Augusta said nothing. Just stood there, blacker than the night.
‘Mind you behave yourselves now, won’t you?’
Behave? Of course we’ll behave.
Flora turned and walked away. I had a mind to step out and go after her and ask her exactly what was going on but Algie held me back. ‘They are happy here. We will leave them.’
I heard nothing but the silence of the night and within that silence the sound of wings beating in the dark. Augusta was gone. She was the oddest creature I had ever met in my life, but I was beginning to like her. Augusta, I was beginning to think, was a single-minded kind of girl. If I had met Algernon and Augusta years ago, when they were living breathing creatures, I would have loved them forever and never let them go.
‘I finished writing this for you,’ he said, squeezing my arm with his cold fingers as we walked back along the road. He spoke his beautiful words.
‘I know not what I say or why I speak
unless you’re close or standing cheek
to cheek mine is the language of the night through death’s cold door
all the years I lived I hoped for more
now each word becomes a shattering of death
a fragment of my soul
eternal reminder of my breath.’
Early Early Spring 1974
Look, look if you dared, England was coming alive. February finished and gone. It was still cold, still dark too early. England in early spring was still a country of bare branches. Ice on the roads, frost sprinkled over the grass. Grey skies, grey roads, a narrow stubborn island floating in a sea of grey. But if you looked closely, small miracles of colour appeared around the trunks of great trees. Elegant snowdrops bowed their lovely white heads. Here was the rise of the orange crocus, the yellow bell heads of daffodils sounding their horns. Their smaller cousins, the jonquils, blessed us with fragrance and, amid all this burgeoning life, the prime minister of England finally called an election. The Tory party were voted out, and my father’s great fear came true.
Never mind about the spring. Harold Wilson was taking over and smoking his filthy pipe in the hallowed hallway of 10 Downing Street. Never mind about the daffodils, England would soon be red, a satellite Soviet state. Laughter would be abolished, unless it was state-owned. There would be no private ownership of property. All artworks and famous paintings would be removed from the National Gallery and replaced with pictures of scythes and ice picks. Everyone’s savings books and piggy banks under the bed were to be forcibly taken by large men in black coats and never seen again. According to my father. I did not understand my father’s thoughts or feelings and he did not share mine. And we all thank the living Lord for that. My parents came from a different dimension, the 1920s and 30s. Parts of them belonged to their past but my mother didn’t care too much about politics. Maggie was in the big smoke, the wild city, gone to the desperate sleep-deprived life of an undergraduate student. Socialism was neither here nor there compared to that for my mother. She guarded her children fiercely. No stupid pipe-smoking politician was going to come between her and her girls. Did she know her second daughter lived with a tall thin man in her bedroom while his sad mad sister roamed the woods at night?
My mother was making bread. This was what she knew. This was how she planted us in the earth of her pragmatic love.
‘Knead this,’ she said, nudging me towards a warm slab of dough on a floury kitchen table.
Emily skipped around, attempting to poke a hole in the dough with a pencil.
‘Go away, pea brain.’
‘Tiny brain yourself.’ Emily flashed me a smile.
‘Is this what you wanted me for, Mother? To make bread?’
‘Yes, do something useful and don’t forget next Saturday we are going to see your sister.’
My mother knew when the weather would change miles before it did. She knew if someone had evil in their hearts. She knew how to make bread and prophesy good fortune when you most needed it. She knew what was coming and what needed to go. These were the things my mother told me I knew nothing about:
• Coming in late when they had no idea where I was. (Five minutes down the road, Mother, one ghost, no, make that two ghosts, or three or four.)
• Other people’s feelings.
• Wrapping cheese up properly before I put it away.
• Washing up and drying up.
• Tidying my wardrobe and cleaning my bedroom. Thanks, Algie.
• The legal age for consuming alcohol. (I thought I knew a lot about this.)
• How my behaviour reflected on my father.
• Having thought for someone else other than myself. (Refer back to other people’s feelings.)
• AND dressing properly for the cold.
I wanted to bury my head in her apron and beg for forgiveness for things I hadn’t yet done, but knew I was going to do. Since that day in Wye when Dave and Mrs Dave arrived on our front doorstep she wanted to make sure she was keeping up. She wanted to know more about what I was up to. As if I was ever going to tell my mother.
She made two loaves at a time, one to freeze, one to eat in about five minutes after it had come out of the oven and never mind the terrible stomach aches that we would definitely get if we ate—like wolves, like a pack of wolves—freshly baked dough. The kitchen smelled of glorious fresh dough and jam and toast and crumbly bits of cheese before I managed the graceful art of proper cheese-wrapping for the pantry.
‘Tell me about college. Mr Treadwell says you are doing very well. Which is great, I’m pleased. Your father’s happy you’re starting to settle in.’
She could smell my blood stirring in my bones. She could sense someone edging closer to her daughter.
‘How are you getting on with Byron?’
‘All right, but I still don’t get what his poetry has to do with me.’
‘It’s the experience of it, Rebecca. Keep reading and one day it will just click. Poetry’s like that. How’s the journal coming along?’
‘Fine.’ He’s always using it. It would only be a matter of time before she discovered what exactly it was that she knew.
