by Ann Troup
The Philosophy of Disgrace
By
Ann Troup
Edited by Frankie Sutton
Copyright © Ann Troup 2011
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Prologue
Valerie Porter had been fond of blanket statements that set others indelibly in their places. Proud of her insights into the characters of others she had set out her children’s traits like a script. As if they were pickles in jars, all three of her daughters had been indelibly labelled and preserved by her assertions. Frances was the clever one, as opposed to Stella who Valerie deemed useless, and of course Rachel, who was just downright difficult.
Did all parents like to define their offspring, leaving their children floundering and typecast? Rachel, in particular felt imperfectly moulded by her family, a skewed version of the woman she should have been. An inconvenient, bit part player in the drama that had been her life.
These were Rachel’s thoughts on the day she received her second letter from Frances. The contention moulded and delivered by her mother’s tongue still echoed in her mind, so much so that she had completely ignored Frances’ first missive, the letter that had informed her of Valerie’s demise. This second communication was a demand that she return home and assist with sorting out her mother’s affairs. Instinct told her to tear it up, put it in the bin, and pretend that it had never arrived. However, something tugged at her conscience enough to make her contemplate going back, even if it was only to make sure that Valerie really was gone.
Only when she was sitting on the train, when it was too late to turn back and take refuge again, did she allow herself to think about the disappointment that had been Valerie’s life. Valerie had married William Porter in 1960, inheriting Stella from him, bringing Frances with her, according to Delia Jones, the person who had known Valerie the longest, and also the only person who would have dared discuss her in such terms;. Rachel had arrived in 1967, a day before her father died. More of Valerie’s words, accompanied by a wan sigh and a sad expression, had often described how William had hung on just long enough to know Rachel had made her entrance into the world.
On the occasion of her marriage, Valerie had also inherited the real object of her desire, William’s family home, The Limes. It was an imposing residence long coveted by Valerie as the house of her dreams. The Limes was one of the more impressive buildings that edged the park, and it occupied the corner plot of one of the more desirable roads in town. Ever since she had first glimpsed the tall chimneys and the stately pretensions of the house, having spied it from the top deck of a bus, Valerie had fantasised about it. She conjured up a three dimensional image of herself living in that house where she could waft about in rooms that were called morning, drawing and dining. Having grown up in a two up, two down, back-to-back terrace, such pretentious notions meant a great deal to her. So, at the age of fourteen when she had left school and started in the wages office of Porter and Son Engineering, she had made it her sole business to become an invaluable asset to “and Son.” Her diligence and commitment did not go unnoticed and at eighteen, she became William Porter’s personal secretary, just in time to congratulate him on his engagement to Elizabeth Roache.
Valerie’s reaction to this blow was to allow Reg Bowen, the boy next door, to indulge his persistent and amorous attentions. Which, prior to William’s engagement, she had haughtily rejected on an almost daily basis.
The result of her liaison with Reg was a foetal Frances, followed by the hasty purchase of a wedding ring from Woolworths, which she wore for appearances sake. Reg’s response to the situation was to show rather more enthusiasm for the prospect of National Service than he had hitherto expressed, which he promptly backed up by donning uniform and going off to drive a lorry around Palestine. When he came back, he ignored Frances’s existence and married a girl he had met in the NAAFI.
Valerie was left with the baby, a green stain on her finger where the rolled gold had worn off the ring, and a reputation that she spent the rest of her life trying to shake off.
The opportunity to reestablish her presence in William’s life came when she read in the hatched matched and dispatched column of the local paper that Elizabeth had died. Valerie sent her condolences, then followed them up with a sombre and sympathetic visit to her former employer, and then followed that with another and then another.
William had been grateful to Valerie. He had loved his fragile girlish wife and had been distraught when she died. Stella, the daughter they had produced, was dazed and a little lost under the circumstances. William’s mother Venetia, a woman who due to Alzheimers, slipped in and out of time, could barely remember that Elizabeth had existed. Therefore, she was more of a liability than a help. Valerie was a godsend, she appointed herself as Williams help meet, pandered to the mother, fed and watered the daughter, and soothed William’s ego to such an extent that he began to believe that he couldn’t do without her. Six months after Elizabeth’s funeral, they married.
Socially, marrying Valerie had been a huge faux pas. Elizabeth had been popular and was much missed and mourned with quiet dignity by the social circle that the Porter clan had carefully nurtured. Valerie’s eagerness to fill Elizabeth’s shoes, coupled with her coarse pretensions did not go down well amongst the local ladies, and the increasing knowledge that Porter and Son had its back to the wall did nothing to endear the men. Williams’ mother, Venetia, soon alienated the few friends that did maintain contact.
