The Jeweller's Skin (29 page)

‘And you?’ she asked gently.  ‘You have not got married?’

‘Nobody’s asked me.’  Again the hoarse laugh.  ‘Actually that’s not true, a boy did, years ago, but he was hopeless, I’d have gone mad.  Well, you know what I mean.’  She smiled, the wide red mouth suddenly sad.  ‘I don’t think I’m cut out for married life.  Maybe it’s growing up in a home, and all that.  Not that I tell them, but I reckon it shows.’

Narcisa was struggling to understand.  ‘You think it is because of where you grew up?’

‘I keep forgetting, you don’t know about it, do you?’  She paused and watched two nurses on bicycles ride up the side path towards the cycle shed, laughing.  ‘You know, when I was little, I used to think you knew, and you’d come and get me.’

Narcisa felt tears brimming in her eyes.  We could just sit here all afternoon and weep, the two of us, she thought.  She made herself stay still.  One tear ran down the side of her nose.   As long as Violeta hadn’t seen it.

‘Please,’ she said at last, when she could speak.  ‘Please tell me.  I know only that they took you away from me, when you were six months old.  They said it was to the workhouse.’

‘They took me away?  You didn’t want them to?’

She shook her head.

Violeta sat for a moment.  ‘Well,’ she said.  ‘It was the workhouse children’s home, not the actual workhouse.  I was there till I was eight.  Then I was boarded out with these people, husband and wife, they were very religious.  I told you, he was the one who knew about my name.  That was till I was fourteen.  Then it was back to the home.  You know, the big girls, they get you looking after the little ones, it’s supposed to teach you about housework and stuff like that, but it’s cheap labour.’  The voice was flat again, as if she were telling someone else’s story.

Narcisa got up awkwardly from the deckchair.  ‘Come,’ she said.  ‘I would like to go out of here.  If you agree?  To go for a walk, down the lane?’

‘Well, if you like.’  She stood up, obedient.  ‘Do we need to put these away somewhere?’

Child of an institution, Narcisa thought.  ‘It is fine,’ she said.  ‘I will do it afterwards.  Perhaps someone else will like to sit here.’

*

In the lane she wanted to take Violeta’s arm.  But there was something about the young woman, some awkwardness that made it feel a risk.  Instead she pointed out the farm buildings, the milking-parlour and the smithy, the farmworkers’ cottages.  It was easier to talk about the asylum system, the self-sufficiency in vegetables and milk, the patients’ labour that made it possible.  At the same time, she felt she had interrupted. 

At the junction she said, ‘This road is a little rough - dry, I think, but perhaps not good for your shoes?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’  But Narcisa could see they were city shoes, with two-inch heels, not suited for country walking.  ‘Can we go up there, up that hill?’

It was the way Narcisa had taken, the week before.  When I walked out of chapel, she thought, surprised at herself.  They went slowly, Violeta picking her way.  At the top she seemed a little out of breath.  They paused by the five-bar gate, where the mud had dried into deep wheel-track furrows.

Narcisa pushed the hair back from her face.  ‘Listen,’ she said, having just then decided.  ‘I was a patient here, you know that.  For five years.  You were born after I tried to escape.  I got out through the fence, close to that gate, and onto the lane.  When they caught me I had walked along that way’ - she pointed down at the road - ‘as far as the railway station.’  She stopped and looked intently at Violeta, needing to make the story clear to her.  ‘Your father, he was the man who helped me escape.  His name was Francis; he was a gardener here.  I cannot explain, how I came to know him; but he understood that I must get out.  That was all.  And because he was so good’ - she could picture him now, his brown curly hair and open face - ‘because he was kind, you see, and I, oh I was so excited to be out at last, I thought it would all be fine now I was not a patient - well, we made love together, in a field, under a tree.’  She could see the field from here, but something kept her from pointing it out. 

Violeta stepped over the ruts to lean on the gate.  After a little while she said, ‘Francis.’  Then she turned back to face Narcisa.  ‘Do I look like him?’

Such longing, in the voice that she’d thought flat.  She stepped forward and took the narrow face between her hands.    Violeta was trembling.  Narcisa looked steadily, till her daughter turned away.  ‘Your mouth,’ she said in the end.  ‘He also had a wide mouth, I had forgotten.  And perhaps your hair.  Though my sister too had brown hair, not black like mine.’  She let her hands drop. 

‘It was just once?  Before they brought you back?’

