Tall Chimneys: A British Family Saga Spanning 100 Years

by Allie Cresswell

  I took the bus into town and went to the bank, but when I passed my cheque across the counter the clerk scrutinised it, excused himself and went into the manager’s office. After a while I too was summoned thither. The office was large, shabby, with a cracked leather chair behind a scratched but ancient desk. The bank manager was similarly scarred, from the first war, I imagined - he was too old to have served in the recent one. One side of his face and head was pink and ridged and hairless and did not move when he spoke or frowned or smiled - not that he smiled much, during our conversation. The eye stared ahead of him at a fixed point above my head, and did not blink. The other side of his face was grey and haggard, with a tired grey eye deeply set into a saggy socket beneath a woolly brow. His left arm seemed weak and shrivelled; for the duration of our interview it rested on the desk like a forgotten umbrella. Before him, on the blotter, a huge ledger was open, laced with neatly calligraphed notations and columns of figures. The number at the bottom of the column was very small, and underlined, twice.

  ‘This is your account,’ the manager said. ‘There have been no deposits for some time.’

  ‘My brother has passed away,’ I told him.

  ‘Withdrawals have continued sporadically,’ he went on.

  ‘I try to call on the account as rarely as possible,’ I said. ‘I live hand to mouth. I have a daughter to feed.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘Times are very hard.’

  ‘Can you cash my cheque today?’ I asked, more sharply than I had intended.

  He pulled the cheque towards him and looked at it. ‘Today, yes,’ he said, ‘but unless there are deposits in the future, I fear the account will be closed.’

  From the bank I passed down the street and across the market place to visit the Council offices to enquire about accommodation. The woman there led me to a desk in a large room where several of her colleagues were interviewing other applicants. She was corpulent, her chair creaked as she sat down on it and her thighs, in their cheap dress, spilled over the edges of it. Her fat fingers were crammed with tacky, paste rings. She licked her thumb and finger with a wet tongue and lifted a form from a stack at the edge of the desk. ‘Name?’ she carped, ‘marital status?’

  ‘Widow,’ I told her. She glanced at my hands. I wore no wedding ring. She made a cynical face and I avoided her eyes.

  ‘Current address?’

  I told her.

  ‘Sounds grand,’ she remarked. ‘What do you do there? Housekeeper?’

  ‘Sort of,’ I stammered. ‘The house belongs… belonged to my family. It’s been sold now, so I have to move out.’

  ‘I see,’ she scribbled something on the form before moving on to the next question. ‘Occupation?’

  ‘I… I have none,’ I croaked.

  She wrote something in the box. I could read it, upside down. It said ‘lady.’

  ‘I’m not a ‘lady’!’ I remonstrated with her. ‘I work. I cook, I clean, I grow vegetables.’ I held out my hands as evidence. They were calloused, the nails rimmed with dirt.

  ‘Not a lady!’ the fat woman declared, catching the eye of a colleague on the next desk.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ I said, sulkily.

  ‘Means?’ she ploughed on. ‘Savings, property?’

  Her colleague, in the next desk, added, sotto voce, ‘Jewellery, works of art, houses in Scotland?’

  ‘None,’ I said, firmly.

  ‘Nothing?’ She gave me an exasperated look. ‘How will you pay the rent, then?’

  ‘I’ll find work,’ I said, in a small voice, ‘cleaning, in a factory, anything.’

  ‘But at present, you have nothing; no job offer, no savings. Family?’

  ‘I have a daughter.’

  ‘Oh! For heaven’s sake,’ she burst out. ‘Why didn’t you say so? That’s a different form altogether.’

  But, it transpired, whichever form we filled in, my chances of gaining council accommodation were zero.

  ‘Your situation isn’t a housing issue, it’s a welfare matter,’ the woman told me finally, folding her fat little hands. ‘We don’t deal with those here.’

  ‘But I’ll be homeless,’ I insisted. ‘How can homelessness not be a housing matter?’

