Read Living with Strangers Online
Authors: Elizabeth Ellis
The softening mood at home is short-lived. As Easter approaches, a shroud falls over the house again and we’re back in our separate lives, those elected corners from which Gil briefly managed to coax us.
Saul seems to retreat, taking himself away, if not physically, then absenting himself mentally from whatever is going on. Molly busies herself with the little ones and any just cause she can find: the Red Cross, Oxfam, Meals on Wheels.
Once, Easter was a time of the three-day Peace March, the annual trek from a Berkshire airbase to London. Saul, Josef and Adam would leave early with boots and rucksacks and the rest of us would join them in Trafalgar Square on the third day. Somehow we managed to meet up in the confusion of bodies and banners and music, and when we came home, Saul would thank us all for taking part.
It’s a little piece of history we’re making,
he’d say.
You should be proud of what you’ve done today
. But since Josef left, like so much else, it is scarcely mentioned. Though I long to go this time, our home is now so far from the crowded nerve centre of the past that I’m loath to even broach the subject.
Gil, however, saves me the trouble. He’s done every March since 1958, and has already planned his transport and overnight stops on the route. One evening, he suggests I might like to go with him. Armed with a list of anything they might be likely to query, I go to Molly and Saul for permission.
Molly simply looks up from knitting blanket squares. ‘Goodness,’ she says, ‘is it Easter already?’ as if Easter is some unwelcome deadline that has crept up unawares. Saul shakes the newspaper and turns a page. I don’t think he even hears the question.
I take that as tacit consent. But I’m also confused again and question Gil’s motives. Does he really want my company, or just someone to walk with? Will I really just get in the way?
‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’ I ask as he stuffs odds and ends into a rucksack. ‘It’s alright, if I come too?’
‘It’s fine,’ he assures me. ‘You’ll love it. The more noise we make, the more notice they’ll have to take.’
*
On Easter Saturday, Françoise drives us to the start of the March. We assemble as near to the gates of the air base as the police cordon will allow, and move off in groups, following the head of the March. Every sympathetic allegiance is there; flags and banners stream overhead, some coloured, many black and white – the iconic symbol beneath which we’ll walk the fifty miles into London. We sing about world order, about world peace and the horrors of a nuclear war, voicing our protest with heady idealism and a sore throat.
By the evening, subdued by blisters and hunger, we settle with others in a church hall where we’ve planned to sleep. Overnight stops are an ad hoc affair, but Gil’s foresight has secured us floor space in the warm. My shoulders ache from carrying my pack, the skin around my collarbone rubbed raw. Gil gives me something to put on it and plasters for my feet. He’s thought of everything.
Later, after food, he plays his guitar, which he’s managed to carry as well as his pack. Someone else has brought a violin and as the evening drifts into night, I watch delightedly as they pick out tune after tune, taking a cue one from the other, blending together an impromptu performance. But my delight fades as the hours pass. The violinist is blonde and beautiful; something about their exchange of looks is not solely to do with the music.
At midnight, when the older marchers beg us to get some sleep, we climb into sleeping bags and lie down side by side on the floor. I wake several times before dawn. The room is thick with sleep, snoring from various corners, shuffling and murmurs from others. Gil has turned away from me. The violin girl is stretched out on his other side; I can hear low whisperings, muffled laughter.
In the morning, as we queue for the cloakroom, the violin girl stands behind me, checking perfect skin in the rusty mirror, flicking back a long curtain of hair. I shove my own tangled locks behind my ear, wishing the room were larger.
‘Where are you from?’ she asks.
I really don’t want her to know. The woman in front of me moves away from the washbasin and I step up, putting a toothbrush in my mouth to avoid answering. The girl moves up too, standing next to me now. Nothing in her appearance suggests she’s just spent the night on a church hall floor. I spit, too loudly, into the grimy basin.
‘Well, perhaps I’ll walk with you both today, if that’s ok? No one I know stayed last night.’
It’s not an unreasonable request, I just don’t feel like being reasonable. ‘I’ll see you later, then,’ is all I say. I don’t ask her name, don’t want that intimacy, but later I find out she’s called Eve – Evie; as smooth and fluid as her hair, her music. My own name clunks and jolts – Maddie, Madeleine Feldman – as if I have stones in my mouth.
