Between the Regions of Kindness

by Alice Jolly

  No, love. No. Jay may be young and idealistic and perhaps he does get confused but he knows what’s right and wrong – and what more does he need to know? In my generation people knew how to make sacrifices, and many of them sacrificed their lives. Your own grandfather, his regiment herded into a barn near Dunkirk and shot. Now you can’t even persuade people not to buy Nestlé coffee even though they know about those mothers in the Third World not breastfeeding their babies.

  Mum, listen. Listen. I’m not saying he can’t do something to help. He could volunteer in the local Oxfam shop.

  I don’t think—

  Or spend more time at the hospital, if that’s what he wants. But why is he doing this? And why now?

  La-la-la-la, Mollie sings inside her head. Of course, it isn’t just Lara, it’s all the women of the new generation. What did feminism achieve? A woman’s right to scented candles, pedicures and a psychotherapist. Mollie wonders whether she should take some sandwiches with her and a flask of tea. Bound to be quite a lot of waiting around. Would Rufus like corned beef? That’s really all she has in.

  Oh because I’m such a bad mother. Because I threw him out of the house.

  I didn’t say that – but you did tell him he’d have to move out.

  Well, yes. But not to Iraq.

  Mollie smells burning and pulls the iron away from the shirt.

  People of his age are very sensitive, she says. He, in particular, is very sensitive. He was upset. I mean, you may have wanted to go to university but he never did. He came around here in floods of tears, bless him. And then as luck would have it your father had a go as well. Honestly, I could have whacked him over the head with a brick – ranting and raving about how people protesting against the war are supporting Saddam Hussein, when only a week ago I heard him saying to Baggers that they should be marching. But that’s how he is, isn’t he? But Jay can’t see, takes it all personally.

  Oh right. Fine. So it’s Dad’s fault and it’s my fault?

  No. That’s not what—

  And you won’t do anything to help me get Jay back?

  Lara, he’ll be back in no time. Those buses didn’t look fit to go to Catford, let alone Iraq. But, of course, you’re worried – and I am too and I’m available later today. In fact, I thought – well, there’s old Bobby Marsden, you know, and his son works for one of the big American newspapers. Your father worked with Bobby at the Sheffield Crucible – oh, 1975 it would have been, in Hamlet where that poor girl who played Ophelia really did finish up banged up in the local mental hospital.

  Mum, I don’t want to hear about you and Dad at the Sheffield Crucible in 1975 – OK? For Christ’s sake, Jay is vulnerable and confused. Things happen to Jay – you know that. But you just don’t want to see it, do you? Here you are doing your fluffy mother act. And at least I reminded him to pack a hat and some sun cream. But a war might be going to start and people will die.

  Lara, don’t tell me about death. Perhaps you don’t remember that I lived through the Coventry Blitz – people with their lungs blown out and a dog running down the street with a child’s arm in its mouth.

  Fine, Lara says. Well, if you want to spend your time talking about something which happened sixty years ago, which you can’t even remember anyway, then you do that. I’m going to bring my son home. I had hoped you would help me. But since I’m obviously mistaken, I’ll go around to the Stop The War office myself.

  Lara goes to the door and then turns back.

  But you be sure to get in touch if you hear anything.

  She picks up her coat and bag, marches towards the kitchen door. Mollie watches her as she stamps away up the area steps, her head disappearing first, then her bag and finally her sheer tights and office shoes. Let her go, Mollie thinks. Let her strike out on her own – yet again. It won’t last long, she’ll soon be back. Mollie draws herself up tall, feels a sudden surge of energy. The times they are a-changing and the worms they are a-turning. If you hear anything – because Lara knows, of course, that when Jay rings he’ll call her rather than Lara. And Lara will never ask herself why that is. Maybe she actually doesn’t know because she wasn’t there. She didn’t see the child standing over there at the window staring up the area steps. Will Mummy be home soon? When will she be back? When?

  For a moment she thinks of Jay, remembers his face as he stood by the bus. He’d hugged her until her feet came off the ground. She can smell him still, and feel him, loose and bony, pressed against her old, stiff bones. He’d looked so young, wearing those falling-down trousers and his jacket all torn.

