The Roots of the Tree

by Amanda Roberts

A Glimmer of Hope

  Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny, the storm and heavy rains of Friday having cleared the air, leaving it feeling clean and smelling of damp earth. Daniel had looked forward to this promised trip to the zoo for several weeks and was very excited. They stopped at Annie’s house first and found her looking much better than she had done for days. The dark rings under her eyes were still evident but had faded. Emily said she had slept for at least twelve hours thanks to the intervention of Dr Scott. She had also read the information Suzie and Tom had brought back from the National Archives. Annie hugged Suzie and braced herself just in time as Daniel launched himself at her for a huge cuddle.

  ‘And how is my favourite man this morning?’ she greeted Daniel cheerfully.

  ‘I’m really good, Grandma,’ he solemnly replied. ‘Because we’re going to the zoo and I’m going to see real monkeys and real elephants and perhaps some lions and penguins and big snakes, too.’

  ‘How exciting,’ Annie said.

  ‘How do you feel, Mum?’ asked Suzie.

  ‘I keep telling you I’m fine,’ Annie said.

  Suzie frowned.

  ‘Okay, I’ve been finding all of this difficult to deal with, but really, I’m going to be okay. And I feel so much better knowing he didn’t die out there, so far from home in such dreadful circumstances. I think that would have been too much to bear. He may still be alive. I might get to meet him.’

  Suzie and Emily exchanged a quick glance.

  ‘Don’t get your hopes up will you, Mum? Even if we get lucky and manage to trace what happened to him after the war, the chances of him still being alive today are very slim.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Now you get yourselves off to the zoo with that lovely grandson of mine and don’t worry about me. Dr Scott is coming to check on me later. I have Emily here for company and Marie has promised to come round this afternoon, so I’ll be well looked after.’

  Number 16 Glossop Road was a typical 1920s, semi-detached house. It had a small front garden enclosed by a painted wooden fence and a gate leading to a path that wound around a central flower bed containing mature rose bushes before reaching the front door. The garden appeared well tended and although the paintwork was flaky in places on the woodwork of the front door and window frames, the windows themselves were sparkling clean and the brass door knocker and letterbox were well polished.

  ‘Stay in the car with Daniel,’ Suzie said to David. ‘I’m sure I won’t be long.’

  She climbed out of the car, opened the gate and walked to the front door. Seizing the brass knocker, she rapped firmly on the door. It was opened within moments by a neatly dressed lady with short greying hair and glasses with stylish blue frames. Suzie guessed her age to be around fifty.

  ‘If you’re trying to sell me something I’m not interested.’

  Suzie smiled. ‘I am sorry to disturb you, and no, I’m not trying to sell you anything,’ she replied. ‘I’m actually looking for someone who used to live here many years ago.’

  ‘Well, my family has been here since 1951,’ said the woman. ‘That’s a pretty long time.’

  ‘It is,’ agreed Suzie. ‘I know this is a long shot, but the family I am looking for would have been before that in the 1930s and possibly 1940s. Their surname was Johnson.’

  ‘I’m sorry, that name means nothing to me,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Patricia Arnold and my maiden name was Rogers. My mother’s maiden name was Hardcastle. I don’t know of any Johnsons but my mother might. She and my father moved here soon after they were married. They rented from the authorities for years and then when Maggie Thatcher started selling off all the council houses in the 1980s they bought it.’

  Clutching at straws, thought Suzie, remembering David’s words, but there was a glimmer of hope. ‘You said your mother might remember a connection with the Johnson family. Does she still live here?’

  ‘Most of the time,’ replied Patricia. ‘She goes into a hospice every two weeks for a few days to give me a break. I’m her carer. She has cancer, terminal, and it gets hard at times to cope.’

  Suzie nodded sympathetically. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘My mother had to nurse both my grandparents at the end and I know how difficult she found it at times.’

  Patricia looked at the younger woman standing on her doorstep and noticed the car parked on the road outside the house. Daniel, having wound down the window, was waving at her. She found herself smiling.

  ‘Is that your boy?’ she asked.

  Suzie turned around. ‘If you mean the one doing the monkey impression out of the window, yes,’ she replied. ‘We’re on our way to the zoo and I just thought we would call by on our way – clutching at straws, my husband says, but I had to try.’

