My Daughter, My Mother (7 page)

‘The border between life and the Other Side is as thin as a chiffon scarf,’ she had said, her hank of tarry hair lolloping from side to side in the hairnet as she moved her head. ‘Not everyone understands that. But the dead are all around us, reaching out, longing for communication, if we would only hear them. Eat up your porridge – you won’t be getting anything else. That teacher’ll be here for you soon.’ Muttering, she added, ‘Interfering harridans, the whole lot of them.’

The rank taste of the food had settled in Margaret’s mouth.

‘Where’s my brother?’ she howled as soon as Miss Peters appeared, seeming like a piece of home because she was at least familiar. ‘I want Tommy. ’E said ’e’d be with me! ’E was s’posed to look after me – our mom said!’

Miss Peters was wearing a navy hat and coat, which made her look rather smart, especially beside Mrs Paige with her baggy beige cardigan and flopping hair. Miss Peters was thin, long-nosed and nervy, but she had a kind heart and a protective sense of responsibility to her charges. Looking upset, she bent down towards Margaret – this poor, unfortunate-looking little girl with her lazy eye and threadbare, cut-down clothes, her dark brown hair cut roughly in the shape of a pudding basin. She was the very youngest of the evacuees and certainly the most wretched-looking.

‘I’m sorry, Margaret dear, we had to let the local people choose who they wanted staying with them, when we arrived. And Tommy was taken to stay on a farm a few miles away because the farmer wants him to help them.’

‘Is ’e coming to school?’ Margaret sobbed.

Unhappily Miss Peters replied, ‘I do hope so, but I’m afraid I really don’t know for sure.’ She rallied herself. ‘Come along now, dear, wipe your face and we’ll go along to the school ourselves and then perhaps we’ll find out?’

She reached out and took Margaret’s hand, nodded coolly at Mrs Paige, who stared back with an air of insolence, and they set off. Margaret looked up at her teacher with adoration. The feel of Miss Peters’ hand was a great comfort that morning as they set off along the lane between the dripping trees.

Days merged in her memory after that. There was no sign of Tommy, though Miss Peters said to Margaret that she would see if they could arrange to visit him on the farm. She and the two other teachers struggled to educate and keep an eye on their charges, who were a variety of ages and were scattered across three villages and the surrounding farms. There was a tiny school in Lowick village, to which Margaret had been sent, which was quickly overwhelmed by the number of evacuees. They had to overspill into a room at the vicarage some days in the week where they sat round a huge table, or into a nearby barn, perched on bales of straw.

After Margaret, the next-youngest evacuee was a little girl called Joan, a few months older. Miss Peters took special care of Margaret, while another of the teachers looked out for Joan, though she was more fortunate, having been billeted with her eight-year-old sister.

On those glowing autumn days the hedges brightened with berries, and at one point on the walk to and from school, orchard branches hung over a wall, dipping down towards the verge and bearing the reddest of apples. Every so often they shed fallers with a little thump and rolled along the grass, which could be munched straight away, so long as you got there before anyone else.

Walking home from school with Miss Peters was always interesting, seeing the carts go past drawn by horses, which seemed gigantic to Margaret; and hens pecking in the road; and the older village children hurrying past, sometimes friendly, sometimes not. Some days an elderly lady sat on a low stool outside her cottage door shelling peas or topping and tailing gooseberries and they would stop for a few words.

One day, as they were walking back to Mrs Paige’s house, an apple fell from a branch with a small thud right in front of them.

‘Look!’ Miss Peters hurried to pick it up. ‘That one’s hardly got a mark on it.’ She polished it on her sleeve and handed it to Margaret. ‘You eat that, dear – it’ll bring the colour to your cheeks.’

Margaret reached out for the shiny red globe in wonder. When she bit ravenously into it, the flesh was a sweet, tangy taste of heaven. She had never had an apple like it. A smile spread over her face.

‘S’nice,’ she announced through her mouthful.

‘Good!’ A smile appeared on her teacher’s tense features as well. ‘Oh, look, and there’s another one come down – we’re in luck today!’

Hand in hand they continued on along the lane, past the church, the last cluster of houses and the old field gate, to where Mrs Paige’s down-at-heel cottage nestled at the fringe of the village. Its whitewashed front was stained green and the roof sagged.

