The Little House Page 15
‘Nothing,’ Ruth said unwillingly. Against her pulled-up legs she could feel her heart pounding. ‘It’s nothing. I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry for what?’ one of the women demanded.
‘Nothing,’ Ruth said. ‘I just want to be left alone.’
‘But I don’t want to leave you alone,’ Agnes said. ‘Why do you never speak to anyone?’
Ruth looked to George again. He was leaning forward, waiting for her answer.
‘I’m not well,’ Ruth said.
‘Why do you cut yourself off?’ Agnes demanded.
‘I’m overtired,’ Ruth said. ‘I need to sleep …’
‘You’ve been sleeping ever since you got here!’ Agnes exclaimed. Other people nodded. It was like a steady, insistent tow, bringing Ruth out of the depths of her despair into a bright, interrogating light. ‘Why d’you never say anything? Why do you even try not to listen?’
‘I don’t …’ Ruth said desperately.
‘You do,’ one of the men said. His voice was gentle. Ruth turned to him, hoping he would rescue her from this attack. ‘You do try not to listen, and you look at the picture any time someone raises their voice.’
‘It’s just …’ Ruth started and then broke off.
They were all waiting. She looked up at the picture and then out the window over the wet fields. The view reminded her, inescapably, of the little house and the dreadful, dreadful loss of Thomas. She could feel panic building inside her at the thought of his absence, and then she found it bursting out of her mouth, in a high childlike voice, which she did not even recognize. She thought she was going to cry for Thomas, but instead she said: ‘I miss my mother!’ in a voice that was not her own but a child’s voice ringing with grief. ‘I miss my mummy! She’s dead and I can’t bear it! And I don’t know what will happen to me! And I miss her! And I miss her! And I miss her!’
She was screaming as she cried, and she felt her face hot and wet with an unstoppable stream of tears. No one moved towards her, no one enfolded her in their arms, no one even touched her. Ruth hugged herself while the dreadful racking sobs went on, and rocked her own body back and forth, and felt the horror of being a little girl, weeping in deep grief, with no one at hand. Only when the hoarse, horrified sobs quietened a little did George the nurse cross the floor towards her and put his arms around her and draw her head onto his shoulder as if she were a very small girl.
‘I see you miss her,’ he said gently. Ruth could hear his voice coming from deep in his chest. ‘I think that was the most awful thing to happen to a little girl.’
Ruth felt her energy stream through her, from her toes to the very top of the head, as if her tears had somehow burst through a blockage that had cut her in half, kept her half dead, half cold, half turned to stone for all her life since the death of her mother. ‘It was,’ she said with certainty. ‘And everyone told me not to mind, and that everything would be all right.’
George pulled back so he could see her face. For the first time since she had been in the group she looked directly at him, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were red-rimmed but bright. She looked alive for the first time since he had seen her. ‘Was everything all right?’ he asked.
Ruth drew a breath that seemed to resonate through her very bones. ‘No,’ she said with a simple certainty. ‘I did mind, though I never told anyone how much. And everything was not all right. And everything has been wrong ever since.’
That afternoon Ruth slept without dreaming, a deep, easy sleep as if she had been at hard manual work all day. When she woke it was time for tea, and she went down to the refectory and saw Agnes and one of the men from the group at a table together. When they saw her they turned and smiled, and Ruth took her tea tray over to their table and joined them. Nobody said very much, but Ruth knew that she was among people who had witnessed her deep and agonized grief, and had not turned away.
That evening Patrick telephoned from work to speak to his mother.
‘There’s a new producer here, at a bit of a loose end,’ he said. ‘I was wondering if we could stretch to another place at dinner?’
‘Of course,’ Elizabeth said agreeably. In the background Patrick could hear his son cooing.
‘I can hear Thomas,’ he said with pleasure.
‘Yes, he’s just finishing his tea,’ his mother said. ‘Of course you can bring someone home, darling.’
‘About eight o’clock then,’ Patrick said. ‘She’s new to the area so I’ll drive her out and home again after dinner.’
