Doreen said: ‘Aunt Edie had a cousin Polly, didn’t she? D’you know where she lives? I wired to the address in Tavistock, but they said she moved soon after the war. Ooh, I’m tired; I was up at six this morning.’
Mother’s stick was in the corner, propped up against the dresser, and a pair of her going-out shoes; very narrow and pointed: she’d always had narrow feet and wore pointed shoes long before they were the fashion.
‘Y’know, tis ’ard to credit,’ said Lucy. ‘I still think I shall ’ear ’er coming down the stairs. Would you like to see ’er now, Marnie? We done a nice job, the nurse and me. You’ll think she’s just asleep.’
But she didn’t look asleep to me. She looked very faded and very, very small. She didn’t look like my mother really at all. I went up to her, and the more I looked at her the more she looked like something that’s been left behind. She looked just as much like my mother as the shoes downstairs and the stick looked like her, and the dressing-gown behind the door. Whatever I cared for was gone and this could all be dumped. Maybe it sounds callous but it wasn’t, it was how I felt.
I slept with Doreen, or anyway, I shared the bed and lay awake looking at the curtains, the way they went darker and then lighter through the night as the moon set and then the dawn came. I got up at six and made tea, but I didn’t wake them. I felt like someone in the boxing ring who’s had first a jab on the solar plexus and then a right hook. I’d been to boxing once or twice at Plymouth, and I’d seen that happen to a man. He came out for the sixth round, out of his corner quite normal, but I was close and I could see by his eyes that he didn’t really know what he was doing at all. He went on making the motions of fighting, but it was just a question of time before the third blow landed and stretched him out.
I got my third blow about a quarter to seven.
I’d been sitting with Mother for half an hour, but as I say not really thinking of anything or thinking she was there. I mean I’d been sitting by the bed not far away from her as the sun struck in through a slit in the curtains, and I thought how crazy it was I couldn’t get her a cup of tea, and there was a fly buzzing somewhere, and I knew how mother hated flies. She used to squash them against the window panes with her fingers sometimes; I hated her doing that. And then I saw that old black imitation crocodile bag of hers that she’d carried everywhere. It was on top of the wardrobe. I could see the corner of it and I thought, I wonder if there’s that other photo of Dad in it, because I think she might like to have it with her in the coffin.
I mean you can be punch drunk one minute and as weepy and sentimental and silly as anything the next; so I got the bag down and clipped open the long tarnished clasp. The first thing I found was a photo of me at eighteen, and I thought perhaps that could go as well; and then there were some old newspaper clippings. The first one I saw was out of the Western Morning News again, announcing a birth. Frank and Edith Elmer had had a daughter. That was me too.
There was a bottle of the charcoal pills she took for her rheumatism, and then, Heaven help me, my baptism card. Then there was the newspaper cutting about Dad’s death, the one she’d shown me. A wedding card, her wedding card, made my throat close up, and clipped to it was an old dance programme that made me feel worse.
Then I picked out another cutting. It was dated November 1943 but it hadn’t a newspaper heading. The top of the column said: ‘Plymouth Woman Bound Over on Murder Charge’.
I thought this must be someone Mother knew, until I saw the words Mrs Edith Elmer. Then I took that column in so fast I still can’t remember which order the words came in.
‘At Bodmin Assizes today Mrs Edith Elizabeth Elmer, aged 41, of Kersey Bungalow, Sangerford, Liskeard, was charged with the murder of her new-born child . . . Opening for the Prosecution, Counsel said that Mrs Elmer, an evacuee divorced woman living alone with her five-year-old daughter . . . Her neighbour, Miss Nye, helped to deliver the child, but there seemed some doubt as to the exact sequence of events before the district nurse was summoned . . . Nurse Vannion would tell how she came to the house and found Mrs Elmer in a state of prostration. Mrs Elmer informed Nurse Vannion that she had had a miscarriage but the nurse’s suspicions were aroused, and going into the next bedroom she found the body of a perfectly formed child wrapped in newspaper under the bed. The child was dead and evidence would be brought to prove that it died of strangulation . . .’
