Somewhere Over England (2 page)

It was a million years since her mother had bought her ribbon and green knickers in the large store two weeks after her father had died. They had travelled in a lift to the restaurant where mannequins had paraded and a chamber orchestra had played on a small stage fronted by imitation palm trees. Her mother had ordered tea for two and one meringue and one toasted teacake. A waitress dressed in black with a small white pinafore had served the large meringue on a bone china plate with a white paper doily.

It was as white as her father’s face had been the last time she had seen him.

Her mother’s teacake oozed butter. She cut into it with a knife, carrying it to her pursed mouth with her small plump fingers, watching the mannequins, listening to the music, her head nodding in time, her black felt hat firm on her head. Helen had watched the butter drip on to her chin and wondered how her mother could eat when her own heart seemed to fill her body with the pain of loss, leaving no room for food, leaving no room even to breathe properly.

Helen had dug her fork, prongs first, into her meringue and it shattered, spraying the table-cloth and her lap, and she had been glad to see it destroyed, because that was how she felt too. Daddy, she had thought silently.

Her mother leaned forward then. Eggs and cream are good for you, she had said, and Helen could smell the tea on her breath. Eat it, or I shall put you in the cupboard. And her mother had smiled a strange smile, one that did not reach her eyes. Mother knows best, she had said, and I am all you have now. Now he is dead.

Her stomach had swayed in the lift but she had not been sick until midnight and then she had cried out, ‘Daddy’. Her mother had come and taken her downstairs and put her in the cupboard, the dark black cupboard under the stairs. She had cried into the blackness, holding her father’s coat against her
face until it was wet, because her mother must not hear her sobs.

Every holiday her mother had taken her to the same restaurant and if she was displeased she would buy her a meringue and the darkness of the cupboard would be close.

‘Oh yes,’ Helen said as Heine touched her arm. ‘Oh yes, perhaps we’d better go now.’

She turned and rubbed out the number six on the lichen, rubbed and rubbed, then shook her hands, smiling as Heine gave her a crisp white handkerchief. She handed it back before taking his arm and walking at his pace down the lane towards the houses they could see over the two fields. He was her sunlight, but she would have to struggle for him.

Lydia Carstairs brushed the table-cloth with the silver-plated crumb brush and dustpan which she told people had been a wedding present but which she had bought in Kingston-upon-Thames after her husband had died. There had been some money then, for the first time ever. Clerks did not earn a great deal but he had been very wise, she had to say that for Ernest, very wise in the matter of insurance. Perhaps that’s what came of dealing with little bits of paper for a living. So in a way it was as well he had died of flu and not in the line of duty, because she wasn’t sure just how his insurance would have stood in those circumstances. Mark you, there was no telegram, was there, with flu? No valour.

Lydia moved across to the mantelpiece and dusted the photograph of Ernest with a comer of her flowered apron. He had been a very ordinary little man, but steady, her mother had said, and he had of course owned this detached house and on a corner too, which made it rather better than the neighbours’. There was also a bit of extra land at the side which Ernest had used to grow cabbages and potatoes. He had liked potatoes straight from the soil; small and translucent, he used to say, with the scent of nature in every bite. What nonsense he talked. She stood back from the photograph. Good, no dust.

She hadn’t missed him, and no, she didn’t feel that was a sin. As her mother had said, no woman liked a sweating body in her bed. Men were better dealing with wars, better at being with other men. When they were home they interfered. And she’d been right. They spoilt their children, came between mothers
and daughters. She looked again at the photograph. No, she didn’t miss Ernest because she had Helen.

Lydia turned and looked at the table. The best cloth was on, the white cotton covered by the white over-lace. Scones, sandwiches, but not those with egg yet because they smelt so. Lydia smoothed her hands down her apron and then touched her hair, looking in the wrought-iron mirror over the sideboard. Her grey hair was in place, her face powdered, but very lightly. She wished her eyes were not such a pale blue and her face was not quite so plump. She sucked in her cheeks. Perhaps she should have less jam on her scones. There was dust on the mirror frame and she licked her finger and ran it round the wrought-iron edge.

