Mad Joy (20 page)

By now the evening had closed in and the woods were dark. I ran until my coat was sticking to me and I felt my anger steaming out of it. The evergreens were no good: only
deciduous
trees were understanding. In search of their calm and empathy I ran into the beech wood, but there was no respite. They were all tall and sleek as poles, straining upwards, their natural wideness stunted by their competition for the light. They had no arms to save me, and I ran on, the sweat seeping through my clothes like sap, knowing now exactly where I was heading.

Back on the road I passed Mrs Emery’s and headed for the village green. There was only half an old moon, hidden by clouds, and I could barely make her out but there were the arms, outstretched wide and low, waiting to embrace me.

I climbed on to her stoutest branch and stretched out, letting her bark press gently into me like a kiss.

After some time of stillness, apart from the pounding of my heart, I felt the chill of the damp clothes. I took them off, one by one – even the stockings – and replaced them all inside out. I remember Alice Snow telling me to do this for good luck if ever
I was lost. It would fool evil spirits who might be looking for me in the woods. Whatever my motives in carrying out the task, I was certainly lost.

Lying back on the branch, it occurred to me now that if everything had changed for me, then it had changed for Philip, too. One moment he was racked with an inescapable guilt which threatened his very existence, and now … what? Was everything all right again? Did it make everything better to see that I’d turned out okay? Or was it worse, to be told that your worst fears were true, that yes, I
had
felt betrayed? I
had
cried for a year and a half, I
had
been left to rot in that godforsaken
hellhole
and I
did
remember him leaving me, turning his back, not looking round? I remembered everything.

And what of my mother? Not Gracie, but the real one, that fretful woman in the waiting room. The very things that had warmed me to her now repulsed me. How she worried about her children, how proud she was of them, how she’d do anything for them, even simple Sidney, she wouldn’t swap him for the world. Everything she had said became hateful. Did I want to see her? No, I did not. I pictured revealing myself to her, seeing her face when she realized what I had become. Would she be thrilled, that I had turned out so well? Not a mad child, after all? And would I then have to accept her as my mother, pretend that none of the intervening twenty years had happened? Would I be thought of as ungrateful or cold if I couldn’t let bygones be bygones? And what would become of Gracie? I couldn’t hurt Gracie.

Or would it be altogether different? Would the woman of the furrowed brow and felt hat be heartbroken to learn that I was sane, and that I knew everything? Would she be tormented with unbearable guilt, forced to confront what she thought she had buried for ever, hoping it would just go away? I tried to imagine each possibility, but neither of them appealed. It occurred to me with a wry smile that if I never saw her again,
then the only time I had ever seen her since she’d sent me away she had stood up and spoken these words: she had asked me how her son was.

It occurred to me also that I did not have to make myself known to her at all. There was no reason why Philip should tell her he’d met me, and if I asked him not to mention me, well … he owed me that at least … didn’t he?

And yet, there was something reassuring and easy about telling the truth. The truth had a solid quality about it which defied mutation. Unlike lies, which could go on for ever, the truth was as finite as the moon’s surface, whole and contained in the simplicity of its sphere. And I was tempted by it. Once the truth was out, there could be no more doubts. Whatever happened would happen, and that would be an end to it.

But was the alternative deceit? Was withholding the truth – just deciding not to use it – a lie? Maybe I could simply carry on as before, unburdened by what I might provoke, but taking on the burden of what I knew.

Whichever way I looked at it, my deep past had been uncorked. My lifelong tactic for self-preservation had been blown, and I would have to find another. But this was the new thing I had learnt: it doesn’t matter how deeply you bury something, or how well it’s hidden, it is still there. And I had spent my life pretending, because it was easier that way. I hadn’t remembered ever having a choice about it, but there had been two: when I met Alice Snow, and when I met Gracie. On neither occasion did I choose to reveal what had happened. Now I had a brother who barely wanted to live, and a mother who had never wanted me alive. And yet I must have always known this, so why did it hurt so much more now? I must have known it, because that was why I was running away – running – from the moment I fled Good Shepherd House with its nuns and nurses, I did not run home, I ran
away
, because I already knew. I must have already known.

