A Place for Us (33 page)

“You don’t understand,” Martha said. “I drew that one. It’s my Wilbur. I can’t ever draw him again. Now he’s gone, Wilbur’s gone too.”

Lucy slammed her hand on the desk. “Wilbur’s not yours to draw. What are you talking about? What the hell’s
wrong
with you?”

Martha looked up in shock, her green eyes wary. “What’s wrong with me? Nothing. You’re all wrong, not me.” She laughed. “God, I really am going mad, aren’t I?”

“Gran, what is it we’re all wrong about?” Lucy asked, folding her arms.

“This idea of us all, in this place.” Her grandmother tore the paper up into smaller and smaller pieces. “It was all a lie. I thought I’d make it better by telling everyone about Daisy, and I didn’t.”

“No,” Lucy said suddenly. “It’s not true. We were strong enough. We are.”

Martha gave her an almost sweet smile. “Oh, Lucy, no, we weren’t. Look around you.”

“That’s you, that’s you thinking like that because everything seems so grim and sad, and I can understand why,” Lucy began, twisting her fingers together. “No one’s happy all the time. I’m not Pollyanna. I know everything wasn’t perfect, but, Gran, it wasn’t a lie. We
were
happy. I used to love coming here more than anything else. I loved growing up here, being with Cat . . . being your granddaughter.” She swallowed. “Seeing you and Southpaw all the time, and making coffee and reading books with Florence and all of that. It happened, Gran, it’s not made-up.”

Her grandmother shook her head. “Wake up, Lucy. It’s not a fairy story. Name me one person who’s still standing after this and—oh, I can’t do this. Go away. Leave me alone, for God’s sake.”

Lucy put her hands on her hips. She was trembling. “No. I won’t.”

Suddenly Martha shouted at her, her voice hoarse with anger.

“Go
away
.” She pointed at the door. “God, Lucy, you have no idea. You’ve never woken up wondering if this is the day you’ll be kicked to death by your father, like Southpaw, or been put on a train, sent away from your family for four years, like I was, so that by the time you go back to them you’re so different no one knows you anymore. You float around saying you want to write and saying you love it here and how wonderful this family thing is and—you’re wrong.” Her voice softened. “I know you idealize it here, I can see you must because of the divorce and your parents, but—but you’re wrong.”

Lucy willed herself not to cry. She nodded. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Martha began, but Lucy backed away, out into the hall, away from her.

She ran upstairs to her old room and shut the door. It was above the sitting room, and the other side of the L shape from Gran and Southpaw’s room, so often Cat would creep in here late at night and get into bed with Lucy, so they could chat and laugh until the golden moon shone high like midnight sun through the thin floral curtains. The tall twin single beds were covered in the same worn, woolly coverlets, like shrouds. This was the room where Lucy had had her first period; it was where she’d written her first short story, “The Girl Who Ate the Moon.” Where she’d painted her hair with nail varnish and had to cut it off
into a disastrous side fringe. She’d shown Cat her breasts and vice versa; though there was three and a half years between them, Lucy blossomed early, Cat late. The long window with its wooden casement was lined with her favorite books from childhood:
The Bell Family, Lanterns Across the Snow, The Box of Delights.
The Christmas after her parents split up, she had spent the whole holiday here, lying on her bed, reading. No one bothered her, tried to make her “join in.” She felt sorry for families who were always having to join in. You just did your own thing here, and sometimes that involved everyone, sometimes just you. Martha made her Scotch eggs, just for her, and she and Cat went into Bath on the bus by themselves and watched
The Fellowship of the Ring.
And then there was that Christmas when . . .

Lucy stared out of the window at nothing, clutching her notebook, wondering about Martha, about Florence, about all of them. Then she sat on the bed and crossed her legs. It was very quiet; the only sound was the ticking of the old clock in the hall. She took out a pen from the bedside table and, calmly and clearly, she began to write.

Y
OU SAY WE
weren’t a happy family, Gran. But I remember the Christmas I was nine. Our car broke down on the way to Winterfold, on the A road
just outside Bristol, and Mum stormed off and went into a pub, and we called Southpaw and he came and picked us up, only Mum was kind of pissed by then, so she wouldn’t leave the pub, and she and Dad stayed there drinking and I went back with Southpaw, snuggled up in the back of the car in the big car blanket (the orange one Joan Talbot knitted with the patch of purple in the middle because of her bad eyes).