  Mollie looks at her watch. Hell’s bells, she should have left half an hour ago. Pulling on her velvet coat, she takes a bottle of perfume from the back of the draining board, sprays herself. The cats do smell. Perhaps she should have worn those wedge-heel boots. These shoes are shockingly hard on the corns, but she’s not having the cast of the play thinking that Rufus is married to some old crone.

  Looking in the mirror, her eyes widen, shocked, as she sees the stranger staring back at her. Who is that old woman with watery eyes and a sagging jawline? Mollie still expects to see one of her other selves. Perhaps Mollie Fawcett – Worcester schoolgirl, going to see Ludo for that first audition, hurrying through the cramped streets near the canal, with rain lashing down, water gathering in the gutter of her school hat and that wretched school satchel banging against her hip. Or perhaps Mollie Mayeford, that woman she invented, stepping out of the stage door, with a diamond-glinting smile and a fox fur, tiny teeth and glass eyes shining, wrapped about her neck. Where are those people now? Gone, gone and forgotten. Ah well. Old age has got much to recommend it when you consider the alternatives.

  5

  BEFORE

  Bertie – Worcester, April 1941

  Bertie Fawcett drums his fingers on the varnished mahogany of the bar. The barman wears a stained apron and his chilblained fingers fumble – doubtless some poor old chap called out of retirement now all the young men have gone. The bar smells of hair oil, coal smoke, wet wool. In a distant corner, under the leaves of a crooked palm, a gramophone turns, scratchily playing some jazz tune. The Feathers Hotel is just in front of Foregate Street Station and, as a train pulls in, the bottles and glasses lined up on their mirrored shelves shiver and the gramophone stutters. Bertie drums his fingers once again.

  A good day at the Works – signed a government contract for aircraft parts worth more than ten thousand pounds. The war provides many opportunities. Where is that drink? The hotel lounge has a claret carpet and matching velvet chairs, their arms worn through to the thread, stuffing bulging out. Brass lamps glimmer along the oak-panelled walls and lace mats float in the middle of low tables. An elderly man sneezes behind a newspaper, snorts and coughs up phlegm. Bertie often comes to the hotel for a drink after work now he’s alone. Later he’ll eat cutlets and boiled potatoes cooked by his housekeeper and then deal with some paperwork – the building contract for the extension to the Cottage Homes for orphaned children, one of his charitable hobbies.

  Finally the elderly barman, using two shaking hands, places Bertie’s bourbon on the bar. Bertie takes a sip, turns to find himself a seat. Seen through the glass of the revolving doors, the street is blurred grey and the rain is beating down. A stately black car rolls past and shadowy figures skitter along the pavement, gripping bucking umbrellas. Only quarter of an hour now until the blackout. Bertie feels the bourbon spread through his veins. The man behind the newspaper rattles phlegm in his chest and the bottles behind the bar tremble as another train passes. A porter with a coal scuttle builds up the smouldering fire.

  The revolving door swings around and a young woman comes in, pulling a tiny child behind her. Her brown brimmed hat is dripping wet and her crocodile-skin suitcase sticks against the turning door. She tugs at the suitcase as though her life depends on getting it into the hotel. The fur coat she’s wearing looks as though it must once have belonged to some much shorter woman but it’s an elegant coat, with a high
collar and wide sleeves. She’s damp and dishevelled, exhausted and tearful, her hat and the shoulders of her coat smeared with wet plaster dust. One sees people like this often now. Victims of the bombs, waifs and strays with no place to go.

  Bertie watches as she stops, hesitates. The suitcase looks brand new and must have cost a fair penny. Despite the dripping hat and the plaster dust, she draws the eye. She’s much more beautiful than Deirdre ever was. She, poor soul, was good-looking when Bertie first met her but she’d faded so fast. Thank goodness she didn’t live to see the war. He hears a mention of Coventry and shuts his eyes, taking care not to think. The show started there again last night. There had been talk of it at the Works. A deliveryman had seen it as far away as Kenilworth. Once again the horizon burning red as a hot coal – God save their souls. It’s hard to imagine that there can be anything left there to bomb.

