I know, I know, three Delia chapters in a row! I do try to keep the proportion of each of their perspectives in balance but the last two chapters had to be Delia. I tried writing this one from a Patsy perspective half a dozen times in as many different ways before I was forced to acknowledge that it just wasn't working. This bit of the story belongs to Delia, so Patsy just needs to wait patiently in the wings. We will have a chapter of hers soon, I promise.
Also: this chapter is split in two (for various reasons). I'm afraid there isn't a huge amount going on plot-wise in this bit, but there is fluff and I'll put the next part up very soon!
In Delia's dream she was very young, and being cradled in arms that seemed able to envelope her entirely, held so close and yet so gently that she knew nothing could hurt her here. The warm smell of ginger was all around her, and she could feel the sweet melody of the person's humming vibrating through their chest where her head leant against it. The only trouble was, she couldn't open her eyes and look at them. Although her mind felt perfectly awake, her eyelids were too heavy to lift, as though on the verge of sleep. Delia was certain that if she could only catch a glimpse of whoever was holding her and humming, her memories would slip back into place.
She struggled with them, but her eyes refused to obey her command even for a second. She tried to speak then, to ask the hummer their name, but her voice too betrayed her and barely a breath of sound came from between her lips. It seemed that whoever it was had seen her distress however, because the humming stopped and a voice, rich as warm honey and achingly familiar murmured her name.
Only it sounded different. It was still 'Delia', but when this voice said it, it was though each syllable became a musical note, like her name was the joyful chorus to a song... It was definitely a Welsh voice, but it made the accent sound so different to mam's sharp edges, or dad's dangerous softness. So much sweeter.
Delia redoubled her efforts to get a glimpse of the person holding her and at last succeeded in wrenching her eyes open.
And saw Patsy lying beside her, still fast asleep and with the marks of the pillow creasing her cheek. It was deeply disorienting to find herself so abruptly lifted from her dream into reality, and the disappointment at her failure to see the dream person was overwhelming. So absorbed was she that it wasn't until a single tear of frustration dripped from her cheek and soaked into Patsy's pyjama shirt that she realised how close she was still lying to her friend.
All of a sudden Delia felt rather bashful. It had been one thing to cuddle up to Patsy in the dark, when the bed had been so cold and she herself half asleep, but in the growing light of day it seemed another matter entirely, and she was glad Patsy wasn't awake yet to see her neediness. She shuffled back until she reached her own (miserably chilly) side of the bed and rolled over to stare at the ceiling.
She tried to recapture the feeling of her dream – if she could solve the puzzle now while the dream was so fresh she might not even need the ginger. But it was no good. When she tried to recall the melodic sound of her name on the mystery person's tongue, all she could bring to mind was her mother's scolding tone.
Her mother.
She and dad would be up already, packing their cases and having an early breakfast before catching the train that would start them on their journey home. Mam had probably bullied the hotel staff into cooking them breakfast hours before the kitchen was supposed to open. In spite of everything, Delia couldn't help smiling just the tiniest bit at the thought. She pitied whoever had had to have that argument with her mother, and hoped for their sake that they made good porridge.
She could hardly believe they were really going to just leave today without coming to see her. They had travelled all this long way, and now they were going to turn round and go back without a word; as though they had come no further than the distance from Peckham to Poplar, and might drop by again in a few weeks time. Mind you, she could hardly believe they had been here at all. Now she was back at home, lying in her own bed beside her best friend, it was almost as though the whole week had been a dream. Could she really have been so close to moving to Canada with a pair of strangers? Had she really believed that Patsy, the same girl that had been so caring and attentive since her accident, would just decide to wash her hands of the situation the moment a blood relation showed up? It all seemed too unlikely, even before taking account of her parents' strange behaviour. Part of her (the part that remembered mam assuring her that her marmalade cake was just too sophisticated for children to appreciate) wanted to run to the train station and wave them off. To tell mam she loved her and it would all be alright, to stare hard into her father's eyes until he had no choice but to acknowledge her, to force him to explain why it was so wrong for her to stay in London...
But the bigger (more sensible) part of her knew that nothing good could come of seeing them again. Dad would either flare up in a rage or (worse) look straight through her, and mam would cry and perhaps waiver in her conviction to let go with good grace. Delia herself might let the anger she still felt towards both of them get the better of her. It would be too painful all round. All of it was painful. She hurt. Just thinking about them was too confusing, too conflicted to bear. She rather wished she hadn't been so quick to give up the comfort of snuggling against Patsy's shoulder, but it didn't seem right to move back over to her. Not now she was properly awake and Patsy was asleep.
With some difficulty she resisted the temptation to reach out and poke her friend awake, just for the company. She needed a way to distract herself from dwelling on things she couldn't change. Patsy was good at that... but if their roles were reversed, Patsy would let her sleep.
