The Memory Cage

by Ruth Eastham

Mr Webb was one of the final pieces of the story I needed, I was sure of it. The piece I needed to back up Grandma’s diary and prove Grandad’s bravery. Once I had that, I thought nervously, I would try and develop the film.

  Hope shot through me. Tomorrow they were supposed to be taking Grandad away. But by tomorrow I’d have everything I needed.

  Reverend Posselthwaite rummaged through the pile of cardboard tubes and rolled-up paper on his desk. “I had it only a moment ago …” he said. “Your grandma was actually Winifred, don’t you know? Luckily both names were written on the tube. But then I got sidetracked. I had to go and sort out the flowers in the church. Now that poor Peter Webb is sadly no longer with us …”

  I gaped at him. “Mr Webb?”

  “Yes.” The vicar stopped and pushed up his glasses. “Didn’t you hear? Oh, I’m sorry if I shocked you with the news. He died this morning.”

  I stood there, stunned.

  “He did great service for our church,” the vicar went on. “He put flowers on the altar every day, and helped keep the graveyard tidy. He wasn’t a well man. He’d been ill for some time. I gather he wasn’t the easiest of people to get to know, but he had time to make his peace before he died. I heard his last confession and we prayed together.”

  Last confession?

  I took a deep breath.

  “Did Peter Webb start the fire? The one that killed my grandma?”

  I felt guilty, with him having just died and all that, but I had to know for sure. The newspaper article had said the fire had been started on purpose. Grandma had said she was scared at what Mr Webb might do next.

  The vicar stared at me, then looked down. “Alex. Alex.” He took off his glasses and polished them on his sleeve. “That’s not for me to repeat.”

  “She was my grandma,” I said. “I’ve a right to know. So has Grandad.”

  He looked at me with a sad, kind expression. “It’s tomorrow afternoon, isn’t it? That he moves to the Sunflower Care Home?”

  So even the vicar knew about it before Grandad did! But then I remembered Mum’s tense conversation with Mrs Posselthwaite on the day of the fête, so I suppose that made sense.

  The vicar sat there for a while, rubbing his glasses so hard I thought he’d go right through the lens any minute. He went to a drawer, took out an envelope and handed it to me.

  “Peter Webb gave me this,” he said. “Only yesterday.”

  I looked at the words on the front.

  To Richard Smith and family

  “It’s addressed mainly to your dad, as you can see. But all your family, actually, so I think it’s right that you can take it.”

  He saw me hesitating. “Open it, Alex. Peter asked me to read it to him before I put it in the envelope, so I know what it says. He wouldn’t settle until I did. Open it!”

  I turned the envelope over a few times and then slowly tore it open. There was a single piece of paper in there. It was thin and flimsy. I pulled it out, unfolded it and began reading. I guess my bad opinion of Mr Webb changed a bit as I read that letter.

  It was me what set fire to William Smith’s darkroom. It were the photos I was after. I never meant for it to spread and I never meant for her to die. Losing someone close is just about the worst thing can happen to a person. I should know. You lose a piece of yourself. I know you were only a baby, but it weren’t right. Anyway, I’m sorry for it, that you lost your mother on account of what I done. I hope you can think to forgive me because I never can.

  Peter Webb

  “Peter Webb lost his older brother Henry in the war,” said the vicar quietly. “He absolutely idolized his brother. He’d never been allowed to join up himself, because of the bad limp he had, and his bad back. From a childhood disease it was, nothing to do with fighting. I don’t think he ever came to terms with Henry getting killed, poor man. I don’t think he ever recovered from it. I think it affected his mind. He even went round wearing his brother’s medals.

  “Grief, Alex. Grief is a terrible thing.”

  Reverend Posselthwaite stared out of the window at the rain. “He was very sorry at the end, I think. For everything. Genuinely sorry.”

  I stared down at the letter and nodded. The words seemed to go a bit blurry and I quickly rubbed my eyes and put the paper back in the envelope and in my pocket.

  Peter Webb’s secret. His terrible secret.

