge came in, holding her shoes in her hand; she’d ripped her jumper on the tree. She said mildly: ‘We’re not deaf, you know, Alan. You don’t have to raise the roof.’
He pointed his finger accusingly at the wrecked loaf. It wasn’t the bread he wanted them to look at; it was everything that was being torn apart. After tea Madge would clean her teeth and set off for the shore. She would be out for hours in the dark and nobody seemed to care.
‘It’s more mangled than that,’ said Madge, ‘when it’s in your stomach. It turns into blotting paper.’
‘I couldn’t touch a crumb of it,’ he said.
‘Well, don’t touch it, swallow it,’ she said, and Mother laughed out loud.
Madge sat on the floor where the chair had been, leaning against the wall and stretching her legs out across the rug. She didn’t seem to notice that Mother had to step over her every time she went in and out of the pantry. Mother didn’t mind; she trotted down the garden to bring in the washing. She stopped a few moments on the path to chat to the lady next door. Alan was told to switch on the light. The clock in the hall chimed five o’clock.
‘Shift yourself,’ Mother bade Madge, a shade irritably. The colour was going out of her face; it would soon be time for Father to come home.
‘When I was up the willow tree,’ said Madge, ‘I could see a bird’s nest in the guttering.’
‘Oh dear,’ exclaimed Mother, fearful for the drain pipe.
Alan thought Madge was possibly making it up. She saw things that she wanted to see. ‘Why can’t you call things by their proper names?’ he asked her. ‘It’s not a willow. It’s a sycamore.’
She didn’t look at him. She said, ‘I didn’t think you liked to call things by their proper names.’
They heard the car revving up the path. Mother turned on the wireless and closed the curtains. She seemed to grow older. After a few bars of music a man’s voice began to sing. ‘Night and day, you are the one.’ Father put his key in the front door. Suddenly Madge was crying; she sat with the tears rolling down her cheeks. Mother looked at her in dismay.
‘Whatever’s wrong, pet?’ she asked. She knelt awkwardly on the floor and pulled Madge to her. The voice on the wireless sang –
‘Only you beneath the moon and under the sun …
Whether near to me or far
Darling, makes no difference where you are …
I think of you Night and Day
You are the one.’
What a noise Madge was making, gasping and opening her mouth in a long-drawn-out wail of anguish as though her heart was breaking.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Father, coming into the kitchen. He’d removed his hat and there was a red mark across his brow. He stood distraught, looking down at Mother swaying back and forth on her haunches like a native woman.
‘She just burst out yelling,’ said Alan. ‘She was all right before.’ He had to bite his lip not to mention the mess she’d made of the bread.
‘She’s growing,’ said Mother tenderly. ‘Poor little pet.’
She told Father to light the gas under the potatoes and stop gawking at the child. He was so grateful at being included that he never made a murmur about the washing left on the draining board.
It wasn’t like the last time, when Madge had broken down to deflect anger at coming home late. During the meal she had difficulty swallowing her food, but she tried, for Mother’s sake. She wasn’t putting on an act. Her face was washed out, miserable; her hands trembled when she reached out to drink her tea. Once, when Mother had sprained her ankle and they phoned for the doctor, Father flew into a rage at the sheets on the bed. He’d put a wet bandage about Mother’s foot and carried her upstairs like a child, but the sight of the crumpled bedding sent him into a fury. ‘Do you want the doctor to think we live in a slum,’ he shouted, jerking the sheets from under her swollen foot, making her hop around the room, fetching pillow cases, changing the counterpane. But he wasn’t angry now; both his parents seemed to know it was serious. They talked quietly and calmly, trying to repair the damage.
‘Madge says she saw a nest in the guttering,’ said Mother.
‘I’ll look at it tomorrow,’ said Father reasonably.
‘I cut the hedge.’
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘It needed a trim
.’
They were very polite. He mentioned he had dropped in on Nora. ‘I found her pretty sprightly,’ he said, as though he had not seen her in years.
‘That’s nice,’ remarked Mother, with an effort.
They watched Madge leave the table. They didn’t know what to do for the best. Alan followed her. In the hall he asked her not to go out. ‘You look peaky and it’s raining.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said listlessly.
‘They won’t row tonight,’ he promised. ‘I’ll stay in too if you like.’
She was putting on her coat. He couldn’t help remembering her telling him about the specialist who’d asked if she was ill-treated.
‘It’ll pass,’ he said awkwardly. ‘You can’t be expected to understand what it’s like for Dad … trying to get business … going round begging for orders.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said. ‘It won’t pass. He’s going away.’ Her eyes were filling with tears.
‘Who’s going away?’
‘I love him,’ she said. ‘He’s going away … back to Germany.’
He could feel the anger rising in his throat: It wasn’t that she was too young or the disgrace of going with a Jerry – it was the word ‘love’ that choked him. He hated her using the word.
‘Do you realise,’ he said, ‘only a few years back you would have had your head shaved?’
She took no notice. She was squashing the old panama on to her brown untidy hair.
‘What about our mam and dad?’ he demanded. ‘You’ll be the death of them.’
‘Them,’ she said contemptuously, going out of the door into the rain. ‘What do they care?’
Aunt Nora telephoned the house later in the week. Alan spoke to her because Mother was upstairs.
‘Shall I get Mum?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Nora. ‘Hold on lad.’ There was a pause.
‘Who’s that?’ shouted Mother from the landing.
‘It’s Auntie.’
‘Well, take your shoes off. Tell her your father’s not home yet.’
‘My dad’s not home yet,’ he told his Aunt.
A Quiet Life Page 10