by CE Rose
In the spirit of positivity, I looked around for Mum’s favourite pair of sisters to say hello and give them a tight hug. They had, after all, been genuinely heartbroken at the graveside, and I wanted to thank them for their love. Clocking them at a table, I shuffled past cousins and their noisy offspring queuing for food, but when I was almost by their seats, I could see the two women were in deep conversation. Hovering behind them, I tried not to eavesdrop.
‘I just wish I’d picked up that phone.’ Oh God, Brenda was crying. And if her slurred voice was anything to go by, a little drunk too. ‘I intended to. If I’d known that Eve… I can’t believe I let seventeen years fly by without shaking some sense into her.’
I frowned. Seventeen years? She and Mum hadn’t spoken for that length of time? Part of me knew I should stop listening, but I was glued to the spot.
‘You wouldn’t have changed her mind, love,’ Peggy was saying. ‘We all made her a promise and you broke ranks.’
‘But—’
‘I know you thought it would be for the best, but it was Eve’s call, not yours. She thought you hadn’t respected her firm wishes.’
‘Of course I had. I wasn’t about to say anything; it wasn’t my place to. I just thought it was the right time to be truthful and said as much to Eve. Even you must have thought her response was a huge overreaction.’
‘In all honesty I did; we all did, but after everything with Doug… Well, perhaps there was more going on than we all…’
As though suddenly sensing my presence, Peggy spun around.
‘Oh Alison, love, there you are.’
Though I knew I was blushing, I stepped back and gestured to the food table. ‘Just having a nosey at what’s on offer.’ Then, moving forward for a hug, ‘How are you both?’
Peggy patted my back. ‘I’m so sorry about your mum, love. She was besotted with little Joe; so pleased he was a boy.’
‘Thank you.’
To hide the prickling behind my eyes, I looked at the floor. It was strange; my own loss wasn’t tangible but I felt Joe’s acutely. He’d settled peacefully in Mum’s arms when she’d visited immediately after his birth. He’d never actually remember her, and any feeling of knowing her would be from photographs, but there’d be a void in his life nonetheless, that undefined feeling of something being missing we all suffered with from time to time.
Brenda loudly blew her nose, then clutched me tightly. When she pulled away, she studied me so intently that I froze with alarm. What on earth was she going to say? Then she spoke. ‘Is that a little someone I can hear?’
I pricked my ears. Yes, a baby was crying, but it took a few moments to realise it was mine. Feeling a rush in my boobs, I looked down at my shirt. I’d forgotten about Joe, but they clearly hadn’t, and they’d missed out on a ‘feed’. God, I hoped the breast pads would do their job today.
His skin pink and hair dishevelled from anxious smoothing, Miles appeared through the bodies.
‘Where have you been?’ he hissed, knitting his pale brow. ‘Joe has been passed from pillar to post. I have no idea who half these bloody people are but they seem to know all about me. He was nearly dropped three times. No wonder the poor little sod is crying…’
As he handed Joe over, I noticed Madeleine talking to a man wearing an apron. Quietly but firmly interfering with the catering, in all likelihood. As I watched, she sidled up to my youngest auntie and took her hand. I inwardly sighed. Sucking in poor Patricia with those eyes, no doubt. I turned away then; I didn’t want to witness my relatives fawning. I preferred them to be true to themselves – a little barbed or gossipy at times, but good, solid folk who’d go the length to help out.
I glanced back at Brenda. At least that’s what I’d always thought. She’d apparently broken ranks. What the hell did that mean?
Chapter Eleven
Knowing there was no way I’d breastfeed in public – even discreetly – with Madeleine in the vicinity, I headed for the ladies’ again. There wasn’t a chair, so the loo seat would have to do. The smell of sour fruit mixed with hairspray and soap was unsettling, but not as much as the thoughts bouncing around in my head.
I tried to replay Brenda and Peggy’s exchange word for word, but the cubicle handle was tried every other minute.