Just as there are days in your life you never forget, so there are nights that stick in your memory for ever. The night of 25th August was like that. I did not sleep; my stomach was full of bile and my head full of worms from an upturned stone. Each minute dragged its feet through the night, and I kept seeing her face again, sitting in the waiting room with a furrowed brow, worrying over her sons – her
sons
! There was nothing she wouldn’t do for them. Even Sidney, simple Sidney, she ‘wouldn’t swap him for the world’. A daughter, maybe. But not the world. Oh God! And Philip – a brother – my brother. The one who walked away. I always knew I’d had a brother, one I was close to. I could no longer see the back of his head as he walked away, resolute, doing what he was told. I couldn’t get in that close. But I could feel it. I recall the feeling of rejection, the helpless, hopeless calling out to a trusted loved one, the betrayal, the disbelief, the horror, the closeness of the nuns with their beaky noses like the nurse at the hospital, their cruel little snipes, the meanness with which they used my terror to their own petty ends, to ensure I did chores, to achieve trivial little heights of obedience, because it was no wonder nobody loved me, no wonder nobody wanted me, no wonder no one had ever come back for me … They hissed at me in the darkness, spat out the cruelty of the years I had spent there, and I wriggled in their bitterness into the small hours.

I looked up at the moon, concealing half of itself in the blackness of the night, the other half glittering to the invisible sun, and I thought: I know there’s more to you than meets the eye.

The tree bark pressed into my shoulder blades, and I sensed the sap rising inside it. Up there in the tree-tops, with all the dark shivering leaves, I conjured up mothers: kind, self-giving mothers like Gracie, childless women bursting at the seams with mother-love like Miss Wallock, jealous mothers, efficient mothers, strict, ambitious mothers, mothers who controlled,
chaotic mothers, bereaved mothers, possessive mothers,
anxious
mothers, inexperienced mothers, mothers worn-out and depressed, mothers overwhelmed with love, mothers who never wanted to be mothers, women longing for children and mothers-to-be. The moon sent down all these women and tossed them into the gently writhing branches. Each one of them with the power to change lives, and each one unaware of it. Because it wasn’t written in stone, what they did; it wasn’t even written in blood. It was printed in memories, little indelible keepsakes that would never rub off.

‘You fuck off out of here! Go on, fuck off!’

The voice told me I must have dozed at least once, for the green was bathed in orange light and the last birds of summer were chirruping softly above me. Vile It walked away after her warning, like a nesting bird: secure that she had delivered it but wanting no real battle.

When I opened my eyes again there was more commotion. I looked up at the glorious leaves, still mostly green against the pale morning blue, and smelt the cluster of colognes from close beneath me. The voices were lowered.

‘She always was … you know, a bit …’

‘Barking mad!’

‘Completely lost it this time …’

‘My sister always reckoned …’

‘Barking!’

I allowed myself a swift glance downwards, and saw the little herd of village women craning up to my perch, their morning shopping enhanced by a bit of insanity. I looked back up at the branches and closed my eyes.

The next thing I heard was a familiar voice but one which I did not at first recognize.

‘Haven’t you got homes to go to? She’s not mad, you daft
bats. That’s just how she is. Now shoo!’ Then it was close to my ear, and it was clear that the owner had climbed the tree to sit beside me on the branch. ‘I was hoping to see you while I was home,’ said Mo, finding a neighbouring branch to lean into. Then she sat there, chatting to me about the games we used to play, remembering the oddest details, laughing and making me smile, until Howard and Gracie came to take me home.

Gracie stroked my face. To my astonishment, Howard took me in his arms, kissed me gently on the forehead, and carried me across the green through a crowd of onlookers, up the road and home.

He carried me tenderly up the stairs like his own errant child: a treasure lost and found. Gracie bathed me like she had when I was small, only in the grand bathroom rather than a tin tub. She squeezed warm water over me from the sponge and bid me not to try and speak. Then she wrapped me in a huge white towel and hugged me dry.

It was clear they both knew. What I hadn’t expected, though, was that Philip would still be there.

‘I think you should see him,’ said Gracie after breakfast. Her tone was gentle and encouraging. ‘He needs to go to his mother who may be dying, but he can’t go until he’s seen you.’

I closed my eyes tight shut. She put her arms around me as if I might fall down. ‘It’s not easy for him either. There must be things you want to know. It might help. Just a quick word.’

I went into the living room where he was waiting awkwardly by the fire. There
were
things I wanted to know. But then I wanted him to go, and not come back.

‘Daisy—–’

‘Joy.’

‘Joy. I’m sorry. It’s really hard to know how to put this …’ He frowned at the brass coal scuttle, ‘… but the thing is … I want you to know…. I’m so, so sorry. I … there’s not a day’s gone by I haven’t—’

‘Tell me about my family.’

‘Well … Dad died – as you know—’

‘TB?’

‘That’s right. He used to dote on you.’ He said this eagerly, as if to say there was at least
one
scrap of good news in my family album. ‘Thought the world of you, he did … And then – Mum – you know. Um … Then there’s Sidney – he’s not quite the full shilling, then Eddie – he’s a bit of a lad. You know – bit of a success with the girls, that sort of thing. Um … Then there was Ivy, of course, and
you
.’

