And seen her.
She remembered the almost comical jolt as he looked at her. It was a physical reaction – like the clown at the circus when he turns and sees the mess his fellows have made of the floor. It made her want to laugh out loud with happiness. That was how she remembered him. A simple bringer of joy.
Her father was shaking his mother’s hand. The Churchy Ladies were twittering excitedly. Harry slipped behind Prissy and came up to her.
‘Hullo,’ she’d said, idiotically.
And he’d said, ‘Hullo.’
And they’d both started to laugh.
A Morning Walk
How strange to be back home! There were lamb chops and tapioca pudding for dinner. Afterwards, they all went and sat in the drawing room. Jocelyn curled herself up on the sofa by the fire with her knitting, and their mother sat beside her, writing Christmas cards and sighing, ‘Goodness, wouldn’t I like to strangle whoever invented Christmas cards! They mustn’t have been a vicar’s wife, whoever they were.’
Ruth and Ernest, thrilled to be together again after so long, sprawled themselves out on the hearthrug, whispering secrets and giggling.
James was brought down for half an hour after dinner, dressed in a grey romper suit and his nicest green jersey. He cried ‘Mummy!’ in delight when he saw Mother, and ran across to her. She lifted him onto her knee and he buried his face into her neck with obvious pleasure.
Father said, ‘Now then, old man,’ and James allowed himself to be lifted up and tipped upside down, just as they all had as children.
‘Have you been a good boy for Doris?’ Father asked, and he said, ‘Good boy! Good boy!’
Father turned him upright and kissed him. James laughed out loud in delight.
He stayed with their parents for a good ten minutes, watching Ernest and Margot with wary eyes. Margot tried not to show that she minded, and after a little persuasion, he allowed her to read him The Tale of Two Bad Mice and Ernest to demonstrate his new yo-yo tricks. It was like this every time she saw him after an absence, Margot reminded herself. He would soon forget his shyness and they’d be friends again. But it didn’t make it any easier.
Her bedroom was icy and her dreams were restless, full of Harry Singer telling her she was a coward and a traitor and an unnatural mother, and James crying because he didn’t want to be left with her. It was late when she woke, she could tell by the lightness of the room. Jocelyn was still sleeping in the other bed. From where she lay, she could hear Ruth and Ernest squabbling on the stairs, James shouting about something in the day nursery and Edith, the cook-general, singing ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ as she mopped the hall.
Breakfast was still laid out in the dining room. Margot helped herself to a cup of cold tea and a plate of kedgeree and ate it with her father’s newspaper crossword for company. She was rather good at crosswords. People thought if you were pretty that meant you weren’t clever. People always thought of plain-looking Jocelyn as the ‘clever one’ and Margot as the ‘pretty one’ (or the ‘trying one’ – so difficult for the dear vicar). But Margot had always been third or fourth in her form, which was about where Jocelyn had usually ended up.
Breakfast over, she wandered off in search of her mother. She wasn’t in the drawing room, or – apparently – the kitchen. Had she gone out? No, there she was, in the garden, cleaning out the henhouse.
They had started keeping chickens during the War, like everyone else. Margot had been fourteen when war broke out. In those days, they’d a cook, a maid, Nana of course, and a man who came once a week to look after the garden. Now there was just Doris and Edith. Every time Margot saw her mother, she looked busier, more tired, and sort of worn-thin and limp-raggish. Today she was kneeling on the grass, wearing a coat that must be ten years old at least, mucking out the nest box. It was rather disconcerting.
‘There you are!’ Margot said. ‘I’m so sorry, I seem to have missed breakfast altogether.’
‘Oh, darling, don’t worry about it. I know what it’s like when you’re young. Enjoy it while you can! I don’t suppose you get much chance to sleep in a boarding house.’
‘I’ll say.’ Margot watched her mother. ‘How is everything? James looked well last night.’
‘He’s very well.’ Her mother carried on pulling out the old straw without looking up. ‘But you can see that yourself.’
‘I...’ Margot stopped. She felt, once again, the frustration that there wasn’t a script for this. She knew how one was supposed to behave towards brothers, sons, parents. But this?
Was she supposed to be a second mother to James? Or ignore him completely? Or treat him like a favourite brother?
She’d been so determined that James would never feel his difference, that he would feel as loved by her mother as the other children were. She had stayed away deliberately, so as not to get in the way. But was that right?
James’s birth certificate had her own name on it, of course. Mother: Margaret Allen. And one day he would read it. Margot had thought about that moment far more often that she liked to admit. What would he think when he saw her name? Was it better to tell... but one couldn’t tell a two-year-old a thing like that.
What would he think when he saw that name? Surely he would hate it – knowing they had all lied to him, knowing that his parents weren’t his parents?
But would he hate her ? Would he understand that she hadn’t had a choice, that she was trying to be unselfish, to give him the best life she possibly could? How would he feel if she persisted in behaving like a stranger towards him? Surely a child would expect his mother to behave like one? But how could her mother love him properly if Margot was there, getting in her way? She’d had to leave them to their own devices, surely that was obvious? But would it be obvious to James?
How could one behave with honour towards the child he was now, the adult he would be one day and her parents? It was impossible.
Her mother, still bent over the nest box, cut into these thoughts.
‘Harry’s home for Christmas.’
Margot stiffened.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘Jocelyn told me.’
‘His mother was asking after you. Said she’d written but you didn’t reply. She couldn’t understand it, she said. Wanted to know if you were – spoken for – by someone else.’
Heavens, how awful this conversation was! Margot could feel herself curling up with embarrassment inside.
‘I told her you were an adult now and I didn’t have the first idea what you got up to in Durham, but that as far as I knew you were still unattached.’
‘That must have been excruciating for you,’ said Margot, studying the peeling paint on the top of the henhouse.
‘Well, darling, it was rather.’ Something in her mother’s voice made her look up. ‘It’s never a good idea to leave people hanging, you know. His mother is one of our most regular churchgoers, and I’m sure she has no intention of leaving the parish – and we certainly don’t, of course. It does make life difficult for your father, you know.’