On Beulah Height

EIGHT

Ellie Pascoe was breaking the speed limit even before she got out of her own short driveway. She knew it was stupid, and by great effort of will got to braking distance of thirty miles per hour by the end of the street. It was only four miles to the school and the difference between driving like normal and driving like a lunatic was significant only in the soul.

Miss Martindale greeted her with a face as placidly reassuring as her voice on the phone had been.

‘Nothing to worry about, Mrs Pascoe,’ she said. ‘Miss Turner thought she seemed a little bit distant, that was how she put it. Reluctant to get on with anything, and downright snappy if pressed. We all have days like that, days when we’d rather spend time inside ourselves than face outside demands. Happens to me all the time. Then Miss Turner noticed Rosie was a bit hot and flushed. Probably only the start of a summer cold. Getting hot and then cooling off all the time makes children susceptible. No real problem, but better nipped in the bud with half an aspirin and the rest of the day in bed.’

The soothing flow of words relaxed Ellie, even though she recognized that this was what they were meant to do. Miss Martindale was a bright young woman. No; more than that; Ellie knew a lot of bright young women, but Martindale was one of the rare breed she felt her own genius rebuked by. Not that they were in competition, but on the rare occasions when they did lock horns, it was always Ellie who found herself giving ground.

She tried to explain this to Peter, who’d said, ‘Whatever she’s taking, I wonder if she’ll give me the name of her supplier?’

Rosie was sitting on the edge of the bed in the small medical room watched over by the school’s massively maternal secretary. When she saw her mother, she said accusingly, ‘I told you you shouldn’t have made me go to school this morning.’

Thanks a bunch, kid, thought Ellie.

She gave her a hug, then examined her closely. Her face certainly looked a bit flushed.

‘Not feeling so good, darling?’ she said, trying to keep it matter of fact. ‘Bed’s the best place for you. Let’s get you home.’

She thanked Miss Martindale who smiled reassuringly, but from the secretary, who clearly had her down as the kind of mother who sent her ailing child to school rather than spoil her own social life, all she got was an accusing glare. Ellie responded with a sweet smile. OK, the head might have the Indian sign on her, but she wasn’t going to kow-tow to a sodding typist.

On the way home she chatted brightly, but Rosie hardly responded. In the house, Ellie said, ‘Straight to bed, I think. Then I’ll bring you a nice cool drink, shall I?’

Rosie nodded and let her mother unbutton her dress, something which in recent months had brought a fierce, I can do that myself!

Ellie made her comfortable in bed then went down to the kitchen and poured a glass of home-made lemonade. Then she poured another. Sick-bed circumstances demanded a bit of indulgence.

‘Here we are, darling,’ she said. ‘I brought one for Nina, too, in case she got thirsty.’

‘Don’t you ever listen?’ demanded Rosie. ‘I’ve told you a hundred times. Nina’s back in the nix’s cave. I saw her get taken.’

The flash of spirit was momentarily reasssuring, but it seemed to wear the little girl out. She took only a single sip of the drink, then sank back into her pillow.

‘I’ll leave it for her anyway,’ said Ellie cheerfully. ‘She might like it after her daddy rescues her.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ muttered Rosie. ‘That was last time.’

‘Last time?’ said Ellie, smoothing the single sheet over the slight body. ‘But there’s only been one time, hasn’t there, darling?’

For a moment, Rosie regarded her with a role-reversing expression in which affection was mixed with exasperation. Then she closed her eyes.

Ellie went downstairs. Worth bothering the doctor with? she wondered. While ready to go to the barricades for her rights under the NHS, she’d always been resolved not to turn into one of those mothers who demanded antibiotics for every bilious attack.

She made herself a cup of tea and went into the lounge. The CD player was switched on with the pause light showing. She’d been listening to her new Mahler disc when Martindale rang.

The larger package remained unopened.

Few things are better suited to putting literary ambition in perspective than bringing a sick child home, so this seemed a good time to take her bumps.

She ripped open the package and took out her script. There was a letter attached.

… shows promise, but in the present climate … hard times for fiction … much regret … blah blah …

The signature was an indecipherable scrawl. Couldn’t blame them, she thought. Assassination must be a real danger in that job. Even she, perspective and all, felt the sharp pang of rejection. Perhaps I’m simply barking up the wrong tree? Who the hell wants to read about the angst-ridden life of a late twentieth-century woman when it’s just like their own? Perhaps I should have a stab at something completely different … a historical, maybe? She’d always felt a bit guilty about her fondness for historical fiction, regarding it as pure escapism from life’s earnest realities. But sod it, letters like this were an aspect of earnest reality she’d be only too glad to escape from!

Moodily she picked up the CD zapper and pressed the restart button.

It was the second of the Kindertotenlieder. She relaxed and let the rich young voice wash over her.

Obfuscation! Not a pretty word. But she sympathized with the translator. Unlike a lot of the multi-inflected Continental languages, English wasn’t rich in feminine rhymes and they often ran the risk of sounding faintly comic. Not here though, not with the tragic power of this music setting the agenda.

What made a composer choose to set one poem rather than another to music? In the brief introduction to the songs, she’d read that Alma Mahler had strongly resisted her husband’s obsession with these poems of loss, superstitiously fearing he might be tempting fate to attack his own family. OK, so it was irrational, but Ellie could sympathize, recalling her own impulse to break all traffic laws to get to Edengrove, despite Miss Martindale’s assurance that there was nothing to worry about.

And there wasn’t, was there? Not if Miss Martindale said there wasn’t. Despite all her efforts to avoid the stereotype, she’d ended up as another silly, over-anxious mother, like Alma Mahler … Except that Alma had been right, hadn’t she? How she must have looked back on her fears and wished she’d protested even more vehemently when, a couple of years later, their eldest daughter died of scarlet fever.

And that’s meant to be a consolation? She zapped off the melancholy orchestral coda, reached for the telephone and started dialling Jill Purlingstone’s number.