The Night Following (20 page)

Jeremy said he wanted to know if I was all right and then began to tell me why he knew I wasn’t. As I listened, I nipped out the flame of a candle and dabbed the escaping drop of wax between my thumb and forefinger until it was a cool, curved disk with brittle edges, like a fingernail detached from a corpse. I nibbled it while I waited. It tasted of oil and smoke.

“Are you there? Hello? This is the whole problem. This is pure emotional blackmail.”

I didn’t speak.

“All right. But since you have at least answered the telephone, perhaps you would tell me how you are?”

“I am here. I’m the same.”

“Are you?…I mean, have you…how are…have things…”He couldn’t flatten down the brisk interrogative breeze fluttering through his voice, lifting the edges of words and sniffing underneath.
What
things? “Are you coping with the heat, for instance? It’s terribly hot.”

“I told you, I’m the same.”As I said that an ache was rising in my chest and my heart began a kind of bumpy climb up my ribs. I tried to concentrate on how safe I was, to remember that I was alone in a dark room and that although his voice was present, he wasn’t.

“I know you’re shutting yourself away in the house,”he insisted. “Gail says she and Hector haven’t seen you for weeks, she thought you were away. She’s been trying to rouse you.”

I nipped out the flame of another candle. Smoke from the sooty wick trickled up my nose and I coughed. “I’m all right.”

“Look, I’m concerned. I think you may be at risk of going into a depression. I know just the person you should see; I think I should fix you up with an appointment.”

I swallowed the fragments of wax nail. “There’s no need for that.”

“But you are reacting very extremely to this. I’d like you to see him.”

“I don’t want to see anyone.”

“I think you should. I’m worried. In fact, I think I’ll come round this weekend.”

“Don’t. You can’t. The thing is—I’m going away.”

“Going away? Where? What for?”

“I haven’t decided. But definitely somewhere. Possibly for the rest of the summer. Maybe longer.”

“Well, maybe a holiday’s not such a bad idea. Actually it’s a good idea. France, I suppose? Make sure I have the details before you go, all right?”

“All right.”

“Good. Well done. A long break, how I envy you. By the way, the weather! Have you been remembering about the basil?”

“The basil?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t watered the pots? They’ll be bone dry! The parsley’s probably had it already!”

“You’re worried about the
herbs
?”

“Well, I don’t see why everything has to go to the dogs. I did a lot of work on those pots. You said you wanted to make pesto.”

I hung up. I couldn’t draw the breath for a reply in case it encouraged any more; before I could stop him we would be on to greenfly and the lawn sprinkler. But in the end, Jeremy proved helpful. A conversation with him that I hadn’t wanted to have at all had shown me my way forward. I had not realized before I said it that I even wanted to go away, let alone that I intended to. But of course I did. It was the natural and only possible next step.

