A Heartbeat Away (6 page)

I looked at the envelope she had discarded in the hearth and realized that it was exactly the same as all the others that had arrived lately—the ones that my dad always burned. He would run down the stairs while my mom was still in bed, pick up the mail from where it lay on the mat and throw most of the letters, unopened, into the fire.

“Damn bills,” he would curse as yellow flames licked away at the officially typed writing. Then he would grab his coat from the peg by the door and march out of the house, banging the door behind him. Sometimes after one of those outbursts he would stay away all day and all night, and sometimes he would come home in the early hours of the morning, singing and shouting his way down the street. Whatever he did, it always made my mom cry, and now that she knew about the letters, I was afraid of what she might do

I looked at her crumpled gray face, all blurry with tears, and repeated my vow—the one that I had made to myself on the day Mrs. Brown had brought me home.

Daniel and I stood open-mouthed as Mrs. Brown untangled the letter from her trembling fingers. She read it through with a grave frown on her face, and for an instant I thought she, too, was going to cry. Then her mouth set into a thin straight line and she folded the crisp white paper several times before placing it deliberately on the tabletop.

“Now, come on, Mary,” she said. “Crying isn't going to help, is it?”

My mom moaned.

“I think I'll just end it all, Edna,” she sobbed.

Mrs. Brown tut-tutted and glanced at Daniel and me.

“Why don't you go outside and play with Fudge, children,” she told us firmly. But I held on to Daniel's hand and made him wait with me outside the door. It was my mom and I wanted to see what was going to happen.

“Let's look through the rest of this mail,” suggested Mrs. Brown in her best matter-of-fact tone of voice, “and then I'll make us a nice cup of tea.”

Why was it that grown-ups always thought drinking tea would help?

Daniel and I stayed close to the door, straining our ears, but all we heard was the crackle of paper as Mrs. Brown sorted through the letters. When her firm voice cut through the silence again, it made us both jump.

“Have you read this one, Mary?”

My mom didn't reply, and she asked her again with a tinge of impatience.

“Have you read it? It's from your sister. I didn't know you had a sister.”

I didn't know that my mom had a sister, either, and when I nudged Daniel and shrugged, he pulled a face at me and I started to giggle.

“Outside now, children,” ordered Mrs. Brown. We sucked in our breaths and stayed very quiet until Fudge went racing past us into the living room; then Mrs. Brown came and found us and sent us out into the garden.

I didn't feel like playing because all I could think about was that letter. What if it made my mom ill again? What would my dad do when he got home? What if we lost our house the way we had before?

Daniel and I sat on the wall in the warm spring sunshine as Fudge ran up and down by himself. We didn't really need to talk, because Daniel always knew what I was thinking. After a while he jumped down and looked at me with the bright expression on his sunny face that told me he was about to have a good idea.

“Come on,” he said. “Let's go inside and ask them what's happening? Just because we're kids doesn't mean we shouldn't be told things.”

Daniel always knew what to do. He was so confident and brave—and he was right, too. After all, I mean, if the letter was going to change my life, then I really ought to know about it.

Together we marched into the house, accompanied by Fudge, who tore around us in dizzy circles, eager to play. I wished that I were a dog, with nothing on my mind but food and fun.

My mom had stopped crying and she was gazing up at Mrs. Brown with a surprised expression on her thin face.

“But I haven't heard from Violet in years,” she cried.

Mrs. Brown shrugged. “Well, it seems that you are about to see her again, whether you want to or not,” she remarked. “She sounds like a very strong lady, your sister.”

My mom seemed more lucid in that moment than she had in weeks, as if the letter from this Violet had brought her out of herself again. She sat up quite tall and two spots of color appeared on her pale cheeks as she started to talk.

“She had a row with my father years ago, when I was still quite small. That was when…” She hesitated for a moment, biting her bottom lip so that it went all red. “When my mother died. She left home then, and not long after that, we got a letter to say that she had joined the army. I haven't heard from her since.”

She glanced down then, as if remembering, but when Mrs. Brown put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, she started to talk again in a quick voice.