‘It’s only Alison trying to feed Joe!’ I called. ‘I’ll be out in a tick…’
It was a fib and I knew it; with his colicky tummy, it took Joe at least twenty minutes to settle, sometimes longer. But right now I was glad of the excuse to hide. What the hell did that conversation mean? They hadn’t specified who ‘she’ was, but Brenda had mentioned seventeen years… Why was that significant? Laura would have been twenty-two then, whereas I… Oh God. I would have been eighteen, an adult. They had to be talking about me.
I kissed Joe’s downy hair and blew the old panic away. I wasn’t baby Ali anymore. I was a professional woman, a grown-up, a mother. It was time I got a handle on the stupid fear of hearing something I didn’t want to know. Dad had been dead for twenty-five years. It was time I just faced the trauma. And yet part of me still wanted to shrink back into that ten-year-old body.
I sighed. A promise to Mum… Clearly a secret the whole family had kept. And ‘after everything with Doug’… It was obviously something about Dad. His cancer? But would one express it like that? ‘Everything’ with Doug? And ‘more going on’? Bloody hell. Did I want to know? Not really. And yet…
As though she’d heard my internal wrangling, Laura’s voice echoed through. ‘Open up, Ali. It’s me.’ She peered through the crack. ‘Everything OK? You can cry if you want to. The sunglasses were just…’
So Peggy had sensed my tears earlier. And inevitably sent Laura to investigate. I detached Joe and stepped out of my feeding box. ‘I know. I’m fine, actually.’
Laura was still gazing. ‘Hmm, strangely so.’ She put a hand on her slim hip. ‘It didn’t occur to me until Peggy came running that I’m in charge of you now.’
‘I’m not a bloody dog, Laura.’
‘As the head of the Baker family, I’m your next of kin or whatever.’
‘No you’re not. I’m married to Miles, remember.’
‘A fake posh Alexander-Whatever? Hardly; you kept your name. And though Miles is pretty, he is completely hopeless—’
‘I’m not twelve and I don’t need you or anyone else to be in charge of me,’ I snapped.
Was that true, though? My ridiculous attachment to Dad, then Madeleine… And yes, in a way, Laura too. But right now, that made her comment even worse. She’d always stamped her authority on me, but had never been there when I’d needed her, which just hadn’t been fair. Feeling the old disappointment, I rose to the bait.
‘You seem to think that because I’ve had a baby, I’ve become frail or needy,’ I fired out. ‘It’s just challenging at times, that’s all. But it’s also the best thing ever, actually. If you hadn’t been so stubborn and single-minded as to—’
She dropped her clutch bag on the side and stared at me coldly. ‘You need to fix your face.’
‘Just like you do? Revealing nothing?’ I replied. I put Joe in her arms. ‘Here, you can have thingy for a while. He’s called Joe. I’m sure you’ll remember if you practise hard enough.’
Despite my annoyance, her startled expression made my lips twitch. I threw a muslin cloth over her shoulder. ‘In case he pukes,’ I added, enjoying the moment.
Once she’d left, I spent a little while playing with Laura’s few key pieces of posh make-up, painting my face tastefully as Madeleine had taught me. When I finally emerged, the room was half empty. I wryly laughed to myself. I was probably the only daughter in the world to spend her mother’s wake on a swing or a loo seat. But then again, I’d had a peculiar sensation alone at the mirror I couldn’t quite describe. It had felt like a cushion of comfort surrounding me, nothing visible, but most definitely there.
* * *
Laura and I returned to the grave before we left. The death notice i
n the newspaper had asked for a donation to charity instead of flowers, but there were several bouquets laid over the loose, drying soil. Crouching each side, we leaned forward to read the messages.
‘Oh bugger it,’ I said, sitting on a mound of bleached grass.
‘Dodgy fanny, I suppose,’ Laura commented. Scraping her hair back with her sunglasses, she read out loud. ‘“Do not stand at my grave and weep; I am not there. I do not sleep.” From Tom and Joan Hague. Who would’ve thought they’d be so creative?’
‘They didn’t spend hours at Bureside writing it, Laura. It’s a well known bereavement poem.’ The attachment I’d had for them at seven or eight abruptly swelled in my chest. ‘I’m surprised they didn’t travel up today. I wish they had.’
