At the Jerusalem, page 9
‘The scrapbook?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you still stick pictures and things in it?’
‘Yes.’
He ran a hand down his nose. He asked her if she had any problems.
‘Problems, Henry?’
‘About living here?’
‘No.’
Thelma’s cooking – some of her meals really weighed on you. Edna. The smell of the house.
‘No,’ she repeated. She didn’t wish to appear petty.
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘I want you – we want you – to feel part of the family.’
‘I do feel part.’
He stood up. He patted his stomach – an act which set Thelma scowling when he did it at table.
‘I suppose I must go.’
‘Yes, Henry,’ she said. ‘You go.’
He looked down at her. He was breathing loudly and his arms hung loose.
She suddenly imagined him on top of Thelma, misbehaving himself. How could she, scarcely more than a bean-pole, suffer all that weight?
The awful thought went.
Henry said ‘Good night’.
He turned, moved towards the door.
She wanted to ask him if he loved Thelma; she wanted to know if he was capable.
*
The afternoons had to be lived through.
On fine days there was no cause for worry: she walked in the local park, sat by the pond until she felt the cold, made her way slowly home. But she began to dread the rain or those days when the cold was wintry and bitter: it meant the lounge (as Thelma would insist on calling the sitting-room) and making conversation.
She sat facing Thelma, longing to be spirited away.
The shopping and cleaning were done; they had taken a light meal – now there were three whole hours to go before the children returned from school.
She would feign a headache later, disappear to her room.
Thelma put down her hospital romance. ‘I can only read for ten-minute stretches. Then the words get jumbled together.’ She took a chocolate from a box on the table by her chair. ‘Do you have that trouble, dear?’
‘No. I can read when the mood comes on me. Celia read aloud to me, the last few years.’
‘That must have been nice.’
‘It was.’
‘Yes, dear.’
That was the most irritating habit, that constant ‘dear’ of Thelma’s. It came off her tongue like any other word. She might just as well call her ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling’ or, she laughed, ‘precious’.
‘I believe you’re laughing at me, dear.’
‘No, Thelma, not at you. I was thinking of someone I once worked for. The Honourable Walter Crabbe – not spelt like the sea-food, he had a “b” and an “e” on the end—’
‘What about him?’
‘You won’t think it funny – in fact, you’ll think me daft. It was just that he always called his wife “precious”. Even at dinner. There I’d be, standing ready to serve, and he’d call down the table “Cicely, my precious, potatoes?” “A little cabbage, my precious?” he’d say.’
‘It is quaint, I’ll grant you.’
‘He was a kind, thoughtful man for all his airs.’
‘I’m sure he was, dear.’
‘A gentleman.’
Thelma took another chocolate. She bit into its hard centre.
Yes, she had no complaints to make about the Honourable Walter. Or the Honourable Cicely. They were thoroughly decent, both of them.
‘Were they, dear?’
‘Thoroughly.’
She went to them first as a scullery-maid. She was fourteen, fresh from a Hampshire village.
‘I still have a bit of country in my voice.’
‘I can’t say it’s struck me. But then, I’m a town girl.’
‘You can never really lose an accent.’
‘Can’t you, dear?’
‘No.’
Thelma wouldn’t believe her, but her wages were nine shillings a month. Imagine! And the work she did – scrubbing, polishing, sewing, learning to cook and to wait at table. She had one free Sunday in four, she recalled, and every other Thursday afternoon off.
Thelma sighed, shook her head.
The letters she wrote home – page upon page upon page. Writing down the things that happened to her seemed as natural as – well, breathing or sleeping. The sad part was, her father and her brother Jim couldn’t read or write. She made a vow once that she would try to teach them but nothing came of it. Her mother read the letters to them.
Thelma said something about the rain. Then she put a chocolate in her mouth.
She would talk, whether Madam of the house wanted to hear her or not. What else could she do? Watch her eat? Look out at the rain? Stare at the roses? She would continue until it was time to announce a headache.
She wasn’t a scullery-maid long. Mrs Crabbe recognized her worth. Her position improved.
‘Did it, dear?’
‘Yes. I was allowed to serve vegetables.’
‘Were you?’
‘Yes.’
Cabinet ministers, famous actors and actresses, dukes, duchesses, lords, ladies, the highest in the land: the finest people there were sat down to eat with the Honourable Mr and Mrs Crabbe.
‘Did they? Did they, dear?’
‘I stood close to them, Thelma. As close as I am to you.’
‘Oh?’
She stayed with them twenty-five years. She remembered having fears of dying an old maid. But she had found Tom, or Tom had found her—
‘You probably found each other,’ Thelma suggested.
‘Yes.’
He courted her in a check suit that had a cap to match.
When she finished talking it was past two o’clock. An hour had been killed.
Thelma said she would try another chapter before the children were here to bother her again.
Mrs Gadny looked at her. How much had she heard? Her mind, such as there was, must have wandered.
‘I have a pain in my head, Thelma. I shall go to my room and lie down.’
*
She’d had a nightmare. White hands in the dark.
Had she screamed?
She listened. Silence through the house.
