by Diane Janes
The second album opened up a new era. The album itself must have been expensive. It was covered in a soft, dove grey fabric and each page of mounted photographs was faced with one of tissue paper. The opening page was entirely taken up by a portrait labelled Elaine aged 21.
‘She was very pretty,’ Wendy ventured.
‘Everyone said so.’
The pages of the album steadily marked the passage of the years. First Elaine, then Dorothy, on the arms of their new husbands. By the end of the volume their hat brims were narrower and their skirt hems had risen to reveal shapely ankles.
It was not until the third album that they were positively able to identify The Ashes. By this time they were sharing the books across their knees, eagerly pointing things out to one another. The Ashes first appeared as a backdrop to what was evidently a christening party, presumably Ronnie’s, as there was no sign of any other young children. The group had gathered alongside the sundial in the front garden for the shot, but big hats must have been in vogue that year, for the women’s faces were all in shadow, while the baby itself was no more than a bundle in its mother’s arms, trailing ghostly white lace.
‘I wonder what colours those dresses were,’ Wendy said. ‘It’s such a pity that everything is in black and white.’ It was strange, she thought, the way nothing had really changed. The sundial was still there, the rose bushes a perfect match for the ones she had recently planted herself, and in the background the front door stood open invitingly. The whole party might have dressed up twenties’ style and slipped into the garden to take the picture that very afternoon. On another occasion a family group had posed outside the front door, like a pre-enactment of the shot Bruce’s father had set up just weeks before.
Though the albums had belonged to Dorothy, she had evidently been in close touch with her sister because many of the photographs were of Elaine and her family, particularly Ronnie, who as Dorothy’s godson presumably merited special attention. As a result, his progress was lovingly recorded: a small boy holding a wooden sword aloft, a taller boy in a school uniform, a youth in a Roman toga worn for a fancy dress party, in the uniform of a Boy Scout, and eventually a young man who looked rather dashing posed astride a motorcycle above a caption which read Ronnie, July 1939.
The last few pages were devoted to Dorothy’s pre-war holiday in the Lake District, which included shots of Joan waving from a pleasure steamer. Between the last page and the back cover someone had slipped a loose enlargement. It was face down, but there was a sprawling diagonal message across the back, the writing far more flamboyant than Dorothy’s. For Aunt Dodo. See you soon. With love from Ronnie.
Joan turned it over and Ronnie smiled up at them, his eyes forever focussed on something just above the photographer’s left shoulder. Unbearably young, handsome and confident.
The war years marked a downturn in the number of photographs. ‘You couldn’t get the film,’ Joan explained.
The post-war era contained fewer appearances by Elaine and her family, but enough for Wendy to mark some changes. Ronnie and Dora were absent, while Bunty, Elaine’s remaining daughter, had grown tall and slim, sported a heavily lipsticked mouth and a fiancé called Bill Webster. Elaine’s surviving son, Hugh, though bearing some physical resemblance to the lost Ronnie, seemed like a pale imitation of his brother as he posed self-consciously with a cricket bat. There was a difference in Elaine Duncan too. She was still slim and elegantly dressed, but her face appeared to have lost the art of smiling. It was strange, Wendy thought, the way it seemed as if she was and yet was not the same woman.
Joan said quietly, ‘When you’re young, you are more resilient. Terrible things happen, but you can get over them. Life went on and I used to assume that Aunt Elaine must have got over what happened to Ronnie and come to terms with the fact that Dora would never come back, but since I’ve been widowed, I’ve come to realize how wrong I was. There’s never a day goes by when I don’t think of my George, but of course you can’t tell people that. And although everyone is very kind, they don’t really want you to go on about it. “Get over it” … that’s the expression, isn’t it? You can get over illnesses, but I’m afraid there’s no cure for death.’
‘You just have to live with it … Sorry, that was an awfully stupid thing to say.’
