The Little House Read online

  ‘Nothing,’ Ruth said unwillingly. Against her pulled-up legs she could feel her heart pounding. ‘It’s nothing. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry for what?’ one of the women demanded.

  ‘Nothing,’ Ruth said. ‘I just want to be left alone.’

  ‘But I don’t want to leave you alone,’ Agnes said. ‘Why do you never speak to anyone?’

  Ruth looked to George again. He was leaning forward, waiting for her answer.

  ‘I’m not well,’ Ruth said.

  ‘Why do you cut yourself off?’ Agnes demanded.

  ‘I’m overtired,’ Ruth said. ‘I need to sleep …’

  ‘You’ve been sleeping ever since you got here!’ Agnes exclaimed. Other people nodded. It was like a steady, insistent tow, bringing Ruth out of the depths of her despair into a bright, interrogating light. ‘Why d’you never say anything? Why do you even try not to listen?’

  ‘I don’t …’ Ruth said desperately.

  ‘You do,’ one of the men said. His voice was gentle. Ruth turned to him, hoping he would rescue her from this attack. ‘You do try not to listen, and you look at the picture any time someone raises their voice.’

  ‘It’s just …’ Ruth started and then broke off.

  They were all waiting. She looked up at the picture and then out the window over the wet fields. The view reminded her, inescapably, of the little house and the dreadful, dreadful loss of Thomas. She could feel panic building inside her at the thought of his absence, and then she found it bursting out of her mouth, in a high childlike voice, which she did not even recognize. She thought she was going to cry for Thomas, but instead she said: ‘I miss my mother!’ in a voice that was not her own but a child’s voice ringing with grief. ‘I miss my mummy! She’s dead and I can’t bear it! And I don’t know what will happen to me! And I miss her! And I miss her! And I miss her!’

  She was screaming as she cried, and she felt her face hot and wet with an unstoppable stream of tears. No one moved towards her, no one enfolded her in their arms, no one even touched her. Ruth hugged herself while the dreadful racking sobs went on, and rocked her own body back and forth, and felt the horror of being a little girl, weeping in deep grief, with no one at hand. Only when the hoarse, horrified sobs quietened a little did George the nurse cross the floor towards her and put his arms around her and draw her head onto his shoulder as if she were a very small girl.

  ‘I see you miss her,’ he said gently. Ruth could hear his voice coming from deep in his chest. ‘I think that was the most awful thing to happen to a little girl.’

  Ruth felt her energy stream through her, from her toes to the very top of the head, as if her tears had somehow burst through a blockage that had cut her in half, kept her half dead, half cold, half turned to stone for all her life since the death of her mother. ‘It was,’ she said with certainty. ‘And everyone told me not to mind, and that everything would be all right.’

  George pulled back so he could see her face. For the first time since she had been in the group she looked directly at him, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were red-rimmed but bright. She looked alive for the first time since he had seen her. ‘Was everything all right?’ he asked.

  Ruth drew a breath that seemed to resonate through her very bones. ‘No,’ she said with a simple certainty. ‘I did mind, though I never told anyone how much. And everything was not all right. And everything has been wrong ever since.’

  That afternoon Ruth slept without dreaming, a deep, easy sleep as if she had been at hard manual work all day. When she woke it was time for tea, and she went down to the refectory and saw Agnes and one of the men from the group at a table together. When they saw her they turned and smiled, and Ruth took her tea tray over to their table and joined them. Nobody said very much, but Ruth knew that she was among people who had witnessed her deep and agonized grief, and had not turned away.

  That evening Patrick telephoned from work to speak to his mother.

  ‘There’s a new producer here, at a bit of a loose end,’ he said. ‘I was wondering if we could stretch to another place at dinner?’

  ‘Of course,’ Elizabeth said agreeably. In the background Patrick could hear his son cooing.

  ‘I can hear Thomas,’ he said with pleasure.

  ‘Yes, he’s just finishing his tea,’ his mother said. ‘Of course you can bring someone home, darling.’

  ‘About eight o’clock then,’ Patrick said. ‘She’s new to the area so I’ll drive her out and home again after dinner.’

  Elizabeth noted in silence that he had asked if he could invite a guest before explaining that it was a woman. ‘Of course,’ Elizabeth said.

  ‘About eight then,’ Patrick said again.

  Elizabeth put down the telephone and turned back to Thomas’s tea. Frederick was proffering a spoonful of strained blackberries at arm’s length. Thomas waved sticky hands. His face, his hair, his arms to his elbows were plastered in dark juice.

  ‘A guest for dinner,’ Elizabeth said neutrally.

  ‘That’ll be nice,’ Frederick said. ‘Anyone we know?’

  ‘A lady producer,’ Elizabeth said, her tone carefully level.

  ‘Oh,’ Frederick said.

  There was a brief silence. Thomas reached out, took the spoon, and put it to his cheek, his nose, and finally his mouth.

  ‘I wonder if that’s quite cricket?’ Frederick said thoughtfully. ‘With Ruth in a convalescent home, and all. You know if she were in hospital with a broken leg we’d be visiting her every day, and there would be no guests at dinner.’

  Elizabeth rinsed a warm flannel at the sink to wipe Thomas’s face and hands. ‘Exactly,’ she said.

  Frederick waited for an explanation.

  ‘If she were in hospital with a broken leg, then we would know that she was happily married to Patrick, and a good wife and mother, and that she had suffered an unfortunate accident and was coming home soon.’

  She wiped Thomas’s mouth with careful efficiency, undid the straps on the high chair, and lifted him out.

  ‘Instead she had a breakdown and could not cope with motherhood or married life, and we don’t know if she will ever come home, or what sort of state she’ll be in when she does come home.’

  ‘Still married,’ Frederick said softly.

  ‘I don’t see Patrick as tied to a sick woman for the rest of his life,’ Elizabeth said. She held Thomas against her shoulder and patted him gently on the back, waiting for him to burp. ‘I don’t see that he should sacrifice his life, with all his prospects, just because she can’t cope.’

  Frederick nodded but was unconvinced.

  ‘Besides,’ Elizabeth said, ‘what matters most is Thomas, and making sure that Thomas is safe and happy.’

  Frederick nodded. ‘Here with us,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  Despite the warmth of Elizabeth’s welcome and Frederick’s unfailing courtesy, the evening did not go well. The visiting producer, Emma, had thought that when Patrick invited her to dinner he would be taking her to a restaurant, and she had worn a rather low-cut black dress. In the sitting room, on the chintz-covered sofa, she looked overdressed and tarty. Elizabeth, sitting beside her in a smart woollen suit with her pearls, could not put her at ease.

  ‘Do you all live together?’ Emma asked curiously.

  ‘My daughter, Miriam, lives in Canada,’ Elizabeth said, carefully misunderstanding. ‘She’s got the travel bug. She’s just like her father. She did two years voluntary service in Africa and now she teaches disadvantaged children in Canada. She’s just outside Toronto.’

  At dinner Emma announced that she was a strict vegetarian. Elizabeth’s smile never wavered. She left Frederick carving the joint of beef and went to the kitchen, reappearing with a vegetable quiche and a green salad.

  ‘I would have said,’ Emma remarked. ‘But I thought Patrick was taking me out for dinner.’

  ‘I do admire you,’ Elizabeth replied. ‘I couldn’t bear to give up meat.’