Authors: Barry Maitland
“Aren’t you well, dear?”
“My annual check-up,” Kathy lied. “I’ve made an appointment for us both. She might as well look you over while you’re there. See about that cough.”
“Oh, not me!” Mary looked affronted. “I have my own doctor at home. Dr. Skinner. I’ve been going to him for nigh on thirty years.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Two weeks ago, as it happens. Kathy, I am not going to see your doctor.” She glared at her niece defiantly.
“What did you see Dr. Skinner about?”
“A personal matter,” the old lady snapped.
“Sorry.” Kathy had only given the idea a fifty-fifty chance. “You’re right, it is too nice a day. I’ll cancel the appointment and go another time.”
The conversation had got Mary more agitated than Kathy had seen her. She began to wonder if her aunt did have something seriously wrong with her health, something she didn’t want to discuss. Perhaps this was the reason for the mystery visit.
They bought a roasted chicken and some bread and drinks from the deli round the corner, took the tube down to Embankment, then changed to the District line west to Kew Gardens. There had been no further rain after the previous Saturday, the summer firmly taking hold again in hot, hazy days, refusing to let autumn sneak in. They wandered silently for a while through banks of dense foliage, until they found a seat deep in cool shade in the Berberis Dell.
“This is grand,” Mary said softly, and gave a deep sigh. “It always feels so peaceful in a proper garden.”
“Yes, it is lovely. I can’t think why I’ve never come here before.”
“Oh, but you have, pet. You’ve been here before. Don’t you remember?”
“Sorry?”
The old lady gave another big sigh and closed her eyes. “You used to love going to the Botanical Gardens. We’d take the bus
along Eccleshall Road to the bottom entrance, and walk right up to the aquarium and budgie house at the top. Your favourite is the springtime, with the crocuses and daffodils, and I like the summer. Especially dahlia time. They do a wonderful display of dahlias. And chrysanths.”
Kathy’s heart sank. So that was it. Mary didn’t even know where she was. She was thinking they were back in Sheffield together, in the Botanical Gardens, Kathy a girl of twelve or thirteen. A wave of sadness overcame her. She wanted to reach out to the small figure at her side, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. She knew the gesture would feel empty and futile. All those bleak years cooped up in that grim little house in Attercliffe with that miserable old sod of a husband, and now her mind had gone. What could Kathy say?
She began to think of practical things.
I’ll have to get her home straight away, this afternoon. The train, or car up the M1? And who’ll look after her when we get there? Perhaps Tom’s mind’s gone the same way. Will the Social Services be open on a Saturday? Dear God, I can’t take time to sort it out now, I’ve only been in the job ten minutes. Di knew! That’s what her phone call was about, of course. She must have realized from talking to her mother on the phone. She’ll have to come over from Canada and sort it out. How long will that take? There’s a neighbour, Effie, the big West Indian woman. They probably have no idea where Mary is! They’ve probably had the police combing the moors, and I didn’t even think to phone them and let them know she was safe.
“It is strange, though,” Aunt Mary said suddenly.
“What is, Mary?”
“You not remembering that you’ve been here before.”
“Oh . . . yes, I do remember the Botanical Gardens on Eccleshall Road. I remember us going there very well.”
Mary turned and looked at her oddly. “No, pet. I’m talking about here. Kew Gardens. You wrote to me about it when you
were a little girl—seven or eight. ‘Dear Aunty Mary. Today Mummy and I went to China.’ ” Mary smiled at the memory. “Don’t you remember?”
“China?”
“The tall red pagoda, you see. Your mum explained in her letter. You thought this was China. She said I’d love the gardens at Kew. It’s funny to think it’s taken me so long to come.”
Kathy looked at her, stunned. “Oh,” she said at last. “I see.”
“Is something funny, pet? Are you all right?”
Kathy realized she was grinning with relief. “No, nothing. For a minute there I thought . . . I thought you didn’t know where we were.”
“What?” Mary looked intensely affronted. “I’m not bloomin’ gaga, Kathy. Not yet, anyway.”
“Why did you never come down when we lived here?” Kathy said, hastily changing the subject. “I don’t ever remember you coming to stay.”
“Tom would never allow it. Not after he quarrelled with your dad. But I did come to London the once, before we were married. We all came—Tom and me, and your mum and dad.”
