“Hunsdon House, Granny,” Polly said. “You do. Seb comes from there. So did Mr Lynn.”
“I don’t know about it,” Granny repeated, still with the same look. Is she going crazy? Polly wondered. What shall I do if she is? “I’ve lived here for thirty years now,” Granny said, “and there’s only one thing I do know, Polly. Every nine years, at Hallowe’en, a funeral comes down this road from That House. Old Mrs Oaks told me that it’s a woman every eighty-one years, and she comes down on Hallowe’en. Every other time it’s a man, and he comes down the day after.”
Cold all through, with her hair pricking at the back of her neck, Polly knelt and stared at Granny. Mintchoc, aware that something peculiar was delaying her supper, began squirming indignantly. And Granny, who normally indulged Mintchoc’s every whim, seemed not to notice. “Mrs Oaks?” Polly asked, trying to make things seem normal again. “Is she the one you call Aches? Or is she Pains?”
“I’m talking about their mother,” Granny said. “And if I were to tell you what they were in That House, you’d laugh and not believe me. Nowadays they lay it on the men not to tell, you know.”
Here, to Polly’s relief, Mintchoc distracted Granny by wriggling free and jumping to the floor. Granny’s face took on its usual look of sharp intelligence. “She needs her supper, that cat,” she said, and followed Mintchoc downstairs.
Polly got up and followed them both. Granny was in the kitchen at the sink, cutting up expensive plaice with a pair of scissors, and Mintchoc was on the draining board beside her, tail up and complaining loudly. Mintchoc had the best of everything and was very strict about the time she had it.
“I did something terrible to Mr Lynn,” said Polly, “and he went.”
Granny said, while her scissors went crake-crake-crake, “Don’t come to me for sympathy, then. I never did like your Seb.”
“I’m not talking about Seb,” Polly said. “Thomas Lynn, Granny.”
“Then it’s no one I know.” Crake, went the scissors.
“I’m telling you,” said Polly. “I did something awful, and I can’t remember what I did.”
“Then you’d better think, hadn’t you?” crake-crake, said Granny.
“I can’t—”
“Can’t is won’t, most like, if it’s that bad,” Granny replied. “Here we are, Mintchoc. Nice fish.” She pushed the plate of cut fish across the draining board. Mintchoc’s head went down into it ravenously, snatch, snatch, tossing strips of fish into her gullet.
“You’re hopeless when you talk in proverbs,” Polly said. “You don’t listen.”
“I heard you,” Granny said. “If you’ve something buried in your head, then you’ll have to fetch it out before I can help you, won’t you?”
Polly sighed. Mintchoc crouched, crunching sideways at the fish. “I think I’ll go and ask Mum if she remembers.”
“Do that. You owe her a visit before you go off again.” These days Granny was very particular about Polly paying Ivy regular visits. “But be back to pack,” she called after Polly. “It’s not right to keep Mr Perks waiting while you do it tomorrow.”
Polly went out under the tingeing trees and turned right rather more quickly than usual. Hunsdon House, hidden down at the end of the street behind the yellowing leaves, seemed remarkably close at her back. It was a feeling she had not had for years now.
She walked, knowing the way too well to notice it, feeling like a thin skin bag in the shape of a person, crammed full of memories. The pictures, the appalling horse, Stow-on-the-Water, the quartet rehearsing in the green basement, the jet of pure misery at Middleton Fair. It was like yesterday, that misery. In a way, it was yesterday, because of the blank in between. It seemed to have burst up again, just as strong, as if those four years had not been there – but altered, because of whatever she had done a month after Middleton Fair, into something urgent and angry. It hurt Polly so that she moved her eyes away from a pair of happy lovers galumphing towards her down the pavement.
She saw them, even with her eyes on the fence. They had their arms round one another, pulling one another from side to side, laughing. The girl shone out in glistening purple and green. Her hair was crimson. Polly did not look at her pulling the boy almost over into the road. Nina Carrington, she thought, as she had thought many times, with yet another boyfriend. This boy was good-looking, with curly fair hair.
Then she looked. The boy was Leslie. “Hello, Nina!” she said.
Nina paused, clinging to Leslie’s arm with both her own shiny green ones, and gave Polly a puzzled, unfriendly look. “Oh, hello,” she said, and tried to pull Leslie on again.