I dropped the cutting and it fluttered to the floor like one of those paper streamers. I bent down for it and dropped the bag. Bits and pieces fell out of the bag and rolled under the bed. A cotton reel, a two-shilling piece, a thimble, a box of matches. I went down on my knees scrabbling for them in the curtained half-light, but I couldn’t hold anything, my fingers were shaking so much.
I got hold of the cutting and sat up on my heels, and there a few inches away from my face on the edge of the bed was a hand. It was a thin knobbly hand, and as I looked at it it slid an inch down the slope of the bed.
Somehow I managed to straighten up. I hadn’t any feet or knees. I sat balanced on cold water. I looked at my mother’s dead face. I looked and looked. I’d sat there for half an hour and never had a qualm. But now I was like in some sort of frozen terror. And then it seemed to me she sighed. Any minute now, I thought, that old face is going to move, those lids will flutter and show grey blobs of evil staring at me, as they’d stared at me that time in Dr Roman’s when I’d been a child again with my back pressed cold against the wall.
I made a move to the door but it was backwards, I couldn’t get my eyes off her. Another step and I was there, the knob in my thigh. I got round, my hands were too sweaty and weak to turn the knob. I had to use the other hand and the news cutting got screwed up. I got the door open and backed out. I backed into Lucy Nye.
‘Look, dear,’ Lucy Nye said, ‘don’t ’ee take it like that. Listen, you was never meant to know. All these years we kept it to ourselves. I used to say to Edie ’twould be better to tell the girl, you never can be sure someone else won’t. But she wouldn’t. Oh, no, she was a strong one, was Edie, an’ stubborn as a mule. I never dreamed she’d kept that newspaper, dear. I wonder why she done that? Now it’s all come out on account of ’er own foolishness.’
Lucy poured me tea like liquid boot polish. She kept looking at me with her one big eye and her one small one. They squinted at me like marbles that had fallen into wrinkles in the sand. They didn’t tell me anything. Only the voice went on.
‘Drink this, dear, it’ll do you good. Doreen isn’t stirring yet. I’ll take ’er up a cup in a—’
‘Does she know?’
‘About your Mam? I don’t think so. She’s only same age as you. That’s unless her Dad’s told ’er.’
‘He knows?’
‘Yes, dear. ’E was on convoy work but ’e was in Devonport refitting at the time.’
‘I don’t get it. I don’t get anything at all.’
‘No, dear. Well if you know s’much I’d better tell you. Drink your tea.’ Lucy scratched in the parting of her grey hair. I remembered when that hair was a faded fair, and I remembered she’d scratched just the same way then, with her three middle fingers. ‘I knew your Mam when she was a girl, dear. A ’andsome girl she was too. Not so pretty as you but striking, like. I used to live across the street. She was always with boys, always a different one, but always kept ’erself nice like. She was brought up strict. ’Er Dad was strict with ’er, make no mistake. An’ she kept the boys in their place. I used t’ watch ’er. She’d always make ’em leave ’er on the corner of Wardle Street and walk down alone, case the old man was watching. My mother used to say, she’ll pick and choose once too often, all that dressing up, all that money on ’er back. Your Mam worked in Marks & Spencers then.’
Old Lucy rubbed the back of her hand across the tip of her nose. ‘Then I moved Liskeard way, and I only saw ’er off’n on. I knew she’d married your Dad, and I seen you once when you was a mite of two. But I never seen much of ’er until the war. Then
she was evacuated to the bungalow next to me. Your Dad was in the Navy. She come along with you, an’ you was, I s’pose, three and a half or four. Lovely little thing, you was. No trouble at all. I used to push you out. We got more friendly, like. She used to say she was lonely, your Mam did. She missed ’er friends an’ the shops an’ one thing and another. But she ’adn’t changed, always dressed well, kep’ herself to herself; you know ’ow she was. Well, I say she ’adn’t changed . . .’
I turned the newspaper cutting over and over. There was an advert for Mumford’s Garage on the back, and a paragraph saying ‘Enemy Plane Shot Down’. The paper was yellow and had been folded a lot. How often had she read it? How often had she read it through?
