The Best in Blountmere Street (The Blountmere Street Series Book 2) (12 page)

He looks as awkward as I feel.  As if he’s searching for something to say, he continues, ‘It can’t be long before the bombsite’s built over.  Dennis and I tried to get in the other evening to see what’s going on, but the watchman chased us away with a bit of copper pipe.’  He laughs. ‘It must have been a piece we missed.’

I smile.  I haven’t seen much of Tony’s gang since they barricaded the bombsite.  Suddenly I realise that while I remember Tony as I’d last seen him, he must have grown just as Herbie has. His features are probably preparing themselves for manhood.  He might even have a hint of fine hair growing above his lip like Herbie has.

‘I’d better be going, then.’

‘Me, too.  And thanks.’  I walk up the path towards our front door.

‘Bye.  And don’t let those kids bully you.  If they try it again you can always tell them I’ll sort them out.’

‘Thanks.’

Herbie must know about Mum.  The whole of Blountmere Street does.  I smile a smile that stays inside me.  I have another ally.

Angela says, ‘I can’t see why all the girls are so potty about Herbie Armitage,’ when I tell her about him later that evening.  ‘I only go to the bus stop every afternoon to watch him get off the bus from his posh school in order to stop the others making fools of themselves,’ she says in her most sneering voice.

It’s Angela’s birthday, and Mrs Addingtons’ made an obvious effort.  She’s even got fancy paper plates, cups, and serviettes on the table.  ‘One of my customers owns a stationery shop and I deducted a little off her bill in exchange for the party things,’ she explains.

‘Lori and Fred have sent me a Maori doll.  Not one you play with, of course.’  Angela adds, ‘It’s one you have as an ornament.  It’s beautiful.’

‘Mr Stannard and Miss Lorimore – oops there I go again.  I just can’t get into the habit of calling Lori, Mrs Stannard -  anyway, they’re very upset that we still haven’t heard anything from Tony.’  Mrs Addington places a plate of Spam sandwiches on the table.  ‘They said in their last letter that with so many people in England, finding Tony would be near impossible.  If he was in New Zealand it would be a different matter altogether.  The place is half-empty.  They’d find him there pretty quickly, they said.’

‘Happy Birthday, Angela.  It is another year older you have.’  Miss Selska brings the reek of camphorated oil into the Addingtons’ kitchen.  ‘You are growing into a young voman in front of our eyes.’  She embraces Angela, who, to her credit, submits without flinching. 

Mrs Addington looks affectionately at Angela.  ‘Yes, she’s growing up.’

‘And I have bought you a gift for a voman, not a child,’ Miss Selska hands Angela a package.  I marvel that someone as down to earth as Miss Selska could wrap a present so exquisitely.

‘It’s lovely.  I mean the paper and the bow.  I’ve never seen anything wrapped up so beautifully in my whole life.’  Angela undoes the bow as if it’s made of real silver, then gazes at a green box covered with white flowers.

‘It’s, how you say, talcum powder and perfume,’ Miss Selska says before Angela has a chance to lift the lid.   ‘The perfume is French.  I believe in English you say lilies in the valley.’

Angela unscrews the top from the perfume bottle and breathes deeply.  ‘It’s gorgeous.  You have a whiff, Paul.’  She hands the bottle to me.  How strange that someone who constantly smells of camphorated oil should give such a sweet-smelling gift.

‘You can put a dab behind your ears if you like,’ Angela offers the bottle to me.  ‘Then I’ll put some behind mine.  After that I’m only going to keep it for special occasions.’

‘It’s best you use it and not try to save it,’ Mrs Addington intervenes.  ‘Perfume evaporates.’

‘Well, I suppose women wear perfume every day, don’t they?  I can use the talcum powder each morning after I’ve washed and even if they don’t allow perfume at school, I can put it on in the evening.’

Perhaps Angela will dab it behind her ears before she goes to watch Herbie get off the bus.