‘What?’ Laura snorted. ‘For one of Tom’s dodgy cuddles?’
‘He was just being affectionate. Don’t be rotten.’
‘Rich coming from you. You hated poor Joan and her earrings. Ran away and hid under that ugly black piece of furniture in the hall. What did Mum call it? That’s right, the chiffonier.’
‘Only at first.’ I smiled wryly. ‘I pretty much disliked any strangers. I was convinced they brought on the spooky dreams.’
‘Those bloody nightmares. I wasn’t keen on them either. Having you climbing in my cosy bed and—’
‘Breathing! “Stop breathing, Ali, or you can sleep on your own…”’
Laura laughed. ‘Poor you; I guess that was a tall order.’ Her eyes glazing, she looked into the distance. ‘I finally got my own bedroom that last summer…’ She sighed deeply. ‘They should have told us about Dad’s cancer. Mum should’ve told me. Why didn’t she? Even now I don’t get it.’ She frowned. ‘Maybe that’s why she was so ratty with me, with us all. Do you remember? She pretty much stayed in The Lodge the whole holiday and refused to go anywhere with us. If I had known, I’d have been around more, made an effort. But she didn’t say a word. It still makes me feel…’ Her voice trailed off.
Filling the silence, I went back to the poem.
‘I wonder who wrote it. “I am not dead”. But that’s how it feels, don’t you think?’ I asked.
Feeling a ripple of movement, I glanced over my shoulder. No one was there. Mum’s ‘presence’ would be a crazy thing to mention, but despite the usual exhaustion creeping in, there was definitely a sense of calm and comfort enveloping me. I wondered if Laura felt the same, but she shrugged.
‘You and your notions, Ali. Sometimes you sound like Dad and his poems were rubbish.’
She didn’t say it kindly and it smarted. It wasn’t just her ability to put me down with a few choice words, but how she spoke about Dad.
‘I don’t recognise half of these names, do you?’ she asked eventually, and when I didn’t reply: ‘Her art class, do you think? Maybe they were childhood friends, or Dad’s old clients.’ She tossed a tiny pebble into my lap, hunched her shoulders and squinted one eye. ‘Or maybe the half breeds from Norfolk?’
‘Not nice,’ I said, relenting. ‘They all seem to be from men. “Here’s to the good times we had” from Clive. And from Oliver: “I’m glad we met again”. And this one is from Ted: “To the Sunniest Girl in the office”.’
‘Maybe they were all Mum’s lovers…’ Laura replied, teasingly. ‘Especially if Oliver was Oliver Tobias with his come-to-bed-with-me eyes. She must have watched The Stud twenty times.’
I gave my sister a hard stare. I didn’t want to be reminded of my rude behaviour whenever I’d been introduced to one of Mum’s ‘new friends’. Laura had been bad, but egged on by her, I was far worse. Yet in some ways it had been a good time; Laura and I absolutely on side.
Laura snorted. ‘I know; all those creepy uncles who appeared out of the woodwork. I don’t think she liked them any more than we did. The name Ted sounds familiar, though. I think she worked with him before she got married. Clive, too.’
‘When she was a civil servant, don’t you know!’
‘That’s because she was the only girl in the family who went to grammar school.’
‘Married an accountant and had a cleaning lady.’
‘And a new car every September…’
‘A holiday home too…’
I frowned; I’d never thought of the money angle before. ‘How on earth did Dad afford it all? A pretty meteoric rise from his tiny office in Walkley.’
‘Not that Mum ever mentioned Walkley at the golf club…’
We smiled. Evelyn Baker could be such a snob, but she was our snob. We stared at the mound for a moment longer, then Laura stood up and held out her hand. ‘A quick peek at Kellogg’s?’ she asked, using the nickname for our old family home. ‘Then I think we’re done.’
* * *
Once Joe was settled in, Miles drove the short journey to our childhood house. Dad had commissioned the new build in the late seventies, and someone had famously described it as looking like a ‘cereal box’, so the joke had stuck. I knew what they meant – long and symmetrical with large plain windows, it looked unimaginative from the outside, but inside it was more interesting with its central split-level design, ‘sunken’ lounge and three sets of stairs.
