Blaming (Virago Modern Classics) (5 page)

“I shan’t leave you,” she said, “until I hand you over to your son.”

“My son is in America. He can only come as fast as
he can, or not at all. And I can’t move from here until the money comes from my bank, and I have just to sit here, waiting to hear what is happening from the Consulate-General.” A great shiver ran over her. “This terrible room,” she whispered. “This terrible room. I don’t know what I must do. I hardly listened to anything they said.”

“I’ll go to see the British Consul right now.”

“But I know they know.”

“All the same, I’ll go, and be back as quickly as I can.”

“Yes, do, do,” Amy begged her.

“I should like to go home,” Amy said to her son, James. “I can’t for a while face the little girls.”

“It will be too sad for you there.”

“It is all too sad for me anywhere.”

At least she is not being stoical, he thought. She may recover sooner because of that. Not spend her grief in dribs and drabs, or put it on the slate for a stunning repayment.

“Well, at least Ernie’s there. Let’s hope he’ll be some use.”

“I want
you
to be some use. I can’t see to all those… awful…”

“No, no,” he said quickly. “Don’t worry. Would you like me to stay the night? I can ring up Maggie.”

“There’s no need. If you’d just see to everything; just tell me what to do.”

“Of course. Perhaps you’ll come to us in a day or two. As soon as you feel able.”

She did not answer.

So they drove now away from the airport, towards London.

What are we going to do with her? he wondered. His anxiety about her future surmounted his sorrow for the loss of a much-loved father.

“Is there something one should do about that American girl?” he asked.

Martha had kept her word. Having tried to sustain Amy through their nightmare flight, she had handed
her over to her son at London Airport, and, as they embraced, she had slipped away. Amy, at last lifting her head from James’s breast, had seen the last of her stepping off the escalator below them, her Turkish bag slung over one shoulder of her dirty raincoat.

“I didn’t expect her to disappear like that.”

“I will write to thank her. It was a great act of friendship to cut short her holiday like that – and all the extra expense.”

“I paid that, and she really only missed Ephesus,” Amy said ungraciously. “But, oh, yes, she was very kind.”

Mourning seemed to give the go-ahead to every sort of rudeness and selfishness, he thought, fearing more of the same thing to come. Later that night, he said to Maggie, his wife, that his mother’s grief was having a bad effect on her character. “She was never like it before,” he was to say – to which his wife would make no reply.

“If only I could have brought you back myself,” he said. “If only I could have got there in time.”

“As a matter of fact I don’t know where she lives,” Amy said indifferently. “The American. Somewhere or other.”

“In England?”

“Appears to be what she calls ‘domiciled’ here. Highgate, I think, or in that area. Writes books.”

She lifted her head to watch a plane climbing the sky, its flashing lights blurred by steady rain. All those people inside, not knowing what might happen to them before the end of their journey.

“Back in Blighty,” Nick had always said, on their
returns from sunshine into rain. “A week ago he was alive,” she said; had meant to say it to herself, but spoke it.

“Yes.”

“Gareth never said there was anything wrong with his heart.”

“No, I know.”

And it was Gareth Lloyd, the doctor, who opened the door to them when they reached Amy’s home. A tear-stained Ernie Pounce was in the background, giving James no sort of confidence. Gareth put an arm round Amy and shook hands with James. Ernie was obviously sulky as well as grieving. It was his duty to open the door to them, but the doctor had stridden ahead. Guessing this, Amy patted his arm as she passed him, though she did not like to touch him. They went into the sitting-room.

The fire was crackling away. On a low table was a tray with drinks, and another of sandwiches which Ernie had cut into fancy shapes, perhaps to take his mind off other things, or to express sympathy. He had gone to a lot of trouble.

Gareth took off Amy’s coat and handed it to Ernie. He put her into a chair by the fire, smoothed her hair back, tilted up her chin. “Let’s have a look at you,” he said.

“I don’t want anyone to look at me.” So many tears, so many dabbings with soaking handkerchiefs, had made her face red and shiny. All the same she had a rather unsuitable glow about her from foreign sun.

James and Ernie were now carrying in the suitcases. It was in another world that she had packed them.

“Oh, I’m so tired,” she said.

“Of course.”

He poured out a drink and handed it to her, and she seemed to apply herself to drinking it, like an obedient child. When she put down the glass, he knelt by her, chafing her hands. Going bald, she thought, looking down at him. Once was handsome. All the women in love with him. She withdrew her hands from his.

“Won’t you have a drink?” she asked.

He got up and helped himself to whisky. “I’ve given Ernie some tablets for you. You’re to have two when you go to bed. No more.”

She thought of going to bed on her own. Many years since she had done that in this house, except when Nick was in hospital.

“And I’ll come round in the morning when surgery’s over. A drink, James?” he asked as the door opened and James came in with rain on his shoulders. Gareth seemed to be being host in Nick’s place – old family friend, who knew where everything was kept.

“I’ll have some whisky. Mother, are you sure you wouldn’t like me to stay?”

“Quite sure, thank you.”

“Some young woman very kindly left the ship with her to look after her on the way back,” he told Gareth.

“I don’t really know her,” Amy said. Martha was now part of the bad dream.

“I must get her address from the shipping company,” James said.

“I put the electric fire on in your room, madam,” Ernie opened the door to say.

“I think you need a drink, too,” James said.

“A small glass of sherry would do no harm.”

“You must go, James,” said Amy. “You’ve had a long day, and Maggie will be worried.”

“No, of course she won’t. We’re only worried about you. She’ll be over in the morning when she’s taken Dora to school.”