‘. . . It was just then she got friendly with soldiers, dear. I don’t like to ’ave to say it but she did. Your Dad was at sea and she was lonely, I s’pose. There was a lot of soldiers round about Liskeard just then. You know, time on their ’ands. Mind you, you never seen her with one, that was the rum thing, but everybody knew it just the same. The soldiers knew it too. I s’pose they told each other. ’Twas the strangest thing you ever seen; there she was living in that tiny bungalow along with you, respectable, you couldn’t find no fault with ’er, well dressed, always partic’lar ’ow she spoke and who she spoke to; out walking in the afternoon, never in a pub nor nothing, but everyone knew. If a soldier came along after dark, all he’d got to do was tap on the window and—’
I said: ‘I used to be sleeping with her, and the tap would come and she’d lift me out and put me in the spare bedroom. The bed was always cold. She’d lock me in . . . D’you mean any soldier?’
‘That I don’t rightly know, dear,’ Lucy said carefully. ‘She’d never say. I didn’t dare ask ’er then, and afterwards she’d never say, never talk of it, word never crossed ’er lips. I reckon soldiers was always being moved here and there. Maybe she ’ad only a few favourites, but of course idle tongues wagged and made it more and more.’
‘Did Dad get to know?’
‘Not for a year or longer, dear. When ’e came ’ome word ’ad gone round and no soldier came near the place. But I think ’e ’ad ’is suspicions. Because one night in the winter of ’42, January or February, ’twould be, he come back unexpected.’
‘So it’s true, what it says here, “evacuee divorced woman” . . .’
‘Yes, dear, ’e took it bad and divorced ’er. That’s how she didn’t ’ave no pension. She denied it, y’know, said ’twas all a pack of lies, even though he came back unexpected and found what ’e did find. So then she was on her own, as you might say.’
‘Except for me.’
‘Yes, dear, and you was coming along beautiful. I never seen a handsomer little girl. Five you was then. I used to take you out every afternoon. Your Mam wasn’t strong. She’d go out shopping in the morning. ’Member her walk before she got that bad leg? No, you wouldn’t. Rum walk she always ’ad – not like a . . . well, not like a woman who did what she was doing – partic’lar, respectable, feet in a straight line, you know, one knee ever so nearly touching the other. Never too much powder or paint. ’Twas just the same after the divorce as before. Vicar’s wife she might have been. But she kept on with ’er games. I was nearest to ’er, y’know.
‘I used t’run little errands for ’er; we was close, our bungalows was semis. I could see everything, but she never let on even to me. Once I says something to ’er and she says, “Lucy, there’s evil tongues and evil thoughts; it is for you to choose your company.” I shut up after that. Another time I know she says, “These poor boys, away from their hearths an’ homes, ’tis the least one can do to give them companionship, to offer them the quiet fireside of a Christian home.”’ Lucy shivered. ‘An’ then she got caught.’
The clock struck half past seven. The paint was coming off one of those damned pink and green lovebirds, and there was a crack in the face.
‘She got caught, but she didn’t let on. It wasn’t long before the neighbours began to talk. It was Mrs Waters that spoke to me first, behind ’er ’and. I said, oh, no, I don’t think so, but as soon as she spoke I knew ’twas true. We none of us said nothing for months and then Mrs Waters tackled ’er. She said, “Oh, Mrs Elmer, ’ave I to congratulate you?” Your Mam says, “I don’t know what you mean.” Mrs Waters says, “You’re expecting a certain event, aren’t you, Mrs Elmer?” and your Mam says – “How dare you be so downright insulting!” and goes off with ’er ’ead in the air. Well, after that—’
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘What’s that?’
‘What’s what?’ said Lucy.
‘I thought I heard footsteps on the stairs.’
We sat there like mice at the tread of a cat; it was a sunny morning but this window faced west and the curtains were drawn, so it was half dark; Lucy’s cup began to rattle so she put it down.
So I said: ‘I’d better go and see.’
‘Nay, leave it be, Marnie.’
I thought of my mother and wondered if she was still upstairs or if she was standing outside listening with that thin knobbled hand of hers on the kitchen door. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t go and see. There was cold sweat on my face.
I got to the door somehow and wrenched it open. There was nothing there.
But it was darker than ever out in the lobby, and maybe there were things I couldn’t see.
I shut the door and stood with my back to it. ‘She said she wasn’t going to have a baby.’
