The Best in Blountmere Street (The Blountmere Street Series Book 2) (16 page)

‘We are indeed sorry to hear about your wife’s illness.’  Eliza Heathman is more stolid than I remember her, as if she’s spooned into herself too much of the clotted cream she’s now scooping into tins.

‘We hope she will mend quickly.  It must be difficult for you both.’

‘Just one of those things.’  Neither Dad nor Mrs Heathman mention the nature of Mum’s sickness.

‘I expect she’s happy for the pair of you to come down here for a week to get some country air into your lungs.’

‘Very happy,’ I reply, studying my hands. 

‘How do you like your room?’ Damielle asks me, her soft burr filling the awkwardness that’s descended on the kitchen.  She’s still the same exquisite fairy-child with silken hair curling to her shoulders and skin painted pink-white.  Even her developing breasts look as if they’ve been handcrafted.

‘It’s beautiful.  Yellow’s my favourite colour, isn’t it, Dad?’

‘The colour of sunshine and daffs, that’s what Paula says about our yellow kitchen cupboards I painted.’  Relieved to be free of the subject of Mum, Dad hiccups a chuckle.  

Sunshine really does fill my room under the eaves, where parts of the sloping ceiling touch the floor.  Sunshine painted on the walls and on the chest of drawers and cabinet, sunshine streaming through the window onto the floor, causing it to become a golden road; magical sunshine seeping into me, warming me inside.

‘Doesn’t it ever rain here?’ I ask Damielle, who is perched on my bed, watching me fold my clothes into the top drawer of the chest.  If she notices the sparseness of my belongings or their shabby state, she’s too polite to mention it.

‘Rain!’ she replies.  ‘Sometimes it rains so much the river breaks its banks and floods for miles around.’  She jumps from the bed like a fawn and springs to the window.  I join her and look down on Mr Heathman and Dad squelching across the farmyard.  I hadn’t noticed the mud before, only the trees latticed with fresh leaves and the hills shimmering gold with gorse.  I smile as I watch Dad chatting.  ‘He’s so different when he’s here,’ I say, almost to myself.

‘He likes helping my father.  He’s a farmer at heart.’

If Dad had been a farmer, perhaps he would have been more at peace with himself and us.

That afternoon, Damielle and I recline in the hollow where Mum and Dad had once pitched our tent.  The sun warms our backs and the scent of the hedgerows surrounding us is intoxicating.  It brings back pictures of Mum wearing her floral holiday frock, cooking breakfast, framed by the tent flap

“Hello Sleepy head.  We thought you were going to sleep forever, didn’t we, Les?”

The vision persists: Dad’s relaxed reflection in the mirror as he shaves; my shorts and blouse laid out ready for me on the straw bed.

‘It was the best week we ever had, the three of us,’ I say.

Damielle takes my hand.  ‘We could take a picnic to Smuggler’s Cove if the memories don’t cause you too much pain.’ 

I shake my head to rid it of the circling pictures.  The last time I’d been to Smuggler’s Cove I’d been weighed down with the grief of Mum’s impending death.  I’d thought then that I’d never be able to bear it, but I’ve discovered there are greater burdens to carry.

At Smuggler’s Cove, the waves ripple towards us like shy young girls who have come to meet their lovers.  Softly laughing, and all too quickly retreating, they leave their sweethearts to await their inevitable return.

‘It’s still as lovely.  Perhaps even lovelier without anyone here except the seagulls.’

‘Until the holiday makers arrive, it’s like this all the time.’  Damielle spreads her arms and pirouettes.  ‘No-one sees me dance across the sand except John.  He watches me sometimes.’

‘Who’s John?’

‘His family owns the farm next to ours over Brimbleton side.’  Damielle continues to dance along the shore, her hair streaming, her voice lost in the sea sounds.  She circles back to me, laughing.  ‘Let’s go inside Smuggler’s Cave.’  She skips towards the opening, beckoning. ‘Follow me.  I have a torch hidden.’ 

I run to catch up: the mortal following the immortal. 