Whose hands were they? Were they someone’s? She hadn’t been able to tell if they were Celia’s, Tom’s: she hadn’t thought to look hard.
But you didn’t think to look hard when you dreamed. Dreaming simply happened.
No arms or elbows. No other parts.
*
‘I dread to think what he’ll be like in a few years,’ Thelma said. ‘His head’s never out of a book now. When he can read properly he’ll be as bad as his father for talking to. I can see we shall be calling him “The Professor”.’
The boy had been crying, for no reason it seemed. The picture-book had quietened him.
‘Have you noticed with Henry – if he has a paper or one of his books on criminals?’
‘Yes.’
‘Always when I want to talk to him, ask his advice. He could be in China.’
‘Yes.’
‘Young Michael will be as bad. Edna’s the sensible child. He’s the moody one.’
Edna took one of her mother’s chocolates.
‘Would you like a present, Michael?’
He was smiling at some picture.
‘Answer your grandmother, young Michael.’
‘Would you like a present?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes, what?’
‘Please.’
‘Come with me.’ She offered her hand.
‘Go with your grandmother.’
He ignored her hand. He followed her upstairs.
‘Would you like some books for when you’re older?’
‘Yes. Please.’
They were in her room.
‘Sit on the bed, Michael.’
He pulled up his socks before he did so.
‘My daughter read lots of books. Hundreds. I’ve kept some of them. They’ll only rot. I shan’t read them any more.’
She was used to being read to; she had taken in more of the stories when Celia read them to her.
The books were in a pile in the wardrobe. She managed to lift them out and carry them to the bedside table.
‘Jane Eyre. That one’s a kind of love story.’ She laughed. ‘Boys don’t take to love stories until they’re much older. Some never take to them.’
Michael stared at the inscription. ‘“Her book”,’ he said.
‘It says “Celia Gadny. Her book.” That’s what’s written.’
‘“Celia Gadny. Her book.”’
‘Quite right. Your aunt. You met her twice.’
‘“Celia Gadny. Her book”,’ he said again.
‘The Pilgrim’s Progress. Look, Michael. This one has pictures.’
‘“Celia Gadny. Her book.”’
It was something for him to say.
‘Yes, Michael.’ She’d often chuckled at the picture Michael was looking at: whoever had done it must have copied it from a photo – Christian looked like Ramon Navarro without his moustache.
‘Treasure Island. Long John Silver, Michael? You know him?’
‘No.’
‘He’s a terror. One leg. A parrot on his shoulder. A pirate to the life.’
She gave him those books of Celia’s she had kept. Some of them were of poetry – the boy might take to it. She hadn’t, all life long. Celia had tried poems on her – simple ones, she’d said, about birds and trees. They’d passed straight through her head. A verse on a card was a different case: it was intended for one person from another, it carried a loving message.
She hesitated before giving him the last book in the pile.
‘This one, Michael. This one is beautiful.’
The boy was called ‘Pip’. He helped a convict escape. He met a girl and a very odd woman who lived in a big house. The odd woman went about the place in her wedding-dress because she’d been left in the lurch on the great day, which was before the story started.
And then what?
Pip becomes rich in the city and the convict he helped when he was small turns up one night. Yes. And later still there comes the scene she and Celia had once cried over: the convict gets captured and Pip realizes how much he owes to him. Yes. He had a name, too – he wasn’t known as a convict. Think without looking. ‘Magpie’, was it? Something similar.
‘This is a beautiful book.’
She didn’t seem capable of getting the boy to look at her. ‘Put your head up.’
‘“Celia Gadny. Her book.”’
‘Never mind that. You’ll enjoy this story one day, Michael, when you’re old enough to appreciate it.’
He counted the letters in the title. He stopped at ten.
‘Eleven,’ she said.
‘Eleven.’
‘Twelve.’
‘Twelve.’
‘Thirteen comes after.’
But his mind was off. ‘“Her book”,’ he said. ‘“Her book”.’
‘Yes, Michael.’
He might grow into the kind of man who would despise a woman like Thelma.
He arranged the books around him on the bed.
‘What’s she given you?’ Edna had to be wherever her brother was.
‘I’ve given him some books.’
‘What books?’
‘They belonged to my daughter.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘As Michael seems to go for reading—’ She stopped. The girl was looking at her with disgust.
‘What is it, Edna? Is my slip showing? Staring at people is rude. Hasn’t your mother told you?’
‘You have grey skin,’ Edna said.
*
She supposed it was damp that caused the wallpaper to bulge in places. They should have had more sense than to paper a bathroom.
She lay in the bath. She sponged her legs gently.
Number Ninety-six was the only house in the Terrace to have a bathroom. Mrs Barber and her Rose made use of it twice a week.
She closed her eyes and saw the tramp-woman.
… A black coat that was turning green, bandaged legs, bags containing old clothes and food scraps…
She put out a hand for the soap, took it from the rack.
… One tooth in the middle of her mouth…
She rubbed the soap against the sponge.
… The bandages rotting, rusty safety-pins keeping them in place. Toes jutting out of shoes…
She returned the soap to the rack, put the sponge to her face.
