by West Camel
‘Once she had stomped back upstairs, I sat down on an upturned bucket in the corner between the copper and the sink. Thinking I was hidden from anyone coming in the door, I spread a rag across my lap and carefully laid the strip of cloth on top of it.
‘In the grey light of the scullery, it was a dark, silty brown – it almost seemed green. But even with its coating of slime, I could make out the movement of the motif sewn into the cloth.
‘I almost don’t like to describe it. Any words would make it sound like the kind of tricky pattern you might sew onto a sampler or border a lady’s hanky with. But this was so much more. Perhaps it was the way I couldn’t see where one part of the pattern began and another ended. All I know is that it must have made me hold my breath in concentration, because suddenly I felt a shower of drops on my face and I had to take in a great gulp of air – the copper had come to the boil and needed a stir to stop the sheets from scorching.
‘Once I’d settled the wash, I sat back in my corner with another rag I’d soaked in soap suds and began the more important job: cleaning up my little strip. I treated it like silk, sponging and pressing rather than rubbing – drawing out the dirt and watching carefully as the turns of the motif began to shine.
‘I was so intent on my work, I didn’t hear Mrs Clyffe on the stairs, or see her shadow cross the window into the passage, so I didn’t know how long she stood in the doorway watching me. I suppose my face must have looked much like hers when she was in church – entranced by what was going on under my hands; by the revelation of the thing that was to steer my life for ever after.
‘“Deborah?” Her voice was soft, without any of its usual sternness. But it plucked me out of my dream, and I stood up quick, turning the bucket over and bundling the motif into the damp rags.
‘“What have you got there?” she asked.
‘Already I didn’t want anyone else to see my gift. Not even Mrs Clyffe, who, just a couple of days before, I would have done next to anything for. I hesitated with an open mouth, thinking I might say, “Just rags”.
‘“You know what I think about lies, Deborah,” she said. “Tell the truth when the truth must be told.”
‘I stared her in the face. And it came to me that it would not be for much longer that I would see her every day, that her voice would wake me and send me to my bed, would direct me to eat my meals and get down from the table, would curb my temper and praise my efforts. So I told her something like the truth: “It’s a piece of sewing of mine that’s got a bit dirty. I was cleaning it up while I watched the boil.”
‘“And where have you been to end up so grubby?”
‘I was suddenly hot and sick. In the attic I’d washed my face and hands, put on a new pinny and rubbed my boots as clean as I could get them. But Mrs Clyffe was looking at my hair, which I could feel now was clumped together, a few slimy strands sticking to the back of my neck. She lowered her eyes to my stockings, which were mottled brown and grey with dried mud. I was in for it now. Mrs Clyffe’s punishments were quiet and unfussy. And rarely meted out – a warning was usually enough. But I had ignored the warning. I looked down at the scullery flags.
‘It seemed like days I waited, so eventually I raised my head and sneaked a glance at her. Her look had changed to something different again from either her daily or her church face. She was almost smiling. “I see I’ll have to fit a lock to that tunnel door,” she said. And in the midst of her smile, clouding the clearness of her small, round eyes, I thought I saw two tears.
‘She sniffed and twitched her nose. “I have some news for you,” she said.
‘My stomach heaved. I knew what she was going to say. This was to be my punishment – she didn’t have to add any extra.
‘“I think I’ve found you a place.”
‘A place. The word was coin in the hospital. All the infants were to be found a place after they left. “I’ve found him a place with a cousin,” Mrs Clyffe would say. “Can a place with family out of London not be found?” the doctor would ask. As I saw the young ones come and go, it seemed that everyone but me had a place. They’d go back to their parents, or if their parents were gone, an older sister would take them in. And failing that there would be some aunt – in the country, or Bristol or Manchester. But I thought that my place was here. In Deptford. In the hospital. Beside Mrs Clyffe. I grasped my damp package to my chest.
‘“Don’t look so put out,” Mrs Clyffe drew herself up. “You should be grateful.”