Leslie, however, was true to Polly’s hidden memories of him. He hung back and peered at Polly round Nina’s crimson head. He grinned at her. “Who’s your friend?” he asked Nina. It was clear to Polly that he had not the least idea who she was.
“Polly Whittacker,” said Nina. “And she’s not my friend. She’s an intellectual.”
“Oh come off it, Nina!” said Polly. “We’ve known each other forever.”
Nina heaved at Leslie to make him walk on again. “We have?” she said coldly. “You’ve not spoken one word to me since we were in Junior School. So why the sudden interest?”
This was true, according to Polly’s plain, single memories. And Polly herself had believed it enough almost to walk straight past without speaking. Nina obviously resented it, and resented even more the way Leslie was grinning at Polly.
“My name’s Leslie,” he said. “Live in Middleton, do you, Polly?”
Polly nodded. “I live quite near Hunsdon House,” she said deliberately. “Do you know the Leroys?”
“The Leroys.” Leslie’s face suddenly looked as if a pink light was shining on it. And, Polly thought, it took quite a lot to make Leslie blush. “Sort of,” he admitted. But he was obviously too uncomfortable to go on talking, and he let Nina pull him on past Polly.
Hell! Polly thought. That worked a bit too well! “Leslie,” she called after him. “If you know the Leroys, you must know Tom too!”
Leslie’s too-pink face turned to look back at her. “I don’t think so. What name?”
“Thomas Lynn,” said Polly.
Nina turned round too. “Eff off,” she said.
Leslie was shaking his head and clearly not faking it. Polly could see he did not know Thomas Lynn any more than he had known her. “It doesn’t matter,” she called, and let them go on, wrestling and pushing and laughing, down the street.
She walked the other way, in an empty kind of horror. Real life, which yesterday had seemed safe and dullish and ordinary, was not real at all. It was a sham. Nina should have known her. So should Leslie. And what, in heaven’s name, did the sham hide?
She reached the road where she had once lived. The bushy tree across the road, where she remembered Seb once lurking, had been cut down. She wondered when. Ivy’s house needed painting, badly. She had not noticed that either, till now. Inside, it was even shabbier, with most of the pretty floral wallpaper from Polly’s childhood still there, but stained and faded. Polly went in through the small, untidy kitchen and found Ivy in the front room, aimlessly watching television. Ivy’s face sagged these days and she had put on weight. She had obviously not been to work that day, for she was wearing a greasy old padded dressing gown, and her these-days bulging feet were shoved into man’s slippers. But she had made a bit of an effort with her hair, enough to put it in curlers.
Polly, who had still been seeing her as the young, pretty Ivy of her childhood, stood and stared. My God! she thought. She’s turned into the way I used to imagine Edna! “Mum! You’re not ill, are you?”
Ivy turned, nursing a mug of tea in both frayed-looking hands.
“Oh it’s you. There’s some tea if you want to get yourself a cup.” She nodded to the teapot on the floor beside her. “I’m all right. Don’t worry about me. It’s only my nerves again.”
Polly, as she went to find a cup, told herself that this was not the r
eal Ivy. The real Ivy was the one she remembered, bustling about, keeping the house pretty, keeping herself pretty, making strenuous efforts to keep things together after the divorce. Ivy and she were quite fond of one another these days. Life had not been kind to Ivy.
“I’m off to college tomorrow,” she said, coming back and pouring herself some tea. She had to shout a little because Ivy had the television turned up very loud.
“That’s right. Go and waste your time reading useless books,” Ivy said in her usual gloomy, matter-of-fact way. “Run through the taxpayers’ money. See your stuck-up boyfriend and never think about me. Never care that I’m sitting here a bundle of nerves, with the new lodger starting deceiving me already, and not a soul to turn to in my trouble.”
She always talks this way, Polly told herself. She steeled herself to listen sympathetically as usual.
“I only asked for a little happiness,” Ivy began again. “You have to go out and take it in this world. Happiness won’t come to you. I thought I’d found it this time, but he’s being so secretive, Polly.”
