Along the Endless River

by Rose Alexander

  London, 1901

  In the end, the mistress of Brampton Square gave Mabel a month’s notice and a reference. She said that she and her husband were going to the South of France for an extended holiday and therefore she would no longer be needed. Cook was going with them, and Joe would stay in London to look after the house. Prior to that, the master was going to be away for work.

  She spoke in a monotone, her voice expressionless and she did not accuse Mabel of anything. Mabel was bewildered that she wasn’t being put out on her ear right away, but profoundly grateful that the mistress had made sure to let her know that there was no chance of it happening again, as the master wouldn’t be in residence.

  Nevertheless, she puzzled over the enigma of what lay behind her dismissal for the rest of the day. Whose side was the mistress on?

  ‘She was right cross with him, telling him to leave you alone,’ Joe had said. Perhaps this had happened before. But then, wouldn’t Cook have said something? Immediately, she realised that was never going to happen. Cook was loyal to her employers through thick and thin; she would never speak ill of them. Brainwashed. That’s what Kirsty said about these older servants who’d forgotten what freedom was, who were so used to being subservient that they didn’t even realise that they were.

  But however sure Mabel was that the master was far away and she’d never have to lay eyes on him again, she couldn’t get him out of her head. She saw him in every dark corner, behind every piece of dark, heavy furniture. She felt his weight upon her, his hands all over her.

  Her flesh crawled.

  She wanted to write to Katharine to tell her about losing her job, to complain – because where else could she do so? – of how unfair it was. But she couldn’t. Katharine didn’t even know she was working rather than attending school.

  Mabel tried to imagine Katharine being there, telling her stories as she had when she was little, combing her blonde hair and plaiting it for her, covering her with love and kisses. She thought of Antonio, who was now the recipient of all that love, and felt a moment of jealousy, which immediately made her feel guilty. She had no right to resent a son for having a mother who loved him. And anyway, it wasn’t as if she wasn’t loved by her own mother. It was just that she was so ashamed of what had gone on, what she had let happen, of it, that she could never tell Mary, and that drove an invisible wedge between them that was proving immoveable. And anyway, her mother was so preoccupied with nursing her father, she had little time for anything else.

  On her last Thursday in the house, Mabel went to Hyde Park. She wanted, and didn’t want, to see Kirsty, vacillating between going and not going for the entire week beforehand. In the end, her sense of duty made her go. It was unfair just to walk out on Kirsty; she might be imagining that she’d upset Mabel in some way, would not understand why Mabel had dropped her. Or she might be worried that something had happened to Mabel. There had been a scarlet fever epidemic, and there was always measles. People died of those diseases – not often, but sometimes. Mabel felt awful to think of Kirsty conjuring up all sorts of terrible fates for her when none of them were true.

  She sat on the bench by the Long Water and watched the wind make crystals dance on the gleaming surface. Gulls swooped and screeched and the immaculate nannies with their enormous prams bowled past, small wool-coated children skipping in their wake.

  Kirsty arrived. She fell on top of her friend, clasping her into the tightest hug. ‘Where have you been,’ she cried. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’

  Mabel shrugged and chewed her cheek. ‘Just busy. I had to…’ she paused, quelling a sudden urge to tell Kirsty everything, to get this hideous secret off her chest. ‘I had to go home and help Mother, you know how it is,’ she concluded, brightly.

  Kirsty shook her head. ‘Well, I don’t know, given that we buried my mam ten years ago, but…’

  ‘Oh, Kirsty, I’m so sorry.’ Anguish gripped Mabel and she wrung her hands in sorrow. She was so thoughtless. Nothing was worse than what Kirsty had gone through, losing both her parents and being all alone in the world.

  Kirsty laughed. ‘Don’t be daft. Of course, I understand. I’m just glad you’ve reappeared, a phoenix from the ashes.’

  Mabel smiled weakly. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed Kirsty, her energy and optimism. The world felt just a little more normal, now they were together again in the park and the fresh air, away from the torpid atmosphere of Brampton Square.

  They stood up and Kirsty linked arms with Mabel and pulled her off towards the Italian Gardens. Amidst the flowers, fountains and ornate urns, the sun seemed to shine a little brighter.

