As unreal to me was the concept that John would go away and never come back. I would never see him again. As long as the weeks and months of waiting had been in the past, they had always been alleviated by the sure knowledge that - for whatever reason - he would return. But this time he would not, I knew it. I supposed it must be the way a condemned man must feel, convicted and destined to die. The days creep inexorably by, then the hours, then the minutes until he is brought to the scaffold. And nothing he can do or say will avert what will be; no last minute reprieve will come, no friend will ride to the rescue, no dexterous twist or act of derring-do will snatch him from his fate.
My heart fluttered like a frightened bird. But outwardly, I was calm. I was resigned. I walked back to John’s room. I thought he was asleep, at first, propped up on the pillows as I had left him, but slumped slightly to one side. But he did not wake when I shook him, and, when I lifted his head, a mess of yellow pus streaked with blood spurted from beneath the dressing on his neck and splattered the pillow.
He did not regain consciousness. His breathing became more and more laboured, bubbling and stertorous, his stomach rising and falling to fill his lungs with air which could not penetrate the liquescent mess which his lungs had become. A secondary infection had attacked the lymph nodes in his neck. The next stage, the doctor advised, would have been an infection of the meninges, a brain fever producing rages and hallucinations, distressing for all concerned. Thankfully we were spared it; John passed away in the early hours of 29th December. I was with him. He was not alone. That, at least, is a comfort.
Amelia helped me wash John’s body and lay him back innocuously in bed, so Awan could come and say goodbye. ‘You don’t seem disturbed by death,’ I commented.
‘I’ve seen plenty of it, and much more untidy than this,’ she said, matter-of-factly.
‘You knew John as well as I did,’ I reasoned. ‘Better, I sometimes think. Aren’t you… sad?’
‘Of course I am, you little idiot,’ she said, and looked up at me. Her eyes were bulging with unshed tears. ‘I’m heart-broken. John was a good man - better than you ever knew, and more talented than the world knows.’
She finished tidying the bed, gathering up the cloths and linen to take to the laundry.
Later, I held Awan on my knee until she had cried herself to sleep. ‘It would have been better if you’d taken him,’ I whispered to Amelia, who occupied the chair across the fire, and sat staring into the flames. Awan was used to John going away, and being away for long periods. She could have coped with that long stretching out of their relationship, its gradual numbing, its gentle separation and sinking into memory. This was too sudden, too cruel.
‘I tried,’ Amelia said, cryptically, before I could expand my meaning.
The following day the undertaker came and took John away. The snow turned to ugly slush and the children’s snowman became a grey stump on the mushed-up lawn. I stripped the bed and washed the sheets, even though they had been clean on for the laying-out, and opened the windows. The air was sharp and cold. It scoured the room of death.
In the afternoon, Amelia’s suitcases appeared in the hall. ‘Will Kenneth drive me to the station?’ she asked. She was dressed for travel, the unflattering brown suit made rather nice with a silk scarf and an amber brooch.
I goggled at her. ‘What? You’re leaving? Now?’
‘Of course,’ she said, checking her handbag.
‘But…’ I was flabbergasted. ‘What about the funeral?’
‘The plane won’t wait. I have to get to the airport by first thing tomorrow. There won’t be another opportunity. These passes aren’t transferable.’
‘What? You’re going to America anyway? Without John? How crass!’ I shouted, ‘how crass and unfeeling you are! He saved your life! Doesn’t that count for anything?’
‘A great deal. But what’s done is done. John won’t miss me.’
‘I might miss you,’ I cried. ‘Don’t you think, just for this once, I might need the support of my family?’
‘Oh,’ she said. Clearly, she hadn’t given it a second thought. ‘You’ll manage,’ she said, airily, ‘you always have.’ She turned to a mirror and tweaked her hair.
‘I haven’t heard from Colin either,’ I wailed.
‘Oh I don’t think Colin will come,’ Amelia informed me, without turning round. ‘He isn’t well, you know.’