Polly found herself attending properly to this. And it was such nonsense. It always had been. “Oh, honestly, Mum! You and your search for happiness!” she said. She tried to say it in a light and kindly way, but it took such an effort that her hands shook round her teacup. “Happiness isn’t a thing. You can’t go out and get it like a cup of tea. It’s the way you feel about things.”
“But things have to go right if you’re to feel happy,” Ivy retorted. “And it’s only my own little share of happiness that I want. Everyone’s due that. I’m only asking for what should be mine.”
“Who says it should be yours?” Polly said irritably. “What law is it that says that?”
“I do,” said Ivy. “It’s because there’s no law that I have to go out and collect it. But you’ve always been against me,” she added, as if it were an accepted fact. “You never come here unless you’re after something. What do you want this time?”
It’s not her fault, Polly told herself. Still trying to speak lightly, she clenched her hands round her cup and said, “You know your trouble, Mum? You’re a miser – a happiness miser. And I’m not always after something. This is the first time I’ve ever asked you for anything, and even now it’s only information. Do you remember Mr Lynn at all?”
“Mr Lynn? And who might he be?” said Ivy.
“A man I used to know when I was small. He played the cello and used to send me books.”
“One of those,” said Ivy. “Your Mr Nobodies. You were always making things up. The way you used to believe in them used to make me fear for your reason, Polly. I’ll never forget the time you made yourself believe poor David Bragge was sending you presents, when it was your father all the time. I’ve forgiven you now, of course. But you knocked the happiness clean out of my hands over that.”
“It was not Dad,” Polly said, “who sent me those books.”
“Then it was David,” Ivy said broodingly. “Ah, well.”
“No,” said Polly. “It was Mr Lynn.”
“Go on!” Ivy said, chuckling a little. “You made him up!”
Polly stood up and put her cup on a chair arm, balancing it carefully. Mr Leroy had got at Ivy through Mr Lynn sending The Golden Bough. Had Mr Leroy made Ivy like this? It was a horrible thought, because, if so, it was indirectly Polly’s fault.
“Look at you,” Ivy said, brooding still. “You’ve rotted your mind with reading books. You can’t take a realistic view of life like I do. You can’t see the world as it is any longer.”
“Thank you for that,” Polly said, gasping a little. “You make it hard for anyone to be sorry for you, Mum. Goodbye.”
“You’re not going already?” Ivy protested. “What have I done to deserve this? Where are you off to so fast?”
“Nowhere,” Polly said, without thinking. Hearing herself say it, she gave a cackle of laughter as she hurried out of the house. Behind her, Ivy called out, “This is what you get for wasting good money on a college education!”
Polly ran, in order not to hear any more. No. No! she thought, as she shut the back door. I didn’t make Mr Lynn up – surely – did I? And yet, if you thought of it, what more likely thing for a lonely child to do? Particularly if that child was not happy and knew her parents were going to get divorced.
If so, it was a pretty odd set of things to make up, she thought.
But not impossible, she had to admit.
Without calculating, she walked towards the Rose and Crown, the way she had so often gone once with David Bragge’s secret notes. And there was the Rose and Crown, and there was Mr O’Keefe leaning against the wall, just as he always used to do. Does he ever go away at all? Polly wondered. Mr O’Keefe seemed just the same as ever, just as shabby, just as skinny, wearing the same disgraceful dirty hat – though there seemed to be a few more teeth missing from the wide smile with which he welcomed her.
“Hello my darling! It’s a long time since you were here carrying me your notes. You’ve had time to grow up a lovely young woman since you came this way last. Look at the hair on you still! Such lovely hair. I used to dream of it at nights!”
“Oh – thank you – I suppose it is a long time,” Polly said, rather taken by surprise at this welcome. “How are you, Mr O’Keefe?” He was well, he told her. Couldn’t complain. And Polly? Polly explained she lived with Granny these days, and then asked what she realised she must have come to ask. “Tell me, Mr O’Keefe – are you still in touch with David Bragge?”
Mr O’Keefe’s eyes slid into the unshaven corners of his face and he looked at her narrowly. “I am. But take advice from me. He’s not the man to go to in your trouble, my darling.”
“I – Oh. I only wanted to ask him something,” Polly said. “Why not?”
Mr O’Keefe tipped a skinny hand to his mouth, acting someone drinking. He winked, a slow, sad wink. “Far worse than I am,” he said. “Don’t see him, my darling. It wouldn’t be fair to the both of you.”
