Unbecoming Read online

  Mary strokes the material in awe. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘Never you mind.’

  No one has silk any more. Not new at least and never so much of it. ‘It must’ve cost a fortune!’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that.’

  Pat comes in from the kitchen, teapot in hand. She stops, openmouthed, by Mary’s chair and stares at the material draped across her sister’s knees. ‘Whatever’s that?’

  ‘It’s for me,’ Mary says. She can’t believe it. She looks up at her father, amazed. ‘Was it more than five pounds?’

  He taps his nose. ‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.’

  Pat sets the teapot on the table. ‘We’ve still to pay this month’s bills.’ Her voice has a brittle edge to it and Mary feels an increasingly familiar stab of guilt. Dad’s apologies are becoming more extravagant. He bought her a pair of kid gloves only last week and a box of hankies the week before – hand-embroidered and all the way from China. Mary loved the surprise and exotica of them, but Pat thought them ‘wasteful’, dragging Mary into the hallway to tell her that if she’d only stop being so wilful there’d be no need for Dad’s reckless spending.

  ‘I don’t ask for presents,’ Mary had hissed back at her. ‘He’s making up for his bad temper!’

  ‘And why does he manage to keep his temper with me?’

  ‘Because you’re so well-behaved.’

  Pat was pleased with that answer. Being ‘good’ was her small delight – to be the one who could predict Dad, who could tell the difference between ‘tight-but-good-spirited’ and ‘drunk-and-grief-stricken’, who knew from the way he shut the door after coming in from the pub if he needed his pipe and slippers and her company by the fire, or if he’d rather be alone in the sitting room with the photograph album and his whisky.

  ‘It’s not his fault,’ Pat said. ‘It’s the sorrow.’

  And because Pat had been twelve when Mum died, she understood how that felt. And because Mary had only been three days old, she wasn’t supposed to understand it at all.

  But sometimes Mary dared to creep into Dad’s bedroom to look at the wedding photo and touch Mum’s face through the glass. Here was a mother who had lost son after son at birth, who had been warned by a doctor never to have more children, but who had refused to listen. Here was a mother who said, ‘I’m having one more and this last one will be the best of the bunch!’

  And when she got pregnant with Mary, all her hair fell out, and when the doctor told her the baby was going to fall out too, she lay on the sofa and didn’t move for months. And when Mary was born, she looked just like her. Copper Top, Dad called Mary sometimes, my beautiful Copper Top.

  Pat didn’t look anything like their mother. Pat had mouse-brown hair and was the recipient of rare and sober parcels from their father – a cotton apron with pockets, a case of peaches from some fellow at the yard, a sturdy brush for the steps. She seemed pleased with these things, but Mary thought them dull. Pat never got anything so lovely as yards of beautiful silk.

  ‘We’ll share it,’ Mary tells her sister. ‘There’s plenty. It’ll make two dresses.’

  Pat rams a cosy on the pot and turns to their father. ‘Where exactly do you imagine her wearing such a dress?’

  Dad shrugs amiably. ‘She can wear it round the house, can’t she?’

  ‘A silk dress, for round the house?’ Pat juts her chin at him. ‘Do you not see how this encourages her?’

  He gives her no answer as he reaches for a slice of bread and butter. He searches the table for the jam pot.

  Pat plonks herself opposite him. ‘When I was growing up I was never allowed fripperies.’

  ‘When you were growing up, there was a war on.’

  ‘And I had to keep house for the two of you! I had to count the pennies and queue at the grocer’s and get tea on the table and generally make do and mend. No one ever bought me presents.’

  Mary doesn’t want this gift to cause a rift. She stands up and holds the shortest edge of silk under her chin, lets the length of it tumble to her ankles, hoping to distract them. She twists her hips and watches the material ripple. ‘There’s magic in it, look. Like Cinderella’s ball gown.’

  Dad chuckles. ‘And Pat will be a fairy godmother and turn it into something for you.’

  Pat’s scowl deepens. ‘And when will I have time to do that?’

  ‘You’ll find time.’ Dad reaches for his knife as if it were settled. ‘And if there’s any spare, you can make something for yourself.’

  ‘Spare?’ Pat says. ‘I get the spare?’

