September Starlings Read online

  ‘I am alone so much.’ A small kiss-curl above her left ear was smoothed, pasted down with a bit of spit. For a woman who worried about manners, she had some queer habits. ‘Nobody cares about me, considers me, worries about me. You don’t care, your father doesn’t care, and I’m—’

  ‘He’s busy.’ Where my father was concerned, I was inclined to snappiness, even if my own physical safety was at risk. ‘My dad works very hard.’

  She turned, dismissed the holier-than-thou look from her face. ‘Did I ask for your opinion? Did I?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then keep it to yourself, please. A lot of men are busy, but they still find time to take their wives out for a meal, or to the cinema. He never talks to me. Never.’

  She was searching for sympathy, even for love, but I had nothing to offer. ‘He talks to me,’ I said quietly. ‘He tells me about the factory and the shop.’

  ‘Huh.’ She tossed the cigarette into the fireless grate where it fell among its predecessors, twenty or thirty orange-coloured cork tips resting in the iron basket. ‘How fascinating for you. So now you know all about silly little bits of herbs and muslin bags. How utterly wonderful.’

  Dad was not silly. What Dad was making was not silly, yet I held my tongue again. There had been so many days like this one, many of them culminating in a beating. Looking back on life is seldom easy; days have a habit of mixing themselves up, merging into one. When I was eight or nine, I felt as if I had already spent a lifetime rooted to the spot, listening as my mother complained about me, berated and belittled me, undermined my father.

  On one such day (there were many, as Anne and I continued to meet after school) a knock at the door interrupted Mother’s moanings and groanings. She crept to the window, twitched the thick lace curtain, fell back with a hand to her throat. ‘You must help me,’ she mumbled. ‘Quick – do something.’

  This was quite interesting, as I had never before seen my mother nonplussed. ‘What shall I do?’ I asked. The door was almost breaking away from its hinges. Whoever was outside had no intention of remaining on the path for very long.

  ‘Say I’m not in,’ she gasped. Her lips were turning an exciting shade of purple, as if her fear had triggered some chemical that reacted violently with her Sunset Flame lipstick. ‘Whatever happens, you must say that I’ve gone out.’ Her head bobbed about like a cork in water. ‘I won’t be back for some time. Say it!’

  ‘Why?’

  She was whispering now, though the quiet voice was harsh, reminded me of an angry snake I once saw at the pictures with Uncle Freddie. It was a cowboy film, I suddenly remembered. The man in the white hat had been tied to a tree by a crowd of men in black hats. Men in black hats were bad, and they invariably rode black horses. And they let this long, poisonous snake out of a sack and then the man in the white—

  ‘Laura!’

  I felt myself jump, knew that she had seen me jump, felt foolish about it. ‘Yes, Mother?’

  ‘Go to the door right away and get rid of that dreadful woman. She’s wicked and she tells a lot of lies. Now, say to her … tell her that I’ve gone to the doctor’s.’

  ‘That’s a lie,’ I answered coolly.

  ‘Of course it’s a lie!’

  ‘You said that she’s the one who tells—’

  ‘Shut up, you foolish girl.’ Mother was forgetting her manners again. ‘Tell her I’m ill, very gravely and seriously ill and—’

  ‘What with?’ The door was in danger of collapsing inward at any moment. A female voice screamed, ‘Come out, you whore,’ and the letter box was rattling furiously.

  ‘Never mind what with, just say I’m ill. Get rid of her.’ Mother’s face was now a fascinating shade of red that tended towards magenta. The colour defied foundation cream and powder, shone like a beacon in the ditchwater-dull room. She seemed to be having some difficulty with her breathing, was panting as fast as a dog in hot weather. Seeing her crouching as I had crouched so often was thoroughly enthralling. She had no dignity, no standing. I stepped closer to her, so close that I could almost smell her fear.

  ‘Laura …’ The eyes were huge and round.

  ‘It’s a lie,’ I said. ‘We’re not to tell lies.’

  ‘You will do as I say.’

