Recovery and the Return of Ethan Hart (16 page)

“Rosalind, your mother was one of the kindest people I ever met.” Mrs Morley walks beside me as we leave the churchyard.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“And how pleased she must have been to hear she was going to have a grandchild.”

“Yes.”

“If it's a little girl will you be naming it after her?”

“Yes.” I can only bring myself to speak in monosyllables. My handkerchief is crumpled in my hand.

Her husband—I mean my mother's—moves up purposefully to join us. To my dismay Mrs Morley, believing she's being tactful, soon wanders off to leave the two of us together.

He's tall and rangy, with a severe, not unattractive, face. “Well, then, I've been hoping to get you on your own. Perhaps now your mother's gone we could try to be friends again, Roz. Like we were in the beginning.”

No, we were never friends.

“I can appreciate you should have been upset about it at the time—about that little incident when I'd been drinking more than was good for me and I didn't know what I was doing. But it was all such a terrible misunderstanding. Why not come back where you belong and make a home here for your nipper?”

I simply turn and walk away. I don't go back to the tea which a couple of neighbours have very kindly organized. I plead misery as my excuse and the two elderly ladies accept it with compassion. I couldn't endure having to listen to more sympathetic platitudes or further fond remembrances. The dusty carriages and the anonymity of the Metropolitan Line are the only familiar things I feel that I can cope with.

The last time I saw my mother it had been with Matt.

“Goodbye, Matthew. This has been such a pleasure. God bless you. Good luck.”

I picture her standing on the pavement outside the Astoria. I can see Margaret Lockwood looking out over her shoulder. The film being shown is one I'd hoped that I might see with Matt: ‘I'll Be Your Sweetheart'. But perhaps ‘Without Love' was more appropriate.

“Goodbye, Rosalind. Goodbye, my darlings. You're going to be so late. But, no, it doesn't matter if you're late, just so long as you get there in the end. Take care,” she says.

Four weeks later Christmas comes. I'm glad that none of my memories of spending Christmas with my mum is of very recent date.

On Boxing Day, Jane and I redecorate my room.

“This was the nicest present you could possibly have given me,” I say.

“No,” she replies, “it needed doing, anyway. It was a cheating sort of present.” Even while she's on her knees to paint the skirting board, eyes half closed against the constant spiralling of smoke, Rex is draped like a fox fur round her shoulders.

“I wish everyone could cheat on me so gracefully. You've made my Christmas happier than I could ever have imagined.”

For it had hardly augured well, a few days back, when Congress had finally passed an act on behalf of the alien spouses of U.S. servicemen, expediting their admission into America.

“Thomas is going to love all this,” I say, as I look at the wallpaper rolls which we'd dashed out to buy, almost on impulse, late on Christmas Eve.

“I sincerely hope so. But, my dear, I'm sure it isn't wise to keep on calling him Thomas. What problems if Thomas should turn out to be Thomasina!”

“Oh, Jane—he
wouldn't
!”

“That's precisely what I mean.”

I laugh at the way she's risen to my bait. “No, please don't worry. I would love Thomasina just as much. It's only that somehow I know…”

“I wish you'd write and tell the father.”

“The sod? Can we be talking of the sod?”

“The sod has money and he ought to pay.”

“But I don't want any part of his money. I don't want any part of his money or his pity. If I can't have his love—and obviously I can't—the only part of him I want is Tom.”

“Pooh! You sound like the heroine of ‘Back Street' or some Bette Davis weepy. Oh, bugger!” she says. “I can see there's nothing for it but to place my trust in karma.”

It takes me a moment to work this out. “You're talking of reincarnation?”

“And retribution. In his next life he'll experience all the wretchedness he's brought to you in this.”

I smile. “Oh, but have you thought? What if the buck stops here?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that in my last existence
I
might have been the man. That this is the justice I deserve, not Matt.”

“Huh!” She gives a sniff.

