A Dark and Sinful Death

by Alison Joseph

  Louisa placed the cups on the table, checking the position of each one with her fingertips, before carefully pouring the tea into each.

  Agnes left as night was falling. Driving across the moor she saw a bird, circling, dark against the indigo sky. In her mind she saw Mark’s binoculars, flung aside in his struggle for life, lying unseeing in the mud. The bird still circled, eyeing its prey, biding its time.

  *

  ‘Mine own eyes have seen the salvation, Which You have prepared in the sight of every people ... ’

  Agnes repeated the familiar words, her voice joined to the voices of the other sisters. She looked up to the darkened window, and seemed to see again the circling falcon, poised in the twilight, watching, waiting.

  ‘Lighten our darkness, Lord we pray ... ’

  Agnes closed her eyes. She recalled Louisa Warburton, her guiding hands, her careful strategies for a life without seeing. And whoever had attacked Nina ... Agnes touched her own eyelids as she thought about the knots pressing into Nina’s face, as she saw again the binoculars, sweeping an arc through the air to land face down, sightless.

  ‘Lord, may Your word be a lantern to our feet, a light to our paths and a strength to our lives ... ’

  When the service was over, Agnes stumbled from the chapel and went straight to her room.

  *

  Why sight? Agnes argued with herself, arranging the files on her desk, lighting the little Anglepoise lamp, pouring herself a whisky. Why a knotted rope for Nina, why such horrific mutilation for Mark and Reg? Why eyes?

  She opened the first file. Laurence Styring. Born 15 January 1954. Joined the mill March 1977. Left in 1991 to move to Northampton. Member of the athletics team. Married, two children. Allergic to penicillin.

  Jim Highworth. Born October 1944. Had a son, also Jim, member of the athletics team ...

  Esther Hanson. Joined the mill in 1941. One daughter, Kitty.

  Agnes checked the athletics team photo. There was a Hanson there, Alan, it said. He looked about 19. She must have picked up a different Hanson by mistake. She turned to the next file.

  Ray Chadwick. Joined the mill in 1938, aged 16. Returned to the mill in 1946. He’d had a period of ill health soon after that, and died in 1956 of ‘injuries incurred in armed service’. Agnes picked up Reg’s file, and flicked through to the call-up papers. There it was, Ray Chadwick, signed up as a soldier when still a boy; never made it to his forties. She found the note she’d made of the address, from the phone book. F. Chadwick, it said. The address was the same as in the file, still Myddleton Terrace. There must be a relative still living, then. His widow? His brother? Agnes underlined the phone number.

  She started on the next file. Stephen Pashley. Joined the mill in 1982, member of the athletics team ...

  And the next. Coulter, Ernest. Joined the mill in 1937, called up with Reg and Ray Chadwick ...

  This tells me nothing about Mark, she thought, closing the file. It tells me nothing about David, and why someone should have sent him the photo. It tells me nothing about Billy Keenan, and about Turnbull, and why he thinks he needs forgiveness. It tells me nothing about Nina.

  She sat at her desk, sipping her whisky, her thoughts circling, all the time returning to the mill, to Allbright’s. She stared at the heap of files before her. I could read every file in Nina’s cabinets, she thought, and all I’d have is a litany of names, of lives, of histories unfolding towards an inevitable ending, after seventy years, or eighty, or forty, or thirty ...

  At the end of my life, she thought, I will be someone who stayed faithful to my order. At the end of my life, I will be someone who ran away from a convent in order to look after a dying friend ...

  At the end of my life there might be peace. There might be regret. At the ending of a life there might be sorrow, or pain, or violence. There might be a pair of binoculars lying in the mud while a bird of prey circles overhead. Agnes got into bed and switched off the light.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Agnes stared at her bowl of cornflakes. The clatter of the dining hall seemed to be happening at a distance. Agnes was aware that Teresa had asked her something.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I said, have you had any visitations recently?’

  ‘You mean angels demanding that I do impossible things?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘If only it was that straightforward. No, the Lord seems to have left me entirely on my own in this one.’

