by Robert Lock
With his hands resting on Victoria’s death certificate, and his grey eyes staring out into the shadowed recesses of the living room, the archivist saw an alternative scenario, a sequence of events that, the more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. He knew that there had been a strong masonic lodge in the resort, with a membership that tied together the legal, administrative and religious ruling elite. Even though some of these worthies had doubtless enjoyed the company of the likes of Hannah Goodwin, they nevertheless exercised a righteous indignation at their existence. Might they not have created and financed a course of action which would rid the resort of these immoral women? Perhaps they had gathered together a small group of thugs, operating with impunity because those whose duty it was to uphold the law had been told to look the other way, who targeted vulnerable working girls whose disappearance would hardly be noticed, and whose violent end could be neatly annotated by the editor before his paper went to press. Perhaps George Parr had stumbled on this gang, had gone to Hannah’s rescue, and ended up as the perfect, silent, scapegoat.
“Oh, George,” Colin murmured, utterly convinced by his own narrative, “they stitched you up good and proper.”
Carefully placing the papers to one side, Colin levered himself off the couch and walked over to the roll-top desk. He opened the top drawer, brought out a notepad, chose a silver-capped biro from a cigar tin bristling with pens, flipped open the notepad and wrote, in bold capital letters, THE FRAMING OF GEORGE PARR. Beneath this he began a list of items that required further research.
1) Masonic membership of council members
2) Extent of prostitution in resort
3) Pier theatre records
4) 1871 Census for Henry Street
5) Police records for deaths of prostitutes
6) Georgie Parr — music hall society archives
Satisfied with this initial agenda, Colin returned to the couch. There would, of course, be no documentary evidence relating to such an illicit enterprise — no one involved in such a thing would be stupid enough to implicate themselves — but, he hoped, by approaching the subject laterally, and finding out where apparently separate facts overlapped, there might be a chance of revealing what really happened beneath the pier on that November night in 1880.
Colin looked again at Victoria’s death certificate and shook his head at how those few columns of starkly related facts summed up the brutal realities of that age, when a quarter of children died before their fifth birthday, many from illnesses that could now be cured with nothing more than an injection or a few tablets. He wondered if future historians would study death certificates from the late twentieth century, shake their heads at entries such as ‘cancer’ or ‘heart disease’, and try to imagine what it must have been like to live in such a barbaric world. Such a projection, Colin realised, proved just how condescending such an attitude like this was. These same historians, poring over their documents with late twenty-first-century eyes, could not help but regard all those deaths from diseases now conquered as tragedies, visited upon individuals who had the misfortune to have been born in a more primitive age. And yet within that age, despite the prayers and heartfelt wishes for just such a cure, there was an understanding that things were as they were, and that in many ways life was better than in the past. The child mortality figures, for example, appeared shocking now only because they could be compared to statistics from the twentieth century. When little Victoria had succumbed to scarlet fever she had, despite the anguish of all who had loved her, simply re-stated that era’s close acquaintance with death.
Only then did Colin notice a third sheet of paper. He drew it out from under the death certificates to find a photocopy of another official document, though this was not a birth or death certificate, and also contained a small photograph. Beneath the photocopied section was a note in Neil’s handwriting: Found this with our newfangled computer… you should get yourself one. I put in the names you sent and this came up.
“Particulars of a person convicted of a crime specified in the 20th section of the Prevention of Crimes Act 1871,” Colin read. Then: “Name: Hannah Goodwin 2175. Age when liberated: 13. Height: 4ft 2. Hair: brown. Eyes: brown. Complexion: dark. Offence for which convicted: simple larceny of meat pies. Date to be liberated: 11th March 1878.
Colin placed one hand over the photograph, a reaction that he found difficult to explain. Here she was, the girl found strangled beneath the pier, who until now had been nothing more than a name, the victim regardless of whatever scenario represented the truth. He had almost certainly stood within a few feet of where her body was found, and again the archivist felt the century between them dissolve. She may have spoken to George Parr, or watched him perform — one of music halls’ most controversial characters — on stage in the old pier theatre, the one modelled on an Indian palace and demolished in 1948 to make way for a newer, more practical design that possessed none of the flamboyance and charm of its predecessor. How he envied her that experience! All Colin could ever have were black-and-white photographs or pieces of paper, and despite his love for these remnants he was under no illusion that they were anything more than that: faint echoes from a distant voice. Historians of the future would have access to a far more complete picture of life, with video, news coverage, documentaries, and the proliferation of cameras filling in many of the blanks left in computerised records. Before 1900, however, the world was essentially static, represented solely by words, still images and objects. Hannah had witnessed the Victorian resort as very much a dynamic entity, filled with details now lost forever. Until Neil had unearthed an obscure police record, which but for the cross-referencing powers of a computer might forever have remained in dusty obscurity, how Hannah Goodwin had looked was just such a detail, one that Colin, after drawing a blank in every archive he could think of that might have contained it, had reluctantly concluded did not exist. And yet here she was, beneath his hand. Her presence unnerved him; what if her appearance was a disappointment? Colin Draper’s passions were limited to the inanimate, which of course made him all the more susceptible to becoming infatuated by the intensity with which George Parr had seemingly lived his life. If Hannah, in one way or another, had been George’s nemesis, how she looked mattered enormously. Colin wanted her, needed her, to possess an allure, some quality that George Parr, who was already a hero in the archivist’s eyes, could not have resisted.
