‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’ve left him on the sofa. He’s had one of his turns.’
‘Turns?’ he said.
‘He’s not well, Alan. He’s nervy. You tell your mam to get him to a doctor.’
‘All right,’ he said.
‘I liked me hankies, love. It was thoughtful of you.’
‘Yes,’ he said.
Mother had been listening in the hall. ‘What was that all about?’
‘It’s Father. He’s not well.’
‘Really,’ said Mother. She examined the floor in the front room to make sure he hadn’t put dirt on the carpet, and went back upstairs with an offended expression on her face.
Alan told Madge about the phone call. She sat at the table with a little smile on her face.
‘What’s so funny?’ he demanded.
‘I’m upset,’ she said. ‘I suddenly had a feeling that it’s true. Him being ill. It’s nothing to do with him eating too much.’
She stared down at the cloth. He knew what she meant – you could go on for years imagining that illness happened to other people, and then it was near you, right in your own family. If Father ate so much, why was he so thin? He didn’t take any exercise apart from the garden and hosing down his car.
‘There’s a girl at school,’ said Madge. ‘Her mother died. She was right as rain one moment and the next she was dead. The daughter wasn’t allowed to go to the funeral.’
‘Stop it,’ he said.
‘She couldn’t cry. She knew her mam wasn’t coming back but she couldn’t help grinning.’
She was beyond him. Half the time she made everything up. ‘Auntie’s probably got it wrong,’ he said. ‘She exaggerates things.’ He wanted Madge to confirm it, but she said nothing.
When Mother came downstairs Madge told her to sit down and she’d make a cup of tea.
‘What for?’ asked Mother. ‘You’re very helpful all of a sudden.’ But she sat back in the remaining armchair with her head resting against the cushion and closed her eyes. Her pinny was splashed with paint; she’d been giving the trap door into the loft another coat of whitewash.
Madge drank her tea on the floor, cocking her little finger in the air to please Mother. The house seemed quite silent, Mother breathing gently, the cup and saucer balanced on her stomach.
Madge said: ‘You ought to take Dad to the doctor’s.’
Mother’s eyes snapped open. ‘Ought I, miss? And what do you know?’
‘Has he ever been ill before?’
Mother tossed her head. She didn’t care for Madge being worried about somebody else. She always wanted the attention; if there was any concern going begging, it ought to be for her. ‘Ill,’ she scoffed. ‘Him? Never.’
‘Did you ever like him?’ asked Madge, relentless.
Alan had the delusion that if he kept very still at the table, they would think he had gone away; he crouched there over his cup, face turned to the window. The room was darkening. In the house next door they had switched on the downstairs light.
‘He was thought very well of, in the old days,’ said Mother. ‘He had a future. But he was spoilt as a child. His sister ruined him. He was sent away to America as a boy.’
‘America?’ said Madge astonished.
‘For his health. He went as a cabin boy on a sailing ship. Of course he’s years older than me.’
‘A sailing ship?’ said Madge with wonder. ‘Golly.’
‘It was years ago,’ Mother said irritably, sensing Madge would go on and on. ‘Long before my time.’
It seemed odd to Alan. He’d only been as far as the Lake District. He’d had three knife-and-fork meals in a restaurant in all his life. Janet Leyland hadn’t had one. ‘What was he ill with?’ he asked, thinking of his father before the mast, the wind blowing and danger on every side.
‘How the heck should I know?’ said Mother. ‘I doubt if there was anything wrong with him. He was cosseted from the moment he was born.’
‘But he was poor,’ said Madge. ‘He didn’t have much schooling.’
‘Don’t talk like that,’ cried Mother, and she got up and collected the cups, her mouth set in a thin line of annoyance. It was like swearing or telling a rude story, mentioning poverty. It wasn’t nice. She went into the scullery and slammed the dishes into the sink.
‘I’d have thought,’ said Madge cunningly, ‘it was in your interests to make sure he’s healthy. If anything happened—’
Alan was horrified by her. He thought Mother would come through and clout her one. Instead she came into the kitchen and asked him: ‘What exactly did Nora say?’
