by Tania Crosse
I hadn’t taken up the offer because Jeannie’s family shared their house with two others, all crammed into four rooms and with only one small kitchen between them. They were all relatives who had been bombed out during the war and were still waiting for new housing. There was always washing draped all over the place trying to get it dry, and somehow they’d installed an extra gas-cooker on the landing. It was absolute bedlam, and I hadn’t fancied it. But more than that, I wanted to meet with this estranged father of mine and find out all I could from him about my real mother and my brothers. Then I could make up my mind whether or not I wanted to stay.
I had a quick wash in the bowl my father had used to shave, and then, as daylight was filtering through the shabby curtains, I drew them back. I stared out at a chalky veil that blotted out everything beyond a few feet of the house. Damn it. I had wanted to explore, but I wasn’t foolish enough to think I could find my way around in this! So after helping myself to some of that lovely cheese spread on a chunk of bread, I went upstairs to unpack.
I made my bed and taking the envelope from beneath the pillow, sat down on the edge of the mattress to study its contents again. I didn’t reread the letter, but I scrutinised the photographs Ellen had left me. There were several of my brothers but only one pathetic image of my mother, faint and out of focus so that I couldn’t properly distinguish her face. What was she like, this woman who had given her life for mine?
I was suddenly on the verge of tears again and it was less painful to let them come than to hold them back. They trickled at first, then came in a torrent of big fat pearls that ran down my nose and dripped from my chin. I cried for my brothers and for Cynthia, for the boy who had died so that I could have his bed. For John Hayes and for the dear woman who I could only ever look upon as my mother, Ellen Hayes. But most of all, I cried for me. For Lily Hayes, and the life I had lost. It was selfish when everyone else was dead, but at that moment, I could only think of how miserable I was and that no one else could be suffering as much.
But you don’t weep for ever. I’d learnt that over the previous few weeks. No matter how dark your depression. And afterwards, it changes from black to grey. For a while, anyway.
I went back downstairs. It was just so quiet. If only there was a radio, I could listen to Music While You Work. Mum had loved that, and she never missed an episode of Mrs Dale’s Diary or The Archers. But there was no such luxury as a radio in Sidney Latham’s life so I decided to ferret around his house instead. It would be a relief if I could find something that could endear him to me. Just a little. A photograph of my brothers or myself, or especially a clearer one of Cynthia than I had. But there was nothing personal in the kitchen at all.
Then I remembered the other door in the tiny hallway and found myself in a sort of parlour. It was icily cold and smelt of damp as if the fire hadn’t been lit for years. Two armchairs stood to attention at either side of the hearth, both in better condition than the one in the kitchen. When I banged the cushions, a pall of dust rose into the air. On a small table lay Sidney’s Bible of the previous evening and a prayer-book. There was a picture of him and some other soldiers in their uniforms. They were smiling, but my father wasn’t. What had happened to him in the war? He seemed a man without a life. A ghost. Existing for no purpose. I wondered what he did with himself when he wasn’t at work.
Later on, I opened the front door and stepped outside. The fog didn’t seem so thick, so surely I could explore just a little without becoming lost? The air hung as still as death in glacial droplets that clung to my eyelashes and penetrated my skin, so I nipped back inside for my gabardine, pulled my beret onto my head and wound my itchy scarf around my neck. And then I set off, feeling a little like Stanley and Livingstone.
From the outside, it looked as if there had originally been a row of four tiny cottages, but that the one my father was living in was in fact the middle two knocked into one. I peered through dirty, rain-streaked windows into one of those adjacent to it and, in the gloom, could just see the one downstairs room. It was the same with the other cottages just opposite that formed three sides of a square. They looked so sad, enshrouded in the pearly mist, abandoned, a door dangling from one rusty hinge, a broken window pane, peeling paint. In some cases, the roof had fallen in.
I crept inside one of those that had no door at all. I felt like an intruder. It was damp and echoing, the range, identical to the one I had left glowing cheerfully in my father’s cottage, cold and with ash spilling out onto the floor. The stairs complained beneath my weight, and I wondered who had lived there. Had they been happy, a little community on the lonely moor? Or were their lives touched with sorrow? I certainly felt an emptiness, or perhaps it was my own grief slithering into every nook and cranny.
