Sugar and Spice

by Ruth Hamilton

  When it’s over, he takes me back into the living room, sits me down and places himself on the floor beside my chair. ‘Well, I got some of that,’ he says. ‘But what did I miss?’

  ‘What?’ I’m miles and years away. I’m washing the dead face of a woman who should have remained the centre of my existence. I’m looking at two angry, newborn little girls who will never have a mother. I’m rescuing a small boy from a wood, watching my dying father, looking into Elsie’s eyes, where all hope has perished.

  ‘Anna?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tell me. No matter how bad this is, you have to talk to me.’

  I know that. He didn’t need to tell me that. It’s just that once I say the words, it will be too real, and I don’t want it to be real.

  ‘Please, darling?’

  I am dragged back to the here and now by two occurrences. My back hurts, and the chair is wet through. ‘My mother knew her rapist. It was Mrs Latimer’s husband. He’d already left her, because he was planning to dodge the draft.’ Fingers of pain are beginning to make their way round to the front of my body. And my labour is in overdrive. ‘He hanged for murder in 1948 after raping and killing a young woman in Northampton. Mrs Latimer had no children, so Kate and Rebecca don’t have half-siblings from that household.’ There might be dozens of them, but we don’t know where, so there’s little point in worrying. ‘Mrs Latimer said he was mentally ill – she’d been ill-treated for years. And I’m in labour.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The baby’s on its way.’

  He jumps up. ‘I’ll get your case.’

  ‘Don’t bother, Alec. Go for Mrs Bee and get a doctor. I appear to have skipped stage one. And forget the bloody birthing pool.’

  A robust child is born just minutes later on the floor of our living room after a swift and vicious labour. The on-call doctor, when he arrives, is unknown to me. Mrs Bee is wiping her face on her apron, because tears begin to mingle with perspiration, and her face is very damp. It was hard work for her, too, but we both coped quite well, I think. The afterbirth is delivered whole, and I am told that I can stay at home, because mother and baby are well. ‘You may prefer to go to hospital to be checked, but your blood pressure, et cetera – all OK.’

  Alec, my knight in gleaming armour, has gone to pieces. This, our fifth child, is our first son. He is Alexander David Halliwell, and we intend to use his middle name. He is tiny, although the doctor has estimated the weight to be above the seven pound mark. My beautiful boy is in the arms of my beautiful man, and both are crying.

  I smile at the doctor. ‘Excuse my husband. He’s had a rather difficult pregnancy.’

  The doc laughs and says he’s seen the syndrome before.

  Jo and Susan come in and comfort Mrs Bee. Jo is radiant – she has another baby to fuss over. He will be totally ruined, of course. She rushes off to phone her grandmother and half of St Helens. By the time, she’s finished, we’ll probably get a film crew from the BBC.

  We are complete. Alec and I have each other, plus five healthy kids. Kate and Mike are filed away in a dark, dusty cabinet somewhere behind our shared consciousness. I am the child who lost everything, the woman who accidentally took first prize. Beyond Alec, I have scaffolding of the strongest kind – the Hughes family, Alec’s mother, and the wonderful Mrs Battersby from next door. I suppose those two women are my mothers now.

  Sheba is a big girl, though she remains a puppy. Retrievers need to be eighteen months old before the light of common sense begins to dawn. She does her best, bless her. While tormented by the twins, she appoints herself guardian of the newborn, and only those she knows are allowed near him. Although not completely sure of what she might do if someone did try to take him, I notice how she bares her teeth and growls at people she fails to recognize. I think she’s all talk. Well, I hope she’s all talk.

  An impromptu party happens when David is six weeks old. It isn’t organized – everyone arrives at about the same time, and the celebration simply follows. Juliet comes first – I believe she’s getting broody. Maureen, Marie and Charlie roll up next, then Mrs Bee, who seems to have a very roving brief these days, puts in an appearance. She brings wine. Dear God, save me from Mrs Bee’s wines. Amen. I can’t drink, as I am breastfeeding this time, since I have just the one child to nourish, but I fear for the company. Alec keeps an eye on his daughter, who is eminently capable of imbibing when left to her own devices – he has already had words with her on the subject. Jo’s a good kid – she just tests the boundaries from time to time. Susan has the sense to stick to orange juice, because she, like me, has learned the hard way.

  The babies are all asleep by the time the party gets going. David is in the dining room, as he will need one more feed before I take him upstairs, so I leave him where I can hear him. Because of that, the party is held in our living room and in the almost-completed extension.

  Maureen is ‘on one’, as Marie describes her daughter’s impromptu performances. Revealing yet another of her vast store of abilities, Mo produces a ukulele and makes her way through most of the repertoire of George Formby, who was a family entertainer. Maureen is not a family entertainer, so what she sees When I’m Cleaning Windows differs greatly from the original version. She is a hoot. Mrs Bee, though blushing behind her hands, is laughing like a drain. Charlie, who hasn’t had a drink in months, sticks to orange juice and to Alec, as my husband is the only other man in this posse of females.

  Maureen stops playing. ‘Dog’s barking,’ she announces. Yet another gift – the woman has superb hearing.

  Alec goes to look at his son and to calm the hound. When he returns, I see his grim face, and my heart lurches. ‘Alec?’

  ‘It’s all right, darling,’ he says before asking everyone else to keep quiet. ‘We won’t be long,’ he tells them. Then he takes my hand and leads me to the kitchen, warning me before we get there. ‘They’re back,’ he whispers.

  He doesn’t need to say the names. ‘Oh, God,’ I breathe.

  ‘With the Frenchman.’

  ‘OK.’ Is it OK? Is my sister going to be arrested tonight? Will I be the final means of the undoing of Katherine?

