Chapter Three

 

I DIDN’T RELISH THE THOUGHT OF RETURNING TO LONDON, even though I knew I was obliged to do so. Boyce, Chester & Chester Ltd, had summoned me so that they could inform me of my future and my fate. I knew I was returning to a more relaxed way of life to what I had previously led when I was at home with mother, but after I had been home only a few hours, I realized how quiet and how dead an atmosphere I had returned to and I began to feel afraid. Unknowingly and unwittingly, I had used mother as a reason for my competence and for my being in absolute control of everything around me. I was the typical ward nurse and wanted everything to run like clockwork, regardless of the inconvenience it may have caused me. I knew all that now when I could look around and think without an avalanche of orders and lists of do’s and don’ts ...and I tried not to cry as I saw the gossamer figment of my world leering back at me, with the seemingly important and vital duties of the not too distant past. It all seemed like a dream and reality was with Stella and George and not here. I wanted to run out of the house; get on the train again and return to Little Netherington ...or anywhere, for that matter since I could contain my emotions no longer and I cried and allowed myself this indulgence as it took control and my head began to ache. The house appeared larger than I had known it before and far more formidable. I saw mother in every room, even if her bedroom had been the ‘throne room’ ... her only room for the past twenty odd years and where she had reigned supreme, her presence was everywhere ...even in the smiling photographs of daddy and I feared she was about to re-appear and haunt me for the rest of my life. I could hear my heart beat loud and resonant.

‘You have life and I have none ...You have life and I have none,’

The voice in my mind kept repeating until I screamed into the air and broke the silence of torture that incarcerated me.

 

***

 

I cooked a light meal of scrambled egg on toast and took it into the lounge on a tray where I hoped to escape the ‘presence’, even if only for a little by performing such a menial if natural function to dismiss the eerie mysticism that seemed to pervade the air.

My own bedroom offered me no asylum since I hadn’t used it for years, due to the duties of sentinel to mother, as I lay night after night on a sofa bed to be near her should she call and I resolved that one of the first things I would do, would be to get rid of that awful sofa bed.

Sleep overtook me eventually as I lay back on the settee and I didn’t wake up until I heard the telephone ringing. It was ten past three on the clock on the mantelpiece, but I realized it had stopped whilst I was away and when I looked at my wrist watch, I saw that it was four minutes past nine in the evening.

“Hello,”

“Hello Amy ... Its Stella here. You got home alright then, yes?”

I rubbed my eyes.

“Oh! Hello Stella ...Yes, Yes ...I’m fine. Just a little bit lost at the moment and I’m not sure what to do first. I never realized just how big this house is until now. How are you all …how is George and the children?”

Stella ignored my felicitations.

“Take your time Darling. There’s nothing for you to rush about for now, is there? You’re a free agent. Do what you want to do and in your own time for once in your life. Oh! By the way, you know you spoke about that piana in Robson’s window when you took Robbie to have a look?”

I waited, wondering what was to come next.

“Yes,” I answered hesitantly.

“Well, I took him in there again this afternoon and he looked at it in awe and with some amazement. I didn’t say anything to him. I just watched his face ...and then ...Amy, he said that word again. I’m sure you’re right. He thinks he’s saying piana when he says ‘Ano’ ...I’m sure he does.”

“Well that’s wonderful Stella. I know you must be pleased.”

Stella went on excitedly.

“I thought he was going to bang the keys with his fists when I actually took him into the shop, but he didn’t. Instead, he stroked them gently and ran his fingers over them with his eyes closed and then he hummed a little tune ...well, you know the way he does, with a gurgling sound, but it wasn’t his usual gurgle ...It was softer and more melodious like . . .”

“Why that’s marvellous Stella. What tune did he hum? Did you recognise it?”

“Oh Gawd no ...one of his own bleedin’ concoctions, but it was a tune. I heard it alright.” I could hear Stella swallow hard before she continued her narration. “One he had running around in his little head, I’ve no doubt,” she said and my eyes filled with tears as I listened. ...

“Stella ...Maybe this is the breakthrough you’ve been waiting for. Do you know anyone who has a piano nearby? I mean a friend or a neighbour who lives near you?”

There was a few moments of thoughtful silence before Stella spoke again.

“Oh! You’re not thinking he would be able to play the thing Amy. Are you? ...and besides, there’s no way that George and I could afford to have piana lessons for him and I couldn’t afford a bloody piana anyway, could I?”

“Stella, there’s one here. It’s a grande, but you can have it if you can fit it into one of your rooms,” I said, but my heart was faint if my intentions were pure when I considered the size of the rooms in Stella’s house.

“Amy, I wouldn’t dream of it. He’s only a child and it could be a five minute wonder as I’ve already told you. You know that and besides, I couldn’t let you do that. It was your dad’s wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but he didn’t play it very much. He couldn’t with mother being so ill. The sound of music irritated her and it hasn’t been played on for years. I’d love Robbie to have it.”

As I moved across the room with the telephone in my hand I knocked my handbag to the floor.

“What was that noise Amy? Amy, are you alright?”

“Yes Stella ...Nothing to worry about. I left my bag on the hall table, that’s all and I knocked it over with the telephone. Look! I’ll have a thought about all this if you can accommodate it. Meanwhile have a word with George and see what he thinks. I really don’t want the thing and I never could play anyway.”

“Amy, you are too kind, but isn’t it a gamble? I mean, if Robbie doesn’t use it, the other kids can’t play.”

“You can always sell it Stella and you could use the money surely, couldn’t you?”

“Oh! Amy ...”

“Oh! nothing, Stella. ...Think about it. I’ll ring you tomorrow about this time and you can let me know what you want to do ...Oh! … Stella.”

“Yes Amy?”

“Don’t worry about delivery or anything else, just say you’ll have it and I’ll arrange everything else ... understand.”

“Amy ...Amy … are you still there?”

“Yes Stella what is it?”

“Amy ...We don’t have a phone. I’m using the neighbours ...so will you phone me here if I give you the number and they’ll fetch me?”

I grinned. I should have guessed, but I took the number and agreed to do as she asked and as I put the phone down, I picked up my handbag.

“You’ll do as your bloody well told, my girl,” I muttered to myself and I could just see Stella’s face.

My handbag had fallen open on the hall carpet and there was talcum powder all over the place. It was all I ever used in the way of cosmetics and then I noticed a lipstick tube roll across towards the skirting board where I realized I had kicked it. ... I bent down and gazed at it in bewilderment. One of the girls must have put it in my beg and as I picked it up, my eye caught sight of a small piece of newspaper which gave me a start.

‘German family seek a nanny’

I read it again and again ... If I could have been Robbie’s nanny, I would have jumped at the opportunity, but he already had one in the capable hands and expertise of his lovely mother.

I looked again at the lipstick, picked it up and studied my lips in the mirror.