by Ros Franey
I had arrived home from school with my head full of the spinning towns and the weaving towns, because we had a test next day, so I was off guard as I washed my hands at the scullery sink, when suddenly I heard Miss Higgs’s foot on the stone step behind me.
‘Annie, I want your presence upstairs. In your bedroom. Now.’
I frowned. ‘Hello, Miss Higgs. I just got home.’
‘At once.’
‘Yes, Miss Higgs.’
I dried my hands and followed her obediently upstairs with a falling feeling in the pit of my stomach, racking my brains for what I might have done wrong. As soon as I entered the room, however, it became clear. The door of the dolls’ clothes cupboard was open and a heap of jumbled dresses, tiaras, trains and dolls’ pram blankets lay in a heap on the floor. Over them, stood Miss Higgs, an expression of extreme distaste on her face. A faint fishy smell rose from the heap.
‘Annie, how do you account for this?’
‘Er …’
‘And don’t pretend you don’t know to what I am referring.’
‘No, Missiggs.’
‘To what am I referring, then?’
I wondered if there was any chance at all she hadn’t tumbled to my cod liver oil activities. ‘Well there was a bit of an accident,’ I mumbled.
‘An accident? An accident? Annie, I hope you are not going to compound your crime with a lie!’
‘No, no, Missiggs.’
‘So how, pray, do you explain this—’ She bent and picked up a doll’s white dress with yellowish sticky stains on it.
I looked at my toes. The stains on the dress were truly disgusting. ‘The cod liver oil made me feel sick, Missiggs, so I, so I …’ My voice tailed off. Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Burnley… The spinning and weaving towns were careering through my brain in nightmare disorder.
‘I’m waiting, Annie!’
‘I sort of wiped it—’
‘You spat it, you mean!’
She almost slapped me with the word. ‘No. Well, yes,’ I said. I couldn’t look at her.
‘When?’
‘Last week.’
‘How often, Annie?’
‘Sometimes. When I felt sick. When I couldn’t swallow it.’
‘Not sometimes. Every time.’
‘No, no. Sometimes I managed to sw—’
‘You’re lying.’
‘Most times,’ I admitted. I forced myself to raise my eyes to her. ‘I just hate it,’ I said.
‘Hate is a terrible word, Annie. God is a wrathful God, but He does not hate.’
‘Not hate. I mean, I really really don’t like it.’
‘Then you must learn to like it, mustn’t you?’
I said nothing.
‘First. Pick these up and follow me.’
I did so, trooping downstairs with sticky dolls’ dresses tumbling from my arms, the smell of it making me close to retching again. She led the way into the kitchen and opened the back door.
‘Take them down to the ash-pit. Place them inside the bin.’ I looked at her. It was now quite dark outside with a wet fog slippery on the steps. We never went down to the hated ash-pit in the dark. ‘Now,’ she instructed. I stumbled out into the gloom, grateful for the light from the kitchen. But barely was I down the kitchen steps into the yard when she closed the door behind me and I was truly in darkness. Unable to reach out for the banister with my hands full, I edged forwards, feeling with the toe of my shoe for the first slimy step, the sick smell of cod liver oil mingling with the foetid garbage from below.
By the time I returned to the kitchen, I was damp from the mist and starting to shiver, my gymslip stained from the wet brick walls and my shoes scuffed. I was instructed to sit at the kitchen table and did so, although part of me was suddenly up in a corner of the ceiling, curious to see what would happen next. Miss Higgs took the bottle of cod liver oil and poured a cupful, which she set in front of me. ‘And now you will learn not to hate,’ she said. ‘You will drink it. You will savour each mouthful, brought to you by the kindness of your family and the bounty of Our Lord. And when you have finished it you will go to bed and reflect on what you have done.’