I looked at her aghast. ‘Talk about kicking a person when they are down,’ I spluttered out. ‘I have just lost my husband. Now you tell me I might lose my home as well. If Colin dies, what will happen to Tall Chimneys?’
Amelia shrugged. ‘You’ll be alright. You can sell John’s work. You have a stash of it, do you?’
‘Some pieces,’ I mumbled, thinking about the portraits in the gatehouse. Nothing on earth would persuade me to part with them. I had an idea there were some other canvasses in one of the north wing rooms.
‘You should contact John’s agent,’ Amelia advised. ‘I could see him if you like, while I’m passing through London. It will be tight, time-wise, but if it would help…’ She was pulling on her gloves.
I mumbled something about being grateful.
‘And you should move,’ Amelia said, gathering her belongings. ‘For God’s sake, get out of this crumbling mausoleum, take the child and go somewhere and live.’
‘What on?’ I cried.
‘On your wits, if you have any. That’s what I’ve done, all these years.’
‘I’m not you,’ I said, dropping into the hall chair, ‘I wish I was.’
‘Isn’t that ironic?’ Amelia said, pausing by the door. ‘I’ve spent the past nine years wishing I were you.’ She pulled open the front door and stepped out. She left without saying goodbye.
‘It will be a sorry send-off for poor John,’ I said, to the empty house.
It was not, though. The village turned out to see John interred in the church graveyard. Rose and Kenneth and their boys walked behind Awan and me, and behind them their parents, my friends from the WI, Ann Widderington and the land girls and Patricia from The Plough. Colonel Beverage came with his wife. The rector’s family was there, and the commanding officer from the airfield. Miss Eccles brought some of Awan’s classmates. They made a solemn procession through the sodden cemetery and gathered round the grave, and Awan and I threw Christmas roses onto the casket.
Afterwards I invited them all back to the house for refreshments, and threw open the principal rooms to their slack-jawed amazement. None of the villagers had ever stepped inside Tall Chimneys; it must have seemed a curio to them, a museum of a place occupied by an odd woman and her child. Whether they imagined we lived in the rarefied splendour of bygone times or floated round in the imposing rooms wearing crinolines, I do not know. I do not suppose that in their wildest imaginings they conceived of the regime of soot-fall clearing and bucket-emptying which was the actuality of life at Tall Chimneys. None of them made enquiry. They stood in respectful huddles under the heavy crystal chandeliers, in awe of the faded grandeur, eyeing the gilt-framed mirrors and the cabinets of ancient artefacts while Rose and I served them tea, and I was suddenly overwhelmed by gratitude to them; they had taken me as I was into their community, and Awan too. White with grief as she was, she chatted to them quietly, and took their hands to show them the books in the library and the frowning portraits on the walls, and helped me circulate with plates of sandwiches, and I was immensely proud of her.
1944 - 1949
Colin did not return to Tall Chimneys, but Sylvester Ratton came quite frequently during the remainder of 1944 and throughout 1945, bringing parties of business people with him. Due to rationing, and the general shortages of everything, our hospitality would have been lack-lustre. My stock of preserved foods was woeful - I had paid no attention to the garden since Cameron had left - and the cellars at Tall Chimneys had long since been decimated. But Ratton’s visits were always presaged by a delivery in an unmarked van of wines and spirits, and often
of food-stuffs too. Where he got these riches, I do not know and did not ask, I simply made sure that some was hived off to benefit my friends in the village, many of whom were really suffering. I employed as many of them as I could to help out during Ratton’s visits, and I hope the gentlemen rewarded them with handsome gratuities.
