by Amy Myers
Just as she reluctantly felt she should tear herself away to return to Haden Shaw, she noticed the boxes labelled ‘Oral History’. ‘What are they?’ she asked curiously. ‘Written memoirs?’
‘A few. Most are recordings.’
By the look on his face, Georgia realized Jim had been teasing her all this time, holding back a possible treasure trove. ‘Recordings of people giving their impressions of life in their times?’ She tried to contain her excitement, but failed.
‘Not their times. Their past times. No one can describe their own today. What do you say about it? The refuse collectors call on Mondays? Yesterday is a different matter. Whether it’s the truth or not is another question.’
Georgia hardly dared ask. ‘How far do your records go back?’
Naturally he took his time about replying. ‘You just might be lucky there. My grandfather, he was the first of us collectors. Had cat’s whisker radio sets, and recorded on cylinders and the like. He always reckoned he would have been Edison only he were born too late. He spent a lot of time going round recording people, getting them to talk about the old times, mostly about the old Queen. Victoria that would be.’
‘Was he recording in the 1920s?’ Her mouth was dry with excitement.
‘Well, now, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were.’
‘And can the recordings be listened to now?’ she persevered.
‘Wouldn’t be much good as history if they couldn’t be. A few years back I took the lot to one of these sound studios and remastered the recordings on to CDs.’
Steady. Her luck couldn’t be this good. ‘Is there,’ she asked, ‘by any chance one of Ada speaking?’
‘Funny you should ask that, my dear. They’re all indexed and so I had a look for you. There’s a few more too you might be interested in, the old doctor, one of the Todds, the Squire—’
‘This,’ she said fervently, ‘is my lucky day.’
‘Don’t get too excited, Georgia. They’re only talking about a village and a past village at that. My grandfather wanted to set down how it changed after the first war. If you look at the war memorial there ain’t a family in Wickenham didn’t lose someone. Meant a big upheaval everywhere, as families from the Squire down to the butcher who expected sons to take over had to start grooming someone else; others were left without heirs at all, because war had touched everyone for the first time. Some men who survived wanted more than Wickenham could offer and left the village. There weren’t the jobs for the heroes like they’d been led to believe.’
‘I wish you’d told me about these recordings before.’ She tried to keep accusation out of her voice.
‘You had to get to know Wickenham before they’d make sense. I went to see Mary after you left the first time. “Is she a stayer?” I asked. “She’d better be,” Mary said. “If she doesn’t prove my Davy innocent no one will.” So now we’re all on the same course, I’ll make you copies of these CDs.’
Still reeling from her good fortune, Georgia invited him to a drink at the pub before she left, and they walked over to the Green Man. The pub was crowded for early evening and, as she carried drinks over to the table she’d managed to bag in the window, she noticed the great Mr Scraggs. He didn’t see her, for he was engaged in earnest discussion, presumably over the appeal, with Oliver Todd and one or two others whom she now recognized as being the Todd clan. The look on their faces read Do Not Disturb.
‘The past looks easier than the present at the moment,’ she commented to Jim as she set the drinks down.
He shot a look at the group. ‘Past is the present, Georgia. No ignoring it. Growls away like a blessed volcano, it does. Then one day – whoosh. You mind you don’t get in its way.’
*
‘What have you brought me?’ Peter’s eyes were glued on the carrier bag that Georgia had borne in with such triumph, though his dinner was before him. It didn’t seem the best of times to produce her trophies, but he refused to wait, so she continued.
‘I’ve brought you the voice of Ada Proctor.’
He looked puzzled. ‘You mean you’ve recreated her Wickenham. Describe it to me. And then I’ll tell you what I’ve discovered.’
Blow him, she thought. He obviously had little faith in her research, so she’d do just as he commanded.
