Second Chance (7 page)

After we'd reached the waving stage, she started calling me in to help her with something or other. She usually wanted me to find something she'd mislaid; a pair of scissors, her best shoes, her bottom teeth. I had no trouble finding the lost article, often it didn't take more than a minute, but she was always very grateful and repaid me with sweets or biscuits which made the uphill walk home far more tolerable. I was always disappointed when she didn't appear, a little grey ghost in the garden, to beckon me into the house.

One afternoon she took me round to the back garden and showed me the neat rows of carrots, lettuce, peas and radish her son had planted for her when he came to visit her on a Saturday afternoon. ‘He told me to keep the weeds down,' she said, ‘but I can't see the dratted things on account of my cataracts.'

‘I'll keep the weeds down,' I said. I'd never done any gardening but that day the sun was warm on my back and I felt ready for anything. She brought me a hoe and showed me how to poke it into the soil round the little plants. ‘You are a good girl,' she said. ‘When you're old and have cataracts, you don't see no weeds but only great landscapes clouding your eyes.'

It was early summer and the earth was crumbly and soft, there were butterflies flittering about the gilly-flowers that grew down the path, golden gilly-flowers and bronze and chestnut; the smell of them was like being rich. I called in every day to keep down those dratted weeds.

When I'd worked for about ten minutes, Mrs Bevan would call me in to the kitchen to wash my hands. She'd praise my work, though she couldn't see what I'd done, thank me and then hand me a brown paper bag with apples in it or some slices of sponge cake, once a whole swiss roll.

One day when I'd been working longer than usual, she called me in to her front room to see some newborn kittens on the television. We didn't have television; I never saw it except on Christmas Day at Auntie Jane's. Mrs Bevan seemed to realise that from the way I was watching it. ‘You can come in and see
Jackanory
every day if you'd like to,' she said.

‘Can I bring my mother?' I asked her. ‘She gets nervous if I'm not home by half-past four.'

‘Of course you can. I used to know your mother years ago. Nice little woman.'

It became a ritual, a daily treat. My mother would walk down to meet me every day at half-past four and we'd go into Mrs Bevan's front room and there we'd stay until it was time for the early evening news.

At first my mother was very shy with Mrs Bevan but she soon got engrossed in the programmes and forgot about her.

We continued to call once or twice a week all through the summer holidays and we were always welcomed.

‘I wonder if you'd like to come to work for me, mornings,' Mrs Bevan asked my mother one day as we were leaving. My mother looked startled, almost as though she was about to run away. ‘You see, I'm almost ninety years old and my son wants me to go into Penparc. If I had someone here for a couple of hours every morning, I could manage nicely.'

‘What would you want her to do?' I asked. ‘She can do the dishes and sweep the kitchen.'

My mother came to life. ‘I can do washing and ironing,' she said, her words tumbling out of her, ‘and, and... something else as well.'

‘Hoovering?' Mrs Bevan asked. ‘My son bought me a first-class hoover but I can't see to use it properly.'

‘We haven't got a hoover,' I said. I didn't even know what a hoover was, but I liked the sound of the word.

‘I can do hoovering,' my mother said, the words pelting out of her. ‘I used to do hoovering at the shop before I got married.' She turned to me, ‘It's a big, noisy thing on wheels and you have to walk it about very carefully without bumping it into the furniture.' She turned back to Mrs Bevan. ‘Oh, I can do hoovering. And I can make the beds and empty the slops and dust the ornaments on the dressing table. I used to do all that when I worked for Mrs Harrison when I first left school. I'll come tomorrow, Mrs Bevan, nine o'clock sharp. And thank you.'

‘Oh, I can do hoovering,' she kept telling me all the way home. ‘And Ted is always saying I should have a little job.'

I was afraid that she might have changed her mind by morning, but she was up before me, dressed in her best silk dress and ready to start. ‘You must have tea and toast first,' I said. ‘You must be strong to do a morning's work.'

‘Yes, we'll both have our breakfast first. There's plenty of time.'

She was beginning to take charge.

By the end of the first month with Mrs Bevan, she was a different person, bossy like other mothers, sending me to bed and cleaning my shoes for the morning, though I'd always cleaned my own before, and hers as well.

By this time, Auntie Jane had resumed her Thursday visits, but Uncle Ted was still coming up in the evening to bring the groceries which she wasn't yet strong enough to carry up from the bus stop in the village. And his hour-long visits seemed always timed to coincide with my bedtime.

Now, she wanted nothing more to do with him. ‘He's your Auntie Jane's husband,' she said, as though she'd only that minute worked it out. ‘And I won't have him coming here and making sheep's eyes at me. When he comes tomorrow night, you'll have to wait outside and tell him we'll be getting our own groceries from the village shop from now on. He'll take it better from you.'

I was nervous about my task, though anxious to get it done. When I came home from school, I practised at the bottom of the garden. ‘My mother is now working mornings for Mrs Bevan, Garth Wen, and is learning to manage on her own.' ‘My mother is now quite recovered and doesn't need your help.' ‘My mother and I... well... we don't want you to come here any more.'

At eight o'clock I was standing outside ready, but when I heard the car coming up the lane, I ran into the house and locked the door after me. ‘We'll turn the light off and keep very quiet,' I said.

We both expected him to stay for ages, banging on the door and shouting, but he accepted his fate very meekly. Within a couple of minutes we heard the car driving away and I was able to creep out to get the box of groceries from the front step. Was that going to be the end of Uncle Ted? It seemed too easy.

We stopped whispering and put the wireless on. ‘Pity about the chocolates too,' my mother said.