Elizabeth noted in silence that he had asked if he could invite a guest before explaining that it was a woman. ‘Of course,’ Elizabeth said.
‘About eight then,’ Patrick said again.
Elizabeth put down the telephone and turned back to Thomas’s tea. Frederick was proffering a spoonful of strained blackberries at arm’s length. Thomas waved sticky hands. His face, his hair, his arms to his elbows were plastered in dark juice.
‘A guest for dinner,’ Elizabeth said neutrally.
‘That’ll be nice,’ Frederick said. ‘Anyone we know?’
‘A lady producer,’ Elizabeth said, her tone carefully level.
‘Oh,’ Frederick said.
There was a brief silence. Thomas reached out, took the spoon, and put it to his cheek, his nose, and finally his mouth.
‘I wonder if that’s quite cricket?’ Frederick said thoughtfully. ‘With Ruth in a convalescent home, and all. You know if she were in hospital with a broken leg we’d be visiting her every day, and there would be no guests at dinner.’
Elizabeth rinsed a warm flannel at the sink to wipe Thomas’s face and hands. ‘Exactly,’ she said.
Frederick waited for an explanation.
‘If she were in hospital with a broken leg, then we would know that she was happily married to Patrick, and a good wife and mother, and that she had suffered an unfortunate accident and was coming home soon.’
She wiped Thomas’s mouth with careful efficiency, undid the straps on the high chair, and lifted him out.
‘Instead she had a breakdown and could not cope with motherhood or married life, and we don’t know if she will ever come home, or what sort of state she’ll be in when she does come home.’
‘Still married,’ Frederick said softly.
‘I don’t see Patrick as tied to a sick woman for the rest of his life,’ Elizabeth said. She held Thomas against her shoulder and patted him gently on the back, waiting for him to burp. ‘I don’t see that he should sacrifice his life, with all his prospects, just because she can’t cope.’
Frederick nodded but was unconvinced.
‘Besides,’ Elizabeth said, ‘what matters most is Thomas, and making sure that Thomas is safe and happy.’
Frederick nodded. ‘Here with us,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
Despite the warmth of Elizabeth’s welcome and Frederick’s unfailing courtesy, the evening did not go well. The visiting producer, Emma, had thought that when Patrick invited her to dinner he would be taking her to a restaurant, and she had worn a rather low-cut black dress. In the sitting room, on the chintz-covered sofa, she looked overdressed and tarty. Elizabeth, sitting beside her in a smart woollen suit with her pearls, could not put her at ease.
‘Do you all live together?’ Emma asked curiously.
‘My daughter, Miriam, lives in Canada,’ Elizabeth said, carefully misunderstanding. ‘She’s got the travel bug. She’s just like her father. She did two years voluntary service in Africa and now she teaches disadvantaged children in Canada. She’s just outside Toronto.’
At dinner Emma announced that she was a strict vegetarian. Elizabeth’s smile never wavered. She left Frederick carving the joint of beef and went to the kitchen, reappearing with a vegetable quiche and a green salad.
‘I would have said,’ Emma remarked. ‘But I thought Patrick was taking me out for dinner.’
‘I do admire you,’ Elizabeth replied. ‘I couldn’t bear to give up meat.’
‘Of course,’ Frederick said pleasantly. ‘Will you have it with your cup of tea or after?’
Fortunately, Patrick had a report from his documentary unit on television that evening, and so they watched it in silence.
‘Excellent,’ Frederick said as he switched off the set at the end of the programme, and after they had admired Patrick’s large billing as executive producer.
‘I thought you went rather soft on the police,’ Emma remarked. ‘Someone should have put the civil-liberties angle.’
‘It wasn’t that sort of programme,’ Patrick explained.
‘I understand that – that’s my problem with it,’ Emma insisted. ‘It’s soft-focus news. I think you’d get more viewers if you were harder.’
Elizabeth and Frederick exchanged a brief look. They had never heard Patrick contradicted – it was a strange and unpleasant experience to have this badly dressed stranger take him to task in their own drawing room.
