The Scarlet Sisters

by Helen Batten

  William was now acutely aware of the shortness and arbitrary nature of life and it just seemed a waste to sit there in Grays doing the same old thing for the rest of it. But at that moment he couldn’t see a way out; and until he did, he felt it best to keep these thoughts to himself. He was in no doubt they would not be appreciated by his wife.

  Instead, William felt with a heavy heart that he would have to try and find Sparky, or at least be seen to be trying to find him. To that end, he walked into a few of his old competitors’ yards and asked where he was, but was more than happy to take them at face value when they shrugged their shoulders.

  Bertha wasn’t convinced. ‘Grace has heard that he’s been seen around Romford.’

  ‘Don’t know anything about that.’

  Bertha looked at him through narrowed eyes.

  ‘But I’ll ask,’ he added quickly.

  Meanwhile, William received a letter from Mr Jackson letting him know that the residents’ association had hired a builder and work had started on the new road. He reluctantly went to see a solicitor.

  ‘I think it’s an interesting case, Mr Kendall. Your contract states quite clearly that you undertake to make the road, and even though your company is closed for business, you are still personally liable to fulfil the contract. However, there are a number of complicating factors which might mean that a judge might sway towards leniency – not least a disappearing partner and a World War, where all sorts of contracts have not been fulfilled for good reason. It is a bit of a test case. It depends whether you’re up for the fight.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure. I need to think about it,’ William said.

  Bertha didn’t see what there was to think about. ‘But surely that’s good news. We’ve a chance of keeping the house. The judge must be lenient. The reason that road didn’t get built was not our fault. It was bloody Hitler’s and if that thieving so and so Sparky hadn’t run off with the cash, it would have been built. You just need to put your case in front of the judge and he’ll come down on our side, because we’re right.’

  ‘I’m not going to court,’ William said quietly, bracing himself.

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘No, I’m not. I undertook to make the road and therefore I will make it and we are just going to have to sell the house.’

  At this point the biggest row of William and Bertha’s marriage commenced. It started with the court case and mushroomed out into the wider issue of William’s refusal to, in Bertha’s words, ‘get off his backside and earn some money’.

  It ended with Bertha shouting: ‘If you’re not prepared to act like a proper husband and provide for your family, then I’m not prepared to stay here and be your wife.’

  And she grabbed Dianne and Nigel and marched out of the house. For some reason, John was left to fend for himself.

  They took the ferry to Margate and then a train into the Kent countryside. Bertha had no idea where to go. The exit had been completely spontaneous. After the war ended and Tom Corbett had come home, Clara had left Alice and come back to Grays. Bertha might have gone to her mum’s, but she knew that was the first place that William would look. Really, she just wanted to get as far away as possible.

  As she sat on the train she seethed. She was furious with William but, more than that, she was furious with herself for having married him. She thought he was one thing and he was turning out to be quite another, and as she looked at her sisters Dora and Katie – well, particularly Dora, because she seemed so in love, she felt they’d made better choices. ‘Fool!’ she kept saying to herself.

  She got so cross she couldn’t sit on the train any more and as it drew into a station, she leapt up, hauled Nigel over her shoulder and grabbed Dianne’s hand: ‘Come on, we’re getting off.’

  ‘Where are we?’ Dianne asked.

  ‘Where we’re meant to be,’ Bertha said.

  ‘Where’s that, Mummy?’

  ‘Wherever we find ourselves. Now, quick, off you get.’

  They found themselves in a typical Kent village. There was a large village green where a group of formidable ladies were preparing a small fête: trestle tables were being assembled, bunting put up in trees, and cakes laid out on stalls. To Dianne it was a bit confusing – had Mum meant to bring them there? It was a long way to come for a fête.

  Bertha bought some food from a shop and they sat on the grass eating as the crowds started to gather. She became aware that they were being watched by a rather handsome soldier. Bertha did stand out – she was wearing that red and green, giant plaid coat with her bright red hair and her white-blonde children. The soldier caught her eye and she couldn’t help but smile back at him.

  ‘What beautiful children you have,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ replied Bertha.

  He smiled again, as if requesting an invitation to join them and, suddenly, Bertha felt vulnerable. What was she going to do? She wasn’t really going to go off with a random soldier, was she? The thought terrified her. But if she wasn’t going to do that then what was she going to do?

  Bertha considered the options. She could move in with her mum, but she knew Clara would not approve: ‘You’ve made your bed and now you’ve got to lie in it’ – that’s what she’d say. Clara didn’t love William, but he didn’t drink, and he didn’t hit Bertha, and he didn’t see other women. She could just hear her mum saying, ‘You’ve always been a bit of a princess, Bertha.’

  But what were the other options? Her sisters had their hands full and she couldn’t see much sympathy there, for the same reasons. The only money she had was what she had left in her purse, and that would barely stretch to a room for the night. The rest was all in a bank account in William’s name and they didn’t have any savings, anyway.

