The Grandmothers

‘It’s dark,’ Mary had said, comforting Victoria with this sensible protest. ‘Toads can see in the dark,’ said Lionel. ‘It’s a perverse toad,’ Jessy had said. ‘I don’t expect they see many wholemeal crumbs in their usual diet, so why they like ours, I can’t think.’

‘We’ll find him some worms tomorrow,’ Lionel had said.

Victoria did sleep at last and woke early to find Mary had come in the night and was asleep near her, on top of the coverlet. For a long time Victoria lay on her elbow watching her child sleep, rather as she would a ship sailing away over a horizon – if she had ever seen a sea that was not on television or in a film. Behind those tight smooth sealed eyelids was already a world that Victoria did not share.

In the morning Victoria tried to find something in her case that would match Lionel’s old sweater that had a hole in its sleeve, or Jessy’s slacks and grey tweedy skirt. She did not have the right shoes either. They talked of walks and of Mary and Samantha going off on ponies with some other little girls.

Victoria stood at the door of the house and felt that she was surrounded by jungle. She knew all about jungles, the way we do, from the screens, big and small: they were dangerous, full of wild animals, crocodiles, snakes and insects. This jungle had none of those but nevertheless was filled with hostile creatures. If she could just leave, leave now – but she didn’t want Mary to be ashamed of her.

When the long breakfast was over – she drank some tea, and had to listen to Jessy lecture them all on the importance of a proper breakfast – she watched while they all went off to walk in woods that were near, and very wet. She said she would stay sitting under the tree, which was bound to be full of creatures that might drop on her, and tried to find haven in a room they called the sitting-room. She sat in a big chair with her feet drawn up, so that nothing could crawl up on them.

Lunch over, they all piled into cars and drove off some miles to a famous tea-room, where they parked, and everyone went walking again, but Victoria and Mary, who insisted on staying with her mother.

‘Poor Ma,’ said Mary, acutely, and her eyes were full of tears. ‘But I love you always.’

Supper was the same. This time Jessy had cooked stew, which Victoria liked and a big fruit tart had been bought at the tea-room to bring home.

Saturday night. Another night to go. By now Victoria was feeling like a criminal. They knew she was not enjoying herself, though had no idea just how much she was hating it, how she feared it. The spider was back on her wall and it had fled when she stamped her foot at it, into the crack, where it bided its time. She tried to keep her eyes on it, but moths had flown in, before she shut the window tight. A big moth crouched on a wall, making a shadow. She had last seen that hooded shape, a frightening shadow on a wall, in a film about Dracula.

Next morning she went down early, with her suitcase. She did not know how she would get to the station but somehow she would. She found Alice, already up, drinking tea.

‘Do you hate it?’ Alice asked.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘I’m sorry’

‘Don’t you?’

‘No, I wish I could live here for always, never leave.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Victoria feebly.

‘Yes, it’s true. Edward can’t leave London yet but we will buy a house in the country and then we’ll live in it.’

‘A house like this?’ Victoria looked incredulous.

‘No, bigger. More comfortable.’ She looked kindly at Victoria and said gently, ‘Don’t mind them. I know they are a bit overwhelming.’

‘It’s not them,’ said Victoria. ‘It’s this place.’

Absolute incomprehension: Alice frowned and was perturbed. Victoria seemed about to cry.

‘I wish I could go home,’ said Victoria, like a child. And then, as an adult, said, ‘I would, only I don’t want Mary to be ashamed of me.’

‘She wouldn’t be. She’s a nice little girl, if there ever was one. Samantha adores her. I tell you what. I’ll drive you to the station and I’ll tell them you don’t feel well.’

‘That’s not a lie,’ said Victoria.

And so Victoria got into Edward and Alice’s car and was driven through the early morning countryside to the station.

Victoria had never driven, had never had to, and the skill and speed of Alice was depressing her. She was actually saying to herself, ‘But there are things I am good at.’

At the station, Alice took the bag and went before to the booking office, bought a ticket, said, ‘There’ll be a train in half an hour.’

The two stood together, waiting. Victoria had understood that this young woman, who so intimidated her, meant her well, but – did that matter? What mattered very much was that she liked Mary.

‘I feel a real fool,’ she said humbly. ‘I know what the Staveneys will think. I ought to be grateful – and, well, that’s all.’

‘Poor Victoria. I’m sorry. I’ll explain to them.’ And as the train came in she actually kissed Victoria, as if she meant it. ‘It takes all sorts,’ she added, with a little pleased smile at her attempt at definition ‘I don’t think they’d ever understand you don’t like the country.’

‘I hate it, hate it,’ Victoria said, violently, and got into the train that would carry her away – for ever, if she had her way.

Mary came home a few days later. Victoria saw the child’s bleak look around the little flat, criticising what Victoria had greeted with such relief: a bare sufficiency, and what there was, in its proper place. And then Mary stood at the window looking down, down, into the concrete vistas and Victoria did not have to ask what it was she missed.

Mary kept saying, rushing to embrace her mother, ‘You’re my Ma and I’ll love you always.’ Bessie and Victoria exchanged grim-enough smiles, and then Mary forgot about it.

Thomas took Mary to concerts of African music, twice, but she thought they were too loud. Like her mother, she wanted things to be quiet and seemly.

Then Victoria was invited to an evening meal at the Staveneys, ‘preferably without Mary – and anyway it will be too late for her, won’t it? ‘This, from people who had her up to all hours in Dorset. ‘Without Dickson’ could be taken as read. Victoria put on her nicest outfit, and found herself with a full complement of Staveneys, at the supper table. Undercurrents, some well understood by Victoria, others not at all, flowed about and around Jessy, Lionel, Edward, Alice and Thomas. Lionel at once opened with, ‘I wonder what you’d think if we suggested Mary went to a different school?’

This was Lionel, who had insisted on both his sons going through the ordeal of that bad school, Beowulf.

Victoria was not afraid of Lionel – she was of Jessy – and did not find it hard to enquire, ‘Then, you’ve changed your mind about schools, is that it?’

At this Jessy let out a snort, of a connubial kind, meant to be noted, like putting up your hand at a meeting to register Nay.

‘You could say our father has changed his mind,’ said Thomas.

‘Yes, you could say that,’ said Edward.

‘I’m not saying I was wrong about you two,’ pronounced Lionel, flinging his silvery mane about while he speared roast potatoes judiciously on to his plate.

‘You wouldn’t ever admit it,’ said Jessy, confronting him, while the concentrated exasperation of years of disputation flared her nostrils. ‘When have you ever admitted you were wrong about anything?’

‘Isn’t it a bit late for this altercation?’ enquired Edward.

‘For better or worse,’ said Thomas. ‘But the birds in your nest couldn’t agree.’

‘Oh, worse, worse,’ said Jessy at once, ‘of course worse.’ But from her look at Thomas it could be seen that what she meant was her bitter acknowledgement that his highest ambition was to manage a pop group. ‘As for agreeing, no, we never agreed about that, never, never!

‘Okay,’ said Thomas, ‘I’ll accept your verdict. I am the worse and Edward is the better.’

‘At least the gap between you two was wide enough for you not to quarrel – that really would have been the last straw.’

This spat ended here, because Edward was pouring wine for Victoria, which she didn’t much like. She put her hand over the glass, and then, since a few drops had splashed, licked the back of her hand.

‘There,’ said Lionel. ‘You do like wine.’