‘I believe you can help me,’ Claire said. ‘When she was living here with you, I’m sure Georgina told you of her life at the Lodge?’
‘Told me? She never stopped.’
‘Probably talked about Stephen.’
‘Forever. I got an earful of bloody “Stephen” night and day. What’s he to you or your Australian friend?’
‘Stephen Conway. He was Patrick’s grandfather.’
‘Was he now?’ she said. ‘I never knew his second name, she only ever said Stephen. Well, fancy that! So there was no film about the Ricksons; no BBC. Just a cheap way to check on the family tree.’
‘You really could help me, Mrs West, if you wanted to.’
‘How?’
‘Very simply. Tell me about Stephen and your Aunt Georgina. The things she must have told you, over and over.’
‘Sorry,’ Helen West said. ‘Even if I had time, there’s no reason why I’d do that.’
‘Instead, you’re off to the good life, at Chelsea Reach?’
‘Absolutely right, Ms Thomas.’
‘If I don’t stop you, Mrs West.’
Helen West gazed blankly at her. ‘If you… what?’
‘If I don’t consult your lawyers.’
‘Are you crazy? Consult them? You don’t even know them.’
‘Peacock & Marsh, in Epsom High Street. They should be warned of what’s ahead.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m going to make them aware of the way you treated your Aunt Georgina,’ Claire said calmly. ‘Putting her in that disgusting old people’s home, because it was cheap. How you lied to the board and said she was impoverished, so you could save money and get a bigger share of her estate.’
‘You wouldn’t dare! That’s defamation.’
‘Patrick wants me to approach the News of the World. A bunch of Harley Street doctors owning a third-rate nursing home, unfit to be registered. The News would love a story like that. And they’re well used to defamation cases… it boosts their circulation.’
‘Now you wait a minute —’
‘I should tell you Mrs Greenfield is prepared to give evidence. Your lawyers will be in the frame, confronted by the failure of their duty of care, and they’ll blame you. When you move to Chelsea your new neighbours will know you from the newspaper photos and lurid headlines.’ Claire collected her handbag, and glanced at her watch. ‘So I’m off to Epsom, to Peacock & Marsh. The young man we met at the funeral, Mr Langton. I have an appointment with him in an hour.’ She started to make her exit with a display of confidence, while worrying her bluff was being called. She had the front door half open as Helen West ran to push it shut.
‘Wait. Why would you do something like this?’
‘Because Patrick Conway asked me to. Because he’s angry at the way you treated Georgina.’
‘He has nothing to do with Georgina!’
‘His grandfather did,’ Claire said. ‘Patrick is furious about what happened to her in the last years of her life, and all because of your greed.’
‘You can’t do this,’ Mrs West insisted. ‘I took her in. Tried to help. Now I’m starting a new life of my own. It just isn’t fair!’
‘Was what you did fair?’
‘But she didn’t know! She was past it.’
‘Not when you first put her there. The nurses told me she used to weep at nights. Sob her heart out. She felt lost and bewildered, abandoned in a strange place like that. In the end it became full dementia. And you did that, Mrs West.’
Helen West had clearly never thought of it in those terms. She made one last vain attempt to bluster her way out of it.
‘I’ll ring Langton. Tell him he’s not to see you.’
‘It doesn’t matter if he sees me or not. The News of the World will see me. Mr Langton and his fine old firm will be on the front page with you — the woman who dumped her elderly aunt into a cesspit and now lives on her money. Use your imagination, Mrs West.’
‘Ms Thomas… Claire, that’s your name, isn’t it? Stop it, please. What do I have to do… to make you stop this?’
‘I’m not sure I can stop it now,’ Claire retorted bluntly. ‘Or if I want to. Fifteen years, and you visited her only twice! People are going to hate you. You’ll be vilified — just think what talkback radio will say…’
‘Please… whatever you want. But don’t do this to me.’
‘I told you what I want. Everything you remember about Georgina and Stephen. Help me and you’ll never see me again.’
