by Rhian Ivory
‘Now if you were just arriving in the workhouse you would be split up from your family, males and females were kept separate, parents and children divided. They had different sleeping and working quarters and very different jobs. The men on the whole got the worst jobs; bone picking was bottom of the heap as well as stone breaking. The women tended to work in the laundry rooms or plaited straw, were seamstresses or given general cleaning and cooking duties.’ As Mr Bourne talks each of us has a turn at the water pump or with the mangle. Beth lifts the handle of the pump but can’t get it working. I try but it is freezing cold, despite the heat of the sun.
‘They must have disconnected it so kids don’t get the yard wet or something,’ Beth mutters, watching my useless attempts to get some water in the bucket.
Theo barges into me, knocking me out of the way and takes his turn, yanking the arm of the pump really hard over and over until it looks like he might break it. I smirk, glad that he hasn’t got it to work either. He stops and stares at me.
‘Funny, is it, yeah? Well, it depends on what you find freaky, I guess. Depends on how much you want to push your luck, doesn’t it?’ He sneers at me and rubs his bruised red cheek. Harley pats him on the shoulder and murmurs something about ‘time and place, mate, time and place’. Beth is kneeling down trying out a mangle with a scrubbing brush; she looks up when she hears Theo snap at me. She gives both of us a death stare this time.
‘Suits you, Beth, doing the scrubbing. Do you think that’s what you’d have been, a little scrubber in the workhouse?’
Beth flings the brush into the bucket, gets to her feet and marches over to Eva, ready to give her a mouthful for that, but Eva talks right over her, turning to show Beth her back and starting to flirt with Mr Bourne.
‘Hey, maybe you should split us up, Sir, like it would have happened in the old days? You know, keep the boys separate from us girls so we can’t get up to anything! Cos some people just don’t know what or who’s good for them! Some people have to be told.’ Eva smiles sweetly at Mr Bourne and then points at me and Beth. Georgia forces a laugh, looking anxiously from Eva’s fake smile to Beth’s furious face, unsure what to do next. Clearly Eva has decided the silent treatment is over and it’s time to make some trouble.
‘Do you know that’s not such a bad idea, Eva? Let’s really try to understand what life would have been like here for children nobody wanted, you know, complete rejects,’ Beth fires back.
‘Yes, well done, Eva!’ Mr Bourne cuts in, sensing the tension between the girls. He organises us into single-sex groups. I get dumped with Theo, Harley and Sam as Beth is herded into the kitchens with Georgia and Eva.
The sun hides behind a cloud and I shiver, feeling the drop in temperature right down to my feet. I look down and see water splashing over my baseball boots. It is gushing out of the water pump, flowing out into the yard. Theo has got the water pump working and has angled it to flow over my feet just as the rain starts hammering down again. He and Harley laugh, punching each other on the shoulder. They hover by the water pump watching everyone else file out of the courtyard, but don’t follow. Harley has something behind his back. Theo moves in front of him to shield him from view. They see me watching and stop laughing. Their silence echoes around the almost empty courtyard. I can smell the storm coming, there’s a tang in the air. I look across at Sam, who smiles carefully and waves his hand towards the doors. I follow him, trying really hard not to stop or turn around to see what they are up to. I don’t want to give them the satisfaction.
Upstairs in the dormitories are beds that look like they belong in a hospital with grey woollen sheets over them, white chamber pots underneath. Next to each bed is a peg halfway up the wall. Again it is like a tessellation, patterns repeated without any variation, colour or warmth. The windows are huge and let in a lot of light but it still feels dark to me.
I am heavy inside, heavy and low standing there imagining what it would have been like. It isn’t just the company of Theo and Harley that’s getting to me, it’s the place. It is so cold, empty and soulless. In each room are information boards with old photos, records, lists of admittances, family histories and case studies. There are a lot of people from Sible Hedingham, so the work Mr Bourne had set us isn’t exactly challenging.
Theo sneers, ‘Let’s go down into the kitchens. It says here that a bunch of people from the village ended up down there, there’s a woman who used to work in The Swan and another bloke who was her husband and … oh, look at this, an imbecile! This is bang out of order. Seriously rude! Can you imagine that, Sam, being called a perv or freak? Hey, Noah, wonder what they’d have put next to your name? Liar, spy, or just village idiot?’