*
When we resume the March my pack is too heavy and my feet are still sore. The restless night has left me gritty and tired. Worse, I detect a shift in Gil’s tender attentions. He offers to carry my pack after lunch, still aware of his duty, but I decline, trying not to grow sulky as Evie bounces along beside us.
That night there’s a campfire and more music, but Gil has arranged for us to stay in Ealing with a friend of his mother. It means leaving the March, but by now I’m almost homesick and long for a bed and some hot water. Thankfully Evie does not come with us, but before we leave there’s an urgent exchange between her and Gil. As we walk off to find a bus, my mood descends further. I hope Gil will put it down to fatigue or hunger or both, but in the event, he doesn’t seem to notice. We simply sit next to each other on the bus, while he rolls a cigarette and whistles quietly at the window.
That night, after a hot bath, I sleep soundly in a pink room that smells of lavender. Next morning, our host has cooked a huge breakfast and left a small Easter egg by our plates.
‘Is that alright?’ she asks, looking earnestly at me. ‘The Easter egg? Gil tells me you’re Jewish. I didn’t do bacon, obviously.’
I struggle with this in my early morning stupor. Molly has given us bacon for as long as I can remember.
Our host hovers over the stove, producing fresh coffee and hot toast. Then she talks right through the meal, fortunately, for Gil scarcely says a word.
*
We leave Ealing mid morning, travelling into London by tube for the last leg of the March and the rally in Hyde Park. Our detour has taken miles off our walk, but Gil is anxious and brusque, striding rapidly through the Underground and up escalators so that I have to jog behind him to keep up.
When we emerge into daylight on Hyde Park corner, the marchers are beginning to arrive, strung out along Knightsbridge as far as the eye can see. The main route takes them into the park along South Carriage Drive but some have broken away, heading for Grosvenor Square and the American Embassy, where a separate demonstration is rumoured.
‘Can you see where we are – can you see the others?’ Gil peers over the mass of heads to find our banner.
I squint through the crowds seeing nothing familiar. ‘Yesterday we were near the front, perhaps they’ve already gone into the park.’ The crowd thickens rapidly, we’re jostled on all sides. I know what Gil means by ‘the others’ and I don’t particularly want to find them. We join a small cluster of marchers with a Welsh dragon beneath their peace symbol and turn into the park. By the time we find our group, close to the main rostrum, the speeches are in full flow and my heart is in my boots with my tired and blistered feet.
Evie swings over to us, tripping lightly, bare foot on the damp grass. ‘Hi, you made it!’ she says. Too loud. Too many teeth.
I watch miserably as relief spreads over Gil’s face and he flings himself down next to her.
I have a dim memory of the rest of that day. It does get messy – there are several arrests in Grosvenor Square – but my head aches and a numbness overtakes me. As the crowd begins to disperse after the rally I hover, wondering what will happen next, to see what, if anything, I can salvage from the weekend, from the year and a half that Gil and I have shared. But I know it’s gone. Gil and Evie head off and I trail after them miserably, down to the river.
At the Embankment, Gil turns, ‘Oh, Maddie,’ he says, surprised that I’m still there, ‘we were just thinking of maybe taking a boat down to Greenwich.’
I swallow. ‘Ok.’ Am I included? Clearly not.
‘Will you be alright – finding your way back?’
Did I have any choice? ‘It’s fine. I’ll be fine.’
They turn and walk off to the jetty hand in hand and I stand there on the pavement, battling tears – empty and stupid and young.
***
I didn’t see Gil again for over two years, hiding myself away, pretending to be out when he called or came for a lesson. I missed him, missed his company, but it passed. I had dealt with worse than this.
December 6
th
1967
Dear Joe
I’ve just had mocks. Not very impressive really. All the usual mutterings from school about futures and potential and doing myself justice. Doesn’t mean a lot, I’ve no idea what to do next year. At this rate I won’t get into uni, so it’s probably the cheese factory or the streets for me (!) My school report in the summer was awful. The German teacher said: ‘Madeleine is hiding behind a wall of lethargy and hair’. Very funny.
Papa tried to talk to me the other day, the first time for years, or so it seemed. He rambled on round the houses – does that quite a lot now and never quite comes to the point. I know he’d like me to do more work – ‘apply myself’ was the term he used. I was very rude, gave him the silent treatment, which we’re all so good at now, then I left. It was nice being in his study though. I still love it there.