  I hopped from foot to foot, physically expressing the fact that I was in at least two minds. Half my body pulled towards the hall, while the rest dragged me back, made an effort to stay out of the other danger zone. In this room, I was with the devil I knew, but the dark angel on the front doorstep was an incalculable threat. And my whole body and soul ached with the knowledge that whatever I did, there would be trouble.

  Her eyes started to bulge from her head, were plainly ready to pop out and roll across the carpet, twin blue and white ‘bobbers’ that would be worth ten plain ‘glassies’ in the streets and playgrounds of Bolton. Shining beads of sweat collected on her brow, ran in small rivers down her cheeks, left stripes in pale powder, small canyons in patches of rouge. One hand reached out, almost touched me, the fingers shrivelling inward at the last split second to avoid contact with my shoulder. ‘Please,’ she moaned. ‘Do this one thing for your mother. God will not mind – this is a white lie. You must, you really must … save me.’ The hands folded themselves against her throat, reminded me of doves fluttering in a nest. But this was no dove, no gentle herald of peace.

  I opened my mouth to frame a question about the various shades of lie, snapped it shut immediately, knew that this was not the time for one of my queries about the less tangible aspects of living. I was shaking like an autumn leaf. My mother’s terror was filling the room, was invading me, choking me. I did not like my mother, but nor did I enjoy watching the scaffolding that supported my small existence disintegrating before my eyes. Fascination made way for discomfort, discomfort became fear. The person on the path might have come here to murder my mother.

  She ran across the room, bent down low behind a chintz-covered chair. ‘I’ll have to stay in here,’ she babbled. ‘She might see me if I go into the hall.’

  A few more seconds marked their own passing while I absorbed the fact that my dignified mother was a shivering coward with no pride at all. My stomach was sick, ached beneath the weight of tangled and nameless emotions. I longed for Anne, longed to clutch the hand of my ‘twin’ in this hour of dire and dreadful need. The eleven-times table chanted itself in my head, as if my subconscious had dredged up a piece of normality to which I might cling. I backed out of the room, my whole body trembling with apprehension. There was pain in my gut now; I needed the bathroom.

  Ten elevens, eleven elevens … It took me a week to walk through the hall and into the small front porch. The letter flap was raised, so the intruder would have seen Mother in the hall, as the inner door was half-glazed. A pair of angry eyes glared at me. ‘Get a move on,’ screamed an invisible mouth.

  When I turned the key, the door crashed inward, pinning me against the wall. Winded, I remained where I had been thrust, waited until the door swung away from me. Oh for a few moments of blessed invisibility! My eyes were screwed up and seven elevens were seventy-seven, it all rhymed and made sense …

  She was a vast woman, tall, fat, with several loose chins that wobbled every time she moved her head. The body was encased in a tight-fitting coat through which all the blubbery bulges seemed to do battle for freedom. Round her shoulders and neck hung a dead fox with sad, beady eyes and unnaturally red fur. ‘Did I hurt you?’ Like my mother, the woman was rather breathless. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to crash into you like that. You’re not the one I’m looking for, and you have my sympathy, you poor little thing.’ The chins were on overtime, bouncing about all over the dead fox’s middle portions. ‘What a mother you have. Are you all right, my dear?’

  I fought for some oxygen, ironed my bruised ribs with the flat of a hand. ‘I’m very well, thank you,’ I answered untruthfully. Was that a white lie, or would it be grey …? And would several charcoal greys and a few off-whites
add up until they became a black? Because that was the case with powder paint – if you mixed colours, you usually got muddy brown or black … The girls at school said that black sins stuck fast to the soul, ruled out any chance of heaven until wiped out by a priest. And I didn’t fancy the idea of hell, did not wish to be banished to the valley of torment just because of my mother, who was forcing me to deny the truth until my soul was as black as soot. And she would go to hell. They all smoked in hell. And if she and all the other smokers went to hell … The woman was staring at me as if I were a very odd person.

  ‘Come in,’ I managed. She was already in, so I felt really daft by this time.

  ‘Where’s your mother?’

