The heat rising up from the tarmac seemed to get trapped between the thick hedges that towered above their heads like battlements.
'Oppressive,' their mother said. They felt trapped too. 'Like the maze at Hampton Court,' their mother said. 'Remember? '
'Yes,' Jessica said.
'No,' Joanna said.
'You were just a baby,' their mother said to Joanna. 'Like Joseph is
now. ' Jessica was eight, Joanna was six.
The little road (they always called it 'the lane') snaked one way and then another, so that you couldn't see anything ahead of you.They had to keep the dog on the lead and stay close to the hedges in case a car 'came out of nowhere'. Jessica was the eldest so she was the one who always got to hold the dog's lead. She spent a lot of her time training the dog, 'Heel! ' and 'Sit! ' and 'Come! 'Their mother said she wished Jessica was as obedient as the dog. Jessica was always the one who was in charge.Their mother said to Joanna,'It's all right to have a mind of your own, you know.You should stick up for yourself, think for yourself,' but Joanna didn't want to think for herself.
The bus dropped them on the big road and then carried on to
somewhere else. It was 'a palaver' getting them all off the bus.Their
mother held Joseph under one arm like a parcel and with her other
hand she struggled to open out his newfangled buggy. Jessica and
Joanna shared the job of lifting the shopping off the bus.The dog saw
to himself. 'No one ever helps,' their mother said. 'Have you noticed
that? 'They had.
'Your father's country fucking idyll,' their mother said as the bus
drove away in a blue haze of fumes and heat. 'Don't you swear,' she
added automatically, 'I'm the only person allowed to swear. '
They didn't have a car any more. Their father ('the bastard') had
driven away in it.Their father wrote books, 'novels'. He had taken
one down from a shelf and shown it to Joanna, pointed out his
photograph on the back cover and said, 'That's me,' but she wasn't
allowed to read it, even though she was already a good reader. ('Not
yet, one day. I write for grown-ups, I'm afraid,' he laughed. 'There's
stuff in there, well . . . ')
Their father was called Howard Mason and their mother's name
was Gabrielle. Sometimes people got excited and smiled at their
father and said, 'Are you the Howard Mason? ' (Or sometimes, not
smiling, 'that Howard Mason' which was different although Joanna
wasn't sure how.)
Their mother said that their father had uprooted them and planted
them 'in the middle of nowhere'. 'Or Devon, as it's commonly
known,' their father said. He said he needed 'space to write' and it
would be good for all of them to be 'in touch with nature'. 'No
television! ' he said as if that was something they would enjoy.
Joanna still missed her school and her friends and Wonder Woman
and a house on a street that you could walk along to a shop where
you could buy the Beano and a liquorice stick and choose from three
different kinds of apples instead of having to walk along a lane and a
road and take two buses and then do the same thing all over again in
reverse.
The first thing their father did when they moved to Devon was to
buy six red hens and a hive full of bees. He spent all autumn digging
over the garden at the front of the house so it would be 'ready for
spring'.When it rained the garden turned to mud and the mud was
trailed everywhere in the house, they even found it on their bed
sheets. When winter came a fox ate the hens without them ever
having laid an egg and the bees all froze to death which was unheard
of, according to their father, who said he was going to put all those
things in the book ('the novel') he was writing. 'So that's all right
then,' their mother said.
Their father wrote at the kitchen table because it was the only
room in the house that was even the slightest bit warm, thanks to the
huge temperamental Aga that their mother said was 'going to be
the death of her'. 'I should be so lucky,' their father muttered. (His book
wasn't going well.) They were all under his feet, even their mother.
'You smell of soot,' their father said to their mother. 'And cabbage
and milk. '
'And you smell of failure,' their mother said.
Their mother used to smell of all kinds of interesting things, paint
and turpentine and tobacco and the Je Reviens perfume that their
father had been buying for her since she was seventeen years old and
'a Catholic schoolgirl', and which meant 'I will return' and was a
message to her.Their mother was 'a beauty' according to their father
but their mother said she was 'a painter', although she hadn't painted
anything since they moved to Devon. 'No room for two creative
talents in a marriage,' she said in that way she had, raising her eyebrows
while inhaling smoke from the little brown cigarillos she
smoked. She pronounced it thigariyo like a foreigner.When she was a
child she had lived in faraway places that she would take them to one
day. She was warm-blooded, she said, not like their father who was a
reptile. Their mother was clever and funny and surprising and
nothing like their friends' mothers. 'Exotic', their father said.
The argument about who smelled of what wasn't over apparently
because their mother picked up a blue-and-white-striped jug from
the dresser and threw it at their father, who was sitting at the table
staring at his typewriter as if the words would write themselves if he
was patient enough.The jug hit him on the side of the head and he
roared with shock and pain.With a speed that Joanna could only
admire, Jessica plucked Joseph out of his high-chair and said,'Come
on,' to Joanna and they went upstairs where they tickled Joseph on
the double bed that Joanna and Jessica shared.There was no heating
in the bedroom and the bed was piled high with eiderdowns and old coats that belonged to their mother. Eventually all three of them fell
asleep, nestled in the mingled scents of damp and mothballs and Je
Reviens.
