by Annie Murray
‘Get ’im into bed, I don’t want ’im listening. He’ll soon be off to sleep and we can go in the other room.’
Sis settled Ronny back in bed and kissed him too, and they went into Jess and Sis’s room, and Olive got into Sis’s bed.
‘It was your grandmother,’ Olive began when they were all gathered round her. ‘My mother. Ours, Louisa’s and mine.’
Jess’s attention was fixed so absolutely on her aunt’s face and her voice, that she was conscious of nothing else. If another storm had taken the roof off she might not have noticed.
‘Alice, she was called. Alice Tamplin. Louisa favoured ’er but—’ Jess felt her aunt touch her hand for a second. ‘You’re the image of ’er, Jess. When I saw you again, that night you turned up ’ere, I thought you was a ghost. It was you coming seemed to set it all off. I’m not blaming yer – ’ow could you know? All the things I kept down, didn’t want to think about ever in my life again. I’d be standing there one day, getting on with things, and summat’d come flooding into my head, just for a second . . . And then it’d be gone. But it’d be so strong – like the past coming back, as if it’s still ’ere. You know – if you’ve got memories, people who’re dead’re still alive like, in a way, ain’t they? Almost like it’s still happening to yer.’
Jess saw Polly was about to speak, but she silenced herself. None of them wanted to stop Olive talking.
‘Our mom, Alice, had us – there was about two years between me and Louisa. I’d’ve been four – so that’d make Louisa two – when she had another babby. I don’t remember much before the babby came. Just odd things. But then there was three of us. Another girl, Clara. Our mom liked fancy names. She was bad after Clara. Louisa was taken away to stay with Auntie May. She was always the pretty one, see, the easy one, and the aunts liked her. I was plain and quiet. They never liked me as much.’ She pressed the large mole on her cheek with her finger. ‘They used to say it was a shame, me ’aving this. Said it spoilt me looks. But Louisa’d dance for them, like, and sing, even at that age. Queer how different sisters turn out when yer think of it. I was the older one who had to be responsible, even then.’
Olive spoke looking down into her lap, hands still moving restlessly on the sheet, alternately twisting and smoothing it.
‘I don’t know exactly what was wrong with ’er in the beginning. She was really sick like – poorly in herself. Lay in bed all day, feverish. Whiteleg or summat, I s’pose. Our dad came in and out, carried on going to work – ’e had a good job then, in a Japanning works. She got better so’s she could get up but she was still bad. Course I didn’t know. Not at that age. And then . . .’
Her breath caught. Until that point she’d been telling the story calmly.
‘All I remember is, she was carrying the babby about with her. Not just in the ’ouse. She’d been down the ’orse road carrying her in ’er arms. And she’d gone up and said to people – it just shows ’ow bad she was – showed ’er to people she met before she came home. What she’d done. She was upstairs – I was up there . . . just standing . . .’ She stopped, unable to speak. All that came from her was a moan of distress. Her need to speak battled with a terrible fear, swelling and filling her until she was gulping for air, couldn’t breathe. She threw back the covers and tried to climb out of bed. Jess moved quickly out of the way—
‘Auntie, where’re yer going?’
‘Oh God!’ Polly cried. She tried to restrain her but Olive flung her off.
‘I can’t!’ Olive gasped. ‘Oh that smell – I can’t stand it!’ She wanted to go to the window, to fling it open and get some air she was so hot, so desperate to breathe, to escape this mounting pressure inside herself. But as soon as she stood up she was dizzy, the room swaying and lurching round her. Sis and Jess caught her as she began to fall. She was both heavier and softer than Jess would have imagined, and hard to keep a hold on. It took all their strength to ease her back on the bed.
‘Get ’er head down!’ Jess instructed.
While Olive recovered, Sis went down and put the kettle on.
‘Auntie?’ Jess sat beside her, supporting her, stroking her shoulder. She felt more able than her cousins who found it harder to face all this emotion locked away in their own mother. ‘When you feel a bit better shall we go down and have a cuppa tea? Then you can tell us . . .’
