“Louise,” he shouted. “It’s a Jag. ’Er got out of a ruddy, great big Jag!’
“Language, Arthur!” Auntie Flo said without turning round from stacking the shelves, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth.
Grace must have sensed us peeping out between the Co-op’s lettering in the frosted glass, because her head turned and we got a flash of those famous emerald eyes from beneath a fringe of black lashes. Her complexion was the colour of fresh milk, her face a small, pointed shape with arched eyebrows and finely sculpted features.
“Blimey.”
She really did take my breath away and even as a child I knew I’d seen true, knockout, trouble-inspiring beauty. We’d never seen anything like it – not on Ludsmoor, although Grandma Ellen took The Tatler and you’d see women dressed like that in there - you know, in ball gowns with fur stoles round their shoulders, or in the new full-skirted petticoats. Mostly though, they had no chins and big noses or frizzy hair and flat chests. Money couldn’t buy what Grace had.
“She looks like an angel,” I said.
“More like a sex bomb,” said Arthur.
“We’ll not have talk like that in ’ere thank you very much, Arthur Whistler,” Auntie Flo said, now onto slicing ham, and still with a cigarette in her mouth. “Who’s been teaching you that kind of talk, any road?”
Arthur grinned. “No one.”
She toured, my mother told us. Grace ‘toured’ the whole county and beyond, and it was only because she was from Ludsmoor that she sang in our tiny chapel at all. We were honoured, my mother said, always taking care to pronounce the ‘h.’ Yet she’d been brought up here in wind-swept, grimy, dirt-poor Ludsmoor just like the rest of us. I tried to imagine Grace Holland ever being a child in a place like this – sitting cross-legged on the assembly room floor reciting times-tables in her bottle-green school uniform; queueing for the outside toilet in the school yard, or running to ‘Spinks Chippie’ for a fish supper.
To me, in my home-knitted cardigans (often with unravelled wool from someone else’s cardigan), altered hand-me downs, and with a ribbon pinned to the side of my head, Grace Holland was everything I wanted to be when I grew up. I watched her. Yearned to be her. Tried to work out what she did to make herself look that way; imagined what it would feel like to be a star with everyone staring at me slack-jawed and goggle-eyed. Would I be beautiful like that when I grew up? Would I? I’d search the mirror in our front parlour every day just to see if there had been a miraculous transformation during the night, but no – it seemed as though, like my mother, auntie and grandmother before me, I was destined for currant-bun eyes, a long, thin nose and a slightly lop-sided mouth. My lips would not pout with luscious fullness, nor would my hair bounce into glossy curls, despite sleeping with rags tied into it. And after Grace sang in Chapel that Sunday evening my daydreams were once again full of her.
She’d worn bottle green – a long, velvet dress that looked as if she’d been sewn into it - plump, white pillows of flesh rising and falling over the neckline with every vocal exertion.
“Tut! Cut far too low,” I heard my mother say to Auntie Rosa, who was sitting next to us in the pew.
Auntie Rosa nodded, her lips pursed together like she didn’t trust herself to speak. She often did that with her mouth, did Auntie Rosa. Dad said she looked like she was chewing a wasp. I was thinking though, how did Grace not feel the cold? And how would she get home on those high heels? I wanted to ask Mum but there was never a chance; and even though I kept looking round when we were all in the porch at the end, I couldn’t see her. I never saw her leave, is what I’m saying, and as soon as we stepped into the night the view of the chapel was quickly swallowed by the storm.
We trudged home against the full onslaught of the wind, blinking furiously against stinging pellets of icy snow. Half running and constantly tripping to stay in the darting light of Dad’s torch, my toes sang painfully inside leaky Wellington boots and wet hair trickled down the back of my school gabardine.
“Beats me why she’s still not married. It’s not like she doesn’t put herself about enough,” Mum was shouting over the roaring wind.
I tried hard to hear what was being said – anything to do with Grace and I wanted to know about it. I so badly wanted to be like her; to be her…
Dad was marching ahead, saying nothing.
