Too Close to the Sun (17 page)

‘I know this isn’t what we want,’ Grace said. ‘But we don’t have to stay here for ever. It’ll only be for a few weeks. And we’ll get used to it too.’ She looked around her at the humble furnishings, her glance taking in the bruised, scratched furniture, the cracked jug and wash basin on the washstand, the thinness of the blankets, the dullness of the white ticking on the bolster. That they had come to this, she said to herself. But she must not be despondent. She must keep a positive attitude, if only for Billy’s sake.

‘We’ll feel better in the morning,’ she said. ‘And tomorrow I must write to Aunt Edie and tell her where we are. Yes, and also I’ll buy the newspapers and see what advertisements there are for positions. I’ll soon find something, you’ll see. And I don’t have to be a teacher; there are all kinds of jobs that I can do. And when I do get something we’ll find a much nicer room.’

‘We could have gone to stay with Aunt Edie,’ Billy said. ‘She would have looked after us.’

‘No, Billy,’ Grace said, ‘I’m afraid we couldn’t ask that of her. Her cottage is so small, as you know, with only the two rooms. There wouldn’t be room for us, and besides, she suffers so from her arthritis. We can’t ask anything of her.
Poor woman, it’s as much as she can do to provide for herself and Tippy.’

She looked down at his face now, and saw his lower lip quiver. He looked full of tears. Oh, Billy, don’t cry, she said silently. She herself felt so emotional that she knew that with his first tear her own defences would go.

Grace lay on the bed, Billy beside her. She could tell by the sound of his breathing that he was not asleep. She knew that, like herself, he was unable to relax.

From below came the sounds of voices, of people going past the house at the end of the day. From further off came the striking of a church clock telling the hour of eleven. The cotton on the pillow beneath Grace’s head was coarse, and the pillow itself smelled slightly of singed feathers.

‘Grace …’ Billy’s voice, whispering.

‘Yes, what is it?’ Grace whispering too.

‘I can’t sleep.’

‘Come cuddle up a little. And just try to relax.’

He snuggled up to her for a moment, and kissed her on the chin. Then, turning away, he lay curled into her body, spoon fashion, her arm around him. In moments he had drifted off to sleep.

The night was so warm and Grace had awakened. Surfacing from sleep in the warm night, she scratched a particularly aggressive little itch about her midriff. Beside her in the bed, Billy had moved a little away from her, unconsciously, in his sleep, putting space between the heat of their bodies. He slept restlessly, tossing a little, his head moving on the pillow, hands rubbing at his body beneath the thin sheet. It was the heat, Grace thought, making him restless.

She lay there thinking of the day past, of all that had taken place. She had seen the last of her home in Green Shipton, something undreamed of a month ago. And now
here she was, sleeping in a strange bed in some cheap lodging house with her brother, trying to make ends meet and think up a future for the two of them. She reached down and, through her nightdress, scratched at her upper thigh, and then, drawing up her leg a little, at a spot behind her knee. She supposed she would get used to the bed in time, though it was nothing like as comfortable as the ones that Mr Clemmer had carted away that afternoon.

Opening her eyes she looked around the room, all shadows and recesses in the pale light that crept in between the thin curtains. The place would not do for them to live in for very long. It was not just a matter of it being strange, she realized; it was so different from the home they had known that she was sure they would never get used to it. She scratched again, at an area just below her breast, and noticed that Billy, in his sleep, was scratching too.

And then Grace was lying staring up into the dark, eyes wide, and feeling sure that she could feel something moving on her body. Quickly her frantic fingers were pulling up her nightdress and touching her skin, and then she was feeling the tiny, firm shape – no bigger than the head of a hatpin – that had leeched onto her flesh and was gorging on her blood. She caught it between her trembling finger and thumb, squeezed it, and felt it burst between her fingertips like a tiny ripe fruit.

In a moment she was moving, climbing over Billy’s stirring form to get out of bed and stand on the threadbare piece of carpet that served as a bedside mat. Hands shaking feverishly, she felt for the matches and candle, and lit a match and set it to the candle’s wick. Then, lifting the skirt of her nightdress she looked at her bare right leg in the pale light. She could see small red blotches up her calf, and when she pulled up her sleeve she could see more bites on her arms. She had been bitten all over.