‘How old was I when … Dad died?’

‘Four and a half.’

It was clipped, exact, like words he had repeated in his head for years.

‘And … how do you know … what makes you say he doted on me?’ I knew I was begging for crumbs of affection, but I had to know.

‘He was a gamekeeper – up at the big house near us – and he used to take you off with him, whole days at a time. Did the same with us when we were little, but he reckoned you were different. Said you had patience with birds. He never accepted that you were daft. Not ever.’ Then his face lit up as he pictured something else. ‘And you used to help him in the garden – followed him everywhere, you did.’

‘Was there lavender?’

‘Lavender? Oh, tons of the stuff. Herbs, vegetables, he had green fingers. All went a bit to pieces after him. And you.’

I felt my throat swell up inside. ‘And what about the rest of you? Did you get along with me?’

He chuckled. ‘I used to have to look after you. That was my job. I dressed you in the mornings, made sure you ate all your food, took you to school—’

‘So, did I sleep with you? I remember sharing a bed with someone.’

‘No. You slept with Sidney.’

‘Sidney?’

I felt suddenly nettled. Who was this wretched Sidney who was so much more important than me that he stayed in the bosom of the family whilst I – the entire shilling, all twelve pennies of it – was cast off to rot in a home full of sadistic nurses and embittered nuns?

‘Yes. You slept with him as soon as you’d been weaned, I think. He’s very affectionate, Sid. Always after someone to cuddle.’

There was an uncomfortable silence while I thought about this, and while he, no doubt, wondered what I was thinking about.

‘What’s he like?’

‘Sid? Like I said, he’s affectionate, a bit simple. But he can peel vegetables, clean his own shoes, feed the hens – you know, practical stuff. Used to sing you to sleep, though.’

‘Sang to me?’

‘You know …’

‘What did he sing?’

He looked up at the cornicing for help. ‘Um … “Now the day is over” and … “For the –”’

‘“—moon shines bright on Charlie Chaplin”?’

‘Yes!’

We both smiled, and our eyes grew watery.

‘What exactly’s wrong with him, then?’

‘No one really knows.’ Then, as if reading my thoughts, he added: ‘Mum found him very difficult to bring up – he was a real handful. I think she was afraid you’d be like him.’

I stood up, because I was in such torment now I couldn’t sit still. I paced to the window and sighed. ‘So why didn’t she send
him
off?’

When I paced back I saw that Philip had his eyes closed. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know what she was thinking. You need to ask her that.’

‘No!’

He looked up at me, startled.

‘I don’t want to see her. This has been hard enough for me – can’t you see that? I don’t want to have to see her. Please,
please
don’t tell her about me—’

‘But—’

‘No! Never!’

He stood up and put his arms around me. We remained closed for some time, like two halves of a metal-sprung peg. I sensed the tears in his eyes, from the tenseness of his torso and the occasional quick intake of breath. But I did not cry. I felt like an observer of human behaviour, still as stone and just as unimpressionable.

I pulled back suddenly.

‘What did you
think
had happened to me?’

Sensing my coldness, he let his arms drop to the sides. A cuckoo clock in the alcove by the fire chose this moment to cuckoo ten times. Each time his little door nearly closed, and the bird hovered before delivering his two cheerful notes again. We both glared at him, but he carried on doggedly chirping his full quota to the bitter end.

‘I thought about you all the time. I never stopped thinking about you. It was terrible.’ The silence was blaring after the cuckoo. ‘I went back to find you.’

‘You did?’

‘Yes. When I was fourteen. I started work then, you see. I knew if I went back before then, I wouldn’t be able to take you away and look after you.’

‘And they told you I’d run away.’

‘No. They told me you were dead.’

Something fell away inside me. ‘Dead?’

‘Said you’d been moved to a hospital somewhere far away and died of diphtheria.’

I tried to take this in. All the years I had assumed they were
looking for me, a grand search with police or other dour men in black scouring the fields and woodlands. But in fact I had been natural wastage. They had eradicated me.

‘Who did you speak to?’

‘A nun. Sister Conceptua. I remember her.’ He clenched his jaw for a moment. ‘She didn’t know where you were buried. I couldn’t even visit your grave.’

His eyes were welling up again and I should have seen how much he needed me to embrace him, but I was filling up with my own new horror, and could only stand like a limp puppet as he threw his arms around me and begged me to forgive him.

I was glad when Howard came in and said the horse was ready.