Canvey Island (16 page)

Claire came over all prim. ‘We don't believe in hitting children.'

‘Well, I'm sorry I spoke.'

I was only trying to make a bit of conversation but next time I wouldn't bother. Neither of them could see past the baby.

When Len got to sixty-five I thought we should celebrate by going out for a meal but Martin and Claire even made a fuss about that because they were worried about leaving Lucy with a babysitter. At one stage it looked like they were going to try and bring her with them but I wasn't having any of that.

‘The restaurant does not welcome children in the evenings,' I said. ‘They have to think of the other guests.'

‘In Italy parents take their children everywhere,' Claire said.

‘But this isn't Italy,' I answered, ‘and that's where all their problems come from, if you ask me. No backbone and too much aftershave. All the men are in love with their mothers …'

‘Have you ever been there, Auntie Vi?'

‘I don't need to go there to form my opinion, thank you very much.'

They were so chippy but eventually we got it sorted out and settled down to a good no-nonsense menu: melon balls or prawn and avocado cocktail, plaice or fillet steak, Black Forest gateau or fruit salad. You could choose between Hirondelle and Blue Nun if you wanted value and there were old bottles with little fountains of dried candle wax from previous dinners. Of course I wouldn't have the gateau or the Blue Nun because I didn't like to
eat anything German. That was something of a rule in our family. My mother wouldn't even dance the waltz because she said it was German.

A couple at the next table were describing Mrs Thatcher as ‘the best man for the job', and I nearly joined in.
Quite right
, I thought, but I knew if I said anything too political there would be trouble. Claire said she'd like a cheese omelette even though it wasn't on the menu, and Martin went AWOL and ordered the plaice. Len had a bit of a laugh about that and tried to jolly things along because he could see that Claire was cross. It was far too warm a day for plaice, he said.

‘I just want the fish, Dad.'

‘Order what you like,' said Claire. ‘Don't mind me.' I was surprised she let him have it.

Then Linda appeared all dolled up at the bar with a gentleman friend. She had some kind of glitter in her hair and was making a good job of showing the little bit of cleavage she had – just the right side of common, it was – and I could see Martin fall for it straight away.

‘Hello, everyone,' Linda said, and then, ‘Hello, Martin.'

Martin should have introduced Claire but he was too distracted for manners. He and Linda had all the embarrassment of former sweethearts, not kissing each other, standing awkwardly, neither quite knowing what to say.

‘Linda …' Martin looked at her so fiercely she had to turn her eyes away. As soon as she did so he said, ‘I'm sorry I haven't …'

‘That's all right …'

It was like watching something you shouldn't have. Len was about to ask Linda to have a drink with us but I put my hand on his knee to stop him and thank goodness he knew what I meant.

‘It's lovely to see you, Linda,' I said. ‘Keeping well?'

‘Not bad … you all right, Martin?'

‘This is my wife,' he said, gesturing to Claire.

‘I guessed as much.'

Claire kept looking at Linda. ‘I couldn't really be anybody else.'

‘It's nice to meet you,' said Linda.

‘I'd always wondered what you were like,' said Claire.

‘Well, I hope I'm not a disappointment.'

Martin could see that it was getting a bit tense but he couldn't think of the right thing to say. ‘We're old friends,' he explained to his wife.

Claire smiled. ‘I do know who Linda is, Martin.'

‘Long time ago now,' said Linda. Her boyfriend was signalling he'd got the drinks. ‘I'd best get back.'

‘You don't want to lose him …' I said.

She gave a little smile. ‘Bye then, Martin,' she said. ‘You all have a good evening.'

As soon as she had turned to go, and still within her hearing, Claire picked up her wine glass and announced: ‘So that's the famous Linda.'

‘Nice girl,' said Len. ‘Though not as nice as you, of course, Claire …'

I could tell he was thinking that he'd been right all along and that Martin would have been better off with his first girlfriend. She was far less opinionated and had always been more like one of us. The restaurant had to make such a fuss about Claire being a vegetarian and you never got that with Linda.