  He gazes at her curiously as he spreads jam on his bread. ‘You don’t like dressing up. You’ve never shown the slightest interest in dancing or music.’

  ‘I don’t like noise and drunkenness, but I like a fiesta.’

  ‘When was the last time you took up an invitation?’

  ‘When was the last time I had an invitation?’

  Dad’s face darkens. Pat’s never this forceful with him. What’s wrong with her? ‘When that lad next door hauled his mother’s piano out into the street, I didn’t see you joining in.’ He chinks his knife against the jam pot as if he’s won a point and there’s nothing more to be said. ‘Let the girl who has the fire have the dress.’

  Fire. It’s a word he’s used before. A word Mary clings to. She has it and Pat doesn’t. She knows it too, has always known it. It’s something hot and wild, and sometimes it makes her want to walk out the door and off down the road and not stop. A straight road holds the promise of something – a milkshake in the Corner Café, a bus ride to Tiffany’s on Marine Parade to watch the dancers going in, or even (when she’s older, she’s promised herself this), a trip to London.

  Imagine a night out at the Empire Rooms or the Lyceum? There’d be a big band raising the roof and hundreds of people. Strangers might stop and talk to her, she might be asked to dance. She’d definitely have some kind of adventure.

  ‘You’re a home body,’ Dad tells Pat as she sullenly pours the tea. ‘No use denying it.’

  ‘And what am I?’ Mary asks, kneeling beside her father. ‘Am I a world body?’

  ‘You’re trouble,’ he tells her sadly. ‘That’s what you are.’

  Seven

  Katie had imagined a country cottage with roses blooming round the door – isn’t that where grandmothers were supposed to live? But Mary’s house was a terraced council place, bleakly identical to all the others in the street. There was a frenzied section of motorway above their heads and, as they got out of the car, the sky seemed low and moody and the air thick with exhaust fumes.

  ‘I know the people here,’ Mary said, gazing up at the house.

  ‘You live here,’ Mum told her.

  ‘I do not. What utter rubbish.’

  Mum pulled out the envelope the hospital had given her and waved it at Mary. ‘Then how come I’ve got your door keys?’

  But Mary wasn’t interested. She walked briskly up the path and rapped on the door.

  ‘No one’s going to answer,’ Mum told her.

  ‘Jack might,’ Chris said.

  Mum glared at him. ‘That’s enough.’ Then she glared at Katie. ‘Keep an eye on your brother.’

  Katie dragged Chris to sit down with her on the wall while Mum fiddled with keys.

  ‘What’s it like to be dead?’ he whispered.

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Do you think it’s dark?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Do you think other dead people are scary?’

  Katie told him to count the paving stones in an attempt to distract him. He usually did stuff like that without prompting, but this time he ignored her and stared at Mary instead.

  She was peering through the window. ‘Such a lonely place to sit,’ she said sadly, to no one in particular.

  ‘Here we go,’ Mum said. ‘Door open. Everyone in.’

  Mary went first, bustling past Mum and straight down the hallway. The rest of them
stood in a huddle at the bottom of the stairs. It smelled weird – hot and sweet. Katie wondered if this was what death smelled like and swallowed hard.

  ‘Come in,’ Mary called. ‘Come and look at all the lovely things.’

  ‘Can we put the lights on?’ Chris whispered.

  Mum shook her head. ‘Don’t touch anything electrical at all.’

  It was difficult to see in the gloom. The three of them crept down the hallway and peered into what seemed to be a lounge. There was a sofa, a fireplace, a hard-backed chair under the window, an old-fashioned TV on a stand. But as Katie’s eyes adjusted to the half-light, she saw floor to ceiling shelves crammed with books, piles of magazines stacked on several coffee tables, a glass-fronted cabinet heaving with paraphernalia – masks and carvings and brightly coloured statues. It was like a charity shop. The mantelpiece was covered in ornaments, the window ledges piled with paperwork and baskets of knick-knacks. There were feathers tacked to the walls, cushions on the floor, articles torn from newspapers randomly sellotaped to the back of the door. It was hot, difficult to breathe. Even the carpet and curtains were stifling.

  Mum obviously thought so too. ‘I’ll open some windows, shall I?’