Inside the cave, with flickering light from Damielle’s torch, we clamber through a rocky maze to where Damielle says smugglers once stashed their booty.  We sit huddled together, our closeness and the half darkness freeing our inhibitions and loosening our tongues.  As I’ve never been able to in my letters, I tell Damielle of Dad’s refusal to let me accept a place at Riversham, and of the voices in Mum’s head.  I tell her of Mum’s admittance to the asylum, and of Tony, Angela and school, even of Herbie and what had happened at the pictures.  But of Bill, I say nothing.  It would be disloyal to Mum to speak of Bill.

‘John and I come here sometimes.  He’s my sweetheart, see.  When I’m eighteen, we’ll wed and live on his folk’s farm and have babies,’ Damielle tells me, while I heap shingle between my toes.  How predictable!  How wonderfully predictable!  One season giving way to the next, one child followed by another; generation after generation, the rhythm constant and unchanging.

I wrap my arms around myself, aware of the not too distant rush of waves ‘It sounds as if the sea’s close,’ I say.

‘It’s inside the cave now,’ Damielle replies, unperturbed.

‘But how are we going to get out?’  I scramble to my feet.

‘Don’t fret.  We’ll wait for the tide to turn.  We’re safe enough here.  Those old waves are afraid to come this far and there’s a shaft hereabouts where the air blows through.  That’s why the smugglers used this cave.’

‘Won’t your parents be concerned?’ 

Dad wouldn’t be worried, whereas the old Mum would have been frantic if I hadn’t returned after half an hour.

‘They know I come here often and that the sea doesn’t reach this far.’  Damielle stretches and becomes a graceful shadow.

I raise my hand to shade my eyes as we eventually wade through the waist-high water and out of the cave.

‘We shouldn’t have left our picnic on the cliff with our shoes.  I’m starving.  We should have taken it into the cave with us, even though we wouldn’t have been able to see much of what we were eating.’  I look up and see Dad running across the beach towards us.  His arms are semaphoring above his head.  Mrs Heathman is scrambling down the cliff, but she is trailing behind.  He is shouting, but his words are sucked into the intervening space.  I begin skipping towards him.  Now he seems to be stumbling and I hasten my pace.  I catch the sound of my name.  Cheerfully I call back, ‘Hello Dad,’ but Dad half falls, rights himself and continues lurching towards me.

’I thought you were dead.  Drowned.’  Dad eventually reaches me and collapses, pulling me down with him on to the sand.  He buries his face in my hair and begins to sob.

‘I’m all right, Dad.  It’s all right.’

Dad’s crying, actually crying and I don’t know what to do.

‘I told him you would both be safe at the back of the cave, but when he saw your shoes, the picnic basket on the cliffs, and the waves covering the cave mouth he became nigh-on inconsolable.’  Mrs Heathman, panting from her exertion, covers me as best she can with a towel, before wrapping another around Damielle.  ‘You best come home and leave Mr Dibble and Paula to make their own way back,’ she puffs.

‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.  You’re all I’ve got.’  Dad’s lips tremble as he rubs me dry.

‘I didn’t mean to upset you.  I just didn’t think … I didn’t think you’d be worried about me.’

‘Not worried about you?  I was out of my head.’  Then, for the first time I can remember, Dad kisses me.  His whiskers rub wet against my cheek.  Abruptly he rises, lifting me with him.  ‘We ought to get those wet things off you or you’ll catch your death of cold.’ 

We begin crossing the sand with Dad’s arm still around me.

‘We’ll say yes to your mother having that electric treatment, whatever it is.  What d’you think?  You never know, it could do the trick.’  Dad lets go of my shoulder, and clutches my hand to pull me up the cliff.  Every now and then, a soft tremor catches in his throat.  His hands continue to shake, while I can still feel his tears wet against my cheek.

Chapter Eighteen

Angela and I lug our weekly shopping onto the bus.  We struggle up the stairs and find a seat.

‘So your Dad’s letting you sit the exam to go to that posh secretarial college up West, is he?’  Angela pushes a bag between her feet.  ‘You sure he won’t change his mind?  You know what happened when you got a scholarship to that fancy Riversham College.’

‘It’s different this time.  People can change you know.  Dad’s changed.’

‘All right, keep your hair on.  Honestly, you’ve got right edgy lately.’

‘I’m sick of people thinking they know everything, sick of … sick of …’

What was I sick of?  I was sick of people changing and of trying to fathom the changes in them.  I was sick of being expected to change along with them, when I wasn’t at all sure who I was changing from and who I was supposed to be changing to.  ‘I don’t know.  I’m fed up trying to interpret people and myself, I suppose.’

