Liam's Story

by Ann Victoria Roberts

  Giving way before her fury, several things fell off their hangers; she sank down after them, bundled on her knees in the bottom of the cupboard. Rage was pursued by an acute sense of futility, and hot, angry tears flowed for some time. Sniffing noisily between muttered pleas and accusations, Zoe eventually pulled herself together, replaced the clothes in their proper places and went to wash her face. Dragging a comb through tangled hair, she plaited it back and told herself there was work to be done. It might well take all night and she had no idea as yet whether she was chasing an illusion.

  Putting Stephen and his room behind her, she made a pot of tea and took it into the spare bedroom. She found what she was looking for straight away, amongst books and albums and bound Victorian journals. The Visitors’ Book for the 1890s was large and heavy and had the name of the hotel engraved and gilded on the cover. Probably Edward’s work, she thought, remembering the albums and Liam’s diary. Somehow that calmed her, as though Edward’s personality was imbued in the things he had made.

  Deciphering other people’s handwriting was a lengthy task, but eventually, working back through the entries, Zoe found something. At the beginning of 1892, a full two and a half years before Liam was born, a Robert Devereux had stayed at the hotel on Gillygate, his address given as Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin. She recognized the address from Letty Duncannon’s correspondence, and even the signature looked familiar. But the name confused her. Could he have used his middle name to disguise his real identity?

  How very odd, she thought. What was he hiding – and why? Answers eluded her, but she was convinced it was Robert, and probably the date of his first meeting with Louisa. The beginning of an affair that had led to love and children and parting. To the dreadful combination of circumstances which drove Liam and Tisha away, and Liam and Georgina into each other’s arms.

  The tragedy of it oppressed her. As she packed the items away and straightened the bed on which she had been sitting, Zoe wondered whether she really wanted to know these things. Looking into those trunks had been like opening Pandora’s Box, with all the joys and miseries of the past released to obsess and engulf the present. If she had been lonely in her ignorance, Zoe felt that present knowledge had not brought happiness. Raised questions yes, but the most alarming impression was that the past seemed set on repeating itself.

  Back at the hotel, Zoe went straight to her room, but it was a long time before she slept. Next morning, feeling weary and resentful, she headed out into the sunshine, intending to take a quiet stroll away from the crowds before meeting Joan Elliott for lunch at one.

  She made her way through town to the river with no particular aim in mind. She did not want to think about the Elliotts, and wished she could banish Stephen from her mind. Of course she would write to him with this latest item of news, this tiny piece of the jigsaw that comprised the Elliotts’ lives. But faced with the reality of the present, it was so trivial. Why should he care? Amidst all the stress of what he was doing now, how could any of this ancient history matter to him?

  She wished she hadn’t come. It had been a mistake. Had it not been for the appointment with Joan, Zoe knew she would have climbed in the car and driven back to London.

  But along the open reach of King’s Staith the air was warm, sunlight glistening off the water. Despite herself, Zoe’s bleak mood began to lift. With Skeldergate Bridge ahead of her, she followed her feet and crossed to the other bank, turning left along the riverside.

  Beyond Victorian houses, wooden hoardings blocked her view of a vast building site. On her last visit she and Stephen had studied old Ordnance Survey maps of this area: beyond a factory and warehouses had been a boat yard and slipway. No longer in evidence, but she knew now where her steps were leading: she was following the path to Louisa’s cottage.

  For a moment, feeling manipulated, Zoe was cross. Would they please stop nudging her along avenues they wanted her to take? But all at once she was smiling and shaking her head. ‘But the cottage is no longer here,’ she murmured.

  No, but how many times did they walk this stretch of riverside? The words sprang, unbidden. Open your eyes and look.

  On the far bank was New Walk, with grand Georgian houses rising behind the trees. That view can’t have changed, she thought. But on the right, with the building site behind her, she saw the bowling greens and tennis courts of the Rowntree Memorial Park. She came to a grand gateway, and for a while gazed at grounds which had been carved from open fields and allotment gardens, and Louisa’s little plot of land.

