The shocks come thick and fast these days. Just as I get my voice back, and when the bruises begin to fade, I am called by the hospice in Bolton. Elsie and Bert, who stayed together in the countryside long after we had all left, are now dying together. They always did everything as a pair, and it seems that they are travelling hand-in-hand towards eternity. Both now well past the age of eighty-five, they have served their time and are far too frail to continue earthbound. There is a pain in my heart, and I will not cry, not yet.
‘I can manage,’ Susan insists. ‘Just leave me enough money, and I’ll get help if I need it – next door or my mam – whatever. You’ve got to go, Anna. They were there for you when your mam died – eh? So go.’
‘I’ll come back every night,’ I tell her. ‘It’s only forty-odd miles. Even if I have to go for days, I can come back and help at night.’
‘Just phone me.’
‘I will.’ Again, I thank God for sending me this girl.
The hospice is a serene place with gentle, caring staff. These brave souls deal with death on a daily basis, and they sit me down in an office with a cup of tea, biscuits, and a very nice woman. ‘The Dixons are in the same room,’ she tells me. ‘We broke all the rules, because those two have been together since they were children. It won’t be long now.’
I scarcely recognize the two good souls who raised me from the age of five, and my twin sisters from birth. They are unconscious, and both are plugged into morphine pumps. Tiny, bird-like and twisted, they are curled into positions that face each other. I wipe their dry lips with ‘lollipops’ made from pieces of sponge on sticks. Elsie and Bert are desiccated and beyond revival, and the care is now merely palliative.
A nurse joins me, takes their pulses, wets their lips, checks the medication. She tells me that there is a sandwich for me in the office, and a coffee making machine in the entrance hall. But I am too exhausted for any of that. In an armchair at the foot of those twin beds, I fall asleep and dream of long-ago days when Elsie stopped fearing cows and learned to chase them out of her garden, when she learned to love the sight of her washing hanging in good, clean air. I hear Bert’s heavy boots clipping the garden path as he walked home from the farm, listen to his stories of newborn lambs and calves. We walked, just he and I, to a stable where I watched the birth of a foal, saw the dam licking it clean, stood open-mouthed in shock when the new baby struggled to its feet on legs like thick knitting needles.
‘There’s a copy in the drawer,’ says Elsie, but I am too busy looking at the foal.
‘See, lass, that’s life going on, is that,’ Bert says now. ‘The bloody Germans can’t stop it – nobody can. Birthings still happen and nowt can be done to spoil any of it.’ The Americans were coming. There were millions of them, and they would cut Hitler to bits. We would all be safe because of the Americans.
‘In the drawer,’ says Elsie again.
Precious moments away from Kate and Beckie, just Bert and his Anna with new life and the scent of hay. Blackberries picked on the way home, fallen apples carried in my held-out skirt, Auntie Elsie at home with pastry so short it melts in the mouth. These two are my people, special, precious people.
A hand touches my shoulder and I wake with a start. Elsie is going on about something in a drawer as I open my eyes and see the nurse. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I was tired.’
‘It’s all right, love. They’ve gone. It was peaceful and I think they waited for you.’
I am so weak, I can’t even cry. Although days have passed, the trauma of Den’s assault is still etched in my head and I am simply not over it. ‘I heard her speak,’ I say. ‘Something about a drawer?’
The nurse nods. ‘That happens sometimes. They come in spirit to relatives just before they go to their rest. It was her last message, and there is something for you in a drawer. I’ll get it for you later.’
I am alone with the shells that used to contain my guardians. They are still warm, and I stroke their faces. They did their best. Eventually, they realized that responsibility for the twins was too much for me, but many children born in the war were cared for by older siblings. I was never ill-treated, except by my sisters. I was never punished, never slapped. Elsie and Bert Dixon, now gone from this earth, saved us from being sent to strangers.
‘Thank you,’ I whisper. Then I go to speak to the nurse in charge.