  And that was just the problem of the next few weeks. In the long run, what would the future be? William would never divorce her and the only way she could get a divorce was if she proved William had been having an affair – the phrase ‘Pigs might fly’ came to mind – or if he was cruel to her. And while making her move out of her bungalow did feel like the height of cruelty, Bertha realised she would probably be alone on that one. No, she would be forced to live as a single mother, on one income, with few legal rights – she would not be able to get a bank account or a mortgage – and, worse still, lose all her standing in the community. Compared to that fate, losing the bungalow seemed like a small sacrifice. She was trapped.

  As the fair started to pack up and darkness drew in, Bertha knew she had no option but to go back. They all got up and walked to the station and started the long journey back home in silence.

  When she walked in William was waiting for her. He didn’t know whether to be angry or relieved. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been thinking too – I’ll go to court. Let’s give it a go. But if we lose, I want you to accept the outcome with good grace. You will have to get behind me, and we will have to move. Agreed?’

  Bertha nodded. ‘Agreed.’ She had to admit, you couldn’t say fairer than that.

  It took six months. Everyone in Grays knew about the case, and it divided local opinion – there were many houses on that estate, and the residents all had friends, but the Swains had been a presence in the town for a long time too. It was the subject of gossip although people were careful what they said within Katie and Grace’s earshot. The sisters might fall out with each other, but when threatened by an outsider, they were a united force.

  Behind the family’s back, however, there was some glee, even from so-called friends. Driving around in a white Lancaster and having a house with marble pillars did attract a certain amount of envy. By achieving this ‘perfect’ family, Bertha had rubbed a lot of her neighbours up the wrong way, and the prospect of her downfall caused some to say that it served her right. It’s unfortunate but human. And Bertha knew what people were like, she could be like it herself.

  Ad
ded to this, John and Dianne were teased at school.

  ‘Your dad’s been arrested.’

  ‘Your dad’s going to jail.’

  ‘Your dad’s a thief.’

  It was not pleasant for anyone, especially William. Nothing could have been more alien to him than this legal fight, but he knew his marriage was at stake in some fundamental way – that Bertha would never forgive him if he hadn’t at least tried to save the home that he had given her as her wedding present. And he loved her.

  In the end, it only took a few hours to lay the evidence in front of the judge. After a short deliberation, the judge came back and announced to the court that he had decided that a contract was a contract, it was legally sound and binding, war or no war, partner or no partner, and that William did indeed have to pay for the road.

  Within a couple of months Bertha had packed up the bungalow that had been her wedding present, and moved a couple of streets down the road to a 1930s semi-detached house. It was fine, but ordinary.

  She would go on great detours to make sure she never had to go past her bungalow ever again.

  I remember when I was training as a psychotherapist and I was worried about someone, I said to my supervisor, ‘It’s like watching a car crash about to happen,’ and she said: ‘Helen, sometimes the car has to crash. Sometimes that’s the only way a person’s life is going to get any better. You have to have the crash, and write off the old car, before you can get the new one. Get it?’

  And I did get it. In fact, I’ve seen it happen quite a few times since. And I wonder whether this judgement wasn’t William’s car-crash moment. The nadir of their fortunes. The impetus and excuse to actually get out of his grey gloom and start a whole new life.

  In the months following the trial, William carried on working as a jobbing builder. One day, he was sent off to Tilbury to pick up some materials. They weren’t ready for him so he lit a cigarette and took a little wander along the docks – and there, right in front of him, was the answer. He watched as the New Australia liner got ready to leave with her cargo of people bound for a new life in Australia. Hundreds were on deck waving goodbye, bunting everywhere, a band playing, relatives on the quay waving and crying. The boat’s horn sounded, ropes were cast off and it slowly started to move away. William was surprised by the wave of emotion hitting him, slap in the solar plexus. For a moment he had imagined what it would be like to be on that deck, waving goodbye to grey, dull Britain for ever, and travelling to some destination he had never been to before. Somewhere warmer, fresh, new, with space to breathe and to be.

  William remembered how, as a boy, he had longed to get on one of those liners. And then he thought, ‘Well, why not? Why don’t we do that? What have we got to lose?’ And in a way he was right: now they’d lost the court case, they had absolutely nothing to lose.

  He also remembered some soldiers from New Zealand he’d met out in the desert, who had told him that the building industry in Britain was finished – the new land of milk and honey was their home, New Zealand. As a master builder he would have no problems finding work – it was cheaper, safer, sunnier, happier.

  Of course, Bertha didn’t see it that way. She argued with William, but he had an answer for everything.

  ‘I am not leaving my family and dragging the children to the other side of the world.’

  ‘You won’t be dragging them. It will be a wonderful adventure for them, a new start.’

  ‘I’ll miss my sisters.’

  ‘You won’t miss arguing with them.’

  ‘Leaving poor Mum living on her own …’

  ‘She’s not on her own. She still has four daughters.’

  ‘What about Old Uncle?’

  That was more difficult, but William was resolute. ‘He’s my concern. If I’m prepared to leave him, then you should be too. There’s nothing he has ever wanted more than for me to be happy and settled. He’ll be behind me.’

  ‘What about the children’s school? I bet they don’t have grammar schools in New Zealand.’

