Light A Penny Candle (53 page)

They complimented Elizabeth on everything, on the success of the course, on her knowledge of paintings, on the marvellous party. They complimented her on what a nice house Clarence Gardens was, and they both said they liked her hair pulled up in that little pony-tail effect.

‘I think it’s rather mutton-dressed-as-lamb, I’m much too old to get away with that teenage hair-style,’ she had said deliberately.

It worked. They both cried out that she was not too old, she was very young, and it suited her perfectly.

Elizabeth thought that it was all great fun and rather silly and wondered whether other people went on like this all the time.

‘I had a postcard from Grace Miller, you know …’ remarked Simon, ‘she’s in Bangor. Apparently you’re quite a matchmaker, Elizabeth, she met that chap at your party. You know Johnny … from the antique shop … and he suggested they motor up there. Quite the love of her life he is now, apparently.’

‘Yes, fast mover, Grace, isn’t she?’ Henry said admiringly.

‘And so is Johnny Stone,’ said Elizabeth. She felt the food sticking in her throat. Motoring up to Bangor with Grace, or turning up out of the blue – which was true? Was Johnny lying … he never needed to? Was Grace lying … why should she bother to?

Henry was saying something. ‘Oh I say, I’m pleased to hear you say that. I was afraid that he was your chap. Something your stepfather said that evening.’

Damn Harry to the bottom of hell, how dare he let any information about Johnny out of the net? He should have known it was something you didn’t talk about. ‘Oh, what on earth did he say?’ she asked lightly.

‘Nothing specific, I just thought that he was – you know …?’

‘Oh heavens, everyone loves Johnny … it’s like loving fine weather … it would be churlish not to be delighted with it, or him. Now enough about that Romeo … tell me how you two Romeos escaped all these predatory female clients who must be stalking you through the Inns of Court. …’

They both laughed hugely at this and things were back on course. Elizabeth allowed herself a small excursion in
her
mind back to Johnny. It must be Grace who had told the lie. Johnny did not need to lie, or if he had then it was serious with Grace and that’s why the first real untruth had been told.

Mother died in November. She had a massive heart attack, they told Elizabeth on the telephone, very quick and in many ways a merciful relief. It had happened during the night and Mother had known no terror or anxiety about it. The kind voice said it must be thought of as the best solution.

Elizabeth stood in the cold hall of Clarence Gardens. It was Father’s bridge night, she had answered the phone. It rarely ever rang for Father anyway. She had been thinking about Mother at the very moment the bell had sounded in the hall, because she had been in the middle of making a Christmas present list. She had paused to think about Mother and how sad it was that all she could now do for Mother was to send a gift to other people in the same hospital. It was very anonymous, it was like sending money for the black babies when they were in the convent back in Kilgarret – you wished you could see the black baby getting a present.

Now there was never going to be any kind of a present for Mother again. Harry had been told apparently and was very emotional but he would telephone later. Perhaps Elizabeth and Harry or one of them could telephone the hospital again in the morning to discuss the funeral arrangements. They were sorry to have to tell her such sad
news
but hoped she would see it as a very happy release for Mrs Elton.

From the front room came the sound of laughter; she even heard Father’s tone in it. Father who had laughed so rarely in that room where his wife had sat at a little desk and written letters was laughing over a game of cards with people that he hardly knew while Mother was lying dead in a mortuary chapel in the North of England. Elizabeth would not now rush into the room and throw herself into Father’s arms and they would not weep for her. Once they must have wept or been near to tears over Elizabeth … when they knew she was expected, when she was born, when she said something endearing as a toddler. They must have looked at each other and smiled or held hands then. What had happened to make it end like this?

She thought of Mother that day at Euston. She thought of her with her eyes searching through all that grey crowd trying to find her child, and the slow look of disbelief when she saw the grown-up daughter. She thought of Mother throwing her head back laughing that time when Johnny had brought the rabbit to Preston for dinner, she thought of pinning the violets on her cardigan, she remembered Mother shaking her head dismissively about Miss James back in the first school. She remembered Mother crying outside this door the day she went off with Harry, big tears falling down her face as she had said that she wished things were different … those were her words … she wished things were different.

