The Scarlet Sisters

by Helen Batten

  ‘Look what the wind’s blown in!’

  John and Dianne watched their Auntie Alice bounce in, looking all made up and glamorous, which in itself was a shock, but then a tall, dark, handsome American soldier walked in, holding her hand.

  Both their jaws dropped wide open.

  ‘John, Dianne, close your mouths. If you’re not careful you’ll catch flies!’

  At which they both clamped them shut immediately.

  It wasn’t as if this was the first time that the children had seen an American soldier in their kitchen. The GIs had disembarked at Tilbury and they’d been living in tents on the pavements all along the roads in Grays for months. The Kendall family, like most families, had welcomed the American soldiers with relief and joy. Everyone knew their arrival was almost certainly a turning point in the war. And Dianne’s memories of the soldiers are fond – they gave her chewing gum and sweets and told her about their daughters at home. Bertha made them cups of tea and she was given the odd pair of nylon stockings – oh, the joy! Their arrival was a bit of fun in the dreary wartime world. Then one day they woke up and all the soldiers had gone and they knew France was about to be invaded. But the street seemed empty. They were missed.

  However, with children’s perceptiveness, John and Dianne immediately realised that Mickey Edwardes Junior was something different. They watched the dynamics between their mother and Auntie Alice, their mother and Mickey Edwardes Junior and Auntie Alice and Mickey with fascination. They had hardly ever seen their mother so angry, unless it was with their father, but then it wasn’t this kind of pinched, icy sarcasm. But then they’d never seen anyone flirt like Alice and Mickey before.

  It was quite clear that Auntie Alice had the hots for Mickey, and he couldn’t seem to take his eyes (or his hands) off her. John and Dianne were dumbfounded. In their world men and women never touched each other – they barely even looked at each other. It all felt terribly racy and exciting and they were a bit disappointed when they were shooed out into the garden by their mother.

  Bertha braced herself to ask the question she really didn’t want to ask, but had to, just so she had things straight: ‘You did say a bed?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alice said, looking her straight in the eye.

  ‘As in one bed.’

  ‘Yes.’ Alice was still looking her straight in the eye.

  ‘And did she give them a bed?’ I asked my mum.

  ‘Yes, I think she gave them hers.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, she wasn’t happy about it, that was obvious. But you know your Nanna. She never could say no.’

  Every summer holiday, John and Dianne were sent away from the capital to safety at Alice’s until they had to go back to school.

  The next time they went to visit, the cousins – John, Dianne, Jean and Brian – had all been put to bed together. They were lying in the dark, chatting and John piped up: ‘We’ve met your mother’s boyfriend.’

  ‘What?’ Jean and Brian said together.

  ‘Yes. He came to stay with us in Grays. They came together,’ he said.

  ‘He did not. Our mummy hasn’t got a boyfriend,’ Brian said.

  ‘Oh, yes, she has. He’s a tall, American fella,’ Dianne added.

  ‘You just shut up and don’t you ever say that again!’

  At which point John and Dianne realised they’d said something they shouldn’t and did indeed shut up.

  When I went to see Brian I asked him about his mum and the GI. Brian didn’t know anything about it, and couldn’t remember the conversation with John and Dianne in the bed. But he did laugh and say, ‘It’s not impossible,’ and then he said, ‘Come to think of it, I do recall someone. Yes, there was someone around.’

  He remembered going to the VJ celebrations, which were particularly big because of the American headquarters down the road.

  ‘I remember Mum taking me with a very tall, dark American soldier and he took me by the hand and there was a huge bonfire. I guess that must have been him.’

  I don’t know what happened to Mickey Edwardes Junior. What I do know is that after the war Clara left the Corbetts and moved back to Grays, Tom came back in one piece and Alice picked up her life as Tom’s wife.

  I imagine that it must have been difficult for her, after the relative freedom and excitement of the disruption of war; what I know is that Alice carried on dancing whenever she could, winning competitions and buying colourful dresses that sometimes got her into terrible trouble with her husband.

