Sugar and Spice

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘He has to be in a clearing in the woods,’ said Anna, almost to herself.

  ‘Nay.’ Bert shook his head. ‘They’ve been caught out too many times in yon. They’ll not make that mistake again.’

  ‘But he might, Uncle Bert. My dad wouldn’t go where they told him to go, because he forgets what people say to him. And that wood’s deeper than I’ve ever been – there have to be clearings.’

  He shook his head in despair. ‘We’ve got to start somewhere, I suppose. I thought he’d never leave the house – he didn’t want to come to work with me, did he? But he’s vulnerable, Anna. He knows his mate’s dead, because we’ve drummed it into him, but he’s not . . . well, you know what I mean.’

  ‘Not predictable,’ Anna finished for him. ‘Dr Corcoran says he’s still all there, but he chooses what he hears. Something about a defence mechanism.’

  They went home to change into walking boots, Bert chuntering all the time under his breath, because he didn’t know what the world was coming to, and he’d half a mind to get over to the school and drag them two little hellions out of their class for questioning.

  Anna hadn’t a great deal to say for herself. She felt weary, worried, disappointed and sorry to have to take time off school if this was yet another of the twins’ tricks. Then she remembered Jimmy Hardcastle with his bottle-bottom glasses and his weak leg – had she not rattled the truth out of them, Kate and Beckie would have left him there to die. Would they do that to their own father? No. They weren’t strong enough to fasten him to a tree. But they were sufficiently wicked to put the idea of camping into his head.

  Her main concern was for her father, who had shown marked signs of improvement of late. She’d managed some good and meaningful conversations with him, and he had even become animated when talking about his dead wife. Although he seldom asked about the twins, he knew who and where they were, and seemed happier with Anna. Sometimes, she spent the night in his house, and he appeared glad to have her with him. And now, he had gone missing.

  Bert joined her. ‘You ready?’ he asked.

  Anna was thinking. ‘Will you wait for me, Uncle Bert?’

  ‘Why? Where are you off to?’

  The days when she could slap them and detain them until they gave up the truth were long past. It was 1947, so they were great big seven-year olds, sturdy, well-fed and as stubborn as she was. She had to be clever. The fight would go on, but it needed to be psychological. ‘I’m going to the big house. If Linda’s in, I’ll ask her to take me to the school.’

  ‘Well, I thought of that, but they’ll be in lessons.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The teachers won’t like it.’

  ‘Neither will my sisters. That, Uncle Bert, is the idea. They’re terrified of Linda Mellor ever since she said she was going to put their names all over the place. Remember? When they took my bike to bits?’

  ‘I remember. Took me the best part of a weekend to put the bugger back together. Don’t tell Elsie I swore.’

  ‘As if I would.’

  ‘Any road, I’ll come with you. I don’t see why Mrs Mellor should have to deal with our troubles without us being with her.’

  They came out of the house and saw Billy strolling down the street, a bundle on his back and a broad smile on his face. He had been out. For the first time since . . . since he didn’t know when, he had got out of the house and breathed fresh air.

  Anna grabbed Bert’s hand. ‘Leave it to me,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll get to the bottom of it.’ She followed her father into his house and closed the door. ‘You’ve been gone four days,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve been missing for three nights and four days, Dad.’

  He dropped his backpack and sat down. ‘Did they not tell you?’

  ‘No, they didn’t. They never tell anybody anything. Where’s the tent come from?’

  ‘They gave it to me. Kate and Beckie.’

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look at me.’ She waited until he was concentrating. ‘They stole it. The twins took that tent from a storage shed on the estate.’

  ‘Oh.’ He wiped a hand across his brow and thought back to the last time he’d seen the twins. ‘I was here with them and they were telling me about – what’s it called? Agoraphobia. They said it’s Latin, something to do with fields and fear. They’d looked it up and decided that if I stayed in here any longer, I’d never be able to set foot outside. So I told them I’d lived under canvas for years, and they said they’d get me a tent. And they did. So I went.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the woods. It was great. It was like it used to be when . . .’

