The Seamstress Read online

  ‘Hm. Why so much secrecy? It’s not such a big deal—like venereal disease or the bubonic plague.’

  Willa was thoughtful. ‘People were funny about these things.’

  And he never trusted her enough to tell her. Her, the most trustworthy.

  She had the electricity account ready to show me, handing it over with a casual air, dismissive, as if they were asking too much of human intellect to decipher it. Then she sat down after pouring us a drink and told me with a calm look that she was happy. Can you be happy if you’re unable to read an electricity bill? But I wouldn’t say this to my darling, befuddled Willa.

  She had bronchitis and they’d let her out of hospital early, as I’d said I wanted her to stay with me. I’d come home at lunchtime to make her a sandwich. Barely forty, in a good job, puffed up with responsibility.

  ‘Did you take a walk in the park with Juno?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, but oh the, you know,’ and she swept her arm across the room.

  ‘The cars?’

  ‘Yes, the cars, there’s a lot of them.’

  ‘There are.’ I was spreading things on bread. ‘You just have to wait a long time to cross the road, Willa. Even five minutes, if you have to.’

  ‘Oh yes, we wait for ages.’

  ‘Good. Have you fed Juno?’

  ‘Yes, uh, no…’ and she laughed. ‘I can’t remember!’

  I beat an invisible drum on the kitchen bench with my fingers.

  ‘Well, have you fed her or not?’

  ‘I think so.’

  The dog was looking up at me, asking for her first or second meal of the day.

  ‘Little glutton,’ I said, though Juno heard that it was an endearment.

  ‘Don’t talk to her like that,’ said Willa. ‘You’re only a little dog, aren’t you, petal? Do you love your gran?’

  She said this in the wheedling voice I detest.

  ‘Here you are, Willa, take your pills.’

  ‘What are these for?’

  ‘For the blood condition,’ I lied. She took them obediently.

  Of course, Willa did need tablets for her blood, and for her bronchitis, and for her, uh, condition. Not sedatives or anti-depressants, the medicos advised me, but a new drug to stabilise the paranoia.

  At midnight I heard a noise and got up to see that Willa had quietly been for her shower and was putting on her street clothes.

  ‘It’s not time to get up, we’ve only been in bed an hour,’ I sighed.

  ‘I’ve got to go to work.’ She was adamant.

  ‘You don’t go to work any more, you’re retired.’

  She looked at me with pity in her eyes and explained slowly, as she would when I was eight: ‘I have to go to work, I always go at this time.’

  ‘But look outside, it’s dark! It is black, Jesus Christ, it is night-time, one goes to work during the day! Except that you are retired!’

  She was plainly disgusted with me. I was, as well, and went back to bed, knowing she couldn’t unlock the security door to let herself out. She had always been quiet in her rebellions, so she’d probably sit there all night, fuming. Back in bed I found that I was shaking. This was not the way to do things. I was not able to manage this; I didn’t know her language. And I reminded myself: Be patient, be kind, why can’t you? She is not trying to thwart you; don’t be obtuse, she can’t help it, she can’t help it.

  She was in hospital again for a chest infection. While I sat there reading her medical chart, Willa was telling me of an incident.

  ‘The girl was up the tree, but oh, she carried murder with her.’

  ‘Do you think the drugs you’re on for this bug are affecting you?’ I asked.

  She shrugged.

  The chart plotted her physical condition and always ended up with: Patient wants to go home to stay with her daughter.

  One day it read: Daughter quite aggressive. That was the day I argued with the staff nurse about the ‘confidentiality’ of Willa’s medical chart.

  ‘These medical people are bullies,’ I said. But Willa had never understood why I became aggrieved at trifles. She was fiery herself when necessary, but essentially a peacemaker.

  We looked across the low table that divided us, sizing each other up. Miss Wrightson was her name. Righteous would have been more apt. I was chock-full of words ready to come tumbling out if only she’d listen. But there was a determination about the set of her face. Would she hear my proposition or not? Perhaps not. I wanted to put it to her that after the six weeks of Willa’s respite there they’d consider her as a permanent resident, if there was room.