  Alice seems to have been the only sister who was particularly interested in men. It’s not that the sisters weren’t interested in getting married, but men as desirable for their own sakes? Because they’re rather sexy …? The topic of sex never came up when I was with my nanna, and Mum says that she only ever referred to it in a way that made it clear that she didn’t have much time for it – it was something slightly distasteful that had to be endured if one was to be a wife and have children. And a good husband was one who didn’t make too many demands in that department. It wasn’t that Nanna was a prude – far from it. She loved a filthy joke, and she had no problems with her grandchildren’s exciting love lives – witness her joy and collusion with my frolics with the student boyfriend!

  It would be easy to point the finger at Charlie and say the sisters had been put off men by the antics of their father. But actually I think they were simply women of their time and brought up with a completely different attitude to sex. Clara was typical in teaching her daughters that respectable ladies didn’t enjoy physical relations – there was something unseemly about that. But men were different and had their needs, and therefore within marriage these must be tolerated.

  There is a noisy consensus among all of us Swain survivors that the only Scarlet Sister who had a happy marriage was Dora. And yet however unhappy, there is not the slightest hint that they ever looked at any other men (except for Alice). Leave their husbands, yes: Bertha, Katie and Grace all tried that one – but not for another man. Katie and Grace went to live with Clara, and Bertha wandered around the Kent countryside until it got dark and she had to concede defeat and go home. All the sisters survived their husbands by many years and none of them remarried, or even had a special male friend, again except for Alice. So why was she the exception? I can’t help feeling the answer might lie with the tragic death of her first husband, Joseph, barely a year after they married. If someone was taken from you so suddenly, and you remarried so quickly and so unhappily, wouldn’t there be a part of you that was always looking for that first love?

  Something that never was quite the same was Alice’s relationship with Grace. Tough times can unite a family or tear them apart. Perhaps when everyone is struggling, when there is too much to deal with, fault lines rupture. At this moment in their story, I think the sisters didn’t have the capacity to be kind and give each other the benefit of the doubt. Because while Alice was struggling, Grace was too.

  It took everyone, not least Grace, some time to realise how difficult her husband, Bill, really was. In fact, ‘difficult’ is the wrong word – in the end he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The very intensity and possessiveness that had attracted Grace developed into a kind of mania and paranoia which was directed at Grace, and also Dennis. He was unpredictable and cruel to his son, and beat him terribly. Grace would step in and try to stop Bill and in the process would be hurt herself. In the end, she left him and turned up at Clara’s house in Grays, with her children. She lived there for a while but, in the end, she went back to Bill.

  Dennis would always wish she hadn’t and didn’t understand why she did, except it was different in those days – divorce was not an option, except for the very rich.

  Finally, Bill was sectioned. He came out again when he was better, and then he got worse and was sectioned again. This time, when the doctors said he was ready to come out, Grace refused to have him back. He stayed in hospital and refused to eat. He starved himself to death.

  Grace was a
favourite aunt among the Scarlet Sister children. They talk of her fun, kindness, and total lack of pretence. They all enjoyed going to see her. It must have been a constant battle for Grace to keep hold of her sense of self under the assault of living with such a sick husband, especially when so much of his darkness was directed at her and her son. My hope is that today if any of us find ourselves in this situation, things have changed enough that we could extricate ourselves, with some level of help and security, and without society being so judgemental. It must be easier now.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Least Said, Soonest Mended

  My Uncle Nigel could never quite work out how he happened.

  Bertha gave birth to Nigel on 8 April 1945. Which is fine, except my grandfather, William Kendall, had not been home for two years. He’d been in Yorkshire training to fight in tanks, and then at around the time that biology says that Nigel must have been conceived, William was sent to Egypt. It had been a slow realisation for Nigel, and he didn’t like to ponder it too much, but every so often a moment of insidious doubt would creep in. It doesn’t help that he looks nothing like John and Dianne. In fact, he isn’t like them in many ways. John and Dianne are slim, small-boned, and dark – they looked like their father. Neither of them are extroverts, and they were both swots at school.

