The Scarlet Sisters

by Helen Batten

  Spencer was good with figures of course, and he used this to great effect on the daily commute, joining his carriage’s card circle and playing for pennies. One day a member of the circle was ill and, having had his eye on the chic, yet slightly aloof Dora (actually, a rather shy Dora), Spencer plucked up courage and asked if she might do them a favour and make up the numbers.

  Ordinarily Dora would have declined, but she had also noticed Spencer. She liked his kind, polite manner, while his round, heavy-rimmed spectacles gave him a serious, clever air, which she found attractive. And he always wore nice, dark navy suits with a subtle, thin pinstripe. Dora described him to Bertha as ‘a cut above’, something of which Bertha completely approved, and was slightly envious.

  Dora and Spencer’s courtship could hardly be described as a whirlwind romance – more of a slow burner, or even a mere tea light of an affair. The card games lasted for over a year before Spencer actually asked her out, and then it was many more months before Dora took him home to meet her parents and even longer before she met his. And then they just carried on as before.

  Both seemed perfectly happy with their domestic bliss only extending as far as an hour there and back on the train every day. Indeed, things might never have gone any further if Hitler hadn’t invaded Poland.

  Spencer knew he was going to have handle this carefully. As the descendant of Huguenot weavers who fled to England from persecution in Holland, he felt a strong loyalty to the nation that had given them shelter, and a need to fight against tyranny. So, like Bertha’s William, he enlisted straight away. But it took him a while to tell Dora. In the end, he did it over a game of whist as the train left Essex and started racing through the outskirts of East London.

  ‘I think we should have a bet on this,’ Spencer said.

  ‘Do you now?’ Dora arched a single eyebrow rather fetchingly. ‘And what did you have in mind?’

  ‘I think I would like to leave it as a surprise. If I win this hand, you have to grant me a favour.’

  ‘And if I win?’

  ‘Then your wish is my command.’

  Dora smiled. She’d had these bets with him before and they usually meant all she had to endure was a particularly lingering kiss at the garden gate, which wasn’t really suffering at all, if she was honest. And if she won, she wouldn’t mind a new hat pin. She’d seen just the one in the high street.

  ‘All right then, I’m game,’ she said and dealt the cards.

  Fate was on Spencer’s side, as he had known it would be – he had a royal flush.

  As he laid down his hand, she smiled. ‘So, what’s it to be, Mr Sier?’

  ‘Your hand in marriage.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Marry me, Dora. I want you to be my wife.’

  Dora looked like she’d seen a ghost.

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to answer me?’

  ‘It’s just I wasn’t expecting that.’

  ‘Umm …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve got another surprise for you.’

  Dora, always expecting the worse (although in this case she was right) said, ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Yes, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’ve joined up.’

  ‘Oh, Spencer, no!’

  ‘I’m sorry. I have to do something. But I won’t go anywhere for a while, if at all. They’ve said it will take ages to train me, and in the meantime I want us to be married. Dora, please, I love you. I want you to be my wife.’ And he took a ring from his pocket and put it on a sobbing Dora’s finger.

  Around them their fellow card players were clapping. After more than ten years’ commuting, Swainy’s rather Eeyorish disposition was well known: ‘Go on, Dora, say yes!’ they shouted.

  All she could manage was a nod. For Dora did love Spencer and by now did indeed believe she had met the right man. And her amazing ability for catastrophic fantasy worked in Spencer’s favour because, in her mind, Dora could see him by turns torpedoed on a submarine with the water rushing in and covering his face; stepping on a mine and bits of him flying through the air; or shot while caught in a piece of barbed wire murmuring, ‘Dora’ as his final breath. The thought of refusing to marry him, and then Spencer getting killed, was far too much for Dora to carry on her conscience, so that was that.

  They gave themselves a couple of months, just enough time for Dora to make her gold, shot-taffeta dress, and then Spencer and Dora were married. Within a few months, Dora was pregnant.