“Come on, Colin, pull yourself together,” he chided. What was happening to his professional detachment? Covering up a photograph for fear of disappointment was the behaviour of an infatuated teenager, not an objective historian. But then again, he reasoned, was it surprising for him to be feeling particularly sensitive and emotional after coming home to find his mother in such a perilous state, and then having to sit for hours at the hospital waiting to find out if she was going to make it through the night?
He moved his hand and looked down.
The background appeared to be a grimy wall, and Hannah was sitting on a round-backed wooden chair, which was paler at the top where the varnish had been worn away. She was wearing an ashen, crumpled dress, and around her shoulders was wrapped a thin tartan shawl, partly obscured by the slate hanging round her neck with the number 2175 chalked crudely onto it. Her long dark hair was loose and matted, her skin pale, but it was Hannah’s eyes that wholly dominated the picture, shining out of the humiliation and squalor with quiet determination, as though she was intent on showing the police, the judiciary, in fact anyone who looked at her criminal release record, that she was unrepentant, unbroken.
And did he also detect an air of abandonment to the frankness in her gaze, as though Hannah had set her mind to something the moment she was released, something that she had fought against but which she now realised was inevitable? Colin wondered whether knowing her profession when she died was colouring his interpretation of the photograph, so he looked away, tried to partition off the story of George and Hannah in his mind, then returned to the releas
e form of prisoner 2175 as though it were simply another document to be examined. Still those eyes burned effortlessly across the decades, her dark irises conveying a frankness which Colin found quite beautiful. He had to remind himself that Hannah was little more than a child who, judging by her criminal record and subsequent occupation, had been forced to grow up far too early, adapting to whatever life threw at her in the only way she knew how. If he could track her down in the 1871 census there might be an answer to her ‘reduced circumstances’, but in an age where the only social safety net was the workhouse Hannah had clearly faced up to her predicament with a self-possession and fortitude that went way beyond her years. For her to die less than two years after sitting down on that rickety old chair and fixing the police photographer with her unequivocal stare was, the archivist realised, not only a tragedy but a waste. He imagined what a girl with such resourcefulness could achieve now, born into the relative comfort and luxury of the late twentieth century. Dyed-in-the-wool socialist though he was, Colin had nevertheless also seen more than enough documentary evidence to convince him that, irregular and selective though it often seemed, there was progress in the world. He disapproved of the large-scale social engineering project that he perceived the Thatcher government’s policies to be, but even in this era of inequality there was no reason why a teenage girl would have to steal a pie in order to feed herself or become a prostitute to pay for a roof over her head.
He looked into her eyes. “Who did this to you?” Colin enquired of the photograph. “Who was the last person you saw?”
Home Sweet Home
Nine days after being rushed into hospital Mrs Draper returned home. Her lungs, the hospital had informed Colin on the phone, were now clear, and her heart had settled down, with only the occasional palpitation. They had again enquired about finding her a nursing home, but her son was adamant; no one was capable of looking after her more effectively than he was, he had taken time off work, knew exactly what his mother liked and how to make her as comfortable as was possible, and that was the end of the matter.
The archivist had been sitting in his customary place at the dining table, poring over and editing his day’s notes, when the ambulance drew up outside. He was shuffling down the drive in his shirt and slippers, oblivious to the unwavering drizzle, before the ambulance men had had time to open the back doors, then he dithered at the margins of activity as they manoeuvred his mother out of the ambulance and up the drive. Once she was safely transferred into her own bed and made comfortable, the medics handed Colin a paper bag of tablets, politely turned down his offer of a cup of tea, and left, leaving mother and son ambushed by an awkward silence.
Edna found the suitably mundane words to steer them past the joy and relief they both felt but could never express. “Well,” she noted, “here I am again.”
Colin looked round the bedroom as though seeing it for the first time. “Home sweet home.”
“It’s true,” she concurred. “I never thought I’d say it, but I missed this room… my pictures, my fan, how quiet it is.” Edna looked at her son. “Why is it always so noisy in hospitals? There’s always somebody crashing about with a trolley, or someone coming to take a sample, or take your temperature. Don’t they know poorly people need a bit of peace and quiet?”
“It’s probably some tactic by the NHS to free up more beds,” Colin remarked. “They don’t want to make you feel too much at home otherwise they’d never get rid of you.”
Mrs Draper settled into her pillow. “Well now I am home, and it’s lovely to be back.”
“Yes, well, it’s nice to have you back, but let’s not have any more shenanigans like last week, eh Mother? I don’t think my heart could stand another evening like that.”
“Oh, Colin,” she said, laughing, “you really are the most self-centred person I know. It’s a good job you never got married, it wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.”