  ‘When your friend was still alive. But that wasn’t a good time, Dad, because it was a war, and the war killed him. That war’s over and done with now. And you should have told us where you were going, because they don’t do messages.’

  ‘I’m back, anyway. And I’ve got a chance of work. That gamekeeper’s putting in a word for me. I’m good at creeping about and catching people.’

  Anna shivered. As long as he didn’t forget and shoot somebody . . . Would he have a gun? Did gamekeepers carry guns? It probably didn’t matter, because Linda Mellor would have more sense than to employ Dad in a position that involved weapons.

  ‘I’d better take the tent back, then,’ he said.

  ‘It’s all right, Dad. The people who stole it should take it back.’ The twins needed her to know that they were the culprits. Every time she hit them or scolded them, they had won. But Linda Mellor had the power, the real power. As the last remaining member – albeit by marriage – of a notable family, she sat on several boards and committees. ‘Are you all right for an hour, Dad? There’s eggs and milk in the kitchen in case you’re hungry.’

  ‘I’ll be fine, love. I did enjoy that few days outside.’

  She left him.

  Richard ‘Sausage’ Mellor, born during the war, was going to attend one of the feeder establishments for Bolton School. Linda was on the board of the private infant/junior school where her son would be put through his paces. He wouldn’t need a scholarship, because Linda Mellor could afford the fees; all that was necessary in Richard’s case was a pass for the entrance exam to one of the best private schools in the north of England. But Kate and Beckie required a full grant from the ratepayers. It was time to get clever.

  So Anna made two decisions on that day. She would fix the twins like a couple of beetles pinned in a glass case. And she would move permanently into her father’s house.

  Having prepared Linda during a private meeting, Anna arrived at the manor with two seven-year-olds, a tent in a bag, and her father. Things were going to change. There was a lead weight of guilt in the older girl’s chest, because she would be leaving Elsie and Bert to deal with developing criminals, but she had to look after her dad, and had to stay sane. And she would be next door, wouldn’t she? And Dad liked Elsie’s cooking, so there would be plenty of visits.

  Linda, seated at her mother-in-law’s desk, removed the spectacles she had come to need of late for reading and writing. In her dark suit and crisp, white blouse, she appeared officious and rather daunting, which impression pleased Anna while seeming to have no effect whatsoever on her companions.

  ‘What now?’ Linda asked.

  ‘Brought your tent back, Mrs Mellor,’ said Anna sweetly. ‘They lent it to my dad after stealing it from you. They can’t deny it, because he’s better now, and he remembers them giving it to him. I think they probably hoped he’d get lost and never come back, but he did come back.’ She dumped the tent on the floor.

  ‘Thank you, Anna. Is your father here?’

  ‘Outside in the corridor, Mrs Mellor.’ This was definitely a ‘Mrs Mellor’ occasion. It was too serious a subject to be ruined by familiarity.

  ‘Leave us, please,’ Linda asked. ‘And I shall need to talk to Mr MacRae later.’

  Anna left and sat next to her dad, who held
her hand rather tightly.

  ‘Is there something wrong with them?’ he asked quietly.

  Over the years, she had worked that out as well. ‘More Beckie than Kate, I think, Dad. Beckie’s the one who sets things in motion, and Kate goes along with it. But when she chooses to do that, she’s as bad as Beckie, so who knows? From the start, they resented being brought up by Uncle Bert and Auntie Elsie. If Mam had lived – again, who knows? They’ve been talking in their own language, like a code, since before they could walk, and they listen to nobody unless they need information. So they listen at school. They’re already doing grammar school subjects.’

  ‘Are they confused, like I was?’ he asked.

  ‘No, Dad, they’re geniuses. According to the psychology doctor who sees them from time to time, there’s no way to measure how clever they really are, but brains like theirs get hiccups. The hiccups mean we all suffer.’

  ‘She would have lived if I’d been there. I’d have shifted the snow.’