“Really? When was that?”
“Fifty years ago, love. That sounds such a long time. Doesn’t really feel like it, though. Your dad was stationed down south with the army, and he’d heard he was going to be sent overseas, so he asked your mum to come down to London quickly. They were only just courting at that stage, and our mum said Christine could only go if I went too, as chaperone. Tom came as well, and we had a grand weekend, the four of us. We stayed at a little hotel in Wardour Street.”
In Soho, Kathy realized with surprise.
“Was Dad sent abroad?”
“Yes. He was away for three years after that.”
“And Uncle Tom?”
“No. He was in the steel mill, you see. He had to stay. It was what they called a reserved occupation during the war.”
“Is that something to do with why you went to the Imperial War Museum?”
Mary didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes were following the progress of a thrush, pecking its way across the grass in front of them.
“I first met Tom a year before we made our visit down here. I was on my way home from work one night when the sirens started. There’d been a week of heavy raids, and I went straight to the nearest shelter. Tom had just finished at the mill too. They’d been blowing the furnaces, and he was covered all over with red dust. I remember it very clearly, him stepping into the shelter, red from head to toe. He sat next to me, and asked my name. I said Maryanne, and he said that was too fancy. He’d just call me Mary.”
“I had no idea that your name wasn’t really Mary.”
“I’ve been Mary ever since. I suppose I should have realized when he said that.” She shrugged. “The travel agent told me about the museum. They have a thing called the Blitz Experience. You go into what’s supposed to be a shelter, about a dozen of you, and then you hear the bombs, and dust comes down from the ceiling, as if there’s been a near miss. Then the all-clear sounds, and you go out into the street that’s just been bombed. Some houses have been knocked down, and you can hear people shouting. In the middle of the street is a pram, upside down, with the wheel still turning.”
“So you were retracing your steps,” Kathy said. “Did it work?”
The old lady shook her head. “It wasn’t the same,” she said. “I found the place where we stayed in Wardour Street, but it isn’t a hotel any more. This lad was standing at the door, trying to get the men that passed to go inside. When he saw me staring he asked if I wanted a job there. He was trying to be funny. The Blitz Experience wasn’t the same, either, not really. It was quite exciting,
especially when I realized that all the other folk in the shelter with me were German people. I was worried what they would think, but they seemed to enjoy it too. Only, it just wasn’t the same. It wasn’t real.”
“What did you mean just now, when you said about your name, that you should have realized something?”
“I should have realized what he was like, that’s all.” She lowered her eyes, and added in a voice so low that Kathy had to lean forward to hear, “I’ve left him, Kathy. After all these years, I’ve left your Uncle Tom.”
“Oh . . .” For a moment Kathy was speechless.
“Do you think . . . do you think that’s very shameful?”
The old lady seemed to have shrunk with the effort of confession. She sat, hunched, her hands clasped tightly on her lap, and tears welled into her eyes.
“Oh, Aunt Mary.” Kathy moved to her side, wrapped her arm around her, and pulled her close.
At that moment a family of Japanese tourists rounded a dense bank of purple
Berberis thunbergii
, chattering happily. They halted at the sight of the tableau on the bench, the young blonde woman cradling the tiny silver-haired lady, and backtracked deferentially.
“I think,” Kathy said slowly when they had gone, “that you should have left the old bugger years ago.”
Aunt Mary made a noise that was half-way between a sob and a giggle, bobbed her head a couple of times, and began groping for a hanky.
Kathy waited. When her aunt had recovered somewhat she said, “Do you want to tell me how it happened?”
Mary sniffed. “He loved a glass of whisky, I expect you remember.”
“Yes.” Kathy could picture very clearly her uncle seated in his armchair beside the fireplace, glass of whisky in one hand and pipe in the other.
“It always put him in a very . . . aggressive frame of mind.”
“Was he hurting you?”
“Only with his tongue, dear. He could hurt well enough with that.”
“Yes. I remember how he was with Mum.”
Mary nodded and bowed her head. “I know I should have stopped it then, the way he spoke to her. Only I was afraid he would turn you both out into the street if I came back at him. That was the important thing, to give you and Christine a home after your dad died, until you were on your feet again.”
