by Ros Franey
‘What night?’ Fred is baffled.
‘He said her brother had failed to get an apprenticeship at Roebuck’s and he was going to look into it.’
‘So? When was this?’
I suddenly feel cold. ‘I met them,’ I say. I realise my hands are half covering my face. ‘Marjorie and I bumped into them in the street.’
‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost, Annie. Who did you bump into?’
‘Daddy and Miss Blessing. After hockey. We were on our way back to school.’
Fred is lost. ‘What’s this got to do with anything?’
‘Don’t you see? He had to explain what he was doing. He came home at teatime and told Mother we had all met in the street. He said he was talking to Miss Blessing about her brother and the apprenticeship at Roebuck’s. He even told us his name: Eric. That’s why I thought she had a brother! I remember now.’
‘So she probably does, then.’
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘Yesterday I mentioned her brother and she said … Fred, she said she doesn’t have one!’
‘Daddy said she did?’
I nod.
‘Well, he probably got the wrong end of the stick.’
I say nothing. My brain is struggling to make sense of it.
Fred frowns. ‘And this is … how long before she disappeared?’
‘I don’t know. Not long. It was when all those girls were being kidnapped, d’you remember? We thought she was one of them, but she wasn’t.’
Fred knows nothing of this; he was away at school. ‘So, shortly before she vanished?’ he asks.
‘Must have been … just four days.’
Fred thinks for a moment. ‘Actually, that explains a lot,’ he says. ‘I think I understand.’
Now it’s my turn to be puzzled. ‘Well I don’t!’
‘You said it yourself, Annie. She was in trouble. Everyone at the Mission knew.’
‘And he was helping her!’ I said. Perhaps it was all becoming clear. ‘Fred, he was so generous: the Mission just kicked her out, but Daddy was helping her in secret! You’ll never guess – he – he—’ I’m about to say he paid for the mother and baby home, but I’m still not sure if what Fred means by trouble is that Miss Blessing was going to have a baby. I don’t want to be the one to tell him if he doesn’t know.
‘I should hope he jolly well did help her!’ says Fred.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Well, it was his fault, after all!’
‘Daddy’s fault she was kicked out of the Mission?’
‘Miss Blessing was going to have a baby!’ he says. ‘Isn’t that what she told you?’
‘Yes, yes.’ This is a relief. ‘And Daddy paid for the mother and baby home.’
‘It’s the least he could have done!’ Fred explodes. ‘It was his baby, after all.’
I don’t remember much more of the afternoon. I still can’t believe it. Fred says he’s been wanting to tell me all along, but he couldn’t talk about it. It stayed in his mind and haunted him. When he came home from school and realised something terrible had happened, he got the truth out of Beatrice – so this is the thing that everyone knew, and Bea knows, too. He says I was too small to be told (but I was eleven by that time and it wasn’t fair they kept it from me). I think I explained to him Miss Blessing hadn’t told me about why Daddy had been helping her. It sounds as if she wasn’t being straight with me, but I’m not surprised: who would have had the effrontery to tell me, of all people – his daughter? Now I’m worried that bringing it all back will make Fred worse and I’ve promised to give Mother the slip and go and see him again tomorrow.
I bitterly regret I ever dug into this. Sometimes the truth is better untold. If Fred becomes ill again, I shall never forgive myself. As for Miss Blessing, what could have possessed her? Why ever did I go in search of her in the first place? And I’ve foolishly made her a promise to help her escape from Mapperley. You must never break a promise, but how am I going to keep it, now I know this?
Saturday, August 13
As soon as I see Fred today I realise I didn’t need to fret about making him worse: he’s positively cheerful, which I find odd to begin with. But gradually I understand it’s a relief for him that I know our bitter family secret. The second thing I realise is that the real reason I needed to see him today is for my own sake, not his.
‘How could she?’ I ask, as soon as we’re away from the main path in our habitual garden walk. ‘A married man old enough to be her father – with three children practically her own age! She even knew us, Fred. She taught me Bible stories!’
He looks at me quizzically. ‘Lining up with the Mission now, are we, Annie? That’ll be a first!’