  ‘I think you’re genuine,’ she said. ‘You can’t be too careful these days, you know. I’m sorry, but you hear such terrible stories of con men and women talking their way into someone’s house and then robbing them or worse. Why don’t you come back in the week. Mum will be back from the hospice on Monday afternoon, so Tuesday would be good. Her body may be giving up on her, but her mind is as sharp as ever and she loves to talk about “the old days”. I’m sure if she can remember the Johnson family she would be quite happy to tell you all about them.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Arnold,’ said Suzie. ‘I’ll do that. Is the afternoon okay?’

  ‘About four o’clock would be perfect,’ Patricia agreed. ‘Mum will have had her afternoon rest by then.’

  ‘See you then,’ said Suzie and turned back to the car. ‘Oh ye of little faith,’ she couldn’t help boasting to David as she climbed back into the car. ‘That lady’s mother has lived here since 1951. I’m coming back to see her on Tuesday. You never know, she might remember them.’

  David smiled but said nothing. He knew Suzie well enough to know that her cup was always half full and that once she got her teeth into something it took more than several brick walls to make her back off. And he had to admit she’d already unearthed more information than he would have thought possible, so who was he to criticise?

  15

  An Old Lady Remembers

  At just before 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon Suzie once again seized the brass door knocker and rapped firmly on the door of 16 Glossop Road. She felt oddly nervous, as if she might be about to have a first date with someone she desperately wanted to impress. In one sense, she supposed, she was.

  Patricia Arnold opened the door almost immediately, this time with a smile on her face. ‘Mother’s looking forward to meeting you,’ she said. ‘She’s on good form today and longing for a brand new audience.’ She stepped aside to let Suzie into the hall. ‘Mum has a room downstairs these days,’ she explained as she pushed open the door into what would probably once have been the dining room but which was now furnished as a bedroom. A single bed covered with a floral-patterned quilt occupied the wall facing the door. At the foot of the bed, double glass doors opened into a large and airy conservatory that also appeared to be accessed via the kitchen.An elderly lady was sitting in one of two armchairs facing a modern gas fire watching a portable television. She had a table by her side on which was placed a mug of tea, a paperback novel and a remote control for the TV.

  ‘Mum, this is the lady I told you about who wants to find out about a family that used to live here.’

  The old lady turned to face Suzie who held out her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Rogers. I’m Suzie Henderson,’ she said, holding out her hand, which the old lady took in a surprisingly firm grip. Her face was gaunt and she looked thin, but her eyes were clear and bright and Suzie knew Patricia was right – her mother might be frail, but she still possessed a keen intelligence and hopefully a good memory, too, she thought to herself.

  ‘Hello, dear,’ Mrs Rogers said. ‘Please sit down. My daughter will get you some tea won’t you, Pat love? You don’t know what a treat it is to have someone to talk to who actually wants to listen. When you get to my age everyone has heard all of your
reminiscences several times and is completely bored with them. They pretend otherwise but there is nothing wrong with my brain and I can see the shutters going down as they think, “Oh here we go again”!’

  ‘We’re not like that, Mum,’ chided Patricia, returning with a mug of tea for Suzie and a plate of biscuits.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ replied the old lady. ‘It doesn’t matter. I understand, but my memories are precious to me; they’re all I’ve got left and I probably won’t have those for much longer.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that, Mum. There’s plenty of fight in you yet,’ said Patricia.

  ‘Now be gone with you and let me talk to Suzie,’ said Mrs Rogers cheerfully. ‘I don’t want to waste any time and you know how tired I get.’

  Patricia squeezed her mum’s hand affectionately. ‘Just call me when you need me,’ she said and left the room.

  Suzie smiled at the old lady.

  ‘Now, it’s a family that used to live here that you want to know about,’ Mrs Rogers said.

  ‘Yes,’ confirmed Suzie. ‘Their name was Johnson.’

  The old lady’s eyes lit up. ‘I thought it might be them,’ she said. ‘Patricia couldn’t remember the name you were looking for, but I couldn’t remember any other family living in this house in all my years in this neighbourhood.’

