The Scarlet Sisters

by Helen Batten

  ‘Here it is,’ Clara said under her breath.

  She felt Alice grab her hand. ‘Oh, Mum, I’m gonna miss you.’

  Clara couldn’t say anything. She just squeezed the hand.

  And then the noisy, smoky engine pulled in. There was the slamming of doors, people jumping out, people jumping in. Alice grabbed her suitcase and stumbled.

  Clara took it out of her hands and pushed her towards an open door. ‘Get in. I’ll pass it to you. Quick.’

  Clara had been running through this moment in her head and it wasn’t turning out how she had imagined. Too panicky, too quick. But at least Alice was in a compartment. Clara hauled the suitcase up after her and shoved it in.

  Alice just stood, staring at her.

  ‘Come on, close the door then.’

  Alice slammed the door, and then leaned out of the window. Suddenly she looked young, younger than her sixteen years.

  Clara had gone to a lot of trouble to make her a new outfit. Its main feature was a blue-grey, long coat that complemented her fair complexion and periwinkle Swain eyes. The coat was nipped in with a belt to show off her neat waist, and covered a full skirt that was fashionably short, coming to her mid-calves. Alice was also wearing a new soft felt hat that was almost the same blue. It was perched jauntily on the side of her head. Her auburn waves completed the look. But what caught Clara’s eye was the way she was clutching the open window with hands wearing brand new white gloves. Clara’s grocery shop, now open on the high street, had bought those kid gloves and she felt a moment’s pride. Alice looked beautiful, but so young, like a child dressing up in adult’s clothes, playing pretend. Too young to be leaving her family, travelling all the way to distant relations who had never even condescended to meet Clara. It felt wrong.

  A whistle blew, and the train started to creep off with a slow chug, and then another, and another, faster.

  ‘Are you going to be all right, Mum?’ Alice shouted as the distance between them grew.

  So Alice was as worried about Clara as Clara was about Alice. It was the wrong way round, against the natural order of things.

  ‘’Course I am!’ Clara shouted back, trying not to look upset.

  The train started to move off faster.

  ‘Bye, Mum. Love you!’ Alice shouted.

  Clara waved and nodded. She realised one of her hands was clasped over her mouth. Then she pulled herself together. It couldn’t be helping Alice. She should walk away. Like Lot’s wife – if she turned to look back at her daughters left in Sodom and Gomorrah, she’d end up as a pillar of salt and that wouldn’t help anybody.

  So Clara walked determinedly out of the station. Inside the pain was physical – grief, like losing her father, like losing her son, all over again. Sometimes you have to let go of the people you love. Clara knew this was best for Alice. So did Alice.

  In the end there hadn’t really been a choice.

  It had all come from a rather unexpected source. Charlie Swain Senior had been estranged from his family ever since they had sent him down to London in disgrace. He had received a letter to say his father had died, years before, but after that, nothing. Then, out of the blue, another letter arrived on their doormat.

  Katie picked it up and ran into the kitchen. ‘Who’s this for, Mum?’

  Clara took it from her and peered at it closely. ‘It’s for your dad.’

  ‘Who’s it from?’

  Clara studied the handwriting. She didn’t recognise it. ‘I don’t know, Nose Ointment.’ Then she looked at the postmark: Luton. That was interesting.

  When Charlie came home for his lunch, the first thing she did was to hand it to him. ‘Letter for you.’

  Charlie looked surprised. He recognised the handwriting straight away. ‘It’s my mother.’ He sat down and opened it.

  Clara watched his face closely. ‘Bad news?’

  ‘No … well, yes and no.’ He was taking his time reading what looked like only a few lines.

  ‘So?’

  ‘My aunt, Mary Ann, has died. Mother wants to know if I can come to the funeral.’

  ‘Oh. That’s a bit sudden, isn’t it? What do you think that’s about, then?’

  ‘Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?’

  ‘So you’re going?’

  Charlie stared at Clara. She didn’t like it when he looked at her like that. Hostile.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I am. It’s about time I saw my family.’