  At the door of the porch, Reverend Posselthwaite stopped a moment and touched my arm. “Wait!” He disappeared back down the hallway and came back with a rolled sheet of paper.

  I’d almost forgotten. The inscription!

  I waited, expecting the reverend to tell me how Peter Webb had admitted to vandalizing the headstone, and that he was sorry for that too …

  But Reverend Posselthwaite just wrapped a plastic carrier bag around the rubbing and smiled at me encouragingly. If Peter Webb had chiselled away the letters, he would have wanted to say something about that too, surely?

  I didn’t have time to think about that then, though. I made sure the bag was sealed tight. All I had to do now was put the rubbing against the inscription on the headstone. Check what the missing letters were.

  My heart raced. I could stop them sending Grandad into the home! I really could! Once Mum and Dad knew the whole truth about Grandad’s past, things would be different. They would want to keep him with us; they’d want us to stay all together as a family, not split us up.

  I pulled up the hood of my anorak and headed into the graveyard.

  – PART 3 –

  GRAND FINALES

  – CHAPTER 20 –

  RED CARNATIONS

  The graveyard. Twenty minutes later. The moment of truth.

  I knelt by Grandma’s gravestone and unrolled the paper against the dull marble. The tree branches overhead gave some shelter from the rain, though some water splashed off the paper’s waxy surface. The vase of red carnations was still there, the petals slightly tinged in brown.

  The letters fitted exactly, and I read through the inscription, filling in the missing parts.

  WINIFRED ALICE SMITH

  BORN 1922

  DIED 13TH OF MAY 1941

  LOST TO US BEFORE HER TIME

  FOUND BY OUR CREATOR

  KILLED BY FIRE, NOW LIVING IN LIGHT

  I knew that much.

  BELOVED WIFE OF

  PRIVATE SAMUEL THOMAS SMITH

  (1920–1940)

  AND

  WILLIAM GEORGE SMITH

  So far so good. It confirmed everything I already knew.

  But that wasn’t all there was. There was more inscription on the rubbing. I smoothed the paper and stared at what was written in disbelief, and then I started pulling and scraping at the thick ivy growing around the bottom of the stone. Soil clogged my fingernails as I tugged the twisting stalks and roots away.

  It couldn’t be. But when I’d finished, what was on the rubbing was an exact copy of the overgrown words I’d uncovered.

  BELOVED MOTHER OF

  RICHARD SMITH

  NOW BOTH HIS PARENTS

  WALK WITH ANGELS

  Both his parents?

  I stood there with rain dripping down my face, trying to take it in.

  The words in Grandma’s diary came back to me.

  Will has been so good as a father to him. I don’t know what I would have done without him.

  Dad was Tommie’s son, not Grandad’s.

  “So now you know, Alex.”

  I twisted round.

  Grandad was standing there. Rain dripped off the brim of his hat.

  “Your dad already knows,” he said. “I’d never have kept something like that a secret from him. He always knew who his real father was.”

  Grandad stooped and pulled the dying carnations from the vase.

  “Always preferred Freda to Winifred, your grandma did,” he said. “But somehow Mildred got her own way on that one. Said it was only proper to use the name she was baptized under, and at the time I wasn’t in muc
h of a fit state to argue.”

  He pulled a fresh bunch of carnations from his pocket and eased them into the vase.

  “I come out here at night sometimes,” he said. “When I can’t sleep so well. It sounds silly, but I want to be alone with her; not have to worry about anyone else being about.”

  Raindrops collected on the petals. Of course it was Grandad bringing the flowers, I thought. Of course he would visit Grandma’s grave! I remembered the torchlight I’d seen from Grandma’s room. He probably went up there too. It was he who must have put the diary back. He who kept the key safe in the clock.

  I watched him rest his hand on the top of the stone. Questions spun around inside my head. “Why didn’t Dad or you ever tell us that Tommie was our real grandad?” I stammered.

  Grandad fingered the wet collar of his coat.

