It was some months before the child officer called at the house. He was busy. An influx of child evacuees had arrived in Brighton, and promptly had to be re-evacuated, along with many of the local children. German cross-channel guns were now shelling coastal towns, and Brighton was considered an unsafe place to be.
‘Shouldn’t we visit mother?’ Patricia asked Hilda, in the meantime.
‘It’s wartime,’ said Hilda. ‘They don’t allow visitors.’ She left the house herself, however, on Sunday afternoons, and declined to tell Patricia where she was going.
‘Is mother getting better?’ Patricia would ask Hilda, when Hilda received a letter from some official source or other. Hilda, by virtue of her three years’ seniority, dealt with all practical matters, and had her mother’s habit for secrecy.
‘Of course.’
‘When is she coming home?’
‘When she is better.’
There was little to do after school except homework. That term both Patricia and Hilda earned four embossed metal bars. Hilda already had five. She walked around the house clanking. The girls did not change out of school uniform when they got home. There seemed little point. School was real life: home a kind of dank limbo. They cleaned and polished rooms: then shut the door on them. They slept in their separate bedrooms, creeping up the cold, dark stairs, but otherwise spent their time in the kitchen: which could be made cosy, if not companionable.
Hilda did her duty by Patricia, but didn’t like her. So much she made obvious.
‘The hospital’s been evacuated,’ Hilda said one Sunday afternoon when Patricia asked if she were not going out.
‘Where to?’
‘It’s a secret, in case the Nazis find out.’
‘Why doesn’t mother write to us?’
‘Because of a paper shortage.’
Hilda had an answer for everything, but it was never quite the appropriate answer.
‘I think Hilda’s going mad too,’ Patricia said to Elaine, panic getting the upper hand of reticence. But Elaine had a copy of the National Geographic Magazine, and didn’t seem to hear. The magazine contained photographs of bare-breasted native girls.
‘They never show white girls,’ observed Elaine, ‘only niggers. What use is that? They’re probably not like us.’
Since the war had closed the beaches, it was not even possible to study the human form in bathing dress. Fashions, padded shoulders, brassieres which raised, pointed and folded the breasts into a sturdy shelf effect, confused the eye of the young beholder. There was no full-length mirror any more at 109 Holden Road – Lucy had shattered them all, on one pretext or another – and even had there been, Patricia would not have considered viewing her own body. The body, she believed, was a piece of flesh within which she lived. She could make no connection between her body and her feelings.
Patricia kept her doubts about Hilda to herself. Madness was a disgrace; better not talked about. As with cancer, there was no cure, no hope: and madness was worse than cancer, being hereditary and not merely infectious. What use to talk about it, rub people’s noses in it? Something so dreadful! All you could do was pretend it hadn’t happened.
In the meantime Elaine’s parents feared for their daughter’s physical safety: if Patricia’s mother was in the loony bin, Patricia could hardly be guiltless: might turn nasty, dangerous, any minute. It was their turn to discourage the friendship.
Patricia discovered where Henry Whitechapel lived. She waited at the terminus where the bus from the recruitment centre stopped, and then followed him to his house. He wore an old fawn raincoat: he seemed younger than her mental image of him. He was so familiar to her, and yet so strange. He was, of course, beneath her.
People, Patricia decided, dogging Henry’s footsteps unseen, were awarded merit and demerit status marks, much as merit marks were given and taken away at school.
Three points up for being a male, two down for being a lodger, three points down for being of common stock, two points up for being physically attractive, six points up for being rich, and so on. You only had to go into a room, talk to someone for a minute or two, to do the social sums required, and rate yourself and others appropriately.
Her own rating was high: she could feel it. It had lately been reduced by her mother’s madness – three demerit marks at least – but she still added up to more than, say, Elaine, or even Hilda; though why two children of the same family should get different marks she could not quite work out.
Henry’s house was a semi-detached villa halfway up the hill. Washing hung from the back line – visible from the front. Three demerit points there! But roses grew up the front wall. Half a mark for overt signs of contentment.
Unfortunately, Judith, when she opened the door to Patricia, seemed insensitive to the honour done her. She carried a heavy baby boy in her arms: he bounced and butted his head into his mother’s chest.
‘What do you want?’
What indeed? Perhaps she hoped Henry would move back in, dilute the atmosphere somewhat.
‘I just came to see you and the baby.’
‘Took your time about it.’
‘Mother’s been ill.’
‘Yes. I heard. She always was round the bend, I suppose.’
‘Of course she wasn’t.’
‘I hope she was, or there’s no excuse.’
‘Excuse for what?’
‘The way she treated me. It’s not your fault. Sit down. Hold the baby. I’ll make tea. Henry gets extra rations from the camp.’
