January 1935
Irene’s father put his head round the door of the sitting room, where Irene was working at the table. ‘I’m going out for a paper.’ It was late on a gloomy Saturday afternoon.
‘May I have some peppermints, pretty please, Dad?’ She widened her eyes and cocked her head in a pleading look, which made him smile.
‘I’ll see what I can do.’ He withdrew and a moment later she heard the front door close. He was gone.
She was to pore over this memory again and again in the days and the weeks that followed. How could she not have realized the importance of something as mundane as going down the street to the newsagent. If it had taken place in a film, portentous music would have played. Real life behaved in a more meaningless fashion. Random things happened without reason or warning.
For Philip Burns never returned home. Or rather he did, the following Thursday, but in a wooden coffin that arrived on Trueman & Son’s black-painted cart, topped by a spray of white chrysanthemums. The family gathered in sombre dress to walk behind it to the church for the funeral and from there to a corner of the graveyard where he was buried close to the plot in which, twenty-odd years earlier, his mother had been interred and, before that, his father.
Irene had idly thought he’d been an unconscionably long time buying a newspaper, but she hadn’t worried. She’d put her books away and was ironing her favourite blouse in the kitchen, which was nicely steamed up and smelled of rosewater, when there came an urgent knocking. She set down the iron and hurried into the hall in time to see her mother snatch open the front door. The panting bulk of Mr Hurd, the newsagent, filled the shallow porch, his cap clutched to his chest and his eyes bright with emotion. He said something while trying to catch his breath and she saw her mother stagger back with a little scream as though he’d struck her. Irene rushed forward to stop her falling.
‘Irene,’ Mr Hurd said, spotting her. ‘It’s your father. He’s . . . very ill, I’m sorry to tell you.’
‘Where?’ she gasped. She helped to steady her mother. ‘Have you called the doctor?’
‘Dr Stevens is with him now. Mrs Burns, you’d do well to stay here.’
‘No, I must go to him,’ Mrs Burns cried.
‘Not a good idea,’ Mr Hurd said. ‘There’s nothing anyone can do.’ His expression of devastation told Irene everything.
‘We need to go,’ Irene told him, firmly. ‘Mummy, come on, lean on me.’
In the shop, Mr Hurd showed Irene and her mother through to a sitting room, where Philip Burns lay on the settee with a blanket draped over his face. The doctor was there, drinking a cup of tea, which he hastily set down at their entrance. Mrs Hurd, a large and comfortable woman in late middle age, came forward to meet them, her eyes enormous in her pale face. An elderly basset hound lying on the hearthrug watched developments with a mournful expression.
Mrs Burns knelt by the settee and drew back the blanket. Philip’s face without his spectacles had a naked, vulnerable appearance. Irene’s hands flew to her cheeks. Her mother made a keening sound and sank forward across the body. Irene touched her shaking shoulders, but she gave no sign of noticing.
‘Let’s give the poor woman a bit of space, shall we?’ Mrs Hurd ushered Irene and the two men into the shop, where the gas lights cast the merchandise in an eerie glow. Mr Hurd locked the door, turned the sign and drew down the blind. The symbolism was not lost on Irene. Tears ran from her eyes and she began to sob. Dr Stevens patted her on the back in his avuncular fashion and soon her mother came through, looking upright and brave.
‘There was nothing I could do for him, I’m afraid, Mrs Burns,’ the doctor said.
‘That quick it was,’ Mr Hurd agreed and told them what had happened. ‘He paid for his Evening News and some peppermints and we had a bit of a chat. He looked tired, but I thought he was as usual. He asked me about the dog. I’d told him last week her back legs were going and we’d have to do the kind thing, and he was pleased to hear she was a bit better. I could see he was in pain, like. His face was grey and sweating. I asked him if he was all right and he just keeled over without another word. No warning at all.’
‘I’ll call in at Trueman’s on my way home, if you like, Mrs Burns,’ Dr Stevens said. ‘I expect he’ll come and collect your husband straight away.’
*
There had in fact been warning of Philip’s heart attack, but Irene’s parents had not seen fit to tell their children about it. He had been diagnosed with a weak heart several years before, her mother confessed later in the evening. Muriel had arrived by now to make endless pots of tea. Bill had gone to fetch Bess from their father’s. Clayton’s school had been contacted and his housemaster was putting him on the train home.
‘Why didn’t I know?’ Irene asked between sobs. She remembered the pills she’d seen in his bedside drawer and was ashamed now at her lack of curiosity. She’d assumed they were another of her mother’s fads, like the glass of liver salts he drank every day at her behest.
‘He didn’t want anyone to know. He didn’t like fuss.’
She knew that to be true. ‘The important thing is to keep the show on the road,’ had been one of his phrases. He had rarely missed a day’s work for illness, and became agitated if ever she or Clayton had become unwell.
