Reading by Lightning (21 page)

Must have made a change from the tea leaf butties, said Lois.

Stop staring, Madeleine said to George, for he had been staring at me since I started to talk.

For a colonial, she does have the look of an English lass, George said.

Of course she does, cried Nan. She's English through and through, is our Lily.

In spite of all temptations,
George sang out,
to belong to other nations, she remains an English lass, she remai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ains — an English lass!
By the last line his sisters had joined in and everyone was laughing and I was filled with shy delight.

After the pudding the men crumpled their paper hats and wandered into the hall and the ladies got up and moved to the parlour. I ended up on an upholstered chair at the archway to the hall, at the hinge between the two circles, and could listen to both, to my aunts in the parlour exchanging tender, inconsequential comments about the turkey and the pudding, to George cadging tobacco from Uncle Hugh. He bent over his pipe and the worldly smell of tobacco drifted into the parlour. Our Granddad's pipe it was — Nan had given it to him. Above their heads the red-coated generals, the festively dressed generals, leaned over their map. Cruel that my father was so far away, that he couldn't stand in the hall in a tweed jacket and trousers, a pipe in one hand and a glass of whisky in the other.

The curtains were drawn, but on the fanlight in the hall you could see that the rain had turned to snow — it had begun to stick on the glass, piling up in each pie-shaped frame, like a Christmas message for Canadians far from home. I turned
my head, looking first at the women and then the men. It could just as well have been them, I marvelled, it could have been them that signed up to ship to Canada instead of my father. Aunt Margaret and Mrs. Shillingford washing nappies in a sod shack, Uncle Hugh and Mr. Shillingford standing in front of a cutter in January, their celluloid collars peeping out at the necks of buffalo coats, paper hats from their Christmas crackers still perched on their heads.

Cold, eh? said Mr. Shillingford from the hall. He was a little man, and his eyes were set strangely high on his face, as though a child had drawn him.

Ain't it, said Uncle Hugh. It ud freeze the nose off a brass monkey. Not a patch on sixteen, though. Remember Christmas a sixteen? The bleedin' water?

It's the bleedin' rats I recall, said Uncle Stanley. The devils swimming down the line, trying to keep their whiskers dry. I can still see them. His voice dropped and I couldn't hear what he said next. They puffed on their pipes, they turned their shoulders to the parlour.
Some poor blighter's hand,
it seemed he said, and then he said something that had
rain
or
brain
in it, words just on the edge of my hearing.

In the parlour Nettie Nesbitt, released from her caution at that very moment, embarked on a story about bodice fasteners. She wanted them fancy dome fasteners, she cried, but they won't do the job for a full-figured woman.
(Cleaned out the whole thing,
it seemed Uncle Stanley was saying. Whatever he said the other men stirred with discomfort. Just then he glanced sideways through the arch and saw me, saw me listening, and his face darkened. He reached up a hand as if he were a police officer, as if he were pushing me back.
Keep your nose out of it,
he was saying, and I dropped my eyes, embarrassed.) Three times I took it apart and still she weren't satisfied, Nettie Nesbitt was crying, while Aunt Lucy let out soft, sympathetic clucks. She's still not paid me a penny.

Then Mr. Shillingford said in an ordinary tone, It makes you think, when you look at this lad here. A whole new crop for the next go.

He's of an age, our lad, said Uncle Stanley. I will grant you that. But age is not everything. Then I did dare to look back at them. I couldn't see George's face, but from his posture he was miming a middle-aged man, completely absorbed in his pipe.

In the parlour Nettie Nesbitt fell silent, now when it didn't matter. Nan dozed on the settee beside Aunt Lucy, her tissue hat perched on the nest of her hair like a bird about to take flight. Mrs. Shillingford gave herself over to her wine, and the second it was finished her husband tipped his head towards her and she stood up and Aunt Lucy brought their coats. They said their goodbyes and stepped out onto the front sidewalk, fussing with their umbrellas, adjusting mufflers round their necks. Then they embarked cautiously on their journey home, three doors down the row.

