Rachel's Secret

by Susan Sallis

  He brought in two russets and we scrunched into them. ‘Did you ever discover where she had actually been that day?’ he mumbled through his apple.

  ‘Not really. Hermione had some story about her mother meeting a friend. But she arrived home along the rough road.’ I threw my core into the fire. ‘Dad said she’d seen us and done a swift detour to avoid us.’ I shrugged. ‘Hermione looked good at our wedding, I thought.’

  ‘Doctor Smith. Yes.’ He stared at me. ‘D’you regret leaving school and working at the Clarion?’

  ‘And meeting you and then getting married to you?’ I pulled a long face. ‘How can I answer that?’

  He growled, and came towards me, and swept me up into his arms.

  I delivered my piece to Uncle Gilbert and told him about Dad and he asked if Mum was up to it, and I said I didn’t know. We had a cup of tea together. Maxine came in and gave me a very perfumed hug. She wanted to sweep him off to get ready for a charity dinner.

  She said, ‘Remember Silverman’s? The old bespoke tailor in the Barton? Hung himself . . . didn’t you find him, Rachel?’

  ‘Sort of.’ I recalled the sight with a shudder. It was still my private waking nightmare.

  ‘They’re taking down all the shuttering on his shop. I reckon it’s been bought at last.’

  ‘Good Lord, it’ll be full of rats by now!’ Uncle Gilbert commented; another nightmare. ‘Anyway, I’m off, Rachel. Tell your mother to take it easy on this trip. If she gets much thinner she’s going to disappear altogether.’

  I gathered up the cups and made for the cloakroom, and they trooped off down the stairs. I knew Uncle Gilbert would be composing his report before any of it happened. ‘The mayor’s parlour was graced by several members of the county’s oldest families this afternoon in an effort to raise money for . . .’ I couldn’t remember which of Maxine’s charities was on show this time. Gilbert had told me proudly not long ago that his wife was responsible for raising half a million pounds for one of her many projects. I hadn’t believed him but as Tom said, Maxine would not take no for answer. So it was possible.

  I picked up some stuff with my name on it, stuffed it in my bag, and went into the lane, where my bike waited dutifully, locked to the lamp post. I usually walked to the office, but that afternoon I intended cycling out to see Mum to talk over the Düsseldorf trip. I swung into Northgate, and then on an impulse crossed over into Kings Square and from there into Eastgate. As I pedalled towards the railway crossing I wondered what on earth I was doing, and at first told myself I would turn off at Derby Road and go to my parents’ that way, maybe past Meriel’s old house. But I knew what I was doing, really. And when I relocked my bike by the ash lane at the end of Mr Silverman’s block, it was quite clear to me that if I could get into that house I might get rid of two nightmares: the memory of Mr Silverman hanging brokenly from his ceiling, and the terror of marauding rats. It was the sort of thing Meriel would do. ‘Come on, face up to it . . .’ I could almost hear her voice. ‘Stop being such a ninny . . .’

  Actually, it worked. The door in the garden wall was off its hinges and propped in the yard, so I walked past it and down the area steps. The door there was open; the hallway which ran past the kitchen was swept clean and painted in Walpamur’s apple green and the little living room, which was directly beneath the shop, was empty of overturned chair and suspended body, painted in rosebud-pink with lino in an imitation wood-block pattern. It looked fresh, clean, and, with the wind gusting outside, offered a cheerful little sanctuary. Needless to say it was rat-free.

  There were sounds from above – hammering and sawing – but I had seen all I needed. I stood for a moment and deliberately conjured up the memory of poor Mr Silverman. It was another time, and therefore another place. I turned and retraced my steps, unlocked my bike, and cycled out to the rough road and Mum.

  That night Tom told me he had met someone from the Midshires Post who was covering the Strassen murder. Apparently the killer claimed to be the great-nephew of Alfred Silverman.

  Tom was agog. ‘You know how I told you the first day we met that Silverman was a marvellous man who offered asylum to Jewish refugees before the war, en route from Germany to the United States? Guess who worked with him? Eva Schmidt! You remember – Wilhelm Strassen’s girlfriend. She fed the refugees as they arrived. The old man had two other houses by the pump rooms – Eva lived in one of them, and was like a housekeeper. More than a housekeeper: she translated for the refugees, helped them to organize their finances. They stayed until they could get patrons in the States to vouch for them. It was well organized. Silverman had contacts all over the place.’ Tom was flushed and excited. All I could manage was a forced, ‘Golly.’ Tom was caught up in it again; he was rounding the bits we had into a proper picture. It would make it more and more difficult to forget the whole thing.

