When she stepped out of the machine shop, the day hit her in the face. The early sun came at her over the boiler house like a dagger. Pink and gold clouds stood motionless, high in a lilac sky. It was going to be fine. Unchaining her bicycle, she planned how she would send Rodney out to the Park after breakfast, so that she could tidy up enough to make him think the housework done. Then bed, and sleep, ah sleep, the certain knot of peace … Turn the key softly in the oiled ward and seal – the hushed casket – of my soul.
Intoning, she rode out of the factory gates with half-closed eyes and nearly fell off her bicycle as a soldier stepping off the pavement with a shout of ‘Oi!’ made her swerve and curse him for a fool.
It was Norman. Well, she had seen him last night – and been nice to him. He wasn’t such a bad boy, greatly improved, but she was not going to go and have a cup of tea with him, if that was what he wanted.
‘I’m fagged out, Norman,’ she said, ‘and there’s Uncle Rodney’s breakfast. I’ve got to get home.’
‘Not yet,’ he said, holding her handlebars to stop her riding away. ‘I want you to meet someone.’ Joy saw that there were two people standing on the pavement a few yards away, looking at her. The night shift of the factory, as they trickled by, looked at these two people, for the man had a little grey goatee beard and the woman had hair like hennaed loofah under an appalling hat. She looked as if she had been up all night, and the man looked fusty, his suit shining green here and there in the sun. They both looked crumpled, stale, a blot on the freshness of the morning. They looked like Joy felt, and she hoped she did not look like that.
Clasping a shabby bag to her stomach, smirking and tossing her head about, the woman waited for Joy to dismount and come towards her. ‘My darling girl, I’d know you anywhere!’ she cried, in the half-shriek that was her normal pitch of speech. When she got excited, she would batter you; when she laughed, her scream would stun you out of all laughter yourself, and if she were to shout – but Heaven forbid that she should, if you valued your eardrums.
Joy recoiled as she cried, loud enough for half the departing night shift to hear: ‘So this is my Kathleen! I knew she’d be a beauty. I knew it, I knew it, and can you be surprised, seeing the stock she springs from?’ She banged her breast with the shabby bag and appealed to the man with the goatee, who wriggled his pale lips about like earthworms, but said nothing.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ frowned Joy, her tired head reeling. ‘My name’s not Kathleen. What’s she talking about, Norm?’
‘Well,’ he said and gulped, ‘quite honestly, Jo, old girl, she thinks she’s your mother.’
‘And my name’s not Jo either – she thinks what?’ demanded Joy, suddenly realizing what he had said.
’Thinks?’ cried the woman. ‘Mind what you’re saying, young fellow. I don’t think; I know it. Listen, darling.’ Joy stepped back as the woman lunged to clutch her. ‘I’m the girl – at least, girl I was then – who left you, my baby, in the porch of St Joseph’s, may the Holy Father forgive me. Though he has, for Father Munroe told me so when I confessed it at last. It was he put me on your tracks, the good old soul. Never see ninety again, but still has all his faculties, and those nuns so lovely to him.’
‘You must be mad,’ said Joy. ‘Even if you are the person who left that baby outside the church, you’re nothing to do with me. That baby’s dead. I’m the other baby, Sir Rodney Cope’s niece, that was saved in the fire.’ The woman’s noise and excitability made her want to speak lower and quieter than usual. She must think slowly, calmly, too. She must not lose her head, for things like this just did not happen, even to her to whom so much had happened. It would all blow over in a minute and the woman would go away. And the man too, who was still watching her, rooted to one square of pavement like a toy soldier to its stand.
But the woman did not go away. She advanced as Joy receded, waggling something that Joy recognized, that little gold crucifix, the start of all the disruption of her life. Was she never to be left in peace, to be who she was? But who was she?
‘You’re my baby,’ the woman was crowing. ‘Didn’t they find this on you, that I put there myself, my own confirmation cross that was blessed for me by Father Hanrahan in Wicklow all those years ago?’ She had a queer, hybrid accent, part cockney, part genteel, rising in querulous crescendo Irish and breaking out all over the place in a jocularity of old quips and clichés.