  The acceptance criterion was need and my Willa was not only needy but clean and sociable, though reserved. I truly thought they should be glad to have her.

  My little speech and the visit itself had been thwarted by a phone call from this woman’s minions, telling me that Willa had gone missing. She couldn’t be found anywhere. They were responsible and they were scared, that was obvious. I wasn’t scared, because I knew her. They went looking. I went looking, the police went looking. Finally she was found quietly sitting not fifty yards from her own room, on a bench, wondering why people around here weren’t more friendly. I sat with her in the room where she was waiting for me.

  ‘I’m ruining your whole life,’ she said. And she was weeping.

  ‘No, you’re not! It was just a mistake, on their part.’ I wrapped my arms around her, kneeling at her chair, pressing my face to hers.

  ‘Love, what’s wrong with me?’

  ‘You’ve got memory problems, but you can’t help it. I’ll always be here.’

  And our tears were mingling down her cheek. I rubbed her arm, she felt cold.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ I said. ‘It’s important that you try to remember what this place is called. When they found you, you couldn’t tell them the name of your block.’

  Then I gave her a spelling and memory lesson in knowing where she lives. River Bark Lodge. R–I–V–E–R B–A–R–K…Over and over. It seemed an awfully long name for a place to live in. We repeated it several times and sat quietly before I led her to the dining room before leaving. As I glanced back, her eyes were on her plate and her shoulders straight. She didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  And now I was talking to this person who was quite possibly the only Irish woman I would ever truly dislike. I was trying to put my proposition to her about Willa but I couldn’t stop blubbering. I hadn’t any tissues and nor had she. Finally I found a tatty old one.

  ‘Not only,’ she was saying, ‘can we not grant permanent residence for your mother, or even offer it, it is unlikely that we can keep her for this short respite period.’

  ‘Please: she hadn’t wandered away; she was nearby!’

  ‘But unable to tell the people who found her where she was residing.’

  ‘She only got here yesterday, she needs a little time.’

  Miss Wrightson looked at me with exasperation. ‘I am responsible for the safety and well-being of our residents. Your mother needs a secure place to live.’

  ‘What do you mean? Locked in?’

  ‘Yes.’

  To be incarcerated, the woman’s demeanour suggested, is no bad thing.

  ‘I’ve seen some “secure” hostels. They’re more like nursing homes,’ I said. But I was thinking: They’re more like detention centres; they smell of urine. They stink of piss.

  ‘Well, I’m afraid it’s out of my hands.’ And her unctuous bloody brogue and her flinty-eyed look made me know there was no hope at this place. I had to move Willa again.

  ‘How many more times do I have to move?’

  ‘Only once, I hope. When I find something secure.’

  ‘Secure?’

  ‘Somewhere nicer, where they’re better able to look after you. Willa, you mustn’t wander off like that. We all worry about you.’

  Because it had happened again, of course. And she had the grace to look contrite because she knew I knew she was defying me.

&n
bsp; ‘Soon I’ll find you a real place that will be just like your old flat.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon. I’m doing my best.’ And I could hear my voice degenerating into the trace of a childish whinge that I despised. There was a time when I’d have beaten up other little girls who even looked like wailing.

  ‘We’ll get something soon,’ I said, straightening. This was fate paying me out for being a little bully as a child.

  Permanent residency for her at last? This must be the most important issue in my life. Bigger than my First Holy Communion or first trip abroad. More vital than my betrothal to Michael or my breaking it off. The significance of this is of greater dimension than buying a house or of then thankfully selling it. More noteworthy than a pregnancy, or getting your BA or falling in love again or throwing the supreme birthday party. Far more satisfying than having your first poem published or thumbing your nose at old foes. This looked permanent, the final move.

  We are standing in the foyer of the hostel. Forms have to be filled in, her condition determined, again.

