by Pam Weaver
North Farm, Sussex, 1933
The hours since she’d left school and come home became a blur. Frankie had watched the ambulance take her mother away but she couldn’t actually see her. Moira was covered right over with a red blanket. As soon as she had gone, Mrs Dickenson made Frankie come away from the window. Neighbours came and went, all speaking in hushed tones. They’d say something to Mrs Dickenson then turn their heads to look at Frankie. Invariably they would give her a wide smile and say something like ‘You’ll be all right, dear,’ or ‘Keep your pecker up.’
Frankie said nothing, not even when she heard them whispering. ‘Does she know? Does she understand?’ Frankie frowned to herself. Of course she knew. She understood perfectly. Mummy was dead, or gone to be with Jesus, or in heaven with the angels, depending on who was talking to her. She understood but it was hard to take in. Just this morning, when she and her mother had waved goodbye, she’d never said she was going to see Jesus.
Nobody actually told her why her mother had died but she heard their whispers.
‘They say it was her heart.’
‘Mrs Ruddock said she kept rubbing her arm all the time when they were up on Hillbarn for the kiddie’s birthday on Saturday.’
‘I heard she complained of indigestion.’
Then they would all shake their heads and smile at Frankie again. ‘Poor little mite.’
Shortly after, a policeman arrived. ‘Who found Mrs Sherwood?’ he said getting out his notebook and licking the end of his pencil.
‘Me,’ said Mrs Dickenson. ‘I could hear somebody banging about,’ she went on, closing the kitchen door slightly but not enough to stop Frankie hearing what she was saying. ‘Scared me out of me wits. Then somebody slammed the back door and I went round. Poor Mrs Sherwood was sitting in the chair with a tea towel over her head and someone had gone through her things.’
‘Who?’
‘I’ve no idea but whoever it was must have been looking for something,’ Mrs Dickenson went on. ‘I heard her having a row with somebody earlier on.’
The door whined open and the policeman looked at Frankie, giving her a kindly smile.
*
Eventually a woman from the Welfare turned up and began trying to find Frankie a place to stay. Apparently Mrs Dickenson couldn’t take her in. ‘I’ve got three strapping lads and my old mum in the place already,’ she said stoutly. Miss Paine, Frankie’s next-door neighbour on the other side, didn’t want her either. ‘I’m an unmarried woman,’ she’d protested. ‘I can’t have a child living in my house. What would the neighbours think?’ The fact that the neighbours already knew who Frankie was and what had happened seemed to be lost on her. And all the while, Frankie sat quietly in Mrs Dickenson’s little sitting room, swallowing the huge lump in her throat and trying not to burst into tears.
In the end, they sent a message to Frankie’s Aunt Bet, her mother’s sister, who lived only a couple of miles away, and a little later her case was packed. The woman from the Welfare walked her up to North Farm and her uncle opened the door and invited them in. When Aunt Bet came in, the two women exchanged a few words at the door and Aunt Bet ushered Frankie upstairs.
The room itself had been hastily prepared and although she’d been to Aunt Bet’s farm loads of times, this was the first time she’d ever been upstairs.
‘Come on, lovey,’ her aunt said. ‘I’ve made up the bed for you and you can put your dolly on the chair right beside you.’
She was a plain woman with a round face and mousey-coloured hair, cut short and permed. She was a little on the plump side (her wrap-over apron was straining over her middle) and she had strong-looking arms.
Gently taking Frankie’s coat from her shoulders, she lifted the child’s small suitcase onto the bed. Frankie could see by her face that Aunt Bet had been crying. Her eyes were red-rimmed. When the Welfare woman knocked at the farm door, even Uncle Lawrence, or, Lorry, as everyone called him, had red eyes. Frankie still hadn’t shed a tear but her chest felt as if she had a brick inside it and her head pounded. You mustn’t cry, the man had said. Your mum wouldn’t like it.
Frankie put her princess doll on the chair just as Aunt Bet suggested, but she didn’t look the same as before and she couldn’t sit up properly. Aunt Bet lifted her skirts and let out a strangled cry. ‘Oh dear, dear, how on earth did that happen?’ The doll had a large gash across her middle. A large amount of stuffing had been removed and not all of it had been put back. Fortunately the clothes were intact. As she tried to re-arrange her, Frankie let a little gulp of anguish slip from between her lips. Her hands were trembling. ‘Somebody cut my dolly,’ she said, her eyes glassy with unshed tears.