… Pigeons perching on her shoulders, perching on her hands, on her head…
—Scum of the earth, Mrs Barber said. Move away from our terrace.
The tramp-woman lit her clay pipe.
—You lower the tone of the district. Doesn’t she, Faith?
‘Yes. You’re not fit to—’
She opened her eyes. She sat up in the bath and listened. The children might have heard her talking.
Edna Gadny should have seen the tramp-woman. Her skin really was grey.
*
They were off to spend Sunday with Mr and Mrs Nutley, Thelma’s parents. Mrs Gadny sat between the children in the back of the car.
‘We chose the right day,’ Thelma said. The weather was spring-like, trees beginning to bud.
‘It’s a change for you, dear. You must get very bored at Roselea with only me for company in the day time.’
‘I don’t get bored, Thelma. Not the slightest bit. No.’
‘It’s a change, anyway. You haven’t seen my Mum since our wedding, have you?’
No, she hadn’t seen Thelma’s mother since the wedding. She wished she could remind Thelma that the question had been answered on three separate occasions since Mrs Nutley’s telephone call of a week ago.
‘She’s our proper Gran,’ Edna said.
Thelma said hastily, ‘Edna means that Henry’s only your stepson, while I’m Mum’s rightful daughter—’
‘I know, Thelma. I know what you mean, Edna.’ She patted the child’s knee.
‘Remember, young Michael, I want you to speak to your grandparents today. I don’t want you sulking in corners. You just be sociable, like your sister.’
‘He’s a shy boy. Some boys are. Henry’s father – my Tom – was shy of people all his life, wasn’t he, Henry?’
‘I suppose he was.’
‘You suppose! You know quite well. He hated company. He hardly spoke to the people he worked with for so many years. He sat in his chair most evenings and Celia and me, we’d forget he was there. His head was in his Bible – or he’d be staring into the fire—’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘Your Michael probably has the same sort of nature. He’ll be a thoughtful one.’
‘So long as he’s sensible as well.’
‘He will be.’
‘We don’t know, do we, dear? We can only guess. Everything rests with fate.’
Fate might bring him, like her Celia, to an early grave. ‘Lift your head up, Michael,’ she said softly.
‘Yes, young Michael, do as you’re told. Allow your grandparents to see your face for once.’
*
‘Edna’s wearing Georgie’s ribbon, isn’t she?’ Georgie, Mrs Nutley’s dog, had pink ribbon tied in a bow between his ears. ‘He’s a boisterous little chap is Georgie. He’s a chihuahua, Faith.’
The dog attempted to bite Michael’s ankle. The boy, backing away, began to cry.
‘He hates the male sex, does Georgie. He won’t even tolerate Mr Nutley – will he, Maurice?’
‘No.’
‘He barks his little head off if I try to go anywhere without him.’ She added, in a whisper, nudging Mrs Gadny, ‘I even have to take him to the toilet with me. I can’t leave him with Mr Nutley for a moment – he’d plague his life.’
Michael screamed.
‘Oh, Michael, what a thing to do! Are you frightened of my little dog?’
Michael nodded, sniffed.
‘You don’t want your son becoming a cissy, do you, Henry?’ She called to the dog: ‘Come to Mummy, Georgie. Leave the cry-baby alone.’
Mrs Nutley bent down, took Georgie into her arms.
‘Shall we all go into the house? Do you notice the name, Faith?’
A wooden sign hung from the porch.
‘As you see, it says “The Haven”. That’s how we think of our home – a haven, a haven of rest. Mr Nutley and myself put our life savings into buying it. We wanted somewhere snug for our last years.’
*
‘Maurice,’ Mrs Nutley said when the greetings were done and coats hung in the hall, ‘take your grandson to see the animals.’ Mr Nutley was nothing more than a boy in his heart – the old idiot kept white mice and rabbits in his shed at the bottom of the back lawn. He spent hours with the blessed creatures – she had often considered divorcing him, citing them as co-respondents. ‘The shed is forbidden territory, isn’t it, Georgie?’ She gave the dog a finger to play with. ‘Don’t lick Mummy’s varnish off, naughty one.’
‘When are we eating?’
‘Your stomach, Maurice – it’s never long out of your mind. We’ll eat at twelve. Now then, let’s have some organization. Don’t stand about, Maurice, take your grandson off before Georgie sends him into a fit. I shall show Henry’s stepmother over the house. Would Faith like that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. You, Thelma, take Edna and that husband of yours into the lounge.’
*
‘Impressed?’
‘Yes.’
‘We found most of our ideas in American magazines. The kitchen came straight from a picture in Luxury Homes.’
‘Oh?’
Luxury Homes? Luxury Factories.
‘The picture decided us. It had to be ours, cost regardless.’
Red lights, green lights, switches, dials.
‘Well, Faith, this is our last port of call. Our guest room. Your inspection’s completed.’
‘Thank you for showing me, Mrs—’
She’d forgotten Thelma’s maiden name. The embarrassment.
‘For God’s sake, Faith, you know I’m Marjorie. You don’t have to be all stiff and formal with me.’
‘No.’
Black-outs hit everyone at times.
