The River Within

by Karen Powell

  ‘He needs a nanny,’ said Angus, finding the two of them asleep in the nursing chair one day. ‘Then you could get some rest.’

  ‘We don’t need one,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you.’

  Fatigue made her tone so sour. She had vowed to watch herself for it, that wasn’t the kind of person Angus had married, but every time he mentioned a nanny it felt like confirmation of a lack of competency on her part. It was a matter of pride and also of difference. All she needed to do was to take care of this one small child and of herself. How difficult could it be when the women in the village tended to half a dozen infants, scrubbed doorsteps, hung out swathes of nappies to dry with hands raw from work? Her own mother had never needed help either.

  But in Angus’s world, everyone had a nanny. To him it was quite straightforward; he would happily have engaged someone capable even before she had given birth. It was this, more than the estate, its buildings and all its acres that brought home to Venetia what was different about the two of them. Her husband’s early years had been patterned by the nursery and the ordered rhythm of its day: a morning walk, riding lessons, teatimes and early to bed. Venetia and her brothers had scrabbled towards adulthood in a mess of limbs and sunlit impressions, their parents and elders existing somewhere shadowy and peripheral, like an afterthought. Angus’s way wasn’t something to disapprove of exactly, but she couldn’t recognise it for herself, for her own child. When all was said and done, it shouldn’t be hard to look after something so small.

  ‘Put him in his pram out on the lawn,’ the midwife said, when colic made Alexander draw up his legs and scream. ‘Or in the hallway if the weather’s bad.’ She’d laughed, shaken her head at Venetia. ‘You’re making a rod for your own back, picking him up every time like that.’

  How unfortunate, Venetia thought. A midwife who didn’t like mothers or their babies. But perhaps it was just her, Venetia, and other families weren’t so disappointing.

  She walked through the village with the pram early one morning. Neither she nor Alexander had slept properly the night before but, determined to start the day on a brighter note, she’d made the effort to take him out for a walk immediately after breakfast.

  Myrtle Brayshaw, postman’s wife, mother of five, waved as they passed her cottage, left off picking gooseberries to join them. She gazed down in the pram at Alexander’s fine blond hair, his eyes as blue as an autumn sky. ‘Ah, love him,’ she said, brushing her hands over her apron.

  It was intended as compliment, an appreciation of her child’s beauty, but it felt like a command, as if this capable woman could see past her neatly buttoned raincoat, to the empty heart within.

  CHAPTER 31

  Lennie, September 1955

  I was going to take you for tea at “Betty’s” after the film,’ said Alexander.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Lennie held onto the door frame. ‘Something I ate maybe.’

  She could feel it again, like a bubbling in the pit of her stomach. Already, she knew the pattern, how that stirred-up feeling would build to something unstoppable. Tomorrow she would get up early, try to eat something before Tom and her father came downstairs. That way they’d be out of earshot if she had to be sick. Dry toast was the thing; she’d heard that once though she couldn’t remember where or imagine why she’d held onto it. Something plain.

  ‘Some fresh air’ll help.’ Alexander looked at her. ‘It’s not your bloody father being difficult again is it? Oh do come on, Lennie, I really need to get away from here for a bit.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Alexander.’ The churning feeling was more urgent. Any moment now her stomach would lurch, and she wouldn’t be able to control what came next. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  Lennie slammed the door in Alexander’s face and ran.

  Last night she had persuaded herself into believing that she was mistaken, that her imagination was running away with her, that the sickness was down to something she’d eaten and the lateness wasn’t worth thinking about yet, it being such a short time since it happened, just a coincidence. She slept well but in the morning the sickness had been there, waiting. She had wedged shut the bedroom door with a chair; slipped off her nightdress. The evidence was in the mirror, subtle yet unavoidable: a new roundness to her breasts, which felt hard and sore when she touched them. Her nipples looked different too, more pronounced. There was no change to her stomach—she turned sideways to check—she knew that it was too soon for that, and all the time she was examining herself, the nausea building.