  “I can’t speak for your dad, why he didn’t tell you, but me …” He hung his head. “I suppose I always wanted to be your real grandad, and when your mum and dad never said anything …”

  A memory came back to me. Me and Grandad in the beer garden the day of the church fête when I told him Leonard wasn’t my real brother. The hurt look on his face when he said, I’m not your real grandad then, am I?

  When Grandad had talked about bad blood in the family, I realized now, he’d not meant Leonard; he’d not meant Dad.

  He’d meant himself.

  “I’m a fraud, Alex, see?” he said, his voice shaking. “I’m not your real grandad after all.”

  “Course you are!” I said. “Don’t talk like that! But you could have shown me Grandma’s grave. Why didn’t you?”

  Grandad shrugged. “Too many memories,” he struggled. “Having to explain to other people …” He fingered the vandalized inscription.

  “I wish I’d not taken the letters out …”

  I gasped. “What?”

  He ran his thumb along where his name should have been. “I regretted it later but, well, I wasn’t in a good place at the time, Alex. I wasn’t right, you know, mentally. I just couldn’t come to terms with how Freda died, and somehow …” He swallowed.

  I stood there.

  WILLIAM GEORGE SMITH

  I thought about the letters being chipped away bit by bit, carefully, almost lovingly.

  Peter Webb hadn’t done it.

  Grandad had.

  “It sounds crazy now,” he went on. “But at the time it seemed I was somehow, I don’t know … intruding on the two of them, having my name there too.

  “And then over time the stone started to slant at this funny angle. Ground subsidence, it must have been.”

  I put my hand on Grandad’s. “Tell me about Tommie,” I said. “Please.”

  He started to shake his head.

  “Please, Grandad. I have to know.”

  Grandad looked up at the sky through the branches. A flock of birds swept across a patch of grey. Rain ran down his face. He drew in a breath, long and slow.

  “The fighter planes kept coming,” he said. His voice was all husky, as if it hurt him to speak. “There were dozens of them. One after the other. Another and another. You didn’t have a clue who’d be hit next.”

  I felt his cold hand tremble in mine. “Bodies on the beach, there were. Bodies in the water … Gone, they were. Wiped out …

  “Tommie was shouting at me, ‘Keep shooting, Will! You’ve got to keep shooting!’

  “Another enemy plane came over, making a low swoop. It had these sirens on the wings, and I’ll never forget the way it sounded.” Grandad screwed up his face. “It was this deafening, screeching, wailing horror of a sound, and I was still shooting pictures but then I saw that the plane was coming straight at us and I jumped at Tommie and pushed him away and the line of bullets hit the sand just where he’d been.”

  Grandad let out a sob through his gritted teeth. “At first I thought we’d got away with it. But then I saw there was blood in Tommie’s mouth … I saw there were pieces of jagged metal beside us. Bits from a blown-up jeep. I’d not seen them there.” I felt Grandad’s fingernails dig into my hand. “I’d pushed Tommie straight on to one.”

  He covered his mouth and gave out a strange, shuddering whimper.

  “He knew he wasn’t going to make it. He’d lost too much blood. I was pressing his chest where the metal had gone in. I was crouched over him and I was pressing as hard as I could. Pressing, pressing …”

  Grandad lifted up his hands and stared at them. Rain splashed on his palms and trickled down his sleeves.

  “Tommie was looking at his blood coming through my fingers, and he seemed to sort of laugh at me, and said, ‘Don’t be daft, Will.’

  “He said, ‘Promise me, Will. Promise me you’ll look after my Freda. Marry her. Look after her and the little one.’ He knew I loved her too, you see.

  “He had hold of the collar of my jacket and I had to bend right low to hear what he was saying. I remember the blood on his teeth. A gurgling sound in his chest when he breathed. ‘Leave me here. Get yourself out. Show them what it’s all really like, all this fighting, all this ruddy killing. You promise me, Will?’ And I said yes and then he sort of twisted up and he looked so sad and afraid and lonely …” Grandad swayed and tears ran down his face.

  “… I wanted to die there with him.

  “He shouted out a single word. His last. Her name.”

  Freda.

  I wanted to cry like Grandad was. I wanted to screw up my face and let the tears stream down like he was doing, but I couldn’t. I rocked myself forward and back. Forward and back. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I cry?