Colin continued making payments for the upkeep of the house from his own purse but these were less than formerly and more sporadic. However, I kept the house comfortable enough and the men Ratton brought seemed impressed by it. I surmised they were a new generation of tycoons, men who, like Ratton, had taken advantage of the war to make money. They were often loud-mouthed and full of their own self-importance, and spoke with accents which did not suggest a public school or university background. A few of them were veterans, sporting various limps and scars, but most had been in reserved occupations or had otherwise evaded active service. None, I thought, were frequent visitors to country houses even of the calibre of Tall Chimneys, which, in the scheme of things, was not grand. Their chief concern now seemed how to manage the change from supplying the government with armaments, uniforms and equipment to manufacturing goods which would find a market with the general public both in Britain and abroad; I supposed they could see the gravy train of government contracts was coming to an end. It seemed to me that Ratton, at least, need have no worries. He had clearly made a fortune.
Ratton never brought any women to the house, even his prim secretaries seemed to have been abandoned. But if I had feared John’s death might lay me open to a renewed assault, I was wrong. For some reason Ratton treated me with a new kind of respect and ensured his guests did likewise. I did not find him lurking in the kitchen, he made no sneering remarks, he maintained a studied civility towards Awan. He offered his condolences on John’s death and I could see in his eye no glint of cynicism or cruelty. I found his presence in the house more tolerable and did not dread his visits as I once had.
April and May of 1945 saw momentous events; 1,500,000 Germans were taken prisoner by the Western Allies; the horrors of Hitler’s concentration camps were exposed by journalists travelling with the advancing forces. Mussolini was executed and four days later the Germans in Italy surrendered. The following day, Hitler took his own life and by 2nd of May Berlin had fallen. It took four more days for their utter capitulation across all theatres of war.
We celebrated wildly in the village, the women bringing food they had hoarded, the men breaking out home-brew, the children cavorting in the pouring rain. There was hopeful talk of reinstating the green and the cricket pitch, of getting back to normality. Three or four girls who had struck up relationships with Airmen spoke of travelling to America, the beginning of the wave of what would become known as GI brides. They made me think of Cameron, not as a substitute for John but as an alternative. Part of me hoped Captain Brook had been wrong, that Cameron would be discovered alive if not well in one of the many internment camps for POWs which were being discovered, but it was a vain hope.
Across the moor, on the periphery of the airbase, some-one had built a bonfire and lit it, as a beacon of hope and jubilation, I suppose. But it sent up more smoke than flame - the weather had been so wet - and I gazed across at the rising tower of smoke and thought of the towns and cities across Europe and the whole world, razed to ashes. It was a day of mixed emotions. While our faces ached from laughter, our eyes brimmed again and again with tears for the ones who would never return; sons and brothers, husbands and fathers. We shared our grief as we shared our joy, without words. What words were there? Peace. But at such a cost.
Life went on, but it was hard, and tragedy had not finished with us.
In 1946 Rose was killed in a road accident. She had been in town, attending a lunchtime concert at Bobby’s school. The event had gone on longer than expected and the mayor had taken the opportunity to make a lengthy speech. Rose, fearing she would miss the bus back to the village, had stepped onto the road without looking properly. A heavy wagon hit her, killing her instantly.
The first we knew that something was wrong was when Mrs Greene arrived with the children from school. I was taking down the washing from the line when they arrived, in a neat and orderly crocodile, from the shadow of the drive. Kenneth emerged from his workshop, wiping his hands on a rag. That Rose should have left the children waiting without good cause was inconceivable to us all. We threw each other white-gilled looks of alarm and concern whilst placating the children with drinks and biscuits and reassuring them that all would be well.
Later, a police car arrived and took Kenneth away to identify Rose’s body. I fed the children and got them bedded down for the night. Bobby, of course, had arrived home before that and without giving me time to break the terrible news to him, reported an accident near the bus station which had excited ghoulish interest on the school bus. He gave me chapter and verse on the police cordon, the ambulances, the wagon cab which had ploughed into a shop front and its load which had spilled across the High Street. I remained tight-lipped until Brian and Anthony and Awan were asleep but my face must have betrayed me because immediately after we had put their light out and crept from the room he asked me what the matter was.
