4.8 'You could come and live with us'

This is an instalment of an autobiographical series. See right for a link to the full list of instalments.



‘You could come and live with us,’ I said.
    The suggestion had burst out of me without me thinking about it but, now I’d said it, I realised that I meant it. It solved everything – both Mollie’s problems and those of John and me.
    Mollie and I were out for a walk together while we stayed with John’s parents. It was autumn. Hedges overflowing with berries divided the flat countryside of Bedfordshire. The sticky grey mud round the edges of the fields where we walked clung to our boots like plates.

    Mollie loved the countryside and many of her reading choices reflected that – BB, Alison Uttley, Flora Thompson, Richard Jefferies, Tolkien. She read Lord of the Rings once a year. There was always a book in her corner of the kitchen, left open on its front in order to mark where she’d got to.

    I’d spent my childhood outside, playing in the garden, fields and river of my parents’ house with my brothers and sisters, exploring the North Downs on foot and by bicycle. It was where I felt most myself. It was somewhere to get away from grown-ups and their rules.
    Since leaving school however at seventeen, living in London and then Exeter, I’d largely forgotten about that connection, but now that I was working at home I was rediscovering it. I’d started to punctuate my working days with exploration of the fields, streams, copses and lanes around our house.
    Walking in the countryside was a pleasure that Mollie and I loved to share.
    We crossed a rickety wooden bridge over a tiny stream.

    ‘Of course, not,’ said Mollie. ‘I couldn’t possibly do that. I wouldn’t want to be a burden. How would I earn money?’
    ‘You wouldn’t be burden,’ I said. ‘We’d love it. And I’m sure you could find work.’
    Mollie hurrumphed.
    She’d been telling me how worried she was about money and how stressful she found it living with John T.

    She was haunted by her poor childhood. As well as the story of her mother ordering a pot of tea for one and six cups (for her mother and the five children) she would mention how they’d never been allowed to eat fresh bread because they ate too much of it. Her mother always waited until it was stale before giving it to the children.
    John T, according to my John (who was I think quoting Peter Ustinov), was that scary thing – a poor man who lived like a rich one. He took trouble over his appearance, always carefully dressed in smart clothes, and every time we visited seemed to be wearing a new pair of shoes.
    He’d always wanted to be an artist but hadn’t been allowed to by his Australian father. ‘No son of mine goes to art school.’ He’d sold the shop that he and Mollie had run together and now got by with a succession of jobs, while Mollie worked part time at as a secretary at a local building company.
    Nor had John T been faithful to Mollie, and my John recounted terrifying evenings as a child listening to his parents shouting at each other.
    Mollie stuck by her husband however.
    ‘I made my vows,’ she would say, ‘and I’ll keep them.’
    John had been his mother’s supporter, sticking up for her against his father as soon as he was old enough to understand what was going on. Once as he got his driving licence he drove her around and helped her with the shopping.
    ‘Pa’s an idiot,’ he would say to me. ‘Ma’s so much more intelligent.’
    He was ashamed to be male, the same sex as his father.
    Things between Mollie and John T seemed to be coming to a head and I longed to help Mollie, but didn’t seem able to.

Later that day we went shopping together. I’d offered to make Mollie a shirt and we were buying material and a pattern for it.
    I could remember learning how to sew from my mother at a very young age. She made many of the family's clothes as it was cheaper at that time than buying them and she had five rapidly growing children.
    I hadn’t been interested in playing with dolls but I loved making clothes for them with scraps of left-over material. In my teens, when I shot up to five foot ten inches, I had to make my own clothes because nothing in the shops fitted me.
    I was far from an expert at sewing but it was something I did. I still used the machine my parents had given me for my twenty-first birthday.
    We found a soft brushed cotton in small sage-green checks – perfect for the season and Mollie’s green eyes. But as we walked back to the car, Mollie stopped and put her hand over her heart. She was breathing fast.

    I was a bit clueless about illnesses but she was fifty-nine, so pretty old, and all sorts of things happened to people at that age. Perhaps breathlessness was one of them.
    I waited, trying to be sympathetic without making a drama out of whatever was going on, and eventually Mollie shook herself and gave me a rueful smile.
    ‘OK now,’ she said.

Back in Devon I busied myself making the shirt, adapting the pattern to fit Mollie's measurements and taking as much care as I could.

    As soon as I finished it, I put it in the post, and a few days later Mollie rang me.
    ‘It’s perfect,’ she said. ‘It’s the best-made piece of clothing I’ve ever had.’
    I glowed. Like John, she spoke the truth. She never made false compliments.

One evening a few weeks later the phone rang and John answered it.
    ‘It’s Jenny,’ he mouthed at me.
    I nodded. Jenny was his sister, and phone calls with her were never short. She still lived in Bedfordshire, near their parents. I pottered around, trying not to disturb the conversation.
    But John wasn’t saying anything. I glanced at him and could see that he was listening intently, but his face had caved in.
    I went and sat next to him on the sofa.
    He was starting to look grey.
    I took his hand and he grasped it tightly.
    He put the phone down.
    ‘It’s Ma,’ he said. ‘She’s had a heart attack. She didn’t make it. She’s gone.’

To be continued . . .