Facing the Tank (15 page)

Madeleine flicked to page eight where she read that she was a specimen of the New Englishwoman; sexy, ‘sparky’ and putting experience before outdated morality. Somehow the same paragraph managed to condemn her liaison with Edmund as a symptom of ‘a permissive society turned rotten’ and compare it unfavourably with the examples set by English royal weddings. She screwed the paper up and tossed it into the bin then walked to the hall.

‘Mum?’ she called out. There was silence broken only by what sounded like a lecture being delivered by a policeman on the pavement. Madeleine slouched back to the bin, pulled out the paper and cut out the relevant pages with the kitchen scissors. Discarding the rest again, she folded the cuttings neatly and slipped them into the pocket of her skirt. She walked back to the hall and then almost to the top of the stairs. There she sat down, staring reproachfully at the locked bathroom door.

‘Mum? Look Mum I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.’ She heard loo paper being crumpled and a cross sniff. ‘I told you most. I only wanted to spare you. Mum? And I’m really sorry about those reporters. I thought I’d got away without them knowing where I’d gone. One of them must have followed me or bribed someone at the Warburg or something. Mum? Anyway, the policemen are here now to keep them away. Oh for God’s sake, I can’t sit here talking to a bloody bathroom door.’

A tap was turned on in the bathroom basin. In the ceiling overhead there was splashing as the tank was topped up. Then the tap was turned off. Floorboards creaked. Madeleine pictured her mother splashing her eyes to cool them, then patting them dry with a towel. After a pause, in which she assumed her mother was dabbing at her hair and straightening her clothes, the door was unlocked and Mercy walked straight into her bedroom to sit on her bed. Madeleine followed her and leaned against the brass bedstead, staring at her, scanning her face for a reaction. Her mother gave a shallow sigh then, picking at one of her cuticles, slowly said,

‘You stupid,
stupid
girl. What do you think a mother’s for? Mmmh?’ She looked up at Madeleine. ‘You’ve been crying. Oh,
cariño
.’ Changing her tone she stood and took her by the hand. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘come and wash your eyes.’

‘There’s no need, Mum. I’m fine.’

‘You
must
wash them or they’ll get old and puffy,’ said her mother, and firmly but kindly led her to the sink where she handed her a flannel and made her bathe her eyes. The cool water was beautifully soothing.

‘
Gracias
,’ said Madeleine, exchanging the flannel for a towel and drying her cheeks. ‘Can I have a hug now?’

‘Wait while I hang this up to dry,’ said her mother, draping the towel on a rail. ‘There,’ she said, turning, and took Madeleine in her arms.

Hugs had always been rare because they were disarranging to her mother’s clothes and hair. The less one hugged someone, the harder it became to find opportunities to do so. As they hugged now in the bathroom, and as Madeleine gazed with the dispassion of the securely held at the reflection of their absurd mismatch in the mirror, it was hard to tell whose clutch was the firmer. Just when Madeleine stopped needing any further hugging and was starting to suspect that her mother’s need was greater than her own, they were pulled apart by a rapping on the front door.

‘Police,’ muttered Madeleine and walked downstairs, leaving her mother to rearrange herself. ‘Yes?’ she called out.

‘It’s all right, Miss. It’s just some letters and things that some friends of yours have brought,’ said a policeman through the letter box. She opened the door, leaving the chain on. The journalists had retreated to a pair of cars on the other side of the street. She saw with pride that there were two policemen guarding the door. There was a wild movement in the journalists’ car as she took a handful of envelopes and a carrier bag from one of the policemen, but she had shut the door again before anyone had time to climb out and cross the road.

‘We’re under siege, Mum,’ she called up the stairs. ‘And it would seem to be Christmas.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked her mother, coming down.

Together they sat in the kitchen while Madeleine pulled from the bag a small bunch of flowers, their stalks wrapped in damp newspaper and foil, a tin of home-made chocolate biscuits, a bottle of bath oil and a packet of French mandarin-flavoured tea bags. Her mother opened the envelopes and read their contents out loud before passing them over for Madeleine to inspect the pictures.

‘“Just some little flowers but they come with a big hug from Emma Dyce-Hamilton.” “Big” is underlined. “Have just seen those awful papers and told Farquarson’s they should burn the lot. Am so sorry for you both and will pray. Do let me know if I can do any shopping.” That’s from Marge. The “both” is in brackets.’

‘Which is she?’

‘Oh you know. Marge. Delaney-Siedentrop. The bossy one who lets herself in from the alley to cut flowers sometimes.’

‘Oh yes,’ Madeleine said, not remembering, and taking a squint at the lurid floral motif on the front of the greetings card. Something had been covered over inside with a neat white label. She turned the card over and read the small print on its back.

