The Unknown Bridesmaid

by Margaret Forster

  Julia agreed. ‘No,’ she said, ‘there’s nothing wrong so long as you can truthfully say you’re comfortable with this state of affairs, that you’re not just pretending.’ She looked Janice in the eye and asked, ‘Is it true?’

  New home, new school, new bus route. Julia didn’t know where she was. Not in a dream, she didn’t feel as though she were in a dream, or even a nightmare, so much as in a fog. Her mother became increasingly impatient with her. ‘Stop wandering around like that, for heaven’s sake,’ she said to Julia. ‘What on earth are you looking for?’ Julia had no idea. She found herself going up and down the stairs, in and out of rooms, for no reason at all, just to be on the move. At her new school, she had more scope for this eternal movement. There were many corridors, many flights of stairs, and so many people using them that she wasn’t noticed. Staying in a classroom for a lesson was agony, but if her attention was caught by whatever she was asked to do, it helped. Concentrating on work helped, especially if the lesson was maths of any sort.

  In the playground she had masses of space to patrol. There were areas where younger girls were not supposed to go but she flitted through them, keeping to the brick walls, and was never stopped. There was a big field at this school, where games were played, and walking round it could take twenty minutes. Lots of girls did walk round it, in twos and threes, arms linked or round each other’s shoulders. Julia knew she was conspicuous, walking on her own, but if she positioned herself between two groups she hoped nobody would challenge her. One girl did, in the second week. She was a tall girl, who also wandered around on her own. ‘Are you new?’ she asked Julia, as she plodded beside her the length of the field. ‘You are, aren’t you?’ Julia nodded. ‘Do you want to sit beside me at lunch?’ Julia said no, thank you, she wasn’t going to have school lunch. She was going home.

  This was only partly a lie. It was true that she wasn’t going to have the school lunch. She had a lunch her mother had packed for her. But it wasn’t true that she was going home. Now that she’d told this girl she was going home, though, she couldn’t go and eat her lunch in the room where the packed-lunch pupils ate theirs, so she slipped out of the school gate when it was opened to let in the van that delivered food. The gates were never locked, but pupils were not supposed to leave the grounds, and Julia was careful to use the van as a screen for any eyes that might be watching from the staffroom windows.

  Once in the street, she didn’t know where to go to eat her lunch, but it was a relief to be out of the school. She found her way, accidentally, to a park, but that proved not a good idea. Sitting on a bench, eating her sandwiches, on a dull, cloudy day, she felt conspicuous. Someone might see her and report her to the school, whose uniform she was wearing. Hurriedly, she finished eating, and started walking through the park to the other gate. A woman was coming towards her pushing a pram. It was a Silver Cross pram. Julia recognised it at once, and her heart began to thud. The woman was smiling into the pram, making little clucking noises to the baby. Julia started to run. She ran out of the far gate and down the road and then stopped at a crossing because she was lost and didn’t know how to get back to the school. She had no idea where she was. The only thing to do was turn round and run back into the park and go out of it the way she had come in. But this meant passing the Silver Cross pram again, if the woman and the pram were still there, and she was afraid. What she was afraid of she couldn’t have said, as usual, but it was there, the dry mouth, the jumping heart.

  She got back to the school safely, just in time for the bell. Her teacher, the next lesson, commented that she was very flushed, was she all right, and Julia said yes, she was. She kept repeating it to herself: I am all right, I am all right. But the feeling of dread wouldn’t go away. Her hand was shaky. When she had to write down what was on the blackboard she could hardly manage to form the letters. And there seemed to be something wrong with her eyes. She kept blinking, to clear away the blurred vision, but this didn’t work. She kept them shut, and when the teacher noticed, she was asked if she had a headache. Yes, she said, yes, my head aches, I can’t see, and she was taken to a little room next to the headmistress’s room, where there was a camp bed, and told to lie down for a little while. She was so grateful to obey. In the background, she could hear the teachers talking, two of them, their voices concerned. She couldn’t make out their words, just their tones, gentle, soothing.