  Hard to envisage what it had been like before.

  Beyond the park, the vista opened out. She walked on along the riverbank, thinking of Louisa’s garden, so much discussed in her letters – and her children growing up here, with fields and woods so close at hand. The countryside was never Tisha’s milieu, but it would seem to have been Liam’s. Perhaps that feeling for the land, for farming, had always been in his blood, inherited from his Lincolnshire forebears.

  With the river flowing virtually past their front door, she guessed this was where Liam had learned to swim. His diary revealed two prime concerns throughout the war: food and water. Water to drink, water in which to wash, and always the joy when he found a place to swim. He must have known this river well, she thought, enjoying its cool, green depths on hot days like this; she imagined him stripping off, diving in from the bank there, and surfacing, flinging back the wet hair from his forehead, striking out with a long, powerful stroke towards the far bank, or floating downstream with the current.

  Strangely, she had a sense of his presence here, and a sense of sadness, too. It must have been hard to leave for a new world, an unknown land, a future apart from family and friends and those he had come to love. And what had it felt like to return? When he came back with Georgina and Robert Duncannon in the November of 1916, and then again to spend Christmas with his family, how had it seemed to him then?

  There must have been changes, particularly at home, with Edward ill and the restrictions of wartime. Food and fuel would have been in short supply, and in the December gloom York must have seemed a sad, grey place, a city of mourners, with all those boys of the Yorkshire regiments killed on the Somme...

  No, Zoe thought sadly, it would not have been the place he had left, any more than wartime York bore much resemblance to what she saw now.

  Joan was pleased to see her, and in the warmth of her welcome, Zoe was suddenly glad that she had made the journey. Objectivity returned, and with it, a sense that she should make the most of her time here. She was sure Joan knew far more about the past than even she suspected. Little things, unimportant by themselves, added up to form — if not a full picture — then a shadow, an outline, on which to base further investigation.

  Over lunch she introduced the topic of Louisa and her move from the cottage. Stephen had guessed that in buying up the land in the 1920s, Rowntrees had also bought the freehold of Edward and Louisa’s cottage. From that, Zoe had assumed that Rowntrees had forced Louisa to move from her home of some twenty years’ standing. To her it had seemed a blot on the Quaker reputation. But later, logging the dates and addresses of Louisa’s letters, she had noted that Louisa had moved out of the cottage in the summer of 1918.

  Joan was surprised by the date. ‘Well, like Stephen said, I always thought she’d moved because of Rowntrees wanting the land. But if you’re right – and I’m sure you must be, by the dates of those letters – then she must have left not long after Edward died.

  ‘Perhaps that’s why,’ Joan went on. ‘It was very isolated in those days, and I think they were flooded out more than once when my father was young. Maybe she couldn’t face it on her own.’

  ‘From the dates, I imagine she moved about a year later.’

  ‘I suppose so – Edward died in 1917, April I think it was, the date’s on the headstone.’

  Zoe had a sudden, overwhelming desire to see it. ‘Could we go to the cemetery?’ she asked. ‘I’d like to see his grave.’

&nbs
p; ‘It’s her grave, too,’ Joan said.

  An hour later, on their way to the old cemetery off Fulford Road, Zoe returned to the subject of Louisa and her move from the riverside to Lord Mayor’s Walk. Joan said the house had been at the Monkgate end, just behind St Maurice’s Church; but both house and church were gone now, demolished in the 1960s.

  ‘Of course, it wasn’t more than a few minutes from where we lived, which was quite handy, especially when Dad was ill. Gran often came and helped look after him – sitting up at nights, that sort of thing, so Mother could get some rest. Then, at the beginning of the war, my brother decided he was going to join up, and after he went, so did I. That left Mother on her own, and what with the war and everything it seemed silly the pair of them rattling round in separate houses. So Gran sold her place and moved in with Mother.’

  ‘Louisa sold the house? You mean she owned it, didn’t rent the place?’

  ‘No, she owned it.’

