Sweets From Morocco

by Jo Verity

  ‘The whole week’s been a bit strange, actually. Lots of people we’ve never seen before keep coming to the house. Gran’s staying here and she usually only does that at Christmas. And Lewis is sleeping on a camp bed in my room. He’s never done that before.’ Tessa’s confidence grew as she painted the picture of their disrupted life. ‘We have funny things to eat at the wrong times. We’re not allowed to walk to school on our own. And we’re not allowed to play out in the street.’ She paused. Perhaps she should leave it there, without mentioning that her mother had taken to her bed and her father was permanently in a bad mood.

  ‘So why were you sneaking out of the garden this morning?’ her father asked wearily.

  ‘We weren’t sneaking. We were only—’ she stopped.

  Mr Hulbert cleared his throat. ‘Thank you both. You’ve been very helpful.’

  Tessa didn’t trust this man with the fake smile who was pretending to be their friend, and asked eagerly, ‘Can we go now?’

  He nodded, adding as they reached the door, ‘And don’t forget, if you think of anything – anyone you’ve seen hanging about, or anyone behaving strangely – anything at all, come and tell me or Miss Underwood. We’ll be popping in regularly.’

  ‘I wish I hadn’t said anything about the newspaper,’ Lewis whispered when they were back in the kitchen. ‘Dad’ll be cross with me.’

  Tessa scowled. ‘Actually I was the one who spotted it so I should have been the one to tell.’ But, seeing her brother’s lip tremble, she relented. ‘Dad’s cross with both of us anyway, for going out, so we’re both in trouble.’

  For the first time in over a week, the family ate a meal together. Lewis didn’t feel much like eating, even though it was his favourite – beans on toast. Their father prepared the food whilst his mother sat, stiff-backed, at the table, hands gripped together in her lap as if to keep them still. Her lips were curved in a faint smile but her eyes stared blankly at the wall behind his head. He wanted to throw his arms around her and kiss her but was scared to, in case he discovered that what he was looking at was a ghostly likeness of his mother and that she, too, had left them. The food came but the silence continued, broken only by the chink of cutlery on the blue and white striped plates. Lewis speared glistening orange beans with his fork, impaling them on squares of soggy toast, wishing someone would say something, even if it were his father telling him off, but the silence went on and on and on, until he thought he was going to be sick.

  In the end, his mother stood up, pushing away her plate, her food untouched. ‘I think I’ll have a little lie down,’ she murmured and went upstairs.

  Lewis could bear the weight of wrongdoing no longer. ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to tell on you.’

  ‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, Lewis.’ His father’s face softened. ‘You were absolutely right to try and help the policemen. It was very clever of you, as Mr Hulbert said. But they’ve already asked me about all that and we’ve cleared the matter up. You see I was buying a Football Argus – County were playing in the Cup.’ He reached out, touching the hands of both children, looking from one to the other. ‘I’m really not cross with you but I do need to know where you two went this morning. I know for sure you weren’t playing in the Avenue because I came looking for you.’ He paused. ‘Mum and I aren’t trying to spoil things, you know. We just want to be sure that you’re safe. We couldn’t bear any harm to come to either of you.’

  Lewis grabbed the warm, rough-skinned hand and Dad squeezed his in return. Still hanging on to it, he squirmed off the chair and snuggled into their father’s chest, inhaling the smell of cigarette smoke and hair cream. Although he couldn’t see her, he knew that Tessa was doing the same and that they were standing, one either side of their father, crying and hugging and being loved.

  They went into the living room and, sitting on the wide arms of their father’s chair, Tessa explained everything from the beginning, describing how they had made friends with Mrs Channing and Mr Zeal and telling of their subsequent visits to Cranwell Lodge. ‘Mrs Channing’s ever so interesting,’ she explained. ‘She wears beautiful clothes and uses really complicated words—’

  ‘And Mr Zeal’s nice too. He gets sweets from Morocco—’

  ‘They’ve got a white parrot—’

  ‘We always refuse when they offer us sherry—’

  ‘And Mrs Channing thinks babies are horrid—’

  ‘And they should be locked in cellars—’

  ‘And—’

  ‘What did you say?’ Dick Swinburne sat up and grabbed Tess’s outstretched leg. ‘Tell me what this … this Channing woman said about babies.’