‘If that young Mr Ratchett hadn’t come down on him so hard.’ Irene’s mother blamed problems at the office. Gentlemanly old Mr Ratchett had retired and his son was a more abrasive sort. ‘Always going on that Philip was slow. Slow. He was careful, that’s all. A more careful man never lived. Oh, Irene, he was a good man, your father.’
Irene hugged her mother, but found her all elbows and knees, despite her grief.
It was strange to be the one doing the comforting.
Clayton arrived home on the late train and Bill brought him home from the station. Irene was struck by pity, for her brother’s face was ashen, his expression wild. His mother clung to him as Irene stood awkwardly by, but then he caught her eye and gave her a rough hug, too. Philip had been the one who had held the family together and, for a brief while, they still felt his touch.
*
Bad news has a habit of flying round. The next morning brought Tom with a letter of sympathy for Irene from his mother. Maudie, who had often said wasn’t Tom a nice-looking lad and what was all the fuss about, answered the door. She fetched Irene, who was helping in the kitchen, then returned to polishing the silver, her standard response to a crisis.
Irene invited Tom in. Her mother was out, gone to Trueman’s to make arrangements for the funeral. Vases of fresh flowers filled the house, the parlour door stood permanently open for visitors. It felt too formal, though, so Irene showed Tom into the sitting room where, after a moment’s awkwardness, he opened his arms and embraced her.
‘Poor you. I’m so sorry about your dad.’ His tenderness made her cry again, but her handkerchief was already a soggy ball.
‘Here,’ he said, giving her his. She thanked him and blew her nose.
‘It’s wonderful of you to come,’ she sniffed. They hadn’t spoken much since their last, unhappy meeting on the seafront.
‘I’ll always come.’ His voice was gentle. ‘I wish I’d had the chance to get to know your father. He sounded a fine man.’
‘He was,’ she whispered. ‘And now it’s too late. Oh, poor Daddy. Margaret’s mother has written to Mummy,’ she added. ‘That’s kind of her.’
‘Yes,’ Tom said, looking embarrassed, so she wished she hadn’t mentioned Margaret’s name.
At least, she thought, when he left, the two of them were on friendly terms again. Her feeling of rejection had eased slightly.
In the privacy of her room she opened Miss Juniper’s letter. It spoke touchingly of the special love between fathers and daughters and Irene felt that here was someone who understood.
*
When Edith, Irene and Clayton followed Philip’s coffin into the church, it was Clayton’s arm Edith clung to. Aunt Bess’s pale blue hat was the one spot of brightness in the congregation, which, seen from behind, looked terrifying to Irene, like a malevolent gathering of crows. The rector spoke of her father’s quiet reliability, his devotion to his family and his God, his example of the race of life well run. While all this was true he wrapped it up in platitudes, lacing his remarks with biblical phrases. You didn’t really know him, Irene thought angrily. She kept remembering how tender her father was to her whenever her mother was angry. on the slow walk out of the church to the graveyard her eyes met those of Miss Juniper and Tom standing together in the back pew, and her heart shifted for a moment. Knowing that they were there in the crowd helped her through the moment when her father’s coffin was lowered into the gaping grave and she cast flower petals on it and whispered goodbye.
Later, over tea and sandwiches in the church hall, Miss Juniper asked to be introduced to Irene’s mother. Edith gave her a cursory handshake and thanked her for coming but would not meet her eye and passed swiftly on, leaving Irene to blush with shame at the snub.
The following morning, Edith insisted that her daughter go to school, despite Irene’s pleading.
‘Clayton’s still here.’ He was to remain at home until the following week.
‘He has further to go, and anyway I need him here.’ Edith was immovable.
That afternoon when Irene came out of school she was surprised to see Tom waiting at the gates. She glanced around for Margaret, but there was no sign. Instead it was Irene he greeted. He fell into step beside her. She was all too aware of curious looks from other girls, and took no pleasure in the attention.
‘I wanted to see how you were,’ he explained. ‘First day back and all that.’ She was touched by his concern.
‘It could have been worse. I had to go to see Miss Cartwright. She said I must go home if I needed, but I stuck it out. Doing quadratic equations takes one’s mind off things. Even death.’
Tom’s laugh was embarrassed and she felt sorry for her joke. She didn’t feel generous enough, however, to tell him how Margaret had approached her in the dining room and expressed her sympathies very kindly.
They stood aside from the milling crowd at the bus stop.
‘Mummy thinks I can go on as normal, as though nothing has happened,’ Irene explained. ‘She doesn’t realize Clayton and I are as upset as she is. And nothing is normal, Tom. People we hardly know knock on the door and have to be invited in. Or leave food on the doorstep with a note for us to find. It’s kind of them, I know they mean well, but it’s definitely not normal. Maudie’s quite put out by the disruption.’
‘How’s your mother?’ Tom asked as the bus hove into view.