‘No . . . that’s what she said. She wouldn’t admit it to no one. Not a soul. I was always in an’ out, though she was never afraid to tell me to be off when I wasn’t welcome or when she ’ad “a friend” coming. The last month, of course ’twas clear and plain to everyone, but if I so much as dropped a ’int she choked me off. You know ’ow she could. There was never sight nor sign to the very end of anything made ready, no baby clothes, no linen, no knitting, no nothing. Then on the night it ’appened she come to me . . . Sit down, dear.’
‘Let me stand.’
‘The night it ’appened she come to me and says, “Lucy, I’m very unwell. I think there’s something the matter with me. Come in a minute.” When I went in, there was you sitting in front of the kitchen fire crying your eyes out, and she fair collapsing on the bed in ’er bedroom as she followed in after me . . .’ Lucy’s face twitched. ‘Well, I done what I could but I seen what was wrong and I was for going for the doctor, but she says, “No. I won’t allow it, Lucy. Get the child out of the way. We can manage. It will all be over very very soon.” Well . . . well, there ’twas, I should’ve gone, no doubt, but ’twas almost too late anyhow. ’Ow long it’d been going on before she sent for me I haven’t the least notion. So I put you in the next bedroom and locked you in, poor mite you was trembling and trembling, and I came back to your Mam, and in an hour a fine baby boy was born. Cor, I was in a terror, I reely was. But when ’twas over, my dear soul, I felt a changed woman! I says to her, “’Tis what you deserve, Edie, for being so obstinate and stubborn, but God be thanked, all has been for the best and you have a lovely little boy!” And she looks at me and says, “Lucy, don’t tell anyone yet. Leave me now for an hour or two to rest.” And I says “I’ll do no such thing, the baby wants washing and binding. You’ve got nothing ’ere, so I’ll nip in my place and fetch what I can lay me ’ands on.” So I went . . .’
Lucy poured herself another cup of tea. She slopped a good bit in the saucer too, and sat there all hunched up licking her fingers. Then she tipped the tea out of the saucer into the cup, and the rattle of the crockery in her shaky hands was like a morse code.
‘So I went and – and when I came back in twenty minutes the baby was gone. God ’elp me, Marnie, that’s how ’twas! She was there in bed, in a muck sweat, and looking white as paper and she stared at me with all ’er eyes. I never seen the like, God ’elp me, I never. I says to ’er: “Edie, where’s the baby? Edie!” And she answers me in two words. “What baby?” Just like that: “What baby?” as if I’d dre
amed it all.’
The milkman was coming round with his bottles. He rattled down a couple outside and then his footsteps went thudding off.
Lucy said: ‘Maybe she was crazy mad, Marnie. Maybe I was too. ’Twas like looking at someone you loved and seeing ’er for the first time. But you see, I was never so strong-minded as ’er and if there was no baby ’twas my word against ’ers. You was screaming to be let out, and she just lay there with ’er great eyes and said, “What baby?” as if I dreamed it all . . . Gracious knows what I’d’ve done in the end. My life and soul, I b’lieve I’d’ve let it go, but soon after she started a ’aemorrhage and it went on and nothing would stop it, an’ I knew then I couldn’t just stand there and let ’er die – though she said I must; she said: “Let me die, Lucy; no matter, you can look after Marnie, let me die.” But Marnie, ’twas too much for me and I fled from the bungalow and sent for the district nurse. And when she come she found the baby, just as it say in that there paper, under – under the bed in the next room . . .’
I went away from the door and went through the kitchen to the scullery and I vomited there, as if I’d taken poison, and I ran the water and tried to run it over my face and arms. Lucy came out.
‘Marnie, dear, I’m sorry. ’Tis all past and done with and long since forgotten. ’Tis no fault of yours and she suffered for it and no one’d have been the wiser but for her silly foolishness keeping that paper, and there’s no call to take on so. Lie down and let me see for your breakfast.’
I shook my head and got away from the sink and took up a towel. My hair was hanging in wet streaks like seaweed. I dried my face and hands and I stood by the flickering fire and my fingers touched something on the mantelpiece. It was Mother’s gloves. I pulled my hand away like I’d touched something hot. I started shaking my head to try to clear it.