Christmas Past

by Jodi Taylor

  And then the time came. The food was all eaten – every last scrap of it. There was no reason to stay.

  I looked at Matthew and braced myself for the inevitable request to take them with us. I’d meant well, but I wasn’t convinced I hadn’t done more harm than good. I’d raised expectations and yes, all right, they’d had a good meal on Christmas Eve – and I suspected they’d hidden a little bit away for tomorrow as well – as Matthew used to do when we first got him back – but there was nothing more I could do here. Nothing more I should do. I’d learned my lesson at Troy. We all had. People had died – innocent people who hadn’t deserved it. You try to help but, in the end, you just make things worse.

  I gestured at the boys. ‘What are they saying?’

  ‘That we should go. Before old Scrope gets back. He’ll be out drinking.’

  ‘And Mrs Scrope?’ I jerked my head over my shoulder in the direction of the house.

  ‘Drinks all the time. They fight. And shout. And then …’

  He left the rest unsaid.

  I stared at the last flickering candle. Yes, we should go. We should go …

  I scrambled to my feet and shook out my crumpled skirts. ‘Wait here.’

  What a stupid thing to say. I saw the panic in his eyes. He too jumped to his feet, grasping a fold of my skirt. ‘No.’

  I put my hand over his cold one. ‘It’s all right, Matthew. I’m just going to speak to Mrs Scrope. I didn’t think you would want her to see you again. And it would give you more time with Jamie and Joshua.’

  ‘No.’ He turned his hand under mine and grasped it hard.

  ‘Of course. You can come too. I’ll put our stuff together. You say goodbye.’

  I busied myself with packing everything away, not that there was much left, just to give them a little privacy. When I looked up he was showing them how to lay out the flattened cardboard as a mattress and wrapping them up in their blankets. Their lives might be utter shit, but tonight they’d had a feast and there was a warm bed to look forward to.

  ‘I’ve told them to hide the blankets during the day.’

  ‘Good boy. Are you ready?’

  He nodded, biting his lip. Jamie started to cry. I guessed Joshua was crying as well but silently. Oh God, this was awful. This is what happens if you interfere. No matter how well you mean, you just make everything so much worse. The last candle was fading fast and I could see the expression on Matthew’s face. And on the other boys’ faces as well. Fear, pleading and, above all, desperation.

  I’m an historian. We record and document. That’s it. That’s all we’re allowed to do. We’re not supposed to interfere. Ever.

  I said, ‘Come on,’ and the two of us, Matthew and me, stepped out into the yard. I closed the door on the sound of crying. Matthew stood silently. I picked up the bar and slotted it back into place, imprisoning two cold, hungry little boys. In the dark. With the rats.

  Something rose up inside me and would not be denied.

  I said again, ‘Come on.’

  He trotted beside me as I stamped across the filthy yard. ‘Where are we going?’

  I found myself in front of the dark house. Nothing moved anywhere. It was cold and it was dark. The temperature was dropping fast. I could practically hear the frost forming around me.

  Taking a firm grip on the pepper spray inside my muff I banged on the door. Long and hard. To give myself courage.

  Matthew tried to pull me back. ‘No. You mustn’t.’

  ‘I’m only going to have a word with Mrs Scrope.’

  ‘No. You can’t. Leave now.’

  I put my hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

  The door remained firmly closed. I will admit I did hope she was out somewhere, quaffing gin as fast as she could go, falling into a stupor in a doorway somewhere and never coming home again. Anything that meant she wouldn’t be opening this door and making me confront her.

  Just as I was beginning to think my wish might come true and no one was in after all, I heard the sounds of someone fumbling with the latch on the other side of the door.

  Matthew gasped and moved behind me. I kept one hand on his shoulder and the other on my spray. I was doing something really stupid here and I couldn’t be too careful – and that’s me saying that.

  The rackety old door creaked open, scraping itself across the stone floor. And there she was – the legendary Ma Scrope.

  My first thought was, Shit!

  My second thought was, Shit!

  My third thought was something along those lines as well.

  Matthew and I clutched at each other and then I remembered I was his mother and mothers aren’t afraid of anything. True, we’re not fond of mud, blood and long forgotten banana skins welded to the floor under the bed, but fear strikes no terror into our hearts.

  I think I was expecting some mountain of a woman, all massive body and brawny arms and ready to lay about her at a moment’s notice. Someone reeking of gin or brandy, rudely awoken from a drunken sleep, with a thick head, bloodshot eyes and a temper to match.

  She wasn’t like that at all. Although I had got the gin bit right.

  She wasn’t any bigger than me, and considerably less wide. In fact, she looked to be nearly as skeletal as the two little boys in her shed. The dirty hand clutching a threadbare shawl around her bony shoulders was curled, talon-like, ending in long, thick, yellow finger nails. Long snarls of greasy hair hung from a cap so ancient it was virtually part of her head. God knows when she’d last taken it off. If ever. She wore a torn and fraying dress of a style from some twenty years before. It hung off her thin frame, the original colour lost under a thick coating of dirt, grease and unpleasant stains. The rancid smell of greed and brutality hung around her, wafting over us with every movement.