  Her mother was sent for. Julia never realised this would happen. She thought she could go on lying so comfortably on the bed until it was time to go home. When she heard a teacher say, ‘Your mother is on her way, don’t worry . . .’ she struggled to sit up and said her headache had gone and she could see again and please could they call her mother and tell her not to come. But she was already on her way, the teacher said; she’d be here in five minutes. And she was. She came click-clacking down the corridor at a great pace. Julia lay down once more and closed her eyes. ‘Whatever is the matter?’ she heard her mother say, in her usual sharp way. ‘Julia? Sit up, for goodness’ sake.’ Julia sat up. She looked straight into her mother’s stomach, not lifting her eyes to her face. ‘Stand up,’ her mother said, ‘let me look at you properly.’ Julia’s chin was held in her mother’s hand – the hand was quite hot and sweaty, Julia noticed – and her face tilted up so that she could no longer avoid looking her mother in the eye. Whatever her mother saw there made her hesitate. ‘I’ll take her home,’ she said to the teacher. ‘Could someone get her coat and her bag? Thank you.’

  They walked home in silence. Julia had been asked if she thought she could manage to walk and she’d said yes. Good, her mother said, the fresh air will help. What it would help she didn’t say. Surprisingly, she held Julia’s hand though Julia would much rather she didn’t because this hand felt sticky. But she let her hand be taken and the two of them walked along, still nothing being said. When they got home (though it still didn’t feel like home yet to Julia) her mother told her to lie down on the sofa and she’d get her a drink. ‘Probably,’ she said, ‘you’re just dehydrated.’ Julia didn’t know what that meant, but she felt quite pleased that her mother had given a name to her condition. Lemonade was brought and she drank it thirstily. ‘There you are,’ her mother said, ‘dehydrated.’ But she was watching Julia closely, and in a way that was unusual, as though she were on the verge of saying something but didn’t know whether to or not. ‘Julia,’ she began, and then stopped. Julia didn’t encourage her. She didn’t say ‘What, Mum, what were you going to say?’ She kept quiet, and after a minute or so her mother sighed, and said, ‘We’re all upset, no wonder.’

  Later, Julia heard her talking to someone, Aunt Maureen she guessed, telling them about Julia’s ‘funny turn’ at school. Dehydration wasn’t mentioned. Her mother’s voice was low, and she was not speaking in her normal rapid, clipped way. There were long silences when presumably Aunt Maureen, or whoever was at the other end, was talking. It was unlike Julia’s mother to allow another person such a long run without her interrupting them and bringing a conversation to a swift close. But this time, she was listening. She listened a long time without saying anything then said, ‘What does that mean?’ Whatever the reply was to her question, it produced a ‘No!’ said very definitely, and then repeated. This was followed by ‘Oh dear, oh dear me’ and then, soon after, Julia heard the click as the telephone receiver was replaced. Her mother came back into the room and stood looking down on Julia, still lying on the sofa.

  Julia wondered if she should risk asking what was the matter, but decided not to. Instead she said, ‘Who were you talking to, Mum?’

  Her mother sat down, quite abruptly, almost squashing Julia’s feet, and said, ‘Aunt Maureen.’ Julia waited. Surprisingly, her mother continued. ‘You’ll have to know,’ she said, ‘they are going to ask us all more questions, just a formality, I expect.’

  Questions. Julia pondered this. She was always, of course, wanting to ask questions herself, and enjoyed being asked them, on the whole. Sometimes she enjoyed
it because it was a game trying to avoid giving truthful answers, if the truth would cause trouble. So she usually had no fear of questions. But when her mother said they were going to ask questions, without identifying who ‘they’ were, Julia felt all the feelings of earlier in the day return. Her mouth felt unbearably dry, her heart gave little leaps and thuds, and her skin prickled. She was glad she was lying down and could keep still and close her eyes.

  ‘You’re tired,’ her mother said, ‘try and have a nap. Then we have to go to Maureen’s. It’s better than them coming here.’