  ‘Ouch, Dad. You’re hurting.’ Tessa, alarmed by her father’s reaction and his grip on her leg, played for time. She needed to keep a clear head if she were to avoid admitting that she and Lewis had started the whole thing by moaning about Gordon.

  ‘Can you remember exactly what you told her about Gordon?’ Dad had become stern and distant again. ‘Come on, Tessa. This isn’t a game.’

  ‘Not much,’ she said, ‘we didn’t tell her much. We just told her that we’d got a new baby brother. And then she said the stuff about the cellar.’ She looked at Lewis, daring him to make one of his untimely contributions. ‘But they’ve definitely been reading about him disappearing. We saw all the newspapers hidden under the cushion, didn’t we, Lew?’

  ‘Stay here. You are not to leave this room, d’you hear me? I’ve got to make a phone call.’ Dick Swinburne went into the hall and, from the occasional snatches of overheard conversation, it was clear that he was telling someone about Mrs Channing and Mr Zeal.

  ‘We shouldn’t have told him,’ Lewis whispered. ‘It’s got him angry again.’

  Tessa shrugged. ‘I wish they’d make their minds up. They keep on to us to tell the truth then, when we do, we get into trouble.’

  ‘Who d’you think he’s talking to?’

  ‘That Hulbert man, I expect.’

  Tessa was right. Within half an hour, Mr Hulbert and Miss Underwood returned and made the children go through the whole story several times, stopping them frequently to ask questions. ‘What was the exact date of your first visit to Cranwell Lodge?’ ‘Were the man and the woman both there every time you went?’ ‘Did they ask you to do anything that you didn’t want to do?’ ‘Did you ever see anything odd … unusual … peculiar … when you went there?’

  This last question made the children smile. ‘Of course we did,’ said Tessa, ‘Everything was unusual. That’s why we liked going to see them.’

  Lewis nodded, ‘And they were very kind to us.’

  The days went by. The pram wasn’t returned to the house and, little by little, the baby clothes and paraphernalia vanished too, until there was hardly any evidence that their brother had existed.

  Mr Hulbert and Miss Underwood called occasionally but never stayed long and Tessa kept out of their way. She knew they must have gone to Cranwell Lodge with their black notebooks and stern voices, and she felt bad about that. Although they’d told the truth about what they’d seen and talked about there, it had made the old couple sound a bit … mad. Tessa was sure that Mrs Channing had only gone on about babies and cellars to make them laugh and cheer them up, in the same way that she’d offered them sherry and sung carols in July. There was no chance that she and Lewis would be visiting the old house for some time. Actually she wasn’t sure that she wanted to go there again.

  ‘Should we write to them?’ Lewis asked. ‘Just to say we hope they’re okay and that we won’t be able to come for a while?’

  Tessa was taken with Lewis’s idea but, seated with paper and pencil, they couldn’t think what they wanted to say and ended up playing hangman instead.

  Their father returned to work but Gran stayed on, taking the children to school and steering the household through each week. At weekends she returned to her own home. ‘I’ll get out of your way – I’m sure you could do with some time to yourselves,’ she’d say a
s she hurried off to catch the bus.

  Frank Swinburne popped in occasionally, bringing the children a bar of chocolate or a comic. Sometimes he took them out for a ride in his car or to the park. His jolliness was doubly welcome after Gran’s hush-ing and shush-ing but, as soon as they got back home, the fun stopped and even Uncle Frank looked solemn.

  Their mother spent a lot of time in bed. She was clearly ill because Tessa counted seven different bottles of tablets on her bedside table, and Gran was forever asking ‘D’you fancy anything to eat, Peg?’

  ‘When will Mum be better?’ Lewis asked their father. When he’d had measles he’d been off school for three whole weeks.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Dad answered. ‘We have to be patient.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her exactly?’ Tess probed.

  He reached out and grasped their hands. ‘Mum’s very … sad. She’s missing Gordon.’ He cleared his throat and squeezed their fingers.

  ‘The police are sure to find him soon, aren’t they?’ Lewis’s voice wavered.

  Their father pulled them to him and, although their heads bumped together, they didn’t complain.