  ‘Of course—’ Tom swept on, ‘I mentioned Dad to this reporter – like I always do. When I said Fairbrother he almost gawped at me. “Jack Fairbrother?” he said. “The cartoonist?” I said yes, and he went on and on about Dad’s work and how he had started a trend which was being carried on by Giles . . .’ Tom’s face was alight, as it always was when he spoke of his father’s work. He loved meeting people who remembered the old days of the Birmingham News. It was as if he could keep his father alive by talking about him. ‘He suggested I go to the new offices in Birmingham and see if any of his stuff is still around. We could go on Sunday if you felt up to it, Rache.’

  My heart sank. The past would not let go; one way or another we were still held by it. I smiled. ‘Of course, darling.’

  ‘And by the way, Rache—’ Tom appeared at the bathroom door; he was scrubbing his teeth so it was difficult to decipher what he said. ‘Jim reckons it wasn’t suicide at all.’

  I frowned. ‘Who is Jim?’

  He went back and I heard him spit vigorously. Then he called, ‘Sorry. Jim is the chap from the Midshires Post. Mainly agricultural stuff, so they’re loving the Strassen murder, makes a bit of a change.’

  ‘Oh. Ghoulish.’

  ‘Not really. Jim reckons he was such a good chap – Silverman. Had no reason to top himself. Must have been murdered.’

  My heart sank further still.

  I had a feeling we were never going to free ourselves from the past.

  Twelve

  March 1953, Florida

  Dearest, dearest Rache, we are coming! At last, at long last, Vicky and Georgie are going to see the twins – and where it all began. And Rex and I can walk in the park and revisit the scene of the crime – well, the first one, anyway. Almost eight years since I saw you, Rache. And if it weren’t that our poor old king has died and Elizabeth is being crowned, I wouldn’t be seeing you now, sweetie. As you probably have gleaned from my previous correspondence (ho-hum) my darling husband is a snob. He wants to be able to say – and he wants his kids to be able to say – We Was There! One sad thing is, Aunt Mabe has decided not to come with us. I did so want her to see everything – not the new Queen and Buckingham Palace and the Tower and everything like that – the ordinary things, the places you and me lived in, the air we breathed, the scents we learned to appreciate or hate, the shops, the streets that were made by the Romans, Southgate where you can almost hear the tumbril rumbling up from Berkeley bringing poor old Edward’s body to the cathedral. Do you know, Rache, when we used to stare at his effigy lying there I used to think it was really him turned to stone and that was how you and me would end up! Oh Rache, can we go up into the whispering gallery again? Have you got a spare bike I could borrow so that just you and me can go down to Rodley and swim in the river . . . shall we build a dam in Twyver’s Brook with a special hole for the sticklebacks to ride through? But listen up, best friend, if you so much as breathe a word about Mr Silverman or Wilhelm Strassen or any of that business back in ’44, you can build the damn by yourself. OK? Tom’s dad . . . fine. Tom has got a good reason for being obsessed. You haven’t.

  Darling, Rex
has come in, and says don’t worry about hiring a television as we’re all going to London, and the television at the hotel is enormous. He is insisting on doing this, Rache. It’s no good your father going all hoity-toity about it. It’s only a couple of nights, after all. We get the whole thing on the picture box (that’s what Vicky calls it) and can step out on to the balcony to get a two-minute glimpse of the real live thing.

  Now, darling, to more serious things – though what could be more serious than this wonderful trip I have no idea. Try harder with your dad. I just can’t imagine him without his Flo, but it is obvious he needs to get out more. Is there anything I can do while we’re over? I want to help, Rache. I thought when the twins were born that he would begin to live again: he’s a natural father and I thought he’d be a natural grandfather. But it sounds – reading between the lines in your last letter – as if the girls somehow make it worse. That means he is missing out on seeing you as well, doesn’t it? Oh, I know Tom has them when he’s home, but it’s not quite the same – for one thing, you go out to the rough road all the time. Why won’t he meet you and go to the pictures? Or come with you to one of the symphony concerts you’re so keen on? He can’t face going out any more, that’s why. There’s a proper medical name for that. I can’t remember it and must ask Gus next time I see him. And that’s what your dad has got. And remember I always wanted him for a dad myself ’cos my dad is hopeless. So I’ve got a stake in all this. I’m going to crash into your old house – where angels fear to tread, apparently – and I’m going to act on him like a dose of salts. It’s going to be cards on the table, and I shall tell him that if he hasn’t come out of his shell by the time I come back here, then I want my money back. That’s it, Rache. I’ll plonk a thousand dollars on the dining table. We’ve got money coming out of our ears, hon. But don’t tell him that. It’s my stake. OK?