She had chosen her evening well. Beatrice was at a Junior Bible Fellowship class and would not be back till eight. Maisie had gone home. It was Daddy’s night at the Lodge. There were just the two of us. Miss Higgs never left the room but stayed silent nearby, darning thin places in socks. I sat at the table from half-past five by the kitchen clock above the mantelpiece to half-past seven, two hours, forcing cod liver oil drop by drop down my throat and during most of that time my memory is that we did not speak, which is a long silence. I was painting a scene in my head, which grew and became elaborate with all kinds of details and consequences both major and minor, in which I had stumbled on the ash-pit steps and crashed to the ground below breaking a leg – well perhaps that would be a little too serious, an arm would do – and she would have let me lie there and I would have caught the pneumonia, or perhaps just a cold as pneumonia might be life-threatening, well – no, pneumonia would be best, except perhaps I wouldn’t need to have pneumonia and a broken arm. Anyway, something awful. And Daddy would have come home from the Lodge to find Doctors and Danger and me in the Children’s Ward, or maybe I wouldn’t have to go to the Infirmary because that would be too horrible, but then again it ought to be hospital because the scales would have to fall from Daddy’s eyes, as they say in the fairy stories, and he would need to say to her: ‘Miss Higgs, how could this happen? How could you send her cruelly into the darkness, a small child on a Winter Night?’ And she would leave at dawn next day in shame, her small suitcase packed and The Light of the World under one arm, and we would not have to have a Housekeeper any more. This make-believe went on and on and grew to such dramatic proportions in my head that suddenly I found myself Dying, and that was not the point at all, so I forced myself to leave it alone and think of something else.
I say we did not speak, but towards the end Miss Higgs laid aside her darning and took up the Bible. She started to read aloud. She read from Isaiah about the person who would be Jesus – though of course Isaiah was Old Testament so couldn’t exactly know that yet – and how he would be spurned and how God would make him go like a lamb to the slaughter, because through his wounds and whippings and bruisings he would take on our sins and die for them. Then she closed the Bible and explained that it all came to pass at the Crucifixion, and his suffering healed us. And so it followed, she went on, that just as God punished His Son to set us free, punishment was part of God’s Plan for all little children because that’s how we would become good. So we must bear it in silence, just as Jesus did. Her voice was low but her words burrowed into my head. From time to time she would look over to see how I was taking it, and I couldn’t meet her eye but stared down into the fishy depths, willing her to stop.
The only other memory I have of that dreadful evening is that Nana, who had been lying warily between us, occasionally raising one eyebrow and opening an eye to make sure I was all right, got to her feet at one point, plodded over to the table and lay beneath it with her great head on my shoe. And I loved her so much I wanted to cry for that. Though I honestly don’t know if it happened, or whether it was just another bit of Mr John Ruskin’s pathetic fallacy, so perhaps I shouldn’t even write it. But when the last drop of cod liver oil was gone and I finally stood up to leave, I knew why I missed my brother. It was a shock, because we had never spoken of it: Fred was the only one who shared with me the boiling anger inside.
I was lying in bed later, feeling miserable and rather peculiar, turning these thoughts over in my mind, when the door opened and Daddy came in. He sat down on the bed with a sigh and looked at me with a sort of sorrowful expression. ‘So, Annie, Miss Higgs tells me you’ve been naughty.’ He paused. ‘Again.’
I looked at him, praying he hadn’t been told about the dolls’ clothes in detail. ‘I’m sorry, Daddy.’
He sighed. ‘Yes, well, you see, it’s al
l very well saying sorry afterwards, but you make it very difficult for Miss Higgs,’ he began.
I buried my head in the pillow and spoke to Little Sid who was in bed beside me. ‘She makes it difficult for me.’
‘She has a lot to get used to, coming into our family. It’s hard for her.’
‘I know, Daddy. I do try.’
‘You see, she thinks – well, I think too – that you’re rather out of control. I suppose it’s my fault in a way. I probably didn’t keep a firm enough hand over you this past year or so.’ He gazed sadly out into the room. ‘I’ve had too much on my mind, I suppose, and being without a mother’s guidance has gone to your head a bit.’
I had taken my face out of the pillow and was looking at him properly. It sounded as if no specific crime had been mentioned.
‘You’ve got a bit, well, full of yourself. It’s um, well Agn—Miss Higgs expresses it in terms of vanity.’
I stared at him. ‘What did you call her?