They sat round the table downstairs with the candle in the middle. Jess looked round at them all: Olive, her face washed with tears, and Polly and Sis, both looking like little girls with their hair loose on their shoulders. The storm had long passed over but there was still the soft sound of the rain outside.
‘Will yer tell us, Mom?’ Polly said. ‘Did she do summat to the babby?’
Olive was able to speak more calmly now. ‘We was upstairs. I don’t know why. It was later on and I followed her up there. I was stood behind her and she had Clara in her arms. We had curtains on the upstairs windows, made out of this thick mustard-coloured material they were, and she was stood by them. Not looking out the window. They was drawn closed. She was holding this bottle of smelling salts to Clara’s nose, and the smell of it was all in the room . . . She must’ve thought it’d bring ’er back . . .
‘They came to get her. I don’t know ’ow long it took, ’ow it happened exactly. I heard ’em coming up the stairs. Two coppers. There was one of ’em, very tall, said to me, “Are you all right?” And then one of them took her arm and she walked down the stairs with them . . .’
She was crying again, but quietly, the tears simply flowing as she spoke. Polly and Sis were crying too. Jess reached over and took her aunt’s hand as tears poured down her own face.
‘See, it weren’t like – yer know, one or two you hear of get desperate, nowt to feed another babby on, roll over on it and say it were an accident. And there’s some’ll guess what might’ve happened but no one can say for certain. But our mom – Alice – she walked round the streets telling them what she’d done, pressed a pillow over ’er babby’s face ’til she went blue, and she weren’t newborn, she were a good four month by that time.
‘They wouldn’t leave us alone. Everyone knew. They were that cruel. Stones through the windows, shouting and making a display of us when we went out. Not everyone, but enough of ’em. And at school, because I’d just started going by then. My mom was a murderess so far as they was all concerned. She’d killed her child. Never mind that ’er mind was disturbed. Oh you don’t know what people can be like. Course, Louisa wasn’t there, she was still with Auntie May and Uncle Bill and they hung on to ’er after it happened. Louisa never remembered any of it too well. By the time she started at school we’d moved on. But in the beginning . . . They copped ’old of me once, bunch of kids held me down – there was this pothole in the road on the way back from the school, a real big’un, and when it rained, course it filled up with filthy water. They shoved my face in it and held me down. I thought I was going to drown. Yer can drown in a teacup, our dad used to say. ’E moved us on a few times – just nearby to begin with, but there was always someone found out where we’d gone. There was two of ’em, Doris Adcock and a Mrs Dobson. Doris ’ad these peculiar eyes . . .’ A shudder passed through her. ‘They daint ’ave one black bit in the middle like normal – there was two, sort of double. Looked more like a cat’s eyes and she frightened the life out of me. I don’t know why they did it, why they wanted to be so cruel, tormenting a man and his children. But Doris always found us, after a time. To this day I don’t know ’ow. She’d come and leave a note through the door, “I know where you are . . .” At first we’d not move too far. Round Saltley or Bordesley. I saw her once, in the street after we’d moved on, and I wet myself I were that terrified of ’er—’
‘Mom—’ Polly interrupted suddenly. ‘Is that the woman you saw, that day when you went shopping?’
Olive hesitated. ‘If it was her she’d be well into ’er eighties by now. I don’t know, Poll. It might’ve been her and it might not. Anyroad, in the
end we went and lived the other side of town. Our dad only went back over that side when we was growed up. Once ’e thought everyone’d ’ve forgotten. Louisa ran off and got married the second she was asked.’ The bitterness in her voice was unmistakable. ‘Left me to it as usual.’
‘Where did they take our grandmother . . . Alice?’ Jess asked softly.
‘They put ’er in the asylum. In Birmingham first, and after we was told she’d been taken out to somewhere in Staffordshire. I don’t know why that was. I never knew any of the ins and outs. We just wanted ’er to come back to us. She was our mom. But we never saw ’er again, Louisa and me, although I think our dad went out there a couple of times. We never saw the babby, little Clara, again neither. Never ’ad her to bury so what they did with ’er I don’t know. And I never knew how our mom carried on or what state she were in after. Seven years she were there. She died in there, never came out. Pneumonia, our father said. ’E’d moved ’is new missis in with us by then, not that they was married or anything. Not ’til after Mom died.’ She seemed to notice then that she had been crying again, and wiped her eyes.