I remember really clearly how great it was to leave them both in that pub. Because, you know, it wasn’t a terrible secret that their marriage was disintegrating. It was obvious to me. I worked it out much earlier than they did. I just wanted
them
to w
ork out they weren’t right together. Just wanted them to get on with it and stop trying to pretend we were a happy family. We
really
weren’t—you forget, Gran, I’ve lived in an unhappy family before; it’s obvious. And it’s awful being the only child in between these two people who are lying to you because they think it’s for the best.

So I think of that Christmas a lot because, really, it was the first time I realized
that children are often right, but no one listens to them. Southpaw whistled all the way as he drove us home, incredibly slowly, because the roads were slippery with that two-day-old packed-down ice, and by the time we got nearer to Winterfold it was dark, we thought because it was night, but in fact it was because snow was coming. We sang “Jingle Bells” and “Blue Christmas” and “Let It Snow” from Southpaw’s Rat Pack tape in the car, and Southpaw did his Dean Martin impression
, which was absolutely, as ever, terrible, and we wished you were in the car singing too, because you always
knew all the words, and you loved singing. It’s funny. You love singing, so does Dad, so does Southpaw. And Florence. You all sing, all the time.

You heard the car drawing up as we arrived, and you were standing in the doorway, and I remember this Christmas best of all because of that moment. You had your Christmas apron on, the one covered with berries, and you’d covered the door with holly and ivy, glossy green leaves that shone in the porch light. And it had started to snow by then, like someone had unzipped the clouds, and it was just pouring out like feathers from a pillow. We jumped out and ran toward you, and I can still smell it as we came close, that delicious, woody, piney smell, wood smoke, spice, Christmas trees, earth, snow, cold, all mixed up together as I hugged you.

And you said, “I’m so glad the travelers have returned
.” Returned, like we were supposed to be here.

That day the snow fell, and we watched out of the window as it settled freshly over the valley like a drift of white on the gray trees. When it was dark, Mum and Dad appeared, and you always knew how to make Mum more cheerful. You gave her some chamomile tea and asked about her patients and we had your gingerbread, and we decorated the Christmas tree. Cat and I were in charge of the decoration scheme, only you and Southpaw kept moving things around and putting strange things on the tree when we weren’t looking,
and we all got hysterical with laughter. Like the packet of tissues, or one of Cat’s socks, or your reading glasses, or whatever. That night, Cat and I worked out a play to “She’s Electric” by Oasis, which was so stupid we knew we couldn’t show it to anyone. Cat said she wouldn’t do plays anymore, which was fair enough, but I was pretty upset about it, until we watched
Romancing the Stone
on the new TV and video player until about 3 in the morning. I loved
Romancing the Stone
, because Kathleen Turner’s a writer, and really square, until all these wonderful adventures happen to her and her hair gets better, as does her blusher and the cut of her silk shirts.

The next day it was Christmas Eve, and the snow was inches thick. We made a snowman using one of the buckets we’d got on holiday in Dorset for his head, so he had a strangely machinelike yet sandy appearance. Our faces were red and our knees and hands were soaking with melted snow. We turned him into a proper robot. An old plug for his mouth, some fuses for his eyes, a wire coat hanger as a kind of metallic carapace indicator,
and rusting tiny
seedling pots on his hands, all to make him look as mechanical as possible. He was five feet tall! As tall as I was then.

We got the Christmas cake ready to eat, and I made Welsh rarebit with Flo (who always, always burns toast, even to this day) and you filled the old brown teapot to the top, as by then not only had Florence arrived but also Gilbert Prundy had popped in to fetch the extra heater from the shed. (I remember him really well, the old vicar with his embroidered waistcoats, and his signet ring with the weird masonic symbol on it. We were convinced it opened the door to another dimension like in an Indiana Jones film.
) In the kitchen, you dropped a plate, one of the willow-pattern blue platters, shattered it to bits, and as we swept it up together you said, “Easy come, easy go,” and shrugged, and I thought then,
That’s the way I want to live.
It struck me then,
That’s a different way to see the world.
I was always a worrier, always concerned about something in the back of my mind. And you made me see then that everything was perfect as it was, in that moment. Because we were happy there, sweeping up the pieces, you singing Dean Martin songs, and Southpaw joining in from his study. So that’s what I remember, when I try to think about all of us. That Christmas. And it’s not the beautiful house or the lovely table arrangements or the food you’d probably spent days preparing. It was all of us, the fact that we were together. Singing. Southpaw’s voice, warbling and terrible. Like Dad’s is now, Flo’s too. Isn’t it funny that she sounds just like them, Gran? Cat’s voice, very low. Your voice is beautiful. It used to remind me of a clarinet. We always sing, and I think that’s so funny.