  Enough. Let me bring you up to date on the Center for Learning. Yes, we had the visit from Eleanor herself. It was our third anniversary party and as you know, Georgie’s fifth birthday. Thank you so much for the present, hon. I love it when you knit and sew things. Don’t ever apologize for the mistakes, Rache, they’re like pearls to me. Anyway, Mrs R. What a woman; built like a battleship, moves like one too, talks about ‘my dear Franklin’ as if he’s sitting in that bloody wheelchair right beside her. He probably is, too, only the rest of us can’t see him. Georgie held Rebekkah’s hand – I told you he’s in love with this little girl, didn’t I? She’s got cerebral palsy, and her hands fly about all over the place, but Georgie just holds on to them with a kind of grim determination. He took the flowers off her lap, put them between her two hands, and held the hands close, pushing them forwards towards Mrs R. Oh, Rache. I looked at Vicky and she was jerking her head at her father. Can you believe it – he was wiping his eyes. I reckon he might be getting there, Rache. Difficult to say, of course, when he’s still seeing Dawn most weekends. But then, I’ve got Gus, so neither of us cares. But I want him to care about Georgie and the other kids at the center. I want everyone in the whole world to care.

  Rache, I can tell that you don’t like the idea of Gus and me, so I’m not going to mention it again: either in my letters or when we’re talking properly, face to face. It doesn’t mean much, which is hard for you to understand. This is the Dennis Nightingale in me. The tough cookie you describe as my birth-mother . . . DM . . . she’s there, too. She’s saying – you’re not hurting anyone, and it stops you going mad about Rex and Dawn. But I realize that you and Aunt Mabe . . . and probably your dad . . . just don’t understand. So no more. Though I’m not sure that list would have included your mum. I often used to think she was tougher than you and your dad thought, right down deep inside. Anyway, no more. Don’t worry, it’s all well under control.

  Honey, don’t worry either about where we’ll all stay for that precious month. Rex has it all organized. He’s taken a house in Cheltenham. It overlooks the college cricket field, would you believe. But he actually took it because it’s almost next door to the hospital. It’s for his sake, not Georgie’s. We know exactly what to do when Georgie fits, but it still almost kills Rex to see it happen. He wants to be able to get a specialist on the dot!

  He was slightly fazed when Aunt Mabe decided not to come. Who was going to look after ‘things’? His wife is a well-known hopeless cleaner, cook, et cetera, et cetera. But he’s fixed that now. The US air force base at Fairford found him the house – lots of their officers have brought their wives across the pond and have houses in Cheltenham – and they will arrange the hired help. Rex is dealing directly with some colonel chap who is actually going to let us use his car while we’re over there. Rex has always wanted to drive one of those big Jaguars with the leaping mascot on the hood and guess what – it is a Jag. Enough said. Next year, Rache, it will be eight years since he shoved me over in the park. I’ve changed, darling, I hope you’ll recognize me. But Rex has stayed the same, so no difficulties there.

  My love as always. That blob there is Georgie’s fingerprint. Meriel

  PS What I said before about not talking 1944 stuff . . . forget it. Talk to me about it and let me take it away with me. All this stuff about the past clawing at us – I don’t like it, Rache. You sound like I felt after Vicky. By the way, I’ve written to Hermione. Yes, I know we never got on and probably that will be exactly the same. But apparently she has specialized in genetic malfunctions. You never know, we might be able to help each other. I’d like her to visit the center some time, give her some ideas.

  I STARED AT that last paragraph, caught beneath the glue of the air letter. Daisy and Rose were taking their mid-morning nap, and I had saved the letter until now, when I could read it with a cup of coffee. Tom was coming home in a couple of hours so that I could talk to Maria Nightingale about the new Coronation ball-gowns she had designed for the county Coronation dinner at the Shire Hall. Each one was exclusive; they had already sold on the design sketches alone. Nightingale’s was doing better than the big shops in Cheltenham’s Promenade; that had never happened before. And I was finding them a constant source for my ‘Notes on a Coronation’ published every Saturday in the Clarion. The only big snag was – I had to work from midnight to three a.m. every Wednesday night and it took me four days and nights to get over it. In fact I don’t think I did get over it.

