Remembrance Day

by Leah Fleming

  None of this went into the long letter home with the photos of Shari in her Victorian lacy dress and bonnet, the one Selma had borrowed from the costume department for the baby’s baptism. Shari had a fuzz of reddy golden hair and dark eyes, an unusual combination. She was her daddy’s girl all right. Selma told Mam that she was born premature so as not to raise any suspicions that she was conceived out of wedlock.

  As the weeks went by and Jamie didn’t rush home but made more and more excuses about new scenes to shoot, a niggling doubt began to grow in her gut that he was going to leave her alone, and that scared her.

  Nothing was going to get in the way of his career now it was taking off, especially not a tiny baby. She was on her own now, fending for herself, and there was no choice but to try for work again. They couldn’t live on air.

  Hester followed the debates in the newspapers with growing interest, knowing there was a movement against capital punishment for men in the Forces. The Labour MP Ernest Thurtle was championing the cause at the National Federation of Discharged Soldiers. There was talk of a bill in Parliament to abolish capital punishment in the military. She tried to broach the subject with Essie but any talk of the war and she clammed shut.

  They had never discussed what had really happened to Frank. It was a closed book better not opened if they were to stay on the same side. It was enough that her own stubbornness had persuaded the parish council to adopt the tolling bell on Armistice Day and nothing else. The Church had followed suit, and disaffected villagers had their heroes carved onto the Sowerthwaite Memorial.

  This decision was unpopular but occasionally someone sidled up to Hester, after heated discussions, to whisper, ‘All or nobody…It’s got to be right that all those young boys who volunteered or were conscripted, who served their country at a cost to their lives, should be honoured. If some fell short of bravery, it’s not up to us to judge.’

  Most people knew about the Bartleys saving the Cantrell twin all those years ago. It was a legend much embellished, and for Hester every reminder of it brought such turmoil of emotions. She owed Frank Bartley support.

  Essie was proving a loyal servant, diligent to the point of obstinacy, at times. Woe betide her if she messed up her spring cleaning, the rug brushing, the cupboard clearingouts. Waterloo House sparkled. For one week each year, Essie took the train to her sister’s home and from there they took the air at Bridlington or Scarborough for a brief holiday.

  How Hester envied Essie those photographs: Selma’s wedding portrait and then the birth of her daughter—whoever named a child after a village? But they were Americans now; they did things differently there. She had to admit she was a pretty child with a mop of curls and dark eyes.

  There was some mystery about the husband, the one who was in the moving pictures; Big Jim Barr was his stage name. He didn’t seem to play much part in the family and now mother and daughter were taking film parts and Essie was saving to make the big journey herself.

  But with a downturn in jobs and the current bleak climate, things were looking bad. The war had bankrupted the nation, but all the war machinery still had to be paid for. There was no money for luxuries. Those lost men had left so many gaps. Most of Hester’s friends had lost sons and heirs. She had no heirs to look forward to and she was jealous of Essie’s one little sparkling grandchild.

  She had letters to cherish, which she displayed like medals in the privacy of her rooms. Essie was tactful that way, not rubbing in the fact that Hester’s own remaining son was estranged for reasons no one would ever guess.

  With each passing month the hope of ever being reconciled was fading. She had no idea where Guy was. All she knew was his false name, Charles Arthur West. Sometimes she caught herself scouring the pages of The Times, just in case there was a mention of his name. Not even Essie knew this secret shame. How could she explain that if the war memorial was ever erected, it would have the wrong name at its head?

  As months turned into years, the two widows drew closer, more companionable, each within the well-defined roles of mistress or servant until those roles became blurred by familiarity and everyday contact. Essie was never over-familiar, always correct, but Hester looked forward to their suppers in the kitchen in front of the range, talking over her day’s gardening and Essie’s adventures into the cookery books. With all those fresh vegetables in the garden and a copy of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, she had become more adventurous in her recipes, always frugal, and making one meal do two days if she could. A variety of meatless dishes suited Hester’s frequent dyspepsia and poor appetite.