“I mean, it can’t be much of a life living out there with her mother, can it? Our Agnes isn’t much fun at the best of times.”
Agnes was my grandma Ellen’s sister, mum’s auntie. We hardly ever saw her, though.
Dad speeded up, the boys disappearing ahead of him. Night was closing in, chasing us with a black cape.
“Wait, Daddy. Wait.”
He stopped and swung the torch round. I could see his mouth etched in a hard line. “Hurry up, Louise. Come on.”
Then from somewhere beyond our small pool of light we all heard it and whirled around – a long, low whistle that sounded like an oncoming steam train. In a second Dad reached down and caught my hand just as a fresh belt of snow screamed off the moors. We reeled and staggered with the ferocity of it.
“Hold on to me, Pigeon,” he said. “Not far now. Keep walking.”
We lived in a terrace at the bottom end of the village, and one or two house lights twinkled in the distance. They seemed miles away.
Still Mum kept up the commentary like she just couldn’t stop. “Back of beyond out there at that farm. I mean, why she doesn’t move into town beats me. And what our Agnes does stuck out there on her own all day, I don’t know. We all said why not move in with Annie, what with Grace away so much. Especially now she’s got herself a fancy man. Honestly—”
“Mum, what’s a fancy man?”
“I mean, you don’t carry on like that and call yourself a Christian, do you?”
“Mum, what’s a fancy man?”
“She ought to be married at her age, any road. I really can’t imagine that one tending to her elderly mother for the rest of her life, can you? Hauling in coal, chopping wood, cooking and cleaning and then—”
“Viv,” said Dad. “Give it a rest, would you, love?”
The house that night was colder than a crypt. Beads of water bubbled under the wallpaper, the window frames shook so hard we thought the glass would shatter; and the fire in the grate hissed and spat, never properly warming the room. Although we huddled over the flames until our faces burned, our spines still crawled with icy shivers and soot blew down the chimney in dirty great plumes.
In the end there was nothing for it but to go to bed early and wait for the worst to pass. At the side of the open fire were two cast-iron compartments. One was used to keep food hot and the other was for laundry. During winter months my mother put bricks in there too, which once hot would be wrapped in cloth and placed between the freezing, cotton sheets upstairs before we got into bed. But despite those, and keeping dressing gowns on under layers of blankets topped with overcoats, it was still way too cold to sleep. Snow flew at the windows all night long, and funnelled through the cracks of north-facing walls that took the full brunt of the storm.
The trick was to bury deep down under the covers and curl up your whole body in a tight ball, clenching and unclenching throbbing fingers and toes until the blood came up. My two brothers and I slept in one double bed like hibernating dormice, bunkering down in the dark. But even under all those layers there was still that spectral blue light shining through the curtains; and the moaning, Arctic wind bringing what was to be one of the worst winters in living memory – one that would cut off power, bring down phone lines and isolate us in freezing poverty for three weeks more.
I think, though, that as a family we could have endured that. We were not unused to hardship.
***
Chapter Three
Lakeside View, Grytton
Ellen Danby, Louise’s grandmother
Ellen Danby sat on the window seat in the parlour at the back of the house, staring blindly in
to a dizzy blur of snowflakes. A two to three inch white mantle now covered the lawns, ending starkly with the forest’s blackened edge and a line of grim sentinels. The Guardians Snow called them.
Snow!
Suddenly remembering her granddaughter, she tilted her head towards the door, listening for any sound of the girl. Pray to God she hadn’t gone outside in this. An image came to her, of a white-haired child playing alone in the woods, early dawn rays streaming through the canopy as softly she hummed to herself, totally unaware of the world around her – or the fact the entire household had been searching for her all night.
She shook her head. No, Snow was much older than that now… Wasn’t she?
Ellen’s joints were rigid with cold, and her knees creaked as she stood up. Goodness, how long had she been here? What time must it be? How thoroughly disorientating to have absolutely no idea! Panic seized her as desperately her mind floundered around for the day of the week, the year… What was she doing here? Who was she waiting for? But no answers came. Nothing. In the quiet, chilly darkness.