Margaret remembered Miss Peters’ questions as all one conversation, though perhaps it wasn’t.

‘Do you have any other clothes, Margaret? Has Mrs Paige washed them for you? Have you been able to have a wash?’

A shake of the head to all these questions. Words must have passed between the two women after this, as Mrs Paige did start, grumblingly, to pull up water from the well in the garden and heat it to wash Margaret’s clothes occasionally, hanging them on the range to dry overnight. She made Margaret wash out of a bucket. (There was another snatch of conversation that Margaret overheard between the two young teachers one day: ‘The woman doesn’t have the first
notion
how to care for a child . . .’)

‘Does Mrs Paige have many visitors?’ Miss Peters asked, barely above a whisper.

Margaret shook her head. She had never seen anyone come to the house.

After another pause Miss Peters said, ‘Have you heard from your mother?’

Another shake of the head.

‘Is . . .’ Miss Peters hesitated. ‘Is Mrs Paige treating you well?’

This question brought about a vague, floating feeling in Margaret’s head. It was a question she barely understood.
Treating you well?
It was not something she knew how to think about. As for finding any words to begin on Mrs Paige, with her strange rooms and her cat pouncing on Margaret’s feet in the dark, and Ernest’s riding crop (which had been pointed out to her more than once, a thin, black leather thing with a loop at the end) hanging on the back of the door. (‘It can lash you,’ Mrs Paige had told her, staring hard at Margaret, ‘so beware. It can lash you badly, that can’) . . .

Miss Peters stopped. ‘Look at me, Margaret. That’s right, dear. Is everything all right? You would tell me if you were worried about anything?’

Having no idea what other answer she might give, Margaret nodded her head.

‘I’m going to show you round,’ Mrs Paige said, the afternoon after Margaret’s arrival. ‘The abode of Mr and Mrs Ernest Paige.’

Her eyes stretched wide for a second, as if they might pop out of her head, then she blinked hard. It was something she did every now and then. ‘You take note, my girl.’

She bent down suddenly and put her face close to Margaret’s. Her breath smelled of old onions. Margaret saw, close up, that the mole on Mrs Paige’s left cheek had dark hairs sprouting out of it and that her skin was like old cheese rind. She was dressed in a sagging combination of wool and tweed.

‘I don’t have to have you here, you know – it wasn’t my desire to have you. They think ten and six is enough to make a person do anything. Huh! I didn’t want you in here, disturbing Ernest and me. You’ll have to fit in with Mr Paige and me, or there’ll be trouble. And listen to me . . .’

She grabbed Margaret’s shoulder so hard it hurt and her face was menacing. Margaret had to cross her chubby legs to stop herself spending a penny out of fright.

‘I don’t want any gossip, or there’ll be trouble. You’ll be sleeping out in the shed with the rats if I have a peep out of you. Not a word – d’you comprehend?’

Rubbing her shoulder, Margaret nodded. She didn’t know what ‘comprehend’ meant.

Mrs Paige straightened up with an apparent shift in mood. ‘But I’ll show you my house – and the sickroom, so you know what’s what.’

Margaret had still not met Mr Paige. She had wondered if he had already gone out to work, but now she realized he must be ill in bed.

She was already familiar with the back kitchen, with the dusty range that looked as if no blacklead had been near it for years. Mom had been forever cleaning theirs, when she was well. Mrs Paige didn’t seem to bother. It was the warmest room in the house, for which Margaret was grateful, as she slept there with only the thin blanket.

‘I don’t use this room.’ Mrs Paige led her to the front parlour through which they had passed in the dark the night before. Margaret walked into the middle of it and stood looking round. There was the front door and a window looking out onto the street. Two wooden chairs stood by the empty fireplace, and between them a worn-looking bodged rug. Apart from these, the room was empty.

‘I don’t come in here. I don’t want nosy parkers looking in on me and my life,’ was all she said.

The staircase ran up between the two rooms, its treads half-covered by a runner of faded carpet in crimson and black. At the top a narrow landing divided the two rooms.

‘I sleep in the small room at the back,’ Nora Paige said, pushing the door open just enough for Margaret to peer in. All she could see was a boxroom with a single bed and chair in it and pale-blue, cheerless walls. There seemed to be some dark curtains hanging each side of the window, but there was no covering over the floorboards, which also had a dusty look to them.

