September Starlings Read online

  The cottage has a sitting room and a kitchen on the ground floor. Stairs rise out of a corner of the front room, but there is a bed here, in an alcove to the left of a tiled grate. She lowers her frailty into a padded rocker. ‘Can’t get upstairs any longer. They come once a week, carry me to the bathroom and give me a lick and a promise. Thank goodness the landlord didn’t demolish the outside lavatory, or I would now be totally robbed of my dignity.’

  There’s another seat, a squarish armchair upholstered in a linen-effect cloth whose pattern consists of roses in improbable shades of pink and fuchsia. I sink into it, study the room. There are prints of flowers with plain wooden frames, some certificates, a sepia photograph of a child with its parents. On the beige mantelpiece, between two candlesticks of heavy brass, sits a young man in an RAF uniform. Above his head hangs a scroll whose mount is plainly home-made, just a sheet of glass and passepartout. I know instantly that Miss Armitage has managed this herself, that few have been allowed to handle the item.

  I check myself, curse my own rudeness, open my mouth to speak. But she is sleeping, has fallen into that deep slumber which is reserved only for the very young and for the ageing. Her jaw sags, while the ill-fitting upper denture rests on her tongue. In the hearth sits a rack containing three short-stemmed pipes, but there is no man here. And these are ladies’ pipes – I saw them on sale in Devon many years ago. Miss Armitage has, it seems, discovered tobacco rather late in life. The stains on her teeth are caused by pipe-sucking, then. The pipe is her pacifier, her security blanket.

  So, forty-odd years on, I have seen Miss Armitage’s secret. The mantel is like an altar with the photograph as its centrepiece. Some tired violets sit to one side of the young airman, while a pale silk rose fills another small gap. Beribboned medals lie flat among the flowers, while twin steel cufflinks squat in a saucer, their oval surfaces displaying a worn crest. A matching tiepin skulks behind them and I cannot bear her pain, her loss. Was this her brother? No. A dead brother might be kept upstairs in a drawer, but only a lover would merit long years of naked devotion.

  ‘He’s dead now.’ The false teeth click as she speaks. Does she know that she has been sleeping?

  ‘I … presumed that he was dead.’

  She nods. ‘Last year. After I lost him, I too became infirm. They talked about me, you know. After all, I brought him here in the sixties, didn’t marry him. They realized eventually that I was fit to continue as a teacher in spite of my loose morals.’ The irises glisten wetly. ‘And they even helped, came into the house while I was in class, bathed him, took him for little walks. Bless them, bless them all.’

  My memory stirs, tries to speak to me. Yes, there was talk, but I was too busy with my own problems, too caught up in trying to keep one step in front of my biggest mistake. Auntie Maisie spoke about a man, and I didn’t listen. But I must say something now. ‘So … he didn’t die in the war?’

  She shrugs and I hear a bone grating and creaking. The woman has wasted almost to nothing, so her skeleton must be wearing away too, leaving her bones brittle and fine. ‘The war killed him. For over ten years, he stayed in a hospital for ex-servicemen. When the hospital was closed, the authorities wanted to move Richard to a psychiatric unit. His father was dead and his mother was ill, so I brought him to live with me. I could not have allowed him to go into an asylum.’

  I swallow audibly. ‘Was he difficult?’

  ‘Not with me, not with the Barr Bridgers. He was at home, you see. I was the only person he remembered well. When I explained to him that I would need to continue working, he accepted the kind people who replaced me during school hours. At the end of a couple of years, we even managed to throw out the sedatives.’ The small head lifts itself proudly, causing the bundled hair to loosen at the base of her skull. The bun wobbles, threatens to break free, settles like the ill-placed nest of some hasty bird.

  Does she want me to ask? If I do ask, she might become upset. If I change the subject, then I might be accused of coldness. ‘What happened to him, Miss Armitage? If it’s too painful, don’t talk about it.’