As per
Dear Ruth
Developments. As I’d got it off the wall and had no further use for it, I was aiming to put Della’s memorial effort out for the garbagemen. That should have been that. Only did I stumble or did I drop it (or was it shoddy goods to start with) but the glass in the frame broke. I managed to nick my hand and I’ve written a note to remind myself to avoid the hall in bare feet from now on. You never get every last shard up. Less floor room in hall now, anyway, as I’ve got a lot of stuff stored there, got it down from the attic where it’s no use to anyone, and I’m not undoing all my good work just because of a little broken glass.
But mindful that it
was
broken glass, I didn’t stick the memorial in the actual garbage can. I can just imagine the hoo-hah if one of the bloody garbagemen got so much as a scratch. They don’t seem to wear gloves anymore. So I just placed it carefully against the wall next to can. Next day, can’s been emptied, a minor miracle—
AND
left on its side halfway up the drive. That’s happened before, they just
FLING
it down and seem to expect thanks for it. Anyway, damn tribute’s still there against the wall, not even touched. That’s willful dereliction. No doubt they’ll find some red tape or small print to justify yet more atrocious service, as per.
Damned if I’m giving in was my first thought, you’ll be pleased to hear. A sure sign I’m getting back to normal. Standing up for myself visà-vis obstinacy of garbage men instead of going down in welter of self-pity. They are
NOT
getting away with it and I’ll damn well leave it there till they
DO
pick it up, we’ll see who prevails. I’m the taxpayer, as I’ll remind them. I’m staying at home these days, as it suits me to, but I certainly intend to be on the lookout and I’ll make my feelings known next time they deign to call.
So I left the bloody thing—and left also garbage can on its side because there’s a principle involved. Next thing is Mrs. M’s at the door with a bunch of freesias. She starts spouting some notion that you were fond of them. I couldn’t shed any light on that possibility, I said.
Then she asks, did she get me out of the bath and have I mislaid dressing gown—did I grab raincoat as first thing to come to hand? Mind your own business, I said.
Then she waved freesias and said she thought she should ask first, was it all right with me. Floral expressions of sympathy are all very well, she goes on, but she’s sensitive to the fact that somebody’s got to clear up in the end and she’ll never forget those sordid scenes at Kensington Palace post-Diana. They had to bring in those diggers you use after avalanches.
And they’re piling up already, she said, waving down the drive. Give it a week and it’ll be a nasty heap of compost
obstructing the thoroughfare and encroaching onto the sidewalk
(her very words). Not at all welcome, not very Cardigan Avenue. She says, if somebody slipped you could be liable. Maybe she should ask The Great Tony to tidy it up. I stood and let her go on. Maybe she thought she was making sense or she was expecting me to say something back. I was completely at sea.
Though clearly, she said, sniffing the freesias, others haven’t had the courtesy to check first. I was still baffled and said so. Then she said, you know, your poem out on the drive, the poem you left out for people to read. She’s got an excited look about her now.
So out we go (she insisted I get my slippers on first) and there at the end of the drive in front of Della’s tribute there are at least a dozen bunches of flowers including a handful of dead daisies tied with a bit of tinsel, “From Amy Watson (aged 5) at No. 48.”Just lying there where the wall of the drive curves out. Still baffled. Mrs. M says people like to leave a marker. She says people are just showing support in the best way they know. Showing support.
Ruth, you’re the one with the words—what does that mean?
SHOWING SUPPORT?
I’m not talking about the word itself, that’s plain enough, I mean, what does it
MEAN? SUPPORT?
A prop for a leaning wall? What’s the use of that if bricks have been pulled out from the bottom? It’s collapsing anyhow. Support will only put off the inevitable, it’ll end up a pile of rubble eventually.
So Mrs. M puts her flowers down with the rest and blows her nose, peers at my face and says now she sees me in daylight she wonders if I need a dermatologist. Then she launches into the usual—importance of eating properly etc and it’s no bother at all if she’s cooking for herself anyway, and later on she’ll just pop over with something.
See what’s going on? Freesia business was a ruse to get me out of the house and agreeing to all kinds of things, more hot dinners etc.
I am beginning to understand her motives. Probably been waiting to pounce for years and now with you gone she’s making her move. Think of the kerfuffle that would create. There’s no way to deal with that sort of thing except walk away, it’s the only language her kind understand. Which is exactly what I did.
Wish you were here.
Won’t you come again?
That’s all.
Arthur.

   Little Grace Ashworth had her mother’s dimples and her father’s dark hair, and at the age of eight was by all accounts a strikingly pretty girl. Evelyn brushed and plaited her soft hair every morning, marveling at its silkiness, and she stroked her daughter’s smooth face and gave a gentle prod where the dimples would appear on each cheek. “Let’s be putting those dimples on show today, eh?”she would say. “Be a happy good lass for your Mam.”

But she herself would never see those dimples. And Grace had already acquired something of her father’s brooding and taciturn nature, so that for days on end very few other people did, either. Sometimes Evelyn worried that in her daughter’s silences there was a reproach meant for her, as if it were Evelyn’s own fault that she was blind. A mood would settle on the little girl for days at a time and Evelyn would fret to herself that she would never be forgiven for the fact that Grace had been born to a mother who was unable to see her.

