They buried Mother three days later, and she had a wreath on her coffin made of white chrysanthemums. Mrs Churchill bought a beautiful glass dome of flowers called ‘Immortals’, which would last for ever on Mother’s grave unless ‘those dratted boys broke it with stones’. Father attended the funeral, and then he went away. A locum came to look after the practice. He was a young, healthy-looking man with a happy, hairy face, and his body somehow looked rather like a tree-trunk. He blinked his large, almost round, blue eyes and to myself I called him Blinkers, but his real name was Henry Peebles. He was the first man who had ever treated me with politeness and consideration. I noticed this, but it did not mean much to me at the time because I was feeling so sad and lost and kindness almost made it worse.
Blinkers looked after the animals with Hank’s help and Mrs Churchill managed the house and meals; so there was only the shopping left for me to do. Mrs Churchill would tell me what to buy and Father had put quite a lot of money in Mother’s old purse before he went away.
I think it must have been the first time I’d ever had time on my hands. I wandered round the streets of Clapham and Battersea in a dreary kind of dream. I remember looking in the windows of a number of outsize women’s shops from which smirking, comely matrons, wearing shapeless dresses, gazed back at me with glass eyes. I walked on Clapham Common, where already autumn bonfires were burning although the leaves had hardly begun to fall, and ice-cream cornets were still being sold. I awoke from my dreary dream to listen to the speech-makers. I couldn’t understand what they were talking about, but gathered they were mostly angry about something. I listened to the Salvation Army band, and somehow felt afraid of them. Terrible thoughts about Father putting Mother to sleep came into my mind, and I felt I might start shouting them out loud to the music.
I found a beautiful and peaceful church in Battersea by the river. I think it was called St Mary’s. I wasn’t afraid there. It had only a small churchyard, but I liked to sit in it and watch the barges and hear the river sounds. Sometimes barges were moored to the churchyard walls, and savoury smells of cooking came in the autumn air. I liked Battersea Park better than Clapham Common because there were more flowers and I often discovered new parts I never knew existed before. I found a dear little imitation river, with wild banks.
I must have walked miles those first few weeks after Mother died, but I couldn’t bear to be home and always thinking of her.
Everywhere in the house there were sad little reminders – a limp string shopping-bag hanging from the kitchen door; a fortune-telling book in the dresser-drawer; a fern in the dining-room window that had died from neglect since she had ceased to tend it; and one small black glove mixed up with the string she used to save – little things like that were everywhere.
I had not been in her bedroom since she died. Mrs Churchill had cleaned it and said it was to be kept locked until Father returned. ‘He’ll want to go through her things,’ she said in a hoarse whisper; and she locked the door and put the key on Father’s organ-like desk.
There was a bachelor blackbird who lived in the dusty holly tree in the front garden. Mother had been so fond of him. Every spring he had sung madly, hoping to attract a mate, but one had never come and Mother had fussed and worried over him and would say exasperatedly, ‘If only he would leave that wretched holly bush and fly to the Common, he’d soon find a wife. He can’t expect a bird to want to nest in a bed of dirty holly.’ The blackbird still sang in the holly bush, but Mother had gone.
At night I was all alone in the house. Although I slept with my head under the bedclothes, I could hear awful creakings on the stairs, and sometimes I thought I could hear whispering by my bed. I asked Mrs Churchill if she would stay and keep me company; but she said her husband didn’t like her to be out at night, and she had ‘our Vera’s’ boy staying with her while his mother was in hospital. One night the dogs started barking and yelping and I thought something terrible really had happened. I lay in bed shivering, too afraid to go and see if the house were on fire, or if burglars were creeping through the pantry window. In the morning I found the cage that contained the old cock with the diseased eye had fallen to the ground, and the poor bird was dead and heavy.
Three weeks after Mother’s funeral, Father came home.