So began Anna’s summer of drudgery, though she chose not to view it in such terms. A terrible sadness settled on Berkeley Hall, and nursery classes were moved to a pair of hastily erected prefabs in the grounds. A nurse was found. She wasn’t qualified, but had experience in the area of premature dementia, and seemed to be prepared to deal with Mrs Mellor and her problems.
Anna discovered a few tricks that seemed to work. Mrs Mellor liked Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, Snap, and dominoes, though she had to be allowed to win. If she lost, she threw a spectacular tantrum, broke things, wet herself and refused to be changed. The nurse attended to the practicalities, but Anna was the entertainment, and it was tiring.
Mrs Culshaw was in high dudgeon yet again. She marched up to the Dixon’s door and rattled the knocker. ‘I’ll have you two hanged, drawn and quartered, I swear I will,’ she growled at her companions. ‘And if I don’t get you, somebody will, because we’re all fed up to the back teeth.’
Kate, on one side of the large woman, sighed resignedly.
Beckie, on the opposite flank, cleared her throat.
Elsie opened the door, and Mrs Culshaw pushed in the reprobates before entering herself without waiting for an invitation. ‘Elsie,’ she said, ‘they’re at it again. I’ve never known anything like them in all my born days, and that’s the God’s honest truth. They need a good belting.’
Two perfect angels stood in front of Elsie Dixon’s fireplace. Scarcely blinking and not at all put out, they clearly failed to care about whatever was about to happen.
‘I’ve a couple of wedding dresses on the go and a Post Office to run,’ said Betty Culshaw. ‘So I’m what you might call a busy woman. Any road, this being Wednesday and half-day closing, I thought I’d do a bit of sewing. And I’m upstairs in the little back bedroom making the best I can out of muslin and a few inches of lace, when I hear a noise. So I look down, and there’s Kate with bottles.’
Kate looked sideways at Beckie. Beckie leaned casually against the fireguard.
‘There’s pop bottles in yon yard what other people have brought back, and I’ve returned their deposit. Your two are pinching them and bringing them back again as if they’re from your house. I’m paying twice.’
Elsie sat down and addressed Kate. ‘In English, did you do it?’
Kate nodded.
‘Why?’
‘Bogga,’ whispered Beckie.
‘Never mind that malarkey,’ yelled Betty Culshaw. ‘You’re thieves. And that language of yours, the secret stuff – it’s just so none of us knows whatever you’re planning next. They’ve been stealing, and that’s all there is to it.’ she advised her hostess.
‘Why?’ Elsie asked the twins.
‘Saving up for Uncle Bert’s birthday,’ Kate replied.
‘You can’t save up with somebody else’s money,’ said Elsie. ‘It’s stealing.’ She had finally had enough. ‘Get upstairs now, both of you. And you can stay there. I’ll bring jam and bread for your supper, and you’ve to stop in all week. I’m shamed to death of you.’
Hand in hand, the twins left the room.
‘They’ve no conscience,’ commented Betty. ‘It’s like the world’s their oyster, and nobody else counts. Tell you what, though, I’m getting that back fence mended pronto. They’ve played one trick too many on me.’
‘How much do I owe you?’ asked Elsie, the words floating on a long sigh.
‘I don’t know. I got the bottles off them today, and I’ve no way of proving that they’ve done it before or how many times. But the bottles aren’t the point, are they? Where’s Anna? Can’t she keep an eye on them?’
Elsie shrugged. ‘She’s working. Gets a pound a week off Linda Mellor for helping up at the hall.’ Anna disliked her sisters, but Elsie wasn’t going to give away any more family secrets. Betty Culshaw had heard enough that day in the shop, when Anna had said she was fed up with the twins.
Betty placed herself in an armchair. ‘Is it true she’s gone mental?’
‘Who?’
‘Iris Mellor, of course. She’s not been seen at church for weeks, and nobody’s heard a dicky bird from her. I’ve heard as how she doesn’t know whether it’s Tuesday or breakfast time.’
