Mad Joy (16 page)

The light was already beginning to fade and, to my
disappointment
, he suggested we head back.

‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ I asked. ‘How could you keep something like that a secret from me?’

‘I only just found out myself. There can’t be many girls who look like you … and then your ankle, this evening … that was when I knew for certain.’

‘But how did you get to be with the Buckleighs? And what happened to Alice?’

He was holding my hand now and it felt good. A symmetry at last: him on one side, me on the other, and two palms touching.

‘I was already with the Buckleighs.’

I was confused.

‘After you disappeared, Alice looked everywhere for you. She was ill – can you remember? – that dreadful cough. She just seemed to get worse and worse. But she was on her own. The others were in some sort of trouble with the police, and she got separated. So it was just her. She was coughing up blood and everything …’ His hand began to grip mine more tightly, and I could see him frowning through the dusk. ‘… so she went to see her gentleman. You remember a “kind gentleman” who let
her take his apples? So … that’s how it happened. Dad took Alice in and looked after her. Well … Mrs Bubb did most of it, I suppose. Only Alice didn’t last too long after that. Died just before Christmas, and she begged him to keep looking for her little girl who’d gone missing in the woods – that’s you, of course.’

‘So he brought you up as his own?’

‘No, no. I
am
his own. Well, I’m his best friend’s, anyway. My real father died in the trenches and my mother died of Spanish flu a couple of years later. But yes, by then I think he already knew about Celia – about her not being
his
child – so he was quite happy to take me in and bring me up as his own.’

‘Is that why Celia resented you so much?’

He shrugged. ‘Celia had enough problems of her own.’

‘Mrs Buckleigh?’

‘I never did find it easy to call her “Mother”. And she never once tried to be one. It wasn’t the fairy story it might sound, you know. It wasn’t like that at all.’

‘So what about the woods? How did you know Alice?’

‘I didn’t come here until I was five – I lived with my grandparents before that. Then I just went a bit wild, I suppose. Used to play in the woods all the time. And I got to know the gypsies, of course. I practically lived with them in the daytime for years. Then as soon as
she
got wind of it—’

‘Celia’s mother?’

He nodded. ‘She paid me so little attention, she hadn’t noticed what I was up to. Then when she did … I was packed off to prep school pretty smartish. Didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.’ I frowned, trying to take it all in.

‘The last time I saw Alice,’ he said, coming to a halt and looking directly at me, ‘was round about the first time I saw you.’ He looked suddenly sad. ‘I fully expected to go back and find you again after those first few days, but my bags were all
packed and waiting for me. She didn’t even give me any warning.’

He told me how he had repeatedly run away from the school he was sent to, and how eventually he had won a scholarship to the nearest grammar school.

‘I hated that too, to be honest. But at least I was set free at the end of the day. And I joined the Air Defence Cadet Corps later. I always loved the idea of flying. To know what it must be like to be a bird … it’s the nearest you can get to it … I love it.’

We reached the place where he had parked the car.

‘What time do you have to be back by?’

‘Not for a good couple of hours yet.’

He opened the boot and took out two thick rugs. Then we headed back, deep into the heart of the woods.

He made me tell him everything I could remember after the police raid: how I had found Gracie, how she and I had told no one. We kept remembering times we had glimpsed each other: awkward, incomprehensible times which made sense to us now. I laughed and groaned at how deeply I had taken offence at the grubby little village girl phrase, which was clearly just a repetition of Celia’s. He marvelled at how he had never noticed my scar before, but reflected that I had always been wearing stockings until tonight.

‘Not when you saw me come in from the garden with all those vegetables.’

‘No. You’re quite right. Your legs were completely bare and pink with cold. But I can assure you I wasn’t looking at your ankles!’

We laughed at all the incongruous moments we’d had, which now fell into place. But I was still angry about the shove in front of Beatrice and the entire Mustoe family.

‘Ah …’ He looked up at the sky, and then shook one of the
rugs out on the ground. He sat down and patted the rug beside him, but I stood my ground, waiting for the explanation. ‘I’ve never been
that
superstitious, not compared to Alice … but you know how she always said a man shouldn’t let a woman cross between himself and a fire?’

‘I can’t remember that.’

‘Well, it’s old Romani stuff. A woman’s power … I wouldn’t normally …’ I sat down to hear the explanation, which was sounding a little weak. ‘It’s just that there was something about you that day. You really got to me. It was as if you were full of magic – I mean really
full
of magic … I can’t explain it … It felt like you had so much power, and then there you were crossing in front of me with the fire behind you and it seemed that if I didn’t stop you … I don’t know …
something
awful would happen.’

I laughed out loud.

‘You see,’ he said, ‘something awful has happened. You have complete control over me!’

We lay back together and looked at the clear night sky. A few stars were dotted around, and then, as we continued looking, they seemed to have back-up. Thousands more arrived as our eyes adjusted, and then more, and more again … This is how it always used to be when we lay out all summer nights. You waited … it happened. And he waited for me now, listening for me to throw out little dots of light. He teased it out of me with patience.