When Joanna woke up she found Jessica propped up on pillows,
wearing gloves and a pair of earmuffs and one of the coats from the
bed, drowning her like a tent. She was reading a book by torchlight.
'Electricity's off,' she said, without taking her eyes off the book.
On the other side of the wall they could hear the horrible animal
noises that meant their parents were friends again. Jessica silently
offered Joanna the earmuffs so that she didn't have to listen.
When the spring finally came, instead of planting a vegetable
garden, their father went back to London and lived with 'his other
woman' - which was a big surprise to Joanna and Jessica, although
not apparently to their mother. Their father's other woman was
called Martina - the poet - their mother spat out the word as if it
was a curse. Their mother called the other woman (the poet) names
that were so bad that when they dared to whisper them (bitch-cuntwhore-
poet) to each other beneath the bedclothes they were like
poison in the air.
Although now there was only one person in the marriage, their
mother still didn't paint.
They made their way along the lane in single file, 'Indian file', their
mother said.The plastic shopping bags hung from the handles of the
buggy and if their mother let go it tipped backwards on to
the ground.
'We must look like refugees,' she said. 'Yet we are not downhearted,'
she added cheerfully. They were going to move back into
town at the end of the summer, 'in time for school'.
'Thank God,' Jessica said, in just the same way their mother said it.
Joseph was asleep in the buggy, his mouth open, a faint rattle from
his chest because he couldn't shake off a summer cold. He was so hot
that their mother stripped him to his nappy and Jessica blew on the
thin ribs of his little body to cool him down until their mother said,
'Don't wake him. '
There was the tang of manure in the air and the smell of the musty
grass and the cow parsley got inside Joanna's nose and made her
sneeze.
'Bad luck,' her mother said, 'you're the one that got my allergies. '
Their mother's dark hair and pale skin went to her 'beautiful boy'
Joseph, her green eyes and her 'painter's hands'went to Jessica. Joanna
got the allergies. Bad luck. Joseph and their mother shared a birthday
too although Joseph hadn't had any birthdays yet. In another week it
would be his first. 'That's a special birthday,' their mother said. Joanna
thought all birthdays were special.
Their mother was wearing Joanna's favourite dress, blue with a
pattern of red strawberries. Their mother said it was old and next
summer she would cut it up and make something for Joanna out of
it if she liked. Joanna could see the muscles on her mother's tanned
legs moving as she pushed the buggy up the hill. She was strong.
Their father said she was 'fierce'. Joanna liked that word. Jessica was
fierce too. Joseph was nothing yet. He was just a baby, fat and happy.
He liked oatmeal and mashed banana, and the mobile of little paper
birds their mother had made for him that hung above his cot. He
liked being tickled by his sisters. He liked his sisters.
Joanna could feel sweat running down her back. Her worn cotton
dress was sticking to her skin.The dress was a hand-me-down from
Jessica. 'Poor but honest,' their mother laughed. Her big mouth
turned down when she laughed so that she never seemed happy even
when she was. Everything Joanna had was handed down from Jessica.
It was as if without Jessica there would be no Joanna. Joanna filled
the spaces Jessica left behind as she moved on.
Invisible on the other side of the hedge, a cow made a bellowing
noise that made her jump. 'It's just a cow,' her mother said.
'Red Devons,' Jessica said, even though she couldn't see them.
How did she know? She knew the names of everything, seen and
unseen. Joanna wondered if she would ever know all the things that
Jessica knew.
After you had walked along the lane for a while you came to a
wooden gate with a stile.They couldn't get the buggy through the
stile so they had to open the gate. Jessica let the dog off the lead and
he scrambled up and over the gate in the way that Jessica had taught
him.The sign on the gate said 'Please Close The Gate Behind You'.
Jessica always ran ahead and undid the clasp and then they both
pushed at the gate and swung on it as it opened.Their mother had
to heave and shove at the buggy because all the winter mud
had dried into deep awkward ruts that the wheels got stuck in.They
swung on the gate to close it as well. Jessica checked the clasp.
Sometimes they hung upside down on the gate and their hair
reached the ground like brooms sweeping the dust and their mother
said,'Don't do that. '
The track bordered a field. 'Wheat,' Jessica said. The wheat was
very high although not as high as the hedges in the lane. 'They'll be
harvesting soon,' their mother said. 'Cutting it down,' she added, for
Joanna's benefit. 'Then we'll sneeze and wheeze, the pair of
us. ' Joanna was already wheezing, she could hear the breath whistling
in her chest.
The dog ran into the field and disappeared. A moment later he
sprang out of the wheat again. Last week Joanna had followed the
dog into the field and got lost and no one could find her for a long
time. She could hear them calling her, moving further and further
away. Nobody heard her when she called back. The dog found
her.
