Monday, May 26, 2008

Davey had brought home a new school photograph. Annie always ordered them secretly, then stowed them away in her treasure trove of memories. Stuart didn’t care much for photos - he was like Father in that respect, as he was in more ways than he’d care to acknowledge - but Annie treasured these happy snapshots, frozen aside from their earthly contexts.

She picked out her well-thumbed picture of baby Joe, the only photograph ever taken of her younger brother before he died. Mum had pressed it into her hand the day they’d all been turfed out of Bath Road, the day she’d watched the bulldozers destroy their family home. Joe was such a beautiful baby, and there was something of him in Davey. Only in Davey, there was also an unfortunate helping of Stuart.

She squinted at the digital cloak on the teasmaid; he’d be home soon enough expecting his ‘dinner’. She’d better get a move on.

Downstairs in the living room, Davey was watching Rainbow on the new television. Everyone in the street was fascinated by what was on ‘the tele’; but while Stuart boasted with pride in his seven year old son's knowledge of the on-screen characters, Annie watched his little red cheeks turn pasty.

‘Davey, why don’t you go play outside, love?’ she said, ‘Luke’s out on his bike.’

Davey’s eyes didn’t move from the screen. ‘No thanks, Mum’, he said, wrapped up in the high-pitched singing of a pink furry hippo, ‘Luke’s boring.’ Annie hated that word, and she knew he'd learned it from Stuart. There seemed little point even attempting to assert herself as anything but the carer in Davey’s life. Daddy held all the influence around here; she’d lost her son to him years ago.

‘Okay. Just watch you don't forget about yer nice bike from Gran ‘n’ Granfer’, Annie said. Davey made a face and she left him in his pixelled paradise, walking into the kitchen to cook the tea.

Thursday night was Shepherd’s Pie. He would expect it, and his expectations could not be disappointed. So disinterested in food these days, Annie found it a struggle to eat enough to remain above suspicion. And yet she almost needn't bother. Invariably wolfing down his own tea with a large glass of lambrusco and his eyes fixed on the goggle box, Stuart would hardly notice if her fork never even made it to her mouth.

The doorbell rang.

‘Sorry, Bunny! Left my key in the office!’ Stuart insisted on calling her this, though she made no secret of how much she hated it. He said she was his cute little bunny, timid and shy. It was not what she had envisaged being for anyone. He kissed her forcefully on the lips, leaving the imprint of his own on her thawing mouth. Then he handed her his coat and strode into the living room, dumping his briefcase behind the sofa.

‘So how’s Daddy’s best boy?’ he said, scooping Davey up in his arms and whizzing him around his head. Davey was screaming with delight and Annie shrunk beneath the noise. Not so much from envy or jealousy anymore – she’d long since stopped seeking any attention from Stuart. But the pain of her insignificance in either of these boys’ lives still stung.

‘Daddy’s got Davey a pressie!’ said Stuart. Davey jumped up and down on the sofa, love written all over his face, while Annie grimaced and bit her tongue. Again? Almost every other day now, the king would return to his castle bearing gifts, and still her housekeeping money made it a challenge of thrift and maths to put food on the table - or rather on the laps - of her family. An Action Man, straight off an ad on the box. Davey had more toys than all the other children in the road put together. No surprise really, that he’d lost interest in playing with them.

Stuart switched to the news and collapsed into his chair as the egg timer rang, summoning Annie back to her cooking.

Mum had never understood phones, so it was the nursing home that called. Father was dead, but Annie felt nothing. Not sadness, remorse, relief – not even anger anymore.

‘So the old bastard’s shuffled off at last then’, said Stuart, momentarily looking up from The Daily Mail when she delivered the news.

‘Stuart, I don’t see why you have to –’

‘Bunny, you’re surely not about to try and sell me the bloke?’ said Stuart, his head now reburied in his paper. ‘He made your life hell! If it wasn’t for me –’

‘I just don’t need Davey to hear you talk that way’, said Annie. ‘Not about an old man - his grandad!’

‘Okay’, said Stuart.

‘Are we going to Granfer’s funeral?’ asked Davey, looking up from his homework table on the far side of the room.

‘Well, I – ’

‘No’, said Stuart. ‘Your mother can do as she sees fit, but you and I, Davey, will not be going.’

‘Stuart, I – ’

‘Now don’t get all emotional Bunny’, said Stuart, carefully placing his newspaper on the coffee table. ‘I’ve made the decision and that’s that. If you really think it’s a bright idea to put yourself through all that then –’

‘I’m going’, said Annie. Avoiding Davey’s beaming blue eyes, she shot Stuart a subversive look before heading into the kitchen. To make His tea no less.