“Then – could you give me his telephone number instead?” Polly asked.
Mr O’Keefe tried to dissuade her, but he did not pretend not to know it. At length he gave her an old betting slip and lent her a pen, and Polly wrote the number against the wall of the Rose and Crown as Mr O’Keefe dictated it. She gave the pen back and thanked him fervently. “Hey now! Don’t go doing that!” he said. Polly turned back, not sure what he meant. “Smiling like that at the men,” Mr O’Keefe said. “You’ve a soft heart someone will take advantage of, if you go tempting us poor lads that way.”
Polly laughed, hoping that was the right way to respond, and ran to the nearest phone booth. It was no wonder, she thought, seeing her face in its mirror as she dialled the number, that Mr O’Keefe thought she was in trouble. She looked white and strained and desperate.
David’s voice, when he answered, sounded thick with drink.
“This is Polly Whit—”
“Polly!” David shouted. “Long time no see! Must be years since I last clapped oculars on—” His voice thickened and stammered as he remembered the circumstances in which he last saw Polly. “Live with your grandmother still? Nice old lady.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Polly said. “Listen, David, this may strike you as an odd thing to ask, but do you remember the time someone kept sending me books—?”
“And Ivy thought it was me. Wasn’t me,” David interrupted earnestly. “Remember it well. Always had a soft spot for you. Lovely, warm-hearted kid you were, Polly. How old are you now? Fifteen, sixteen?”
“Nineteen,” said Polly, and cut through his amazement at how time flies by asking, “Who did you think those books were from?”
“Seem to remember Ivy said it was your father,” David said. “Muddled sort of business. You said not, didn’t you? Always inclined to believe you rather than Ivy, Polly. Soul of honour you were to me. Come round and see me. Tomorrow. Make an effort, be sober tomorrow. Say you’ll come.”
“I?
??m leaving for college tomorrow,” Polly said. “I’ll come round when I’m back at Christmas, if you like. Didn’t I say the books were from Mr Lynn?”
“Can’t say I remember you mentioned any name. But if the books weren’t from your father and they weren’t from me, it stands to reason they had to be from someone else. Clever thought, that,” David said, pleased with himself. “Polly, I’m longing to see you again. I know I’m nothing but a lonely old soak these days, but you’d gladden my heart, Polly. Do come round.”
“I’ll come at Christmas,” Polly promised, and rang off rather wishing she had not said that. He sounded as if he cherished a sentimental affection for her a little warmer than she had bargained for – maybe all those compliments that used to annoy Ivy so had not been a game after all – and this was what Mr O’Keefe had been warning her about. Oh, well.
Polly squeezed out of the phone booth and let the heavy door shut behind her. David had provided the one hint so far that Thomas Lynn might indeed have existed. If only for that, she would have to go and see him at Christmas. As he said, someone must have sent her those books. It was not much, but it was something. She remembered reading those books, all of them, vividly, and, what was more, she had gone on remembering them even through the plain four years when her memories ran single again.
So, who else could she ask?
The obvious answer was Seb. But if there was any truth at all in those hidden memories, Seb was the one person she could not ask. She might as well go straight to Mr Leroy and Laurel. Oh, that was rich! Polly gave an unhappy laugh as she strode unseeingly home to Granny’s. She had indeed gone to see Mr Leroy and Laurel, earlier this summer. And Laurel had then been to her simply Seb’s stepmother, a beautiful Mrs Leroy she had never met before.
Fancy forgetting Laurel! she thought as she strode. Or Mr Leroy, for that matter!
It had been when Seb had at last cajoled, bullied and pleaded with her to get engaged to him. And then he said she must meet his parents. The Leroys had not been at Hunsdon House. Polly had gone up to London, to their large and exquisitely furnished flat. She had been awed by the statues and pictures and antique furniture in it. A great contrast – she realised now – to the flat where she had gone to visit Mr Lynn. And she wondered if Mr Lynn could have lived in this magnificent flat at one time, when he was married to Laurel. There had even been, she remembered now, a picture in the hall with a little light over it – an Impressionist painting of a picnic party – which could have been the very one she had caused Mr Lynn to steal nearly nine years before.