‘Stoic,’ Irene said bitterly. She hadn’t told Tom what her mother had said about his and Miss Juniper’s appearance at the funeral. While acknowledging that it had been good of them to come, she’d complained that Irene’s association with them had caused her husband ‘so much worry’ and ‘if only, Irene, you’d choose some nice friends’, which made Irene cry in private. The thought that she had in any way contributed to her father’s demise was terrible, and it was thoughtless of her mother to suggest it. She’d confided in Aunt Muriel, and been relieved when Muriel had pressed Irene to her prickly bosom and reassured her that it hadn’t been Irene’s fault.
‘Never you mind your ma,’ Muriel said. ‘She’s all angles, she is. Had the softness beaten out of her by our dad. She was always the one that fought back, see. Always at it, those two, like hammer and tongs.’
*
When Irene arrived home from school, dropping her satchel in the hall, she found her mother curled up on the sofa in the sitting room, the cup of tea before her untouched. ‘Mummy?’ she said softly. She laid a hand on her mother’s shoulder, but there was no response.
‘You’ll get nothing out of her,’ Maudie called fretfully from the kitchen. ‘Best leave her to it.’ Irene retreated and went upstairs to change.
Clayton came out onto the landing, hands in pockets and appearing uncertain.
‘What’s wrong with Mumsy?’ he said, his eyes soft and anxious. He followed Irene into her bedroom.
‘Clay, I don’t know. I’ll come down in a minute.’
‘She went out after lunch and when she came back she was like this.’
Irene sighed. ‘Where did she go?’
‘If she said, I forgot.’
‘Oh, Clayton, you are hopeless. Look, I want to change my clothes.’
He withdrew, frowning. Irene closed the door and sat down on the bed, trying not to give into misery. After a minute or two she decided it was up to her to take charge. She threw on the first comfortable clothes to hand, hung up her uniform and hurried downstairs, Clayton following in her wake.
She was surprised to see their mother emerge from the sitting room. Her arms were folded and she exuded purpose, though her eyes were dull and red-rimmed. ‘You’d better come and sit down, both of you,’ she said. ‘I’ve things to say.’
They settled themselves obediently at the table, but she did not speak for a moment.
‘Mum?’ Clayton whined.
She shot him a thin smile and began. ‘I went to see young Mr Ratchett at the office this morning. Your father had lodged his will there. Then I went to the bank. The thing is . . .’ She made a strangled noise in her throat, then drew breath and started again. ‘There won’t be much money. We’ll have to cut back. I don’t know how yet, but it might mean selling this house.’
Irene gasped.
‘Where would we live? And what about school?’ Clayton’s wail grated.
‘I’ll do whatever I can to keep you there. I don’t know the answers to anything at the moment. Irene, you’ll need to find a job. The money will be important.’
‘But what about my Higher Certificate?’
‘I knew you’d be difficult.’
‘Mum, I’m not. Please let me stay. I’ll . . . see if Mr Hurd has a spare paper round.’
‘I don’t think what that pays will go far,’ she said in her coldest voice. ‘Your father would want to see Clayton set up, that’s the important thing. You’ll go back to school on Monday, Clay. For the moment so should you, Irene, but I’ll be writing to Miss Cartwright to say you’ll be leaving at Easter.’
‘No,’ Irene cried. ‘Please don’t. It’s not fair.’
‘That’s enough, my girl. I must do what I think best and that’s the end of it.’
*
If there was a way she could win her mother’s love Irene wanted to grasp it, but some survival instinct told her that sacrificing her education, her chance of a future beyond Farthingsea, wasn’t the answer. She thought of Miss Rayner living at home with her ageing widowed mother, spoken to peremptorily by the old lady, following after her, laden with bags, her youthful looks worn with worry, hope fading of a life of her own.
‘I won’t leave school,’ she told Tom when they bumped into each other on the promenade a few days later. ‘If I do that then she will have won. Daddy wanted me to do well, I know he did.’
They were sitting in the shelter, close, but not touching. Tom was tying knots in a stalk of grass with his supple fingers. ‘What will you do then?’ he asked. She could hardly bear the pity in his warm brown eyes.
She shook her head and transferred her gaze to the sea. ‘I don’t know yet. Something. I shall seek my fortune, like a prince in a fairy story.’
He laughed. ‘Me too. In fact I’ve some news. I’ll be moving to London in the summer. One of my masters knows a fellow on The Times. They’re willing to train me. It doesn’t pay much, but I’ll live with my father, at least to start with. I don’t think we’ll put up with each other for long.’
‘Tom, that’s marvellous.’ Irene smiled brightly, but it needed all her strength. He’ll be gone, he’ll be gone, a voice cried inside her and she was filled with desolation.
He looked so cock-a-hoop she almost hated him. His life would be opening up. And he’d be moving away. It was easier for a boy, she thought. Clayton would go, too. She’d be left behind.
There was one good thing, she remembered meanly. She supposed Margaret would still be here in Farthingsea. Perhaps their relationship would fizzle out. She kept that pleasurable but unworthy thought to herself.