‘There, there, lovey,’ said Aunt Bet, coming over to give her a hug. ‘While you’re in bed I’ll have a go at mending her. She’ll be as right as ninepence in the morning.’
‘My mummy made her for my birthday,’ Frankie said.
Aunt Bet squeezed her shoulder. ‘I know she did, lovey. She showed her to me last week.’
They shared a wobbly smile. ‘She was a very clever lady, your mum,’ said Aunt Bet, dabbing her eyes again.
They unpacked Frankie’s case and put her things in the drawers. Until now, the bedroom had belonged to Frankie’s cousin, Alan. He was motorbike mad so the walls were covered in pictures of motorbikes and their riders. A pair of grubby boots hung by their laces from the mirror on the dressing table. As Aunt Bet took them down she said, ‘We’ll soon get rid of all this stuff and then you can make the room your own.’
‘Am I going to stay here forever?’
Aunt Bet turned her back, quite forgetting that Frankie could see her anguished reflection in the mirror. ‘Yes, dear.’
Her face was a picture of misery. It was obvious that she was struggling not to cry again. Frankie’s heart flipped. Judging by her aunt’s expression, Aunt Bet didn’t really want her here. ‘I’m sorry,’ Frankie blurted out. ‘They told me I had to come.’
Her aunt turned around suddenly. ‘Oh, lovey,’ she blurted out as she pulled Frankie into her arms. ‘I didn’t mean it to sound like that. Of course I want you here. We all want you. Uncle Lorry, Alan and Ronald, we’re so glad you’ve come. It’s just that I feel so sad about your mum, that’s all.’
Later, as Frankie lay between the crisp white sheets, she stared at the empty chair beside the bed and wondered what her life would be like now. Aunt Bet said she didn’t have to go to school the next day but, in truth, Frankie would have liked to go. She’d miss her friend Jenny. She hoped Doreen might talk to her again. She turned over in bed but she couldn’t sleep. If only mummy was here to kiss her goodnight.
Downstairs everyone had gathered around the kitchen table. They had eaten their supper, although Frankie had only picked at hers, and now they were relaxing over a cup of tea. Lorry had laced Bet’s tea with a little brandy. He was a man of few words but he was thoughtful and kind. There was a box of papers belonging to his sister-in-law in the middle of the table. Ever since they’d had the news, they’d been living an absolute nightmare. When the police turned up on the doorstep, they’d said Moira was dead and Frankie couldn’t be left on her own. They’d asked the neighbours to take her in but nobody could. Thank God somebody remembered Bet and Lorry. Of course there was no hesitation. It was only right that Frankie should come and live with them and Bet had settled the girl in Alan’s room. At sixteen, he wasn’t too happy about bunking in with his younger brother, Ronald, but it couldn’t be helped and he’d accepted the situation with good grace. As for Ronald, he was the sort to get on with whatever happened in life. As soon as he got home from school he’d moved his things to one side of the small bedroom to make room for his older brother and now it looked as if it had always been that way.
The policeman had explained that someone had obviously been in the property looking for something, and there was every possibility that whoever it was might come back. Lorry was advised that as next of kin, he and Bet should get over there an
d retrieve anything of value. Of course, Bet couldn’t go – she had to stay with Frankie – so he and Alan had gone over to grab a few things, planning to collect the rest of Moira’s stuff later on. They found that some of the drawers had been disturbed and the cupboards had been left open. The only real damage was to Frankie’s new doll. Whoever had been in the property had ripped it open with a knife. It was the only thing the little girl had asked for when she was told she had to come to North Farm.
Having cleared the supper table, Bet reached for her sewing box.
‘Do you know how Auntie Moira died, Mum?’ asked Ronald.
‘The Welfare lady said it was a heart attack,’ said his mother.
‘I don’t understand it,’ said Lorry. He was a small man, stockily built. He still wore his moustache in the style of Lord Kitchener; something which he’d grown as a young man, although it was now flecked with grey and tobacco stained. ‘She seemed well enough, didn’t she?’