I made sure I had my bearings, and by making a mental note of which way I was facing, I ventured a little further. The muffling blanket of eerie mist sent a chill down my spine, and yet I was fascinated by it. I crossed over what must have been the track I had followed my father along. I found the leat and the spout where the water tumbled in a silvery cascade to the stones below. It was set at the right height to place a bucket underneath to catch it. The water was clear and sparkling. I dipped my fingers in it and dared to suck them. It tasted fresh and pure. Perhaps it was safe to drink, after all.
The entrance to the old quarry, Sidney had said. I tried to think of him as my father, but it didn’t feel right. I longed to be able to call him Dad. It would have been comforting. But Dad still meant dear John Hayes, and not the ill-tempered ogre who was a stranger to me.
I stepped forward warily. Not from lack of courage but because I assumed a quarry could be a dangerous place. It was exciting, sparking my imagination, but I didn’t want to break my neck or my ankle, and let Sidney have a field day with snide remarks about my being a waste of space. The ground rose on either side of me like a mountain, grey-green grass and pewter rock towering skywards and forming a narrow canyon. And yet I sensed I was walking on rising ground. It was muddy. My shoes weren’t properly dry yet and I didn’t want a repeat of last night, so I trod carefully, so carefully that when I saw the quarry proper, it took me by surprise.
I stared, dumbfounded. It was a thing of magic and power, a mystic vapour drifting from the sheen of dark, slate water. How deep was it? Fathomless, perhaps. I could imagine the sword Excalibur levitating from its secret depths. On the far side, the sheer rock face soared vertically, the summit lost as it stretched up into the foaming shroud that cloaked the moor that day. I had the impression that the mist was revealing only a small part of the granite wall which was scarred in clear vertical and horizontal lines. I was mesmerised, astonished that a quarry could have such a profound effect on me.
‘Awe-inspiring, isn’t it?’
I nearly jumped out of my skin. The silence and the deadening stillness had wreathed itself about me, and I had believed I was alone. It was disconcerting and yet I was thrilled by it, a new and overwhelming experience for me, as if no other scrap of humanity existed. So to hear a man’s voice not far behind me when it appeared there was no one else for miles around set my heart pumping. If he was of ill-intent, nobody would hear my screams.
I turned round, ready to defend myself. The man was picking his way towards me, hardly the action of an assailant. He was dressed in a black overcoat of a loose, raglan style, and below the hem were black suit-trousers with deep turn-ups and polished black shoes he was trying not to muddy. Beneath his trilby hat, I could see gunmetal grey hair, and his face was lined. His eyes, a chestnut brown as he came up to me, were mournful, and I didn’t feel afraid any more.
He stopped beside me, and his glance swept across the quarry. ‘Took the lives of my father and my grandfather,’ he murmured distantly. ‘Both afore I were born. And both died here in my mother’s arms.’
I held my breath. This wasn’t what I had expected. The sorrow in his voice was so moving. Shattering. ‘Goodness, I’m so sorry,’ I said lamely. But I did feel for
him. I knew what it was to grieve.
I heard him inhale deeply. ‘Oh, it were back along many a year. I’ll be sixty come the spring. And I never knew either of them. My mother, though, she died last week. Funeral’s this afternoon. While I were coming to Tavvy, I thought I’d come up here for old times’ sake. I were born in one of the cottages, you see.’
‘Really?’ I was genuinely intrigued, and I liked his accent. It was like the train guard’s. And I gathered that by Tavvy, he meant Tavistock. But I knew what he was going through. Ellen Hayes’s funeral had been the worst thing. Throat closed so that I couldn’t sing her favourite hymn. I felt I had let her down.
‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ I added with compassion. It was strangely comforting, knowing this man was sharing my own raw grief. ‘I lost my mother a few weeks ago.’
‘Did you?’ His eyes were large and opened wide, like saucers. Handsome eyes. I imagined he had been handsome in his youth. ‘You’re very young to lose your mother. What a tragedy. At least mine were very old. Eighty-four. She remarried. Had a good life. My step-father were a doctor. A lovely man. Died just a few years ago, so this afternoon, they’ll be together again.’