  She sighs heavily, blinks a few times. ‘Richard was a rear gunner. His plane went down and the rest of the crew died, they were all burnt to death. Over the years, in his darker moments, he could hear them screaming. The plane was low when he jumped – or so I was told by those whose fighters survived the mission. The Germans got him and his wounds were treated after a fashion.’ She halts, fingers a crocheted armrest. ‘A bump on the head, you see. Some of his brain died. He was judged to be so deranged that he was not imprisoned in the normal sense. The Nazis placed him in a mental hospital in Poland. No-one spoke English and most of the patients were probably beyond communication in any language.’ She leans back, closes her eyes.

  ‘And he stayed there till the end of the war?’ I ask.

  ‘Longer than that, my dear. He seldom spoke, you see. In 1947, a Polish doctor recognized that Richard’s few words were in English, so he was brought home and put into the veterans’ hospital. Somehow, his story was pieced together and he was reunited with his mother. But she could not have managed him. When she told me the details, I went immediately to visit him. And he knew me, responded to me. Laura, I could not have allowed them to put him behind bars again. We were engaged to be married, but that was not to be.’

  ‘No.’

  The blue eyes are wide again. ‘We had some happy years. Not as man and wife, you understand. It was like having a child of my own, someone who depended on me for almost everything. Then, when I retired, we were together all the time.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Miss Armitage.’

  ‘Don’t pity me. My life has not been wasted, Laura. I taught many children, gave them a good start. There would have been no other man for me. At least I got back what was left of him, was able to cater for his needs.’

  This is all too much for me. I am so near to her – my recent experience mirrors hers too closely. After a few garbled words about being excused, I dash up the steep and narrow stairs, find myself in a bathroom whose area has been stolen from the rear bedroom. Everything is pink. Although the house is rented, she has probably renovated it herself, has chosen warm and hopeful colours. Clusters of carnations spill down the walls until they meet rose-hued tiles. The bath, the washbasin, the lavatory are all pink, but the fitted carpet is a plain burgundy to match the towels. It is all so clean. They look after her, then.

  With my face still damp after a cold wash, I stand on the landing, hear the clatter of teacups. His door is open. Blue and white striped pyjamas are folded on a candlewick bedspread. Brown slippers stand on a mat beside the bed. On a pine chest, shaving instruments are laid out next to a man’s handleless hairbrush. I am reminded of a piece I read years ago, something like, ‘I am not dead, I am just in the next room.’

  The handle to the front bedroom creaks as I push the door wide. It’s all peach and cream in here. Over the space where her bed used to stand, there is another photograph of Richard, but she is with him this time. They hold their hands towards the camera, fingers intertwined so that her tiny engagement ring will show. And I am crying now, weeping for the gentle soul who bathed my scraped knee, comforted me when Mother’s cruelty showed on my face. Twice I had Liza McNally’s fingermarks printed crimson on my cheeks. But Mother left my face alone after Miss Armitage’s visit. From that day, I was seldom beaten, and when Mother did lash out, she made her mark where it would not show.

  Richard. I touch his image, whisper his name. I did not know him, though I heard and ignored the gossip during my brief stays here. My own difficulties swamped me then, left little space for interest in the troubles of others. But I understand, oh God, I understand. Miss Armitage’s Richard has gentle eyes and a firm chin, is justifiably proud of his wife-to-be.

  She calls. ‘Tea, Laura.’

  I am summoned, so I descend.

  She is enthroned again in her rocker, has pulled out the mismatched Doulton for me. ‘You’ve been crying.�
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  ‘Yes.’

  There are roses on the cup, bluebells on the saucer and I am shaking. Was I sent here so that I would know the question? Does she have an answer? I sip, can scarcely swallow.

  ‘He died in the back bedroom.’ The tone is down-to-earth, commonsensical. ‘I was with him. Would you like some cake?’

  ‘No. No, thank you.’

  She drinks greedily, noisily. ‘What do you do for a living, Laura?’

  ‘I write.’

  The grey head nods. ‘I should have known that. You are comfortable?’

  No need for lies here. ‘I am wealthy, Miss Armitage.’

  ‘My name is Alice. I can see from your clothes and from your jewellery that you have done well.’

  ‘I married well.’

  The miniature face is clouded by confusion as she remembers my flight from this village. ‘But that boy was …’

  ‘I married well the second time. He was a jeweller.’

  She regains her composure, is glad that I gave her the opportunity to resume the perfect manners. ‘Was? Is he dead, dear?’