  My heart sank because I knew what I was looking at here. When we think of misers, we think of someone – a man usually – going to sometimes quite comical lengths to save himself a penny and that’s true as far as it goes, but there’s more to it than that.

  Ma Scrope was a miser, neglecting and brutalising her husband’s apprentices not just to benefit herself, but because she couldn’t help it. And far from spending the money she saved by cutting their food and clothing to the bone on herself, she would have it all squirrelled away in secret places, because the joy was in the possession. And if she wasn’t prepared to spend on herself then there was no way I could persuade her to spend a little more on the two small boys in the shed. She would hold herself to the same low standards as the boys out there. I doubt she’d had a good meal in years. Or changed her clothes in all that time either. She allowed herself the barest minimum to get by, consuming just enough to survive. Feeding the boys just enough to keep them on their feet and working. I wouldn’t mind betting her husband wasn’t that well fed either. Although he could at least call in at a pie shop on the way home from work. I wondered if he would dare, because the face of the woman still staring at me was scaring me shitless. And God knows what it was doing to Matthew.

  Whatever it was, we couldn’t stand here all afternoon staring at each other, but I was at a complete loss. This was not a woman I could intimidate. I had nothing to threaten her with.

  And then she saw Matthew.

  Her eyes narrowed and she threw me a nasty calculating look that assessed me, my clothes, and what sort of threat I posed.

  ‘Who’re you? Wotcha want?’

  Her voice was an unpleasant blend of subservience and intimidation as she assessed the situation to see which might serve her best.

  I had worried I might not have been able to understand her. Everyone around here seemed to speak in some kind of private dialect. She had a strong accent but she was comprehensible.

  I drew myself up, gripping my spray as hard as I could. My mind played pictures of her leaping upon me, wrapping those long skinny arms around me, biting at my face, enveloping me in a miasma of evil and malice.

  I made my voice firm. I couldn’t afford to
show even the slightest sign of weakness. She would be on me in a moment.

  ‘You know who I am, Mrs Scrope. You know why I have come.’

  She said nothing. The seconds ticked on. And old Scrope might be home any moment now.

  ‘I am here to call you to account.’

  Now she was subservient and whining. ‘I ain’t done nothing.’

  I held her gaze and made myself stay calm. ‘You know what you have done, Mrs Scrope, and you know what you have not done. The time has come for you to pay for it.’

  Something flickered behind her eyes at the word pay. Subservience disappeared. She glanced down at Matthew, standing beside me, tense and still.

  ‘Wossee said?’

  I took a chance. I was gambling here. Gambling with both our lives maybe. One shout from her – just one – would bring people oozing out of the brickwork around us, tumbling into this tiny yard – that’s the tiny yard with only one easily blocked entrance. And what would happen to us then?

  I felt Matthew clutch a fold of my dress.

  I didn’t dare look down at him. I couldn’t afford to look away. I wished – I really wished I’d brought at least Markham with me. I could really have done with him at that moment, watching my back and keeping me safe. And with Peterson standing alongside me – as he always did. I was really beginning to regret the white-hot fury that had driven me across the yard to confront this awful woman. She was ill. She was a miser and a bully. Nothing I could say or do to her would make any difference. What did I think I was doing? How could I possibly make a difference to anything happening here. I remembered Leon’s words. ‘Everyone feared her. Even her husband.’

  She inspired fear. She knew it. I wondered how many people had stood where I stood now, quaking in their boots – literally in my case – while this giant pale spider turned their blood to ice and robbed them of all thought and movement.

  Well, not me. I’ve always said – if you’re scared of something then get in there and give it a good kicking. Then go back and do it again – just to show it who’s boss. I took one step towards her. And then another until I was right in her face.

  She wasn’t afraid – not of me, anyway – but she was disconcerted. I guessed most people usually kept a distance. She wasn’t used to people invading her personal space. She didn’t like it. Few people do.

  I pushed my face into hers, ignoring the stench of her breath.

  ‘You know what he has said,’ I said, feeling my way because I was still unsure how to get us out of this. I could threaten her with the beagle or with the magistrates, and that wouldn’t touch her. She didn’t care. But if she was indeed what I thought she was then there was one area in which she was very vulnerable.

  ‘Who are you?’

  I kept my voice very low. Only she could hear me. ‘I am everything you fear. I am your nightmare. I am the thing that will come for you out of the dark. I know your secrets. I know what you hide. And tonight, I have come for you.’

  She smirked unpleasantly. ‘You don’t frighten me. I can have ten men here in a minute and where would you be then, my fine lady?’

  I felt sweat roll down my back. Cold and slimy.

  ‘Ten men? In here? Is that what you want? All the things you’ve hidden for so long. The things you’ve kept safe. How much do you trust these ten men? Enough to let them … in here?’

  I pushed past her, carefully keeping myself between her and Matthew, and entered into a nightmare.

  I had envisioned a cold, bare room, with no fire and possibly no furniture either, but I was wrong. This room was far from empty. Because old Ma Scrope was a hoarder. And she’d been at it for a very long time. There was a room in here somewhere, its outline almost completely obscured by piles – no, mountains – of mildewed junk, all crammed in any old how, that reached all the way to the ceiling in places. I found a small patch of clear floor on which to stand, held on tightly to Matthew and looked around me.