‘Try this.’ She put a piece of hot bread in my mouth, fresh from the oven. There was no arguing with the taste of that.
When my father arrived home the rest of the loaf was gone in a minute.
KITCHEN
Mrs Budde, Mrs Budde,
What makes us happy when we’re dead
Our hunger brings
Mrs Budde’s bread
We carefully tread
Between living and dead
We’re not over yet
Time for one more cigarette
While the eternal choir sings.
She Chucked Him
My mother was opening the curtains, no one behind or in front of them, tut-tutting to herself and the world in general.
‘Come on, hurry up, we’ll miss the train. We’re going to see Maggie.’
‘Maggie?’ I rolled over in bed.
‘She lived the first eighteen years of her life with us, remember? Come on, you knew we were going. So get ready.’
‘No, I’m not going.’
‘Do you have anything better to do?’
Walking with ghosts, Mother, through the primroses and bluebells in the woods.
My father was yelling at my mother, ‘Ruth! Ruth! Please buy some pork sausages, loose-leaf Darjeeling tea and a packet of those oat biscuits. You know the ones.’
‘Yes, I know what you like. I’ve been married to you for over twenty years.’ She turned her attention back to me.
‘You’re such a slow coach these days. Anyone would think you’d been up all night.’
Not me, Mother, not me.
‘I’m not going. Take Squirt.’
‘Emily is with Linda Burnley for the day. Your father will pick her up later this afternoon. It’s just you and me today.
Hurry up.’
‘No, Mum, I mean it. I’m staying home.’
>
The springy carriage of the London-bound train bounced along with my mother travelling backwards to London, and me sitting opposite her, both of us gazing at fields. Mum’s idea of a golden day out was either witnessing a flash of royalty, checking out Harrods’ food hall, or feeling the flesh of a long-lost daughter. Rain was forecast for later with occasional thunderstorms. A lack of direct sunlight suited us. English people didn’t like too much of anything directed at them, apart from the 1966 soccer world cup goals directly in the back of the Wembley Stadium nets. Apart from that, clouds fine, thunderstorms healthy.
Mum was in a jaunty getting-away-from-it-all mood. She wore a large hat with a wide brim and a pheasant’s feather sprouting from it at an angle. She didn’t really. She wasn’t that kind of woman. You could tell Mum and I weren’t true Buckinghamshire women; our shoes didn’t match our handbags. Brown and green patchwork fields shot past as the train bounced along.
‘Penny for your thoughts?’ asked Mum.
‘They’re worth a pound at least, Ma. Do you believe in ghosts, Mum?’
‘Are you still having those dreams, Rebecca?’
I shook my head. ‘No, just, you know, Brightley’s weird, that’s all.’
There were no commuters on a Saturday but the train was still full of men wearing suits and some families in casual attire and the sound of English newspapers snapping open. The carriage door opened at the next station and two young women boarded. They looked so very out of place with everyone else on the morning train. Mum leaned forward and whispered to me, ‘It’s the Brontë sisters, Emily and Charlotte.’
‘Which one’s which?’
‘You ask them.’
Excuse me, my dears, but could you tell me which one of you wrote Jane Eyre? Because you see it is my favourite book of all time.
They coughed and fidgeted and sat there saying nothing.
Jane, Jane, here she is, don’t be shy, tell her how much you like the happy ending, the fierce and passionate debates. Tell her, Jane, now’s your chance, they’re on the same train as us!
‘Rebecca? Rebecca?’ Mum tapped me on the knee.
‘What?’
‘You’re miles away. Have you ever thought about writing something yourself?’
‘Why are you saying that?’
‘You’re such a daydreamer and dreaming is part of writing. You have to able to use your imagination. A good novel is like a marriage between a dream and reality. That’s how it seems to me, anyway. Why don’t you try and write a story, see what happens?’
‘What makes you think I’m always dreaming?’
‘I’m your mother.’
‘Have you finished Anna Karenina yet?’
‘Nearly. Come on, time to get out.’
There were the bricks and buses of Marylebone Station. Through the turnstiles, past the flower stall and the newsagent, and there was my sister, waving to us, tall and beautiful. One bright flower in a city of stone.
‘Abes! Mum!’
‘Darling!’
‘Maggie!’
Mum was parched so we sat at a small table in a busy café and watched the world hurtle past the window. Buses, taxis, cars and people. The teapot dribbled on the table but I wasn’t thinking about that now.
Mum wanted to go straight to Harrods, so we caught the bus from Marylebone and had plenty of time to watch the busy life in the capital city of England as our bus crawled through West End traffic. We hadn’t reached our destination and Mum’s excitement was fading already.
‘So many people, look at them all.’
‘You get used to it,’ said Maggie happily. ‘People live here, same as anywhere. It’s so good to see you both.’
‘I wouldn’t want to live here,’ said Mum. ‘Not now.’
‘Five ducks and a squirrel, that’s what you’re used to now.’
It was funny to see my sister strolling through the crowd as if she was truly at home, with thousands of other people, all strangers. She’d had a haircut but it was still brown and shiny and glorious.