‘No post-mortems required,’ she informs me. ‘And they asked me to give you this envelope. I know you live in St Helens, so we’ll help all we can with arrangements.’
After I leave the hospice, I sit in my car and read. In simple language, Elsie tells me that they won the pools in 1961, that they spent some, used some during retirement, but that the rest has been invested for me. For me. The tide overtakes me, sweeps me along on a wave of grief so powerful that I can barely keep breathing.
‘They loved me,’ I sob, aloud to myself. ‘And I should have saved them from . . .’ I can’t even say it to myself. I should have saved them from my sisters.
When I finally get home, I sleep for two days. Susan, who knows me better than anyone – even though our acquaintance is young – leaves me to it. I have killed my marriage, and my foster parents are dead. Sometimes, only sleep will do.
Four
‘Uncle Bert?’
‘Yes, love?’ He put down his evening paper for the third time. Anna was in a questioning frame of mind, and it was best to get it over with.
‘You know that woman with the white hair? She’s in all the photos with the king and the queen and princesses. Never smiles, loads of jewellery, very tall.’
‘Queen Mary, you mean. She used to be the queen till the other George died.’
‘Mary of Teck. She comes from Teck.’
‘Right. She married George the Fifth, our king’s dad. What about her?’
Anna scratched her head. ‘Whose side is she on in this war we’re having?’
‘Our side.’
‘Are we sure? I mean, if England went to war with France, and if I married a Frenchman, would I have to be on the French side? Because I’d still be English, wouldn’t I? Just because you end up living in another country, you don’t have to change who you are. I’d be on England’s side.’
‘Yes, but you see, the way it works—’
‘So she could be sending secret messages to Hitler, couldn’t she? She’s a German.’
‘She might be part German, but she’s not a Nazi. Any road, her dad was German, but she was brought up here all her life. And she married a king, so she’s English Royal Family. It’s different for them.’
‘But what if I married a French king?’
‘They haven’t got any kings.’
‘Why not?’
Bert copied Anna’s action, removing a flat cap before scratching his scalp. ‘They cut all their heads off.’
‘Who did?’
Bert was getting a bit bogged down. The trouble with Anna was that she was permanently hungry, but not for food. He prayed that he wouldn’t have to go through Dunkirk again, because she complicated history with the simplest questions, and the simple questions were always the most complicated when Anna was involved. ‘The French people did. They lined them all up and cut their heads off with a thing called a guillotine.’
‘Why?’
‘Er . . . because they had nowt to eat.’
‘So did they eat their heads?’
‘Eh? No, no. They just wanted rid of the aristocrats – the posh people – for summat called liberty, equality and brotherhood. I think.’
‘So they cut their heads off? That’s not very nice, is it?’
Bert sighed. It was like talking to someone who was fifty rather than six years of age. ‘Where are the twins?’
Anna shrugged. ‘With Auntie Elsie, I think.’
‘Take them out for a long walk, Anna. Give Auntie Elsie a chance to do her ironing.’
‘I’d rather learn my catechism.’
‘You know your catechism. Please, Anna.’
So she got on with it. Finding them was the first job. She dragged Kate from under a chair, washed and dressed her, strapped her in the pram. Beckie was in the kitchen eating a bit of rather grey, raw pastry. She was treated similarly by her older sister and, when both were clean, clad and fastened down, Anna set off. She would take them for a long walk, all right.
It was miles to Bolton, but mostly downhill. She didn’t think about coming back uphill; she simply set off to take these two troublesome creatures away from a household that would have been peaceful without them. They were communicating now in some language known only to them and, once tired of ‘talking’, they fell asleep, lulled by the movement of their baby carriage.
Exhausted, she leaned against a wall near a window belonging to Preston’s of Bolton, a large jewellery shop. Eight miles was a long way, and she needed a rest. Then the girl came along. She said how pretty the twins were, how much she would love to take them for a walk, and that she would bring them back in an hour.