  Empty, it would have been a largish room with a small bedchamber off to one side. The one tiny window was tightly sealed. Everything was thick with grease and dirt. The fireplace was unlit and stuffed full of what looked like old shoes and boots. Piles of clothes lay everywhere – men’s, women’s, not sorted in any way, but just thrown down, layer upon layer, dating back years, I shouldn’t wonder. Everything smelled of soot – that would be her husband – and urine. God knows what her sanitary arrangements were.

  A scarred and battered wooden table stood in the centre of the room and was cluttered with miscellaneous tat. It looked as if we’d interrupted her in the middle of rifling through what looked like someone’s last possessions. Everywhere I looked there were battered pots full of holes, and what looked like old saucepans obviously beyond repair, bits of worm-ridden furniture, legless chairs and broken cabinets. All the debris and detritus of life, all the unwanted leftovers of other people’s lives were stacked here, rammed into this one space, and all looking ready to topple at any moment.

  Even as I looked, there was a sudden movement in the corner and something scuttled away. Every surface was covered in mouse and rat droppings. Every disease known to man must be incubating in this room. Why wasn’t this woman dead?

  Two miserable flickering candles made the shadows jump. Through the open door I caught a glimpse of the even gloomier smaller room. An unmade bed was piled high with every type of rubbish imaginable. I wondered where they slept. No wonder old Scrope went out drinking every night. The miracle was that he came home at all.

  I’m neat. I put things away. I don’t like clutter around me. Neither does Leon. The thought of living in a room like this made me want to clutch my skirts around me and just run away.

  ‘The boy’s father was satisfied.’

  Unbelievably, I’d been so caught up in this awful place, I’d almost forgotten about old Ma Scrope. She’d closed behind me while I wasn’t looking, standing between me and the door. This is what comes of leaving Markham behind.

  I found myself eye to eye with her. We were the same height. I could feel her breath on my face. A cold fury fell upon me and gave me strength. Close though we were, I took an extra half step forwards and smiled with my mouth.

  ‘I am not the boy’s father. I am his mother.’ I reached out and picked a louse off her shoulder, cracking it between my fingers. ‘And you should know, Mrs Scrope, that I am not as understanding as my husband. Or as gentle. Or as restrained. In fact, Mrs Scrope, I am your worst nightmare and if you do not immediately amend your treatment of the unfortunate boys in your care, then I will pursue you, Mrs Scrope, without pity and without rest, until the day you die. And on that happy day, when you stand, naked and afraid before all those you have wronged, then, Mrs Scrope, I swear to you – I will rip your miserable soul from your miserable body, and send it, torn and bleeding, into the dark places of Hell, where it will wail, unheard, for all eternity. Know this, Mrs Scrope, that whatever you do to these boys in this world, I will do unto you ten thousand times over in the next. I will pursue you, Mrs Scrope, without pity and without rest. I will always be at your shoulder – watching and waiting. I will be the last thing you see in this world and the first thing you see in the next. From me and my revenge, Mrs Scrope – you will never be free.’

  I became aware I hadn’t breathed in a very long time. I didn’t know my own voice. I didn’t even know I was pushing her backwards until she had her back to the table and could go no further. I’ve no idea what I looked like, but I could see naked terror in her eyes as she tried to lean away from me. Her mouth was working. Saliva ran from one corner and her colour, not good to begin with, was as grey as the clothes she wore. I could see I’d made my point.

  And yes, I do know that none of that was exactly in the Christmas spirit.

  And yes, I do know none of it was a good example to young Matthew.

  And yes, according to the rules of nice people, I should probably have sat down and reasoned gently with her.

  And yes, I know we’re not sup
posed to harm contemporaries, but no one ever said anything about not frightening the living shit out of them, so my conscience was clear.

  And yes, it was definitely time to go. In situations like this, always ensure you have the last word and then get out.

  I whirled around and seized Matthew’s arm. As I did so, I felt my skirts catch on something but it was important to get out of here before she recovered herself. I yanked impatiently and something shifted somewhere. Somewhere in the gloom I caught a movement as a pile of something began to slide. And then another pile. Suddenly, it seemed to me, in the dim light of the two candles, that the whole room was moving. Like a landslide.

  Shit.

  I didn’t hang around. I had Matthew out through the door and half way across the yard as, behind us, all her carefully constructed edifices of rubbish and old junk and useless paraphernalia cascaded down around her ears. Her world – literally – was falling apart. The noise was enormous. I wondered whether the house itself would survive.

  We ran for it and her screams – whether of rage or fear I never knew – followed us all the way back down Grit Lane.

  We burst, breathless into the pod.

  I said, ‘Door,’ and suddenly, we were warm and safe.

  I switched the kettle on and turned to Matthew, who looked a little pale.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  He nodded. It doesn’t take much to make him dirty and although, as far as I knew, he’d not touched anything in Ma Scrope’s house, he’d managed to bring a good portion of dust and grease with him.