by Susan Sallis
I took out the clothes pegs which had separated my bits and bobs into what I had originally thought of as chapters, and replaced them with the shiny paper clips we used at the Clarion, and tucked them back into the folder. I made a note that Willi Strassen had paid Sylvia to marry him, and then had fallen in love with Eva Schmidt, who was Hermione’s aunt. I wondered what Hermione made of it all. I thought I could never ask her.
Then I got out Meriel’s letters.
I hadn’t kept them all; the awful diatribes that had followed Vicky’s birth – she had asked me to burn them and I had. I recalled the first terrible argument she had reported, then. She had wanted to call the baby Ruth; it was a running joke she and Rex had kept up during the pregnancy, but it had pleased Meriel. She hadn’t been interested in the famous Babe Ruth; she had re-read the bible story and had been struck by the love between Ruth and her husband’s mother, Naomi. But Rex had flatly refused to ‘honour the bargain’ – I remember those words of hers. He liked Victoria; she didn’t. I think it was Rex’s mother who had eventually come up with a compromise, and Vicky’s full name was Victory; though of course it was seldom used.
But I had kept enough of Meriel’s correspondence to be able to track her development: from the schoolgirl I had known, to the determined woman who had come home for the Coronation of the Queen, and orchestrated a whole new life for her family and for mine. Just for a month.
It continued to hurt terribly that Dad had confided in Merry before me, but I tried to be objective. He had wanted help and I couldn’t give it to him. He had known that she could. He had recognized the power that I was seeing in her letters. Maybe it had come to the fore with Georgie’s birth, but it had always been there. Meriel had been the leader and I had followed.
Eventually, after re-reading them, I found another paper clip and fastened them together; then, suddenly hating the whole idea of keeping a record of our failing friendship, I bundled them into the middle of the file. I had thought at one time that I would interleaf them into some kind of continuous narrative. But they were recording the past and . . . the past had gone.
And my father had gone.
During the next two years he came home twice; neither visit coincided with Mum’s birthday or the anniversary of her death, or in fact with anything. The first time he put the house in the hands of letting agents. He wanted us to live there, but it was too far away from work and school. I had got used to being able to step out of the front door and find the city at the end of the street. Our bikes stayed down in the cellar with the coal. Occasionally we toiled up the cellar steps with them at weekends and strapped the girls into their seats for a ride down to the river. We had a favourite spot: a horseshoe bend where the current slowed right down and a sunken barge provided a safe swimming area. When their legs grew long and strong we discussed getting them their own bicycles but we never did. Terraced houses do not offer easy access for bikes. When they needed bikes they borrowed ours.
I told Dad to sell the old house. I felt as if I was issuing a kind of challenge to him to cut his ties with England completely. If I expected a shocked rebuttal I was disappointed; he frowned consideringly then said, ‘You might want it one day. And house prices will never come down, not now. We’ll hang on to it as an investment.’
The agents let it to a highly respectable couple; they came from London and he was something to do with the Ministry of Works. Henry and Henrietta Sims – Henrietta always did the introductions and made a big thing of their names. They’d come to oversee the sale of the old Manor House that had housed POWs, internees, Free French soldiers and many others over the six years of war. The burgeoning Ministry of Health was buying it for a psychiatric respite home. Mr Sims was in charge of the repairs and alterations. Hermione was the assistant resident psychiatrist. She stayed with her parents and spent her days poring over catalogues of the latest equipment, plans, designs . . . even landscape drawings.
Henry Sims had been in residence just over a month, bouncing his car down the road four times a day, when the council’s road workers moved in with an archaic steam roller and a boiling pot of tarmac. The rough road was smoothed and surfaced its whole length, past Twyver’s Brook and down the curling track that led to the Tewkesbury Road and the manor itself. Mr Sims was a man of influence.
It took a year before he was satisfied that the manor had been suitably renovated for convalescing traumatized patients. Then he went back to London, and Hermione phoned me and asked whether she could have Dad’s address so that she could either rent or buy the house. I told her to apply to the agents, but she said she couldn’t do that without asking him first. The next thing was, Dad paid his second visit home in two years.
