‘Oh, come now,’ murmured Dr Friendman with his sad, humane smile.
Mr Mockler followed. Dr Friendman from the room. They crossed a landing and descended a back staircase, passing near a kitchen in which a chef with a tall chef’s hat was beating pieces of meat. ‘Ah, Wiener schnitzel,’ said Dr Friendman.
In the cobbled courtyard the gardener had finished sweeping up the leaves and was wheeling them away in a wheelbarrow. The woman was still sitting on the tapestry-backed chair, still smiling in the autumn sunshine.
‘Look,’ said Dr Friendman, ‘a visitor.’
The woman rose and went close to Mr Mockler. ‘They didn’t mean to frighten you,’ she said, ‘even though it’s the only way ghosts can communicate. They were only having fun, Mr Rachels.’
‘I think Mr Rachels realizes that now,’ Dr Friendman said.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Mr Mockler.
‘No one ever believed me, and I kept on saying, “When the Rachels come back, they’ll tell the truth about poor George and Alice and Isabel.” You saw them, didn’t you, Mr Rachels?’
‘Yes,’ Mr Mockler said. ‘We saw them.’
She turned and walked away, leaving the tapestry-backed chair behind her.
‘You’re a humane person,’ Dr Friendman said, holding out his right hand, which Mr Mockler shook. The same man led him back through the lawns and the rose-beds, to the gates.
It was an experience that Mr Mockler found impossible to forget. He measured and stitched, and talked to his friends Mr Uprichard and Mr Tile in the Charles the First; he went for a walk morning and evening, and no day passed during which he did not think of the woman whom people looked at through binoculars. Somewhere in England, or at least somewhere in the world, the Rachels were probably still alive, and had Mr Mockler been a younger man he might even have set about looking for them. He would have liked to bring them to the secluded house where the woman now lived, to have been there himself when they told the truth to Dr Friendman. It seemed a sadness, as he once remarked to Mr Uprichard, that on top of everything else a woman’s artificial ghosts should not be honoured, since she had brought them into being and given them life, as other women give children life.
Another Christmas
You always looked back, she thought. You looked back at other years, other Christmas cards arriving, the children younger. There was the year Patrick had cried, disliking the holly she was decorating the living-room with, There was the year Bridget had got a speck of coke in her eye on Christmas Eve and had to be taken to the hospital at Hammersmith in the middle of the night. There was the first year of their marriage, when she and Dermot were still in Waterford. And ever since they’d come to London there was the presence on Christmas Day of their landlord, Mr Joyce, a man whom they had watched becoming elderly.
She was middle-aged now, with touches of grey in her curly dark hair, a woman known for her cheerfulness, running a bit to fat. Her husband was the opposite: thin and seeming ascetic, with more than a hint of the priest in him, a good man. ‘Will we get married, Norah?’ he’d said one night in the Tara Ballroom in Waterford, 6 November 1953. The proposal had astonished her: it was his brother Ned, heavy and fresh-faced, a different kettle of fish altogether, whom she’d been expecting to make it.
Patiently he held a chair for her while she strung paper-chains across the room, from one picture-rail to another. He warned her to be careful about attaching anything to the electric light. He still held the chair while she put sprigs of holly behind the pictures. He was cautious by nature and alarmed by little things, particularly anxious in case she fell off chairs. He’d never mount a chair himself, to put up decorations or anything else: he’d be useless at it in his opinion and it was his opinion that mattered. He’d never been able to do a thing about the house, but it didn’t matter because since the boys had grown up they’d attended to whatever she couldn’t manage herself. You wouldn’t dream of remarking on it: he was the way he was, considerate and thoughtful in what he did do, teetotal, clever, full of fondness for herself and for the family they’d reared, full of respect for her also.
‘Isn’t it remarkable how quick it comes round, Norah?’ he said while he held the chair. ‘Isn’t it no time since last year?’
‘No time at all.’
‘Though a lot happened in the year, Norah.’
‘An awful lot happened.’