‘What’s for di –’, began Stuart when she reached the doorway.

‘Nothing as yet’, said Annie. She closed the door firmly behind her, located her cigarettes from the cutlery draw and opened a window. ‘Dinner’ would be a while tonight.

Three days later, Annie stood in the rain outside, waiting for a taxi. She needed to get to the home where her mum lived by 10.15, so that they at least could face this day together.

Her mum, or ‘Bibi’ as she now liked to be called, shouldn’t really have been living in a home at all. One of the last to leave Bath Road she was, still holding her ground when the bulldozers came knocking on her door. Though Annie and Stuart had lived with the family since they were married, Annie understood that Stuart’s patience was wearing thin. She’d always known that he would refuse to have her mum live with them.

Annie and Davey had watched transfixed – the methodical flattening of the only home they’d even known. But Stuart had dragged them away, symbolically pulling apart whatever ‘relationship’ he’d had with his in-laws. Just two years ago and yet it already felt to Annie like she was remembering another life. Receiving not so much as a goodbye from her well-to-do son-in-law, Bibi must have prepared herself then for the end of life as she’d known it. Father was already losing his marbles at a rate worth gambling on, and fortunately Cedar House had agreed to take them together.

‘Why did you never leave him?’ Annie had asked one day, staring at Father’s picture while he was off being bathed.

Her mum had looked at her and smiled – a lost, distant smile of one who has lived to see her children die and the world gather speed. ‘There was never a right time, Luv’, she said. And leaning back into the superficially polished nursing home chair Annie had meditated on this, trying to draw from it some form of meaning.

Her mum reached out and touched her knee. ‘He gave us all we needed. You know that, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Your father provided you and me with a life.’

Annie considered this.

‘And it’s very difficult to leave these things we call our ‘life’ behind, no matter how painful staying put might be…’ It was Bibi’s first words that afternoon that had struck a chord in Annie’s heart: there was never a right time. As the taxi pulled into Cedar’s, she was still considering her mum’s long, hard life. She thought about Joe’s death and her own prison-like childhood. She could see how important it was to find that right time.

Bibi was already waiting in the reception lobby with a nurse. She was dressed to perfection in dark green wool coat and skirt, black court shoes and an ornate emerald broach Annie recognised from special occasions as a child. Her hair was newly permed and set, protected under a plastic rain hood; she clutched a small green bag in one hand, along with an umbrella that matched it exactly. The nurse held her by the other arm, passing her on like a parcel to Annie who took her down the front steps and into the taxi.

‘You look fantastic, Bibi’, said Annie, and her mum blushed, almost coquettishly. She knew she did. There was something vulnerable about her today, a certain fear in her light blue eyes and a childlike nervousness. But she knew she looked her best and was proud of it.

‘You look lovely yourself, Annie’, she said, and for a moment Annie paused to relish this freedom: a new world where they could be civil, kind to each other even, without reprimand or criticism.

The funeral was beyond desolate. Annie, Bibi, an estranged cousin Doug and a chap from down Bath Road who used to sell Father his meat. His name, which they’d never known before, was Ron. They talked of the old times and the wrench of leaving their beloved community. Ron shared news about Mary Glover, the grocer’s daughter, who had since run off with some gypsy; ‘Scarlet’ they called her now.

‘Blige, Ron. Scarlet?’ Doug scoffed. ‘I mean, I ask ye – she baint be no film star!’

‘Them gypsies takin’ over up there now’, said Ron, signalling up hill with a jerk of his head. ‘Like they owns the place. That there eagle were pride of Bristol once, but what’ve we got now eh?’

‘Heavin’ rubbish dump and all they vermin kiddies!’ said Doug.

And the bleeding rest!’

Annie turned to Bibi. Her mum’s eyes followed the men’s gaze but were reaching far beyond the latest eyesore on the horizon. Annie looked back at the men, blankly. Anything was better than talking of the dead man they’d come to consider. Had they really come to pay their respects?

There were no poems, no personal readings, and the director’s address was so irrelevant Annie found herself thinking about Father only by way of negatives: the loving father he was not; the husband so clearly unmissed. The whole thing was over too quickly for Annie; emptiness raged in her chest. She needed to feel something if she were to take any meaning at all from the life of this man who held power in his fingertips, now rendered as futile as the ‘respect’ he had demanded. Though the lash of his cane had ceased ringing in her ears, deeper scars still bled for resolution.

