Ladybird, Ladybird

***TW fire***

July 1976, the hottest day of the summer so far, perhaps the hottest since UK records began, and in the driest of years. Even Scotland, known for its rainfall, had imposed a hosepipe ban. Everything about this day was intense; the heat, the glare, the colour clash – sun and sky, yellow, blue and naked above the wilting green - and ladybirds, each a blink of a sty-in-the-eye of the borderland cemetery mourners, red swarm through their black and white swelter, their cluster of onyx and pearl broken ring, diamond in a box.

Ashes to ashes… The minister stifled in his cassock, stood solemn and steadfast, bible in hand. Head pooled golden pink, the downward flow from cheek to jowl to neck wiped away as the coffin was lowered, beading ever-fresh sweat-rivulets. Dust to dust… hot dirt thrown in. A clap of the deceased’s father’s palms. A rose from the mother, one more from the widow, then the child she guided before her, hand on shoulder, hand on ten-year-old heart, his duty that of a man. Mustn’t snivel or cry, let his hair fall into his eyes. Must wear and bear the formal attire, shoes polished and laced up tight. Oxford. And she, the prodigal cousin from a coastal town not far from there on the map, felt like an imposter.

‘Who are you, anyway?’ asked the boy when it was over. ‘We don’t even know you.’

‘Why, it’s Julia, your father’s cousin,’ the grandmother replied.

Not a breeze until then, like the wind had been holding its breath, saving its gasp just to bring that pesky insect to the old lady’s shoulder... Ladybird, ladybird… No reaching out. No shaking it off… And the boy whose fringe had fallen by then, who, whether conscious or not of the dust clouds which dulled his shoes, kept kicking his foot at the brown grass roots on the verge, ought to have been in trainers playing football in the park, or paddling on a beach somewhere barefooted. There ought to have been a law against black suits made in his size, she thought, and another to prevent the pair of them being here at all. This boy who looked the spit of his dad twenty years ago, and she, a relative stranger.

‘Do you want to come back to the house? You can ride with us if you want.’ Her Uncle Bert, the grandfather. How he and his wife, her Aunt Connie, had changed. He looked thinner than she remembered, more severe, the same thatch of snow-white hair as her father, his brother, but taller, more upright. More articulate too. It was he who had penned and read the eulogy, Connie shying away in the background – not at all like she used to be when her shampoo and set had been less ‘cut-price pensioner’ and her clothes less elasticated-waist. There was a distant look in her eye, but not in his. His gaze commanded. ‘Rory, stop that infernal kicking. Show some flaming respect.’

The mother, Ingrid, was still in conversation with the minister. Mousey Purdy haircut, black blouse buttoned up to the neck, hands at her breast covered by his. Small and frail, when at last the man of the cloth released her, she looked as though she would faint. Legs a-quiver, heels sinking into the tarmac. One of Dali’s melting clocks. They all were. Large and small, set at different times, a glint of outer casing, and drip, drip, drip, drip, drip… Like candle wax…

Why did everyone have to put on such an exhibition? Why was it so important for folk to ‘show face’? Her parents especially. Couldn’t go themselves, oh no, her father hadn’t spoken to Bert in years, and her mother couldn’t possibly withstand the four-hundred-mile journey in the heat, but she could take it, couldn’t she? She could explain to her boss, and her husband could surely do without her for a day or so. For cousin Archie, God rest his soul. For Ingrid. Too young to be widowed, she could probably do with another woman her age to talk to and offer her support… Hello, pleased to meet you, so sorry for your loss, I’m here to help make the sandwiches… And yet the widow was bound to have heard the story about why the brothers fell out and why the two sides of the family didn’t speak, for Archie would have told her, and she would have taken his word he was telling the truth, for wives did, did they not? Even more so than parents. But, really, would it matter on a day like this? Would anything other than ‘doing her husband proud’? Raising a glass to his memory at the wake… Got on like a house on fire, you and Archie, didn’t you…?

In the car, Bert sat next to the driver, the women behind, while she and Rory took the backseat. The ladybird was still attached to Connie’s shoulder, stuck to the man-made black material.

‘So that’s that, then.’ Ingrid spoke distractedly. ‘Eamon and George and all the factory lot are coming to the house as well. Don’t know how I’ll fit everyone in.’

‘Don’t you worry about that, lass. I’ll see to everything’. Bert turned around, one arm over the back of the seat. ‘You alright there, soldier?’ He questioned the boy who sat with his head down.

Rory nodded, then looked up and to the side. ‘If you’re my dad’s cousin, how come we’ve never seen you before?’

Eyes on the ladybird which had begun to dislodge itself, Julia forced a smile. ‘It just happens that way sometimes, I suppose… And we do live quite far apart.’