  ‘Do you really think you might leave?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’

  *

  Back in her room, Agnes made a pot of tea, then rummaged amongst her papers until she found the phone number for F. Chadwick. She dialled the number. After several rings it was answered, by a thin, elderly voice.

  ‘Is that Mrs Chadwick?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Florence Chadwick ... ’

  ‘I wonder if you can help me. I’m doing some research into the history of Allbright’s Mill, and I wondered if I might interview you. My name’s Agnes ... ’

  ‘Allbright’s? Oh, dear, I’m not sure I’m the right person, I don’t know, I haven’t had much to do with the mill, my late husband, you see, after he died — and it was so long ago, and I never really worked there myself ... ’

  ‘Really, any information is welcome.’

  ‘But I know so little.’

  ‘You must have heard your husband talk about it, perhaps, there must be things you’d remember from him?’ There was a little silence.

  ‘When would you want to come?’ Florence asked.

  ‘Whenever’s convenient to you.’

  ‘Oh, any time’s convenient to me. I’m not going anywhere. Today, tomorrow ... ’

  ‘Today? Early evening?’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure you won’t be wasting your time. About seven, then?’

  ‘That would be lovely. It’s still Myddleton Terrace, is it?’

  ‘That’s right, number fifteen.’

  ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  Agnes hung up. She glanced at the rota above her desk, which told her she was on house duty this evening. She got up and poured her tea, allowing herself to appreciate the mist of fragrant steam against the smooth curve of the cup in an attempt to quell the jagged anticipation of yet more conflict with the demands of school life.

  *

  At lunchtime she saw Charlotte on her own in a corner of the dining hall. Charlotte looked up as she joined her. ‘Oh, Sister Agnes.’

  ‘How’s things?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Are you looking forward to the Easter holidays?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘To Mum and Dad’s. It’ll be awful. They’re so cross with me.’

  ‘They’re pretty cross with us.’

  ‘It wasn’t the school’s fault I met Mark.’

  ‘We could have prevented you seeing him.’

  Charlotte looked at her. ‘No you couldn’t.’

  ‘Well, you can understand their feelings. They want to protect you.’

  Charlotte fell silent. After a moment she said, ‘Like Mark.’

  ‘What’s like Mark?’

  ‘The way he wanted to protect those birds. He really cared about them. And it led to him dying. It’s not fair. What kind of God rewards people like that? His birds come back for the spring, and he goes up to see them, and ... ’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘It doesn’t go away, Sister Agnes, it just gets worse ... ’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘It was only because he cared so much, it’s just not fair ... ’

  ‘Come on, let’s sit quietly somewhere.’ Agnes led her from the dining hall, aware of the stares and murmurs of the other girls.

  *

  Myddleton Terrace was part of the old town, facing away from the estate, a row of Victorian houses, of old yellow stone blackened by age and smog.

  ‘They were building them estates afte
r the war, but my Ray refused to have owt to do wi’ ’em.’ Florence Chadwick led Agnes into the small front room. She had tight white curls of hair and bright blue eyes. The room was neatly arranged, furnished in pink and cream. A fire burned in the grate. ‘I couldn’t see it myself, lovely new houses they were, and these weren’t what they are now. Funny how things change. My nephew put that fire in for me last month. Wouldn’t have been seen dead wi’ one of them when I were first married, it were all the gas then. Cup of tea, love?’

  Agnes followed her into the kitchen, which had bright white units and matching worktops. ‘My nephew did this too,’ Florence said. ‘He looks after me, does our Danny.’ She arranged two cups on a tray. ‘I’ve looked out some bits and pieces for you,’ she said, ‘from the mill days. I don’t know if they’ll be any good. Is it for a book, then?’ She led Agnes back into the front room.

  ‘Sort of,’ Agnes mumbled, sitting on the sofa.

  ‘There’s a lot of it about, these days. People tracing the past. Funny how things change. I’m not much use to you, really, love, my Ray worked there, but he were dead before he reached thirty-five.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear — ’

  ‘Aye, from the war. They should never have made him work, he should have been on the sick like Mrs Finch’s boy down the road, never worked again. And my Ray were taken worse than him. Chest injury, y’see, shrapnel, wi’ his lungs, and them fibres in the mill, in them days, terrible. Coughin’ and wheezin’. Killed him in the end.’ She stirred sugar into her tea, her fingers rattling the spoon.