Helen West stared at her with disbelief. She seemed confused, unable to accept it could be so simple. Claire had a strange feeling the woman was on the verge of tears.
‘But it was so long ago, and I never listened properly. I can’t recall half the things she said.’
‘You must surely be able to recall enough to help me,’ Claire said, becoming anxious.
‘Honestly, I can’t remember much. I just wasn’t interested. And as for the book, I threw that out.’
‘What book?’ The other looked at her blankly. ‘Mrs West, what book?’
‘It was in the back of a cupboard all these years. I found it when I was clearing the house. It was just rubbish… I never knew it was there till last week.’
Oh God, Claire thought, her heart beginning to race. Don’t tell me I’ve come this close and… She realised with dismay what the other was saying.
‘It was just some stuff she wrote… about him, but I didn’t bother to read it. I put it out with the rest of the junk to be burnt.’
Claire handed Patrick a package. Inside was a plain exercise book, like a school primer, its pages filled with neat writing. And on the front in printed capitals, like a schoolgirl’s caption of ownership, it read GEORGINA RICKSON, THE LODGE, LEATHERHEAD.
Patrick held it like a gift, and looked at Claire in wonder.
‘Mrs West hired a man to help clear up,’ she told him. ‘If he hadn’t been late for work today, this would’ve been a heap of ash.’
PART THREE
Georgina
TWENTY SIX
These are events I learnt of long after they had happened. Stephen did not want to write any of it himself; he said he had exposed so much of his secret thoughts and feelings in his diary and the notebook in the past, and he could no longer face reliving some of the painful moments that had occurred since then. So I decided to try and record it, for time can erase recollection, and I don’t ever want to forget how it was.
When the court-martial was ordered to reconvene and they reluctantly commuted Stephen’s death sentence to ten years’ hard labour, he was held in an army gaol until he could be transported back to England. This was in the first week of November, 1918. Five days later he was removed in a truck to the port of Calais and escorted on board a troopship. He was guarded by two military policemen, as well as once again being handcuffed and having his legs chained. Crossing the French dock, manhandled by his guards, he could feel the scrutiny of eyes from hundreds of British soldiers on the deck of the ship.
‘Must be a murderer!’ someone shouted.
Neither of his guards disputed this.
‘Well, I bet he ain’t on his way to Buck Palace for a bleedin’ Victoria Cross!’ another soldier yelled, raising a laugh.
‘A lousy rotten fucking deserter,’ someone else guessed, and the senior guard, a lance corporal, raised a hand and gave an obvious thumbs up in confirmation of this.
The crowd on deck began to boo him. It was the first time Stephen had ever encountered this kind of open hostility, and the shock of it brought him to a sudden halt. The abrupt stop annoyed the guards who jostled him so that the leg irons cut against his flesh and forced him to continue shuffling forward. Pushed up the gangway amid an angry chorus of jeers and hateful abuse, he was taken to a secure cabin deep inside the vessel, and locked in there for many hours until all embarkation was completed.
Late that day fog in the channel delayed the ship’s departure, and it was n
ot until the following afternoon that they arrived in Portsmouth. During all this time Stephen had not been given food or drink, and in his prison cabin there was no slop pail or lavatory. His guards remained on an upper deck and out of hearing until the ship berthed, then berated him as a filthy bastard because he had soiled himself and stank of urine.
They gave him a bucket of cold water and ordered him to get clean, telling him he’d better not try to escape, and reinforced this by checking the chambers of their pistols and aiming them at him.
How can I escape with leg irons? he asked them.
We’ve got our orders, they told him. You’re a dangerous deserter who made threats to kill the colonel at your court-martial. They say you reckoned he was corrupt; a lousy stinking Pommy officer who was unfair and prejudiced. So you’re going into a deep dark hole for a long time, mate. Real deep, real dark.
Unable to remember if he had actually made this threat against Carmody, he stayed silent, except to ask if they could undo the handcuffs. It was impossible otherwise to wash himself. The guards roared with laughter at this.
