No Talking after Lights (23 page)

I went to his funeral. I was nearly twenty and had already left home but I went back. I felt sorry for my mother. It was a shock to realize that she'd miss him. I didn't want her to have to see him buried alone, so I travelled back to Gower on one of the long, slow wartime trains, with endless changes at obscure stations, and got there the evening before the funeral.

If we were ever going to talk, it would have been then. She was raw and vulnerable. He had died from one moment to the next, without having been properly ill, and she wasn't prepared for it.

She gave me supper when I arrived, and then a cup of tea. We sat in the parlour together, conscious of his body lying upstairs. Probably she expected me to have a last look at him, but she didn't suggest it.

Before I could break the silence she looked up and said, ‘He was a good man, your father. Never forget that, Sylvia, out there in your big world of clever people. A
good man.
'

Yes, I nodded, yes, a good man. She closed her eyes and the silence resumed.

Side by side we followed his coffin into the chapel. A lot of his pupils were there, and some parents, and stupid old Mrs Powell, snivelling. The minister orated about his achievements in the life of the community and then we processed out again and stuck him in the ground.

My mother shook hands numbly and sat, dignified and widow-like, over the Welsh tea laid on for the mourners. There was no sin-eater to consume his
wickedness and send him safely to a better world. It was all so solemn that I was overcome by a desire to laugh. I left the room and they all snuffled sympathetically.

In the bathroom I looked at myself in the mirror as I grew red-faced, choking down my inappropriate glee. I lit a forbidden cigarette and smoked it to calm myself down. I struck several matches, one after the other, watching them flare and shrivel blackly and die. I was tempted to blow out the pilot light on the Ascot and, holding down the bi-metal strip, let the hot water run. If I then lit a match it would all go bang with a most satisfying whoosh. I looked at it for a long time, imagining the splash of light. There was a knock on the door and Mrs Powell's ingratiating voice said, ‘Sylvie, dear, are you all right? You lost your dada, is it? We all feel lost without him.'

Next morning I caught the train back again.

Diana sits grinning, waiting to be entertained again.

‘Good old Monks, or shall I call you Monkey, ho ho ho! “Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh … Gay your life must be!” Share the joke, Monkey, come on, let's all laugh.'

‘I was thinking how indescribably shocked my mother would be if she could see us now.'

‘Well, poor old Mothah. A daughtah who's sharing her living quarters with a mad teacher, pissed as a newt as well. Drunk as a lord. Sober as a judge - no, wrong one - sloshed, Monkey, and stewed as a prune. Not like that pulpit-faced bunch this afternoon … Fat-arsed fathers and po-faced mamas, all with their hands up each others' skirts and down each other's trousers. God they make me sick, shick, thick.
And
their prissy, virginal, precioush little daughters!'

‘Come upstairs, Sylvia,' said Diana, low-voiced and
breathless. ‘It's time we both got to bed. It's been a long day. I'm dead beat.'

‘Oh, sensible, level-headed, sober as a monk you are! Righty-ho then, off to bed we go, ho ho, ho ho …' And singing like the Seven Dwarfs, Sylvia climbed the lino-covered steps towards their separate bedrooms.

‘Did it go well?' asked Lionel Birmingham. ‘Bishop do his stuff?'

‘The bishop did his bit. Not fearfully inspiring, I'm afraid. Too much cosiness and not enough
gravitas
. It's a mistake to try and ingratiate yourself with children. Up there in his purple shirt and dog-collar: it's not his role to talk to them like an equal. Moral guidance, that's what they need. They don't expect a bishop to make them laugh. Girls are terribly susceptible,
en masse
like that. I told him they needed a bit of a pep talk and instead he waffled on about his schooldays. Great pity. Oh, well, never mind, listen to selfish old me grumbling. It went all right. The important thing is: what about
you?
How are you feeling? Did you manage to eat your supper? The strawberries were from the kitchen garden. I asked the under-gardener to pick them specially.'

Lionel tried to turn round and extract something from underneath his pillow, but he couldn't move his body far enough to reach his hand across, and after grunting heavily for a bit he sank back in exasperation and said, ‘You get it. Can't reach. Fish about and you'll find it.'