  Gran was strict but she was more approachable than she used to be. She taught them a terrific card game called Newmarket and joined in when they played Ludo or wanted help with the difficult bits of a jigsaw.

  If their mother was asleep or resting, the children carried on as if she were out shopping or at the hairdresser’s. It was easier than thinking of her alone and unhappy upstairs. Whenever she came down to join them for meals or to sit by the fire in the living room, they made a great fuss of her. ‘Would you like a stool to put your feet on?’ Tessa asked, eager to keep her with them. But her presence never felt permanent. She was like a bird ready to fly away at the first sign of danger.

  Lewis who, since he had been a toddler, had relied on physical manifestations of his mother’s affection, missed those moments spent snuggled against her while she read to him or they talked through the events of the day. Several times he manoeuvred himself to be next to her, waiting for her arm to reach around his shoulder or her hand to fondle the nape of his neck. But she seemed to have forgotten what he liked; how to be his Mum.

  November slipped, grey and cold, into December. At school the children made gifts to take home and decorations for the classroom. A towering tree appeared in the corner of the school hall, the scent of pine resin almost masking the smell of stale milk and wet raincoats.

  Their mother promised she’d come to the Christmas concert but, when Tessa and Lewis stood on the stage singing about shepherds and kings and angels, they saw only their father and grandmother sitting in the third row.

  ‘Let’s buy Mum something really special,’ Tessa suggested. ‘Bath salts and a box of chocolates with a satin bow. That’ll make her feel better. Or we could ask her to make a Christmas list, like we do. We could buy one of the things off it. It would still be a surprise.’

  But talking to their mother had become a tricky business. Dad or Gran were always around, a couple of guard dogs, keeping them at bay with ‘That’s enough, now’ or ‘Don’t tire your mother.’

  For the rest of the world Christmas arrived brimming with magic but none of it touched the Swinburne household. Christmas Day was a sombre affair. Their mother barely acknowledged the calendar that Lewis had spent hours making or the embroidered pin cushion Tessa had toiled over in sewing lessons. The Cussons soap and talcum powder set – three-and-eleven from Boots – didn’t do the trick either. Even Uncle Frank’s crackers, exploding with jokes and paper hats, failed to make her laugh.

  ‘I know she’s missing him but she’s still got us,’ Tessa whispered when they climbed into bed that night.

  The year turned. It became increasingly clear that wherever Gordon John Swinburne had gone, he’d spirited their happiness away with him, just as the Pied Piper had spirited away the children of Hamelin.

  II

  1962

  Chapter 7

  The breeze from the open window lifted several sheets of paper from the pile on the corner of the table, sending them drifting to the floor. Tessa, sitting on the upright chair in front of the table, painting the toenails of her right foot, glanced up, watching her revision notes slip through the air as she might watch autumn leaves falling from a tree. She twisted the chair round, extending her leg to examine her handiwork. Returning the brush to the bottle, she shook it vigorously before drawing her left foot up, bracing her heel on the seat of the chair and repeating the procedure. The iridescent pink varnish flooded off her nail and trickled between her toes. ‘Fuck,’ she whispered, wiping it off with a piece of cotton wool and trying again. Finally, satisfied with her efforts, she rested both feet on the table and turned her attention to her fingernails.

  Why must they do exams in the summer? She closed her eyes and flopped her head back, turning her head from side to side, her hair tickling where it brushed her shoulders. Why must they do exams at all? It was as if clever people were punished for being clever. It wasn’t fair. ‘Thickos’ left school at fifteen. They didn’t have to sit in stifling bedrooms on sunny afternoons, plodding through Chaucer or Richard II. Her father’s response echoed in her head as clearly as if he were standing in the room behind her. No, young lady, the ‘thickos’ certainly aren’t sitting in nice clean bedrooms. They’re sweating away on building sites or in factories while you’re keeping your hands soft and getting a decent education. Something your mother and I never had. If she ever had children, she’d never force them to do exams. Or go to university.