  The mere act of fetching a chair to reach the top shelf in the parlour made Lennie want to lie down and sleep. She had never felt so exhausted and ill in her life, not even when she’d had scarlet fever. This is what it must feel like to be old, she thought: drained by the smallest task, your body slowing down gradually until all the working parts stop. Or else to have a parasite living within you, leaching your strength away.

  The cover of the book had once been blue but, with the exception of the creases in the spine which had retained their colour, it had now faded to grey. The pages were yellow, made of thick paper with a rough texture. As she turned them, some fell to the floor, floating down like desiccated wings. The book smelt of age and dust. It had belonged to her mother. Her father had, as far as she knew, never consulted it; his first response to any form of illness was to telephone Dr. Harrison. Still, she was familiar with it, had always thought it strange that her mother, who grew up in the middle of a city, would turn to herbal remedies. A gift, perhaps, given by someone because she was moving to the countryside? All Lennie could be sure of was that her mother had dug and planted out the cottage’s little herb garden herself, must have wanted it even while honking taxis and pavements spilling over with people were still in her mind.

  She read the inscription in the front of the book:

  To Jennifer, from Margaret

  It was undated. She must have seen it before; passed over it without interest. She had never heard her father speak of a Margaret. Girlish handwriting; an unknown person with a whole life of their own. Maybe dead now. Lennie felt she was putting her hand into a sack, rummaging blindly through the past. Once, when was small, she had watched a team of men digging just beyond the far edge of the estate. Looking for a Viking burial site, her father said, eyeing the men’s beards and the dirt lodged under their fingernails with distrust. University men they might be, but Peter Fairweather saw no use in digging up the past when there was plenty to be getting on with in the here and now, and no harm in looking presentable while you were at it. Lennie had been fascinated by their project. Every afternoon she ran home from school across the fields to the spot where the men had been at work, where the tarpaulin covers baked and shone in the sun. She longed to see a glittering Viking sword, or a surprise cache of Roman jewellery hauled from the dark soil. In the end, the men found nothing, backfilled the exploratory trenches they’d dug in various spots. How hard it was, persuading Tom and Alexander and Danny to help carry on digging. They humoured her for an afternoon and then grew bored.

  ‘What are the chances?’ said Tom, abandoning the spade he’d borrowed from the gardener. Lennie remained certain that by joining the dots between the trenches, a thorough search of the area would unearth the bones of some giant Viking, his collapsed face covered by a great, golden death mask.

  This little book with its inscription was a tiny borehole into the past. You might find nothing at all, or maybe if you dug down through layers you’d uncover the real thing, or else miss it by an inch or a mile. Lennie began turning the pages, disturbing pinhead insects that had lodged there. She knew what she was seeking in the alphabetical list of herbs and their uses—angelica, calendula, chamomile, evening primrose, fennel, lovage—yet could not have explained how she knew. She found it halfway down a page towards the back of the book: Rosemary. Considered sacred by the ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Hebrews, Rosmarinus officials has been used in folk medicine fo
r thousands of years to improve memory, soothe the digestive process, and relieve muscle aches and pains.

  To reduce pain: mix 2 drops of rosemary oil, 2 drops of peppermint oil and 1 tsp of olive oil. Rub on sore muscles and painful joints.

  To heal neuralgia: take 2 drops of rosemary oil, 2 drops of helichrysum oil and 1 tsp of olive oil and rub on area.

  She turned the page and found the lines that had been lodged in her mind from a time, perhaps, before she fully understood the meaning:

  Rosemary is a herbal emmenagogue useful in stimulating the womb to bring about menstruation. Caution: traditionally, it was also used as an abortifacient and should be avoided during pregnancy.

  The book had sat in its place on the top shelf for as long as she could remember. If her mother had consulted it in her presence, Lennie would have been too young to realise, just a baby herself.