  We can never really know what other people are up to. In this case, while everyone knew about the dark forces gathering on continental Europe, no one (except for Charlie, perhaps) was aware of the shadow darkening in Dora’s own family home.

  Because, six weeks before Dora was due to give birth, her father, Charlie, died.

  The official story was always that Charlie died from injuries to his lungs received when he was gassed during the First World War. However, after extensive research, it is now absolutely clear that Charlie was never, and could never have been, gassed.

  And as my cousin Dennis pointed out: if he wasn’t gassed, then what did he die of?

  After I had made this unsettling discovery, there followed a period of extreme email communication between myself and various second cousins. One morning I woke up to a surprise email waiting for me from Katie’s son, Barry, who lives in New Zealand.

  ‘My mother always implied that Charlie committed suicide,’ he wrote.

  I emailed Dennis, who was shocked. His memories of his grandfather are fond: Charlie spending hours in his shed, secretly making Dennis a toy steam engine; buying Dennis fireworks on Bonfire Night; marching Dennis and his cousins round and round the dining-room table to the tune of ‘Colonel Bogey’ with a stick under his arm – it didn’t seem like the same man.

  When I went to see Alice’s son, Brian, he told me that Barry’s email had brought something back: ‘I was getting into my bath and I had a kind of flashback. I seem to remember he hung himself at the neighbour’s house. And the more I think about it, the more I’m certain.’

  Dennis was now desperate to know the truth and I promised to get hold of Charlie’s death certificate. But circumstances or fate, or something, conspired against me – I went online and ordered it, but when I came to pay, my bank card was nowhere to be seen. I then had to go on holiday, but when I got back I tried again. This time, the certificate got lost in the post. But I was not going to give up. The final time I ordered it, I paid for it, and I paid extra for it to be couriered to me.

  It arrived a week later. I opened it nervously, but it said that while Charlie did indeed die at Brian’s neighbour’s house, the cause of death was a cardiac arrest. It stated that his wife, Clara Swain, found him. I emailed Dennis the news.

  But then I thought a little more, and I had a conversation with a doctor friend, and I did some more research, and it turns out that depending on how the knot is tied, people who hang themselves can die of a heart attack, as opposed to asphyxiation. And as doctors used to be (and still are) very reluctant to put ‘Suicide’ on a death certificate if they can avoid it, it still leaves a question mark over how Charlie died.

  It was just at this point that I went for a weekend to the North Norfolk Coast. As I strode across the marshes in the golden halo of a perfect August evening, I remembered the only time I had ever felt like voluntarily making an exit: it was on another magical late summer’s evening, about three months after my first daughter, Poppy, had died.

  There were days when the grief felt darker. I was like the Ready Brek kid – surrounded by a fuzzy aura, but instead of an orange glow, mine was more of a black fog. Everywhere I went, every time I came close to enjoying myself, my Siamese twin of grief would give me a nudge. I was like a highly strung racehorse: sleek and shiny on the outside, but ready to snap at the least provocation. Things that would have just amused me in the past now really got under my skin.

  It was our friend, Ian’s, wedding, one of those red-letter da
ys that had been in the diary for a long time, long before Poppy was born. She would have been just a few weeks old. Ian had asked my husband to sing at the ceremony and we’d had long discussions about whether it would be practical with a new baby; but then if she cried, I could just take her outside – friends told us babies were much more portable when they were little. So we were really looking forward to it, as it would be our baby’s first outing into society.

  Now, the day only highlighted that we had lost not only our baby but also the new life we had planned as a family. There was a Poppy-shaped hole at our side all day.

  Then there was our relationship. In the morning, we wandered around the little seaside town of Bude. I stopped at the window of an antiques shop. There was a small painting of a field of poppies. My husband and I stood staring at it in silence. Eventually I said, ‘I’ve got to buy it.’

  He sighed.

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s just we can never escape, can we?’

  ‘Escape? No, no! We can’t escape, it’s happened.’