She needed to control her breathing, to calm down. This had happened before. It was just that everything seemed so still, so empty…and no one was here… She gripped the back of an armchair and took herself through the situation point by point as she had taught herself to do. The unlit parlour was cold and damp. A pile of ash lay in the blackened grate. And looking down from the walls, portraits of people long-dead, immortalised in oil paint, stared unseeingly from dark canvases. She shivered in her flimsy, floral dress, rubbing the goose pimples of her upper arms, pulling her cardigan closer to her chest. The Danbys. The Danby ancestors. Yes, of course, this was Lake View. Her chest relaxed and her breath smoked on the air. Of course, of course…
On the north side of the house there was little light or warmth. Most of the living quarters faced south or west with the specific objective of enjoying a view of the lake; no one ever anticipating having to live in these backrooms, overshadowed as they were by the sombre forest and towering moors.
Oh, this would never have happened if Aaron was still alive – none of it – the way they had to live, the house in permanent semi-darkness… How many years now? She stopped and thought. Well, there was a thing. She couldn’t remember that, either. In fact, the harder she tried to think the more the outer reaches of her memory stretched into an endless abyss of emptiness. One minute she was walking down the aisle under the malevolent glare of her mother and sister…both dressed that day, in black…and the next here she was, gazing hypnotically at a darkening winter’s day from this mausoleum of a house, wondering who she was and how she got here.
Increasingly it was an effort, a huge hauling of mind and body, to live in the present tense at all; to endure the relentless, hollow cruelty of it. Nothing had turned out the way it should have done - almost as if an unseen presence had meddled with every desire, every humble dream, and every relationship she’d ever had. But no, that was patently ridiculous, especially the notion that her own family could have had anything to do with it. There was no proof – it was totally inconclusive – with every situation rationally explained away. And yet the intuition twisting in her gut informed her otherwise. Time and time again. Perhaps that was why her own mind had finally shut her out? Stop visiting the past, Ellen, because you won’t like it there…
She wrapped her cardigan around herself tighter as she walked into the hallway. Marion and Rosa had left for Chapel hours ago. Yes, that was it. So it must be a Sunday, then? Why then, had she not gone with them? And had she been asked to do something? Yes, she’d promised…they’d called out as they were leaving…but what was it?
As if in answer to her question, like an errant echo of a distant death knell, the Grandfather clock methodically chimed nine o’clock.
Nine o’clock.
She paused half way to the stairway, her expelled breath hovering in the freezing air. No wonder her body was rigid – she must have been sitting on that window ledge for five hours. And Marion and Rosa still not back!
What had happened to all that time?
A flicker of alarm caught and rushed through her veins, thumping into her chest, her ears, her head. Had something happened to them? Oh dear Lord, please no…
Wind whistled underneath the front door and squalls of snow lashed the hall window. It would be a treacherous walk home from Ludsmoor on a night like this – across those moors in total darkness and slippery underfoot. A good three miles. What if one of them had fallen? She pictured the two women holding onto each other, heads bowed against the prevailing storm, the torch lighting only one or two feet in front at most. Once on the lane down to Grytton the force of it should abate, with the forest to shield the most ferocious gusts. But then the forest brought hazards of its own…
Just as if it was herself walking through the trees and her own feet crunching on the fresh snowfall beneath its towering silence, she shuddered, iciness brushing her cheeks…A warning…something was badly wrong…
Immediately she quashed the thought. Her oldest daughters were sensible, grown women; perhaps too sensible at times – a little frightening with their no-nonsense good sense, in fact. Were you not, with advancing years, supposed to become wise and all-knowing? Instead, it seemed the brain softened and the body turned into a brittle-stick hunchback. All she had to do – one job, Rosa would say – was make sure Snow didn’t go wandering off in weather like this.
Well, maybe the girl hadn’t? Perhaps she was still in her bedroom and all would be well? Oh dear, though - neither she nor Snow had eaten a thing. She’d completely forgotten to cook an evening meal. With fluttering bird hands she stood undecided for a moment, wavering. What should she do? Look for the girl or make supper? Yes. Look for the girl. Perhaps put the kettle on first? No. If she did that she might forget to find Snow. The house though…it seemed so black in here, so unearthly quiet…so utterly still.