They turned back to the albums, which had moved into a third generation of christenings. There were Bunty and Bill Webster, wearing fashions Wendy recognized from her own childhood. Joan’s wedding to George Webb was lavishly recorded, before she sailed away for years of exile in South Africa and Canada, but glimpses of The Ashes became increasingly rare as Dorothy’s encounters with her sister and the extended family either happened less frequently or went unrecorded.
‘Mother died in 1964,’ Joan said. ‘So that’s the end of her albums. I was abroad mostly, but I’ve managed to find two more photographs of Elaine. Apart from the family groups at various weddings, where she’s just a speck in the background, that is. I don’t know who took this one.’ She handed across a shot of a couple sitting in deckchairs at some unidentified resort. ‘I suppose someone sent it out to us. People often used to include a few snaps with their letters. There’s Aunt Elaine and Uncle Herb. That’s Hugh’s wife, standing up behind them, so it was probably Hugh behind the camera. And this is the very last one.’
Wendy took the proffered snapshot. This time it was of Elaine alone, sitting in the courtyard at the back of The Ashes. She was occupying a sturdy-looking, square-backed canvas garden chair which had flat wooden arms on which she had rested an elbow. She looked very old, her face wrinkled, almost skeletal, framed by grey hair in a tight perm. The fingers which had strayed up to touch a string of beads around her neck were bony. She was wearing a navy and white polka dot frock and the broad blue shoes of the geriatric over thick, pale stockings. There was a white cardigan draped around her shoulders in spite of the sunlight. On her wrist was a delicate ladies’ watch, the image so precise that the time – a quarter to three – could be made out. Elaine, though unsmiling, had inclined her head slightly to one side in what appeared to be a single concession to a photograph she didn’t want to have taken.
‘Thank you,’ Wendy said. ‘It’s made them more real for me now. I do hope we can find out more about the Coates family too.’
‘Well, why don’t we make a start tonight? Let’s go and have a look at that war memorial. There’s a street light almost right above it, if I recall. And I’ve a torch in my car. Oh, hold on, though … I forgot … my car is in for its service.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ Wendy said. ‘I’ll drive. There’s a torch in our car.’
‘Oh, but then you will have to double back to bring me home.’
‘That doesn’t matter.’ Wendy felt lightheaded, like a child setting off on an adventure. ‘Bruce is on babysitting duty and he’s not expecting me back at any particular time.’
‘Tally ho then!’
Joan’s enthusiasm was infectious. They laughed all the way to the northern edge of Bishop Barnard, where the parish church stood behind a lychgate across the road from what remained of the village green. Wendy parked her car in the layby reserved for ‘official church business only’ and they entered on foot via the gate. The war memorial was only a few feet inside the churchyard, an impressive stone cross set on a raised square plinth, which was, as Joan had correctly recalled, well within the orbit of the tall, modern street lamps. On one side an inscription stated that it was dedicated to the memory of the men of Bishop Barnard who had given their lives in the Great War of 1914–18. Below this, a further inscription exhorted everyone to remember also those who had died in the 1939–45 war, whose names were recorded within the church. The remaining three sides were filled with the names of the young men who would never return. Between Private James Campbell and Sergeant Charles Copeland was Albert George Coates. Joan jotted the name down in a notebook she had produced from her handbag.
‘He won’t be buried in here.’ Wendy glanced
around.
‘No, but other members of the Coates family might be.’
‘Let’s have a look.’
Assisted to some extent by the street lamps on the Green, together with the lights set at intervals on the path which ran between the lychgate and the church, they began to traverse the rows of graves, navigating their way among headstones and monuments by the light of Wendy’s torch.
Wendy giggled. ‘If my kids could see me now … I feel like something out of the Secret Seven.’
‘Lucky it’s nowhere near Halloween,’ Joan said. ‘Or we’d probably be accused of witchcraft and arrested on suspicion of performing forbidden rituals within sacred grounds.’
‘We won’t be able to go much further in. It’s going to be too dark to see where we’re going, even with the torch, if we get much beyond the street lights. Mind you, if they’re here, they won’t be buried in the modern part of the churchyard … Oh! Hold on, Joan, look at this.’
