Coming Home (11 page)

‘Mummy!’ Instinctively, she closed the door behind her. ‘Whatever is it?’

‘Oh,
Judith.
’

She was across the carpet and kneeling by her mother's side. ‘But what is it?’ The horror of seeing her parent in tears was worse than anything she could possibly have to tell her.

‘It's a letter from Dad. I just opened it. I can't bear it…’

‘What's happened to him?’

‘Nothing.’ Molly dabbed at her face with an already sodden scrap of handkerchief. ‘It's just that…we're not staying in Colombo. He's got a new job…we have to go to Singapore.’

‘But why does that make you cry?’

‘Because it's
another
move…as soon as I get there, we've got to pack up, and go on again. To somewhere else that's strange. And I shan't know anybody. It was bad enough going back to Colombo, but at least I'd have had my own house…and it's even further away…and I've never been there…and I shall have to…Oh, I know I'm being silly…’ Her tears flowed anew. ‘But somehow it's the last straw. I'm feeling so tired, and there's so…’

But by now she was crying too hard to be able to say anything. Judith kissed her. She smelt of whisky. She never drank whisky. She put out her arm, and gave Judith a clumsy hug. ‘I really need a clean handkerchief.’

‘I'll get one.’

She left her mother and went out of the room, ran upstairs to her bedroom, and took one of her own large, sensible school handkerchiefs out of her top drawer. Slamming the drawer shut, glancing up, she faced her own reflection in the mirror, and saw that she looked almost as distraught and anxious as her weeping mother downstairs. Which wouldn't do at all. One of them had to be strong and sensible, otherwise everything was going to fall to pieces. She took a deep breath or two and composed herself. What was it Aunt Biddy had said? You must learn to precipitate situations, not let them simply happen to you. Well, this was a situation, if ever there was one. She straightened her shoulders and went back downstairs.

She found Molly, as well, had made a similar effort, had gathered the letter up off the floor, and even managed a trembling smile as Judith came back into the room.

‘Oh, dear, thank you…’ She accepted the clean handkerchief gratefully and blew her nose. ‘I am sorry. I don't know what came over me. It's really been the most exhausting of days. I suppose I'm tired…’

Judith sat down on the fireside stool. ‘May I read the letter?’

‘Of course.’ She handed it over.

Dearest Molly,

His writing was neat and even, and very black. He always used black ink.

By the time you get this, Christmas will be over. I hope that you and the girls had an enjoyable time. I have fairly momentous news for you. The Chairman called me into his office yesterday morning, and told me that they want me to move to Singapore, as Company Manager for Wilson-McKinnon. It is a promotion, which means a better salary, and other bonuses like a larger house, a company car and a driver. I hope you will be as pleased and gratified as I am. The new job does not commence until the month after you and Jess arrive here, so you will be able to help pack up this house, and ready it for the man who is to be my replacement, and the three of us will sail to Singapore together. I know you will miss Colombo, as I shall, and all the beauty of this lovely island, but I find it exciting to think that we will travel together, and be together when we set up in our new home. The job will be a great deal more responsible and probably demanding, but I feel I can do it and am capable of making a success of it. I am very much looking forward to seeing you and meeting Jess. I hope she won't be too strange with me, and will get used to the idea that I am her father.

Tell Judith that her Christmas present should be arriving any day now. I hope all the arrangements for St Ursula's are going according to plan, and that it isn't going to be too much of a wrench for you, saying goodbye.

I saw Charlie Peyton the other day at the club. He tells me that Mary is expecting a new baby in April. They want us to go and dine with them…

And so on. She did not need to read any more. She folded the pages and gave them back to her mother.

She said, ‘It sounds quite good. Good for Dad. I don't think you should be too sad about it.’

‘I'm not sad. I'm just…defeated. I know it's selfish, but I don't feel that I want to go to Singapore. It's so hot there and so damp, and a new house, and new servants…making new friends…everything. It's too much…’

‘But you won't have to do it all yourself. Dad will be there…’

‘I
know.
…’

‘It'll be exciting.’

‘I don't want to be excited. I want everything to be calm, and still, and not to change. I want a
home,
not moving all the time, and being torn apart. And everybody demanding things of me, and telling me I do things all wrong when I do them, and knowing that I'm incompetent and incapable…’

‘But you're
not!
’

‘Biddy thinks I'm an idiot. So does Louise.’

‘Oh, don't take any notice of Biddy and Louise…’

Molly blew her nose again, and took another mouthful out of her whisky tumbler.

‘I didn't know you drank whisky.’

‘I don't usually. I just needed one. That's probably why I cried. I'm probably drunk.’

‘I don't think you are.’