  ‘Willa,’ I say, ‘they need a cheque in advance. Shall I help you write it out?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’

  I write it all out bar her signature, which she then fills in. Under her hand it teeters its way along the bottom line while I look on.

  ‘How did I come by this name?’ she asks.

  ‘You married a man named Norton. Fortunately, he’s not around any more.’

  ‘You don’t like him?’

  ‘No, not much, in the end.’

  She considers this for some time.

  ‘You don’t like your own father?’

  ‘Well, it’s complicated. Yes and no.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he used to hit you.’

  She nods, satisfied with this. We sit on in the waiting room.

  ‘Don’t you remember him?’ I ask.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ben. Benjamin Thomas Norton, your husband, my father.’

  She shakes her head with utter lack of interest.

  ‘He was a big fellow. Liked to sing and spin yarns. You don’t recall Ben?’

  This registers a flicker of recognition. Yes, she seems to remember his name. Oh yes, he left his mark, all right. And don’t we all remember our first love? The smiles, the smells, the sense of fun?

  ‘He did a first-class imitation of Satchmo singing “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ”.’

  ‘We had some good times together,’ Willa says unexpectedly.

  The hostel director comes in and shakes hands with us and we sit down ostensibly to chat. Yet another hostel: permanent and secure. The director asks Willa a few questions in a practised, conversational way. Willa has on one of her good-looking dresses. So bandbox, Fiona would say of her. The services of the place are outlined for us: where Willa will stay; the rules for smokers.

  ‘She gave it away for a couple of years,’ I say in a schoolmarm sort of voice, ‘but has taken it up again, haven’t you?’

  Willa fetches me a look of hatred. She knows, in some interior space, that I have been talking to these people about her history: about electric kettles left on, about her catching the bus fully dressed except for having forgotten to put on a skirt over her petticoat, about her cheque for the rent never being made out properly any more. About the last hostel, suitable but not lockable. We are shown to her room.

  ‘This is very pretty, isn’t it, Willa?’ I say, looking out the window of this comfortable room to a gorgeous garden. She says yes, in a half polite and half noncommittal way. We thank the woman and sit down again.

  ‘It’s like this,’ I say to her. ‘I’m busy all day at work and can’t be home with you, to help you.’

  ‘I don’t need anyone to be with me all day!’

  ‘Darling, you do, now. It’s all getting too hard for you. You need a rest. And there is no one else to help. It’s just you and me.’

  ‘What about my work?’

  ‘You don’t go to work any more; you’re retired. We’ve been through all this.’

  Nevertheless I go through it again, step by step, coaxing and finally pleading with her to understand. Finally I have to leave. Her manner is contained, but she is very angry; I can see it by the set of her head topping a stiff neck. I go back to work.

  At midnight, the hostel rings me, very embarrassed, to say that somehow she has managed to go off by herself, my Houdini, and the police have been called out to search for her.

  By three in the morning she is found. I am waiting there at the hostel to see her return, flushed with triumph, flanked by two young police officers.

  ‘I had to go to Coles to get some chops for tea,’ she tells the anxious director.

  Indeed, she does have a pound of chops in a string bag. She must have gone to the late-night supermarket. After making her way by bus to the suburb she used to live in, she decided to hail a taxi. The driver noticed something was amiss. Yay for the good cab driver! He had spotted the ID bangle on her wrist.

  It seems the more Willa forgets, the more I remember. I remember parties—scores of them. I was nine and it was New Year at Auntie Eve’s house. Willa had left my father for good, but he came in search. He picked me up and carried me off. Kidnapped me, you might say. That was the second time he abducted me. It seemed she left him several times and the only way he could get her back was to take me; he knew she’d never give me up. I was the little carrot that he grasped and dangled in front of her. He didn’t frighten me. He was my dad and he never hurt me. It was as if I knew him for the weakling he was, despite his size. As if I was just waiting, weary, among all this grown-up grappling and quarrelling, to grow up and be myself.

  Some of the time I liked him a lot; he was good, bawdy company. But I wanted to be with my mother. Soon after the New Year episode, kindly folk managed to see to it that I was sent back to Willa, who was out looking for me.