‘It seemed right at the time.’ Patrick did not reveal that hers was exactly the same comment made by the Head of News. ‘The right tone for the piece.’
‘But all your pieces have this tone,’ she said. ‘Kind of daytime television, comfy viewing. I thought you’d go for more bite.’
‘Maybe,’ Patrick said equably. ‘Look! Is that the time? Would you like a nightcap, Mother? Emma? Father?’
‘Not for me,’ she said briskly. ‘I’ll call a taxi.’
‘I’ll drive you back,’ Patrick said, getting to his feet. He had rather assumed that he would run her back to her hotel in Bristol, and that she would invite him up to her room for a nightcap and that they would have sex.
‘Not all the way to Bristol at this time of night!’ she said. ‘I made a note of the number.’
Briskly she went out to the hall and telephoned for a taxi. Frederick and Elizabeth tidied the cups and glasses and went into the kitchen and tactfully closed the door.
‘I was rather looking forward to driving you back to Bristol,’ Patrick said engagingly. He smiled his charming television smile.
‘I was rather looking forward to dinner in a quiet restaurant and walking back to my hotel,’ she said smartly.
‘Sorry.’ Until now it had not occurred to him that he was being snubbed, that she had disliked spending the evening with his parents. He was so accustomed to Ruth’s complaisance that this woman’s rejection of him, of his parents, even of his mother’s cooking did not make sense. He thought he was bestowing on her a great privilege – inviting her to his home. ‘Perhaps we got off to a bad start … you see …’ he paused and played for her sympathy … ‘my mother is caring for my son, so I like to be here in the evening, in case he wakes. My wife is away, she’s ill, and my son needs me. He’s only a baby.’
‘I know, I’ve heard all about it at the studio.’
Patrick uncomfortably wondered what exactly she might have heard. ‘She’s in a convalescent home, a sort of health farm. She’s unstable.’
‘I have children too,’ Emma said surprisingly.
‘You do?’
‘Yes. Two, actually. I’m divorced. Their father has them when I have to go away.’
‘I had no idea …’
‘I never discuss them at work,’ she said smartly. ‘People patronize a woman if they know she’s a mother and managing on her own.’
Patrick felt obscurely that his sympathy card had been soundly trumped. He managed a game smile. ‘It’s hard work bringing them up on your own. I’m only just learning the ropes.’
‘I’d certainly like the live-in staff you have,’ Emma said acidly. ‘Does your mother get up to him at night, as well as having him all day?’
‘He goes through the night now,’ Patrick lied. ‘Thank God!’
Emma raised her arched eyebrows.
Patrick heard the taxi draw up outside and went to the door. He slipped Emma’s coat around her shoulders and just brushed the bare nape of her neck.
‘See you tomorrow,’ he said softly. ‘And maybe we’ll find that quiet restaurant later in the week.’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But perhaps you had better stay at home with your mother.’
Ruth slowly started to talk in the group. She told them of the death of her mother and father and how her aunt had tried to protect her from feeling grief, from the bereavement itself. They had buried her parents without telling her, she had never been able to say good-bye; and whenever her aunt, or her husband, Ruth’s Uncle Stephen, had found the little girl in tears, at bedtime, or bathtime, or walking slowly home from school, they had said bracingly to her, ‘Don’t cry now! What have you got to cry about? A big girl like you!’ And Ruth – not understanding that they were thinking of the orphanage where she could have gone, if they had not agreed to take her – could only look at them and wonder if they had forgotten already.
She told the group about the long years of loneliness and silent grief, that she had been teased for talking ‘funny’ at school, and for not knowing the English children’s stories. She told them that in the end she had decided to erase her American childhood from her mind, smooth out the American twang from her speech, pass as an English girl in an English home. Not until she met Patrick – and especially Patrick’s family – had she found a complete solution to the emptiness, and to the question of where she belonged. Elizabeth and Frederick and the beautiful house, the warmth of their welcome, and the ease with which they called her ‘daughter’ made her feel as if she were not lonely and sad and missing her parents, and a foreigner in a strange country, but were instead pampered and loved and wanted.
