The Things I Would Tell You Read online

  ‘You’ll not get your copper if you continue spoiling that dog.’

  ‘The way he looks at me, ma.’

  Her dark hair was pulled back and neatly tucked under a round red hat, the buttons of her coat undone and her feet rested on the stool. She was reading loudly a recipe for pudding with cherries and custard. The rations wouldn’t stretch that far. Did they have any eggs?

  Doris lost things quite often. She was looking for her glasses when she heard the knock on the door. ‘Go away!’

  ‘Please, Madam, open the door.’

  The muffled voice of that dreaded woman!

  ‘I know you in there. Open the door! I have milk. It might sour.’

  She stood by the window. A few black birds, perched on a chimney cowl, necked and then flew away. Doris opened the door.

  Timam’s jacket was covered with snow flakes. ‘Here you are!’

  ‘I can’t find my glasses,’ Doris blurted.

  Timam smoothed her long robe. ‘Don’t worry. I find for you.’

  Doris, hesitated, stepped back and allowed her to cross the threshold.

  The stink of sheep dung and the scent of something pleasant like eucalyptus filled the room.

  Timam ran her hands on the sofa, coffee table, side table, television set and the carpet. ‘May I go to bathroom?’

  ‘You want to use it?’ Doris panicked.

  ‘See glasses.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ She pressed her white muslin handkerchief over her nose.

  ‘Here they are! I wiped them real good.’

  Doris put her glasses on, ran her fingers through her hair, stood up then buttoned her cardigan. ‘That would do. Thank you.’ She opened the front door.

  Timam sucked her teeth, gathered her robe and went out. The war had started. Doris convulsed on the bed. The muscles of her arms and legs went into spasms and her back arched. Her temples were raw, saliva ran down her chin and her eyes spun as if she had just finished a big wheel ride at the fun fair. An incubator. White walls, sheets, a bed, a cabinet and a light bulb. The stench of disinfectant, vomit and urine filled her nostrils. Her forehead was covered with a thin layer of a foul-smelling paste. It was high voltage this time. When it hit her gums, it rattled her teeth. Was she caught in the blast? The reek of burnt flesh, leaking gas, powdered brickwork, and explosives filled the air. The sound of sirens, men shouting at each other, the crunch of broken glass underfoot and the crying of babies. She could hear the whistle of workers outside, smell concrete and fresh paint, and taste dust on her furry tongue. There was a presence in the room, a woman in a white uniform.

  ‘I can’t control me right hand. It keeps jumping about,’ Doris whispered.

  ‘Say that again.’

  ‘I can’t feel me head.’

  ‘Come again!’

  ‘Me hand has gone into spasms.’ Doris swallowed.

  ‘Don’t worry! It’ll calm down,’ the woman in white said.

  ‘Was I caught in the blitz?’

  ‘You could say that.’ She giggled.

  ‘Is he still on the front?’

  ‘Is your lover boy back?’

  A blast then blood, thick and warm, ran down her thighs. Her father pelted her. She steadied herself, shifted her weight and faced the wall. Cracks. The window panes, filthy and held together with sticky tape, kept the light out. Spoons. Dry-eyed and slimy, she hissed like a lizard.

  Timam kept knocking on the door. ‘It me your neighbour from upstairs.’

  Doris opened the door and stood there, blocking the entrance. ‘What do you want?’ Her skin was dark and leathery, her nostrils flared and her chin tattooed with swirls and stars. The colour of ink.

  ‘I brought you something.’

  ‘Why? Is it Christmas already?’ She fumbled with her shirt buttons.

  ‘No. Not yet. But because you old lady.’ Timam stuck the gleaming bag in her hand.

  ‘You better come in.’ She stepped back.

  Doris sat on the armed chair, opened the gift bag and pulled the scarf out. ‘It’s beautiful. All that embroidery!’ She ran her hand over it.

  ‘Belongs to great grandmother.’

  ‘Different shapes and patterns.’

  ‘Each mean something. Direct to a place. Like a life.’

  Direct to a place. If only her English was better. ‘Thank you. It’s lovely.’ Doris pointed at the other armed chair.

  Timam sat on the edge and adjusted her headband.

  ‘Do you want a cuppa?’ She rubbed her arthritic knee then stood up.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Doris came back with a cup of tea and some biscuits on a tray. She pulled a nest of tables and put the smallest in front of her.