  I paused for several seconds, couldn’t achieve a second lie straight away, no matter what the colour of this new sin might have been. My eyes moved of their own accord to the sitting room. Mother would kill me, would beat the back of my head until it broke wide open. So I had to do it, had to! Breathing hurt, but I finally found the necessary presence of mind. ‘She says … she said she was going to the doctor’s because she’s very ill.’ There was water in my eyes, the sort of stinging moisture that usually comes with the peeling of onions. Because of my dampened vision, the fat lady seemed to be swimming about in a huge pond, a great fish with staring eyes. I coughed and blinked a few times. ‘So she must be at the doctor’s, I think. She’ll be waiting in the waiting room.’

  The ridiculously tiny mouth pouted. She had made herself even sillier by painting the Cupid’s bow a dark and unbecoming pink, a strange shade that bordered on brown, and I was not a lover of the colour brown. The lips sat pursed and tight in the acres of lard that formed this unfortunate face, but the eyes above were liquid, vibrant, dangerous. ‘Then I, too, must wait,’ she announced ominously, her words coated with acid. ‘She’ll not get away from me this time, love, I’ll see to that.’

  She stamped into the sitting room, her broad feet threatening the house’s stability. I leaned against a wall, buried my face in a coat of my father’s, sought comfort in the aromas of peppermint and black Spanish. After several loud beats of time, I lifted my head until the noise of my heart was no longer crashing on nerve-tightened eardrums. Silence. The angry woman and my mother were sharing a room, yet there was no fight, no conversation. I lingered in the hall, watched the hand on the grandmother clock, dreaded the outbreak of war in our own living quarters.

  I peeped round the door, was reminded of Uncle Freddie and the films again. Was it the Three Stooges? I wondered. Or perhaps Laurel and Hardy? Whatever, whoever, there had been a fat woman sitting on a chair behind which the heroes of the piece had concealed themselves. I dared not laugh, forbade myself to think about Uncle Freddie sneaking me out to the Odeon. ‘Don’t tell your mother, Laura,’ he had said. ‘Your mother doesn’t approve of the cinema unless the film is what she calls a classic. Comedians are not classical, so keep your lip buttoned once you get home.’

  Well, the current situation was not a celluloid story on a sticky reel, would not be punctuated by adverts at half-time. Or would it? It felt so unreal, so funny, so hazardous. Perhaps the film might stick in a minute, might even melt and leave a silly hole on the screen. And everyone would boo and jeer and sing, ‘Why are we waiting?’ Oh, I must take control of myself. The hilarity of the scene was making me worse, was causing my stomach to grind like a butcher’s mincer. It was a farce, a hoot, I had to run!

  I fled past the open door and into the kitchen, spread my hands across the coal-burning stove, gripped its enamelled edge. My mother was in the front room, was in a pickle that was terribly amusing and dangerous. Would the fat lady hit Mother about the head, would she be my revenge? No, that must not happen. Although I had little love for my female parent, I didn’t want her brains bashed in by an ugly person with a dead fox round her neck. Somehow, I had to find a way of getting rid of the fat lady. A snort of hysteria squeezed its way down my nose, and I altered it into a very unprofessional sneeze. Anne was the actress – I wasn’t terribly good at imitating sneezes, voices and suchlike.

  ‘What’s your name, dear?’ The voice was high-pitched, probably strangled by corsetry on its journey to the outside world. ‘Dear? Can you hear me?’

  Several more seconds elapsed before I made full contact with my own Christian name. It was silly, being so frightened that I forgot who I was, but not silly enough to make me laugh again. ‘My name’s Laura,’ I replied at last. I definitely needed to go to the bathroom by this time, dared not move, was too scared to pass the woman on my way to the stairs. What was happening to my thinking? I had talked my way out of many tricky situations, could surely manage one more. But this was not my tragedy, it was Mother’s. Talking my own way out of a corner was one matter, but I didn’t fancy my chances of pleasing my mother, no matter how hard I tried.

  ‘Are you there, Laura?’

  ‘Yes.’ I swallowed a great mouthful of air, and it landed in my stomach like a lead pellet. ‘Would you care for a cup of tea, Mrs … er …?’