‘He’s had a turn.’ He couldn’t see her face; the room was too dark.
‘What sort of a turn?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘She didn’t say.’
‘I’d like to be a cabin boy,’ said Madge. ‘It’s not fair. I can’t do anything.’
‘You could join the tennis club,’ snapped Mother. It riled her that Madge wouldn’t wear shorts and white plimsolls and have a social life. ‘I was never off the courts at your age … in Belgium, at my finishing school. We had a garden when your father and I were first married, big enough for a game of tennis. We had a maid called Matty. We had so much space … You have no idea what it was like.’ She stood by the hearth, one foot resting on the cracked tiles.
‘We’ve got space now,’ said Madge from the floor. ‘You won’t let us use it.’
Alan thought suddenly it was why Madge went out so much, why he did himself. There wasn’t room for them. If he had his way he’d light a fire every day in the lounge and lie full-length upon the good-as-new sofa.
‘Father had a pain,’ he said. ‘When we went to Mr Sorsky’s for a fitting. His mouth looked blue. He thought it was the black pudding.’
‘Blue?’ said Mother.
‘It must be tiring,’ Alan ventured, ‘traipsing round town, calling on people.’
‘He spends most of his time at his sister’s,’ said Mother scornfully. ‘Flat on his back on the sofa. She’s soft as butter with him.’
They had their supper and Mother didn’t save any potatoes or gravy for Father. She was cheerful, talking to Madge about the way she’d been sought after as a girl, the education Mr Drummond had given her.
‘How did you meet Father?’ asked Madge.
‘On the top of a tram,’ replied Mother, but she wouldn’t tell the whole story. Perhaps she no longer remembered. She never said anything that made you sit up – she was very technical. She had been going to visit her cousin – it was a No. 22 tram. She wore a grey coat with a side-fastening and pigskin gloves.
‘How did you know it was love?’ persisted Madge. ‘When you first saw him?’
It was embarrassing. Alan wanted to shout out that she was a stupid beggar. Of course it wasn’t love. Didn’t Mother confirm that every time she opened her mouth?
Mother recounted some story about a party she’d gone to when Father turned up on the doorstep and caught her with another beau. ‘His face,’ she recalled. ‘It was a picture.’ She and Madge began to laugh at this image of Father foolishly standing in the hall, holding his hat nervously in his hands, knowing Mother had deceived him.
‘What happened?’
‘Father left,’ said Mother, and they both doubled up over their plates, smitten by the comical aspect of the occasion.
Perhaps Mother had bewitched him, or maybe, contrary to what she implied, she had thrown herself at him. He was well-to-do in business. He was engaged to Annie Mud. Hadn’t he travelled across the world?
At that moment Father came home. He walked up the side path and entered the kitchen while they were still laughing. He stood, blinking under the light, a look of reproach on his face. He was waiting for Mother to wonder how he felt.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Madge.
‘Mind your own blasted business,’ he said, and he stalked into the hall, slamming the door ineffectively behind him.
‘He seems all rig
ht,’ said Mother. ‘In his usual cheerful frame of mind.’ And she and Madge stuffed their hands against their mouths and tittered.
Alan stood up when Father returned with the evening newspaper. It was an empty gesture because he knew his father wouldn’t care to sit at the table and be one of them. All the same he pretended he didn’t need his chair any more. He leaned against the wall and fiddled with the knob of the wireless.
‘You’re messing the curtains,’ said Mother. ‘Stand up straight.’
Father went into the scullery, looking for his meal kept hot in the oven. He came savagely to the doorway, demanding: ‘Where’s me tea?’
‘I didn’t think you’d be well enough to eat,’ replied Mother.
She winked at Madge. She was unaffected by him. His harsh voice and bullying ways hardly bothered her. Of late she had grown detached and thoughtful, as though she had something else to think about. It must have been different, thought Alan, on the No. 22 tram. Otherwise he and Madge wouldn’t be here now.
The next day Madge somehow got round Father and persuaded him to go with her to evening surgery.
