by Anne Berry
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Praise for Anne Berry
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1: Bethan, 1948
Chapter 2: Lucilla, 1995
Chapter 3: Bethan, 1943
Chapter 4: Harriet, 1947
Chapter 5: Bethan, 1947
Chapter 6: Lucilla, 1995
Chapter 7: Bethan, 1947
Chapter 8: Lucilla, 1995
Chapter 9: Harriet, 1948
Chapter 10: Bethan, 1948
Chapter 11: Harriet, 1950
Chapter 12: Lucilla, 1998
Chapter 13: Bethan, 1950
Chapter 14: Lucilla, 1953
Chapter 15: Bethan, 1953
Chapter 16: Harriet, 1956
Chapter 17: Lucilla, 1959
Chapter 18: Harriet, 1959
Chapter 19: Lucilla, 1959
Chapter 20: Bethan, 1961
Chapter 21: Lucilla, 1999
Chapter 22: Lucilla, 1960
Chapter 23: Lucilla, 1963
Chapter 24: Lucilla, 1968
Chapter 25: Lucilla, 1999
Chapter 26: Bethan, 2000
Chapter 27: Laura, 2000
Chapter 28: Laura
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Author
Anne Berry was born in London in 1956, then spent much of her infancy in Aden, before moving on to Hong Kong at the age of six, where she was educated. She worked for a short period as a journalist for the South China Morning Post, before returning to Britain. After completing a three-year acting course, she embarked on a career in theatre, playing everything from pantomime to Shakespeare. She now lives in Surrey with her husband and four children. She is the author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning novels, The Hungry Ghosts and The Water Children.
Praise for The Water Children:
‘Anne Berry is a wonderful writer with a poetic imagination and use of language; startling metaphors and images flow effortlessly from line to line and, from page one, the plotting is heart-in-the-mouth stuff. What more could you ask?’ Daily Mail
‘You will simply love this story of a broken family and its many hidden secrets’ Sunday Express
Praise for The Hungry Ghosts:
‘The most extraordinary debut novel since the Lovely Bones. Astonishing!’ The Lady Magazine
‘Epic in scope and voice so skilfully crafted, and the writing so elegant, it’s hard to believe it is a first novel’ Psychologies
This book is dedicated to my much cherished mother-in-law, Ethel Ellen Berry. We adopted each other.
‘An identity is questioned only when it is menaced, as when the mighty begin to fall, or when the wretched begin to rise, or when the stranger enters the gates, never, thereafter, to be a stranger. Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self: in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one’s nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned. This trust in one’s nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one’s robes.’
James Baldwin
Chapter 1
Bethan, 1948
MY HANDS ARE shaking uncontrollably, so that it takes a full minute to open the flimsy letter. Silly that I am so afraid when I know the likely contents. I allow my eyes to linger a moment on their motto, before I devour the rest whole. I taste not a word but knock it back like medicine. Cold. It is cold, so cold that I can see the steamy vapour of my breaths. I feel like … like … the air is being beaten out of me. And the thought makes me picture my mam beating the fireside rug outdoors in spring, little explosions of pearly dust. Barefoot, I pick my way across the rough floorboards to where a drawer lined with a quilt serves as a crib. Close by, the chest minus its middle gapes contemptuously at me. Will it poke its tongue out? I peer into its splintered gullet desolately and placate it with this thought. Soon now, very soon, your drawer will be returned – empty. Kneeling as if at chapel, I gaze down at my babe in her makeshift manger. Oh what a dark star led me here?
I must not touch her. When I look I must not touch. When I touch I must not look. In this way Mam says no bond will form. There is a milk blister on her upper lip, brushstrokes of rose pink on her cheeks and a curl of golden hair fine as gossamer on the crown of her head. Her eyes are tight shut, a gentle blush of mauve on their lids. But let me tell you what you’re missing. They are turquoise, pale turquoise exactly like mine, the colour of dreams. In my dressing gown pocket is a compact. I lift it out, open it up, hold the mirror in front of her nose, her tiny mouth. A fine veil mists the silver surface. My baby is as alive as I am. I read her a story, whisper the tale into her perfect ear no bigger than a half-crown coin.