The clock in the hall chimed three-thirty and Lydia took her apron off, carrying it through to the kitchen, hanging it on the hook which Ernest had put up on the inside of the pantry door when he seemed a little better from the flu. And while he was doing that it had seemed sensible that he should just finish off the shelf for the new meat safe. He wouldn’t do the second one though; stubborn, yes stubborn. He had collapsed the next day.

She moved to the sink. Where was Helen and why had she invited this friend? The girl knew how she felt about the weekends. After all, the weekends were family times, they always had been and they always would be. It was lonely when she was away in London during the day. She was becoming a selfish girl again. Lydia picked up the dishcloth and polished the splash marks from the cold tap before looking up at the clock. She should be back from the station by now. She polished harder, pushing the rage down, pushing the fear of loneliness down. She did not want to think of the word that Helen had used, that had taken the breath from her body. Him, she had said. I will go to the station to meet him.

Helen rang the door bell because she was not allowed a key. Her hands were cold now and the porch seemed foreign to her. There was a broken tile in the right-hand corner, and the lead which swept upwards on the stained glass window was thinner at the top and cracked with age.

The door was opening and her mother stood motionless, her smile fixed, her hair newly permed. Helen could smell it from
here. It was crimped and tight, hard like her mother’s eyes as they looked past her.

‘Mother, I’d like you to meet Heine.’ She could only move slightly aside in the cramped porch but her mother had not yet opened the door wide enough for them to enter.

‘Heine, this is my mother, Lydia Carstairs.’

‘Mrs Carstairs,’ her mother said, still with a fixed smile. ‘How do you do. You had better come in.’ She shook Heine’s outstretched hand but looked at Helen. ‘Go through to the dining-room.’

They walked down the dark hall and through the first door and Helen wished that she had been able to be honest with her mother. She had wanted to tell her that Heine was her life now, that at lunchtimes she had been walking in the park or sitting in a Lyons Corner House with him but she had been unable to. She had been too afraid that it would all end, that she would not be strong enough to fight for him.

She heard her mother go on into the kitchen. She could hear the kettle humming through the hatch, then its whistle, abruptly halted as her mother lifted it from the gas and poured water into the teapot. It would be the silver one, she knew.

Helen smiled at Heine who raised an eyebrow.

‘Do sit down,’ she said and wondered why she whispered.

‘Did your mother not know of my existence?’ Heine also spoke quietly, his face serious.

Helen flushed. ‘You don’t understand how difficult it can be. I am all she has. She depends on me too much.’ She was still whispering. She rubbed at her hands, at the lichen dust, the dirt from the stone parapet, the bark stain.

‘My darling girl, you are not that frightened of the situation are you, or of her reaction? I didn’t realise.’ His voice dropped almost to nothing. ‘I should not have put you in this position, you are too young, too fresh.’

Helen caught one of his hands. ‘I am not too young. Just nervous, that’s all. It needs to be put to her gently.’ Her voice was still a whisper but she must not think of herself as frightened or she would be lost.

‘Then I will be careful, but I just wish it need not be this way. There seems to be no end to obstruction.’ His voice was still low but it now sounded tired. ‘Go and wash your hands now, leave me alone with her for a while.’ He kissed her hand,
holding it to his mouth for a moment. ‘And now I have dirt on my lips?’

‘No, my love.’

In the bathroom Helen scrubbed her hands and then her nails and soap sprayed on to her pink blouse and even when she wiped it with the towel the marks still showed. He had spoken to her as though she were a child and she was, inside she still was. He was right, she was frightened; so frightened that it would all be destroyed, that he would go and leave her here with her mother. Alone with her mother whose voice was not kind, whose hands had never shown her the stream but had pushed her into the darkness.

She held the towel to her face. She must not cry, she never cried, and today if she did it would show in her eyes and her mother would say that all men did this to you; that mothers were the best companions. She looked in the mirror, she could not go down yet. She opened the window and stared out across the garden, across the fields they had just passed through, breathing in the spring air, letting the breeze cool her face.

They were both sitting at the table when she re-entered, her mother pouring tea from the silver pot.

