Blaming (Virago Modern Classics) (12 page)

“She turned out to be a good friend.”

“I believe that’s how she looks on it.” But Amy was cross with James, not at this moment with Martha. No one cares much for reminders that gratitude is due.

He racked his brains for names of old friends of whom he might enquire. “Gareth Lloyd,” he said. “Do you see him at all?”

“Not professionally.”

“No, I hope not I meant…” Good Lord, she is difficult, he thought.

“He drops in from time to time.”

“That’s decent of him.”

“I made a pudding,” Amy said, to change the subject. She was trying to sound casual, to keep pride from her voice, for after all what she had done was only what so many women did every day, and sometimes twice a day.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have bothered. We usually have cheese.”

“Well, you can still have cheese.”

Back into his mind – and they hadn’t been far away from it? – came all those slim young men in The Windsor Castle, and his fancy about the dark velvet suit. Must do exercises, cut out sweet things, he had thought on his way home; would cut down on alcohol, too, but that later, when under less stress. Now, on the very evening of his resolve, there was this pudding.

“What kind?” he asked cautiously.

“That marmalade bread-and-butter one that your father liked so much. You did, too.”

“Bread-and-butter… yes, oh, yes, I remember… I think I do remember.” He had forgotten until now all the delicious English puddings. Just as well. He could imagine Maggie saying scornfully, “a lot of stodge.” And also, if she knew, wouldn’t she regard this marmalade thing as a reprimand for not having left something of the same kind for them?

“I’m glad old Gareth drops in.”

And a thought dropped into his mind, and it was like the first spot of rain after a drought.

“He’s a very decent sort of chap. Always have thought so. Rather like Dad in that way – perhaps why they were such friends. Dependable. Do you remember all the women patients being in love with him? Still are, no doubt. No wonder, I suppose. I expect Anna had a time of it. Well, no, of course she didn’t,” he added quickly. “Could always have trusted him. …” – he searched for a word, and brought it out, and none too clearly – “implicitly.”

“He’s not as marvellous as all that,” Amy said.
“Do you mind if I don’t finish my wine?”

“Keep it for your cheese.”

“I don’t want any cheese.”

She rose to fetch the pudding.

And now for the long day alone with Isobel, Amy thought, waking early, and knowing at once where she was because of the branch of a plane tree across the window and the darkness of the dawn. At home, the light had the extra quality of being reflected from water and on bright, windy mornings when the tide was in, would ripple across the ceiling.

She got up at once. She could imagine how much there was to be done, and the room was not a place to look about or linger in. It was more like a store room, full of old furniture. On the top of a cupboard were hat boxes and suitcases and inside the cupboard a lot of bent wire coat-hangers, James’s morning-suit in a polythene bag, and a fur coat Maggie had had before she came to regard such things with abhorrence.

Although it was early, James was already up. Amy could smell coffee as she crossed the landing to the children’s room. Dora, sitting up in bed, was looking anxious, trying to memorise, with moving lips and nodding head,
Elle était une Bergère.
Isobel was asleep.

Dora scrambled out of bed and began to dress.

“She always sleeps like this and wakes up in a temper and screams all the time she’s being dressed,” she promised Amy.

“She’ll have to do better than that when she goes to school.”

“I dread the day,” Dora said “I dread the very day.”

Then Isobel’s eyelids wavered. She took her thumb from her mouth and sat up suddenly, ready, it seemed, to fling herself upon the world.

She got out of bed, clutching her nightgown to her shivering body; could even make her teeth chatter.

“That’s all put on,” Dora explained.

When the nightgown was finally wrenched off her, the shivering turned to shuddering. She crossed her arms on her chest, so that Amy could not put on her vest It was a struggle all the way, as Dora had foretold – over twisted socks, a jersey that tickled, a pinafore which was yesterday’s and had a speck of egg yolk on it. “It’s disgusting.”

“You put that jersey out yourself last night,” said Dora.