  ‘Mrs Morris, dear. And no, I don’t want anything, thank you. This is not a social call.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ I had to get her out of that room. Should I shove some papers inside the stove, waft the smoke into the house and scream about fire? No. Mother might be fooled too, might come out of her hiding place and into the clutches of this intruder. There had to be something, some ploy that would work. On tip-toe, I moved along the hall, pushed myself to stand in the doorway, tried to act casual and normal. ‘Would you like to look at our garden?’ I asked. We had a very ordinary garden, just some grass, a few flowers and an apple tree, but it was worth a try. My mother was curled up like a cat, limbs drawn in, head so far down that it touched her knees. She would get cramp any minute, I thought. And for a dignified woman who set a lot of store by ‘doing the right thing’, she looked like a completely graceless bundle of clothing.

  ‘I don’t want to see your garden, Laura. What did you say was the matter with your mother?’

  I raised my eyes to the ceiling, tried to take my attention away from this painfully ludicrous scene. ‘Headaches,’ I replied. ‘She gets a lot of headaches.’

  ‘Hmmph.’ The dead fox had slipped when I looked down, was hauled up cruelly by huge, dimpled hands until it sat high on plump shoulders. ‘She’ll have more than a headache when I catch up with her. Anyway, isn’t your father a chemist?’

  ‘Yes. He’s at work. He works up …’ My mother was stirring in her den behind the chair. ‘Up Blackburn Road. In a chemist shop. And … he’s making a factory somewhere on a farm.’ Any minute now, I would surely explode in gales of laughter or in floods of tears. Mother’s head was up and she was mouthing at me, but I couldn’t concentrate. If I’d stared behind the chair, Mrs Morris might have followed my gaze and … I gulped. She was such a big woman that she could have killed my mother by sitting on her for a minute or two. ‘He’s working,’ I repeated lamely.

  ‘Pity he can’t cure a simple headache, then,’ snapped Mrs Morris. ‘When does he come home?’

  ‘Er … about six o’clock, usually.’

  Mrs Morris drew back her head until I could count three full chins, plus one more that was still in a developmental stage. She turned and looked at the mantel clock. ‘Ten to six now. I’ll wait for him, he’ll do.’ She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, he’ll do very well, will Mr McNally.’ She settled back, was just a couple of inches away from the crouching figure. All that separated them was the padding on the armchair.

  Mother was mouthing again, something that looked like ‘Get her out.’ My need for the lavatory was suddenly urgent. After a gabbled ‘Excuse me’, I fled up the stairs like a real living fox with the hounds snapping their fangs at its brush.

  I was never fond of the bathroom. From a very early age, the toilet terrified me with its strident gurgling, made me worry about demons and dragons and slimy opportunists that might live in dark water and bite people’s extremities. Even when I was almost nine, mature
enough for the voice of reason to reside more frequently in my head, I was still scared. I told myself every time that there were no evil forces in our drains, yet something elemental made me shiver each time I pulled the chain.

  But on this occasion, with the rest of the house full of ill-concealed malevolence, I decided to opt for whatever lived down the pan, because the devil downstairs, which was now known to me, was far fiercer than any reptile that might poke its forked tongue out of a U-bend.

  When the cistern had refilled itself, I went through the eleven-times table again and added on two Hail Marys, a Glory Be and the Catholic version of the Lord’s Prayer. After the pipes had settled, I squatted on the floor and counted diamonds on the wallpaper. Each diamond had three flowers in it, and I struggled to multiply the diamonds by three. It must have been six o’clock. I stood on the toilet seat and opened the small window, strained to hear the Town Hall clock as it announced the safety zone. Dad was on his way. Dad was sane and comfortable; he would take away the dragons.

  The landing was silent. I stood as still as a stone and listened to the ticking of the grandmother clock. It hiccupped, creaked, played its tune and bonged six times. He was late. If he’d decided to stay and invent something, then Mother might very well squat behind that chair till midnight. And Mrs Morris could stand up at any minute, walk round the room, find my mother hiding like a criminal in her own house.

  I heard him. My father clopped when he walked, because he always bought real leather shoes with real leather soles. The gate moaned, swung open, took an age to shut. He pushed wide the front door, stepped inside, paused in the hall. Papers shuffled as he looked through the mail, and I heard the soft sound of his coat as he removed it and hung it on the stand.