Freedom. But what use was liberty when legs didn’t work and feet felt as if they were on fire? After a few minutes, Anna bestirred herself in an effort to make use of this precious span. Would the girl come back? Or would she take them home and persuade her parents to keep them?
Fear struck. The enormity of what she had done hit her in the ribs like an invisible sledgehammer. Anger had sustained her over all that distance, but now, ready to collapse from exhaustion, weakened in body and mind, she wondered at her own terrible stupidity. They were her sisters. Good, bad or indifferent, those were her mother’s children.
Police would get involved. She would be questioned for hours, and she would have to confess that she had tried to lose two defenceless babies. It was a sin. It was all a terrible, mortal sin and she would not get into heaven. Just like all the Proddies at the new school, she would be excluded. Oh, God.
Anna ran blindly through the town, Deansgate, council offices, shops, Bradshawgate, Churchgate. In the end, she was forced to stand again outside Preston’s, because the hour was almost up. From here, she could see in four separate directions, so that was a bonus.
The girl brought them back. ‘They did nowt but cry,’ she complained. ‘And they stink to high heaven. I think they’ve both filled their nappies.’ She glared at Anna as if blaming her for the hellish hour the twins had given her. Anna grabbed the pram. All she knew was that she couldn’t walk all the way back to the house. It was too far, and she was too tired. The bus wouldn’t be any use, because she would need to abandon the pram and inflict terrible smells on all the other passengers. ‘Think, think,’ she told herself.
There was only one thing for it. Like most of her generation, Anna had been taught to be honest and to ask for help whenever needed. The people to ask were the police and, as long as you told them the truth, they would help you. Thus it came about that Bert and Elsie had their charges returned, complete with pram, in a large, blue police van.
‘Don’t shout at me,’ was Anna’s first plea. ‘Uncle Bert, you told me to take them for a long walk while Auntie Elsie ironed, and I did. I walked and walked and walked until I couldn’t walk any more. So these policemen brought us home.’ She stalked off in the direction of the front door, stopped on the step, turned and delivered her afterthought. This was a good time for the whole truth – not that it would make a great deal of difference. ‘I wish I could have left them in town, because they get on my nerves. They both stink, they’re hungry and probably thirsty, because they don’t like Vimto.’ On this note of high drama, she entered the cottage.
Elsie was hard on her foster daughter’s heels. ‘Why, love?’
Anna thought for a moment. ‘Because there was just me, Mam and Dad. Then there was just me and Mam. Then there was no Mam and THEY were here. I don’t like them. They’re just not nice, they’re pests and they get me down.’
‘But . . . but they’re your sisters.’
‘I know they are. If they hadn’t come, I’d still have Mam.’
Elsie dropped into a chair. ‘That’s terrible, Anna. You can’t blame—’
‘You want me to tell the truth, don’t you? I can stand here, if you want, and say they’re lovely and wonderful and I’m glad. It would be lies. It would be marks on my soul.’ She ran upstairs and shut herself in the bedroom. At the top of her voice, she screamed at the closed door. ‘I know she could have died having me, only she didn’t. She was alive. She died having them, because there were two of them and that’s too many.’
Elsie attended to the filthy and starving twins while Bert made a pot of tea for the constables. They drank up, said not to worry, and went off to do their duty elsewhere. Elsie passed one of the twins to her husband. ‘Here. Get that bit of soup down her – and I mean down her throat, not her clothes.’ She wiped her face with a handkerchief. ‘I’ll see to the other one.’
Later, they sat together, one at each side of the fire. The twins were asleep, and the quiet was wonderful. ‘We bit off a lot,’ said Bert. ‘We bit off a mouthful we can’t chew.’
‘I know. But what else could we have done?’ Elsie dragged a hand across her aching head. ‘Frankie’s family couldn’t cope – they’ve all got loads of kiddies. And it’s not too bad. I’m getting used to being up here, and Anna’s looking a lot better. I suppose I depend on her a lot, especially when you’re at work – but who else is there?’