Angela looks at me uncomprehending.  ‘I’ll tell you this much.  You’re different, that’s for sure.’

‘What d’you mean, different?’

‘Using words like interpret for a start.  It’s posh and different.’  Angela readjusts the bag between her feet.  ‘Here’s the bleedin’ bus inspector.’  She feels in her pocket for her bus ticket.   ‘Good job I didn’t try and get away without paying.’

‘You don’t really, do you?  I mean, not pay your bus fare?’

‘When I’m a bit hard up.  Don’t worry, I never do it with you.  You’re a good girl, Paul.  Not like me.’  She swivels to face me.  Lately her eyes seem to have sunk deeper into the circles around them.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, Paul.  You’ve got to help me.’

‘Help you?’

‘I’m in the club.’

‘In the club?’

‘Blimey you’re dozy.  I’ve got a bun in the oven.’  Angela sighs.  ‘For Pete’s sake, Paul, I’m pregnant.’

The scent of sweet williams planted in one of Dad’s old buckets wafts in aromatic gusts over us as Angela and I sit on our back door step late that evening.  It reminds me of the times Tony and I had sat there reading our comics and confiding our secrets.  It causes the old familiar pain to return to my chest.

‘Have you thought what you’re going to do about the baby?’  I whisper.

‘Of course, I’ve thought about it, and there’s nothing for it.  I’ll have to get rid of it.’

‘Get rid of it?’

‘Have an abortion.  They say there’s a woman in Stowerhouse Street does ‘em.  I’ll just have to see if I can borrow the money, though I don’t know who I’d be able to get it from.  I’ve wracked my brains, but I don’t know anybody who might have the cash.’ 

‘But an abortion!  It’s so dangerous.’  I bring to mind Mum and Aunt Min talking about someone they knew when they didn’t think I was listening: “Stuck a knitting needle up her they did”,
Aunt Min had said.  Mum had frowned and told her to keep her voice down.  But Aunt Min had refused to be quiet and had carried on that if these trollops were wicked enough to muck around outside the marriage bed, what could they expect.

‘I haven’t exactly got too many choices.  I can’t look after a kid on my own.   It’s either this or having it adopted.  At least it’ll be over and done with and I can get on with life without the whole world staring at me like I was some fallen woman.  Nobody needs to know.’

‘But Stowerhouse Street!  It’s the roughest street around here.  And you don’t know what this woman will do to you.’  Mum’s and Aunt Min’s conversation had culminated with Aunt Min saying the girl had suffered an agonizing death.  There’d been enough blood to fill The Thames, Aunt Min had said, before putting the back of her hand to her forehead and making a moaning sound.

‘What about the father of your baby?  Don’t you think you ought to tell him and see what he thinks?’  I ask. 

‘Leave him out of this.  I can cope with it on my own.  It’s my own business and that’s how it’ll stay.’

Angela’s spoken of so many boys in the past few months, but I wonder … I push the thought away.

‘I’m not scared to go through with it on my own,’ Angela continues.  ‘And Mum doesn’t need to know either.  There’s no reason to go upsetting her.’

 Angela gets up from the step, rubbing the front of her dress as if she’s already trying to flatten a bulge.  She seems no older than when she used to chase me home from Blountmere Street School.

The air of Stowerhouse Street is tainted with poverty.  The net curtains of number forty-five hang like grey shards.   Grime coats the windows, hiding the secrets behind them in a way the curtains no longer can.  The glass in the front door has been replaced with rough wood on which is written in indelible purple, “
Jaffa Oranges
”.  Sheltered in the doorway at the top of a flight of steps, cluttered with broken furniture and the stuffing from a discarded mattress, a crone sleeps a gin-induced slumber.  Sprawled in a rickety armchair, she’s oblivious to the raucous sounds of the children below chalking obscenities on the pavement.

A small boy, shoeless and with spiky black hair, stops his scribbling to eye me defiantly.

‘‘ad yer pennoth,‘ave yer?’

‘I … I was just taking a walk.’

‘Why don’t yer bleedin’ sling yer hook and walk somewhere else?’  A girl of about my own age confronts me, while the others sift the dirt in the gutter for stones.

