She had told Charles the other day that she regretted never having a career as a singer. Charles said her part-time job playing the piano and singing at Hymes Court for the old folk there meant she did have a career as a singer.
‘I mean a real singer,’ she said, irritated by his lack of understanding. ‘In a dance hall with a band.’
She reached the road and a car sped past her, sending a spray of rainwater towards her. It wasn’t fair to be angry with Charles: he had not stopped her being a singer; she had done it to herself. In any case, she and Charles both knew the dance halls she’d once gone to were a thing of the past. Kay Kelly, the beautiful auburn-haired singer she had named her daughter after, would be an old lady by now. Birdie cycled with her head down against the rain. It was too late for regret. She was a farmer’s wife. For twenty-two years she had started her mornings before dawn, going out to milk cows in a draughty barn. The same barn whose walls she had whitewashed the summer she met Charles.
Her daughter would be a young woman now. And Framsden was twenty. The age she had promised herself she would tell him about his sister.
She cycled fast, feeling slanting rain sting her cheeks, her eyes watering. This was always a harsh time of year. Charles thought she hated Christmas. He jokingly called her Scrooge, and he and Framsden liked to make much of her apathy towards the festive season, pulling low faces and saying ‘Bah! Humbug!’ to her as they opened their presents under the tree.
The old people at Hymes Court would be wearing paper hats today. They had Christmas crackers with their lunch every day over the festive season, right up to New Year’s Day. She liked entertaining the old folk, and Charles was right: she did get to sing to an audience, even if some of them fell asleep.
Her daughter had been born on the 29th of December. That’s what made Christmas difficult. It threw up the past at her, and she allowed herself to be sentimental. And truly, she was getting worse the older she got. Nostalgia attacked her on every side. All the children she had known in the village were grown up now. Some of them were married. Ella Hubbard was dating a county cricketer whose father owned a seed merchant’s business. She, too, would be married soon, no doubt.
She’d sent Ella a pale blue ribbon for her birthday. Another December baby born on the last breath of the year. Ella used to complain about having a birthday at this time of year. People always forgot it. Birdie had promised she would never forget. And she hadn’t. She’d bought ribbons for Ella every year when she was small and had seen no reason to stop. Now of course it was just a little joke. Something slipped into a Christmas card. There was nothing wrong with that. And if Ella only waved when she saw her in the village these days, it was still a sign that the girl remembered her. That perhaps she thought of the days when she had wanted to live at Poplar Farm. The days she wanted Birdie as her mother.
Birdie stopped by the council houses, wheeling her bicycle up the path of one of them and leaning it against the wall. Connie came out of the green-painted door, waving a set of car keys. She looked matronly in her nurse’s uniform, a blue wool cape over her shoulders. Judith, home for the holidays, back from her job as a nanny in London, stood at the door looking skinny and leggy in tight black trousers and a roll-neck sweater, smoking a cigarette. She reminded Birdie of Connie as a young woman. She had the same determined expression on her face, the same searching brown eyes.
‘How’s things?’ asked Connie as they climbed into her car. ‘All well at home?’
‘We had a quiet Christmas,’ said Birdie. ‘Just us. Framsden has finished making his boat. I don’t know how many coats of varnish he gave it. He says he’s going to row us all the way into town in the summer. He’s keen to take us up to where the new flats have been built on the site of the old tannery. You can fish for eels there. He reckons he’s going to set up a little smokehouse at home and smoke his own.’
‘Well, that sounds enterprising,’ said Connie. ‘He’s a good lad, your son. Judith was thrilled with the carved bookends he made her for Christmas.’
‘He’s very clever,’ said Birdie, and wished she didn’t feel she had to defend her son’s interest in woodworking. When Framsden passed his eleven-plus and went to grammar school, his teachers had talked of university. In the end, Framsden had not done much at school besides being in a skiffle band and the cricket team. Woodwork had been his best subject, and everyone knew you didn’t need a grammar-school education to do a craftsman’s job.
