by Alice Jolly
Anyway, Lara says, I said I’d ring back if I want it.
Well, why don’t you ring now?
No. I need to wait for something part-time.
Well, do they have much part-time?
Mollie flicks the radio on. Lara rattles the jigsaw box at Jay and he comes to her, takes the box from her hand. Pig, he says, dropping the box. Lara clears a space on the table and sits Jay down opposite her so they can do the jigsaw together but Jay throws the pieces at her.
No, she says. No. Don’t throw. Come on.
She picks the pieces up and lays them out on the table.
Help me find the bits with the sun. Look here – bright yellow sun.
Jay picks up a puzzle piece and hurls it at Lara. It hits her in the eye and he laughs. Lara wipes her eye, picks the piece up from the floor.
No, Jay. No throwing. Come on. Come and sit here with me. Have you seen this picture of the dog? Can you see his tail?
Jay runs his hand across the table, sweeping all the jigsaw pieces to the floor. Then he jumps down from the chair, runs to Mollie and throws himself against her leg. Really, Jay, you shouldn’t do that, Mollie says. Don’t do that to Mummy. But she picks Jay up, holds him against her, makes him laugh by rubbing her nose against his. Lara fixes the bits of the black and white cow together and looks over at the picture on the front of the box – the farm, the pigs and cows, the cockerel, the bicycle-wheel sun. She’s never seen anything so mournful in her life.
Have a break, dear, Mollie says. You must be worn out. Take no notice.
Lara looks at Jay, at his defenceless perfection. His startling blue eyes, unmarked white skin, bright red lips, shock of hair, tiny, damp hands. He’s meant to compensate her for everything. For not having a job, for being exhausted all day every day. She’s not meant to complain because she has the miraculous gift of a child. Some women can’t have children at all. Mollie herself lost four after Lara was born. So she’s lucky, really lucky. But everything they tell you – it’s just not true. When you have a child, you lose so much – and the fact of the child just doesn’t compensate you for all of that. How come everyone else can do it but she can’t? Don’t other women find it desperately boring building a tower of bricks again and again just so a child can knock them down? Don’t other women feel that they must have been intended for something more?
Mollie takes Jay upstairs with her. Lara listens to laughter from above. She knows Mollie wants Jay, has wanted him from the beginning. Jay is the living second child she never had. So why not let her have him? Mollie doesn’t mind the sick, the exploding nappies, the spaghetti bolognaise rubbed into Jay’s hair. In fact, she loves it all because she’s a good person. And I am not, Lara thinks. She goes to the telephone and dials Ms Carver’s number.
31
NOW
Mollie – Brighton, April 2003
So this is it then? The Spiritualist Church – Mollie must have walked past it hundreds of times but she’s never noticed. It’s a windowless building with curving sandstone walls, a spaceship parked halfway up George Street. Mollie wishes she’d worn comfortable shoes. But it’s good to get out of the house. On television all they talk about is that wretched Jessica Lynch whom the Americans rescued – nothing about those who are working for peace, nothing about the Iraqi people and their suffering, nothing about Jay.
The people crowding into the Spiritualist Church don’t look anything special – Women’s Institute types mainly. Grey hair held back by little-girl clips, drab waterproofs, support tights and orthopaedic shoes. A few alternative types with trailing rainbow skirts, earrings in the shape of ancient runes, grey plaits. Mollie wriggles her toes, lifts one foot, then the other – perhaps she should get a pair of those orthopaedic shoes herself. She follows Jemmy into the reception area and then into an oval-shaped room with a domed roof and no windows.
Jemmy sits down, her face stretched tight, watching and waiting. She wears loose Turkish-style trousers, a singlet and an orange cardigan. Her collarbones stick out beneath a necklace of Liquorice Allsorts beads and her long hair catches on her gypsy earrings. Mollie thinks of those strange books she brings back from the library. Ancestor worship and appeasing the souls of the dead. Not healthy really – in a young girl of her age. She’s an odd girl. Charms the words, the souls, out of people’s mouths as a snake charmer draws out a snake. Often makes Mollie think of Jay. Not surprising that they were friends. Only friends? Surely more. The young people educate the old, not the other way around.