‘Yeah, way down England, in a house by the beach, Dad told me. Always said he’d take me, but then my sister was born and he couldn’t afford it and then he got ill. Last time he went he said there was a fi… Granny, there’s a bug on your neck!’

‘Where? Where? What is it?’ Connie shrieked and clapped a hand to the back of her head. The ladybird which had struggled up onto her collar fell down inside her blouse.

‘It’s okay, it’s just a ladybird. Think it’s gone now,’ Julia said.

‘Oh, that’s alright then. There’s so many this year, isn’t there? Them and the Colorado beetles. They say they’re eating all the potato crops.’

‘Yes, so I’ve heard.’

Connie gave a little wriggle in her seat. Question where the insect had landed…

As they continued the drive through town, Bert conversing with the chauffeur as Connie and Ingrid gazed through their respective windows, it seemed the boy was lost in thought as well, and had forgotten all about holidays and beaches and…. Before she knew it, they’d turned the corner into Ingrid’s street.

‘Oh Bert, look at all those cars! I’m starting to think we don’t have enough food in. Do you think I should go to the shops and get some more? And what about cakes? Maybe some dainties and a few of those pastries, what are they called? You know the ones Archie likes…’

For want of space, they’d parked some distance away from the house when Ingrid, having broken her silence so abruptly, too suddenly broke off her speech, and with her face appearing in profile, as she turned her head Julia’s way, slowly, ever so slowly, a tear emerged and tricked down her cheek. And so still she was in her seat, hands clasped together, like glued, whilst outside, and all along the terrace, those who’d made their own way back from the cemetery were gathering. Men, for the most part, less demure in their suits than before, rather more oily and squawking. Ruffled, peckish, crow-like.

‘You’re not going anywhere, lass. You need anything else, I’ll send Connie to fetch it. Ah well, unto the breach…’

Bert was already unlocking the door of the house when the chauffeur let the rest of them out. ‘He should have waited,’ Connie complained as she emerged from the car. ‘So typical.’

Ingrid, dazed and hesitant, followed, and Rory, hands in pockets, was soon on his way, the back of his jacket flapping, making after his Grandad.

Connie’s face was flushed, lips pursed, all puckered apple. ‘See that?’ she continued. ‘See what’s he’s like? No etiquette at all. Always the big man, taking over. It’s your house, hen, not his. It should be you that’s letting them in.’ 

‘It’s fine, Connie, really. I think I just need to rest, be by myself a while.’

‘Aye, hen, you do that, bound to take it out of you, all this.’

For all she was of average height and weight, Julia felt too tall between the two women, like the sky was a ceiling under which she must lower her head, like she’d grown twistedly out of her mould. Not part of the family anymore, not really. Not since… A swish of Aunt Connie’s skirt and there the ladybird dropped… Fly away home, fly, fly, fly away home… It expanded its wings but failed to rise any further. Home, she didn’t want to be there either. She hadn’t thought it before but her husband was so like Uncle Bert.

Paul had made such a fuss about her coming here. An eight-hundred-mile round trip on the bus, two nights in a bed and breakfast, how much would that cost? But then when she said to forget it, she wouldn’t go, that hadn’t suited him either, for how would it look? Couldn’t do right for doing wrong, never could, and many a time she’d thought about leaving, except she knew he’d come after her and there would be hell to pay – not physically, but verbally and viciously so. She had experience of this and felt misshapen then as well, but small, with the sky and all the unseen things it contained many million miles away. Paul should have married a submissive, one who was keen to stay home and raise an army of kids. Perhaps he’d find her one day, then she would be free.

Ingrid’s house was indeed very small, she lived on the lower floor of a two-up-two-down built in the Victorian era. The kitchen had barely enough room for two people, and although Bert had pushed all the furniture back in the lounge, and had even taken the sideboard outside in a bid to make space, Julia could well understand why Ingrid had been concerned about fitting all the guests in, and as a result, the vast majority had spilled out into the garden which could only be reached by going out through the front and up the shared close. It was quite beyond her how a family of four could have lived here comfortably, and no wonder the little girl had been sent away to Ingrid’s mum. Apparently, before Archie got really bad with the cancer and had to be taken into hospital, they’d had his bed set up in the front room, and the sideboard had to be taken out then as well. As for bedrooms, Rory had one of his own, but the mother and daughter shared, an arrangement which would have to last for the foreseeable. ‘Hardly ideal,’ according to Connie who had told her all this as she’d set about helping her prepare the food, but she and Archie had got the house cheap when they’d married, never thinking.

That kitchen was so stifling. And it reminded her of the caravan. The one her parents had bought back in the fifties and kept in the caravan park just up from the sands. Indeed, the floral curtains on the tiny window looked much the same. Talk about disconcerting. First the ladybird, now this. She shivered. Frozen in the heat like once before. She had to get out. Take in the air and breathe… Plates in hand, she headed out.