As the body journeyed towards the furnace, Annie felt cheated. Now the memory of this bitter man would be laid to rest, the incinerated evidence lost to the cosmos. Bibi’s eyes were full of tears. Ron offered her his handkerchief and stroked her back, gestures of comfort Annie felt unable to extend. How could she empathize with grief in this death when she didn’t yet know how to grieve even the living memories?

As they left Annie took Bibi’s arm; it was easy to hide in practical help. They bid Ron and Doug goodbye and returned to the waiting taxi together, journeying in silence back to the home. There was to be no wake. Already there was nothing more to say.

But, as Annie stood up to leave, Bibi pressed a bundle of letters into her hand. ‘Please forgive me’, she said, ‘I just didn’t know how to do it with your father here.’ Annie looked at the pile of envelopes, each addressed in the same spidery script to their old house in Bath Road. Turning the top letter over confirmed her greatest hope and dread – that the sender was none other than a Mr. Davey Grace of Balham, London. She was struck as though by labour pains welling up again in her stomach. She bent over, stood up, sat down, didn’t know what to do with herself. She felt she might choke if she even attempted to speak. Putting her face in her hands, she dropped the precious pile onto the floor.

‘I’m sorry, Annie’, said Bibi, ‘I thought it for the best.’ And yet what had changed? Bibi had gained some release today, amid the depressing lonely funeral of a hated man. Maybe she wanted to give her daughter a chance after all.

‘I –’, Annie began, at last able to open her mouth without screaming.

‘I was just waiting for the right time’, said Bibi, tears in her eyes and her forehead racked in desperation.

‘Bye, Mum’, managed Annie. Kissing her mum on the head she ran, for the first time in years, out of the home and back out into the rain.

For once Annie resisted thinking sensibly. Arriving back in Cairns Road she asked the cab to wait and went inside. She emptied the housekeeping jar into her handbag and shot to the bedroom, grabbing a pink shawl in an attempt to de-funeralise her clothing. She found Stuart’s sports holdall and stuffed in a pair of corduroys, a clean white blouse and a brown pullover. Without considering why she added her wedding underwear and a red shift dress she’d never worn.

14.54 on the day Father became dust, Annie stood awaiting the fast train from Temple Meads to London Paddington. Ticket bought and platform checked, she at last allowed herself to think. Davey had after school gym club and would need fetching at 4.30pm. Standing in the broken glass of the telephone box, she dialled the office number.

‘C. J. Hole Westbury! Can I help you?’ sang a familiar voice.

‘Please don’t transfer me, Rachel.’

‘Annie? Is that you? Are you okay? Stuart’s on a –’

‘Look, Rachel’, said Annie, enjoying the forcefulness of her own voice, ‘I need you to give him a message: to meet Davey from school at half four. It’s important. Just tell him I’ve had to go away for a couple of days.’

‘What – is it the funeral Annie? Are you –?’

‘Just do that for me, will you? Half four?’ said Annie. ‘Please.’

‘Of course, I – ’ Annie replaced the receiver, satisfied that the message would get through. She’d left no note. She didn’t yet know what she wanted to say. She abandoned the seedy warmth of the phone box and breathed.

The journey passed quickly. In between reading and rereading Davey’s letters, Annie picked up a discarded Woman’s Own and became lost in other women’s dilemmas. Each one was advised to ‘follow the gut feeling’. Annie had no feeling at all in her body except that of sickness.

You’re the only girl I was ever able to talk to, he wrote. In 1963 his dad had died and his aunty returned to live with her travelling friends. But he’d done okay at school and found himself work in a jam factory. He lived in a small bed-sit by himself. If you were here it’d feel like a palace, Annie R.

Five years passed by: I still hope one day my princess’ll return to her castle… Course, you’re most probably married by now? But if you weren’t… Oh what did it mean in any case? A foolish marriage to a lifestyle she despised.

I will never stop wishing we’d run away together that day. The phrase was occupying too much space in her head, turning itself over and over. It wanted to burst out of her and scream, is it too late?

‘Oi – watch where you’re going, Miss!’ She’d been looking around for a street map, or a sympathetic face; she realized a hurried man had been attempting to manoeuvre her dithering body.

‘Sorry.’ She smiled guiltily at a face that possessed not even half the fierceness of its voice.

‘Not from round ‘ere, eh?’

‘No, I –’ She took out from her handbag one of Davey’s letters, as if she had not memorized the address. ‘I’m looking for 15A Byrne Road.’ The gruff man escorted her out of the station and signalled her directions.

It was raining in Balham too, and very dark, but she found the street quickly. Looking at the rows of London terraces, she suddenly felt out of her depth, heavily aware how crazy a thing she was doing. Would Davey want her after all this time? Would he even let her in? The last letter had been sent a good few years ago and surely he’d given up on her by now. Would he recognise the twelve-year-old child whose heart still beat for him?

