‘Yes, dear,’ he says.
‘And if I ever have children, they’ll never even know I had a father.’
My father smiles again.
‘You should care about all that.’
I can feel my jaw quivering.
‘Hello. I’m Ben,’ says a small voice. I turn round and there is a child of about four standing just behind me.
‘What are you doing standing outside my playroom?’ he asks. ‘And why are you crying?’
My mother managed somehow – I don’t know how – to save some of her housekeeping money and she’d go with tins of soup and other things to the railway sidings and she’d roll them down the hill to the families with the yellow stars who were living by the railway lines. I used to go with her sometimes. And she was always knitting. She’d knit pullovers and give them to the people who were leaving for Holland and when they got to the border they’d wave them out of the window as a sign and my grandparents would shelter them for a few days before they went on their way.
Did you wonder why the Jews were leaving?
Not really. They’d been asked to go, so they were going. I was just glad my mother was making life a bit easier for them. We’d knit together in the evenings when my father was away, but I wasn’t nearly as fast as her. We had such a lovely time together then. Or we’d play duets on the piano – my father forbade any music in the house when he was home. I think he thought
owning
a piano was one thing – the sign of a cultured household – but anyone playing it – or, worse still, enjoying playing it – was quite another thing. Or I’d practise my English. That was the one thing at school that I was
really
good at. And it felt so wonderful – to really excel at something. To be better than all of my classmates who had teased me so much when I arrived at the school and sat at the back of the classroom, not understanding a word anyone
was saying. Who had hated the little Dutch newcomer so much. In the end I was better than all of them. At German
and
English. Better at English than most of the teachers. I had this textbook with a photograph of Trafalgar Square on the cover – with those huge black lions and the fountains and Nelson’s Column – and that was the one place in the world I was desperate to visit. I don’t know why. There was just something so special about it. I wish I still had that book.
Do you have anything from that time?
Nothing. No, not nothing. A small red leather notebook. Like a diary. And a tiny wooden angel.
A wooden angel?
Once, my father announced that he’d been called to Cologne on urgent business, so my mother took me to the Christmas Market. All those stalls selling the most beautiful things. Tiny wooden figures and gingerbread stars and spicy sausage. That must have been the first and probably only time my mother met my best friend Helga Lessing. Bringing friends home was not something my father allowed. Helga was there with her parents and her two brothers. Her father was a butcher who’d been unemployed for a long time but their luck had turned. They’d just moved into a house in the centre of Berlin that had suddenly become empty for some reason. We know why now, of course. Hindsight! That wonderful thing! Before that, they’d all slept in one room somewhere – I don’t know where – I never went. And I remember Herr Lessing said something to my mother like, ‘You must be so pleased with your daughter – all those athletics medals she’s been winning. She’s precisely the kind of girl our Führer would be proud of, don’t you think?’ And my mother just looked at the swastikas on their lapels and didn’t say anything. My mother – who was always so polite and kind to everyone. And I remember Herr Lessing looked rather put out as they
walked over to the carousel. I was furious with my mother. I couldn’t believe that she could dismiss them like that just because they were so much poorer than us. Because Helga’s father was a butcher and not an engineer. But she said, ‘How much money they do or don’t have has nothing to do with anything.’ And she took me by the hand and led me over to the stall that sold little carved figures. ‘I’m going to buy you an angel,’ she said. ‘An angel for my angel. You choose the one you like best.’ They were so beautiful, those tiny wooden angels. Some were playing trumpets; some were holding books; some were plucking at harps or singing. There was one which was gazing upwards, its mouth a little red O. And it looked to me as though its heart was bursting with the joy of singing. It was so small that if you put it in the palm of your hand and closed your fingers, no one would ever know it was there. And I thought that this lovely tiny thing would surely be able to escape the furnace. Just after we got home, a telegram arrived, addressed to my father. And my mother opened it very carefully and it said something like ‘
Unable to meet you in Cologne as planned, so sorry. With love from your own Katharina.
’ And my mother said – and I could see that she was half-smiling, even though she looked worried – ‘Your father’s urgent business meeting has been very unexpectedly cancelled. You’d better hide the wooden angel very carefully and go to bed quickly. He’ll be home any minute and I can promise you he won’t be in a good mood.’ And sure enough, about half an hour later we heard the front door slam. And the next day there was a bruise on my mother’s face. She had tried to cover it up with powder, but I knew it was there.