  ‘Do you think this is what Italy is really like?’ mused Mabel. ‘It must be pretty if it is.’

  ‘Haven’t got a clue,’ responded Kirsty. ‘But the statues are all nude so maybe the Eyeties go around with no clothes on.’ She roared with laughter at the idea, but Mabel’s stomach churned.

  They walked into the grasslands of the park. Mabel had seen pictures of Scottish grouse moors and imagined them like this, but wider and wilder, bigger and more barren. ‘What’s Scotland like?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re full of questions today, aren’t you?’ teased Kirsty. ‘Is this like Italy? What’s Scotland like?’ She mimicked Mabel’s London accent, and then said something in her broadest Scots so that the only word Mabel could make out was ‘wee’.

  Mabel couldn’t help but giggle. Kirsty always raised her spirits. She shouldn’t have stayed away for so long.

  ‘My sister lives in the Amazon,’ announced Mabel, apropos of nothing, when Kirsty had fallen silent. She just suddenly thought about it, as they were talking about distant places.

  ‘The Amazon!’ Kirsty stopped short and turned to Mabel in amazement. ‘Really? Why? What does she do there?’

  Mabel smiled. ‘Now who’s curious?’ she retorted, in mock retaliation. They both laughed.

  ‘She’s a rubber baron’s wife,’ continued Mabel. ‘Or at least she was, until her husband died. But that was when they’d only just got there, so I suppose she’s the rubber baron now.’

  Kirsty shook her head emphatically. ‘No. Us girls never get the top jobs and the way I look at it, we never will.’

  ‘What about Queen Victoria?’ objected Mabel.

  Kirsty flicked her head in irritation. ‘That fat old cow doesn’t count. She’s dead now and anyway, royalty’s different, isn’t it? They don’t care if you’re a boy or a girl as long as they can keep the power and money and status.’

  She paused for thought. ‘The rubber baron’s widow, that’s what your sister is,’ she continued.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘I wish I could go to the Amazon,’ continued Kirsty, pensively. ‘Hang on,’ she went on, stopping short as she thought of something, ‘why don’t we go? Both of us, you and I?’

  Mabel blinked in astonishment. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think we could. It’s an awfully long way – it took my sister ages to get there. And how would we afford the tickets?’

  Neither had an answer to that and they walked in silence for a while. Mabel’s thoughts drifted, to Katharine in the jungle, running her business, seeking her fortune. She was so brave! Mabel wished she were as brave as that. These days even coming to the park felt like an impossible challenge. To reach the Amazon, even if money were no object, was unthinkable.

  They rounded the corner of the path and past a clump of bushes. From behind it, they could hear strange noises, grunts and groans and yelps. The girls looked at each other, Mabel alarmed, Kirsty amused.

  ‘Shhhh,’ she hissed, motioning with her finger against her lips for Mabel to be quiet. Together they crept forward until they could see where the sounds were coming from. There in the grass were a man and a woman. The woman was on all fours, her dress pulled up around her waist. The man was behind her, his trousers pushed down to his knees. He was moving backwards and forwards against her, rhythmically and forcefully, his white forearms gleaming in the sunlight.


  Mabel felt faint. She clutched tight to Kirsty’s arm as her head spun. Stars danced beneath her tightly shut eyelids.

  Kirsty was giggling and pointing.

  ‘Look at them,’ she said, ‘he’s going for it!’

  The couple were so involved in what they were doing that they took absolutely no notice at all of the two onlookers.

  Mabel, sickened, turned around, pulling Kirsty with her.

  ‘Aw,’ shrieked Kirsty, far too loudly for Mabel’s liking. ‘What are you doing that for? I was enjoying the show.’

  Mabel’s could feel her face bright red with embarrassment. Kirsty spotted it.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ she joked. ‘Haven’t you ever seen anyone at it before? There are always couples in the park – they’ve nowhere else to go, have they. You want a bit of hanky-panky, you head for the trees or the bushes – and God help you if it’s raining or snowing.’

  She roared with laughter. Mabel’s stomach tightened. She couldn’t be cross with Kirsty. Her friend was not to know why it was affecting her like this.