  Suzie took a deep breath, hardly daring to believe that her search may be nearing an end.

  ‘You knew them then?’ she ventured.

  ‘Of course I did. I knew everyone in the street back in those days. Not like today when everyone keeps themselves to themselves. No community spirit any more. Anyway, we moved into this house after old Mr Johnson left. We being my dear husband, Harold, and I.’ She pointed to an old black and white photograph occupying pride of place on the centre of the mantelpiece. It was a head and shoulders image of a young Mrs Rogers with masses of dark hair piled high on her head under a white headdress and veil thrown backwards from her forehead, looking up into the eyes of a tall and handsome man, probably in his early thirties. They were laughing and totally absorbed in each other.

  ‘Our wedding day,’ said Mrs Rogers. ‘He died ten years ago now. He was a bit older than me, mind. I had lived on this street all my life and I always reckoned this was one of the best houses. I was thrilled to get it when Mr Johnson had to go into a nursing home. His wife was already dead, their children were grown and had long since left home, so no one wanted it any more. Harold and I were top of the waiting list. I knew this house so well. When I was a teenager, my best friend, Celia, lived here.’

  Mrs Rogers’ narrative was interrupted as Suzie gasped.

  ‘Are you okay, dear?’ Suzie nodded and reached for her mug of tea, her hand shaking as she lifted it to her lips. ‘Did Celia ever mention an old school friend called Lily?’ she managed to ask.

  Mrs Rogers frowned. ‘Is that the girl who drowned in the lock?’ she demanded. ‘I seem to remember her name was Lily.’

  ‘Yes,’ whispered Suzie. ‘She would have been my great aunt, but I didn’t know she had ever existed until a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Is that why you want to know about the Johnsons?’ demanded Mrs Rogers, her tone less friendly than it had been. ‘Because that whole business was devastating for them. Celia’s mother never recovered from it, especially the hounding they all got from Lily’s father and the press. She was riddled with guilt as it was. She never forgave herself, always felt she should have kept a better eye on what the girls were doing. They moved here to get away from it all. Celia’s parents rarely talked about it – they feared the scandal and the gossip would follow them, but Celia told me about it. You know how teenage girls are, nothing like a good secret to whisper about behind closed doors. By the time I knew Celia, when we were sixteen years old, her mother was an alcoholic – she had sought refuge in the gin bottle after the accident – and Celia was pretty much running the house and looking after her younger brothers. It was no life for a young girl.’

  Suzie felt the reproach in Mrs Rogers’ piercing eyes as she fixed them on the younger woman’s face. She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s more complicated than that. That accident had a devastating effect on my family, too, so much so that no one ever talked of her. My mother didn’t know she should have had an Aunt Lily, her grandfather never got over the loss of his daughter and I know he never forgave the Johnsons, which had even more devastating consequences than you can possibly imagine.’

  Mrs Rogers recognised the emotion in Suzie’s voice and her tone softened. ‘I’ve always said there are two sides to every story,’ she said. ‘I thought it was going to be me telling you stories this afternoon, but maybe it’s going to be the other way round.’

  ‘It’s Edward Johnson I want to find out about,’ said Suzie.

  ‘Celia’s older brother,’ said Mrs Rogers slowly. ‘He was always a bit of an enigma to me. He was very handsome.

  Any of Celia’s friends, myself included, would have been glad to walk out with him, but he wasn’t interested. These days they would have speculated that his lack of interest in his sister’s friends meant he was more interested in boys, but that thought never crossed our minds. Then he signed up to the regiment and went away. We hardly saw him again until after the war. He had been a POW. The family had so little information they had given him up for dead. Celia was devastated – she adored her older brother. Then they got word that he had been rescued from some camp or other and was on his way home. They were so happy. But he wasn’t the same as the man who had left. Oh, I don’t just mean he’d lost weight and looked older. That was inevitable after what he had been through. None of us could even begin to comprehend what he had experienced in those days immediately after the end of the war. It was only later that we started to learn of the conditions. Of course, he didn’t want to talk about it. But it was more than that. It was as if he was haunted and he didn’t get better. If time is a great healer it went the other way with Edward. If anything, he got worse the longer he was back. Eventually, he left. I think he went back to work for the family he had been with before the war. In any case, he left the area and never came back. Soon after that Celia got married and moved away. I met Harold and we all lost touch. Old Mr Johnson moving out of this house was the last contact we had. I don’t know what happened to any of them after that. I was too busy by then in the house of my dreams with a man I loved, children arriving. I don’t have many regrets, but I do wish I had managed to keep in touch with Celia.’