The heavy smell of her clothes and her body loomed for a moment as Henrietta rummaged behind him.

‘Oh, look!' she cried triumphantly. ‘It's a letter from James!'

The thin blue airmail paper crackled in her fingers as she read it hastily.

‘“… promotion promised for next year, provided all goes well… new man out from England seems a good chap … brought Juniper to his cocktail party to meet the troops …”
Juniper?
Who's Juniper? Lionel, do we know who this Juniper is? We don't
know
anyone called Juniper. Not a very English name. Oh, dear, I do hope James isn't being silly. He brought her to the Chief's cocktail party … well then, I suppose she must have been suitable, though it's a curious name. Anyway, then he says, where was I? Yes: “I shall be minding the desk for Roger Ormiston while he's on home leave, and after that I plan to come home myself for six weeks. Didn't mention it before in case …” Lionel! Do you realize he'll be home in
less than a month?
'

O God, I thank Thee for this Thy bounty, that my son will see his father before he dies. Almighty God, Father of us all… bring him home safely through Thy boundless skies - and please
, she couldn't help adding,
if she is to be important to him, let Juniper be a decent girl, worthy of him, and English
.

It was now so close to the end of term that the Lower Fourths were making caterpillar calendars on which to count off the remaining days. First they would draw several overlapping small circles with a protractor, then a larger one at the end for the caterpillar's head, sometimes embellished with long-lashed eyes and antennae, and always with a joyous message like HOME! or LAST DAY OF TERM! Using scissors they would cut round these circles, each with its pin-prick centre, and finally colour them in with waxy Lakeland pencils. These creations were pinned to the inside of their desks and every morning one circle would be cut off and thrown away. This ritual was proof that the holidays were approaching as the curling caterpillars grew shorter every day.

The hot weather continued, light and heat hanging in the stifling air. The girls were sluggish, heavy-limbed, slow-moving, too hot to argue or revise. Several complained of aching limbs and headaches. The staff, immured in their cramped room during Break and after lunch, snapped at one another irritably and complained about their pupils. What was the point in setting and marking exams, when they would all be suitably married within ten years to dull, rich husbands, for no purpose but to create another generation of pampered drones?

At night in the dormitory the girls were listless, slow
to undress and reluctant to lie under even a single sheet. The attic rooms were close and airless, although the windows were wide open and the curtains drawn back. Charmian was fretful, whining about a headache. She didn't feel well, her bones were all funny, it made her legs hurt.

‘Mine too,' said Anne Hetherington. ‘I wish Mummy was here. I wish this rotten term was over.'

‘Come on, girls, none of that nonsense. I'm up to my eyebrows,' said Miss Peachey. ‘Lights out. No talking. What
is
it, Charmian?'

‘Peach, I don't feel well.' Charmian sighed.

‘I've got too many on my hands in the sanatorium as it is,' said Miss Peachey. ‘Don't you start. Too much sun, that's your trouble. Fair-skinned people should stay out of the sun. Look at you. Bright red! Now then, bedtime. Night-night all!'

They listened as her crêpe soles squelched away down the corridor. Then Fiona said, ‘Tell us a story, Gogsy. Go on. Be a sport. Tell us the Thingummy and Thingummybob one. You know.'

Constance remembered the outline against the night sky, a pair of horses mating.

‘I'm tired,' she muttered. ‘Go to sleep. No.'

Charmian's voice came thinly from across the room. She lay in a graceless heap on her rumpled bed. ‘Pleease, Gogsy,' she said. ‘My head feels all funny. Tell us the story.'

‘Shut up then and I will,' said Constance. ‘I'll just finish off
Sohrab and Rustum
and then you lot leave me in peace, OK? Well, now, where … oh, yes. So you remember, they had this tremendous battle, with everyone from the two armies watching, until even the horse let out a dreadful cry and the air was filled with thunder and lightning and the river rushed and the two of them battled to the death. Suddenly
Sohrab's sword splintered into a thousand bits. Rustum saw his chance, and he lifted up his head and uttered his battle cry and gave a huge shout of “Rustum!” When Sohrab heard that he was so amazed - ‘cos you remember, Rustum's the name of his long-lost father - that he dropped his shield and Rustum drove his spear at him and Sohrab fell to the ground.'