  Timam held the cup in both hands, had a sip then spat out. ‘So bitter.’ She added four spoons of sugar, stirred, drank and smiled, baring her yellow teeth.

  The primitives ululated and hopped in the air. Doris settled in her chair, holding the gift bag. ‘How’re you finding living here then?’

  ‘Good. It so cold.’

  ‘That’s British weather for you.’ Kohl ran down the corners of her eyes like tears, her skin was rough and her shoes were dirty and worn out.

  ‘Although it cold the sun shinning.’

  ‘Oh! Yes! It is a typical autumn day.’ Doris bit on her dentures.

  ‘Perhaps we can go out. Say goodnight to everything.’

  Goodnight. Honestly! ‘I never visited my mother’s grave.’ Doris didn’t know why she said that. She stood up, took the cup out of Timam’s hand and put it on the saucer. ‘Thank you for your gift. It’s time for me to have my lunch.’

  Timam wrapped her padded jacket around her and went out.

  It was a sunny day and Doris was getting ready to go out. Don’t worry about the bombs! Come to the Café de Paris! Doris was leaning on John’s arm outside.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her heart thudded in her chest.

  John held her hand and followed the usher to a table upstairs by the banister. The stars on his shoulder caught the light. Doris sat, smoothed down her dress, and wiped her forehead. How did the cigarette girls keep their hair so tightly curled? They must have paid a fortune to get it permed.

  ‘What would you like to drink?’ John’s eyes glistened as if they were full of tears.

  ‘Can I have cream de cacao please?’

  ‘Why don’t we start with champagne, darling? We don’t get to listen to Ken Johnson’s band every day.’

  ‘They call him “snakehips”.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘He danced so well in Oh Daddy!’

  When John finished ordering the drinks and hors d’oeuvre he offered her a cigarette. She fidgeted in her chair. He watched her pull it out, fiddle with it then place it between her lips.

  ‘Let’s dance!’ he said like an afterthought.

  The clanking of cutlery, animated conversation and piano music travelled to her ears. She wanted to show him Brighton. It was dark and the lights of the pier were reflected in the water, colourful and elongated. They stood bare-foot on the shore listening to the waves rustle along pebbles and sand then retreat back to the sea. His lips touched hers for the first time, a fleeting peck. He got closer, took off his cap, and kissed her so hard she felt his teeth grate against hers. The jolly sound of diners singing along to ‘It’s a Lovely Day Tomorrow’ was carried by the breeze to where they stood embracing, there on the shore by the barbed wire. Yards.

  Doris showered, powdered herself with red rose perfume talc, pushed her dentures in and bit, put her glasses on, got dressed then opened the sitting room curtains, allowing the sunshine in. She was about to settle in her settee when the door bell rang. It was her neighbour in her full Bedouin regalia.

  ‘It me your neighbour Timam.’ She tilted her head backward.

  ‘Are you off to Her Majesty’s garden party at Buckingham Palace? All dressed up like that!’

  ‘No. I go to baker and butcher in the market. Do
you buy anything?’

  ‘Did you say the baker?’ She pushed her glasses up.

  ‘Yes. Frightened man.’ Timam sat down on the sofa.

  ‘My mother loved the old-fashioned English custard tarts with thick wobbly filling. She loved the nutmeg flavour and the crisp pastry.’

  ‘I ask the baker. He will get for me if not in shop.’ She squatted in front of Doris and held her hands. The scent of acacia rose up. ‘You say you never go to your ma’s grave. We arrange visit.’

  ‘We arrange a visit to my mother’s grave?’ Doris freed her hands and pulled the collar of her shirt up.

  ‘Yes. We go together?’ Timam sucked her teeth.

  ‘Let me think about it. Here is some money.’ She took a five-pound note out of her purse.

  ‘No money!’

  ‘Take the money! I’ll write down that I’d given you five pounds so I won’t forget.’

  ‘No money. Later.’ She gathered her robe and went out.

