All The Days of My Life (65 page)

“In normal circumstances I'd invite her to stay,” Isabel Allaun said. “But, quite honestly, at the moment nothing is as it should be. She's better here.” She leaned back and added, “How sad it is. Poor Mary. She was such a lovely child, so pretty and spirited. One would have predicted less ill fortune for her. And now – a widow for the second time.” She paused and then said, “Of course – the gypsy predicted it. Isn't that curious?”

“What gypsy?” Ivy asked.

“She probably never told you – I expect she forgot all about it. When she was quite a small child, living with us at Framlingham, my housekeeper, Mrs Gates, took her to a fortune teller, a gypsy, at a fair they used to have on the common. The woman produced the usual jumble of rubbish but I'm sure she said something about two husbands. And – what was it? – strange blood?”

Ivy said, very quickly, “I've never been superstitious. It's all rubbish and it does harm to those who listen.”

“Of course,” said Lady Allaun. “You're perfectly right. It's foolish of me to mention it. You have enough to worry about without nonsense like that.” She stood up and said, “I must go or I'll miss the train. Thank you for letting me come. And I'm very sorry to find Mary as she is – I'll try to think if there's anything I can do to help.”

After the narrow figure had gone down the path Ivy went back into the house and sat down wearily. She wondered what Isabel had meant by saying that nothing was as it should be at Allaun Towers. Sir Frederick had died two years ago. And she had not once mentioned her son, Tom. But the defeat, if it was a defeat, of an ancient enemy did not please her. She just thought, “Who'd be a woman, getting on in years, with all these problems?”

So she took a cup of tea and a slice of cake up to the helpless invalid
who was her daughter. Molly, sitting up in bed, seized the cup and drank the contents in two gulps. She gobbled the cake, holding it in both hands, close to her mouth, like a child. Some of the tea spilled on her nightdress. There were crumbs on the sheets and blankets. Then she howled, staring at Ivy all the while. Then, as Ivy took the cup from the bed, where it lay on its side, she ceased to moan and put her hand, in horror, over her mouth. “I'll see you in a minute, Molly,” Ivy said and, holding the cup, went out. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, feeling that she had no strength left, that she might easily slide down the floor outside the bedroom and stay there, unable to get up. She wondered how long she could go on coping with her mad daughter, whether what she was doing even helped Molly, whether Molly would be able to look after the child when it was born. The image of a mad mother killing her child came to her so strongly that, now, she gasped. Then she breathed deeply and went slowly downstairs with the cup. “Better if it died at birth,” she thought to herself. “I can't take over another baby – not again.”

Downstairs, in the kitchen, she felt a fierce resentment of Molly, of Endell, who had fathered a child and killed himself, of Sid and the doctor who persisted, as if they could not bear to examine the truth, in saying everything would be all right with Molly and the baby after the birth. “Who'd be a woman,” she said to herself. “Men retire. But this lot is never-ending.”

But in the event Isabel Allaun did change things, although unintentionally.

Tom Allaun and Charlie Markham were at the tables at Frames a week later. “Heard anything of Molly?” Charlie asked his cousin. He leaned back in a chair, a bit drunk. The years had not treated him unkindly. His thickset frame, which tended to run to fat, was still reasonably firm. His cheeks were still ruddy and his blue eyes clear. He looked what he was – a self-indulgent, entrepreneurial businessman, not too scrupulous in his dealings with women or business associates, but still in control of his situation. He had now been divorced twice and was paying indifferent court to a wealthy divorcee who, in her turn, was hesitating about whether to marry him or not. His cousin Tom, however, was in better shape, for he exercised carefully, watched his diet and drank sparingly. Nevertheless, superficially he remained a less attractive character than Charlie. He had not Charlie's expansive air. His eyes were less direct and his mouth had narrowed. Shaking his head at the croupier to indicate that they were not betting, he told
Charlie, “Molly's in a bad way. Got a bun in the oven, of course. Due in a few months. Ma went to see her and apparently she's right off her trolley and may stay like it. Looks as if it may come down to head-shrinkers and loony bins.”