  ‘Why, Helen? Why are you doing this? It’s too sad.’

  I went in and bought the painting anyway. Not for the first time I thought, ‘Why does this annoy him? Why can’t he just humour me?’ I felt very alone.

  We arrived at the church early so he could practise. It was a little old church in the middle of a field. In the dark inside he started to sing.

  I sat in a back pew and listened. He didn’t look at me. It was the first time he had sung since Poppy died. His voice was beautiful and sad, a new depth to it. I wondered how he was going to get through the service. It was too painful, so I went outside and walked in the churchyard. I went in search of the children’s graves. There were plenty. I read the gravestones and tried to picture what all the different mothers over the centuries would have looked like and felt. My husband’s voice came gently through the windows. I could have been back in the 1700s burying my baby and nothing would be different. Except perhaps I wouldn’t have felt so alone? Most mothers would have buried babies, surely?

  After the service we went to a stately home. It was wonderfully crumbling, faded, bohemian. Drinks were on the terrace overlooking a lawn and a dark green lake surrounded by woods, overgrown and wild; it felt like nature was about to reclaim its property. I made polite conversation. No one said anything about Poppy. Already it felt like it had been a long day. We had a meal in the marquee and I made it through that too, but then the dancing started.

  Ian took his bride to the floor and we all clapped and then he let go of his wife and picked up his daughter and started swinging her round – proud Dad with his beautiful little girl, dressed in her best party frock. There was another, bigger round of applause and everyone got out their cameras. His wife, Tara, looked on, wiping away a happy tear; a perfect ending to a fairytale day: Daddy dancing with his little girl.

  I looked across at my husband and saw the most extraordinary look of pain on his face. An all-too familiar feeling of guilt and panic grabbed my throat. I strode into the house and locked myself in the loo.

  I took deep breaths. After a while, all was quiet and I felt brave enough to come out. As I opened the cubicle, in swept a giggling Tara with a couple of her bridesmaids.

  She stopped dead. I knew Tara – we’d spent many evenings together. Now she looked as if she’d seen a ghost.

  She blanked me, walked straight past and locked herself in the loo.

  I felt bad. It was her wedding day, and I was the spectre at the feast, the last person she wanted to see, as if my bad luck might be infectious. I thought it might be infectious too. I couldn’t go back to the party, so I went for a walk.

  It was a balmy, clear summer evening. I wanted to get away from the sound of music and laughter coming from the marquee. The moon hung over the lake and the frogs croaked. It was so beautiful, like a set for Swan Lake. I was drawn to the water, but as I got closer I realised I couldn’t quite get to it: there was a ditch in the way. So I sat on the edge of the ditch and sniffed the breeze.

  It felt good to be out there, surrounded by nature; I felt more in tune with the wild surroundings than the human revellers in the marquee. In fact, it was almost as if, if I could only get to the lake, I could find what I was looking for. This was the real world, but the lake was on the other side. Like the River Styx separating us, I could almost see Poppy there, waiting for me, if only I could make it over. I was so close I could almost touch her.

  It wasn’t that I consciously wanted to die or anything but, just for a second, an opportunity opened up for me to get to the other side and be reunited with my baby. I could so easily slip off my shoes and try to swim out there, just to see what would happen, lose myself in the calm darkness of the moonlit lake, submerge myself in the dark, black water, and disappear.

  Wash the pain away.

  If I left, I couldn’t upset anyone anymore. My husband would be free to find someone else, someone who could have children.

  I slipped off my sandals and dangled my toes in the cool water of the ditch, then started to wade across towards the lake. As I did so, someone flung himself down on the bank behind me.

  It was one of the guests, out for a cigarette. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ he said, and offered me one.

  I took it, inhaled deeply and marvelled at how close I’d come to doing something extraordinarily reckless. For a moment I’d found a gap in the hedge between this world and the next, and I’d been very tempted to fight my way through. I nearly, nearly did it.