A memory flew back at me as I gazed: Laura, leaning over the top landing to see how far down my spiral Slinky toy extended. I was whinging, of course. ‘You’ll break it, you’ll stretch the spring!’ And Mum, her face astonishingly bleached with anger. ‘Stop it, Laura. Just stop it. Never do that again. Do you hear me?’
Reaching for a fonder memory, I looked to the side garden. Though partially hidden by trees, the rusty double swing was still there, our double swing. Wondering if she’d registered it, I glanced at Laura, but her Ray-Bans were back on. She was tired, so was I, astonishingly so.
I once read that bereavement was like a large black hole that got smaller with time. For me, the gaping abyss seemed to grow when my dad died. Consumed by grief, the darkness followed me everywhere: I breathed it, smelled it, touched it and ate it, even during rest, when sleep terrors plagued me. Eventually, a night came when I didn’t dream at all. The void had closed a tiny fraction and continued to contract as each year went by. But it wasn’t until the house was sold that I was able to say, ‘My father died when I was ten years old,’ without crying.
I’d always supposed Mum somehow knew I needed that closure; that she’d needed it too, but had waited until I was at university, had accommodation and was settled before moving away. But Brenda’s words were echoing in my head: the right time to be truthful… About what? And: Eve’s response was a huge overreaction… What was the ‘huge overreaction’? Was it selling the Kellogg’s box and transferring her whole life to Norfolk? If so, what on earth was Mum running from?
Chapter Twelve
Laura stayed with us for the rest of the week. We considered a quick trip to Horning, but, to my relief, she was shattered and couldn’t face the prospect of the five-hour journey before an even longer flight home. Any free time she had was usually consumed by wining and dining business people, or catching up with paperwork she didn’t have a chance to read at work, so she fancied a few days to chill out. I understood completely, but it was funny to hear the words roll off my sister’s tongue. The Laura who left home at eighteen had flunked her A levels and spent most of her life on the Parker Knoll sofa in our cornflake-box lounge, only becoming animated when she was going out; how times had changed.
Though I still struggled with peeing, my pelvic floor and soothing Joe’s tetchiness, it was lovely to have Laura around. She didn’t venture outside, not even for a smoke. Finally discarding the sunglasses, she donned a T-shirt and jogging bottoms, curled up on the sofa and didn’t move.
‘Ditch your bloody mobile, Miles. You’re on catering duty,’ she directed on Friday morning. ‘Your wife has presented you with a son and heir and I’m on holiday. Bring anything that’s bad for us. Things I can’t buy at home.’
Raking fingers through his hair, Miles was genuinely perturbed. ‘Oh, God. Like what? Do you mean a t
ake-out? And what type? Or I’ll go to the supermarket if you want, but I’ll really need a written—’
‘Mashed potato and mushy peas; apple crumble with custard; eggy bread with ketchup; minced beef and onion pie with… God, yes, Henderson’s Relish…’
Laura’s list surprised me; it was all the winter stodge we’d either hated or taken for granted as kids. She scrunched her face. ‘I know! A pork bread-cake dipped in the dripping, with crackling and apple sauce! Wouldn’t that be good, Ali?’
‘Bread-cake? What’s that then?’ Miles asked and we laughed. But at the end of the day Laura’s culinary desires needed to be home-cooked by our mum. I could have attempted the mashed potatoes or even the eggy bread, but how to bake the meat pie or make custard from scratch was a mystery to us both.
We settled on a fish and chips lunch. Miles dutifully delivered it before leaving again to catch up at work, saying he’d be back when he was back and to have fun without him. Though still glued to his phone, he’d been away from chambers since the funeral, so I understood the need to get on top of his paperwork, but I suspected Laura’s menu had freaked him, especially the crackling.
‘Working-class food!’ as his mother would say. I could visualise her uttering it with the slightest wrinkle in her otherwise perfect nose. She hadn’t been in touch, but that wasn’t surprising. Neither she nor Laura had said anything, but I’d always sensed a stand-off on the rare occasions they’d met. Perhaps my sister had had the measure of Madeleine long before I did.