She nodded.  ‘I do not even know his surname.  I am sorry.  Though perhaps now I can find from the registry, if you would like.  Of course you would like to know, it is your father.’

They began to walk back down the hill, towards the asylum.  A brown and white cow looked up from the grass, and watched them, chewing.

Well, I have said it, Narcisa thought.  I can do nothing about what she thinks. 

As they came down to the junction, Violeta asked, ‘You weren’t in love with him, then?’

‘I am afraid not.  It was a big scandal here, of course.  For the first time they brought an interpreter.  But I - well, I will not make excuses.’

‘It’s not that.  I mean, people do, don’t they?  People pretend it’s only when you’re married, but everyone knows it’s not really like that.  It’s just’ - she was searching for words, looking down at the ground, walking slowly - ‘I suppose I sort of hoped you were in love.’ 

‘Perhaps for that moment.  But that is not what you mean, is it?’  She wondered what might make it better.  ‘He took a big risk, helping me.  He could have been fired.  Perhaps he was; after I escaped, they would not let me out of doors, so I did not see him again, I do not know.  But he was a kind man, very’ - she looked for the right word - ‘very warm.  You should know that.’

They walked back in silence.  At the gate Violeta said, ‘I’d better go and get the train.’

They stood awkwardly, out of sight of the lodge.  Narcisa felt shocked.  But she will have had enough, she told herself.  So much drama.

‘You will come back and visit me again?’

That guarded look in the dark eyes again.  ‘If you want.’

It seemed there might have been another question; there was a pause, Violeta looking down.  In the end she buttoned up her coat. ‘Well, thank you.’

‘I should say thank you.  You have been very kind to me, considering.’

Puzzled.

‘Never mind.  I am glad that you came.’  She leaned forward and took the young woman’s head once again in her hands.  The hair was soft and springy against her palms, and smelled of soap.  She kissed the forehead.  ‘You see,’ she said.  ‘I am a foreigner.  That is how we say goodbye.’  Not true; there would be tears and hugs, she thought.

She watched the slim figure walking away, beside the high fence, hands in the pockets of her new green coat, which swayed slightly.

The asylum was peaceful.  From the top of the water-tower, ungainly amongst the spreading grey-brick buildings, a watcher, Colin Allen if he’d been there, leaning over to inspect the pointing, would have seen green: the chestnut and plane-trees shimmering in new leaf, the lawns as if perfected by months of snow.  Beyond the fence, the Guernseys munched steadily in their field, pigs rootled in the mud of their narrow yard, potato-plants showed short and dark in rows.  The chapel seemed squatter than ever, its barrel-roof pale in the bright sunlight.  The doors were shut, the morning service over.  Kitty Bosanquet had done her best with the piano, while the voices rose with some enthusiasm, as if the wild idea of resurrection, expounded with awkward zeal by the new chaplain, might after all have something to do with them.  During the last hymn Dr Bosanquet had worried: religious devotion could be too stimulating, he’d seen it before in certain manic-depressives; but Kitty played some Mozart at the end, and the pews emptied out in the usual shuffling silence.

Every half-hour a trail of visitors came, remembering the way from the railway-station.  If Colin had been on the tower he would have seen; but Colin had left his assistant Banks in charge, and was dozing in the sun in his daughter’s garden, while her youngest decanted earth into his turn-ups.  One or two or a family at a time, the relatives paused at the lodge, then walked rather jerkily up the drive, looking round at the roses -
Say what you like, they do keep it nice -
and wistfully at the sun on the shaved grass, before tackling the steps to the front door.  The building absorbed them out of sight as they came; then there was a pause, the grounds all but empty, until the next train had arrived from London, and another scattering trudged along the lane, steeling themselves and practising what to say, before turning in at the gate to face the porter.

At two o’clock the shift of nurses changed.  By ten to, those on lates had come back in, by bike or on foot, one or two of them lingering out of sight of the lodge, for kisses to print the languid morning on their flesh.  A group of men hurried in, in cricket whites, the match disrupted by the working rota, with the score so close they were still arguing, laughing out loud and slapping each other’s shoulder.  Then after handover the early shift emerged, on gravel paths that met half-way down the drive, off-duty voices starting already to shout, and shushed again as they passed the visitors.  One girl veered off from the group, seeing her boyfriend step up to the gates; another looked at her watch and began to run, her friends calling after her till she disappeared.