And then from behind her came Billy’s voice, waking,
bewildered, irritable: ‘Gracie, I’m itching. Everywhere I’m itching.’

And letting her nightdress fall she turned to him and saw him sitting up in bed, scratching at his belly and his thigh.

‘Get up, get up.’ Grace pulled the covers away from his body, and as he moved aside she took up the candle and held it over the sheet where they had been lying. And she could see them, the bedbugs, running from the scene, little dark, round, swarming creatures, all running for cover from the light and the cooler air. In just three or four seconds there was not a single one to be seen.

Dawn came and found Grace and Billy sitting on the only two chairs in the room, both fully dressed. Having drawn back the curtains they had been there for hours, speaking barely a word, sitting side by side, waiting for the first faint glimmer of sunrise to touch the horizon. When it did, Grace reached out and took Billy’s hand. He looked at her, acknowledging her look of relief. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, pressing his hand, ‘soon we can leave.’

And they continued to sit there while the shadows grew paler and the ugliness of the room became once more exposed. When the church clock struck eight, Grace nodded and got up.

‘I’ll go and get a cab,’ she said, ‘and bring it back. Then we shall be out of here for good.’

On finding a cab Grace brought it back to the lodging house. She had had no wish to confront Mrs Packerman, but at the same time she was reluctant to lose all the rent she had paid in advance. So there was nothing for it but to speak to the woman. Not that Mrs Packerman had been hiding away. On the contrary, she was very much in evidence when Grace got the porter to carry their luggage downstairs.

‘Does this mean what I think it means?’ Mrs Packerman said to Grace, standing in the hall watching as the trunk was carried out to the waiting cab. ‘Are you leaving us so soon?’

‘We are indeed, Mrs Packerman,’ Grace replied, drawing herself up, while her heart was thumping. ‘And I should be greatly obliged to you if you could refund part of the rent we paid you in advance.’

Ignoring this last request, the landlady said, her voice concerned, almost solicitous, ‘May I ask why you see fit to leave so soon after arriving? Wusn’t you comfortable? How come you’re in such a hurry?’

‘Yes, we are in a hurry,’ Grace countered. ‘And we’re leaving not a moment too soon if we are not to be bitten to death.’

‘Not to be –’ Now Mrs Packerman looked outraged. ‘What exactly are you suggesting, miss?’

At this Grace turned to Billy and said, ‘You go and wait in the cab, Billy, and I’ll join you in a second.’ When, reluctantly, he had gone, casting uncertain glances from the woman to his sister, Grace turned back to the woman.

‘I’m not suggesting anything, Mrs Packerman. I’m stating a fact. We’re leaving because we cannot stay. The mattress we slept on – or tried to sleep on – last night was crawling. It was
alive
. Perhaps your other houseguests might be prepared to put up with it, but we are not. We are accustomed to something better, and although times are a little hard we are not so desperate as you obviously imagine.’

Mrs Packerman’s mouth now fell open in a kind of theatrical outrage, falling open and then stretching wide, wider in supposed amazed horror. ‘Are you suggesting that I keep a dirty house, miss? Are you suggesting that there are bugs in my beds?’

Grace’s heart hammered in her breast. ‘Go and see for
yourself,’ she said. ‘Or better yet, try sleeping in that bed. Though maybe you’re so used to it that you wouldn’t notice anything amiss.’

‘Get out!’ Mrs Packerman cried. ‘Get out! Get out!’ And then launched herself, arms flailing, at Grace.

But though she flinched initially, Grace stood her ground, hands clenched at her sides. Mrs Packerman came to a stop.

‘Well,’ she blustered, ‘if you think you’re getting any repayment of your week’s rent in advance, you can think again.’

‘It was a month altogether,’ Grace said. ‘I paid you the remaining three weeks just yesterday, when we arrived.’

‘You must show me your receipt, then. You’re bound to have a receipt.’

‘I haven’t got one. You said you’d bring one to me – but you never did.’

Mrs Packerman sniffed. ‘You’re wasting my time, miss. I don’t recall any extra three weeks rent. And I’d be grateful if you’d get off my property – this very minute.’

And so Grace did. She had no choice. It was obvious to her that she would never get her money back. Angry and humiliated, she turned and marched out to the waiting cab, beside which the driver waited, having listened to every word of the exchange.