“Funny, really, that she joined the army, because my father had been in the forces. She was so like him, perhaps that's why they never got on. I only wish I could have been more like her, strong-willed and sure of herself—opinionated, I suppose some people might say. At first after she left, I used to think about her a lot, but she never ever contacted us, and eventually I just stopped thinking about her. When our father died, I did try to find her—I left a forwarding address at the barracks where she was based. But she never got in touch. I know why, of course…”

She paused and I thought that the rush of information must have worn her out, for it struck me that she had said more in the past five minutes than in the previous five weeks. I took hold of Daniel's hand and held my breath, willing my mother to go on. As the seconds ticked by, Mrs. Brown glanced around and saw us. She stared at us for a moment with a sad expression on her soft face, but she didn't send us away. Perhaps she thought I should know the things that my mom was saying, about an auntie I never knew I had.

And at last my mother began to talk again.

“I know why she never came back,” she went on. “It was because Violet blamed my father for my mother's death. He was so hard on her and she was a quiet nervous person.”

She looked straight at me and there was a different kind of pain in her gray eyes now, a deep sorrow that brought an ache into my heart and made her appear alive again.

“She killed herself, your grandma,” she told me quietly. “She took her own life with a length of rope and Violet found her.”

Mrs. Brown bustled forward then, pushing me behind her and taking hold of my mom's arm in one smooth movement.

“That's enough for now, I think, Mary,” she said firmly. “Lucy has heard quite enough for one day.”

With those final words, though, it seemed that my mom dried up, as if facing her past had been too much to bear. She sank back in her chair, staring into the empty grate, and I saw that the cloudiness was in her eyes once more.

“She's turned herself inside out again,” I said solemnly. Mrs. Brown leaned down and gave me a hug. “Lucy,” she declared. “I do believe you're right.”

“Why does she do that?” I asked. “Why doesn't she stay with me?”

I watched Mrs. Brown's smooth forehead crinkle into tiny lines and she looked me straight in the eye. “Maybe she does it to hide away from the things she can't face,” she said quietly. “And we have to help her to get well again.”

“I won't ever hide like that,” I told her, and she smiled, nodding gently.

“Let us hope you never have to, Lucy,” she said.

 

After I waved goodbye to Mrs. Brown and Daniel and gave Fudge one final pat, I went back into the living room and picked up the letter from my aunt Violet. Violet! I wondered if she would smell of violets the way Mrs. Brown did.
She
should have been called Violet. It would have suited her a whole lot better than “Edna.”

I stared at the writing, but it was difficult for me to read, short upright strokes with thick, sure lines, placed on the paper with a heavy hand. I tried to imagine the person who wrote them, but as I struggled to decipher the words, the front door banged and my dad's voice floated through from the hallway.

“Lucy!” he yelled. “Lucy! Where are you girl?”

What would he think of me having an aunt Violet? I wondered, dropping the letter onto the table and glancing uneasily up at my mom. But I needn't have worried, for she just sat mumbling. With a resigned sigh, I begged her to be quiet—my dad hated her to mumble like that and I didn't want her to make him cross today, after the letters and everything.

He came in, however, with a smile on his handsome face and a twinkle in his vivid blue eyes.

“Lucy, your father's had a bit of luck and he's going away to make his fortune,” he announced, twirling me. “So you will have to keep an eye on your mom for while.”

“Going away?”

I regarded him vacantly.

“Going away to where the sun always shines and there is money for the taking.”

“Is it because of the letters?” I asked him, looking pointedly at the pile on the coffee table.

A shadow fell across his face. “Letters?”

“My mom saw them this morning. The ones you usually burn.”

“Ah…”

That was all he said, that one word, but I could tell by the guilt in his eyes that I had hit upon the truth.

“I'm sorry, princess,” he said softly, cupping my cheek with a smooth hand. “I am afraid that I haven't been the best dad to you. But, no matter.”

His eyes brightened and he stood tall.

“I'm sure that harridan Mrs. Brown will sort your mother out when I've gone. You'll be better off without me. You'll see.”