‘Oh good heavens,’ said Joy, ‘must we go into that all over again? We’ve had it out once and settled it. That cross,’ she spoke slowly, as if explaining to a simpleton, ‘that cross was taken off your baby and put on me. My mother did it. Mrs Abinger that is, who was my foster mother.’
‘So she said, so she said. Oh, I’ve seen the lady in question and heard the whole caboosh. I misbelieve every last word of it. I’ve got proof. Yes, my lovely, I’ve got proof. Haven’t I Claude?’ She pronounced it Clode, as if she were trying to speak French. His earthworms writhed again.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m Joy Stretton. I’m Joy Stretton,’ she repeated doggedly. ‘Norman why did you have to start all this when I’m so tired? What’s it got to do with you, anyway?’ Norman looked shamefaced and scraped his boot along the kerb. He could not tell her that he had jumped at the chance of helping someone to prove that Jo was not Joy Stretton after all. He had seen himself coming into his rights. He had even blurted out the story of their past association, and the woman had sympathized because she wanted his help, although she had heard about Archie from Matron Tillings, and did not intend to lose that chance for her daughter. It had increased her mother-love and spurred her on to seek out Mrs Abinger.
‘Answer me, Norman.’ Joy began to get cross. ‘Where did you find these people? Who are they, anyway?’
‘Sakes!’ came the scream. ‘Fancy not knowing your own mother’s name? It does seem a queer how-d’yemagiffery, doesn’t it? Tissot’s the name – French you know. My old man is from the Channel Islands, and that’s where I’ve been myself till Jerry took over and we just managed to wriggle out the back door. Such a time we’ve had – I could tell you some tales. But there’s plenty of time for that, eh my darling? Cosy chats by the fireside with your Ma …’
‘Teaser?’ repeated Joy stupidly, not listening to the rest of what the woman said.
‘No, no, ducks, Tissot – very oh-la-la – but never mind if you say it wrong. Tissot, Tizzot, Teaser, Tishoo, Cholmondley – Marjoribanks – it gets said all ways, but good luck, I don’t care. You’ll have to say it properly though, Kathie, seeing it’s to be your name.’
‘It’s not my name, and stop calling me Kathleen.’ Joy stamped her foot and was near tears. She was much too tired to cope with this phantasmagoria. The woman was mad. She was frightened. ‘I’m Joy Stretton, I’m Joy Stretton,’ she kept saying. ‘It’s all been legalized. You can’t make me anything else.’
‘Oh well then, I’ll have it unlegalized,’ said Mrs Tissot cheerfully. ‘Or illegitimize it or whatever the word is. Your Ma’s a terrible old Mrs Malaprop, I’m afraid you’ll find, my darling. But I’m wise to all the tricks. I’ve got proof about you – p-r-oof. Listen, ducks, I dropped you when you were a tiny baby, bang on the side of your head, wallop. The doctor thought I’d done it on purpose, and maybe I had, for the Saints know I was a wild girl at the time. He said the bone was dented. It will show in an X-ray now, as sure as fate, and don’t you still have headaches? Deny it now – ah, you can’t. Even the stout old party that calls herself Mrs Scavenger or whatever had to admit that.’
‘Yes, but – ’ began Joy, and Norman chimed in: ‘You must admit it, Jo. Right’s right. You do have them heads.’
‘Shut up,’ said Joy, ‘of course I do, but that was where the picture fell on me in the fire. Look, here’s the scar.’ She pushed back the left side of her hair, and smelt stale whisky, cheesy beer, as Mrs Tissot leaned forward to look.
‘Aha!’ she cried, and then ‘aha, aha, aha,’ o
n a descending scale. ‘Now isn’t that just my point? I dropped my baby on the right side, God forgive me. Come on now, isn’t that the side where you get the pain?’
‘I don’t know. I get it both sides, at least I think I – Oh, leave me alone!’ cried Joy, suddenly shrill. ‘How do I know? How can I tell? I’m tired. I’m going home. I’ve got to get my Uncle Rodney’s breakfast.’
‘Ah, I know,’ said Mrs Tissot. ‘You’re a good girl. He’ll miss you, I’m afraid, but that’s his funeral; your own mother needs you more. Now that we’ve taken over this hotel and can’t get the help to run it, we’re counting on you, Kathie child. We can’t get on without you.’ Her face when serious was more haggard, waxy like a rutted potato in the clear morning light.