‘The message in this card reads, “My condolences”’ it said.

‘This one’s from the Palace, from Deirdre. She must have rushed out after I left her. “Got together with les girls to show you we think you’re wonderful people. Which you are.” “Are” underlined. “Polly McCreery wants her biscuit tin back.” She would. “But says you’re welcome to keep the doily for icing cakes.
A bientôt
. Deirdre.” And she sends a kiss.’

There were other messages of support and commiseration, some from people Mercy scarcely knew or whose links she thought she had dropped. There were many from people who knew only of Madeleine by repute. Mother and daughter sighed over some, laughed over others and sniffed a good deal. Mercy bit into a chocolate biscuit and declared it surprisingly delicious considering the state of Polly McCreery’s kitchen.

There was a large landing on the first floor of the Harts’ house. On her ‘days’ at the house, of which there were two a week plus the occasional night to help with large dinner parties, Dawn Harper did the ironing up there. The ostensible reason was that it was convenient, being the site of the airing cupboard. The actual explanations were that Dawn refused to be banished to the cramped obscurity of the utility room like a maid and that the landing position enabled her to keep an ear and eye on any domestic drama. No Barrower dared have a maid of their own, maids proper being confined to the town’s hotels. The acceptable alternatives were visiting ‘helps’ such as Dawn, or hapless, English-less au pairs from the Continent.

Dawn heard the kitchen door open. She bent to turn down the volume on the radio.

‘I don’t see why you couldn’t buy a dress like anyone else,’ she heard Clive Hart complain. ‘You earn enough.’

‘I felt like making one,’ his wife replied with dangerous emphasis. ‘It’s terribly easy really, and the finished product is so much more special than something from a shop.’

‘It took your son Tobit three years to learn, so it can’t be that easy.’

‘Well Tobit’s a man, isn’t he? Did I say that?’

‘Why hasn’t he offered to make you something himself?’

Lydia turned up the stairs to where Dawn appeared to be deep in ironing one of Clive’s shirts.

‘Dawn?’

‘Yes?’

‘Could you be a sweetie and get the dressmaker’s dummy out of the attic for me? There’s a love. Just put it in my bedroom.’

‘Of course,’ said Dawn, not moving. ‘I’ll just finish this shirt.’

Lydia flung her a look. Dawn loved answering back.

‘I don’t
know
why he hasn’t offered,’ Lydia continued
sotto voce
to Clive, ‘but it doesn’t matter because his style really isn’t suitable. It’s all far too young.’ Lydia started up the stairs then paused. ‘Oh damn,’ she said.

‘What’s up now?’ asked Clive.

Dawn glanced up from her ironing. Clive had a briefcase with him and was on the point of leaving for Tatham’s.

‘Damn,’ repeated Lydia.

‘What?’ Clive asked, exasperated.

‘I asked Fergus Gibson and Emma Dyce-Hamilton to dinner on Friday.’

‘We can’t possibly have them then. You’ll be careering around like a drunk wasp getting ready for Saturday.’

‘I know,’ snapped Lydia. ‘I didn’t know about Saturday when I invited them, did I?’

‘Sor-ree,’ sighed Clive. ‘I’ve got to go. See you later.’

‘No, Clive. Please.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t shout.’

‘I wasn’t shouting.’

‘You couldn’t drop in on Emma and tell her, could you?’

‘Can’t you ring her?’

‘Oh please, darling. You’re so much better than I am at being tactful with women and I think I got her all excited about Fergus.’

‘Well that was very silly.’

‘Why?’

‘Fergus is a confirmed bachelor.’

‘He’s not.’

‘Oh of course he is. Who do you think poor Roger Drink-water was?’

‘His business partner,’ she replied, already sounding less convinced.

‘God!’ Clive laughed bitterly at her innocence. ‘I
must
go. Bye.’ He opened the front door and swung it loudly shut behind him.

‘See you,’ said Lydia to an empty hall, and came up the stairs. Dawn was ironing the same shirt. ‘Fergus Gibson isn’t one of those, is he, Dawn?’

‘Yes he is,’ said Dawn. Lydia had been looking for smiling reassurance, and it pleased her to supply a well-informed contradiction.

‘Oh dear. How very embarrassing,’ said Lydia. She was always forgetting that Dawn had ‘days’ at Fergus Gibson’s house as well. ‘Did you find the dummy all right?’

‘Oh, no. Sorry. I’ll go now.’

‘Thanks.’