‘Only that Mellor woman up at the hall, and she’s got her hands full, hasn’t she? You’re there two evenings a week, so you know about them poor young girls with their unwanted babies. Any road, haven’t we always said we wanted these to have a normal family life? Frankie would spin in her grave if she knew we’d put them in some sort of institution.’
‘And the clean air in Anna’s lungs has done her the world of good,’ said Elsie. ‘She’s not breathing in all the muck from the mills, and that makes a difference.’
Bert closed his eyes and stretched out his legs. ‘You know what, love?’
‘Eh?’
‘I think we should stop here for good now. I’d never have thought about coming to live up on the tops like this, but it’s gradely, isn’t it?’
Elsie nodded. ‘But what about her?’ She pointed to the ceiling.
Bert took a sip of beer. ‘She’ll come round, because she’ll have to – just you wait and see.’
School wasn’t bad. At school, there was no Kate, no Beckie, and Anna got to play once during the morning, after lunch, then again in the afternoon. She brought a packed lunch in the little basket on her handlebars, and each school day was a blessing, because the twins were not a priority during those precious hours.
Her teacher was Miss Burke, and she took a keen interest in Anna, who was top of the class in most subjects. She noticed how slowly Anna left the building every day, saw the bicycle wobbling along the lanes at a speed that scarcely kept it in an upright position. Unlike the child who went reluctantly to school, this one would have lived there had she been given the choice. After looking into the little girl’s background, Cora Burke found some answers. This was the one who had been in all the newspapers after staying with her dead mother and finishing up in hospital with pneumonia. Anna was a character, and the woman she would become was already on show, since she had matured at an unnaturally fast pace.
In the playground, Anna MacRae was an organizer. She made up the games, invented the rules and generally kept order in her corner of the yard. She was lively, imaginative and funny. Yet she was not happy. So Miss Burke decided to question her. Was anyone hurting her? Did her foster parents treat her well? Did she like living in Weavers Row? Why didn’t she want to go home at the end of the day?
Anna studied the plainly dressed woman. A different hairstyle might have been a good idea. And some better shoes. ‘I don’t want to go home because of the twins,’ she replied. After all, wasn’t honesty best?
‘Your little sisters?’
Anna nodded. ‘But it’ll get better when they’re about two or th
ree, because there’ll be no nappies and I can teach them to read.’
‘Perhaps I’ll come home with you this afternoon and meet your sisters.’
Anna rode home like the wind that afternoon. After clattering her bike to the ground below the front window, she ran inside screaming breathlessly, ‘The teacher’s coming. Miss Burke. She’ll be here in a few minutes.’
There followed a blur of activity involving Anna and Elsie. Bert was on an ordinary shift, because the weather wasn’t too raging hot for working the fields. Anna piled clean nappies on the dresser while Elsie swept and dusted. ‘Where are they?’ Anna asked, her words still starved of oxygen.
‘Playpen. Back yard,’ replied Elsie. ‘Straighten that cushion on Uncle Bert’s chair, love. I’ll go upstairs and try to make myself look halfway to—’
‘Hello?’
Anna sighed, shook her head, then went to welcome her teacher into the house. Elsie, after throwing up her arms in despair, put the kettle to boil and found some home-made biscuits that hadn’t had their edges chewed by the twin girls’ incisors. ‘Pleased to see you, I’m sure,’ Elsie said when the woman came in. ‘Sit you down, Miss Burke. Have you come to talk about our Anna?’
‘Just a visit,’ replied Cora Burke. ‘She’s a very clever girl, so I thought I’d take a look at her sisters, because if they are anything like Anna, they will be stars.’
Anna smiled. Stars? Unless coal-eating and nappy-soiling became sports, the only marks they would leave were the messes they made of just about everything within their reach.
The little girl sat and listened while her teacher coo-ed and chuckled over the playpen at the back of the house. They were beautiful, they were clever, they reminded Miss Burke of their sister. Anna tutted quietly. She was a person who tried to be good; they made no effort whatsoever. Two years old in January? They acted like newborns.
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