A Family Affair

by Nancy Carson

  They were together again. Nothing was going to part them.

  Tom delivered her home at about half past ten. Not particularly late, but she always rose early in a morning. Tom also; he was to travel to Birmingham to look at some new photographic equipment and needed to catch an early train. So Clover looked forward to an early night when she could drift into pleasant dreams, where she could recall the mesmeric experiences she’d stored up from this evening. Tom did not even want to come in for a drink before he set off back home, which was unusual but understandable, in view of his trip tomorrow.

  Clover put her head round the taproom door and caught her mother’s eye to let her know she was back. Jake and Ramona were working at full crack. In the scullery, Clover lit the oil lamp she generally used to light her way to bed and climbed the stairs. As she passed Ramona’s room the bedroom door was open. Maybe she could quickly find that envelope and see what was inside it. The glow of the oil lamp’s steady yellow flame revealed nothing on show. In one deft movement, prompted by a fear of being discovered, Clover pulled back the pillow on Ramona’s bed and there it was - a stiffened brown envelope; the very envelope she thought she’d seen make a magical disappearance earlier.

  So she had been right. She had not imagined the envelope.

  Clover was tempted to sneak a look but her sense of respect for Ramona’s privacy forbade her. After all, she would not like somebody sniffing round uninvited through her things. She replaced the pillow and smoothed down the eiderdown, went to her own room and unpinned her dark hair, letting it fall about her shoulders. But the memory of the surreptitious way in which the envelope had passed earlier from Tom to Ramona plagued her and a cold shudder ran down her spine. There had to be something dark, something nefarious in that envelope that Ramona wanted nobody else to see, else why the secrecy? Tom certainly had no intention of showing her – evidently he had no intention of ever mentioning it.

  Maybe she would take a peek, quickly. Just to satisfy her burning curiosity that there was nothing untoward in there after all.

  She took off her shoes and opened her door. She peered left and right along the landing. All she could hear was the familiar noise of raucous laughter and animated conversation from the taproom below. She crept along the landing to Ramona’s room and closed the door. Putting her oil lamp on the tallboy, she retrieved the envelope. Its seal was already broken and she could see it contained photographs – of course. And a birthday greeting-card. She drew them all out.

  She gasped with incredulity as she thumbed through them and her stomach twisted into a thousand painful knots. She put them down at once and took several deep breaths. She felt an urge to vomit. Ramona in all her brazen glory, baring all, showing everything she’d got. Clover picked them up again, studying each one. That one posing semi-reclined on the bearskin rug…Ramona knew the significance of the bearskin rug, damn her. How could she do this? No wonder she wanted nobody else to see these pictures. And Tom had taken them. Tom!…God! It was a certainty that since it was such a secret between them, nobody else could have been present. Ramona and Tom – together, just the two of them – and she without a stitch on…Clover’s mind was working overtime. Anything could have gone on. Knowing Ramona, it probably did. Most probably it did.

  She opened the card and read it:

  With love and very best wishes, Tom.

  As quickly as she had taken the things from the envelope she put them back and, in a turmoil, left Ramona’s bedroom.

  What now? After the delights of making up tonight, after the extreme joy she felt having made up with Tom, she was back in the shadowy lands of limbo. Now she was condemned to lie awake all night, pondering this awful new doubt. Doubt – not knowing – was hell’s way of tormenting the virtuous. Anger was overwhelming her. Who did they think they were if they thought for a moment they could fool her? She could just imagine them, their cosy chat: ‘Don’t tell Clover.’ ‘Oh, don’t worry, she’ll never find out.’ ‘Yes, it’ll be our secret.’ Well, she had found out and it was no longer their secret.

  She put her shoes back on, raced downstairs, grabbed her coat and ran out into the night. If she hurried she would catch up with Tom before he got home, and have it out with him. She could not go on not knowing, especially after what he’d accused her of. But which way would he go for the quickest route? Try the way they had walked tonight.

  As she turned into King Street, dark, dismal with its ramshackle red-brick buildings and workshops almost black with grime, she thought she saw him in the shadows and quickened her pace. She passed the bottom of the Green Man Entry and two unsavoury men, the worse for drink, called obscenities after her.