Patricia held the baby and marvelled at its solidity. She had always thought that babies were weak and powerless things. This one seemed king of its universe.
‘It’s a lovely baby.’
‘No one said that when it was on the way.’
‘Little Pattie!’ said Henry, his smile warm and familiar, out of the past. ‘Seeking me out! Who’d have thought it Mind you, I liked your other name. Praxis. Praxis and Hypatia. Now that had style. Patricia and Hilda! I told her not, but she wouldn’t listen. We’re none of us like anyone else, I’d tell her, but she was determined. Poor soul!’
‘Poor soul!’ derided Judith.
‘We’re all alone up there now,’ said Patricia, ‘just Hilda and me. Mother’s hospital has been evacuated.’
‘Local hospital? Who said so?’ He seemed surprised. He held the baby on his lap. His hands were stained, as ever, with chemicals. They seemed old, pathetic, beyond fatherhood, yet grateful for it.
‘Hilda said so.’
‘Hilda tells lies. Always did.’
‘I’m sure she doesn’t.’ Patricia was shocked.
‘She’s like her mother,’ put in Judith, ‘she’ll say anything if it’s convenient. Mind you, as pillow talk I daresay it’s nice enough to hear. Lovey dovey while it lasts. The next day, who might you be, sir? You’re dirtying my carpet with your muddy boots. Fetch my bag; back to the kitchen; all you’re fit for.’
Patricia found herself quite dizzy.
‘Be quiet, Judith,’ said Henry. ‘There’s no need.’
‘Yes there is need. What’s true is true. And to see her twisting those poor girls’ minds. Who was she, anyway, to turn up her nose at us? She was no better than she ought to be. Living with a man she wasn’t married to, bringing children into the world with no name: passing herself off as a widow when all he’d done was walk out on her. And then when I get into my bit of trouble, carrying on as if she was the Virgin Mary. Polluting her girls! Who did the polluting, I’d like to know?’
‘Hush, Judith. Don’t listen to her, Pattie.’
‘Pattie! Friendly, aren’t we. Fancy her, do you? Like her mother, is she? At least this one’s got a pair of boobs on her: Lucy was as flat as a board!’
Judith’s words stopped, as if caught mid-air like a ball in flight. ‘Sorry,’ she said flatly. ‘Sorry. You think you don’t mind but you do. All those years, when she had you, and thought you dirt. Not Pattie’s fault. Hope I didn’t let too many cats out of the bag.’
Henry walked Pattie, as she now thought of herself, to the tram-stop. Pattie, Judith, Henry, all much of a muchness. Except that Pattie had a mad mother and was a bastard too. Four embossed bars bouncing on a nice young bosom, couldn’t anywhere near counteract all that.
‘Where have you been?’ Hilda asked when Patricia came back. ‘It’s nearly blackout. I got the cheese ration. We’ll have Welsh rarebit. You can make it go further by adding flour and water. A Ministry of Food leaflet tells you how.’
Hilda was in a good mood. Sometimes, rarely, she was. Patricia neatly disposed of her good humour.
‘I’ve been to see Henry and Judith.’
‘How did you know where they were?’
‘I waited for the tram from the recruiting office. Then I followed him.’
‘Mother wouldn’t like it. They’re common. Nothing. Why do you want to have anything to do with them? She’s a scarlet woman; you know what she did. And under mother’s own roof.’
‘Scarlet? She always seemed kind of black and hairy to me,’ said Pattie, forlornly.
‘I hope you told them nothing,’ said Hilda sharply. ‘We don’t want people poking and prying into our business.’
‘I don’t think people are all that interested in us. They only think about themselves.’
She was not going to tell Hilda what she knew. Not yet. Perhaps never. The way to deal with Hilda was to agree with what she said, while believing none of it, and doing nothing to aggravate her. Patricia was frightened of Hilda, as she had never been, quite, of her own mother. Lucy’s madness had been a deviation from maternal love: Hilda’s was an intensification of sisterly hate. Pattie locked her room that night and for many to come, and sat up late at the darkened window, watching the search-lights and the pattern of distant aerial conflicts reflected on the water.
Pattie found out the whereabouts of her mother by looking up Area Health Board Hospitals in the post office, and ringing them up in turn until one finally acknowledged having a Mrs Lucy Duveen on its books.
She went along to the Poole General Asylum the following Sunday. She put on lipstick in an attempt to make herself look older, lest she be refused admittance. She felt wicked so doing. The porter at the gatehouse unlocked bars to let her in. Blank eyes followed her. Women sat isolated and remote on benches, lining corridors. All seemed old: all had thick lisle stockings, wrinkling down over slippers, as if suspender belts were unknown. Pattie was frightened. What manner of life was this?
