Dear Nobody (17 page)

I closed the curtains because I couldn't bear to look at the sky; it was growing light: dawn was coming, and nothing, nothing would stop it.

The next day Tom pigged at me for snoring all night and keeping him awake. We were both so tired that it took us two hours to have breakfast and pack the tents and load the bikes.

‘We can't mess around like this all the time,' I grumbled. I wanted to get my head down and ride like the wind, kind of punishing myself. Tom was just there for a laze. We sneaked
into a camp-site and had a shower, which felt brilliant, and the next night a farmer, who told us his name was Monsieur Bienvenu, let us come on his field for free. We talked to him for ages, watching him while he milked his cows. I'm not kidding, that milk came out hot and steaming! I've never seen or smelt anything like it. He dipped a jug into the churn and ladled some out for us to drink. It tasted like grass. Tom's French is desperate but when he doesn't know a word he just makes one up and says it in a French accent and he gets away with it. I take hours trying to sort out the tense and working out whether the nouns are masculine or feminine and by the time I've got the sentence right it's too late to say it because they're on about something else, so even though I'm the one doing French A–level he did most of the talking and I just prodded words into spaces. The farmer's wife gave us some home-made orange liqueur and after that the talking was easier and the jokes started flying. I think we drank it too fast.

The next day we were cycling through some town or other with headaches and had to remind ourselves that the traffic all goes in a different direction and that roundabouts are death traps. I kept imagining Helen hearing that I'd been killed in France. Would you feel sorry then, disdainful Nell? At night it was too hot to sleep. I was sunburnt and saddle sore. I'd got baguette blisters inside my mouth. Every girl I saw looked like Helen.

I bought three postcards. One for Dad. One for my mother. And one for Jill.

Dear Nobody,

‘Nan,' I said, ‘tell me about when you were a little girl.'

Her room was nearly in darkness, even though it was glorious day outside. She had her curtains pulled to keep out the sunlight. I hated its stuffiness; always have done.

‘When I was a little girl? What d'you want to know about that for?'

I wanted to know everything, Nobody. I want to peer into all the corners.

‘Did you live in Sheffield?'

She tittered unexpectedly. ‘I lived in a drawer.'

I knew this already. Long ago, when I was a little girl, she'd told me that, but she'd never gone on to tell me what she meant. I waited in the silence. Outside in the garden Grandad was cutting the hedge, whistling.

‘In them days, if you couldn't afford cradle nor cot, you put your bairns in a drawer. Good enough, I'd say.'

Well, I was thinking, I'll do the same if I have to, only I'll be sure to line it with soft things first, and she said, ‘And anyway, what better place to hide me, eh? If I cried too much, or if the lady from upstairs wanted to visit the kitchens, my mother just had to push the drawer, and I'd disappear. Very handy, if you think about it.' She laughed again, her little, light, tittering laugh that seems to come from a little girl rather than a woman in her seventies.

‘But she didn't do it, Nan, did she?'

She glanced over to me sharply. ‘It wasn't that she wasn't married, if that's what you're thinking. She was married to the butler. But she wasn't allowed to have a child, you see, not while she was in service. She'd have lost her job. So I was a secret.'

‘But she didn't close the drawer?'

Nan closed her eyes. She clasped her hands together tight under her chest, and tucked her chin down. Her voice came out in little whispers. ‘I believe I can remember it now. Shelves right up there, stacked with black pots. I can hear the sounds of skirts and footsteps and voices. I can remember daylight changing into dark across my face, like that.' She moved her hands in front of her eyes, so her eyelids trembled slightly, then she clasped them together again across her chest. ‘I can remember sliding, and a sudden jolting. Crack! And I can smell it, too, stuffy and sweet.'

‘Weren't you frightened?'

‘Too young to be frightened,' she said, in a little whimpering voice. ‘Besides, I like the dark.'

*

I went out to see Grandad. I wanted to help him to sweep up the hedge clippings but he wouldn't let me, so I sat on a stool in the sunshine and watched him. He grunted every time he stooped.

‘Nan's asleep,' I told him.

‘Ay ay,' he said. ‘She'll sleep till tea time now.'

‘Can't you get her to sit out here sometimes?'

‘She will, when she feels like it. She'll be as chirpy as a sparrow tomorrow, maybe. But when she's a mood on, nowt'll shift her.'

‘My mum never comes here, does she?' I said.

Grandad grunted. His cheeks purpled slightly when he bent down. I wish he'd let me help him. The privet smelt sharp and sweet as he brushed it.

‘She's a mind of her own. She comes when she fancies to.'

‘Were you pleased when she married my dad?'

You see what it was like, Nobody. I wanted to know everything. I've never dared ask questions like this before. Grandad leaned on his garden brush, blowing his lips out a little. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘We thought it was a strange match, him being so reserved, you know. She had a bit of spirit about her. We thought, this'll never suit our Alice. Your mother was always one for schooling and bettering herself, all that palaver. I think she thought your dad was rather posh, being a university librarian. But I think he's been a bit of a disappointment to her.'