Framsden surprised them last year, saying he wanted to be an apprentice to a furniture maker. Charles had been disappointed enough to say so. The farm was Charles’s life. He had imagined it would be Framsden’s too. Father and son had fallen out for the first time ever. Framsden stormed about, talking of leaving home. Then the harvest had started, the busiest few weeks on the farm. By the time they had finished, somehow or other the conversation about furniture makers and apprenticeships had been forgotten.
Connie slowed down at a junction and pulled out onto the main road.
‘Charles is still smarting about Norman Hubbard’s offer to buy up the water meadows,’ Birdie said, wanting to change the subject. She looked out of the car window at the flat landscape of sugar-beet fields, the road cutting through them. She wondered if he should have accepted. And if Framsden didn’t take on the farm, what would the future hold for them when they were too old to work?
At the mention of Norman Hubbard they drifted, as they often did, on to the subject of Kathleen. Was she going to divorce Norman? There was gossip in the village that he was seeing another woman. Connie, who knew everything that happened in the village, said the rumours were true. The woman had been seen taking the train to London. ‘She was expecting a baby,’ Connie said, driving carefully round a pothole in the road. ‘Norman took her to a private clinic to get rid of it.’
‘Does Kathleen know?’
Connie glanced at her. ‘I’d say she was the one who insisted Norman take her there.’
Neither of them saw Kathleen any more. She was off at horse shows in the summer, and in the winter she went hunting with the Quorn in Leicestershire. The family were rarely together. Ella had a bedsit in town, and James had gone to university. During the holidays he lived at a friend’s house.
‘It’s Ella that bothers me,’ said Connie. ‘She is such an unhappy young woman.’
Birdie hated to think of Ella being unhappy. She was sorry she couldn’t talk more openly with Connie. To have a secret, to keep a part of yourself hidden, was exhausting. All her life she seemed to have had secrets that kept her watchful and distant from those she should have been open with. You couldn’t keep secrets from yourself. You could try to push them to the back of your mind, but they revealed themselves over and over, and always when you least expected them.
‘Poor Kathleen,’ said Connie. ‘But she’s tough. She keeps Norman under her thumb most of the time.’
Birdie didn’t answer. Poor Ella, she thought as they turned down the long tree-lined drive to Hymes Court. Ella was a secret too.
Hymes Court was a lovely old house. It had a grand entrance hall with a sweeping staircase to one side of it. A large rosewood table, circular and highly polished, stood in the hallway, a red poinsettia in a pot upon it. The parquet flooring had a freshly waxed smell. Old-fashioned family portraits lined the stairs.
The first time Birdie worked there, Connie had insisted on showing her the paintings. There was one she thought uncanny. A woman and a girl. In a small gold badge in the lower part of the wood frame was a painted inscription: Dorothy and her daughter Amelia, aged six. 1946.
‘Every time I walk past this painting I think of you, Birdie. The girl looks just like how I imagine you must have looked as a child.’
The woman wore a green evening dress with pearls around her neck. The little girl stood in front of her in a ruched pale blue dress, holding her mother’s hand. The child had a calm gaze, the same straight-backed pose as her mother. She had brown curly hair, grey eyes and a delicate, el
fin face, with a small chin and high cheekbones.
‘She doesn’t really,’ said Birdie, laughing. ‘At that age I was a ginger-haired street urchin, charging round on roller skates.’
Birdie played the piano and sang for an hour, then had tea and sandwiches with the residents. She liked the old people. They were like children, all of them needing coaxing in different ways.
Music was the key. When she played the opening chords to a tune they knew, she could almost see memories flying around the room. There was an unguarded enthusiasm in the old people’s voices as they sang together. Sometimes she too was overcome with her own memories. She remembered the noise of the pub, her mother at the bar, her father watching through the door. She played a music-hall number and imagined Uncle George beside her, telling her to budge up and let him play something risqué. A bit naughty! ‘Don’t have any more, Mrs Moore,’ she sang, and there was laughter and handclapping.
‘Look at your hair,’ said an old lady when Birdie sat down with them after the ‘show’, as Connie called it. ‘You want to get a brush through that.’
