When I went into the house I was very alert to everything, the way I am at the moment – contrasts. Because of Maudie Fowler. Georgie’s house is exactly the house my parents lived in always. I call it country-suburban, comfortable, conventional, conservative, all of a piece from the landscapes on the walls to the books on the bed table. My flat is, Freddie’s and mine was, both international-contemporary. On the rare occasions Georgie has stayed a night, she has made a point of saying she has enjoyed my things. They are such fun, says she.
Georgie had a cold supper for us and seemed at a loss what to do after it. We were in her living room, curtains drawn, some snow outside, not enough for my taste but more than she wanted. She says it makes work. She works hard, Georgie does, the house, the cooking, looks after husband, four children, chairwoman of this, patron of that, secretary of the local reading circle, good works. I sat one side of the fire, she on the other. I tried to talk about Mother. I need to know about her. I never talked to her, a bit more to Father. But Georgie has put me into the category of the irresponsible one who doesn’t care about family. And that’s that. I kept giving her openings, even asked once, I wonder what Mother would have thought?
At last I talked about my trip to Munich. She liked that. Your glamorous goings-on, she calls all that. She wanted to know how the hotel was, my friends, how the fashion shows are organized, how this is done and that is done. I recognize myself in all this. Not a word about the styles and the fashions, but how it all works. So we are like each other after all. Suddenly, when I was in bed, I had a thought that made me sit up again and turn on the light. It was this. Before Granny died, she was ill for about two or three years, can’t remember (which is a point in itself), and she was at home with Mother, who was looking after her. I was working like a demon then, it was the first rebirth of the mag, and I simply behaved as if Granny being ill had nothing to do with me. Not my affair! I can remember switching off from the moment I heard the news. But Mother had her at home there, and Father wasn’t too well either. Granny had diabetes, heart trouble, bad eyes with operations for cataract, kidney trouble. I used to hear news of all this, relayed in Mother’s brisk letters: and I haven’t kept the letters, and I remember not wanting to read them. Now I know what it costs, looking after the very old, the helpless. I find myself exhausted after an hour or two, and want only to run away somewhere out of it. But where did Mother run to? Who helped her? Not me! Not once, I never went near her.
Sunday morning, Georgie and I had breakfast alone together. Some snow outside. Pretty. Trees and bushes full of snow and birds feeding off stuff Georgie hangs in the branches. She said Tom was coming back with the kids, because the weather was frightful where they were. I said to her, quite desperate because I knew once they had got back, that was that, ‘Georgie, were you around much when Granny was dying?’
She gave me a surprised look at this. She said, ‘No, I didn’t get home much. I was pregnant twice while that was going on, and Kate was a baby.’ She was now looking at me in an impatient sort of way.
‘I want to know about it,’ I said. ‘I have been thinking that I did nothing to help.’
She said finally, ‘No, you didn’t,’ and she wouldn’t have said another word. I had to digest that she and Tom had attitudes about me, my behaviour, that were established and set, Jane was this and that and the other; and probably these were Mother’s attitudes too, and Father’s.
I said, ‘It has only recently occurred to me that I never lifted a finger all the time Granny was dying.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ she said, in the same shutting-you-out way.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘recently I’ve had a little to do with an old person, and I know now what Mother had to cope with.’
‘I suppose better late than never,’ said Sister Georgie.
This was much worse than I had expected. I mean, what she thought of me was so much worse that I was burning with – no, alas, not shame, but it was embarrassment. Not wanting to be so badly thought of. I said to her, ‘Can you tell me anything about it?’
‘Well, what on earth do you want to know?’ She was exasperated. Exactly as if some small child had said to her, she having hit her thumb with a hammer, Does it hurt?
‘Look, Georgie,’ I said, ‘all right, I’ve seen recently that … I could have done more than I did. All right? Do you want me to grovel? It is better late than never. I want to know more about Mother.’
‘She was in your flat for two years before she died,’ said Sister Georgie, making a great amazed incredulous astonishment out of it.
‘Yes, I know. But it was since then that I …’
Georgie said, ‘Look, Jane, I’m sorry but … you just turn up here after all that, and say, I’d like a nice little chat about Mother. Jane, it simply isn’t on,’ she said. She was literally inarticulate with anger. And I, with surprise. I realized that there were years of resentment here, criticism of little sister Jane.
I made a last try. ‘Georgie,’ I said, ‘I am sorry. I am sorry I didn’t help Mother with Granny, and I want very much to discuss it all.’
‘I suppose one of these weekends I’ll get a telephone call, when you’ve got nothing better to do, and you’ll turn up, all fine and fancy free, not a hair out of place, and you’ll say, Oh, Georgie, I was wondering what was it like having Mother here for ten years, with four kids, no help, and she becoming an invalid …’
At which point the telephone rang outside and she went to answer it. I sat there, I was numb. That was the word. Not that I hadn’t felt bad about Mother living with Georgie all that time, for after all I was working, and we did only have a small flat, Freddie and I, and … and … and. But it had never occurred to me that Georgie was not going to talk to me this weekend. If ever. She was too angry. She was, and she is, so angry and bitter about me.
When she came back, she said, ‘I’m going down to the station to get Tom and the kids.’ She said to me, ‘I’m sorry Jane, but if you are beginning to get some sort of sense of responsibility into you at last, it might perhaps occur to you that it isn’t easy to have you just turning up with a light question or two: How about Granny dying? How was it? Did it hurt? It was all awful, Jane. Do you understand? It was dreadful. I went down there when I could, pregnant as hell or with the baby, and found Mother coping. Granny was bedridden at the end. For months. Can you imagine? No, I bet you can’t. Doctors all the time. In and out of hospital. Mother was doing it all. Father couldn’t help much, he was an invalid himself … Anyway, I’ve got to go to the station.’
And off she went.
I nearly ran after her, to ask to be put on a train home, but stuck it out. Tom and the kids filled the house with clatter and clang, the record players went on at once of course, a radio, the house vibrating with din. Tom came in and said. How are you? – and went. The kids banged into the kitchen, where I was, Jilly, Bob, Jasper, Kate. Hi, hi, hi, hi, all round. It is established that I think Georgie’s kids are awful and spoiled brats, but they might be all right when they grow up. I am the glamorous Aunt from London and the High Life. I send them presents of money at Christmas. When we meet I tell them I think they are awful and good for nothing. They tell me it is because I don’t understand them. It is a cheerful game of mutual insult. But I do think they are awful. I cannot understand how they are allowed to do as they like, have what