I saw Gil again today. Down by the lake. I’d been wandering about after school, feeding the ducks, not wanting to go home, and he was just there. Standing on the bridge. It was nearly dark, but I’d recognise him anywhere, except he’s even taller and he’s had a haircut. It’s been a couple of years or so since we hung around together. I was tempted to run away but he saw me and waved.
He’s at uni now, somewhere up north, but he had to come home because his mother’s died. She was doing the washing up and just collapsed in the kitchen. They said it was heart failure. I think that’s so sad – as if her heart wasn’t good enough and let her down – it runs in the family, apparently.
I liked her very much – she was good to me then, when Gil and I spent time together. Gave us chocolate sandwiches at tea time, called me ‘Matlaine’ – made it sound pretty. He must miss her so much. I know what it’s like to miss someone so much it makes your bones ache. But at least I do have Molly and Papa – even though they’re somewhere else most of the time. And there’s Sophie and Paul and you to write to – even Adam when he bothers to take an interest or condescends to come home. But for Gil there’s no one else. He owns the house now, but he’s there on his own wondering what on earth to do. It did make me think.
We went for a coffee at Bruno’s in town. I asked him about Evie with the violin, just out of curiosity of course, and he pulled a face – sort of amused but grim – said she’d taken a different route and I didn’t ask any more. He asked about you too, which was nice. It was good to hear your name, just to make it real – it doesn’t happen at home.
Then he asked me if I’d like to go and see Bonnie and Clyde – it’s a new film that’s just come out. I said I’d seen it, though I haven’t. I think he got the message, but he did look a bit disappointed. I liked him once – quite a lot. He helped so much after you’d gone and there was all that stink with the girls at school. He made me laugh, not something I did much of then, and Sophie adored him. You know he got an A for biology? Must have been all Papa’s teaching.
It was strange, seeing him again after so long. I’d always felt so far behind him, trailing and unaccomplished, like I used to with you when you got older and started to leave me out. I wonder how it would be if you came back – if I saw you now. For so long I wanted to know what had happened, why you’d gone. I missed you so much. I would have cut off my tongue just to see you again or have a word from you. But though I still don’t know, it matters less now. I can’t see you any more, can’t picture where you are, even in some fantasy scene concocted from bits of a western film and a National Geographic magazine. You will have changed, just as I have. I write to the Joe that you were, that I remember, but he left nearly five years ago and I was still a child then.
I hope this finds you, wherever you are, whoever you’ve become.
M x
There’s little consistency in the years that follow the doomed Easter March. Saul is right, after ‘A’ level mocks, to upbraid me for lack of effort. At that point I’m lost again, floundering with little purpose or direction. But to begin with, in the months hiding from Gil, I work hard, finding solace in the routine, the preoccupation that work can offer when life has once again pitched sideways. Something else resolves itself too: I make a pact to keep my heart wrapped up, the small part that doesn’t ache for Josef will never again ache for anyone else.
As I begin to emerge after Gil, I’ve grown a shell, a toughened surface. Beneath it I can hide what really matters, the sadness and humiliation of the past three years can be tidied away. The cupboard, a strong, stout door, a couple of bolts.
I’ve grown other things too – a figure that begins to draw attention of a not unwelcome kind among the boys at school. My dumpy legs have lengthened, my astigmatism has gone and I no longer need to wear glasses. I discover my hair can be straightened when I wash it by using something new called ‘conditioner’ and ironing it beneath a sheet of brown paper. I manage it quite successfully then, piled up on top or hanging usefully round my face – I can even throw it over my shoulder like Evie and waltz off knowing that someone is watching. For me, this is a revelation – I’m waking up in more ways than one, fast learning to harness this power, to exchange favours for crumbs of comfort. I begin to play hard. There’s no shortage of opportunity or willing participants; it’s uncomplicated, easy. Being this way is simplicity itself. I no longer allow myself to care and it works very well.
I still have little to do with the girls in my form. We’ve established a passive, indifferent truce, even though the attention I’ve begun to attract doesn’t endear me to them any more than my lonely, shaken self did three years before.