‘So your father is a solicitor, is he?’ she was saying, her face stretched into a smile. ‘And you have a studio just a few yards from the Underground station. Cannon Street did you say? Alton Mews? Most convenient.’ She turned to Helen. ‘Do take a scone, Helen. Heine says that he has not tasted anything like them ever.’

‘Indeed they are quite delicious, Mrs Carstairs.’ Heine smiled at Lydia and then at Helen. ‘Really, Helen, you did not tell me you had such a talented mother. I should have insisted on visiting you before at this …’ he paused and looked around the room. ‘At this comfortable and tranquil home.’

Helen watched her mother smile, not at her but at Heine. She could see that he had already eaten three sandwiches and she knew he did not like egg.

‘Yes, my father is a solicitor and of course is kept extremely busy. And my mother too because unfortunately our home is not as cosy as yours. It is big, too big.’

Helen watched as her mother looked again at Heine, her face thoughtful, but Helen knew she was just waiting.

‘And how large is your studio in London, Mr Weber?’

‘It is integrated into the flat I have. There is a pleasant garden and in the flat there is a spare room for guests. And of course I am not very far from Waterloo.’

‘And they’re bringing those new trolley buses in soon, aren’t they, the ones they use in Yorkshire? You know, Helen, those trackless trams. They’re cheaper, the paper says, and don’t interfere with the traffic so much. That will make it easier for you won’t it, Mr Weber? For your business?’

‘You are quite correct, Mrs Carstairs,’ Heine took a sip of tea from the bone china cup with pink flowers. Her mother’s best, Helen noticed. He set the cup carefully in the saucer, before looking up at Helen and her mother.

Helen also looked at her mother who was patting her mouth with her napkin then back at Heine. His smile was sincere, his voice anxious. She felt warmth flood over her. Perhaps it would be all right. Perhaps Heine was going to make her like him.

‘Helen, the meringues are on the kitchen table. Now pass me your cup and I shall refill it for you, Mr Weber.’

Helen rose, looking from her mother to Heine. It would not be all right. She understood her mother’s words. Helen carried the plate back into the room together with the silver-plated cake tongs and placed it beside her mother. She could not look up.

‘Now tell me more about yourself, Mr Weber,’ her mother asked as she chose the largest meringue for Helen and placed it carefully on a small white plate and then passed one to Heine. ‘I think from your accent you must be Dutch.’

Heine did not falter, he did not look at Helen who had stopped and turned. Her chair was still two paces away from her.

‘I was born in Germany, Mrs Carstairs.’

Her mother held the plate quite still, her fingers whitening. She said nothing but she smiled and there was satisfaction in her eyes. It was the smile she used when Helen came out of the cupboard.

Steam was coming from the spout of the teapot, a slash of light caught the lid. Heine reached forward and took the plate from her mother’s grasp, saying as he did so, ‘Do you mind if I begin? It looks too delicious to ignore.’

Her mother said nothing. Helen moved to her chair now but
did not eat her meringue. Didn’t Heine know what had just happened? Couldn’t he see from her mother’s eyes? But no, of course not, no one could but her.

Heine looked at Mrs Carstairs, his face gentle, his voice firm. ‘I know that it is difficult to divest ourselves of the past. Of the pain that both our nations experienced. There are some who cannot forgive or forget but I know that those of us with compassion and tolerance, such as you, Mrs Carstairs, can see beyond that. I have chosen to live in England because I prefer it to my own land. I prefer its people, its tolerance. Its essence. I know that you will understand what I mean.’ He was holding her mother’s arm now.

Lydia Carstairs was looking at him, feeling the weight of his hand, hearing his words, hating him for thinking that he could take her daughter from her. She is mine, she wanted to shout into his face, but she said nothing.

‘I wish to marry Helen, Mrs Carstairs. I love her and I will take care of her but I will not marry without your approval.’ He looked at Helen who still did not eat. Heine smiled at her but she could only look at him and then at her mother who had still not spoken, still not moved.

Heine pushed back his chair. ‘I feel it would be too impolite to smoke in your home, Mrs Carstairs. I shall go into the garden if I may.’ He rose and smiled again at Helen but his blue eyes were dark and the lines were deep across his forehead and around his eyes and as he left the room his limp seemed more pronounced.