  Mary walked about, touching things as if she’d never seen them before. She ran a finger gently along the top of a clock, used cupped hands to pick up and cradle a china dog, before placing it gently down again; she tinkled the glass beads on the chandelier above her head.

  ‘Would you look at this!’ she breathed as she opened some kind of musical box. An old-fashioned tune piped thinly at them, while a plastic ballerina did a three hundred and sixty degree turn on her pedestal.

  Mary sat down on the sofa and sighed with pleasure, the music box on her lap. It was as if she’d come to a particularly wonderful gallery where she had special permission to handle the exhibits.

  Mum clearly had no such thoughts. Now the curtains were open, she looked positively shaken, standing there with one hand to her cheek as if she’d walked into a horror film.

  ‘It’s filthy,’ she mouthed to Katie from the window.

  Katie nodded, but she didn’t really agree. The room was certainly messy, but nothing was damp or rotting, there weren’t mice or cockroaches scurrying for cover. It was lived in, that was all. Maybe it was part of Mary’s illness that she forgot to tidy up, and maybe Jack was too busy looking after her to do it himself.

  Mary had picked up a cushion and was stroking it as if the texture and feel were deeply comforting.

  ‘You want to bring that with you?’ Mum asked her. ‘You want to put it in the bag?’ She pointed to the suitcase she’d wheeled in from the car.

  ‘Am I going somewhere?’ Mary asked brightly.

  Mum frowned. ‘We’ve come to collect some bits and pieces, remember? Enough for a day or two – a couple of nighties, some changes of clothes, a few toiletries perhaps?’

  Mary didn’t look as if she was going to be looking for clothes or her toothbrush, or anything useful. She was stroking the cushion and gazing contentedly over Mum’s shoulder at the view through the window – another road, more houses and cars, a sprawl of shops. Everything about this place was crammed with life.

  Chris had edged in from the doorway to examine what looked like a range of plastic mountains glued to a board. He touched it with a finger. ‘What’s this do?’

  ‘Don’t touch,’ Mum snapped. ‘Leave things alone.’

  Mary turned to see what he was looking at. ‘That’s Wolf Mountain,’ she smiled. ‘Bring it here and I’ll show you.’

  But Mum shook her head vehemently, mouthed at Chris that it was dirty and not to touch it. She also whispered under her breath, ‘How can anyone live like this?’ as she picked her way across the carpet. She squatted down at Mary’s feet. ‘Do you have a place where you keep important documents? A drawer or a file somewhere? I don’t want to go nosing through your stuff, but we need Jack’s birth certificate and bank details. Also, your medical cards and national insurance numbers. Do you know where those things might be?’

  Mary shrugged. ‘Jack deals with all that.’

  Katie watched her mother take a deep breath. Mary had said exactly the same thing at the breakfast table earlier when she was asked if there were any milk or newspaper deliveries that needed to be cancelled.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Mum said. ‘But Jack’s not here. Jack had a heart attack and he died.’

  Mary looked at her with a mixture of disbelief and alarm. ‘When?’

  ‘Three days ago now. You went to the hospital in the ambulance with him, do you remember?’

  ‘No, because nobody told me!’

  ‘They did. But you’ve forgotten.’

  Mary looked at Katie for a moment, then at Chris and then back to Mum, as if she was searching for an explanation.

  ‘I saw him through the window,’ she whispered.

  ‘You didn’t. It’s just that your memory’s gone bad.’

  ‘Are you telling me I don’t know what I saw? You think I could forget a thing like that?’ She waved Mum away. ‘You talk a load of nonsense.’

  Funny how Katie had been looking forward to this – it had seemed dramatic, the idea of going to Mary’s place. She’d imagined neighbours flocking to greet them with sympathy and pots of tea. She’d imagined a whole crowd of people chatting together in a sunny garden, telling stories, filling in the blanks. Mum would relax for once in her life, perhaps even melt a little towards Mary. Katie had even gone so far as to imagine that Mum would announce they’d all be better off moving into Mary’s place together. A chance to get out of that flat and away from school and the humiliation of Esme. A chance of a new life!