  ‘How strange – I mean because they rented the cottage, didn’t they? I’m sure I’ve seen a reference to that. Something about the rent going up, but the landlord doing nothing about repairs.’ She pondered for a moment. ‘Still, I suppose Edward must have left her quite well-placed?’

  ‘No,’ Joan said emphatically, ‘he didn’t. He sold the business during the First World War – for a song, my father always said – and after that there wasn’t much at all.’

  ‘Are you sure? She must have had money from somewhere, if she bought that house...’

  There was a long silence. ‘Well, I’m sure you’re right, but I don’t think it can have come from Edward.’

  ‘How on earth did she afford it?’ Zoe asked, and in the next instant knew the answer. ‘Robert’, she breathed. ‘I bet you a pound to a penny, Joan, Robert Duncannon bought it for her!’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Who else?’

  Joan seemed stunned by that. In a small, hesitant voice, she said, ‘We owned our house too. And Dad had his own business. It never occurred to me before to wonder who set him up. And somebody must have, because after the First War it was hard for everybody. Most people didn’t have two ha’pennies to rub together. And Dad’s business — photography – was a luxury, not a necessity, so he didn’t make much either.’ She sighed, heavily. ‘But he often said we were fortunate, that we should count our blessings. Mother always set her mouth at that, and I often wondered why...’

  ‘Perhaps Sarah didn’t approve of Robert Duncannon?’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t. She certainly never mentioned him to me.’

  In the midst of an affluent society, it was hard to imagine the levels of poverty prevalent then, poverty which continued throughout the Great Depression of the 1920s and ‘30s. Those returning soldiers – many of them disabled – had found work difficult to find. The more she thought about Robert Duncannon, the more likely it seemed that he would have done his best to provide a home and a means of livelihood for his son, Robin.

  ‘Maybe she resented the generosity,’ Joan went on. ‘My mother was a proud woman, she didn’t like to feel beholden to anybody.’

  Remembering the stiff, disapproving old lady she had met, Zoe tried to envisage Sarah Elliott’s early life and the world that had made her. It was difficult, and her memory of being disliked for no good reason did not promote sympathy. Yet Stephen had been fond of her...

  ‘Yes, I know she was funny with you, but she was old then, and the past, I suppose, was starting to be more important than the present. But she was a good mother and a good wife — she adored my father, and he felt the same way about her. When she was ill, she nursed him – and his heart was bad, you know, it wasn’t just the leg. The doctor said it was the effect of all those bombardments, weakened the heart, wore it out. He was only thirty-six, you know, when he died.’

  Aware of her own inadequacy, Zoe murmured something sympathetic, while Joan simply shook her head and said yes, it was tragic, but many fared worse, and at least her father had known happiness with the wife and family he treasured.

  ‘He’s buried here, too – with Mother.’

  Just inside the cemetery gates, Joan filled a plastic bottle with water for the flowers she and Zoe had brought. It was pleasant in the sun, a slight breeze disturbing long, feathery grasses between graves in the old section, rustling the leaves of massive chestnut trees near the chapel.

  By Robin Elliott’s grave Zoe recalled the many letters he had written to his mother from France. She felt the desperate loneliness of that young man, the forced cheerfulness of his words masking fear and horror and a million things he could never tell the people at home. But he had found his love in Sarah, and been happy with her; and now, as the inscription said, they were reunited.

  Robin had never disturbed her dreams, and Zoe felt he was as truly at peace as the atmosphere around his grave suggested.

  She watched his daughter perform a ritual that over the years had obviously been repeated innumerable times. Dead flower stalks were removed from the urn and set to one side; the fresh flowers were shortened and arranged, the waste wrapped up and used to wipe the marble base, leaving all neat and tidy.

  Standing back, Joan was quite still for a moment, head bowed. Zoe suspected this was part of the ritual too, no doubt more poignant since Sarah’s death.

  ‘Now,’ she said huskily, taking Zoe’s arm, ‘we’ll go and find Edward and Louisa.’

  It was a short distance away, along grassy paths lined with memorials great and small.