She approached number eleven. The next house was boarded up and in total disrepair. Good old unlucky number thirteen, she thought. But then she saw how the superstition ran even deeper; the next house was not fifteen at all, but seventeen. As many such thirties streets, there was no number thirteen. And so it was Davey’s house that was deserted; for the second time in her life she was too late.

She sat down on the roadside doorstep. Once again she was inconsolable Annie whose world had fallen apart. The rain poured on down.

Commuters began to arrive back from city jobs. Smart suits, briefcases and black umbrellas: the London uniform. A couple passed her by, riffling for their keys. A crack of thunder woke her up and she became frantic.

‘Where’s he gone? Mr Grace. You know where he’s gone?’ The Londoners eyed her with mild interest and said nothing. They carefully stepped across the pathway so as not to be too near her.

A smartly dressed African lady with a baby strapped to her back turned into number eleven. Annie followed her.

‘Please’, she said, ‘I know you think I’m nuts. Maybe I am…’ The woman was hunting in her purse hurriedly, turning around to place herself between Annie and the child. ‘Please, Ma’am, I’m looking for Mr Grace – you know him? Can you tell me where he’s gone?’ Having finally located her keys, the lady pushed them into the lock, but then held them still.

‘You meaning Davey Grace – used to be living in this bedsit?’ she said. Annie nodded and the lady moved around to shelter her baby in the doorway. ‘You really not know?’

‘Know what?’ asked Annie, lighting up with desire at the mention of his name, eager for news whatever sort it might be. But she just hadn’t thought –

‘They say he done kill hisself. Two year ago.’ Annie froze. ‘I not believing it, mind. He did many drugs and owed much money. The Lord knows it make more sense he not mean to do this thing.’ Annie had forgotten again how to breathe.

‘You very wet’, said the lady, examining Annie from head to toe. ‘You need hot drink?’

‘No. I mean, no thank you’, said Annie, ‘I – I think I should get back.’ Picking up Stuart’s sodden holdall she moved in the direction of the station, aware of the lady’s prayerful eyes upon her until eventually the door gently shut.

On the Underground journey back to Paddington, Annie noticed an elderly woman reading a battered copy of The Boy Next Door by Enid Blyton.* Maybe Davey’s neighbour had been mistaken? Any of the mid-thirties men in the carriage might be a potential adult version of the boy-next-door she had adored. Could she really have lost her soul mate today so finally, after all these years?

But Annie could mourn all she liked. She had made her choices and she would continue to make them. The decisions Davey had made were his own and she was foolish to believe he could have made any for her; he couldn’t in ‘57 when he moved away, and he couldn’t now, dead.

Across from her, a small boy asleep on his mother’s lap reminded Annie of her own little Davey, the boy who needed her and in whose life she could still make a difference. She had to be brave, allow her heart to beat a little louder. If she was going to leave Stuart, she would have to do it for herself, not for a mythical man who’d left her behind. And if she was going to leave Stuart, she would take Davey with her. She owed it to him not to give up so easily on the life she had valued once upon a time. She would value it again.

It was nearly 1am by the time her cab pulled up outside 23 Cairns Road. The light was on in the living room, and as Annie walked up the drive she braced herself for an irate Stuart to emerge. But the house didn’t stir. Turning her key in the door, Annie felt a sudden surge of adrenalin through her nerves. Today could be a beginning after all.

Stuart sat in the living room reading the paper. He looked up when she entered and smiled strangely. ‘Everything okay, Bunny?’

‘Yes, thanks’, said Annie, not really knowing how to respond to this calm acceptance of her disappearance. But inside she remained resolute. ‘You know, I’d really like you not to call me that’, she said.

‘Alrighty’, said Stuart, shining eyes fixed on her bedraggled body. ‘By the way, thanks for the message earlier. Saved you some dinner in the oven.’ Annie put the holdall down and went out into the kitchen for a cigarette. She didn’t recognise her husband, and yet he probably didn’t recognise her right now either. She almost didn’t recognise herself. His presumption that she would return irritated her; his spooky kindness both concerned and exhilarated her.

She took the mashed potato and fish fingers he’d put by into the living room.

‘Hard day, eh Bu - er, Annie?’ said Stuart, this time without looking up.

‘Yes, I –’

‘Just next time Sweetheart, please don’t take my holdall, there’s a love. I needed it for squash.’ Annie stared at her husband for a moment.

‘Okay’, she said. Next time she would pack her own suitcase, and Davey’s too.