  I fingered Meriel’s air letter, and imagined her neat fingers holding it still while she scribbled her thoughts, and reported events, and kept an eye on Georgie – all at the same time. It sounded as though Rex had fallen into the way of trying to undermine his wife’s confidence – maybe because she was so capable. I read that bit again, and decided he was not succeeding: Meriel chose what she would do with her life, and did it exceedingly well. Then I read the whole letter again, because there was a lot there. I had got used to the idea of Meriel coping with so much. I realized her life had changed completely in the last four or five years. She had accepted living back in Florida, the ‘compromise’ being that they moved out of the compound and bought their own house with its own pool. But when she had started running the centre, the change had been measurable from letter to letter. She had become an aggressive fund-raiser, first of all. With only three children attending for two hours a day, and a four-day week, she had demanded a Steiner-trained teacher for two of those days; and as numbers practically exploded she had found someone from the Montessori school to come on the other days. She had sent me photographs of what she grandly called ‘the campus’. The toys were designed by the original Montessori school, with plenty of input from Meriel. It was the first time I had ever seen a ball pool . . . she explained it to me in a later letter. The visit from Mrs Roosevelt was one of many peaks in the life of the centre. I imagined Georgie making it possible for Rebekkah to present the famous visitor with her obligatory flowers, and tears came into my eyes. They weren’t simply sentimental tears, either, they came from the realization that when Meriel had said goodbye to me back in l948 – when she had determined to ‘
set sail for America’ and be a good American wife – she had meant it. And it had happened. Meriel was coming home; but would she still be my friend?

  The other thing was her ban – and then withdrawal of it – of all discussion on the Strassen business. Surely I had put the whole Strassen thing from me by now? I might be talking about it in my letters to Meriel. Yet I was far more concerned about Daisy and Rose; about Dad; about Mum not being here to conduct Beethoven’s Fifth; about Tom quite suddenly not being obsessed with looking for his dad. I wondered, not for the first time, whether he had received any official confirmation of Jack Fairbrother’s death. Surely he would have told me? But the truth was, we had so little time for talking. It was getting better – Tom kept telling me that – but when we had first moved to this tall old house in Chichester Street, I had been under the impression, until we actually arrived, that we would be moving into number twenty-two not number twenty-one. Which meant the opposite side of the street, an entirely different view from the back windows, the sun with us in the mornings instead of the afternoons . . . Neither of us could understand how it had happened. I hadn’t been able to view it before the auction, and we’d moved in the moment the contract was signed, so that the babies had separate rooms. We had thought that would solve our problems. It hadn’t. But I preferred number twenty-one, anyway. Morning sun started the day off rather nicely. Tom had agreed with me, but said, ‘We have got to start communicating properly again, Rache. We haven’t had time to ourselves since the twins were born – we hurl instructions and comments between us like bullets—’

  ‘It started before the twins. It started when Mum died,’ I had said in a low voice.

  I don’t think he heard that. He had said, ‘Everything will be better now.’ He’d bought two enamelled plaques, with ‘Daisy’s room’ on one and ‘Rose’s room’ on the other. They wouldn’t wake each other up, they could have separate naps . . . new house, new beginnings . . . That had been a year ago and life had got steadily harder. Last night there had been more snow – it was March and the daffodils were all out – which meant I couldn’t take the girls to their Rhyme and Rhythm class this morning, which meant they were fed up by ten thirty. I put a record on the turntable and tried to get them to clap their hands in time to the music of Henry Hall. It was exactly the same sort of thing Daphne Beard did at her wonderful innovative music and movement class, but they weren’t interested. Daphne had married straight from school and had two boys, one seven years old and the other five. She had started her class last summer, and had suggested I take the twins ‘just to watch’. They had taken to it like ducks to water, mainly because of Roland and Colin. But of course the charismatic Roland and Colin weren’t at twenty-one Chichester Street that Tuesday morning. After reading to the twins for ten minutes, giving them their orange juice – another five minutes – sitting them on their potties in front of the fire for all of two minutes, I had advanced the time of their naps by an hour. I sat there in front of the fire, coffee on the floor, Meriel’s flimsy letter on my knee, and allowed the usual hopelessness to start creeping up from ankles to waist – and just stopped it before it reached my heart. I stopped it in the usual way. Counting my blessings.