I oscillate then between bouts of intense application, studying for hours in the evenings and for much of the weekend then veering off on a Sunday night to the Moorhen – a pub in town where the back room is given over to music. I squeeze in, squinting through the haze until I see someone I know well enough to prop myself next to. If I’m lucky, smiling my new full-of-promises smile, they will beat a path to the bar and buy me a drink. I can guarantee that this favour will be returned by some fumbling connection later, when the music has finished and the room emptied out into the streets. In this way, I notch up quite a collection of ‘friends’ among the male population of the town. Some are from school, in which case I studiously ignore them the following week. Some I remember from meetings at the house, the élite I had so longed to join, all fascination spent now in a simple exchange of needs.
In the summer, long hot evenings are spent in the park, groups of us sitting by the lake idling the hours with talk, cigarettes and cheap red wine, or wandering in couples into the fields beyond. I give little thought to the risks of what I’m doing. Keeping thought from my actions is the key – sensual facility that leaves the mind blissfully untroubled. New energies, new rules. Meaningless. I take whatever is on offer and offer whatever people are willing to take. I feel needed; it redresses the emptiness at home – the superfluous nuisance I seem to be.
Molly and Saul seldom ask where I’m going or where I’ve been, though I always give some vague indication:
I’m going to Nick’s; Hannah’s brother’s home from college; Mick Softley’s playing at the Moorhen.
‘Don’t be late back
,
’
Molly says, drying Sophie after her bath.
Only once or twice do I have cause to doubt their indifference. One warm evening in late September, a group of us catch the train and end up at a party in Kentish Town. The invitation is a tenuous, word of mouth affair but when we arrive, the door is open, music hammers out onto the street, a girl is dancing on the steps trailing a long floating scarf the colour of apricots. Inside, the rooms are piled with people, more bodies sprawl on the stairs, the air is thick with smoke and the sweetened back smell of dope. The group I’ve come with seems to disperse as soon as we enter, sucked into the fabric of the place.
I find a drink and wander into the garden. There are people standing under the trees or lying around on the lawn; girls in long smocked dresses with flowers woven into their hair. I sit down next to a girl with a pink bandanna and copious strings of beads – my jeans and shirt a dull foil for the vibrancy of colours here. She smiles vaguely, focussing on her hands that are trying to roll a large cigarette. As she fumbles for a lighter I offer her mine, which she takes and lights up, inhaling as if her life depends on it.
We smoke for a while, not talking much. Lying on our backs, picking out stars as the sky grows dark, the garden revolves and the beer tastes sweeter. When evening drifts into night we go inside and sit on the floor or dance around aimlessly with no one in particular.
At some point later, I find a few of the others I came with. We walk back to the station, but we’ve missed the last train home and have to wait for the milk train in a cold huddle on the platform. I have no curfew and Molly’s
don’t be late
is open to interpretation. I’ve not thought to let them know. There’s a phone box at the station, but between us we can’t muster enough change or sufficient sense of urgency to make the call.
The porch light is still on when I arrive home sometime after five. I make a warm drink and creep up to my room and into bed. Later, I hear the door click, then close again after a moment. Someone has come to check.
Then one morning after breakfast Saul stops me in the hall. ‘Ah, Maddie,’ he looks past me, ‘a word please – if you’ve got a minute?’ It’s his teaching voice.
I follow him into the study and stand in the middle of the room while he sits down at his desk. I slide into the armchair, hoping this will soon be over.
‘I’ve been talking to your German teacher.’
Oh yes?
‘She’s concerned you’re not concentrating. She thinks you could do more – do better. Your mocks were not…they were a little disappointing. Don’t you think?’
I do think, but I don’t want to think it out loud. I look down at my hands and fiddle with the buttons on my jumper. Anger builds, and with it, as always, my inability to speak, to defend myself. Saul is not unreasonable; what angers me is that he chooses school, my work, or lack of it, as a channel for communication. Always something else. Never what needs to be said, never the questions and longing and heartache of the past five years. Never that – what I really need to know.
So I reply to him in kind. I respond in the way he’s taught me. His questions can remain unanswered too. I’ve learnt from the master. I continue to sit, exuding stubborn dejection, while he shuffles papers, rubs his temples and sighs.
‘You still have time to apply yourself,’ he says, ‘there’s still time to catch up if you want to. It will be worth it in the long run.’
I’m not so sure. We sit awhile in silence, my anger reducing dangerously to tears, then I leave the room and go out for a walk, slamming the front door behind me.