They spent some time together in our old home, talking about decorations and central heating. Hermione said that any inside alterations were down to the tenant and with his permission she would modernize the house to her liking.
‘I hope I can stay for ages, Mr Throstle.’ She had always loved Dad – all my friends had loved him – and she was a bit breathy and misty-eyed as she mentioned some of the wonderful ideas she had for the house where Mum and I had conducted our symphonies, and we had all hidden under the Morrison shelter like foxes in a den. ‘But of course it will always be yours. If you need it at a moment’s notice just send off a cable—’
‘Not very likely, Hermione.’
I was an unwilling third at this meeting, and was standing by the window trying not to listen to Hermione’s plans. Dad’s words didn’t help. I pretended very hard that I hadn’t heard any of it.
Hermione said, ‘The manor is a bit of a flagship for the National Health. Small. We have to refer patients to bigger places with more resources in some cases. But for others the manor is excellent. Environment is a therapy in itself, of course.’ She laughed. ‘Oh dear, I’m on my hobby horse again! It’s just that . . . well, to be offered such a position is wonderful. And then to be able to make my own home in a place that I have always loved.’ She turned pink. ‘It’s a happy house, Mr Throstle. Thank you for letting me have it.’
‘My dear girl. You’re paying a good rent. And the law protects you totally – I can’t give you the order of the boot even if I wanted to.’ He added hastily, ‘Not that I would ever want to, Hermione. You are practically family.’
Was she? Had she ever been?
I said quickly, ‘You’ll need help with the garden.’
She joined me at the window, hands clasped beneath her chin. She was almost ecstatic.
‘I plan to use the garden in my work. Enlist help from patients who could benefit. And put them in the position of being experts, too.’
I nodded but felt bound to add, ‘You’ll have to be careful, Hermione. You’ll get accusations of exploitation!’ I laughed but she took me seriously and nodded.
And she was happy there – and at the manor. I saw quite a lot of her as the years went on. She went out to Florida for Georgie’s tenth birthday. He had been accepted at a special school west of Boston, and though Meriel had fought tooth and nail for his place, she suddenly lost her impetus and was terrified she had done the wrong thing. She wrote to Hermione, who took her first holiday and went out to go with Meriel and Georgie to the school. They stayed with Jack and Joan Robinson and visited every day. Hermione was ecstatic when she told me about it.
‘They’re using the best bits of Steiner, Morgenfrau, Montessori . . . all of them! Every child an individual, every child with their own personal mentor, but they can chop and change whenever they want to. Music, movement. And the environment – you know what importance I give to that, Rache. New England is just beautiful. I saw it in the fall, of course, but Meriel has been there for all the seasons.’
‘What did Meriel think about the school?’
‘She got back her confidence. She only needed one thing to make it whole. And that was Georgie’s happiness. To see that he was happy. And he is happy. His Pop and Joan are two hours’ drive away. He can go there at weekends.�
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‘What about my father? Is he happy, too?’
‘I think so. He loves visiting the Robinsons, but the climate in Florida agrees with him. I didn’t realize he had so much arthritic pain, Rache. He never talks about it, does he?’
‘No. He doesn’t.’
Sometimes I thought I had never really known my father.
I kept in touch with the first Mrs Nightingale and very occasionally I saw ‘the boys’: Barry and John. They were both married with young children, both living in married quarters at Plymouth, both carbon copies of their father. Myrtle Nightingale spent her time between them, acting as baby sitter and general dogsbody, as far as I could make out. But she was happy, too. At some point during the last ten years she had stopped being unhappy. I had mentioned this to John once, and he had grinned at me knowingly.
‘Come on. You know as well as I do why she is quite content with life at the moment.’ I had opened my eyes, spread my hands helplessly. He had laughed.