‘I lowered my eyes again, and prepared myself for one of her talkings-to. I heard her draw in a breath. But when her voice came, it was the gentle one she almost never used in the daytime. “Come to my sitting room after supper,” she said. “We’ll have a little talk.”
‘A talk in Mrs Clyffe’s sitting room was a rare treat. To the youngest ones, it meant a chocolate drop; and to the others, tea sweetened with a spoon of condensed milk. To me, it was sitting across the fire from her. It was her dry-lipped kiss on my forehead. It was her arm around my shoulders.
‘But that day, as I heard her climb up the stairs from the scullery, I didn’t look forward to our after-supper chat. Because I thought it would be our last, I suppose. Or one of the last. Because it would be Mrs Clyffe telling me this was no longer my place. And I wanted to say it was. To insist. To stamp it out with my boot.
‘I righted the bucket and unwrapped the strip of cloth – sodden now from being folded in the sudsy rags. I rubbed it with more vigour than before, and because it had been soaking, the grime seemed to come off better. The pattern came out brighter, its tricks and turns much clearer.
‘“This is my place,” I said to it. And thought of my bed in the attic; the kitchen fire with the lines of cots; the staircase with its barley-sugar banisters; the wooden panels and shutters in the parlour. The front door, as tall as two men – the cherubs holding up its lintel.
‘“This is my place,” I whispered again. And thought then of the tunnel, dark and dank and terrifying, but a new part of my little world. And the strange thought I’d had down there came to me again.
‘I was never to be a mother.
‘I rubbed at the motif and muttered, and saw in my head all the parts of the house, the street outside, with the shops beyond; our pew at the front in the church. I even saw myself, as Mrs Clyffe must have seen me from the door – cleaning a strip of cloth. And I knew then that all I had now was this piece of sewing. It must have been then that I felt it was really mine. That it was all that belonged to me.
‘I stopped rubbing with a jerk – as if someone had tugged on a line – and I smoothed away the licks of foam that had formed over the motif. A whole patch was perfectly clean; the design was faded but clear. Some kind of word had been spoken. Not into my ear, but deep into my body, through my fingers, as if the tips could hear. I didn’t know what the word was; I don’t, even now. But I’m sure it was the cleaning of the motif – the attending to it – that woke the power in those intricate stitches.’
‘After supper that evening, I sat on the other side of the fire from Mrs Clyffe, she with her bit of sewing on her lap and me with mine. But neither of us had made a stitch, because directly we’d sat down, Mrs Clyffe had shown me the telegram – two strips of printed paper tape pasted to a form:
HAVE PLACE FOR ONE FEMALE SEVEN YEARS STOP REPLY QUICKLY TO SECURE STOP
‘“I’ll walk down to the post office first thing,” said Mrs Clyffe. “A place in an orphanage is not to be turned down, Deborah. The hospital isn’t best for you. You’re a big girl now.”
‘I knew she didn’t hold with tears, but I couldn’t stop them. I expected her to be sharp. But instead she leaned across and wiped my cheeks with a strong thumb.
‘“I know you think of this as your home, Deborah,” she went on. “But we all have to move on some time. I did after Mr Clyffe.”
‘I’d never thought of a Mr Clyffe, and felt silly because, of course, there must have been one.
‘“Yes, there was a Mr C
lyffe,” she said, smiling. “For a couple of years, when I was a very young woman. But he was taken from me. And with the help of the Lord, I was able to bear it, and find myself a life – a place. Because, you know, Deborah, all you need is to have faith and He will find something for you.”
‘I shifted in my chair and went to push my needle into the stiff fabric in my hands. I didn’t want God or Jesus finding another place for me when I was perfectly happy here. I didn’t say so to Mrs Clyffe, of course. I knew not to cross her on anything concerning church. If she was serene contemplating Our Lord in His House, defending Him she was fiery. There was a small painting of St Michael on her desk – I could imagine her wearing his breast plate and carrying his spear.
‘But what she said next was gentle and unexpected; it made me stop my needle in mid-air.
‘“I can’t make you believe, Deborah. That’s for you to do yourself. But I can tell you that if you make a place beside you for the Lord, He’ll make a place beside Him for you. That’s called having faith.”