  Doris settled in her settee and began watching morning television. A doctor described the dangers of having sexual intercourse at an early age. ‘Young girls are not ready for it both physically and mentally.’ Her cheek was soft against her breasts, taut with milk. Chinese silk. Her eyes wandered. Just out of her, she was warm and clingy, clasping her fingers and toes around your arm like a hydra fresh out of a pond. Before her lips met her nipples, they put her up for adoption. Must not get too attached. An officer came round and found John’s face, which was blasted off, stuck over his shoulder. In electric shocks.

  The painting of the oil jetty on the river Thames, hung above the fireplace, was grim. The silhouette of the cast-iron pillars of the jetty was dark against the sky and on the right a small boat was heading out to the shore. Her father used to work there. His eyes were bloodshot and his face covered with black dust when he held her tight and shook her. ‘You got your rocks off. Didn’t you?’ He then belted her. The buckle dug right into her side. Her skin bruised and flailed, she sat on the floor crying. ‘She’s not my daughter. I disown her. A harlot. That’s what she is.’ Her mother cried in the kitchen. Doris could hear her snivels. Caddy licked her feet.

  Then she went away. Her ma sent her a letter. ‘I know how hard it is. Please hang on there, Doris. Caddy is missing you. He barks right into the night and stays outside waiting for you. I hear laughter in the bedroom and when I go to check you’re not there. What happened to us?’ Almost a year later she visited her and gave her the plate as a gift. She used to sneak in on her way back from work for a few minutes. Once she came when Doris was really bad. Her head was shaven and her forehead smeared with a blue paste. She kissed her. ‘Take care of yourself chuck!’ She never saw her again.

  Timam knocked on the door, screaming, ‘The taxi here, mortal Doris.’

  Mortal, honestly? Doris opened the door. Timam stood there, panting. Doris straightened her arthritic knee, held her walking stick and trudged out of the building for the first time in years. She stood on the pavement and breathed in the fresh air laden with the smell of grass and trees. She hadn’t seen all that brightness for a long time. Some you forget and others you remember. The warmth of the sun on her shoulders loosened them.

  ‘Taxi driver foreign friend. He very good and reasonable.’ Timam held the door open.

  Doris sat in the back, put her walking stick against the front seat, put the plate, the custard tart and the letter in her lap and tidied up her hair. Timam gathered her layered attire and squeezed herself next to her.

  When they settled in the taxi, the driver, a black man, looked in the front mirror. ‘Are you alright, girls?’

  Girls! Girls! Honestly. Doris wound down the window and inhaled.

  Shifting her weight onto the stick, Doris shuffled through the cemetery’s gate. Sycamore trees with ivy-wrapped trunks rose high, blocking the light of the sun. Blackberry bushes grew everywhere and the ground was blanketed with nettles.

  ‘We look, look for your mother’s grave until we find. What her name?’ Timam fingered the cloth bags, bottles and dry twigs tied to her belt.

  ‘Jane Robson was her married name. Her maiden name was Jane Asher.’

  Timam scanned the sky.

  ‘Oh! Look the grave of Alexander Hurley!’ You could still read the writing although the headstone was cracked and chipped.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The comedian who sang the ‘Lambeth Walk’. My mother used to listen to him on the wireless. Perhaps we will find her here.’

  They followed the footpath among oak, beach and hazel trees, careful not to step on the flowering primroses.

  ‘Look crows want for food!’ Timam pointed at four black birds.

  ‘We’ll never find her in this bush. Look at it. Grass, weeds, trees everywhere. Like looking for a needle in. . . in. . .’

  ‘Don’t worry, we find it. We stay all day.’

  They sat down on the ground exhausted. Doris’s hip and knee throbbed with a dull pain. It was getting dark and the wind picked up, bringing a chill with it.

  ‘I can hear starlings. They mimic noise, squeak, click.’ Timam looked up.

  ‘How do you know that?’ Doris buttoned up her coat.

  ‘Just know.’ She rubbed the leaf of a weed then sniffed her fingers.

  Perhaps they should go back. She may be buried in another cemetery. How would she know? She cast the net of her mind far and wide and it came back empty. Blank except two fingers clasping a photograph of a cake.

  Timam held Doris’s hand. It felt rough and warm against her skin. ‘We look again. Heart says we will find.’

  Doris sighed and wiped the sweat off her forehead. That pain. This life. Measure if you dare.