‘Yeah, clear orf.’  A boy aims a pebble at me.  It skims my arm.  A shower of others follows.  ‘Git to where yer belong,’ the boy yells at my retreating back. 

‘Yeah, clear orf.’

‘Clear orf, clear orf,’ the children chorus as, with my arms covering my head for protection, I flee the grim hostility of Stowerhouse Street.

On my next visit to see Mum, she strokes my hair.  ‘You’re growing into a young woman,’ she says.

I snuggle closer to her remembering long ago nights round the fire in Blountmere Street cocooned in her lap.  Old and familiar feelings stir waiting permission to be reborn.

‘It’s wonderful to see Mum so much better, isn’t it?’  I ask Dad.

In answer, he grunts his usual grunt and stares at the floor.

I cup Mum’s face between my hands and say, ‘It feels as if you’re coming back to us.’ 

It’s been several weeks since Mum’s mentioned
the voices
, although she doesn’t yet use either of our names.

‘Do you know who we are?’  I begin.  In spite of the improvement in Mum, inside I am still a little scared.

‘You’re my girl, my special girl.’

‘And what about this man?’  I indicate Dad.

Mum smiles politely at Dad.  Again, he lowers his head. 

‘The weather’s lovely today, isn’t it?’  She continues as if she hasn’t heard my question.  ‘I’ve been out in the grounds all morning.  A marvellous day to get those sheets blowing on the line and the place given a good airing.’  She looks at Dad again.  ‘Talking of fresh air, I don’t know if you smoke, but we won’t mind if you pop into the garden for a cigarette.’

Looking relieved, Dad pats his pockets for his Weights.  ‘I won’t be long then,’ he says.

‘Take your time.  Mum and I have got plenty to talk about.’  I watch Dad as he leaves the room.  Now that Mum’s more coherent, she’s not any easier for Dad to relate to than when she was incoherent.  He doesn’t understand either.

‘Mum, there’s something I need some advice on.’  I’ve been waiting for this.  Waiting for a look of recognition and a lucid reply.  ‘It’s Angela.’

‘Angela?’

‘You know, Angela Addington upstairs.’

Mum looks upwards.

‘She’s pregnant, and she’s going to have an abortion, but the woman she’s thinking of gong to lives in Stowerhouse Street.  I went there to have a look at the place, but it’s horrible – so dirty and I don’t know what to do.’

I expect Mum to tut at the word “abortion” as she would once have done, but she seems not to notice the word has been used.

‘While I was there a woman came out.  She looked awful, very pale, and the person with her had to help her down the steps.   She was crying and when she got to the bottom she almost passed out.  It was terrible.  I can’t let Angela go through that.’

‘Has the girl upstairs told her mother?’

‘Do you think Mrs Addington will be able to help her?’

Mum looks vaguely at the ceiling again.  ‘Her mother will.  Mothers always can.’

‘I’m the only one Angela’s told, so you won’t tell anyone, will you?’

‘I’m very good at keeping secrets.’  Mum twists her hands together and places them on her chest, supposedly to where her heart is.

When I tell Angela I’ve been to Stowerhouse Street, she snaps. ‘You shouldn’t poke your nose into what’s got nothing to do with you.  It isn’t any of your business.  I don’t care what you say, as soon as I can get the money, I’m getting rid of this kid, and that’s all there is to it.’

‘Why don’t you tell your Mum and see what she says?’

‘I’ve told you, I’m not having Mum dragged into this.  She doesn’t need to know.’

‘If you’re set on having an abortion, at least go somewhere better than Stowerhouse Street,’ I urge.

‘And
where,
Miss High and Mighty Know Everything, would I go?  Anyway, it would cost a packet.  No, it’s either Stowerhouse Street or I’ll do something myself.  The girls at school used to say it wasn’t difficult.’

‘You can’t do that … it could … you might … it’s so dangerous.  Promise me you won’t do anything like that.’

‘What else would you suggest, seeing as you know so much?’

It comes to me suddenly and I say, ‘Give it a few days.  I know someone who I think will be able to help.’

‘A few days, then.’

I go straight to Bill.

At first he looks alarmed.  ‘It’s not you who’s pregnant, is it?  I’ll help you if you are, Paula.  I’ll do anything.’  He holds both my hands in his until my knuckles whiten.  ‘You needn’t go through this on your own.  I’ll be with you.’