Elsie sighed yet again. ‘Well, she’s not herself,’ she said carefully. ‘Some kind of fever, I think. It’s left her too tired to even dress herself, but we hope she’ll get better soon. Anna talks to her and reads to her.’
‘Hmmph.’ Mrs Culshaw folded her arms and sat back. This movement made clear to Elsie that she knew better, and that she intended to stay until she got to the bottom of things.
‘I’ve jobs to do,’ said Elsie, rising to her feet. ‘I like to be straight when my Bert gets home.’
Betty Culshaw, at a slightly lowered level of dudgeon, left the house.
Elsie collapsed onto the sofa as soon as she was alone. She had let down her neighbour and friend, Frankie MacRae. Without knowing how, she had failed to rear the twins properly. Anna, thank God, was nearly as good as gold, yet somewhere along the line, Elsie had gone wrong with Kate and Beckie. People weren’t born bad, surely? But hadn’t Anna been complaining about her sisters for long enough? So had they been like this from birth?
With no idea of what to do or where to turn, Elsie sobbed her heart out. They were listening. She knew they were listening. But they didn’t care. They didn’t give a damn, because they were . . . different.
By the time Anna arrived at Berkeley Hall the next day, the police had been sent for. Linda, who trusted everyone in the household, could think of no one who might have done what the police called an inside job. Mrs Mellor’s dead husband’s gold cufflinks, tiepin and hunter watch were missing. Mrs Mellor’s jewellery boxes had disappeared, as had a string of pearls given by Roger to Linda just before he went abroad.
Anna, who had been searching the grounds for her sisters, who had gone missing, ran to the nearest policeman. ‘Our twins have gone again,’ she said.
When she learned about the thefts in the big house, she tightened her lips and said nothing at first. It was like the barn – she just knew. But this time, she was one tiny step ahead. For a while, she had known about the hollow tree in Grantham Woods, and she had kept the knowledge to herself. But she needed a witness, someone who knew her and trusted her sufficiently to believe in her honesty. So she asked Linda and the policeman to come with her. ‘It’s the lightning tree,’ she told them. ‘That’s where they’ve been hiding stuff.’
‘Who?’ asked the constable.
‘That, officer, is the bit that’s going to hurt. Let’s go at Anna’s speed,’ Linda suggested.
The three of them walked across pasture and around the edges of arable land until they reached the rim of the woods. ‘We have to be quiet now,’ Anna said. ‘Like me, they have very good hearing. In fact, you two stay here, and come when I shout. I’ll start shouting if and when I find what I think I might find. Then you can put them in prison for me.’
‘Put who in prison?’ mouthed the constable at Linda.
Instead of replying, she shrugged. In her opinion, this was a matter of least said, soonest mended.
There wasn’t a lot of brittle wood about, but Anna had to tread carefully and avoid branches that touched her body. There should be no movement, no warning, because this time, the police would get them. Birds fluttered here and there, but, apart from that, the wood seemed uninhabited. Until she neared the lightning tree. Struck years earlier by a bolt from the blue, the injured object had struggled to live. It had a hole in its base, and this was an ancient tree, so the bole was sizeable.
There was scarcely a sound, but she knew they were inside. The tell-tale signs were a pile of leaves to one side, and a heap of twigs on the other. These had been prepared in order to plug their hiding place after the thieves had made their deposit in this, their own savings bank.
Without bending, without looking to see what they were doing, Anna opened her mouth and screamed, ‘They’re here.’ She did th
is repeatedly until Linda and the policeman appeared. Anna pointed to the hole. ‘In there, you’ll find my twin sisters, Katherine and Rebecca. They’ve been letting cows out of fields, stealing from the Post Office and I reckon they burned down a barn not too long ago.’
The policeman’s jaw dropped, and he stood looking very silly for several seconds. ‘How old?’ he asked finally.
‘Four and a half,’ replied Anna tersely. ‘With what Mrs Culshaw calls criminal minds, no time for anybody and, I’ll bet you my Post Office book to your helmet, a load of jewellery.’
The young criminals crawled out of their hole. ‘We were hiding it,’ said Kate.