Her mother smiled, a bit sheepishly, trying to laugh at herself. And then she said, ‘I'm sorry about this morning. That silly row we had, Biddy and I. I didn't know you were listening, but even so, we should never have behaved so childishly.’

‘I wasn't eavesdropping.’

‘I know that. I do hope you don't think I'm being mean and selfish to you. I mean, about Biddy asking you to stay, and me being so uncooperative. It's just that Louise, well, it's true she doesn't approve of Biddy, and it just seemed another complication that I had to deal with…perhaps I didn't handle it very well.’

Judith said truthfully, ‘I don't mind about any of that.’ And then she added, because it seemed as good a time as any to say it, ‘I don't mind about not going to Aunt Biddy, or staying with Aunt Louise, or any of it. What I do mind is that you never talk to me about what's going to happen. You never bother to ask me what
I
want.’

‘That's what Biddy said. Just before lunch, she started in again. And I feel so guilty, because perhaps I have left you on your own too much, and made plans for you without discussing them. School and everything, and Aunt Louise. And now I feel I've left it all too late.’

‘Aunt Biddy should never have scolded you. And it's not too late…’

‘But there's so much to
do.
’ She was off again. ‘I've left everything to the last moment, I haven't even bought your uniform, and there's Phyllis, and packing up, and everything…’

She was so fraught, so hopeless, that Judith felt, all at once, enormously protective, organised and strong. She said, ‘We'll help. I'll help. We'll all do it together. As for that awful school uniform, why don't we go and get it tomorrow? Where do we have to go?’

‘Medways, in Penzance.’

‘All right, then, we'll go to Medways, and we'll get everything in one fell swoop.’

‘But we have to buy hockey sticks, and Bibles, and attaché cases…’

‘Well, we'll get them too. We won't come back here until we've got every single thing. We'll take the car. You'll have to be very brave and drive us, we couldn't possibly bring it all home in the train.’

Molly looked, instantly, a little less woebegone. It seemed that just making one decision
for
her rendered her more cheerful. She said, ‘All right.’ She thought about it. ‘We'll leave Jess with Phyllis, she'd never last the day. And have a bit of an outing, just the two of us. And we'll have lunch at The Mitre, for a treat. We'll deserve it by then.’

‘And as well,’ said Judith, with much firmness, ‘we'll drive to St Ursula's, and I can have a look at the place. I can't go to a school I've never even seen…’

‘But it's holiday time. There won't be anybody there.’

‘All the better. We'll prowl and peer through windows. Now, that's all fixed, so cheer up. Are you feeling better now? Do you want a bath? Do you want to go to bed, and have Phyllis bring your supper up on a tray?’

But Molly shook her head. ‘No. No, none of those lovely things. I'm all right now. I'll have my bath later.’

‘In that case, I'll go and tell Phyllis that we'll eat her boiled fowl when she's ready for us.’

‘In a moment. Give me another moment or two. I don't want Phyllis to know I've been crying. Do I look as though I have been?’

‘No. Just a bit red in the face from the fire.’

Her mother leaned forward and kissed her. ‘Thank you. You've made me feel quite different. So sweet of you.’

‘That's all right.’ She tried to think of something reassuring to say. ‘You were just in a state.’

Molly opened her eyes and faced the new day. It was scarcely light, and not yet time to rise, so she lay warm, and lapped in linen sheets, and was filled with gratitude because she had slept, without dreams, all through the night, sleeping as soon as her head touched the pillow, without interruption, and undisturbed by Jess. This in itself was a small miracle, for Jess was a demanding child. If she did not wake during the small hours and scream for her mother, then she was on the go hideously early, and clambering into Molly's bed.

But she, it seemed, had been as tired as her mother, and at half past seven, there was neither sight nor sound of her. Perhaps, thought Molly, it was the whisky. Perhaps I should drink whisky every night, and then I should always sleep. Or perhaps it was the fact that the overwhelming anxieties and apprehensions of the previous evening had been sublimated by her own physical exhaustion. Whatever. It had worked. She had slept. She felt refreshed, renewed, ready for whatever the day had to bring.

Which was shopping for the school uniform. She got out of bed and pulled on her dressing-gown and went to close the window, and draw back the curtains. She saw a pale and misty morning, not yet fully light, and very still. Below her window the sloping terraced garden lay quiet and damp, and from the shore beyond the railway line the curlews called. But the sky was clear, and it occurred to Molly that perhaps the morning would turn into one of those days that spring steals from a Cornish winter, so that all is imbued with the sense of things growing, pushing up through the soft dark earth; buds beginning to swell, and returning birds to sing. She would keep it whole, separate, an entity on its own, a single day spent with her elder daughter, set aside. Remembered, it would be sharp-edged and vivid, like a photograph neatly framed, with no intrusion to blur the image.