Miss Selska’s right.  Angela is growing into a woman.  Her breasts are becoming rounder, and I know she’s begun having periods.

 I wish my breasts would show signs of growing, but my chest remains flat and my periods are probably a long way off.  At school when we get ready for PE, I turn to the wall and put my top on quickly so that the girls won’t notice I’m not wearing a bra.  Sometimes I complain of a stomach ache like the other girls.  I hope they’ll assume it’s a period pain.

I have to admit, there are some advantages in not needing to wear a bra or having periods, especially with Mum being sick like she is.  On my own I wouldn’t know how to go about buying a brassiere.  I don’t even know what size I am.  The girls at school are always talking about A, B and C cups, and Ruby Tolston actually says she’s a D.  They probably don’t make bras for women with no breasts.  Why should they? There would be no reason to do so.  As for buying sanitary towels, the thought of going into a shop and asking for them fills me with dread, even though the other girls talk about it as if it’s the most natural thing to do.

‘Thanks for your box of handkerchiefs, too, Paul.  They’re really pretty.’  Angela actually hugs me. 

I’d stolen them from the drawer in Mum’s dressing table.  It felt like stealing and it was stealing.  Though the old Mum might have given them to me for Angela’s present, the new
hearing voices
Mum would have considered it stealing.  I truly hope Angela likes them.  They’ve cost me a lot.

‘Miss Selska’s kindly made some lemon barley water.’  Mrs Addington begins pouring the cloudy liquid into paper cups.

‘It is wery good for your liver.  If you vant healthy liver, then it is lemon barley vater you drink,’ Miss Selska tells us.

‘It’s good for a party too.  Let’s drink a toast,’ Mrs Addington lifts her cup.  ‘To Angela.’

‘To Angela,’ Miss Selska and I repeat. 

Angela smiles and coughs as the sourness hits the back of her throat.

‘And perhaps one more,’ Mrs Addington raises her cup again. ‘To Tony, wherever you are.  All our love.  You will always be part of us.’  We lift our cups and shudder at the bitterness.

Mum sits at the kitchen table cutting zigzags into a piece of wallpaper left over from when Dad had decorated my bedroom.  She is humming what sounds like
You Are My Heart’s Delight
, one of her favourites.

‘You sound happy.’  It’s the first time I’ve heard Mum sing since her strangeness.  Hope surges inside me like a wave tumbling over and over.

‘What are you making?’

‘You’ll see when I’ve finished.’

Recently Mum’s become more withdrawn, not even sharing what
the voices
tell her.  She cuts another zigzag into the paper and I move around the table and put my arm around her.  She’s still beautiful.

Mum becomes secretive.  ‘When I’ve finished, everyone will see.’

When I return from school that evening, Dad’s at the door with a potato peeler in his hand talking to a policeman.

‘When I got home and she wasn’t here, I thought the girl must’ve taken her out,’ Dad is telling the policeman as I arrive on the doorstep.

‘Can we go inside, sir?’  The policeman asks and Dad shows him up the passageway and into the kitchen.  The policeman directs a look at me.  ‘You might not want the young lady to …’

‘Go and make a cup of tea,’ Dad orders me.

‘But … but.’

‘I said, go and make a cup of tea.’

Obediently I leave the room, but double back to crouch behind the kitchen door.  I suppose Mum’s in her place in the scullery in front of the oven.

‘I’m afraid your wife was found this afternoon in the High Street in a … in a bit of a state, sir, very agitated.  Seemed to think she was in ...’  The policeman coughs.  ‘ … heaven … didn’t seem to know who she was.’  The policeman lowers his voice.  ‘She … um … was naked and accosting people along the street, trying to put paper crowns on them.  Said …’  He coughs again.  ‘God had told her to find His chosen ones.’

Mum what have you done to yourself?  What have you done to me?