‘From the Germans,’ Beckie added. ‘They’ll pinch it if they come.’
Anna laughed, though there was no mirth in the noise she produced. ‘No, they won’t. Because you’ve already stolen it. How were you going to sell it?’
The young constable shook his head. ‘It’s the magpie thing,’ he said. ‘Young kiddies like anything that shines.’
‘Like fire?’ Anna asked. ‘Like returned bottles at the back of a shop? Did they shine for you?’
He knelt down, removed his helmet, and began to pull out the contents of the lightning tree. Mrs Mellor’s jewellery boxes were followed by her husband’s watch, tie-pin and cufflinks. Then came scarves, hankies, pretty nightdresses, Linda’s pearls. But the worst for Anna were the last two items. She saw her First Holy Communion rosary, and a pearl-backed prayer book given to her by Auntie Elsie and Uncle Bert to mark the same occasion. She wasn’t sure about being a Catholic, but these were gifts, and they had been stolen. Without thinking, she crossed the small clearing and hit her sisters’ cheeks so hard that the twins stumbled.
‘Hang on,’ said the policeman.
Anna turned on him. ‘No, you hang on. Hang onto them, take them away. They got born like this. Auntie Elsie and Uncle Bert have been good to them, good to all of us. Imagine what they’ll be like in a few years.’
This was another statement that would haunt Anna for the rest of her days. It was as if she knew at the age of nine – as if she had always known – that there was something terribly wrong with her younger sisters. It would always hurt. Their very existence would be a constant source of worry. But on that day, in a wood with a rosary and a prayer book, she was just speaking words. Anna was no prophet.
The stolen items were gathered up by the policeman, and the twins were taken away for questioning. Elsie was found, and she was chosen to act as responsible adult while the girls were questioned.
Meanwhile, Anna MacRae went to the hall and apologized to a woman who scarcely understood what was being said to her. But the apology was necessary. It was the first of many.
1945
It was over. It ended on 6th May in a small school in Rheims, but no one in England celebrated until the 13th, when the Mall in London was suddenly packed with revellers who cheered their beloved Winston as he drove to the Palace for lunch. Bells rang everywhere, people danced and screamed in the streets, there was weeping and laughter and, at cenotaphs and memorials the length and breadth of the land, men and women placed flowers for those who would not come home, and for all who had died in the second Great War.
A few people in Eagle Rise put out bunting and Union flags, but the celebrations were subdued, because for them, this was a spoilt day and they could not bring themselves to rejoice. A sad quiet descended on them, and they could scarcely bring themselves to express relief or joy when the news arrived.
Yes, the war was over. Yes, the men who had survived would be coming home to their families. But a cloud hung over the place named by locals as the Big House, their manor, Berkeley Hall. A sad, black-clad Linda Mellor followed a hearse on Iris’s last journey to church. Mrs Mellor, who had died of a heart attack, was being laid to rest on the very day on which peace had been officially declared.
This was bad enough, but there was even worse news. Roger, the young Mellor who should have taken over the reins, was dead. His grave would be in Italy, so Linda did not get to bury her husband. Instead, she followed his mother and treated the service as if it were for both the deceased. With untidy hair not quite concealed by a black veil, she stood before a full church and paid tribute to the dead. ‘. . . not only my husband and my mother-in-law, but all who have perished during these six long years of war.’
Anna wept quietly. Her sisters watched with interest, though they were not moved to weep. They never cried . . .‘On behalf of Iris, I thank you all for coming today to pay tribute to a fine woman and her brave son. I must now bear the burden of business until my son comes of age. I beg you all to pray for the family we have lost, and for all whose sons, brothers, husbands and friends are coming home injured. God bless.’
The church was deadly silent. All over the country, people were singing and dancing, but this place would scarcely notice peace. They would continue to plough and nourish, sow and reap, milk cows, collect eggs, breed pigs for market. In villages such as this one, the circle of life continued no matter what was happening in the political arena. A few people sniffed back emotion when the coffin was carried out, but no one said a word.