‘In 1929 Wickenham is,’ she began pompously, ‘a quiet more or less self-sufficient village with good communications to London. The crime level seldom taxed the powers of Policeman Plod. Football and cricket were played on the fields of Wickenham Manor, and no one thought leases were necessary for everyone knew that Squire Gerald Bloomfield would never turn them out. He died that year, and the new Squire was the second son Matthew, since Jack had been killed in the war. No one knew much about Matthew, but they didn’t expect anything to change – even though he had a fierce wife, known as the She-Wolf of Wickenham.’
‘What?’
‘Her name was Priscilla. Fortunately her ferociousness didn’t include wanting to build on the cricket and football pitches. Matthew was to die during the Second World War of natural causes, and his son Bertram – then away fighting in Sicily – inherited. In time money became a problem. However, back to 1929, when the Slump, as it was known in Wickenham, hadn’t yet hit Britain. Wickenham was prosperous because of its hops, not yet a noticeably declining industry.’
‘You can cut the economics.’
‘Do you want this picture painted or not?’
‘Dearest Georgia, go ahead.’
‘There was a National Health Insurance scheme of a sort, which benefited those in work, but Dr Proctor had to temper the wind to the shorn lambs of the parish. Consequently he was highly respected, as was his daughter.’
‘What about the rumours of her being a scarlet woman?’
‘I’ve decided provisionally to discount them. You know how easily they can start. Goodness knows what Haden Shaw thinks of me and Luke.’
Peter ignored this, and she suspected it was because he dreaded the thought of a day when Luke and she might get together permanently so that it would become Marsh, Daughter & Son in Law. Three is rarely a working partnership.
‘Why didn’t she marry someone else after Guy went missing?’ Peter interrupted.
‘Not enough men,’ Georgia answered succinctly. ‘An elderly vicar would be all the likes of Ada could hope for.’
‘And did Wickenham possess that invaluable social asset?’
‘No. The Reverend Percy Standing was middle aged – and at least by the time he was bumped off (according only to malicious rumour; more factually he died of food poisoning) he was married with a family. He died during the second war, and his widow and kids went to live on the south coast somewhere. Address available, but may be well out of date.’ She had gleaned this from the present vicar.
‘Worth following up?’
‘If I read the gleam in your eye correctly to mean that Ada might have confessed her sins to him, I can only say that according to the photos I’ve seen not only would she not have sinned but, even if she had, she wouldn’t see any need to confess anything to anyone. Very self-contained. We can consider it further if you like.’
‘On what grounds might I ask?’
‘The grounds of Ada’s voice.’
‘But –’ he caught sight of her face – ‘you’re not telling me something. What is it?’ His voice ended in a howl of rage.
‘You wouldn’t stop to let me. You insisted on the picture of the village. So now let’s listen to Ada.’
Peter was silenced, as she drew out the CD on which Ada featured. Then: ‘Have you listened to this?’ he asked her accusingly.
‘No. Jim suggested we should hear it together if we’re writing the book together.’
‘Decent of him,’ Peter grunted. It was equally decent of Jim to have put Ada’s contribution first on the CD, Georgia thought. The remastering of the original had still left the crackling and background noise intact presumably for the sake of not risking any change to the voi
ces, but Georgia found it increased her excitement, like listening to an old wireless broadcast.
And then came Ada’s deep voice, beginning with a laugh, a voice she instantly liked:
‘I really don’t know what you would like me to say, Fred. [A few words lost]. The turn of the century? Well, there were the hoppers of course, some of them still come. There was old Maud – remember her? Enormous size, brought her own bed with her, and all ten children. Some of them still come but Maud has gone. My grandfather was alive then. How old-fashioned it seems now, the old doctor in his frock coat and his pony trap. I would go on his rounds with him sometimes. He took me up to the Manor from time to time, and I’d have something nice in the kitchen while he talked to the Squire. He let me collect the money too, that’s how I learned about keeping records, so that I could help my father. And I remember the celebrations for Edward VII’s coronation, and how they had to be postponed because he was ill. Guy –’ an all but imperceptible pause – ‘and I were so cross that the children’s party at the Manor had to be postponed too. We didn’t believe it would ever happen, but it did. In August, I think, and we had the party on the Manor lawns. It wasn’t the same though.’