It was Easter Sunday and the sun was shining.  From the top of the water-tower it was all sky, and open country on three sides of the grounds, with the town’s last houses hidden behind the trees.  The invisible watcher, a long-stay patient perhaps, whatever remained of his will pushing him up, out of the damp ward into a place alone, where the wind would ruffle his hair and chill his earlobes - the watcher had chosen the unimpeded view.  He had missed the slow walking-party of patients, a double crocodile marshalled by two male nurses, heading out towards the closed pubs of the town.  Or perhaps that had happened thirty years ago.  The present patients, a thousand or more of them, were invisible so far this afternoon.  Even the men who worked outside in the week, weeding paths or bringing in cattle or lifting greens; even they were confined by leisure to the wards, and sat too large in their chairs, with dangling hands.  When visitors came, lifting cakes out of wicker baskets, the patients watched in thwarted expectation, the objects almost unknown as they came to light, the smell of a sponge cake, made from precious rations, vanilla and sugar and a hint of lemon, bewildering as a sudden burst of music.  So the patients roused themselves to give back thanks, the least they could do, and looked round, hesitant, hoping a nurse would bustle up and issue orders - slice the cake, take it back - anything might have done to disturb the calm, the little circle of placating faces, and the terror of what accepting the gift might bring.

Then it was Easter Monday: Bank Holiday.  In New Cross, Clara Wooldridge got out of bed without waking Stan, and stretched up to the ceiling.  It wasn’t often Stan got to lie in.  She would bring him a cup of tea a bit later.  She went downstairs barefoot in her dressing-gown.  It was cold in the kitchen: the boiler must have gone out.  She levered the round lid off and peered in, then raked down at the coals with the long poker.  It had just burned low; it should take again.  She lifted the tall grey hod and poured the anthracite in, with a sound like shingle. 

When the kettle was on, she searched for her cigarettes, and stood at the back door, smoking, looking out at the garden.  It was about time she sowed some lettuce.  What with the winter going on so long, and floods they’d had in some parts, though not here, she hadn’t been thinking much about the garden.  Lettuce, and beans; and sprouts she might try this year.

She ground out her cigarette on the wall, and took the stub inside to throw on the boiler.  Dennis and Rose, her elder son and his wife, were coming for lunch.  He’d always liked liver; she was doing liver and bacon.  And maybe she and Stan would go out first, for a walk, Telegraph Hill perhaps.  It was a long time since they’d gone for a walk together.

She left the back door open to get the sun, and filled the kettle.  Dennis might like to take them out for a drive.  Or Stan; but Dennis reckoned his car was better.

She made up a tray, teapot, milk and sugar, and the best cups, two that she’d bought in the market on Lower Marsh.  At the last minute she looked outside again.  There was nothing in flower; she’d never been keen on flowers.  She fetched the kitchen scissors and cut a branch of rosemary, and put it on the tray in a cracked glass.  Daft, I am, she thought, going up the stairs.

*

Howard Rathfelders asked, ‘Shall I take the monster off your hands?’

His sister was ironing sheets in the big light kitchen.  ‘I don’t know why you don’t get someone in to do that,’ he grumbled, without conviction.  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ Lilian said, ‘of course you know.  Yes, take him out for a long walk or something.  Anything.  Susie can stay here with me and do colouring.’ 

He called his nephew, and began the lengthy preparation for going out.  ‘Hold still,’ he said, buttoning Bobbie’s coat awkwardly with his one hand.  Bobbie wanted his red striped scarf and gloves.  ‘Let him,’ Lilian said.  ‘If he’s too hot he’ll just get rid of them.  Onto you, of course.’

Outside he felt the damp of the old house, Lilian’s anxiety and his own depression, the children’s restlessness, fall away from him.  Along the street there were cherry-trees in flower.  He reached up for a blossom and handed it to Bobbie in his push-chair.  ‘Flower,’ said Bobbie, and crushed it against his face.

‘Where shall we go?’  Howard asked.  ‘Which would you rather, the gardens or the river?’  He was feeling a hankering for the wide towpath, the cool air off the water and that light.  But Bobbie would have to stay in the chair, or hold his hand.  ‘Palm-tree, palm-tree!’ Bobbie cried out.  It was his latest word, rehearsed by Howard. 

It was awkward getting the push-chair through the gate.  Kew Gardens, open to everyone with two hands.  The man at the booth inside watched impassively, as Howard used his duff arm to push the turnstile, and lifted the pushchair, emptied of Bobbie, with his one hand.  Bobbie ran forward onto the wide path.  Howard cursed under his breath, but paid the tuppence entrance fee calmly, and caught up.