I nodded solemnly. ‘I suppose none of us can complain if we get to be eighty-odd. My mother was seventy-one. She would have been seventy-two just before Christmas.’ I saw him frown, and realised I needed to explain. And somehow it helped, telling this stranger. ‘It turned out she was my grandmother. I didn’t know until she died. My mother was killed in the London Blitz when I was a baby. That’s where I’m from, you see.’
‘I’d guessed you’re not local,’ my new friend smiled. ‘No accent, see. I somehow grew up with one. Much stronger than my mother’s. She always said it were born in me. From my father. But, forgive me, what are you doing here, all alone on the moor, if you’re from London?’
My mouth puckered involuntarily. ‘I’m living here now. With my real father.’
‘What? Here? At Foggintor?’ He sounded incredulous, and I nodded again, this time with a wry smile.
‘Yes. In one of the cottages. The double one.’
‘Good God, I thought they were abandoned years ago.’
‘I think they were, more or less. The last people moved out over a year ago, but it had just been them and my father since soon after the war.’
‘And now it’s just you and your father? And from what you say, you can’t have known him afore?’
I raised an eyebrow. Quite astute, my gentleman of the mist. He seemed kind and I trusted him. ‘Not before yesterday, no.’
‘Yesterday? Goodness. What do you think of him, then?’
‘He’s a bit grumpy,’ I answered evasively.
‘Well, good luck.’ He gave that rueful, understanding smile again. ‘Tell you what, though. You should look up my half-brother in Tavvy. Dr Franfield, he is. A doctor like his father. He’s got children your sort of age. You’d like them. Plymouth Road, they live. I could even meet you again there. I visit quite often. Live in Plymouth myself, see. Never married. Injured in the Great War, like, and even my step-father couldn’t put back…’ He suddenly clammed up as if he had said too much, and his smile stiffened. ‘Anyway, you remember that. Dr Franfield. And I must be going. I mustn’t be late for my mum’s funeral, God rest her soul.’
‘I hope it goes…as well as a funeral can,’ I ventured.
He gave a jerk of his head, his eyes bereft as they cast a final glance across at the majestic walls of the quarry. ‘Thank you. And I hope everything turns out well for you. It’s a privilege to live on the moor, you know. It’s a living thing. It breathes at you. There’s no escaping once it creeps into your blood. You’ll see.’
I blinked at him and nodded. I watched for a moment or two as he retraced his steps, then I turned back to the quarry. The ivory gauze was floating down like swans’ feathers, wiping out the stone walls as if they had never been. Just like my phantom friend. I spun round. I didn’t even know his name. His shadow was dissipating into the ether, and he was gone.
I remained, staring into nothingness. Was he real, or was he a figment of my imagination? A Dartmoor pixie in disguise? Who knows? But I had felt sorry for him. And it had somehow eased my own grief. I wondered quite what had happened to him in the Great War that he seemed to imply had prevented him from marrying. Another war. What a terrible thing. We still had Korea even now.
I shivered as the dampness of the mist penetrated my bones. And turned for home before I lost my sense of direction.
‘I saw the old quarry today,’ I told Sidney that evening. ‘It’s impressive, what I could see of it.’
I had tried to make an impression on him, too, washing over the muddy floor, cleaning the windows and generally scrubbing life into the two downstairs rooms.
‘Don’t you ever go in there again!’ was all the thanks I received for dusting the parlour.
My tongue was burning with an angry response and I clenched my teeth to keep it inside. Instead, I made my father a cup of tea. I had skimmed the fat off the stew, sifted out the gristle and added some extra carrots and onions I had discovered in the walled garden by the track. Presumably Sidney had grown them, and I knew all about vegetables. We had obediently dug for victory during the war. The meal tasted altogether better, but Sidney made no comment.
‘How do you extract the stone?’ I asked, expecting my interest to please him. I wasn’t going to tell him about my mystery man, though. He might not believe that anyone would venture out so far in that dense fog just to look at a quarry. I doubted Sidney would feel the intense emotion I had shared with the stranger.
