by Ruth Sutton
‘My car’s just up the lane,’ said Agnes, as they got up. ‘We’ll be home in no time, and out of this wind.’
They climbed into Agnes’s car, a shiny new Morris 14 bought with cash at Mr Bell’s in Whitehaven only two months previously. On the way up the hill they passed Mr Kitchin’s horse and trap that he’d brought down to carry those who would struggle with the walk.
‘I’m afraid I could never warm to Mr Kitchin,’ said Agnes to her subdued friend. ‘I’m told he had much to say to Mrs Eilbeck about this car, where the money came from, you can imagine.’
Still Jessie didn’t comment, staring out at the hedges whitened with blossom. ‘Apparently,’ Agnes went on, ‘Mrs Eilbeck announced that no man would ever marry a woman who drove her own car. Must say I haven’t lost any sleep over that!’
It was mid-May, but the fire in the living room was laid, and Agnes lit it as soon as they arrived back. Jessie kept her coat on and watched the fire take hold, as Agnes made tea in the kitchen and took the cake from the tin.
Agnes carried the tray through into the living room, where Jessie sat with her coat pulled tightly round her. She poured their tea and placed Jessie’s beside her without speaking further. ‘Cake?’ was the only word spoken for a while, with a shake of the head the only response.
‘She was just a child,’ said Jessie after some minutes of silence had passed.
‘Alice? Indeed she was, dear,’ replied Agnes, ‘although she had the look of a grown woman the past few months, don’t you think? Maybe working at the Hall, being around new people was making her grow up faster.’
Jessie seemed not to have heard her, and continued in the same quiet tone.
‘She enjoyed being at the Hall. Said it made her realise there’s a big world out there, and she wanted to get away.’
‘When did you see her last?’ said Agnes, leaning a little closer, trying to break through into the space that Jessie had created round herself.
‘Only a week or two ago,’ Jessie said, after a pause. ‘She came to see me at home. I was surprised. I hadn’t talked to her properly since she left school, and that was three or four years ago. She was such a bright child then.’
‘What made her come to see you?’ asked Agnes. She was surprised that Jessie had never mentioned this visit.
‘She wanted to talk.’
‘Yes, but why, what about?’
Jessie was silent again for some time before she spoke. ‘She said she was pregnant. She wanted help. I couldn’t help her.’
She lowered her head, and Agnes saw that Jessie was crying again, tears running unchecked down her face as she held the cup in her lap with both hands. Agnes leaned forward, took the cup and saucer and placed them on the table, offering Jessie a handkerchief. Jessie took it, wiped her eyes, blew her nose and then held the damp hankie, twisting it between her fingers.
Agnes took a minute to think about this news. ‘Did she say who the father is, or was?’ she asked.
Jessie shook her head. ‘She said she wasn’t sure.’
‘Oh Lord,’ Agnes picked up her tea and took a sip. ‘What have we come to? How old was she, seventeen, and she doesn’t know who the father is? How many men could there have been, for heaven’s sake?’
‘She thought it might be Alexander.’
‘Skeffington?’ Agnes was incredulous. ‘Surely not. He’s engaged, isn’t he, to that Ramsden girl from Cockermouth? What was he thinking of? And Alice, too. What was she thinking of?’
‘She thought Alexander would have to marry her, and take her away.’
‘Oh Lord,’ said Agnes, again. ‘What a mess. Do the Skeffingtons know?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Jessie. ‘I tried to persuade Alice to tell her mother, but she said her father would kill her, and the father, whoever he is. I don’t know whether she told anyone else, or whether she’d seen the doctor. Probably not. I did wonder about Sir John coming to the funeral, but that doesn’t signify anything really. Alice did work for them after all.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Agnes asked after a pause. Jessie shrugged slightly. ‘What can I do? First I thought the post mortem would show it, but it didn’t, at least as far as we know. Now I don’t know what to do.’
‘No wonder you were so upset at the funeral,’ said Agnes, getting up to add some more water to the pot. Jessie hesitated. She could tell Agnes now. After all, it was twenty years ago, and she trusted her.