Chapter Fourteen

Now the warmer weather’s here, Dad and I walk across The Common on Sundays on our way to catch a train to visit Mum in the asylum.  Unlike the bombsite, where red bricks are already three layers above the ground, The Common’s always the same.  German bombs didn’t dare scar it.  It was spared for people like Tony and me to stretch out our arms to the endless green and raise our faces to the broad sky.  The Common is children tadpoling, fathers sitting on benches reading
The News of the World
or helping to sail model boats.  It’s mothers pushing prams and calling to their kids, and platoons of men planting, wheel barrowing and shovelling on their allotments; still digging for victory.

Under a horse chestnut tree on a threadbare blanket, two women are pouring tea from a flask.  Their children are eating cakes, from which currants drop like ants, ready to scurry to some task or the other.

A few early drinkers are making their way to The Carpenter’s Arms, anxious to be there for opening time.  I recognise Jack Bealer from further down Blountmere Street.  He’s dressed in his best Sunday suit and black cap.  His shoes are like lumps of shiny coal.  He won’t return to Blountmere Street that way.  He’ll stagger back later this afternoon with his tie hanging limp, his cap askew, his suit stained and crumpled. 

Mum had been as disparaging of Jack and his drinking cronies, as she had been of Mr Addington from upstairs.  “His ilk are disgraceful,” she had snorted.  She had used the word “
ilk
” as if they were a pack of wild animals roaming along Blountmere Street.  “Drinking themselves senseless, while their children run around like ragamuffins, their backsides hanging out.  And to come back singing, propping each other up, it’s shameful.”  It was at this point she’d screw her eyes shut, slam her lips together and shake her head to dispel the thought of anyone displaying their excesses so publicly.  She was thankful neither she nor her family were of “his ilk”, she’d said, when her lips eventually slackened.

“She was up the High Street starkers.  There was blood dripping everywhere, and she was going up to people saying that God wanted her to crown ‘em.  Frightened out of their wits, everyone was.”

Don’t tell me anything about shame or whatever it is I feel and can’t put a name to.  Mum didn’t know a thing.  Not a thing.  Screwing up your face and shaking your head is easy.  Anyone can screw up their face and shake their head.  Holding your head up isn’t so easy.  Holding your head up and keeping it held up – now that’s difficult.  Opening the front door in the morning and facing everyone.  That’s difficult.  I look across at Jack Bealer and smile.  He doesn’t smile back.  He doesn’t recognise me as one of
his ilk
.

The sound of metal on metal and the voices of children at play blend into one high-pitched note as we walk past the swings.  The new, tamer lizzies are swinging backwards and forwards like the changing patterns of my life.

I’d like to swing now; to  hold on to the chains, stretch out my legs, thrust them forward, pull them back sharply and cradle the chains in the crook of my arms, until I rise higher and higher, above everything that’s happening to me.

‘You can have a swing when we come back, if you like.  You’re not too big,’ Dad says, as if he understands my thoughts.  At that moment I forgive him.  Only a little, though.  Forgiveness comes like medicine, a spoonful at a time.

The asylum is built in a hollow surrounded by wooded hills.  Its shape reminds me of an ear that’s swollen from eavesdropping on the pain of the people locked inside.  A high pitched shriek splinters the atmosphere and carries eerily towards the hills.  It’s difficult to tell whether it’s a human voice or a bird.  I keep my eyes on the oak door we’re approaching and away from the sides of the building, where I know the windows have bars on them.  I wonder if Mum’s room has bars on its windows.  We’ve never been to it.  We only ever see her in the “special room”.

Pansies and stocks crowd around the entrance.  I want to store their perfume against the stench that’s about to engulf us when we push open the door.

We both take a deep breath.  It never gets any easier to push that door open, and I know Dad is as frightened as I am.

Inside, as she usually is, Mum is in a cell-like room, staring at a wall as if rows of numbers are written on it.  She recites in an expressionless voice, ‘One hundred and two, one hundred and three, one hundred and four.’