‘Dead?' breathed Anne. ‘You mean, he got killed? The son died?'

‘
No!
' said Constance, her voice strong with anger. ‘No, he didn't. He staggered to his feet and grabbed Rustum's sword and thrust it deep into his side, thinking, there you are then.
That's
for what my father did! And he stood over Rustum, who lay dying on the sand. “My father abandoned me all those years ago and I've been searching for him ever since, but I can't find him, so you can die instead!” And so then, finally, with his dying breath, Rustum told him that
he'd
had a son once, and had put a mark on his arm so he would know him again. And Sohrab showed him the mark - like a vaccination, sort of - on his arm, and at last the two of them knew they were father and son. Rustum wanted to embrace him and get his forgiveness for having left him, but Sohrab wouldn't, because he thought it served him right for having gone away and left him on his own. That was his punishment. So he pulled out the sword, and his father's blood gushed out on to the sand, and he died. And Sohrab was the winner. And,' she added, ‘that meant he got the horse.'

‘Good,' said Fiona. ‘I'm glad it was the old man that died. It's a wizard story, Gogsy. Jolly well done.'

‘OK, so now everyone's got to go to sleep. ‘Night,' said Constance.

She rolled over with her back to the others and lay curled up under the sheet. As she drifted towards sleep she had a vision of her parents and herself, joined by a
cord, a long, plaited cord in three colours, one for each of them, pulsing like the blood in her finger, like an umbilical cord. It was stretched tight because her parents were so distant, and she feared in her half-sleep that it might break. If I ever have children, she thought, I'll
never
leave them.

Sitting in a biology revision class, Constance nursed her throbbing finger. Poison had swollen the top digit to three times its normal size and the skin was shiny from the pressure inside. With each beat of her heart a needle stabbed her. She breathed heavily, held her breath, then expelled it in a sigh, sometimes a groan. The others turned to frown at her, but she could not respond to anything but the rhythm of her own pain.

Sylvia Parry heard the sighs, clenched her fists and turned her back to the class, drawing diagrams on the blackboard so as not to see Constance's bowed head, her evident lack of interest in the lesson. The sighs went on. Miss Parry felt her anger like a rising tide. Behind her back, every minute or so, she could hear another dramatic groan. The girl was merely drawing attention to herself. If she ignored it, the groaning would stop. No-one spoke, no intelligent questions were asked. Suddenly, like a tidal wave breaking across the shore, she reacted.

‘For God's sake, Constance King, will you
stop
that interminable sighing! I am trying to
teach
. Now be QUIET.'

‘I'm sorry, Miss Parry. It's my finger. It really hurts.'

‘Poor little Baba, den. Does urns finger hurt?' she sneered, while the class quaked, avoiding her eye. ‘Jesus Christ, why am I stuck with this bunch of halfwitted infants? Get
out
of my lesson. Out! Away! Be off! Get lost!'

‘Shall I stand outside or … ?'

‘Go and see Matron, anybody, I don't care where you go, as long as the rest of us can get on with some
work
. OUT! NOW!'

Constance left the room thankfully. Miss Peachey wasn't anywhere to be found, but on the topmost dormitory corridor she bumped into the medical sister, formidable, straight-backed Miss Girdlestone. She was hurrying past clutching an armful of pillows, followed by Anne, who looked feverish, with glittering eyes.

‘Miss Girdlestone …' Constance began.

‘Can't you see I'm busy? What do you want?'

‘I'm sorry - it's my finger again. It honestly hurts like billy-o. Can you … ?'

‘For heaven's sake, Constance! It's only a whitlow. Haven't you ever had a whitlow before? It'll go away in a day or two. I've got much more important things to worry about. Why aren't you in your form-room?'

‘Miss Parry sent me out …'

‘Well, go and sit in the Reading Corner. Anywhere. Just leave me in peace.'

The hall was quiet, dark and cool. At her back, the tall trees were motionless in the still air. Listlessly Constance turned the pages of
Punch
and
The Children's Newspaper
. She put them back on the oak table and enfolded her throbbing finger again. So much pain enclosed in such a small area. She could hear the blood surging through her ears. She moaned to herself, rocking gently.