‘… The sin. She says, you know, the sin of vanity. It’s pride.’
I bounced out from under the bedclothes and faced him, kneeling upright on the eiderdown. ‘Daddy!’
‘Listen, Annie. Pride, as you know, is one of the seven deadly—’
‘Daddy!’
He paused.
‘You called her Agnes! That’s Mother’s name!’
‘It’s her name,’ he said quietly. ‘Miss Higgs’s Christian name is Agnes, too.’
‘It can’t be!’
‘It is, Annie.’
‘She can’t be Agnes! You called her Agnes!’ I threw myself face down on the pillow again.
He rubbed my back through the thick calico yoke of the nightie. ‘There you go again, you see. It all has to be such a drama with you, doesn’t it?’
‘It’s awful,’ I wailed into the pillow.
‘Well, you’ll just have to get used to it.’
I turned over and looked at him. I desperately needed him not to go. ‘Daddy, read me a story. Please.’
He sighed, hesitated and picked up the book from my bedside table, Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare.
‘Very well. But remember what Miss Higgs said.’
It was better then. But later, before I dropped off to sleep, I remembered what had really upset me. He had called her Agnes.
*
It was sometime deep in the dead of night that I woke up and knew there had been a mistake, and for once it wasn’t mine. Not that this was the first thought in my head at that horrible moment; it was only next morning when the doctor had gone and I lay in bed shivering and listening to the strange sounds of the day in which, to my great relief, I had been ordered not to take part that I began to understand what was going on. The proof came at lunchtime when Maisie appeared with dry toast and the bottle of kaolin clay. ‘Maisie, I can’t,’ I told her. Even the sight of the toast sent a wave of pain through my stomach.
‘Doctor said you were to try.’ She shook the bottle ominously. ‘And dry toast is the best thing for a tummy upset.’
Desperate to distract her from the greyish stuff in the bottle, I whispered, ‘Did she tell you what happened?’
Maisie looked blank. ‘What d’you mean, lovie?’ Clearly, as with Daddy last night, it seemed nothing had been said.
I turned away. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Miss Higgs thought you must have eaten too many liquorice allsorts.’
I swivelled my head back on the pillow and stared at her with big round eyes. ‘Is that what she told you?’
‘Or aniseed balls,’ said Maisie.
I laughed. It came out as a kind of grunt. Did she now? I was trying to think straight.
‘But don’t worry, Annie,’ Maisie went on. ‘She isn’t cross with you.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘She wouldn’t be.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘It wasn’t liquorice allsorts or aniseed balls,’ I said darkly.
‘Well you’d have had to eat tons,’ Maisie laughed. ‘I told her that. I said it was just a germ. Our Muriel had it.’
‘And?’
‘Oh, Miss Higgs agreed,’ Maisie said. ‘That’s why she’s not angry. You can’t help getting a tummy upset. Now, just one little swallow for me … and then you can have a spoonful of this!’ And from her capacious pinny pocket she produced with a great flourish a jar of my favourite strawberry jam.
When Maisie had gone, I lay in bed talking about this very quietly to Little Sid who was of course in bed too. If Miss Higgs hadn’t told, then she didn’t want it known, I explained to him. In fact, she had made a suggestion to Maisie that was a lie, which I think was not very Christian of her, but I couldn’t talk because I might have done the same. The day dragged on. At least I had missed the geography test (I’ve never been able to tell the spinning towns from the weaving towns from that day to this). It got very boring and Little Sid went to sleep. I tried to read from The Playbox Annual but my mouth was dry and my head hurt. The light through the curtains turned dull after a while and I could tell it was coming up for teatime. At length, Beatrice arrived home from school.
‘What happened?’ she asked, plumping down on the bed. ‘You missed frogspawn, you lucky thing.’
I winced. ‘Shush!’
‘The teachers got jam with it, but we didn’t. Edie Ellersby missed half of maths because she couldn’t swallow hers and they made her sit there till she’d finished it. She said the eyes were staring up at her.’
‘Beatrice! Be quiet about frogspawn.’
‘I thought she was putting it on, though, because she can’t do algebra. So what’s up with you?’