The archivist adopted an offended pose, but in reality he knew his mother’s assessment was true, and moreover saw no reason to be apologetic about it. “You have to be single-minded to achieve anything in this world, Mother. Wasting time being dragged round shoe shops or sitting silently in a cafe after forty years together because you’ve got nothing left to say to each other is not my idea of achievement, I’m sorry to say. Well actually I’m not sorry, that’s just how I feel.”
“I agree.”
The reply surprised him. “Really?”
“Of course. I can’t think of anything worse than being stuck in a bad marriage. Just imagine having to live with someone who drives you crazy all the time!”
Colin looked suspiciously at his mother. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, nothing.” Mrs Draper affected a hurt tone. “You didn’t think I was referring to you, did you? How could you think that?”
“Mmm… ”
“Seriously, though, Colin, that’s not the only sort of marriage, you know. There are good ones too… like mine and your dad’s. That’s when your other half wants you to achieve whatever it is you’re aiming for. You’ve always got someone to get things off your chest with, laugh at things with, discuss things with.”
“I can do that with you.”
“It isn’t quite the same, though, is it?” Edna looked at her son, whose unremarkable features had been rendered even more forgettable by the putty-like fleshiness that had grown over the years, whose red, flaky scalp could be seen through his straggling hair, and felt a pang of fear for him. “And I won’t be around forever, will I? Who will you talk to then?”
Colin shrugged. “I see people at work. I’m quite happy on my own when I’m here.”
“Charming.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m only teasing.” Mrs Draper nodded in the direction of the chair. “So what have you been up to while I’ve been away? Got time to chat for five minutes?”
“Of course I have. Tell you what, I’ll put the kettle on and make us a brew, and I’ll tell you the tragic tale of Georgie Parr and Hannah Goodwin, star-crossed lovers who died under the pier a hundred years ago.”
Edna, whose bedside table was always piled high with Mills & Boon romantic novels, raised her eyebrows in anticipation. “Ooh, that sounds good.”
Colin had reached the bedroom door when he stopped and looked back. “I made up the bit about star-crossed lovers.”
Beyond the bedroom and the bungalow, past streets where puddles reflected the stony evening clouds like melted pewter, across the suburban hinterland’s varnished rooftops where seagulls squabbled on television aerials, the resort persisted, intent only on the moment: hen and stag parties shrieking, shouting, fuelled by the bravado of the pack, or teenagers discovering, within graffiti-frescoed bus shelters, the ability of kisses to erase the wider world, or pensioners anchored to a promenade bench, staring out to sea and hoping for one more beautiful sunset, they were all, all of them, an affirmation of the resort’s ability to carve a niche in time, excising past and future and offering instead a continuous present, a sensual now. This was why, on warm sunny days, there were many visitors moved to employ the adjective ‘heavenly’ to describe their situation; here they could glimpse the rapture of being liberated from time.
Within the confines of the bungalow, however, there was no present. What held sway was a form of hybridised past, because for both Colin and Edna the past was where they preferred to be. For Edna it was a specific period: 1937 to 1954, the years she spent with Malcolm. Colin’s affinity with the past was rather more imprecise; it was as much a doctrine as a calendar of events, and lacked a personal reciprocity, but despite not being able to place the events of his own life within the larger frame of the nineteenth century, the archivist felt no less affection for it.
As the two of them settled, then, Colin the storyteller and Edna the audience, both fortified with a cup of tea and a Mr Kipling bakewell tart, they knew, and were comforted by, the fact that the past was at hand. Mother and son regarded
the contemporary as a most unforgiving of mirrors, reflecting truths about their lives that neither of them wished to dwell on; much better to look instead through history’s darker glass, and the consolations that such vision brought.
Colin opened the notebook and laid it on his knees. “George Parr,” he began, “was born on the twenty-fourth of February 1832 in Kentish Town, London. His father Charles was a railway shunter, and his mother Charlotte was a whitener.” He glanced up from the page. “That was someone who bleached cloth,” he explained, before returning to the notebook. “He had two brothers, David and Roderick, but Roderick died at the age of fifteen and David emigrated to Australia, so he had no sibling support as an adult. He married Katherine Barnett in 1862, a lawyer’s daughter, which is very unusual.”
“Why?”
“Well from what I can gather George wasn’t doing particularly well when they got married. I rang the British Music Hall Society, and their records on him only start in 1866, so presumably before then he was so low down on the bill that nobody noticed him. Even if he had been doing well he certainly wasn’t the type a lawyer would have wanted for his daughter. She must have been very single-minded, because her father would have done his best to end the relationship and find someone more suitable for her, like an army officer, or a doctor, or even another lawyer. Music hall performers were regarded as rather subversive by the middle classes, so a lawyer certainly wouldn’t have wanted one as a son-in-law, even though in the end George became very well-paid… he was probably earning more than Mr Barnett by the time he got to the top of the bill.”
“I bet there were ructions when that marriage was announced,” Edna remarked.
“Undoubtedly. But married they were, in Camden Parish Church. George registered his address as Bayham Street, which is where Charles Dickens once lived, but they weren’t there at the same time, which is a pity.”