Chapter 10:
OR GIDDINESS?
Mrs Warbloff was having one of her bad days. Very likely it would turn into a whole bad weekend. If her pupils knew how she was feeling they would probably think she deserved it – simply because she was a teacher. It didn’t seem fair the way her migraines always seemed to catch up with her at the weekend. She had desperately needed a good night’s sleep after an exhausting week at school. Instead, she had woken up much earlier than she wanted, with the familiar searing pain behind her left eye and the pulsing white light that was there even when her eyes were closed. She pulled the pillow over her face and tried to will the pain to go away.
It was at times like these that a deeper pain welled up inside her. She had so often promised herself that she would never think of her husband again, but in the grip of the migraine she had to acknowledge that the longing for him had never gone away and never would. Even to know where he was or if he was still alive would be some consolation. All around her in the flat were reminders of her dear Ernst – “Not Ernest, Ernst,” he had said on their first meeting – beautifully finished cupboards and shelves, the kitchen table and chairs, and the big double bed of polished pine that she was lying on now, all designed and made by him, and presented to her with such love and pride and happiness.
How could he walk out like that? How could he cause her such unbearable pain? He had always been so kind and considerate. He must have known how much it would hurt her. She remembered so vividly his last goodbye. She was still sitting at the breakfast table. He had bent down and kissed her and held her to him. And then he had gone to the door, carrying the packet of sandwiches she had made for his lunch break at the factory. He had paused at the door and had given her his usual kindly smile and mouthed another kiss in her direction and then the door clicked behind him and she had never seen him or heard of him again.
She remembered the long, long wait at the police station late that night while they rang the local hospitals. She had the impression that something else was going on that evening that the police were much more interested in. She remembered the officer in charge explaining that he could not be registered as a missing person because he had not been away long enough. And when he had been so registered, the days and weeks and months of hoping, hoping, hoping that the door would click and he would walk back into her life again. But it had never happened. She had asked the people at the factory and had put notices in shop windows. Even now, whenever she was walking down the street or sitting in a bus, she scanned the faces of the people, hoping to see him. It was soon after his disappearance that she had had her first attack of migraine.
She reached over to turn on the radio. Some music might distract her from the pain behind her eye. And then – it was as if a wave went through her and the bed and the room. Was it an earthquake? Surely you couldn’t have an earthquake in London? She got up and drew back the curtain. Although it was still early, several people were walking along the pavement in the street below. They looked quite unconcerned, just as if nothing had happened. One man had a big grey dog loping along beside him. She had seen a program about how sensitive animals are to earthquakes. The dog looked quite unconcerned, too. Had she imagined it?
Later in the morning, as she ate her breakfast, sitting at the table Ernst had made, she turned on the London news. There was no mention of an earthquake or anything else unusual. It was then that she realised that her migraine had completely gone. Now that was unusual. At worst, her migraines lasted right through the weekend and on into her first lessons of a Monday morning. What a relief! Perhaps the weekend would not be so bad after all.
Vicky, too, had felt something happen. She did not feel frightened. Strangely, she felt reassured, almost peaceful. It was like a big explosion somewhere nearby, but an explosion that made no noise. She was wide awake because her cousins always woke early. Rose and Violet were already rooting around in her cupboard to find things to play with when it happened. “Did you feel that?” she said.
“Feel what?” said Rose. Violet just went on burrowing in the cupboard. It was clear that they had not noticed anything. Well, perhaps she had just imagined it. She lay in bed listening to the sound of her toys being crunched around and then the liquid sound of a jigsaw puzzle being poured out onto the floor. Now she was feeling angry again, but not with Violet and Rose – they were only little and couldn’t help the way they were. She was angry that nothing in her life seemed really to be hers, not even her mum.
Today she was going to Andrew’s house. Last night Mum hadn’t even looked up from the paper when Vicky asked if that would be all right. She hadn’t said Yes or No, so Vicky took it to be a Yes. They were going to do some shopping and then have a ride on a bus to one of the big parks. Andrew had been going on about frogs again and Mrs Canadine had suggested they might see some in a pond. Although the weather was cold they were going to wrap up warm and take sandwiches for a picnic.
Vicky wished her own mum had ideas like that. She seemed quite content to sit in the flat all day, watching telly and reading the paper. What Vicky did not know was that this was like heaven compared with the harsh life she had endured when she was Vicky’s age.
In Gillian’s tiny flat, baby Thomas had just gone off to sleep after keeping her awake all night. She felt desperate, and then it was as if a gentle wave washed through her and the room and everything she knew. She lay down on her bed with an unaccustomed feeling of peace inside her. She slept for several hours and woke refreshed to the sound of her baby gurgling happily in his cot. And, yes, she was feeling happy, too.
Mrs Faighly also felt it, a tugging feeling like the undertow on the shingle beach where she had sometimes gone for holidays when she was a child. She had been sitting in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee, with a pile of government education documents on the work surface beside her. She was feeling envious of Mrs Warbloff who did not seem to have any husband to worry the life out of her. In an hour or so her own husband would be off to the betting shop in the High Street, the one with racehorses etched across its window. He would come home later, looking sheepish and depressed, and disappear into the living room to read the racing tips in the newspaper, and she would know he had lost another £20 or £40 or even, on really bad days, up to £100. She did not know how they could go on like this for much longer. Everyone expected so much of her as the head teacher of a large school. She had to dress well and look confident and optimistic, but inside she did not feel like that at all.