I was right. ‘What do you want to know for?’ he growled.
‘I’m just interested. Nothing wrong in that, is there?’ I tried not to sound as cross as I felt, and thankfully Sidney appeared not to take umbrage.
‘We use pneumatic drills nowadays,’ he answered, although still somewhat curtly. ‘They were never used here at Foggintor. It closed before they came into use. They had them at Swell Tor, though.’
‘Swell Tor?’
‘You passed it on the train. Closed in 1938, I think, well before my time. That was when most people left here.’ He took another mouthful of stew so that I thought the conversation was closed, but he swallowed and smacked his lips before adding, ‘One or two stayed on, though, working at Merrivale. And some families came from Plymouth to escape the bombing, but they went back as soon as the war was over.’
The war again. I wondered what they had made of the remote hamlet and its living conditions after city life. Just like myself. But if it was a choice between that and being bombed, you’d put up with it. I knew. And the image of Ellen and I singing in the foul-smelling Anderson shelter to chase away the demons as she put it, flashed across my brain. It was a memory I had once wanted to dispose of, but now I wanted to hold onto that closeness we had shared. The closeness of fear. And of having survived together.
It was the most talkative Sidney had been, so I decided to take advantage of his marginally improved mood. ‘So, you drill out the rock, then?’ I prompted.
‘Drill holes along the natural fault lines and then blast it. You need to be highly skilled to deal with the explosives. I don’t do that. Just the drilling and what have you. It’s hard, dusty work. So does that answer your question?’
He poked his nose towards me, eyes glowering, and I shrank away. Not from fear, but from disgust. I thought he’d be glad of my company and my interest. I was his daughter. There was so much I wanted to ask him, and I felt I had a right to do so. And so I braced myself and demanded, ‘Why did you come here? To Dartmoor? Did you particularly want to work at a quarry, or did you fall in love with the moor?’
To my amazement, his face inflated at the simple question, the veins in his neck standing out like ropes. He looked like a red balloon about to explode. If it hadn’t been so frightening, I would have been fascinated.
‘No!’ he suddenly bawled. ‘I came here because there were
no nosey people asking questions!’
If he had hurled a brick in my face, he couldn’t have hurt me more. Surely it was only natural that I should want to know all about him? As I lowered my eyes, I felt slightly sick. I was at a loss to know why my mother – who was dear Ellen’s daughter and surely as lovely – had married such a spiky, bitter man. One who would go on to abandon his only surviving child for no apparent reason. I hadn’t wanted this to be a fight. I wanted it to be an adventure, a new beginning. I wanted to relate to Sidney in some way. To find some tiny, tenuous link between us, but he evidently wanted us to remain strangers.
Sidney had already finished his meal, but I was only halfway through mine. I was so upset, though, that I couldn’t eat any more, so when Sidney got up and stationed himself in the armchair with his Bible, I began to clear away the dishes and washed up, glad of something to do. I glanced across at Sidney. Was he reading a passage about forgiveness, inspiring himself to forgive me for my impertinent questions? But what had I done except show interest in his life? He was my father, when all was said and done!
I chewed my lip. All I had discovered so far was that he was a twisted, mean-mouthed recluse who drilled holes for a living. I would have my work cut out if I was ever going to learn anything about my mother and brothers from him. Perhaps I never would. I wasn’t even sure if I would stay around long enough to find out.
Chapter Three
I slept better that second night, perhaps because, once I was in bed, my thoughts went not to Sidney but to the stranger, my apparition of the quarry. Had I really spoken with him? His had been a sad story, but, unlike Sidney, his unhappiness hadn’t turned to bitterness. I wondered why he lived alone in Plymouth when he clearly loved the moor. Born here. In which cottage, I mused. I imagined him as a toddler, taking his first faltering steps in the mud and never knowing his father. How long had it been before his mother had found love again? I really did hope the old lady’s funeral had gone well. That it had brought the family more comfort than Ellen’s had to me. Dr Franfield and his children. They all had each other. I only had Sidney Latham.