‘Why's that?' I felt disloyal, talking about them like this, as if they were strangers, yet I was itchy to know about them. ‘I think Dad's crazy about Mum.'

‘Oh, ay. He'd do anything for her. Anything for a quiet life, I reckon,' Grandad chuckled. ‘But he let her down over the dancing.'

‘Dancing?'

He was sweeping vigorously now, chasing bits of twigs down the path. I slipped off my stool and followed him.

‘Mad on dancing, your mother. Didn't you know that? When she was a kid she used to frisk round the house like
a fairy.' He laughed again, shaking his head at the memory of it. ‘Twirling all sorts round with her – ribbons, scarves, string, anything. She used to cut strips of toilet roll or newspaper and use them as streamers! Anything. She met your dad at a jazz club. He was the pianist, just a night job, you know. She used to go down there a lot, with her friends. Dancing. She was a classy dancer, your mother. I reckon that's what made him fall for her.'

I tried to imagine it: dim lights and smoke, Dad sitting in his shirtsleeves at the piano playing ragtime; Mum…? No, I couldn't picture Mum.

‘But why did he let her down?'

‘I'm not so sure… he seemed to put his foot down, once they were married. Stopped her going to the club, anyway. That's the only time I've seen him do anything like that. Shy man, you see, your dad. Didn't like that sort of exhibitionism, probably. Not in a wife.'

‘I never knew about that,' I said.

‘Ay, well.' He was intent on watching a pair of sparrows taking a dust bath in the middle of his sweepings, squabbling together. ‘There's lots of things about parents that kids never imagine, I reckon.' He thrust the brush forward and the sparrows lifted themselves up, still squabbling, and flew off in opposite directions. Grandad swept up the last of the leaves and dusted his hands on his trouser legs. ‘People will get wed. They think it's going to open up the world for them. But it doesn't, you see. It closes all the doors.'

He heaved the garden sack round to the back to tip on the bonfire pile. ‘Won't burn yet,' he grunted. ‘Too green. Besides, I like to light bonnies in the evening, just on dusk. Nice and quiet, sitting out here on my own, watching the woodsmoke curl. Can't beat the smell of woodsmoke, Helen. And d'you know, when I'm sitting out here, just me and the midges and the bonfire crackling, there's a toad that comes and squats by me, just there, where you're standing, that far from the flames! Sits there blinking and swallowing, just watching it, little bright eyes yellow with flames. Thinking daft
thoughts, same as me, I reckon. You'd think it would be too hot for him, wouldn't you!' He shook his head. ‘Funny old thing, that is.'

‘I'd better be getting back, Grandad,' I said. I didn't want to go, really. I love being with him.

‘Helen…' as he bent down to kiss me, ‘… is he going to marry you, that lad?'

I looked away. ‘No, Grandad. I don't want to get married.'

‘He's a nice lad, but he's young. You're too young for this, both of you.'

‘I know. It's done now.'

He walked back up the path with me, stooping to pick up the bits of privet that had dropped out of the sack, splaying them out in his hand like a bridal spray. ‘I know your mother. She won't be making it easy for you. If you want a home, Helen, you and your bairn… it's not much of a place, is this. I'd love it.'

I nodded.

‘You could come here. Remember that.'

We've had a long journey today, little Nobody. We seem to have walked for miles and miles and miles, in all kinds of strange spaces. I feel a few steps nearer to Mum, anyway. But there's a long way to go yet, and lots more questions to ask.

Looking back on that holiday in France, I can only explain what happened by blaming it on circumstances. I'm not making excuses for myself.

On that day, the day that it started, we'd been going about two weeks and my bike was giving me major problems. The back wheel was buckled and the tyre kept rubbing on the frame. The gears were slipping, we were doing murderous hill climbs, I had sunburn and bum-ache. We searched round for a bike shop and when we found it it was closed because it was Monday. We sat on the pavement eating baguettes. My mouth
was so cut up with the crusts by then that I could only eat the middle bits. There was no way I could fix the bike properly. All the spokes were loose. Some of them had gone through the rim and punctured the tyre. I reckon someone must have walked over the back wheel at the last camp-site. Persig calls these kind of things ‘gumption traps' in
Zen.
I could think of more colourful epithets. Tom was useless. He was all for hitching a lift on a lorry and going back home. At last we made it to a pebbly camp-site and spent two hours pitching my tent. Then I had a proper go at my back wheel. There was a spoke wound round the hub, and three others were hanging loose. Ten others looked as if they were ready to fall off any minute. We were grounded for a couple of days till I could fix the thing. I felt quite calm about it all, strangely enough.

Tom started to pitch his tent and we found a massive hole in his tent bag and half a dozen little ones in the outer tent. We couldn't believe it. I'd been carrying it in my pannier bag and one of the loose spokes must have gone through it. We cursed a bloody hell of a lot then. Tom was in a massive peeve, with the heat, with France, and most of all with me. But that wasn't the end of that day's events. He went to have a shower to calm down, and I emptied out my other pannier. My sleeping bag was covered in oil.