Alison Moore - The Pre-War House and Other Stories

Ruth’s older than me — really too old to be living with her grandparents. She says that and so does Leanne’s mother, but Ruth says it’s because they cramp her style whereas Leanne’s mother says it’s because Ruth stays out too late and makes Nana and Grandpa worried and tired.

Nana says, ‘We’ll have some milk then, shall we?’ and Grandpa says, ‘Right-o.’ Nana and I go through to the kitchen to make it. She heats it up on the hob, and I fetch the cups and cut up the bread to put in Grandpa’s. We all have our milk different. We sit in the lounge, Grandpa eating his pobs with a spoon, Nana drinking her cocoa, and me with my milk ‘neat’ as Grandpa calls it. Nobody says anything much and the clock chimes the quarter-hours away until nine-thirty, and then Nana says, ‘Shall we head to bed?’ and Grandpa says, ‘Right-o.’ I run ahead because I’m fastest in the bathroom. I can do my ablutions in four minutes flat, but Grandpa takes an age even though it sounds as if he’s just standing still in there, every once in a while coughing and making the floorboards creak.

I have already been asleep when I hear Ruth come in. Sometimes I am woken in the early hours by her boyfriends’ noisy old bangers revving and farting outside our house before they finally drive away. But tonight, I only stir when I hear her trying to be quiet closing the door and coming up the stairs, forgetting to miss the squeaky steps. In the bathroom she flushes the toilet, and all the plumbing starts humming and pinging. I know she’s woken Nana and Grandpa up because as soon as she’s closed her bedroom door I hear them go to the bathroom one after the other, and then I hear Grandpa coughing for half an hour after.

At breakfast they curse the creaking of the stairs and the humming and pinging of the pipes; they say that in the early hours there’s nothing that keeps you awake more than that. Ruth picks through her scrambled eggs, and Nana says that Ruth needs to go to bed earlier. Ruth says that she doesn’t need much sleep, and Nana says, ‘No, maybe not, but look at my eye-bags.’

Nana comes to the door with me and leans down to let me kiss her cheek. I say, ‘Ta-ra,’ and she says, ‘Ta-ra,’ and I go off up the road to Leanne’s.

Her dad is coming out of the house when I get there, which is not the usual thing. Normally Leanne’s mum lets me in and sits me down at the kitchen table to wait for Leanne, who’s always ages getting ready. Her father will sit there and have just one more piece of toast and just one more cup of coffee and then just one more until he’s late and has to rush to work. It’s nice in their kitchen in the mornings, but not today.

Today there’s nobody in there, and it’s cold. The kettle’s boiled but there’s only his cup, and propped against the wall is a camp-bed. Leanne shouts for me to go upstairs, and as I pass her parents’ bedroom I see her mother sitting on the end of the bed. I know she smokes, but I have never seen her smoke in the house before, because Leanne’s father doesn’t like it. But today she is smoking in the house, on their bed, in her dressing gown.

While Leanne finishes getting ready, I look out of her window. I watch her father climbing into his new red car. When he got it, Leanne’s mother said who was he trying to impress with such a big flashy car? He starts the engine and rolls smoothly out of the driveway and onto the street.

We walk to school.

I say, ‘Have you got a visitor?’

‘What?’ says Leanne.

‘Have you got someone staying over? I saw the camp-bed.’

‘Oh,’ says Leanne, ‘Dad snores. Mum wanted a good night’s sleep.’

‘Oh,’ I say, ‘Right.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she says, and I flinch.

‘Nothing. I just mean, fine.’

‘Glad you think so,’ she says.

We walk on awkwardly. I would like to start again, to say, Have you done your maths homework? What have you got first thing? I would like not to have mentioned the camp-bed.

I say, ‘Have you done your maths homework?’

She says, ‘I suppose you think your family’s just perfect, don’t you?’ She pauses, but not long enough for me to think of an answer. ‘But your mum didn’t want you and your dad didn’t want you and your grandparents just want some company till they die.’

‘Leanne!’ I say, horrified.

‘Oh, piss off,’ she says. She has seen some other girls in our class, and she runs on ahead, leaving me crumpled and unhappy.

They have to wait at the pedestrian crossing, and I panic as I draw near, willing the lights to turn red and allow them across ahead of me, but they don’t. I stand behind them and wish I hadn’t asked about the camp-bed.

Before the lights have changed, Leanne has bad-mouthed me, Ruth and my grandparents, and it’s this last that makes me the most miserable. I try to stick up for them, to stop her mocking their slippers, the stairlift, the pobs and false teeth and early bed-times, but she just talks louder and louder until I let it go. I drop so far back that I arrive at school late and get told off. There is no note-passing in class or sandwich-swapping at lunch-time, and at the end of the day I walk home alone.

‘Not seeing Leanne tonight?’ Nana asks.

‘No,’ I say. ‘Not tonight.’

‘Shall we have some telly on then?’

Grandpa says, ‘Right-o.’

I don’t answer. I knot myself up in an armchair and we watch Coronation Street while Nana worries about my spine.

Later, she says, ‘We’ll have some milk then, shall we?’

Grandpa says, ‘Right-o.’

I say, ‘No, thanks.’ Both she and Grandpa look up at me, startled. I relent. I drink my milk, neat, and then we head to bed. Nana tries to bustle me up the stairs playfully, and I am resistant at first, not at all playful; but I see her become sad, and so I smile, I laugh, I run ahead and into the bathroom to do my four-minute ablutions before jumping into bed and pulling the starched white cotton sheets up to my chin. Nana comes and kisses me goodnight, and then leaves me in the dark and quiet room listening to the sparse and gentle traffic on the street beneath my window.

Tonight, I can’t sleep. I sit up and watch the comings and goings outside. Had I been asleep, I would not have been disturbed by the car that brings Ruth home, that purrs and rolls smoothly to a stop. This car is not a noisy old banger; it is new and red, big and flashy.

There is a long, slow kiss before Ruth climbs out and adjusts her clothing. The driver pulls away, sneaking off up the street and disappearing around the bend where the weeping willow is.

While the stairs creak beneath Ruth’s feet, I slip back down under my covers and listen to Ruth and then Nana and then Grandpa making the plumbing hum and ping, and in the early hours there’s nothing that keeps you awake more than that.

William stands at the window, looking out through the snow-speckled glass. There was no summer to speak of, and now, already, it is winter. The first frost arrived overnight, and now the snow. In the small garden, and over the wall in the sprawling park, on the heath and the paths and the frozen lake, it is starting to settle.

Water drips from his damp hair, the greyed remains of it, trickling down the neck of his dressing gown. He looks down at his bare feet, at the blue veins in his winter-pale and water-softened skin, at his bloated ankles, their waxy appearance. They do not look like his; they look like somebody else’s.

In the bathroom, his wet footprints are already evaporating from the tiled floor.