No Talking after Lights (33 page)

On her desk a bowl of roses flared crimson, orange and yellow, as lush as a funeral bouquet. I am afraid, she thought; I am afraid of death and loneliness and failure. I have to be strong, but I feel helpless.

The great iron ring on the front door rattled, and she heard the rustle of post falling into the wire basket inside. Henrietta Birmingham stood up, bracing one hand on the desk to help her get to her feet, and fetched the morning's mail. She picked out the jagged red and blue edging of an aerogram and, reaching for her father's crested silver paperknife, she slit open her son Jamie's letter first. Her heartbeat quickened and she muttered under her breath,
please God, please God
, not knowing what it was she asked for.

Darling Mater,

Your news came as a great shock. I had no idea that Father was so gravely ill. I have managed to arrange for my leave to start a week early, and Juniper and I will be flying by BOAC from Hong Kong into London Airport, arriving at 11.15 on the morning of Friday, August 1st.

Tomorrow! Jamie would be here tomorrow! Her eyes skimmed the paragraphs. There it was, right at the end. The words leapt off the page. ‘Her surname, by the way, is Fung. Juniper Fung. It's a beautiful name, I think. Much nicer, poor her, than Juniper Birmingham.'

Late that same night, Henrietta, having dismissed the nurse, sat alone beside her husband's bed. The night-light on the bedside table cast deep, contoured shadows across the dry furrows on one side of his face, and the shadows quivered and slid each time he drew a long, subterranean breath. Two cups of untouched tea had grown a stagnant, greyish skin. The clock ticked very loudly. It was almost midnight. Exhausted by prayers so fervent that she had fallen into a trance-like state, disembodied, communing directly with her God, Henrietta dozed.

Half a mile away, in the cottage at the end of the drive, Sylvia Parry paced up and down the cramped lounge. She had drunk a bottle of sherry, finished the gin which she had found hidden behind the bread-bin in the larder, and now she was on the last of the cider. She swung the bottle up and down, waving her arms as though conducting. ‘Dance for your Daddy-o,' she sang; and then, ‘Cry, baby bunting/Your Daddy's gone a-hunting.' Noticing that drops of cider were flying out of the bottle and blotching the letter she had been
trying to write, she put the bottle to her mouth and drained it. Then she stood still, rocking slightly on her feet.

Now what? she said to herself. Now what?

A cigarette packet lay on the table, but the matchbox was empty. How did that happen? she thought. Careless. Didn't notice. She picked up the matchbox and shook it. Definitely empty.

‘Blast!' she shouted. ‘Blast and fucking damnation! No fucking booze and no fucking matches either!' She went into the kitchen, and there (good old Diana) was a household box of Bryant & May placed neatly on the shelf beside the gas cooker. Time for a fag. Here's another nail in your coffin. She lit up, inhaled deeply, and walked purposefully back to the lounge.

‘Dear old Monkey,' the letter began. She took a red biro and wrote with firm strokes on a fresh sheet of paper: ‘Dear Diana, I am writing to wish you well in the future and thank you for your patience and understanding

‘NO!' she shouted, smashing the cigarette into the wet ring in a saucer.

‘No, damnation, no, no, no,
no!
'

She stood up, trembling, and her head and shoulders slumped. ‘No …' she whimpered. ‘Oh, no, please, no, not again …' She rolled her head from side to side, hearing the tense bones in her neck crack.

What's the matter? she asked herself soothingly. Go on, you can tell me. Tell me your secrets, Sylvie duck. Safe with me. The wheedling voice inside her head fluted its goblin questions. Is it Hermione, then? Pretty,
pretty
Hermione? But you can't have her, my lovey, can you now?

‘Shut up!' she shouted aloud. ‘Shut bloody
up!
'

Her legs buckled, and she collapsed awkwardly into one of the sagging armchairs, SAFETY MATCHES, said the
box on the table next to her. With an effort, for it slipped off the first time, she balanced her foot across one knee and tried to strike a match against the sole of her shoe. There was a rasping sound, but no spark. She tried again, pressing harder. Still nothing. She threw the matches across the room, then lumbered to her feet and retrieved them. She lit another cigarette and leaned against the mantelpiece, flicking ash into the curving reflector of the dusty, one-bar electric fire.