‘No, no, it’s not me.  It’s a friend.  Actually, it’s Angela Addington upstairs.’

Bill lets out a breath and says, ‘I see,’ although I’m sure he doesn’t. 

He relinquishes my hands, but continues to pat them from time to time.  ‘It’s not that I haven’t got the money, or that I wouldn’t give it to her.  You know I’d do anything for you … your mother and you,’ Bill repeats, while I question my wisdom in coming.  I hadn’t intended seeing Bill again, even if I do miss playing the piano, and sitting in my special chair chatting with him.  Afterwards, though, I’m left with niggling doubts that I’m doing something wrong.  Bill’s becoming too involved in my life.  But he’s the only person I know who might have the money.

‘I’m not sure abortion is the best course of action, even if your friend can find a reputable clinic,’ he replies.

‘So what do you think she should do?’

‘I’ll need to think about it.’ Bill still manages his easy smile.  ‘I do know there are places where women can stay while they’re waiting to have their babies.  Afterwards … given your friend’s circumstances, the baby will probably have to be adopted, but at least she won’t have put her life in danger, and the child will have a good home.’

‘Angela and I wouldn’t know where to begin to find one of those places, even if I can persuade her it’s the best thing to do.’

‘Her doctor will help her, or if you like I’ll look into it.’

‘The problem is that this way she’ll have to tell her mother and she doesn’t want to.’

‘Her mother would certainly find out if there were to be complications after having the abortion.  Your friend might not have thought about that.’

‘Mum said she should tell Mrs Addington.’  Mum hadn’t exactly used Mrs Addington’s name, but as good as.  ‘You know, Mum seems so much better every time we visit her.  I don’t think it’ll be long before she comes home.’

‘That’ll be wonderful.’

I wonder if Bill’s aware he’s moved to the middle of the room and that he’s stroking Mum’s chaise longue.

It’s the first time in several weeks Angela’s hair’s looked tidy and her face shown any colour. 

‘You’re looking better,’ I observe as we come out of our front doors together.

‘I feel better, not so sick, you know.  And I’ve been thinking, since you told me what your friend said about a home I can go into, that it might not be such a bad idea.’  Angela looks up at a plane flying overhead, and struggles to make herself heard.  ‘Anyway, I saw this couple with their little ‘un the other day and it made me think, well …’

‘Think?’

‘That this,’ Angela pats her stomach.  ‘Isn’t just a lump of something.  Anyway, time’s getting on, so I reckon I’m stuck with it.  Telling Mum’s going to be the stinker.  Poor old girl, her family hasn’t done her too many favours.  Still, she won’t be stuck with the baby.  I’ll get it adopted as soon as it’s born.  By the way, who’s this friend of yours, do I know her?’

‘Just a family friend.’

‘Thank her for the advice, will you?’

Outside the asylum, the clouds scud across the sky like boats pushed by a strong current, while inside the air is thick and static. 

‘Has the girl upstairs told her mother?’  Mum asks, when Dad’s outside leaning against a tree, trying to keep a match flickering while he lights a cigarette.

I study Mum’s hands.  Gone are the deep dirt-ingrained crevices.  The skin once reddened and chapped is soft and creamy, her nails, rounded and smooth, shiny with shell-pink nail varnish.   This is not my occasionally dressed-up pink-frocked film-star mother, this
is
Mum, pink-frocked inside and out.   

‘And how did the lady upstairs – Mrs  Adson, is it – take it?’

‘Mrs Addington.’  Mum’s memory’s getting so much better.  Given time she’ll come to recognise Dad, too.  I know she will. 

Outside, he’s managed to light his cigarette and is gazing into the distance.  He’s probably thinking of the time when Mum will return to us.  Surely it can’t be long.   Maybe he’s considering our lives, his and mine, and wondering where Mum fits in. 

I continue, ‘Angela said her mother took the news much better than she’d thought she would.  The worst thing, Angela said, was that her mother feels she’s in some way to blame.  Not only has she let Tony down, she’s failed Angela, too.  Anyway, the good thing is Angela’s not going to have an abortion.  A friend’s making some enquiries about her going into a home for unmarried mothers, and then having the baby adopted.  In the long run it’s probably the best option.’