Mollie knows how much Jemmy longs for a message from Laurie. Mad, of course. Or probably, anyway. She herself doesn’t discount the possibility. Who can know? If it provides people with some comfort then why argue? But if Jemmy receives a message, Mollie hopes very much that it will say – Leave that poor dead baby in peace and make some space for the living. But perhaps spirits don’t say that kind of thing?
Mollie has told Jemmy again and again that she needs to go to the hospital, find out about this bleeding, but Jemmy doesn’t want to go. Poor girl, what can anyone do? Of course, the truth is that for all anyone knows the baby might have already died inside her. She won’t tell that poor young husband of hers anything either.
Mollie never said anything to Jemmy but Bill came around to the Guest House once when she was out at work. Lovely young man. The girl doesn’t know when she’s well off. A bit dull perhaps but there’s a lot to be said for dull, as Mollie has reason to know. Doesn’t want to know anything about the baby boy, of course, but who can blame him. Life may be long but not long enough to forget that.
In the oval-shaped room, chairs are arranged in a circle. Vases of flowers perch on stands. The room is built of curving stones and the tiled floor is divided into segments of white and black which meet at a central point. Lights on the walls form the points of illuminated triangles. A piano stands against one wall covered by a sheet. Mollie only came along because she thought it might provide Jemmy with a bit of comfort. And because Mr Lambert’s weeping is getting on her nerves. Jilted again. Bless him, all he wants is a little love but that can be hard to find. Mollie focuses on the point where those black and white tiles meet. Can there really be messages from the dead? Mollie wouldn’t mind getting a message from Ludo – since he’s been in her thoughts so much recently. And maybe someone in the nether world could tell her where her birth certificate is? Mind you, she wouldn’t get into Iraq anyway.
Everyone is seated now. One of the rainbow-skirt ladies announces that the meeting will begin with a meditation. Imagine a fountain of light, she says, bursting up towards the ceiling. A bright sparkling fountain of light. Her voice is self-consciously breathy, calming. Mollie wriggles her toes and wonders if she should take off her shoes. She thinks about Rufus. She knows he’s alive and well because Baggers tells her so but then why doesn’t he call? How dare he do this to her at a time like this? Once she gets the car fixed she’ll drive up to London again, see if she can track him down. Her nose is beginning to run but she mustn’t disturb everyone by opening her bag to look for her handkerchief.
Now imagine the light breaking up into a thousand particles, the woman says. Imagine it flowing down onto all of us. Mollie’s throat is starting to tickle and she tries not to cough. That flat in Roma Street, she must tell the agents to advertise it again. Looking over at Jemmy, she sees her face, calm and attentive, her eyes turned slightly upwards, feeling the particles of light falling onto her. The room is silent now. Mollie’s nose tickles and the back of her throat is like chalk dust. She wonders if she turned the oven off before she came out.
Has anyone got a message? the rainbow woman asks.
Eyes turn towards a young woman with carefully arranged dark hair and thick make-up covering blemished skin. She’s unhealthily thin and wears tight jeans and stiletto heels. Yes, she says. Yes. She stares at a point far up the wall, concentrating. I’ve got a message from a woman. She’s an elderly lady with grey hair and she’s wearing an apron. She’s someone who always fr
ies her sausages. And she says that the message is for a person who always grills their sausages.
Oh yes, a large woman on the other side of the circle says. That’s my mother. Definitely. She was always telling me I ought to fry my sausages rather than grill them. We spoke about that often.
The thin young woman nods her head. She’s saying – you’ve got to look beyond the problem. She’s very insistent, almost angry. She keeps saying that. You’ve got to raise your eyes and look beyond the problem. And something about a ring which was lost. She can help you find it.