‘Hello, I’m Julia,’ I say to the small boy called Ben. ‘And I’ve got something in my contact lens. It’s making my eyes water.’
‘They’re doing sunflowers,’ Angie says as she comes into the sitting room carrying a bright blue Thomas the Tank Engine lunchbox and holding out a small navy blue sweatshirt daubed with orange and yellow paint. ‘Are you all right?’
‘She’s got something in her toncat lens,’ says Ben with authority.
‘Oh, that can be so painful! Why don’t you use the mirror in the downstairs loo?’
‘Thanks.’
‘I’m going to have another cup of tea. Would you like one?’
‘Yes, thanks. Sorry about this. I won’t be long.’
‘No hurry.’
‘Can I see your toncat lens?’ asks Ben.
‘No, you come with me, Ben. I’ll get you some juice and a biscuit.’
‘But I want to see the lady’s toncat lens.’
‘She won’t be able to sort it out with you peering at her. Now come on. I’ve got Jaffa Cakes.’
I sit on the loo seat, and bury my head in my lap. I haven’t cried about my father since the day my adolescent prophecy was fulfilled and now I can’t seem to stop.
‘What’s the matter now?’ my father would have sighed, as he lit another cigarette or poured himself another cut-glass
tumbler of neat whisky. Or ‘It’ll be better in the morning,’ if the trouble was more medical than metaphysical. He said that to Max, just minutes before Max’s eardrum perforated. And to me the time I trod on a nail on the drive which went through my shoe and embedded itself in my foot. ‘Good thing I didn’t drive over that nail,’ he said. ‘It would have punctured the tyre.’
After what feels like quite a long time, I get up and look in the mirror. My mascara has run and the whites of my eyes are bright pink. I look more than a little mad. I splash cold water on my face and rub at the black smudges with loo paper. I practise polite smiles. When I return to the sitting room, Ben is sitting cross-legged on the carpet in front of the television, eating biscuits and watching a train pulling into a railway siding. ‘I’m sure they’ve got a mild form of Asperger’s, don’t you think?’ Angie asks pleasantly as she puts down her copy of
Good Housekeeping
and pours the tea into mugs.
‘Sorry?’
‘Train enthusiasts. When Geoff and I moved in together, I found all these old notebooks of his, full of numbers and cryptic references to things like Crewe Works and Clapham Junction. And Didcot. It made me feel all funny – as though I’d come across a secret stash of well-thumbed porn mags or something.’ She nibbles at a biscuit. ‘Geoff insists it’s no odder than birdwatching, but I’m not convinced. I’m afraid the trainspotting gene seems to have passed down through the father’s line, as you can see. To the male of the species, at least. How’s the contact lens?’
‘Much better, thanks.’
‘They can be a real bugger, can’t they? I once spent a couple of hours looking for a missing lens that was sitting on my cheek the whole time. And God knows how often I’ve had to get Geoff to unscrew the U-bend.
‘I wonder if there’s anyone in the Close you’d still remember,’ Angie muses as she nurses her mug of tea and
looks lovingly at the hunched, absorbed figure of her son. ‘I’m pretty sure there isn’t. The Croziers were the last of that era to go, I think. They retired to Spain, I seem to remember my parents said. And then one of them – her, I think – got one of those horrible cancers – pancreatic or something – and died very quickly. There’s a lovely family who moved down from Birmingham next door now. He’s something in the drinks business and she’s a life coach. They’ve got a son about Ben’s age but rather better behaved. And twins on the way. IVF. Were you hoping to see anyone else on the estate?’
‘No. I hadn’t planned to. I hadn’t planned to come here, actually.’
Angie looks a little mystified. I feel I owe her some kind of explanation in return for the mugs of tea and equanimity.
‘I’ve got an appointment with a solicitor not far from here at four-thirty and I got all my timings completely wrong. I had one of those mornings…’
‘Tell me about them!’
‘And I suddenly thought that I’d come and see what Eynsford Park Estate looked like, thirty years on.’
‘And what does it look like?’
‘Different. But still very familiar. It’s weird.’
‘This is the first time you’ve ever been back?’
‘It is. I’ve lived abroad a lot. And what about you?’ I ask, hoping Angie won’t notice the subject changing direction. ‘What did you do after school?’
