Broken Porcelain III

OCTOBER 1962

She stood alone in the back yard, staring out towards the railway line. Only her back was visible. Across the top of her shoulders, her light pink woollen dressing gown was dark, soaked by the rain; her brown hair lay slick and curly against the back of her head.

A small puddle of rainwater gathered on the lino by the open kitchen door. I stepped out into the yard and took her hand. If ever I put my hand into hers, it would be warm and she would squeeze it without thinking. Today it was cold and lifeless.

"What are we looking for, Mummy?"

I was getting wet as well but it didn't matter. Her wet hand kept slipping so I clasped it in both of mine. We stood like this for a long time.

"Can we go in now?"

I pulled her hand down twice and droplets fell from her shoulder. The rain trickled down her face as though she was crying but her face was not sad. It was not happy either. It just looked like nothing. It scared me a little.

"Mummy? Can we go in now?"

It was dark and we couldn't see anything. We just stood there. I rested my head against her arm and listened to the dipper-dapper of the raindrops.

Yesterday, when Ben and I were reading comic books, she made us laugh. She sat on the sofa, stretched her arm right the way out and brought it in a wide circle towards her face, making her pointing finger rest on the tip of her nose. She did this over and over again until we all laughed, including her. Before long, we were all copying her and laughing. Only John did not laugh. He told her to stop but she would not.

"Brian. Come indoors."

I jumped when I heard John's voice behind us, calling from the doorway. I did not want to leave her but he came out and pulled me away.

"Auntie Sophie is on her way over. Mum's coming in with me. Go dry yourself and put your pyjamas on. And make sure Ben puts his on too, will you?"

Ben was a year younger, the baby of the family. He always complained about putting on his pyjamas first, but if I put mine on before him he did not make, what Mummy called, such a big fuss about nothing.

When Ben and I came back into the living room, John was making a fire in the fireplace. He was the only one allowed to because Daddy told us that matches were dangerous. He placed crumpled up balls of old newspaper into the grate, put blocks of white firelighters in between and placed coal on top. I handed him lumps from the coalscuttle until he said there was enough. I laughed at the little black specks on my palms and held them up for Mummy to see. She sat on a dining chair and stared at the top of the mantelpiece.

As soon as Auntie Sophie arrived, she stood her green umbrella in the puddle by the back door and put her funny Mary Poppins hat onto the dining room table. John hung her raincoat on the back door hook while she rushed over to Mummy.

"What's happening, Joyce?"

Mummy shivered but didn't speak.  While Auntie asked John to help her take off Mummy's wet dressing gown, I fetched a towel and blanket from the linen cupboard. She dried her wet hair and then tied it on her head like a turban. Afterwards, she made us all a cup of tea and then told John to take us into the bedroom to play.

Our bedroom had bunk beds and blue walls with clouds on. Daddy painted them. John left the door open and stood in the doorway, listening. Ben and me played with our Lego bricks but we could still hear Auntie Sophie's voice.

"Can you hear me, Joyce?" Her voice was so loud that even we could hear her. "You need to snap out of this. You've got the boys to think of." I laughed. It was how Grandma spoke to Granddad but that was because he was deaf from the war.

"Mummy's not deaf!" I laughed aloud.

"Shut up, Brian." John didn't even look at me. He's two years older so I have to do what he says but at that moment, I wanted to go to Mum and tell her.

Ben was putting a yellow chimney onto the Lego garage roof when Auntie Sophie came in to see us. She looked a bit red in the face. The window cleaner sometimes looked like that after he had finished cleaning Mr Andrews' windows, upstairs.

"How do you boys fancy staying with your Auntie Sophie for a couple of days?"

Ben and I looked at each other for a moment.

"For a stopover?" Ben remembered the other time we had a stopover at Auntie Sophie's while Dad was in hospital. Daddy didn't come home again. "Is Mummy going to die, then?"

This time John looked straight at Ben. "Of course she's not going to die. Shut up, will you. You stupid idiot."

"I'm not an idiot!" Ben started to cry. Auntie Sophie looked as though she were about to tell John off, but just then there was a loud crash from the living room. John ran in first and we all followed him. Everything from the mantelpiece was on the floor, broken or scattered, even the little porcelain Spanish dancer that we had bought for Christmas out of our pocket money. Mummy lay on the floor with her eyes open, looking at the ceiling.

"Oh God, Joyce. Johnny, run and fetch Mr Andrews. Tell him it's an emergency."

We stuck the Spanish dancer back together again. Auntie Sophie found some special glue and we took it to Mummy in the mental home. But when you look close, you can still see the crack where it broke. John says that once something is broken it can never really be made new again.

I still love it, though, that beautiful Spanish dancer.