‘I’ll come too, if you like,’ offered Alan.
‘You’re mighty concerned all of a sudden,’ sneered Father, but they could tell he was touched.
He wouldn’t admit he’d been poorly at Aunt Nora’s. Mother pretended she didn’t know where they were going, but she made Madge put on a clean blouse and change her socks.
The surgery was in a large house set back from the road, with chestnut trees in the garden. The interior had polished wood floors and deep windows overlooking the lawn.
‘Lovely building,’ said Father, getting up to examine the mouldings of the door.
There were several people that Alan knew, sitting in the waiting room. Mr Hennessey from the bowls club stopped to have a word with him. ‘Are you playing in the match this Saturday?’ he wanted to know.
‘I expect so,’ Alan said.
‘Do you think we’re in with a chance, then?’
‘Could be,’ he said.
Mr Hennessey sat down on the opposite side of the room and Father whispered: ‘Who was that?’
‘Chappie at the church.’
‘Playing what?’
‘Bowls,’ said Alan shortly.
Father looked at him amazed. ‘Do you play bowls?’ he asked. ‘I thought it was for old men.’ And he leaned forward on his seat, dangling his homburg hat between his knees, shaking his head in wonder. He knew very few people to talk to in the village. He didn’t mix much. He said it was a question of economics. He hadn’t the money to waste on being social. Alan thought the reason was his temperament and his daft views. He was too emotional and there wasn’t exactly a vast body of sympathisers waiting to share his interest in Joe Stalin and our glorious Russian comrades.
‘You tell the doctor everything you feel,’ said Madge, leaning close to Father. ‘Tell him about being on a sailing ship.’
‘Get away,’ said Father. ‘What’s that to do with it?’
‘You have to give the whole picture,’ she said. ‘It’s not just now, you know. You can have things wrong with you from way back. Or nothing at all. There’s people who can’t walk and there’s nothing wrong with their legs. This girl at school, her mother—’
‘Shut up,’ hissed Alan. Mr Hennessey was looking at them.
‘There’s nothing wrong with my legs,’ said Father, pushing Madge away from him. ‘It’s pains in me chest.’
‘Well, tell him how irritable you are most of the time.’
Father jerked upright. He was about to bellow that he wasn’t blasted-well irritable, but he thought better of it. The quietness of the room, the rustling magazines and the muted coughing deterred him.
When it was his turn to see the doctor, he marched away leaving his hat and gloves on the seat. At the doorway he collided with a woman just entering. He stepped backwards, apologising profusely, bowing from the waist. He tucked his hand under the woman’s elbow as though to steady her. She smiled and turned quite pink in the cheeks.
‘He’s not like that at home, is he?’ whispered Madge.
‘None of us are,’ Alan said crossly. He went over to sit with Mr Hennessey and disregarded her completely. She fetched a magazine and stuck her thumb in her mouth.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Mr Hennessey, looking at Madge sitting there like a big soft baby. ‘Your sister, is it?’
‘No,’ he said, praying Madge would leave them alone. It infuriated him – talking about love one moment and behaving like an infant the next. That blinking Jerry, if he existed, must have a screw loose somewhere, to be bothering with Madge.
Father was a long time in the surgery. When he came out he looked paler than before, as if contact with the doctor had brought on ill health. He jammed his hat on to his head and told them to hurry up.
‘We should have brought the blasted car,’ he said. Madge hadn’t let him; she implied he didn’t take enough exercise and walking would do him good.
‘Well, what did he say?’ asked Madge, hanging on to his arm.
‘He’s got connections with a man I know in South Wales,’ said Father. ‘He comes from Cardiff.’
They were walking up the road towards the Council offices. There was a slight drizzle of rain drifting down from the darkness.
‘Did he examine you?’ asked Alan. Maybe Father was being brave. It was unlikely, but perhaps he was keeping the truth from them.
‘I’m as sound as a bell,’ said Father. ‘Just a bit overworked, which is something your mam would never give me credit for. He’s given me a prescription for some pills—’
‘For your heart?’ said Madge.