“How’s it going?” James asked, putting his head round the door and, seeing that it was going badly, went downstairs again, calling “Breakfast’s ready.”

“I don’t want any bloody cornflakes,” Isobel said.

“Don’t say ‘bloody’,” Amy remarked coolly. “It’s really not very polite.”

“I’m going to say it all the time. Every day.”

The shoes were the worst part, and Amy had known they would be – un-co-operative feet to be crammed into them by brutal grandmother, who then went on to deal cruelly with tangled hair.

“It’s not just you,” Dora told her politely. “It’s like it every morning.

Flinching, moaning, ducking her head, hitting out – all this was stopped suddenly for Isobel’s yawn; it was a long and deeply satisfying yawn, and was
enjoyed by all, but then the tantrums were resumed.

Breakfast was quite peaceful. Seeming to have forgotten her remark about the bloody cornflakes, Isobel ate them calmly, helping herself to large amounts of sugar, sprinkling it over her plate and the tablecloth. Dora opened her mouth to point out what was going on, but shut it again for the sake of quiet.

The time soon came when Amy and Isobel were left alone together, work and school claiming the lucky ones. For a while, helping to clear the table and with Amy having to ask where things were kept, Isobel, feeling herself in charge, behaved well. Only half-past nine, Amy thought. Maggie would have had her little op, and must surely be on the way to swift recovery; not going to make too much of it, it was to be hoped, not going to take things easy, or anything like that.

She washed up and Isobel stood on a stool by the draining-board and wiped the spoons.

“You are a great help,” Amy told her.

“Yes, I am. I will help you when you make pastry, too.”

Amy had not thought of making pastry, and knew of all the bother it could cause, but it might be different if the child were in a good mood. Perhaps she was at last learning how to handle her. Obediently, she fetched the flour and a bowl. She decided to make an onion tart for Maggie’s homecoming. A sense of virtue settled in her. Busily, Isobel made pastry inventions – boats full of sugar, men with currant eyes and buttons, biscuits which she flattened with her elbow leaving an enchanting pattern of garter stitch knitting on them. She just needs something to occupy her, Amy
thought, glancing again at the clock. And, as if knowing her thoughts, Isobel said, “I could be happy all day long if I could always do what I want.” Who couldn’t? Amy wondered. “You see,” Isobel added.

Amy began to peel some onions.

“I am very interested to see grown-ups crying,” Isobel said, looking up as Amy wiped her streaming eyes against her sleeve.

“I never like to see anyone cry.”

“Don’t you?”

“No, because it usually means they’re unhappy.”

“Not when I cry,” Isobel said, and her voice had triumph in it.

They put their creations to bed in the oven, and Isobel kept opening the door to see how hers were getting on. The onion tart alternately puffed up and fell. She will believe I can’t cook, Amy thought of her daughter-in-law. Having so little chance of cooking at home, she had hoped to show off. “Let’s make a pudding for supper,” she suggested.

“Only if I can stay up for it.”

The resultant argument, feeble on one side, strident on the other, was interrupted by the telephone ringing. Absurdly, momentarily, Amy thought that it must be Maggie ringing up to say she was on her way home. It was Martha.

“Ernie gave me your number. How is it going?”

“So far, not too bad,” Amy said cautiously.

“Who is it?” Isobel shouted.

“Hush. Sony, what did you say, Martha?”

“I said, ‘Be bold and unafraid.’”

“Who
is
it?”

“It’s someone called Martha.”

“She doesn’t know me.”

“She knows
of
you.”

“Can’t you chat to one another when I’ve rung off?” Martha asked. “As its my birthday….

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“….and I don’t believe I care to spend it entirely on my own.”

“You could come round here,” Amy said, almost eagerly. “We must think up a treat for you, though I’m afraid
that
in itself won’t be one. Come to lunch. We can have an egg or something.”

“I’m not having an egg,” Isobel shrieked. “I had an egg yesterday. I want some roast potatoes.”

