by Ros Franey
‘I’m sorry about that, Annie,’ she said softly. ‘I mean, I did know, of course – because that’s how I come to be here. I took over from Miss Higgs when she became Mrs Lang.’
I thought about this. ‘So … Mother dying and Miss Higgs marrying Daddy and you coming to the Mission could all be part of God’s plan for us, couldn’t it?’
Miss Blessing looked uncomfortable. ‘No, Annie. The tragedy of your mother dying is far greater than the good fortune of my getting this job. I’m sure God didn’t plan it that way.’
‘But it’s true we’re just little, aren’t we, Miss Blessing, in a bigger Plan? And we have to accept that we need to suffer, and we can’t always have what we want?’
‘Well,’ she said after a short silence. ‘I think that’s a very grown-up way of looking at it, Annie. My father died in the War. I don’t have many memories of him, and sometimes I get so angry I think I’m losing my faith. I never really knew my poor father, but I miss him enormously! Do you remember your mother?’
‘A little,’ I mumbled. I kicked at a pebble.
‘Well sometimes,’ she said, ‘I get very cross with God and I can’t see I’m part of any sort of plan.’
No one in my family had ever said they got cross with God. I thought no one but me ever did, and here was my Sunday School teacher admitting to it! ‘So what d’you do then?’ I asked. ‘D’you pray?’
She didn’t reply for a moment, then she said carefully, ‘I think I’ve decided it’s all right to be angry.’
‘With God?’ I looked at her round-eyed.
‘Yes.’ She was thinking about it. ‘I mean, if we’re taught that we’re a family with God as our father, it’s natural, isn’t it? We all get cross with our families sometimes but it doesn’t mean we don’t love them.’
‘Oh,’ I said. I thought about how I got cross with everyone in my family. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Perhaps you and I are angry with God because we’re sad, aren’t we, about losing our parents?’ she went on. ‘Being sad is quite reasonable under the circumstances. If we tried to pretend we weren’t sad, weren’t cross, we wouldn’t be honest with God. And I suppose God knows that.’
‘You mean, being sad is part of His plan for us, to help us be saved?’ It didn’t sound like a great plan to me, but I liked the way she said ‘you and I’.
She nodded slowly. She seemed to be working it out in her own mind. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘At the moment. I hope not for ever.’ She smiled down at me.
‘So … maybe in the end, in the long run, Jesus may be being kind to the little children after all?’ I asked doubtfully.
‘Perhaps,’ she said. She didn’t sound too sure. ‘I hope so, anyway. But I suppose I’m not far enough along the road yet to know.’ We had reached her bus stop. ‘So all I can do in the meantime is to try and have faith,’ she finished. She must have seen my disappointed expression because she added quickly, ‘Of course, it’s not as simple as that and I often still get angry and upset, but I’m trying.’ She gave me an anxious look. ‘Oh dear. I don’t think that’s helped you at all!’
‘Yes it has, Miss Blessing.’ I shifted from foot to foot, wanting to get away now. ‘I’m going to have to go and think about it. But thank you.’
I walked up the hill, turning over what she had said. Whoever you talked to, it always came back to faith. Bea’s was absolute and it cheered me up that Miss Blessing’s was shakier, more like my own. Perhaps mine would sort of arrive as I got older. Meanwhile I was stuck with the anger. But just before I dropped off to sleep that night I remembered what made me angriest of all: it was Daddy sharing a private joke with that stranger, unaware of Beatrice in her moment of need. When I grow up, I hope I will pay more attention than that to the people I love.