‘Oh Bobby,’ I stammered out, tears spilling down my cheeks, ‘oh Bobby, your dear, lovely mother… She’s dead. I’m so sorry, Bobby. I’m so sorry.’
When Kenneth came home, he was a shell of a man; stooped and broken. He sat limply in a chair while I made him tea and something to eat, but both went untasted. Bobby sat by his side and held his hands - those large, clever, capable hands which were never still and never empty but always busy with repairs, coaxing machinery, scattering seed, slick with oil or black with soil - they lay unresisting and hollow. Bobby had cried and his eyes were red and bloodshot, but Kenneth’s eyes were dry and dull, without glimmer or spark.
I tidied the room and set the table for breakfast, and mopped my streaming eyes again and again, and still the two of them sat like frozen statues by the dying fire and said nothing. I wondered whether some currents of converse were passing between them that I couldn’t hear, just through the connection of their hands and I wished I could be part of it. I feared for Kenneth. He had always been my rock. Would this unhinge him? I did not think I could bear to lose him as well.
After a while Bobby got up and went to bed. Kenneth sat on for a while and I settled myself on one of the kitchen chairs to make vigil. I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up the room was dark, the fire was out and no moon shone through the open curtains. From behind Kenneth and Rose’s bedroom door I could hear a noise; a dry bark of grief which extended itself into a low, suppressed wail. It drew fresh tears from me - his pain was as hard to bear as her death. I didn’t want to intrude. I felt that to do so would irritate, not salve, the pain of such a private man. But neither could I endure to do nothing. I dropped to my knees and crawled across the wooden floor to his door, and leaned against it with all my weight, pressing my care towards him as though it could penetrate the timber. There was a gap beneath the door and I slipped my fingers through it. The chokes of his anguish went on, but I felt the brush of his fingertips against mine and I felt sure, then, that he would not disappear beyond my reach.
It was inevitable that Kenneth would move back to the village. He couldn’t manage the three boys by himself and his mother had plenty of room for them in her house behind the shop. I suppose the accommodation they had occupied since their marriage held too many memories of Rose for him, too; the evidence of her care and industry were everywhere, from the curtains she had stitched and hung at the windows to the preserved fruits which were stacked on their kitchen shelves. On the other hand, Kenneth had been intimate with Tall Chimneys and all its environs since he had been a small boy - his life was as entwined with it as mine was, and I could only imagine the wrench it must have been for him to leave it behind.
He packed up their belongings and loaded them into the back of a van, quietly and calmly as he did everything, but with an additional s
tiffness and rigid solemnity which I interpreted as a sign that he was struggling to restrain his emotions.
‘Will you be able to continue to help me?’ I asked him. ‘I know it’s hard,’ I qualified, ‘every square inch of the house and garden holds such memories. But you belong here as much as I do.’
He replied with an agonised expression, his hazel eyes limpid with grief. They met mine for a brief moment before sliding away. ‘A labour of love,’ he mumbled, fussing with a tangle of string. And then, in a voice so low I could hardly hear him, ‘But I never belonged here.’
‘You did,’ I said, putting my hand on his arm. ‘You do.’
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t have wanted both. Mistake to stay. Should have made a new start. Rose felt it, resented it.’
I started. Had the house, then, been a cause of friction in their marriage? In truth I knew I had paid Kenneth and Rose little enough for their work, perhaps Rose had begrudged it? Providing them with a home had probably hardly recompensed them for the hours and effort they had selflessly put in to keeping the house in order. I had thought of us as friends, as equal sharers in the pleasures and the difficulties of living at Tall Chimneys. Had she felt differently? Had he?
‘So,’ I faltered, fighting tears, ‘you’ll make a clean break now, will you? A new start? I do understand, you know.’
Tall Chimneys: A British Family Saga Spanning 100 Years Page 27