‘I – well, yes – sort of.’ I scowl at a bed of pelargoniums. This is not comfortable.
‘All her fault, then? She’s a scarlet woman. Is that it?’
The vision of scarlet woman scarcely fits our Sunday School teacher. But then I think of my father. ‘Well, whose fault is it, if it’s not hers?’
Fred throws me a look. ‘You don’t know anything about it,’ he says shortly.
‘Whatever it is, it’s disgusting!’
Fred shrugs.
I want to say something in defence of Daddy, but all that comes to mind are Marjorie Bagshaw’s innuendoes about him back in our schooldays. ‘You’re different since your illness,’ I manage at last. ‘You’re sort of, I don’t know, on the outside looking in.’
We walk on for a few paces. Then he says, ‘I suppose I just don’t belong with you all any more.’
I turn and stare at him. ‘Belong with us, with the family?’
‘The family. The Mission. The whole shebang!’ He’s speaking in the sarcastic, offhand voice I heard for the first time when he was really sick.
‘You mean you’ve lost your faith, too?’
He shakes his head. ‘I didn’t say that. I just don’t care about our family and what it stands for. It’s all … rotten.’ His voice is thick now, as if he might cry.
‘Since this happened, you mean?’ I really need to understand. ‘Fred, is that the reason you’re so angry with Daddy?’ I wonder if he’s even aware of the terrible things he said about our father on my first visit.
‘There’s no point discussing it, Annie. You obviously think differently from me. But …’ He hesitates. ‘It was just never the same after I found out. I mean, in here.’ He taps his head.
We’re back at the main subject. He turns to me: ‘And you: what do you really think about the Mission throwing her out?’
My mind is still reeling from what he’s just said (let alone what he told me yesterday). I say, ‘I think it’s shocking and awful about Daddy and Miss Blessing. I can still scarcely believe it. But if you’re part of a Mission that’s supposed to be practising the forgiveness of sins, it’s a bit off to kick someone out because they’ve sinned. Isn’t it?’
‘I see,’ says Fred.
I wonder what he means by this I see: is he agreeing with me or disapproving? My new brother is hard to read. We walk on in silence for a while. ‘So it’s a good thing that Daddy is still helping Miss Blessing,’ I say. ‘Isn’t it? At least he’s being a proper Christian.’
Fred says nothing.
‘Fred, d’you think he still loves her?’ I stop in my tracks. ‘Is that why he’s doing it?’
Fred doesn’t reply. We walk on.
‘Fred!’ I stop again. ‘The baby. That little boy …’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s our brother!’ I’ve only just realised this.
‘Half-brother,’ says Fred, so promptly that I know he’s already thought about it a good deal.
‘Well … shouldn’t we find him?’
‘How would that help?’ Fred asks drily.
‘He’s part of our family!’
‘No, he’s not.’
‘But he sort of is, isn’t he?’
Fred ignores this. Then he says, rather pompously, ‘The chil
d will have been adopted by a good Christian family. Daddy will have seen to that. He is much better off without the shame of being the illegitimate son of our family, and we’re better off without having him as a constant reminder.’
I look at him. ‘You feel ashamed. Don’t you?’
No answer.
‘Well, I don’t,’ I say. ‘It’s not your fault, or my fault. It’s definitely not the poor baby’s fault – or anyone’s, apart from theirs.’
We’ve reached the furthest corner of the hospital gardens, bordered by a high wall with pieces of broken glass stuck on the top. Fred says, ‘We’d better be getting back.’ He turns and starts to walk away.
I remind myself that the reason I’m here today is to make sure he’s all right – and he clearly was, to begin with – but I’ve upset him again by raising this.
He quickens his pace and we rejoin the main path. ‘Oh Fred,’ I say, thinking that perhaps to ask his advice will cheer him up and pull him out of whatever dark place has reopened in his head. ‘I’ve gone and made a promise to Miss Blessing.’
I wait for him to respond. ‘What promise is that?’ he asks at last, sounding rather bored.
‘I promised I’d help her get out of here.’
‘That was rash, wasn’t it?’