  Common sense told her the house was too large. The stables were now bare, the car had long since been sold for a more modest version that she could drive, should she choose. There was just Maggie and Essie to see to her needs where once there had been half a dozen servants. The washing was laundered in the village, the garden she managed herself, and Beaven came out of retirement to see to the lawns and heavier work.

  Some weeks she need never wander out of the gates of Waterloo unless for matins or evensong—never both; that smacked of religious enthusiasm.

  Essie had no truck with church at all. The war business had taken away her faith in the providence of an Almighty. Hester had found it had drawn her closer to a basic trust in the power of Christian love and forgiveness. Was she not a sinner in need of salvation? Had she not fallen short of the great ideal, but was trying to make up for her failings none the less? Every night she prayed that she would see her son again, and know he was well in this world, feel his forgiveness in her heart and find peace at last.

  Should it be taking this long? Guy paced around the porch waiting for the cries of a newborn baby. Rose was well attended by the local women, the birth having come earlier than expected, and he feared no one would believe they had not even kissed until the night before the wedding.

  He had been so cautious not to offend the family until Rose had dragged him into the garden and set upon him. ‘Don’t you want to touch me?’ she had cried. ‘Am I that plain?’

  How he had reassured her otherwise with kisses and apologies. He adored her tender kisses, so different from those frantic couplings in port bars after a long sea voyage with women interested only in the content of his wallet for their favours.

  Their wedding night was everything he had hoped for, snuggled in their newly built annexe of bedrooms that he knew they were expected to fill to the brim one day. She had given herself to him in love and trust as he took her in his arms and peeled off each layer of pretty clothing, all hand sewn and embellished with fine stitches. They were not old Amish, who wore only plain colours. Mennonites wore brighter garments in fabrics with simple spots and checks, and some even wore worldly outfits, much to the disapproval of the older generation, who frowned on the purchase of tractors and engines and anything that was too modern. Guy didn’t mind either way, being too new a member to make any comment. Rose could have worn a flour sack and he would still have thought she looked beautiful.

  She had opened herself to him that first time with eagerness and good humour, laughing and teasing his tentative moves. ‘I’m not an egg…I won’t crack!’ she had said, pulling him towards her. ‘We are married and everything is permitted!’

  Now it seemed hours and hours before Miriam rushed down the stairs to put a precious bundle in his arms. ‘You have a son, Charles,’ she beamed. ‘A beautiful son, praise the Lord!’

  ‘Can I go and see her now?’ Guy made for the stairs.

  ‘No, not yet. She’s not finished yet. We think there’s another one on the way, so she mustn’t be disturbed.’

  ‘Is she…?’ he hardly dare speak at this news.

  ‘She will be fine.’

  His son was swaddled in sheets and a pretty patchwork quilt, his eyes peering up at Guy’s face, trying to focus. This is my own flesh and blood, made from our bodies, Guy thought, and he felt such a surge of pride and love and tenderness. This tiny mite made him want to cry—and to thin
k there would be two of them. His heart was bursting: another set of twins. Was this his legacy to the Yoders? Double trouble? He was still smiling when Miriam came downstairs, silent and calm as always, but her face was tired.

  ‘You can come now. Rose needs you,’ she said, taking the new baby from him, and he tore up the stairs, two at a time, sensing something was wrong. Rose was in trouble. He flung open the door to see her holding the baby. But she didn’t smile and her wide eyes held such sadness.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  She held out the bundle, the tiniest of bundles. Inside was a little wax doll, perfect, but with no life in its body.

  ‘He was too small. He couldn’t take his first breath. He’s perfect, but not ours,’ she cried. ‘I lost him…I was too small to carry them both,’ she wept.

  The women melted away to leave them to grieve alone.

  Guy held the baby and cried. What could he say to comfort her?

  ‘We have a son. We mustn’t be greedy. One will be enough for me. Let’s give this little one a name and christen him right here.’