  ‘How terrible for you.’

  Florence sipped her tea for a moment. She put the cup down then reached across for a photo album, which she offered to Agnes. ‘I’ve put bits and pieces in there over the years.’

  Agnes began to turn the pages. There were photographs, a group of soldiers, a smart man in uniform.

  ‘That were him,’ Florence said, following Agnes’s gaze. Agnes saw a strong, angular face, short dark hair. Then there were several similar photographs, all depicting a long line of millworkers standing outside Allbright’s. The mill seemed somehow alive behind them, the name still crisply engraved on the archway, the sunlight lending brightness to the stone.

  ‘I never married again,’ Florence said.

  Agnes turned a page. She found herself looking at Reg’s signature. ‘Allbright’s Amateur Athletics Team’, the paper said. It was a roll call of names, most of which she didn’t recognise. Ray Chadwick, it said. Ernest Coulter. Reg Naismith, July 1949. ‘Reg was running the athletics team even then?’ she said.

  ‘It were the love of his life. Kept him going, I reckon. He didn’t have much of a life aside from that. Great mates with our Ray, too.’ On the next page was a yellowing press cutting. ‘Allbright’s Team: Victorious Return’, it said. There were three men in uniform. ‘There you are, see,’ Florence was saying, ‘Reg, Ray and Ernest. Brothers in arms, they were. Before the war, when they were just lads, they were the stars of the athletics team; and they all came back from the war together. Heroes, they were.’ She smiled. ‘Forgotten now, of course. Funny how things change.’ She finished her cup of tea. ‘And the war took its toll, that’s what no one’ll tell you now. The price them young men paid. Not only with their lives. Sometimes I thought the dead were the lucky ones. It were the walkin’ wounded I felt sorry for. Like Ernest. He lost his sight in the end.’ Agnes felt her cup fall from her grasp. ‘Oopsy daisy,’ Florence said. ‘Lucky you’d finished.’

  Agnes retrieved the empty cup from the carpet and placed it on the tray.

  ‘And my Ray, of course,’ Florence said. ‘A slow death. And it weren’t just the lungs, no. It were the mind, that’s what no one saw. Them three boys, all of ’em, Ernest’s wife Millie, she saw it too, there were summat different about them when they came back. Psychological, you’d call it now. People who knew Reg well, they saw it. He’d fly off the handle, for nowt. And my Ray were the same. Rages the like of which he’d never had before the war. Like a child, almost. Like he were lookin’ to me to make it better, and I never knew what it were that were wrong, and I’d be pleadin’ with ’im to tell me, what is it, love, and that just made him worse ... ’ She broke off, blinking, breathless. ‘It’s a while since I’ve talked about these things, love, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘And no one said nowt. And now I think, the wives, like — we suffered during the war, but in a way we suffered worse after the war, when our husbands were returned to us, and they’d changed. And we never knew what they’d been through, what they’d seen. Burma, it was, in the jungle. You heard things afterwards, you know, about the fighting there, terrible things. And them three lads, Ernie and Reg and Ray, they were closer to each other than they were to anyone else, I reckon, because they knew. Whatever they’d seen, whatever horror it was, they kept it to themselves. It were Millie I felt most for, Ernie lived to old age, she had that for the rest of her married life. A stranger, sitting at her table, sleepin’ in her bed. Although at least they had their little girl. But you see, in those days, no one said owt. You couldn’t talk about things in those days, like you can now, everything about people’s married lives all over the newspapers these days, things you don’t even want to know about.’

  ‘Did Ernest stay at the mill, even when he was blind?’

  ‘They retired him early. Poor Millie. She was stuck with him then, day in, day out. She grew to hate him, though she’d never say so. You didn’t, you see.’

  ‘Is she still alive?’