  ‘Because of your daughter,’ she said. ‘We could offer temporary accommodation for a single homeless person, but only in an emergency. But when children are involved, we hand it over to Welfare. She’d probably be taken into care.’

  ‘I wouldn’t allow it,’ I said, through thin lips.

  ‘You would have no choice,’ she replied.

  Outside the building I paused to pull on my gloves. A man who had been seated at another desk approached me and asked me for a light for his cigarette. He was thin, his face lined and sallow. He had a beakish nose and irregular, brown teeth.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t smoke.’

  ‘Looking for work, are you?’ he asked, placing the unlit cigarette behind his ear.

  ‘Y… Yes,’ I faltered. I threw a glance behind him, back into the vestibule of the council offices. If I had employment, a means to pay the rent, perhaps the woman would relent and put my name on her list. ‘What is it? In a factory?’

  He shook his head. ‘Comfortable work, for a woman like you,’ he said. ‘Three or four evenings a week. Easy.’

  ‘Bar work?’

  He smiled. ‘In a bar, yes.’ He lifted the cigarette off his ear and put it in his mouth, and took a box of matches from the pocket of his grubby gabardine. ‘But not behind the bar. More in the hostessing line.’

  I took a step backwards, appalled. ‘You don’t mean…?’ I struggled to speak the word, ‘in a brothel?’

  ‘No!’ he shook his head, ‘it’s a reputable club, private, for gentlemen. You’d be an escort.’ He struck the match and looked at me, narrowly, through its guttering flame. ‘All quite respectable.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I stuttered, stepping away from him, ‘oh no, thank you.’

  ‘Call me, if you change your mind,’ he cried after me. ‘Ask for Clive at the Admiral Rodney.’

  The whole day shook me considerably. Avenues I thought might be open to me were turning out to be closed tight. Others, opportunities I would never consider, were proving all-too prevalent. My hands were shaking on the bus back to the village, and I almost dropped the money for my fare as I handed it to the conductor.

  I got off the bus at the church and passed through the lych gate into the grave yard. John’s grave had been marked by a simple stone with his name, dates and the word ‘artist’ chiselled in plain lettering. I tidied away the desiccated remains of the flowers I had left a few weeks previously and crouched on the lush grass with my hand on the warm stone.

  ‘I wish I could join you,’ I said to the empty air. ‘I wish I could lie down and melt through the earth and lie next to you.’

  The wind rippled the grass around me and sparrows in the hedgerow squabbled amongst themselves. Across the churchyard I heard the school bell toll the end of another day, but no comfort came.

  Awan and I walked together across the moor. The exercise, and Awan’s eager chatter about her day at school, calmed me. Also, the closer I got to home, the safer I felt, although I knew this to be specious; I was not safe at Tall Chimneys, not really.

  The gatehouse was shut up. I hadn’t been there since John’s death. Some part of me had felt by leaving the door and the shutters tightly closed I could keep some part of him contained within. I thought of him, there, staring out of the upper window and across the moor, capturing the texture of heather and the colour of cloud in the prism of his eye and reaching for his palette and brush. I craved his body and visited his grave from time to time because I knew that his remains rested there, but his essence was elsewhere, at large, in everything beautiful and, a little, walled up in the gatehouse.

  We passed by and entered the leafy tunnel of the driveway. Our feet knew the topography of the pot holes and crumbling kerbs so we did not stumble even in the semi gloo
m of the forest shadow. Our voices always dipped as we walked beneath the cathedral of trees; a feeling of reverence stole over us as we walked. We followed the switch-back down and down. Brambles were encroaching onto the driveway, and a fallen tree which lay partially across it would make access difficult for a motor vehicle, but none ever came and went in those days and Awan and I stepped around it, as we always did. Then the ground levelled out and we came into the sunshine of the gravel sweep and again I was struck by the enchanted situation of Tall Chimneys, lost in its hidden dell, apart from the world and left behind by time. The air was still, as though holding its breath or under a spell. The familiar gables and loved mullions welcomed me like old friends, the crazed glazing of the windows glowed like mirrors in the afternoon sun and the chimneys stood sentinel over all.