  The twins appeared, faces as white as a new fall of the substance under discussion. They stared hard at Anna, then at their father before walking out of the house. Linda opened the office door and motioned Billy and Anna to come inside the room. Still hand in hand, they placed themselves on a pair of chairs that continued to remember bodily warmth from the recently departed twins.

  From the other side of the desk, Linda Mellor spoke to Billy. ‘Don’t worry about those two,’ she advised. ‘They would survive a Hiroshima, and to hell with the rest of us. Mr MacRae?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Keep the tent. It’s yours. And feel free to put it in the woods, though there is a wooden cabin for you in case you need shelter.’

  Anna’s heart missed a few beats. Surely he wasn’t going to be a gamekeeper? With a gun? After all he’d been through?

  ‘The woods are the property of my son, Mr MacRae. There are footpaths, and I encourage people to use them, because there’s a great deal to be learnt about nature in there – the schools come, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ Billy replied. ‘There were kiddies in there while I was camping.’

  ‘Quite.’ Linda leaned forward. ‘Visitors to the area have to be safe. We have trees that are half-dead, trees that need lopping so that younger ones might thrive. I should like to offer you a post as woodsman.’ She picked up a book. ‘This holds all you need to know about arboriculture. You keep my son’s property beautiful and healthy.’

  Billy gulped. He was being offered a proper job, not just the come-to-work-with-me that Bert had suggested. ‘And I get paid?’

  ‘In cash, Mr MacRae.’

  ‘I’m Billy. Or Macker. I don’t know how to thank you, Mrs Mellor.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Billy.’ Linda knew a good man when she saw one. He’d been through Purgatory, and the woods were to be his reward.

  ‘You lost your husband, Mrs Mellor?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. He was one of the last to be killed.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Billy stood up and shook her hand, picking up the book before turning to go. ‘I’ll leave you two to talk woman-talk,’ he said, his head already in the volume that would teach him his new trade.

  When only Anna remained, Linda allowed a huge sigh to escape. ‘Your sisters are cool customers.’

  ‘Yes, I know all about it. And thank you for giving my dad some work. He needs a job. He needs dignity and confidence.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Linda paused and tapped a pen on the table. ‘Having said that they’re cool in crisis, I think I may just have fixed your little ogres. Though Beckie did accuse me of blackmail. How do they know all this stuff? They should be out scrumping apples and playing ball.’

  Anna shrugged. ‘They get the bus to town and go in Bolton Central Library – and it’s not the children’s section. They make notes. In code. In fact, it could be in Greek for all I know, because I’ve seen some of the symbols before, but . . .’ Anna grinned. ‘It’s all Greek to me.’

  Linda remained serious. ‘I can get their notebooks looked at by someone who read classics. No one comes to mind, but I know people who know people.’

  ‘My headmistress teaches Greek to a handful of sixth formers. But she’s a nun, and God alone knows what those two are writing about. Plus, they’ve hidden their notes somewhere out of Uncle Bert and Auntie Elsie’s house.’

  Linda explained that the twins now feared for their places at Bolton School. She had implied that she could have them black-balled, and they weren’t happy. ‘Moving into Billy’s house is a good idea,’ she said. ‘He loves and needs you. He must have really loved your mother.’

  Anna nodded. ‘So did I, Linda. So did I. But I feel terrible about leaving the twins with Uncle and Auntie. It’s as if I’m betraying my foster parents. But I’ve homework to do and books to read – I want to have some peace. They’ll still cause trouble, but I— Oh, Linda. I think Auntie Elsie’s frightened of them, and Uncle Bert’s scared he might just flatten them one of these days.’

  ‘Few would blame him, Linda said.

  ‘The courts wouldn’t forgive him,’ Anna replied. ‘Nor would the hangman.’

  With that, Linda was forced to agree. But Anna needed her space. She would continue to care for the Dixons, of that, Linda was certain. But the twins would find their own way to the devil, no matter what.

  Katherine and Rebecca MacRae passed their scholarship examinations at the age of nine and, by 1950, they had spent several months ripping through the Bolton School curriculum like whirlwinds. They learned chess in days, took up the violin and had the bulk of homework completed by six o’clock each weekday evening.