I take a deep breath and push on: ‘It was before I knew Daddy was, was … you know. Do I have to keep the promise, Fred?’
‘That’s entirely between you and your conscience.’
This is a hopeless sort of answer. I’m so angry with Miss Blessing, I don’t want to help her escape: I want him to say it’s all right to break my word.
But he doesn’t. ‘If you’ve promised, you’ve promised, haven’t you? Though heaven knows how you’ll get her through all those locked doors!’
We hurry on. ‘I thought, actually,’ I explain rather breathlessly, ‘that if Daddy could see how well she is, he might agree it’s no longer necessary to keep paying for her to be here. He might be able to get her a job outside, or something.’
Fred doesn’t respond. We’re now almost running along the path. I put my hand on his arm to slow him down. ‘Please, Fred. I need your help.’
He looks around at me and stops. ‘What for?’ he demands.
‘She says I mustn’t tell Daddy we’ve met – on pain of death, almost!’ I try and make light of it.
‘Then you mustn’t tell him, must you?’
‘But how else will she ever leave? If he doesn’t know she’s better!’
‘Why should she leave? She’s got a roof over her head, hasn’t she? You don’t seem to get it, Annie,’ he adds harshly. ‘It’s not her choice any more: her life is finished.’
I blink at him. ‘Fred … she’s, what, twenty-four years old? You know what it’s like! On her ward … with those poor women, she’s – she’s a prisoner—’
‘I’m not saying I agree with it,’ he interrupts. ‘I’m saying that in the eyes of the world, she’s better hidden away and forgotten.’
‘Oh, and then there’s her psychiatrist,’ I tell him. ‘Have you heard of Dr Squires?’
Fred thinks for a moment. ‘Nope. Can’t say I have.’
‘This Dr Squires has told her she’s never going to get better. And she believes him!’
‘So she must be more sick than you think, then, mustn’t she?’
‘But you’ve seen her – she’s not sick at all! Surely no one would want her to stay there for ever! Not her doctor. Not even the Mission. And certainly not Daddy.’
Fred just looks at me. Then he turns and strides on back towards the hospital.
Monday, August 15
Tonight, it’s time for me to go and meet the choir. For this rehearsal, Miss Blessing will still be playing for them. I’m there to observe. Relieved as I am, now, that there will be almost no opportunity for us to speak in private, I feel embarrassed at seeing her again. How can I look her in the eye, knowing what has passed between her and my father?
To make things worse, she throws me a brief but warm smile as she files into the chapel, like a meek child, on Doris’s arm. I gaze back at her coldly but she probably thinks I’m just being cautious. I suppose I ought to go and speak to her, but I hang back and take in the scene. The chapel has an odd air of being got up as something else tonight, a domestic parlour, and the effect is a little incongruous. The stained-glass windows have receded into the shadows; a baby grand piano has been wheeled into the place previously occupied by the harmonium, and a standard lamp with a modern fringed shade throws light on to its keyboard. Miss Blessing settles herself quietly, adjusting the stool a little and sorting through her music. Members of the staff choir drift in, laughing and chatting together. I can’t help noticing they all ignore her. No one even says hello; she might as well not exist. A couple of young nurses arrange chairs in three semicircles one behind the other, and a man appears with a small rostrum and a music stand for the conductor. Doris waits until most of the choir have arrived and then slips away. I wonder if she will reappear at the end or whether one of the choir members will take Miss Blessing back to the ward.
As I’m absently weighing the possibilities for smuggling Millie Blessing out of the hospital, and getting nowhere, Sister Jones arrives – she to whom I had first applied as volunteer accompanist. ‘Ah, Miss Lang!’ she sees me sitting facing the choir and bustles up in greeting. She has removed her starched headdress and hairpins are bursting out of her bun like spines on a hedgehog. ‘My dear, I’m so pleased to see you. Have you been introduced?’ Then, without waiting for me to reply, she turns towards the choir and claps her hands for attention. ‘Everyone? Quiet, please! Can I introduce Miss Lang, who is kindly going to play for us at the concert.’ I stand awkwardly and try to smile at them. I can’t bear to glance at Millie Blessing. How must she feel to have me usurp her position, without a word from any of them or the least expression of thanks? But when I do steal a covert look at her, she is sitting calmly, staring at her music, neither smiling nor disgruntled but … accepting her lot, perhaps. I think of what Fred has said about her life being over and despite my complicated feelings towards her, I can’t resist a shiver. However evil or misguided, no one should deserve to be wiped off the map as if they had never lived.