  Awan ran ahead and went into the house. I stood alone where the edge of shadow met the pool of light.

  We were all interwoven, Tall Chimneys and me. My sense of self and my family heritage wandered along the echoic landings and glinted like the sun on the flaking plaster of the staterooms. My lifeblood flowed along the woodland byways where I had played with Kenneth as a child or limped behind dear Mr Weeks; they were as familiar to me as the pattern of veins on my wrist. John, and the love we had shared, towered like the chimneys, bringing warmth and life. The hidden doors and secret passages of the house reminded me of Cameron and the furtive, deliciously naughty passion he had awoken in me, and the possibility he had offered of escape. Awan was the corner stone and crowning glory. They all wrapped themselves round the fabric of Tall Chimneys like ivy, inveigling into the very stones, imprinted on the façade for all eternity. We were one. The place was myself - old fashioned, unworldly, of a time and place now obsolete. We could serve no useful purpose, except to one another. I could no sooner leave any of it than I could step out of my own skin.

  The months of Ratton’s absence wore on. Christmas then Easter. I knew I could expect his return any day but I was no closer finding an alternative to his proposal. Some days I contemplated the prospect with equanimity; he had said that he loved me, and, whatever skewed idea he had of love, I believed him. Surely he would not behave brutishly? Other days I recoiled from the very idea of it, and maintained a fiction in my head that, if it came to it, he would not evict me if I refused him but allow me to stay on.

  Week followed week and he did not return, or write, and we struggled by. I grew thinner than ever, and spent my evenings taking in my clothes. I hardly knew the face that looked back at me from the mirror. I had wrinkles under my eyes, a deep score between my nose and my mouth’s corners. My skin was an unhealthy colour. I was often hungry and always lonely. Depression dogged me like a whining puppy but I kicked it away and soldiered on.

  Spring came, and Awan sat the entrance examination for the local Grammar school. I begged spare onion sets and thinnings from other people’s vegetable gardens and also seed potatoes. Although these had come off ration the previous year it was still cheaper to grow them. I set myself the task of clearing the choked raised beds and fumigating the greenhouse, determinedly ignoring the prospect that I would not remain in residence long enough to see either bare any kind of crop. As I worked I thought about Ratton, indeed, he was an ever-present spectre in my mind. My imagination entertained notions of him dead in Hong Kong from some exotic malady, or attached to some wealthy (but not very choosy) Eastern woman, all idea of marriage to me forgotten. I fantasised everything from his elevation to High Commissioner to his shipwreck - anything which would mean that I could stay at Tall Chimneys, all the while knowing it was in vain.

  The summer wore on. We heard that Awan had passed the examination to attend the Grammar school in town and although I was immensely proud of her I groaned inwardly; how would I afford the uniform? Then I recalled Giles Percy’s promise, and wrote to him requesting assistance. It hurt my pride to do it - it felt like begging - and even as I held the letter in the mouth of the post box I hesitated still. But what choice did I have? I thrust the letter through the slot and walked away.

  Ann Widderington invited us to help with the harvest in late August. Her husband had returned from war unscathed. From the capable and assertive woman she had become in his absence, Ann had reverted to cowering skivvy. One of her sons had died in the conflict but both the others were married and had brought their wives to live at Clough Farm where they seemed to create more work for Ann, rather than less. She lived at the beck and call of her bullying husband, her loutish sons and her querulous, demanding daughters in law, both of whom were expecting babies. I didn’t want to help out that year, the cloud of my own future hung round me like a pall and I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep my troubles to myself. But I wanted to give Ann any assistance and encouragement I could, so Awan and I went along on the appointed day. Awan ran to meet the hoard of children hovering by the farm gate. All their talk was of new school in September, and I quailed when I thought of how I would break the news that the Grammar could not be afforded after all.[18] It occurred to me, if I married Ratton, Awan would have to move schools anyway, to one near Leeds, or even go to boarding school. Nothing could be decided until I had come to a conclusion concerning his proposal, and time was running short. I sighed and set my shoulders as I made for the bustling kitchen; I would not think about that today.