I am crying as I write this now. I can still see the sandy robot snowman. The fire, and the tree, and the warmth of all of us together. The sense of breathing out and letting everything go, because we were safe, together, with the door closed and the windows shut against the rest of the world. It is always there, even though he’s gone. It won’t go away.

Martha

T
HEY STOOD AT
the bottom of the stairs, facing each other. Martha’s hands shook as she read the thin piece of paper. After a few minutes she put it down on the hall table, and went into the sitting room, not looking at Lucy. She stood by the French windows, gazing out over the lawn, the sky above. She felt her breath, coming, going, in out, in out, shoulder blades rising and falling. She was here.

It was very quiet. She knew she had to say something.

“I don’t remember it like that,” she said eventually.

“Right,” said Lucy. “How do you remember it, then? Because, Gran, I was happy. It’s not some fantasy in my mind. I knew my parents weren’t getting on. I knew so many things in the world were terrible. But when I came here, I was happy.”

Martha looked at her granddaughter. Lucy’s heart-shaped face was flushed pink. “I remember it being . . . I suppose I remember . . .” She stopped. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ve got this all wrong. I remember Daisy, wishing Daisy was there. For all of us, but for Cat most of all.”

“She was never there, though—how could Cat miss her?” Lucy scratched at her neck, up which a rich red blush was creeping. “We didn’t like it when she was there—it was tense, and a bit strange. You’d all be on tenterhooks. And her breath always smelled.”

Martha flinched in surprise. “What?”

Lucy blinked, mortified. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Her breath smelled?”

“Yes. Like she’d eaten . . . something rotten. I hated it. Didn’t like hugging her and all that.”

“Did Cat think that too?”

Lucy nodded slowly, not meeting her eye. “Oh . . . yes, Gran. She wished she’d go away. It wasn’t nice when she was there.”

“Because of . . . the breath?”

“No, because she was fake. She made me uneasy. She was too nice to Cat, you know what I mean?” Lucy watched her grandmother. “No, you don’t. Just—over the top. And she was horrible to Florence. You’d see it, these tiny little ways. Snide remarks and things like that, and Flo just took it. . . . You know what she’s like, just gets on with it, she’s miles away. . . .”

Martha’s stomach clenched at the memory of a seven-year-old Florence, coming up the drive with her reddish plaits covered in mud, her too-long school skirt torn, sucking her thumb and crying, then saying phlegmatically, “Oh, I think I fell over.” The wasps that nearly killed her, the stuck door. When Hadley had bitten her, way before he went mad, but Florence couldn’t say how or where. Her books, pages ripped out, which she just taped in and carried on reading. Martha knew all that, yet she knew Daisy had needed someone to defend her, and—

Florence
. She looked at her watch, then outside, as if Flo might suddenly be arriving, though she knew she wasn’t. She desperately wanted to see her then, hold her fierce, angular daughter in her arms, tell her the truth, tell her how sorry she was, how silly she had been. She rubbed her eyes, tired.

“We liked it when it was just us, people popping round, everything normal,” Lucy was saying. “Southpaw doing silly drawings. You singing. You helping us do plays. Helping us make weird drinks.”

Martha stared at her granddaughter’s face. Lucy, sweet Lucy, her honesty, her openness. Lucy, who had told her the truth because she had never learned to lie. Lucy, who loved this house and everything about what Martha had created, despite the secrets and untruths that Martha felt had, for decades now, spun Winterfold up into a web, skeins of silken spider thread covering everything over.

So something I did worked. Lucy believed it all.
One person alone couldn’t bring that down, one person against the rest of them. She hated to think of Daisy as the enemy; she wasn’t. But Martha suddenly knew she had shielded her for too long, carried her. Maybe . . .

Her heart started to beat faster. A strange, metallic taste swept her mouth. It was frightening simply to consider that one might think differently about this. Try a new way of thinking.

Yet she had to. She blinked and shut her eyes, forcing herself to think about what Lucy had said.

“Apple . . . what was it called, your favorite drink?” she asked eventually. “We used to have to make it every time you came over.”