  Rose shook her head. ‘We don’t christen babies. Baptism is for those old enough to make their own choice. He belongs to God now.’

  ‘But he must have a name,’ Guy insisted. ‘He’ll always be a part of us and little Charlie must know he had a twin brother. I had one too but he was lost in the war.’ To his surprise he found himself sobbing, ‘He left one morning. I never said goodbye, and he was killed instead of me, Rose.’

  ‘You wait until now to tell me all this? You must have such sadness in your heart. What was his name?’

  ‘Angus…Gus.’

  ‘Then we shall name this little one after him, little Gus. He’s so perfect, isn’t he?’

  ‘How can you stay so calm?’ Guy cried.

  ‘I’ve been spared my first-born and my own life too, so there’ll be others. The Lord chooses who He takes and when. It’s pointless arguing with what we cannot change.’ With brimming eyes she looked down at the blanket.

  However long he lived Guy knew he would never have such an unquestioning faith or such serenity. Her acceptance shamed him but he reasoned she’d been born to such a way of belief and now it repaid her in times of trouble.

  Miriam brought the screaming infant back into the room for his first feed. ‘Shall I take the other one away?’ she whispered.

  ‘No, Charles will see to little Gus. He’ll find him a little place to rest.’

  Guy left them to women’s business, taking Gus to show Izaak, who sighed and pointed out a pretty spot on the slope of the hill set apart. ‘We’ll put him in there and deep…make a bench to remind us. Come on, I’ll give you a hand. It’s been a long day.’

  20

  1927

  Selma wondered if her ghost would haunt the cardboard frontier towns that she paced up and down each week. There were only so many ways to crisscross the background up and down with a pram, and then later up and down with a toddling child, whisked away when the bad men rode into town. Later still, when Shari grew pigtails, Zelma the extra paraded across the dusty track road holding her hand: child in a smocked overall and boots, and mother in her corseted dress that stank of other women’s sweat.

  Small-budget films used the same extras as a background over and over again in the same costumes until she felt those clothes could take themselves for their own walk in the sun. Shari played the game too. When they were not being used, she sat reading books while Selma knitted, sewed, quilted and darned, anything to keep busy. It was hours of boredom for a few seconds’ exposure.

  A good extra must blend into the background, look natural, do the business; chattering, browsing in windows as if all this make-believe was real life going on.

  She was one of their regulars, prompt, reliable and now an old hand. You could spot the new ambitious recruits who tried to steal a scene with a look into the camera when they should be turning away. There were the girls on the make, trying to catch the eye of the director for a better part next time. One or two managed their way into the credits but Selma and Shari were too conscientious to bother any director with uppity antics.

  Sometimes Shari got work on her own. She was a pretty, amenable child and the money helped, especially in the lean times. Jamie made enough appearances on screen for Shari to recognise her daddy as he ripped into some Indian brave or fisted a baddie on the chin, riding off into the sunset in a black hot gang of robbers..

  When Corrie Grunwald dropped dead in the studio from a heart attack, leaving Pearl a rich widow, she took herself off on a Caribbean cruise and suggested to Lisa that she bring the Barrs in to keep house for her in the staff flat.

  Selma didn’t need any persuading to leave their humble place in the downtown district for the swish stucco residence in West Hollywood. She wasn’t too proud to be in service and the schools would be better for Shari.

  The staff quarters were over the garage: a large living room and bathroom, two spacious bedrooms, perfect for the two of them, but Lisa insisted on giving them the run of the whole place, swimming pool and stable when Pearl was away.

  Jamie came back, bringing friends who drank and partied and made a mess.

  ‘Why does Daddy not live with us all the time?’ Shari asked one day. ‘Doesn’t he like us very much?’

  How could Selma explain his absence from her life?