  Bertie watches the woman as she sits down, pulls the tiny girl down beside her, keeps the suitcase close. She has a beautiful face, he thinks, strong and fine but also veiled and private. Despite the disorder of her hair and clothes, she manages to appear neat and precise in a way that is infinitely satisfying. Perhaps she is not so much beautiful as well-designed? Under the low lamps, he sees her fingers fumble in her purse. She pulls out identity cards. The child leans against her legs, clinging, unstable. In her hand she grips a dirty toy dog.

  Idly Bertie thinks of his home – the sleek white house on Langley Crescent, one of the finest houses in Worcester, bought with his own money, all of it made himself. A house perched on the hill, with a view over to the cathedral and the Malvern Hills. And at the front a wide terrace, sloping lawns, terraced beds, a line of trees hiding the road below. He can see the woman there, in his house, sitting on a white iron garden chair on the terrace, or walking in through the French windows, standing beside the marble fireplace in the sitting room, the delicate tilt of her head, the slow upward curve of her lips, reflected in the tall gilt mirror above the mantelpiece.

  And a child as well. Bertie feels that old, jagged ache. Deirdre was too ill, of course, and he couldn’t put her health at risk but he hears the laughter of those shadow children sometimes – children who leave their toy skittles in the hall and their tiny shoes, wet from the garden, at the back door. Other men want sons but he’s always wanted a daughter. The face of this little girl makes him think of a coral necklace that he bought for Deirdre once when they were on holiday in Capri. Pale and intricate as a miniature garland of flowers. So very fragile to look at – and yet impossible to break.

  He thinks of the things he could buy for this mother and child, once the war is over. Whatever he wants he can afford, order it from abroad if it isn’t available here. Pink and white bedroom furniture for the child and shoes for the mother, something to replace those delicate kid slippers, entirely ruined by dirt and rain. Another train passes and, just for a moment, the lights dim. On the gramophone the record jumps as a porter passes.

  At the reception desk there seems to be some difficulty. Voices are raised and Bertie understands that soon the woman will cry. He stands up, moves towards her. The man at the reception desk – skin stretched tightly over the jutting bones of his face – looks down at the pristine buff-coloured card that the woman holds in her hand. National Registration Identity Card. That man, Maurice Heaton, damn him. Dry little pedant, charmless. Bertie moves closer. He knows the manager of the hotel, will be able to sort out any difficulties.

  Born in November? Five months? The reception man stares at the child.

  Sorry. Sorry. Wrong card.

  The woman raises her chin, produces another card, this one scuffed and creased.

  Mollie Mayeford? But your card says Bunton.

  My friend’s child.

  Bertie knows his moment has arrived, dusts dandruff from the lapels of his overcoat and does up his buttons to hide the curve of his stomach, swoops.

  Everything all right, Heaton?

  Yes, sir. Only—

  Friend of mine, no need to worry. Drink, my dear?

  Yes, please. How kind. The woman’s face is fixed into a desperate smile but she plays her part well, pushes all the papers away into her purse, follows Bertie towards the velvet armchairs, the low tables. Her eyes move briefly around the room but then settle on the floor, as though she can’t trust herself to see too much.

  Bertie Fawcett, he says and stretches out his hand.

  She raises her face to him and he sees terror. His eyes run over her, taking in the smoothness of her calves, like turned wood, the dark hair which has fallen down under her hat, the firm, smooth line of jaw and chin. Briefly she puts her tiny, cold hand in his. He indicates a chair and, as she sits, a flicker passes through him as he understands that this woman will not be like the others. She will not be a question of a few drinks, a generous present or two, a dinner and a goodnight kiss.

  A train comes into the station behind the hotel. Even here – in the sealed space of this hotel bar – it seems as though they feel the displacement of air, the hiss and rattle of the engine, the slamming of the doors. The woman stares around, reaches a hand out towards the threadbare arm of the velvet chair. Her tongue runs over dry lips. Her eyes are searching for something, spinning from the mirrored glass shelves, to the dusty palm, the hotel reception desk, the revolving door.

