Lily's Journey

by Tania Crosse

  I felt the crimson flaming in my cheeks, but I would stand my ground. Even in the uncertain light from the oil-lamps, I could see his face turn puce and his mean mouth knotted. But his anger must have quickly subsided, though he said nothing and I felt obliged to break the ensuing silence.

  ‘This has all come as a terrible shock to me,’ I began openly. ‘I was too young to remember anything about what happened, and you know I only found out when Mum – Ellen – died. So I do hope we can live happily together.’

  My father was studying me with penetrating eyes, but to my relief, after only a few seconds, he went back to his meal, dipping a chunk of bread into the swimming yellow fat. He chewed on it and swallowed, taking his time.

  ‘All the other cottages are empty,’ he finally replied to my earlier question. ‘Last people moved out a year or so ago. And that’s how I like it. Nice and quiet and no one to bother me. So if you don’t like it, Copper Knob, then tough.’

  I had felt somewhat concerned at the knowledge that we were the only inhabitants at the remote moorland hamlet. But my apprehension was obliterated by the anger that swept through me like a roaring breaker. Copper Knob! I’d been teased often enough at school, but had learnt to rise above it. The fact was that I wasn’t really a redhead at all! My hair was a strong, gilded blond that in certain lights took on a sandy shade that some ignorant people saw as a prompt to ridicule. Normally I shrugged off any mockery, but just now it spurred my fury.

  ‘Oh, I think I can put up with it,’ I snapped back, ignoring his personal insult. ‘And by the way, this must be the worst food I’ve ever had the misfortune to taste. It’s worse than school dinners!’

  ‘Think you can do better, then?’

  ‘Infinitely. I told you in my letter I’m a good cook. Mum taught me well.’

  ‘Then you’d best prove it. If you can manage the range,’ he sneered.

  ‘Well, if you can, then I’m sure I can, too.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he grunted. ‘We’ll see. Well, you can make yourself useful and wash up if you don’t want to eat God’s good food.’

  ‘I’ll have some bread first if you’ve no objection. Do you have any cheese or anything to go with it?’

  He glared at me for a moment, but then jabbed his head at a small cupboard in the corner by the door. It had a mesh door, and when I opened it, I saw it was lined with sheet metal, lead I presumed, and had two marble shelves. It felt amazingly cool, and I supposed was the equivalent of our cold pantry.

  ‘In the blue dish,’ my father’s voice directed me. ‘None of your factory rubbish. Straight from the farm.’

  I brought it out and set it on the table. My knife slipped into a soft, white substance that spread almost like butter. It tasted good and surprisingly strong. I said so, trying to break the tension.

  ‘If you want hard cheese, you’ll have to buy it in Princetown,’ Sidney told me, his voice less testy. ‘There’s Bolts and there’s Bottom Finch’s. Bolts is the one on the corner. Called The Mart as well, it is. They sell everything, including shoes,’ he added pointedly. ‘But if that doesn’t suit madam’s taste, you’ll have to go into Tavistock. And you’ll have to go there to get a job. You won’t find much work in Princetown.’

  I nodded. There was much I had to learn, and I’d have to get used to being a stranger in an unfamiliar place. I didn’t suppose my father’s reclusive and abrupt manner had ever endeared him to the local people, so I would have to make my own impression on them. I found it hard to believe this unpleasant, abrasive man was my father, and yet what should I have expected from someone who had abandoned me as an innocent child?

  I did the washing-up in a bowl on the table while my father sat in an old easy chair by the range and watched me with eagle eyes. It was so peculiar not having a sink with taps. I dreaded to think what we would use as a bath. Perhaps we didn’t. Back in London, we had a plumbed-in tub. Admittedly, it was in the kitchen of Miss Chalfont’s basement flat at the bottom of the house, and the hot water came from a gas-heater on the wall. Once a week on Friday night, my mother and I had the use of it, and Miss Chalfont never seemed to mind.

  My thoughts were wandering back to London again as I dried the crockery and replaced it on the dresser. I felt exhausted, not just from the long journey but from the dubious welcome I had received. Perhaps everything would seem better in the morning.