‘Dad came round a couple of years ago when we were both here. He wanted to patch things up. For Mum’s sake, he said. Barry got it right away. It was for Dad’s sake. So that he could come and go as he pleased even if we were around.’
I had felt my jaw sag. John had guffawed. ‘Come on, Rache! Dad’s got it made. Maria tells him what to do at work, and everywhere else. Mum never tells him anything, except that she adores him. So he has his cake and he eats it! Typical of Dad, isn’t it? In other words, nothing has changed.’
I had been aghast. ‘But what if Maria finds out?’
John had made a face. ‘I think she probably knows. She must be pretty tough. She gave Merry to Mum to look after . . . Mum always knew about her. Now she knows about Mum. Sounds fair enough to me.’
I suppose it was fair. Almost. The odd thing was I liked the second Mrs Nightingale. I recognized Meriel in her; the old Meriel.
Something else rather odd happened during this loop of time when Daisy and Rose were growing up and up; and – over in Florida – Victory Robinson had her first ‘date’; and nearer home Dennis Nightingale kept two women happy; and Hermione Smith named our old home ‘Rough Road Cottage’ and kept notes that would one day become a bible for anyone dealing with traumatized patients; and Tom became editor-in-chief of the Clarion, though the Gaffer was still very much a presence in the office. The ‘something else’ was that we had our usual Christmas card from Nobby Clarke with a message inside it.
Tom and Rachel, It will be 1963 in two weeks time, twenty years since I worked on the BBR (Bloody Burma Railway to you) . . . Some of my stuff turned up last month. Sent on by my old RSM who got it from a monk, who got it from Buddha knows where! Letters and so forth. Gave me a bit of a turn, you can imagine. Twenty years is a long time. Anyway, tucked inside one of the envelopes was this sketch. That’s me at the end of the railway sleeper. Took ten of us to carry it down the track. We were as weak as kittens. Does it ring any bells for you? Hope your kids are doing fine, and you too. Try to pop up next summer and we’ll go fishing. Happy Christmas.
Your friend, Nobby
I had recognized his hand writing, so had saved it for Tom to open. He read the note aloud and we looked at the sketch together. It was done on part of a cigarette packet: a pencil sketch, a line of men in long khaki shorts and hats, home-made sandals on their feet, their skeletons showing clearly beneath weathered skin. They were carrying a railway sleeper.
I said, ‘Oh, dear God. You know it happened but to see it . . . recorded by someone who was there—’
‘Recorded by my dad.’ Tom spoke flatly, without emphasis.
I jerked my head round to look at him. His arm was loosely around my shoulders so that we could both look at the sketch. He felt my gaze and turned to meet it. Very slowly his eyes filled with tears. I said, shocked, ‘Tom!’ And he laid his forehead on my shoulder and cried; properly cried.
I gathered him to me and held him tightly against enormous sobs. He wept for some time: maybe three or four minutes, but it seemed so long. I made noises but did not speak words. I had learned from him when to be wordless.
As he gradually quietened we moved to the sofa and sat down. The fire in the grate was full of caverns and we watched them change colour and collapse on themselves. Tom took my free hand, kissed it and held it to his face. Then he spoke. ‘For the first time, I feel the absence of my dad. Isn’t that strange, Rache? I know he did that sketch, that he was there, that it was 1943. Evidence of life. Yet . . . there would have been others, wouldn’t there? And this is the only one.’ He kissed my hand again and turned to look at me. ‘He’s gone. You and everyone else have always known it. And I wouldn’t accept it. What does Hermione call it – a state of denial?’
‘You simply held on to your hope, Tom. And why not? Nothing has changed, really. Except that you have the most extraordinarily special Christmas present anyone could possibly have.’
He gave me a watery smile. Then he said, ‘You show the girls, Rache. I’d cry again and that would upset them. But make them understand how important it is, won’t you?’ And then of course I cried.