‘Obviously not,’ Bet said tartly.
‘If someone was with her when it happened,’ said Alan, ‘why didn’t they get help?’
‘Nobody said she was still alive when whoever it was was in there,’ said his father, ‘did they?’
His mother looked alarmed. ‘I hope not. Moira was the salt of the earth.’
Alan shook his head. ‘What could they have been looking for?’ He was a tall lad, much taller than his father. Legs right up to his armpits, as his mother would say, and good-looking to boot. A keen motorbike rider, he had been working with his father since he’d left school at fourteen.
His mother blew her nose and stuffed her already damp handkerchief back up her sleeve. ‘No idea. It’s not as if Moira had any money. She may have worked all the hours God gave but she lived hand to mouth.’ She pushed the stuffing back inside the doll angrily and began adding some torn up pieces of rag before sewing the two halves together.
‘People were always saying daft things about your sister,’ Lorry observed. ‘All that stuff about the Russians.’
‘That was just a stupid yarn she made up to amuse Frankie,’ said Bet. ‘You know Moira. She was great one for story-telling.’
‘People said she had a secret stash of jewellery,’ said Alan.
‘A Fabergé egg, I heard,’ said Ronald. He leaned over and pulled up his school socks with an exaggerated sigh. He was a disappointed boy. He had asked his mother – no, begged her – to be allowed to wear long trousers now that he was thirteen, but still she said no.
Bet frowned disapprovingly. ‘Utterly ridiculous!’ she retorted. ‘Do you really think Auntie Moira would be living in two rooms in Broadwater if she had something as expensive as a Fabergé egg?’
‘Load of tommyrot, if you ask me,’ his father interjected.
Ronald put his hands up in mock surrender. ‘All right, all right, I’m only saying.’
His mother was immediately repentant. ‘Sorry, son. I’m on edge, that’s all.’
‘So is Frankie going to live here for good?’ asked Ronald, rubbing his ear.
‘Of course she is,’ said Bet. ‘Where else could she go? We’re the only family she’s got.’ She glanced up at her son. ‘You got ear ache again?’
Ronald nodded. Ever since he was a child he’d suffered from ear ache and whenever he got a cold he would go deaf. The doctor said he’d got narrow Eustachian tubes which were easily blocked.
‘Well, you’d better put those drops in your ear before it gets any worse,’ she said.
Sidney Knight had got the fright of his life when he’d found Moira. Ignoring her protest of Saturday that he should knock first and wait to be invited in, he had let himself into her rooms with his key. She’d be annoyed with him, of course, but he didn’t care. He liked her best when she was roused.
She was sitting in the chair with her back to the door. He said her name but she didn’t move. She must have nodded off, he told himself as he crept up to her. He came round the chair slowly. Her legs were slightly apart and one of her shoes wasn’t on her foot properly. Her skirt had ridden up slightly on one side, and looking at her shapely leg, he licked his lips in anticipation of what might be to come. He lifted the hem gently, so as not to disturb her sleeping, and put his hand onto the top of her thigh, in between her stocking top and her panties.
‘Moira,’ he said hoarsely, as he looked into her face.
Her eyes were not quite closed and her skin was pale. There was a blue hue around her mouth and she was completely still. He jumped away from her like a scalded cat. Was she dead? She couldn’t be. Her leg had still been warm when he’d touched it. He looked again. She wasn’t breathing. He stared at her chest. Was she breathing? He looked around for a mirror. There was a toy mirror next to a peasant doll on the chair. He put it under her nose and waited. The glass remained unchanged. Oh God, she was dead. He took several steps backwards and stared at her again. He’d never seen a dead body before. When his father died they’d wanted him to look at the body in the funeral parlour but he’d refused. He hadn’t seen the old man in a month or more and he wanted to keep it that way. His last memory was of the row they’d had. ‘Stay away from that race track, Sidney,’ his father had bellowed. ‘Gambling is a mug’s game.’
He suddenly shuddered. Even though he knew Moira was dead, she looked as if she were asleep. He turned away. Oh Moira, we could have had some good times together, he thought. I’ve never wanted a woman like I wanted you. What did you have to go and die for!