  I shake my head. ‘He’s … he’s in a nursing home.’

  ‘Oh.’ There is so much wisdom in her face, and it has nothing to do with age. She was always wise, always sensible. ‘Richard raved so. I bought the television set for him, because it seemed to soothe him. The memories were so dreadful. I should have hated for him to die when he was hearing the pilots’ screams. It was important that he should go in peace, or I might have imagined him suffering that terrible nightmare for all eternity. Are you sure about the cake, Laura?’

  I nod. She is telling me something and I am impatient to hear the end of her message.

  ‘Then I shall eat it. The old are allowed to be gluttonous.’ She bites, chews, gulps, swills down the residue with a draught of tea. ‘He is older than you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her cup clatters in its ill-fitting saucer. She probably uses a mug when she has no visitors. ‘Coronation Street tonight,’ she states. ‘I do enjoy that programme. Richard liked it. He died on a Monday, just before News at Ten. Though it hasn’t been the same since Hilda left. The Street, I mean. Don’t worry, this isn’t quite dementia. I’ve always been a scatterbrain.’ She sniffs, nods her head repeatedly, reminds me of Katherine Hepburn in that Golden Pond film.

  I know all about dementia … ‘And he was peaceful?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She is staring again, is pushing her knowledge into my head. Her next words come in a whisper. ‘There is the Maker in all of us, a little piece of the Lord. He tells us what is best, Laura. God guides our hand when the time comes.’

  The breath catches in my throat. ‘Did you …?’

  ‘Did I what?’

  The clock’s ticking is metallic and harsh. There are no words on my tongue and I feel weak, stupid. Who or what sent me here? Which entity planned that I should meet this old woman, drink tea with her, watch the dentures wobbling about as she stuffs herself with angel cake?

  ‘I am terminally ill,’ she says softly. ‘At this great age, most of us are knocking on death’s door. But I’ve a definite and specific condition. The diagnosis was made on the Friday.’ She pauses, drags a dry, age-weathered hand across her mouth. ‘And Richard passed away three days later. Just before the ten o’clock news.’

  ‘Alice?’

  ‘Yes, dear?’

  ‘Are you suffering?’

  Her smile is bright and brave. ‘No, I’m just dying an inch at a time. I’ve no regrets, Laura, none at all. Will you wash the dishes for me?’

  ‘Of course.’ I stand, lift the tray. ‘Thank you.’

  The kitchen is tiny. In the parlance of today’s estate agents, it might well be a ‘galley type’ or a ‘kitchenette’. There’s a porcelain sink, a gas cooker, a 1950s-style unit with glass doors in the top, two shallow drawers, a letdown centre cupboard, two further drawers, then a couple of cupboards at the base. Tomato plants flourish on the tiny sill next to a miniature brown, blue and cream teapot with DEVON announced on its belly. Home-made recipe books are propped on a shelf, their covers made from school drawing paper, yellow, purple, fading magenta. There’s a rack of pans, a kettle whose whistle has been lost, an aged toaster, a colander on a hook. So clean, so poor.

  Her garden is long and narrow, is not suffering. Someone has cut the grass, weeded the borders. No, she is not poor. They come and look after her, keep up her standards, love her for educating their families. This lovely lady is rich beyond measure and deservedly so.

  ‘Many of them have gone, moved on.’ She is behind me, reading my mind. ‘The cottages are mostly sold, bought by first-time buyers with babies and cars. But the farms have been handed down, you know. It’s the farmers who look after me. I miss your aunt.’

  ‘So do I.’ Auntie Maisie Turnbull was a wonderful woman, a giver of love. She was the only real mother I ever knew. ‘Anne’s living in Bromley Cross.’

  ‘She sends me flowers and plants, ruins me.’ There’s a catch in her voice and she covers it with a quiet cough. ‘And she takes me to her home at Christmas. She never married and that’s a pity, because she would have made an excellent mother. Have you kept in touch with her?’

  I smile grimly. ‘Oh, yes.’ Without Anne, I would have been insane years ago. Anne does not discuss me, has not shared my troubles with Miss Armitage. Like her mother, Anne is caring, trustworthy.