The room is finished by New Year—except for the curtains I am having made and the carpet I'm still looking for. Also I intend to buy one or two pieces of good furniture to replace some of the more shoddy items. Nothing to do with Jane, all these expensive acquisitions, but since I've heard from the solicitors that my mother's left me over a thousand pounds I feel I can afford to be extravagant. Eventually I shall move out of Worsley Road and rent a self-contained flat and then the antique rocking chair and the Queen Anne chest of drawers, the carpet and the standard lamp, possibly the curtains too, will naturally come with me. This knowledge of the amount of my legacy relieves me of a lot of worry. Apart from anything else, it will see me comfortably through the period surrounding Tom's birth, as well as give me two or three months at home before I need to find a woman to look after him. (And talking of the will, I don't know how usual this is but I've instructed the solicitors to go to the flat themselves to obtain the pieces of jewellery and other keepsakes so carefully enumerated. Also the knitting.) Bless my mother, whom I was too self-absorbed to realize was even ill, let alone dying.

My baby is born at noon on the 12
^th
February 1946. My waters had burst at night after a day of fairly frenzied activity: of giving not simply my own room but the bathroom and the lavatory and the stairs—the landing, the hallway and even the front steps—a really thorough clean. People had said that because he was my first baby he would most probably come late. But in fact he arrives bang on time.

Yes.

He.

Thomas.

Blond hair and blue eyes just like his daddy. Seven pounds three ounces. I only wish my mother could have seen him.

No,
that
isn't the only thing I wish, of course not, not at all. I have to keep suppressing thoughts of…well, of where he might have been born and of the different set of circumstances under which he'd then have made his entry into this world, and of the different set of visitors who would then have been coming to see us in the hospital. (But here in Hampstead I have Jane, and the young Australian couple from the floor above me, and some of the girls from Bourne & Hollingsworth, and the curate from Downshire Hill, and they're all of them so kind.) And it's funny to think how, even in those far-off and unfamiliar surroundings, with a different home and nationality and future, Tom would have been exactly this same baby, this identical selfsame baby.

And his mother couldn't have been any prouder of him in America than she already is right here in England.

On March 5
^th
I write to Trixie.

“…so, Trixie, believe me, he really is beautiful—and not just in his looks either. But I won't go on. Let me simply state that Thomas Duncan Cassidy is probably the best baby on earth, just about the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me, and then I'll take pity on you and shut up for the time being. I return to work in May. When that happens Jane will look after him during the day. There's nobody I'd trust him to more willingly and she's promised to cut down on both the Gordon's and the Passing Cloud whenever she has the care of him, and also on her—occasionally—unguarded language! But what if I miss the moment when he starts to crawl or says his first word or pulls off some other equally momentous coup? He looked so pleased with himself this morning when he merely sneezed—a bit surprised for a second but then quite shamelessly proud, inviting me to join in with his full ten seconds of self-congratulation. I hate to think of everything like this I'm going to lose. But I suppose one has to work—although bother—what a nuisance—why? Before I do go back, however, what about that visit I suggested? At the moment there's an empty room in the house—this would be a good time. Surely your aunt would let you get away? We could moan to our heart's content about men in general and American men in particular and of course I'm dying for you to see Tom—though naturally he won't be at his best and I shall never stop telling you how if you'd only come just one week earlier… So you can see I have lots of jolly treats in store for you. No, seriously. Jane says she can babysit whenever we want to get away—films, shows, shopping—anything—which is the one big advantage of bottle-fed babies! It will be wonderful to see you and we'll have tremendous fun, just make it soon. In the meantime much love and look after yourself—God bless, Roz.”

Five weeks later and still no word from Trixie. I wonder if I was clumsy, appearing to gloat a bit over Tommy. Walt's gone and poor Trix may feel she hasn't got a thing.

In any case, it doesn't seem she's going to come.