  ‘And I’m not invited.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘And that’s all right?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t see why not. It’s a family occasion.’

  There was a very obvious answer that Clara could make to that. She thought about it and then decided to let it go. She was working hard on picking her battles, otherwise their home would make the Western Front seem like a mere scrap in the playground.

  ‘I’ll take one of the girls with me.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? Why?’

  ‘It will be good for them to meet my family.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think it will be good for Dora to do another funeral.’

  It was over two years since Charlie Junior died, but Dora was still having nightmares.

  ‘No, I was thinking of Katie.’

  ‘Katie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’s the prettiest.’

  It was true, Katie did have neat little features: a tipped-up nose and pretty, rosebud mouth. Bertha was seen as a bit pale, ginger and skinny. But Charlie saying this out loud sent a massive, visceral wave of protectiveness towards her other daughters through Clara.

  ‘What are you like?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  But he wasn’t going to find out because at that moment Charlie became aware of his twin daughters standing quietly in the corner, watching. Grace was standing behind them.

  ‘Katie, I’m taking you to see your aunts and your family. What do you think of that?’ He stood up and swept a rather surprised Katie in his arms.

  Bertha stood back and looked up at her mum. ‘What about me? Am I going?’

  ‘No. You’re staying here to help me,’ Clara said quickly.

  Bertha kept quiet but was mortally offended.

  She wasn’t the only one. Later that night, in the bed the sisters all shared, there was talk.

  ‘Why’s Dad taking you, Bossy Boots?’ Alice asked, poking Katie.

  ‘Because I’m the best.’

  ‘Rubbish.’

  ‘It’s because he thinks she’s the prettiest. But he doesn’t know you like we do,’ Grace said, sniffing.

  ‘You’re only jealous.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re pretty now but that’s ’cos you’re five. Wait and see. You’re gonna be a right heffalump by the time you’re ten,’ Grace said, poking her again.

  Katie leapt up and tried to wallop her big sister, but instead managed to crush Dora’s leg.

  ‘Ow! Watch it, idiot!’

  At which point Bertha started to wail.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Well, I’m five too, and Dad’s not taking me.’

  ‘Oh, baby … who wants to go anyway? Better off staying here with us.’ Alice had a soft spot for the little quiet one.

  ‘Yeah. Just think – a dead body being lowered slowly into the ground, everyone in black, crying, veils covering their faces, and the ghost of dead Great-Aunt Mary Ann looking down on you, watching … Urggghhh! I wouldn’t go, no way. You’re better off here.’ Dora pulled Bertha close and flung the covers over both their heads.

  Alice and Grace giggled. Dora’s melodrama could be quite useful sometimes.

  ‘Shut up, all of you. I ain’t afraid of no dead body,’ Katie said gamely.

  ‘We’ll see,’ Dora mumbled from under the covers prophetically. Then they all went quiet as they remembered their brother.

  By the time Charlie and Katie set off for Luton, Bertha’s quiet envy h
ad reached boiling point. The final straw was having to watch her sister being dressed by their mother by the kitchen fire during breakfast.

  Clara helped Katie step into a brand new black silk dress with lots of frothy petticoats and a huge sash. Katie was wriggling and complaining: ‘Oh, Mum, it hurts. It’s too tight.’

  ‘Shah! It’s not too tight.’

  Bertha suddenly snapped: ‘Shut up!’ She picked up her bowl of porridge and threw it across the kitchen, where it landed on the wall right next to the mark where Clara had thrown the iron ladle a few years before.

  There was silence, everyone shocked.

  Katie’s trip gave Bertha evidence of what she had felt ever since she could remember – that she was the spare, unwanted child. Even worse, a girl. She used to say, ‘I was the bottom of the barrel.’ This feeling was the key to how Nanna moved through the world.