When they were gone Aunt Lucy went to the kitchen to make another pot of tea, and Madeleine moved around the parlour collecting teacups from the last round. Lois sprawled on the carpet, looking listlessly through the gramophone records. I took off my party hat and examined it. It was two sheets of pink tissue glued together and cut into a crenellated pattern at the top. It was not so much a party hat as a joking reference to a different sort of party.

Across from me, alone on the loveseat, Nettie Nesbitt sat with her chin in her big, bony hand. On the shelf above her head was the Blackpool tower done in white china, and a Queen Victoria plate, cracked in half and mended with glue. Everything had been swept and dusted for Christmas, all the clutter tucked away, showing how shabby the parlour was under its crocheted doilies. The cushions Nettie sat on were so worn that cords showed white along their edges. Framed in the doorway to the kitchen, Aunt Lucy bent over a drawer,
wiping at something inside it. The glass of wine I'd drunk revealed the scene to me with all its baffling proprieties. Sadness rising in the silence, people doing ordinary things with a secret intent I could not decipher.

Suddenly, in the archway to the hall George was looking over the bowl of his pipe at me, smiling cryptically with his puckish old man's face. His hair stood up in tufts all around, defying the shape the barber had intended for it. His eyes were the same slate grey as Uncle Stanley's and half of Lancashire. He blinked eagerly, trying to hold my gaze, and I looked away in confusion.

I saw Mrs. Grimshaw's hat outside our living-room window and opened the door before she knocked. No coat? I said.

Oh, lovie, it's just one door to the next, she said, stepping over the sill and plucking off her hat. She was an old bird, a bottom-heavy chicken hopping into the henhouse, her legs grown skinny with age and a scalp like a pink rubber bathing cap showing through her hair. Forty years your nana and I've been side by next, she said, batting at the feathers in her hat. Forty years I've lived here. Me sister died in the front room, and me husband died in the bedroom, and me mother died in the loo. It don't bother me none, death don't mean nothin' to me. She set her hat on the sideboard and plopped herself down in her usual corner of the couch. I'm eighty-two, me. You'd never know it, would you?
You'll never go,
the doctor says,
we'll have to shoot you.

I stooped and looked anxiously at my hair in the peeling old mirror above the sideboard. New Year's. I was going alone on the coach to spend the night at Oldham, there was to be a party. Mrs. Grimshaw was to spend the evening with Nan and I'd filled the cookie tin with something special for their tea.

So our gel's flittin' off, is she? said Mrs. Grimshaw as Nan came in. She's flittin' off and leavin' us on our tod. She reached for my hand, pressing a toffee into it. I was just saying, dear, I was just saying to your Lily, I've buried three sisters and three brother-in-laws, and I woke up one morning and me husband was layin' in bed glarin' at me. Wasn't he, dear? Your nana seen him, pet, I come and fetched her. He was layin' there glarin' at me, he was stone dead, his kidneys give out in the night. But the doctor says to me, he says,
You'll never go,
he says,
I'll have to shoot you.

There, love, said Nan, giving me a kiss. Are you warm enough? And don't let Stanley put you on the coach tomorrow. There'll be all sorts about, what with the holiday. You tell your Aunt Lucy he's to drive you home.

Madeleine met me at the coach. I'm
so
glad you've come, she said. Lois is in a right state. First Archie said he was coming, and then he said he wasn't but hinted at some posh party in Hale Barns he wanted to go to, and so she blubbered, and then he said, Oh, all right, he would come, but she doesn't believe he will. And he didn't ask her to Hale Barns, did he?

There were guests in the parlour already, but we climbed the stairs to see Lois. She was sitting on her bed, her face tragic. Look, look! she cried, stretching her legs out in front of her.

Yes, said Madeleine, leaning towards the mirror and raising her lipstick to her mouth. You have smashing legs. Everyone agrees.

My
stockings,
cried Lois. She dragged us over to the window, where light from the west still fell, and put her legs out theatrically one at a time, lifting her skirt to her garters.

I don't know what you're on about, said Madeleine.

Like heck you don't.
Lily?
They're different shades, aren't they? This one is
orange.
There — look — you can tell from her face! I'd like to know what's happened with the pair I bought last week. What have you got on, Maddy?

Madeleine stepped back out of the light. Never mind trying to strip my stockings off me, she said. It's first up, best dressed.