  ‘Tom!’ she yelled, half scared, half to attract his attention.

  He was about a hundred yards in front of her now and he heard her call. He stopped and turned around, waited for her to catch up with him.

  ‘Clover! What is it? You’re all out of breath. What’s up?’

  She could hardly wait to get her breath back before she began her tirade. ‘After all the stupid fuss you’ve kicked up about Elijah Tandy and me…after all the heartbreak you’ve caused us both…’ There was no doubting the venom in her tone. ‘Well, what have you got to say about Ramona and you, eh?’

  ‘What about Ramona and me?’ he asked, reeling from the surprise of seeing her so unexpectedly and the acid sting of her unexpected chastisement.

  ‘Well, seeing the photos you took of her is enough…You and her together in that studio of yours. Did you undress as well, Tom, to make her feel at ease? God! And I let you make love to me tonight. I believed you when you told me you loved me – because I wanted to believe you…I was a fool. But no longer. Now I don’t believe you…I can’t believe you. Neither can I trust you, knowing you and she have been alone together like that…Intimate…How could you, Tom? How could you?’

  ‘It was innocent enough, Clover.’

  ‘Innocent? How can it have been innocent?’

  ‘I swear it was…You have to believe me. I swear…’ He saw tears glistening in her eyes by the weak light of the gas lamps. He had never seen her eyes so wild, never witnessed her so distraught.

  ‘You can swear till you’re blue in the face, Tom Doubleday. You can swear till your tongue’s ragged and frayed. But you’re as guilty as sin. Even if nothing happened you’re guilty. Just allowing yourself to be there while she was naked, flaunting herself, makes you guilty.’

  ‘I had to be there to take the photos, Clover, to fulfil the order.’

  Before he could protest more she turned away from him.

  ‘Oh, and I saw the birthday card as well. Well, you can keep your damned ring!’ she yelled as she wrenched it off her finger. ‘I don’t want it. Give it to her!’’

  She ran back to the Jolly Collier, oblivious to what was going on around her. She did not notice the passers-by watching her in alarm as she ran past them in a frenzy of agitation, hair flowing behind her like the mane of a wild young mare. Her eyes were blinded by the haze of tears, her mind numbed, seized and clutched by desolation. She had no wish to see Tom again. Not after this. If he could be involved with Ramona doing what they were doing she wanted no further part of him. If it had been innocent, as he’d feebly claimed, why hadn’t he told her of it in the first place? Why couldn’t he have mentioned, before ever she found out, that he’d taken some nude photographs of her stepsister? He was guilty of lying simply by not telling her. Did he think she would not understand? Did he think that if he confessed an indiscretion she could not forgive him? Well, better that way than this. Now she could never forgive him. She could never forgive him because it was never his intention to tell her.

  But why had Ramona done it? To what purpose? Had she gone there and proposed such photos with the intention of seducing Tom? Or had Tom suggested it with the intention of seducing Ramona? There’s a thought! Ramona, she knew, was capable of anything where men were concerned, but Clover had given her credit for respecting her sacrosanct, profound
relationship with Tom. You don’t tempt or seduce your stepsister’s man just because you can. It was a basic human ethic. Some relationships had to be strictly out of bounds.

  She reached home, though she did not recall one step of the journey. The Jolly Collier was still open. Ramona, with her despicable secret, was still serving, still flaunting herself like the lascivious vamp she was in front of the impressionable younger men whose callow eyes followed her everywhere. Harry Heppenstall was there and Ramona seemed to be specially playing up to him. No doubt she would see him later and get her upright pleasure pressed against the wall of somebody’s dark entry. Well, now she could see her for what she really was. Ramona, she understood at last, had no scruples. Clover entered, tears still in her eyes, grabbed her oil lamp, lit it and went upstairs. This time she did not turn to look into Ramona’s room, but went straight to her own. She slumped onto her bed, heaved a great sigh of despondency and took off her shoes again.