  Take Nanna’s name – Bertha. Names say something profound about how our parents see us – their hopes and dreams, and what we mean to them. The name Clara and Charlie chose for Nanna set the tone for how she saw herself. Clara loved the name Katie: it was a family name, and so it was given to her as the firstborn twin. But the baby no one knew was coming – well, while she could think of plenty of boys’ names, there were no girls’ names left in Clara’s head or heart. So she plucked a name out of the ether. As it happened ‘Bertha’ turned out to be a rather unfortunate choice because, just a few years later, ‘Big Bertha’ was the nickname the army gave to any large German gun. Nanna was teased mercilessly at school. And she thought Bertha sounded ugly. Later on, she would change her name to Betty.

  Meanwhile, she had an enduring love for the name Katie. When I was expecting Poppy, she kept on saying, ‘Why don’t you call her Katie?’ And then again, when I was pregnant with Amber: ‘I think Katie’s a lovely name.’ Well, yes, it’s a nice name, but there were others I preferred. Even my mum urged me to consider Katie. Why? What were they trying to resolve with this gesture? One thing I did know was that I wanted my baby to have no part in this. I wanted a fresh slate and a clean page for her. I wouldn’t saddle my baby with the baggage of four generations of female ancestors. But then, who was I kidding? If only it was just about giving them a new name.

  Anyway it was odd, Nanna’s relationship with her twin. She loved her, and yet competed with her. It was the Carnation milk anecdote. Nanna never quite got over the fact that her mother, unable to breastfeed them both, had chosen to feed Katie. Clara said it was because Katie was the weaker of the two, but Bertha wasn’t convinced, and still simmered with resentment. She sometimes wickedly put Katie down, and yet sort of wanted to be her, but was glad she wasn’t. Genuinely mixed and mixed up. Having a prettier, more confident, more loved twin, whom Bertha herself loved to bits and indeed leant on, made it all a bit complicated.

  Nanna hid this sense of being unwanted, but her actions were telling. Despite being self-effacing she was adept at drawing attention to herself. For example, her clothes. Mum tells how Nanna made herself the most lurid check coat during the Second World War – bright red and green, large plaid. It clashed with her red hair but heads turned and comments were made on every outing. Nanna had her ways of stating her existence: I am here! I exist! In my bright plaid coat which clashes with my hair, you will take notice of me!

  Yes, Nanna was most put out not to have been chosen to go to Great-Aunt Mary Ann’s funeral. However, in this instance, she definitely had the last laugh.

  Great-Aunt Mary Ann had been the landlady of the Royal Hotel public house in Luton. Now her body was lying in state in the upstairs of the Royal and, according to the tradition of the time, was receiving visitors before it was buried.

  When Charlie arrived with Katie, the female Swains were rather abrupt. Sitting in the private dining room above the bar – Great-Aunt Mary Ann residing in the front room – they were all having afternoon tea. It was quite intimidating. There was his mother, Caroline, looking considerably older and stouter, and a selection of aunts and uncles and cousins, all in black.

  ‘We didn’t expect you to bring a child with you,’ were Charlie’s mother’s first words, after twenty years.

  ‘This is Katie. Go on, say hello to your grandmother.’

  It wasn’t as if Katie wasn’t used to mourning. She still remembered the house after Charlie Junior died – the windows closed, the clock stopped and all of them in black. But there was so much more mourning in this huge pub – the blinds were closed so the room was in semi-darkness; the large mirror had a cloth over it (in case the spirit of Great-Aunt Mary Ann got caught in it); and the aunts were all wearing heavy veils and black gloves, tea cups delicately poised.

  Her father nudged her forwards.

  ‘Good afternoon, Grandmother.’ She found herself curtseying.

  Charlie smiled proudly but his cousin Sarah just said: ‘I haven’t got anywhere to put her, you know. We have a room for you, but otherwise the hotel is full.’

  ‘Well, she’ll just have to draw up a chair in the front room and spend the night with your aunt, may she rest in peace,’ Caroline said. ‘Is that all right?’

  Charlie didn’t think it was all right at all, but all he could do was nod.

  Katie didn’t like the sound of the ‘may she rest in peace’ but knew better than to ask.