If only Stan had taken more trouble and time with his daughter, but he only noticed Grace on the very few occasions on which she was naughty. He had as little to do with her, or with Evelyn, as possible. She never had found out any more about the girl in blue and yellow. When it occurred to her, weeks after the day on Kinder Scout, that she would be quite within her rights as a wife to insist on knowing, it had no longer seemed important. Then Grace had been born and it seemed less important still.

Now, whenever he wasn’t at work he would be out somewhere. He had long since stopped saying where he was going and Evelyn had long ago stopped asking. After all these years, whether Stan was at a meeting or drinking with Alan O’Reilly, or carrying on with some girl or another, it made little difference to her. All she knew was that with the passing of time her own heart seemed to grow smaller.

In the house, he and his mother continued in their old ways, ignoring his wife and daughter as much as they could. It seemed to Evelyn that she only really existed when her mother-in-law was laying down the law to her about some detail of their arrangements. Would Evelyn kindly oblige her by not taking up more than half of a rail of the drying pulley in the scullery. Would Evelyn point out to Grace that shoes must not be left on the stairs. Life under old Mrs. Ashworth’s roof was uneasy to say the least.

When war came again in 1939 Stan was among the first to join up, to everyone’s surprise except Evelyn’s. For years now he had been using his meetings mainly as an excuse to spend hours out of the house, and Evelyn had guessed at once that no lingering left-wing political ideals would withstand the temptation presented by the chance to join the army and get away for months or maybe years, even if it meant going into danger.

For her, life went on much as usual. It was certainly no better with him gone. If anything Mrs. Ashworth went even further out of her way to be difficult. She was no help with Grace, even though Grace was an unnaturally quiet and undemanding child. She was “living on a knife edge”with her only son away, fighting for his country, and she couldn’t do with a child stampeding around, added to which, she claimed, she was an old lady now and too nervy to leave the house.

When everyone was issued gas masks in March 1940, the war had come suddenly much closer to home. And when, only a few weeks later, Grace was evacuated to the Cheshire countryside, Evelyn thought her heart would break. She now had an intimate knowledge of every quirk and pitfall of the house in Bank Street and could look after herself well enough, and she tried to draw comfort from knowing that Grace was out of danger and away from her irritable grandmother, and in the country, where surely fresh air and homegrown vegetables would be in greater supply than in smoky old Aldbury. Her own wants were few, and Stan’s army pay was regular.

The local shopkeepers knew her and her white stick, and were all friendly, and neighbors went out of their way to pass the time of day with her, perhaps sensing that she would be lonely with her little girl gone. Everybody respected her for her cheerfulness and her way of dressing her shy, polite daughter so beautifully, in expertly hand-knitted garments, every stitch made by herself. Just as important, they knew old Mrs. Ashworth and the kind of woman she was. Most of them had felt the rough side of her tongue at one time or another.

So the butcher took special care that bacon for young Mrs. Ashworth was sliced from the lean end of the slab, and that she wasn’t left out if, for example, some nice rabbits came his way, delivered after dark to the back of the shop. The grocer next door might whisper that he’d had a special delivery, nothing official, mind, but maybe she could find room for an extra egg in the bottom of her shopping bag and mum’s the word?

It was months later, toward the end of a day’s shopping in preparation for a bleak Christmas, on December 23, that the raid came. London and the other big cities in the south of Eng and had been taking the brunt of the Luftwaffe’s attention for months, yet the first raid on Manchester still came as a shock. For one thing, though the raid went on for a number of days and nights, nobody had expected it to begin in broad daylight. A still bigger shock, and a puzzle, was the apparently random dropping of bombs on Aldbury, several miles away. Theories abounded: simple incompetent targeting by a plane aiming for the Ship Canal or the docks, or a navigational error, or a pilot getting rid of bombs too heavy for the hazardous daylight flight back to a base in Norway. But whatever the reason, the line of bombs blasted away several buildings over four Aldbury streets and left a burning scar a mile long. People said it was a miracle more damage wasn’t done and more people weren’t killed, it being so near to Christmas and folk out and about. But 43 Bank Street was among the eight houses destroyed, and old Mrs. Ashworth was among the five people who died.