  Looking back now, it was about feeling not just alone but something darker – that people didn’t want me around, that they would be better off without me. And, moreover, that there was someone who needed me and loved me on the other side.

  Did Charlie feel the same way, too?

  Just a few weeks later I felt completely different.

  For the first few months after Poppy died I couldn’t contemplate trying for another baby. After what we had done, it seemed the height of disloyalty. And I couldn’t imagine ever having the courage to go through with another pregnancy, so I didn’t even think about it. If my husband raised the issue, I blanked him.

  Then I woke up one morning and everything had changed; the urge to go forth and multiply was overwhelming and all-consuming. All the arguments against seemed totally irrelevant when measured against a massive biological urge to reproduce. Just like that. There was no rational explanation. Pure hormones. I kept this as my secret and started making plans.

  Blakeney is right on the edge. It’s flat, with big skies stretching out over the freezing North Sea. I like it because on this mad, over-crowded island it’s a place where there’s space to think. Something about the endless horizon opens up possibilities.

  So when the time came, I knew where to go. I told no one my plans. I had done my calculations, and the doctors told me I could start trying. I could think of nothing else.

  My husband’s birthday, his thirtieth, conveniently fitted. I lured him there as his birthday present. Everyone thought we were going to celebrate his birthday; what he and they didn’t know was that we were off to make a baby.

  I sneaked out of work early and travelled the tube across London to pick him up from his office. I remember waiting in reception, dreading meeting someone – there were so many people I hadn’t seen since I lost Poppy. I thought the receptionist gave me a strange look. ‘She must know,’ I thought. ‘“Beautiful but can’t have children.”’ I felt my tragedy wind like a shroud around my beautiful clothes and shiny hair.

  My husband walked in with a client. Laughing, they both looked handsome in their expensive shirts. My heart sank. They were obviously back from a long, enjoyable lunch. I saw my well-laid plans go down the sink with three good bottles of Burgundy. Outwardly, I played the charming wife, while inwardly I was sticking pins in his image.

  I drove to Norfolk while he slept. It was not the auspicious, romantic moment I was hoping for but, later,
as the sun went down, and we walked along the harbour out to the marshes, my bad mood melted away with the soft evening breeze and my hopes rose. It was a perfect evening. Geese flew in arrows overhead. When we reached an old ruined boat we held hands and kissed.

  On the day we came to leave we decided to take a picnic to the beach. We walked and walked, and eventually fell down exhausted in a perfect spot. We ate our picnic, drank warm wine and he fell asleep, his head in my lap. I looked down at him. He hadn’t shaved all weekend and he was all shaggy and stubbly, with freckles and a sunburnt nose, his fleece smelling of Man. He was sleeping a wonderful deep sleep. I felt a huge wave of love. Blakeney had worked its magic and built a bridge over the fault line between us. It was good to spend time away from London, our friends and jobs, just the two of us. We should have done more of it. I realised I hadn’t put on any make-up for three whole days – unheard of.

  I lay back and watched the clouds; out at sea, distant thunder rumbled, but the sun was shining, burning my cheeks. I felt overwhelmed with peace and happiness.

  As we walked back, we passed a family struggling down the footpath: Dad carrying nets, Mum with deckchairs and a baby on her back, two young children tripping them, under foot.

  For the first time since Poppy died I looked at a family and didn’t feel bitter. I surprised myself, but I knew then – I didn’t need to feel bitter, because that was going to be me.

  My husband liked an adventure. I’m not really that keen, but it struck me that a balloon ride might be one thing we could both enjoy. I had booked one as a surprise birthday treat for our way home.

  The weather wasn’t promising as we left: the storm brewing out in the North Sea was coming closer. ‘Surely they’ll cancel?’ we said to each other, as we raced to catch our balloon, the grey skies hard on our tail.

  As we arrived, preparations to launch were in full swing. I was amazed but there was a huddle of aggressive customers surrounding the pilot. I could hear raised voices saying things like: ‘This is the eighth time we’ve tried to get on a flight. They always cancel!’