My temper flares and I’m halfway across the room before I’ve had a chance to think anything through. I push him hard in the chest, making sure I stand tall over him. Sam hovers next to me, worried I’ll hit Theo again, but by this point I’m past caring.
‘I don’t know what your problem is but leave me and Beth out of it,’ I tell Theo.
‘Let’s just go, Noah.’ Sam tries to get me out of there.
‘Yeah? Got something to hide from Beth, have you Noah? I’m guessing you’re not the only one either. We’ve all got our little secrets, haven’t we, Sam?’ Theo leers at me, his voice too confident as he swaggers towards Sam.
‘Whatever, Theo. I’m going down to the kitchens. You coming, Noah?’ Sam says, trying hard to ignore Theo’s comments.
‘You can stay up here if you like, talking about imbeciles – you’re in good company.’ I point at Harley, no longer caring how they’ll take it. I follow Sam out of the room, but Theo grabs the back of my shirt, pulling me off my feet. I hear the material rip as Mr Bourne walks into the room, slamming the door behind him.
‘What-the-hell-is-going-on-in-here?’ he hisses at us, making each word louder and angrier than the rest. He looks around him in disbelief. ‘Noah, get up off the floor now; give him a hand up, Sam. Theo and Harley, go and find Miss Empingham’s group. GO! Noah, you can come with me and the girls, you too, Sam.’ He holds his hand up as if to say no argument.
I am delighted, I’d much rather be with the girls. I grin at Theo and Harley as they are sent out of the room. I stick two fingers up at them, making sure Mr Bourne doesn’t see me. Sam puts his hand over his mouth to cover his laughter as we follow Mr Bourne out of the dormitory and down the stairs to the kitchen where he’s left the girls. So many feet have gone up and down them that the stairs are worn in the middle, making them very uneven. There’s little light so I go slowly, taking care not to fall into the back of Sam. I’m not in a hurry to get to the kitchens; there’s a damp smell coming up the stairs. Something lingers in the air, weighing me down. I nearly lose my footing on the sharp ledge of the last step.
CHAPTER 34
BLAZE
When she left this time, taking my soup bowl and cup with her, I followed her out. The corridors were empty, silent and long. Everyone else must be asleep. I waited for her to go down the stairs first and stepped lightly after her. She walked slowly down the passageway into the kitchens. I hid in the storage areas when she stopped to rub at her back. She kept going, all the way down into the dark basement. She placed the bowl and cup in the large enamel sink and sat down heavily in a chair at the table. We were alone. I folded myself up into a crevice in the wall, full of bags of clean straw, and waited.
She didn’t take long to fall asleep; her snoring was soon steady and even. I untangled my legs and trod lightly across the floor; her back was to me so I couldn’t see her face but her shoulders rose and fell as her snoring grew stronger. I knelt down at her skirts and looked for the keys that hung from her belt – I didn’t touch her yet, I didn’t want to risk waking her. The ring holding the keys was large and heavy looking, there were so many keys, and I didn’t know which one I needed so I had to take them all. I tentatively touched the hook with my fingers, it was cold and hard. My thumb and first finger pinched and pushed to undo the catch
on her belt. But it wouldn’t move. I pushed at it again but it was stuck.
I spotted a pat of butter uncovered on the table and rubbed my fingers in it, then smeared some around the catch, hoping to loosen it. The grease worked and it fell away from the belt into my hand. I clasped my fingers around the keys to stop them clanging against one another. I stayed crouched and silent a moment longer, expecting her to wake, to grab my hand and call for help. But she didn’t, she simply slept on.
I walked through the outer kitchens and the cold storerooms and felt the temperature dip as I reached the great oak door to the long tunnel. There were too many keys. I searched by size, imagining a door this big will match a large key. I tried three before I got the right one. The lock turned, I pushed the door open and stepped through into the corpse tunnel.