Anna dragged her sisters to the graveside. She hoped they were glad that they had apologized to Mrs Mellor for stealing her jewellery, yet there was no sign of emotion in either of them. They were making their mark in different ways these days, because the school had been required to bring in secondary level work for them, and they were sailing through algebra as if it were just another language, one they had always known. They were weird.
Mrs Mellor had not understood them, had not recognized them, yet Anna had forced them to make that apology. And here they stood, white blouses, grey skirts and socks, beautifully clean, not in the least way sad. Didn’t they know about death? Didn’t they understand loss?
At the hall, farmers, their wives and labourers were all given food and drink, but there was very little conversation. Anna spent her time keeping an eye on the twins, just in case they decided to pinch a couple of silver cake forks or a pretty plate. Her sisters were very clever, but Anna was the one who could read people. She could certainly read them. They were playing a long game, were acting as normally as they could manage, but Anna waited for the next explosion. And Dad would be home soon . . .
Linda and Anna spent a few moments together. ‘I just want to go home,’ Linda wept. ‘But this is my responsibility now. Until Richard is a man, I have to run this place.’
Anna nodded. ‘No, you don’t. You get a steward, someone who’ll manage the business.’ She had overheard whispered conversation in Mrs Culshaw’s shop. ‘Then you can go home for a few weeks and come back again. When he’s at school, you and Richard can travel to your mum’s house in the school holidays.’
‘What a clever girl you are, Anna.’ Linda dried her eyes. ‘Your sisters may be spectacular when it comes to learning, but you know how to apply what you know. And you’re kind.’ She touched the little girl’s hair. ‘Ten years old now,’ she said absently.
Anna couldn’t stay. She left Linda in the office and went to continue her vigil. Ah, there they were. As ever, they stood apart from the crowd, side by side, though not hand in hand. They ate nothing, drank nothing. Anna glanced at Bert and Elsie, who were talking quietly to some farmhands. She hoped that Dad wouldn’t blame them for the way her sisters had turned out.
Her heart skipped a beat. Just the four of them – Kate, Beckie, Dad and Anna. One adult for three children, two of whom were . . . strange. Dad didn’t know them. All he had seen were two babies still red and angry after their recent ordeal. How would he cope? How would she manage with just one parent in the house? She found herself wishing they could all stay with Bert and Elsie. That was terrible, because Dad was coming back to a family, his own family.
This was the end of something horrible – a world war. Was it the beginning of yet another situation that would prove unpalatable?
Nine
Geoff phoned yesterda
y, and I finished it. He was genuinely upset, and I felt sad for him, but it’s impossible. I can’t afford an untidy life, and I was always aware that he was waiting somewhere just out of sight. He’ll survive. There’ll be no shortage of women for him. And Geoff’s too good a guy to be messed about. So I’m feeling a bit sorry for myself today, like a kid who wants a certain toy, even if she’s never going to play with it. Idiot.
Nothing to do with Alec Halliwell, I keep informing myself. I have to be a mother, the inventor of a new business, a dog-owner, a housekeeper and a sane woman. This is all possible if I continue to keep company with the Hughes family, who have saved my bacon several times, who make me laugh, and who keep my feet planted firmly on planet Earth. I actually love these people.
But. When I lie in my lonely bed, the pillow I clutch has a name. Sometimes, I talk to him; sometimes, he answers back, but I am asleep when that happens. That’s when everything blurs and I start to run away from him or towards him. Lately, I have been inclined towards towards . . .
Susan Hawkeye Hughes notices everything. Then she tells the everything she notices to Marie and Mo, who are now sitting opposite me on one of the sofas. Marie says I should ‘gerritoverwith’ and Mo tends to agree. ‘Have a wild night,’ suggests the latter. ‘Posh room in a hotel, bottle of shampers, some nice massage oils, candles . . .’
Even the puppy woofs at me. She can keep her nose out, too.
‘Shut up, Mo and dog,’ I order. I am changing my mind about this family – they aren’t helping at all. The Spanish Inquisition springs to mind, since I am being persecuted for no good reason. What next, then? The rack, the iron maiden?
‘What about the caravan?’ This suggestion is made by Susan.
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