‘Dunno,’ I said. ‘Tummy upset, I s’pose.’ I had been wondering whether to tell her the dreadful events of last night, and thought I probably would. But when the moment came it was too awful about the yellow sticky mess on the dolls’ clothes and I just couldn’t. The worst thing about yesterday was that Miss Higgs had discovered my terrible secret. Of all the people in the world, I minded that she knew this thing about me. And I couldn’t face telling Beatrice because it was just too shameful. Bea in any case would not have sympathised because she quite likes cod liver oil. Also her dolls are beautifully neat and she brushes their hair a lot, just like she brushes her own. Beatrice has beautiful hair. Actually, by this time she didn’t play much with dolls any more, being eleven, but when she did, she would never let me touch them.
If I couldn’t tell Beatrice, then I certainly couldn’t tell Daddy. I would die rather than confess about the dolls’ clothes to Daddy. The plot I had slowly hatched over the afternoon collapsed the instant I realised this. It meant Daddy wouldn’t be able to give Miss Higgs the sack, because he would never know what she had done. For ever after, Miss Higgs and I shared a shameful secret that bound us together in a loathsome way. And very soon I would come to regret terribly that I hadn’t got rid of her when I still had the chance.
FIVE
In the months since Miss Higgs had become our housekeeper, she had continued to play the harmonium at the Mission. This meant that on Wednesday evenings, which was her practice night, and for much of every Sunday, she would be out of the house. On the first Saturday of each month she also had a day off when she would visit her sister in Beeston. In the hours of these absences I fancied the house was actually lighter, which was impossible of course, but I certainly felt lighter inside and everyone from Daddy to Nana seemed more jolly. I was particularly watchful of Daddy’s mood on these occasions. From the night when he had referred to her as Agnes, I had cherished a shocking secret fear that he might marry her, which is what they all seemed to do in the Brothers Grimm – you know, when it’s glaringly obvious to absolutely everyone that the housekeeper is a wicked witch, but the Man of the House marries her anyway, which of course means his children have a wicked stepmother to inflict misery and evil spells upon them.
After the cod-liver-oil incident, which I did recount to Beatrice (though, forgive me, I sort of glossed over the dis
gustingness of the dolls’ clothes), I interrogated her frequently on the likelihood of Daddy marrying Miss Higgs.
‘It won’t happen, Bea, will it?’
‘Oh Annie.’ She groaned. ‘Not again. How do I know?’
‘You’re older than me. You ought to see the Signs.’
‘You know Daddy. He’s always cheerful and friendly to people. I’m sure that’s all it is.’
‘So you have seen Signs?’
‘I’m saying you can’t tell.’
‘He was cheerful and friendly to Gladys Hughes when she came to collect for the Miners’ Welfare, but he said afterwards he could see her – what did he call it? – sizing up the joint, he said.’
Beatrice burst out laughing. ‘Annie, he didn’t!’
‘He did so! I said you couldn’t see the joint because it was in the oven and he told me not to be smart!’
‘Well it just proves that he is always cheerful and friendly and his attitude to Miss Higgs is no different.’
But I wasn’t convinced. ‘Bea, suppose he does marry her?’
Beatrice looked at me and sighed. ‘If you could see your little face, Annie, and those big worried eyes!’ She reached out and stroked my hair.
‘I hate her!’ I wailed.
‘Not hate,’ corrected Beatrice. ‘You know what happens when you talk about hate. God doesn’t hate.’
‘I’m judging her, then!’
‘Annie, that’s wicked to put yourself on a level with God and you well know it.’
‘She sent me down the ash-pit steps. God wouldn’t have liked that!’
‘That was weeks ago. Just pull yourself together,’ said Beatrice crisply. ‘Self-pity has always been your most unattractive feature.’ She said she was going to call it S-P from now on, and I’d get a sharp dig in the ribs every time I fell into it.
‘Why do people marry their horrid housekeepers?’ I asked her.
Beatrice sighed. ‘I don’t know. I suppose everyone wants him to marry again. She lives with us …’ She shrugged.