*

The Hardcastles had agreed when she asked them not to bring Harry to the telephone. ‘Tell him I’ll come up overnight. It doesn’t matter what time the train gets in, I’ll take a taxi to your house. Can you leave the key somewhere for me, I won’t want to wake the whole house?’

‘Well love, just put your hand in the letter box, it’s on a string. There’ll be a flask of tea for you, and rugs and you turn on the electric fire as soon as you get in. You’re a good lass to come so quickly.’

‘Tell him that Mother would like him looking smart and well and he’s not to have red eyes when we go up to that hospital tomorrow,’ she said. She rang the station. Dear God would something good happen sometimes at Euston? She wrote a note to Henry Mason to explain why she wouldn’t be able to meet him the following day. She also asked him to let Stefan, the art college and the school know. Henry was very reliable, he would do that efficiently for her.

Then she wrote a note to Father … she left it in his bedroom in case some of the bridge people might help him to wash up. She didn’t want him to have to get the news in front of strangers, and she certainly did not want to be there herself when he reacted. She carefully mentioned the name of the hospital again, just in case he wanted to send flowers. She said that she would be gone for a few days. Finally she went into the bridge room and waited courteously until the hand was played.

‘Ah, tea?’ Father was pleased and surprised.

‘No, not yet, it’s all ready in the kitchen of course, but, sorry to interrupt you, I have to go away suddenly. It’s all a bit complicated. I won’t delay everyone here now explaining. I left you a note upstairs. …’ She smiled brightly around at the four people and left briskly. At the end of Clarence Gardens she saw a taxi and hailed it. She dropped the letter to Henry through the letter box of the big house where he had a flat. It was a methodical house, like Henry himself. They would sort out the letters for the various tenants and leave them in neat rows on a large hall table. He would make all those other calls for her. She had listed the telephone numbers.

She thought she saw him at the window upstairs as she leapt back into the taxi, but it would take too long to explain everything, and the letter did it better. She would see him next week.

She slept in fits and starts on the train, her head lolling awkwardly so that she woke up with an ache in her neck twice. She rubbed it, trying to ease the cramp.

‘Would you like me to do that for you?’ said a man opposite her. He had been eyeing her since she got into the compartment. Elizabeth was glad that two other men sat in the far corner. She would not like to have been alone with him.

‘No thank you,’ she replied crisply without any hint of amusement at his suggestion.

A little later the extra coat, the black coat she had brought with her for warmth as well as for mourning, fell
from
her knees to the floor. The man picked it up and settled it around her lap with a lot of unnecessary patting and fondling.

She opened her eyes coldly and looked at him. ‘Get back to your seat and take your hands off me,’ she said.

He laughed.

She looked for support to the other end of the carriage. The other passengers were gone. They must have got out when she was asleep.

‘Come on now, the way you were sitting, I thought you’d like a little company,’ he said. He was confident. He was really awful, Elizabeth thought, a full face and thick lips … she could barely look at him he revolted her so much.

‘I do not want company,’ she stated. ‘And if you believe I do you are wrong, and you are attacking me and I shall pull this cord.’ She had stood up and placed her hand on the communication cord. …

He looked alarmed. ‘Don’t be such a fool. Sit down. I didn’t mean any harm.’

‘Get away from me. Go over to the other side of the carriage. Now.’

Fumbling and picking up his attaché case he moved.

‘Now stay there. One more move and I’ll pull the cord, and you can make your explanations to the train guard and the police.’

‘Don’t be such a bloody idiot … I wasn’t doing anything. …’

‘And you won’t do any more,’ she retorted.

He picked up his newspaper and in the dim light of the compartment pretended to read. Elizabeth sat down, fixed her clothes around her, so that the coat kept her legs both hidden and warm.

‘Are you the nervous type then?’ the man asked, relieved to see Elizabeth’s hand at a safe distance from the communication cord.

‘Will you
shut up
?’ she shouted at him.

‘I certainly will, crackpot. Cracked prim and prissy old maid.’

‘That’s it,’ Elizabeth said, pleased.