Dawn left Lydia to her embarrassment and climbed the next flight of stairs. She took a hooked pole from its resting place in a cupboard and used it to pull at the ring on a trap door in the ceiling. This released a metal ladder which, at a tug from her spatulate hands, slid down to rest on the landing carpet. Climbing with hands as well as feet, Dawn mounted into the gloom. She groped to her right and flicked the light switch. Around her were spread the tenderly guarded unnecessities of over two decades of marriage. Broken anglepoise lamps made drunken gestures towards huge, metal-cornered trunks. A large cardboard box with JIGSAWS ETC marked on its side lay atop a tea chest marked BOOKS – JUMBLE. There was a sky-blue cot and, beside it, a grand old-fashioned pram with suspension straps and luxurious springs. The cot was full of folded curtains in faded or outmoded patterns and sizes that were unlikely to be called for again. The pram held a menagerie of teddies and soft toys. Dawn lifted the plastic sheet that was spread to protect them from the dust. There was a naked doll inside too, incongruously pink and shiny amidst the acetate fur and tear-flattened fluff. Some of the bears were too old to have been bought for Tobit and must have been cherished hand-me-downs from his parents. The doll was ugly and modern. Dawn picked it out by a glossy leg. The head, with its platinum blonde hair, mascara-lengthened eyelashes and cupid’s bow mouth rested eerily on the unformed, babyish body below. The ice-blue eyes clicked open and closed at Dawn who, with a snarl, tossed her into a distant corner.

‘Dawn? Are you OK?’ Lydia called from below.

‘Yes. Fine,’ Dawn grunted. ‘Just banged my shin a bit.’

‘Bad luck. I’ll be in my bedroom when you want me.’

She had only had time to acquire one teddy before Sasha had gone, and that had disappeared with her. Sasha was the fruit of a drunken lapse on Dawn’s eighteenth New Year’s Eve. She had gone to the Slug and Lettuce with some girls and met a man called Martin who had bought her several port and lemons and then offered to drive her home. He had had a Ford Escort van with a mattress in the back. He was on his way north to a job on a Scottish oil rig. She remembered nothing else about him. When her mother had caught her, some weeks later, sitting on the edge of the bath untwisting a coathanger, she had locked her in her bedroom.

For the months of Sasha’s gestation, Dawn had seen only the four walls of her small pink room and the four, wavy blue ones of the bathroom next door. Her meals had been brought up to her on a tray, though she had had her own kettle for the making of coffee and tea. She had no close friends at the time, and members of the shifting crowd with whom she went out on Saturday nights were told that she had gone on a long stay to her Auntie June’s in Leeds. She had slept most of the time and listened to jabbering radio disc jockeys in her waking hours. Her skin acquired a thick, lardy look it had never lost and, after the baby was born, she had been slow to lose weight again. Dawn’s father had never been in evidence – she had grown up alone with her mother in the Bross Gardens cottage. Her mother had worked from home, stuffing soft toys. Every week a van came with a bag of white stuffing and a box of empty teddy pelts and took away the animals she had stuffed over the last seven days. The cheques came by post every Tuesday. When Sasha was born her mother had stolen a teddy and given it to her. Four days later, baby and teddy were gone.

Dawn had become hysterical. Throughout her confinement, the child within her had been the focus of her slow, brooding thoughts and by its birthday, bawling baby and young mother were as limbs of one beast. She had tried to tell the police but her mother had held the bread knife to her cheek and said,

‘Just you dare!’

Lacking daring, she had told nobody. After a while her mother tried to make her believe that Sasha had been adopted. Dawn had adopted this lie for the sake of peace.

Extra bags of teddy skins were brought so that she too could work to stuff them, and gradually she was allowed out with her crowd again on Saturday nights. She drank brandy sodas now; port and lemon made her sick. Although Dawn looked thirty-five, she was in fact ten years younger, which would make Sasha seven. Her mother was dead now, of some internal growth kept secret too long, but Dawn knew, with a gut-centred, unavowable certainty, that Sasha was still alive. And unadopted.

Alone with the discreet clatters and splashes of her midnight garden last night she had added a terrible invocation from Evan Kirby’s book to her usual prayer.

The dressmaker’s dummy was shrouded in a pink velour sack. Dawn slipped one arm around its waist and bore it to the trap door. There she took it by the neck and slid it gently down the ladder to the landing. She sealed off the memories of the attic once more and carried the dummy down to the Harts’ broad, oatmeal bedroom where Lydia was pinning out the segments of a pattern on a few yards of plum-coloured material.

‘Thanks so much,’ said Lydia, not looking up.

‘If you like,’ Dawn said, returning to the ironing to find that the radio channel had been changed to one with talking and no music, ‘I could pass on a message to Mr Gibson for you. I’ll be seeing him late this afternoon.’