‘Here are your visitors.  We haven’t had to wait long, have we?  Not got into the thousands this time, sweetheart.’  A nurse with a pasted-on smile talks to Mum.

‘They’ve given permission for your daughter to come today, I presume?’ the nurse asks Dad.

Dad glares at her and replies, ‘Is there any reason why she shouldn’t come?  Her visits are good for her mother, which is more than I can say …’

‘They allow me in when Mum’s feeling all right.  They think it helps her.’ I interject.

‘Be that as it may, in my opinion you’re too young to be visiting a place like this.’

‘I’ll be fourteen soon.’

‘Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,’ Mum’s counting is getting louder.

I speak over the top of her, and say ‘Hello, Mum.’  This is the part I fear the most: not knowing how Mum will react, the long silences, her relapses into counting; my uncertainty whether I should join in Mum’s fantasies. 

Mum, dressed in a red polka dot frock, smiles at us and says politely, ‘Pleased to meet you both.  It’s good of you to come.’

‘She’s been a good girl today, so I don’t think I need to stay.’  The nurse pats Mum on the head.  ‘I’ll be round the corner if you need me.  No being naughty, now.’

Dad clicks his tongue at the retreating nurse, and Mum continues her counting.

‘We’ve brought you some fruit and some sweets from Old Boy Barker’s,’ I say, making a decision not to use the word “
Mum
” again.

‘It’s very kind of you and this man,’ Mum points at Dad, ‘To buy me sweets, but I don’t know if I should accept them from a stranger.’

Dad clicks his tongue again.  It’s the sort of noise Mum herself had once used to indicate disgust.

‘He’s a very nice man and quite safe. He’d be very upset if you didn’t have them,’ I pacify, while Dad unpacks the bag.  He has red patches covering his neck and face like the spots on Mum’s dress.

‘In that case, thank him very much.  Tell him I might not be allowed to eat many of them.  I’ll ask, but if I can’t I’ll share them around.’

I’m not sure if Mum means she’ll ask the staff or
the voices
.

‘Do you need anything?’  Dad asks brusquely, as he does every week for want of something to say. 

Mum’s reply is always the same.  ‘No, thank you very much.’  Her smile is remote; one reserved for strangers.

All three of us stare at the wall until Mum resumes her counting, and I seek something to say that won’t upset her, or produce a blank expression. 

‘Did you have a good dinner today?’

‘No,’ Mum answers between counting.

‘Why was that?’

‘They don’t know how to cook, that’s why.’  It is a spark of the old Mum.  I’m encouraged, and continue, ‘What was wrong with it?’

‘Cow’s tits.’

‘Now that’s enough,’ Dad rises in protest.  The polka-dot patches on his face are more pronounced.

‘One hundred and thirty-three, one hundred and thirty-four.’

‘I’m going outside to get some fresh air.’  Dad has already begun pulling a packet of Weights from his pocket.

As soon as Dad leaves, Mum’s face becomes animated.  ‘Quick, hide this fruit.’  She begins piling apples and oranges into my lap.  Some fall on the floor and roll around the room.  ‘
They
’re trying to poison me.’

‘But …’

‘Hide the fruit!’ she orders.

‘They’re not trying to poison you.  Nobody’s trying to poison you.’

‘Don’t tell me what they’re trying to do.  I know. 
They’ve
told me.’  She pauses and looks at me quizzically.  ‘Who are you, anyway?’

I’m gradually getting used to the new order of things and the routine Dad and I have got into: the shared housework and cooking, sitting together in the kitchen at night, while I do my homework and Dad reads
The Star
.  Sometimes Dad even asks me how I’m getting on at school.

The changes in him are like one of the fantasies we used to dance in ballet class, where an ogre changes into a loving prince, and a wolf is transformed into a docile dog.  It’s more the stuff of imagination than reality. In the here and now, though, it’s about survival, Dad’s and mine.  For us both to survive, he has to change.  So Dad’s opened a rusty catch to a long-forgotten door.  He’s braved what he might find on the other side and has become a bit more involved in life.