Oh, I can't stand it! Lois cried, gesturing beyond her legs to the heap of clothes on the bed, the water-stained wallpaper, her tawdry life. I'm fed up to the teeth with all of this.

Come off the perch, said Madeleine. Who'll be looking at you? Archie won't be here, and no one else cares. Let's go down, Lily.

In the kitchen Aunt Lucy said, The young folk are all outside. I followed Madeleine into the back garden. At the sight of ten or fifteen boys and girls my age standing on the flagstones and sprawled on the garden wall, my heart began to pound. George did a fanfare with his imaginary trumpet — he'd conjured me up as a party diversion. My full attention went to my shoes, not the hated tie-up farm shoes that had become as painful to me as a deforming birthmark, but the black-patent pumps I'd found in Nan's closet and asked to wear. Everyone called hello. You've come a long way! a kind girl exclaimed, and I understood with a stab that the patent shoes were
worse,
they were the cheap shoes an old lady might wear in a pathetic effort at glamour, and furthermore they were out of style. I couldn't speak and then the moment to speak was past and still I stood frozen. Finally they stopped looking at me and conversation drifted back to the long hike George and a mate named David had taken that day.

You lot are bringing on the war, you know that, one of the boys said. They'll think we're fit.

Not Monty, a girl cried. Monty's doing his bit for peace. Monty spent the day on the Bull's Head ramble.

It was a tramp and a jolly hard one, said Monty. He held his cigarette low, and smoke leaked from his mouth with his words. We walked six miles and the only pubs we could stop at were Bull's Heads. We had rules, and we kept to 'em.

How many did that leave you? someone asked.

He grinned. Four.

A small, thin girl stood with the boys, listening with a fixed smile. She wore a trench coat cinched tight around her tiny waist. It was dark in the garden, and the yellow light from the kitchen window fell on her amber hair. Madeleine pressed meaningfully against my arm and raised her eyebrows. That's the girl George fancies, she whispered.
Imogene.
But
she
fancies David.

Another girl, a very large girl, leaned in and put her arms around our shoulders. Stop your whispering, she said, unless you wants to tell me too.

We were talking about
her,
said Madeleine, tipping her head. My future sister-in-law there. I was just telling Lily.

Oh, God help us! moaned the large girl, collapsing against Madeleine. She was Jenny, from next door. She wore a felt cloche hat with a swooping feather, which she'd bought for three shillings sixpence in town. Her coat was also new, a Christmas gift.

You've got
fur,
said Madeleine, touching the collar.

Watch that! Jenny shrieked, jumping back. It's genuine monkey, that! she cried, going off into gales of laughter. Just that afternoon she'd been to a fortune teller, who read her palm and told her she'd be meeting an older man with red hair who would take her away in a ship. This was obviously her brother who lived in Guernsey, so she tried to get her money back, but the gypsy just offered to give her a different fortune. The rotten tinker! cried Jenny in her big, rough voice. She tossed her head gaily at the boys by the shed. She wanted to dance: she executed a few steps, thrusting her big chest forward.

Fetch the gramophone out, Maddy, somebody called.

Dad won't let us, Madeleine said.

Well, put it up to the window, then. They're not using it.

Jenny led a gang inside to set up the gramophone. In a
minute there was a commotion at the door and two boys came out. Carrying Lois, her arms and legs flailing. She was wearing slacks. Bloody Christ, she cried as they set her upright. Get your filthy hands off me.

The girls by the garden wall exchanged looks. Lois stared boldly back. I say, you're a dead lot, she said.

Just waiting for you, love, said Monty.

Well, I'm here now. Look at you! What a pack of tea grannies! Let's do something. Let's play kippers!

Kippers!
everyone laughed. Just then the kitchen window was hauled open behind Lois. Jenny's hat feather appeared in the opening. Requests, Jenny called. Requests, ladies and gentlemen, let's hear your favourites.

Seriously, said Lois, ignoring her. Enough standing around.

All right! George cried, springing up. We'll play kippers. Seriously. Lily shall be
it.

Not Lily, said Madeleine, taking my arm protectively. Lily won't know it. You made it up, they don't play kippers abroad. And she won't know the hiding places. From inside the house, a man's voice crooned,
Blue moon
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