The week passed in a blur. There were only ten people at Mother’s funeral, and that meant only seven apart from Henry and Elizabeth and the nice Nurse Flowers. Elizabeth had taken a small bag with Mother’s Effects, as the hospital had called them. She thought that they would upset Harry too much, and even she felt she wouldn’t be able to look at them yet. The chaplain had been kind, his words were all about Going Home, and Laying Down One’s Head, and Peace. Harry snuffled beside her.

‘Violet wouldn’t want peace, she hated peace, she wanted a bit of a good time,’ he whispered to Elizabeth.

‘I think these padres have it all wrong,’ Elizabeth whispered back to him. ‘Perhaps heaven is full of good times, and Mother’s having the time of her life.’

‘Not yet,’ said Harry, picking holes in this idea. ‘Not until after the resurrection and all.’

‘Sorry,’ Elizabeth apologised, ‘I keep getting confused
with
the Catholics, I think they go there immediately, or maybe I’ve got it mixed up.’

‘Poor Violet,’ Harry sobbed. ‘Poor little Violet. She wanted so little, she wanted so bloody little … and she never even got that.’

Elizabeth stood in the rain under Mr Hardcastle’s umbrella and wondered about love. Mother had wanted a great deal, she had wanted much more than anyone else of her time had got. It had been impossible to please Mother. Yet when you boiled it all down all she had ever wanted was Harry. He hadn’t given her any great wealth or good times, he had given her a hard life in a small shop. And while she still had her mind she had been happy there. No wonder Harry saw her as simple and easy to please. Father saw her as totally selfish and demanding … and people like Monica Furlong’s mother had always thought that Violet had to have twice what everyone else in the world had, and that included two bites at the cherry in terms of marriage. Aunt Eileen had said that Mother had been such fun at school. Oh Lord, in all the fuss she hadn’t written to Aunt Eileen. She must do that as soon as possible. Perhaps Aunt Eileen might even write a letter to Harry. Though strictly speaking she might prefer to write to Father. What the hell, let Aunt Eileen decide.

There were endless cups of tea with the Hardcastles. There were assurances that Harry’s allowances and the rent he got from the little shop were more than enough to cover his board. There were plans made for Harry’s next visit to London, and telegrams of sympathy from Stefan Worsky, and Anna, from the art college, from the school,
from
Henry Mason and Simon Burke, from one or two other people on the art course, whom Henry must have alerted. There was no message from George White and there was no message from Johnny Stone.

The night before she went back to London Elizabeth and Harry went out to have a meal. The restaurant was starting to decorate itself for Christmas and it looked far more festive than either of them felt.

‘I say it over to myself that it’s no different than it has been. But you know I always thought she’d get better, I thought one morning she’d wake up and say, “Harry, how ridiculous,” and it would all be all right. Now I can’t think that any more. Did you feel that?’

‘Yes,’ lied Elizabeth. ‘Yes, I did.’ She wondered why she had explained Mother’s illness to Harry so carefully, she marvelled at his inability to accept what he couldn’t bear.

‘So you’re not to worry about me down there in Fun City,’ Harry said.

‘No, I won’t worry. I’ll think of you a lot … between your visits.’

‘And how’s my mate Johnny?’

‘He’s fine. Fine,’ she said. The were both subdued anyway, her tone was not out of character with the way they were talking, but he caught the slightest hint.

‘I don’t want to pry …’ he began.

‘You don’t ever pry, Harry,’ she said.

‘But I was wondering like … when he didn’t come with you … whether anything … if it was all like it always was. …’

‘No, it’s not like it always was. You’re quite right.’ She looked at the table cloth for a long time. Harry said nothing. ‘Well, I mean he’s like he always was, and always will be. But I don’t feel the same.’

‘Ah, you’ve not gone off a fellow like Johnny? One in a million, that Johnny.’

‘It’s hard to explain. You see he doesn’t have any really special feelings towards me … you know, like you had for Mother … he doesn’t see him and me as any sort of unit. I didn’t understand it for a long time. …’

‘But you always said he wasn’t the marrying type … you knew that. …’ Harry was clearly very disappointed to see the end of Johnny in his life.

‘Yes, but I didn’t understand how light his hold on me was. I’ve been going out for the past few months with that chap Henry, you remember you met him at the party, the solicitor.’