‘This is for you,’ Dad offers me a used brown envelope. ‘You might need to get yourself a couple of things.’  He presses the envelope into my hand.  Then he delves into his pocket and produces a few coppers.  ‘Friday night used to be treat night, didn’t it?  So why don’t you go and buy a bottle of that Tizer stuff and a couple of packets of crisps.’  He busies himself folding his newspaper and pushing it under the cushion of his armchair.  ‘Then you and me can have a little knees up.’  His face contorts into a smile and he half-coughs a creaky unused laugh.

Outside in the passage I tear open the envelope and count the money.  It’s enough to buy a brassiere, maybe two.  I run back into the kitchen and kiss him. 

‘Daft happorth,’ Dad replies.  I forgive him another spoonful.

I usually do some shopping after school and before Dad gets in.  I rush around the side of the bombsite like Mum used to, mentally ticking off in my mind what we need, in the same way I suppose she did.  I’m concentrating, so that at first I don’t see Bill standing outside the fortressed building site.  Lines, not even hints of which I remember, bite into his face shaping it into middle age. 

‘What are you doing here?’  I’m surprised at the sharpness of my tone.

‘I wanted to see you,’ Bill says, stepping forward, and looking directly into my face.  ‘Just the same, and yet more grown up,’ he observes, as he runs his fingers through his hair in his characteristic gesture of uncertainty.  ‘But then, of course, you would be more grown up.  It must be getting on for three years since I last saw you.’

‘I thought you didn’t know where we lived.’  I look back at our place.  Dad might return at any time.

‘Shall we walk up to the High Street?  I presume that was where you were going?’ he asks.

Automatically Bill takes my shopping bag.  It reminds me of when I’d first met him with Mum at the market.  If it weren’t for that meeting Mum might still be standing at the sink peeling potatoes, singing.  Consciously I move away from him.

‘I heard about your Mum from a customer of mine in Kentlyn Avenue.’

“She was up the High Street starkers.  Daphne Hawkins said she’d cut herself all over.  There was blood dripping everywhere and she was going up to people saying that God wanted her to crown ‘em.  Frightened out of their wits, they all were.”

‘How did it happen?’  Bill asks.

I shake my head.  How does someone step from sanity to insanity?  It seems sudden - just one step, but looking back, those who are close know there have been a succession of steps that they haven’t seen or they’ve chosen not to see.

‘She started hearing voices.’  It’s an easy place to begin.

‘Voices?’

‘They told her to do strange things.’

‘How is she now?’

‘She’s in an … a … special hospital.  She’s getting better,’ I lie.

‘How did it start?  What triggered it?’

‘I don’t know.’  I keep my gaze levelled on the row of shops teetering on the edge of the building site as if they are about to topple into it and be swallowed up by red bricks.

‘Do you think I could visit her?’

‘No!  Only Dad and I are allowed, and getting permission for me was difficult because they said I wasn’t old enough.  Now they think it helps Mum.  Sometimes when, when … she’s not well we’re not allowed to go.’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Bill turns to look at me, but I keep staring ahead. 
Don’t say anything.  Nothing!  Nothing
.

‘When you see her tell her I still … remember me to her.’

‘All right,’ I reply.  I won’t be able to, of course.

‘I’ve got my own upholstery business now,’ Bill continues.  ‘Just moved there.  It’s quite close; the other side of The Common as a matter of fact. It’s a small place, but with a couple of flats over the top.  Someone I knew was emigrating to Australia and wanted to get rid of it pretty quickly.  Unfortunately, my marriage has broken up, so it’s a new start.’  He pulls out his wallet and gives me a card.  ‘In case you need to get in touch with me,’ he explains.  I take the card and ram it in my pocket.  I won’t need to get in touch with Bill anymore.  I’ve got Dad now.