SEVEN
On Saturdays and Sundays we had tea in the sitting room, spread out on the table behind the new green curtain. It was high tea with ham and lettuce and sometimes pork pie and bottled fruit. Tins of cooked meat and bottles of damsons and plums from Grandfather Eames’ garden were stored along the shelf at the cellar head. It was a spidery place where grit rained constantly down on the jars and they had to be wiped with the dishcloth before Maisie opened them. Sometimes I was told to go and find such-and-such a thing from the cellar head and it was an errand I loathed. If you were lucky it would be just inside the door and you wouldn’t have to go down there, but mostly the Thing, whatever it was, would be further along the shelf, lost in the gloom. With each step, you had to go down a stair-tread, of course, so with each step you were groping higher and higher and there would be a fear of falling into the abyss, as I imagined it from Bible study. I had never been right down into the cellar, but I knew that’s where Elsie had to go for the coal, the large, craggy lumps for the fire grate in the sitting room and the anthracite for the range. She would heave the coal scuttles up, panting and coughing. ‘Lord,’ she’d say if I met her in the hall. ‘That place is like the pit of Hell, Annie. It’s that scary, I tell you. Evil things down there, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘What evil things, Elsie?’
‘Heaven alone knows. No good can go on in a place like that.’
‘What’s it like then?’ I’d ask, with a dread fascination.
‘It stinks, for one thing. Dank and evil. There’s a draught from the North Pole, yet the air is … sort of, you know, poisonous. Breathe it and you choke. See my hands?’
She’d hold out her chapped fingers, grimy and damp to the touch. ‘Ghosts in that cellar, my girl,’ she’d say darkly.
One day in September I was sent to the cellar head for a jar of beetroot for Sunday tea. As usual, I turned the large key in the lock (that was a mystery in itself – what was down there that they had to keep from breaking out?), then I took as deep a breath as I could muster and plunged through. No beetroot among the first three or four visible jars. I retreated back outside the door and switched on the Bakelite switch; then I gingerly took a step down. As usual, the clammy cold enfolded me and the smell washed up my nose, even though I wasn’t breathing. It was the same smell that seeped into the drawing room above, where I did my piano practice, but down here it was much stronger. Shipham’s bloater paste; tinned pilchards; ham; pickled eggs; a jar of something greenish … I descended another step, resting my fingers on the flaking whitewash at the edge of the shelf which was now at the level of my bulging eyes. Piccalilli. Tongue. Can’t breathe. Mustn’t breathe. I launched myself back out into the light and took a couple more lungfuls of good air at the very moment Mother appeared out of nowhere. I jumped.
‘Annie, what on earth are you doing?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I just couldn’t find it so I was, um, just taking a breath.’
She gave me a funny look and I thought she was about to go down past me to get the beetroot herself, but she hesitated. ‘No, you go.’ She gave me a little push. ‘Don’t be so feeble, child.’
To my relief she stood there as I ventured down again. On the third step, my groping hands found the beetroot. I lifted it gingerly down, blew off the coal dust and returned to the hall as fast as I could without dropping it. As I placed the grimy jar in her hands, our eyes met and I saw in hers a kind of – I can only call it a dawning look. I suddenly knew she had found something out, and it terrified me. I turned quickly away to lock the door.
Cousin Irene and Cousin John were coming to tea that day because their parents, Auntie Vera and Uncle George, had to go somewhere else; the house felt almost jolly for a Sunday. Irene and John didn’t have to go to the Mission. For some reason to do with Uncle George, who wasn’t part of our family, they went to the Church of England, which I thought sounded wonderful because they were allowed to read stories and even play Pit and draughts on a Sunday, unheard-of in our house. They wouldn’t have to have the total immersion when the time came, either, or sign the pledge, or anything. I envied them.
There were rather too many of us to sit at the table, so we younger children were all
owed to have the nest of tables and sit together on the sofa. When she returned to the sitting room after washing her hands, Irene had failed to shut the kitchen door so Nana, invariably banished at mealtimes, trotted in after her and for once no one noticed. I gave John my milk, because he didn’t seem to mind it, and concentrated on the pork pie and salad. I like pork pie when it is spicy and the crust is crisp. I don’t like the jelly round it, though; jelly is all right when it’s red or green in puddings, but not when it’s see-through in pork pie. I waited till the grown-ups weren’t watching and slipped it quietly to Nana, who understood the need for secrecy and managed to eat it from my hand without slurping.
It wasn’t for twenty minutes or so that anyone noticed the pink spots. They were appearing, as if by magic, on the new wallpaper behind us. Beatrice saw them first. She jumped up and came closer to examine them carefully.