As an example of Victorian ostentation, the monument could scarcely have been bettered. An almost life-size marble angel stood poised for flight on a knee-high marble block. This formed a centrepiece for an ankle-height marble kerbstone, mostly hidden in the grass, which Wendy had almost tripped over. By the light of the torch they could see that the angel and her support were covered in a greenish-grey layer of grime, and she had been crowned by multiple bird droppings, but the inscription on the angel’s plinth was still easily readable.
In Loving Memory of
Maria Coates
1828–1873
Well done thou good and faithful servant
Also of
James Coates
1819–1876
Thy will be done
Also their children who lie near this spot
Amy died 1857
James Henry died 1859
Philippa died 1860
Catherine died 1865
Sophia died 1867
Francis Michael died 1871
‘Six children, all dying before their parents,’ Wendy said.
‘The Victorian infant mortality rate was truly awful.’ Joan was writing busily, apparently unhampered by the lack of light.
They almost missed the inscription on one of the kerbstones: Sacred to the memory of Charlotte Coates born 14 April 1854 died 7 September 1915. Daughter of James and Maria Coates.
They agreed that it was too dark to search for any more long-dead members of the Coates family in the further reaches of the churchyard.
‘I’m sure Aunt Elaine and Uncle Herb are buried not far from here,’ said Joan, casting about to get her bearings. ‘I think it’s just along this path, beyond the big tree.’
The path made it easy to reach the place she had indicated. The Duncans’ monument was a plain rectangular headstone with a vase incorporated at its base. The vase was empty, its metal rose rusting. ‘I suppose I really ought to bring some flowers, one of these days,’ Joan said, in a tone that did not suggest to Wendy that she ever really meant to do so.
They returned to the car and Wendy drove back to Joan’s bungalow. The trees and hedges had long since melted into dark shadows against a backdrop of grey-black sky. Wendy declined Joan’s invitation to go in, saying that she had better get back. On the homeward run the car was quiet without the clamour of the radio or Joan’s conversation, but Wendy hardly noticed. Her head was full of golden sunsets and brave young soldiers marching into them, and she was still experiencing a faint sense of exhilaration from engaging in something a little bit adventurous and out of the ordinary. She knew the back lanes well and negotiated the twists and turns rather faster than usual. It was not as if there was any traffic about at that time of night. At the notorious right-angle bend halfway between Bishop Barnard and Cleveley, where she would normally have changed down to second, she found herself on the wrong side of the road and was forced to swerve and brake, narrowly avoiding an oncoming vehicle.
In the split second of the near collision, she observed that the car she had almost hit carried the livery of Cleveland Constabulary. The stab of panic she had experienced at the sight of the approaching car was replaced by the sickening knowledge that unlike most other drivers, the person behind the wheel of this vehicle was unlikely to merely curse the stupidity of women drivers and continue on his way. She had come to a halt at an angle to the road, with one wheel on the grass verge, and a glance in her mirror confirmed that the other car had also stopped, though in a much more orderly fashion, a few yards down the lane. As one of its uniformed occupants got out, she briefly entertained the idea of driving off. It would take them a moment or two to turn the car in the lane. No, that was a stupid idea. Even if they hadn’t already clocked her registration number, they would easily catch up with her. Far better to be contrite. Tell them she was sorry. It was not as if she had actually hit them or anything. There was no harm done.
The approaching officer did not look much older than Tara. Wendy wound down her window and smiled up at him, launching off immediately. ‘I’m really very, very sorry, Officer, but I’m afraid I misjudged the bend … so tricky in the dark … didn’t realize it was coming up … have to take it more carefully in future …’
‘May I see your driving licence please, madam?’ He was deadpan.
Her handbag was on the passenger seat. She fumbled inside the bag until her fingers closed on the slim plastic wallet.
‘Is this your own car, madam?’
‘Yes. Well, I suppose technically, no. It’s registered in my husband’s name, but we share it.’
