Barbara Bradford - A Woman of Substance

Emma pushed herself on to her feet and went and sat on the sofa. She took one of Paula’s beautiful tapered hands in her own small sturdy ones. She gazed at Paula and her heart tightened when she looked into her eyes, vast caverns in the paleness of her face and full of pain. Emma touched that wan face, smiling gently, and then she said in a hoarse whisper, ‘I am an old woman, Paula. A tough old woman who has fought every inch of the way for everything I have. Strong, yes, but also tired. Bitter? Perhaps I was. But I have acquired some wisdom in my struggle with life, my struggle to survive, and I wondered to myself the other day why the silly pride of a tough old woman should stand in the way of the one person I love the most in the whole world. It struck me I was being selfish, and foolish, to let events of sixty years ago cloud my judgement now.’

‘I still don’t understand,’ Paula murmured, bafflement in her eyes.

‘I am trying to tell you that I no longer have any objections to you seeing Jim Fairley. I had a long conversation with him yesterday, during which I gathered he still feels the same way about you. That he has always had very serious intentions. I told him this afternoon that if he wishes to marry you, he not only has my permission, but my blessing as well. I bless both of you, with all my love.’

Paula was speechless. Her mind would not accept her grandmother’s words. For months she had cautioned herself not to think of Jim, had finally accepted that there was no possible future for them. She had been hard on herself, ruthlessly pushing aside all emotion, all feelings, pouring her energy into her work in her abject misery. Through the blur of her tears she saw Emma’s face, that face she had seen and loved all of her life. That face she trusted. Emma was smiling fondly, waiting, and her eyes were wise and understanding and full of love. The tears slid silently down Paula’s cheeks and she shook her head. ‘I can’t believe you would change your mind,’ she said, her voice choked.

‘I did.’

These two simple words, uttered with firmness and conviction, finally penetrated Paula’s aching brain, her battered heart. She began to sob, her whole body heaving as the smothered and pent-up emotions of months were released. She slumped forward, blindly reaching for Emma, who cradled her in her arms like a child, stroking her hair and murmuring softly to her in the way she had done when she was a little girl. ‘It’s all right. Hush, darling. It’s all right. I promise you it’s all right.’

Eventually the heaving sobs subsided and Paula looked up at Emma, a tremulous smile on her face. Emma wiped the tears from her face with one hand, stared intently at her and said, ‘I never want to see you unhappy again as long as I live. I’ve had enough unhappiness for both of us.’

‘I don’t know what to say. I’m numb. I can’t believe it,’ Paula replied quietly. Jim. Jim!

Emma nodded. ‘I know how you feel,’ she said, and her tired eyes brightened. ‘Now, why don’t you do me a favour. Go and call Jim. He’s still at the paper. He’s waiting for you, in fact. Invite him for dinner tonight, if you wish. Or better still, drive into Leeds and have dinner with him alone. I’ll have Emily and Sarah for company, and perhaps Alexander and the others will arrive in time for supper.’ She laughed, her eyes shining. ‘I do have other grandchildren, you know.’ Paula hugged her and kissed her, and then she was gone, flying out of the room without another word.

Wings on her feet, Emma thought, going to her love. She sat for a while on the sofa, preoccupied with thoughts of Paula and Jim and so many other things. Then she stood up suddenly, abruptly, and walked to the window, stretching her stiffened limbs, smoothing her dress with her hands, patting her silver hair into place. She opened one of the leaded windows and looked out.

Below her in the garden the trees glistened in the cool evening air, and everything was dark green and perfectly still. Not a blade of grass, not a leaf stirred, and the birds were silent. She could see the daffodils rapidly losing their brilliant colour, bleaching palely to white now that the sun had set, and the topiary hedges were slowly turning black. She stood there for a long time in the gloaming, watching the dusk descend as the crystalline northern light faded behind the low hump line of hills on the horizon. The mist was drifting into the garden, wrapping everything before it in a vaporous, opal-tinted shawl, rising suddenly to obscure the trees and the shrubs and the old flagged terrace, until all these images were fused together.

Emma shivered and closed the window, turning back into the welcoming warmth and comfort of the room. She walked across the faded Savonnerie carpet, still shivering slightly from the cold damp air that had blown in through the window. She picked up the poker and energetically pushed the burning logs around, throwing on more of them to build the huge roaring fire she loved.

She sat by the fireside staring into the flames, content and at peace, forgotten memories of her youth invading her mind as she waited for her other grandchildren to arrive. She thought of the Fairleys. All of them were gone now, except for James Arthur Fairley, the last of the line. ‘Why should he suffer, and Paula, for the mistakes of a dead generation?’ she asked herself aloud, and then thought: I was right to do this. It is my gift to her. To both of them.

It was growing darker outside and in the dimly lit room the firelight cast its strange and mysterious shadows across the walls and the ceiling and in amongst them she saw so many old and familiar faces. Her friends. Her enemies. All of them dead long ago. Ghosts…just ghosts that could no longer touch her or hers.

Life is like a circle, she mused. My life began with the Fairleys and it will end with them. The two points have now joined to make the full circle.

‘Mam…Mam…Are yer awake?’ Emma called softly from the doorway. There was no answer.

She hovered uncertainly near the door, her ears straining for the slightest sound, but the room was as still as the grave. Nervously she pulled the meagre shawl more tightly around her slender shoulders, shivering in the thin nightgown in the bitter cold before the dawn, her pale face a ghostly beacon in the murky darkness.

‘Mam! Mam!’ she cried in an urgent whisper, and crept further into the room, moving cautiously, feeling her way around the few mean pieces of furniture, her eyes not yet adjusted to the gloom. She could scarcely breathe, so dank and stale was the malodorous air. She shuddered, momentarily repelled by the mingled odours of musty walls, soiled bedclothes, and cloying sweat. It was the unmistakable stench of poverty and sickness. She sucked in her breath and edged forward.

When she reached the iron bedstead her heart missed a beat as she peered down at the sick woman who lay inert underneath the bedclothes, which were thrown about in disarray. Her mother was dying. Perhaps she was already dead. Panic and fear sent shudders through her thin little body, so that she shook uncontrollably. She bent forward and pressed her face to her mother’s body, straining towards that fragile form, as if to imbue it with renewed vigour, to give it life. She screwed her eyes tightly shut and uttered a silent prayer, passionate and beseeching, every ounce of her concentration pouring into it. Please, God, don’t let me mam die! I’ll be good for the rest of me life. I’ll do anything Yer want, God. I will, God, I will! Just don’t let me mam die. Emma believed that God was good. Her mother had told her that God was Goodness. That He was understanding and forgiving. Emma did not believe in a wrathful God, the God of retribution and revenge that the Methodist minister warned about in his sermons on Sundays. Her mother had said God was Inconceivable Love and her mam knew best. Emma’s God was compassionate. He would answer her prayer.