  A baby. Tilly Hartnett, who’d tried to drown herself in the river, had been pulled from the shallows just in time, crying and kicking like a great sodden baby herself. Or that girl from Branleigh who ran away down to London and died there. Some filthy backstreet place in Islington, they said. Might as well have finished butchering her then and there, rather than letting her suffer in agony for days afterwards. Her family had her buried somewhere in London where people weren’t so bothered about such things. No plot in Branleigh churchyard for her. These stories were woven into the narrative of the village. No matter how sheltered a life you lived, there were tales of knitting needles, flights of stairs, coat hangers and all kinds of other horrors. You knew about those whether you wanted to or not.

  Rosemary. The comforting, grandmotherly sound of it. How familiar to her, the sharp scent of its spiked leaves as she brushed past them in the garden, the innocent blue of its flowers.

  To bring on menstruation: dry leaves thoroughly and cover with olive oil. Leave in a dark place for a month before use.

  A small bottle of olive oil sat in the medical box beneath the sink, its neck gummed up and tacky from lack of use. Dr. Harrison prescribed it years ago, one summer when Tom had spent too many hours swimming and blocked up his ears.

  A whole month. Plus the time it would take to dry the leaves.

  It was impossible, even without the awful sickness. In trouble, they called it. All her life, Lennie had been the opposite of trouble. She would rather follow Tilly Hartnett into the river than face her father and Tom every day for all the weeks to come, having to smile and pretend that nothing was wrong. Lennie never prayed but, oh God! She sunk to her knees in the parlour, the book falling from her hands.

  Another sentence jumped out at her.

  Can also be infused in hot water to make rosemary tea.

  That would have to do.

  CHAPTER 32

  Venetia, 1935

  Afterwards, she would barely recall the detail of the first twelve months of Alexander’s life. As if the entire year had sunk beneath the surface, everything viewed through some watery murk where the sunlight couldn’t reach. She must have functioned at some basic level, but with no energy left over. When Angus suggested a trip to London without the baby, or a drive to the coast, the thought of organising herself seemed overwhelming. It would have been pitiful to admit to that, so she made excuses—an appointment she couldn’t change, Alexander sickening for something. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to York, or even down to the stables to show Alexander the horses. In the rose garden, she watched him crawl on the grass but her senses wouldn’t work in the way they once did—the perfumed blooms, the tumble of the rambling roses over the archways, might as well be rank weeds for all they meant to her. She ate because it was expected of her, tasting nothing. Sometimes she would pause mid-chew, wonder what substance was in her mouth.

  ‘You’re getting thin,’ Angus said, watching her as she dressed one morning. She made an effort, not wanting to draw attention to herself, but each day there was less of her, her skirts swinging from her waist like loose bells.

  Love him. She would give her life to protect Alexander. Sometimes, on the edge of sleep, a knot of anxiety tight in her stomach, scenes of disaster slid into her mind: a car taking a corner too fast and swerving towards the pram; Alexander slipping from her arms, falling from a bridge into a river full of rocks and boiling water. In every image she was there in an instant, throwing herself between car and pram, clambering over the parapet. Was that love, or merely anxiety turned up to an unbearable volume? Life was nothing but terrors and this was frightening to one who had always been bold. What had happened to the girl who would crouch down low over her pony’s neck and attempt a jump before anyone else, who would follow her brothers into battle with the village boys? It was shameful to be so scared so Venetia did what she had always done when something was daunting, carried on as if she hadn’t noticed. When Alexander was six months old, Angus asked her a question he had never asked before:

  ‘Are you all right, darling?’

  ‘Perfectly, thank you,’ she said, having already decided on it.

  Angus seemed to find their son endlessly amusing, liked to be charmed with stories about him.