‘The Homeless Child for the Childless Home’
The Church Adoption Society
(Founded in 1913 in Cambridge by Rev. W. F. Buttle, M.A.)
Telegrams
4A BLOOMSBURY SQUARE,
BABICHANGE, LONDON
LONDON, W.C. 1
Telephone HOLBORN 3310
23rd April, 1948
Miss Haverd,
42 Rochester Row,
Westminster
Dear Miss Haverd,
We have a very nice couple who are interested in Lucilla and would like to see her. All being well they will take her straight home with them. Could you arrange to be at this office at 2.45 pm on Tuesday next, the 27th of April?
Yours sincerely,
Valeria Mulholland
Secretary
When my story is finished I do not say, ‘And they all lived happily ever after.’ But the ending I offer in its place is a fair exchange.
‘“The Homeless Child for the Childless Home”. Surely?’
Chapter 2
Lucilla, 1995
THE MUSCLES OF my cheeks hurt tensed for so long in such a stupid, simpering smile. I wonder how dancers accomplish it, their faces portraits of bliss while their toes cramp mercilessly. I was woken at dawn by squabbling magpies, flapping and hopping about in the dove-grey light. Such a to-do! Spring has taken us unawares. The sun is at the window making the inside seem tired and dowdy, and the outside bright as fresh paint. The pear blossom is out. The bluebells are slowly unfurling their shy heads. And here am I confined indoors, having to listen to Cousin Frank prattle on endlessly about his daft wife and his obnoxious sons.
‘Oh, they’re smashing lads. A credit to us both. No surprise that they’ve done really well for themselves. Like father like son, eh? A quantity surveyor and a banker. You can’t say better than that, can you, Lucilla?’ Certain that I can, wisely I hold my peace. There comes a pause, a lengthy pause into which Merlin, my golden King Charles spaniel, gives an enormous gummy yawn. Glancing down, I see him slumped at my feet. He’s partially blind, poor old gentleman. His right pupil and retina are a swirl of milky white, giving a piratical slant to his adorable pugnacious face. Now he rolls his liquid eyes up at me, his expression skew-whiff. In them, I see he has surpassed my state of boredom and is inching his canine way into a coma. The urge to replace my look of feigned interest with one of genuine fond amusement, is almost irresistible. Across the way from me I see Henry, my husband, lever himself out of his chair. At the welcome sight of him my heart gives its familiar tug, as if an invisible cord fastens us together.
‘Anyone for … for more coffee?’ he offers hesitantly, smoothing his greying handsome cinnamon-brown beard and moustache. There is something of the chivalrous musketeer about my Henry. He should have a cap adorned with swirling feathers to sweep off, now and then, from his bowing head. Whereas Frank is more the scurvy rascal, bent on rape and pillage rather than
acts of selfless gallantry. I mark the disparaging twitch of his pompous mouth, the subtle quarter rotation of his wrist where his imitation Rolex is strapped.
‘Tempus fugit, Henry. Tempus fugit.’ Another glance at his fake watch. ‘Time waits for no man.’
‘Sic transit gloria mundi,’ returns Henry in his element, elbows propped on the arms of his chair, hands clasped, fingers linked, face expectant. He opens out his hands inviting Frank to translate. Frank frowns, annoyed and at a loss. And I reflect that there are many industrial diamonds that are worthless in value and only one Star of Africa, which is priceless. ‘Thus passes the glory of the world,’ Henry supplies with a magnanimous smile.
‘Quite so. Quite so,’ mumbles Frank, recovering himself with a show of latent comprehension. He stretches out his stick-insect limbs and pedals his right foot, as if revving the engine of a car. ‘Alas, I must wend.’ Henry, reading my rapturous reception at this long-overdue cherub-of-departure, silences me with a look of whiskery Victorian censure. My pretentious cousin is on his feet now. He wears of all ridiculous get-ups on this lovely day, a day that demands a frivolous butterfly palette, a workaday suit, a dung-brown tie and black lace-ups buffed to the shine of a policeman’s boots. Tall, imposing, with his irritating sermonising way of speaking, he appears more like a funeral director than a man at his leisure on a fine Saturday. ‘The lunch was awfully nice. Home cooking. Can’t beat it,’ Franks oozes.