‘I lowered my needle and looked past her at her little bookcase. One of the other pleasures of a talk in Mrs Clyffe’s sitting room was being allowed to look at the fairy tales. She had three volumes: Perrault’s, Grimm’s and Hans Christian Andersen – all with embossed covers and pages so thick you could almost feel the type. And every story had its glossy plate illustration, the colours bright and full.
‘“Do you believe it all, Mrs Clyffe?” I said, keeping my eyes on the gold-lettered spines.
‘“You know I do.” She paused. “I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s hard work, keeping your faith – especially in a place like this.”
‘I dared to look at her now. She spoke into the fire, her eyes and the set of her mouth different again from what I was used to. “Yes, it’s a hard, hard job. But it’s worth it.” She almost whispered.
‘The books were Mrs Clyffe’s school prizes. Stuck inside the cover of each there was an inscription plate in the form a shield – completed in a perfect copperplate hand:
To Elizabeth Mitcham – for Achievement and Industry.
‘Achievement and Industry, I thought, watching her stare into the fire. I wasn’t sure exactly what those words meant. But I understood their aim, and I didn’t think I had it. Not if it meant I couldn’t stay here. Not if it meant I wouldn’t ever see Mrs Clyffe again. I added a few quick stitches to the fabric on my knee. What was the point in believing if it only brought you things you didn’t want?
‘I’d heard all the stories in the books countless times. And I’d told them too. Not read from the page – my reading was never as good as my needlework – but out of my head. I’d sit up with the little ones and tell them the fairy tales as I remembered them. Sometimes I think I changed parts, or spliced one story with another. I’m not even sure I ever told the same story twice. But I was good at the telling; I took a lot of pleasure in it. And my listeners seemed to enjoy it too. Their faces all attention, they seemed to believe every word I said, even if those words weren’t the ones that were written.
‘I can’t say now exactly what I thought then – a seven-year-old sitting in a grown-up’s chair beside Mrs Clyffe’s fire. But I’ve always thought that it was the moment when I lost my faith, and found – well, found something else to hold on to.
‘I’d been down in the tunnel. A place where no one else dared go. And I’d been given that special scrap of sewing – that little stitched motif. And no one had been with me to say any different. It was mine. My place. My story.
‘Mrs Clyffe and I sat in silence for a long while – her staring and thinking, me busy with my needle. At last she pulled herself up straight and looked down her nose at my sewing.
‘“What are you working on there?” she asked. And for the second time that day I knew I was going to hide something from her.
‘I held my bit of stuff out across the glowing fireplace, being careful to keep it moving, so she couldn’t see it clearly. Then, choosing my words like a grown-up woman, I took it back onto my lap again: “It’s just a bit of a pattern I’ve been trying out.”
‘Mrs Clyffe paused before she spoke again. “Hemming handkerchiefs might be a better job for an evening,” she pronounced finally. And sent me up to bed.
‘It was that night, by the light of my relit candle, on that torn-off bit of cloth, that I completed my first attempt at a copy of the motif. I didn’t sleep till late, and woke up early to start again.
‘Within a fortnight I was on my way. Although I would never have said it was “my way”. Mrs Clyffe and Sally did. Over the two weeks before, they repeated it time and again: “You’ll be on your way this time next week, Deborah.” “You’ll be pleased to be on your way, won’t you?” But I wasn’t pleased. And it wasn’t my way. I was being thrown out. Abandoned.
‘In every spare moment I worked on my sewing – on copying the motif, trying to get it right.
‘By the time I was trotting beside Mrs Clyffe along the High Street towards the station, I had a dozen versions of the pattern. They were in the little case I’d been given, with another child’s initials stamped into its lid. I’d folded them carefully and put them at the bottom of the sewing bag on which I’d stitched my name and a likeness of the hospital with its tall front door.
‘And deep among those folds was the original motif. A serpent sleeping in its nest. I could almost feel it breathing through the handle of the case as I took my last looks at the shops with their awnings open, through the gate at the pearl-coloured church, at the fanned cobbles where the side streets met the main road. And at Mrs Clyffe’s upturned chin, as she nodded to almost everyone we passed.