  Meanwhile, Nigel could be described as a typical Swain: fair, broad-faced, funny, sunny, gregarious. He loves to keep a room entertained with his many stories; Nigel worked in magazines in the sixties in the bit of London that really was swinging, so he has plenty – like being offered an unidentified pill by a beautiful stranger, and taking it because, well, she was beautiful, and then waking up on platform two of Bournemouth station a week later with no idea what had happened in between. My favourite are his tales of racing Minis across the New Forest. I’m sure he told me that they drove them through the legs of New Forest ponies; although, as Mr D pointed out, that’s physically impossible, especially as New Forest ponies have particularly short legs.

  Nigel is a natural charmer. He’s a hoot – but that’s the last word you would have used to describe William. However, Nigel always felt like William was his father. There is evidence for the defence: they shared the same interests – walking and the natural world – and Nigel is a gifted writer, photographer and artist, making detailed paintings and drawings of wildlife and plants. He has sold pictures, had books published and spent many years as a graphic designer. This talent is certainly something that could have been inherited from William and the Kendalls.

  But the dates just don’t add up.

  It wasn’t until quite recently that Nigel finally voiced his doubts. The person he chose was his big sister, my mum, Dianne.

  He was somewhat surprised by her reaction, ‘It’s funny you should say that, Nige, because I’ve always wondered about that myself.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. But I never wanted to say anything. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings or stir things up. There never seemed a good moment to bring it up.’

  ‘Well, I can see that.’

  ‘But you know, it may be a blessing in disguise that you haven’t raised this before, because I’ve only just remembered something which might explain how you came into the world. And I’m very glad I have remembered it, because it’s the only explanation I can think of … other than the 60th Division of the American Army that was camped outside our front door.’

  And here she giggled, and so did Nigel, because he never loses his sense of humour.

  ‘Well. that’s what I was thinking …’ and he broke into an American accent: ‘Although people have always called me a bit of a cowboy …’

  ‘Oh, stop it, Nigel. You are awful!’ Mum said, laughing affectionately, which is how a lot of their conversations go.

  ‘No, but being serious now, Di, that’s the only thing I could think of as well. But I just can’t imagine it. Mum wasn’t really like that, was she?’

  ‘No, she wasn’t. I don’t think she was ever really into men.’

  ‘Di!’ Nigel pulled a face.

  ‘Oh, that’s not what I mean, you know what I mean. Oh, stop it!’ and they were off laughing again.

  But when they’d sobered up Mum went on to tell him the only explanation that anyone can think of for Nigel legitimately appearing on this earth.

  Dianne was always a sickly child and in 1944 she got pneumonia. At the same time she also got a kitten.

  Dianne had wanted a pet for ages and had been pestering her mum and, finally, Bertha bought her one: a beautiful, fluffy, black, mewling thing called Lucky. Despite the fact that Dianne was quite poorly, with a cough that wouldn’t go away, she stayed outside playing with it in the front garden with Pat the neighbour’s daughters. Lucky the kitten was adorable, and they were taking turns to hold her and tease her with a ball of wool, but then Dianne suddenly felt terribly weak and couldn’t breathe and had to go inside and up to bed. That night Bertha kept vigil beside Dianne’s bed as she lay in agony with pains in her back, in her ribs and around her lungs. She was slightly delirious. Bertha watched her anxiously, the ghost of Charlie Junior hovering. She seemed to be having trouble breathing, and was deteriorating fast, so as soon as morning came Bertha rang for the doctor. He rushed over in his car and said it looked like pneumonia and she must go straight to hospital.