‘Shop bought,’ I mutter rebelliously. A white lie but then I suddenly wish it had been, that I had expended no culinary effort at all on our lunch.
‘Marks and Spencer, I bet. You can always tell.’ The snobbery of my cousin is legendary.
‘Tesco – economy brand,’ I retort without missing a beat, embellishing my white lie with wicked delight. Disappointingly he bypasses this. I stay seated for a few moments more listening to birdsong, and enjoying the feeling that this is my space, my chair, my domain. It is the home I share with my man, my Henry, worth a thousand Franks even on a bad day. We are downstairs in the long room in the cottage, the one that does for a lounge and dining area, both. Frank is fussing with his papers, spread out on the oak dining table, pedantically putting them into his briefcase. He licks his finger as he flicks through them, something I have always held to be a disgusting and unhygienic habit. His black hair, salted generously with dandruff, looks as if it has been varnished onto his skull.
‘So, Lucilla, how’s your job going in that dinky little tea shop?’
I wince at the sound of the name. To me it sounds like a scream, which is ironic really because it often was – screamed at me, I mean. I do not believe anyone loathes their name as much as I do. The lucky ones store up early memories of their names spoken with wondrous love, mine is of the three syllables being picked at like leftovers on a plate. Was Lucilla worth saving for tomorrow when, with imagination, she might be transformed into something more palatable, or should they just scrape me into a bin and wait for the dustmen to take me away? Sensing my preoccupation, Frank leers at me, his proximity together with his halitosis eliciting the unspoken observation that a visit to the dentist is long overdue, my cousin.
‘Getting on all right are we?’ he asks patronisingly.
We are definitely not getting on all right. ‘It’s bloody hard work,’ I choke out.
His face spasms momentarily in shock. He reviles women using foul language. I am tempted to give vent to a diatribe of the filthiest, most offensive swear words I know. Henry’s hands are thrust deep into his jeans pockets, a bad sign, and I see them wriggle now in agitation. I catch his eye and the gentle reproach I see there brings swift repentance. With a soft sigh, I harness my wayward tongue and remind myself that, God willing, for miracles do occasionally happen, he will soon be gone.
Our cosy abode is one of several small cottages leased out to employees on the Brightmore Estate. The main house, Brightmore Hall, is a grand imposing structure built in the Regency style. The tall maize-gold walls are softened with mauve wisteria in spring. During winter, the dark-green topiaries, sculpted into chess pieces, the kings and queens, the bishops, the castles and the knights, lined up on opposing sides of the front lawn, seem to spring out at you from their jonquil background. The property situated on the North Downs is set in over six hundred acres of rolling fields and woodlands, while hugging the fairy-tale building, with its central tower, are walled rose, lavender and dahlia gardens, cottage borders that fringe the pleasant walkways, a rockery, a herb garden, a vegetable garden, and the stables, now used to other purposes, surrounding a cobbled courtyard. Henry, with his patient green hands, is head gardener here, conjuring magical beanstalks to sprout tall and majestic from a pinch of dull brown seeds. I am a general dogsbody, sometimes serving in the café, sometimes in the gift shop and sometimes in the offices. And occasionally I am seconded to the main house to show visiting parties around. Here I confess to spicing up Brightmore family scandals with more poetic licence than fact, until gratifyingly eyes pop, mouths gape and maiden aunts mutter disapprovingly. Very occasionally I find myself scurrying between all four to keep the great house running smoothly.
‘Of course my wife doesn’t work. Never has. Lady of luxury. Life of ease,’ Frank boasts with quite revolting prehistoric manly pride. Me, hunter-gatherer, you, stay-at-home-twiddle-your-fingers wife. ‘She likes to sew. To stitch me up, eh, Henry?’ Frank hee-haws with disproportionate hilarity at his own humourless joke. The padded shoulders of his suit jacket lift with laughter in a fair imitation of Edward Heath, spittle flies and eyes vanish in porcine creases.