My mother loved Mrs Bevan and except for Thursday when Auntie Jane visited, she stayed with her until I came home from school. She talked about her in a hushed voice as Christians talk about the saints. Mrs Bevan perfectly understood what she'd suffered after my father's defection, how she'd let herself go, not able to go out or talk to anyone. Mrs Bevan quite understood about headaches and sickness and forgetfulness and being frightened of strangers. Mrs Bevan – and this is what we heard most often – thought she'd come through with flying colours and was now set to make something of her life.

‘And how much a week does this paragon of understanding give you?' Auntie Jane snapped at her, clearly resentful of the way she'd been relegated to second – or third – place in my mother's life.

‘She gives me my dinners, Jane, and something for Katie's tea every day.'

‘And what about money?'

‘And three pounds ten a week in money.'

‘Three pounds ten a week! Great Heavens, she's cheating you, girl. You should be getting at least five pounds. Nobody gets three pounds ten a week nowadays. Ten shillings a day is starvation wages.'

‘But she's only supposed to be there for two hours in the morning,' I said. ‘The rest of the time, she's just keeping her company. It's what she chooses to do. She's happy with Mrs Bevan. She doesn't like it here on her own when I'm in school.'

‘But she's got work to do in her own home. You should be cleaning this place, Miriam, and washing and ironing for yourself and Katie, instead of leaving it for me.'

‘Yes, I should,' my mother said. ‘And I will from now on.'

She started to cry then, but it wasn't the wild crying we were used to – wild, bitter sobbing like a child that's lost its mother – but a resigned, hopeless crying; tears, but no sound at all; much more pitiful. She sat upright on a hard kitchen chair and seemed to be dissolving into water. I was too frightened to move.

Auntie Jane got up and put her arms round her. ‘Don't take no notice of me, Miri. Nobody knows better than me what you've been through.'

The silent crying went on and on. I thought it would never end.

‘It was the electric they drove through my head in that place, Jane, that's what did for me. Who gave them the right to do that? Nobody should have the right to do that to anyone. It took something away from me, Jane, something I needed. I've never been to Dr Mathias since, because he sent me to that terrible place, didn't he? I only had words in my head after, instead of sentences, sometimes only pictures. Like being in the babies' class. Only words and pictures. And no sense.'

It made you shiver, the way she said,
no sense
.

We went on sitting at the table for a long time, Auntie Jane still holding my mother and crooning to her.

I could hear the clock ticking, a tractor ploughing on the 'Steddfa, seagulls calling, a crow in the distance. I wanted to go outside. I wanted to be a child, outside looking for conkers, playing with other children, but I knew I couldn't. At nine, I was already old.

Afternoon gave way to evening. I made myself an omelette but failed to eat it. I found a tin of cat food and turned it out onto an enamel plate, but Arthur wasn't hungry either. I'd already half-filled a pan with nice dry earth for him and when he cried to go out I carried him over to it, but though he sniffed at it, he wouldn't use it.

Almost eight o'clock. Paul didn't seem to be in any hurry to ring, so I left him another message on the answerphone: ‘My mother died on Sunday evening. Please ring as soon as you can. I need to talk to you.' My mother was dead, had died suddenly with no sort of warning. I badly needed some sympathy and some comfort. I considered ringing the Reverend Lewis Owen. I considered ringing the Samaritans. Why didn't Paul ring? And why didn't that bloody cat stop that bloody racket and use the dirt tray?

A knock on the front door. I sniffed, ran my fingers through my hair and, ready to welcome whoever it was, hurried to open it.

‘I'm your cousin Rhydian, Kate, and this my wife, Grace. We were so sorry to hear about Auntie Miriam.' He had a soft, lazy voice and down-sloping dark eyes like Auntie Jane's.

I thanked them for coming, begged them to come in, put them to sit side by side on the sofa where I could look at them. ‘It's wonderful of you to come,' I said, ‘I'm so pleased to see you.' Tears were running down my cheeks, slowly, one at a time – in a way I can never manage on stage.

‘We've brought a bottle of whisky,' Rhydian said. ‘We didn't think Auntie'd have anything much in the house. Let me go and see if I can find some glasses.'

‘I wanted to bring flowers,' Grace said.

‘You needn't have brought anything. I just want company. I'm so glad you came. How long can you stay? I think I'm having a nervous breakdown.'

Grace took her coat off and smiled at me. ‘No, you're not. Having a nervous breakdown isn't as easy as you think. I'm always planning to have one but I never manage it. When you have all the work of a farm and three small boys it's the perfect answer – the only way to get some attention it seems to me – but it only happens to other people. You're just grieving after your mother and feeling lonely all by yourself up here. Your mother was a lovely woman, it's no wonder you're feeling cast down... Hurry up with that whisky, Rhydian. Are you doing the dishes out there, or what?'

Rhydian came in with three large whiskies. ‘Anyone want some water?'

‘Rhydian, you're so changed,' I said. ‘You used to be so wild-looking, so rough. I used to think you three boys were like the Doone brothers. I was terrified of you all.'

‘You've changed, too. You used to be skinny and... well, rather plain. Of course, we've seen you on the telly now and again, so I was ready for the change.'

‘Rather plain? Iestyn wrote to me once, asking me to go to the pictures with him. He said I was very pretty.'

‘Iestyn has always been a ladies' man,' Grace said. ‘Different from this one.'

‘I'm just a farmer,' Rhydian said, smiling ruefully in my direction. ‘Turned fifty, losing my hair, the farm losing money, three children and another on the way. Well, here's to us, the three of us. And all our problems.'

For a while we drank in silence. I glanced at him again. Over fifty? Losing his hair? He looked pretty good to me.

‘What about Iestyn?' I asked. ‘A geography teacher. What else?'

‘Deputy Head now,' Rhydian said. ‘Put on a lot of weight. Important.'

‘Married, divorced, married again,' Grace added. ‘His second wife's very hoity-toity. Madeleine. No children, up to now.'