  Alice Armitage walks back into the sitting room, shuffles as she goes. ‘He might have lingered for a while longer,’ she mutters quietly. ‘But I was unable to calculate my own span. Perhaps it was all for the best.’

  I replace the Doulton, pile it carefully into the top of the unit where a mixture of china gathers in happy confusion. Did she help him on his way? Did she?

  She is tired, has placed herself in the armchair. ‘Is this jeweller husband of yours going to get better?’

  Ben’s face leaps into my mind. ‘No.’ I bite back an unexpected sob. ‘He suffers. Like … Richard did.’

  She smiles sweetly. ‘God is good. Be His messenger.’

  Again, she is asleep. I creep from the house, tiptoe past the window, have almost reached the Black Horse before I breathe normally. Something is working in a mysterious way today. Questions, answers, an old woman who drinks flat cider and smokes a pipe.

  I shall not go up to McNally’s, because my father is not there. But I’ll visit his grave, drive through Bolton, head for home on the M62. In Crosby, I shall rest until the morning, then the future will begin. But first, I shall wade through my past, look through the pages of my life and try to make some sense of it.

  They’ve done things to my town. I always feel proprietorial about Bolton, wonder why I haven’t been consulted by developers. How dare they tart up the old Market Hall, get rid of the Palais de Danse, stick a fast-food place just yards from the Victoria Hall? I can’t drive through the main square, as it’s been pedestrianized, but I can see the clock. When my insecurity showed, Dad used to say, ‘Laurie-child, I’ll leave you when the Town Hall clock strikes thirteen.’ It never did strike more than twelve, but my sweet father went softly into his own night.

  I’m going to my other home now. And I’m going to write everything on bits of paper. Elsie grinds her gears up Derby Street’s slope, seems to be in a temper since I changed my mind about the motorway. This is the old route to Liverpool – St Helen’s Road, Atherton, Leigh, Lowton, East Lancs Road. When this long stretch was laid, families used to come and picnic on the verge. Watching the great road coming to life was easily as much fun as sitting in a picture house.

  We take so much for granted, refuse to take the world seriously. Wars on TV, real wars with real victims. And we fail to notice because our senses have been dulled by over-indulgence in passive pleasures. I have just been cured of a disease that would have seen me off ten years ago, yet I sing no songs, fly no flags. Somewhere inside, I’m relieved to be alive, yet I feel nothing except the worry about my husband, my Ben. Perh
aps I’m like the rest, then, all Barclaycard and Big Macs, no effort, no gratitude, no wonderment. Oh no, I tell myself firmly. If Ben could be cured, I’d be dancing on air to celebrate a double reprieve.

  I am in Merseyside now, driving past Kirkby with its tower blocks filled with displaced persons who used to have a real life in a wonderful city. Again, we didn’t scream our displeasure when Liverpool lost its soul.

  Anyway, I’m all right, Jack, should be happy, relieved, shouldn’t be thinking all these morbid thoughts. Was the fear my prop? Did my illness sustain me, allow me to be justifiably self-centred?

  Now, I have to face it all. I have a fresh start with a mended body and a healed mind. Not many people get a second chance, an extra stab at life. A lot to think about now. There’s Mother, Ben, my children, the activity I laughingly call my career. Time has been given back to me. And time is the most precious gift of all.

  I must use it and use it well.

  Chapter Two

  I am forced to sleep alone these nights, and I miss his arms, his breath in my hair, even the snoring I once recorded for him on a thirty-minute cassette, a din that might have registered high on the Richter scale. He laughed, of course. Laughed, stroked his chin thoughtfully, chased me round the kitchen and, armed with a wooden spoon engraved with the legend A SOUVENIR OF SKEGNESS, threatened me with GBH. I love him so much. If I love him so much, then why can’t I bestir myself on his behalf, why don’t I keep him with me and …? Yes, Dr Ashby, I heard you all right. Even now, your dulcet tones echo in my lughole. ‘The treatment has taken a lot out of you, Mrs Starling. An all-clear doesn’t mean you can pick up a broom and start sweeping the world’s problems into a neat pile.’ Bloody doctors. They carry on as if every last one of them is an emissary from God.