He supposed he should tell someone. The kid would be home from school soon. He should say something before then. His eye gravitated towards the dresser where Moira’s purse rested in a blue plate. A moment later, he was stuffing coins into his back pocket. There wasn’t much in the purse. Maybe she had money somewhere else. He had found the rent book in a drawer and pocketed the half crown between the pages. That led to a search of the other drawers. He’d have to be quick. He didn’t want to be caught rifling through her things.
She was still looking at him through half-closed eyes. It unnerved him so he put a tea towel over her face and carried on searching. The Post Office Savings Book was in a tin right at the top of the dresser. There were two postal orders folded inside. One was for twenty pounds and the other for twenty-eight pounds. There was a further fifteen pounds deposited in the account. He gasped. So the gossips were right. The woman did have money. She glanced back at the body. ‘What were you up to, you dirty cow?’ he spat. ‘You wouldn’t let me touch you, would you, but you were obviously getting it from somewhere.’
It was then that he’d noticed a man’s hat had fallen between the chair and the small table beside it. His blood boiled. So she did have some fancy man. Now that he was annoyed, his search became more frantic, more untidy and at the end of it, he was even more frustrated and angry. There was no more money and he couldn’t see anything of any real value. In a temper, he threw a kitchen chair onto the floor and pushed the mannequin wearing a dress over.
When he heard the sound of the next-door neighbour moving around, it brought him to his senses. As a landlord no one would have the right to challenge his being there; but he would be in trouble if they realised he was the one who had turned the place over. He was just about to leave when he saw a shadow on the glass of the door.
*
Back home he was a disappointed man. It upset him to think of what had happened but it wasn’t his fault. He’d only turned up because he wanted to get her alone. He’d been so sure she’d have been more willing if the kid wasn’t around. He hadn’t expected her to have a fancy man. True, he’d had a good snoop around to look for anything of value but he’d been cut short by the arrival of the other bloke and one thing led to another. He hadn’t meant for it to happen. He was upset. It was an accident. His stomach was churning. That’s why, to cheer himself up, he’d put the cash on a horse in the three-thirty at Goodwood on the way home. But it really wasn’t his day. He’d lost the lot but fortunately, the money in the Post Office Savings Book and
the two postal orders were still in his possession. They were both made out to M Sherwood. How the hell could he get his hands on it? There was one thing he could do – he could try and get the rent off her relatives when they came to get her stuff. He could show them the empty rent book. They weren’t to know he’d already had it. He smiled to himself. He was, if nothing else, bloody clever.
*
When she went round to Moira’s place the next day, Bet looked around with a sinking feeling in her stomach. The reports were right. Someone had been in here going through her sister’s things. It made her feel uncomfortable, edgy. Moira’s usually neat and tidy rooms were far from the way she would have left them.
Lorry was shaking his head. ‘It’s a bloody disgrace, isn’t it?’
They’d come with a couple of suitcases and a few shopping bags. The police had suggested that they collect what they could as soon as possible. ‘You don’t want every old Tom, Dick and Harry going in there and helping themselves,’ the constable had said.
They planned to take everything back to the farm and sort it out from there. Anything which could be sold would be sold.
‘We’ll get a Post Office Savings Book and put the money in there for Frankie,’ said Bet.
‘Moira would have liked that,’ Lorry said gruffly as he tried to hide his emotions.
‘I don’t want her to know yet,’ said Bet. ‘She can have it later on.’
‘What, when she leaves school?’
Bet shook her head. ‘I think we should wait until she leaves our place, whether she gets married first or gets a job living away. It will help set her up.’
Lorry nodded grimly.
They packed up what they could. Household items which would be useful for Bet went into one case. The contents of the food cabinet – including the left-over birthday cake – went into a large shopping bag. Bet shed a tear when she saw it. Moira’s clothes and her few personal possessions were packed into the suitcase and Frankie’s things went into the other case. The only thing she couldn’t find was the little brass box, the one which Moira kept on the mantelpiece. Bet had never actually seen inside but apparently some grateful customer had given her the box before she was married, and Moira kept it beside the clock. She mentioned it to Lorry.