‘Oh Mom,’ Polly’s face was blotchy from her own tears. ‘What a terrible thing. Why didn’t yer tell us all before? We’d’ve understood – what yer went through and that.’
Olive gave a deep sigh. ‘I tried to put it all out of my mind once I was older – then married to Charlie. Past was past. And what good would it’ve done yer to know a thing like that? ’Specially when you was having babbies yourselves. When you turned up—’ she looked at Jess. ‘And then when you said you was expecting, out of wedlock – never mind who the father was – I just . . . It did summat to me nerves. I just couldn’t ’ave yer in the house. It was as simple as that. I know you thought it was just ’cause you was in trouble, but it weren’t that, though I was angry about yer leading Ned astray. But God knows, I’ve made mistakes in my time. You’ll’ve worked out that Ronny’s father was one of ’em. But you’re the mirror image of ’er . . . I thought history’d start repeating itself and I couldn’t even bear to look at yer, not knowing you was carrying a child. You’d come back to haunt me, that’s what it felt like. And I’ve been that frightened for you as well, Poll. I never ’ad no trouble after I had all of you, not being bad like, and I was scared of ’ow things would go then. But I had Charlie then and I was safe with ’im – solid as a rock, he was, whatever ’appened. When you started on all this talk about spirits and ghosts I thought yer mind was going . . . Don’t get that upset, love—’
Sis was sobbing. ‘But Mom, why did she do that to ’er little babby?’
‘She weren’t ’erself. Sometimes it does summat to a woman’s mind ’aving a child. And our Dad was no help to ’er. Took no notice. I s’pose ’e daint know what was happening, what to do. No one else could understand it – t’ain’t a natural thing to do and that’s why they were so cruel. But she weren’t a wicked woman—’ Her voice caught as she spoke. ‘She were our Mom and we loved ’er. And she was your grandmother.’ She looked across at Polly whose eyes were fixed on Grace. The baby had finished feeding and was sleeping snuggled close to her, a tiny fist curled by her face.
‘I know what yer thinking,’ Olive said. ‘Clara would’ve been about that age. But yer grandmother needs yer sorrow, not you condemning ’er.’
‘That was what I was thinking, Mom,’ Polly said. ‘With Ernie gone, Grace is all I’ve got. I’d kill anyone to protect her, that I would. Someone should’ve helped our grandmother and taken that babby off ’er for a bit.’
‘They didn’t know she were that bad. Not ’til it were too late.’ Olive looked round at them. ‘So now yer know.’
‘You should’ve told us, Mom.’
‘I didn’t think it’d do yer no good.’
‘No, but it might’ve done you some.’
‘It might.’ Olive sat up and let out a long, tremulous sigh from the depths of her. ‘Ar, I think it might.’
Twenty-Eight
‘I tell you what, Auntie,’ Jess said a few days later. ‘If you’ll look after Gracie, I’ll go with ’er and see what this Spiritualist business is all about.’
‘Can I go too?’ Sis asked.
‘No,’ Polly retorted. ‘You’ll only get the titters, I know you.’
Mrs Bullivant was not going tonight as she was visiting her son John, who had lost his legs on the Somme and was now in hospital in the city. Jess and Polly set off along the road in the smoky dusk. As they passed a bus stop on the Moseley Road a bus drew up alongside, letting a passenger off.
‘Yer getting on or what?’ the conductorette shouted.
‘What does it look like?’ Polly snapped at her. The bus chugged off in a cloud of fumes. ‘Think they’re the Lord God Almighty, some of ’em, once they’ve got a ticket machine over their shoulder.’
Jess laughed. ‘You sound more like yerself.’
Polly smiled faintly. ‘I’m up and down. Natural though, ain’t it?’
‘Auntie’s better in ’erself too.’ Over the fortnight since Olive had told them about Alice she had been emotional. Sometimes she’d start crying unexpectedly, and was bewildered and embarrassed by it, but she was more relaxed than Jess ever remembered her and somehow softer. It had been a release.
‘’Ow’s Ned?’