Flowers were coming out, and new leaves.  He’d never learnt the names for plants and trees.  He kept an eye as Bobbie explored borders, picking up stones and acorns and, once, a woodlouse.  His mind drifted.  Miss Carrington’s choir had been singing the day before.  He wondered now if she’d been trying to invite him.  ‘It’s at Kew Church,’ she’d said.  ‘The one on the green.’  Did she know he lived in Kew?  He couldn’t remember.  ‘I hope it goes well,’ he had said, and she had blushed, perhaps remembering too late he was Jewish.  Though before the war that wouldn’t have stopped him going.

It was good to have a long weekend for once.  In three weeks Lilian’s husband was due back.  He supposed he’d have to look for other lodgings; they wouldn’t want him around once Gibb was home.  Ham Common might be all right; near enough to see them all, take Bobbie and Susie out every now and then; but less suburban.  Perhaps after lunch he’d go and look around.

‘Palm-tree!’ said Bobbie, tugging at the pushchair.  ‘Quite right, old son,’ Howard said, and pointed out the palm-house ahead of them.  Bobbie ran on, small and round, the striped scarf beginning to slip off his neck, the gloves, Howard saw, possibly lost already, his fair hair flopping up and down as he went.

*

June came back from the toilets and got into bed again.  She was queasy still; she wasn’t sure she’d finished being sick.  That was the worst of it, creeping down first thing, hoping no-one heard her.  At least today she had the morning off.  She pulled the bedclothes round her, shivering.  Peg might come in and cheer her up.  But Peg was on duty; she’d be down there already, they’d be clearing the breakfast things.  She pushed aside the image of smeared plates, gagging.

She did want to see Donald, really she did.  By ten o’clock, nine if she was lucky, her stomach would have calmed down and she’d be fine; and then she’d want to make the most of him, before he went off for his train, around teatime.   He’d wanted to meet first thing and she’d said no.  She couldn’t bear to have him see her like this; and if he knew anything he wouldn’t want to either.  But it was more than that.  He was so pleased, like she’d known he would be.  It had never occurred to him that she wasn’t too.  ‘Just wait till you’re over the morning-sickness,’ he said.  He was just thinking about the wedding.  He’d joked, ‘Better be soon, before you’re showing.’

And Peg: she was losing Peg already.  On Friday night she’d schemed to introduce them, getting Donald to come at meet her at the White Hart, and dragging Peg down there for a drink.  Donald had been put out but polite, and Peg had been awful, sulking like a baby.  Even before that Peg had been getting strange, making excuses not to come to June’s room, contriving to work with the patients instead of her.  She wants me to ditch Donald and live with her.  And bring up the baby, just the two of us.  She imagined a cottage like the one in Penge, right near the station, where her cousin lived; Peg hanging out nappies on the line, while a plump little girl played around her feet, and she, June, watched them from the kitchen. 

Was that what she wanted?  Domestic life with Peg?  She turned on her side, and laid one hot hand on her belly for comfort.  How do I know? she asked peevishly, the way as a child she’d answered back to her mother.  She should go home and let her mum go on at her. 
You should have thought of that before you let him
, that’s what her mum would say.  Then after three or four days she’d sit there at breakfast, and pour the tea and say, ‘I’ll tell you what,’ and there it would be, the best way out of it.

*

On Parliament Hill the kites were already up.  They walked from South End Green, the two boys first, racing each other up the steep slope, turning to jeer at their parents for being slow.  ‘You watch it!’  Mina called out and ran, and caught up with Michael close to the top.  She stood with her arms around him, both looking up at a blue kite with a long tail, wheeling high above the railway line.

Anthony followed slowly.  All weekend he’d been filled with love for Michael and Christopher, both leggier since they were last at home, graceful and funny and full of enthusiasms.  At the same time there was something painful there, a slight awkwardness as though this were not their home, as though they were visiting an indulgent aunt and uncle.  ‘We should take them away from that place,’ he’d said to Mina, in bed on Friday night.  ‘We should bring them home.  They could be day boys at Westminster, or Highgate.’  She had smiled at him, not thinking he could mean it. 

Probably she was right, boarding was what they needed.  He handed the folded kite to Christopher: ‘Your go first.’  They found a place, on the slope facing the city.  Michael took the kite and walked backwards away from his younger brother, who held the strings anxiously out in front of him.  The first time the kite drifted up a few yards and fluttered down.  Michael jeered.  The second time they were all holding their breath, willing it up.  It wobbled, hesitated.  ‘Pull, Chris!’ Anthony said, standing close to him, and the boy pulled back, hard, and the kite lifted and went on lifting, up over their heads.  ‘Well done!’  Mina called out, clapping her hands.