A male nurse, keys jangling, led her to a cubicle, and there, peering through, Pattie saw Lucy, in a strait-jacket.
‘Mother,’ shrieked Pattie.
‘Quiet now, quiet,’ said the nurse. ‘They don’t feel as we do, in this state.’
Lucy seemed quite quiet, but when she saw Pattie she began to struggle and her face contorted.
‘You upset her,’ said the nurse. ‘Come away.’
Pattie suffered herself to be led away. Lucy, seeing her, had been animated by hate and anger, not love and despair, yet this must be some sort of comfort. Better for her mother, worse for her.
This was the manner of life; and had been for a long time. What was good for Lucy was bad for Patricia, and vice versa.
Lucy was in bonds, so Pattie could go free.
‘I went to see mother,’ she said to Hilda, boldly enough.
‘You shouldn’t have done that. It would only upset you.’
‘It did.’
‘It’s bad enough for me, and she quite likes me. She hates you, though. It’s her illness. The doctors said you shouldn’t go. I don’t know why they let you in.’
‘No one knew who I was, I suppose. Anyway, I don’t think they have much time to think about things like that.’
‘They’re wonderful people: don’t talk against them. It’s all your fault she’s in there, you realise that.’
‘Why?’
‘You were perverted, weren’t you. It upsets her.’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘Don’t pretend. You’re just disgusting. Sneaky and sly.’
Hilda went to bed early, up the stairs in brown lace-up brogues, yellow prefect’s sash making a sack of her navy pleated tunic. She was nineteen. Her sallowness had disappeared: her skin had a smooth yellow-to-pink glow: her waist was slender: her receding chin made her mouth pouty and provocative: her eyes were clear, steady and censorious. Her life was passed in a female world, bounded by examinations: whole weeks would pass in which she would talk only to women. Even the tram conductors were female now: the men passed in noisy clumps of uniform, vulgar, frightening, leaving a litter of gum wrapping and beer bottles behind. Soon Hilda would go to University on a scholarship, and her life would open out. People assured her it would.
Hilda did not know what was to be done with Patricia, but did not doubt the arrival of some sudden event, for good or ill, probably ill, which would make the consideration immaterial.
Hilda stopped visiting her mother, on the recommendation of the funny farm staff. In the early days of her confinement, Lucy’s rage and spite had been directed against Patricia – later it came to focus upon Hilda as well, and could be felt as uncomfortable even through the cool shell of the elder daughter’s part-acquired, part-native indifference.
Pattie went to visit the Reverend Allbright. She called at the back door, as seemed natural, and not, as in earlier days, at the front. She found him in the kitchen, with his new young wife, making wine. The house smelt warm and sweet, as was his life. He had married one of his young parishioners, a girl with downcast almond eyes, and a sensual mouth, and a devout nature. She would kneel naked by the marital bed, saying her prayers until he could bear it no longer and flung himself upon her, tumbling her over face downwards on the bed. He felt God would understand. God can be worshipped anywhere, the Reverend Allbright avowed, in Sunday sermon after Sunday sermon. In a night bomber (so long as it belonged to the Allied forces), in a submarine (likewise), in a Scouts’ Hall (where services were now held, since the church had been bombed out) or in the marital bed. The congregation joined in shaking their fists at a vengeful sky, from which destruction raged; they were united in love and hate. The birthrate soared.
‘My mother’s in a strait-jacket,’ said Pattie, to the Allbrights. They sat her down to help make wine. Now she too was stripping petals from dandelions; her fingers were already dyed yellowy-green. No amount of washing, even with the strong, grainy, wartime soap, would remove the discolouration: only time would help it. Pattie, yellow-fingered.
‘She has to be,’ said the Reverend Allbright, ‘for her own safety, and that of other people.’
‘But she can’t be in one for ever. A person can’t live in a strait-jacket.’
The Reverend Allbright suspected that if the staff of the asylum had anything to do with it, they would.
‘Poor soul,’ put in the new Mrs Allbright, with the easy pity of the young for the old. ‘My husband –’ and with what pride she used the term – ‘used to visit regularly, but his visits did seem to upset her. They said it was better for him to stay away.’
Both the Allbrights were bare-armed: while Mrs Allbright stirred the bruised dandelion petals in warm water, Mr Allbright added golden syrup from a height, for the delight of seeing it fall. How bright-eyed they seemed: how happily arrived at the place they ought to be.
Mr Allbright’s children by his first marriage were still away at boarding school. Consideration both for their safety and for his new wife’s peace of mind had led him to taking this step. The eldest Allbright was only a few years younger than the new Mrs Allbright, a fact which rendered Mr Allbright uneasy in his daughter’s presence.