I grimace. I do not like to sew. In verity I hold that needlecraft is a vile occupation, one that should be bracketed alongside consorting with the devil. It should have perished with pitiable, oppressed, medieval damsels. Poor dears, sitting uncomfortably on clunky chastity belts stitching away at interminable tapestries, while their husbands went galloping around lopping off infidels’ heads on jolly capers and crusades. Confidentially, I despise sewing nearly as much as I do my name. And, after all, the afternoon is wearing on. It is ticking by without me and Merlin bounding through it, watching the land waking up, feeling the earth soften under foot and paw, and the shoots thrust up through it. Frank counts his papers, then repeats the exercise pedantically.
‘Keep the hands busy and the mind pure. That’s what your dear mother used to say,’ he reminds me, smothering his nostrils with a damp hanky to suppress a sneeze. The whites of his eyes are tinged with pink. He’s a wee bit allergic to pet fur. Must be finding this a trial. What a shame. Actually, I don’t care a hoot what my dead mother might say. If the devil wants my hands he can have them and welcome. I’d prefer to give them to him than waste my time going blind trying to thread eensy-weensy needles. But my smile remains fixed in place as if nailed there. ‘I don’t know how you cope with working, even if it is part-time, Lucilla. I know your children are both … out and … and about. Such a colourful pair. Gina a married woman – and a park ranger. A park ranger! I expect that means doing all sorts of jolly things with squirrels and trees and acorns. Such fun.’ He frowns, trying to imagine it, but it proves beyond his scope. ‘Can Tim actually scrape a living making musical instruments? I can’t imagine how he goes about that. Still, I’m sure they bring all their hiccups home to Mum.’
As he talks, his shallow grey eyes take in a corner cobweb, Henry’s crumpled shirt, the layer of homely dust on the wooden mantelpiece, finally coming to rest on the cork-tiled floor, worn to a dullness by the many scrabbling muddy paws it has been trampled under.
‘I manage,’ I say shortly, not the least abashed by my lovely lived-in home. I fondle Merlin’s head, sculpt the comforting dome of his faithful skull under the silky fur cap. Etiquette demands that a hostess see her guest to the door. My enthusiasm for this last duty is betrayed when I shoot up, as if bitten on my derrière by a starving mouse. And at last Frank’s briefcase snaps closed. I still have the cheque in my hand. Twelve thousand pounds. It isn’t a great
deal really. Not by today’s standards. What can you get for twelve thousand pounds? A decent car, a new kitchen at a stretch, a few designer frocks, a round-the-world sea voyage. Probably wouldn’t get you all the way round either. More likely only to the Indian Ocean to maroon you on some godforsaken island in the middle of nowhere. Is the legacy sufficient to purchase a baby? To buy off a child. To bribe a teenager. To gag a woman. I think not. We migrate into the kitchen where unconventionally the main entrance to our cottage is located.
Helpfully, I open the door. But it is Henry who exits it with a kindly wink, preparing to conduct Frank to the estate’s communal car park. Unfortunately, Frank’s broad shoulders lodge inside the door frame, making me want to uncork him and send him popping into the wild blue yonder.
‘Well, Lucilla?’ he says, bowing ingratiatingly, fingering a brown envelope tucked under one arm and swinging his briefcase.
‘Well, Frank?’ I return. I inhale the scent of coffee grounds and burned toast and warm dog, trying to rid myself of the taint of stale cigarettes that clings to the fabric of his drab suit.
‘Are you pleased?’ he inquires, his tone that of a generous benefactor.
‘That my mum’s dead?’ I rejoin angelically.
To my satisfaction I see that he loses a bit of his composure then, working his block jaw in irritation. ‘No, of course not. About the money, I mean.’ His stained teeth are crooked, leaning drunkenly against one another in his wide mouth. They appear an encumbrance to his speech, rather than tools for sharpening up his diction. Merlin waddles in from the lounge-diner, positioning himself between us, staring up from face to face, possibly waiting to see who will land the first punch.
‘If you really want to know, I don’t think it is very fair.’ I fold my arms in place of slapping a gauntlet across his smarmy face. He looks slightly taken aback – a statue wobbling on its plinth.
‘I assure you that I have performed my duties as executor and trustee of her will scrupulously,’ he blusters.