‘Beatrice—’ Mother looked up. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘What are these, Mother? Look!’ cried Bea.
We were all staring now as more and more bright pink spots materialised on the walls around us.
‘It’s magic!’ I squeaked excitedly. ‘It’s the pink fairy!’
Mother did one of her withering looks.
Irene and John gazed at the wall entranced, too shy to speak.
Then Daddy burst out laughing. ‘I know what it is! See, all of you!’ He was pointing at Nana, who stood by our little tables with a big grin on her face, so pleased to be included in the family tea, her tail swishing from side to side, dipping into the vinegary dish of beetroot and sending it like a joyful painting over the new beige wallpaper. Taking our cue from Daddy, Irene, John and I chortled and squeaked and threw our heads back and laughed as I can’t remember laughing in that room for a long time. Even Beatrice was grinning and Nana, who loved to cheer us up, wagged her tail all the more.
Then Mother ordered, ‘Harry, get that dog out of here!’ and instantly I stopped laughing. I knew that voice.
Daddy stood up from the table. ‘Come on, old girl.’ He led Nana out of the room by the collar.
‘Into the yard,’ Mother called after him.
‘It’s not her fault,’ I murmured.
‘And trust you,’ snapped Mother. She was dabbing at the spots with a napkin. ‘Beatrice, fetch the borax and a pint of warm water.’ To me, she said, ‘You are so predictable, Annie. I can’t tell you how infantile it is, your constant moaning.’
My face burned. I could feel Irene’s anxious eyes upon me. ‘Please may we leave the table?’ I asked, as politely as I knew how.
‘You can do better than that. You may go to your room. It will soon be time for your cousins to leave, in any case.’
‘It’s all my fault,’ wailed Irene, when we were safely in my bedroom with the door closed. ‘Spats always has tea with us. I didn’t realise Nana wasn’t allowed to.’
‘It’s my fault too,’ I consoled her. ‘If I hadn’t given her my pork-pie jelly she wouldn’t have wagged her tail so much. Don’t worry – it’s only her, Mother, who’s brought in that rule. Daddy never used to mind. You saw him. He thought it was funny.’
‘It won’t come off, you know,’ said John, who was always inclined to be gloomy. ‘We did it in chemistry.’
‘Did what, John?’ asked Irene sharply.
‘The master was testing common household substances. It’s a pretty fast dye, is beetroot juice.’
‘It’s only a bit of … salad,’ I said. ‘Nothing to get worked up about. It’s just ’cos she chose the wallpaper and she hasn’t been Mistress of the House very long. It’ll blow over.’ I wanted to make Irene feel better, but inside I feared for what would happen next.
‘Personally,’ commented Irene, ‘I thought it was an improvement!’ and we all laughed at that.
‘Can’t wait to write and tell Fred about it,’ I said. ‘He adores Nana.’ I went to the window and stared down into the yard. In the dusk I could see her huddled between two flower tubs, her chin resting watchfully on her paws.
Nana was allowed back to her usual bed in the scullery that night. But next day as I left for school, I saw Mr Holley, who does odd jobs for us, unloading wood on the back hill, very ominous. By the time I got home, there it was, the hateful thing – my worst dread. The yard smelt of creosote. I wrinkled my nose, but said nothing. Tea passed with a sort of veneer like that thin icing with cracks in it. No one said a word about the Thing in the yard. That’s what’s weird about our family; there it was, where there had been nothing yesterday, and no one so much as sighed, or raised an eyebrow or said something like, ‘Well now …’ I knew Mother expected me to start on, so I willed myself to stay silent. Nana lay with her head on my feet under the kitchen table as I did my homework; she knew what it was all right.