‘You think we’re stupid?’ the lance corporal replied, and turned to the other guard. ‘He does, this bloody Aussie thinks we’re thick as two planks. Imagine taking off his handcuffs! The bastard would throw a punch, try to kick us in the balls, and be off like a racing pigeon.’
‘You know what we could do, don’t you?’ the other said. ‘We could shoot him. Save everyone a hell of a lot of trouble. Save the country the expense of having to feed him for the next ten years.’
‘You mean in cold blood? That’d be bloody daft, that would.’
‘No, we could take off his cuffs and the chains, then shoot him. Say he made a dash for it.’
Stephen numbly listened to them, hardly caring what happened. He’d endured weeks of threats like this and had become impervious to them. Sometimes he wondered if that would be the best way. A quick death and be finished with it. But in the end they grew tired of their games and threw the bucket of cold water over him. He was dripping wet and still shivering by the time the rest of the troops had disembarked, when he was taken off and marched to a cell in the Portsmouth naval base.
The following day an armoured van arrived to transport him to the military prison in Yorkshire. As Stephen was taken out of the building he heard the sound of distant bells ringing in the town and the noise of a cheering crowd. It was like a sudden window of memory from the past, the day they’d landed here in Portsmouth: their first glimpse of England, their big surprise as crowds gathered on the wharves to cheer them — he and Bluey, and all the rest of his dead mates, including Double-Trouble, who had sneaked away to go to bed with two very friendly girls. The memory was so clear and poignant that it made him want to weep.
‘What’s the noise about?’ he asked, and one of the escorts told him it was real good news, but he was afraid it was not good news for him. Not for a filthy deserter who’d up and done a runner. The guard took malicious pleasure in explaining it was the eleventh of November, and at eleven o’clock that morning an armistice had begun. At long last it seemed the war was over.
‘Tough luck for you,’ the other escort commented. ‘We can all go home, but not you, mate. You’re off to an army nick up north. A bastard of a place. They’ll really sort you out. Be lucky to survive ten years’ hard where you’re going.’
Across the world in Australia, so Stephen was to learn later, the bells and cheering had been wildly premature. The startling news of a cease-fire had swept the country on Friday the ninth of November, and riotous celebrations had begun. Embarrassment and confusion had followed this false alarm. Finally on Monday the eleventh, after a sober Sunday when churches were filled and people prayed that it would soon be true, there was confirmation and the revelry commenced all over again.
But the cheering crowds were not joined by Jane Conway and her small son, nor by Stephen’s parents. His mother and father, Edna and Stan, with whom Jane and Richard still lived, were distraught at the news their son had died so close to the cessation of hostilities. Barely a week earlier the two compassionate letters with news of his death had reached Jane, and while there had been not yet been an official war office telegram, the kindly messages from his battalion padre and the medical officer substantiated what they had been fearing for some time. It seemed to explain the lack of response for the past few months to Jane’s constant letters, and never for a moment did she doubt the veracity of the information the officers had sent. In her grief she was almost thankful the unbearable telegram had gone astray.
Some weeks later the families, her parents and Stephen’s, invited his many friends from school and university to a special mass at the local church, where the priest made prolonged mention of his life and service to the nation. Father Geraghty was in fine form; he reminded the congregation that Stephen had been one of the first to join up, had fought in the Anzac landing and in France, and was a hero who had given his life in a noble cause.
Jane’s attempt to deal with her loss was bolstered by the words of the priest’s sermon. Gradually she began to come to terms with the sorrow of her bereavement, she cried less at night, resolved to return to her job as a teacher, and decided that on April the twenty-fifth — the day they were already designating as Anzac Day and also her son’s birthday — she would take Richard to the ceremony to be held at one of the newly-built memorials to the fallen. If she had to bring her son up alone, at least she wanted him to grow up in the knowledge that his father was a hero.