  They stood up and went through the overgrowth to the farthest corner of the walled cemetery, where the blackberry bushes were high and entangled. Timam parted the weeds and nettles with her bare hands and strode on. Doris stopped and pointed her walking stick at a grave you could hardly see. There it was! A humble headstone with ‘Jane Asher 1902–1958. May she rest in peace’ carved on it.

  Timam kneeled down, spread her hands behind her ears, clicked her teeth, chanted a few foreign verses, blew on the grave then skittered away into the bush.

  Was the crumbling headstone made of sand or lime? Could she restore the curve to the edges? Perhaps she could come one day and clear the area; get rid of the grass, bushes and weeds. Plant a geranium or two. Doris knelt down, put the custard tart on the plate, the letter on top and placed them carefully on the ground. ‘You don’t know how important the plate was to me. The two orange flowers drawn on each side, the grey foliage, and circa 1932 Tudor Ware were imprinted behind my eyeballs. Some things you cannot remember and others you cannot forget. Sixteen. Not my age. Electric shocks. I held on to the image of orange flowers until they turned into an open meadow, green, dew-covered, and dotted with forgetme-nots.’

  Doris tried to conjure up her features, remember the colour of her eyes, the tilt of her head. All she could see was an image with the face cut out. Just her slim fingers holding the magazine and the red beret on her head. The nurses advised her to take a deep breath. She inhaled. Nothing. What about John’s? The name of the plant with delicate yellow flowers? Which word would describe that tall trunk with branches and leaves?

  ‘Where am I?’ Doris snivelled.

  ‘It time depart.’ Timam leapt out of the bushes and stuck the herbs she had gathered in different bags.

  He must be resting under the cypress tree. Timam was cleaning Doris’s kitchen one morning when he arrived. She was expecting him. He whirled through the window past her. A thud. She rushed to the sitting room and found Doris on the floor, gasping for air. She lay there like a slain bird with her nightgown wrapped around her thigh. Grey-faced, clammy, she convulsed on the floor. Timam pulled the Fear Beaker out of her bundle, filled it with water, added some drops of orange blossom then blew on it. She helped Doris drink.

  Doris saw the foreign words etched on the brass, the l
etters hooked to its edge, yet she drank then closed her eyes. A piercing pain in her chest, there where the ribs meet. Her windpipes tightened. Alone, in a dingy flat, besieged by foreigners. ‘Oh!’

  Timam brewed a drink and gave it to Doris. The aroma of herbs was strong and sickly. She held the warm cup and had a sip. It was as bitter as barberry, but Doris had no option. She had to drink it.

  Timam squatted on the floor and put Doris’s head on her thigh. ‘Relax! Breathe deep!’

  Doris rasped, ‘My heart is beating. Chest tight. Cannot.’

  ‘Let go now. You say goodnight to your mum, to the streets.’ She stroked her hair, humming and muttering, until she went limp. Timam carried her to the sofa, took off her glasses, covered her with a blanket and adjusted her head on the pillow. A few minutes before she died she whispered something Timam could not understand. ‘Tell John I’ll meet him at the King Alfred. I’ll take Caddy with me. My ma was still missing. Keep the photos, plate and letter!’

  ‘Yes. Do your wishes.’ Timam sucked her teeth.

  Her beady eyes were so close to Doris’ face she could see the honey-flecked irises. Two ink-coloured lines crossed her cracked lower lip. Never mind. Was her mother’s name Jane Asher? What about her? Was she Doris Robson? She nodded. The grass glistened with dew. Bluebells all the way from lavender to purple. Not to be confused with the hybrid breed. In the number of petals you plucked and counted. Droopy.

  Timam held her. ‘Don’t tired yourself! Everything fine. Just breathe easy! We meet again!’

  ‘Meet again?’ Doris opened her eyes. A summer sky covered with hazy clouds.

  ‘Yes. Other end.’ She clicked her tongue.

  Doris relaxed on the pillow and rubbed her fingers together for the very last time.

  ‘Must help.’ Timam pushed the band off her sweaty forehead and sat on the floor rocking and keening.

  Doris gasped her last breath. It was an easy delivery this time.

  When the sun sat and darkness spread Timam stood up, pressed her finger on Doris’s jugular, lowered her lids, covered her face and smoothed out the blanket. How many sunrises had she seen? How many harvests? Now she would follow the river to the sea, dance to the wind, rushing through the leaves. Now she was free, her heart whole.