  ‘I tried to get him to crawl to me today,’ she said one evening at dinner, hoping Angus wouldn’t notice that she had barely touched her food. The pork chop on her plate looked monstrous, too solid to be edible, the frill of thick white fat at its edge sweating onto her plate. ‘He seems to prefer rolling, gets about perfectly . . . ’

  She came to a halt, forgetting why she had begun. Angus took up where she had left off but noises and gestures meant nothing when she was too tired to decipher the signs.

  ‘I think I need an early night,’ she said, excusing herself from the table early.

  She slept deeply and it was peaceful and empty. She would have liked to stay there for a long time, beneath the lid of unconsciousness. There was no point complaining about anything: this was her existence now, each day a series of tasks to be got through, and it was not a hard life or a traumatic one. She lived in comfort and security, with a husband who loved her and a child who was now thriving. The fault was in her, some flaw in her design which made her immune to happiness.

  She took Alexander to see young Dr. Harrison. A vaccination was due and, like any responsible mother, she was punctilious about such arrangements. The injection was administered, Alexander sitting squarely on her lap. By the time she had fastened his clothes he had forgotten what he was crying about.

  Dr. Harrison wasn’t finished. ‘And how are you, Lady Richmond?’

  ‘Perfectly well, thank you.’ The question surprised her, but Dr. Harrison was new and enthusiastic, as his father must once have been.

  ‘Managing?’

  She nodded, ready to leave.

  ‘Because lots of women don’t and there are things that can help.’

  ‘What sort of things?’ She didn’t know why she’d asked. Alexander wriggled and she held him tightly, like a bulwark between her and the desk.

  ‘Well, medication can be of use. There’s some work being done on that for post-natal problems that don’t lift of their own accord. ECT’s remarkably effective too.’

  ‘ECT? You mean electricity?’

  ‘It sounds worse than it is, but the results . . . ’

  Her knees were shaking, even with the weight of the baby on her lap, as if some invisible doctor had already administered the treatment. She pushed her chin down into her chest, steadying herself. A thought occurred to her. ‘Did my husband give you some idea that . . . ?’

  ‘It’s just one form of therapy. I’m not suggesting . . . ’

  The pram was just outside in the waiting room. She stood. ‘Alexander’s nap is already overdue. He gets fretful.’

  Dr. Harrison sat back in his chair, looking younger and more defeated than she’d expected. She forced a smile to her face, wanting to comfort both him and herself. ‘I’m per
fectly alright, you know. I certainly will be.’

  Venetia marched home along the river path with the pram before her like some chariot of war, staring resolutely ahead. That kind of illness was for weak people who weren’t fit for purpose. Or it was inherited like some poisoned legacy. She would not think of it again. Besides, she knew herself better than Dr. Harrison, better than her own husband, if indeed, he had intervened.

  The anger seemed to help, like a call to arms. In the weeks that followed the underwater feeling left her as gradually as it had begun, a lifting of the skies above, as imperceptible as when they’d first pressed down, pushing her beneath the surface of herself. She did not believe in some chemical shift that a scientist could pinpoint. All she knew was that walking through the woods one morning, her step felt lighter, her feet no longer weighed down by invisible concrete. The feeling of lightness was like a memory of someone else’s life, at once familiar and strange. Could the electricity have produced this same effect? Perhaps. She picked up the newspaper one day, became absorbed in an article about Germany’s leader, Adolf Hitler, his new laws for the Jews.

  ‘You’re reading.’ Angus smiled at her as if this prosaic act was some kind of phenomenon.

  ‘Why ever not?’ she said. Something like pleasure flickered in her all the same.

  Venetia stood on the lawn. The sun was no longer a brassy bar, a rod for her own back, weighing down upon her shoulders. Alexander was playing nearby. He heaved himself to a standing position before setting off across the grass, his small face furious in concentration. She found herself smiling at his unsustainable pace. He stumbled, stared at his feet with a comical air, as if they’d played a trick upon him, undeterred set off again. Something in his determination caught at her. She dropped to a crouch.