People who had known the family in their heyday dined out for years on the story of Venetia Porter’s fall from grace. Rumour had it that some ladies had been invited to lunch at The Limes, which, curious to see the new Mrs. Porter in action, they had deigned to attend. Old Mrs. P, former mainstay of the WI and pillar of the community, appeared to be having a bad day, much to the embarrassment of new Mrs. P, who it had to be said, had tried a little too hard to impress. The pinnacle of the occasion had been when the old lady had been caught short during lunch and she had used the coalscuttle as a piss pot, to the public horror and the private amusement of all the ladies present.
After old Mrs. P’s party piece, The Limes became a social wasteland. Invitations sent were never accepted and none was ever received by Valerie. William’s business, so lovingly built by his father, went rapidly downhill under his pathetically inadequate management, and only narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the Official Receiver by being bought for a song by one of William’s business rivals. It was a harsh blow, and one that William decided was better considered if he viewed it through the bottom of a brandy bottle.
Valerie’s disappointment was both bitter and tangible, the life she had dreamed of for all those years had turned into a nightmare. All she had tried to do was better herself and all she had achieved was to land herself with a penniless drunkard with a mouse of a daughter and a witless old hag for a mother.
By then, she had managed to enrol Frances at the same modest prep school that Stella attended. Frances was a bright child, academically adept and supremely confident. In comparison, Stella was timid, average and in Valerie’s mind not worthy of investment. Stella was taken out of her private school and placed in the local primary; the money saved in fees was spent on finding a genteel residential home for Venetia. Frances, who showed promise, remained at
the prep school.
William acquiesced to everything; he had married Valerie because she was an efficient and decisive woman who seemed to know what was best for them all. That she was becoming sour and dominant had escaped his notice, alcohol had softened all of life’s sharp edges, and William was content to wallow in its blurry influence.
In Venetia’s absence, Valerie sold anything and everything she considered to be of value and raised enough money to buy a small shop that she intended should provide them all with an income. Wanting something that would have longevity, she invested in a Stationers, which brought in enough, just enough, money to keep up some semblance of a lifestyle. Therefore, the Porter family survived, aloof, isolated and nursing their privations with as much dignity as they could muster.
Until February 2007, when Valerie died.
Until Rachel, the accident who should have been a boy, as Valerie had so often reminded her, returned to her family home, opened a cupboard and was forced to stand to one side as the skeletons came marching out.
CHAPTER ONE
A week after Valerie’s ashes had been consigned to a green plastic jar and unceremoniously placed in the boot of Frances’s car, Stella disappeared, and Rachel was summoned by the second letter to return to the family home for the first time in nineteen years.
While the train took her relentlessly towards ‘home’, she pulled out the letter and reread Frances’s words.
“I am patently aware that you still harbour resentment about the past, however the house is a joint responsibility and whatever grudges you still bear, I feel you should put them aside for once and show a little loyalty to the family.” Frances’s letter baldly stated.
Rachel could imagine the gritted teeth and grim expression that had fuelled those words. Though it was only stale guilt and obligation that got her on to the train, she had to admit some curiosity for the nature of the ‘things’ that might need her intervention. Since when had Frances ever needed anything from her? With every mile the train advanced, she felt an increasing sense of apprehension. Given the circumstance of her departure, all those years ago it seemed bizarre that Frances would contact her at all, let alone request her help. The only logical conclusion she could draw was that her presence was needed in order to release some kind of financial settlement. Given that, for most of her life, Frances hadn’t been able to stand even being in the same room with her for more than a few minutes, it was unlikely that she wanted anything else.
By the time Rachel arrived at The Limes, Frances had already sold everything of any remote value that Valerie hadn’t, and had resorted to burning what was left on a large bonfire in the overgrown garden. Things that couldn’t be burned, like the ancient enamelled cooker that Venetia had bought in 1959, and the six broken vacuum cleaners that had languished in the attic for years (along with numerous other aged and dishevelled domestic items) were taken to the local tip by one Sid Priday, ‘The Man With A Van’ and his monosyllabic sidekick, Steve. Sid and Steve were cheap, available and discreet, and Frances valued discretion.
Sid and Steve had been at the house for days, repeatedly loading the van and making trips to the local landfill site as Frances steadily forced The Limes to disgorge its contents and bare its mouldering soul. Rachel arrived with barely enough time to salvage Stella’s meagre belongings from the purge, and only just managed to stop Steve feeding yet another box of books onto Frances’s pyre. They were Stella’s books, only children’s things, but classics that Stella had kept from her own childhood and had read to Rachel during hers. Frances argued that if Stella had wanted the books she would have taken them with her, but Rachel had shrugged and said that she was keeping them anyway. One of the rare pleasures of her childhood had been listening to Stella read those stories, so even if Stella didn’t want them, she did. Besides, monstrous though Frances could be, what kind of person would burn books?
In all honesty, Frances had been so eager to clear the house that she hadn’t really left much that Rachel could do, except stand by and wonder at her sister’s vigorous enthusiasm for incinerating every last stick the house had ever contained. It felt as if she were only there to witness the destruction.
‘I’ve spent too many years being oppressed by all this junk!’ Frances yelled above the crackling conflagration, eyes blazing bright as the fire as she gleefully watched the flames consume yet another chunk of their past. ‘It’s liberating, don’t you think?’