I bared my soul to him beneath the stars, and he listened. And then, with a few whispered words of encouragement, he laid all of me bare to the softly risen moon.

James’s interference paid off after all: I was told to take a few days’ leave. He was still off with his arm injury, so we booked into a local inn, called The Mill.

It was an idyllic time: more vivid and detailed in my memory than any other. He lent me a gold ring of Alice’s for when we booked in as Mr and Mrs Buckleigh, and our playing at husband and wife – child-like and giggly though it was – must have sparked off the same train of thoughts in both of us. Everything about our pretend marriage was wonderful. We called each other ‘darling’ and even invented an array of pets and two children who were staying with an aged aunt. The children were called Daphne and Cecil, and we became so carried away with our imaginary life together that we found ourselves lying to the landlady and her daughter during mealtimes, and trying not to look at each other in case we laughed.

The landlady was a stout woman from the Midlands who had moved to the Cotswolds with her husband nearly twenty years before. Their daughter, Lil, was not unattractive in a puppyish sort of way, but I couldn’t help thinking of a gorilla in a dress. She had a heavy, wide back, short neck, and a brown pageboy hairstyle with a thick sausage of hair rolled back above her forehead. She must have been barely seventeen, and had a little
girl toddler. At first the landlady implied that she was her other daughter, but Lil enjoyed putting us straight over our evening meal.

‘We wuz all set to get married we wuz, but he went missing first day of the war. Missing presumed dead.’

‘Dead, my arse,’ muttered her mother from the bar. ‘Missing presumed gallivanting more like.’

Lil looked piqued, so I admired her little girl. She was a glorious tousle-headed pixie with wide blue eyes, cherub lips and a tiny pointed chin at the base of a round face. She toddled over to our table and said endearing things like ‘Da!’ whilst hammering the cutlery up and down, all of which made Lil blush with pride and the landlady throw her hands up in apology. It was clear that Lil adored her little girl.

James’s warm reaction to the child sent a shiver of excitement through me. But I was rescued from broodiness by him saying things like, ‘Doesn’t she remind you of Daphne at that age?’ and I would reply, ‘The spitting image! Though Daphne couldn’t talk for years.’

‘No, can’t you remember that time she first spoke, darling? Her first words were … What were they, darling?’

‘Stop it!’

‘That’s it! You were trying to force her into some pyjamas you’d just knitted her. “Stop it,” she said, clear as day.’

And so on, until Lil asked us if we’d had our children young as well, and my clenched giggles began to hiss from the sides of my mouth and James had to claim I’d been drinking already.

The night was wonderful. There was a bathroom at the end of our corridor, and I took a long warm soak in it, even if the water was only a few inches deep.

James had opened the windows in our room on to the sunset, and we sat on the windowsill together, our toes
touching, looking out on the still, dusky hills and the cloud of gnats jittering about in the shade of the garden. He took me like a gypsy takes an animal: sure of its approval, but slowly, stealthily, mesmerizing it with ever decreasing circles into complete surrender.

We trod water in the cool expanse of cotton sheets. Then we swam. The lightest of touches was heaven. If it was clumsy, I don’t remember it that way. I remember the vastness of the bed, a huge blank canvas for us, the cotton like an extra skin stroking ours, and the utter, unchallengeable joy of it all.

We didn’t sight land until the curtains turned pale with sunlight, and the scufflings of a bird clattered in the eaves.

I sat at breakfast waiting for James to finish shaving in the bathroom. I felt so transformed by our night together, I
wondered
if it showed in some way. I wondered if the landlady could see that I had crossed into a new phase of my life: did it show in my face? Did she have the slightest idea that I had been happier than I’d ever been in my life in her ‘pink room’ with the rose wallpaper and the tiny patch of mould above the curtains?

Breakfast was in one of the rooms off the main pub, but with the same wooden pub tables and chairs. Lil appeared with a large pot of tea and asked if I’d like to wait for my husband. When I nodded she hung around and tried to get chatting.

‘You here for a special occasion, then?’

‘Just … my husband has some leave.’

‘Oh!’ She gave me a look which spelt a wink. ‘Must be nice to get away.’

‘Yes.’

Her child planted herself in the doorway and smiled. She was looking directly at me, and I felt such a violent pang of emotion that I flinched. ‘Oh … she’s so … you must love her so much.’

‘Susan?’ She looked over at her daughter, and grinned. ‘’Course I do, dun’ I’ poppet?’

Susan was tapping a small wooden pig around the
door-jambs
, shooting us coy smiles from under her curls.

‘What’s it like being married then?’ she asked me suddenly.

‘Oh … It’s wonderful. Like … nothing changes, only everything’s more … certain, more secure … it makes you feel …’ I drew a sharp breath, for suddenly James was in the doorway, carrying a tray of huge slabs of bread and home-made strawberry jam.

‘It makes you feel like a big breakfast,’ he said grinning.