‘Get off,’ he cried. ‘Coloured paste for wind.’
It was a bit of a disappointment, Father being fit as a fiddle. It would have been easier to put up with him had he been suffering from a medical complaint. Immediately Madge became her old awkward self. ‘I’m off,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll go for a walk.’
‘You won’t,’ argued Father. ‘You’ll come home with us.’
She would have run off, but at that moment, under the lamps at the roundabout, Father gave a queer strangled cry, as if he was choking. He stopped stock still and clutched his chest. He was staring at a man hurrying along the road towards the station. He said: ‘It’s that damned scoundrel. It’s him.’
He looked as though he was going to faint. They had to help him to the bench outside the-park gates. He slumped there like a bag of bones, his black hat tipped over his eyes.
‘What’s he on about?’ asked Madge. She looked helplessly at Alan. She peered down the road and said again, ‘What are you on about?’
Father wouldn’t answer.
Alan had seen him too – Captain Sydney in his overcoat with the velvet collar, heading for the station steps.
It was too cold to stay on the bench long. Father’s teeth were chattering.
‘Help me home with him,’ said Alan.
‘Do it yourself,’ she said defiantly. ‘I’m off.’ She walked over the road. At the privet hedge she called out, ‘He’s playacting, Alan. The doctor said there was nothing wrong. Don’t let him trap you.’
Alan held Father’s arm and led him slowly down the street. They walked on the wet strip of grass beside the park, so that if Father fell he wouldn’t hurt himself. When they reached the house, it was in darkness. Mother had gone out – she hadn’t even waited to know how Father was.
Alan took Father’s hat off and eased him out of his coat. It was as well Mother wasn’t in – there would have been nowhere to sit. He poked up the fire and asked if he should fetch a sip of brandy. There was some kept in the front room, for the visitors who were never invited.
‘I can’t afford it,’ said Father wearily. ‘Just get me some water.’
He dipped his nose into the glass like a bird. He had a little dab of colour on his cheekbones now. He said. ‘You know where she’s gone? To meet him.’
�
�Don’t be daft,’ Alan said.
‘Yes, she has. You saw him. Madge spotted her at the station the night you came back from your auntie’s. She meets him there.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Alan said. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t think his mother would bother. She wasn’t made like that.
‘Where’s she gone then?’ demanded Father. ‘The only time she’s ever gone out at night was with me or to her dressmaking classes.’
‘It’s Madge you should be worrying about,’ said Alan. ‘She needs guidance.’
‘Your mam’s never walked out of the house before. Not night after night. Not without saying where she was going,’ persisted Father.
He wasn’t interested in Madge. He should have been – she influenced them all without their knowing; she peeled back the layers. She had only to hint it was a trap, that they weren’t a close family, and it was a fact. She was contagious. If she hadn’t begun to go out in the first place, worrying everybody, leading her own life, Mother mightn’t have copied her.
‘Maybe,’ Alan said, ‘she’s still going to the dressmaking. She doesn’t let on – to annoy you.’ It was Madge talking again.
‘It’s ten years ago,’ said Father. ‘When you were babies.’ He grew maudlin. His voice trembled. ‘She made all your clothes … little frocks for Madge … shirts for you.’
Alan was surprised. Mother wouldn’t sew on a button for them now. His socks were a disgrace and Madge’s vests were in ribbons. He still had the same pair of pyjamas that he’d worn under the dining room table during the war.
‘She wanted a sewing machine, but that blasted old skinflint wouldn’t buy her one … He said he couldn’t interfere. I couldn’t buy one … How could I?’ He was appealing, the way he held his hands out to Alan. He was like Mr Sorsky, the tailor. There was something mushy at the centre of him – overripe and indulgent. ‘I couldn’t even buy her a decent pair of scissors. You don’t know what it was like.’
It was worse than the bad tempers, the jubilant rages, this pathetic voice murmuring on about the past. Janet would be wondering where he was. He’d promised to meet her by nine o’clock.
‘Look Dad,’ he said. ‘I’m late. Will you be all right now?’
A Quiet Life Page 11