A Start in Life (15 page)

The winter had not been kind to Molly Edwards. On the south coast the winds had blown keenly and when they died down a mist rolled in from the sea and made her long to have the winds back again. She ached now and had been forced to go to the doctor, although of course she did not believe in them.

‘You have arthritis,' he said bluntly. ‘I can give you some pills to help with the pain.'

Molly drew the line at that and said so. She had left her principles far enough behind as it was.

‘In that case,' said the doctor, ‘I can only advise you to move away from here and go somewhere warmer and more sheltered.'

Molly had shut up her beach chalet and removed the electric kettle. It was not only her shoulder now, it was her knee and her fingers that pained her. She thought she might wait to see if the summer brought an improvement and if not, well, she need not live through another winter. No one would miss her. She did not even have a cat.

It was a long winter, sitting in her flat, which she had never liked. She found it difficult to do a lot for herself but her lodger was very kind and brought back her shopping from the health food store every Saturday morning. He was a student at Brighton Polytechnic and would be leaving in the summer, so there was no need to worry about him. But the days were endless and she felt
anxious until he returned in the evenings and sometimes she waited for him late into the night. She sat in her drawing room, in her dull beige chair, trying to read. But her attention wandered – the wind made such a noise – and she gave up. She was not a hysterical woman and she did not dwell on the past. But when she saw the stunted hedge outside her window quivering under the impact of the sea wind she thought of other, kindlier places that she had known. And of her husband, a little. No children. That had been her eternal regret but no one had ever known. She had kept so cheerful that she took them all in. Even now, when she ordered her supplies that the student would later carry home for her, the people at the health food store assured her that she was marvellous, that she cheered them all up. She walked with a stick these days and as she manoeuvred her way out of the shop, she did not see them shaking their heads behind her back.

It was teeming with a persistent rain on the morning that Ruth rang up and Molly had been feeling so unwell that she was relieved and delighted by the diversion. She was sorry to hear of Helen's illness, but Helen, she knew, was a tough girl, and she did not take it too seriously. And little Ruth had always been so sensible. She had not seen her for years, although the child always had nice things to say when they talked on the telephone. None of her mother's spirit, of course. More like her grandmother, a very conventional woman.

She was grunting slightly with pain as she got the dining room table shut and shoved it again the wall. It took her the rest of the morning to shift the chairs back with her good knee. Then she had a rest and spoke to herself sternly, reminding herself that pain does not exist. After this she was able to push the divans into the centre of the room. She did not bother with a bedside table. The lamp with the parchment shade and the trailing flex was not too much trouble but she knew she could
not make up the beds. She would have to ask Ruth, although it did seem such a shame, when she had had no guests for ages. She would have liked to put flowers in the room but she simply could not move. And there was precious little food. Perhaps Ruth would be able to go to the shops when she had installed her mother. In the meantime Molly could give an uninterrupted ear to everything Helen had to tell her and she did not doubt that there was a story behind her visit. Most of Helen's little illnesses in the past had had an ulterior motive. And she usually got her way in the end. Molly smiled reminiscently, It would be like old times, pulling Helen together again, talking to her like an older sister. She hobbled out and put the front door on the latch, in case her hands seized up later and she could not let them in. Then she sat down in her chair by the window and waited for them to come to her.

Helen's face, rosy, thin, and stern; her strange deep voice; her restless hands gripping the unfashionable black leather bag; her improbable denim cap. These images haunted Ruth as she spread the thin worn sheets over the narrow divans, and put a new bulb in the lamp, and later went out into the relentless rain to buy, with what little English money she had left, something to make into a sandwich for Helen and Molly. She herself would be unable to eat. The journey had not been too bad. Helen had been very quiet and had not even smoked much. She had not read or talked. Ruth was a little hurt that her mother should ignore her to such an extent but she was too relieved to find Helen alive – and in a strange way in command – to experience real cause for complaint. But she felt benighted with travelling and untidiness. A moral disorder seemed to have overtaken them and was immediately translated into physical distress. Ruth had put their nightclothes into a suitcase, without care, jumbling up her own spotless cotton with her mother's
dingy silk. She tried to shield her mother on the journey, taking her by the arm, protecting her from the rain. It could not be done. Rain dripped from her hair, which had lost its shape; the hem of her coat was sodden. And they had brought no other clothes with them. Perhaps, she thought, I will telephone Mrs Cutler this evening and find out what is happening. Basically she did not care to know what was happening but it seemed to be her job to find out. She sighed a shuddering sigh, turned into Molly's street, and unlocked the door with the unfamiliar key.

As she unpacked the quarter pound of ham and the butter and the tomatoes and the small white loaf, she could hear her mother's strange new voice from the drawing room. Helen did not seem to be set on any particular narrative, but erupted in odd craggy irrelevancies, which were smoothed over by the more comforting burden of Molly's reassurance. Molly soothed, but could not reach Helen. Molly, far from enjoying Helen's company, was oddly alarmed by her behaviour. Helen sat as if visiting briefly, her cap in place, her bag still clutched in her hands. Like a refugee, thought Molly. Helen had not even wanted to rest on her bed, although from what Molly had understood she had been bedridden until she came away. She did not smoke, she did not demand a drink, although she had a cup of tea, which Molly made with the electric kettle from the chalet, now plugged into the socket of the lamp behind her chair. From time to time Helen uttered a short sardonic laugh, though Molly could not really say what was amusing her. She was relieved when she heard the door close behind Ruth and went painfully into the kitchen to talk to her. It took her nearly a minute to get out of her chair and take a few deep breaths, for the effort of moving the furniture was beginning to have its effect.

