Tara Page 9

  As to her own feelings, Amy couldn't even begin to sort them out. But now, as her eyes drooped and she felt sleep overtaking her, she had a sense that fate had sent her here for a purpose.

  'Are you sure, Amy?' Harry stood by his car, his bright blue eyes troubled. 'She's worse than Attila the Hun! And what about the kids? They'll hate it.'

  'Do they look as if they're hating it?' Amy nodded towards Tara. She wore a pair of navy blue shorts, an old sweater and her bare legs were half hidden in a huge pair of Wellingtons. She was hosing and sweeping down the yard, crowing with delight as smooth cobbles revealed themselves under the dirt.

  Paul was hidden in the barn, but they could hear him chattering away to two new calves as if they were old friends. Amy had never seen him eat such a big breakfast – porridge, bacon and eggs and at least three slices of bread and honey.

  'Once the novelty wears off they'll wish they were back in London,' Harry argued. 'We could help you to find a flat there, and you could get a job easy.'

  Amy shook her head. 'Look around you, Harry. Forget the dirt in the yard, the greasy windows and the hole in the barn roof. Look at what I'm being offered here and what it could mean long-term.'

  The sun was shining on a clump of white dog daisies by the barn, the old mare Betsy was looking out over the stable door. The only sounds were Paul talking softly to the calves in the barn, Tara sweeping and the chickens clucking.

  'There are meadows all around that belonged to my ancestors.' She gestured behind her. 'Mother tells me if we go down the lane it leads to the river. A couple of miles over there' – she pointed beyond the house – 'is a huge lake full of wild geese, swans and other birds. You tell me where I'll find that in London.'

  Harry had never seen Amy like this. In a pair of jeans and a cotton blouse she looked more like twenty than over thirty. Her hair was tousled, her hands were already red from scrubbing, but she had a determined look in her soft blue eyes.

  'Well, you know where we are,' Harry said as he opened the car door. 'If it don't work out, any trouble, anythin' at all, just phone and we'll be down to sort it out.'

  'Are you going now, Harry?' Tara shouted, running across the yard as fast as she could in her huge boots.

  'Paul!' Amy called out. 'Harry's leaving now.'

  Somehow it showed the full measure of Harry when Paul came racing out of the barn, running full tilt to the older lad's arms, beating his sister. Harry swept him up, pressing his face against the smaller one.

  'You'll come and see us, won't you?' Paul asked, his small grubby hands cupping Harry's face. 'And teach me to box?'

  Harry hugged Paul one last time before putting him down. 'And I hope I get such a good hug from you too, Tara?'

  Tara looked bashful, but she put her arms round his waist and buried her head in his chest.

  'I never had such a good friend as you,' she whispered. 'I won't ever forget you.'

  'You won't get a chance.' Harry prised her off his chest and lifted her chin so he could see her face. 'I shall be checking up on you, so don't think you can marry some spotty-faced farm boy and forget about being a famous dress designer,' he said. He kissed her cheek, then reached out for Amy, a stricken look on his face.

  Amy hugged him. 'Promise me you won't go astray, Harry?' She wiped away the dirt Paul had smeared on his face. There was strength and character in that angular face, his blue eyes were compassionate. If he didn't wander from the straight path it would be a lucky woman that had those sensual lips to kiss and that lean, strong body in her arms.

  He shook his head, kissed her cheek and got into the car.

  'You don't know how much Dad and me'll miss you. Keep in touch!'

  'Can't you sit down for a minute?' Mabel said tetchily as Amy put back the last piece of washed china on to the dresser.

  The children were in bed, exhausted from exploring and cleaning their bedroom. They hadn't even noticed the absence of a television in the excitement of so many new experiences.

  'I'll stop now.' Amy hung the teatowel on the rail in front of the Aga to dry and leaned back against it, looking round at the clean room. 'It looks much better, Mother, but it needs painting.'

  She had worked on the kitchen since Harry left that morning – walls and ceiling washed down, the pine table scrubbed with bleach, cupboards and drawers turned out, every last utensil and piece of china washed. Some of the old pots were copper and now they gleamed up on the beams, free of cobwebs and dust. The prettiest china was displayed on the dresser and faded checked curtains had been washed and replaced at sparkling windows.