She tried to describe the farmhouse and Elizabeth’s hospitality and her kindness, but the people in the group did not smile and nod as if they understood.
‘It’s like a perfect house,’ she said. ‘A perfect house, and they are just perfect parents.’
There was a brief silence. Ruth wondered why she sounded so unconvincing. Then Agnes spoke.
‘I think they’ve done you over,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘I think they’ve done you over.’
Ruth checked her reply, swallowed the words, started again, almost choked. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘I think they saw you coming,’ Agnes said. ‘Lonely, all on your own, no parents, and no guardians who cared that much for you, and I think they thought they could make you fit in. You’d spent all your childhood trying to fit in. You would learn to fit with them. They wanted you because you wouldn’t rock the boat. They could keep their darling son, and you wouldn’t be able to take him away. You didn’t have anywhere to take him away to.’
Ruth was about to exclaim that Agnes was talking complete nonsense, but she saw that other people were nodding, as if they agreed.
‘It’s not like that at all,’ she said swiftly. ‘They’re very loving people. They are wonderful in-laws! Why, when I was so tired with Thomas, Elizabeth would have him all day, every day. She’s got him now so Patrick can go to work. She’s been completely wonderful. She’s been like a mother to me.’
Agnes shook her head stubbornly. ‘Or else she liked you because she knew you’d never have the balls to take Patrick away from her, and then she took your son from you.’
The enormity of the lie filled Ruth’s head like a rushing wind. ‘That’s a dreadful thing to say! That’s a wicked thing to say! She loves me, and of course she loves her son and her grandson, and she would do anything to make us all happy. Anything!’
‘Yes,’ Agnes said. ‘But what if what makes Patrick happy and Thomas happy is to get rid of you?’
Ruth went white and turned to George. ‘Tell her to shut up,’ she said sharply.
George leaned forward. ‘Why is it such a bad suggestion?’ he asked. ‘If it’s not true, it doesn
’t matter what she says. Does it?’
Agnes looked triumphant, like a bully in a playground. ‘They’ve done you over,’ she said again. ‘And they’ve nearly won. They got you into such a state that you were hardly there at all. You’ve lost your baby and you’ve lost your husband and you’re in the loony bin. You’re a loony, and they did it to you. Don’t tell me that they love you.’
‘No,’ Ruth screamed. She jumped and ran at Agnes to push her ugly gloating face away. George moved like lightning and grabbed her from behind. He wrestled her to the ground and held her still. Ruth struggled and swore, words that she had never used. Words that Elizabeth had never heard.
‘No physical contact,’ George said in her ear. He sounded perfectly calm. ‘Those are the rules. No physical contact.’
‘I’ll kill her!’ Ruth gasped. ‘I’ll kill the bitch!’
‘No physical contact,’ George said again.
In the distance, Ruth heard a bell ring and heard the noise of running feet. Then George’s weight was lifted from her and she lunged towards Agnes again. At once she was enveloped in a tight fold of material, like a white sheet. She bucked and struggled, but they had her fast. They slung her, like a rolled carpet, onto a trolley and wheeled her out of the room, to her bedroom. They humped her onto the bed without unwrapping her; if anything the bindings were pulled tighter. All Ruth could see was the ceiling, and all she could feel was the firm, gentle handling. ‘I’ll kill her,’ she said again.
‘No physical contact,’ one of the nurses said. ‘Now you have a little sleep, and next time you see her, you tell her what you think of her.’
There was a slight prick in the skin of her inner arm and then Ruth felt the delicious languor spreading all over her. ‘It’s not true, what she said,’ she whispered.
‘Well, you tell her that,’ the nurse recommended. ‘No point in killing her. But you could tell her that she’s wrong.’
‘She is wrong,’ Ruth asserted. ‘They love me like a daughter. I know they do.’