Today Tom and I, we'll take our walk up Rosslyn Hill, stroll as far as the Everyman, look at the stills of whatever pictures they've got showing. I don't need any groceries. It's a nice morning: the children playing hopscotch on the pavement, an errand boy whistling as he cycles into Pilgrim's Lane, the delivery man from Pitt's Stores—the shop at which I'm registered—waving to me cheerfully as he passes in his van…they all add somehow to an atmosphere of holiday. I could almost believe there might be sea just over the rise at the end of one of these peaceful sunlit streets and tell myself that if I meet an ice-cream vendor I might indeed stop him and buy one. I really shan't want to go back to work in four weeks' time, just as the summer is properly getting under way and we could be spending long lazy days on the Heath, with lots of reading for me and lots of kicking and crawling for Tom.

But Trixie? Is there nothing I can do to make things right?

After we've passed a stationer's on Rosslyn Hill it occurs to me that at least I could send her a postcard. There's a revolving stand outside the shop and so we turn back and I know that it's ridiculous but as I take each card from the rack I hold it out above the pram. “Now which do you think she'd prefer: a picture of Keats' house, or Kenwood, or the Old Bull and Bush, or Jack Straw's Castle…?” (I've already told him that when Trixie comes she and I are bound to spend some evenings in the pub. “It's great fun, sweetheart, with everyone standing round the piano and belting out the old songs, some of the new ones too, ‘Let him go, let him tarry, let him sink or let him swim, he doesn't care for me, nor I don't care for him…'” Well, Tom's certainly heard that particular song before!) There are some maybe who'd think me crazy carrying on to a mere eight-week-old like this and obviously I must soon rid myself of the habit because later on I shan't want to embarrass him, nor treat him as a little adult, nor appear in the role of the possessive mum seeking to live at secondhand through her overburdened child. But just for the moment, I tell myself…

Anyway, there's a fellow who comes up to me who clearly doesn't regard me as at all crazy: a sergeant major who's carrying a cheap brown suitcase so carelessly packed that ends of clothing are escaping from under its lid. But it's really the size of his Adam's apple that almost mesmerizes me and I pray he hasn't seen my fascination. The road he wants is somewhere near; it sounds familiar and if only I could lay my finger on it, I tell him, smiling. I point in the direction where I have a feeling it may be. As I do so I notice that I've still got a postcard in the other hand. But if both my hands are in front of me then neither of them is holding onto the pram. Nor, it further strikes me in a moment of heartstopping clarity, have I yet put on the brake. I whirl around. I see the pram careening down the hill. I see it careening down the hill and off the pavement and into the road.

My own scream mingles with the scream of tyres.

21

Over forty-four years ago…and yet the echo of that scream reverberates. The old lady stares at me. She looks appalled. Have I gone as pale as she has?

It feels like months since I first came here.

To Pilgrim's Lane.

“Forgive me, ma'am,” I try to say. “I'm sorry.”

It seems that the cry just now had come from me.

22

“I shouldn't have told you,” she says.

But she hasn't told me.

Not more than just an outline.

The rest I knew.

“Even for myself,” she says, “it seemed the end of everything.” She pauses for a moment, glancing across at some enticing parallel time curve. “Tom would have been well into his forties by now… And he was going to be my godson.”

“What?”

She recollects herself. “I think perhaps you ought to leave.” She pushes the startled feline off her lap and rises unsteadily. “I'm sorry. We've both been very much upset. Just give me back the ring and…”

Ah, yes, the ring. I hold up my hand and stare blankly at the ring. She draws it off my unresisting finger.

“I should never have told you,” she repeats.

Her voice, which earlier had struck me as quite deep, almost gravelly, now seems thinner. My God, but how she's aged! I remember how she painted and wallpapered and stood on stepladders and shifted furniture and helped me unroll my carpet…

But no. I am still… Well, evidently I am still very much confused.

I remember seeing a movie with my brother. I remember not only the movie; I remember where we saw it. At a movie house in Hartford… I remember how the woman had changed in that—grown old and wizened, from having been so young and beautiful—changed, frighteningly, in only a matter of seconds.