I had been in here before, watching as they rolled the cart along, piled high with bodies, bones and limbs, my mother’s body in there somewhere. I held my breath tight in my mouth as they loaded the bodies onto a waiting cart and horse. But there was no one down here now, no men passing the dead out into the night, taking them off to be buried on the wrong side of the church wall. Tonight it was just me and all the sad souls who had travelled through this tunnel under the cover of darkness.
I was not afraid.
I had nothing to fear from the dead and more to fear from the living and that pushed me on. That knowledge drove me along the wet and cold tunnel lit only by the moon flooding in through the grates. The drip, drip, drip of the rain kept a steady beat and I marched to it. I marched towards the great rounded door at the end and knew that this was the only way out. I just hoped I had the key that would set me free.
CHAPTER 35
NOAH
‘These long narrow passageways leading off the kitchen were the brewery tunnels. You see, they gave beer to the inmates with most meals, even the children. I know, it must seem very strange to your generation but beer was cheaper than tea, which was regarded as a treat or luxury. It was given to the older women sometimes, but more often than not to the sick and infirm.’ Mr Bourne points along the thin tunnel that seems to have no end in sight. People are grouped together in threes and fours as we walk along the brick floor which has water trickling down from the low walls and curved roof. The storm must have broken.
There are small stores off to the left all along the tunnel with empty barrels to show us what it would have looked like. I take Beth’s hand in the dark, knowing we’ll be unseen, and after a few seconds’ hesitation she wraps her fingers around mine. Eva and Georgia are in front with Mr Bourne and some other girls. Mr Bourne is stooping to avoid hitting his head on the roof. I concentrate on doing the same. Eva carries on taking centre stage asking Mr Bourne question after question, doing a good job of pretending to be interested, the model student.
‘So what else were these tunnels used for then, Sir? It said in the records room upstairs that the tunnels had more than one use. Beth said that some people from our village used them for deliveries or maybe it was smuggling! Beth’s really good at spotting stuff like that, you know, little secrets people like to keep,’ Eva presses on, turning around to smile sweetly at us.
Beth looks up at me, shaking her head. ‘I didn’t say anything in the records room. I don’t know what she’s up to.’ I squeeze her hand tighter and pull her a little bit closer to me. This time she doesn’t move away.
‘Well, that’s a good observation. These tunnels did, in fact, have another use; I’m surprised you spotted that, well done, Beth. These tunnels were also known as corpse tunnels. I’m sure you can guess who passed through them from the name. The dead. They would be carried on little wooden boards with wheels underneath, like a cart or a trolley, I suppose. They would be pushed to the end of the tunnel and either carried up the steps or passed through the big door at the end to be delivered to a waiting carriage or cart.’ Mr Bourne shares this information slowly, as if he isn’t sure he should be giving us all the gory details.
‘Why were they taken out through an underground tunnel?’ I ask, curious about the secrecy.
‘Because the Masters didn’t want anyone to see.’ Mr Bourne is being cagey now and tries to talk over my next question, but I don’t let him.
‘See what? What didn’t they want people to see?’ I drop Beth’s hand, feeling panicked. There isn’t enough fresh air and water keeps dripping on my head as we walk along the long tunnel.
‘The bodies. And the bones. You see paupers had no rights, not even to their own bodies. After they died, their bodies had to be paid for by family so they could be buried.’ He peers at his watch, muttering something about lunchtime.
‘What about those without families? What happened to them?’ Beth asks in a quiet voice, moving closer to me again, slipping her small hand back into mine.
‘Well … in some cases their bodies were given over to science,’ Mr. Bourne replies, keeping his answers as sketchy as possible.
‘“Given over to science”? Are you talking in code, Sir? This is a field trip, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you be telling us everything?’ Eva joins in, moving to stand too close to Mr Bourne in the almost dark.
‘They were sent away to be dissected. They’d be cut up into pieces so that medical students could learn about the different parts of the body. That’s right isn’t it, Sir? The Masters sold off the bodies and bones to science and pocketed the cash.’ Sam surprises us all, his voice ringing out with knowledge, clashing with Mr Bourne’s awkward silence.