  Since the afternoon of reckoning with Linda Mellor, there had been no more incidents. But the Dixon household was not a happy one, and Anna still suffered guilt because of that. She looked after her father, cleaned and cooked for him except when the pair of them ate next door, did washing, ironing and shopping. Elsie helped, but she developed rheumatism and, as time went by, she did less and less. She visited, because the oppressive silence next door drove her out of the house, but some household tasks became too much, and Bert was forced to pull his weight.

  The twins did nothing apart from school work and extra-curricular reading. They now lived and ate upstairs, using as excuse violin practice, homework and chosen areas of study. When they did play their borrowed instruments, people would stand stock still in the street, because they were good. Everything these ‘bad’ children did was good. They entered chess competitions, defeating people older, wiser and more practised at the game; they played in the school orchestra which, apart from solos or duets delivered by the twins, sounded like a hundred cats in terminal agony. Algebra they had already overcome, while physics and chemistry were a breeze.

  Then the school secretary sent a letter to Billy. He was invited to come along and discuss with head and form teachers a matter of some delicacy, and his appointment was set outside school hours. Reading between the lines, Anna gathered that the staff wanted Kate and Beckie to be off the premises when the meeting took place.

  Billy shook his head. ‘There’s something not right,’ he said for the umpteenth time. ‘They’re not like other girls their age.’

  ‘They’re not like anybody any age,’ Anna replied. ‘It’s just becoming more noticeable to us as they get bigger. I wonder what they’ve done now?’ Surely they wouldn’t upset any apple carts in the exclusive halls of learning at Bolton School for Girls? It was a place that fed their intellectual hunger, and they would respect it accordingly. Wouldn’t they?

  Billy, who was now what he described as almost sane and nearly ‘fully-furnished’ in the upstairs department, went on the bus to meet the educators of his children. He didn’t know the twins. Anna, so like her mother, was easy to read, but the other two were special in several ways. Folk clever enough to teach at a private school would know all kinds of stuff like child psychology, so he entered the hallowed portals of the impressive sandstone building with a heavy heart.


  When he returned to Anna two hours later, his feet were as leaden as his innards. ‘Oh, Anna,’ he said, laying his trilby on the table. ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘What? What have they done now?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing. They’ve done absolutely nothing to damage the school or their classmates. They suck up everything they’re taught like a couple of vacuum cleaners, never put a finger out of place, model students, no complaints about most of their work, but . . .’

  ‘But what, Dad?’

  ‘Well, for a kick-off, their compositions – essays, I think they’re called – are strange. The teacher showed me some. Just facts and reports of events. No feeling. Nearly no opinion. “The house burned down and everyone inside was consumed by the flames. Not even bones remained, just piles of ash where the kitchen used to be.” Stuff like that. It’s like reading Edgar Allan Poe, only worse, because they’re children.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ve no imagination?’ Anna had an imagination, and could not have coped with life had she not found a means of escape within her own head. ‘They’re mirrors for one another,’ she said quietly. ‘Beckie is the main source of . . . of light. Kate’s more a reflection. Yet they will have to separate at some stage.’

  Billy stared at the floor. ‘They’ve no friends. Nobody likes them. I get the impression that while their teachers are a bit in awe because the girls are cleverer than they are, they don’t think much of Kate and Beckie.’

  Anna stood up and did what she termed an Auntie Elsie. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘Anna?’

  ‘What?’ She looked at her father and saw the depth of his misery.

  ‘That’s not all, love,’ he said. ‘They’ve started to compete. With one another. And whoever gets the better marks is beaten up by her twin. So they’re going to be split up. They’ve forty-odd in the top stream, which means there are two classes. Beckie is more competitive than Kate. She’s the one that’s being shifted, and she’s not happy. They’ve had to be pulled off one another during what they call rec – recreation break. They fight in secret places, but they have been found. And now, they’re being watched.’ He paused and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. ‘They even fight in a way that doesn’t show. All the bruises are on their bodies, but they’ve been seen by the physical education teacher when they were changing. The poor woman was sent to spy.’