‘Couldn't you just have our vegetables?' I said, but Len was trying to get on her better side and made sure they cooked her the omelette.

Then Martin piped up, quite unexpectedly, ‘Pity George couldn't come.'

‘Don't you worry about George,' I said. ‘He's much happier where he is. You know he can't tell what's going on these days.'

Honestly. I don't know why he had to start talking about George. Neither of them had any idea what it was like and I could tell they were judging us even though no one would call their marriage perfect. Then Len changed the subject and said it was time for a dance. Of course Martin and Claire didn't join us; didn't know how, I suppose, even for the rumba, which any old fool can do.

I tried not to let them get to me. Even when Claire had recovered from her depression (of course we weren't allowed to call it that out loud) she still spoke as if she didn't expect anyone to be clever enough to understand her. I think she thought she felt
things more deeply than anyone else but she wasn't exactly the first person in the world to have a child.

I only hoped their marriage would survive. At least mine had, despite its troubles. No one could say I hadn't been good to George, looking after him for all those years.

Sometimes the old woman came to see me. She was losing her looks but I pretended not to notice. You have to be careful with ladies. They can be touchy. She kept talking to me as if I was married to her. But if that was the case then why weren't we in the same house? And where was my tea? I said, ‘I can't be married to you, my wife's much younger than you, and she's attractive, so what are you talking about?'

Days went by and I remembered seeing the child that everyone said was Martin's and I was confused and I couldn't stop thinking about how no one came to visit me any more. I preferred sleeping but I couldn't always be sure it would be all right. If I had dreams or woke up I couldn't get back to sleep and the waking was always a disappointment. It was like when I was in the hospital and they made me sleep for weeks and weeks, before they put the electric probe in the throat to make me speak. ‘Narcoanalysis,' the trick cyclist called it. Woken for an hour a day for a bit of soup and a wash, then the medicine and back to sleep where no one could harm me.

She's my lady love.
She is my dove, my baby love.
She's no girl for sitting down to dream.
She's the only girl Laguna knows
.

The jungle juice was so strong I didn't even dream. It was so peaceful then. It was a bit like being dead, I imagine. You got sad to wake up.

Now I either liked to be asleep or fully awake. I hated the bits in between but that was the time in which I lived. The voices in my head kept coming back again like it was a dream but not like the old days when there were orders and everyone knew what was what. Now it was different.

I knew that they were doing some decorating next door and there was scaffolding. The men had a radio but I couldn't make much sense of it. Someone was singing about going underground, and then another man with a lively voice said it was jam but I couldn't understand. How can jam go underground? It must have been like picking the flies off the sandwiches in the trenches. My dad had told me about that.

Then there was a woman singing about Bette Davis eyes and someone else saying it was all a joke and that suicide was painless and all these voices started to come together, the songs from next door and up in the sky and in my head:
The ratings are drowning … I'm watching the rivets … come on, Georgie, look lively … what are you doing, mate?

I thought I should get better. Really I should. But then why get better when I might have to go back?

Watch them drown all over again.

I don't mind death; it's the dying, I think: the fear of being afraid; always waiting for the surprise, things coming at me.

But I keep surviving. Nothing kills me. Ever. It's like I'm being punished for the ratings. They keep drowning and I keep surviving.

Sometimes I hear their voices calling me from underwater. And I see their faces. I want the voices to stop but they keep coming. Even in my sleep I hear them.

You still alive, Georgie? Fancy that. Lucky old George
.

Then I hear them calling me.

Come on, George
.

The slightest noise affects my heart.

I know she likes me.
I know she likes me
Because she said so
.

I think I'll go for a walk, blow the cobwebs away, only this time I'll walk as far as I can. Keep right on to the end of the road.

Straight On for the Sea.