I wanted to shout at him to stay, but I said nothing at all, just stood stock-still while he disappeared upstairs. Minutes later he was down again, with all his belongings in a black rucksack.

“Mary,” he said loudly, taking hold of my mom's shoulder. She shook her head as if fighting off the demons that plagued her, before gazing up at him with alarm on her face.

“I'm off, lass,” he told her. I thought there was a tinge of sadness in his voice. “Maybe I'll be back when I've earned my fortune.”

For a moment she simply stared at him, as if unable to determine her feelings, and when her faded eyes brimmed with tears, I knew just how she felt, for I felt the same way. Maybe there was more of my mom in me than I thought. I pushed that idea firmly out of my head and followed my dad to the kitchen.

“Tell your mother that I really am sorry for this, princess,” he instructed, dipping his fingers into the blue pot and drawing out a handful of notes with a theatrical flourish. “But I have more need of it than she, and of course you two do have the
estimable
Mrs. Brown to help you.”

It was both that final selfish act and the way he curled his lip at the mention of Mrs. Brown that clarified my feelings about my father. The sun shone as he walked jauntily off down the lane without so much as a backward glance, and my tears dried up. Perhaps now my mom would get well again.

I
t wasn't until Monday that Mrs. Brown found out my father had gone—and that was only because I told Daniel at school. All weekend my mom had sat in her chair, getting up only to go to the bathroom. She never even went to bed. I brought her laboriously prepared jam sandwiches, which she hardly touched, and cups of cold tea, because I wasn't allowed to use the kettle. The fire stayed unlit, but the warmth of the sun kept our cottage warm, and I didn't bother to wash, so there was no need for hot water. On Sunday I almost set off to walk to Homewood, but my mom looked so vacant that I was afraid she might do whatever it was that my grandma had done with the length of rope.

I tried to read Aunt Violet's letter, but there were only a few words I could understand, so I just sat and imagined how she might appear and waited for Monday and school and the comfort of being able to share all my fears with Daniel.

Eventually, Mrs. Brown arrived at our cottage, and when I told her about my dad taking the money from the blue pot, her whole face turned red.

“Come on, Mary,” she told my mother. “You are staying at Homewood until that sister of yours arrives on Friday.” I hadn't known she'd be here so soon and my heart started to beat faster with excitement.

Daniel told me that he had overheard his parents talking about my mom and me. It seemed they were afraid that if she became too ill to take care of me properly, then “they” might make me go and live in a home. I asked him who “they” were, and he said he couldn't remember what his mother and father had called them, but it started with an
A
. Even curled up in my lovely warm soft bed at Homewood, I couldn't get away from the fear that washed over me in waves when I thought about it. But that all stopped, of course, when my aunt Violet arrived, because, as Mrs. Brown said, she was family, so she had every right to look after me and no one could take me away from her.

“But I want to stay here with you,” I pleaded. Mrs. Brown held me close, pressing her cheek against my hair so that I felt very safe and very happy.

“I only wish you could,” she told me. “And maybe one day you will, but it's up to the authorities to decide where children live.”

Authorities. That was the word for “them” that Daniel couldn't remember.

My mom seemed to get much better in the three days we stayed at Homewood. Mrs. Brown insisted that she eat her meals, and in the evenings she would encourage her out of her shell by talking to her all the time. At first my mom just ignored her, but by Wednesday she started to talk back. Just little things—a comment about something on TV, or once even a question about my dad. Mrs. Brown's jaw set in a stern line when my dad's name was mentioned and her soft brown eyes hardened. She said that we were all better off without him and we wouldn't fret about the debts until my aunt arrived on Friday.

“Who knows,” she told Mr. Brown with a lift of her eyebrows. “Maybe Mary's sister will be the bearer of good news.”

 

Daniel and I climbed into our tree house on Thursday evening after supper to talk about Violet Gordon.

“When you get home from school tomorrow, she will be at your house,” he said.

I nodded nervously, unsure whether to be afraid or excited.

“And don't worry,” he told me. “If she's horrid, you can come back and live here with us and maybe she can just look after your mom.”

It was a dream that wasn't to be, but the reality was not so bad—as I found when I raced home from school the following afternoon.

