Miss Appleby's Academy (19 page)

*

The room was dark, it was early morning, the curtains were closed and the draught howled through them from the open hillside. The fire was dead, black and grey ashes in the grate. Isabel looked clearly at him for the first time in many weeks.

‘So you’re taking her away from me,’ she said.

He had thought he was prepared for this. ‘She needs other children, she’s lonely here.’ He thought he might appeal to the mother in her.

‘The whole world is lonely,’ Isabel said, gazing down into the pretty teacup which held her gin. The brandy was long gone. Now it was bottle after bottle of gin, he couldn’t stop thinking of how he had once thought gin smelled exciting, the juniper berries seemed to hold promise, now the smell of it made him feel sick.

The cup was white with a gold line around the rim and some kind of flower on it. No doubt it had been a wedding present, they had had dozens of teasets and he could remember thinking how foolish it seemed, he had never imagined that his wife would use them up in quite such a way. When she was very drunk she dropped them or fired them at the walls. Sometimes they lay for days in pieces where the girl who saw to the house had neglected to pick them up and Isabel had not noticed.

‘You shouldn’t take her away from me, she’s my only comfort,’ and Isabel began to cry, enormous tears which once had moved him. Now he only marvelled that she could do such things at will. ‘She’s all I’ve got. You’re never here. You’ve got your new woman. You never come home to me.’

He was amazed. He stared.

Isabel gazed at him. ‘I heard all about her,’ she said. ‘The schoolteacher. You’ve given her my child!’

Isabel began to shout at him. He could not remember now how it was when she was sober, what she used to say to him, how much in love with her he had been. She was not a pretty sight with spittle on her lips and the dim look in her eyes and her thin voice lifted as much as she could lift it when she called Emma Appleby a whore.

‘And she’s – she’s an American!’

That made him laugh and Isabel was all the more enraged when he laughed at her. He didn’t do it often, the situation had long since ceased to amuse him. She threw her cup at him and after it the teapot which matched it. He watched it smash against the fireplace and thought
with regret of the many tea sets which had gone the same way. Then she got up. That wasn’t good.

She flew at him and tried to sink her nails into his face, but he held her off quite easily. She was so thin, she had not eaten anything but dry toast for months and the drink had left her emaciated. He couldn’t understand how she had lived this long, but he would have given anything for her to last even one more day.

He didn’t let go of her until all the fight was gone from her skeletal body and she slumped against him, sobbing, and then he moved her carefully back to the sofa which had become her refuge and he left her. The maid – he couldn’t even remember her name, there had been so many – was hovering beyond the door.

Connie was standing in the hall, fully dressed, her suitcases beside her, and he thought she must have heard it all. Not that it was the first time, she too had become used to such scenes, but she was white-faced and there were tears in her eyes. Her hands were folded across the front of her belted coat.

‘Am I still going?’ she said.

He picked up her suitcases, they were heavy, he suspected, with books.

‘Open the door,’ he said.

*

Connie stared at the size of the room. It was the same as her room at home, but there were three beds in it. It had not occurred to her that she would have to share with anybody and although she had never thought of her room
as being large she saw now that it was and she had had it all to herself. Here the furniture was cheap, the wardrobe looked insubstantial, there was a small chest of drawers beside each bed and no dressing table, which she was disappointed about. She had not thought that having her own room was so important.

‘Who else sleeps in this room?’ she enquired of George.

‘Nobody. What have you got in there, rocks?’ He nodded at her suitcase and then stopped trying to move it.

Connie pushed it over and opened it. There was a bookcase along one wall. She carefully decanted the books and began to arrange them. George, without being asked, helped her until they were all in and the suitcase was empty. George seemed less interested in the other suitcase and she was not surprised, it contained boring things like clothes. Also, her mother’s silver-backed mirror, hairbrush and comb. She had stolen them from her mother’s bedroom which had not been used for a long time. She could not remember the last time her mother had ventured up the stairs even to kiss her goodnight. It made her want to cry.

She had thought she would have a dressing table on which to put the brush and comb, but it was no matter; she opened the case and put them carefully on top of the chest of drawers, the mirror face down in the middle though there was no lace-trimmed dressing table such as her mother had at home, the comb on one side and the brush on the other. She expected George to comment; she thought a girl would have done, but she didn’t know any
boys beyond brief acquaintance at school. He didn’t say anything and she liked that.

He waited patiently, watching her as she put her belongings into the drawers and the wardrobe and then the two children went downstairs together. For the first time Connie worried about what she had done in coming here. She had left her father to her mother, something she had promised him she would not do. She felt guilt suffuse her body like cold drenching water.

Miss Appleby had greeted her warmly, but it was not long before Connie wanted to run out of there; she thought to ask instead of just going. Miss Appleby merely said that she should put on her outdoor things.

‘Would you like to take Hector with you? He’s always ready for a walk.’

Connie had never walked a dog before by herself and even though she knew Hector well, she wasn’t sure how to respond, but all Miss Appleby said was, ‘He won’t leave you.’

She knew, but she had needed to hear it. She was happy to take the big dog out with her, and set off away from the school and towards the edge of the town, and Hector stopped and sniffed as they went along, but Miss Appleby was right, he didn’t leave her. She had also thought that George might want to go with her and she would have found it hard to object, but she hadn’t wanted him there. Not that he had asked or even looked as though he wanted to go, but once she was outside she rather wished she had asked him.

She became conscious of being lonely then for the first time ever. She had always liked being alone and now she didn’t. She walked for the first half an hour and every step of the way she wanted to go back, and once she had turned back her steps increased in speed until she was practically running by the time she reached the gate of the schoolhouse and she was out of breath and Hector’s tongue was hanging out.