  They are seated. Katherine is pale, but calm, hands folded in her lap. Mike seems to have aged, while Mr Hedouin, an absolutely beautiful man, is in a bad way, eyes darting all over the place, forehead dampened by sweat, fear written all over the handsome face. Our dog sits as still as stone and watches over the newcomers. She is sufficiently intelligent to trust no one without proof of character.

  ‘He ran,’ Mike explains, waving a hand in the direction of the stranger. ‘We had to travel the length and breadth of France to find him, and we employed detectives. It’s a big country.’ He sighs heavily, and I notice grey hairs above his ears. The MacRae twins have had this effect on so many people.

  ‘I speak not well the English. Katherine will speaking for me,’ announces the captive. He’s not here voluntarily – that’s very plain.

  In that dull, flat tone used by both during childhood, Kate tells me what happened to her twin. ‘They were living together in Rebecca’s flat. Jean Paul and his daughter moved in.’ She looks into my eyes, and I see a void in her face. There’s nothing there. She reminds me of an empty house that awaits new residents. A cold finger traces a sharp line down my backbone. Alec supports me, a strong arm around my waist. I am safe. While he is here, I am always protected.

  Katherine inhales deeply. ‘Rebecca hated the attention he gave to his daughter. Marguerite – that’s her name – was discovered at the foot of a long flight of marble stairs. She lay in a coma for almost three weeks. But she suffered no loss of memory, no permanent damage to her brain. When she woke, she told Jean-Paul that Rebecca had pushed her. We think Rebecca had stopped taking her medicines.’

  ‘Ma fille ne marche pas,’ says the Frenchman. ‘Marguerite – broke back. Sit in chaise now. She has only ten years and she not walk no more.’

  ‘Et vous avez touer ma soeur?�
�� I ask.

  He nods just once. ‘These . . . two people are black – qu’est-ce-que je voudrais dire?’

  ‘Blackmail?’ I suggest.

  He almost smiles. ‘Oui, Madame – c’est vrai. Blackmail. Until I am come in Angleterre, they say get police, tell them I am kill Rebecca. So I am coming to here.’

  I leave Alec and take the man’s hands. ‘Je suis tres triste pour vous et pour votre fille.’ My French is no longer as thorough as it used to be. ‘C’est le fin ce soir. Allez. Marguerite a besoin de Papa.’

  And he cries. I have not said enough, because there are no words for this in any man-made language. His daughter lives in a wheelchair, and Rebecca did that. I have told him I am sad, that he must go to his daughter, since she needs him. But what the hell will that do for the poor man? He killed my sister; I cannot blame him. Had she harmed Lottie, Emily or David, I would have done the same.

  Kate doesn’t move. She simply stares at the table.

  Mike takes my hand. ‘Anna, she’s tranquilized. I bought street drugs in Marseilles – I didn’t know what the hell to do. If I’d taken her to a French doctor, God alone knows what she might have said. She was so raw – she could have blurted it out. And you know her French is perfect. I have watched over her for twenty-four hours each day.’

  In his eyes, I see echoes of the hell he has lived through.

  ‘Where’s the body?’ I ask. I am amazed by my serenity.

  ‘Underneath another in a Paris cemetery,’ Mike replies. ‘Jean-Paul’s brother’s an undertaker. So he’s another accessory after the fact. We are all accessories now. If Jean-Paul goes to jail, there’s a chance he’ll be joined by his brother. As for us – oh, God.’

  Being an accessory is something to which I was forced to become inured when Gary was killed. I am a criminal. Sometimes, criminals are the good people. I saved Susan. I saved Stephen. I saved Marie. Now, I am saving a heartbroken Parisian. And I will, by God, I will.

  ‘Her things?’ I ask.

  ‘Destroyed. She is supposedly back in England, got a job here. She wasn’t employed at the time, so that helped make the story good.’ Mike sighs. ‘Lie, after lie, after lie.’

  The old station clock on my kitchen wall needs winding. There are dirty dishes everywhere. And my sister is dead, killed by the man whose daughter she tried to murder. My other sister is drugged, yet a lone tear tracks down her left cheek. That tear is all I need, because it contains the truth – she is basically normal, yet unsteady because of Rebecca.

  As soon as I touch her, she howls. It’s a horrible sound, though it changes when the dog decides to provide musical accompaniment. This is hysteria now. While Alec leads Sheba away, I hug what is left of Katherine. My mind is racing. We need to keep her here, where life is normal by her standards. She and Mike are going to need a massive support system. Yes, we are all guilty, all accessories after the fact.

  When I look into Jean-Paul’s eyes, I see the misery that was contained for so long in the face of Elsie, our foster mother.

  But my job is to look after Kate. ‘Kate? Kate – look at me.’

  She sobs, but manages to comply.

  ‘I have a son. You have a little nephew. We’ll look after you – Mike, Alec and I. While one of us remains alive, you will never, ever be alone.’

  ‘Anna borra.’

  ‘Yes, darling. Kate borra, too.’ I know in this moment that she will never have a child, and that she will always depend on me. I can also see in her husband’s face the urge to distance himself from recent nightmares. Will he stay with her, or will he move on to someone without so much baggage? How shall we cope if or when the authorities finally discover that Rebecca is missing? Questions, questions, and no answers.

  Whatever, Kate will always be with me.

  A long time ago, a mother gave birth, and responsibility was passed to me within minutes. I am a lucky woman, because I am with the right man, and I know I am one of the few. Alec will never desert me, no matter what happens. But I stand in a messy kitchen with Kate’s head pressed into my body. She will be there for ever. In my heart, in my mind and in my soul, Kate is my precious and beloved burden. It’s a circle, you see . . .