  It was far brighter now, already a pleasant family room, but Amy's head was buzzing with ideas, for new upholstery on her mother's rocking chair, maybe a rug beneath it, and bright cushions on the wooden settle.

  'I can't afford painters.' Mabel's rocking chair scraped on the tiled floor.

  'I can paint it.' Amy studied her work-reddened hands; they hadn't look like this since she left Bill. 'If I'm going to live here we have to make it nice.'

  She'd barely had time to examine the other rooms but a quick glance had daunted her. Boxes of rotten, forgotten apples lay in the dining room, stuffing spilled out of the armchairs in the sitting room and an inch of dust covered everything. The bathroom upstairs smelled as if something had died in there, and she found mouse droppings in the airing cupboard. There were cupboards and trunks stuffed with ancient clothes, letters and photographs, strange old gadgets that ought to be in a museum, glimpses of a past Amy wanted to know about. Yet she sensed a deep reluctance on her mother's part to discuss it.

  'There's paint out in the barn.' Mabel sniffed. 'I bought it all before Mother died. I was like you then, but losing her knocked the heart out of me.'

  Amy pulled out one of the chairs from the table and sat down.

  'Why didn't you ever tell me about this place when I was little?' she asked. The question had been in her mind all day and now it suddenly seemed very important. 'Did you fall out with your mother, too?'

  Mabel didn't answer for a moment, she just sat and rocked, almost as if she was dozing off to sleep.

  'Not Mother,' she said eventually. 'Just Papa.'

  'Tell me about it now.' Amy moved her chair a little closer. 'There's so much time to make up for, Mother.'

  Mabel chomped on her false teeth and looked hesitant.

  Amy had been surprised this morning to find her mother had obviously bathed, washed her hair and put on clean clothes. Her white hair was fluffy now, trying to escape from its bun, and with her teeth back in she looked ten years younger. She still wore men's trousers and a sweater, but Amy had seen for herself that such an outfit was far more sensible than a dress.

  She wasn't mad, not even depressed. Eccentric, certainly, but she had all her faculties. Loneliness and bitterness had put those permanent scowl lines on her face, but Amy had heard her laughing with the children several times today and that meant the Mabel Randall of pre-War years was still there somewhere.

  'I never told you about this place because I once swore I'd never set foot in here again while your grandfather was alive.'

  'Why?'

  'Because James Brady was the cruellest man I ever met and I hated him so much I could have killed him. I only came back to nurse Mother.'

  'He was dead?'

  'Had been for a couple of years,' Mabel said. 'Thrown from his horse in a thunderstorm coining back from Wells. They reckon he lay there all night with a broken back before someone found him. I laughed when I heard, I hoped he died in agony.'

  'Father Glynn told George Collins that your mother advertised to find you. What was it like when you got back here?'

  Mabel closed her eyes and let herself go back six years.

  Everything had seemed so bewildering, familiar yet totally different. The train was so much faster. Temple Meads station at Bristol didn't look so huge or so grand; then there was the bus ride out through Bristol, houses where once there had been only fields. She had got off the bus
at Pensford Hill thinking that it was only a short walk down the lane from there, only to discover it was miles. Her case was heavy, her shoes were too tight and when she looked out over the fields towards the farm she was puzzled to see a lake where once there had been only farmland.

  But once she got to the village her heart was pounding with excitement. The sweet shop on the corner was still there, though it looked as if it had changed hands. Pearse's the baker's was now called The Old Bakery and looked very much smarter. The High Street looked narrower than she remembered, but maybe that was just because of the parked cars. She could remember boys playing cricket there with only the occasional horse or pony trap disturbing them. But as she turned towards the farm she forgot her tight shoes and the heavy case, put aside the bitter memories and thought only of seeing her mother for the first time in thirty-four years.

