Family of Women (43 page)

If you stay with him, it will always be the same.
It was almost as if she heard a voice whisper it.
Save yourself.

Tears welled in her eyes. It felt like a door opening on to light, from the darkness in which Alan lived. Only lately had she noticed how dark it really was. And though her guilt and sorrow were overwhelming, so was her sense of relief.

‘Oh, Al, it’s no good – I can’t stay. I can’t do this any more. I’ve got to get out.’

She spoke the words aloud, but he couldn’t hear her.

‘What’s up, Lin?’

She heard Carol come limping into the room and felt her sit next to her on the edge of the bed. She lay on her bed, facing the wall, crying. She couldn’t seem to stop crying.

‘Mom says d’you want a cup of tea?’

Linda nodded. ‘OK.’

She wiped her face and turned to sit up, wincing. Carol went to the door for a moment and called down to Violet.

‘I’ll bring it up,’ Violet said.

That made Linda cry again. It was something to do with feeling looked after, and the way she knew that Mom would have been furious, the night before last, when she didn’t come home, and then her shock when the policeman appeared and told her there’d been an accident. Mom had come up to the hospital. When she saw Linda with only the sling on her arm and no other damage, she put her arms round her and wept.

‘I thought something much worse had happened. God, girl, don’t ever do that to me again. That boy deserves a good hiding . . .’

She spent money on a taxi, of all things, to get them home. Linda had never been in a taxi before.

And since then, there had been such a feeling of gentleness in the house, of the preciousness of her being alive. When they were children, Linda realized, Mom had been so full of worries, looking after Dad and Carol, she hadn’t had much left for anyone else. She’d had so little attention for them. It wouldn’t go on like this, Linda knew, this special feeling, but it was something while it did.

That morning, when Linda woke, she’d also come on with her period. At the sight of the rusty blood she sat in the toilet and burst into tears. It was only then she realized how much she had been worrying, deep down, that she might be expecting a baby, even though the thought didn’t seem real. Now there was a gripey but reassuring ache in her belly.

‘Is your wrist hurting?’ Carol asked.

‘A bit. Aches.’ Linda lookdn& aaaaad comreassured at the plaster cast. It still felt an alien thing on her. ‘You’ve had much worse though.’

‘I got used to it,’ Carol said.

They sat in silence. Linda wiped her eyes. The window was open and a warm breeze blew at the flimsy curtain and they could hear some kids playing out at the front. They didn’t need to talk. Carol just sat with her. She could always do that, sit with you, very still, just being there. She looked at Linda and smiled her dimply smile.

‘Must be nice, not being in that chair any more,’ Linda said.

Carol nodded. ‘I can go down the park on my own.’ She picked up the old rag doll on Linda’s bed. ‘Poor old Polly. She needs new eyes.’

They heard Violet coming up the stairs.

‘Here you go. Brought you a couple of bits of toast.’

The toast smelt delicious, real butter melting across it. Linda’s eyes filled with tears again. ‘Ta.’

‘You feeling bad?’ Violet asked anxiously. ‘D’you think you had a bad bang on the head?’

‘No. I’m all right.’

‘You’ll want to go and see Alan, I s’pose?’ Violet asked.

Linda didn’t reply.

‘You can’t go back to work yet,’ Violet said. ‘We’ll have to let her know.’

For two days Linda stayed around the house
, happy to withdraw, just to be there with Carol and the dogs while Mom was at work. And she knew she ought to go and see Alan, but didn’t feel well or strong enough. If she went back she might never be able to leave him. She tried not to think about him, lying there alone. One afternoon she took a couple of towels and lay out drowsily on the grass. For a time she stared at Snowdrop in her run, at her confined rabbit life, her quick breaths and staring red eyes.

‘Don’t you want to get out?’ she said to her.

Snowdrop stared back impassively at her. She never bothered to try and escape now, not like when she was young.

During those days, Linda started thinking again about Rosina. All she had ever seen were those pictures she had sent out of her long silence, and that glimpse of her at Joyce’s wedding, so nervous-looking, so afraid of facing them all, it seemed. When her mother came home that evening, she said, ‘Are you ever going to go and see Auntie Rosina?’

Violet sat down wearily. Lighting a cigarette, she took a drag and blew smoke at the ceiling.