Two of the pictures she decorated were scenes of Waterford: the quays and a man driving sheep past the Bank of Ireland. Her mother had given them to her, taking them down from the hall of the farmhouse.
There was a picture of the Virgin and Child, and other, smaller pictures. She placed her last sprig of holly, a piece with berries on it, above the Virgin’s halo.
‘I’ll make a cup of tea,’ she said, descending from the chair and smiling at him.
‘A cup of tea’d be great, Norah.’
The living-room, containing three brown armchairs and a table with upright chairs around it, and a sideboard with a television set on it, was crowded by this furniture and seemed even smaller than it was because of the decorations that had been added. On the mantelpiece, above a built-in gas-fire, Christmas cards were arrayed on either side of an ornate green clock.
The house was in a terrace in Fulham. It had always been too small for the family, but now that Patrick and Brendan no longer lived there things were easier. Patrick had married a girl called Pearl six months ago, almost as soon as his period of training with the Midland Bank had ended. Brendan was training in Liverpool, with a firm of computer manufacturers. The three remaining children were still at school, Bridget at the nearby convent, Cathal and Tom at the Sacred Heart Primary. When Patrick and Brendan had moved out the room they’d always shared had become Bridget’s. Until then Bridget had slept in her parents’ room and she’d have to return there this Christmas because Brendan would be back for three nights. Patrick and Pearl would just come for Christmas Day. They’d be going to Pearl’s people, in Croydon, on Boxing Day – St Stephen’s Day, as Norah and Dermot always called it, in the Irish manner.
‘It’ll be great, having them all,’ he said. ‘A family again, Norah.’
‘And Pearl.’
‘She’s part of us now, Norah.’
‘Will you have biscuits with your tea? I have a packet of Nice.’
He said he would, thanking her. He was a meter-reader with North Thames Gas, a position he had held for twenty-one years, ever since he’d emigrated. In Waterford he’d worked as a clerk in the Customs, not earning very much and not much caring for the stuffy, smoke-laden office he shared with half a dozen other clerks. He had come to England because Norah had thought it was a good idea, because she’d always wanted to work in a London shop. She’d been given a job in Dickins & Jones, in the household linens department, and he’d been taken on as a meter-reader, cycling from door to door, remembering the different houses and where the meters were situated in each, being agreeable to householders: all of it suited him from the start. He devoted time to thought while he rode about, and in particular to religious matters.
In her small kitchen she made the tea and carried it on a tray into the living-room. She’d been late this year with the decorations. She always liked to get them up a week in advance because they set the mood, making everyone feel right for Christmas. She’d been busy with stuff for a stall Father Malley had asked her to run for his Christmas Sale. A fashion stall he’d called it, but not quite knowing what he meant she’d just asked people for any old clothes they had, jumble really. Because of the time it had taken she hadn’t had a minute to see to the decorations until this afternoon, two days before Christmas Eve. But that, as it turned out, had been all for the best. Bridget and Cathal and Tom had gone up to Putney to the pictures, Dermot didn’t work on a Monday afternoon: it was convenient that they’d have an hour or two alone together because there was the matter of Mr Joyce to bring up. Not that she wanted to bring it up, but it couldn’t be just left there.
r /> ‘The cup that cheers,’ he said, breaking a biscuit in half. Deliberately she put off raising the subject she had in mind. She watched him nibbling the biscuit and then dropping three heaped spoons of sugar into his tea and stirring it. He loved tea. The first time he’d taken her out, to the Savoy cinema in Waterford, they’d had tea afterwards in the cinema café and they’d talked about the film and about people they knew. He’d come to live in Waterford from the country, from the farm his brother had inherited, quite close to her father’s farm. He reckoned he’d settled, he told her that night: Waterford wasn’t sensational, but it suited him in a lot of ways. If he hadn’t married her he’d still be there, working eight hours a day in the Customs and not caring for it, yet managing to get by because he had his religion to assist him.
‘Did we get a card from Father Jack yet?’ he inquired, referring to a distant cousin, a priest in Chicago.