‘I’ve got to go,’ muttered Joy, prising Norman’s fingers off the handlebars of her bicycle. ‘My uncle – ’
‘Oh he won’t fuss himself,’ said Mrs Tissot. ‘He knew we were coming to see you. I told him.’
‘You’ve seen him?’
‘Of course. This jolly young soldier boy of yours took us there, and quite a place it is, upon my word, though never you mind; your Ma will make it up to you in this way and that.’
‘Norman, you didn’t – ? Oh poor Uncle Rodney, what on earth did he say?’
‘He laughed at us,’ said Norman gloomily.
‘Sure he did,’ cried Mrs Tissot, roaring with laughter herself. ‘He thought I was mad, and maybe I am, eh, Clode, eh? Isn’t that what you always say?’ although he had not yet spoken a word and one could not imagine him saying anything, much less saying it always. He nodded. He was still standing motionless by the wall, feet parallel, knees slightly sagging, hat tipped against the sun, both arthritic hands resting on the knob of his ashplant, like an old pensioner waiting patiently for something to happen.
‘Of course my uncle laughed at you,’ said Joy. ‘He wouldn’t give me up.’
‘Oh he’ll come round to it,’ said Mrs Tissot. ‘He’s got that boy friend of his, after all.’ She winked. ‘My God, they told me the aristocracy was going down the drain, but until I saw that pair of screaming Lulus, I never knew how far. Now come on, darling, don’t get shirty with your Ma. All the best people do it, they tell me. Listen, now time’s getting on, and I need a cup of tea. My God, how I need it. Tell us now about the head pains. Don’t they come on the right? Why sure they do! Let’s get it all straight once and for all and we shan’t have any more argy-bargument.’
‘They don’t, they don’t!’ cried Joy. ‘Let go the bike, Norman.’ She banged his ham fist with her small grubby hand. ‘I’m going home.’ She looked round as if for help. The Sunday morning air of the street was strange to her. She had never been there except as one of a crowd pouring in or out of the factory gates, or as a straggler, swerving among the people running with flying overcoats to clock in on time. But the street was deserted now the workers had all gone. The blank wall of the factory yard rose sheer to the blue sky, and opposite, a burned-out church pointed a skeleton spire. It was cold. She would faint if she did not go soon.
‘Wait now,’ began Mrs Tissot as she put her foot on the pedal, but Joy wailed: ‘I can’t. Don’t you realize I’ve been up all night? I want to go to bed.’
‘Poor Jo,’ hazarded Norman, but Joy quelled him with a look. He had forfeited his right even to speak to her. She would never speak to him again as long as she lived.
‘I know, I know.’ The monstrous hat wagged. ‘Your Ma knows. You go away to your bed now and rockabye sound and deep. Sleep on it, darling, and we’ll meet you to-morrow on your way to work and get everything settled up. Where’s a good pub near here?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Joy, ‘and I wouldn’t come if I did.’
The man by the wall suddenly came to life, like the Frankenstein monster galvanized by the electric storm. ‘She doesn’t know,’ he said solemnly. ‘She’s not her mother’s daughter then.’ He chuckled silently.
Joy’s skin crept as she looked at him. ‘Is that your husband?’ she asked. ‘That’s not the father – ’
‘Sakes!’ hooted Mrs Tissot. ‘Oh dear, oh Lord no, oh you’ll be the death of me.’ She laughed until her bloodshot eyes oozed. ‘No, that’s only Mr Tissot. He doesn’t speak much, thank God – you couldn’t do with two of us in one family – but when he does, it’s sometimes quite sensible. You’ll be surprised.’
‘That’s enough, Bid,’ said the background figure. ‘Let the poor girl go.’ He spoke all on one note, guttural, slurring his words. ‘She wants to sleep. You can meet her to-night at that pub down there.’ He pointed his goatee at the Winchester Arms. ‘I noticed it.’
‘You would,’ said his wife. ‘Be there about six then, Kath, and we’ll celebrate our family reunion in a drop of the fiery poteen.’ She gave an overdone, music-hall hiccup.
‘No,’ said Joy. ‘No, I won’t.’