‘I let Ernest have the main bedroom – it means he can be comfortable and it’s the lighter of the two rooms. You see, Ernest fought in the Boer War and he got so used to the sunshine in the southern climes of Africa that he’s quite miserable without it. He thrives on sunlight.’

Closing up her room, she unlatched the door opposite. As she predicted, late-afternoon sunshine was pouring in through the front window, falling on the white sheets of a large bed. The bedstead was of carved oak.

‘There’s a lovely view of the fields,’ Mrs Paige proclaimed, going to the window. Her shoes were black, with thin laces, and very down-at-heel, and her brown lisle stockings wrinkled round her ankles. ‘Oh, I think we need a bit of this late-summer air in here!’ She unfastened the casement. ‘Come and see, Meg.’

Her voice was softer than usual now. Margaret stood on tiptoe to look over the sill. Between the bushes edging the other side of the lane she saw the gold of a recently harvested field stretching before her.

‘They’ve got those so-called Land Army girls working on the farm now,’ Mrs Paige said with contempt. ‘As if they’d have any idea what it takes.’

Margaret turned round slowly. The bed had thick pillows propped against the bedhead, and on the near side the covers were thrown back as if someone had just got out. The eiderdown was made of a cheerful fabric of tiny pink roses. On the little table beside the bed Margaret saw a pair of spectacles, a candle stub in a holder, a glass of water and a book. Fascinated, she also made out a set of false teeth. There was a chair near the bed with a pair of trousers hanging over the back and, beside it, a chest of drawers on which rested various objects of male toilet: a tooth mug, shaving brush and razor. In the far corner stood a dark-wood cupboard.

‘There we are. I keep Ernest nice and comfortable,’ Mrs Paige said. ‘You can see that, can’t you – have you ever seen a more comfortable-looking bed?’

Margaret shook her head, for that was the truth – she hadn’t. She wondered if Mr Paige had just popped out to relieve himself.

‘There, you’ve seen our abode,’ Mrs Paige said. ‘I keep it spick and span in here, as you can see. We’ll leave our Ernest in peace now – out you go.’

As Margaret went obediently to the top of the stairs she heard Mrs Paige ask very quietly, ‘Is there anything you need, dear?’ Then the door closed and she followed Margaret downstairs, seeming more cheerful than usual.

‘So,’ she said, putting the kettle on to boil. ‘That’s us. You see, don’t you?’

Margaret stared at her, then nodded her head. She wondered if Mr Paige had been hiding in the cupboard.

Nine

Fragments of memory kept firing through Margaret’s mind. They’d sent her home from the hospital, on a slightly lower dose of Valium than before, but she was not free of it – not by a long way. She felt despair at the thought that she might never escape it. Now that she was back home, it felt as if she ought to be able to take up her life again, humdrum and familiar, no more fuss. Just get on with it. Be the same old Margaret. It wasn’t as if Fred expected much.

But she couldn’t concentrate on anything. It felt as if her head had been plugged into the mains, with flashes of electricity sparking through it.

‘Maybe you need to rest,’ Fred kept saying. He was doing his best to be helpful. ‘If you need to go to bed, go. There’s nothing that can’t wait, is there?’

So most afternoons she found herself up in bed again, under the blue-and-white duvet, hearing noises from the street. It was all she could cope with – shutting herself away while her mind raced.

The alarm clock on her bedside table ticked loudly. She lay on her side watching it. She liked the way it broke through the endless silence. If she stared hard enough, she thought she could see the black minute-hand moving round.

And then she would move onto her back, close her eyes and the jolting assaults of memory would return like snatches of a film playing in her head. Certain images burned intensely in her mind: Mom clinging to the door that morning, with the last food she would ever give her children; the door of the shed slamming shut; Nora Paige’s eyes widening, then blinking convulsively. It happened, Margaret had learned, when a strong emotion was brewing in her, her thick body charging up with it.

These were memories she thought she had buried forever, the years of evacuation sealed in her as in an airless tomb. And now she couldn’t stop them. It was hard to set anything in order, confused as things had been by her infant mind; and now, in her half-waking state, she was powerless even to try.

‘She’s quite an educated woman, I believe . . .’ That was Miss Peters’ voice, half-whispered to another teacher when they were in the vicarage for their lessons. There was a blackboard with sums on it. ‘Or she was once. There are books in the house.’