“She does go on,” Martha said languidly.

“What did she say?” Isobel asked suspiciously.

“She said she could hear you talking.”

“See here, I’m in a call-box and I’m running out of money. When shall I…?”

“At once. Why not? Take a tube to Queensway…”

“Ernie’s told me all. See you.”

Amy thought that she had been clever to invite someone who was coming anyway.

“My friend, Martha, is having lunch with us,” Amy said, thinking, we can share you. “We’ll have that onion tart for lunch. It was a good job we made it.”

“I don’t fancy it,” Isobel said, going again into her shuddering act.

“And there’s some ice-cream in the freezer. As it’s Martha’s birthday, I think we can help ourselves to some of that.”

“If it’s her birthday, she can have one of my pastry
boats for her present. And eat it,” Isobel added grimly, and as if from past disillusionment.

“But the sugar’s burnt on top.”

“You can deal with that,” Isobel said aloofly. “Is your friend pretty? I only like pretty people, unless they’re men.”

“No, I wouldn’t say she’s exactly pretty.”

“O.K. I won’t like her then.”

“Are you going to help me clear up?”

“No, I’m worn out.”

She cast herself into a rocking-chair, tilting back and forth. She began to suck her thumb, took it out to shout, “I don’t like ladies, anyway”, and then fell mercifully asleep.

She won’t like ladies all her life, Amy thought, tiptoeing about the room, then suddenly remembering, that she hadn’t made the beds.

Even if Maggie came back that evening she, Amy, would be obliged to stay the night, she supposed. Meanwhile, she was grateful to Martha. A trouble shared is a trouble halved, she decided.

“She said you weren’t very pretty,” Isobel told Martha, looking at the dirty raincoat and the untidy hair.

“She said rightly, I guess. I won’t tell you what she said about you. To me.”

“Did she say I was pretty?”

“I told you I wasn’t saying.”

“Tell me.”

“Scream away. You don’t scare me. Do you scare yourself?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then it’s all a waste of time. No one scared.”

“Sorry to leave you,” Amy said, hurrying into the kitchen. “Just wanted to finish making James’s bed. Do take your coat off.”

She was wearing one of Maggie’s aprons, which had a huge tureen printed on it below the waist, as if at any moment Amy might begin to ladle soup from her abdomen. Martha looked at her with interest – a dishevelled side she had not seen before.

She took off her raincoat. It was Turkish blouse day, but there could not be many more. Burst-open arm-holes showed armpit hair.

There were sunny showers and outbreaks of rain at lunch. Isobel wept over her onion tart, lowering her head above the plate to direct where the tears fell.

“The Sarah Bernhardt of Campden Hill,” Martha observed chattily.

“I don’t care whether she eats or not,” Amy said. “She won’t die of starvation before I go home.”

“She’s a bit young to be served onion pie, I guess.”

But Isobel scorned that adult ploy. She felt that she was her own age, and the right age, and whether things were suitable to that age was not her concern. She also despised artfulness, knowing a little about it.

When her plate of pie was whisked away by cross grandmother trying to appear indifferent, she relaxed, having won. Her tears dried wonderfully, and she sat swinging her legs, waiting for the birthday ice-cream.

“My birthday is third July,” she told Martha in a social voice. “We had a picnic in Burnham Beeches. I don’t suppose you know about that. It’s in England. There are some old trees you can hide in. We have
wine, too. Have you ever tried wine? It’s delicious. Grandma, can you give this lady some wine?”

“No, I won’t have any, but thank you. And can’t you call me ‘Martha’?”

“No, I don’t think so. I can’t remember things like that” She ate her ice-cream slowly, pensively, with half spoonfuls: the last bit she rested on the tip of her thrust-out tongue, as if Martha might be entertained by seeing it slowly melt. Then she got down from her chair and fetched a piece of pastry and put it before Martha. “Eat that,” she said. “It’s a present.”