So too, Grace found, when she got inside, had Billy. And having heard the angry voices, the woman’s hostility directed at Grace, he was in tears.

‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ Grace said, putting her arms around him. ‘No harm’s done.’ She held him closer as he sniffed and wiped at his eyes. ‘But in any case, we’re leaving now, and we’ll never have to see this place again.’

An hour and a half later they were being let down in the rear yard at Asterleigh House, and Grace was asking the
driver to wait while she went inside. She just prayed that Mrs Spencer was at home.

She was, and within minutes Grace was being shown into her studio where she was at work at her easel. In a few words Grace told her what had happened, ending by saying that if the offer was still open, she and Billy would be pleased to accept it. Very soon afterwards the cab driver had been paid and sent on his way, and Grace and Billy’s luggage was being brought into the house.

‘Are you all set?’ Grace asked. She and Billy were in his room that looked out over the yard. Thirty minutes earlier the two of them had breakfasted together, and now Grace had come to see that he was ready for school. She entered his room to find him making up his bed. It was Thursday, 5th April. Billy had now been going to the Culvercombe National school for five months.

Five months, Grace said to herself as she observed him tidying up his bed. They had been there five months. The time had flown so fast, yet their first day in the house was as clear in her mind as if it had been yesterday.

Fresh from their horrifying night at the lodging house and her humiliating encounter with Mrs Packerman, Grace had stood in trepidation at the door of Asterleigh House waiting to know whether Mrs Spencer would see her. And soon afterwards she was standing before Mrs Spencer, telling her what had happened at the lodging house, and asking if the offer to live and work at Asterleigh House was still open.

‘Why should it not be?’ Mrs Spencer had replied. ‘You had a perfect right to see if you could find something that suited you better, something in your chosen profession.’ And after a brief pause she had given a nod of the head and added, ‘And I doubt I’m wrong in saying that it’s not thoughts for yourself alone that have brought you here now. No, when you have responsibility for another, you cannot always do exactly as you would choose.’

Grace and Billy had moved in that same day.

In the intervening time they had settled well into the house and into their new lives. Within days of their moving in, Grace had taken Billy to the nearest National school, some three miles distant. And from Monday to Friday he made his way back and forth on foot. There had been times in the past, at Green Shipton, when he had been reluctant to go to school in the mornings, particularly following the death of their mother. So far, however, he had shown no such great reluctance at his new school. Grace was so relieved, so pleased. Even so, she must keep ever vigilant. She knew well that with his disability there was always the chance of some bully picking on him. She must be on the lookout for any signs, for if it should happen she would not allow it to continue.

But he seemed happy. She had wondered if he would miss his work on Timmins’s farm, but he seemed not to; his whole life had changed and there was so much that was new for him to get accustomed to: new school, new surroundings, new people in his life. And he was not one to complain. His concerns, when they came, were practical. ‘How shall we get to the Green Shipton churchyard to see Mama and Pappy’s grave?’ he had once asked. ‘How can we when we’re so far away?’

‘We’ll get there,’ Grace had replied. ‘Not as often as before, but we’ll find the time to go.’

‘And what about the flowers? Now we haven’t got any of our own.’

‘Perhaps the gardener will give us a few from the garden. But don’t worry, everything will be fine.’

For herself Grace felt she had done equally well. It had taken a little time to get used to the unaccustomed luxury around her in the large house, but now she was getting used to it, and as far as she could, she enjoyed her time there. And the hours she spent with Mrs Spencer were
interesting and generally enjoyable. The two of them would paint or sketch together, sometimes in Mrs Spencer’s studio or in the conservatory – Billy occasionally joining them when he could. At other times Grace and her mistress would play chess or bezique; Grace would accompany her on little excursions to places of interest, museums, historic buildings. And now with spring in the air there was talk from Mrs Spencer of driving out to sketch out of doors.

One particular interest of Mrs Spencer’s was in a portrait she had begun of Grace. It was on a large canvas, larger than any usually used by Mrs Spencer. She had Grace in her second-best dress of coffee and white, sitting in an old upright chair, and looking towards the window. After a time Mrs Spencer got a mirror and placed it carefully so that Grace could watch in it the progress of the painting. Grace was fascinated to see the picture grow beneath the older woman’s hands.