‘Abes!’ She hugged me again as only Maggie could, long sleek arms full of energy and love. Mum was purring like a cat at being reunited with her eldest daughter. Mum slipped her arms through mine and Maggie’s but it was impossible for the three of us to walk like that along crowded streets.
‘Want my advice, Abes?’
‘Of course.’
‘Study hard, then come and live with me. It’s so nice to see you.’
Maggie and I looked at clothes in expensive shops, before meeting Mum in the food hall at Harrods. We ambled through the food hall together, admiring the strings of sausages held aloft like mini sculptures full of the pig and the cow and the secret magical spices that thrilled our father’s tastebuds so much. Everywhere we looked there was abundance piled on abundance. My mother loved it. If she could have lassoed the whole food hall and dragged it behind her like a giant sledge all the way back to Brightley, she would have done so.
‘So, Abes, had enough of Brightley yet? And did you know—Abes, are you listening?’
‘Yes, I’m listening.’
‘Did you know Dave’s been seeing someone?’
‘Yes. He told me.’
‘Well she’s chucked him.’
‘She has? How do you know?’
‘Simon. Dave told him and I wasn’t going to tell you, but then I thought you’d like to know. Just in case you’re still in love with him.’
‘Well I’m not.’
‘Good. So you won’t get upset about me seeing Simon? He’s so lovely.’
‘Me, upset? Course not. Simon?’
‘Yes Simon. I called him at Christmas. You do know there is such a thing as the telephone?’
‘Is he still in the army?’
‘Yes. And he’d better not get himself killed. Now shut up about him, okay? I’ll be the one to tell Mum, not you, Abes. Look, this scarf suits you and I’m going to buy it and tie you to the front of a double decker bus and show you the whole of London.’
Mum materialised by a huge display of fish just in time to save me. ‘Be nice to her, won’t you, Maggie?’
‘When am I ever not nice to Abes? Look at the size of that fish!’
We left Maggie standing at the departure barrier at Marylebone Station, watching us get smaller and smaller as we walked further down the platform. The train bounced us back to Brightley with one Harrods bag full of expensive treats. By the following weekend we had eaten my father’s beloved pork sausages, spread our large oaty biscuits with butter and washed it all down with cups of loose-leaf Darjeeling tea. ‘Best tea in the world,’ said Dad. ‘Without a doubt.’
Wardrobe, Brightley
‘Algie? Where are you?’ A few little stones and twigs were all
I could see of him.
‘Where do you think I am?’
‘Come out.’
‘No.’
‘All right, all right, what is it? We had a lovely day with Maggie, by the way—thanks for asking.’
‘Hurrah.’
‘What is with you?’
‘Are you ready for Keats?’
‘Actually I have to study Byron, Algie.’
‘Keats the Elder or Keats the Younger?’
‘Byron . . . Algie? Come out. Don’t sulk. Algie?’
I loved the feel of the book in my hands. The poems were written close together on the page with a line down the middle so each page was divided and the verses sat tightly together. What a clever thing a book was. I could read this book by the light of the moon, I didn’t need electricity even to discover the world inside the pages. Mum was in Russia, Dad was following a chameleon assassin through Europe, Emily was reading about a weird stone somewhere in England, Maggie was probably in Ancient Greece with Plato, and I was reading words written one hundred and fifty-eight years ago. But they still meant something, they were real, I was starting to get to know them. Byron was funny, mocking, cruel, clever, and sometimes he made the silliest rhymes, but they wor
ked because he was saying them.
‘Algie? Listen to this, it’s for Augusta. Byron’s Augusta, not yours.
‘Still may thy spirit dwell on mine,
And teach it what to brave or brook—
There’s more in one soft word of thine
Than in the world’s defied rebuke.’
‘Algie, still may your spirit dwell on mine and teach it what to brave or brook.’
His hand slid through the wardrobe door. His fingers reached for mine.
‘Aren’t books amazing, Algie?’
‘Indeed they are. Shall we pursue Keats the Younger now?’
‘It will have to be next week.’
‘Next week? That is your rebuke to me.’
‘Oh Algernon, I’m studying Byron, aren’t I?’
MIDDLE ROOM, MIDNIGHT
Invisible from the window
I have the body of no one
In my own dreaming orbit
Will my voice falter or go on?
Sketching Afternoons
Most Saturdays I left home an hour earlier than necessary. The front door needed a shove from my shoulder. Jojo padded down the hall holding his intelligent head high and greeted me like a butler, sniffing my hand. All part of the ritual greeting, miss, please follow me.
There he stood, dark cord trousers, shirtsleeves rolled up, one hand running through his hair, a slash of paint on one side of his hand, no sign of the heavy gold rings I’d seen him wearing at the party.
‘Rebeccah Budde, come to save me.’
‘Don’t think so.’
Alex March stood inches from my face. ‘Lucy’s buggered off so I need a life model. If you sit for me, I’ll pay you.
Cash. Deal?’
‘Depends.’
‘On what?’
‘How long I have to sit for. What you want to paint?’
‘Draw. I want to draw before I paint. Face and hands. Half an hour to start with. See how we go. It’s harder than you think, sitting still.’
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