  I hugged Grandad as he sobbed, and when we were standing quietly again, I asked, “Why is Great-Aunt Mildred so against you?”

  His bruised, wet eyelid glistened. “Mildred was engaged to Henry Webb, as you know. He died the same year, a bit later on, though. He was saved from Dunkirk. A navy ship brought him out. He’d seen what happened with me and Tommie and he’d told Mildred about it.”

  He stroked the carnation petals.

  “When Henry was killed, she started telling people her own twisted version of the story. That I deliberately pushed Tommie to kill him. So somehow your dad got the wrong end of the stick.”

  “But why would Aunt Mildred do that?”

  Grandad shook his head. “It’s hard to know exactly. Maybe she thought all her hopes for the future had been snatched away when Henry died. When she saw Freda and me get together, she felt, well, bitter, I suppose.”

  The vicar’s words came back to me. Grief, Alex. Grief is a terrible thing.

  “Even after your grandma was gone, she stuck to her story,” said Grandad. “She probably believed it by then, anyway.”

  “But why didn’t you tell Dad the truth?” I said. “You should have told him. You just told me!”

  “I tried …” Grandad sighed. “I wanted to. But … But it was difficult, Alex. Going over it all again. You of all people know that!”

  He hunched his shoulders. “Your dad was right. I am a coward. I didn’t want to admit I’d pushed Tommie on to that metal.”

  “But it was an accident, Grandad! You saved him from the bullets!”

  Grandad looked down at Grandma’s grave. “First Tommie,” he said. “Then my Freda.”

  I buried my face in Grandad’s chest, feeling it heave under me, feeling his heart thumping, hard and strong.

  “Do you know Peter Webb’s dead?” I said, but he didn’t seem to have heard me.

  “I promised Tommie I’d develop my films,” he said. “Show them to everyone who’d look. I managed to get a small book out pretty quick with a few of the first pictures I developed. Self-published, it was. But all the copies and all the negatives were destroyed when the darkroom went up. There was one roll left after the fire. God knows how it survived. I always meant to develop it, after what I promised Tommie … But I hadn’t the heart to, not after Freda died. I couldn’t do it.”

  “Hatty Kirby has a copy of the book
, Grandad, and …” I swallowed. “… I found the film. In Grandma’s room. I’m sorry I went in there. I shouldn’t have done, but I had to …”

  Grandad shuddered. “Don’t ask me to develop it,” he pleaded. “I don’t want to look at those photos.” He started rifling round in his pocket and pulled out the key to the Den. He forced it into my hand. “I couldn’t face looking at them. Don’t make me.”

  “I won’t ask you to. Shhh … It’s OK.”

  Grandad clutched my arm, like Sophie might when she was scared.

  Seeing him made me remember the look in my babo’s eyes …

  Focus on Grandad, I told myself.

  “I know about the Sunflower,” he said suddenly. “Your mum and dad told me, a bit back.

  “I don’t want to go, Alex.”

  He pulled at his beard and looked around, as if he didn’t recognize anything. “I can’t remember how to get home,” he whimpered. “Help me find my way home.”

  I squeezed his arm and nodded, and as I led him back through the graveyard I knew that I needed those photographs for the scrapbook. I needed them for Dad. He had to see them. I had to develop that film as soon as I could.

  There was only one problem.

  One big problem.

  I would have to do it without Grandad.

  But I wasn’t sure I could remember how.

  – CHAPTER 21 –

  THE FRONT LINE

  In Grandad’s darkroom. 10:29 a.m. No room for error.

  When we got back, Mum made Grandad change into dry clothes and put his feet up, and then she and Dad went out shopping. They’d wanted to drag Grandad with them, but they must have seen he wasn’t up to it. They wanted to treat him to some new things, Mum said. I waited while she droned through the list: A new pair of pyjamas, slippers, a nice new cardigan … And there are hummus and cucumber sandwiches in the fridge and chocolate cake for lunch in case we’re late back … All I could think about were the photographs, the film I had to develop.