  ‘I’d like to go to bed now, please, if you don’t mind.’ The fight had suddenly drained out of me and I reverted to my normal polite self. ‘Where do I do my teeth?’

  ‘Here. Spit into the washing-up water and I’ll throw it out later.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ It didn’t seem very hygienic, but I was too tired to care. It crossed my mind that I should purchase an old-fashioned jug and bowl for my room, if such a thing could be found in 1952. ‘I’ll just get my toothbrush,’ I said, and then remembering how cold the bedroom was, I added, ‘Can I fill my hot-water bottle, too, please?’

  ‘You can, but I’m not stoking up the range just for a hot-water bottle. You’ll have to make do with water from the kettle as it is.’

  ‘Yes, that’ll do. Thank you.’

  I ran upstairs into the freezing room to collect what I needed, and my eye fell on the chamber pot. As there was no water upstairs, I would need to use it now if I wanted to wash my hands afterwards. I squatted down over the pot. It felt horrible and degrading, but I guessed I would just have to get used to it. Down in the lovely warm kitchen again, I washed my hands and cleaned my teeth, and then stood in front of my father, clutching my lukewarm rubber bottle.

  ‘Goodnight, then,’ I said tentatively, wondering if I should give him a peck on the cheek.

  ‘I’ll be up myself soon,’ was his answer. ‘I go to work early.’

  With that, he opened the well-thumbed Bible on his lap and began to read. I took that as my dismissal and took myself back up to the bedroom. I swear it was no less cold than if I’d been standing outside. I changed into my nightie with lightning speed, pulling my thick cardigan back on over the top before diving into bed. I cuddled the hot-water bottle, but it gave off so little warmth that I was still chilled to the marrow. I felt so wretched that it reminded me of Jeannie’s words when I had told her where I was going to live, and we had pored over the map. Dartmoor had seemed huge with very few villages or even roads.

  ‘Blimey,’ she’d whistled. ‘Nearest place Princetown, you say? Well, that looks a bit bigger, I suppose. But bleedin’ ’ell, Lily!’ she’d suddenly cried. ‘Dartmoor Prison’s at Princetown! ’Ere, you sure your old man ain’t been in clink and that’s why ’e’s been away all these years?’

  At the time, she had made me rock with laughter, but now it didn’t seem the least bit funny. I felt as if I was the one who was in prison as I shivered beneath the heavy, scratchy blankets. I heard my father come to bed in the other room which was probably much warmer than mine being above the kitchen. Although my eyes were pricking beneath their closed lids, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned. I just wanted my mum. Oh, please come back! I felt my mouth twist into an ugly grimace, but I couldn’t stop it as the familiar, cruel pain raked my throat. Mum had gone, and the only time I felt really close to her again was when I read the letter. She had kept it from me that she was ill and that despite taking medication, she could go at any time. And yet she had found the strength to write to me, explaining everything and leaving the letter in the safe hands of Dr Robbins to give to me on her death. If I read it again now, perhaps it would help.

  I fumbled with the matches and managed to light the candle in its holder on the floor as there was no bedside table. The flame was so tiny I could only just see my way to pad across the room and grope around in the shadows for my handbag. I found the letter easily enough, and climbed back into bed. I had to lean over the side to let the candlelight fall on the pages. My eyes struggled to see the shaky writing and my fingers were already becoming stiff with cold, but I knew I had to read it once again. Without the letter, alo
ne in this isolated, godforsaken cottage with only the fractious, unloving stranger who was my father for company, I would have wanted to curl up and die.

  Chapter Two

  My dearest darling Lily,

  When you read this, I will be gone from you for ever. I know it will be hard for you, but you are a good, strong girl and you will cope without me. But now I must make it even harder for you by telling you something I should perhaps have told you long ago.

  No mother could ever have loved her daughter more than I have loved you, but I am not your mother. That blessing fell to my real daughter, Cynthia, who perhaps I shall, by now, have met again in the afterlife. So, yes, I am your grandmother, and my dear John was your grandfather. That you came to us late in our lives was, you see, a lie.