‘Oh, I dunno. Sometimes I think I will, and then I think: well, she could’ve come to see us, couldn’t she? Properly, like, instead of how she was at the wedding. I mean Rosy and me, we got on all right, as kids, you know – rubbed along. But she’s made it clear she didn’t want us.’

She drew on the cigarette again and frowned. Linda noticed how lined her forehead had become.

‘Rosy was never like that – not stuck up. I dunno what happened to her.’

‘Was she being stuck up? I thought she looked scared.’

‘Well, what’s she got to be scared of?’ Violet said impatiently. ‘We’re only her flaming family, aren’t we?’

Linda could see her mother was not going to tackle this.

But there was something about Rosina that tugged at her, goaded her on. It was the unknown, the enigmatic glimpses of her, and something about a sense of kinship with her, that Linda felt instinctively. They looked alike, it was true, but it was something more than that. Something of her spirit.

By the time she went back to work – something else she had to change, she realized – she had decided that whether Mom wanted to or not, she had to go and find Rosina.

‘Are you quite sure Bernice is coming?’ Violet said anxiously as they sat on the bus. ‘I’m not sure I want to go if they’re not going to be there.’

‘She’ll come,’ Carol assured her serenely. ‘You know she said she wouldn’t miss it for anything.’

Violet was chewing the side of her finger. ‘Well, I hope so.’

She was dressed in her best frock – white with pink roses on – and white shoes. She was really pleased with the dress. It was the prettiest she had ever had and flattered her slim figure. And she had treated herself to the little white bag which lay in her lap. Rita was paying her generously, and was talking about them being partners in the business.
You’ve got flair, love,
she told Violet.
And it’d take the pressure off me.

‘The other people are nice too.’ Carol looked up at her. Violet was always taken aback by her daughter’s trust in others. It was a precious thing, she decided. And she was getting better with people herself now, coming out of herself, with having to talk to customers in the salon.

They were on their way – a two-bus journey to Edgbaston – to an August Bank Holiday garden fête held by the Infantile Paralysis Fellowship. They’d been to a couple of their other fundraising socials. Carol loved going, because she saw old friends and there was the immediate understanding that the polios shared, even though some were much worse affected than others.

It was a fine day, although you could already feel the wane of summer in the way the light fell. The leaves had lost the fresh, expectant look of spring. As they walked from the bus stop to the imposing Edgbaston house, Violet plucked nervously at the edges of her white cardigan and ran a hand over her hair. She looked approvingly at Carol in her yellow sundress and little pumps, her gold hair in waves down her back.
My girl
, she thought.
That’s my little girl.

For a moment they stood uncertainly outside the house, in the shade of a tree. Then Violet heard a voice call, ‘Come for the fête, dear? Do come in!’

There was a side gate to the garden and a tall woman in a hat was waiting to show people in.

‘Here we are – you’re very welcome. Hello, dear!’ she finished, cheerily, to Carol. ‘
Don’t
you look pretty!’

The garden was a long oblong, surrounded by a wall along which were climbing roses and hollyhocks, and they could smell flowers as soon as they walked in. All across the grass were stalls, run by women in cheerful frocks, and children, some in wheelchairs, others on crutches or with calipers on their legs, others their siblings, running about whole-limbed and unimpeded. A woman hurried past carrying a big metal teapot, smiling anxiously. Violet would have liked to see the garden with no people in it. It would be a sleepy place, she decided, full of the sound of bees.

‘Come on, Mom – let’s look at the stalls!’

Carol had half a crown’s spending money which was burning a hole in her pocket. Feeling shy and uncertain herself, Violet was glad of Carol’s self-assurance and followed her as she limped fast across the grass, eagerly in search of the white elephant stall and tombola. She was on home territory here with other polios.

Amid the bric-a-brac of old vases, a chipped teapot and embroidered napkins, she found a little china dog with soulful black eyes.

‘Oh, Mom – can I get it?’ She was almost jumping with enthusiasm. ‘I’ll give it to Lin – it’ll cheer her up!’

The woman running the stall was elderly, with grey hair in a bun, and she laughed at Carol’s excitement.

‘It’s very nice, dear, isn’t it? I think you could have that for tuppence. Does that sound fair?’