‘She got on the train with me when it arrived. And for a silly, ungrown-up moment, my heart swelled: she was coming too. But then she took me by the shoulders and gave me a quick shake before planting a firm kiss on each cheek, and one on my forehead – “For luck in the rest of your life,” she said, crumpling her face into a smile it seemed to resist.
‘And then she was off the train, standing on the platform. A whistle was blowing and a flag was being waved. And I was moving, but she was not. She was still, and further and further away, her hands folded across her middle and her chin tucked in to stop the tears.
‘I leaned out of the window and waved. And called “goodbye” and nodded and waved. And nodded and waved, and waved again, until the lady sitting opposite told me to pull my head in and slammed the window closed.’
Chapter 7: Sam
Sam stepped confidently along the ledge, clambered up the rusted rungs then swung himself over the wall and into the alley. This was not the Saturday night he would have chosen, but he was pleased with his little escapade.
Sauntering towards the road, he considered Deborah’s three stories. He’d thought the first, about her getting lost in the tunnel, had clearly been an elaborate fabrication – until she had told the second.
It had been somewhere between a Bible story and an ugly fairy tale: never wanting to settle on either. But now he was alone, the cool night air making him raise his shoulders and pull his jacket closed across his chest, he realised he couldn’t properly recall the details. They were like the scenes from a dream, dissolving in the darkness of a bedroom. ‘In Anatolia,’ Deborah had begun. And, pondering the name, lulled by its syncopated rhythm, it was as if he had slipped into sleep, only to wake up for the third story, about Deborah leaving for the orphanage.
The drizzle had stopped now but the air was still clogged with mist. He shook his head and huffed a laugh out of the side of his mouth.
He had almost reached the kink in the alley when he heard scuffling and voices.
He froze.
A slap of palms as a body was shoved. Then a hushed yammer, urging a fight. He could not see anyone yet; but if he didn’t want to meet them, he had to retreat. He scampered backwards, almost tripping.
The voices and movements were suddenly louder and comprehensible; whoever it was had turned the bend. He leape
d into a recess, pressing himself into it, breathing heavily. He could taste a nasty sweetness in his mouth.
After a few moments, Sam dared to peer out of his hiding place. The group had stopped; a black huddle with weaving legs. Praying there were no eyes in his direction, he slipped out of the recess and moved back along the alley, hugging the wall, in pain from the tension in his chest. He halted again in a patch of deep shadow. If he chanced the distance back to the creek, he could be seen. There was another recess; he flattened himself into it and looked back. There were perhaps six men, kicking and beating a figure that twisted and jerked on the floor; soft thuds and grunts, but no screams. Another man, tall and square in a long coat, stood still, slightly back from the huddle, watching.
Sam turned away, digging his nails into the damp brick and praying for this to be over. But now, above the thumps and groans, he heard footsteps approaching. He strained his eyes sideways. It was the man in the long coat. He came to a halt, a thick silhouette, hardly moving. Sam stopped breathing, sure the man was looking at him. But then he heard the patter of liquid. A trail of piss shone in the half-light, finding its way across the alley and slipping under his feet. Sam breathed out, just as a voice called, ‘Derek, we’re done.’
‘I’ll catch you up,’ the man replied.
His voice was incredibly close; Sam almost felt the warm breath in his face. The man bent his legs and bounced slightly, finished. Now he would turn and leave, and Sam would be safe.
But instead, Derek stepped into the shadow.
A train ground over the viaduct and another passed it in the other direction, their rumbles pulsing through Sam’s bones. Derek took another couple of steps towards the creek and light fell onto his face. He was handsome – in a heavy-featured way. Stubble emphasised a blocky jaw and flat, solid cheekbones. He blinked slowly, thick lashes falling over his pale eyes, and he rolled his large, delicately shaped lips between his teeth. And Sam realised he’d seen him before – the day he’d first met Deborah. He’d been chasing the thin man who’d crossed the road.