  Them? Was that Maureen and Uncle Tom and Iris? Somehow Julia didn’t think so. She tried, as instructed, to sleep, but failed. Quietly, she got up. On tiptoe, she left the room. Her mother had gone upstairs and was moving about in her bedroom. Julia recognised the sound of drawers being opened and closed. Her mother would be looking for clothes to wear, clean blouses and cardigans. Carrying her shoes in her hand, Julia crept to the door and very, very carefully turned the knob that opened it. It had a rubber strip all the way round it, to keep out draughts, her mother said, and the rubber squeaked a little as the door gave way. Julia froze, waiting, but her mother was now shutting the door of her wardrobe and there was no shout of what are you doing, where are you going. Once outside, Julia put her shoes on, and then hesitated. Her mother’s bedroom was at the front, over the front door. She might, if there were any sound of footsteps on the gravel path, look out and see Julia leaving, so Julia took her shoes off again and walked painfully along the gravel path in her stockinged feet. Only when she was through the gate and hidden by the privet hedge, did she slip her shoes back on. Then she began running without knowing where she was running to.

  It felt so good to be running. She was a speedy runner, with a lolloping stride which she could keep up over long distances without pausing for breath. One of the few things she knew about her father was that as a young man he had been a champion runner, winning races, and Julia was said to run like him. She’d always liked this comparison, though she had no way of knowing if her running merited it, and she had not as yet won any except school races. Her father, she knew, had excelled at cross-country but she had never run cross-country. Now, racing along these strange streets, she wished she were in the country and could run up hills and jump over streams and not have to watch out for traffic. She reached the park, where she had been at lunchtime, and ran through the gates and followed the fence which enclosed it. Round and round she ran, lap after lap, glad the place was empty and there was no one to wonder why a girl was running as though someone was chasing her.

  But she couldn’t run forever. The running had to stop when her legs began to hurt and her breathing became ragged. There was a kind of shelter in the far corner of the park, near the children’s playground, and she sank down on the bench inside, leaning back against the wooden wall. Her body and face were clammy with perspiration, and her hands trembled slightly, so she folded her arms tightly. Then she began to shiver, though she was so hot, and she staggered up again and braced herself against the corner post of the shelter. It felt better to be standing up, even though she was so tired. Slowly, she set off across the park again, knowing she would have to go home. She had no choice. If she didn’t go home, her mother would start a search for her. She might even phone the police. At the thought of this, at the thought of the very word ‘police’, Julia began to cry. Why she was so frightened, she didn’t know, but she was. There was something lurking in her mind, some half-formed idea, that scared her but she couldn’t say what it was even to herself.

  Her mother was at the gate, looking up and down the road distractedly. The moment she saw Julia, who was still a long way off, she began shouting her name, and then she hurtled down the road calling, ‘Wherever have you been?’ When she caught up with Julia, she seized her by the shoulders and looked at her and said, ‘What’s wrong? What is the matter with you? You’ve been running, haven’t you?’ and she shook her slightly. All Julia could think of to say was that she felt sick. In reply, her mother said she wasn’t surprised at all this ridiculous behaviour, but the explanation, though it made no sense, seemed to satisfy her. She stopped talking and marched Julia back home. She said they must go to Aunt Maureen’s at once. Julia tried to say that she wanted to wash and to change her clothes but her mother said there was no time for that, they were late already. She would just have to suffer the consequences of all that silly running.

  Aunt Maureen’s sitting room was again full of people. To Julia’s relief none of them, so far as she could tell, appeared to be police. There were two women and one man, and they all looked serious, but smiled when Aunt Maureen said this was Julia, her niece.

  ‘Hello, Julia,’ one of the women said. ‘I’m Linda, and this is Mary, and this is Mr Robertson. We just want to go over again what happened that sad day when baby Reggie fell asleep.’

  Julia once more registered ‘fell asleep’, and for a moment wondered if Linda knew that baby Reggie hadn’t just fallen asleep but that he’d died, really died. But at the mention of little Reggie’s name, Aunt Maureen began quietly weeping, and Linda, who was sitting next to her, patted her hand, so Julia knew there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the baby was dead.

  Then Linda said, ‘Maureen, why don’t you go and make that tea you offered?’

  Maureen got up, looking quite grateful to be given something to do, and left the room.

  ‘Would you like to help your sister?’ Linda said, looking at Julia’s mother, but Julia’s mother said Maureen was perfectly capable of making a pot of tea by herself and she would stay with her daughter if, as she’d gathered from Maureen’s call earlier, there was to be any more questioning.