“Oh, God,” Charlie said. “What a tragedy – she was a cracker in her time. What a goer she was.” He was not prepared to admit that Molly had rejected him. Nor that in many ways he had been thoroughly frightened of her.

Tom, jealous of his cousin's success with Molly, said, “Well – not any more.”

But Simon Tate, who had come in to look after the club as a favour that evening because both managers were away, had been listening to the conversation. He turned round abruptly, went upstairs to the office and telephoned Ivy.

He appeared in Beckenham next day. Ivy said, “I hope to God you can help.”

“I'll try,” he told her and went straight upstairs to the room where Molly lay. She lay on her side, a hump, under blankets, in the bed. Simon drew the curtains back. “I've got a lovely lunch waiting for you – all booked and champagne in a bucket. Just time to get dressed and get in the car.”

“I can't,” she said.

“Come on, Molly,” he told her. “I've driven a long way to collect you. Don't disappoint me.” She responded by trembling and crying, saying, “I can't. You can't make me. I can't.”

He attacked her then, telling her, “Don't you dare lie about there saying, ‘I can't and I won't.' Have you looked at your mother recently? I don't suppose so. You're killing her – she looks ill. Ill with the work of looking after you, a healthy woman. Do you want to bury her, next?”

Molly, to block out his voice, pulled the blankets over her head and moaned. Simon pulled back the covers, revealing the swollen face, pale with months of indoor life, the swollen body in an old blue nightdress, the pale, puffy legs. Molly screamed at seeing what Simon, a homosexual, could not help seeing – a swelling, termite queen. She tried to pull the covers over herself. Seizing a cruel advantage Simon said, “Not a pretty sight. Not pretty at all. I suppose you think Joe would have liked to see you in this condition? You don't have to look as horrible as this.”

“Leave me alone. Leave me alone,” she cried.

Simon stepped back and stared down at her. “Damn you, Molly,” he said deliberately. “Damn you. You've tried to kill yourself and you failed. You haven't tried again, I notice. I expect your poor mother and father have taken the razor blades and the aspirin out of the bathroom, but there are plenty of ways. I haven't heard you've tried to jump out of the window or hang yourself with a dressing-gown cord – no, part of you wants to stay alive. So stay alive if that's what you want. But don't half-kill your parents and probably harm your child while you're doing it. If you're going to live – live, do it properly. Why do you think Joe loved you? Because you were alive, properly alive, alive and bloody kicking. Like he was – like the child will be, if you give it any chance at all. You've got to get up. You've got to go on. You've got to fight. You've no alternative, so you might as well put a good face on it – I'm going down now. If you're not downstairs, and ready, in ten minutes I'm leaving.”

Downstairs, he sat in the front room with Ivy. Because they were both timing Molly, and because the matter was critical, Ivy began to speak in the flat, sombre tones of someone with an important statement to make. She said, “There's something I ought to tell her. Something I should have told her long ago. Perhaps it would make a difference. But I'm afraid. It could make it all worse.”

Simon stared at her. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Ivy continued, sounding more normal now. “If she doesn't come downstairs in ten minutes I'm going up to tell her. It's the right time – I'll do it.”

“Are you sure?” said Simon, leaning forward. “Why don't you tell me – perhaps I can help.”

But Ivy, with her eyes on the hands of the gilt clock on the mantelpiece, just told him, “I've got a funny feeling. She ought to know now.”

“I'll make a cup of tea,” Simon declared. “Or would you like a drink?” He thought privately that the strain of looking after Molly was beginning to tell on her mother. They had coffee. They both sipped, tried to talk, with their eyes returning frequently to the clock. But before the ten minutes had elapsed Molly opened the door and came in. She was wearing a patterned dress in red and purple, with a yoke. She wore shoes and stockings. She had put lipstick on her pale mouth. She walked across the room shakily, saying to Simon, “I can't walk very well.”

“The car's outside,” he said.

He thought at first it was like having lunch with a ghost. Pale, speaking in a whisper, eating practically nothing, Molly sat opposite him. He began to be afraid that the effort of making her come was pointless, that she would just go home and sink back into the same state. She said, “I'm sorry, Simon. Sorry to be so strange. I just feel confused.”