  ‘Of course he does but he has to work when the studio wants. He only goes away to bring us all nice things,’ Selma replied. That was a lie. Jamie never contributed one cent to Shari’s upkeep. Now and again he’d arrive home with a huge Indian doll or pretty bangles and earrings, to the delight of his daughter, who flung herself into his arms and begged him to see her drawings and school books, refusing to settle into bed until he’d read her a story.

  They would take a picnic to the beach and look for all the world like a proper family. If only that were true. The last time he’d returned, they’d drunk too much wine and made love. He’d left her with more than kisses and a terrible burning itch in her groin that she had to make an appointment to see the studio doctor about. He’d examined her and asked some searching intimate questions, making her blush as this inquisition.

  ‘You’d better get your husband to call in and see me, the sooner the better,’ he said gruffly.

  The treatments were expensive and painful and she felt dirty. When she plucked up courage to ask him what was wrong, the doc looked at his desk and shrugged. ‘You’d better ask your husband that. If he is your only partner he sure has some explaining to do,’ he sighed.

  She never asked, she didn’t need to. Jamie had given her a dose of something nasty that he’d caught from some cheap starlet on the make, no doubt. She’d guessed he’d been unfaithful for years. She was just another port in a storm, a free billet between castings. It looked good on his studio résumé. Big Jim Barr at home on the ranch with his lovely wife, Zelma, and their daughter, Sharland. They had done one shoot on the lawns of Casa Pinto as if it were their home.

  As long as things looked good on the surface, that was all that mattered in movieland. Now she felt dirty and cheap. She was not one of his whores, she was his wife. He’d never come near her again until she knew he was clean.

  Sometimes she looked up at the blue sky and endless sun, the white villas, the golden beach, the fancy cars in the driveways, and longed for some old-fashioned rain and snow, grey hills and thick coats and honest Yorkshire values.

  Shari would never know another life than this if she didn’t make it happen, but how could she change their lives without a steady income? She wanted more for her daughter than tinsel-town glitter.

  Selma smiled, knowing now how her mother must have felt when they let her go to Bradford. She’d wanted more for her daughter too, and look where it had landed them both—an ocean apart, a world apart. Perhaps it was time to go home and leave all this behind. Then she thought of Lisa and the horses and the sunshine. Perhaps not.

  ‘We must make prepa
rations for the Eclipse event,’ the chairman of the parish council ordered. ‘The Dales are expecting an influx of cars and visitors. There’s money to be made from car parking and catering. The District has laid down rules that all chimney fires be extinguished overnight to clear the smoke out of the sky in time for the total eclipse moment.

  On and on he went about finicky details. The 29 June was going to be the day when the great and good of the country would travel north to observe this momentous event. Sharland’s top playing field was considered to be one of the best viewing platforms. Hester yawned.

  ‘We need volunteers to host dignitaries from London and we wondered if you, Lady Hester, might oblige as you did so generously in the war, opening your house and garden to guests.’

  I will do no such thing, she mused, but sat silently through the awkward pause.

  ‘Of course we know it is an intrusion on your privacy, ma’am, but we have so often yielded to your wishes in the past. If I could prevail on you for some reciprocity…’

  The devil, he’d got the measure of her. Tit for tat, in other words. Hester drew in a sharp breath and launched forth. ‘I shall have to consult my housekeeper,’ she said.

  ‘Essie Bartley won’t mind, I’m sure.’ The man had the brass cheek to smile in triumph.

  ‘Be that as it may, she deserves the respect of being asked, don’t you think?’

  That should shut them up, thinking they could wheedle their way into her home. She didn’t want strangers in her domain even for one night but she had to set an example, she supposed.

  Essie hadn’t been well. She’d slowed down, and sometimes she clutched her stomach as if in pain.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Hester asked.

  ‘Just a bit of trapped wind…too many pickled onions last night. They do repeat so.’

  ‘You must let Dr Mac have a look at you if it doesn’t clear up.’ Mackenzie of Mill House was still going strong, though ever since their quarrel Hester herself saw Dr Pickles, who always treated her with respect and deference.