Everyone in the circle nods, their faces serious, appreciative. Mollie will have to get her handkerchief. She bends down and tries to do it without making any noise but she can’t find the handkerchief and so she has to rummage in the bag, and pull things out. Her powder case drops to the floor with a crack and, in trying to pick it up, she also drops her hairbrush. The thin woman is delivering another message. I’ve got an elderly woman who is tall with snow-white hair and she’s got a message for someone here who’s got a problem with their plumbing. Who would that be?
A woman with a gypsy-type scarf in her hair half raises her hand, her face suddenly alive. Yes, yes. That’s my sister. Definitely and there is a problem.
No, no, the thin woman says. Don’t lead me. Just let me try to see. She closes her eyes and her face is screwed up with concentration. You’re looking in the wrong place. There’s no point in taking up the tiled floor. There’s a leak in the loo but it’s not to do with the pipework under the floor.
The gypsy-scarf woman is animated. Yes, she says. Yes. The leak, yes. The builders are coming tomorrow to take up the floor.
The people around the circle smile and nod. A lady next to the gypsy woman clasps her hand. Mollie is busy wiping her nose. In her mind, she’s always had a clear image of the dead. Then like stars, His children crowned, all in white shall wait around. But perhaps that isn’t right. The realms of the dead may be more banal than one supposes. Even there people may be largely concerned with culinary tips and plumbing problems.
The room is hot and something moves across the wall, a shadow, a dancing beam of light. The room doesn’t contain more than thirty people but now it feels crowded. Mollie has the sense of people pushing forward from behind her. She hears voices and the shuffle of feet. She wishes that she could leave now but the messages continue.
A message about a baby – a child who didn’t live long. Can anyone take that message? Mollie feels Jemmy stiffen beside her.
The message is about photographs which are pinned on a board.
Jemmy moves, her hand starting to rise.
This baby. No, a child – a girl.
Mollie looks over at Jemmy, her hunched shoulders and clenched hands. The shadows on the wall are forming into shapes. Mollie can’t understand why the room feels so hot. Would it be acceptable for her to get up and walk out? Really this is a thoroughly unchristian activity. A load of hocus-pocus. Dead people should stay in their graves and people who are living shouldn’t bother them. It’s sinful, and dangerous. All it does is give false comfort. Make some space for the living. But the knowledge comes to her now that there is no space. The ranks of the dead are so numerous they crowd out all else. She longs for Rufus. If only he would come home then they could go out dancing together. She needs him now, misses him fiercely. Even his shouting and raging, debts and drinking – she misses even that, now that he’s gone. He promised her, he promised.
I have a message from Arthur, the thin woman says.
Eyes dart from face to face, someone stifles a cough.
Can anyone take that message?
Mollie twiddles her fingers, sighs. How much longer?
The message is for the lady sitting there, the thin woman says, nodding in Mollie’s direction. Staring down at the floor, Mollie holds on to her bag. Of course, it wouldn’t be that Arthur. She never knew him, he only came to the house that one day. As an actress she should be able to manage this situation, defuse it, say something funny or clever. But her voice is fragile and plaintive, the voice of an old woman.
I’m afraid I don’t know anyone called Arthur.
Although it’s a common enough name, of course. Perhaps in the realms of the dead they also make administrative mistakes? Like the mess with her birth certificate. Blood rises to her cheeks. She feels the guilt of a liar although she isn’t lying. The room is filled with a roaring silence. Mollie is breathing in glue. Sausages and plumbing. Is it not possible to go back to that?
He knew you as a child and he met you once later. But the message isn’t about him. It’s about Rose, your mother.
No. No. My mother was called Violet.
But he’s insisting. A woman called Rose. She’s your mother.
No.
He says that you must be careful of this woman. He offers this message in kindness because he loves Rose – but he wants you to be careful.