Filled with inchoate energy and no way to discharge it, she leant forward and slammed her forehead against the wall several times, harder and harder, until it hurt so much that she was forced to stop. She kicked the edge of the lino where it curled against the tiles of the fireplace, then bent down and began to pull off threads of matting where it had frayed along the edge. Stroking her throbbing forehead, she talked to herself, mumbling harshly. ‘Alone again; on my tod, now and for ever, for ever and ever, Amen. Should have gone to supper with Old Ma B. Never seen inside the Lodge. Crumbling to dust, I expect. Like that husband of hers. Who needs husbands? Who needs fucking
anyone?
I need fucking, that's for sure.'

Need to spend a penny. The bladder is a muscular sac which, at its fullest capacity, holds over a pint of liquid. Bottle of sherry, three-quarters; plus maybe a quarter bottle of gin, makes one pint, plus another half pint of cider. Time to piss, Sylvia. Got to go upstairs to the bog.

She had to hold onto the rickety banister as she lumbered up the stairs. Sitting on the warm wooden seat of the lavatory, she released a hissing stream of urine. The bathroom was garishly lit by one unshaded bulb. On the shelf above the basin was another box of matches, in case the pilot light on the Ascot went out. She stared at them, then lowered her head to look at her feet
planted on the checked linoleum floor. There were pools of rust around the claw feet of the bath. She looked back at the matches. ‘Bloody awful life,' she said, speaking clearly and emphatically. It was quite dark outside. The owl hooted, and in the distance a dog barked. ‘Bloody. Awful. Life.' She began to chant it, running the words together: ‘Bloodyawfulife, I've gottabloodyawfulife, hate my bloodyawfulife.'

Sylvia rose to her feet. She pulled her knickers up, and smoothed the good Liberty skirt down over her hips. She walked across to the Ascot and blew out the pilot light. She turned the hot tap full on so that water gushed into the bath and, using the handle of her toothbrush, held down the bi-metal strip. She could hear the steady, soft roar of gas below the rush of running water. She began counting out loud, slowly, distinctly, not hurrying, even though after a while the nauseating smell of gas made her feel wobbly. When she had reached fifty she said, ‘Hermione. Goodbye, my love. And bye-bye Monkey.'

She struck a match. With a thunderous crack, the gas ignited. A tongue of fire shot out and the room exploded with golden light.

Twenty minutes later, woken by the frantic barking and whining of her dog, the gardener's wife drew back the curtains of her bedroom window and leaned out to shout it down. Far away, over the other side of the fields, she could see bright sparks of flame spitting and whizzing into the night. She ran downstairs to the telephone. ‘Fire,' she gasped, before she had even dialled. ‘Fire. Fire. Fire.'

The bedroom in the Lodge reverberated with the dry sound of two people breathing. Henrietta, fully dressed, slept at last. Her white head had fallen forward on to her chest, her shoulders were slack, her
hands lay one across the other in her lap, palms upward. Beside her, Lionel's wheezing punctuated her quicker, shallower breaths.

In the drawing-room, the telephone began to ring.

THE END

The school in this book is based on the girls' boarding-school which I attended in the 1950s, for after spending seven years there I would find it hard to imagine any other; and the Headmistress described - as my affectionate tribute to her lifelong influence - has the actual appearance of the Headmistress who presided over us. All other characters, staff and girls, their history and families, are wholly fictional, as are the events.

I am grateful to Jack and Libby Clough for their hospitality in Gower and for their knowledge of the peninsula, which they generously shared with me.

I would also like to thank my editor, Clare Alexander, for her patience and skill.

To Dee Bryan-Brown
my best friend for thirty years

This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

Copyright © Angela Lambert 1990

The moral right of author has been asserted

All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise
make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
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may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

ISBN: 9781448204137
eISBN: 9781448203543

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