‘Not yet. But it’s always on the late side, Father Jack’s. It was February last year.’
She sipped her tea, sitting in one of the other brown armchairs, on the other side of the gas-fire. It was pleasant being there alone with him in the decorated room, the green clock ticking on the mantelpiece, the Christmas cards, dusk gathering outside. She smiled and laughed, taking another biscuit while he lit a cigarette. ‘Isn’t this great?’ she said. ‘A bit of peace for ourselves?’
Solemnly he nodded.
‘Peace comes dropping slow,’ he said, and she knew he was quoting from some book or other. Quite often he said things she didn’t understand. ‘Peace and goodwill,’ he added, and she understood that all right.
He tapped the ash from his cigarette into an ashtray which was kept for his use, beside the gas-fire. All his movements were slow. He was a slow thinker, even though he was clever. He arrived at a conclusion, having thought long and carefully; he balanced everything in his mind. ‘We must think about that, Norah,’ he said that day, twenty-two years ago, when she’d suggested that they should move to England. A week later he’d said that if she really wanted to he’d agree.
They talked about Bridget and Cathal and Tom. When they came in from the cinema they’d only just have time to change their clothes before setting out again for the Christmas party at Bridget’s convent.
‘It’s a big day for them. Let them lie in in the morning, Norah.’
‘They could lie in for ever,’ she said, laughing in case there might seem to be harshness in this recommendation. With Christmas excitement running high, the less she heard from them the better.
‘Did you get Cathal the gadgets he wanted?’
‘Chemistry stuff. A set in a box.’
‘You’re great the way you manage, Norah.’
She denied that. She poured more tea for both of them. She said, as casually as she could:
‘Mr Joyce won’t come. I’m not counting him in for Christmas Day.’
‘He hasn’t failed us yet, Norah.’
‘He won’t come this year.’ She smiled through the gloom at him. ‘I think we’d best warn the children about it.’
‘Where would he go if he didn’t come here? Where’d he get his dinner?’
‘Lyons used to be open in the old days.’
‘He’d never do that.’
‘The Bulrush Café has a turkey dinner advertised. There’s a lot of people go in for that now. If you have a mother doing a job she maybe hasn’t the time for the cooking. They go out to a hotel or a café, three or four pounds a head –’
‘Mr Joyce wouldn’t go to a café. No one could go into a café on their own on Christmas Day.’
‘He won’t come here, dear.’
It had to be said: it was no good just pretending, laying a place for the old man on an assumption that had no basis to it. Mr Joyce would not come because Mr Joyce, last August, had ceased to visit them. Every Friday night he used to come, for a cup of tea and a chat, to watch the nine o’clock news with them. Every Christmas Day he’d brought carefully chosen presents for the children, and chocolates and nuts and cigarettes. He’d given Patrick and Pearl a radio as a wedding present.
‘I think he’ll come all right. I think maybe he hasn’t been too well. God help him, it’s a great age, Norah.’
‘He hasn’t been ill, Dermot.’
Every Friday Mr Joyce had sat there in the third of the brown armchairs, watching the television, his bald head inclined so that his good ear was closer to the screen. He was tallish, rather bent now, frail and bony, with a modest white moustache. In his time he’d been a builder; which was how he had come to own property in Fulham, a self-made man who’d never married. That evening in August he had been quite as usual. Bridget had kissed him good-night because for as long as she could remember she’d always done that when he came on Friday evenings. He’d asked Cathal how he was getting on with his afternoon paper round.
There had never been any difficulties over the house. They considered that he was fair in his dealings with them; they were his tenants and his friends. When it seemed that the Irish had bombed English people to death in Birmingham and Guildford he did not cease to arrive every Friday evening and on Christmas Day. The bombings were discussed after the news, the Tower of London bomb, the bomb in the bus, and all the others. ‘Maniacs,’ Mr Joyce said and nobody contradicted him.
‘He would never forget the children, Norah. Not at Christmas-time.’
