I watched the motor car disappear down the lane, turn into Saffron High Street, and I felt a great urge to call him back, to beg him not to leave me here. But it was too late for that. I stood in the dim dusk looking up at the house where I had spent the first fourteen years of my life, the place where Mother had lived and died. And I felt nothing.
I’d felt nothing since Hannah told me. All the way on the journey back to Saffron I had tried to remember. My mother, my past, my self. Where do the memories of childhood go? There must be so many. Experiences that are new and brightly coloured. Perhaps children are so caught up in the moment they have neither time nor inclination to record images for later.
The streetlights came on-hazy yellow in the cold air-and sleet began again to fall. My cheeks were already numb and I saw the flecks in the lamplight before I felt them.
I collected my suitcase, took out my key, and was climbing the stairs when the door flew open. My Aunt Dee, Mother’s sister, stood in the doorway. She held a lamp which cast shadows on her face, making it appear older and surely more twisted than it really was. ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘Come inside then.’
She took me into the sitting room first. She was using my old bed, she said, so I would have the sofa. I put my suitcase against the wall and she huffed defensively.
‘I’ve made soup for supper. Might not be what you’re used to in your grand London house, but it’s always been good enough for the likes of me and mine.’
‘Soup would be lovely,’ I said.
We ate silently at Mother’s table. Aunt sat at the head with the warmth of the stove behind her and I sat at Mother’s seat near the window. Sleet had turned to snow, tip-tapping on the glass panes. The only other sound was the scraping of our spoons and an occasional crack from the stove fire.
‘I s’pose you’d like to see your mother,’ my aunt said when we had finished.
Mother was laid out on her mattress, brown hair loose behind. I was used to seeing it tied back; it was very long and much finer than mine. Someone-my aunt?-had pulled a light blanket to her chin, as if she were sleeping. She looked greyer, older, more sunken than I remembered. And she looked flat. Years of sleeping on the same mattress had worn it thin. Beneath the blanket, it was difficult to make out the shape of her body. One could almost imagine that there was none, that she was disintegrating, piece by piece.
We went downstairs and my aunt made tea. We drank it in the sitting room and said very little. Afterwards I managed something about being tired from the journey and started making up the sofa. I spread the sheet and blanket my aunt had left for me, but when I reached for Mother’s cushion it was not in place. My aunt was watching.
‘If you’re looking for the cushion,’ she said, ‘I’ve put it away. Filthy, it was. Tatty. Found a big hole on the bottom. And her a seamstress!’ She tut-tutted. ‘I’d like to know what she was doing with the money I was sending!’
And she left. Took herself up to bed in the room next to her dead sister. The floorboards above me creaked, the bed springs sighed, and then there was silence.
I lay in the dark but I could not sleep. I was imagining my aunt casting her critical eye over Mother’s things; Mother being caught unawares, unable to prepare, to put forward her best foot. I should have been the first to come. I should have arranged things, put on a good face on Mother’s behalf. Finally, I wept a little.
We buried her in the churchyard near the showgrounds. We were a small but respectable gathering. Mrs Rodgers from the village, the lady who ran the dress shop where Mother had done repairs, Doctor Arthur. It was a grey day, as such days should always be. The sleet had held off but the air was crisp and we all knew it was only a matter of time. The vicar read quickly from the Bible, an eye on the sky-whether to the Lord or the weather, I couldn’t tell. He spoke about duty and commitment and the direction they bring to life’s journey.
I can’t remember the details, for my mind was wandering. I was still trying to remember Mother from when I was a girl. Funny. Now that I am old the memories come unbidden: Mother showing me how to clean the windows so they didn’t smear; Mother boiling Christmas ham, hair lank with steam; Mother grimacing at something Mrs Rodgers had told her about Mr Rodgers. But not then. I could see only the grey sunken face of the night before.
An icy wind rushed toward me and whipped my skirts against my stockinged legs. I looked up to the darkening skies and noticed the figure on the hill, by the old oak tree. It was a man, a gentleman; I could tell that well enough. He was dressed in a long black coat and a stiff shiny hat. He carried a cane, or perhaps it was an umbrella, wrapped tightly. I didn’t think much of it at first; I presumed he was a mourner visiting another grave. If it seemed strange that a gentleman, who must surely have his own estate, his own family cemetery, should be mourning amongst the town’s graves, I didn’t think it then.
As the vicar sprinkled the first handful of dirt on Mother’s coffin, I glanced up to the tree again. The gentleman was still there. Watching us, I realised. The snow started to fall then and the man looked upwards so that his face was in the light.
It was Mr Frederick. But he was changed. Like the victim of a fairytale curse, he was suddenly old.
The vicar drew to a hurried close, and the undertaker gave orders that the grave was to be filled quickly on account of the weather.
My aunt was by my side. ‘He’s got a nerve,’ she said, and at first I thought she meant the undertaker, or else the vicar. But when I followed her gaze, she was looking at Mr Frederick. I wondered how she knew who he was. I supposed Mother had pointed him out at one time or another when Aunt was visiting. ‘What a nerve. Showing his face here.’ She shook her head, tightened her lips.
Her words made no sense but when I turned to ask what she meant she had already moved away, was smiling at the vicar, thanking him for his thoughtful service. I supposed she blamed the Hartford family for Mother’s back problems, but the accusation was unfair. For while it was true that years of service had weakened Mother’s back, it was her arthritis and pregnancy that finished the job.
Suddenly, all thought of my aunt evaporated. Standing by the vicar, black hat in hands, was Alfred.
From across the grave, his eyes met mine and he raised his hand.
I hesitated, nodded jerkily so that my teeth chattered.
He started walking. Came toward me. I watched, as if to look away could cause him to disappear. Then he was at my side. ‘How are you holding up?’
I nodded again. It was all I could seem to do. In my mind, whirlpools of words spun too quickly for me to grasp. Weeks of waiting for his letter; of hurt, confusion, sadness; of lying awake composing imaginary scripts of explanation and reunion. And now, finally…
‘Are you all right?’ he said stiffly, bringing a tentative hand toward mine then thinking better of it. Returning it to the brim of his hat.
‘Yes,’ I managed to say, hand heavy where he hadn’t touched it. ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘Course I came.’
‘You didn’t have to go to any trouble.’
‘No trouble, Grace,’ he said, feeding his hat brim through his fingers.
These last words floated lonely between us. My name, familiar and brittle on his lips. I let my attention drift to Mother’s grave; watched the undertaker hastily working. Alfred followed my gaze.
‘I’m sorry about your ma,’ he said.
‘I know,’ I said quickly. ‘I know you are.’
‘She was a hard worker.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I saw her only last week-’