Nobody said anything other than had she had a good walk, but George brought her a book to look at: it was about dinosaurs, and they sat together at the big kitchen table and drew pictures of dinosaurs while Miss Appleby told them all about these creatures who had roamed the earth long ago.

Her father did not come back at teatime. She seemed to be the only one who had expected him to and she realized with a jolt that she always saw him every day; no matter how late he came home he went in and kissed her goodnight.

When it was bedtime she didn’t have to take herself to bed, Miss Appleby gave her a warm milky drink and saw her upstairs, left her to undress and said she would come back to tuck her in. Connie was not used to being tucked in, but when she saw Miss Appleby pushing in the bedclothes around her she thought it was so comforting. Miss Appleby even kissed her goodnight and said, ‘I hope you won’t be lonely your first night here. We leave the bedroom doors open so all you have to do is call if you are afraid or miss your parents.’

Connie was about to announce bravely that she was never afraid and then didn’t because she did feel rather strange away from home for the first time, but as soon as Miss Appleby had gone George came in and sat down on the bed. He told her that Hector slept on the landing and snored, and that made her giggle.

George said goodnight and left the door ajar. She soon fell asleep. She did stir in the night, not quite sure why she was where she was or where it was, and her bed was smaller than she had been used to, but she was aware of the covers being tucked tightly around her and then she lay still, and Hector was indeed snoring. She fell asleep again, listening to the comforting sound of the dog.

*

The first night when Mick went home after Connie had left he realized that he had a routine, that he always stopped by her bedroom before going to bed himself, that he only stayed there because he was aware of her sleeping in the same house.

He went into Connie’s room as usual that first night and was aghast for a few moments to find that she was not there. The whole place seemed to echo with silence. He had not even paused downstairs to see where his wife was; for months now she had slept ten or twelve hours at night in the same place on the sofa.

He couldn’t bear it. He left the house and went back to the Black Diamond and slept in a chair. His office was still warm from the heat of the day. He found himself on
the floor on a rug. He thought of Connie at Emma’s house, safe at the house where he had been a happy child, and he was almost happy himself.

When he awoke he could hear soft rain upon the window. He was stiff from lying in the same position for so long, but he felt rested and energetic. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt like that. It was morning, the curtains were not closed and the sun was shining as the rain ceased. He never slept long and well. Knowing that Connie was safe had affected him more than he had imagined. He got up, stretched a bit and opened the door. He went into the bar.

The smell of stale cigarettes and beer began to disappear as he opened the windows. The sun and wind made their way through the room and hit his face, and he took a few deep breaths before leaving the window open.

He watched the newly made-up fire and set the kettle over it, and when it boiled he made tea, sat and drank it slowly. The sun coming into the room showed up the dirt and the dust and he was astonished. How had it got like that? He used to have women in to clean. He felt sorry, remembering how he had dismissed them without a word, not caring at the looks on their astonished faces.

They had been widows, women who had children and needed what work they could get. It had not mattered to him somehow. He was ashamed. He went into his office, and in there the mess was worse, and then to every room in the place. Curtains were falling down. Mouse droppings littered the floor. The bar wasn’t too bad, Ed wiped the
tables, but since Miss Appleby had gone nobody cleaned anything.

He did go home that morning and it was there that he noticed for the first time how shabby his clothes were, how unkempt he looked, and then he laughed into the mirror and knew what the problem was. He cared that Miss Appleby should think he was respectable. It was ludicrous. He was not interested in her as a woman and yet because she was looking after Connie and he respected her somehow he felt that he needed respect in return. It didn’t matter, she would see to Connie anyhow, it was her way, but somehow what he was doing was not enough. How appalling.

He washed and changed and went back to work. He didn’t shave. It was defiance somehow. He wasn’t even sure how long that would last.

*

Somehow it seemed important to let the doctor see Isabel again. Sam came to her, was gentle with her, and even the house seemed to like him: the sunshine fell softly through the window and turned the dust and dirt to magic, and Isabel seemed younger and her voice was pretty because Sam was there.

Sam didn’t say anything to Mick while they were in the room. He spoke directly to Isabel, his voice like a violin, notes tripping up and down so that anyone would have been glad to listen. Isabel drank her gin and smiled at his face and his tones and then she fell asleep amid the concert of Sam’s performance.

‘You could have her committed, you know,’ he said, watching her carefully.

‘Oh Sam, how could I?’

His friend looked at him in some exasperation. ‘She’s getting worse. You know she is. Why did you think anything would get better? What did you expect? You know better than to think that such things as alcohol are the reason for madness—’

‘She had everything, a loving family, a lot of money, beauty, intelligence, wit …’

‘Some people are just different. I know that sounds ridiculously obvious. Your wife is very ill – accept it. Because it comes in a form people don’t like they call it idleness or cowardice. She needed something to dull the fear, to smooth the hours. Drink is not the problem, it’s what many people think is the solution, and it isn’t, and other people who don’t have the same problems think that if people like Isabel give up the drink they will be fine, but it isn’t true: they take on something else if they do.

‘They need something, they need medicine of some kind, something to dull and pass the hours because each minute crawls, each second is a lifetime to some. She drinks because she cannot bear her life, because she’s in some dark place all alone and if she didn’t drink the chances are that she would end it. I’m sorry, but it’s part of her make-up, part of her mental derangement. It isn’t to do with you or with Connie.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course.’

‘Liar,’ Mick said. ‘You know damned fine it could have been childbirth.’

‘It could have been but don’t you think that’s just men loving how they can blame women for everything which goes wrong?’

‘That’s a nice argument,’ Mick said.

‘The medical profession knows little and what it doesn’t know it makes up.’

Mick shook his head and sat down and closed his eyes.

‘If she had had tobacco or opium at her disposal it would have been the same.’ Sam paused.

‘I can’t stand it. I love her.’