  Fatigue was starting to show on Mrs Rogers’ face and her voice was wavering a little. Suzie could sense Patricia hovering by the door, conscious that her mother would be tiring and wondering whether to interrupt. Before she could make a decision, Mrs Rogers’ keen eyes were once again focused on Suzie.

  ‘But why do you want to know about Edward?’ she asked.

  Suzie swallowed painfully and took a deep breath. ‘Because I have just found out that he was my grandfather. My grandmother was Elsie Williams, Lily’s younger sister.’

  Watching from the door, Patricia saw the shock register on her mother’s face and made her move. ‘I think you need to rest now, Mum,’ she said, entering the room.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Mrs Rogers gasped, ignoring her daughter. Her voice sounded weak. ‘It can’t be true. Are you sure? Mr Johnson would never have allowed his son – or any of his children – to be involved with anyone from the Williams family.’

  ‘He didn’t know,’ said Suzie gently. ‘Nobody knew, only Elsie and Ted.’

  ‘Mum, I must insist. You look exhausted,’ Patricia interrupted. This time the old lady made no attempt to resist as her daughter helped her to cross the room from the chair to the bed where she lay down. ‘Come back and tell me if you find him,’ she whispered as Suzie left the room.

  16

  The Final Piece of the Puzzle

  ‘He came back for you, Mum.’

  Suzie was sitting on the sofa in her mother’s lounge. Although listening to the conversation, David w
as constructing a complicated train track with Daniel, which wound in and out of the furniture with sidings, bridges and level crossings. Emily and Jack were either side of Suzie on the sofa and Annie was in her favourite armchair, Marmaduke curled up on her lap. She still looked tired, but her eyes had lost that faraway look. She had listened carefully to Suzie’s account of her meeting with Mrs Rogers and far from plunging her back into bleakness and despair, she felt renewed optimism.

  ‘If Mrs Rogers’ memory of Edward after the war is true, it would imply that it was Elsie or Frank who sent him away. He couldn’t bear it and moved out of the area,’ suggested Jack.

  ‘That is certainly one interpretation,’ agreed Annie.

  ‘I need to find the de Lacey family and persuade them to talk to me,’ said Suzie. ‘He must have gone back to work for them.’

  ‘My dear,’ said Emily. ‘It’s very unlikely that anyone from the de Lacey family who was involved with employing him is still alive; they would have to be over a hundred years old.’

  Suzie sighed. ‘It’s the same problem over again, isn’t it? So much time has passed that no one’s left who can tell us the truth and fill in those vital missing pieces of the puzzle. But we’ve come so far now we have to keep trying until we’ve exhausted every possible angle.’

  Three weeks later, Suzie was beginning to feel that she had exhausted every possible angle and would have to accept that she never would find those final, elusive fragments that would enable her to close the book on this most unexpected and most fascinating chapter of her family’s history.

  Between them, Suzie, Tom and Marie had identified and investigated every public source of information they could think of, including the electoral role and the local register of births, marriages and deaths. They had even cast the net wider than Barminster to see if they could find Edward Johnson in London, believing that may have been where the de Lacey family had moved to after they left Chaddington Manor. Not surprisingly, they had found plenty of Edward Johnsons, but none that could be the Edward Johnson they were looking for.They had, however, found a possible address for the de Lacey family – or at least descendants of them. With a far more unusual name, there were only a few matches – one in Hertfordshire and one in London. Suzie was having a debate with herself over whether she could go and knock on their door and simply ask for information. Why not, part of her demanded. After all, that’s what she did at Patricia Arnold’s house. But then another part of her conscience reminded her that she had written a letter to the de Laceys, to which she had not received a reply, so if she did turn up on their doorstep, was her reception likely to be favourable? Who cares, said another part. And who knows whether that letter had actually reached anyone who could help?