I won’t, I won’t, she kept saying to herself as she rode blindly through the streets and squares and crescents, toiled up the High Street and into the Park at last, her legs like lead, pushing castiron wheels. The headache was coming. It was coming, and she did not know what to do. Aspirin was no help to her now.
Rodney was not much help either. He was too bewildered and bemused by this sudden suggestion that Joy might not be his niece after all. It was not only upsetting, because he was fond of her and she had become part of his life; but a little irritating too, after all the time and trouble and money he had spent on her.
He was not used to dealing with people like Mrs Tissot. He had laughed at the time, but after she had gone, he felt shaken, and Rollo had to put him to bed with Horlicks. He could not believe she was true. He hoped she was not, for the sake of sanity.
Joy found him distrait, wandering about the kitchen looking for the coffee in all the jars but the right one. He would not listen properly or discuss her dilemma until he had had his breakfast. Even when he had lit his first Turkish cigarette of the day, she still could not pin him down to giving advice. He was too preoccupied with his own plans, for he had heard last night from Ned that the invasion scare had decided him to pack his children off to Canada after all, if Rodney would take them. Frances’ brother could get him a Government job out there. So Rodney was going, and probably Rollo, and Joy would have to go with them too, for the flat was to be let.
‘I won’t go,’ Jo protested. ‘I won’t run away.’
‘Not even from the woman in the Hat? Of course, if you really believe she is your mother, I can’t abscond with you. I’d have to let you go to her I suppose, if you wanted to.’
‘If I wanted to! Are you trying to make a joke of this business or what? Of course she’s not my mother. She can’t be. You don’t think she is, do you, or are you on her side, like Norman?’
‘My dear,’ Rodney held a hand to his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, for he had heard that this relaxed the frontal nerves. ‘I don’t know what to think. She wore me out last night. I was incapable. Still am. And with all this on my mind now about the tickets and permits and packing up the flat and deciding what to store and what to take – oh, it’s a nightmare. God knows how I’ll ever cope. Especially,’ he grew pathetic, ‘if you’re going to desert me now when I need you most. I’ll not remind you, though,’ he took his hand away from his face and looked noble, ‘that I didn’t let you down when you needed me.’
‘Don’t put it like that, Uncle Roddy. That’s what she said. She needs me. Just suppose for a minute she is my mother. She can’t be, of course, but if she was, do I owe her anything after her deserting me in the first place?’
‘You’ll have to work this thing out for yourself, poppet.’ Rodney got up. ‘You’ve been swayed and influenced all your life. God knows I’ve helped you, and God knows I love you, but you’ve got to help yourself now. You’re the only one who can decide.’
Joy caught hold of his dressing-gown cord to stop him going away. ‘But just tell me what you think! ’
‘I don’t want to i
nfluence you,’ hedged Rodney, who did not know what to think, and did not want to have to think. ‘You make up your mind, poppet, but do it soon, because I have to get the tickets. Either you come to Canada with me and the spawn, or you stay here and be haggled over by this prostrating female.’
‘It’s not as simple as that. You see – ’ began Joy slowly, but he twitched the dressing-gown cord out of her hand.
‘Let me go now, there’s a good child. I’ve a million tedious things to do, and I don’t believe you’ve given Lady her breakfast, have you? Oh, my God!’
‘What’s the matter? Where are you going?’
‘To ring up a chap I know in the Immigration Office and ask him about taking dogs aboard.’
‘Don’t go for a sec. Listen, I just want to tell you. The awful thing is, you see, that I really think – ’ She followed him out of the room, but he had gone hurrying down the passage and she could hear him dialling frantically in his bedroom.
There was nothing to do but to take her headache to bed. She tossed and turned, dozed and woke with a haunted start, and her thoughts circled on round the same frenzied track. All through the day, she listened to the ordinary noises of people going about ordinary lives. She heard cars below, the ping of a taxi, stray shouts, and the hum of the lift, punctuated click-clicketty-clang as it passed each floor. She heard Rodney come in after lunch and start pulling things about in the trunk cupboard. He put the Trumpet Voluntary on the gramophone quite loud, which was unlike him when he thought Joy was asleep. It showed how preoccupied he was. There was no use getting up to try to talk to him again.
When the pencil of sunlight between her curtains had travelled across the room and gone out, Joy got up and ran a bath.
Joy and Josephine Page 39