Georgia stopped the player. Enough for the moment. The rest could wait. ‘What do you think, Peter?’
‘A confident voice, and a certain humanity, would you say? Certain of herself and her place in life.’ Peter brooded. ‘Poor woman. She wasn’t so safe as she thought. Someone killed her.’
‘It’s over seventy years ago,’ she said gently.
‘Only yesterday, once one begins delving.’
‘What were you going to tell me?’ she asked quickly, to divert him, seeing where this might lead.
Fortunately Peter obliged. ‘I had a call from Mike. At his prompting, Darenth Area gave him some more info on the forensic work done on the rubbish in the denehole. There were a few coins that might not have been the deceased’s, but there’s a chance they were.’
‘What about them?’
‘Two of them were French franc pieces dated 1919. That’s way before the change in their currency. You wouldn’t remember, but some time around the late 1950s, their 100 francs became one franc. Before that a franc piece had only been worth tuppence or so, the sort that might be lingering in his pocket if our skeleton had come from France. Which might explain why the list of missing persons in the Wickenham area doesn’t tie in with it.’
Georgia couldn’t resist the temptation. ‘And why a French officer by name of Randolph could not be connected.’
‘Just what, Georgia, is this all about?’ Peter glared at her.
‘He only came to Wickenham in the Second World War,’ she finished aggravatingly. ‘Sorry.’
Chapter Six
Georgia parked behind the Green Man, uncertain as to why Jim had summoned her so quickly. She ought to come was all he’d said on the telephone, and since she wanted more time to study his records she’d agreed. The village protest meeting on 16th October was not the time she would have chosen, but at least it had the merit that the village would be concentrating so hard on its present crisis that her doings would not be the focus of attention.
Marsh & Daughter had been living in the Wickenham of 1929 for the past week, and the village of today was beginning to feel a mere overlay to the one she knew. Today she would be looking not at the dull plaster-rendering on the façade of Todds the butcher’s, but a smart white-painted, black-beamed frontage. The Green Man would no longer be under the management of Thomsons Ales, and a charabanc stop for excursions from London. The village hall was no longer the Victorian building on the Green, about to be converted, so she’d gathered, into a trendy restaurant, but the brand-new Lottery-built edifice on the new development. The Manor was no longer a private home, there were no longer tennis parties at Hazelwood House, and Dr Proctor no longer descended each morning to breakfast cooked by Elsie or Ada, before walking into his morning surgery. The Firs’ gardens were now those of the council houses that had replaced them, and were lovingly or unlovingly tended by hands other than those of Davy Todd. In 1929 the Old Forge, now Jim’s home, had been run by John Wilson, whose blacksmith business must then have been on the verge of extinction.
And on 31 October 1929 seventeen-year-old Mary Elgin, in the throes of young love, would have been looking forward to an illicit evening with her Davy while her parents were out at the Hallowe’en dance.
The protest meeting was not until the morrow, but the moment Georgia had driven into Wickenham past the Manor, she had seen evidence of the escalation of feeling. There had been a small but dogged band of protesters standing at the gateway to the Bloomfields’ home, and a similar sized group on the opposite side of the road just inside the Manor gates. They looked peaceable enough at present, just holding up placards reading ‘Stop globalization now, Say no to conglomerates, Village land for village people,’ but making no attempt to lobby passers-by or traffic. To her, it had the depressing air of a well-orchestrated event, even though the protesters were laughing and joking amongst themselves, and it did not bode well for the meeting.
It would be a mistake to imagine there were no such conflicts in 1929. There was no point seeing Ada’s Wickenham through rose-tinted spectacles. The early twenties had been a time of slump after the rosy expectations of peace-time following the First World War had been disappointed; 1926 had seen the General Strike; in the month Ada had died, the Wall Street Crash was causing the first ripples of the Great Depression of the 1930s in Europe. Compared with the Jarrow March of 1936, a local protest over football and cricket pitches seemed small beer. It wasn’t that small, however, if there were indeed an orchestrated attempt to tie the sale of the sports fields in with global issues, as if the World Trade Organization were moving its HQ to Wickenham. When she had left Wickenham just over a week ago, it had been a local issue of discontent. How had it changed so quickly and why?