  I remember the Christmas that Eve put the turkey on and went across the road at ten in the morning to visit her mates for a pre-Christmas drink or two. Then she had another couple. It turned out she missed Christmas that year. We had it without her. When she passed out over at Bert and Mabel’s place at five in the afternoon, they carried her back home, where she slept serenely until the next day, then woke up, saying, ‘How’s the roast going, is it ready?’

  She’s had pneumonia again. But she’s on the mend. Willa is walking around the ward, being Lady Bountiful towards the other patients. Some of them laugh at her but the deaf lady is exceedingly nice. Willa is saying to her, ‘I’ll come and visit you again.’

  ‘Yes,’ replies the woman, glancing up at the television over her bed, ‘they’re running the Wheel of Fortune.’

  Non sequiturs fall over each other.

  ‘And when we come back we’ll do the dishes,’ Willa continues.

  ‘After that,’ nods her friend, ‘it’s the Sale of the Century.’

  ‘Sales and fortunes!’ I breeze in, between them, sounding full of condescension.

  Willa detects it in a split second and throws me a look of pure dislike. I try to lead her back to her own corner, casting round in my head for the right voice. Our humour has often been in this vein, impersonations and imitations. I say to her in a sly sort of way when she lets me get her settled for lunch: ‘You were talking to that Polish lady in the next room. I didn’t know you spoke Polish.’

  She grins back; she knows what I’m doing. ‘Only in that I polish my shoes at night!’

  The capacity for a pun makes me take heart.

  I remember that the picture, starring Peter Lawford and Esther Williams, was due to start at five o’clock. It was about a mile’s walk to the Town Hall, and the time was now just after half past four.

  Mum and I were trying to get out the front gate. He was barring the way. It was the first film we had seen for two years and she thought it would be nice for us to go; after all, he never took us anywhere. There is in me no recollection of the three of us h
aving a family outing.

  Mum had money of her own from doing some sewing for Mrs Fitzgibbons on the other side of the railway line. So, she said, he could not say we were using his money from the shop. But it wasn’t the money he cared about. What did he care about in all this? Our defiance, I think, our independence.

  We had made it out the front door after the argument between them. She thought he had gone out the back to sit on the step and have a drink by himself. But he was after us, in his singlet and his trousers falling down around his hips the way they did.

  ‘Get back inside, both of you!’

  Mum dodged him and said, ‘Come on, Jo,’ because she had seen a man and his wife walking towards our front gate.

  ‘Walk out of that gate and I’ll knock your bloody block off,’ he said in a growl, raising his hand towards her with fingers curled. No mistaking his intention. When Ben said he’d give her one it had a different meaning altogether from Hal with one of his girls.

  The man and his wife had drawn abreast of us. Willa said to the man, ‘Will you call the police? We are being threatened here.’

  ‘You call the police and you’re dead,’ said Ben to the man. The wife was cowering.

  ‘She’s right, mate,’ said the man in a shamed, glum way. ‘We’re not involved.’

  That’s right, let’s always mind our own business so we can say this is a free country; we don’t interfere in anyone else’s problems.

  That battle was a victory for Ben. We went inside, Willa and I, changed our good clothes and I helped Willa clean the stove.

  ‘Why don’t we leave him?’ I wanted to know, though I was only eight.

  ‘When I’ve got some money and somewhere to live,’ said Willa. ‘One day we’ll wake up and he won’t be around any more.’

  I remember my twenty-first birthday in London, being grateful for not having to be at home, where there would be ado and speeches. The aunts and uncles could be overwhelming. My flatmates and I went to Covent Garden to see Margot Fonteyn dance. It was an enchantment. When we got home the landlord and his wife threw a surprise party for me. They had invited the three male lodgers from the other side of the hall. They were all very white and skinny, these boys, and had masterful voices that can only have come out of Eton or Harrow. We played the guitar and sang and someone told me, to my dismay, that Tchaikovsky was corny.