I didn’t know how long he’d been there – whether or not he’d heard my exultant views on marriage – but he seemed genuinely radiant.

Lil got up to go and potter in the kitchen somewhere off the corridor, and we two tucked into our breakfast, locking eyes and entwining fingers. Suddenly there was a whimper, and we looked over to the far table to see Susan – who had been crawling underneath it – stand up and look around in panic. I watched her dear little face as it crumpled, as the bottom lip grew swollen and trembled, as tears brimmed in her eyes and furrows tried to find a place in her spongy brow. It had slowly dawned on her that Lil had left. She didn’t know why, and in that silly moment she didn’t know if it was for ever or for five minutes, if it was to fetch tea or to abandon her. I could see, with an empty, sick feeling in my stomach, that all the little girl had registered was this: her mother had left her.

I felt the full horror of it seeping over me, a blot of blood spreading from a hopeless wound. I was leaking despair. If I empathized with little Susan, I did not reach out and comfort her. Instead I found my face had succumbed to my thoughts, and James was reaching over to me anxiously: ‘Joy?’

Lil came in with a fresh pot of tea, and then gathered Susan up in her arms. To all the world Susan looked merely relieved.
But I knew where she had been these past few moments, and how much more it had been than a simple wail.

The moment soon passed, and James and I went walking. I had never seen him as relaxed and good-humoured as he was during our time at The Mill. And I wondered if my own persistent elation at being with him was heightened by a sense of impending doom. I wished James were a farm labourer or a munitions worker or a train driver – anything but a pilot. There was too much in the balance.

On day three, as we were driving back, I took the ring off my finger. He told me to keep it, and we returned to Woodside engaged.

I asked him to drop me in the village, while he went to see his father and Philip. If I’m honest, I just wanted to show off my uniform and although I couldn’t tell anyone before Gracie, I wanted the world to see me in this new state: I wanted to walk through Woodside in love.

It was hot and quiet, and the odd clink of cutlery suggested that most people were indoors having their dinners, or outdoors with their sandwiches in the shade. I saw Spit Palmer with a new baby, pushing it in a pram across the road to the post office. She didn’t see me. She didn’t take her eyes off the baby, cooing and smiling so much she could easily have been knocked down by a bus. I saw Mr Bearpark in the distance, walking his bike uphill, and the elder Miss Wallock – now utterly doolally – with her pram of lambs. She had two, and they were really lambs no more: quite hefty things, with fat woolly faces and the smug look of
preschoolers
who really ought to be walking. They had that permanent smile that sheep have, and the pair of them looked about from their vehicle like two kings in a carriage. ‘We’ll just pop in the post office for a stamp, shall we?’ she was
crooning to them as she passed. ‘Close your eyes by the butcher’s.’

What drove a woman to such hideous lengths? What desperate needs had been flouted that she should pretend these fat lambs were her children? Was it a sense of incompleteness? A driving force? A need to be loved? A need to give love? There was a lightness to my step at the pleasure of this last thought: a love so great and bubbling it needed to be let out. The sun was on everything – even the road was warm through my shoes. Perhaps it was no more than completing the circle: a need to pass on the love that was given by your own mother. Then I thought about Celia’s mothering: Celia’s smothering. How simple it was to abuse that easily earned power. And I tried not to think about that other mother: the one whose mothering I could not conjure up.

The world seemed full of mothers. Even Digger, when I reached home, was slumped in a box by the front door, sunning herself in sheer contentment with four kittens at her teats. I crouched down to admire her brood. ‘How do you know how to do it?’ I whispered. She just wriggled on to her back and stretched out lethargically, while her kittens scrambled to get into a new sucking position.

She opened one eye and looked at me, and then closed it again, as if it were a daft question.

Gracie knew I was coming, because I’d written two days earlier, and of course the house smelt of baking. She greeted me in her apron, covered in flour, and squeezed me tight.

‘Joy, my sweetheart! It’s so good to see you! I’m sorry about the cakes – I did them for twenty minutes, but I think the oven’s playing up …’

She took me into the kitchen to indicate some very brown fairy cakes, and looked so apologetic I had to hug her all over
again. I hardly had my coat off before I told her: ‘Gracie, you’ll never guess! I’m engaged!’

‘Lord above! Whatever next?’ But she was smiling from ear to ear, and clapped her hands together as if she were already designing my dress in her head and planning the booties for the grandchildren.

‘Oh! I hope he doesn’t live up north or something. Don’t let him take you to the other end of the country—’ She could hardly get her breath.

‘He’s local.’

‘
Local
?’ She was radiant.

‘Yes. He lives in Woodside. You’ll never guess who …’

‘Go on, then …’

‘James Buckleigh!’

The blood drained from her face. She gripped the back of a chair and stared at me cheerlessly for a few moments, then she looked away into the middle distance, and slumped into the chair.

‘What is it? Gracie … whatever’s the matter?’

She swallowed, and cast me such a chill glance that I sat down too. ‘You can’t marry James Buckleigh. There’s
something
you ought to know.’