He nodded, “You're going to need practice.”

“I can't forget Joe,” she told him. “It might be like being an amputee – you keep on thinking you've got a leg, or an arm. All the sensations are there. Then you have to remind yourself you really haven't got a leg. Then you feel this terrible sadness. It goes on and on. It's like a constant pain.” She added, “I know I'll never feel like I did with Joe. I've known a few men but I never felt like that before and I don't suppose many women ever do. This isn't just widow's talk – I wanted to live with him for a long time and die before he did, so I didn't have to lose him. He's gone, though, and that's a fact. He's dead and I have to go on.”

“You'll have his child,” Simon told her.

“I don't care about that,” Molly said. “People think I ought to – but I don't. At the moment it's just something that's going to happen. I wish it wasn't, that's the truth.”

“I expect you'll feel different when it's born,” Simon said encouragingly.

Molly smiled at him, knowing he was out of his depth. “That's what they tell me,” she said, “but I don't know any more about this than you do. I tell you this – I hope I can feel something for the child because if I don't, I don't know what'll happen to either of us.”

She looked braver now. She put her hand on his and told him, “I'm grateful to you, Simon, for trying to help. I've been lucky. Ivy's put up with me, and Sid, and people have been very kind. Maybe kinder than I deserved. I owe you all a lot.”

“All we want is to see you on your feet again, Molly,” Simon said and then, glancing across the restaurant added, “Oh – bugger it!”

Molly turned her head and saw Tom Allaun advancing across the carpet.

“Surprise!” Tom said, coming to the table. “Molly – it's lovely to see you. How are you?”

“All right,” Molly told him. “Thank you for your note, Tom, after Joe died. It was thoughtful of you to write.”

“I was very upset when I saw the news,” Tom said. Simon looked at
him doubtfully. He had never trusted Tom but his sympathy and friendship for Molly seemed genuine. The coffee was brought and Simon had no alternative but to wave at a chair and say, unenthusiastically, “Why don't you sit down?” And Tom did.

“Mother wanted you to come to Framlingham,” he told Molly. “But Mrs Gates hasn't been too good – and this and that – she said in the circumstances we couldn't look after you properly. She felt your mother was the best person.”

“Well – I won't need looking after for too much longer,” Molly told him. “I'll get back home and have the baby.” She looked tired as she spoke. Neither of the men was convinced when she said, trying to sound cheerful, “Fresh start.”

“Forgive me, Molly,” Tom asked, “but we've known each other a long time – how's the money? Will you be able to manage?”

“I own the house – there's a pension for MP's widows,” Molly said. “I can get a part-time job later if I want to. Josephine's independent – finished university and got herself a job. There aren't any problems. Joe even left me some money and life insurance – I haven't thought about that, yet.”

“I'm glad there won't be too many practical problems,” Tom assured her.

In the end he drove her home. He was kind, tactful and sympathetic. He asked her to go to the theatre with him later on in the week and Molly, surprised but pleased at his kindness, accepted. There were further outings. He helped her to move back to Meakin Street. He had, now, an easy manner. He was a gifted chatter about little things they saw, about films, about what they watched on TV. Mary, coming out of a long period of silence and depression, found him consoling. He was also quietly domesticated, a maker of cups of tea, a washer-up, a creator of snacks and small comforts. She was, however, surprised when he suggested that he should be present at the birth of the child.

“In the labour ward?” she exclaimed. “Whatever for? You'd probably faint.”

“I'm very cool in these situations,” he told her. “I'd love to be there. And you might be quite grateful in the end. And, of course, if you asked me to go at any point, naturally, I'd disappear.”

“It's gruesome,” Ivy declared roundly when Molly told her Tom's plan. “In my opinion men have got no place in a situation like that. It's just a fad and women'll soon realize they're better off alone when
they're having a baby. But Tom isn't even the child's father. He's no relation at all – it's revolting. Imagine how he's going to see you, Molly, with your legs everywhere and sweat pouring down your face. I can't think why he wants to come. It's ghoulish, that's what.”