“He felt vindicated, didn’t he, by what had happened to us? He couldn’t help gloating, making Mum suffer.”
“I told myself it was a matter of his principles, his political principles, his socialism, that turned him so hard against your father. But it wasn’t that at all. He was just filled with envy. He hated Ray because he had done so well down south, while Tom had stayed where he was, on the furnace floor, and gone nowhere. And he also hated him because he had wanted Christine, not me, and Christine chose Ray instead. I was the other sister, you see. The plain one.”
“Oh, Mary,” Kathy groaned. “That’s just so . . . It’s like a bad melodrama.”
“I know. But it’s the truth all the same, love. Even a bad melodrama can be true.”
“So, after all this time, what changed? Why did you decide to leave him now?”
“A week ago last Thursday he said something to me, after he’d been into his whisky for a while. I can’t even remember exactly what it was. Something about me. How useless I was. And it was as if all those things I’d never said and should have, all boiled up inside me, and I saw that nothing had been settled. I realized that I had forgotten nothing, and I had forgiven nothing, and if I didn’t do something there and then, I never would.”
“So you told him all the things you should have said before?”
“No, I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to begin. I just said that he must choose between the whisky and me. I told him that he couldn’t have both. That’s all I said. Then I went upstairs to the spare room, the one you and your mother had, and I stayed there the night. The next day neither of us said anything more about it until it came to evening, when he would have his drink. He sat down very deliberately in his chair, took the glass and the bottle from the shelf beside him, and filled the glass with whisky almost to the very top. He took a drink—a big drink—and then he said, ‘I’ll have my supper now.’ So I went upstairs without a word, and packed my bag, and left. I stayed the night at Effie’s, and the next morning I caught the train to London.”
“Just like that?”
Aunt Mary nodded.
“Well, I think that’s great. Have you contacted him since?”
Mary shook her head. “He’s so stubborn, Kathy. He’s probably still sat in that chair, determined not to move until I get back and apologize.”
“But you’re not going to, are you?”
“No.” Looking down on the old lady as she shook her head, Kathy noticed the bald area in the silver hair. “I couldn’t. Not now. But I’m worried that he won’t be able to cope.”
“He should have thought of that, shouldn’t he?”
“You’re the strong one, Kathy. I need that now. That’s why I didn’t go to Di. She’s soft, like me.”
It had taken Mary three hours to reach Finchley Central from St. Pancras. Kathy wouldn’t have given much for her chances of finding her way to her daughter in Calgary, Alberta.
“Not like you, Mary. She’s on to her third husband already.”
“Aye.” The old lady nodded, her bottom lip quivering as if she might burst into tears, but instead she gave a little whimper of a giggle, and when Kathy smiled they both began to laugh.
“I always wondered why you and Mum chose such bastards,” Kathy said after a bit. “I thought it must be something to do with the way Grandpa had treated you both. I don’t really remember him. Do you think that could be it?”
“Oh, Kathy, you mustn’t call them that.”
“But it’s true. They were both hard, self-centred bastards, and you and Mum made doormats of yourselves.”
Kathy took a deep breath and stopped herself going on. They sat in silence for a while, and then Kathy said, “Do you suppose it’s possible that it wasn’t an accident, me choosing to come here?”
“Do you think about your mum very often, pet?”
“Not often. At Christmas, and on her birthday. And my birthday too, I suppose.”
“And your dad?”
“No,” she said firmly, “I
never
think of him.”
Aunt Mary said nothing for a long while, then murmured, “That’s very sad, love.”
Kathy began to unpack their lunch. “Maybe I was retracing steps, like you,” she said. “You landing up on my doorstep is like the replay of Mum and me coming up to you in Sheffield, isn’t it? Maybe it has made me go back. The funny thing is that I found this just a few days before you arrived.”
Kathy dug in her bag for the scrap of blue writing-paper she had found in her flat on the day that Brock had rung to tell her about Angela Hannaford’s murder.
“I recognize his handwriting,” Mary said.
“That was the note he left when he went out that day. Imagine . . .” Kathy could hear the hardness creeping into her own voice but somehow couldn’t prevent it. “
I’ll be back soon.
Talk about famous last words! What a bloody stupid thing to say . . .”