  It seemed a ridiculous fantasy now. In fact, looking at Mary sitting on the sofa staring at the empty fireplace as if she could see flames leaping in the grate, when there was only soot, it seemed like a very bad idea to bring her back at all. Jack had a heart attack in this place and being here might send Mary crazier than she already was. Perhaps Mum thought so too, because she unzipped the suitcase and yanked out a roll of bin liners and a bulky carrier bag.

  ‘Let’s get a move on.’ She beckoned Chris to sit next to Mary on the sofa. ‘Look after her. Don’t move and don’t touch anything. Katie, come with me.’

  Katie shot her brother a puzzled glance. He shrugged back from the sofa, his hands on his lap. He looked awkward, as if he’d found himself unexpectedly in a doctor’s waiting room.

  Out in the hallway, Mum issued instructions. Katie was to empty the fridge of all perishables. If there was any washing up to be done, she was to do it, but she was to use gloves. She passed Katie the bin liners and the carrier bag. ‘Everything you need is here, including spray and surface wipes. Clean up anything particularly disgusting, but don’t touch a thing with bare hands.’

  Katie was also to check the cupboards for medicines (list of potential medicines, courtesy of Google provided) and then make everyone a cup of tea (milk, biscuits and a Tupperware of tea bags also provided).

  Mum thought of everything. Always. Except she was clearly relaxing the ‘no sugar’ rule of her own volition now.

  ‘The meds might not exist, but have a quick look anyway,’ she said. ‘If she’s on Doxazosin, then that’s important. The other ones aren’t so urgent. Oh, and check for Aricept. That’s a drug for dementia. You never know …’

  ‘Dementia?’

  ‘Seems highly likely to me. She’s absolutely all over the place with her memory.’ She took a breath. ‘Right, call me when the tea’s ready and make sure the cups are clean.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Upstairs, to see what the situation is. The council are going to want this place back. We can’t have them knowing she lived like this.’ She checked her watch. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

  The kitchen was small and dark and smelled stale, as if someone had been cooking chips for years and hadn’t bothered ventilating. Katie switched on the light and unlocked the outside
door, surprised to find a tangled little garden. Daylight made things worse though, because now she could see how yellow the muslin hanging at the window was and how grimy the floor looked. She felt like a forensic officer at the scene of a crime as she donned gloves to open the fridge. She half expected a severed head on a plate, but it was remarkably ordinary inside – a scrap of cheese, a jar of pickle, a few shrivelled carrots and sprouting potatoes and an old tub of marge. She poured milk down the sink (holding her nose, because it had clotted), followed by the dregs of an orange juice carton. She kept watching the door, hoping Mary didn’t come in. Shouldn’t they have asked her if this was OK? Maybe she wanted the pickle. Maybe it was Jack’s pickle?

  She boiled a kettle (trusted the electrics for five minutes) and looked out at the garden while she waited. It was overgrown, but rather beautiful in its wildness. All sorts of colours and textures were weaving together. When the kettle was ready she washed up the few cups and plates she found festering in the sink. But the simple act of washing up felt wrong. This might have been the plate Jack ate his last meal from. She might be washing him away.

  Now for the medicine list. Tolterodine, Lisinopril, Doxazosin. The top one had an asterisk next to it. Mum had written, withdrawal of bladder meds possibly increasing confusion? Everything about Mary seemed to have a question mark next to it.

  She tentatively opened a cupboard above the sink. It was packed with cereal boxes. Damn! Did they count as perishable? Probably, since no one was going to be eating them now. Which meant she had more stuff to throw away. She hauled them out, but on each and every one was a Post-it Note: If it’s dark, come back to bed.

  God, that was so sad! It must be Jack’s writing. Jack keeping Mary safe, guiding her back to their bed in the night when she wandered off and thought it was time for breakfast. Katie couldn’t throw those stickers away. She peeled them off and put them carefully in her pocket before chucking the cereal in the bin bag. In the next cupboard – no medicine, but coffee, tea, cups and plates. On the inside door: Only one teaspoon of sugar, you’re sweet enough! Katie peeled that off too. Perhaps Mary would like to have the stickers at the flat to make her feel at home. Now Katie was looking for them, she found several more: The kettle is hot, like you. You set my heart on fire, but don’t touch these matches.