 

Our school was an old gray stone building situated right on the edge of the village, only two minutes from the cottage where I lived. When we got out at three-thirty, Daniel and I would cover the short distance to my house on foot. Mrs. Brown, in the meantime, planned to drive my mom back home at lunchtime and make sure everything was tidy before Violet Gordon arrived on the two o'clock train. She even persuaded Mr. Brown to help her paint the living room, and had already washed all the curtains so that the cottage would look nice and fresh for our visitor.

The end of school bell couldn't arrive soon enough for me, and we ran down the lane, Daniel and I, our feet pounding on the dusty, rutted road in perfect timing. He had to shorten his stride to keep pace with me and I stretched my legs so that our footsteps landed together, until our cottage sprang into view and mine began to falter. I hung back then and fell to a walk, suddenly unsure, but Daniel turned to me with one of those smiles that seemed to take over his whole face.

“Come on, Luce,” he urged. “It'll be all right. Let's go and see what she looks like.”

She looked just like her writing, straight and sure, with the same steely determination in her pale blue eyes that had been apparent in the firm delivery of those pen strokes.

She wore trousers and very shiny sensible shoes. Her graying hair was cropped close, like a cap upon her head, and although at first glance she seemed small against the towering height of Mrs. Brown, she stood so erect that she appeared to be taller than she was.

“Hello, Lucy,” she said with a smile that didn't quite fit her face—in fact, I thought that she didn't really seem used to smiling at all.

“Hello, Aunt Violet,” I replied, sniffing the air for the scent I expected. “You don't smell like your name.”

“Terrible name,” she barked. “Call me V. Everyone does.”

She gazed at me with gimlet eyes, and yet behind her fierce exterior, I noticed something else, something hidden deep down, and right from that first moment we settled into a kind of unspoken comradeship.

I don't think anyone could ever really call my aunt a
friend,
for she would never let enough of herself out to share a confidence, but we learned to understand each other as the summer days slipped by. As long as I stuck to her rigid rules, she would leave me to my own devices. Supper was at five-thirty sharp, bed at eight. My shoes must always be kept shiny, I had to do my share of the housework and nothing was
ever
to be left on my plate. For that, I was allowed to go where I pleased, and I could disappear for hours at a time without her even asking where I'd been.

She never told us where she was from—Daniel always said that she was running away from something, but if it was true, we never knew it. She just took over the household, cleared the bills and tried to sort out my mother.

Mrs. Brown and she muddled along together, biting their tongues as often as not to save an argument. No two women could have had less in common, with the exception, of course, of my mother, whose sorry plight they both took to heart. The trouble was that my aunt V was of the opinion that discipline was the key to her recovery and Mrs. Brown believed that care and understanding were what my mom needed.

At the end of the day it was aunt V who had most to do with her, so discipline, it seemed, won. Not that it made much difference to my mom. She had good spells and bad. Sometimes I could talk to her, sometimes she retreated into her own world and occasionally she went quite crazy.

Aunt V remained undaunted no matter what. She just kept up with her rigid rules and talked to no one. Daniel said that she was a lonely person, but I didn't agree. She had her own self for company, and I think that was enough—although she did develop a huge affection for Fudge, who was the only creature to break her rules and get away with it. He sat on the couch. He ran into the kitchen with muddy paws. He stole food from Cat, a scruffy tabby who had arrived at our back door one morning and refused to go away. All Aunt V did was shake her head, smile indulgently and clear up his mess.

 

All in all, for the next few years my life bordered on normality. I learned to ride Chocolate almost as well as Daniel did. He got another horse, a lovely bay three-year-old with the unlikely name of Timeout. He was totally hyper and never took any time out at all, so we called him Timmy for short.

We rode for hours, Daniel and I, when the farm chores allowed him, and it was as we set off along the lane from Homewood one misty autumn day that we met Aunt V driving the small elderly Ford car she had recently bought for herself. When she saw us, she skidded to a halt, wound down the window and leaned out.

“Lucy!” she called. “Have you seen your mother?”