Bridgeway Detention Centre was set on an isolated and windswept moor in a remote part of Yorkshire, a harsh military prison, and from his first day there Stephen was regarded as a recalcitrant and high-risk prisoner. There was no likelihood of anything else after the damaging report on him by Colonel James Carmody, the president of his court-martial, in which it stated the accused soldier had a history of unruly behaviour and had made violent threats against him and other officers at the trial. This lie was to plague him for the next ten years, for the content of the court transcript precluded any chance of amnesty.
On arrival he was placed in a secure cell in virtual isolation. There was a cursory medical examination done by a local GP who was seconded to the prison — during which there was no mention of the words ‘shell shock’ — and his time at Netley was dismissed in the same way the court had disparaged it, as an escape from duty among the pack of malingerers and outright cowards who did their best to hide there.
When Stephen tried to tell the doctor his lungs sometimes troubled him because he had experienced attacks of mustard gas, he was first accused of lying because the masks would have been quite adequate protection. After all, they were army issue and the army was not given to supplying faulty equipment. There were two other possible explanations, the doctor told him. Perhaps he’d worn the gas mask incorrectly, or else there were instances of soldiers deliberately not wearing them at all — in the hope they would be discharged as unfit.
‘You’ve never seen a man spewing and dying after a gas attack,’ Stephen replied to this, seething at the doctor’s bland uncaring attitude, ‘or you’d have more bloody sense than to suggest such a thing.’ In his anger he tried to quote his friend Wilfred’s poem, but was distressed that he could only remember a few words. ‘If you could hear the blood gargling from froth-corrupted lungs…’ he attempted to tell the doctor, who turned and shouted for an orderly and demanded this crazy prisoner be taken away.
The doctor made a complaint to Major Norton, the military police commander of the prison, and the result was seven more days in solitary. It was another mark on his record, which was becoming increasingly full of them, giving him a reputation as a serial offender against authority. By the first Christmas, only six weeks after his arrival, Stephen Conway was already a target. In the work gangs that left the cells before the winter sun had risen, he was the one given the most laborious jobs. When they returned after the sun had set his limbs ached, and he often suffered from blindin
g headaches, but he soon learnt a protest was pointless for there was no compassion there.
Stephen had arrived at Bridgeway with almost nothing. His only prized possession was his notebook. He spent the rare rest periods reading it over and over again, occasionally adding to notes he’d made, reliving his nightmares. He preserved it fiercely, for somehow it symbolised a link with all the friends he had lost.
Eventually this obsessive devotion to a book aroused the curiosity of the other prisoners, and one night an ex-gunner who shared his cell got hold of it and started reading some of the most personal extracts aloud to those in the vicinity. Stephen asked for it back as calmly as he could. When the other refused he tried to physically retrieve it. The gunner then threatened to rip it to pieces, and was loudly encouraged to do this by those in the adjoining cells.
‘Tear the bloody thing up!’ they shouted. ‘Give us some pages, so we can all have a read — then we’ll wipe our arses on it.’
That was when Stephen went berserk. He had been stripped of everything else; now his only belonging was to be destroyed at the whim of a mindless mob. Rage gave him strength as he hit the gunner, then kneed him in the groin, and when the man doubled up Stephen took full advantage and went on hitting him. Guards were called and he was restrained, while the barely conscious gunner was taken to the infirmary. It meant another parade before Major Norton and a far longer spell this time in solitary confinement, but by now Stephen did not fear this. He had begun to prefer seclusion and his own company. When he came out the other prisoners accorded him a grudging respect, and they left him and his secretive and precious book alone.
The remoteness of the prison meant there were very few visitors, and the rules permitted inmates only one letter each month. Neither rule had ever bothered Stephen, for he was aware there could be no visitors for him, nor any letters either. He knew by now the sympathy messages from the padre and the medical officer would have long since arrived home, and he would now be regarded as dead. It was a strange feeling, and something he would have to face in the future, on a far distant day when he would be free and at liberty to go back to Australia. But that was still more than nine years away, and at the age of twenty-five it seemed like an eternity.
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