And all round the world there were people who looked up from their labours with a puzzled frown or a sudden feeling of hope or joy or expectation – a pearl diver in his wooden rowing boat, a woman striding out across the desert with a baby strapped to her back, a man buying goods from some traders. An earthquake, perhaps? Or just a momentary feeling of giddiness?
Andrew and his mum both felt it, too. They were sitting together on the sagging old sofa in the other room, looking at the pictures in a book called ‘Zoozicals’ that Mrs Canadine had found in the library. Although it was colder than the kitchen, the morning sun shone in from that side of the house so they did not need to turn on the light, which saved money on the electricity. Andrew was just saying “the cuddly old rhinoceros” when the room seemed to swim, as if the whole house had become jelly just for a moment. “Strange,” said Mum. Just like Mrs Warbloff they went to the window and looked out at the street, and just like Mrs Warbloff they found everything looking perfectly normal. A tabby cat was licking its paw by the front gate and then Mr Handley – Tommy – came by, carrying a newspaper. He looked up and saw them and smiled a greeting, making a wavy motion with his hand, so it looked as if he had felt it, too. Andrew made a wavy motion in return and Tommy smiled again and gave a thumbs up sign.
“When will Vicky be coming, do you think?”
“Not for a while, yet. We haven’t even had our breakfast and I don’t suppose she has eithe
r. Let’s go and make some toast.”
Andrew and his mum made toast and tea and went back into the other room to eat it. On a Saturday morning he was allowed to watch television for two hours, even while he was eating, and time went quickly by and soon the door bell rang and there was Vicky, smiling happily in anticipation of their outing. Mrs Canadine had already made the sandwiches – three types: peanut butter, cheese, and strawberry jam, in three plastic supermarket bags, so they each had one to carry – and Mrs Canadine, in addition, had the thermos of hot water, the teabags and a small bottle of milk, for making tea later on.
She had abandoned plans for more extensive shopping. They would just call in at Mr Hadji’s shop and buy three apples to go with their lunch and then catch the bus that would take them all the way to the Thames. They were going to walk across the bridge and then catch another bus that would take them to Hyde Park Corner. From there it would only be a short walk to the lake called the Serpentine. They could look for frogs and watch the people in rowing boats and if they drew a blank with frogs there, they could walk on into Kensington Gardens and try their luck at the Round Pond. Andrew didn’t get many outings and Mrs Canadine knew that for Vicky it would be a very special treat. She hardly ever seemed to go anywhere.
There were faint gleams of wintry sunshine as they set off down the road and then Andrew felt his heart sink. Cart was standing at the High Street corner, staring down Chichester Greenway in their direction. He moved off out of sight, but Andrew knew he had seen them coming out of the house. He had managed to find out where Andrew lived and was probably on his mobile, telling the others right now. He glanced at Vicky, but she was chatting happily to his mum and had not noticed anything. He wouldn’t tell her. He wanted to keep her right out of this. Perhaps he would tell Tommy about it after all. Or maybe not. It was all so vague, but recently he had heard things in the playground that he hoped very much did not apply to J, Cart and Paulus. He had overheard some girls talking admiringly about one of the boys in the top form. “And do you know,” one of them had said, “he gets £20 from his dad for every new customer he finds!” Andrew knew this meant new customers for drugs. He had a horrible feeling that this was what Cart and the others were planning for him. It was either that or something equally bad, and it was very difficult to stop worrying about it.
His spirits lifted a bit when they went into Mr Hadji’s shop. There was always such an interesting mixed smell of fruit and herbs and spices, and Mr Hadji was feeling cheerful today – something you could not always count on – and asked them where they were going and gave them a little packet of raisins each to go with their lunch, and Vicky was in such a chatty, happy mood, that by the time they were sitting upstairs at the front of the red double-decker bus watching the world go by, he was feeling almost light-hearted himself.
And twenty minutes later, when they walked out across the bridge, there was a boat to look at, towing a row of three barges up the river followed by a flock of screeching seagulls, and some pigeons gathered around their feet, hoping to be fed. Then the sun came out from behind the clouds and the water sparkled, and Andrew felt properly happy again. When they reached the bus stop on the far side of the bridge he found he could remember the rhinoceros rhyme and recited it to Vicky, and soon the two of them were chanting it together:
“Here’s the cuddly old rhinoceros,
His friends all call him Rhino.
If he tramples you flat it’s just in fun
As you and he and I know.”
Mrs Canadine began to worry that the other people waiting for the bus would get irritated, but several of them were smiling and then the bus arrived and the rhyme was forgotten as the two children scrambled up the narrow stairs to the top deck. Mrs Canadine followed on behind and found they had again managed to get the seats right at the front by the big wide window. There was a ding on the bell and the bus trundled off down the road on its way to Hyde Park Corner.
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