As she walked into the Green Man for a lunchtime sandwich, she saw the Bloomfields’ Jaguar driving along the High Street, and caught a glimpse of Trevor’s face: set, hardened, that of a troubled man, aware of the reception he would get at his gates. This was unlikely to be the first day such protests had been mounted, and the pressure was – by the look of him – getting through. She wondered if he would have second thoughts about the fields, but knew it was unlikely. The Trevor Bloomfields of this world didn’t get where they were today by having second thoughts, even where their own or their family’s safety was concerned.
When she returned to the pub, the answer to her question of how the dispute had escalated became clear. The public bar was packed with some kind of meeting. She could see Bert and Oliver Todd in the thick of it, pints were flowing and angry voices were raised. There were perhaps thirty people gathered, both men and women and of all age groups. She could see Lucy, and other people looked familiar, but it was her glimpse of the pale face of Terence Scraggs, now transformed with the look of the fanatic, that convinced Georgia she was right. Terence wasn’t just an outsider who’d been roped in for general support. He had either come – or been asked to come – as a prime mover in this protest.
Georgia decided to sit in solitary state, and perched on a bar stool in the saloon bar. She wouldn’t be welcome at the meeting, and was determined to steer clear of any active involvement in the dispute. That didn’t prevent her from talking about it, however. It would look odd if she didn’t.
‘Tomorrow’s the night, then,’ she began conversationally to Steve Faraday, the pub landlord, who seemed to bear her no ill will for deserting his accommodation.
‘Firework night’s early this year.’
‘You think there’ll be trouble?’
‘That’s what it’s for. Trouble’s what they’re after.’
‘Verbal fireworks only, I hope.’
‘We’ll have to wait to see. I’ve got no time for the Bloomfields myself, but I don’t hold with punch-ups. Especially not outside my pub.’
‘Why don’t
you like the Bloomfields?’
‘I don’t like or dislike them. It’s what they’re doing. Sneaky they are. We’ve only just cottoned on to the fact that there are two sales going on. The two sports fields are a separate deal to the hotel and rest of the estate. They’ve been keeping quiet about that.’
‘Does it make any difference?’
‘That Mr Scraggs says it does. Don’t see how myself. Either way, I don’t want no supermarkets here. We have enough problems in Kent with people stocking up with booze from France instead of drinking in our pubs. Besides –’ Steve busily polished a glass and squinted at the results – ‘I’m half Todd myself.’
‘I thought you were a foreigner from London?’
‘So I am, but my mum was a landgirl here in the war. Lodged with Bert’s parents, said they were a great family. The farm she worked on was Elgin-run, but she didn’t take to the farmer. A slave-driver was Joseph White. He was George and Tom’s dad. The Todds and the Elgins pulled together during the war, so no one thought amiss of it when she lodged with Todds. When this pub came up for sale, down I came. Found things had changed though, and this is a Todd pub.’
‘Don’t tell me. The Red Dragon is where the Elgins drink. No wonder I got funny looks when I went in.’ She’d popped in there one lunchtime to see if they served food and promptly retreated again. ‘They’d know I was staying at Country Stop. How could I guess about its being an Elgin hang-out though? They don’t call themselves Elgins any more. The landlord’s name at the Red Dragon is Billy Parsons, isn’t it?’
‘They’re all called Elgin, Georgia,’ Steve informed her gloomily. ‘You take a look at the parish register some day. Billy’s name is William Elgin Parsons. Just like builder Tom Elgin White and his son Daniel Elgin White. One generation of Elgins was mostly girls, so they all agreed to give their kids the name Elgin as a second forename. Still do it. Amazing, isn’t it?’
Georgia groaned. ‘And now I’ve fallen foul of George.’