‘We must abide by the decision of the staff,’ said Mr Allbright.
‘After all, they are the experts.’
‘I think she’s in a strait-jacket to save them trouble,’ observed Pattie.
‘That’s a wicked un-Christian thing to say, Patricia,’ said Mr Allbright.
Mrs Allbright laughed. ‘Why should she say Christian things if she’s Jewish. You are ridiculous, Stephen.’
‘Hush,’ said Mr Allbright.
‘Shouldn’t I have said anything? I’m sorry.’
Confused and pink, she stirred the sweet, warm brew. He was angry, so she made matters worse.
‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t say what’s true,’ she persisted. ‘It can’t be anything new to Pattie, after all. Is it?’
Pattie shook her head, although it was indeed new.
‘Anyway,’ said Mrs Allbright, ‘there’s nothing wrong with being a Jew. I’m sorry for them, that’s all, because Jehovah seems such a fierce God to have, compared to Jesus, but I don’t look down at them one bit. And I know you don’t, either, Stephen. You always wanted to have a Jewish quota at the golf-club; you thought healthy outdoor exercise would do them good, though I can’t say it seemed to help the one they did have, who ran off with the waitress.’
‘Hush,’ said Mr Allbright, and added, ‘in any case it’s neither here nor there since the Army has now taken over the course and the tanks are ruining the greens altogether.’
But it was no use. No one was listening.
Mrs Allbright had her pretty yellow-stained hand to her mouth.
‘My father,’ said Pattie, flatly. ‘You mean my father was a Jew and ran off with a waitress?’
‘Idiot,’ said Mr Allbright to Mrs Allbright. He was to say it to her many times in years to come, and she grew not only to believe him but not to mind him saying it. But this time tears sprang to her eyes. Mr Allbright watched and marvelled. The first Mrs Allbright had never wept; never had to. All the same she had died young. One tear fell into the dandelion wine, and he feared lest the addition of salt might interfere with the delicate fermentation process. ‘He married her according to the laws of his religion and the law of the land. He left your mother and yourselves provided for.’
Pattie left.
‘She asked for bread and you gave her stones,’ said Mrs Allbright, staring at her husband, pink-eyed, red-rimmed, flushed. Wisely, he poured what was left of the golden syrup over her to cheer her up, and the resultant stickiness of both of them was the cause of much joy and marital merriment. The Reverend Allbright felt he had regained his childhood, which the first time round had not been up to much, but now was rapturous, innocent and amazing. He was obliged, if only for cleanliness and comfort’s sake, and in a spirit of remorse, to suck the stickiness from her every crevice.
‘You can’t look after everyone in the world, I suppose,’ observed Mrs Allbright, forgivingly, naked, splay-legged and golden on the floor. ‘Let alone half-mad, half-Jewish, half-grown parishioners who never even go to church.’ He blocked her mouth, astonishingly, before she could voice any more uncharitable thoughts and thus imperil her soul.
Such acts were unthinkable, unimaginable; except they happened, and once they had happened could happen again, at any rate when imports of golden syrup allowed. The dandelion wine was excellent. Sweet and powerful, quite unharmed by Mrs Allbright’s occasional tear, and popular with parishioners young and old.
Pattie did not tell Hilda what she had found out. Perhaps, in any case, Hilda knew already. She hid the sharpest kitchen knives, however, away from Hilda, afraid of what she was not quite sure.
Her mother’s madness, she now perceived, lay in her telling of the truth. But was it madness? If a mother shrieked Jewess, bastard, pervert at her own daughter, and all these things were true, then she might be accused of unmaternal conduct, but hardly madness.
Pattie lay on her bed at night, and thought of kisses, mother’s, father’s, Louise Gaynor’s, anyone’s. She lay still, hands neatly folded over her smooth midriff. Pattie had a white, clear skin. Who will ever marry me, Pattie wondered. Who would ever want to? Jewess, bastard, pervert. Daughter of a mad mother: insanity in the blood, running strong. See it even in Hilda’s eyes: in her own now, reflected back from the Reverend Allbright’s.
The American servicemen were in Brighton. Local girls came in from towns along the coast to meet them. They laughed, drank, cuddled and kissed; more, even, in the bushes at the bottom of 109 Holden Road where the garden abutted the pub alley. The fence palings were so rotted that a well-shod service foot would easily collapse them, and often did. Pattie watched from her window. Knickers off, hands in, trousers down, whispers and giggles, pant and heave, in and out. Sometimes money changed hands: sometimes addresses. Sex! The force at the heart of the universe. It hardly seemed sufficiently important.