  You have to be careful, she says. There are many buildings which appear to be stable but then there is bomb damage.

  She stops, smiles brightly, as though this is all some hilarious joke.

  Bertie smiles, agrees with her that one must take care. Then asks her, gently, whether he might buy her a drink. She’s like a small animal, hesitant, the beating of her heart so violent that he imagines he can hear it. She looks up at him, her eyes bright blue and blank. Her cheeks are oddly flushed and the whites of her eyes flash as though she has a fever. She agrees that she would like a drink. A whisky, if they have one. Bertie goes to the bar to order. The barman is quick this time, as though he knows how important this is. He puts the whisky on a miniature silver tray, with a white napkin beside it. As Bertie walks back towards the woman, he feels the air light beneath his feet. Of course, she’s too young for him and too pretty but her situation is desperate and Bertie isn’t a man who fails to grasp an opportunity.

  He sits down beside the woman and places the whisky on the low table in front of her. She says thank you but then is silent. He had hoped she might initiate some conversation but she continues to stare at her hands. The bar is suddenly filled with a sound like a sudden gust of wind as a train pulls into the station. The woman seizes the child, disappears into the collar of her coat, squeezes her eyes tightly shut.

  A train, Bertie says. A train.

  The woman sits up straighter, stares around her.

  You know many buildings appear to be stable but they aren’t.

  Bertie is uncertain how to reply to this.

  The child wraps her toy dog in the lace mat on the table.

  Don’t, her mother says.

  The child snatches her hand away, shivers. She has the same black hair as her mother’s and it is swept to one side, held with a scrap of red ribbon which must once have been tied in a bow but now hangs loose. Her coat is blue tweed and worn at the sleeves but she wears it with pride. Her mouth is broad, her lips full. The face is too savage for prettiness, too brazen for beauty. She has the same gaze as her mother but without the veil, without the fear. She watches Bertie with shamelessly determined eyes, daring him to speak.

  Bertie asks the woman her name. She looks up at him and her eyes are full of confusion. Something has gone wrong, badly wrong. He thinks briefly of her fingers fumbling with the identity cards, the mumbled story of a friend’s child. But he doesn’t want to know, is more than ready to understand her as the woman she wishes to be. Eventually she speaks, her voice almost a whisper. Violet, she says. Violet Bunton.

  The girl pulls at the too-short sleeve of her mother’s fur. The woman – Violet – pushes the ch
ild back from her. The gesture is strangely brusque but Bertie understands that the woman is frightened that the child might be judged as badly behaved.

  The child has no such concerns and tugs at her mother’s sleeve again. Violet is sleeping, she says. The woman looks up, shrugs. It looks as though she might burst into tears but then she laughs too loudly, a sudden, high-pitched mirthless giggle.

  Bertie laughs loudly as well since that’s the only way of making her behaviour seem natural. He leans over, picks up the glass of whisky, hands it to the woman, noticing the pitiful smallness of her hands, their secrecy. It looks to me, he says, as though Violet hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in a long time. It looks to me as though that’s what she needs. That – and a hot bath and a good dinner. Wouldn’t you say? He addresses this to the child, although she has lost interest in the conversation and is folding and re-folding the napkin on the tray. Briefly he watches the movements of her tiny, creased hands. That old jagged ache. He wants her as much as the woman.

  Violet takes a sip of the whisky and smiles uncertainly. Bertie settles himself into his chair. Don’t worry in the least about finding a room. They may have said they’re fully booked but I know the manager here. I’ll make sure something is organised.

  Thank you, she says.

  Bertie drains his glass, feeling again the flush of the bourbon as it settles in his veins. Ah, so I have her now, he thinks, even though he knows the game is only just beginning. She’s too proud and too clever to surrender easily and Bertie is glad of that. But still it’s only a matter of time – and he will enjoy every minute. Violet. Perhaps that isn’t really her name? But no matter. Bertie has always liked that name. Violets are one of his favourite flowers. The steeply sloping front lawn of 48 Langley Crescent is thick with them in spring.

  6

  NOW