So it had been settled all the time that I should come home, Amy thought. She knew that bereaved people are a great burden to others – no-one finding words to say, or ways to behave. There had only been Martha, going on in her unexpected, unco-ordinated manner, pressing those figs on her when she could scarcely swallow her tears, making strange conversations on the plane, running round Istanbul on errands, getting in touch with undertakers.

Gareth took a sandwich, as if to set an example, and presently chose another of the same kind. “Well, I’m glad you had someone to look after you,” he said. “If I were you, I should take a good hot bath and then your tablets, and not bother your head about things which James and I will see to. We are here to look after you – Ernie, too, of course.”

“It was good of you to come, Gareth,” Amy said. Her voice was perfunctory, like a child’s after a party, saying “Thank you for having me.”

“Well…” He hesitated, lingered, and at last went. Then she said, “Off you go, too, James. There’s no more you can do. The night has to be got over, and no one can help me, but at least I’m in my own home.”

He bent and kissed her. “But come tomorrow, won’t you?” she added quickly.

“Without fail, and as I said, Maggie will be here in the morning.”

No reply.

“We shall look after you, make no mistake.”

“I don’t grasp what has to be done.”

“You don’t have to.”

He was making his way, as if reluctantly, towards the sitting-room door. Halfway there, he turned to Ernie, who was still sipping his sherry, little finger curled daintily away from the glass. “Take care of her.”

“It goes without saying, sir.”

Ernie returned after seeing him out. He took up two glasses with his fingers hooked into them, stood looking at Amy, who yawned and yawned, as if distracted.

“Terrible times,” he said. He went away to the kitchen with the glasses and quickly returned. “Nearly all my sandwiches left,” he said reproachfully. “I almost wish I hadn’t taken so much trouble with them. I can’t tempt you?”

“Poor Ernie,” Amy said, shaking her head.

“Doctor ate the smoked salmon ones.” He sorted them over, peering between bread, finding only liver sausage. “Well, at least, some got eaten. That housekeeper of his. No proper supper, I suppose. But I really meant the smoked salmon ones for you, madam.”

“Dr. Lloyd’s more than welcome.” She spoke as if she were coming round from an anaesthetic.

“I suppose to them, doctors, it’s just one of those things.”

“What?”

“People dying. I thought the same about the dentist – that was yesterday, of course. Callous! Was he callous!”

Amy got up and yawning again, put her hands over her face. She was convulsed with yawning.

“I told you… You know Sir was most concerned it should be done while you were away. ‘Take a taxi back,’ he said, ‘and charge it up to me.’ Under the circs, of course, I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry, Ernie. Yes, you were to have some teeth out. I remember I wrote a message to you about it on my postcard.”

“All
my teeth.”

She did not dare to look at him, but felt that on this night, she might be excused forgetfulness. He had seemed just the same to her – the same dark, cavernous mouth in the identikit face, all cheek-bones, temples, sleeked back hair.

“No postcard arrived.”

She supposed that all those photographs of mosques were still on their way to England.

“How did you get on then?” she asked as vaguely as she could.

“Nothing to eat or drink before going in, they said. That was three o’clock. It’s a long time to go without a sip of anything.”

“And…?”

“When I arrived…I took a bus…there was such a whispering set up between the dentist and receptionist. You’ll appreciate that I was in a highly nervous state without that. I wished Sir could have been with me. It was the anaesthetist hadn’t arrived. That was the
upshot of it. Sir would have had something to say, but I was choked.” He put his thin hand to his throat. “I was choked all the way going back on the bus, and my mouth so dry. Dreadfully shocked and disappointed. I had so looked forward to my new dentures. And getting it all over with. I was a bag of nerves awaiting the ordeal. And nothing to drink for so long.”

“I’m sure. Would you like some more sherry?” Amy asked, feeling as if time were switching backwards and forwards.

“I was referring to a cup of tea. I had had no breakfast, you see.”

“So…?”

“So I’m to go tomorrow, instead – as if I haven’t enough on my plate.”

“You should have made a fuss about it.”

“I merely said, you know, sarcastic, “You’d have thought.’ I said, ‘the telephone had never been invented.’ ”

She put out a hand to the bottle of brandy, but he moved forward quickly and took it from her. “Doctor said no more because of the sleeping tablets.”

“Oh, well, I’ll go up and take them now.” At the door, she paused. “So it’s to be tomorrow,” she said, trying to show concern. “You should try to get some sleep, too, Ernie.”

“It will be a good thing over. At least yesterday they showed me my new dentures. They were very tempting. As white as snow. It will be nice to be able to give people a proper smile again. And eat a nice roast.”

Amy went from the room and left him to tidy up.
She heard him talking to himself about the left-over sandwiches. Wearily, she trailed upstairs, winding her watch from habit. His bloody teeth are the last straw, she thought.

When she was ready for bed, she went to the window to draw back the curtains. The crumpled nightgown she had snatched from her overnight bag smelled of some sun-tan lotion that had leaked.

Below, the street lamp shone across the wet pavement and, beyond a wall, on mud flats. The river was tidal here, and it was low water. Someone hurried along with a dog, hunched up against blown drizzle.

She put down the top window pane and went to the bed, lay down on her own side of it, the one farthest from the door. Istanbul was more than a lifetime away.

Great exhaustion overcame her. She heard Ernie putting the chain across the front door. It is bad for him, too, she thought, before she slept.

“We must do all we can for her,” Maggie said. “She could come to live here. She could have the little girls’ room, and they could go up into the attic. Of course, I don’t know where she’d put all her things.”