Mollie’s mind slips backwards, a slow yielding, like the beginning of a landslide. And she sees a white house with many chimneys and curling iron balconies. Not the house of her childhood in Worcester but a house standing beside a green space, a city park perhaps. And she’s inside the house, a small child, a peg doll in a doll’s house, sitting on a red velvet chair in a hall with a curling staircase and an eagle in a glass dome. The floor is scattered with pieces of plaster and broken glass. A picture has dropped from a wall and lies face down on the floor. Peg doll Mollie climbs down from the chair and steps up the green-carpeted stairs, stands on a landing which stretches far in every direction, then walks forward towards an open door. Yards of satin, salmon-pink walls, a cream Chinese carpet, a huge bed with a seashell headboard.
Rose, Violet. Mollie. Mollie. Rose. Violet.
The thin lady in the spaceship room is still talking. He’s a man who smiles a lot, and he’s bringing music with him – jazz or dance music. He can sing and his voice is – he has an accent – French or Italian.
Mollie tries to bring her mind back into the oval room. Sausages and plumbing. She doesn’t know anyone called Rose. But the bedroom is still there, the salmon-pink bedroom with the seashell bed and the dressing table. And a woman is standing on the far side of the room, near the long bow window where the dressing table stands. One of the drawers of the dressing table is open. A window is shattered, the glass glitters on the carpet. A blackbird crouches on the end of the curtain rail, its clawed feet slipping. Peg doll Mollie raises her hand to her mouth to stop herself screaming but is lifted by strong arms. And when she turns back her mother has disappeared, dissolved like a pantomime villain, into a cloud of dust.
And Mollie – back in the oval room – stands up, grabs her bag, stumbles against a chair, hurries towards the door. Sausages and plumbing. But there is no door and she’ll be here for ever now, walking round and round the oval walls, without ever finding her way out. And those shadows endlessly moving on the walls. She falls into the hall, fumbles down the steps, out into the honesty of the night.
32
BEFORE
Oliver – Weston-super-Mare, May 1986
Although it is barely dawn, Grace is waiting for Oliver outside her flat with a basket of food, a rug, her swimming things, a rubber ring in the shape of a yellow duck and a multicoloured seaside windmill, its wings spinning, stuck in the top of her bag. She wants to drive and so Oliver agrees. He is happy to agree to anything, just to have the day with her.
She is a mass of excitement. For her, a trip to the seaside is the best possible day out. The normal is always exotic. As they get into the car she tells him about all the things she loves at the sea. The white stucco buildings, the spidery piers, the tea shops, sticks of rock, candyfloss and fish and chips. She likes to walk on a pier with the pitching and tossing sea visible through the cracks in the boards under her feet and the seagulls circling overhead.
The Bristol back streets are still sleeping as they set off, heading towards Weston-super-Mare. She drives as she always does – a little too
fast, taking too many risks. And he resists the temptation to tell her to be careful. It is two weeks since he last saw her and he’d worried then that he’d never see her again. He’d called several times after she’d come out of hospital but she hadn’t rung back. For days he’s been in agony. Then finally she’d called, making no reference to what had happened, suggesting a day at the sea.
He’d borrowed the car from the churchwarden. The exhaust rattles and it smelt of dog, elderly and moulting Jack Russell, to be exact. They laugh about that smell. He watches as her foot goes down onto the accelerator, pulling away fast from a junction. She hasn’t retained the beauty she had in that Falmouth garden. Her red hair is often messy, her teeth cross over at the front and her skin is sometimes blemished. Her hands have become coarse and red from making pots and glass-blowing. But her eyes still have that same coolness and her face the same smooth oval shape. He is responsible for her but it is like being responsible for the weather, or for ensuring that the earth keeps on turning.
They come to the open fields, cross the motorway into the endless roundabouts and housing estates around the town. It is May but the weather is chill and blustery. Grace talks about the exhibition that has just finished. It was on the first night of that exhibition that she’d stopped breathing, and been taken into hospital but she doesn’t mention that. Instead she is excited about the work – she sold everything and several people asked about commissions. She looks over at him, wanting him to share her excitement. She must have a good day out, and he must do the same.