She's my lady love.
She is my dove, my baby love.
She's no girl for sitting down to dream.
She's the only girl Laguna knows
.

We'll have this big reunion under the sea. I'm sure the men are waiting.

I know she likes me.
I know she likes me
Because she said so
.

All I have to do is keep walking towards the sun. Best foot forward.

She is my Lily of Laguna.
She is my lily and my rose
.

They used to train them, the postmen, because they always knew. I hoped for a young one coming up to the door because they only told you good news. It was the older ones you had to watch, the ones with kind faces. You could tell before they said anything, holding the envelope and wishing they weren't. ‘Priority,' it said.

I was with Mother in our old house in Thames Road when the news of George came the first time. ‘Is it good or bad news?' she asked and the postman looked embarrassed.

I couldn't understand how you could go missing from a boat except to die in the sea. And people would know about that. I heard bits of news; that there was a hospital there, not just a military one but a big civilian one, and I thought he might have gone off with one of the nurses and started a new life. Russian children running through the woods, and him drinking vodka and pretending he never knew me.

When he came back he had horrible dreams. He cried out that he was on fire with superheated steam or that some of the ratings were drowning.

He had given the order to flood the watertight compartments, and he'd had to do it to get the ship on an even keel again. Four of the men had been trapped below the waterline until their air gave out. He thought it was his fault.

‘Come back,' I wanted to say, ‘come back to me,' but he couldn't. I don't think he ever knew who I was, not really, not the laughs we had or the fun or the dancing. Instead all I got were those terrible eyes, the kind you see in the heads of people when
they're about to die, glittering. When I asked what was wrong he said: ‘I'm watching the rivets.' He thought he was in the water again, seeing if the ship was sinking, trying not to get sucked under. And then there was that shaking he did, and the moments of temper when he'd mutter and then stamp about angrily or bang on the table and shout, ‘Stop.'

Every Guy Fawkes I had to close the windows and doors and bandage his head so he couldn't hear the noise. But the bandages reminded him of the wounded he'd seen and the friends he'd lost and he started to pick away at them. And then when they came off he thought the lights were too bright and he heard the sounds from outside, fireworks, children and laughter. He thought he was being laughed at and that they were coming to get him to put him in the middle of the bonfire. He curled up under the bed and I had to lie beside him, holding him with his teeth chattering, his body shaking, waiting for it to go away and not knowing when it would.

Sometimes he came back to me a bit. He had these moments of sense when I remembered that in his day he was cleverer than anyone I had ever met. He was brilliant, it's the only word I can think of to describe it; brilliant in his eyes and in his mind, shining like he knew something nobody else did. And you got a glimpse of it before bang, out it went, quickly, like a light – not when you turn it off but when it snaps or explodes, gone, and his whole body slumped and it took ages to get him right again.

At the inquest the two witnesses said he looked at them but he didn't notice they were there at all. They shouted at him, told him the jetty was closed for the day, but either George couldn't hear them or he didn't want to. I don't know whether he'd waited until all the day-trippers had left or whether it was just a coincidence that there was hardly anyone there but he walked straight past the Old Bay Country Club, across the beach and on to the jetty without breaking his stride. He knew the currents were strong and he'd weighed himself down just in case but I wonder if he knew which step would be his last, if he'd paced it out or if it came as a surprise when he was falling, the way people who've survived say they wish halfway down that they hadn't done it.

He had a roving eye and I knew he fancied Lily rather than me,
but she was too young for him at the time, only fifteen, and so I decided to take my chance. Of course I didn't realise that he was going to keep fancying Lily even after we were married. God knows where they went or how they did it without anybody noticing. It was hard to find any place for yourself in those days. Perhaps a friend of his had a room or something.

Afterwards I got so depressed that I began to think that he had only married me in order to be closer to her. People always thought Lily was a soft little creature but she was all steel. That weakness, that ‘look after me, I'm so frightened', was an act.