Agnes returned with the teapot. ‘More tea?’ she said.
But the moment had passed. ‘Yes, please,’ said Jessie, looking up. ‘I’m feeling better already.’
Later that evening, in the blessed privacy of her own room, Jessie opened the bottom drawer of the little bureau and took out an envelope that was silky and frail. She opened it carefully and pulled out a piece of paper and a small photograph. The sepia image was of a young man wearing a white shirt, dark trousers and a waistcoat. A large hat shaded his face, but the strong nose and chin were still visible. He stood confident and casual, his hands in his pockets. Clive, just weeks before his death. Jessie unfolded the note. The writing was small and precise.
Mikasa Street
‘Darling Jessie, I miss you so. The air in this house tastes of you. We will be together, I know it. In the meantime we have to work hard and love each other in secret. All my love, C.’
Jessie put the note down and sat on the bed, remembering the smell of tobacco on his clothes and the curve of muscle at the top of his arm. Did she still love him, after twenty years, or just the memory of him? There’d never been another, and now the chance was gone. She lay down, curled into a ball and wept.
Chapter 5
August. A hazy Sunday. Breeze from the south, hardly stirring the heavy trees. The land breathed slowly, imperceptibly, as if asleep under the sun. Tides crept up and down shingle and sand, silent save for a creamy whisper at the edge. On the beach the air shimmered over warmed stones. Fields and valleys smelled of grass. Sheep crowded into shade, panting.
Jessie woke as the twittering of the house martins nesting under the eaves filtered through her open window. The previous evening, as usual in the summer months, she had waited until the pale light began to fade before closing her eyes, and slept deeply until first light. Now she lay quiet, naked under a sheet. There was nowhere else she wanted to be: Agnes’s offer of a few days at Whitby had been politely declined. Instead she relished the solitude, and responsibility for no one except herself.
For a while she slept again, then woke with a start. Sunlight scented with hay spilled into the room. The little clock beside Jessie’s bed said it was not yet seven. The usual dream had disturbed her: walking alone in a vast house from room to crowded room, half dressed but apparently invisible, unaware and unashamed. Suddenly, a memory of Clive hit her: his face, his voice, the white skin of his belly. She longed to forget, but she could not. She knew it was useless to regret. His death was an accident, a circumstance of war. If he hadn’t worked at Vickers he would have been at the front. He didn’t mean to leave her, and he never knew about the baby. So many times Jessie wanted to share the story, to put the memories to rest, but she never had. Agnes was her closest friend, and revelled in her singleness: ‘No husband, no children, no debts.’ Jessie had never found the courage to admit, not to Agnes, not to anyone, that she had stolen Clive’s name and turned her face to the wall while Clive’s child was stolen from her. It was so long ago. She had served her sentence and waited like a prisoner for release from the guilt.
As the first glance of sunlight hit the back windows of the house, Jessie took her second cup of tea into the garden. Runner beans had lengthened overnight, hiding deep in foliage. Plums on the old tree were beginning to blush. She found a ripe fruit at the centre of a cluster, teased it into her fingers and then into her mouth. Juice ran down her chin and dripped onto her clean blouse. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered today.
She read her book of poems by Emily Dickinson, sitting by the back door, feeli
ng the sun on her arms. Voices passed in the lane but she didn’t look up. For lunch she picked some lettuce from the garden, and some dried ham from the pantry and made herself a sandwich. In the middle of the afternoon, as the sun began to dip and a slight wind heralded the incoming tide, she thought about her new bicycle, still unused, standing in the dry heat of the shed behind the house. Brought into the brightness of the yard, the bicycle gleamed and glittered as Jessie wiped it down. It looks too big for me, she thought, too clumsy. But she was determined to ride, to shake the torpor of the day.
As she pulled on her cycling trousers in the warm glow of the curtained bedroom, she remembered Clive again, that day on Walney, when they had their lives ahead of them. He’d borrowed a bicycle for her and she’d worn an awkward skirt. This time, the unfamiliar seams of the trousers rubbed against her thighs.