Sid, standing next to Rachel, shaking his head, said ‘I dunno, seems a shame really, could have got a few quid for it on eBay. Sacrilege’ then he looked back at the house, ‘must really have been something in its day.’
‘Probably’, Rachel said dully. Not that she could ever remember it being anything other than dark, damp, cold, and gloomy. By the time she had been born, The Limes was already suffering from serious neglect. Valerie had been too mean to heat the rooms they didn’t need, so mildew had taken hold and run riot over the walls, leaving an open invitation for anything associated with rot and decay to come on in and have a ball. Even in winter, it had sometimes been warmer outside than in, and at least the air outside wasn’t chock full of spores and must.
The house had eight bedrooms, in Rachel’s memory only three had ever been regularly used. Of the four bathrooms, they had all shared one, and out of the study, drawing room, morning room, and reception room, they had only ever used the morning room, as it was close to the kitchen and easier to heat. The attics and cellars had been no go zones for so long that she had almost forgotten they existed, other than as repositories for the things Valerie had been too lazy to throw away. As far as Rachel was concerned, The Limes was a mausoleum that housed a bitter past. If it ever had a heyday, it was so far back in the mists of time, she would have to squint to imagine it.
Much in the way that she needed to squint at Frances who was prodding the fire with an old hoe, her eyes glowing with reflected flames. In that moment, with her eyes blazing like fiendish rubies, she looked for all the world like a reject from the legions of hell. The thought made Rachel shudder, despite the heat that rolled across the neglected lawn.
‘Right, that’s going nicely.’ Frances called. ’Stephen, you come with me and we’ll tackle the outbuildings and Sidney, you can go with Rachel and make sure there’s nothing left in the house.’
A brief flicker of panic crossed Steve’s face as he looked at Sid. Both men had fallen foul of Frances’s imperious temper over the past few days and it was the short straw if one of them had to work alongside her. ‘Come on, chop chop!’ She shouted, clapping her hands as if Steve was a refractory Pekingese.
Rachel watched them go. ‘I suppose we’d better follow orders’ she said to Sid, preparing herself to go back into the near naked house.
Free of its clutter, the house was even more cavernous than she remembered, all its strident objections to old age and infirmity amplified by the lack of furnishings. With nothing to soak up the sound and attract the eye, it seemed bare and ashamed of itself and Rachel almost felt sorry for it, nobody loved it, and she couldn’t remember anybody ever having been really happy there. As a home, its heart had been hollowed out by acrimony and neglect, now it was being finished off by indifference.
She and Sid ascended the stairs, the bare treads creaking in protest. They checked the bedrooms, finding them only damp and empty, until they entered her mother’s room.
Valerie’s room had always been sacrosanct, an oasis of calm and solitude that she had often retreated to, complaining of a headache and clutching a medicinal bottle of sherry. Rachel couldn’t actually recall ever having been allowed inside. Now, only a few black sacks stood against the wall, ready for Sid’s next run to the tip. This first and final ingress into her mother’s secret chamber, the room that had been the inner sanctum, the room that had been the container of Valerie’s personal misery, was a frankly a disappointment for Rachel.
As a child, she had often spied into the room, by squinting through the keyhole like a woebegon
e Alice, imagining that beyond the locked door, lay another realm. The wardrobe in the corner might have been the entrance to another dimension, where Valerie existed differently and found the peace she had so often demanded before shutting the door against the needs of her family. Although in Rachel’s memory the White Witch had always had much more of a resemblance to Valerie than had ever been entirely comfortable.
Though Valerie’s recent presence still echoed in the hollow shabby room, Rachel could not for the life of her imagine what peace of mind her mother had ever found from lying on the bed staring drunkenly at the blowsy roses that scrambled across the wallpaper beneath the dust and cobwebs. Those keyhole shaped memories had suggested something exotically different from the chilly, mildewed reality she now faced.
The only piece of furniture not yet consigned to the tip, or dispatched to be consumed by the greedy flames of Frances’s blaze, was the wardrobe.
Rachel walked over to it, touched its mirrored door, which creaked open. She gave it a wry smile, unsurprised that it wasn’t, after all, filled with fur coats and melting snow.
‘She said I could have that.’ Sid said, afraid that Rachel would condemn it to the fire. ‘I was saving it for when we finished. That way I can put it on the van and take it straight home’.
The faintest aroma of mothballs wafted out as she shut the door. ‘I’ll lock it so it’ll be easier to move. You should hang on to the key, they’re always better when they still have their keys.’ The door was a little warped, and she had to shove it hard to make it fit properly, promptly dislodging the prized key in the process. ’Bugger!’ she said. The key had bounced on the bare floorboards and hidden itself underneath the wardrobe. On hands and knees, Rachel peered into the murky spider graveyard that lay beneath, ‘I can’t see it, we’ll have to pull the bloody thing out’.