But why was he suddenly thinking about Narcisa?  He had sworn not to while the boys were home.  He had been getting obsessed with her, he knew that.  And Mina knew, he was sure, though she’d said nothing.  But here was this image, Narcisa with a kite, himself standing behind her to guide her hands, her black hair pressing back against his throat. 

Ah, it’s impossible, he thought.  You start by having a pleasant little affair, and you really believe it won’t harm your marriage.  And then look what happens.  Because she’s a real person, with a life, a difficult life too in Narcisa’s case, you get interested, you care about her, who wouldn’t? 

He was being less than honest with himself.  The first time, in his room at the George, he had seen he wouldn’t be casual about Narcisa.  They had made love and then he’d got her to come again, her arms thrown back, gripping the wooden headboard.  She had made some cry that sounded like despair, a gasping moan that he felt he’d forced from her, and he’d known, that moment, leaning on his elbow.  She was strange and intense, for all that sturdiness, foreign in ways he didn’t understand.  Perhaps I was looking for difficulty, he thought, and blamed himself for not giving in to passion.

Christopher brought the kite down with Mina’s help, reeling it in, while Michael danced on the spot, wanting his turn.  It was all very well; but he couldn’t take risks with the children.  Christopher turned towards him.  ‘That was brilliant!’  The first time this holiday the boy had looked so happy.  ‘Come on now, Titch, let’s have it,’ Michael called.  Soon the yellow kite was up there again, floating in some impossibly pure space.

*

Her landlady’s grandfather clock had just struck nine.  Violeta, sitting hunched up on the bed, worked out again how long it would take to Hyde Park.  Ten minutes’ walk to the tube station, then two minutes a stop; how many was it?  She should know by now, she’d been living here nearly a year.  Turnpike Lane, Manor House, Finsbury Park, Arsenal; she counted on her fingers, but after Kings Cross she couldn’t remember.  Say half an hour: a bit more, thirty-five minutes, plus the ten to the station, that made it quarter to.  But she still had to get ready; her blouse needed ironing. 

Her friend Tilly would have given up by the time she got there.  She tucked her feet under the coverlet for warmth.  I’m ever so sorry, Till, I overslept: that’s what she’d say, tomorrow when she saw her.  It was stupid anyway, arranging to meet at ten o’clock on a Bank Holiday.  Tilly would hang around and be cross for a bit, but then she’d go off, and probably meet someone by the Round Pond, some man no doubt, she was always meeting people and getting to know them.

I just don’t feel like it, she told herself.  She’d had breakfast as usual with the other lodgers, and come straight back, intending to go out; and instead she’d sat here for all this time, half an hour or more, in the corner on the bed, unable to make up her mind to do anything.

I ought to be really happy, she thought.  But her mind wouldn’t stay on the day before; it kept veering off; Mr Van Wit’s arthritis, the bony bald head of the upstairs lodger.  This is really important, Vi, she scolded.  I was really stupid.  I didn’t ask her anything I meant to.  And what on earth made me come away so soon?  I could have gone back with her and had some tea.

On the train coming home she’d realised the problem; the picture she’d always had in her mind of her mother, a beautiful young woman with long black hair.  Younger than she herself was now, even.  And the woman who’d stood there, blocking her way, by the drive, was small and ordinary, going a bit grey.  She hadn’t even sounded that foreign. 

Still, nobody’s mother was really glamorous, not when you were thirty and they were old.  Tilly had said: I don’t know why you bother.  But Tilly’s mum was just a daft old woman, as far as Violeta could tell, embarrassing.  It could have been worse; her mother might have been like Tilly’s, drinking too much and always short of money.  She could have disowned her. 

I don’t know what you’re moaning about, she told herself.  You can always ask her the rest another time.

She rubbed her forehead where her mother had kissed her - embarrassing, that had been, she could still feel it - and got off the bed.  Her library book was on the floor by the armchair.  She opened it where she’d turned down the corner, and sat for the rest of the morning in the bad light, the curtain still half-drawn, amazed, absorbed, as the heroine escaped from the mountain palace, and set off on a stolen white horse through the forest, galloping down to save her lost lover in the city beside the sea, before they could catch him.