ONE
All the same furniture was there. It was as if they hadn’t moved at all. She was still in that flat, that night, that crying. The new three-piece suite with grey fabric and wooden edging, the circular side-table, the Persian rug with its scrawls of yellow and red. Leonard loved those things. But one of the boxy armchairs was next to the window, the wireless was across the other side of the room and a stream of sunlight fell onto an empty pool of floorboards in the middle of nothing. She stepped around the sunlight. Not one thing was in the right place. The memories built up over the last two years like layers of varnish were all scraped away now, and there was just a new room. She slid the palm of her hand across the cold blue wall. Leonard was in the hospital finding new things, meeting new people and she was left here. But she didn’t plan to be there long. The large windows looked out onto the road to the hospital drive and she knew he was somewhere hidden behind those pine trees, almost smelt him like that sharp itch of vinegar. He hadn’t even stopped to look up at the new house, neat as on oversized doll’s house. She crossed the room towards the French windows and opened them to let in the smell of the garden. Apple trees and rose bushes dotted around small patches of lawn, no space to move, strangled by vines. Leonard said there was a tennis court in the hospital grounds, and she used to love tennis, even if she was no Helen Wills Moody. She and Tommy used to play all summer long. Cords and muscles etched into her legs, but not anymore. Every day she struggled to keep her Raylon stockings from wrinkling and her skirts from slipping. She ran her hand down the length of her side. Blonde hair and red nails couldn’t hide that. She put her fingers out against the glass and it was hot from the sunlight. Nothing was as it should be.
Lillian sat down in the armchair, felt the familiar curve of the horsehair back and pushed her little finger into the worn threads on the right armrest. The tapestry fabric had been gnawed away by tiny baby teeth and Lillian ran the tip of her finger over every bite. Her white underclothes were like a sunspot on the fabric. The pulse of the train was still running through her. If she closed her eyes she could see the long stream of green trees and brown earth speeding by. But when she looked up there was the room staring back at her. When she’d stood on the platform there were so many trains, so many destinations, she felt lost, and so she took her seat with Leonard and Freddie. Freddie who looked so much like Tommy that sometimes it made her stare.
Leonard wouldn’t be home for hours and there was no nephew to fuss over. She just wanted something to do but she didn’t know where to start, kicking her heels into the polished floor wasn’t helping. She wondered if she was hungry, there was an angry bubbling in her stomach, she only had one barley sugar on the train. It was a long time since she felt hungry and may be there was something to be said for the sea air. She followed the coloured trail of her clothes back to the kitchen, a jacket on the table, a skirt in the hallway, her shoes on the stone floor by the range. Leonard called it her lilac suit but really it was a dark purple, almost black in the shade. Colours didn’t mean much to Leonard in his white scrubbed medical world. When they were first married he used to laugh at her need to shed her clothes as soon as she came into the flat, they would laugh together. She ran her hands over her hollow stomach, it felt as if that vast hole was sinking down inside her and she really couldn’t think of a better idea of how to fill it than with food.
The kitchen didn’t look like it belonged to anyone. They didn’t bring any kitchen furniture with them, only their wedding dining set and Magnet appliances. Dark spaces lurked underneath everything. Like stepping back in time there was an old iron range and burners, not at all like St John’s Wood with its enamel-coated cooker and refrigerator. More like one of Leonard’s operating theatres than a family kitchen. Lillian wondered if the housekeeper did meals, and how much a part of their lives she would need to be. She wasn’t sure she could stand another pair of eyes examining. There wasn’t any food in the icebox and she replaced the lid. At first Leonard ate everything she cooked but they soon settled into a routine of sandwiches and cold cuts, it was better that way. She found an old packet of tea, a box of water crackers and nothing else, not even dust in the blue painted cupboards. But when she found her way to the dinning room the table was set for three.
Cold ham with jellied edges, a slither of tongue, green lettuce leaves and a sliced tomato still damp with condensation. Lillian took a seat in the middle and ate her plate clean with two rolls on the side spread thick with butter. Even the tongue tasted good, meaty and peppery. She worked her way around the table and ate the other suppers that were laid out too; there wasn’t anything else to do. And it was the first time in months that she could actually taste the food, her tongue bubbled and her lips were wet. She wanted a gin and tonic but settled for the three glasses of milk, pouring the heavy jug dripping from its place in a bowl of ice water. She used every clean item on the table until it really did look like there were three people to supper. A family meal. But she left one glass of milk untouched.
She felt heavy like a water filled balloon and hot from the effort of eating like those last weeks of confinement the skin stretched tight across her body. She put her feet up on a chair and looked out into the garden. The dining room opened onto a veranda that wrapped its way around the whole house, and the sprouting moss on the glass roof blended with the lawn. The hills behind cast a creeping shadow over the garden that made everything look wet, dripping with green. And the more she stared the more she could ignore that glass of milk. The clouds were trimmed with pink like the curtains inside, red sky at night shepherds delight. She laughed and the sharp jolt made her stomach ache. Upstairs there was a book of nursery rhymes, probably still packed in a dusty tea chest, that weren’t really rhymes at all but sayings as old as any wife. Thirty-one wasn’t supposed to be old but sometimes it felt as if every bone in her body creaked and whined when she woke each morning. Her knees gave a crack as she eased herself up and looked out into the garden. It was like looking into an upturned bowl at the clouds and sky that surrounded her on all sides. She had a goldfish once that swam around and around the bowl, never getting anywhere until one day it simply floated to the surface. Only those hills stood in her way, the rest of the Isle of Wight was dammed up behind them, and there wasn’t a tree to be seen, nothing but blasted grass and yellow gorse. She turned away from the hills and walked along the veranda into the sitting room. She thought about tuning in the wireless but Neville Chamberlain stared back at her from Leonard’s newspaper on the side-board. His pinched face smiling as he stood at Heston aerodrome. She doubted anyone had ever been as thankful for the existence of Croydon as she was at that moment. The second picture showed the Prime Minister again waving the paper agreement in his hand as he stood outside 10 Downing Street, and as she read it a second time she knew it had to be true. Peace in our time. There wasn’t going to be another war. Tommy was right to wait and now it was the perfect time to start again and she would store that date, the thirtieth of September 1938. A new beginning.