Grimacing slightly as her feet came into contact with the cold floor, Delia eased out of bed, pausing only to 'borrow' Patsy's dressing gown from where it hung on the back of the door on her way to the lounge. She had abandoned the letter she'd been halfway through writing to Joan when her parents had arrived. They were getting on well as pen pals and now she had remembered it, her lack of response was beginning to weigh on her conscience. For the sake of filling time until Patsy woke up, the letter ended up a full two pages longer than usual, although Delia refrained from mentioning anything about her near removal to Canada, or the argument with which she and her parents had parted ways. She liked Joan, but it seemed a friendship that was better kept simple. She didn't need to know.
With the letter addressed, stamped and tucked into the pocket of her coat ready for posting, Delia wandered through to the kitchen. She was still feeling restless and agitated. Every few minutes her mind would start calculating how long it would be until her parents were out of London, or she would find herself running the dream over and over in her mind even as the details faded, trying to extract more meaning from it this time around.
She gazed around the little room for inspiration, realising as she did so that apart from making drinks and the odd sandwich, almost all the time she had spent in here had been painting the walls, not actually preparing food. Patsy had always been the one that cooked for them. Of course that was because Delia wasn't supposed to touch the stove in case she had a seizure and set herself, or the flat, on fire... but she hadn't had a fit for weeks now. Surely it would be alright, if she was careful? She could repay some of Patsy's kindness and take her breakfast in bed for once!
Yes. Now the idea had occurred to her Delia felt rather excited by it. The only trouble was what to make. Normally they just ate cornflakes, or made a couple of rounds of toast for breakfast, but neither of those would do as a treat. She poked about in the cupboards, half hoping to find something containing ginger, although as she had expected came up with nothing but the biscuits Mrs B had given her the day before. They weren't exactly breakfast food, but Delia arranged them on a plate all the same, resisting the urge to eat one immediately. She found a bag of oats, but dismissed out of hand the idea of making porridge. That would remind her too much of breakfasts with mam, and she was doing her best not to think of those just now. After a final circuit of all the kitchen cupboards, she settled for soft boiled eggs and toast soldiers, mostly because she'd discovered a particularly pretty little blue egg cup behind a stack of dishes, and rather wanted the opportunity to use it.
It would have been nice to have flowers for the tray, she thought as she arranged eggs, toast, coffee and biscuits. She found herself glancing through to the windowsill in the lounge, as if it might have miraculously bloomed into a little garden in the night. But of course there were no flowers there, and Delia had to make do with a saucer of strawberry jam to add a splash of colour to her arrangement.
Now she was laden with a breakfast tray, Delia felt herself entitled to wake her friend without guilt, and called out brightly as she nudged open the bedroom door.
'Good morning sleepy- oh'.
Her cheerful greeting ended in a small noise of disappointment as she stepped inside, only to discover Patsy up and mostly dressed. When she spotted the tray, Patsy's eyes softened and she gave a slow smile.
'You made breakfast!'
She sounded so genuinely pleased and surprised that Delia's irrational annoyance at having the gesture spoiled eased and she smiled back, although there was still a hint of disappointment in her tone.
'I made you breakfast in bed. Only you're not. In bed that is'.
Patsy glanced down at herself, as if noting her lack of pyjamas, then back up to the slightly crestfallen expression that Delia was attempting to remove from her face.
'It would seem not... but no one has ever brought me breakfast in bed before. It seems a shame to waste the opportunity'.
And with that, Patsy returned to their as yet unmade bed and climbed back beneath the covers (although carefully, so as not to rumple her meticulously ironed clothes). She smiled again and patted the place beside her on the mattress. Now Patsy was awake she felt justified in sitting close again, if only so she could steal fragments of toast, and tuck her half-numbed feet under her friend's legs to warm them up.
'Delia, you're freezing, where are your slippers?'
'Under the bed I think'.
'They're supposed to be on your feet. You might as well tuck them properly under my knees now. I can't have my breakfast provider getting frost bite, or who would boil my eggs in future?
'You make an excellent point. It would be doing you a great disservice not to put my icy toes on you'.
Delia shuffled a little to get her feet more securely tucked under the warmth of Patsy's legs, before reaching across her to dunk the bit of toast she'd picked up into one of the eggs.
'Just checking I boiled it right. It's so easy to overcook them and then they aren't dippy anymore, that's always such a disappointing moment!'
'What's the verdict?'
'...I might need one more dip, just to make sure'.
'I'm beginning to wonder who you made this breakfast for, really. I think you just gave it to me as an excuse to eat it in bed yourself'.
Patsy gave her a comical look, but nudged the egg cup closer to Delia's side of the tray, making it clear she didn't really mind sharing.
As they ate Delia suspected that Patsy was very carefully not mentioning her parents or anything that might remind her of them, and she was grateful. For a while they talked about small things – the weather (horrible), Christmas (something they both agreed had snuck up on them all too quickly and they were not yet prepared for) and Patsy's work (enjoyable if one discounted the long cold cycle rides). At last Delia picked up a biscuit from the tray, turning it over slowly in her fingers and lifting it to her nose to smell before taking a bite. The action seemed to give Patsy permission to broach the subject, and she asked softly:
'Have you had any luck yet? With remembering whatever it is I mean'.