Birdie touched her head. Mrs Livet was a plump old woman, her features sunk in doughy cheeks and a row of double chins. She knew the words to most of the songs.
‘You’re right, Mrs Livet. The rain makes it curly. What about you? Did the hairdresser come this week?’
‘She comes every week. I like to look nice, I do. I’m right as a mailer after she’s been. I’ve been watching you, Miss, and you remind me of somebody from round here.’
Birdie smiled.
‘I’m city-born, dear. A Londoner. I told you already.’
A man leaned towards them, his blue-veined hand reaching out for a biscuit.
‘Louisa doesn’t listen to anybody.’
‘Do you have a sister, Mrs Bell?’
The old man coughed and thumped his fist on the table. ‘You know she doesn’t, Lou! She told you last week. And the week before that.’
‘And I know you don’t have sisters, Mrs Livet,’ said Birdie. ‘Because you told me so.’
‘Did I? Oh, I forget. I was a holy trouble, my mother always said.’
‘I’m sure you were,’ said the old man. ‘I bet you had all the fellas after you.’
Birdie smiled and got up to leave. It was dusk outside already. The days were so short in winter. Connie would be waiting for her. She waved to Mrs Livet as she reached the door, but the old woman was still deep in conversation and had forgotten all about her. As she stepped out into the damp afternoon, the sound of rain greeted her, promising stormy days ahead.
A month later, Mrs Livet sought Birdie out after the old people’s sing-song was over. Birdie settled in an armchair beside her. She didn’t mind taking time to chat. The past interested her, and everybody here talked of nothing else.
‘My mother was the village midwife,’ Mrs Livet told Birdie. ‘An old witch, some people said. I remember there were three sisters who lived nearby, Mrs Bell, and my mother always kept an eye on them. They lived a bit of a way from here. I was quite jealous of the youngest one because my mother thought she was the bee’s knees.’
‘I’m sure she thought you were too,’ said Birdie. She stared out of the window and wondered what she might make for tea tonight.
‘They had plenty to hide, those sisters. Plenty to hide.’
Birdie smiled.
‘Oh, really? Like what?’
‘Well, for one thing, the eldest one was not a sister.’
Birdie turned her head. ‘The eldest who? Your mother? Is this a riddle?’
‘The sisters. The eldest was the mother of the two younger sisters. Do you see? Do you understand? That kind of thing happened all the time. Girls were so innocent when I was young. Nobody knew nothing. Some chap would find you on your own in a field with not a soul about. He’d have his way with you, give you a shilling and send you home, telling you to keep your mouth shut.
‘My mother delivered the babies. She knew the truth, but she never said a word. She only told me years later.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Birdie said, trying to keep track of the story. ‘Your mother delivered whose babies?’
‘Keep up, can’t you? The eldest sister was the mother of the other two. Barely fifteen years old when she had the first one, a child herself. She kept those little mites and brought them up. Never told a soul. As far as anybody knew, they were all sisters. She could have abandoned those kiddies or dropped ’em down a well or something. Women did things like that in my day. There was a lot of shame for a girl caught out by a man. People could be right nasty. I do not wholly know who the father or fathers of the children was. That is something I cannot rightly tell you. In the old days we had travelling salesmen come round the villages, and they had a reputation for being ladies’ men. My guess is they had different daddies. My mother never said. Funny what comes back to you. I haven’t thought about those women for years. You made me think of them. They might be dead now, I suppose. There was a fellow they liked. Oh yes, they liked him all right. Handsome as a summer’s day, he was.’
Birdie got up to leave. ‘That’s a sad story, Mrs Livet. You’ll have to tell me more next time I come. I have to be getting home now.’
She was shocked when the old woman leaned across and grabbed her hand, pulling her towards her. ‘You’re hiding something, en’t you? That’s why you pretend to be all friendly when you en’t really. Cold as dead fish, you are. I bet your husband don’t even know who you really are.’