  She was sitting out in a wicker chair by the barn, almost asleep, as Mabel turned the corner to the yard, an old lady of eighty in a navy and white print dress with a handmade lace collar, her white hair twisted up into a bun. Smaller, thinner, her once delicate skin was furrowed with deep lines, and brown from the sun. Her eyes flew open as she heard her daughter's step on the cobbles.

  'Oh, Mabel.' She had struggled to get up, tottering towards her daughter on bowed, arthritic legs, arms wide open in welcome. 'You can't imagine how I've longed for this moment.'

  Tears pricked the back of Mabel's eyes unexpectedly as she thought of that time now.

  'It was good to see her again,' was all she managed to say, but she was ashamed to compare the welcome she'd offered Amy and the children with the joyous one she had been given by Polly. 'She had all her faculties, but she was too weak to cope with everything. You take after her, she couldn't bear mess either.'

  'Was it good to be together again?' Amy wanted to know what had caused the rift in the first place, but she knew better than to rush her mother.

  Mabel's face softened. She leaned back in her chair and rocked gently, her eyes closed.

  'There was so much to say, so much that needed explaining. But somehow we could never get it out. Mother used to sit in this chair.' Mabel looked round at her daughter and smiled. 'I used to sit where you are and read her the paper. We gossiped about the people in the village, but never about us.'

  'But you hated your father, did you talk about that?'

  'I tried to once. Mother stopped me, she said she'd married my father because she loved him. If he didn't turn out to be kind of man she'd hoped for, then that wasn't his fault, but hers for being a bad judge of character.'

  'She sounds like a saint,' Amy said with a wry smile. 'Do you go along with that?'

  'I certainly don't. She should have stuck a knife in him.' Mabel was quite animated and flushed now, almost as if she'd spent some time considering killing her father.

  'What was her answer to that?'

  ' "You must learn to be kinder, Mabel. To accept what is, and not to try to change people or events to suit yourself."'

  'She sounds lovely, I wish I'd met her,' Amy said.

  'You have a great deal of Polly in you.' Mabel saw sweet perfection in her daughter's face. The straight line of her small nose, the clarity of her complexion and yet sensuality in the lips inherited from herself. 'The funny thing is I could see it in you even when you were small. It irritated me sometimes because I knew you'd just accept things the way she did. But on balance I wish I'd inherited more of Polly and less of James.'

  Amy realised that was meant to be a compliment, even if it hadn't come out like one.

  'My grandfather?'

  Mabel nodded and screwed up her lips in disapproval.

  'He was like a mad bull. Red-haired, hot-tempered, arrogant and self-opinionated. He didn't have a friend in the world, you know. He had acquaintances, men who kowtowed to him because he was tougher and meaner, but not one real friend. I'm the same, who'll miss me when I'm gone?'

  'We will,' Amy said stoutly. 'Besides, you had that breakdown, you weren't like that before Dad died.'

  'I was.' Mabel shrugged her shoulders. 'I might have liked dancing and parties in those days, I might have laughed a great deal, seemed popular, but I didn't make close friends. I didn't need anyone other than Arthur. My breakdown didn't come from grief, you know.'

  Amy's eyes widened. Surely she wasn't going to hear now that Mabel didn't ever love her husband?

  'It was rage!'

  'Rage?'

  'Rage and fury,' Mabel said with satisfaction. 'Before you were born my life with him was like being on a switchback. Here and there we were up on top, but mostly plunging down to the bottom again. He was a gambler, you see.'

  'A gambler? What sort – horses, cards?'

  'Mostly cards, poker was his game. He was known in just about every casino, club and dive bar in England.'

  Somehow that explained a great deal to Amy.

  'That's why we were living in Whitechapel?'

  So many times in her adult years Amy had pondered that question. So they had got trapped there as she and Bill had!

  Mabel nodded grimly. 'We were only one step away from the workhouse in 1929. We had nothing left to sell, we were being chased for Arthur's gambling debts. It was January, thick snow on the ground, and I pawned my wedding ring to pay the rent on that house.'

  Amy's mouth fell open. 'But Dad always seemed so . . .' She couldn't think of the right word; 'sensible' hardly seemed appropriate.