  Your mother married a man called Sidney Latham, a very dour chap John and I never took to. They had two children and then, in July 1937, a third. You. All three of you were such little angels. Then war was declared, and Sidney joined up straight away. Because you were all so young, Cynthia was allowed to go with you when you were evacuated. But she didn’t like the country and when the bombs didn’t come, she brought you all home. That was a mistake. When the raids finally started, she applied for evacuation again, but it was too late. The house next door got a direct hit. Part of your house collapsed. Cynthia threw herself on top of you. It saved your life, but Cynthia and your brothers were killed.

  You were three years old. Of course, John and I took you in with Sidney away fighting for his country. But he asked us to adopt you officially. So we did, changing your name to ours, Hayes. You were our little Cynthia come back to us, you see. We loved you so much. You were very traumatised at first, and had terrible nightmares, about being buried in the rubble, we supposed. You called us Mummy and Daddy, and that’s how it went on. We moved to a new area, Battersea, so that nobody knew the truth, not so easy in the war with the housing shortage. I even lied about my age to Dr Robbins. He thinks I was born in 1890, not 1880. Good job I don’t look my age. And then, when dear John was killed, you and I relied on each other so much that it seemed best to carry on as we were.

  Leaning over the side of the bed was making my back ache and so I paused for a few minutes to lie back on the lumpy pillow. I closed my eyes, remembering the man I now knew had actually been my grandfather. I had loved him dearly. I remembered the way his moustache tickled when he kissed me goodnight, and he always wore a collar and tie. Always. Even to dig our little back garden. I was seven when he was killed by a doodlebug when he was on ARP duty late in 1944. After that, it was just Mum and me against the world, huddling together in the Anderson shelter during raids until the war was over. Grief clawed at me at the memory, and I hauled myself over the edge of the bed again to read the rest of the letter in the flickering candlelight.

  When your real father came home after the war, I thought I would have to tell you the truth. You were only eight and I thought you’d soon get used to the idea. But to my amazement, Sidney wanted nothing to do with you at all. I thought at first it was just his grief over Cynthia and the boys, and he had been fighting for all six years of the war which must have taken its toll on his nerves. Physically he’d survived unscathed, which was a miracle. But he disappeared. I heard nothing from him for nearly two years, and then I had a letter. He said he had made a new life for himself in Devon. There was no other woman involved, but he was living in a tiny, isolated hamlet on Dartmoor. He had been taken on as a labourer at a quarry and just wanted to be left alone in peace. He gave an address, but it was never to be used except in an emergency.

  Well, you can imagine I was disgusted at his attitude, not wanting to know his dear little girl. And you were my treasure, the only thing I had left in the world after John was killed. So I never tried to change Sidney’s mind and reunite you. I never replied, and I never told you the truth. Not until now. I don’t know if it was the right thing to do. Please forgive me if you think I was wrong. If you look in the little writing desk in my bedroom, you will find an envelope with your name. In it are your father’s address and all the documents you will need. You will see I have arranged my own funeral. All paid for. It is true there is no other family, but please tell my friends at chapel.

  It is up to you what you do now. The war has so much to answer for, destroying people’s lives, families. There are probably thousands of children being raised by people who aren’t their real parents. You are just one. But a very special one. I know you will do what is right for you. You will never know how much you always meant to me. Don’t be sad. You gave John and I so much happiness when it seemed all was lost.

  Goodbye and God bless, my dearest child,

  Grandma Ellen.

  There. I had read it again. It hurt so much, but whenever I found the courage to go over the lines that had caused my mother – grandmother – such pain to write, in a strange way it brought me comfort. It was as if she was speaking the words to me, her voice in my head. It would always be there.

  I folded the letter, carefully replaced it in the envelope with the other items that were so precious, and slipped it under my pillow. I blew out the candle, filling my nostrils with the sharp sting of snuffed-out wax, and snuggled down in the cold bed.

  I still couldn’t sleep. I felt so empty, as if nothing would ever fill the tearing void my mother’s death had gouged out of my soul. I sighed and turned over for the umpteenth time. The wind sighed with me, and I listened to it breathing around the solid stone walls of the cottage. There were other sounds I couldn’t identify, sounds of the night in this strange, alien world that had no flushing toilets, no electricity and no distinctive smell as I turned on the gas to boil the kettle in the morning. No Jeannie, and no Mum. Just an aching, broken heart.