  As always, Kenneth was crucial to the success of the harvest. I saw him at a distance driving a tractor, and later squirming under a baler to make some adjustment to the mechanism. He raised his hand to me in greeting, and smiled, but we had no conversation then. Miss Eccles, the school mistress, who usually left the area for the duration of the long vacation, had presented herself to help in the kitchen, and I heard murmurings she and Kenneth were walking out. I was surprised; she was older even than Kenneth and had been thought a confirmed spinster. On the other hand, I knew her to be kind and loving towards children, a quiet, self-effacing individual who might suit Kenneth to a tee. Bobby was present in his capacity as apprentice, much-grown and sporting a shadow of fuzz on his cheeks. He eschewed the other children, considering himself too grown up for their childish amusements. He and Awan had some converse and then he stalked away, clutching a fistful of spanners, and the dismay on her face made my heart sink further.

  ‘You’re quiet,’ Pat Coombes observed, as we stood at a trestle table which had been set up in a corner of the yard, spreading margarine onto bread for the lunchtime sandwiches, ‘what’s up?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, busying myself with the bread knife so I wouldn’t have to look her in the eye, ‘you know.’

  ‘Still bothering you, is he? That Ratton?’

  ‘He’s gone away, but his proposal is still on the table,’ I muttered, looking round to make sure we couldn’t be overheard. ‘You haven’t told anyone, have you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she replied, stiffly. ‘I know how to keep my mouth shut.’

  ‘I know, Pat, it’s just that I’d be mortified if I thought anyone knew there was even the possibility…’

  ‘But there is…’ Pat interrupted, ‘isn’t there? You haven’t said “no”.’

  ‘Lots of people make sensible marriages,’ I said, in spite of myself. ‘In the past, every marriage was arranged for the mutual benefit of the families. It can’t all be about reckless romance and dancing.’

  Pat humphed. ‘You don’t believe that,’ she sneered. ‘If there isn’t love there has to be liking and respect. You marry that maggot and you’ll end up like her,’ she nodded across the yard to where Ann carried a cup of tea to one of her daughters in law, basking in the sunshine on a bench. ‘Did you see the bruise on her arm?’

  ‘Yes. She said she did it in the dairy.’

  ‘Dairy my eye!’

  ‘I know. But I wouldn’t stand for that kind of behaviour from Ratton.’

  ‘I expect Ann said that, at first.’

  We were silent for a time, making the sandwiches.

  ‘God, I hate corned beef,’ I remarked, after
a while.

  ‘So does everyone, but what else is there? What else troubles you?’

  I brought it out in a rush. ‘I can’t afford the uniform for Awan,’ I wailed. ‘I’ve written to her… godfather for help, but had no reply.’

  She turned to face me. ‘Are things really as bad as that?’

  I nodded. ‘I have no money. None. The account Colin used to pay into is empty.’

  ‘Isn’t there anything you can sell?’

  ‘I have some of John’s work but that is Awan’s and anyway, I can’t bear to part with it,’ I said. ‘The contents of the house were sold to Ratton.’

  ‘He won’t be familiar with every stick of furniture,’ Pat advised. ‘You could sell a few pieces, surely?’

  ‘That would be stealing,’ I shuddered, ‘but in any case, dismantling the house would feel like the beginning of the end.’

  ‘From what I hear, it’s dismantling itself.’

  The men began to troop in from the fields for their lunch. As I handed out sandwiches and slices of pie, Awan came and stood next to me, her face a picture of misery.

  ‘What’s the matter, darling?’ I asked her, giving her a quick hug.

  ‘Bobby won’t speak to me,’ she muttered, pressing her face into my side. ‘He says he’s too old to play kids’ games, now. And he says people at his school don’t mix with Grammar school people.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, wishing I could protect her from the hurt the world inflicts, ‘but you have lots of other friends here. Here. Have a sandwich.’