That spring Uncle Gilbert began coming back to work on a regular basis. I think Aunt Maxine made him work twice as hard at home. He had never given up his big office which overlooked St John’s Lane; Tom was accommodated in a very small room on the other side of the landing, and used the big room for interviews only. Gilbert – the Gaffer – telephoned me on a nasty day at the end of April, and asked me to slip in and have a cup of tea with him before the girls got home from school. I took my file containing notes on forthcoming articles; the Gaffer was still a force to be reckoned with, and I thought he was going to use words like ‘parochial’, ‘claustrophobic’ and – quite probably—‘incestuous’. Indeed, he started off that way.
‘It occurred to me the other day—’ he nodded at the armchair, which meant I wasn’t actually in trouble, and I sat down gratefully. ‘That you have rarely left our historic and illustrious city, Rachel.’
I smiled and said nothing. My best friend and my father might well live in America but not many Gloucestrians strayed far from the shadow of the cathedral tower in those days. Gilbert knew this as well as I did.
He asked a direct question so that I would have to speak. ‘Let’s see . . . where did you go last summer? Dorset, was it?’
‘Devon.’
‘That’s right.’ It sounded as if he might be congratulating me on getting the answer right. ‘I remember those two articles well. I’m sure the hotels and landladies of Hope Cove and Slapton Sands must have doubled their profits in the last part of the summer. You made the whole place come alive.’
Compliments from the Gaffer were rare, and I almost goggled at him. He went to the window and looked down into the lane. The April rain fell inexorably. He said, ‘Your Aunt Maxine was saying the other evening that the Clarion is missing out on something rather special. A letter from America.’
I felt a little spurt of enthusiasm. ‘You always said Meriel would have made a good reporter. Yes – Maxine is right – it would run for quite a few weeks—’
He cut me short with a backward flip of his hand, then turned and came back to the desk. ‘No one remembers Meriel Nightingale now, let alone Meriel Robinson. But they know you. You are one of them. If you went over and wrote a series of articles on various aspects of ordinary domestic life – maybe interspersed with a few of your homely political comments digestible with Saturday morning’s breakfast toast – the weekend sales would increase still more. And if you were visiting your father – who is still remembered, and your friend, who happens to be the daughter of Dennis Nightingale . . . the sales would hit the roof. We would be connecting Florida and Gloucestershire. Can you see it, Rachel – can you visualize it?’
I could, of course. But I visualized something else, too.
‘Are you worried about Dad?’
‘Not worried. I’d like some properly subjective news of him. And I don’t think he’s coming home a
gain, so you are my best bet. And you’re never going to go out there just for a holiday. But you’ll have to go out on this assignment, because I’m telling you to!’ He tried hard to look belligerent.
I wasn’t keen, of course. Meriel was looking after Dad now, and I didn’t have to think about any of it. I said, ‘You could do it. It would have far more impact if your name was underneath.’
He leaned on the desk. ‘I don’t want that sort of impact, Rachel. I want the gentle under-the-skin, day-to-day stuff. Your readership will be comfortable with that. When you make any broader comments they will be acceptable and comprehensible. Not something to be skipped over. You can do it, girl!’
‘I’m not sure about Tom and the girls – time off school and work—’
‘Christ, I’m not talking about the whole bloody family going with you! D’you think the Clarion makes that sort of profit? We’re still independent, Rachel, not many of us left. We work on a bloody shoestring and this isn’t an all-expenses-paid holiday, this is a proper assignment.’
‘You said a subjective view of Dad—’
‘Exactly. Not a blurred unnatural view because he’s got his granddaughters jumping up and down in front of him. A quiet, ordinary view built up over fourteen days. Time when you can talk together and find out what he is really thinking.’
‘All right, all right, I get it. So it would be before or after the summer holidays?’
‘Before. June. June would be a good time. Things to do, preparations to be made. You would fly, of course. Everyone does now.’
I bleated, ‘June is just over four weeks off!’
‘Exactly. You’ll have to get cracking. Maxine will help you. She can talk to Tom. And she’ll keep an eye on the girls, of course. And your friend Daphne can help out. Piece of cake, really. You’ll be home in good time for the school hols and another break in Dorset.’