  Hearing her mother’s tone of voice, strong and faintly challenging, Julia felt comforted, and found herself slipping her hand into her mother’s hand. Her mother squeezed it.

  They sat down, facing Linda and Mary, and with Mr Robertson on a chair to their right. He took a pen out, and sat with it poised over a pad of paper, the sort, Julia noticed, with a spiral top. Linda started asking her questions, and Julia’s mother began answering them, only to be stopped. ‘I’d like Julia to tell us about that day, in her own words, if you don’t mind. Julia? Do you remember coming to this house on the day of 4th September?’ Julia nodded. ‘Could you actually say “yes” or “no”?’ Linda urged. Julia said yes. The man, Mr Robertson, was writing something down. Julia thought it looked as if he was writing down more than her ‘yes’, and she wondered what it might be. But Linda was pressing her to continue. ‘So you arrived at this house,’ Linda said, ‘and what did you do?’ Julia told her yet again. She described the lunch they had had, in minute detail. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Mr Robertson, far from writing down her every word, had stopped writing anything at all. ‘And after lunch?’ Linda repeated.

  ‘I went into the garden.’

  ‘Did you look at the baby in his pram?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was he asleep?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you touch the pram?’

  ‘Yes, I shuggled the handle a bit.’

  ‘Shuggled?’

  ‘I just moved it a bit. That’s what Iris said to do, to keep little Reggie asleep.’

  ‘Did he wake up when you stopped?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what did you do then?’

  Julia took a deep breath, and frowned. They were all waiting, including her mother. This was the hard bit, this was where the lying had to begin again if she were going to carry on lying. But she had already lied, by omission. She knew that. She’d pointed that out to herself already. Don’t be stupid, Julia, she’d said to herself, you didn’t tell anyone about tipping up the pram. She could tell them now. This was her second chance. She could burst into tears and tell them and say she was sorry. Tipping the pram up, and little Reggie’s head getting knocked (but not much, there was no blood or cut) might have nothing to do with anything. They would tell h
er that. They would say they were glad she had told them the truth at last and that she was not to worry about it. Julia opened her mouth to tell them about her walk with the pram, but instead of telling the truth she said, ‘I pushed the pram round the garden a bit, then I put it back where it had been, in the shade.’ She was astonished at her own words. Where had they come from? Why had she said that?

  But Linda seemed satisfied. Mr Robertson wrote some more, and then looked at Linda, and nodded. Mary, who hadn’t said anything, just smiled and watched Julia, then got up. ‘I think that will be all for now,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Julia, you’ve been very helpful.’ That was when Julia started to cry. Everyone fussed over her, providing handkerchiefs to mop her eyes and wipe her nose, and a glass of water appeared, sent for by Linda. Maureen arrived with the tea at the same time as Mary came with the water, and there was a lot of bustle as the tea things were set down: proper cups and saucers, and a sugar bowl (lump sugar) and tongs, and a small milk jug, and the pot itself. Julia recognised it. It was Aunt Maureen’s best teapot, a flowery thing, not the plain brown one. Everyone took tea. There was no talking, except remarks about how delicious, and welcome, the tea was.

  After Linda, Mary and Mr Robertson had left, Aunt Maureen didn’t immediately clear the tea things away, as she usually did. Instead, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes and said, ‘I’m so tired, but I can’t sleep, not a wink.’ Julia’s mother said it wasn’t surprising, and that she’d hardly slept herself. Julia’s head whirled with questions but she asked none of them, much too alarmed at what the answers might be. She wished she had someone to talk to, someone she could tell everything to. Her mother? No.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Janice admitted, ‘it would be good to be with someone, just for a bit, but I don’t care, really, it doesn’t matter.’

  Julia asked on what sort of occasions Janice might like to have a companion. She said, walking in a crocodile to the swimming baths she always got stuck with girls she didn’t like, who nobody liked, or wanted to walk with, but the class had to walk in twos. If that day there was an uneven number, she had to walk with the games teacher and she hated that. It would be good to have a walking partner, that was all.