A couple were arguing in the close, and round the back where a table had been set up, there was quite a gathering. More a party than a wake; beer and wine and whiskey, jackets strewn across the lawn… And ties… All black… No one cared whose was whose anymore. And in the midst of it all, there was Bert, glass in hand, holding court. ‘…You see young Jimmy, here? A month he worked with our Archie gold-plating them circuit boards, working some rate o’ knots thinking he’d get this great fat bonus, then come payday, he gets his packet and opens it. What’s this? he says, I promised my Angie gold not coppers, and he gets all the coins out and throws them, right in front o’ the boss, into the bloody solution… Ain’t that right, Jimmy lad?’ A roar of laughter.

‘Stop it, stop it, just stop it!’

Julia had only just laid down the sandwiches when Rory appeared, hurricane-like behind her, elbows protruding, hands over ears.

‘You’re meant to be here for my dad, you’re meant to be sad, and all everyone’s doing is laughing and drinking and fighting, and Mum’s in there crying and oh…’

Leaving the stunned-to-silence party behind him, a sobbing Rory raced on through the garden till he came to what Julia assumed had been his father’s shed. He jerked the door open and slammed it behind him. Was Bert about to follow him? No? Well, then she would.

She knocked, then eased the door open. ‘Can I come in?’

The boy sat on the ground, face turned away. He shrugged as Julia spotted the kite propped against the wall behind him. A waxen eagle with jewel-bright wings. One of Archie’s. It had to be. She squeezed herself in and lightly fingered its edge. ‘Did your dad make this kite for you?’

Again, the shrug.

‘It’s beautiful. He always did make kites, even as a little boy. When he came to us on holiday, he used to get me to help gather up the materials, paper, old sheets and twigs, and he’d put them together and we’d paint them, add a big long tail of string and go fly them on the beach. Of course, they weren’t as good as this one.’

At last, the boy looked up. ‘No one cares,’ he said. ‘No one cares about my dad except Mum. Not even Granny or Granddad. No one’s sad. They just pretended to be when we were at the grave.’

‘Oh Rory, you know that’s not true.’ She crouched down beside him. ‘It’s just that it’s hard for people sometimes, and sometimes instead of crying, they find it easier just to blow off a bit of steam.’

‘Steam? Like from a kettle?’ His eyes were wide.

‘No, more like laughing and drinking too much. Or getting angry. We can all be silly that way sometimes.’

‘And was that why my grandad didn’t let my dad go to your beach anymore. Was that because of steam?’

Julia considered. She had only been young, barely eight, but she clearly remembered that day. So hot it was down on the beach, and she’d been thirsty, so she’d left Archie with his kite and had wandered off to fetch a drink. The caravan where Archie and his parents stayed whenever they came to visit was closer than her house, so she’d gone there. And that’s when she saw them. Her dad and Aunt Connie kissing. She thought she’d been imagining things at first. The sun could affect you like that when your thirst got too much, Archie had told her, but later when she went to the caravan to help her cousin make kites, she knew she’d seen right. Bert wasn’t there and Connie was all dressed up. She’d told them she was going out for bread and milk, but there was plenty in, and she just knew Connie was going to meet her dad. How awful it would be if her parents divorced. She had to do something. Make them angry at Connie so she’d leave and never come back.

Archie had been all excited about his new kite. He’d discovered a way of adding texture to the patterns which would still allow it to fly. He’d whittled some wooden shapes and was coating them in melted candle wax mixed with drops of paint. Then when it dried, all he had to do was smooth it over and ease away the wax from the wood with a knife. ‘Need more wood though. Need more shapes.’ He blew the candle out before he went searching outside, although whether he thought he’d forgotten to do so, or knew that she’d lit it again, Julia couldn’t say for sure, but he’d blamed himself for starting the fire from which he’d had to drag her out. She’d been frozen then. Frozen by the heat and the wonder of the flames which had shot so unexpectedly straight up the curtain that she’d placed the candle beneath, thereafter setting light to the entire side of the van. She hadn’t meant to cause so much damage. Just a little fire, she’d thought – enough to make her parents be angry at her aunt for leaving her and Archie alone. And they’d been angry alright – all of them – blaming Connie, blaming the boy, blaming each other, for years and years and years. But not her, never her. When the ambulance came to take her to hospital, she remembered Connie standing there, in her red and black polka dot dress with circular skirt, dark hair done up in a bun, and how she’d looked just like a ladybird, all flapping and frantic. Why? It wasn’t her house on fire.

‘No, I don’t think it was steam as such, although maybe…’

‘It was an accident, wasn’t it? The fire? That’s what Dad said.’

Julia bit her lip. No point confessing now. But maybe later, when Ingrid was up to it, she might appreciate a little holiday by the coast. Paul could show the family around, entertain them. Yes, her husband would enjoy that. Of that, she'd make certain.