At bedtime, Beatrice and I trooped upstairs and still not a word spoken. When I interrogated Beatrice about it, she said she knew nothing and best to shut up about it. I lay awake in the dark, listening. I don’t know what I was waiting for – barking, a scuffle, perhaps, when they tried to shut Nana outside – but my eyes fell asleep before my ears …
The next thing I knew, it was deep in the middle of the darkest hour of night and I was suddenly wide awake. What was it? A something had woken me up. Not a whine. Not a whimper. I held my breath and listened. Nothing but the sighs of the old house in the darkness, except … yes, a something, very quietly, like a spider trampling a leaf: scritch scritch, then silence. After a moment, I heard it again. I lay listening, agog, willing the sound to stop. I couldn’t bear for it to be what it undoubtedly was, because if I heard it and did nothing, it made me a traitor. Scritch scritch. I swung my toes to the floor and groped for my slippers. Pulling my Winter dressing gown around me, I tiptoed to the window avoiding, as ever, the third floorboard from the wall. The yard was in deep shadow, no starlight to distinguish the hateful black of the new kennel from the darkness around it, but the noise was unmistakable, quiet and persistent. It could only be Nana.
With extreme care, and my vast experience of the geography of our house, its cracks and creaks and bottomless pits, I reached the kitchen soundlessly. And there was the noise: a named noise now, on the outside of the scullery door, not even a scratching, more a wiping of a heavy paw over the panels. I reached for the key. Then, leaning against the door with all my strength to avoid a sudden clack as the mortise opened, I turned it in the lock. The scratching had stopped. I willed her not to squeak in greeting, but Nana knew better than that. The door opened. She was sitting at the bottom of the two steep steps leading down into the yard, her head on one side, expectantly. For a moment we looked at each other, then she was in my arms, tail swinging in the night. I hugged her to say sorry, Nana, sorry for the horribleness of the grown-ups, and you know it’s not my doing, Nana; I would never, ever do this to you if I were to live a thousand years and it wasn’t your fault about the beetroot – all this without a sound, my silent tears buried in the thick white ruff of her neck. Nana knew about caution. After a while she drew back and looked at me, awaiting instructions: Do we go in now? I had no idea. The sense of outrage that had carried me downstairs gave way to dismay as I considered what to do. If I let her in, we would both be doomed. If I led her back to the kennel and tried to settle her, she would very likely not be able to resist whimpering or – my stomach lurched – howling at my betrayal. There could be only one course of action. It had the satisfying advantage of not incriminating Nana, while allowing me to atone for the terrible injustice done to her.
I stood up, reached around the open door for the key, locked it, just as gingerly as I had unlocked it but this time from the outside, and joined the bewildered dog in the yard. Thankful now for the extreme darkness, and trying to ignore the cold lapping around my ankles under my nightie, I groped my way past Mother’s flower tubs, under the shivering clothes pegs to the hulk by the far wall. Would I fit through the doorway? I hadn’t examined the horrid thing before. Nana was a tall dog, but narrow. Fee
ling cautiously for the opening, I knelt and ran my fingers around the splintery edges, softened by damp and creosote. Then ducking my head and wriggling sideways, I clambered in. Nana stood outside, her head cocked uncertainly. ‘Come on,’ I whispered, and gave her collar a tug. After a moment, she obeyed, squeezing through the doorway with what must have been a look of great puzzlement. There was no bed, of course. I might have known they would provide nothing for her to lie on, but Daddy must have taken pity on her because, feeling around, I found a couple of old newspapers thrust into a corner. We scrambled around each other, Nana and I, as I tried to spread the papers underneath us, curling up finally in a sort of ball, with my feet under her tummy for warmth and my head against the pillow of her neck, where I could breathe in warm dog and not the damp and stinking night.
Waking in the early dawn, queasy from the stench of creosote and sensing the hour from birds twittering in the darkness and the metal crunch of cartwheels down St Ann’s Hill, I spoke to Nana sternly. I told her I must go now; that she must make no sound at all and that I would think of a way out of this, but at the moment we would have to go along with the grown-ups and do whatever they wanted. If we did not, it would be worse for both of us. Then, easing my numb feet from under her, I levered myself out of the kennel and back to the kitchen in the grey light, unlocking and locking the door quietly, as before. Stopping in the hall to examine the solemn ticking grandfather clock, I could just make out that it was almost six. This was cutting it fine. I fled as fast as silence would allow back to my room and dived shivering into bed. There I lay, straining my ears for noises from the yard. The birds were louder now. A motorcar climbed in low gear up Woodborough Road. But from Nana there was no sound.