‘You should keep your distance,’ said Connie when they drove home. ‘Some of our residents never have visitors. They latch on to people. One of the old men asked me to marry him the other day. He said he was doing me a favour. That he didn’t like to see an attractive woman like me living like an old maid. Cheeky sod! And then when I got home and told Judith, she said that while she didn’t see me marrying an old-aged pensioner, she did think it was a shame I hadn’t met anybody. I mean, really. I’ve done perfectly well on my own, haven’t I?’
‘Well, yes, you have,’ Birdie said. ‘You’re braver than most, I suppose.’
‘Don’t know if it’s bravery or that I’m too stuck in my ways. I’m sorry, Birdie. I’m talking about myself when you’re upset. Mrs Louisa Livet is known for being a tricky old girl. She drives some of the nurses mad, following them round, telling them her stories all the time. Actually, we’re having a chap come and interview some of the old folk for a book he’s writing. A history professor from a university. I bet she’s rehearsing for him. She loves a bit of attention, that one.’
Birdie cycled back from Connie’s in the dark. She saw the yellow glow of lights from the farmhouse and was glad to be home. She decided she would take her tea in the staffroom next time she played the piano for the residents at Hymes Court.
It rained heavily all through February and there was talk of flooding. Birdie’s mother sent a smelly frond of seaweed in the post, suggesting she hang it by the back door to predict the weather. It was bright with salt and grains of sand. Birdie threw it away. She didn’t need anything to predict the weather. You just had to look out of the window. The rain hadn’t stopped in days.
Framsden and his father traipsed across the meadows. They had moved the sheep into the barns, and now the farm dogs were herding the cows back home. The animals would not waver from the path they knew across the fields, the churned-up track that was a sea of liquid mud.
‘They say the river floods every fifty years or so,’ said his father, calling a dog to heel. ‘I was talking to an old boy in the pub and he tells me they had terrific floods round here in 1913.’
That evening, after they’d eaten, the electricity went out. The fire was lit in the sitting room and Framsden’s father sat in his armchair beside it, trying to read a farming magazine by candlelight. His mother sat on the sofa, knitting. She wore no make-up, and Framsden thought she looked younger without her mascara and red lipstick. The fire crackled. They were unworldly, his parents. His father hadn�
��t even fought in the war. He was a pacifist who didn’t dare stand up and say what he was. And what did his mother believe in? A clean kitchen. Volunteering for flower duty in the church. Singing old songs to old people. There was a world beyond the farm that neither knew anything of.
Framsden woke late the next morning to the sound of running water. The drainpipes were overflowing, the rain slanting across the landscape, shutting down the view across the fields.
The breakfast plates were still out on the kitchen table when he went downstairs. His mother’s tea-coloured stockings hung on a line above the cooking range. His father’s socks dangled beside them, their heels darned and mended. It surprised him to see such a messy kitchen. He made some toast and ate it. He was washing up his plate when his mother came in through the front door, soaking wet, pulling off her coat and headscarf.
‘Are you OK?’ Framsden asked. ‘Did you fall in the river?’
She stood looking at him as if she didn’t know him. Her clothes were soaked through, her hair plastered to her head.
‘Mum?’
‘I went to see Connie over the back fields and got caught up in flooding.’
‘You look like you’ve been swimming,’ said Framsden. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ she answered, clearing the breakfast bowls. ‘But the floods are terrible. Nobody is going anywhere today. We need to stay home. This rain is not letting up. Go and see if your father needs a hand with the sandbags.’
Birdie turned away from him, unhappy to be lying to her son. And yet she had done what she did for him. She had faced up to things for him. That had been the promise she’d made him when she first held him in her arms. A promise she knew she could not go back on now. That woman at the nursing home, Mrs Louisa Livet, had made her realize she had to act on that promise. If Birdie was a cold fish, then it was only because her secrets had made her that way. And the secrets were gone now. She felt a sick fear over what she had done. A panic that crept up her spine and swam around in her chest. She had got things very wrong. She put a hand to the wall and tried to breathe calmly but still couldn’t catch her breath. Her chest heaved and her head spun.
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