  The tears came again, drenching my pillow. I began to wonder how long you can go on crying for. Do you run out of tears, or can you go on crying for ever? I didn’t find out. At some time in the small hours, I drifted away on a wave of exhaustion.

  A vigorous rattling noise woke me from a deep, heavy slumber I wasn’t yet ready to leave, and all the misery of the previous evening swamped over me once more. The rattling came again, short and staccato. This time I guessed it must be my father raking the grate of the range. We’d had a coal fire in our sitting room in Battersea, and I was thankful I was used to lighting it, so that my father couldn’t accuse me of total ignorance. I’d show him, I vowed determinedly.

  It was still dark so I had to light the candle again to look at my watch. Half past six. No wonder my father went to bed early. When did he get up, I asked myself. He had told me he walked to his work at Merrivale Quarry. I had seen it on my trusty map. You could see across to it, he had said in one of the few less taut moments of the previous evening.

  I stretched my eyes and yawned. I might have gone back to sleep, but I didn’t want my father jeering at me for being a sloth. The icy air wrapped its fingers about my skin as I tore off my nightdress and pulled on my clothes of the previous day. I could have a wash later.

  I set my jaw as I came down the creaking stairs. My father was busy shaving, his face white and lathery making him look like a disgruntled Father Christmas. He scarcely glanced at me as I set the kettle on the range. I could feel it was cold and I frowned.

  ‘Wretched thing’s gone out,’ he grumbled, ‘and I haven’t got time to light it again. So you’ll have to do without.’

  It was as if he wanted me to suffer, so I shrugged carelessly. While he went back to shaving, I cautiously tested the temperature of the firebox door and opened it. The banked-up coal inside was black and lifeless. Without a word, I dragged it back into the bucket that served as a scuttle, re-laid the fire with twisted newspapers, some kindling and a thin layer of coal, and within a few minutes, had it going again. I knew it would take some time to establish a good heart, and I wasn’t used to the controls and air-vents, but I wasn’t going to let it have the better of me.

  ‘Clever clogs.’ My father’s voice behin
d me was scathing.

  ‘I’m not as stupid as I look. For a redhead,’ I threw in for good measure. ‘And I’ll soon get the hang of cooking on it, though I can see using the oven might be more tricky.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  Well done or thank you might have been nice. I stayed by the range, giving it my full attention so that the fire wouldn’t die on me. But I seemed to have judged it perfectly, and was able to boil the kettle in time for my father to have a cup of tea before he left for work.

  What a relief when he’d gone. I felt the tension empty out of me and I sank back in the old armchair. It had a peculiar smell and the horsehair stuffing was hanging out in several places. It was quite comfortable, though. If I’d had a mug of nice hot coffee to sip, it would have been bliss. The muffling silence swirled in my head again, and I wondered if I wasn’t mad to stay here. I could quite easily pack up my night things and find my way back to the railway halt, but there weren’t many trains each day so I might have to wait for hours. If I went back to London, I could perhaps take up Jeannie’s parents’ offer of going to live with them if the authorities would accept it as an alternative to the dreaded children’s home.

  My grandmother – oh, dear Lord, I could still only think of her as my mother – had never entirely approved of my long-standing friendship with Jeannie. Especially when I had followed her example to leave school at fifteen and go to work at Woolworths! Jeannie wasn’t particularly bright at school and came from a barely literate background, whereas, although not highly educated, my family were intelligent and hardworking. I was always top of the class and my grandmother had seen the education I could have had as an opening to a glittering future. My English teacher had observed my natural love of books and had encouraged me to read far beyond what was required in the classroom. I had the ability to take the brand new O- and A-level exams, everyone had said. But no. I had wanted to share what I saw as Jeannie’s new freedom. She was the salt of the earth, was Jeannie, genuine to the core, and she made me laugh. She had been a tower of strength and I couldn’t have got through the loss of my mother without her.