She held onto the newel post and looked up at the landing. The whole of the upper floor lay in darkness, save for a flickering oil lamp on the ledge half way up the stairs. The power must have been cut off again. Yes, that would be it. Rosa must have lit the lamp before she left? Funny, she didn’t remember her doing it – not a thing - not when they left or what they were wearing or any instructions Rosa was sure to have left.
Outside, the wind soughed and moaned around the eaves, the storm gaining in strength, noticeably noisier as she climbed. Midway, she paused to pick up the lamp, her arthritic fingers closing around the brass stem with painful difficulty. Lining the walls, Marion’s paintings seemed, as they often did, to have acquired ghostly figures in the background – dark-skinned, sombre faces with startling eyes, demanding an existence all of their own. Apart from the Danby portraits in the parlour, every other wall of the house was dominated by Marion’s oil and water colours: mostly landscapes or trees, clouds massing over brooding moorlands or reflected in pools of water. She never painted people and yet it seemed they were there somehow, lurking just inside the tip of vision - lost souls forever roaming the landscapes of her daughter’s paintings. No one ever spoke about those faces though, heaven forbid! If she mentioned it to Marion she refused to discuss it and became upset. Rosa would want to fetch Dr Fergusson because her mother must be ‘seeing things’, and God help her if she mentioned anything to Vivien, her youngest. ‘The Funny Farm’, was one of Vivien’s favourite phrases: ‘We’ll have to send you to the funny farm.’ She’d heard her say that to little Louise once or twice, too.
The top step creaked loudly and she stood for a moment to draw breath. Up here the storm was pounding the house in a drum of angry fists, windows rattled in the wooden frames, and inside the roof, the timber groaned alarmingly as the onslaught intensified. The thought crossed her mind that this was in the relative shelter of the forest. What must it be like up on the moors? Roofs could come off!
She hurried along the corridor to the west-facing bedroom at the far end and pushed open the door. The air hung stale and damp,
the single bed neatly-made, the grate cold. A row of dolls on the bookshelf looked back at her with dead eyes. Dolls… how she hated the darn things. Well, Snow was not in her room and clearly hadn’t been for some time. Her heart picked up a beat. Please God don’t let her have slipped outside in this. Please let her be here…in one of these rooms… any of them…
Her heels chopped into the bare floorboards, a harsh and lonely sound in the big house. Wind whined around the corners, lamplight flickering on the wooden panelling, her shadow lengthening behind its oily, yellow glow as she creaked open each door along the corridor. Every room was empty. It was only as she reached the last one, however, that she suddenly became aware of sounds other than the storm outside – those from within the house itself – and stopped to listen.
Maybe her mind had tricked her into assuming it had been mice or some such creatures scratching in the walls. But no, there it was again –voices - and muffled footfalls…distant chatter. Something, now she came to think of it, that had been barely perceptible all day but now seemed more insistent, more frequent. Was it in her mind or was it real? Her spine stiffened. You know what it is…Ellen, you know! Surely it couldn’t be happening again after all these years? No, no and no! It could not be. Not that…
Determinedly, she closed her ears to the ghosts and hurried across the gallery landing to Marion’s bedroom door. This was the one room still in use that had a southerly aspect; Marion being the only one who didn’t seem to mind as much as the others that her long, Georgian sash window no longer overlooked Grytton Mere, but instead now faced the light-sapping solidity of gritstone: the rear end of Spite Hall. Odd for a woman who liked to paint, but then again Marion’s paintings were not of daylight.
Snow was sitting on an armchair by her mother’s window, rocking to and fro as was her wont, repeatedly hitting a rubber ball with a piece of string. In the dark, with the light from the oil lamp too feeble to reach the four corners, the girl’s appearance was unnerving, looking as she did from the back like a very old woman, humming to herself, swaying back and forth.
The Soprano Page 2