  ‘Haven’t you ever seen anyone at it before?’ The words rang in Mabel’s head. No, but she’d experienced it. It was just that she couldn’t tell Kirsty, couldn’t tell anyone.

  ‘The men beg you and beg you for it,’ Kirsty was saying, though she sounded far away, her voice echoey and distant. ‘That’s what I’ve been told. But it’s not fun for women. Only men enjoy it.’

  She said this last so definitively, as if she knew from experience. Mabel was feeling dizzier and dizzier. A vision of the woman’s face, showing layers of expression from pain to ecstasy, hovered behind her eyes. She hadn’t looked exactly happy. But on the other hand, she hadn’t looked as if she wanted it to stop. And she certainly hadn’t looked as Mabel had felt when the master… She didn’t understand any of it.

  They walked back to the park exit, Mabel with her eyes half closed, as if seeing only part of the world made it less frightening.

  ‘I won’t be able to meet you again,’ she blurted out, as soon as they reached the black iron gates. ‘I’m…’ she paused, realising she hadn’t thought about what to say, what excuse to give. ‘I’m leaving my job and the next one is far away from here.’

  It sounded lame and Mabel could tell Kirsty didn’t believe her, that she knew there was more to this story. But she didn’t pry.

  ‘That’s a pity,’ she said, lightly. ‘I enjoyed our afternoons in the park. Still, never mind. I hope it goes well for you.’

  She patted Mabel on the arm, then turned and left, striding purposefully towards Hyde Park Gardens.

  ‘Goodbye,’ called out Mabel to her rapidly receding form. ‘Goodbye, Kirsty.’

  Sadly, she headed in the direction of Brampton Square. She knew she would never see Kirsty, who’d been a good friend to her, again.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Lagona, 1901

  In November, Antonio’s journey to England and to school began. Katharine accompanied him and Mayhew as far as Lagona, from where she would see them off. Mac greeted them on their arrival and immediately gave Katharine a bundle of letters that he’d kept for her. As soon as they were settled into their rooms, she ripped the first one open. It was from Mabel.

  But the missive’s contents were disappointing. Her sister wrote almost nothing about her education, did not mention anything about how her French was coming along – and her words seemed stilted and forced, as if writing the letter had been a huge effort without reward.

  ‘The house is quiet these days,’ one paragraph read. ‘Alf and Jim have started their apprenticeships and are working long hours. I am sure they will prosper in their new professions. A new omnibus service has begun which runs from Clerkenwell to the docks which is most convenient for their transportation to and from their premises of employment.’

  Katharine frowned as she read these lines. Since when had Mabel used such terms as ‘prosper’, ‘profession’ and ‘premises’? She sounded as if she were talking to someone who was not only fifty years older than her but also at least three tiers higher in the social hierarchy, rather than to her own sister who had more or less brought her up in her earliest days. More than anything else, she sounded impossibly faraway, unreachable, like a stranger.

  With a heavy heart, Katharine stored the letter safely in her pocketbook. The passing years, so many of them, were distancing her from her family, gradually but inexorably. If she only knew, if she could just explain to Mabel, that she had to stay in Brazil until all the money was repaid to their father – then maybe they would be as close as Katharine wished.

  But that moment, when the debt was no more, was still a long way off.

  At dinner that night, Katharine tried to hide her sadness, laughing and joking merrily with Mac and his usual array of guests of varying degrees of eccentricity. Mac updated her about his daughter, Alexandra, who Katharine had met at Lagona, that Christmas of 1893 when all her rubber was destroyed.

  ‘She’s Lady Cardburn now, married with two children,’ he told Katharine proudly, pulling a wrinkled and mildewy picture from his inside pocket to show to her. ‘She’s got a lovely house by Regent’s Park. Bought it for ’em when I was back two years ago.’

  Katharine studied the sepia tinted image.

  ‘She’s done well for herself,’ she affirmed. ‘And she’s still so lovely.’

  Alexandra was brunette and in her late twenties now, where Mabel was blonde and years younger. But something about Mac’s daughter, her clear gaze and luscious locks, reminded Katharine of her sister. Mary had sent some photographs a year or so ago, and Katharine had carried them everywhere with her until they finally disintegrated, destroyed by the insidious damp.