  When it came to bedtime Katie was ushered into the front room and shown a chair right next to the open coffin of her great-aunt. And there she spent a long night, surrounded by spluttering candles, next to the body of her dead relative – coins on her eyes, a bandage tied round her chin, and cotton wool in her mouth.

  Of course the first question Clara asked Charlie when he arrived back – with a rather pale and subdued Katie – was why the black sheep had been taken back into the fold.

  ‘I’ve no idea. No one said anything to me, not about nothing.’ But then Charlie had to put his boot in: ‘Except the usual, “Oh, fancy all girls – no son.”’ Clara looked away. He said it like it was her fault. A lot of the time it did feel like her fault. ‘No – perhaps this is it. Remember I told you that my aunt Charlotte is married to a hat maker?’

  Clara nodded.

  ‘Well, this William she’s married to is doing pretty well. He’s got his own business and they need to take on some more girls. Anyway, they’ve asked if Alice would like to work for them.’

  Clara had to sit down.

  ‘Think about it – it’s a great opportunity. She can’t help you out in the shop for ever, not with Grace too.’

  ‘I know,’ she said.

  It was difficult to argue with Charlie. With the war coming to an end, men were pouring back from France looking for work. With 40 per cent of soldiers unemployed, jobs were scarce. Since she had left school two years before, Alice had been helping Clara in her shop. It was a happy arrangement. But now Grace had left school too, and there wasn’t enough work for them both, and the family could do with one less mouth to feed.

  One of the few industries that was still an exclusively women’s preserve was hat making. The wages were uncommonly high – so high that Luton had a reputation for slovenly houses and lazy men: the women being too busy to scrub their floors, and earning so much that the men didn’t bother to work. There was competition for their skills, too, so a small company like William’s had a high turnover of young women – good workers were often poached by one of the big factories with the promise of higher wages. But a young lady relative would be more likely to stay.

  Alice also had a sewing pedigree: one of Clara’s sisters was seamstress to the royal family, while Charlie’s brother Sidney was the official tailor to Wormwood Scrubs prison (a fact which always conjures up images of grey boiler suits with arrows on them). Added to this, Alice had started picking up sewing skills when her mother ran Darn It!.

  Most importantly, Alice would be learning a trade.

  As Clara had explained to Alice, it was a great opportunity.

  But Alice had just looked at her mum askance. ‘You
promised you would never send me away, EVER.’

  Clara was silent. In the end all she could say was, ‘It won’t be for ever. I’ll find a way to bring you back. You’ll see.’

  Alice had flung her arms around her mum’s neck. They had never been parted and Clara was only too aware how much they had been through together.

  So, in the autumn of 1918, Clara waved goodbye to Alice on the platform of Marlow station.

  She wouldn’t see her again for a year.

  Charlie Swain was not a bad man. He had feelings. In fact, in some ways he had too many feelings.

  On the journey back from France, he had known that the main problem he had just then was in finding a credible story for why he was home after little more than a year fighting for Queen and country, pretty much as fit as he had left, with the war raging fiercely and men needed at the Front more than ever. But it turned out that that was the easy part.

  Charlie suspected that not everyone believed his tale of gas canisters rolling under trucks – especially his wife – but no one openly challenged him. The brewery gave him back his job, and he was given a hero’s welcome in the pub.

  It was Charlie’s conscience that was the problem: it didn’t take him long to realise that his white lie was going to mess with his head. He had been looking forward to getting away from the shells on the French roads; however, he hadn’t counted on the lethal emotional grenades that would explode when he got back home.

  When Charlie got back to the brewery most of the men had gone, their places taken by older men, and women. It’s not that he minded the new intake, but they made him feel uncomfortable. Why was he there when they weren’t? Was he no more use than an old man, or a woman? Unfortunately, the army had given an unequivocal answer to that one.

  He’d only been back a couple of weeks and was engrossed in mending a broken pump, when Bill came over. ‘Here, Charlie – have you heard the news? Young Johnny Price is coming back.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s back home and they say he’s starting any day now.’

  Charlie was confused. ‘But I thought he’d lost a leg?’