‘Would you mind getting out of the car please, madam?’ He opened the door and held it for her, like a flunkey at the front of a posh hotel, she thought. There was something slightly surreal about it. She thought about declining, but she wasn’t sure of her rights, and anyway, she wanted to follow up on the good impression she must surely have made by her apology, so she climbed out and stood on the tarmac, separated from him by the car door, which formed a chest-high barrier between them. He considered her driving licence and she found herself thinking that he must have jolly good eyesight to be able to make it out with only the car headlights to help him.
‘Have you been drinking, Mrs Thornton?’
‘No … I mean … well, yes, not drinking exactly. I’ve had a sherry.’ Actually, it might have been more than one. Joan had topped up the glasses while they were looking at the albums – once … maybe even a couple of times? She had not been paying that much attention.
She was shocked at the mention of the word ‘breathalyze’.
‘But this is ridiculous. I only took the bend a little bit too quickly. I haven’t been in an accident.’
‘It’s an offence to drive a motor vehicle when under the influence of alcohol, Mrs Thornton.’
There was something vaguely obscene about the way he assembled the little kit at the roadside, she thought. It induced the same nauseous panic as seeing a doctor putting on a pair of plastic gloves in readiness to conduct an internal examination. A couple of cars went by in quick succession, slowing in order to pass them safely, the occupants taking the opportunity to have a good look and see what was going on. She prayed that it wasn’t anyone she knew.
There was something equally surreal about being handed the kit and asked to blow into the plastic tube. The crystals turned green.
‘That’s a positive result.’
‘What happens now?’ she asked. Was she shaking because it was getting colder, or was it the thought of being arrested?
‘You will have to accompany me to the station, Mrs Thornton, to give us another breath sample and, if it’s positive, you’ll be charged.’
‘But I want to go home.’ Wendy knew it sounded childish. It was shameful, standing at the side of the road, trying not to cry. ‘My husband will be getting worried.’
‘You’ll be able to call him from the station. One of my colleagues will drive your car there and your husband will be able to pick you and the car up from there. He’s licensed to dri
ve, is he? Your husband?’
She nodded dumbly. What would Bruce say about her being arrested? Drunk driving was detestable. Something she had always associated with sozzled, middle-aged men who drove recklessly and killed other people’s children. She was barely able to concentrate on the policeman’s questions. Had she had a drink in the last twenty minutes? Did she smoke? It all had a bearing on the test, seemingly. I’m not a drunk driver, she thought. How can this have happened? I’ve never so much as had a speeding ticket before. She half wished that the policeman would stop being so polite and correct. If he had bawled her out, she might at least have had the satisfaction of shouting back and maybe kicking his shins.
At the police station they asked her to blow into a bigger, static machine. The station was quiet, with Wendy the only source of interest for the greying desk sergeant, who seemed surprisingly cheerful for someone confined to such a barren environment. The only decorations were a very old poster showing different breeds of dog, and an African violet dying in a pot on the windowsill. By the time the machine had spat out its official verdict, she had begun to cry in earnest. The desk sergeant gave her a tissue to wipe her nose, while they filled out various forms.
With the formalities completed, she was allowed to sit in the waiting area, head cast down, not making eye contact with the flotsam and jetsam of people who had begun to trickle in as the hour grew later. An auburn-haired officer came to confirm that her husband was coming to collect her, but Bruce didn’t actually appear until almost eleven o’clock.
One look at his face was enough to see that he was furious, but just the same, she assumed a hopeful smile as she stood up. Bruce neither looked at her nor spoke to her, deftly sidestepping as she moved forward to greet him, as if to avoid contamination with a person who had been defiled by arrest. Wendy began to wish she really was so sodden with drink as to be immune to Bruce or her surroundings. He was coldly polite to the desk sergeant who handed over the car keys, then stiffly thanked the constable who showed him where the car was parked. To Wendy he said nothing until they were clear of the car park and he had driven beyond the street lights and switched the headlamps to full beam. Only then, when even the sharpest-eared policeman could not possibly have heard him, did the outburst begin.