  Unluckily, as he leaving, he managed to back over and kill Lucky the kitten – which cast a shadow over the whole of Dianne’s illness, Bertha seeing the death of Lucky as an omen of Dianne’s inevitable passing. Lucky was never replaced, not by a kitten anyway.

  Dianne remembers waking up in a hospital bed in a plastic bubble. She was surrounded by empty beds, and there was no one about. She could hear the sound of bombs dropping close by and she felt the room shake. Dianne was actually in intensive care, in an oxygen tent, and the other patients had been put under their beds for protection. But Dianne was too poorly to be moved. It was strange and frightening, so she just closed her eyes and went back to sleep and hoped someone would appear when she woke up.

  Dianne was in intensive care for three weeks. The patients who were very sick were put on something called the danger list. This was an actual list that they used to put up outside the doors of the hospital, so anyone passing could check the status of their loved ones. Needless to say they only put up the names of those whose lives were hanging in the balance – I suppose today’s equivalent would be being described as in a ‘critical condition’. Dianne’s name was on the list for ten days. And it was during the time that my mother nearly exited this world, and actually because she nearly exited this world, that Nigel must have entered it: when William’s superiors were informed of his daughter’s condition, they gave him one night’s compassionate leave to go and see his daughter and say goodbye.

  Bertha told Dianne how William arrived in the middle of the night and came into the pitch-black, sleeping ward, and stood for a while beside her bed looking down at her, and then kissed her, and in the morning he was gone. The next week he sailed for Egypt.

  Bertha only told Dianne this story when she was close to her own death. Which is a bit worrying, because of course if she hadn’t, then the conversation between Nigel and Dianne would have taken a different turn, and Nigel may well have come to the conclusion that William was not his father. Which just goes to show, it’s good to talk.

  I was having tea with Mum and Nigel and they were discussing this very issue: ‘Of course, I don’t remember him coming because I was asleep. So we can only take her word for it. But I’m sure that’s what happened.’ Mum raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ I said and then we giggled. I don’t know why we are so playful except that, like our running joke about Grandpa being half-Egyptian, it’s so unlikely.

  And then Mum looked a bit sad. ‘But if that is the case then I can’t help but be a bit shocked, because there I am fighting for my life – I mean, they really did think I was going to die, and what were they
doing? Having a good time. It’s a bit hurtful, isn’t it?’

  ‘No!’ Nigel and I chorus together.

  ‘Think about it, Mum! They haven’t seen each other for what, two years? He’s going off to Egypt next week, maybe never to return. What are you going to do? Wouldn’t it be a bit strange if they didn’t?’

  ‘Yes, definitely,’ Nigel agrees.

  And then a bit like a cloud going over the sun, I feel a shadow as I’m back in the neonatal unit and remembering the nurses telling us to be careful, how having a sick baby or child seems to make people go off and conceive, as if nature pushes us to secure a replacement just in case. And I remember the strange, aphrodisiac effect of those days: totally counter-intuitive, and engendering feelings of guilt, as if it was slightly disrespectful. But the nurses were right. I think we often underestimate the strength of the primeval forces working underneath.

  Obviously Dianne didn’t die. She came out of intensive care and was sent to a convalescent home for sick children in the Surrey countryside for six months. She learned how to sew, and on fine days she had lessons outside, sitting in a wheelchair.

  When she came home it was to find her mother wearing an uncharacteristically unfashionable smock. Dianne stared in horror at her mother’s normally svelte stomach. ‘Mummy, what have you been eating?’

  ‘Dianne, this is a baby!’ Bertha said, patting her bump triumphantly. ‘You’re going to have a little brother or sister.’

  At which Dianne, still not entirely 100 per cent, looked as if she was about to faint and had to be sat on a chair and given a glass of water. But when she’d had a few sips and got her breath back Dianne said, ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really!’ Bertha nodded.

  And Dianne leapt up and threw her arms around her mum. ‘Oh, Mummy. Just what I’ve always wanted – a baby! Thank you!’