‘Erm … sadly yes, Sam. So that’s why this tunnel is called a corpse tunnel because the bodies would be secretly taken out of this tunnel and away to be … used.’ Mr Bourne sighs, realising that he isn’t going to be able to shut us up now. He must have remembered how fascinated most of the class had been with the gory details about witches being ducked and swum in the river. He looks like he is regretting ever bringing us down here, into these corpse tunnels, and he isn’t the only one. I really want to leave and wish they’d all just shut up.
‘What happened then?’ Beth asks, her arm pressing against mine.
‘The bones might return here to be disposed of in the workhouse grounds or possibly in a field near a church, as close to holy ground as they could get. But they wouldn’t be given a proper burial. Often their name would be chalked on the coffin but would have worn off by the time it was buried, so no one even knew who was in there,’ Sam replies. ‘This meant that their soul would be stuck in purgatory, didn’t it, Sir, in limbo? The afterlife was really important, wasn’t it, Sir, back then in the Victorian times? That’s why people tried to raise money to buy back the dead bodies, but lots just couldn’t afford it. I read a book about it, My Life as a Pauper in the Workhouse.’ He finishes.
‘Oh yes! Do you remember that archaeologist Miss Empingham got in last year when they found the bones in the field next to St Peter’s? Remember, Beth, you had all those nightmares ’cos it’s the field behind your house. Whoooo! The bones, the pauper bones are coming to get you and knock at your window!’ Georgia looks proudly at Eva as she teases Beth, half joking, half serious. Both Beth and Sam stare her down which eventually shuts her up.
‘Do you remember that poem he taught us? “Rattle his bones over the stones; he’s only a pauper who nobody owns. Rattle his bones over the stones; he’s only a pauper who nobody owns,”’ Eva sings out loud in the tunnel, her shrill voice ricocheting off the damp walls. Mr Bourne frowns at both Eva and Georgia but before he can say anything Beth starts shouting her voice made bolder by the acoustics in the tunnel.
‘Why do you do that? Why do you keep on pushing, Eva? What’s the matter with you? This isn’t funny, this isn’t another joke. You’ve got no respect, all you care about is yourself and I’m sick of it … I’m sick of you!’ Beth tells her and opens her mouth to carry on but Mr Bourne steps in front of Beth, turns his back on her and snaps at Eva and Georgia talking over Beth in a loud and sarcastic voice, the kind of voice he saves up in the classroom only bringing it
out when someone’s really pushed him to the edge.
‘Well, Eva and Georgia, seeing as you know so much about this, you can write up some notes and perhaps after lunch the two of you can give a little lecture to the rest of the class, as you both like talking and singing so much. Now walk!’ He guides them in front of him, marching forwards to avoid any more exchanges or arguments. Sam looks from me to Beth, backs away and breaks into a jog to catch Mr Bourne up, their heads lean in to one another as they walk along the narrow tunnel towards the end. I can hear snatches of their conversation, the topic of corpse tunnels capturing both their imaginations.
I turn to Beth, just able to make out her face in the light coming from the open sun holes in the tunnel roof; the rain has stopped again. She’s trying hard not to cry. I put my arm around her.
‘Just ignore them; they’re a pair of little witches. You don’t need them, honestly,’ I try to reassure her.
‘It’s not that, Noah. I don’t care about them; they’re not even my real friends anymore. It’s here that’s freaking me out, what happened in this tunnel!’ She pushes me away. I am confused.
‘Those poor people who came through here, just a heap of decaying bodies on an old cart going off to be hacked to pieces, for science! They were made of flesh and bones, just like you and me. And no one cared about them, or had the money to save them; no one bought their bodies back home to bury them properly. No one even knew who was in the coffin, just a box of bones. It’s just awful, so so sad.’ We both look around the tunnel, imagining the carts being pushed past us. I try hard not to shiver as she starts again.
‘No one would have stood and prayed over them like they should, to say goodbye or help them on their journey into the next life. My mum’s family don’t see death as the end of life but the start of another. In Vietnamese culture we believe that the family has an obligation to the dead, to make things right and that wasn’t allowed to happen here! There’s no respect or honour and I just can’t stop thinking about all those poor souls trapped somewhere in… What did Sam call it?’ She stumbles over her words.