The members of the choir are smiling and greeting me now and I feel I must say something that will include their true accompanist. ‘How can I be useful tonight, Sister?’ I ask. ‘Would it be a good idea to turn the pages for Miss Blessing, perhaps?’
‘A splendid idea,’ says Sister Jones. ‘She will be very glad of it—’ Spoken without a glance in her direction.
I carry one of the chairs over to the piano and align myself firmly with Miss Blessing, who says in an undertone, ‘Thank you, Annie. That’s kind.’
Then the choirmaster, Dr Squires, walks briskly into the hall with his music and a baton under his arm, and the buzz of conversation ceases immediately. I am agog to see Miss Blessing’s saintly psychiatrist. I already have a mental picture of him as plump and kindly, despite his rather brutal practice of telling his patients they will never recover, and am therefore surprised to see that he is tall, lean and rather formal-looking, with a military bearing and a dark brown pinstriped suit, the uniform I recognise as worn by the hospital’s consultants. He certainly has presence and I can understand Miss Blessing being in awe of him. His movements are as economical as his smile, which he seems to ration as if perhaps he doesn’t have many up his sleeve. But I have to remind myself that this is the man who took the trouble to find his patient a piano. He must be a kind man, at heart.
‘Good evening, everyone. We’ve a lot to get through so I hope you’re already warmed up.’ He looks around at them over his spectacles, challenging any dissent. The nurses titter a little and adjust their caps, as though this will help them sing.
Millie Blessing whispers to me, ‘That’s a shame. They do so much better with a few scales.’
Dr Squires places his music on the lectern in front of him and
opens the second piece in the pile. ‘We’ll begin tonight with … Parry. “At the Round Earth” … number five.’
While the choir settles down and finds the place with a flurry of coughs and fidgets, Millie murmurs, ‘It’s the most difficult thing they’re singing. Watch for the sopranos going flat.’
‘Are you still playing for them?’ I ask. This piece is unaccompanied, with piano for rehearsals only. I haven’t had to learn it.
She nods. ‘Probably.’
As if on cue, Dr Squires glances for the first time in our direction. ‘We’ll start with the piano,’ he instructs.
Millie waits, her hands over the keys. He raises his baton, she gives them a D-major chord, and they’re off.
Halfway through the rehearsal, there’s a break for tea and most of the female choir members produce thermos flasks. Dr Squires is about to walk out when he is waylaid by Sister Jones, who tugs him over towards the piano. ‘Dr Squires,’ she says, ‘May I present Miss Annie Lang, one of our volunteers, who has kindly agreed to accompany for us at the concert.’
Dr Squires looks at me with more attention than I would have expected. ‘Miss Lang? Miss Annie Lang, you say?’
I stand, unsure whether he will want to shake my hand, but he doesn’t offer his own. ‘How do you do, Dr Squires?’ I enquire, as politely as I can, looking into his face. His skin is waxy, as if he spends too much time in the hospital, and behind the spectacles his eyes are rather piercing. I wonder if all his patients find him as charismatic as Miss Blessing seems to do. Neither of us knows what to say next, so he mutters something like, ‘I hope the music will not be too challenging for you, Miss Lang … All well, eh, Blessing?’ and turns on his heel without waiting for an answer and with barely a glance at his patient; they might be strangers. Then he leaves the chapel with an air of urgent business to attend to.
I sit down. This is the moment I’ve been dreading; the only opportunity for any kind of talk with Miss Blessing, but Dr Squires has at least broken the ice. ‘Well,’ I can’t help saying. ‘I don’t know if he’s a bit more friendly when you see him as a patient, Millie, but he’s not someone I’d find easy to talk to!’