  ‘My sister is beautiful, too,’ said Katharine, her voice almost a whisper as she tried to hide her homesickness. She had thought, after so much time, she would be immune to this ailment, but it seemed it could still creep up to broadside her at unexpected moments. Combined with her continued mystification about the stiffness of Mabel’s latest letter, it did so now.

  Mac looked at her in astonishment. ‘You have a beautiful sister?’ he questioned. ‘Well, I never would have thought it, so I wouldn’t.’

  Despite her melancholy, Katharine had to laugh. Was Mac surprised she had a sister, or that she had a beautiful one? Was it really so hard to imagine that not all her siblings were as plain as she was?

  As if realising his mistake, Mac hastily covered up. ‘It’s just that you hadn’t mentioned anyone else in the family, apart from your brother of course.’

  Katharine knew this was utter waffle. But she appreciated his efforts not to hurt her feelings. To move the subject to safer ground, she asked Mac about his plans.

  ‘I’m off to London myself, actually,’ he replied. ‘Taking the steamer from Iquitos. I should be there in six weeks or so. Travel is so much quicker these days, and more convenient of course.’

  Katharine sighed and smiled sadly. Everyone was leaving, going somewhere, headed someplace. Her friend, Mac; her son, Antonio. Thank God for Thomas, without whom she would be alone again, which she did not think she could bear.

  Late into the night she wrote letters for Mac to take to England. He would get there first as Mayhew and Antonio were stopping for a short while in Manaus while Mayhew tied up some loose ends before his lengthy absence. Writing was the only contact she had – and suddenly it didn’t seem enough any more.

  * * *

  The day of her son and her brother’s departure dawned mistily and overcast. Katharine, after a sleepless night, woke early. She wandered out of the house, not sure where she was going or why, and found herself down at the landing stage, where soon she would be catching her last glimpses of her son as the steamer bore him away. She imagined him on deck, watching and waving until Lagona had disappeared into the distance. And then, with a deep, heavy sigh, she wiped that image from her mind. The way Antonio had been treating her lately, he wouldn’t wave at all, he’d just
board the boat and set off without a second thought about whom he was leaving behind.

  Rain began to fall, the sudden, deadening rain of the forest, pattering heavily against the sand and red earth of the riverbank. Katharine stayed where she was, not caring how wet she got. The deluge fitted with her emotions and she almost welcomed it as some form of catharsis. Lost in thought, she jumped when a voice spoke to her.

  ‘Mother.’ It was Antonio, suddenly by her side.

  ‘Ant… my boy.’ Katharine halted, about to fling her arms around him and then stopping herself. Lately he had shrunk from her embrace and shouted at her if she protested, and she did not want their last hours together to be tainted by an argument or ill humour. ‘What are you doing out here in the wet?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ he responded. ‘I don’t mind the rain.’ He held his hand out to catch the drops as if to prove his statement. ‘Why are you here, anyway?’

  Katharine sighed and gave a small shrug. ‘Just thinking.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Of how much I’ll miss you.’ She had not been going to say this as the last thing she wanted was for Antonio to feel guilty. He should be looking forward to his school days, to mixing with his contemporaries, to expanding his knowledge of the world in a proper classroom. She could not allow her own misgivings to hold him back.

  Now it was Antonio’s turn to shrug. ‘I’ll come back,’ he replied. ‘One day.’

  One day. Why did he say that and not ‘in the holidays’ or ‘next year’? It was so vague, as if seeing his mother again was unimportant, of no concern to him. Perhaps that’s how he feels, thought Katharine miserably. Perhaps that’s how I’ve made him feel, though I don’t know how or why. They walked back up to the house for breakfast. Antonio ate heartily as always, as did Mayhew. Katharine could not swallow a crumb.

  Later, seeing them off, Katharine felt that a part of her body was leaving with them, sailing away on an inexorable current of love and despair. She knew it was for the best. But an inner foreboding nagged at her heart then settled low in her belly. The fact that Antonio fulfilled her worst premonitions and barely said goodbye as he stepped aboard made it so much worse. Thomas told her it was natural for a boy to withdraw from his mother as he grew older and that it was nothing to worry about. But Katharine wasn’t so sure. She could only hope that being with others his own age, exercising his mind as well as his body, would be good for him.