They stopped halfway along and sat down on the grass at the side
of the track, under the shady trees. Their mother took the plastic
carrier bags off the buggy handles and from one of the bags brought
out some little cartons of orange juice and a box of chocolate finger
biscuits. The orange juice was warm and the chocolate biscuits had
melted together. They gave some of the biscuits to the dog. Their
mother laughed with her down-turned mouth and said, 'God, what
a mess,' and looked in the baby-bag and found wipes for their
chocolate-covered hands and mouths. When they lived in London
they used to have proper picnics, loading up the boot of the car with
a big wicker basket that had belonged to their mother's mother who
was rich but dead (which was just as well apparently because it meant
she didn't have to see her only daughter married to a selfish,
fornicating waster). If their grandmother was rich why didn't they
have any money? 'I eloped,' their mother said. 'I ran away to marry
your father. It was very romantic. At the time. We had nothing.'
'You had the picnic basket,' Jessica said and their mother laughed
and said, 'You can be very funny, you know,' and Jessica said, 'I do
know. '
Joseph woke up and their mother undid the front of her
strawberry-covered dress and fed him. He fell asleep again while he
was sucking. 'Poor lamb,' their mother said. 'He can't shake off this
cold. ' She put him back in the buggy and said,'Right. Let's get home,
we can get out the garden hose and you can cool off.'
He seemed to come out of nowhere.They noticed him because the
dog growled, making an odd, bubbling noise in his throat that Joanna
had never heard before.
He walked very fast towards them, growing bigger all the time.He
was making a funny huffing, puffing noise.You expected him to walk
past and say 'Nice afternoon,' or 'Hello,' because people always said
that if you passed them in the lane or on the track, but he didn't say
anything. Their mother would usually say, 'Lovely day,' or, 'It's
certainly hot, isn't it? ' when she passed people but she didn't say anything
to this man. Instead she set off walking fast, pushing hard on
the buggy. She left the plastic bags of shopping on the grass and
Joanna was going to pick one up but their mother said, 'Leave it.'
There was something in her voice, something in her face, that
frightened Joanna. Jessica grabbed her by the hand and said, 'Hurry
up, Joanna,' sharply, like a grown-up. Joanna was reminded of the
time their mother threw the blue-and-white-striped jug at their
father.
Now the man was walking in the same direction as they were, on
the other side of their mother. Their mother was moving very fast,
saying,'Come on, quickly, keep up,' to them. She sounded breathless.
Then the dog ran in front of the man and started barking and jumping
up as if it was trying to block the man's path. Without any
warning he kicked the dog so hard that it sailed into the air and
landed in the wheat. They couldn't see it but they could hear the
terrible squealing noise that it was making. Jessica stood in front of
the man and screamed something at him, jabbing her finger at him
and taking great gulps of air as if she couldn't breathe and then she
ran into the field after the dog.
Everything was bad.There was no question about it.
Joanna was staring at the wheat, trying to see where Jessica and the
dog had gone and it took a moment for her to notice that her
mother was fighting the man, punching him with her fists. But the
man had a knife and he kept raising it in the air so that it shone like
silver in the hot afternoon sun. Her mother started to scream.There
was blood on her face, on her hands, on her strong legs, on her strawberry
dress. Then Joanna realized that her mother wasn't screaming
at the man, she was screaming at her.
Their mother was cut down where she stood, the great silver knife
carving through her heart as if it was slicing butcher's meat. She was
thirty-six years old.
He must have stabbed Jessica too before she ran off because there
was a trail of blood, a path that led them to her, although not at first
because the field of wheat had closed around her, like a golden
blanket. She was lying with her arms around the body of the dog and
their blood had mingled and soaked into the dry earth, feeding the
grain, like a sacrifice to the harvest. Joseph died where he was,
strapped into the pushchair. Joanna liked to think that he never woke
up but she didn't know.
And Joanna. Joanna obeyed her mother when she screamed at her.
'Run, Joanna, run,' she said and Joanna ran into the field and was lost
in the wheat.
Later, when it was dark, other dogs came and found her.A stranger
lifted her up and carried her away. 'Not a scratch on her,' she heard a
voice say.The stars and the moon were bright in the cold, black sky
above her head.
Of course, she should have taken Joseph with her, she should have
snatched him from the buggy, or run with the buggy (Jessica would
have). It didn't matter that Joanna was only six years old, that she
would never have managed running with the buggy and that the
man would have caught her in seconds, that wasn't the point. It
would have been better to have tried to save the baby and been killed
than not trying and living. It would have been better to have died
with Jessica and her mother rather than being left behind without
them. But she never thought about any of that, she just did as she was
told.
'Run, Joanna, run,' her mother commanded. So she did.
It was funny but now, thirty years later, the thing that drove her to
distraction was that she couldn't remember what the dog was called.
And there was no one left to ask.