'Not really. I think I dreamt about them – about whoever the person was, but in the dream I couldn't see them, I could just smell the ginger and hear someone humming to me. Then I woke up'.
Delia couldn't keep the longing note from her voice, and Patsy half reached to take her hand before seemingly deciding better of it and saying:
'Hearing them's a start though. It shows the memories aren't lost, they just need a bit of a push to get them back properly'.
'I know. I'm hoping ginger will be enough. I don't know what else I could use, since it's the only thing I really know about whoever it is. I think they were Welsh, but I can hardly nip back to Pembrokeshire for a few hours and hope to recognise someone by there smell'.
As she said it, she felt the enormity of her task loom impossibly around her, threatening to sweep her away like a tidal wave. Somehow she had to piece together the memories of a lifetime with only the barest hints and impressions to work from. Her hand tightened convulsively on the biscuit she was still holding as though it might hold her steady. It crumbled a little between her fingers and she had to suppress a hysteria that was half amusement, half despair at knowing the compass she was using to steer was something as fragile and insignificant as a piece of gingerbread. It was utterly ridiculous.
She took a huge bite, trying to distract herself from the hopelessness that was threatening to snuff out her natural optimism. As soon as the ginger hit her tongue she felt once again that feeling. It was like nostalgia, and more than nostalgia. In that bite she knew what it was to sneak a taste of raw biscuit dough from the bowl, and to bite into a biscuit so hot from the oven it burned your tongue, and to find one more biscuit in the tin days after you thought they were all gone – soft with age but still delicious. Those were real memories. They had to be... But they weren't the ones she was looking for. She needed to be surrounded by that smell again. Brushing the last crumbs from her fingers onto the plate, Delia untucked her feet from beneath Patsy's knees.
'Can we go to the market now?'.
'Of course we can. Just give me five minutes to sort my hair out and I'll be ready'.
In the time it took Patsy to finish her hair and makeup, Delia had managed to wash, dress, fill her purse from the pages of one of her money-books and do her own finishing touches. Although to be fair she had rushed through everything with unreasonable haste, and after fumbling for a minute or two with pins and combs she had decided her impatient fingers would never manage a neat style. Instead she had left her hair loose around her shoulders, and was wearing only the barest touch of make-up. She stood ready in her coat and scarf, shuffling from foot to foot as she waited for Patsy to finish tweaking her hair into its usual neat work day style, doing her best not to breath in the cloud of lacquer that accompanied the task.
It was almost half past nine by the time they reached the market, already bustling with noise and activity as women went about their weekly shopping trips. In spite of the grey skies there was a slightly festive feel in the air – there seemed to be barrows selling paper cones of roasted chestnuts on almost every corner, and many of the vegetable stalls had bunches of holly or mistletoe on sale alongside their more everyday wears, reminding shoppers that it was time to turn their thoughts to buying cranberries and oranges and sprouts for Christmas dinner.
They passed a man selling Christmas trees, and Patsy paused in front of them for a moment, a thoughtful look passing over her face. Any other day Delia would have gone with her to look closer, and perhaps they'd have bought a tree there and then, then spent the morning choosing tinsel and baubles to decorate it with. Instead Delia's eyes were skimming over the various festive touches, dismissing turkeys and candy canes and walnuts alike as she sought – ah, ginger.
Actually, there was a lot of ginger around. It was certainly the right time of year for it, and Delia felt suddenly grateful that the memories hadn't been associated with strawberries, or ice cream, or something else she'd have no chance of purchasing in the depths of winter. As it was, by the time she was ready to concede that that would probably do (something Patsy had told her two purchases ago), Delia's shopping bag was full of more ginger than most people would buy in a year (possibly several). She had fresh ginger roots, dried ginger, powdered ginger, even a couple of boxes of crystallised ginger from the sweet shop.
She had also managed to sweet talk a stall holder into writing her out a recipe for gingerbread on the back of the paper bag she had been about to put Delia's purchase in, although the woman looked highly bemused at the request; coming as it did from a girl buying three times the quantity of ginger she normally sold in a go. The moment the recipe was done she had handed everything over with an air of embarrassment, then turned quickly to deal with another customer, as though she thought it slightly indecent for a girl Delia's age to have to ask strangers for such information. Delia half wanted to stay and explain to her about the amnesia, and the memories, and mam being much too far away and anyway, not someone she was likely to ask for recipes at the best of times, let alone after the row they'd just had... But then she remembered that the stall owner neither knew her nor cared about her circumstances, and was probably already forgetting all about her as she weighed out potatoes for a harried looking young woman with three small children whining and grizzling in her wake.
In the end she just hitched her bag of ginger closer to her chest and turned her feet homeward. They had some baking to do.
