Mortimer Penelope - The Pumpkin Eater

“He was such a good man,” my mother said for the tenth time. “Nobody knew how good he was. Well, look how he helped you and Jake to get started. Have you told Jake yet? He was very fond of George. There are many things I don’t care for about Jake — I know I’ve never said so, and I hope I’ve never shown it. But he was very fond of George. And George was fond of him. George really was fond of him.”

“I know,” I said.

“He didn’t care for any of the others, although he might have got used to the Major, if he’d lived. But Jake … I don’t know what it was, he was really fond of Jake.”

“Yes. Jake was fond of him, too.”

“I know he was.”

At last I got her upstairs. She wanted to sleep with me in my old room, so I tucked her into Ireen’s bed. She began to cry again, but wouldn’t take a sleeping pill. “It’s so terrible to think of … his poor body there … but he’s gone, I’ll never seen him again …”

I stroked her frizzed grey hair. Her face was sodden with tears.

“You don’t believe in God, do you?”

“No,” I said.

“Neither do I. George never knew that, he would have been shocked, I think he would have been… Do you?”

“No, I’m sure he wouldn’t have been shocked.”

“I wish I did,” she whispered. “Oh, I wish I could believe I’d see him again. You don’t think … it’s possible?”

“Anything’s possible,” I said.

“But not that. Oh George, George …” She turned her face into the pillow. She was seventy, and hopeless, and I didn’t know how to comfort her. I went to the window and drew back the curtain. It was too dark to see the church spire.

“Ma…”

“I’m glad he wanted to be cremated. I am glad about that. It would be dreadful to think …”

“Ma, listen.”

“To think of him buried …”

I sat on the edge of her bed and held her shoulder.

“I want to tell you something.”

Automatically, obedient to years of training, she perked round, sniffing back the last rush of tears. “Yes, dear?”

I swallowed, looked confused, not meeting her eye.

“No!” she said. “ No! ”

I nodded.

She sat bolt upright, almost knocking me off the bed. She scrubbed her face furiously, repeating again and again.

“You’re not! You can’t ! My dear child, you can’t !”

“Well,” I mumbled, picking at the fluff in the blanket, “there it is …”

“But it’s insane! What can Jake be thinking of? What —?”

“He doesn’t know yet. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“But how can you start all that over again? How can you? My poor child, are you never going to get any rest? …” I didn’t have to listen any more. I knew it all by heart. Slyly, under cover of the barrage, I tipped two sleeping pills out of the bottle and reached for the glass of water. “You’ll be the death of me,” she said, using the word as though it had no meaning. “You will, you’ll be the death of me. Have you no consideration for other people? In my mother’s day there was no proper prevention but how can you contemplate …” In these moments of crisis, which she loved, my mother had great fluency. “This! This on top of everything else! I’m glad your father didn’t live to see it. Yes. I am. I’m glad your father …”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have told you. Here, you’d better take these pills.”

She took them without noticing she was doing so. I pushed her gently back on to the pillow and straightened the bedclothes. She nagged me heartily all the time, her face pink with outrage. I turned out the bedside light.

“When will it be?” she asked.

“Oh, not for ages. Not till October.”

“October!” she groaned, her eyes closing. “How will you manage?”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“Careless girl. How could you be so… careless…”

She slept abruptly. I went downstairs and, sitting at my father’s desk, wrote to Jake. I told him that my father was dead and that to take her mind off it I had told my mother that I was pregnant. I said it had taken her mind off it wonderfully, so far; and that it also happened to be true. I said that I hoped he didn’t mind too much, and that I was very happy about it myself. I asked him to see that the char was paid, and to give my love to the children, and told him that I would telephone his secretary about the cremation, it would please my mother very much if he could manage to come. I gave him my love, drew three children’s kisses at the bottom and left it, with threepence, on the kitchen table for the postman to collect in the morning.

Jake drove down for the cremation, and he brought Dinah. I didn’t know what to expect, although I knew that he wasn’t going to burst into my mother’s house and congratulate me. He walked straight past me and saluted my mother on both cheeks. Then, holding her elbow, he led her into the study.

“I don’t know what’s eating him,” Dinah said. “He didn’t speak the whole bloody way.”

“Don’t talk like that in front of Gran. Please.”

“Sorry. He drove like a bloody maniac, too.”

“Oh, Dinah …”

“He did. Is everyone very miserable?”

I hurried into the study. It was all right. My mother was going through the catalogue of my father’s affections: “… I was just saying the other night, how fond he was of you, Jake. He was very proud of you, too, you know. Only last week, I can’t believe it now, but only last week he said, ‘Mame, we must go and see that film of Jake’s at the Odeon.’ Of course he hadn’t been out for three months, but that seemed such a sign of hope. And now …”

“Is there a drink?” Jake asked, not looking at me.

“Oh dear,” my mother said. “There they are.” She began to cry again.

“We can’t … get to the front door,” the undertaker murmured. “Could the gentleman please move his car?”

“Could you move your car?” I asked Jake.

I thought he was going to refuse, but he moved it.

“Could you see they get him down all right?” I asked. “I’m going to take her into the garden. She doesn’t want to see him go away.”

He didn’t answer. Dinah and I walked my mother over the lawn, through the shrubbery to the vegetable patch. My mother, in her hat, was still weeping. “He loved his vegetables,” she said. “We never bought a single vegetable until this winter, when he couldn’t manage it any more. Remember the strawberries, Dinah? You loved his strawberries,”

“Yes,” Dinah said. “They were super.”

“He thought you were growing just like your mother — he meant when she was your age, of course … Do you think they’ve … finished now, dear?”

“No,” I said. “Let’s walk round once more.”

My mother blew her nose, then again clung to Dinah. We bent our heads against the wind and started round the sprouts again. “She was a wild, harum-scarum little girl, though,” my mother said. “What was the name of that friend you had to stay that summer? Eileen, was it? George liked her, I remember. What was her name?”

“Ireen,” I said uneasily. “You could let this off for allotments, couldn’t you?”

“Ireen. That’s right. She wrote to your father, such a sweet letter. She said she wished her father was like him. George was so modest, he was quite angry with me for reading it. It only seems like yesterday, and now … He didn’t even say goodbye …”

“Run and see if they’re ready,” I told Dinah.

“Okay.” She ran like a woman, not a girl, with her knees together and her feet wide apart. Perhaps it was cruel, but I wanted her to cry, to be sorry. Had she loved him? Did she love anybody? Did she even love me? What would she say when I told her that I was pregnant again? Would she think it… disgusting?