  Dianne and John were the only Scarlet Sisters’ children to get into grammar school. This was a matter of great pride for Bertha, and a first for the children to actually be able to go.

  But William did not set much store by formal education: ‘They’ll have plenty of opportunities. They’re clever enough to do well wherever they go … if that’s what they want.’

  ‘But we don’t know if we’re going to like it there. What if we go all that way and we find out we hate it?’

  ‘We’ll come back, I promise.’

  But Bertha was not convinced.

  I caught a radio programme about ‘home’. People were asked where home was for them. The answers varied – for some people it was a solid, physical location: a house, a town they were born in; for others, it resided in another element – it was wherever their parents were, or their lover, or their children. But for some it was inside themselves, not dependent on a place or another person, but a feeling – contentment, security, love.

  For Bertha it had been a place. It was a nest that she had created and was an expression of her; for William, who had lost all his close family by the time he was ten, a home had to be built inside. That made him rather mobile, certainly more mobile than Bertha.

  I remember the feelings I had after my parents divorced and my mother finally sold the family home. I hadn’t lived in it for a few years – by then I was living with my boyfriend, who would become my husband. But it hurt. In my head, whenever I went back I was still ‘going home’. Now, when I stayed in Mum’s cottage, I would not be in ‘my’ bedroom, but the ‘spare room’. My father had emigrated to the other side of the Atlantic, and home had gone – I felt destabilised without somewhere to go back to, ‘just in case’ – as if someone had pulled out the rug from beneath me. Unexpected, but that’s really what it felt like. It’s not that I don’t like travelling, I really do. It’s just I need a home to go out from and come back to. If I have that, I can go anywhere. Otherwise I’m not travelling, I’m a refugee.

  So I worked hard to build a new nest. My relationship with my husband and the house we shared became my new home, and when I had children one of the things I wanted to give them most was something I felt had been taken from me: a home, in my sense of the word – a physical place of security and love, in which they could grow up, and move away from, but always come back to. I wanted them to be part of a community. I wanted them to have roots. My husband was offered jobs in the Middle East, and he dearly wanted to go. He didn’t want roots – to him they sounded boring, a jail, like giving up, a full stop, the end. It was probably one of the bigger things that separated us. A fundamental.

  But, a bit like Bertha, I’ve had to reassess. Do you have to grow up in the same house? Do you have to have two parents? What are the essentials to have a sense of home and foundations?

  When I first found out about my husband’s infidelity I asked him to leave. In the months that followed, I felt like I was falling through space, spinning through the abyss, with no foundations. I had started going out with him when I was seventeen and I had been with him for over half my life. Now I quoted Nietzsche at my psychoanalyst supervisor:

  ‘What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun?’

  ‘Are we not perpetually falling? Helen, you need to find your own inner plumb line. Centre yourself.’

  I couldn’t quite pull it off though, and I gave my husband another chance. But the next time it happened and the full extent of his unfaithfulness was uncovered, and I showed him the door again … it felt different. This time it was for ever.

  For about a week I was falling again. I couldn’t eat and I couldn’t sleep. The prosecco sat in the fridge untouched. All I could do was drink cups of tea and smoke cigarettes. I smoked in the kitchen. The girls didn’t complain.

  ‘Whatever you need to do to get through, Mum’ – wise words from Scarlett (aged nine).

  But then I started to feel better. I stayed up late w
ith my girls watching reality TV, all of us snuggling under a duvet, arms wrapped round each other, like puppies cuddling for warmth. We shouted at the appalling people on the telly, placed bets on who was going to be voted off, and giggled. I started to eat and go out and I opened the prosecco and stopped smoking in the kitchen. I had a night out when he should have been there, and he wasn’t, and I realised I was actually having a better time without him.

  I think that was the moment when I knew that I was going to be all right. It had taken just six weeks, but I was so ready, and he had been so bad for me. Without him I started to laugh again.

  This time, the world didn’t come to an end.

  To go back to Nietzsche, I had unchained myself from the sun and I had survived. Nietzsche also said, ‘That which does not kill us makes us stronger.’ Maybe, but what it feels like is that I have finally grown up. And as the girls and I look at new houses, just for the four of us, and start to get excited, I’m beginning to think we can make a home wherever the four of us are.

  I think Bertha gradually came to the same conclusion. It was a long process – the sticking plaster wasn’t ripped off but peeled back slowly. But the final tug came when William came home early one day. Bertha was surprised to see the top of his head walking down the side passage before the small hand had even reached three on the kitchen clock. She was immediately suspicious. ‘What are you doing home so early?’

  As ever William, incapable of giving anything other than a straight answer, said, ‘I’ve been sacked.’

  ‘You’ve been what?’

  ‘Sacked. I was caught smoking in the lavs.’

  ‘Oh my God, William! How could you?’

  He just stared back at her and shrugged. There was something defiant in the stare. ‘It doesn’t matter. It was just a job. The pay was rubbish, anyway.’

  ‘But it was a job. What are you going to do now? Who’s going to give you another job when they hear about this? Oh, God, it’s so embarrassing!’