‘Awright, so far’s I know,’ Jess said carefully. She kept her feelings to herself, the worry that was constantly with her. All that year there had been little news but that of slaughter: the French at Verdun, now the Somme, day after day.
‘Come on—’ she changed the subject. ‘How much further to this barmy Mrs Black of yours?’
‘It’s no good thinking like that,’ Polly was on her high horse straight away. ‘Nothing’ll ever happen for yer if yer think that way about it.’
Jess nudged her. ‘I was only kidding.’
‘Remember what they said after Mons? There was that queer light in the sky, like an angel watching over them?’
Not the Angel of Mons again, Jess thought. ‘Yes, you ’ave mentioned it before – just a few dozen times.’
‘Anyway – ’er lives on Runcorn Road. Nearly there.’
Runcorn was a road of respectable terraces, intersected every half dozen houses with little avenues leading to houses behind, all bearing the names of trees.
‘I wouldn’t mind living here,’ Jess found herself talking in a slightly hushed voice, even though there was plenty of neighbourhood noise from children playing out in the avenues and on the pavement. They walked a good way down the road. As they passed under the railway bridge a train thundered over their heads. The loud sound brought Jess’s arms up in goose pimples.
‘Lilac, May, Myrtle . . .’ Polly read off the names. ‘’Ere we go.’ She knocked on the door of a house between Myrtle and Vine Avenues and it was opened immediately by an elderly man with a drinker’s complexion, who must have been standing just behind it.
There was no hall and they stepped straight into the front room, which was gloomy and sparsely furnished, with brown lino on the floor, and obviously used more as a passage than a room.
‘Evening, Mr Black,’ Polly said respectfully.
‘Oh – Polly, it’s you! ’Ow are you then? And who’s this you’ve brought with you?’
‘This is my cousin Jess.’
Jess shook Mr Black’s sinewy hand. He had a quaint, gentlemanly way, but it didn’t seem to come quite naturally, as if he’d trained himself in this rather starchy new way of behaviour.
‘Have you had a loss, my dear?’
‘Er . . . well, no,’ Jess said. ‘Least, not for some time.’
‘She’s just come along to keep me company,’ Polly said. She handed over the money and Mr Black stowed it in a jar which had once contained barley sugar.
‘Go inside,’ Mr Black pointed to the back room and returned to his post behind the door. ‘There’s a few waiting.’
Three rows of upright chairs had been fitted in at the nearest end of the room, and s
everal of them were already occupied. Facing them was another more stately seat with arms, built solidly in oak. At the far end an upright piano stood against the window, but Jess’s eyes were immediately drawn to a strange, pavilion-like construction in the other corner. A wooden frame was draped in white sheeting, creating a shrouded oblong area which Jess realized must have covered the door to the stairs. On the long wall beside them was a painting depicting the afterlife. As well as lots of swirling cloud and what looked like a vivid blue lake in the middle, there were crowds of people in white, flowing clothes, and small, plump angels hovering above their heads.
Jess squeezed into the middle row between Polly and a middle-aged woman in black, who had apparently dozed off to sleep. Everyone else was very quiet and a rather resigned, gloomy atmosphere hung over the place which was stuffy and smelt overpoweringly of mothballs, although this didn’t overcome the stale odour coming from the lady on the other side of Jess. The woman behind them kept coughing. Jess felt self-conscious and not very trusting of what was going to happen. She nudged Polly, pointing at the sheets.
‘What’re they for?’ she whispered.
‘Mrs Black always comes out from there. I s’pect she’s upstairs getting ready.’
Jess jumped violently as the lady on the other side of her roused herself and laid a hand on her knee. She greeted Polly, then said to Jess,
‘My name’s Irene Crawford. ’Ave yer suffered a loss?’
‘No.’ She felt almost guilty at this admission. ‘I’ve just come with Polly.’
‘My ’usband and my son have passed on to the other side. Only me and my daughter left now. My son William was killed at Suvla Bay.’
‘Was your husband killed in the fighting too?’ Jess asked.
‘No, bab, ’e fell off of a roof on the ’agley Road. The two of ’em keep in touch though. Always were good to me, both of ’em.’