‘French at Goldsmith’s, then a PGCE. I never did the probationary year, though. The teaching practice just about finished me off. They don’t tell you on the course what to do when thirty-five twelve-year-olds fart at a pre-arranged time, or when a child comes to school every day with just a Crunchie bar in his lunchbox, or what to say when a social worker comes in to investigate an alleged case of incest. You know, in one of my classes, there were only two children who were living with both their biological parents. When I
was at the High School – it was probably the same for you – there wasn’t a single girl in my class from a broken home. I suddenly realised what a cushy job all our teachers had. The worst thing I ever did was hand in my RE homework a day late. And that was only the once.’
‘I bit Jennifer Black.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I bit Jennifer Black. I ran at her from the far end of the playground and bit her in the chest.’
For a while neither of us says anything. Angie Plaistow develops a keen interest in shunting locomotives. I don’t know where that memory was unearthed from, but I can see Jennifer very clearly – with her irritating frizzy blonde hair and horrid little upturned nose. I had regretted the incident immediately. Not because of the damage I’d inflicted – I was rather proud of the mouth-shaped mark that Jennifer tearfully demonstrated to an eager, somewhat shocked, crowd of seven-year-olds – but because I was worried that Mrs Black would come round to our house and shout at my mother. For days I dreaded the phone or doorbell ringing and, whenever it did, I would hold my breath as I hovered behind my mother, only letting it go when I was sure it wasn’t Mrs Black. She never did speak to my mother as far as I know, but Jennifer announced rather proudly, the day after the incident, that she wasn’t allowed to talk to me ever again. Ever.
‘I’ve got to pick up the rest of the brood in a bit,’ says Angie, looking at her watch. ‘And I promised I’d collect Geoff’s dry-cleaning.’
‘Yes, I must get going too. Thanks so much for the tea.’
‘It was lovely seeing you. Come on, Ben, shoes on. What time did you say your appointment was?’
‘Four-thirty.’
‘You’ll still be terribly early.’
‘It’s fine. Really.’
‘Look, you’re welcome to stay here.’
‘That’s very kind, but –’
‘Honestly. I won’t be long and I’m sure you don’t want to sit in the car outside the solicitor’s for hours.’
If I stay, I could look around the house. I don’t know if the feeling I have at the pit of my stomach is dread or exhilaration.
‘I’m sure you don’t want a complete stranger sitting here eating your biscuits while you’re out.’
‘You haven’t touched any of my biscuits – and anyway, you’re not exactly a complete stranger. You could have a look around the house if you like. See what’s changed. Honestly, it’s no problem at all. I’d say if it was.’
‘Well, thanks. I’d like to do that – if you’re really sure you don’t mind.’
‘Just be careful as you go into the end bedroom. Catherine has a slightly disturbing fascination for all things military and the room could well be booby-trapped. And I’d love to hear more about you and your daughter. Emily said I’d find the article really interesting.’
‘No, look, I’ll go. You’ll have loads of things to do once you’ve picked everyone up.’
‘Don’t be daft. It’s fine. Really. Just make yourself at home. Come on, Ben, I said shoes on.’
I finish my tea as Angie and Ben get ready to go out, and wait until I hear the front door close behind them before going upstairs.
I stop on the small landing halfway up the stairs and sit down on the top step. Max and I used to crouch here after we’d been sent upstairs to bed, quiet as spies, as we tried to make out what was going on in that strange downstairs
nighttime
world from which we were excluded. There wasn’t very much to hear, but that didn’t deter us. My mother spent most evenings alone, waiting for my father to come home from the hospital, sewing or watching television or playing slow, sad pieces on the piano. When they were both home, we might
hear footsteps on the parquet floor, the creak of the drinks cabinet door, an indistinct question from my mother, a pause, the equally muffled answer from my father, the footsteps receding, the study door shutting, the TV going on. Cilla. Anyone who had a heart.
Sometimes, I would wake up in the night to the sound of my parents arguing and come and lie here, curled up in a little ball, my nightie pulled taut over my feet, envying Max as, safe in his cupboard, he slept through my mother’s shouting and my father’s silent response.
‘They all treat me the same. Like I’m the enemy. Your mother, the whole lot of them,’ I once heard her cry out, her voice hoarse with despair. ‘Well, don’t they? Why don’t you ever support me? Why aren’t you ever on my side?’
‘What, dear?’
What, dear
. I don’t think I ever once heard my father use my mother’s name. It was as though she didn’t have a name. The few friends of mine or Max’s who met her called her Mrs Rosenthal, my grandmother called her
your mother
and we called her Mum – and that was that.