  University. Oh, God. When she’d filled in the entrance form last October, it had seemed more of a handwriting exercise than a commitment to a further three years of study. Recording her academic successes had been easy – nine ‘O’ level passes, like most of the other girls in her class at the grammar school. More difficult was listing ‘Hobbies and Pastimes’, something the careers mistress seemed to think could be the deciding factor. In a moment of compliance, she’d joined the youth club at the Baptist Church but stopped attending once she’d had her interviews. She couldn’t remember discussing with anyone – teachers or parents – whether she even wanted to go to university but somehow here she was, with a place lined up at Exeter. What was the point in spending another three years doing exams and complying with childish rules and regulations if she intended to write best-selling thrillers and romances. No, she needed to experience life and love first-hand not via Wordsworth and Jane Austen.

  A car door slammed and she went to the window, looking down into Salisbury Road, watching her father clamber out of the car. He’d removed his suit jacket and taken off his tie and she could tell from the slump of his shoulders as he limped up the front path, that he was tired. Hastily, she tossed the bottle of nail varnish into the drawer of her bedside table, gathered up the papers from the floor and, by the time she heard his footsteps on the stairs, she was bent over her text books.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked pushing open the door.

  ‘Okay.’ She turned and smiled, curling her pink fingertips into the palms of her hands. ‘Hot. Exhausting.’

  ‘Well, it’ll be worth it in the long run. When’s your first exam?’

  ‘Next week. Tuesday afternoon.’

  ‘You’ll feel better once you get a couple under your belt.’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘Where’s Lewis?’

  ‘Doing his paper round, I suppose.’

  ‘And Mum?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ She gave her father a bright smile. ‘Can you shut the door behind you, Dad? I can’t work unless it’s quiet.’

  Although nothing could rival a good row, Tessa had to admit that conflict might not always be the best way forward. Her new tactic was acting. Since half-term, when members of the upper sixth form were allowed to revise at home, she had been playing the part of a girl working flat out for her ‘A’ level exams. It wasn’t a difficult role. It boiled down to no more than keeping to
her bedroom or, when she did go downstairs, making sure that she had a book in her hand or a folder under her arm. There were moments when she wondered whether it mightn’t be as easy to do the wretched work. But then something, some little switch, flicked in her head and set her firmly back on course.

  Alone again, she flopped on the bed, her thoughts meandering from the black pumps with the pointy toes that she’d seen in Dolcis to what she could wear to the dance on Saturday night and, inevitably, moving on to what she hoped might happen after the dance. Rolling on to her front, she reached across and opened the drawer of the bedside table. From beneath a folder containing writing paper and envelopes, she pulled out a black and white photograph showing three young men sitting on a park bench. The one in the middle stared, unsmiling, at the camera, his arms draped across the back of the bench, whilst those on either side turned toward him, laughing, as if he’d just made an incredibly funny remark. His hair looked dark in the picture but she knew that it was, in fact, dull red, like the pelt of a fox. Having managed to get the seat behind him on the bus one day, she was also familiar with the way it dipped to a point at the back, between the tendons that ran down from the base of his skull. She knew that he smoked. And that he, Tony Rundle, was Mike Stoddy’s best friend. At Tessa’s request, Diane had pinched the photograph from her brother’s wallet and now, lifting it to her lips, she kissed the stern face before quickly replacing it in the drawer, as though it might fade if exposed too long to daylight.

  She could hear the murmur of her parents’ voices, their low tones rumbling on, unrelieved. They had been married for twenty years. They’d always lived in this town – first in Medway Avenue and now in Salisbury Road – and her father had always worked for the Post Office. He hadn’t fought in the war. He hadn’t been abroad. Or to Scotland. Or north of Manchester, as far as she knew. Her mother suffered from ‘nerves’, whatever that meant. She didn’t go out to work and she never went anywhere or did anything on her own. Nothing ever happened to them so what on earth did they have to say to each other? But it didn’t stop them wittering on, always in the same pessimistic tone, as though it was their job to spot the failings of everyone and everything they came across. God, she wanted to scream. Every parent with a child between the age of twelve and eighteen should be locked in a cellar, where they could moan to their heart’s content and let everyone else get on with their lives in peace. She was sure Mrs Channing would agree with her. Occasionally the old pair popped into her thoughts and she wished that she and Lewis had gone to visit them one last time, to make sure that they understood. Never mind. They were probably dead by now.