Her voice was tense, and I could tell by the uncharacteristic flush on her round face that something was very wrong. Normally nothing rattled Aunt V.

“What's up?” I yelled back urging Chocolate toward the car.

“I can't find Mary,” she cried. “She was in a funny way all morning. After lunch I nipped to the shop for half an hour, and when I got back, she was gone.”

“Don't worry,” cut in Daniel from right behind me. “We'll have a ride around to look for her. She's probably just gone for a walk or something.”

Timmy sidled as Aunt V set off again with her foot flat down on the accelerator, and for a moment, Daniel's attention was taken by trying to settle him. I just sat stock-still on my dumpy little mount, memories of an unfinished story about my gran once again racing through my mind.

Daniel raised his eyebrows at me and tilted his head to one side in despair.

“Now, don't you go letting your imagination run away with you,” he admonished, but when his warm brown eyes caught mine, I could see such complete understanding in them that I felt suddenly warm and safe.

“We'll find her. Don't worry.”

His voice was so firm and he was so confident that, as always, I believed him. And as usual he was right.

We took the track behind our cottage that led toward the fell, and within five minutes of jogging across the tufty grass, we saw something moving in the mist way ahead. I urged Chocolate into a canter, afraid that the figure would disappear again, into the opaque silence that surrounded us. As we got closer, I realized that it really was my mom, out here alone on the hill, wearing just a thin, cotton, navy-blue dress. She was standing quite still, staring into the mist with a wild look in her gray eyes. Her hair, dampened by the moisture that hung in the air, curled around her flushed face, and for a fleeting moment I saw her as she must have been years ago. The attractive young creature who had caught my father's wandering eye. The sweet, gentle girl he had taken and destroyed.

Tears filled my eyes. I leaped down from Chocolate, handed the reins to Daniel and walked toward her, hand outstretched, unexpectedly feeling that I was the adult and she the child.

“Okay, Mom?” I murmured. She smiled at me with that vacant smile that told me she was somewhere else.

“I can't find Mother,” she whispered in a thin cracked voice. “I don't know where she's gone. Do you know where she is, Violet?”

“It's Lucy, Mom,” I told her gently. “Come on, now. She's likely at home. Let's go and find her.”

That was when my mom went back into hospital, just for a while, and I think it was then that I left my childhood behind. As I led her down the fell by the hand, I realized that my whole life had shifted to a different level, one that included responsibility and care and the trappings of a maturity that I didn't feel ready for.

We sat and talked that night, Daniel and I, really talked, about my mom and our lives and my handsome, charming, selfish father. I told Daniel about the vow I had made—that when things went wrong for me, I would never just fall apart and turn myself inside out as my mom had done.

“I'll stand and fight and never give in,” I told him, and he smiled that funny smile of his.

“Well, let's hope you never have to, Luce,” he said.

I hoped so, too, but deep inside me something quivered, and an icy premonition shivered down my spine.

We decided then that I should pluck up the courage to talk to Aunt V about my gran. Daniel said that I had a right to know, and I suppose that at fourteen, I was old enough to understand, but it was some time before the right moment came along.

We were sitting in the living room after supper one autumn night, just before my mom got home from the hospital. The wind moaned outside our cottage, and fallen leaves swirled against the window as the moan turned into a howl. When Aunt V leaned forward to stoke the already crackling fire, I found my moment.

“Will you tell me about my gran?”

She froze, poker held in front of her, and stared into the flames.

“Please, Aunt V,” I begged.

“Did your mother never say something?”

When I shook my head, she seemed surprised.

“My mom never told me much of anything,” I said. “She always seemed to have been shut off—you know, the way she is now. In her own private world.”

The mantelpiece clock ticked in the silence, and I held my breath until she started to speak.

“It wasn't just your father who made her like that, you know,” she began, with a faraway look in her eyes. “There were other things as well. Your granddad, for one. He has as much to answer for. And maybe even our mother, although perhaps she was just as much a victim as Mary.”

Aunt V turned to look at me with an unfathomable expression in her eyes, and as the firelight flickered on her face, I caught a glimpse of the softness that she kept so well hidden.