“Yes.” Lucy nodded. “I liked Apple Mingo and Cat liked—”

“Banana Bomba,” Martha said. She could feel her chest opening out again, as if some invisible weight that had been sitting on her breastbone had been lifted away. All this love that she had to give, buried so deep.
Cat, oh, Cat, my sweet, sweet girl, what did I do, why have I let you go like this?
“Banana Bomba was my favorite.”

“No, Apple Mingo was the best, only Cat wouldn’t ever tell us what was in it,” Lucy said seriously. “Wow, I still think she put maple syrup in it. Which is bloody cheating because we weren’t supposed to use sugar. And some—oh!”

Lucy jumped as Martha stepped forward and brushed her granddaughter’s hair away from her forehead. “Sweet Lucy.” Martha cupped her chin, staring at her flushed cheeks, her beautiful hazel eyes, the round, sweet face. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Lucy laughed. “Are you all right, Gran?”

Martha hugged her. “Apple Mingo.” Then she squeezed her tightly, till Lucy gave a muffled yelp.

“You’re strong, Gran, blimey.” She pulled herself away. “What do you mean? Do you believe me now?”

“Yes, I do,” Martha began, then corrected herself. “Only—yes, I do. But listen, Lucy. No one’s happy all the time. We weren’t living in this golden kind of cage of lovely memories. It’s important you remember that, too.”

Lucy gave a rueful smile. “Well, of course I do, Gran. I said that to you, remember? You keep forgetting I had Mum and Dad’s divorce when I was thirteen. That was pretty awful, even if we were all glad it happened. Hell, I remember Dad’s wedding to Karen. That certainly wasn’t some lovely memory I’m writing up as a keepsake.”

“I like Karen.”

Lucy raised her eyebrows as if to say something, then relented. “Actually, you know what? The sad thing is, I did too.”

“She’s not dead,” Martha said, and they were both silent for a moment in the gloom of the room.

“I’ll never stop missing Southpaw,” Lucy said after a while. “But I’ve been thinking about it a lot.” She threaded her fingers through her grandmother’s and took her hand in both of hers. “I say to myself,
It’s dreadful you’re gone, but we’re so so glad you were even here. That we knew you and you were in our lives.
I’m sad, but I can’t help being glad I knew him for so long. That’s what I think.”

Martha put her head on Lucy’s shoulder. “Yes,” she said quietly, thinking about all the stories Lucy didn’t know, how her grandfather had suffered to get to here, and how much happiness he’d brought people, how strong his spirit was. How he had saved Cassie, taken Florence; how they had found each other . . . But that was all for another day, she knew. “Yes, you’re right.” Then she gave a big, deep sigh, and nodded. It had happened, and she saw it now; and it would be hard, but she could see the way out, the way she had to start again.

She said, “All right, then. It changes. Everything changes here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, enough of this. I’m in charge now. Let’s put the kettle on and work out what we do now. What I do now.” She said quietly, “I have to do everything differently now.”

She went to the huge cupboard in the hall and took out some light bulbs. “A light bulb moment,” she said, and Lucy, who was in the kitchen, called through, “What?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

As the kettle boiled, Martha pulled a green scarf off Southpaw’s sturdy old chair, and Lucy climbed up onto it, standing on tiptoe to fix the bulbs in. But halfway through the chair gave an ominous creaking crack, and buckled to one side. The first creak was enough warning for Lucy, who jumped off just as it collapsed to the ground. She landed heavily on the tiled floor, rubbing her bottom, and looked up, her face already burning red with mortification, at Martha.

“Southpaw’s chair. Oh, Gran. I’m so sorry. I’ll get it mended.”

Martha merely stared at the chair. “Goodness! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” said Lucy. “But I know he loved it and—”

Crouching, Martha ran her hands over the smooth, warm wood, pricking the pads of her fingers on the cracked, broken back legs, one of which had simply buckled. “It had a lot of wear and tear,” she said, patting her granddaughter’s leg. “Please, don’t worry. It’s my fault.”

Lucy tried to laugh. “I’m sorry your lard-arse granddaughter broke one of your chairs.”

“It was very old. I think we should go into Bath and get a new one tomorrow, hmm? We can burn this old friend,” said Martha, pushing the carcass of the chair to one side and standing up again. Then she helped Lucy off the floor, gripping her arm in her strong hands. “Easy come, easy go, darling. Now. Let’s see about booking some tickets.”