Ruth, who was by now grey with misery, explained that her
parents had had some sort of argument, that her father had not even stayed at home to meet her, and her mother refused to sleep under the same roof. Molly gave a comforting laugh. ‘I've heard that one before,' she said. ‘When they were first married I heard it quite a lot. Helen was always a spirited girl, and George sometimes put his foot in it. Don't worry, Ruth; it will all blow over.'

Ruth sighed. ‘They're not newly married now. I can't nurse them through this. It's about time they behaved like adults.' Ruth still believed that adults adhered to a superior standard of behaviour.

Molly, who was in some pain, suggested that they all have an early night, and discuss it again in the morning. Ruth agreed. They ate their sandwiches in relative silence. Ruth unpacked their suitcase and turned down her mother's bed. Helen seemed to have no strength or will left; she sat down abruptly on the edge of her divan and said, ‘You will have to undress me, I'm afraid.' She held out her arms, like a child. Molly, hovering in the doorway, encouraged Ruth with nods, although her expression was thoughtful. She herself would have liked a little help with her stockings but was too shy to ask.

With horror Ruth took off her mother's clothes, which were barely warm and smelled of old scent. She tried not to look at the shrunken breasts, the bony elbows and knees, the slumped and shameful pelvis. She removed the denim cap and slipped over Helen's head a nightdress of crepe de chine trimmed with lace in a colour Helen had always called orchid pink: ‘my colour'. She brushed her mother's long hair and tied it back with a piece of tape. Helen put up a slow hand and removed the tape. ‘I always wear my hair loose at night,' she said.

When the telephone rang, Ruth darted out of the room, glad to be delivered from the spectacle she had just witnessed. She felt a sudden wave of fury, which she directed against all painters of martyrdoms and depositions. ‘About suffering, they were never wrong, the Old Masters,' said Auden. But they were. Frequently. Death
was usually heroic, old age serene and wise. And of course, the element of time, that was what was missing. Duration. How many more nights would she have to undress her mother, only to dress her again in the morning? Would she soon have to wash her, to bath her, to feed her? Was there any way in which this could be avoided?

Apparently there was not. For Mrs Cutler, at the other end of the telephone, announced that George was in hospital for a few days, but that it was not serious. ‘A bit of a turn,' said Mrs Cutler, quite accurately. As she herself was leaving at the end of the following week, she thought it might be better if Ruth and her mother came home. George would no doubt need a bit of looking after once he came out of hospital. And she didn't like to leave without saying goodbye to them. After all this time.

She told Helen the news, making it sound less important than it really was, but Helen lost her composure and screamed and wept, and Ruth had to sit up most of the night with her arms around her mother. When she eventually climbed into her own bed, she could not sleep, for Helen, although sedated with the sleeping pills Ruth had found in her bag, was still agitated, and moaned and muttered, streaking her rosy make-up as she moved her face compulsively on the pillow. ‘Is it time?' sighed Helen and, much later, ‘Darling heart.' Lying so close to her mother, hearing the words of love, and knowing, in the course of that long night, that she would hear no others, Ruth covered her face and wept.

In the morning it was still teeming with rain. Ruth got up and made tea, for Molly, who smiled at her lovingly, and for Helen, who looked blankly ahead. Helen was shaky now and Ruth had to steady the cup in her hand.

‘We had better make a start,' she said. ‘When you're ready, go and use the bathroom.'

But an hour later, washed and dressed herself, she had to rouse her mother out of a daydream and repeat her recommendations.

This morning Helen moved stiffly, like an old woman. When she emerged from the bathroom, Ruth saw that she had not washed her face which was now less rosy, less aquiline, and more than a little blurred. Again Ruth brushed her mother's hair and helped her into her clothes. Helen said nothing. She pointed to Mrs Weiss's heavy bag which Ruth handed to her. Helen opened it, pulled out her make-up box, which was sizable, and proceeded to ring her eyes with blue and restore her mouth. She blended rouge into her forehead, cheeks and chin, put on her denim cap, and looked at Ruth as if to say, ‘I am ready.'

Ruth packed the case, stripped the beds, restored the furniture to its rightful place, Molly thanking her repeatedly all the while. Ruth went to the shops and got Molly some more tea, and Molly in her turn insisted on presenting Ruth with at least two pounds of wizened apples. ‘They are unsprayed,' she announced proudly. Ruth did not know what she meant, but did not intend to ask. ‘Perhaps,' she suggested, ‘you could let me have a carrier bag?' After what seemed a lengthy interval Molly was back with a plastic bag imprinted with a cornucopia and the legend, ‘Here's Health!'; she handed it to Ruth, trying to hide her monstrous knuckles.

Molly was not sorry they were leaving. She had not slept well and she had not liked the sounds that Helen was making in her sleep. She felt too ill herself to be of much use, and Helen was as uncompromising as ever, although Ruth was a dear, a real dear. Molly would have liked to ask Ruth to stay on but obviously the girl was going to have to look after her father until she got another housekeeper. Helen, of course, would be quite useless. And it was Saturday, and they would be expecting her down at the health food shop. She was quite anxious for them to
leave, really. Strange, when she was so lonely most of the time.

She kissed Helen, who gave a sigh and kissed her back. She kissed Ruth, who tried not to pull her face away. But she was too slow in getting back to the drawing room to see them drive off in the taxi, and to wave goodbye.

The journey, again, was not too bad. They had a carriage to themselves, and Ruth had bought her mother a magazine. Helen glanced at the cover, then looked out of the streaming window; raindrops trembled and quivered in long diagonal streaks, and she could not see what lay beyond.