  'Your father was feckless, a wonderful, stupid man. A bounder, a lazy good-for-nothing, but I loved him with every breath in my body. But the first day we spent in that filthy slum in Whitechapel I swore I'd leave him if he gambled one more penny.'

  'Did he?' Amy hardly dared ask.

  'No.' Mabel smiled. 'He didn't, at least not to my knowledge. He couldn't get any work, then I found I was expecting you and that's why he joined the Army. Sometimes I wish I'd turned a blind eye to his gambling, then he would have been called up for the War, but he wouldn't have been a sergeant and no-one would have expected him to be a hero. But instead he gets himself killed and leaves me.'

  Amy shook her head in amazement at her mother's selfishness.

  'I'm going to bed now,' she said, getting up and moving towards the door. She paused, her hand on the knob, suddenly wanting to wound her mother.

  'Just tell me, Mother, did you ever wonder how Dad might have felt if he'd looked down during the Blitz and seen me on my own in the kitchen with the windows caved in, and lumps of burning shrapnel embedded in the floor?'

  Mabel's eyes dropped to her lap and for a moment she was silent.

  'I've had that coming to me for years,' she said in a small voice. 'I haven't forgotten any of it. Not the time I found you trying to sweep out the rats when the sewer broke open and they ran in the house. Or you scavenging for fuel for the fire with that old pram. Those memories are trapped in my head too, Amy. It was as if I was locked behind glass at that time, able to see you but unable to do anything for you.'

  Amy closed her eyes. All these years she'd clung to the idea that her mother knew nothing of her suffering during the Blitz.

  It was like holding a firework in her hand, ready to light it and throw it when the opportunity came to create mayhem. But Mabel had tortured herself already with those memories.

  'I think we should both heed my grandmother's words,' Amy said.

  'What words?'

  'Accept what is, and don't try to change people or events,' Amy said haltingly.

  'Apologies are useless now.' Mabel's voice shook, and she got up from her chair and walked across the room to Amy. 'One day I'll find a way to redeem myself in your eyes.'

  Amy knew she should hold out her arms to her mother, but she couldn't, not yet. Instead she backed out of the door, turning to flee up the stairs.

  Time was on their side. One or two bricks had been knocked off the wall between them. That was a start.

  Chapter 6

  Mabel

  Mabel stayed in the kitche
n long after she'd heard the creak of bedsprings above her. She was exhausted, but she was loath to go upstairs because she guessed Amy was crying. Until two days ago Mabel had gone to bed soon after it was dark and slept soundly until first light, but now that kind of peace was shattered.

  She should have known it was folly to contact Amy. The moment she stepped out of that car with her two children, the shell Mabel had carefully built round herself broke right open.

  This shell had begun to grow around her heart when she met the evangelists back in '41. They promised salvation, a purpose to her life, and in her fragile and troubled state she believed that meant she must renounce everything that had gone before. She burned everything connected with Arthur and her former life and slowly, as she immersed herself in prayer and trying to convert others, the shell grew thicker and thicker, shutting out even her daughter.

  The first cracks in her armour had appeared when she came back here. To feel the warmth of her mother's love, undiluted by all the years apart, made her question for the first time the Tightness of expecting others to live by her rules.

  Father Glynn's letter about Amy had further stirred up the muddy waters. Half of her wanted to remain in isolation, but the other half wanted a chance to redeem herself. But nothing could have prepared her for that moment when she first saw her daughter and grandchildren.

  'All these years you've laid the blame for everything that has gone wrong in your life at others' feet,' she muttered to herself. 'Now Amy wants to know the whole story and you're scared of it.'

  She knew it was right that Amy should know about her mother's past. But she couldn't know just how much it would hurt to dig up the family skeletons.

  Sitting here in the kitchen with only the sound of hot coals shifting in the Aga, Mabel could sense the presence not only of Polly, her mother, but of Hannah, her grandmother. Hannah had taken her own life by drowning herself in the river after the death of three of her children from diphtheria. Who could blame her? Her husband Silas had been a cold, cruel man and James, her only surviving son, was just like him.