  ‘What was she like?’ Zoe asked. ‘When you knew her, I mean. Was she very sad?’

  ‘Oh, goodness me, no. Well, I should say, not generally. I do remember her being sad, of course — anniversaries and Armistice Day, particularly. When Dad was alive we always went together – Dad with his walking stick and his medals, standing ever so straight with Granny by his side. He wouldn’t march with the veterans, but he always went to the service. Mother hated it, she usually stayed at home, to see to the dinner, she said. But I think,’ Joan added, ‘it was mostly that she refused to be seen crying in public. She lost a brother, you know, at the Somme...’

  ‘Then, after Dad died, Granny took us. She was even sadder then, but though she wept, she said it was our duty to go, to remember all those who gave their lives in the war to end all wars.’ With a shuddering sigh, Joan shook her head.

  ‘Twenty years – it didn’t take long, did it? The second war upset her badly. I think, like so many more, she’d have had peace at any price. She’d been so content, you see, with her little house and a couple of friends she’d made who lived nearby. And my brother and I used to call from school, and then from work, two or three times a week. And she came to us on Sundays. We loved her, you see, and she spoiled us – we could always take our friends there.

  ‘But then in 1939, the war came. She couldn’t believe it was all starting again, and it’s only now, when I look back, that I realize she must have imagined it being just like 1914. When my brother Bill joined up – you know, Stephen’s father – it almost broke her heart. I’m convinced she thought she’d never see him again. She did, thank heavens, because he didn’t go abroad until 1944. But I remember her saying to me that I mustn’t let them send me to France — I must come home immediately if that was so much as suggested!’ Joan laughed. ‘We didn’t go to France, of course, but I can just imagine my officer’s face if I’d told her what my Granny said!’

  ‘Stephen told me she was a bit confused towards the end.’

  Joan sighed. ‘Well, yes, she was, but not until the last few weeks. Of course she worried about everything, and as I say, I’m sure it was the war. Shortages, the blackouts, everybody in uniform. And the air-raids! Those sirens were enough to frighten anybody to death. They had an incendiary bomb down the chimney one night — it didn’t go off, thank God – Mother picked it up with the fire-tongs and doused it in a bucket of cold water! It sounds funny now,’ she said with a laugh, ‘but it can’t have been at the time, especially
with an old lady who flatly refused to go into an air-raid shelter. In many ways she was tougher than she looked, but the strain of it told in the end.

  ‘I saw a big difference in her that last week. I had some leave not long before D-Day and came home. Granny was in bed most of the time, and obviously failing. Mother said she was always talking to Edward, and the sad thing is, when I arrived, she seemed to think I was her mother. Her voice was different, too, lighter, younger...’ She paused. ‘It was a bit unnerving.’

  ‘What did she say? Can you remember?’

  Joan’s kindly face seemed distressed. ‘Yes, I can remember. She said — But I loved him, Mamma, what else could I do?’

  Zoe studied the gravel path. ‘No names?’

  ‘No. I didn’t know who she was talking about, but she was really upset. Tears were streaming down her face.’

  Zoe blinked and swallowed hard. ‘Poor Louisa...’

  ‘Thinking about it now, I suppose she must have been talking about Robert. I don’t recall her ever mentioning his name, though. What I do remember is that just before I went back – the last day, in fact – she suddenly turned towards the door, and said, with real surprise – So they let you have some leave, after all. I didn’t expect to see both of you here.

  ‘She seemed so lucid,’ Joan went on, ‘I honestly thought my brother had walked through the door. I turned round, expecting to see him, but there was nobody there and the door was shut. That did frighten me, because I thought it was Bill she’d seen – and that he’d been killed.’

  ‘How awful for you,’ Zoe murmured. ‘But he was all right?’

  ‘Yes, right as ninepence as we found out later – he came through without so much as a scratch.’ With a deep sigh, she said: ‘But my man was killed in Normandy, and although Granny never met him, I did wonder afterwards whether it was him she’d seen.’