She struck a match and held it the end of her cigarette. The rush of hot smoke hit her lungs as she sucked down hard. It was swept up into her blood and she felt a smile loosening the corners of her mouth. She lifted the smile higher into place and let ripples of smoke escape to make their own clouds. She went into the hallway and found the telephone in a small cupboard under the stairs. The operator was there when she picked up the handset, gave the London number and was connected through to the familiar voice.
“Tommy, I’m glad you picked up. Have you seen the newspaper?” She chewed the edge of her lip.
The line crackled.
“Lily. You made it then? We’re all about to have drinks before dinner. Your sister’s here. You can speak to her next.”
“I don’t want to speak to her. There isn’t going to be any war.” She wanted to shout out the words.
“I know good news, isn’t it?” His voice muffled for a moment. “No, you go on, darling. I’ll tell you how the boy is.”
And she knew those hushed words weren’t meant for her. Lillian listened to his voice rushing down the copper wires, and the crackling was just as likely to be a new shirt as the connection. She swallowed the taste of smoke and the words at the back of her throat. Come and get me.
“Tommy?” She listened to the sound of breathing on the line.
“Still there. How is everything? How’s Freddie settling in?” His voice sounded too far away as if he was at the end of a long corridor.
“I’ve missed you.” She pressed herself closer to the telephone box on the wall.
“You only arrived today I know, it might take a while.”
His voice sounded bright as the crystal glass he was sipping from. She knew it couldn’t be how he felt. The room was full, those people stifling the things he wanted to say.
“I don’t want it to take a while. When are you coming over?” She tried to stop the pleading note creeping in.
“Soon, give the boy time to settle.”
“I want to see you now. Talk to me.” Her throat closed tight and smoke escaped from her nose.
“Yes, the others are still here.”
His voice curled around her in that small space. His blond hair almost white at the tips and the habit he had of pushing it to one side as it immediately flopped back into its original place. She could see him.
“I miss you.” She breathed out a cloud of smoke. “I miss where you put your hands. I miss the smell of your neck.” Her forehead rested against the cold black Bakelite.
“And how’s Leonard?” He let out a laugh.
“Go to hell, Tommy.”
“Now, that’s not very nice.” His voice dropped to a hushed whisper
“When are you coming?”
“My wife, your sister is in the next room.”
They were never a family, her sister a face across the table at odd meals, a whirling dress at some party.
“You never cared before. That summer at the house in Suffolk, you jammed my nightgown into your mouth.” She held on to the edge of her bodice.
There was the sound of laughter in the background.
“No, I think Catherine and the girls should stay in London. Have you seen Freddie?”
“Not yet, I’ll go tomorrow. Some bloody principle Leonard talks about contaminating the patients. I wish I was back in London. Leonard’s arranged everything just how he likes it.” She stubbed out the cigarette on the back of the stairs.
“Leonard likes the house does he? I bet he does after that poky flat you had.” He tapped something against the phone, an impatient finger or fresh cigarette. “He’s there now, is he?” His voice lifted into a high pitched question.
“He’s at the hospital, where else would he be?”
“I didn’t want to talk to him anyway.” He laughed again, short and sharp.
She pictured him sprawled across the armchair, legs hanging over one side. A smirk itching at the corner of his mouth as he scanned the other faces in the room for a reaction. He liked to know he was being watched. The rest of them would be in their usual stuff-backed chairs with their usual iced drinks in one hand. But Tommy was different, he didn’t care what they thought.
“You promised it wouldn’t be for long.” Her head ached from the hard edge of the bakelite digging into her scalp.
The scrapping of chairs, and the clinking of glass, muffled coughs. Footsteps.
“I’ll be through in a moment.” He called out to them, then he was back with her. “Just hang in there, darling. I’ve got prospects lined up in India, it won’t be long.”
She held the handset tightly pressed to her ear and almost felt the whisper of his breath.
“Why the delay?” She swept the ash off her arm and into her hand.
“You want everything to be just right, don’t you? It’s not like they’ll welcome you back if anything goes wrong.”
She was never welcome from the start.
“Nothing can go wrong. Leonard probably wouldn’t even notice.”
“But after what happened, well it was only months ago that …”
“Don’t say it. I don’t want to talk about that night.” The ash was still warm in her palm.
There was no where to put the ash so she brushed it out of her hands and onto the floor. She heard coughing or laughing on the other end of the line.
“Tommy, you still there?”
“Strong cigar that’s all. I’ll come and see Freddie soon. Goodbye. The others say hello.”
She could hear the noise of them in the distance, clearing throats and chatting voices. She wiped the milk taste from her mouth with the tips of her fingers and pulled at the damp cobweb that attached itself to her forehead.
“Goodbye…” The line was disconnected before she could say his name.