  How could she continue to live in the same house as Ramona? She never wanted to see her again, certainly she desired never to speak to her again. Yet continue to live there she must, as would Ramona. It was going to be awkward. Her silence would be noticed, her disdain would be discerned. There would be an icy atmosphere; a cold, stony silence between them.

  But it was not her fault.

  It was Ramona’s fault.

  Clover hardly slept that night. When she did drift off she woke herself up with images of Ramona, walking about the house with no clothes on, taunting her, of Tom calling and escorting a naked Ramona to the theatre where all men’s eyes feasted upon her and her neat body, and the women were embarrassed that she could be so shameless.

  Maybe she would sleep better tomorrow night. And, if not then, perhaps the night after.

  It was on the Friday morning that Ramona tapped on the door to Elijah’s room. She got no reply and, when she opened it quietly to ascertain whether or not he was there, she was surprised to see his bed had not been slept in. Clover had left the house by this time, sullen and unspeaking as she had been for the past day or two, and Ramona breakfasted with her father before commencing the long hard day that the Jolly Collier and brewing promised.

  ‘Where’s Uncle Elijah?’ she asked, feigning innocence. ‘I haven’t seen him this morning.’

  ‘He slept at Brooke Street,’ Jake replied, spreading a knob of butter over a piece of toast. ‘He’ll be there most of the morning, I reckon. He’s supposed to be meeting a bloke there about half past nine.’

  ‘Oh? What for?’

  ‘Business.’ Jake filled his mouth with buttered toast.

  ‘What time’s he due back here then?’

  ‘About midday, I reckon. Did you want him for something?’

  ‘Not particularly.’ Ramona lifted the caddy off the teapot and poured herself another cup of tea. ‘Just curious. But I want to go to the town to get some new shoes this morning. I’ve seen some I fancy in Freeman, Hardy and Willis. Is it all right if I go?’

  Jake smiled benignly. ‘I reckon so. Shoes this time, is it? As long as you’m paying for ’em out of your own money.’

  ‘’Course I am.’

  ‘Well, be back as soon as you can, else Mary Ann will have something to say.’

  They finished their breakfasts in silence, Ramona pondering the best time to catch her uncle so as to avoid seeing anybody else at the house in Brooke Street. Actually catching him there was the only way she would get to see him privately. He didn’t seem to want to make any arrangements to meet her there for some reason that was not clear to her, and Ramona did not take kindly to being thus scorned.

  So she left the Jolly Collier at ten, arriving at nearly quarter past. She did not let herself in this time, but tapped tentatively on the front door. It opened and Elijah presented himself in his shirtsleeves.

  ‘Ramona!’ He opened the door wide and stood aside to let her through, aware of what she had come for but surprised to see her all the same. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘My dad said I’d catch you here.’

  ‘Oh, he did, did he?’

  She walked along the hall to the scullery. Through the window she could see a man measuring up outside between the back door and the brewhouse.

  ‘You can put the kettle on if you want to make yourself useful,’ Elijah said, ‘while I just see to Enoch outside.’

  She did as she was bid and watched the two men in conversation. Elijah nodded at him and they shook hands. The man disappeared through the side gate and she heard his footfalls through the long entry.

  ‘Who was that?’

  He laughed and shook his head. ‘You want to know the top and bottom of Meg’s arse.’

  It was obvious he wasn’t about to divulge anything.

  ‘I’ve brought you a present,’ Ramona said after a pause.

  ‘A present? It ain’t me birthday yet.’

  She shrugged sheepishly. ‘Well, I get the impression you don’t want me anymore…so I thought I’d bring you a present to get you interested again.’ She reached for her basket and withdrew the stiffened envelope which she handed to him.

  Tentatively, he took it and opened it up. He pulled out the five photographs, turned them the right way up and studied them one by one while she tried to read both his expression and his thoughts.

  ‘Mmm,’ he murmured approvingly. ‘Very nice, our Ramona. I always said you’d got a nice arse. That ain’t all, neither. Look at you here…That a bearskin rug? Who got you to pose like that?’

  ‘Nobody. I did it myself. I was thinking of you.’

  ‘And who took them? Tom Doubleday?’

  She nodded, embarrassed lest he think the worst. ‘He’s the only one who knows about them.’