The day had cooled, but it was still warm. From the house to the top of the brow, the road was steep and after a few strenuous yards she gave up the attempt and walked, pushing the bicycle beside her. At the top she stopped for a moment to regain breath and think about how to deal with the descent. Behind her to the west lay the sea, winking in the afternoon sun. Ahead of her the narrow road sloped away down the hill and round towards the river. She pushed off and then sat up on the saddle, enjoying the draught through her hair, hoping the brakes would be enough to avoid catastrophes. As the road flattened out she smiled and gripped the handlebars a little less tightly.
She turned down the rutted lane that followed the river towards the hills at the top of the valley. The physical effort distracted her. She felt different somehow, not herself. Trees met over her head and the ground underneath was damp and slippery. She alighted from the bike and picked her way along the side of the track, where small stones gave her shoes some purchase. It was humid and airless under the trees. Jessie’s thin blouse clung to her back. Close by, the river slid quietly along, cool and inviting. She leaned the bicycle into the hedge, opened the top buttons of her blouse and climbed over a stile thinking of kicking off her shoes, letting cold water trickle over her feet.
Something snagged the edge of her vision: a bird, maybe, or an otter. She stepped gingerly down from the stile, hoping to see whatever it was, and crept along the bank to where a hedge of reeds stood motionless. A splash. She waited. Another. She used both hands to part the reeds, and caught her breath. Just a few yards away, on a patch of muddy grass beside the tidal stream, a man sat on a box, casting a line into the water. His naked back was turned towards her. There was something familiar about the shape of the head, the dark hair. The man propped his fishing rod on the far side of the box and stood up slowly, stretching both arms above his head. The muscles of his shoulders flexed under the skin.
Jessie held her breath, lowering her hands. The reeds swung back again to block her view. He hadn’t seen her but her heart was beating hard. She stepped back, away from the reeds, ducking her head to avoid detection. Before she climbed the stile back into the lane she waited, motionless, to make sure that he wouldn’t see her as she slipped over the wall and out of sight on the other side. Her mouth was dry. She felt furtive, ashamed, and unbearably excited, holding in her mind the man’s shape, the angle of his shoulders, the broad leather belt low on his hips. When she felt able to move again, she eased the bicycle out of the hedge, turned it carefully round and pushed it back along the track, into the darker shade of the trees and then out into the light, round the bend following the river, the sun full in her face, burning her cheeks. She hung her head, breathing slowly.
Back at the schoolhouse she parked the bicycle by the back door and went in, closing the door behind her, quietly, as if she were still afraid of revealing herself. She ran cold water over her hands, then splashed her face, pushing back strands of dark wet hair as she stood straight again. The cold water was refreshing, but still she felt exhausted. She climbed the stairs, pulling herself up each one, took off the damp trousers and lay on her bed, watching the slow movement of the curtains.
Later, as a horse and wagon crunched passed the house heading homewards from warm fields, Jessie woke with a start and lay still, the image of the man etched behind her eyes. Suddenly she knew who it was. Andrew, Lionel and Caroline Leadbetter’s son. It was him she had seen by the river, Jessie was certain now, something about his quietness, the length of his back, his neck.
She got up and went downstairs, poured cold water from the tap into a glass and drank it down. The image of Andrew stayed in her mind. She hoped she would see him again, talk with him about the wider world.
‘For God’s sake, Jessie,’ she said to herself, suddenly. ‘It’s because he looks like Clive, and that was twenty years ago. You were young then, and so was he, not much younger than Andrew is now. Why do you do this to yourself? You’re a middle-aged woman. Do other women think about such things?’