  ‘Oh, aye.’ Florence frowned. ‘She’s had a difficult time of it. Lives just here, on the corner, number fifty-four.’

  ‘So Reg was all that was left of the athletics team.’

  ‘He built it up again, though, Reg did. Got the younger lads involved, kept it goin’ till he retired. He had staying power, did Reg. That’s what they need now, those lads up on the estate there, someone like Reg to see things through. Teach’em self-reliance. And for that to happen to him. Poor man. Never deserved an ending like that. I were that shocked when I heard. Terrible. Bad goings on up there, I’ll always be grateful to my Ray for staying put in this house. It were his mother’s house, been in her family since it were built. We ripped out all the fireplaces, years ago, all the wood panelling and that, and now our Danny has paid a fortune to buy fireplaces that look just the same and put them back in. Funny how things change, in’t it?’

  *

  Driving back to the convent, Agnes thought about the three friends, the scars of war. Shrapnel, mental problems. And Ernest had lost his sight, lost the use of his eyes. Something about this made her feel cold. She thought about Nina’s mother. She wished she’d borrowed the Warburton file after all.

  She got back to her room too late for supper. She found a note had been slipped under the door, sealed in a crisp white envelope. She switched on the light, sat at her desk, opened the note. It was from Philomena, as she knew it would be.

  ‘Sister Agnes,’ it began. ‘Where are you? Here one minute and gone the next. Come to see me tomorrow at 11 a.m. Sister Philomena.’

  Agnes sat with the note and read it. She got up and poured herself a whisky, then read the note again. She recalled former such meetings with other superiors, the catalogue of her failings, the insistence that she reflect upon her place in the order. Philomena might even suggest she leave. The thought brought her a huge sense of relief, that the decision might be made for her, that the order might eject her, might free her to go away with James after all.

  She settled to her evening prayers. An image filled her mind of a pair of falcons returning for the spring.

  *

  She woke on Friday morning with a profound sense of peace. She lay in bed, watching the sunlight through the trees dappling the curtains, wondering why the prospect of meeting Sister Philomena should have the effect of calming her like this. At breakfast she joined her house.

  ‘What’s up?’ Sister Teresa asked.

 
‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve been wishing everyone a good morning. The girls’ll be wondering what’s going on. They rely on you not to speak until about ten.’

  ‘I’ve got a meeting with Philomena this morning. About my bad behaviour.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ Teresa looked at her. ‘Terror, eh? It gets people funny ways.’

  *

  ‘What do you mean, you want my mother’s file?’ Nina’s voice on the phone was indignant.

  ‘I know it sounds crazy, but I keep thinking about Mark’s binoculars lying in the mud.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And one of Reg’s friends lost his sight.’

  ‘So? Did anything happen to him?’

  ‘No, but — ’

  ‘Well then.’

  ‘It’s just, your mother ... ’

  ‘What about my mother?’

  ‘And her failing sight ... ’

  ‘Agnes, it makes no sense at all.’

  ‘No. Nina — it’s just a hunch. Please.’

  Nina sighed. ‘OK. When can you come in?’

  ‘Monday?’

  ‘Listen, I’ll drop it off Sunday, OK? But I must have them all back Monday morning, Turnbull’s really itchy about missing files since I sorted them all, and he’s doing a check then.’

  *

  Philomena appeared in her office with two polystyrene cups of instant coffee. She gestured to Agnes to sit, then sipped her coffee, pulled a face and tipped it into the rubber plant by the window. She tapped on the window, and a tabby cat appeared on the windowsill outside and pressed its nose to the glass. She bent down and made mewing noises at it, then turned to Agnes. ‘Right. Bit of a chat, eh?’

  Agnes waited.

  ‘Of course, can’t say I wasn’t warned,’ she said, sitting down.

  ‘Warned?’

  ‘About you.’ She picked up the empty coffee cup, sipped from it, peered into it and put it down. ‘Trouble, they said.’

  Agnes waited.

  ‘And they were right.’ Agnes felt like getting up and walking out, but Philomena went on, ‘Just like me, you see. Bloody struggle, whole bloody business. Isn’t it?’ She waited for an answer.