  ‘Then let’s hope he keeps his mouth shut. It’s a fair bet as he will. He wouldn’t want Clover knowing he’d done these, would he?’

  She shrugged again and smiled. ‘Do you like them?’

  ‘Yes, I like ’em well enough.’ He scrutinised them again.

  ‘Do you intend to thank me?…’

  ‘Yes, come here, you little minx…’ He thrust her against the scullery wall and pressed himself against her. Ardently he kissed her, lifted her skirt and ran his hand up her leg.

  ‘Take me to bed,’ she urged and took his hand. ‘Yes, and bring the photos.’

  As they climbed the stairs she was already divesting herself of her clothes. In the bedroom she kicked off her shoes and shed everything hurriedly, then slid down her stockings.

  ‘Pose for me like you did for Tom Doubleday, while I get undressed,’ he said.

  She stole across the bed and, lying supine, raised her torso by putting her arms behind her. She threw her head back, arched her back kittenishly and raised one knee.

  ‘You’re a bloody temptress, you are, Ramona. Christ! You get what you deserve…’

  They made love lustfully, vigorously, satisfyingly. For some minutes afterwards they lay still. He twitched as he fell asleep and, as she eased his exhausted body off her, his limp phallus flopped out of her, awaking him. She smiled as she felt the sheet beneath her drenched with their seeping wetness.

  ‘I love you, Uncle Elijah,’ she whispered tenderly. ‘I know you don’t want me to, but I do and I can’t help it.’

  ‘Well don’t,’ he said sternly. ‘Look, Ramona, this has to be the last time…’

  She looked at him aghast and sat bolt upright. ‘Why should it be? We enjoy our times like this, don’t we?’

  ‘Whether or no, it has to stop.’ He lay back, his hands under his head, staring at the ceiling, waiting for her next question.

  ‘So explain to me then…why does it have to stop?’

  ‘Because Dorcas and me are getting married.’

  She was silent for a few seconds, alarmed by this wholly unwelcome news. Eventually, she said, ‘Even if you’re daft enough to get married, we can still meet…here, in this bed…like we did before.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, Ramona. We can’t m
eet anywhere. And this is the last bloody place. I’m buying this house off your father. Dorcas and me are going to live here when we’m wed.’

  ‘Live here?’ she asked stupidly. ‘So when are you getting married?’

  ‘A fortnight tomorrow.’

  ‘But that’s…that’s just two weeks. And you’ve told nobody…Is she pregnant as you’re in such a rush?’

  He did not answer, continuing to stare at the ceiling.

  She sighed, a great shuddering sigh. ‘So what if I happen to be pregnant? What then?’

  ‘If you’re pregnant that’s sod all to do with me, Ramona. If you’re pregnant, look to the other blokes you’ve been having it away with.’

  ‘What other blokes?’ she queried, disconcerted and angry.

  ‘Tom Doubleday, for a start. It’s obvious you and him have been very intimate. He took those photos, didn’t he?’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So bloody what? Are you trying to tell me you and him never coupled when you was in his studio with nobody else about and you as naked as the day you was born? Pull the other one, Ramona. I might look like a cabbage, but I ain’t that bloody green.’

  Chapter 18

  Miss Dorcas Downing became Mrs Elijah Tandy in a ceremony at St James’s Church, Eve Hill, on the west side of Dudley on 20th June 1908, a Saturday. It had been a hurriedly prepared event but done in some style nonetheless, befitting the only daughter of the wealthy local industrialist and magistrate, George Downing. The service was conducted by the Reverend James Wescot and a lavish reception was held at the Dudley Arms Hotel in the centre of the town.

  Ramona had contrived not to be there. She preferred to remain on duty at the Jolly Collier on this day that graphically symbolised the end of her affair with her Uncle Elijah. Clover, keeping a low profile at home and avoiding Ramona as if she had some rabidly contagious disease, had not been allowed the time off work at Cook’s. However, she did not regret the decision; Elijah told her that Dorcas had engaged the services of Tom Doubleday as wedding photographer. And Clover certainly had no wish to see Tom Doubleday.