On Thursday afternoons, we were banished to this landing with a packet of Bourbon biscuits. We used to sit on the top step, nibbling away at the dense chocolate filling as we listened to Schumann’s
Kinderszenen
or the
Moonlight
Sonata
, interspersed with the piano teacher’s sporadic words of encouragement. After an hour or so, my mother would open the frosted glass door and we’d be called downstairs for our own lessons. I hated the piano but loved the piano teacher. Mr Elliot was an old man – he told me he was fifty-four – and reminded me of the doctor in
Brief
Encounter
– a film that Max and I had yawned our way through one rainy afternoon some time before the advent of our own matinee idol.
For the love of Mr Elliot, with his dark brown
slicked-back
hair and his hazel eyes that disappeared into a mass of
crinkles when he smiled, I struggled hopelessly with bass clefs, treble clefs, minims and quavers. I did everything I could to make sure he would never realise that I couldn’t make any sense whatsoever of the symbols on the sheets of music that he placed in front of me unless I’d first heard the piece played through a few times.
‘All right, Julia. What about a new piece? This one looks a lot of fun. “In Grandmother’s Garden”. Just two notes for the left hand to worry about and the right hand’s playing the tune. It’s in four four and don’t forget the F sharp here and here. Right. Off you go.’
‘Mr Elliot?’
‘Yes, Julia?’
‘How many times have you seen
The Sound of Music
?’
‘Just the once. What about you?’
‘Three times. Sarah Woodley in my class has seen it seven times.’
‘Good gracious. All those singing nuns and stormtroopers. Now, let’s start with the left hand.’
‘I’d quite like to be a nun.’
‘Would you?’
‘I’d like to give all my things to the poor and wear a wimpole.’
‘I’m not sure many nuns wear wimples these days but I’m sure you’d look very fetching in one. Now, Julia – the left hand starts on a G. This G.’
‘Mr Elliot?’
‘Yes, Julia?’
‘What’s your favourite kind of torture?’
‘Torture?’
‘Yes. You know – like being rolled down a hill in a barrel full of nails or having a tap dripping on to your head for years and years, or one of those racks where they turn the handles until your arms and legs come right out of their sockets and fall on to the floor.’
‘I think I’d go for the barrel full of nails. I tell you what, why don’t I play this through for you a couple of times before you start? You count me in.’
Max – who also loved Mr Elliot, though perhaps not quite as passionately – took it all very seriously and learned very quickly, before transferring his allegiance to the violin, if not the violin teacher.
When Mr Elliot was in the house, everything felt different. The house took on a festive, party atmosphere. My mother laughed. We all laughed. Quite often he would stay for tea.
‘Come again tomorrow!’ Max and I would beg as he threw his leather music case into the back of his grey Austin. ‘Go on! You wouldn’t mind, would you, Mum?’
And so, by the spring of 1967, Mr Elliot – Roland as he asked us to call him – was coming to see us most days. On sunny afternoons after school, my mother would drive us all into the country where Max and I climbed trees and looked for beetles while she and Roland sat on a tartan rug on the grass watching us. Sometimes we’d feel rather sorry for our father, who was stuck at work saving the lives of small children and missing out on all the fun. One day during the summer holiday he came home, after what must have been an unusually quiet day at the hospital, to find the four of us flushed with sunshine and happiness, eating Battenberg cake in the garden. He looked slightly surprised to see us all, I thought.
‘Roland.’
Roland stood up to shake my father’s hand. ‘Oscar. Good to see you again. How are you?’
‘Fine, thank you, and you?’
‘Fine. Enjoying the lovely weather and the delightful company.’
‘Are you?’
My father looked around as though wondering which particular delightful company Roland was referring to. Then he glanced in the direction of his study.
‘Well, I must get –’
‘Why don’t you take a day off work and come out with us tomorrow, Dad?’ I asked. ‘Roland’s coming if he can cancel one of his lessons and we’re going to Rochester Castle.’
I can’t remember what he replied, but I do remember that he never took up the offer of accompanying us on what Max and I increasingly came to think of as our family outings. My mother was very happy during those months and so Max and I grew happier and less wary, less scared she might suddenly go mad again and disappear once more. Her piano lessons got longer and longer, though, oddly, we never heard much Schumann or Beethoven, or anything else really. She sometimes forgot to give us biscuits. My father would come home late in the evening to find Roland and my mother watching
The Forsyte Saga
together. He didn’t have a TV of his own.