The electric bulb over our bed was still swaying when I opened my eyes. It was evident someone had just switched it on. By the clock it was early morning. By the hole in the sky which was the open dormer window it was little beyond the murk of daybreak. I tore my eyes from sleep and sat up; Middle(1) was sitting up beside me blinking but calm. What churned the wonderment over and over in our eyes was the sight of a near and elderly neighbour seated on the foot of our bed, crying. She was saying over and over, “Happy, happy children! You have a Mother in Heaven.”
The lady had apparently dressed in great haste. All her buttons seemed to have shot clear of the eye-holes. She had on a mouse colour canton flannel dressing-gown, half a dozen buttons squabbling for one buttonhole. Her iron grey hair was in a little plaited snarl and aggressively poked round the far cheek. One hand clutched a morsel of grey worsted shawl to her throat, while the other held a miscellany of garments, and prominently and unmistakably a white pair of trimmed drawers too wide for sleeves. A little button-up top garment, darted and boned, hung over her wrist. Her hand was through the armhole. Several hairpins were in her mouth.
As I looked she moved. She ducked forward to administer a series of lip-noises. They began at Middle’s forehead, and straggled up and down her cheek like wild geese migrating in a high sky, all of a flock but each goose separate. Her kisses were like that, and her skin smelled old and dry and furry. I was glad that, tucked in between Middle and the wall, I was out of kissing range. Slowly the house was bringing back yesterday to me—but yesterday we had a mother in the room just steps away, up a few stairs on the next landing. Yesterday we had been kept from school and the house was quiet.
Father was home all day and not a bit cross. He sat by Mother’s bedside and held her hand. He could not enjoy his food or his garden or his grapevine. He could not even enjoy his temper. It had forsaken him with his appetite. Everyone was trying to behave as usual and could not. When it came to saying good night Mother held us each in her weak arms. It was very late when we went to bed. Now this was the next day. “What does she mean?” I said to Middle. “Is Mother dead?” Middle said with a sob, “I suppose so.” But that was not enough for me. I climbed over the foot of the bed, not an easy feat. It was one of the old-fashioned spool kind and high. Now I started for the stairs.
Middle and the old lady followed. Father was crossing the top landing. He did not speak. He went into his room and shut the door. Mother’s door just opposite was open and the Elder was moving about inside. But the feel was quite different in the room. The old lady took each of us by a hand and led us to the bedside. There were no blankets on the bed, just a sheet and her night dress covered Mother, and she looked so thin and little.
The Elder folded down the sheet from the face and Middle and I took a long long look. Mother not struggling to breathe! I was going to kiss her but the Elder snatched me back. “It is not good,” she said, “to kiss the dead.” Then Bigger came with a candle and said she would see the neighbour down to the front door and undo the bolt. That time Bigger was included in the “happy happy children” but Bigger was equal to her and gave her back chapters of texts.
Then the old lady descended the stair, putting on clothing as she went. The Elder gathered a bundle of blankets to take downstairs to make up a bed for herself on the sofa. She had been sleeping in Mother’s room. “Do we have to go to bed again?” “Yes.” Middle was always so quiet about things. She got in and was asleep before I had climbed over her. “Middle, aren’t grownups stupid?” “Um, I s’pose so.” “Calling us ‘happy children’ over and over, when we never can be happy again and she knows it.” If she had said, “Unhappy me! I put both my feet in one drawer leg going downstairs and might have fallen and broken both legs,” it would have been sensible talk and true. Crazy to step into those things going down steps!