Carol nodded and handed over one of her sixpences. Looking up again she cried, ‘Oh, look – there’s Bernice!’ and took off with the little dog in her hand.

Violet rolled her eyes and accepted the change for her.

‘She’s not one of the polios?’ the woman asked, with gentle tactfulness.

‘She is,’ Violet said. ‘See how she’s limping – it left her with one shortened leg.’

‘Goodness though – you’d hardly know, would you? She’s been lucky.’ Her face clouded. ‘My little niece wasn’t so lucky, unfortunately.’

‘Oh dear . . .’ Violet said.

‘Died within a few days with it.’ She shook her head. ‘Terrible disease. A scourge.’ Her face cleared. ‘Go on – you get after her. She’s lovely.’

Bernice was still in a wheelchair, awaiting more operations at St Gerard’s. She and Carol were nattering away while Mrs Miller, her mother, a slim w;

‘Hello, Violet – lovely to see you. And what a wonderfully pretty dress!’

Violet had been very intimidated by Bernice’s mother when she first met her in the hospital. She was a rather well-spoken, confident lady and Violet felt silent and awkward beside her, as if she had nothing to say. But they had had their daughters in common, and the terrible, long-lasting worry of polio, and all that had dissolved some of the social lines between them.

‘Hello, Rachel – how is she?’

‘They say she’s doing well. She’s due to go back in in two months.’

Rachel Miller smiled, though her eyes wore a wistful expression. She had a wide mouth, her face sensuous, with high cheekbones. ‘It would be so nice if it was all over. I’m sure I get in more of a state about it than she does.’

Bernice and Carol were giggling and the two women smiled at the sight.

‘I know,’ Violet said. ‘Carol’s so calm. Just sort of takes what comes. I wish I could.’

They talked for a little longer and Rachel said, ‘Come and see us, will you? We’re not so far from you. Bernice would be so pleased.’ She took a little oblong of blue paper from her bag and wrote down her address. ‘May I take yours? Just in case we’re in the area?’

‘Oh – you’d be welcome to come,’ Violet said, feeling remiss. She wasn’t used to visitors, except Eva from next door. She jotted down her address in Rachel Miller’s diary.

‘Mom – Mom, look!’ Carol was hopping with excitement. ‘It’s Sister Cathleen!’

In the distance Violet caught sight of a thin figure in black. For a moment she thought Carol had got it wrong, then realized that the nurses only wore white in the hospital. Carol had already darted away, dodging round the tables.

‘I’d better go and say hello,’ Violet said. ‘I’m never sure what to say to her though, really.’

Rachel rolled her eyes sympathetically. ‘She’s very kind though. Don’t forget – you’re welcome any time. We’re nearly always at home and I’d love the company too.’

Violet peered through the crowd, trying to see Carol, past a lady dipping her hand into a deep basket full of cloakroom tickets for a tombola, and the Guess the Weight of the Cake stall. The garden was getting quite crowded now.

A woman with two maroon velvet coathangers in her hand passed, saying, ‘Don’t forget there’s tea and cake for everyone on the terrace, will you?’

Violet was more than ready for a cup of tea. She hesitated. Carol would be all right of course. She was quite happy. She caught a glimpse of her in the distance, being embraced by Sister Cathleen, her face alight with happiness. With the pang that she always had when she saw how much Carol loved this woman,fy" ` Q woman,fy she turned away, annoyed with herself for being jealous. She should be glad, after all. She turned towards the house, where, on the paving slabs at the front, there were chairs, and tables laid with teacups. She’d go and have a quiet sit-down with a cup of tea.

All she caught sight of in that instant was a tall man, just beside her, half turned away and helping a boy in a wheelchair to spin the dial on a game at one of the tables. It was his hands she noticed. There was a stab of recognition, as if by her body more than her mind. One hand guided the boy’s as he could barely reach up high enough. The sight of his long fingers rooted her to the spot.

After a second she dared to turn her head, tremblingly afraid of him looking round and seeing her before she could be sure who it was, and how she might react.

That look left her in no doubt. The thin, gentle set of his face, the dark eyes, looking down at his son, the long, thin back. It could be no one but Roy Keillor. In those seconds she told herself to breathe, to move, to do something other than just stand there before he turned round. But she kept wanting to look at his hands, remembering his touch, which filled her with the kind of longing she had not felt in a long time.