His voice addressed her from the shadows. She felt the warmth of the gas-fire reflected in her face and knew if she looked in a mirror she’d see that she was quite flushed. Dermot’s face never reddened. Even though he was nervy, he never displayed emotion. On all occasions his face retained its paleness, his eyes acquired no glimmer of passion. No wife could have a better husband, yet in the matter of Mr Joyce he was so wrong it almost frightened her.
‘Is it tomorrow I call in for the turkey?’ he said.
She nodded, hoping he’d ask her if anything was the matter because as a rule she never just nodded in reply to a question. But he didn’t say anything. He stubbed his cigarette out. He asked if there was another cup of tea in the pot.
‘Dermot, would you take something round to Mr Joyce?’
‘A message, is it?’
‘I have a tartan tie for him.’
‘Wouldn’t you give it to him on the day, Norah? Like you always do.’ He spoke softly, still insisting. She shook her head.
It was all her fault. If she hadn’t said they should go to England, if she hadn’t wanted to work in a London shop, they wouldn’t be caught in the trap they’d made for themselves. Their children spoke with London accents. Patrick and Brendan worked for English firms and would make their homes in England. Patrick had married an English girl. They were Catholics and they had Irish names, yet home for them was not Waterford.
‘Could you make it up with Mr Joyce, Dermot? Could you go round with the tie and say you were sorry?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You know what I mean.’ In spite of herself her voice had acquired a trace of impatience, an edginess that was unusual in it. She did not ever speak to him like that. It was the way she occasionally spoke to the children.
‘What would I say I was sorry for, Norah?’
‘For what you said that night.’ She smiled, calming her agitation. He lit another cigarette, the flame of the match briefly illuminating his face. Nothing had changed in his face. He said:
‘I don’t think Mr Joyce and I had any disagreement, Norah.’
‘I know, Dermot. You didn’t mean anything –’
‘There was no disagreement, girl.’
There had been no disagreement, but on that evening in August something else had happened. On the nine o’clock news there had been a report of another outrage and afterwards, when Dermot had turned the television off, there’d been the familiar comment on it. He couldn’t understand the mentality of people like that, Mr Joyce said yet again, killing just anyone, destroying life for no reason. Dermot had shaken his head over it, she herself h
ad said it was uncivilized. Then Dermot had added that they mustn’t of course forget what the Catholics in the North had suffered. The bombs were a crime but it didn’t do to forget that the crime would not be there if generations of Catholics in the North had not been treated as animals. There’d been a silence then, a difficult kind of silence which she’d broken herself. All that was in the past, she’d said hastily, in a rush, nothing in the past or the present or anywhere else could justify the killing of innocent people. Even so, Dermot had added, it didn’t do to avoid the truth. Mr Joyce had not said anything.
‘I’d say there was no need to go round with the tie, Norah. I’d say he’d make the effort on Christmas Day.’
‘Of course he won’t.’ Her voice was raised, with more than impatience in it now. But her anger was controlled. ‘Of course he won’t come.’
‘It’s a time for goodwill, Norah. Another Christmas: to remind us.’
He spoke slowly, the words prompted by some interpretation of God’s voice in answer to a prayer. She recognized that in his deliberate tone.
‘It isn’t just another Christmas. It’s an awful kind of Christmas. It’s a Christmas to be ashamed, and you’re making it worse, Dermot.’ Her lips were trembling in a way that was uncomfortable. If she tried to calm herself she’d become jittery instead, she might even begin to cry. Mr Joyce had been generous and tactful, she said loudly. It made no difference to Mr Joyce that they were Irish people, that their children went to school with the children of I.R.A. men. Yet his generosity and his tact had been thrown back in his face. Everyone knew that the Catholics in the North had suffered, that generations of injustice had been twisted into the shape of a cause. But you couldn’t say it to an old man who had hardly been outside Fulham in his life. You couldn’t say it because when you did it sounded like an excuse for murder.
‘You have to state the truth, Norah. It’s there to be told.’