The southern sky had been flickering with light, unseen by Jessie, and it was a shock when the first thunder crashed over the house, followed almost at once by the roar of rain on the front windows, opened earlier to catch the air. She rushed to close them against the torrent, flinching as white light and deafening noise bounced off walls and the road. The small house was surrounded by water and sound, and she cowered for a moment, hands over her ears, breathing hard. When it eased she sat upright in a low chair, and realised that she was crying, overwhelmed by an utter loneliness that had descended on her as suddenly as the storm. It was so long since she’d loved or been loved, truly loved, just for herself. If she disappeared, vanished in the storm, whose life would be pierced with the wrenching grief she had felt for Clive? No one. There was no one.
Chapter 6
Enid Pharaoh was dead and buried, taking with her to the grave all that John had so badly wanted to know. Aunty Anne was still determined to keep her promise to her dead sister and tell him nothing. John convinced himself that it didn’t matter: nothing mattered apart from getting out of the dismal Ulverston house as soon as he could, and leaving the past behind him. But in the night he dreamed of finding her, that other woman whose face was always in darkness.
In Enid’s spotless kitchen Mrs Barker stuffed the damp towels into a large basket, along with some cups and saucers she had brought with her across the road for the obligatory funeral tea.
‘I’ll be off now, John,’ she said. ‘You’ll want to be alone to grieve properly I’m sure, after such a difficult day.’ John looked across at her, unsure what to say. ‘I think it went well, today,’ she went on, ‘As far as these things can ever go well, if you see what I mean.’
‘Mam would have approved of it,’ he volunteered, ‘and the vicar did a good job, I thought.’
The vicar had indeed done a good job. Having known the deceased for several years, and understanding full well how rigid and cheerless she could be, he had managed to make her sound both friendly and forgiving. The church had not been full, but all the right people were there to pay their respects. The choir had turned out in force, even on a weekday, in recognition of Enid’s commitment. It was all as it should have been.
John wondered if Mrs Barker knew. He turned away and leaned against the sink as she passed through the kitchen door into the hall, then raised his voice a little so that she would hear him, and stop, and take him seriously.
‘Did you know?’ he asked.
‘Know what, dear?’ She turned around, but he kept his back to her, still looking out at the small backyard where red geraniums in a bright blue pot caught the late afternoon sun.
‘Did you know that Enid and Arthur were not my real mam and dad, that I was adopted?’
Mrs Barker hesitated for more than a moment and then pulled out a chair and sat down, putting the basket on the floor at her feet. ‘Who …?’ she began, but the rest of the question did not come.
She looked at his long back against the light.
‘I was never sure, but I did wonder,’ she said. ‘It was something your mam said when I was making her bed, a few weeks ago. Sh
e said something about catching a train from Carnforth, just after you were born, and about how long they’d waited for you. When I asked her something about it, she said that they’d “got” you, and then I began to wonder. I never asked her outright, of course, and I was fairly sure you didn’t know anything. Did she tell you herself, before she died? Sit down a minute. Tell me what she said.’
John made a noise between a laugh and a snort, a bitter sound, as he pulled out a chair from the table and sat down.
‘She didn’t mean to tell me,’ he said. ‘She thought I was Dad, that last afternoon, and talked about bringing me home on the train after they’d “got” me. That same word she used with you. I went up to ask Aunty Anne about it, but she was out doing coronation teas and Uncle George just told me. He said it was high time and he wished someone had told me earlier.’
He still could not look at Mrs Barker. She placed her hand on his arm, but he turned away from her.
‘Uncle George couldn’t tell me much,’ he said, ‘and there’s lots more I need to know. All he told me was that the home in Carnforth where they got me was for unmarried mothers and that it closed down after the war. He didn’t know who my real mother is, or my father … I still don’t know who I am.’ He felt a block in his throat and dropped his head.
Vera Barker stretched out, grasped his chin with surprising energy and pulled his face around towards her own.
‘Now look here, young man,’ she said as John blinked at her. ‘It’s not my place to say this, and not the right time I’m sure, but I’m going to say it anyway. Enid and Arthur were good people. They only ever wanted the best for you and they decided not to tell you about your real parents. They loved you, in their own way. I know it’s been hard for you, them being more like grandparents I suppose, and you being the only one. But you have been loved. You are who you are.